Spawn of Hell (4 page)

Much to his surprise, she smiled back.

He had walked slowly around the Upper West Side of the city for an hour and a hall before going home, giving his leg exercise and his mind time to think. That smile had made his evening, made his week, hell—it had made his year. He knew he was giving it too much importance. He was not in love, or even pretending to be, and he had no need or desire for any attachments at this point in his life. He had had one already, of sorts, and look where that had gone.

What were his priorities? Money, a career, security. Learning to deal with the almost constant, steady pain in his right leg. Those were his priorities. After that, he could think about getting a lover. He had already learned what it was like to have somebody love him. Perhaps someday he would learn what it was like to have somebody like
her
love him. What would it be like, to live with her day after day after day? And would he care about her when her face was put away in the assorted tubes and jars and bottles on the dressing table?

What did it matter? He’d never see her again, and he had much more important things to worry about. Like getting up in time to make it to the bank before it closed.

He turned onto his block, entered the foyer of his building, and started to climb up the dark, winding stairs to his apartment. He was on the landing directly below when he stopped short, suddenly sensing that he was being watched.

There was something in the shadows up ahead. The light had gone out during his hospital stay and had not yet been replaced, leaving the whole corridor in darkness. But there was something up there, standing just out of range of the light shining up from the floor below.

David heard a labored, wheezing sound, like a dying dog trying to catch its last breath, a sound like a cough from the depths of a body wracked with high fever, collapsing from chills. Then the thud of a step, an ominous footfall, as the thing in the shadows slowly advanced towards the edge of the stairs. “David Hammond,” someone said. And the thing started walking right down the stairs towards David.

Chapter Two

David had started to back down the stairs, planning to run towards the front door and the safety of the night, away from what undoubtedly was a mugger, a junkie, lying in wait for the unsuspecting, when he realized—
he knows my name!

“David,” the thing’s voice said again, stepping out into the light, a dirt-encrusted boot hovering above the first step, stamping down upon it, almost losing its balance.

He had heard that voice before. In childhood. Or even later. But when?

He tried to recognize the man as he walked down the stairs, tried to remember who he was. What he saw gave him no clue. The man looked like a bum who spent all his time sleeping in alleyways; he smelled of fish and dog feces and a strong, almost overpowering body odor. He looked like a lunatic, long hair flying in a thousand directions, a thick black beard matted with spit and other foul substances. The clothes were more like rags. A smelly gray suit jacket with gaping wounds in the cloth. An undershirt underneath, full of holes like a wedge of swiss cheese. Baggy black trousers, the knees worn away, and the cuffs hanging heavy with repulsive pieces of lint.

Wild black eyes stared out atop a broad brown nose.

Whoever it was was olive-complexioned and big, once muscular. An urban Robinson Crusoe was camping out at David’s doorsteps and he didn’t know who he was or what he was doing there. He could only stare back, wondering how anyone he might have known in his thirty-three years could have turned into
this.

The man had an awful-looking cut—a slice, really— on his forehead. It looked comparatively recent, just starting to heal. It would leave a wicked scar.

“David. I’ve got to talk to you.”

And then it happened. The man was nearly at the landing where David stood stock-still. David was backing away, about to ask the man who he was and how he knew him. But then—he recognized him. He recognized the eyes, those sad, pathetic eyes. Could it be? Yes, it was.

“George Bartley. My God—is that you?”

“It’s me, David. George.”

David didn’t know what to say.

“David. I’ve got to talk to you.”

The voice was different. The same deep, crude tone, but none of the swaggering confidence of before, none of the machismo. David mentally computed how many years it had been since he had seen him. Ten. Maybe more. But no, he had seen him once or twice on his visits back home. Maybe five years then. Was five years enough to do this to a person?

He remembered George Bartley as a tough, ebullient personality. Nice-looking, strong. He came on dumb and beefy, but was not as stupid as people thought he was. He and David had grown up together in Hillsboro. George had been transplanted there from Brooklyn when he was around ten, but he never quite lost the accent, the street savvy that distinguished him from the other Vermont children. He and David had been, if not best friends, then pretty good buddies when nobody else was around to play with.

George and his parents had lived in a white cottage near the Illian River. His father and David’s father had worked for the same firm. They all went to company picnics together. The Hammonds and the Bartleys. Although David’s mom and Mrs. Bartley never really hit it off that well. They didn’t fight or anything like that, they just never became very close.

And here was his childhood friend, someone he hadn’t spoken to in at least five years. And for a good five years before that their conversations, when they bumped into each other in town, had been strained and brief. George must have been in big trouble to come to David for help. How long had he been living off the streets of New York, literally?

“Come on inside,” David instructed, sensing that George was weak and could use help up the stairs, but not wanting to touch him, lest something crawl out of the seams of his jacket and enter his own skin. He climbed up ahead of him and opened the door, turned on the light.

George came in and David locked the door behind him. He would have to overcome his repulsion long enough to show this man some compassion. Probably he hadn’t eaten in days. Boy, did he pick a loser, David thought.
I’m almost as bad off as he is.

George sat down on the floor, threw his head back, and breathed in and out for several moments, the wheezing so pronounced that for a second David was afraid the man was having an attack. Then he stopped and leaned his head against the wall. David was about to offer him the bed, if he could make it over there, but decided to wait until after he had a nice, long, hot bath.

“I have to talk with you, David,” George repeated. “I have to talk to you.”

David squatted down before him. “I know. Listen, don’t strain yourself. Why don’t I make you something to eat, okay? Then when you feel a little better you can tell me what’s on your mind. All right?”

George nodded feebly.

David .got up, went to the cupboard, and pulled out a can of mixed vegetables. Probably the healthiest thing he had in the place. He opened it, poured the contents into a saucepan, and put it over a flame on the stove. He didn’t bother with a dish. He just brought the heated vegetables, plus a spoon, over to George and let him eat it right out of the pot.

George ate in spurts. He would shovel in spoonful after spoonful, spilling juice all over his beard and jacket, then lie back, exhausted with the effort. Then start up all over again. He went through the routine six times until he was finished.

“Something to drink?” David said from the bed where he was trying not to watch.

George nodded again.

David got him some water. There was nothing else.

George managed to get about one-quarter cup of the glass of water into his mouth. The rest trickled down over his face and clothes.

“Do you want to wash up?’ That got no reaction. “Would you like to rest a while, go to sleep?” David asked.

“I’ve got to talk to you.”

“Go ahead,” David said. “I’ll listen.” He didn’t bother asking him the usual questions, or try to deal with him on a normal level. George was working now on that most primitive plane, incapable of engaging in awkward small talk. David wondered if the man were even sane. What did he have to tell him? The story of how he came down from a middle-class existence in a small Vermont town to barely surviving in a metropolitan city? It made no sense. George had friends, family. In any case, he had been too gutsy, too smart to stay out on the street for long. How had he come to this? Unbathed, unshaven, practically unclothed. How does it happen to anyone? If it could happen to George, could it happen to him?

“I’ve got to talk to you.”

“Go ahead, George. I’m listening. Tell me what’s wrong. I’m your friend.”

“Got to talk to you.”

He seemed unable to say anything else. “Talk to me about what? “

“Talk to you.”

“Shall I call your family, George? Shall I tell them where you are?”

That
got a reaction. George managed to get to his feet, a horror-stricken expression on his hairy face, panic in his eyes. He began to whimper. “No. No. NO!”

“All right. Calm down. I won’t call them. Okay? I won’t call them.”

George seemed to believe him, but David’s words had not quite the tranquil effect he might have hoped for. George started to walk back and forth, back and forth, across the apartment, shaking his head, muttering under his breath. David could pick out only one word. “Unbelievable. Unbelievable.”

“What is it, George? Why don’t you tell me?
What’s
unbelievable?”

George’s behavior was getting more frenetic by the moment. David was afraid of what he might do, to himself, to the apartment. He reached out both hands and grabbed the man firmly by the shoulders, exerting what he thought was just enough pressure to keep his friend’s burly frame from moving.

But his hands “met no resistance! Gripping the shoulders and pressing inwards, they
kept on going,
as if George’s body was just a big, man-shaped piece of sponge, as if it were composed only of flesh and muscle, but no bones. With hardly an effort, David’s hands had squeezed George’s shoulders practically in to the neck!

“My God!”

David let go and stepped back, horrified. There was only, could only be, one explanation. George had lost an incredible amount of weight. The jacket was several sizes too big for him, and it had been the jacket—not the man’s shoulders—that had crumpled in under the force of David’s grip. Even now as he looked the shoulders were resuming their former width. David looked to George for some sort of comment, some reaction, but he was only still and blank-eyed, as if nothing had happened.

David backed away steadily from George until he finally bumped up against the kitchen table. There was a clattering noise that seemed to snap George out of his spell. David looked up from the table, having checked to make sure nothing had fallen to the floor, and waited for George to say or do something.

“I’ve got to talk to you.”

“Tell me, George. Tell me what’s wrong. What’s happened to you? For God’s sake—”

“Unbelievable.”

“Yes. Yes. What’s unbelievable?”

“You won’t believe me.” George took a step towards David, his eyes ablaze with a mad mental electricity, an emotional lightning.

“What won’t I believe? You must tell me. I’ll help you if I can. I promise.”

“What they did to me!”

“What, George? What did they do to you?”

“They—” He bent his head down and covered his face with his large and trembling hands. David could see the calluses, a working man’s hands. How come his hands were so large and strong, his wrists so thick, when all the rest of him was so dissipated? George’s body heaved while he sobbed. Tears flooded out from between the fingers over his eyes.

George Bartley was crying. David never thought he would see the day.

And David thought—if whatever had happened did this to George Bartley, what on earth would it do to me?

It was bright and sunny the following day, as if denying all that had transpired the night before. He had not been able to get any more information out of George; he was simply too incoherent and too depressed to speak. David had pulled out a sleeping bag for the big man to lie down on during the night. Then he had gone to bed himself, hoping that in the morning the mystery of George’s appearance would be resolved.

It didn’t look that way. At least not now, with George still fast asleep and snoring on the sleeping bag, still wearing all his clothes (which David simply could not bring himself to touch). With the daylight from the window shining all over him, he looked even worse than he had at night, sheathed in shadows. There was no shade for his ugliness to hide in. And once he had been an attractive man, might still be, under the dirt and the hair and the odor.

David debated whether he should wake him, get a straight story (or send him to some institution), or simply let him sleep while he went off to the bank and a few job agencies. David didn’t like the idea of the man being left alone. He was clearly unstable, and there was no telling what he might do, or for that matter, what aid he might require in David’s absence. He might wake up and not know where he was. Then again, he
had
been lucid enough to look up David in the phone book. He didn’t know how else he might have gotten his address, unless somebody in Hillsboro gave it to him. Who? His father?

He would have to chance it. The bank wouldn’t be very crowded now and he needed the money, might even have to give some to George. Besides, he’d rather leave George alone in his apartment while the man was sleeping than while he was awake. Sleeping dogs do little damage.

He washed up quickly with a wet cloth (not wanting to shower while an emotionally disturbed person was in his apartment—shades of
Psycho),
changed into fresh clothes, and got his bankbook out of the night table drawer. George was still snoring blissfully as David went out the door.

The spring weather was getting warmer today. Many people went without jackets, although David still felt enough of a chill to keep his on. It was that bright sun up there, so unusual coming among so many smog-filled days, that made it seem deceptively hotter outside. He withdrew most of his “savings” from the bank without a hitch (except for the condescending look from the teller which was meant to pass for pity), did some grocery shopping, and went back to his studio. George was still fast asleep.