by E A Comiskey
But things were looking up. Maybe Mom was helping from above, because a couple years back, not long after she died, he’d come across an advertisement for IT help. Coleum Corporation was a hot new up-and-comer. Everybody knew about them. There wasn’t a soul in the tech world who hadn’t heard the name, but no one seemed to know exactly what they did. Some guessed they were going to blow Apple out of the game with a new communications device unlike anything seen before. Others compared them to the hottest app developers—they’d take over the software world.
Albert went to his interview and a fat, sweating man who smelled vaguely of bad eggs and wore a suit from the 1970s called him into an office and asked him to take a new computer out of a box and connect it to the local network. Albert was given one hour and left alone. Child’s play. When the guy came back, the task had been done for thirty minutes and Albert was on his phone, flirting with a busty fairy in an RPG.
The boss grunted, sounding like a dog choking on a bone, and gave Albert the job. “We’re flying to Mars. You’re staying here to make sure the computers work.”
Albert laughed.
The man stared at him with bloodshot eyes. The left side of his face drooped as if the skin weren’t firmly attached.
“You’re serious?” Albert pushed his spectacles up to the top of his nose.
“Do I look like I have a sense of humor?” the man asked.
The news hit the wires that same week and the world exploded. Everywhere you went, people were talking about Coleum Corporation—where there was space for all. Albert mentioned his job and people took notice. They asked questions. They found him interesting. At last, the world began to see the truth of his greatness.
Of course, jobs always sounded more glamourous than they really were. A great deal of his day involved stringing cable between offices and wiping viruses from the computers of executives who’d “accidentally” stumbled into ethically questionable and often illegal websites. No one needed to know all that.
Almost overnight, the world had learned the name and face of John Jones—the public face of Coleum Corp—and Albert had been inside Jones’s office. That single degree of separation made him interesting, and being noticed was intoxicating.
The thing about intoxication, though, is that an addict grows accustomed to his addiction and more fuel is needed to fuel the fire.
Albert Peters knew he was special, and he knew that being a regular old IT guy wasn’t enough anymore—not even an IT guy for a company as prestigious as Coleum Corportation. He wanted more.
He adjusted his paisley print tie in the mirror and told himself, “Don’t worry, buddy. You’ll be on top of the world. Your break will come. You’re so close now. Just keep your head down and your eyes open and, any day now, opportunity will knock at your door.”
Chapter Four
Richard
Covered in grease and terrified, clearly the pig did not enjoy being saved. Burke crooned to it like a baby, but the pig, apparently, saw the cookies as the only good in a bad situation. Unfortunately, what goes in a pig must come out, and when Stanley pulled to a stop to release the animal near the banks of the West Fork Choctawhatchee River, they all burst forth from the vehicle, desperate to escape the stench.
Burke, still angry about being denied her day at the fair, seated herself upon a rock next to the shallow, murky water and announced that she would stay right there until Stanley had the mess cleaned up. Covered in dry mud, fairground dust, pig drool, whatever lubricant had been used to grease the pig, and a good many Oreo cookie crumbs, she sat with her back ramrod straight. She folded her hands in her lap and brushed the end of one broken thumbnail against the pad of the other thumb. Her long black braids hung over her shoulders in wet clumps that just reached the place on her arm where she’d attained a six-inch-long bruise wrestling the pork chop of the gods.
Richard longed for Stanley to challenge her at that moment but, alas, among the good many descriptors he could use for the old Brit, “stupid” had no home.
“Well, old chap, you and I will take the Caddy to clean her up and—”
Richard broke forth in a wheezy laugh that brought tears to his eyes and tottered toward the riverbank. “We will expect you upon your return,” he said, easing himself down onto the rock next to his pungent granddaughter.
A muscle twitched in Stanley’s jaw but he made no protest. With a nod, he turned away and left them. The powerful purr of the Cadillac hummed to life and faded into the distance.
Richard’s eyes met Burke’s and they both burst into laughter.
He’d laughed more in the last six months than he had in the past six years combined. Heck, maybe in the past sixty. Something about running headlong toward death took away the weighty seriousness of staying alive that he’d labored under for most of his adult life.
“We should walk into Mom’s house just like this,” Burke said.
He wiped his eyes and rubbed his aching knees. “We’ll tell her the whole truth and nothing but the truth.”
“And she’ll listen and say, ‘How absurd. There is no such thing as Norse Gods. Any fool knows there is One God and Jesus is Lord. Now go wash up, Burke Dakota. No respectable man wants a woman who smells like swine. I swear, it’s no wonder you couldn’t keep the one you had.’”
“Speaking of that, you heard anything from Dim Ditty Dimwit lately?” he asked.
She stretched out her legs, letting the toes of her boots fall to the sides.
Richard wondered when she had given up her fancy, high-priced girlie shoes for boots with reinforced toes. The change signified by the difference in wardrobe struck him as indicative as something far deeper than clothing. They’d seen the face of true evil in the past half year. They’d waged war and come out still standing, more or less.
“He called me a while back, when we were in Texas. The divorce from the underwear model is final. He’s thinking about joining an Ashram in Colorado.”
“He called just to tell you that?”
“I think he wanted me to understand he’s no longer begging me to come back. He’s seeking enlightenment now.”
Richard blew a raspberry.
Burke laughed. “Exactly.”
Across the river, a doe and her fawn emerged from thick green foliage with watchful caution. The mother deer led her offspring to the water’s edge and they both lapped up their fill while Burke and Richard watched, silent and unmoving. If they’d had a mind for it, they could enjoy venison for months.
Richard wondered how often humans, like those deer, went about the business of life completely unaware of the still presence of a watchful predator. Only the luck of good timing kept them off some creature’s dinner menu. If people really knew, they’d be too scared to function.
The animals returned to the lush green cover of the forest.
“We’ve put this visit with your mother off for too long,” he said.
She chewed on her lip.
“She’s been worried sick, you know.”
“Yeah, I know.”
Richard shifted. He had more than enough padding around his middle and none at all on his backside. Rocks did not serve as adequate seating for a man whose ninetieth birthday loomed just the other side of the horizon. “She’s got a good heart. Wants the best for us both. Always has.”
“Undeniably,” Burke agreed.
“So, you’re ready for this visit, then?”
“Nope.”
“Me either.”
“She’ll have some loser lined up for me to meet—an accountant or an architect looking to impregnate me quickly before time runs out.”
“There will be brochures for a new nursing home. One more recreational than Everest. She’ll say, ‘They have a pool, Dad. Didn’t the doctor say swimming is good therapy for your hip?’”
“How is your hip, anyway?”
He chuffed. “Well, I ain’t usin’ a walker no more and I ain’t fell over yet.”
Comfortable silence settled between
them once again. Their shadows stretched long across the river’s tumbling current as the sun slipped down the western slope of the sky. Nature’s choir, punctuated by the bass of a bullfrog and the high, chirping soprano of a little yellow goldfinch, sent up a song of birth, death, and the sheer joy of living the moments in-between. If he’d had the luxury of a well-padded chair with a footrest, he’d be sound asleep by now.
“Grandpa?”
“Hmm?”
“Don’t let her talk you into living in a nursing home again, okay? Not even a really nice one with a pool.” She slipped one strong brown hand over his pale, arthritic fingers.
Richard squeezed her hand, keeping his eyes resolutely fixed on some distant point on the other side of the river lest she see the waterworks welling in his eyes. Weren’t no reason to be sitting in a forest, crying like a little girl. “You got it, kid,” he said.
Stanley made it back just before the sun dropped below the horizon. Both he and the car had a freshly scrubbed shine and smelled faintly of citrus and chlorine bleach. “I figured we’d had enough fun for one day and rented three rooms at the Wyndham. Tomorrow we can head north.”
Burke rose and stretched long limbs toward the sky. “Is it run by goblins? Staffed by vampires? Are the housekeepers all witches? Do demons live in the sewer lines under the building?”
“Demons would never deign to live in a sewer. They’re quite proud,” he replied.
Her gaze remained steady.
“Only humans, so far as I noticed,” Stanley told her through his grin.
She held out a hand and Richard allowed himself to be helped to his feet. He waited until the blood flow returned to his legs before releasing her hand.
“You know,” Stanley said as they hiked back to the road, “just because there are no monsters at the hotel doesn’t mean it’s perfectly safe. I’ve seen a good many humans who were much more frightening than any monster.”
Burke grinned. “Oh, I know. By this time tomorrow, you’ll be eating turkey with one of them.”
The trip north was remarkable only for its normalcy. While the Caddy gobbled up the miles, Richard reflected that one year ago, as the holidays approached, he’d been certain the future held nothing for him but a painful decline toward a slow, lonely death. He’d still been relatively young when his wife, Barbara, passed away. At the time, he’d believed she’d been stolen from him by a rare, crippling illness. After he buried his one true love, he continued rising every morning, making the bed, eating his morning bran flakes, and going to work at Wellington Plastics. After all, what else could a man do? No matter that only a shriveled raisin remained of his soul, the sun rose and set. And then one day the company gave him a gold watch and sent him home for good. He watched afternoon talk shows and slept as much as he could for lack of an alternative, until the day he fell and broke his hip and landed in Everest Senior Living, lovely home for old geezers who couldn’t care for themselves. There, he met Stanley Kapcheck.
Stanley Kapcheck had strutted those bright and cheery corridors of death like a gamecock on the prowl. He ate pudding and never got fat like everyone else. He still wore shoes with laces and had all his own teeth. His very existence irritated Richard right up until the moment he saved Richard from a strigoi—a vampire-like creature that feasted on the memories of humans until only a mindless, drooling husk remained. Sitting in a diner in the middle of the night, Stanley opened Richard’s eyes to a world of supernatural wonder and gave him a place in the order of things, a purpose for his remaining years.
Richard became a hunter.
He’d never meant for Burke to get sucked in, but there she was, in it now, as deep as dung in a cow pasture. The trio had settled into a new kind of routine where the only constant was change. Thirty-nine states in six months. They’d challenged things bigger than themselves, faster, stronger—invisible things, things that could fly, The Devil Herself, and, truth be told, he couldn’t remember ever feeling happier, more content, more utterly alive.
Death at the hands of an angry djinn or a hungry rougarou was infinitely preferable to dying in a nursing home. He’d settled his mind to live every single day. He’d go down swinging in the end. No more mere survival, thank you very much, and he wouldn’t let his daughter convince him otherwise. He couldn’t.
He was afraid of how hard she would try.
He was afraid of her tears and her confusion.
How to explain this new life? Impossible. Far better to avoid her, which he’d done. Until now. Because Stanley had convinced them to go back.
Friggin’ Stan Kapcheck.
I-69 to I-94, an exit ramp, three stop lights, and a stretch of twisting little side streets dotted with potholes and speed bumps, and there they were. In silence, they clambered out of the car and stood in the driveway. The season’s first snowflakes drifted down, fat and slow and lazy as if an enormous down pillow had been ripped open far above. A biting wind drew harsh criticism from Richard’s joints, and he marveled that they’d eaten food on a stick under the sun just a few days earlier.
Burke offered him a reassuring smile. Stanley rocked on the toes of his shiny shoes. Richard squared his shoulders and took a fortifying breath. A man had to do what a man had to do.
Like a soldier storming the beach at Normandy, he marched straight to the front door, lifted his fist, and prepared to knock next to the wreath made of tiny pumpkins and autumn leaves, but his plan turned sideways when the door popped open.
His daughter squeaked in surprise. “Dad!”
“Oh.” Richard’s hand fell back to his side. “We’re here.”
She pressed a hand to her heart. “You startled me. Well, come in! Come in! Goodness, is it snowing?” She pulled him into a short, fierce embrace. “You can put your shoes on the mat.”
As if he hadn’t been there a hundred times over the years and been fussed at for every footprint and water ring.
“Oh, Burke, you braided your hair. I love it. You’re a vision. I simply can’t understand why you don’t have a man.” She pulled Burke into a tight hug and then pressed a hand against the row of braids.
“Hi, Mom. I’m glad you like the hair,” Burke said in a weird, flat voice. “This is our friend, Stanley Kapcheck.”
“The man who lured my family away from their lives.” She held out a hand in Stanley’s direction. “Madeline Hallman.”
Stanley pressed her hand between his. “Madam, the pleasure is mine. I can’t tell you all the things I’ve heard about you.”
Richard toed off his shoe and got ready to knock Stanley to the ground if he started repeating all the things he’d heard about Maddie.
“Strong, confident, faithful, concerned for your family’s welfare and social connections,” Stanley said. “But for all that, no one mentioned how lovely you are. Though, of course, I should have known Burke’s mother would be a true heartbreaker.”
Her mouth opened and closed again. Her head cocked to one side. She blinked three times in quick succession and gave her head a little shake as if clearing away a lingering haze. “You can leave your shoes on the mat,” she said.
Stanley bowed as if granted a privilege by the queen.
“I didn’t… I don’t have… Are you all thirsty? Hungry? You made good time. I didn’t expect you so soon. Dinner is all but done already, but I was on my way out to the market. I forgot to get decaf when I was there earlier, and I know Dad can’t have—”
“Don’t make a special trip for me,” Richard said. “I’ll take it fully leaded just like I always have.”
“Dad, you know the doctor said—
“The doctor said I oughta curl up and die. Man didn’t know his butt from a hole in the ground.”
Maddie sighed. “Dad, you’ll be up all night.”
“Not like I got school in the morning, is it?”
“Well, I’m certainly not going to argue with you about it.”
“Good.” Was he shouting? He didn’t mean to be.
“I don�
�t know why you’re being so contrary.”
“I ain’t contrary. I just don’t drink cow piss for coffee.”
“Fine.” She closed her eyes and took a slow breath. When she opened them again, she asked in a cheerful, high-pitched voice, “Shall we go in and sit?”
Burke’s father had been an avid collector of anything avian. As a result, American Audubon prints adorned the walls. A large clock with a different songbird representing each hour hung between two picture windows that framed a view of the back yard with its wide deck and now-dormant vegetable garden. Life-like bird sculptures dotted the mantlepiece as though hopping and pecking in a grassy yard where family photos grew in place of trees. The central portrait showed Burke and her ex-husband on their wedding day.
As far as Richard could remember, each object in the room occupied the same exact space it had on the day his son-in-law died. His daughter, having been raised in a shrine meant to preserve the memory of her dead mother, now lived in the shadow of her husband’s death.
Richard shoved the feeling of hot guilt down deep and cleared his throat. “You still got the birds, I see.”
Maddie perched on the edge of one high-backed chair and primly crossed her ankles. She’d learned manners from reading eighty-four-thousand girlie magazines, and now the rules of etiquette and self-carriage were tattooed onto her soul. “Well, yes. Of course. There’s a new one, there on the mantel. The red-winged blackbird. The ladies at church gave me that after I organized the summer lemonade fundraiser.”
The little blackbird stared at him with soulless black eyes. He suppressed a shudder and found a place to stand where the sun coming through the window warmed the stiff muscles of his back. If he sat down again too soon after the long car ride, he would risk every joint south of the boarder locking up solid. Better to let the blood flow for a few minutes.
Stanley relaxed into the twin of Maddie’s chair and leaned back, each arm resting on an arm of the chair, legs crossed, like a king holding court. “I had an opportunity to travel to Australia once. Do you know that birds there don’t sing? They screech, call out, holler, and mimic, but none of them whistle a tune.”
