A UNIFORMED NURSE WITH A SURGICAL MASK OVER THE LOWER HALF of her face peered from the Quiet Room at Rix. She wore skintight surgical gloves as well. Above the mask her eyes were dark brown and set in webs of wrinkles.

A wave of decay rolled out of the Quiet Room and struck Rix with almost tangible force. He gripped the banister tightly, his teeth clenched.

Mrs. Reynolds whispered, "A mask should help," and motioned toward the box.

He put one on. The inside was scented with mint, but it was not much help.

"Are you Rix?" She was a big-boned woman, possibly in her mid-forties, with curly iron-gray hair cut short. Rix noted that her eyes were faintly bloodshot.

"Of course it's Rix, you damned fool!" came the hoarse, barely human rasp from the darkness. Rix stiffened. His father's melodic voice had degenerated to an animal's growl. "I told you it would be Rix, didn't I? Let him in!"

Mrs. Reynolds opened the door wider for him. "Quickly," she said. "Too much light hurts his eyes. And remember, please keep your voice as soft as possible."

Rix stepped into the high-ceilinged, rubber-walled room. Then were no windows. The only light came from a small green shaded Tensor lamp on a table next to the chair where Mrs Reynolds had been sitting. It cast a low-wattage circle of illumination that extended for only a foot or so into the room. He had an instant to see his father's grim bedroom furniture arranged in the room before Mrs. Reynolds closed the heavy rubber-lined door, sealing off the corridor's light.

He'd seen his father's canopied bed. There had been something lying in that bed, within a clear plastic oxygen tent. Rix thanked God the door had closed before he'd been able to see it too well.

In the darkness he could hear the soft chirping of an oscilloscope.

The machine was just to the left of his father's bed; he saw the pale green zigzag of Walen Usher's labored heartbeat. His father's breathing was a pained, liquid gasping. Silk sheets rustled on the bed.

"Do you need anything, Mr. Usher?" the nurse whispered.

"No," the agonized voice replied. "Don't shout, goddamn it!"

Mrs. Reynolds returned to her chair, leaving Rix to fend for himself. She continued where she'd left off in her Barbara Cartland novel.

"Come closer," Walen Usher commanded.

"I can't see where I'm - "

There was a sharp inhalation. "Softly! Oh God, my ears . . ."

"I'm sorry," Rix whispered, unnerved.

The oscilloscope had started chirping faster. Walen didn't speak again until his,heartbeat had slowed down. "Closer. You're about to stumble into a chair. Step to your left. Don't trip over that cable, you idiot! More to the left. All right, you're five paces from the foot of the bed. Damn it, boy, do you have to stomp?"

When Rix reached the bed, he could feel the fever radiating from his father's body. He gripped one of the canopy sheets and felt sweat trickling down under his arms.

"Well, well," Walen said. Rix could sense himself being examined. The silk sheets rustled again, and a form slowly shifted on the bed. "So you've come home, have you? Turn around. Let me look at you."

"I'm not a prize horse," Rix mumbled to himself under his breath.

"You're not a prize son, either. You don't fill out those clothes, Rix. What's wrong with you? Doesn't writing put enough food on your table?"

"I'm all right."

Walen grunted. "Like hell you are." He was silent, and Rix heard the gurgling of fluid in his lungs. "I'm sure you recall this room, don't you? It used to shelter you, Boone, and Kattrina whenever you had attacks. Where do you go now?"

"There's a closet I use in my apartment. I've got egg cartons stapled to the walls to muffle sound, and I've fixed the door so light can't get in."

"I'll bet you've got it looking like a womb. Something about you always craved a return to the womb."

Rix let the remark go. The darkness and smell of corruption pressed on him. The sickening heat from his father's body glared in his face like sunlight off metal. "Where do Katt and Boone go, now that you've moved in up here?"

"Boone's built his own Quiet Room, a chamber next to his bedroom. Katt's cut a hole in the wall behind her closet. They don't have many attacks. They don't understand what I'm going through in here, Rix. They've always lived at Usherland, where it's safe. But you - you understand what hell can be like, don't you?"

"I don't have that many attacks."

"No? What would you call that experience you endured yesterday in New York?"

"Boone told you?"

"I heard him telling Margaret, down in the living room last night. You forget how much I can hear, Rix. I heard you talking downstairs with them. I heard you climbing the stairs. I can hear your heartbeat right now. It's racing. Sometimes my senses are more acute than at other times; it comes in waves. But you understand what I mean, don't you? Ushers can't survive for very long beyond the gates of Usherland; it's a fact I'm sure you're beginning to appreciate."

Rix's eyes were getting used to the darkness. Lying on the bed before him, beneath the folds of the oxygen tent, was something that looked like a brown stick-figure, horribly emaciated. It lay motionless - but when one bony, shriveled arm reached out to draw the silk sheet closer, a shiver rippled up Rix's spine. A little more than a year ago, Walen Usher had stood over six feet and weighed one hundred eighty-five pounds. The shape on the bed couldn't possibly weigh more than half that.

"Don't stare at me," Walen rasped. "Your time'll come."

A knot clogged Rix's throat. When he could find his voice, he said, "It doesn't appear that living at Usherland all your life has made a difference for you, one way or the other."

"You're wrong. I'm sixty-four years old. My time is almost up. Look at yourself! You could be my brother instead of my son. Every year you live outside the gates of Usherland, your health will continue to erode. Your attacks will get worse. Soon that little womb won't be enough. You'll try to hide in there one day, and you'll realize too late you've overlooked a chink of light. You'll go blind and mad in there, with no one to help you. Before this" - his voice dripped with disgust - "I hadn't suffered an attack for five years. Hudson Usher knew that the air, here, the peace and solitude, would be a balm to the Malady. He built this estate so his ancestors could live long, full lives. We have our own world here. You're insane to want to live anywhere else - or you're intent on committing slow suicide."

"I left because I wanted to make my own way."

"Of course." There was a liquid rush and gurgle from beneath the bed. Bodily waste, Rix realized. Walen was hooked up to tubes that carried his fluids away. "Yes, you've certainly 'made your way.' You wrote advertising copy in some Atlanta department store for a while. Then you took a job selling books And after that you were a copy editor on some local tabloid. Magnificent occupations, one and all. And let's not forget the. progress of your personal life. Shall we discuss your misbegotten marriage and its aftermath?"

Rix's jaw clenched. He felt as if he were a child again, and being whipped by the Peacemaker.

"I'll spare you that, then. Let's talk about your literary achievements.

Three pieces of jibbering nonsense. I understand that last book of yours was on the best-seller lists for a short time. As they say, if you put a monkey in a room with a typewriter long enough, he'll eventually produce Shakespearean sonnets." He paused, letting the pain of the lashings sink in. As a child, Rix had fought against crying when the Peacemaker was in use, but the pain ultimately won. Had enough? Walen would ask, and when Rix remained stubbornly silent the belt would whistle again. Walen said offhandedly, "Those books of yours probably drove your wife to suicide, you know."

Rix felt his control snap like a splintering bone. His mouth twisted under the mask, and the blood roared in his ears. "How does it feel to be dying, Dad?" he heard himself ask in an acid voice. "You're about to lose everything, aren't you? The estate, the business, the Lodge, the money. None of it will be worth a damn when you're dust in a box, will it?" The oscilloscope had begun singing, and across the room Mrs. Reynolds nervously cleared her throat. Rix went on, "You're going to be dead soon, and no one's going to care - except maybe those bloodsuckers in the Pentagon. You deserve each other. God knows, the Usher name makes me sick to my stomach!"

The skeleton on the bed hadn't moved. Suddenly, Walen lifted his skinny arms and softly clapped his hands together twice. "Very dramatic," he whispered. "Very heartfelt. But don't you worry about my dying, Rix. I'll let go when I choose, not before. Until then, I'll be right here."

"I just can't seem to learn that things never change here, can I? I think I've stayed for too long already." He started to move away from the bed.

"No. Wait." It was a command, and in spite of his anger, Rix obeyed. "There's something more I have to say."

"Say it, then. I'm leaving."

"As you please. But you've misjudged me, son. I've always had your best interests at heart."

Rix almost laughed. "What?" he asked incredulously.

"I am a human being, no matter what you think. I have feelings. I've made mistakes. But I've also understood my destiny, Rix, and I've prepared for it. Only . . . it's come upon me so fast, so fast." He paused as more fluids rushed through the tubes. "The indignity of death is the worst of it," he said softly. "I watched my father die like this. I knew what was ahead for me, as well as for my children. You can't turn your back on your Usher heritage, no matter how hard you try."

"I'm going to do my best."

"Are you? Really?" Walen's hand came out from under the sheet and moved to a small panel beside the bed. He began pressing buttons, and a series of television screens lit up on a console that had been built into the wall. The screens' contrast and brightness had been turned very low, so as not to hurt Walen's eyes, but Rix could make out the interior of the estate's Roman-styled natatorium, the indoor tennis courts, the helipad and the helicopter hangar behind the Gatehouse, the interior of the garage with its collection of antique automobiles, and a view of Usherland's front gates. The closed-circuit cameras panned slowly back and forth. "The Usher life doesn't have to be unpleasant," Walen said. "Look what we have here. Our own world. The freedom to do as we please, when we please. And we have influence, Rix - influence you've never even dreamt of."

"Do you mean the power to blow whole countries off the map?" Rix asked sharply. In the increased illumination he saw the smiling skull of his father's face from the corner of his eye. He dared not look too closely.

"Come now. Ushers only design and build the weapons. We don't aim them. It's nothing that Colt didn't do, or Winchester, or a hundred other men with vision. We've just taken the process a few steps further."

"From flintlock muskets to laser guns. What's next? A weapon to murder babies in their mothers' wombs? Something to kill them before they grow up to be enemy soldiers?"

The skull grinned. "You see? I always knew you were the most creative of my children."

"I'll stick to writing."

The television screens began to go dark. "Your mother needs you," Walen said.

"She's got Boone and Katt."

"Boone has other concerns. That wife of his has made him unstable. And Katt may pretend to be tough, but her emotions are like crystal. Your mother needs a shoulder to lean on right now. Jesus Christ! What's that hissing noise I keep hearing? It sounds as if it's coming from somewhere downstairs!"

"Mother's spraying Lysol." Rix was amazed that his father could detect the distant noise.

"It aggravates the piss out of me! Tell her to stop it. She needs you, Rix. Not Boone or Katt. You."

"What about Cass and Edwin?"

"They have the estate to look after. Damn it, boy! I won't beg you! This is the last thing I'll ever ask of you! Stay here, for your mother's sake!"

Rix had been caught off guard; he hadn't expected such an open appeal from his father. But here he was, back at Usherland, with the run of the estate and time on his hands - what better opportunity, then, to pursue the idea that had sparked in his mind in New York? The Gatehouse had a large library; there might be something of use in there. He would have to be careful. Though he'd mentioned his idea casually to Cass the last time he'd been home, he didn't want anyone knowing he was seriously considering it.

"All right," Rix agreed. "Only a few days. I can't stay any longer."

"That's all I ask."

Rix nodded. The skeleton on the bed shifted painfully. There was something on the bed beside him. Rix stared at it for a moment before he realized it was the Usher cane with the silver lion's head, the symbol of the Usher patriarch. Walen's crablike hand closed around it.

"You can go now," Walen told him shortly.

My appointment's over, Rix thought. He turned abruptly away from the bed and groped to the door. Mrs. Reynolds put aside her book and rose to let him out.

The muted stairway light stung his eyes. He ripped the surgical mask from his face and dropped it into a stainless-steel trashcan. His clothes reeked of rot.

He descended the stairs on shaky legs, but halfway down an overwhelming dizziness struck him. He had to stop as the world spun around. There were cold specks of sweat on his face, and he braced for an attack. But then it passed, and he took several deep breaths to clear his head.

When he was ready to walk again, he went along the corridor and found Edwin waiting for him. Edwin didn't have to ask about his reaction to seeing Walen; Rix's face looked like a sheet of waxed paper.

Edwin cleared his throat. "Have you seen your room yet?"

"No. Why?" The last time he'd slept in there, it was comfortable but nothing special. All his old furniture had long since been taken out to make way for an elaborate bed, a chest of drawers, a rosewood dresser, and a marble-topped table brought from the Lodge.

Edwin opened the door for him.

Rix stopped as if he'd walked into a glass wall.

The room had been changed back again. The ostentatious furniture had departed. In its place was a familiar, battered pinewood desk topped with a green blotter and a beat-up Royal typewriter - his first typewriter, the one he'd pounded out monster stories on when he was ten years old; his own chest of drawers, decorated with a hundred decals from airplane model kits; his bed, with the carved headboard that he'd pretended was a spaceship's instrument panel; even the dark green rug that looked like forest moss. It was all the same, right down to the brass lamps on the desk and bedside table. Rix was amazed. He had the eerie sensation of stepping backward in time, and thought that if he opened the closet door he might find Boone - a smaller Boone, but no less tricky - crouched in there among the boy-sized suits and shoes, waiting to leap out and scream "Pumpkin Man!" at the top of his lungs.

"My God," Rix said.

"Your mother insisted that all these items be taken out of storage in the Lodge and returned," Edwin said with a helpless shrug.

"I can't believe this! It's exactly the way the room looked when I was ten years old!"

"She wanted to make sure you were comfortable. It was all done overnight."

Rix entered the room. Everything was the same. Even the blue and green checked bedspread. "How did she remember what was in here? I didn't think she ever paid that much attention to my room."

"Cass and I helped her."

Rix opened the bottom drawer of the chest, half hoping to find the three stacks of vintage Batman comics he'd saved and then, stupidly, thrown away when he thought he'd outgrown them. The drawer was empty, as were all the others. The smell of mothballs wafted out. Atop the chest was something Rix had all but forgotten - a small carved wooden box. Rix opened it and felt like a kid again; inside was an assortment of polished stones, marbles, and old coins. His collection had remained intact over the years. He gently closed the lid of what he'd called his "treasure box" and went to the closet. His garment bag and suitcase were inside.

"Is it all right? Your mother wants to know."

"I guess it's fine. I still can't believe this! She went a little overboard, didn't she?"

"It's her way of showing you how pleased she is that you're back," Edwin said. "And I am too, Rix. Cass and I have missed you more than you'll ever know." He touched Rix's shoulder gently.

"Is Cass in the kitchen? I'd like to see her."

"No, she drove over to the farmer's market in Foxton for some fresh vegetables. She's making a Welsh pie for you tonight. Uh . . . you did bring a coat and tie, didn't you?"

Rix smiled thinly. "I knew that if I didn't I wouldn't be allowed to eat." His mother barred from the dining room anyone who wasn't wearing what she considered civilized clothing. "She'll never change, will she?"

"Your mother was brought up to be a lady," Edwin said diplomatically. "She has certain standards. But please, Rix -  remember that she's under a terrible strain right now."

"I'll be on my best behavior," Rix promised.

"We'll talk later, then. I want to hear about your newest book. What's its title? Bedlam?"

"Right." He had explained the plot of Bedlam to Edwin one night during a long telephone call about six months before, and he remembered Edwin's silence when he had gone into detail about the carved-up bodies hanging in the apartment building's basement. Edwin did his best to be enthusiastic about Rix's writing projects, though Rix knew his taste ran to American history and biographies.

When Edwin had left him, Rix put his suitcase on the bed and opened it. Inside, amid the clothes, were a dozen bottles of vitamins. He'd begun consuming megadoses more than three years ago, when he'd looked in the mirror and seen himself aging almost supernaturally fast. He thought that if he took enough vitamins his appetite would pick up. Still, he ate barely enough to keep a bird alive. He thought that they were doing some good, though. At least his hair had stopped falling out in clumps.

In the bathroom, he drew tap water into a glass and downed several capsules from each bottle.

"Welcome home," he said to the old man in the mirror.

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