Darkborn (32 page)

They took baby steps into the cave.

And all the time Kiff felt that
for sure
— this was it. We’re the bait. They’ll shoot us and then the others will come and blow the VC to hell.

“I don’t like this,” the kid from Atlanta said.

Kiff hissed at him to be quiet.

There was a noise inside the cave. A rustling, a squawking sound. Kiff felt something go flying over his head.

Another bat, he thought. He held his M-16 in front of him, playing with the trigger, wanting to just let go and wail. Fill the fucking cave with bullets. Shoot until they didn’t have any bullets left.

Another step. The clatter of rock.

And then Kiff heard gunfire rattling from light-years away, the sound distant, muffled by the thick stone of the cave.

He turned to the other two soldiers. He smiled. He guessed they smiled back, though he couldn’t see anything.

“They’re not here.” Kiff grinned.

Fucking-A,” Bed-Sty said.

And as Kiff walked out, he had only one feeling. He was glad someone else had found the cave, that someone else got all shot up, ready to be sent home in a plain pine box.

That’s what the war was all about.

Hoping the other guy got it.

This time, there
are
no other guys; Kiff thought. Just me.

But then, there are no Cong.

Go fast, he told himself. Just go down, do it, and get the hell upstairs.

Kiff forced his legs to start moving, and he was amazed that they obeyed. He coughed, wanting some sound to fill the bar other than the shuffling of his own feet. He walked straight to the back to the two rest room signs, and the brown door leading to Jimmie’s cellar.

He grabbed the doorknob, his body still — incredibly — following his instructions. He thought: I’m halfway there. Halfway down, and then up, and then —

The door opened with a nasty shriek. An ancient spring attached to the door pulled against Kiff. He stepped in, fumbled for the light switch. The door slapped shut behind him.

He wished he could have left it open.

But the spring pulled it closed behind him.

The light switch turned on two lights, one at the top of the stairs that showed just how uneven each step was, and another, down in the cellar, that did little to light up the stacks of beer cases, liquor, and shining metallic kegs.

Kiff hesitated.

He never went down there except in the daytime.

I’m not crazy, he thought.

Fat chance. I’ll be away from all my protection.

He took a step. And stopped.

I could go get a cross, he thought. Some water. Maybe one of the books, one of the Bibles I got blessed by every priest and minister that I could find. Charge up them batteries, he thought, get as much good shit working as possible.

He grabbed the handrail hard.

He shook his head. No. That’s crazy. Go up to my room and get the stuff? And then come down again? To here?

No.

He could see the beer cases. Now just twenty, thirty feet away.

He forced himself to move down again. The steps creaked. The wood moaning about its age, its dryness.

Kiff looked left and right, scanning the cramped cellar. Maybe there are rats, he thought. He hated rats. Jimmie had an exterminator come once a month. The place was clean.

They never saw a rat.

Still. They could be here.

Could be hiding.

He got to the bottom, to the stone floor. He felt how cold it was. Damn, the beer would be just as cold if it was left here.

No need to come down, he thought. None at all.

He walked over to a stack of Bud Light. He slid three cases off, easing their weight onto his arms. He grunted, hefting them up.

He heard something.

At first the sound seemed to come from down here. He froze. Already cold, he now felt icy. Frozen. Holding the cool cans of beer up near his face. It was hard. He wasn’t as strong as he used to be.

He turned, looked around.

The sound was a shuffling sound.

No, he thought, it was an electric sound. A spark.

No. That was in my head. There was no sound. Just my nerves.

He breathed in, started toward the steps. Heard a sound again.

Kiff stopped.

There. That was it. I really heard it that time. Off in the corner. Near the sidewalk entrance to the cellar.

There were steps leading up to the sidewalk, and heavy metal doors, and giant bolts with heavy locks. Nothing could get in here.

He thought: I should put the cases of beer down. Drop them, maybe run. Up the stairs.

Thinking: Where’s the crucifix?

Picturing in his head .
 
.
 
. where is it? How many steps to get to it?

But when there was no new sound, when nothing else burbled over in that corner by the doors, Kiff scolded himself again.
Just nerves.

Or no nerves. Too damn wired from drinking. Can’t tell what’s real or not anymore.

As he went up the stairs, he kept telling himself that. A mantra, over and over.

Just nerves. Too wired. Too much booze. Gotta .
 
.
 
.

As he went up, listening for anything behind him.

There was nothing.

Looking ahead, thrilled to be almost back in the bar, happy when he came to the door, and pushed against the door, and heard the spring screech out its
boinging
protest.

And he pushed on through, not worrying about the light.

I’ll shut the fucking light off tomorrow.

Fuck the light.

And now, standing in the doorway, almost breathing normally, almost done, almost safe .
 
.
 
.

When Kiff saw someone sitting at the bar, someone hunched over —

As if waiting to place his order.

Kiff blinked. The man was still there, slumped over the bar like a mannequin. There were just a few lights on, a Miller sign, and a white light under the top-drawer liquor bottles, the good stuff that rarely got tapped.

The guy was still there.

“Hey,” Kiff said, still in the doorway.

He felt the weight of the cases in his arms, pulling on the thin muscles of his forearms, digging into the skin of his hands.

And again, “Hey. We’re closed. Closed. You gotta leave.”

The man didn’t move.

A mannequin.

And Kiff remembered. Jimmie left. I locked the door. All the locks.

He remembered the sound downstairs.

And he thought: I could be in deep shit.

Kiff cleared his throat. He moved forward. And the cellar door held open by his body now slapped shut. It made a sound like a gunshot.

It’s a robber, Kiff thought. A junkie looking for cash.

“There’s no money here. The owner took all the money away. And I — I —”

The man started turning in his seat. Sitting up straight.

“I got nothing.”

The man turned.

The cases of beer hurt Kiff’s arms so .
 
.
 
. but there was no place nearby, no place to put them down. And —

The man, in the shadows, spoke.

“That’s not true, Kiff. You have a lot.”

Kiff squinted. The voice. It was familiar. Somehow, Kiff thought, I
know that voice
. And he tried to think about anyone he might have fucked over, anyone he might have screwed.

Who’d want to come and get him.

“You’d better go,” Kiff said. “Get the hell out of here. I’ll call the cops.”

The shadow man shook his head. He stood up. “No. You won’t do that.”

Kiff thought, What’s happening here? What’s going on?

And a terrible thought appeared. A horrible thought.

This is it.

This is it.

And I don’t have my cross, or my water, or my books or anything.

Oh, God .
 
.
 
. oh, God .
 
.
 
. oh —

He looked at the bar. To where he had hid the cross, down low.

The man was there, between him and the bar.

“You know,” the man said, the voice still oddly familiar, “you’re a lucky one, Kiff. Because you know what’s happening. Now, isn’t that lucky? You know almost everything about it. Very .
 
.
 
. lucky. Except you don’t know how to stop it. You screwed up there, didn’t you?”

Kiff nodded.

He gagged.

Why am I gagging? he thought.

But then he knew. I’m scared. I’m so scared.

He heard a noise. On the ceiling.

A rat went scurrying across the ceiling. He watched it.

Then another, then another. Across the ceiling.

‘Cause there’s no gravity.

More rats. Scurrying across the ceiling. Until the ceiling was gray with rats, a sea of wormlike tails. The ceiling dotted with the eyes looking at each other, then looking down at him.

Rats on the ceiling.

Wait a second, Kiff thought.

Wait a fucking minute. This is just the DTs. Yeah, that’s all this is. The fucking DTs. Went a bit too far. Made my head too damn wet, and now I’m seeing things. All wet heads see things. He looked back to the shadow man. And I’m hearing things too. Like the chirping of the rats.

Kiff almost grinned.

“You’re not real,” he said. “This is just a fuckin’ hallu —”

The beer cases slipped from his arms. His arms just gave out. And the cases tumbled to the floor, the six-packs splitting open, the cans rolling away. Some cans popped open, shooting their spray across the floor. Kiff looked down, at the sprawl of cans and boxes.

He saw some of the cans moving.

They were .
 
.
 
. Christ,
they were bulging.

He heard the creak of the aluminum.

Creak. Creak. They bulged out, as if breathing.

Until they popped open. And something crawled out.

A head. With teeth. And eyes. And hair. A human head, but covered with the gore and slime of a new birth. Tiny, small. A stunted human head, slithering out of each can. One, two, three .
 
.
 
. dozens of them.

Kiff backed up against the door.

The heads slithered out because they were attached to bodies, snake bodies.

Of course snake bodies. Of course.

“No,” Kiff mumbled. “No fuckinway.” He looked up to the shadow man. “Just the DTs.”

He felt something dripping on him from the ceiling. Something plopped on his head, onto his thin, almost vanished stand of red hair. It felt warm against his skull. Then another plop, hitting his eyebrow, then dripping down, onto his cheek, near his lips.

Close enough so that he could smell it. Smell the rancid odor.

He looked up.

Checking out the rats. They blotted out the ceiling, covering it with a gravity-defying living rug of brown-gray fur and whiskery bristles. They were shitting exploding little turds that landed like hail on the floor, on Kiff.

But not on the shadow man.

It’s not real, Kiff repeated. Oh, God, this isn’t real. I was told this could happen. Like Ray Milland in
The Lost Weekend
. The walls would come alive, the VA doctors said. Happens to every drunk. A moment of reckoning. You enter a nightmare land and you don’t leave for a long time.

But I can prove that! Kiff thought. Sure, I can prove that to myself.

Another can popped open. Another squirming human-thing slid out, its snake body a baby-fresh pink, squirming, slithering around on the floor as if awaiting instructions.

I can make the dream go away, Kiff said, screaming inside his head, making himself listen to reason, to logic.

Sure.

He knelt down.

Closer to the squirming things.

One was near him, writhing around with a newborn’s crazed inability to control its life, searching for something.

I’ll touch it. Touch it, and it will go away, Kiff told himself.

Because it’s not real.

Closer. Almost tottering forward, unbalanced on his heels. His leg muscles worth shit.

He stuck out his bony hand.