The Walls of the Castle Read online

  THE WALLS OF THE CASTLE

  Tom Piccirilli

  THE WALLS OF THE CASTLE

  Tom Piccirilli

  © 2012 Tom Piccirilli

  This edition of The Walls of the Castle

  © 2013 Dark Regions Press

  Cover and interior artwork

  © 2012 Santiago Caruso

  Front cover design by Dave Barnett

  This edition of The Walls of the Castle

  interior layout and design by Chris Morey

  Edited by Chris Morey

  Black Labyrinth

  An imprint of ten psychological horror novels and novellas from the living masters of dark fiction illustrated by Santiago Caruso. Available in ebook, trade paperback and premium Black Labyrinth signed limited edition hardcovers.

  Book I: Tom Piccirilli

  Book II: Joe R. Lansdale (Kickstarter begins on Tuesday, October 8th)

  Find details about the October 8th Kickstarter for Black Labyrinth Book II at the end of this ebook.

  Dark Regions Press

  This revised illustrated eBook edition published 2013 as part of Dark Regions Digital. Find more of our ebook titles by searching for “Dark Regions Digital” on the ebook platform of choice.

  Browse our catalog and order from us directly online at:

  http://DarkRegions.com

  “Maybe each human being lives in a unique world, a private world different from those inhabited and experienced by all other humans. . . If reality differs from person to person, can we speak of reality singular, or shouldn't we really be talking about plural realities? And if there are plural realities, are some more true (more real) than others? What about the world of a schizophrenic? Maybe it's as real as our world. Maybe we cannot say that we are in touch with reality and he is not, but should instead say, His reality is so different from ours that he can't explain his to us, and we can't explain ours to him. The problem, then, is that if subjective worlds are experienced too differently, there occurs a breakdown in communication ... and there is the real illness.”

  ― Philip K. Dick

  This is a story of grief, madness and hope.

  Table of Contents

  Start

  Midpoint

  End

  For everyone with a sorrow that can’t be set down, a patch of night that owns your heart, a recurring dream that never stops calling, a memory with claws, a treasure stolen from the sand, a slashing regret, a face you no longer recognize, a last meager hope that remains beyond your grasp, THE WALLS OF THE CASTLE is for you–

  &

  For Thomas Tessier

  His son had been dead for two weeks, in the ground ten days, he was told, and Kasteel was still sitting in the ICU waiting area, spooking the nurses. He was so pale now that the deep old scars hidden by his usually dark olive coloring looked fresh and vicious.

  The staff no longer called him sir. They no longer offered to fetch him coffee. They eyed him suspiciously and twice invited him to speak with a grief counselor. They gave him bad directions to the psych wing. He already knew the hospital better than any of them. Kasteel remained polite, talkative, and amicable, but he just wouldn’t leave. So the administration sent up two tight-faced, no-neck security guards to throw him the fuck out.

  He’d lost a lot of muscle mass eating nothing but cafeteria food the last four months. The incessant crying had left him dehydrated and salt-deprived. The lack of sunlight had given him a Vitamin D deficiency that he was trying to combat with pills stolen from the dispensary. His back was in bad shape from sleeping on waiting room benches and operating theater tables. When they hauled him to his feet his lower vertebrae cracked as loud as a shot from a snub .32.

  Their name badges read Conrad and Watkins. They were cut from the same granite as the bulls in Sing. Angry, icy-eyed men who liked to parcel out punishment because it gave their lives momentary purpose, provided definition, and made them feel self-righteous.

  They pulled disgusted faces when they caught a whiff of him. Kasteel had been wearing the same ill-fitting clothes for five weeks, stolen from a prostate cancer patient who’d died on the table in September. He smelled like the ass-end of a morgue.

  They shoved him along with their truncheons and rapped him hard in the back of the thighs. He held himself in check until they were around the corner from the elevator, and then he fought dirty as hell. He cut loose, letting some of the savage tension go. He hooked Watkins under the heart and threw a couple of tight jabs into Conrad’s jaw. Six months ago he could’ve taken both easily. But he was weak from lost electrolytes and lack of sleep, and they quickly overpowered him. After barely a minute of brawling they clubbed him to his knees and stomped his guts until he vomited bile.

  It went too far and they knew it. They were under orders not to make a scene. Kasteel’s nose and mouth pulsed blood and his beard was dripping. Watkins said, “Shit,” and wiped his hands clean on Kasteel’s shirt.

  They didn’t realize they were so close to the elevators. They discussed alternate routes through the Castle, following the chipped, outdated color coded lines painted on the floors.

  They grabbed him under the arms almost gently this time and carried his limp body between them. They walked corridor after corridor, Watkins swiping his key card and shouldering through the fire doors. They were getting anxious and angry again. Kasteel wondered if they were trying to take him to the psych wing. This was the way they sometimes brought the disassociatives, depressives, catatonic cases, the biters, nyctaphobes, narcoleptics, nymphos, multiple personality disorders, paranoiacs, schizoids, and the chronic masturbators.

  Instead, they finally reached another set of elevators, hit the button for the ground floor and worked his kidneys for a couple of floors on the way down. It wasn’t enough to do anything more than make him piss blood for few days. He’d been kicked around a lot worse in the showers of C-Block at Sing. Funny how many Aryans were queer when Adolph hated the rainbow brigade. Maybe not so funny when you got down to it, but he found himself grinning. He tried not to laugh, but for some reason the need was there. He bit his tongue but a chuckle still floated up from deep inside his chest.

  “What are you so happy about, asshole?”

  Watkins had punched the wrong button and watched frantically as they continued to descend–3, 2, 1, P5, P4, P3–into the underground parking lots. Watkins let out a small grunt of frustration. They dragged Kasteel through F14, sub-level 3, this particular parking area reserved for visiting cardiologists and pulmonary specialists. There were red arrows all over the place, pointing in every direction. There were no exit signs.

  A distant noise made Conrad call, “Hello?”

  Kasteel laughed again.

  For the next twenty minutes Conrad and Watkins squabbled over directions, growing more and more tense and anxious as they tried to find the outer door. They were nowhere near it. Their lips were tight with confusion and irritation. Kasteel wished he had a cigarette.

  The Castle always got people twisted around. The Castle didn’t let you go unless it wanted you to go.

  They circled and spiraled and tried to follow the red arrows. Conrad kept calling, “Hello? Hello?”

  Watkins said, “Who in the fuck are you saying hello to? There’s nobody here.”

  “Somebody’s got to be here, look at the cars. We just passed three Mercedes.”

  “They’re not here, they’re in the hospital.”

  “Someone might be walking from here into the hospital or back out again.”

  “Someone might be except nobody is.”

  Eventually they got back in the elevator and up to the ground floor. They ushered Kasteel down a few more hallways, past the university clinic for child medicine.
Kasteel knew he looked like death but couldn’t help waving to the bald, terminal kids through the large plate glass window as they passed by. He thought of his son but he couldn’t remember his son’s name or face. A few kids waved back.

  Watkins said, “Breaks your heart.”

  “Yeah.”

  “They ought to lighten the place up some.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “There should be some...I don’t know. Board games. These kids would probably enjoy a few board games.”

  “Some balloons would be nice.”

  “Yeah, balloons.”

  Yeah, balloons, Kasteel thought. In a sterile environment with sixty percent oxygen content. One static spark off the surface of a plastic balloon and you’d have an explosion as big as half a pound of C4 blowing out a bank vault door.

  They hit the stairwell and went up another level. They dead-ended at a series of locked labs and had to double-back and take the stairs back down. Kasteel thought about his first day in Sing, surrounded by twenty million metric tons of concrete, thousands of cons, bulls, other fish, other strings, pro heisters who’d taken a bad fall, old-time juggers who’d been in the can for fifty years.

  They entered an older part of the Castle, where security hadn’t been updated to the use of key cards. Lengths of untangled wiring hung from missing ceiling tile squares. Soon the stonework of the original fortress began to show through. The lighting changed. The smell in the corridors grew heavy with mildew and rotting mortar. Kasteel was feeling stronger, walking on his own, the ache in his kidneys only a dull passive discomfort.

  Conrad and Watkins snapped and barked at each other. They squared their shoulders and went nose to nose, rattled.

  “Where the hell are we?”

  “Turn left.”

  “Why left?”

  “Go left.”

  “I heard you. I’d like to know why.”

  “Just fucking go left!”

  Kasteel knew exactly where they were. They’d gotten turned around and were heading towards the inside court leading to the Fool’s Tower.

  Twelve stories high, the tower had originally been considered a “praying pavilion” though no religious persuasion was reflected in its construction. Vertical window slits appeared in the brickwork on each of the open floors. At one time you could go in, meditate, and commune with your higher power or just sob your guts out while your loved ones died inside the Castle. On bright days shafts of sunlight would slant within like purifying divine radiance. At night, mercurial silver moonlight would rain down inside.

  After World War II it was converted into a transformer station. After Vietnam the remains of the original stone tower were restored as a kind of a memorial, though there were no plaques or statues to tell anyone what kind of memorial it was supposed to be. It became the place where you went and begged the powers that be until you couldn’t speak any longer. Over the last ten years there were at least three cases where the bereaved committed suicide by leaping from the top turret into the courtyard gardens below. Another tried but suffered only severe brain damage and spinal injuries. He was still around, a vegetable on life support over on Ward Six for the last eight years. Kasteel visited on occasion.

  The administration hastily bricked and cemented the doors up, but the Catholics decided the place was too much like an ancient church and wanted it reopened. The Archbishop even bitched about it in a press conference so Admin was forced to restore it completely even before the south wing that led out to the tower was finished.

  Conrad and Watkins were starting to get a little flipped out, bored, tired, and their shift was about to end. They seemed like children that had wandered too far away from their parents, Hansel and Gretel lost in the forest without their gingerbread.

  “Okay, this is good enough,” Conrad said.

  “Good enough?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Good enough for what?” Watkins asked.

  “Far enough.”

  “Far enough for what?”

  “To let him go.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Shut up!”

  They manhandled Kasteel out to the tower and then hurled him through the open arch. He tumbled heavily across the cobblestone floor, trying not to smile. The pain was nearly enjoyable when compared to the fuzzy, warm numbness of the past few months.

  He spit blood, climbed to my feet, reached for his cigarettes, and lit one. There was no smoking anywhere on the hospital premises, not even in the two-centuries old sections of the Castle that hadn’t been renovated yet. He snorted smoke and it drifted against their merciless, blunt faces. Conrad wanted to have another go at him, but Watkins held the prick back.

  “Enough,” he said.

  Conrad pointed at Kasteel. “Don’t let us see you here again, you crazy son of a bitch. Leave. Go home.”

  “Sure,” Kasteel said. He didn’t have a home left to go home to. He already was home.

  The no-necks receded into the main building. They were practically skipping when they got to the door. Being outside for a couple of minutes had revitalized them, given them some grounding, focused them. Kasteel held his hand out into a ray of sunshine and let the sunlight fill his palm. He wondered if the Castle was done screwing around with the no-neck guards. Probably not. They were bound to wander around lost for at least another hour or so. Maybe longer. Maybe forever. He might find their corpses in operating theater #4 a few months from now. The two of them with their hands around each other’s throat.

  He laid at the base of the wrought-iron spiral stairway and stared up at the mortar of the first floor ceiling. Admin had tried to restore the artwork there but budget cuts canceled the project about halfway through. Now all you saw was a small portion of some gorgeous tableau, a choir of celestial beings that might have been archangels holding swords but without wings, children staring up in awe, a bloated orange hunter’s moon being clutched in an enormous deific fist. He was still surprised the Catholics had ever figured this for a church. If anything, he vibed paganism.

  The pain in his side made him take short sips of air. He reached into his back pocket and came up with stolen bottles of Percocet, Xanax, Oxycontin, Valium, Codeine, Vicodin, vitamin B, C, D, and zinc. He mixed a handful of pills and tossed them back, dry.

  He heard footsteps at the top of the staircase. Someone was coming down.

  Chiseled above him across the doorway arch was KASTEEL.

  It was the Dutch word for Castle.

  He crooked his finger and spelled out names in the dust.

  EDDIE.

  KATHY.

  He started to pray out of instinct. The words had been there since childhood, and they continued to echo down the years, through his time in Sing, at the beginning of Eddie’s illness and again at the very end. He’d done so much praying here the past four months that the prayers still wanted to break from him. It was pointless, and he’d always known it was pointless, but you did whatever you could when your boy was dying. You begged and you wept and you performed whatever acts of contrition you thought might pay your debt so the big gun upstairs didn’t send an angel with a burning sword to take your firstborn. You cleaned out ten years’ worth of cached money and fenced stolen goods to pay for experimental treatments. You huddled with your wife, on your knees, and when your wife told you it was time to go, you let her leave on her own and you groveled there alone.

  When she told you that you needed help you went to the “very good doctor” that her friends had suggested. You sat there in the lady shrink’s office and you tried to look interested and emphatic and open to changing your behavior. You put on a good show. You nodded and “uh hmmed” your ass off. You held tight to Kathy’s hand in a show of solidarity. You answered all the questions about your mother and father and brothers, your months in juvie, being a car thief, a wheelman, a cat burglar, the things you had to do to survive Sing. You told the truth. Kathy knew it all. The doc sucked air between her teeth a few times.
>
  Then the bitch asked, “If the unthinkable happens and your son dies–”

  You killed her a hundred times in your head in maybe ten seconds, still holding Kathy’s hand. Kath with her chin up, trying to deal with the inevitable, listening to this woman like she would have any answers about how to live without your child, the best thing in your life, the only thing besides Kath that mattered, and yes, his death, though inevitable, was utterly unthinkable. You moved your mind and soul away from it the way you’d back up from someone slashing at you with a shiv. There was nothing else to do.

  You stood then, stone still in the middle of her office, and stared at her. Kathy groped for your hand but she couldn’t budge it from your side. You have strong hands. Your hands have killed, your hands have done incredible things. Your hands held your boy gently when he was born and you thought that with this child you could live the life you were supposed to live. Straight, normal, without violence, and it had been that way for eight years, until Eddie began to get sick, and your boy began to die in front of your eyes.

  The shrink, she couldn’t handle staring at you anymore, the expression on your face too blank yet intense for a normal person to handle. Kathy spoke, rattling on and on, and meanwhile you just stood there in the office, wondering what kind of psychiatrist would dare to ask someone what they would do or feel if the unthinkable should happen. How could someone ever know until it happened, until it began to happen, the way it began to happen when the specialists came and stopped by on their way to their golf games, four am, only to find you lying in bed with your arms around your son. And the specialists always put out by finding you there, telling you, “You’re not allowed to be here. Visiting hours aren’t until–” You knew exactly when visiting hours were, but you were going to stay with your boy no matter what. Security threw you out again and again, but how do you keep out a man who spent most of his life sneaking into warehouses, jewelry stores, and banks. You once killed a man by stuffing a bar of soap down his throat in the showers at Sing. How could any of these people ever hope to understand what you were, what you’d done, what your son meant to you. Even Kathy had no idea until the end.