Black House

The grip on his ankle is crushing, paralyzing. With a cry of protest, Ty opens his eyes. This is how he rejoins the world, and our tale.

He remembers where he is immediately. It's a cell with reddish-gray iron bars halfway along a stone corridor lit with cobwebby electric bulbs. There's a dish of some sort of stew in one corner. In the other is a bucket in which he is supposed to pee (or take a dump if he has to ¡ª so far he hasn't, thank goodness). The only other thing in the room is a raggedy old futon from which Burny has just dragged him.

"All right," Burny says. "Awake at last. That's good. Now get up. On your feet, asswipe. I don't have time to fuck with you. "

Tyler gets up. A wave of dizziness rolls through him and he puts his hand to the top of his head. There is a spongy, crusted place there. Touching it sends a bolt of pain all the way down to his jaws, which clench. But it also drives the dizziness away. He looks at his hand. There are flakes of scab and dried blood on his palm. That's where he hit me with his damned rock. Any harder, and I would have been playing a harp.

But the old man has been hurt somehow, too. His shirt is covered with blood; his wrinkled ogre's face is waxy and pallid. Behind him, the cell door is open. Ty measures the distance to the hallway, hoping he's not being too obvious about it. But Burny has been in this game a long time. He has had more than one liddle one dry to esscabe on hiz bledding foodzies, oh ho.

He reaches into his bag and brings out a black gadget with a pistol grip and a stainless steel nozzle at the tip.

"Know what this is, Tyler?" Burny asks.

"Taser," Ty says. "Isn't it?"

Burny grins, revealing the stumps of his teeth. "Smart boy! A TV-watching boy, I'll be bound. It's a Taser, yes. But a special type ¡ª it'll drop a cow at thirty yards. Understand? You try to run, boy, I'll bring you down like a ton of bricks. Come out here. "

Ty steps out of the cell. He has no idea where this horrible old man means to take him, but there's a certain relief just in being free of the cell. The futon was the worst. He knows, somehow, that he hasn't been the only kid to cry himself to sleep on it with an aching heart and an aching, lumpy head, nor the tenth.

Nor, probably, the fiftieth.

"Turn to your left. "

Ty does. Now the old man is behind him. A moment later, he feels the bony fingers grip the right cheek of his bottom. It's not the first time the old man has done this (each time it happens he's reminded again of the witch in "Hansel and Gretel," asking the lost children to stick their arms out of their cage), but this time his touch is different. Weaker.

Die soon, Ty thinks, and the thought ¡ª its cold collectedness ¡ª is very, very Judy. Die soon, old man, so I don't have to.

"This one is mine," the old man says . . . but he sounds out of breath, no longer quite sure of himself. "I'll bake half, fry the rest. With bacon. "

"I don't think you'll be able to eat much," Ty says, surprised at the calmness of his own voice. "Looks like somebody ventilated your stomach pretty g ¡ª "

There is a crackling, accompanied by a hideous, jittery burning sensation in his left shoulder. Ty screams and staggers against the wall across the corridor from his cell, trying to clutch the wounded place, trying not to cry, trying to hold on to just a little of his beautiful dream about being at the game with George Rathbun and the other KDCU Brewer Bash winners. He knows he actually did forget to enter this year, but in dreams such things don't matter. That's what's so beautiful about them.

Oh, but it hurts so bad. And despite all his efforts ¡ª all the Judy Marshall in him ¡ª the tears begin to flow.

"You want another un?" the old man gasps. He sounds both sick and hysterical, and even a kid Ty's age knows that's a dangerous combination. "You want another un, just for good luck?"

"No," Ty gasps. "Don't zap me again, please don't. "

"Then start walkin'! And no more smart goddamn remarks!"

Ty starts to walk. Somewhere he can hear water dripping. Somewhere, very faint, he can hear the laughing caw of a crow ¡ª probably the same one that tricked him, and how he'd like to have Ebbie's . 22 and blow its evil shiny black feathers off. The outside world seems light-years away. But George Rathbun told him help was on the way, and sometimes the things you heard in dreams came true. His very own mother told him that once, and long before she started to go all wonky in the head, too.

They come to a stairway that seems to circle down forever. Up from the depths comes a smell of sulfur and a roast of heat. Faintly he can hear what might be screams and moans. The clank of machinery is louder. There are ominous creaking sounds that might be belts and chains.

Ty pauses, thinking the old guy won't zap him again unless he absolutely has to. Because Ty might fall down this long circular staircase. Might hit the place on his head the old guy already clipped with the rock, or break his neck, or tumble right off the side. And the old guy wants him alive, at least for now. Ty doesn't know why, but he knows this intuition is true.

"Where are we going, mister?"

"You'll find out," Burny says in his tight, out-of-breath voice. "And if you think I don't dare zap you while we're on the stairs, my little friend, you're very mistaken. Now get walking. "

Tyler Marshall starts down the stairs, descending past vast galleries and balconies, around and down, around and down. Sometimes the air smells of putrid cabbage. Sometimes it smells of burned candles. Sometimes of wet rot. He counts a hundred and fifty steps, then stops counting. His thighs are burning. Behind him, the old man is gasping, and twice he stumbles, cursing and holding the ancient banister.

Fall, old man, Ty chants inside his head. Fall and die, fall and die.

But at last they are at the bottom. They arrive in a circular room with a dirty glass ceiling. Above them, gray sky hangs down like a filthy bag. There are plants oozing out of broken pots, sending greedy feelers across a floor of broken orange bricks. Ahead of them, two doors ¡ª French doors, Ty thinks they are called ¡ª stand open. Beyond them is a crumbling patio surrounded by ancient trees. Some are palms. Some ¡ª the ones with the hanging, ropy vines ¡ª might be banyans. Others he doesn't know. One thing he's sure of: they are no longer in Wisconsin.

Standing on the patio is an object he knows very well. Something from his own world. Tyler Marshall's eyes well up again at the sight of it, which is almost like the sight of a face from home in a hopelessly foreign place.

"Stop, monkey-boy. " The old man sounds out of breath. "Turn around. "

When Tyler does, he's pleased to see that the blotch on the old man's shirt has spread even farther. Fingers of blood now stretch all the way to his shoulders, and the waistband of his baggy old blue jeans has gone a muddy black. But the hand holding the Taser is rock-steady.

God damn you, Tyler thinks. God damn you to hell.

The old man has put his bag on a little ta

ble. He simply stands where he is for a moment, getting his breath. Then he rummages in the bag (something in there utters a faint metallic clink) and brings out a soft brown cap. It's the kind guys like Sean Connery sometimes wear in the movies. The old man holds it out.

"Put it on. And if you try to grab my hand, I'll zap you. "

Tyler takes the cap. His fingers, expecting the texture of suede, are surprised by something metallic, almost like tinfoil. He feels an unpleasant buzzing in his hand, like a mild version of the Taser's jolt. He looks at the old man pleadingly. "Do I have to?"

Burny raises the Taser and bares his teeth in a silent grin.

Reluctantly, Ty puts the cap on.

This time the buzzing fills his head. For a moment he can't think . . . and then the feeling passes, leaving him with an odd sense of weakness in his muscles and a throbbing at his temples.

"Special boys need special toys," Burny says, and it comes out sbecial boyz, sbecial toyz. As always, Mr. Munshun's ridiculous accent has rubbed off a little, thickening that touch of South Chicago Henry detected on the 911 tape. "Now we can go out. "

Because with the cap on, I'm safe, Ty thinks, but the idea breaks up and drifts away almost as soon as it comes. He tries to think of his middle name and realizes he can't. He tries to think of the bad crow's name and can't get that, either ¡ª was it something like Corgi? No, that's a kind of dog. The cap is messing him up, he realizes, and that's what it's supposed to do.

Now they pass through the open doors and onto the patio. The air is redolent with the smell of the trees and bushes that surround the back side of Black House, a smell that is heavy and cloying. Fleshy, somehow. The gray sky seems almost low enough to touch. Ty can smell sulfur and something bitter and electric and juicy. The sound of machinery is much louder out here.

The thing Ty recognized sitting on the broken bricks is an E-Z-Go golf cart. The Tiger Woods model.

"My dad sells these," Ty says. "At Goltz's, where he works. "

"Where do you think it came from, asswipe? Get in. Behind the wheel. "

Ty looks at him, amazed. His blue eyes, perhaps thanks to the effects of the cap, have grown bloodshot and rather confused. "I'm not old enough to drive. "

"Oh, you'll be fine. A baby could drive this baby. Behind the wheel. "

Ty does as he is told. In truth, he has driven one of these in the lot at Goltz's, with his father sitting watchfully beside him in the passenger seat. Now the hideous old man is easing himself into that same place, groaning and holding his perforated midsection. The Taser is in the other hand, however, and the steel tip remains pointed at Ty.

The key is in the ignition. Ty turns it. There's a click from the battery beneath them. The dashboard light reading CHARGE glows bright green. Now all he has to do is push the accelerator pedal. And steer, of course.

"Good so far," the old man says. He takes his right hand off his middle and points with a bloodstained finger. Ty sees a path of discolored gravel ¡ª once, before the trees and underbrush encroached, it was probably a driveway ¡ª leading away from the house. "Now go. And go slow. Speed and I'll zap you. Try to crash us and I'll break your wrist for you. Then you can drive one-handed. "

Ty pushes down on the accelerator. The golf cart jerks forward. The old man lurches, curses, and waves the Taser threateningly.

"It would be easier if I could take off the cap," Ty says. "Please, I'm pretty sure that if you'd just let me ¡ª "

"No! Cap stays! Drive!"

Ty pushes down gently on the accelerator. The E-Z-Go rolls across the patio, its brand-new rubber tires crunching on broken shards of brick. There's a bump as they leave the pavement and go rolling up the driveway. Heavy fronds ¡ª they feel damp, sweaty ¡ª brush Tyler's arms. He cringes. The golf cart swerves. Burny jabs the Taser at the boy, snarling.

"Next time you get the juice! It's a promise!"

A snake goes writhing across the overgrown gravel up ahead, and Ty utters a little scream through his clenched teeth. He doesn't like snakes, didn't even want to touch the harmless little corn snake Mrs. Locher brought to school, and this thing is the size of a python, with ruby eyes and fangs that prop its mouth open in a perpetual snarl.

"Go! Drive!" The Taser, waving in his face. The cap, buzzing faintly in his ears. Behind his ears.

The drive curves to the left. Some sort of tree burdened with what look like tentacles leans over them. The tips of the tentacles tickle across Ty's shoulders and the goose-prickled, hair-on-end nape of his neck.

Ourr boyy . . .

He hears this in his head in spite of the cap. It's faint, it's distant, but it's there.

Ourrrrr boyyyyy . . . yesssss . . . ourrrrs . . .

Burny is grinning. "Hear 'em, don'tcha? They like you. So do I. We're all friends here, don't you see?" The grin becomes a grimace. He clutches his bloody middle again. "Goddamned blind old fool!" he gasps.

Then, suddenly, the trees are gone. The golf cart rolls out onto a sullen, crumbling plain. The bushes dwindle and Ty sees that farther along they give way entirely to a crumbled, rocky scree: hills rise and fall beneath that sullen gray sky. A few birds of enormous size wheel lazily. A shaggy, slump-shouldered creature staggers down a narrow defile and is gone from sight before Ty can see exactly what it is . . . not that he wanted to. The thud and pound of machinery is stronger, shaking the earth. The crump of pile drivers; the clash of ancient gears; the squall of cogs. Tyler can feel the golf cart's steering wheel thrumming in his hands. Ahead of them the driveway ends in a wide road of beaten earth. Along the far side of it is a wall of round white stones.

"That thing you hear, that's the Crimson King's power plant," Burny says. He speaks with pride, but there is more than a tinge of fear beneath it. "The Big Combination. A million children have died on its belts, and a zillion more to come, for all I know. But that's not for you, Tyler. You might have a future after all. First, though, I'll have my piece of you. Yes indeed. "

His blood-streaked hand reaches out and caresses the top of Ty's buttock.

"A good agent's entitled to ten percent. Even an old buzzard like me knows that. "

The hand draws back. Good thing. Ty has been on the verge of screaming, holding the sound back only by thinking of sitting at Miller Park with good old George Rathbun. If I'd really entered the Brewer Bash, he thinks, none of this would have happened.

But he thinks that may not actually be true. Some things are meant to be, that's all. Meant.

He just hopes that what this horrible old creature wants is not one of them.

"Turn left," Burny grunts, settling back. "Three miles. Give or take. " And, as Tyler makes the turn, he realizes the ribbons of mist rising from the ground aren't mist at all. They're ribbons of smoke.

"Sheol," Burny says, as if reading his mind. "And this is the only way through it ¡ª Conger Road. Get off it and there are things out there that'd pull you to pieces just to hear you scream. My friend told me where to take you, but there might be just a leedle change of plan. " His pain-wracked face takes on a sulky cast. Ty thinks it makes him look extraordinarily stupid. "He hurt me. Pulled my guts. I don't trust him. " And, in a horrible child's singsong: "Carl Bierstone don't trust Mr. Munshun! Not no more! Not no more!"

Ty says nothing. He concentrates on keeping the golf cart in the middle of Conger Road. He risks one look back, but the house, in its ephemeral wallow of tropical greenery, is gone, blocked from view by the first of the eroded hills.

"He'll have what's his, but I'll have what's mine. Do you hear me, boy?" When Ty says nothing, Burny brandishes the Taser. "Do you hear me, you asswipe monkey?"

"Yeah," Ty says. "Yeah, sure. " Why don't you die? God, if You're there, why don't You just reach down and put Your finger on his rotten heart and stop it from beating?

When Burny speaks again, his voice is sly. "You looked at the wall on t'other side, but I don't think you looked close enough. Better take

another gander. "

Tyler looks past the slumped old man. For a moment he doesn't understand . . . and then he does. The big white stones stretching endlessly away along the far side of Conger Road aren't stones at all. They're skulls.

What is this place? Oh God, how he wants his mother! How he wants to go home!

Beginning to cry again, his brain numbed and buzzing beneath the cap that looks like cloth but isn't, Ty pilots the golf cart deeper and deeper into the furnace-lands. Into Sheol.

Rescue ¡ª help of any kind ¡ª has never seemed so far away.