The Animal Hour (46 page)

That's him
, she thought.
King Death. That's who I have to find.
But whose face was behind the mask? Whose voice had said to her:

My name is Nancy Kincaid. I'm twenty-two years old.

Oh, she could almost remember. Someone had sat there before her and told her that. Someone with the face of King Death. A person with a skull for a face had told her:

I work for Fernando Woodlawn. I'm his personal assistant. I live on Gramercy Park with my mom and dad …

Me
, she thought dimly,
it was supposed to be me.
Oh, if she could just remember.

She stood there, staring. She heard nothing of the noise around her. The parade. The cheering crowd. She did not see the policeman who had spotted her now. Who was moving toward her now with his face set, his hand resting on his holster. If she could just pull the mask away, she thought. If she could just see the face behind the face of Death. Her fingers coiled at her side. She could feel the rubbery skin of the Death's head as if it were in her hands.

My name is Nancy Kincaid
, the skull's voice whispered to her.

And then, in her mind, the mask of Death seemed suddenly to come away and she saw:

There was no head behind it. King Death had no head. Severed arteries and veins sprouted from the jagged neck like wires. Gore spewed in coughing gouts up from the ragged hole. The blood poured down over the front of the creature's robes. The voice burbled out with the blood, like the blood, thick and liquid:

My name is Nancy Kincaid …

She felt the pavement tip beneath her feet. Darkness closed over her. Her eyes rolled up in her head.

Me. It was supposed to be me. IT WAS SUPPOSED TO BE ME!

A frantic skirl of music flew up around her. A shout rose from the crowd. Her eyes went wide and faces—grinning, calling faces—rose and fell like waves on every side of her. She turned, stumbling. A street lamp's bulb swung overhead. She tipped backward. She let out a terrified scream.

A Death's head blotted out the sky above her.

“All hail!” A shout blew over her like wind. “All hail King Death!”

She staggered back. She held her head. She stared up at the huge skull that bore down on her out of the night, as if the moon itself had descended.

“Whoa,” she whispered.

The thing was just enormous. A human skeleton a city block long. Its grinning skull hovered just above her. Its spine undulated and wavered. Its bony arms waved in the air. Below, on the street, puppeteers in skull masks and black skeleton pajamas held the paper creature aloft on poles. They danced around in circles, making the arms spin, the legs kick crazily. They were heading toward her.

“All hail!” they shouted, their voices muffled in their masks. “All hail King Death!”

And the crowd took up the chant. They hurled confetti up under the streetlights. They pumped their fists over the blue barricades.

“All hail! All hail King Death!”

She saw him then. He was at the center of the puppeteers. He was right under the great paper icon that rolled and floated over them. He was not at all as he had been in her vision. He was not stately. He was not enthroned. He was a clown. He was capering. Prancing and skipping back and forth, waving the scepter in his hand like a baton. He was dressed in a colored quilt shirt and torn jeans, like a waif, like a vagabond. His head was covered with a skull mask and there was a paper crown wrapped around his brow. He tilted his head from side to side as he galloped up and down under the gigantic skeleton. He waved gleefully to the crowd.

That's him
, she thought. She staggered again, uncertain on her feet. She felt her stomach roll over, and a lifeless cold radiated out from the center of her. It came into her arms, into her legs, her fingers. She was going under …

It's too late
, she thought. She grabbed a handful of her own hair, as if to hold herself up.
It's too late …

“That's him,” she whispered.

She stared at the masked, capering little waif. Her other hand rose up again. She pointed at him.

“That's him!” she called. Tears blurred her vision. “Look.”

“All hail!” The crowd's happy roar drowned her out. “All hail the King of Death!”

She called louder. “That's him! That's him! Oh Christ, it's already happening.” She jabbed her finger at him. “That's him! Please! Somebody!”

The giant skeleton was passing above her now. The puppeteers were all around her, dancing, holding their poles. King Death was capering toward her, spinning, his arms flung wide. She could see the light through his eyeholes when he turned to her. She could see the glint in his dark eyes. He waved to the crowd on either side of her. They shouted out to him.

“All hail!”

She covered her mouth. “Oh God! Oliver …”

And suddenly, an iron hand gripped her. Fingers dug into her upper arm. She looked up. A pale, steel-eyed face glared down at her. The cop's black cap brim jutted toward her eyes. She pointed at King Death.

“Officer,”
she shrieked.
“Officer, arrest that skull!”

“Come on, lady,” said the cop. “Move out of the way, willya.”

But with an enormous effort, she wrenched her arm free. She staggered forward a step toward the prancing king. She clutched her hair.

“Won't anybody listen to me? That's him! It's happening! That's the one!”

King Death spun full circle, his arms stretched wide, his knees rising high. He came full around and faced her.

And he pulled up short.

His hands were still out from his sides. His head was slightly forward. The eyes in the eyeholes were staring out at her where she stood not three yards away from him.

Everything else went on. The rapid rhythms of
Danse Macabre
pattered into the night. The crowd's shouts rose and fell and rose again. Confetti burst and sparkled overhead. And the great skeleton passed over the sky like a storm cloud. But King Death stood and stared and she stood and stared back at him. The scepter fell from Death's hand and clattered on the pavement.

And then King Death broke and ran.

He dashed between two puppeteers and lit for the western intersection. Confused, the crowd laughed and applauded. There was another chant of “Hail!” but it fell away. A few more scattered voices raised an ironic cheer. King Death lowered his white skull and charged the crowd, running like blazes. In another moment, he had slipped through a break in the current of human traffic. He was vanishing behind the closing masses.

For a second, the woman in the domino mask could only stand and watch him. She felt a black pool of sweet sleep spreading at her feet, widening all around her. She wanted more than anything to sink down into it, to drift away.

King Death rushed off, down the sidestreet, toward Sheridan Square.

The woman in the domino mask gave a single hoarse cry of pain, and took off after him.

O
n Seventh Avenue, the traffic was jammed. Car horns sounded again and again in the night air. Costumed strollers went slowly along the sidewalk under a pall of exhaust. Some paused at the windows of magazine stands and antique stores. Others, in ragged streams, still trickled up the sidestreets toward the parade.

The Perkins brothers came jogging uptown from Sheridan Square. They wove through the pedestrians, Oliver in the lead sometimes and sometimes Zach. Sometimes they split apart, running through the open ground at either edge of the sidewalk. Sometimes one of them fell to a fast walk to catch his breath, then started running again.

Zach clutched his red bag by the handles and it trailed behind him as he ran. His boyish face was flushed, his dark eyes were hectic. There was something disheveled and confused in his expression, as if he had just gotten off a plane and didn't quite know where he was.

Oliver didn't look at him much though. He just ran. He ran and there was the rhythm of his feet on the sidewalk. He listened to the rhythm and to the staccato of his breath.
Let us. Let us go
, he thought.
Let us go then. You and I.
Pat. Pat. Pat. Pat … He ran and felt the rhythm of his heart inside his chest. He felt the emptiness in his chest.
Let us go then you and I …
The suffocating shroud of exhaust hung over the fender-to-fender traffic; he felt it poisoning the autumn air. The pinkish white of streetlight globes passed above him.
Let us go then.
He saw Avis sitting on his bed this morning, when she had gently stroked his brow.
Let us go.
Pat. Pat. The furniture in the passing display windows was like an empty room begging for company. He remembered how Avis's head had wobbled on its neck only minutes ago.
Let us. Let us.

The two brothers turned up Christopher Street and jogged toward the library. They were shoulder to shoulder, both breathless. Perkins stared ahead and ran and saw the library's turrets above the trees. They were lit by spotlights now. The clocktower brushed at the bottom of the moon. It was almost eight o'clock.
Let us go then.
He ran and did not think, except in flashes of remembering. The thin, snowy cold against his cheeks as the sled rushed downhill. The weight of his little brother leaning against him on the sled. The library came closer.
Let us go.
He saw its thin-necked dragon gargoyles jutting into the empty air. He could feel Zachary running beside him.

A cluster of sycamores rose from the library's back lot. Now, in the shadow of their yellow leaves, he could see the parade on Sixth Avenue. A rolling stage, outlined in purple neon, was passing at the intersection. He saw a hairy giant gyrate on the stage, with attendant dancing girls on either side of him. The music, at this distance, melding with the traffic horns, sounded sour and discordant. They ran toward it, Oliver and Zach, side by side. Oliver carried the black weight in his stomach as he ran. His mind was black and heavy. He did not understand what had happened, how it had happened; how it had come to this. His mind was empty except for images. Avis holding her baby in her arms. The baby reaching out for him. “Pah!” The crowd grew thicker as they got near the parade.

Here, Oliver had to slow again. They both slowed, panting. They turned their shoulders to squeeze past the massing people, who were trying to squeeze their way, in turn, into the avenue crowd. Zach went first. Oliver followed him. Oliver's sweater was torn, his chest exposed. The sweater and his jeans were wet with Avis's blood. He could feel it, damp on his thighs, and his hands were sticky with it. He stared straight ahead, at the heads and faces of the crowd, as he pushed toward the library.
Let us go then, you and I
, he thought.
Let us go then, you and I.
He breathed through his open mouth. He did not care what happened. He wanted to get to the library fast. He wished he was there now. He would hold Tiffany until the police arrived. He did not care.

The crowd surrounded them, pressed in on them. They were near the corner. Near the library steps. The dancing beast was rolling past on his purple neon float, but the music was louder than ever. Oliver felt it drilling at his temple. He narrowed his eyes against it, twisting and turning in the crowd, forcing himself through, toward the steps. He saw Zachie's cap turning and pushing forward in the tide ahead of them. Then Zach was rising, up the steps, through the people there, toward the library doors. Oliver reached the steps too. He came up behind Zach. He had held the baby on his chest that morning, he thought. The pots had clanked as Avis made him breakfast in the kitchen. He reached into the pocket of his damp jeans. He brought out his library key.

Zach was already at the doors, the Invisible Zach in his coat and hat. He was waiting beside the black glass doors that were traced in stone. Oliver joined him, and Zach gazed hard at him with his frantic eyes. Zach licked his lips, waiting, while Oliver found the key he wanted. Oliver thought about sledding down the hill outside their house on Long Island.

Oliver pushed his key into the door. In the jangle of music, above the roar of the crowd, he heard the whirling strains of
Danse Macabre.
He looked up to his left as he turned his key.
Let us go
, he thought. He saw a giant paper skeleton, a puppet in the parade. It was grinning and bobbing and dancing in the sky above the avenue. The sight made his gorge rise. He shuddered and turned away. He pushed the door open and stepped into the library.

He turned. He saw Zach follow him over the threshold. The door stood open for a moment behind him. He saw the people on the steps. He heard the music, still loud. He heard the voices of the people on the street. And he saw Zachary's shadowy figure on the spotlit night with the great puppet skeleton floating up the avenue behind him.

Zachary smiled a little, nervously, almost apologetically. “We better hurry,” he said softly.

Oh, do not ask what is it
, Oliver thought.
Let us go and make our visit.