The Ambrose Beacon

by Alena Gouveia

  Chapter 5

  Friday Evening, January 7th

  Vaughan said good-bye to his father before the car pulled away and down the driveway. The car ride home had been even more awkward than usual. This time, instead of an uncomfortable silence, there had been a palpable tension between them. At least, Vaughan had felt the tension. He wasn’t sure if his father had noticed anything different between them, and this only added to his frustration.

  He watched the car turn onto the road and heard the crunch of the snow beneath its tires fade into the distance. His breath steamed in the air and he noticed for the first time how cold it was, though he barely felt it. Lately, he hadn’t felt the cold as keenly as he had when he was younger. Even temperatures in the teens caused him little discomfort, as long as he was warmly dressed. He thought it was odd that he hadn’t noticed it before, but decided that it wasn’t surprising considering all of the other things that he had on his mind lately.

  He turned around and walked through the small door next to the large garage door, his mind still preoccupied with what had happened at the studio. His family typically kept the garage door closed in the winter to avoid having the cold air seep into the house. But the small door to its left was always unlocked when his uncle was home. He walked through the garage and paused for a moment before the door that led into the kitchen, taking a deep breath to compose himself.

  Uncle Harper was cleaning the kitchen when he walked in. “Hello, Vaughan,” he said pleasantly as he emptied the dishwasher. “How was dance practice?”

  Vaughan saw the plate that was waiting for him on the kitchen table, so he sat down and removed the foil covering it. The other Ambrose children would have already eaten and would now be doing their homework, except for Billie, who was probably watching TV. Uncle Harper kept all of the children on a regular schedule, which Vaughan liked. He always knew what to expect with his uncle.

  “Practice was okay,” he finally responded before digging into the plate of homemade lasagna.

  He heard his uncle pause in what he was doing, but only for a brief moment before continuing. He had likely heard the undertone in what Vaughan had said, but he didn’t say anything, for which Vaughan was silently grateful. His uncle had a way of sensing when he wanted to talk and when he didn’t, and Vaughan wished that his father had a tenth of the intuition Uncle Harper had.

  After finishing his dinner, he walked back to the large bedroom that he shared with Louis. His brother was at his desk, working on his homework, though he looked over his shoulder and smiled when Vaughan walked in. The only lights on in the room were the lamps on each of their desks that cast a warm glow that didn’t quite reach the corners of the room. Vaughan walked over to his own desk and took out his homework. Before he had a chance to start reading his social studies assignment, he heard Dinah’s voice from the doorway.

  “Louis, go watch TV for a minute, please,” she said. “I need to talk to Vaughan alone for a minute.”

  Vaughan looked over at Louis to see him look back at Dinah. His mouth opened, as if to argue, but he quickly closed it again. He didn’t have to look back at Dinah to imagine the look she had given their little brother. Dinah had a rather imposing air about her and she could be very…persuasive when she wanted to be. Although, Vaughan thought that intimidating was probably a more appropriate word to use to describe Dinah when she wanted something.

  Louis sighed loudly before saying, “Fine.” He left his books open on the desk and walked out of the bedroom.

  Dinah closed the door behind him and Vaughan turned in his chair to face her.

  “What’s up?” he asked, though he thought he could guess what she was about to ask him.

  She sat down on the edge of his bed before saying, “I heard about what happened at school today. Are you okay?”

  Vaughan exhaled loudly as all of the tension from the day’s events suddenly released. He felt his eyes well with tears and when he tried to answer, his voice broke. “N-no. I mean, yes. I mean, I will be okay,” he said between sobs.

  Dinah moved quickly over to him and kneeled in front of his chair. She threw her arms around him and he cried against her shoulder for a minute as he hugged her back.

  When he finally stopped crying, he sat back in his chair and used the bottom of his shirt to wipe his face. “Sorry for being such a baby. It’s just been kind of a rough day,” he explained.

  She moved back to the bed and sat down as she looked back at him. She wiped away her own tears as she smiled at him. “It’s okay, honey. You don’t ever have to apologize for crying,” she told him. Dinah couldn’t watch anyone else cry without crying herself. She was the worst person to watch a sad movie with, since she always ended up sobbing so loudly that you couldn’t hear any of the words. It was an endearing sign of vulnerability in a person of such obvious strength.

  “Vaughan, I don’t want you dealing with Emmitt, Leroy or any of those boys anymore,” she said resolutely. “I’m going to meet you after school tomorrow and have a talk with them. This has got to stop.”

  The determination in her voice was so strong, that Vaughan almost didn’t say anything in response. But he knew that any interference from Dinah would only make the situation worse. Emmitt and the others would listen to his sister and likely even apologize to Vaughan if they thought that was what she expected, but Dinah couldn’t be at his school every day. And they would make Vaughan pay for any humiliation they received at the hands of Dinah, whether it was her intention or not.

  “Dinah, please don’t do that,” he pleaded. “You’ll only make it worse. I promise it’s okay.” He didn’t tell Dinah the full story of what had happened, since he wasn’t really ready to talk to anyone about the bizarre encounter with Emmitt. Although he had been able to fight Emmitt off on his own for the first time in his life, he secretly hoped that the strange time-slowing thing that had happened was a one-time deal and wouldn’t happen again. He had too much on his plate already.

  Dinah shook her head and crossed her arms in front of her as she responded, “Vaughan, it’s not okay. And not doing anything about it is what’s going to make it worse.” She held up her hand to silence him when he opened his mouth to respond. “Just listen for a minute, okay?”

  Vaughan nodded silently as his sister continued, “It’s one thing having to deal with Leroy and the others, but Emmitt’s been like this since he was in elementary school. I remember him picking on other kids in his grade from the time that he was in kindergarten.” Like the Ambrose children, Emmitt had grown up in Evergreen. Dinah was a year older than him, so she had known him most of her life. “When he was in fifth grade, I caught him beating up a first grader. He had the poor kid pinned on the ground and was slapping him in the face while he called him names.”

  Vaughan couldn’t remember something like that happening at school, but he could certainly imagine Emmitt capable of such a thing.

  Dinah answered his unspoken question, “I don’t think you were at school that day, but I saw it. The guy’s nuts, Vaughan. The only reason he finally stopped hitting that kid was because I tackled him and pinned him on the ground long enough for one of the teachers to come and break us up.” She shook her head as she added, “I almost got detention for that, but a lot of the kids saw what happened and stuck up for me.”

  She looked at him and her eyes held his as she added, “He won’t stop, Vaughan. He’ll keep doing it until he really hurts you. It’s the kind of guy he is. Please let me handle this.”

  He smiled slightly as he thought of the best way to respond. He had made a decision during the car ride home and now thought that it couldn’t hurt to share it with his sister. “Dinah, please just let me try a little longer. I know I can handle this and I know how I’m going to do it.”

  Dinah looked at Vaughan, waiting for him to continue.

  “Karate,” he said simply.

  She frowned at him for a moment, as if she
wasn’t sure she had heard him correctly. “Karate?” she asked. “Are you serious? That’s how you’re going to handle this?”

  Vaughan nodded and was about to explain, but she cut him off by saying, “Vaughan, it takes people years to learn enough in karate to be halfway decent in a fight. You don’t have that long, trust me.”

  “Please, Dinah,” he answered her. “Just trust me.”

  There was something in his voice that gave her pause. It was a kind of determination that she rarely heard in her younger brother’s voice, and it made her want to believe him. She was quiet for a minute before finally responding, “Okay. I’ll give you one week, Bruce Lee,” she said with a bit of sarcasm. She raised her finger at him as she added, “But if it’s still going on after a week, we handle this Dinah-style, okay?”

  Vaughan chuckled as he answered, “Okay.”

  As she stood up to leave the room, Vaughan asked her, “Do you think dad will be okay with me wanting to take karate?”

  She turned around and smiled at him before snorting. “Are you kidding me? He’ll take you there to sign you up himself and will probably be at every practice.”

  Vaughan smiled as she turned back around and walked out of the room. He had been thinking the exact same thing – there was probably nothing their father would enjoy more than Vaughan taking up any other activity than dance.

  Cole closed his books as he finished the last of his homework. He stopped for a minute to listen to the Billie Holiday song that was playing through his iPod speakers. He loved listening to jazz, especially Billie Holiday. She had been one of his mom’s favorite singers and listening to her music always reminded him of her. He remembered how she would sing softly to the songs, loud enough that you could barely hear her, but not enough to overpower the voice of the singer on the track. She had a beautiful voice, but always said that it wasn’t suited to jazz. He had always disagreed.

  The song ended, and he turned the music off before walking from his bedroom and into the kitchen. He could hear Uncle Harper still cleaning the kitchen, so he walked in and asked him if he needed any help.

  “Thanks, Cole,” he answered. “Can you take out the trash and then grab some firewood from the shed? I was thinking we could light a fire and pop in a movie for everyone to watch.”

  “Sure thing,” he answered as he grabbed the full trash bag and headed into the garage.

  He thought of what an unusual person his uncle was. He had an unmistakable air of sophistication and intelligence that always made him seem out of place in Evergreen, especially considering the domestic role that he had taken on with their family. Even the way he dressed and his good looks made him seem like he should be a Hollywood actor or model in New York, instead of taking care of five kids that weren’t even his in the foothills of the Colorado mountains. But Cole was certainly glad that he had left whatever previous life he had for them. He knew there was no way that they could have made it as a family after his mother had died if his uncle hadn’t come to live with them.

  Not for the first time, he wondered what his uncle’s life had been like before he had shown up a few months before his mother’s death. They had known nothing about him prior to that meeting and he had shared almost nothing about himself in the years since. Cole had wanted to ask him on numerous occasions, but didn’t out of respect for his privacy. Uncle Harper never pried with any of them, always waiting for each of them to come to him for help on anything. It was a form of respect that he knew a lot of adults had a hard time showing, so he returned that respect for his uncle by not asking him about where he came from, what he had done before he met them, or even why they had never heard anything other than his name from their mother before he had suddenly appeared.

  Cole threw the trash in the large bin in the garage and grabbed the small sled next to it. He carried it through the small garage door and then placed it in the snow. The shed was thirty yards from the house, and carrying that much wood through the deep snow would have been exhausting. The small sled made the trip easier.

  He walked through the snow, which was deeper than he thought. It had piled up during the last snowfall and was undisturbed by footsteps. He glanced briefly at the tree line to his right, which was another fifty yards from the house. He loved walking through the trees during the day, but at night his childish fears of the dark made them seem sinister and dangerous. It always seemed like they were watching him when he was outside at night, and the cloudy sky that had obscured the moon made the night even darker. He could still see reasonably well in the near-complete darkness, but even his eyesight couldn’t penetrate beyond the first or second rows of trees.

  He reached the shed and started piling wood from the large pile onto the small sled, his back to the trees. When he had loaded half of what he planned to bring back, he suddenly got the same feeling that he had gotten earlier that day at school. Someone or something was watching him.

  He slowly turned around to face the trees and dropped the wood in his arms when he saw what had caused the feeling. The wolf-like shape that he had seen earlier that day was now in the trees surrounding his house. He couldn’t make out the creatures eyes in the darkness, but Cole knew that it was staring right at him. The sense of malice that he had felt earlier that day rolled over him again and this time it was so strong that he stumbled back a few steps. He looked over at the house and thought briefly about shouting for help. But he worried that if any of his family members came to his aid – and he knew that they would – they would be in as much danger as he might be at that moment. He also suspected that it wasn’t likely that he could run through the deep snow to the house before the creature could chase him down.

  He continued to back up until he felt the hardness of the wood pile behind him. Cole suddenly remembered the small space between the pile and the shed and thought that it might be enough space for him. He doubted that it could protect him from the creature for very long, but at least he’d have a wall at his back. And he could use one of the longer pieces of wood as a weapon if a confrontation seemed inevitable.

  The unmistakable howl of a wolf split the night air and made Cole jump. The sound had come from the trees to the left, which were only slightly farther than the ones in front of him. The space behind the wood pile suddenly sounded very safe, so he made his way behind it, being very careful to keep the creature in the trees in his sight the entire time. He felt like he was surrounded, with the creature in front of him, and at least one wolf to his left. He briefly looked at the wood at the top of the pile and picked a piece that had a short, thick branch sticking out near one side. That will be a nasty surprise if either of them gets too close, he thought.

  “Cole, come out from there and bring the wood to the house,” a familiar voice said suddenly.

  The voice was his Uncle Harper’s and Cole was so relieved to hear it that he almost cried. His uncle walked slowly toward the shed from the house. He had spoken to Cole, but his eyes were on the trees where the creature was – or where it had been. When Cole looked over to the trees, the creature was gone. He shimmied his way out from behind the wood pile, still clutching his makeshift weapon in his hand.

  Uncle Harper looked over at the piece of wood and smiled. “Were you just going to bring the one piece back? That wouldn’t be much of a fire.”

  Cole smiled back, though his heart was still racing. He searched the trees again for some sign of the creature, but he could find none. He moved to place the piece of wood on the sled, but as he did the air was split with another howl, though this time it was further back in the trees and sounded like it was moving away from the house. He stood back up and clutched the piece of wood tightly while brandishing it before him, facing the direction of the howl.

  Uncle Harper walked over to him, ignoring the howling and looking at Cole. He placed his hand on the piece of wood and gently pried it from Cole’s grasp. “It’s okay, Cole. It’s moving away from here,” he
said soothingly. “Let’s get back inside. It’s too cold to be outside for so long.”

  Cole nodded and noticed for the first time that his uncle was wearing jeans and a t-shirt. But he wasn’t shivering and didn’t even look uncomfortable. Cole looked down and saw that Uncle Harper was wearing tennis shoes and thought that his feet must be soaked from the snow. But his feet barely sank in the snow, where Cole’s feet were in above the ankle. Cole looked at his uncle and was about to ask him how he did that, but noticed that he was staring at the trees, his eyes moving back and forth as if he was searching for something.

  And then he felt it.

  It was the same feeling that he had felt the night before, right before Uncle Harper had flipped out and the lights had gone out. He hadn’t told anyone what he had felt, mainly because he was worried that they would tease him, but also because he had brushed it off as something he had imagined. But there was no mistaking the feeling as merely imagined the second time.

  “You felt it too, didn’t you?” he asked Uncle Harper.

  He looked back at Cole intently, but didn’t respond.

  “And you felt the same thing last night, before the lights went out,” Cole added.

  Harper continued to stare at Cole, but waited a few seconds more before finally asking, “What is it that you think you felt?” He hadn’t denied Cole’s suspicion, but hadn’t confirmed it either.

  Cole tried to think of how to explain what he had felt. It wasn’t exactly a feeling. It was more of a sense, a sense that seemed to be coming from someone or something else. And while the sense hadn’t been specific enough to describe exactly, he was pretty sure that he knew what it was. “It felt like something or someone was looking for something.”

  Uncle Harper nodded. “And?”

  Cole thought for a second more before adding, “And it felt like the search was very important to them. And I got the sense that whatever they were searching for, they…I think they meant to do it harm.”

  Uncle Harper stared back at him for a moment before sighing. “Yes, Cole. I’ve felt it too,” he said.

  “What is it?”

  Uncle Harper looked at the trees for a moment and then back at Cole. “It’s something that I’ve feared for a long time,” he said quietly.

  Cole stared back at him, waiting for him to explain, but he said nothing.

  Instead, Uncle Harper asked, “Have you…sensed things before?”

  Cole thought for a moment before responding. He wanted to tell his uncle everything, but a tiny, irrational part of him kept worrying that his words wouldn’t be accepted. But he also knew that something he didn’t understand was happening, something dangerous, and that withholding anything could put him and his family in danger.

  He nodded as he stared back at his uncle.

  Uncle Harper nodded slightly as he answered, “It looks like we need to have a longer discussion, but not out here - and not now.” Another howl split the air, seeming to underscore the need for them to return to the house. Uncle Harper turned his head in the direction of the sound and then held it cocked to the side, as if listening for something.

  He looked back at Cole and reached out to take the rope lead of the sled. “Let’s get back inside,” he said to his nephew. He started to walk back to the house, and Cole followed. “And Cole, let’s not say anything about this to the rest of the family. Just for now,” he said while looking over his shoulder. Something seemed to have caught his eye when he did this, because he stopped and looked behind Cole. “It looks like you’ve found a friend,” he said as one corner of his mouth turned up in a slight smile.

  Cole turned around quickly, startled and wondering what was following him. Standing in the snow ten feet behind him was the stray dog that he had met earlier that day. As he stared at the dog, she began to wag her tail. He crouched down and held out his hand, but she at first refused to come, looking warily behind Cole at Uncle Harper.

  “It’s okay, girl. He won’t hurt you,” he said in a soft, high-pitched voice.

  The dog hesitated for a moment more before slowly walking up to Cole, who immediately started scratching behind her ears. He stared at the dog in amazement, wondering how it could have found him. The Ambrose house was more than five miles from the high school, through heavily wooded and hilly terrain. And there was no way that the dog could have followed his scent, since he had ridden home in a car.

  Cole told his uncle the story of his meeting with the dog earlier in the day, including its protective nature toward him. He thought it was a pretty amazing story, but Uncle Harper didn’t seem surprised by it, which Cole thought was strange.

  “Can we bring her inside?” Cole asked

  “I don’t think that’s a good idea, Cole,” he answered with a look of skepticism. “We already have one dog, and your father wasn’t very happy with me when I brought that dog home. I can’t imagine he’d be too happy with another one in the house.”

  Cole looked back at the dog, which was shivering in the cold. “But she’ll freeze out here, Uncle Harper. Can’t we just leave her in the garage?” He looked up at his uncle before adding, “We can take her to the shelter in the morning. I promise.”

  Uncle Harper looked at the dog for a second before shaking his head in mild exasperation. “I suppose it won’t hurt for her to stay in the garage for one night. Come on, let’s get her inside.” He smiled at Cole and then turned around, heading for the garage with the sled in tow.

  Cole stood up and headed for the garage, the dog following at his side. He realized as they walked that she had almost made him forget the frightening encounter with the creature in the woods just moments before.

  Jerry got home from his dinner with Larry a little after nine that evening. It was their weekly ritual to have dinner and a few drinks at a different restaurant in downtown Denver. They usually picked one of the taverns near the area called Lower Downtown, or LoDo. It was near the baseball stadium and most of the buildings were brick and over a hundred years old. Tonight they had gone to a nicer restaurant in the same area and discussed the case they were working on. It had been a welcome break for Jerry from the uncomfortable time spent with Vaughan earlier that night.

  He waited until the garage door closed before walking in to the kitchen and then the living room. Harper and the kids were sprawled out on the couches in front of the TV, watching one of the younger kids’ favorite movies for at least the tenth time. Jerry didn’t know which movie it was, but recognized the goofy, animated characters. Louis and Billie had already fallen asleep. Cole and Dinah waved back at him, but Vaughan just gave him a sort of half-smile. As he often did, Harper stared and said nothing.

  Jerry waved back as he walked back to his bedroom, eager to change out of the suit that he wore to work. When he had finished changing, he walked back into the living room to see the credits rolling across the screen. He walked over to pick the sleeping Billie up from the couch and saw from the corner of his eye Harper doing the same with Louis. They walked down the hallway and took each of the children to their bedrooms.

  As Jerry softly closed Billie’s bedroom door, he looked over to see Harper closing the door to Louis and Vaughan’s bedroom. Jerry remembered the unfinished conversation from the night before and decided that it was time to continue it.

  “We didn’t finish the conversation from last night,” he said softly to Harper.

  Harper stared back at him for a moment before responding, “No, I suppose we didn’t. Kitchen?”

  Jerry nodded and then followed Harper into the kitchen. They sat at opposite ends of the large table that had a banquette seat along one side. Harper had slid into a corner near the window, and folded his hands, staring back at Jerry and obviously indicating that it was Jerry’s responsibility to start the conversation.

  He bit his lip in frustration while he tried to moderate his voice. “You still haven’t told me what happened last night,” he said while loo
king down at his hands.

  “No, I haven’t.”

  Jerry looked up at him and was ready to say something scathing in response, but he could see from Harper’s expression that he was about to say more.

  “How much did Arianna tell you about our family?” Harper asked.

  The question at first seemed to be an obvious attempt to change the subject, but the way that Harper stared at him made it seem like the question was not only relevant, but important. He thought of how to respond, not wanting Harper to stop talking. This was the longest conversation that they had ever had that wasn’t about the children. He decided to play along to see where Harper was going.

  “She never said much, just that she had one brother – you.” He tried to think of other things that she had said about her family, but he couldn’t recall ever hearing anything about his wife’s family while she was healthy. She had said several things shortly before she had died, but Jerry had discounted most, if not all of these things. They had been so far-fetched that he could only believe that they had been delusional ramblings due to her illness. The fact that she had seemed so lucid during every other conversation didn’t seem to support this, but Jerry simply couldn’t accept many of the things that she had told him.

  Harper watched him intently, as if he knew that Jerry was holding something back. But he was too cool of a character to press Jerry. He would have stumped even the most skilled interrogator, which was something that Jerry only grudgingly admitted. Finally, he nodded slightly, clearly coming to a decision on something.

  “Last night, the power went out and I heard what sounded like wolves howling near the house. I went outside to check on the power and that’s when you and Larry got here,” he explained.

  He said everything with a flat expression, though he sounded sincere enough. And yet Jerry knew that he was lying. Not lying, he decided. Harper wasn’t telling him everything. Cole had told his father that Harper had sent them to the basement before the power had gone out. He had known something was happening and wanted the children in a safe place while he checked it out. It was the only explanation that made sense.

  But what had Harper known was happening? Why would he have left the children in the house and gone outside if he had known there was some kind of danger? And Jerry also remembered that there had been more blood on Harper’s shirt than could have been caused by the small scratch that he had seen on his side. He wondered if sharing the things that Arianna had told him near the end would have garnered a more honest response. But he had played his hand and Harper had played his. There would be no further dealings that night.

  Jerry stood up from the table and tried not to let his frustration show. “Alright, then, thank you for explaining, Harper.” He walked toward the living room, but added before he left the kitchen, “Be sure the kids don’t stay up too late, okay? Good night.”

  “Good night, brother,” Harper said to Jerry’s back. Again, he sounded sincere, as he had the night before. But it did little to lessen Jerry’s frustration.

  As he walked through the living room, Vaughan stood up and walked with him into the hallway.

  “Dad, can I ask you something?”

  He looked nervous, and Jerry wondered what new reason for tension his son was going to share with him.

  “Sure, Vaughan,” he answered. “What’s up?”

  “Um, I was thinking that I wanted to sign up for karate lessons,” Vaughan said hesitantly while looking up at him.

  Jerry stared back at his son in shock. He could have said that he wanted to join the army tomorrow and Jerry would have been less surprised.

  “Um, sure Vaughan. Do you know where you want to sign up?” He tried to think if there were any karate studios nearby and remembered one in the same strip mall where Vaughan had his dance lessons.

  Vaughan nodded and smiled shyly. “Yes, and I looked them up online. They’re open tomorrow and I’d really like to go, if you wouldn’t mind taking me.”

  Jerry smiled back at Vaughan, so surprised and happy by this request that he almost forgot to answer.

  “Of course, I’ll take you. We’ll go first thing in the morning,” he said. “Are you sure you want to do this?” He wasn’t sure why he asked, but he wanted to be sure it was what Vaughan wanted and not what he thought his father wanted.

  Vaughan’s smile grew bigger and again, the resemblance to his mother was striking – so striking that he had to fight the urge to look away.

  “Thanks dad,” his son answered. “Good night.” He turned around and walked back into the living room.

  Jerry smiled dumbly for a minute and stared at the spot where his son had been just a moment before. He realized that Vaughan had called him dad for the first time in months. It represented a new possibility for repairing the strained relationship with his son, and it nearly cancelled out the difficult conversation that he had just had with Harper.

  He walked back to his bedroom and sat on the edge of the bed, thinking of everything that had happened that day. He had gone from another difficult encounter with Vaughan, to an even more difficult one with Harper. But now he had an opportunity to try to reform the bond with his son that had been there before Arianna had died. Maybe such an opportunity would appear that would help to create a bond with Harper. Jerry laughed to himself and shook his head. He knew that there was a greater likelihood that Larry would actually lose more than ten pounds and keep it off.

  Jerry looked at the small picture of his wife that sat on his nightstand. She smiled back at him, almost as if laughing at his private joke.

  “You would have known what to do with both of them, wouldn’t you?” he asked the smiling picture. “Of course you would have.”

  He smiled back at her and then kissed the glass before carefully returning it to its place on the nightstand.