trepidation, for a peculiar virulence seemed to poison the very air in the room. His inclination was to flee, to bolt through that doorway and get out into the night where the breeze was pure. But the curiosity that had led him to this place had become something more: an obsession, perhaps even a quest. Revelations from his own life had spun before him here, things that were bad, his worst sins recreated, and there had to be a reason why. He felt shame, a guilt he had always suppressed rising inside; yet it was his fascination that was stronger. It was that which prevented him from taking flight, for it prevailed over the fear, subjugated the exposed guilt.
Halloran tentatively made his way towards the tangled rags.
He saw the edges of a thin mattress, dried stains overlapping its sides, spreading where fluid had once seeped into the wood of the floor. The mound on top could have been anythingblankets, piled clothing, assorted pieces of material. That there was someone beneath, there was no doubt, for the whispered breathing came from here and the jumbled covering quivered slightly with the exhalation. Halloran leaned forward and gripped the rags. He pulled them away.
A face, partially concealed by a cowl, turned towards him.
Halloran released the covering and stepped back, horrified at the countenance that stared up at him.
The skin was withered and deeply rutted, like wrinkled leather left in the sun; and its colouring, too, was of old leather, except where there were festering scabs that glinted under the torch light. Most alarming of all were the eyes. They were huge, lidless, bulging from the skull as if barely contained within their sockets; the pupils were cloudy, a fine membrane coating them, and the area around them that should have been white was yellow and patchworked with tiny veins.
From this thing came the sickly sweet smell of death's corruption which dominated all the other scents of the room.
Something seemed to shrink within those globular eyeballs when they came to rest on the shadowy form of Halloran, and the figure tried to rise, its scrawny neck arching backwards as if the weight of its head was too much to bear. The hood fell away from a hairless skull whose surface was mottled with deep brown blemishes; incredibly, the skin there, which should have been smooth, was also wrinkled and ridged, as though the bone beneath had no firmness, no substance.
Repulsed, Halloran took another step away. The impression of gazing down at an enormous lizard-like creature was enhanced when the figure's mouth opened and a tongue, so darkly red it seemed black, protruded and rolled across cracked, lipless flesh. Only the lidless eyes refuted the reptilian image.
The figure attempted to speak, but no more than a gasped sigh escaped. The head sank back into the rough bedding with a finality that suggested the body, itself, had expired. Only then, and with reluctance, did Halloran advance again. Those bulbous eyes were fixed on him and he shone the light directly into them. They did not blink, nor did the pupils, behind their mist, retract.
'It's you,' came the sibilant whisper.
Halloran froze.
The figure gasped in air, as though the effort of speaking had caused pain. Even deeper rents furrowed its skin and the mouth puckered inward.
Halloran struggled to find his own voice. 'Who are you?' The slightest inclination of the withered head, a gesture that the question was of no importance. And then the whisper: 'Death comes.' Its grimace might have been a smile.
Halloran leaned close, ignoring the fetid air that rose from the rumpled head. 'I can get help,' he said and the thought of touching this person almost made him retch.
Again that toothless, puckered expression that could have been a grin. 'Too late for me,' came the whisper. 'Come closer.' Halloran shuddered inwardly and made no effort to comply.
'I must speak . . .' it said, '. . . with you.' He knelt, but still could not find it in himself to bend near the hideous face. 'Tell me who you are,' he repeated.
This time there was an answer, perhaps an inducement to draw him in. 'The . . . Keeper.' The voice was stronger, and that, he thought, of a man.
'The gate-keeper?' Halloran said. Surely it wasn't possible. The person before him was too ancient and too infirm to bear the responsibility.
The man's laugh was a choking sound, and his head shook with the exertion. 'The Keeper,' he said again, the last syllable an exhaled breath. A silence between them, then: 'And you . . . you are Kline's guardian.' The dark tongue flicked out, the movement quicker this time as it swept across his mouth. The skin was hardly moistened. 'I understand now,' he murmured so softly that Halloran wasn't sure if he had heard correctly.
Those staring eyes with their veiled pupils were disconcerting, and he wondered how much the old man could really see. 'I'm going to bring a doctor to you,' he said, questions racing through his mind.
'Too late, too late.' The words were drawn out as a sigh. 'At long last . . . it's too late.' His head lolled to one side.
Not anxious, but curious, Halloran reached out to feel the pulse between the still man's neck and chin.
He jerked his fingers away when the face turned back to him.
'Do you understand why you're here?' he was asked.
'Felix Kline is a client,' Halloran answered.
'Do you know why you came to this house?'
'Here, the lodge-house'?' There was no reply.
'I came to check it out, to find out who was inside, who handled the . . . the dogs.'
'Now you've seen me.' He nodded.
'But it seems you understand nothing.' The wrinkled face creased even more. 'I wonder what you sense.'
There was an accent in the soft-spoken words.
'What did you see when you entered . . . this room?' the old man whispered.
How could he know? Unless he had caused them, just as Kline had caused hallucinations out on the lake.
“things past, but never quite forgotten'?' A catching in the throat, perhaps a snigger. 'Your account has been brought up to date. I wonder why?'
'Is Kline still playing stupid games with me, putting thoughts into my mind?' Halloran felt anger overwhelming his abhorrence.
The shaking of the old man's head was feeble. 'No . . . no . . . the thoughts came from you. They are yours alone. Memories. You brought yourself . . . to this point.' Those disturbing, milky eyes watched him, the ragged gash of a mouth curled in what could have been a grin.
'Tell me about Kline,' Halloran said at last.
A sighed whisper, a slow releasing of breath. 'Ahhhh ',The ravaged head shifted slightly so that his eyes looked into the blackness of the ceiling.
Halloran waited, uneasy in the stillness, wary of this person whose decomposition seemed to precede his death. Halloran was wary, too, of the lodge-house itself: there was movement in its shadows, as if spectral shapes weaved and danced there. Things perceived not with the naked eye but through the mind. Halloran checked himself, tried to throw off such crazy notions. Yet still they asserted themselves.
The old man was murmuring and, despite his repugnance, Halloran edged closer, wanting to catch every hushed word.
'A cunning boy. With powers . . . powers valuable to us . . . us Jews. But he was . . . foolish, too. He imagined . . he had claimed his deity, not realising that he was the one . . . to be claimed.' He groaned and clutched at himself.
Halloran held out a hand to steady him, but could not find it in himself to touch the thing lying there, not even though it was covered by rags.
When the worst of the pain had subsided, the aged and crumpled man spoke again. 'Almost three thousand years of waiting before the . . . the Christ . . . two thousand years after . . .' He was rambling, and when he coughed, there was a pin kiness to the spittle dampening the corners of his mouth. He gasped, as though anxious to tell. 'We searched the world for disciple's . . . our kind. And we found them. It wasn't difficult. And Kline caused
