Darkborn

by Matthew J. Costello

  I can gather up the bodies later.

  But how were the ants getting in? There had to be a hole somewhere, a crack in the tile or on the plaster. Some opening leading outside . . .

  But everything appeared seamless.

  He began to think that he had the wrong place. Maybe it’s the kitchen.

  Then he looked at the cabinet below the sink. The place where he kept the Vanish. And some Lysol, a sponge.

  That’s it, he thought. There’s probably a crack in the wall behind there. That’s what’s happening.

  He got his can ready.

  Whalen wanted to get as many of the ants as possible when he pulled open the doors.

  He crawled backward a bit. He brought the can up.

  Damn, I don’t like ants, he told himself. Big, black, nasty motherfuckers. And with these carpenter ants, they were big enough for him to see their mouth parts, their — what? Mandibles. Pincerlike mouth parts.

  Yeah, they were nasty little fuckers.

  Okay, he said. Here we go, men.

  Take no fucking prisoners.

  He reached out and grabbed the doors to the cabinet.

  Okay. He took a breath. Then.

  “Ayah!” he said.

  Whalen pulled open the doors. They popped open, springing from his hands, and then flew back, nearly closing again before bouncing against the latch, coming to rest halfway open.

  Then, slowly, he pulled the doors fully open, expecting a horde of the black suckers to be startled, scrambling for cover.

  It was dark in there. But he saw that there wasn’t any movement. The Vanish, the Lysol, and some wizened sponges were on guard, solemn, with no signs of intruders.

  Whalen was disappointed.

  Maybe this wasn’t it. Maybe this isn’t their way in . . .

  But no, he thought, they might still be coming in this way. Just can’t see . . .

  He put down the can of spray, got up, and ran out to the living room. He opened a drawer in one end table and found a small flashlight promotional item, a gift from the Exxon gas station. He turned it on. The light was yellow, fading fast. But enough, he thought . . . just enough.

  He went back to the bathroom.

  Now he stuck the light in and — like a suspicious night watchman — he examined the inside of the cabinet. The fat curves of the underside of the basin. The coppery-green pipe snaking away from it, down, into the floor.

  Yeah, that might be it, Whalen thought.

  Sure. If there’s a crack, why, that would be the perfect place.

  But he couldn’t see all around to where the pipe went into the floor.

  I’ll have to lean into the cabinet, he knew.

  Okay. And get a better look.

  He leaned in, feeling his ass sticking up in the air behind him. He felt the strain on his back, and now he smelled the stink in here. The chemicals, the mildew, the rust. God knows what. The light turned from yellow to a sick orange.

  Just a few more seconds of light, he thought. Just gotta see, gotta check.

  His head was all the way in the cabinet now.

  All the way. He could only fit one arm inside — that’s all there was room for — and he had to fiddle with the small black flashlight, trying to aim the light down, to the pipe, to where it met the floor.

  And it fluttered out of his hands.

  “Shit,” he said.

  The light fell against one wall.

  Pointing straight up.

  His hand had to wriggle to get near it, to try and grab it.

  He heard something.

  Above his head.

  He wondered whether the faucet was dripping.

  Drip. Drip. Drip.

  But the sound wasn’t quite like that. It was more —

  Gotta get the light. Grab it and —

  His hand gained another inch as he hunched his shoulder to the left and-

  The sound. More like a chirping . . . no, a rattling. A tiny rattling sound, lots of little sounds, but so faint.

  He wanted to tilt his head and look. But he could barely move. Then — funny thought — he wondered: What if I get stuck in here? Wouldn’t that be —

  He tilted a centimeter. Another.

  His hand forgotten — for the moment — in its quest for the light.

  Another tilt.

  The strain on his back passing discomfort, cruising right into pain, a broad pain that trailed from the base of his spine all the way up to his neck.

  Another centimeter.

  And he saw what the flashlight was so dimly illuminating. At the top of the cabinet. Surrounding the basin.

  Above his head.

  Something black. Moving.

  His mouth opened.

  He mouthed the word, but he didn’t say it.

  Ants.

  Hundreds of them. Maybe thousands. It was a colony, a whole tribe. There had to be a queen there, and soldiers and workers and —

  He quickly shut his open mouth.

  He jerked backward.

  Right the fuck out of here, he thought.

  But he moved only the tiniest bit before his shoulder pressed against his elbow, and then against the wall of the cabinet.

  Locking him in there.

  The sound. The chittering, the clicking sound. Excited now. Louder.

  “Oh, hell,” he said.

  An ant fell on his forehead. He felt the movement of its legs, delicate, considerate, crawling on the world that was Whalen’s skull.

  It moved up.

  Right, thought Whalen. That’s better, keep moving. He jerked against the Chinese lock of his elbow and his shoulders.

  The ant, finding nothing of interest, moved down, straight down, before deciding that it wanted to move left. Over Whalen’s eyebrow. Onto his eyelid. Whalen shut that eye.

  I’m Popeye the Sailor Man.

  He felt the ant circling the eyelid. Whalen was making noises now.

  A terrified bleating. “Oh, oh, oh,” he said. “Oh, damn. Oh, no.” And he bucked against his lock, his stock-like trap as if he were a steer harnessed to a meat factory machine, sensing that its mooing days were over.

  “Oh, oh, oh.” And then, “Oh, shit.”

  The ant circled some more. And then it bit him. The pain was small. No big thing. But the ant — and Whalen pictured the pincers, the devil-like fork prongs — closed on the tender flesh of his eyelid.

  It bit again. Whalen screamed. He closed his other eye.

  And his scream — stupid thing, really stupid, he told himself — made the ants fall. Knocking them from their perch, their clever hiding place.

  A bunch of them sprayed onto his face.

  He felt dozens of legs now walking on his face. Across his lips. Up and around his ears. Into his ears, driving him crazy with the command to scratch.

  Something that he couldn’t do.

  And now Whalen bucked as hard as he could, pushing his knees against the floor. Pushing at the cabinet wall with his hand. And again.

  Not yelling anymore, he thought. He saw what that did.

  Don’t want to yell anymore.

  But the edge of the cabinet, the hinges, dug into the flesh of his trapped shoulder, now cutting to the bone.

  And the new arrivals — the ants on his lips, his eyelids, all over his face, and some moving down to the tender flesh of his neck — all of them began to bite.

  And dozens of those bites, snapping in unison, created a feeling like tiny painful firecrackers exploding on his face.

  He tried to twitch, to move his face, shake them off. His other hand, outside, flailed behind him.

  It hit the Raid can.

  An idea.

  I’ll spray them. I can find a crack and spray in here.

  More ants fell on him. The dozens of legs turned into a living mask of limbs and he felt ants at his lips, trying to get in. Snipping at his lips. He was tempted to push at them with his tongue. Force them away. Maybe I could blow them off . . .

  But that would mean o
pening his mouth.

  That’s what they wanted.

  He felt a new sensation. And he knew that one ant had chewed through his eyelid and was now feasting on the eye itself.

  Whalen cried.

  His hand brought the can up to the side, looking for a gap to squirt the poison in.

  He found a hole.

  He couldn’t resist — he pushed some ants off his lips with his tongue. Puffed at them quickly blowing just a little bit …

  And immediately a squad of ants fell onto his tongue, following it in, swirling around inside his mouth. His mouth opened.

  I got to spit them out.

  He started spraying.

  And now he inhaled the insecticide. It seared his throat, his lungs.

  He felt an ant at the back of his throat, going down his gullet.

  I’m killing myself, he thought.

  Coughing, spitting up ants, sucking in new ones as the poisonous fog filled the cabinet.

  I’m killing myself . . .

  But I’ll kill them too.

  But then the bites, all over now, down his chest, in his mouth, on his eyes, in his ears, where he heard their scratching footsteps amplified, made him drop the can to the floor.

  A truce the ants didn’t recognize . . .

  * * *

  30

  On his way out of the new courthouse, Will tried calling Whalen’s number. He hung up after the fifth ring and redialed.

  Again, no one answered.

  He gave up and left for home.

  Becca greeted him at the door with a nervous stare. He smiled back.

  “Daddy!” Beth said, running down the stairs. Will made ready to scoop her off the ground and twirl her through the air.

  “Did you call?” Becca asked.

  Will shook his head. And then, “Yes, just for a minute. I was supposed to call back. I tried, but — umph —”

  Beth careened into his waiting arms and he hoisted her up, giving her the special flight that only dads can deliver.

  “He wasn’t there,” Will grunted.

  Becca nodded, and then she drifted away. Will knew that she had other questions to ask, questions that she’d hold until later.

  He looked at Beth. Her entire face was one giant smile. Her hair flew behind her and she shook with each convulsive giggle. Sweetness and light, thought Will. That’s what she is. No troubles, and filled with complete trust.

  He stopped swinging her around.

  He heard Beth groan against his shoulder.

  “No, Daddy. Swing me some more.”

  Will nodded. “Sure, honey. Sure.” But he just stood there a moment and held her tight. Tighter . . .

  * * *

  Will peeked in Sharon’s room. She had a tape on. It was a woman’s voice, but one he didn’t recognize. Not Cher. Not Olivia Newton-John. Who? Paula Abdul? k.d. lang?

  Face it, he thought, the music world has passed you by.

  “Hey, tiger,” he said, “how are you doing?”

  Sharon turned and smiled, a pencil held between her fingers, ready to do damage to her homework paper. She smiled back, a small, controlled grin. Ah, the difference that six years can make. Sharon was well on the way to being a woman. She had her mother’s deep, penetrating eyes. And she also shared Becca’s abiding concern for the world, from the rain forests and the homeless, to lost puppies in the rain.

  “Hi, Dad,” she said.

  Will risked a step inside her chambers.

  Sharon’s pencil went back to the paper.

  “What are you working on there, kiddo?” he asked.

  She looked up and made a disgusted face. “Geometry.” She shook her head. “Stupid stuff.”

  Will risked a few more steps. “Not that stupid. It can be kind of fun.”

  He stood behind her, leaning over her desk. He looked at her math sheet. “Ah, bisecting an angle. Piece of cake,” he said.

  “For you,” she said.

  Will shook his head and leaned over her desk. “No. I can get you bisecting angles with the best of them. In five minutes, tops.”

  Sharon sat back a bit, waiting and watching him perform his magic.

  He screwed up on his first attempt, and Sharon giggled as he ended up creating a new angle instead of bisecting the one on her paper.

  “A bit rusty?” she teased.

  “Hey, that was my first swing. Let me have another go at it.”

  He picked up the compass and tried again and — to his own amazement — he ended up with a neatly bisected angle.

  “There you go,” he said.

  “But how’d you do it?” Sharon said.

  “Okay,” Will said. “Now watch carefully this time. Nothing up this sleeve, and nothing . . .”

  He retraced his steps carefully, letting Sharon see everything he did. And by the time he was done, Becca called them down to dinner.

  * * *

  Becca waited until the girls were gone.

  “Maybe,” she said, “maybe you should try to reach Tim Hanna.”

  Will nodded, still picking at his salad. “Yeah, I guess so. But I don’t think I could get to him. He’s an important man,” Will said, embarrassed at his sarcasm.

  “Still,” Becca added, “you were friends. He knew this Jim Kiff —”

  He smiled at her. The way she said “this Jim Kiff” — as though Kiff were an objet bizarre from the National Museum of the Strange.

  “He’d probably want to know.”

  Will looked at her. It’s funny, he thought, the things we keep from our spouses. Old girlfriends and their techniques. Secret fears, desires, hopes. That’s probably where divorce came from, he guessed. When enough secrets build up, the gulf becomes unbridgeable.

  And one day your marriage is over.

  He looked at her, listening to her, thinking . . .

  “Sure he’s a big businessman, Will. But you could probably reach him . . . if you wanted to . . .”

  Except, thought Will, I very much doubt Tim Hanna wants to be reached. Not by me. Not by anyone who was there that night.

  “Yeah,” he said at last. “Maybe I’ll try.”

  He thought about telling Becca then. Telling her about that night. About the special tie that bound Kiff and Whalen and Tim Hanna and him together.

  A regular little club, he thought.

  He thought about telling her.

  Letting go of the last secret.

  But she sighed and stood up, clearing the table.

  And he stood up to help.

  Around nine o’clock, he went into his office and tried Whalen’s number again. This time he let it ring eight times, hoping that if Whalen had an answering machine, it would click on.

  But there was nothing.

  He looked at the two books on his desk.

  He looked at the new one first, The Demonic Realm, by Dr. Joshua James. The glossy white dust jacket had blood red lettering. Flaky book, Will thought. He flipped the book around to the back, to the photo of Dr. James. A smiling and earnest-looking man looked out at his hoped-for multitude of readers. The staged shot had James holding his glasses in one hand while he sat rakishly on a stool.

  Nearly bald at the top, James had bushy white eyebrows. The warm smile looked completely unauthentic. And, idly, Will opened the book to the back, and he read some of the author’s credits.

  Dr. James was a former Dominican priest who had served as a staff assistant to Pope Paul VI. He headed a special Vatican study group exploring the Christian concept of sin and damnation.

  How cheery, Will thought.

  There’s a lot of scared, silly, and superstitious people in the world. They eat this stuff right up.

  The last paragraph of Joshua James’s short bio had the good stuff.

  He had assisted or witnessed over 150 exorcisms.

  Nice hobby, thought Will.

  And Will imagined crazy Kiff reading this book, swallowing this baloney hook, line, and sinker. Somehow mixing it up with that nonsense from decades a
go.

  Poor bastard, he thought again. Poor —

  He heard a sound from behind him.

  He turned, startled.

  It was Sharon. “Dad,” she said, her face crinkled up into a perfect mask of confusion. “Do you know anything about constructing equal angles?”

  Will smiled. “Constructing equal angles?” he said. “Hell, I wrote the book. I was the equal angle constructing champ of my high school.”

  She grinned, her cool facade melting under his goofy boast. And Will reached out for Sharon’s math book, hoping that a few diagrams would, er, refresh his memory about yet another arcane secret from the wonderful world of geometry.

  * * *

  It was later. Sharon and Beth were asleep. A timid rain began throwing drops against the windows, as if it wanted to come in. The news was on the TV. Will, coming out of the shower, missed the first story.

  “Miss anything important?” Will said.

  Becca shook her head. “No. Just — another murder. Someone else was killed — another woman cut up in the city.”

  Will stopped rubbing at his wet hair. “Wow. How many is that, eight — ?”

  “Nine,” Becca said. “And this one wasn’t a hooker. Just a secretary, working late.”

  “Poor girl,” he said.

  Will heard the bumptious news anchor team promise more updates on the City Slasher, their station’s own pet name for the madman.

  But afterward only the fat weatherman came on, joking about even more rain so don’t forget your umbrellas . . . it was going to be real nasty in the tri-state area.

  Then the dull-eyed sports reporter grimly reported the Mets’ loss of the sixth play-off game at San Francisco. The news closed with a syrupy story on a man who raised puppies and gives them away to poor city kids.

  There was nothing more. No update. Becca shut the tube off. And then they were both lying in bed, reading books.

  Except that Will wasn’t reading.

  He put down his book, an overheated true crime story, a love triangle involving an overheated teacher and a possessive young heiress.

  A nicely lurid tale of murder and lust in Westchester.

  Becca looked over

  “What’s wrong?” she said.