Daniel looked up, the mud daubings on his face now dry and cracked. It looked like he was wearing some sort of mask—one portraying a hostile demon. Steven felt his throat go dry and his breath catch.
“This is it, Stevie!” young Daniel announced in triumph. “We beat Belloq and the Nazis both!”
Steven looked at the wooden surface partially exposed and felt himself go weak. This was something they shouldn’t see. This was something that should stay buried.
“Let’s go in, Danny, I think it’s lunchtime.” It was a silly gambit, but he was having trouble thinking, that bright glimmer tugging at him, wanting to drag him down.
“Are you nuts? We just found the Lost Ark, dorkus! Keep digging!”
Daniel renewed his digging with even greater fervor, now directing his efforts to expose more of the wood surface. Steven wanted to jump out of the hole, run away, catch up to his adult life somewhere, but he was powerless. Daniel was older, despite their dream-induced age disparity, and Steven always did what his older brother said. Moaning a little, he grabbed his shovel and helped Daniel dig.
It took them almost no time at all, the Dreamtime filled with little jumps and gaps that nevertheless seemed to flow naturally. They were now on either side of a long, polished box, gleaming handles of bronze coated with mud. Steven looked down and saw with despair that he had ruined his best suit in the digging. He was in a lot of trouble, now.
Daniel reached up and grabbed a crowbar they had taken from their father’s workbench in the garage. They had left one of his screwdrivers rusting in the yard two months ago, and he had forbade them from using any other tools. They had agreed to remind each other to clean off the forbidden artifact and return it before he came back from his golf game.
“What are you doing?” Steven asked, his voice near tears.
“Opening it, of course,” Daniel said, spitting on his hands and rubbing them together. He had seen this in Bugs Bunny cartoons and thought it both funny and very adult. It was something he would do as an adult on digs, much to the consternation of more serious scholars. It always made Steven laugh.
It didn’t now.
Daniel wedged the blade of the crowbar into the seam of the coffin.
Steven reached out, finding himself next to his brother instead of on the other side of the mahogany box.
“Don’t, Danny, please.” He drew out the last word, the way a child does to emphasize his
need, imbuing the word with all the mystic powers at his disposal.
Daniel looked at him, his glasses flashing in the bright sun.
“Why?” he whispered, knowing that secrets were to be revealed.
Steven looked down at his suit, spattered with mud, his shoes caked with it.
“I think,” he hesitated, not wanting to make it fact, “I think you’re in there.”
Daniel laughed and clapped him on the shoulder.
“I’m not in there, Stevie, and neither are you.”
Daniel spit on his hands and rubbed them together again, then placed them on the crowbar. The wood of the coffin groaned slightly as he began to put his weight on the lever. “I’m sorry,” Daniel said, his eyes suddenly filling with tears. “But you have to see.”
Steven wanted to stop him, wanted to push him down into the mud and scream at him to leave the thing buried. He could not.
There was a great groaning, like the hull of an ancient sailing ship, then the wooden lid of the coffin splintered away from the lock. The lid rose slowly, as if on hydraulics. There was a small sigh as stale air escaped.
Steven looked inside. He was compelled to, forced by the strictures of his subconscious.
Inside was a small child, dressed in a woefully somber suit. The boy’s blond hair was neatly combed and framed his small and silent face.
It was Bobby.
Steven let out a shriek then. Had he been awake and made such a sound, anyone within earshot would have been instantly heartsick, without hope. It was the sound of despair everlasting, of a world without light.
He wanted to touch his son, smooth his hair, but his hands were covered with mud. He couldn’t defile the boy; what would Liz say? He scrambled out of the hole, hoping to find another one where he might cast himself in and be done with it, seeking solace in darkness and death.
Daniel grabbed him, surprisingly strong for a boy of ten. They were fifty feet from the hole now, the sun disappearing behind the hills.
“Look,” Daniel said fiercely, spinning Steven around to face the hole.
Steven tried to close his eyes but found that his eyelids had become transparent, providing moisture but no hiding place for him.
A figure rose out of the hole, not quite climbing, not quite floating. It emerged as if nearly weightless, its grace that of a ballet dancer.
It was Bobby, but now he was an adult. He was taller than Steven, with piercing green eyes and white-blond hair that formed a nimbus around his face. He gazed at Steven without recognition. He was dressed in a white shirt and khaki pants, his feet bare and pale. He raised his
hands from his sides, as if testing the air. It was clear he didn’t like the heat although he was not perspiring. He glowered at them and flexed his fingers, as if trying them on.
Steven tried to turn away, but small Daniel held him in place. The air became thick with the smell of cloves and decay, and Steven was sure he was going to vomit. He swallowed thickly and watched the stranger clothed in the skin of his son.
Bobby reached up, searching his own face. He seemed to find what he was looking for, his right fingertips resting just above his right eye, those of his left across his lower lip. He paused for a second, then began to pull. He pulled his right eye open far wider than was natural, while his lower lip was tugged down into a comical grimace. For a split second, it was the grotesque face a child might make, horrifying and comical at the same time, but then he continued to pull. There was an audible tearing sound, like a large flat rock being pulled from the muck. Bobby calmly began to tear his face away from his skull. Though Steven was repulsed, he couldn’t look away. He watched in horrified fascination, his son an alien and powerful thing unknown to him.
Instead of blood, a bright black liquid spilled onto Bobby’s white shirt, like ink but as viscous as molasses. Under the ripping skin there was a momentary flash of skull, dipped in crimson with large staring eyes, then this too split apart, exposing a flat plane of polished jet. No, it was not stone, it was void, an absolute absence of matter. It was literally the face of the Abyss.
The face of his son, once again whole and that of a child, dropped to the thing’s feet.
Then the thing looked at Steven, and he could feel it smiling. There were no features, no musculature or skin to manipulate, but he knew it smiled all the same.
He felt himself beginning to freeze in place as it regarded him, and cold winds blew bright green leaves across his vision, leaves that withered and turned black, whirling away from him like small and sickly bats.
He awoke on the plane with a gasp, feeling nauseous and disoriented. Both Bobby and Liz were staring at him. Bobby was gripping his arm with a look of concern. “Bad dream,” Steven said. He didn’t want to elaborate, especially with Bobby right there.
“Are you all right?” Liz asked.
“Yeah, just, you know, everything …”
Liz looked at him, knowing he was keeping something from her. He hugged Bobby and looked at her, motioning at the boy with his eyes. It was something Bobby shouldn’t hear. She nodded and reached over and stroked his face.
“I love you,” she said.
He smiled, glad for her strength.
“Ooh, mushy stuff,” protested Bobby, screwing up his face in disgust. The contortions normally would have been funny, but they reminded Steven of his son all grown-up and tearing
his face off. He tried to suppress the memory, hoping the dream would fade. The flight attendant spoke over the intercom, telling them that they were making an approach into Los Angeles and that they should buckle their seat belts and return their tray tables to their upright positions. Steven helped Bobby stow his drawings and crayons.
The time in L.A. was just after one in the afternoon, and the local temperature was in the high eighties.
Steven was glad to be getting home.
Back to some normalcy.
Jimmy and George waited in the overhang of the Slater garage. It was hot there, but at least it was out of the direct sunlight. George had decided he would never complain about cold wet days in Seattle again. Jimmy had removed the cloak and headdress and put them back into the trunk. His feet were once again clad in shoes and socks, and it was a relief not to feel burning gravel against his skin. The sky over the mountains was hazy, there was a smell on the air of grass and shrubs baked to a flash point, and the air was heavy and filled with destructive promises. George took another pull on the beer he had bought from a liquor store near the Crafty Devil. There were five more in the trunk because Jimmy had only allowed himself a drink from the Slaters’ garden hose. The water had been hot and smelled of rubber and chlorine. Jimmy had taken several small sips, then turned the water off.
George wondered what they would do if the Slaters did not return home soon. People didn’t always go right home from a trip—they might decide to stop off and see someone or extend their time away with a side trip. Jimmy was sure they would be home today, but George worried they would bake out here while the heat rose even stronger from the gravel driveway.
Jimmy scratched his ear and tried not to think about the heat. He would love to have one of George’s beers—the scent of it was driving him crazy with thirst. But he needed to be purified and clearheaded if he was going to protect the Slaters. Maybe once he got everything in place, he might have a few sips. But he doubted it.
To tell the truth, he was nervous. Though his uncle had trained him well, he had always performed his shamanic duties within the confines of Yanut, surrounded by people who both loved him and believed as he did. Now he was in a world very different from that of his boyhood, and even the climate was at odds with his legacy.
Both as protection and to occupy his time, he carved the balsa wood into a small totem pole. The soft wood lent itself to carving, and he was pleased to see he still retained artistry with such things. In the hour they had been waiting he had roughed out a series of figures that included Raven, Bear, Otter, and Wolf. The tan wood fell to his feet like snowflakes, and he felt the miniature sculpture begin to thrum with energy. If the Slaters did not return soon, he would paint it, using the hood of the car as a workbench. He hoped it wouldn’t come to that—he could see waves of heat rising from the baked metal.
Jimmy watched George drain the last of the beer. He didn’t allow himself to sigh until George went to fetch another from the trunk. He didn’t want his friend feeling guilty.
* * *
Across the street, Stan sipped the last of a Coke he had purchased from a burger joint on the corner. He had been able to wash up some in the restroom and had even rinsed out his pants and shirt—these were drying quickly in the summer heat. He was sitting in the mouth of an alley behind the burger place, his ass going to sleep on a plastic dairy box. There was shade here from a bottlebrush tree that stuck out over the fence of a house that bordered the alley. The bottlebrush occasionally dropped small, bright red needles on him and he angrily brushed them off. Bees also congregated around the sweet blossoms, but he ignored them. Bees didn’t fuck with you unless you fucked with them. Besides, he was pretty sure he didn’t smell like a goddamned rose at this point.
Stan had staked out the Slater residence, waiting for them to return with their little boy. He hoped to have his deed over and done before they were finished getting out of the car. With any luck, he could kill the kid with one shot or two and take himself out with the final bullet. That would be a nice “fuck you” to the Big Boss. When the old fucks in the Lincoln had shown up, he was momentarily at a loss. At first he thought they were Jehovah’s Witnesses or something, but they had stayed even after checking to see if the Slaters were home. Then the one who looked either Indian or Mexican had put on some kind of costume and buried something in the driveway. The way he had done it made it look like some kind of ceremony rather than the planting of a booby trap. Stan wasn’t sure what to do about them. He couldn’t afford to shoot them, being down to three bullets, and he couldn’t call the cops because that would fuck up any chance he had of killing the Slater boy. It was also possible that they worked for the Big Boss, too. Maybe their job was to protect the kid until the Big Boss showed up. It was, as the late Richie Matthews would have said, “a fucking pickle in a shitload of brine.” Stan had decided to wait and see what developed. With any luck, the old fucks would stay out of his way until he did what he had come to do.
Stan drained the last of his soda and began crunching on the ice. The cold chips felt good in his mouth. Here he was, doing something akin to real police work and chewing ice on a hot summer day. It was the best he had felt in some time. If you took away his last few days (and his plans for that final monstrous act), he actually felt pretty good. Maybe things would go his way.
When Steven pulled into their driveway, the first thing he noticed was the Lincoln parked up near the garage. Later, he would realize that the first thing he actually noticed was a gentle sense of welcoming as they crossed the threshold onto their property, as if unseen hands had embraced them and gently guided them up the drive. This was why he felt no sense of foreboding when he saw the old men standing beyond the car and why he thought they might be friends.
Liz looked at him as she saw the men, but she too felt the presence of something benign. Bobby, who greeted each novelty as an adventure to be relished, was smiling broadly at the two old men.
Across the street, Stan saw the Slaters arrive home. The moment was on him, but he felt unsure. Now that he was again acting of his own free will, killing was a distasteful, terrible act, something to be performed only if no other options were available. Could he justify the killing of a child? What if he was wrong? Wouldn’t he be taking yet another innocent life? And if so, how much worse to know he had done so without the provocation, without the control of something far more powerful than himself? The world might never know the distinction, but he would. He alone would be responsible, and he alone would be perceived as a monster—even by himself. His head throbbed as he considered all the angles, a man drained of most of his vitality by something obscenely evil, leaving him weak and failing. What could he do to redeem himself in these final hours?