Perhaps that was why he was staying put, so as not to be like Broarty. It was as good a working definition of “conscience” as any: to act in such a way as Marcus Broarty, Asshole, wouldn’t.
Jack picked up the phone and called the bar, and ordered another beer to be delivered to his room...hell, two beers...and Broarty could damn well pay for the room service charge. Then he set his travel alarm for 6:30, switched on the television and settled in for the night.
Room 207. Just upstairs.
“Shit,” Jack muttered, getting up off the bed and walking into the bathroom where he splashed cold water on his face and waited for the beers to arrive.
CHAPTER THREE
Strangely, Althea Kinchloe found herself in her parent’s house, the home that had been destroyed by fire more than fifty years before. But now the house was back and in its former glory. Actually, greater than its former glory: the colors on the walls and the drapes seemed richer and brighter than at any time when she was still living there, and it was certainly cleaner than her last memory of the place.
There were no sign of Althea’s parents, both of whom died in the conflagration, though there was another figure with her. It was Althea’s sister Bernia, but not Bernia the way she had been the last time Althea saw her, withered and emaciated from the cancer. It was Bernia as she was when they were young girls during the Depression.
“You need to go somewhere,” Bernia was saying, directing Althea’s attention to a door set in one wall of the living room, where a door had never been before.
My heavens, am I dead? Althea thought. Then the truth came to her. No, it has to be a dream; a very peculiar one, but a dream nonetheless.
Althea Kinchloe had always possessed the ability to recognize when she was experiencing a dream, which this most definitely had to be. But before she could step outside of her experience any further, the door opened. Behind it was a staircase leading down to the basement. She went down.
It was dark at the bottom, but not so dark that Althea could not see. A washing machine sat to one side, the old fashioned kind that looked like a drum on legs and had a hand roller to squeeze out the water, the kind her mother had used, and which she herself had used for the first several years of her marriage. Beyond the laundry room was a long, dark corridor, which she started down. The basement corridor reeked of musty dankness, which was hardly surprising. But as she walked, the musty smell was overwhelmed by another one—it was unmistakably the scent of oil paint. It was a familiar odor from her younger days; the smell of an art studio, like the one in which she and Howard used to meet, using the cover story that she was posing for one of his paintings. If her father had known what had really gone on in that studio, he would have taken a shotgun to both of them.
How Althea had loved Howard Kearney. When he became one of the tens of thousands who did not return from the Great War, so young and suddenly so dead, she thought her life was over. That, though, had been seven decades worth of life ago; seven decades that had encompassed a forty-eight year marriage to a fine, if unexciting, man, two children, five grandchildren, and now two great-grandchildren. Her life had not ended when Howard died on the battlefield any more than it had when Barry, her husband, suffered a heart attack and died while on a fishing trip two months before his eightieth birthday. Both tragedies had changed her life, though she often mused that overcoming Howard’s death when he was young had in some way prepared her for Barry’s death when she was old. The fact that both had been separated from her at the times of their passing left her each time with feelings of emptiness that was painfully hard to overcome, but ultimately she had overcome them. As her grandmother used to say, it was amazing how much people were able to bend in the wind without breaking.
Althea Kinchloe, née Dorneman, had done a lot of bending in the wind.
She continued to walk down the dark corridor, the walls of which were covered with paintings of people, all engaged in some kind of activity. She recognized the artwork instantly, and her pulse raced. A figure stepped out from the shadows. “Howard!” Althea cried, rushing toward him. “Oh, Howard!”
Howard was as big and tall and strong and youthful as the last time she had seen him alive, in 1942. He smiled as she approached and held his arms out, and Althea melted into them. He smelled of paint and tobacco, as he always had, but now there was a faint new odor, that of gunpowder. “I’ve missed you, darling,” Althea said, her voice shaky, not with age, but with emotion. “Howard, have you come for me? Am I dying?”
“Not yet, Pookie,” he answered softly, and her heart melted. That had been his private name for her. No one else on earth knew of that name. “I’ve come to tell you that there is something you must do first.”
“Tell me and I’ll do it, Howard. I’ll do anything for you.”
“You must help defeat it.”
“What must I help defeat?”
“The legion.”
“What legion?”
“We thought we took care of it way back when, but the gateway has been opened again.”
“I don’t understand.”
“You have to make yourself understand,” Howard replied. “It will not be easy, but you will have help. You will not be alone. There will be a little girl.”
“Howard, please tell me what are you talking about!”
“It’s fighting me...the legion...I don’t have much time. Look for the little girl at Tarelton, California.” Howard said, stepping back from her. “And be brave, Althea. Don’t give in to it.”
“Howard!”
Her long dead love was gone now, like he had never been there. The only signs of life in the basement room were simulated ones: the painted figures on each wall, which had been rendered in the style of a public art mural, the kind Howard used to create before the war. Althea looked from one face to another, and then put her hand to her mouth to stifle a cry.
The painted figures all slowly turned to face her.
I’m dreaming I’m dreaming I’m dreaming I’m dreaming, she chanted to herself, but that did nothing to eliminate her fear.
A shadow in her peripheral vision caused her to look down the seemingly endless corridor. Another figure was standing there, one that was all black. She could not make out features of any kind, but she could see that the shadow was moving. It was coming toward her, very quickly. Althea began to back up, keeping her eyes on the dark figure. As the black figure passed the pictures, the painted figures within them withered and rotted.
That was when Althea screamed. She turned and started running down the corridor, never daring to look back, too frightened to slow down. She ran as fast as she did when she and Bernia used to have races up the drive from the street. Ahead now she could see the stairs leading up to the mysterious door of her house. Behind her, she could hear the footfalls of the dark figure chasing her, as well as the moans of the figures on the wall.
Why can’t I wake up?
She got to the base of the stairs and sprinted up, taking two steps at a time, until she reached the top. Althea was about to bolt through the door, when it violently slammed shut in her face. She felt the pressure of the wooden door hitting her flesh, but no pain. Then she fell backwards.
She expected to hit the steps with her back at any moment, but that moment never came. Instead she continued to fall helplessly through the air, like she was falling down a mine shaft. She opened her mouth to cry out....
But Althea Kinchloe did not cry out as her eyes opened and she bounced tensely on her bed, as though she had just landed there from a height. Her nightgown was sopping wet, but it was from sweat, not one of the bladder accidents she occasionally had in her sleep. She reached for her forehead and found that her hair was wet as well, like she had just emerged from the shower. Her heart was pounding almost audibly. “Dear Lord in Heaven,” she moaned, closing her eyes again, and wondering whether or not she should call the emergency room.
No, that would be foolish, she decided. There was no pain, only discomfort.
And fear. In fact, in her ninety-three years of life, she could not remember a dream that had been so thoroughly terrifying. She glanced at the digital clock beside her bed: it was 4:37 a.m.
“I doubt I’m going to get back to sleep,” she told herself, getting out of bed and shuffling to the bathroom to dry herself off. Putting her damp nightgown into the sink, Althea clad herself in her cotton robe, walked into the dark living room and seated herself on the sofa. She searched the cushions for the television remote, finally found it, and switched on the new, impossibly large set that her grandson had bought for her, more for light and noise than entertainment. The programming choices were nothing special this time of night, anyway, mostly those thirty-minute commercials for real estate classes or vacuum cleaners or weight-loss programs. But just having something with sound in front of her might help her to forget the terrible dream.
No. You mustn’t forget, you cannot forget, my darling, I will not let you, a voice whispered in her mind.
“Lord, have mercy,” Althea uttered. Fine; she would not forget. Rising, she walked into the dining room, where she had a small desk and an upright typewriter that she had had since business school. Taking a clean sheet of paper, she fed it into the roller of the Underwood. There was no doubt that she was awake. She was in her dining room, wide awake. And Howard’s voice had just spoken to her.
“If remembering that dream is that important to you, Howard, I guess I’ll have to do it,” she said aloud, and then reprimanded herself. She had better be careful about talking to empty rooms, or letting anyone, particularly the kids, know that she was following the instructions of her long-dead lover, or else they might declare her senile and put her away into one of those horrible living facilities. If that happened, she would not be able to help anybody. Dying facilities was what they were.
As she started to peck out the details of her nightmare onto the paper, Althea’s fear began to subside, and a welcoming calm came over her. She felt that she was doing the right thing. She still did not understand what the nightmare meant, if it really meant anything at all, but if it was important to Howard, it was important to her, too. He would not lie to her.
He was still the one she would have trusted above anyone else on earth.
Alive or dead.
CHAPTER FOUR
The tall trees blocked out a good portion of the sun, making it seem much darker, though Jack was relieved that the misty fog that had made yesterday’s visit to the woods so uncomfortable had gone. He and Dani Lindstrom had bumped and bounced their way to the spot where the road was blocked by the fallen tree and then got out. “We’ll have to fight our way through a tangle of brush a ways up,” Jack told her, “so I hope you’re not wearing anything delicate.”
“I left my chiffon prom dress back at the motel,” Dani said, grinning.
The hike seemed easier this time, perhaps because Jack knew where he was going, though the new day revealed nothing that Jack had not noticed before. The city hall building was now more visible from other parts of the ghost town, but that could be attributed to the lack of fog. Jack snapped pictures all the way along as they hiked into the main part of the village. Once they had reached the city hall, Dani said: “Wow, look at this place.” She started to trot up the steps, but Jack stopped her.
“There’s no light in there,” he said, pulling out his flashlight, “and you have to be really careful. Debris is everywhere.” Holding the light in front of him, he crept inside, while Dani followed.
“This is like a mausoleum,” she commented, her voice echoing in the large empty building.
Jack shined the light on the back wall. “There. You can make out a woman’s face.”
Dani moved closer to it. “She doesn’t look very happy.”
“I hadn’t noticed that before, but you’re right.” Jack started snapping a few more shots of the exposed part of the mural. In today’s light the face did appear to be in some sort of discomfort, even pain.
Dani reached out and touched the dull gray overcoat. “Why do you suppose they painted over it?”
“Maybe all the figures looked unhappy,” Jack said, checking his last picture on the tiny digital screen. “Maybe the effect of the mural on the viewer was depressing, something people back then didn’t need.”
Dani continued to explore the wall with her fingers. She pulled off a loose gray flake which revealed more of the picture. She touched the painted image, but pulled her hand back, like the wall was hot. “This is wet!”
“That’s not surprising,” Jack said. “It’s been exposed to the elements for quite some time.”
“Not the wall, Jack, the paint itself.” Dani held up her hand to the flashlight beam, and revealed smudges of reddish-brown on her fingers. “How can the paint still be wet?”
“Certain kinds of paints take forever to dry, particularly if the pigment is not properly mixed with the base. The moisture in the wall might have so permeated the paint layer that it has combined with the pigment.” He reached into his back pocket and pulled out a handkerchief, and tossed it to her so she could wipe the paint off her finger.
“Do you really believe that?” she asked, blotting her hand.
“Why wouldn’t I? Why else would it be wet?”
In the dim light, Dani examined her stained index finger and then said: “Don’t you feel it, Jack?”
“Feel what?”
“Don’t you sense that something just isn’t right here?”
Jack smiled. “Ruined buildings sometimes have that effect on people. You said it yourself: this place is like a mausoleum.”
“Jack, let’s get out of here, okay?” Dani said.
“Sure. Let me take one more shot of the face in the mural, for safety, and then we’ll go.”
“Hurry, please.”
As Jack stepped over to the wall, camera in hand, he told himself that this was exactly why he was reluctant to let Dani in here. Like most people, she viewed a building as some kind of living thing. A house with lights and a family living in it was full of life; a house with no lights, no family, no human activity, was somehow “dead,” and therefore creepy. While he had grown accustomed to the sentiment, because it was so common, he could not accept it himself. A building was a building, period. A foundation, floors, walls, and a roof, none of which were inherently alive. Buildings were erected by men, maintained by men, and demolished by men.
Buildings did not have souls.
Jack crouched slightly to get a good eye-level view of the woman’s painted face and snapped the flash, then checked it to make sure he had it. But before stepping back, he reached out and lightly touched the image. Dani had been right, the paint was wet. Perhaps it had been improperly done, and had started to deteriorate, so was covered up. Maybe it was never even finished.
“Jack?”
“I’m coming, let’s go.”
Whatever bad vibe Dani was feeling inside the city hall abated with each step she took back to Jack’s pickup. “You’re going back to L.A. today, right?” she asked, climbing into the passenger seat.
“As soon as I drop you off at the motel,” he said, closing the driver’s door, but not starting the engine.
“I think I’m going to miss you.”
Jack desperately tried to think of a soothing, polite lie, but could not. “Truth be told, I think I’m going to miss you, too.”
Her green eyes drew him toward her. He tried to fight it, but could not.
“Dani, I’m not going to lie to you,” Jack said, leaning closer to her face, her body. “I’m attracted as hell to you.” His breathing was getting heavier, deeper. “When you climbed into that Jacuzzi with me last night, what were you thinking? Be honest.”
Her lips parted. “My first thought was, ‘Maybe I should go over there and take that guy and drag him back to my room and give him the screwing of his life, because I now can. I’m free. And I want to see if I still have it.’”
Jack swallowed hard. It seemed like the temperature inside t
he pickup cab was rapidly rising.
“Then I saw the expression on your face. You looked so happy, and you said you were thinking about your little girl, and I realized you didn’t deserve to be led on, rolled, and dumped, just because I’m pissed at my ex. Okay, my soul’s bared. Now it’s your turn. Did you want to come to my room last night?”
“Hell, yes.”
“Why didn’t you?”
Jack sighed. “Maybe I’m all thought and no follow-through. Maybe that’s why my wife is more successful than I am.”
“Do you still love her?”
“Don’t ask hard questions.”
“How about me, Jack?” Slowly, deliberately, she started unbuttoning her blouse. “Do you love me?” She slid her blouse completely off. “Or is that a hard question, too?” With one smooth move, she pulled her bra up over her head, revealing flawless breasts.
Jack tore his shirt off so violently he lost a couple of buttons.
They were on each other like vampires. Alone, in the middle of the woods, unseen by anything human, they tore the rest of their clothes off and made wild, head-banging love in the driver’s seat of Jack’s pickup. Dani straddled him, her back pressed against the steering wheel, and Jack feeling the bounce of the truck with each and every thrust. After both had climaxed, they held each other, Jack still inside her, Dani’s sweat-covered breasts both warming and cooling his chest. Finally, Jack panted: “What do we do now?”
“More of the same, if you’re up to it.”
“I mean in the long run. I don’t want to leave you. But I have to.”
The Mural Page 4