The Revenant: A Horror in Dodsville

by Brian L. Blank

  Sly started back to the house, and I followed. We both sat on the front steps. The sun beat warmly on my face, making me feel alive.

  "I wonder what's become of your good buddy, Detective Pierce," Sly said at length.

  "Maybe he got smart and left."

  Sly shook his head slowly. "Not Pierce. He's too obsessed to simply walk away."

  "You think we should ask him to help?"

  "Maybe later." Sly stood and brushed off the seat of his pants. "But it is time we had that little chat with Ann Smith, don't you think?"

  I shook my head emphatically. "I'm going alone. She was frightened enough with just my presence last time, and I'm sure she won't even answer the door if she sees you’re with me. I know that for a fact, too. So, don’t argue with me. Discussion is closed."

  "You can't go alone," Sly said. "Not with Randy out and about looking for your head on a platter."

  He was right, of course, I had almost forgotten about Beliwitz. "All right. You can follow until we come in view of her apartment. Then you can hide in some bushes nearby. If I feel I'm in danger of any sort, I can call you."

  "And what if she tries to kill you herself?"

  I shook my head. "She wouldn't."

  "Well, then let's go for it." He slapped me on the back and started down the sidewalk.

  * * *

  Ann didn't reply to my knocking at her door, and I began to feel as though I was too late; she had already left. I shouted her name a few times, and then listened at the door for any movement inside. Nothing. Sly popped out from behind a small group of short pines in the neighbor's yard. I waved him forward.

  "What is it?" He asked, climbing the stairs two at a time.

  "She's not here." I pounded on the door one more time. "Or at least she's not answering. I told you she was one frightened woman."

  "Well," Sly said slowly, as if not sure of himself anymore. "We'll have to break in then. We have dig up a clue to where she has gone, find her and talk with her. It's our only hope."

  I tried just turning the knob first to see if it was open, but, like I expected, it was locked.

  "Grab me from behind around my chest and lift," I told Sly, "and I'll kick the door open." I had seen it done in some movie from my past.

  When Sly lifted me off the ground, I launched out with both my feet as hard as I could. The casing around the door cracked but refused to give. On the second attempt, though, the door succumbed with a jolt inward. Splinters of wood flew at my face, and I just managed to get up my hands in time to protect my eyes.

  Sly dropped me to my feet and started for the entrance. But stopped at the threshold.

  "Oh, my," he said, shaking his head.

  My heart sank in my chest as I pushed my way past him, thinking for sure Ann had done herself in. The entire inside of the apartment had been ransacked. Nothing was left unturned or upright. In the kitchen all the glasses lay in pieces on the floor with most of the plates. The table was turned on its side; sugar covered the counter tops as though a sudden and brief isolated snowstorm had struck without warning. The kitchen chairs had been smashed to splinters. Someone had taken a knife to the couch in the living room. Stuffing lay about it like the guts of a soldier who had stepped on a land mine.

  My heart beat wildly in my chest, and I realized I was afraid for Ann.

  Sly broke the silence: "No blood," he said softly. "Or would she even bleed?"

  I thought I heard something coming from the bedroom--almost like someone was sobbing. “Wait," I said, holding up my hand. "You hear that?"

  Sly listened for a second. "Sounds like someone is crying," he replied. He started for the bedroom. "And it's coming from in there."

  A feeling of relief washed over me, and I followed Sly into the bedroom. But the room was empty. Untouched, but empty.

  I checked under the bed, with no luck, while Sly opened the closet door.

  "It's coming from in here," Sly said quietly, motioning me forward. "But I don't see anyone."

  An assortment of clothing hung from hangers, and a small army of women’s shoes lay scattered about the floor, but there was no sign of Ann.

  "Wait a minute." Sly pushed his way into the closet and disappeared behind the clothing. "I think I found her," he said a few seconds later. "There must be a false wall back here. I heard someone moving around."

  We pulled all the hangers out of the closet and threw them, along with their contents, on the floor behind us.

  "Go away!" a muffled voice shouted at us as we fumbled around the edges of the back, looking for a catch.

  "That's Ann, all right," I said to Sly, who only shrugged in response. "Come on, Ann. It's me, Stephen."

  Sly found a latch and pulled up on it. The door slid back easily.

  Ann sat crouched in the fetal position in the back of an empty small room, about half the size of the closet, and about half as high. She reminded me of a small child trying to hide from being punished by her parents. Her head was between her knees and covered with her arms. She rocked back and forth. In her right hand she held the knife she had threatened me with earlier.

  I motioned to Sly to leave us alone, and he got the hint.

  "Come on, Ann," I whispered gently after Sly had left. I reached out with my good hand.

  She looked up at me, and brushed tears off her cheeks that weren't there. Her eyes were bloodshot. "Why can't you leave me alone?" She spoke without expression. "Can't you see I want to be alone?"

  I slowly grabbed the knife handle and pulled it away from her. She offered no resistance. I tossed the knife onto a pile of clothes on the floor of her bedroom. Sly immediately picked it up and backed away again.

  "Come on out, Ann," I said, reaching for her and bracing myself for the shock of cold I would receive when I touched her. She leaned into my arms and sobbed quietly in my chest. I shivered but didn't flinch at all. Picking her up in my arms, I carried her out of the closet and set her down on her bed. I rubbed my arms with my hands trying to warm them, but the chill had set in deep and it would be some time before I felt warmth again.

  "What happened here?" I asked after a minute, remembering how Ann had kept glancing at her bedroom when I was here before, as if someone were hiding in there. "Who did this?"

  She looked up at me from the bed. Her eyes held the look of one who had lost all hope in life. Her voice cracked as she spoke. "You have to kill me, Stephen," she said. "Find a way and end this. Please." She reached out with her hands, but I didn't take them.

  I didn't know what to say or how to react. They didn't teach this to me in college. "I'm sorry to be here like this," I said, in a voice just above a whisper. I still shivered from her touch earlier. "We need your help, Ann. We need you to give us some answers. Something for us to go on."

  She shook her head vehemently, showing emotion for the first time since she brandished the knife at me in the kitchen. "Reed would punish me."

  "I am so confused about all this." I sat on the bed next to her, hoping she wouldn't touch me. My mind was filled with cobwebs again. None of this was happening. "The Reed I knew wouldn't hurt anyone." I didn't believe that anymore, but I had to say it.

  "He's not Reed anymore." She clenched her fists and pressed them against her eyes. "He's so . . . mad."

  "Why?" Sly asked from the corner of the room.

  I shot him a cold glance, telling him to let me do all the talking.

  Ann looked at him briefly, and then covered her eyes again. "He's gone crazy." She started rocking back and forth.

  I looked to Sly and shrugged, not knowing where to turn from here. He nodded toward Ann and mouthed the words "press her."

  Ann took her fist from her eyes and shook her head. "And what he thinks was going on between you and his girl didn't help matters. You have to get out of Dodsville, Stephen. Far away. There's nothing you can do here, anyway."

  I grabbed onto her hands, ignoring the coldness of her touch. "He has Melissa, doesn't he?"

  She nodded once
in reply. "But there's nothing you can do about that."

  I squeezed her hands more tightly. "Where does he have her?" Thoughts of Melissa screaming to get away from him battled in my mind with thoughts of her situated comfortably in his arms.

  "You already know where." She stood and turned away from me. "I can't tell you anymore, Stephen. I really can't."

  What did she mean by my already knowing where Melissa was? "If I knew I'd have her with me by now, and we'd be out of this hell hole of a town."

  She chuckled but didn't reply. She remained standing in front of me with her arms folded across her chest.

  Sly asked, before I could stop him, "How many of your kind are there?"

  Ann flinched at the words "your kind," but didn't falter. "More than you'd believe," she replied. "But we're still around Dodsville. All of ‘my kind.’” This last she said sarcastically.

  With the cobwebs cluttering my mind, I stood and walked in front of her. "I still don't know what you meant by--"

  She held up her hands. "No more, Stephen." She sat back down on the bed and leaned back on her elbows. Her expression became stolid. "I've already told you too much. Now would you please leave me alone?"

  Sly pushed himself off the wall with his shoulder. "Let's go then, Stephen." He waited for me at the doorway. "There's nothing more we can do here."

  I looked back to Ann, who now held her face in her hands. She didn't deserve this. What had Reed become that he could act so callously? I shivered again, though this time more from fear than from the chill of Ann's touch.

  "Ann?"

  She looked up at me, but her expression remained stolid. Yet, deep behind her eyes, I could see how much she hurt.

  I reached out and held her hands in mine, fighting not to flinch from her touch. "Thank you, Ann," I whispered.

  Her expression lightened.

  I let her go and walked to the door, but turned around one last time. "I'm going to correct this mistake. You may not believe that, but I will. You'll see."

  She only shook her head in disbelief.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE:

  Final Decision

  I left with Ann lying limply on her bed, looking like a small child who just found out she couldn't go to the fair. She lifted her hand as if to wave goodbye, but changed her mind. She smiled weakly instead.

  Following Sly down the stairs once we were outside of the apartment, I found myself only wanting to rush back inside and hold Ann in my arms. But Sly kept taking each step down, and I kept following.

  "There really was nothing you could have done for her,” Sly said, as if reading my thoughts, as we walked slowly down the sidewalk toward home.

  "At least not until we take care of Reed," I replied quietly under my breath.

  "What's that?" Sly stopped and tilted his head in confusion. "Don't go and get obsessed on me, Stephen. If you lose control now, we won't stand a chance against whatever it is that we're going to end up facing ahead of us. Understand?"

  I shrugged. "What's to understand? I'm fine."

  "Right." Sly turned and continued down the sidewalk.

  The sun beat down on the back of my neck; it felt good. Ahead of us a lone man mowed his front yard with a push lawn mower. The odor of the freshly cut grass took me back to my childhood when I had to mow my parents' entire yard while my friends played a pickup game of baseball in the park just down the block. I couldn't see them, but I could hear the laughter and the cries of excitement before I started. The cut grass would turn my tennis shoes green. I always made it to the game before it ended, and took my place as a pinch hitter just waiting for the chance to prove myself, green shoes and all.

  The homeowner had taken off his shirt and now beads of perspiration gathered on his tanned skin. He smiled when he noticed us walking past, and even waved a friendly hand.

  Neither Sly nor I waved back.

  When we finally returned to Julie's empty apartment, Sly turned on the air conditioner. I walked without words into the living room and dropped back onto the couch, and sighed. Sly rattled a few dishes in the kitchen and entered the living room a few minutes after me with a glass of fresh lemonade. He sat down across from me, dug out his pipe from his shirt pocket, and stuffed it with tobacco. The room immediately filled with its sweet aroma.

  "Tell me none of this is happening," I said to no one in particular. I rested my head back against the sofa cushion and closed my eyes. Seven weeks ago I had arrived in Dodsville with a foggy mind because of too many memories of Reed and me as children living innocent lives. Since that fateful day I felt almost as though I were living in a trance. I would wake up one of these days and find myself back in Milwaukee, my grandmother standing over me with a bowl of chicken soup and telling me that the fever had finally broken. Or maybe I was simply a pawn in someone else’s dream, and when he or she woke I would disappear into the nothingness of the stuff dreams are made of.

  "I was hoping you'd tell me the same."

  I opened my eyes. Sly puffed casually on his pipe, making smoke rings in the air above him. An edge of sanity tried to crawl back into my consciousness, but the gauntlet laid there was too much for it to handle.

  Sly formed another perfect ring. "But it is," he said, frowning. "And we're right smack damn in the middle of it."

  "But why us?" I sat upright. "Why does this mess center around the likes of us?"

  "Why anything?"

  Not the answer I wanted, but the truth all the same. Was there a complex design in the universe, as the Robert Frost poem of that title suggested; or are we running in a giant maze, randomly rounding corners in our lives to face what affronts us there? I closed my eyes again. The image of Melissa's saddened face formed on the inside of my lids. "I'm on my way," I said aloud. "Damn right."

  "On your way to where?" Sly asked.

  "To save our Melissa." A smile broke on my lips. "She's alive, Sly. I know she is. I can feel that she’s alive."

  "And exactly where do you propose she is?" He set his pipe down on the ashtray next to him.

  "Ann said I already knew the answer to the particular question, didn't she?" I brushed back the hair that had fallen in my eyes. I was past due for a haircut. "There's only one place I can think of, and that's the mansion."

  Sly's eyebrows shot up. "No," he said, smiling. "Not the mansion. At one time maybe, but no longer." He paused, waiting for me to think of the answer myself.

  I shook my head.

  "Where did we see Reed?"

  "At Wickerman's," I replied. "But didn't you check all the rooms?"

  "Maybe, but--"

  I jumped to my feet, slapping my forehead. "Of course.” How could I be so dense? “Reed didn't follow us out to Wickerman's that night when we went after Beliwitz. He resides there." I walked to the window and stared out at the deserted streets. "He was under our noses the entire time." I turned to Sly. "Let's go get the bastard.”

  He laughed. "I warned you against this. Don't get obsessed. All the marbles are on the table now, and as soon as we head out there they are going to roll. We need a plan. And we need backup plans in case the first and second fail. If we march in there like a couple of blithering idiots, what's to stop them from massacring us before we step through the front door?"

  He had a point. But my hands were shaking again, and if I didn't accomplish something--anything--positive soon, I was going to lose it. I could hardly think straight anyway. "Have any ideas?" I asked, calmly.

  "How's that arm of yours feeling?"

  I pounded my left hand on the table of a couple of times. "Doesn't hurt a bit. But I admit it does feel a bit tender yet. I wouldn't want to push it too far."

  We both tossed a few ideas up into the air over the next hour, but we shot them down after going over the fine points. The fact was, we knew so little about what to expect once reaching Wickerman’s that we couldn't know how to react until we did.

  "I think we need to bring in Pierce," Sly suggested after several minutes of silence at the kitchen
table. We had made and devoured a couple of egg salad sandwiches, and now we sat with our empty plates in front of us. "With your tender arm we need all the fire power we can muster."

  "He'll think we're crazy if we tell him this."

  "But he'll also go along with us to find out for himself. He's obsessed. Beyond help anymore. Yet, I still believe he has his wits about him."

  I told Sly he could call and ask him.

  "All right," he replied with a grin totally out of proportion to the situation at hand. "He's not going to put you away for this, Stephen. He could have sent you up long ago if he still wanted. He thinks you're the link, and he'll follow wherever you lead."

  He picked up the phone and dialed the sheriff's office. "Detective Pierce, please." I couldn't make out what was being said on the other end of the line, but by the faltering expression on Sly's face I knew I wouldn't like it. "All right. We'll do that. But if you hear from him first, tell him to contact Stephen O'Neal immediately." He hung up and stared at the receiver a minute.

  "What's happened to the detective?" I asked at length.

  "Nothing," Sly replied. "At least nothing anybody knows about. No one's heard from him since yesterday. Ryan was hoping we knew where he was."

  "Oh, he's around," I said, meaning it. "He's around."

  Sly picked up both plates from the table and set them in the sink. "What say we get some rest and head out to Wickerman's at first light?" he asked, returning to the table.

  "What's wrong with today?"

  "We're not prepared."

  "Oh, and we'll be more so in the morning?"

  "What about Pierce? Shouldn't we wait for him?"

  "Like I said before: He's around." I stood and walked to the kitchen window. The sun was just beginning its descent for the day. “What we have on our side is the cover of darkness. I doubt they're expecting us, and if they can't see us they'll never know what hit them."

  Sly scratched the top of his head, but didn't reply.