Part 53 (2/2)
”How 'bout Gospel?” Charlie said with a sly grin. ”I got a whole collection upstairs.”
Jack leaned on the wall. ”You know... if it's got words and melody, I'm willing.”
”Why not a break from music?” Lyle said. ”Just the sound of men hard at work.”
Jack attacked another stud. ”I can handle that.”
After a minute or so Jack sensed eyes on the back of his neck and turned to find Lyle doing his stare-squint thing again. This was the third or fourth time he'd caught him.
”Do you find me attractive, Lyle?”
Lyle blinked. ”Not at all. You're not my type.”
”Then why do you keep staring at me?”
Lyle glanced at Charlie, then back to Jack. ”If you must know, I'm trying to bring you into focus.”
Jack's turn to blink. ”You want to run that by me again?”
”When I look at you you're... fuzzy.”
”Maybe you ought to invest in some gla.s.ses.”
”It's not like that. I look at Charlie here and I see him bright and clear. I look at you and your features and most of the rest of you are clear and sharp, but around the edges... I don't have a better word for it than fuzzy. fuzzy.”
Jack had to smile. ”Is this a character a.s.sessment?”
”It's not funny, man.” Lyle's eyes held a haunted look.
”When did it start? I didn't notice you staring at me when we were meeting with the Greek.”
”It wasn't happening then. Maybe it's this house. I know it's done some weird s.h.i.+t to me.”
”Yo, like what?” Charlie stepped forward, staring at his brother, the animosity of a moment ago giving way to brotherly concern. ”This got to do with you canceling all those sittings?”
Lyle nodded, his haunted look growing. ”Something's happened to me. I think it was that blood bath yesterday. It... did something to me.”
”Like what?” Jack said.
”I can see things, know things I have no way and no right to know.”
He told them about the morning's sitters, about seeing one woman's runaway husband, about another's lost pet-dead pet, roadkill on Twenty-seventh Street. He couldn't contact another's dead wife; yeah, she was dead but she was gone gone. No messages from beyond her grave.
”It's as if someone or something's playing games with me. Some of the powers I've been faking all these years... I really seem to have them now. At least while I'm in this house.”
”And I look fuzzy to you.” Jack didn't know what to make of that, but he didn't see how it could be good.
Lyle nodded. ”Not when we were down at Kristadoulou's, but here, in the house... yes. There's more. With the sitters this morning... I think I could have handled what I was seeing and feeling from them if that had been all. But I was seeing into their futures as well. At least it felt like I was, but...” He shook his head. ”I don't know. What I was seeing didn't seem right or... possible.”
”You got that right, bro,” Charlie said. ”Only G.o.d can peep the future.”
Again that haunted look in Lyle's eyes. ”I hope you're right, because if what I saw has any validity, there's not much future left.”
”What's that mean?” Jack said.
Lyle shrugged. ”Wish I knew. The three sitters today... when I touched them I saw what their lives would be for the next year and a half or so, and they were each different up to a certain point, but after that it was all the same: darkness. And when I say darkness darkness here I don't mean just the absence of light, I mean a cold, hard, here I don't mean just the absence of light, I mean a cold, hard, living living blackness that just seems to gobble them up.” blackness that just seems to gobble them up.”
Jack's gut gave a twist as he remembered someone he loved talking about something very similar, telling him with her final words about a coming darkness that would soon ”roll over everything,” how only a handful of people would stand in its way, and that he'd be one of them.
Could Lyle's darkness be the same?
”When did you see this happening?”
”Not long,” Lyle said. ”I got the impression with all three of them that it happens in less than two years.”
”Three random people,” Jack said, ”all buying it around the same time, in the same way. Maybe the explanation could be this new second sight of yours has a limit, or...”
”Or one h.e.l.l of a cataclysm is heading our way.”
”Praise G.o.d!” Charlie said, his eyes glowing again. ”It's the Rapture! You seen the Rapture! It's like when G.o.d takes the faithful to heaven, leaving the rest behind in the darkness! Those sitters you touched, Lyle, they ain't been saved-if they were they wouldn't be foolin' 'round with no spirit medium. You touched lost souls, Lyle.”
”If that's what you want to believe-”
”The End Times! Reverend Sparks been talkin' 'bout all the signs pointin' to the end comin' soon! Praise G.o.d, he's right!” He held out his hand. ”Here. Touch me, bro.”
Lyle didn't actually move, but he seemed to shrink back. ”Hey, Charlie, I don't think so. And anyway, I thought you didn't believe in this stuff.”
”Who can figure how G.o.d works?” Charlie stepped closer. ”The Book say the dead'll rise come the End Times. Maybe this is where it starts. Come on, Lyle. Try me.”
Jack watched Lyle hesitate, then reach toward his brother's outstretched hand. A shock of alarm shot through him, urging him to warn Lyle off, tell him not to do it. But he bit it back. Lyle and Charlie were brothers. Where was the harm? What could happen?
Lyle's fingers gripped Charlie's in a firm handshake. The two stood staring into each other's eyes.
”Well?” Charlie said.
Lyle's mouth worked, then he let out an anguished cry. His eyes rolled back as he sagged to his knees and started coughing. He clutched at his throat with his free hand as if he were choking.
”Let go!” Jack shouted to Charlie.
”Can't!” Charlie's eyes were wild as he pulled at Lyle's fingers, trying to loosen them. ”He crus.h.i.+n' my hand!”
Lyle was kicking and writhing now, looking like a man in his death throes. This was scary as h.e.l.l. Jack stepped forward, ready to help Charlie break contact, when Lyle suddenly quieted. His rasping breaths stopped for an agonizing moment, then restarted with a cough and a gasp. Finally he released Charlie's hand and slumped the rest of the way to the floor.
Jack bent over him. ”Lyle! Lyle, can you hear me?”
Lyle rolled over and opened his eyes. They looked dull, bloodshot. He looked around and blinked as if he'd just stepped out of a cave. His gaze came to rest on his brother standing over him, frozen in shock.
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