by Michael Rowe
“Weal came here because of my father,” Billy said. “All these people are dead because of him. We brought Weal here in 1952 and put this all in motion. The arena was full of those things when I got there tonight. Who knows how many of them there are here, or what they’ll do. I can’t leave. I have to fix this. I have to find the one who did this and make it right. For my father’s sake, at the very least. But I won’t be able to do it unless I know that you and Morgan are safe, and a long way from here.”
When she started to protest, Billy put up his hand. “No more talk,” he said. “Get Morgan ready. I’ll bring the truck right to the entrance here. I’m taking you to the church. When the sun comes up, leave. Don’t look back.”
“Dr. Lightning,” Morgan said. “May I ask you a question?”
“What is it, honey?”
“You said that they were in the arena when you got there. How did you get away?”
“I burned them,” Billy said. “I burned their bodies. Just like Finn said, fire hurts them.”
Morgan sounded dubious. “You don’t smell like smoke. And . . . they just let you?”
“They weren’t awake yet,” he said vaguely. “Not all of them, anyway. I guess the sun wasn’t all the way down. Don’t worry, I took care of it. Now,” he said. “No more talking. We need to get you two to the church.” He held up his hand again. “I mean it, no more questions,” he said gruffly. “It’s time to go, ladies.”
He’s lying, Morgan thought, but Christina was already pushing her out the door of the motel, and Billy had sprinted ahead and was standing by the door of the truck.
Billy drove the short distance between the Gold Nugget and the church in complete silence, looking neither left nor right. The beams of the truck’s headlights carved a tunnel through the shadows and the snow, which had grown thick and heavy in the hours since they’d arrived at the motel. On either side of the road, houses like empty husks took momentary shape, then vanished back into the night and the falling snow.
Billy parked the truck in front St. Barthélemy and the Martyrs. The steps leading to the front door and the sanctuary were packed in wet snow. Gusts of it capered in the yellow light above the entrance to the church.
“End of the line,” he joked. “This is where everyone gets off.”
“Billy—?”
“Mom, come on,” Morgan’s voice was urgent. She didn’t look at Billy. She opened the side door of the truck and jumped out. She grabbed at her mother’s arm and practically pulled her out. “I want to be in the church. Right now. Please.”
“Morgan, you go on inside,” Christina said, shaking off Morgan’s hand on her arm. “Wait for me. I want to talk to Billy for a minute.”
“Mom, no! Now!” Morgan shouted. “I’m not going in without you! Don’t talk to him! We don’t have time!” Morgan stared defiantly at Billy. He looked back at her. Wordless communication passed between them. Then Billy looked away.
“She’s right, Christina,” Billy said finally. “Go inside where you’ll be safe. It’s open. Get some sleep. Then, tomorrow, take my truck and go.”
Christina pleaded. “Stay with us. Come inside and wait until sunrise. Then leave with us in the morning. There’s nothing for you here.”
“Mom, please!”
“Goodbye, Christina,” Billy said. “I have to go back.” He stepped away from the church, out of the ring of light, and walked into the shadows beyond it.
A trick of the lamplight, Christina thought. I can still see his eyes. Then Billy Lightning was swallowed wholly by the darkness.
Morgan woke to the sound of rocks falling on the stained glass windows.
The sound startled her and she sat up. Then she remembered. Oh yes, she thought. We’re in the church. They can’t get us here. That’s why we’re here. She looked at her watch. It was four o’clock in the morning. Dawn was still three hours away.
Beside her, Christina moaned softly in her sleep and turned over. She’s dreaming, Morgan realized. She reached out and gently touched Christina’s blonde hair. Her mother’s eyes were ringed with blue-black circles, and the skin on either side of her nose was dull red and raw in the dim overhead lights of the church. Christina looked exhausted. Morgan wondered why she hadn’t noticed it before. Then she realized why—Christina hadn’t wanted her to see it. Her mother had been trying to protect her in every possible way since they’d arrived in Parr’s Landing. But in sleep, the lie failed and her face told the truth.
The scattershot of stones on glass came again.
Morgan reached over and shook her mother’s arm. “Mom? Mom, wake up. There’s someone outside. I’m scared.”
But Christina slept on, oblivious. Morgan held the St. Christopher’s medal tightly in her hands. The silver was warm, and comforting somehow.
The rocks came again, this time harder and more insistent. She ran to the window and tried to see outside, but it was impossible. This time the stones bounced off the glass directly in front of her.
“Go away!” she screamed. “Leave us alone!”
The voice that answered her was as clear as water. A soft voice. A boy’s voice.
“Morgan. It’s me, Finn. Come outside.”
“Finn?” she cried joyously. “Is that you? Are you OK?”
“It’s me, Morgan,” he said. “I’m OK. Come outside.”
“I can’t, Finn,” she said. “I’m not allowed.”
Finn’s voice was impatient. “Come to the front door of the church, anyway. I’ll be on the front steps.”
Morgan looked at Christina sleeping on the pew. “Mom,” she whispered. “Mom, wake up. Can you hear me?” There was no answer. Christina slept on. “Finn’s here. I’m going to go and see him. I’ll be right back. Is it OK?” She won’t even know I was gone, Morgan rationalized. I’ll be back before she wakes up. Finn’s alive! Finn’s alive!
She walked the length of the nave and opened the church doors wide to welcome Finn back.
Finn stood on a small rise of accumulated snow on the lawn of the church.
His feet looked frail and blue in the light, and there was no disturbance in the snow leading in any direction to or from where stood. The wind whipped his dark hair about his face and the fabric of the pyjamas billowed ludicrously around his thin body.
Morgan stared. “Finn? Is that you? What are you doing there? It’s freezing! Come in here where it’s warm.”
“Yeah, it’s me,” he said ruefully. “I’m always coming to you, aren’t I? I wish I was older so I could have been your boyfriend, then I could have taken care of you.”
“Finn, what are you talking about? You did take care of me. You saved my from my grandmother back at the house. You saved my life.”
He went on as though he hadn’t heard her. “You’re really pretty, Morgan.” He looked like he could be blushing, but in the light it was hard to tell. “Can I tell you something?” He sounded gently embarrassed, but didn’t wait for her to answer. “I . . . I love you, Morgan. I guess I have, from the moment I saw you outside the school that day.”
“Oh, Finn.” Morgan’s eyes filled with tears. “I’m so sorry I wasn’t a better friend to you. I’m so sorry.”
He paused. “You know, right? You know what happened to me?”
Morgan shook her head, but even as she did so, she realized she did know. She nodded, not trusting herself to speak. The tears that had been brimming in her eyes spilled down her cheeks.
“He took me away,” Finn said darkly. “He took me to the caves up by Spirit Rock. He changed me. To punish me. You know. For, well, for what I did. You know, with the holy water.” Finn shivered. “He did awful things to me up there,” he said. “He’s terrible, Morgan. He’s so old. He’s been waiting up there for hundreds of years. Waiting for someone to wake him up. Someone did. Some crazy person. That day I found his bag with all the knives in it—that was his. For waking him up.”
Morgan glanced back towards the church doors, feeling a sudden stab of fear. She clapp
ed her hands over her ears to block out the sound of Finn’s voice.
This isn’t Finn, dummy. It used to be, but it isn’t, now. He’s something . . . well, someone else. Like Grandmother Parr was.
But then, Grandmother was sort of like that even before, wasn’t she?
Finn sighed. “I’m the same person, Morgan. I’m not going to hurt you. I promise. And you were hearing me in the church even though I was outside, so don’t bother covering your ears.”
Morgan’s voice quivered. She pointed through the open doors, into the nave. “My mother is in there. She’s sleeping.”
“Your mom won’t wake up till I want her to. She’s just asleep, don’t worry.”
“You won’t hurt her, either? You promise?”
“Your mom is a nice lady,” Finn said, sounding wounded. “She was nice to me. I would never hurt her.” He smiled, showing the small pearlescent fangs of a twelve-year-old boy on the edge of manhood, a state he would never attain. “She was nice to me. Of course I won’t hurt her. I needed to see you before . . .”
“Before what?” she demanded.
He was silent, unmoving from his spot atop the mound of snow.
“It hurts,” Finn said. His voice was small and hollow, even where it echoed inside her head. “It hurts something awful. It’s not like I thought it would be. In my comics, the vampires forget about their lives and they stop feeling bad about it. Not me—I remember everything. And I still miss my dog. Sadie tried to protect me from this. She knew what was waiting up here.”
Morgan was trembling. She wrapped her arms around her torso and rubbed them, trying to warm herself.
“You’re cold,” Finn said. “You should go inside.”
“I don’t need to go inside. But is it OK if I run inside quickly and get my sweater? Do you want to come inside and get warm?”
“I can’t,” Finn said. “I can’t go in there.”
“Why not?” Then she thought about it. “Oh, right,” she said. “Sorry.”
Morgan realized she should feel safer knowing Finn couldn’t cross the threshold of the church, but instead it just made her feel sad. “I’ll be right back,” she promised. She knew he could probably stop her if he wanted to.
But he just said, “OK,” and shrugged.
Morgan hurried up the nave to the place where Christina was still fast asleep—if anything, in a deeper sleep than before. The dark circles under Christina’s eyes seemed to have faded by degrees, as though Finn were actually healing her mother from where he stood on top of the snow, outside the church.
I could stay in here and never come out. She picked up her sweater from where it lay on the back of the pew. I could leave him out there in the cold and the snow and the night and never have to see him again. These things can’t come into churches. But he’s not a ‘thing,’ is he? He’s Finn. He’s my friend. He saved my life.
Morgan saw the St. Christopher’s medal lying on the pew next to her mother. She picked it up and slipped it into her pocket.
“There’s a house over there,” Finn said, pointing across the snowy lawn after Morgan returned with her sweater. “Behind the manse. It’s empty. Do you want to go in there?”
“What for?” Morgan said, suddenly fearful again.
“Because it’s cold out here, dummy, obviously,” Finn teased. “And even if I’m not cold, you are. I can tell. You’re still shivering. I know you have that medal in your pocket. You could use it if you wanted. I wouldn’t be able to stop you. Besides, I told you not to worry.”
Morgan’s voice was incredulous. “How do you know all this stuff?”
Finn shrugged again, but this time it was a self-conscious shrug. “Some of it from The Tomb of Dracula, some of it from Dark Shadows. Some of it from . . . from him. He steals people’s memories, then he shares them with us. The rest of it I just know.” He tapped his chest and his head. “I know it in here. I don’t know how, I just do.”
She thought about it for a moment, then said, “OK, let’s go to the house. How do you know it’s empty? Or that it’s open?”
He glanced briefly at the dark window on the second floor. “Trust me. I’ve been inside already.”
The living room was plain but clean. There was a photograph of Pope Paul VI on the wall above the television set, but no books anywhere.
The unmistakable odour of boiled cabbage clung to the cheap curtains, indeed had seeped into every porous surface in the living room. Morgan hated boiled cabbage, especially the way it smelled when it was cooking. At that moment, however, it reminded her of her neighbourhood in Toronto, and she just felt homesick.
Sitting next to her on the plastic-covered sofa, Finn said shyly, “Morgan, can I ask you a question?”
Her voice was gentle, but teasing “That’s one question already, Finnegan.”
“My mom called me that,” he said.
“What was the question you wanted to ask me?”
He hesitated. “Have you ever . . . well, have you ever, you know . . . like, had a . . . a . . .”
“A boyfriend? Is that what you’re asking? If I’ve ever had a boyfriend?” If he could blush, Morgan thought, he’d be beet-red.
Mutely, Finn nodded his head.
“Have you ever had a girlfriend, Finn?”
He shook his head. “Nope.”
“Why not?” She took his hand lightly in hers, finding it ice cold. “Have you ever liked a girl before?”
“Only you,” he said, looking down. “Never before. Nobody else.”
She brought his hand up to her face and laid it there. He leaned forward clumsily to kiss her on the lips but missed, landing the kiss on her chin instead. Morgan inclined her head and kissed him tentatively on the lips.
Blood thundered in Morgan’s ears and her face flamed. “Finn, just so you know, I never . . . well, I’ve never had a . . . a boyfriend, either.”
Finn pulled away as though burned. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I’m such a jerk. Why would a girl like you want to kiss somebody as ugly as me? I’m sorry,” he said again. “I’m so stupid.”
Morgan sat very still, as thought considering. Then she unbuttoned the top button of her cardigan. Then the second. Finn watched, his eyes wide.
“Finn?” In the dark living room, Morgan’s voice sounded alien, even to her—thicker, fuller, almost a woman’s voice now.
Outside, the wind picked up, blowing thick fistfuls of snow at the windows. Morgan shrugged the sweater off her shoulders, letting it fall behind her on the sofa.
“What?” Finn breathed.
“You’re not ugly. You were never ugly.”
“I’m not?”
“No,” Morgan said, reaching for him. “You’re really not. You’re really beautiful to me, Finnegan.” She hesitated, then said, “Finn?”
“What?”
“Do you promise—really promise—that you won’t hurt me?”
“I promise, Morgan,” Finn said. “Cross my heart.”
They held each other close, naked in the makeshift bed of ottoman cushions and crocheted afghan blankets on the floor of the immaculate, chaste house that smelled like boiled cabbage and carpet deodorizer, under the photograph of Pope Paul VI.
Morgan had asked Finn if he wanted to go upstairs, but he seemed to panic at the thought, insisting instead they stay in the living room. When she asked him why, he shook his head and said, “Here is good. Here is fine.”
Later, in her arms, Finn’s icy body didn’t warm, but neither did Morgan’s body catch the cold from Finn’s and chill in sympathetic response. They tempered each other, explored each other’s bodies with their hands and mouths, wondering at the bevy of sensations aroused as each touched the other in places they’d never been touched before.
“Morgan,” Finn whispered in her ear when they were finished. “Would you stay with me?”
“We’re leaving in the morning,” she murmured. “I can’t stay here.”
“No,” he said. His voice was ineffably sad. “
I mean, just for a little bit longer. Just for tonight. I just don’t want to be alone.”
Morgan leaned up on her elbow and looked at him quizzically. “What do you mean? Of course I’ll stay with you tonight. Why? I mean, what else would I do?”
“Just a bit longer,” Finn said, gazing out the living room window at the lightening eastern sky.
Morgan realized she must have dozed off, because when she opened her eyes, Finn was kneeling at her side, shaking her arm with nearly violent desperation.
“Morgan,” Finn said urgently. “Wake up. I need to ask you something.”
“What?” she muttered, still mostly asleep. “What is it? Are you OK?”
“Morgan, would you do something for me if I asked you to?”
“Sure,” Morgan said. “What?” Then her eyes opened wide and she focused. The scream caught in her throat, becoming a sharp gasp instead.
Finn was sweating blood—literally. It covered him like a delicate, dark red mist, a ruby dew that made his skin shimmer when he moved. He wasn’t bleeding, exactly—instead, the blood was a fine, thin, glowing roseate spray that was becoming more opaque by the second.
“Finn, oh my God! What’s happening to you?”
“It doesn’t hurt, Morgan, I promise it doesn’t. Not yet.”
“Finn! What’s happening to you?”
“Morgan, do you love me?”
“Yes! Yes! I love you! Now tell me what’s happening!?”
“I need you to help me, Morgan,” Finn said, his voice breaking. “I can’t do this by myself. You have to help me. Please?” He looked towards the window where the sky was now bright enough for her to see everything in the room. Then back at Morgan with pleading eyes. “Do you understand?”
Morgan started to cry. “No, Finn, please. I can’t,” she sobbed. “Don’t ask me to do that. I can’t. Stay with me. We’ll figure something out, I promise. Please, Finn, please. I just can’t!”
“Listen to me,” Finn said gently. “I want to find Sadie. I want to be with my dog again. I miss her. I want to be somewhere else—I want to be in the place I was in before all this happened. I want to go home. A lot of bad things happen in Parr’s Landing, but it isn’t all bad. Nothing is all bad. I was happy—I had my mom and my dad. I had my school, and my comics. And I had Sadie. I want to hug her. I want to go for a walk with her again, up on Spirit Rock. This morning—now. But I can’t do it by myself. My body won’t let me.”
