The Walls of the Castle Read online

  He took the elevator up and moved through the corridors. He took his phone out. It seemed very important that he take the phone out of his pocket. He didn’t know why. He stared at it wondering if he was supposed to call Kathy. Except Kathy didn’t want to hear from him, not until he was done here, and he wasn’t done here.

  Kasteel looked at his phone and began to walk faster through the halls. He had no idea where he was going. He glanced at faces left and right. Perhaps one of them would understand. He got to the lobby and watched the police pull up and rush inside and down the corridors. Sweat slithered across his brow. He felt forces gathering around him, colliding, withdrawing, weighing on him, leaving him. He didn’t understand what any of it meant. He started to move. He started to run. He sprinted through the halls.

  The phone rang in his hand.

  1

  The Castle showed mercy and swept him along towards ICU. He picked up speed until he couldn’t even see where he was anymore. Faces blurred, the walls were no longer brick and mortar. Kasteel passed into and through them, or so it felt. Many of the faces that had been in the operating theater watching him were around him once again. They populated the hospital, they would never know his name but they were a part of him.

  Kasteel shouted, “Chester!”

  Chester Milgrom, sixty-two, professor of economics at a local second-rate state university, assorted health problems related to heart disease and diabetes, sitting up in bed with his twenty-eight year old lover, the graduate student who hadn’t abandoned him in the midst of the media frenzy, kissing gently. Chester stared at Kasteel and shrugged, gestured, What’s the matter?

  The grad student said, “Who are you?”

  Kasteel looked around the room, asked, “Chester, where’s your phone?”

  Chester held it up.

  “Did you call me?”

  Chester shook his head.

  “By accident? Did you dial my number?”

  Chester checked the phone, shook his head.

  Kasteel looked at his cell again. He didn’t recognize the number.

  IS EVERYTHING ALL RIGHT?

  “Sure. Somebody overheard me talking to you and telling you to dial 1-1-1.”

  Abaddon?

  “Probably.”

  OH CHRIST.

  “Don’t worry about it. This is all coming to an end. Can’t you feel it?”

  WHAT’S COMING TO AN END?

  “Forget it, Chester.” Kasteel looked at the boyfriend and said, “You in for the long haul?”

  The boyfriend said, “Yes.”

  “Good, glad to hear it. What’s the prognosis? How much longer will he be in here?”

  “They’re still not sure. They found other problems when they opened up his chest.”

  “At least he doesn’t have a bad brain.”

  “Excuse me?”

  Kasteel just grinned. He stepped out of the IC unit. The Castle whispered to him. He strolled. He had never strolled in his life before, but now he strolled. He closed his eyes to focus. He steeled his will.

  He imagined Abaddon eating charts, choosing his victims well, finding the woman with the bad brain and talking to her all night long. He pictured Abaddon the destroyer in wait before the glass windows of pediatrics, laying claim to the newborns like Tracy had, hoping to bite them. Abaddon and friends shaking pins into pee holes. Abaddon putting up websites. Abaddon on the top floor while Kasteel was at the bottom in the morgue. Abaddon waiting at the bottom while Kasteel stood at the top, wandering around the roof. Abaddon the enemy from out of the ancient biblical lands. Abaddon the brother, another child of the Castle. Abaddon always listening, hidden, like Kasteel, watching, moving through walls, sitting in the stadium seats of Kasteel’s dreams.

  He walked with his eyes shut, the tides of the hospital drawing him forward, left, right, into the elevator, his fingers knowing which button to push, or more likely the buttons understanding which one should brush against his fingertips.

  Finally, he opened his eyes in the dimly lit recesses of the ancient hospital brickwork and saw the wires hanging down from the ceiling tiles. They’d been like that for month after month. They’d been like that forever and would remain like that forever. He moved to the exit and stepped out and headed toward the Fool’s Tower.

  He looked up and at the other end of the walkway he saw a living shadow. He stared and the shadow stared back at him. The two of them calm and in repose, understanding that this night would be the last night, without knowledge or interest in what would be ending, what would now finally begin. He took a step and the shadow retreated a step into the tower. Kasteel, who only smiled when he was in pain, smiled now, for the anguish he knew was about to come.

  He whispered, “Abaddon,” and began to chase the angel of death, the destroyer of firstborns.

  Abaddon wasn’t even in a rush, hardly moved fast at all, certainly didn’t run, not the way Kasteel was running, trying to catch up. Abaddon turned and Kasteel had a moment of recognition that faded almost instantly.

  “Look who it is,” Abaddon whispered. “I’ve been waiting for you.”

  The creature Abaddon, with one bad leg, gimping along but traversing the tower the way that few others could, as if the walls gave way. Abaddon sneering bitterly, quietly, slowly laughing, in tune with his pain. Boffo the unfunny clown, carrying a cane with his top hat, without a big pair of shoes. Still with short guy syndrome, Bryce Clarke needing to impress himself upon the world, upon this new world he found himself in, this new city of invisibility and power.

  “You could’ve just called me on your own phone, Bryce.”

  “That would have been too easy.”

  “What did you do to Merilee Himes?”

  “I talked to her. I looked at her. I told her to die and she did. I ate her. The same way I ate the others.”

  “Which others?”

  “The same way I’ll eat you.”

  Kasteel tried to suppress a surge of guilt. He had pushed Bryce too hard. Bryce had been more than an abusive husband and father, he’d been a complete lunatic on the edge of losing his mind. Kasteel should’ve recognized it, should’ve noticed the signs. He’d handled the situation all wrong. A man who needed to always prove himself the toughest and sharpest and meanest little prick in the room, and Kasteel had beaten, scarred, and crippled him right in his own living room, in front of the wife and son he resented so much. No wonder he talked of plague and murdering of firstborn sons.

  Kasteel followed Bryce up the staircase, stone step by stone step.

  “It’s time for you to be quiet, Bryce.”

  “You already tried to destroy my voice. You can’t. You aren’t able. You don’t have the capacity. I kill at will. I kill on the wards. I steal homeless children. I eat them.”

  “You should’ve just started by apologizing to your wife and son.”

  “I have no wife and son.”

  “Neither do I, except when I do. One’s waiting for me at home. The other is waiting for me beyond the veil.”

  “That’s where I wait for you too.”

  Step by step, retreating up the stone stairwell, past the windows showing the silver moonlight and stars grappling to fit within human view. Story by story, where the ghosts of the fever victims, the civil war surgeries, the Vietnam vets, all appeared and pushed them up, up, up to where men without names like Kasteel and Boffo suicided off the thin rim.

  When they reached the top of the Fool’s tower they stared at each, destroyer bearing witness to destroyer, children of the Castle squaring off.

  “Do you think you’ll ever get better, Bryce? Are you trying? Do you think you want to get back to your wife and son? Or should I put you down?”

  “Children laugh at me.”

  “It’s a gift.”

  “Children die at my touch.”

  “Not quite.”

  Bryce Clarke, Boffo the clown, Abaddon the angel, swung his cane and caught Kasteel across the shoulder. It hurt like hell. Kasteel went dow
n to one knee. He thought he should give that one to Bryce. He’d crippled Bryce. Boffo had to lash back. Boffo had to get a few licks in. Abaddon was known to men with bad brains. Kasteel saw Bryce’s arms rise in the night like black blood-soaked wings. Bryce lashed out with the cane again. It brushed against Kasteel’s skull. Blood spurted. Abaddon sniffed and said, “Ahhhh.”

  It was all right. Everything was all right. Sometimes you let the other guy think he had you down and a hole opened in his defenses. Like now. Bryce doing the little dance around the roof of the Fool’s tower. Kasteel could roll to his feet and shove the poor little prick eleven stories down if he wanted. But it wasn’t going to end that way. He hadn’t come this far just to wind up nudging a man who was already an inch off the ledge.

  Maybe there was a chance to save him. Maybe you just had to leave the guy in the waiting room a few more days and something would snap into place. A little therapy, a little indulgence. Kasteel really didn’t know. Maybe he was going to have to kill the bastard.

  Kasteel turned back to the Castle and asked, “What do I have to do?”

  Bryce swung the cane again. Kasteel dodged and Bryce twirled around twice completely, heading off the edge. Kasteel reached out and grabbed the cane and Bryce held on, his ruined leg failing to hold up his weight. Blood ran into Kasteel’s face as they remained frozen like that, the breeze rising, Bryce with one foot off in space, the other trembling, no big shoes, Kasteel holding him up, keeping him alive.

  “Let me go.”

  ”No.”

  “I’m nothing but a fool. You’ve already destroyed the destroyer.”

  “I just gave you more room to move in. In the Castle you could cut loose. They should’ve locked you up in ward eight.”

  “They tried. I slew my opponents. I earned my freedom.”

  Kasteel was going to have to find out what really happened down there on ward eight.

  He gave a hard tug on the cane and Bryce came flying into Kasteel’s arms. Kasteel clipped him on the chin. That’s all it took. The angel of death closed his eyes and fell asleep there in the dark wind, in the shimmering mercurial starlight.

  Kasteel called Beth Clarke.

  He said, “I made a mistake.”

  “What mistake?”

  “I should’ve found a better way.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “I should’ve either killed him or helped him. I shouldn’t have crippled him. He was already crippled. I just made him worse. I made him Boffo.”

  “Boffo? Are you talking about that crappy clown?”

  “The crappy clown was Bryce.”

  “No. That’s not possible. I would’ve recognized him.”

  “He’s unrecognizable. I did that.”

  “You’re not to blame. You saved my life and the life of my son. I’m certain of it. But–but how is he walking? He wasn’t supposed to be able to get out of bed for three months at least.”

  “He’s insane. Insane people can do amazing things. They can smell a dead young woman burning in the wind.”

  “What?”

  “I don’t want to kill him.”

  “Do what you have to do,” Beth Clarke said. “Kill him if you have to.”

  Kasteel was about to disconnect when another voice came over the phone. It was the boy, John, whose voice Kasteel had never heard before. The boy said, “I hate him. I don’t know if I can ever forgive him. But...don’t kill my father.”

  “All right,” Kasteel said.

  He carried Bryce down, step by step, stone by stone, and held him in his arms like a child, like a maimed firstborn son. He hugged the lunatic to him the way he had hugged Eddie to him. Kasteel began to cry for his sins, and a few minutes later Abaddon’s body also began to tremble in his arms, also crying. The two children of the Castle sobbed for each other and themselves, and for the others that had come before them and those that would follow. Kasteel said, “Your son wants you to live. Get sane, Bryce. For his sake.”

  “I don’t know if I can.”

  “Try.”

  He called Kathy.

  “Are you ready to come home?” she asked.

  “Yes.”

  He hung up. He walked out the front door. He could’ve waited for her to come pick him up, but to hell with it. He found the nearest car with MD tags. He didn’t even need to pop the door. It was already open. As if the Castle was inviting him to leave once and for all, like an unwelcome guest, hoping he’d never come back. Kasteel went to break the steering column but the keys were in the ignition.

  Hedgwick was in the backseat.

  “You don’t mind if I come along, do you?”

  “Did you see all of that?”

  “All of what?”

  “No ham sandwiches, Hedge.”

  Hedgwick reached into the pocket of his robe and pulled out three or four wrapped sandwiches and dumped them out the window.

  “No stealing my trash can lids,” Kasteel said. “No running around your dad’s building. No scaring my wife.”

  “I promise. Do you remember your name yet?”

  “No.”

  “It’ll come back to you.”

  “Yes,” Kasteel said, throwing the car into reverse, pulling out, throwing it into drive, and gunning along. Before he went home he had to stop off somewhere first. “I think it will.”

  He didn’t know where his son was buried, but he knew he would find the way.

  Tom Piccirilli is an American novelist and short story writer. He has sold over 150 stories in the mystery, thriller, horror, erotica, and science fiction fields. Piccirilli is a two-time winner of the International Thriller Writers Award for "Best Paperback Original" (2008, 2010). He is a four-time winner of the Bram Stoker Award. He was also a finalist for the 2009 Edgar Allan Poe Award given by the Mystery Writers of America, a final nominee for the Fantasy Award, and he won the first Bram Stoker Award given in the category of "Best Poetry Collection".

  Santiago Caruso was born in 1982, in Quilmes, Argentina. He is a symbolist and surreal artist, with an avant-garde concept but rooted in the nineteenth century´s decadentism. Dedicated to the fantastique, metaphysical horror and poetry, he had illustrated books for Libros del Zorro Rojo, Dark Regions Press, Ex Occidente Press, Tordesilhas, Tartarus Press, Random House Mondadori, Planeta and Penguin.

  His work stands out both for the vigor of its poetry as well as for its technique. Member of the Beinart Surreal Art Collective since 2010, the artwork of Caruso is well represented in galleries and museums of Buenos Aires, United States, United Kingdom, Mexico and Spain

  Kickstarter for Black Labyrinth Book II: Joe R. Lansdale begins Tuesday, October 8th on Kickstarter.com

  Join us on 10/08/2013 in the Publishing -> Fiction category on Kickstarter.com to help bring a new psychological horror novella from one of the living masters of dark fiction: Joe R. Lansdale, author of Edge of Dark Water, Bubba Ho-Tep, the Hap and Leonard series, Incident On and Off a Mountain Road (later developed into the premiere episode of Masters of Horror directed by Don Coscarelli on Showtime) the Drive-In and many other short stories, novellas, novels and comic books.

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Book II: Joe R. Lansdale