Enter, Night

by Michael Rowe

  “Early this morning, a friend of Morgan’s woke us up at the house,” she began. “Finn, his name is. He said his parents had been killed—to be precise, he said that his father had murdered his mother. Jeremy went over to check the house. He said the front window was broken and that there was blood on the floor. He went to report it at the police station, but no one was there—not Elliot, not his sergeant. Jeremy said the lights were on and the door was unlocked.”

  “So someone was in the station at some point that morning?”

  “Jeremy told us it seemed like the lights had been left on all night.”

  Billy regarded her skeptically. “How does he figure that?”

  “He said all the lights were on,” she said, “When you come in, in the morning to open up an office, you don’t turn all the lights on—just the ones you’ll be using.”

  “So what are we to assume, then? That the Parr’s Landing police department has taken a holiday?”

  “I don’t know, Billy,” she said fiercely. “But I do know that there’s a little boy out there who claims he saw his mother get killed by his father, but there’re no police around to report it to.”

  Billy was silent for a long moment. To Christina he seemed about to share something, but the moment passed. Instead, he reached for his coffee cup.

  “Billy, what is it?” She reached for his hand and touched it lightly. “Why did you come back here?” Christina said. “What did you hope to find here? I mean, in Parr’s Landing. You hinted at it the other day, but you said you didn’t want to talk about it. Do you still not want to talk about it?”

  He sighed. “You’ll think I’m crazy and paranoid.”

  “No,” she said. “I won’t. I don’t think you could be either of those things.”

  “I think my father was murdered by that graduate student I told you about, Richard Weal. I think Weal was the one who killed him, and I believe he either has, or will, come back to Parr’s Landing. I feel it in my bones. Listening to this story scares the crap out of me.”

  Christina looked at him dubiously. “Billy, even if that’s true—even if it’s true that this guy killed your dad, why on earth would he come back here?”

  “You didn’t see him that summer, Christina,” Billy said impatiently. “You didn’t hear him raving about the voices he heard coming from under Spirit Rock. You didn’t see his face when they found him hiding out after he hurt Emory Greer. This is where he first ‘lost it,’ as they say. This is where he went crazy. Like a lot of other people over the years have gone crazy here and killed people.”

  “Again—I’m sorry, Billy, but how would you find him, even if he did return? What would you do with him? You’re not a cop; you’re not a private detective. You’re a university professor.” Christina hesitated, unsure how best to phrase what she was about to say next. “I don’t have a home to go back to. You do. Wouldn’t the best way to honour your father’s memory be to go back to your teaching life? I wish I could leave here, but Jeremy and I are stuck, at least for the moment. You’re free as a bird. Is this town really where you want to be?”

  “Christina,” he said slowly. “I saw a hockey bag. Some kid found it up by Spirit Rock when he was looking for his dog, apparently. It was full of hammers and knives. There was blood on them. And there were some—some personal artefacts of my father’s. Some documents. The police have the bag. They’ve sent it off for fingerprints. I think they hope they’ll find mine on it, but they won’t. They’ll find his.”

  “Wait a minute. Oh my God. Did you say the kid was looking for his dog? Is that what you said?”

  Billy was confused. “Yeah, that’s what the cops told me. Why?”

  “Because that’s Morgan’s friend—the one who came to our door this morning.” Christina’s voice had jumped an octave. “He lost his dog up there on the cliffs. Sadie, her name was Sadie.”

  Billy let out a low whistle. “You’ve got to be kidding me. The same kid who found Weal’s hockey bag was banging on your door this morning claiming he saw his mother murdered, but there are no cops around? They’re around to harass me for just daring to be in Parr’s Landing, but when there’s an actual crime, they take a break from police work?”

  “Can you really picture Elliot McKitrick taking ‘a break’ from being a cop, Billy? Do you really think he just flaked off the job? My God.”

  Privately, Billy couldn’t picture it, no. Not a chance. That young tight ass wouldn’t know how to take a break from being a cop, not even for money. Especially not with me in town, Billy thought. But neither did Billy want to escalate this situation—whatever it was—by giving Christina any further reason to panic. At least not yet.

  Billy didn’t believe the kid had mistaken Richard Weal for his father, but it was 1972, not 1872, or even 1952. Surely whatever madness had historically afflicted the inhabitants of this place wasn’t still afflicting them after all this time? The anthropologist in him had always been intrigued by the persistent legends of this part of northern Ontario, but Billy didn’t believe in ghosts or demons or the Wendigo.

  “I think we need to find a cop, Christina. I can’t believe I actually just said that, but we need some help. I suggest we pay up here, then take a drive past the Parr’s Landing police station and find either the young jackass or the old one. Any cop in a storm,” he said lamely, trying to make a joke.

  But Christina didn’t laugh and, of course, neither did Billy.

  Outside, the rain had turned to wet snow, and the skies were bitter and dark with low-hanging clouds, the same argentite colour as the cliffs.

  The police station was as Jeremy had found it that morning—still empty, still illuminated. Billy thought briefly about searching for the hockey bag with his father’s manuscript in it, but there was a fine line between checking out a bizarre story about an abandoned police station and committing an actual crime by tampering with tagged evidence.

  He looked through the station window where Christina watched him anxiously from the Chevelle. He shook his head at her: Nope, no one here.

  After Billy got back in the car, Christina said, “What now?” Billy thought for a moment, then said, “Let’s go back to your mother-in-law’s Norman chateau. It might be worth talking to Morgan about her friend, Finn. He may have told her something that might help us find him before he—”

  “Before he what?”

  “Before it gets any colder,” Billy said quickly.

  They found Finn huddled by the side of the hill leading up to the driveway to Parr House as though he was trying to decide whether to proceed up to the house itself.

  Finn was leaning against his Schwinn, his pyjamas stiff with icy rain. In the basket of his bike, Christina saw that he still had the mason jar of water he’d brought into the house that morning—‘holy water,’ he’d called it, whatever that meant. Finn’s body was shaking dangerously. He was clearly skirting hypothermia.

  “For the love of God,” Christina said, slamming on the brakes. “What on earth is he doing out in this rain?”

  Billy said, “That’s the kid? That’s Morgan’s friend?”

  “Yes! Billy, get him, would you? Put him in the back seat? Mother of Christ.”

  Billy opened his door and ran out to where Finn stood. Christina couldn’t hear what Billy said, but she saw Finn flinch away, then draw in close to him. Then she saw Billy take off his leather jacket and wrap it around the boy.

  Billy picked him up in his arms—effortlessly, she noted—and carried him to the car. He opened the back passenger-side door and put him on the seat.

  Christina turned around in the driver’s seat and said, “Finn, for heaven’s sake, what are you doing out here? Let’s get you up to the house, and warm. You’ll catch your death!”

  “I’m cuh-cuh-cuh cold,” Finn said through chattering teeth.

  “Of course you’re cold,” Christina said. “Good Lord, let’s get you into a hot bath right away and warm you up. Why did you leave?”

  Finn lo
oked down, refusing to meet her eyes. His narrow shoulders rocked with repeated waves of shivering.

  “Never mind,” she said, flooring the accelerator. In that moment, she didn’t care whether Adeline was watching her through the upstairs window, ready to berate her for whipping up the gravel drive. She needed to get Finn inside. Whatever else was going on, Christina was still a mother.

  Morgan could just make out Finn’s face under the high stack of blankets atop Christina’s bed. Finn had let Christina bathe him in a hot tub, and had let her dry him with rough Turkish towels and put him to bed.

  Christina knew that boys could be strange about being nude in front of anyone, let alone females, related or otherwise, but Finn hadn’t been strange. He’d been compliant and docile with Christina, looking anxious and fretful when she stepped out of his line of sight. He even called her

  “Mom” once.

  She didn’t believe the story he’d told her in the bathtub, the story about vampires and monsters and sunlight burning up his dog, but whatever had happened to this boy—whatever he’d seen—had clearly shattered him.

  “Finn,” Christina said softly when she’d cleared away his bowl. “Is it OK if Dr. Lightning—Billy—comes in and talks with you? He wants to hear what you told Morgan and me?”

  Finn nodded. “OK,” he said. “But he won’t believe me.”

  “It’s all right, Finn. Just tell him what you told us.”

  Christina nodded to Billy, who had been standing in the doorway.

  He entered the room and sat down in an armchair across from the bed. Christina had made Billy promise not to ask about the bloody hockey bag. Billy asked, “How are you feeling, son?”

  “Fine, I guess,” Finn replied. “Cold.”

  “You’ll warm right up,” Billy said. “Now, would you mind telling me what happened? Just like you told Morgan and her mom? Morgan told me it’s a bit of a scary story. I don’t want you to be scared, because you’re safe here. But I know a bit about spooky stories myself. I’m a teacher, you know. At a university. Do you know what a university is?”

  “Of course I know what a university is,” Finn said weakly. “Just because I’m a kid doesn’t mean I’m stupid.”

  Billy laughed, a full-throated, warm laugh. “Of course not, Finn. Sorry, it was a stupid question. Grownups can be the dumb ones sometimes. Now, can you tell me what happened?”

  “OK. Well,” Finn said, “a vampire must have taken my dog, Sadie. I put her out in the yard and the next morning she was gone. When she came back, she was all bitten up. When I took her for a walk, the sun came up and she went on fire. Then my dad went up to look for her body and he didn’t come home. When he came home, he was different. He was horrible. He had long sharp teeth and he bit my mom in the neck and killed her.”

  Billy spoke calmly and neutrally. “How do you know he was a vampire, Finn?”

  “Because he had long sharp teeth and he bit my mom in the neck and killed her,” Finn said patiently. “Because when I put a cross in his face, it burned him,” Finn said. “My dad screamed when it touched him. That’s the only way you can hurt them—crosses, holy water. Stuff like that. And you can only kill them with wooden stakes or by dragging them out into the sunlight. Everybody knows that.”

  “Finn, have you ever thought there were vampires here before? I mean, in Parr’s Landing?”

  Finn’s expression was scornful. “You don’t believe me,” he said. “You’re just fibbing.”

  “I’m really interested, Finn,” Billy said softly. “There have been some strange things happening up here over the years. And, most of all, I believe you that something pretty awful happened to your mother and father. Now, why do you think that there are vampires in Parr’s Landing?”

  Finn thought for a moment. “Once when I went for a walk with Sadie, we were up by Spirit Rock and she was really scared. She was barking and whining. She never made that much noise. She was scared.”

  “Do you remember where you were, Finn? I mean, pretty close?”

  “Up under by the paintings, on the cliffs. In my comics, sometimes dogs can tell when there’s a vampire’s grave around. I think this vampire’s grave was there. I think the vampire woke up somehow.”

  Billy sat very still. “Finn, do you know any other stories from around here? You know, scary ones?”

  “No,” he said. “What kind of stories?”

  “You know, legends?”

  Finn paused. “Not really. I once heard some of the older guys talking about a Wendigo. But that’s just a spook story to scare kids,” he added scornfully. “Nobody believes that one. It’s so fake.”

  “What do you think?”

  Christina and Billy were sitting in front of the fire Jeremy had built in Adeline’s ground-floor study. Even though Jeremy had assured her that Adeline wasn’t in the house—no one knew where she was, nor much cared at the moment—Christina was still uncomfortable there. She was convinced that Adeline was going to come walking through the door any second, eyes blazing, demanding to know how they dared make themselves so at home in her study. Jeremy, for his own reasons, couldn’t bear to remain in the study, and Christina had sent Morgan to her room to read.

  Billy said, “Are you asking me if I think Finn’s father is a vampire?”

  “Of course not! For heaven’s sake, Billy.” She shook her head. “I’m asking what you think actually happened?”

  “I have no idea,” he admitted. He stood up and walked over to the fire. “But Finn believes his story exactly as he told to us. I’m no psychologist, Christina, but he really believes it. As an anthropologist, I have to take into account that Finn—who has no connection to Richard Weal, other than finding the hockey bag—seems to be suffering from another variation of the documented Wendigo psychosis, minus the anthropophagy.”

  “The what?”

  “The desire to eat human flesh,” Billy said. “It’s an established element of Wendigo psychosis. In Finn’s case, he just believes the myth without wanting to be part of it.”

  “Jesus Christ, Billy,” she said, shuddering. “He’s a child. And he’s not talking about the Wendigo, he’s talking about vampires. Actual ones, like in the Dracula movies.”

  Billy shrugged. “One legend or another,” he said, sounding embarrassingly professorial, even to himself. “Finn has just grafted his version on the myth in response to the trauma he experienced.” He looked at his watch. “Christina, it’s four in the afternoon. We need to find a cop. This is ridiculous. We have a boy upstairs in bed with no parents. I’m not sure that’s even legal. I’m going to drive into town. If Thomson and McKitrick still aren’t in the goddamn station, I’ll drive around until I find someone. You stay here. I’ll be back with the cavalry.”

  “Billy?” Christina said. “Please be careful?”

  He thought of making another lame joke, or a glib retort, but Billy realized two things: that Christina meant it, that she cared. And that he felt warmed by that care.

  Not for the first time, he cursed the circumstances of meeting this woman so early in her widowhood, when mourning was still so fresh. But he still felt warmed.

  “Hold on,” Christina said. “I’ll drive you back to the motel so you can pick up your truck. I’d let you take the Chevelle, but we may need it for Finn later.”

  Billy had done two loops through the empty streets of Parr’s Landing before, entirely by haphazard chance, he turned onto Brandon Nixon Road and found himself pulling up in front of the scorched-out jumble of charred buildings with the police cruiser parked in front of it.

  How did I never see this before? Billy thought, surveying the darkened ruin. What a goddamn fuck-ugly mess, even in a town full of goddamn fuckugly messes.

  Wet snow had begun to fall heavily, and it was starting to cling to the ground, flowering the autumn oaks and maples along the side of the road. The snow had begun to layer the burnt boards, highlighting them with streaks and clumps of white.

  Billy approached the polic
e cruiser and peered in through the windows. He rapped on the glass with his knuckles—softly, but with tredpidation.

  Of course it was empty. He hadn’t expected to find McKitrick or his boss in it, crouched wolfishly on the edge of the road in their police car on this lonely road, had he? Or had he? And what was the cruiser doing parked here in the first place—empty like the police station, like the streets of the town itself?

  Billy called out, “Hello? Constable McKitrick? Sergeant Thomson?” The wind suddenly picked up, scattering the wet snow and carrying away the sound of his voice. He looked up at the darkening sky, then down at his watch. It was now nearly five. It would be dark soon, and there were no lights on Brandon Nixon Road.

  Who do you report an abandoned cop car to? Well, to the cops. But if there aren’t any cops around, what then?

  He hesitated, then went back to his truck and took the flashlight out of the glove box. Billy Lightning had never been a coward in his life, and he didn’t plan to start now.

  He reached behind the back seat and picked up the crowbar he kept there, telling himself it was for just in case.

  Billy smelled something inside the rink that made his stomach twist inside him. It was a smell that brought back a memory from St. Rita’s with horrible vividness. It was the smell of rotten pork.

  There had been a sausage plant inside the school. All the boys had been forced to work in it at one point or another, manufacturing pork sausage that the priests would sell locally to earn extra money for the school. The priests told the boys their labour was pleasing in the sight of God, and might help redeem them from their fallen Indian state. There was no question of paying the boys, the priests explained, since the Indian children were already subsisting on the charity of the Canadian public and the Church.

  Occasionally the pork went bad and had to be thrown out when it was too far gone even to feed to the children.

  Fuck, that awful stench, Billy thought, covering his face in the crook of his arm and gagging. But the smell, putrescent though it was, was the smell of active decay. It had no place out here in a charred hockey arena on a snowswept northern Ontario road on the edge of dusk where nothing lived.