Darkman (20 page)

“I needed to see you,” he whispered as a breeze made her hair play against his face. He could not feel it. “I need to know if things could be the same between us. The same as before.”

She hugged him fiercely. “Of course they can. But I don’t really understand, Peyton. Where were you?”

He drew back slightly. “I’d like to tell you, tell you everything. But I need more time, a way to figure this thing out.”

“What is there to figure out?” she said, smiling. “You’re back and you’re all right. What else matters?”

He drew fully away and looked at his feet. “There’s some . . . things . . . you need to know. I’m not the same as I used to be.”

“But you—”

He jerked suddenly. A blister had formed on his right cheek. He heard a thin snap as it ruptured. A tiny puff of smoke rose at the edge of his vision, and he slapped a hand over the blister, appalled. His hands were getting mushy, and starting to smell. Why couldn’t the stupid skin last forever?

“Are you okay, Peyton? You look sick. What happened to your teeth?”

“Nothing,” he lied, keeping his face turned. Blisters were beginning to pebble up on his left hand.

She hugged him again. “Hold me, darling, and never let go. I want you to hold me forever.”

She raised her face, eyes drifting closed, awaiting a kiss. What if she smelled his lipstick? What if his lips fell off or stuck to her mouth? Peyton disentangled himself from her arms, nearly faint with horror. His hands and his face were about to self-destruct in full view of Julie. It would be too horrible for her to bear. He wildly looked around, needing a private place where Darkman could mutate unseen.

“Peyton?” she said, puzzled.

He turned and bolted for a field of scrub brush and thick trees some two hundred yards away. Julie screamed at him to come back. He kept a hand on his cheek. The skin was running like thick candle wax, emitting that terrible odor that was burned hair and rotting flesh. When he crossed the graveyard boundary and was safely in the dark shadows of the trees, he looked back to see what had become of Julie.

She had followed him a short distance. Now she was on her knees again, screaming for him. He watched her, torn with helpless despair.

She finally got up and left, staggering past gravestones gone blank with age, obviously crying, obviously bewildered. By the time she had disappeared behind the hill, Peyton’s face had sloughed off and he was Darkman again, and none too happy about it. Getting angry, as a matter of fact. Very angry.

He let the rage take over, let it blot out reason, and for a very long time he howled and screeched while unearthing weeds in a frenzy of destruction.

And when it was dark, he went home, using back streets and alleys, his face bare and horrible. He only stayed there long enough to wrap himself with fresh gauze and pick up the cassette recorder Millings had supplied.

It was time for Darkman to take care of business.

24

Eavesdropper

D
ARKMAN WAS AT
the point where it was getting necessary to purchase a car, that or walk his feet off. The house belonging to Mr. Robert G. Durant, local hood and graduate of a correspondence course in taxidermy from a dubious outfit called the Institute of Wildlife Restructure, was so far away that Darkman finally nabbed a taxi on the dark streets and had himself driven to within a block of the address Rick had said was Durant’s street and number. The cabdriver had not said a word until it came time to pay, letting it suffice to stare at him in the mirror with huge eyes. Darkman tipped him two bucks. He was a softy for terrified people.

Durant lived in a very fashionable suburb that called itself Briar Wood Estates. His house had not been on this earth three years ago. In order to have it built he doubtless paid a very huge sum of money. For him it couldn’t have been much of a financial burden. As the underworld king of the city he handled more money every day than most bankers.

When the taxi let him out, Darkman hurried away from the glow of the streetlight above him, needing shadow. He darted across someone’s lawn, managing to wake up the family pooch, and set it yapping. The houses here were all dark. It was nearing three o’clock in the
A.M.
, but Durant’s house had a single window lighted. Darkman fought his way through a thick row of hedges to reach Durant’s backyard.

A shadow was moving in the room. Darkman blessed the gods of fate for this bit of good news. He had been prepared to camp overnight and catch him in the morning. Right now was better. He flopped down on the cold, damp grass, and low-crawled military-style to the window and the rectangle of darkness beneath it. Already he could hear Durant speaking. Was he married, chatting with the wife? Perhaps enjoying a late-night brandy with a friend? It didn’t matter one bit.

He put the tape recorder on the ground and tried to make sense of it in the dark. It had five square push-down buttons, no doubt eject, fast forward, rewind, play, and record. The cassette inside was a new Memorex, fully rewound. The player had both a built-in microphone and an external one. But which frigging button was record?

He cursed his stupidity for not having examined it before. A match would be handy now, or a penlight, but he had neither. The only light available was inside the house.

He thought that perhaps he should break in and simply kill Durant by turning his criminal head in a swift three-sixty, perhaps gouge out his eyes first and slice off his tongue. Hell, with a little lighter fluid he could be made to burn. Slowly. From the feet up, like Joan of Arc at the stake. Or electrocution, don’t forget that. That would be even more fun to watch. He deserved it, yes?

Darkman’s heart was already beating too fast as he envisioned Durant’s upcoming destruction. Broken neck, no eyes left, no tongue, feet burning while he shrieked and whooped and his brain oozed out his eyeholes, jittering helplessly while a hundred and twenty volts baked him alive. He did indeed deserve whatever Darkman chose to give him.

The rage was there again suddenly, plodding through his brain like a trusted plow horse, digging up chunks of gray brain matter with its red-hot steel plow, furrowing his mind and leaving runners of blood and crescent hoofprints filled with the acid of slow insanity. Darkman saw himself performing these atrocities on Durant; screw the tape recorder, screw the methodical plan he had devised, just jump on in and make some blood flow.

His hands dug up clots of grass and moist dirt, turning his bandages there into strange paws. He pounded the ground, barely able to suppress a bellow of white-hot rage while the toes of his shoes rattled out a furious drumroll on the lawn. Durant could not be killed enough; every method was too easy. Now he could see Durant strapped to a tree while the inhuman creature that was Darkman slowly carved his flesh with a straight razor and peeled it from his body like the husk from an ear of corn. Salt, then, a bucket of salt to throw on him and rub in with a wire brush while he drooled with pain, screamed in an agony more exquisite than anyone ever had experienced before. And then alcohol, don’t leave that out of this satisfying little movie. Boiling hot alcohol, pails full of it to splash on the naked red muscle. More salt. More alcohol. Drano in the eyes, gunpowder in the mouth, a ten-foot match through the nose to light the explosion.

Darkman got to his feet, his eyes burning with animal hate, his body trembling with the desire to kill—and kill again. He came fully into the light cast through the window and saw Durant at his desk, a phone held to one ear, a cigar idling in an ashtray while smoke rose up in silver strings.

The rage dimmed a bit. Darkman dropped back down, breathing hard, his real skin pasty with sweat.
Adhere to the plan,
he told himself with a demanding mental voice.
You are a scientist, you are in control, you have plotted and planned for too long to ruin it now. Durant will meet his end but only when the time is right.

The pounding of blood in his ears lessened. He forced himself to breathe easier. No rush to kill, promises to keep. After the incident with the three punks he had sworn he would not go berserk again. But that morning seemed faded and old now, ready to be forgotten. The rage he had felt then was nothing compared to today’s.

So it was getting worse, this disease of the mind. Somehow it seemed oddly sexual, a desire that needed to be fulfilled and was only under minimal control. He imagined it must be the way a rapist feels as he cruises the street looking for victims. It was a lust, an inner hunger, a desire too powerful to ignore.

He needed blood, guts, screams, terror. He was a hollow shell without it. He desired it as much as he was revolted by it.

Darkman was becoming a monster. Peyton Westlake was about to sign off the air forever.

No, it won’t happen, I can control it, I am master of it. I am a stronger and better man than any other currently alive. Durant did not kill me. He invented me. He
was
Viktor Frankenstein, and Darkman was the monster he had created.

A tiny voice informed him that he was going loony. He pounded his head with his padded fists, needing to scream.

Durant chatted on, his voice muffled and serene. Darkman stopped hitting himself and listened.

“Okay, Rudy . . .”

Martinez!

“. . . go ahead and plan to meet me tomorrow. Are you certain Mr. Fong won’t change his mind?”

Darkman thumbed the buttons of the recorder. One clicked down and sprang back. Had to be record. Only one button worked now, and that was play, so he pressed both buttons at once and let it play, even though it wasn’t playing at all but recording. He hoped his knowledge of eavesdropping was adequate. He held the remote mike against the window ledge.

Durant was sighing. “All right, then, we’ll just have to see him tomorrow and convince him of the error of his ways. After losing that bundle to Rick and Pauly I don’t feel like getting fleeced again. If Mr. Fong doesn’t like it, he gets to be number seventeen in my collection.”

Darkman imitated a frown. Collection?

“I’ll meet you at nine. Yeah, Fong’s place. We’ll give him a fortune cookie he won’t forget.”

He was silent for a moment. Then: “That would be . . . just fine.”

He hung up. Darkman raised himself slowly, interested in this collection business but doubting that it mattered.

Durant was still sitting at his desk, turning lazily back and forth on his office chair. He picked up a rolled-up white cloth from the blotter and unfurled it, revealing some kind of short, pale cigar. He began brushing it with something from a small can on his desk, using a minuscule paintbrush.

Darkman squinted. The can’s label read T
RUE
L
IFE
. TrueLife? What the hell was that?

It sunk in, at last, and he could tell exactly what the cigar really was.

It was a finger in the process of being mummified with taxidermist’s solution.

Nausea slithered up Darkman’s throat like sour heartburn. This Durant guy was a real sweetie. What a hobby.

Durant picked up a box from his desk and opened it. It was lined with purple velvet. He carefully put the finger inside. Darkman had no need to look. Sixteen fingers were in that box, one of them Yakky’s own.

He clicked off the recorder and headed for home. It was a long walk but he had plenty to think about, most of it visions of Durant being killed in various ways.

The trip back seemed much shorter than the trip out had been. Darkman was home by dawn, bent with fatigue, but with no time to spare on useless sleep.

He sat at the computer and began to work, a picture of Durant hanging from twine in front of him, listening to the tape over and over again, imitating the voice badly at first, then better.

By the time Durant’s face and hands were done and Darkman was able to imitate his posture and voice, it was close to eight o’clock.

He put himself together, Durant’s twin brother, pocketed a handful of cigars, and gave his new voice one last test.

“That would be . . . just fine.”

And it was just fine.

Time for phase two.

25