Totentanz Page 17

  The blackness rose up to encircle him again, to take him finally into its maw—and then suddenly it retreated. He heard a brush of low laughter. "Soon," the voice said, "soon," and he felt the presence, the dark man, move away. He heard an outrush of air and then silence. Shakily he looked up to see the two eyes, the eyes as large as plates, animal's eyes, the eyes of the betrayer, regarding him placidly from the corner of the room.

  I am with you. . . .

  "Liar!" he screamed, throwing himself forward. He would squeeze those eyes to pools of jelly if he could, but they only moved calmly away from him, hovering like two enormous stars in his heaven.

  And then he heard the soft calliope music calling to him, and he knew that whatever immunity he had possessed, whatever privilege these evil eyes had graced him with, was gone.

  Come to me, come to me, the calliope called.

  He heard the soft, calling whine of an airplane passing overhead, felt the soft, insistent pull, the promise of a long-delayed reunion. . . .

  The eyes were gone. He rose unsteadily to his feet and looked into the open casket of the Unknown Man. It was smooth and clean, an empty bronze box. He felt as cold and empty as the casket. Where there had been hope, there was now only dread. It wanted him, and he had to go to it.

  He thought of his mother, and of Jack, and of Pup and everyone else in Montvale caught in that bright amusement trap, that thing with claws and tinny music and teeth. It didn't matter anymore; he must go to it. He walked out of the mausoleum, leaving the stained-glass doors ajar, and there it rose before him, the glow of its neons and glass-white bulbs turning the night into a hard outline of low tents, booths and rides. He stared at that simple, hideous skyline, and suddenly he recognized it. Slowly his hand went to his back pocket and he took his wallet out, drew from it a single, carefully folded sheet and opened it, smoothing the creases.

  He held it up, comparing it with the outline that dominated Montvale. In the center was the Ferris wheel, corresponding to the black citadel on fire: to the right—where, in the picture, there was a huge open-mouthed coffin into which peasants were being forced by a phalanx of skeletons—stood the House of Fun; to the far left stood the House of Mirrors in place of the crumbling, tree-topped castle with two bell-ringing corpses. There was even a bell—a brass monstrosity with a long, heavy clapper hanging out of it like a dog's tongue—at the summit of the House of Mirrors. In the background were other, less distinct structures, all roughly corresponding to scenes in Breughel's ghastly painting. To the right in the picture stood a gallows, and through the bright lights Reggie thought he saw a vague outline of some such thing poking up beyond the shadow of a tent. And in the far background, partly visible through a whirligig ride and a length of arcade games, was the carousel. From this distance Reggie could barely make it out, but enough was revealed for him to see that it was turning lazily. He heard a faint call, a cry.

  The Triumph of Death.

  Come to me, come to me.

  He began to make his way down the far side of the hill, toward the bright lights in the distance. There was great fear in him, but it was strangely muted by the rocking lullaby of the steam whistle. The paper dropped from his hands, skittering off over the perfectly cut blades of grass to settle between the crook of a manicured bush and the wall of the mausoleum. It fluttered a few times and then the breeze died, letting it settle quietly to the ground.

  FIFTEEN

  “Mom, please, Mom."

  Jack Gantry had never panicked before, never lost his cool, and here he was doing it in spades. His feet ran without instruction from his mind: they pulled him along so fast that the rest of his body had trouble keeping up. His muscles were so tight he thought he must get a charley horse any minute; but he knew that even if that happened, his legs would keep on running.

  "Oh. Mom, Amy."

  He knew that Reggie was alone now back there in the cemetery, that one of his best buddies had been deserted, one of the Three Musketeers left behind, but that made no difference to his legs. If he could have seen his own face at this moment, he would have beheld the countenance of a blind person: open, staring eyes and reaching hands. He had never been scared like this before. He had even thought he would grow up to be like his father, a Marine through and through, maybe go to some foreign country, landing on the beach with a "Gung-Ho!" and go screaming up with his rifle at the ready, the way he and Pup and Reggie used to play. He knew there was more to being a Marine than that; his father had sat him down and told him what it really meant, how it "made you a man," but still Jack had thought he'd like to try it. He doubted they'd let him in if they could see him now. Running away.

  He had never panicked before; when the little McMasters girl had fallen into the skating pond three years before, he had been the first in to get her; he hadn't even thought about the ice, about how thin it must have been, how deep that part of the pond was. That was the same spot where another little kid had drowned while swimming the year before, and even though he knew that, he had gone after the McMasters girl. He'd even enjoyed it in a way. This was what the Marines did, threw themselves into danger without a thought because it was right, and they always came out victorious. And he'd saved that kid, finding her arms as they slid smoothly under the ice, his own hand growing instantly numb as he plunged it in. He knew that if he didn't find her in that first instant, he wouldn't find her at all because she was heavily dressed and once all that water got into her coat, she would drop like a stone. He remembered that little hand, the arm from elbow to fingers the only thing left above the cracked blue-white ice, the fingers moving slowly up and down, back and forth, almost calmly searching the air, grasping at the pieces of ice floating around her for something safe to hold on to. And then the arm began to slip, turning slowly, sliding silently underneath the water.

  Somewhere behind him, Jack heard Reggie and Pup yelling, and then he felt the ice beneath his own crawling belly begin to soften and collapse. He felt a cold rush of water cover his front, but his hand went down into that cold numbness, and he calmly moved it around. It moved against something solid and then lost touch; quickly he plunged his arm deeper, and there she was. He grabbed her by the arm, at the exact point where her elbow had been visible above the water line, and began to haul up. Only then did he realize that the entire top half of his body was nearly underwater and that he was skimming forward into the dark hole. Carefully he tried to snake backward, moving his legs from side to side and digging his boots into the mushy ice behind him, but it was no good. He was gliding down, and soon he would be under the ice and too cold and wet to get out.

  But then there were hands on his boots, pulling him back, and he glanced behind to see Reggie and Pup, their faces strained, the sky cobalt blue over them, and the skeletons of a few gray-black trees at the edge of the pond making the scene suddenly beautiful, and then they had him on firm ice and they had the girl from his arms. There were other people there, and the girl's father came running and screaming across the snowy field next to the pond, along with a couple of other men, farmhands, and they were working on the girl and getting the water out of her lungs and then bundling her up when she began to cough. They carried her away.

  No one had bothered with him for those few minutes while they were bringing the girl around; but he didn't mind because he laid still, the cold not yet into his bones, and just stared at the perfect blue sky and the silver branch of a tree that arched overhead. He had never felt so alive, had never before thought about being alive, and his whole body tingled with the strain of mere existence.

  "Jack?" someone said finally.

  It was Reggie; his face came into view, partially blocking out the blue sky. There was a worried frown on his face. "You okay?"

  "Sure."

  "You okay?" Pup's face came into view, and he reached down a thickly coated arm to help him up. -Just let me stay here a minute."

  Pup looked at Reggie, and then Reggie said, "Don't move, Jack." The next thing he remembered was
being lifted by strong hands, being slid into a warm bed under quilts and a doctor peering down at him through huge bottleneck glasses, all of this remembered in a half-sleepy way, and when he awoke, he found that he had been asleep for almost two days.

  This came back to him now; especially the part about lying on the ground and just staring at the sky. Nothing like that had ever happened to him again, and sometimes when he thought about it, he felt as if it might have been a dream.

  And until this moment, until this naked fear had gripped him, he had never felt anything so intensely.

  "Mom! Amy!"

  The lights of the amusement park gleamed before him, and a panic greater than the others seized him. Suddenly he desperately wanted to see his mother and sister. He wanted to bury his face in his mother's breast and weep, wanted her soft hands to encircle him and hold tight. "It's all right, Jack," he wanted her to say, the way she had when he was little and hurt himself, before the car accident that killed her and Amy. He didn't even know if he wanted to be a Marine anymore.

  He ran through the open gates of the amusement park, nearly weeping. His mind was a jumble of confused thoughts and memories. He wanted to be somewhere safe.

  He ran past a red-and-white ticket booth with a "Closed" sign slid down over the small window. He thought he heard distant shouts but couldn't be sure. He rushed on blindly; the shouting got stronger on his right and then, momentarily, on his left, and then subsided into background noise again. There were open tents to either side of him. A hot-dog stand displayed a slowly spinning wheel of cooked wieners and a tall, crooked stack of salted pretzels. He passed a cluster of kiddie rides; most of them were silent, but one, a long caterpillar that curled around on itself, was just starting to move. There were a few glassy-eyed children and one or two adults aboard, and as the ride began, a tarp curled over the caterpillar and covered the riders. As Jack ran on, he heard a yell building.

  He passed under the huge Ferris wheel and into another maze of tents. There were a few small buildings beyond that, a Fun-House entrance and a Bumper-Car arena, and then he was at the wrought-iron fence of the amusement park.

  He hit the bars and gripped them hard. He sank to his knees, crying, balling his hands and rubbing his eyes with his fists. He hadn't outrun the fear. It was still all around him, in the whole town, the whole cemetery, the whole amusement park. He called for his mother again, thinking that he wouldn't move until she came to get him, to pick him up and hold him against her. If his father came, he would stand up straight and try to be a man; otherwise, he wouldn't move.

  A voice called his name, but it was neither his mother nor father nor sister, so he didn't look up. He was afraid it was Reggie, and that made him cry even louder, out of guilt.

  "Jack, open your eyes."

  He knew the voice, but he wouldn't open his eyes. Who was it? Reggie? No. It was someone he knew, a friend, but how good a friend? Was it someone he could trust?

  "Jack, remember the Three Musketeers."

  Now he knew the voice. Something loosened, some screw that had been tightened all the way, and he began to breathe and really think again. He opened his eyes.

  "Pup!"

  The word came out in a gasp of relief. If Pup was here, maybe everything was all right. Pup, the lost Musketeer. He couldn't face Reggie again, but with Pup here, maybe the fear would go away. He and Reggie had given Pup up for lost, and here he was, right in the middle of the fear, grinning down at Jack with those all-so-bright, mischievous eyes.

  "What's going on, Pup?"

  "Plenty."

  Pup turned away with a grunt, surveying with quick eyes the amusement park behind them. Faint sounds could be heard, shouts and the groaning of rides and, far off, something that sounded like weeping and someone saying the name "Bobby?" over and over again, all whipped away by a breath of wind.

  "You seen my mom and sister?" Jack asked, getting to his feet unsteadily. His whole body ached.

  Pup spoke distractedly. He was looking off between the tents, searching for something. "They're around somewhere."

  Jack stretched, feeling almost normal again. He thought of the running he had done, and about having left Reggie alone, and a true remorse took hold of him; he wondered why he had run, what had possessed him.

  "We've got to go help Reggie, Pup."

  "Hmm?"

  "I left Reggie in the churchyard by the tomb." Pup's head swung around. "Is Reggie coming here?"

  "I don't know, Pup. I left him there alone. He really scared me good, more than those stories he used to tell.” Jack lowered his head. "I ran off and left him."

  Pup nodded vaguely, searching the alleyways around them.

  "You've got to come with me, Pup!" Jack took a few steps away from the fence.

  "I don't think so."

  Jack stared at his friend, confusion beginning to fill his head again. "What about the Three Musketeers, Pup?" He held out his closed fist for Pup to place his own on top.

  Pup ignored the gesture. "We're going to have to disband the Three Musketeers."

  Pup was smiling. His eyes had stopped wandering and were fixed on a point directly behind Jack's head. Jack's neck felt very cold, as if threads were being drawn across it.

  You do it.

  The words hung in the air. Jack looked around quickly to see something dark moving away, beyond the wrought-iron bars.

  "Who was that—" he began.

  "Someone's here for you," Pup said. His voice sounded happy.

  Jack turned to see his mother and sister standing there quietly, looking at him. He took a step toward them, but Pup's hand was on him, holding him back.

  "No more Three Musketeers," Pup said. When Jack looked again, his mother and sister were gone. The iron fence had disappeared. The night was gone, too, replaced by a red twilight, as if fires burned just over the horizon. The boys stood on a black beach. Slow waves lapped at the shore, making sucking sounds as they pulled out again. The tide was very low. There was a thin layer of oozy mud between the dark sand and the oily, viscous water. A strip of land was just visible in the distance; it swung out from the left into the channel. In the bay there was a small island with a tower or lighthouse on it. To the right of the structure there appeared to be a shipwreck.

  The scene looked vaguely familiar.

  "Hear that, Jack?" Pup said, suddenly anxious, and Jack walked down to stand beside him on the beach. He barely detected a faint cry coming from the sinking, wrecked ship. From this distance he could just hear the grind of the smashed wood as the vessel was slowly pulled beneath the water.

  "Someone's drowning!" Pup said.

  Fear gripped Jack again, as it had in the churchyard. He was immobile. He knew now that he could never become a Marine, could never measure up to what his father wanted of him. He didn't have it, after all. He had had it once, when he had saved that little girl in the pond, but that had been a fluke, a one-time thing where his body had acted before his chicken's head could talk him out of it. Here it was, happening again, and he was frozen. His head wouldn't let his body do the job. He was chicken shit, and that was that.

  "She's dying, Jack. Can't you hear her?" Pup's voice was frantic.

  Jack sobbed.

  "Come on, we'll save her together, Marine."

  Pup began to take off his trousers and shoes, pulling his shirt quickly over his head. His body was heavy and white but firm, leaner than Jack had remembered from their swimming days earlier in the summer. Pup stripped down to his shorts, pulling his socks off and throwing them on top of the rest of his clothes.

  "Jack—snap out of it!"

  They could clearly hear the pleas for help now, pitiful, desperate. Suddenly Jack pulled his jeans off, blocking the fear from his mind. What sounded like a last shriek came from the sinking ship, and this was enough to spur him on; he ran for the shoreline, not even noticing if Pup was with him or not, and dove in.

  The water was cloudy, and the bottom was a layer of sticky mud that tried to anchor his
feet, but he kicked free of it and struck out for the center of the bay. The aches had disappeared from his body, and he felt powerful. There were no waves to fight; the water was calm but hard to swim in, as if filmed with motor oil. He heard splashing beside him and glanced over to see Pup's thick frame moving with effort a few yards back. The sight of his friend banished the last doubts from his mind, and his arms threw him ahead.

  The upturned bow of the sinking vessel loomed in front of him. Now he heard the wood grinding and the slap of water against the ruined hull. It was slipping down into the water quickly and would soon be submerged.

  Pulling to a stop, Jack sought in vain for the figure that had uttered the cry for help. With a sinking feeling, he realized that she must have already been pulled beneath the water. Pushing himself under the surface, he searched for anything that looked like a human figure, but the mixture of bad light and the sootiness of the water prevented him from seeing anything. He moved a bit closer to the ship, taking care not to be sucked into the undertow; again he dove but saw nothing. He was about to surface when a flash of light caught his eye. Drifting closer, he saw a roll of yellow fabric and two thin, kicking legs, the feet in black pumps, disappearing into the sinking hold of the ship. He rose for air, gulping.

  He drove himself underwater again, kicking downward till the deck of the ship clearly came into sight. A wooden door flapped lazily in the water. He darted toward the opening, grabbing either side of the frame. He peered in, seeing only water-soaked objects—a chair drifting by as if it were weightless, a coffeepot, a chart with the pen still attached by its snakelike cord. Then the figure of a young girl became visible in the murky light: a tuft of short yellow party dress, bare legs and black party pumps with short white socks. A tangle of dirty blonde hair trailed behind her head. He could not see her face because she was swimming or drifting away from him, down through another doorway that stood ajar at an angle like a fun-house portal.