Darling (33 page)

“Lucy? What are you talking about? What’s in there?”

“I think it’s a Fallen Angel, but I could be wrong.”

“You’re not making any sense. Let’s get away from this thing, go inside, talk about—”

“It’s too late for that. My darling needs me in her. And I ache for it, Dennis. I have to enter her, just once. Her nightmares are getting worse, making everyone’s nightmares in that building worse. It feeds from all of the shit that people do here. Each time it feeds it wakes a little. I can’t let it wake up.”

“But, Mike, that doesn’t—”

“You’ve always been like a big brother to me. I’m sorry for everything.”

“There’s nothing to be sorry for.”

“She came to me for help, you know.”

“Who?”

“Allison.”

Dennis couldn’t say anything to that.

“The night that her and Dad got into a fight. The night she...” Mike sniffed and a tear rolled down his face. “She came to my door and knocked. She was crying and just needed to talk to someone. But Dad had me so brainwashed at the time. I was afraid to. Isn’t that fucked up?”

“It wasn’t your fault, Mike. If anyone was to blame it was me. She called me that night and I didn’t answer.”

“You were scared. But me...? I pretended to be asleep. She beat on my door and cried and begged for someone to talk to and I pretended to be fucking asleep.”

Dennis was crying now, too. “Mike, please...” He took a step toward his friend.

“No! Don’t! Stay right there!”

Dennis stopped. The ribbons of black writhed around the gas can, curious as to what was inside.

“I pretended to be asleep and she went into the bathroom. I heard the water running and later, when I came out
to piss, I found her. There was so much blood. So much...”
Mike looked into the dark.

What are you doing, Michael? You know I forgive you, baby. Just come to me.

Mike grabbed the can.

Dennis took a step toward him. “Mike, I—”

“I’m sorry,” Mike said and touched the flaming rag to his shirt. The cloth ignited, flame swimming over him, embracing him. Soon his jeans had caught fire, too. His skin bubbled and screamed under his clothes, his blood boiling inside of him. The pain drowned out all sounds, all sights. The only thing that existed was the fire draping over him.

The flame smothered his face as it raced to his hair. The smell of burning cloth filled his nostrils, followed by the smell of bacon left in its own grease too long. He knew he smelled himself.

He screamed, fire leaping down his throat, and stumbled into one of the columns. Flames shot up it, catching the underside of the awning on fire. He clutched the searing can, glowing from the heat inside, to his chest. Margot stood in the darkness with arms outstretched and he rushed toward her, ricocheting from the walls as he did. The pain was excruciating as he plunged into the black.

And then he felt nothing.

And then he was nothing.

And it was glorious.

* * *

In the dark it screamed.

Chapter Eighteen

The flames hugged him as Mike careened through the open doors. Dennis screamed, darted after him, but the tendrils coiled back upon themselves, blocking the way and following Mike into darkness.

The flames leaped from his body as he plunged his way in, catching every beam and timber on fire.

A giant gust of wind carried the flame in Dennis’ path like a wall. The building shouldn’t have gone up so quickly. Much of it was stone and glass.

But it did. The awning was completely aflame. Chunks of it fell to the concrete. A sheet of fire draped over the boarded windows, leaping out into the parking lot and racing toward the rest of the half-finished buildings.

It wasn’t possible. But there it was, fingers of fire dancing their way from building to building, igniting each in turn, like

—Chinese paper dolls

burned in sacrifice

for the King of Hell—

like

—a wicker man

stuffed with screaming children

ignited for the Gods—

like

—candles lit in church

for Christ’s glory—

Dennis stumbled back, his head unsteady. Whispering floated from the burning maw of the supermarket, whispering that he couldn’t make out, could only tell was confused and hurt.

The flames raced across the rooftops and through the foundations and he knew where it would head.

He turned and sprinted through the rain toward Raynham.

The field of grass caught fire behind him.

* * *

Miles below, a brilliant flame that reminded it of the beginning ignited. Memories of light and warmth flooded in and it nurtured them, sending them out along what passed for its body, feeling them in every cell, every atom.

A thousand explosions went off in its cold tomb, each one sending spasms of pain along the thin threads connecting it to all of those tiny minds.

It was too much for them.

They shattered.

It drank it in.

The walls separating its dreams from reality crashed down around it.

* * *

Eileen sat on the lid of the toilet and cried. Her body shook so hard she worried her bones would break. Nothing in her life would ever be the same. How could it be?

Her nightmare had been brought to life.

A cockroach scrambled across the white tile in front of her.

She heard the front door open. She hoped Dennis had found a working phone.

Feet shuffled across the floor and stopped in front of the bathroom door. There was a soft knock.

She struggled through the sobs to speak. “Did you find a phone?”

A fist pounded on the door.

“Dennis?”

Again.

A roach scurried under the door.

The pounding grew frenzied, shaking the door in its frame.

“DENNIS!”

Roaches flooded into the bathroom, running across the tile and up the door.

Eileen screamed.

Chapter Nineteen

Fire chased him through the field. He glanced back once and the entire sky glowed red. The rain poured harder and lightning arced across the sky.

There were shapes in the flames, native warriors butchering one another, soldiers tossing the bodies of countless prisoners into shallow ditches.

He ran faster.

He sprinted toward the building, cut a corner, and froze. Eileen’s nightmare had come to impossible life in the fountain. The stone nymph ground against the satyr, his hands rubbing all over her breasts as he kissed her neck.

—
My woman is for you and yours is mine—

Dennis turned his eyes away and sprinted by. He was hallucinating. Had to be. Dear God, let him be.

A lifeless body floated in the pool. Something bumped into it from underneath, nudging it toward the wall with a small
splash
. A muffled scream echoed from inside Raynham followed by what sounded like shotguns firing.

He rushed into the first floor hallway.

A pool of blood spread across the floor. A dark trail led away from it and under a closed door. Bloody handprints surrounded the doorknob, dotted the wall around it.

Another scream from somewhere above him.

The elevator
dinged
open.

Dennis gasped.

Marie Callahan hung from the ceiling, a length of water hose wrapped around her neck, her face purple, eyes bulging from their sockets, tongue rolled out over her lips.

He took the stairwell, sprinting up the stairs two at a time. As he approached the second floor landing he heard grunting and slowed. A woman’s leg came into view, her skirt hiked up far enough to reveal the swell of her ass.

He rounded the corner and saw her pressed against the wall, clutching a man’s head close as he thrust into her, grunting every time.

Her wrists were open and leaked blood down the back of the man’s filthy suit.

Dennis slid by and the thick, sour smell of rot hit him. The man turned his head and grunted. His skull was collapsed in on one side, his eyes and mouth sewn shut with black wire.

Dennis scrambled backwards up the stairs, almost falling.

When he reached the third floor the door wouldn’t budge. He rammed his shoulder against it over and over until he could squeeze through.

Kurt Hagen and Carl Petrie sat slumped over one another against it, the backs of their heads missing, bits of brain and skull dripping down the door.

He didn’t know what had happened to them, but wasn’t waiting to find out. He rushed to his apartment and dove in, slamming the door behind him and fastening the locks.

He ran to the window. The fire had made it across the field. It was like an ocean of gasoline sloshed around out there and someone had thrown a match in. They didn’t have much time.

“Eileen!”

He went to the bathroom. The door was open, the bathroom empty. Cockroaches ran across the floor and the tub, climbing the walls over the sink.

“Eileen!”

He ran to his bedroom and threw the door open.

Cockroaches swarmed over the walls, the floor, the bed. A few fat, red ones fluttered through the air. They hit the closet hard, thumping against the door like a knocking fist.

Eileen screamed from behind it.

“Eileen!” He ran to it, crunching bugs under his heel. A giant roach sat on the doorknob, flapping its wings in irritation. He swatted it away as another collided with the back of his neck. It scrambled up and into his hair. He rubbed his head frantically until it flew away.

—They’re awful excited, aren’t they—

He spun around at the sound of Allison’s voice. Karen’s flesh sat in his mother’s rocking chair naked, smiling, her nipples erect. Her legs were spread, one foot propped on the corner of his bed. Tiny roaches covered her inner thighs. A fat one crawled up her abdomen.

His stomach lurched, bile rising in the back of his throat, at the sight of long antennae feeling the air. They twitched this way and that before their owner, a slender brown roach, pulled free from between her legs and dropped to the floor. Another one soon followed. The horde rushing from the chair and under his bed was too much for him. He put his hands on his knees and vomited.

—Oh, baby. Don’t worry.

They weren’t in me when you were.

I didn’t start birthing them until a few minutes ago.

I don’t know why.

Lloyd’s nightmares, I think—

He hadn’t slowed since attacking Jason but now, facing this thing wearing Karen’s meat that said it was Allison, roaches buzzing and chittering around him, gunshots and screams coming from somewhere down the hall, his mind couldn’t take it. None of his time with her —with
it
— was a dream. Nothing he had seen here tonight was in his imagination. Mike’s death was horribly real.

Dennis fell to one knee, clutching at his hair. He knew he should grab Eileen and run, but all he could do was rock back and forth.

Karen’s fingers found his jaw and tilted his face toward her.

—You want this to be over, don’t you—

He nodded.

—Oh, darling. It will be.

Very soon.

But the supermarket’s gone,

so we’ll have to do this

the old fashioned way—

She handed him his pocket knife.

—You should get rid of Eileen first.

Just open a little hole in her abdomen

and my children will take care of the rest.

They’re awful hungry.

It won’t be quick,

and it will be painful,

but it’s the best way.

Then you can open your own veins.

Can you do that—

He stared at the knife in his hands. What was she asking him to do?

—I’m asking you to do the same thing I did, Dennis. Just open your veins

and let the floor drink you up.

It only hurts for the first minute or so.

I want you to know what I went through.

You owe me that much—

Roaches scurried over his legs. He stared at Allison’s eyes sparkling from inside of Karen’s skull. Was this thing really her?

She slapped him.

—Of course I am.

I’m the girl that you impregnated and abandoned.

The girl who loved you

and who you forced to kill herself—

Oh God. He had, hadn’t he?

—You damned me to this.

Now it’s your turn.

Open her gut, baby—

Eileen screamed again.

He glanced to the closet. The roaches sat still on the door, a few of them twitching in excitement.

He turned back to Karen’s face, to Allison’s eyes. “No.”

She shoved him onto his back and mounted his chest. Her thighs squeezed his ribcage.

—Do it, my darling. You owe me—

“No.”

She scooted farther up on his chest, grinding her pelvis into his face. Something tickled his lips as it tried to crawl from inside of her and into his mouth.

—Sacrifice is sweeter,

but I suppose I’ll have to end you both—

He bucked his hips hard, exploding up into a bridge. She fell from his face and he scrambled over into a sprawl. He wiped the roach, damp with afterbirth, from his mouth.