Tales from the Crypt - Demon Knight (19 page)

Roach, glistening with sweat and enveloped in a fog of locker-room stench, tossed the pickax aside and lifted up the belly of his T-shirt to mop his forehead. Martel dusted his hands, seeming not quite as winded as Roach.

“Okay, where’s Willie?” he asked, swiveling his head, squinting through the dust. “He’s supposed to be the mining expert.”

Irene had a Kleenex pressed to her nose. “I sent him up to the kitchen for a bottle of vodka, and that’s all it took. Guess I got stupid and started feeling sorry for the bum.”

“I’ll go fetch the old dude,” Martel said, and coughed. He worked his jaw and spat on the ground, ground it into the dirt with the toe of one boot, then plodded away.

Jeryline’s stomach performed a slow, greasy roll, and she moved to where Brayker stood idly holding the flashlight. “Changed your mind about getting out through the mines?” she asked him.

He jerked his shoulders. “If you don’t all get killed in there you’ll wind up like Cordelia, so I might as well be on hand to end it.”

“End it?”

He glanced wearily at her. “Kill you. When you belong to the Salesman, you are my enemy. I pop you with a drop of blood, you die. And I live on to guard the key.”

“Oh, the blood,” she said. “Like you still have a lot of it.”

“It will do,” he said.

“Whose blood is it, anyway?” she asked. “Yours?”

He was silent for a time. Then: “Most of it belongs to a man named Harrison.”

“Harrison? Who the hell is that?”

“Just a man I knew.”

“A wonderful explanation, Brayker. Who else donated to the cause?”

“Other men,” he said. “And women, too.”

“Sounds like Red Cross work, collecting blood. Whose idea was it? Dracula’s?”

He didn’t smile. “Not funny.”

“Who, then? How did it all start? And when?”

He drew himself up taller, eyeing her. “I’m not sure you’re ready to hear it yet.”

“What, I have to be older? It can’t be told to a minor? Dirty words? The sale of alcohol involved? Violence and nudity?”

He seemed to want to smile, but the effort died before his lips got the message; the whole effect was visible only in his eyes. “I’d rather tell you in private,” he said quietly. “It’s a fairly long story.”

Around the corner of the coal room, distantly, the ladder creaked and groaned. Presently Martel appeared practically carrying Uncle Willie, who was glassy-eyed and mumbling. “The wierdest thing,” Martel said, letting him fall. Dust puffed up in a cloud. “In the kitchen, there’s confetti hanging through the outside door, some spangly things all over the floor. Guess Willie had himself one hell of a party.”

Brayker tensed. He put the flashlight on the floor, looking all kinds of strange. As Jeryline watched, baffled, he pulled the key from its pouch and stalked over to where Willie lay moaning in the dirt. In a swift movement he bent and touched it to Willie’s forehead, nervously ready to spring back. Aha, Jeryline thought. The old touch-and-run monster test.

“He’s clean,” Brayker said, straightening. He stuffed it away and readjusted his shirt.

Roach had reclaimed his shotgun. “Screw the old bastard,” he said. “Let’s get the hell out of here.” He stooped and peered through the hole. “Black as a coon’s asshole. Brayker, did I hear you say you was coming or not?”

“Coming,” Brayker said.

Roach swept an arm. “You first, Kee-mo-sobbee. You’ve got the magic key.”

Jeryline handed Brayker the flashlight. “And you’ve got the magic shotgun,” he said to Roach.

Willie came alive and began the slow process of getting to his feet. “Barberashykl,” he informed everyone with cross-eyed dignity. “Revebslip. Hoo-hah.”

Roach went to him. “See the hole in the wall, Unkie? Can you walk your ass to it?”

“Peesul,” Willie said. “Peesul cake.”

Irene stomped over behind Roach, looking like a large walking fish in her lime-green pantsuit, and kicked him squarely in the butt. “Lay off the man,” she brayed. “He was fighting pink elephants while the best half of you was drying up on your mama’s bedsheet.”

He whirled. “Fuck you, you old bag of shit,” he snarled.

“You don’t have the pecker for it,” she shouted back.

“Do too!”

“Good.” Irene put on a great, fake smile. “Prove your courage by going into the mineshaft first, big shot.”

“I will!” he howled. “Just watch me!”

He marched to the hole, dropped to his knees, and crawled through, his dirty black shoes scraping and clunking. “Did it,” his muffled voice came back. “Who’s next?”

“I guess we are,” Martel said, and pointed Uncle Willie in the right direction. “Give us a minute.”

Jeryline leaned toward Brayker. “Looks like Irene has a soft spot for old Willie,” she said softly.

“Bad times can bring two things out of people,” he replied. “Their natural goodness or their natural badness.”

She raised one eyebrow. “Brayker the philosopher,” she said, her voice tainted with friendly sarcasm. “You seem wise beyond your years.”

“And what a pile of years they are,” he said and fell silent, staring down at the thick white beam of the flashlight and the currents of dust moving through it. She wondered if she had hit a sensitive nerve, then gave a mental
big deal!
He had acted like a jerk when they first met not too many hours ago, so who cared if she had somehow hurt his feelings?

He raised his head suddenly. “Shall we go?”

Irene’s green fanny was disappearing into the blackness at the other side of the hole. Jeryline crawled through, then Brayker. He stood and aimed the flashlight around.

“Old,” Jeryline breathed. “Wow.”

The mineshaft had been cut just deep enough to stand in. Despite the parched earth overhead, these rocky walls were damp in spots, hairy with spiderwebs whose owners had died and shriveled in their own homes before Jeryline was born. Crusty and orange with rust, a narrow pram track cut down the middle of the floor. The mossy smell of stagnant water hung in the air. It seemed obvious, or at least plausible, that the miners had cut this shaft through to the foundation of the building and said
whoops
after making the little hole and looking through. Or, of course, a lot of years’ worth of rats could have gnawed their way in. As if any of that mattered anymore.

“I need the light up here,” Roach said. His voice seemed to boom out, rebounded four or five times in a creepy, deepening echo, and was gone. “Please,” he said more softly.

Brayker touched Jeryline’s elbow and made motions for her to follow, if she wanted. Consternation welled up in her. Half of the time this guy was a moody loner, the other half a courteous Boy Scout. If he would just give away that stupid key they could both leave tonight, hitchhike out of her parole jurisdiction, start real lives. But no, she had already offered him that, and he had chosen to keep the key. Fine. If this mineshaft led to the world above, she would do her hitchhiking all alone.

Brayker took the lead with Roach while she hung back in the company of Irene and Willie and Deputy Martel. The sights and sounds of this tunnel, the damp smell in the air and the harshly cutting beam of light, reminded her, in a strange way, of the women’s prison in Colorado at night, especially in the solitary block where all the stink and the wetness sank down from the prison above, and the guards raked the bars with their flashlights when they got bored.

“Fork in the road,” Roach sang out. Echoes replied as everyone came to a stop. “Old man, do your thing.”

Martel stepped forward, supporting Willie. “Can you think straight?” he asked him. “Does any of this look familiar?”

Brayker waved a hand indicating time-out. “I don’t think he’s ever been down here,” he said. “He was an investor, knew all the maps.”

Roach poked the barrel of the shotgun against the tunnel’s floor and leaned his weight on it. “Oh, this is just swell,” he said. “The drunk leading the blind.”

Brayker looked over to him. “Ready to call this off? Go back and wait for morning?”

“No way.” Roach smacked the barrel with the side of his foot; the shotgun spun around quite professionally, and he parked it on his shoulder, ready to march. “American veteran, National Guard,” he said. “Suck on that.”

“To the left is north,” Willie slurred. “Feeder line to the main, no lode, no vein, no nothing. Lost my ass.”

Irene frowned. “What?”

Martel shook Willie. “Which direction leads to the surface, old man? Left or right?”

“That-there is the south spur, takes you up like an escalator. Unless we’re headed south, which would make it . . .” His eyes opened and shut in slow motion. “Where in the hell?”

Roach made a noise approximating the blowing of a nose. “Toss that old fucker back through the hole,” he grumbled. “I think the shaft on the left angles up. Brayker?”

Brayker shook his head in the same slow motion Willie had used. “I have no idea. Besides, this is your parade.”

Roach swallowed. “I know, I know. We’ll go left, fifty percent chance, what the heck. We can always come back.”

“Until we take another two or three forks after that,” Irene said. “That’s how scuba divers die in underwater caves, they get all lost. We ought to leave some kind of trail.”

“Fresh out of road flares and bread crumbs,” Roach said.

Irene smiled sweetly. “We can always follow the trail of your fleas.”

“We’ll try the left,” Brayker said. “At least for a minute or two.”

They looked at each other, nodded mutual consent, and walked on. Jeryline lagged behind, mulling over what Irene had said about scuba divers. Was it possible to get
that
damned lost down here? To die of thirst, maybe cannibalize each other? No, no way. She was just tweaking a little.

At the fork, where miners long dead had chopped the rock into a pockmarked surface like the moon and left a sharp vertical edge, she heard something drift from the right. She lifted a hand, ready to call out to the others, then stopped herself in mid-breath. They couldn’t all be trotting around chasing echoes hither and yon. She stayed in place only about thirty seconds, time enough to think there might be bats scratching around down that right tunnel, bats who ought not be disturbed. Besides, she was alone; the others had gone around a bend and been swallowed by the earth, save for a shuddering glow of light in that solid darkness.

She lifted a foot, abandoning ship before a case of the scaredy-cats could get her jumping at ghosts. Again came a sound—it seemed like a groan, maybe a sob of some sort. She put her hand out and clutched the wall, turning again, listening intently.

Somebody was crying. It sounded like a child—but a crying child, down here? She thought of Brayker’s so-called Salesman: a trick? Lure her away from the others and turn her into what Cordelia had become?

Jeryline stopped at the point of actually entering the tunnel. She had a book of matches in her pocket, of course, because no smoker ever left home without one, she supposed. Matter of fact, a cigarette right now sounded simply fabulous; what better way to chase a case of the jitters away? But her cigarettes were far away and her matches were to be ersatz flashlights now. Yet should she risk lighting one? What if the Salesman and his buddies were ten feet in front of her, holding their breath, ready to shout
surprise!
and scare her instantly to death?

Oh, too many questions. She got the matches out of the back pocket of her Salvation Army jeans and struck one. She held it overhead, staring into the tunnel with huge eyes, Jeryline the Owl Woman. A thousand bowls of light and shadow adorned the walls as before; the rusty pram track arrowed away into blackness. No Salesman, no demons. Just a severe case of the jitters and someone sobbing.

Barely breathing, sweat beginning to appear on her forehead and upper lip, Jeryline trod softly between the narrow rails. The flame touched her fingers and she flapped the match away, licked her thumb, lit another and held it as high as the ceiling would allow. Cobwebs and dust, swinging black shadows on the walls, water drops glistening like yellow gems. A poet would like this, she thought. Poets always like weird places.

The second match went out after introducing itself to her fingers, making her hiss and dance. She lit another, stuck it overhead, and saw the person who was making all the fuss. It was a kid. The kid looked at her. The kid was Danny from over at the Eureka Cafe, the cute little guy who hated Wormwood as much as Jeryline did. The two had talked a few times here and there.

Jeryline knelt in front of him. “Danny? How in the heck did you get down here? Where’s your mom and dad?”

She moved to touch his shoulder, but he jerked away. In his dark brown eyes lurked an animal sort of terror Jeryline had never seen before.

The match burned her. “Shit!” she squealed, dropping it. She rose and did a furious little dance on it. “Cheap-ass matches,” she howled, tended her wounds with her tongue, blew on her fingers knowing blisters would be erupting there soon. She switched hands, and lit another. A pair of eyes glowed alive just to her right, and she cringed back, then saw who it was.

“Homer,” she said, her voice full of relief. “What is everybody doing in the mines? Hiding?”

Homer ignored her. He slowly craned his head and looked down at Danny. “Why did you run away, son?” he asked in a strange, gutteral voice. When he looked back up again he fastened his eyes on Jeryline. “Look what you’ve done to him, you nasty bitch,” he said evenly. “You must pay the price.”

Jeryline took a backward step, knowing. She bumped into something soft, and whirled.

It was Wanda. Like Homer, she was still wearing the official Eureka Cafe apron. The pupils of her eyes were dull orange circles instead of the usual animated black.

“Ah, God,” Jeryline moaned. “Not both of you.”

Wanda’s face twisted into a dull, stupid leer. “You’ve been naughty with Danny,” she rasped. On the outrush of her breath Jeryline smelled dried blood and decay. “You must pay the price.”

The match fell from Jeryline’s fingers. She turned, tensed to run, but Danny lurched forward and took her right leg in a bear hug. Instead she dropped heavily to her knees.

Wanda dug cold fingers through Jeryline’s hair. With a piglike grunt, Homer took her head in his hands and began to twist it. Things in her neck snapped and clicked. She was able to bellow out a scream. Wanda reacted by jamming her entire fist into Jeryline’s mouth. Jeryline kicked and bucked, out of air, the muscles and tendons of her head wrenched to the breaking point, knowing that before they were done her head would be completely torn off for the others to find.