Where Darkness Dwells (42 page)

He took the dying torch from its mount, then helped Ellie to stand. She went willingly, letting him guide her as if she were a blind person negotiating a busy street. Before the light could wink out for good, he ripped a strip of cloth from his shirt, and wrapped it around the torch, careful not to snuff it out. Luckily, the flame caught hold of the fabric, fed off it, brightening the tunnel. His footprints looked like long brushstrokes in the trail of blood. He could feel it still on the soles of his shoes. It sickened him knowing where it had come from. And worst of all, knowing what he had done.

"You found a light." Ellie perked up at his side. "We can leave now." She sounded relieved, reminding him of when they saw Cooper's porch and knowing they would be able to ride out the storm there.

"Let's just keep quiet. Please?"

She was, and they made their way.

6.

"Did we lose them?"

Cooper didn't give Jane an answer. He wanted to say yes, but that would've only been a guess. At first, they'd seen flickering light trailing them and heard the unnerving growl of their pursuers. After moving at a breakneck pace for several minutes, the light dimmed, then was gone. The sound, Cooper had never heard anything more strident and hateful, soon seemed to scatter, at moments sounding behind them, while at other times seemed to echo from branching shafts ahead of them.

"Ted?"

"I… I don't know."

"Who are they?"

"I can't say who they are now."

"Damn it, Ted, talk to me!" Since they entered the dark tunnel he had kept track of her by listening to her steps, but now she'd stopped. He couldn't remember a time he felt more alone. "Did Greta tell you who they are?"

"No, not Greta. Horace and Eunice Blankenship."

"They're dead, Ted. This is crazy. This is so unbelievably crazy."

"I know what you're thinking, but you have to--" he was going to ask her to trust him. He seemed to ask that of her a lot. But why did she have to trust him? Why would she?

"Okay. This is going to sound crazy, and no matter how crazy this sounds, don't stop me, because if you cut me off, I don't know if I could start again."

"Okay. Fine."

He waited, listening for any signs of pursuit. All seemed clear. He fumbled for Jane's hand, and it gave him a feeling of calm when her hand found his first.

"Okay, here goes--" he said, then proceeded to tell Jane about the strange pull he felt toward the Blankenship home, and about how after he bought the place he started to hear noises, then to see things. "You saw for yourself. The spirits, they're real."

"I never thought… well, I guess…" Jane stammered, but let him continue.

He told her about his onslaught of dreams, the most telling dream revealing the details of the murder of Horace and Eunice Blankenship.

"The men chasing us were bounty hunters?"

"Yes. Ethan Cartwright, his toady Arthur Scully, and a set of triplet brothers."

"They're the men chasing us?"

"Yes. And no, I have no idea how this is possible."

"If I didn't see what I saw at your house, I would never believe--wait, did you say Cartwright?"

"I know. Jasper. It's his father, Jane."

"Why didn't you tell me any of this sooner?"

"Because it's just like you said, you wouldn't have believed unless you'd seen it. It's crazy--the whole damned story. I could have told you after I met with Greta--that's when things started making sense to me. But I didn't want you to learn a family secret of mine. I think it's my family secret that's caused me to feel such a connection with the Blankenships. Why they might have chosen me to help them."

"Don't tell me, you're a son of one of those sons'a bitches?"

"No, nothing like that. Do you remember when I said my grandmother came to stay with my family?"

"How could I forget?"

"Well." He paused, but before he could have second thoughts, he blurted it out, "It turns out she was colored."

Three feet away, there was a scratching noise and a small flash of sparks. The flame danced from the cigarette lighter, shedding light on a face beset with quickly healing lesions and gaping wounds. It was one of the overall-clad triplets. He was laughing to himself, apparently proud to have gotten so close without them knowing.

"This whole time we been chasing you, I never did know you was a nigger. But then again, only a nigger would run away like you did." The man's laughter sprayed tobacco juice from his grizzled maw.

Jane glanced at Cooper before returning her frightened gaze to the undead bounty hunter. In that brief glance he saw such unabated disappointment. As if he had just revealed that he'd spent the day of the potluck (was that really today? it seemed so long ago) pissing in her iced tea.

When he looked back at the bounty hunter, Cooper had just enough time to duck under a swiping blow from the hunter's machete. It whirred an inch from his scalp and crashed into the wall behind him.

Jane screamed, no longer caring to hide their location. He took Jane's hand once again (did he feel reluctance in touch?) and they took off down the tunnel as the bounty hunter worked to free the machete. Cooper glanced over his shoulder. Having placed the cigarette lighter in a nook in the wall, the bounty hunter's anger welled--his mouth sputtered oaths and spit as he worked the blade free--just as his brethren closed in bearing torches.

Several long minutes passed with their hearts racing madly. The other bounty hunters joined the machete-wielding triplet as they took up the pursuit. Their healing bodies moved more swiftly than aboveground and they quickly gained ground. A sense of hopelessness grew within Cooper, but after turning down a branch in the tunnel, light was shining ahead, bright light that could only signal a large gathering of people.

"Gonna get you, nigger!"

7.

Almost to his disappointment, the Bradshaw girl hadn't fought Charles. Oh sure, at first she cried a bit, tried prying her arm away from him, but he made sure she didn't get any disagreeable ideas. He raised the carving knife at her. At first she'd shied away, shielding her face with a flung hand, but then he lowered the blade to her belly. When that notion settled in, the starch fell off her convictions. She became timid as a lamb. From the time he shoved her into his wagon, and even as they entered the Underground from a hidden tunnel entrance near the town dump, she didn't try anything.

Torchlight reflected the hatred simmering in the girl's eyes. Five feet away and draped in shadow, she crossed her arms and shifted on the coarse limestone floor. She didn't look away, not for a moment, as if her scathing stare alone could scar him. He paid her no mind; in fact, he should accept whatever vengeance her mind toyed with. He deserved no less.

He mirrored her positioning on the floor, but with his back to the wooden door he so often visited when dark moods swept over him. "You look sweet as a peach."

She spit in his face, quick as a snake strike. He didn't bother to wipe it away as he chuckled to himself.

With the knife pressed against her belly, she'd barely made a peep the whole way. Probably trying to think of a way to outmaneuver a drunk man getting drunker by the minute.

But, oh that would never happen.

His thoughts were never so clear as when he could scarcely stand and his words were all a jumble. His inebriated actions might not mirror his thoughts, but drink allowed him time to think, to ponder, to self pity.

As if she could read his mind, Mabel scraped her claws on her side of the rough door. She whimpered, a gruff choke of corrupted flesh.

At hearing Mabel for the first time, the girl jumped as if she'd sat on a pushpin.

"Cha-chaaa."

"I'm here, love. Always here for you." He touched the door, longing to touch his wife's cheek and the delicate line of her neck, yearned to pull her to him. He swigged from a new bottle he'd taken from under the seat of his wagon. The cheap 'shine was still high in the bottle, just below the level of the narrow neck. He was never so happy or miserable as when he had a full bottle, and in the Underground he had time enough to ponder, time enough for eternity to come and go.

"Sorry for my rudeness. Wanna pull?" He offered the girl the bottle. For the first time since he knocked on the door of the Fowler home, she looked terrified. Her eyes were wide and she reflexively placed her hand over the swell of her belly. He waited for her response, and she eventually shook her head no.

She cried softly. Her hatred bled away and she didn't seem so confident now in her chances of escaping.

"Char-char-char!" Mabel cried out, and as always, he heard a meek remnant of her former voice. "Charrrr-les!"

He unsteadily closed with the girl until he loomed over her, looking down the angle of his nose. "You ready for this?" he asked the girl.

He hadn't told her his intentions, but she wasn't waiting to find out. She took a stumbling stride, but only one. It was easy. He reached for a long lock of blonde hair, grabbed it like a horse's reins, and heeled her to the floor.

She screamed so loud it popped his ears.

"Char-Char-Charles!" Mabel echoed the girl's scream. She began pummeling herself against the door, but when he had constructed it he had used the finest timbers. She would pulp herself before breaking through.

Charles shook his head, trying to clear the swimming numbness. He tightened his grip on the girl's hair, wrapping it around his fist a couple times. Using one arm, he pulled her over to the door.

Fearing he would rip out her hair at the roots, she half walked along with him.

He reluctantly set down his bottle and use his free had to reach inside his shirt for the key hanging on its twine necklace. He ripped it off, and never thinking he'd willingly remove it from his body, an odd despair settled over him. Neither the girl struggling at his feet, nor his shrieking undead wife behind the door, would let him dwell on any thought or emotion for more than a split second.

"Please, please, stop! Whatever you're doing, please, don't." Snot dribbled down the girl's lip, mixing with tears.

"Charles!" Oh, his poor Mabel. Sounding so normal, so alive. Hearing her voice reassured him that this was the right thing to do. It made everything all right.

As he worked the key into the lock, Mabel slammed into the door. He nearly dropped the key, but he squeezed it, stabbed it into the lock, turned.

How easily everything could have fallen apart if he would have dropped the key.

"
Please!
I'm begging you, I won't tell anyone."

The key engaged with a click he felt but couldn't hear over all the hysterics.

The door flew open, a shadow seemed to fall in its wake. Then he saw her sharp nails flailing, her ashen skin, eyes wild and seeking.

He shielded himself with the girl's body. She screamed and writhed in his arms, trying to get away. Mabel was shredding and tearing into the girl as if she were a plaything thrown into the pit. But he held fast, more out of a sense of preserving his own safety than anything. The girl screamed once more, more shrill and maddening than any of the others, but it was her last. Mabel swiped her claws across the girl's throat, and her voice was silenced.

Maybe it was instinct. Maternal instinct. Or perhaps some small part of her brain still functioned on a human level, but Mabel halted her assault, stepping away from the girl, apprising her as an artist would a canvas.

As the girl's body fell to the floor, Mabel looked at Charles.

He extended a trembling hand to touch his wife's cheek when she stepped closer. She flinched at his warmth, appeared ready to snap at him with her vicious teeth. But she didn't. Her eyes held his, and she
did
understand. In that moment, it felt like all those years ago, when she could look into his eyes, knowing exactly his intentions.

8.

None of the knowledge passed on to Arlen gave him any forewarning that he would see Ellie Banyon and Jacob Fowler lurking in the shadows of the Underground. They seemed raw with fear as they bumbled their way down the tunnel. When he heard their approach, he didn't know who it was. Not wanting his destiny so easily derailed, he pressed flat into a vertical crevasse. A handful of uncertain strides and they were upon him, walking side by side, inches from his hiding spot. At first he didn't know who they were, but his vision was well adjusted to limited light. To conserve fuel he would often work his gopher hole in little or no light once he found a ripe vein to tap, digging at it by feel. He thought about calling out to them--they had both been nice to him, and now more than ever he valued those who had acted so graciously--but decided against it the last second. He didn't want to have to explain his reason for being Underground or what he was carrying. His rucksack was heavy with dynamite. If they got hurt, which he thought was more likely than not, he would feel bad, but that couldn't be helped.