Sons of Darkness

by Gail Z. Martin

  And what did that make him? Brent knew in his heart he’d never really left behind the Army, the FBI, or the Pittsburgh Police Department. He might have turned in his badge and his ID, but he still did the dirty work, even if his former employers would have struggled to believe that the supernatural foes were real.

  Brent blinked and gagged down more coffee. Last night’s dreams had been bad, triggered by the zombie fight and the memories of his butchered family. The only solace had been in that haze between waking and sleeping when he found himself alone on a gray plain with Danny. His brother had hugged him tight, and when he drew back, Brent could see that Danny looked more worried than he ever remembered seeing him in life.

  It’s going to get worse, Danny warned. If you don’t stick together, you won’t be able to stop it, and neither one of you will survive.

  What do you know? Brent had begged. He’d always wondered whether the dead had access to the secrets of the universe. But Danny just shook his head.

  I don’t know how to stop it, Danny told him. I just know you can’t do this alone. And I’m in no hurry for you to join me. So don’t be stupid. Dream-Danny sounded so much like Brent’s memories of his brother that he had to swallow hard to keep back tears.

  Can’t promise I won’t be an asshole. It’s what I’m good at, Brent replied with a lopsided smile. But I’ll work with Travis. And we’ll figure out how to stop this thing. I’ll be as careful as I can.

  He had expected a smart remark, but Danny was gone, and the alarm ripped away the last vestiges of sleep. Which left Brent tired and out of sorts, reminding himself that the paycheck for nabbing the white-collar thief would cover his expenses for a couple of months as he returned his attention to the stakeout.

  Showtime! Brent thought as the suspect came into view. He triggered the video camera he had already set up, as well as a sequence of still shots with a telephoto lens that would leave no doubt about the man’s identity or that of the person he was meeting.

  A loud thump made Brent swing toward the noise, gun drawn. A large man in a dark suit with a grim expression leaned over the passenger side of the truck like he meant to tear off the doors.

  Brent wasn’t getting paid enough to get into a shoot-out, and being worked over by hired muscle wasn’t in the contract. He floored it, practically running over the man’s toes, but not before he had snapped a picture of the guy for good measure. Brent hoped that the shots he got of the meet-up would be sufficient because any future stakeout was going to require a different car to remain anonymous.

  His phone went off as Brent navigated a tangle of narrow side streets and alleys. He checked his mirrors for a tail but didn’t relax until he had gotten across the city without incident. Still, he thought, the bruiser had gotten a good look at him and probably took down his plates, so that cushy paycheck now carried the risk that the embezzler or his patron might decide to shut Brent up before he could supply damning evidence.

  “Fuck. If the demons don’t get me, Frankie Numbnuts might,” Brent muttered. He took the long way back to his side of town, still alert for anyone following him. Then he pulled into a hotel parking garage, backed into a spot to obscure his plate, grabbed the cameras and his gear bag, then sauntered to the hotel’s front doors to call a rideshare so he wouldn’t have to park at the curb in front of his house.

  Only when he pulled out his phone did he remember his missed call. He tapped the number and heard one ring before the person picked up.

  “Hey, have you seen the news?” Travis asked without preamble.

  “I’ve been kinda busy trying not to get my teeth knocked in,” Brent replied, eyeing the surrounding area warily. “On-the-job hazard.”

  “Nice. There’s been a bus crash—freak accident—that killed a high school sports team out near Sylvan Grove,” Travis went on. “And I think I’ve found evidence to prove that more than a few folks out that way sold their souls to turn their luck around.”

  “Seriously? You mean, like that old blues guitar guy?” Despite his recent brush with danger, Brent couldn’t help being intrigued.

  “Yeah. And it’s all happening in a fifty-mile radius around Peale and Cooper City,” Travis said. “I want to head out there in the morning. Are you up for it?”

  Brent scrubbed a hand down over his face tiredly. “Yeah, yeah. Count me in. I’ve gotta get some work done today anyway. I can meet you at your place.”

  “Great. See you at seven,” Travis said and ended the call before Brent had a chance to argue. That left him swearing at the phone in his hand before he remembered he still needed to call a ride.

  He worked at a furious pace, uploading the photos and evidence that should give his client enough to prosecute the corporate spy. “Poor dumb bastard probably didn’t get enough money out of it to buy himself a spiffy car, and he’s likely to go to jail.” Brent remembered what Travis had said about people in the “blast zone” around Cooper City selling their souls. He wondered for a moment whether the incidents could be related, then he finished the email to his client and hit the send button. Not every bad decision could be blamed on demons. Brent had made plenty of them himself, no infernal assistance required.

  Before he sat down to work, Brent checked the locks and the security system to make sure his perimeter cameras were recording and tried to assure himself that he hadn’t been followed. The old break in his leg—the one patched together with a metal plate and some screws—ached more than usual. He eyed his pain pills—harder to get these days, best to save them for when he really needed them—and poured himself a couple of fingers of Jim Beam instead.

  The Pennsylvania cold settled in his bones when the weather turned, and up here, that was from early October through late April. It was a cold, dark place for a southern boy, Brett thought as he sipped his bourbon. He flipped channels, hoping for a good football replay, and switched it off when he saw the Georgia Bulldogs playing. If the demons hadn’t come for his family, if Danny hadn’t died, they’d have been on that team, probably earned matching bowl game rings.

  He wondered again what drew the demon to his family, and why he attracted the demonic. Maybe when the solved the Cooper City problem, he’d gain some insight, or at least work up the nerve to ask Travis if he could exorcize whatever fault in him had led to so many deaths. Maybe if there are grief demons, there are guilt demons . If so, I’m somebody’s all-you-can-eat buffet.

  Sylvan Grove, PA, was more of an idea than a place, without much to mark its existence besides an old white church and its cemetery. Farm fields, barns, and far-flung houses were the only settlements Brent had seen for miles as he and Travis went looking for the aftermath of the fatal crash.

  A small converted school bus lay in a twisted pile on its side next to the railroad tracks. Like many rural crossings, there were no barricade arms, just a flashing light, and a crossing marker. Accidents weren’t unusual when a vehicle’s driver decided to gamble that he could beat an oncoming train, but what Brent remembered from the fatalities that made the news back home, a dark night and a malfunctioning signal could be a recipe for disaster. The train that hit the bus had derailed, so there were injured train personnel, as well as concern over the spilled contents of some of the freight cars.

  Brent wasn’t about to push his luck impersonating a federal agent, but his PI license got him past the small town cops.

  Travis didn’t need a clerical collar. He showed up in a black t-shirt with a blazer over jeans, and something about his somber manner earned him grudging respect from the police, enough to keep them from being run off as trespassers.

  “Over here,” Travis said with a jerk of his head, honing in on the hastily erected tent with a hand-lettered sign offering water and food for first-responders.

  “We heard what happened, and wondered if you needed some help,” he said to the harried middle-aged man who was simultaneously trying to tell several teenagers where to unload cases of bottled water and give orders to a handful of flustered volunteers on w
hen to bring the sandwiches.

  “Oh, thank the Lord,” the man said. “I can use all the extra hands I can get. I’m Pastor Pete, Pete Sheldon, from the Snowshoe Baptist Church.”

  “I’m Travis, and he’s Brent. What do you need us to do?”

  Moments later, Travis headed off to set up folding tables and carry coolers for the cadre of volunteers that had shown up to feed the officers and responders who worked at the taped-off crash site. Brent helped relay cases of water and sports drinks, as well as manage huge thermal urns of coffee.

  Brent kept his ears open as the other helpers chattered.

  “…don’t know why they even took this road.”

  “…seems like they went out of their way. Did they get lost?”

  “…I heard one of the cops say, they couldn’t figure out why there even was a train through here last night.”

  The longer he listened, the more Brent became convinced that the accident that claimed fifteen lives wasn’t truly accidental. Everyone in the volunteer tent was either related to one of the dead teens or knew them personally. Every few minutes, someone would have to step away to collect themselves, as two or three of their co-workers enfolded them in a supportive hug, or embraced them as they sobbed.

  His old leg injury ached, but Brent dry-swallowed a couple of Advil and kept going. He and Travis had come for information, but now that he saw the grief that consumed Pastor Pete’s volunteers, he felt a duty to help, a holdover from his own small-town roots. A glance across the tent told him that Travis had gotten his fellow helpers talking. The sorrow was palpable, and even the officers and firefighters had to excuse themselves at times to deal with the gory accident scene.

  All these people, swallowed up with loss. And something out there, feeding on their grief.

  “It’s not like we haven’t had more than our share,” Wanda, a woman with a long gray ponytail, said as Brent helped to set up the coffee station. She had a slender, raw-boned look to her that made Brent think of ranch girls in Texas.

  “What do you mean?” he asked. When Wanda gave him a look, he managed a self-conscious smile. “I’m not from here. We just came to lend a hand.”

  “The dog food factory over near the highway burned down two weeks ago, and that put forty people out of work—not much else to do around here. Then Mrs. Slater fell and drowned in her tub, and old Mr. Hendricks shot himself out hunting.” She shook her head. “Kelly Abrams’s husband got diagnosed with a brain tumor, and she’s got that sick baby at home. Cory Edwards overdosed. Now, this. It’s just a lot for a little town to bear up under.”

  “There’ve been some good turns, too.” A portly woman with bright red hair in a messy bun bustled up with a tray of cookies. “Jim Sanders’s cancer up and disappeared from one scan to another, praise the Lord,” she added, though Brent suspected a less heavenly power was responsible. “Vera Mason thought she was going to have to close her bakery, and then she got that life insurance payment from an uncle she hadn’t seen in years. And Ned Thompson’s wife came out of surgery just fine, when everyone said they thought she wouldn’t make it home from the hospital. Good things still happen.”

  Brent’s heart ached when he remembered what Travis had said about people selling their souls. As much as Wanda and the cookie lady needed a win, he felt certain that their “good news” was just another tragedy.

  Brent finished up with the coffee urns and stepped away. Doug Conroy answered on the first ring. “Brent. Wondered when I’d hear from you.”

  “Hey, I’m over in Sylvan Grove. You know anyone over that way?”

  Doug paused for a moment as if trying to figure out the connection. “The bus crash?”

  “Yeah. I think it might be related.”

  “Shit. Yeah, I know the police chief, but he’s going to be up to his ass in alligators for a while. His wife, Olivia, is friends with my Cheryl. Might be neighborly for her to check in and see if our church group can help in any way.”

  “I’d appreciate anything you find out,” Brent said. When he ended the call and glanced up, he saw Travis slipping his phone back in a pocket. Brent wondered if Travis had placed a call to his priest friend, Father Ryan.

  He rejoined the volunteers in the food tent and spent the next half hour putting out trays of sandwiches, bowls of salad, big buckets of potato chips, and platters of cookies. Hungry cops, firefighters, and others involved in the clean-up came by, hurriedly eating and mumbling their thanks as helpers pressed hot cups of coffee and fresh cookies into their hands.

  The responders came in waves, and the volunteers scrambled to replenish, doing their best to greet the tired, harried workers with smiles and thanks. Brent could see the worry and sadness in the lined faces of the cops and knew from bitter experience that they were barely holding their own emotions together. Tonight, they’d drink their sorrows into a stupor, then get up in the morning and do the job all over again.

  “It was nice of you and your friend to come help.” A short woman who reminded Brent of his mother touched his elbow. She was in her early fifties, dressed in a booster shirt for the local high school over a pair of yoga pants, and she looked like someone who actually knew her ass from an asana.

  “It just seemed like we had to do something,” Brent replied, and while it wasn’t the whole truth, it was close enough.

  “I know the feeling.” She smiled. “I’m Sadie.”

  “Brent.”

  She looked out over the accident scene, past the crime scene tape and the orange-and-white sawhorses. “It’s bad, but we’ll get through this,” she said with quiet conviction. “We’ve been through worse.”

  “The way you say it, I might be able to believe you,” Brent replied.

  She nodded. “I know it’s true. These are good people. When Phil, my husband, had a heart attack and left me with two small children, they took care of us. Found me a job, helped watch the kids, brought us food. We know how to take care of our own.”

  Her deep-seated certainty made Brent pause. “I’m glad they were there for you. But this—so many people affected, and Wanda says there’s been a run of bad luck besides—everyone has a breaking point.” Brent knew that for a fact. He’d had many of his own.

  Old pain flickered in Sadie’s eyes, then was replaced by a glint of determination. “Oh, yes. We do. That’s when you find out who you are. And some folks will have a harder time than others. But we’ll pull together. Do the best we can. Muddle through.”

  Brent saw a calm acceptance in Sadie’s expression that made him wonder about the grief demons’ hold on the area. “How long ago did you lose your husband?”

  Her smile grew sad. “Ten years. Miss him every day. But we had a good run of it, and I wouldn’t trade those years for anything. Now, I have friends and my children. Plenty of reasons to get up in the morning.”

  Someone called out to her, and Sadie patted Brent on the arm and took her leave. Brent pitched in, ferrying more trays of sandwiches and refilling the coffee. He saw Travis talking with several of the local men as he helped to direct traffic and carry supplies. Brent wasn’t surprised to see a priest who looked a bit older than Travis drive up and park, then work his way through the small crowd to offer his help with the responders. From the way the local police accepted his presence, Brent figured he was a known quantity, and probably Travis’s friend, Father Ryan.

  After his conversation with Sadie, Brent started watching the volunteers more closely. Some moved as if in a fog, weighed down by shock and sadness. Others almost seemed energized by the opportunity to act, compulsive in their need to help, finding solace in organizing the relief efforts. And a few, like Sadie, kept busy but found the opportunity to speak to those who were having the hardest time, offering encouragement.

  So the grief demons don’t get their claws into everyone, Brent mused. What makes the difference?

  A commotion outside the food tent caught Brent’s attention. “Let me through!” a man yelled, pushing his way through the caution tap
e. Several of the officers converged, telling him to remain behind the barricades, but he pressed on.

  “I want to see with my own eyes,” he shouted. “I want to see the van. I won’t believe it until I see for myself.”

  “Mr. Winters, please move back—” one of the officers ordered.

  Winters pulled a handgun from beneath his jacket. “I’m going to see what happened with my own eyes.”

  One of the cops Tased Winters from behind. He squeezed off a shot as he fell, and the bullet caught one of the officers in the shoulder. After that, two burly officers pinned and cuffed the man, who kept ranting and shouting threats as they dragged him to a cruiser.

  “That’s Don Winters,” Sadie said, slipping up beside Brent as if she guessed his thoughts. “Lost his only daughter, Natalie, on that bus. His wife hasn’t been well, and I’m afraid this might push her into a relapse.”

  Whatever problems Winters had before he’d shown up at the crash scene, he’d just bought himself a whole heap more trouble after that stunt with the gun. “Why did he say he didn’t believe the crash happened?”

  Sadie shook her head. “Stages of grief, you know? Denial, anger, bargaining, depression, acceptance. Basic Kubler-Ross. Don always was an angry guy, and he never met a conspiracy theory he didn’t like. So I imagine he’d want to see for himself what happened to his baby girl, and probably wanted to fight with someone, while he was at it.”

  “Stages of grief,” Brent repeated, barely hearing the rest of Sadie’s sentence. He gave her a one-arm hug. “You’re a genius. I need to go talk to my friend,” he said, rushing away before Sadie could ask questions.

  Travis saw him coming and met him at the edge of the clearing. “I think I’ve got something,” Brent said, breathless with his discovery. “The grief demons, they’re twisting the stages of grief. But they can’t hurt the people who have accepted their loss.”