The Mural by Michael Mallory

Author:Michael Mallory
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: horror, fantasy, stephen king, dean koontz, peter straub
Publisher: Wildside Press
Published: 2012-02-17T05:00:00+00:00

BOOK THREE

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

SEVENTY-FIVE YEARS AGO

Howard Kearney opened his eyes inside the tent and wondered if his head was still attached to his body. It was eleven in the morning and the sun was breaking through the treetops enough to heat up the heavy canvas roof, making the inside warm and humid. The spot between his eyebrows felt like he had used it to challenge John Henry to a steel driving contest.

Despite his Irish heritage, Howard had never been a drinking man, which cast him as the junior partner in the previous night’s escapade, in which he and three of the other artists from the Castle party had gone into the village just south of San Simeon and tried to relieve themselves of some of the money old Hearst had paid them. It was to help the local economy, the agreed. A couple of the guys were spending pretty freely, but not Howard, who still had more than a hundred and eighty left, not including the ten-spot he always carried in his right pocket, insurance against being picked up as a vagrant in the course of his travels. That sawbuck would stay well and truly hidden. He was not even sure if WPA rules allowed them to earn money from any other source, but only he worried about such things. His mentor Fergus, for instance, would have laughed at him had he voiced such a worry.

Fergus had been the leader of the group’s efforts to drink the town of Glenowen dry, emerging as the most valuable player, though some of the other guys kept up with him pretty well. Only one of the artists at the Castle, Louis Norman Igee had not been invited to join the party, which was fine with Howard. Igee was a talented artist, maybe even a genius, but Howard did not like him, and he did not know anyone else in the Northern California arts community who did. Most had a hard time even looking directly at the man. Igee’s eyes were black, the blackest Howard had ever seen in a human, so black that they seemed to act like a light vacuum.

Managing the daunting task of sitting upright, Howard Kearney tried to remember how many drinks he’d had last night. He started with a couple of beers, and then was coerced into something stronger. After that, he did not have much memory of the evening. Thank heavens Althea had not been along, just in case he embarrassed himself at the dingy saloon.

He managed to muster enough strength and focus to look over to the other side of the tent to see if Fergus was there. All he saw was an empty sleeping bag. Fergus Randall was about twenty five years older than Howard Kearney but had a century’s more worth of experience. He had the kind of carrot-colored hair that often accompanied a knack for mischief. Over the past few months Fergus had taken Howard under his wing, first as an artist, teaching him some

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