All The Bells on Earth (50 page)

The strains of the music seemed to expand and fill the room. He smiled, recalling from down the years the first phrases of the piece, and he moved his hand like a conductor and bobbed his head, listening closely, thinking how the sound of the rain lent the music a certain something.

Then, abruptly, a pain shot across his forehead, and he closed his eyes and took his face in his hands. Thunder rattled the windows, then died away. The music sounded suddenly louder to him, as if the electricity in the storm had doubled the wattage. The pain passed, and he breathed deeply and gratefully. Clearly it was nothing. He set in to listen again, but the melody was slightly discordant now, slightly off-key. Of course, he hadn’t heard it in years….

The music seemed to swell, compressing the atmosphere in the room like air pumped into a tire. He could almost see the walls balloon outward, vibrating with the bass. The windows rattled in their frames, the glass panes humming like an insect swarm. He felt the pain in his head again, coming on more slowly this time, a mounting pressure at the back of his eyeballs, pushing at his forehead and temples as if his brain were swelling.

He fumbled for the bourbon glass, choked on the liquor, and spat it out, standing up out of the chair and slamming the glass back down onto the table. And then, to his horror, the liquor burst into flame in the glass, and the flames slipped down the outside and ignited the whiskey puddled on the tabletop. He slapped at it, splashing the burning liquor onto the rug, knocking the glass itself over. His hand was on fire! He beat it against the back of the chair now, stamping at the rug. The music was unbearable, chaotic, raucous, like a cage full of parrots. Smoke rose from the wool rug, and Argyle fell to his hands and knees and pounded at it, the scorched wool stinking in his nostrils. He clutched his head again and stumbled to his feet, reeling across toward the stereo cabinet, a deep moan pushing up out of his open mouth. He heard secret voices in the music now, clanking machinery, howls of inarticulate pain, and a deep thumping in the very foundation of the house, as if some mechanical beast were coming for him, as if at any moment the earth would open and swallow the house, dragging him down to Hell.

He knocked the tone arm off the record, and the abrupt silence nearly took his breath away. He saw clearly that something had gone wrong. The golem hadn’t worked. He had been betrayed. Everyone had betrayed him—Stebbins, Peetenpaul, the Biggs woman, that goddamn Bentley. Even Ivy had betrayed him! The whole crowd of them had conspired to ruin him!

He realized suddenly that the silence wasn’t complete. In the distance, from the tower at the Holy Spirit Church, came the sound of the evening bells. For God’s sake, they were still hounding him! He pressed his hands against his ears, and the whole world seemed to him to vibrate like a tuning fork, like a church bell, vibrations that would shake him to atoms. He strode away through the house, howling to drown out the noise of the bells, moving from room to room, turning on lights, every light he could find. He talked out loud, reciting old poems he’d been forced to memorize in high school. He realized with a shock of long-overdue recognition that he was utterly alone. There was nobody to call, nobody to help. That had been true of Murray LeRoy when LeRoy had been consumed. And of Nelson, too. Nobody had given a damn for George Nelson’s death—not even his so-called friends. Especially not his friends! Argyle walked back into the living room now, looking behind him at the empty rooms of his house, at the lonesome shadows in the corners.

He fell silent, listening. The bells had stopped, but that wouldn’t last long. There was a scuffing sound outside, on the porch, and he saw something move beyond the curtained window in the door.

“Yes!” he shouted, unable to contain himself. He didn’t care who it was, as long as it was company. Even Lorimer Bentley would do. He stepped eagerly across the carpet toward the door, putting his hand on the knob and throwing the door open wide to let in the night air.

But the porch was empty when Argyle opened the door and looked out, ready to welcome the world into his house. “Who is it?” he asked, peering out into the darkness beyond the glow of the porch lamp. “Who’s there?” He stepped outside onto the porch.

Something moved in the shadows, out near the sycamore tree that shaded the lawn. A human figure stood there, hunched over like a beggar out of an old illustration. It was dressed in rags, its face turned away. “Get the hell out of here!” Argyle said to it. His voice shook. “I’ll call the police!”

The man’s head swiveled toward him, and for a moment, when they reflected the lamplight, his eyes glowed red. Argyle’s breath caught. The man’s jaw was broken, unhinged. His—its—flesh was charred, its clothing ragged and blackened.

It was the golem, reanimated, returned from whatever place it had gone.

The front door slammed shut behind Argyle, hard enough to shake the house. He flung himself around and grabbed the knob. It was locked. And his pockets were empty! His house keys were inside, the back door locked, the windows bolted.

He was swept with the utter certainty that the creature had come back to fetch him. Had been
sent
back.

From beyond the Plaza, the bells at the Church of the Holy Spirit tolled the hour.

Argyle sat down in the rattan porch chair and gripped the armrests. He would stay right there. Whatever the thing wanted of him, wherever it wanted him to go, it would have to force him. By God, it would have to carry him. And it would have a fight on its hands first! He’d go kicking and screaming.

The chair burst into flames beneath him, and he threw himself out of it, smelling the stink of burned hair. He swiveled around, hooking his leg through the armrest and dragging the burning chair away from the side of the house. His shoe caught fire, and he hopped away, kicking the chair down and pulling off his sweater, whipping his shoe with it to put the fire out. The sweater itself burst into flames, and he flung it away from him, screaming out loud. The golem remained slouched in the shadows beneath the tree, as if waiting patiently for Argyle to finish up his earthly antics so that the two of them could get down to the business at hand.

R
AIN FELL OUT OF
the sky like the end of the world, running in a sheet down the windshield, so that even with the wipers on high speed Walt got only small, momentary glimpses of the road ahead of him as he turned off Maple Street onto Cambridge. A river of water six feet across rose over the curb on the low side of the street, flooding out onto lawns, and above the drumming of the rain he could hear the sound of thunder and, impossibly, the weather-muted sound of the bells of the Holy Spirit rising somehow above the tumult—melody in the chaos of weather.

The paint can on the seat beside him bounced and jiggled, as if it were full of jumping beans. For a moment it levitated above the seat, hovering two inches over the upholstery and vibrating like a can in a paint shaker. He could hear a beating sound from inside it again, a thumping against the walls, and suddenly the can leaped completely off the seat and banged into the dashboard, falling to the floor and rolling against the door panel where it lay still.

He spotted Argyle’s house through the blur of rain, and he angled across toward the curb. Through the gray haze of the downpour he saw that something was burning on the front lawn. Argyle danced in front of it, trying to beat out the fire, slapping at his own shoes with his sweater.

Walt cut the engine and scooped up the paint can, climbing out of the Suburban and bending back into the car to haul out his umbrella, which he hoisted against the rain. The flames that engulfed the chair dwindled in the deluge as Walt hurried across the lawn to where Argyle stood clutching his forehead, his eyes wide like the eyes of a lunatic. He fell to his knees on the wet lawn and clasped his hands in front of him as if he had suddenly decided to say his prayers.

Walt tilted the umbrella so that it sheltered Argyle’s face from the rain, and he wished suddenly that he had Ivy along. He was in over his head here. Argyle was a wreck, hardly sensible. Walt grabbed him by the arm and lifted, and he reluctantly got to his feet, slouching under the umbrella. Walt turned him and navigated through the rain toward the porch, and right then lightning flashed. There was a simultaneous crack of thunder, and the night lit up like noontime.

In the flash of light, Walt saw that someone stood beneath the dripping sycamore tree, a hunched ruin of a man dressed in rags. His eyes were rolled back into his head, and his jaw hung slack so that his mouth lolled open grotesquely. Walt shouted out loud in surprise as the night plunged into darkness again. Walt squinted, his eyes adjusting. There was enough porchlight shining through the rain and tree foliage that Walt could see that the man still stood there, unmoving.

Walt dragged Argyle forward now, propelling him up the porch steps, under the eaves. “Who the hell is
he
?” Walt asked. Rain hammered the porch roof and sluiced out of the downspouts. The street was very nearly a river now, and water lapped at the porch steps of the houses across the street.

“That’s my
soul
,” Argyle said. He shivered, wrapping his arms around himself. Walt could hear his teeth chatter.

“Let’s go inside.” Walt tried the door, not waiting for Argyle to voice his opinion. “Door’s locked.”

“Of
course
it is.”

“Where’s the key?”

“Locked inside. It’s no good. He won’t let me in. It’s over.”

“Who won’t let you in?
That
character?”

The paint can thumped hard, jerking in Walt’s hand. He set it down on the porch and stepped on it.

“No, not
that
thing. I’ve sold my soul to the Devil, and now I’ve got to pay up. Don’t tell me Bentley’s kept this a secret from you.”

“What about the phoenix?” Walt asked, trying not to get mad.

“What?”

“Rising out of the ashes,” Walt said. “Like you were talking about yesterday.”

“I got a reprieve,” Argyle said. “But it didn’t last.”

“Well, listen,” Walt said. “I’ve got something to confess.”

“You want Bentley for that—him or the priest from the Holy Spirit. I’d suggest the priest.”

“The bird that you bought from Maggie Biggs …” Walt said.

“What’s he
doing
?” Argyle’s voice was suddenly shrill. He jerked forward as if tugged by an invisible rope.

The creature under the tree had stepped out onto the sidewalk. Walt saw what it was now; it was the thing that Bentley had described to him, the golem, the effigy that Lyle Boyd said had burned in the alley last night. The creature had apparently come back from the dead, or from wherever it had been. It moved away down the sidewalk, and Argyle went down the steps as if to follow it.

“Wait!” Walt said, picking up the paint can and following him out into the rain, putting up the umbrella again. “Let it go. To hell with it.”

Argyle ignored him, moving off at a pace identical to that of the golem, the two of them drawn inexorably toward the distant boulevard.

Walt hurried up behind Argyle and kept up with him, sharing the umbrella. “The bird that Biggs sold you was the wrong one,” he said. “It was a dead parakeet I got from the Sprouse Reitz. Same color blue.”

Argyle groaned. “I’m finished,” he said. “Tell Ivy …”

“I’ve got the real one right here.” Walt held up the paint can, which flew out of his grasp at that moment and clanked down onto the sidewalk, the rain beating on it as it hopped and jittered there. Walt scooped it up and tucked it under his arm, holding onto it tightly.

Argyle looked at him hard now, his mouth half open in disbelief. “That’s a lie,” he said, not breaking his stride. He licked his lips, and his eyes darted toward the paint can. Ten paces ahead of them the golem stepped down off the curb, into the floodwaters that flowed down Maple Street, and headed for the opposite shore.

“No it’s not,” Walt said. “It’s the bluebird. If I told you any lies about it before, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have. It was wrong. But you were too, of course.”

“What do you want for it?” Argyle asked flatly. He looked ahead again, matching the golem’s shambling stride. “Anything. There’s no time to haggle. Name it.”

“Nothing.”

“Damn it!” Argyle said. “This is life and death! This is salvation.”

“This is
not
salvation,” Walt shouted. “This is the opposite of that.” There was another lightning flash, and the figure of the golem was thrown into sharp clarity against the rainy night. The lightning seemed to glow straight through the thing’s flesh and torn clothing, as if it were made of cheesecloth or cobweb.

“A million dollars.”

“No! For God’s sake, Bob, open your eyes.”

“Name it. Whatever you want. Say the word and it’s yours.”

“Damn it! No! Get it through your …”

“Do you think I’m joking, Walt? Are you a goddamn self-righteous moron?”

“Joking!” Walt realized that Argyle was weeping openly now, his face contorted with it. Here he was talking like the Devil himself, and out of fear of the Devil! There was a noise from ahead of them, as if the golem had moaned out loud, and Walt wondered what would happen if he sprinted ahead and just tackled the bastard, stuffed it down the storm drain, shoes and all. He watched it step up onto the curb at the opposite side of the intersection, and, just as it did, Argyle stepped down into ankle deep water, following in the thing’s wake, stepping where it had stepped. Walt kept pace with him, and they waded to the curb and up onto the sidewalk again. Clearly the golem was moving toward the Plaza, bound for the alley behind Nelson and Whidley.