Dead on my Feet - The Halflife Trilogy Book II

by Wm. Mark Simmons

  Growls became throaty chuckles.

  “And what of the firefly and the moth? Is the chorus of cricket and frog a dirge of death or a lullaby for sleep? We might as well follow mislaid logic to its extreme and declare the moon and the stars to be elements of immorality and wickedness.

  “Man hates the darkness because he fears the unseen and the unknown. And, in like manner, he fears that which is not like him.

  “But are we not like him? Do we not fear that which we do not understand? What we cannot see? Do we not fear living humans for their power to move about freely and fearlessly in the burning, blinding, killing light of day?

  “We may say it is our nature to kill, our nature to do what men call evil because we are the spawn of darkness. But the eagle kills by day and the cavefish swims peacefully in eternal night. There is no line of moral demarcation between the darkness and the dawn.

  “We may choose violence because we know no other way. We kill to eat. We kill to keep our enemies from us. Do we kill because it is our nature?”

  I nodded, murmuring: “Nature, red in tooth and claw . . .”

  Are God and Nature then at strife? quoted a soft voice off to my right. That Nature lends such evil dreams? Brother Michael stood stooped and hunched in the darkness beyond the torchlight.

  “Tennyson, anyone?” I said with a small smile.

  Brother Mike made no response other than to study me with gray, hawklike eyes.

  “ ‘Who loved’,” I ventured, “ ‘who suffer’d countless ills, Who battled for the True, the Just . . ’.”

  The giant hunchback just stood there, considering me with an expression that grew less human by the minute.

  “ ‘ . . . Be blown about the desert dust’,” I offered, “ ‘Or seal’d within the iron hills?’ Then . . . something about dragons . . . too bad, I bet you’d like that verse.”

  . . . Dragons of the prime, he said. Only his lips didn’t move. That tear each other in the slime . . .

  “He likes it!” I said, remembering that this must be a dream. “Hey, Mikey!”

  O life as futile, then, as frail! came the words inside my head. O for thy voice to soothe and bless! The crippled giant began to fade back into the deeper darkness. What hope of answer, or redress? Behind the veil . . .

  Then he was gone.

  “ . . . Behind the veil,” I whispered.

  Then I was gone: the dream was ended.

  * * *

  I rose on the third day.

  Let me rephrase that: I got out of bed after three days of rest and recuperation.

  I unwound the bandage about my middle and contemplated the fist-sized weal of pink new flesh where a gaping hole had been blasted just four nights before. I should still hurt like hell but I felt marvelous.

  Physically, that is.

  The blood made an undeniable difference. After months of supplementing my waning diet with embezzled packets of refrigerated blood products and aperitifs of plasma, getting it fresh and undiluted was akin to walking out of Dorothy’s monochrome farmhouse and into the scintillating colors of the Land of Oz. I felt more than alive, I felt vibrant. I felt younger. I felt as if I were radiating health like a space heater pouring out waves of infrared heat and light.

  Was this how Erzsébet Báthory felt after draining one of her virgin victims? If so, I could understand the hunger and need that drove her down into her dark dungeons. I could still condemn—but also fully appreciate how going down into that darkness brought warmth and light of a different sort to the soul trapped in ice.

  Every time I had tasted crimson nectar, hot and lively from pulsing veins and straining flesh, I could not imagine returning to a repast of cold remains. Only a decaying sense of morality and an unraveling guilt had succeeded in reining me in so far.

  To keep from being totally swept away on this sensory flood of health and vitality, I tried to capture a thread of that guilt. The blood was given freely, Father Pat had said—no presumed guilt there. So I focused on my other victims: my wife and daughter, killed in the crash brought about by my first convulsive transformation; Dr. Marsh, murdered by New York’s enforcers during their first attempt to track me down; Damien’s death and Deirdre’s suicide, the results of protecting me from Báthory’s minions; Suki, possibly still paralyzed from my leading her into a confrontation with Liz Bachman last year; and, most recently, the deaths of Billy-Bob Montrose and Teresa Kellerman during the assault on my house.

  My mere existence, alone, had resulted in so much pain and death to others, how could I even contemplate performing a conscious act that would bring further harm to an innocent life? Better I should have climbed into that crematory oven behind Mr. Delacroix and rid the world of two bloodsuckers for the price of one.

  Except I promised to protect his daughter and avenge his death.

  And, so far, I hadn’t done anything to be proud of in that department. I might disagree with Father Pat’s assessment of my role in the grand scheme of things but, perhaps, we could find one point of convergence: I owed Erzsébet Báthory a death. And if that made an ending to my own encroaching madness and monstrous transformation, then so much the better.

  * * *

  Someone had laid out clothing for me: jeans, boots, flannel shirt—a bit warm for Louisiana, even in late fall. Unless you exist on the edge of unlife and need a little help in the body heat department. I dressed and found that everything more or less fit though the boots pinched a bit.

  I pushed the tent flap aside and walked out into the late afternoon twilight.

  We were deep in the swamps and a propinquity of trees provided a dense canopy of interlacing branches that blocked the waning sunlight like heavy cloud cover. Beneath the leafy ceiling the world seemed submerged in a dim green-tinted ocean and I moved into its depths like a deep-sea diver exploring a strange new world.

  The camp was a haphazard arrangement of tents and makeshift tables and chairs set out and about. I couldn’t be sure about the interiors of the other tents but the general area appeared to be deserted.

  “Feeling better?”

  I looked again and saw what I should have seen before: my three Fates sitting in the shade of a lean-to. Number One was knitting . . . something—it was too soon to be able to tell what. Number Two was working an ancient spinning wheel, producing a stream of yarn for Number One’s project. Number Three was carding wool in preparation for the spindle of Number Two’s wheel. In the distance, down by the bayou, I could see a knot of sheep. A giant, hunched form moved among them, distributing food.

  “Um, yes,” I said, remembering that I had been asked a question.

  “Do you still want us to work on your chakras?” Number One—Marilyn—asked.

  “Uh, sure.”

  “You do realize that your energy fields are pretty close to being balanced right now,” Number Two—Lynne—added. “If we change the spin on those chakras that are currently running backwards, it will throw you out of balance until the proper rotation is restored.”

  “And that’s bad?” I guessed.

  “Depends on how long you’re out of balance,” Number Three—Angela—explained.

  “You’re balanced halfway between being alive and undead,” Marilyn elaborated. “Even though we’re attempting to move you away from the undead state, you might start to wobble from the balance point as we adjust your centers.”

  “Meaning I might tip over into the undead zone?” Not the direction I was hoping for.

  “That’s not too likely,” Lynne said reassuringly.

  “That’s ni—”

  “More likely you might tip over into a dead state,” Angela amended.

  “Angela!”

  “Well, it’s true. And you said we should tell him so he could make an informed decision.”

  “Well there’s such a thing as tact.”

  I held up my hands. “What are the odds?”

  Marilyn’s knitting needles paused. “I can’t give you odds. Your condition is unique so I c
an only tell you what is possible, maybe probable. I think it’s probable that we can do this but I cannot tell you how long it may take or whether it will require many sessions. It will probably be very uncomfortable. And you may not like it.”

  “May not like it?”

  “The end result,” she said, looking me hard in the eye. “Right now you have the best of two worlds.”

  “The best—” I almost choked.

  “You’re stronger, faster, more . . . attenuated . . . than a human being. I doubt you will age like one. You don’t have the full limitations that afflict the living dead nor have you succumbed to The Hunger or The Rage.”

  “Yet.”

  “You should have more faith in yourself.”

  “Why? Because everybody else does?”

  “Everybody has to put their faith in something, Chris. And someone. Where and in whom do you put yours?”

  I didn’t have an answer, smartass or straight. I just nodded at the threads coming off the Fates’ spinning wheel and finding a pattern between the clicking needles: “Anyone I know?”

  “Jack,” said Marilyn.

  “Jack?”

  Lynne shook her head. “You don’t know Jack.”

  Angela giggled.

  “Jack is my grandson,” Marilyn said.

  “That’s your grandson?”

  “It’s going to be a sweater for my grandson.”

  “Ah. Okay . . .”

  Angela giggled again as Lynne and Marilyn exchanged looks.

  “Would you like to begin tonight?” Marilyn asked. “We could meet in your tent after the service.

  “When shall we three meet again?” Lynne murmured.

  “In thunder, lightning, or in rain?” Angela chimed in.

  “Girls!” scolded Marilyn.

  “Um, yeah. Sure.” I started to back away.

  “By then you may have had enough time to make up your mind,” Lynne said.

  “I’ll bring my scissors, just in case,” Angela called as I turned and ambled off a little briskly.

  I think they all giggled that time.

  Wandering about, I noticed a row of extinguished torches, set into the ground on tall poles like some sort of fifties-style Tiki-patio-party theme. Beyond them lay a small clearing where the ground dropped away into a bowl-like depression that was ringed with descending rows of split logs, laid on their sides to provide bench seating. At the nadir of the concavity was an open grave, a mound of dirt piled high beside it. All that was missing was the coffin.

  “Welcome to our chapel.”

  I turned and looked for Father Pat but he was more elusive than my three faux Fates.

  “Up here.”

  I looked up and, after a moment, was able to distinguish his form amid the latticework of leaves, branches, and garlands of Spanish moss.

  “I’m checking the bayou for boats,” he said, starting to climb down. “Ivonna said there were people a couple of miles to the south, yesterday. It’s rare anyone ventures into the swamps this far, but you may still be worthy of a search party or two.”

  “Ivonna?” I said as he stopped about ten feet above the ground to disentangle a binocular strap that had snagged on a branch.

  “You’ve met. She brought you to us the night you were shot.”

  I considered that. “Green hair?”

  “That’s the one. She’s a russalka.”

  I nodded slowly. “She’s a bit far from home.”

  He dropped to the ground and shrugged. “Home is where you hang your shroud.”

  “I thought home was where they had to take you in when nobody else wanted you.”

  He laughed and began plucking strands of gray-green moss from his clothing. “That’s good! That’s very good! Because that’s what we’re really all about.”

  “Your little congregation?”

  “Yes, Chris, though I’d prefer to think of us as a family or a community. Congregations tend to be so iconoclast.”

  I gestured toward the pit. “You have a chapel. You preach sermons. I know you Roman Catholics are always trying to reinvent yourselves but—”

  Father Pat held up his hand. “I’m not Catholic. At least, I don’t remember being a Catholic while I was alive. But then I remember less and less about being alive with every passing day.”

  “You wear a Roman collar and everyone calls you ‘Father’ Pat.”

  He fingered the white square at his throat. “Symbols. Symbols are very important in matters of faith, in the realm of the unseen and the unknowable. As important as they are to the people of the daylight, they are even more potent to the children of darkness.”

  “So the collar and the title give you some measure of control over them.”

  “Control?” He gave me a long, penetrating look. “Oh. Oh, I see. You think I’m some kind of snake-oil salesman. That I’m using religion as a means to power.” He smiled but there was little humor in it now. “I certainly wouldn’t be the first to find advantage in using theology to amass a following. It certainly has been profitable to those with media outlets. But look about you.” He swept his arm about in a broad gesture. “Where is my wealth? And even if I had access, who’s going to permit a radio or television ministry to the undeniably damned?”

  “According to the sermon I heard a couple of nights ago, you don’t seem to subscribe to the concept of damnation.”

  “Oh,” he said quietly, “I wholeheartedly believe in damnation. Don’t you?”

  “Oh yes,” I said, trying to match him for quietness and not nearly succeeding. “That’s why I question your motives. Hope is a cruel message. And people will seek power over others for no gain but power’s own sake.”

  “Power to do what? Raise an undead army? With messages of peace?”

  I shook my head. “There’s nothing unusual about a religious war. Every generation sees millions murdered in the name of God. Offering forgiveness merely sooths the conscience and makes it easier to pull the trigger or break the commandments.”

  “And withholding it motivates us out of hopelessness?”

  “There’s a thin difference between motivation and manipulation.”

  “Manipulation?”

  “I had an interesting conversation with a Chicago enforcer a while back. He told me about the fears of the soulless. Of the fear of endless darkness that awaits them beyond this pale existence. They don’t go gentle into that good night—they rage, rage against the dying of the light because they have no promise of salvation! It’s a cruel, cruel circumstance that gives you your opportunity. Bad enough that they’re damned—that we’re all damned! But you come along and tell them there’s a heaven after all. That they can be heirs of light and salvation, as well. Well, God damn you, sir, for that! Except there is no God and you are worse than any serpent in the Garden of Eden. You offer a false hope where there is no hope!” I stopped, stunned at the depth of emotion that had come welling up from that dark place down deep inside.

  “A lie is a terrible thing,” he agreed, “especially when it shapes whole lives to hopelessness and despair. You, you speak the lies so smoothly, so effortlessly, because you’ve been told those lies all of your life. They’ve blinded you to the simple truths, the pure truths, and made you a judge to shallow appearance and prejudice. How dare you, sir! Who are you to come and say to anyone ‘You have no soul, you have no salvation?’

  “You accuse me of manipulating these beings with a message of hope when you would smugly perpetuate a falsehood of hopelessness without the intellectual honesty to question your own borrowed suppositions. The problem, Mr. Cséjthe, is that you are damned. Damned by the hardness of your own heart. Damned for wanting to close the doors of heaven against those that don’t seem to measure up to your standards of redemption. Damned for wanting to hold them down in the darkness to share your miserable companionship.”

  “So,” I whispered, “you do believe in damnation.”

  “Of course I believe in damnation, you fool! I already said so. M
en like you and I, we know a great deal about damnation. But I live in a larger universe and I know there are greater things, more powerful things, than damnation. Things like love and forgiveness.”

  “And you get to dispense them, right?”

  “Yes!” he thundered, his face catching a patch of sunlight that had slipped between the latticework of leaves. For a moment he seemed to glow like an illuminated saint on ancient parchment. “And so do you! We can forgive the wrongs done to us! And if we petty, vindictive, imperfect creatures can find some measure of love and forgiveness in our own shriveled hearts, what wondrous, immeasurable treasures might be poured out of that great heart at the center of the universe?”

  “What about the rules?”

  “Whose rules? What claptrap, pinch-hearted preachers have you been listening to? Did you hear my sermon and miss the whole point? There’s only one sin in the whole Bible that is unforgivable. And as long as you don’t commit that sin, there’s hope, Chris! Hope! There’s still a chance to redeem the life you thought was past redemption!”

  “Who are you to offer hope?” I asked bitterly.

  “Who are you to suggest anything but?” he shot back. “You think there is no hope? You believe Nietzsche’s ‘we are all apes of a cold god’ shit?”

  “Marx,” I corrected, “not Nietzsche.”

  “Doesn’t matter who said it, only who believes it. If you believe it then maybe it is too late for you. Maybe you’ve crossed that line of no return, achieved that unpardonable state, and lost your salvation forever.”

  “Yeah,” I said, “tell me about my salvation.”

  “That’s not my place, Chris; and it’s not my message. I don’t tell people that the grave is a closed door. You think the cross represents the message of the New Testament? The true symbol of the Christ is not an instrument of torture but the empty grave! That’s our message: we are the Church of the Open Tomb! If His resurrection was a miracle and a blessing, why should ours be a horror and a curse? If God created us, He would not condemn us without reason. If there are shadows upon our souls, it is because there is a light within us, as well.”