Please, if there is anyone to help me, please…
Jimmy cleared his mind, hoping for some revelation.
He heard something then. Something sad and yet wonderful.
George swearing.
He picked his way past a collection of cypress stumps, all ragged and looking like ancient fairy castles in the beam of his flashlight.
There was George, his pant leg snarled in a bramble.
“Goddammit,” he said.
“George,” Jimmy said, hoping not to startle him, but George jumped.
Jimmy came closer. “It’s me, it’s Jimmy.”
George squinted at the light. “Jimmy?”
Jimmy felt close to sobbing. “It’s me, old man.”
“Old? I’m not the one who sent love letters to Cleopatra,” said George, trying valiantly to put on a brave face, but Jimmy could tell he had been scared to death.
Jimmy helped George free himself. His clothes were torn and muddy and his hat was gone.
“You lost your hat,” Jimmy offered.
“Thank you, Mr. Holmes, did you bring Dr. Watson with you?”
“No, but I brought you some food and water…and a flashlight.”
George’s look of gratitude was so pitiful that Jimmy was sure he himself was going to start crying and embarrass George even more. Instead, he made a business of finding the sandwiches in his bag.
George wolfed down both of the diner sandwiches and an apple. Jimmy ate half of one of the packaged sandwiches. It tasted like something you’d get in a vending machine, something that had expired several days ago, but he was pretty hungry.
“George, I have to tell you, I am not cut out for bayou living.”
“Who is? I think the only ones happy here are the alligators and the poisonous snakes, and even they act pissed off all the time.”
“Can I ask why you came out here all alone?”
“This is my family, my problem.”
“Uh-huh. And if it was Molly who was lost?”
George didn’t answer.
“So why come here and not the campground?”
“He told me to start at the beginning, whoever he is.”
“And your house used to be where the strip center is, didn’t it?”
“Yeah.”
“Hey, did you see a…”
“Ghost dog? Yeah, he tried to stop me. That was the dog I had as a kid—Patch.”
Jimmy nodded. “So…”
“I followed a ball of light, but it disappeared when the sun came up.”
“And it hasn’t come back?”
“Nope. For a second I thought your flashlight was it. Thanks for the heart attack, by the way.”
“I could have told you the wilderness was no place for a city boy like you.”
“You don’t know the meaning of wild until you’ve been to New York, Injun Joe.”
“I suppose that’s true. How were you searching for Donny?”
George sighed. “I tried some of those mind things you taught me.”
“Anything?”
“No,” George admitted. “When he called me, it almost blew me out of my seat. Now I try to contact him and I get nothing. You don’t suppose that means…”
“No,” replied Jimmy quickly, “neither of you is trained in these matters. He’s a little boy in a very frightening situation. Children can be very powerful transmitters and receivers, but he might not have the discipline to answer you when he wants to.”
“So, how do we find him?”
“Let me try to guide you in a meditative state. It’s possible you will receive a sense of where he is, or you might even travel there astrally.”
“You probably can’t see my face, but I have an ‘Are you shitting me?’ expression right now.”
“Just try,” Jimmy said.
George sighed, then gasped in alarm.
“George?” Jimmy said.
George pointed beyond him. Jimmy turned. Traveling over a small lagoon was a sphere of light, going from yellow to green and back again. It was beautiful, compelling, but Jimmy got a sick feeling when he saw it.
“You see it, don’t you?” George whispered.
“Yes,” said Jimmy, “I see it.”
Naas shagee Yéil, Uncle Will, if you are going to help, please come now. I think we are in serious trouble here.
The ball of light reached the shore and hovered about four feet from the ground. A man seemed to step out of the darkness, as if the night were a curtain he could hide behind. He was holding his right palm under the sphere, which rotated hypnotically.
“Good evening, my friends. I am Professor Foxfire.” He grinned at George, his Cab Calloway face just like…just like…
When I was little, George remembered, and he remembered it all: his Pappaw’s funeral; Pappaw coming to see him, gray and cold and terrible; worse still, Professor Foxfire, who had tried to steal him away.
But Foxfire…that’s not his real name, is it? It’s…it’s…
He remembered the words of Faustine Delacroix, the Conjure Woman of Vermilion House.
Deadlight Jack, the Salamander Man.
George drew back, whining deep in his throat as the awful memories locked away for so long spilled out of his unconscious and washed over him like a wave that threatened to drown him in fear and sheer horror.
“Ah, you remember me, Georgie-Porgie, I am so glad!” Deadlight Jack clapped his hands, the ball of light still hovering before him.
Deadlight Jack looked at Jimmy. “Yak’éi yagiyee, Jimmy Kalmaku.”
Jimmy looked at him. He saw two things immediately: The man was wearing Dabo Muu’s necklace, and his hatband was children’s finger bones set with Dabo Muu’s missing eye. What kind of power would that give him?
The creature was trying to show him the face of Danny Kaye, whose movies he had loved as a child, but he saw beneath that illusion, to the inhuman and roiling darkness, like a hole cut in reality in the shape of a man—an absence, a vacuum that knew only cruelty and malevolence.
Deadlight Jack frowned. “I don’t think I will take you along, Jimmy Kalmaku. But I will introduce you to my pets.”
The tattoos on Deadlight Jack’s face shimmered into focus, then slowly began to glow, like the heating element on a hot plate.
George took another step backward and fell down. Jimmy turned to help him up and the salamanders leaped off Deadlight Jack’s face and attacked Jimmy.
Jimmy screamed as they burned into his face, his arms, his hands, his chest. He tried to get to the water but collapsed in the mud, writhing and shrieking.
“Jimmy!” George yelled, scrambling to his feet. He tried to get to his friend, but Deadlight Jack stepped in his path.
“You come with me now or I will feed your grandson to the gators and lick his bones like peppermint sticks.”
“Jimmy,” George moaned as Jimmy grew still, either unconscious or dead. The salamanders circled up Deadlight Jack’s legs, up his chest, and took their places on his cheeks.
“Now, Georgie-Porgie.”
“If I go, will you let Donny go?”
“I promise you he will be back with his family, George Watters, before this night is over.”
George nodded, and they left Jimmy Kalmaku there at the water’s edge.
George looked back, but it was too dark to see his friend.
Chapter 25
ATCHAFALAYA SWAMP, LOUISIANA
George followed his nightmare through the swamp. Whatever energy the thing calling itself Deadlight Jack exuded, George could see all manner of creatures moving out of his path, whether large gators, colorful snakes, or spiders. The creature also avoided crossing water, although it was obvious he could do so.
He wants to keep me in good health, George thought, probably because I’ll last longer with whatever he’s got in mind.
George had no illusions that he was going to live through this. Jimmy had faced a god and nearly died, and he had experience, magical amulets, and a ghost hel
ping him.
George didn’t even have his lucky hat.
But he was an old man and he had lived a full life, if not always a happy one—his death would be worth it if the thing kept its word and let Donny go.
George wondered if anyone would find Jimmy and help him. Maybe the Swamp Witch? No, she was hiding from Deadlight Jack as well. So, really, what chance did he have if she was afraid?
Now that he remembered everything, he was trying to stay angry, to keep himself from succumbing to the paralysis of his childhood fears. But he could feel panic at the very edge of his consciousness, a pleading to run and get away from the bad man, who was as repellent as a nest of spiders or a writhing mass of maggots. He looked foul and smelled worse, like something rotted and mildewed that never stops giving off the stench of a flooded and desecrated crypt. This thing in the jolly face and top hat was wrong, it was something that did not belong, something that had found a tear in the fabric of reality and stepped through into our world to reap terror and grief.
George felt all this and knew that the little boy in him was very close to the surface. He had to stay in control, for Donny’s sake, but he felt like he was on ice skates near a sheer cliff, and any misstep would send him hurtling down.
He was glad Jimmy had brought him the food and water. He had been done in and couldn’t have possibly gone this far without that aid.
Jimmy is dead and it’s your fault. He’s dead from those burns, you know. Or maybe the gators got him, he’ll rot in a mudhole until he’s nice and soft, then…
George’s eyes grew wet, and he wiped at them brusquely. He tried to banish such dark thoughts but it was hard, and every moment he skated closer to the edge…
He saw Deadlight Jack grinning at him, his friendly Cab Calloway face unmarked, for the moment, with the hideous tattoos.
“What are you staring at, you sack of bones and mold?” George tried to sound brave, but his voice broke like a child’s, and Deadlight Jack laughed.
“You, my prize. I have waited so long to be reunited with you. One moment…”
He reached out with one cadaverous finger, and George was sure the thing was going to put one of his eyes out. He flinched and closed his eyes, but Deadlight Jack merely wiped the trail of tears from one cheek. George shuddered at his touch, which was like a dead thing.
He saw Deadlight Jack lick the end of his finger. His face took on a look of rapture. “Oh, that is sublime! I had no idea a lifetime of fear, bitterness, and regret would taste so wonderful, but why shouldn’t it? It is the wine of despair! If I could bottle it, why, every festering and unholy thing that hides in the shadows or in the space between universes would pay me handsomely!”
He winked at George. “But then, Georgie-Porgie, I would have to share it, and I am much too selfish for that, dear one. Besides, such a fermentation of regret and anguish is all I need to live for another thousand years.”
“Glad I could help,” said George sourly.
Deadlight Jack laughed, delighted. “Ah, such a brave face! Come on, we draw close.”
—
It took them another hour to reach Deadlight Jack’s destination. George slogged through mud and deep puddles slicked over with a foul effluent or teeming with leeches. Unlike the snakes and other deadly creatures, these were allowed to attack George and he had to busy himself to remove the vile things while Deadlight Jack smiled.
George’s clothes were ruined, reduced to soiled near-rags after twenty-four hours in the swamp. Deadlight Jack, who either glided over the mud and muck like an ice-skater, or waded through and came out unsoiled, looked as if his strange clothing had just been cleaned and pressed.
George suspected that Deadlight Jack had lied about their being close to undermine his morale. The more tired George became, the greater his dread, as fatigue and expectation combined into a mass of overwhelming fear in the pit of his stomach. He felt dizzy and nauseous.
Stay strong. Donny is depending on you, old man.
He just had to keep it together until Donny was safe, then he could allow himself to break down. Donny, he was what was important in all this.
A swarm of fireflies swiftly extinguished their lights as Deadlight Jack approached, as if not wanting to draw his attention.
Deadlight Jack pulled aside a gray-green curtain of Spanish moss, and there was a place George might have glimpsed in his nightmares.
It was a large mansion, wasting away in the middle of the swamp and surrounded by thick woods. Once opulent and beautiful, time had given the jungle surrounding it a chance to reclaim the structure. The years had scoured most of the paint away, leaving a structure of gray wood flecked with dirty white. One column had collapsed, and in its toppling had smashed one of the large front doors. Every window was smashed, leaving shards of dirty glass like broken teeth, and shreds of curtain like cerement rags.
An enormous cobweb stretched between two of the columns, and a spider the size of a human hand waited in the center, fat and full of venom.
Blue lights hovered in the windows, while others could be seen moving through the house like spirits carrying lanterns.
The house had never been boarded up, never marred with graffiti. It was a place unknown to most, and the rest wisely knew to stay away.
It was the most dreadful thing George had ever seen in his life, and it took all his strength to refrain from screaming.
“May I present Maison Lémieux, my home,” said Deadlight Jack with the pride of a gracious host. He took George’s arm, and his touch was like a scorpion or centipede on the skin. It was all George could do not to bolt and run into the swamp, hoping he might impale himself on a jutting branch and die quickly.
“Come, you want to see your grandson, yes?”
George steeled himself and walked toward the front doors with the thing in the top hat.
The first horror was waiting for them at the door and shambled out to greet them.
It had once been a man. It was now a corpse, decomposed to the point where its skin was a fragile and paper-thin leather stretched over bones gone green with mold. Dressed in colonial garb, also ragged and moldy, its bare skull was covered with a once-powdered wig, now a home for spiders. Its eyes were intact, and they had the wide-open stare of someone enduring some hellish fright. It lurched in a parody of a bow and black, shining beetles spilled from its mouth.
“This is Monsieur Lémieux, the original owner of the house. Good evening, Auguste.”
Lémieux straightened up in an awkward, jerking motion. Deadlight Jack went in, and George quickly followed. Afraid Lémieux might attack him, he glanced back. Lémieux, even with his ravaged features, managed to convey a look of horror and pity for George.
George shivered.
Deadlight Jack looked back and chuckled.
“Monsieur Lémieux is one of my better behaved guests, Georgie-Porgie. You would be wise to remember that. Some are…hungry.”
There were dozens of candles throughout the structure, some freestanding, others in ornate candelabra. Some had evolved into enormous stalactites of wax that had been dripping in that same place for centuries, covering the piano, the mantel, and numerous tables and the walls and floors beneath sconces.
The guttering light from a thousand candles provided illumination, but it also caused strange and dreadful shadows to dance and caper across the walls and ceiling.
The furnishings were as they must have been in 1700 but ravaged by centuries of storms, flood, and the incessant goal of Nature to render every work of man back to its constituent elements, to nourish the soil and to help produce more life.
Wallpapers hung in tatters like strips of tanned flesh, and various molds and fungi, some of them phosphorescent, grew on the walls and ceiling. The walls showed the stain of floodwaters and the floor was caked with mud. The stench inside was horrible, and George gagged. He placed the handkerchief Jimmy had given him over his nose and wondered what could smell so foul.
George followed Deadlight Jack
around a corner and there, in a drawing room, an enormous alligator was rotting and filled with maggots. A great mass of them had spilled from its ruptured abdomen and now wandered blindly across the once-immaculate marble floor and soiled Persian rugs.
Several rotted and ghoulish horrors, all in dress from various periods, tried to feed on both the rotted gator and the pale larvae. In most cases, what they ate spilled out of holes in their necks or abdomens.
George vomited up his dinner. He continued to retch and heave until nothing was left, and his stomach clenched into a painful fist.
Finally, it relaxed and he stood, wiping his brow with the handkerchief.
“You’ll get used to the smell, Georgie…Although, come to think of it, some never do. They go mad, all because of a little odor. Ha, I wouldn’t have thought that possible. Aren’t humans and their frailties wonderful?” Deadlight Jack shook his head in delight.
He moved past the gator and George followed him, trying not to step on any of the maggots, one of God’s creatures he had a real aversion to.
The ghouls eyed him hungrily, some even though they did so with black and vacant eye sockets.
One, a gray and twisted thing in a moldy wig and ragged silk dress, reached for him but he knocked its questing hand away. It hissed at him and returned to its meal.
“Madame Lémieux has taken a fancy to you, George Watters, so you see, you won’t be lonely, although…”
Men and women and even children in profound states of mutilation and decomposition eyed him from where they sat, or crouched, or hid. Some were just a vague suggestion in a shadowed doorway or niche, and one scuttled down the wall like a great spider.
George thought of Donny, a little boy, having to endure these horrors, and some of his fear lessened as it turned to anger.
Deadlight Jack led him to the next room and motioned for him to go in. George hesitated, then did so.
It was a massive library, now filled with moldering and mildewed books. Some of the volumes had scores of mushrooms and toadstools sprouting from their spines, and the chandeliers were festooned with thick and dusty cobwebs. The effect overall was of an odious travesty of a fairy kingdom.
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