by Hixon, Wayne
And he had blown it. Now she would have her guard up. If this girl had defeated them in the past then he guessed it was entirely possible for her to beat them again and this agitated Bones. It meant all the hard work he had put into this thing, all those innocent people he had killed, had all been for nothing. He didn’t want to let that happen. He wanted to see this thing through to the end, until he was like Ernst and Ilya.
Powerful.
Bones stopped at the van, reached in, and pulled his pack of cigarettes from the console in between the two front seats. He lit his cigarette and stared at the house while he smoked.
Sometimes he wondered what he had gotten himself into but that was only fleeting. Soon, the world would be his and never mind if that stupid bitch didn’t want to come along for the ride. She obviously didn’t have the stomach for it anyway. A weak will. She couldn’t carry through with anything. He would see to it she died before he left this sad little town that was so important to Ernst and Ilya.
Thinking of how he would destroy Rain diverted him from his doubts and led him through the smoking of his cigarette. It would be beautiful, when he finally put his hands on her again. He knew he would have to fuck her before killing her. He wasn’t about to hand her over to them without having at least one last little taste for himself. Rachel Stokes might be theirs but Rain, Rain was his. And he wanted that to be the last thing she remembered before dying so she knew what she was missing by running out on him.
Bones tossed his cigarette out into the oily-looking grass and approached the house.
He walked up the crooked steps and, without knocking, pushed the door open.
Zack slept on the couch.
Bones didn’t like Zack at all. He had been with them since California and he was clearly Ernst and Ilya’s favorite. Bones didn’t have any idea why. The boy seemed so weak, almost effeminate. And he didn’t have to kill. He only had to bring people to Ernst and Ilya. Keepers, as Bones thought of them. Those that stayed in the house. Below.
These were not cast-offs. These were going to be part of the army of the Devils, dead souls to swell the ranks and make them more powerful. Bones didn’t really know how Ernst and Ilya determined some people were keepers and some people were meat. He figured it wasn’t his place to question that. Besides, since Bones had been given his special task, that may have changed. Maybe now Zack was doing the grocery shopping.
He wanted to spit on Zack, sleeping so peacefully there on the couch. He hadn’t done a damn thing since California. He had merely sat around reading some damn book Ernst had given him, a book Bones wasn’t allowed to read. And now he was in the process of seducing some high school girl Bones figured held some interest for Ernst and Ilya. Probably getting a little on the side from her. Fucking fag.
No one was around. What would it hurt? he thought.
He coughed some phlegm into the back of his throat and projected it out toward the sleeping boy. It landed on his shoulder, quivering there with Zack’s breathing. He didn’t stir and Bones guessed it didn’t really solve anything but it made him feel a lot better. Like he had one on Zack now. Next time maybe he would think about slicing his throat while he slept there. That way he could be Ernst and Ilya’s favorite and put any question of who was better out of their minds.
Bones knew exactly where they were. They would be under the house. All he had to do was walk to the back of the house and go around to the underside of the staircase. There was a door there that led downstairs. Bones wasn’t really supposed to go down there on his own but they had led him down there a couple of times. It wasn’t anything spectacular. Of course, the only thing he had seen was the main room, occupied by a large table where Ernst and Ilya took their sacrifices. They never let Bones watch them eat. He didn’t even know why this was something he wanted to do other than he thought he could watch Ilya do just about anything.
She was the real reason he was doing all of this.
Ilya had become something like his entire reason for existing these past few months. He thought about her all the time. He wanted to be Ernst just so he could be near Ilya. Everything he did, he did with the hope Ilya would let him touch her. It didn’t even have to be in a sexual way. He killed for just momentary contact with her. He didn’t know how long he could resist before he might try something that would get him killed. Still, if it meant dying with his tongue in her mouth or his dick between her legs, then he thought it might be worth it.
Bones opened the door beneath the staircase, the blue light stronger down there, coming up to meet his eyes.
He took a deep breath and slowly descended the stairs.
About halfway down, the stairs changed from old worn wood to stone. Bones nearly slipped with the transition. There wasn’t any kind of banister to hold onto. He went slowly, feeling the death grow more palpable with each step. That was the only way he knew of to really explain it. Above, in the house, above the ground, things and people were alive. Below the house, there was nothing but death. The smell of it, dark and fruity, seeped from the stones around him.
There were ghosts beneath the house. Or something like ghosts. Bones had always thought of them as ghosts with teeth. In the end, that was really what Ilya and Ernst were—ghosts with teeth. They were things more than people. Things that had died a long time ago and, having somehow escaped the clutches of death, had also managed to escape many of the physical trappings of life. He had heard their stories. He had heard them from Zack and he had heard them from some of the people he had met while passing through the whole haunted country. While not everyone knew of them as the Devils, he didn’t have to go far to find a tale about a man or a woman. A horrifying vision in a nightmare. An eater of the soul. A taker of children. A myth. A legend.
While it was their beauty and their power that had initially attracted Bones to them, it was also their beauty and their power that held him in fear. Whatever they told him to do, he would do it, because he was terrified of them. And as more time passed, as he saw more and more of Ilya and Ernst, the more his fear grew. The more his fear grew, the more his respect grew. The more his respect grew, the more he wanted to be like them.
The stairway ended at a heavy wooden door. This was the door Bones was never allowed to enter without knocking. There were many times he had wanted to brazenly swing the door open, trying to catch them at something they didn’t want him to see. To get just a taste of the deeper mystery.
Bones took a deep breath and knocked on the door.
“Enter,” he heard Ernst say from the other side.
Bones put his hand on the old iron handle and pushed the door open.
Ernst and Ilya sat at the large stone table that looked like it had somehow grown from the stone of the floor. It never mattered where they were, what state or town they were in, this scene was always the same. There wasn’t any explanation for it, Bones knew.
“Hi,” Bones said, feeling dumb. He never knew how to greet them.
Neither of them said anything. They simply stared at him.
“You lost her,” Ilya said.
Bones nearly corrected her and said, “Them. I lost them.” But he thought better of that. He didn’t want a bad situation to seem even worse.
“Yes,” Bones said. He guessed they could tell by his injuries.
“This is unacceptable,” Ilya said.
“I know.”
“If you know,” Ilya said, “then why did you bother coming at all. Why didn’t you run off when you had the chance?”
“Because I wanted to let you know I could make it up to you.”
Ilya smiled. It was a sick smile. It didn’t make Bones feel good at all. It was the kind of smile somebody wore when they were making fun of you.
“I’m sorry to say there isn’t going to be another chance.”
“Whaddya mean?”
“This is the end of the line.”
“But I want to continue on with you.”
“There is no continuing on. This is where we stop.
This is where we belong.”
“Give me one more night. I promise I’ll bring you someone tomorrow. Hell, I could even bring you someone by morning, if you give me another chance.”
“No. It had to be her. You’re finished now.”
Bones felt anger flicker up through his body. “It can’t be over. Not just like that. Not after all I’ve done.”
“It can if we say that is how it is going to be. What do you expect to get from us anyway?”
“I want to be like you.”
“What does that mean?” Ilya asked. “Everyone seems to be saying that, ‘I want to be like you.’ But you don’t have any idea as to who or what we are.”
“Oh, I think I have a pretty good idea.”
Ernst stood up, unfurling his height, and looked at Bones.
“I have something I want to show you,” he said.
“I’d like to see anything you have to show me,” Bones said.
“Follow me, then.”
Ernst turned to his right and walked across the large stone room. Bones followed him. There was a door on that side of the room, to Bones’ left, that he had never noticed before. He wondered what was going to be in the room. He wondered if Ernst was about to show him the big secret, the thing that would help him to understand all of this.
Ernst pulled on the heavy door and it swung out from the frame.
The room was dark, not lighted up in the deathly blue that lighted the other rooms of the house. Ernst walked slowly over to a wall and held his hand up to a candle. He touched his finger to the wick and the candle came alive, bathing the room in a shimmering soft orange light.
Bones heard the whimpers before he saw the other thing in the room.
It had been hiding in the corner and now it half-crawled, half-walked out into the middle of the room.
Bones stared at the thing, trying to figure out what it was. It looked like it had once been human. There was something about it that reminded him of the Elephant Man in that creepy black and white movie he had seen as a child. It just didn’t look right. It was like it had all human parts but they were put on all wrong. Its arms dangled limply away from its body. It wore only a tattered old loin cloth of sorts. Knobs ran up its ribs. Its toes curved more out than in while the feet themselves seemed to be going in the opposite directions.
“What do you think of it?” Ernst asked.
Bones didn’t know what to say. He thought it was horrible but he didn’t know if that was what Ernst wanted to hear. He knew he was already on thin ice and he wanted to think carefully about any questions he was going to answer.
Ernst supplied the answer for him. “Hideous, isn’t it?”
“Yeah.”
“Do you know who that is?”
“I have no idea.”
“That is the last person who messed up.”
A sharp spike of terror jabbed at Bones’ spine. His throat closed. His heart shimmied. It was like the whole illusion he had been led to believe was now shattered and he wanted to get as far away from it as he possibly could.
“The last person we trusted,” Ernst said.
Run, he thought.
He could still do that, couldn’t he? Sure, he had never seen Ilya or Ernst move in any way other than that creepy crawly horror movie villain style and he thought if he just turned and bolted then he would be able to make it safely out of the house and into the night and then he could get into his van and disappear completely. Forget he had ever seen the Devils. If he could just get to the van then he could get away from all this. Ernst and Ilya didn’t have a van. If he could get there then he had absolutely no doubt he could find safety and freedom somewhere.
Or he could go after Ilya. Leap on her. Press his nose against her scent. Ram his hand up that dress and feel the magic between her legs.
His muscles tightened and he turned, legs already bending to charge ahead.
He ran into Ernst who felt as hard as rock and fell down to the ground, onto the actual rock. Not much difference. Somehow Ernst had managed to position himself in front of the door faster than Bones could have imagined anyone moving.
Ernst bent down and pulled him up, whispering into his ear.
“You didn’t want this to be your fate, did you?”
“No. God no,” Bones slobbered. All sanity had left his head with the thought of becoming like that thing behind him. And he could see it happening. He knew, in that instant, that he was absolutely nothing to Ilya and Ernst. Little more than a slave.
“I know. It hardly seems fair, does it? But think about it, Mr. Latch needs to eat too. Isn’t that right, Mr. Latch?”
“Eeeeeat,” the thing grumbled from behind him, drool running down what passed as the thing’s chin.
“We have other things planned for you. But, as you may realize by now, you are not just a body, you are also a spirit. Mr. Latch needs some of your body and we need some of your spirit.”
Ernst tossed Bones back toward the creature. Bones wanted to fight but Ernst kept talking and the entire time he talked, Bones could feel him reaching into his brain or something, shutting down all of the mechanisms that made him want to kick and scream. While he felt Ernst reaching in, he felt the thing’s hands and mouth all over his body. He heard the popping of his skin just under Ernst’s whisperings. He felt strips of his skin being pulled away from his body as his head was shoved down onto the floor, there to sniff up this creature’s excrement and piss scent.
“Mr. Latch failed us many years ago,” Ernst said. “We didn’t know what to do with him. At that time, we were not so divided into flesh and spirit. We thought the human body could undergo transformations. We thought we could shape people like clay. Like a sculpture. Something to look at, nothing more. A work of art—beautiful in its brutality. Something to decorate our lives with. We decided to experiment with what the human body could do. And we needed a punishment for Mr. Latch. So we pulled him down here, down into the darkness, where no one could hear his screams as we broke his bones, one by one. But we didn’t want him to heal in the way he was supposed to heal. No. We wanted him to heal how we wanted him to heal. We wanted him to look different. We wanted him to look not human. So we set his bones nearly opposite how they were supposed to grow. I imagine the healing process was twice as long as it was supposed to be and probably twice as painful. But we had all the time in the world. If there is one thing the dead have, it is time. I think it was this vast amount of time that drove us nearly insane, drove us to do some of the things we would not have otherwise done. But we were like morphine to Mr. Latch. We didn’t let the pain get too out of hand. Imagine it, Bones, imagine burning up with pain until you feel Ilya’s lips on you, her tongue moving over all of the broken twisted places. Imagine...”
Bones wanted to imagine but he could barely think. Mr. Latch’s mouth was burrowed somewhere below his arm, in the flesh, and Bones thought he could feel a large snake-like tongue move around the joint of his shoulder.
And then Ernst’s hand was wrapped around Bones’ bloody wrist and Ernst was dragging him somewhere away from Mr. Latch.
Bones’ thoughts became as much blackness as thought.
He remembered the heat of a fire. He remembered being bound by something that felt like a harness. The bone dry kiss of the flame. The hiss of his skin burning up, his blood boiling. The freedom of falling through the air. Falling into fire. He was pretty sure that was when he died. He never really thought of feeling himself die before but he could. He felt his body drop away, drop down into the fire and he felt his spirit lift up from the body, weightless and unrestrained. And he felt his spirit returning to Ilya and Ernst, there to sit by their side, away from his prison of skin. They were his liberators and he was here to do what they wanted him to do.
Quietly, Bones’ spirit listened as they told him about the future.
Eleven
Jacob stepped out of the shower, relishing his new clean feeling, and stood amidst the swirling steam in the bathroom. Even though
he had lived alone for a while, he still couldn’t get used to the idea of showering with the door open. Tonight, he had also locked the door. That was something he never did. Maybe it had something to do with Psycho. It probably had more to do with the events of earlier. He pulled on a clean pair of Levis and a black t-shirt, the closest he had ever come to wearing a uniform.
Stepping out into the apartment, he squinted at the harsh lighting. After demolishing the television, he had turned on every light in the apartment, hoping to chase away the twisted horrors lurking in the shadowed corners. He went into the kitchen, poured himself another cup of coffee, tasting slightly burned at this point, and lit another cigarette. He thought he could feel the black bags developing under his eyes.
He crossed the living room and put a compilation CD he had made a while ago into the player. He never marked these things and didn’t really have any idea what was on it. After the player took a second to load the CD, a Flaming Lips song filled the apartment. Jacob found this agreeable. Their music had always made him a little happier and, settling back onto the couch, he thought he could almost feel the horrors of the night ease up a bit.
Then his door banged open and everything came back in a surging wave of acidic saltwater. He spilled coffee all over himself, ducking in front of the couch, going down in a sparkle of cigarette ash.
“Jacob, it’s me,” Rachel said quickly.
He stood up slowly, his clean clothes now soiled with coffee, his heart hammering in his chest. Finding out it was just Rachel didn’t make him feel any better. One look at her sent his adrenaline pounding again. He felt scared and angry at the same time.
She looked as though she had been beaten. And there was a stranger with her. He tried to make some things fit together in his brain but he couldn’t do it. He stood there, unable to really say anything, shaking with confusion and anger.