57
Billy Creekmore was watching The House on Haunted Hill on TV in his room at Chicago's Armitage General Hospital when Bonnie Hailey knocked softly at the door and came in.
"Hi," she said. "How're you doin' today?"
"Better." He sat up and tried to make himself presentable by running a hand through his unruly hair. His bones still ached, and his appetite had dropped to almost nothing. Sleep was a confusion of nightmares, and in the television's blue glow Billy's face looked ghostly and tired. He'd been in the hospital for two days, suffering from shock and exhaustion. "How about you?"
"I'm fine. Here, I brought you somethin' to read." She gave him a copy of the Tribune she'd bought down at the newsstand. "Helps to pass the time, I guess."
"Thank you." He didn't tell her that every time he tried to read, the lines ran together like columns of ants.
"You okay? I mean ... are they treatin' you right around here? Everybody at the institute wants to come over, but Dr. Hillburn says nobody can come for a while. But me, that is. I'm glad you wanted to see me."
It was late afternoon, and the last rays of sunlight were slanting through the blinds beside Billy's bed. Dr. Hillburn had spent most of yesterday with him and had been there this morning as well.
"Did Dr Hillburn call Hawthorne like she promised she would?" Billy asked.
"I don't know."
"I haven't heard from my mother for a while. I want to know if she's all right." Billy remembered the shape changer's mocking singsong: Your mother's dead, the cowboy came and sheared her head.
Bonnie shrugged. Dr. Hillburn had told her not to mention Billy's mother. The owner of a general store in Hawthorne—the number Billy had said to call—had told Dr Hillburn that Ramona Creekmore had perished when her cabin had caught fire in the middle of the night. Embers stirred by the wind in the hearth, the man had said. The place went up quick.
"I'm so tired," Billy said. Had a dark cloud passed over Bonnie's face, or not? His brain was still teeming with the emotions and memories he'd absorbed in the Alcott Hotel; he realized he had narrowly escaped death from the shape changer. The beast hadn't been able to crack his mind or erode his determination, but Billy shivered when he thought of that burned corpse dragging itself slowly through the ashes toward him. Had it been another mental trick, another assumed shape, or did the beast have the power to animate the dead as if they were grisly puppets? There had been utter hatred—and grim desperation—burning in those hollow eye sockets. When the shape changer had given up that husk of crisped flesh, the red glint of its eyes had extinguished like spirit lamps. And where was the beast now? Waiting, for another chance to destroy him?
They were going to meet again, somewhere. He was sure of it.
"Dr. Hillburn told me the people at the television station have a video tape," Billy said quietly. "They're keeping it locked in a safe, but they showed it to her yesterday. It shows everything. Me, the revenants in the room . . . everything. She said it shows some of the revenants being drawn into me, and some seeping into the walls. She said they're trying to decide whether to show the tape on TV or not, and they may do a documentary on the institute." He remembered the charge of emotion in Dr. Hillburn's voice as she'd told him other parapsychologists were going to want to see that film, and to meet him, and that very soon his life was going to change. He might not stay in Chicago, she'd said; Chicago—and specifically the institute—might be for him just the first step in a long, arduous journey. Dr Hillburn's eyes had been bright with hope.
Pain stitched across Billy's forehead. His body felt like a damp rag. "I wonder if there's a piano somewhere around here," he said.
"A piano? Why?"
"I like to play. Didn't I tell you? There's a lot I want to tell you, Bonnie. About my family, and about something called the Mystery Walk. I'd like to show you Hawthorne someday. It's not much, but it's where I was born. I'll show you my house, and the high school; I'll show you the trails I used to wander when I was a kid. I'll take you to a place where a creek sings over the rocks, and where you can hear a hundred different birds." He looked up at her, hopefully. "Would you like that?"
"Yes," she replied. "I ... I think I'd like that. A lot."
"It won't take me long to get well." His heartbeat had quickened. "I want to know the things that are important to you. Will you take me to Lamesa sometime?"
Bonnie smiled and found his hand under the sheet.
"Do you think a cowgirl could get along with an Indian?" he asked her.
"Yep. I think they could get along just fine."
Someone screamed from The House on Haunted Hill. It startled Bonnie, but then she laughed. It was a sound that warmed Billy's bones as if he were standing before a fireplace. Suddenly he was laughing too; then she leaned close to him, those strange and beautiful eyes luminous, and their lips gently touched. Bonnie pulled back, her face blooming with color—but Billy cupped his hand behind her head and this time their kiss was long and lingering.
"I'd better go," Bonnie said finally. "Dr. Hillburn wanted me back before dark."
"Okay. But you'll come back tomorrow?"
She nodded. "As early as I can."
"Good. Will you say hello to everybody else for me? And thanks for coming to see me. Thanks a lot."
"Get your rest," she said, and kissed him lightly on the forehead. At the door, she paused to say, "I do want to see Hawthorne with you, Billy. Very much." And then she left, while Billy grinned and stretched and dared believe that everything was going to be just fine.
She's dead, she's dead, the cowboy came and sheared her head.
I'll be waiting for you.
When a nurse brought in his dinner at five-thirty, Billy asked about finding a piano. There was one up on the fourth floor, in the chapel, she told him—but he was supposed to lie right there and get plenty of rest. Doctor's orders.
After she'd gone, Billy picked at his dinner. He paged through the Tribune for a while and then, restless and troubled, he put on the robe the hospital had provided and slipped down the hallway to the staircase. He hadn't noticed a heavyset Mexican orderly who'd been mopping the corridor outside his room. The man put aside his mop and took a beeper from his back pocket.
On the fourth floor, Billy was directed to the chapel. It was empty, and an old piano stood next to an altar with a brass crucifix. The walls were covered with heavy red drapes that would muffle sound, but he closed the chapel doors. Then he sat down at the piano as if gratefully greeting an old friend.
What came out was a quiet song of pain, made up of the emotions he'd drained from the revenants at the Alcott Hotel. It was dissonant at first, an eerie melody that advanced up the keyboard until the high notes sounded like strident human voices, but as Billy played he felt the terrors begin to leave him. Gradually the music became more harmonious. He ended only when he felt cleaned out and renewed, and he had no idea how long he'd been playing.
"That was nice," a man standing near the door said. Billy turned toward him and saw he was an orderly. "I enjoyed that."
"How long have you been there?"
"About fifteen minutes. I was out in the hallway and heard you." He smiled and came along the center aisle. He was a stocky man with close-cropped brown hair and green eyes. "Did you make that up yourself?"