Deathgrip

by Brian Hodge

  “I got the same initials as him, D.D.,” and Gabe indulged the interruption with a little growing worry — what if they were too unstable to depend on? “Dougie Durbin, that’s me.”

  “Mr. Dawson knows that, and it makes him very happy,” Gabe smoothed along. The sooner these lumpen cretins were away from him, the better. “Just like he knows what it says in the Good Book: that even the devil can transform himself into an angel of light.”

  This settled them down, and they quieted with an intensity of focus that was truly frightening. Those wide-spaced eyes, wary and intent on whatever was asked of them. Sin-stompers about to receive a promotion.

  “Like I told you, there’s a threat to this ministry, and to Donny, and to all that’s good and right. Even though it looks just like a normal person. So tomorrow morning I want us to stand in its way, and show the world what it really looks like with its mask off.”

  He had them now — they were as malleable as wet clay. And he, the master sculptor, the man next in line below their prophet, their idol. Dougie and Terry wanted to know who it was, and he teased them with it for a while, until they could stand it no longer. And when he gave them the name, they were surprised, but yeah, yeah, they’d known all along something funny was going on there. They were ready to charge out and do murder then and there.

  But Gabe quieted them. Convinced them to wait until the whole world was watching.

  That’s right.

  For a while there, he’d almost done it. Paul had almost made himself believe that this week could be turned around, the darkness could be left behind. Naive fool, an innocent of the worst kind, believing in such fantasies as self-control. The long dark night of the soul was so thick now, he couldn’t have found his way to climb out with a ladder and a map, and light of dawn had gone the way of collapsing suns.

  It’ll always be this way.

  Since Gabe had left his room, the temperature had dropped outside, wind had picked up, clouds had spat fitful bursts of rain to mourn a dusk that lasted for hours. He noticed none of it, Paul not budging from one small spot on his floor. Barefoot, in jeans and a sweatshirt, hair an unruly tangle as he hugged knees to chest with his chin notched atop them. His only movement a slow and gentle rocking, side to side, a schizophrenic’s silent lullaby while blank slate eyes stared into the floor.

  His legacy…

  Scapegoat, latest in a lineage begun four-and-a-half millennia ago. Toxic waste dump for the world’s ills, fulcrum of a spiritual balance and medium for sacrifice. It had been with him since the day of his birth, same day as a president’s death, a random choice the exact particulars of which he would never know. Therein lay the madness, just the toss of a roulette ball made by his predecessor, a man of whom nothing had been left but gristle and rage and sorrow. Damn him to the same hell he had passed along, and Paul had to suspect that it had been this man who’d given his father the cancer. In the shake of a hand, perhaps, a brush of shoulders; somehow. Of course he’d done it, just to insure that their mutual progeny grew up understanding the implacable demands of disease. As only a son without a father could.

  He wanted to deny it all. Dismiss it as nonsensical ravings from Gabe Matthews, dismiss him as a lunatic who believed himself to be some twisted form of undercover agent. But Paul couldn’t, he knew better. Recalling the dreams, especially those in the hospital, vivid as shared memories … staggering across a blinding desert propelled by the hatred of a mob. His ancient kinsman.

  Paul, forced to wonder, Am I even worse? The venoms distilled over the years. Victim of a fluke at birth, maybe something afoot in the world that day, and whether the Dallas assassination was the trigger or a by-product, no one could say.

  But look at the state of the world since then, that unholy decade of change, ushering in a bleak new age of turmoil and dissolution. The dream was dead, Camelot had crumbled. An assassination captured live for mass consumption, instant replay, slow motion analysis of flying bits of skull. With too many secrets and loose ends to put it comfortably behind as the act of a lone madman, then forge ahead in optimism.

  The ultimate sacrifice, made on the altar of media, and the magic had been dismal.

  As was his own.

  He would never gain true control of it, for there was none to be had. It had him. The thing they had named Nergal, with its breath of desert winds, it would always demand more. Another life, another offering. And what would the ratio be, how many deaths for how many healings? Or was there any pattern to it, would he find it as fickle as a spoiled child?

  Life became too clear. Never truly trusting himself from this day on. Living a life with a risk like alcoholic blackout: Did I kill last night? The drunk who faces morning and his car without memory, fresh specks of blood and hair on his bumper the only clues to the previous night.

  Donny Dawson Ministries. Why leave here after all? Here was as good a place as any to keep the balance. Might as well see where tomorrow leads, how long it would take to grind the ministry into the dust. Donny wanted him? Donny had him.

  Of course, he could pass this torch along, just as it had been forced upon him in utero. Expel it in hopes of living a normal life, but no, he’d taken it too far already. He would always bear the guilt of what he had done thus far; why add the singular damnation of inflicting this hell upon an innocent? He could never spend a normal life living with that knowledge.

  Unless … he did not live at all.

  The coward’s option, but maybe somewhere, wherever, he would find understanding.

  For the first time in hours, Paul unwound. Joints, stiffened from hours of rigidity, protested as he moved to his closet. He dug through a box of junk unneeded here at the ministry, but which he’d been unable to part with. Mementos, mostly, from the radio days.

  He found what he wanted near the bottom, a small boxed kit. A plastic base molded with two shallow trenches into which audiotape would fit, diagonal cutting guides bisecting the trenches. He didn’t care about this editing block, just its primary tool. Four of which were rattling inside an old matchbox. He chose the one that looked the most pristine.

  A heavy, single-edged razor blade.

  Paul locked his door. Took one final look out at the hateful world, then looked down at his wrists. Veins, tendons. Lifeblood. The serious student of suicide knew enough to cut lengthwise along the inner arm rather than across. So many more blood vessels to tap that way. He had read that somewhere.

  Paul stuck the blade at his left wrist. Eased out his breath. And with an audible hiss, deeply sliced all the way back to his elbow.

  Chapter 39

  For several moments after Mike keyed off the engine, they listened to the patter of rain on the car’s roof. Its mesmerizing lull suggestive of sleep, a night in bed with someone warm he could care about, and forget about tomorrow, let the rain wash their hearts clean and new.

  Instead he was here, the place misery called home. Beyond the windshield, beyond the parking lot, the ministry compound was a scattered array of buildings, barely seen. Lights floating in the dark.

  Ramon made sure the safety was engaged on his pistol after carefully chambering the first round, then stashed it beneath his jacket. “If that Gabriel Matthews guy pops up around a corner, I’m not sure I’d even recognize him.”

  “Don’t worry. I’ll panic enough for both of us.”

  “What happens if he shows up?”

  “I guess it depends on how frisky he’s feeling.”

  “I’m not hot on the idea of having to shoot anybody, Mikey.”

  Mike said he wasn’t either, but was that entirely honest? Hadn’t there been a few revenge fantasies since first coming face to face with him? Acting on Edie’s behalf, an eye for an eye. The most Mike could assure himself was that he hoped it wouldn’t have to happen tonight.

  They worked up nerve to leave the car after their breath began to condense on the glass. Just shapes in the dark, cloaked by rain, their identities well-guarded, yet it still felt skittishly like st
epping onto a stage. This was the closest he had openly come to the compound. Hunching inside their jackets, they headed for the dorm.

  The call from Amanda Dawson had been a godsend, as he’d been tapped out of ideas beyond waiting until Sunday morning and blending in with the congregation during the telecast, seeing what developed. At least she trusted him now, and more important, knew how dangerous Gabe was.

  On the other hand, she’d had some peculiar things to relate about Donny’s newest employee. A genuine healer, no wonder Donny was pulling the gang-healing routine these days. Misdirection, a classic ploy of any magician worth his top hat.

  Raindrops needled their faces, eyes. As they skirted around the chapel, to their right sat a huge satellite dish, pale in the gloom. Tilted toward the heavens, looking like a vast platter. Awaiting the feast of all saints.

  In the dorm lobby, they shook off excess water and tried to look like they belonged, with every right to be there. Above suspicion. A few people loitered ahead in the lounge area. Some tall skinny kid with a prominent Adam’s apple peered curiously at them, then resumed a battle of wits with a stubborn candy machine. A trio of young women watched TV. Mike and Ramon ascended to the second floor of the men’s wing. Footsteps soft on a dense carpet, they paced down the hallway of numbered doors, from behind which music and voices floated. Mike stopped before one.

  “Amanda thinks this is the one,” he whispered.

  “She doesn’t know for sure?”

  “Hey, she doesn’t get out much.”

  A steady breath, then Mike knocked. Waited. Knocked again. A faint rustling stirred beyond the door, a slow shifting—

  “What? What?” A fierce grumble. “Who is it?”

  He could say nothing of sense to a closed door, so he knocked again, with urgency. Finally, a lock clicked and the door was yanked open. The room was dark, but the hall light showed more of its resident than Mike was ready to see.

  Clothing, hair, state of mind, they all looked as if this guy had lived through a plane crash. Barefoot, he wavered in the doorway while glaring at them with dark-ringed eyes. A crust of dried blood streaked his inner arm from wrist to elbow.

  “What?” A wild-eyed demand. “I’m busy.”

  “Are you Paul?” Mike said.

  He looked into the floor, as if that was where he could find identity. Then up again, “Uh huh.”

  “Can we come in a minute? We’re friends of Mrs. Dawson.” He told Paul their names.

  Paul’s contemplation was long and taxing, and he finally lurched away from the door, back into the room. Mike followed, swatting at the wall in search of a light switch. He and Ramon stopped at the sight of a few more spatters of blood dried on the floor. When it had still been wet, Paul had stepped in it, left random footprints across the floor. At the moment, he slouched on his bed, a razor blade loosely held in his fingers. This did not paint a comforting picture.

  “You doing okay in here?” Ramon asked. “You don’t look so good.”

  “I’m okay.” Paul said it too hurriedly, all one word, Imokay. “Fine, just fucking fine.”

  Mike took a couple uneasy steps toward him. Like approaching a big dog that neither growled nor wagged its tail; make a fast friend or lose body parts.

  “Amanda’s worried about you. She tried to call earlier and couldn’t get through.”

  “I pulled the cord. Out of the wall.” He gestured over a shoulder, and sure enough, there sat his phone on a desk, with a severed umbilical of frayed wires.

  “She wanted us to give you a message from her, since she couldn’t make it over here herself. She was wondering if, maybe, you might want to consider backing out of your part in the show tomorrow. She’s worried that something might go wrong for you, or happen to you.”

  Paul sat on the edge of his bed, held his face in taut hands. Rubbing one over his eyes, through his hair. Dried blood even flaked from his hair, maroon dandruff. He laughed with a sound like tearing cloth.

  “I dated this girl in college, see,” he said. “And for a whole month I thought I wanted to break up with her. But just before I was ready to do it, the bitch beat me to it. Oh man. I wanted her back like I never wanted anything. Just because I couldn’t have her.”

  Mike waited for further explanations, where’s the relevance, but none seemed forthcoming. “I think I’m missing something here.”

  Paul groaned, looked wearily up at him, as one who didn’t suffer a fool gladly. “I was to the point where, show up tomorrow or miss it, I didn’t care either way. But now that somebody tells me I shouldn’t do it, I can’t have it, well I’m so so sorry, but I really want to do this show!” Shaking his head, popping his fists together at the knuckles. “What does everybody think I am around here? Some kind of checker, some kind of pawn, stick me here or there or wherever the hell you feel like? I’m a human being, I used to have feelings, so just fuck all of you. Fuck! You! All!”

  Mike held his hands palms-out, telling him easy, take it easy, a sinking feeling within, here he stood witnessing a disintegration live as it happened. He looked at Ramon, who hunched his shoulders, at equal loss. He saw that Paul had let the razor blade fall to the floor, now defanged, and felt safer scooting in closer.

  “Amanda told us a few things about you. And if they’re true, don’t you think maybe you should give tomorrow a little more thought?”

  Paul’s head turned slowly, so slowly, eyes on cold burn, and Mike knew he’d said something terribly wrong.

  “If they’re true?” Paul whispered. “If they’re true? What, she told you about me and you don’t believe it?”

  Mike, feeling as if he were suddenly pleading for his life and doing a right rotten job of it, “No, I didn’t mean it like that, I—”

  “Well then, I guess a little demonstration is in order for you,” and when Paul grinned it was the most chilling thing Mike had ever seen. This to a man who, a few years ago, had sat in a courtroom and seen a public freakshow starring the aberration dubbed the Miami Hacker. A true human monster.

  This was worse.

  Paul swiped up the razor blade and even as Mike was toppling backward he knew he hadn’t been fast enough, that he was still in reach when the blade came shearing forward. Vicious swipe, and it caught him on the jawbone to cleave open a flap of skin and grate upon bone, a slice of cold pain even as the hot spill warmed the side of his throat.

  “No! No! Don’t you run! Don’t you dare run away from me!” Paul cried as he dove after him, and then Mike saw the blade was airborne, glittering red and silver across the room, and still Paul was coming, and Ramon was all huge eyes, backing out of the way and reaching inside his jacket to draw the pistol, clicking the safety off and steadying it with two very shaky hands—

  “Ramon! Don’t!” Mike thrashed his head no, no, spraying drops of his blood, and then Paul clambered atop him with one hand slapping over the three-inch incision, clamping tight, and Mike could feel a faint tingling inside his jaw, an itch—

  And it was finished.

  Paul rolling off him, Ramon staring at him. The gun lowering. Mike reached up to feel for himself. Beneath the slick film of blood, his skin was unbroken. Not even so much as a ridge of scar.

  Paul got up from the floor. “See? I’m in control.” Chuckling without mirth while walking a few steps over to Ramon, who didn’t know whether to stay or run. Paul looking down at the gun, “That’s very rude, that’s bad manners,” then snatching it from Ramon’s hand.

  “Put the gun down, Paul,” Mike said, the voice of reason, We’re going to die, “just put it down and we’ll talk, we’ll leave, we’ll do anything you want.”

  “I don’t think anyone here truly appreciates the enormity of what’s been going on inside me the past few months.” Paul shuffled toward the other side of the room, speaking slowly, choosing words with great care. A demented lecturer holding his class hostage. “I don’t think anyone here realizes I tried to kill myself tonight. And couldn’t. I mean, could not get it to work. Som
ething, somewhere, doesn’t want me to die.”

  He had been speaking to walls, ceiling, floor, turning to them only when he was through. Facing them dead-on as he lifted the pistol and snugged it straight into the side of his skull.

  “Check it out,” he said, and fired.

  The gunshot numbed eardrums as the slug burrowed a devastating path through Paul’s head and blew out the opposite side. Blood and brains showered while the impact knocked him off his feet and onto the bed, where he bounced as limply as a sack of grain. The gun twirled from nerveless fingers and bounced on the floor.

  Mike groaned sickly, at once very chilled, and Ramon crossed himself with a shaking hand, lapsing into a rapid whisper of Spanish. Mike scooted backward to sit against the wall, as far away as possible. Holding his head between his knees, breathing deeply while fighting to keep his rising gorge down, give it a minute and he would be out of this place so fast—

  And Paul sat up.

  “Isn’t that intense?” he said, with a twitch and a snort of laughter. Head coated with gore, its inner and outer workings undergoing some impossible sort of rapid regeneration. He never took his eyes from either of them while retrieving the gun and hobbling closer. “I need to take that routine onto David Letterman, next time they do Stupid Human Tricks. Bet you nobody could top that one.”

  Mike wasn’t believing he was witnessing any of this, no way, the guy’s craziness had infected them all with hallucinations of horrifying intensity, but then he wiped at his jaw again and came away with truth, wet and red and sticky, and then somebody was pounding at the door, a blessed interruption, a jolt to reality.

  “Paul? You okay in there?” came a voice from the hallway. “I heard something, sounded like—”

  “I had my TV on too loud!” Paul screamed. “Is that a crime? Leave me the fuck alone!” Gritting his teeth and shaking his head at the patter of footsteps in retreat, it’s just been that kind of day, and he continued across the room. He slapped the gun back into Ramon’s hand and helped yank Mike up to his feet. Then sat on the edge of his bed as if having done nothing more spectacular than open a window.