Eyes shut almost to the end, not wanting distraction, not needing encouragement. But there were a few bars right at the close that were tricky, a little teasing trap he’d made for himself, so he had to stay alert or trip over his own big fingers on the way out, and he opened his eyes, watching the bruised light, the darkness on the other side of the spots, and up there something moved. Something hanging upside down, and at first, well, it had to be one of the stupid fuckers from the pit who had somehow made it up into the rafters, maybe a boost on the shoulders of his buddies and he might have managed to pull himself up. It moved again, hauling itself closer, easier to see now, dangling head down, bony-long neck twisting around for a better view of the stage, of him, and those eyes, one after another, black and wet and lidless, running round and round its bristling head.
His fingers stumbled, missed and feedback whined through the amps.
Or that was the sound it made when it opened its mouth, shifted its bulk and began to drip, leaking onto the upturned faces and outstretched hands. Leaking slicker and blacker than oil, and Daria had stopped playing and Mort had stopped playing. Both of them staring at him; he knew they didn’t see it, knew they wouldn’t, even if he pointed, and the crowd was howling, pissed and starting to throw crap at them.
“Keith?” Daria said. She wasn’t even angry yet, sounded confused, scared maybe, and he shrugged, tried to smile and make himself look back at his guitar, at the strings. “Sorry, man,” he said, but he could hear it moving around, wire brush on old wood and raw meat, and he couldn’t even begin to remember where to put his fingers.
A painful twinge across the bridge of his nose, his ankle, the syrupy smell of cold air, and Keith could feel the sweat on his face, under his clothes, like he hadn’t fixed. Daria’s lips moved without letting go of any sound, what’s wrong, and he knew this performance was everything to her and that he was fucking it up, what’s wrong, Keith, might have already fucked it up. Because there was no telling what Cephus Lee was using to cut his smack these days, no telling what he’d shot into his arm in the toilet down the hall from the dressing room, and someone in the crowd threw a beer bottle and it exploded like a glass grenade at Daria’s feet. Two of the big security guys tackled him and he was gone, and Daria turned away, one last look at those eyes full of panic and disgust fermenting in her green irises, disgust for him.
Scritch, and he tried to find his way out of the crackling silence, scritch, crackling around him like the air had that morning at Spyder’s, kept his eyes on the strings, his fingers, the playlist at his feet. Another beer bottle sailed past, hit the wall behind Mort, and Budweiser shrapnel rained down around them.
“Will you give us a fucking break?” she growled into her mike, and the crowd growled back.
The next song on the list…the list in Daria’s handwriting, the precious scrawl she’d photocopied at Kinko’s, three copies and the masking tape beginning to curl where it didn’t want to stick to the stage…the next song was “Su(in)cide” and he fumbled at the first few chords, nothing in the whole goddamn world but his hands and his guitar and Daria’s list.
Behind him, Mort began to follow, cautious three-quarter cadence, but Daria was too busy yelling at someone and it didn’t matter, because his fingers felt like he was trying to play the Gibson with yellow Playtex gloves on and the cut across his face stung so badly that his eyes had begun to water.
And one oilwet splat, then, one drop from somewhere directly overhead, and he watched the stain as it spread, bloomed, and whatever you do, man, just don’t fucking look up, just don’t fucking look up, ’cause you already know, and he stepped back from the sheet of paper taped to the stage, the acid stain, and you already know and there ain’t no point in seeing.
Then Daria was in his face, right foot planted squarely on the ruined photocopy and the stain still spreading beneath the sole of her Doc, right in his face and her eyes were as green as summer and he loved her almost as much as his music.
“Get the hell off the stage,” she said. “Just get the hell off the stage.”
Behind the crowd, Niki saw Keith falter and the song ended, nothing now but fading echo whine, static strips and tatters of sound. And she saw the way Spyder flinched, familiar confusion in her blue eyes that said something else was going wrong and she was there so it had to be her fault, somehow had to be her fault. It made Niki mad, mad that anyone, sane or crazy, could blame themselves for every goddamn thing that happened.
Wouldn’t be projecting just a little tonight, would we, Niki? and No, she answered herself firmly, no, we wouldn’t.
“Oh,” Theo said, “this is just fucking wonderful,” and she gave Keith the finger, obviously not caring that he couldn’t see her from the stage. Like she had seen, Daria, through the mike, “…you give us a fucking break?” and even way back at the bar, the crash of the beer bottle right over Mort’s head.
“Christ,” and then Theo was gone, slipped away and into the crowd, heatseeker, and Niki rubbed unconsciously at the faint and lingering sting on her neck, the hairline welt that had risen on her throat.
Then Daria was saying something to Keith, shoved him, and Stiff Kitten was leaving the stage, sulking away from the hail of boos and catcalls and flying beer bottles. Daria looked back once, everything but her face swallowed in the shadows behind the amps, but she was too far away for Niki to read expression or intent or anything else.
“Come on,” Claude said, then. “Maybe we can at least stop them from killing him.”
“We’ll wait here,” Spyder said, stirring at her Coke with one finger, not looking at anything, and Niki didn’t argue.
Out of the spotlight heat and down the black hall to the dressing room, pulled deeper and deeper into the cold by the gravity of Daria, the furious wake of her. His skin felt sunburned, flashburned, and his nose hurt, and the place beneath his eyes, like the time when he was ten and he’d snorted green Kool-Aid on a dare. He followed her, because anyone would have, and he knew she hadn’t seen anything hanging above the crowd, hanging there above his head.
The light in the dressing room made him squint, and Keith sat down, him and his guitar and Mort must have stopped to talk to the manager because it was just him and Daria. She had stopped in the doorway, lit a cigarette and didn’t look at him.
“I’m not gonna ask what happened out there, Keith. I know what happened.”
“Yeah,” he said, and she just shook her head then, drew gray smoke and exhaled.
“You’re a fucking mess. Just look at your face in the goddamn mirror. We can’t count on you.”
He didn’t look in the mirror behind him, but when he touched the place where his face ached, his hand came away wet, a ginger alloy of pus and blood; he wiped his fingers on the couch, and Daria flicked her half-smoked cigarette away into the dark, cold hall, little comet of sparks arcing away into space.
“You’re out, man,” she said. “Out of the band, out of my life.” Keith sighed and ran his fingers through his hair, no surprise, nothing he hadn’t known was coming, but it hurt anyway, hurt too much for him to respond. And then Mort was filling up the doorway, red cheeks, and he didn’t even glance at Keith. “I’m doing what I can, Dar, but this dude’s really steamed,” and she nodded, and he was gone again.
She lit another cigarette.
“I can’t sleep,” he said. “I just can’t sleep anymore, not since…” and she nailed him silent with her eyes, stabbed two fingers and her cigarette at his chest, “You’re a fucking junky, Keith. Period. You are a goddamn fucking worthless-ass junky bum, and I’m tired of listening to your bullshit excuses. We can’t count on you, and it is over.”
Outside the doorway, the darkness shifted, but it was only Theo, bristling like a terrier on speed, wanting a piece of him, too, a big, juicy piece, and Daria told her to fuck off and get in line, take a number.
“You’re a real fuckup,” Theo said to him anyway. “You make me sick,” and then she left before Daria told her to.
“I can’t sleep anymore,” he said again, because he had to say something, because he could handle the junk, and she knew it. “Just tell me you’re not having nightmares, too,” and the anger getting into his voice past the pain and loss and self-loathing, and she stared at him, a smoky question mark curling above her fingers.
“Yeah, Keith, I have nightmares. Is it any fucking wonder I have nightmares? Everything we’ve worked our asses off for just crashed and burned out there.”
“And it’s my goddamned fault! Yeah. I know, Daria, I know,” and he stood up so fast he almost hit his head on the low ceiling, the Gibson clasped in both hands like his baseball bat before a fight and it smashed against the concrete wall, spinning plexiglass volume and tone control knobs, bent vibrato arm whizzing by an inch from Daria’s face. Busted black pickguard and the neck cracked loud and snapped off the body of the guitar. He held it out to her, the whole thing bound together now by nothing but the strings, steel and nylon ligaments binding broken bone, dropped it at her feet.
“I’m sorry,” he said, fury spent so fast and a shudder through him at the sight of the damage, the ruin, part of himself dead and lying in a heap on the floor. She didn’t say anything, just stared at the shattered guitar, and now there were tears, swelling and escaping the corners of her eyes, bleeding down her face, wet streaks over the shock.
He pushed his way around her, out into the hall, the darkness waiting for him, confident, and there was Mort, like a blockade, Theo right behind him.
“Hey, where are you going? Don’t you think we’ve got some talking—”
“You know I owe you everything, man,” Keith said, “I owe you, and I’m never gonna make that up, so you need to just get the hell out of my way now.”
Mort hesitated, long enough to read the rest of it in Keith’s gray eyes, the threat and regret, before he stepped aside, one arm protectively around Theo, and let him go.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Loose Threads
1.
Word of mouth, questions whispered and answers, and so Byron knew that Spyder and her new girlfriend had gone to a show in Atlanta. That the house was empty—no, the house was never empty, but she wasn’t there, and he might not ever get another chance. Knew he only had so much time left, his time slipping away like the crimson sand through the Wicked Witch’s hourglass. And the days and nights had become worse than his fear of the house, of whatever lay coiled underneath, what he and Robin and Walter had awakened like stupid, noisy children. Worse than his fear of whatever guarded Spyder and kept tabs on him, too. The eye-corner lurkers, the dream haunters, and it was better to go and be done with it. One way or another, be done with it.
He’d tried to find Walter for days, but no one had seen him, no one knew anything or at least they weren’t willing to tell him, if they did. He could hardly blame them, the way he looked, like a fucking street person, the way he smelled, because he was afraid to go home long enough to shower and change his clothes. His eyes the worst, because he could never sleep for more than ten or fifteen minutes at a time before he snapped wide awake and sweating. Anyway, Walter had probably left the city, run off somewhere safe (if anywhere was safe) and left him alone, the way he’d let them go to the house alone the night of the storm and the beginning of the end of the world.
He’d waited until after dark, drinking cup after bitter cup of coffee at the Steak and Egg because Billy would refill his cup for free, would slip him a Danish or a slice of apple pie. He took pink hearts with his coffee and waited until there was no day left in the sky, no moon up yet, either. Just Venus and a couple of stars, the sky so clear and indigo tonight.
“You should go home,” Billy had said, soft concern, honest pity, filling his coffee cup again, and Byron had nodded his head, as if he was agreeing. And so Billy had said, “Promise me you’ll go home and get some rest tonight, Byron. A bath and a shave would make you feel so much better. Just promise me you’ll at least do that, okay?” And Byron had nodded again, because it was easier and made Billy smile cautiously and go back to work.
But instead he followed the dusk-stained streets up Red Mountain, house by house, toward Cullom Street. Except he’d learned something, and this time he wouldn’t be walking up to the front door, bold and dumb, no way. This time he took Sixteenth Avenue, instead, and finally left the street, blocks from Spyder’s house, traded asphalt for the dry-cereal crunch of fallen leaves beneath his shoes, twig snap, and the naked craggy trees reaching for him all around. Safer this way, because he could hear them better, always just out of sight, but their erector-set legs as loud as his feet in the woods. He could tell the skitterers were trying to keep in step with him, to cover their pursuit in the sound of his own footsteps, but there were too many legs, too many needle hairs to scrape against tree bark, leather bellies dragged, raked along, and Byron kept speeding up and slowing down, walking tightrope on fallen logs when he could.
Slowly making his way up the mountain, rough angle that he guessed would take him close to Spyder’s overgrown backyard. The cold air made his chest ache, aching legs, but he kept moving, stumbling over chert and sandstone boulders like scabs sticking up through the leaf mould, bits of bone showing through the forest’s decay. And the dark as thick as the frigid air, until the moon slipped up over the ridge and bled its satin light through the trees, three-quarters full so he could see, could see that he’d wandered past the house and would have to double back.
He stood still and stared down, between the trees and briars, at the roof of Spyder’s house. Off to his left, something big moved fast, crawling forward three or four quick feet before it stopped and was silent, too.
“I know you’re out there,” he said, loud enough so anyone could hear, and turned around, nothing there, of course, but he spoke into the woods, anyway, because he knew they heard him, spoke slow and certain words and the rust-jagged edge of ephedrine and exhaustion and anger in his voice.
“Why don’t you just come on if you want me? Are you afraid? Are you fuckers afraid of me?” and he laughed at the skitterers, not an act, really laughed at them, skulking back there out of sight like roaches.
“Maybe you can’t stop me. Is that it? Maybe you can’t do anything but creep around and watch.”
And he took a step downhill, toward the house, and heard the nervous whispers and drought rustle of their bodies all around him in the dark.
“Does Spyder keep you guys on that fucking short a leash?” and he laughed louder, laughed like a lunatic, and then he was crying again before he could stop himself, cackling and crying and he took another step; their legs punched through the ground eight times, sixteen times, twenty-four times. Thirty-two, and Byron stooped, found a rock and hurled it into the night. He never heard it hit the ground.
“I’m right, aren’t I?” Urgent words spit at the skitterers, and “You’re all bark and no goddamn bite. You made Robin hurt herself, got us so fucking scared she pulled that shelf over on top of herself, and the goddamn widows and the snow did the rest for you.”
And then he was running, headlong, pell-mell rush, jumping deadfall tumbles and ripping his face and hands in blackberry thicket briars. Feet almost tangling, ankles almost twisting, balance nothing but accident, and the roof of Spyder’s house rising up to meet him. A hundred yards left, now, a hundred yards at most, and he almost whacked his forehead on a low sycamore limb as big around as his leg. Ducked at the last minute, the last minute before he hit something else, something that was and wasn’t there, and it wrapped around him, tripped him but held him up, let him stumble three or four steps more before it began to slice into his flesh, slice through cloth and skin like garroting wire, and slicing, drew him backwards.
He screamed and kicked, thrashing his legs, teasing at nothing he could see, could only feel because it was cutting him apart, sinking into him. Gauzy silver hints like the moonli
ght, or only the reflection of the moon off something wet and razor sharp that had no color of its own.
“Spyder! Spyder, oh god get it off me, Spyder please,” and the scrunch and scritch of them all coming for him through the trees, through the leaves, slipping between the trees and out of the corners of his eyes so that finally he could see them. Calling his dare, calling his bluff, and drinking him in with eyes like Spyder’s that weren’t Spyder’s eyes. As many eyes as the night, and a second before the silk cut through his throat, sprayed feverwarm blood and left him mute and gasping, Byron felt his feet leave the ground, and he dangled like an angel or a fly without wings.
2.
Putting the old mill behind him and its casual three-tiered judgments, Keith walked west, walked toward downtown Atlanta and away from far-off morning. Away from Daria. Headful of ashes and simmering hate for no one but himself, plenty of room left for regret, and he didn’t know the name of this street, didn’t know where that alley led, and that was good, that was how it felt inside, exactly. Anonymous brick and cinder block like his soul and the expression on Daria’s face when he’d smashed his guitar. Like she hadn’t already done the honor, like he’d hurt her by making her decision final, irrevocable, her one wish on the monkey’s paw and he’d sealed it tight.
Spaces between streetlamp pools and the eyes that watched him suspiciously from black faces, the sound of his boots on concrete cold and hard as the cast of her mouth.
He shivered, zipped his jacket closed and kept moving; turning here, crossing empty chain-linked lots of cracked and potholed asphalt, broken glass, junky little white mousie in the maze—big hollow man striding under the moon and sodium-arc suns. Hey man, give me a buck, man, and he stopped to look at the ragpile that had spoken from a doorway, nailshut doorway and glass painted red. Something human in there, or just something alive, empty Thunderbird bottle in one claw like a lifeline, and he found two dollars in his pocket, held the bills out and the ragpile snatched them away and mumbled bitter and thankless to itself.
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