The Devil's Beat (The Devil's Mark)

by VanKirk, R. Scott

  Under Max's onslaught, the neck cracked in two, and the note stopped. Max didn't. A glittering gold cloud surrounded him as he kept hitting the harp, screaming deprecations at it. After destroying the neck, he went to work on the column and then on the soundboard. He slowed down as exhaustion took him, but he didn't stop until the harp was just a pile of dried-blood-red kindling and wire on the floor. By this time, his voice was only a hoarse croak. When he realized there was nothing left to smash, Max finally stopped.

  He stood breathing hard and then flopped down on the floor in exhaustion. He felt a little ashamed of his outburst, but he'd needed that. Because he was a self-absorbed idiot, he'd lost everything he'd worked for. He'd lost his right to make music. With a heaviness of body, but a strange lightness of spirit, he sat back against the base of one of the columns. The hollow wooden column shifted under his weight as he admired the results of his explosion with the play of his light. In the non-silence of his ringing ears (“E sharp”), he exhaled and didn't hear the accompanying sloshing of water above him. All his attention was on the ruins of the harp and its halo of shiny, golden paint chips. In the backwash of light, he could see the same gold specs covering his hands. In fact, when he played the light on himself, he found he glittered like the seventies.

  Max muttered a half-hearted “crap,” slumped, and dripped his head back against the pillar with a thunk. Something tapped his head. He looked up as stream of noisome fluid poured down on his head from the top of the pillar.

  He jumped up and spun around with another curse. At least that had been the plan. Instead, he unsteadily pushed himself off the floor with his still trembling arms and tried not to fall over as he backed away. The stream of liquid followed him a short way before he got himself out of range. Its rank smell made him gag as he weakly wiped it off with his sleeve and bandaged hand, coloring them both a nasty yellowish brown.

  By the time he could see again, the stream had stopped. He pointed the light at the statue on top of the column. It was an ugly parody of the statue of the peeing boy that he'd always equated with English manor houses. This one was sporting a toothy smile, and its bulging, mismatched eyes focused on the enormous thrusting penis it held with both scaly hands. In front of it stood what looked like a bowl. The imp's evilly grinning mouth nearly bisected its misshapen face and two long fangs shoved out from his upper lip to dig into the stone flesh below.

  That little mutant shit had peed on him! Max's anger re-flared, and he whipped his flashlight at the statue. The light twirled end over end till it hit the statue. With a solid thunk of metal on stone, the flashlight reversed course and came back at Max.

  Max ducked and dove through another pile of cans, scattering them in a cacophony of sound punctuated by the heavy thunk of the light on the wooden floor. The light bounced and rolled in a couple of circles before it stopped.

  Miraculously, it was still working. They sure didn't make flashlights like they used to.

  When Max crawled over to pick up the light, the newly illuminated wall caught his eye. There was an odd vertical shadow traveling up the wall for about seven feet. It took a moment for Max to process it, but he was looking at a hidden door, which had been left ajar.

  He should just leave. He knew it. Nothing good could come of exploring this place, this trap of Lucian's, but he couldn't leave until he had found his “present... before it rots.” He staggered to his feet and shone the light back on the peeing statue. It just leered at him with wicked humor. Max narrowed his eyes and growled at it. “I'll deal with you later.”

  It seemed unimpressed. Max clutched his anger to him like a crutch and cautiously approached the door. As he approached, something seemed to be moving beyond it.

  Empty Mansions

  Max reached out and slapped the secret door open, revealing a short hallway. The movement had been the shadows from his light. The little corridor ended at a kitchen that might have fed an army. Max didn't pause to explore, but just went on, looking for his “present.” Expecting to be jumped at every turn, Max cautiously completed a loop through the dilapidated, dirty, and dusty main floor, past moldering and odoriferous furniture, odd carvings and disturbing Gothic bas-reliefs of angels, demons, dancing satyrs, and naked women augmented with faded paintings. He finally ended up back in the front hall. To his relief, he had found no bodies or any of the other horrible things he'd found himself contemplating as he stalked through the hot, dark building. The floor plan was immense and every room seemed to sport a different decorative style. Even to Max's untrained eye, the differences were obvious. Max genuinely wanted to meet the architect and find out what he'd been smoking.

  In his explorations, he had found several locked doors. Max assumed that the keys to those doors were on the heavy key-chain in his pocket, trying to pull his pants off with its weight. Oddly, there was no bathroom evident. Max didn't know if they had indoor plumbing when this place had been built, but the electric wires running throughout indicated that it been inhabited during this century. Perhaps there was an outhouse. That thought hurt his brain. Needing an outhouse when you lived in such obvious luxury just made no sense. The bathroom was probably behind one of the locked doors.

  Everything he had seen just reinforced his earlier opinions of the house. It was beyond reasonable attempts at resuscitation. He knew he should just leave, but having made it this far without being attacked, or eaten, he felt obligated to finish his tour. He chalked it up to morbid curiosity and fear of Lucian's potentially rotten “present.”

  The once beautiful, ornate, and grand staircase curved up from the main hall to what might have been a balcony. Max peered up into the gloom of the second story, and then he eyed the warped stairs dubiously. He so didn't want to go there. But, “It just wouldn't do to have someone else find your surprise,” urged him forward. Fuck! After examining the stairs and testing the first few creaking steps, they seemed sturdy enough, so he resigned himself to checking the second floor, as well.

  He made it up the stairs without falling through. He considered that a victory and then went to explore the upper story, which was shaped like a U wrapped around the central hall. This story was as ornate and strange as the lower story, but light was streaming through the windows of bedrooms. It made the entire place seem less sinister and more sad. The once richly finished and furnished rooms were neglected, dirty, and vandalized. This house deserved a better retirement, and Max could give it to her. Here was a worthy project that he could undertake. Perhaps, as he restored her, and removed the weight of the years, she would help him to forget his own crushing past.

  As he explored, the headache, which had started when he whacked himself on the window frame, steadily grew in size. It throbbed in counterpoint to the pain in his hand, and his own smell was getting rank.

  Finally, his discomfort hit the breaking point. He was unbearably hot, his head and hand hurt, his hair was matted with blood and sweat, and he glittered more than Elvis. Even worse was the stickiness of his hands from the clotting blood and the black grunge under his fingernails, none of which he could quite clean off with his ruined shirt. He needed a bath. He needed a drink. He needed air-conditioning. On top of that, his watch told him that it was approaching seven pm, and the sunlight wouldn't last for long. Even with his new-found empathy for the place, the thought of being in it at night alone gave him the creeps. He shuddered and then headed back down the wide sweeping stairs, which loudly protested every step he took. He was down and headed for the main door when… Thump, thump, thump!... Thump, thump, thump!...

  Max jumped and let out a little yip at the heavy sound. Something was in here with him.

  Rescue Me

  A thousand horrible things, enhanced by the spooky decrepitude of the house, ran through Max’s head, and adrenalin surged into his system. He jumped through the open front door and ran across to his car. His original half-thought had been to get in the car and leave at high-speed and never return. But, as he hopped into his car, he caught himself. �
�It just wouldn't do to have someone else find your surprise...before it rots...” His heart pounded, his breathing came in rapid gasps, and his filthy hands shook like an old man's. He consciously took a few slow, deep breaths to try to calm down and think things through.

  What could have caused that thumping? Vague visions of monsters from the depths of hell presented themselves first. Those had caused his panicked flight. The more he thought about it, the sillier it seemed. A conversation he’d had with Lucian, over too many single malt scotches, played itself back in his mind.

  ***

  Lucian waved his hand drunkenly. “Bah! Ghosts! You monkeys have way too much imagination!”

  “But, you tell me yourself that we have souls,” pointed out Max, trying to think around the comfortable cushion of scotch that his brain was reclining on.

  “Yes, yes, that's different. The whole concept of ghosts is ridiculous. Your soul is part of The Divine. It is the breath of life, the animus of all things. It is clothed in your little mud bodies because this world could not stand the direct touch of it. Its connection to you is tenuous, because otherwise it would destroy you. The soul animates you but is not part of you. Unlike your little mud bodies, your soul survives your death, since it is immortal and perfect. It is pure hubris, which may I point out, you are remarkably adept at, to think that your tiny brains and thoughts could have any impact on it.”

  At this point, Lucian poured out the last two fingers of scotch into his glass and gulped it down. He let out a satisfied sigh. “No, my little protégé, when you die, your soul flees this mortal coil and returns to Him, or Me. Thankfully for Me, there is nothing left of You. No ghosts, no thoughts, no longings, wants, or desires. You are just empty dirt.”

  Max looked morosely into his drink. “Wow,” he said slowly. “That sucks.”

  Lucian flopped forward, leaned on both arms and looked at Max strangely. He said, “Yep, life's a bitch and then you die.” Meeting Max's gaze, he added, “You lucky bastard.”

  ***

  At the time, that conversation, like so many others with Lucian, had been very disturbing. After a while, though, it became oddly comforting. It was kind of reassuring that the mistakes he had made in his life would just erase themselves. It also helped sooth fears of eternal damnation. Now, for Max, standing in the late afternoon Mississippi sun and heat, it provided another comfort: whatever he had heard in the house, it wasn't some damned soul yearning for life, revenge, or something worse. It had to be something more mundane.

  There was no mistaking that the sound had been the house settling or something like that. More likely, it had been one of the party kids. Max tried to think it through. What had Lucian meant about something rotting in the house? Was he was implying that someone was trapped in the house and would soon die? Crap. Max knew he was going to go back into that dark and forlorn place. He couldn't live with himself if there were someone there who needed his help, and he turned his back on them.

  Still, the thought of going back into the house scared him. He decided that the flashlight wasn't enough for defense, so he opened up the trunk of his car and pulled out a tire iron. He hefted the bent bar in his hands. The thought of the damage it would do propped up his courage, as he headed back to the house. It hurt to carry the flashlight in his injured hand, but there was no way he was going back in there without both items.

  He walked tentatively in through the open front door and looked around. He waited to hear the sound again, but nothing came.

  “Hello?” he said into the darkness. Nothing but silence answered him. Feeling bolder, he shouted, “Hello?”

  Thump, Thump, Thump, answered his call.

  Swallowing his reflexive, unreasoning, fear, he followed the sound into the side room with the large fireplace. He had no clue what it had been called when the house was built, so he just thought of it as the living room. The magnificent fireplace, with its elaborate stonework and ornately carved mahogany mantle, dominated the far wall of the room.

  Thump, Thump, Thump. This time the sound was louder and seemed to come from somewhere across the room.

  He advanced with the flashlight stretched out in his left hand, sweeping the area in front of him, tire iron at the ready in his right hand. Max crept across the room. “Hello?” he said. “Who's there?”

  Thump! Thump! Thump! The sound was now louder and seemed to come from directly in front of him.

  Max jumped back in fright with both flashlight and iron pointing to the floor as if they were shotguns. After the initial fright, he realized that someone must be trapped under the floor somehow. There was no way an animal would make such regular sounds.

  Thump, Thump, Thump, came again, more softly as if the person, whoever it was, was tiring.

  “I'm here!” shouted Max. “I'll help you get out!” Suddenly, Max knew, beyond a doubt, that he was here to save this poor soul trapped under the floor. Here was a chance to begin offsetting some of the wrongs he had wrought. Here was a chance to prove that he still had value and a chance to redeem himself.

  Max searched around the floor and saw something that had escaped him when he was in the room before. Part of the floor, near the center of the room, sagged down. It looked like a supporting beam had given way. The thumping came again in what seemed the center of the sag.

  Max used his feet to clear away dirt and debris from the area and uncovered a part of the floor that seemed to be disconnected from the rest. A trap door had been worked into the flooring. Undoubtedly, it had been less obvious before the flood. He looked for handles or some way to move the section of the floor but found nothing. Finally, he put the flashlight down, and he took the flat end of the tire iron and wedged it into one of the cracks. He pushed down on the tire iron, and the three foot by four-foot section of floor seemed to move as one piece. He wedged his lever in deeper and pushed harder, but the section didn't do much but flex. He pushed harder and then started standing on the bar. He jumped on the bar twice before the board he had been working on gave a crack and came free spilling Max onto the floor.

  The board left a dark hole behind. Max crawled over to the hole to find the fetid and rotting smell which pervaded the house was much stronger here. It was rising through the opening. He breathed through his mouth and showed his light into the hole. He shouted “Hello?”

  Again, the thumping answered him, this time louder. Someone was trapped down there. The light shining through the small hole didn't show him anything meaningful, but something down there reflected his light.

  Quickly Max started prying up the other boards. Soon, he had enough of a hole that he could look into the space below. The reflecting surface was black water about four feet down from the level of the floor and seemed to be the source of the foul smell. A large floor beam had half fallen into the water. Its submerged end quickly disappeared in the murky depths. Under that beam was the top of what looked like a long mahogany chest. The chest was seemingly pinned in place by the fallen beam.

  Max shouted again. He was answered by two weaker thumps from the chest.

  Max's blood ran cold as a scenario played itself out in his head. Someone had locked a person into the chest and then left them there. He thought of the various serial killers or kidnapping movies he had seen and panicked at the thought of the perpetrator returning, finding him here and treating him the same way. He had to work fast. He attacked the floor with the crowbar.

  After prying up the fourth board, the rest of the trap door came free, and with difficulty, he was able to slide the heavy square of wood aside.

  With the door out of the way, he looked down into a rectangular area that seemed to be walled with some sort of concrete. It was larger than the trap door, maybe six feet by four feet, and was filled with the rank black water. The top of the chest, itself about five and a half feet by maybe two or three feet wide, looked disturbingly like a coffin. It was obvious that whoever was making the noise was trapped in that box. In order to get it open, he had to get the beam off of it.


  It was also clear that he would not be able to move that beam from where he stood, even though the end of the beam rested within reach at the edge of the concrete pit. He steeled his courage, gritted his teeth, girded his loins, and then lowered himself down into the fetid liquid. Even though it made his skin crawl, the coolness of the water was a welcome change from the oppressive heat. When his feet touched bottom, the water came up to his waist. It smelled even worse now that he was bathing in it.

  Swallowing the bile that rose in his throat, he went to work on the beam. He placed his flashlight on the edge of the concrete pit. It didn't provide much illumination, but it was his only option. In the rank darkness, it took him a half hour of grunting and sweating and pushing to inch the beam off the chest. It fell with a splash, covering him with even more of the noisome stuff. He wanted to rest, to take a shower, to be anywhere but here, but worry spurred him on. It had been a while since the person in the box had made any noise. He couldn't stand it if he arrived just too late. He went to the chest and tried to open it, but it wouldn't budge, so he felt around and found a seam just under the water level. Frantically, he inserted his tire iron into the seam and leveraged it open. To his satisfaction, the top of the chest moved. He got his fingers into the gap and heaved. The top turned out to be a hinged lid, and he was able to force it open with a grinding creak.

  As he opened the lid, he could see that the chest was filled with the same vile, black water that surrounded it. The smell reached a new pitch, and he started gagging, as he tried to comprehend what he was seeing. There was nothing but the water. There was no person trapped within. Just thick, black, nasty, polluted water.