After Midnight (13 page)

He lay there for a long time.

No
one would say that Justin Delacroix was sane, at least, not anyone normal. The man was a pervert; all you have to do is look at his artwork to know that. Sure, the hippies and radical yippies were enamored with his “The Minister” which depicted a pastor in a sunlit office receiving oral sex from a choirgirl, but they recoiled at “The Counterculture” in which demons with picket signs and shaggy hair crowded a city street, and were further scandalized by “April 4.” Only a despicable creature would paint a haloed James Earl Ray slaying a horned and fanged Martin Luther King as the glorious light of heaven shines down upon skull-faced Nazi soldiers.

And a despicable creature Justin Delacroix was.

I had the misfortune of knowing him firsthand. I was a young art major at Mary Washington College in Fredericksburg when I met him at a party on campus. It was the spring of 1968, and Delacroix (in theory) was a fascinating figure. In practice, he was, to be blunt, a creep. When I was introduced to him, he was sitting on a couch in a darkened corner, a fat doobie hanging from his thin lips. He wore all black (even his John Lennon glasses were the color of pitch) and grinned evilly as I shook his hand: it was cold and bony, as if he were nothing but a cadaver. The air around him was thick with ungodliness, and after only ten minutes in his presence, my stomach and head were reeling.

I cannot exactly remember what we said to each other, but I remember being alternately appalled and
fascinated. The man was terrible, but his dark whispers, theories, and views were strangely intriguing.

So intrigued was I, that I accepted Delacroix’s invitation to tour his studio the following Friday.

All that week, I anticipated the meeting. On the appointed day, I left my dorm close to midnight and walked across the darkened city. Delacroix’s loft was along the Rappahannock in an otherwise abandoned building on Amela Street. He welcomed me with that same evil smirk and led me to his studio, which sat in a small corner of the vast and dust-coated basement. I didn’t realize that he was speaking to me until he laughed, a high, hyena-like titter.

“...Something about you, Burton; I feel that I can show you my
true
work!”

Those words sent a pang of exhilarated revulsion into my soul. He was going to show me his
“true”
work. What does
that
consist of?

In a word, bodies, brown, gray, decomposing corpses arranged in the most gruesome positions. There, near the ancient boiler, was a decaying thing (man or woman I couldn’t tell) bent before another; the act simulated was sexual and unconsecrated. And then here, close to a boarded over window, was a child-sized mummy holding a spoiled fetus, a look of otherworldly hunger on the former’s face. The only light in the dank, unhallowed chamber spilled weakly from a desk lamp, but, I could sense more of them nonetheless. They were everywhere, all around me like an army of the walking dead.

              Delacroix looked smugly at me, a master preening over his greatest works. “What you see is real, my friend. Each one of these sculptures was made using authentic parts appropriated from local, homegrown cemeteries.”

You’re mad! I nearly cried, but didn’t dare. I think I told him he was a genius.

I must have said something to that effect, for I remember him laughing and clapping my back. “I like you, Burton. Let me show you how it’s done.”

And he did. For nearly six horrid hours, he painstakingly crafted a “sculpture” using...parts and
chickenwire. As dawn began creeping through the shadows, it was finished: a woman, legs spread too widely apart, giving birth to an adult-sized skull. Delacroix was pleased with his awful statue, and detained me just long enough to have a drink of wine, wine that tasted like blood.

“I’d like you to come back sometime, Burton; maybe you can accompany me on a parts run.”

I nodded and then staggered dazedly back to my rooms. Thankfully, though I didn’t know it then, I would never see Justin Delacroix again, for one week later, he was murdered.

It was in every paper from New York to San Francisco, but the details released were vague and minuscule. All that I knew for years was that he had been found in his apartment by a police officer investigating a report of “deathly screams.” The murder was “ritualistic” in nature, and was blamed on a cult that operated in
Bowling Green at the time.

Had it stayed at that, I would have been fine; I would have ignored my own wild suspicions and eventually gotten over it. But as fate would have it, I wound up marrying a woman whose brother was one of the officers on scene that gruesome day. I didn’t learn this until 1978, after his sister and I had been together
nearly four years, and I didn’t gather the courage to ask him about it until 1981.

What he told me nearly sent me into near hysterics. It was just what I had imagined! For years I told myself that I had read too much Lovecraft as a boy and that his tales had affected my outlook. But I was right! Justin Delac
roix was found strung up, braced by a frame of chickenwire. His limbs had been removed.

And all around him, arms outstretched, as if eager to add their own touch to the macabre scene, were his
true
works.

Tommy
Howser looked dejectedly down at his bare feet, toes buried in the soft, white sand. I miss Virginia,” he said with a heavy sigh. Bob put his arm around his shoulder and drew him close.

“I know you do. I do too. We’ll go back. One day.”

Carol Rogers, who sat on Tommy’s right, frowned, her warm brown eyes troubled.
Homesick
she mouthed, and Bob nodded. He probably missed his family, too. He knew he missed
his
. There was something about this time of year that sharpened grief, made it much keener, much more profound.

Tommy sighed again.
“When?”

Bob bit his lower lip. He’d been wondering the same thing since they arrived on
Cabo San de Luca in June. How long would it take to peter out? Surely not more than a year. Then again, back in February he was certain that it would be over in two, three months at the most, yet the last time he and Pablo sailed to the mainland, the dead still walked, and walked quite well at that.

How in the name of God?
he’d asked himself. Why aren’t they rotting?

“Soon, honey,” Carol answered.
“Just a couple more weeks.”

Tommy didn’t reply.

Bob shot a glance at Carol, who shrugged. He’d told her time and again not to give the boy false hope. He needed something to hold onto, sure, but telling him it would only be a few weeks was...well, it was cruel. It was cruel back in June, and it was cruel today, the twenty-first of December. No wonder he didn’t trust anything they said. Bob wouldn’t either.

“You know,” Bob said, looking out at the clear blue Pacific, “I was thinking. I was up late last night and I’m really tired. Why don’t
you
help Pablo with the boat?”

For the first time, Tommy looked up, squinting against the bright tropical sun.
“Really? Me?”

Behind him, Carol glowered. Since they found Tommy (hiding under a back porch in Colonial Beach), she’d been very protective of him. She rarely let him out of her sight, and loathed the thought of him out on a boat. Her father had been a fisherman in Maine and died during the “Perfect Storm” of 1991
so boats were a particularly sore subject.

“Bob...” she started, but Tommy cut her off.

“I can go?” He was excited, and Bob couldn’t help but smile.

“Yeah.
Sure.”

“Awesome!” Before Carol could protest, he was up and away,
running
toward the restless jungle.

Carol glared. “Bob, you know...”

“Just let the boy feel important for once, will you? Since we picked him up, you’ve been treating him like a toddler.”

“He’s eleven, Bob...”

“Not three, Carol.”

“Whatever,” she said and crossed her arms.

“You might not like it, but he’s not your baby. Keeping him tied to your skirts…”

“Whatever,” she repeated.

The sun was melting on the horizon when the small white cabin cruiser
came gliding into view. Bob sat on the dock with a rum-filled coconut half, his feet dangling off the pier and his neck burned probably beyond recognition. He’d been here for most of the day, just gazing into the distance and thinking. Carol was somewhere on the other side of the island, still sulking.

The boat pulled effortlessly into the sole slip and Pablo appeared along the side. Bob’s brow furrowed. “Where’s Tommy?” he asked shirtless Mexican.

Pablo smiled. “Captain Howser?” he asked in his broken English. “At the wheel.”

Bob chuckled. “That was him just now?”

Pablo nodded. “He’s very good. Better than I was when I started, and I was twenty-five!”

Bob laughed. God, Carol would
freak
.

“Bob! Bob!” Tommy came streaking up behind Pablo. “Pablo let me drive the boat!”

“I saw that,” Bob said. “You’re good.”

Tommy preened. “And...I caught the biggest fish!”

“Sounds good. Is there enough to go around?”

“It’s a swordfish!” Tommy ejaculated. “It’ll feed us all!”

That night, they gathered around a fire under the dull glow of the Mexican moon and ate fish, rice and beans. Tommy wasn’t exaggerating about the fish. It was a monster. Bob wondered how the hell he reeled it in. He doubted that even Pablo could have managed, and he was the strongest of the lot.

Later, after Pablo and Tommy were in bed, Bob and Carol sat side-by-side and watched as the fire slowly died.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “I just...I worry about him.”

Bob put his hand on hers. “I know. But we can’t stunt him just because...of everything.”

“I know,” she said.

The next two days were somber ones on the island. Despite his elation over sailing the boat and catching the swordfish, Tommy lapsed into a deep depression. On the twenty-third, Bob found him alone by the sea, sobbing into his hands.

“Tommy,” Bob said, “what’s wrong?”

Bob sat next to the boy and put his arm around his shoulder. It took some coaxing, but he finally opened up.

“I miss my parents, I miss Virginia, I want it to snow, and...and...Christmas is ruined!”

“No it’s not, Tommy; we’ll have our own Christmas right here.” The truth was, Bob hadn’t even really thought about Christmas. The little boy, face red and wet,
had
, though.

“But it’s going to be hot,” Tommy said. “It’s not
gonna be like Christmas at all.”

“Yes, it will,” Bob vowed.

Carol and Tommy stood side-by-side on the dock, Carol looking worried. “Be careful,” she said.

Bob put his hand on her shoulder. “I will. It’s just a little trip to Baja Cove. We’ll be back before dark.” He knelt before Tommy and ruffled his brown hair. “You’re in charge while we’re gone. Keep Carol in line for me.”

A ghost of a grin touched the corners of Tommy’s lips. “Okay,” he sighed. 

“This is going to be the best Christmas of his life,” Bob said as he watched the island shrink behind them. He was determined that every future Christmas Tommy had would suck eggs compared to this one. It was going blow his mind.

Easier said than done.

“What do eleven-year-old boys like?” Bob asked.

At the wheel, Pablo replied, “BB guns, sports...oh, he
did
mention he missed his X-Box.”

“We don’t have any power on the island.” There were a few buildings on the western side of the island that had electricity once, but since...

“A generator!”

Bob had never considered a generator. They lived in a tropical paradise. Who needed power?

Tommy.

“A generator and an X-Box.
What else?”

“Games...”

“Of course, games.”

“Uh...
dirtbike?”

Bob smiled. “This kid’s
gonna shit bricks...”

After nearly an hour they reached shore.

The dock that they used on such excursions was once owned by an eccentric cocaine baron who
had died long before they showed up; it was isolated, several miles from the highway, and hard to reach overland.

Pablo maneuvered the boat into the slip and tied it up. They kept an SUV parked nearby and, after filling it up, Pablo climbed behind the driver
’s seat.

The main road was starting to crack; in places, sand drifts five feet high covered the blacktop. Baja Cove was sixteen miles from the dock, and on the way, they saw only two zombies, one of them dragging itself along the side of the road. Maybe they were starting to die off, Bob hoped.

Baja Cove was a small town by any standards, yet they found everything they were looking for. A generator in the local hardware store, a dirtbike at a dealership, an X-Box, games, other things. For Carol, Bob looted the jeweler’s. On the ride back, he figured that he’d taken at least 50,000 dollars’ worth of bling.

Along the way, they stopped at a discount supermarket and loaded two carts with Christmas decorations leftover from last year. They also took candy, wrapping paper, several packs of Coca-Cola. By the time they made it back to the boat, it was nearly six, and the sky had gone dark and cloudy, the wind had picked up, and the temperature had dropped.

“Looks like a storm,” Pablo said.

Bob licked his lips. “Let’s get this crap in the boat and get back.”

Carol sat worried by the window of the hut, her arms crossed and her stomach in knots. Wind-driven rain lashed the bending trees. She could only imagine what it was like out on the sea.

Probably like the day dad died.

Shoving those thoughts away, she looked at Tommy, who sat by the door. He was worried too. Since the storm started, all thoughts about Christmas
had vanished.

Hurry up
, she thought as she looked once more out the window.

Bob held on for dear life as the boat was tossed back and forth on massive waves, his heart in his throat and his stomach in his chest.

Pablo came staggering back from the bathroom, and went down as the boat tipped heavily to one side; a cascade of sundries fell over him.

“Pablo!” Bob cried.

“I’m fine, I’m fine,” he said, getting to his hands and knees, and slamming against the cabinets when the boat was pushed left.

“Pablo...” Bob started, but was cut off as a giant wave crashed into the boat and came flooding through the door to the deck.

“Shit!”

Carol kept a brave front for Tommy’s sake, but inside, she was a wreck. It had been two days since the storm came and went. She refused to entertain the thought that Bob and Pablo were dead, but she knew deep in her heart that they were. The boat sank. Why else was there was wreckage on the beach?

At dawn on Christmas morning, she left Tommy sleeping and went down to the beach to cry. And cry she did. For an hour straight, the tears came.

Finally, feeling partially purged, she got up to leave, but stopped. There was something in the water. It looked like...a raft!

Tommy was awake and sitting up when they came back. When he saw Bob and Pablo, his face lit up.

“You’re back!”

Like a normal child on a normal Christmas morning, he jumped excitedly out of bed. Bob’s hug was first, then Pablo’s, then Bob again.

“We thought you died!”

“We came close,” Pablo said.

“I’m so glad you didn’t!” Tommy babbled. Then, he added something that made Bob smile, something that made the loss of the boat and of all the presents and candies worth it.

“This,” the boy declared, “is the best Christmas
ever
!”