Brimstone

by Tamara Thorne

  “It’s a spooky place. Dangerous. You have to watch where you walk-”

  “Oh, I know. Keith was super-careful. But that’s not important.” She caught his gaze. “We, well, I saw something. A black fog, sort of like a column, like six or seven feet tall.”

  “It didn’t look like anyone? Like Pearl Abbott or-?”

  She shook her head. “It didn’t look like anybody at all, but I think it was some kind of ghost. It chased us and it was super-cold. Colder than Pearl. We got stuck inside it when it blocked the door to the kitchen. It was like walking through Jell-O. Before that, it was in a bedroom. The old rocking chair was in there, too, not in the living room like Keith thought. It made the chair rock and then threw it so hard that it broke into pieces against the doorframe. Then it chased us. It was so cold.”

  “Keith didn’t see it?”

  “He saw the chair moving, and he felt the cold. He said he felt like he was drowning when we were stuck inside the black cloud-thing. That’s how I felt, too. He’s going to tell his grandfather what happened.”

  Steve nodded. “Good idea. Abner’s a great guy. He knows a lot. I hope you’ll tell me what he says.”

  “I will. Maybe he’ll know more about the house.”

  “Well, if Abner doesn’t, I bet we can dig up some information somewhere. Ben Gower might remember something. Maybe even Adeline.” He glanced at his watch. “We’d better go. I’ll call Meredith and tell her I held you girls up telling stories.”

  “Thanks.” They still stood staring down at the twinkling town lights. “At any rate let’s get back downstairs before Becky has to check somebody in.”

  “Okay.”

  They turned and that’s when the dresser mirror caught Holly’s eye. “Steve! Look!”

  He did.

  There, in the middle of the mirror, smeared in red, was the symbol

  “Infurnam Aeris.” Steve looked at Holly. “I wish you’d tell me you drew that as a joke.”

  “Me, too.”

  “Any idea who might have put it there, Holly?”

  “Maybe it was my great-great-grandfather.” She said it with a lightness she didn’t feel.

  Steve shook his head. “I can’t think of anyone who’d do this. Hang on a minute.” He disappeared into the bathroom, returned with a damp hand towel. After wiping the symbol off the mirror, he turned the white towel over, then over again. There was nothing on it, not a stain, not a mark. He sniffed it, then looked at Holly. “I don’t get it. Where’d the red go? If you hadn’t seen it, too, I’d think I imagined it.”

  “It was real,” she said, trying to sound brave. “Just like our bruises.”

  “Yeah, I guess so. Come on, let’s get downstairs before Becky comes looking for us.” He paused. “I wouldn’t say anything to her about this.”

  “No way,” Holly agreed as they locked the room behind them.

  Uneasy, Steve insisted on walking the girls to the Granger home. When he started back, he noticed the storm clouds beginning to roll in from the east. Rain would be nice, he thought as he returned to the quiet lobby, where he sat back in his desk chair, fingers steepled, lost in thought. Whatever had happened in Holly’s room, it was as unnatural as the bruises they both bore; as unnatural as the bitter cold he’d experienced the other night.

  The Brimstone Grand had always fascinated him; he loved its history, its ghost stories. He loved the fact that he’s seen and heard the impossible within its walls on more than one occasion. All those experiences, spooky or not, had been benign. The resident ghosts had ranged from the switchboard-calling spirit in 329, to the invisible orderly with the squeaky cart who roamed the halls upstairs, to Miss Annie Patches, the ghost cat who was hanging out with Holly. There was supposedly a phantom that knocked on doors, but Steve wasn’t sure he believed that one really existed.

  However, he had to admit that the basement had a decidedly creepy vibe - as basements often do. But it had been safely locked and nearly forgotten.

  Until now.

  Until Holly had come.

  He rose and went in the back office to make a pot of coffee. Waiting for it to perc, he stared at the painting that covered the Infurnam Aeris symbol tiled into the wall, trying to come to terms with the idea that Holly’s presence had awakened dark things slumbering in the walls of the old hospital.

  Arthur Meeks closed his Naughty Little Girls beaver magazine and tucked Methuselah back in his pants. Entering his dinky bathroom, he rinsed his hands then dried them on a dirty white towel - the fucking maids refused to change his towels and the Queen Douchebag was on their side. That meant that Arthur wasn’t just the Grand’s only full time bellman, he had to be his own maid, changing his sheets and doing his own damned laundry. It wasn’t fair. The Queen Douchebag had told him he could pay a maid five bucks a week directly for the service. Fucking five bucks! That was highway robbery, so every now and then he threw his towels in an unattended laundry cart - or in the trash - and helped himself to new ones from the supply closets. He could’ve done the same with his sheets, but that was too much like work. Instead, he just added a blanket now and then to keep the sweaty crusted linen from touching his body.

  Now, he cracked the door and peered into the corridor. The night manager and that devil’s spawn girl - were long gone. Good riddance. Nobody tells me what to do, especially a nasty twat like Little Miss Fancy Pants. Nosireebob!

  Leaving the door ajar, he grabbed his Pall Malls and knocked one out of the red and white package. After corking it in his pie hole, he took the gold lighter he’d lifted from Mona Berger, the fat old cow who regularly rented the suite on the third floor because it was right over the restaurant so she could smell food all the time. Mona was a drunk and never even reported the lighter - or jewelry - missing, but she kept coming back to the hotel. Hell, she never even missed the cash he routinely lifted; all he had to do was give her that look - the one that said she was giving him a hard-on - and she wouldn’t notice a crew of naked leprechauns hosing down a burning building.

  He blew a smoke ring, then another one that bullseyed right through the first, and smiled. Old Mona Fur-Burger wasn’t much to look at, but she was about as observant as a hemorrhoid in Indiana, and that’s what mattered.

  Coughing on the smoke, Arthur opened the door wider and waved it into the hall. His room wasn’t a fit place to live - it was more like a glorified closet, maybe ten feet deep and not much over six across, except where the bump of a bathroom added another foot or two. He needed a better room, but Delilah Fucking Devine, Douchebag Queen of the Brimstone Grand, said he had to pay a lot more rent for a guest room. Fuck that! This room had one small window that opened right against the mountain - you could reach out and grab a handful of dirt if you wanted. Or a snake. One hot night last summer, he’d opened the damned window and woke up to find a family of ground squirrels gorging themselves on his bowl of peanuts. Little fuckers.

  They’d all gotten away except for the one he’d flattened with his bare foot.

  His mind returned to the Douchebag Queen’s spawn-of-Satan granddaughter. She can’t tell me what to do! The thing he’d seen - thought he saw - was impossible; nobody could change the color of their eyes like that. Maybe the kid had a hatful of magic tricks. Maybe not - either way she was the fucking devil’s daughter.

  “Who do you think you are, you little bitch, ordering me to stay in my room!” He stepped into the hall and crossed to a tall ashtray beside the elevator and stubbed his butt out in the sand. “Who the hell do you think you are, little Miss Fancy Pants?”

  He took two steps toward her room then, inexplicably overcome with anxiety, turned on his heel and returned to his own, locking the door behind him. As he opened his window on the dark desert night, he told himself it was because he couldn’t risk getting fired. But hidden deep inside his dark heart and darker mind, was the conviction that soon enough, little Miss Fancy Pants would be the one taking orders, not giving them.

  Delilah had spent the evening
attempting to get memories of the meeting at Gower’s Drugs off her mind. She’d dined with Vera, then they’d watched All About Eve, a movie that inevitably reminded Delilah of Millicent McKensy, the tawdry little tart who tried - with a spectacular lack of success - to derail Delilah’s career. In the end, all she took from Delilah was Clifton, and by then, she was welcome to him.

  Vera, a very good friend indeed, had suggested watching the movie, as she usually did when she sensed something was bothering Delilah. Then she asked the questions meant to get Delilah to vent, and egged her on, bringing up everything from the hair-sprouting mole on Millicent’s neck to the starlet’s need for dress shields, even in winter.

  Delilah smiled. It had all happened so long ago that there was no malice left, at least no more than you might afford a buzzing fly. She and Vera had killed a bottle of decent Merlot and had a lot of laughs. By the time Vera left, Delilah was in a good mood. Soon after, she got ready for bed. She put on her reading glasses and picked up Airport by Arthur Hailey, opened it and tried to read, but the words bypassed her brain. Today’s encounter - and the memories it provoked - came flooding back.

  Curse you, Adeline. I don’t want to remember any of that nonsense.

  But the thoughts wouldn’t go away. The basement stairs. Carrie’s desperate face, the hulking darkness below. How she’d raced from the hospital clutching the big black book to her chest, the shouts and screams following her into the desert.

  They’d seemed so real. But you couldn’t have heard them, not outside. Delilah put the novel down. She remembered now that she’d heard Carrie’s voice in her head on more than one occasion. As a child, she’d assumed it was real, but now she knew it was nothing more than wishful thinking. Those screams had been echoes in her mind. Even now, she imagined she heard them. Dee! Delilah!

  “Stop it!” Delilah rose and slipped her embroidered silk dressing gown over matching pajamas, belted it, and left her bedroom. The huge open living area was shrouded in shadows, relieved only by splashes of moonlight and a few dim amber sconces chasing darkness from the corners of the room. It was utterly silent in her penthouse; nary a creak nor a groan could be heard. That was the way of it in a building made of poured concrete, but she never got used to it.

  Opening the French doors to one of the balconies, she stepped out into the night. It was summer-warm, humid, and the mild breeze held scents of mesquite and oak - and a coming storm. She looked up at the sky - to the east, the stars had been blotted out by roiling clouds and the nimbus around the sickle moon was growing by the minute. The eastern mountains lit with faint lightning. The storm is over Sedona. It will be here before long. Though she loathed thunder, she welcomed the rain.

  Below, Brimstone slept in relative darkness, but lights twinkled along Main Street and the spotlights of the cement plant at Lewisdale five miles northwest shone bright. Here and there on the hillsides, amber light glowed in windows; in fact, there was a light still on upstairs over at the Granger house just down the road. As she watched, the light blinked out.

  “Holly.” Delilah whispered the word. The girl was over there tonight and, if Delilah heeded Adeline’s warnings, she’d be there every night. “I have to remember where I hid that book,” Delilah muttered. Then, “Utter, absolute, rubbish.”

  But she shivered all the same.

  36

  Insomnia

  Holly lay staring at the ceiling, not a bit sleepy, even though she was exhausted. There was something about Becky Granger that sucked the life out of her. Probably all those Barbie Dolls! After they returned from the hotel, Becky had insisted on showing her the doll collection - again - and telling her stories about where Barbie and Ken liked to go on dates. Holly had glazed over more than once, and when Becky tired of Barbies and finally asked Holly a question - what TV shows were her favorites - the girl had rolled her eyes and called her a tomboy when Holly named Dark Shadows, The Wild Wild West, The Man from U.N.C.L.E., and Star Trek. When Holly grinned and said thank you, Becky had rolled her eyes again.

  Holly liked it really dark at night, but Becky couldn’t sleep in the dark so there were two nightlights - one a dolphin, the other a unicorn - that made the room so bright that Holly could make out the pink paint on the walls. She wished she were in her own room at the hotel, or in the lobby talking to Steve, or maybe on a campout with Keith Hala. They’d roast marshmallows and tell ghost stories and look for arrowheads.

  Finally, she began to drift, lulled by the scent of rain on the breeze that slipped through the open window beside her. Half-awake, half-asleep, she wandered through dreamscapes of leering faces and absurd creatures unafraid - she’d seen them all on a million other nights as she’d tiptoed into slumber.

  Something tickled in her brain and then she heard wings, great wings beating the air, then one glowing red eye peered at her and the Beast’s deep voice - called her name.

  Go away! She thought the command so hard, she wondered if her eyes turned a little gold. Whether they had or not, the Beast retreated from her dreams.

  Unable to sleep, Delilah sat at the little round table in her bedroom and stared at the tarot cards spread before her. She hadn’t asked a particular question, but rather sought a general look at what was happening around her.

  It wasn’t good. First, rather than using a face card for herself, she had left it to chance. The Page of Swords, reversed. It was the card, when upright, Aunt Beatrice had used to represent Delilah as a child, and she knew beyond doubt that this meant tonight’s reading would concern the past.

  The Page of Swords was crossed by Holly’s card, the Page of Wands. But how is she connected to my past?

  Then Delilah realized the card had to be referring to Carrie, not Holly. The thought comforted her.

  Delilah shook her head and turned over the basis card. The Hanged Man. Carrie had given herself as a martyr before she died, and that backed up what Adeline had told her at the drugstore.

  The Devil was in the near past - she was sure it referred to her grandfather.

  Carrie’s voice echoed in her head. He’s a bad man, Delilah, a very bad man!

  Delilah turned the near future card and saw the Chariot. For an instant, she thought - even hoped - it meant Holly would be traveling soon, traveling away from the danger Adeline warned of. No. This is about the past. It means the reading is about the time when Boston was in the near future, around the time of Carrie’s death.

  Quickly, she turned the crown card. Temperance reversed - lies and dishonesty. No doubt it spoke of her grandfather again.

  He’s a bad man Delilah!

  The next card spoke of her role in the situation. It was The Hermit. She stared at the old man holding a lantern high as he peered into a cave. It told of inner wisdom, a search for the truth. At six, she’d had no inner wisdom, was searching for no truth beyond playing hopscotch and the possible existence of the Tooth Fairy. It made no sense.

  The eighth card told her what others had expected of her. Carrie counted on me to hide that book! She flipped it to reveal The Fool. Youth and innocence. A fresh start. Too bad I was the only one who got a fresh start. I’m sorry, Carrie. I wish you had, too.

  She turned the ninth card, which represented hopes or fears. The Tower. Disaster and destruction. The end of everything. As she’d run from the hospital that day, that was what she’d feared; the end of everything. Memories swirled up for a brief instant. She gasped as she felt a sharp phantom pain in her ankle and tasted dust on her tongue. Both were gone as quickly as they’d arrived.

  The final card - the outcome card - was The Magician reversed. Trickery and cunning, manipulations and deceit. Grandfather again.

  Before sweeping the cards away, Delilah looked them over once more. Carrie had given her life to stop Grandfather - the dark magician - hoping that Delilah would be able to find a place to hide the book from him and whoever else might have wanted it. A sudden image of Pearl Abbott clouded her mind. Delilah had been mildly amused when Ben Gower had called the
woman Pinching Pearl, but there was nothing remotely humorous about that now.

  Her eyes landed on the Hermit again, the one card she couldn’t explain. His back was to her, peering into a black cave with a light perhaps incapable of penetrating such utter darkness. Perhaps it meant she’d never remember what had happened.

  She swept up the cards and wrapped them in purple silk as the first drops of rain began to fall.

  Holly, unable to sleep in Becky Granger’s barely shadowed pink room, steadfastly ignored the itch in her head that accompanied the phantom beat of wings and the deep voice of the Beast rumbling through her mind. Instead, she concentrated on Night Traveling. It was a trick she’d taught herself to evade nightmares and it almost always worked. In her mind, she would travel to pretty places, like a foggy redwood forest where pink rhododendrons grew, or up a snow-covered mountain, or to the Monterey Peninsula where she’d fly around the rocky cliffs and swoop over the ocean with the seagulls. She’d glide on invisible wings, smelling pine and fog, the ocean tang, or the clean cold scent of snow, looking for deer and mountain lions.

  Tonight, she’d visit the Grand Canyon because, on the trip here Cherry had stopped there. They’d spent the sunset hour staring down into the colorful painted canyons before pulling into the campground and sleeping in the car. It was peaceful there, and really, really dark. Not like here.

  The tickle and beat of wings faded, and in her mind’s eye she took flight from the rim and soared and circled over the deep colorful canyon, dipping down to see the yellows, the reds, the ochres and blues of the craggy cliffs and gorges. She swooped down low over the twisting muddy river, then up again. For a long moment, she was lost in the beauty she conjured, but then, far above, a huge shadow blotted out the sun, and a voice whispered, ‘Go home.’