Usher's Passing (6 page)

"Atlanta's my home now." Rix realized he sounded too defensive. "This is a new limo, I see. Only three hundred miles on the odometer."

"Mr. Usher ordered it a month ago. He could get around then. Now he can't leave his bed. He has a private nurse, of course. A Mrs. Paula Reynolds, from Asheville."

The maroon limo glided through Asheville, passing tobacco warehouses, bank buildings, and shopping malls. Just beyond the city's northeastern boundary line stood a large gray concrete structure that resembled a bunker and covered almost twelve acres of prime commercial property. It was surrounded by a chain-link fence topped with barbed wire. The only windows were horizontal slits placed equidistantly from one another below the roof, like gunports in a fortress. The parking lot, full of cars, stretched another three acres. Set on the side of the building facing the highway were black metal letters that read
USHER ARMAMENTS
, and beneath that, in smaller letters.
ESTABLISHED 1841
. It was the ugliest building Rix had ever seen, and it looked more repellent every time he passed it.

Old Hudson would be proud, Rix thought. The gunpowder-and-bullets business begun by a Welshman in 1841 had culminated in four ammunition and weaponry plants that bore the Usher name: in Asheville, in Washington, D.C., in San Diego, and in Brussels, Belgium. "The business," as it was referred to in the family, had supplied gunpowder, firearms, dynamite, plastic explosives, and state-of-the-art weapons systems to the highest bidder for more than one hundred and fifty years. "The business" had built Usherland, had made the Usher name known and respected as creators of death. Rix wondered how many people had been killed by those weapons for every one of the thirty thousand acres in Usherland, how many had been blown to pieces for every dark stone in the Lodge.

When he'd left Usherland almost seven years before, Rix had told himself he'd never return. To him, Usherland was awash with the gore of slaughter; even as a child, he'd felt the brooding presence of death in those tangled forests, in the ornate Gatehouse and the insane Lodge. Though his heritage of blood sickened him, he found himself haunted over the years by his early memories of Usherland, almost as if something within him was unfulfilled and Usherland was calling him back, time and again, with whispered promises. He had returned several times, but only for a day or two. His mother and father remained as remote and impassive as always, his brother seemed locked in time as a strutting bully, and his sister did all she could to avoid dealing with reality.

They left the building behind and turned onto a wide, winding highway that climbed into the mountains. Spectacular scenery greeted Rix; the craggy hills and carpets of woodland blazed with deep scarlet, purple, and gold. Beneath the cloudless blue sky the land was a panorama of blood and fire.

"How's Mom taking this?" Rix asked.

"She's coping. Some days are better than others. But you know how she is, Rix. She's lived in a perfect world for so long that she can't accept what's happening."

"I thought he'd get better," Rix said quietly. "You know how strong he is, and how stubborn. Who's the doctor you mentioned over the phone?"

"Dr. John Francis. Mr. Usher had him flown down from Boston. He's a specialist in cell degeneration."

"Is . . . Dad in much pain?"

Edwin didn't answer, and Rix understood. The agony that Walen Usher would be enduring—the final stages of Usher's Malady—would make Rix's attack in New York seem like a mild headache.

Edwin turned off the main highway onto a narrow but well-kept country road. At an intersection ahead, a sign pointed in different directions to the communities of Rainbow, Taylorville, and Foxton. He drove east, toward Foxton. A town of some two thousand people, mostly farmers, Foxton and its surrounding tobacco fields had been owned by the Usher family for five generations.

The limo glided through Foxton's streets. The community was growing steadily, and Rix saw changes since he'd last come this way. The Broadleaf Cafe had moved to a new brick structure, there was a modern Carolinas Bank building, and colored pennants popped in the breeze over a used-car lot. The Empire Theater's marquee advertised a Halloween double bill of vintage Orlon Kronsteen horror flicks. Still, the old Foxton lingered: a couple of elderly farmers in straw hats sat on a bench in front of the hardware store enjoying the sunshine; a beat-up pickup truck rumbled past, loaded with bundles of tobacco leaves; a group of men standing idly by the Woolworth's store turned to watch the limo pass, and Rix could see the resentment in their eyes like low-burning coals. They quickly turned away. Rix knew that their voices would tighten as they talked about the Ushers; perhaps they would even whisper, fearful that anything said about old Walen would be heard across the dense forests and ridges of stone separating Foxton and Usherland.

Rix glanced toward a small, rough stone structure housing the
Foxton Democrat,
a weekly newspaper that served the "tri-city" area. He could see the reflection of the limo in the plate-glass window, and then he was aware that a woman with dark hair was standing behind the window, close enough that her face almost touched the glass. He imagined that for a second or two her eyes were fixed right on him, but he knew she couldn't see through the limo's tinted glass. Still, he looked away uneasily.

Outside Foxton, the forest rapidly thickened again, looming close to the road like impenetrable walls. The beauty of the mountains became savage, as jagged rock thrust up from the earth like the gray bones of grotesque, half-buried monsters. An occasional rutted dirt trail wound up into the forest from the main road, leading into remote territory where hundreds of hillbilly families clung tenaciously to the values of the nineteenth century. Their stronghold, Briartop Mountain, stood on the northern edge of Usherland, and Rix had often wondered what those people—who had occupied the mountain for generations—thought of the acres of gardens, rolling hills, fountains, and stables in the alien world beneath them. They were distrustful of all but their own, and rarely came down to trade in Foxton.

Rix suddenly felt the back of his neck prickle. If he'd been looking at a map of property lines, he wouldn't have known with any greater certainty that they had entered the Usher domain. The forest seemed darker, the autumn leaves of such deep reds and purples that they appeared to shimmer with an oily blackness. The black canopy of leaves overhung the road, and tangles of briars—the kind that could gash to the bone and snap off— twisted in ugly corkscrews as dangerous as barbed wire. Massive scabs of stone clung to the hillsides, threatening to slide down and smash the limo into junk. Rix realized his palms were sweating. The wilderness seemed to be a hostile environment unsuited for a civilized human being—yet this was the land that Hudson Usher had fallen in love with. Or, perhaps, seen as a challenge to be broken. In any case, it had never been Rix's cup of thorns.

In traveling this way over the years, though infrequently, Rix had never failed to catch a sense of brutality in the land, a kind of soulless crushing power that made him feel weak and small. It was little wonder, he thought, that the people of Foxton considered Usherland a place best avoided, and had created folktales to emphasize their fear of the dark, forbidding mountains.

"Pumpkin Man still in the woods?" Rix asked softly.

Edwin glanced at him, then smiled. "My God! Do you still remember that story?"

"How could I forget it? Let's see, how did that rhyme go? 'Run, run as fast as you can, 'cause out in the woods walks the Pumpkin Man.' Is that it?"

"Near enough."

"I should put the Pumpkin Man in a book someday," Rix said. "What about the black panther that walks like a man? Any new sightings?"

"Yes, as a matter of fact. In August the
Democrat
said some lunatic hunter swore he'd seen it up on Briartop. I suppose stories like those sell newspapers."

Rix scanned the tangled forest on both sides of the road. A knot of tension had thickened in his stomach as he recalled the tale told to him by Edwin about the Pumpkin Man, a creature the locals said had lived in the mountains for more than a hundred years and stole away children who roamed too far from home. Even now, as an adult, Rix still thought of the Pumpkin Man with childlike dread, though he knew the story had been concocted by the hillbillies to keep their children from getting lost in the woods.

Around the road's next curve stood a formidable granite wall that held an intricately fashioned pair of wrought-iron gates. Scripted in iron on a granite arch above the gates was the name USHER. Edwin reached over to the dashboard and switched on a small device that triggered the radio-controlled locks. As the gates swung open, Edwin never even had to lift his foot from the accelerator.

Rix looked over his shoulder when they were through and saw the gates locking themselves again. The design on them had always reminded him of a spider's web.

At once the landscape changed. Though there were still places of deep, wild forest, there were also lush greenswards and meticulously kept gardens where roses, violets, and sunflowers grew amid prancing statues of fauns, centaurs, and cherubs. A tall glass roof sighted through orderly rows of pine trees signaled the conservatory where one of Rix's ancestors had grown a variety of cacti and succulents. Honeysuckle, tall maiden grass, and English ivy boiled up from the forest. Rix saw several gardeners at work, trimming hedges and pruning trees. In one garden stood a huge red Baldwin locomotive mounted on a stone pedestal. It dated from the early days of the railroad pioneers and had been the first piece of equipment purchased by his great-great-grandfather Aram, Hudson's son. At one time the Ushers had operated their own railroad—the Atlantic Seaboard Limited—to haul freight of gunpowder, ammunition, and weapons.

Several thousand acres of the Usher estate had never been mapped. The land encompassed mountains, slow-moving streams, wide meadows, and three deep, peat-filmed lakes. As always, Rix was struck by the sheer beauty of Usherland as Edwin drove toward the Gatehouse. It was a magnificent, breathtaking estate worthy of American royalty. But then, Rix thought grimly, there was always the Lodge—the sanctified cathedral of the Usher clan.

Edwin slowed the car as they neared the Gatehouse's porte-cochere. The mansion, of white limestone with a red slate roof, was surrounded by colorful gardens and huge, ancient oak trees.

It held thirty-two rooms, and had been built by Rix's greatgrandfather Ludlow as a guesthouse.

The limo stopped. Rix dreaded stepping into that house. He paused as Edwin started to get out of the car, then felt Edwin's hand on his shoulder.

"It'll be all right," Edwin assured him. "You'll see."

"Yeah," Rix replied. He forced himself to get out, and took his garment bag from the trunk as Edwin carried his suitcase. They climbed a flight of stone steps, walked across a tiled patio with a goldfish pond at its center, and stopped at a front door that looked like an oak slab.

When Edwin pressed the doorbell, they were admitted by a young black maid in a crisp pale blue uniform. Another servant, a middle-aged black man in a gray suit, welcomed Rix home and took his bags, crossing the wide parquet-floored foyer to the sweeping central staircase. Rix saw that the house was becoming more like a damned museum every time he returned. The perfect furnishings—Persian rugs, antique French tables and chairs, gilded turn-of-the-century mirrors, and medieval tapestries of hunting scenes hanging from the walls—seemed meant to be admired at a distance. The Louis XV chairs would never feel human weight; brass and ceramic objets d'art would be tickled with a duster but never touched. All the things in the house seemed as cold to Rix as the people who had chosen them.

"Mrs. Usher and Mr. Boone are in the living room, sir," the young maid said, and waited to escort him.

Edwin said, "Good luck," and left to drive the limo around to the garage.

The burnished walnut living room doors were set in tracks. The maid slid them open for him. Rix paused on the threshold for a second, noticing a sickly sweet smell that had suddenly come wafting out of nowhere.

He realized it was human decay. Coming from upstairs.

His father's room.

He braced himself and walked into the living room to face his brother and the matriarch of the Usher family.

NUDGING THE LOGS IN THE MARBLE FIREPLACE WITH A BRASS POKER
, Boone glanced up at the sound of the opening doors and saw Rix in the gilt-framed mirror above the hearth. "Ah!" he said. "Here's the famous horror author, Momma!"

Margaret Usher sat in a high-backed Italian armchair, facing the fire. She'd been chilly all day, and she couldn't drive the cold from her bones. She did not turn to greet her son.