Usher's Passing (49 page)

Still, there was something about Rix that scared Boone. Something deep, something hidden away from everyone. He'd seen it spark in Rix's eyes several times in the last few days: a hatred and bitterness so twisted it could commit murder. And Rix had tried to stab him in the dining room. Boone regretted not having smashed his teeth out right in front of everyone. Rix would've gone crying to his room.

Boone slid the Ferrari around curves, barely tapping the brakes, grinning at the thrill of speed. Katt thought she was going to get everything, he knew—but she was dead wrong. He had Puddin' to thank for Katt's downfall: the last time Katt had jaunted off to New York for a weekend, Puddin' had rummaged through her closet for a dress to wear and had discovered the entrance to her Quiet Room. Puddin' had shown him what she'd found in there, and Boone had taken it straight to Walen, who at that time hadn't yet sealed himself in his own Quiet Room. Boone would never forget the old man's expression of shock and disgust. Prob'ly buyin' the shit in Asheville, Boone had said. Prob'ly spendin' a damned fortune on it, too.

Walen had told him to put it back where it had been, and that he would take care of Katt in his own way.

Boone knew what that meant. Dad might be stringing her along now, but she'd been cut out of the inheritance.

Rain began to patter on the windshield. Boone quickly slowed down. He wasn't so drunk he wanted to end up as a bloody smear on the road. As he rounded the bend and drove toward Usherland's gates, he hit the switch under the dashboard and the gates opened smoothly for him, then closed again when he'd passed through.

He couldn't bear to return to that room where Puddin' lay sleeping. She thinks she's got me by the balls! he snorted. Well, after he got his hands on all those billions, he could have his choice of beautiful women. Puddin' wasn't as pretty as she used to be. The beauty-queen gilt had rubbed off, and underneath was pure country cardboard. He drove slowly past the dark Gatehouse and followed the road toward the Lodge.

What a showplace the Lodge was going to be when he moved in! He was going to throw out all those damned dusty antiques and suits of armor and shit, put some nice new furniture in. There would be a whole floor full of video games, and in the basement he'd have grottoes of fake rock, where colored lights played on steamy water. He'd have a master bedroom with red walls and a huge bed draped in black fur, and there would be a mirrored ceiling. There would be no end to the parties, and if he wanted to, he'd ride his horses right up and down the corridors.

Boone often went to the Lodge to walk in it, visualizing how it would look once he lived there. Sometimes he told Puddin' and his mother that he was going to the stables, but instead he'd go to the Lodge. It was the most beautiful place in the world, he thought. Its majesty and immensity sometimes almost made him cry; and in the silence of the Lodge-he could sit in an overstuffed chair and know that soon—very soon—all of it would belong to
him.

He'd never feared the Lodge. The Lodge loved him, too, and wanted him as its master. In the dreams he'd been having for the past few months, he'd seen the Lodge aflame with lights, and figures drifting past the windows as they would at the party Boone planned to give as soon as he moved in. Lately the dreams had been coming almost every night, and in some of them he'd heard his name called by a soft, beckoning voice that had brought him up from sleep in eager exhilaration.

The Lodge wanted him. The Lodge was waiting to embrace him, and he would love it all the days of his life.

Boone drove across the bridge and parked under the porte-cochere. Then he got out in the misty rain, stumbled around to the trunk, unlocked it, and retrieved his bull's-eye lantern and a map he'd made of the first floor. He clicked the lantern on and shone it up the steps.

The Lodge's front entrance was open. Several times he'd come out here before and found the door wide open. He'd mentioned it to Edwin, who'd promised to keep an eye on the place. There was little danger of someone breaking into the Lodge, Boone knew. Not with all those stories about black panthers and the Pumpkin Man roaming near the estate. Boone's guess was that the Lodge was shifting, and the door wouldn't shut properly anymore. From the looks of the deep cracks in the walls, the house was under a lot of internal pressure. Reinforcing the Lodge would have top priority when Boone took over.

He followed the beam of his lantern into the Lodge. At once he felt giddy with pleasure; he was back in his favorite world again, and he almost shouted with joy. He moved through the foyer, past the massive fountain with its carved statues, and into a cavernous reception area with royal blue sofas and chairs, mahogany tables, and flags from every country in the world hanging from the ceiling. The silence in the Lodge was complete as Boone continued through a series of huge rooms. Entering a winding corridor, Boone followed it for perhaps forty yards and then opened a large sliding door. Beyond it was the main study, and Boone's flashlight picked out familiar sights: several black leather chairs arranged around a low rosewood coffee table, a dark slab of a desk with lion's heads carved into it, a rug made from the hides of polar bears, and shelves filled with a variety of decanters and glasses. A short stairway led down to a door that Boone had found was securely locked. He crossed the room to the fireplace of black marble; the charred remnants of the last fire he'd lit in here still cluttered the hearth. Beside it was a brass barrel of wood left over from Erik's day, and some newspapers Boone had recently brought in. He spent a few minutes getting new pieces of wood arranged in the hearth—banged his head against the marble and cursed drunkenly—and then stuffed paper under it, touched his cigar lighter's flame to it, and stepped back as the fire quickly grew. The old, dried-out wood burned fiercely. The room took on a festive glow. Boone put his lantern aside and went to the shelves.

He'd finished off some damned fine whiskey the last time he was here at night. He sniffed at several decanters before the delicious aroma of cognac filled his nostrils; with a satisfied grunt, he poured himself a glassful and then sat down behind the desk. Going down, the stuff was as mellow as melted gold. He might sleep here tonight, he thought. Just pull up a chair in front of the fire, to help cut the chill, and he'd be fine. He thought of old Erik sitting at this desk, signing important papers. He and Erik would've gotten along just dandy, he was sure. They would've respected each other.

Boone drank his cognac and listened to the fire bum. He felt at peace here, safe and secure. He smelled woodsmoke instead of his father's decay. How much longer he could stand living in the Gatehouse, he didn't know. Sipping the last of the fragrant cognac in his glass, Boone paused. He put the glass down and cocked his head to one side.

Lying on the coffee table, next to a large cigar box, was something that hadn't been there this afternoon.

It was a bulky book, trimmed in gold. Boone stood up and went over to it, playing his fingers across the fine leather. He took it nearer the fireplace and opened it.

Inside were old photographs glued to the pages. Boone knew Erik had loved pictures; walls of the Lodge's first floor were covered with photographs from Erik's time. But what
kind
of photographs these were quickly became apparent. Boone's stomach clenched involuntarily.

They were pictures of corpses.

Soldiers, Boone realized. Frozen in every position of death. They were pictures taken on the battlefield, in field hospitals and morgues, closeups of soldiers tangled in barbed wire or blown apart at the bottom of muddy trenches, bodies almost denuded of flesh, ripped to pieces by land mines or grenades, crushed into the earth by trucks or tanks. As far as Boone could tell from the uniforms and the backgrounds, they were of World War I vintage. Another series of pictures showed decapitated bodies, followed by heads on slabs. Boone stared at death in all its grisly forms, and though the fire was strong and warm, he felt his skin crawling.

The book held several hundred pictures. Some of them, separated from the glue, drifted down around Boone's feet. Erik had loved pictures, Boone thought. And maybe these were the kind of pictures he loved the best.

Something slammed elsewhere in the Lodge, making Boone jump. A door, he thought, his mental processes sluggish. Did somebody slam a door?

And then it came to him with chilling, sobering clarity: the front door had slammed shut.

Boone stood very still, listening. Mutilated corpses with the faces of young boys stared up at him. Boone dropped the book on the floor and stepped away from it, wiping his hands on his pants. Then he took his lantern and went out into the corridor.

It seemed much colder now in the Lodge; he could see the faint plume of his breath, curling from his mouth. He retraced his steps along the corridor.

Then, abruptly, he stopped.

"No," he whispered, and his voice echoed around him
no no no no . . .

His light had fallen upon a wall of rough stones, where no wall had been when he'd come through the corridor before. He approached it, touched it; the stones were cold, and very real. Stunned, he retreated and tried to think how he'd gotten turned around. Careful, Boonie old boy, he told himself. There's no problem. Just get back to Erik's study, right?

He walked to the study's open doors and stopped on the threshold. His light shone into the interior of the Lodge's elevator. The study was gone.

He looked into the room across the corridor, and found that it was a music room with a white grand piano, a pump organ, and a harpsichord. On the ceiling was a painted blue sky with fleecy clouds. In all the times Boone had come into the Lodge and strode down this corridor, he'd
never
before seen this chamber. The next arched doorway led into a large parlor decorated with feminine frills and painted pale pink. His map, which shook as he held it close to the light, showed no such room on the first floor. Shaken, Boone stood outside the elevator where the study had been a few minutes before. Okay, he said mentally, I've just gotten a little bit fucked-up here. No problem. I'll keep walkin' until I find a room that looks familiar, and then I'll figure my way out.

The corridor led him on, twisting and turning, branching off to each side, passing staircases that vanished beyond the range of the light. Boone saw no room he recognized through any of the dozens of doorways. His palms were sweating, his face frozen into a crooked, disbelieving grin. He was dizzy and disoriented. What had happened to Rix could happen to him, too, he realized. Oh Jesus Christ! he thought. I've got to find the way out!

And with a final twist to the left, the corridor ended at a wide staircase that ascended into darkness.

Boone examined the map. He'd found ten staircases in his explorations of the Lodge's first floor, but he'd never seen this one before. If he didn't know where he was, the map was useless. I'll go back, he decided. I'll sit my ass down in front of that elevator and wait for somebody to see my car out front. No problem.

Boone had taken only a few steps when his legs locked. He gave a soft, scared whimper.

His path was blocked by another wall, adorned with old framed pictures of the Lodge.

He laughed nervously, a strangled sound that echoed faintly around him. That wall hadn't been there before. The corridor had sealed itself behind his back. But the pictures indicated the wall might have been there for fifty years.

The air was turning bitterly cold, and Boone could see his breath whirling before him. He guided the light over the wall. Atop the picture frames was a thin layer of dust. He hammered at the bricks with his fist, but, like the rest of the Lodge, the wall had been built to endure for generations.

Now he had no choice but to climb the stairs. Except, when he returned to the staircase, he found it had changed directions, and now
descended
into the Lodge's depths.

He gripped the banister and squeezed his eyes shut. When he opened them again, the stairs still led downward. Lost! he thought, tottering on the edge of panic. Lost like a rat in a maze! But the maze was being changed as he went along, Boone realized. Was this what it had been like for Rix, a long time ago? The corridors blocking themselves, staircases changing direction, rooms shifting from one minute to the next?

Fear flared in his belly. I've got to get out! he screamed inwardly. The only way open to him was the staircase, and he started down it.

Boone's teeth chattered from the cold. The stairway curved into the darkness, and Boone gripped the banister tightly to keep from slipping as the angle of the steps steepened. At the bottom, his lantern illuminated walls and floor of rough granite, an archway into a corridor that angled off beyond the light's range. Dead electric bulbs were fixed to the walls; above them were smears of soot where torches had once been the sole source of light.