The Mural

by Michael Mallory

  Neither Howard nor Fergus were laughing now, which caused Louis Norman Igee to reclaim his smug demeanor. “That’s better,” he said. “I suggest we call a halt to this foolishness. The two of you came out here to see something, so why don’t I show it to you?” Igee walked over to the back wall of the building which was covered by a ceiling to floor drape, hung with hooks and wires. Yanking on one corner of the drape caused drape to fall to the ground, revealing his mural.

  The first thing that struck Howard was the work’s power. The figures on the crowded mural were so real they seemed almost to breathe. In fact, in the flickering light, he almost convinced himself he saw one move. His attention was then drawn to the bottom center of the mural, where there was the image of a covered truck. What struck him was that the truck looked like one he used to drive.

  “Sweet Jesus,” Howard muttered, looking closely enough now to see that the painted figure of the driver also looked familiar...it was him! The painted version of Howard wore a demonic expression, as though filled with diabolical glee. While one hand was kept on the steering wheel, the other was thumbing behind him, where several arms and a head were sticking out from under the canvas cover over the bed of the truck...no, not arms as such, bones. There were three skeletal arms and hands, and one rotted face peering out at him. “How? How?” Howard muttered.

  How in god’s name had Igee known about this? Howard’s own family, his parents, had no idea what had happened when he had taken that job to transport a payload of what he thought was produce from Mexico to California three years ago, only to find out that his main cargo was children packed in the crates, some of whom had died in the back of the truck before they reached their destination.

  Even though Howard had not been a willing accomplice in their deaths and had fled from that job as soon as he had learned what had happened—the Depression be damned—it continued to haunt him in his private moments, in large part because he had never done anything to report the incident to the authorities. How many more foreigners had died because he had stayed silent? It was the secret that he alone had carried like a millstone and now here it was, depicted in paint! Howard heard a gasp coming from his friend, who was now staring at the mural with a childlike look of terror. “What’s the damned thing showing you, Fergus?” he asked.

  “I didn’t mean to drown him,” Randall spoke in a hoarse, sick whisper. “I was only a kid myself.”

  Howard spun around toward Louis Norman Igee. “How are you doing this?”

  “I’m not doing anything,” Igee answered. “What my masterpiece is revealing to you has already been done, and by you, not I.”

  Fergus Randall was breathing heavily, and even in the waning green glow, Howard could see that his color was not a natural healthy one. “I get it now,” he panted. “We’re here for the wrong reason. We came here to get him, but what we really have to do is get rid of this monstrosity.” He gestured towards the mural. “This must be his magnum opus, the one work of art he really put his heart and soul into, particularly his soul. Even if Igee dies this thing and its evil keeps soldiering on, forever, unless we destroy it.”

  “You’re a raving fool,” Igee said smoothly.

  “Yeah, you may be right,” Fergus mumbled, staggering back. “I guess I hit the bottle a little too much tonight.”

  That surprised Howard, who knew that Fergus had not consumed anything that evening. But a second later he realized it was simply a distraction; Fergus suddenly transformed himself from a middle-aged man about to black out from drink to an Olympic athlete, diving through the air to grab the road flare off of the floor. Crying out as the sparks burnt his flesh, Fergus chucked it as hard as he could toward the mural.

  With an unnatural howl, Louis Norman Igee threw himself in front of the flare and took it full force. The flare bounced off of his chest and hit the floor, but not before a small spark from it lodged into Igee’s vest began to smolder. Within seconds, the spark developed into a flame. Seeming to ignore it, Igee leapt through the air toward Fergus, but Howard pulled his friend out of the way, watching as Igee, his shirt now aflame as well, spun around in the air and landed flatfooted, facing them both. The smell of charring flesh was beginning to permeate the inside of the building. The fire had reached Igee’s head, burning his bushy hair to nothing and blackening his scalp. Only the lower parts of his legs were not ablaze, and even now Igee seemed not to notice. He ran toward the two artists.

  “Step up to the mural, it’s the only safe place!” Fergus instructed Howard. “He can’t get too close to it or he’ll blister the paint.”

  As Fergus and Howard hugged the mural with their backs, Igee remained several helpless paces away, engulfed in fire.

  “Fergus, something’s touching me!” Howard shouted. “Something in this damned painting is moving!”

  “Ignore it!” Fergus shouted back. “Just don’t move. The bastard can’t last much longer, he’s got to die soon!”

  “We cannot die, you fools!” Igee cried, forming the words with difficulty since his lips had burnt away. “You can kill our host bodies, but you cannot kill us...we can always find others.” The sound that followed was a harsh, guttural laugh.

  It took another minute, but finally the burnt corpse that had once been known as Louis Norman Igee collapsed into a smoking, stinking heap on the floor of the building. At that instant, Fergus Randall pulled away from the painting and began leaping, twirling and dancing around like a marionette. “Jesus!” he shouted. “He’s trying to get inside me!”

  “Fergus!” Howard screamed. “Fight him! You have to fight him!”

  “I can’t...not strong enough...you have to...have to....”

  “Have to what, Fergus?”

  “Kill me!”

  “No, no, no!”

  “Only way. For god’s sake, do it!”

  Without even thinking, without even wanting to think, only cognizant of the living, writhing hell that his friend now appeared to be going through, Howard Kearney looked around for any kind of a weapon. The flashlight was too impotent to do the job and he did not carry a knife. Then he spotted a chunk of broken bottle lying on the floor, the handle still attached to it. With his own howl of anguish Howard dove out and grabbed it, managing to deeply cut the palm of his hand in the process, and then tackled Fergus, knocking him to the floor. With another howl, he brought the broken bottle as hard as he could down on the side of Fergus’s throat, where the carotid artery resided.

  Hot blood shot all over him as though from a geyser, and Fergus’s shaking and twitching stopped, but he did not complete cease moving. He heard a gurgling sound, and realized Fergus was trying to talk. “I...got...him...,” he said wetly. “Holding...on...tight.”

  Tears fell from Howard’s eyes. “Fergus.”

  “No...other...way.”

  “If I can get a doctor out here....”

  “Too...late.” With a show of Herculean strength the likes of which Howard could not even imagine, Fergus lifted his head up off the floor. “It’s...all right,” he whispered, grimacing. Then the shaggy, blood-drenched head of Fergus Randall fell back limply onto the stone floor.”

  “Nooooooo,” Howard wailed.

  Only a dim glow remained in the building now, the flare that had ignited the body of Louis Igee having nearly burnt itself out. Howard stood up and tried desperately to figure out what to do. He had just killed a man; not simply a man, but his mentor. No; his friend. What he should do is what he should have done after that driving job to Mexico: go straight to the police. But what would he tell them?

  And there was still the mural to take care of.

  Howard turned toward the mural, which was now cast in shadowy darkness. Retrieving his flashlight, he shined it on the surface. Even though he was not completely surprised, having all but expected it, he was still shocked by what he saw.

  In painted form, he was shoving a broken bottle through the neck of Fergus Randall. All the other characters in the painting, meanwhile, looked
on with approving smiles. Standing in the middle of the mural, looking happiest of all, was the figure of Louis Norman Igee.

  It waved to him.

  Howard Kearney slumped to the floor, unconscious.

  * * * * * * *

  At dawn’s first light, Howard awoke. He had spent the entire night in the city hall building, a few yards away from the pile of ashen bones that had been the earthly form of Louis Norman Igee and the body of his friend. Zealously avoiding looking at the mural (despite the sounds of movement that were coming from it) he left the building, squinting under the brightness of the morning sun, and relieved himself in the woods, using his own urine to wash the dried blood off his hands. He sought out large, dew-covered leaves and used them to clean his hands and face as best he could.

  Now Howard had to think about getting rid of the bodies. He had no tools with which to dig graves in the woods. He would have to go into town for supplies. Howard made his way back to the Packard. Getting in, he tried to start it up, but it was dead.

  “Oh, shit!” he cried, pounding on the steering wheel as he remembered that they had left the headlights on so they could see in the pitch black woods the night before. The battery had gone dead, rendering the car useless. He had no choice but to hitchhike back into town.

  After ditching his bloodiest pieces of clothing, he made it to the highway on foot and was ready to stand there for however long it took and exercise his thumb.

  As luck would have it, it did not take long.

  Luck?

  A Ford Woody Wagon pulled over right in front of him, and even before the driver could brake the car and leap out, Howard could see it was Talbot Barnes, the young Breen intern he had met several months ago. “Heya, Howard,” Barnes said.

  “Uh, hi, Talbot,” Howard answered. “Quite a coincidence running into you.”

  Barnes shook his head. “It’s no coincidence. Where do you need to go?”

  “Glenowen.” What did he mean it was no coincidence?

  “Hop in.”

  The two got into the Woody and Barnes pulled back onto the highway. For several miles, neither young man said anything. Then Barnes started. “Mr. Randall was in my bedroom last night,” he said quietly.

  “Oh?”

  “He said he was dead.”

  Howard cleared his throat. “Yes, Talbot, Fergus is dead.”

  “But he told me you’d be needing help. He asked me to come here and pick you up.”

  “Thank you for doing it.”

  “You must have been painting. You’ve got red on your clothes.”

  “Yes...painting.”

  A mile or so down the highway Barnes asked: “Am I going to get visited by Mr. Randall’s ghost every night?”

  “No, I don’t think so.”

  “Good, because it’s a little unnerving, you know?”

  “I can imagine.”

  Looking over at the young man, seeing how calmly and casually he spoke about things that were simply not natural or rational, Howard realized with great empathy that the guy must be in shock. Once his role in the drama was over, he probably snap out of it and would not remember any of this. At least Howard hoped he would not.

  When they had reached Glenowen, Howard asked Barnes to take him to the closest hardware or supply store. Finding one, Howard went in to buy a good sturdy shovel and a length of canvas. After the order was rung up, though, he realized he did not have enough money to pay for it.

  Barnes stepped in and asked: “Does the Breen Corporation have an account here?”

  The store clerk checked his records and said, “Yes, as a matter of fact it does.”

  “All this is for the corporation, so could you please charge it to that account?”

  “Yes sir,” the clerk said, writing down the order on an invoice. When he was finished, the two men took the shovel and canvas, and were almost out of the store when Howard had a sudden inspiration. “Oh, you know what? I forgot something,” he said, and turning to the clerk, asked: “Do you have any paint with a lead base?”

  “Yeah, but only in gray.”

  “That’s fine. I’ll take ten gallons, and some brushes. Oh, and how about a step ladder?”

  It took a while to load all of the stuff into the Woody, and before leaving the village, Howard made one more purchase: two fifths of whisky. Then they were on their way back to Wood City. Once there—or at least as far as they could drive in before being hindered by Fergus’s dead Packard—Barnes helped Howard drag all the stuff up to the City hall building. “Something burning?” Barnes asked calmly, sniffing the air.

  “There was a small fire last night,” Howard said, “nothing to worry about. Thanks for everything. I really appreciate it. Fergus does, too.”

  Barnes nodded. “I liked Mr. Randall, even if he was a Commie. I’m sorry he’s dead. Goodbye, Howard.” He shook Howard’s grimy hand with youthful formality and hiked back to his car and drove away. Definitely in shock, Howard thought. Lucky him.

  Digging the graves for Igee and Fergus was more work than he anticipated. It always looked so easy in horror films. Even a hunchback could do it. When the holes were finally dug, he loaded each body onto a length of canvas and dragged them out to it. He left Fergus in the canvas, but dumped Igee’s charred remains in naked. If the animals wanted to dig him up and pick at his bones, let them.

  Howard Kearney opened the first fifth and drained a quarter of it. It did not take long to have an affect. He poured some into his hands and washed them. Then he went into city hall and got to work on the mural. He had to force himself to not look closely at it as he painted, but when the peripheral movement of the characters and the whispers, which before long devolved into angry and profane shouts, threatened to become too much for him, he took another drink. A hand shot out of the painting and reached for him and Howard fell backwards. Lurching upright, he threw paint on the hand and it withdrew.

  It took coat after coat after coat before he could no longer see the leering, evil faces glaring back at him. He was so exhausted, drunk and half-sick by the first evening that he actually fell asleep on the ladder. He went back to work the next morning with a crashing hangover, but greeted the new day with another shot anyway.

  By the end of the second day, the damned thing was covered, which was good, because he was also out of paint. And whisky. Howard dragged the empty cans and wet brushes around to the back of the building and simply dumped them, then went back inside and folded up the ladder, leaving it leaning against the wall. Howard took one more look at the gray wall that had once been a skillfully rendered, if horrifically evil, mural, and nodded his head. Then he sat down and cried until he thought his lungs would come up through his throat. Afterwards he went back up the road, painfully hungry and thirsty, exhausted, morally and physically drained, and made his way to the highway. Somehow, he found the strength to hike back to Glenowen.

  ...and since then I have lain awake at night worrying about whether I might still be worthy of you, my darling.

  It is my intent, Pookie, that you shall not read this in my lifetime, that you will never know of that terrible time as long as you know me. It is also my intent that I will never again turn away from the opportunity to combat evil of any kind. I leave it to your judgment and God’s as to whether I deserve the fires of Hell, or whether I might have helped to save humanity from the same.

  Your loving,

  H

  P.S.: For what it is worth, Fergus in his dying moments believed that the malignant spirit of Louis Norman Igee had entered his body. Having done what I have done and seen what I have seen, however, I do not believe it remained there. I believe that when I killed Fergus, Igee’s spirit escaped. I pray that when Fergus took in his last breath, it was with a sense of relative peace.

  I believe I know where Igee’s hateful spirit ultimately went.

  It entered the mural.

  I believe it resides there still.

  Pray God the mural never becomes revealed again.

&n
bsp; Pray God.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

  TODAY

  Nobody spoke during the walk back to the cars from the beach. Nobody dared to. They had all, except for Robynn, read the journal.

  Back at the Tide Pool Inn, Dani and Althea checked out of their individual rooms and moved into one with two beds. Jack, of course, paid the balance. “I really wish I could help pay for this, Jack,” Dani said, as she carried her bag to the new room, “but I don’t know how I’m going to pay for much of anything now.”

  “Don’t worry about it,” he said.

  “Daddy, can Noni and I watch TV?” Robynn asked.

  “Punkin, we can’t wear Noni out,” Jack said.

  “Jack, I’m worn out already,” Althea told him. “Spending time with Robynn helps me forget...well, you know.”

  “Okay, punkin. You can go to Noni’s room. I guess Dani and I will stay in here.” That brought a slight smile to Althea’s face, which actually embarrassed Jack. Then his daughter and her surrogate grandmother disappeared into the new room Althea was meant to share with Dani, closing the door behind them.

  “She thinks we’re going to have sex,” Jack muttered, leading Dani into his room, which was several numbers down the hall.

  “Well...do you want to?” Dani asked, sitting on the edge of the bed.

  Jack sighed. Hell yes, he wanted to have sex with her! Who wouldn’t? But was that really the best use of their time, or was it a way—a remarkably exciting way—of avoiding figuring out a way to fight...what? What? An old painting?

  “I guess that means no,” Dani said.

  “No, it means yes, but would it be a good idea?”

  “What’s bothering you?”

  “It’s stupid, but...you remember when you sent me into your room to look at the message on the mirror? It didn’t say anything about white hair or your history with German Shepherds. Dani, forgive me, but do you have anything sexually transmittable?”