What Hides Within (35 page)

"How the fuck would I know?" Clive blurted.

Reilly's questions weren't innocent. They were accusatory. Apparently, Clive picked up on the accusation. He let out a deep breath.

"Maybe he followed me there. I'm sorry, Detective. I've just been under a lot of stress lately, what with someone trying to kill me and all."

"I'm sure you have, Clive. Just one more question, please."

"Alright."

"What do you know about explosives?"

"Not a damn thing, Detective! Well, that was your one more question," Clive said. "So, I guess we're done here. If you need anything else, please hesitate to call."

Reilly listened as the line went dead. In her line of work, she had heard so many lies that she learned how to distinguish them with ease. With Clive, though, she couldn't tell. Although he seemed overly defensive in response to her questions, he also seemed convinced of his answers. The underlying tremor in his voice gave his words the slightest touch of doubt. And where there was even the slightest doubt affecting closure of one of her cases, Reilly could not let it go.

The metal was cold. It tasted of sour indifference. Its velvet-smooth oil smeared his palette. The weight of the barrel on his front teeth held his jaw open. The stock scratched along their jagged edges.

He never thought of Victoria as he sat hopeless at the edge of his bed, bawling like a school girl with a scraped knee. A virile mixture of tears, alcohol and vomit stained his tee-shirt. He shoved the barrel deeper into his mouth, so deep that he thought he might vomit again if he had anything left in him. He felt his gag reflex activating. He would need to pull the trigger before the dry heaving began anew.

Saliva coated the weapon from its nose to its revolving chamber. Three bullets. Six chambers. A fifty-fifty chance. Just like yesterday. And the day before that. He removed the gun from his mouth and spun the chamber one more time like some darker spin-off of
Wheel of Fortune
.

There was never any doubt that his luck would soon run out. The chamber's spin ended with a click.
Would today be the day?
he wondered, shoving the revolver back into his mouth. He had only enough courage to pull the trigger once. If it failed, he would have to wait until tomorrow, when he could summon the strength to try again.

Maybe I should buy more bullets
. He snickered in his despair. Then, he pulled the trigger.

The blast scent chunks of flesh and bone from the base of his skull onto the wall and bed covers behind him. He fell backward upon it. The bullet's trajectory, however, only clipped his brain and missed his spinal column entirely. Though irreparable, the wound wasn't instantly fatal.

Kyle twitched miserably in a state of catatonic shock. Controls over thought and function shut down as if God flipped a switch inside him. His brain halted, cutting off all synaptic responses from his body's many nerve endings. Death would come slowly but painlessly. Hours would pass before his remaining functions shut down and the blood drained from his body. The only sensation he felt was the chilling gust of Death's frigid breath. Kyle had finally succeeded.

***

Victoria watched silently from a crack in the doorway. She remained composed, expressionless, even uncaring. She felt nothing. Her father's suicide had no impact on her. To Victoria, her father had died weeks ago. The bullet just made it official.

She drew the door closed and tip-toed backward. She pulled on the doorknob until she heard a click, sealing away her father's resting place from the harsh outside world.

She grinned, thinking that now her father would be with Mommy again. She wondered if she might join them soon. Then she went to the kitchen counter and poured herself a bowl of Cocoa Puffs.

"Follow me."

Something about the man's whispering was soft and friendly. In the darkness, Clive couldn't make out his face. He turned away from Clive, signaling for him to follow with a waving hand.

"I've got something I want to show you."

Clive grinned, happy in his adventure. The stranger before him didn't seem so strange. His voice and mannerisms, even his build, all had an air of familiarity. Any uncertainty Clive may have had succumbed to comfort. Nothing about the stranger struck Clive as threatening or unwelcoming. He filed in closely behind him, excited to see whatever was waiting at the end of the tunnel.

His surroundings were unfamiliar. Yet, something in the hidden recesses of his mind hinted that maybe Clive had been there once before. He glanced at the dark, dilapidated hallways, unalarmed by their worn and condemning attributes. His leader led on, never turning around to see how the led was doing. If he stuck close to the man, Clive knew he'd be safe.

"It's just ahead," the stranger whispered. He beckoned Clive onward.

Clive's anticipation grew. What lay hidden in that foreign place? He imagined he was following an adventure guide through a mysterious cavern on a quest to find a mythical treasure. With each step, Clive could sense that whatever they searched for was nearing his grasp. With every step, he felt more exhilarated. That is, until he heard the screaming.

Clive's mood plummeted abysmally. The hollering of a man cast in a desperate struggle roared through the hallways. It stopped Clive dead in his tracks. He dared not go any farther.

Suddenly, he no longer wanted to see what waited at the end of the hallway. The ruins around him lost their mystique. He saw them for their true worth: grimy, damp, rotted wood and plaster in greater disrepair as they ran deeper into the structure. The place was as lifeless as the walls of some ancient catacomb, earthen and buried.

Ahead, the walls were crispy and dry. Black ash flaked from their surfaces. What had burned there? A funeral pyre gone awry? Perhaps the better question: who had burned there?

Clive's strength left him. He placed his hand flat against the wall's surface to steady himself. His legs trembled, refusing to support his weight, much less carry him forward. He slid down the wall, squatting in the dust and ash. Sweat dripped from his brow. Its warm wetness sickened Clive. With the back of his hand, he wiped it from his forehead.

When he returned his hand to his side, Clive could see that it wasn't his sweat making him ill. It was blood, and it wasn't his blood. His hands were covered in it. So were the floor, the ceiling, his hair and his clothes. The walls around him flowed with blood, crimson waterfalls cascading down their surfaces. Clive keeled over, his nerve lost.

Bony fingers wound tightly around Clive's arm. They startled Clive, commanding his attention. He glanced up to see the face of the stranger looming over him. It was still far too dark to make out his features, but all the friendliness Clive previously felt from it had disappeared.

Another nightmare?
Clive wondered. "Kevin? Is that you?"

The stranger slowly shook his head.
Not Kevin
, his motion sinisterly stated, suggesting someone far worse.

"Then who?"

Clive feared the answer. He reached into his pocket. There, he found a gold Zippo lighter. His shaking hand raised it between his face and the ghoulish figure hovering beside him. Terrified, he flicked the lighter. When it didn't spark, Clive's heart sank. He summoned the courage to try again.

It worked. Clive gasped, his breath wrestled from him. He stumbled backward, tripping and falling to the floor. The lighter fell with him. It hit the ground and doused itself out.

Clive had only seen the stranger's face for a split second, but it was long enough. He could deal with blood, guts, violence and all the other things that created the need for parental controls on televisions and ratings on video games. But he couldn't cope with what he saw. He told himself again and again that it couldn't have been real. None of it was real. His mind was just toying with him as it had been prone to do the last week or so, months even. He slapped his face, trying to wake up. No matter what he did, he couldn't escape that twisted reality.

"Your face," Clive said, his voice quivering. "Where is your face?"

The stranger's face was as white and smooth as a cue ball. No eyes, no nose, no mouth . . . nothing was where it should have been. Clive scurried backward, sliding along the floor on palms and heels. But the skeletal thing, whatever it was, drew nearer.

The faceless man extended his hand, offering assistance to the befallen Clive. Clive wasn't taking it, however. He backed farther away before hopping to his feet. He wiped his hands on his pants, then stood motionless, contemplating a means for escape. The stranger kept his position. After a moment, he turned and headed back down the hallway. He signaled for Clive to follow.

Dream or no dream, I'm getting the fuck out of here!
Clive tried to flee. His head made commands, but his feet wouldn't listen. Some invisible force compelled him down the hallway.

Like a dog dragged along by its leash, Clive followed his guide deeper and deeper. The screaming intensified until it was loud enough to set his ear drums pounding. His gut weighed heavy. His hope of escape departed. Still, Clive kept on.

Finally, Clive reached the end of the hallway. It spilled out into a room lit by an old lantern attached to the wall. The room was otherwise empty, save for a rusted metal bed frame, a soiled mattress and the man chained to them. Small patches of fire flirted about the man's clothing, smoldering the material of his grey sports coat and pants. His skin burned, too, seared open in areas, exposing the muscle underneath. Metal handcuffs dug deep into his wrist.

When he looked at Clive, his screaming stopped. All signs of agony vanished from his person, replaced by symptoms of anger and hatred. He looked as though he blamed Clive for his condition. Maybe he wanted revenge for it.

The man reached for Clive. His chains rattled the bed's metal frame, and Clive was happy they were in place. He cared not to think what the man might do had he been able to free himself. Still, Clive didn't know the man. His flesh was so charred that Clive couldn't recognize him.

"What is this?" Clive yelled at his faceless escort. "What are you trying to show me?"

But the skeleton made no sound. Instead, he pointed at his bound victim. Together, he and Clive watched as the burned man reached under the bed. He grabbed an unseen object and pulled it free. It creaked like nails across a chalkboard as it scraped along the floor. With one singular motion, the man lifted the object and heaved it at Clive.

Clive quickly stepped aside, barely dodging the impact. The object crashed at his feet, exploding into its component parts. He peered down at the remains of an electronic device. He thought that it may have been a car stereo in a past life. Wires and broken plastic speckled the floor.

One piece seemed to remain intact, a small, black box filled with red numbers, the kind of numbers that always count backward. Twenty-six. Twenty-five. Twenty-four.

Clive wasn't sticking around to see what would happen when the numbers hit zero. He turned to run, but his faceless adversary blocked his passage. There were no other exits to the room. If he wanted to escape, Clive would need to go through that ghastly manifestation. The man on the floor began to laugh.

In his panic, Clive charged at the faceless man. His sole motive was to get out of that room.
A hallucination can't stop me from leaving. He's not real. He can't be real.

Clive collided with the stranger. Neither gave ground. He wrapped his fingers around the man's fleshless throat. His enemy, too, began to laugh. Clive couldn't help but wonder how. Where were his vocal chords?

The skeleton's bone-white face began to fill out as though its decomposition were reversing. Clive refused to let go as genetic materials flowed beneath his hands. He marveled as the bone became human.

Everything inside Clive screamed at him not to look into its face again. He focused intently upon his hands as they tightened around the stranger's neck. But he couldn't stop his eyes from venturing upward. Facial features were now present. To whom did they belong? A chin, lips, smiling teeth, a nose. Clive halted briefly, suspecting the worse. But he had to know who his tormentor was. With a hard gulp, he continued to the eyes, those oh-so-familiar windows to the soul.

Clive's grip on the stranger's neck went limp. Shocked, he stumbled backward toward the bed. Never relinquishing eye contact despite the horror that consumed him, Clive dared not blink. The faceless man was no longer faceless; he had a normal human face, free from deformity or abnormality. Yet, the sight was more disturbing than a man with no face. The face Clive now stared at was none other than his own.

Time counted down slowly, Clive entranced by the stare of his doppelganger. He broke free from his mental binds when the handcuffed man hugged his arm around Clive's leg. Clive recalled his surroundings and those diminishing red numbers. He glanced down at the timer. Eight. Seven. Six. He kicked his leg, but the man's grip would not release. Clive fell to the ground as the counter teetered down to its last few numbers. Two. One.

Clive awoke to his own screams, clenching his pillow in a stranglehold. He threw it away from him, disgusted.

Another nightmare? This is getting old.

Clive had experienced them every night since he killed Kevin. He was tired of waking up to sheets drenched in sweat. He was sick of having to be awake just to slow his heartbeat. Wasn't that what rest was supposed to do?

This nightmare, though, was far too vivid. Denial was his only remaining coping mechanism preventing him from correctly interpreting it. His dreams repeated the same message. Despite his reluctance, Clive began to decipher their meaning.

Let go of it, Clive. If you keep pushing your conscience around like you are, eventually you'll unlock things that aren't supposed to be unlocked.

"What, Chester? What will I unlock?"

Clive's initial anger and fright dissipated. He was left only with his jumbled thoughts and the ranting of an inner force that Clive had always known to be evil, even if he refused to admit it to himself.