Castle of Sorrows

by Jonathan Janz

  Christina said, “That’s not fair.”

  “None of it’s fair,” Ben shouted. “But we either do what’s right or we don’t. Otherwise, what the hell’s the point?”

  Jessie asked, “Did you find Marvin’s boat?”

  Teddy said they hadn’t, but he noticed Ben hesitate.

  Jessie noticed it too. “You saw it, Ben?”

  Ben clenched his jaw, took a slow drink of water, then nodded.

  “Why the hell didn’t you say something?” Teddy said.

  They watched, amazed, as Ben reached into his pocket, took out the keys he must’ve gotten off Marvin’s dead body.

  “So where’s the boat?” Teddy asked.

  Ben eyed the keys and seemed to deliberate.

  “Where’s the boat?” Elena asked, her tone urgent.

  “If I tell you, will you all leave?”

  “Going back for help isn’t the same thing as leaving,” Christina said.

  “How long did it take you to get here?” Ben asked.

  Christina frowned. “I don’t know, a few hours?”

  “And it’ll take a few hours to get back.”

  “That’s not long,” Elena said.

  “And how much longer to wrangle up the authorities, persuade them to come out to the Sorrows to help us?”

  “Another hour,” Elena said.

  Teddy arched an eyebrow. “That’s a trifle optimistic.”

  “Late afternoon,” Christina said. “We’ll bring help back by early evening at the latest.”

  “Gus’s helicopter will be here at three,” Jessie said.

  “Not necessarily,” Ben said.

  “What do you mean?”

  Teddy told her about the seat cushion and Ben’s theory.

  “What color was the cushion again?” Christina asked.

  “Orange and white,” Ben said.

  “We had those on the Blackie,” she said. “Several of them.”

  Teddy crossed his arms. “I still don’t like that name.”

  “Look,” Jessie said, “I think Ben’s right. It’s fruitless to talk about when you’ll return to the island when we don’t even know if the boat still works.” Elena opened her mouth to protest, but Jessie overrode her. “And then there’s the matter of driving the boat, of navigating the Pacific Ocean all the way back to California.”

  “At least we’ll be safe on the water,” Christina said.

  “Who says you’ll be safe?” Jessie snapped. “Have any of you ever driven a boat?”

  “I drove my grandpa’s fishing boat when I was a kid,” Teddy said. “But that was a little outboard with about fifteen horsepower.”

  “I don’t care,” Christina said, her voice fraying. “I want off this goddamned island!”

  Teddy shrugged. “Look, maybe we should wait. If the chopper comes…”

  But he never finished. Because at that moment they all heard a sound that made Christina leap to her feet and the rest of them freeze. The noise was faint, barely audible. But as they listened, Teddy knew there could be no mistaking it.

  It was Professor Grant.

  Christina said, “That’s Peter.”

  Teddy nodded. “Sure sounded like him.” And it did. Christ, not only did the voice sound like Peter Grant, but to Teddy it sounded like he was being stretched on a torture rack.

  Christina chewed her lip. “What do we do?”

  Ben got up. “We get him.”

  “All of us?” Elena asked.

  Ben gave her a cool look. “No, you’ll be staying here.”

  “But where is he?” Christina asked.

  Ben shook his head. “Sound is strange here. Something far away can sound like it’s in the next room, and something nearby can be totally concealed.”

  Elena uttered a breathless laugh. “Concealed how?”

  Jessie was watching Ben steadily. “What do you have in mind?”

  “The two of us go downstairs, and Brooks stays with these two.” Nodding at Elena and Christina.

  Ben was already moving toward the foyer, so the rest of them followed.

  Teddy pulled out his .38, made sure he’d reloaded it. He had, of course, but with the lunacy of all that had happened and the sleep deprivation he’d endured, he didn’t trust his own judgment.

  Especially not after what had happened back in California.

  Teddy sat rigid as an icy wave of terror crashed down on him. Somewhere, deep in his subconscious mind, he’d thought about what happened the night of Ben’s daughter’s abduction, but until now those thoughts had been inchoate, suppressed by some internal psychological filter. But as the images began to strobe through his mind, Teddy knew his suspicions were more than that. Those vertiginous, soul-shattering moments he’d endured between sleeping and waking, when that psychological filter had been least effective in sheltering him from the truth…those were real memories, not just nightmarish images spawned by whatever guilt he felt about Lars Hutchinson and Tanya.

  Teddy realized he was alone in the great hall.

  No, not quite alone. In the far corner, something rustled.

  He swallowed. There was a huddled shape back there behind the furniture, obscured by the shadows and the dark wainscoting. The shape…it was moving. To Teddy it almost looked like shoulder blades—cadaverous shoulder blades—draped in some sort of dingy robe.

  He glanced toward the doorway and saw the others were already gathered in the foyer, devising a plan to rescue Professor Grant. Teddy wanted to go to them, but at the moment his feet refused to move.

  Reluctantly, he turned back to the figure.

  It had risen, its upper body hunched over something it was apparently eating. Teddy wanted so badly to move now he began to whimper, but his feet remained moored to the spot.

  The figure began to turn, but it stopped, its profile too dark for him to make out in the midmorning gloom.

  Teddy followed the figure’s gaze toward the kitchen and beheld Lars Hutchinson, a bottle of whiskey clutched in one rotted hand. The dead lawyer was a reddish-black sack of meat. When the corpse lifted the whiskey bottle to its mouth for a drink, the brownish liquid gurgled through gill-like slits in its throat.

  “Hey there, coward,” Lars croaked.

  Despite his advanced state of decomposition, the lawyer chortled and actually raised his bottle in a mordant salute. “Didn’t think you’d have to face me again, did you? You managed to bullshit your way through the investigation, but you never thought about my family…my kids thinking their father killed himself with drink.” Lars took another step toward him, the light of the great hall now showing a black scrim of blood covering one side of his head like a disarranged yarmulke. “Come to think of it, you managed to throw your own family under the bus too, didn’t you? Your wife was a better person than you. She actually felt guilty for killing me. And you fucked her up good, Teddy. You may as well have shot her up with the needles yourself.”

  Teddy braced himself for more, but it was to the hunched figure that Lars spoke next. “Don’t worry, darling. He’ll be one of us soon.”

  Teddy shifted his gaze to the figure, whose mouth was now visible, a horror of emaciated gray flesh and rotting corn-kernel teeth. It was slobbering over some gobbet of meat clutched in its walking-stick fingers, and as it turned toward Teddy and leered its hideous jack-o’-lantern grin, he gagged and bit down on a palsied knuckle.

  It was Tanya under the dingy robe, Tanya naked and stripped of most of her flesh. There were earthworms wriggling in the putrefied sinews and veins of her forearms, flies buzzing in the stinking pile of guts oozing out of her belly. Maggots squirmed in her dripping nest of pubic hair, and what looked like a horde of pill bugs teemed over the gleaming maroon muscles of her fleshless thighs.

  But it was the thing she carried in her bony fingers t
hat made Teddy wish he’d died that night ten years ago. The sight of it got him moving, but he knew that even if he survived this ordeal he’d never be able to live sanely again. Not after the sight of his dead wife feasting on a writhing infant.

  He made it to the group just before Ben and Jessie headed downstairs. The basement door held open, Ben took in Teddy’s agitation at once. “Hey, man, are you—”

  “I’m going with you,” Teddy said.

  Ben glanced at Jessie, began to shake his head.

  “Man, I don’t give a damn what you say,” Teddy said, his voice only half a step from all-out panic. “I’m going down to get the professor, and there’s nothing you’re gonna do to stop me.” He shouldered past them, took a few steps down and glanced back. “You comin’ or not?”

  Jessie shrugged. “I guess I can stay here and make sure everybody’s safe.”

  “You do that,” Teddy mumbled, and continued down.

  There was in him an urgent desire to flee this castle, but the thought of being out there alone with the rain and the lonesome cliffs, the dark forests and the general feeling of wrongness…there was no way he was going anywhere by himself. He’d been caught alone in the great hall and just look what happened then.

  “You sure you’re okay?” Ben said.

  Teddy peered up at him and was nettled to see Ben hadn’t followed him down the steps. “Man, Shadeland, you need a written invitation or something? Get your ass down here so we can get the professor.”

  Ben came then, and unexpectedly, Teddy saw a rueful grin forming on Ben’s face. “You know, if not for the difference in color, I’d swear it was Eddie Blaze talking sometimes instead of you.”

  Teddy tried to smile. “This Blaze must’ve been a heck of a smart guy, he sounded like me.”

  “Sometimes he was,” Ben agreed. “He was arrogant, though. He never believed he was wrong. That’s what got him into trouble.”

  Moving next to Ben now, Teddy said, “I know when I’m wrong. Believe me, Shadeland, I know it.”

  Above them the door closed with a metallic thud. It sounded to Teddy like a prison cell door, or perhaps some sort of cage.

  It’s where you belong, Lars insisted. You’re a killer, Teddy. You not only took my life, you desecrated my memory.

  Anyone would’ve done the same, Teddy answered, but he knew what a feeble defense this was.

  Is that so, Mr. Brooks? And would anyone have done what you did to your wife? Bullying her into silence despite the toll it took on her psyche?

  Teddy felt a scream rising in his throat and did his best to choke it back.

  But Lars wouldn’t be silenced. You’re walking to your doom, you realize. And no one deserves damnation more than you do.

  Stop, he pleaded. I’m begging you, just leave me alone.

  But the damning words came anyway.

  You’ll be one of us soon.

  He tried to stifle a sob but made a poor job of it.

  Ben asked, “What happened to you back there?”

  Nothing happened, Teddy wanted to say. But he just shook his head, afraid if he started talking he wouldn’t be able to stop himself confessing everything.

  Like a condemned man being led to the gallows, Teddy Brooks continued down the increasingly gloomy staircase.

  Ben worked to override a growing sense of unease. He couldn’t shake the memory of last summer. He’d been just outside this door before he’d gone in with the axe and found Eva, beautiful, voluptuous Eva, drenched in her own blood and disfigured beyond recognizing. He’d gotten her out of that room, sure, but then he’d turned and seen the beast for the first time, all seven feet of him. And then they’d fought, and it was a miracle or dumb luck that Ben had survived.

  Teddy looked like he was about to come unraveled. They crept down the final few steps to the big wooden door. Professor Grant’s plaintive wail sounded again, the voice anguished.

  Just like Eva.

  Ben paused, tried to choose his words carefully. “I know this is rough, but as long as we stick together, we’ll get him out of there without getting hurt.”

  Teddy laughed. “You think I’m afraid of your monster hurtin’ me? I’m damned as it is.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “Man, don’t you get it?” Brooks demanded, a strained grin on his face. “You’re a smart dude, haven’t you ever considered the logistics of the situation?”

  “What logistics?”

  “The abduction, man. What the hell you think I’m talkin’ about?”

  “You know something about Julia?”

  Teddy went on as though Ben hadn’t spoken. “To get to your house, the monster would have to swim across eighty miles of the Pacific, move inland twenty more miles, and do a good bit of that during the daylight to commit the murders and kidnap your daughter during the right time frame.”

  “I’ve thought of all that,” Ben said.

  “No you haven’t, Ben! No you haven’t! Because it only leaves one conclusion: Gabriel couldn’t have done all that by himself. Don’t you see? He had to have help. A big goat man like him could swim like a shark without being seen, but he couldn’t move over land in the daylight, could he?”

  Ben’s chest had gone very tight. He fought off a growing suspicion he was talking to a madman. Because in some terrible way, he felt he was finally seeing the real Teddy Brooks.

  “I thought you didn’t believe in Gabriel,” Ben said.

  Teddy lowered his head, laughing. He ran a palm over his eyes, and then, terribly, Ben realized Teddy was crying. “I didn’t believe in him. Not before.”

  “What changed?” Ben asked, though he now thought he might not want to know after all.

  Teddy put out a trembling hand, grasped a handful of Ben’s T-shirt. “Don’t you see? I changed, Ben. I changed.”

  Ben’s chest was now a throbbing ache. He placed a hand on Teddy’s arm, but Teddy pulled away. Standing a few feet in front of the door, he said, “You don’t wanna touch me, man. I don’t even wanna touch me.”

  “Teddy, whatever it is—”

  “I woke up on the beach the other night,” Teddy said. “Night your baby was abducted? Musta been ten o’clock. You hadn’t called yet.”

  Ben could hear his heartbeat in his ears. “Teddy, I don’t—”

  “I woke up, it was like back in the days when I was drinking heavy. After my wife… But when I woke up, I couldn’t remember anything. How I got there, what I’d been doing…” Teddy was breathing hard, his shoulders heaving with barely controlled sobs. “…where I’d been and who I’d been with.”

  Ben threw a glance up the stairs. The glow of the yellow bulb seemed a world away. Ben had a flashlight, but he was too overcome with dread to retrieve it from his pocket.

  “I had blood on my shirt,” Teddy said. “Blood all over my pants, my shoes, even my fingers. I’d killed people, even though I couldn’t remember it. And not just killed them, Ben—butchered them. Your mom, that other guy—”

  “I don’t believe—”

  “I’m the one took your daughter and drove her to the coast. And when I woke up from the trance I was in, I saw tracks leading away from me on the beach—”

  “Teddy—”

  “—they went toward the sea. They were hoof prints, Ben. Big, deep impressions like some giant bull or something had come down to the water for a drink, but these—”

  “I can’t hear anymore—”

  “—were far apart like a man’s feet, a really huge man, only that couldn’t be, you know? Because they were fucking hooves.”

  “This is crazy, Teddy.”

  “I know it is!” Teddy shouted. He gave Ben an anguished, pleading smile. “I know it’s crazy, but it happened. He used me. And the worst of it was the thing I saw when I looked out on the water. It was dark by then, but
I could still make it out. There was this thing made out of twigs and sticks and stuff. It was like a woven basket, only it looked more like some kind of enormous bird’s nest.” His chest hitched, the tears streaming down his face. “Only it wasn’t a bird inside. It was…it was…”

  “Jesus Christ.”

  “It was your baby being taken away.”

  A wave of nausea rolled through him.

  “And underneath the nest,” Teddy raced on, “I saw a black hand with long talons holding it up. Like whoever was supporting it was underwater and moving as fast as a shark and—”

  From the other side of the door there came a deep thud. A slow, horrible scraping noise. And then the rhythmic click of approaching footsteps. Teddy, five feet from the door, looked up at Ben with huge, terrified eyes. Ben looked back at him.

  The door crashed open.

  Gabriel stood in the doorway. Seven feet tall, dark yellow horns curling into tapering points. The black flesh, the white pupilless eyes. The tufted hair and the satyr’s monstrous grin.

  Gabriel shot out an arm, snatched Teddy off the ground and through the doorway. With his other arm Gabriel seized the open door and, his eyes never leaving Ben’s, slammed the door shut with such force that it splintered off its hinges, wedged out of shape in the jamb.

  Chapter Two

  “NO!” Ben screamed and darted forward. He got hold of the handle, hauled back, but there was no give at all. From the other side of the door came a frantic gibbering and a prolonged, ear-shattering howl of agony. Then blood began running in thick rills beneath the door and pooling around Ben’s sneakers. Ben jerked on the door handle with everything he had, but it remained wedged. There came an inhuman snarling nearly as loud as Teddy’s anguished cries, the sickening sounds of smacking lips and snapping bones. The door juddered as something rammed against it, but Teddy’s wails were diminishing in strength, growing wet and more akin to a gurgle than a scream. And the door would absolutely not open. The creature had crashed it shut with such shuddering force that there was no budging it. Ben would need a chainsaw to get through. He could hear Teddy’s gruesome death throes growing ever fainter.

  Still, Ben beat on the door, bellowed for Gabriel to open up and tell him where Julia was, but other than the smacking sounds of the creature feasting on Teddy Brooks, the pit was hopelessly answerless.