The Devil's Beat (The Devil's Mark) Read online

  Doc Bob looked at the two of them. “I think the two of you kids got some talking to do.” He turned, left, and pulled the curtain around the bed closed behind him.

  Max looked at Alice in uneasy silence, then he said gently and fearfully, “I am so sorry, Alice. I didn't mean to yell at you. I was just so scared for you, and you just disappeared, and I couldn't get hold of you and... What did he do to you?”

  “He turned me into a monster.”

  Max thought of the coarse gray hairs that he had found in the Mayor's bathroom and the ones that had started to sprout on Alice's arms. After all he'd seen in the recent past, he supposed what he was considering wasn't that much of a stretch. “Are you some kind of werewolf or something?”

  She snorted and gave a bark of a laugh. “Don't I wish.” Max had little time to consider the disturbing implication that being a werewolf would be better than whatever Alice was cursed with. She said, “Try some sort of mix of the incredible hulk and the swamp thing.”

  Max instinctively put his hand on hers. “Why would he do that to you?”

  “He did it because I asked him to.” It was obvious that she didn’t want to continue. She sighed. “Well, fair's fair. I got to hear your sordid story. You might as well hear mine. It's a lot shorter and a lot more common than yours.”

  Alice recited her story in a monotone. “I married Bobby young. We were high school sweethearts. Things started out well. We had our three beautiful girls together, and he took care of us. Then the economy fell, and he was laid off. He started drinking—and getting mean. I went back to med school to get my nursing degree and the closer I came to graduation, the meaner and nastier he got. He started losing his temper, and then he started beating me. At first, he was always so apologetic that I knew he would never do it again, but eventually, he beat that naiveté out of me. One day he hit little Nell—hard. Put her in the hospital. I told him I was going to leave him, but he went crazy. He told me that if I left, he would hunt me down and shoot me and the girls. Told me I belonged to him. I was terrified and stuck, and when Mr. Black asked me if I would give up everything to be able to keep my girls safe, I said yes. For some reason, I thought he was going to take care of Bobby for me, but he had something different in mind. The next time Bobby came home, mean and drunk, he hit me again. All of a sudden, I was furious! Suddenly, everything around me shrunk, and Bobby was this little pip-squeak of a man crapping his pants in front of me. I hated him so much that it was all I could think about. I ripped him apart—literally. The blood was... it was... Now, every time I'm afraid or angry, I turn into a hairy swamp monster. Mr. Black's little joke on me.”

  When her story was done, Max was flummoxed. “I didn't know. I'm so sorry. If I had known, I would have turned around and left immediately.”

  Alice said, “When I saw that he was dressed in exactly the same suit and tie that you had on, I just assumed that you and he were playing another joke on me, and I almost lost it. I got more and more angry as I thought about it, and I barely made it to the bathroom and got the window opened before I changed. You probably noticed the smell?”

  Now that she brought it up, he did. He had thought the rotten swampy smell had come in through the open window, but when he considered it, he hadn't noticed it from the front of the house when he left. “Maybe you should have just gone ahead and changed. If you're that strong, maybe you could have just ripped Lucian apart and saved us all a lot of trouble.”

  She smiled bitterly. “That was the first thing I tried. When I grabbed him, he just knocked me down like a child, and then he stepped on my throat and told me that if I ever tried anything like that again, he would make me tear apart my own children.”

  Max's horror at that image made him shutter. “I'm so sorry, Alice.”

  “Hey, he gave me exactly what I asked for. Stupid me for not being more specific.”

  “No, you're not stupid. You were trying to save your children. No one can blame a mother for that.”

  “I can.”

  Dance Macabre

  Max left the hospital shortly after that last conversation. The more he thought about it, the more angry and resolute he got. He couldn't leave Alice here to deal with Lucian on her own. He was going to stay, even if it killed him. The thought scared him to death, and he didn't miss the irony of that.

  All night Max had been weighing the relative merits of following Mike's earlier advice and just bulldozing the house and then burning the remains. It was now obvious that the house was just one of Lucian's jokes. But, in the wee hours of the morning, a troubling addition to that observation floated in his mind. Max had assumed that Lucian's joke had been at Max's own expense, but what about the other denizens of the house? The ghosts, Old Bone, the seeming sentient nature of the house itself— hell, maybe even Old Josh. If he destroyed the house, would he somehow be hurting these other lost souls? It wasn't a thought he particularly liked, so he decided that must be the case. Besides, didn't Lucian himself say, “You wouldn't want someone else to find your surprise”? How could Max know which surprise he was talking about?

  At the end of that late night conversation with himself, Max decided to keep the house and continue fixing it up. As he came to that conclusion, he felt a little knot in his stomach unwind. He’d taken the easy way when he’d signed Lucian’s contract and leaving or bulldozing the house felt too much like the same thing. On top of that, as stupid as it probably was, Max's original attachment to the house had just grown. She was a fallen lady who, unlike Max, could be restored to her glory days. Granted, she could be a bit crotchety...

  It was afternoon when the two men got back to the mansion. As Max and Mike got out of Mike's truck, Max was struck by a thought that backed his late night decision. He said, “You know Mike, I really like this house.” Mike just looked at Max like he was insane. Max figured it was quite possible Mike was right.

  Max opened the front door. The situation which greeted him stopped him dead. Max barely felt it when Mike plowed into him.

  Josh was clinging to the chandelier, hanging on for dear life. He yelled at them, “Watch out, dudes! He, like, bites! He's got, like, great big, nasty teeth!”

  All of this barely registered with Max. What had his full attention was the rest of the tableaux in the front hall. There was a headless body dangling upside down from a piece of rope attached to the same chandelier supporting Josh. Directly underneath the still-dripping neck of the corpse was a bloody tarp that had been draped over some sort of low, square box to make a blood catcher. Even that gruesome sight paled in comparison to the thing charging them.

  It was a head. A head attached to a neck, chest, and shoulders. The chest stopped raggedly at about where the ribcage would normally end. From inside the chest cavity there were various bits of meat and entrails dangling down to the floor. The whole unholy torso itself was kept off the floor by two fully formed, muscular arms. Currently, the thing was hopping swiftly from the middle of the hall towards Max and Mike, using its arms the way Mike used his crutches.

  The head's tooth-filled mouth opened in a silent scream below a pair of blood-red, crazed eyes. Each hop ended with the torso slapping down on the floor accompanied by a nasty squishing, wet sound.

  Mike reacted before Max. He shouted wordlessly and yanked Max back out the door. Fortunately, Max still had the doorknob in his hand, and the door slammed shut as he was pulled away. The two men landed in a heap on the ground. Something slammed noisily into the other side of the door. Max groaned and rolled off of Mike

  Mike yelled at Max, “Fuck-shit, Max! What the fuck was that!”

  Max stood up slowly while anxiously watching the rattling door. “It was Old Bone.”

  Mike swore. “God damn it, what did that idiot flea-ridden, brain-dead... asshole...” Mike ran out of expletives. “What did Josh do?”

  Max, felt a strange, stalking calm steal away his fear. He wondered vaguely if perhaps his abused adrenals had just keeled over and died. Shrugging the thought off
he helped get Mike back up on his crutches. He went to the window to the left of the door – the one he had originally broken to get a peek inside. It looked in on front hall. He cupped his hands to the new glass and peered inside. Old Bone was back in the center of the hall circling around the plastic tarp while looking up at the chandelier where Josh still hung on for dear life. Max tried to swallow his queasiness as he watched Old Bone's intestines drag along behind him, leaving a damp, pink trail wherever he went.

  The sort of pinkish, brownish sacks that hung down a bit below the unfinished chest must be lungs. He could also identify part of a stomach and entrails. Other dangly bits eluded identification. Max found himself wincing when he thought about what it must feel like to be dragging your guts across the rough, filthy wooden floor. No wonder Old Bone was crazed.

  Mike, looking a bit ill himself, peered through the window beside Max. He said, “Gasoline is looking better and better all the time, Max.”

  Old Bone turned on his hands to look at the two through the window and locked eyes with Max. Before Max could react, Old Bone dismissed him and looked back up at Josh with eyes narrowed in thought. After a moment, the hemi-man waddled on his hands over to the stairs. He hopped up the stairs as fast as anyone with legs might and disappeared over the top momentarily only to show up at the banister that railed off the balcony looking over the hall. He nimbly pulled himself up the railing, hand over hand, and was soon balanced on top, with bits of organs draped on either side. He was now higher than Josh, but the chandelier was still a good distance away from him. Max could see what was coming next as Old Bone started bobbing up and down on his arms preparing to jump. Max looked around outside for something to break the glass with. He grabbed the hammer from Mike and broke the window. He yelled to Josh, to warn him what Old Bone had planned.

  He was too late. With an Olympic caliber leap, which surely would have won a gold medal in the hemi-person jump, Old Bone sailed across and grabbed onto the chandelier with one hand, causing it to sway. Josh tried to scramble away but lost his hold and fell to the floor below. He landed with a sickening thud. Old Bone seemed to consider this for a moment and then just let go of the chandelier himself. His landing was more of a splat than a thud, but amazingly, he bounced up from it and grabbed poor Old Josh by the head. He then leaned down and ripped savagely at Josh's neck with his teeth.

  In a small favor, the lack of squirting blood attested that Josh was already dead. Horrified and mesmerized, Max and Mike stood there and watched as Old Bone's throat worked feverishly as he drank the blood oozing from Josh's shredded neck. Almost instantaneously, a change could be seen in Old Bone. Entrails, shredded from being dragged on the floor, healed up and started to grow again. His spine lengthened and other organs budded into existence. In no more than ten minutes, Josh's body had shriveled up like the mummy that Old Bone used to be, and Old Bone's body had become nearly complete. It was still skeletally thin, and a couple of toes were still missing, but everything seemed to be where it belonged.

  When it was clear that there was no juice left in Josh, Old Bone pushed himself away from the body, got onto his knees, and then staggered to his feet. His powerful, yet thin, muscles twitched and bunched, and as Max and Mike watched, he grew an enormous erection. He stood there swaying, wide eyed, and open mouthed. He shook his head a couple of times as if to clear it and then grabbed his head with both arms as if he was afraid it would fall off. He said some words that sounded Russian, and then turned towards the window where Mike and Max watched. Mike said, “Holy shit! Look at that fucking spear! He is so not catching me with that! Time to go Max!”

  Max said, “Wait a minute...”

  “For what?”

  Old Bone's new body suddenly went stiff as a board, and he fell face first on the floor and didn't move again.

  Max looked at Mike and said, “For that.”

  Mike winced when he thought about what must have hit the floor first. “Ouch! That must have hurt!”

  Max finally convinced Mike to follow him back into the hall to tie up Old Bone's stiff body. They used electrical cord and duct tape. Shortly thereafter, Old Bone's naked torso was nearly completely covered in duct tape, and Max was muttering as he was taping over the man's hairy thighs. Max was feeling decidedly uncomfortable about getting his face near the man's rather large erection while Mike (who had won the Rochambeau) was getting Bone's feet. Max stood for a moment to stretch his back. He looked down at Old Bone and suddenly realized that he needed to update his internal label for the man on the floor. He wasn’t Old Bone any more, he was Vlad.

  Max muttered, “Sorry guy, I hope you're having some rocking Vampirella dreams because it's going to be a bitch getting this tape off.” He moved down to Vlad's pale white legs and started taping them together. He was pushing the quickly-diminishing roll of tape under them when a scream of anguish rang out behind them, from the center of the hall.

  They both jumped up and away from the scream and turned to face this new threat. There, on the floor, was a young man. He looked like his age was within spitting distance of Max and Mike's. He had long dark brown hair, light olive skin and was sitting up, looking around himself with wild eyes. He was crying out in a foreign language, but the anguish in it was universally recognizable. Max was briefly grateful that the man was at least wearing Josh's old nasty clothes. They fit him quite a bit more snugly than they had Josh.

  “Who the hell are you?” shouted Mike.

  The man looked at the two and then at the body on the floor next to them covered in duct tape. The strange sight didn't seem to impact the man much, but he did switch to English when he said wide eyed, “Oh God, no! It's all gone!”

  “What's gone?” asked Max in confusion.

  “My bag! I need my bag! I can't do this, man!” He stood up and ran past Max and Mike to the music room. Max and Mike picked themselves up off the floor and followed. They arrived scant moments later to see him rummaging through Josh's bag of miracles. He grabbed a handful of pills, chewed them up, choked them down, and then repeated. Almost immediately, his face relaxed and then he smiled. It was Josh's smile. He said to no one in particular, “Tha's bedder....” then he fell over onto the floor.

  A short while later, Mike and Max had the new guy trussed up with twine, just in case he woke up and became hysterical. As they finished, shouting and an ominous sound of tearing came from the front hall. They ran out to find Old Bone awake and in the process of tearing his legs free of the incomplete tape job. Mike prepared to run away, but Max dived onto the struggling man and shouted to Mike to get more duct tape. They had already gone through several rolls, but Mike was able to procure one more while Max was riding the bucking man. Together the two of them bound Old Bone's legs as securely as a mummy's. When it was clear he wasn't getting out of it, that worthy stopped his struggles, took a deep breath and said in a heavy southern accent, “Gentlemen, please untie me.”

  Mike and Max didn't get much of a chance to respond to this new and cultured plea for freedom when they heard another nasty sound coming from the music room. Max told Mike, “Stay here and watch him, I'll go see what's happening.

  When Max came back to the music room, the young man they had tied up and left on the couch was covered in vomit and not moving. “Oh shit!” Max ran over to the body and turned it on its side to let the vomit drain out. He cut the twine binding him and felt for a pulse. He was too late, the man was as limp as a noodle. He had no pulse or breath. He had drowned in his own vomit. Max staggered back in shock and fell to the floor. This all had to be a nightmare. It just couldn't be happening.

  Mike peeked into the room and saw Max sitting on the floor. “What happened?” he said.

  “Choked to death on his own vomit.”

  “Shit.”

  “Yeah. I think Josh just died on us again.”

  Mike examined Max with far less skepticism than any sane man should, and he said, “Do you really think that was Josh?”

  Max nodded miserably.
“Who else could it be?”

  Mike thumped over to Josh's young, still form. He transferred his crutches to his arm and gazed at him closely. “I guess he does kind of resemble Josh. Maybe we should do CPR.” As he looked, Josh’s body heaved in a shuddering breath, and the ex-corpse expelled the final remains in its stomach right into Mike’s face. Mike fell back on his butt and cried out. “Ah, goddammit! My eyes!”

  Josh curled up on the floor, started crying again. “NoNoNoNoNo!” Then he quieted down and looked around wildly. When he spotted his bag, he stumbled over to it and spilled its considerable contents on the new plywood of the sub-flooring.

  Max ignored Mike's cursing and jumped onto Josh's back. Max tried to use his barely remembered high school wrestling training to bring the struggling and crying man under control—to keep Josh from killing himself again. It wasn't enough. Josh was stronger than Max, threw him off, and scrabbled for a handful of pills.

  Max yelled at Josh, “Stop it, Josh!” He jumped on Josh's back again, smashing him flat on the floor as Josh shoved the pills into his mouth. The impacts forced all the air from Josh's lungs, and he spewed pills all over the floor. Max shouted again, “Mike! Help me stop him!”

  “I can't fucking see Max! Just let him kill himself again.”

  At that point, Josh managed to buck Max off of himself and swung at him wildly. The punch was poorly controlled, and any seasoned fighter could have blocked it, but Max was no fighter. Josh's fist connected with a solid smack on the side of Max's face and sent Max sprawling. Immediately Josh went back to scrabbling for pills. The blow caused the world to spin and contract around Max. When he finally shook the disorientation off and tried to get up, Mike was there with a restraining hand on his shoulder.

  Mike said, “Max, just let him do it. Then, while he is dead we can give him the duct tape treatment.” This slowed Max down enough to recognize that was too late anyway. Josh was desperately chewing and swallowing handfuls of pills and miscellaneous organic substances.