The Light at the End (15 page)

Business was slow at
MOMENTS, FROZEN
. It was not atypical; it did, however, leave Danny Young with far too much time to think as he wandered through the racks of memorabilia.

All day, Danny had been thinking about Claire. Nothing wrong with that, per se; he’d spent much of the previous day doing exactly the same thing. It’s just that, while yesterday’s thoughts consisted largely of nice romantic fantasies (and blue movies of the mind), today’s were dominated by fear.

It began when he awoke, a cold sweat rolling off of his forehead to burn in his eyes. He couldn’t remember the dream, exactly… it slipped away at the borders of consciousness, was gone before he had a chance to get any sort of handle on it… but one image lingered, phantom-like, in the rear projection screen of his mind.

It was Claire, a dark shadow looming over her, while her eyes shone with something between horror and hunger.

That was remembrance enough. It nagged at him all morning, while he got ready to go to work. It twisted in his guts as he walked to the shop, squeezed at his temples as he opened for business, wormed its way up his ass during the first few customers of the day. It absolutely refused to leave him alone.

It was refusing still.

Danny wandered back to the cash register, checked the alarm clock behind it for the umpteen-millionth time. Almost three in the afternoon.
Oh, Hell
, he thought, nervously picking at his teeth with a long-nailed index finger.

Again, for the umpteen-millionth time, he glanced at the phone book. He’d sworn up and down that he wasn’t going to look up that number… that he’d wait for her to come around, to demonstrate what a non-threatening, go-with-the-flow kind of enlightened male lover he planned to be.

But that was before the dream.

He stared at the phone book. He moved, slowly, toward it. He ran his fingers across the cover like an infant discovering tactility. He waged war internally, logic versus intuition, fear of rejection versus fear of bodily harm or worse.

Or worse
…

The image came, full-blown, of Claire cruising the streets of the Village by night. Charming the pants off any number of young, testosterone-bearing men. Taking them home, with a wink and a smile and a swivel of hip. Bedding them down, her flesh white and cool as a marble tombstone. Inviting them to take her. And then, when they had dropped their guards and succumbed to the lure, a sudden baring of fangs…

“Forget it,” he mouthed, barely aware that he had done so. His attention was on the pages that flipped past him as he searched for her name.

And, of course, her number wasn’t listed.

“Son of a bitch,” he moaned, slamming the phone book closed. He whirled, glaring at the blank wall behind him. “Probably isn’t really her name,” he informed it pointlessly. “Probably Dustin Hoffman in drag again. Probably…”

The door behind him opened.

He whirled again, face flushed, half-angered by the intrusion.

It took him a moment to recognize her.

“Claire?” he asked weakly, his fears confirmed with a moment’s glance.

Claire Cunningham/a.k.a. De Loon stood framed in the open doorway, sunlight diffusing through the wild disarray of her dark hair. No elaborate makeup, no exotic garb: just an organic darkness around the eyes, jeans and T-shirt on a body that trembled, frightened and vulnerable, before him.

Without a word… without even closing the door behind her… she rushed across the length of the shop and into his arms.

She told him about Dorian. He thought
my God
, picturing the scene easily enough. His arms tightened around her instinctively, protectively; she snuggled against him and shuddered. The vibrations ran through him like waves.

She told him about her room, the book on the floor. He thought
my God
and urged her without a moments hesitation to stay the hell away from her apartment. “Sleep at a friends house. Get a hotel room. Go to the YWCA. You could even”—hesitating for the first time—“stay at my place if you wanted…”

She stopped him, abruptly, with a kiss. He thought
my God
, but he wasn’t about to argue. They spent the next three minutes in wordless and total agreement.

Then, after their breathing had returned to normal, she told him about the guy at St. Mark’s Bar & Grill. He pressed her for a description. She gave it to him. He thought
my God
and froze up, a picture imposing itself upon him with chilling clarity.

The picture was of Stephen Parrish’s friend. The creepy graffiti artist. Whatsisname.

The guy who disappeared…

Nigel was fine again.

Josalyn couldn’t understand it. She had spent the night in the living room, on the couch, listening to Nigel slam himself against the bedroom door and wail like a banshee for hours. Finally, he had quieted down, and she had been able to catch a few hours of troubled sleep.

In the afternoon, she had awakened to the sound of his [gentle mewling. He no longer sounded insane… at least not any more than usual. He sounded like archetypal
Hungry Nigel
, coolly allowing his wishes to be known.

She let it go on for a long time: tending to her wounds, I where the red streaks of infection had begun to sprout along her abdomen; fixing a light meal that she barely touched; trying to write, with the stereo blaring in an attempt to cover his ever-more-piteous sounds. But the clock had spun around to six o’clock, and she’d found that her sympathy had begun to outweigh her fear of seeing him again.

Finally, she’d opened the bedroom door. Nigel had strutted out, every bit his old self. She found that, barring the scratch marks on the door, he had been a good boy. Now he was eating, in his customary place on the kitchen floor. It was
9 Lives Super Supper
tonight; she studied the empty can, laughing nervously, knowing what a great lecture she could give on the importance of eating his Super Supper and growing up to be big and strong. If only she weren’t so scared.

Nigel is fine
, she told herself.
Look at him. I bet I could swat his ass silly right now and he wouldn’t so much as growl. It’s as if he doesn’t even remember.

But she remembered. She had the scars to remind her.

And as darkness fell over the city, and the urge to lie down and sleep began to press more and more insistently upon her, she found herself dreading what the night might hold in store.

And she knew that, no matter how sweet he might appear at the moment, she couldn’t allow Nigel to sleep with her tonight. She couldn’t bring herself to trust him.

Not now. Not yet.

Not until something changed drastically.

One way or the other.

Twenty rats, in a tight semi-circle around the mouth of the niche. Tiny eyes, glittering in the dim light from the tunnel walls. Twitching like a single wounded organism, moved by some impulse more basic than thought, as they watched.

The two great rats, facing off in the niche: the first one gray, bloated, monstrously scarred; the second smaller, leaner, entirely black. Sharp yellow teeth bared. Eyes glaring red. Fur standing up straight along their spines as they circled each other, making tiny-throated bloodhunger sounds.

The gray one moved first, lunging forward suddenly to lash out with powerful jaws. The second one ducked, crouching lower, driving up with its snout. Tasting of the flesh beneath the chin.

Then rolling, the both of them, a ball of thrashing raw meat motion and animal scream. Tearing holes in each other, sharp teeth and talons struggling for a hold, tearing away jaggedly and attacking again, imbedding deeper into muscle that strained with the effort of its own offensive.

The others, growing in number, pressing closer, straining for a glimpse of some edge in the murderous blur, some hint as to which one was closer to death.

And then it came: a sudden reversal, a grinding halt, a final flurry of motion. The black rat on top, its jaws clamped tight on the throat of the other, jerking it back and forth like a dog with a bloody rag. The other, fruitlessly kicking, eyes glazing over as its windpipe severed, sputtered, and sprayed…

…and Rudy Pasko was kneeling in the dirt of the niche, with a large dead rat in his mouth.

The other rats backed away now, as a body. Their screeches of confusion and terror split the silence. Rudy watched them retreat, mind swimming, not entirely clear himself as to what had just happened.

Then it all came rushing back; and with a snarl, he ripped the dead thing from between his jaws and winged it into the tunnel. It struck the third rail with a wet splut, flopped madly at the center of a shower of sparks and light, then lay still in the dirt, smoking and sizzling like a burger on a grill.

“LITTLE BASTARD!” he howled, wiping the warm blood from his face with a contemptuous sweep of his hand. His flesh stung in a dozen places, where the rat’s teeth had taken cold chunks from him that grew exponentially as he regained human form.

But he did not bleed.

Rudy plopped backwards on his ass in the dirt, leaning against the side of the niche. He was still breathing heavily from the fight, his heart still pounding emptily in his chest. “God, that was weird,” he mumbled, letting his mind drift back…

…to a time outside of time, a flowing stream of moments without perimeters that stretched on and on and on. Time spent scrambling about on scrawny legs, belly inches from the earth. Time spent trapped in the body of a rodent, scurrying for cover in a world grown suddenly too huge, too huge for comprehension, while the threat of killing sunlight hung imminently like the fat knot of a hangman’s noose over his head.

Then… who knows how much later… finding a subway entrance and making a mad dash for it. Failing to compensate for the change in size. Tumbling ass-over-elbow down the concrete steps in a series of uncontrollable flips, screeching with pain and terror.

Amazing himself by landing at the foot of the stairs, regaining his own footing, and racing past the platform into the safety and darkness of the tunnel beyond.

Lapsing, then, into the sleep of the dead: a sleep that was crawling with dreams…

In his dream, time had rolled backward to that fateful night, a mere five days before. Defacing the posters. The dark trains approach. Leaping onto it, ignoring his souls last scream for survival. Facing the small, dark shape that leered at him with its glimmering fangs. Hearing that soft, quietly mocking voice, as the dark shape approached.

And then he was dying, the thing fastened onto him, the blood rushing up to his throat and then out through the twin puncture wounds. It was meticulous, not at all like Rudy; it didn’t miss a drop.

But while it drained him, it spoke to him. Not with its mouth… its mouth was busy… but with its mind somehow, using the same cool inflection to resonate, not in his ears, but at the core of his shriveling, dying soul.

Rudy
, it said, knowing him intimately, more intimately than a lover, as it sucked the life from his veins.
You’re not going to die. Not now. This is something far greater than death that you’re experiencing. And far more interesting.

You are fascinated by the darkness, yes?
Rudy had tried to answer, then. He couldn’t. There was no longer any air in his lungs.
So I thought. When I first saw you. Amazing what time can do for your perceptivity, if you apply yourself.

A dry chuckle.
And you will have time, Rudy. Plenty of time. All the time
—and it chuckled again—
in the world.

You will come to know darkness, in all of its subtle texture and gradation. It will be your essence and your environment: no longer just an obsession, but the state in which you dwell. You will know it as you know yourself.

If you are attentive. And if you are careful, Rudy. Careful.
It paused then, emphatic.
For, just as surely as you will hunt down humans… as I have done, with you, tonight… they will be hunting you as well. They will cling to their tiny sparks of life, for as long as they last. They will recognize you as an enemy, and they will kill you if they can.

The train was slowing. Rudy sensed it in a way quite unlike anything he had ever experienced before. Blind, limp, and nerveless… for all intents and purposes, a dead man… he was still intensely aware of the trains movement, the grinding of the brakes, the whole-body shuddering of the train as it lurched to a halt.

Then he was being borne, as if floating, across a dark expanse that reeked of metal and dust. How he could sense these things, he had no idea; but they were there, impressions more vivid than life. Of the tunnels. Of the arms that bore him. Of the vast, filthy concrete expanse where he was laid to rest.

And before it all faded out into perfect consuming blackness, he heard the voice coming to him from somewhere beyond, saying
you have power now, Rudy: enormous, untapped potential, just waiting for you to discover and develop. Things you would not have believed possible are now well within your grasp, if you will but learn to master them.

But that requires discipline, which is a trait you sorely lack. You frittered away your potential in the last life, sneering at the very idea of it, mocking the techniques that would have allowed you to come into your own. You assumed that to be what you were was enough, as though the sheer raw force of your anger could bring empires to their knees.

That kind of arrogance has no place, Rudy. Not in Heaven. Not in Hell. Not in this world, so firmly between. There is order in chaos, a dark hierarchy of power you can not yet conceive of. It will not smile upon your pretensions. It will not be impressed by your tacky bravura, your insolent airs.

See, now. I have taken you as I might a little girl: effortlessly. I could take you again, any time I so desired. I am your master. I shall always be your master. Forever and ever, you will bow before me. Remember that. Always.

But to them, Rudy, you can be like a god. As I am to you. If you will utilize the gifts that I have bestowed upon you… unlimited power, and unlimited time in which to gain control over it… they will have no choice but to bow before you. As you must bow for me.

The voice was fading, the darkness all-encompassing. Still, the last words crept into his consciousness somehow, reverberating with an eerie finality.

I must go now. You are on your own. I wish you better luck with this life, your last. If you are successful… if you do justice to what I have given you… I will be back to show you what lies beyond. If not…

Whatever came after was lost, as the blackness achieved completion. One last cold rush, moving through him like a skewer, and then…

…Rudy was back in the niche, sight refocusing on the moisture that beaded up on the dank concrete walls. His own forehead was damp and clammy with sweat. He found himself gnawing at his fingernails, and pulled them away abruptly, panic in his eyes.

He’d forgotten. He’d forgotten entirely. For days, everything from the point where he was bitten to the point where he woke up on the abandoned 18
^th
Street platform had been a total blank. He assumed that he’d just been left there, and that was that. He thought he was a free agent.

Now, with the words still ringing in his ears, the picture had been turned around completely. Suddenly, with all the subtlety of a rapist’s hands on his victim’s skirt, Rudy’s illusions had been stripped away. I am your master, the voice said, and a shiver rattled painfully through him.

He glanced over at the dead rat, still smoldering by the side of the third rail. An overwhelming hatred welled up in him, a hatred directed at all that lived: all the puny little scuttling things, racing pointlessly toward nothingness, dim lights flickering behind their eyes. It didn’t occur to him that the hatred was really aimed straight back at himself, at his dream-induced feelings of insignificance.

He only knew that he wished the rat were still alive. So he could kill it again. And again. And again.

Rudy Pasko pulled himself to his feet, staggering slightly with the effort. The hunger. It made him weak, lightheaded. It filled him with rage as he moved out of the niche and into the tunnel itself, pausing at the edge of the tracks to look around and get his bearings.

He had gotten to know the tunnels quite well over the last several days. They had become his kingdom, his turf, his home. He knew them by heart, every lonely stretch and confluence, every subtle detail that set one length of track apart from the others. He knew where to sleep, when the hour was upon him. He knew where to hide, when the workmen drew near. He knew where to hunt, where the pickings were easiest.

But the time had come to change all that.

Rudy moved toward the Prince Street station on the Broadway line, hugging close to the wall. In jollier times, he’d have walked down the rails like a ten-year-old country bumpkin with a piece of straw in his mouth. But there was something burning inside of him that had sucked out all the joy.

Like a little girl, huh?
The words, the words ate away at him now. They stuck in his craw like hot rivets, dredging up shame that translated as righteous indignation.
So I pissed away my whole life, did I? Just an arrogant little nobody who never got his act together… certainly no challenge for you, is that it? You bastard.

A plan was forming, of its own accord, in his mind. A piece from here. A piece from there. A glimmer of inspiration, sudden and striking as poetry, shedding new light on the path that lay before him.

There was much to be done in the next several days. A lot of groundwork to be covered, before the real action began. And though Grampa Death made a big deal about there being all the time in the world, Rudy wasn’t sure that he felt like taking all that much time.

Especially if he wanted to be ready when Grampa came back.

And I do, baby. I do
, he thought, smiling now as he entered the gray foyer to the workman’s stairs. Outside, the night had fallen conclusively. He could feel it.

Before anything else went down, there was somebody that he wanted to see. And he would see that person.

Tonight.