Chapter 48 –Declan

 

I wanted to go to the baby that wouldn’t stop crying. It was a scared cry. An all-alone-and-abandoned cry. But the old man in the funny clothes kept handing me playing cards that I had to throw at the red darkness. He had a long white beard and hard dark eyes.

 

The cards hurt it, a little, spinning through the blood-colored clouds that filled the rest of the room and pressed against us.

 

A three of clubs, ten of diamonds, king of spades, all went spinning across the room as I shot them in alternating snaps from each hand. The king must have hurt because the cloud pulled back, but only for a second. Ace of hearts, two of spades, queen of clubs, I just kept throwing them and the old man kept handing them to me.

 

We were backing up, not by choice, but the damn clouds were pushing us back, probing at us from an upper corner or lower floor. They didn’t like my cards, not one bit, but they kept pressing forward and the cards just disappeared into the red-shaded blackness.

 

Now we were backed into the doorway to the baby’s room, the old man behind me, feeding me an unending supply of cards. The room was an odd sort of nursery, an antiquated Apple Macintosh on a desk in the corner, old software boxes stacked on shelves, a Microsoft poster on one wall. The crib itself was made from Mac and PC boxes.

 

The pictures on the cards changed as the tough old man went through more decks, the face cards and number fonts shifting from small and shiny to old and worn, to downright archaic—big, thick, crudely drawn depictions of royalty and old-fashioned numbers. No matter their form, coloring, or craftsmanship, they all spun off into the other room, which was now one big cloud the same hue as a storm sky at morning. Sailors take warning.

 

The baby kept crying, the old man kept handing, and I kept throwing. I held the doorframe for a while, increasing the speed of my throws, doubling and tripling cards in each hand. But then the pace of cards coming into my hands slowed. The old man shrugged, gave me a nod, and handed me what was obviously the final deck.

Then he moved to the crib and picked up the baby, holding it in stiff arms. I saw it was a boy, naked and scared, although now he stopped crying and stared at the old warrior who held him. The baby’s eyes glittered like silver or tin, light where the old man’s were black like night.

 

I turned back, flicking out cards in an arc, landing them on the floor in a semicircle closing off our side of the room. The clouds flowed across the floor but stopped as if by a glass wall, rolling up to the ceiling but coming no further. Then the cards on the floor fluttered, their edges browning a little, beginning to curl and smoke.

 

I turned back to the old man, but found him and the baby gone. Instead, a young boy stood naked next to the computer box crib. About five years old, he regarded me with two mismatched eyes, one glittering silver, the other black. I backed up and put my arms around him, shielding him from the cloud with my body. He snuggled closer and we stood like that, waiting. It wouldn’t be long now.