Dastardly Bastard (7 page)

Donald shook his head, coming out of his self-induced fantasy of horrors, a shiver running down his spine.
That
was how he scared over two million people a year with his novels.
That
was the author in him speaking—H.R. Chatmon, the stoic, clean-shaven storyteller, all five-foot-nine and confident, not Donald Adams, the bumbling midget who nursed a sore foot and a thundering headache.

“Fuck you, Jeff,” Donald said.

The outburst caused the boy in front of him to turn around. “What?”

“Nothing,” Donald snapped. He hadn’t meant to bark at the kid, but it seemed to have the proper effect. The boy’s mother glanced over her shoulder, gave Donald a dirty look, and took hold of her son’s hand. Their footsteps quickened.

Donald still couldn’t wrap his brain around Jeff’s blatant betrayal. He’d known the man far too long. Jeff had been there after Sunne was murdered, a friend during Donald’s darkest times. To throw all that history away for money seemed a ludicrous idea. Donald only hoped Jeff Carter choked on every stinking penny.

Donald had been betrayed in the past. He made a living out of knowing people, knowing that none of them could be taken at face value. The human condition, the lies they all told, the darkness they all held within their too-small hearts made him physically ill. He repressed vomit like a prizefighter knocked out opponents, with well-honed skill and experience. The writing helped. Those people Donald couldn’t stomach, he’d just kill off in one of his books. It was cathartic, even if a little sadistic.

In the end, Donald had become one of them—a liar. But a useful liar, nonetheless. His stories spoke to people. Even the biggest shit-stains of them all loved his tales of death and darkness and suffering. He wrote to appease his demons. His hatred was let free on the world in short bursts of grisly detail, and those sorry sods sopped him up like a biscuit in a side of gravy. His work was his escape, his release, and no one could ever take that from him.

He might forever be smaller than the masses, but he was the bigger person. He’d adapted, learned his surroundings, and evolved. The butterfly to their caterpillar, he was forever one step ahead.

In reality, he was better than all of them. Grander. The alpha male.

Yes
!

Unconsciously, Donald had moved past the mother and her son. Matching the tour guide’s steps two to one, he looked up at the man’s light brown face and smiled.

“Do you have a question, Donald?” the tour guide asked, looking down at him.

Of course, they all looked down on Donald Adams—Jeff Carter, Lars Stillstead, even his beloved Sunne. Every one of them thought themselves so high and fucking mighty. Well, he would show them. Starting with Janeel… Jamaal… Jah-whatever-his-name-was.

“Yeah. In fact, I do.”

“What’s that?”

Wait for it…

Donald grinned. “How’d a nigger like you get such a cushy government job anyway?”

12

LYLE LAKE WAS STOPPED DEAD in his tracks by both his mother’s death grip embrace
and
what the little man—Donald, according to his nametag—had just uttered to the tour guide.

“What did you say?” The guide, who had halted in his tracks, looked down at the little guy, confusion contorting his face. Lyle had expected full-blown anger, but Jaleel surprised him. Instead, the guide looked mildly shocked, more disappointed than anything.

“I didn’t say anything,” Donald responded.

Lyle could see something had changed in Donald’s face. His countenance had been screwed up into a joker’s grin, a wicked little Cheshire Cat number, but had become softer, the skin looser. His entire affect seemed
lighter
.

“Yes you did! You called him a nig—” Lyle felt a hand slap over his mouth and another wrap around the nape of his neck as his mother fought to silence him.

She hissed, “We don’t say words like that!”

Jaleel looked at Lyle, his eyes questioning. “He did. Didn’t he?”

Muted by his mother’s sweaty palm, Lyle nodded with exaggerated movements. His mother, apparently not wanting him to communicate anything else, shoved him up against the rock face. She stole his breath with a forearm to the chest while the other hand kept its hold on his mouth.

“Would you just shut up!” his mother bellowed. “For once in your miserable existence, please, learn how to be fucking
quiet
!”

Spittle covered Lyle’s face in a fine mist.

“All you do is screw around on that phone and ignore me! I’m your mother, you sniveling little cunt-rag! You’re the reason your father died! You! The poor son of a bitch ran straight into the bowels of hell to get away from your incessant goddamn noise. All day, all night.
Me, me, me, me, me
! It’s all you think about. No wonder tigers eat their fucking young!”

“Mmmphhhh…” Lyle managed through the palm she still had over his mouth.

“Just stop it! Shut the hell—” His mother’s eyes suddenly softened. She shuffled backward, releasing him. “L-Lyle, what’s wrong? Honey? What happened?”

“You went batshit,” the guy in the baggy pants said. His girlfriend punched him in the arm.

“What’s going on?” Donald asked from the guard wire.

“Everyone just relax.” Jaleel held his hands out in front of him as if everyone were going to stampede. “It’s anxiety; I’m sure of it. It’s like cabin fever or something like that. This trail gets to people. Just calm down, just breathe… it’s like… you know, when the lights go out, and you don’t know where you are, and then
BAM
!
BAM
!
Whooey
!”

With that, everyone in the group jumped at once. The tour guide spun in circles, laughing. His head tilted back at an odd angle as he sang to the heavens, “
The Dastardly Bastard of Waverly Chasm does gleefully scheme of malevolent things!
” Over and over again, Jaleel trilled those same words, as his revolutions got wider.

Everyone was yelling, hurting Lyle’s ears. He clamped his hands over them, but he could still hear their muffled calls of confusion, anger, and fear.

“What the hell is wrong with that dude?”

“Somebody grab him before he goes over the edge!”

“Stop it!”

“I didn’t say anything! I promise!”

“Mom?” Lyle looked to Marsha for comfort, an explanation,
something
,
anything
as the voices around him carried on. His head spun like the dancing tour guide, and he felt himself stepping forward. He had to escape. No one could help him. The chasm was the only way out.

Lyle sprinted for the steel wire, his right leg coming up to hurdle it.

He would be so welcome down there, down in the dark, where the Bastard played. Everything felt so right. Nothing would ever be wrong again. Lyle could hear angels singing, trumpets sounding, and birds chirping. Paradise was just over the wire.

“I’ve been ever so lonely down here,” a voice beckoned.

13

THROUGHOUT THE CHAOS, MARK SIMMONS kept his camera working. Something instinctive made him catch every insane happening as events played out before him. Not caring about the framing or focus of the Nikon, he pressed the shutter release repeatedly.

Click, snap…

Squirt seemed upset about something. His eyes showed dark, vehemence filling his face as he spoke to the tour guide. Mark couldn’t make out what the man had said, but by Jaleel’s reaction, it hadn’t been good.

Click, snap…

Lyle tried to say something. Marsha reacted as any mother would by clamping a hand over the boy’s mouth, silencing him. But what came afterward was as far from motherly as one could get. She spit venom, and Mark cringed as every foul comment lit into the boy. Lyle’s eyes showed cold fear. Mark had seen that same horror in the eyes of soldiers, soldiers he had also watched die because of that fear.

Click, snap…

Marsha backed away from her son, her face different. All the raging anger she’d been using to belittle her child was gone, replaced by an expression of fear. Her profile told of confusion and terror. Mark knew if he asked her what had happened, she’d have no idea. She looked shell-shocked, PTSD at its worst.

Click, snap…

What Mark’s Nikon would not capture were the words coming from Jaleel Warner. The man sang a song Mark recognized at once—
The Dastardly Bastard of Waverly Chasm
, the local lyric Willy had emailed Mark. The tone of the voice was playful, childlike, as the tour guide spun like a ballerina. Mark felt his hackles raise, gooseflesh running up and down him in waves. He was able to keep his camera up, but just by force. Mark felt the need to capture the story. The oddity possessed him. He knew he was being unforgiving in his blatant picture taking, but the group would just have to deal with it. There was a story forming, and Mark would be the one to tell it.

Click, snap…

The final picture was of Lyle. The boy pitched forward away from the wall on a course that would surely direct him over the edge and into Waverly Chasm. Lyle’s eyes were spinning, rolling in his head like a slot machine just after the arm has been pulled. The sight caused Mark to pause. He couldn’t believe what he was seeing, though he saw it with his own eyes.

Even as the camera processed that last photo, saving it to memory, Mark began to move, springing forward, not thinking, only reacting. He lurched, pushing past the stunned couple in front of him, using his size more than his strength to shove the two against the rock face.

The boy’s right leg extended.

Mark, already struggling for breath after five steps, his blood hammering in his temples with every heartbeat, stretched forward, arms out in front of him.

Lyle’s leg lifted, clearing the two-foot-high guard wire easily. He was going over. Mark was sure of it.

Mark tossed his entire weight forward, wanting,
needing
with every part of his being to find something on the boy to grab.

Like an Olympic diver, arms out at his sides, head tossed back toward the sky, Lyle began to drop.

Mark dug his fingers into Lyle’s outstretched forearm, pivoted back, and spun on one heel. Using his stomach as a counterweight, Mark hauled the boy back up and over the steel cable, tossing him into the rock face.

Everything unfolded in slow motion as the guard wire caught Mark just behind the knees.

The boy slid down the stony wall, landing in a crumpled heap next to his mother.

Mark’s vision flashed upward to a clear blue sky where birds played. His balance fled as he fell backward into the chasm.

Twirling, Mark was aware of light, then dark—chasm, followed by sky. Black. Blue.

Black.

Blue.

Then, only black.

14

“WATCHIN’ SOMEONE DIE, JUST, IS ne’er easy. Whether it be in pain, or in peace, the livin’ are left with the mem’ries the dead can’t carry with ‘em.”

Nana Penance’s words struck Justine McCarthy with a finality as solid as the rock face at her back. She’d watched helplessly, thrown aside by that wonderful man with more courage than a hundred armies, as he drifted away in the chasm below.

Afterward, Justine wailed uncontrollably, fat tears running down her cheeks. She felt hollow inside.

She could have done
something
. Nana Penance’s death had been expected, prolonged, and drawn out, but the big man had perished so suddenly. She couldn’t have stopped her grandmother’s passing, but that… that senseless loss of life might have been righted if she’d only acted.

Everything felt cold, even Trevor’s skin as she collapsed into his arms, crying into the crook of his neck. The world had gone frigid and uncaring. Justine could feel, in the pit of her stomach, an ache for the very fragility of life, the ease with which it could be snatched away.

She wept.

Trevor smoothed her hair, repeatedly whispering, “There was nothing anyone could do, baby” until his voice seemed to drone into a monotone, a requiem for the fallen.

There was nothing anyone could do, baby…

It wasn’t the first time he’d said those words.

When Nana Penance died, Justine had made two phone calls, both of them to Trevor. After getting the voicemail on his cell, she’d tried him at work. The conversation had been short. She was crying when he answered. He only asked where she was, then showed up at the hospital less than twenty minutes later.

“I ran over an old lady with a walker and blew through a speed trap to get here,” he’d joked. “No? I could—”

“She’s gone, Trevor.”

He pulled her in, held her, and erased the world around them. She never wanted to let him go. Somewhere in the back of her mind, she was certain Nana Penance had died because Justine hadn’t held on tight enough. Never would she let go again.

15

JALEEEEEEEEEEEEL,
THE
ID
SANG.

“HUH?” Jaleel moaned, fighting the drifting feeling. Someone was calling him. So persistent.

Wake up!
the
id
screamed. His inner voice was harsher than normal, demanding.

Jaleel’s eyes snapped open. Glaring light caused him to squint. “Wha-huh? Where am—”

“Shhhh! Don’t say a word.” The figure in front of Jaleel raised a glimmering finger to its ethereal lips. The form wavered, folding in and out of itself. Jaleel could make out a head, shoulders, and two arms, but nothing else. The being disappeared at the torso, reminding Jaleel of the old
Casper the Friendly Ghost
cartoons.

The face was familiar. It should have been. He was looking at a see-through version of himself.

“They’ll hear you,” the vapor said. “Don’t want them to see you talking to yourself, now, do we?”

“I’m dead; aren’t I? I fell off the side, and I’m dead. Stone cold
dead
.”