and the darkness saw the possibility of a small triumph in claiming me.
I sensed that I was not yet sufficiently corrupted to belong down in the darkness. What I had done to Phu might be seen as the mere enactment of long-overdue justice, for he was a man who deserved no rewards in either this world or the next. And allowing Dalcoe to proceed to his predestined doom ahead of schedule would probably not condemn me to Perdition.
But whom might I be tempted to lure to the cellar after Horace Dalcoe? How many and how often? Each time, the option would get easier to take. Sooner or later, I would find myself using the cellar to rid myself of people who were only minor nuisances. Some of them a might be borderline cases, people deserving of Hell but with a chance of salvation, and by hurrying them along, I would be denying them the opportunity to mend their ways and remake their lives. Their damnation would be partly my responsibility. Then I too would be lost… and the darkness would rise up the stairs and come into the house and take me when it wished.
Below, that sludge-thick distillation of a billion moonless nights whispered to me, whispered.
I stepped back and closed the door.
It did not vanish.
Dalcoe, I thought desperately, why have you been such a bastard? Why have you made me hate you?
Darkness dwells within even the best of us. In the worst of us, darkness not only dwells but reigns.
I am a good man. A hard worker. A loving and faithful husband. A stern but doting father. A good man.
Yet I have human failings — not the least of which is a taste for vengeance. Part of the price that I have paid is the death of my innocence in Vietnam. There, I learned that great evil exists in the world, not in the abstract but in the flesh, and when evil men tortured me, I was contaminated by the contact. I developed a thirst for vengeance.
I tell myself that I dare not succumb to the easy solutions offered by the cellar. Where would it stop? Someday, after sending a score of men and women into the lightless chamber below, I would be so thoroughly corrupted that it would be easy to use the cellar for what had previously seemed unthinkable.
For instance, what if Carmen and I had an argument? Would I devolve to the point where I could ask her to explore those lower regions with me? What if my children displeased me as, God knows, children frequently do? Where would I draw the line? And would the line be constantly redrawn?
I am a good man.
Although occasionally providing darkness with a habitat, I have never provided it with a kingdom.
I am a good man.
But the temptation is great.
I have begun to prepare a list of people who have, at one time or another, made my life difficult. I don't intend to do anything about them, of course. The list is merely a game. I will make it and then tear it to pieces and flush the pieces down the toilet.
I am a good man.
This list means nothing.
The cellar door will stay closed forever.
I will not open it again.
I swear by all that's holy.
I am a good man.
The list is longer than I had expected.
