The Mural

  “Hi, punkin!” a familiar voice said.

  “Noni!” Robynn cried. “Noni, I miss you!”

  “I miss you too, dear.”

  “Noni, something real bad happened to Uncle Tim.”

  There was a long sigh at the other end of the phone. “I know, Robynn, and I’m heartsick over it, because in a way it was my...well, never mind. Now we have to work to make sure that your daddy finishes the job he has to do, okay?”

  “Okay.”

  “Your daddy is going to need your help, and it’s not going to be easy, but I know you’re a big strong girl. Do you see those big bottles hidden in the bushes?”

  “Uh huh.”

  “You need to carry them back to the big white building past all the houses, the one that’s made out of stone. You need to find a place to put them where they can’t be seen, okay? You might have to make three trips, one for each bottle. It’s really important that you do this. Okay?”

  “’Kay.”

  “Can you pick them up?”

  “Let me see,” Robynn said, laying down the phone and reaching for a glass jug. It was awfully heavy, but she managed with both hands. Setting it back down, he picked the phone up again and told Noni, “It’s really heavy, but I think I can do it.”

  “I know you can, punkin,” Noni said. “So you hang up now and take those up to the building, and be very, very careful, all right?”

  “All right.”

  “You still have my locket, right?”

  “Uh huh.” Robynn fingered it as she spoke.

  “Good. Goodbye, punkin.”

  “Bye-bye, Noni.” She tossed the phone to the ground and held the locket once again.

  It seemed like it took forever for Robynn to get the first heavy jug of stuff all the way up to the white building since she had to stop and put it down and rest every so many yards, but she made it, setting it down at the front of the steps, just like Noni had told her to do. Then she went back. By the time she had gotten back to the hiding place, she was tired and sweaty, but most of all thirsty. She should have gotten a drink while she was in the bathroom of that strange house, but she hadn’t been as thirsty then. As she pulled out the second jug she looked at it closely. It looked just like water, and it had a screw-top cap on, like the kind on the orange juice bottles, which she was able to open on her own.

  And she was so thirsty.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

  Dani Lindstrom stared at the painted wall, speechless.

  “Motherfuck,” Rob Creeley muttered as he surveyed the mural, which was now completely uncovered, its vibrant wet colors—mostly reds, browns and greens—glistening in the dim light.

  Jack Hayden saw that the painting was different than the last time he had seen it. In one corner was a scene of an angry mob armed with pitchforks, torches, and a tar barrel, storming the front of a building labeled Photography. Jack had a good idea whose shop it was, and also had a pretty good idea that the image was placed there as a warning to Jack, that this was just a taste of what happened to people who crossed Legion.

  Lower down, the abattoir scene was gone, though the image of Marcus Broarty remained. He was no longer butchering Egon McMenamin, as Jack had seen earlier; now he was with Robynn. The two figures were in a depicted in a grassy, weedy area, and both were naked. Broarty was wearing an expression of demented joy as he sodomized the girl. Robynn’s face was shown in anguish, her mouth stretched so wide in terror that blood was coming from her scar.

  Jack turned his head away and swore.

  “Fun stuff, hey kids?” Elley said with a smirk.

  “How can you—?” Jack couldn’t finish.

  “She can because she knows it’s not true,” Dani said. “She knows the mural is lying.”

  “Think so, Hedwig?” Elley said. “How about that, then?” She pointed to a particular corner of the painting which showed Dani and Randy Mount. Dani looked at her painted self taking Mount’s penis inside her.

  “That never happened,” Dani said.

  “Oh?” Elley said. “You know that for a fact?”

  Dani had been unconscious when Mount undressed her and climbed on top of her. For all she knew, he might have stuck his miserable thing inside her. In fact, the thought that he might have done more than simply ejaculate on her stomach had quietly haunted her, even though there was no proof one way or the other. It was the uncertainty that tormented her. Then, miraculously, the uncertainty disappeared, and she knew. She knew.

  She snapped her head sideways to face Elley, brushing a wisp of her white hair over her ear. She wore a triumphant expression. “I was wrong,” she said. “The mural isn’t simply lying to us, it’s visualizing our fears. I don’t know exactly what that bastard did to me, so the mural is presenting me with my worst case scenario, hoping I’ll succumb to the fear that that is what happened. And it’s the same for you, Jack, you were afraid your boss had done something to Robynn, so the picture is showing you the most horrible possibility. But it didn’t really happen.”

  Slowly, reluctantly, Jack turned back to face the mural. The image was still there, in all its grotesque horror, but the colors now seemed a bit muted.

  “What about you, Cree?” Dani asked. “I don’t see your picture in the mural at all.”

  “You’re right, I’m not there,” Creeley answered, “but my wife is. That’s her there.” He pointed to the painted image of a dark-haired woman going down on the priest. “I recognize the priest, too: Father Mendes. Maria has been seeing a lot of him lately. She visits him often.”

  “Have you been concerned that something was going on between them?” Dani asked.

  “Not concerned, exactly.”

  “Just a lingering fear that attacks you late at night and won’t let you sleep, like some kind of virus, and there’s nothing you can do about it short of coming out and asking your wife if she’s cheating on you,” Jack said.

  “She wouldn’t cheat on me!” Creeley said with some heat.

  “I know that, Cree. I also know this damned painting is playing us like violins. That journal we read from Althea’s old boyfriend talked about how the mural revealed deep dark secrets, the kind that you’d almost kill to keep hidden. That was their greatest fears, Howard and his friend, that those secrets would be revealed. My guess is that none of us have anything in our backgrounds quite that bad, so the damned thing is preying upon our fears of the things we don’t know.”

  Elley began clapping her hands slowly, sarcastically. “Isn’t Jack a clever boy? Don’t get the idea that you’re winning, any of you, because you haven’t seen anything yet.”

  “The only thing I want to see is my daughter,” Jack said. “You said she was in here.”

  “I said nothing of the sort,” Elley replied. “Your friend Sheriff Lobo said she was in here. All I said is there was something in here you should see.”

  “Where is she, goddammit?” Jack roared.

  “You’ll just have to find her, won’t you, lover?”

  All at once Jack was so sick of her voice that he wanted to choke her. But that’s what it wants, he thought a moment later; that’s how it works. The evil, the mural, Legion, whatever form it takes, did not actually harm people itself. It got people to harm each other, or themselves. If he lost it and choked her, the painted depiction of it would appear immediately in the mural. Don’t give in to it.

  “Besides, Jack, I don’t know why you’re so worried about Robynn now,” Elley said, her voicing digging into him like a homemade shiv, “you’re the one who let her go off with a stranger. Who knows what he might have done to, or with her? A single man in his mid-thirties...hmmm. If you really cared for Robynn you would have called my mother to come and get her.”

  “Your mother?” Jack cried. “Please! When has the great and social Lois Eunie Gorman ever shown that she cared about anything, except...oh, my god...your mother’s maiden name was Morgan, wasn’t it? Jesus, it works both ways.”

  “Ladies and gentlemen, Jack�
�s mind has left the building,” Elley taunted.

  “You don’t even know, do you?” Jack went on. “You’re stuck in the middle of this, about as deep as it’s possible to get, and you don’t even know why. You have no idea the true nature of your mother. My god, that’s why Igee has such a grip on you! That’s why he’s been able to turn you into such a monster. You were born into Legion and you don’t even know it!”

  “What are you babbling about?”

  “Your mother’s name! I don’t even need to work it out on paper to know that Lois Eunie Morgan is an anagram of Our Name is Legion! She’s one of them. She’s always been one of them.”

  “Oh, go fuck yourself,” Elley spat, but with considerably less assurance than she had exhibited minutes earlier.

  “Look, dammit,” Creeley broke in, “we came in here because you led us to believe the girl was here, but she isn’t, which means she’s somewhere out there, so I’m going to go look for her. But first, I’m going to have to deal with you. Put your hands behind your back, ma’am.” He slipped his handcuffs off of his belt.

  “Whatever you say, officer,” Elley said meekly, slowing putting her hands behind her. Then in a lightning move, she whipped her hand right back around, now holding the .38 that had been tucked in the back of her pants and covered by her shirt, and rapidly fired three shots at Creeley before he could even move.

  With a scream of pain and shock, the policeman went down on the hard, cold marble floor.

  “What kind of a moron cop doesn’t even pat down the suspect?” Elley sneered. “You bozos are making this entirely too easy.”

  * * * * * * *

  The loud bangs that came from the inside of the white building scared Robynn so much that she nearly dropped the second jug of liquid on the stone steps. But at the last minute she managed to catch it, standing still, breathing hard, and listening to the liquid inside slosh back and forth. She knew that if she had dropped and broken it, it would have been bad.

  She knew that because back at the hiding spot, when she realized how thirsty she was, she had started to unscrew the cap to this jug. Just as it was loosening, she heard a man’s voice command, No! She whirled around to see who was behind her, but there was nobody there. She looked around in the woods, but didn’t see anyone. Then looking down at the jug, which had fallen over on the ground, but had not come uncapped, she watched the liquid swirl around until it appeared to form a shape. It was an image she had seen before, and one that always scared her: a skull with crossed bones underneath. She only saw it for a moment before it disappeared, but she knew what it meant, since several of the bottles that Hortensia used to clean their house had that same picture. The stuff inside the jug was poison.

  If she had dropped and broken the glass bottle when she heard the bang sound, then the poison would have gotten out and she might have gotten some on her. Carefully, she set the jug down next to the first one, which she had hidden behind a stone railing where it couldn’t be seen, just like Noni had asked. Then she sat down on the steps. Robynn was tired. This was a really silly thing to be doing, but Noni wanted her to do it. But she was still really thirsty. She thought she remembered which house she had been tied up in, and headed for it so she could get a drink out of the sink before going back for the third bottle.

  Walking to the front of the little house, she went up to the door and pushed it open. This was the place, all right. The ropes were still in the middle of the room, and so was that handkerchief that had covered her mouth. Robynn walked past them all on her way to the tiny bathroom, and once there, she turned on the cold water started cupping handfuls of it into her mouth, slurping it up until she was no longer thirsty. There was no towel anywhere to wipe her wet hands on, so she just wiped them on her pants. But there was, a small mirror above the sink, which Robynn wasn’t tall enough to see into. That was frustrating because Robynn liked looking at herself. She had that thing on her lip that other kids, even other grownups, didn’t have. She thought it must be something special, since no one else had it. She tried standing on her tiptoes, but all she could as she looked up into the mirror was the very top of her head.

  Maybe if she stepped back.

  Robynn took a step back, keeping her eyes on the mirror, and slowly, step by step, her reflection came into view. She had backed herself all the way up against the wall. The room was dark, so she didn’t have a good look at herself, but it was enough. She smiled, showing off her front teeth, and waved at herself. Having satisfied both her thirst and her desire to see herself, Robynn was about to take off and get the third jug when noise coming from outside the bathroom made her freeze in place.

  She looked in the mirror again, and this time saw a figure coming right up beside her. It was a man.

  * * * * * * *

  Jack had not even thought for a second before he launched himself at Elley and football-tackled her to the floor. Had he, he probably would not have tried it. Jack Hayden may be a lot of things, but he never really considered hero to be on the list. Then again, physically assaulting a woman carrying several less inches and thirty fewer pounds probably would not qualify it for a future list. Elley’s right elbow had made a sickening thud as she hit the floor and her gun flew out of her hand, skittered across the polished surface and ended somewhere against a wall. Jack had rolled her roughly onto her stomach and sat on her back while he twisted her arms behind her. Had her elbow been broken, she would have screamed much more loudly than she did. She bucked like a bronco as he held her arms tight and screamed to Dani, “Get the handcuffs!” Dani rushed to the fallen policeman and retrieved the cuffs, and while Jack continued to hold tight the wrists of his screaming wife, Dani fastened on the cuffs.

  “I’ll fucking kill you!” Elley was screaming, as Jack got off of her.

  “Like you did Cree?” he spat back.

  “I don’t kill that easy, Jack,” the policeman said in a weak voice.

  “Thank god!” Dani cried as she ran toward him to examine his wounds. Either Elley had not intended to kill him or she didn’t know what she was doing with the gun, because only two of the bullets seemed to connect at all; one had torn past his shoulder, ripping his shirt and drawing blood, but only as a flesh wound, while the other had lodged in his abdomen. “Jack, he’s still hurt pretty badly,” she said. “We have to get him out of here.”

  “Let’s just do what we came here to do and then find the girl and get the hell out,” the policeman said, his voice tinged with pain.

  Jack, meanwhile, had removed his belt and used it to strap Elley’s feet together, so she could not rise. Then he managed to get enough of a handful of her hair to yank her head back uncomfortably. “I’ll give you one more chance to tell me where my daughter is,” he said.

  “Fuck...you!” she panted.

  “Jack, for the first time we’ve got the advantage,” Creeley called out in a pain-soaked voice. “Get the damned jugs and take care of the mural. If it’s destroyed, maybe she’ll turn back normal, and then you can ask her where the girl is.”

  Jack took a moment to let that sink in. “Right, okay.” He let Elley’s head go. She groaned as it snapped downward, her forehead nearly hitting the floor, and whispered, “Cocksucker.” Jack stood up and told Dani to get one of the guns, either Elley’s or Creeley’s. “Then you come here and keep her covered. If she looks like she’s going to get loose enough to get up, shoot her in the knee. I’ll go get the acid and come back.”

  “Acid?” Elley screamed.

  “That’s right, lover,” Jack spat. “Not gasoline, acid. We’re not going to try and ignite that monstrosity. We’re going to sizzle it right off the wall!”

  Elley started ranting madly, spitting threats and thrashing on the floor, and Jack ignored her as he moved to the heavy metal doors of the building. Pulling them open, he started out, but then stopped dead. Carl Dorgan was standing there, just outside, a shotgun in his hands, its barrels pointed straight at Jack’s chest, a look of stone cold hatred on his face.
>
  “Carl, it’s okay, we’ve subdued her, you can put the gun down,” Jack said, but Dorgan refused to lower the gun. He forced Jack to walk back into the building. “Carl, what the hell’s wrong with you?”

  “Deputy,” Creeley called weakly as soon as he saw him, “drop the weapon now.”

  “I have a gun, too,” Dani called out. “Drop the rifle or I’ll fire.”

  “Lady, before you even had the chance to aim I could blow this bastard’s heart clear out of his chest with one barrel, and yours with the other one,” Dorgan replied. “You don’t think I can, then try me.”

  “He’s right,” Creeley said. “Don’t test him. Carl, what’s wrong with you?”

  “He’s under the same sort of control that’s affected all of us and made us do things we normally wouldn’t,” Jack said. “What is it, Carl? What did they show you to make you do this? Whatever it is, it’s a lie.”

  “I know what I saw on that videotape,” Dorgan said, “the whole sick, filthy thing!”

  “We don’t know what you’re talking about!” Dani cried.

  Dorgan swung the gun around to face her and barked: “Don’t get smart with me, lady!”

  “Jack, grab the gun!” she cried, but Jack was not quick enough. For such a large man, Dorgan was fast. He whipped the barrels around so rapidly that he caught Jack in the side and knocked him to the floor.

  Dani screamed.

  “Carl, you have to listen to me,” Jack panted painfully.

  “The hell I do!” the policeman roared. “You stated your case on that videotape, you rat bastard! You sent me the goddamn camera you shot it with! Don’t think I didn’t examine it either. It had a tag with your name on it, Hayden!”

  “Oh, Christ, my camcorder,” Jack said. “Someone stole it from my truck. Carl, you have to believe me.”