The Darkest Lullaby

by Jonathan Janz

  Katherine had gone out to get help for her, but that had been how long ago? An hour and a half? Two hours? It was a long way to town, but surely in that time she’d have placed a call to the police, found a sympathetic driver to give her a ride.

  No, more likely Chris had captured her, talked her into finishing what they’d begun in the bed.

  Her lips twisted in contempt for her husband. He thought he was becoming the new Gerald Destragis, as though he and Katherine could recapture the old magic Gerald and Lillith had created.

  But you’re not part of the picture, she thought. Somehow, Lillith means to get rid of you. And you’re helping it happen.

  While Ellie was stuck here protecting a baby who’d never see the light of day.

  She shut her eyes against the tide of sorrow flooding over her, a darkness so complete she felt like curling up in a ball and waiting for the end to come.

  Ellie grew still.

  Sucking in a breath, she realized there was indeed a way to prevent all of it—at least there might be. Without bothering to tidy the stack of pages her husband had typed, she grabbed the whole bundle, dropped it inside the drawer, and slammed the drawer shut.

  I’m not dead yet, she thought. And I’m sure as hell not going without a fight.

  Her eyes fierce, she slid the Destragis book in front of her and found where she’d left off.

  As the cruiser gained speed, Chris said, “Take me home,” in a voice Katherine thought strangely calm.

  Bruder glanced at him in the overhead mirror. “You just attacked a man on his front lawn.”

  “You weren’t there,” Chris said. “It’s my word against his.”

  Bruder nodded. “Aaron Wolf’s as honest as they come.”

  “Because an Amish person would never lie, right?”

  Bruder’s lips formed a hard line. “That’s got nothing to do with it, Mr. Crane. Now, it’d be best if you’d just calm down.”

  The forest crawled by, Bruder taking his time about getting them to town. Perhaps he wanted to conduct part of the interview here, see what he could learn about Chris’s behavior before they found themselves in one of those sterile, official-looking rooms, the kind of place that practically coaxed the words “I want a lawyer” out of a suspect’s mouth.

  “I need to see my wife,” Chris said, his voice subdued.

  “You’ll see her soon,” Bruder said, but he drew out the last word, his eyes narrowing at something in the rearview mirror.

  Katherine fought off a new surge of fear.

  “What is it?” she asked.

  Bruder shook his head faintly. “Funny.”

  The cruiser crunched to a gradual halt.

  “What?” she said, searching his face.

  “That security light,” he said, still staring into the rearview mirror. “The one in front of Aaron’s house.”

  “What about it?”

  “It just winked out.”

  Who cares? she wanted to scream. “That happens sometimes, right?”

  Bruder’s frown deepened. “Sure, it happens. But the timing’s kinda odd, don’t you think?”

  “Better check on it,” Chris said from the back.

  Bruder gave him a hard look in the mirror. “I don’t need help from you.”

  Chris grinned. “First Daniel, now Aaron.”

  This time Bruder turned in his seat. “What do you know about Daniel Wolf?”

  “Only what Aaron told me, that he’d gone missing.”

  “Aaron didn’t say anything about that,” Katherine said, watching Chris’s silhouette.

  Chris shrugged. “Maybe I heard it somewhere else then.”

  Bruder eyed Chris a moment longer, then leaned forward and picked up the CB. He frowned, then tapped the handset on the steering wheel.

  Katherine thought of her cell phone and felt her insides go queasy.

  “Damndest thing,” he said. “Just got new ones last fall.”

  The fear spread icy tendrils through her body. “Can’t we just go? Please, Mr. Bruder?”

  Bruder glanced at her, seemed about to speak, but Chris said, “I’d check on him if I were you.”

  Bruder gave Chris a sour look, but then he was sliding the cruiser into gear and cutting the wheel.

  Katherine tensed. “You’re not going back?”

  As they completed the U-turn, Bruder said, “You’ve got nothing to fear from him,” and nodded back at Chris. “Those doors only open from the outside.”

  It’s not Chris I’m worried about, she wanted to say but knew she’d sound like a lunatic. There’s a woman back there, Sheriff Bruder. She’s a vampire. You see, she drank my blood and I drank hers, so we know each other pretty well.

  They drew even with the farmhouse and stopped. Bruder killed the engine and opened his door.

  She grabbed Bruder’s arm with both hands. “Please don’t leave me here.”

  He put a hand over hers. “You’re totally safe, ma’am. I’ll only be gone—”

  “Let me come,” she pleaded.

  “I can’t bring you with me,” he said. “Besides, Aaron and Anna are probably fine. I just need to make sure.”

  Before she could protest further, he was gone. The slam of his door made her entire body vibrate. She stared out at the road, which was partially illuminated by the headlights. Ahead, less than a mile away, was the lane leading back to Ellie’s.

  She wished Bruder had faced the car in the opposite direction.

  “We should’ve gone to your room,” Chris said behind her.

  For a moment, she had no idea what he was referring to, and when it came to her, she closed her eyes in guilt. Just wait for Bruder, she told herself. He’ll be back in a minute. She watched the sheriff, who stood on the porch waiting for someone to let him in.

  Chris said, “I thought for sure I’d have to make the first move, but damn, Katherine, I gotta hand it to you. Wanting it in your sister’s bed…with your sister in it…”

  She pushed hair out of her eyes, wondered how impregnable the Plexiglas barrier between them was, how reliable the locks on the back doors. She couldn’t bring herself to glance at the man sitting behind her, a man she hardly recognized anymore. When Ellie had married him, he was lean, tall and baby-faced. And while he was obviously still tall, his size was an intimidating thing now, a threat. His neck and shoulders were broader, his arms thicker. His facial hair made him look more like a construction worker than a schoolteacher.

  As if reading her thoughts, he said, “Afraid of me now, sweetie? What if I called you Kat the way Ellie does? Would that make us friends?”

  Katherine turned and stared at the dark figure. She was grateful for the shadows obscuring his face. They blotted out the bloodshot eyes and the glaze of madness that had lately seeped into them.

  “I think you need help,” she said as evenly as she could. “I think this place has done bad things to you. Or…” She trailed off as his white teeth showed through his grin.

  “Or brought the bad things out of me?”

  She frowned at him. “I don’t know, I—” But the words died on her lips as his door swung slowly open.

  As though he hadn’t noticed, he said, “You need to make a choice, Katherine. I’ve decided Ellie isn’t in my future. You, on the other hand…”

  He swung a foot over the edge of the opening and climbed out. She watched him round the back of the car. Then the shadows seemed to swallow him up. Nervously, she lunged toward the driver’s door and hit the automatic locks. She knew he could still get in if he really wanted to, but it was better than nothing.

  She saw that Bruder had taken the keys.

  She cast a feverish glance at Aaron’s door, but Bruder had apparently gone inside; the outer glass door was shut, but the wooden door within hung open. Should she warn Bruder of Chris’s escape? And just how would she accomplish that?

  Honk the horn, idiot!

  With a cry of relief, she leaned over to do just that.

  Then Bruder s
tepped out the front door.

  She saw, even from this distance, how rigid his steps were, how unnatural his movements. When he drew closer to the cruiser, she realized why. His face had gone stark white, an expression of unutterable shock imprinted on his slack jaw, his gaping eyes. Numbly, she reached across the seat and unlocked his door.

  Bruder opened it and slumped in the seat beside her.

  “What is it?” she asked.

  He looked at her, his eyes dead and glassy. “There’s blood everywhere.”

  Katherine’s breathing grew reed-thin.

  “I’ve never seen…” He trailed off, stared at the dark dashboard. “Something got ahold of Aaron and his wife…” His voice weak and throaty. “…pieces of them all over the place.”

  She glanced at Bruder’s door, hanging wide open.

  She opened her mouth to say something but it was too late, a huge shadow leaping at the sheriff, slamming him against her. She was driven against the passenger’s door, the car suddenly filled with growling voices, the sounds of blows. The weight left her body, and she watched Chris drag Bruder by the collar out the open door into the road.

  “Mr. Crane,” Bruder was saying, but the gun Chris had wrested from him swooped up, pointed at his face.

  “Shut your pretty mouth,” Chris said.

  His back to Katherine, Bruder put his hands up. “I don’t want to die, Mr. Crane. Just tell me what you want.”

  Chris gave him a sly grin. “I only want to go home.”

  Chapter Five

  They rolled away from Aaron’s house in silence, Bruder locked in the back seat, Katherine riding next to Chris.

  The gun in his left hand.

  Bruder asked, “You have anything to do with what happened?”

  Chris didn’t respond.

  “That bloodbath?” Bruder prompted.

  Chris shook his head once. “I didn’t do anything to those people.”

  Bruder’s voice was edgy. “I know you didn’t do it. You couldn’t’ve because you were sitting back here. What I wanna know is, did you have anything do with it?”

  The headlights illumined the narrow turnoff ahead. Without signaling, Chris swerved onto the lane. The cruiser was immediately besieged by branches as thick as baseball bats, palmate leaves that slapped the cruiser like abusive parents. The impacts were deafening, like they’d ventured into the world’s roughest automatic carwash.

  “Jesus,” Bruder shouted, “slow the hell down.”

  But Chris compelled the cruiser deeper into the jungle of boughs. Katherine had no idea how he knew where the path was. The antenna snapped off with a discordant twang. She threw up her hands as the windshield starred on her side. Bruder shouted and pounded on the Plexiglas barrier, but Chris drove on undeterred. She knew the washed-out bridge was coming up, and for a delirious moment she wondered if Chris would try to jump the gap like some suicidal daredevil.

  The thought dissipated as, thankfully, the cruiser began to slow.

  A sharp rap on the Plexiglas made her glance at Bruder, who was staring wide-eyed at the forest savaging his police car. “Would one of you tell me what the fuck is going on?”

  Chris brought the cruiser to a halt, jerked it into park. Ahead, through the tangle of foliage, Katherine could just make out the opening that marked the creek. Somehow, Chris had stopped within ten feet of it.

  “You hear?” Bruder demanded. “I want some answers, Crane. What the fuck is happening? This path didn’t look like this before.”

  Under his breath, Chris said, “Plants grow.”

  “Bullshit!” Bruder shouted. “You took a different road or something, one I didn’t know about.”

  “You don’t believe that,” Chris said in that same quiet voice.

  “The hell I don’t,” Bruder said, but his voice broke on the last word. He’d huddled against the seatback, his face that of a young boy afraid of monsters. Katherine noted with a pang of real sympathy that he’d chosen the centermost point of the back seat, as though the forest couldn’t reach him there.

  For her part, she was more frightened of the man sitting next to her.

  “Come on, dear,” he said to her, a hand on her knee. He shut off the cruiser and pocketed the keys.

  As Chris opened the door, Bruder’s voice teetered on the verge of panic. “What are you gonna do? I’ve got a family at home, goddammit.”

  Chris climbed out, slammed the door.

  Katherine and Bruder exchanged a frightened glance. His eyes white and wild, the sheriff looked like a caged animal back there.

  Her door swung open.

  “Out,” was all Chris said.

  She glanced again at the sheriff and saw tears streaming down his cheeks. It was pathetic and gut-wrenching, and she hated Chris for terrorizing him. Bruder didn’t deserve this. Whatever Chris had planned, Bruder didn’t deserve it.

  “My daughter’s only three,” Bruder was saying. “My son started little league this summer. I’m coaching his team…”

  Chris gripped her wrist, hauled her up and out of the car.

  “…wife won’t be able to do it by herself…”

  Sharp branches raked her face. Katherine covered her eyes with her free arm so she wouldn’t lose an eye. Chris squeezed her wrist, the bones grinding together. She grimaced and asked, “Where’re you taking me?”

  No answer.

  From inside the car: “They’ll know something happened to me,” Bruder yelled, his voice rising. “They’ll lock you up for good if you don’t let me go.”

  “What about the sheriff?” she cried out, but the slapping, ripping forest muffled her words.

  Chris led her through a nasty thicket, and behind them Bruder screamed, “You can’t leave me here!”

  The crack of breaking glass rang out like a gunshot. Bruder let loose with an inarticulate wail. Then came the unearthly shriek of ripping metal, the ravenous branches puncturing the doors and roof. Katherine glanced back at the cruiser and just had time to see, through the webbed windshield, Bruder’s kicking legs, his flailing arms. A fountain of blood spurted against the side window, and the sheriff’s madly scrabbling fingers streaked a frenzied Z in the bright red splash. Katherine looked away, no longer able to breathe. From the swirling snarl of branches, the sound of rending metal deepened, and beneath it, Bruder’s high-pitched death howl.

  Then they emerged on the creek bank, and mercifully, the cacophony behind them diminished. But the odors of spilled gasoline and sheared metal still hung in the air.

  Katherine wasn’t aware she’d been crying until she heard herself ask, “Why didn’t you stop it?”

  He’d taken a step down the steep bank, but now he stopped, an amazed grin on his face. “Stop it? This is everything I’ve ever wanted.”

  She struggled to jerk her wrist free, but his fingers held fast.

  She stared down at him incredulously. “Do you hear yourself? Those people back there—Aaron Wolf and his wife—they’re dead, Chris.”

  He dragged her downward. “They’re better off.”

  “Who is she?”

  “Who?” he asked absently.

  “The woman who killed them.”

  “You know who she is.”

  She stumbled, her knees squishing into the muddy bank. “I don’t know…” she began, but a wave of dizziness swam over her, the moonlight glinting off the creek growing hazy, diffuse.

  “Yes, you do,” he said. He was ankle deep in the water, she on her knees before him.

  She shook her head, a languid heat engulfing her. The smell of the creek, dank and darkly pleasing, filled her head.

  “You do know, Katherine. You’ve known for three years.”

  His voice was muffled, the sight of his reaching fingers gauzy. They slipped under her chin, lifted her face. She stared up at him, at the broad, burly shoulders, the T-shirt clinging to his rippled chest.

  “It’s okay now, Katherine,” he whispered through the fog. The warm fingers resting against her cheek.
“The death is behind us now.”

  A snapshot of the sheriff’s thrashing body strobed through her mind, but it was gone as quickly as it came, replaced by the smell of warm flesh, the sound of gently lapping water. Chris pressed the side of her face against the belly of his shirt. The scent of musky sweat made her flesh tingle, her breathing deepen. His fingers twined through her hair, caressed her scalp. The ache in her wrist was gone, her hands embracing his thighs. Against her cheek the damp T-shirt slithered up, and then her skin pressed against his abdominal muscles, her fingers sliding over his erection, the hardness pushing taut the denim of his jeans.

  She thought of Ellie and pushed away.

  “Now, Katherine,” he said as she crawled away from the creek, toward the muddy incline. She heard his feet squelch through the mud behind her, knew he was stalking after her, but she couldn’t let herself do that to Ellie, consummate the betrayal they’d begun in her sister’s bed.

  Katherine reached the place where the bank rose drastically, but a hand dropped on the seat of her jeans, the strong fingers hooked in her back pocket.

  “Stop,” she said, but the hand dragged her back to the flat, muddy bank, her fingers scrabbling for purchase in the stinking mud. All at once he was on her, Katherine pinned on all fours, her shirt rising and his tongue tracing up her spine. His fingers fumbled at her fly, and in moments her jeans were open, being dragged down her buttocks, her legs. He clawed at her underwear, the hot smell of him drowsing over her as his mouth set upon the side of her neck, her ear. Her throat full of acid, she bared her teeth, tried one more time to crawl forward, but he put his weight on her, crushing her into the mud. Despite the suffocating bulk flattening her, the hardness slipping between her bare thighs made her instantly wet, her yearning for him incredible. His teeth pierced the flesh of her shoulder, but the pain was minute compared to the conflagration raging below. The tip of his penis rubbed against her, probing, and Katherine opened her legs wider.

  He suddenly jerked away, gasping. Katherine rolled over and stared at him uncomprehendingly.

  He was on his knees, his jutting erection glimmering in the moonglow. She crawled toward it, but he was shaking his head. “Not now,” he said. “Not yet.”