Mystery Walk

it locked in a safe, but they showed it to her yesterday. It shows everything. Me, the revenants in the room . . . everything. She said it shows some of the revenants being drawn into me, and some seeping into the walls. She said they're trying to decide whether to show the tape on TV or not, and they may do a documentary on the institute.' He remembered the charge of emotion in Dr. Hillburn's voice as she'd told him other parapsychologists were going to want to see that film, and to meet him, and that very soon his life was going to change. He might not stay in Chicago, she'd said; Chicago—and specifically the institute—might be for him just the first step in a long, arduous journey. Dr Hillburn's eyes had been bright with hope.

Pain stitched across Billy's forehead. His body felt like a damp rag. 'I wonder if there's a piano somewhere around here,' he said.

'A piano? Why?'

'I like to play. Didn't I tell you? There's a lot I want to tell you, Bonnie. About my family, and about something called the Mystery Walk. I'd like to show you Hawthorne someday. It's not much, but it's where I was born. I'll show you my house, and the high school; I'll show you the trails I used to wander when I was a kid. I'll take you to a place where a creek sings over the rocks, and where you can hear a hundred different birds.' He looked up at her, hopefully. 'Would you like that?'

'Yes,' she replied. 'I ... I think I'd like that. A lot.'

'It won't take me long to get well.' His heartbeat had quickened. 'I want to know the things that are important to you. Will you take me to Lamesa sometime?'

Bonnie smiled and found his hand under the sheet.

'Do you think a cowgirl could get along with an Indian?' he asked her.

'Yep. I think they could get along just fine.'

Someone screamed from The House on Haunted Hill. It startled Bonnie, but then she laughed. It was a sound that warmed Billy's bones as if he were standing before a fireplace. Suddenly he was laughing too; then she leaned close to him, those strange and beautiful eyes luminous, and their lips gently touched. Bonnie pulled back, her face blooming with color—but Billy cupped his hand behind her head and this time their kiss was long and lingering.

'I'd better go,' Bonnie said finally. 'Dr. Hillburn wanted me back before dark.'

'Okay. But you'll come back tomorrow?'

She nodded. 'As early as I can.'

'Good. Will you say hello to everybody else for me? And thanks for coming to see me. Thanks a lot.'

'Get your rest,' she said, and kissed him lightly on the forehead. At the door, she paused to say, 'I do want to see Hawthorne with you, Billy. Very much.' And then she left, while Billy grinned and stretched and dared believe that everything was going to be just fine.

She's dead, she's dead, the cowboy came and sheared her head.

I'll be waiting for you.

When a nurse brought in his dinner at five-thirty, Billy asked about finding a piano. There was one up on the fourth floor, in the chapel, she told him—but he was supposed to lie right there and get plenty of rest. Doctor's orders.

After she'd gone, Billy picked at his dinner. He paged through the Tribune for a while and then, restless and troubled, he put on the robe the hospital had provided and slipped down the hallway to the staircase. He hadn't noticed a heavyset Mexican orderly who'd been mopping the corridor outside his room. The man put aside his mop and took a beeper from his back pocket.

On the fourth floor, Billy was directed to the chapel. It was empty, and an old piano stood next to an altar with a brass crucifix. The walls were covered with heavy red drapes that would muffle sound, but he closed the chapel doors. Then he sat down at the piano as if gratefully greeting an old friend.

What came out was a quiet song of pain, made up of the emotions he'd drained from the revenants at the Alcott Hotel. It was dissonant at first, an eerie melody that advanced up the keyboard until the high notes sounded like strident human voices, but as Billy played he felt the terrors begin to leave him. Gradually the music became more harmonious. He ended only when he felt cleaned out and renewed, and he had no idea how long he'd been playing.

'That was nice,' a man standing near the door said. Billy turned toward him and saw he was an orderly. 'I enjoyed that.'

'How long have you been there?'

'About fifteen minutes. I was out in the hallway and heard you.' He smiled and came along the center aisle. He was a stocky man with close-cropped brown hair and green eyes. 'Did you make that up yourself?'

'Yes sir.'

The orderly stood beside Billy, leaning against the piano. 'I always wanted to play an instrument. Tried the bass fiddle once, but I wasn't no good. My hands are too big, I guess. What's your name?'

'Billy Creekmore.'

'Well, Billy . . . why don't you play something else? Go on. For me.'

He shrugged. 'I don't know what else to play.'

'Anything. I've always liked piano music. Do you know any jazz?'

'No sir. I just play what I feel.'

'Is that so?' He whistled appreciatively. 'I sure wish I could do that. Go ahead, okay?' He motioned toward the keyboard, a smile fixed to his broad face.

Billy started playing, picking out a few chords, as the man nodded and moved around behind so he could watch the way Billy's hands worked. 'I'm not really very good,' Billy said. 'I haven't practiced like I ought . . .' Suddenly he was aware of a sharp, medicinal aroma. He started to turn his head, but a hand clamped around the back of his neck. A wet cloth was pressed to his mouth and nose, stifling his cry.

'I like music,' the man said. 'Always have.'

It only took a minute or two for the chloroform solution to work. He would've preferred to use a needle on him, but he didn't want it breaking off in the boy's skin. Anybody who could play a piano like that deserved some respect.

The Mexican orderly who'd been guarding the doors wheeled in a clothes hamper filled with dirty laundry. Billy was stuffed into the bottom, covered over with sheets and towels. Then the hamper was taken out and rolled along the corridor to a service elevator. A car was waiting outside, and a plane was waiting at an airstrip south of the city. Within ten minutes, Billy was asleep in the car's trunk. At the airport he would be given an injection that ensured he would sleep all the way to Mexico.

58

Moonlight shimmered on the swimming pool's surface. In his pajamas, Wayne switched on the underwater light, then slid the glass partition open and stepped into the poolhouse. He was trembling, and there were dark blue circles under his eyes. He'd tried to sleep, but what the woman had told him this morning had driven him crazy with doubts. He hadn't taken his sleeping pill before bedtime, and his nerves jangled like fire alarms; instead, he'd flushed the pill down the toilet because he'd wanted his mind clear, to think about what Cammy had told him.

The pool glowed a rich aquamarine. Wayne sat on the edge; he twitched with nervous energy, and his brain seemed to be working so fast he could smell the cells burning up. Why would Cammy have said that if it wasn't true? To hurt him? She was jealous of his power and stature, that was it. Yes. She was jealous.

His head ached. But hadn't he loved his 'mother' at one time? he asked himself. What had made things change? How had they gotten so out of control? He raised up his healing hands and stared at them. Where was Henry Bragg? Waiting for them in Mexico?

All that blood, he thought. All that awful blood.

It hadn't been right to hurt Henry Bragg like that. Henry was a good man. But what kind of man was Mr. Krepsin, if he'd ordered that Henry be hurt?