Enter, Night

by Michael Rowe

  Elliot squinted in the dimness. “Jem? Is that you?”

  Jeremy’s breath caught in his chest. “Yeah, it’s me. Are you OK?”

  His voice was rough with sleep. “What time is it? What are you doing here?”

  “I called the station, they said you weren’t in till later. I . . . I knocked. I thought we could maybe talk or something.”

  “Talk. OK, we’ll talk, sure.” Elliot went to rub his eyes and flinched. Gingerly he felt the area under his jawline. He explored it with his fingertips, feeling for something Jeremy couldn’t see. “Where am I? Wait, what are you doing here?”

  “You asked me that already, Elliot. You’re in your house. This is where you live.” Jeremy took a step towards him. “Is everything OK?”

  “Bad dreams. Fuck, my head hurts. I feel like shit.”

  “Do you want me to get you a glass of water?”

  “Yeah, please.” Elliot indicated the kitchen with a general sweep of his arm. “In the kitchen.” Almost as an afterthought he added, “Thanks.”

  Jeremy found a clean glass in the midst of the unwashed crockery in the sink and poured Elliot a glass of water. When he returned to the living room, Elliot was no longer standing there, though Jeremy saw his legs over the side of the bed through the doorway of his bedroom. Elliot was sitting on the bed with his face in his hands. As Jeremy drew closer, he saw that Elliot was pale—no, more than pale, actually waxen. The thatch of dark chest hair stood out against the whiteness of his skin. His thick black crew cut was askew with jagged spikes.

  Jeremy handed him the water. Elliot took a sip, then handed the glass back to Jeremy, his mouth puckering in distaste. “Guess I didn’t need water,” he said. “How did I . . . do you know how I got here? How did you get here?”

  Jeremy sat down next to him on the bed and put his hand lightly on Elliot’s shoulder. “Hey, are you all right, Elliot? This is where you live. This is your house. I assume you came home last night and went to bed, and that’s how you got here. How else would you have gotten here?”

  “Dunno,” Elliot muttered. “I don’t remember. I was . . . I was . . . I think I was at work, then I drove . . .”

  “You drove home,” Jeremy said soothingly. “Here. Were you drinking last night?” Jeremy looked around for empty bottles or glasses, but there were none around Elliot’s bed, or anywhere in the room, for that matter. Nor had he smelled alcohol when he entered the house.

  “Bad dreams,” Elliot said again. “Donna . . .”

  “Donna?”

  “From the bar, Donna. That Donna. The . . . the . . . girl. Woman. Donna. From the bar. That one.”

  “Were you at O’Toole’s, Elliot? Were you drinking at O’Toole’s, maybe? Did you pass out last night?”

  “I told you,” Elliot said irritably. “No, I didn’t drink.” He lay back on the bed and put his hands over his face. When turned his face away from the light of the bedside lamp, Jeremy saw that there were bruises on the side of his neck, along the jugular.

  Jeremy looked closer. Elliot had obviously cut himself shaving, more than a week ago, judging by appearance. The abrasions looked almost healed, the pink skin gleaming through the aureole of surrounding bruises. While the contusions themselves were dark purple, with no sign yet of the yellowing that came with healing, the cuts—which now looked more like punctures to Jeremy’s untrained eye than scratches—seemed to have already closed up. Not possible. Not bruises that dark. The skin underneath should look like roadkill.

  “Elliot,” Jeremy said. “What did you do to yourself? What are these marks?”

  Elliot grinned. His eyes were still covered with his hands. It wasn’t a pleasant smile. “What marks?”

  “There, under your jaw. Did you hurt yourself? Did you cut yourself?”

  “Feels like . . .” Elliot touched his neck. “Feels like love. Some chick, maybe? Some hungry chick?” His voice, though tired, was mocking. “Chicks dig me, and I dig chicks.”

  Jeremy drew back from Elliot’s words as though scalded. “Fine,” he stiffly. “I got it. I was just curious. I wanted to see if you were all right. You’re obviously all right. I’ll go now and let you get ready for work.”

  Elliot took his hands away from his face and smiled again, different this time. All the malice had vanished and, for a moment, Jeremy doubted he’d even seen it. “Don’t be like that, Jem,” he said. “Stay awhile. You wanted to talk. Let’s talk.” He ran his index finger along Jeremy’s upper arm, caressing it. “Stay for a while.”

  “Elliot, what are you doing?”

  “Stay for a while.” He voice was warm and insinuating. He reached over with his other hand and switched off the bedside lamp, bringing the room to near-darkness. “Isn’t this better? It’s better in the dark, right? Remember? In my room?”

  “Elliot, I don’t think this is a good idea. I think we should stop. You were right, it was a long time ago.” Even as he said it, Jeremy knew he was lying.

  Elliot propped himself up on one arm and kissed Jeremy full on the mouth. With the weight of his body, he pressed Jeremy down on the bed and swung his leg effortlessly over Jeremy’s midsection, pinning him to the mattress between his thighs. Jeremy felt Elliot’s erection through the boxer shorts pressing against his own groin. His body responded immediately. Jeremy’s erection grew until he felt it straining against the fabric of his jeans.

  Elliot leaned down and kissed him on the mouth, full and insistent. Elliot’s mouth was surprisingly soft—no, not surprisingly. Everything was familiar, and becoming more so by the minute. All he had to do was close his eyes and let the encumbrance of years break away from him like clouds after a violent storm. Elliot was right. Jeremy did remember.

  He reached around behind Elliot and pulled the waistband of his boxer shorts off his ass, feeling the smooth, cleft halves of hard muscle covered flesh under his hand. This time it was Jeremy’s turn to groan. He leaned up to kiss Elliot again. The feeling of Elliot’s teeth beneath his lips was shockingly erotic. Elliot pressed himself against Jeremy’s body in an aspect of unquestioned dominance, and Jeremy felt himself yield to it naturally.

  “Take off your shirt,” Elliot whispered. “Come on. No one needs to know about this. This is just you and me here now—come on. You still dig my body, right? You want me, don’t you?”

  “Yes,” Jeremy breathed. “Yes, I . . . I still want you.”

  “You can have me. I’ve always been yours. Take off your clothes.”

  Without moving from underneath Elliot’s weight, Jeremy unfastened the buttons of his 501s and shrugged them down to his knees. He pulled his briefs down as well, then kicked them both off his legs. Elliot kissed him again, on the lips, on the side of his face.

  In the darkness of the bedroom, Elliot was a looming, bulky shape grinding on top of him. Jeremy saw Elliot’s face only blindly, ridges and bone and hair under his fingers. Elliot’s breathing came more quickly now, in torturous, jagged hitches that, to Jeremy, could only signal passion. His kisses grew even more insistent, moving from the side of Jeremy’s face, along the side of his neck, across his throat, and back again.

  “Elliot, hold up,” Jeremy gasped. “Let me take off this turtleneck. Hold on. Slow down.”

  He leaned back to let Jeremy slip the turtleneck off, which he then tossed to the floor. Their bodies were pressed against each other. Jeremy scissored his legs around Elliot’s waist, pulling him close, giving himself joyfully up to what now seemed an inevitable, blissful conclusion.

  Elliot reached out with both his arms and grasped both of Jeremy’s wrists in a crushing grip, kissing him brutally on the mouth. Jeremy screamed as the pain from Elliot’s grip shot up his arms. On top of him in the darkness Elliot’s body temperature suddenly rose, spiking to feverish levels of heat. Jeremy felt the heat from Elliot’s body bake into his own skin, warming it uncomfortably. Then it plunged hypothermically, as though some internal thermometer in Elliot’s body had gone haywire. It rose again sharply, and this ti
me the heat of Elliot’s body felt as though it could actually burn Jeremy.

  “Elliot, get off me! Elliot! What’s wrong with you?”

  In the darkness, Elliot’s voice sounded as though it was coming through a mouth full of sharp nails. His breath was suddenly foul in Jeremy’s face, and Jeremy gagged.

  “Kiss me,” Elliot said hungrily. “Kiss me, Jeremy.”

  “Jesus, Elliot, get off me! What’s wrong with you?”

  Jeremy flailed wildly for the switch to the bedside lamp, terrified of what he would see straddling him when he turned on the light, but even more terrified by what was hidden by the dark. He felt Elliot’s lips on his throat, and something else—he felt Elliot’s teeth. Elliot’s mouth opened and Jeremy felt his tongue tasting the flesh of the jugular area, and now there was no question of seduction or desire. Jeremy felt like an animal being scented as prey. Elliot’s grip was implacable.

  “Elliot, for God’s sake, get off me!” Jeremy gave one mighty shove with his knees into Elliot’s abdomen. He felt Elliot’s body react with stunned surprise, recoiling just enough for Jeremy to roll over on his side. As he thrashed his head back and forward trying to dislodge himself from Elliot’s grip, he felt something thin and cold slither across his throat from where it had been tucked away behind his head, felt it lodge itself between his chest and Elliot’s shoulder. An unengaged part of his brain dully wondered what it could be, then realized. Jeremy never thought of it, mostly because he hadn’t taken it off since his confirmation years ago, however many times he thought he ought to, all things considered. The St. Christopher’s medal his mother had given him, telling him not that it would protect him, but rather that terrible things would happen to him if he ever dared remove it.

  There was a sudden dazzling flash of blue light in the bedroom, and a popping sound, like a sparking electrical plug.

  Elliot screamed and leaped off the bed with supernormal agility, clutching his shoulder and crouching against the wall like an injured animal.

  Jeremy scrambled off the bed and turned on the bedside lamp. In the nanoseconds between the act of switching on the lamp and his eyes growing accustomed to the sudden brightness after the darkness before, what he saw seemed to shimmer and transform as he watched. A naked monster squatted in front of the wall, a monster with a bloodless white face, a mouth full of sharp white teeth, and an expression of terrible, thwarted hunger and injury as it clutched the place where it had been burned, its eyes full of hate.

  Jeremy’s vision swam, blurred, and then cleared as his eyes adjusted to the light. No, it’s not a monster. How did I see a monster? It’s just Elliot, holding his shoulder. Elliot burned himself on something. A wire? Did something happen with the lamp cord?

  Elliot’s breath hissed painfully through his clenched teeth—normal teeth, not wolf’s teeth.

  “Elliot, what the hell? Are you all right? What were you doing?”

  “Jem, get out of here. I mean it. Leave. Now.”

  “Your shoulder. What happened to your shoulder? What the fuck happened just now? Did you burn yourself on something?”

  Elliot tore the cover off the bed and wrapped it around himself. “Jeremy, get out of here! I mean it! Get your fucking clothes on and go! I don’t want to see you here; I never wanted to see you here! Why can’t you take a fucking hint! Leave me alone!”

  He lashed out, his fist catching Jeremy across the chin. Jeremy felt the impact thrum though his face, making his eyes water and his ears ring with it. Jeremy touched his face in pain and shock, and stepped back. He stared at Elliot for what seemed like a very long time.

  “You don’t know what you want, Elliot,” Jeremy said quietly. “That’s always been your problem. It was your problem when we were kids, and it’s still your problem now. I’ll leave. Believe me. I won’t ever bother you again.”

  Jeremy turned his back on Elliot and dressed quickly, pulling on his jeans and turtleneck in a sequence of short, angry movements. Behind him, he heard Elliot begin to sob.

  “I’m sick, Jem. I’m really, really sick. Help me, Jem. Help me. I’m changing into something terrible. I can feel it.”

  “You’re not sick, Elliot,” Jeremy said tiredly. “You’re just a coward. Maybe I was a coward, too, for running away. Maybe I was an idiot now for coming to your house and falling into . . . well, what we did just now. Trying to go back in time. But you know what? I really loved you. I thought we could at least be friends. But I’m done. I wish you well—I mean that. But I’m finished.”

  “Jem, please . . . I’m sorry I hit you! I’m sorry about . . . well, what happened. But please don’t leave me alone here. There’s something wrong with me. I’m sick. I’m afraid that something awful is going to happen to me if you leave. I’m not strong like you are, Jem. Don’t leave me here.”

  “Elliot, I’m sorry, too. I really and truly am. But I never should have come back.”

  Jeremy walked out of the bedroom into the living room, and then out the front door to where the Chevelle was parked. It took everything in him not to look back.

  In the time he’d spent with Elliot, the sky had darkened and now a cold rain was falling. Martina Street looked dirtier than it had when he’d pulled up.

  Above him, Jeremy heard a thunderclap. He tucked his head down and ran for the Chevelle just as great knives of icy rain began slicing from the sky. He hoped Christina had stayed put in the library where it was warm and dry. He’d stop by and pick her up on his way to Parr House, and tell her that they were leaving the Landing as soon as humanly possible.

  Jeremy swore to God that even if he had to steal the money from Adeline, or even kill her for it, he was going to get himself and Christina and Morgan out of Parr’s Landing, away from the sundry monsters that had been waiting for them for all these years.

  “The rain is here,” Adeline Parr announced to Billy Lightning, as though she were speaking of an outdoor servant who tended her gardens fortnightly but who came to the back door and never crossed the threshold. “It was inevitable. Fall is so fickle this far north.” Adeline pressed her lips together in a delicate moue of regret. The expertly applied dark red lipstick and her sky-blue tailored wool dress, to which was affixed a parure of sapphires and diamonds in the form of a brooch shaped like a maple leaf, provided the colour in the gloom of the dining room. “We’ve been having too many good days in a row,” she added. “It’s been such a lovely autumn so far.”

  Adeline had greeted him at the door of Parr House herself, ushering him into the dining room as though he were a visiting dignitary. On the way, she’d given him a brief lecture on the history of the house. She’d touched on this history of the mines, and pointed out the oil portraits of the various men in her husband’s family who had brought it to prominence, and when they’d lived and died. Over lunch, she’d expounded on the history of the town, demonstrating a remarkable knowledge of the history of the doomed Jesuit mission of St. Barthélemy.

  Billy had eaten some of the jellied freshwater eel that the cook, Beatrice, had placed in front of him (“So yummy!” Adeline had trilled, rubbing her small white hands together in a way that somehow managed to communicate mirth, but which struck him as faintly ogrish, and which made Billy wonder if, somehow, Adeline was mocking him.) He ate it out of politeness, but Mrs. Parr didn’t seem particularly surprised or bothered when he helped himself to two more rolls of bread from the basket, leaving the plate of eel—to Billy’s tastes, disgusting—more or less untouched.

  He had remained quiet when she opined that he was likely grateful for the sacrifices of the Jesuit martyrs who had died in an attempt to help his “people” come out of ignorance and savagery and into the light of Jesus Christ. He didn’t remain quiet out of intimidation, as he surmised she would think, but because he was curious about why she’d invited him to this gothic fun house on the hill. His academic training had been significantly involved in research, and an essential component of research, especially when it came to oral history, was to let the
subject talk, no matter what.

  And if the pretentious, arrogant white woman at the other end of the table wanted to go on about the weather, she was welcome to, at least for now.

  He smiled politely. “I didn’t hear the rain, Mrs. Parr,” he said. “How do you know it’s raining?”

  “Young man,” she said. “I know every creak and patter in this house. I can practically hear the seasons changing. I heard the rain on the roof when it began—on several of the roofs, actually.” She laughed self deprecatingly as though she’d made a witticism. “It’s a rather large house, as you can see. Some members of my family have come to stay, including my granddaughter.” Adeline took a small bite of the jellied eel. Her lips barely moved when she chewed. “It’s all been tremendous fun, and so lovely that they’ve all come to see their old granny,” she added, touching the heavy linen napkin to her lips. “Any house is so much less grim and vast when it’s full of family, don’t you think?”

  “Of course,” Billy replied. “And I met your daughter-in-law in town. I believe you already know that. I was so sorry to hear of your son’s passing. He sounds like he was a fine man.”

  “Indeed he was,” Adeline said curtly. Her face suddenly blank and uninviting of any further discussion on the topic. “Thank you.” With visible effort, she softened her face and smiled. “Dr. Lightning, I understand that you, too, have recently suffered a bereavement. Your adoptive father?”

  “My father,” he corrected her gently. “Yes, Mrs. Parr. He died earlier this year.”

  “I’m so sorry,” she said. Billy thought he detected something shift in her face. For an instant, he could have sworn that he’d seen something real break through Adeline Parr’s honed-to-perfection Lady of the Manor routine. And then it was gone, if it had been there at all. “Had he been ill?”