“When Jon died?”
“Right before that.”
“So you’re thinking that this calendar deal is why Jon died?”
“No,” he said, placing the drawing in front of her. “But it is the reason that all of this freaky stuff is happening.”
“Why is that?”
“Jon printed an article…” he fumbled in the papers, “…here.” He snatched it out and placed it just above the drawing. “This season of time that the symbol represents on this weird calendar is linked to a specific period of events. Kind of like we have Halloween, Thanksgiving and then Christmas at winter time.”
“Right.”
“But this one, has to do with events in certain people’s lives.” He pointed to a sketch on the paper. “Apparently it’s a formula. Like it’s laid out step-by-step. It’s part of a mythology according to some of Jon’s notes, but he didn’t say what or from where. I’m just rolling with it.” He sipped his coffee.
She tapped her fingers again, the scratched black nail polish chipped again as it hit the laminate table. “And you’re sure this is right?”
Another shrug, “I guess I don’t have much of a choice, do I?”
No arguing with that. She turned the page over, and saw another list. There were illustrations in a line, one on top of the other, done in a woodcut style. “What are these?”
He finished the mug of coffee. “Those? Those are the pieces that make this whole puzzle fit together.”
“Which is?”
“Those drawings are characters in an ancient narrative.” He pointed to the top of the page where a circle was drawn. There were a lot of symbols mixed together in the circle, and she could see at the center was the same one that was in the middle of the eye. “The narrative is a repeating one, throughout the ages it has repeated itself whenever the calendar falls on this season. These characters, are part of a formula. Kind of like the cast of a horror movie.”
“What do you mean?” She decided to match him in finishing her own mug of coffee.
“Have you ever seen Cabin In The Woods?”
She shook her head.
He sighed, and seemed to search his head for a clearer explanation. “Okay, think of it like this, there are the same group of people in every school. Cliques. The jocks, the nerds, the cheerleaders, and the other people. They all exist in a certain subgroup that makes them fit into the pattern. They are branded that way, it’s what makes a social group. And no matter what school you go to, these people exist. Every single one has at least one or two people who fit into these groups.”
“Okay…” She rolled her hand.
“These,” he pointed to the page, “are the subgroups that fit the narrative. It’s like a recipe of some kind.” He pointed to the first one, which was a young girl, nude, lying on a rock with her head cast down, covering her head with her hands. “This is the first one, the Disgraced Virgin.”
Sam looked across the diner and saw the waitress was eying them. Even though she knew that the waitress wasn’t dangerous, it made her uneasy.
“My friend Detective Morrison had a niece. A good girl, did well in all of her grades and stuff. She was found dead a few months ago.” He moved the glass with a free hand, and looked away from Samantha’s face. “She killed herself. It was brutal. Nasty.”
She sucked a sharp breath in.
“What seems to have triggered it was a gang rape. She was raped by at least three different guys, they don’t know how many exactly, and she killed herself afterword.” He pointed to the bottom of the illustration.
Sam looked and saw a dagger sitting there, apparently soiled with blood.
He held up a finger: “Number one.”
The illustration below it, she saw a young man, dressed in what appeared to be a robe, walking and looking up. “Who is that?”
“This is the Dreamer.” He tapped it, “The one who looks to the stars for understanding.”
Her stomach sank. She didn’t want to say who it was, but she found the word leaking out of her in a whisper between tightly held lips: “Jon.”
Clark nodded. “Number two.”
“Crap.” She leaned back in her chair, seeking rest against the cushioning of the booth.
“Number three and four are tied together. Number three is the Scapegoat. He gives himself for the life of another.”
Father Capaldi.
“The fourth one, he is the Murderer.” He looked up at her gravely, “I think we both know who these two are.”
The drawings for each of them were vague, the first one being a man leaning against a rock, holding onto his torso as if he had been stabbed or something. The second, was a man holding a large knife, his face was wolfish and terrifying, his eyes in particular seemed to be watching her through the page.
Peekaboo.
“The last three, I don’t exactly understand how they fit.” Clark said, sliding the paper towards her.
Sam stared down at it, “What do you mean?”
“Here we are,” the waitress chirped from behind her. She turned around and saw two plates of food in the woman’s hands. The first one was a pile of four pancakes, fresh cooked drizzling with butter that melted down the sides. Sam saw Clark’s plate, a set of scrambled eggs and barely seared steak on the side. She saw a strip of bacon as well. “Sorry to interrupt you two. But the food is just a-gettin cold.” Sam was sure it was just a-gettin cold.
She set the plates down in front of them, and from the table behind her poured both of their mugs to refill them. “My, you two must really like the coffee around here.”
Sam couldn’t stop a small snort of stifled laughter from escaping her mouth.
“You okay, honey?” The woman said, staring at her.
Sam nodded, “Yeah. I’m just peachy.”
The waitress gave her a look that only scarcely hid the sourness of her disposition toward her, and she hid the satisfaction that she got from that about as well. It seemed to piss the woman off, but she figured a little spit in her food wouldn’t hurt any.
“Just holler if you need anything more.”
“Thanks,” Clark said. And gave Sam another look.
“What?”
He shook his head and took a forkful of his eggs, being sure to take time to taste them before he reached across the table to grab the pepper shaker.
Sam stared down at the pancakes, glad that the waitress was leaving, and she felt her stomach grumble a little bit, angry at her for having skipped lunch on such a sparse breakfast. She bowed her head gently, and whispered a prayer, crossed over her heart and reached for the syrup, trying to avoid the piles of papers as she did so. When she managed to grab the bottle and bring it back over to her plate she saw that Clark was watching her intently.
“Yes?”
“So you really are into church, aren’t you?”
She popped the cap, “Aren’t you?”
He shrugged. “I used to be.”
“Why not anymore?” She poured a small drizzling trail of syrup across the top of the pancakes and watched as it mixed with the butter in an unending trail at the bottom of her plate, forming a puddle beneath the lowest one.
He pointed back at the paper. “The last three are the ones I’m having trouble figuring out.”
She let the subject drop, “What about them?”
“Well, the fifth one is the Physician. I think I’m that one, but I could be wrong. In fact I probably am wrong.”
“Why do you say that?”
“I’m a shrink, not a doctor.” He said, sweeping more eggs into his mouth.
“Same difference.” She sliced into her pancakes.
A grin tugged at his mouth, “I thought you said that you weren’t hungry?” He began to dig into the steak on the side, separating it from the rest and grabbing it into a bite as well, chewing slowly, but still grinning as he did so.
“I changed my mind.” She said, “The other two are….” She stared at the paper. “The Defender and The Sacrif
ice.” A shrug, “Why wouldn’t you be the physician?”
“Because like I said, I’m a therapist. I’m not sure if that’s where I fit, or if I fit where Jon’s role was since he’s passed.”
“But by that logic wouldn’t all the roles be reset and have to find replacements?” She slipped a bite into her mouth. They were soft and fluffy to the taste. She let the butter and syrup mix with it in her mouth and break it down for her, barely having to chew.
“How do we know that they haven’t?” He countered.
She tilted her head. He had a point, the only one that seemed allowed to die was the scapegoat because his death was needed to further affect the choices of the others, but was there any way to guarantee that much? “Let’s say that they haven’t.”
He nodded. “Well the last two we don’t know who they are yet, but four out of seven, probably five out of seven seems to be a pretty high level for coincidence.”
She took another bite. “So what’s the rest of your theory?”
“Jon’s theory,” he corrected. “And unlike how we view time and calendars with days, this calendar fits into line with these people interacting and moving together. All of these things are moving forward toward something big, which is the end of the cycle. At least, that’s what Jon’s articles said.” He leaned against the table and reached over to shift the pages back over to the calendar page with it’s bulleted list of symbols.
“And what is that big thing?” She asked.
“I don’t know.”
They fell into silence as they ate. There wasn’t much that could be said about it. If Jon’s theory was correct, then what they were getting involved in was a whole lot bigger than either of them even dared to think about. If something was moving to make these things happen, wouldn’t that something be sure to make sure that all the pieces were in the right spot? Like a tightly played game of chess that had apparently been going on for centuries. She wondered which side she was being played on, and what piece she really was.
“What about me?” She said aloud.
Clark looked up from a bite of eggs. “Hmm?”
“What figure am I, in this?”
“I didn’t think you would be on it.”
She huffed, “Why wouldn’t I be?”
“Well, look at the categories, which one would you honestly fit into? I think you just got dragged into this by default of being related to Jon. His role seems to be the most infectious of them all.” Another scrape of the fork, “I mean, he got me involved. And Father Capaldi.”
“But why not me?” She thought about telling him about the other painting she had seen, the one where she was towering over the small figures, like a giant or a goddess, with thick, slippery arms wrapped around her in a possessive way—the same way that Clark had described the creatures in his dreams acting. “If I were to have a role and Jon is really as infectious as you say he is, then where would I fit?”
Clark looked at the sheet, surveying it again, reading over the vague descriptions. He looked troubled, bothered by the idea that she might be involved in such a capacity. The last two were dangerous positions, and if she had to guess, she certainly wouldn’t fit in the role of the defender. She was more of a pawn than a knight. Even having defended Jon in so many ways over the years, the nights of raging drunk and arguing that clung to the walls of the back of her mind like sour stains that wouldn’t ever be able to be cleansed. She knew that, and she knew that he would have to know that. There was no way that he couldn’t, it was so obvious it was painful.
“I can’t say where you are.” Another bite of eggs. “But I can say where I hope you’re not.”
The Sacrifice. The words were bold and thick in her mind, even though whatever Jon had printed them with was running out of ink. There was a subtle finality to it that made her wonder that if it struck her that way she wasn’t destined for it. Perhaps being a piece meant that you got to know where you fit in the game. She doubted that the pieces of wood on a chess board would forever forget who they were or where they began. Maybe in the game that whatever forces were playing with them worked the same way.
She turned back to her pancakes, taking in the silence that grew between them like a breath of fresh air. An open window to clear out the musty feeling of the words they had been sharing. A space in between the conversation to air out the darkness from their minds. She could tell from the look on Clark’s face that he was more bothered than she was, but she tried to hide that she had been examining him for it.
The hot cakes had cooled some in the freezing diner. She thought that the syrup tasted kind of cold, but it might have just been the way that she felt after looking over the papers. Information about ancient religions and ritual sacrifice had a way of killing the appetite.
When Clark set aside his fork and reached for a napkin, she thought aloud. “So what do we do now?”
He wiped his hands and considered her. “What do you mean by that?”
“What do we do now that we know this? I mean, is there anything we can do?”
“You have any ideas?”
“Sacrifice a goat?”
He smiled. “That isn’t exactly what I was thinking. Pretty close though. The blood of virgins is usually something that propitiates the gods.”
“For real, what is the plan?”
More rubbing his hands, “I tracked the map that Jon left for us. It does go to Rhodes Island. It’s not Providence though, it’s a ways out there. But I’m thinking that it was more of a general guideline than a hard rule as to where to go.”
She nodded. “When do we leave?”
“What?”
“We’re going, right?”
“I might be going, yes.” The napkin hit the table.
“Well you’re going to have to take me with you.”
He started to protest.
“Don’t even start it. I’m not too keen on being stuck in a car with you either, but fact is I’ve been in that crappy motel for too many days, and if it involves my brother and what he was looking for, there’s no way you can keep me away from it.” Her face was resolute, set like a stone. She had fallen into the manner of women that can hold a face of stone for an extended period of time, and had all of the backbone to support it. She looked him in the eye, daring him to still tell her no.
He looked dumbfounded, which gave her more than a little pleasure. There were some men who were easy to throw off-kilter, and others who would only bow up and come back at her with their figurative guns-a-blazing. But he only looked at her with a form of amused indifference. There was something in his eyes, something that looked so familiar to her, and she struggled to try and figure out where it was coming from. Instead, she set her fork down on her finished plate of pancakes.
“Okay.” He finally said.
She sat up.
“But,” a raised hand, “we do it by my rules.”
A nod, “Of course.” She was honestly tired of the motel and the opportunity had just swung wide open for her to get out of the little spot, and away from the pool and the people who would watch her through the window as she dressed and undressed.
Peekaboo.
“There’s something I have to do first, but we’ll leave tomorrow. Drive halfway and stop somewhere for the night. It’s going to be a long trip, and I can’t tell you what we’re going to find.”
“I know.”
“It could be nothing.”
“I know.”
“Good. He reached for a few more papers. “I’m sending homework with you. Just the basics. Read it, learn it, love it. I’ll show you what you need to read.”
Sam leaned forward in her chair, and listened to every word he said.
3
Clark juggled the small box in his hand as he waited. The parking lot was empty, even for a weekend, and he couldn’t shake the feeling of paranoia that swept so heavily over him. It was something about the quiet. It was too quiet around him. The shadows around him seemed to whisper. He could hear t
he light thud of his heartbeat in his ears in addition to the dull thrum of city traffic. The poor suckers who had to work on weekends were already out, driving their sedans and minivans to go do the work that they hated. Why? Because honestly who else was going to do it?
The sun had not come up yet. It wasn’t even seven in the morning. He looked down at his phone, which sat in his other hand. The time had only changed a couple minutes since he last looked, and it was still later than he was hoping. It was cold outside. He hated the cold.
Good thing I’m going to Rhodes Island. He chuckled to himself, amused that he could even have such thoughts in the strange, soundless din around him. Normally when things got that quiet he would find some way to make noise. He hated hearing himself think.
There was a light on in the building to his left, a dull yellow glow from a worn light bulb that had probably spent the last few weeks of it’s life left on to give the illusion of someone being there. A way that only deterred honest people. It was a small crafting supply store he had seen a thousand times. It was just a stone’s throw from the local school, which he thought was devilishly convenient, and another stone’s throw from the police station, which was curious, but not so devilish.
His jacket whipped at his frame, trying to pull him over. The wind the wrapped it’s fat form around the building, snickering through the grate of the fire escape mounted on the side of the building to an apartment that he was sure hadn’t been occupied in a very long time. He wondered why Jon hadn’t moved somewhere like that instead of the neighborhood he had chosen.
He heard the crunch of gravel distantly, and held the small box tight in his hand. After only a moment he could make out the vague shape of a Crown Vic, a tad old, dressed out in civilian black.
Sleep Revised Page 15
