Dead Souls (34 page)

He screamed.

Jolted up.

Looked around.

The car was stopped and his door was open. Another man about the same age as the one who picked him up was gripping him gently by the arm.

"It's okay, it's okay, I'm here to help."

Johnny gasped, his mind rolling crazily.
Dead men, coming after me!
He licked his cracked lips with his dry tongue. The fibrous grayness that had taken him down squirmed in and out of his sights. His shirt was torn, bunched up around his neck.

"My name is Henry
Depford
, and I'm here to help you."

Johnny nodded, unable to wrestle the images from his mind.
Dead men, walking, coming after me!
He took a few deep breaths in an effort to beat back the stupor, then struggled to his feet and followed the man's lead. Nausea filled his gut (which he instinctively pulled his shirt back down over), and he thought he was going to throw up, but it quickly passed. Both men helped him along a short walkway toward a house with a bright yellow porch light. Bugs flitted about the light in droves.

"You just come with me," the man said, leading Johnny up the porch steps. "You'll be safe here."

Safe! Safe! Safe from the dead men coming after me!

Brother…

The man, Henry, showed Johnny into a living room with two blue plaid sofas and a planked wood floor that glowed richly. The cool clean air inside was refreshing, making him feel a little more connected to the world…a world where only kind living people existed.

He gazed forward and noticed a woman standing in the entrance to a kitchen. She had auburn hair and bright blue eyes that gazed at Johnny from behind a pair of wire-frame glasses. She wore a bathrobe with an embroidery of a rose on it. In her hands was a wooden rolling pin, the lack of an appetizing aroma leading Johnny to assume it as a prospective tool for defense. Indeed, she didn't look all too pleased to have a filthy stranger invading the privacy of her home

"Don't just stand there, Teresa," Henry said. "Get him some water."

The woman grimaced and disappeared into the kitchen. The two men eased Johnny down into a chair alongside a small round table. Johnny gazed up at the two men, both of them pacing and fidgeting, seemingly impatient for the woman to return with a glass of water. Soon enough, she did, and she handed it to her husband, who then gave it to Johnny.

"Drink up, my boy. Mrs. D. will fix you something to eat—you must be hungry."

Johnny drank the glass of water, and Teresa—Mrs. D.—was there to refill it, albeit tentatively. He looked around the room. Straight ahead, a needlepoint tapestry of a barn—
a barn
—hung on the wall above an antique Hi-
Fi
stereo. On the right stood a breakfront overflowing with ceramic farm animals.

"Please…what's going on here?" he asked.

"We were fixing to ask you the same thing," Henry said, regarding Johnny with what appeared to be deep fascination. "Are you hurt?"

Dead men, coming after me…

Johnny shook his head. "A few bumps and bruises…" He took another sip of water, wondering if he should compromise this moment of security with his story of men coming back from the dead. Instead, in a decision to maintain a pretense of sanity, said, "Something terrible is happening."

Henry nodded grimly. "I know."

Johnny gazed up at Henry, realizing now with dismay that whatever in God's name was going on, it was far from over. In fact, it was probably just beginning. And that scared him…scared him in a way that was both perplexing
and
certain, as if he were in a dream, standing naked in the center of a busy intersection, conscious of
what
to do, but incapable of doing it.

Henry added, "We'll get you washed up, get some food into you, and then we'll talk about everything that's been going on, okay Bryan?"

Johnny sipped the water, then responded, "Johnny…my name's Johnny Petrie."

Henry hesitated. For a moment he looked at the man who drove Johnny over, then back at Johnny.

"But…" Johnny added, "I
am
Bryan Conroy."

Henry nodded insightfully, lips pursed. "You look just like your father."

"So I've been told."

Henry kneeled down on one knee and placed a gentle hand on Johnny's thigh. At once, Johnny felt a cautionary tightness in his chest, which he countered with a long, deep breath. "Johnny," Henry said, "I'm gonna need to hear everything that's happened to you. It'll help me decide what to do next, although I do have an inkling as to what lies in the road ahead." He paused, then added, "I'm going to need your help, son. Can you help me?"

Of course Johnny didn't know what to make of the situation. Common sense told him that he should insist on a ride to the nearest bus station and get the hell out of
Wellfield
, now and forever…but his heart told him otherwise. There was something evil at play here—he'd become well aware of it upon first entering the house with Andrew Judson. It had invaded his home back in Manhattan, and had made itself known through Judson and the psycho. And more than likely, it would follow him home should he decide to leave.

He gazed at Henry's pleading gray eyes, his wrinkled skin. The man really did seem genuine in his intentions to help, despite having unspecified motives.
   

Johnny nodded, seeing no alternative at this point but to submit himself to the niceties being offered. Trembling with fear and uncertainty, he said, "I'll help you, but please, tell me…what the hell is going on here?"

Seeming both nervous and secretly pleased, Henry smiled. "Okay."

September 8
^th
, 2005

10:29 PM

F
atefully easy.

That's how the journey from the third-floor hallway to the sidewalk was for Mary Petrie. She hadn't run into anyone inside, and just as she'd assumed, the pedestrians outside did nothing more than wrinkle their noses at the strange odor in the air. Yes, they'd all shot their gazes around and even eyed the swaddled, wheelchair-bound man wearing sunglasses and a pea-cap, but soon moved on (although Mary was almost certain they'd had their suspicions, especially the elderly man who started gagging out loud), perhaps blaming the stink on garbage or dog crap or dead rats buried in some nearby sewer. Even Mary, whose newfound consciousness interpreted Ed's rotting state as 'natural', had imagined it would take a few good applications of bleach to rid the building's elevator of its nearly visible stench.

She used the remote on the driver's key to open the sliding side-panel door of the mini-van. Set into the frame of the door alongside a universal handicap logo was a red, quarter-sized button. She pressed it, leaving a wet smear of blood on it, and with a mechanical whir, an automatic lift slid out and dropped to the sidewalk. She rolled the wheelchair onto it, back-stepped into the van, and pressed the button again. The platform rose back up.

She pulled the chair in the van and anchored the wheels to the braces in the floor; there were no rear seats at all, affording enough room for four wheelchairs if needed. Once the second wheel was locked in place, she settled in behind the wheel of the van, where she stared at her dead,
sunglassed
husband in the rearview mirror, while gasping from all the activity.

Don't you worry, Ed. I'm taking you to see Johnny. He's at the house. That's right, the same house we're going to save your dying soul at. There'll be no short stops, no reunions. We'll just do what we have to do, and then we'll get Johnny and leave. And be rest assured, he'll be getting the
whuppin
' of his life when we get back home.

She started the van, but before leaving, removed the feather from her pocket and tucked its quill into a slit in the passenger seat beside her.
Help me guide the way
, she implored in thought, then pulled away from the building she and Ed and Johnny had lived in for the last seventeen years, blending into all the sights and sounds of the city, just as she had upon leaving the hospital.

Twenty minutes later, long after she'd caught her breath and made certain that Ed's chair wasn't going anywhere, she was driving in light traffic on the George Washington Bridge, looking for signs to Interstate 95 which would take her north, all the way to
Wellfield
, Maine.

And not once did she consider that, up until this moment, she'd never driven a car before.

September 8
^th
, 2005

10:56 PM

T
he shower in the
Depford
home was hot and strong. For nearly twenty minutes, Johnny scrubbed himself from head to toe, making certain to rid himself of every speck of
Wellfield
taint. Teresa—Mrs. D. as she was so cordially referred to—was kind enough to place his clothes in the trash; he'd emptied his pockets of the plastic bag containing the feather (and struggled to remember as to why he felt the need to keep it, but couldn't come up with a sensible answer, although the thought of ridding himself of it left him feeling scared and sick and hollow), and Ed's final note,

(OSIRIS)

plus the now infamous letter from Andrew Judson, which having gone through a war of sorts, looked much older than its date indicated. While toweling off and quickly dressing himself in Henry
Depford's
clothes (the pants given to him were a bit too big, but Johnny still had his belt and was able to fasten them around his waist), he shuddered at the cruel fact that Judson had essentially waited around for eighteen years to get murdered, and, as it would turn out, come back from the dead.

Come back from the dead? That couldn't be. It just isn't possible. Yet…I saw them die with my very own eyes. Judson. The psycho. Both of them. I KILLED THE PSYCHO MYSELF.

But wouldn't Mary have argued that Jesus rose from the dead? So, then, why not these men?

Dead men, coming after me…

Brother…

Massaging his head with the towel, Johnny shook the harrowing thought from his mind. He tucked the plastic bags and Judson's letter in his pocket and exited the bathroom.

At once he smelled the aroma of fresh coffee brewing, and upon reaching the dining room, found Henry
Depford
sitting at the small round table sipping from a small mug. Johnny sat at the table across from Henry, and Mrs. D. appeared from the kitchen with a sandwich and mug filled with black coffee.

Henry said glumly, "Better get some food and caffeine in
ya
. Gonna need your energy."

Feeling exhausted and fatigued, these weren't the words Johnny was hoping for, but didn't argue the point. He was suddenly starved, and given the events of the day, didn't think he'd be able to sleep at all. He attacked the sandwich in silence, peering at Henry once through the tops of his eyes and seeing a man who seemed to have aged quite a bit in the last half-hour.
And rightly so. I caught a glimpse of myself in the bathroom mirror and beheld a stranger of eighteen going on fifty.

A moment later, when Johnny finished the sandwich, he inquired about the man that'd picked him up.

"Carl Davies."

"Why'd he bring me here?"

"Because he knows me better than anyone else in the world, Mrs. D. included." Henry took a sip of coffee, then added, "Used to be my deputy. But like myself, he's retired now."

"Your deputy…?" Johnny's voice was slightly louder than a whisper.

Henry nodded. "Used to be the sheriff here in
Wellfield
. Retired almost seventeen years, though."

"You're not old enough to be retired that long."

Henry rubbed a thumb along the handle of the mug. "I was thirty-eight at the time, had been the sheriff for five years." He cleared his throat, then added, "Something happened right here in
Wellfield
that'd not only made me step down from my sheriff's post, but also forced me devote my life to a new field of study."

Johnny took a sip of coffee, his gaze fixed questioningly on Henry
Depford
.

Henry stood from the table. "Come with me Johnny. I've got something to show you."

Johnny rose and followed Henry through a short hall to a set of carpeted steps that creaked as they climbed to the second floor. Once in the top foyer, Henry made a left. Johnny kept close behind, noticing a closed paneled door about four feet away. Across the foyer was an open door and Johnny could see another bathroom, the synthetic stench of cherries leaching out.

Henry stopped at the closed door. He gripped the knob, then turned toward Johnny, face was solemn, icy, and pale. "Here's where I've spent much of the last seventeen years. Here's my life's work."

He opened the door and ushered Johnny into a study room roughly twelve by fifteen feet. Perched in the far right corner was a studiously neat pinewood desk that held a computer, a small wrought iron lamp, and a steel mesh document tray piled with notebooks. Against the walls were a series of rolling cork boards—Johnny counted seven in all—each and every one jam-packed with a wide variety of neatly-arranged documents: newspaper clippings, photographs, and scribbled notes. A floor-to-ceiling bookshelf alongside the room's only window was clogged with hard and soft-cover books. A cursory glance revealed a few titles relating to religion and the occult. Johnny couldn't help but marvel at the meticulous amount of work Henry
Depford
had carried out here.