Angel Fall (26 page)

A
lex could hardly breathe for trembling.

Slowly he turned and stared into the darkness. At the opposite end of the cave a dark form sat huddled against a wall. It spoke again. “Did you hear me, Son? Did you hear what I said? You’ve got to stop this.”

Covering his ears, Alex screamed, “No! No, no, no…” Jumping to his feet, he shrieked, “Go away! You’re not real!”

Silence.

Alex gasped for breath. Suddenly he was so dizzy he couldn’t keep standing. Sinking to the floor, he buried his face in his hands. “I’m going insane.”

Another soft whisper. “Son, I’ve come to help you.”

Alex covered his ears again. “I’m not listening, I’m not listening…” Over and over he screamed it.

Finally when his breath was gone, the voice said, “Alex, you’re dying. I don’t want you to die alone.”

“Not-real-not-real-not-real-not-real…”

“Please, just listen for one minute. After that, if you want me to leave, I’ll go.”

“Not-real-not-real-not-real-not-real…”

“I came to be with you. There are things we need to talk about.”

“Not-real-not-real-not-real-not-real…” Alex began sobbing, “Go away, go away.”

“But we haven’t talked in such a long, long time.”

“And whose fault is that? Not-real-not-real-not-real-not-real…”

“It’s my fault, Son. When you needed me, I wasn’t there. But I’m here now. Won’t you give me a chance, Alex? It’s the last time we’ll ever be together. I don’t want you to die hating me. Please, don’t do that.”

“Oh, God, I’m so sick. I feel so bad.”

The voice was filled with deep sadness. “I know that. But soon it will be over. If you don’t want me here, I’ll go. Just tell me to leave
one more time
.”

Alex said nothing.

The figure leaned toward him. “I want to tell you something, Son, and I mean this with all my heart. No matter what has happened, you’re still a hero to me.”

Alex sobbed as though his heart would break. “No, I’m not. I know the truth now.”

“Listen to me. I know you better than anybody. Even when you were a little boy, you were brave.”

“Stop saying that! It’s a lie!”

“Do you remember the slide at the water park? The one that was five stories tall? I was afraid to go down it. But you didn’t even blink. How old were you, seven? We went down that thing together, and it scared the heck outta me. But we must have done it ten times because you didn’t want to stop. And baseball! You were the home run slugger. You faced pitchers twice your size and blasted them out of the park. I thought then, when my son grows up, he’s going to be a hero. And you are. I’m so proud of you, Alex. And I’ve missed you so much.”

“You are…such…a liar!” Alex whispered through his tears.

“What did you say?”

“I said, you…are…a liar.”

After a long silence the voice replied. “You’re right. I have been a liar. I’ve lied about a lot of things. I haven’t been the kind of father you needed.”

“What kind is that? The kind that’s actually there? Why am I doing this? Why am I talking to myself?”

“Alex, you’re doing this because in your heart you know it’s time to make things right. When death is about to come strange things happen. Sometimes people who are far apart can talk to each other mind-to-mind. Maybe that’s what’s happening right now. A kind of miracle. Maybe I’ve entered your dream or you’ve entered mine to give us one last chance together.”

“Our last chance came a long time ago, and it’s gone!”

“No, it’s not. While there’s life, there’s hope. Death makes things clear. Maybe now we can understand each other. Don’t you want to give it a try?”

“Oh, I understand you. I understand you really well.”

“Do you? People have told you lies about me, and you’ve believed them. I can hear it in your voice.”

“Nobody has told me anything. I know what I’ve seen. I know what you did to us.”

“You think I just walked away, don’t you, that I didn’t care about you and your sisters? Well, it isn’t true. I didn’t want to leave you, Alex. I tried to take all of you with me to England, but the court wouldn’t give me custody. I spent sixty thousand dollars on attorneys, but it didn’t do any good.”

“You left us a long time before you moved to England.”

“You’re right. I moved out. But that wasn’t just for me. I left because your mother and I were fighting all the time. I thought, at least if I wasn’t there you could have some peace and quiet.”

“And why were you fighting all the time? Why was she screaming at you? You want to tell me that?”

“I’m not going to say anything bad about her. No matter what she’s done, she’s still your mother.”

“How noble of you. But go ahead. I’m never gonna see her again. Go for it. Say anything you want.”

A broken whisper came from the darkness. “You don’t know what it’s like marrying someone and seeing her change. Step by step, day by day, watching the one you love turn into a different person. When I married your mother, she was so beautiful, and I loved her so much. I tried, Alex, I really tried.”

“So why did she change?”

“I don’t know. She began…imagining things that weren’t true.”

“Like what?”

“Crazy things. She would shriek at me for nothing. I was afraid to sleep at night. Nobody can live that way.”

“So she went nuts. Is that what you’re saying? She went nuts and you moved out. You left us with a crazy person.”

“She was never crazy with you kids. Never. She was a good mother. You know that.”

“Either she was crazy or she wasn’t. You can’t turn off craziness like a faucet.”

“For some reason my presence just pushed her over the edge.”

“And why was that?”

“I don’t know.”

“So you moved into an apartment twenty minutes away, but it was too far to ever come and see us.”

“I was working long hours, trying to support two households and pay for a bunch of attorneys. I was exhausted all the time.”

“So to get a little rest, you moved to England.”

“I had no choice about that. It was move or lose my job.”

“You moved because you got a big promotion.”

“If I hadn’t taken it, all of us would have been out on the street. If you were me, what would you have done, Alex?”

“I would have stayed with my kids even if I had to be a garbage collector and live in my car.”

The voice spoke with deep emotion. “I did the best I could. We don’t have long together, Son. Won’t you at least try to understand me?”

With burning eyes Alex stared into the darkness. “You don’t think I know about your life, do you? You don’t think I really know.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean the truth, the real, total truth about who you are.”

“What are you talking about?”

Tears ran down Alex’s cheeks. “I always thought you were a hero. I wanted to be just like you. When I started reading comics, all the superheroes had your face. You were never around, so I’d tell myself stories about you. You’d be fighting the bad guys and I’d tag along. That’s who you were to me. That’s who you were.”

“I’m not a superhero, Alex, but maybe I’m not as bad as you think.”

Alex started laughing. It was a cold, bitter sound. “This is amazing. I’ve got your lies so deep in my brain I can actually hear you saying them. I can have a whole imaginary conversation as though you’re right here with me. How sick is that?”

“Look, I know your mother said terrible things about me. And you never got the chance to hear my side. But I’m here now to make things right. I just want you to know that, no matter what you’ve heard, I never consciously did anything to hurt our family. I deeply loved your mother. In many ways I still do. We just couldn’t live together anymore.”

“Tori cried for a year after you left.”

“I’m sorry.”

“And Amanda. I don’t know what happened to Amanda. She just changed and was never the same again.”

“I love them both very much.”

“Liar!”

“That is not a lie!”

“Hey, can I tell you something? You want to know about the worst day in my whole life?” Alex fought to control his voice. “There were a lot of bad days, but this one was the worst of all. You want to hear about it?”

“If you want to tell me.”

“Yeah, I think I do. One Saturday when I was twelve, I had a baseball game. You were supposed to be there, but like usual you had to go into the city and work.”

“I missed too many of your games. I’m sorry.”

“I was so upset that you weren’t gonna be there that I didn’t even want to play. So I skipped out. And you know what I did instead? I followed you into Chicago on the train. Pretty slick for a kid, huh? I was tall and got away with it. You never saw me. Well, guess what? You didn’t go to the office. Instead, you changed trains and went up to the north side. I followed you to her house, Dad. You weren’t at the game because you wanted to be with her. Mother found out, didn’t she? And it broke her heart. She found out what kind of a man you really are.”

After a long silence the voice spoke. “What do you want me to say, Alex?”

“Nothing! I want you to shut up and go to hell forever!”

“That’s the easy way out. You don’t want to know the truth about me, do you?”

“I know the truth!”

“No, you don’t! I was hurt and lonely, Alex. Can you imagine a man being hurt and lonely?”

“What you did killed your children. Didn’t you ever think about that?”

“A man has to take care of himself before he can help anyone else. That’s a rule of life, Son. I did what I had to do to survive.”

“And you survived by murdering all of us. You might as well have slit our throats. What I knew about you killed me. It killed me inside just like if you’d stuck a knife in my guts and watched me bleed to death. And I never told anybody because I was so ashamed of you. Since you weren’t around, I took everything out on Mom. I made her life hell.” Alex’s voice broke. “You were supposed to be a hero, Dad. Heroes are brave. They defend people who are weak. They give their lives to save others. But the only one you cared about was yourself. I hate you so much that I can’t stand it. And I’m going to hate you forever.”

Silence.

Deathly silence.

The silence of eternity.

Then out of the silence came a voice. “Alex, Alex, Son, you’ve got to stop doing this to yourself. You’re driving yourself
crazy
.” Then it laughed. And it wasn’t the voice of his father.

Alex stared at the dark figure huddled against the wall. He knew that voice. Suddenly a slithering movement rippled in his belly. He gasped. It slithered again. Something was down there. Something that wasn’t part of him. And then he remembered.

The Thing.

The raging Thing.

The Thing that had crawled up into his throat.

The Thing that had screamed through his mouth.

Quietly the voice continued. “You’re absolutely right. Your father wasn’t a hero. All he cared about was getting what he wanted, a beautiful woman with long…black…hair. You forgot what she looked like, didn’t you, Alex? She was lovely. Much more beautiful than your mother. But you know that because you saw her. You saw them together. Hate him, Alex. Hate him. He deserves it. Dream about killing him. Think of all the ways to do it. Shriek and rage and hate. And do you know what will make your hate so much more delicious? Here is something that will drive you insane. What your father did to you, his father had done to him. Yes, your grandfather left his family just the same way, for a beautiful woman. Oh, but there was a major difference. She had long
blonde
hair. Now, consider this—what kind of a man would go through agony as a child, then inflict that same agony on his own son, daughters, and wife, a wife whose father had abandoned her? Yes, that’s the dark poetry of it. That’s who he married, someone just as hurt and angry as he was. People like that are drawn to each other like moths to a flame. It’s horrible, Alex. Horrible. However, lest you think too harshly of him, remember that he had a congenital weakness. He couldn’t control his lust. But you can understand that because you have the same weakness. Here’s the secret, my friend. It isn’t your fault. It’s just something that gets passed from father to son. The males of every species are meant to lust and leave. Men are just animals hopelessly tied to the evolutionary chain. Didn’t you learn anything in school? If you had lived long enough to mate with a suitable partner, you would have left her and your children just like your father and grandfather did.”

“That’s a lie!” Alex shrieked. “I would never do that!”

“Oh, that’s what they all say. Every son swears he won’t be like his father. The truth is you’re exactly like him, only worse. He may have been a weak, selfish fool, but at least he didn’t actually kill anybody to get what he wanted. At least, he didn’t do that.”

Alex was staggered.

“Now, don’t misunderstand me. You did the right thing. A man has needs. And I am always there to help him meet those needs. You needed her, Son, the girl with the long black hair. And you were willing to kill to get to her. You needed her to prove to yourself that you were as good a man as your father. And you did it. You proved it. Just like your father proved it with the woman we dangled in front of him.”

A long satisfied sigh came from the dark form. “So sweet! So delicious! So enjoyable! We’re going to spend eternity creating scenes just like this from your past. Think of all the infinite variations of sorrow, regret, hate, and rage that we can play out in excruciating detail. I’ll be anyone you want, your father, your mother, your father’s mistress, your father’s new wife, your father’s new children, individually, collectively, in complex configurations. A million times we’ll do it. Ten million! We’ll never grow tired. And at the end of each I will suck the hate and agony from your soul. You see, you’re like my cow. I feed you and milk you, and we both get what we need.” Very slowly the figure rose and began moving across the floor toward him. It didn’t walk. It seemed to glide. And as it moved, he felt the Thing crawling within him.

Shaking, Alex backed away. “Get away from me! Oh God, help me…”

“There you go again. You tried that before and look who came. Now, Son, listen to me…”