by Scott Hale
“It’s not always the graveyard,” Grunt said to me as we sat down at a table in Hodge’s Lodge to drink the piss he called ale.
“Where else have bodies been found?” I asked, watching Hrothgar as he watched us while he pretended to dust.
“Around the well, on the streets.” He belched. “One in the woods, one all over a shallow cave.” He sighed. “But mostly the graveyard.”
“Do you think Father Clark is the killer?”
Grunt shook his head. “I wish Father Clark were the killer, but that would be too obvious. You’d have seen his head on the front gate if it were him.”
“There’s a crypt, isn’t there?”
“Aye, there is. Everyone goes down it when they’re young, sees how long they can last.”
“Has anyone been down there lately?” I asked excitedly.
Grunt finished off his ale. “Collapsed, nothing to go down there and see.”
“When?”
“Few years ago.” The burly, smirking bastard clamped his sweaty hand down on my shoulder. “Don’t feel bad, I wondered the same thing.”
Interview Three
Seeing that Lee Warren was now without a wife and daughter, it seemed cruel of me to speak to him so soon on the matter. I went to Clara Davies instead, the first to have suffered the murderer’s wrath and the woman to whom the priest had referred me. She was a large lady, but pretty; middle-aged with curly blonde hair and wide, blue eyes. She had no husband—her daughter, Mary, had been born out of wedlock. Surprisingly, the backwoods town of Cairn did not stone her for this, and by that courtesy I found I respected the place a little more for it.
“I miss her so very much,” Clara Davies whispered as she led me out back.
We took a seat opposite one another.
“I can’t even begin to imagine how it must feel,” I said, a phrase which I’ve repeated so many times it has lost all meaning.
“Most can, at least here in Cairn.” She offered me food from a plate. I accepted. “It’s morbid, but it makes it easier knowing that I’m not the only one to suffer.”
“I want for this suffering to end, Ms. Davies,” I said, “that’s why I’ve come.”
“What are you exactly?” she asked, looking at me like a specimen she’d captured to study.
“An investigator, for when the crimes make no sense and no culprit can be found.”
“John Dark and Richard Gallows. They promised me they were the culprits,” Clara said, still craving closure.
“Who promised?”
Clara shrugged. “Everyone, but Father Clark mostly.” She took a sip from her cup. “They were bad people, John Dark and Richard Gallows, and they deserved to die.”
Ms. Davies’s words were soaked in vitriol and she said them without regret. Her body stiffened and her fingers worried at the fabric of her dress. For a moment, I caught her wide and blue eyes looking inward, at a memory often visited but, unfortunately, not easily forgotten; and in that moment, though I didn’t know what she truly looked like, I saw her daughter Mary.
“Was it John or Richard that fathered Mary?” I asked boldly.
Surprised by my discovery, Clara Davies covered her mouth and flirted for a moment with rage. “I don’t know,” she said, lowering her defenses, “I couldn’t tell in the dark, and I wouldn’t let myself believe it in the light.”
“Of all the others murdered, did anyone else deserve to die?”
Clara’s eyes filled with tears that refused to fall. “No, they were mostly all so young and sweet.”
“It will be hard, Ms. Davies, but I need to know what happened that day, and anything that happened days before that may help me find who is responsible.”
Ms. Clara Davies began that morning much like she began any morning: cold, tired, and with a migraine that would bring even the strongest of men to their knees. Rain drummed on the roof of the house as she staggered out of bed and found Mary on the living room floor, drawing.
“What’s that?” Clara asked her daughter.
Mary turned over, her clothes drenched from playing in the rain. “The house where my friends live.”
Clara smiled at her daughter and thought nothing of the statement.
“Here it is.”
Ms. Davies brought me the drawing, handling it carefully, as though it were a holy relic. I gently took the picture and saw that her daughter had drawn a small, circular stone house; it had several windows, but no front door and no neighbors.
“Always had such a wonderful imagination.”
The day went on as most rainy days did: slowly, drearily, and for Clara Davies, painfully. Much needed to be achieved, but the migraine she had felt otherwise. Bedridden, Clara waved off Mary, watched as her daughter disappeared into the hazy lull of the storm, and then slept. When she woke, the clouds had parted to the afternoon sun, the migraine had vanished, and Mary had yet to return.
“I did what needed to be done, cleaned up, and made a meal. I could hear the children playing down the street and I assumed Mary was with them,” Clara said, shifting in her seat.
“Was she?” The woods swayed before us, a flurry of dried leaves blowing through their wooden alleys.
Clara nodded and wiped a tear from her cheek. “Yes. We ate together, and… and then she was off again, with her friends.”
“Did she act differently when she came back home?”
“No, she didn’t, but she said she saw someone while she was out, a strange man near the gate.” Clara lowered her head.
“Who was it?”
“Geoffrey,” Clara looked up, “Grunt’s brother.”
I disguised my concern as Clara continued with her tale of woe. Geoffrey, Grunt’s brother, had arrived in Cairn the same day the murders began, and this same man had been the one to seek out mine and Seth’s services upon commencement of the slaughter. A smarter, more diligent investigator would’ve jumped at the coincidence and followed it through to its disappointing end, but I knew better.
Mary Davies didn’t finish her lunch that day, and she didn’t return for supper. Clara was sifting through the mess of artwork on her daughter’s floor when she heard the screaming, the shouting. Being a mother, Clara possessed that uncanny ability all mothers seem to possess that allows them to know when harm has come to their child.
“I felt it in my stomach, in my heart,” she said, standing up before me. She disappeared inside the house and returned with another drawing, which she held as though it burned her hands. “I feel empty, Mr. North, and I don’t expect I’ll ever be whole again.”
“What’s this?” I took the drawing from Ms. Davies’ shaking hands.
“One of her imaginary friends,” she said, turning away, “or so it wanted her to believe.”
A smarter, more diligent investigator would’ve disregarded the drawing and focused on the tangible, logical, and otherwise earthly evidence before him, but, again, I knew better. On the piece of crumpled paper a weeping willow stood, its bark carved to the outline of a man, his feet the roots, his arms the branches. He smiled invitingly, as all creatures of temptation do, and his face seemed to promise adventures thought only to be found in dreams.
“How long had she had this friend?” I asked, noting the bloody mouth-like hole in the grass.
Clara shook her head. “I don’t know. I found this just a few days ago. I saw it through the floorboards in her room.”
“Have you shown this to anyone else?”
“No, no I haven’t.” Her eyes widened. “I thought it would be best if you were the first to look at it.”
“Your town,” I stopped, noticing that the willow’s leaves were not leaves at all, but eyes. “Your town has shown me more hospitality than most.”
Clara nodded. “We’re not like Parish. Cairn has seen its fair share of strangeness. And I think Father Clark—” her voice became a whisper, “—has lost his faith and does what must be done to see that this ends.”
“The faithless do have a knack for fi
nding us,” I muttered. Returning to the drawing, I said, “This willow, there is one just like it in the graveyard.”
“Yes, but they are common around these parts.”
“But the graveyard is where most…”
“Yes,” Clara interrupted, refusing to hear the words, “do you think that’s where we will find it?”
“Seems so.” I handed back the drawing. “But if that’s the case, it’s not doing very a good job covering its tracks.” And then I remembered something, something which I had forgotten for no reason in particular. “What do you know about Lord Ashcroft?”
Clara’s eyebrows furrowed. “His name is not a popular one in these parts.”
“I heard that he came to speak with Father Clark.”
Clara shrugged, looked over her shoulder. “Someone said they saw him talking to Nathan Moore, our agriculturist.”
“Why is that?”
“The sickness in Parish… I think, I hope, he was trying to stop it from coming here. There’s a plant it’s all coming from, I heard, and it covers Parish.”
“That’s awfully thoughtful of the same man who left Cairn to die in the wilds,” I said pointedly.
“You’re right,” she said, smiling for the first time since we sat down. “It’s wrong to hope.”
Entry Ten
Eliza Warren’s funeral came just a few hours after the discovery of her body. Very few tears were shed. Hers had been the thirty-fourth death, and Cairn was becoming accustomed to tragedy. Father Clark spoke kindly as the town marched through the muddy streets, the coffin held high above the procession by the men at its center. Doctor Frederickson received everyone warmly, taking little Eliza Warren to be stored with the others when the moment presented itself.
I knew this needed to end quickly; the creature that hunted Cairn did so greedily, without fear of myself or the repercussions of its actions. Never had I encountered something afflicted by such a ceaseless bloodlust. Was it the town’s indifference that kept them rooted to this tainted soil? I wondered as I excused myself from the doctor’s house. No, not indifference, I decided as I maneuvered puddles in the street. This is all they have, and like the pauper, they will hold onto it until their own blood slickens their hands and they lose their grip on it forever.
I returned to Hodge’s Lodge and found it just as empty as I’d hoped it would be. I went to my room and laid out my tools—the knives, powders, and potions—and consulted my journal, which detailed all previous investigations. While searching for clues in its worn pages, I remembered that the Lodge was not only occupied by Grunt and myself, but two others.
“Hello?” I called as I rapped upon the first occupant’s door.
To Seth and I, no answer meant there’s no reason not to let yourself in, and so I did just that. The room on the other side was unoccupied, as bare as it had likely been the day the final nail had been hammered into its wall. Quiet as the man who pressed his eyes to the tiny holes in the wall, I searched the space and found only dust and a puddle of… spilt milk?
“I beg your pardon,” I began as I knocked on the chipped wood of the second occupant’s door, “but I have a favor to ask.”
Again, no answer; I accepted the invitation without complaint. The second room was unoccupied as well, but only in that moment, for the bed hadn’t been made and a woman’s garments still lay strewn across the floor. They, too, were covered in dust, yet a heavy and recently applied perfume sat within the folds of the fabrics.
“Oh Hodge,” I mumbled, lifting up a red corset and holding it before me in front of a mirror, “you may be the strangest creature here.”
With weapons to slay, powders to detect, and potions to neutralize, I slinked down the stairs and scoured the first floor until I found Hodge’s register. Very few names were written on the stained scraps of parchment, with the most recent being Grunt and myself. The names that preceded ours were non-descript initials that read “A.A.” and “R.E.”; no check-in or check-out was noted.
“Either you really did have guests before us,” I said, cramming the register under the front counter, “or you’ve got one hell of a fantasy life.”
The grass parted at my approach as I moved through the graveyard and read the faded names on the headstones. I made for Eliza Warren’s willow first, minding the hole that had been dug beside it. Blood dribbled onto my shoulders and the tops of my hands as the branches wept what little was left of the girl. Remembering Eliza’s drawing of the tree and the man within it, I felt around the bark and the roots and dusted them with red Bite and purple Snare. The willow did not respond, did not bare its teeth and wrap itself around me, and so I left disappointed, my hopes that the culprit had been a carnivorous tree dashed.
As I marched towards the crypt, I could feel the piercing gaze of the townsfolk returning from the doctor’s residence. Let them say what they will, I thought, but this is why they’ve hired me. I ascended the lichen-laced steps and pushed the double doors open. The stink of decay washed over me and settled into me; stumbling backward, I struggled to keep the morning’s breakfast in its place.
“Jesus Christ!” I shouted in the most inappropriate of places.
Grunt had told me no lie: The crypt had collapsed some time ago, and in its failing, it took with it all the corpses to the chambers below. The large slabs of fallen stone appeared undisturbed; no gaps existed between them wide enough to allow for anything but a mouse or rat to pass through. A creature of great strength could move the rubble, but the noise it would produce in doing so would defeat the purpose of using such a place for its lair.
“That’s the only way in,” a voice spoke to me.
“Father Clark,” I said, facing the priest, “are you sure?”
He nodded and shivered. “Yes, I’m sure.”
I bit my lip and picked at a callus on my palm. I turned away from him, uncorked a bottle of Black Fey, and splattered the stygian liquid across the crypt’s steps.
“What is that?” the priest asked, his neck tensing, his mind searching for words to string together a rant on desecration and blasphemy. “What are you doing?”
“Searching for ghouls,” I said matter-of-factly. “Eaters of the dead,” I added, seeing his confusion.
His face paled. “Do you think that’s what’s come to Cairn?”
“Something like that,” I muttered. The Black Fey bubbled, but did not smoke. I hurried past the priest, lashing the concoction at headstones and Eliza Warren’s willow. “The reaction is weak.” The same results manifested at every doused location. “But it’s enough, and if it isn’t a ghoul, it’s something very similar.”
Father Clark covered his mouth and rubbed his rosary furiously. “Where did it come from? How do we stop it?”
“Sometimes, when a man or woman dies, an evil being works its way into their bodies and into their hearts,” I explained, noticing that the prying townsfolk had dispersed. “It chews on their dead hearts, and from its venom the heart beats, lives, once more. Ghouls are territorial gluttons; the cemetery in which they wake becomes their home and the graves their pantries. They will attack trespassers, but, and this is where things get confusing for us, they seldom draw attention to themselves, for they prefer solitude.”
“So it’s not a ghoul, is it, Mr. North?”
“It’s a start, Father Clark, that’s what it is.” I looked at the man, wondering how his faith would reconcile those things which his god should not have allowed to be. “Tell me about your meeting with Amon Ashcroft. Why’s he so interested in these parts all of a sudden?”
A lie formed upon the priest’s lips, but knowing better he said, “Come inside.”
Father Clark led me to the church’s basement. We stood in torchlight, staring at the four coffins encaged in iron mortsafes.
“Does everyone keep the dead in their basements and cellars here?”
Father Clark ignored my remark.
“Who’s resting in these coffins?”
“Emily Cross, Ella De
lacroix,” he said, moving the torch from left to right as he spoke. “Richard Dark, John Gallows.”
A child, a woman, and two rapists. They were in the doctor’s basement hours ago… weren’t they?
“And what are they doing below the ground instead of being in it?”
“Their bodies were afflicted by the same disease that consumed Parish.” He held the light against the coffin in which Ella Delacroix lay. “Lord Ashcroft came to Cairn to see if the disease had spread to our lands, and after many late nights, we saw that it had.” Father Clark let out a heavy sigh. “We quarantined the bodies as soon as doctor Frederickson found the infectious roots in their veins and arteries.”
I laughed and shook my head. “The mortsafes are meant to keep people out, keep them from selling parts and pieces to hospitals and universities.” My hand found the knife at my side and rested on its hilt. “You’re keeping something in the coffins, making sure it doesn’t escape. All the dead are stored at Frederickson’s to avoid contamination.”
Father Clark nodded; the torch hissed as sweat from his brow fell into its smoldering center. “Yes, that’s right.”
“If we were to open up one of those coffins, what would we find, Father? An imposter? Like the doctor found when he visited Parish?”
The priest shook his head. “I don’t know.”
“This creature, or ghoul, is a carrier.”
“It seems so.” Father Clark shuddered. “Yes, it seems so.”
“Where’s Lord Ashcroft?”
“His estate, I’m sure.”
“When did he arrive in Cairn? Who died when he strolled through your gates, all kind and considerate?”
“Eric, no, Abigail Green,” he answered. “She was the seventh.”
“Stayed in Hodge’s Lodge, didn’t he?” I asked, remembering the initials “A.A.” in the register.
“Yes—” Father Clark turned, as though he meant for the conversation to end, “—but in secret, so I don’t know why he would sign his name at all. I’m sure it was Hrothgar who added it. It is something he would do to amuse himself.”
“And “R.E.”?” I asked. “That was in the register as well, below Amon Ashcroft’s name.”
