***
They sat on her bedroom floor in a small circle, the bottle of wine and an ashtray cradling the roaches and two pristine joints in the center. From the nightstand the candle flickered, bathing them in occasional illumination and painting their faces in alternating swaths of light and dark. It reminded Harry of a séance scene he’d once seen in a horror movie, teenagers sitting in darkness, summoning spirits and exploring darkened corridors better left undiscovered. Fear was still with him, his sense of it was familiar, but due to the pot and wine his inhibitions were gradually disappearing, and a warm glow enveloped him like a blanket. He assured himself again and again that no matter what lay behind the doors they intended to open this night, he was ready for it, ready to face whatever came through, regardless of its true nature, regardless of its intention.
It was time.
“I told the first truth even before we agreed to the game,” Madeline said. “I admitted that I love you both.”
Rip waved at the smoky air between them. “Yeah, yeah, we’re all in love with each other, fine, we got one big love-fest going.”
“You say it as if it weren’t true.”
“I just think if we’re gonna do this we need to do it, you know what I mean? Let’s cut through all the bullshit and get to what we all really want to say and ask and know.”
Madeline seemed amused. “Mmm, let’s.”
“Well,” Harry said, wondering if his speech was slurred, “I love you guys, too. I’ll admit that. You guys are my best friends.”
“We’re your only friends, ya fucking loser,” Rip laughed. “We’re the dregs, remember? Nobody likes us…except us. And shit, most days we don’t even like us!”
They both laughed but Madeline remained silent, watching them like a mother hen. “Even heretics have power. In some ways, more power than anyone.”
“Heretics,” Rip said through a giggle. “You’re always using that word.”
“It’s a good word.” She took the bottle of wine, drank from it then returned it to the center of the circle. “I have now ingested the truth serum. Ask away.”
Rip opened his mouth as if to say something, and Harry knew that from his expression it was going to be a joke, so he quickly said, “The creatures you always talk about—are they real—do they really exist?”
“Yes.”
“Can you prove it?”
“Should I have to?”
“No, but can you? Is it something you’re capable of proving?”
“Yes.”
Rip chuckled. “This ought to be good.”
“Tonight?”
“Yes, tonight.”
“Okay, go ahead.”
“The night’s not over yet, Harry.”
He felt a shiver crawl along the back of his neck.
“Okay, my turn to ask,” Rip said. “What’s the deal with all the Peruvian stuff all over the house? I know you lived there for a while and all, but how come all there is are those freaky sculptures of monsters and shit?”
“They’re gods…goddesses…spirits.”
“Good or evil?”
“Well, that depends on your perspective, doesn’t it?” Madeline smiled. “Good and Evil are subjective.”
“No,” Harry said. “No, some things are just bad.”
“Like what?”
“I don’t know, like…like murder, for instance.”
“What if the person who is murdered deserved it?”
“Or what if it’s self-defense?” Rip added.
“What if the person or persons committing these murders are doing it for a very specific purpose?” Madeline said. “What if by committing these murders they are setting themselves free and in a sense even setting free those they murder?”
“Free?” Rip took a toke from a fresh joint, coughed, and then took another. “Shit. None of us are ever free, not really. Not totally.”
“Only because we don’t allow ourselves to be,” Madeline told him.
“Fine.” Harry grabbed the wine, gulped some down. “I want to be free. Totally fucking free.”
Rip laughed, his face contorted and ghoulish looking in the candlelight.
“We can never be true heretics until we are,” Madeline told them. “Totally free of the rules and the bullshit and the lies everyone tries to place upon us, that everyone tries to force on us, tries to tell us we have to believe. Do you understand? Do you really?”
Harry struggled from a sitting position to his knees and blinked away a brief bout of dizziness. “I want to know what happens here,” he said, heart racing, pounding against the walls of his chest. “I want to know and you have to tell me because you drank the truth serum. I want to know what’s happening to you in this house, what’s happening that’s so awful you’ve had to look for answers in—in—beings—in ghosts or demons or angels or figments of your goddamn imagination or whatever the hell they—”
“Yes, my goddamn imagination,” she interrupted, spitting the word at him. “Maybe it is damned by God, Harry. Maybe it’s damned and I don’t care. Maybe it’s damned and I’m glad it is. Maybe the things you perceive as good are really evil and the things you perceive as evil are really good. Maybe it’s all in who tells the story. Maybe things just are what they are, people just are who they are and do what they do and nothing or nobody is damned because the entire concept of being damned is nothing but a lie, a warning told to us so we’ll follow the rules and be good little boys and girls no matter what happens to us in this horrible world we’re all taught to think is so fucking wonderful.”
Rip coughed out another puff of smoke. “Now that’s heavy.”
“Maybe it’s all a way of keeping us from seeing the real truth.”
“And what would that be, Madeline?”
“That the things I’ve told you about are real, that there is another world existing right alongside this one, where none of these things apply because none of them have any basis in reality there. That we can go there, we can join them if we bridge the gap between them and us, if we’d only not be so afraid of the confines of this world and just do as they say, follow their instructions and—”
“Sounds like rituals to me.”
“Rituals then.”
“And this is really what you want to do? You want to leave this world?”
“Yes.”
Even watching her through blurred eyes, he knew for the first time—without question—that she was serious. He snatched the wine bottle from the center of the circle and thrust it toward her. “Drink the serum.”
“Fuck the serum,” Rip mumbled.
Madeline took the bottle, raised it to her lips and drank. When she’d finished she handed it back.
“Why?” Harry asked.
Rip shook his head. “This question from the guy who was pissed at me a few minutes ago for pushing her too hard.”
“Shut the fuck up, Rip.”
“No, man, you shut the fuck up.” He butted the joint in the ashtray, tore the bottle from Harry’s hands and drank some. “Why the hell you think she wants to leave this world? She wants to escape. We all know what’s going on, what’s happening to her; it’s pretty obvious, isn’t it? You want her to spell it all out for you, for Christ’s sake?”
Without taking his eyes from her Harry said, “Yeah, that’s exactly what I want.”
Madeline rose to her feet, and in one fluid motion hitched up the sides of her nightgown and lifted it off over her head. Now wearing only a pair of white cotton panties, she dropped the bundled nightgown to the floor, her face expressionless.
Harry’s eyes dropped the length of her body. Her breasts were round and pale, the nipples small and erect.
She reached out to him with open arms.
“Come…”
He and Rip moved across the circle and took up position on either side of her. She wrapped an arm around each and drew them to her chest in unison, throwing her head back as a soft mewling sound escaped her.
“…all over me
.”
Harry closed his eyes. The warmth of her skin, the hardness of her nipple as it pushed between his lips, the beating of her heart as it thumped against his ear—all that it was—all that was her—all that was them engulfed him, sent a trembling shiver through his body as they wrapped themselves around one another, Madeline with her fingers in their hair, he and Rip suckling quietly, their mouths and hands and legs moving like the appendages of a single writhing entity, oblivious to whatever world they had wandered into, and whatever it was that awaited them there.
11
Muriel escorted Harry from Rip’s room and back down to the lobby of the St. Pierre House. Just inside the front door, Lisa Lancaster was waiting for them. She dismissed the receptionist with a quick nod, then pasted on a smile and said, “You take care now, Harry. Don’t come back real soon.”
He glanced through the front windows at the police cruiser across the street. “Not to worry, Lisa, you won’t be seeing me again.”
She opened the door, held it for him. “Bye-bye.”
A bead of sweat near her hairline caught his attention. As he focused on it he saw her reflected in his mind’s eye, her head thrown back, mouth open, his hands cupping her breasts. Love me, Harry. Nude, she sat atop him, meeting his pelvic lunges with grinding thrusts of her own. Help me. Will you help me, Harry? Will you? Will you help me? Her eyes alive and wild and no longer hers but Madeline’s, no longer–
“I said, goodbye.”
His head cleared and Madeline retreated, leaving Lisa Lancaster’s obnoxious grin in her wake. As he stepped out onto the porch and directly into another wall of heat, he heard the door slam behind him. He lit a cigarette and watched the cruiser across the street without attempting subtlety, and after a couple drags moved along the walkway, through the gate and casually climbed into his car. Although he couldn’t make out their faces, he knew there were two people in the car, one in uniform, one not.
He started the car, gave the St. Pierre House one last look then pulled out and headed for the other side of town. Within seconds, the cruiser was in his rearview, tailing him a few car-lengths back. By the time he had reached the more desolate coastal road it was right behind him. The uniformed cop was driving. Next to him was an older man wearing mirrored sunglasses Harry recognized as Ben Dunham, Chief of Police.
As they hit a straightaway blue lights kicked on and the driver gave a quick blast of the siren.
Harry pulled over to the side of the road, onto a narrow patch of dirt between the pavement and an iron guardrail, and coasted to an eventual stop.
The driver’s side door to the cruiser opened and the uniformed officer stepped out.
He sauntered over with a self-important strut, taking his time, one hand resting casually on the butt of his holstered weapon. While still a few feet from the open window, he said, “Gonna need you to step out of the car, guy.”
Harry did. The policeman was thin but considerably taller than he was, and upon closer inspection appeared quite young. He’d probably been no more than a junior high school kid the last time Harry had been in town. He looked past the officer to the cruiser, saw Dunham sitting there, watching.
“Hey,” the officer said, pointing to himself. “I’m right over here.”
Harry leaned back against his car, folded his arms and turned his attention back to the patrolman. “I see you. What do you want?”
He offered an exaggerated smile. “What do I want?”
“You pulled me over, you must want something.”
The cop held his hand out, palm up. “Let’s see some I.D.”
“Come on, what is this bullshit? You know who I am.” He motioned to the cruiser. “He knows who I am. The only reason you stopped me is because you know who I am. If you want something, let’s get to it. If not, I’d like to get back in my car and be on my way. It’s too hot out here for dramatics.”
“Uh-huh, I see.” The cop pulled his baton free from his belt and held it down against his leg. “So…you’re headed out of town, right?”
“No, actually—”
The policeman stepped forward and thrust the end of the nightstick into Harry’s gut. As the air in his lungs left him in a single rush, he doubled over and gagged, the pain firing across his stomach, into his lower back and up through his chest.
“I’m gonna assume you didn’t hear the question,” the cop said. “So let me repeat it for you. Listen careful now, here it comes. Ready? You’re headed out of town, right?”
Clutching his stomach, Harry managed to straighten up but was still having trouble breathing, as the pain had not fully dissipated. “Eventually, yes.”
He stabbed the baton at him again, this time aiming higher and connecting with the side of his face. The blow snapped Harry’s head back and he felt his knees give out as he fell against the car and slid to the ground. He landed on the seat of his pants and looked up, the policeman standing above him distorted in the sunshine as the taste of blood trickled from somewhere inside his mouth.
“Oops-see-daisy.” The officer slid his nightstick back into his belt, grabbed Harry under the arm and pulled him to his feet. “Let’s try it one more time, see if you can get the hang of it. You’re headed out of town, right?”
Harry turned his head to the side; spat a ball of saliva and blood into the dirt. The whole side of his head had begun to ache, and his cheek was quickly going numb. He looked back at the cruiser, at Dunham. Harry nodded slowly. “Yeah, I am, I’m headed out of town.”
“There you go. We have a winner.” The cop smiled. “Now, before you go, Chief Dunham would like to have a word. That okay with you, guy?”
“Sure,” Harry said, head bowed. “No problem.”
The officer turned and strode back to the cruiser. As he slid back in, Chief Dunham stepped from the passenger side of the car. Dressed in civilian clothes, he tucked a renegade shirttail into his pants, straightened his belt over his considerable gut, and after removing his sunglasses and wiping some sweat from his forehead with the back of his hand, joined Harry next to his car. Dunham looked considerably older, his silver hair thinner than years before and combed straight back. His face had become a sagging roadmap of cracks and crevices, his skin leathery and bronzed from hours spent in the sun, and his once piercing eyes were now saddled with heavy bags and the slouch of age. He stared at Harry with a casual air, like they were old friends who had just run into each other on the side of the road and decided to stop and chat for a bit. “Harry Paletto,” he said, his voice hoarse from years of cigar smoke and whiskey. “How the hell are ya?”
“Fine, thanks.” Harry rubbed his slowly swelling cheek. “And yourself?”
He released a lengthy sigh and looked out over the guardrail at the ocean below and beyond. “You know, I’ve been on the job here in Virtue in one capacity or another for near fifty years now. Imagine that? Started as a patrolman at twenty, made chief at thirty. Now, here I am just weeks from retirement.”
“You don’t say.”
“Yup. In October, the Mrs. and me are headed to Florida.” He folded his arms, smiled. “Got us a condo down there. Sure am gonna miss this little town, been here my whole life. Family’s been here for generations, old Yankee stock, my family. But me and the Mrs. just can’t take the winters up here anymore. I got this arthritis in my back and hips something fierce, Harry, a real bitch. So, we’re heading down there where it’s sunny and warm all the goddamn time instead of three months outta the year. I’m gonna do some fishing, relax, drink some beers, scratch my balls, all that good shit. But between then and now, I got one more summer here in Virtue, and there’s only a little over a month of it left. One more tourist season, one more summer of sun on old Cape Cod, and here I am telling myself I can see the light at the end of the tunnel, and that it’s gonna be smooth sailing straight through September, and off I go.” He leaned his head closer to Harry, as if someone else might hear what he was about to say. “Then next thing I know I’m getting a call from Lisa Lancas
ter telling me you’re back in town at the St. Pierre House insisting on seeing Ethan Ripley. Well, let me tell you, Harry, I said to myself, ‘Ben, old boy, this is about the last goddamn thing in the world you need right now.’ Then I got to wondering just what in the hell would bring you back to Virtue after all this time. When your parents died and you came back for a few hours or so each time to pay your respects, well, that was expected, but there doesn’t seem to be any reason I could think of as to why you’d be here this time.” He slid his sunglasses back on, the mirrored lenses reflecting sunshine. “You know, until I turn in my badge and start collecting my pension, this is still my town. So you want to help me out, maybe toss an old cop a bone and fill me in? What are you doing in my town, boy?”
Harry reached inside his mouth, checked to see if anything was loose. The gums were still bleeding slightly but his molars were intact. “Look, I already told your sidekick there from the local Hitler Youth that I was headed out of town.”
“I asked a question, didn’t I?” Sweat glistened along his temples. “Just now, I asked you a question, could’ve sworn I did.”
“I came to visit Rip.”
“Goddamn it, that is so sweet. Always wondered if you two were a coupla fruits.”
A family in a minivan came around the bend in the road, slowed when it saw the police car, but continued on past them. Dunham offered a warm smile and gave an informal wave.
“See that? Family from,” he pulled his sunglasses down and squinted at the license plate as the van followed the straightaway before disappearing along the curve in the road, “New Jersey. You grew up here, Harry; you know how it is. This is a tourist town, a place where out-of-towners like that can come and stay at our bed-and-breakfasts, frolic on our beaches, eat overpriced lobster and buy salt water taffy and t-shirts and sandals and wicker baskets and all the other shit we’re peddling. Nice, safe quiet little Cape Cod tourist town, that’s all Virtue is, and that’s all it’s supposed to be. Now I don’t like fucking tourists anymore than the next townie, but they pay our bills, Harry, they keep us afloat during those long winters out here. And the people who live here pay me to make sure it stays nice and peaceful around town, because when it does, that means money for this town. We start having problems and who the hell’s gonna want to come vacation here? You think some family from New York City’s gonna come here if we got crime and crazy shit going on? Hell, they can get that at home. They want white sand, blue water, fish dinners and most important of all—peace and fucking quiet, Harry. That’s what people want.” He walked closer to the guardrail, hands on his hips. “So when your buddy Ethan Ripley decided to come back to town a year or so ago and pull that little stunt of his up on the cliffs, let me tell you, the town folk weren’t too happy. Took a long time to forget about all that shit from before the first time around. People want that behind us, left in the past like it ought to be. But then Ripley comes back to Virtue and all of a sudden it’s just like all those years before. All of a sudden we had every goddamn TV station and newspaper from Boston to Providence down here, reporters all over the place bothering people, turning this nice, quiet little vacation spot into a fucking house of horrors where a deranged sonofabitch staggers around up on the cliffs with blood pouring from his face from putting his own fucking eyes out with a stick.” By the time he’d completed the thought, he was screaming. He cleared his throat, shook his head, and when he continued speaking, his tone had returned to normal. “I thought I was done with you two. Thought you two were gone and gone for good. But first Ripley comes back, and now you. Well, let me tell you something, Harry, I don’t know what you got planned but—”
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