Otherworld (20 page)

“Can you blow this frame up?”

“Not on this program.”

“Well, get one that can.”

Twenty minutes later, Graham and Officer Petrie sat in another office. The surveillance video played through another program on another computer, and Petrie was struggling to find the right menu with the right commands to do what Graham wanted. Finally, he managed to get the right frame frozen in the window. With a few clicks of the mouse, the kid's tattoo grew larger and larger. And clearer.

“Sheesh,” Graham said. “Tell me that's not what I think it is.”

“Looks like the Grim Reaper to me, Cap.”

 

Two men led Mike down a brightly lit corridor. Everything was dressed in white—the men, the floor, the walls, everything. It seemed so pristine, so virginal. Why, then, did it seem so terrifying? The grim specter of what he walked toward made it all appear so dark. He had not prepared for this. He'd escaped from the black shadow of DEATH the night before by, once again, sharing a bed with his wife, and though she mourned the loss of her sister, it felt good to be with her. He'd nearly forgotten why he was there, why he'd gotten to reunite with her in the first place. But the morning came, and so did the anticipation of what lay ahead. It struck him like a cold wet splash in the face.

The two men steered him to the right, and they walked through a pair of swinging doors, stainless steel batwings, like the entrance to a grocery store's butcher shop. These images made Mike nauseous, for he knew that was exactly where he was headed. A butcher shop. A meat locker.

A fresh flop of warm nausea gurgled in his stomach.

They passed through a second set of doors. Sweat beaded on his scalp and in his armpits. The fuzz on the back of his neck prickled. The mingling of scents bombarded his nostrils. He smelled cleaning fluids and something like incense, only very faint, and a light burning scent and other chemical aromas, chemicals used for … well, he didn't know exactly what for, but probably for dealing with—

A bitter acid rose in his throat, and he fought it back down. He belched, tasting the nastiness on his tongue.

“Are you okay?” one of the men asked.

Mike nodded.

They walked the home stretch. The scents lingered more heavily there. It was the smell of DEATH. Not the rotting, bloated stench he expected, but the pungent chemical mask that covered it and became just as horrid. The clean smell of DEATH. Overhead, he heard the whish and whir of huge air conditioners.

They stepped through the final door, a huge, thick door on hinges with a long push bar, not a handle or a knob. They led him inside a small room. The air was freezing inside, and there, up against the wall, stood a table with steel legs. A white sheet draped over it, and beneath the sheet, lay the form of a person, a body. His sister-in-law, the corpse. Vickie Holland, the dearly departed.

Mike felt his knees wobble, and his legs began to give out. He tensed them.

“Are you sure you're okay?”

“Yes, I'm fine.”

“Sure?”

“I'm fine.”

“This'll only take a second,” one of the men said.

They didn't bring him to her. They brought
her
to
him
. The table had wheels, and they rolled it over to him. He couldn't even look at the sheet at first. He stared at the white wall across the room. Then he tilted his head down slowly, fearfully. The white sheet gave away Vickie's features. Her head, chest, legs, feet. Her nose rose up, a tiny hill in the white snows of the covering. It reminded him of something from his childhood. His mother had taken him to church when he was a little boy, and one Sunday, the congregation celebrated what they called the Lord's Supper. A wooden table rested near the altar, below the preacher's pulpit. A white sheet lay over silver pans of crackers and grape juice—“the flesh and the blood,” the preacher said. “This is the body of Christ.” Mike was only five or six at the time. He thought an actual body lay sprawled beneath that sheet. Underneath that sheet laid the dead body of Jesus, and Mike closed his eyes when they whisked the sheet away.

And here he stood again. The table. The white sheet. The body. This time, an
un
holy communion. DEATH.

One of the men began to pull the veil down to reveal Vickie's face.

Just look at her hair! Just the hair!

He looked at her eyes. They were closed, but Mike saw them open and moving, pupils dilating, lids fluttering. He wanted to scream. It was only Vickie, but it wasn't. It was DEATH. The room grew very warm very quickly, and Mike stood not in a tiny white room, but in the shallow waters of a riverbank, and Vickie did not lie before him. Someone else floated where she had been. The corpse. The body. DEATH. And DEATH came alive and grabbed Mike at the biceps with rotting, bony fingers and squeezed and clawed and pinched. Mike gritted his teeth. Sharp spurts of tears popped from his eyes.

The corpse pulled Mike in close, nearer and nearer to the decomposing face, white and bloated and green with moss, and through the yellow teeth and brown gums and white, swollen tongue, the corpse wheezed and, with a sour-breath voice, said, “Now I've got you, Michael Walsh.”

The words oozed out, riding the waves of ancient wind exhaled from ancient lungs, and seemed to envelope Mike's face with vaporous tendrils, velvety smooth but wretched, fetid but intoxicating. The sky above Mike swirled out of focus. His eyes rolled up into his head, and his legs buckled. He collapsed, striking his head on the tile floor, but his hand clutched the white sheet, and he pulled it down with him. It covered him completely.

From the journal of Dr. Leopold Sutzkever:

Something is happening here. Something big. Something like before. I don't know if it is the weather or Dr. Bering or if it's both, but I know something is happening … is going to happen. I remember in 1979 how the days preceding the confrontation seemed so different. There was the unexplainable phenomenon. At least, unexplainable before the confrontation. But I could feel it happening then, before it actually happened. During the day, I could feel the darkness. It was heavy upon me. The oppression. I want to cherish this gift of mine, but it is so hard not to see it as a curse. I do not enjoy exercising it, despite the joy it brings when I use it fruitfully. I could not have guessed the outcome of that confrontation. And I can only hope that I am wrong now, but I do not think I am. Something is coming, and I cannot guess the outcome of this either. I can only pray that it diverts its course from here. I can pray that one who is more worthy be chosen to exercise his gift. I can pray that everything works together for the good, and I know that it will, but … I suppose I am in the flesh right now. Something hovers over this place, and it is malevolent. It is not of the Spirit, but of the other.

CHAPTER TEN

Bright light.
Too
bright. Blinding …

… my eyes.

“Mr. Walsh?”

What's happening? Why is it so bright in here?

“Everything's …”

So bright. And … what is that? Diamonds?
Black diamonds shining sparkling glittering in the deep thickness of black orbs … Black
diamonds
…

“… going to be …”

No. No, not diamonds. Moving twitching shaking … frowning? Eyes. Eyes!

“… all right.”

The eyes! The dead rotting diamond eyes of the man of the body of the dead body of the rotting corpse floating to me and grabbing me! Get this man—

“—off of me!” Mike screeched, and he swung his fist wildly above him and connected with one of the two men who had led him to Vickie's body. Only it hadn't been Vickie's body. They took him to see
it
. To see the body from his nightmares. The body from his childhood. They took him to see DEATH. And now it all streamed back to him. He knew where he was. “I'm … I'm sorry about that,” he offered.

“It's okay,” the man said, rubbing his cheek. “You gave us quite a scare back there.”

You think
you
had a scare?
Mike thought.

“Do you remember what happened?”

“Well, I guess I must've fainted or something.”
No, that's not it. Vickie wasn't Vickie. She was the corpse I saw when I was a kid, and he reached out and grabbed me and spoke to me, but I can't exactly say
that
to you, now can I?

“Yeah. You fell down and hit your head pretty hard on the floor. Are you sure you're okay?”

Mike felt the back of his head. It didn't hurt a bit. “Yeah, I'm fine. Just a little spooked, I guess.”

“That's understandable. We just need you to sign a few papers, if you could.”

“Sure. No problem.”

From “UFO Hot Spot in Texas” by Patty Meitzen in
Encounters Magazine
:

With several UFO sightings to its credit and two documented cases of mysterious cattle mutilation, the small town of Trumbull, Texas, is fast becoming one of America's premiere UFO hunting grounds. Residents have reported fifty-six sightings, most of them lights in the sky, but several have claimed to see disc-shaped objects. One Trumbull man's own livestock have suffered. Lucas “Pops” Dickey found his cows murdered, their bodies cut with surgical precision, drained of blood, and missing certain organs. Are extraterrestrials visiting Trumbull? The town's chief of police declines to comment, and the captain investigating will only adamantly deny the claim, despite the insistence of many eyewitnesses who have yet to come to terms with whatever is taking place in their peaceful country town.

 

Jimmy lay on his back in the cold grass, not one hundred yards from someone's back porch.

Clear memories of the previous days' events eluded him. He had rushed to the little girl at the ruthless insistence of the voices, with the intention of killing her. He knew that. But before he could bring his blade down and into her, someone (or some
thing
) grabbed him roughly by the neck like grabbing a puppy by the scruff, and he flew away from the girl and landed on the road.

Even less of a memory was his encounter with the employee in the Dart 'n Shop convenience store. But he was sure he had slit the man's throat.

And then there was his mother. He still couldn't recall what had occurred in the kitchen the day before. The screaming of the voices covered it all, blinding him with sound.

He assumed the police were looking for him, but he didn't concern himself too much with that. He didn't consider himself at fault for his actions. To him, it was kill or be killed, and it all started with that night on the old man's farm.

Jimmy stared at the sky, watching the clouds slither by like ghosts. He saw pictures in them, images formed by their cottony folds. A dog with fangs and foam bubbling from its mouth. A white raven with a hooked beak. A skull.

He rolled onto his side and looked at the fence in the distance. He could see the peak of a roof jutting out above it.

The voices came, tickling his ears with the sweet whispers of sin.

That's the house, Jimmy.

“What house?”

The
house, Jimmy.
She
lives there.

“Who?”

The girl. The girl you let slip away. She's laughing about it right now.

“She is?”

She's laughing at
you
, Jimmy.

Jimmy began to cry.

She thinks you're crazy.

“But I'm not,” he sobbed.

But she thinks you are, and she's laughing at you right now. She's saying to herself, “That crazy Jimmy. He thought he had me, but I got away. He's just too weak.” Too weak and just too plain ol' crazy.

“Is that true?”

Nutty as a fruitcake. Of course it's true, Jimmy. We've never lied to you. We like you, Jimmy. We don't want her to laugh at you like that.

From the
Dallas Morning News
obituaries:

HOLLAND, Vickie Lorraine. Age 38. Dallas-area artist. Survived by sister, Molly Walsh, of Houston. Graveside funeral service 10:00 a.m., tomorrow, at Roselawn Cemetery, conducted by Reverend Steve Woodbridge of Cypress Creek Baptist Church, Houston. Roselawn Funeral Director, 555-2088. The Ferber Center for the Arts on Ross Avenue will have a weekend memorial display of Ms. Holland's oil paintings beginning Friday.

 

Mike pulled his rental car into the driveway of the Woodbridges' brick home in suburban Northwest Houston and debated whether to honk. He really didn't feel like meeting the family if they happened to be home. He really didn't feel like meeting a minister, for that matter, but he also realized that honking would more than likely be considered rude. After all, this was not a good friend like Robbie who would think nothing of being honked for, but a preacher who would probably condemn him to everlasting hellfire for not having the courtesy to ring his doorbell, despite the fact that ringing the doorbell served pretty much the same function as honking the horn.

His internal debate was interrupted momentarily when Mike noticed the Woodbridges' neatly manicured lawn. It looked so green, so lush, even in this harsh winter weather. He couldn't see a single brown patch. His thoughts drifted to his own yard, which he had, at one time, cared for almost compulsively. He had let it go for at least a month. He figured his neighbors probably noticed the difference and thought he had lost it, and he thought they wouldn't be too far off in thinking so.

Mike's hand began to rise to the steering wheel, but before he could sound the horn, a tall man emerged from around the corner, a garment bag slung over his shoulder and a blue Nike duffel bag in his other hand. Steve Woodbridge? The man's appearance startled Mike. With brown hair and boyishly handsome face, the minister was practically identical to Mike himself. Mike thought that anyone would mistake them for brothers. And the minister was not wearing a suit as Mike had expected, but blue jeans, a black winter coat over a gray sweater, and tennis shoes.

Mike had not been looking forward to sharing a long drive with a preacher. The thought of it made him very uneasy, but his initial exposure to the casually dressed minister disarmed him. And when Steve threw his stuff in the back, settled into his seat, and reached over and shook Mike's hand with a “Hi, how are ya?” Mike felt a whole lot better.

“Pretty good,” Mike said. “Steve, right?”

“Right,” Steve said.

“Or should I call you Reverend Woodbridge or—?”

“No, no. Steve's fine.”

“Okay. I'm Mike Walsh.”

“Good to meet you, Mike.”

“Same here.”

Mike backed the car out and headed for Interstate 45.

“This is a pretty nice car,” Steve said.

“Yeah. It's a rental, but I don't think I want to give it back.”

Steve chuckled, and Mike smiled.

“How long a drive you think we got ahead of us?” Steve asked.

“Well, it took me a little over five hours to get down here, so I figure it'll probably be a good six heading back, 'cause we'll probably get into some traffic with people getting out of work. I'm sorry I didn't send you a round-trip ticket. Thought it might be important for you to, you know, ask whatever you need to of me—as Vick's family, I mean—before just throwing you into the ceremony.”

Six hours. Mike didn't know what kind of conversation he could have with a minister for six hours. He began to sweat.

“What do you do for a living, Mike?”

“I write for a magazine.
Spotlight
.”

“Really? My wife reads that all the time.”

They traveled in silence for a long while after that, their only exchange consisting of Mike asking Steve if he minded if he turned the radio on, Steve saying, “Not at all,” and Mike (nervously selecting a station that wouldn't offend his Christian companion) tuning in to 87 FM—classical—and asking, “This okay?” Steve said, “Sure.”

He enjoyed the music for a while, but the lack of conversation began to worry him. He wondered what the minister was thinking about him.

“Your plane ticket's in the glove compartment there. I'll drive you to the airport tomorrow night. I think your flight leaves at seven. I hope Continental is okay.”

“Yeah, that's great,” Steve said, taking the ticket from the glove compartment. He looked it over. “I've never flown first class before.” He slipped it into the inner breast pocket of his coat.

“Also, I've got a room reserved at the Hilton for you tonight, if that's okay.”

“That's great, really. You didn't have to do all this. I'd be fine anywhere.”

There was more silence until Mike said, “The funeral will be at ten tomorrow morning. Did I tell you it would be graveside?”

“Yeah.”

“Okay. I'll pick you up at the hotel around nine, I guess.”

“Okay.”

Steve said, “I'm real sorry about your sister-in-law.”

“Thanks. Really, though, we weren't very close. I barely knew her. Actually only met her a few times.”

“I assume your wife's already up there?”

“Yeah. She's been in Dallas for … well …” Mike hunched his shoulders. He felt uncomfortable. Should he tell this man that Molly had left him? “… We're kinda separated. She's been in Dallas for about a year now.”

“Oh,” Steve said.

Mike couldn't tell if that was a condescending “oh” or an indifferent “oh.”

“She must be having a pretty tough time,” Steve said.

“Yeah. She was real close to Vickie.”

They entered Huntsville and passed the huge stone statue of Sam Houston. It reminded Mike of the Paul Bunyan statue in that Coen brothers movie, and Sam looked just as ominous, although his pose was more regal. Vivaldi's “L'Inverno” concerto from
The Four Seasons
began to play on the radio, and Mike immediately noticed the beginning's similarity to the theme from
Psycho
. He almost jumped when his companion said, “You go to church anywhere?”

A-ha! Now we get down to the nitty-gritty!
“Uh, no,” he answered.
All right! Here it comes!

It
never came.

Mike said, “My wife goes.”

“You know where?” Steve asked.

“Wood Glen Community.”

“Oh, yeah? The pastor over there and I are pretty good friends. Brian Ayers.”

“Yeah. My wife really likes him a lot.”

“He's in Chicago this week for a church conference. I'm assuming that's why you've got me instead of him, right?”

“Well, yeah,” Mike said.