"You mean what month?"
His voice echoes. I wonder if it’s the room or my brain.
"Yes."
"It’s late March."
"No, but…" It takes a great effort to speak, and I have difficulty keeping my eyes open. "How long—"
"You’ve been with us for a hundred and forty-one days."
"No, it can’t be that—"
"You know what they say. Time flies."
I suspect he’s lying to me. It seems impossible that almost five months have elapsed since I came to this island. It feels more like a week.
"Where are the girls?" I ask. "Did I dream they were here?"
"Andy, let’s hold off on the questions for now, okay? Humor me, and I’ll fill you in on everything afterwards. Agreed?" I nod. "Wonderful. So how are we feeling?"
"Like I’ve just woken up from a long nightmare. But I feel like I know you very well."
"Oh, you and I have spent lots of time together."
Rufus reaches down and lifts a piece of paper from underneath his chair.
"I’m going to show you a picture. I just want you to react."
He holds the photo up in front of his chest. For some strange reason, laughter wells up inside of me. But I stifle it, because the photo shows Luther, tearing into someone with an ax. Rufus sets the photograph facedown in his lap.
"Answer me honestly, Andy. When you saw this picture, did you fight the urge to laugh?"
"No."
"No?"
"No."
He grins. "Bullshitter. May I assume you believe in good and evil?"
"Yes."
"And to whose value system do you bow down?"
"I don’t bow down to anything. A universal standard of behavior exists, and whether or not you choose to follow it, everyone who isn’t insane knows there’s an accepted right way and wrong way of treating each other."
"Accepted? I don’t accept it. Just because the majority of human beings believes something, does that make it so? Let me ask you this. Do you believe in God?"
"I um… No."
"No? Well, then if you’re an atheist, please explain to me who created this ‘universal standard of behavior’ as you call it?"
"I don’t know."
"Let me help you. I’ve spent my life probing this question, and far as I can tell, a person can honestly believe one of two things. Either that there’s a God who created in all of us this innate universal standard of right and wrong. Or that there is no right and wrong except that which you fashion for yourself."
"And you believe the latter."
"Oh yes."
"Because that helps you rationalize the disgusting things you and your family do to people?"
Rufus smiles.
"Sadly, I speak only for myself when I say this. The infliction of pain is hardly the goal. What you would deem evil—the taking of life, the creation of suffering—these things are not the goal. Recreating values, thinking beyond good and evil, overcoming illusions so that we as a species can continue to evolve—that is the goal."
Rufus leans forward and pats my knee.
"I want to share with you my vision. We may never see it in our lifetime, but it will happen. I call it the Great Regression.
"Imagine: suddenly, unexpectedly, war breaks out on every level. International. Interstate. Intercity. Interfamily. Madness, hell, horror, and all that constitutes evil erupts and overspreads the globe like a virus of rage. Most of the world’s population dies as mankind unleashes every urge that has been suppressed over the span of its civilized evolution. Cities burn. Men murder their families and themselves. Armies attack their citizenry. The Regression could last years, but I have a hunch that the rage will be such that a month’s time is sufficient to bring mankind to the brink of extinction.
"But in the end, when the smoke has cleared, a small core of human beings will remain. They’ll have survived not only the malice of others, but the malice of themselves. They’ll have been the hardest, sharpest, cruelest, wisest. And amid the devastation, they’ll start a new world, no longer based on the fear of what lies in man’s heart, but on the elevation of man and his ideas. They will be magnificent, they’ll be gods, and the things they do will be wondrous and beyond our understanding."
Rufus leans back, glowing.
"Think you’d survive the Great Regression?" I ask.
"I’ve thought about that, and I don’t think I would. I’m not hard enough. But I want you to know that I’m very hopeful for you, Andy. I think you have it in you to see beyond the illusions. You know, as much as I tinker with your mind, I really can’t reprogram your value system. God knows, I’m trying. But I’ve got a good feeling about you."
Rufus puts in his teeth and pulls a pipe from his breast pocket. Then he rises and walks across the room to a small bookcase beneath the window that I hadn’t noticed before. He stoops down, lifts the glass lid from a jar of tobacco, and pinches just enough to pack his pipe.
"I’m surprised you haven’t asked about these," he says, motioning to a row of leather-bound journals. "Orson’s treatise is here. I should let you read it some time. You know, your brother was my only success story."
He’s puffing away, blowing smoke rings through smoke rings, as he returns to his chair. The room fills with the rancid sweetness of tobacco smoke. My heart pounds.
"What are you talking about? Orson—"
"Happened to Luther? Oh, no. We most certainly happened to him."
I straighten up in my chair. The grogginess evaporates. My hands tremble. Head throbs.
"I can see this is upsetting you, Andy. Should we talk about it another time?"
"Don’t fuck with me."
Rufus exhales a long stream of smoke.
"It’s been almost twenty years," he says. "It was summertime. My God, Luther was only fourteen. Maxine and I were walking along the beach south of Ramp 72, headed toward the southern tip of Ocracoke. It was windy. Sand blowing around like crazy, the sun liquid red as it sank into the dunes. It’s gorgeous out there. Soft white sand, far as the eye can see.
"At the end of the island, we came across this young man sitting in the sand, staring out across the inlet toward Portsmouth. He looked thoughtful and lonely, and I walked up to him and asked if he’d take a picture of Maxine and me. He obliged us. Your brother was such a sad young man, Andy. We got to talking. He told me he’d just quit college. I don’t know what was wrong with him. Depression probably. Whatever it was, I don’t think he’d have lasted much longer.
"I asked what he was doing on Ocracoke. Said he didn’t know. That he’d just been driving around from place to place, had never seen the Outer Banks, and so decided to come here on a whim.
"My wife, being the sweet angel that she is, invited him for dinner. He said no at first, but I could tell he was desperate for the company. We finally convinced him.
"Had a lovely dinner that night. Afterwards, Orson and I retired to this room. Sat in these very chairs. We were drinking black coffee and he was telling me about your father dying of cancer.
"Of course Orson’s coffee contained a substantial dose of Rohypnol. Boy, it’s always fun to watch them realize that something’s not quite right. Orson was chatting away, and all of the sudden he stopped and jumped to his feet. His legs just turned to milk chocolate and he staggered back into the chair and sat down, his chest heaving away. I explained that he would be staying with us indefinitely. He pissed in that chair you’re sitting in."
Rufus smiles. He sucks on the pipe but his flame has extinguished. He relights it and smoke clouds around him again like a foggy halo.
I’m fighting tears when I tell him, "But I read Orson’s journals. That’s how I found your house. I read about him kidnapping Luther."
Rufus shakes his head.
"You’re telling me Luther never attended Woodside College?"