Authors: Dean Koontz
CHAPTER 85
AT HARKER'S APARTMENT BUILDING,
Carson and Michael took the elevator to the fourth floor to avoid the stink of mildew in the public stairwell.
Homicide, CSI, and curious neighbors had long ago faded away. The building almost seemed deserted.
When they reached the fourth floor, they found Deucalion waiting in the hallway, outside Harker’s apartment.
To Carson, Michael murmured, “I didn’t see the Batmobile parked out front.”
“You won’t admit it,” she said, “but you’re convinced.”
To her surprise, he said, “Almost.”
Evidently having heard Michael’s murmured words, Deucalion said, “I used the Batcopter. It’s on the roof.”
By way of apology, Michael said, “Listen, that crack didn’t mean anything. That’s just me. If I see a joke, I go for it.”
“Because you see so much in life that disturbs you, the cruelty, the hatred,” Deucalion said. “You armor yourself with humor.”
For the second time in an hour, Michael found himself without a comeback.
Carson had never imagined that such a day would dawn. Maybe this was one of the seven signs of the Apocalypse.
She slit the police seal on the door, used her Lockaid gun, and led them inside.
“Minimalism minimalized,” said Deucalion as he moved into the sparsely furnished living room. “No books.”
“He’s got some books in the attic,” Carson said.
“No mementoes,” Deucalion continued, “no decorative items, no photographs, no art. He hasn’t found a way to have a life. This is the cell of a monk…but one who has no faith.”
Trying to get back in the saddle, Michael said, “Carson, he’s an absolute whiz at this.”
Deucalion looked toward the kitchen but didn’t move in that direction. “He sometimes sits at the table in there, drinking. But whiskey doesn’t provide him with the escape he needs. Only occasional oblivion.”
Earlier, the standard premises search had turned up a case of bourbon in the kitchen.
Looking toward the bedroom, Deucalion said, “In there, you will most likely find pornography. Only a single item. One video.”
“Exactly,” she confirmed. “We found one.”
When it turned up in the search, Michael had referred to the porn video by various titles—
Transvestitesylvania, The Thing with Two Things
—but now he said nothing, impressed to silence by Deucalion’s insights.
“He found no thrill in images of copulation,” Deucalion said. “Only an even more profound sense of being an outsider. Only greater alienation.”
CHAPTER 86
FEARFUL OF THE
day-bright world in all its dazzling busyness, Randal Six earlier took refuge in an alleyway Dumpster.
Fortunately, this enormous container is half filled with nothing more offensive than office trash, largely paper and cardboard. There is no restaurant or produce-market garbage, no organic stench and slime.
Throughout the day, until the storm clouds come, the sun beats down on Randal. This is the first sun of his life, bright and hot, frightening at first, but then less so.
He sits with his back to a corner, cushioned by paper refuse, his world reduced to manageable dimensions, and works one crossword puzzle after another in the book that he brought with him from his room in the Hands of Mercy.
Frequently traffic passes through the alleyway. And people on foot. Initially he pauses in his puzzle at each possibility of an encounter, but eventually he realizes that they are not likely to disturb him.
If a sanitation truck comes to empty the Dumpster, he is not sure how he will cope. This possibility didn’t occur to him until he had already taken sanctuary in the container. His hope is that trash is not collected every day.
Having missed breakfast and then lunch, he grows hungry as the day progresses. Considering his accomplishments to this point, he can endure a little hunger.
At Mercy, Randal’s untouched meals will alert the staff to his absence, though perhaps not for a while. Sometimes, when particularly deep in autistic detachment, he leaves a meal untouched for hours. He has been known to eat both breakfast and lunch an hour before dinner—then leave his dinner until near midnight.
Before departing Mercy, he closed his bathroom door. They may think that he is in there.
From time to time, people toss bags of trash and loose objects into the bin. The top of the big Dumpster is over their heads, so they cannot easily look in and see him.
Sometimes the trash strikes him, but it’s never a problem. When the people leave, Randal pushes the new stuff away and reestablishes his cozy nest.
Midafternoon, a man singing “King of the Road” approaches along the alley. He can’t carry a tune.
Judging by the sound, he’s pushing some kind of cart. The wheels clatter on the cracked pavement.
Between lines of the song, the cart-pusher grumbles incoherent chains of four-letter words, then resumes singing.
When this man stops at the Dumpster, Randal Six puts aside his puzzle book and pen. Instinct tells him that there may be trouble.
Two grimy hands appear at the rim of the bin. The singer takes a grip, grunts and curses as he clambers up the side of the Dumpster.
Balanced on the edge of the big container, half in and half out, the man spots Randal. His eyes widen.
The guy is perhaps in his thirties, bearded, in need of a bath. His teeth are crooked and yellow when he reveals them to say “This here’s
my
territory, asshole.”
Randal reaches up, grabs the man by his shirtsleeves, pulls him into the Dumpster, and breaks his neck. He rolls the dead body to the farther end of the container and covers it with bags of trash.
In his corner once more, he picks up the puzzle book. He turns to his page and finishes spelling
derangement.
The dead man’s cart stands near the Dumpster. Eventually someone might notice it and wonder about its owner.
Randal will have to deal with the problem if and when it arises. Meanwhile, crosswords.
Time passes. Clouds darken the sky. Although still warm, the day grows cooler.
Randal Six is not happy, but he is content, at ease. Later, he will be happy for the first time.
In his mind’s eye is the city map, his route to happiness, the O’Connor house at the end of the journey, his guiding star.
CHAPTER 87
BECAUSE OF THEIR
fine-tuned metabolism, members of the New Race did not easily become drunk. Their capacity for drink was great, and when they did become inebriated, they sobered more quickly than did those of the Old Race.
Throughout the day, Father Duchaine and Harker opened bottle after bottle of communion wine. This use of the church’s inventory troubled the priest both because it was in effect a misappropriation of funds and because the wine, once blessed, would have become the sacred blood of Christ.
Being a soulless creature made by man but charged with religious duty, Father Duchaine had over the months and years grown ever more torn between what he was and what he wished to be.
Regardless of the moral issue of using this particular wine for purposes other than worship, the alcoholic content of the brew was less than they might have wished. Late in the afternoon, they began to spike it with Father Duchaine’s supply of vodka.
Sitting in armchairs in the rectory study, the priest and the detective tried for the tenth—or perhaps the twentieth—time to pull the most troubling thorns from each other’s psyches.
“Father will find me soon,” Harker predicted. “He’ll stop me.”
“And me,” the priest said morosely.
“But I don’t feel guilty about what I’ve done.”
“Thou shalt not kill.”
“Even if there is a God, His commandments can’t apply to us,” said Harker. “We’re not His children.”
“Our maker has also forbidden us to murder…except on his instructions.”
“But our maker isn’t God. He’s more like…the plantation owner. Murder isn’t a sin…just disobedience.”
“It’s still a crime,” said Father Duchaine, troubled by Harker’s self-justifications, even though the plantation-owner analogy had a measure of truth in it.
Sitting on the edge of his armchair, leaning forward, tumbler of vodka-spiked wine clasped in both hands, Harker said, “Do you believe in evil?”
“People do terrible things,” the priest said. “I mean, real people, the Old Race. For children of God, they do terrible, terrible things.”
“But evil,” Harker pressed. “Evil pure and purposeful? Is evil a real presence in the world?”
The priest drank from his glass, then said, “The church allows exorcisms. I’ve never performed one.”
With the solemnity of both profound dread and too much booze, Harker said, “Is
he
evil?”
“Victor?” Father Duchaine felt that he was on dangerous ground. “He’s a hard man, not easy to like. His jokes aren’t funny.”
Harker rose from his chair, went to a window, and studied the low, threatening sky that impressed an early dusk upon the day.
After a while, he said, “If he’s evil…then what are we? I’ve been so…confused lately. But I don’t feel evil. Not like Hitler or Lex Luthor. Just…incomplete.”
Father Duchaine slid to the edge of his chair. “Do you think…by living the right way, we might in time develop the souls that Victor couldn’t give us?”
Returning from the window, adding vodka to his glass, Harker said with serious demeanor, “Grow a soul? Like…gallstones? I’ve never thought about it.”
“Have you seen
Pinocchio
?”
“I’ve never had patience for their movies.”
“This marionette is made of wood,” Father Duchaine said, “but he wants to be a real boy.”
Harker nodded, downed half his drink, and said, “Like Winnie the Pooh wants to be a real bear.”
“No. Pooh is delusional. He already thinks he’s a real bear. He eats honey. He’s afraid of bees.”
“Does Pinocchio become a real boy?”
Father Duchaine said, “After a lot of struggle, yes.”
“That’s inspiring,” Harker decided.
“It is. It really is.”
Harker chewed his lower lip, thinking. Then: “Can you keep a secret?”
“Of course. I’m a priest.”
“This is a little scary,” Harker said.
“Everything in life’s a little scary.”
“That’s so true.”
“In fact, that was the theme of my homily last Sunday.”
Harker put down his drink, stood before Duchaine. “But I’m more excited than scared. It started two days ago, and it’s accelerating.”
Expectantly, Patrick rose from his chair.
“Like Pinocchio,” Harker said, “I’m changing.”
“Changing…how?”
“Victor denied us the ability to reproduce. But I…I’m going to give birth to something.”
With an expression that seemed to be as much pride as fear, Harker lifted his loose-fitting T-shirt.
A subcutaneous face was taking shape beneath the skin and the surface fat layers of Harker’s abdomen. The thing was like a death mask but in motion: blind eyes rolling, mouth opening as though in a silent scream.
Recoiling in shock, Father Duchaine crossed himself before he realized what he had done.
The doorbell rang.
“Birth?” the priest said agitatedly. “What makes you think it’s birth instead of biological chaos?”
Sudden sweat sheathed Harker’s face. Sullen at this rejection, he pulled down his T-shirt. “I’m not afraid. Why should I be?” But clearly he was afraid. “I’ve murdered. Now I create—which makes me more human.”
The doorbell rang again.
“A breakdown in cell structure, metastasis,” Father Duchaine said. “A terrible design flaw.”
“You’re envious. That’s what you are—envious in your chastity.”
“You’ve got to go to him. Get his help. He’ll know what to do.”
“Oh, he’ll know what to do, all right,” Harker said. “There’s a place waiting for me in the landfill.”
The doorbell rang a third time, more insistently than before.
“Wait here,” said Father Duchaine. “I’ll be back. We’ll figure out what to do…something. Just wait.”
He closed the door when he left the study. He crossed the parlor to the front hall.
When the priest opened the front door, he discovered Victor on the porch.
“Good evening, Patrick.”
Striving to conceal his anxiety, Father Duchaine said, “Sir. Yes. Good evening.”
“Just ‘good evening’?”
“I’m sorry. What?” When Victor frowned, Duchaine understood. “Oh, yes. Of course. Come in, sir. Please come in.”
CHAPTER 88
MOTH SHADOWS BEAT
an ever-changing tattoo across the faces of Christ, Buddha, Amen-Ra.
In the attic above Jonathan Harker’s apartment, Carson, Michael, and Deucalion gathered at the wall-to-wall collage of gods, on which Harker must have spent scores of hours.
“It seems to express such yearning,” Carson said. “You can feel his anguish.”
“Don’t be too moved by it,” Deucalion advised. “He would embrace any philosophy that filled the void in him.”
He peeled away an image of Christ in the Garden of Gethsemane, then one of Buddha, revealing different forms and faces beneath, their nature at first mysterious.
“God was only his most recent obsession,” Deucalion explained.
As other pictures were peeled away, Carson saw an underlying collage of Nazi images and symbols: swastikas, Hitler, goose-stepping soldiers.
“Under all these faces of traditional gods is another god that failed him,” Deucalion said. “A god of violent social change and racial purity. There are so many of those.”
Perhaps at last fully convinced of Deucalion’s nature, Michael said, “How did you know there was a second layer?”
“Not just a second,” Deucalion said. “Also a third.”
When Hitler and his ilk were torn off the wall, there was revealed an even eerier collage: images of Satan, demons, satanic symbols.
Deucalion said, “The unique despair of a creature without a soul eventually leads to desperation, and desperation fosters obsession. In Harker’s case, this is only the surface of it.”
Peeling away a horned-and-fanged demonic face, Carson said, “You mean…more layers under this?”
“The wall feels spongy, padded,” Michael said.
Deucalion nodded. “It’s been papered over twenty times or more. You might find gods and goddesses again. When new hopes fail, old hopes return in the endless cycle of desperation.”
Instead, Carson found Sigmund Freud in the fourth layer. Then other pictures of equally solemn men.
“Freud, Jung, Skinner, Watson,” Deucalion said, identifying each newly revealed face. “Rorschach. Psychiatrists, psychologists. The most useless gods of all.”