Black's Creek (16 page)

Gingerly, I walked to the door, and looked out.

‘That's your intruder, Tommy.' Dad was pointing at the Klein's snowman, languishing smugly in their garden.

‘Can someone please tell me what's going on?' Mom said, her voice becoming increasingly prickly.

‘It's okay, Helen. False alarm. Tommy thought he saw an intruder.' Dad started laughing. ‘Mister Snowman.'

‘I know what I saw!' I said angrily. ‘It was Armstrong. I heard him coming into the house.'

‘That was me you heard, Tommy. I got called out in an emergency, a couple of hours ago.'

‘No, it wasn't you. I know what I saw. It was Armstrong. He was naked, and –'

‘That's enough, talking about naked men again!' said Mom. ‘Frank, close those doors before we become the laughing stock of the neighborhood. Tommy? Get to bed.'

‘But I'm telling you –'

‘Mister, you're telling me nothing other than
yes Mom, goodnight Mom, three bags full Mom
.'

Dad ruffled my hair.

‘Go on, Son. Get some sleep. You're overtired. We're all going straight to bed.'

‘I know what I saw …' I mumbled, heading back up the stairs. ‘It
was
Armstrong.'

A
s days turned to weeks, Devlin's murder slowly faded to the back of the town's consciousness. The economy was in turmoil, and people had more pressing things to think about, such as jobs and livelihoods. Only those who cared about Devlin kept her memory alive. I couldn't stop thinking of her.

It was Saturday afternoon. The snow had fallen persistently for three days, and was causing major power failures. Many homes – including ours – had no electricity. No electricity meant zero television, my main source of entertainment on Saturday afternoons. I was going stir crazy. I was driving Mom crazy also, so she did what she was good at: stirring.

‘That driveway could do with some shovelling,' she suggested, meaning get off your lazy ass and get the snow cleared, pronto.

‘What's the point? A whiteout's been forecast for later in the day. It'll only cover it up again. Can't I just read some comics in my room?'

‘When you're finished shovelling the snow away, I've a couple of other chores in mind,' Mom said, ignoring my feeble attempt at negotiation. As usual, there was no reasoning with her. It was either her way or the driveway – and make sure you have a snow shovel in hand.

‘Some Saturday this has turned out to be! I'd rather be at school,' I said, angrily grabbing my hooded coat and gloves, and heading out the door.

The second the shovel touched the ground, the falling snow became serious, laughing at my futile attempt to keep the driveway clear. Thick flakes parachuted from the sky with a vengeance, like an invading army. I endured the humiliating shovelling for about twenty more minutes, before finally deciding I'd had enough of the pointless task. I speared the shovel into a mound of snow, but instead of going back indoors to face Mom's wrath, I headed in the direction of Black's Wood.

Despite the snow adding to the difficulty, I believed I could conjure up a mental map of the exact spot where Devlin's body had been found. Perhaps she would speak to me, help me
unearth a clue missed by Dad and the rest of the investigators? Maybe tell me something not yet known about Armstrong? I knew it sounded mad, but stranger things had happened. I was desperate, and more than willing to take desperate action. I had let her down in life, but now I'd rectify that by helping to bring Armstrong to justice, one way or another.

When I finally arrived at Black's Wood, it resembled a frozen lunar landscape left behind from a million years ago. Eerily quiet and beautiful to behold, it took my breath away, literally. My icy breath streamed out each time I opened my mouth, and then paddled right back, as if seeking shelter where it had just been evicted from.

It had taken me over an hour to reach the woods, but it took less than five minutes to realise I would never realistically locate the spot where Devlin's body had been discovered. Despite this, I trudged aimlessly in different directions.

Hours filtered away before I finally admitted I was lost. Everything was too blindingly white. There was texture, but no shape. Tree branches besieged with ice created a picture of an elevated Edgar Allan Poe boneyard to my over-stimulated imagination. Every once in a while, I could hear a tree branch groaning under the strain of so much snow, and the soft hollow thud of snow falling to the ground from up high in the trees.

Ominously, a stark moon had slowly replaced the weak sun. Nerves began setting in. I stopped for a few seconds, and
began surveying the snow-enveloped landscape, desperately trying to figure out my best way of getting home.

The forest was becoming darker. I wished the dirty-grey sky was clear, so that I could see the stars – the stars that had stopped Mom with a sharp intake of breath on a frosty night not so long ago, leaving her motionless, speechless and utterly still. I remembered how she stood in the back garden, her mouth agape with awe and wonder, as if she had seen a UFO.

What is it, Mom?
I asked her.

God
, she replied solemnly.
When you think things have become too dark in your life, always remember, that only when it's dark enough, do we get to see the brilliance of the stars.

Just as I was about to make a move, I heard a sound, like a rough whisper.

‘Who … who's there?' I listened intently. The whisper was gone, replaced by the stretching tremor of wind skimming over the hardened surface of iced snow.

‘I said, who's there?' Despite the sound of my voice granting me a little bit of assurance, I was freaked out. A crafty little breeze began turning the resting snow into quivering white sails, like invisible mice running over the ground.

I decided to head in the direction of Ferguson's Bend, at the eastern end of the woods. It took me almost twenty minutes to complete what normally would have taken five, emerging just where the lake began. The lake had completely frozen over and looked like a plate of solid steel. I stopped momentarily,
gazing in awe at the strength of Nature to silence and tame the restless water. It was a clean freeze. No ripple lines scarring the surface. A mist danced across the icy surface.

As my eyes lingered on the lake, I spotted something stuck in its centre. From the safety of the lake's lip I strained my eyes to see. The moon reflected blindingly across the hardened surface, conspiring with the mist to make visibility difficult.

‘Looks like a wounded bird …' I spoke out loud to give myself company.

Easing closer to a group of trees, I now wished I had Dad's binoculars for a clearer view, though in all honesty they would afford me little help at this time of night. The mist was less heavy out from under the trees, so I could see just a little bit clearer.

‘A seagull or a swan. Got to be some sort of bird, trapped in the ice. What else can it be?' I needled my eyes along the surface, trying to gauge the ice's thickness. ‘Might still be alive. Shit, I can't just leave it like that, in pain.'

Cautiously placing my right boot on the ice, I began springing my knee slightly, testing the ice's integrity. It seemed okay. Pretty solid. Delicately standing with one half of my body-weight resting atop the icy surface, I brought the rest of my body on board, breathing a sigh of relief when I didn't go crashing through.

I waited a few seconds before bringing my right boot forward, followed slowly by the left. I tested the ice again, slightly
forcing my weight upon it. If I fell through at this stage, it wouldn't be too bad. The water would barely reach my waist.

‘Easy … easy …' I moved gradually along the frozen surface, gaining confidence and momentum with each step. Something was tickling my stomach. Adrenaline coupled with nerves. Creeping closer, I now realised it wasn't a trapped bird. Wrong shape. Wrong everything.

My eyes were playing tricks, making the middle of the lake wobble and warp. Cramps were beginning to plant themselves in the calves of my legs, but I willed myself on, knowing I would be within touching distance of the object in a moment.

‘Oh, shit …' I almost fell backwards, slipping on my ass. Looking up at me from beneath the ice was the face of a girl. Pitiful. Young. Her skin had a purplish hue, but it was the penetrating eyes I was forced to focus on. Dark blue. They looked like bluebottle flies, fat and greasy, feasting on her face. Her hand stuck up out of the ice, as though trying to grab hold of the air and pull herself free.

I stood still, hardly daring to breathe. I wanted to be away from this hellish place, but fear immobilised all movement. The girl's face was bobbing slightly against the ice beneath me, her lips in a perpetual ‘o' as if caught by surprise. Or terror.

Without warning, the ice started making a whispery sound. Beneath me, tiny cracks began emerging, slowly webbing
out in competing directions. A sickening feeling was rapidly entering my gut. The tension in my neck began trafficking all the way down to my spine, forcing muscles to stiffen like dry clay.

‘Oh … no …'

I quickly stepped back, but not before reaching instinctively for the arm, pulling on it forcefully in the hope of keeping my balance. No such luck. Instead, I skidded, slip-sliding backwards before crashing downwards onto the icy surface, force opening a new, gaping wound – a wound large enough to pull me in and under. In an instant, I was inverted beneath the ice, totally disorientated. Freezing water rushed into every cavity in my body. I began pushing frantically at the iced ceiling. I groped in the darkness for the entrance wound I had caused, but found nothing but iced resistance.

Don't panic. There has to be a way out …

Without warning, the dead girl's arm attached itself my clothes. Then her face rubbed up against mine. The face looked spongy, the eyes full of pain. She had died horribly, but all I could think about was pushing her away from me, with all the force I could muster.

I kept struggling to unite a small gathering of positive if somewhat patchy thoughts on how to escape. My burning lungs, though, were not taking part in the positive thinking, and they began inflating, ready to implode.

Think!

A dull drum of death was sounding. Echoing in my brain, it began counting down from five, mocking me.

Five …

Think!

Four … You're finished … you're going to die for allowing Joey to die …

Shut up!

Three … It's over … No point in struggling … Open your mouth and let the water take you … You're dead … You, Joey, Devlin …

I could feel my body being jolted slightly by the water's undulation as I groped blindly along the ceiling. I was quickly becoming mentally and physically exhausted.

The escape hole where I fell through has to be here. Find it …

Two … Goodbye, fool …

Bizarrely, an old horror movie entered my head. It was about a man who had been buried alive. Frantically, when he realised his fate, he began using his fingernails to scrape at the coffin's lid in a futile effort to escape the death he had always dreaded.

Now I was the one scraping frantically with my nails on the icy ceiling, no longer able to feel my fingers because of the cold. My head started ballooning. Any second now it would explode. The pain was becoming unbearable. Then, just as quickly as the pain had started, it subsided, leaving a
beautiful calm throughout my entire being. I had endured the storm before the calm, and this was my reward: the serenity of the dead. Blissful death. Everything became still. I was an ice sculpture, ready to depart from this world.

Directly above the iced ceiling, my fading eyesight caught an eerie figure. It was bright, like a lamp shining through the ice.

A face? An angel?

Without warning, the figure raised one of its arms.

Kartachhhhhhhhhhh
!

A knife came rocketing through the thick ice, narrowly missing my face. The iced ceiling disintegrated into particles. Two seconds later, a hand hooked itself onto the hood of my coat, and winched me violently to the surface.

With a tormented howl, I emerged, my mouth sucking the beautiful icy air,
suck suck sucking,
drinking the freezing air too quickly, making my burning throat gag and choke.

‘Hold still!' screamed the figure. ‘Don't breathe so hard, otherwise the cold'll suffocate you.'

My eyes were curtained with ice. Blinded, I strained to look at the figure towering over me.

‘Devlin …?' I mumbled, before finally blacking out.

I
kept floating in and out of consciousness. I was in a poorly lit bedroom of sorts. The room was filled with a jarring darkness, offering no clues to my whereabouts other than a nocturnal sense of dread.

Slowly, the surrounding space began morphing into colours and shapes. Smells of incense and melting candles quickened the air. I felt hot. I felt cold. A flotilla of blood-red balloons floated above me, each depicting Devlin's face in different moods. Every now and then, one of the faces got near to mine, planting a kiss on my lips, followed by a heart-rending smile.

‘I'm sorry, Devlin, for letting you down,' I mumbled. ‘Sorry for –'

Pop! Pop! Pop!
The balloons began popping loudly, making me jump.

‘Devlin? Where are you? Come back!'

A grinning Joey Maxwell appeared out of nowhere. In his hand he held a large, lethal-looking hatpin, dipped in blood. He brought the pin's apex to my left eye, and rested it on the pupil. I waited for him to plunge the pin in, but all he did was throw his head back in laughter, mouthing the words,
pop, pop, pop.

‘You're a foolish boy.' The voice startled me, breaking my nightmare. ‘Could have gotten yourself killed out there.'

A face came into view. I strained to focus. Not Devlin. Her mother, Jessica. She was sitting beside me, rubbing some sort of liquid into my skin. The pungent stench of alcohol riveted my nostrils, making them burn.

‘Where … where am I?' I tried easing myself up, but had little strength. I felt lethargic, as if all my bones had been removed by some mysterious and sadistic surgeon.

‘Short memory, boy? Don't recognise the place you trespassed, not so long ago?'

She continued rubbing and kneading my doughy skin.

To my embarrassment, I realised I was naked, with only a coarse blanket covering me. ‘Where're … where are my clothes?'

‘Getting washed and dried. The woollen blanket covering you is more than capable of keeping you warm. You don't
want to be putting too much covering on this moonshine.' She rubbed harder. ‘It needs to breathe. Moonshine can peel skin if it doesn't get to breathe.'

‘What am I doing here?' Then it all came back in a flash. ‘You … it was you who pulled me from the water. You put yourself in danger over me.'

‘Don't over-value your body's worth, boy. I was ice fishing. You were nothing more than an interruption of my cash flow.'

‘You saved my life.'

‘Saved your life?' There was a pane of frozen silence. Jessica Mantle kept studying me, like a cat within reach of a bird. ‘I thought you were a large fish, but you turned out to be a minnow I should have thrown back.'

‘How long've I been here?'

‘Two days, come evening.'

‘Two days!'

‘You've had a fever, and done a lot of mumbling in your sleep.'

‘But … but my mom and dad, they'll be looking for me. Have you contacted them?' I tried pushing myself up from the bed, but I'd become rubberised.

‘Phone lines are down. According to the radio, they're not expected to be up again until tomorrow at the earliest. Main roads are impassable, otherwise I'd have taken you to the hospital in the pick-up. Anyway, I don't know your ma and pa, so I couldn't contact them.'

‘You know my dad. He's the sheriff.'

‘The sheriff …?' She paused to consider this as she stared at my face. ‘Yes … I can see the likeness now; not then, not when he came to inform me my daughter'd been murdered. What's your name? I can't keep calling you
boy
.'

‘Tommy.'

‘Tommy.' She said my name strangely, as if it meant something to her.

‘He's smart, my dad. He'll find Devlin's killer, bring him to justice.'

‘Will he? He's already let the killer escape justice, or don't you follow what your pa does?'

‘That wasn't Dad's fault. He did everything he could.'

‘But did he do everything he could? If my daughter'd belonged to a rich family, her killer would be in jail now, for life. My daughter was on trial because of me.'

‘Dad said Armstrong's lawyer did that. Filled the jury's heads with shit – sorry for swearing. Said he got them to believe things they shouldn't have.'

‘They believed what they
wanted
to believe. They didn't care what happened to my daughter.'

‘Dad will get Armstrong in the end. You'll see.'

‘Will he?' She looked at me as if I had just tried to sell her a box of lies. She wanted proof, not empty rhetoric.

‘The girl!' I exclaimed, remembering. ‘What happened to the girl?'

‘Girl?' Jessica Mantle's forehead crinkled. ‘What girl?'

‘The girl, in the water, underneath the ice. You must've seen her. She was near me.'

‘There wasn't anyone else in the water. You've been hallucinating since you got here.'

‘I wasn't hallucinating! There
was
a girl. Young, dark eyes, sad smile … I think … I think she was dead …'

‘Dead?' Jessica Mantle looked at me with something I never thought possible: pity. ‘Guilt can do strange things to a soul. Can torment it to breaking point. You're filled with it, and it's crushing you. I know.'

‘What?' I felt my face twitch. ‘Why would I have guilt? I've nothing to be guilty about.'

‘We're all guilty of something, at one time or another. Your guilt rests with Devlin. You've been talking a lot in your sleep. I've been listening. It was hard not to. The day I caught you trespassing, you were here looking for her. Weren't you? You can no longer deny that.'

I tried to think of a good lie, but couldn't. ‘I just needed to see her.'

‘You blame yourself for her death. Why?'

‘I don't blame …' I was about to argue a lie, but didn't. ‘I don't know. I should have protected her, or something.'

‘That's how guilt operates. It sits in a corner like a spider, weaving silently in the dark. There was no protecting Devlin. There was nothing you could have done – nothing any of us
could have done. The wheels of evil were in motion that day, and there was no bringing them to a halt until they reached their destination.'

‘Devlin told me never to come here alone. Said it was dangerous.'

‘She meant me.'

‘You?'

‘She hated me.'

‘Hated? How can you say that when she took care of you?'

‘She told you that, did she? Oh, she took care of me, all right.' A smile as thin as a knife blade appeared on Jessica Mantle's lips. ‘In more ways than one. She was good that way. Making people dependent on her, only to snatch what she had given away when they needed it most.'

‘She wasn't like that …'
Or was she? Hadn't she done the same to me?

‘No? She always gave me my medicine on time – except when she couldn't find it. Usually that happened right after I had annoyed her, or said the wrong thing. Sometimes she couldn't find my medicine for days, until I was near Death's door. Want to know how I got all these bald patches on my head, the ones you keep staring at?'

‘I … I wasn't staring.'

‘From bottles being smashed against it. The numerous dead wounds have left tracts where my hair will never grow again. Pretty, aren't they? Know who caused them? Devlin. Oh, she
apologised, later. Even helped clean up the blood and the broken glass. But I can still see the gleam in her eyes when she saw the damage. She was glad she'd done it.'

‘Don't say that.' I was getting angry. Not with Jessica Mantle, but with myself for believing her words. ‘I … I don't believe you.'

‘Yes, you do. Remember when I caught you trespassing in the barn?'

‘Having a shotgun stuck into my face is hard to forget.'

‘I said at the time your eyes did a strange twitching when you're lying. Well, they're doing the same twitching right now. Eyes don't lie. God gave us eyes, but the Devil created tongues, the meat of deception. Devlin was a great user of people's emotion. She could make you do anything –
anything she wanted
– when she turned on the charm. As long as she was in control of the tap, and could turn it on and off when
she
decided, then everything was fine in her world.'

‘I want you to stop saying bad things about Devlin.' I tried making my face look mean, but it probably looked sickly and pathetic.

‘You need to hear the truth, bad or good, about her. That's the only way to break the hold she still has over you, even in death. Just over a year ago, she went into one of her blood rages, screaming at me, accusing me of being a witch, able to cast spells on her. She came at me with an axe, but I was able to run and lock myself in the bathroom. While I'm in there,
it all goes quiet, and I'm trying desperately to hear where she is, what she's up to. I'm expecting her to axe the door down. Instead, there is only the soft sound of liquid sliding under the door. I thought, perhaps she's peeing outside the door, just to anger me. But just as I smell and understand what that liquid is, her chilling voice breaks the silence. “I've just poured gasoline under the door. If you don't come out, you'll burn in Hell, where you belong with all the rest of the witches.” She rattled a box of matches close to the door, and sniggered. The sound was terrifying …'

I tried to picture Devlin standing outside that door, creating a puddle of gasoline, match in hand. I shuddered, as the picture came easily to mind. I didn't want to believe it.

‘Did … did Devlin set fire to the gasoline?' I asked, not really wanting an answer.

‘I could hear her fumbling with the matches, then I heard the striking of a match against the sandpapery side of the box; smelt the stench of sulphur in the air …' Jessica Mantle seemed to recoil slightly at the memory. ‘I knew that if I stayed in there, I would be burned to death. So I rushed out the door, physically tackled her down, and I knocked her out accidentally. Soon after that, they came and took her away. Six months of shock treatment she needed, before they deemed that she was no longer a threat to herself or others. No longer a threat …'

‘Was … was she okay, then, after … what they did to her?'

Jessica Mantle looked beyond me for a few seconds before finally answering. ‘I think it made her worse, more paranoid, more mean …'

Silence crept into the room. I no longer wanted to hear bad things about Devlin.

‘The lake,' I said. ‘What were you doing there, at that time of night?'

‘What I was doing there, was minding my business, until someone came along and interfered with that business; someone who shouldn't have been walking on thin ice.'

‘I need to know. It's important to me.'

‘If you really need to know, I was out hunting. That's how we … that's how
I
normally eat in this place, what the land gives. Strange, I usually avoid the lake area, as there is little game to be had, but …'

‘What?'

‘Something … I don't know. Something ushered me in that direction, the wind, strong, pushing me …' Her voice fell silent.

‘Do you believe in ghosts?'

‘Ghosts?'

‘Or walking souls? Someone who protects, even if they are no longer with us?'

‘No. When you're dead, you're dead.'

‘I think … I think Devlin directed you to the lake, to help save me.'

‘If that's what you believe, believe.'

‘If she hated you, she wouldn't have brought you to the lake, to save me. Don't you see?'

Jessica Mantle walked to the door without answering.

‘Mrs Mantle?'

She turned. ‘Yes?'

‘I'm sorry.'

‘For what?'

‘For thinking … for thinking you were some sort of … monster.'

My words seemed to catch her off-guard.

She pulled a tight smile across her mouth. ‘Oh, but I
am
a monster. Devlin would have testified to that, had she not been murdered.'

‘You shouldn't say things like that.'

‘The abortion? You heard about it during the trial?'

I nodded slowly. ‘I overheard my parents talking about it, when I shouldn't have. I didn't know what an abortion was, so I went to the library, over at Kansas Avenue. I searched book after book until I found what I needed. I almost threw up. The pictures inside were frightening.'

‘Life is frightening. No fairy-tale ending. You better get used to that.'

‘But … a baby? How could Devlin do such a horrible thing?'

‘She had no say in the matter. No say whatsoever. I sent her to a … friend. Devlin thought she was going to have that baby.
What she didn't know was that I'd already decided not to allow that – couldn't allow it. The person I sent her to was an abortionist, not a doctor. Now you know the truth about why she wanted to kill me. Now you know I really am a monster.'

I stared at the door, long after Jessica Mantle had left.