Dastardly Bastard(62)

“Let’s go,” Donald said, straightening his shoulders as he rose from beside Jaleel. “I’m tired of the dead. I want to find someone breathing down here.”

The passageway tapered and thinned, until it finally ended at a steel door, ages old and rusted in the corners.

“After you,” Donald told Mark. The big guy grabbed the massive loop set in the door and tugged hard. It didn’t budge.

“That sucked,” Mark said, rubbing his arms. “Maybe we should all try. You’re cool, Lyle. There’s not enough room in here for all of us.”

Donald grabbed the loop; he was just tall enough to reach it on his tippy toes. He wasn’t sure how much help he would be, but he was going to try. Trevor rounded Mark and took hold of the loop on the other side.

“One… two… three!”

The door didn’t exactly open so much as it almost crushed them. The hinges gave with a ghastly squeal. Donald released the loop and jumped back, covering his ears as the metallic cacophony echoed through the passageway. Mark and Trevor were able to sidestep out of the way of the falling door. Lyle was leaning against a wall ten feet away, drying his eyes. He had never been in any danger.

Mark was the first one in, then Donald. Trevor and Lyle brought up the rear.

“Holy shit,” Mark whispered. The big guy stepped to the side.

Donald felt his breath stop in his throat. The room was forever large. Padded walls covered in stick figure drawings and scrawled poetry rose up into infinity. Donald didn’t know if there was such a thing as reverse vertigo, but he was quite sure that was what he was feeling. Instead of that sick, dizzy feeling at the threat of a tumble, he was energized, sucked into the room by a gravity that defied reasoning. He should have been terrified, but the only emotion he felt was one of all-encompassing sadness. That, combined with the burst of energy in his core, made for one hell of an odd feeling.

The thrumming began again, making Donald’s chest vibrate. It was the same noise he’d heard when the monster chased them through Bay’s End. Obsidian waves of sound poured over them. Donald realized he was listening to a heartbeat.

“Justine!” Trevor screamed, bolting for the middle of the room and looking up at the ceiling.

Donald followed the guy’s gaze, focusing in on the wraithlike vision hovering fifty feet overhead. Justine’s head was tilted back, her arms extended as if she’d been crucified. She spun slowly, around and around, a tar-like substance pouring from the sides of her face like black waterfalls. The viscous fluid splashed down onto the padded floor, soaking into the material and disappearing.

“What the hell’s wrong with her?” Trevor asked, spinning himself, trying to follow her movements.

Donald wanted to answer him, give the guy some help, but he was overwhelmed by the feeling that they were too late. He imagined a battery set inside a flashlight’s base, the cell giving the device power to work. Only what had become of Justine was a glaringly obvious opposite. The shadows coming off of her were the result of the power. The Bastard was using her to create the black. Not light. Donald remembered Jaleel’s dried up corpse and no longer wondered what had happened to him.

“Justine!” Trevor cried again.

The sight of him broke Donald’s heart. They had to do something.

But what?

“The good ones,” Mark said from beside him.

“What?”

“Think about Sunne, your girlfriend who died. Think about her.” Mark bent and grabbed Donald by the lapels. “Damn it, Squirt! Think! What power do we have? What helped us back inside that house?”

“Sunne? What does she…” But Donald was already seeing her. She bled through the padded wall across from him. She seemed far away, but became more real as she crossed the seemingly infinite room. Sparkling, she left a trail of glowing mist in her wake.

Donald felt Mark release him. Had he not, Donald would have broken his grasp, anyway. Donald bounced as he ran, the padded floor tossing him up and down as if he were in one of those bouncy castles at a kid’s party.

“Can you help?” Donald called.

Sunne was still a football field away, but he heard her loud and clear. “You memories not enough, Donald.” Her smile was sad, but it was still a smile. He loved how it looked on her face. Sunne’s eyes twinkled just as they had in Central Park that day way back when. It seemed like a lifetime ago, but he was going to use it.

“Mark!” Donald said. “Where’s your fucking army?”

“Right!” Mark put his palms to the side of his head and appeared to concentrate hard. His lips moved, but Donald couldn’t decipher what he was saying. People began pouring in all around them.

Trevor was still too focused on his floating, possessed girlfriend to see the approaching horde of soldiers, but Lyle wasn’t. Donald saw the idea pop into the boy’s head. He imagined the expression to be the same as Wendy’s when Peter Pan convinced her she could fly.

“Mom! Dad!” Lyle yelled. The boy screwed his eyes closed.

Good boy, Donald thought. Very good!

Donald turned back to Sunne. She was only a few feet away from him.

“Is this enough?” he asked.

“We see.”

“What do we do now?” Mark called.

“Get the Bastard.” Donald had wanted to sound tough, but his voice cracked.