The Binding (44 page)

Nat Thayer to the rescue
, he said to himself. A grim laugh escaped his lips, and he strode to the door and gripped the doorknob. The hairs on his hand stood up.

He pushed on the door and it drifted back. There were no dust motes in the fading light this time. Just clear hard angles in the blackness.

Something whispered on the landing above, past the railing, from a place he couldn’t see. A whisper and then a scuttling noise.

Nat closed the door, his left hand on the knob. As he shut it, the foyer grew dimmer. Only a few faint glimmerings of sunlight reached into the interior of the house. His right hand reached into the inner pocket and gripped the knife’s handle. His fingers slowly closed on the polished wood again and again, and he found himself staring at the warping facets of the window.
Now I’m inside the eyes
, he thought.
I am in the house and the house is in me.

Something moved behind him. A jolt of fear ran up his back,
but he turned slowly.

You . . .

It was the voice of his mother. The light contralto of his mother, but hoarse.

. . . are called.

Ah, so I was right about Mother
, he thought.
We’re all links in a chain. How many are here tonight? Is Chase risen up? Is William Prescott?

A figure stood on the top balcony, a face only, the body lost in interior darkness. The face was thin and bone white, with long black scabs across the cheeks and lips, like it’d been raked by a bird’s talons. Nat recognized the disembodied face from the newspaper photos: Jimmy Stearns. A tremor of horror swept through him, and he found himself unable to speak.

Jimmy Stearns’s eyes were black, insect eyes set into lifeless gray putty. They stared at Nat, and his flesh crawled as he stared back.
Is that what my mother’s eyes looked like when she jerked the steering wheel toward the abyss?
he thought.

The face withdrew, back into the blackness as if submerging in a dark pond.

You are called.

A male voice now, deep and guttural. Was it Bule’s?

He wondered if he’d really heard the voice or if the traveler was in his mind, whispering there.

“I am called,” he said aloud and he moved forward.

Charlie gripped his Captain America figurine and tried to burrow back into the brush. But the bald man twisted around and grabbed his neck. He shoved Charlie’s head forward until it was between his knees.

Twenty feet away the bonfire roared. The people around it . . . he didn’t want to look at them. Their faces were dead faces. They
smelled. They were standing, looking at the fire but not looking at the fire. As if they were waiting for a signal.

The Magician was near, he could tell.

I don’t want to be here
, he said in his mind.
I want to go home.

The flames sucked in air and branches snapped in the pile.

Magician, let me go home.

He was afraid the people would go rushing into the fire. And the bald man would take him and carry him in, too. The fire was big as a house. He squirmed back, but the bald man gripped his neck so tight. His fingers came around and pressed on his throat. Choking.

The Magician’s voice came to him.

Do you deserve to be saved, Charlie?

The voice wasn’t friendly. It wasn’t angry; it was just cold.

Are you angry with me?
Charlie said.
Did I do something wrong? The goblin . . .

I asked if you deserved to live, Charlie. Do you think you do?

Yes, I think so.

Would you like to live forever?

Charlie looked at the figures around him. Is that what he meant by
live forever
? Like them?

No, thank you. I want to see my daddy.

The Magician’s laugh—it was scary. Cruel. A bully’s laugh.

Charlie, you are going to burn.

Charlie shook his head no, fighting the bald man’s grip.

No!
he cried.
No, keep me away from it.

Charlie dropped Captain America and reached for the bald man’s hands. But the fingers gripping his neck were strong as steel. They didn’t budge.

He was choking. The fingers pressed into the soft flesh of his throat. Blackness closed in on the edge of his vision.

Like a little pig roasting. Will you squeal, Charlie? Will you?

His legs shaking, Nat walked quickly to the stairs and ascended the three steps to the landing. He headed up the rest of the way. The polished edges of the stairs gleamed far below his eyes, like lines of surf on a darkened beach as seen from a high cliff. That was all he could see. He reached for the railing.

He touched it and began to climb. He felt like he was pushing his face into black cloth.
Will it be a knife? Or will I step into a noose, the loose strands rough against my skin?
His neck tingled all over.

He reached the top of the stairs, the knife heavy in his coat.

Run
, he thought.
It’s not too late. Save yourself from this death.

Don’t look don’t look do not look.

But it was as if Nat were being forced around by an irresistible gravity and against his will, his head swiveling left slowly as he came to the top of the stairs and stepped onto the upstairs hallway. Half blind in the deep gloom. He felt a column of fetid breath—human breath—brushing against his face and gagged.

Submit.

A black face loomed up in his mind. Black eyes circling toward a tiny orange flame.

“I . . .”

He struggled to speak.

“I am called,” he said finally.

He felt his body unclench, and he was able to turn away. The stairs beckoned, but he couldn’t force his body to move. Bodies slithered away into the darkness behind him.

Where is Becca?
he thought.

Nat’s shoes whispered dully on the polished wood. He moved down the hallway and the feeling of black space extended in front of him like a deep pool. The light by Becca’s door was off. The smell of putrefaction was getting stronger, clogging his
throat. He felt as if he were lowering himself into a crypt filled with rotting bodies.

He took a breath, and the fumes nearly overwhelmed him. Nat gagged and reached out for the wall. At the last second he thought he would touch a face, and he let out a hoarse yell, but it was the wallpaper, and he leaned against it.

Becca, I’m coming
, he thought.

A laugh seemed to rumble up and travel the hallways from deep in the house, displacing the air around him. It moved with a rush past him. A door had been opened and then closed.

“Who is it?” he said, a waver of fear in his voice. His words seemed to echo and return to him.

Who is it Whoisit Who is . . .

Nat stumbled forward, at the same time reaching inside his jacket and turning the knife so that the long blade faced down toward his stomach, ready to be pulled out. He could feel the edge press through his thin wool shirt.

The air seemed to tremble in front of him, and Nat sank to his knees. A huge rumbling noise filled his world, and he opened his mouth to stop his eardrums from splitting. The air seemed to be sucked out of the hallway, and Nat gasped for breath while pressing his hands to his ears.

“Stop!” he cried. “
Stop!
”

The noise was cut off suddenly.

Are you ready to die and live again?

The air brought with it a sharp, metallic smell. He heard someone moaning softly in front of him. One voice, then two, and another. Everyone that Bule commanded was in the house now, he guessed. The dead—Elizabeth Dyer, Chuck Godwin, God knew who else. And the living. Becca. A final gathering of his
nzombes
.

Nat gritted his teeth. The smell seemed to be seeping into him, penetrating his pores.

“Let Becca go,” he said aloud.

He felt something move behind him, and the smell of rotting flesh swam over him. They were closing in. He coughed.

“Take me instead.”

He felt along the wall. His hand touched the mounted head of the boar, and he barely paused, staggering on, his eyes open wide and his mouth gasping for air.

He came to the door, felt the gashes in the wood. A faint smell of pine. He could feel the things gather behind him, the moaning twisting and braiding together until he felt he would go deaf. Nat twisted the knob and pushed in. The door opened, and he rushed into Becca’s room, rattling the door shut behind him.

He locked the two locks.

When he was done, he glanced at the bed. Becca was laid out on the duvet cover. She appeared to be asleep. There were candles burning, one on her desk, the other on the windowsill. Aromatic. He smelled pomegranate. And was that cinnamon?

He walked over to her. The handle of the knife was cool in his hand. He reached out with the left to touch her bare leg.

“Becca,” he called out softly.

She slept on. Moonlight shone in through the window, throwing long shadows toward him. Her head was in darkness, but he recognized the bones of her face.

“Becca, wake up.”

Leave her be.

Nat felt the strength begin to leave him, sliding out of his body like water from a cracked glass.

“Becca!” he cried.

His left hand curled over the knife handle.

Leave . . .

She came awake, the eyes fluttering and her lips repeating a
word that Nat didn’t catch.

Watch the eyes
, he told himself.

“Nat?” she said, and it was her voice. Becca’s true clear voice.

“Look into my eyes, Becca. Can you do that?”

“My arms,” she said. “You’re hurting me.”

“Look into my eyes,” he said, as gently as he could.

. . . her BE!

He looked into her eyes, and into the blackness at the center.

Something moved back there, like an eel in a dark pool. Just a glimpse of black against black.

He gripped the knife under the coat.

They were at the door, which creaked inward.

“Take . . . me!”

Becca’s eyes went wide with shock. Her mouth was open and she breathed shallowly. Then suddenly, the corners of her lips curled into a malevolent grin.

The flesh of her face sagged; the cheek muscles sharpened. Even her breathing had changed.
Bule
, Nat thought.
At last.

Becca’s lips stayed frozen in the leer.
Do you know . . . what happened to the last man who taunted me?

He must mean Markham, all those decades ago.
“I know.”

And you invite me to . . . ?
There was a garbled word, a foreign word.

Nat felt Becca’s arms push him off. Incredible power. He staggered back against the tall bookcase, which rattled back and forth on its wooden feet.

Jesus, the power in her body. Bule had killed Margaret Post, he was sure of it. And the St. Christopher’s medal at the death scene was proof that he’d used Becca’s body to do it. Clearly she had the strength. The thought of his Becca slitting the girl’s throat . . .

But it wasn’t her. Mustn’t think that way.

Becca sat on the bed, her head down, her shoulders crooked, impaled somehow, though there was nothing behind her.

I like my beautiful vessel.

Nat shivered and put his hands in his coat pockets. All he could do was threaten death. Then Bule would be forced away from Becca into one of the other
nzombes
.

“You can’t have her.”

A smile on the mouth beneath the glossy locks of hair.

I will have her, always.

A dark look entered Nat’s eyes. He brought the knife out of his coat and tipped the point toward Becca.

Her eyes went wide and she began to fall back. Nat came up on the bed on his knees and put his left hand over Becca’s face, covering it. He pushed her head down into the soft mattress. He placed the point of the knife to the beating flesh of her throat.

“You’ve had your revenge. It’s over now.”

You’d never.

Nat grimaced, jabbing the knife lightly into her skin. A spot of blood appeared crimson at the base of Becca’s throat. He turned away from the sight of the blood.

“
LEAVE!
” he shouted.

I know your mind.

“I will kill her, Bule.”

Suddenly Becca went limp. He felt her eyelids flutter. He eased the hand back over her mouth.

Have I killed her?

“Nat?” her voice was soft, confused.

“Don’t do this,” he said to the voice in his head, his voice weakening. He pulled the knife from her throat and laid it on the bed under his outspread hand.

“Nat, what’s happening?”

He shook his head, unable to speak.

“Na—”

Did she even remember the murder of Margaret Post? The struggle of her body, the gouts of blood?

But what did it matter? Who cared if she did it herself or used one of the
nzombes
in the hallway? It didn’t really matter.

She raised up on one elbow, touching her hand to her throat. It came away with a blotch of blood on the pad of her index finger. She looked at it, and then at him.

The noise at the door spiked, moaning and shouting. The stench was growing unbearable again, the air swimming with currents of putrid fumes.

“Who are they?” she said.

“It’s the others.”

She saw the knife on the bed, under his hand. Her gaze came back to him. She closed her eyes, and a tremor—disgust? fear?—rippled along the muscles of her neck. She understood now. When she opened her eyes, there was terror in them.

“He’s inside me, Nat?”

It was the trust in her voice that appalled him the most. She hadn’t even tried to escape when she’d seen the weapon. He felt himself grow light-headed.

“Is he?”

I don’t know. The only way to be sure is to kill you. And that I can’t do.