Darkling I Listen (53 page)

Mitsy's door opened, and a spear of light stabbed through the dark and into his eyes. She stood in the doorway, a
silhouette,
hair standing out from her head in wild tufts, her thin shoulders slumped. A spear of pity replaced the wild and angry disbelief that had overwhelmed him momentarily. He suddenly felt weak with sadness, not just for himself but for Mitsy. The last days he'd watched her practically fade before his eyes.

"Sorry I woke you," he said, rubbing his throbbing toe with his other foot.

"Who was it?"

"Ruth Threadgill. Wasn't nothin'
important.
Go back to bed."

"What did she want?"

"Just spewin' on about some cockamamie story—" He waved it away and limped to his chair. "Forget it, Mitsy. I'm
too
damn
tired
to
waste
my breath. Jeez, people have gone plumb crazy over this goddamn Carlyle thing. I never figured Ruth for crazy."

Mitsy moved into the room, looking like a wraith in her long white gown, pale face, and blond hair. "Jack, I gotta talk to you about somethin'."

"Can't it wait, Mitsy? I gotta get some sleep. I gotta
meetin'
at ten with the Council." He dropped into the chair and heaved a weary sigh. "Shit, after this I'll be lucky to get a job as night security at Wal-Mart. We'll have to move. That's all there is to it."

Mitsy moved toward the sofa, wringing her hands. "I've been thinkin', Jack—"

"God help us. Don't think, Mitsy. If you start to feel like thinkin' again, go take some more Xanax and mood enhancers. I don't need no more thinkin' from anybody right now."

"About
Brandon
—"

"Jeezus."

"Fact is, I've been thinkin' real clear for a few days now. Clearer than I've ever thought, maybe, and I'm ashamed to say I've done some things that hurt a lot of people. But my thinkin' was scrambled, Jack. Like my brain was shortcircuitin' on me."

"Well"—he drank his warm beer and winced—"I'm glad you're feelin' better. Now go back to bed. You'll feel even better after a decent night's sleep."

"I hated
Brandon
for a long time. And you know why, Jack?"

"'Cause he knocked you up, Mitsy, and made it so you can't have
no
babies."

"'Cause he made me feel special, Jack
. '
Cause he made me
feel
like somethin' besides a piece of white trash good for nothin' but quickies in the backseat. I felt real special with Brandon cuz he took me out in public—took me to the picture show and nice restaurants, and even bought me some pretty presents. I asked him one time why he treated me so nice, and you know what he told me? He said, 'Because I know what it's like to be lonely.'

"I trapped him, Jack. I thought he'd take me away from
this place and these people, like if I could go away, I could get clean again. When I was with
Brandon
, I was somebody, and folks looked
at
me like I actually counted for somethin'. Then when he left, I was right back where I started. A nothin'
.
After feelin' what it was like to be a somethin', bein' a nothin' again hurt even worse."

"
That don't
excuse him knockin' you up, Mitsy."

"I told him I was on the pill."

He stared at her. "Just the same, he had a responsibility—"

"It wasn't his baby, Jack." she took a shuddering breath. "I was two months along when I coaxed him into the backseat of my car. I don't know who the daddy was. I fully intended on passin' that baby off as his. Then Cara come along and
give
Mamma all that money to get rid of it. Mamma could
of
taken me to a decent doctor, but she didn't. She wanted that money to help pay for her divorce."

Jack closed his eyes and listened to the
tick tick tick
of Felix's tail. Mitsy moved up by the chair. She laid her hand on his arm. The light from the bedroom reflected off the tears
in
her eyes.

"It ain't him I've hated all this time, Jack. It's me. Now I'm so damn ashamed of myself, and scared. I'm real scared."

Sitting up, Jack covered Mitsy's hand with his. "Don't be cryin', Mitsy. Jeez, you know how I can't handle
no
woman cryin'
."

"I know where he is. I've known all along, and I didn't say nothin'
cause
I was still so confused…" She started to cry hard.

"What the hell are you sayin', Mitsy?"

"I followed her there a time or two. I seen what she was doin', Jack. She's buried him there
…
in the basement below the old chapel."

«
^
»

H
e awoke again to darkness. Impenetrable darkness and si
lence, and the fear that slid its cold hands around his throat each time he awakened in this suffocating abyss of nothingness. Not for the first time, he reached out in panic, certain that someone had mistakenly thought he was dead and had buried him deep, deep in the ground. Yet, his hand swept nothing but the moist, heavy air that smelled like rank creek sediment and the filmy vegetation that flourished just beneath the water's surface. And something else—something nauseatingly sweet, like rotten meat.

Where the hell was he? How long had he been here?

He touched his face—a good indicator that he'd been here awhile. Then, there was the gnawing hollow in his belly.

His shoulder and arm were going from bad to worse. The skin of his arm was tight and hot. He could hardly open and close his hand. The deep pain pulsated with new fire when he tried to move.

Think.

Betty. In the blink of an eye the woman he'd known and trusted for months had become
…
something else. A monster.

God help him, his monster was back.

A noise.

With a scrape of metal and a groan of wood, a
hole
opened above, pouring light down a steep flight of stairs. It reminded him of sunlight pouring through a break in black storm clouds—a ray dancing with dust particles. Along with it came fresh, cool air that brushed over his hot brow like a breath.

He glanced around, noting that he was lying on a bare mattress on a wood bed frame in a room with damp wood walls and an earth floor that looked slick with mud. There were deep footprints partially filled with brown water leading toward him and back to the stairs.

A figure approached, holding a kerosene lamp out to light her way. Her heavy feet thumped on the wood steps as she descended. He recognized the muddy, thick-soled shoes as Betty's.

Brandon
did his best to push himself into a sitting position. He gritted his teeth against the pain in his shoulder. His eyes throbbed from the assault of light on his pupils. His empty stomach rebelled and he gagged, heaving up nothing but bitter gas.

Betty stopped at the foot of the stairs. Her eyes were feverish, her mouth turned down. Her red wig, which still looked darker in places from his blood, sat slightly lopsided on her head. When she spoke, her voice sounded tremulous and frightened—not Betty's voice, exactly. There were hints of Billy's testosterone roughing up the edges.

"Oh, Mr. Brandon. Thank God, you're finally awake."

With effort and pain, he propped himself back against the wall. He wanted to kill her. Desperately.

"What the hell are you doing to me, Betty?"

"It's not me," she rushed to reply. "Please believe that. I wouldn't harm you. Not for the world." Lowering her voice to a whisper, she said, "It's him. I can't control him any longer. Perhaps I never could. I think…" She covered her eyes briefly with her hand, which sported three broken nails. They made him think of the scratches on his neck, welts of fire and dry blood. "Now that I think about it, he took me over long ago. He's used me, used me to get what he wants."

"What does he want?"

She shuffled closer and extended the lamp toward him. The fleeting idea of jumping her danced in his head. Impossible. He could barely manage to sit
up,
much less tackle a body built like a linebacker.

The green contacts in her eyes were missing. Now the irises were black as pits, and the skin on her face looked chalky under the permanent patches of blush on her cheeks. He tried to see beyond the Betty facade, to the man who had once worked for him—Mr. Heavenly Hands himself, Masseur to the Stars. How had he missed it?

"You needn't bother," she said, as if reading his thoughts. "Even if I hadn't had the surgery, you wouldn't have recognized me. Oh, perhaps you would have thought me vaguely familiar. But the truth is, Mr. Brandon, while you paid me handsomely for my work, and occasionally chatted with me during our sessions, and even slipped me very generous Christmas bonuses, you never so much as looked at me.

"But that all changed, didn't it, the night we bumped into one another outside the Paramount Theater—just after the premier of that Mel Gibson movie you attended. It was the first time I allowed you to see me
…
dressed. I walked right up to you, wearing a red sequined gown—and that dreadful security guard grabbed me. You waved him away and smiled at me—the first time ever you looked into my eyes and acknowledged me as a person. My friend took our photograph together—I have it still, you with your arm around me—and you signed my book,
With Love,
Brandon
.
I knew at that moment that something special passed between us. That if I corrected this horrible mistake of my birth, perhaps, just perhaps, I might stand a chance
…
if you came to appreciate me enough. I realized I'd have to make myself invaluable
to
you. And I did. We were so close for a while, so very close, and then…
"

She sighed, and her face sagged. "I'm not sure when he came back. I thought he was long gone. And I was glad—very, very glad—when he left. He frightened me. But he was necessary. I understand that. Very necessary. I often looked at him with envy when we were younger. He was my hero
…
until I realized just what a manipulator he could be. And oh, so crafty. He made me do things I wasn't proud of, and when I refused, he did them and blamed them on me. But Father liked him. Oh, yes, he was the son Father always wanted. A disciple to follow in Father's footsteps." Lowering her voice to a whisper, she added, "Father got more than he bargained for, I'm afraid."

"You might tell me which of you
is
responsible for this,"
Brandon
said through his teeth as he motioned around him with his good arm.

She shushed him with one finger pressed against her lips. "He doesn't like anger."

"He can kiss my ass. I'm dying here, Betty. My shoulder—it's infected, I think. And I'm starving.
One
of you is starving me to death.
Goddamnit,
this is a
fucking
nightmare, and you're a
fucking
lunatic—"

She stumbled back, nearly dropped the lantern. The flame flickered dangerously.

Grabbing his arm and hugging it close,
Brandon
rocked forward, doing his best to contain the overwhelming anger and frustration he'd allowed to get the better of him.

"You mustn't anger him," Betty wept, growing frantic. "I can't help you if you anger him. I may not be able to help you anyway. I've tried, Mr. Brandon. I've begged him. He won't
listen. But you must listen. Your life depends on it." She swayed and covered her eyes with her hands. She cocked her head, and her eyes widened. "Oh, God. Oh, God, he's coming. Yes, he's there…"

She stumbled toward the stairs, fell hard on them, and looked back at
Brandon
. Her face looked sad. Her eyes filled with tears that streamed like silver threads down her cheeks.
"Humor him," she said. "Don't let him see your weaknesses—"

"Don't leave,"
Brandon
shouted as she crawled up the stairs. "Betty, wait! Help me get out of here—"

"I can't. He's too strong. He'd destroy me." She looked at him again; her face worked, and her eyes rolled. The light and shadows cast upon her features by the lamp gave
Brandon
the horrifying sensation of watching the transformation of Jekyll to Hyde.

"Please,"
Brandon
begged, knowing even as he said it that Betty was already beyond his reach. He watched as she dragged herself up the steps, mumbling to herself. But he knew there was much more to it than that—the voice was changing back and forth, female to male.

Then the whole door slammed shut and darkness fell over him
…
hard.

*

With his good hand,
Brandon
worked the bed leg back and
forth. Not easy. The slimy ooze under him made leverage next to impossible. Every few minutes he was forced to stop and lean against the wall while he caught his breath and willed back the pain in his shoulder. Above him, the voices raged: Betty's and Billy's. Betty's seemed to be fading. The fight was almost gone from her. The weaker hers became, the stronger Billy's grew.

On his knees in the mud,
Brandon
continued the task of dismantling the bed. The wood was old and soft around the nail heads. With each yank of the leg, the rusty nail squeaked like a dry hinge; each time, he froze, certain the creature upstairs would hear and come clamoring down. If he survived this, he was going to produce and direct a movie about this nightmare.

With one last heave backward, the leg popped free. Landing on his back, his mouth flying open as pain tore through him,
Brandon
fought to contain the agony that choked off his breath and made every pore bead with sweat. Sprawled in the mud, he was surprised to find the ooze actually soothed the fire in his shoulder wound. His eyes drifted closed.

The shouting above stopped, and the more familiar silence washed over him. In some distant corner of his awareness, he wondered if he was dying. Images of his life winged at him from hazy gray corners of his mind: his father and Henry and Bernie—good memories, not the old haunting that for so long had crept out of his mind's closet at night and rattled like bones.

Then
came
Alyson. The images of her were vibrant with color and energy. And passion.
Brandon
could almost smell her, lying there in the dark. That memory, more than any other, made him
shake
. With her, he'd found happiness and contentment at long last, and now this. The loss of what might have
been,
filled him with an anger that turned the black void into a pulsating white heat.

Footsteps above—heavy and lumbering—forced him back to reality.

After several attempts,
Brandon
managed to sit up, to crawl onto his knees,
then
stumble to his feet. He slid the bed leg into the back of his loose jeans, then felt his way to the far side of the bed and eased down onto it, careful not to unbalance it toward the missing leg. Slumped against the wall, he used his right hand to lay his left across his lap.

The door opened, slowly.

The body descended, barefoot and silent. He wore a wrap of white linen that hung loose from his shoulders, molding to the breasts juxtaposed against Billy's masculinity. A bubble of nervous hilarity worked up
Brandon
's throat. He might have been watching a malevolent Mr. Clean descend a heavenly light beam. But he didn't laugh. No way. Because the momentary hilarity that rippled through him fast turned to cold terror as the doors of his boyhood memories began to creep open. Panic began to shoot through him, and the shaking started. Each tremble sent fresh pain through his shoulder and arm. He bit his lip hard to stem the groan working up his throat.

The lantern in one hand, the other holding a bundle of clothes, Billy paused at the foot of the stairs. The yellow
light painted his skin red and gold, and transformed his eyes into pinpoints of fire. His smooth scalp glowed like an iridescent dome. The permanent makeup Betty had applied to her face gave Billy the look of a macabre clown when he smiled.

He said softly, "It's time."

Brandon
frowned. "What the hell are you talking about?"

Billy's head tipped to one side as he regarded
Brandon
. "I've brought your clothes. You'll want to change, of course. They will expect it."

He crossed the room. His bare feet sank in the mud, which erupted between his long, white toes. He placed the folded linen on the bed. He regarded
Brandon
again,
then
released a shaky breath. "What a shame that Father isn't alive to witness this."

"Witness what, Billy?"

His smile widened. "I had given up hope. We all had. That sly old Satan had little by little insinuated himself into our lives like a cancer, eating silently but deliberately at our souls. Sex, violence, cruelty, greed
…
the worshiping of false idols. The weak writhe together in their misery like snakes in a pit, serpents of poison, their words like venom, intent on destruction of their fellow man. It is time for
You
to walk among them. You will rise up and work miracles so that those who have given their souls to evil will recognize their idiocy and know, in the last moments of their miserable existences, what glory and blessings they will be denied in the ever after. The revelation foretold Your Coming, and now the sinners will perish by lightning bolts from
Your
hands."

Brandon
stared into Billy's eyes, his mouth dry. "Jesus," he uttered, "you think I'm—"

"The world has converged, just as I'd hoped. The believers await
You
, pray for You. They weep for
You
, and suffer, lost as lambs without Your light to guide them. The world, my Lord, awaits your resurrection."