Zod Wallop (5 page)

Helen hurriedly put her sunglasses back on, hunted up her cigarettes, tapped one out of the pack, and lit it. She blew smoke at Harry. “You there?”

Harry’s voice came from a distance, traveled all the way from Dr. Moore’s office at Harwood Psychiatric. Harry said, “I never told you this, Helen, but when I first wrote
Zod Wallop
, the Less-Than triumphed. The Midnight Machine killed Henry Bottle. Lydia died too—when the River of Stone flooded the castle.”

Helen Kurtis found that her mouth was open. She closed it and smoke drifted from her nostrils.

Harry Gainesborough sat in Dr. Moore’s office. Dr. Moore looked like a kindly farmer, silver hair falling across his forehead, grey eyes squinted from a long assessment of droughts and floods. He folded his hands and gave Harry a long look. “I know. I know what I’m asking.”

“I don’t think you do, Doctor. I am not about to write any more children’s books. It’s not what I would call therapy. Splinters under my fingernails would be more profitable. I wrote those books to make Amy laugh…” Here his voice broke. Damn it! He stopped, collected himself, continued: “Look Doctor, your suggestion that I ‘get on with my work,’ might make sense if I were a carpenter or a doctor or something, but I’m not. Don’t give me that crap about not wasting a gift. I don’t want to make other people’s children laugh. I resent those other children’s lives, frankly.” Harry paused. “That’s a little strong, isn’t it?” He sat in silence. Finally he said, “But that’s about the size of it. I think about it, and it’s ugly but true. Let the little bastards get their sweetness and light elsewhere.”

Dr. Moore nodded slowly. “Exactly my thought,” he said. “I wasn’t asking you to write a happy-ever-after fable. But you are an artist, Harry, and art might still be your salvation. Write something dark, if that’s what’s required. Don’t worry about what is expected of you. Don’t look over your shoulder. Don’t bother being a good boy. Get it out. Purge yourself through your gifts, your paintings, your writing. Kill all the children, if you must.”

“Kill all the children,” Harry said.

“What’s that?” Helen said.

“Sorry,” Harry said. “I’ve been out in the sun too long today. I’m sorry, Helen. Unless you are determined to catch some fish, I say we retreat to air conditioning and iced tea. What do you say?”

Helen smiled. “Oh, you know how I live to fish. But you could twist my arm.”

Harry rowed back to the dock and helped Helen out of the boat.

“That was fun, right?” Harry said.

Helen was looking past Harry. “Looks like you have company.”

Harry turned, and they both watched a large brown car rattle its way up the dirt road. The car was moving fast, churning clouds of dust, fishtailing as it negotiated the curves.

The car stopped in front of the cabin, the back door on the passenger side banged open, and a pretty girl in blue overalls stepped out.

“Who’s that?” Helen asked.

“No one I know,” Harry said.

The driver’s side door opened, and a large rumpled figure appeared.

“I know that one,” Harry said, his voice grim. “That’s the lunatic I was telling you about.”

H
ARRY
F
OUND
H
IMSELF
being embraced before he could prevent it.

“Thank God we are not too late!” Raymond shouted.

“Let go of me!” Harry shouted back.

Raymond instantly dropped his arms and fell to his knees. He stared at the ground. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” he muttered. “I forgot my place.”

“Does Dr. Moore know you are here?” Harry asked. Harry’s first thought—presciently accurate—was that Raymond and his companions had escaped from the institution.

Raymond looked up. “Dr. Moore’s dead, my Lord. They say it was cancer, but they could say anything, of course.”

“Dead?” Harry said. “That can’t be, Raymond. I only talked to him—”
God
, thought Harry,
it’s been two years at least since that last time.

Raymond Story stood up, brushed dirt from his knees, and smiled. “I’ve brought a few good men—well, and women—and a monkey. We are a small band, but I don’t think you can fault our loyalty.”

“Raymond,” Harry said, “you’ve stopped taking your medication, haven’t you?”

Raymond pointed to a large young man who slouched against the car’s fender. “That’s Lord Allan. You won’t find a more stalwart lad in the kingdom. And next to him is Lady Rene Gold. Do not be fooled by the softness of her demeanor; she is a warrior with a fierce, proud heart. The monkey is named Arbus, of course.”

“Of course,” Harry said. Any monkey Raymond owned would have to be named Arbus after the one in
Zod Wallop
.

The massive young man leaning against the car folded his arms and glared at Harry. He was handsome, with dark black hair and eyes, but the planes of his face seemed sculpted by some reckless, troubled artist. His eyebrows ran along a ridge of bone that kept his eyes in shadow. Harry realized that he had seen this young man at Harwood, although they had never been in group together. A violent young man, Harry remembered, always being reprimanded for some altercation with another patient.

The girl next to the young man was undeniably lovely, and when she smiled and waved at Harry, he found himself smiling back, despite his resolve to get rid of Raymond and his companions as quickly as possible. And Harry seemed to recall her, too, and even remembered that she was the subject of a number of ardent love poems penned by Harwood’s young male contingent—and at least one suicide note (whose author decided to eat a quart of ice cream in lieu of killing himself).

“—my bride!” Raymond was saying. “I want you to meet my bride.”

Raymond Story, in his manic phase, was a compelling personality, and Harry found himself led to the car’s passenger side. At Raymond’s urging, Harry peered into the car’s window. “Emily, my love,” Raymond said, “Meet Lord Gainesborough.”

The girl had slid down flat on the seat, her face pressed against the seat’s back. Her features were distorted, the right eye squeezed shut. By tilting his head slightly, Harry made out a china-doll face, oddly smoothed and abstract. The girl’s mouth was open, and the only sign of life was the slight trembling motion of a pink tongue.

“Ah, hello,” Harry said.

The girl did not respond.

“She’s beautiful, isn’t she?” Raymond said.

Harry was unable to speak.

“You recognize her, of course,” Raymond said.

“No, Raymond.” He really couldn’t recall her from Harwood, although she might have been there, one of the muffled wheelchair crowd in the rec room.

“She’s the Frozen Princess!” Raymond shouted. He clutched Harry’s shoulder. “Emily is the Frozen Princess, of course! I knew that the minute I saw her. And I’ve married her, my Lord! You know what this means, of course. It means it’s all beginning now. The die is cast. There’s no turning back. Oh, and bad news. We’ve lost the Dark Book. I’m afraid there’s a very good chance our enemies are in possession of it. We’ll have to move fast.”

Harry, feeling that events might get away from him if he did not act decisively and soon, turned to see his agent approaching him. She was holding the monkey in her arms and smiling.

“Isn’t he dear?” she said.

“Helen,” Harry said, “Don’t encourage these people.”

“That’s Arbus,” Raymond said. “Don’t worry, he’s very sweet-tempered.” Raymond turned back to Harry. “Arbus’s had a rough life. Chained for two years next to a sullen cockatoo in a dirty little pet store. I only recently bought him out of bondage, and his gratitude has been touching. He has a hatred of jailers though, I can tell you that.”

Harry interrupted, putting a hand on Raymond’s shoulder.

“Raymond,” Harry said. “I’m going to call your mother.”

Raymond took a step backward and narrowed his eyes. “That’s not a good idea,” he said.

“I’m sure she’s worried about you,” Harry said.

“That can’t be helped. Her worrying is part of the natural order. We have very little time, my Lord, and my mother, whose claim on my heart is absolute, devours time. We do not have the leisure to consult her.”

“Nonetheless,” said Harry, who remembered Ada Story favorably from his Harwood experience, “your mother deserves to know where you are. I think we can spare her a phone call. What is that number?”

Raymond shook his head and stared at his feet. “No,” he said. “It’s out of the question.”

“Raymond,” Harry said, “I
order
you to give me that number.”

Raymond shuddered and pressed the palms of his hands flat against his thighs. He mumbled the telephone number and Harry made him repeat it.

“Thank you, Raymond,” Harry said.

Ada Story and her husband were watching television when the call came. Ada always felt guilty when watching television, for it was a pastime denied her when her son was living at home. Raymond hated television and said that it made a person’s soul thinner. The doctors had advised Ada not to indulge her son’s delusions, but then, the doctors did not live with Raymond. His delusions were powerful. How powerful, the doctors would never know.

She would be watching television and Raymond would come into the room. The moment he saw the television, he would lurch backwards as though struck by an invisible fist. He would stumble like an extra in a cheap zombie film, drop his vast bulk onto the couch, roll his eyes, gag. All the color would go out of his face. Once, spectacularly, he had sneezed blood.

Television had become, for Ada Story, a furtive vice, and she felt a guilty inevitability when the phone call proved to be about her son.

“Oh yes, of course I remember you,” she said. How could she forget Harry Gainesborough and that book he had written? She even had, well, a sort of artifact….

He was a nice man, Harry Gainesborough, but sad and remote, insulated in his politeness, like someone with a terminal illness, someone whose attention was elsewhere.

“Your son is here,” Harry was saying. Where was here? She meant to ask, but heard herself ask instead: “Are you all right?” He was such a sad man.

“I’m fine. It’s your son I’m worried about. He and some of his friends have shown up on my doorstep. He says he is married. Oh? Well. In any event, he appears to be in an excited condition—rather like the time he set the Christmas tree on fire at Harwood, and well, let’s just say I’m not a professional, and I think what is wanted here is a professional.”

“Oh dear,” Ada said. “Where are you?”

Harry began to tell her.

“North Carolina,” Ada said. “Wait. I’m no good at out-of-state directions. I’m only for local. John does all the out-of-state. Wait. John! Come here, John. I’m putting my husband on the line, Mr. Gainesborough.”

John Story took the phone. “All right,” he said. “Give me the coordinates, and we’ll fetch the boy.”

After the phone call, Harry sat in the chair looking out the window. Dusk had arrived, the sky was luminous, like light behind smoked glass. A net of fireflies blinked in the tree branches. Harry could see Raymond, flanked by the pretty girl and the giant. Raymond was pointing at the fireflies.

Harry turned to his agent. “See that?” he said.

She looked out the window.

“Raymond is telling his friends that the fireflies are the Ember People,” Harry said. Harry felt very tired.

Helen put her hand on Harry’s shoulder and said, “Every time a boy and girl exchange their first breathless kiss, an Ember child comes into being in a burst of light.”

“Yep,” Harry said. “The Ember People. It is in their interest, as a race, to encourage human love. A whole tribe of cupids. In the original story, their fate was just a little different. An Ember child would burst into flame when a human boy and girl kissed for the first time. Human passion murdered the Ember folk. Quite a different perspective, wouldn’t you say?”

“What became of that first
Zod Wallop
?”

“Raymond burned it.”

Harry and Helen stared out the window, watching Raymond Story’s arms stretch toward the heavens, encompassing the world of wonder and fantastic portents.

“It looks like we are stuck with them for the night,” Harry said. “Raymond’s parents will be here in the morning. I’ve got a couple of sleeping bags around here somewhere.”

“He seems a sweet boy, actually,” Helen said.

“You should spend a few months in a mental hospital with him,” Harry said. “Craziness, up close, can get old pretty quick. It was a little like having a talking shadow. He’d read all my books, and I was his hero. When he learned I was writing another book, he couldn’t wait to see it. I told him no. I was writing my black, venomous book. I wasn’t about to let anyone see it. Raymond stole it, read it, burned it. He talked about it in group therapy. I didn’t even know the book was missing; I’d put it in a dresser drawer. And here’s Raymond, in group, and I’m only half listening because I’ve heard his crazy rants often enough, and I hear
Zod Wallop Zod Wallop
and I click into focus and there’s Raymond going on about the River of Stone and how it’s got to be stopped and how Lydia doesn’t die, how that’s a terrible lie.