Bedbugs (13 page)

“What the fuck—?” Ace said, taking a quick step back and raising his hands defensively.

He was surprised that the man didn’t look anywhere near as old as he had in the glow of the match. Ace guessed the man was in his mid-thirties. His face wasn’t lined or wrinkled at all. In fact, his skin glowed with a white smoothness that made Ace think of polished marble. He had a solid build, too—lean and muscular, without an ounce of fat. Ace was damned glad he hadn’t tried to fight him. He looked like he could have picked Ace up and broken his back with one hand.

Ace’s hand was trembling as he took a can of spray paint, snapped off the cap, and shook it. Side by side, he and the man walked out of the niche and stood on the catwalk by the wide, curving cement wall.

“Wha’do yah want?” Ace asked, trying to control the tremor in his voice.

“Anything at all,” the man said, sounding like he was trying hard not to laugh. “Just give me your best shot.”

Ace cocked his hip to one side and stared at the grime-stained wall for a moment. He always liked to study the space to see what shape suggested itself. After a moment, he inhaled sharply, stepped close to the wall, and began to spray.

His arm moved in wide, controlled sweeps. The hissing of the spray can was all he heard or
wanted
to hear as he lost himself in his work. The smell of paint fumes tingled his nostrils, making him feel higher than any other drug he’d ever used.

Within seconds, Ace outlined his name in tall, fat-bellied, black letters. He placed the can of black paint down by his feet, grabbed a can of white from his pack and started filling in and high-lighting the outlines. Ace soon became so involved in his work that he paid not the slightest bit of attention to the man working beside him. He was only vaguely aware of the hissing of the man’s spray can and the wide, sweeping movements he was making.

This is too fucking easy
, Ace thought.

But all the time he was drawing, he couldn’t stop wondering if the man had been joking, or if he had really meant what he’d said about not letting him leave here alive if he didn’t like his work.

Ace barely noticed when another train rattled by. After several minutes, he capped the white, picked a can of red paint, and began adding five-pointed sparkles on the tops and sides of each bulging letter. He jumped and actually squealed out loud when the man’s voice suddenly broke through the hissing sound of spraying paint.

“Well, I’m about done,” he said.

“What the fuck—?”

Ace finished the stroke he was making, then stepped back so he could see what the man had been working on. He gasped with utter amazement.

“No way . . . No fuckin’ way, man!” Ace said, shaking his head in wonder as he stared at the man’s artwork.

“You had to have that started before I got here. I jus’ din’t see it before, is all. No fuckin’ way you could’ve done that so quick.”

The man regarded Ace steadily, his eyes gleaming wickedly in the soft glow of light.

“Like I told you,” he said in a low and teasing voice. “I used to be something of a writer myself.”

“No skit! With work like this . . . and you know . . . now that I think about it, I think I seen something like it before.”

Ace couldn’t disguise the awe he felt as he regarded the man’s artwork. He had always prided himself on how easily he could make his letters look three-dimensional, but what this guy had done made everything Ace had ever written look flat and amateurish—nothing more than childish scrawls.

The logo was six feet tall, and more than ten feet wide. Wide, angular black letters were highlighted by pointed streaks of yellow and blue. In the dim lighting of the tunnel, they looked alive with jagged forks of lightning that throbbed with a rich, vibrant life of their own. Ace couldn’t quite make out the name the man had written, but he sounded out each letter.

“
L-E-G-I-O-N
. Leg . . . Leg-ion? ‘S that what it says?”

“Legion,” the man said. “My name is Legion.” And then he shrugged as if it really didn’t matter.

What Ace saw—and couldn’t help but appreciate—was the absolute genius of the work. The word seemed to jump right off the wall. Ace thought, if he reached out and touched it, it would feel as hard and dimensional as freshly painted blocks of stone.

“No way, man . . . I don’t like this shit.” Ace said as he turned to the man. “You’re dickin’ with me. . . .”

The man smiled at Ace, his flat, white teeth glistening wetly in the semi-darkness.

“So what. . . . What’s it mean?” Ace asked tightly.

The man didn’t reply. He walked up to his artwork, reached out, and gingerly touched the center of the letter
G
. For a moment, the contact of his fingers with the wet paint made a slight
tick-tick
sound.

Then something strange happened.

Ace knew it had to be a trick of the eye.

Maybe there was a crack in the wall he hadn’t noticed before, but—somehow—the man’s fingertips disappeared into the design as if he had thrust his hand into a darkened doorway.

A sensation of stark fear slithered up Ace’s back as he watched the man lean forward, reaching further into the darkness until his hand disappeared up to the wrist in the solid blackness.

Looking at Ace over his shoulder, the man grinned again, a smile so wide the corners of his mouth almost touched his ears.

“What the fuck’re you doin’, man?” Ace said. “I don’t like people fuckin’ with my mind.”

Powerful shivers danced up Ace’s back and gripped the back of his neck.

“Go ahead,” the man said, stepping back and waving toward the artwork. His teeth were gleaming like ancient bone in the moonlight.

“You can touch it, too.”

All Ace wanted to do was get the hell out of here, but he felt strangely compelled to touch the artwork, if only to prove to himself that’s all it was—just paint on a grimy cement wall. It was an illusion, and nothing more!

But no matter how long he stared at them, the black letters seemed to extend backwards into thick, impenetrable darkness.

Ace tried to control his trembling hand as he raised it and reached out to the wall. A numbing chill zipped up his arm to his neck when he touched the painted surface, and then his fingers disappeared into the blackness.

“What the fuck—?” he muttered, vaguely aware that the man beside him was snickering softly.

Ace leaned forward, reaching further into the darkness and waiting for his hand to hit solid wall; but his wrist, then his forearm disappeared so completely it looked like his arm had been cut off just below the elbow.

In Ace’s peripheral vision, the jagged yellow and blue streaks surrounding each letter slithered on the wall, crackling and shifting like pale, electric fire. Ace told himself that this had to be an optical illusion, but his body felt suddenly charged. Every nerve and muscle twitched and vibrated with a deep, humming energy.

“This is . . . this is
totally
fucked, man,” Ace sputtered.

He tried to laugh when he leaned back to pull his hand away, but a numbing coldness gripped him and held him there. In the first, sudden flash of panic, he thought he could feel a cold, scaly hand from inside the wall, gripping him firmly by the wrist.

“What the fuck, man?” Ace’s voice had a high, baby-sounding pitch.

“Well—you know what they say. Sometimes the artist has to
become
the art.” The man’s voice sounded muffled and hollow, like far-off thunder.

Frantic with fear, Ace struggled to pull away from the wall, but an irresistible force was pulling him closer and closer to it. His new Reeboks squeaked loudly on the slick cement floor as he braced himself and yanked backwards as hard as he could, but the dense, churning blackness was getting inexorably closer. Its coldness spread up Ace’s arm and through his body like a wash of ice water.

“Come on, man!” Ace said, his voice breaking on every syllable. “Whatever the fuck you’re doin’? Make it stop! Please! Make it stop!”

“I’m afraid it’s too late for that,” the man said. “Maybe it wasn’t such a good idea for you to reach into it.”

Ace’s legs pumped furiously as he tried to get a solid enough footing to thrust himself away from the wall, but he could feel himself being absorbed by the darkness. His arm had disappeared all the way up to the shoulder, now. He tried to look away, but his face was being pulled closer . . . closer to the vibrating blackness.

When it was less than an inch away, Ace sagged forward, suddenly drained of all strength. The bones in his hands felt like they were being crushed to a pulpy mush. Wave after freezing wave of pain shot through him.

“Skit, man! . . . Please! . . . Help me! ... You gotta . . . help me!”

Hot tears gushed from Ace’s eyes and flowed down his face, but the man did nothing.

“Help you? You mean, the way you helped Flyboy?” he said.

“It was an accident!” Ace wailed. “I didn’t push him! Jesus Christ, man!”

The man sniffed with laughter.

“No. I’m sorry,” he said. “I’m afraid you’re not talking to
him
. I’m the other one.”

“What do you mean, the other one?” Ace sputtered. “Jesus, man!”

The darkness was opening like jaws inches from Ace’s face, churning with a cold, raw energy, that sapped what little strength Ace had left. The stench of raw, rotten flesh filled Ace’s nostrils the instant he was pulled into the surrounding darkness. He wanted to scream, but his voice choked off. He felt himself dissolving . . . spreading out . . . lost in the utter, impenetrable darkness that now engulfed him.

He had no idea which way to turn.

It wasn’t long before the only sound he could hear—other than his own labored breathing—was the faint
click-click
sound of dripping water.

But it wasn’t dripping water.

It was something else.

It was the sound of an animal . . . huge and unseen . . . somewhere deep in the darkness . . . lapping up . . . something. . . .

B
ILL STONE

“Especially when it’s dark, so dark I don’t even know if my eyes are opened or closed, I can hear him walking around upstairs. Pacing back and forth. The floorboards creaking and snapping as nails pull in the old wood with long, rusty-throated groans.

“Or maybe that’s me groaning.

“I’m not sure anymore.

“I don’t know where I am, and I’ve lost all sense of time.

“I feel so weak, and being tied down like this to the table or workbench or whatever the hell this is—is so goddamned uncomfortable, I can’t really sleep. I just doze off and on since I got here . . . since he brought me here.

“When was that? Could have been two days ago or two weeks ago. Christ if I know!

“Feeling as miserable as I do, and being so scared, how could I know how long it’s been?

“Even during the daytime, not much light gets down here. So instead of sleeping, I just keep slipping in and out of consciousness.

“And that’s just what he wants, the lousy bastard! He wants to wear me down . . . drain me . . . reduce me until there’s nothing left.

“But—Jesus! He sure is taking his sweet time about it!

“I don’t know why he doesn’t just kill me and get it over with. Why keep feeding me? And why keep that damned needle stuck in my arm?

“No, I can’t get it out.

“Jesus, don’t you think I’ve tried?

“It’s taped down nice and tight. I can’t wiggle or shake it loose. It’s in there, solid!

“I think it’s an IV. He wants to keep me alive, even if I don’t eat. I think I remember seeing in this guy’s file that he used to work at a hospital, as a nurse or a physician’s assistant or something.

“No wonder he knows how to hook up an IV.

“But—shit! Especially when it’s dark, if it isn’t his goddamned pacing upstairs that keeps me awake, or how much my back and legs hurt, it’s that goddamned sound of dripping liquid.

“Drip . . . drip . . . drip . . .

“It’s going to drive me crazy, I tell you! Like Chinese water torture.

“I have no idea where it’s coming from. Sometimes it sounds real close to my ears, almost like it’s inside my head . . . at other times, it’s real faint and far-away sounding, like he’s got a leak in a water pipe somewhere in the house. “But—Jesus! I wish it would stop!

“I know I’ll never get out of here. Not alive, anyway.

“He’s got me tied down damned good. I can’t work myself free. I’ve been trying. And even if I could, he comes down here regularly and tightens the straps that are binding me.

“Hour by hour, minute by minute, I feel weaker and weaker. . . .

“I’m slowly fading away.

“I know I’m gonna die.

“I wish that’s what I could do. Just close my eyes and fade away.

“But every time I do that, he seems to sense it or something, and he comes down and wakes me up. Then he forces me to eat or drink something. Usually half of it ends up dribbling down my chin, so I’ll bet that’s why he has the IV hooked up.