She struck at the air again.
“I can't not kill you now that you've tricked me.”
“Why?”
“Because I'm a monster.”
She was that; there was no mistaking it. She was horrifying and terrible in her own perfect way. Even after what they had shared together lying in the jungle, Billy couldn't help but be struck now at how savage she was, yet still so beautiful.
“You'll never see me again, Anastasia. It's good that I'll remember you this way.”
“I'll never stop hunting you.”
“You won't be able to hunt me any longer. Not where I'm going.”
This is when she found that calm place in spite of herself and put an end to the twisting and the slashing. This is when she finally understood what this had all been about.
This is when she felt fear.
“You're calling it up?” She felt her heart sink at those words, and a glow come over her all at the same instant. “What do you think you could ever change?”
She knew now what he meant to do with Broom's book.
The Time Zombie - the stupid name Billy had given the thing. The sad, frightful mixture of oddity that was science crossed with the never dead.
Billy meant to call it forth now; that's why he was here. To steal its power and to change the past.
Billy had read the book and understood how. She could see it in his eyes. This was no con.
“I'm going to find my mom and dad. I want to be a normal kid.” He was suddenly that little boy she had met so long ago again. There was wonder within him. Billy looked her square in the eyes and didn't try to hide that innocence and hope from her any longer. “I don't want to grow up again and turn into this.”
“Turn into what?” She nearly screamed the question at him.
“A monster,” he said then.
Monster.
Anastasia damned the desperation welling in her. It was painted like hope but it was sickening. It was despair. Tired, pounding despair.
Billy turned to go.
“Don't leave me here.”
He stopped, but he wouldn't look back.
“You're going into the past, Billy. Then you'll do something for me, too?” Her words were hopeful again.
Billy used his free hand to steady himself, clutching the tree. The skateboard stuck to his pack, like a shield against her words.
“What?” He almost hadn't asked. Anything she wanted would be too horrible to safely be brought into the world. Her words were always poison wrapped in bow and ribbon. Every syllable stung him more and more so that every sentence she had ever formed with them were more vicious than her fangs.
“You love me, don't you Billy Purgatory? You can lie about it…” she started the excuses for him, but she was shocked when he stopped her mid-argument.
“Yes.” Neither of them believed he had owned up to it. “Yes, I love you, Anastasia.”
“Then you'll do something for me?”
“No, I won't do anything you'd want.”
“My race is at the doorstep of death. For all practical purposes I am the last…”
“Ana…”
“You can leave me here to rot. I don't blame you, but if you're going into the past to make things right, it will all just play out the same again if you don't take care of everything.”
Ana swung calmly now. “Only next time it will play out much worse for you.”
This is when Billy turned. “How could it ever be any worse?”
“Because I'll still grow into this and I'll be much more desperate and I'll hate how happy you are. I'll hate them too.”
Billy watched how still she had become. Her calm was much worse than her rage.
“And I'll grow strong and I'll murder them. I'll wait until you're so happy you're about to burst. I'll track them and I'll find them alone and laughing and so in love and proud of their perfect little boy and I'll suck your parents dry.”
Billy wanted to tell her it wouldn't be that way, but he knew that it would be.
“If I know me like I know me then I can tell you without hesitation that I will really enjoy killing your mommy and daddy.”
Billy gripped the tree trunk. “I'd never let that happen.”
“Then you only have one option, find me first and murder me first. Don't let me become this…”
“Monster,” Billy uttered.
Dazed, Billy turned from her final words. “Don't let me grow up, because if you do I promise blood.”
Chapter 34
The Birth Of Billy Purgatory
It hadn't rained yet, not the storm the weathergirl on TV had promised and crossed her heart about. The clouds were low and the thunder occasionally rumbled, but there was no lightning and the sound was more akin to the Fee-Fi-Fo-Fum of an upset stomach.
Still, Ulysses Purgatory hadn't completely ruled out the possibility of getting drenched, especially while he stood in the tiny cemetery over his father's grave.
“Catfish” Purgatory had been a farm-league baseball player and had roamed the countryside on an old bus with other amateur Babe Ruths. Catfish had been good, though; he'd almost made the majors. He had taught Ulysses the game when he had been a boy, but that didn't matter much in the end. Baseball wasn't Uly's thing.
Where Ulysses stood then was fifty miles up the coast from where he and Emelia had settled. The soldier in green army jacket had no idea why he had made the drive, but Emelia had been restless for days. It was that time of year.
It was the anniversary, the one that had everything to do with her long lost sister, Medusa. Emelia had never spoken much in regards to the date, but Ulysses knew the date well and gave her space this time of year. Emelia never said much about her life before she had met him, never shedding much light on the shadows cloaking her past.
They'd borrowed old Mrs. Scopas car. Emelia was far into her third trimester and there was no way she would have made the trip on the back of Ulysses' bike. Mrs. Scopas had insisted that they take the Cadillac convertible from her garage and ride in style. “Norman babied that thing more than the kids,” his ancient neighbor had explained to Ulysses. “They should'a been born with fins if they wanted more of their daddy's attention.”
Ulysses turned his gaze from the headstone and looked down from cemetery hill at his old hometown. Too many memories were holed up here, too many to stay here for longer than a visit. Raining or not, for Ulysses the storm was always blowing in on this place.
True to form, his pregnant bride Emelia had not waited for him at the cemetery gates where he'd asked her to.
Uly bent down and flicked the blade of his pocket knife to life. He began to run it into and over the lettering on the headstone, scraping away the dirt which had caked into the engraving over the years.
“I should be home right now, old man,” Ulysses explained quietly. “My new home.”
The only reply was the scratch of the blade on stone.
“I'm gonna have a boy. I'd introduce you to my wife and show you how big her belly is…” Uly looked around for Emelia again, fruitlessly. “But she's sort of a non-conventional girl.”
Uly continued the cleaning, revealing the weathered name.
“You were right, you know. I had no business going over there. I guess that's why I humped my ass all the way over here, so I could tell you that. You were right again.”
He stared at the P.
“Pop.”
Ulysses blew the dust from the letters.
“The things I saw. You were right about the world; you have no idea how right. Or maybe you do?” Uly began work on the U, “Pop, I think I might have screwed up again.”
Thunder clapped above. The wind rustled the leaves which littered the old graveyard.
“I'm not sure if I got any business at all bringing Billy into this world now. This, mind you, has little or nothing to do with my lack of parenting skills. Which I'm pretty sure are even sorrier than yours were.”
Ulysses gave up at the second R.<
br />
“'Course, that didn't stop you none.”
Ulysses stood and walked to the wind-rattled gates. Emelia would have to be located before the bottom fell out of the sky.
For better or worse, in sickness and health…
There was a birth to attend to before death do us part.
II
“What's your name, boy?” Ulysses stood on the plank steps of the hardware store. The boy occupied a rocking chair on the raised porch and sharpened a lawnmower blade with a bastard file.
“Beauregard Goodfinger,” came the boy's half-hearted reply. Only half-hearted because there was a tinge of pride attached to such a fancy handle sliding off the boy's tongue.
He was dirty in overalls with a grey work shirt beneath. He either didn't have shoes or didn't bother with them. Two lazy mastiffs were chained at the end of the porch and only seemed to care about the holes they'd dug to lay lazily in the dirt.
“You got some kinda hardware or dry goodin' business to attend at, Mister?”
Ulysses was staring into the open door at the cluttered shop. It was like looking back into a window through time.
“No,” answered Uly after a time. “Nothing like that.”
“Well, you'll pardon me for being real busy with this here crook-backed blade that ain't worth a sharpenin'.” With that, the boy Beauregard attempted to put Ulysses Purgatory out of his mind.
“You know,” Ulysses said, “my son, he's gonna have a hell'uva name too.”
“Kids is gonna love him for it. Nothing more entertainin' to make fun of than somebody's crack-jawed name.”
“My daddy used to own this store.” Ulysses threw it out there kinda matter of fact.
“I can see why he moved on to other labors.”
“My pop died, that's more or less why he ain't fighting you for that rocking chair and sharpening blades anymore.”
“Well, I ain't so lucky.” Beauregard seemed to have a sore spot when talking about fathers. “If'n you'd like to pontificate further on these issues you are more than welcome to try and wake my daddy up. He's been in the jug since daybreak.”
“I'll leave him to his incapacitations.” Uly stepped inside, heard the loud snoring creeping down the back steps from the apartment above the store where he had lived when he was Beauregard's age.
“Hey Beauregard, that soda machine still work?”
Beauregard nodded. “What sort of customer service would I be providing if I tried to sell a man a hot soda-pop?”
Uly started plugging nickels into the machine. One of Catfish's baseball trophies was still on the high shelf behind the counter. Boxes of baking powder surrounded it on all sides.
“That old baseball trophy for sale?”
Beauregard looked up. “Special priced, just like everything you see.”
Ulysses walked back onto the porch with two orange sodas and the trophy under his arm. He slipped Beauregard ten bucks as he passed.
The hounds growled as Ulysses made his way down the rickety wooden steps to the gravel drive. Ulysses figured it must be the weather that had them suddenly stirred, black clouds all around. Dog's knew they were about to get a tick drowning.
“So,” called Beauregard, “what's that boy's name gonna be, anyhow?”
Ulysses was focused on the dark of the horizon and a missing wife, didn't bother to look back the boy's way when he answered.
“Billy Purgatory.”
“Pretty damn fancy,” agreed Beauregard as Uly's feet hit the road. “He's in for more than a few ass-kickings.”
III
Emelia Purgatory didn't have a grave to visit. She wasn't convinced that there was one anywhere in the world. The one thing she did know is that she could no longer feel her sister's presence. It was something she had always been attached to, for as long as she could remember.
She had known this anniversary was coming, felt it. The time of year when her sister had always lost control of her rage. No matter how much time passed, how many lumbering centuries.
“It's your birthday, Medusa.”
Emelia had her sandals close to the fire of burning willow branches she'd lit in a ring of stones in a field near the ocean. The tall grass fell dead and was reborn over and over with the squall coming across the water.
The lightning was closer; it was already starting to rain at the mouth of the cove.
Two nights previous, Emelia had pressed her sword to her lover's throat with her pregnant belly sitting atop his lumbering sleep ridden chest, her legs straddling him and her free hand holding him down.
Ulysses blinked at what surely was a nightmare. The sword blade never dulled, and even in the darkness, his slightest movement beneath her showed the tiny hairs shaved from his neck and a drop of blood rise.
Her husband's pupils gave up the first look of surprise she had ever witnessed. It was different than the look he had sent up from the bottom of the pit where he lay dying the night he had tricked Medusa and Emelia. Stolen and claimed her.
This was much more helpless a look. Lost.
He couldn't understand why she was doing this. It had nothing to do with her sister actually being taken away by them. Even less to do with being tricked.
It was just that time of year, and if Emelia would ever have any peace, she had to know that her old life and old labors were truly dead and buried.
“What did they do with my sister?”
She pressed the blade with more force against Ulysses throat.
“Where is Medusa?”
Ulysses wouldn't fight back; she knew that about him. Something in her wanted him to though.
“I don't know,” Ulysses said very calmly.
“Liar.”
Her fingers gripped his hair and pulled him closer to the edge of the blade. “Where is she?”
“Emelia, let go of the sword.”
She felt his hand on her belly. His fingers opening and the palm pressing against her and towards their unborn child.
“Please…”
“Get your hand off me.” Emelia let the blade make a little cut. Blood ran down his neck.
His touch was soft on her skin. Tears welled in her eyes and ran down her face mirroring the blood trails forming on his neck.
“I know this makes no sense to you…” She was sobbing. “Why I have to know.”
“I don't care why you have to know. All I care about is that you don't do this. I'm not asking for my own sake.”
His fingers caressed her stomach.
She looked down at them and at the fullness of her nightgown. She felt the boy kick inside her.
Ulysses felt it too, and nodded to her with knowing, soulful eyes.
He felt the sword leave his neck and watched her arm extend, flinging it at the wall. The tip found a stud beneath the cedar but didn't stop until it was buried half deep into the solid wood. Ulysses was startled by the force of it and didn't have the wits to grab at her as Emelia rolled off him.
Emelia pulled her mind from the memory…
“I hope you're gone.” Emelia's eyes left the rain over the water and went to the fire she'd made. She felt the extreme cold at the back of her neck, but she had already heard Ulysses trying to slink up on her. He was good, but he wasn't near as good as she.
“It's freezing.” Emelia brought her arms together at her breasts.
Ulysses took the cold glass container away and she found the orange bottle come around her head and appear before her eyes.
“I got you a pop.”
Emelia smiled, “Thanks… Pop.”
The lightning began to dance at the head of the cove while Ulysses ran his hand around her from behind, holding it over his unborn boy.
“He's restless. Do you feel him?”
Emelia only clutched the soda for a moment before the pain caused it to slip from her fingers. It bounced in the dirt at her feet and splashed over her ankles.
It wasn't the orange that concerned her, but the red. The tiny drip-drops that reddened her toes
and fell into the last gasp of the fire.
Ulysses saw it too, the blood, as she gripped her abdomen and nearly buckled to the ground from the pain. He was scooping her up and running for the car as the rain began mingling with the dead smoke from her fire.
Emelia reached out her hand for the storm that was chasing them from the field.
“I hope you're dead,” she said against the wind. “I'm sorry, sister, but I hope you're dead.”
IV
“No, I won't go to a hospital!”
That was the mantra that Emelia couldn't let go, screaming, lying along the backseat of the Cadi and clutching her stomach. She was kicking one of her legs into the roof. Why, Ulysses had no clue.
“Stop kicking the roof! The baby is coming, Emelia. Billy is on his way.”
She kicked the convertible top harder then, and Ulysses watched helplessly out of the corner of his eye as the force of her foot to vinyl unlatched the roof from the passenger's side of the windshield.
He grabbed for her leg, caught it, but the other kicked even harder and made the best convertible technology Motor City had to offer utterly worthless. The roof of the car was caught in the fury of the headwind and sailed up into the air, sending the two, soon to be three, of them speeding down an old farm and market road exposed to the living chaos which was the blackened sky.
“Pull over and let me have him in the woods!”
“That is not an option, soldier.” Ulysses considered they should have gone to some of those baby classes after all. Someone needed to be exercising calm breathing techniques.
Emelia hard-stared the sky. “Not tonight. Please, not tonight.” She reached up and grabbed Ulysses shoulder, and her fingers dug into the flesh nearly breaking the skin. “He can't come tonight, Uly.” Just when he thought his pretty blonde pregnant wife couldn't send anymore pain into his body, she did.
The contraction made her scream as she tightened boa fingers on his shoulder blade. “I can't see the stars. What did they look like last night? Did you see?”
“Baby, who cares about the stars?”
“There are too many. They don't want me to see them up there watching. The clouds are in league with them.”
Billy Purgatory: I am the Devil Bird Page 32