Dastardly Bastard (20 page)

Justine spoke up. “Why are you still hiding?”

“I’m not hiding, Justine. I’m right here. You wanted me. You got me.”

“You’re not Scooter.”

“What did you call me?”

“Scooter. Your father used to call you Scooter. What? You don’t remember?”

“Shut up.” The statement was quick. Lyle saw the boy’s face twitch as if he’d been slapped. “The boy’s name is Scott.”

“The boy? He’s the boy now, huh?” Justine actually laughed. “Your slip is showing, asshole.”

“You need to leave, Brody.” Dad came out of a wall. “Things could get bad.”

Following Justine’s lead, Lyle said, “My dad’s dead.” He turned from the Dad-specter and balled his hands into fists.

“You still believe you have control over this, child?” the boy growled. “What makes you think any of you will leave this place alive?”

“Because you’re still hiding,” Justine said. “Show yourself. If you can.”

“Your weak wills would not be able to withstand my presence. I am the end of all things. The fallen blessed. Omeg—”

“Yeah. Gotcha. Still not impressed. Why don’t you show us what exactly it is that we would be so scared to see?” Justine grabbed Lyle’s hand. He was glad. Even if she wasn’t, he was scared damn near to death.

“I will devour you, child. When I am done, I will feed your bones to the chasm.”

“Prove it.”

Lyle looked up to Justine, more in awe than anything else. She stared down at him, squeezing his hand. “Hold on, kid. Time to put up or shut up.”

37

“I WOULD SUGGEST YOU GET up, Mr. Simmons.”

Mark was hallucinating. That wasn’t Annabelle’s voice. Perhaps the splinters in his leg had found an artery, and he’d lost too much blood.

“You’re not imagining this,” Annabelle said in a matter-of-fact tone.

Mark raised his head. Annabelle was beautiful again, her head whole. She smiled as she reached and brushed something off his cheek. She was down at his level in a catcher’s stance. Given the girth of his stomach, he was a good two feet off the ground when he inhaled, almost eye to eye with her.

“You look good.” Mark laughed, and it felt far too good.

Annabelle looked away, grimacing. The corner of her mouth lifted. She seemed as if she was considering something. Mark knew what that was even before she said it. He wondered, if Annabelle wasn’t a projection of his own mind after all.

“It can only get you if you let it.” Annabelle looked back down at him and nodded. “Right? I mean, you’re not really here. Are you? I don’t think any of you know exactly where you are, but that doesn’t matter. You’re not here. You’re not lying on a broken door. There’s no wood in your knee. And I don’t exist. Not really. Not anymore.”

“Thank you, Annabelle.”

“Oh. You’re welcome.”

“Right.” Mark nodded. “Now if I can just—”

He wrenched his leg loose of the snag. The pain exploded far too much to be just in his mind, but he didn’t let that stop him. He was on to something. He began pulling himself off the floor. Annabelle was already walking away. She was heading straight for a wall.

“Hey,” Mark called. “I’m sorry for what happened to you.”

“I know. Me, too.” She shrugged. “But whatcha gonna do?” She pointed out the door behind Mark. “I suggest you do something about that. Good luck.” Annabelle vanished through the wall.

He turned around, steeling himself for the battle at hand. The monster was lumbering around on the front lawn. The thing wasn’t trying to come for him. Pacing back and forth across the expanse of the grassy area, it grumbled and fumed. Shards of chipped wood rained down from Trevor’s horrid mouth as he gnashed his teeth. Marsha hung from her side, eyes rolling around in her head, drool dripping from her lips. Jaleel laughed maniacally as if he’d just heard the funniest joke in the world.

Mark leaned forward, his belly pushing through the threshold out into the porch area. Trevor raged. Marsha’s eyes gazed upon Mark as if he were a tasty treat. Jaleel stopped his caterwauling long enough to train his eyes on Mark’s stomach. None of them met his eyes. They were all focused on his tummy.

He leaned back.

The monster went back to pacing.

“They can’t see me in here.” To test his theory, Mark stuck his arm out of the doorway, up to his elbow.

The monster bellowed. Marsha and Jaleel’s arms beat at Trevor’s chest, making the beast look like King Kong boasting to his beautiful blond goddess. When Mark pulled his arm back in, they calmed.

The realization had no explanation, but Mark couldn’t ignore the facts. When he was outside, it could see him. Inside, he was invisible. It didn’t make sense. Either way, Mark was glad for it.

He took his time assessing his knee. The wound stung as if someone had jammed hot coals under his kneecap, but the blood no longer ran. He dropped his pants leg back over his gash, then raised his uninjured leg. The injured one supported him just fine. Taking a short step forward, he found his knee didn’t even hurt anymore.

“Because you never hurt it.” Mark spoke the words, attempting to have faith in them. He needed to believe.

When he looked back down, his pants were no longer bloody. The red was gone, and so were the holes. Annabelle, or Mark himself, depending on how he looked at it, was right. He had nothing to be scared of; none of it was happening.

A different, more terrifying thought surfaced. “If my body’s not here, where the hell am I?”

Mark didn’t know if he was dreaming or not. Dreams didn’t hurt. Then again, pain was mental, a chemical reaction after injury.

Pain was only real when you took the time to realize it was there. Mark’d had plenty of time to think about his pain, even though he hadn’t realized he was injured until he tried to move his leg. Whatever powers were at work in the place had meant to slow him down. But why?

“Because it wants to play with the real me somewhere else.”

Mark knew he had created the pleasant visage of Annabelle as a survival method. Could he do more if he wanted to? He doubted he could go as far as summoning a Howitzer to help him destroy the monster in the front yard, but he might be able to do other things.

“Use them. Use the memories the son of a bitch tried to use against you. Give those boys one last hoorah! Fuck the dumb shit. Give ‘em a win!”

“Present and accounted for, Mr. Simmons!”

Mark found the faces of the dead when he turned around, every soldier ready and awaiting orders. He was no commanding officer, but those were
his
memories.
His
army. Mark would use them because a man couldn’t die twice, and those soldiers were far past revival.

Mark called them all by name and rank, just as he had in that hallway back when Annabelle was still missing half her head.

Well, he had his own legion. They all looked very ready and very pissed off. The unrequited dead harbored memories, their lives snatched from them far too soon. Mark would use that. Though they were not
his
memories, he would imagine they were. He knew how every one of those soldiers had died. He’d chronicled their lives
and
their deaths.

“Atten-hut!” Mark ordered. “You ladies and gentlemen ready?”

“Sir! Yes, sir!”

“It doesn’t look too tough!”

“Light the fires and kick the tires!”

“Hoorah!”

“Have at ‘em, guys!” Mark stepped to the side, letting his army file out of the door. One by one they went, the fallen, the torn, the ravaged men and women who had given their lives for a war most of them didn’t fully understand. He just hoped it would finally lay them to rest. At least in his own mind.

As he watched the soldiers attack, Mark was brought back to his childhood. He’d been around five or six and had found an anthill thrumming with life. The soldier ants had fallen upon a wasp. Though the winged bastard put up a good fight, it was felled quickly. The ants crawled over the body of the wasp, stinging him into submission. When the wasp was still, the ants began to disassemble the carcass.

First, the wings—Marsha and Jaleel.

Then, the segmented torso—Trevor.

Finally, they had devoured the entire mass. Pinchers pinched. Arms worked. Mouths fed. Piece by piece the monster was laid asunder.

“You did well, guys. The battle is won. But the war is far from over.”

38

JUSTINE MCCARTHY HAD EXPECTED TO be whisked away again. Yet, she remained, hand in hand with Lyle, watching the ethereal memories disappear.

The boy with the eye patch remained. His face was lighter. The shadows had left him. “I’m sorry?” Scott said. He seemed shell-shocked, distant.

“It’s not your fault.” Justine couldn’t help thinking of Trevor. She should be angry with the boy and his part in the horror, but Trevor’s memory wouldn’t allow it. There was more pressing business at hand. “We need to know where to find Him.”

“The Dastardly Bastard is neither here, nor there.” The boy’s sad countenance gave Justine the information she needed. Though the Bastard was working through him, Scott had no idea what, or who, the Bastard actually was.

“Where did you come up with the poem? The one hanging on the wall back in your… room?” She had almost said
cell
. Dredging up old memories, bad ones at that, would not serve her purpose.

“It just came to me when Father and I first found the chasm. It was the same time I started seeing… seeing the shadows on people.”

Justine had never been to the chasm before Trevor had taken her, so it couldn’t be blamed for her own abilities.

“I want to know how you fell,” Lyle said.

Scott shrugged. “I didn’t fall. I jumped.”

“But how did you get there?” Justine asked. “The last time I saw you, you were in a… hospital.”

“Father came. He wanted to show me something we hadn’t seen before, something we shouldn’t have missed, but did. It was amazing.”

“The bridge,” Justine said.

“Yes. Dad tried to cross, but he was too heavy. So he let me.” Scott paused, swallowing hard. Justine watched the lump slide down the boy’s throat. “He made me cross.”

“My God,” Justine breathed.

“I was fine. I made it all the way across. Dad was yelling at me, telling me to go inside the cave’s mouth. He said there were wonderful things in there. I had no idea—”

“The Bastard was already controlling him,” Justine interjected.

“The Bastard’s voice is so sweet. Like music. I heard it calling me. So I jumped. I heard my father yelling my name all the way down.”

Justine noticed the walls were changing, decaying around them. Time was filtering in. The more Scott talked, the worse the state of the house became. Wallpaper curled and smoked, charring at the edges. Boards cracked and splintered, collapsing the framework. Dust and particulates rained down over them, but Justine held her ground. She squeezed Lyle’s hand to reassure him. He didn’t look scared. The boy stood brave, intent on hearing Scott’s story.

“He made this house for me, said it was mine.” Scott appeared somber.

“The Bastard?” Justine asked. “Why would he provide you shelter?”

“No.” Scott looked down at the floor. “My father.”

“How long have you been in the chasm, Scooter?” Lyle asked.

“Since 1930.”

Justine felt a cold spreading in her gut. The horror of her realization laid waste to all her hopes. The poor child had been in the dark, in the absence of a caring heart, for over eighty years. She could only assume Scott didn’t know where he ended and the Bastard began.

“Let me show you something.” Scott led them down the disintegrating hall and into a large living room. The coming collapse hadn’t reached there yet. Justine saw a clawfooted couch, circa 1940. She’d seen the same one on an episode of
Antique Roadshow
. Nana had loved that program, and had even been watching it the day she slipped away. A Persian rug covered the floor. A fireplace gave off faint heat from across the room.

Waverly Fairchild’s head hung above the mantle.

“Oh, my God!” Justine shrieked. “Why?”

“The Bastard gave him to me. A new memory. One where he didn’t make it out of the chasm that day.”

“Jaleel said he moved to Florida. Died at one hundred and four years old,” Lyle said.

Justine had a flare of hope. “If Waverly found a way out, so can we.”

“He
let
my father leave. Dad spread the Bastard’s evil unknowingly, furthered his grasp on the world. Now, the Bastard is everywhere. He doesn’t just reside in the chasm, though I have no idea where else. For some reason, he needs me. He draws his strength from me.”

Lyle shook his head. “Like a battery.”

“This isn’t right.” Justine was growing sick. The more she heard, the less she wanted to know. “You were a child. You had a gift. It wasn’t a curse. I think the Bastard only heightened powers that were already there inside you.” As Justine spoke, she began to understand. “And now he wants to be stronger. He wants…”

“You,” Scott finished.

39

DONALD ADAMS SAT ON A bench in Central Park. The day was warm, and a pleasant breeze blew in from the east. It was a happier time, far away from the self-centered monster he’d become.

Sunne sat next to him, her crumbling, decaying form gone. The slash in her throat was still weeks away. It was their second date, the one where she’d kissed him. Donald remembered the feel of her lips on his own, the wanton desire rushing through him, the feeling that he could be lost there, forever and ever, amen.

Sunne glowed. Her black hair simmered in the light of the afternoon, showing purple in areas. Her chocolate eyes shone with life.

“What happen to you, Donald?”

The question hadn’t been there twenty years ago. That was new. Someone was bending his memories. As long as Sunne remained just as she was, right that moment, Donald didn’t mind all that much. Let whatever play with him. Just give him that one moment.

“Bad things I couldn’t control.”