"What buddy?"
"Deke."
Army Jacket's eyes were black as beetles. "He ran away. He could blow this joint any time he wanted to."
"Sure. And he didn't invite you to run away with him. A goon like him needs a brainless sidekick. It's hard to picture Deke out there in the real world, getting by on his wits."
"Don't be a smartass."
"Somebody around here better be smart. Because we're in trouble."
"What the hell is this 'ghost' stuff?"
"Ghosts are what got Deke. Down in me basement."
"Bullshit. That's baby crap."
Dipes stuttered in the presence of his tormentor, but managed to say, "Wuh-we had those treatments. Now we can see through the walls."
Army Jacket snickered. "I had me treatment, too, and I'm not crazy yet. Unless they're giving you some pills or something. If they are, I want some."
"Ghosts aren't real," Isaac said.
"Oh, yeah?" Freeman said, pointing to the wall on the far side of the dorm. "Try telling her that."
Against the painted cinder blocks, flickering like the image cast by an old film projector, the woman without eyes smiled her dead smile.
TWENTY-EIGHT
Bondurant stepped back from the window. Dawn was still an hour away, and he knew he'd be unable to sleep until the sun rose. No matter how much he drank.
Since fleeing the basement, he'd wandered the halls of Wendover, flashlight in hand, trying to forget what he'd seen. Or what he thought he'd seen. The memories were blurred now, softened by Kentucky bourbon and that trick of the night that allowed you to delude yourself.
Now he was checking out the dark rooms on the second floor where classes and group sessions were held. All the rooms were empty.
No, not empty. The stink of something strange clung to the shadows, and a couple of times he'd seen movement from the corners of his eyes. But when he turned his head, the fluttering shapes evaporated.
Bondurant sat in one of a circle of chairs and flipped off the flashlight to save batteries. He closed his eyes and felt for the chair beside him. Kids sat here and tried to solve their problems, trapped in this evil church of psychology, with an overly educated counselor serving as minister. If Bondurant had his way, the little sinners would bend in prayer instead, talking to God instead of each other.
Bondurant felt for the flask in his coat pocket, pulled it out and twisted the lid free. He held the flask in the air.
"The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want," he said. The words bounced off the cinder block walls.
He put the flask to his lips, tasting the sting of liquor around the rim. He drank, but only a few drops remained. He pushed his tongue against his teeth and took a deep breath. Wendover's air was full of dust and dead things.
The bourbon was gone. He was alone.
"I don't have a problem," he said to the dark room.
That's what they always say. He'd read enough case files to know that even young children could become alcoholics. But Bondurant wasn't an alcoholic. Alcoholics had problems with drinking, and he had no problems. He occasionally sinned, but his sins were forgiven because someone had died for them. Someone else's blood had washed those sins away.
The solution was so simple that he could never understand why the psychological establishment didn't embrace it with joy.
His head swam too much to wrap completely around the angry thought and he slumped in his chair. This was his church, he realized. Not a church in the way the Baptists built them, strong and expensive, like military bunkers. This was a mental church, standing under a steeple of his own solitude and power.
Out there, in the real world, he was nothing but a suit and a handshake. Even at his expensive home in Deer Run Estates, he was just a shadow passing between the furniture, no more substantial than the photograph of his ex-wife that rested on the mantel. Here at Wendover, he was important. He had value. He was admired and appreciated, even loved.
Loved by the weak, and by those he tried to lead to salvation. Those who sat in this circle of chairs.
His group.
Lost in the blackness.
"What would Jesus do?" he asked the silence. No one answered. Some group this was. You come in expecting to be understood but all you got were stupid stares.
He spoke louder now, a preacher at the lectern. "Jesus would say, 'Take another drink,' mat's what Jesus would say."
"Sounds good to me," came a voice from the darkness.
Bondurant shuddered himself alert, thinking he'd drifted into unconsciousness. "Who said that?"
"Me," said the voice.
Bondurant's hand trembled around the flashlight. He put his thumb on the switch, but was afraid to see the thing that had spoken. It was a female voice, calm and doomed and coming from a chair across the circle. He wondered if it was the woman with the smiling scar, the one who had disappeared into the wall. She had never spoken, though, except with her eyes. This one had a voice.
It couldn't be one of the staff He would have heard the door open, and the halls were all lit by faint security fixtures. No one had entered. Except through the walls, or maybe down from the sky. Or up from the floor. From the deadscape.
"You're not supposed to be in here," Bondurant said.
"I belong here."
"Who are you?"
"Me."
Bondurant's pulse pounded against his skull. He was drunk and dreaming, that was all. He wasn't sitting here talking to nobody. "I'm Francis," he said.
Three voices came in unison from the darkness. "Hello, Francis."
He groped for the flask again, then remembered it was empty.
"Do you have a problem, Francis?" came one of the voices, this one from his left, a female voice scratchy from cigarettes.
He looked at the window, a square of lesser gray against the black. He prayed for sunrise. The Lord would deliver. That was one of His favorite tricks, tempting the Faithful with despair and fear. But Bondurant's faith was strong.
"I don't have a problem," he said, surprised that his voice was steady.
"Sure," came a man's voice two chairs from Bondurant's right. "None of us got problems. Only solutions, right?"
"Amen," said the woman across the circle.
"Wait a minute," Bondurant said. "You guys are talking about my drinking, right?"
"Ah, so you admit it. That's the very first step."
"Step," he said. "I'm not going anywhere."
"We understand, Francis," said the scratchy woman. 'We've been there. We know what it's like."
Bondurant wanted to stand and stagger for the door, but his legs were limp. He wiped the sweat from his palms onto his slacks. His necktie was choking him, and he struggled for breath. The room with its invisible walls and invisible people seemed to grow smaller.
"Leave me alone," he shouted.
"We can't," said the man. "We love you too much."
"I have the love of the Lord," he said. "I don't need yours."
"Ah, so you accept a higher power. That's another step toward healing."
Bondurant found the strength to rise, though his legs quivered like saplings in a thunderstorm. "I don't need to be HEALED."
Silence.
Bondurant clenched his fist around the flashlight, ready to lash out.
The woman across the circle whispered, "So much anger. So much pain. Francis, you don't have to fight it anymore. Just surrender."
He sat again, slumped, defeated, scared.
The man spoke from darkness. "We know it's hard. You're under a lot of pressure. All these brats to take care of, who wouldn't need a drink?"
Bondurant put his head in his hands and nodded.
"Social Services breathing down your neck all the time, fund-raisers, a board of directors to please, everybody expecting you to keep on smiling no matter how much shit they feed you," said the scratchy woman, only she was no longer to his left, she was standing behind him.