The Devil's Beat (The Devil's Mark) (8 page)

In his personal darkness, he stumbled around and tried to find an extinguisher. His foot finally and painfully found the one by the stairs. He had to grope for it on the ground, but he finally managed to grab it with his good hand.

Max limped towards the spreading flames. When he was close enough, he discovered that one handed fire extinguishing required a bit more thought than the two handed variety. The first problem was pulling out the pin. He couldn't pull on it without pulling the canister over. Meanwhile, the fire grew, licking up the wall toward the high ceiling. Cursing and freaking out, he finally managed it by sitting with his legs around the canister to brace it while pulling on the pin.

When the pin came out, he stood back up triumphantly, raised the heavy extinguisher, and discovered, painfully, that he couldn't aim it at the fire. The handle itself was not designed to allow easy pointing and his broken hand couldn't grab the dangling hose.

The heat of his cursing didn't actually add to the growing flames, but it should have.

He was just trying to get his arm under the hose, when the temperature around him plummeted. The extinguisher was ripped violently from Max's hand. In shock he saw it fly into the air, point its hose at the fire and let loose. The cloud of extinguishing stuff immediately started to choke the flames. The spray back splattered and seemed to surround the extinguisher in a white cloud.

Before he could even wrap his head around what he was seeing, he heard a wailing scream coming from somewhere below the floor. Max jumped back as smoke started pouring from the cracks. Instead of spreading out like smoke was supposed to, this smoke stayed together and rocketed towards the extinguisher. The extinguisher turned to point at the on-rushing cloud and let loose. It blew through the cloud and right onto Max.

Max screamed and ran towards the front door. The extinguisher smashed into the wall next to the door, sending pieces of plaster flying before it fell to the floor with a clang. Max brought his automatically upraised arms down and looked stupidly at the extinguisher now laying innocently on the floor and not showing any inclination to fly at his head again. His attention was drawn back to new screams behind him. The first screamer had been joined by another. This one was higher pitched.

It took a moment for Max to make sense of what he was seeing; two formless clouds of white vapor were whirling around each other next to the burning wall. They would occasionally rush together and then apart. From time to time one of them would fly across the room only to stop, reverse its course and rejoin the fray.

In the midst of the screams, Max could occasionally hear words.

“Adventuress!”...”Ass!”...”Cheap strumpet!”...”Piss-proud nancy-boy!”... “Clap infested quim!”

Max found he couldn't obey his instinct to run. He was over-ruled by the sheer strangeness of the scene in front of him.

The fight seemed to spread out through the room. Suddenly hammers, lamps and anything else not nailed down were flying through the air between the two. Each object would fly through one or the other of the clouds to no evident effect. Some of them

whizzed perilously close to Max and smashed into the wall or the door behind him.

He was so engrossed in the fight that he didn't even flinch.

As the battle raged, the temperature in the room continued to plummet. Max's ragged breath came out in clouds. There was frost growing into ever-larger patches on the walls. The frost finally closed in on the flames, and despite the flames’ valiant struggle, the frost finally consumed the last of them. The flames died down and so did the fighting.

Finally, one of the clouds of mist fell to the floor amidst the sounds of feminine anguish.

The pain in the voice threatened to break Max's heart. It was laden with centuries of grief. The crying mist coalesced into the translucent, glowing, white form of a woman, in an elaborate antebellum gown, abjectly weeping on the floor. The second cloud paused above her.

Max was still too stunned to move, and he watched the scene for what seemed like hours but couldn't have been more than a minute or two.

“Oh piss...,” said the floating cloud. It settled down next to the woman and formed into another glowing white figure. This one was a handsome man dressed in a fine suit from the same period. He knelt over the woman with his back to Max. He reached down and stroked her glowing white hair. It was hard for Max to tell, but the man's suit looked like it had a large hole in the back.

“Oh, how could you? How could you try to destroy Belle?” sobbed the fallen woman.

“Come, Annette, let me take you to your room,” said the man. He gently picked her up off the floor. “You are making a scene in front of our guest.”

“Oh my dear!” said the woman as she looked toward Max with wide eyes. She dropped her face in her hands and started sobbing again.

Without a further word, the two faded from sight as he carried her up the stairs.

All Max could do was stand there and gape. Just what he needed, two insane ghosts.

Max was parked in front of the small county hospital and struggling to get out of his car. He had to reach around with his good hand to open the door, and he hurt in so many places it was hard to move. He finally got out and hobbled in. He recognized the nurse behind the reception counter. She had been there when he had needed patching up from his first encounter with the house. Her long dirty-blonde hair spiraled down to her shoulders in coquettish curls that just begged to be played with. She was short, moderately curvy and looked quite crisply professional in her white dress.

He walked up to the counter. “Excuse me.”

The nurse looked up at him, and her gray-green eyes grew wide at the sight that greeted her. Max's makeshift turban had bled through in places. The hair that hung out below the turban was coated in blood, as were his clothes. On top of this was a coating of fine white powder. He had managed to smear some of it off his face, but it stubbornly stuck in his eyebrows and to his torn clothes. The powder and blood had mixed in places to form a reddish-pink plaster, which clung tenaciously to his clothes. On top of that, he was hobbling with one hand cradled up against his chest and reeked of smoke. She quickly recognized him. The last time he had been in, he had been covered with blood as well.

Her southern accent was charming but subdued. “Mr. Faust! Dear lord, what happened to you?”

He considered her with blue-eyed misery, “I wouldn't even know where to begin...”

“You poor dear!” She bustled out from behind the counter and escorted him into the small emergency area behind the counter. Max, having forgotten her name, was grateful for the name badge she wore.

He said, “Thanks, Alice,” as she guided him to a small area surrounded by curtains and sat him on the bed. She admonished him to stay put as she hustled out to get the doctor – or perhaps the men in the white lab coats.

After a few long minutes of painful waiting, Alice came back with Doc Bob. Doc Bob looked like he was about eighty going on dead. He was thin and as wrinkled as a thumb soaked in a bathtub too long. He saw Max and said with his heavy southern drawl, “Well boy. What have ya done gotten yerself into this time?”

Doctor William Hodge, a.k.a. Doc Bob, had fixed up Max's head last time. Max found himself drawn to the older man. Despite his appearance, he had an easy, relaxed manner and firm, steady hands. His bright eyes and kind smile finished up the package nicely.

“I, uh, had an accident.”

“I figured that out myself, boy. Ya look like you got in a fight with the Pillsbury Dough Boy. Always gotta watch out for them happy little fat fellas. More often than not, they're meaner than a viper with a toothache. Mind giving me the particulars?”

As he talked, he was busy taking off Max's towel and delicately examining his scalp. He handed it to Alice without slowing down.

Max sighed. “I was trying to pull off a loose ceiling tile when I overbalanced and fell. I busted up my hand and cut open my head.”

“And how'd you come by the bake-sale look and the fire-sale smell?”

Max figured that in this case the truth, but not the whole truth, would do. “I was just leaving to come here when one of the electric boxes caught fire. The wall the box was in went up quickly, I had a bit of a tough time using the fire extinguisher with only one hand, but the fire's out now.”

“Boy, you're just a bag full of bad news, aren't ya? Let's see what we can do for ya.”

The Doc and Alice sewed Max back up. Watching Alice's kind face when her attention was on her work was a pleasant diversion for Max. When they were done, Alice left and came back with a hospital gown and offered it to Max. “Hon, I hate to send you off looking like an extra on Night of the Living Dead. We don't have any shirts, but you could wear this instead of that filthy one you got on.”

Max waived her away, “No thanks, Alice, the upholstery in my car is probably as ruined as it can get. I'll get by.”

“All right, it's your car. Are you sure, you can drive, Mr. Faust? Doc says you got yourself a bit concussed.”

Max started to nod and then thought the better of it. He just said, “I'll be fine Alice, I've got a room nearby at the 'Quaint and Charming Dixie Motel.’”

She laughed. “I guess if you can joke, you're not that far gone.” She looked at him and met his gaze for a moment. Max realized that it had been a frightfully long time since a pretty woman had looked at him like that: like he was a human, not some trophy or god. It felt nice.

Not for the first time, he noticed that Alice was a nice looking woman—the type he used to notice before stardom hit. Her dirty blonde curls complemented her kind gray-green eyes. She wasn't flashy, but she had a pleasant face and smiled easily. She had a single dimple on the left side of her mouth to complement the smile. He didn't realize he was staring until Alice blushed a little and looked away. He looked away as well. “Thank the doc for the patch job and thank you for your kind concern.”

She looked back at him, smiled again. “Just part of our southern hospitality, Mr. Faust. Come back any time.”

He smiled back ironically. “I hope you won't consider me a poor guest if I say that I'd rather not.”

She laughed again. “I hope you don't think me a poor hostess if I say, I'd rather not see you again.”

He raised his eyebrows and gave her a sad face.

She blushed. “I mean, not here. I'd rather not see you here in the hospital. I mean, I'd love to see you somewhere else, I mean, I don't want to see you hurt. Oh, quit smiling at me like that you, evil man! You know what I mean.”

He let her off the hook. “Yes, I do. Your hospitable hospital reputation is still intact.”

They had an awkward second, and then Alice said, “Here, let me get the doors for you, Mr. Faust.” She bustled away and did just that. Before he walked through the doors, he stopped and told Alice, “Please, just call me Max.”

She smiled in acknowledgment. “Thank you, Max.” Her smile got a bit mischievous, and she added in a silly Mae West “And you can call me... anytime.”

Max carried his smile for most of the one-handed drive back to the Dixie in spite of the blinding headache.

The fire left nearly the entire wall blackened and charred. Max stood in the open doorway of the house and looked at it forlornly. A sense of hopelessness washed through him. There was no way he would ever be able to get this house rebuilt by himself. In his mind's eye, he watched the two ghosts going at each other, the way that only two people once in love could. Did he seriously even want to live here anymore? It was a haunted, dilapidated deathtrap. He shut the door behind him and made his way to the music room to check on Old Bone. When he came around the couch, he was amazed at the difference that his blood had made. Instead of a flayed and mummified head, it looked like a wizened old apple-core man.

Fascination replaced his helplessness and grief. Old Bone just had to be a vampire. What other dead thing thrived on blood? It seemed strange since he had no fangs, just an incomplete mouth full of stained, crooked teeth. Max wondered at the unnatural vitality that drove this creature. How long had he sat in that coffin? How long had he been filled with that nasty black water? How had he stayed sane? Had he?

Max gave the head a light pat. “Old Bone, you are quite the survivor.” Now that it had flesh and the eyes had eyelids, the thought of touching Old Bone was not so disturbing. It is truly incredible what you can get used to, thought Max as he bent over and picked up the head. As he lifted it off the couch, Old Bone's mouth swung open, making him look like a surprised, wizened old apple-core man. Max and Old Bone's gaze met. Max's blue eyes looking into the head's brown ones.

 “Old Bone, I'm sorry I chopped your head off,” said Max feeling a bit strange at the sound of that. “It was just ignorance and fear that made me do it. Seeing you there, not giving up but pushing on through inconceivable adversity, makes me feel like a truly pathetic example of humanity. How can I see you and feel sorry for myself? I'd have to be a real loser not to be inspired by your will to live. Old Bone, I'm going to make things right, for you, for me, for this house. You'll see.”

Lacking the proper muscles to hold it shut, Old Bone's mouth continued to dangle in faux surprise. His eyes were turned in his sockets trying vainly to see the television screen. It was playing Max's favorite daytime soap. Max noticed where Old Bone's attention was focused. He apologized and set the head back on the couch, with a clack of the dangling jaw as it shut. Old Bone never took his eyes off the giant flat screen.

“I love The Young and the Beautiful too. I've been watching it a lot recently. See, young Dr. John has fallen for his beautiful patient, Elizabeth, who has only three months to live. He knows their love is doomed, but he cannot help himself. Meanwhile, his sexy and jealous wife Bethany has gotten together with Dr. Black and is conspiring to kill Dr. John and Elizabeth because Dr. Black had been Elizabeth's fiancé before she broke it off to go date his...”