Dark Gods

by T E. D Klein

  What happened, his wife die and he go to pieces?"

  "I'm sure I don't know," said Phyllis." I doubt he was even married."

  Janet's eyes widened." You mean he lived here all alone? In this huge house?"

  Phyllis shrugged." I told you he was crazy. He may have had a dog or something to keep him company, I'm not sure. I think George said something about a pet."

  The bedsprings groaned as Walter fell heavily onto the mattress.

  He lay back full length, careful nonetheless to keep his shoes off the patchwork quilt." Well, I'd say he was one guy who knew how to live."

  Giving an extended yawn, he stretched as if ready for bed." I mean, this is a comfortable place. A li'l drafty, but comfortable. An' this is a comfortable bed." He closed his eyes and appeared to doze.

  Joyce looked an apology. at her hostess." He always gets like this when he's had a hard week. Anyone want to help me drag him out?"

  "No-no-no, leave him be. Let him take a little nap. Like he said, it's a comfortable bed." Phyllis prided herself on her tact." The weird thing is, the man we bought the house from didn't even use it. He slept on a cot."

  "You're kidding!"

  "Nothing but a cot?"

  "That's all. I tell you, the way some bachelors live Phyllis shook her head." George found this brass frame in the attic, underneath a pile of junk. We polished it up and bought a new -or it. But it's still not in such good condition. See?" She pointed toward the metal legs; they looked as if they'd been gnawed." I'm afraid it got a bit battered up there."

  From the hall came the sound of heavy feet on wood, and of loud voices.

  Herb peered into the doorway, blinking at the light." Excuse me, ladies. Is my wife in here?"

  "Tommie's downstairs."

  "Hey, Walt! Walt!" Harold Lazarus burst into the room, pushing the others out of the doorway." Wake up, boy, you've got to come up and see the attic." He began tugging at Walter's ankles.

  "Honey, come on, leave him alone. He's taking a little nap." Frances put her arm around Harold's waist." Let's go back downstairs. I want another seven-and-seven."

  "Is it really nice up there?" asked Cissy.

  "It's great!" said Harold, disengaging himself from his wife's arm.

  "There's stacks of magazines, some crazy old almanacs and star charts, old knives, a barber chair, kids' toys… A lot of the stuffs rusted, but you ought to see the magazines. Almost a hundred years old, some of them."

  Phyllis frowned." I nearly forgot about those things. When we cleaned this place out, we put off doing the attic. We just stuck all the junk up there, all the stuff we couldn't use. Someday we'll have to go over the whole place-just as soon as it gets warm. As it is, it's a firetrap, all that paper."

  "Hey, don't throw those magazines away," said Harold." They might be worth something. A few bucks, at least."

  Phyllis shook her head." It's a real rats' nest up there. Like something out of the Collier brothers."

  "That's for sure!" said Harold.

  Fred Weingast entered the room, his glass now empty." Hey, that's a wild place you've got, Phyl. A lot of old toys, stuff in jars, some old uniforms-Christ, I didn't think I'd ever see one of those Army jackets again, the kind with the snaps on the pockets… There's even an old department store mannequin, way in the corner, pretty chewed up now but scary as hell." He laughed." I mean, the thing was naked! Herb thought we'd found a body!"

  "Come on, Frannie, let's go up." Harold tugged at his wife's arm.

  "I want to show you some of those old magazines. They've got ads for women's clothes, and some of em are really a scream."

  "Aw, honey, I'm too tired, and those steps look so steep…"

  "Couldn't you just bring a few down?" She turned to Phyllis for help.

  "It's really not worth going up," agreed Phyllis." It isn't insulated up there, and the place really gets freezing this time of year. Especially at night."

  "She's right, you know," said Weingast, shifting his empty glass from hand to hand." You could see your breath, even. Think I'll head back down for a refill-something that'll really warm me up." He turned to look down the hall." Anyway, I think my wife's down there."

  Harold looked disappointed as the rest filed out behind Weingast.

  He glanced at his friend; Walter lay sprawled on the bed, snoring softly like some large hibernating animal. Harold gave him a few ineffectual nudges, then said, "Ah, hell," and followed the others downstairs.

  George sat in the bathroom, crouching like some small hunted animal. He was acutely conscious of the muffled voices that penetrated the bathroom door, punctuated now and again by more boisterous ones when a couple strode past in the hall outside. He leaned forward, waiting for the cramps to subside. If he held his breath and strained to hear, he could pick out a few words."… may take the option on it, but they don't That would be Faschman and, most likely, Sid Gerdts.

  Silence for a while. Footsteps in the attic overhead. Then whispered voices, women's." No, wait, don't go in."

  "I just-"

  "No, I think someone's in there."

  The voices moved on.

  George sighed and stared down at the tiles on the floor, wishing he had something to read. Against Phyllis's wishes he always left a few magazines in the bathroom near the stairs, but that had been occupied; and this one, right off the guest room, was still relatively bare, save for the black plastic shelves and soap dish, all glossy and sharpedged, that his wife had put up this morning. Already the slab of soap lay melting like ice in a little puddle of greasy water. And little black guest towels, they were her idea, too, with stiff lace trim, to be left sopping on the floor or stuck awkwardly back on the rack. The house was not yet livable.

  Yet any bareness was preferable to the squalor in which he'd found it.

  Of course, it was what he should have expected, after seeing the flecks of dried skin on the man's lips and the stain on those trousers. A recluse, they'd called him, using the polite word. Eyes like a sorcerer, they said. Perhaps the locals had thought him colorful. But George still recalled the socks on the dresser, the deposits under the sink, and the stench of rotting meat.

  And the threats…

  He felt his intestines churn, and winced; when would it stop? The tiles seemed to make some sort of pattern, but the pain made him impatient.

  Red rectangle at the upper left of each square, no, every other square, and in the next row the design was reversed, so that…

  Yet over near the door the pattern changed. Automatically he cursed the ancient, unknown builders of this house, then realized he himself had had the room retiled before moving in.

  They'd kept all the original fixtures, though. It added to the atmosphere. The bathtub even had legs, like in the old pictures, reminding him of animal claws, thick and stubby. One, two, three…

  He lost count and started over. Yes, there were five fingers on each claw. They didn't make bathtubs like that anymore. Big enough for a whole family, too-not that the original owner had ever needed one that size.

  He'd smelled as if he hadn't bathed in years.

  A woman's laughter echoed in the hall, and then the low, eager voice of a man, perhaps recounting a joke. Damn it, he'd miss the whole party this way! Searching for something to pass the time, he tugged out his wallet and began leafing through it. I.D. cards told him he was George W. Kurtz, credit cards listed restrictions in tiny blue print…

  What a bore. He began counting his money.

  "George?" Phyllis knocked on the door." Are you in there?"

  "Yeah," he grunted." I'll be right out."

  "Are you all right, honey?"

  "Yeah, I'm okay. I'll be right out."

  "Is there anything I can get you?"

  "I said I was okay."

  She seemed to go away for a moment, then returned; her voice came from just outside the door." We're all going back downstairs.

  Walt's asleep on the bed, though. Don't wake him."

  "Mmm."


  "Did you say something, honey?" Holding his own breath, he could hear her breathing on the other side. She paused as if to say something else, then went away.

  In the silence he wondered what was wrong with him. Something he'd eaten, perhaps. Those shrimp last night? But no, that had been two nights ago, and he'd barely had a thing all day. Maybe he could no longer hold his liquor.

  Still, the ache felt like fear. He wondered what he was afraid of That was how it always worked: he'd feel the tension in the pit of his stomach, and only then would he attempt to choose the thoughts that had produced it. First the effect, then the cause-as if his mind held so many unexplored levels, mystery upon mystery, that he never knew the things it contained until his stomach told him.

  Nerves, obviously, over the success of this party. The bane of all hosts, particularly at a big affair like this. Still, he hadn't realized he'd been so worried…

  An unsatisfying explanation-but abruptly the pain left him. He made himself ready and stepped into the hall, checking on Walter as he passed the bedroom; the face on the quilt looked red and puffy, like an infant's who'd gone to bed squawling. George fastened the door to the attic, sealing out the cold, and headed downstairs.

  ***

  "I suppose pencil and paper are out of the question.

  "Yeah, sure, I mean what do you expect? Give him a free hand and I he'll go for them bandages. Give him a pencil and he'll poke his own eyes f out. I don't put nothing past these people, not after what I seen."

  The doctor sighed. "It's rather frustrating, you must admit. A perfect suicidal depressive, ripe for therapy, and he's incapable of speech. "

  He stared at the man on the bed; the man on the bed stared back "Perhaps when his throat heals, if we keep him in restraint.

  "Sometimes he'll talk to me.

  "Pardon? You say he speaks-"

  "Well, no, not exactly. What I mean is, he taps his foot against the wall, see? Like when he wants me to turn him over.

  The other shook his head "I'm afraid that hardly constitutes real communication. A yes-or-no response, perhaps, but quite useless for our needs. No, I think we'll simply have to wait a month or two, and "Oh, he don't just say yes or no. He taps out whole words. See, we got this code. " He drew from his pocket a frayed scrap of paper. "A is one, B is two; it goes like that. then… "There's an instruction booklet inside. Only trouble is, it's in 'And to say a word like 'zoo' would take all night. No, thanks. The doctor looked at his watch." For the time being, some medication-"

  "No, you don't understand You see, Z is two taps, and then six.

  Twenty-six, get it? And O would he 'll- he studied the paper- "one, and then five. Pretty smart, huh?"

  "It would still take all night, and I have thirty other patients to worry about." He looked again at his watch. 'And rounds to make before bedtime. No, I think we'll keep him on the Thorazine, and I'll prescribe twenty-five milligrams of Tofranil. We can try that for a while He walked down the hall, scribbling in his notebook The orderly remained in the doorway of the room, staring at the man on the bed. The man on the bed stared back

  ***

  In the living room Herb Rosenzweig was trying to organize a game. Faces turned as George entered.

  "We missed you, George. Thought you'd fallen in!"

  He grinned sheepishly and moved toward the bar, both flattered and annoyed that his absence had been noted. Couldn't these people fend for themselves? It wasn't as if they were all strangers to one another.

  "Herb here thought you'd been eaten by a bear!"

  "That's what I told'em, George."

  George shrugged. "No such luck. I think it was what I ate!"

  Amid their laughter Phyllis called, "Now, don't put ideas in their heads, or nobody'll finish the quiche. I spent all day making it." She pointed to the plates of hors d'oeuvres by the bar."And you people aren't eating the sausages," she chided. "They'll just lie there in the refrigerator if no one eats them."

  A few guests, cowed, shuffled toward the food. Cissy called to him from across the room. "We're going to tell our fortunes, George. You're just in time. Herb has a pack of cards."

  "A Tarot deck," said Herb, pronouncing the final t. "I found it up in your attic, in one of the trunks." He held forth a green cardboard box decorated with line drawings and the words Grand Etteilla. Cellophane still clung to the sides." I wanted to see what they looked like," he explained." Hope you don't mind. I don't think the pack had ever been opened before."

  "Do you know how to use them?"

  "French."

  "I'm a little rusty myself," George was saying, but Milton interrupted him.

  "Ellie's a whiz at French. Christ, you should've seen her over there, last summer. They thought she was a native. "He snatched the booklet from Herb's hand and gave it to his wife. "Go ahead, what's it say?"

  "Oh, this is easy," she said." 'Manidre de Tirer le Grand Etteilla ou Tarots Egyptiens, Composd de Soixante-dix-huit Cartes Illustrdes." Well, you can pick that up, can't you?"

  "Something about Egyptian cards," said Frances.

  "Does it say how to lay them out?" asked Herb.

  Ellie flipped through the pages. "Hmm, there aren't any diagrams. Pretty cheap. There's something in the front, though. 'To use the cards, it is necessary first to strike the game by the person who.."

  She paused in her reading. "Oh, I see. The person whose fortune's being told has to hit the cards with his left hand."

  "Whose fortune's being told?" asked George, without much interest.

  Anything, though, to amuse the guests…

  Herb shrugged." We can try Tommie's, if she wants. Does it say how to spread them?"

  "I wish I could remember how Joan Blondell did them in Nightmare Alley," said Ellie." All I remember is, she kept turning up the death card for Tyrone Power."

  "The Hanged Man," said Cissy, with a nervous little laugh.

  "Mmm, that's right. Well, let's see." Ellie squinted at the booklet.

  "Oh boy, this is so complicated… I don't know if it's worth it. It'll take half an hour to set up."

  "Aw, forget it then," said Herb, already casting about for new games to play.

  Tammie put her arm around him." From now on we'll stick to fortune cookies."

  George watched the group begin falling away around him, dissolving into small clots of conversation, but Phyllis picked up her cue.

  "Why don't we do it the fast way? We'll all pick a card, and that'll be our fortune. Here, give me, I'll shuffle."

  For tradition's sake she rapped once on the box, and the cards were duly passed among the guests until each held one." I feel as though we're about to play bingo!" said Fred Weingast, puzzling over his card." What is this, anyway? It's The Three of something, I can tell, but what are they? Dinner plates?"

  Harold peered over his shoulder." That's it-The Three of Dinner Plates!"

  "They look like coins to me," said Weingast's wife.

  Ellie was leafing through the booklet." No," she said, "they're pentacles. See? A five-pointed star inside each circle."

  " What's it supposed to mean?"

  "Let's see. Okay, here we go." She looked up at Weingast and smiled mysteriously, then turned to the text." 'A person noble and distinguished-' "

  "Hey, that's me to a T!" shouted Weingast.

  Ellie waited for the laughter to subside, then continued." Sorry, people, but you've got it wrong. Listen. 'A person noble and distinguished has need of silver-uh, money-and you should lend it to him." "

  Immediately, and predictably, Harold scurried over and slapped him on the back." Fred, old pal, how about it?"

  There were several paragraphs of text still to read, but the gag had run its course. Ellie turned to the rest." Okay, kids, who's next?"

  Ignoring the drunken cries of "Me-me-me-me," she reached for Frances' card. In smeary lithograph it depicted a small blond boy holding a gold chalice; the background was pastoral, with dark green hills and a waterfall." Oh, a picture card," she
said." Maybe that means it's important." She squinted down at the text." Apparently he's The Page of Cups. Sort of like The Jack of Diamonds, I guess. 'Have confidence absolute,' it says-absolute confidence-'in the young man blond that you offers… that offers you his service." Gee, Frannie, who do you know who's blond?"

  Harold answered for her." Damn it, I'll bet it's that delivery boy!"

  He made a big show of being the cuckolded husband, which all but Frances found amusing.

  "Do Phyllis next," suggested someone.

  " Yeah, come on, do Phyllis." The others took up the chant.

  Phyllis squirmed like a little girl asked to make a birthday speech.

  "No," she said, smiling nervously, "really, I don't want to hear mine. I always believe in fortunes, and they're always bad." She hid the card behind her back." Do George's first."

  Ellie shrugged." Okay, then, let me see it." She held out her hand.

  " But I haven't got a card," said George.

  "Too busy playing the proper host," said Milton. He picked up the pile of cards." Come on, there's more than half the pack left. Take one."

  " Close your eyes first," added Herb.

  George sighed." Okay, okay. But I'm telling you, the guests are supposed to come first." He took the cards from Milton and shuffled through them, eyes shut. He lifted one from the middle of the deck 100 and looked down at it." Good God!" He slipped it back in the deck and continued to shuffle.

  "Hey," cried Ellie." I saw that. No fair. You cheated!"

  "He's entitled," said Bernie." I mean, it's his house, right?"

  The other guests had lost interest in all fortunes but their own; some had wandered over to the bar. Ellie, however, wasn't mollified.

  "I'll bet he had The Hanged Man. Isn't that right, George? Just like in the movie?"

  "Just like in the movie," said George, his eyes shut." Here, give me a reading on this one." He drew forth a card and handed it to her.

  "The Eight of Wands," she said." 'Learning a trade or a profession.

  Employment or commission to come. Skill in affairs-in material affairs." I'm afraid that's a pretty general one."

  "Well, it's not so far off," said Milton." George is skilled in material affairs."