“Nah, man, this bitch,” he said, really angry.
“Bruce, enough.”
I sat Marie down on the couch and looked into her eyes. Warm, moist, fragile, fallible, alive. So impossibly alive. Had I ever been that alive? In my whole life had I ever felt that deeply? I must have. I’m sure I had tuned it out or turned it off at some point. But I must have been that alive. And now it was gone. In that moment, everything else seemed to me to be so pointless in comparison. The thousand minor angers, the grudges I nursed, the hate I had harbored, the wars my ancestors had fought -- all of it seemed childish and trivial compared to the divide that separated me from Marie. The line between the living and the dead.
I don’t think I have ever loved anyone -- or life -- so much as I did in that moment.
“So how were you going to help him?” I asked.
“He said I would know when. He said I would know how.”
I nodded, encouraging her to go on.
“He wasn’t the same as before. He seemed nervous. Afraid.”
I felt a strange new kind of power course through me. Not life, in all its imperfections, but something more eternal, more perfected, more gentle. “Will you help me?”
“Help you? Do you know what that rat offered me? It’s the only thing, it’s everything I ever wanted.”
“But it’s wrong.”
“But, but, but, it’s all wrong. All of it is wrong. You, The Rat, my stepfather drooling in the corner. Maybe there is no right. Maybe there’s just what you get and what you take.”
“Maybe,” I said, “but I can’t do anything about any of that. The one thing that I can think to do, I need your help for. So what did you tell The Rat?”
“I didn’t tell him anything,” she said as she rubbed some tears away with the heel of her hand. “I didn’t tell him anything. But in my heart, I wanted to tell him yes.”
“It doesn’t matter,” I said.
Bruce exploded. “What do you mean it doesn’t matter? She sold us out, man! Sold. Us. Out. Don’t you see, man? Never trust a woman. All they do is smoke your weed, man. That’s all they do.”
“Marie,” I said, “I forgive you.” With the words came a rush. Saying the words and meaning the words and being the words and feeling the power of it, poured through me. A roaring noise was in my ears and rushing of wings obscured my sight.
“But how do you know that I won’t change my mind? Won’t become weak in the moment?”
“I don’t,” I said. “There’s nothing I can do about that. You will or you won’t. I think maybe you won’t, but I can’t know for sure. All I can do is forgive you and ask for your help.”
There was a long silence. When she looked up at me her eyes were bright and clear. “I wouldn’t forgive you.”
“I know.”
“But why?”
I looked at Bruce. Then I looked at her. “Both of you should know that there’s a good chance that you will die. You see what The Rat did to me. You see what it did to the man with no name. There are forces at work in the world that I cannot understand. I used to think it was all bullshit. That nothing meant anything. Now I don’t know what anything means, but I know it means something.
“It’s funny; now that I’m dead I finally have something worth living for. Well, not living. That’s not what I’m trying to say.” I held up my forearm and displayed the black mark. “My time is up. I don’t see any way around that. The only choice I get is how I go out. And the only difference between you and I is that you can’t see the mark on your arm. But it’s there. And each second that goes by your life draws a little closer to its conclusion.
“It’s a world of pain and suffering. Of the lost and the damned and the just plain clueless. The lost can be found. The damned can be redeemed. But the clueless, the ones who have lost touch with their souls and take no wonder in the sweep of the sky; these are the saddest, most defenseless of them all.
“I know, because I was one of them. And this rat preys on them. So I get one last throw of the dice. And I know how I’m going to lay my chips. I see a chance to stop this rat, once and for all. To ease, if only in some minor way, the suffering of the world. So what the hell, I figure I’ll give that a try. Try doing something that doesn’t involve feeling sorry for myself for a change.
“And what I’m asking is, will you help me? Will you give me the chance to do something right before I go?”
There was a long silence. Marie nodded first. When I turned to Bruce, his nod was already in progress.
Then I told them the plan. I didn’t even get three sentences in before they started laughing.
* * * * *
Chapter 21
It was of those rare nights in the city that you only get at the very end of summer, when the heat lifts and wind from the North blows all the shit we put into the air far out to sea and you remember, after months of feeling like a mammal trapped between contracting walls, that the world doesn’t have a ceiling. One of those nights you can sit in a lawn chair on a roof with what passes for a beautiful girl, drink cheap beer and stare into the night sky imagining what it would be like to fall off the world into space.
I stood on the spot where I had been killed. I let my weight sink deep into my heels, deep into the very core of the Earth and waited. For the first time since I had died, I knew where I stood.
Everything had been prepared. Well, as much as it could be. This was either going to work or it wasn’t. Victory or… oh, who was I kidding. It was death. Death or something worse. Something I couldn’t comprehend, but just by getting a glimpse of it out of the corner of my eye, I had been able to guess that what The Rat had in store for me was pretty goddamned, god-awful.
God-awful like this alley. The only things that belonged here were things nobody wanted. Several bags worth of trash had been broken open and scattered across the ground.
The problem with waiting is that it gives you time to think about everything. And as I waited, what I thought about was pain. I remembered the pain of the first time I skinned my knee. The pain of breaking my wrist in 7th grade. And most of all, the pain that The Rat had returned to me in Marie’s apartment. Excruciating pain. I knew that pain. And I knew fear.
I said, “It’s time for you two to get out of here.”
Bruce said, “Nah, man, I’m staying. I’m staying right with you. I’m not going to betray you like some –”
Very quietly Marie said, “I stay.”
“Then I’m staying to keep my eye on her.” Lovers, haters and if they weren’t killed they’d probably be swapping spit two seconds after I was dead.
“Guys, you’ve done everything you can do. You should go.”
Marie turned to face me. Her face was hard and flat like slate. A beautiful piece of slate, to be sure, but just as implacable. “I stay,” she said.
Bruce puffed up in response. “Then I’m staying, too. We can’t trust her.”
Fools, both of them. But I could see that there was no arguing with them. “Hide.” I said, “Hide and watch. But don’t do anything stupid.” Even as I said it I realized how ridiculous that advice was. Here I was, doing what had to be the most stupid thing of my young life and untimely death. It felt ridiculous. It felt hopeless. Honestly, it felt like being alive again.
Bruce and Marie both headed towards the same dumpster, stopped and then looked at each other. They did a funny kind of dance, a little tango of contempt, as they both started off in opposite directions, then reversed, then split -- ah, love. Eventually, Marie hid behind the dumpster and Bruce ducked down behind the stairs.
I stared straight up into the sky. Maybe it was written all there for us to see. Not in complex fables and allegories, but in a visual metaphor. Maybe that’s what it was, miniscule, momentary bright flecks and then vast swaths of darkness. The astronomical distances between them representing the true distance between people. Or, less imaginatively, representing death. As the Scots say, “You’re a short time living and a long time dead.”
A short time living. A long time dead. And certainly no more time as whatever the hell I was.
Then the stars disappeared. I thought I was slipping away without a confrontation with The Rat. But no, I couldn’t be so lucky. The alley was still there and still depressingly real, but the night rolled in like a fog. The streetlight sputtered and struggled against the damp black.
Against the darkness, I struck a flare and held it high. It wasn’t much use. From all sides, I had the feeling that one gets when standing at the top of a cliff or high building. The urge to throw my body into the void was overwhelming.
No longer could I see the edges of the alley. The stairs and the dumpster, Marie and Bruce, were gone in the blackness of the night.
I was alone.
* * * * *
Chapter 22
The Rat stepped in out of the night and smiled. Even in human form, I could see its high, delicate cheekbones twitching slightly as it spoke. “Time’s up,” it said. As it said the words, I felt a small twinge of pain from the black mark on my forearm. I didn’t let it show. I didn’t want to give the rat-bastard the satisfaction.
“Yeah, we’ve come to the end of it,” I said, trying to sound like John Wayne and failing miserably.
The Rat looked around the small circle of light that the night permitted to exist between us. “I don’t see a body.”
“You know there’s no body. You knew I couldn’t kill him. This whole thing was a setup from the start.”
“There’s always a chance. Always a chance,” it said, cocking its head and sniffing at the air. “But now your time is up. And I’m here for your soul.”
“You can’t have it. It’s mine.”
“But we had a deal.”
“Yeah,” I said, “we did. A raw deal from the start. But it doesn’t matter. See, I’ve learned something about souls. They’re not the kind of thing you can trade for.”
The Rat smiled and seemed not the least bit surprised. “Oh, but I want your soul, Danny Boy, and I’ll have it all the same.”
“You can’t take my soul, all you can do is trick me into thinking you have it. Enslaving me with my own will for all time,” I said. Or at least, that was what I was going to say. I got about halfway through it when pain wracked my body.
Pain, instant and complete. I thought he had given me all of it last time. But I was wrong. I collapsed to the ground, convulsing in agony, my dried guts trying to heave their dust through my mouth. Inches from my face, the flare sputtered and sparked against the ground. I was helpless. I had waited too long to spring my trap.
“You’re right,” said The Rat, looking down at me the way I might stare at a roach dying on its back on a dirty linoleum floor. “Your soul is yours, the way round belongs to a circle. But you will serve me all the same. It’s easier if you believe, of course, but in the absence of belief,” it waved its claw and the pain reached new heights. I felt one of my molars shatter as I ground my teeth together. “Pain will suffice. Before we are done, you will beg me to take your soul.”
Convulsions wracked my body; I jerked and threw myself around on the pavement. My head slammed into something. I realized it was a foot. In the midst of my agony, I realized Marie was standing next to me. No. I thought. Get the hell away, Marie. What a foolish girl. What a foolish gesture.
“Marie, my child,” said The Rat, “I already have him. My offer no longer stands.”
“Namo ti futata Seebo Legbu,” Marie hissed, and then she kicked the flare.
The flare spun and skittered through the debris that covered the floor of the alley. The pavement burst into flame. Concealed beneath the trash were lines carefully drawn in magnesium. The Rat was surrounded by a burning pentagram.
The pain stopped. As the world opened up again for me, I became aware of The Rat’s hearty laughter. “Seek ye to bind me within the burning star of Cornelius Aggrippa?” it asked me in the most mocking of tones as I struggled to get to my knees.
I held up a finger. I said, “I’ll be with you in a minute, asshole.” I knew I couldn’t throw up, but it felt like I would have felt a lot better if I could have. I attempted to spit. Some dust flew from my lips and a tooth bounced across the pavement. Great. This was my big win?
Bruce emerged from the darkness. He looked at me in shock. Then at Marie.
“Bruce, we got it,” I said.
Bruce just nodded. I noticed that he was sweating. That he looked scared. “It’s okay. It’s okay, Bruce,” I don’t really know if I was saying it convince him, or to convince myself.
“What makes you think this can hold me?” The Rat asked.
“Belief,” I answered.
“You’ve never believed anything in your life.”
“Oh, not me. Out there in the night. There are billions of people, billions of souls, who’ve seen enough bad horror movies and read enough comic books that they believe a pentagram will trap a demon.”
“Am I a demon then?” The Rat asked as if it was talking about the weather. It sure didn’t act like something that was trapped. Its attitude wasn’t helping my pointless nausea. It tried to reach through the pentagram and there was a crackle in the air. Something like what bolt lightening might be like after it downed a bottle of Valium. The Rat pulled its hand back and looked at it thoughtfully. “Pretty strong. It might have been strong enough.”
And then The Rat reached through what I thought was an impenetrable force-field of cliché-driven belief and caressed me on the cheek. If it were possible, I would have shit my pants.
“Thank you, Bruce,” said The Rat. “You will be rewarded. His name is Josue, and I now release him.” To my left, I heard Marie make a little sobbing noise. I looked at Bruce.
Bruce looked down. I followed his gaze and realized that he had scuffed his foot across the side of the pentagram and broken the five-pointed wall of flame that had contained The Rat.
“Bruce? What the hell is going on here?”
“He now recognizes me as master,” said The Rat.
“Shut up, rat,” I said. The Rat stopped speaking, but it giggled on the verge of hysteria.
“It’s her,” Bruce said, “The Rat told me that it would make her love me. That she would be mine. A girl. A real live girl for me,” he turned to Marie, “You see, Marie, we’re going to be together. Now you’re going to love me, the way I need to be loved. The way I should be loved.” Bruce looked to The Rat for confirmation, “Right?”
The Rat smiled. My special question came back to me. How screwed was I? A dead guy betrayed by his mortician? Life sucks. Death is worse.
Marie walked to Bruce. She did it slow and sexy, her loose cotton dress riding on her hips like it might be thrown off with the very next step. It seemed to take forever. If she had been any hotter in that moment, she would have brought me back to life.
She reached out towards Bruce – unbelievable, a girl like that with a, a, a, a pasty-white Chet like him – and took his face in her hands. Slowly, sweetly, she brought his face closer to hers. Bruce began to pucker in anticipation of being kissed by what had to be the most beautiful woman he had ever seen, dead or alive, but she stopped short. A few inches from his face, she began to whisper.
At first, it seemed like this was good. I could imagine what her breath would have felt like on my face. She was speaking in another language, which has always been hot. But her voice grew in volume until I realized that she was speaking some kind of chant or spell. She brought her right palm to her lips.
In a savage motion, she bit into her palm and jerked the flesh from it by using the muscles of her neck. With the flesh in her teeth and blood on her lips, she kissed Bruce -- a hard kiss, and angry. Then she struck him a terrific blow with her bloody palm.
At this, The Rat laughed again, twitching non-existent whiskers as it did.
Bruce staggered back a few steps. Then he swallowed. And then a very strange look crossed his face. He touched his stomach and his eyes grew wide. He looked to The Rat. “But,
you told me she would love me?”
Marie spit on the ground and cursed him, “Now you will dine only on the flesh of men.”
The Rat said, “I bargain with souls, not with hearts.” And The Rat laughed so loud that it rattled the bones of my skull. Then the pain started again.
The world condensed into a three-inch circle in the middle of my vision. The pain, the pain. But the most offensive thing was The Rat’s all-penetrating laughter. I yelled in frustration. Bellowed for all my paper lungs were worth, which wasn’t much, but it felt good, anyway. Good in the bad way. Like Kamikaze pilots must feel in the middle of the dive. Like the guy who dives on a hand grenade to save his buddies must feel. Like a Captain who cuts the last lifeboat away and goes down with the ship.
I threw an arm in front of me and started to crawl.
More laughter. A wall of contempt, dark and substantial and very loud. The pain wracked my body. If I had been alive, I’m sure I would have passed out. But I wasn’t alive. Now, even the release of death was denied to me. So I threw another arm and kept crawling.
On some level I was aware of The Rat talking to me. Its mocking tones arriving to some part of my consciousness through some unknown means -- perhaps through the bones of my skull -- because all other circuits were overloaded. Another arm, the knee brace tearing grooves in the pavement as I pushed forward. And again. And again.
When I got to the gap in the burning pentagram, I closed it with arm. My flesh, dried these many days, lit like tinder, sealing The Rat in his prison. The pain condensed into my arm and then faded to a dull roar. A tingle compared to what I had just been through. But the laughter, the laughter did not stop. It died down to a contemptuous chuckle.
I saw its feet on the other side of my arm and looked up at it.
Unkillable Page 9