Billy (27 page)

The odor that came out was completely unexpected in its revolting intensity. Billy had never smelled anything so totally dead. More than just a smell, it was an actual gas, thick and moist, pouring deep into his sinuses.

A nut-colored fist dropped down from the hole. Within the bag Billy saw the hollow shadow of a face.

At that moment a shaft of light poured down on him, overpowering even the wildly swinging fixture. Billy looked up in terror and in awe. For one vivid second he thought maybe it was the light of God.

Barton said: "You're already down there. Good!"

He descended the ladder from his bedroom with startling speed, sweeping down like an angel from the radiance above.

30.

Sometimes Mark Neary felt that all of his adult life he had been watching things die. He was now deep in the era that his radical youth had called the future.

But even as his hopes for the social body had faded, he had witnessed a glorious and secret increase. This was the growth of his children.

Before they were born, he'd had no notion of the true importance and scale of human souls. Nor had he known about helpless love, that cannot deny and cannot end. This kind of love persisted forever, and so did the relationships that emerged from it. Thus even if the child was lost, he persisted in the heart of the parent, frozen in the beauty of his life.

The neighborhood they searched was choked by dry and highly flammable brush and jammed with flimsy houses. It was so insanely appropriate that this place existed in the most geologically unstable place in North America. He could imagine the stilts snapping and the great houses tumbling over and over into the gullies and canyons, and then everything bursting into flames.

And yet children played, expensive cars whispered past, and the faces behind the windshields were bland. 

He drove on, obedient to his daughter's crisp voice. Mary sat in the back, her eyes closed, exhausted by the ordeal of her own time behind the wheel.

"Take a left, then go up the hill."

"Heads up, Mary. We're about to rise to another possibility."

The house was maddeningly similar to many of the others they'd seen. The blank garage door faced the street, there was a dry patch of lawn.

Mary gasped.

"What?"

"A blue Mercedes."

It stood in the driveway of a multitiered, modern house on their left. For a moment Mark watched the shimmer of heat rising from its body. Then he looked back to the much smaller house at the end of the street.

All the windows on the front were closed by blinds. The garage door did not have a window in it at all.

"I'm going to have a closer look," Mark said.

"Be careful, honey."

Hardly aware of her voice, he got out of the car. Surveying the scene, he was fairly sure that Billy wasn't here. The empty street, the silent house—there was a sense of dry rot in the air, as if the place was home to the dead.

Mark stepped quickly up the stub end of the hill, pausing when he reached the driveway. He walked to his right, heading for the corner of the garage, which was bordered by a magnificent oleander tree covered by pink flowers so fragrant that they were in a curious way horrible. Even knowing how foolish this was, Mark went on, compelled by instincts he was unaware of and could not even begin to control.

He maneuvered quickly through the tree into a very different space behind it. The oleander concealed a tangle of brush, twisting vines and rose creepers dense with thorns. Mark picked his way ahead in the sun-dappled dimness. There was a smell here of something dead.

He found two windows, but both were carefully painted on the inside with black paint. Mark examined them minutely. More than the location of the house or even the presence of the blue Mercedes next door, these painted windows raised his suspicions. Who would do this unless they were hiding something?

He ran his fingers along the edges of one of the window frames. It was aluminum and flimsy enough, but he couldn't risk the noise breaking it would make.

Mark was about twenty feet from the back of the garage. Beyond the edge of the wall he could see a flagstone walk which undoubtedly led to the back door.

In the distance a dog's voice rose. The animal was barking furiously. This made him draw back for a moment. But the dog was far away and its barking faded with the slightest shift of air. Mark began moving down the wall. The shade grew deep, caused by a tree that was choked in vines.

From behind the foliage there came music and gentle splashing. A neighbor was enjoying a quiet swim. Tiny birds flittered in the dry leaves that matted the ground.

He could see from the signs of long-ago trimming that the ugly, grasping brush around him had once been a verdant hedge faced by a strip of rosebushes and shaded by what was now the twisted ruin of a jacaranda tree.

He reached the end of the garage wall. Ahead a quarter-acre of unkempt lawn fell away into a deep canyon. The view was tremendous, a sweltering plain lost in haze. He found it difficult to comprehend that such magnitude could be the outcome of human activity.

It made a sound, too, a continuous murmur that seemed to blend with the silence, intensifying Mark's sense of vulnerability.

He was unarmed, and without a weapon he knew that his odds of overpowering somebody were not good. How could a soft and untrained man possibly prevail against the resources of the abductor?

In the distance a helicopter thuttered. The sound died away, rose, died, then got suddenly louder. The machine boomed directly overhead, circling. As it wheeled he saw the police uniform on the pilot, was dazzled by sunlight struck from his aviator glasses.

Then the helicopter departed, disappearing into the haze.

Mark was astonished and angered by this futile and dangerous display of official presence. His guess was that they didn't know whether or not this was the house, and were searching at random. But what would Barton Royal think if he saw a police helicopter two hundred feet overhead? He would assume that he'd been discovered. Billy would bear the consequences.

The dwindling of the helicopter left him with a powerful sense of his own isolation and the incompetence of the authorities. That arrogant, cruel phone call—he'd never forget it.

He had to get to his boy before the police bungled things further.

As hesitant as an edgy kitten, he leaned around the wall that was concealing him. What he saw was a wood-framed screen door leading into a small kitchen. The atmosphere of emptiness and abandonment remained, and was so seductive that he stepped out into the open.

There came the thought that maybe the man had sensed trouble and gone, taking Billy ... or leaving him behind.

Suddenly Mark recalled his son with perfect and startling clarity. He saw the broad, light smile, the rounded nose, the pure, proud look in his eyes. In the memory of his boy Mark saw the man that had been emerging, and that stabbed him deep.

He stood in full view of the door, agog and unmoving, his legs spread apart, his fists clenched against the pain of his vision.

There was a noise, very faint, that at first seemed like the moan of deteriorated plumbing. Mark was confused and did not clearly understand its meaning: few people have heard the unique sound of great agony.

It stopped, then started again. He listened. Once more he risked a movement into the backyard.

Presently he could discern that the sound did not come from inside the house. His glance went to the concrete foundation. A narrow basement window had been blocked by bricks and rough mortar.

The sound rose again, so thin it might have been the wind, so high it seemed to penetrate to the very center of his head. But the emotions behind it—ferocity, despair—were unmistakable. That was no loose pipe, no straining motor. That was a human sound, a cry. It was coming from the bricked-up basement.

Farther back Billy went, back in among the bags full of other boys. Had he been older and quicker to understand 
the possibilities of self-defense the room offered, he would have taken the knife.

The thought had not crossed his mind.

As Barton tried to reach him, he screamed. Barton's eyes were shut tight, his teeth bared like the teeth of the dead boy Billy had seen.

For an instant Barton's fingers clutched his ankle. Shouting every curse in his limited vocabulary, Billy yanked away and pushed another bag down.

Again Barton almost reached him and now he was all the way against the back wall.

Then Barton spoke in a low, growling voice. "Don't— make—me—touch—them.''

Billy dug down, pushing at the heavy, sodden bags. Inside some there was sloshing, but others were dry and clattered like they were full of lumber.

There were so many!

Barton was dancing at the entrance to the little room, trying to get to Billy without coming into contact with the bags. Billy buried himself in the remains of his predecessors.

When Barton realized that he couldn't get Billy without dragging the bags out of the room, he really started screaming. He paced the floor of the other room. "I didn't," he shouted. "Mother, I did not!" He pounded his forehead against the wall. "There were just the two! Oh, yes, it was unfortunate!" He started crying then, arching his back, his head shaking so much his shoulders and arms shook too and it looked like some huge invisible dog was shaking the life out of him. The sound he made was so terrible to hear that Billy screamed too.

Then Barton went silent. An instant later he started hitting something, harder and harder, the sound of the blows rising in fury. As he lashed out he squealed, a sound high enough to vibrate Billy's teeth, and the blows went on and on.
Its me in his mind, it's me he's hitting!

That realization made Billy scream again, and their voices melded as those of two singers might, singing a song of love.

Hit him again! Hit him again! Hit him again! Use the hooked whip, use it!

There had been two little mistakes, that was all. Just Jack, just Timmy.

This one is a
fucking big mistake!

Where the hell did all these bags come from?

— My, what a fine-looking young man! We must be at least — let me guess—forty-teen !

— I'm gonna squiggle you so hard!

And why not? This was his room, his perfect place, and here he could do anything.

Let's see, here, while I've got him on his stomach . . .

He hefted the whip.

The boy on the table watched with evil, flickering eyes. Of course, he'd always understood this child's filthy secret: there was an ancient evil lurking in him. He brought the hooked whip down with all the strength in him, the muscles pulsing in his back, his arms working like pistons and the stinking little monster was howling and it was all coming out now, all of it like black fire out of him at last and he was free!

Except that the table was empty.

Of course it was: to get Billy he was going to have to touch them! He would have to pull down the bags and feel them in there, and face that they are bones and black liquid and the damp powder that the lime pellets leave.

I didn't do it, I couldn 't have!

"Billy for God's sake, come out of there. Come out of there and I'll—I'll—Billy, oh, remember what I have! Yes! I'll get one of those giant Butterfingers for you if you come out!"

He rushed up the ladder, heading for the kitchen. He'd put them in the fridge.

Mark had now been out of Mary's sight for more than seven minutes. She watched the spot where he had disappeared. Why in the world had he gone around behind the garage? What an incredibly foolish thing to do!

"Where the hell is he," she muttered.

"We better go get him, Momma."

That was her immediate impulse, too. But she saw the risks. If he'd been taken hostage himself, they could all end up in the 
hands of Barton Royal. Or maybe Mark was dead. She could see her poor husband getting himself killed.

The clock in the dashboard ticked busily away. Why had she agreed to wait here, anyway? She was the more resourceful of the two of them; she should have been the one to get out.

"Listen!"

Mary heard nothing. "What?"

Another helicopter had come. This one was black and much quieter. It flew in high, then stopped, hovering over the house. The sound of its rotors dwindled to nothing.

"They know," Sally said. "The police know!" She groaned. "Oh, Daddy, get back here!"

"I'll go get him."

"Momma, be careful!"

"I will, baby. But if I don't come back in five minutes, get out of the car and go next door. Tell them everything, tell them it's an emergency and to call the police."

"Billy's there, Momma."

"Oh, yes, he's there."

Billy heard Barton rush up the ladder and then the loud thud of the trapdoor. Once his mind would have leapt to the possibilities, but he had decided that he liked it back here. The dark was nice, and he enjoyed being with the other kids. He hadn't been with other kids in a long time.

Also, these kids were special: they were his brothers.

If he wanted to, he could hear them talking to him, but it wasn't very interesting, what they had to say. "Get up, Billy, run, grab the knife, turn off the light, break the bulb." But he couldn't do that. Then he would be a bad boy and get another licking.

Instead he scrunched himself down even farther in among the bags. He closed his eyes. This was where he belonged. It was his new room. This was where he was going to stay forever and ever. There was going to be just a little hard time and then he could come back and get to be in his own bag like his brothers. He loved his brothers so much.

"Hey, Timmy, are you gonna grow up and get old?"

(I don't think I'm gonna do that, Billy.)

"You have a really boss jacket, Timmy."

He stopped talking to his brothers and tried to pray again. "Dear God, send the angel Gabriel with his sword of fire. I need that at least. Maybe even the archangel Michael with his sword of fire, too. OK?"

He waited but they didn't show up. OK, he'd try the Blessed Virgin. "Hail Mary full of grace—" Nah, no teenage girl in a blue nightgown is gonna be able to handle this.

"Come out, my dear, I have a lovely, huge Butterfinger and it's nice and cold and completely scrumpy!"

"Hey, guys, looks like I ran outa time." As a lover with the body of his love, he ran his hands along the creases and folds of the nearest bag. "See you around."

Barton could not imagine how this had happened. He vaguely remembered a boy named Danny, but that was—oh goodness—years ago. This appalling horror was completely impossible! No, no way at all was he responsible for these piles and piles of bags!