Wayne frowned, staring at the sun’s reflection in the swimming pool. “Zingers,” he said. “Vanilla.”
“Remember, we leave for Mexico early in the morning. You’ll need your sleep. Are your bags packed?”
“No sir.”
“Felix will give you a hand with them.” Niles hadn’t understood all of what that damned woman had said, but she’d really given Wayne a jolt. Taped to the underside of the table was a voice-activated tape recorder about the size of a cigarette pack. Niles knew Mr. Krepsin would be interested in hearing it. He left the poolside.
Wayne had gathered up the plastic pieces when Felix brought out his orange juice and Zingers. He stuffed the cakes into his mouth after Felix had gone; the orange juice seemed more bitter than usual today. He didn’t like it, so after one swallow he poured it into the pool and stirred away the color with his hand. Mr. Niles always insisted he finish everything that was put in front of him, and Wayne didn’t want to get Mr. Niles mad. Then Wayne sat cross-legged on the edge of the pool, telling himself over and over again that the painted Jezebel had lied.
57
BILLY CREEKMORE WAS WATCHING The House on Haunted Hill on TV in his room at Chicago’s Armitage General Hospital when Bonnie Hailey knocked softly at the door and came in.
“Hi,” she said. “How’re you doin’ today?”
“Better.” He sat up and tried to make himself presentable by running a hand through his unruly hair. His bones still ached, and his appetite had dropped to almost nothing. Sleep was a confusion of nightmares, and in the television’s blue glow Billy’s face looked ghostly and tired. He’d been in the hospital for two days, suffering from shock and exhaustion. “How about you?”
“I’m fine. Here, I brought you somethin’ to read.” She gave him a copy of the Tribune she’d bought down at the newsstand. “Helps to pass the time, I guess.”
“Thank you.” He didn’t tell her that every time he tried to read, the lines ran together like columns of ants.
“You okay? I mean…are they treatin’ you right around here? Everybody at the institute wants to come over, but Dr. Hillburn says nobody can come for a while. But me, that is. I’m glad you wanted to see me.”
It was late afternoon, and the last rays of sunlight were slanting through the blinds beside Billy’s bed. Dr. Hillburn had spent most of yesterday with him and had been there this morning as well.
“Did Dr. Hillburn call Hawthorne like she promised she would?” Billy asked.
“I don’t know.”
“I haven’t heard from my mother for a while. I want to know if she’s all right.” Billy remembered the shape changer’s mocking singsong: Your mother’s dead, the cowboy came and sheared her head.
Bonnie shrugged. Dr. Hillburn had told her not to mention Billy’s mother. The owner of a general store in Hawthorne—the number Billy had said to call—had told Dr. Hillburn that Ramona Creekmore had perished when her cabin had caught fire in the middle of the night. Embers stirred by the wind in the hearth, the man had said. The place went up quick.
“I’m so tired,” Billy said. Had a dark cloud passed over Bonnie’s face, or not? His brain was still teeming with the emotions and memories he’d absorbed in the Alcott Hotel; he realized he had narrowly escaped death from the shape changer. The beast hadn’t been able to crack his mind or erode his determination, but Billy shivered when he thought of that burned corpse dragging itself slowly through the ashes toward him. Had it been another mental trick, another assumed shape, or did the beast have the power to animate the dead as if they were grisly puppets? There had been utter hatred—and grim desperation—burning in those hollow eye sockets. When the shape changer had given up that husk of crisped flesh, the red glint of its eyes had extinguished like spirit lamps. And where was the beast now? Waiting, for another chance to destroy him?
They were going to meet again, somewhere. He was sure of it.
“Dr. Hillburn told me the people at the television station have a video tape,” Billy said quietly. “They’re keeping it locked in a safe, but they showed it to her yesterday. It shows everything. Me, the revenants in the room…everything. She said it shows some of the revenants being drawn into me, and some seeping into the walls. She said they’re trying to decide whether to show the tape on TV or not, and they may do a documentary on the institute.” He remembered the charge of emotion in Dr. Hillburn’s voice as she’d told him other parapsychologists were going to want to see that film, and to meet him, and that very soon his life was going to change. He might not stay in Chicago, she’d said; Chicago—and specifically the institute—might be for him just the first step in a long, arduous journey. Dr. Hillburn’s eyes had been bright with hope.
Pain stitched across Billy’s forehead. His body felt like a damp rag. “I wonder if there’s a piano somewhere around here,” he said.
“A piano? Why?”
“I like to play. Didn’t I tell you? There’s a lot I want to tell you, Bonnie. About my family, and about something called the Mystery Walk. I’d like to show you Hawthorne someday. It’s not much, but it’s where I was born. I’ll show you my house, and the high school; I’ll show you the trails I used to wander when I was a kid. I’ll take you to a place where a creek sings over the rocks, and where you can hear a hundred different birds.” He looked up at her, hopefully. “Would you like that?”
“Yes,” she replied. “I… I think I’d like that. A lot.”
“It won’t take me long to get well.” His heartbeat had quickened. “I want to know the things that are important to you. Will you take me to Lamesa sometime?”
Bonnie smiled and found his hand under the sheet.
“Do you think a cowgirl could get along with an Indian?” he asked her.
“Yep. I think they could get along just fine.”
Someone screamed from The House on Haunted Hill. It startled Bonnie, but then she laughed. It was a sound that warmed Billy’s bones as if he were standing before a fireplace. Suddenly he was laughing too; then she leaned close to him, those strange and beautiful eyes luminous, and their lips gently touched. Bonnie pulled back, her face blooming with color—but Billy cupped his hand behind her head and this time their kiss was long and lingering.
“I’d better go,” Bonnie said finally. “Dr. Hillburn wanted me back before dark.”
“Okay. But you’ll come back tomorrow?”
She nodded. “As early as I can.”
“Good. Will you say hello to everybody else for me? And thanks for coming to see me. Thanks a lot.”
“Get your rest,” she said, and kissed him lightly on the forehead. At the door, she paused to say, “I do want to see Hawthorne with you, Billy. Very much.” And then she left, while Billy grinned and stretched and dared believe that everything was going to be just fine.
She’s dead, she’s dead, the cowboy came and sheared her head.
I’ll be waiting for you.
When a nurse brought in his dinner at five-thirty, Billy asked about finding a piano. There was one up on the fourth floor, in the chapel, she told him—but he was supposed to lie right there and get plenty of rest. Doctor’s orders.
After she’d gone, Billy picked at his dinner. He paged through the Tribune for a while and then, restless and troubled, he put on the robe the hospital had provided and slipped down the hallway to the staircase. He hadn’t noticed a heavyset Mexican orderly who’d been mopping the corridor outside his room. The man put aside his mop and took a beeper from his back pocket.
On the fourth floor, Billy was directed to the chapel. It was empty, and an old piano stood next to an altar with a brass crucifix. The walls were covered with heavy red drapes that would muffle sound, but he closed the chapel doors. Then he sat down at the piano as if gratefully greeting an old friend.
What came out was a quiet song of pain, made up of the emotions he’d drained from the revenants at the Alcott Hotel. It was dissonant at first, an eerie melody that advanced up the keyboard until the high
notes sounded like strident human voices, but as Billy played he felt the terrors begin to leave him. Gradually the music became more harmonious. He ended only when he felt cleaned out and renewed, and he had no idea how long he’d been playing.
“That was nice,” a man standing near the door said. Billy turned toward him and saw he was an orderly. “I enjoyed that.”
“How long have you been there?”
“About fifteen minutes. I was out in the hallway and heard you.” He smiled and came along the center aisle. He was a stocky man with close-cropped brown hair and green eyes. “Did you make that up yourself?”
“Yes sir.”
The orderly stood beside Billy, leaning against the piano. “I always wanted to play an instrument. Tried the bass fiddle once, but I wasn’t no good. My hands are too big, I guess. What’s your name?”
“Billy Creekmore.”
“Well, Billy…why don’t you play something else? Go on. For me.”
He shrugged. “I don’t know what else to play.”
“Anything. I’ve always liked piano music. Do you know any jazz?”
“No sir. I just play what I feel.”
“Is that so?” He whistled appreciatively. “I sure wish I could do that. Go ahead, okay?” He motioned toward the keyboard, a smile fixed to his broad face.
Billy started playing, picking out a few chords, as the man nodded and moved around behind so he could watch the way Billy’s hands worked. “I’m not really very good,” Billy said. “I haven’t practiced like I ought…” Suddenly he was aware of a sharp, medicinal aroma. He started to turn his head, but a hand clamped around the back of his neck. A wet cloth was pressed to his mouth and nose, stifling his cry.
“I like music,” the man said. “Always have.” It only took a minute or two for the chloroform solution to work. He would’ve preferred to use a needle on him, but he didn’t want it breaking off in the boy’s skin. Anybody who could play a piano like that deserved some respect.
The Mexican orderly who’d been guarding the doors wheeled in a clothes hamper filled with dirty laundry. Billy was stuffed into the bottom, covered over with sheets and towels. Then the hamper was taken out and rolled along the corridor to a service elevator. A car was waiting outside, and a plane was waiting at an airstrip south of the city. Within ten minutes, Billy was asleep in the car’s trunk. At the airport he would be given an injection that ensured he would sleep all the way to Mexico.
58
MOONLIGHT SHIMMERED ON THE swimming pool’s surface. In his pajamas, Wayne switched on the underwater light, then slid the glass partition open and stepped into the poolhouse. He was trembling, and there were dark blue circles under his eyes. He’d tried to sleep, but what the woman had told him this morning had driven him crazy with doubts. He hadn’t taken his sleeping pill before bedtime, and his nerves jangled like fire alarms; instead, he’d flushed the pill down the toilet because he’d wanted his mind clear, to think about what Cammy had told him.
The pool glowed a rich aquamarine. Wayne sat on the edge; he twitched with nervous energy, and his brain seemed to be working so fast he could smell the cells burning up. Why would Cammy have said that if it wasn’t true? To hurt him? She was jealous of his power and stature, that was it. Yes. She was jealous. His head ached. But hadn’t he loved his “mother” at one time? he asked himself. What had made things change? How had they gotten so out of control? He raised up his healing hands and stared at them. Where was Henry Bragg? Waiting for them in Mexico?
All that blood, he thought. All that awful blood.
It hadn’t been right to hurt Henry Bragg like that. Henry was a good man. But what kind of man was Mr. Krepsin, if he’d ordered that Henry be hurt?
His daddy had visited him in the night, and told him to trust Mr. Krepsin completely. But, Wayne thought, his daddy had tricked him because if he wasn’t of J.J. Falconer’s blood, then whose blood ran in his veins? And if his daddy had tricked him about that, if he’d failed to tell Wayne the whole truth, then could he be tricking him about Mr. Krepsin too?
A sudden clear thought rang in Wayne’s head, a sharp peal of pain: My daddy is dead. I tried to raise him and couldn’t, and I saw the coffin go into the ground. He’s dead.
Then what came in the night, wearing his father’s skin and yellow suit?
He was confused, his head a ball of pain breeding black thoughts. The witch was dead, and the demon boy would be dead soon…so why did he still feel Evil in the air, all around him, like one of the plagues Mr. Krepsin talked about? He trembled, clasping his arms around himself for warmth.
The witch was dead. There was no need to fear going home anymore. And Cammy was right; there was so much to be done to keep the Crusade going, just as his daddy—if J.J. had been his daddy—had wanted him to do. And only by returning to Fayette, Wayne realized, would he ever find out who his parents actually were. He stared blankly out across the water. So many decisions to be made; it was so safe here in Palm Springs, and what about the church to be built?
God help me, he prayed. Please help me decide what I should do.
The answer came to him with electric, painful clarity: he would not go with Mr. Krepsin to Mexico in the morning. He would return to Fayette, first to find out if that woman had been lying or not, and then to make sure the Crusade was in good shape because, no matter who had given him birth, he was a child of the Crusade as well, and now he must in turn take care of it.
And perhaps, he thought, in finding out who his parents were he would learn more about himself and the healing power that had shaped his life.
Yes. He would go back to Fayette in the morning.
He trembled and jittered, his nerves sputtering like raw fuses. He needed a Valium, he thought. No, no—his mind had to be sharp and clear when he went back home, so he could deal with all the problems. He was going to have to sweat all the Valiums, Dalmanes, and Tuinals out of his system. But fear throbbed through him, and he didn’t know if he was strong enough to leave Mr. Krepsin and go back to that place where he would have to work and pray and preach and heal. It seemed there were so many problems, and so many people in the world who wanted his healing touch. And if he really healed them, if he reached down deep inside and brought up the cleansing power instead of prancing on a stage and pretending, in time the pain would tear him apart.
The voice came drifting into his head like a distant whisper: Do you know what you’re doing, son?
“No,” Wayne said, and shivered. “Oh God help me, I don’t…”
He leaned forward and put his hand into the water; it was comfortably warm. He sat for a moment listening to the noise of the desert wind outside the poolhouse, and a slight movement pulled his gaze toward a far corner. He thought something had shifted over there, like a haze of dark smoke, but now there was nothing. He stood up, took off his pajamas, and eased himself into the pool.
He slowly swam the pool’s length. He was winded when he reached the deep end, and he treaded water beneath the diving board; then he reached up and gripped the board’s edge, letting his body relax.
Water gurgled softly behind him.
A pair of purplish brown, rotting arms wound around his neck, like a lover’s embrace. The foul odor of lake mud bubbled up. Black fingernails on skeletal hands playfully scratched at Wayne’s cheeks.
He screamed, lost his grip on the board, and sank. Water flooded his mouth; he flailed and kicked, trying to get away from the thing that clutched at him. In the glare of the underwater light he saw a misshapen form with long black hair. Its bony arms reached for him, its purple rotten face pressed close, the lips seeking his. The thing kissed him, trying to plunge its bloated tongue into his mouth.
Wayne got his knee up against its chest and pushed it away. As he fought wildly to the surface, air exploded from his lungs. He swam frantically, tried to scream. Then he felt concrete underneath and he stood in water up to his waist; he turned toward the deep end, wiping hair and water out of his eyes, to see what
had attacked him.
Water sloshed against the pool’s sides. There was nothing in the deep end; nothing between him and the underwater light.
He whimpered softly, the breath burning in his lungs. Nothing there, he thought. Nothing…
Something reached between his legs from behind, grabbing at his genitals. He gave a hoarse bark of fear and whirled around.
She was nude, too; but her breasts had decayed and fallen and Wayne could see the yellow bones of her rib cage through the slack, purple flesh. The gases in her body had long since swelled and exploded, and the skin hung down in putrid tatters. Her nose had collapsed or been nibbled away by fish; there was a hole in the center of her face. Her eyeballs were gelatinous, as yellow-white as pools of lake water about to break over her ruined cheeks. But her hair was the same: long and black and lustrous, as if the years of immersion had preserved it.
“Wayne,” the awful mouth whispered. There was a shattered place at the side of her head, where she’d struck a diving platform a long time ago.
He moaned and backed away, toward deeper water.
What was left of Lonnie’s face grinned. “I’m waiting for you in Fayette, Wayne. I need you sooooo bad.” She came closer, bits of her floating away in the water. “I’m still waiting, right where you left me.”
“I didn’t mean to!” he screamed.
“Oh, I want you to come back to Fayette. I’m so tired of swimmin’, and I need my sweet lover boy back again…”
“Didn’t mean to…didn’t mean to…didn’t mean…” He stepped into deep water, sank, and heard himself scream underwater. He fought back to the surface, and now Lonnie was nearing him, holding out one purple claw.
“I need you, sweet thang,” she said. “I’m waitin’ for you to come home. I need you to heal me.”
“Leave me…alone…please…leave me…” He tried to swim away, but then she splashed behind him and her arms curled around his neck again. Her teeth nipped at his ear, and she whispered, “Let me show you what death is like, Wayne.”