Faerie Tale (36 page)

Sean could make out no detail of appearance; he could see only the faint blue shimmer briefly across the thing’s body, as if dim phosphors were painted on a featureless black mannequin. The silhouette was of a tall, thin man, his body moving with the controlled flow of a dancer, his muscles as smooth as unrippled water. Details of appearance, color of hair and eyes, tone of skin, shape of face, were obscured by either inky blackness or bluish glow. All this was insignificant to Sean. He only knew the man was there for the boys.

And he knew one other thing: This blue-glowing, dark man was an evil far beyond the Bad Thing.

The dark man moved to stand in the middle of the room, his face almost but, maddeningly, not quite seen. The shape of his head was long, the chin somehow too narrow, but no detail of eye or lips, hair or brow showed. He laughed, a distant, wind-hollow echo, a sound from ages past. Sean lay motionless, the covers pulled up to his face, as his stomach knotted at the sound. He followed the movement of the dark man as he slowly walked toward the door near the head of the bunk beds. The boy following with his eyes until the dark man was at the limit of his field of vision. From the corner of his eye, Sean suddenly caught a glimpse of a face. He turned to look again and detail vanished, as if to look straight at the man lost one the ability to see him. Sean sat up, terrified that his movement had somehow betrayed him, but unable to remain motionless. Still he could see only the hint of a figure in the room. In silent fear, Sean turned his head away. As he did so, the man’s face reappeared for an instant. Sean tried to avert his eyes, as if not looking would make the faintly glowing, spectral figure go away, but he couldn’t. His gaze was trapped and held by a terrible fascination. He sat motionless save for his trembling, his breath coming in shallow gasps, his teeth chattering. For an instant he could make out features in the dim mask, as the man smiled. His teeth were perfect, meeting in a grin like a skull’s, seeming to glow in the black face. And in that death’s-head grin Sean saw
terror and madness come to steal Patrick and himself away, before the features vanished again.

With a silent gasp, a gulping of breath, Sean flattened his back against the wall, halfway between the foot and head of the bed. He tried to close his eyes and will away the vision, but couldn’t. All he wanted to do was curl up in a ball and hide in a warm safe place. But he could not move. He was held motionless by something alien to his child’s nature. He was frozen by hopelessness.

The dark man stepped forward, closing the distance to the bedside, as if to get a better look at the boys. Other shapes moved at his feet, as if smaller creatures accompanied him. Sean forced muscles locked with rigor to move and slowly turned away, his cheek and side pressed against the wall, watching the terrifying man from the corner of his eye. “Patrick,” he barely got out in a hoarse croak. Then the man stood beside the bunk beds.

Softly, with a voice like a thousand whispers, the man spoke. “Two.” It was a hot summer night’s breeze giving voice to a word and that word was despair.

To Sean it felt as if a hand had reached into the pit of his being and seized him in a searing grip that would never let go. Then came the small, mad chuckle and Sean’s eyes watered with tears of fright. His stomach knotted again, as if he was going to vomit, and he swallowed hard, forcing back the sour taste rising into his mouth. He wished nothing more than to scream for Mommy and Daddy, but no sounds came forth. The scream was trapped within, fighting to escape. He couldn’t take his eyes from the figure by the bedside. Seen this close, the man was glowing, surrounded by a faint nimbus of silver-white light, cut with blue energies, his features still unseen. But now Sean could see the suggestion of eyes in the black face.

The dark man bent down, a moment out of Sean’s view, and the boy felt an odd, cold stab in his chest, as if the hand that had reached inside a moment earlier had torn something precious from deep within. He knew the man had Patrick! Sean felt the scream within battering against whatever held it in check, frantic to get out. Sean
swallowed hard, his throat constricted in fear, and managed to gulp down a breath of air.

Then the dark man rose up before Sean, Patrick lying asleep in his outstretched arms. Suddenly the man shifted Patrick, holding him cradled like a rag doll in his left arm, as his right hand snaked forward toward Sean.

In a hoarse whisper, little more than a dry croak, Sean said, “Mommy.”

A whispering echo played in the room, mocking him as it sang, “Mommy, Mommy, Mommy,” getting fainter and fainter.

The faint, glowing hand hesitated and the dark man withdrew it. In a harsh whisper he uttered a single word. “Ward.”

Sean gripped the fairy stone tightly, shaking his head as he repeated his almost inaudible cry: “Mommy.” Again came the mocking echo, repeating the word over and over, softly, quietly, offering no hope of being heard outside the room.

The dark man, his ghost voice sounding like a thousand fluting reeds in the wind, spoke. “Remove it.”

Sean suddenly moved, his skin prickling with an alien fever, as if this dark terror radiated heat. He scuttled to the head of the bed, trying to get as far from the glowing black figure as he could. He pushed himself as deep into the corner as possible, his small feet scraping against the sheets and covers. Tears ran down his face as his eyes were locked, staring at the invader. Patrick nestled in the man’s arm like a kitten and his eyes were vacant, his expression slack-jawed. He seemed without color, faded to grey half-tones. “The ward, boy!” The voice was as soft and quiet as before, but more commanding. When Sean remained motionless, the dark man signaled toward him.

Suddenly the Bad Thing sprang from the floor to the foot of the bed. It scampered forward, to squat before Sean. Large brown eyes, surrounding whites a luminous yellow, were set in a face like a demented monkey’s, with the fangs of a baboon seeming to glow as it grinned at Sean. Its body looked like a tiny man’s, but with too
many joints in the too long arms and legs, and its skin was a sooty charcoal color, like an ancient mummy’s or a bat’s. It stank of things dead for ages, and its hot and repulsive breath blew in Sean’s face as it made slobbering, sucking sounds. A taloned hand reached for the boy, but hesitated.

Suddenly another figure leaped up from below, and Sean’s heart jumped. Patrick stood crouching upon the foot of the bed. Then Sean saw that it wasn’t Patrick, but some evil caricature of himself! The boy was physically identical to Sean, but was nude, and his head moved in an odd fashion, much like a monkey’s in the way it turned one way and another as he regarded Sean. The doppelgänger absently played with himself as he watched Sean, again like a monkey in the zoo. An evil leering grin was fixed in place as he reached out to touch Sean. Like the Bad Thing, when he came close to the ward he yanked his hand away.

Sean’s eyes were wide, whites showing completely around the irises, and tears streamed down his cheeks. His nose ran and his mouth worked silently. The creatures seemed to struggle against something as they reached toward the fairy stone around the boy’s neck. Once, twice, three times in turn, each tried to grasp the ward, only to halt scant inches away. At last the Bad Thing turned to face the dark man and spoke. Its words were twisted, a mockery of human speech, slurred and thick, as if the tongue were the wrong size and the mouth filled with cotton. “Master. Hurts.” The false Sean’s mouth opened wide and he hooted, a mad monkey sound.

Sean’s tremble turned to more violent shaking, a near-uncontrollable palsy throughout his body. His skin burned with a poison fever. A miasma of evil washed over him, filling his nostrils, forcing breath from his lungs, choking him, threatening to drown him in mindless panic. Sean’s jaw worked as he struggled to cry for help, but all that came forth was short, pitiful yelps, almost inaudible against the wind howling outside.

Sean saw the Bad Thing turn to regard him once
more, and again the clawed black hand came forward, as if to touch him.

For a terror-torn instant, Sean’s mind sought to flee his body, and he felt himself almost lift from the bed by force of will. Like an overwound watch spring, the tension became too much to endure. Like a captive animal crashing the bars of his cage, he sought escape and, finding none, redoubled his fury. Again the Bad Thing reached toward the boy, and withdrew his hand. Sean whispered, “Mommy.”

The strangled note of a tormented violin mocked him as the Bad Thing grinned and repeated the word. “Mommy, Mommy, Mommy,” it sang, its breath filling Sean’s nostrils with the stench of decay, its face set in a happy mask, as if something in that word amused or pleased it. The mock Sean mouthed the word as the Bad Thing sang it, but the sound produced was an animal grunt.

Then the dark man leaned close, until his face was scant inches from Sean’s. Suddenly he was alight, in an intense glow that hurt Sean’s eyes. And for the brief instant of that shining brilliance, Sean saw the face of the man. Eyes, set in deep sockets, locked with Sean’s and Sean felt his mind twist, as a long, low, pain-filled sound at last escaped the boy’s lips. For in those eyes Sean saw lightning dance, as electric-blue orbs sought to burn his soul. A beauty so pure it was terrifying greeted Sean in that instant, something alien, beyond the ability of the human mind to accept. And in that instant Sean wanted nothing more than to give up all will and go with the man, and in that rush of unexpected longing came a desire so concrete Sean’s body rocked. For that desire was something he was not ready for, something reserved for changes not yet come, when love and tenderness turned to passion. But now it struck Sean with a wanton heat, a hunger so intensely sexual that his body could not interpret his desires. Sean found his child’s penis stiffening unexpectedly, while his body shuddered and his skin prickled with chill bumps. Perspiration poured off his body, soaking his pajamas. He looked over at his false
twin and found a leering creature squatting a few feet away, his tongue lolling out of his mouth as he fondled himself, rocking from side to side, a reflection in a befouled glass made solid. The evil twin’s eyes were wide like Sean’s, but, rather than terror, his expression was one of perverted, inhuman desire.

Sean’s heart pounded in his chest and he could endure no more. His bowels contracted, and his tiny erection vanished as his bladder emptied. His stomach spasmed as if a knot were pulled tight. And in that instant of blinding light, of adult longings shocking his child’s body, of beautiful passions twisted to black lust, Sean knew a thing. It was a thing that he had thought he had known before, when the Bad Thing had first come to their room, or when Patrick had been swept away in the storm. But those encounters had been but grey shadows compared to this ultimate black. The thing Sean knew was horror. It had passed through him and surrounded him, and now it was made solid. And it stood before him in the guise of the being he would ever after know as the Shining Man. That recognition triggered the release of all that was trapped inside.

Sean screamed.

Beyond anything he would have dreamed possible, he screamed, a sound to pierce the soul. He screamed so loud that it seemed his mother’s voice was answering before the sound had finished echoing down the hall to the stairway.

Time froze for Sean, and a dozen images came crashing in upon him. The light about the Shining Man vanished, returning him to darkness surrounded by a faint blue glow. He moved, and Sean glimpsed his face from the corner of his eye. For an instant Sean saw an inhuman expression of hate so evil and demented that nothing in the world could frighten the boy after seeing that. Sean continued screaming. The Bad Thing tumbled back, away from the sudden sound, unsure of what to do, while the false Sean rolled backward with a monkey’s shriek, to fall out of sight, landing at the foot of the bed.

Sean could see the Shining Man holding Patrick in his
arm like a baby doll. His brother seemed pale, without color. Sean’s screaming continued. From the hallway he could hear his parents calling his name and his brother’s, Gabbie’s voice asking what was wrong. Bad Luck was scrambling up the stairs, his bark challenging anything that would harm his family. Sean continued to scream.

The Shining Man again stepped toward Sean, reaching for him. He snatched his hand away, as if conceding Sean was beyond his ability to capture. A hollow sigh of resignation was followed by the distant voice saying, “We will meet again.” Then came a laugh so chilling it punched through the scream.

Sean knew despair.

The Shining Man retreated into the corner. The Bad Thing and the false Sean scurried to stand at their master’s feet, while the Shining Man held Patrick in the crook of his arm as if he weighed nothing. The remaining glow around him faded, and gloom drank all sight of the four figures in the corner.

Then the room light blazed into being and Gloria stood in the door. She froze for an instant as she saw the dark creatures crouched in the corner beneath the man figure that held one of her sons in his arms. All were still shadows, as if the room light couldn’t quite vanquish the murk. Then the dark figures were gone. Gloria paused in mid-step, blinking in confusion, not believing her senses. The instant passed. Gloria shook her head slightly, as if clearing her vision. She glanced down to see Patrick still in his bunk, asleep, as she moved to the bedside. Reaching for Sean, she said, “Honey! What is it?”

Sean shivered and quaked, unable to control himself. He had wet the bed and filled his pajama bottoms. His eyes refused to focus. His mouth was wide, the jaw flexing as his throat-tearing shriek continued, saliva running down his chin, and his body was drenched in sweat. His breath was sour with fear. He could only make one sound:
the scream.

The scream became reality for Sean. It was something tangible in a world twisted to insubstantial insanity. He could hide within the scream, cover himself in it, wrap it
around his family and shelter all within its folds, shaped and molded into a safe place to hide. His throat was raw, and his body ached with tension and pain where fear tried to seep through the skin like a thick burning poison, but the scream continued, reassuring and real. It filled the room, surrounding him and his family with a concrete barrier, as real as wood, or stone, or steel. The scream went on and on, for Sean knew that the moment he stopped, the Shining Man and his companions would come back and get Sean’s mother and father and Gabbie.