Chapter One
The Truth
Of all the rash and midnight promises made in the name of love, none, Boone nowknew, was more certain to be broken than "I'll never leave you."
What time didn't steal from under your nose, circumstance did. It was useless tohope otherwise, useless to dream that the world somehow meant you good.Everything of value, everything you clung to for your sanity, would rot or besnatched in the long run, and the abyss would gape beneath you, as it gaped forBoone now, and suddenly, without so much as a breath of explanation, you weregone. Gone to hell or worse, professions of love and all.
His outlook hadn't always been so pessimistic. There'd been a time — not allthat long ago — when he'd felt the burden of his mental anguish lifting.There'd been fewer psychotic episodes, fewer days when he felt like slitting hiswrists rather than enduring the hours till his next medication. There'd seemedto be a chance for happiness.
It was that prospect that had won the declaration of love from him, that"I'll never leave you," whispered in Lori's ear as they lay in thenarrow bed he'd never dared hope would hold two. The words had not come in thethroes of high passion. Their love life, like so much else between them, wasfraught with problems. But where other women had given up on him, unforgiving ofhis failure, she'd persevered, told him there was plenty of time to get itright, all the time in the world. I'm with you for as long as you want me to be,her patience had seemed to say.
Nobody had ever offered such a commitment, and he wanted to offer one in return.Those words — "I'll never leave you" — were it.
The memory of them, and of her skin almost luminous in the murk of his room, andof the sound of her breathing when she finally fell asleep beside him — all ofit still had the power to catch his heart, and squeeze it till it hurt.
He longed to be free of both the memory and the words, now that circumstance hadtaken away any hope of their fulfillment. But they wouldn't be forgotten. Theylingered on to torment him with his frailty. His meager comfort was thatshe — knowing what she must now know about him — would be working toerase her memory; and that with time she'd succeed. He only hoped she'dunderstand his ignorance of himself when he'd voiced that promise. He'd neverhave risked this pain if he'd doubted health was finally within his grasp.
Dream on!
Decker had brought an abrupt end to those delusions, the day he'd locked theoffice door, drawn the blinds on the Alberta spring sunshine, and said, in avoice barely louder than a whisper:
"Boone, I think we're in terrible trouble, you and I."
He was trembling, Boone saw, a fact not easily concealed in a body so big.Decker had the physique of a man who sweated out the day's angst in a gym. Evenhis tailored suits, always charcoal, couldn't tame his bulk. It had made Booneedgy at the start of their work together; he'd felt intimidated by the doctor'sphysical and mental authority. Now it was the fallibility of that strength hefeared. Decker was a Rock; he was Reason; he was Calm. This anxiety ran counterto all he knew about the man.
"What's wrong?" Boone asked.
"Sit, will you? Sit and I'll tell you."
Boone did as he was told. In this office, Decker was lord. The doctor leanedback in the leather chair and inhaled through his nose, his mouth sealed in adownward curve.
"Tell me..." Boone said.
"Where to start."
"Anywhere."
"I thought you were getting better," Decker said, "I really did. We bothdid."
"I still am," Boone said.
Decker made a small shake of his head. He was a man of considerable intellect,but little of it showed on his tightly packed features, except perhaps in hiseyes, which at the moment were not watching the patient, but were fixed on thetable between them.
"You've started to talk in your sessions," Decker said, "about crimes you thinkyou've committed. Do you remember any of that?"
"You know I don't." The trances Decker put him in were too profound. "I onlyremember when you play the tape back."
"I won't be playing any of these," Decker said. "I erased them."
"Why?"
"Because...I'm afraid, Boone. For you." He paused. "Maybe for both of us."
The crack in the Rock was opening and there was nothing Decker could do toconceal it.
"What are these crimes?" Boone asked, his words tentative.
"Murders. You talk about them obsessively. At first I thought they were dreamcrimes. You always had a violent streak in you."
"And now?"
"Now I'm afraid you may have actually committed them."
There was a long silence while Boone studied Decker, more in puzzlement thananger. The blinds had not been pulled all the way down. A slice of sunlight fellacross him, and onto the table between them. On the glass surface was a bottleof still water, two tumblers, and a large envelope. Decker leaned forward andpicked it up.
"What I'm doing now is probably a crime in itself," he told Boone. "Patientconfidentiality is one thing, protecting a killer is another. But part of me isstill hoping to God it isn't true. I want to believe I've succeeded.We've succeeded. Together. I want to believe you're well."
"I am well."
In lieu of reply Decker tore open the envelope.
"I'd like you to look at these for me," he said, sliding his hand inside andbringing out a sheaf of photographs to meet the light.
"I warn you, they're not pleasant."
He laid them on his reflection, turned for Boone's perusal. His warning had beenwell advised. The picture on the top of the pile was like a physical assault.Faced with it a fear rose in him he'd not felt since being in Decker's care:that the image might possess him. He'd built walls against thatsuperstition, brick by brick, but they shook now, and threatened to fall.
"It's just a picture."
"That's right," Decker replied, "it's just a picture. What do you see?"
"A dead man."
"A murdered man."
"Yes. A murdered man."
Not simply murdered: butchered. The life slashed from him in a fury of slicesand stabs, his blood flung on the blade that had taken out his neck, taken offhis face, onto the wall behind him. He wore only his shorts, so the wounds onhis body could be easily counted, despite the blood. Boone did just that now, tokeep the horror from overcoming him. Even here, in this room where the doctorhad chiseled another self from the block of his patient's condition, Boone hadnever choked on terror as he choked now. He tasted his breakfast in the back ofhis throat, or the meal the night before, rising from his bowels against nature.Shit in his mouth, like the dirt of his deed.
Count the wounds, he told himself, pretend they're beads on an abacus.Three, four, five in the abdomen and chest: one in particular ragged, more likea tear than a wound, gaping so wide the man's innards poked out. On theshoulder, two more. And then the face, unmade with cuts. So many their numberscould not be calculated, even by the most detached of observers. They left thevictim beyond recognition: eyes dug out, lips slit off, nose in ribbons.
"Enough?" Decker said, as if the question needed asking.
"Yes."
"There's a lot more to see."
He uncovered the second, laying the first beside the pile. This one was of awoman, sprawled on a sofa, her upper and lower body twisted in a fashion lifewould have forbidden. Though she was presumably not a relation of the firstvictim, the butcher had created a vile resemblance. Here was the sameliplessness, the same eyelessness. Born from different parents, they weresiblings in death, destroyed by the same hand.
And am I their father? Boone found himself thinking.
"No," was his gut's response. "I didn't do this."
But two things prevented him from voicing his denial. First, he knew that Deckerwould not be endangering his patient's equilibrium this way unless he had goodreason to do so. Second, denial was valueless when both of them knew how easilyBoone's mind had deceived itself in the past. If he was responsible for theseatrocities, there was no certainty he'd know it.
Instead he kept his silence, not daring to look up at Decker for fear he'd seethe Rock shattered.
"Another?" Decker said.
"If we must."
"We must."
He uncovered a third photograph, and a fourth, laying the pictures out on thetable like cards at a tarot reading, except that every one was Death. In thekitchen, lying at the open door of the refrigerator. In the bedroom, beside thelamp and the alarm. At the top of the stairs, at the window. The victims were ofevery age and color: men, women, and children. Whatever fiend was responsible,he cared to make no distinction. He simply erased life wherever he found it. Notquickly, not efficiently. The rooms in which these people had died bore plaintestament to how the killer, in his humor, had toyed with them. Furniture hadbeen overturned as they stumbled to avoid the coup de grace, blood prints lefton walls and paintwork. One had lost his fingers to the blade, snatching at itperhaps; most had lost their eyes. But none had escaped, however brave theirresistance. They'd all fallen at last, tangled in their underwear, or seekingrefuge behind a curtain. Fallen sobbing, fallen retching.
There were eleven photographs in all. Every one was different, but also thesame: all pictures of a madness performed, taken with the actor alreadydeparted.
God almighty, was he that man?
Not having an answer for himself, he asked the question of the Rock, speakingwithout looking up from the shining cards.
"Did I do this?" he said.
He heard Decker sigh, but there was no answer forthcoming, so he chanced aglance at his accuser. As the photographs had been laid out before him, he'dfelt the man's scrutiny like a crawling ache in his scalp. But now he once morefound that gaze averted.
"Please tell me," he said. "Did I do this?"
Decker wiped the moist purses of skin beneath his gray eyes. He was nottrembling any longer.
"I hope not," he said.
The response seemed ludicrously mild. This was not some minor infringement ofthe law they were debating. It was death times eleven, and how many more mightthere be, out of sight, out of mind?
"Tell me what I talked about," Boone said. "Tell me the words — "
"It was ramblings mostly."
"So what makes you think I'm responsible? You must have reasons."
"It took time," Decker said, "for me to piece the whole thing together." Helooked down at the mortuary on the table, aligning a photograph that was alittle askew with his middle finger.
"I have to make a quarterly report on our progress. You know that. So I play allthe tapes of our previous sessions sequentially, to get some sense of how we'redoing..." He spoke slowly, wearily. "...and I noticed the same phrases coming upin your responses. Buried most of the time, in other material, butthere. It was as if you were confessing to something, but something soabhorrent to you even in a trance state you couldn't quite bring yourself to sayit. Instead it was coming out in this...code."
Boone knew codes. He'd heard them everywhere during the bad times. Messages fromthe imagined enemy in the noise between stations on the radio, or in the murmurof traffic before dawn. That he might have learned the art himself came as nosurprise.
"I made a few casual inquiries," Decker continued, "among police officers I'vetreated. Nothing specific. And they told me about the killings. I'd heard someof the details, of course, from the press. Seems they've been going on for twoand a half years. Several here in Calgary, the rest within an hour's drive. Thework of one man."
"Me."
"I don't know," Decker said, finally looking up at Boone. "If I was certain, I'dhave reported it all — "
"But you're not."
"I don't want to believe this any more than you do. It doesn't cover me in gloryif this turns out to be true." There was anger in him, not well concealed."That's why I waited. Hoping you'd be with me when the next one happened."
"You mean some of these people died while you knew?"
"Yes," Decker said flatly.
"Jesus!"
The thought propelled Boone from the chair, his leg catching the table. Themurder scenes flew.
"Keep your voice down," Decker demanded.
"People died, and you waited?"
"I took that risk for you, Boone. You'll respect that."
Boone turned from the man. There was a chill of sweat on his spine.
"Sit down," said Decker. "Please sit down and tell me what these photographsmean to you."
Involuntarily Boone had put his hand over the lower half of his face. He knewfrom Decker's instruction what that particular piece of body language signified.His mind was using his body to muffle some disclosure, or to silence itcompletely.
"Boone, I need answers."
"They mean nothing," Boone said, not turning.
"At all?"
"At all."
"Look at them again."
"No," Boone insisted, "I can't."
He heard the doctor inhale, and half expected a demand that he face the horrorsafresh. But instead Decker's tone was placatory.
"It's all right, Aaron," he said, "it's all right. I'll put them away."
Boone pressed the heels of his hands against his closed eyes. His sockets werehot and wet.
"They're gone, Aaron," Decker said.
"No, they're not."
They were with him still, perfectly remembered. Eleven rooms and eleven bodies,fixed in his mind's eye. The wall Decker had taken five years to build had beenbrought down in as many minutes, and by its architect. Boone was at the mercy ofhis madness again. He heard it whine in his head, coming from eleven slitwindpipes, from eleven punctured bellies. Breath and bowel gas, singing the oldmad songs.
Why had his defenses tumbled so easily after so much labor? His eyes knew theanswer, spilling tears to admit what his tongue couldn't. He was guilty. Whyelse? Hands he was even now wiping dry on his trousers had tortured andslaughtered. If he pretended otherwise he'd only tempt them to further crime.Better that he confessed, though he remembered nothing, than offer them anotherunguarded moment.
He turned and faced Decker. The photographs had been gathered up and laidfacedown on the table.
"You remember something?" the doctor said, reading the change on Boone's face.
"Yes," he replied.
"What?"
"I did it," Boone said simply, "I did it all."
Excerpted from Cabal by Clive Barker. Copyright © 1965 by Clive Barker. Excerpted by permission. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Copyright © 1965 by Clive Barker. All rights reserved.
