Dark Advent (7 page)

…
the Red Death held illimitable dominion over all.

Erika watched, dumbstruck, as they began the Dance of Death, and a woman draped in all her finery was streaked with scarlet stains popping out across her skin.

Déjà vu.

purplish blotches massing on her face and arms

In an instant she knew what her dream had meant. What was to come, if it wasn’t already walking among them all, a truth more terrible and more agonizing than any fiction had ever dreamt of being.

Erika fled the theater, barely able to hold back the tears until she’d reached her car.

8

Some thirty-eight hours after an eleven-year-old named Chuck had met the worst bogeyman of his old childhood fears, and Erika Jennings awoke to oppressive darkness in her bedroom, Jason got mugged at a locale somewhere between the two of them.

It was June twenty-fifth, the last Thursday of the month, and it started out innocently enough, if not quite normal. Upon arrival at work
,
Jason was informed by Kelly about a truckers’ strike in St. Louis that had left a shipment of suits and rental tuxes stranded at the wholesaler with no way of moving east of the river on their own. Would Jason be interested in finding a little something extra in his next paycheck for cruising over in the store van and hauling them back? Is the Pope Catholic?

Kelly warned him that he’d likely have a little layover time, since a number of other stores were probably doing the same thing.

“So what should I do in the meantime?” Jason asked, already loosening the tie he’d knotted ten minutes earlier.

“Get a haircut. You’re starting to look like a sheepdog.”

“Better than being a bald old fart like you.” Jason grinned.

Kelly’s wholesaler was on the south side of St. Louis, within sight of I-55 as it wove south. Beyond the highway ran the Mississippi, brown and eternal. Jason found he’d have a wait of at least forty-five minutes, and so he left his van keys with a fellow who toted around a clipboard as if it were nothing less than the Ten Commandments. Jason set off on foot in search of a diner to grab a more substantial breakfast than the coffee and crunch donut he’d gulped down in his kitchen.

As he walked a southwestern path, he tried to reconcile the city as it was now with what it had been a century and more ago, a vital cog in a blossoming nation, bustling with steamships and rivermen, merchants and whores and thieves who’d slit your throat for the change in your pocket. But then came the railroads, and like the country, the city had never been the same. Now? Now you had cars and buses farting their fumes into the air of a city populated by folks hard-pressed to know their heritage, looking forward and never backward. You had land to the near west poisoned by dioxin. Progress? The city had grown up but had lost its peculiar innocence of those long-ago days. Jason wondered what it would be like to step back in time and see it as it had once been. Those grimy days of yesteryear.

He found his diner, ate his bacon and eggs, paid, and left. Took a shortcut through an alley, passing a long building that looked like a dormant warehouse. The mouth of the alley and the view to the other end reminded him of a gauntlet, but he figured it was probably safe enough during the day. And maybe it would’ve been, had he been dressed in something other than tan slacks, a brown shirt, and a tie. The clothes had pegged him from the word
go,
and he stood out like a lone beacon.

It happened when he was three-quarters of the way through the alley. He heard nothing more than a single footstep grinding down on gravel, and before he could turn to see what was coming, he felt his shoulders seized in a pair of strong hands. They shoved him into the bricks of the warehouse, where his head smacked hard enough to open a gash up the right side of his forehead. His knees buckled and his hands clutched at the crevices between bricks for support. His ears rang with the sickening crunch his skull had made.

The alley swam into view as his eyes cleared, as he straightened with his back to the wall. His attacker was younger by maybe a couple of years, wearing a faded denim jacket with the arms ripped away; his cratered cheeks were ravaged with acne. The switchblade came out then, handled as easily as if it were the first thing the guy had ever found in his crib.

“The wallet,” he said flatly.

Just like being around an animal,
Jason told himself.
Don’t let him know you’re afraid.
He felt blood matting his hair, oozing down his cheek to his chin, dripping onto his shirt.

The knife flickered nervously. “Hand it
over,
asshole.”

Jason stared into his eyes, feral eyes. “I left it in my car.”

“
Lying motherfucker!” the mugger yelled, launching himself forward, the knife leading the way in a wide sideways arc.

Jason didn’t know he’d even moved until he found himself a yard away, watching that blade slash across the space where his stomach had been a second before, and then dig into the brick wall. The blade snapped off at the hilt, glittering as it fell to the alley. He stared at it, realizing that if he’d been any slower, he would by now be curling into a fetal ball, trying to hold in his guts.

The mugger was as quick as a jaguar. Jason caught his booted foot in the stomach, and at least a pair of two-fisted blows came slamming down on his upper back. He tasted the alley and felt his wallet yanked from his hip pocket, heard the pocket rip as the mugger tore it half away, leaving it hanging in a flap. Fading footsteps.

Jason got to his knees and lost his breakfast beside the wall. He winced and swore as he moved so as to sit with his back to the wall, waiting for the outrage in his ribs, his head, his back to quiet down.

He wiped blood from his eye, remembering what he’d thought of less than an hour earlier, the days of the steamboats, and cutthroats who’d carve you like a ham for whatever was in your pockets. People weren’t much different now as then, it seemed. A city, a nation, a world can grow as sophisticated as a society debutante, but human nature wasn’t going to change.

A few minutes later, he watched a scroungy little mutt come sniffing down the alley, tail wagging when it saw Jason and wandered over. Dopey little thing. Its coat was brown and black and white, all dirty. No collar, of course. It might’ve been part terrier, but it was definitely a melting pot of many breeds.

And it looked about as forlorn as Jason felt at the moment.

“Come here,” Jason said softly. He snapped his fingers, noticing for the first time the nasty scrape along the back of his hand. “Come here, girl.”

The dog wandered over the rest of the way, tentatively approaching him at first, then snuggling in close. He stroked it absently, wanting to cry at the violation of body and mind he’d undergone, and then he scooped the dog up in his arms and hugged it. Its rough pink tongue lapped out on his forearm, licked his wrist, licked the scrape on the back of his hand. He held it and pressed his face close to its body as if it were a comforting angel come down in the humblest of forms.

And minutes later, when he set it back in the alley, it gave him one last look as if to say
Feel better now? Good,
and trotted off.

Later, after he’d reclaimed the van and driven back home and had parked in the little loading area behind Kelly’s, Jason looked at himself in the rearview mirror. His face was slick with sweat and oil, trickles of blood dried a rich brown down his cheek. Spiky clumps of hair hung matted together like red-brown ropes.

He let himself in through the rear door of Kelly’s store, found Kelly in the small cubicle that served as his office. Jason tossed the van keys onto the desktop, and Kelly jerked up, staring at him, mouth agape. “Next time,” Jason said with a bitter little grin, “pick up your own damn suits.”

9

They were having a good time two doors down. Sounded like one hell of a party going on down there.

Travis Lane grumbled and rolled over to check the clock on his nightstand. Ten thirty-three. Not too late yet, but he knew they’d keep it going for hours to come. That was their style. They’d keep blasting their stereo and breaking their bottles and laughing and the cars would continue to come and go well into the night. They’d keep shooting off their minor arsenal of Fourth of July fireworks, left over from yesterday’s holiday. Looked like a long night ahead.

Travis knew he could blot out most of the noise simply by shutting up the house and turning on the air, but damn it, it was
his
house, and if he wanted it open that was his right. The night was warm and thick, and his skin was moist with a faint sheen as he lay atop the covers. He slept his best on such a night.

He sighed with a weary disgust, then swung up to sit on the edge of the bed and slip on a pair of shorts that lay balled up on the nightstand. He made his way into the kitchen, belted down a slug of Wild Turkey. As he sat at the table in near-darkness, pondering the situation, his teeth began to grind. He’d just thought of a way to class up the neighborhood by leaps and bounds.

Travis hoped they were enjoying their party down there. Because it was sure as shit going to be their last.

He threw on some clothes and left the house for a few minutes. And found what he needed at a liquor store.

* *

The party finally seemed to wind down after two-thirty. Travis had been keeping an eye on their house from his back yard, returning inside his home only for an occasional mug of coffee. He watched as the lights downstairs winked out, and those upstairs, probably the bedrooms, came on briefly. Then all was dark, quiet.

Travis folded up his lawn chair, left the obscuring shadows of the maple tree he’d stationed himself under. He returned the chair to his garage, then grabbed a five-foot length of two-by-four. Opened his car door to retrieve what he’d bought at the liquor store hours earlier.

And then he waited. Give them time to fall asleep good and sound. Nestled snug in their beds, visions of MTV dancing in their heads. Sweet dreams, kids. Uncle Travis is going to pay a visit tonight. And he just might be your worst nightmare come true.

Three o’clock. He left the sweaty darkness of his garage, eased across the back yard of the old woman who lived between him and the kids. She’d been a widow for as long as he’d known her, and he thought she must go to bed around dusk. He rarely saw a light burning over there.

Travis reached their back door. Luck was with him; they too were sleeping with the house opened up, although the screen door was locked. No matter. He took his pocketknife and made a slit along the edge of the screen, just large enough to fit his hand through to unlock the door. He crept in, moving past the landing and the stairway that led down into a pitch-black basement exhaling cool musty air. He slipped quietly into the kitchen.

Travis paused for several moments, letting his eyes grow accustomed to the darkness within, waiting until the moonlight was adequate for him to make his way through the unfamiliar house.

The kitchen…its floor felt grimy even through his shoes. Empty cans and bottles lined the countertop and table. A stack of pizza boxes sat on the floor beside an overflowing trashcan, and as he moved past the refrigerator, he caught a sickening whiff of something spoiled.

He rounded a corner, peered into a room whose window looked out on the widow’s house. Travis made out a single form on a bed, then wrinkled his nose. The room smelled of sheets that had needed changing back in the spring.

He found another asleep on the couch in the living room. And he grinned. Asleep
on
the couch, so much the better. A light glowed in the corner—the power on the stereo was still on, the turntable revolving endlessly without an album.

Travis set down the items he’d brought with him, then moved quickly and silently throughout the first floor, easing down the windows. He wanted no ventilation, no breezes to ruin anything.

Travis returned to the living room, stood before the sleeping boy. He took the bottle from the liquor store, broke its seal, unscrewed the cap…Everclear, 190 proof and very very flammable. He poured it onto the couch, soaking it into the fabric and cushions beneath the kid’s head, then as an afterthought, poured a generous amount onto his mouth and chest. And waited.

The kid’s eyes fluttered open as he sputtered Everclear. He saw Travis, and there came a brief and terrible moment of recognition of both identity and purpose, and his eyes grew wide.

For Travis, it was surely the most supreme moment in his life…in all ways a turning point. His thickly muscled arm flashed, and his fist put the kid back into unconsciousness once more.

Travis set the bottle on its side on the floor by the couch, where it soaked into the rug. He searched the long, scarred coffee table until he found an ashtray, which he rested beside the bottle.

Same old story, poor kids. Smoking and drinking and sleeping just don’t mix. Such
a waste of young lives.

He dug into his pocket for the matches, lit one, its flare smarting at his eyes. He stood as far back as he could and still have an accurate shot…and tossed the match.

The burst of flame was immediate and scorching hot. The kid stirred once, weakly, then fell still as flames consumed both him and the couch. Within twenty seconds after the match had hit, the entire couch was one solid mass of fire.

No place to hang around, this room. Travis moved back through the kitchen, the rear landing, outside. He knelt in the shadows with his two-by-four, waiting. Just in case.

In the living room, the ceiling temperature had reached 1200 degrees in just under four minutes. The couch was a charred, shapeless mass, and within its ruins laid a body that only dental records could identify. By this time the other furniture was blazing as well, along with the curtains and paneling behind the couch. The Everclear bottle blew apart, spewing liquid fire. Polyester and other synthetics in the furniture’s fabric and the paneling spewed out a steady flow of toxic fumes into the superheated air: cyanide, carbon monoxide, various hydrogen gasses. These were sucked upstairs along with the smoke, into the bedrooms. The ceiling itself burst into flame, and as the temperature climbed past the 1600-degree level, a fireball rolled up the stairs to ignite the second story.

Travis, kneeling at the rear of the house, checked his watch. It had been eight minutes since he’d first struck the match, and he’d yet to hear so much as a single scream. Too bad. It took some of the fun out of things. Might as well go back home now. He should no longer risk being seen around here.

The sound of a window sliding up…must’ve been from around the side facing the widow’s house, the bedroom off the kitchen. Travis rose and, in a crouch, crept over to peep around the corner. He heard someone inside coughing harshly, deep wracking coughs. The screen popped out onto the ground and he saw a bare leg dangle out across the windowsill.

No way. None of
them
were going to screw up his average for the night. When he played, he played to win, and tonight he was going to nail them 100 percent. No prisoners, no quarter, no survivors.

He waited until two arms appeared outside the window, and then a head and shoulders. Travis surged around the side of the house like a charging rhino, bringing back his two-by-four like a baseball bat. The kid never saw it coming. Travis swung with everything he had, the end of the five-foot length of board catching the kid in the face with the sound of a bursting melon. It swatted him back through the window as easily as a fly.

He had to see. He just had to see.

Travis dropped the board and latched onto the windowsill, chinning himself up to peer through the open window. He grinned. The kid lay spread-eagle across his bed, face up, a thick flow of blood streaming from his mouth and nose. Such a lovely scene by firelight.

And then it all went wrong.

The kid must’ve been storing fireworks in his room, the ones they’d been shooting off earlier, because something in a box on the floor erupted like a colorful volcano. A burst of green and red sparks showered in front of his eyes, and Roman candles shattered the window and sizzled his cheek. Travis dropped to the ground but by this time it was too late, way too late, and he could barely see to grope his way back home.

He stumbled in through his back door, one hand clutching at his cheek. Beneath his fingers, the skin felt hard and ragged. He made his unsteady way into the bathroom, flipped on the light.
Son of a bitch!
Two angry raw trenches had been seared across his left cheek, and his eyebrows and short bangs had been crisped, and flecks of ash and soot stained his cheeks and around his eyes. And the pain! It felt like a thousand hot needles were probing at his face. He splashed water onto his face, cool soothing water, to wash away the flashmarks. The rest he was stuck with for a while.

Dizzy, he grabbed a beer in the kitchen, pressing the cold can to his cheek as he returned to his bed to collapse once more. Just rest a few moments, think of what to do next, everything would take care of itself, so long as he could grab a little shuteye.

The last thing he heard before he fell asleep was the cluster of sirens, coming closer, closer, louder.

In the end, it could’ve been the perfect crime. Travis hadn’t been particularly stealthy about it. He could’ve been seen by another neighbor, although this wasn’t the case. In the smoking ruin of the house, investigators found nothing to indicate arson. To the contrary, they found a shattered liquor bottle next to the remains of the couch and a horribly charred body, along with a heavy glass ashtray. Telltale signs of carelessness that had ended in tragedy.

But outside the house they found a length of two-by-four, unburned and clearly not part of the structural framework. Upon closer examination, they found it tainted with a small amount of blood and tissue and mucus.

The perfect crime, if not for the fireworks.

Police and arson investigators began making the rounds in the neighborhood in mid-morning. Travis had slept through his alarm, then the phone calls from work when he didn’t show up. The doorbell finally cut through, and he shuffled to the front door, barely awake, swearing under his breath at whoever was out there.

And when he swung the door open to reveal himself…heavily muscled, cruel-eyed, burned face, and singed hair, wearing a dark T-shirt that still smelled faintly of smoke…the investigators knew they had someone who warranted more than a routine questioning.

And Travis, who wasn’t yet wholly awake and thinking clearly until the July sun started to clear his mind, knew he’d screwed up.