Every Dead Thing

Woolrich didn’t answer. Instead, he ran the blunt edge of the scalpel down Rachel’s arm. “Have you ever wondered how skin so thin…can hold so much blood in?” He turned the scalpel and ran the blade across her scapula, from the right shoulder to the space between her breasts. Rachel did not move. Her eyes remained open, but something glittered and a tear trickled from the corner of her left eye and lost itself in the roots of her hair. Blood flowed from the wound, ru

“Look, Bird,” he said. “I think the blood is going to her head.”

His head tilted. “And then I drew you in. There’s a circularity to this which you should appreciate, Bird. After you die, everybody is going to know about me. Then I’ll be gone-they won’t find me, Bird, I know every trick in the book-and I’ll start again.”

He smiled slightly.

“You don’t look very appreciative,” he said. “After all, Bird, I gave you a gift when I killed your family. If they had lived, they’d have left you and you would have become just another drunk. In a sense, I kept the family together. I chose them because of you, Bird. You befriended me in New York, you paraded them in front of me, and I took them.”

“Marsyas,” I said quietly.

Woolrich glanced at Rachel. “She’s a smart lady, Bird. Just your type. Just like Susan. And soon she’ll be just another of your dead lovers, except this time you won’t have long to grieve over her.”

His hand flicked the scalpel back and forth, tearing fine lines across Rachel’s arm. I don’t think he even realized what he was doing, or the ma

“I don’t believe in the next world, Bird. It’s just a void. This is Hell, Bird, and we are in it. All the pain, all the hurt, all the misery you could ever imagine, you can find it here. It’s a culture of death, the only religion worth following. The world is my altar, Bird.

“But I don’t think you’ll ever understand. In the end, the only time a man really understands the reality of death, of the final pain, is at the moment of his own. It’s the flaw in my work, but somehow, it makes it more human. Look upon it as my conceit.” He turned the scalpel in his hand, dying sunlight and blood mingling on the blade. “She was right all along, Bird. Now it’s time for you to learn. You’re about to receive, and become, a lesson in mortality.

“I’m going to recreate the Pietà again, Bird, but this time with you and your lady friend. Can’t you see it? The most famous representation of grief and death in the history of the world, a potent symbol of self-sacrifice for the greater good of humanity, of hope, of resurrection, and you’re going to be a part of it. Except this is the anti-resurrection we’re creating, darkness made flesh.”

He moved forward again, his eyes terrifyingly bright.

“You’re not going to come back from the dead, Bird, and the only sins you’re dying for are your own.”

I was already moving to the right when the gun fired. I felt a sharp, stinging pain in my left side as the aluminum-bodied syringe struck and I heard the sound of Woolrich’s footsteps approaching across the wooden floor. I lashed out at it with my left hand, dislodging the needle painfully from my flesh. It was a huge dose. I could already feel it taking effect as I reached for my gun. I gripped the butt hard and tried to draw a bead on Woolrich.

He killed the lights. Caught in the center of the floor, away from Rachel’s body, he moved to the right. I found a shape moving past the window and I loosed off two shots. There was a grunt of pain and the sound of glass breaking. A finger of sunlight lanced into the room.

I worked my way backward until I reached the second hallway. I tried to catch a glimpse of Woolrich but he seemed to have disappeared into the shadows. A second syringe whacked into the wall beside me and I was forced to dive to my left. My limbs were heavy now, my arms and legs propelling me with difficulty. I felt as if there was a pressure on my chest and I knew I would not be able to support my own weight if I tried to rise.

I kept moving backward, every movement a huge effort, but I felt certain that if I stopped, I would never be able to move again. The creaking of boards came from the main room and I heard Woolrich breathing harshly. He barked out a short laugh and I could hear the pain in it.

“Fuck you, Bird,” he said. “Shit, that hurts.” He laughed again. “I’m going to make you pay for that, Bird, you and the woman. I’m going to tear your fucking souls apart.”

His voice came to me as if through a heavy fog that distorted the sound and made it difficult to tell distances or direction. The walls of the hallway rippled and fragmented, and black gore oozed from the cracks. A hand reached out to me, a slim, female hand with a narrow gold loop on its wedding finger. I saw myself reach out to touch it, although I could still feel my hands on the floor beneath me. A second female hand appeared, flailing blindly.

bird

I backed away, shaking my head to try to clear the vision. Then two smaller hands emerged from the darkness, delicate and childlike, and I closed my eyes tightly and gritted my teeth.

daddy

“No,” I hissed. I dug my nails into the floor until I heard one crack, and pain coursed through the index finger of my left hand. I needed the pain. I needed it to fight off the effects of the ketamine. I pressed down hard on the injured finger and the pain made me gasp. There were still shadows moving along the wall, but the figures of my wife and child had gone.

I was conscious now of a reddish glow bathing the hallway. My back struck something cold and heavy, which moved slowly as I pressed against it. I was leaning against a half-open reinforced steel door, with three bolts on its left side. The central bolt was a monster, easily an inch in diameter with a huge open brass lock hanging from it. Red light seeped out from the crack in the door.

“Birdman, it’s almost over now,” said Woolrich. His voice sounded very close now, although I still could not see him. I guessed he was standing at the very edge of the corner, waiting for me to finally stop moving. “The drug is going to stop you soon. Throw the gun away, Bird, and we can get started. The sooner we start, the sooner we finish.”

I leaned back harder on the door and felt it give fully. I pushed back with my heels once, twice, a third time, until I came to rest against a set of shelving that reached from ceiling to floor. The room was lit by a single red bulb, which hung unshaded from the center of the ceiling. The windows had been bricked up, the brickwork left uncovered. There was no natural light to illuminate the contents of the room.

Opposite me, to the left of the door, was a row of metal shelving, perforated bars holding the shelves in place with screws. On each shelf sat a number of glass jars, and in each jar, glowing in the dim red light, lay the remains of a human face. Most were beyond recognition. Lying in the formaldehyde, some had sunken in on themselves. Eyelashes were still visible on some, lips bleached almost white on others, the skin at their edges tattered and torn. On the lowest shelf, two dark faces lay almost upright against the glass, and even though they had been violated in this way, I recognized the faces of Tante Marie Aguillard and her son. I counted maybe fifteen bottles in front of me. Behind me, the shelving moved slightly and I heard the sound of glass knocking against glass and the slick movement of liquid.

I raised my head. Row upon row of bottles reached up to the ceiling, each bearing its faint, white, human remains. Beside my left eye, a face leaned against the front of a jar, its empty eyes gaping, as if trying to peer into eternity.