The Blackstone Chronicles

Chapter 9

Rebecca Morrison was staring at the face of Death.
She had no conscious memory of when the apparition had appeared; nor did she have any idea how long she had been gazing upon it.
It was simply there, hanging in front of her in the darkness.
It was a pale, bloodless face, almost lost in the folds of a deep hood whose black cloth blended into the surrounding darkness so perfectly that the face itself seemed almost to be a part of the blackness. Though there seemed to be no source of light, the face was limned in shadows, shadows that moved and seemed to shimmer with a life of their own.
Yet the face was dead.
Wattles of skin hung around the neck, and the jaw was slack, causing a lipless maw to gape wide, exposing the rotted teeth within. The tongue, covered with open sores, was coated with a yellowish goo that strung out to the broken teeth like strands of a spiderweb; a spiderlike creature, fat and mottled black-brown, lurked deep in the specter’s throat, crawling out long enough for Rebecca to catch only a glimpse of it before scuttling back down into its fleshy lair. The creature set Rebecca’s flesh crawling, with its multiple hairy legs and the grizzly morsels that hung from its curving, dripping mandibles.
Above the maw a great beaked nose curved out from a sloping brow, its grayish skin pocked deep with ulcerations. Mucus ran thickly from its nostrils. On either side of the hooked nose, glowering eyes were sunk deep in hollowed sockets. The eyes, like the rest of the specter’s mien, were gray and dead, but from somewhere deep within them, a cold harsh light—a flame of evil—flicked like the tongue of a serpent.
The cigarette lighter, Rebecca thought. The present Oliver and I found for Andrea. It’s as if the dragon’s tongue were caught in the eyes of Death.
She tried to turn away, tried not to look at the terrible face, but something about it held her in thrall. There was a terrible hunger in the face, a yearning in the coldly flickering eyes, a depraved lust as it gazed upon her.
It’s come for me, Rebecca thought. Death wants me, and has come for me.
All her senses were playing tricks on her now.
She had no idea how long it had been since the Tormentor carried her up the stairs, no idea of what it was he wanted. When he’d finally set her down, she’d found herself lying on something hard and cold. As her hands, still bound behind her back, explored the smoothly rounded surface on which she lay, it had come to her.
A bathtub.
He’d put her in a bathtub.
And then, almost at the very instant she’d realized where she was, he’d opened the valve.
Not far.
Just enough so that the water began slowly to fill the tub.
Rebecca braced herself, tried to prepare herself for what might happen if he tore her clothes from her body. She turned her mind inward, searching within herself for something to sustain her through the ordeal she was certain was coming.
Oliver!
She would think about Oliver, and no matter what the Tormentor might do to her, it wouldn’t touch her.
She wouldn’t feel it.
Wouldn’t respond to it.
And when it was over, it would be as if it had never happened.
As the tub had filled, she conjured a picture of Oliver in her mind, imagined him smiling at her, saw his gentle eyes watching over her, felt his hands caressing her.
Listened to his voice consoling her, encouraging her, giving her strength.
The water slowly rose in the tub, covering first her feet and then her legs. The water, still carrying the icy chill of winter, numbed every part of her body it touched. Rebecca, inured to cold, turned away from the icy wetness as completely as she had turned away from the Tormentor, utterly closing her senses to it, putting herself in a place where she neither felt nor heard anything that did not emanate from within her own mind.
In her mind she was not alone.
Oliver was with her.
Oliver was looking after her.
Until, suddenly, Oliver was no longer there, and in his place the visage of Death hung before her again.
Her senses too had come alive. She could smell the fetid breath of the specter, feel the frigid water.
Was this what Aunt Martha had seen and felt as she died?
When she’d gazed transfixed upon the face of her savior, had she too seen Death leering hungrily down on her?
Had she already died?
But no—she could still feel the hardness of the tub, the wetness of the water.
The water still ran slowly into the tub. It covered her waist in an ice-cold blanket; its tentacles were reaching up toward her chest.
In the darkness surrounding her, Rebecca saw the lipless mouth of Death twist in a grisly parody of a smile.
Then, over the sound of running water, she heard something else.
A door opened.
Footsteps approached.
The Tormentor had returned.
Oliver stood in the center of his father’s office, so that the great walnut desk with the huge leather chair behind it loomed directly in front of him. His father would have to look neither to the right nor to the left to see him.
That was important.
When you were going to be punished, it was important to face it straight on. His father had told him that over and over again, but it was still hard.
So hard, in fact, that Oliver hadn’t quite been able to look up. But now he heard his father’s voice: “Oliver.”
Biting his lower lip to keep from crying out, Oliver finally looked up.
His father’s chair was empty.
He glanced almost furtively around the room, certain that his father must be there somewhere, but the sofa against the wall to the left was empty, and so was the wing-backed chair that faced his father’s desk. Then his eyes fell on the portrait of his mother that hung on the wall of his father’s office.
There was a black ribbon draped over its frame.
He was still gazing up at the picture when he heard his father’s voice again: “Come into the bathroom, Oliver. Come and look at what you’ve done.”
Fear forcing him to obey, Oliver moved to the door cut into the wall to the right, turned its knob, and pushed it open.
He saw nothing.
“Look,” his father commanded. “Look in the mirror, and see what you’ve done.”
Oliver moved to the sink and stared into the mirror that hung on the wall above it. But instead of seeing his own face, he found himself gazing upon the face of his father.
The face in the mirror was covered with a soapy lather, and one cheek had been scraped clean.
Then, from behind him, Oliver heard the sound of laughter.
The laughter of children.
Spinning around, he found himself once again staring at his four-year-old self.
He was in the bathtub, and his sister was with him. They sat at opposite ends of the great claw-footed tub, laughing happily as they splashed each other, then smeared each other’s faces with soapy bubbles.
“Stop that,” he heard his father’s voice say.
In the tub, Oliver and Mallory kept splashing, kept laughing.
“I said, stop that!” His father’s voice was angry now.
In the bathtub, Oliver and Mallory, caught up in their game, ignored their father’s command.
Then Mallory, with a silvery peal of happy laughter, stood up in the tub and used both her little hands to heave a great splash of soapy water at her father.
The little Oliver in the tub, stunned by what his sister had done, froze, his wide and fearful eyes fixing on his father.
And Oliver Metcalf, still standing at the sink, raised his right arm. In his hand, the blade of the razor he’d brought into the Asylum less than two hours ago glinted brightly.
Rage filled Oliver as he heard his father’s voice once more, trembling with cold fury as he glowered down at his little daughter. “Don’t you dare laugh!” he thundered. “After what you’ve done, don’t you dare laugh!”
But Mallory, caught up in her game, only splashed the water harder, her laughter growing louder and louder.
Suddenly, Oliver’s arm flashed out, and then—
The stab of pain seared through his head, wiping out the vision he’d just seen, plunging him into the familiar abyss of darkness. But even as he felt himself sinking into unconsciousness, he heard his father’s voice.
“No, Oliver! Open your eyes! Open your eyes and see what you have done!”
Slowly the blackness faded away, and the pain in Oliver’s head subsided. He opened his eyes.
And found himself gazing at his sister’s naked body, submerged facedown in the tub.
He was out of the tub now, and his father was putting the razor into his hand.
“Look what you’ve done, Oliver,” his father told him. “It wasn’t me, Oliver. It was you! All of it is your fault! Your fault that your mother died, Oliver! She didn’t die giving birth to Mallory, Oliver! She died giving birth to you! And now you’ve killed Mallory too. Killed her, Oliver. Killed your sister!” His father’s voice grew louder and louder, until the words pounded in Oliver’s head, each one striking him like a blow. “Killed her, Oliver! Killed her!”
“No,” Oliver whimpered. “No, Daddy, I didn’t—”
“Killer!” Malcolm Metcalf roared. “Killer! Killer! KILLER!” His voice kept rising, and the word became a chant, then divided itself into two words: “Killer … killer … kill her! Kill her! KILL HER!”
Oliver reached down, grasped his sister, lifting her from the tub, turning her over to gaze into her face.
Still his father’s voice roared in his head. “Kill her! Kill her!”
He raised the blade high, his hand trembling as he prepared to obey his father’s order: “KILL HER!”
Rebecca tensed as she felt the touch of fingers on her flesh. But it was different this time: the cold slickness of latex was gone. Her body was being lifted out of the tub, and a second later the tape was torn from her eyes and mouth. Even the shadowy light of the bathroom blinded her for a second, but then her vision cleared and she recognized the face above her.
“Oliver!” she cried out. “Oliver!”
Then she saw the razor in his hand, the glinting blade slashing downward, and opened her mouth once more. “Oliver!”
Rebecca’s scream sliced through the chaos in Oliver’s mind. In an instant his father’s voice fell silent. His sister’s face vanished, replaced by Rebecca Morrison’s sweet features. But the razor was already slashing toward her, its cutting edge ready to slice deep into her throat in obedience to his father’s order.
Then, in the last instant, the blade millimeters from her neck, his arm jerked, changed course, and instead of cutting into Rebecca’s flesh, the blade released her from the bonds that held her. The razor clattered to the floor. As Oliver stood, shocked into immobility by the realization of what he had nearly done, Rebecca’s arms slid around his neck and she buried her face in his shoulder.
Cradling Rebecca in his arms, Oliver carried her out of the bathroom, through the empty room that had once been his father’s office, and out into the corridor. A moment later he kicked the front door of the Asylum open and stepped out into the warm sunshine of the spring afternoon.