“How long have I been here?”
“Since yesterday evening.”
Christmas morning. He was staring out the window, afraid to move for fear of being sick again. “It’s not snowing anymore, is it?” he said. He barely heard the answer, that it had stopped some time before daybreak.
He forced himself to sit up. Nothing as bad as before. A headache yes, and a little blur to his vision. Nothing worse than a hangover.
“Wait, Mr. Curry. Please. Let me call Aaron. The doctor will want to see you.”
“Yeah, that would be fine, but I’m getting dressed.”
All his clothes were in the closet. Nice little traveler’s kit under plastic on the bathroom vanity. He showered, fighting an occasional bout of dizziness, shaved recklessly and fast with the little throwaway, and then came out of the bathroom. He wanted to sink down into the bed again, no doubt about it, but he said:
“I gotta go back there, find out what went down.”
“I’m begging you to wait,” said Aaron, “to take some food, see how you feel.”
“Doesn’t matter how I feel. Can you give me a car? I’ll hitch if you can’t.”
He looked out the window. Snow still on the ground. Roads would be dangerous. Had to go now.
“Look, I can’t thank you enough for taking care of me like this.”
“What do you mean to do? You don’t have any idea what you’ll find. Last night she told me that if I cared about you, to see that you didn’t come back.”
“Hell with what she said. I’m going.”
“Then I’m going too.”
“No, you stay here. This is between me and her. Get me a car, now, I’m leaving.”
It was a big bulky gray Lincoln Town Car, hardly his choice though the soft leather seat felt good, and the thing really cruised when he finally reached the interstate highway. Up until that point, Aaron had been following in the limo. But there was no sight of him now, as Michael passed one car after another.
The snow was dirty at the sides of the road. But the ice was gone. And the sky above was that faultless mocking blue which made everything look clean and wide open. The headache gripped him, throwing a curve of dizziness and nausea at him every fifteen minutes. He just shook it off, and kept his foot on the gas pedal.
He was going ninety when he cruised into New Orleans, going up past the cemeteries of Metairie and through the rooftops and then past the ludicrous surreal spectacle of the Superdome amphitheater, like a space saucer just touching down amid skyscrapers and church steeples.
He braked too fast, nearly skidding as he took the St. Charles Avenue turnoff. Traffic crawled amid the frozen strips of soiled snow.
Within five minutes, he made the left turn onto First, and then the car skidded dangerously again. He braked and crept his way over the slick asphalt, until he saw the house rising up like a somber fortress on its dark, shady snow-covered corner.
The gate was open. He put his key into the front door and let himself in.
For a moment, he stood stock-still. There was blood all over the floor, smeared and streaked, and the bloody print of a hand on the door frame. Something that looked like soot covered the walls, thinning out to a pale grime as it reached the ceiling.
The smell was foul, like the smell of the sickroom in which Deirdre died.
Smears of blood on the doorway to the living room. Tracks of bare feet. Blood all over the Chinese carpet, and some viscous mucuslike substance smeared on the boards, and the Christmas tree with all its lights burning, like an oblivious sentinel at the end of the room, a blind and dumb witness who could testify to nothing.
The ache was exploding in his head, but it was nothing compared to the pain in his chest, and the rapid knocking in his heart. The adrenaline was flooding his veins. And his right hand was curling convulsively into a fist.
He turned around, went out of the parlor and into the hall, and headed towards the dining room.
Without a sound, a figure stepped into the high keyhole door, peering at him, one slender hand moving up on the door frame.
It was a strange gesture. Something distinctly unsteady about the figure as if it too were reeling from shocks, and as it came forward into the light from the sun porch, Michael stopped, studying it, straining to understand what he was seeing.
This was a man, clothed in loose disheveled pants and shirt, but Michael had never seen a man like him. The man was very tall, maybe six feet two inches in height and disproportionately slender. The pants were too large, and apparently cinched tight at the waist, and the shirt was Michael’s shirt, an old sweatshirt. It hung like a tunic on the slender frame. He had rich black curly hair and very large blue eyes, but otherwise he resembled Rowan. It was like looking at a male twin of Rowan! The skin was like Rowan’s smooth and youthful skin, only even more youthful than that, stretching over Rowan’s cheekbones, and this was almost Rowan’s mouth, just a little fuller, and more sensuous. And the eyes, though large and blue, had Rowan in them, and there was Rowan in the man’s sudden thin, cold smile.
He took another step towards Michael, and Michael could see he was unsteady on his feet. A radiance emanated from him. And Michael realized what it was, contradicting reason and experience, but perfectly obvious in a hideous sort of way, that the thing looked newborn, that it had the soft resilient brilliance of a baby. Its long thin hands were baby smooth, and its neck was baby smooth, and the face had no stamp of character whatsoever.
Yet the expression on its face was no baby’s expression. It was filled with wonder, and seeming love, and a terrible mockery.
Michael lunged at it, catching it by surprise. He held its thin powerful arms in his hands, and was astonished and horrified by the riff of soft virile laughter that broke from it.
In blind rage, Michael stood, unable to move, his hands clutching the arms of the being, as it struggled to free itself, pulling loose suddenly with a great arching gesture, like a bird drawing back, made of rubber and steel and flexing and preening.
A low shuddering roar came out of Michael.
“You killed my child! Rowan, you gave him our child!” His cry was guttural and anguished, the words rushing together in his own ears like noise. “Rowan!”
Away from him the creature dashed, crashing awkwardly against the dining room wall, again throwing up its hands and laughing. It thrust its arm out, its huge smooth hand slamming Michael in the chest with ease and throwing him over the dining room table.
“I am your child, Father, step back. Look at me!”
Michael scrambled back onto his feet.
“Look at you? I’ll kill you!”
He flew at the creature, but it danced back into the pantry, arching its back and extending its hands as if to tease. It waltzed backwards through the kitchen door. Its legs tangled, then straightened as if it were a straw man. Again its laughter rose, rich and deep and full of crazy merriment. The laughter was crazed like the eyes of the being, full of mad and uncaring delight.
“Oh, come on, Michael, don’t you want to know your own child! You can’t kill me! You can’t kill your own flesh and blood! I have your genes in me, Michael. I am you, I am Rowan. I am your son.”
Lunging again, Michael caught it and hurled it back against the French doors, rattling the panes. High up on the front of the house, the alarm sounded as the glass protectors tripped, adding its maddening peal to the mayhem.
The creature flung its long gangly arms up, gazing down at Michael in astonishment as his hands closed on its throat. Then it lifted its two hands in fists and slammed them into Michael’s jaw.
Michael’s feet went out from under him, but hitting the floor he rolled over at once on his hands and knees. The French door was open, the alarm still screaming, and the creature was dancing, pivoting, and frolicking with a hideous grace towards the pool.
As he went after it, he saw Rowan coming in the corner of his eye, rushing down the kitchen stairs. He heard her scream.
“Michael, stay away from him!”
