Styx (8 page)

And that feeling, man, there was nothing like it. He wouldn't recommend it, but thinking you'd breathed your last breath and then realizing it had all just been one giant sick joke . . . priceless.

The adrenaline coursed through his body, and he understood how race-car drivers must feel, putting their lives on the line and living out there on the edge.

He felt reborn. He'd been given a second chance. The Stuffer had been wrong: his second half was still to be played, and, now that he'd seen how quickly it
could
all come to an end, he was going to play it to win.

The shock of his resurrection—and it
was
a shock, that was undeniable—almost nailed him to the ground. A full-grown man with a full-blown midlife crisis, a chief inspector with the Ostend police who'd peed his pants with terror, and here he was, stumbling toward a new horizon on bare feet.

Isabelle
, he thought.
Victor
.

He felt for his phone to call them and tell them he was okay. They didn't have to worry about him. He wasn't dead. He was coming home.

But then he remembered that he'd left it at home, remembered what had happened, remembered the pursuit across the sand.

God, Ostend's beautiful when you're not dead
, he thought.

He turned his back on the sea and wondered how he would explain it all to Isabelle. The feelings, the sensations of his near-death experience. It was as if he'd survived a horrible car crash or been rescued at the last second from an attempted suicide.

Isabelle would understand. As the chief of nursing of the geriatrics
ward at Damiaan Hospital, she saw it every day. How many times had she told him of bringing a patient back from death's door? How many times had she wished she could do the same for their dying marriage?

His hip twinged painfully, and Styx—to his surprise—was glad.

It took Styx an eternity
to climb the steps to the dike. He had to stop twice to catch his breath, and, by the time he reached the top, his limbs were aching. He couldn't lift his right leg from the ground but had to drag it along behind him. At least he could still feel it.

From the dike, he looked out across Ostend, the queen of the Belgian seaside resorts, out past the stately buildings and empty streets shrouded in darkness to the Maria Hendrika Park in the distance.

He felt free, free—now that he wasn't dead—from the fear of death. He felt like the monarch of all he surveyed. He stood there, admiring the night and the moon, much as, a few hours earlier, he'd stood at the Stuffer's window and marveled at the beauty of the setting sun.

Halfway down the street, he saw three figures approaching. They wove drunkenly left and right, bumped into one another and bounced off in opposite directions, on their way from Pub A to Pub B—or, by now, from Pub X to Pub Y. They laughed unselfconsciously, exuberantly, at each collision.

As he came down the last few steps, he tried to avoid them, but in the dim glow of the streetlights they drifted closer.

“Jesus, get a load of this guy,” one of them giggled.

“What happened to you, man?” said another.

The third one only stared. Styx stared back at him. Under other circumstances, he would have arrested them for public drunkenness, but not tonight.

“What hole did you crawl out of, you ugly fuck?” the first one challenged him.

Styx didn't respond. His tongue felt heavy, his mouth still clogged with dried blood.

“Lay off,” said the third man, breaking his silence. “Can't you see the guy's hurt?”

The third man's hand clamped down on his shoulder. “You okay, buddy?” he asked, his mouth so close to Styx's ear that he could feel his breath.

His shoulder jerked upward involuntarily, as if the drunk had touched a raw nerve.

“Calm down,” the man said. “I just wanna know if you need us to get you to the hops—the hospital.”

“Leave 'im be,” the first man slurred. “He jus' had hisself a rough night, like us. Right, buddy?”

Styx looked the three caballeros up and down.

“I'm okay,” he said.

“Say, whyn't you join us for a li'l nightcap?” the first one proposed. “One more drink before beddy-byes.”

But the other two demurred. They were done for the day.

“You sure we can't drop you someplace?”

“I'm just heading home,” said Styx.

They were eyeballing him like he'd been marinating in a bucket of tar. The third one seemed reluctant to abandon him. He staggered right up to Styx and held up a hand and waved it in little circles, as if trying to decide what part of him to pet. His cheek? His lips? His hair?

“Somebody really did a number on you, huh? Lemme guess. The new bouncer in the Cocoon Club, right? He's a real prick.”

“Don't worry about it,” said Styx.

“We got nothin' against you, man. We're jus' sym . . . pathetic.”

Styx turned away and walked off—or shuffled off. His right leg was deadweight, but Dr. Vrancken had promised him that a little exercise would be the ticket. One step at a time.

“. . . oughta take a look in a mirror,” he heard one of the drunkards say.

He passed the darkened shop windows of the Kapellestraat and saw his silhouette reflected in the glass. Behind him, the tipsy trio turned a corner and, with a howl that could have come from a wolf in the lost forest of Gistel, disappeared into the night.

Styx pulled up before a clothing store. The display window was populated with mannequins dressed in the latest fashions. Coincidentally, his own reflection almost perfectly lined up with one of the dummies, and it seemed for a moment as if
he
was wearing the colorful suit. Bright colors were in this year, and he looked more like Joachim Delacroix than himself.

It was hard to make out his facial features in the dark, but everything seemed normal: his head was the right shape, no obvious bumps or lumps or contusions. Which made sense, since, as best he could recall, the Stuffer hadn't done anything to his face.

But then what was that about a mirror?

Styx shrugged.

But he hadn't meant to shrug. It had happened all by itself.

It had happened without volition. A sort of tic or reflex.

What the hell was going on?

On his way home Styx considered detouring past the Stuffer's apartment in the Hofstraat but decided to check in with the squad first. He felt tired and empty and wasn't in the mood to take unnecessary chances. His best bet was to talk with John Crevits as soon as possible.

But, no, even that would have to wait. First home to his family, who were probably worried sick by now. First to Isabelle and Victor, to reassure them that everything was fine, that he'd met the serial killer and survived. He could see the scene play out: he'd stumble across the threshold, switch on the hall light, drag himself up the stairs . . . and there would be Isabelle, who would take him in her arms and hold him close.

I thought something must have happened to you
, he could hear her whisper.

Isabelle in her low-cut black nightgown. Even if he
was
all drenched in blood, she wouldn't mind.

I thought something awful must have happened to you
.

“I'm okay,” he heard himself rumble.

How many times have I begged you to take your phone with you?

“It wouldn't have made much difference. Anyway, I'm home now.”

And then Victor would be there. He would keep his distance, at first, until Styx gathered him into a group hug.

I'm sorry, Dad,
Styx heard.
I'm sorry I've been so weird.

“Shhh, now, it's okay,” he would reassure the boy. “It doesn't matter. The important thing is we're all together.”

That's how it would go. Maybe not exactly in that order, but—

But
was
that how it would go?

He and Isabelle had grown apart—but she would still worry about him, right? Maybe he'd find patrol cars in the driveway when he turned onto their street. Maybe Crevits and Delacroix would be there, waiting for him, ready to drape a blanket around his shivering shoulders before questioning him about his encounter with the Stuffer. He was a witness now.

Looking like a lost tourist, he came to the Ostend train station, which was on his path toward home. He heard himself growl, like a dog, a clear sign that he needed to rest. The taste in his mouth was so awful he had to rinse it away.

“Like I drank a bucket of shit,” he muttered.

He limped into the cavernous station hall and saw that the arrivals and departures board was completely blank. The ticket windows, kiosks, and bistros were all deserted. Here and there, a hobo lay stretched out on a wooden bench, sleeping.

Styx shuffled into the men's room. He thought of Shelley's awful morning breath. This, he thought, was worse. Where
was
Shelley, anyway?

He leaned on one of the white porcelain sinks, his eyes adjusting to the glare of the neon lighting. He squinted, then cracked open the taps to wash his hands. The water was cold. He scrubbed off the dried blood and stuck his head under the tap. He gulped greedily and swallowed. He almost choked and found himself coughing.

Blood splattered the porcelain. He was coughing up blood. Was that bad? Was he bleeding internally? He ducked his head back into the stream of water and cleaned himself as best he could.

When he stood up and got a good look at himself in the mirror, his heart stood still.

“Jesus God!”

What the fuck was
wrong
with him? His healthy complexion had taken on a greenish tint, the color of withered weeds. His pupils were unnaturally large, like a cat's, but the whites of his eyes had gone yellow and were crisscrossed with ominous red veins.

Styx had spent an unusual amount of time examining himself in mirrors these last few months. Ever since he turned forty, there was always something new to worry about. A wrinkle here, a liver spot there. And his eyes seemed to be receding into his skull. But the years, he felt, were adding character to his face. Some men were lucky that way, and he was apparently one of them.

But now, in the middle of the night in the station lavatory, Raphael Styx couldn't believe what he saw.

It didn't make any sense. The dark circles ringing his eyes, the red and purple sores, the bruises, the scar tissue. His lips were black, like some Gothic rock star. He grimaced at the mirror and saw that his teeth were yellow and plastered with patches of dried blood.

This is insane
, he thought.

He rinsed his mouth, but couldn't get rid of the gunk. It was baked on, ineradicable.

He backed away from the mirror in horror, and now, beneath the
bright artificial lights, got his first clear look at the rest of himself. There was blood all over his shirt, his jacket, his pants.

Okay, so not blanks
, he thought.

He tried to unbutton his shirt—no simple task, since he found that he had little control of his fingers. They were unsteady, almost impossible to manage. Like his shoulder.

At last he ripped the shirt open, and his breath caught in his throat.

The wounds.

Real bullet wounds. He saw the holes where the three shots had hit him. Stomach, chest, and heart.

I just wanna know if you need us to get you to the hops—the hospital.

Styx touched the gaping wounds with trembling fingers.

I thought something awful must have happened to you
.

He half closed his eyes against the monstrousness of what he was about to do and pushed the tip of his index finger into one of the holes. He could feel his finger slide deep inside his body.

I'm sorry, Dad. I thought you were dead.

He pulled his finger free. It made a sickening sucking sound as it emerged from his body. The bullets must still be inside him, he realized. What the fuck was going on? Was he somehow immune to hot lead, like some people were immune to AIDS?

This is nuts. I must be dreaming.

He looked at his wristwatch. It was 2:13
AM
. He unclasped it from his wrist so he could wash his arm, but stood there watching the seconds tick by.

Tick, tick, tick . . .

His shoulder spasmed.
Another kind of tic
, he thought.

He laughed hysterically.

He didn't want to believe what he was thinking, but knew there was a way to find out for sure.

He pressed the index and middle fingers of his right hand to his left wrist and held them there.

“Come on,” he urged himself. “Come
on
!”

It always took a while to find it. He was never sure exactly where he was supposed to feel it.

He moved his fingers side to side, up and down the inside of his wrist.

Nothing.

Absolutely nothing.