The Love of the Dead

by Craig Saunders

  “Yeah.”

  He grinned. “Go on.”

  “So he killed that woman because she wrote the article, right? The card was a message, yes, but I couldn’t tell you she spoke to me. If I’d told you that, you’d have lost all trust in me right then.”

  He nodded. “You’re right.”

  “But you believe me now?”

  He nodded again. “Yeah.” He didn’t waver for a second, and she took heart.

  “Then, here’s the other thing, while we’re at it. The head was a gift to me. But a warning, too. This is what I can do, he was saying.”

  “You’re sure?”

  “Yes. The head said something...” She paused for a second, trying to think back. “Said he’d let her go if she gave me the message. He held her, somehow. You said she had a feather...stuck in her?”

  “In her throat.”

  “Maybe that’s how he did it.”

  Coleridge didn’t laugh. He didn’t storm out of the room. He just took another cigarette, lit it. Got up and crossed the room to where the whiskey was. Filled both of their glasses. Just to give him some time to react, right or wrong. How did you react to that?

  He was going to love the next part, she thought to herself.

  “He’s not real, Coleridge.”

  “What? Of course he is.”

  She shook her head.

  “You don’t understand. It can’t be this guy you’re looking at, because the thing I couldn’t tell you, when I first saw him? I see dead people, Coleridge. And I saw him. He’s dead, is what he is, and I don’t know how or why or what the fuck, so don’t even bother to ask me. But he’s dead, and he can kill the living, so maybe, I’m thinking, maybe he’s both. But then he slit my son’s throat.”

  “What? What the hell?”

  “I saw him do it. He was just there, and here’s another thing...” She hadn’t thought about it before, but now that she did, things started flowing. She was seeing it from a whole new angle, just by putting it into words.

  “The dead don’t speak. Most, anyway. My son can, but he’s the only one I’ve ever met, and even then, only in other people’s voices. But the killer, he can. He warned me off. Said he could touch me here or there, meaning alive or in spirit. I believe him. He’s something else, Coleridge, and I’m scared, because how the hell do you stop something like that? How do you catch something that’s not a man and put it in jail?”

  Coleridge stood up and paced.

  “Fucking hell,” he said.

  There didn’t seem to be much else to say to that.

  “He’s a shade,” she said. “A demon. He’s got a pack of cards. The Crowley cards. They’re his. The Fool was from his deck, but I didn’t get anything from it, you know? Because I couldn’t touch him. So maybe he can move through the world as a spirit whenever he wants. He’s something else, and he’s powerful. I don’t know what he is, but do you see now? We can’t fight him. We can’t do anything he doesn’t want, because he’s not human. Not even close.”

  “Beth, I know you’re not a crackpot. But this...this is...”

  “Insane? How’s this for insane? I went to Mary Stanton’s today, and she showed him to me. I saw him through her eyes. He wore a cloak of black feathers and, of course, they’re raven’s feathers, aren’t they? And he had a knife that was almost a sword. He cut my fucking head off, Coleridge.”

  “Oh, Beth. God. You see that? How can you live?”

  She felt a tear slide down her cheek, but she wiped it away angrily. She shrugged off the question.

  “I could draw a picture of him, but it wouldn’t matter, because he’s not a man.”

  “How can that be?”

  “My ex says not to fight it. It’s all happened. Cracked or not, it’s happening. He can’t be caught. He can’t be stopped. He’s not some guy you can go and arrest. He’s dead, Coleridge, and he’s going to keep killing.”

  The dog sat up suddenly, throwing Miles off. It put its paws on the window, hackles up. If it could have growled, it would have.

  Beth felt the room grow suddenly colder. It had been cold before, but now she tried to look out of the glass into the darkness beyond but could see nothing. The windows were covered in frost, patterns like snowflakes cracking and spreading across the panes.

  They both heard something. Like the wind, but it wasn’t the wind. It was a high pitched keening. An animal in pain. A dog, but it sounded different. Wild.

  “What is that?”

  “It’s him,” said Beth. “God. It’s him.”

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  Newman and Dean drove along the quiet country lanes on the way back to Norwich, high beams on, but still they drove slowly. The country roads were deadly at any time of the year. The night was clear and cold. Not cold enough for ice, but clear enough for deer and other animals to be roaming the fields, animals stupid enough to leap out in front of a car.

  “You know what?” said Newman, smoking a cigarette with the window down, even though he wasn’t supposed to. He sensed Dean shrug in the dark interior.

  “This car always smells of dog. You ever noticed that?”

  Dean shrugged again, keeping his eyes on the road. He took the corners slowly. He was a better driver than Newman, and he liked to drive.

  “It doesn’t smell of dog anymore. Ever since we had that crazy lady in the car.”

  “No?”

  “No. You think she exercized it?”

  “What, took the dog for a walk?”

  “What? No. You know, like it was a dead dog, and she, you know, moved it on?”

  “You mean exorcized?”

  “That’s what I said.”

  “You think there’s a ghost dog in the car, is that what you’re saying?”

  “Well, maybe. Could be, couldn’t it?”

  “OK, Newman. Could be. Can’t say I ever noticed a smell of dog either way, but could be.”

  “You’re just humoring me,” Newman said, just before the blood blinded him. It covered everything in heavy splashes. It sounded like puddles when his son jumped in them in his wellington boots. It felt hot and sticky on his face.

  He couldn’t figure it out. Couldn’t understand why the world had suddenly turned to red. Then it turned upside-down. Gravity lost its hold on him, and he floated against his seatbelt. He cried out as something snapped between his shoulder and his neck. Pain flared right into his spine and up into his head. His teeth cracked together and one broke in half. For a second there was no weight, then it was crushing. His mouth slammed shut again and his broken tooth cut into his lip. He tasted his blood in among the rest that sprayed across his lips.

  None of it made any sense. One minute he felt like he was spinning, turning in the air, but he couldn’t see anything. Couldn’t judge it. The blood was warm on his face and it kept splashing him, like someone was spraying him with a water gun, over and over, then he cracked his head against the passenger window. The airbags deployed, and he smelled gunpowder along with blood and a thick smell of freshly dug dirt.

  It took a while for him to come ’round after that. When he did, he was seeing double, and his head pounded. The inside of the car was painted red, but it wasn’t his.

  “Dean?” he said, trying to clear his eyes.

  Dean didn’t say anything.

  His partner’s body was snug and safe in his seatbelt, but his head had been taken clean off.

  Chapter Forty

  Peter Willis turned off the news channel and picked up the phone for the third time that evening.

  The news on the twenty-four hour channels ran on a loop unless there was something new to report. The latest murder had been discovered two hours ago, and he’d seen the reporters and presenters rehashing the same shit over and over again. He was too far away to just jump in the car, but he was about ready to do that.

  A man’s body had been found. A policeman this time. The spokesperson for the police even looked shaken. It was the first time anyone had said “decapitate
d” on the news, and now that they’d said it once, they said it a hundred times. It was almost as though they were thrilled about it. But they didn’t know what he knew. That his ex-wife was on the killer’s list. If he even had a list. If he was even human.

  Beth didn’t lie. She’d never lied to him. Even when the truth had been more than she could handle, more than their marriage could handle, she’d never lied.

  If she said this man could walk in spirit, then she knew it for a fact.

  And he wanted her dead. He’d already warned her once. Now he’d killed a policeman. A policeman, for fuck’s sake. Nobody killed policemen. They sure as hell didn’t cut their heads off.

  Just a dead dial tone on the phone. Nothing else.

  He wasn’t often stumped, but he couldn’t think of a damn thing he could do about it. He was at a conference in Leeds. Leeds, for God’s sake. Maybe he could get to her in seven hours. Six, maybe, if he drove like a lunatic all night long.

  But it could be something else. She wouldn’t thank him if he got there and she’d forgotten to check her messages. It wouldn’t be the first time.

  But she’d never ignored him this long before. Now he couldn’t even get through.

  Could be nothing. But he couldn’t take the chance.

  He picked up the phone. Tried again.

  He paced ’round his rented room for a few minutes, trying to come to some kind of decision.

  Phone the police. The answer was staring at him. Maybe they’d tell him to get lost, stop wasting their time. Maybe they’d tell him they found her body tonight.

  God, please. Not that.

  He picked up the phone and dialed, jumped through hoops for a while until he got through to the dispatcher.

  “Hello,” he said without preamble, “my wife’s name is Beth Willis, and she’s in danger.” He gave them her address. “Can you get someone out there to check on her?”

  “Sir? What makes you think she’s in trouble.”

  “The guy who killed all those people in Norfolk? He’s made threats against her. She’s not answering her phone and hasn’t for a couple of days. It’s totally out of character for her. Please, can you get someone to check? Please?”

  He didn’t like begging, but he would if he thought it would do any good.

  “We can send a car to check. Can I take a number to call you back?”

  “Thank God,” he said, and gave the woman his number. Then he paced.

  Eleven o’clock. Pacing. Not sleeping. Thinking about getting in his car. Five past. Time practically standing still. Nothing. He was covered in a cold sweat. He ran through scenarios in his head, ones where Beth was lying in a pool of blood. He tried to find a better picture, one where she’d gone for a walk on the beach, maybe left her phone off the hook. Another picture intruded, of a man with night-black wings, smiling and crouched over his wife’s dead body, thrusting, thrusting.

  He shook. What the fuck was that?

  Closed his eyes and willed the image out of his head.

  Thought about Beth sitting ’round someone’s house, drinking. Maybe staying over for the night. A night or two.

  But then, Beth didn’t have any friends. She had clients and her bottle.

  He sat in a chair, gnawing his nails. Waiting on a phone call. Waiting to hear if his ex-wife had been murdered, or if her phone line was down in the wind, or she hadn’t paid her bills again. Any one of those things could be true, but he was afraid for her.

  He picked up his keys from the nightstand in his motel room and twirled them ’round his finger, staring at them. Then he fell asleep, and the raven on the windowsill watched tirelessly all night long.

  Chapter Forty-One

  Coleridge stood up.

  “You stay here.”

  “I’m not going to be afraid in my own home,” she told him, but her face gave away the lie.

  The animal was crying out now, harsh and guttural, almost like a bark but not quite.

  “Don’t argue,” he said, and he was gone before she could.

  He stalked out into the hall on his quiet feet and pulled the front door open fast and hard, rushed out into the night, fists loosely clenched and breathing hard.

  But it was just a deer. A muntjac.

  It wasn’t barking anymore. One hind leg kicked feebly at the front step. The other had been wrenched back, probably dislocating the hip. Its stomach had been torn open. Coleridge could see a weak pulse beating through something in its guts. He didn’t know what it was. He didn’t want to know.

  But something had just killed it, and he was standing in the dark with nothing but his socks on and nothing even closely resembling a weapon.

  He’d faced down drug dealers and drug addicts in his time. A man with a sword, a deadly four-foot pig-sticker, who’d cut off someone’s hand. He was committed later. He’d once knocked out a man threatening him with knife, after the man had stabbed one of his partners, a long time ago.

  He could look after himself well enough. But something had torn the guts out of a deer. A flock of birds had killed a raven tonight. He’d said hi to his only lead’s dead son. A murderer was beheading people and maybe he wasn’t even human. Coleridge didn’t even have his shoes on.

  “Fucking come on then!” he bellowed into the night. Bluster’d get you out of a fight nine times out of ten. “Do it, fucker!”

  Nothing. Just the whistling of the wind through the eaves. The rustle of the sand shifting.

  The deer’s leg stopped kicking. Its bowels emptied on the front step.

  Coleridge needed a piss. His legs were shaking, but just because he was cold.

  “Come on!” he shouted, and his voice sounded almost desperate to him. He didn’t like it. His bluster was gone, all of a sudden, and now he was afraid.

  Something had done this, and he couldn’t do anything about it. It was so dark that if he stepped more than ten feet away from the house he’d be blind. Completely helpless.

  He couldn’t do anything if he couldn’t see.

  He needed to get back inside. Get inside right now.

  “Oh, God,” said Beth from behind him. “No. He’s here. Coleridge, shut the door! Shut the fucking door. Get in!”

  He didn’t need telling. He slammed the door, threw the bolt and chain across. Heard sirens some way off. Thought maybe they were coming to them. He didn’t know, but he needed to call this in. Right now. He needed to get someone out here, because he was suddenly very aware that he couldn’t protect Beth. If this thing, this spirit man, decided he wanted her, he couldn’t do a damn thing about it.

  He took Beth by the arm and led her back into the living room. He wasn’t sure if he was leading her, or she was leading him.

  His phone was in his jacket pocket, but even though his shaking fingers managed to get the speed dial to call the station, nothing happened. He dialed again, checked the signal. He had no bars.

  “Beth, I need to use your phone. I’ve got to call this in. I need someone else here.”

  She nodded and didn’t argue.

  Beth’s phone was completely dead, too, but that was all right, because the sirens got louder, until they were really screaming. They stopped right outside Beth’s front door.

  Chapter Forty-Two

  The first of the two policemen out of the car puked into to bushes outside Beth’s front window. The second was a little more professional.

  “Detective Coleridge, we’ve been trying to get you all night. Phone’s down. Signal, something. I don’t know.”

  “Well, out with it. As you can see, I’ve been a bit busy.”

  The policeman looked back at the mangled animal on the steps. Nodded and continued on.

  “There’s been another killing. Ah, shit. It’s Dean. Chopped his fucking head off, didn’t he?”

  “Shit,” said Coleridge.

  “I’m just giving you what I’ve got. I heard he got into the car. Cut his head off while he was driving. Newman was with him. Got knocked around so bad he can’t tel
l anyone what happened, but his...his head...”

  “Missing?”

  The policeman nodded. He looked awfully pale. Coleridge didn’t know how he’d hold up if he was squeamish about a dead deer and headless cop. There might be worse to come. Probably would be.

  But he couldn’t stay. God, he wanted to. He looked at Beth, and where he’d seen a strong woman before, he saw a frightened woman now. She looked diminished. He wanted to protect her, to keep her from harm. Some kind of hang up from watching too many Clint Eastwood movies, maybe. But there it was. He wanted to be with Beth, right here, for whatever good it would do.

  But it just wasn’t going to happen. There’d been another murder, and this time a fellow policeman. There’d be hell to pay. This guy had killed a cop, and right or wrong, that had more weight than a woman in danger.

  He couldn’t not go.

  “Beth,” he said, turning away from the policeman and looking back into the light. “I’ve got to go. Someone’s got to deal with this, and I think it might be me.”

  “You go. I’ll be fine.”

  “I don’t think so. You’ll stay?” he asked, looking at the policeman.

  He nodded. “Didn’t think it was this bad. I’d call for another car, but I don’t think we’ll get one. Not tonight.”

  “Anything on the suspect?”

  “I don’t know anything about that, sir.”

  “Fucking typical. No one talking to anyone. I’m going, but you stay with her, no matter what. In the house. Not in the car. No shifts. You’re on all night until I come back or someone comes to relieve you. Stay in the house.”

  The policeman nodded. Beth looked like she was going to argue, but Coleridge shook his head. She shut her mouth and stepped back.

  “You want to go and wash up?” she said to the first policeman. He had some vomit on his uniform and shoes, but there was worse than a little puke to worry about.

  “Sorry about your bushes.”

  “Rain’ll get it. Don’t worry. Come in, get out of the dark.”

  The dark didn’t usually bother her, but it was creepy in a way it never had been. Before, it had been a comfort, hiding her from the world. Now it was a barrier. If she needed to get through it tonight, she couldn’t. Not without help.