Black House

Doc gives Jack and Beezer a brief, grim smile. “Speed,” he says, and injects it into Mouse’s arm.

For a moment there’s nothing. Then, as Jack is opening his mouth again to tell them he has to go, Mouse’s eyes snap wide. They are now entirely red—a bright and bleeding red. Yet when they turn in his direction, Jack knows that Mouse is seeing him. Maybe really seeing him for the first time since he got here.

Bear Girl flees the room, trailing a single diminishing phrase behind her: “No more no more no more no more —”

“Fuck,” Mouse says in a rusty voice. “Fuck, I’m fucked. Ain’t I?”

Beezer touches the top of his friend’s head briefly but tenderly. “Yeah, man. I think you are. Can you help us out?”

“Bit me once. Just once, and now . . . now . . .” His hideous red gaze turns to Doc. “Can barely see you. Fuckin’ eyes are all weird.”

“You’re going down,” Doc says. “Ain’t gonna lie to you, man.”

“Not yet I ain’t,” Mouse says. “Gimme something to write on. To draw a map on. Quick. Dunno what you shot me with, Doc, but the stuff from the dog’s stronger. I ain’t gonna be compos long. Quick!”

Beezer feels around at the foot of the couch and comes up with a trade-sized paperback. Given the heavy shit on the bookcases, Jack could almost laugh—the book is The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. Beezer tears off the back cover and hands it to Mouse with the blank side up.

“Pencil,” Mouse croaks. “Hurry up. I got it all, man. I got it . . . up here.” He touches his forehead. A patch of skin the size of a quarter sloughs off at his touch. Mouse wipes it on the blanket as if it were a booger.

Beezer pulls a gnawed stub of pencil from an inside pocket of his vest. Mouse takes it and makes a pathetic effort to smile. The black stuff oozing from the corners of his eyes has continued to build up, and now it lies on his cheeks like smears of decayed jelly. More of it is springing out of the pores on his forehead in minute black dots that remind Jack of Henry’s braille books. When Mouse bites his lower lip in concentration, the tender flesh splits open at once. Blood begins dribbling into his beard. Jack supposes the rotted-meat smell is still there, but Beezer had been right: he’s gotten used to it.

Mouse turns the book cover sideways, then draws a series of quick squiggles. “Lookit,” he says to Jack. “This the Mississippi, right?”

“Right,” Jack says. When he leans in, he starts getting the smell again. Up close it’s not even a stench; it’s a miasma trying to crawl down his throat. But Jack doesn’t move away. He knows what an effort Mouse is making. The least he can do is play his part.

“Here’s downtown—the Nelson, Lucky’s, the Agincourt Theater, the Taproom . . . here’s where Chase Street turns into Lyall Road, then Route 35 . . . here’s Libertyville . . . the VFW . . . Goltz’s . . . ah, Christ—”

Mouse begins to thrash on the couch. Sores on his face and upper body burst open and begin leaking. He screams with pain. The hand not holding the pencil goes to his face and paws at it ineffectually.

Something inside Jack speaks up, then—speaks in a shining, imperative voice he remembers from his time on the road all those years ago. He supposes it’s the voice of the Talisman, or whatever remains of it in his mind and soul.

It doesn’t want him to talk, it’s trying to kill him before he can talk, it’s in the black stuff, maybe it is the black stuff, you’ve got to get rid of it—

Some things can only be done without the mind’s prudish interference; when the work is nasty, instinct is often best. So it is without thinking that Jack reaches out, grasps the black slime oozing from Mouse’s eyes between his fingers, and pulls. At first the stuff only stretches, as if made of rubber. At the same time Jack can feel it squirming and writhing in his grip, perhaps trying to pinch or bite him. Then it lets go with a twang sound. Jack throws the convulsing black tissue onto the floor with a cry.

The stuff tries to slither beneath the couch—Jack sees this even as he wipes his hands on his shirt, frantic with revulsion. Doc slams his bag down on one piece. Beezer squashes the other with the heel of a motorcycle boot. It makes a squittering sound.

“What the fuck is that shit?” Doc asks. His voice, ordinarily husky, has gone up into a near-falsetto range. “What the fuck—”

“Nothing from here,” Jack says, “and never mind. Look at him! Look at Mouse!”

The red glare in Mouse’s eyes has retreated; for the moment he looks almost normal. Certainly he’s seeing them, and the pain seems gone. “Thanks,” he breathes. “I only wish you could get it all that way, but man, it’s already coming back. Pay attention.”

“I’m listening,” Jack says.

“You better,” Mouse replies. “You think you know. You think you can find the place again even if these two can’t, and maybe you can, but maybe you don’t know quite so much as you . . . ah, fuck.” From somewhere beneath the blanket there is a ghastly bursting sound as something gives way. Sweat runs down Mouse’s face, mixing with the black poison venting from his pores and turning his beard a damp and dirty gray. His eyes roll up to Jack’s, and Jack can see that red glare starting to haze over them again.

“This sucks,” Mouse pants. “Never thought I’d go out this way. Lookit, Hollywood . . .” The dying man draws a small rectangle on his makeshift scribble of map. “This—”

“Ed’s Eats, where we found Irma,” Jack says. “I know.”

“All right,” Mouse whispers. “Good. Now look . . . over on the other side . . . the Schubert and Gale side . . . and to the west . . .”

Mouse draws a line going north from Highway 35. He puts little circles on either side of it. Jack takes these to be representations of trees. And, across the front of the line like a gate: NO TRESPASSING.

“Yeah,” Doc breathes. “That’s where it was, all right. Black House.”