Bethany's Sin

TWENTY-FOUR

IN ROOM 36

The wide halls of the Mabry Clinic were spotless. How does the saying go? Evan thought as he walked, Laurie's hand in his. So clean a baby could eat off the floor. Yes. that was it. Tiles gleamed beneath the circular ceiling lights; the walls were two-toned, flat pale green and beige. On many of the walls hung framed original oil paintings or watercolors: sailboats running before a breeze, bright yellow daisies in a sun-dappled field, two puppies with wide, innocent eyes, a wistful clown playing a flute. Antiseptic odors wafted through the hallways: soap smells, detergent smells, Lysol smells.

It was Saturday afternoon, and beyond the air-conditioned halls of the clinic the sun scorched Bethany's Sin, softening pitch on the roofs of the buildings in the Circle, glancing off windows in rays of solid heat, shimmering above the ground like burning tides. Evan could feel sweat drying on his face, and his shirt slowly separating from the skin on his back.

Dr. Mabry had told him the day before, Kay's first day, that there were five full-time nurses at the clinic and five ladies who worked part-time in the afternoons, but now the place seemed deserted. Many of the rooms on either side of the hall were open; there were empty beds, blankets folded at the bottom. Yesterday Evan had seen two patients: a man lying on his back in bed, staring at the ceiling, in Room 36, and a pregnant woman in Room 27. She'd been watching "The Price Is Right" on her television, and had stared quietly at Evan as he'd walked past her open door. But there were closed doors as well, with INTENSIVE CARE and POST OP and SURGERY in burnished metallic letters.

Kay was in Room 30, a nice room at the front of the clinic with a wide window and beige curtains. The afternoon before, she'd wanted to come home and had started to climb out of bed, asking Evan and Laurie to help her get dressed, saying that nothing in the world was wrong with her and she was missing too many of her classes. But a slim young black nurse had come in to take her blood pressure, and Kay had been told rather severely to get back into bed.

Immediately.

In her book-lined office on Friday afternoon, Dr. Mabry's gaze had been cool and direct across the black blotter-topped desk.

Possibly by Monday or Tuesday, she'd replied when Evan had asked what day his wife could come home. We're not finished with our tests by any means, she'd said, and it takes time to evaluate them.

And if we do find something, we'll recheck ourselves to make certain, of course.

Do you suspect anything in particular? Evan had asked her.

Please, she'd said. Let's wait until the results are in, shall we?

"Here we are," Evan told Laurie, and rapped on the door marked 30.

"Come in." Kay sounded tired.

Inside, Evan's first impression was that, yes, Kay was looking worse. Her eyes seemed to be retreating into her head, and they'd taken on a sharp, shiny look, as if they were bits of polished glass.

Her cheekbones protruded now, as if the flesh were tightening around her skull.

"Hi there," Kay said, and smiled at both of them.

"Hi," Laurie said softly. Uneasily.

"Come here and give me a kiss." Kay sat up against the pillows, held her daughter to her; Laurie kissed her on the cheek. "Are you being a good girl?"

Laurie nodded. "How are you feeling?" Evan said, sitting beside her on the bed and taking her hand.

"Fine, just fine. Nothing's wrong with me. Have you talked with Dr. Mabry?"

"Yesterday afternoon, after I left you."

"What did she say?" Evan told her, and she shook her head.

"Those tests are pointless; they're not going to show anything. All they're doing is sticking me with a few needles and taking my blood pressure at all hours of the night. At two o'clock this morning that nurse gave me the most horrible thing I ever drank in my life. It looked like orange juice, but it was just awful."

"Do the shots hurt?" Laurie asked.

"Like bee stings," Kay said. "Not too bad."

"How's the food?" Evan asked her. She looked as though she hadn't eaten a bite in a week.

"Okay. A little chalky-tasting. But my nurse, Mrs. Becker, went over to the delicatessen for me last night and brought back a pastrami sandwich. She said if Dr. Mabry found out she'd be in real trouble because I'm supposed to be on a special diet. For the tests, you know."

"Laurie and I both miss you," he said, squeezing her hand. "A lot."

"It's nice to know you're missed," Kay said, and smiled.

Evan caressed the back of her hand, where he could see blue veins snaking underneath statue white skin. "I have to ask you something," he said quietly. "Do you remember anything of what happened Thursday night?"

A shade passed briefly across her eyes. She lay her head back.

"I remember putting Laurie to bed around nine. I went to bed a little before eleven. And then the lights were on and Dr. Mabry was standing over me."

"Nothing else? Please, think hard."

She shook her head. "No, nothing else."

Evan leaned forward, held her gaze with his own. "That's not what you told me before. You were drugged and sleepy, and you were telling me that you'd been dreaming...."

"Dreams!" Kay said, so harshly that Laurie blinked, stepped away from the bed. "No one in the world puts so much faith in dreams as you do, Evan! For God's sake!"

"You spoke a name," he continued, still holding her hand.

"Oliviadre. Do you know who that is?"

"Of course I don't."

"I do," he said calmly. "it's the woman you see in those dreams.

And more. It's who you are in them."

She looked at him incredulously, but he could see in her face the fear and the realization that he'd nicked the dark, shapeless thing that passed for truth in Bethany's Sin, drawing yellowish ichor. For a long while she was silent, her eyes flickering nervously over toward where Laurie stood. "Yes," she said finally. "In my dreams I'm a woman called Oliviadre. But what difference can that possibly make?"

"What kind of woman is she?"

"A...warrior of some kind," Kay said. "Proud. Merciless. For God's sake, listen to me! I'm talking like she really exists!"

"You said something else, Kay. That Oliviadre wouldn't let you free; that she's too strong now...."

"I never said anything like that!" Kay said sharply.

He paused for a moment, watching her. "Yes. You did."

"She's not real, damn it!" the woman said, not caring now what Laurie heard or saw. "She's a shadow, not flesh and blood! What's wrong with you, Evan? Are you losing your - " She stopped abruptly, her mouth already curled around the word.

"My mind?" he prompted. "Losing my mind? No. Now listen to me. don't turn your face away! Listen!" She looked at him with the eyes that had flamed in the darkness of their bedroom. "Something terrible is happening in this village. Don't say anything, just listen!

There are forces in this place, Kay, forces I don't understand and never will, but by God I'm afraid for all of us. When this terrible thing gathers itself, it won't come only for me but for you and Laurie as well." He gripped her shoulders and peered into her face. "Believe me this time Kay. Please believe me."

Her eyes were hooded. She said very quietly, "You're frightening Laurie."

"I want to make you believe!" he said, and she recoiled slightly because his eyes had been wild for the briefest instant and his voice lay on the cracking edge. "I'm afraid that they've. already done something to you, and we've got to leave here before it's too late!"

"Evan," Kay said softly. "Evan, let me go. Let me go, please."

"No!" Evan hissed. "I won't let you go! They're killers, they're all killers, and somehow they're making you into what they are!You attacked me with a knife, Kay! And you never knew what you were doing because you weren't in control! Don't you see? It wasn't you!"

"Daddy!" Laurie said, grasping at his arm. "Mommy doesn't like this!"

"They're all like the woman in your dreams!" Evan said. "All of them!"

"Daddy!" Laurie whined. "Please let go!"

"Yes," Kay said quietly, her tone hollow and weary. "Let go of me."

He stood over her a moment longer, seeing that she thought the fear inside him had finally and irreversibly brought him to the edge of the abyss. He released her, put his hand to his forehead; the bandaged wound on his head was throbbing. "This isn't like the other times," he told her. "I've talked to Doug Blackburn, and I know now what they are..."

Kay drew the sheet around her, stared at him vacantly as if finally the remnants of love she'd felt for him had been scattered by the winds of reason. She was wondering what to do about him: he'd never gotten really violent before, or anything like that, but still it worried her that Laurie would be in the house alone with him. No!

No! she told herself. This is my husband standing here; this isn't some damned stranger! He's kind and good and wants only the best for us, but...dear God, Evan needs help. He needs help so badly.

"don't turn away from me," he said, window-blind-striped sunlight across his face. "I need you now more than I ever have. Just let me in a little bit. Just admit to me that this...this thing in your dreams is - "

"No!" Kay said, and winced at the vulnerability in her own voice. Her mother hadn't raised her to be weak; her mother had taught her the virtues of reason and common sense to shut out the demons that came in the night bearing doubts and fears and superstitious. And that's how she'd always planned to raise Laurie.

"No," she told the man who stood before her. "You're wrong."

There was nothing more he could say. Kay .turned her head, held her hand out for her little girl. "We're going to have to get you registered for real school in a couple of weeks," Kay said. "Won't that be fun?"

Laurie nodded, her eyes still wide.

Evan left the room abruptly, his head throbbing dully. His shoes clattered in the spotless hallway. There was a water fountain up ahead somewhere, and he needed to clear out the ashen taste in his mouth. He found it, drank, and then stood over it with his head bowed, like a man awaiting the executioner. Or executioness? As he walked back along the empty corridor with its mindlessly cheerful pictures, he saw that one of the doors was cracked slightly open.

Room 36, where he'd seen that man the day before. He paused, almost walked on, paused again; looked up and down the hallway and then approached the room. And standing before the door he felt a sharp, tingling in his veins, his vision was beginning to mist, quickly, quickly, as it had that day he'd almost run Kathryn Drago down. He tried to step away, found instead that he was stepping forward purposefully, his hand coming up.

And then he was in the room - into a wall of light that streamed thick and hot through a window. As he stared, stared, stared, the light faded quickly until the heat had cooled and the room lay in the grip of darkness.

There was a wheelchair, empty, in a comer of the room. Three figures. Two women standing, a man lying naked on the bed, arms and legs spread-eagled, wrists and ankles strapped. One of the women was taping the man's mouth shut so he couldn't scream, and above that white slash of adhesive tape, his eyes were bulging from his face in stark horror. A grinning oil-painted figure hung framed above the bed, dangling a spider from red nailed hands. The second woman held an ax. Double edged and gleaming, catching the blue light that night cast on the walls like dripping paintings done by a darker hand. The man thrashed, veins standing out on his neck. His eyes rolled back, whitened. The woman reached out and touched his penis, fondled it lovingly, touched the testicles, and then lifted the ax.

The man's body arced.

The ax fell.

Droplets of blood were flung across Evan's face. Flesh blued and withered, and one leg rolled off the bed, severed at the knee.

The ax rose. Fell again.

The other leg jerked; gouts of blood flowed across the sheets.

Evan opened his mouth to scream, and droplets of blood dripped down, thickly and slowly, to his chin.

And when he blinked and tried to step backward, the light increased, flooding in until he realized it was not blood on his face, no not blood not blood, but rather drops of sweat. Through the window the fierce August sun clawed at his flesh. August is our killer month, Mrs. Demargeon had told him a long time ago. In the room the bed was neatly made, covered with a white spread. No wheelchair. He stepped out quickly, closed the door behind him, and stood leaning against the wall, for a moment, one hand pressed to his face.

God. God in Heaven.

He'd recognized the man on the bed.

Himself.

They're not wrong, he told himself. My premonitions are never wrong, and now they've taken me over, growing more and more insistent. Warning me. Warning me that this is what could happen.

No! Yes. This is what could happen to you if you don't take Laurie and get her away from this village. What about Kay? What if you're wrong and she's really ill? They'll come for you in the night.

Burning blue eyes: the merciless gaze of the Amazon. No no no no!

His mind reeled, and he thought for an instant that his knees would buckle there in the clinic corridor. Losing my mind losing my goddamned min! Hold on. No no no! Hold on. I cannot leave Bethany's Sin while Kay is sick! The image of Harris Demargeon casting off those legs slashed his brain like a jagged-edged razor. Of course. This is where they did it, in the clinic. And this is where they'd bring him when they were ready to cripple him to keep him from ever escaping Bethany's Sin. Yes. Dr. Mabry had brought Kay here for two purposes: to prevent him from seeing the terrible woman thing that was crawling out to wear her body like a robe of flesh, and to prevent him from leaving the village before they were ready. And when the thing called Oliviadre had taken over Kay, they'd come for him in the night. And Laurie? What would they do with Laurie?

A hand reached for him. Clasped his shoulder. "Mr. Reid?"

He spun around.

Dr. Mabry's eyes searched his face. "Aren't you feeling well?"

"I'm fine," he said quickly.

"You look a little pale," she said.

"I felt dizzy for a minute. I'm okay now." She paused, her hand still gripping his shoulder. "I hope so. I was just on my way to tell you that your wife has some more tests scheduled for this afternoon.

It might be best if you and your daughter went home." She smiled, dropped her hand. "I'm sorry because I know how much you enjoy visiting with her."

"Will she be able to come home on Monday?"

"I think we can safely say that by Monday she'll be at home on McClain Terrace," the woman said.

Evan looked into her eyes. Haunted. Themiscrya was haunted.

The smile stayed in place. "We'll be running our last tests in the morning. Mrs. Reid may be under some medication, so it may be best if you..."

Haunted. Themiscrya. Bethany's Sin?

"...just plan on calling Monday morning. If anything comes up, I'll let you know then. All right?"

He nodded. Haunted. Both haunted. Themiscrya, then.

Bethany's Sin, now.

"Good," Dr. Mabry said.

Evan ran a trembling hand across his face.

"You look tired, Mr. Reid. I have something you could take that would help you..."

The queen, Laurie was saying inside his skull; the real queen.

She lives in a big castle....

"...sleep," Dr. Mabry said.

Dr. Drago.

"Can I prescribe some of those pills for you?" she asked him.

He finally was able to focus on her. "No," he said. "I'm fine. I'd better go get Laurie now, and take her home."

"Yes." Shifting shadows across her face. "That might be best."

Evan thanked her, turned away, walked back to Kay's room.

"We're leaving now," he told the little girl, and took her hand.

"Where did you go?" Kay asked him.

"Just down the hall." He stood framed in the doorway, Laurie beside him. "Don't worry about me," he said, managing a tight smile.

"I'm not going off my rocker."

"I never said you were," she replied nervously.

"You didn't have to. But I want you to know one thing, whatever happens. I love you. I always have, and I always will.

You're a strong, special person; God knows, you're a stronger person than I've ever been. Just remember that I love you, alright?"

"Evan..." Kay began, but it was too late. Her husband and child were gone.

In the car on the drive home, Laurie sat very still on the seat next to her father. "I hope Mommy gets all better," she said. "She's so sick."

"She'll be better," Evan said hollowly. Home by Monday, Dr.

Mabry had said. Yes. But would it truly be the Kay Reid he'd just left in that clinic room?

"Mommy acts funny," Laurie said softly. "Will she be okay when she gets home?" He reached over and pressed his daughter close to him. Tiny objects had begun to glitter behind his eyes.

Silverish and yellow. Stained with bits of dirt, like Eric's dead grin when he turns his face from the fire. Evan accelerated slightly; they'd turned onto McClain Terrace, and now he drove past their house without even glancing at it.

"Daddy!" Laurie said. "You're passing home!"

"Well," he said easily, "I thought we'd drive out. to the Westbury Mall, princess. I thought maybe you could use an ice-cream cone."

"Oh, yes. I could. I wish Mommy could be with us."

"I want to get something from the hardware store, too," he said.

And then he was quiet as they turned away from Bethany's Sin.

Because he'd already decided what had to be done. For the sake of his sanity. For the sake of knowing whether the Hand of Evil had scuttled spider-like through Bethany's Sin or if it had grasped his mind in a death grip and there would never, never be any escaping it again. For the sake of knowing whether either the things inhabiting Bethany's Sin or he should die beneath God's stern, wrathful eye.

What the hell are human teeth doing lying around in the landfill? Neely Ames had asked him at the Cock's Crow.

Thank God the moon would be out tonight, Evan thought.

There would be enough light to dig by.