After Midnight

by Joseph Rubas

  Needless to say, the government was very unhappy with us, but, after all of the revivals had been captured and shot (or shoved into gulags), allowed us time to reinvent the formula.

  Time and time again we repeated the same steps. We brought the dead back to life, became heroes in the eyes of the Kremlin, and then had to go back to the drawing board. Finally, in 1936, Stalin himself ordered us to succeed at last or die.

  And we failed to a degree unimaginable. Looking down into the cold, white eyes of the child strapped to the table, I knew.

  So I fled.

  I don’t know what happened to Zyrnof, nor do I wish to. Stalin probably killed him himself. Funny, you’d expect a little more gratitude. After all, we brought him back several times...

  Mistakes

  Steven Rosa had trouble finding Jefferson Street. It ran along the edge of the industrial district, a narrow lane of tall, crumbling tenements; trash strewn sidewalks, and rusted junk-heaps parked crookedly along the curb. The sky over the ancient roofs was a dirty orange smear, and the cold rain fell in a thin, oily drizzle.

  He’d lived in a neighborhood much like this when he went to college back in the early nineties. It was an awful place, dangerous after dark and never quiet: someone was always shooting, an ambulance was always crying, loud music was always playing. Looking for a spot to park in, he wondered if he’d find his car gutted when he came back. It was too nice to leave out. He’d return and find it a ghost of its former self, much like the cars along the street now.

  Steve sighed. Oh well. He could afford another one if he had to. He could afford several. Why not? Fucking blood money. He didn’t want it anymore, anyway.

  Finally, he slipped into a spot between a faded Cadillac and a battered Toyota Tercell. For a long moment he sat in the driver seat, gripping the smooth leather wheel and pumping himself up for what he had to do. A large box-van slowly ambled down the street, and a man in a black hoodie darted down the sidewalk heading north, holding something over his head to guard against the rain. God, how he wished he could be in that guy’s place instead of his own.

  He took a deep breath and closed his eyes. They're your mistakes; you have to fix them.

  He opened his eyes again. The rain pattered on the wet windshield with renewed force. The weatherman said most of the state would be sopping wet by Thursday when the system finally moved out.

  God, he thought miserably, am I doing the right thing?

  He received no answer. Not that he expected one. The days of God talking from a burning bush were over. Steven Rosa didn’t have the luxury of talking to Him like Noah or Moses or Jonah did. He did have a gut, though, and deep in it he knew what the right thing was. Maybe not in Heaven, but on earth.

  Steve sighed, and reached to the glove box. Inside, under a mess of papers, he found the .38, the handle polished redwood and the barrel cold black steel. He glanced around to make sure no one saw, and then slipped it into his coat. It weighed heavy in his pocket, and its outline burned against his flesh.

  He got out of the car and into a gust of wind-driven rain. He shut the door, locked it, and strode deliberately away, across the street and down the sidewalk, purposely side-stepping the murky glow cast by feeble street lights. He met only a woman in a long dark pea-coat and shiny leather boots. She smiled at him. A beautiful blond with dark eyes and a seemingly slender frame. He wondered what she had, or didn’t have, on under the coat.

  56 Jefferson was a rather small, box-like apartment building with a dull tan façade and a stone stoop. Through the lobby doors, Steve saw several young black men sitting on the stairs, talking and laughing. For a moment he almost walked past the door, but then thought better of it. He could put almost anyone on his list off, but not Addison. Addison had to be dealt with tonight.

  Taking a deep breath that he blew away in a puff of ghostly steam, Steve climbed the wet steps, opened the door, and walked in, warm air that smelt of disinfectant wafting over him.

  The young black men stopped talking and studied him, perhaps wondering how to rob him, perhaps wondering what a guy in a nice suit, overcoat, and nice wingtip shoes was doing in a dumpy ‘hood like theirs. Steve smiled as the men moved for him. He probably looked like a mobster. His smile faded as he climbed higher and higher. They would remember him. They would remember him easy, and when the police came they might talk.

  Telling himself that there was nothing he could do, Steve followed the stairs to the third floor, where they ended. The hall was dim and eerily quiet, the only sounds muffled TV noises. The carpet was shag, puke green, and littered with cigarette butts, empty hamburger wrappers, and crushed beer cans. Jesus Christ, he thought, wrinkling his nose. It stank of stale urine, mold, and rotten…meat? He didn’t know what, but he knew it was the most wretched mingle of odors he’d ever come up against. What kind of people are these?

  One was Addison. Mark Addison. That dirty, slimy, sick, pervert motherfucker. Mark J. Addison.

  For a moment, Steve was appalled at himself for helping that son of a bitch, knowing he was guilty. Why did he do it? To earn the reputation as a top lawyer? Why did he help a guilty man walk?

  Was he really that bad a person? Did he really value money that much once?

  Shaking with revulsion and unconsciously gritting his teeth, Steve tried to remember Addison’s number. Apartment 19C. Was that it? Is that where the animal lived?

  He pulled a slip of paper from his coat pocket. 18B.

  He stuffed it back in, and walked down the hall. At the end he found the room, the door shut and cracked, looking about as strong as a wet piece of pulp wood. There was a peephole. He knocked.

  For a long moment, nothing. He was starting to wonder if he had the wrong address, or if Addison was out, when he heard muffled footfalls and a hacking smoker’s cough behind the door. He tensed, his heartbeat quickening, and took a deep breath.

  The door opened.

  Addison was a small man with shaggy blond hair, a mustache and beard, and bleary, bloodshot eyes. He was dressed in a plain gray sweater, jeans, and woolen socks. He looked at Steve for a long, uncomprehending moment.

  “Yeah?” he croaked, swaying on his feet.

  “Hey, Mark,” Steve said, struggling to keep control of his voice. It didn’t tremble, and it didn’t reveal the disgust he felt.

  “Hey,” Addison said uncertainly.

  “Mark! Come on, you remember me. Steve!” Steve smiled, trying his best not to let his true emotions show through.

  “Steve?”

  “Yes!” he laughed. “Steve Rosa, your defense attorney.”

  Addison seemed to sober. “Aw, shit, yeah, damn, Stevie, come on in.” He stepped aside, and Steve entered. The apartment was surprisingly tidy. An easy chair sat before a glowing TV. The kitchen was immaculate. The curtains hanging over the living room windows were unwrinkled and clean.

  Addison ambled unceremoniously back over to his chair and plopped down with a sigh. “What’re you doin' here, Stevie? I thought you still lived in Boston.”

  “I did,” Steve lied, “but I moved out here last week and heard you were around so…I thought I’d look you up.”

  Addison took a long swig of beer from a plain brown bottle. “Yeah? That’s cool. What, did you and the missus get a divorce or somethin'?”

  “Yep,” Steve said.

  “It’s a bitch, huh?”

  “Yep.”

  Addison looked at him. “Want a beer?”

  Steve shook his head. “Nah, I’m gotta go here in a minute. Just thought I’d drop in and see how you are.”

  Addison smiled. “Shit, that’s nice of you. I’m doin’ alright. Been better, though. My back’s been hurtin' me really bad the past couple months. Sciatica, doctor said. He wants me to get a job where I don’t have to lift, but I can’t. Construction's what I do. Been doin’ it since I was sixteen. Go nothin’ else. Don’t even have a diploma.”

  “Yeah, yeah. You should try for…for your GED. The way the economy is, the
construction business…”

  Addison cut him off. “You got that right. Work’s been comin’ in trickles since that nigger took office.”

  Steve nodded uncomfortably. “Yeah, he hasn’t done much to help.”

  “That’s what you get when you let a goddamn nigger in power. Look at Africa. They’re all living in the dirt ‘cause they can’t run a country.” Addison shook his head and took a long drink of his beer.

  “Well, Mark, it’s been good seeing you again. I gotta get going. Busy man, you know?”

  “Yeah, yeah,” Mark stood, wincing, “leave me your number, why don’t you?”

  “Okay,” Steve reached into his coat, and then stopped. “Mark…can I ask you something?”

  Addison was stretching like an aged boxer ready to enter the ring and reclaim lost glory. “Sure.”

  “I was reading the paper the other day” – another lie, so many, but at least they were white – “and I saw they found a little girl dead and raped in a warehouse down the street.”

  “Awful, ain’t it?”

  Steve nodded. “It was. They said the sick bastard who did it…cut off one of her nipples, and left teeth marks on the breast.”

  “Yeah,” Addison said flatly. “Sick puppies out there.”

  “That’s…that’s what happened to Megan Anderson, Mark, same thing exactly.”

  Addison froze. Megan Anderson was thirteen when she vanished from a city park five years before. Her body was found at the docks three weeks later, beaten, raped, bitten, and strangled with her panties. The day she disappeared, a pedophile named Mark Addison got a parking ticket in the same general area, around pretty much the same time. He had been convicted in 1994 of molesting his eight-year-old niece in Vienna, Virginia, and served only nine years of his sentence thanks to a Democratic governor. Steven Rosa had attached himself to the case only because of its high-profile nature: somehow it became a story of national interest.

  “You ain’t asking me if I had anything to do with it, right?”

  Steve shrugged. “I don’t know. It’s pretty odd, isn’t it?”

  Addison still didn’t move. “Look, I told you; I…I lost control when I saw the Anderson bitch. I dealt with it, you know? I told you it would never happen again, and it hasn’t.”

  “But it did.”

  “No! I swear!” Addison threw up his hands in a defensive gesture. “Look, I can prove I didn’t do it. Just call my boss, he’ll tell you. I was with him.”

  “I already have, Mark; he said you left for lunch that day and didn’t come back until the next morning. That girl was reported missing at six.”

  Addison, eyes suddenly clear, cold and reptilian, sighed. “What do you want, a bribe?”

  “No. I don’t do that anymore.” With that, he pulled out the pistol and emptied all six chambers into Mark Addison’s guts.

  The turnpike stretched into the night. Steve squinted and peered into the rain. How many more until he could sleep at night?

  Robert Horner, a small-time crook who stabbed an old lady during a mugging in 1995, lived in the tiny village of Raven's Mill, three hundred miles east, in the foothills of the West Virginian mountains. Steve figured he could be there by daybreak...

  Old Stony Bridge

  I’ve worked for the National Park Service for over fifteen years, and in my time I’ve seen some pretty strange things: weird footprints, ghostly lights, things in the night sky, Satanic altars hidden away in dark corners of the forest. None, however, top Old Stony Bridge.

  When I first started with the service, I was living and working in Oregon, south of Portland. A year later, however, I was given the opportunity to move east; there was a shortage of rangers in the nineties, and they were desperately needed in Virginia, West Virginia, and New York. I put in for a transfer to Upstate New York, but, unbeknownst to me, that position had already been filled. Within a week, I was offered a spot at Virginia’s George Washington National Forest.

  I initially passed, but, after talking to my parents, I decided to accept. In June 1999, I drove all my worldly possessions across the country in a rented U-Haul and moved into a tiny one-bedroom house in the rural highlands north of Harrisonburg; my nearest neighbors were three miles down the road, and they were a part of a large Mennonite community. The outskirts of Harrisonburg rose out of the pastureland less than ten miles away, but, sitting on my front porch that first night, exhausted from unpacking, I felt as though I were living on the frontier in the 1840s. Perhaps ten cars passed by on a busy day, and at night it was so quiet all you could hear were crickets and banjos.

  My first day on the job, however, more than made up for it; I’ve always been an outdoorsman, and the GW Forest was my paradise. Lush and green, the forest covers roughly 1.8 million acres across three states, with over a million of those acres completely undeveloped. A number of roads and trails, including part of the Blue Ridge Parkway, crisscrossed the woodland, but, for the most part, it was pure and unspoiled.

  My boss, Ted Houser, a plump man in his mid-fifties, made it a point to show me every square inch of land I’d have jurisdiction over, which amounted to nearly fifty thousand acres. It took us a while, but, in a topless Forestry jeep, we covered it all.

  There were signs of humanity here and there, of course, but they were few and far between; a dilapidated cabin here, an abandoned road there, that sort of thing. On the last day of the tour, deep in the heart of the forest, “Ten miles from civilization,” as Ted put it, we came across a cracked blacktop highway overgrown with weeds.

  “Old logging road,” Ted told me as we turned onto it and followed it, the treetops so close together overhead that hardly any sunlight filtered through. “Closed down back in 1946. No one uses it anymore. A lot of people get kinda spooked out here.”

  “Why?” I asked.

  Ted shrugged. “Kind of a spooky place, I guess. And Old Stony Bridge don’t help none.”

  “Old Stony Bridge?” I asked.

  “You’ll see.”

  Less than five minutes later, Ted took a little dirt road sloping off of the main track, and we followed that for about ten minutes, pressing deeper into the heart of the forest, before coming out on a wide, rocky flat that, I surmised, had once been a river.

  Ted killed the engine and looked at me. “I don’t believe in ghosts or curses or anything like that, okay? But Stony Bridge...man, I don’t know.”

  “What’s wrong with it?” I asked.

  Ted turned in his seat and pointed east, up the riverbank. There, obscured by overgrowth, was a stone bridge, perhaps a hundred-and-fifty feet high. “Watch.”

  I did. Two, three minutes ticked sluggishly by, and then, something fell from the bridge, turning end over end, before splattering on the rocks below.

  “What the hell was that?” I asked.

  “That was an animal,” he said, “I don’t know what kind yet, but it’s an animal, and it killed itself.

  I must have looked like as incredulous as I felt, because Ted got slightly defensive. “It happens all the time. I don’t know why. Animals just...jump off of it.”

  “Like...suicide?”

  Ted nodded. “Strangest thing too. I saw a fox do it once. Got up on the parapet and leapt. It hit the bottom but didn’t die. Got right back up, dragged his shattered body up the hill, and did it again.”

  “Really?”

  “I swear to God. I’m not playing.”

  I didn’t think he was.

  “Why?” I asked. “Why do they do it?”

  “No one knows. Some scientists were out here back in the eighties and said it could be some kind of scent drawing them, but why in the name of God would they jump off the bridge when they can go around? You know?”

  I looked up at the bridge. “How many?”

  “I don’t know. It’s a lot. I usually come out here two, three times a month and carry the bodies off. I’d say at least twenty, thirty a month. All kinds, too. Foxes, dogs, mice, even, deer, a few bears...weird stuff.�
�

  Maybe it was Ted’s story, but, suddenly, I could see why people shunned this place; the air was too cold, the light too dim, the atmosphere too dark.

  “Has a person ever jumped off?”

  Ted didn’t answer. He started up the Jeep. Neither of us spoke on the ride back. I almost asked again, but didn’t press the issue; his silence was answer enough.

  Over the next couple years, I never thought of the bridge until I had to go there and clean up all the bodies. Ted wasn’t lying. Thirty or thirty-five a month, never more than thirty-six and never less than twenty-eight. I hated those thrice-monthly excursions; not only was it hard work, but the place felt...evil, that’s the closest I can get. There was a thickness in the air. And every time I found myself out there, I felt like I was being watched by some creature in the brush. And every time, as I drove off, I felt stupid. I was acting like a superstitious peasant. There was a rational explanation. That might sound like a cliché, but it’s true. The unexplainable is only unexplainable until it is explained.

  Anyway, it was 2005. I did my body detail on the first, thirteenth, and twenty-fifth of every month. On the first of September, I came to work, grabbed the keys from the pegboard in the office, and went to take the Jeep, but Ted stopped me, calling out from his office, “Hey, Tim!”

  I backtracked and stuck my head in the door. “What’s up?”

  Ted’s office was cramped and disorganized. On any given day, it looked like a bomb had gone off in there. Today, he was hunched over his desk and furiously writing something, most likely an incident report, as a hiker had gone missing the previous day, spending ten hours lost in the woods before we found him.

  “If you give me a minute,” he said without looking up, “I’ll come with.”