The witching hour - By Anne Rice Page 0,227

on ahead. At last I ripped off my coat to flail at them, and discovering them weak and unable to sustain an assault upon me, I beat them back with the coat, and got clear of the graveyard. And I knelt down once more to rest.

I could still hear them back there; hear the trudge of their aimless dead feet.

Then glancing over my shoulder, I saw that they struggled to follow, a legion of horrid corpses, pulled as if by strings.

Again I rose; again I went on; my coat I carried now, for it was filthy from the battle, and my hat, ah, my priceless hat, I had lost. Within minutes I outdistanced the dead ones. I suppose that he let them drop finally.

And as I continued, my feet aching now, and my chest burning from my exertions, I saw that my sleeves were covered with stains from the battle. Dead flesh clung to my hair. My boots were smeared with it. And the smell would follow me all the way to Port-au-Prince. But it was still and quiet around me. The thing was resting! The thing had exhausted itself. So this was no time to worry about stenches and garments. I must rush on.

I began in my madness to talk to Roemer. “What shall I do, Roemer? For you know this thing will follow me to the ends of the earth.”

But there came no answer, and I thought that I had imagined his voice when I heard it before. And all the while I knew the spirit might take on his voice, if I thought too long and too hard on Roemer, and that would drive me mad, madder than I already was.

The peace continued. The sky was growing light. I heard carts upon the road behind me, and saw that the fields were coming alive to the right and the left. Indeed, coming to the top of a rise I saw the colonial city below me, and I breathed a great sigh.

Now one of these carts approached, a small rickety wooden cart, laden with fruit and vegetables for market, and driven by two pale-skinned mulattoes, and they did stop and stare at me, at which point I said in my best French that I needed their help and God would bless them if they gave it to me. And then remembering that I had money, or had had, I went into my pockets for it, and gave them several livres which they took with gratitude, and I climbed upon the tail of the cart.

I lay back against a great heap of vegetables and fruits, and went to sleeping, and the cart rocked me and knocked me about, but it was as if I were in the most luxurious coach.

Then as a dream overcame me, as I imagined I was back in Amsterdam, I felt a hand touch mine. A gentle hand. It patted my left hand and I lifted my right to touch it in the same gentle manner, and opening my eyes, and rolling my head to my left, I beheld the burnt and blackened body of Deborah peering at me, bald and shriveled with only her blue eyes alive, and the teeth grinning at me from behind her burnt lips.

I screamed so loud I frightened the drivers of the cart and the horse. But no matter; I had fallen off onto the road. Their horse ran away, and they could not stop it, and they were soon gone way ahead, and over the rise.

I sat cross-legged, crying, “You damnable spirit! What is it you want of me! Tell me! Why do you not kill me! Surely you have it in your power if you can do such things!”

No voice answered me. But I knew that he was there. Looking up, I saw him, and in no horrible guise now. Merely the dark-haired one again, in the leather jerkin, the handsome man I had seen twice before.

Very solid he appeared, so that even the sunlight fell on him, as he sat idly on the fence at the edge of the road. He peered down at me, thoughtfully, it would seem, for his face was all blank.

And I found myself staring at him, studying him as if he were nothing to fear. And I perceived something now which was most important for me to understand.

The burnt body of Deborah, it had been illusion! From within my mind, he had taken this image and made it bloom. My double,