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

  As he approached the entrance to the living room, he took a few moments to steel himself, before he peeked around the corner into the room. The brilliant light revealed the same hole in the floor with the trap door off to the side. There were some dark stains around the hole, but no zombie, skeleton, ghoul, or ghosty thing was in sight.

  Max tried not to let his severely conflicted emotions about this fact distract him from his careful sweep of the room and the ceiling. Not seeing anything, he crept into the room, trying not to make a sound. Of course, the floor creaked and groaned with every step. He bitterly reflected that he was not going to be much of a surprise. His position eventually revealed that the dark stain around the lip of the hole actually led away from it, toward the back of the room, and away from the windows in front.

  He blinked his watering eyes and snuffled back the snot in his nose. Dear God, that garlic is worse than the rot. He wrenched his mind back to the room.

  He nervously followed the dark stain trail with his flashlight. It led to the back corner and disappeared around the massive fireplace where it jutted into the room. He swore when the light failed to illuminate that back corner.

  Gathering his fractured courage, he slid down the wall opposite the fireplace. Max crab-stepped sideways, and tried simultaneously to watch the gaping black hole in the floor and the far corner and the ceiling. He strongly felt the lack of a third eye. Finally, he moved far enough that his beam finally illuminated that terrifying darkness, revealing something...

  A short scream bubbled out of Max when the sight clicked in his mind. It looked like a mummy might without its wrappings. It was emaciated and thin with desiccated flesh that didn't quite cover its bones. The thing had pulled itself back into the corner and sat with its legs pulled up to its chest and its one whole arm wrapped around them. That hand was holding the stump of the arm sitting out in the drive. Its bony head slumped onto its bony knees. It was not moving, and it looked like a study in both horror and abject misery. Max could imagine a little girl who had just lost her beloved dog pulling herself up into a tight ball like that, unable to face the world. He fucking hated his imagination.

  Okay Max, now what? Fear and revulsion glued him in place. Obviously, this corpse-thing had impossibly dragged itself from the hole into that corner—like a crippled and terrified little girl. Stop it! That mental image threatened to unhinge him. What was with the little girls? This was a monster! He shook his head to dislodge the thoughts. Finally, he started to ease forward, pausing after every step. The terror of that thing springing to life and eating his brains made his limbs feel like rubber, but thinking of the kids who came into this place (not the little girl!) kept him going.

  He approached slowly and cautiously, but he forgot to sweep all the other corners or the ceiling. He was totally focused on the corpse. About eight feet away, he suddenly realized his mistake and frantically swung the beam of light around the room and ceiling. Nothing showed up to eat his face, and he discovered that he'd run right past the end of his plans. He had no idea what he was going to do next.

  He had psyched himself up to chop this thing to bits as it was attacking him, or perhaps while it was lying prone on the floor, but now... Approaching it from the front, with it all frail and sad, he had a tough time imagining how he was going to do the deed. If he got close enough to hit it with the cleaver, it would put him in reach of the thing’s good arm. The same went for the chainsaw. Although it seemed safer, and a little less intimate than the cleaver, it still seemed oddly up close, personal— and intensely disturbing. He finally decided on the bat.

  He pulled the Louisville Slugger awkwardly out of his belt and immediately changed his mind. The obvious first thing to do was use a ranged attack. If he was lucky, it would just melt into a foul puddle, like in the movies. He put down the floodlight, carefully pointing it at the corpse. He pulled out his super soaker, pumped it up, and let it rip.

  The holy water easily reached the corpse and splashed against it. It sounded like the world's biggest dog taking a pee against dry twigs. He sprayed until the gun was empty. Nothing happened. There was no movement from the thing, just the sound of holy water dripping from a mummified corpse into a big, holy puddle. He dropped the water gun to his side and just stared. Although he preferred this to having it jumping up and eating his face, it was exceptionally disturbing. The forlorn figure, now soaking wet, just sat there pathetically with its Auschwitz-thin arms and legs. Of all the things in the world, he hated pathos the most. It hurt him to see it. It reminded him too much of his own life and of Norman Denning, driven to kill himself from despair.

  “Crap.”

  The corpse moved. The head rose as unsteadily as a newborn kitten's from where it had been resting on its knees, and it looked right at Max. Its obviously blind, fish-white, cataract-filled, eyes impossibly seemed to focus on him. It sent a jolt of sheer adrenalin through Max's already overtaxed amygdale. He snapped. He dropped the soaker, grabbed the bat, and screamed as he rushed the desiccated, stubbornly animate corpse. In one panic-driven blow, he knocked the head right off its shoulders as it struggled to raise its good arm in defense. The skull smacked into the wall and bounced back over Max's head. He hardly noticed because he was busy screaming and smashing the rest of the skeleton with the bat. The brittle looking bones were oddly resilient and didn't break easily, so he just worked harder.

  The head rolled towards the front of the room and came to a stop sitting upright and looking back at Max as he whaled away. The desiccated flesh of its face barely twitched, but its corpse-white eyes followed the bat as it rose and fell, rose and fell.

  Them Dry Bones

  Max discovered another thing he had missed for his kit: a shovel. He also discovered that digging a hole with a hatchet sucked. On top of that, he'd neglected to buy a bucket, so he grabbed one of the sweaters he had kept in the spare wheel well. It was there in case of surprise New York snowstorms. A snowstorm sounded really nice about now.

  Max headed back into the room, sweater in hand. He crept past the skull, which was still looking towards the shattered remains of its body. The thing seriously gave Max the willies. He walked around it and over to the corner where the bits of bone and dry flesh had scattered. After he had finished with the bat, he had taken the cleaver to the larger pieces and chopped them up so they would fit in his small hole. He almost lost it when he realized that there were both mummified and not-so-mummified organs in the chest and abdominal cavities and that he would have to pick them up and carry them out. The little shriveled dangly bits between its legs completed the job. His stomach heaved, and he barely managed to turn his head enough to avoid throwing up on them. When the heaving had finally passed, he wiped his mouth with his sleeve. He noted with some irritation that his mouth still tasted like garlic and turned back to the grisly business at hand.

  He spread out the sweater on the floor, put on a pair of gardening gloves, and began cleaning up the macabre mess he had made. He started out okay, but as he went, he could feel the eyes of the skull following him, burning a hole through his conscience. Finally, he picked up his bundle and hurried out of the room, desperately avoiding the skull's stare. He fled the house and dumped the bits and pieces into the hole. Despite the heat, he was shivering violently from the cold whirlwind blowing through his mind. Max staggered over to his car, where he collapsed more than sat, onto the gravel drive, his back against the front wheel. Pulling his legs up to his chest and wrapping his arms around them, he unconsciously imitated the corpse he'd just dissected. He tried to get warm in the blazing heat of the Mississippi summer sun. The heat, which didn't manage to penetrate his soul, finally drove him to stand back up. He couldn't have that skull watching him while he scraped up its bones. He just couldn't. There had to be something he could use in the car. He rummaged through it, looking for something appropriate, and found what he needed stuffed into the glove box. It was a magnificent size double D bra that he'd forgotten about. The bra had been sort of a trophy/
memento that he had kept in tribute to the wondrous breasts it had once supported. The girl's face and her name escaped him, but he vividly remembered those prodigious, soft, pears of glory. Max took the bra in his hands and considered it for a while. The memory helped him fight the cold inside more than the sun had. With renewed determination and bra in hand, he headed back inside.

  Once back in the living room, he paused, thinking out his plan of attack. He tiptoed up behind the skull gingerly, as if it were a snake that could turn and strike in a moment's notice. When he was about three feet away, he took the bra, opened it up, and attempted to throw it over the skull. To his dismay, it hit the skull and landed behind it. Realizing that there was nothing for it, he tiptoed up closer. When his outstretched hands could reach the bra, he snatched it up and tossed it over the skull. This time, the right cup landed on the skull and settled down over it. It wasn't large enough to cover the skull completely, but when Max gingerly pulled it down towards the front, it covered the skull’s eyes and most of its face. Max jumped away and watched the bra-covered skull sit there for a moment. It continued not moving. He grabbed up his sweater again and went to collect another load of nasty bits.

  A few trips later, he carried out the last of the shattered bone/desiccated flesh pieces from the corpse.

  He dumped his penultimate load into the hole and tried to brace himself for what came next. He had been putting this off till last. Teeth gritted, he headed back inside, one last time, to retrieve the head. As quietly as possible, he snuck up on the bra-covered skull. After a bit of internal cringing and courage girding, he reached down and scooped up the bra, which contained the skull, into his soiled sweater. He ran flat-out through the front door with the bra's second cup flapping freely. He threw the entire bundle into the bone-filled hole without looking and immediately began throwing dirt onto it. The bra would just have to be sacrificed for the greater good.

  On his third or fourth handful, he unintentionally glimpsed what was in the hole. The skull was there staring up at him from a nest of bra and sweater and a sprinkling of dirt. Its jaw hung open in a silent scream. Max frantically slapped his hands to his eyes to block out the sight, but it was too late. That image had been burned into his brain. He fell back from the hole cursing himself, cursing his life and cursing Lucian. When the last curse slipped from his lips, he looked around in a panic. Sometimes his name was enough. After a few moments, he let out his breath and sat down abruptly on the unyielding ground. His heart was pounding so hard he wouldn't have been surprised if his eyeballs had popped out.

  Unable to contain everything screaming within him, he looked to the sky and shouted at the top of his lungs, “Fuck... Fuck... Fuck... Fuck... Fuck! Go ahead! Just shit on me some more! You know you’re loving it!” He didn't truly know who he was shouting at: Lucian, God, or just the universe at large. But, he knew the problem was with him. He knew he couldn't go through with it. He just couldn't. The thought of burying someone, or something alive, or at least not-dead, was too much. He couldn't just leave it there with the dirt filling its mouth and pressing on its unprotected, lidless eyes. Then there were the worms... He freaked out just thinking about thinking about it. If he followed through with this, he would never be able to sleep again. But what else could he do? Despair and queasiness filled him at the thought of pulling that skull back out of that hole, but he knew he would have to do it. He couldn’t allow anyone to pay for his mistakes again. But, what would he do with it then? Where would he put it?

  He was sooo boned...

  Burning Down the House

  “Ow! Damn it!” Max threw down the hammer after he once again hit his finger with it. He did the universal hand-shaking dance. All he wanted to do was put up a piece of chair railing in the music room, for crying out loud. This was his fourth nail in that board. The other three nails had died early deaths and were variously kinked and pounded over into the flesh of the board. Those deaths had not gone unavenged: his red, swollen, thumbs and fingers bore testimony to that.

  Max was alternatively shaking his hands and examining all the bruises on them when the flat screen television, recently mounted on the wall, caught his attention. A pretty, enthusiastic, and buxom blond, dressed in a strangely sexy power-suit, looked into the camera with wide, excited eyes next to a picture of Max. He listened to what she was saying—

  “Yes, it has been over two years since the scandal that rocked the music world exploded into public awareness. You may recall the shock and dismay that greeted the news that the universally loved and acclaimed Maximilian Faust, 'The Man Who Understood,' had not been the author of so many of the songs he performed and claimed to have written. The scandal was capped with the claim that Faust's super mega-hit, “Sarah's Song,” had been stolen from a poor songwriter who committed suicide when he realized what had happened to his music. The subsequent trials had the world sitting on the edge of its seat to discover just how deep Max's involvement had been.”

  To underscore the drama of that difficult time, the blond heaved her breasts with excitement and continued—

  “It's now been a year since the last of the lawsuits, civil and criminal, were settled. Since then, he has disappeared entirely from the public eye. He has not granted any interviews, and in fact, he has dropped entirely off the map. No one even knows where he is living. Well, Entertainment Daily is asking the question, Where is Maximilian Faust? What is he doing today and will he triumphantly return to the music world after his devastating fall from grace? Entertainment Daily is offering a reward...”

  Max turned the television off in disgust. He turned to address the contents of the large toolbox sitting in front of the television with its lid thrown back. “Asshole vultures. Why can't they just leave me alone?” He threw the remote down on the couch and stalked to the back of the room.

  He was so angry he barely gave a thought to the golden harp as he passed it. The second time he had come back to the house, he had found it perfectly whole again, sitting in a pile of gold glitter. This time though, there was no gold paint on it, just the reddish brown stain that had been hidden underneath the gold. Every time he saw it, he contemplated destroying it again, but so far hadn't worked up the nerve. He hadn't even touched it. He automatically gave the hell harp a wide berth and headed for the secret door, which lead to the kitchen.

  The space where the piano had stood was not empty. Sending it off to be restored was one of the first things Max had done at the house. It wouldn’t be finished for several months and would cost him tens of thousands of dollars, but it was a bargain no matter the cost.

  He left Old Bone behind, cradled in its bra on top of a comfy nest of blankets, facing the blank television. The lidless, cataract-filled eyes followed Max for as long as they could. When Max disappeared from sight, the eyes looked around the room, and seemingly resigned, they finally just rested on the blank television.

  Max came back into the room a short time later with a gin and tonic in his hand. He noticed the blank TV screen. “Oh, sorry, Old Bone, I didn't mean to leave you here in the dark.” He turned the TV back on and quickly switched channels. “The Vampire Diaries should be coming on soon. I know it's your favorite.” He studied the head now watching the television. Max fancied that the fresh air, intellectual stimulation, and frequent water misting he gave it had Old Bone looking somewhat healthier. It seemed... less brittle somehow, perhaps more filled out?

  Max tossed himself down on the luxurious leather of the expensive couch that now sat in front of the TV and next to the card table that sported the toolbox containing the skull. Ignoring the television, he gave a disgusted look at the mangled chair rail he had been working on and then looked around the room. In the last couple of weeks, it had gone from a complete disaster zone to a total disaster zone. He had hired a company, at quite a large cost, to come out, clean up the entire house, and remove the areas of moldering carpeting or curling parquet, except for the living room. He made that room off limits because he didn't want anyone to
see the hole in the floor filled with the murky water and the coffin. The news of it would spread like wildfire, and he just didn't need that sort of publicity.

  He'd also gotten electricians out to restore power to the mansion, install or repair some lights, and overall reduce the odds that the place would burn down if he plugged in a toaster. It had taken a couple of days to get the workers here because it seemed that no one could find the place until Max met them in town and led them to the house. Once here, they did their job, but they refused to make any assurances that the ancient wiring in the walls wouldn't burst into flame. Living dangerously, he had placed floor lamps in all the downstairs rooms. They lit up the place—sort of. The lamps did cast considerable light, but they also highlighted the shabbiness of the place and seemed to create dozens of dark shadows. Sometimes, he felt that something was watching him from those shadows.

  Meanwhile, Max was collecting a large assortment of tools. He'd had to travel quite a distance to find them all.

  During those two weeks, with all their problems, he had felt himself bonding even more closely with the house. It was odd. A lot of strange and disturbing things happened in this house. He often heard footsteps or faint voices when no one was around. Tools went missing or were scattered around when the workers returned in the morning. Ladders got pushed over, and there were a lot of unexplainable accidents. This house was undoubtedly haunted, but it didn't disturb Max as much as he would have expected. The thought of throwing it in Lucian's face, who insisted that there were no such things as ghosts, was quite uplifting. Even so, it was spooky enough that he seldom stayed in the house after dark, but it didn't deter him wanting to fix the place up and make it his home. The house needed him, and he needed it.