But during the laying of the foundation, Bai was discovered in a compromising position with his blonde secretary, a Presbyterian from Bakersfield named Trixie.
As a gesture of reconciliation, Bai dedicated the future temple to his wife, Margaret Zhang. A recent convert to the Lutheran faith, Margaret insisted the new temple become a Lutheran church, thereby reflecting the couple’s new Western sensibilities. In the traditional spirit of marital fence-mending, Bai agreed.
Two days before the inaugural service in the new sanctuary was to occur, however, Bai was caught screwing the blonde Presbyterian in the church’s main office, this time by Margaret herself. In the Western spirit of marital dissolution, Margaret shot them both to death before turning the gun on herself.
After a suitable period of mourning, Bai Mu Shang’s business partners reopened the sanctuary to the eager Christian faithful. It remained a popular church until the late 70’s when it was destroyed by fire.
Many among the sanctuary’s oldest worshippers whispered that the fire started in the same office where Bai Mu Shang and Trixie had passed so many pleasurable hours; that Bai’s angry spirit had exploded back into the living world to burn Margaret’s precious sanctuary from the earth.
In 1986, the sanctuary was condemned. Its blasted window frames, once the resting places of Christian icons, now gaped out across 196th Street like the empty eyes of a cadaver. It remained a haunted place, a place of mystery and speculation, and within its crumbling walls, Nurse Sandra Woo was having an exceptionally bad night.
The thing from the old stories dropped the remains of its latest victim on the grisly altar at the front of the Church. The creature dipped its maw into the open trough of the dead black man’s torso and tore out his heart.
Woo had been forced to watch the thing torture and devour seven human beings, forced to listen to their screams, their prayers and pleas for help, while it ripped them apart and consumed their flesh. Three days after her abduction, Sandra Woo teetered on the brink of insanity.
As the thing from the old stories swallowed the dead man’s heart, a blinding burst of emerald light exploded over the altar. The thing, whose name Sandra dared not allow herself to remember, threw back its head and howled. Of all the dark wonders Sandra had been made to witness in the last three days, this single horror was the worst.
Despite her fear, Sandra squirmed around on the filthy floor of the sanctuary, the skin of her wrists and ankles rubbed raw from the thick ropes that bound her, to stare at the being that hovered over the altar.
A tall, thin figure, man-shaped and crooked, floated, suspended in the seething green glare. Its long fingers dangled at the ends of sticklike arms. Its eyes were twin black holes; its face gnarled like the bole of an ancient tree.
The wooden man with the rotten eyes reached down with one brown hand, his face twisted with rage, animated by a palpable hunger. His fingers seemed to meet some form of resistance in the clear air above the “altar,” an invisible tension.
The wooden man clenched his fists and hammered them into the invisible barrier. But an explosion of power ignited the wooden man’s hands and he screamed.
The flames burned brightly for a moment, and then disappeared. Sandra sensed a deep groaning rumble through the earth beneath the sanctuary. There was a high-pitched, shrieking roar. The wooden man glared down at the thing from the old stories, smoke rising from his hands like censers.
“More, Chen,” it hissed. “I need more.”
The wooden man’s voice tore the air from the sanctuary, scoured the nerves in Sandra’s brain. She gasped, her lungs burning, red starbursts erupting into pain-bright blossoms behind her eyes. When she could snatch a breath she screamed.
The wooden man glared at her.
“The Witness,” he crooned. “Well done, Chen.”
The thing from the old stories chuckled, a deep-bellied rumble that drew a shudder of revulsion from the woman that lay surrounded by human remains.
Sandra recognized the creature that had abducted her from the N.S.F.C.S. Her parents were modern, second generation Americans. They’d even granted her an English name at her birth to ease her passage among suspicious Westerners. Her Chinese name, Woo na Wen, was for family.
But her father’s father, Grandpa Yun, had remained traditional Chinese until the day he died. It was from him that Sandra had learned the old stories.
It was Grandpa Yun who told her about the Yirin.
The giant ape man that many Chinese believed still haunted the forested regions and remote provinces of rural China had stepped out of the stories to feast on the flesh of the living, here in America.
Light from one of the broken windows crept through the sanctuary. The abandoned church brightened as Dawn spread its warmth through the chapel. At the approach of the light, the Yirin uttered a warbling shriek and leapt up into the burnt-out timbers high overhead.
The wooden man faded, like a shadow eaten apart by motes of sunlight, but its voice echoed through the chapel like the whispered promise of Death.
“Soon.”
Silence descended over the sanctuary.
Sandra Woo cried out for help. No one heard her. The chapel was too far from the street. The burnt out timbers and dense walls swallowed the sound of her terror as effectively as a soundproofed tomb.
Sandra lay her head down and wept into the blood and ash. Her parents’ God, the white Christian God of the West, had forsaken her. As Dawn illuminated the carnage in which she lay, she prayed to the old gods, the ones Grandpa Yun had taught her to remember.
She prayed for Death’s mercy before the Yirin returned.
19
Labyrinth
I may write fiction but I’m not crazy.
I’d seen evidence of a parallel reality, met the living incarnation of my personal bogeyman, and argued with my dead father in Central Park. Frankly, I’d had enough.
I needed to get some semblance of normalcy back into my life. The scowls of distaste on the faces of passing joggers reminded me that I also needed a change of clothes.
I chased down a taxi and waved a small fortune in the driver’s face to get him to take me back to Brooklyn. My assistant, Carla, was waiting for me in a limousine when my cab pulled up in front of my brownstone.
“You’re late,” she said. “Juno said if you blow this appearance she’ll start an ‘Authors We Hate Club’ in your honor.”
Carla sniffed and took two steps backward.
“You smell like my Uncle Paco when he forgets to change his diaper.”
“Shut up,” I snarled.
“Yo whatever,” she flipped back.
I made a mental note to fire her. Then I raced upstairs to change.
Othello was sitting on the fire escape outside my bedroom window. Seeing Marcus’s pet raven perched in the same spot where I sometimes sat and searched the night skies for inspiration only agitated me more.
For the first time, I noticed how large the raven was, the tenacity with which its claws gripped the railing of the fire escape.
“Damn,” I said. “You are one big bastard of a bird.”
Othello spread his wings and chuckled dryly.
I shuddered. The sheer bulk of the pigeon killer suggested hidden armories interred beneath its feathers: lethal secrets waiting in the wings. Othello terrified me and fascinated me at the same time.
Meanwhile, I’d completely forgotten my scheduled appearance to promote The River’s Edge on Juno Kemantari’s afternoon talk show.
“Stupid,” I snarled, as I ran for the shower.
As I passed my bathroom mirror, I stopped.
“Good God.”
The face that stared back at me looked like something the Lithuanian National Kickboxing Club might have used for a warm-up. My eyes were still puffy and red-tinged from where the red worms had injected their poison. My lips were swollen and purplish, my throat slightly swollen, lending me the appearance of a man recovering from severe anaphylactic shock.
Nevertheless, I dressed to impress: a black sport jacket, white shirt, open at the collar with black Prada slacks. An appearance on Juno meant millions of potential new readers. I could little afford to alienate such a powerful ally in my one man War on Obscurity.
I slammed down a quart of the strongest mouthwash I could find and ran for the door.
Othello uttered a loud squawk.
“What?” I snapped.
The raven flapped his wings, sailed across the room, and landed on my telephone.
“What is that supposed to mean?” I said. Then I realized I was talking to a bird. “I don’t have time for this,” I snarled, turning to leave.
I got halfway out the door before I turned back, hit the “Saved Messages” button on my answering machine and scribbled down Kowalski’s telephone number. I had about three million questions for my father’s partner.
As I ran down the stairs and hopped into the limo, thoughts of my upcoming television appearance faded to a distant hum.
Selling books was the last thing on my mind.
* * * *
Juno Kemantari was the richest, most powerful she-creature on Earth. She’d worked her way up from the back roads of rural Mississippi, collecting scholarships to Ivy League universities and alternately cajoling, seducing and browbeating her way to the top of the American EntertainmentMedia anthill.
She was also a royal pain in the posterior, with an attitude that could sour an Olsen Twin at fifty paces.
JUNO, however, reached twenty-two million viewers every afternoon. She’d won more Emmys than Alan Alda, produced seven successful mini-series and more TV movies, even co-starred in two wildly popular feature films. A plug on her “Books We Love Club” segment insured a lucky author the kind of instant national attention for which publishers joyfully cannibalize their children.
I was sitting in the makeup room, ignoring the stares generated by my appearance. The makeup artist, a petite blond named Chatsworth, was doing her best to cover my bruises and various swellings when the door opened and bad news blew into the room.
“Show’s been cancelled.”
This from Ryan Snodgrass, JUNO’s Executive Producer and semi-human shield. My publicist, Marc Bloom, levered himself between Snodgrass and me with the abandon of a marine throwing himself onto a live grenade.
“What happened?” Bloom cried.
Juno had a family emergency which required her to leave the studio unexpectedly,” Snodgrass said. “Her assistant is on his way up to... Ahhh. Here’s Trocious now.”
The man who stood in the doorway of my dressing room would have looked more at home thundering down the gridiron than schlepping coffee for TV personalities. He was nearly seven feet tall, coffee-brown, with a shaved skull that jutted up from a bull’s neck and shoulders.
“Obadiah, this is Trocious, Juno’s...personal assistant,” Snodgrass said.
Trocious nodded. Our eyes met, and for the briefest moment an image flashed before my mind’s eye.
Dark. Cold. Up ahead, light, warmth. But not for me...
It was only a flash, a burst of—
Vision
—emotion, but I staggered backward as if I’d been pushed by a heavy wind. I would have fallen if Bloom and Snodgrass hadn’t caught me.
“Oh my God,” Bloom said. “Are you okay?”
As my equilibrium steadied, the vision faded, leaving me lightheaded and slightly woozy.
“Here, sit down,” Snodgrass said.
“I’m fine,” I replied.
“You look like shit,” Bloom snapped.
I sat.
Trocious loomed in the doorway, looking down at the three of us like a study in contempt chiseled in mahogany.
“Ms. Kementari extends an invitation to dine at her residence tomorrow night,” Trocious rumbled. His voice was lightly accented with some Southern dialect. Its timbre vibrated the walls.
“Ms. Kementari wishes to apologize for this inconvenience and to discuss future appearances.”
Snodgrass, the Executive Producer, shuddered. I felt his fingers grind the muscles in my forearm.
“Ahhh, thank you, Trocious,” he said.
Trocious stared at me as if Snodgrass hadn’t spoken.
“Is 8:00 acceptable, Mr. Grudge?”
“He’ll be there with bells on,” Bloom snapped.
Juno’s valet loomed, massive arms folded across his thickly-muscled chest. His gaze never wavered from mine.
Alone. Dark. Laughing in the light. Laughing at me.
I shuddered, trying to throw off thoughts of cold, dank places. I was exhausted, probably hallucinating. At that moment I wanted nothing more than to get out of there.
Suddenly I was afraid without knowing why. Something about Trocious, about the shadows gathered around him like a cloak of living darkness.
Kowalski would say something ridiculous right now.
But something about Trocious held my attention, like the sound of a bomb plummeting out of the sky, or the executioner’s tread as he approaches the guillotine.
I stood to gain hundreds of thousands—if not millions—of new readers from any future appearances. Juno Kementari was a media connection any writer might have killed for.
“I’ll be there,” I said, “with bells on.”
20
Fire and Fury Over
Yonkers Raceway
I spent the rest of that afternoon staring at my computer monitor and trying to form a coherent sentence. By dusk I’d gotten no further than an opening paragraph that read like the rulebook for the Taiwanese Amateur Train-spotting Club:
Torvino, a man with no problems, fled the decadent suburban sprawl of Atlantic City carrying only a six pack of Marlboro Reds, a serviceable gherkin, and a rusty hacksaw. At his side sat Simba. An ape.
I read that passage for the seventy-fifth time. Afterward, I considered slashing my throat. Meanwhile, Othello eyed me from the windowsill leading to my fire escape. He squawked once, loudly, and fluttered onto the top of my monitor. I’d closed the window, fearing that the raven might fly off and never come back. Despite my reservations, he was the only link to Marcus I had left.
But the pigeon-killer still gave me the creeps.
“Shoo,” I said. “Go over there.”
I’d cobbled together the closest thing to a perch that I could, taking an ancient tie rack that had been left in my apartment by the former owner and setting it in a litter box I’d dug out of my storage unit. The litter box was the legacy of a relationship that had lasted exactly as long as it took for my ex-girlfriend to understand that I really was violently allergic to her pet calico Sam-Sam.
So far, Othello hadn’t shown the slightest interest in my makeshift aerie, choosing instead to occupy the windowsill from whence to conduct his silent surveillance.
“What are you staring at?” I said.
Othello offered up a casual chuckle.
“Fuck off, bird,” I said. “Go haunt someone else.”
Othello spread his wings and croaked. A moment later, a viscous stream of matter drizzled down the front of my computer’s monitor, obscuring with a white river of raven crap the hopeless drivel on the screen.
I quickly exhausted my voluminous repertoire of cuss words and threw open the window. Othello sailed past me and out into the night.
“Go dig up Edgar Alan Poe, asshole!”
I slammed the window shut and returned to my computer.
Othello’s offering looked like a spatter of lightning against the dark background of my screen saver, a luminous tree that flickered in the light thrown by the computer screen. I stared, transfixed by the lightning crap tree and was abruptly overtaken by the certainty that I was being watched.
I whirled, my eyes searching the dark corners of my apartment. As far as I could tell, I was alone. Nevertheless the feeling of being observed persisted, and for no good reason I suddenly found myself thinking about Lenore.
I hadn’t spoken to my mother since our conversation in
her kitchen the day of Marcus’ funeral. I told myself I was just feeling guilty as I scrambled for the phone, but I was unconvincing, even to myself. A feeling of dread had sprung into being in the coils of my gut.
You’re being stupid, I chided. She’s probably getting drunk and painting crosses on all the windows.
The phone in my mother’s house rang twelve times before I hung up and hit ‘Redial,’ only to hear Lenore’s no-nonsense outgoing message.
“I’m obviously not here to receive your call. Either leave a message or call back later. Please be brief.”
Beep.
“Hello, mother. Hey. It’s me... Obadiah.”
Stupid. Of course she knows it’s you.
“I’m just... I’m just calling to check up on you. Well, not exactly checking up on you. Ahhh...”
You’re wasting time.
I hung up, feeling like a fool. To make matters worse, I knew that when Lenore got my rambling message she would undoubtedly make me feel even more ridiculous than I already did.
I went into the kitchen and returned with a bottle of glass cleaner and a handful of paper towels. I thoroughly cleaned my monitor, ignoring the wave of foreboding that seemed intent on clawing its way out of my guts. Then I went back to my story.
Ten minutes later, unable to concentrate and feeling anything but sleepy, I decided to take a casual drive up to Bronxville and pop in on Lenore, an unannounced social call (which she hated, even from me) but, I figured, what the Hell.
I grabbed my keys, ambled out of the apartment and strolled out to my BMW, which was waiting casually at the curb.
I was doing ninety by the time I hit the highway.
* * * *
At 9:39 I crossed into Westchester County via the Cross-County Expressway. I’d calmed myself enough to avoid killing anyone while navigating the complex network of entrances and exits that enfolded the Cross-County shopping center and was heading toward the Yonkers Raceway when a red S.U.V. rolled up behind me and tapped my rear fender.
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