Billy by Whitley Strieber
Mary glimpsed him once, a shadow on the porch. She heard a shout, big and powerful, cutting the silence of the morning. "Drive carefully," he yelled.
Mary hardly heard him. In moments she was doing seventy down Lincoln. She had exactly thirty-five minutes to get to the airport. Even given the sparse early morning traffic, the trip would take forty.
"Momma, you'd better let me do the driving."
"You've never driven a car before in your life."
"Momma, I take the car at night when you and Dad are asleep. I've been doing it ever since I was tall enough."
"Sally, you're kidding!"
"I'm a good driver, Mom. And if you don't slow down we're going to get a ticket and miss the plane!"
"With you behind the wheel we'd be worse off—you don't even have a license, you're thirteen."
"I do a lot of things you don't know about."
As much as she could bear, Mary slowed down. They must not miss that plane. Her boy needed his mother desperately.
If he was found, she had to be there. This was probably the single most essential thing she would ever do.
Until they reached the interstate she took Sally's advice and kept to the speed limit. Then she pushed it. Otherwise there was no chance. The old wagon shuddered at ninety, then seemed to get a second wind as it passed through a hundred. At a hundred and ten it felt like it was floating. The engine made a sound like a herd of cattle.
They were still thirty miles from Des Moines when a light bar started flashing behind them. "Fuck," Mary said, causing her daughter to stare in amazement at her. She pulled over. The black-and-white came up beside her. One of the two policemen in the front seat leaned out.
"You're Mary Neary?"
"Yes."
"We're here to give you an escort. Let's go."
They made the plane with three minutes to spare.
It was not until they were in the eventless void of the flight that her mind began to open the doors to the dark. He was badly hurt, he was with a desperate man, he was so darned out of it!
If he'd turned into a baby again, he was at the end of his strength. When that man asked him, "Billy, did you make a phone call," he'd probably say yes.
She remembered him when he was a toddler, guileless and so absurdly serious that Mark had nicknamed him "the Judge." God help him, he'd regressed!
Mary felt her daughter's warm, light fingers placing gentle pressure on her own. Since Billy's disappearance she had not had much room inside herself for Sally, and she regretted that. But Billy's plight was so terrible and her own suffering so great that she simply could not invest her daughter's needs with the importance she knew they deserved.
The Good Mother was being broken by the strain of the tragedy. If she lost Billy, then what would be left for the girl? Or worse, if he came back ruined, requiring years of therapy, what then?
"Mother?"
She turned, appalled by the interruption of Sally's voice.
"She wants to know if you want breakfast?"
To Mary's surprise the flight attendant was there with her trolley. "A Coke," she said automatically.
"No, Momma, we need food."
"It's a cheese omelette," said the flight attendant.
Mary ate her omelette and drank coffee, and watched beneath as her familiar world slid slowly away.
She had a question, asked to the sky, to the hazy prairie below: were they really going to get Billy back, or was it too late for that?
27.
When Barton came to he was still on the floor of the bathroom. The sour taste of last night's wine filled his mouth, and he was teetering on the brink of nausea. His tongue felt rough, his thirst was extraordinary. His skin felt tight and withered, his face was desert-dry from the caked, peeling makeup. The white dress, now filthy, covered him like a sheet. When he threw it off he smelled his own stink. As soon as he sat up his head began pounding so hard he thought he was going to faint from the pain. Blood rumbled in his temples and dark waves obscured his field of vision. The room rocked like a very nasty little boat in very big seas.
He'd drunk himself silly last night. It was the first time that had happened in ages.
This was Sunday. God, he was doing a show—two shows. What a miserable way to start his first day back at work.
Damn that Billy. You loved him, but you knew damn well he was faking it. It just hurt like hell was the problem. You wanted to make him love you, and when he just went on faking it you wanted to hurt him.
You destroy everything but oh, it felt so good! The relief when it was over and he was sitting on the couch, watching Cabaret and sipping a truly fabulous wine, was so very great.
For a couple of hours afterward he would be all right. It was like it never happened, never could happen. It was so completely over that the idea of doing it again was utterly absurd.
He pulled himself up by the edge of the sink and drank three glasses of water. He took a handful of Advils.
The remains of the makeup, the wig hanging by a few bits of spirit gum, the dress—the sight made him turn away from his mirror.
But why? Why did he persist in these feelings about himself? It was a disguise, for God's sake, and that's all it was.
He forced another look into the mirror. His was an interesting face. People thought it looked sad; he'd be going along perfectly happy and all of a sudden somebody would say, "Are you OK?"
I'm just fine, thank you. No I'm not. It didn't help to pray, it didn't help to read books about psychiatric abnormalities. Worse, he was smarter than any shrink he'd ever encountered. As a result he didn't know why he was like this and he couldn't find out and he couldn't stop. The only way he had found to deal with it was to accept that he was just a very unusual man.
He tried a little smile. Look at you! He cocked his head, turned aside and glanced at himself in three-quarter profile. This way he didn't look sad, he looked mad.
No, mean. Kind of funny and kind of mean. A mean munch-kin. He wiggled his eyebrows. "Fuck you," he said.
Nobody loves me but me. Nobody ever will.
To just be loved, what a thing. It was commonplace!
I am terrible.
He turned away from the mirror.
Wrapping a towel around his middle, he went into his bedroom and threw back the scatter rug that concealed the door to the basement. He tossed the wig and dress down.
Then he flipped on his tiny bedroom TV, but it was Sunday and there was no Good Morning America, only some spectacularly banal cartoon about turtles. American television considers American children drek. That's why it feeds them garbage. He tsked, jabbing the power button. The set died, leaving a single white star in the middle of the black screen.
It would be nice if this headache would start to abate. Maybe he could use another handful of Advil. Couldn't you OD on that stuff? Didn't it kill the liver or something? He didn't want to take any of that codeine, it always made him nauseous.
As he prepared his shower a dream came back to him. It was vague at first, but it held his interest because it was something about Billy. What had he seen about Billy in the landscape of this dream?
Billows of steam rose, the water drummed against the tin shower stall. When Barton stepped in his whole body was grateful. His skin sucked up the moisture, the ancient makeup was swept off his face; the sins of the night went down the drain forever.
He took a deep breath of the steam gusting up around him, then let it slowly flow out as life and feeling poured back into him.
"Ma-ma," Billy had said in the dream. He'd been thrilling to see, tall and imposing. Barton shuddered, shaking his head, stepping back from the stream. It made him extremely uneasy to imagine Billy standing over him.
Ma-ma?
Billy opened his eyes. He was on the floor of his bedroom; his bed stank too badly of pee to use. Even so he'd pulled part of the filthy sheet over him in his sleep. Now he pushed it away.
He sat up. His bottom hurt terribly; he could barely move
He'd called Momma! The memory of her voice made him open his eyes wide. Then he was filled with such deep sadness that he just couldn't even sit up and fell right over on his side. His knees came up to his chin and he wanted his Garfie but it wasn't there anywhere so he put his thumb in his mouth instead and closed his eyes.
He stayed like that, dreaming about how she sounded.
He'd told her, yes he had!
It was so quiet in here.
Momma said the police would come. "Police," he whispered around his thumb. "Police, come!"
The silence seemed to close more tightly around him. He did not like this kind of quiet. Very softly, he sang against it.
"The ants go marching six by six,
the little one stops to pick up sticks,
and they all go marching down,
around, get out of the rain!"
Being all scrunched up hurt his bottom and his chest. The only place it didn't hurt was his feet, which were almost completely healed anyway. And so was his chest, except for one long scab that he knew he shouldn't pick.
Sometime after the beating he must have drawn up his shorts, because he was dressed.
Moving with the exaggerated care that would have been more appropriate in a man of eighty, he unwound himself. Slowly, propping himself against the side of the bed, he came to his feet. "Police," he said. "Momma said. Momma told me."
He began a journey toward the bedroom door. "Police. Police."
Barton finished his shower and dried himself with his big, coarse towel. As he shaved he kept listening to that word "ma-ma" repeated in his mind. How strange that it was associated with the image of Billy as hero rather than as helpless child.
It was impossible to erase the image of Billy looking down on him, his head backed by the soft glow of the night sky.
Oh, Billy. I love you, really and truly. And so you are dangerous to me, really and truly.
When Billy heard the hiss of clothing in the hall he wobbled back away from the door. He'd almost had his hand on the knob. Now he moved more quickly, going toward his bathroom, attempting escape from her.
The door swung open and there stood Barton. He was wearing a white shirt with a wide green necktie. On the tie were written in yellow the words, "Uncle Squiggly."
"Good morning, Billy boy."
" 'Morning."
"Come here to me."
Billy gave him a wary glance. He seemed happy, though, and that was reassuring.
"Come on."
Slowly Billy walked over. Barton hugged him to himself. "Hmpf! You need a bath, young man."
"I wet my bed after she whipped me."
"It smells like an animal lives in here!" He folded his arms. "What 'she? What are you talking about?"
"The lady. After I ran away she came and got me. She brought me back and whipped me."
"That was just a little spanking, a little way of letting you know you'd been bad."
Billy hung his head and was silent.
"Now take your shower. I want you all clean before I go to work. I have to be at the bookstore by ten and it's already nearly nine."
Billy gingerly touched his buttocks.
"Still smarts, eh? Well, you'll survive." Then he smiled that terrifying smile of his and Billy backed toward the bathroom door.
Barton brushed past him, pulling all the sheets off his bed. "When you come out there'll be fresh sheets. You're to make this bed up perfectly. If she sees it's not done right, she's capable of dishing out another just like the last one."
Holding the dirty sheets at arm's length, he left the room.
These sheets were really filthy. They'd been on the bed at least since Timmy. For an instant a door within him was cracked open, and he glimpsed something so bizarre that he was made momentarily dizzy.
Well, that certainly wasn't real! Lord, what a mind you have! There had been Timmy and there had been Jack, end of story.
He stuffed the sheets in the washer and poured in lots of bleach and detergent. With an angry snap of his wrist he turned the machine on, immediately returning to Billy's room. The shower was running. When Barton entered the bathroom and pulled back the shower curtain Billy turned away. Barton's eyes widened: the child wasn't kidding about the whipping.
His buttocks were deeply bruised, with open cuts and long, raised welts. Barton stared in amazement. He did not remember delivering such a beating as this. A few smart blows wouldn't do this. It must be that delicate skin, he told himself. Skin like that showed every little mark. He reached his hand out, touched the contusions. Billy flinched away.
All of Barton's reserve of tenderness emerged. The little guy was really suffering. But when Billy squirmed away from his probing, a delightful shiver went through him. No! I don't want that!
Oh, yes you do.
Billy was cringing away like a wild creature at the far edge of a cage, and it was simply awful. His heart seemed to close on itself.
"It hurts," Billy said in a small voice.
"Nonsense! It's barely visible."
"Really?"
"The pain is all in your head." He helped the boy out of the shower. "Billy," he said.
"Yes?"
"Hold out your hands."
"Please, no. I won't try to run away, I promise."
"I ought to cuff you behind your back, but I'm going to be gone all day and I don't want you pissing on yourself again."
After his first punishment Timmy had made breakfast and served Barton like a butler. He'd remained on his best behavior until the very end. Even on the table, he was polite.
He must not think about the black room! The mistake was taking them down there. The black room was only a fantasy.
Most people—even people who'd had shitty parents— weren't like Barton. Most of them were fine. So why him? Why did he have to bear these driving, uncontrollable passions? What was the answer? It was part of the secret everyday world, where there was no place for him. All he could do was reach in and steal the children.
It was secret only from him, that was what was so sad. Everybody else lived there, the fucking scum!
Barton was all over him, pawing him, muttering. He smelled like after-shave, and what did that name on his tie mean? Billy bit his lips to keep from crying out when Barton touched his bottom.
"Who's Uncle Squiggly?" Billy asked breathlessly, trying to cover the fact that he kept pulling away.
"It has to do with my work."
The shower made it easier to move, but he still hurt bad.
"Who is she?"
"Uncle Squiggly is a character I play at the bookstore where I work."
"No, I mean the lady."
"You'll find out more about her later." For a moment he went out of the bedroom.
Billy stared after him, his heart flooding with amazement and hope. He'd left the door wide open! Billy could see right into the kitchen, and even see the tangled shrubbery beyond the kitchen door. He could make a dash—
No, he couldn't. It hurt too much.
Barton came back in with folded sheets in his arms, closing the door and locking it. With a glance at his watch he sat down on the foot of the bed. He had a little, fascinated smile on his face. He crossed his legs. "How many times have you tried to escape, Billy?"
Billy hadn't dried very well, and he was cold. His hair was dripping wet, and before he replied he blew some water off the end of his nose. "Three times."
"And each time you've failed. What does that tell you?"
Billy thought of his call to Momma. "I didn't!"
"Didn't what?"
He looked from wall to wall, frantic for an answer. He mustn't tell about the phone call, he mustn't do that!
"I didn't escape." Surely Barton saw how afraid he was.
"And you never will. I'm a lot stronger and a lot smarter than you are, Billy." He gave him a frank look. "You kn
Billy nodded. "I thought so."
"Where are they now, do you think?"
The police had to hurry up!
"Can't you answer?"
Billy shook his head.
When Barton smiled again Billy clapped his hands to his face, his cuffs clanking.
* * *
The child was in extremis, there was just no other word for it. Barton patted the bed beside him. "Come on, sit down, we'll talk."
"I don't want to!"
"I don't have much time, I've got to get to work!" He pulled the boy down beside him, put an arm around his shoulders. He could not resist pressing down, feeling the squirming as the child smarted.
He remembered how he had screamed, how the pain had swept him in fiery waves, how little his protests had mattered. "I love you," he'd said, again and again until all he could do was scream. After it was over he would be expected to thank her.
He lifted Billy's cuffed hands to his lips and kissed them. The boy glanced up at him, his eyes wary and calculating. Barton knew his thought: 'If he kisses me, maybe he loves me.'
Pitiful little creature.
There was hope again. Barton was being nice now. When Billy had risked a glance at him he'd seen a nice smile on his face. He did not dare look up again, he didn't want Barton to get mad at him. If you looked him in the eye, he always got furious.
"Billy, when I get home tonight, I'm going to complete my work with you."
Could it be true? Would he—"I can go home?"
"To your long home. Do you know what that is?"
"My home isn't long. It's just normal. You've seen it."
"The long home is a phrase from the Bible. It's in Ecclesiastes. Can you quote your Bible?"
"Not much."
" 'Also when they shall be afraid of that which is high, and fears shall be in the way, and the almond tree shall flourish, and the grasshopper shall be a burden, and desire shall fail: because man goeth to his long home, and the mourners go about the streets.' Do you know that?"