“I cannot speak for the spirit world,” Bud replied solemnly. “No living being can. But when the time comes, I shall attempt to call on the Old Gods. Then your question will be answered.”
The drumming began anew.
The small band of travelers looked at the huge old mansion. “Obviously,” Maryruth said, “we are expected to go in there.”
“Expected is an interesting word,” Bud said. “It has many interpretations. Do not anticipate a cordial welcome.”
“What do you mean, sir?” Heather asked.
Dark laughter sprang out of the night. The laughter seemed to soil whatever it reached.
Heather stepped closer to Jerry, and he put his arm around her slender shoulders. He could feel her trembling. He patted her shoulder reassuringly.
“That is something you must all experience personally. For each of you that personal encounter will have many different meanings. But please remember, this is very real, and very dangerous.”
“You wanna carry that further?” Vickie asked. She sat on the ground, Dick’s frock coat draped around her shoulders.
“I cannot,” Bud told her. “But I believe you have already experienced the reality of the situation. Correct?”
“Vividly,” the cop said. “And painfully. Notice how I’m sitting, for example? If I get out of this mess, I’m going to shoot the son of a bitch that shagged me.”
“It probably had something to do with my father,” Heather said. “Right, Miss Vickie?”
“Yes,” Vickie told her, “and others.”
“I’m sorry, Miss Vickie.”
“You had nothing to do with it, Heather. And it really isn’t your father’s fault. You must understand that.”
“In a way, it is,” the girl replied. “He’s a weak person.”
“Like my father and mother,” Marc said.
She looked at Marc and together they looked far into the distance. The adults silently watched them.
After a moment, the only sound being the constant beat of the invisible drum, Marc said, “We’re alone, Heather.”
“Yes. They’re gone.”
“Then who do we have?”
“Not our brothers and sisters.”
“No,” Marc said. “They’re gone, too.”
“Then it’s going to be up to us.”
“Yes.”
“What are you two talking about?” Voyles asked. “I am confused. To say the least.”
“Our parents,” Heather replied. “And our brothers and sisters. Our families. Everybody.”
Maryruth put her hand on Marc’s shoulder. “What about them?”
“They are all gone to us,” Heather explained. “We can never go back to them.”
“How do you know that?” Maryruth asked.
“We just do,” Marc said. “We’re alone.”
“No, you’re not,” Jerry said. “Neither of you. Remember that.”
The boy and girl nodded and then shifted their gaze to the huge mansion, with its many candle- and lamplit windows. They stood for a long silent moment, staring at the house.
“What do you see?” Jerry asked Heather.
The girl looked at the man through suddenly old eyes. “Death,” she said.
“Not enough time has passed for us to take any official hand in this matter,” the chief deputy said. “But it’s a quiet night—unusually so. Just keep your eyes open for an ’83, two-tone blue Mustang. Belongs to a Scott Haswell. History teacher here in Sikeston. Last seen about twenty-four hours ago by a friend. When he left his apartment Haswell said he was going out to see his ex-girl friend, Claire Bolling, lives out in the country. ’Bout halfway between 61 and Salcedo. Get time, Chuck, you might take a run out that way and have a look around. Chances are, it’s one of two things: Haswell blew it with his girl friend and is driving around, working off his mad; or he’s shacked up with her, so don’t go busting in and ruining their fun.”
The deputy laughed at that. It was a good laugh, full of youth and fire and life and energy. It was to be his last laugh.
“I’ll check it out,” Deputy Chuck Lansing said, grinning.
“All right. See you in the morning.”
And he would—in a manner of speaking.
Deputy Lansing rolled on a 37—a family disturbance—and he found a one-hundred-and-ten-pound woman beating the living daylights out of her two-hundred-pound husband with a softball bat. Chuck broke that up and asked if the husband wanted to press any charges against his wife?
Nope.
Would the man like to go the hospital? His nose appeared to be broken and he looked like he might need a stitch or two on his noggin.
Nope.
Would the woman like to press any charges against her husband?
Nope.
Go to the hospital?
Get the fuck outta here and mind your own business, Deputy!
Yes, ma’am.
Rolling again, Chuck called in. Dispatch said nothing was doing. No calls, no trouble, no wrecks, no nothing. So have fun on patrol, Chuck.
“Yeah, sure.”
Chuck made a few rounds out in the county and then decided to head toward the Bolling house. As he approached the place, Chuck experienced a few moments of light-headedness. He shook his head a couple of times, blinked his eyes; and the sensation left him.
He drove slowly past the dark house, giving it the eyeball. He could see nothing. But the main house blocked the beam from his headlights. He’d turn around and try it from the other direction. Once again that odd sensation swept over him.
He shook it off.
Then his lights picked up the shape of the Mustang. It was parked between the house and the shed. He pulled into the driveway and parked, cutting his engine. He looked at the Mustang for a moment. Then he got out.
With a cop’s gut instinct, Chuck knew something was wrong. He reached inside his car to call in, then withdrew his hand. He’d feel like a fool radioing in a trouble call when all he had was two people screwing.
That feeling of light-headedness once more struck him as he walked toward the dark house. This time the sensation was almost overpowering. Chuck fought the feeling off and stepped onto the porch.
The porch light came on, flooding the area with bright light.
Chuck experienced waves of sudden fear; they washed over him in chilly ripples. He did not understand the fear, nor was it something he was accustomed to experiencing. The door opened and a woman was framed in the light. Pretty lady, but dressed rather oddly.
“What do you want?” Claire asked. Her voice sounded hollow, like nothing Chuck had ever heard before.
Eerie! the deputy thought.
Chuck opened his mouth, started to speak, then cleared his throat. “Miss Bolling?”
“Yes. I am she.”
“Ma’am, I’m Deputy Lansing. Is a Mister Scott Haswell here?”
“Obviously, he isn’t. Do you see him?”
Smart-ass! Chuck thought. “I mean, ma’am, is he in the house?”
Claire smiled strangely. “You might say that.”
“I . . . see.” I think. Goddamn, this broad is weird. Who does she think she is: the reincarnation of Sacajawea.
Close.
Chuck said, “Would it be possible for me to talk with Mr. Haswell?”
“Why, of course. If you are willing to make the sacrifice.”
What is she—stoned, wired, or drunk? “I ... don’t understand, ma’am.”
“Then Sanjaman will explain it all to you, I assure you of that, Deputy.”
“Sanja ... Come again, ma’am?”
“Why don’t you come into the house, Deputy? We can talk about it and be comfortable at the same time.”
Chuck almost turned around to go back to his patrol car and call in, give dispatch his ten-twenty. Then he minutely shrugged his shoulders and walked into the foyer.
The odor of death struck his nostrils hard the second he entered the house, that and the thick smell of blood. Lot
s of blood and sweat—and the intangible odor of fear. Chuck turned around to face Claire.
She stood passively, smiling at him.
Chuck was thinking fast, trying to decide how to handle this. He knew full well what that smell represented. But should he pull his pistol on this little woman? Shit! He’d just play it by ear.
Claire broke the silence, still maintaining the eye contact. “I believe you wanted to see Scott, did you not, Deputy?”
“Uh ... yes, ma’am.”
She pointed. “That door right there.”
He turned in the foyer archway leading to the den. Then he saw the gore-splattered walls and floor. He put his hand on the butt of his pistol and started to turn around, to face the woman. “Miss Bolling, I . . .”
Chuck felt the lash of the razor-sharp blade cut through the tendons of his right wrist. Pain shot up his arm as his service revolver fell to the floor. His right hand flopped uselessly. He screamed in pain and grabbed at his arm.
He felt the sharp blade cut through the muscles of his left arm, saw his blood leap from the deep slash. As Chuck tried to run he felt the blade drive deeply into his right leg—the upper thigh—tearing the muscles. He tumbled to the floor.
Chuck tried to kick the woman, but all he succeeded in doing was flailing the air. Claire grabbed his left foot and twisted it, holding it firmly, her strength incredible for such a small woman. She sliced the tendons in his ankle and Chuck howled from confusion and agony.
He felt her hand working at his crotch. She unzipped his trousers and fondled his penis and balls. Through his pain, Chuck felt her masturbating him, trying to force an erection that would not come. Frustrated, she savagely jerked his trousers from him and knelt down between his bloody legs, taking him orally for a moment. When she realized he was not going to become hard she pushed him away and stood up.
A drumbeat suddenly filled the foul air of the den. Lifting his cloudy, pain-filled head, Chuck watched in horrid fascination as the woman lifted her skirt and began fingering herself toward climax. She shivered with delicious pleasure as an orgasm shook her.
Kook-factory! the words came to Chuck. A real fruitcake.
Then his head fell backward as strength ebbed from him with his blood. He heard a thumping sound coming from behind the closed door the woman had pointed out. Something was behind that door—but what?
Chuck wasn’t at all sure he wanted to find out.
A ripping burst of pain tore through him as Claire jabbed the point of the knife into his back and jerked it downward, cutting through thick pads of muscle. Chuck’s blood gushed from the deep cut.
She rammed the point of the blade into his left buttock, then his right, the pain almost driving Chuck into unconsciousness. Instead, he crawled toward the closed door of the closet.
Claire howled as she drove the point of the knife into Chuck’s buttocks, deeper and deeper. Her wild laughter was hideous and hollow sounding. Her breath was awful.
From the grave! Chuck managed to think the words. It smells like an open grave.
The deputy was almost blind from the pain in his body. He left a thick smear of crimson as he crawled toward the door. He put his hand on the doorknob and turned it.
The lights suddenly went out in the den.
Chuck opened the door.
He screamed in shock and fright and disgust.
The closet was illuminated by a strange glow; a pencil-thin line of light that was as brilliant as sunlight lit up the small enclosure, filling Chuck’s eyes with horror.
Scott Haswell—Chuck assumed it was Scott—was sitting up in the closet. He had been skinned. Long flaps of flesh hung like bloody ribbons from his body. His nose had been cut off, his lips cut away. He was covered with blood. He was naked. He had been castrated. The deep cuts that covered his skinless body still leaked blood.
No way! Chuck thought despite the horrible pain in his body. The guy has got to be dead after all that, and dead people don’t bleed!
Chuck felt his remaining clothing and boots and socks ripped from him. The coolness of air conditioning touched his agony-wracked flesh. He screamed as Claire began to skin him alive, peeling his flesh from him in bloody strips. Time after time he passed out, only to be brought back to consciousness by the water she poured on him. He howled with pain as the woman worked the bloody knife, hacking off his penis and ball sac. Then he blacked out, tumbling into the darkness of oblivion. Claire’s wild laughter followed him into the darkness.
When Chuck awoke, he was sitting up in the brilliantly lit closet, looking at Scott, who was looking at him. He felt no pain.
Scott held open his bloody, skinned arms in a welcoming gesture.
“Hello,” he said hollowly.
The drumming had stopped, leaving the area in almost total silence except for the sighing of a very light breeze. The leaves on the trees rustled at the touch of the wind.
Jerry listened for a moment, looked around them, then observed, “No birds singing, no crickets, no noise at all. That’s very odd.”
“There is nothing here,” Bud informed the group of travelers. “Life as you all know it cannot exist in a void.”
“A time-warp?” Vickie asked.
“One way of putting it.”
“Can we ever get out?” Maryruth asked.
“Oh, yes. All of you can.”
“What do you mean?” Voyles asked. “Are you leaving yourself out of that?”
“Perhaps. There are things none of you need to know.”
“Strange that no dogs are barking,” Jerry said. “We’ll get used to that. No dogs.”
“As you know them,” Bud corrected.
All eyes swung toward him. Maryruth said, “Then if there are dogs, they . . .” She paused.
“. . . Are caught between two worlds,” Bud told her.
“I didn’t think animals went to heaven,” Heather said. “That’s what I’ve been taught ever since I was little.”
Bud only smiled at the girl.
Leo spoke for the first time. “I sure could use a drink.”
“Yeah,” Vickie said, getting painfully to her feet. “A double Harvey Wallbanger.” She walked to a surrey and stood for a moment, trying to figure out how to get into the old-style dress.
“It will be many, many years before those are invented,” Bud informed her.
That brought them all back to reality.
A ship’s bell sounded, ringing clearly through the quiet night.
“A steamboat on the river,” Vickie said, jerking and pulling at the bustle of her dress. “What a sight that must be.”
“Do not approach the river,” Bud warned them. “The small levee you see over there is one side of our boundary. To pass over that is forbidden. The larger levee you are all accustomed to seeing has not yet been built. That is still some years in the future. You all know Sanjaman’s area of control; stay within it. For to go beyond—and you will all probably be tempted to do just that—will mean either instant death, being trapped forever between two worlds, or enslavement for eternity by Sanjaman. And believe me when I say, death is the more merciful.”
“You mean,” Heather asked, her youthful curiosity overriding caution, “we can visit Good Hope as it was—however many years ago?”
“If you live through the night,” Bud replied, his words chilling the adults. To the kids, this was still a game. Nothing really bad had happened so far—right?
“Wow!” Marc said. “When can I get out of this stupid sailor suit?”
Bud smiled. “I think you look charming.”
“I think he looks icky,” Heather countered.
“You look like you’re wearing a grocery bag,” Marc responded, with all the charm, grace, and tactfulness of a ten-year-old.
Heather stuck her tongue out at him.
Laughter came from the three-story mansion, rolling out the open windows. But it was not the wild, mad taunting laughter of the Manitou; it was the joyful sound of adults and young people havin
g fun. The delicate sound of a piano drifted across the front yard of the huge estate.
“Mozart,” Jerry said. “That is part of The Marriage of Figaro. Whoever is playing certainly is an accomplished pianist.”
“Doctor Maryruth Lancaster,” Bud said. “Her maiden name was Benning.”
Maryruth thought for a few seconds she might faint.
Bud looked at the woman, his face impassive as stone. “Yes. You are she.”
“How? . . .” Vickie started to ask, then bit back the question.
“Do not question,” Bud said. “You are in no position to do so.”
“Let me guess,” Voyles said. “The twins’ names were—are, whatever—Marc and Heather.”
“That is correct.”
“And what part do we,” Jerry indicated the others of the group, “play in all of this?”
“I cannot tell you your fate. I do not wish to anger my Gods. But all will be made very clear in time.”
“You were aware of this all along,” Maryruth said. “Yet you chose to remain silent about it. I’m curious as to why.”
“I did not know, for certain, whether the Manitou would bring any of this into play. I suspected he would, but could not be sure. I saw no point in unduly alarming anyone.”
“What do we do now?” Janet asked, once more tugging at her dress.
“There is a party in progress,” Bud told them. “You are all invited. You must attend. You have no choice in the matter.”
“What do we do once we’re inside?” Jerry asked.
“Learn your roles. The parts you will have to play in order to survive the ordeal that will soon confront you all.”
“But . . .”Voyles stammered.
Bud smiled. “They will not know you are there. How could they? Most of them are not real.”
“Not real?” Heather said.
“Most will be figments of your imagination. Some are caught between worlds—many in punishment for sins they have committed. The others? . . .” He shrugged in the night.
“Now I am confused,” Voyles complained.
Bud smiled, although he silently confessed that there was precious little any of them had to smile about. “You will all see. Now go. Leo and I will tend to the horses.”
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