The House That Jack Built (44 page)

    After nearly a minute, she knelt down next to Brewster's body, touching it gently, feeling its contours. Anybody watching her would have thought that she felt regret. But after a few moments, she stood up, and picked up the sheet, and wound it around herself like a toga, and inched her way carefully out of the room.

    Brewster lay where he was, his eyes still open. The blood from his wounds spread across the carpet, and formed a shape like a goat's head, with asymmetric horns.

    

    

    Norman checked all of the guest bedrooms and all of the bathrooms, right the way down to the very western end of Valhalla, which overlooked the Hudson Highlands. Some of the rooms were bare-boarded, with peeling wallpaper and damp patches which looked like the maps of undiscovered continents. Others still had beds, and carpets, and yellowed curtains, and spare linen stacked neatly in the closets. The folded edges of the linen were stained with age, and some of the pillows had been ravaged by mice. But Norman still had the feeling that the people who had slept in those rooms had only stepped out for a moment, and might soon return.

    Whether they were furnished or not, every bedroom shared a view of the blackening sky, and the swathes of rain that were trailing over the Hudson Valley from Kingston in the north to Tarrytown in the south; and the thin, snakes'-tongue licks of lightning. It felt to Norman that apocalypse was coming: the day of judgement. He was beginning to wish that he hadn't volunteered to have any part in his mother's attempts to cleanse Valhalla of its psychic disturbances. He would have been better off at Clarke's Bar & Grill, talking joists and covings with his building buddies.

    The bathrooms were the creepiest, as far as he was concerned. Every time he opened a bathroom door, he saw his own pallid face in the mirror, and every basin seemed to have a spider in it, black and impossibly long-legged. It was the rain, he guessed. Spiders always came into the house when rain was imminent.

    After he had checked the rest of the second storey, he came out onto the landing where the plaster-creature was hunched. He hadn't seen it as a creature until Mrs. Bellman had pointed it out to him, and now he found himself staring at it uneasily, and making sure that he didn't turn his back to it. He could just imagine it shuffling across the landing and jumping onto his back, and then biting into his jugular vein with that cracked, lopsided mouth.

    He checked his watch. Brewster shouldn't be long. There were only twelve rooms and eight closets and four bathrooms on the third storey. He leaned against the banister-rail and drummed his fingers and whined Nirvana's
All Apologies
through his nose. It was the most miserable song he could think of. He checked his watch again. Come on Brewster, man. You don't have to make a meal of it.

    He was still waiting when a large chunk of plaster unexpectedly dropped off the plaster-creature and broke into dust and fragments on the floor, making him start.

    The creature now looked grimmer and more distorted than ever, with half of its forehead missing. Norman walked across to it and said, 'Fuck you, man,' and kicked it in its bulging, misshapen midriff.

    At first he made no impression on it, but then he kicked it again, and again, and its belly collapsed in a shower of plaster and fungus and sodden, discoloured wallpaper. He kicked its face, and its jaw fell off. He kicked its eye, and its eye disappeared. He kicked it and kicked it until it was nothing more than a heap of crumbled off-white fragments, spread across the landing.

    He was kicking so hard that he didn't hear the light, quick footsteps on the stairs. He sensed that there was somebody there, but he assumed that it was Brewster, and so he gave the plaster-creature one last kick and said, 'What do you think, man? Bit of impromptu restoration.'

    He stepped back, brushing his hands together and admiring the mess he had made. 'I should have been a kick-boxer. What do you think? Eat your heart out, Steven Seagal!'

    He took another step back, and turned, but it wasn't Brewster at all. It was a tall, dark man with a blurry, indistinguishable face. He was dressed in black and carrying a walking-cane. Norman leaned forward a little, trying to focus on him; but it didn't seem to be possible.

    'Are you here with-?' he began, but the man took one step towards him and he shut his mouth.

    'This is my house,' the man told him. His voice was very deep; very courteous; but frightening none the less.

    'Well, I don't think so,' Norman corrected him. 'This house actually belongs to Mr. and Mrs. Craig Bellman. I'm Norman Moriarty by the way. I've been commissioned to take care of the restoration work. Are you interested in that kind of thing? You can have my card.'

    'This is my house,' the man repeated. 'I thought of it, I created it, I built it.'

    'In that case,' said Norman, flippantly, 'you'd have to be Jack Belias.'

    The man said nothing, but lifted his walking-cane and gripped it as if he were going to break it in half.

    'Trouble is, Jack Belias went off to the house not made by hands; and that was in 1937.'

    'When was 1937?'

    'What do you mean, when was 1937? Nineteen thirty-seven was, like, 1937. That's like asking when was five o'clock.'

    The man took a step closer and Norman could smell his strong, floral toilet-water. 'I'll tell you when was 1937, you ignorant puppy. Nineteen thirty-seven was now; and 1937 was tomorrow; and 1937 was fifty years hence.'

    Norman cleared his throat with a sharp barking sound. 'You're trying to say that you are Jack Belias?'

    The man came up close and stood over Norman in the same way that the thunderclouds stood over Storm King Mountain. His voice was rich with corruption and threat.

    'You don't doubt me, do you?'

    Norman lifted both of his hands. It was not only a gesture of conciliation; it was a way of warding Jack Belias off.

    Jack Belias took one step forward, and then another. 'You've been trespassing here, haven't you? You haven't been upstairs, have you? You haven't let my little captive free?'

    'Listen, man, I don't know what you're talking about. I don't know what you mean. If you want me to leave, I'll leave.'

    Jack Belias' voice suddenly rose to a roar. 'You think you can get away with it that easily? You think you can get away with it without being punished?'

    'Listen, I'm out of here. I promise.'

    But without warning, Jack Belias lifted his walking-cane and struck Norman a cracking crosswise blow on the right shoulder, close to his neck. Norman said, 'Shit, man!' and lifted his arms to protect himself, but Jack Belias struck him again and again and again, so hard and so savagely that there was nothing Norman could do but stagger backwards.

    'I don't brook trespassers and I don't brook vandals and I won't brook you!' Jack Belias raged at him. He hit him on the fingers of his left hand, and Norman heard two of them crack.

    'Leave me alone!' he screamed. 'Leave me alone! I haven't done anything to you!'

    But Jack Belias ignored him, and continued to strike him again and again - on the arms, on the shoulders, on the side of the head. Every time Norman tried to step back, Jack Belias took a step forward. His face was still blurry and unfocused, but Norman could see that it was contorted with anger, his eyebrows locked in a frown, his mouth dragged down like a Japanese demon mask.

    He turned, stumbled, and Jack Belias thrashed him across the back. It was the noise that frightened Norman just as much as the pain. It sounded as if a madman were trying to beat a sofa to death. He limped along the corridor with Jack Belias walking behind him, hitting his back and his legs.

    'You thought you could get away with it?' Jack Belias kept on roaring at him. 'You thought I'd let you go free?'

    Norman ducked, and twisted around, and snatched at the walking-cane. He caught hold of the end of it, and tried to wrench it out of Jack Belias' hand. They wrestled and pushed and grunted. Norman turned the walking-cane around and around like a dock-hand, trying to break Jack Belias' grip. Neither of them spoke.

    There was a moment when Norman thought that Jack Belias was going to break the rest of his fingers, but then he suddenly twisted the walking-cane one way, and then the other, and Jack Belias dropped it. It fell on its tip and danced away down the corridor as if it had a life of its own.

    Norman gave Jack Belias a single huge shove, and then limped towards the nearest window. His ears were ringing, his jaw was aching, and his body felt as if it had been crushed under a falling joist. He heard Jack Belias shouting with rage as he went back to pick up his cane; and he knew that he couldn't stand any more beating. Jack Belias would kill him next time.

    He banged open the window catch with his bruised fist. The gale-force wind instantly blew the windows open, and one of them swung against the panelling and smashed. The rain hit Norman in the face like frozen gravel, and the net curtains blew wildly up into the air.

    'Vandal! I'll teach you!' Jack Belias bellowed. He struck at the top of Norman's head, and Norman lost his balance and almost fell down onto the stone patio thirty feet below. He managed to save himself only by catching hold of the window, which swung unnervingly towards him.

    For two or three terrifying seconds, he was half in and half out of the window, clinging onto the sill to stop himself from falling, while Jack Belias thrashed at his legs. Then he managed to kick back, and heave himself out onto the narrow stone ledge that ran the whole length of the second storey to the front of the house.

    'I'll get you, you bastard!' Jack Belias shouted at him. Lightning crackled over the trees, and for an instant everything was lit in dazzling blueish-white. Then thunder detonated directly overhead, and Norman clung to the wet stone as rain lashed against his back and turned his jeans into grotesque, wet, overweight leggings.

    Sniffling with pain, he edged away from the open window and began to creep slowly towards the next. His only fingerhold was a rough, narrow crevice between the bricks. Three of the fingers in his left hand were fractured, and he had to hold them straight, so that he was keeping a grip with only his little finger, with his thumb pressed against the brick facing for balance. Up above him, the guttering was broken, and gallons of rainwater were splattering down the wall and onto his head.

    He was clear of the first window when he heard a banging sound. Jack Belias had opened the next window, and was leaning out.

    'You really thought that I would let you go? You really thought that I wouldn't punish you! You can't escape from me!'

    Norman rested his forehead against the wall. He couldn't go forward and he couldn't go back. Whichever window he went for, Jack Belias would be waiting for him. He couldn't stay here much longer, either. He was soaked through to the skin, and his fingers were aching so much that he almost didn't care whether he held on or not. He didn't want to look behind him because he knew it was a long drop to the rain-slicked patio below.

    'Come on, then, what are you waiting for?' Jack Belias taunted him.

    Norman edged a little further along. His hair was hanging down over his face in wet rat-tails and he was beginning to whimper. He glanced at Jack Belias again and suddenly saw that there was a metal pipe running vertically down the wall. If he could fasten his belt to that pipe, he could stay out here until help came, or Jack Belias grew tired of waiting for him.

    He shuffled further along the wall. Jack Belias reached out of the open window and rapped his cane against the bricks, trying to dislodge him, or at least to frighten him, but Norman knew that he was out of reach. He inched his way nearer and nearer to the pipe, and at last his right hand closed around it. He swayed for a moment, and had a sickening feeling that he was going to fall over backwards, but then he managed to grip the pipe tight.

    The most difficult part was unbuckling his belt. He had to do it with his right hand because the fingers of his left were so damaged. Clinging on with nothing but his left-hand pinkie, he swayed two or three times and had quickly to let go of his belt and snatch at the pipe to regain his balance. By the time he managed to thread his belt behind the pipe and buckle it up again, he was crying with pain and exhaustion.

    'So you're going to stay there, are you?' Jack Belias mocked him. 'Well, in that case, stay there, and be damned. I hope the crows come and peck out your eyes!’

    Norman turned to him. 'Fuck you, man!' he screamed. 'What did I ever do to you? What are you, some kind of sadist? What did I ever do to you? I wasn't vandalising your rotten house, I was trying to restore it!'

    'Then you're a bigger fool than I thought!' Jack Belias shouted back at him. 'It is restored! It will always be restored, just as it will always be minted!'

    'Well, fuck you!' Norman retorted.

    At that instant, the faint leader-stroke of a huge lightning discharge came flickering like a viper's tongue through the clouds above Valhalla, searching for a line of least resistance. It was momentarily attracted by Valhalla's tall chimneys, but then it suddenly forked sideways and touched the copper
fleur-de-lys
that surmounted Valhalla's lightning-conductor. Instantly it was followed by a massive return stroke, and then another, each of more than 200,000 volts - and then an ear-splitting crack of superheated, air, hotter for one-hundredth of a second than the surface of the sun.

    Norman's chest glowed orange from the inside, like a hideous Hallowe'en. Then he literally exploded, and blackened arms and legs were flung across the patio. His charred head, with the stubble of his hair still smoking, rolled into the bushes.