The Messenger (2011 reformat) (8 page)

Who was
Carlton? Wait! The man he'd just seen back at the cemetery, with Jane Ryan and
her children. That was the inkling Dhevic suddenly received, and he pulled his
vehicle over to the shoulder, stopped, and closed his eyes to struggle through
the pain.

The man in the
cemetery.

Carlton.

Him, too, and
then he began to see it all behind the lids of his eyes. A basement, cluttered.
The man crawling out of some storage cranny. Sweating, patched with dust, knees
and elbows scuffed and dirty.

"What are
you doing here, Marlene?" "I came to get my sorting boxes.
What's...that?" No more talk, just vicious sex on the basement floor, each
just short of strangling each other at the sweat-drenched moment of their climaxes,
and that was how fast it happened. The Messenger had touched them both.

In Dhevic's
mind he could see what was in their minds as they wrapped themselves up in one another:
the most detestable images, images from someplace else, a charnel house the
size of a thousand cities. A sound like crashing waves but then Dhevic realized
that the sound was screams, hundreds of thousands of them, millions, squalling
from every direction. The sound was endless.

Chaos. A
living nightmare that never ended. Dhevic saw in flashes, white-edged images
catapulted into his mind's eye. Things flying in the sky, things that were not
birds. The sky was the color of arterial blood-it even seemed to pump like
blood, behind soot-colored clouds and a black sickle moon. Figures in black
armor marched in ranks down smoking streets, dismembering any poor soul who
dared be out. Great swords and halberd shafts sang through the air in graceful
arcs, lopping off heads, arms, severing bodies at the waist, cleaving others in
half from head to crotch. On the ledges of the hundred-story ghetto blocks, griffins
and gargoyles waited patiently for mongrel infants to be thrown from windows,
tender meals to say the least. Infants were thrown from these windows quite
regularly, in fact, by destitute mothers who were either damned humans, or
demons, or mixes of both.

The Outer
Sectors were uncharted but existed abstractly, in various dimensions, outside
of the center of the Abyss. Parched fields of corrupt soil and infernal
vegetation stretched for...

Well, no one
knew. Mile-long chain gangs were a common sight in these regions, emaciated
stick figures fettered together by welded cuffs and forced to work until there
was nothing left of them but bones. Closer were rivers vaster than the Amazon,
and bays and lakes larger than any ocean on Earth-only these bodies were filled
with waste, filth, corpses, and blood instead of water. The most unspeakable
creatures lived in these depths.

Another image
flashed, snapped into Dhevic's mind with a sound like a stout branch cracking.

Marlene again.
The living world behind her now, she was entering her new eternal home through
a field of flames. She was naked, hair flowing and bright-eyed, as beautiful as
she'd ever been. A figure was waiting for her, and when she saw it, she
rejoiced. She ran to the figure with open arms, her now-immortal heart beating
with love.

The Messenger.

"Thank
you for delivering my messages, Marlene," the entity said in a voice that
was cosmic. "And you will reap your reward now, as promised."

Marlene's
expression went from one of love and total devotion to an expression of utter
horror. The Messenger stood and watched as a horned, slug-skinned demon came up
from behind and chopped off Marlene's head with something like a cleaver. The
head was placed on a spiked stake alongside many, many such heads. The heads
were all still alive, some talking, some drooling, some grinding their teeth or
chewing through their cheeks, all with their eyes still open, all still seeing.

Marlene's head
looked down from its perch and watched more subordinate demons frolicking
sexually with her decapitated body.

The Messenger
sighed, in bliss...

Dhevic passed
out in his car seat. He wouldn't regain consciousness for several hours.

III

Dinner was
absolutely morose, but Jane expected that. What do you talk about with your
kids at the dinner table when you've just come back from a funeral? When one of
the people buried was someone you knew, and that same person murdered her
family and almost thirty other people?

What did you
talk about?

Everybody
picked at their food, even Kevin. Jane had made his favorite meal, teriyaki
meat loaf and deep-fried asparagus, which he usually devoured with gusto. Not
tonight, though. Jennifer, on the other hand, always picked at her food (she
was on a skinny kick lately, something going around school), but tonight she
scarcely took a bite. Carlton had left earlier, after playing a game with Kevin
and helping Jennifer feed the toad. Mel, a horrendously ugly horned toad, was
actually Kevin's pet, but he let Jennifer feed it. (Kevin didn't want to admit
that he was too squeamish for the feeding chores, which always required the sacrifice
of a live cricket or mealworm.)

"So who
won the game?" Jane asked, finally breaking the silence.

"No one,
really," Kevin said. "Carlton wasn't really into it, and neither was
I...I guess."

"What was
wrong with Carlton today?" Jennifer asked, picking at an asparagus spear
with her fork.

"Yeah,
Mom. He was acting funny."

"And
every now and then he'd kind of just... stare off," Jennifer said. "Sometimes
I'd look at him and he'd have this weird look in his eyes. Did you notice
that?"

Jane tried to rouse
herself from her stupor. "He was just upset, honey. When things like this
happen, people react in different ways. Carlton's worked with Marlene for a
long time, just like I have. And there's another thing. The funeral probably
reminded Carlton of something really bad that happened to him a long time
ago."

"What,
Mom?"

Oh, Jesus, why
did I mention that! She fumbled for a way out but knew there was none.
"Well, Carlton had a family, too, a wife and a daughter. I think that
daughter was about the same age as Marlene's son. Anyway, his wife and daughter
were killed one night in a car accident," and she didn't feel too bad
about the white lie. They didn't need to know that the daughter was never
found, probably abducted.

"Oh,"
Kevin said, thinking about what Jane had said, trying to understand. "But
this is different. Marlene wasn't killed in a car crash. She was shot by the
police."

Jesus, Jane
thought once more.

A pause, then
Jennifer said, "Why did Marlene do it?"

"Yeah,
Mom. Why did Marlene kill all those people, and Mr. Troy and Jeff, too?"

All Jane could
do was sigh at the impossible questions. "It's hard to explain. Sometimes
something happens to people that makes them do bad things. Something happens in
their brains. It's called mental illness. It makes a person's brain stop
working right, and when that happens, sometimes people just-"

"You mean
they go crazy?" Kevin said at once.

"Like
that guy who killed Dad?" Jennifer added.

Jane faltered.
Now the two tragedies were meeting on common ground, and that common ground was
her children. Again, she didn't know what to say. She felt lost.

Oh, Matt, she
thought.

Five years
ago. She remembered it had been raining that night; she could hear it pattering
on the roof. And she had a headache because it had been a week when she'd tried
to swear off coffee. She remembered the door knocker clacking, irritatingly
loud, which made the headache worse.

It was late.
The kids were asleep and she'd been lounging on the couch. In spite of the
headache, though, she'd felt wonderful. She was happy. She was in love. She had
a good job, a beautiful home, and lived in a nice neighborhood. She had a
wonderful husband and wonderful children.  She had everything she'd ever
dreamed of, everything a woman could ever want. She even remembered telling
herself that. How did I get so lucky? What did I do to deserve this? Thank you,
thank you.

Her husband,
Matt, had just gone to the twenty-four-hour Qwik-Mart store, to get her some
instant decaf. Before he'd left, they'd made slow and luxurious love right
there on the couch, with the rain pattering in the background. She loved being
that close to him, his heat beating into her-the contact, the passion-his
touches revitalizing her. She squirmed beneath him, his hands ranging her body,
then his mouth covering her, tending to every special spot until she was dizzy.
When she couldn't stand it anymore, she'd opened her legs to him and dragged
him into her. It didn't take long after that; Jane was already there, she was
coming the moment he'd entered her, then more climaxes unreeled when he stepped
up his thrusts and came himself. Slow, easy ecstasy. That's the way it always
was for her when Matt was with her.

Afterward, she
felt slaked. She couldn't get off the couch if she wanted to; she felt lazy and
sleepy and full of his warmth. "I'll have you know," he said,
dressing haphazardly in front of her, "I don't run out in the rain to get
decaf for just any woman." "Just shut up and hurry," she
replied. Her nipples tingled. "When you get back... we'll do it again."
Matt nearly stumbled stepping into his loafers and grabbing his keys. Jane had
to laugh. Did he have his shoes on the wrong feet? He was gone a moment later.

Yes, I'm very,
very lucky, she remembered thinking. Matt had landed a job with a good
advertising firm downtown, which made the neighborhood even more perfect. Her
own job was close, and the schools were right here too. She listened to the
garage door go up, heard the car leave, then listened to more rain, reveling in
the joy of her life.

The headache
was a minor annoyance. She'd quit smoking, too, several years before, and it
hadn't been that bad. She drifted in and out of sleep, seeing Matt in snatches
of quick dreams, always smiling, his eyes always so full of love for her. And-

RAP!
RAP! RAP!

Knocking on
the door jerked her out of the half-sleep. The headache flared. That's when it
all came tumbling down.

"... very
sorry to have to tell you this, Mrs. Ryan, but it seems that your husband has
just been killed ..."

Killed. The
word that had just come out of the state trooper's mouth sounded impossible. He
stood there poker-faced in the doorway, his badge dripping, rain slicker
glittering. No, he hadn't just said that word, not that word. Killed.

"Murdered,
Mrs. Ryan. I'm very sorry to have to give you this news."

The next half
hour she didn't remember at all. Like a dream that dragged on and on-a very bad
dream- with pockets of blackouts that kept her doubting that there was any
reality at all to this. She'd been taken away, in the state police car, to the
county hospital. Batches of words kept flowing in and out of her attention:
"... terrible time for you and your family..." "... need you to
come down to the county morgue..." "...will be calling you shortly to
ask you some questions...""... crisis counselors are available for
you and your children ...""... we need positive identification of the
body..."

Harsh white
lights beat down on her, but the light felt cold. She could hear them buzzing
overhead. Her raincoat dripped as she looked down.

A sheet
flapped. "Is this your husband, Mrs. Ryan?"

Jane stared.
Just an hour ago, they'd been making love on the couch. His semen was still in
her, she could feel it there, still vaguely warm-and now here was the same man.
Dead on a morgue slab.

"The
perpetrator escaped from the Danelleton Clinic. It's a private psychiatric
hospital just outside of town. Raped a nurse and killed her, then killed two guards
and somehow got the time-locked entrance door opened. From there, he escaped on
foot. This was about ten o'clock this evening, Mrs. Ryan."

Jane was
barely hearing him, but it was enough. Matt had left the house around eleven
... to get my decaf, she thought, and just wanted to collapse and die right
there on the spot.

"Fortunately
the perpetrator was apprehended by the state police at approximately
eleven-thirty. But by then..."

The trooper
didn't finish. Jane knew what he meant to say. She finished for him. "By
then it was too late. By then, Matt was already dead."

"I'm
afraid so. It appears that your husband had just pulled into the convenience
store near the town dock, that twenty-four-hour place. There were no other
customers in the store at the time. The perpetrator had already entered and
killed the cashier with a hunting knife he'd stolen from another store. Then he
just waited for the first customer to walk in."

"Matt,"
Jane whispered, her face washed with silent tears.

"A silent
alarm had gone off, and the police had already been dispatched. When they
arrived, the perpetrator was attempting to start your husband's car."

What more need
be said? Her entire life had been shattered in the space of an hour. By some
psycho with a shoplifted hunting knife. The sheet over Matt's body was black
plasticized fabric, not cotton, so there was no evidence of blood. Only his
face had been uncovered, which she was grateful for, but a very dark part of
herself was wondering: How exactly had he been murdered? Where had he been
stabbed? Was it slow or quick, and how much pain had he suffered?