Clive Barker - Sacrament

'Oh,' said the woman softly. 'I'm so sorry.'

'What for?'

'You lost a child,' she said. 'We've lost several, Jacob and I. You never get over it.

'... Jacob?' Hugo murmured, and in that instant knew to whom he was speaking. A wave of feeling passed over him that he could not quite identify.

'Yes, it's us,' the man said softly, sensing that they'd been recognized.

Relief, Hugo thought. That's what I'm feeling, I'm feeling relief. The waiting's over. The mystery is here; or at least a means of access to it.

'This is Rosa, of course,' Steep said. Rosa made a comical little curtsey. 'Now ... shall we all be friends, Hugo?'

'I ... don't ... know.'

'Oh, I know what you're thinking. You're thinking about Delbert Donnelly. She was responsible for that and I'm not going to mislead you on the matter. She can be cruel sometimes, dangerous even, when she's roused. But we've paid the penalty for that. We've had thirty years in the wilderness, not knowing where we were going to lay our heads from one night to the next.'

'So why did you choose to come back here?' Hugo said.

'We have our reasons,' Jacob said.

'Tell him,' Rosa prompted. 'We came back for Will.'

'I can't-'

'Yes, we know,' Jacob said, 'you don't speak to him and you don't care to.'

'That's right.'

'Well ... let's hope he cares more for you than you do for him.'

'What's that supposed to mean?'

'Let's hope he comes running when he hears you're in trouble.'

'I hope that's not a threat,' Hugo said, 'because if it is-'

He didn't see the blow coming. There was no flicker in Steep's eye, no indication, however slight, that his civil chat was now over. One moment he was smiling, all courtesy, the next he struck Hugo such a blow it threw the man five yards.

'Don't do that,' said Rosa.

'Shut up,' Jacob said, and going to where Hugo lay sprawled, picked up the stick that the old man had brandished two minutes before. While Hugo moaned at his feet, he examined the stick, moving his hands up and down its length to get its heft. Then he raised it above his head and brought it down on Hugo's body, once, twice, three times. The first blow won a yell of agony. The second a moan. The third, silence.

'You haven't killed him, have you?' Rosa said, coming to Jacob's side.

'No, of course I haven't killed him,' Jacob replied, tossing the stick down beside its owner. 'I want him to hang on for a while.' He went down on his haunches beside the wounded man. With a solicitousness that would have shamed a doctor, he reached down and lay the back of his fingers against Hugo's cheek. 'Are you with me, my friend?' he said. He rubbed his fingers back and forth a little. 'Hugo? Can you hear me?' Hugo moaned pitifully. 'I'll take that as a yes, shall I?' Jacob said. Again, the man moaned. 'So here's the plan,' Jacob said. 'We will be leaving very soon, and if we don't call somebody to come and find you, there's a better than average chance that you'll be dead before dawn. Do you understand what I'm telling you? Nod if you understand.' Hugo made a barely perceptible nod. 'Good enough. So. It rests with you. Do you want to die here under the stars? Nobody's going to be coming by here tonight, I suspect, so you'll have the place to yourself.' Hugo tried to speak. 'I didn't understand that, I'm sorry. What did you say?' Hugo made a tiny sob. 'Oh now ... you're crying. Rosa, he's crying.'

'He doesn't want to be left alone,' Rosa said. 'That's a big thing with you men,' she complained. 'You're like kiddies half the time.'

Jacob returned his attention to Hugo. 'Did you hear that?' he said. 'She thinks we're kids. She doesn't know the half of it, does she? She doesn't know what we go through. But I'm assuming she's right. You don't want to be left alone. You want us to find a telephone and have somebody come and find you. Is that right?' Hugo nodded. 'That I will do, my friend,' he said. 'But here's your side of the bargain. I don't want you saying a word to Will. Do you understand me? If he comes to see you and you tell him anything about us, what you're feeling right now - the pain, the panic, the loneliness - will be as nothing beside what we will do to you. Do you hear me? As nothing. Nod if you understand.' Hugo nodded. 'That's good. You needn't agonize about this. He's ... what did you call him? ... a self-promoting queer? You're not his number one fan, obviously. Whereas I ... I am devoted to him, in my way. Isn't that strange? I haven't seen him in thirty years, of course, so I may not feel the same...' his voice trailed away. He sighed, and stood up.

'Lie very still,' Rosa advised him. 'If you've broken your ribs, you don't want to puncture a lung.' Then, to Jacob, 'Are you coming?'

'Yes.' He looked straight down at Hugo's face. 'Enjoy the stars,' he said.

i

The morning after the love-feast Will woke on the living-room floor, having apparently slid from off the sofa where he'd made a nest of the clothes he'd stripped off the night before. He felt like shit. His entire body ached, even his teeth and tongue. His eyes burned in their sockets. He got to his feet, somewhat unsteadily, and made for the bathroom. There he doused his face in cold water, and then looked at himself in the mirror. The calm and clarity that had been such a revelation the previous afternoon were gone. The face he was looking at was just a rag-bag of weary particulars: pallid skin and red-rimmed eyes and furlined mouth. What the hell had he been up to? He vaguely remembered there being some dispute with Drew, but he had no idea what it had been about, much less how it had been resolved, if indeed it had. Clearly he'd been out on the town, and to judge by the state of his body it had been quite a party. He had scratches on his back and chest; bite-marks on his shoulders. And there was more damning evidence still between his legs: a dick and balls so red-raw they might have been massaged with sandpaper.

'Question one:' he said, looking down at his groin, 'what the fuck have we been doing? And question two: who the hell do we need to apologize to?'

When he ventured into the bedroom, of course, he was confronted with chaos. The air was rank with rotting food, and stale vomit, the floor a rubbish heap. He stood in the doorway, surveying the carpet of remnants, while tantalizing flashes of how the celebration here had come to an end entered his head. He'd crawled on all fours through this muck, hadn't he? puking like an over-fed Roman in the Vomitorium. And out in the hallway, where there was blood and broken glass, he'd cut his foot while he was hauling himself to the top of the stairs

What had happened after that? His mind refused to confess. Rather than rack it for answers, he left the fragments of recollection along with the rubbish, where they lay, and closing the bedroom door, he went to shower. There was a pattern here, he thought, of sleeping, and waking to visions, and showering, and waking again, as though the cycle of diurnal duties had been turned to the purpose of Lord Fox. A canny trick, this: to use the safest rituals of his domestic life to make him shed his assumptions. Washing himself proved a delicate business - the soap and water found broken skin he hadn't noticed - but he emerged feeling a little better. He was in the process of drying himself when somebody rapped hard on the front door. He wrapped a towel around his middle and headed for the stairs, stepping gingerly past the glass as he went. The rapping came again, and with it Adrianna's voice:

'Hey, Will? Will? Are you in there?'

'I'm here,' he said, opening the door to her.

'Your phone's not working,' she said. 'I've been calling for the last hour. Can I come in?' She peered at him as she entered. 'Boy did you ever have a late night.' He led the way into the kitchen.