...And the Damage Done Read Online Free PDF Page A

good-bye.
”
    Against my will, the memory of holding Marie’s hand, the scents of her hair and skin as worn by her sister, pulls Marie close. I call her as would a medium, as would a spiritualist. She is caught here in this place. The trace of Marie that has haunted me has been caught here,
trapped
in the home of those who murdered her, bound by the needle that killed her, that hangs from the ceiling above me like a reliquary on black thread spun from strands of hair stolen from her brush. The dangling syringe glints as it did in the sun, when I saw it as a phantom buried in Marie’s arm. It is now not lit by the sun, but by an imprisoned light that should no longer be in this shitty world.
    I speak the words, “
They
killed her,” yet make a sound no more understandable than a death rattle.
    The
Jar
is brought forth . . . the vessel I have always been aware of, because of its decades-long housing of part of my awareness. That of me that
they
have owned is passed from one hand to another in a circle around me. I do not know with which sight I see the caul I was born with floating in its preserving brine. I do not know if it swims in the brine with true physicality, languidly flapping as would a manta ray.
    “It told us of its loss,” says the man who followed me. “What it lost was
you
.”
    And I know what
they
have always believed to be true is now true enough for
them
to make real: that I was not born with the caul that gave me sight—the caul was born with me. They have prayed and hungered this into reality.
    Free of the Jar, it lives in their hands as
they
pass it wetly to each other, as
they
invest themselves with that which
they
once thought could grant them cosmic insight of what will come, but which
they
only desire now in order to accrue material wealth. It is returned to my face, dropped like a shroud after it has been pulled into the shape of one. The last breath my lungs draw becomes a still pocket in my chest.
    The mercy of deafness, the mercy of muted hearing, is fully stripped away. I hear the cacophonic indifference of the universe. Marie’s trapped ghost speaks through my smothered mouth. The taut skin makes sounds as would the buzzing of fly wings. Nell pulls away her hand and slashes my palm with her nails. She is screaming as I fall into Marie’s sky, full of cruel seraphim and their awful songs.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
    Michael Marano is a former punk rock DJ, bouncer, and the author of the modern dark fantasy classic
Dawn Song
, which won both the International Horror Guild and Bram Stoker Awards, and which will be reprinted by ChiZine Publications in 2013, to be followed by two sequels. For more than 20 years, his film reviews and pop culture commentary have been a highlight of the nationally syndicated Public Radio Satellite System show
Movie Magazine International
. His non-fiction has appeared in alternative newspapers such as
The Independent Weekly
,
The Boston Phoenix
and
The Weekly Dig
, as well as in magazines such as
Paste
and
Fantastique
. His column “MediaDrome” has been a wildly popular feature in
Cemetery Dance
since 2001. He currently divides his time between a neighbourhood in Boston that had been the site of a gang war that was the partial basis of
The Departed
and a sub-division in Charleston, SC a few steps away from a former Confederate Army encampment. He can be reached at
www.michaelmarano.com
.

PUBLICATION HISTORY
    “. . . And the Damage Done” originally appeared in
Outsiders: 22 All-New Stories From the Edge
, edited by Nancy Holder and Nancy Kilpatrick (Roc, 2005)