Deep in the Darkness (29 page)

Eventually, when thoughts of my broken family fade from my mind, I stare into the woods and wonder just when they will call on me again.

I haven't seen hide nor hair of them since I swung the club and murdered my closest neighbor, Phillip Deighton. Every day I envision his tortured eyes, swollen and bruised and shuttered tight while anticipating the blow that would shatter his skull and disperse blood and skull and hairs out in an organic spray. I can still see his body so clearly...how it fell in a lifeless heap at my feet, twitching,
creeping
, the blood and the brains spilling from the crushed portion of his skull like porridge, the thick warmth of it soaking through my boots to my feet. Every day I see this scene played out in my mind like a recurring nightmare, and my skin immediately moves on my body—it feels as though insects are crawling feverishly beneath my skin. Eventually I force myself to sit silently in my office and clutch myself tightly in an effort to prevent lunacy from taking full control of my mind and body. And then, when the hours pass and nighttime falls, I find it in me to rise from my paralysis and take seat at my desk, my medical bag close by as I wait out their call.

This morning I felt somewhat
different
, for lack of a better word. I'd fallen asleep at my desk prior to midnight—my usual point of turning in—and awoke at some dark hour at which point I carried myself lifelessly to the couch where I slept the entire night soundly for the first time in months.

The clock read six A.M. Christine had yet to get up. With a strangely enthusiastic burst of energy, I stood up and went into the kitchen where I drank a glass of milk and ate a peanut-butter sandwich. The good night's sleep had revived my senses, making the food taste much better than usual.

The weather outside this morning was typical for December in New England. Cold, blustery, with a dusting of snow. I retrieved a sweater from the laundry basket on the dryer and pulled it on, realizing now that I, all of a sudden, had plans to undertake the one task I hadn't any energy for in the past. In the closet by the front door, I retrieved my coat, and as I shrugged into it I heard Christine moving around upstairs, her tired footsteps sounding like hammer knocks against the hardwood floor. Blood surging with anxiety, I slipped out the front door and paced briskly to the minivan.

Before getting in, I peeked up at the windows of the house, forgetting for a moment that they were still barricaded, although the wind had loosened the board in front of the extra bedroom, causing it to dangle like a pendulum from one corner. My mind played games with me in this moment of indecision, and I ignored it as best I could as I realized there was nothing much left to lose by unearthing what really went on in Christine's life during the day. Logic told me, as demented as the
logic
was here in Ashborough, that her days had consisted of much more than just dropping off Jessica at school and shopping for groceries. I decided that today, I would find out.

They have Christine...

I opened the back hatch to the minivan, closed myself in, then nestled down behind the seat and covered myself with the wool blanket there, not only to conceal my presence, but to also keep warm.

About a half hour later, I heard the front door to the house slam shut.

Christine was coming. She and Jessica walked in silence up the path, each of them taking a seat up front. For a moment I anticipated one of them coming back here to get something, or to investigate the strange odor (I hadn't showered in a week), but instead Christine started the car and backed out of the driveway.

I winced at the aches in my joints as I shifted a bit, the jostle of the car sending flares throughout my body. I was sweating like a horse despite the cold, and I pretty much smelled like one too. I closed my eyes to block away all the discomforts, and waited out the ride.

The hum of the engine was stagnant, Christine apparently keeping the car at a very slow and steady speed. A few turns were made, all hard lefts and rights, but it was difficult to tell exactly how many she made after the first few. We all rode in silence, the only sounds outside of the engine being a few random gales against the rear windshield or a kicked up pebble striking the car's body.

At last the car slowed, made a sluggish right turn, and pulled onto a long, shaky, unpaved road. For a fleeting moment I assumed that we'd arrived at the school, but having been there once before when registering Jessica, I could not recall an unpaved road or driveway leading to the grounds. No, we weren't at the school. We were someplace else.

But where?

The car made a soft left turn, then stopped. Christine shut the engine.

Sweat flowed over my body, sticking to my clothes. All was silent except for the naked sway of nearby trees. The car door opened and Christine exited it in silence. It slammed shut and I heard her footsteps circling the front of the car. Through the muffled barrier of the car, I heard her say, "C'mon, honey." Her tone was stagnant and demanding, as though they'd performed this routine a hundred times before.

Jessica's door opened, then closed. Their footsteps crunched gravel and stopped. The creak of something riding metallic hinges—a gate, perhaps—sounded, closing out their footsteps which quickly faded away into the distance.

I waited. Ten minutes or more passed, and when I came to the assumption that they weren't coming back right away, I leaned up and peeked out through the rear window.

Although it was the middle of the morning, the cloud-filled sky and dense clustering of trees set everything around me in a wing of darkness. I could see a thin dirt driveway veining away from the minivan to a back road perhaps a hundred yards away. Thick pine trees on both sides of the driveway insulated it from any traffic that might pass by. I popped open the hatch and crawled outside. The wind was strong today, and it almost ripped the door from my hands as I exited the car; I had to push down on it hard to get it to shut. Pulling my jacket up around my neck, I jogged around the rear of the car and hid behind a large elm that stood next to a wrought-iron fence marking the perimeter of someone's property. The high fence marched in a semi-circle around a single tattered dwelling. I looked for a
Beware Of Dog
sign, but didn't see one. Still, this was the kind of property that stereotypically housed a foam-jawed pit-bull or Doberman, so I remained on close guard.

A minute passed. I kept myself pinned to the tree. I didn't want to be seen, especially by Christine, or a dog, or the owner of the house which was set back
 
a hundred or so feet from the fence. Then, when I became convinced that all was clear, I quickly rushed along the fence to the gate, nestling my freezing body alongside an old oak whose branches groaned restlessly in the wind. My jacket rippled, chilling my bones which were already gripped in a cold tide of apprehension.

I peered at the single-story house. Even older than mine, and much smaller, it had a wrap-around porch with a railing that lacked more than half its supports. Most of the others were whittled and rotting with age. The shingles hung crookedly, withered and gray, and the shutters were mere skeletons of their former selves. The porch itself was slanted and littered with holes and broken glass.

Christine and Jessica were in there, I told myself, unrighteously detained against their will and being forced to perform unjust acts as a means to save themselves, and perhaps me.
I'm gonna get you out of there
, I thought.
Gonna save you both, and then we're gonna get out of here. Forever. Even if it means my life.

I reached through the iron slats and flipped the latch to the gate, peering up at the fancy cathedral shape running eight feet high. The gate creaked anciently as it moved, not unlike the wind. I slipped through it and shut it behind me, suddenly thankful that I didn't have to tackle the pointed staves running the length of the rusty fence. Last thing I needed now was to end this dangerous parade skewered like a loin of lamb at a Brazilian barbecue.

I hurried forward and pressed up against the trunk of an elm in the middle of the yard, feeling the sweat pouring from my body.

Silence dominated except for the wind and the sway of the trees.

Deciding against the porch, I darted from the tree and circled the house into the back yard. There were more trees here, shutting out even more sunlight. It was unusually dark. And cold. Almost like night. Almost like Alaska.

I took a deep breath, wondering if what I was about to do made any sense in the grand scheme of things. My common sense pointed out to me that very little was tolerated by the 'law' here, and that there would be no second chances because the Isolates were probably out there right now, watching me, waiting to see what tricks their good doctor had up his sleeve. So...if I didn't do this now, then I'd never find out what Christine was doing here at this strange house. She would never tell me. And the Isolates wouldn't allow me back...if they let me live.

Right here and now was my only opportunity to uncover some truth in my life...what little was left of it.

I took a moment to survey the surroundings. Not much of a yard, perhaps twenty feet leading into a sea of woodland which more or less went on forever until someone else's home peeked out into existence.

At the periphery of woods was a tombstone.

In the instant I saw the marker, a dead man's words came back to me:
There's a grave in her backyard that's supposed to be that of her mother. It's right at the edge of the woods, you can see it from the road.

The cement marker was weathered with age, the top smooth and rounded. It jutted crookedly from the ground, the soil frozen and swollen at the base. Crudely carved on its face was one word:

Zellis

From the woods came a sudden rustling sound. I hid behind the closest tree, pressing my face against the rough bark. A wash of golden light splayed over the tree, and then kept moving, like a spotlight in search of lost ships. My heart expanded in my chest, squeezed painfully against my ribs; I hoped like mad that the demon would miss me. The golden light, bright in the shade, ran across the edge of the woods, then tailed back as though retracing its footsteps. I put my face down and tucked my hands in my pockets in an effort to conceal the white of my skin. It passed over the tree again and kept going before dimming out completely. I waited, continuing to press my body against the tree.

Then without letting myself think about it any further, I pulled away from the tree and darted toward the house.

Old Lady Zellis's House.

Gasping, I reached the back door. Bits of bark clung to my shirt. A sharp pain made itself known in my knee. I stood quietly for a moment, resting, allowing the ache in my knee to level out before drumming up the nerve to go inside. In this nightmarish moment of inaction I felt a type of loathsome honor...here I was, some kind of b-movie hero about to rain down on the parade of the evil doers by bounding in and rescuing the poor fair maiden. It made me feel disconnected from reality, being on this mission to save my family from the evil ancient breed who's taken an entire New England town hostage. Did it really make any sense? Have I too become one with the ghouls by partaking in their sick game? Am I losing my fucking mind?

I wanted to scream but held it inside, along with the deep inner coldness I knew would stay with me for as long as I kept breathing. I drew my arms around my body, shivered, then again looked at the house.

At the back door.

I reached out and grabbed the doorknob. It was rough with rust.

I turned it.

And then, I went inside.

I
walked into a small vestibule. Stopped. Inhaled deeply. The air tasted bitter, of age and dust. I paced forward into a small kitchen. Here the room sat in a spiritless light, the windows caked with soil and grime and barely able to accept what little illumination the outside world had to offer. In a sudden and alarming moment, I tried to envision my wife and daughter here in this strange dark environment, but had trouble even remembering what they looked like. I'd spent very little time with them over the past couple of months, and over that time they'd changed on not only an emotional level, but on one physical as well. Staring at the decrepit features of the kitchen, the rusty basin, the rotting cabinets, the shredded wallpaper, I realized that my family had become complete and total strangers, as foreign as this place was to me. I mean, I could very well make out their features, Christine's swollen belly and permanent frown, Jessica's blonde curls and glassy blue eyes, but attempting to recall how they looked
before
all this happened seemed impossible, as though all outward aspects of their
happiness
had never existed. And then, when I tried to muster up some images of happiness taking place amongst us in the future, only dark shadows arose in my mind's eyes, blanketing the potential for such a seemingly overindulgent request.

Momentarily keeping thoughts of my family at bay, I set my sights past the doorway in the kitchen, toward what would be the living room—although from this angle it didn't appear that much living went on in it. I could see outside beyond the two front windows, to the porch and then to the wrought iron fence. Like before, the environment appeared lifeless. If it wasn't for the minivan, I'd've assumed this place to have been long abandoned.

But Christine and Jessica are here somewhere. The car is parked outside.