Bad Men

  “Hey?” called Macy softly. “Hey, are you okay?”

  Scarfe saw a gray shape in the shadows, moving close to the ground. He raised his gun, then pivoted swiftly to his right as he registered a second presence in the trees, then a third behind him, the shapes in a state of constant movement, circling him from the shelter of the forest.

  “Who’s there?” he whispered, more to himself than to anyone else. Then, louder: “Who’s there?”

  The sound of the wind in the trees was almost deafening. A mist appeared to rise before him and he thought that he could discern figures and, for a second, even faces. Then the figures spread out, moving faster, trying to surround him.

  Scarfe ran, the ground rising before him, until he came to the clearing, and the tower.

  Macy walked across the floor and stood at the base of the next flight of steps. All was darkness above, but she could see, faintly, the edges of the wooden floor. She reached out a hand to steady herself against the wall, then recoiled instantly as she felt movement on her skin. There were more moths up here. As she looked closer, she saw that they entirely covered the wall beside the ascending stairs. Macy took a step back and a figure passed across the top of the steps. She had a fleeting image of something small and gray, with white-blond hair. A tattered gown seemed to hang from it, as though she were shedding a skin.

  It was a girl, a little girl dressed in gray.

  The crying came again.

  “Honey, come on down,” said Macy. “You don’t have to be afraid.”

  “No, you come up.”

  But Macy didn’t move. The voice was not that of a child. It was older. It sounded sick. There was desire in that voice, despite the tears, and hunger. Macy stood still, undecided, and again the image of a honey pot came to her.

  Then her decision was made for her. There came a gunshot, followed by a second. Moments later she heard the door beneath her slam closed, and then there was silence.

  Willard was unusual in many ways, not the least of which was his total lack of imagination. He didn’t read books, didn’t like movies, didn’t even watch much TV. He didn’t need to live in a fantasy world created by others. Instead, Willard moved through this world and carved his own reality from it.

  Yet even Willard felt that there was something wrong with this island. There was a buzzing in his head, like an out-of-tune radio. He thought that he sensed movement around him but when he looked closer there was nothing. Willard felt as if he were the subject of a conversation that he couldn’t quite hear, or the punch line of a joke that had not yet been told.

  He considered his options. He could go back to the boat and return to the mainland, but he didn’t know much about boats, and even if he could get it started, he didn’t think he could even find the mainland in this weather. But he also had scores to settle and questions to be answered. When Willard had all the information at his disposal, he would then decide what moves to make against the others.

  Macy went down the stairs as quietly as she could, carefully placing each foot so that she did not slip. She listened carefully, and once or twice she believed she heard heavy breathing, the sound of a man recovering from sudden, unaccustomed exertion. She kept her back against the wall, trying to listen to both what was below her and what was above.

  A shadow moved across the Plexiglas of the window and Macy, puzzled, found her attention distracted. The shadow came again, and Macy was aware of a darkness hovering beyond the window, out of sight yet still capable of stealing what little light she had. The gun in her hand made a regular arc, first pointing down toward the unknown man below, then swinging up toward the shadows above, and the child who was not a child. The darkness in the stairway was almost liquid, pouring from the walls and oozing down the stairs. She was halfway down when she heard a soft hiss and the Gray Girl’s hand emerged from the shadows and pushed her.

  Macy lost her footing and stumbled down the last of the concrete steps.

  The porch light was out and the house was in complete darkness as Marianne at last reached her home. Even the night-lights that came on automatically as the day faded were out.

  They’re here. They’ve cut off the power and they’re here.

  But then she looked to her right, where Jack’s house lay, and saw that it too was dark. That never happened, for the old man stayed awake until the wee hours, working in his studio. She saw him, sometimes, when she couldn’t sleep during the warm summer months and sat outside on her porch, watching him working on his terrible paintings. It was a power failure, that was all, although it didn’t explain her car dying. Coincidence, she decided. After all, what other reason could there be?

  She found her keys, opened the door, then slammed it closed behind her with the heel of her shoe. She carried Danny upstairs and laid him on his bed, then took two bags from her closet and began thrusting clothes into them, her own first, then Danny’s. She grabbed some toys and books and placed them in his bag, then zipped it closed.

  Finally, she pulled down the attic stairs and headed up. Her flashlight wasn’t working, and she was almost certain that she’d filled her bag with a selection of mismatched clothing, but it didn’t matter. What mattered was the knapsack that lay hidden under piles of trash and junk at the rear of the attic. She stepped carefully, one hand raised ahead of her so that she would not bump her head on the eaves. Kneeling down, she began tossing bags and boxes away until beneath her fingers she felt the canvas straps on the bag. She dragged it out, hauled it to the edge of the attic door, then tipped it down into the hallway.

  It landed with the kind of sound that only three quarters of a million dollars can make.

  Scarfe too had seen the shadows outside. Panicked, he held his gun in a double-handed grip and tried to catch the figures as they moved beyond the windows.

  Then two noises came together: a scuffling from the staircase across from him, and a rattle as something thrust itself against the door from outside. Torn between the two threats, Scarfe retreated against the wall just as Macy’s voice called out: “Police! Drop your weapon.”

  And then the door flew open, and the man in her sights turned to stare at what lay beyond. He raised his weapon and fired. Macy, aware only of the gun and the threat that it posed, fired at the same time, and watched the man buck against the wall, then slide down, the gun falling from his hand.

  Macy advanced toward Scarfe and kicked his gun away with her foot. The doorway was empty. Only snow was entering. The shot had taken him clean in the chest and he was bleeding from the mouth. She tried to open his jacket but his hand gripped hers as he tried to speak.

  “Tell me,” said Macy. “Tell me why you’re here.”

  “Elliot,” Scarfe whispered. “Moloch!”

  He was staring straight at her, pulling her closer, and then his gaze shifted to a point over her shoulder and his grip tightened. She was already turning when she felt a presence close by, flitting moth-like in the shadows.

  The Gray Girl hung in the air behind her, moving swiftly back and forth, trying to find some means of access to the dying man. Macy could see her eyes, jet black within her wrinkled skin, and the edges of her teeth almost hidden beneath the lips of her rounded mouth.

  She raised her gun as Scarfe began to spasm beside her. His nails dug into her painfully. The Gray Girl darted forward, then retreated again as Macy shielded the dying man’s body from her. Scarfe coughed once, and his fingers relaxed their grip as the life passed from him. Macy watched as the child’s features contorted with rage, her head and arms trembling with the depth of her anger, and then she seemed to sink back into the shadows in the corner. Seconds later, a flight of moths burst from the darkness and disappeared into the night, forming a mist that moved against the direction of the wind, heading deeper and deeper into the forest, making for the very heart of the island.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Dexter and Moloch left Carl Lubey’s burning house behind them, traveling southwest until they came to a road, banks of firs
standing like temple columns at either side.

  “You want the map?” asked Dexter.

  “I know where we’re going,” said Moloch. He sounded distracted, almost distant. “We need to spread out, take them from every angle.”

  Dexter stared at him.

  “Spread out how? There’s just you and me.”

  Moloch acted like a man suddenly awakened from a strange dream. Once again, the sensation of worlds overlapping came to him, but it was accompanied by an uncomfortable feeling of separation. Moments earlier, he had been surrounded by men, men willing to act at his command. He had strength and authority. Now there was only Dexter, and Moloch himself was weakening. Increasingly, he was troubled by the sense that he was less alive here than he was in the past, that each time he flipped between worlds he left more of himself behind in an earlier life.

  “They haven’t come back yet?” he asked.

  “Who, Shepherd and Scarfe? No, they ain’t back yet.”

  Moloch nodded, then pointed. “Her house is just over that rise. Shouldn’t take us more than—”

  He glanced at his watch. It had stopped.

  “You know what time it is?”

  Dexter wore a Seiko digital. No numerals showed on its face.

  “I don’t know. It’s not working right.”

  “It doesn’t matter,” said Moloch, but again Dexter detected a wavering note in his voice. Don’t fall apart on me now, man, he thought, not after all this time.

  The wind was dying down now, the snow falling a little less thickly. They leaped a small ditch that ran along the side of the road, now almost entirely filled with snow, and stepped out onto the trail. In doing so, they almost ran into the woman. She let out a little yelp of surprise, then saw their guns and started to back away.

  “Now, where are you going?” said Dexter. He advanced upon her, gripped her by the hair, and dragged her back to Moloch.

  Bonnie Claeson had given up on the phone, on her car, and on Joe Dupree. She had given up on everything. Something had broken inside her when she’d heard her son’s voice echoing down a dead telephone line, and so she had retreated into a beautiful illusion. Richie, her sad, troubled, loving son, was out in the snow alone, probably tired and afraid. She had to find him and bring him home. She wore only an open coat over her sweater and jeans, and her clothing was now crusted white with flakes Her cheap boots had not protected her feet, yet she did not feel the cold. She was lost to herself, and now she only wished for her son to appear out of the darkness, his orange jacket bright against the snow, his face filled with relief and affection as his mother came for him and drew him to her.

  “I’m searching for my boy,” she said. “Have you seen him?”

  She looked first at Dexter, then at Moloch, examining their faces. They seemed familiar to her. Briefly, her clouded mind was illuminated by a flash of clarity. She shook her head and moved away from the two men, never allowing her eyes to leave their faces.

  They were Richie’s bad men, the men from the TV. She heard her son’s voice crying out its last words to her.

  Momma! Momma! Bad men. Badmenbadmenbadmenbadmenbad—

  Dexter saw the recognition in her eyes.

  “Shit,” he said, “now we’re gonna—”

  The gunshot came from so close to his head that he recoiled in shock, his ears ringing. The woman crumpled to the ground and began to bleed on the snow. Beside him, Moloch holstered his gun.

  “We could have taken her with us,” said Dexter. “She could have helped us.”

  “You going soft on me, Dex?” came the reply, and Dexter was sure now that Moloch was mad. In the unspoken threat he heard the death sentence being passed on Willard, the abandonment of Powell, Shepherd, and Scarfe to their fates, and the single-minded obsession that had brought them to this place. It was no longer about money, or a woman, or a child. Moloch might once have thought that it was, but it wasn’t. He had come here for some unknowable reason of his own, and those who stood alongside him were expendable.

  We’re going to die here, Dexter realized. I think I always knew, and just hoped that it wouldn’t be true, but it will end here. I have no choice now but to follow it to its end, and to embrace it when it comes.

  “No,” said Dexter. “I ain’t going soft.”

  He walked over to where the woman lay and looked down on her. She was lying very still. Her eyes blinked and he saw her chest rise and fall, blood spreading from the wound on her left breast. Her lips formed a word.

  “Richie,” she whispered, for the boy was beside her now. He had always appeared wondrous to her, always kind, but now he seemed transformed, his features perfectly sculpted and his eyes alive with an intelligence that he had never known in life.

  “Richie,” she repeated. He reached out his hand to her and took it in his own, and he drew her to him and carried her away so that she would not feel the pain of the final bullet.

  Marianne was on her doorstep when she heard the shots. They came from close by. Two overnight bags, crammed full of clothing, lay by her feet, and the knapsack hung over her shoulder. Danny sat on top of one of the bags, still drowsy. When he heard the shots, he looked up briefly, then resumed his previous position, his head cupped in his hands, his eyes nearly closed.

  “Come on, Danny, we have to go.”

  “Where?” There was that whining tone to his voice, and for the first time she lost her temper with him.

  “We’re going to Jack’s. Now get up, Danny! I mean it! You get up or I’m going to give you such a spanking that you won’t be able to sit for a week. Do you hear me? Get up!”

  The boy started to cry, but at least he was on his feet. Marianne took a bag in each hand, then gave him a little swipe with one of them, propelling him toward the door. She pulled it closed behind her with her toe, then urged him on down the path to Jack’s house. Once they got to Jack’s, she could convince the old man to take them off Dutch. Even if they got only as far as one of the neighboring islands, it would be enough. All that mattered was that they get away from here. The weight of the gun in her coat pocket slapped painfully against her leg as she walked, but she didn’t care. It had been in the knapsack with the money. She had cleaned and oiled it only twice in the years since she had fled, following instructions from a gun magazine, and had never fired it, not even on a range. She would use it, though, if she was forced to do so. This time there would be no fear. She would take his dare. She was stronger than he had ever suspected, stronger than even she had known. She would kill him, if she had to, and some secret part of her hoped that she would be given that opportunity.

  From the top of the rise, Moloch and Dexter watched them leave the house, but they were not the only ones. Far to their right, almost at the edge of Jack’s property, a pretty man with blond hair stood among the trees and admired once again the shape of the woman’s legs, the swell of her breasts beneath her open coat, the way her jeans hugged her groin. In her way, she was to blame for all that had happened to him, for his rejection and abandonment by the man he admired so much. She had deceived him, betrayed his beloved Moloch, and he would make her pay. He vaguely recalled Moloch’s warning that she was not to be harmed, but he had the hunger upon him now. He would first make her tell him where the money was, and then he would finish her.

  After all, Willard had needs too.

  Jack heard the banging on his kitchen door as he dozed in his armchair. He had tried to paint, but nothing came. Instead, he found himself drawn again and again to the painting with the two figures burned upon it, his fingers tracing their contours as he tried to understand how they had come to be. Then the lights had gone out and the heat with them. The small fire faded in the grate and he noticed only when the cold began to tell on his bones. There was no wood left by the fireplace, so he grabbed his coat and opened the door, preparing to risk the cold in order to replenish his stock from the store of firewood in the shed.

  But as he stood at the door, he became aware of a presence beyon
d the house.

  No, not a single presence, but many presences.

  “Who’s there?” he called, but he expected no reply. Instead, he thought he saw a shadow move against the wind, gray upon the white ground, like a cobweb blown, or an old cloak discarded. There were more shadows to his left and right. They seemed to be circling the house, waiting.

  “Go away,” he said, softly. “Please go away.”

  He closed and locked the door then, and checked all the windows. He took a blanket from his bed, wrapped it around his shoulders, and sat as close as he could to the dying embers of the fire. He thought that he might have slept for a time, for he dreamed of shadows moving closer to the great picture window, and faces pressed against the glass, their skin gray and withered, their lips thin and bloodless, their eyes black and hungry. They tapped at the glass with their long nails, the tapping growing harder until at last the glass exploded inward and they descended upon him and began to devour him.

  Jack’s eyes flicked open. He could still hear the banging and for a moment he found himself unable to distinguish between dream and reality. Then he heard Marianne Elliot calling his name and he struggled to his feet, his joints stiff from sitting slumped against the chair. He walked to the kitchen door and saw the faces of Marianne and Danny, the woman scared and panicky, the boy drowsy and his face streaked with tears. He opened the door.

  “Come in,” he said. “What’s wrong?”

  She dropped the bags she was holding, then knelt down and hugged the boy close to her.

  “I’m sorry for shouting at you, Danny. I’m so sorry.”

  The boy began to cry again, but at least he hugged her back. Marianne, the boy’s head cradled against her neck, looked imploringly at Jack.