Prayers to Broken Stones

by Dan Simmons

  “Yeah, what?”

  “They were closed on Monday.”

  “Real weird. Of course, every darn barbershop in the entire universe is closed on Mondays, but I guess you’re right. They’re closed on Mondays. They’ve got to be vampires. QED, as Mrs. Double Butt likes to say in geometry class. Gosh, I wish I was smart like you, Kevin.”

  “Mrs. Doubet,” he said, still looking at his notes. He was the only kid in our class who liked her. “It’s not that they’re closed on Monday that’s weird, Tommy. It’s what they do. Or at least Innis.”

  “How do you know? You were home sick on Monday.”

  Kevin smiled. “No, I wasn’t. I typed the excuse and signed Mom’s name. They never check. I followed Innis around. Lucky he has that old car and drives slow, I was able to keep up with him on my bike. Or at least catch up.”

  I rolled to the floor and looked at some kit Kevin’d given up on before finishing. It looked like some sort of radio crossed with an adding machine. I managed to fake disinterest in what he was saying even though he’d hooked me again, just as he always did. “So where did he go?” I said.

  “The Mear place. Old Man Everett’s estate. Miss Plankmen’s house out on 28. That mansion on the main road, the one the rich guy from New York bought last year.”

  “So?” I said. “They’re all rich. Innis probably cuts their hair at home.” I was proud that I had seen a connection that Kevin had missed.

  “Uh-huh,” said Kevin, “the richest people in the county and the one thing they have in common is that they get their haircuts from the lousiest barber in the state. Lousiest barbers, I should say. I saw Denofrio drive off, too. They met at the shop before they went on their rounds. I’m pretty sure Denofrio was at the Wilkes estate along the river that day. I asked Rudy, the caretaker, and he said either Denofrio or Innis comes there most Mondays.”

  I shrugged. “So rich people stay rich by paying the least they can for haircuts.”

  “Sure,” said Kevin. “But that’s not the weird part. The weird part was that both of the old guys loaded their car trunks with small bottles. When Innis came out of Mear and Everett’s and Plankmen’s places, he was carrying big bottles, two-gallon jars at least, and they were heavy, Tommy. Filled with liquid. I’m pretty sure the smaller jars that they’d loaded at the shop were full too.”

  “Full of what?” I said. “Blood?”

  “Why not?” said Kevin.

  “Vampires are supposed to take blood away,” I said, laughing. “Not deliver it.”

  “Maybe it was blood in the big bottles,” said Kevin. “And they brought something to trade from the barbershop.”

  “Sure,” I said, still laughing, “hair tonic!”

  “It’s not funny, Tom.”

  “The heck it isn’t!” I made myself laugh even harder. “The best part is that your barber vampires are biting just the rich folks. They only drink premium!” I rolled on the floor, scattering comic books and trying not to crush any vacuum tubes.

  Kevin walked to the window and looked out at the fading light. We both hated it when the days got shorter. “Well, I’m not convinced,” he said. “But it’ll be decided tonight.”

  “Tonight?” I said, lying on my side and no longer laughing. “What happens tonight?”

  Kevin looked over his shoulder at me. “The back entrance to the barbershop has one of those old-style locks that I can get past in about two seconds with my Houdini Kit. After dinner, I’m going down to check the place out.”

  I said, “It’s dark after dinner.”

  Kevin shrugged and looked outside.

  “Are you going alone?”

  Kevin paused and then stared at me over his shoulder. “That’s up to you.”

  I stared back.

  There is no sound quite the same as a straight razor being sharpened on a leather strop. I relax under the wrap of hot towels on my face, hearing but not seeing the barber prepare his blade. Receiving a professional shave is a pleasure which modern man has all but abandoned, but one in which I indulge every day.

  The barber pulls away the towels, dries my upper cheeks and temples with a dab of a dry cloth, and turns back to the strop for a few final strokes of the razor. I feel my cheeks and throat tingling from the hot towels, the blood pulsing in my neck. “When I was a boy,” I say, “a friend of mine convinced me that barbers were vampires.”

  The barber smiles but says nothing. He has heard my story before.

  “He was wrong,” I say, too relaxed to keep talking.

  The barber’s smile fades slightly as he leans forward, his face a study in concentration. Using a brush and lather whipped in a cup, he quickly applies the shaving soap. Then he sets aside the cup, lifts the straight razor, and with a delicate touch of only his thumb and little finger, tilts my head so that my throat is arched and exposed to the blade.

  I close my eyes as the cold steel rasps across the warmed flesh.

  “You said two seconds!” I whispered urgently. “You’ve been messing with that darned lock for five minutes!” Kevin and I were crouched in the alley behind Fourth Street, huddled in the back doorway of the barbershop. The night air was cold and smelled of garbage. Street sounds seemed to come to us from a million miles away. “Come on!” I whispered.

  The lock clunked, clicked, and the door swung open into blackness. “Voilà,” said Kevin. He stuck his wires, picks, and other tools back into his imitation-leather Houdini Kit bag. Grinning, he reached over and rapped ‘Shave and a Haircut’ on the door.

  “Shut up,” I hissed, but Kevin was gone, feeling his way into the darkness. I shook my head and followed him in.

  Once inside with the door closed, Kevin clicked on a penlight and held it between his teeth the way we’d seen a spy do in a movie. I grabbed onto the tail of his windbreaker and followed him down a short hallway into the single, long room of the barbershop.

  It didn’t take long to look around. The blinds were closed on both the large window and the smaller one on the front door, so Kevin figured it was safe to use the penlight. It was weird moving across that dark space with Kevin, the penlight throwing images of itself into the mirrors and illuminating one thing at a time—a counter here, the two chairs in the center of the room, a few chairs and magazines for customers, two sinks, a tiny little lavatory, no bigger than a closet, its door right inside the short hallway. All the clippers and things had been put away in drawers. Kevin opened the drawers, peered into the shelves. There were bottles of hair tonic, towels, all the barber tools set neatly into top drawers, both sets arranged the same. Kevin took out a razor and opened it, holding the blade up so it reflected the light into the mirrors.

  “Cut it out,” I whispered. “Let’s get out of here.”

  Kevin set the thing away, making sure it was lined up exactly the way it had been, and we turned to go. His penlight beam moved across the back wall, illuminating a raincoat we’d already seen, and something else.

  “There’s a door here,” whispered Kevin, moving the coat to show a doorknob. He tried it. “Drat. It’s locked.”

  “Let’s go!” I whispered. I hadn’t heard a car pass in what felt like hours. It was like the whole town was holding its breath.

  Kevin began opening drawers again. “There has to be a key,” he said too loudly. “It must lead to a basement, there’s no second floor on this place.”

  I grabbed him by his jacket. “Come on,” I hissed. “Let’s get out of here. We’re going to get arrested.”

  “Just another minute …” began Kevin and froze. I felt my heart stop at the same instant.

  A key rasped in the lock of the front door. There was a tall shadow thrown against the blind.

  I turned to run, to escape, anything to get out of there, but Kevin clicked off the penlight, grabbed my sweatshirt, and pulled me with him as he crawled under one of the high sinks. There was just enough room for both of us there. A dark curtain hung down over the space and Kevin pulled it shut just as the door creaked ope
n and footsteps entered the room.

  For a second I could hear nothing but the pounding of blood in my ears, but then I realized that there were two people walking in the room, men by the sounds of the heavy tread. My mouth hung open and I panted, but I was unable to get a breath of air. I was sure that any sound at all would give us away.

  One set of footsteps stopped at the first chair while the other went to the rear wall. A second door rasped shut, water ran, and there came the sound of the toilet flushing. Kevin nudged me, and I could have belted him then, but we were so crowded together in fetal positions that any movement by me would have made a noise. I held my breath and waited while the second set of footsteps returned from the lavatory and moved toward the front door. They hadn’t even turned on the lights. There’d been no gleam of a flashlight beam through our curtain, so I didn’t think it was the cops checking things out. Kevin nudged me again and I knew he was telling me that it had to be Innis and Denofrio.

  Both pairs of footsteps moved toward the front, there was the sound of the door opening and slamming, and I tried to breathe again before I passed out.

  A rush of noise. A hand reached down and parted the curtain. Other hands grabbed me and pulled me up and out, into the dark. Kevin shouted as another figure dragged him to his feet.

  I was on my tiptoes, being held by my shirtfront. The man holding me seemed eight feet tall in the blackness, his fist the size of my head. I could smell garlic on his breath and assumed it was Denofrio.

  “Let us go!” shouted Kevin. There was the sound of a slap, flat and clear as a rifle shot, and Kevin was silent.

  I was shoved into a barber chair. I heard Kevin being pushed into the other one. My eyes were so well adjusted to the darkness now that I could make out the features of the two men. Innis and Denofrio. Dark suits blended into black, but I could see the pale, angular faces that I’d been sure had made Kevin think they were vampires. Eyes too deep and dark, cheekbones too sharp, mouths too cruel, and something about them that said old despite their middle-aged looks.

  “What are you doing here?” Innis asked Kevin. The man spoke softly, without evident emotion, but his voice made me shiver in the dark.

  “Scavenger hunt!” cried Kevin. “We have to steal a barber’s clippers to get in the big kids’ club. We’re sorry. Honest!”

  There came the rifle shot of a slap again. “You’re lying,” said Innis. “You followed me on Monday. Your friend here followed Mr. Denofrio in the evening. Both of you have been watching the shop. Tell me the truth. Now!”

  “We think you’re vampires,” said Kevin. “Tommy and I came to find out.”

  My mouth dropped open in shock at what Kevin had said. The two men took a half step-back and looked at each other. I couldn’t tell if they were smiling in the dark.

  “Mr. Denofrio?” said Innis.

  “Mr. Innis?” said Denofrio.

  “Can we go now?” said Kevin.

  Innis stepped forward and did something to the barber chair Kevin was in. The leather armrests flipped up and out, making sort of white gutters. The leather strops on either side went up and over, attaching to something out of sight to make restraining straps around Kevin’s arms. The headrest split apart, came down and around, and encircled Kevin’s neck. It looked like one of those trays the dentist puts near you to spit into.

  Kevin made no noise. I expected Denofrio to do the same thing to my chair, but he only laid a large hand on my shoulder.

  “We’re not vampires, boy,” said Mr. Innis. He went to the counter, opened a drawer, and returned with the straight razor Kevin had been fooling around with earlier. He opened it carefully. “Mr. Denofrio?”

  The shadow by my chair grabbed me, lifted me out of the chair, and dragged me to the basement door. He held me easily with one hand while he unlocked it. As he pulled me into the darkness, I looked back and caught a glimpse of my friend staring in silent horror as Innis drew the edge of the straight razor slowly across Kevin’s inner arm. Blood welled, flowed, and gurgled into the white enamel gutter of the armrest.

  Denofrio dragged me downstairs.

  The barber finishes the shave, trims my sideburns, and turns the chair so that I can look into the closer mirror.

  I run my hand across my cheeks and chin. The shave is perfect, very close but with not a single nick. Because of the sharpness of the blade and the skill of the barber, my skin tingles but feels no irritation whatsoever.

  I nod. The barber smiles ever so slightly and removes the striped protective apron.

  I stand and remove my suitcoat. The barber hangs it on a hook while I take my seat again and roll up my left sleeve. While he is near the rear of the shop, the barber turns on a small radio. The music of Mozart fills the room.

  The basement was lighted with candles set in small jars. The dancing red light reminded me of the time Kevin took me to his church. He said the small, red flames were votive candles. You paid money, lit one, and said a prayer. He wasn’t sure if the money was necessary for the prayer to be heard.

  The basement was narrow and unfinished and almost filled by the twelve-foot slab of stone in its center. The thing on the stone was almost as long as the slab. The thing must have weighed a thousand pounds, easy. I could see folds of slick, gray flesh rising and falling as it breathed.

  If there were arms, I couldn’t see them. The legs were suggested by folds in slick fat. The tubes and pipes and rusting funnel led my gaze to the head.

  Imagine a thousand-pound leech, nine or ten feet long and five or six feet thick through the middle as it lies on its back, no surface really, just layers of gray-green slime and wattles of what might be skin. Things, organs maybe, could be seen moving and sloshing through flesh as transparent as dirty plastic. The room was filled with the sound of its breathing and the stench of its breath. Imagine a huge sea creature, a small whale, maybe, dead and rotting on the beach for a week, and you’ve got an idea of what the thing itself smelled like.

  The mass of flesh made a noise and the small eyes turned in my direction. Its eyes were covered with layers of yellow film or mucus and I was sure it was blind. The thing’s head was no more defined than the end of a leech, but in the folds of slick fat were lines which showed a face which might once have been human. Its mouth was very large. Imagine a lamprey smiling.

  “No, it was never human,” said Mr. Denofrio. His hand was still firm on my shoulder. “By the time they came to our guild, they had already passed beyond hope of hiding amongst us. But they brought an offer which we could not refuse. Nor can our customers. Have you ever heard of symbiosis, boy? Hush!”

  Upstairs, Kevin screamed. There was a gurgle, as of old pipes being tried.

  The creature on the slab turned its blind gaze back to the ceiling. Its mouth pulsed hungrily. Pipes rattled and the funnel overflowed.

  Blood spiralled down.

  The barber returns and taps at my arm as I make a fist. There is a broad welt across the inner crook of my arm, as of an old scar poorly healed. It is an old scar.

  The barber unlocks the lowest drawer and withdraws a razor. The handle is made of gold and is set about with small gems. He raises the object in both hands, holds it above his head, and the blade catches the dim light.

  He takes three steps closer and draws the blade across my arm, opening the scar tissues like a puparium hatching. There is no pain. I watch as the barber rinses the blade and returns it to its special place. He goes down the basement stairs and I can hear the gurgling in the small drain tubes of the armrest as his footsteps recede. I close my eyes.

  I remember Kevin’s screams from upstairs and the red flicker of candlelight on the stone walls. I remember the red flow through the funnel and the gurgle of the thing feeding, lamprey mouth extended wide and reaching high, trying to encompass the funnel the way an infant seeks its mother’s nipple.

  I remember Mr. Denofrio taking a large hammer from its place at the base of the slab, then a thing part spike and part spigot. I remember standing a
lone and watching as he pounded it in, realizing even as I watched that the flesh beneath the gray-green slime was a mass of old scars.

  I remember watching as the red liquid flowed from the spigot into the crystal glass, the chalice. There is no red in the universe as deeply red, as purely red as what I saw that night.

  I remember drinking. I remember carrying the chalice—carefully, so carefully—upstairs to Kevin. I remember sitting in the chair myself.

  The barber returns with the chalice. I check that the scar has closed, fold down my sleeve, and drink deeply.

  By the time I have donned my own white smock and returned, the barber is sitting in the chair.

  “A trim this morning, perhaps?” I ask.

  “I think not,” he says. “Just a shave, please.”

  I shave him carefully. When I am finished, he runs his hands across his cheeks and chin and nods his approval. I perform the ritual and go below.

  In the candlelit hush of the Master’s vault, I wait for the Purification and think about immortality. Not about the true eon-spanning immortality of the Master … of all the Masters … but of the portion He deigns to share with us. It is enough.

  After my colleague drinks and I have returned the chalice to its place, I come up to find the blinds raised, the shop open for business.

  Kevin has taken his place beside his chair. I take my place beside mine. The music has ended and silence fills the room.

  Outside, the blood spirals down.

  Introduction to

  “The Death of the Centaur”

  I was a teacher for eighteen years. Not a college professor … not even a high school English teacher … “just” an elementary teacher. Over the years I taught third grade, fourth grade, and sixth grade, spent a year as a “resource teacher,” (sort of a lifeguard for kids in danger of going under because of learning problems) and ended my career in education by spending four years creating, coordinating, and teaching very advanced programs for “gifted and talented” (i.e., smart and able) students in a district with seven thousand elementary-aged children.