The Light at the End (17 page)

The crumpled-up napkin sat on the bedside table. Stephen’s eyes kept coming back to it, no matter how hard he tried to distract himself. A dozen half-finished chores surrounded him… dishwater in the sink, dirty clothes in a pile on the floor, a stack of notes and manuscript in the first phase of organization… all rendered abortive by a stupid piece of paper, designed to wipe the ketchup from a sloppy eater’s face.

One stupid piece of paper. With one stupid phone number scrawled across it.

And one all-pervasive aura of terror.

“I can’t handle this,” he whined, fairly leaping from his seat at the kitchen table. “I can’t handle this at all.” He moved quickly across the apartment, grabbed the napkin up in one trembling hand, and stared at it, as if daring it to threaten him further.

The napkin, of course, was innocuous; the terror lay in what it brought to mind. Stephen felt like an idiot, standing there, even as the fear and anger coursed through him like twin jolts of Freon and fire.

And the thoughts came rushing back in a flood of images: Rudy on the train, those red eyes glaring out from the ghastly pallor of his face; the bloody handkerchief; the madness, not human, that flashed across Rudy’s features at that moment. And behind that…

Dark eyes, glowering in the wide, primeval face. Massive fists, trembling with barely contained anger. A presence so formidable that you could punch it through a brick wall, staring at him across a distance the length of a barroom table.

Joseph Hunter
read the name on the napkin before him. Stephen shook his head, overwhelmed by the metaphor. He could almost see Joseph, primitive spear in hand, running out of some cave to attack a saber-toothed tiger, and coming away wearing the animal’s skin.

He’s going to find Rudy
, Stephen thought,
and then God knows what he’ll do
. He could see Rudy snapping in two with very little effort on Joseph’s part. And yet…

And yet…

Something had changed in Rudy. Stephen didn’t know exactly what… he certainly didn’t think that Rudy’d become one of the walking dead, as Joseph seemed to… but something had definitely happened. Something dark, and strange, and frightening.

I’ve gone all the way in, Stephen
, the voice hissed once again in his mind.
I’ve gone all the way into the darkness, Stephen, and you know what I found there?

“What did you find, Rudy?” he found himself whispering. “What did you find…”

The phone rang, loud and sudden as a fire alarm. Stephen jumped, his head whipping toward the sound, his hands jerking abruptly. There was a soft, tearing noise, and he felt something give. “Oh, no,” he mouthed, but the words were a silent lump in his throat.

The napkin had been torn neatly in half, right down the middle of the number.

The phone rang again. Stephen stood there, mute and motionless as a ventriloquist’s dummy, half a napkin dangling stupidly from either hand. A thousand voices screamed at him from the dark grooves of his brain, most of them his own.

The phone rang again. Somehow, the spell was broken. He let the flimsy pieces of paper waft to the ground and turned to the phone. On the fourth ring, he answered it.

“Hello?” he said, the shrill vibrato of his voice echoing back at him through the receiver.

“
Ah, Stephen.
” The voice was a thin, metallic whisper over the phone lines, but it thudded like a brass drum in his ears. “
You’re home. I’m so glad. That’s just wonderful.
”

The voice was the tip of a long cold stiletto, inserting itself into Stephen’s belly with infinite, almost lackadaisical, slowness. The voice was a forkload of maggoty flesh, pressed insistently against his lips. The voice was a Checker cab, wheeling suddenly around some corner and straight toward him, with its bright eyes glaring over the ravenous, grinning grill.

The voice was a train. A long, cold train. Upon him now.

And he was powerless before it.

“
Listen, Stephen?
” The voice struggled for control, trebling upward at the end in a burst of lunatic cheer. “
We’ll be getting together in the next few days. I’m not sure when. But I’ll definitely let you know.
”

The line went dead. His breath sucked in sharply, and the receiver dropped like a stone from his nerveless fingers. A great, uncontrollable spasm of terror shuddered through him, and he dropped to his knees beside the dangling phone wire.

“Oh, my God,” he whispered, eyes focused oh nothing, a tidal wave roaring between his ears. He shook his head violently, and his vision came back, and he found himself staring at the napkin on the floor.

In two equal pieces.

With Joseph Hunter’s number torn neatly, lengthwise, right down the middle.

“Oh, my God,” he whispered.

Rudy hung up the phone and leaned back against the door of his apartment, grinning beatifically. He had a definite buzz on, a consummate high; the weakness and the hunger and the anger were gone. His whole body tingled with strength and vitality. He felt absolutely tremendous.

“Tremendous,” he whispered, his head lolling slightly. His eyes were closed; and in the absence of light, he concentrated on the feelings that rushed through him. The two old friends, now coursing through his veins.

And against the backdrop of darkness, in the private screening room of his mind, he watched the events of earlier this evening unfold in living color…

His name was Dod Stebbits, but everybody called him “The Bod” because he had such an unusual one. He looked like a chicken on a spit, to be honest: little spindly limbs and a scrawny chest, attached to this enormous bulging belly and protruding ass. His neck was long and skinny; his head sat on top of it precariously, like a chunk of beef fondue on a toothpick. With his beak nose, bulging eyes, crooked grin, and puffy razor cut, he looked more like a Muppet than a man.

But Dod Stebbits consistently had good drugs. There was no question about that. Whatever else you could say about him, the kid was a walking pharmacy. There wasn’t a buzz on the market that he couldn’t get his hands on in the space of three hours, if he didn’t have it on him already. He was a procurer
par excellence
.

Rudy always scored his speed from Dod the Bod. Anything from diddly-shit like black beauties and robin’s eggs to first-class crystal Methedrine. All Rudy had to do was find him, and that was never too hard. The Bod was in business; he was always around.

Tonight, Rudy had gone to Dod’s Bleecker Street studio apartment. Fortuitously, he’d gotten there just as Dod was splitting for the night. Rudy had dragged the dealer back inside and killed him instantly, scrawny arms and legs waggling impotently while all the life flowed out of him like a milk shake up a straw.

Then, sated, Rudy had gone through Dod the Bod’s pockets, throwing the contents on the bed. He was staggered by what he found: a Baggie of Quaaludes, maybe twenty hits of blotter acid, and well over an ounce of coke, all cut down into grams. Not to mention miscellaneous doodads, $140 in small bills, and a .32 caliber Sterling Automatic. (Rudy checked Dod’s wallet. No permit. “Tsk tsk,” he mumbled.)

But that didn’t begin to compare with what the kid had stashed in his apartment. Rudy’d found himself looking down at the white, lifeless thing on the floor and thinking
my God, man! You were worth this much?
It was like a year in Disneyland without ever having to leave your house. It was incredible.
You could’ve had your whole body rebuilt to look like Arnold Schwarzenegger, with that kind of money.

Then the thought came:
what could I do with that kind of money?

Followed by:
what could I do with a steady flow of that kind of money?

Followed by what he felt to be a marvelous idea.

Within a half hour, he had Dod Stebbits’ body securely tied up on the four-poster bed, right in front of the picture window with the lovely eastern exposure. He used rope and strips of bedsheet, leaving Dod’s body awkwardly spread-eagled, oversized head slumped to one side, moonlight twinkling on the two wet holes in the throat, Rudy shoved a pair of Dod’s dirty underwear into the dead mouth and then taped it shut, just in case the guy came back screaming.

During the course of this, Rudy also popped a pair of robin’s eggs and snorted a huge line of coke. He had not slept well as a rat, and even the blood hadn’t brought him back to a full state of alertness. Besides, that was really what he’d come to Dod for in the first place.

He wanted speed to stay awake. The amount of sleep he’d been getting recently seemed like a total waste of time.
And if I’m someplace where the sun refuses to shine
, he reasoned,
there’s no reason why I shouldn’t be able to work straight through the day.

There was so much to do, after all. And he wanted it to come down quickly.

Which was why he left Dod trussed up like a turkey in front of the window. Which was why, just as he had loaded up his pockets and readied to go, he leaned over next to Dod’s ear and whispered, “I’ll be back tomorrow to pick up some more goodies. Then I’ll decide whether to feed you or leave you like this. Depending on whether or not you’re worth having as a slave, you understand me? If you make it worth my while, I’ll let you live forever.”

And then, keys in hand, he’d sealed Dod the Bod up in the apartment that had become Dod’s tomb.

Rudy let himself slide down the wall, giving in to the euphoria. There would be plenty of time to work tonight… and into the new day, if he so desired… but right now, he just felt too good.

When his ass hit the floor, he grinned and splayed his legs out, slouching back against the wall. He stretched, sighed, and put his hands behind his head, to soar across the brainscape, plucking up images and toying with them briefly, then moving on, restless and fickle as a nursery-school kid in an overstocked playroom.

He saw himself riding on a black Harley-Davidson, leading the great dark parade of the damned down Fifth Avenue to Washington Square Park. There was a bonfire in the center of the plaza; he could see its radiance, flickering through the arch at the end of the road like the light at the end of a tunnel. A lot of things were burning in there. So many more to come.

He saw himself at the head of a banquet table at the Plaza Hotel, where the walls were festooned with his sanguine graffiti. His horde was feasting tonight on the staff of
People Magazine
, having already dispensed with
Time
,
Newsweek
, and
The Wall Street Journal
. For dessert, they would have the Channel 11 News Team and the entire cast of
All My Children
. To his right was Ed Koch, the first undead mayor in the history of New York City. To his left was Caspar Weinberger, who had the misfortune of coming into town for a U.N. address. Tomorrow, he would go back to Washington for a special meeting with the President.

He saw himself at the top of the World Trade Center, staring out over his kingdom. Below him, the dark trains were moving through tunnels and over bridges, spreading the word into Brooklyn and Queens, thundering out to Long Island and Newark, creeping into Jersey City and Hoboken like a death kiss blown on the breeze. And establishing Rudy Pasko as the master of all that he surveyed.

Then he saw himself in the imperial bedroom, done up in lavish red and black silks and satins. There was a girl writhing on the bed before him, bound to the four posts by delicate scarves, her nightgown open to reveal the soft white flesh beneath. Her hair had fallen across her face, burying it even deeper in shadow.

Rudy moved toward the girl. Sat down on the bed beside her. Reached down slowly, with mock tenderness, to brush aside the hair…

“Josalyn.” He whispered the word, and his eyes suddenly opened, and the fantasy world ripped away like a gossamer veil. Rudy was staring at a dumpy room on 8
^th
Street and Avenue B: dingy white walls that were fading gray, warped wood floor, two lousy windows that offered a stunning view of the alley.

And in the center of the room, a small gray rat, staring up at him with quizzical eyes.

“Come here.” The words surprised him on their way out of his mouth. He sounded, to his own ears, like an American Sportsman talking to one of his prize retrievers. There was no anger in the voice, no hint of the loathing. Just a firm, almost friendly command. “Come here, okay?”

Slowly, hesitantly, the rat began to move forward. A strange light came into its eyes. It slunk up to his outstretched feet, then around them, stopping about five inches beyond his reach. It’s whiskers twitched, and its head cocked to one side, as though struggling to comprehend its own actions.

“Come here, bay-bee,” he said, motioning with his fingers. He giggled and adopted a whiny falsetto. “Oh, coochie-coochie-coochie, little baby, come to Daddy…”

The rat cringed, then, snuffling at the air, as though a bad scent had just wafted into the room. Rudy saw this, and all the humor went out of his voice. “Come here!” he barked. “Come here right NOW…”

And the rat stiffened suddenly, trembling on its haunches. The eyes flashed bright red for a second, then off; but what remained was glazed and blank. A thin stream of urine spritzed onto the floor. It formed a shimmering trail as the rat painfully began to drag itself forward.

And into Rudy’s hand.

“Good, good, he cooed, cradling the animal to his bosom, stroking it absently as he settled back again and closed his eyes. “Little Poopsie’s all done peeing on the floor now, right?
Nice
Poopsie!
Nice
…”

And his mind drifted back to that fantasy bedroom. He focused on it with all of his might, his hand still idly stroking the rat, his lips falling silent.

And then, very softly, he whispered her name.

In her dream, she awakened on a huge brass bed in the center of a dark room. She saw something glide through the shadows and vanish. She heard something, faintly. A whisper. Her name.

She tried to get up. Something tugged at her wrists. Fear exploded in her chest like an incendiary bomb, but all that escaped was a tiny choking cry. She was bound securely to the four posts of the bed, and all the struggling in the world wouldn’t free her.

The figure in the shadow reappeared at her bedside. She whipped her head around to face it, and her breath sucked in sharply.

It was a silhouette, like a life-sized cutout in the shape of a man, rendered in a fabric so soul-suckingly black that it stood out in sharp relief against the darkness. The deeper she stared into it, the more she felt herself starting to drift, as though she were being sucked into an abyss, sent endlessly spiraling down…

Then the thing reached for her. And her eyes snapped shut. And she started to scream.

He had connected with her. He could feel it. Part of him, detached from the process, was picking up on her terror from halfway across town. It accounted for the smile that lightly creased the corners of his mouth.

As he continued to stroke the rat in his hands. And his mind stabbed deeper into her dreams.

There were hands upon her now. Cold hands, raising goose-bump patches as they slid across her flesh. She writhed beneath them, not out of pleasure. The bonds would only give her an inch of leeway on either side. She whined and struggled harder.

Cold fingers, sliding up her inner thighs. Her legs, completely parted, shuddering with violent, helpless rage. Her hips, recoiling as far as they could go.

More hands. Coming up beneath her buttocks. And lifting.

More hands, then. More hands. Encircling her waist. Kneading her breasts. Raking their nails along her belly, describing circles around her painfully taut nipples. An icy finger, worming its way into her rectum, sending a horrible wave of nausea through her.

Something else… something terrible… poised at the mouth of her vulva.

And then the last set of hands, coming up on either side of her head and stroking her hair. Sliding down to the base of her skull. Moving ever so gently across the straining expanse of her throat.

Lingering there, for just a moment.

And then…

“Now,” he said, fingers tightening and twisting. There was a tiny squeal, followed by a muffled wet snapping sound.

In the back of his mind, he heard a scream ring out sharply. It seemed to be coming from far away. Then it cut off suddenly, and silence reigned.

Rudy opened his eyes. The glare of the lights was painful. He squinted against it, and his right hand automatically came up.

The dead rat’s head poked out from between his thumb and forefinger, thick red gore trickling from its ears, nose, and mouth. He had twisted its head completely around, without even knowing he’d done it.

“Blechhh,” he said, grimacing. He tossed the body to the other side of the room, then wiped his hands disgustedly on his pants and got to his feet.

On his way to the bathroom to wash his hands the full impact of what he had done came rushing back to him.
I actually touched her!
he marveled.
I was there! I felt it! And she
… He smiled wickedly, dreamily.
She felt it, too.

He thought about the quality of the image he’d sent, and a cruel chuckle escaped his throat. It transformed to outright laughter by the time he entered the bathroom and flipped on the light.

Then he remembered the rat’s neck breaking; and in his mind, he heard the echo of a distant scream.

Rudy paused for a moment, questions flickering across his mind. He wondered at the extent of his power. He wondered if Josalyn was… if he’d just…

He started to laugh again.

“Oh, well,” he muttered, shrugging, as he turned on the faucets. “I suppose I’ll just have to wait and see, won’t I?”

As he washed the blood from his hands.