William Krueger - The Devil's bed

Beneath the change of name, Nightmare came across a certificate of valor awarded to Thorsen by the U.S. Secret Service. Near the bottom of the box was a packet of letters bound together with string. They were all sent by the same woman, someone named Robin, from a D.C. address. They chronicled a distant courtship dance that ended when, in her final communication, the woman claimed to agree with Thorsen that a relationship was impossible for two people dedicated to a career in the Secret Service. The postmarks were nearly a decade old.

The final item Nightmare drew out was an old sheet of lined, three-hole paper, the kind a kid might have had in a high school notebook. Carefully centered on the paper and written in capital block letters were three observations.

1. THE WORLD IS HARD. BE STRONG.

2. LOVE IS FOR ONLY A FEW. DON’T EXPECT IT.

3. LIFE ISN’T FAIR. BUT SOME PEOPLE ARE. BE ONE OF THEM.

Nightmare wasn’t certain of the significance, but he appreciated the sentiments. He put everything back into the box in the way he’d found it and returned the box to its place under Thorsen’s bed. Then he sat down to consider what he’d learned.

Thorsen was a loner. He had no bowling trophies, no pictures of a softball team. He had only two chairs for dining and kept only basic dishware. Thorsen didn’t entertain much. Except for the letters from long ago, there was nothing to suggest romantic involvement. A man wedded to his job, Nightmare concluded. His small television and his large book collection indicated he preferred reading when he wanted to relax. His taste in books was eclectic, though not particularly original. Still, it suggested a thinking man, someone who might be willing to use an unorthodox approach in tackling a problem, and the fact that he read so widely in fiction suggested a fertile imagination. He had a tragic background, had suffered a painful loss at an impressionable age that left him without family. Although he’d managed to put together a life that had integrity and purpose at its heart, nothing about him seemed to trumpet happiness.

The similarities between his own life and Thorsen’s were not lost on him. He felt a faint affection for the man, a rare thing for Nightmare. But that wouldn’t keep him from killing Thorsen if he had to.

Nightmare had followed the agent to St. Peter the previous night and knew that Thorsen was now at the state hospital. Nightmare had taken the opportunity to better explore the nature of the man; the more he knew about an adversary, the less likely he was to be surprised. He’d come to Thorsen’s home because he knew that a home held secrets. Uncovering those secrets took him a long way toward understanding the enemy. It was a lesson he’d learned very young and in a horrific way.

• • •

It took Nocturne years to realize the monstrous secret of what lived above him in the old farmhouse.

By then, he had created, at his grandfather’s direction, many more explosive devices. He liked the work. It was a game that tested both his mind and the steadiness of his hands. The devices had become increasingly complex and more powerful. Some the old man took and dealt with himself. Others, Nocturne was called upon to plant, usually at night, often after a long ride with his grandfather in the pickup truck. The old man said almost nothing on those drives, yet he seemed pleased with his grandson’s labors, and Nocturne, sitting beside the silent, white-haired man, felt proud of himself. The bombs he built destroyed things, but his grandfather had explained that those things were worthy of destruction. He’d given Nocturne reams of paper to read, his own scribbled manifestos. Sometimes he visited the basement and vented his theories of conspiracy. Even though Nocturne could easily see that his grandfather’s arguments were riddled with logical fallacies and fueled by hate, he held his tongue. The old man seemed to value Nocturne’s work and his company. Sometimes his grandfather would fix him with a steely gaze and quote from Proverbs, “Iron sharpens iron, and one man sharpens another.” The words made Nocturne feel connected to the old man, important in his eyes.

The basement door was almost never locked anymore. Those nights when Nocturne heard the padlock slipped into the hasp and snapped into place, he wondered: Had he done something wrong?

From his reading, he’d come to believe that the essential mechanism of the universe was cause and effect. Everything existed as the result of one thing that triggered another that triggered another that triggered another. He believed that if one were diligent enough, one could trace back to an ultimate source the reason for all things. Although he often indulged in rumination on the broader considerations of existence, just as often he applied his thinking to more specific matters. The locked door, for example.

He was sixteen when he set out one night to discover the reason the basement door was periodically (and randomly, it seemed) locked. Winter lay around the farmhouse deep and still. A storm had just passed, and snow was piled against the outside walls, drifted taller than a man, sealing in Nocturne and his mother and grandfather. For no reason that Nocturne could discern, the old man had slapped the lock in place before going to bed. When the house above was quiet, Nocturne stripped naked, rolled his clothing in a bundle that he tied to a rope looped about his ankle. He worked his way up the laundry chute, out the opening in the second-floor bathroom, and hauled up his clothes. When he was dressed, he stepped into the hallway. He’d walked the old house at night so often he knew exactly where to step to avoid the loose, noisy floorboards, and he slipped silently down the hallway. He stopped at the old man’s room and listened. Inside, all was quiet. He carefully opened the door a crack. Although the curtains were drawn and the room lay in inky dark, Nocturne could see that the bed was empty. He closed the door, wondering. When he came abreast of the door to his mother’s bedroom, he heard a familiar sound, the harsh suck and sigh of air from his grandfather when the old man was laboring hard. That the sound came from his mother’s bedroom was bewildering to Nocturne. He reached for the knob. The metal was cold in his hand. He eased the door open. Although he knew he risked revealing his secret freedom, his curiosity was too great.

The storm had left in its wake a clear, brittle sky shattered by a glaring moon. The curtains were drawn back. Moonlight thrust through the window and slashed across his mother’s bed. Nocturne stared, unable to comprehend what he saw.

She lay on the bed, naked. Above her waist, she was in darkness, but moonlight splashed over her narrow hips, making the damp skin of his grandfather, who’d wedged between her legs, glisten like melting ice. The old man was bent over her, his pelvis in rapid motion. Nocturne’s mother lay rigid, staring at the ceiling above her, her eyes sightless as stones.

Nocturne had read about sex. He understood it as he did many things, in a distant, literal way. The gritty reality before him defied his comprehension, and he stood in the doorway, dumb with confusion. He must have made a noise, for his mother’s eyes fell on him, and she caught her breath with an audible gasp.

The old man stopped his thrusting and looked where she looked. He considered a moment, then pulled back from the woman. He climbed off the bed and stepped toward Nocturne. His penis was erect, huge and wet. His eyes were black, sharp and penetrating. “I suppose you’re old enough,” he finally said. He looked back at his daughter. “You want her, after I’m done, you take her.”

“No,” she cried, weeping. “God, no.”

The old man stepped back to the bed and slapped her across the face. “You’ll do as I tell you.”