Totentanz (20 page)

"Jeb!" she shouted at him.

And then he screamed, but not for her. His
arms, black and red, flew up over his head, reaching for something
above him that wasn't there and couldn't be reached. His knuckles
cracked and ripped with the strain, his thin arms and hands and
each finger, each stretched muscle, standing out taut against the
flames behind him; and then his mouth opened, and opened, and the
scream got louder and louder as his mouth became wider and wider,
the lips pulling away and the skin peeling back from the face, the
skull and skin and blood flying and flaking from his bones. Still
the scream continued. The naked skull, with its horrid bone mouth
screamed, and the eyes, melting away, leaving black holes, still
pointed at the sky. The whole skeleton strained. The scream reached
its peak—and Frances put her hands to her ears as the bones turned
in an instant to dust. For one moment Jeb's skeleton hands reached
out to her, empty eyes pleading with her—and then there was a huge
inrush of air, and the bones flew to bits and were gone, sucked
away into the fire.

For a brief moment there was silence. Frances
pulled her hands from her ears. She heard a roar and she looked up
to see a wall of flame advancing on her, and in the midst of it, an
uncoiling hose, its nozzle undulating like a snake's head. She held
out the Book to keep it away, and above the roar came a deep,
mirthless laugh, a hollow rumble of laughter.

She held up the Bible, and the doctor
hesitated above her. The glazed look in his eyes cleared and he
opened his mouth to speak, but nothing came out. Someone was
laughing in one corner of the room. The doctor fell back, his face
turning as red as blood, and dropped away from her to the floor.
After a moment he was still, his heaving chest as hard as rock.
Frances stared at him, at the dead, wilted hose between his legs,
and then there was a noise from the corner of the room.

She dropped the Book and lay back against the
starched pillows, frozen.

Someone backed toward the window, and she saw
the outline of a thin, short coat as the figure settled itself
against the wall. There was a tiny flash of blue light and the
sound of someone drawing on a cigarette. A dark plume of smoke
drifted up across the screen.

Frances lay motionless. Her hand went out,
feeling for the Bible, but she could not find it.

"Leave it," Ash said, and he smoked for a
moment before saying anything more.

"Did you miss me, Frances? It's been a long
time."

She was shivering as though she were back in
that wet room again, wearing those starched, wet clothes.

"I thought you would have missed me. I was
holding your hand always, you know."

His hand rose lazily, outlined like gloved
bone against the window.

"Thought I was gone forever?" Ash queried.
"Thought that with Jeb's passing I would dissolve also?"

Frances pressed herself into the pillows,
trying to shut him out.

"What did you think, Frances?"

He came to her bed, stepping over the silent
body of the doctor, looming over her. His head came down to her
face. She felt a cold space envelope her, as if all the heat in the
room had been sucked away, leaving a vacuum. She could breathe, but
still she choked. His face, his non-face, was like a balloon being
lowered by an invisible hand. There was a mouth but no mouth—the
maw of a fish turned inside out. The eyes were there except when
she tried to look directly into them. His flesh was too white; the
red line around his mouth was not red, but merely the absence of
every color save red. He was solid, and yet he was not there.

She wanted to whimper, to cry out for mercy,
but could do nothing except stare up into the face that sank
slowly, slowly. . . .

"Kiss me, Frances," the non-mouth said. It
opened into an oval, and inside it she heard a rushing cold wind
and saw only blackness.

"Kiss me. . . ."

She threw her hands up in front of her eyes
against the horrible cold and black, and then she was off the bed,
her hand brushing over something hard and grabbing it, and out the
door and in the corridor, empty, neon-lit with light-blue floor
tiles and white walls. There was no sound from either end of the
hallway. She moved toward the front of the building, past the guard
asleep by the desk and the nurse at the admissions counter, her
back to the reception area and her ear to the phone—"I don't care
what he says, he'd better have that goddam alimony check to me by
Monday, or my lawyer. . . ."—and then she was through the double
swinging doors and out on the front walk, white concrete leading
twenty steps down to a long, sloping lawn and a gate just swinging
open to let a long, black car through. She ran out after it,
stopping a block away under a dull street lamp in the night, alone.
She looked down and saw that she was clutching the Book. She looked
up at the street lamp, at the light on the top, and at that moment
it became the Northern Star.

She wandered away, but the star stayed with
her, and as she prayed, clutching the Book to her breast, muttering
into the night, praying only for life, the veil came down around
her. . . .

But it will happen again.

Now.

"This will be better than the first time,”
Ash said. His death mask spread into a grin. "This will be better
than all the times. Do you know why, Frances? Because I am the
resurrection and the life: he that believeth in me, though he were
dead yet shall he live. And whosoever liveth and believeth in me
shall never die." He bent down over her. "Do you believe in me,
Frances?"

She looked up at him, and
she knew it was true. He had been the Northern Star, the veil that
had dropped upon her, to lift and fall again and again. There had
never been, never could be, salvation. She was lost and always had
been. Abomination. So there had been no third Him after all, only
him she sought to push away (who had suckled her all along) and him
she mourned.
Jeb
.
Her brother. Her father. The Northern Star, the Book, had been
illusions, hope turned inside out. There would be no
redemption.

She let the Book drop at her feet and looked
up. Ash's strange, grinning face was as the rising sun.

The Northern Star.

"You can love me just as much, Frances." he
said.

"Yes."

His face lowered, and then
his lips touched hers. It was as though magnetic poles had been
reversed within her; white had become black. She felt no great
hatred, but rather a great love moved from north to south.
Yes
, she thought;
yes
. Ash's lips were
locked upon her, and she drew deeply of his kiss. She saw a long
tunnel, a burst of far light that rushed toward her but was quickly
extinguished. Something within her, her single precious thing, was
gone, and in its place was another love, equally—if
oppositely—fulfilling.

Yes.

She opened her eyes, and Ash was there,
smiling, bathed in a blood-warm light, his face flushed and
satisfied.

"I waited a long time for you, Frances," Ash
whispered. "I knew that when I finally had you, you would be all I
ever needed."

"Yes," Frances said.
Yes
.

It will happen again. Now.

And again.

And again.

Plain as day, Mayor Poundridge had seen his
dead father waiting for him just inside the gates to the new
amusement park. Plain as day, he'd seen that bemused, tolerant
look, the look that said, "You're my son, and you'll do all right,"
and the ache of recognition and remembered loss had grown so
strong that all other thoughts had disappeared. Despite the
impossibility, not an atom of doubt had been in his mind. It was
his father; he was alive again, period. Only joy and reunion could
follow.

But where was his father now?

And where was Emily?

Emily had been right behind
him as they rushed up to the gates. When he saw the swell of people
begin to gather there, he'd felt it was his duty to be the first
through—to say something to them, to make the occasion
official
. Heck, it was
his privilege. Some were in their nightclothes, but most wore light
summer shirts or blouses and pants. Most looked expectant, but
some looked downright joyful—like that Reggie Carson's mother. She
was staring at the sky, and Poundridge had looked up just in time
to catch sight of a plane, long and sleek, before it was lost in
the glare of the lights. Hadn't her husband died in a plane
crash?

There was a great swell of anticipation.
Emily had been beside him then, he knew, because she had clutched
his arm and pointed to a short woman beyond the entrance who looked
like her departed Aunt Lucy. At that point Poundridge felt he had
to speak, and he pushed his way to the closed gates, Emily
following.

"Friends!" he shouted, and for a moment they
ignored him, too caught up in their own emotions to pay attention.
But he knew crowds—there were too many politician's genes in him
for something like this to stand in his way—and when Emily put her
hand on his arm, he tried again.

"Friends, please!" This time a few heads
turned. "This is a great occasion in our town's history, and I just
wanted you to know that I am here to represent—"

Then the gates swung open, and his words
disappeared in the surge forward. He was just able to push to the
front as the great mass flowed into the park.

He was sure Emily had still been with him at
that point. He had felt her hand on his arm as they went through,
had even patted it. But then he'd seen something that annoyed him.
He had thought he was the first to enter the park, but somehow that
scamp Pup Malamut had found his way in before him. There he was,
standing next to a stall that said "Guess Your Weight" in fresh red
letters. He was smiling, with his arms folded. The nerve of that
boy! Everything else was pushed from his mind at that moment, and
when Pup turned and began to swagger away down one of the
causeways, Poundridge stalked after him.

It was then he discovered that he had somehow
been separated from Emily. He tried to catch sight of her closely
bunned hair in the crowd, but she was nowhere in sight. Which was
strange, because she was always there, like a hand or a foot,
always where she was supposed to be. What had she been wearing? He
couldn't remember. A blue dress? Brown? He didn't even know if she
owned a brown dress. He hadn't really looked at her in years; she
had just always been there. When he needed something, there Emily
was, with a file from the office, or his pipe, which he was always
mislaying—anything. He found it hard now to remember what she
looked like, it had been so long since he had really looked at her.
To live with someone so long and yet forget what she looked like. .
. .

Pup Malamut was disappearing around a
corner.

Mayor Poundridge hesitated a moment, then
turned to go after the boy. Emily was important, but this was more
important. The youngster had smirked at him, as though he knew the
mayor had lost face and he was gloating over it. That wouldn't do.
Pup Malamut's father had caused trouble for Mayor Poundridge, had
challenged him a few times in Council meetings and had even
considered running against him once. They were a high and mighty
bunch, that Malamut family, and there was no reason why the mayor
should put up with it any longer. He'd teach old Malamut a lesson
this time. They thought money could buy everything and, well, it
couldn't. Not everything. He'd catch that boy by the scruff of the
neck and

When he got to the corner, the boy had
vanished. A long line of shooting galleries and other games of
chance lay before the mayor. There were a few people milling about,
but Pup Malamut was not among them. The mayor thought of asking
anyone if they'd seen the boy, but that would only call attention
to the fact that Pup had upstaged him. He was about to turn away,
to go back and find Emily, when he caught sight of the boy leaning
over the counter of the last game tent, pitching softballs into an
angled barrel. He finished the game and turned away, but not
before giving the mayor that insolent took again.

Infuriated, Poundridge
followed.
Damn boy,
he thought. He instantly rebuked himself for thinking a curse
word, but the sentiment would not leave him. He reached the game
tent where Pup had been and stopped to regain his breath. He looked
and saw that all three softballs were neatly nestled in the wooden
barrel.

For the oddest moment, as Mayor Poundridge
looked at that barrel with those three large balls in it, it became
a face, and the three balls merged into two enormous eyes—an animal
of some sort stared at him. But like Marley's face on Scrooge's
door knocker, the vision passed. His mind still bent on catching
the boy. Poundridge moved on.

He turned into another causeway, this more
isolated than the other; the lights were not quite so bright and
there were dark patches of shadow. It was, in fact, a rear alley of
sorts; the backs of tents lined either side, and occasionally there
was a thump as a mis-aimed baseball or thudding dart struck against
the canvas. It was very dark ahead of the mayor, as if all the
brightness had suddenly bled out and night had fallen in. Pup was
nowhere to be seen. Poundridge's anger began to subside, replaced
by a hint of anxiety. Maybe it wasn't Pup he had seen after all;
maybe that hadn't been Pup pitching softballs.

He advanced a step at a time. As he passed
the space between two tents, there came a sound. He jumped and then
saw a softball rolling toward him. Vaguely he heard voices and the
distant, murky tinkle of the calliope. The ball rolled to a stop
at his foot, just inside a small pool of dim light. Poundridge
looked down at it. There was a face on it: the face he had seen in
the barrel with the three balls in it—large and round, the face of
a lion or a hare, with monstrous eyes. The eyes stared up at him,
becoming bigger and bigger until they filled the whole face.