House Haunted (34 page)

“What's the matter, don't you believe I can do whatever I want?”

“No, I didn't say. . .” Brennan began in a soothing tone.

Gary gunned the engine. They were on a dark street somewhere, passing intermittent houses, a rolling road with a few turns. The car shot forward, hitting a bump that knocked the shocks badly. The car accelerated. A house went by, yellow dim lights back off the road. A pumpkin was on the porch, a cardboard skeleton's head in the window. They were doing forty-five, fifty, on a road that called for thirty, less when it rained.

Gaimes pushed the accelerator to the floor.

There were no cars ahead of them; they barely negotiated a gradual curve. Brennan could visualize the four nearly bald tires on the wheels of his Malibu, could see that jerk in the commercial holding his thumb and forefinger a quarter inch Tart and saying that that was all that stood between you and he road, could see himself checking through his wallet two weeks ago, thinking about buying new tires and saying screw it, I'll get through the winter on what I have. Gaimes took another turn, a left one, the car gliding like an ice skater across the road.

Gaimes, hooting in glee, twisted the wheel, barely keeping the car on the street. The tires squealed, caught roadway. Gaimes turned to laugh into Ted Brennan's face. “Want to see if it's true?”

There was a straight stretch of darkness. Gaimes roared into it. Suddenly, he turned the wheel hard to the right. The car slid, caught on the tarmac, turned sharply. Wet, heavy tree branches thwacked the side of the car. The trees parted.

They roared into a driveway.

Through the left side window Brennan saw the dark outline of a tall house. It looked like all the lights were on in it. They sped past. There was a hard bump as they left the drive. The tires threatened to sink in wet grass, but forward momentum carried them on.

“
Let's see!
” Gary Gaimes screamed.

Something large loomed ahead of them. The tires spun, caught on dirt. They shot ahead. The looming presence resolved into a line of white birch trees. They grew closer. The headlights stabbed a single tree and pulled them toward it.

“Want to—” Gary Gaimes shouted, but then they hit the birch as Brennan threw himself to the floor in the backseat. There was a crash, a grind of metal. A steaming sound. A grunting shout from Gary Gaimes.

Brennan rose up from the backseat. His tied hands made him move awkwardly. He felt rain on his face. To his right, the window had shattered. Driving rain pelted him. The front of the car had moved substantially toward the back.

Brennan wiped water from his eyes with his tied hands and tried to see into the front seat. The glove compartment had nearly met the passenger seat. The headlights had gone out; the engine had stalled with the loss of coolant. Red warning lights illumined the front driver's side.

He felt for Gary Gaimes, couldn't find him. He reached forward, found Gaimes's head slumped over the top of the steering wheel.

He put a hand to Gaimes's neck, searched for a pulse. It was there, strong.

Gaimes's head snapped up.

Brennan yanked his hand away as Gaimes began to yell. Gaimes tried to grab Brennan, then threw his hands toward the dashboard and tried to push the steering wheel away from his chest.

“GODDAMN MOTHERFUCKER, GET THIS OFF OF ME! I'M FUCKING INVINCIBLE! I'M INVINCIBLE!”

Gaimes beat madly at the steering column, breaking the top part of the wheel off with his hands. Brennan tried the handle of the door on the driver's side. The handle moved, but the door wouldn't open. He slid back across the seat and kicked at it.

“YOU FUCKER I'LL KILL YOU! I'LL GET OUT OF HERE AND KILL YOU!” Gaimes held the broken steering wheel behind his head and tried to hit Brennan with it. Ted kicked at the door harder. It wouldn't move. The steering wheel caught him a glancing blow on the side of the head. He pushed it away, shifting in the seat to try the door on the other side.

It was crushed tight, wouldn't open.

“YOU FUCKER! YOU FUCKER! I'LL KILL YOU. I'LL KILL EVERYONE!”

Gaimes managed to turn half around in the front seat. He clawed at Brennan, struck at him in the cramped car interior with the curve of steering wheel. Brennan shouted as the wheel hit him behind the ear.

Clawing over the front seat, Gaimes pulled himself half free and grabbed at Brennan's shoulders. He moved his hands up to Brennan's face, gouging at his cheeks with his fingernails.

Brennan kicked at the glass shards in the window to his sight, pushed them out into the rain. He stopped to pull Gaimes's fingers from his face. Gaimes flailed over him, pulling at his hair, grunting in effort to free his pinned legs.

“. . .KILL . . .YOU . . .”

Ted Brennan threw himself out of Gaimes's grasp and toward the open window, bound hands first. He closed his eyes, pushing his head through after his arms. There was a burning slice of pain up his left side. He kept struggling. Gaimes pounded at Brennan's legs with his fists, trying to keep him in the car.

“. . . FUCKER!”

Brennan's left arm throbbed with agony. He forced his hands against the side of the window frame and wedged himself out. He kicked at Gaimes.

Brennan fell out onto the grass. Rain pelted him. Fighting for breath, he pushed himself to his knees, then to his feet.

In the car, Gary Gaimes struggled and screamed. His voice became inhuman, a sound of rage like that of a wounded beast.

Ted Brennan lurched away from the car. Rain-darkened night assaulted him. A cold wind was blowing, a November gale filling the world with water. He stepped in puddles, began to shiver.

He stumbled to the driveway.

Behind him, the cries continued.

Brennan stood looking up at the house. It pulsed like a living thing, red lights through all the windows growing bright and then dimming. Brennan heard an unmistakable low hum that seemed to grow from the house into the ground itself. He felt as if he were standing on a generator; he could feel the vibration into his bones. Despite the rain, the tearing flame of the wound in his arm, the tight cold fear that Gary Gaimes would lurch toward him from the remains of the car and murder him where he stood, he was mesmerized.

The Compass Cross.

Terrified elation filled him.

Yes
, the house said to him.
You've found me. Come see.

Brennan heard a wrench of metal from the car in the back. Gary Gaimes shouted triumphantly.

Come see.

Brennan backed away.

Come . . .

“KILL YOU!” Gary Gaimes shrieked.

Brennan reached the wet street. Rain roared in torrents down the curbs.

Come. . .

Brennan splashed through the street river. The burning in his left side flared to unbearable heat. He collapsed, began to black out.

“No!” he shouted at himself. He rolled onto his back, in the middle of the street, rain soaking into his mouth.
No . . .

His mind slipped. The rain soothed him, beat on his face like on a tin roof, lulling, singing to him.

No . . .

With his last tiny flare of consciousness, Brennan reached his bound hands over his body, straightened his fingers, and drove them straight into the open wound on his side. He screamed. He dug his fingers into the wound, raking pain up until his eyes opened and he rolled onto his knees, panting and crying.

“God, oh, God ...”

Up the driveway, he saw the top of the house above the trees. The red glow brightened, dimmed.

Come . . .

Panting, Brennan rose and staggered on. His left side was numb. He concentrated on it, blocked everything else out, his shivering, the call of the house, Gary Gaimes's cries, his fear. When his eyes began to close, his knees weaken, he dug his fingers into the numb area, stoking pain into it like a waning fire.

He prayed for a refuge, a house, a school, a country store. There was nothing. Only night, whipping trees, the sky open like God's screaming wrathful mouth with rain, and wind, and cold. Pain.

There was a sound behind him. He turned, saw nothing. There was a car.

It moved along the curb, slowly, lights off.

Brennan's heart moved into his mouth.

He crossed to the other side of the street. The car silently turned, rolled after him. It was closer to him now; he heard the humming purr of its engine.

“Sweet Jesus,” Brennan sobbed. He dropped to his knees in the road.

The car moved closer.

Brennan forced himself to his feet. His left side had turned into hard, wet fire. He dropped to his knees, looked back. The car was nearly on him.

“Oh, God.”

He saw through a haze of pain. The front of the car was crushed, pushed back like paper to the driver's seat; through the windshield he saw Gary Gaimes's howling, triumphant face, one fist punching toward him in victory.

“Oh . . . God . . .”

Ted Brennan fell forward into the road, onto his right hand. The pain did not keep him from unconsciousness, which rose toward him like the wet road, enveloping him, taking him to hard sleep . . .

Soon after, consciousness pushed him fleetingly back into the world. He felt himself lifted. He opened his eyes. He saw the dull yellow dome light of a car interior. He cried out, then looked into a face that was not Gary Gaimes's—

He went back to unconsciousness. But as he dropped back to it he heard, like the volume on a radio turning down, Falconi's voice, not altogether filled with animosity, say, “Who's a sorry asshole?”

A dream within a dream.

On the bed in the dream house, Ricky slept. So tired. Could you sleep in your dream? Maybe when he woke up, all the dreams would be gone, and he would be back in his bed in his mother's house, and she would shake him gently and say, “Ricky boy, time to get up, lazy boy, no work today, a beautiful day outside, the sun is shining, the sky is blue. Get up and smell the salt air, your friends are waiting ...”

A dream within a dream.

He was with Spook, and Spook was not dead, and they were on the ferry dock with Reesa and Charlie. The sky was as blue as Paul Newman's eyes. His mother was right. He never had seen such a beautiful color of sky, or such a beautiful warmth on his skin, or a more beautiful touch of cool, mild salt sea air across his wet skin. He swam, and Spook and Reesa and Charlie swam beside him, and they were like a school of beautiful angelfish swimming in the cool and mild salt sea of his home. When he came up to the surface and shouted happily and pulled soft air into his lungs, he could almost smell the limestone of the houses on his beautiful island. He could almost smell the limestone of his own roof on his own home, with his mother inside cooking dinner for him and singing because she was happy.

And then his mother was there in the water with him. She was swimming beside him, another beautiful angelfish in the mirror-clear sea, and she rose to the surface with him and shouted happily alongside him and pulled fresh cool-warm air into her lungs and smelled the limestone of the houses with him. She was happy with him. And all the world was happy in the blue sky with high small clouds, trouble so far away, trouble like tiny clouds so high in the sky that no plane could reach them. The blue of the sky overwhelmed the clouds and made them insignificant.

“And someday,” his mother said to him, “my Ricky will be as famous as Ben Vereen, and sing on Broadway, and be on TV, and I'll watch you on the satellite dish, and I'll be so proud of my boy!”

“We'll all be so proud!” Reesa said, rising up to the surface next to him and pulling the fresh air into her lungs, and Charlie and Spook rose next to her and said, “Yeah!” and “Yeah!”

And then Reesa kissed him, and laughed, and dove down into the clear water, and Ricky watched her, and Charlie laughed and dove too, and said before he hit the water, “She's yours, Ricky boy! She loves you!” and Spook laughed too, and then his mother laughed and dove down, and he was about to follow when he looked up into the blue-bright sky, and a hand came over the sun, over the sky, high up in the tiny clouds, and grew big and dropped, blotting out the sun and beautiful sky, and a huge shadow of the hand fell across the water, and the shadow of the hand grew toward him as the hand fell toward him—

—and Ricky cried out and awoke, and the dream within a dream was gone as a hand hit him in the face, and a face stood over him, and he was back in the bad dream in the dream house and the hand rose up where the beautiful blue sky should be, and fell, and hit him again, and he cried out and tried to cover his face, and there was a terrible loud hum in his ears, and brightening red light all around, and he looked up to see a face he knew from that terrible dream hovering over him, a face that belonged to the man who had offered him tea and biscuits, and the man's hand turned into a fist and hit him again, and then again, and the terrible dream began to go away, and the hum receded, and off in the distance, he heard the sea, and saw, vaguely, the blue sky, and the hand pulling up away into the clouds, and he felt himself lifted as the dream within a dream returned—