by Bavo Dhooge
He turned and stumped back up the hallway, through the empty waiting room and out the door, expecting at any moment the blast that would blow his crumbling body to tatters.
Styx splashed through rain puddles and across the Dorpstraat and dodged around the side of the church. He could hear S. Vrancken behind him, but still the gun didn’t fire.
The noise. Of course. If Vrancken pulled the trigger, the explosion would bring the neighbors—and the police.
Styx staggered through the sucking mud and pouring rain as fast as his limbs would carry him.
And the blackness of Our Lady of the Dunes’ graveyard swallowed him whole.
Styx didn’t have a chance. He made what headway he could across the swampy ground, pursued by an even more horrible monster than he himself had become, but there was no escape.
His hip gave way, and the muddy grass wrapped him in a wet embrace. Flailing helplessly, he rolled onto a square of canvas staked out on the ground. It pulled loose beneath his weight, and he almost tumbled into an empty grave, just managing to stop himself at the edge of the open pit.
He drove Marc Gerard’s stick into the ground and hauled himself erect, but the mud sucked at his feet and held him there, imprisoned, a scarecrow in the night. He couldn’t even turn around to face the shotgun’s blast when it finally came. In this downpour he knew the Stuffer would no longer hesitate to pull the trigger: the storm would swallow the double blast as easily as the wet dirt had swallowed his feet.
There was a rumble of thunder, and a bolt of lightning streaked across the sky.
In the few brief seconds of illumination it gave him Styx saw a brick catafalque supporting a concrete coffin, with bronze letters on the end closest to him reading
BARON JAMES ENSOR
1860–1949
“Styx!” The doctor’s voice tore a hole in the night, and the moon came out from behind the clouds to reveal S. Vrancken standing over him in majestic silence, the shotgun pointed directly at his head.
“A perfect pose,” the doctor smiled. “And the perfect location for my next exhibit.”
Styx stood there next to the grave, frozen by the mud—and by fear.
“There are so many things I want to ask you,” Vrancken said conversationally. “What’s it like, there on the Other Side? Is it as terrible as they say—or as wonderful? How did it feel to be given a second chance at life these last few days?”
He set the gun’s recoil pad against his shoulder, laid his cheek to the stock, and closed his left eye.
“Seems like old times, Chief Inspector. You remember our last encounter on the beach?”
“I remember,” said Styx.
“You’re awfully calm for a man staring eternity in the eye.”
“Been there,” Styx said simply. “Done that.”
“I suppose we mortals can get used to anything. Even death.”
The walking stick was hidden from Vrancken’s view by the wall of the freshly dug grave. Styx tightened his grip on its copper head. The mud had shifted beneath his weight and there was a chance he might be able to work himself loose.
He wriggled his foot, felt the mud fight back but grudgingly release its hold. He took a painful half step forward.
And Dr. S. Vrancken, orthopedic surgeon, pulled the trigger.
The blast took Styx in the face, punched a dozen tiny holes in his throat, and ripped away half his jaw. Rotting flesh and bone fragments flew in all directions. But Raphael Styx stayed on his feet.
His left foot came free of the sucking mud, and he took another step. Vrancken’s head snapped up in shock. He took fresh aim and unloosed the other barrel. This time the buckshot hit Styx full in the chest. He jerked back, then shook off the impact and staggered onward. There was no blood—all his blood had dried up long before.
Supported by Marc Gerard’s cane Styx walked toward the doctor.
Vrancken fumbled in his pocket for fresh shells but dropped them. He fell to his hands and knees and scrabbled for them in the mud.
Lightning flashed again, and Vrancken looked up to see the monster he’d created towering above him. He turned frantically from side to side, searching for an escape route, but it was too late.
“No!” he screamed. “For God’s sake, no!”
And with every remnant of his remaining strength, Styx swung the copper fish at the side of the Stuffer’s head.
There was no need for a second blow.
The serial killer lay motionless at his feet. He was breathing, Styx saw, but it would be a good long while before he would return to consciousness.
Styx tipped his head back and let the rain wash his devastated face. A roll of thunder growled in the distance.
No, he realized, this time it wasn’t thunder.
This time it was his stomach.
The animal hunger had returned.
He should get away now, before he could no longer resist the urge to feed. If he gave in, he knew his shattered jaw and the fresh wounds in his chest would quickly begin to heal.
But he also knew the old legends, knew that a zombie’s bite would zombify the bitten one.
He had no idea if those stories were true, but could he take the chance of granting the Stuffer eternal life after death? Did the doctor deserve the same second chance Styx had received?
No, no, no.
Something deep inside him, deeper even than the ravening hunger, warned him not to open that door.
Half an hour later Styx plodded laboriously back across the churchyard’s marshy terrain. He crossed the deserted Dorpstraat and let himself into S. Vrancken’s office with the keys he’d taken from the unconscious doctor’s pocket. He was drenched and sodden and steaming, but he didn’t waste time trying to dry himself. He flung open every door he could find, till he came to the very last of them, at the far end of the hall. Painted on it in delicate script was the word Lavatory.
He stood there, still dripping, and stared at that final door. No sound came from behind it, but he knew she was in there. He could feel her presence. Vrancken had boasted that he would never find her, but that had been nothing but a bluff.
There was an old-fashioned keyhole set below the knob. All he had to do was turn the right key, and he could set her free.
Or would showing her what he had become only sentence her to a more permanent prison?
“Hello?”
The voice was so faint he thought at first he’d imagined it.
“Is somebody there?”
It was her voice.
She was alive.
“Please,” she whimpered. “Let me out.”
Styx swallowed painfully. The compulsion to throw open the door and gather her into his arms was almost overwhelming, stronger even than the hunger he’d felt in the graveyard.
But he fought against it just as hard.
He stood there, separated from her by an inch of wood and paint, and listened to her piteous crying.
He touched the golden key with a rotting finger.
How many times had he stood like this in their home, him on the outside of the bathroom door and her on the inside, weeping, avoiding him, protecting herself from him because he’d stumbled home drunk or high or both and she couldn’t handle the sight of his pathetic, idiotic face?
“Can you hear me?” the voice behind the door pleaded. “Please help me. Let me out!”
How many times had he locked himself in their bathroom, with Isabelle on the outside pounding her fists against the door in frustrated fury, afraid to let her see what some gangster had done to him when he couldn’t pay his gambling debts, his face streaked with tears and the residue of coke?
“I won’t tell,” Isabelle promised, more loudly now. “I swear it. I won’t make any trouble for you.”
Nor I for you, Styx decided.
He laid what was left of his head gently against the door. Eyes closed, he stood there and listened for one last moment to the sweet sound of her voice. He pressed his blackened lips to the door in
a final kiss, and then he turned and went up the hall and through the waiting room and out of the building.
He took his cell phone from his pocket and pressed the speed-dial button he’d programmed.
“Who the fuck is this?” the person at the other end of the line shrieked, his voice clotted with a mélange of terror and fury.
“Who the fuck do you think it is?” said Styx calmly, despite the agony of having had half his jaw blown away.
“Styx? Is that you? You have to get me out of here!”
“Why?”
“It’s—it’s inhuman!”
“That sounds about right.”
“You’ve got to get me out of here, Styx, before it’s too late.”
“It’s already too late.”
“Then why did you leave me my phone?”
“Call a friend,” Styx suggested. “Call the cops.”
“You know I can’t do that. If they find me—”
“If they find you, they’ll put you away for the rest of your life. It’s too damn bad we don’t have the death penalty, or they’d hang your sorry ass.”
The silence between them stretched out for a very long time.
“Good-bye,” Styx whispered at last.
But he didn’t disconnect the call. He was in horrible pain, and the killer’s helpless voice at the other end of the line was a bandage for his wounds. He closed his eyes and relished the memory of rolling the Stuffer’s unconscious body into the open grave he himself had almost fallen into.
“Don’t say good-bye,” the Stuffer begged. “It’s not too late. You can still save me.”
“I’d save my breath, if I were you.”
In his mind, Styx saw Vrancken stretched out in the open hole, his face exposed to the stars that peeked out from behind the storm clouds evaporating overhead.
It would have taken Styx five seconds to reload the shotgun, half a second to pull the trigger, and—death penalty or no death penalty—Ostend would be free of the Stuffer’s depredations at last.
But he couldn’t do it.
The old Raphael Styx had many times taken the law into his own hands. But, zombie or no zombie, the new Styx was just a cop, not a judge, not an executioner.
So he tossed the phone he’d found in Vrancken’s pocket with his keys into the hole with him, draped the square of canvas over him to keep the dirt out of his mouth and eyes and provide him with a pocket of air, and began to fill in the hole.
He would rescue Isabelle, he decided, and Vrancken could decide his fate for himself. He could turn himself in or suffer worse consequences.
Now Vrancken’s voice roused him from his reverie.
“At least I didn’t bury them alive,” he howled. “I showed them some compassion, you cocksucker! I didn’t just abandon them to choke to death!”
“I bet your battery’s almost dead. If you’re gonna call the cops, Doc, now’s the time.”
“Fuck you, you bastard!”
He heard the doctor’s light, rapid panting and wondered what it must feel like to be buried alive, not even in a coffin, nothing but a thin layer of canvas protecting you from your fate.
“Hey,” Styx said, “I almost forgot. What does the S stand for?”
But there was no response.
He hung up and dialed Delacroix’s number and told him where Isabelle was. He did not tell him about the Stuffer.
They’d find the body in a few hours, when the funeral party showed up at the churchyard and discovered that their loved one’s grave was already in use.
It was not quite dawn. The man in the cap shambled along the side of the highway through a warm drizzle, supporting himself on an old walking stick with a grip in the shape of a fish.
There was little traffic at this hour. When he felt the headlights on his back and heard the crunch of tires slowing on the gravel shoulder, he turned into the glare.
The car stopped beside him, its motor still running. The window on the passenger’s side slid down. Raindrops pattered on the roof.
Joachim Delacroix sat behind the wheel, dressed in Versace from head to foot. He leaned over and opened the passenger door. “Need a lift?”
Styx backed into the seat, used the walking stick as a lever to hoist first one leg, then the other from the ground. Delacroix watched him without comment. When Styx was settled, he released the hand brake and rolled back out onto the road.
“Where is he?” Delacroix said.
“Who?”
“Jesus, you know who.”
“You’ll find him,” Styx said. “Soon, I think. Probably within the next couple of hours. He won’t give you any trouble.”
“So it was Vrancken, then?”
“What difference does it make? You’ll find out when the time comes.”
“You don’t want to know how she’s doing?” asked Delacroix.
Styx didn’t answer.
“Except for the shock,” the rookie said, “she’s fine.”
“What did you find in Vrancken’s office?”
“I have no idea. They were turning it upside down when I left to take Isabelle home.”
“It doesn’t matter,” said Styx. “The case is closed. There won’t be any more killings.”
They drove on.
“So why did Paul Delvaux put his penthouse up for sale and take off?” Styx asked.
“If he ever comes back, I’ll ask him.”
“You’re not still looking for him?”
“Why should we? He’s a weirdo, but as far as we know he hasn’t actually done anything wrong. You want my opinion, Ostend’s better off without him.” Delacroix smiled. “Maybe that’s why he ran off. Ostend’s changed. Maybe he’s gone off in search of the Ostend of a hundred years ago.”
A comfortable silence filled the space between them.
“So what now?” asked Delacroix at last.
“Just drive.”
“Where do you want to go?”
“Away,” Styx said. “Out of Ostend. That’s all I know right now.”
Delacroix drove on. The only sound in the car was the rhythmic swish of the wipers.
After a while, Styx spoke. “That Lord Byron guy?”
“The sapeur of the Romantics? What about him?”
“He spent his whole adult life on the run, moving from country to country, running away from his debts, from the women he betrayed. I think that might be my future, too.”
Delacroix turned inland, away from the sea and the faded glory of Ostend.
Raphael Styx sat beside him, staring straight ahead but not at the rain or the highway lights that flickered by. He was looking beyond an invisible wall to a new world he couldn’t quite see, let alone understand.
Delacroix glanced at Styx.
He saw the shattered jaw, the pellet holes in the throat, the gaping chest wound. The liquefied eyes, the purge fluid leaking from nose and ears and mouth, the sloughing of the skin, the misshapen hands clasping and unclasping the handle of the battered old cane. He saw the sad, discolored face, a face that had seen things no one else had ever seen, things no one else should ever have to see.
When the silence grew impossible to stand, Delacroix switched on the car radio. Massive Attack’s “Unfinished Sympathy” was playing, and it provided a soundtrack for the two men’s completely different lines of thought.
Joachim Delacroix thought of Isabelle, while Raphael Styx could think of nothing but the terrible hunger that gnawed at his gut.
He tried to distract himself. Was Victor finished with his exams? How would Isabelle remember him? Would the old Rafe Styx ever have changed his ways, if he’d been given the chance?
But the hunger could not be denied. It grew more insistent with every passing mile. He could smell fresh meat beneath Delacroix’s aftershave and deodorant, and feel his deepest, most inhuman instincts well up within him. He fought desperately to contain them, clenching his rotten teeth, almost biting his own tongue.
He turned away, saw his face reflecte
d in the side-view mirror, lit briefly each time they passed beneath a lamppost.
It was a long and lonely ride on the highway. The rain intensified, hell’s floodgates opening wide.
Delacroix asked him something, but Styx had just cranked up the stereo and couldn’t hear the question beneath Massive Attack’s hypnotic percussion and Shara Nelson’s soulful vocals:
. . . a soul without a mind,
In a body without a heart,
I’m missing every part . . .
AUTHORS’ NOTE
Styx is a work of fiction, and the characters and incidents are the products of the authors’ imaginations.
Paul Delvaux, James Ensor, René Magritte, and Léon Spilliaert were all real people, and all of them lived and worked in Ostend at various periods of their lives. Marvin Gaye was a real person, too, and he spent about a year in Ostend in the early 1980s.
© THOMAS VERFAILLE
BAVO DHOOGE (born in Ghent, Belgium, 1973) is a filmmaker and a prolific writer. One of the most acclaimed crime novelists in Belgium, he has won the Shadow Prize, the Diamond Bullet, and the Hercule Poirot Prize.
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This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real places are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and events are products of the authors’ imaginations, and any resemblance to actual events or places or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.