John Saul - The Devil's Labyrinth

Then his fingers brushed against the coarse bricks behind him.

They felt real.

He looked at his hands.

They looked real.

He curled his fingers into fists, and then relaxed them.

It was all real.

He sank to the sidewalk, trying to figure out what had happened to him. Where was he? How had he gotten here? And why was he here, wherever “here” was?

He looked down the dark, deserted street. A neon bar sign was glowing halfway down the block, but other than that all he saw were the stoops in front of a series of old brownstone houses. But not nice ones like the ones on Beacon Hill or in the Back Bay.

These looked more like slums.

And it felt late. After midnight? He couldn’t tell.

He rose back to his feet and moved slowly along the narrow city sidewalk, looking for landmarks — anything recognizable. But nothing looked familiar.

How could he have gotten here? He searched his memory, but the last thing he could really remember was eating pancakes for breakfast in the dining room at St. Isaac’s.

And he’d felt a little dizzy. He’d headed back to his room, but…

The memories tumbled through his head now. Hot! He’d felt so hot he thought his flesh was being seared right off his bones.

And all around him, vivid colors had pulsated, colors so vivid he could not only see them, but feel them, every nerve in his body tingling and vibrating.

And voices! Guttural, garbled sounds in a language he didn’t understand, but the meaning of which he’d understood.

Then the things — horrible, impossibly hideous creatures — had come. Even now, in the darkness of the empty street, they rose out of his subconscious to taunt him, their lips twisted, their burning eyes leered.

In the darkness of the night, he felt the same urge to flee he’d felt this morning.

Was that what had happened? Had it been some kind of nightmare that he’d tried to flee from? But if he’d been asleep, and dreaming, how had he gotten to these empty streets he’d never seen before?

Unless this was the dream, and in a minute he’d wake up, and be back in his room at school and Clay Matthews would be asleep in the other bed.

The things were back now, all around him, and he ran his hands over his face, sweating even in the cool of the night.

A drunk stumbled out of the bar and Kip shrank into a shadowed doorway, his vision suddenly blurring as if he were looking through a greasy window. He rubbed his eyes, but the blurriness remained.

Then the strange dizziness he’d felt this morning struck him again, and he clung to the brick wall, fighting the vertigo.

The man wandered toward him, singing softly to himself, and Kip watched from the shadows, a strange hunger growing inside him.

He wanted something — craved it.

But what?

The guttural voices were jabbering again, and, in the blurred periphery of his vision, Kip glimpsed the demons reaching toward him, wanting to touch him, to tear at him.

To devour him.

No!

His right hand slid into the deep front pocket of his cargo pants, his fingers closing on a hard object. A second later he was staring at a knife.

A large knife with a bone handle, into which was folded a thick blade.

He’d never seen the knife before — he was sure of it — but he knew what to do.

He pressed a small button on the knife’s haft, and the blade flicked out, locking instantly into place.

He tested it with the thumb of his left hand, and watched as blood began to ooze from a deep cut.

A searing pain shot through his hand and up his arm.

The voices of the demons gurgled with pleasure.

He stepped out of the shadows and into the path of the drunk. The man slowed and looked puzzled for a moment. His bleary eyes focused on the knife, then shifted to Kip’s face.

Even in the dim glow of light from the streetlamp at the corner, Kip could see the blood drain from the man’s face. Seeming to sober in an instant, the man wheeled around, shambled down the sidewalk, and disappeared back into the bar.

Kip peered down at the knife, still glistening with his own blood. Clutching it tighter, he turned and started the other way. Toward the end of the block, light flooded the sidewalk as someone emerged from one of the brownstones. Then the light was gone, and a figure came down the steps from the house’s stoop.

Kip slipped into the shadows, sweat flowing from his face.

The figure turned and began to walk away from him. A woman with a small dog on a leash.

Kip stepped out of the shadows and started after her, his footfalls silent in the night.

Somewhere on the edges of his consciousness he heard a sound, a soft wailing.

Like the sound the woman might make when he plunged the knife deep into her belly.

His step quickened, and, as the wailing grew louder and he closed in on the lone figure ahead of him, his fingers tightened around the handle of the knife.

The woman paused as the dog stopped to lift his leg on a fire hydrant, and suddenly sensed that she wasn’t alone on the street. She turned, looking full into his face. Kip saw her eyes widen, and the blood drain from her face as it had from the drunk only a few minutes ago. Then, as the wailing grew into the screams of sirens, the woman backed away, then turned to flee.

Too late.

Kip caught up with her, his left arm snaking out, his fingers closing in on her hair. He yanked her backward and she fell against his body.

Now there was a strange red and blue glow pulsing in the darkness, and the sirens continued screaming.

A moment later, voices were howling at him, and Kip froze.

The dog’s barking rose out of the melee around him, and the woman, too, began to scream.

Pulling her head back even farther, Kip’s right hand rose as if from its own volition and then the blade was ripping across the woman’s throat. In an instant her screams died away to nothing more than a wheezing gurgle and blood spewed from the gaping wound the blade had opened. Her knees buckled and as she sank to the sidewalk, Kip sank with her. He was on his knees now, crouching above the woman. She lay on her back, her glazing eyes staring up at him.

The sirens fell silent.

He heard the sound of car doors slamming.

Voices — real voices — shouted into the night.

Kip heard nothing as the demons in his head urged him on. He raised the knife and plunged it deep into the woman’s chest.

Her body shuddered reflexively.

Kip raised the knife again.

He felt something slam into his back, and heard a loud popping sound.

The knife arced down again, sinking into the woman’s belly. As the blade sliced through her stomach and intestines, another bullet slammed into Kip.

This time, though, it wasn’t his back the bullet hit.

This time it was his head, and in the instant it shattered his skull and entered his brain, blackness descended over him.

He pitched forward, surrendering his soul to the demons inside him, and his body dropped on top of the woman he’d just killed.

The street — and the demons inside Kip — fell silent.

H E WAS BACK on the floor of the boys’ restroom at Dickinson, curled up in a fetal position, bracing himself for the next kick. Only it wasn’t just Stan Wojniak and Bennie Locke this time. Frankie Alito was there, too, along with three other guys, and all of them were kicking him, their shoes thudding into his sides and smashing his face. Even the walls seemed to be closing in on him, and there was no place to hide, and more guys were around him, and then he saw the knives.

First in Alito’s hand, and then in Locke’s, and then they all had knives, and they were closing in on him, and his heart was pounding so hard he could hear it, and he opened his mouth to scream but nothing came out and—