Joe Schreiber - Chasing The Dead (mobi)

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  “I’m not Jeff anymore. Jeff is gone.”

  It’s an old poem. You have to remember it. It can help you.

  And despite everything that’s happening Sue finds herself mouthing the words. They come out as little more than a whisper—but they come out just the same.

  “From Ocean Street in old White’s Cove…”

  “What’s that? What did you say?” Jeff Tatum pauses, seeming to hesitate, his head cocked as if he’s listening to some sound far off in the distance. A wave of uncertainty has come over his face, or what’s left of it, reflected primarily in the looseness of his mouth.

  “Across the virgin land he drove…”

  Tatum flinches, averting his face, cringing from her like an old Universal Studios vampire from sunlight. “You ought to shut your mouth,” he growls, but it doesn’t sound like much of a demand. It’s almost like a plea. She’s vaguely aware of his voice becoming more boyish, less hateful, as he retreats.

  Sue sits up, propping herself on her elbows. “To paint each town and hamlet red, with the dying and the dead—”

  “Stop it, I said!”Tatum has moved away from her entirely, drawing his body toward the door, but he can’t find the handle.“You shut your mouth, you fucking stupid bitch!”

  “He walked through Wickham and Newbury.” She’s speaking faster now, and louder too. “In Ashford or Stoneview he might tarry, to call a child to his knee, where he slew it—one, t—”

  “Shut up, shut up, shut up!”At this point the thing has turned totally around to face the door and the voice is simply a shriek, pained and helpless. When he snaps his head back toward her again Sue sees something else emerging through the soulless sockets—an entirely new expression, the face of a young man awakening from a very realistic nightmare, perhaps one in which he has no eyes. He screams one final time, a protracted howl, and then falls silent. When he eventually raises his head to look at her, the only expression on his ruined face is puzzlement.

  “Ms. Young?” Jeff’s voice is quiet, gentle. “Are you there?”

  “Jeff.”

  “What happened to me? Was there an accident? I don’t remember anything. We were talking, and then—”

  “It’s all right.”

  “No, it isn’t. I can tell.” He turns his head to the right and left as if he’s hoping to see something through his hideous new eyes. “What happened to my eyes? Is it bad?”

  “Can you see anything?”

  “Yes, I can see but…everything’s red and shiny, like it’s wet.” He pauses. “Everything’s covered in blood.”

  Sue nods. “There was an accident.”

  “Listen, Ms. Young, you need to listen to me. Turn around. You can’t go any farther down this route.”

  “Jeff, I need to ask you about Isaac Hamilton and the Engineer. What’s he trying to do here?”

  “Hamilton,” Jeff says.

  “Yes, Jeff—Isaac Hamilton. What’s he doing?”

  “His victims. The route brings them back. Then Hamilton takes them. Takesus. ” From deep in his chest he produces a harsh, humorless cackle, and she’s losing him now, she can feel it. “Windows to the soul. That’s what he says.”

  “The Engineer?”

  Jeff’s mouth opens, makes a weak gasping sound. The sound becomes: “…Hamilton.”

  “Wait,” Sue says, “so was Isaac Hamilton controlling the Engineer?”

  “You…you can’t…” His voice falters, stranded between words, and Sue hears an edge creeping back into it. Beneath the crusted blood Jeff Tatum’s mouth pinches tight, the muscles left in his jaw tensing, as if he’s struggling with something, another voice that only he can hear.

  “No.Shut up. I don’twant to.”

  “Jeff?”

  “I don’t…No, you’re lying, you’re lying,you’re lying to me— ” And all at once his hands fly up, plunging his fingers into his own black eyes, and his voice explodes with a scream.“NO!” The scream drags out, dissipating and becoming a wild, hysterical laugh.

  Sue doesn’t wait for the transformation. Twisting around sideways in her seat she plants both feet on Tatum’s bloody chest and propels him backward into his door, and while he’s jammed against it, still in the throes of whatever inner turmoil is ripping him apart, she lunges forward and pulls on the handle. The door swings wide and he tumbles backward out of the Expedition. Sue yanks the door shut, slams down the lock.

  The poem is like a charm. It beats him back.

  In front of the Expedition she sees Jeff flash through her headlights, but he’s not coming for her. He’s headed toward the fence. In seconds he’s over it, scurrying past the police station and into the headlights of the van waiting beyond.

  Across the hollow winter night Sue hears a metal door slide open, then shut again a moment later. An engine revs, grows louder, and then pulls away. She thinks of Marilyn. Is she in there too, with Jeff and Veda?

  Sue looks into the back of the Expedition at her own passenger, waiting to see how the rest of the night will play itself out. It’s just her and the Engineer, straight to the end of the line. They don’t have much time left.

  “All right, you sadistic piece of shit,” Sue says. “Let’s hit the road.”

  5:21A.M.

  Wickham, according to the map, lies about thirty miles northeast, the dogleg road bending upward as it makes its way toward East Newbury and ultimately to White’s Cove. At this point Sue takes nothing on faith except the too-dumb-to-die possibility that she might actually get her daughter back if she completes this lunatic errand on time. Beyond that, any and all logic and preconceived ideas have left the building. She blocks out everything but the road, the endless road, the yellow lines pulsing along through her windshield. It’s hypnotic.

  Without warning Sue experiences a deep sense of fatigue, like a lead apron settling over her head and shoulders. She’s been awake for almost twenty-four hours; her body has chosen this moment to make her aware of this fact. When her alarm went off yesterday morning at sixA.M ., no amount of drugs and horror movies could have suggested what lay ahead of her before she’d be able to sleep again. Suddenly her eyelids feel like they’re swelling to cover her eyes; her head tilts forward, then snaps back, as if from a vicious blow.

  Reaching under her seat she finds a half bottle of Poland Spring water, ice cold. She unscrews the cap and sucks it down in great, greedy gulps until her throat throbs and starts to go numb. Her skull pounds but at least she no longer feels like she’s about to pass out.

  She thinks about Tatum, the urgency with which the human side of him seemed to want to impart some further information to her. What was it? She very much doubts that she’ll get another chance to find out.

  Her eyes flick randomly from the windshield across the dashboard.

  Then she remembers the cassette.

  Jeff Tatum stuck it in the tape deck right before her cell phone rang and the shooting started. It’s no wonder she forgot about it. It’s been tucked invisibly inside the console all this time. She switches the player back on, the tape rolling, and hears the DJ’s voice start up again:

  “…playing all your requests straight on through this miserably hot August night. I don’t know about you folks, but I can’t sleep when the nights get sticky like this. So for all you insomniacs out there, crank up the AC, crack open another cold one, and call me up with the songs you want to hear. I’ll do my best to get us through the night, okay? Let’s go to the phones. Hello, who’s this?”

  “This is Jeff from Gray Haven.” It’s Tatum’s voice, no question, accompanied by a tooth-aching screech of feedback. “I’ve got a—”

  “Hey, Jeff, can you do me a favor and turn your radio down, pal? We’re picking up a lot of squeal back here.”

  “Huh? Oh, sorry.”

  “No problem, Jeff. What can I play for you on this hot summer’s eve, buddy?”

  “I was wondering if you could play ‘Daniel,’ by Elton John.”

  “Elton John?” DJ Damien la
ughs. “Whoa, Jeff, I think you got the wrong station, my friend. We’re strictly modern rock here.”

  “It’s for my little brother,” Tatum’s voice says. “He died three years ago. His name was Daniel.”

  The DJ pauses. “I’m sorry to hear that, Jeff.”

  “The Engineer killed him.”

  Now the pause is longer. Sue can sense the DJ trying to formulate some kind of diplomatic reply. “Excuse me, Jeff. Did you say the Engineer killed your brother?”

  “That’s right.”

  “Three years ago?”

  “To the day.”

  “Jeff, are you aware that the Engineer hasn’t killed anybody since 1983?”

  “That’s not true,” Jeff Tatum’s voice says patiently. “Hedisappeared in August of 1983—in fact the last killing he was connected with happened right in my town on August 22 of that year—but his body was never found. And since then he’s resurfaced more than once. The police just haven’t put two and two together.”

  “Is that a fact?” DJ Damien sounds dubious, to say the least. “So you’re actually telling us that the Engineer is connected with killings but the police in the area somehow haven’t noticed?”

  “I tried going to the cops,” Jeff’s voice says. “They told me I was crazy.”

  “Imagine,” DJ Damien says.

  “I’m serious.” If Jeff’s aware he’s being made fun of, he doesn’t show it. “It was him.”

  “What makes you so sure?”

  “He always shoots out the eyes.”

  “Have you ever heard the termcopycat, Jeff?”

  “This was no copycat. No coincidence, either. He left the body where the police would find it. Then, after the funeral, he dug the body up again. It disappeared. Just like the kids in 1983.”

  “You’re kidding, aren’t you, Jeff?” DJ Damien asks. “Hey, Jeff?” There’s a long pause, too long, before Damien seems to realize he’s talking to a dead line. “All right, I guess we’ve heard the end of that; what do the rest of you think? Come on, folks, it’s twoA.M ., our sponsors have all gone to bed, it’s dead silent out there, what else is there to talk about besides mass murder?” Sue can hear him sigh. “Meanwhile, for Jeff in Gray Haven, here’s the song I wouldn’t normally play under any circumstances.”

  And Sue hears “Daniel” start playing. She waits, watching the broken yellow line jumping on the other side of her windshield, snow flickering through it, and when the song ends, Damien comes back on.

  “Well, children, like it or not, it seems tonight’s topic has become the Engineer. Honest to God, people, I never would’ve dreamt there were so many of you out there with an opinion on this. Hello, you’re live on the X midnight shift, who’s this?”

  “This is Vicky. I’m working third-shift out in Woburn.”

  “Vicky, what do you think about what our pal Jeff said about the Engineer?”

  “I think the guy’s on to something.”

  “So you think the Engineer’s still out there?”

  “Absolutely. I think I dated him.”

  Damien laughs. “All right, thanks a lot.” He goes to the next call. “Hey, the X, who’s this?”

  “This is Randall.”

  “Where you calling from, Randall?”

  “Dorchester.”

  “Randall, what’s your take on the Engineer, dead or alive?”

  “It’s irrelevant.”

  Damien makes a yawning sound. “Fascinating answer, Randall. Thanks for weighing in.”

  “I’m totally serious. To understand the Engineer you have to know about Isaac Hamilton. That’s the real story.”

  “Never heard of him.”

  “That’s because no one pays attention to the tabloids,” Randall says. “Hamilton’s the guy whose statue is up in all seven towns that the Engineer went through, from White’s Cove right to Gray Haven. Whoever the Engineer was, you can’t tell me he wasn’t influenced by Hamilton.”

  “All I said was, I never heard of the guy. Suppose you enlighten us.”

  “Well…” Randall holds back a second, considering his reply. “Let’s just say that what Isaac Hamilton did back in the late eighteenth century makes the Engineer look like a Boy Scout by comparison. Depending on what account you read, he put away something like twenty, twenty-five kids in his day.”

  “How intriguing,” DJ Damien says, though Sue doesn’t think he sounds intrigued. He sounds like he wishes he never started this conversation. “Okay, I’m going to take a couple more calls on this, children, and then we’re going to move on to a more wholesome topic like, oh, I don’t know, famous celebrity suicides. Hello, you’re on the air, who’s this?”

  “This is Terry from Chelmsford.”

  “Terry, I hope you’ve got something down to earth to say on this topic that can help put the rest of these paranoid freaks at ease.”

  Terry gives a high-pitched little giggle, the giggle of a man, Sue thinks, wired to the eyeballs on an all-night binge of coffee, cigarettes, and nothing to do. “As a matter of fact, I read a history book about Isaac Hamilton,” he says. “As far as the connection between the Engineer and Hamilton goes, I don’t see how you can ignore it.”

  “Is that so. I guess the police managed to overlook all this when they were hunting the Engineer?”

  “No, they know about it, they just don’t have the imagination to put it in context.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “I’m serious. This book talked about how Hamilton was, like, this sea captain in the days of whaling and how he ended up in Haiti way back in the late 1700s.”

  “Gripping stuff, Terry, but—”

  “It said when he came back to Boston he was already going crazy from a wicked case of syphilis, but the voodoo priests taught him the so-called secrets of everlasting life.”

  “I’m sorry, did you sayvoodoo priests, Terry?”

  “It’s pretty obvious to anybody who does a little reading that wherever the Engineer is right now, Isaac Hamilton is with him, firing up the old barbecue grill. So if you live between White’s Cove and Gray Haven, watch your back!”

  “Thanks a bunch, Terry. What are you people on tonight, anyway? Okay, one more call. Who is this?”

  There’s a long pause on the other end.

  “Hello, caller? You there?”

  “Hello?”

  “While we’re young, caller. Let’s start with your name.”

  “You want to know my name?” The caller’s voice is formal, anxious. Sue recognizes it instantly. The realization sucks the breath from her lungs in one unpleasant tug, leaves her with nothing but a dry ache where her heart should be.

  She stops the tape, hitsREWIND , and plays it back to make sure, but that’s not really necessary.

  “You want to know my name?”

  She knows it immediately. She would’ve recognized it from a single syllable, perhaps not even that.

  The caller is Phillip.

  5:37A.M.

  “That’s right, what’s your name?” the DJ asks patiently.

  Phillip clears his throat. “I’d rather not give it, if that’s all right with you.”

  “Suit yourself, mystery man. Can you tell us where you’re calling from on this disgustingly hot August night, or is that classified top secret too?”

  “Not that it matters, but I’m listening to a webcast of your show. I’m in California.”

  “Fantastic. Just keep it short, huh?”

  “I’m responding to the callers who seem to believe that the child-killer known as the Engineer might still be alive somewhere, possibly due to supernatural reasons, simply because he was never apprehended and his body was never found.”

  “Okay…”

  “Trust me, this is not the case. I was born and raised in Gray Haven, and I can assure you beyond the slightest shadow of a doubt that the Engineer is dead. He died—a long time ago.”

  “You sound pretty sure of yourself there,” Damien says. “What, do you have proof or something?”r />
  Sue can’t believe she’s hearing this. She resists the temptation to stop the tape again and rewind, to try listening from the beginning, because there’s no point. There’s no way the man talking on this call-in show from six months earlier is not her husband.

  “Like I said,” Phillip says, “I grew up in Gray Haven. I was there when everything happened. For those who didn’t live through it, it’s almost impossible to convey the atmosphere of pure dread that existed during that summer. Thirteen children murdered, including one in our own town; police had zero leads, no identification, no physical description of the killer beyond the fact that he wore overalls and looked like a locomotive engineer.”