Joe Schreiber - Chasing The Dead (mobi)

by user

  There’s a sign coming up and as she gets closer, Sue realizes it doesn’t look like the other towns’ signs. This one is bigger, the block letters carved into a slab of light, unfinished wood, pine or cedar, and mounted on massive, bare logs by the side of the road:

  WELCOME TO OLD WHITE’S COVE

  AN AUTHENTIC 19TH-CENTURY NEW ENGLAND VILLAGE

  “TAKE A TRIP BACK IN TIME!”

  As she passes the sign Sue realizes, with mild surprise, that shehas heard of White’s Cove before, the name itself so shamelessly bland that until she actually laid eyes on it, it didn’t click. It’s one of those communities like Plimoth Plantation or Colonial Williamsburg where the employees show up for work dressed in rigorously detailed period costumes, bonnets and buckles and waistcoats, the wooden buttons all stitched on by hand. They churn their own butter and call their children “rapscallion” and none of them are allowed to wear a digital watch on duty. The realization that this is where she’s been headed all along—literally into the past—reverberates for a moment from her brain to her heart and back again like a cry in an empty street.

  Off to the right, a sign with an arrow saysPARKING and points to a large, empty lot surrounded by drifts of snow. Sue drives past it, realizing only afterward that the road ends here, at least the paved portion of it. The Expedition thumps onto a dirt road packed with a layer of ice, skids a bit, and then finds its way without a problem.

  And without any further warning she’s driving straight down Main Street, circa 1802, past barns and old mansard-roofed houses, tiny dwellings with squinty little windows and doors that seem far too small for anyone to get in or out of. The narrow street presses in on either side of the Expedition, making it feel darker than it did before she stumbled into the village. It feels colder here too, as if somebody sealed the whole thing off in a bubble and pumped in dry-ice vapor. None of the gas lamps are lit, none of the storefronts open, and Sue isn’t sure if they’re closed for the season or it’s just too early in the morning. The dirt road in front of her is clear, though, with great mountains of plowed snow heaped up shoulder-high on either side. She cruises along looking for some kind of street sign, but maybe they didn’t have them back then, though apparently they had snowplows.

  The road is headed steadily downhill and she looks ahead to what’s in store. Spread out below her in the beads of sea gray dawn she can see the business part of the village leading into the square, and the wharf beyond it. This is no doubt the home of the requisite smithy and baker and butter churn and the wooden stockade where the kids can get their pictures taken with head and hands through the restraints.

  To the right and left she can see several other roads coming down to converge at the low point like spokes on a wheel, and at the axis of the wheel—scarcely visible from here—is a dark statue standing atop a stone pillar.

  Three guesses what that is.

  Seeing it, she knows it doesn’t matter whether she finds Ocean Street or not, because this is where she’s going to be meeting the Engineer, where Isaac Hamilton will—or won’t—trade Veda for the body of Phillip. This really is the end of the line.

  Because this is where he killsyou,so he can take yourbody back to Gray Haven. This is where he gets what he’s really after.

  Behind her back, the thing wearing Phillip’s skin starts laughing.

  It is a revolting sound, chunky and clotted, like someone choking on thick chowder. The laugh keeps escalating in volume and intensity. Sue is about ready to put the Expedition in park and just get out,anything is better than listening to that laugh, when straight ahead of her in the middle of the road, she sees something half-buried in a pile of snow.

  There’s a shovel sticking out of the pile, as if someone was in the middle of burying it when she happened to come by. Then the wind picks up, a sharp gust that blasts the top layer of snow away, and Sue sees what it is.

  It’s a large wicker basket, the size of a washtub. And it’s right there, so close, well inside her headlights but engulfed in snow. If she hadn’t stopped when she did, she might have run it right over.

  She opens the door and jumps down, reaching the basket in three steps, and yanks the lid off. Inside, staring straight up at her, looking very small and very still, is the body of her daughter.

  7:44A.M.

  Veda isn’t crying.

  Veda isn’t moving.

  Veda is blue.

  Sue clasps the lifeless form in her arms, holding her to her chest, rocking her in her arms. The discolored skin of her daughter’s face feels as cold as museum marble, hardly yielding to Sue’s touch. The eyes continue to stare, endlessly.

  Leaving Sue to think: No. This can’t be right. Not when I’ve come this far. You can take everything. Just not this. Never this. The thoughts aren’t conscious thoughts, just fragments, and she croons to her daughter, supporting Veda’s head, singing the first song that comes to mind, “The Itsy-Bitsy Spider.”

  “The itsy-bitsy spider went up the water spout….” Behind her she hears a steel latch clank and she’s dimly aware of the thing climbing out of the back of the Expedition, freeing itself now that the ride is over. And she knows now that it’salways been able to free itself, that the façade of hope has always been nothing more than that, just another façade. Another joke to get her here.

  “Down came the rain and washed the spider out….” Sue Young lies down in the snow with her daughter cradled in her arms. The snow doesn’t feel cold. It doesn’t feel like much of anything. It could easily be her grave, and maybe it will be before long, what difference does it make? “Out came the sun and dried up all the rain.” Sue’s eyes are dry, and they fasten on to her daughter’s; she doesn’t want to look at anything else, ever again. “And the itsy-bitsy spider went up the spout again….”

  So much stillness, all around.

  “I love you,” she whispers. “I love you, Veda.”

  Then as the snow pushes against her, she feels a mild twitch against her chest, Veda curling toward her. And in that second Sue stops breathing. Her breath is…gone. Her daughter lifts her head and looks at Sue, recognition flooding her eyes. As Sue looks back at her, Veda draws in a deep breath; her mouth opens in a wide, dark oval and she begins to cry.

  “Oh honey” is all Sue gets out, as she bursts into tears with her. Veda clutches her tighter, burying her head in Sue’s neck, and Sue feels so much weight, sheer metric tonnage levitating from her shoulders that for a moment she’s sure that she can lift right off the skin of this miserable planet and leave it all behind. Just her and her daughter, floating.

  Please be true. Please don’t be another trick.

  Even as she thinks this, hugging her daughter, kissing Veda’s head and holding her, Sue is terribly sure that a trick isexactly what it is. At the moment it’s much easier to fear the worst than hope for the best. What if something happened to Veda, what if those—things did something to her? What if her little girl is really dead and this is some unspeakable, route-resurrected version of her daughter, the killing blow to sanity?

  But as Veda howls and digs her fingers into Sue’s sweatshirt, her face turning pink again, Sue begins to think otherwise. Except for the possible hypothermia from lying in the basket, Veda doesn’t appear to be hurt, and her behavior is exactly as Sue remembers. She’s just—she’s herdaughter, that’s all, and this morning there is a God who has been watching out for both of them throughout this unthinkably cruel errand.

  Sue, thinking these things as she calms her daughter, promising her that it’s over and everything will be all right, sees the front door of one of the little houses open up, and Marilyn and Jeff Tatum shamble out into the snow. They both have those large, shimmering black eyes now, not so much the eyes of a shark, as Sue thought before, but more like a giant squid, great and round and moist. Covered in blood, the two corpses swivel and start moving toward her. They speak as one, in the same voice.

  “Ialways keep my promises, Susan.”

  Sue turns and star
ts back toward the Expedition. A few feet beyond it she can see Phillip’s corpse standing there, head cocked in her direction, not moving. She swings the door open and puts Veda in back, as far as possible from the broken passenger window. Sue jumps in behind her, stretching over the backseat to slam the hatch down before hitting the locks.

  They are outside, looking in at her.Three of them, plus the Engineer, wherever he is. She scans the street, down to the square, and picks up the cell phone, dialing 911.I’ve got my daughter back now, you bastard, and there’s nothing in the world that’s going to stop me from calling in every cop from here to Springfield.

  The 911 operator picks up on the second ring. “Nine-one-one, police services, what is the nature of your emergency?”

  “I’m being attacked,” Sue says, her voice steady. Next to her, Veda has stopped crying and sits watching her with the gimlet-eyed fascination that children bring to the moments when they somehow know that everything’s at stake. “My daughter and I are in White’s Cove, and we’re inside a blue Ford Expedition. There are at least three—”

  Threewhat ? She pauses, struggling with the words, looking out at Jeff and Marilyn and into the rearview at Phillip, their black eyes fixed on her.

  “…assailants right outside my vehicle. We can’t get out.”

  “We’ll dispatch a unit immediately,” the operator says. “What did you say your location was?”

  “White’s Cove.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “White’s Cove. It’s north of Boston. It’s the old historic village. It’s north of Boston,” she says again. “Just look on a map, for God’s sake, you can’t miss it.”

  “Do you know the name of the street you’re on?”

  “I can’t—there are no street signs that I can see, it’s just—” Sue stares out the window. Jeff and Marilyn have started to move again, walking steadily toward her. She checks the mirror. Phillip isn’t there. She doesn’t see him anywhere. Next to her Veda is staring through the windshield, making fast, urgent sounds, pointing at Marilyn. “Min!” she cries.“Min! Min!” She thrusts her hand at Marilyn excitedly, recognizing her nanny despite the fact that Marilyn’s eyes are gleaming black and the front of her shirt is layered in blood.

  Marilyn and Jeff are only ten feet in front of her now, clutching each other as if sharing in some private joke. They come closer. Sue reaches over and pulls Veda’s seat belt over her small shoulder, then puts the Expedition into drive.

  “Ma’am?” the operator is asking. “Are you still there? You need to tell us where you are, any sort of physical description of the streets, the—”

  “White’s Cove—center of town. Just send someone.” Sue floors the gas. The Expedition shoots forward, ramming Marilyn and plowing Jeff underneath its front tires. Marilyn’s body flops up onto the hood, her face plastered against the glass just inches from Sue’s own, her squid-eyes swimming, mouth still grinning as her cheek smears sideways on a streak of blood. Veda stops sayingMin! and sits straight upright, blinking, speechless, in shock.

  “Don’t look, sweetie.” Sue hits the brakes, throws it into reverse, and whips backward, Marilyn sliding off the hood. There’s a crunch that she assumes is Jeff, then the Expedition gets stuck and doesn’t go any farther. Sue puts it in drive, reverse, and then drive again, but she’s high-centered on one of the drifts at the top of the street, the wheels gouging out snow until they’re screaming off of nothing. She feels the Expedition tilting, the nose angling into gravity, suspended here on a single lump of snow beneath the undercarriage.

  In front of her another door on one of the small, old-fashioned houses opens, and Sue sees something coming out—a smaller shape, its form so mangled, so badly decayed that at first she doesn’t even recognize it as human.

  But it is, or it was—a child.

  And behind it, another.

  Sue tries to swallow, finds no moisture in her throat and coughs. Her eyes flick to the sideview mirror. Behind her, all around her, children fill the street. They spill in stumbling profusion, their black eyes like holes punched through the very texture of time itself. Moving on the Expedition in a teeming mass.

  Detective Yates, from the corner of her mind:They dug up her body, took it away. They did it with all of them.

  Sue stares at the children.His children. From the summer of 1983, and 1793, and all the summers in between, and all the summers since. Their faces black with the rage of the dead. More than she can count. Surrounding the vehicle, filling every window, approaching the glass. Fingers scratch against it, peeling at the rubber gaskets with horrible eagerness.

  The cell phone begins to ring. She doesn’t answer it.

  She doesn’t have to. Outside she can already hear Isaac Hamilton, laughing.

  8:08A.M.

  The children crawl up on the hood and begin pounding the windshield with their fists. Sue pulls Veda from the passenger seat, squeezes into the back, and sees them through the rear window. They’re on top of the Expedition too—she hears them up there scurrying over the roof in quick furtive movements, like rats, and sees one peering down from above at her, dragging the cold ice of its bare-bone fingertips against the glass. Veda looks at the face, her eyes going wide, the corners of her mouth melting downward as two large, frightened tears roll down her cheeks.

  “It’s all right, baby.”

  Is it? I don’t think so. I don’t think you can get much further from “all right” than this. And if you don’t come up with something right now—

  Sue’s gaze darts over the interior of the Expedition and settles on the box in the back, an idea forming in her mind. She parks Veda in the backseat, dead center, as far from the windows as possible, and buckles her in. “Stay here.” Veda just cries harder, arms outstretched, needing to be consoled, but Sue can’t be with her right now. “Baby, it’s okay, we’re almost done.”

  Kneeling next to her daughter, Sue sticks her arm into the back, rips open the cardboard case, and pulls out two bottles of the liquor she’s been riding with all night. In the midst of everything, the label catches her eye. It’s 151-proof rum, she realizes—her reward for getting Sean Flaherty his little piece of real estate on 151 Exeter Street.

  Thank you, Sean.

  She tosses both bottles into the front seat, then grabs two more, crawls back into the front, and peels off the plastic seals, uncapping each one. Fumes of high-proof alcohol immediately begin to flood the car as she grabs a handful of the wadded-up faxes from the floor. She twists up the papers, ramming them down the necks of the bottles, spilling some of the rum on another piece as she punches the dashboard lighter.

  Next to her, behind her head, she hears glass shatter. She feels a small, cold hand groping in the roots of her hair, and ignores it. The cigarette lighter pops out and Sue jerks it free at the same moment that she hears Veda’s crying becoming one long scream.

  Sue’s head snaps around and she sees them crawling in through the back windows, the dead children, coming at her daughter from both sides. They’re using one another to stand on, holding one another up, one of them already head-and-shoulders into the backseat.

  “Leave her alone,” Sue snarls, and touches the lighter’s red-hot tip to the rum-soaked fax paper in her left hand. It goes up with a suddenwhoomph of heat and light and Sue waves the burning paper at the children clustering in the windows. They don’t pull away from it, but they don’t come forward either—for a second they just hang where they are, half in and half out, waiting to see what’s going to happen next. She drops the lighter on the floor, touching the burning sheets to the pages she’s wadded up in the liquor bottles, then uncaps another bottle and splashes as much booze as she can on the children trying to attack her daughter. Veda is screaming, arms outstretched, begging Sue to take her away from this.

  Almost there, honey. Just one more second.

  And Sue heaves the burning wad at the corpse on the right. There’s a loud pop and the thing is immediately enveloped in a thin jacket of flame,
flailing, struggling to retract itself from the car. Black smoke billows off of it along with a high, sick stench that defies metaphor. Within seconds the backseat of the vehicle has started to burn.

  Sue lunges forward, unbuckles Veda, and pulls her out of the seat—Veda practically leaping into her arms—and picks up the two remaining paper-stuffed bottles with her free hand. They’re heavy and slick with spilled alcohol, and one of the bottles slides out, bounces, and hits the floorboards, the clear liquor glugging out under the seat. Sue tucks the other one under her arm, cradles Veda, and swings herself out of the burning vehicle.

  The children crowd before her, a wall of stolen flesh. Beyond them the street slopes downward toward the last statue at the bottom of the hill.