HIS OTHER SON Page 7

  Ray led Paula across the lawns and they entered the house through the open doors that brought them into the main hall, the ballroom, where earlier guests had danced to the band. The music was over now; the party was all but finished. Just a few stragglers, reluctant to leave the free food and drink, and anxious not to leave and pass up a social climbing opportunity.

  “Where are we going?” Paula said. She wasn’t keen on running into her parents.

  “Unless his habits have changed since I last saw him,” Ray said. “Randolph Stock will be in his study working out ways to add to his already considerable fortune.”

  “He’s not all bad.”

  Ray looked at her but didn’t say anything. He could just about remember what it was like to be eighteen, and think everything in life was still possible. Paula was a little on the wild side, but deep down she was kind and vulnerable. Anyone who had Martin and Caroline as parents deserved to be given a break.

  He hadn’t thought about what he would say to his father. The opinion he had shared with Caroline, that it was none of his business what his father did, held true. But after the encounter with two of the white robed sisters at the pool, he didn’t for one moment believe they were here for altruistic reasons. Whether his father was being scammed for money he doubted, but there was something going on. Though he often resented being a part of the family, when it was threatened, Ray Stock came out fighting.

  They made their way through the ground floor rooms to a back staircase that would lead them to the first floor landing, and the bedrooms and bathrooms there; and to Randolph Stock’s lair.

  At one point they saw Martin, and he saw them, but he was tied up saying goodnight to yet another important guest, and although he made ‘come here’ gestures to Paula she chose to act dumb and ignore him.

  “This is one birthday I won’t forget,” she said.

  “It’s supposed to be special, coming of age and all that.”

  “Uncle Ray, this is the twenty first century, who comes of age these days?”

  “Are you coming with me to see my father?”

  “Sure. For one, he gave me a generous check as a birthday present. I’d like to thank him.”

  Caroline opened the door to her mother’s room and gasped in surprise.

  Ryker gently suggested her into the room and closed the door behind them.

  Laid out on the bed, white sheets covering her clearly skeletal body, was Marlene Stock. Three white robed women fluttered around her, like moths to a flame.

  Cancer robs the body of much of its goodness, and weight loss is a primary symptom. Marlene wasn’t just thin, she was bones veiled in flesh. Flesh so thin it was translucent. Her face was like a skull, the eyes dull and lifeless, and the cheeks hollowed and sunken. The skin was yellowed like an old parchment manuscript.

  One of the women turned to stare as the door opened. She was slim, and blonde. The look on her face was one of frank aggression.

  The others were in the act of pouring grey dust from a small glass vial into the open mouth of Marlene. One held her jaw, so that the lips were parted, while the other was ensuring the dust entered the mouth. She dabbed delicately at the corners of the mouth if a small particle escaped.

  When the phial was empty she placed it on the bedside cabinet, and between them the two women closed the mouth, and massaged the throat so that the dust was swallowed.

  “What are you doing?” Caroline said.

  One of the women stood and came over to stand between Caroline, Ryker and the bed. “We are sisters of the Church. We are caring for your mother.”

  “What are you giving her? She looks awful.”

  “We don’t have to explain our methods to you. We are employed by Mr. Stock.”

  “Oh, I know you’ve wormed your way into my father’s checking account with your lies and tricks, but he hasn’t seen his wife looking as ill as this has he?”

  One of the two women at the bedside stood. She was dark haired and dark skinned. “Ill? For someone with terminal cancer I think she looks remarkably well, don’t you?”

  Caroline and Ryker moved closer to the bed. What they saw was something different to what had been there a moment ago.

  Marlene Stock had regained her normal colour. Her skin looked fuller, the hair was almost glossy, and her eyes were open, if glazed over.

  “What did you give her?” Ryker said. “Morphine?”

  All three women laughed softly. “We don’t use conventional medicines. Dr Romodon has travelled and practiced all over the world. He brings enlightenment and innovation to his healing.”

  “Except,” Ryker said. “No hospital has ever taught him, no university or college has ever had him as a student. He seems to have simply appeared out of thin air.”

  Caroline touched her mother’s forehead. It was cold to the touch. She recoiled. “Mother?” The figure on the bed looked like her mother, but there was something about it that wasn’t right. The body was frail, but it was the shape she had become used to, even covered by the white sheets. The face; the face wasn’t wearing any expression that Caroline recognized. It was as if her mother was wearing someone else’s face. “What are you doing to her?”

  The eldest of the women put her hand on Caroline’s arm. Immediately Caroline pulled away. She looked at her bare arm, at the red burn mark that had appeared.

  “I think you should leave,” the woman said.

  “Phil.” Caroline showed her arm to Ryker.

  “Get behind me,” he said. He drew his gun.

  One of the women, the dark haired one, slid to the floor by the bed, and slithered across the carpet as if she was a snake.

  The blonde one bared her teeth and snarled.

  The eldest one rushed at Ryker.

  He shot her; once in the chest and again in the head.

  She fell to the floor, crumpled and lifeless.

  “Jesus, Phil,” Caroline screamed.

  As his attention was taken momentarily in looking at Caroline, so the other two women were on him. They pulled him to the floor and were merciless.

  Caroline escaped onto the landing.

  Ray entered the oak lined study first, with Paula close behind.

  The white robed women turned to intercede but a hand raised by Brother Simon stopped them.

  “Raymond,” Stock said. “Good of you to join us. We were just talking about you. Simon, my other son, Raymond Stock.”

  “Always the other son, eh, dad? Never quite measured up like good old Frank.”

  “Don’t try to belittle him. He was everything you aren’t.”

  “Except I’m alive.”

  Stock laughed humourlessly. “Strange you should say that.”

  “You haven’t managed to kill me yet.”

  “Stop it.” Paula shouted. “Why does everyone in this family hate one another?”

  Stock pushed a button on his wheelchair and moved away from the desk. “You shouldn’t be here, Paula. You’d be better off leaving us.”

  “Oh, I think she can stay,” Simon said. Hands with fingers like slugs curled round Paula’s wrist. She instinctively flinched away but the fat fingers were surprisingly strong. “I think we have agreed terms, but there is always room for embellishment in any deal.”

  Stock wheeled round to face the fat man. “Now wait a minute, we agreed…”

  “Nothing is agreed until I condone it.”

  Everyone turned to see who had spoken.

  In a corner of the room that contained a secret door, which Stock believed he had sole knowledge of, stood a small man of Asian origin. He was dressed in a thin white robe that seemed to have been wrapped twice around his small frame to make it fit. His face was a sun burned brown, and so wrinkled it looked as if it had been squashed and thrown away.

  Brother Simon and the two women changed demeanour immediately. They stood and bowed long and deep in the direction of the small man.

  “So,” Stock said. “You must be Romodon.”

  The ma
n walked across to Stock and held out his hand. “Mr. Stock.”

  “Perhaps now we can conclude our business,” Stock said.

  Romodon gestured to Simon, and he and the two women stood obediently while Romodon sat.

  “Dad,” Ray said. “Why don’t you tell me what’s going on?”

  “Yes, dad, why not tell us all.” No one had heard Caroline enter the study.

  Stock signed. He moved back behind the desk. He hated explaining himself, especially to his family. “You’ll get my money soon enough, after I’m gone, have no fears on that.”

  “I’m not interested in your money,” Ray said. “She might be, and that husband of hers, but I’ve never wanted it.”

  “I have never known what it is you do want, Raymond. But then I suspect neither have you.”

  Caroline stormed across to the desk and leaned on it, so that she was looming over her father. “I’ve just been to see mother. Have you any idea what treatment these people are giving her?”

  “Do you?”

  Caroline hesitated, and Stock continued. “Or what Cooperman gives her for that matter? Of course not. We just hope and pray it stops the pain and helps her survive.”

  “When I saw her not ten minutes ago I would have said she was dead. She was lifeless. Then the sisters gave her some stuff out of a glass bottle, and it was as if she was a different person. Still ill, but so much more…robust.”

  Romodon clapped his hands together slowly and deliberately. Everyone stopped and looked at him. “A different person. Very perceptive.”

  Ray stood next to Caroline, so that he was looking directly at Romodon. “What do you mean by that?”

  Romodon drew in a breath and exhaled. “Mrs. Stock died some weeks ago. We have maintained the illusion of life by feeding her some surplus souls we have no other use for.”

  “Surplus…” Stock clutched the arms of his chair.

  Romodon shook his head as if at a small child who was slow to catch on with what he was learning. “The illusion fooled everyone, including the man of science, Cooperman. Mrs. Stock only appears to be alive, but once we cease the daily ingestions, she will be as dead as she actually is.”

  Caroline began to cry.

  Paula raised her hand to strike Romodon but one of the women grabbed her arm, bent it back behind her, and pushed her to the floor.

  The door opened and two more white robed women entered.

  Stock swallowed the rest of his whisky. “All right. My wife is dead. I had hoped I would have her for a further few months, but…What about the rest of our bargain?”

  Romodon smiled as a spider smiles at the heart of its web. “The main event, as I believe you Americans are fond of saying.”

  Caroline took Paula in her arms and the two women hugged.

  Ray turned to his father. “He’s not talking about what I think he means is he?”

  Stock waved his hand dismissively. “What would you know about it? I’ve had this dream for almost twenty years. Whatever the price, it’s worth it.”

  “It’s not real, you must know that. Keeping mother alive was a trick and this is too, it has to be.”

  Two of the white robed women moved to the hidden door in the corner of the room. The door opened and the women took hold of one arm each of the figure that entered the room.

  Caroline screamed.

  “Frank,” Stock’s voice cracked with emotion.

  The women escorted between them a frail man. He was tall, though stooped. He was young, but he looked weary. He was breathing, but he looked like a dead man walking.

  “Your son, Frank,” Romodon said.

  Randolph Stock manoeuvred his wheelchair so he was facing Frank.

  He placed both hands on the arms of the chair and began an attempt to lift himself out of it.

  Caroline moved to help him, but Ray held her back.

  It was a supreme effort but Stock lifted his body out of the chair and hovered, half in and half out. His feet touched the floor, and for several moments they were like fish sliding on the deck of a boat. Then, they seemed to find strength from somewhere, and he placed his weight onto his legs. He let go with his hands and, swaying slightly on his feet, he stood, for the first time in almost two decades.

  “Frank, you’ve come back to me. Can you give your old man a hug?”

  The figure that was Frank looked blankly at him.

  “Frank?”

  One of the women tapped Frank on the shoulder and he shuffled forwards.

  Suddenly Ray sprang into action. He pushed his father back into the seat of his wheelchair and ran across to Frank.

  One of the women stood in front of him, fingers raised like claws. She hissed at him. Ray kicked her legs from under her, and as she fell he hit her on the side of her head, so when she went down she stayed down.

  Frank mumbled something that didn’t sound English and flinched away.

  “Stop him.” Romodon shouted.

  The other women moved towards Ray. Simon sidled over to Caroline.

  Before any of them could do anything Ray reached behind his waist, beneath his shirt, and pulled out a fish-gutting knife. He drew the blade fast and firm over Franks’ throat, instinctively ducking to avoid the torrent of blood that spurted out like a fountain.

  Stock uttered a cry of despair that left him gasping for breath.

  “That’s no more Frank than the person in the other room was your wife. They’ve used tricks and magic to reel you in, dad.”

  “I don’t care,” Stock thundered. “Can’t you see, I didn’t care. I just wanted…”

  “He just wanted his favourite child back,” Caroline said.

  Ray was surrounded by the women. They looked at Romodon. Simon, standing close to Caroline and Paula, looked too. They were all awaiting instructions.

  Romodon stood. He looked at Ray. “You have wasted the work of many months. That will have to be dealt with.” He snapped his fingers. “Take him, and these two.”

  Ray felt hot fingers grab his arms. He flashed out with the knife and felt soft flesh yield to the blade. One of the women fell clutching her face.

  The others swarmed over him likes ants and he struggled to fight them off.

  Romodon knelt over the prone body of Frank and was doing something that Ray couldn’t see,

  Simon suddenly let out a yelp of pain and staggered against the desk. Caroline held a black stiletto shoe in her hand, the tip of the heel coated in blood. When Simon hit the floor it was with quite a crash.

  Randolph Stock had fallen face forwards out of the wheelchair and was dragging himself painfully across the deep carpet towards his beloved son. Romodon stood from the body and watched him, fascinated.

  “You are wasting your time, Mr. Stock. It is not your son. Not any longer. Facially it resembles him as he was, but his essence, his soul, is long gone. We replaced it with a substitute, but…”

  Stock had reached Frank and was cradling his head. He was talking softly to his son, but no one tried very hard to hear what he was saying.

  The door to the study opened and more white robed figures came in.

  Caroline let herself be taken, and it served as distraction enough, to allow Paula to get away.

  Ray felt fingers of fire filter under his skin until it was as if his internal organs were being ripped apart.

  Ray and Caroline were subdued. As they were carried out of the room Stock looked up but just as quickly returned his attention to the only child he had really cared for.

  A few weeks later Paula stood on the dock by the harbour and looked out to sea.

  Martin Devereaux had called in the police, and they in turn brought in the FBI, but no trace was found of either Caroline or Ray. The search continued.

  The house was cleaned, the bodies were cleared away, and Martin slowly got on with the job of running Yellow Beach. If he missed, or was upset about his wife, he hid it well.

  Randolph Stock became a recluse. He took to his bed, under the supervision of Dr C
ooperman, and wasn’t responding to any treatments.

  Marlene was pronounced dead, and a small private funeral service was held. Her body was buried in the grounds of the Stock estate.

  Romodon and his followers disappeared.

  Paula had made her own inquiries about her mother and uncle. She knew some odd people from hanging around the various bars and clubs, and through word of mouth she got a lead.

  She’d been at the dock since morning, and it was now moving towards four in the afternoon. A fisherman, Oscar Hernandez, and his son Rudy, had shown her where to look. She knew Elsa Hernandez from college.

  Paula sat on the rough wooden decking, pulling at splinters with bored fingers. Despite outward appearance she loved her mother very much, and she wasn’t going to rest until she found her.

  She didn’t really know her uncle Ray so much, but the night of her eighteenth birthday was ingrained on her brain, and she was determined to locate him as well.

  When she saw the boat enter the harbour, passing the harbour master’s station, she stood. She was more excited than she had thought she would be.

  It was a small launch, and a big man stood at the wheel as he guided it home.

  There didn’t seem to be anyone else aboard.

  As the boat moored, the man tied it up and busied himself on deck.

  Paula walked across and called out. “Hey, Ray.”

  The big man looked up without comprehension. Hair long and uncombed, curling down over the collar of his shirt, several days’ growth of beard, a gold earring in the lobe of his right ear. He was over six feet tall, sun tanned, lean and well muscled. His nose looked as if it had been broken, and a mouth whose corners seemed to recall a time when they might wrinkle up in a sardonic smile, mocking the world.

  His mouth mocked no more.

  There was little or no life behind the eyes. His movements were automatic, without emotion.

  “Uncle Ray.”

  “Yes,” the man said. “Ray. That’s me. Ray.”

  He sounded drunk, or drugged, or worse.

  Paula turned away. “I used to know you.”

  THE END

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