A Killer in the Wind

by Andrew Klavan

  I put the Mustang in reverse and drove backward, weaving over the winding lane. I braked again, stopped again. Looked ahead.

  There it was. An old sign. Weathered wood. An arrow pointing down a broken road into the forest. Words nearly faded away: Old Washington Falls.

  Old Washington Falls, I thought.

  I turned the car off the two-lane, and drove into the woods.

  The road was broken macadam at first, then dirt. As it descended through the forest, the birch trees gave way to high pines, old oaks, and elms. The taller trees and spreading branches blocked out the sun and made the narrow passage gloomy. Somehow I knew this was the right way.

  The mist grew deeper as I drove down the hill. The sun poured through it in hazy beams. Maybe it was in my mind but it seemed to spread through the forest around me. And in the depths of it—in the depths of the mist and the tangled branches and the twining vines and underbrush—I caught glimpses of dark figures, standing very still, watching me as I passed.

  I turned this way and that, trying to catch them. But whenever I tried to look at them directly, no one was there.

  Just the drug.

  I forced myself to face front, to look out the window.

  And as I did, the woods fell away and I drove into a ghost town.

  There wasn’t much left of it. A broad sandy avenue, some patches still paved with asphalt and others where the asphalt had been shattered to gravel. There was the ruin of a clapboard store up ahead of me, the structure slumped, the porch roof fallen aslant. And down the way, there was the ruin of a once stately house: hollow, empty, staring at me through empty windows.

  In the trees around, I could see other structures: foundations and piles of stone. In the distance, the road tapered off into a forest trail, and the wild brush and bushes closed over it.

  What is this place? I thought. But I felt that I somehow knew.

  I pulled the car to the side of the road and killed the engine. I stepped out into the street, feeling the air cool on my damp T-shirt and my damp skin. The mist swirled around the ruined buildings, swirled around the trees, around my feet. I heard whispers in the distance.

  I’m afraid . . .

  Don’t let them take me . . .

  I’m afraid of the dark . . .

  They’re not real . . .

  I started walking through the mist. Down the avenue toward the big house. My footsteps crunched on the broken road. The sound was loud in the surrounding emptiness. It was the only sound besides the sound of running water—a stream somewhere—and the sound of wind in the branches. There was nothing else. No birds singing. Nothing.

  The dead house rose up over me as I approached. There was another road, a remnant of a smaller road, running alongside it, perpendicular to the avenue. There was a street sign planted where the two roads crossed, its pole tilted over, its metal markers rusted. I stopped by the sign and read it: Washington Avenue. That was the name of the main street. Poe Street—that was the side street’s name.

  I understood at once—and I knew I had been right to come here. I had been heading for a different Washington Falls—a new Washington Falls—but this was the one I needed to find. I needed to stand right here, right at the corner of Washington Avenue and Poe Street. I needed to see that the streets were named for American statesmen and writers.

  Franklin Hawthorne wasn’t a person. It was an intersection. Here in Old Washington Falls.

  I turned away from the house. The back of my neck prickled as I felt the house’s dark windows staring down at me. I gazed off into the forest and saw the mist coiling itself around the tangled branches. I heard the breeze out there and I heard whispers in the breeze. I saw ghosts—dark figures. I saw them from the corners of my eyes, here and there in the woods, here and there beside the ruined foundations and piles of stone. Just standing there. Just watching me. Each time I turned toward one, he vanished before I could look at him.

  They’re not real . . .

  I’m afraid . . .

  That voice. That voice kept whispering. I knew that voice, that whisper. I had heard it before. I had been here before, in this place, in this town . . .

  I felt the old house looming over me as I stared into the woods.

  You don’t know who you are.

  I caught a glimpse of another figure in the forest—another dark figure watching me from the mist, from right beside a ruined chimney. I turned toward him, knowing he would vanish when I looked at him directly.

  But he didn’t vanish. He just went on standing there. A tall, thin man in black jeans and a black windbreaker.

  Slowly, he lifted his hand. He was holding a gun.

  He wasn’t a ghost. He was real. He was one of Stark’s killers.

  I dove to the dirt just as he opened fire.

  The bullet thudded into the broken road. Gravel flew up around me. I rolled and leapt to my feet and dove again even as the pebbles showered down. I heard another report as the gunman let off a second round hard on the first—I heard the double-bang and then the cry of birds and the flutter of their wings as they rose from the trees and scattered.

  Bent low, I rushed to the side of the house. Pressed close to it, out of the gunman’s sight. I drew my Glock and waited for him to appear. Seconds passed. No sign of him. I started to edge away, toward the rear of the house. As I did, the killer appeared across the road. He fired again. There was a liquid chuck as the slug entered the house’s rotten wood.

  I turned and ran. There were two brick steps up ahead of me. They led to a side doorway, the door gone. I leapt up the steps and charged through the open frame into the house before the gunman could let off another round.

  It was dark in the old ruin. Dark and filled with mist. It was quiet except for the faint patter of rats scrabbling in the walls. It was quiet outside too, except for the cries of the frightened, circling birds. I gripped my Glock in my sweaty hand. I tried to blink the mist away, but it just grew thicker.

  I’m afraid . . .

  Don’t let them take me . . .

  I moved deeper into the house, deeper into the dark. I kept my head low and stayed away from the broken windows.

  The place, I saw, was gutted, empty. No furniture, no structures, just rubble surrounded by scarred, peeling walls. I came out of a narrow corridor into a central space, large and open. There were jagged edges here where once there had been dividers and archways. The floorboards were bare, splintered, studded with nails, covered with debris. I kicked through piles of garbage. The rats scattered and vanished as I came.

  There was a window up front—a window frame, all the glass long gone. And there was an exit to my right with the door still in it, closed.

  I went to the window frame. Knelt by it, pressed to the wall to keep out of sight. I shook my head, still trying to clear away the haze. My lungs were heaving, the breath wheezing in and out of me. Sweat was pouring down my face, dripping off, tap-tap-tapping on the wreckage around my feet. My stomach rolled over. My throat was tight. I couldn’t think straight. I couldn’t clear my mind.

  I curled around the edge of the window frame. Peeked out at the street and at the woods beyond. I caught a quick glimpse of motion out there—but then it was gone. I wasn’t sure if it had been the gunman or a ghost. Was the gunman real? How had he found me? The ATM transaction? The credit card I used at one of the motels? Or maybe he hadn’t found me at all. Maybe he was just a hallucination too . . .

  I drew back out of sight; listened for movements. I thought I heard footsteps outside but I wasn’t sure.

  Then, suddenly, a whisper at my back.

  Don’t let them take me . . .

  I glanced over my shoulder.

  The Fat Woman was standing right there behind me.

  I cried out in shock, spun around, and fired wildly at her mutilated face. Plaster flew in a white cloud as the bullet hit the ceiling.

  But the Fat Woman had vanished.

  The cloud of plaster drifted down to the floor. I gaped a
t the empty room. I quickly swiped the sweat from my eyes.

  She was here, I thought. I was here. And she was here too.

  A footstep on gravel. I froze. There was another. Just outside. Just behind the house. I held my breath. I listened. But the sound didn’t come again. Had I imagined it?

  My eyes scanned over the darkness of the empty room. The shadows. The piles of broken wood. Alexander standing in the corner, gazing at me.

  I’m afraid of the dark . . .

  I stared terrified at the dead boy and he stared back at me. Then the shadows engulfed him and he was gone.

  I’m going to die in here, I thought. I could feel it.

  I had to do something. If there really was a killer out there, I couldn’t just wait here for him to charge in and take me. If there wasn’t, I couldn’t just hide away, afraid of ghosts. I was crazy, drugged up. I didn’t know what was real and what was hallucination. But either way, I had to do something.

  I edged along the wall, trying to get a better angle on the view outside, trying to see if there was anyone there. The street was empty now as far as I could make out. Maybe I could make a run for my car.

  Then—a movement in the room. On one knee, I whipped around, gun leveled. A ghostly figure dissolved into shadow. No one. My eye darted to a noise from the closed door on the wall across from me. I saw a rat scurrying for cover there. Then it was gone.

  No one.

  I stayed where I was, staring at the emptiness. Openmouthed. Sweating. My gun trained on the darkness.

  Every day they come for us. There’s no way out.

  I waited. I listened. I watched.

  Whispers. Scrabbling. Half-seen phantoms. Nothing.

  I had to get out. I came off my knee. Rose up. Moved quickly to the window.

  And there was Stark, standing right outside the house, looking in on me. His skeleton face was jacked wide, his eyes were gleaming. He shrieked—shrieked—and a gout of flame shot from his mouth. Engulfed me.

  I cried out, swallowed in flame. I staggered back—so paralyzed with terror I couldn’t pull the trigger.

  Then the door flew in to the right of me. I spun round and there was the gunman. Still screaming in fear, still surrounded by fire, I loosed a shot at him. He shouted and staggered, his arm flying wide, his pistol falling. I wheeled back in horror and confusion, thinking to see the death-headed flame-spewing Stark bearing down on me from the window . . .

  But there was no one there. Just the open frame—a rectangle of daylight.

  In a panic, I grabbed the edges of it. Stepped up onto the moldering sill. Pulled myself through and hurled myself into the outdoors. Flying through the air . . .

  Then I hit the gravelly sand and went down and rolled and stood again and came face-to-face with the Fat Woman. She was screaming at me and all in flames. I screamed back insanely. Swiped at her with my gun barrel. She dissolved into nothingness.

  I ran.

  I ran for my car. I didn’t know if the gunman was behind me. Had I shot him? Was he dead? Was he even real? I didn’t know.

  I neared the Mustang. Someone was waiting for me in there. The skull-headed Stark. He was grinning at me through the windshield from behind the wheel. I lifted my gun to shoot him dead but before I could, a bullet sizzled by my ear . . .

  I looked over my shoulder and saw the gunman in the house, at the window, aiming at me through the frame. I fired at him and he tumbled back into the house’s darkness. I faced forward, ready to blast Stark in the Mustang.

  But the car was empty. Stark was gone.

  I ran for the car. I looked around me wildly. In the misty woods, there were children everywhere, dead children standing among the trees, in the mist, staring at me.

  I reached the Mustang. Yanked the door open. Dropped in behind the wheel.

  Stark leapt at me out of the backseat, his flaming fingers reaching for my throat.

  I screamed in terror, my arms flailing wildly, but then he was gone.

  “Christ!” I shouted.

  I turned the engine on—hit the gearshift, hit the gas, and wrenched the wheel. The Mustang whirled around on the broken road, throwing up gravel. I straightened it. Jammed my foot down, driving the gas pedal to the floor.

  There was a fire, I thought crazily. That’s why I keep smelling smoke. That’s why I keep seeing flames. There was a fire in the house.

  I drove as fast as the car would go, back up the broken forest road, the dead children watching me from the mist.

  There was a fire, I thought.

  I was beginning to remember.

  12

  Flashback: The Room in the Tower

  THE WASHINGTON FALLS library was nestled under a pair of maple trees on a small leafy street off the main road. It was an impressive white stone building with a square tower like something from an old English church. There was a stately white columned mansion on a rolling acre of lawn nearby. There was a sprawling glass and metal schoolhouse across the way.

  This was the town I’d seen on the website. The quaint prosperous modern country village ten miles north of the ghost town I’d just left behind.

  I parked the Mustang around the corner, alongside the library. I killed the engine and fell back against the seat. I raised my eyes and looked at myself in the mirror.

  Jesus, I looked like the walking dead. My skin was the color of cement. My forehead and cheeks were clammy with sweat. My mouth was slack and my eyes . . . unfocused, crazy. Had I just shot another of Stark’s killers? Did they know where I was? How could they? Was it all just the drugs, the hallucinations, the fractured memories . . . ?

  There was a fire, I thought.

  That’s why I kept smelling smoke, seeing flames.

  There was a fire in the house. And I was there.

  And so was Samantha.

  Samantha wore a purple dress. She had curling red hair. Her face was ethereal and gentle. I stole glances at her across the classroom. Sometimes she would look up from whatever project was on her desk. She would lift her face to the sunlight streaming in through the window. She would close her eyes and bask in the warmth of it. The gold light would gleam on her auburn ringlets. I would watch her, breathless.

  We were seven years old.

  She had an aura of stillness and calm. At recess, she sat in the sandpit. She dug holes and built castles and played with dolls and figures. Sometimes other girls would join her, but she didn’t seem to need them. Often she sat alone.

  I was drawn to her helplessly. I scrambled up the climbing frame, which was in the sandpit too. I monkeyed my way to the top rung, grabbed it with my two hands.

  “Hey, Samantha!” I called.

  When she looked up, I lifted my feet up over my head, standing on my hands upside down.

  “Watch this!” I said.

  I swung my legs down through my arms and sat on the bars again, then pitched off backward until I was hanging by my knees.

  Samantha watched me from the sand below, shading her eyes from the sun with one hand.

  “I’ll bet you can’t do this!” I shouted to her.

  I swung myself up until I was sitting on the top bar again and then slowly stood, balancing up there with my arms stretched out on either side of me.

  “You’re going to break your stupid head if you’re not careful,” Samantha said.

  I was thrilled to hear her say that. She was worried about me. She cared about me. I squatted quickly and grabbed the bar and flipped myself around—very nearly braining myself on the bar beneath—and flew out into the air. I landed whump in the sand beside her, posed in a dynamic crouch I’d seen the heroes use in comic books.

  Samantha’s eyes were wide. Her lips were pressed tight together.

  “What’s the matter?” I said. “Scared I’d hurt myself?”

  “I don’t care if you kill yourself,” she said.

  But she had to lower her face to hide the fact that she was blushing.

  Given the ancient look of the stone façade, t
he library was surprisingly bright and clean inside. Tidy blond-wood chairs at tidy tables with a blond-wood finish, a row of carrels with computers and microfilm readers, all surrounded by stately shelves of books.

  Behind the front desk just within the entrance sat a woman about my age. She was tidy and stately too. She had frosted blonde hair and wore a more or less colorless skirt suit. According to the nameplate on her desk, her name was Mrs. Bell. She looked at me the way I guessed her settler ancestors looked at the Indians who dropped over for dinner red and naked except for their tomahawks. I didn’t blame her. I knew what I looked like.

  “Can you tell me about the old town?” I asked her. “Old Washington Falls? The ghost town I saw a few miles south?”

  I was distracted and didn’t really listen to her answer. I was thinking about the little girl digging in the sand. Samantha. And me on the high bars of the climbing frame.

  Watch this!

  I could feel a sort of mental dam breaking inside me, the memories flooding through. I had gotten it started, yet now I wanted it to stop. But it was too late.

  “. . . then when they built the new highway, the population shifted and the old town died,” the woman said. She had a crisp, distant voice like a recorded tour in a museum. “The old property is part of the wildlife management area now. The state runs it. Not that anyone ever comes through but the occasional ghost hunter or television reporter, that sort of thing.”

  I nodded, thinking about the little girl lifting her face to the light, her red hair gleaming.

  “Is there a local paper from back then?” I asked her. “You know, The Washington Falls Gazette or something like that?”

  “Recorder,” Mrs. Bell said with only the faintest smile. “The Washington Falls Recorder. It goes back over a hundred and fifty years. It’s not in the computers yet, but we have most of it on microfilm. Is there something you were looking for in particular?”

  “A fire,” I told her. “Thirty years or so ago. A fire in the old town.”

  In the orphanage, they kept the girls and boys separate. But in school, Samantha and I could be together. Especially at recess, out in the playground, I would find her where she was sitting alone in the sandpit, building castles, playing with dolls and figures.