Poppy Z. Brite - 1992 - Lost Souls (59 page)

 
          
And
Zillah’s eyes met Nothing’s as the knife went in.

 
          
There
was no love in them, no sorrow. Only pain and blame and blind rage. This was
not the way Zillah had planned it. Through all the stupid risks he took he had
never considered the possibility of his own death. This is your fault, those
eyes told Nothing.

 
          
You
brought me to this, and this should be happening to you.

 
          
Then
the green light blazed once and went out. Zillah’s eyes were as dead as a blown
light bulb. But their message had burned itself into Nothing, had hardened him
faster and better than anything else could.

 
          
Zillah’s
feet kicked and shuffled an inch above the floor. Blood began to seep around
the handle of the knife, then from-his nostrils and the corners of his eyes. His
mouth fell open, and a fountain of blood tumbled down his chin, washed over
Ghost’s arm and hand. That seemed to wake Ghost. The strain of Zillah’s weight
hit him, and he let the body fall. He stared unbelievingly at his hands.

 
          
“Steve?”
he said in a small voice. “What…?”

 
          
Steve
was slumped against the bed. He had taken off his shirt and was pressing it
between his arms, trying to stop the bleeding from his slashed wrists. Tiredly,
he looked up at Ghost.

 
          
“I
owe you another one,” he said.

 
          
Nothing
glanced around the room. Where were Molochai and Twig? He saw them huddled
against the far wall, heard them puking more violently than ever. He didn’t
know if they had seen Zillah die. Right now they sounded as if they were beyond
caring.

 
          
He
looked at Ghost. Ghost stared back. His eyes were clear and very pale.

 
          
“I
could kill you, you know,” Nothing heard himself say. “I could make them get up
and kill you.”

 
          
Ghost
didn’t move. “I know you could.”

 
          
“I
could make them kill both of you.”

 
          
“It’ll
be me first, then,” said Ghost.

 
          
Nothing
looked at Zillah’s body sprawled on the floor. Rivulets of blood crawled along
the cracks between the floorboards where Zillah’s head had fallen. He thought
of never feeling those strong veined hands on him again, of never kissing that
lush mouth.

 
          
He
thought of never again having anyone tell him what to do.

 
          
“Take
that thing out of him,” he said.

 
          
Ghost
knelt and pulled the knife out of Zillah’s skull. He had to wiggle the blade
free, but Nothing didn’t look away. The knife left a clean narrow wound in
Zillah’s temple. A pale, slightly cloudy fluid began to trickle from it.

 
          
“Now
get out,” said Nothing.

 
          
Steve
and Ghost only stared at him.

 
          
“Now.
If they get up, I’ll let them kill you. They loved Zillah too.” Nothing wasn’t
sure if he meant this. Could he really watch Steve and Ghost die, even now? He
thought of the cold message he had seen in Zillah’s eyes and wondered whether
he would ever have known the truth if Zillah had lived.

 
          
Still,
his father had loved him in his way. In the way of decadence and
self-gratification.

 
          
But
even that was worth something. Nothing was amazed at how calm he felt. He never
knew his face was wet with tears.

 
          
Life
was his now. When he was on the road he would want to think about Steve and
Ghost, to know they were alive somewhere. He hadn’t wanted Ann’s baby to die
either, not really. It would have been his brother or his sister. He would have
taken care of it. He would have held it on his knees so it could look out the
windows of the van and dabbed wine and blood on its soft little gums.

 
          
He
knew Ann must be dead. Why else would Steve have come on this murdering
rampage? But if he never asked, he would be able to pretend the baby was alive
somewhere, growing up without its family just as he had done. Maybe someday
they’d be driving along some country road and suddenly there would be Zillah’s
child, Nothing’s brother or sister, sticking out a hopeful thumb.

 
          
Maybe.

 
          
“Go
on,” he told Ghost more gently. “Steve’s hurt. Get him to a hospital. Take him
home.”

 
          
Ghost
pulled Steve up, and they left without a word. Nothing didn’t watch them go. He
had enough goodbyes to say.

 
          
Toward
morning, when the sky was beginning to go from purple to transparent violet,
Molochai and Twig awakened from their nauseated daze. At first they were
frightened when they saw the bodies. Then they got mad, but Nothing only
clamped his arms across his chest and stared them down.

 
          
“Zillah
would have killed them,” said Twig sullenly.

 
          
“Zillah
tried,” said Nothing. He knew how cold his words sounded. But if he could make
Molochai and Twig feel his power now, in these first few minutes, he did not
think they would challenge him again.

 
          
“I
did it the way I wanted to,” he told them, and no one had anything to say to
that.

 
          
All
of them knew what to do for their dead. There was not much blood left in
Christian’s body; the tapered blade of the knife had pierced his heart and
crushed it, and most of his blood had drained into the mattress. They
licked
what they could from his face, his hands, his chest.

 
          
They
sucked at the edges of the wound. With a wet snuffling sound, Molochai buried
his face in the hole the knife had made. He nibbled at Christian’s torn heart
and pronounced it bitter.

 
          
Tenderly
they laid Zillah out on the bed and used his pearl-handled razor to slit him
open from sternum to pubic bone. Nothing saw strangely shaped organs glistening
in the pale aperture.

 
          
They
lifted the organs out and arranged them carefully, lovingly, on the bed around
him. Then, one by one, they thrust their heads into the long wound and licked
the husk of Zillah clean.

 
          
As
the sun rose, shedding its wan light upon the proud old buildings of the French
Quarter and the trash in its gutters, they left Christian’s room and filed down
the stairs. The black van was parked two blocks away. Nothing hated to leave so
soon. He had spent only two nights here, one of them puking his guts out. It
wasn’t fair.

 
          
He
smiled, though it barely touched his lips. Fair? How long had it been since he
expected things to be fair? If you wanted something, you didn’t wait for the
world to deal it out to you; you took it. If he had learned nothing else during
his time with Zillah, he had learned that. And anyway, it didn’t matter that he
had to leave New Orleans so soon. The city was in his blood. He would be back;
there was always time.

 
          
Nothing
had left his long black raincoat behind, draped over the bodies like a shroud.
In its place he wore Zillah’s jacket with its purple silk lining. The fresh
bloodstains were like badges. The smell of them twisted his heart, but he wore
them with pride.

 
          
Just
before they left the room, Nothing had pulled the shade up. As the first ray of
light touched the bodies of Zillah and Christian, their flesh began to smolder
and crumble. In less than an hour it was only ash.

 
          
Steve
got his arms stitched and bandaged at Charity Hospital on the edge of the
French Quarter. The doctors on duty in the emergency room suspected a suicide
attempt, but Steve kept telling his story over and over, and Ghost kept backing
him up. They’d been out drinking; a gang of kids had jumped them; one of the
kids pulled a razor. Steve flung his arms up to protect his face and got
slashed.

 
          
They
had to talk to a policeman, and Ghost could see Steve getting ready to break
down: it was in the corners of his mouth, the way his shoulders sagged. Ghost
closed his eyes and tried to send Steve strength. At last they were allowed to
go.

 
          
For
a few minutes they stood outside the hospital in the cool dawn. Steve stared at
his gauze-swathed arms. “If I wanted to kill myself,” he muttered, “I wouldn’t
have slashed my goddamn wrists like some kind of half-assed moron.” Ghost
started walking back toward the car.

 
          
After
a moment Steve followed. “I’d get a shotgun. Straight through the brain.” Ghost
shuddered, but Steve didn’t notice. “Or I’d drive up to the mountains and run
my car over a guardrail. A thousand feet down and BAM! You’re spread out over a
mile of rocks.”

 
          
They
reached the car. Steve stood staring around him, seeming to search for
something in the faces of the old buildings, maybe just having a final look at
the place that had claimed so much from him. Ghost wondered if they would ever
come back here.

 
          
Ghost
drove all the way back to Missing Mile. The muscles of his shoulders and upper
arms were sore. The palms of his hands tingled faintly, and he kept wiping them
on his knees, on the fabric of the seat. Again and again he felt the knife
going into Zillah’s skull, the terrible lack of resistance as it slid through
Zillah’s brain. He had heard Zillah’s final shriek of rage and agony in his
mind. He’d had to do it; Steve would be dead now if he hadn’t, his throat
sliced wide open and his life bled away. Still Ghost felt the knife going in.

 
          
Somewhere
in the Louisiana swamps Steve said, “Pull over.” Ghost killed the ignition. In
the dark phosphorescence of the swamp Steve’s tears shone as clear and bright
as crystal. Blindly he reached for Ghost, pressed his face into Ghost’s hair,
rubbed his hands over Ghost’s face, gathered the fabric of Ghost’s clothes
between his fingers. “You’re here,” he gasped. “I know you’re here–I can feel
you—I can smell you—you’re not
gonna
go away—”

 
          
“Steve,”
said Ghost, “oh, Steve …” He could hardly speak. Just to hold each other was
not enough; again he wished that their hearts could be joined. Maybe that would
clean some of the blood from their hands.

 
          
Back
in Missing Mile they were a little puzzled when their friends did not greet
them with astonishment. It was hard to realize that they had only been gone a
few days.

 
          
Terry
told them that Simon
Bransby
had been found dead in
an easy chair in his living room. The house, Terry said with mild bemusement,
was full of crazy shit–cat guts pickled in formaldehyde, terrariums full of
toads that bounced off the glass as if they were tripping on high-grade acid.
Simon had died of a Valium overdose, and everybody thought it was suicide,
presumably because his only daughter had finally left home for good.

 
          
Ann
was never heard from, and only a handful of people in Missing Mile–R.J., Terry,
Monica knew anything about what had happened to her, Not even they knew the
whole tale.

 
          
They
discovered that even in the face of pain that seems unbearable, even in the
face of pain that wrings the last drop of blood out of your heart and leaves
its scrimshaw tracery on the inside of your skull, life goes on. And pain grows
dull, and begins to fade.

 
          
Steve
went back to work at the Whirling Disc, played his guitar obsessively.

 
          
Kinsey
Hummingbird hired him to tend bar a couple of times a week at the Sacred Yew.