Children of Chaos Read online

  But there was more looming on that horizon than a sunrise.

  I’d gone to Hell all those years ago in the rain, and I’d been clawing my way out ever since.

  What I didn’t know then was that there were places far worse.

  And I was headed straight for them.

  TWO

  I stopped at a diner a few blocks from my apartment and had some eggs, hash and two more cups of black coffee. It helped wake me up a bit and clear my head, but sat in the pit of my stomach like one of those red patio bricks. My entire body ached, and the pain in my temples had grown worse, thumping away in time with my pulse. Though my right hand seemed to be functioning normally again it was still sore and a little stiff. I was upset about assaulting Albert, but it had nothing to do with him. He had it coming; I was just disappointed in myself for letting my anger get the better of me and behaving like some high school kid on a playground. I could have talked with Trish about it but I’d been down similar roads with her before and knew she’d only make excuses for him. As for Albert, knocking him around a little was the only way to get through to a smug little shit like that. Still, except for my occasional fights with inanimate objects, I hadn’t lost it like that in a long time. It felt strange to experience that adrenaline rush again. Strange in that it felt oddly satisfying, and that’s what bothered me most.

  The rain had become a light mist by the time I found an open parking space across the street from my apartment. As I walked toward the front steps of my building, the idea of spending the morning cleaning up the mess I’d made the night before hung over me like a mallet. All I wanted to do was sleep.

  I hadn’t even reached the steps when I saw a nicely-dressed young woman in front of the building holding an umbrella. The umbrella no longer seemed necessary, but I had no idea how long she’d been standing there. A strikingly pretty brunette with big brown eyes accentuated by a pair of black designer eyeglasses, she could not have looked more out of place in my neighborhood had she dressed as a circus clown and ridden in on an antelope.

  The moment she saw me she perked up and smiled, flashing beautiful bright teeth. “Mr. Moretti?”

  I stopped a few feet from her. Since I wrote all my novels under a pen name I was reasonably sure she wasn’t a fan. Besides, I’d never be lucky enough to get a stalker this attractive. I was just barely famous anyway, and only in certain circles. Most people had no idea who I was, and that’s exactly how I liked it.

  “You are Mr. Moretti, aren’t you?” she asked. “Mr. Phillip Moretti?”

  “Yeah, can I help you?”

  She moved closer and offered her free hand, which sported a sparkling diamond engagement ring. Her fingernails were painted power red and professionally maintained, her tight skirt and low-cut blouse were sexy but professional, and her black leather pumps featured six-inch heels that made her a little taller than I was. “I’m Janine Cummings.”

  I shook her hand. It was soft and warm, the grip delicate, and she had a nice fresh smell like she’d just stepped from a shower. “What can I do for you?”

  “I have some important personal business to discuss with you and I’d rather not do it out here on the street if you don’t mind.”

  “I’m sort of, uh, renovating at the moment, my apartment’s a mess.”

  “Could I treat you to some breakfast then?”

  “I already ate. What’s this all about? If you’re selling something, I—”

  “No, no.” She laughed more heartily than seemed necessary. “Nothing like that, I work for Mrs. Doyle. Mrs. Bernadette Doyle.”

  It took a moment for the name to register, but once it did it hit me like an anvil. “Martin Doyle’s mother?”

  Janine gave a quick, efficient nod. “I’ve come a long way to see you at her behest, Mr. Moretti.”

  “Behest? Jesus, haven’t heard that word in awhile and I’m a writer.”

  “Yes, I know,” she said. “I read your last novel, actually.”

  “Well I guess somebody had to.”

  “I thought it was terrific. You’re a wonderful writer. For the life of me I can’t understand why you’re not more well-known.”

  “My winning personality tends to hold me back.”

  She smiled again but I could sense a bit of discomfort behind it. “At any rate, Mrs. Doyle asked me to find you and—”

  “Is this about Martin?”

  “It is.”

  My skin began to crawl. I went looking for my cigarettes. “Look, I haven’t had any contact with Martin in years.”

  “I understand.”

  “Has something happened to him?”

  “He’s alive, but there are some intensely private matters involving Martin that Mrs. Doyle would like to discuss with you personally. She sent me to speak with you in the hopes I could convince you to meet with her.”

  I lit a cigarette and smoked it nervously, quickly. “Why me?”

  “Mrs. Doyle believes that once you’ve spoken with her you’ll understand.”

  “Is she in town?”

  “No, unfortunately she’s quite ill and unable to travel at this time.”

  “She’s still in New Bethany?”

  “She is.”

  I’d left town years ago, relocated to upstate New York and made my life, such as it was, here in Utica. The last time I’d been back to New Bethany was two decades before when my mother had died unexpectedly from a brain aneurism. I was twenty-four at the time, devastated by the loss, and swore then I’d never go back. There was nothing left for me there but nightmares. “You drove six hours from Massachusetts to ask me to come back with you? Wouldn’t a phone call or an email have been easier?”

  “Mrs. Doyle felt my coming to speak with you would be more effective. She believed it would drive home the fact that these are very serious matters she needs to see you about.”

  I looked over her shoulder down the narrow street. It was a gray and drab neighborhood consisting of older walkups in various stages of disrepair that all pretty much looked the same. The overcast day only made it worse. Long-ago screams echoed in my mind. “Look, Ms. Cummings, I’ve got a lot going on right now. The deadline for the new novel I’m working on is closing in and I’m nowhere near finishing it. I’ve got some personal issues I have to sort through and I haven’t had a good night of sleep in more than a week. My life in New Bethany’s in the past. I haven’t even set foot in town in twenty years. Martin was my friend when we were kids and I always liked Mrs. Doyle, but I don’t have the time, desire or patience to play Mystery Hour with you, all right? Whatever it is she’d like to discuss with me, tell her to give me a call and I’ll be happy to talk with her.”

  “I understand.” This time Janine’s smile was polite but not as warm. “But would it be all right if I came in with you for just a minute?” She casually fingered the purse slung over her shoulder. “I have something Mrs. Doyle asked me to give you, and again, I’d rather not do it on the street.”

  I took a final drag on my cigarette, dropped it to the pavement and crushed it beneath my shoe, my eyes trained on hers throughout. She never blinked. I didn’t care how pretty the package it came in was, I knew trouble when I saw it, and this woman was a harbinger of nothing but. I should’ve left her there on the sidewalk, but even then it seemed like it didn’t much matter what I did. Fate had already set things in motion, and there was nothing I could do to stop it. Not then, not now.

  “All right,” I said, cocking my head toward the door. “Come on.”

  * * *

  I pull the covers up over my head as the storm rages on. Rain and wind pummel the house while violent thunder and lightning rock the town for hours on end. God’s wrath is being poured directly down from Heaven onto me for what I’ve been a party to, I am convinced of this. Every lesson I’ve learned in Catechism or at the Catholic Masses I’ve attended for as long as I can remember surge through my mind—flooding me with religious symbols and visions I once found comfort in but that now terrify me. Dist
orted and profane, they come to me despite my best efforts to stop them, to think of something—anything—else.

  This is damnation. This is my punishment.

  The scarred man was right. The storm has gotten worse.

  No matter what I do, I cannot hide. If I close my eyes I see him kneeling in the rain, bleeding and dying and staring straight through me with those brilliant blue eyes. If I keep them open, everything in the bedroom becomes ominous and frightening. Every shadow is threatening, each gust of wind and branch scraping the house a wailing demon scratching at my window.

  I imagine Martin and Jamie cowering in their beds as well, terrified as I am. And again, the blood…so much blood…Martin’s hand gripping that strange sword…Jamie holding the book to his chest and crying in the rain…

  And something dying in all of us.

  Lightning flashes and the scarred man comes to me again, this time standing in the shadows of the open bedroom doorway. His head is bowed and his throat and chest are covered in blood and mud. He drips rainwater onto the floor, I can hear it spatter on contact.

  Trembling, I wait for him to raise his head and look at me.

  He never does.

  Instead, he raises his arms, spreading them out on either side of him like a great wounded bird. Only they aren’t arms. The next blink of lightning reveals beautiful white wings, extended and enormous, the feathered tips stained with crimson as if ceremoniously dipped in blood.

  And then he’s gone, taking my sanity along with him.

  The storm lasts for three full days, but even once it has gone I am so wracked with terror I don’t know how I’ll survive, how I’ll manage not to eventually tell someone what we’ve done or how I’ll avoid having some sort of emotional or psychological breakdown.

  For weeks I am haunted day and night, and though I try desperately to hang on until the day when the terror will stop, in time I realize this will never happen. The guilt, shame, sorrow and fear are here to stay. Like the afflictions they are, these things will forever remain a part of me, diseases injected directly into my blood, feeding me, and feeding off of me. My only hope for survival is to learn to live with these terrible things, and eventually that’s exactly what I do.

  Maybe that’s worse. I still can’t be sure.

  I’ve lived my life looking over my shoulder for so long it’s become second nature. When it’s quiet and I’m alone with my thoughts I begin to believe that all the bad things that happen in my life are simply punishments handed down for my sins. Each bad thought or shameful action is witnessed and recorded and used against me, to penalize me for my weakness, to hurt me and keep me in misery, to remind me how horrible I am.

  Every day my faith gets weaker, my soul a little darker and less my own, while every day the scarred man gets stronger.

  And Heaven watches, silent and distant as that dark field so many years ago in the pouring rain, baptized in the tears of God.

  * * *

  “Mr. Moretti, is everything all right?”

  Janine’s voice brought me back, and I realized I’d frozen in the doorway to the apartment. “Yeah,” I said, ushering her in after she’d propped her umbrella in a corner. “Sorry, the place is a disaster area.”

  “Your mirror’s broken,” she announced as if this would be news to me.

  “I had an accident,” I muttered, motioning her toward the breakfast nook and the small table and bench chairs that constituted my kitchen set. The studio was cluttered, cramped and needed a thorough cleaning. With two people in such a small space everything became slightly magnified, the mess a little worse, the walls a little closer, the smells a little stronger, the embarrassment a little greater.

  “Is there—can I help or—”

  “It’s cool, thanks. Have a seat.”

  Janine maneuvered around some dirty laundry and a few spent liquor bottles, taking each step like she was crossing a rope bridge suspended over pools of molten lava. When she reached the breakfast nook she spun back and forced a smile, apparently proud of herself for having made it. “Your apartment’s very intimate.”

  “It’s a dung heap.” I quickly grabbed a dustpan and broom from the closet and swept up the broken glass from the mirror littering the corner of the apartment where my bed and bureau resided. “Writers don’t make what people think,” I said, straightening the sheets and comforter and emptying the ashtray on the nightstand into a nearby wastebasket. “Especially divorced writers with child support payments and court-ordered alimony to ex-wives who date fetuses.”

  She didn’t seem to know quite what to make of that statement so rather than answer she delicately lowered herself onto one of the benches, folded her hands in her lap and smiled graciously.

  As I stooped to pick up the empty bottles from the floor, I noticed her looking at the desk on the short span of wall between the bathroom and the kitchenette. My laptop, a printer and a ream of paper all sat there covered in a thick layer of dust. A small bookshelf mounted on the wall above the desk housed several of my novels and a few from other writers, reminding me the thing I hated most about living in a studio apartment was that with the exception of the bathroom, I didn’t have the luxury of closing a door or having any privacy when someone visited. Everything was on full display.

  “Is that where you do your writing?” she asked.

  “Most of it.”

  “How exciting.”

  “Yeah, it’s positively electrifying.”

  As I opened the window next to the stove to let in some fresh air, she said, “Did you always know you wanted to be a writer?”

  “Pretty much, yeah.” I leaned against the fridge, arms folded. “When I was little, this kid Jamie Wheeler, Martin and me, we were inseparable. Jamie always wanted to be a priest, Martin wanted to be a movie star and I wanted to be a writer.” With startling clarity, their faces came to me, children from so long ago, vivid and alive. “From the time Jamie was a little kid there was always something about him, something spiritual, I guess. It was like we all just knew one day he’d wear a collar, you know? Last I heard he was running a parish somewhere down south, but I haven’t seen or heard from him in years either. But back then we used to talk about our dreams all the time.”

  Janine crossed her legs, causing her skirt to ride up a bit. “And two of you fulfilled them.”

  “My dreams were nothing like this.”

  She cringed, placed her purse on the table then turned back to me. “I’m sorry to hear that, Mr. Moretti.”

  “Call me Phil.” Janine’s pushup bra and accommodating blouse revealed enough cleavage to hold my attention, but her age was difficult to gauge even at close range. She could’ve been anywhere from middle twenties to early thirties, and was virtually impossible to read. Still, I had to give it to her; she was a trooper if nothing else. Any woman who ventured into my apartment and didn’t run for a tetanus shot couldn’t be all bad. “I don’t mean to be rude, but as I mentioned I’m working under a deadline for the new book and I have to get to work, so what is it you wanted to give me?”

  She reached into her purse and removed a small but bulging business-sized envelope and held it out for me. “Mrs. Doyle asked me to give you this.”

  Even before I looked inside I knew what it was. Nothing else felt like cash. I opened the flap and ran my thumb across a thick stack of bills. “What is this?”

  “Five thousand dollars.”

  I tossed it back onto the table before I could get too giddy about it. “And why does Mrs. Doyle want me to have five thousand dollars?”

  “She said if you refused to see her that I should give you this as incentive.”

  “She’s paying me five grand to drive to Massachusetts and meet with her?” I laughed lightly. “Come on, what is this?”

  Janine slid the envelope back toward the edge of the table. “It’s vital that you see her, Phil. Please.”

  “Tell me what it’s about.”

  “I can’t. Mrs. Doyle needs to speak with you direc
tly, those were her instructions.”

  I moved closer to the table. “Then throw me a bone, give me an idea of what it is she wants. I’m not about to accept five thousand dollars and walk into something I have no clue as to—”

  “You’re not a very trusting person, are you?”

  “No I’m not.”

  Janine’s posture stiffened. “May I speak frankly then?”

  “Please do.”

  “There is no deadline for your next book,” she said flatly. “Your agent dropped you more than a year ago and sales for your last novel were so low your publisher opted not to offer you a contract for future works. What has been, at best, a mediocre career consisting largely of often forgettable crime and mystery novels has essentially ground down to its inevitable end. You live alone, haven’t had a serious relationship with a woman since you and your wife divorced several years ago and tend to have one-night stands rather than actual girlfriends. You have a few casual acquaintances you socialize with now and then but no real friends to speak of, and rather troublesome problems with anger management and alcohol. You have quite a bit of debt and numerous financial responsibilities including child support and alimony, as you mentioned, and at this point no opportunities of any consequence on the horizon. You need the money, Phil. Take it.”

  I felt my face flush. “Who the hell are you?”

  “I apologize for having to be so blunt.”

  “What exactly do you do for Mrs. Doyle?”

  “I’m her personal assistant.” When I glared at her she realized I wanted more. “Mrs. Doyle hired a private investigator to find you. In doing so he also obtained extensive information regarding your professional and personal lives as well as your present situation. It was all part of his report.”

  “How thorough.”

  “Mrs. Doyle certainly doesn’t mean you any harm. She needs your help and she’s willing to pay you quite well for it. It’s a win-win for everyone. Take the money and meet with her. Just listen to what she has to say, hear her out, and then make your decision from there. Should you decide not to help her, the five thousand dollars is yours to keep. But I can’t release it until you’ve given me your word you’ll at least see her.” Janine leaned forward enough to reveal the curve of her breasts and the top of a pink lacy bra. “Will you see her, Phil?”