“Then I heard voices,” she continued. “His at first, when he got on top of me. His breath, I—I could feel his breath on me and it made me want to vomit, I wanted him off of me and away from me but I couldn’t stop him. He kept saying these odd things and his voice was distorted, like in a dream, only… only then there were other voices too. Voices of torment, of people screaming and wailing in agony and all of it swirling around us like a whirlwind, it…” A tremor coursed through her and she took another greedy drag on the cigarette. “And then I saw things no human being should ever have to see. Things I can never erase from my mind. Things beyond comprehension, beyond description.”
Like I had seen when the woman had grabbed my arm in the abandoned factory, I thought, the visions of depravity and gore that had surged through me, as if summoned directly from Hell then injected into me through her.
“I can tell from your expression that you think I’m out of my mind,” she said.
“No, Julie, I don’t.” One of her hands was resting on the table. I reached out tentatively and let my hand touch hers. “I don’t think that at all.”
She slowly slid her hand free from beneath mine but seemed to understand it had only been an attempt at comforting her and nothing more. “You don’t just go on with your life after something like that. You don’t just pick up and move forward as if nothing ever happened, as if you never saw or experienced those things. Oh, you try, but it doesn’t work, the denial doesn’t take. It lingers like a foul odor. It clings to you the way perspiration clings to your skin. And slowly, eventually, like the slow drip of water torture, it drives you insane.”
I believed her, fearful that in looking at her I was glimpsing my own future.
“One of the strangest things about everything that happened that day,” she mumbled, that distant look returned to her face, “was that in a way, he seemed afraid too, kind of like he wasn’t sure of it yet, of what he had, of what he could do. It was like he had this genie in a bottle, and he’d let him loose, only he didn’t have total control, he didn’t have complete command yet.”
“So he was experimenting with—what—Satanism, or something?”
“Or something,” she said. “It’s not as simplistic as people think.”
“What isn’t?”
“Good, evil—all of it.” Julie pushed her chair away from the table, stood up and motioned first to the books between us and then to the crucifixes hanging in the windows. “Those are my reality, my beliefs, so they protect me. I’ve read and studied as much as I can since that day and all I know is that there’s a force in this world we can’t just dismiss as a bad dream. It crosses all boundaries: age, race, religion, gender, culture—all of it. But there’s also a force of positive energy—of good—you just have to seek it out. Evil is always there, like a loyal companion; see what I mean? It’s always available to us, always there, waiting, tempting. The only thing evil requires is consent. You don’t have to sacrifice, you don’t have to deprive yourself of anything, you just do; you just take it. Good’s there too, but you have to search a little harder, dig a little deeper to find it. Good requires that you look beyond yourself, it does require sacrifice, thought, awareness of something greater, better than all of us.” She wandered to the sink, fired her cigarette into the basin then ran the water. The butt extinguished, she turned and leaned back against the counter, facing me again with those sad, telling eyes. “And hanging on to it is a whole other story.”
“Did you ever see him again?” I asked.
“Every day. Every night. Every time I closed my eyes. Every time my mind wandered, it led me back to him. To that frail little boy, to those woods.” She shook her head and seemed to snap out of the trancelike fog that had enveloped her earlier. “It was only a matter of time before he took it to the next level. I knew what he did to me wouldn’t be enough later on, the more consumed he became. Before me, there were probably other steps—maybe he tortured animals or molested children in the neighborhood or God knows what else before he was able to do what he did to me. From there, killing was the next step. I knew sooner or later the bodies would start piling up, and the more I researched, the more I read and tried to learn about all that Bernard was and what he was still becoming and would eventually become, the more it all made sense. Read the papers, watch the news—there’s a commonality in the crimes happening—and it’s existed since the dawn of humanity. Do you think that’s an accident?”
“I don’t know,” I said. “But even if it isn’t… isn’t it just human beings being…”
“Themselves?”
“Yes.”
“You think I’m one of those do-gooders who believes no one is responsible for the shit they do? Do I strike you as that sort, Alan? You think I went through the torture of my life—and continue to—because I believe everyone’s innocent, everyone’s just a puppet to some grand evil no one can help themselves against? The Devil made me do it, right? The Devil made me do it.”
I stood up, wiped a single trickle of sweat from my eyebrow with the back of my hand and asked, “Then what are you saying?”
“If you take the Devil’s hand, it’s still your fault, it’s still your choice, and you’re still to blame for whatever happens, for whatever you do, for whatever that evil causes in you.” Julie moved closer, as if she wanted to be certain I heard what she was going to say next. “But just because you’re to blame doesn’t mean the Devil was never there.”
“He once told me the Devil spoke to him,” I said.
“Maybe you should’ve believed him.”
An odd moaning sound echoed from the hallway. Adrian’s slurred, distant, indecipherable voice seemed to beckon.
“Is he all right?” I asked.
Julie nodded. “We all chase away bad dreams in our own way. He’s trying to kick it. I did more than two years ago now. I met Adrian in rehab, ironically enough. We don’t have much, just each other, but that’s more than a lot of people have.”
“I’m sorry.” The words were out before I had a chance to stop them.
“Don’t be sorry for us, Alan. Feel sorry for yourself. You’re the one in the dark now. We’re the meek, just waiting on our inheritance. Burn the days and survive the nights.”
“Honey?” Adrian called, his voice breaking and on the verge of tears.