Silk - Caitlin R. Kiernan [118]
“This is such a goddamn waste,” Daria said, that sound in her voice that meant she’d cry if she could.
“I can’t sleep anymore,” he said again, because he had to say something, because he could handle the junk, and she knew it. “Just tell me you’re not having nightmares, too,” and the anger getting into his voice past the pain and loss and self-loathing, and she stared at him, a smoky question mark curling above her fingers.
“Yeah, Keith, I have nightmares. Is it any fucking wonder I have nightmares? Everything we’ve worked our asses off for just crashed and burned out there.”
“And it’s my goddamned fault! Yeah. I know, Daria, I know,” and he stood up so fast he almost hit his head on the low ceiling, the Gibson clasped in both hands like his baseball bat before a fight and it smashed against the concrete wall, spinning plexiglass volume and tone control knobs, bent vibrato arm whizzing by an inch from Daria’s face. Busted black pickguard and the neck cracked loud and snapped off the body of the guitar. He held it out to her, the whole thing bound together now by nothing but the strings, steel and nylon ligaments binding broken bone, dropped it at her feet.
“I’m sorry,” he said, fury spent so fast and a shudder through him at the sight of the damage, the ruin, part of himself dead and lying in a heap on the floor. She didn’t say anything, just stared at the shattered guitar, and now there were tears, swelling and escaping the corners of her eyes, bleeding down her face, wet streaks over the shock.
He pushed his way around her, out into the hall, the darkness waiting for him, confident, and there was Mort, like a blockade, Theo right behind him.
“Hey, where are you going? Don’t you think we’ve got some talking—”
“You know I owe you everything, man,” Keith said, “I owe you, and I’m never gonna make that up, so you need to just get the hell out of my way now.”
Mort hesitated, long enough to read the rest of it in Keith’s gray eyes, the threat and regret, before he stepped aside, one arm protectively around Theo, and let him go.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Loose Threads
1.
Word of mouth, questions whispered and answers, and so Byron knew that Spyder and her new girlfriend had gone to a show in Atlanta. That the house was empty—no, the house was never empty, but she wasn’t there, and he might not ever get another chance. Knew he only had so much time left, his time slipping away like the crimson sand through the Wicked Witch’s hourglass. And the days and nights had become worse than his fear of the house, of whatever lay coiled underneath, what he and Robin and Walter had awakened like stupid, noisy children. Worse than his fear of whatever guarded Spyder and kept tabs on him, too. The eye-corner lurkers, the dream haunters, and it was better to go and be done with it. One way or another, be done with it.
He’d tried to find Walter for days, but no one had seen him, no one knew anything or at least they weren’t willing to tell him, if they did. He could hardly blame them, the way he looked, like a fucking street person, the way he smelled, because he was afraid to go home long enough to shower and change his clothes. His eyes the worst, because he could never sleep for more than ten or fifteen minutes at a time before he snapped wide awake and sweating. Anyway, Walter had probably left the city, run off somewhere safe (if anywhere was safe) and left him alone, the way he’d let them go to the house alone the night of the storm and the beginning of the end of the world.
He’d waited until after dark, drinking cup after bitter cup of coffee at the Steak and Egg because Billy would refill his cup for free, would slip him a Danish or a slice of apple pie. He took pink hearts with his coffee and waited until there was no day left in the sky, no moon up yet, either. Just Venus and a couple of stars, the sky so clear and indigo tonight.
“You should go home,” Billy had said, soft concern, honest pity, filling his coffee cup again, and Byron had nodded his head, as if