The Devil in Silver (51 page)

“Do you want us to try and get you out?” Pepper asked.

They listened to the huffing and let it play out its natural rise and fall. But after the inhalation of breath, there was no response.

“Mr. Mack?” Doris Roberts called.

“I’m not down here alone,” he finally said.

They heard shuffling. Then a hard clopping on the concrete floor. Then a deep inhalation followed by a short puff of air, like a bodybuilder lifting a great weight up over his head. A moment after that, a heavy
whomp
, like a fully packed suitcase being slammed to the floor.

A moment after that, Mr. Mack whimpered softly.

Then in the dark, the Devil inhaled deeply again, lifted the old man up with a short puff of air. And again, the heavy
whomp
of Mr. Mack’s body hitting the floor. Mr. Mack whimpered once more.

“Stop it!” one of them up on the second floor landing shouted.

“
Please
,” another said.

“Why won’t you leave us alone?”

The same routine again, ending with the
whomp
of Mr. Mack’s body against the floor for a third time. Every patient strained to listen, but Mr. Mack didn’t even whimper this time.

They waited. What to do? Forget rescuing the old man. What about them? Each of them wanted to run, in their minds they were already sprinting, but they couldn’t make their bodies move.

They heard the sounds of some new exertion from down below, in the dark room. Puffing and straining. Who else could it be but the Devil? One quality of the noise had changed, though. It was much closer now.

They all saw a shape moving down there, in the darkness. It seemed to be floating. Up from the depths. Down by their feet a pair of mottled hands appeared, gripping at the very bottom of the doorway.

It wasn’t flying. It climbed.

Yuckmouth lifted his foot, as best he could in the crowded space, and stamped down on one of the hands. He landed hard with his heel. He might’ve done it again, but already the Devil was emerging from the open doorway. It seemed to catapult out, headfirst out of the shadows. It rammed right into Yuckmouth’s guts and that was it. Yuckmouth soared backward, right over the people behind him. He landed on his side and wasn’t even stunned. His survival instinct took over. Yuckmouth scrambled away on hands and knees.

And now the Devil was among them.

It moved so fast. Bashed right into Sandra Day O’Connor’s back. The poor woman went facedown, hard, and the Devil trampled over her. His hooves did the most damage. One came down—
clop—
on her hand.

Doris Roberts turned back when her friend cried out in pain. That’s when Doris Roberts got clipped. Not full-on impact, more like she got grazed. But one of the Devil’s horns tore her exposed forearm, a gash that ran from elbow to wrist.

Now the patients were all hollering. The Devil seemed to be coughing loudly, or was it laughter? Moonlight had turned to the first rays of dawn. That new light burned the first floor orange.

Heatmiser, poor Heatmiser, he ran along the landing toward the far staircase. He took the first step down and the Devil reached him. It had built up speed. When its head connected with the small of Heatmiser’s back, that mumbling kid got
clobbered
. His body went into the air and hit the wall, then he bounced off the wall and skipped down the stairs like a stone expertly tossed across a pond. Five hops and Heatmiser lay motionless on the first floor.

Still on the second floor, Pepper stood alone.

Unlike the others, he hadn’t tried to flee down one of the staircases. He’d held close to the shadows along the landing.

Pepper watched as the Devil descended the far staircase. It stood over Heatmiser and snorted at him. It bumped the body with the side of its head, rolling Heatmiser onto his back. Heatmiser shivered and sputtered. The Devil looked down into its victim’s face, almost daring the body to move again.

It’s just a man
.

Pepper said this to himself. He tried to play Dorry’s voice in his head. She’d been so sure when she said it.

It’s just a man
.

But Pepper’s eyes just wouldn’t agree. Here in the pavilion, the chaos like a toxin in the air, the fear a hallucinogenic, he couldn’t say what, exactly, he saw. Reality, or the reality they’d all agreed upon?

Heatmiser remained still. This disappointed the Devil. It bumped his body one more time, then abandoned it. It rushed back up the staircase to the second floor. When it did, Redhead Kingpin and Still Waters moved to Heatmiser and tried to help him up.

The Devil returned to the landing. Come to see who else it could hurt. He found the Haint, too shocked to move, too old to run. She stood there in her purple pantsuit. Her matching hat had been lost. Her hands were crossed in front of her, daintily, as if she were waiting for a streetlight to change from red to green. The Devil didn’t even charge her. It didn’t have to. He could lean on her and she’d snap in two. It stalked toward the old woman slowly.

But someone stepped in between the Devil and the Haint.

It was Wally Gambino.

“Nah!” he shouted at the Devil. “That’s
out
. You ain’t fucking with
this old bird. Not while I’m around. You wanna fuck with
me
? When I was twelve I went to hell for snuffin’ Jesus!”

The Haint hardly seemed to notice Wally’s chivalry. She kept the same pose, hands crossed in front of her, patiently waiting. But the Devil’s stance switched. Lowering its head so the horns could gore the brave kid’s flesh.

It’s just a man
, Pepper repeated in his head.
It’s just a man
.

Wally Gambino worked himself up. A little chemical change to the mind and body before entering combat. A mechanism as old as battling. “You know what they call me back home?” he yelled. And then silence. He’d forgotten the answer to his own question. The kid was brave, but also terrified. In that frozen moment, Pepper ran up behind the Devil and clutched it around the throat with one meaty arm. Pepper’s eyes were shut. He whispered to himself, “It’s only a man.”

The Devil thrashed in Pepper’s grip. A trapped animal, a hemmed-up human being, the same beast at that point. It hissed and flailed. It bucked. Pepper kept his eyes closed and repeated those four words—
It’s only a man—
as he dragged the Devil backward. Away from all the others. Back toward the door he and Loochie had used minutes ago.

“I don’t
need
you protecting me!” Wally Gambino said.

But his voice, it wavered. He sounded so relieved. He turned to the Haint. He took her by the arm and quickly led her down.

Pepper slammed into the door with his back, using his momentum and the combined weight of two bodies to force it open. The filing cabinet on the other side groaned as it fell. When it landed it sounded thunderous in Pepper’s ears, like a skyscraper had been tipped over. Pepper pulled the Devil into the darkened room.

In here, alone, Pepper looked down at the figure in his arms. What did he see in the lightless gloom?

The same grand bison’s head. The gray-white eyes rolling in their sockets. The long, fat pink tongue shooting out of its mouth.

“I know what you are,” Pepper said. He moved backward with the Devil. Where was he taking it? (Him.) Pepper wasn’t sure. Maybe he’d stuff the thing (man) inside that air duct. Let it (him) stay there, stuck, until it (he) rotted away.

Pepper pulled the Devil out into the same hallway he and Loochie had just been in. Here and there he could still see Loochie’s small footprints in the dust. The bulb here cast new light on Pepper and the Devil. And when Pepper looked down, he finally saw it. Him.

No bison’s head. An old man.

Pepper grunted, triumphant. He looked down into the wild eyes of an old man. The old man had a head covered with graying hair that fell as low as his shoulders. The tips of his ears peeked through his hair. He had a full graying beard, the hair knotty and unkempt. The old man’s eyes were waxy and dry and red all over, with veins the color of bloodworms.

“Mr. Visserplein,” Pepper said.

The old man shook his head, but it wasn’t clear if he was refusing the name or trying to break free.

“You’ve got problems,” Pepper said. “I guess that’s why you’re here. But you’re hurting people. You’re hurting us.”

The old man puckered his lips. His eyes grew wet and weak tears ran down his cheeks. They dotted Pepper’s forearms. Pepper didn’t understand what the old man was trying to tell him. Finally, the man raised one hand and patted at Pepper’s arm faintly, the one around his throat. Pepper loosened his grip and the old man
breathed
.

The old man craned his head backward so that he looked up into Pepper’s face. And Pepper looked down into his.

Years ago, Pepper had dated a woman who had kid, a girl eleven months old at the time. Sometimes Pepper would hold that little girl just like this. She’d peer into his face, upside down, just like Mr. Visserplein did now. She’d seem confused by the angle at first, almost dazed, but sometimes she’d break into this smile, showing her handful of tiny teeth. And in those moments Pepper experienced such uncomplicated love for that child. She wasn’t his daughter but it didn’t matter at all. Her joy was a universal language. The memory of those times could make Pepper feel tender even years after he and the mother had stopped dating.

So maybe that’s why Pepper experienced a jarring swelling in his throat as Mr. Visserplein stared up at him. Because Pepper realized
that even this man had probably shared that same kind of smile with
his
parents. He had been a baby in someone’s arms. That’s all he was once. Not yet this man. And had those parents ever dreamed their baby would be dumped in a place like this? How could they? And yet here he was. Here they all were. And who would ever have guessed?

“Now that’s sweet,” a woman said.

Pepper looked up to find the other patients hadn’t skedaddled back to their rooms. They’d regrouped. They’d followed Pepper’s tracks. They were all there in the second-floor hallway. Still Waters, Redhead Kingpin. Heatmiser. The Haint. Wally Gambino. Yuckmouth, Doris Roberts, and Sandra Day O’Connor. They crowded together. They stood around Pepper and the old man.

“Now that you’ve got him,” Redhead Kingpin said. “What are we going to do with him?”

Mr. Visserplein howled. And Pepper, without thinking, tightened his grip around the throat again.

“That’s it,” Heatmiser mumbled.

“Just choke him right here,” Sandra Day O’Connor said plainly.

The group crowded closer, all as one. Were they grinning or was that just a trick of the dark?

“Choke him and let us listen,” Redhead Kingpin said.

Pepper inched himself and the old man backward down the hall.

Wally Gambino moved to the front of the group. He landed a damn powerful kick right into Mr. Visserplein’s thigh. Yuckmouth followed Wally’s example, kicking Mr. Visserplein in the ribs.

Pepper tried to get up off the floor. while keeping hold of the old man and pushing backward. The other patients followed. They didn’t speak but only made sounds. When Pepper looked down at the figure in his arms, he got confused. One moment, he looked down and saw the same gaunt, bearded man. But in the next, he saw the bison’s head again. And the more confused he became, the more scared he felt. Mr. Visserplein was becoming the Devil again.

Heatmiser and Doris Roberts landed punches against Mr. Visserplein’s chest, his spindly arms. At this point, Pepper realized he was holding the old man still so the others could pummel him. It was an
old-school
beatdown
. Eight on one. They meant to kill the old man. They’d open him up, just like Frank Waverly. But what was the last thing, the only thing, Frank Waverly had said?

Pepper rose to his feet and dragged Mr. Visserplein backward, yoking the old man off his feet. He turned so the others couldn’t land any more blows on Mr. Visserplein. So instead they hit him. They didn’t care now. They probably didn’t even notice. Pepper got to room 5. Because he’d left the door half open it was easy to slip inside. And just as quickly, he slammed the door shut with his butt. The rest were on the other side instantly, their grunts and cries muffled. Hands slammed against the door and feet kicked. The wood rattled.

“You’re safe,” Pepper said to the old man. “You’re okay.”

But Mr. Visserplein had recovered. Pepper tried to calm him, but the old man only hissed through his clenched teeth. Then, of all things, he laughed, as if this was the most fun he’d had in decades.

That was when Pepper grasped just how far gone this old man must’ve been. So detached from this reality that maybe all of them seemed like figments of some grand dream. As Mr. Visserplein’s laughter grew louder, Pepper understood why Dorry must’ve snuck out of her room every night. Why she brought nourishment, even, to him. Because Dorry saw that this man wasn’t monstrous, he was tragic.

The pressure on the other side of the door only increased. There were eight people over there determined to get through.

The door didn’t splinter, it bent.

Pepper couldn’t wait. Whatever he was going to do must be done now. But what? He guessed it had to be five or six a.m. (Six thirty-three, actually.) The morning shift and the overnight shift might all be in the building. He needed to introduce a new element. He needed to get them all—including Mr. Visserplein—away from this floor, this room. Suppose the others did kill this old man. How soon before they turned on him for helping the Devil? Then on one another?

Pepper lifted Mr. Visserplein. He carried the old man in front of him, like a baby being cradled. He ran toward the great old chair sitting in the middle of the room. The door finally gave up. The upper
half cracked from the attack on the other side. The patients crowded, climbing over one another to get through the broken door.

Pepper moved around the far side of the chair. When he reached the proper spot, weak from leaked rainwater, he jumped up and down just once, as if he and Mr. Visserplein were playing on a trampoline. The floor couldn’t hold their combined weight.