He found the bathroom upstairs, full of white tile and a ceramic toilet and a large claw-foot tub. He’d relieved himself and turned to the sink before he caught a glimpse in the mirror and stopped short.
His beard, always swift-growing, had filled in his face with nearly three days of shadow, the same dark brown shade of his hair and eyes, covering weathered skin turned brown by the sun and wind.
You look just like him. Look just like the crazy old bastard.
He braced his hands on the sink and leaned close to the mirror, fascinated by the way a living man’s face could so resemble a dead man’s. He hardly trusted his own eyes in the mirror; were they Arlen Wagner’s or Isaac Wagner’s?
The sight of the undertaker’s shop came back to him then, the coffins lining the wall, the sound of his father’s chisel working the wood, shaping final homes. And his voice… his conversations. With them. With the dead.
Arlen shook his head, ran water over his hands and splashed it onto his face, blinking it out of his eyes. He kept his head turned away from the mirror and went downstairs in search of his razor.
Yes, it was time to shave.
He was drunk by the time they finished working. Sitting back by the fireplace, talking to himself with his head down on the table. Eventually Paul came over and told Arlen he needed to lie down.
“Go on, then,” Arlen said, that or something close to it, but evidently the boy had been referring to him, because he got his hands under Arlen’s arms and heaved him to his feet. Arlen didn’t like that, and he tried to shove him away and prove that he could stand on his own two, thank you very much. When he did it, though, he knocked the ladder-back chair over and tripped on its legs, would’ve sprawled right into the fireplace if Paul hadn’t caught him. He stopped struggling then, let the boy wrestle him upright and leaned his weight onto the kid’s side as they moved across the room. Rebecca Cady stood behind the bar in front of the electric fan, drying her hair and dress, and she watched Arlen with knowing eyes. He grinned at her, a wide, mocking smile. It earned no response.
The stairs were difficult, but Arlen had traversed stairs on unsteady legs before, and this time he had Paul to help. At the top, he stopped and gripped the railing because the building had taken to tilting and swirling around him, and he thought it prudent to hold off on any further steps. Paul kept pushing him ahead, though, down the hallway and past the bathroom, and then he opened one of the closed doors and guided Arlen into a hot, dusty room with a bed. It was stifling, and Arlen growled at the boy to open the window, let some air in.
“It’s boarded up. They’re all boarded up.”
That was foolishness; why in the hell would anybody put boards over a window in a place so hellish hot as this? Arlen was ready to raise the question when the boy stepped out from under him and let him tumble down onto the bed, and it was soft, so soft. He forgot his planned remark and pulled himself higher on the bed, using his elbows to move, got his boots kicked off.
“We’re leaving,” he said.
“Not yet,” Paul said.
“No, I’ll rest, but then… we’re leaving, Paul. Got to leave. Got to.”
Paul was standing in the doorway, staring at him with a frown. “Those men from the train… they died in the storm, didn’t they, Arlen?”
Arlen looked into the kid’s eyes and for a moment felt as if he’d stared his way into some small circle of sobriety. The men from the train. Wallace O’Connell and the rest who’d climbed back on board with laughter on their lips… yes, they were dead.
“You already asked me that,” Arlen mumbled.
“I know it. And you said you didn’t think they were dead, but honestly you’re sure of it. That night at the station, you were right.”
The kid had begun to shift in front of Arlen’s eyes, tilting first one way and then the other, and there were three or four versions of him now, each one staring with intense eyes.
“How did you?” Paul said. “How in the hell did you know?”
Arlen flopped his head back down on the bed and squeezed his eyes shut. “Go away. Lemme sleep.”
Paul didn’t say anything. There was no sound from the doorway, and after enough time had passed Arlen was sure he’d left, but then he heard a footstep followed by the thud of the door swinging shut and knew the kid had been standing there the whole time, staring at him.
How in the hell did you know?
He just knew, damn it. Wasn’t a thing could be said to explain it; Arlen Wagner saw the dead, knew when the hour tolled and the lives of men both friend and stranger would come to a close.
They didn’t have to die, he thought. The selfish bastards. All I can do is give a word of warning. The boy believed me simply because he is a boy. Grown men aren’t allowed to believe such tales, even when they must. Even when it’s all that can save them, they won’t allow themselves to believe.