Devils night, p.14
Devil's Night, page 14
Scott shouted. A dark shape had darted across the flashlight beam.
He was breathing hard. He tried to catch the thing again in the light, but he couldn’t find it. Where was it? What was it?
He started backing away. The front of the building was behind him, the sounds of the party outside growing louder.
He felt something hard behind his back and nearly screamed. But it was just the electrical wiring. He was right up against the front wall. Were the wires humming? Or was that just the rushing of blood in his head?
Suddenly, a shape rushed at him out of the dark.
Scott screamed and dropped the flashlight. “Go away! Get out of here!” He kicked his leg, but made no contact. His back pressed against the wiring. He felt each thick, rubbery cord where it touched his shirt.
There was still a little light in the room from the flashlight beam and from the lights of the festival seeping around the boarded windows. He couldn’t make anything out in the shadows. But there was something watching him, he knew it. He heard a whimpering sound and realized he was making it.
“Leave me alone,” he said. You need to get out of here, man, he told himself. Just bail. Forget Anvi. But his legs wouldn’t move. His knees were shaking.
Slowly, so slowly, a long finger moved against his neck. Tingles shot across his skin. It took half a second for him to match reality to the sensation, and another half second to realize what it was.
One of the thick electrical cords.
He tried to jerk himself away, and instantly the cord whipped around his neck and squeezed. Scott bucked his body, trying to get free, but the cord just held tighter. He tried to cry out, but could only manage a wheeze. His lungs didn’t have enough air. He couldn’t breathe.
Faintly, he heard sounds like screaming coming from outside.
“Please,” he tried to whisper. But his voice wouldn’t come. His lips could barely move. “Help.” The cord kept cinching tighter around his neck, pulling him upward until his toes left the ground. His vision filled with static. The pressure in his face was unbearable.
Then the pain was in his chest, like something had viciously punched into him there. Shot. Someone had shot him. But from where? How was this happening? He was falling into darkness, tumbling end over end.
A voice whispered into his ear.
I won’t let you hurt anyone else. Ever again.
The accidents worried me. On more than one occasion, I saw someone fall and twist an ankle, damage a wrist. Nothing very frightening, especially given that many visitors on Devil’s Night were drunk or under various influences. But people kept reporting strange sounds, even words, right before they were injured. The intuition still followed me—could the ghosts of Eden be responsible for these accidents?
I brought my EVP equipment up and made several recordings, but the results were indeterminate. I still had Beau MacKenzie’s diary, and I read it time and again, hoping for some new insight into the events of the Devil’s Night Massacre. If only I could find some clue to the mysteries of that night. Then, perhaps, I’d have a new foothold to use when trying to contact the spirits.
-from A DEVIL IN EDEN by Lawrence Wright
Devil’s Night - 1894
Marian paced the dining room. According to the grandfather clock in the corner, half an hour had now passed since Tim shot the porter. The pendulum kept up its ceaseless ticking and swinging. She walked to one side of the room, where she could see the back door. Then to the other side, where she could see through the lobby to the front entrance. No one had yet tried to break down the hotel’s doors. But she’d checked from the upstairs windows—faces had peered back from nearby buildings, watching and waiting. They wanted to know what was going on in here.
The clock’s ticking grated on her. How much time did she have? Every swing of the clock’s pendulum, every shift of its great mechanism, she felt her heart winding tighter.
Douglas had found the safe, and that was good. He’d brought back the cook, and she sat crying with the maid in the corner. The injured porter lay insensible beside them. No one would go free until Marian got what she wanted. But Fitzhammer was steadfast in his refusal to give up the code to the safe. There he sat against the wall, still sneering at her despite her triumphs. She would’ve happily just watched him suffer, whether or not she got his money. But she couldn’t keep on living that squalid life, always on the edge of starving. Douglas and Tim couldn’t, either.
This man who’d nearly destroyed her. She would bend him to her will, dammit. She would.
She took out Bart’s Colt revolver. Her boots thumped against the rug as she marched over. The barrel pressed into Fitzhammer’s forehead. His eyes squeezed closed, and his throat made a gagging sound that she found rather satisfying.
“Don’t,” Douglas warned from the doorway. “We need that code. Nobody else knows it.”
“You’ll never leave this town alive if you kill me,” Fitzhammer said, “you know that.”
Douglas took a step closer. She moved the gun an inch back. It had left a purple ring on Fitzhammer’s fleshy forehead. The maid and the cook hugged each other, eyes closed.
It was a stalemate. She needed some way to break it.
“He doesn’t believe I’ll really kill him,” Marian said. “He needs to be convinced.”
She had found something during her searches of the upstairs levels: several lengths of rope, abandoned in a trunk in one of the guest rooms. The rope was new, wound intricately out of strong fibers. Who had left it, she wondered? A traveling salesman with a patented rope design? A wealthy rancher who’d stopped in Eden on his journey home? Marian had always enjoyed making up stories about people she didn’t know, imagining their simple and prosperous lives. Wives and laughing children eating hearty dinners at home. Such persons seemed as alien as if they’d traveled down from the moon.
She’d left the rope in the lobby. Now Marian went to fetch her prize.
“Marian…” Douglas began when he saw what she carried. She ignored him. If Douglas didn’t have the stomach for this, then he could wait in the kitchen.
The coils thudded into a heap at Tim’s feet.
“String him up,” Marian said.
It took forever for Bart to pull free of his bindings and drag himself down that hill. His entire body seemed coated in a thick layer of caked blood and dust. Every time he looked at the red-soaked fabric of his trousers, the world spun around him. But his fury kept him going.
He fell and rolled the last few feet, ending up in the road. With a yell, Bart pushed himself up.
If any of them had a brain in their head, they’d have killed me, Bart thought. Because I’m coming for them.
That bitch Marian. He should’ve killed her years ago, back when she pulled that stunt on Fitz. Acting so high and mighty, like she deserved even more than the old man had given her. She was a gutter rat, nothing more, and she’d been lucky that Fitz picked her out of that hellish life and gave her pretty clothes, an education. More than Bart ever had handed to him. He’d had to work for every single thing he ever got in this world.
She was going to pay. By the end of this day, Bart would see her dead.
Bart took a limping step along the road. The pain was terrible. But the bleeding had slowed, at least. He could walk. Far as he could tell, the shot had passed clean through. Still hurt like hellfire, though.
He kept limping onward, one step, then another. His body was tacky with sweat and blood. Lord, how he hated that sticky redness. The rusty, meaty smell. In his younger days, he’d occasionally been humiliated when he fainted at the sight of it. So he tried hard not to look.
It would take him hours to get to Eden at this rate. The old man might be dead by then. Not that it bothered Bart—few people in Eden cared if Fitz lived or died.
But what if they found the key and forced Fitz to tell them how to use it?
Bart couldn’t allow that. He’d spent years bowing to that ass of a man, obeying his every whim. Bart hated how Fitz wasted money. Poured it on the undeserving, as if that would buy him love and admiration. Bart had no interest in such frivolities. He’d grown up in a cruel, hard world, and he’d known nothing else. All a man really needed was respect, and to get that, you needed guns and you needed money.
Lots of money.
Bart wasn’t a violent man at heart. He’d never considered stealing from Fitz outright, or turning bandit like Marian had done. He believed in earning his keep. But he’d never been satisfied with the pittance that Fitzhammer paid him. He’d watched Fitz toss around gold like it was water, and Bart had started collecting the drops. Just a few coins here, a bill or two there. Nothing that the idiot man would ever notice. Why would Fitz care? He had so much money that he could’ve bought and sold a man like Bart a hundred times over.
That was the kind of money that Bart wanted. Enough that you could own anybody you chose.
And Bart would never get that rich by picking up after Fitz, or working the mines, or even by becoming an outlaw. The only way was to hold on tight to Fitzhammer, become indispensable. And when Fitz finally kicked the bucket? Bart would know where every penny was hidden, and he’d take it for himself. Now Marian was trying to steal the money out from under him.
He tripped on a stray root, collapsing into the road. Bart screamed curses at the agony in his leg. Wetness seeped again into his boot. Bart sat up, putting pressure on his mangled calf with his hands. He sat there, panting, for a few minutes. Trying not to pass out.
And then the idea came to him.
It wouldn’t be so bad if Marian and her two fools took care of Fitz. Would it? Bart could turn this day to his advantage. If he handled things just right. And he could take care of more problems than one.
Then he heard hooves pounding dirt. He turned around just as a rider came around the bend. The man slowed his horse. It was the barkeep at the Pretty Eyes Saloon. Not the sharpest card in the deck, but they got along well enough.
“Bart! What in tarnation happened to you?”
“Just help me onto your horse, and I’ll tell you. There’s a reward in it for you, too.”
That was all the barkeep needed to hear.
Fitzhammer’s toes barely touched the chair. If you didn’t look at his terrified face, the man almost seemed to be dancing. Marian was looking at his face, though. She couldn’t tear her eyes away.
She hadn’t thought herself a cruel person. But his dancing made her feel giddy inside. It was difficult to keep from laughing.
Marian didn’t know how to tie a true hangman’s noose, but the slip knot had worked well enough. Douglas had fixed it to the chandelier, and then he and Tim had wrestled the man up there.
He was making choking and squealing sounds.
“Pull it tighter,” Marian said.
Tim yanked on his end. His thin arms were shaking. Fitzhammer’s struggles grew more urgent, his feet just barely touching the chair. His face had turned the bright red of beet juice, and now the skin was edging toward purple. His bound hands pulled helplessly at the rope.
The servingwomen still huddled together in the corner; the maid prayed in German. The injured porter did not look well.
Douglas glanced away. “That’s enough.”
Tim looked to Marian. She nodded, and Tim added slack to the rope. Fitzhammer’s toes touched the chair once more, and he gasped hoarsely. “Please. Please, no more.”
“Tell us the code.”
“The rope.” He could barely speak. “Take it off. Tell you…then.”
Douglas moved forward, reaching for the slip knot around Fitzhammer’s neck.
“No,” Marian said. “The rope stays on.”
Douglas gritted his teeth at her. Her gaze didn’t waver from his. Did Douglas really want to show mercy to this man, who’d closed down the mine and stolen their pay? Who’d worked them like dogs?
“At least loosen it,” Douglas said. “So the man can talk.”
Tim let the rope slide down. Fitzhammer’s heels now touched the chair. He started coughing.
Marian pushed Tim out of the way and grabbed hold of the rope herself. “The code,” she said.
Fitzhammer was still coughing. The livid color was draining from his face, and the cunning was returning to his eyes. She pulled on the rope, just enough to remind him.
“All right! It’s fifty-three to the right, seventeen to the left, thirty-four to the right.”
Marian nodded at Douglas. “Go and see,” she said.
“No!” Fitzhammer’s polished leather shoes nearly slipped from the chair. “I gave it to you, now let me go!”
“Why do I think you’re lying to me?” Again, Marian took hold of the rope. She wound it over her fist.
“Wait.” Douglas’s hand was outstretched. “Just wait. I’ll check the code.” He ran into the other room.
Tim went over to Marian. “What’re you planning to do?” he asked.
“She’s a demon,” Fitzhammer hissed. “A liar.” He began coughing again, and spat out a gob of phlegm that hit the chair beneath him. “She’ll see you all killed. Make no mistake.”
“You’re the liar.” Marian wrapped the rope around both fists. She started again to pull, cringing when the rope’s fibers dug into her wrists and fingers. It reminded her of all the times she’d been bound, trapped, the humanity scraped away. Both in Fitzhammer’s house and later in the asylum.
Fitzhammer’s heels left the chair. He wriggled beneath the chandelier like a hooked eel.
“Well, now Miss Marian,” Tim stammered, “the code, if he was lying—”
She didn’t give a damn about that code. All she cared about was seeing the life drain from that man’s face. So he could never hurt another girl ever, ever again.
The maid and the cook were crying and wailing. Didn’t they know what he was? Why weren’t they rejoicing?
Marian pulled and pulled with all her weight until the shiny black shoes kicked in the air. Tim didn’t stop her. Her hands had gone numb. Her arms shook. It was taking so long. I can’t hold him, she thought, but somehow she did. It was important that she bear this weight. That she hold the rope that was choking the life out of him.
Her child had been born with its cord around its neck. She’d held the baby, its skin mottled blue and going cold, before the nurses took it away. They’d tied Marian down and covered her face with an ether-soaked rag to make her stop screaming.
Douglas came into the room. “Oh, hell!”
She spoke through clenched teeth. “Don’t.”
“It opened, you hear me?” Douglas was edging toward her. “The safe opened.”
Tim held out his arm. “She said ‘don’t.’”
Fitzhammer was trying desperately to reach the chair with his toes.
“But the code worked. Now let him down.”
Never. Marian kicked the chair from beneath his dangling feet. She grunted, struggling to hold on to his weight. His face had turned the purple of old blood, his eyes and tongue bulging. Her own hands were turning a similar shade, but she didn’t let go. She pictured the face of her child, and she didn’t let go.
“Is Penny ready for this?” my wife asked.
I looked up at the stars. “I think she is. We always talked about wanting our kids to decide things for themselves, right? We never wanted to be the kinds of parents who told them who to be.”
“But she’s five. Maybe we should wait.”
I considered this. But I’d seen how much damage a few months of uncertainty could do to her. Before Helen and Jason arrived, Penny had closed off from us. Now, Penny was finally smiling again. What would it do to her if we said no? I said all this to my wife.
But there was more I kept silent, too. In my heart, I wanted this so badly. I wanted to take Penny to Eden so I could finally—I hoped—find some answers….
But if I knew what would soon happen there, I’d never have brought Penny to Eden. I’d have tried to find some other way.
In just a matter of days, I’d be at risk of losing everything I held dear.”
-from A DEVIL IN EDEN by Lawrence Wright
Chapter Twenty-Three
2019
Penny waited in the chair by Matthew’s hospital bed. When he went for a CT scan, she allowed herself to doze, her spine curving into the plastic in a way that was going to ache later on. The clock outside by the nurse’s station said it was five a.m.
She woke when the orderly wheeled him in. “You’re getting the royal treatment,” Penny said.
“He asked for a piggy-back ride,” the burly orderly said, “but that’s where I draw the line.”
Matthew had a half-amused, half-annoyed look on his face. The orderly helped him out of the wheelchair and onto the bed. Matthew seemed unsteady, listing to one side as he lay back.
“Doctor should be in again shortly with those test results,” the orderly said. “Your Highness.”
Matthew smiled and saluted. The doctor had already announced that Matthew had a concussion, probably a mild one. But since he had a lump on his head and a headache, they’d decided to run a few more tests, courtesy of the insurance policy that SunBev had purchased for Devil’s Fest.
The injury to his right shoulder was worse—a dislocation, which the doctor had reset after a dose of ketamine. Matthew had been pretty goofy after that, but he’d slept awhile, and now the effects seemed to be wearing off.
She pushed her chair closer to the bed. “What can I get you?” she asked. “A butter pecan milkshake with extra whip and Reese’s Pieces on top?”
Matthew smiled. “You remembered.” His words slurred, but less than before.
“I only witnessed you order that about ten thousand times.”
“And you never got the same flavor of ice cream twice.”
He winced as he shifted against the pillows.
