by Dean Koontz
Now Mr. Lyss didn’t look like a bird that ate dead things or like a rat, or like a wild monkey, but more like a jungle snake with sharp eyes. If you spent enough time with him, Mr. Lyss was a whole zoo of faces.
He said, “If you don’t want me to reach up your nostrils with these lock picks and pull out your shriveled brain, you damn well better tell me how far to this house of yours.”
“Not far.”
“Can we get there mostly by alleyways, so we don’t run into a lot of people?”
“You don’t much like people, do you, Mr. Lyss?”
“I loathe and despise people—especially when I’m wearing orange jail pants.”
“Oh. I forgot about orange. Well, the shortest way is by the pipe, then we won’t hardly see no one.”
“Pipe? What pipe?”
“The big drain pipe for when it storms. You can’t go by the pipe in rain ’cause you’ll drown, and then you’ll just wish you’d gone the long way.”
chapter 22
When she learned Deucalion had stepped into the study without ringing the bell or using the front door, when she understood that Mary Margaret Dolan did not know he was present, Carson closed the door to the hallway. In spite of the Dolan daughter who had been ticketed for driving alone in a carpool lane, Carson didn’t want to lose Mary Margaret. Although she suspected that the indomitable nanny would not be flustered even by Dr. Frankenstein’s first creation, she preferred to avoid risking the woman’s resignation.
Without hesitation, Michael had handed Scout to Deucalion, who stood now and cradled the baby in the crook of his right arm. He was holding one of her feet between the thumb and forefinger of his left hand, marveling at how tiny it was and complimenting her on her pink booties.
Carson wondered that she worried not at all about this huge and formidable man—a self-admitted murderous creature in his earliest days—holding her precious daughter. In New Orleans, allied against Victor, they went through a kind of hell together, and he always proved steadfast. More to the point, Deucalion possessed a quality of otherworldliness, the aura of a man purified by suffering, who lived now in a hallowed condition.
For her part, Scout was neither awed by Deucalion’s size nor daunted by the ruined and tattooed half of his face. When he puckered his lips and made a sound like a motorboat—putt-putt-putt-putt-putt—she giggled. When he teased her chin with his finger, she seized it in one hand and tried to bring it to her mouth to test her new tooth on it.
Still sitting at the table, Arnie said, “I’ve got him on the run, Carson. He’s fussing over Scout just so he won’t have to go on with the game and lose it.”
Until the age of twelve, Arnie was autistic, so profoundly turned inward that Carson never had a normal conversation with him, only moments of connection that, while piercing, were inadequate and frustrating. After the defeat of Victor in New Orleans and the fiery destruction of his laboratories and body farms, Deucalion cured the boy by some means that Carson could not understand and that the healer could not—or would not—explain. These two years later, she still sometimes found herself surprised that Arnie was a normal boy, with boyish enthusiasms and ambitions.
As far as she could see, however, Arnie lacked those boyish illusions that tested other children, that made them potential victims, and that sometimes led them astray. He had a sense of his natural dignity but not an adolescent ego that allowed him to imagine himself as exceptional in either his abilities or his destiny. He seemed to know the world and the people in it for what they were, and had a quiet, unshakable confidence.
Carson found her brother’s assurance remarkable, considering that when he’d been in the grip of autism, he’d been able to tolerate only a narrow range of experience. He had lived by a daily routine from which the smallest deviation might plunge him into terror or into total withdrawal. Not anymore.
Accepting Arnie’s challenge, Deucalion sat at the table again, with Scout still cradled in his arm. With his free hand, he moved a game piece without appearing to consider the consequences.
Frowning, Arnie said, “You’ve done the wrong thing. Your knight was crying out for action.”
“Oh, yes, I heard him,” Deucalion said. “But the bishop gains me more. You’ll see it in a moment.”
Sitting in a third chair at the table, Michael said, “So how is life at the abbey?”
“Like life everywhere,” Deucalion replied. “Meaningful from top to bottom, but mysterious in every direction.”
Carson occupied the fourth chair. “Why am I suddenly … uneasy?”
“I have that effect on people.”
“No. It’s not you. It’s why you’re here.”
“Why am I here?”
“I can’t imagine. But I know it’s not an impulsive, casual visit. Nothing about you is impulsive or casual.”
Now through his eyes throbbed the subtle luminosity that from time to time appeared. He could not explain this glow, this fleeting tracery of light, though he said it might somehow be the residual radiance of the strange lightning that had brought him alive in a laboratory two hundred years earlier.
Staring at the chessboard, Arnie said, “I see it now. I thought I had it won maybe in five moves.”
“I think you still might, but not in five.”
“It looks lost to me,” Arnie said.
“There are always options—until there aren’t.”
Michael said, “Whatever brought you here … we’ve got more to lose now, and taking risks is getting harder.”
Looking down at the babbling baby in his arm, Deucalion said, “She’s got more to lose than any of us. She hasn’t even had a life yet, and if he gets his way, she never will. Victor is alive.”
chapter 23
Four miles from town, Erika turned off the highway onto an oil-and-gravel lane flanked by windrows of enormous pines. A sturdy gate made of steel pipe blocked entrance, but she opened it with a remote control.
The lay of the land hid their home from the highway. At the end of the long driveway, the two-story house was of beet-red brick with gray-granite coins at the main corners, granite window surrounds, and silvered-cedar porches front and back. Although not of a rigorous architectural style, the residence had considerable appeal. You might have thought a wise retired judge lived here, or a country doctor, someone who valued neatness, order, and harmony, though not at the expense of charm.
Three immense pyramidal hemlocks backdropped the house. They shielded it from north winds while leaving it exposed to daylong sun, a plus in the long Montana winters.
Erika parked in front of the attached garage and entered the house by the back door. At once she knew something was wrong, and as she put the bakery box on the kitchen table, she said, “Jocko?”
On every previous occasion when Erika returned home from doing errands, Jocko greeted her with excitement, eager to hear of her experiences at the supermarket and the dry cleaner, as if they were epic and magical adventures. Sometimes he read poems he had written or performed songs he had composed while she was out.
The silence alarmed her. She raised her voice and called out again: “Jocko?”
From nearby came his muffled reply: “Who are you?”
“Who do you think? It’s me, of course.”
“Me? Me who? Me who, who, WHO?” Jocko demanded.
Head cocked to the left, then to the right, Erika made her way around the kitchen, trying to pinpoint his location.
“Me, Erika. Where are you?”
“Erika went out. For an hour. One hour. She never came back. Something terrible happened. To Erika. Terrible. Terrible.”
He was in the pantry.
At that closed door, Erika said, “I’m back now.” She didn’t want to tell him about Victor just yet. He wouldn’t handle the news well. “Everything took longer than I thought.”
“Erika would call if she was late. Erika never called. You aren’t Erika.”
“Don’t I sound like Erika?”
&nbs
p; “Your voice is strange.”
“My voice isn’t strange. I sound like I always do.”
“No. No, no, no. Jocko knows Erika’s voice. Jocko loves Erika’s voice. Your voice is muffled. Muffled and strange and muffled.”
“It’s muffled because I’m talking to you through a door.”
Jocko was silent, perhaps thinking about what she said.
She tried the door but it wouldn’t open. The pantry had no lock.
“Are you holding the door shut, Jocko?”
“Talk to Jocko through the keyhole. Then your voice won’t be muffled and strange and muffled. If you’re really Erika.”
She said, “That might be a good plan—”
“It’s an excellent plan!” Jocko declared.
“—if this door had a keyhole.”
“What happened? Where’s the keyhole? Where’d it go?”
“It’s a pantry. Doesn’t need a lock. It never had a keyhole.”
“It had a keyhole!” Jocko insisted.
“No, little one. It never did.”
“Without a keyhole Jocko would suffocate. Did Jocko suffocate?” His voice quivered. “Is Jocko dead? Is he dead? Is Jocko in Hell?”
“You have to listen to me, sweetie. Listen closely.”
“Jocko’s in Hell,” he sobbed.
“Take a deep breath.”
“Jocko’s rotting in Hell.”
“Can you take a deep breath? A big deep breath. Do it for me, sweetie. Come on.”
Through the door, she heard him breathe deeply
“Very good. My good boy.”
“Jocko’s dead in Hell,” he said miserably but with less panic.
“Take another deep breath, sweetie.” After he had taken three, she said, “Now look around. Do you see boxes of macaroni? Spaghetti? Cookies?”
“Ummmm … macaroni … spaghetti … cookies. Yeah.”
“Do you think there’s macaroni, spaghetti, and cookies in Hell?”
“Maybe.”
She changed tactics. “I’m sorry, Jocko. I apologize. I should have called. I just didn’t realize how much time went by.”
“Three cans of lima beans,” Jocko said. “Three big cans.”
“That doesn’t prove you’re in Hell.”
“Yes, it does. It’s proof.”
“I like lima beans—remember? That’s why you see three cans. Not because it’s Hell in there. Know what else I like besides lima beans? Cinnamon rolls from Jim James Bakery. And I just put a dozen of them on the kitchen table.”
Jocko was silent. Then the door cracked open, and Erika stepped back, and the door swung wide, and the little guy peered out at her.
Because his butt was nearly flat, he wore blue jeans that Erika had altered to prevent them from sagging in the seat. On his T-shirt was a photo of one of World Wrestling Entertainment’s current stars, Buster Steelhammer. Because his arms were three inches longer than those of any child his size, because they were thin, and because they were creepier than a loving mother would openly acknowledge, Erika had added material to extend the sleeves to his hands.
He blinked at her. “It’s you.”
“Yes,” she said, “it’s me.”
“Jocko’s not really dead.”
“You’re really not.”
“I thought you were.”
“I’m not dead either.”
Stepping out of the closet, he said, “Jim James cinnamons?”
“Six each,” she confirmed.
He grinned at her.
When she’d first known Jocko, she recoiled from his grin, which contorted his already unfortunate face into a fright mask that gave pause even to the wife of Victor Frankenstein. During the past two years, however, she grew to love this disastrous expression because his delight so touched and pleased her.
He had suffered much. He deserved some happiness.
Motherly love made beautiful what the rest of the world found grotesque and abhorrent. Well, perhaps not beautiful, but at least picturesque.
Jocko scampered to the kitchen table, clambered into a chair, and clapped his hands at the sight of the white pastry box.
“Wait until I get dishes and napkins,” Erika warned. “And what do you want to drink?”
“Cream,” said Jocko.
“I think I’ll have cream, too.”
Victor was responsible for untold horrors and disasters, but perhaps the one thing he got right was the metabolism he designed for his creations. They could have consumed nothing but butter and molasses while remaining in good health and without gaining an ounce.
Erika set out two plates and forks, and he said, “Can Jocko eat one now?”
“No, you have to wait.”
As Erika put napkins and two drinking glasses on the table, he said, “Now can Jocko have one?”
“Not yet. Behave yourself. You’re not a pig.”
“Jocko might be pig. Part pig. Who knows? Lots of weird DNA in the mix. Maybe it’s natural for Jocko to hog down Jim James cinnamons right now and oink like a pig.”
“If you eat one right now, then you’ll only get one, not six,” she said as she put two quarts of cream on the table.
As Erika filled a glass from her quart and then filled a glass from his quart, Jocko watched her, smacking the flaps that were his equivalent of lips. She took a plump, glistening roll from the box and put it on her plate, and then put another on his plate.
He began to make snorting noises.
“Don’t you dare.” She sat across the table from him, opened her napkin, smoothed it across her lap, and regarded him expectantly.
Jocko tucked one point of the napkin under the neck of his Buster Steelhammer T-shirt, smoothed it across the wrestler’s face, and sat up straight in his chair, clearly proud of himself.
“Very good,” Erika said. “Very nice.”
“You’re a good mother,” he said.
“Thank you, sweetie.”
“You taught Jocko manners.”
“And why are manners important?”
“They show we have respect for other people.”
“That’s correct. They show that you respect your mother.”
“And they teach us self-control.”
“Exactly.”
As Erika used her fork to cut a piece from her cinnamon roll, Jocko snatched his off the plate and crammed the whole thing into his mouth at once.
In proportion to his body, his curiously shaped head was bigger than that of any human being, and in proportion to his unfortunate head, his mouth was bigger than Nature would ever have made it, but Nature had no hand in Jocko’s creation. All eight or ten ounces of the big Jim James roll disappeared into his mouth without leaving a trace of icing on his lip flaps.
But then the trouble began.
The roll pretty much occupied all the space from bulging cheek to bulging cheek, from his palate to his tongue, solidly occupied it, making it impossible for Jocko to chew with his mouth closed. If he opened his mouth, however, mastication would force at least a third of the mass forward, and it would fall onto the table or the floor.
In part to discourage such exhibitions of gluttony as this, Erika strictly enforced a rule forbidding the reintroduction to the mouth of anything that dropped onto the table or the floor.
Acutely aware of this rule, Jocko was determined not to be denied such a significant part of the pastry. He sat for a moment, wide-eyed, contemplating his dilemma, breathing so noisily and forcefully through his peculiar asymmetrical nose that had a fly been in the kitchen, he might have inhaled it.
His eerie, arresting yellow eyes began to water as if his entire head had filled up with saliva. Perhaps he thought the roll had become so saturated that it would dissolve into sweet cascades as it went down his gullet, for his throat flexed as he tried to swallow.
Evidently a portion of the cinnamony mass moved backward into the pharynx but not as far as the esophagus. Stuck there, it forced his epiglottis partially shut, so that he had
difficulty breathing.
Of course, that was only Erika’s best guess about what was happening, because Jocko’s insides were almost certainly as oddly arranged as his exterior features. She had once tried to administer the Heimlich maneuver, but instead of causing him to cough up the obstruction, her efforts forced it all the way down his esophagus, caused a strange but fortunately odorless green fluid to squirt from his right ear, and left him talking in unknown languages for over an hour before he recovered his ability to speak English.
Experience taught her not to be unduly alarmed in moments like this. Jocko knew better than anyone what he must do to set himself right. As she ate her cinnamon roll, Erika watched him as she might have contemplated the gestures and movements of a mime who had some meaning to convey.
As his breathing remained inhibited, he scrambled off his chair, and stood with his head tipped back to better align his stuffed mouth and blocked throat with his esophagus. He began to jump up and down vigorously in place in an attempt to dislodge the half-concretized sweet roll and send it splashing into his stomach.
Erika could not tell if this action had some positive effect or none at all when, after half a minute, Jocko stopped jumping and instead staggered wildly to a utility drawer near the refrigerator. From the utensils therein, he extracted a rubber spatula with a plastic handle and pressed it between his lip flaps. He seemed bent upon forcing the Jim James cinnamon roll to the back of his mouth, past his obstructed trachea, and down his throat.
As he pulled the spatula from his mouth and tossed it into the sink with evident frustration, his every exhalation was a high-pitched whistle and his every inhalation a kind of shriek that caused his nostrils to flutter. He opened another drawer and fished from it two wine-bottle stoppers, plastic corks fitted with stainless-steel caps and ring pulls for easy extraction. Frantically, he twisted one cork into his left ear, the other into his right.
Standing beside a large Shrek cookie jar was an aerosol can of compressed gas intended primarily for blasting dust and crumbs out of computer keyboards and other hard-to-clean equipment. In this house, it was used also for an array of problems that Jocko reliably created for himself.