“You’re out, man,” she said. “Out of the band, out of my life.” Keith sighed and ran his fingers through his hair, no surprise, nothing he hadn’t known was coming, but it hurt anyway, hurt too much for him to respond. And then Mort was filling up the doorway, red cheeks, and he didn’t even glance at Keith. “I’m doing what I can, Dar, but this dude’s really steamed,” and she nodded, and he was gone again.
She lit another cigarette.
“I can’t sleep,” he said. “I just can’t sleep anymore, not since…” and she nailed him silent with her eyes, stabbed two fingers and her cigarette at his chest, “You’re a fucking junky, Keith. Period. You are a goddamn fucking worthless-ass junky bum, and I’m tired of listening to your bullshit excuses. We can’t count on you, and it is over.”
Outside the doorway, the darkness shifted, but it was only Theo, bristling like a terrier on speed, wanting a piece of him, too, a big, juicy piece, and Daria told her to fuck off and get in line, take a number.
“You’re a real fuckup,” Theo said to him anyway. “You make me sick,” and then she left before Daria told her to.
“This is such a goddamn waste,” Daria said, that sound in her voice that meant she’d cry if she could.
“I can’t sleep anymore,” he said again, because he had to say something, because he could handle the junk, and she knew it. “Just tell me you’re not having nightmares, too,” and the anger getting into his voice past the pain and loss and self-loathing, and she stared at him, a smoky question mark curling above her fingers.
“Yeah, Keith, I have nightmares. Is it any fucking wonder I have nightmares? Everything we’ve worked our asses off for just crashed and burned out there.”
“And it’s my goddamned fault! Yeah. I know, Daria, I know,” and he stood up so fast he almost hit his head on the low ceiling, the Gibson clasped in both hands like his baseball bat before a fight and it smashed against the concrete wall, spinning plexiglass volume and tone control knobs, bent vibrato arm whizzing by an inch from Daria’s face. Busted black pickguard and the neck cracked loud and snapped off the body of the guitar. He held it out to her, the whole thing bound together now by nothing but the strings, steel and nylon ligaments binding broken bone, dropped it at her feet.
“I’m sorry,” he said, fury spent so fast and a shudder through him at the sight of the damage, the ruin, part of himself dead and lying in a heap on the floor. She didn’t say anything, just stared at the shattered guitar, and now there were tears, swelling and escaping the corners of her eyes, bleeding down her face, wet streaks over the shock.
He pushed his way around her, out into the hall, the darkness waiting for him, confident, and there was Mort, like a blockade, Theo right behind him.
“Hey, where are you going? Don’t you think we’ve got some talking-”
“You know I owe you everything, man,” Keith said, “I owe you, and I’m never gonna make that up, so you need to just get the hell out of my way now.”
Mort hesitated, long enough to read the rest of it in Keith’s gray eyes, the threat and regret, before he stepped aside, one arm protectively around Theo, and let him go.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
1.
W ord of mouth, questions whispered and answers, and so Byron knew that Spyder and her new girlfriend had gone to a show in Atlanta. That the house was empty-no, the house was never empty, but she wasn’t there, and he might not ever get another chance. Knew he only had so much time left, his time slipping away like the crimson sand through the Wicked Witch’s hourglass. And the days and nights had become worse than his fear of the house, of whatever lay coiled underneath, what he and Robin and Walter had awakened like stupid, noisy children. Worse than his fear of whatever guarded Spyder and kept tabs on him, too. The eye-corner lurkers, the dream haunters, and it was better to go and be done with it. One way or another, be done with it.
He’d tried to find Walter for days, but no one had seen him, no one knew anything or at least they weren’t willing to tell him, if they did. He could hardly blame them, the way he looked, like a fucking street person, the way he smelled, because he was afraid to go home long enough to shower and change his clothes. His eyes the worst, because he could never sleep for more than ten or fifteen minutes at a time before he snapped wide awake and sweating. Anyway, Walter had probably left the city, run off somewhere safe (if anywhere was safe) and left him alone, the way he’d let them go to the house alone the night of the storm and the beginning of the end of the world.
He’d waited until after dark, drinking cup after bitter cup of coffee at the Steak and Egg because Billy would refill his cup for free, would slip him a Danish or a slice of apple pie. He took pink hearts with his coffee and waited until there was no day left in the sky, no moon up yet, either. Just Venus and a couple of stars, the sky so clear and indigo tonight.
“You should go home,” Billy had said, soft concern, honest pity, filling his coffee cup again, and Byron had nodded his head, as if he was agreeing. And so Billy had said, “Promise me you’ll go home and get some rest tonight, Byron. A bath and a shave would make you feel so much better. Just promise me you’ll at least do that, okay?” And Byron had nodded again, because it was easier and made Billy smile cautiously and go back to work.
But instead he followed the dusk-stained streets up Red Mountain, house by house, toward Cullom Street. Except he’d learned something, and this time he wouldn’t be walking up to the front door, bold and dumb, no way. This time he took Sixteenth Avenue, instead, and finally left the street, blocks from Spyder’s house, traded asphalt for the dry-cereal crunch of fallen leaves beneath his shoes, twig snap, and the naked craggy trees reaching for him all around. Safer this way, because he could hear them better, always just out of sight, but their erector-set legs as loud as his feet in the woods. He could tell the skitterers were trying to keep in step with him, to cover their pursuit in the sound of his own footsteps, but there were too many legs, too many needle hairs to scrape against tree bark, leather bellies dragged, raked along, and Byron kept speeding up and slowing down, walking tightrope on fallen logs when he could.
Slowly making his way up the mountain, rough angle that he guessed would take him close to Spyder’s overgrown backyard. The cold air made his chest ache, aching legs, but he kept moving, stumbling over chert and sandstone boulders like scabs sticking up through the leaf mould, bits of bone showing through the forest’s decay. And the dark as thick as the frigid air, until the moon slipped up over the ridge and bled its satin light through the trees, three-quarters full so he could see, could see that he’d wandered past the house and would have to double back.
He stood still and stared down, between the trees and briars, at the roof of Spyder’s house. Off to his left, something big moved fast, crawling forward three or four quick feet before it stopped and was silent, too.
“I know you’re out there,” he said, loud enough so anyone could hear, and turned around, nothing there, of course, but he spoke into the woods, anyway, because he knew they heard him, spoke slow and certain words and the rust-jagged edge of ephedrine and exhaustion and anger in his voice.
“Why don’t you just come on if you want me? Are you afraid? Are you fuckers afraid of me?” and he laughed at the skitterers, not an act, really laughed at them, skulking back there out of sight like roaches.
“Maybe you can’t stop me. Is that it? Maybe you can’t do anything but creep around and watch.”