by TJ Vargo
Staring back, Jackson could only shake his head. Felicia whispered to him as they reached the doors leading out into the hall.
"I'm okay Jackson. Sometimes," she dropped her gaze as Jackson turned to look at her. "Sometimes it feels good. But, for some reason, when I looked at you tonight, it felt,... it felt..."
"Wrong," Jackson said, finishing her statement. He grabbed her arm and pulled her into the hall. He didn't look back, even when Nathaniel's voice followed after him.
"Sometimes it feels good Jackson. And after that, it begins to always feel good - all day, all the time. As a son of mine you'll learn. Do what you want when you want as much as you want. You'll learn. Believe me, you'll learn and when you do, you'll like it."
Jackson pulled Felicia along by her arm, down the hall, into the foyer, ignoring her protests that he was hurting her. He dug his fingers into her elbow even harder to shut her up, yanking her up the stairs.
"Is the dinner party over so soon?"
Jackson glared up the stairs at Kirtland. The old man had his long fingers hooked in a bony grip around the balustrade at the top of the stairs. With his thin face and long hooked nose he was a vulture, peering down, feathers rattling, eyes filled with hunger.
"Yeah, it's over - for us," said Jackson, pulling Felicia along with him to the top of the stairs. He stopped as he reached the top hallway and walked over to face Kirtland. Leveling his gaze at the old doctor, he said, "You people are sick bastards."
Kirtland nodded, a thin smile spreading. As Jackson pushed past with Felicia in tow, Kirtland started down the stairs, talking as he went.
"I don't blame you. You just don't know. But you will. You will."
Striding down the hall and reaching out for his doorknob, Jackson turned and yanked, wanting only to shut out Kirtland's voice. He pushed Felicia into his room, following behind her quickly. Before he could slam the door shut, Kirtland's voice reached into his room one last time.
"Don't worry Felicia, this doesn't reflect poorly on you. We won't hold it against you. We'll save your place at the table."
Jackson couldn't stop pacing from one side of the room to the other, snorting like a bull and ripping his collar open. His bow tie flew across the room. He watched it land on a dresser. A greasy stain covered half the tie from his eating orgy. That only infuriated him more. "Disgusting!" he shouted, and began tearing more of his clothes off. First his coat, then his shirt. He strode around the room, his bare chest leading the way, hands in tight fists, veins snaking up his forearms.
"Jackson..."
He kicked at his coat, sending it flying across the room.
"Jackson..."
Whirling toward Felicia, who sat on the bed, he yelled, "What the hell is this place?"
"I don't know what you mean. It's..."
He rushed toward her, grabbing her by the shoulders and shaking her as he said, "It's a fucking insane asylum. What do you mean, you don't know what I mean?" He pointed toward the door, leaning down toward her, his face burning with anger. "You were down there. That was sickness. Disgusting. And I watched while he, he..."
A wave of nausea hit him full steam. His anger, together with the enormous amount of food he'd eaten stopped him in his tracks. It was all he could do to keep it down. He dropped his head, letting go of Felicia to put his hands on his knees. The nausea drifted through him, then passed, leaving him dizzy. Shaking, dropping onto the bed next to Felicia, he rolled on his back and closed his eyes, breathing deeply. The bed bounced slightly as Felicia got up. He couldn't even open his eyes to see what she was doing. His head was spinning, stomach beginning another rebellion. He heard a door open and then there was the sound of running water. The faucet squeaked, stopping the sound of water, her tread pounding back toward him. The bed tilted, her weight dropping next to him, He exhaled, feeling the caress of a wet rag on his forehead.
"Does that feel better?" she asked, wiping his forehead and smoothing her other hand over his cheek.
He could only nod. The dizziness gradually left him. He opened his eyes. She was looking down on him, worry lines etched in her forehead.
"Jackson..., I don't know how to tell you this but..." She bit her lip, searching for words. "Listen, I was like you when I first came. Everything seemed odd and strange, but you'll see, it gets easier. Then, it becomes a good thing. You do what you want when you want, no matter what it is."
He pushed her hand off his face and sat up. "I don't want it to get easier. I want to get you out of here."
"Jackson, you don't understand yet. You don't even know what you're saying." She dropped the rag on the floor and grabbed his chin, making him face her when he looked away. "And why do you want to get me out of here? You don't even know me. Maybe I like it here. Maybe I want you to like it here."
He let her hold his face in her hand. He let her stare at him, her brown eyes searching his face. Then he grabbed her hand and clenched it.
"If I see anyone do something like that to you again, mark my words, I'm picking you up and carrying you out of here... after I beat the living crap out of whoever touched you."
Looking at her, staring at her, he could see that she looked at him with new eyes. Eyes that smiled and questioned him at the same time, asking why he cared so much. He moved without thinking, kissing her lightly on the cheek. She pulled back and got to her feet.
"What's wrong?" he asked.
She lifted her hand to her cheek, still staring at him with that change in her eyes. "Jackson, what are you doing?" she whispered.
"What do you mean? You're my sister. I care about you," he said, getting up to stand in front of her.
"I didn't tell you to care about me," she stammered, her eyes bright and confused. She licked her lips and blinked rapidly, her mouth open as if she had something to say, but couldn't find the words.
"Look, up to a couple days ago I didn't even know I had a sister. But now I want her to know that she has a brother she can depend on. Hell, I'd rather leave, like our mother did, than let him touch you like that again." He stopped himself. Saying that, the thing about their mother, it closed Felicia down in a hurry. He had made a connection with her for a moment, but now it was gone. Her eyes sparked angrily.
"Why do you always have to bring her up?" she said, turning and walking out of the room, her high heels clicking angrily.
"Wait a second," he said, grabbing the door. She grabbed the door knob and looked at him, her brown eyes narrowing.
"I don't want to talk anymore," she said in a deliberate tone.
He tried one more time. "Why don't you want to talk about her? Tell me. I want to know."
She exhaled hard with exasperation. Jackson took his hand off the door. Turning his back to her, walking back into the room, he said, "Go on, go. I'm not going to stop you."
The door squeaked open from behind him as he pulled a chair out from a writing desk and began to sit down. He turned his head, watching her leave. She looked back in the room from the hall. Shaking her head, she said, "I'll talk to you about her Jackson. Just not now. It’s not time yet. But I promise, we'll talk about her later. I promise." She turned her back and disappeared down the hall.
He listened to her footsteps for a long time. The corridors through this castle must go on forever, he thought, hearing the unmistakable click of her heels echo on and on. They had grown faint, almost gone when he thought he heard the change. Not the click of high heels anymore. It was something else. A heavy tread. The one he heard last night from the thing that sniffed at his door.
Getting up, his hands clammy, he walked over to his door. The sound of the tread was buried deep in the castle, a distant sound he couldn't be sure of. Wiping his hands on his pants, he walked out the door into the hall, straining to hear. The hallway was cavernous in its emptiness, the sound gone. Hand tight on the doorknob, he stood in the silence and held completely still for what seemed forever before exhaling. I’m hearing things. That's all it is. He rolled his head from shoulder to shoulder, try
ing to relax, worried about himself and how his mind was playing tricks on him. Staring down the hall, he had an urge to run and find Felicia. Take action instead of stewing and letting his mind run down the alleys of nightmares. That's what he should do. Find her and get the whole story on their mother. Why did she get so uptight and distant about the subject? What on earth could possibly be so hard to talk about? "We'll talk about her later, I promise," that's what she said, wasn't it? Well later wasn't good enough. He wanted answers now.
Turning his head one way then the other, he couldn’t help himself. He held his breath and listened once more, hoping to hear the sound of that thing walking. Silence all around. Wiping his hands on his thighs he almost laughed. "Quit acting like a kid walking the woods at night," he whispered to himself. "Get a grip on yourself." He took a last look down the hallway and snorted. A good shower, get cleaned up, then find Felicia's room. A little breather to clear his head. Listening for footsteps of some kind of beast traipsing through the castle? Come on Jackson, get real. Turning to close his door, looking forward to a shower, a hand dropped on his shoulder. He jumped, his heart leaping into his throat.
"You're having deep thoughts, aren't you son?" said Nathaniel, patting Jackson on his shoulder and pushing him into his room before stepping in behind him.
Closing the door, Jackson was speechless. No one had been in the hall when he had stepped out there. Nathaniel had appeared from nowhere, and somehow, he'd been right next to him. Jackson rubbed a hand over his bare shoulder, feeling the cold spot where Nathaniel touched him. He looked at the door, then back to Nathaniel who had walked to the far side of the room and now gazed out a window. Jackson asked, "Where did you come from?" and pointed at the door. "I was in the hall and I know you weren't there. I couldn't have missed you."
"Oh, I was there. You must have heard me. I walked right up on you," said Nathaniel, looking out the window at the lights twinkling from the town of Clear Creek far below. He turned, still in his tuxedo, holding his hands behind his back. "Come over here Jackson. This is pretty as a picture."
Warily, Jackson joined Nathaniel at the window. He looked down. It was a scene from a Currier & Ives postcard. The small town of Clear Creek was spread out below him, a throwback to an earlier time. A small town from way back when horses pulled wagons down main street and oil lamps flickered at night while people tucked in their little ones. From this distance, high up in the castle of his father, it was hard to tell if the town had ever changed. Nathaniel seemed to be reading Jackson's thoughts as he said, "I remember when I first came here, horses still were in those streets down there. It was a great little town. The people would do anything for me." He turned to Jackson. "And they still will. They're great people. It's a great town."
Jackson nodded. "It looks great from here, that's for sure." His mind ran a sly whisper through him, "And those people look great from a distance too, but you got a closer look tonight, didn't you Jackson?"
Rocking on his feet slightly, breathing calmly through his nose, Nathaniel blinked and stared out the window. Jackson stared with him, waiting.
Nathaniel nodded at the scene of the town below. "Clear Creek. You look at it and you paint a picture of what you think it should be like, and then, when you see something that's not part of your picture, you think everyone shares your feeling that something is wrong." He nodded and smiled at Jackson. "And when it comes to family, say a sister, you're quite certain she feels the same way."
Jackson stared at Nathaniel. "She didn't like what you did tonight. Either did I."
"Yes she did. She likes to indulge herself. She understands that when you're in Rome, you do like the Romans do. You do it until you learn to appreciate it for what it is." Nathaniel walked around the room, picking up Jackson's clothes and tossed them at Jackson. "Speaking of Rome, let me give you a little history lesson," he said, checking his hands, crinkling his nose at the sight of food residue that had come from Jackson's clothes. He rubbed his hands together as he talked. "Rome was power. The leaders of Rome did exactly what you saw tonight. They understood where power comes from. You do what you want, whatever it is, to make yourself happy. Felicia understands that now. So will you."
Checking his hands again, satisfied that they were clean, he started for the door. "Leave her be. She'll be happier, you'll be happier, and most importantly, I'll be happier."
Standing, holding his clothes against his bare chest, Jackson seethed. "Is that why our mother left you? Because she knew you couldn't be happy unless you were hurting someone?"
Nathaniel stopped at the door. Jackson could see his shoulders tighten, wrinkling the back of his tailored black tuxedo jacket.
A moment passed, the wrinkle on the back of Nathaniel's tuxedo smoothed away, and then Nathaniel opened the door and took a step into the hall. He turned to face Jackson. "We'll talk about that later, when I don't have guests waiting for me. And we'll talk about those dreams you've had of your mother too." He stroked his beard, his eyes glittering. "But I want you to know that no one ever gets hurt in my house. Unless they want to. And then I make even that feel good. And it can too, if that's what you want."
Jackson watched the door close and listened as Nathaniel walked downstairs, heading back to the dining room. He walked back to the window, looking down on the picture perfect town of Clear Creek. His fingers slipped into his pocket, holding onto the belt buckle he put there, feeling the etched head of the ram on that metal. People could be good or bad. Sometimes they didn't even know what choice they made. But he knew. He held that buckle tight. He knew what happened when they made the wrong choice. And that was what those people down there had done tonight. Made the wrong choice. "But that doesn't mean they're like Sam Lewis," he thought. "That doesn't mean they're bad like him at all."
In the shower he thought about Felicia as he soaped himself, letting the water run hot enough to thicken the air with steam. The night was young. He lay his head back, letting the water scald his face clean. He'd talk to Felicia tonight. The hot water stripped his face clean, washing away all the grime and sweat. He closed his eyes. He'd get down to the bottom layer of clean tonight. Where there was nothing to hide or left unsaid. Scrubbing his face with a rag he began humming to himself, looking forward to finding Felicia, sitting down with her, and finding out what this family and this town was all about. That was all there was to it. It was time to get busy.
Chapter Twelve
So clean, so scrubbed, soaped, lathered, and hot-rinsed that his skin hurt, Jackson strode through the main hallway of the castle's second story. His long hair bounced, bringing the smell of soap around his face with each step. He had been walking a long time. Around bends, down dead end halls, backtracking and burrowing further into the castle, hoping to chance upon Felicia's room. Having walked so far he was finding more and more halls that were unlighted running away from the main hallway. He gave these a quick focused glance, looking for light from under a door or any other sign of occupation. This wing of the castle was uninhabited as far as he could tell. Gave him a touch of the willies, but all in all he felt good. Confident. Chest out, breathing deep, he wasn't scared of anything. It felt good to be clean. It felt good to have a purpose. And most of all it felt good to be in the kind of clothes he was used to.
He looked down at his pair of old jeans with holes in the knees and a t-shirt so thin it was hard to read the blue letters that spelled out "Freedonia University" across the chest. Not his clothes, but he didn't think the hired help would mind that he borrowed them. The cuffed pants he wore earlier, along with the stiff collared shirts, weren't his style. Luckily he'd chanced upon these just washed clothes stacked down a side hall. He'd taken off his clothes and left them in a fair exchange. If it wasn't fair, who cared? He was Jackson Thorne, the great Nathaniel Thorne's son, and it had to have some privileges, goddammit.
Turning another corner, down another hall, he looked at his watch. Getting on toward ten o'clock already. He tapped his index finger on the face of the
watch. Ten o'clock. He'd been traipsing up and down the corridors of this upper floor for nearly an hour and had yet to find Felicia's room. And the last quarter hour made him think he was on a wild goose chase. Lots of dust, little lighting, and no people. If he didn't know better he'd have sworn he was in a ruin, an abandoned wrecked shell of a castle instead of the well-maintained one he’d marveled at during the course of the past two days. Down a dark corridor he saw pinpricks of light. He stopped only long enough to figure out they were stars showing through a blasted section of wall. Damn, was this place crumbling before his eyes? He shook his head and moved on.
Another five or ten minutes and it would be time to call it quits. This floor was uninhabitable. He walked with purpose, craning his head left and right to examine each door he passed, searching for a light, a sound, a television or radio playing somewhere. Maybe Felicia had walked down a staircase he'd passed. Or up a staircase. This place was way too big to get a handle on. He picked up his pace, each step bringing up a puff of dust in this long unused corridor.
The hall curled to the right. A lone light fixture on the front end of the bend struggled to part the darkness. Jackson slowed, squinting as he went deeper around the turn, the hall growing darker as the lone light's feeble illumination faded. The dark walls sucked up the light. Walls of huge grey stone. Rough hewn and ancient. He held a hand out to his side, sliding his fingertips along the cold stone to keep him on track as he rounded the corner, the light dissipating to a faint luminance. Damn it was getting dark.
Finally reaching the end of the hall's turn, Jackson strained his eyes, trying to see down the hall. Thank God. There was a light flickering down there, throwing a shaky halo of light out toward him from what appeared to be the end of this main hall. End of the line is what it looked like. If she wasn't down there it was time to go back and get some sleep. He kept his gaze locked on the distant flicker and moved forward as complete darkness hemmed in from all sides. The stone wall felt rough, cold, even a little wet under his fingertips. He pushed forward, not liking the dark. Not liking it at all. The darkness pressed in on him. He took his eyes off the light and raised his hand in front of his face. Too dark to see it. His breath caught in his throat and he looked back to the flickering light, fastening his gaze on it. The dark (this couldn't be right, could it?)... it had kind of moved. Like a bubble lifting out of a pool of oil, pressing toward him. He licked dry lips. The darkness had moved? Yeah, right.