Soulstice

by Simon Holt

  17

  Reggie was so sore and tired she didn’t want to get out of bed Sunday morning. Machen had driven around for an hour before dropping them off, quizzing Reggie on everything she knew about the Vours, how she’d gotten her abilities, what fearscapes were like, and tons of other questions, many of which Reggie had no clue about. He promised to report back to the Tracers and find out what he could about a Vour solstice plot.

  At noon Reggie went back to the hospital to see Eben, as she’d promised she would, but the doctors had put him on meds to make him sleep.

  “He had an epileptic fit this morning,” the nurse explained.

  “Is he going to be okay?” Reggie asked.

  “I can’t say, dear. But I’ll tell him you were here.”

  That afternoon, Reggie picked up the phone at least a half dozen times with the intent to call Aaron and tell him about Quinn. Keech was saved now; Aaron seemed to be recovering from his ordeal in prison. She shouldn’t keep such a secret from her best friend, her confidant, her partner in all this madness. But each time, she put the phone back into its cradle without dialing.

  What would she say to him? That she had already teamed up with the monster that had tried to kill him out on the lake, and could he suck it up and fall in line, thanks very much?

  There was something else. Reggie knew that Aaron would feel horribly betrayed, and rightfully so. He had always stood by her no matter what, and now she was deliberately keeping him in the dark. She sensed the threads of her life spiraling out of control, and guilt churned within her. She hadn’t meant for it to go this far. The anger, hurt, and jealousy Aaron would feel when he found out—would he forgive her for what she’d done? Would he lose sight of the big picture and go after Quinn? Start down a path that would undoubtedly lead to one of them ending up dead?

  “Are you actually going to call someone, or are you just doing random checks for a dial tone?” Dad asked, walking into the family room. “I paid the phone bill this month, I promise.”

  Reggie looked up, startled. She smiled weakly and stood up.

  “Oh, no, I was just thinking.”

  “What about?”

  “Just stuff.”

  Dad nodded grimly. “Not about disappearing Tuesday morning before we go to Thornwood, I hope.”

  “No, definitely not thinking about that. I’ll be here, Dad.”

  “Good. I think you’ll get a lot out of it, Reg. Dr. Unger is a good guy.”

  Or a sadistic fear monster, Reggie thought.

  Dad approached her curiously.

  “What is that?” he asked. “You have a mark on your face.”

  Reggie’s hand flew to her cheek. She’d forgotten all about the scar from the fearscape.

  “And your hand—and your arms! Reggie, where did these bruises come from?”

  “Oh, I—I fell. Off my bike. The roads were slick on my way back from the hospital—no biggie.”

  “Okay.” Dad looked doubtful. “You know I’d want you to tell me if something was really wrong. No matter what it is.”

  “I know,” Reggie replied.

  Monday was Aaron’s day off, so they spent the time researching the amygdala theory. Reggie had told him it was something she had been thinking about after studying for their biology final.

  “Ha. I knew you were shitting me on that whole ‘I don’t do science’ thing. This is genius!” Aaron leaped at the concept that Vours entered humans through their brains, as Reggie guessed he would, but by nightfall they had come up with nothing of particular use.

  Tuesday morning dawned sunny and humid, like the days before it. The drive to Thornwood was lined with pear trees in full bloom, leafy explosions of white petals against the backdrop of green horse pastures. Reggie, Dad, and Henry had not spoken since they’d all piled into the truck.

  Reggie expected a cheerless, clinical structure, all white walls and steel. So when they rounded the final bend in the road she was startled to see a beautiful white manor house surrounded by well-tended gardens and lawns. Other outbuildings, including a barn and stables, were scattered over the property. It all looked much more like a country inn than a psychiatric institution, and the idyllic setting only made Reggie that much more uneasy.

  Dad parked the truck, and Henry hopped out to lead the way through the front door into the lobby. They were asked to wait in a cozy den with overstuffed armchairs, candle sconces on the walls, and a fireplace. And when the nurse led them to Dr. Unger’s office, it was not down white, sterilized corridors, but rather a wood-paneled hall decorated with black and white photographs of local historical buildings. Reggie realized that, far from being a cold and sterile environment, Thornwood seemed like a comfortable and pleasant home, certainly not a bastion of demonic mad scientists.

  Dr. Unger sat behind a large oak desk in his office, an open and light-filled study lined with bookshelves and more photographs; toys, art supplies, and children’s furniture were in one corner of the room. Reggie had seen him the previous week when he had come to the elementary school, but she had not yet officially met him. He was an older man, with a mane of white hair and wire glasses through which peered twinkling blue eyes. He had ruddy cheeks and a hooked nose, and he stooped a little when he walked. He looked a bit like Santa in a white lab coat instead of red fur.

  He rose immediately as the Halloways entered and approached them warmly.

  “Thom, excellent. I’m so glad we could work this out. Good to see you again, Henry. And you must be Reggie.” He held out his hand toward her. “Charles Unger.”

  “Hello.” Reggie took his hand and shook it. She wondered, if he was a Vour, if she would feel something when she touched him, if there would be some sign, some spark, that would betray him. But she only felt an old man’s wrinkled and arthritic hand, only saw his kind eyes smiling at her, welcoming her.

  “Please, let’s all sit down,” he said, gesturing to the child-sized chairs.

  For the next hour, Unger facilitated a family session, and Reggie tried to answer his questions like a normal teen girl might. No, she wasn’t resentful of her father, but yes, she felt like he was out of touch with her needs. Yes, she was angry with her mother and maybe she transferred those emotions into bad behavior with her father and brother.

  All in all it was normal shrink stuff, but Reggie remained anxious; her mind darted to the possible horrors that were going on unseen in this facility.

  Finally Unger gently wrapped up their conversation and politely asked to have ten minutes alone with Dad.

  “And Reggie, I hope you found this session helpful. I think we’ll make excellent progress together.”

  “Yes, I do, too.”

  Reggie shook Unger’s hand, and she and Henry left the office. Unger shut the door behind them, leaving them out in the hallway.

  “Okay, Hen. Did you feel anything?”

  Henry shook his head.

  “No, nothing. I don’t think Dr. Unger is a Vour, Reg.”

  “You sure?”

  “I… I think so.”

  Reggie walked in the opposite direction of the waiting lounge.

  “Let’s check out the rest of this place.”

  They passed several closed doors, and Reggie had Henry stand close to each one, but he never felt the sensation he had the night Quinn was in their house.

  “What if someone catches us?”

  “We say we got lost.”

  The hall opened into an atrium, then led up a windy staircase. They found more offices on the second floor.

  “Anything?” Reggie asked hopefully.

  Henry shook his head.

  “I just feel normal.”

  Reggie sighed and looked at her watch.

  “Dad’s probably wondering where we are.”

  “I’m sorry, Reggie.”

  Reggie put her arm around her brother.

  “It’s not your fault. I guess I was wrong about this place.”

  She smiled at Henry as they went back downstairs becaus
e she didn’t want him to worry, but all she could think of were the four and a half days remaining before the solstice. If Thornwood was not the Vour headquarters, then where was it?

  By the time they got out to the car, thunderstorms had started again like so many of the previous days. Thornwood was in a low-lying area, and the driveway was almost completely washed out in the flash flood.

  “Looks like there’s a maintenance road that leads out the back through the woods,” said Dad. “The truck shouldn’t have any trouble.”

  They all packed in the truck and cut over to the access road. It wound through the dense woods, and the pattering of the raindrops on the windows lulled Reggie to sleep.

  Suddenly Henry reached out from the backseat and clutched her shoulder. She awoke and turned around.

  “I feel it,” he said, wide-eyed. “I feel chills.”

  “I’ll turn off the air, bud,” Dad said, reaching for the temperature control.

  Reggie nodded at Henry and tried to gauge their location. But they were in the middle of the woods, not near anything. Thornwood was at least a mile back. It was wilderness, but Reggie felt a twinge of terrible excitement.

  The Vours were out there.

  And she was getting closer.

  Aaron felt helpless.

  He had been studying Web sites for hours, as well as the occult books he had ordered, but nothing seemed helpful in his quest to learn more about Vours. Reggie was at Thornwood, and even though she had promised not to do anything rash, he was on edge. He had to do something, had to find something that would help them know what to do. There was only one other place he could think of that might provide the answers he needed, but it meant betraying a friend’s trust.

  Aaron slipped on his tennis shoes and dashed down the stairs, rolled his ten-speed out of the garage, and minutes later was coasting out of his neighborhood toward town.

  Downtown Cutter’s Wedge felt like a ghost town on the stifling summer afternoon after the torrential rain. Aaron noticed steam mirages on the asphalt as he pedaled up in front of Something Wicked and unlocked the door. He stashed his bike in the back room, then opened the cabinet where Eben kept all the store’s tax records and invoices. On the bottom shelf was a small safe.

  He had watched Eben open the safe many times, mostly to replace the petty cash the storekeeper kept there, and he was fairly certain of the combination. He wasn’t sure if Eben was aware he knew it; he himself had never supposed he’d conspire to open it. It took him a few tries, shifting the numbers one spot to the right or left, but eventually the lock clicked, and the safe door swung open.

  He removed the pouch of petty cash and receipts and set it aside. The safe’s contents included an antique watch that Aaron knew had belonged to Eben’s father, a set of house keys, and a single worn file folder.

  Aaron took out the keys, put the cash envelope back, and shut the safe door. With keys in hand, he walked up the steep flight of stairs in the back of the store that led to Eben’s apartment.

  Aaron took the steps slowly, fingering the silver keychain. He unlocked the deadbolt and the knob and opened the door. Its squeaky hinges were the apartment’s only alarm.

  He looked around Eben’s shabby but neat home. It smelled of old leather and used books, much like the shop below. Aaron had been here many times, but always as a guest when his boss was present. He knew Eben’s study was at the back of the apartment, so he went there first. He wasn’t exactly sure what he was looking for, but he was hoping that in his years as a Vour hunter, Eben had collected information that might help them now.

  Next to Eben’s desk and computer were rows of file cabinets. Aaron opened the first one; it was filled with manila file folders labeled alphabetically. Aaron pulled out one at the front of the cabinet, marked “Abel, Hiram,” and stamped “Closed Case.” He flipped through it.

  It was a dossier of sorts on this man Hiram Abel, documenting his life from age eight through forty-five. There were photographs, school reports from elementary through college, house titles, employment records from various traveling sales agencies, and several newspaper clippings with his name highlighted.

  Aaron skimmed the papers from all across the country; they were primarily reports of tragic suicides. In one a mother of four had drowned herself in a lake, in another a teenage boy had hanged himself from the high school flagpole. In every one, Hiram Abel had been interviewed as a witness, sometimes as a friend, sometimes as a neighbor, sometimes just as a passerby. The last article was from the Macon, Georgia Gazette, and it reported that a woman named Alma Abel had carved out her eyes with a steak knife and bled to death on her kitchen floor. She had been discovered by her nine-year-old son, Hiram. The article was dated March 5, 1883.

  Aaron grimaced; Abel must have been Vourized when he was a boy, and his first act had been to drive his mother to mutilation. The monster had gotten such a taste for it that he’d spent his adult life traveling the country, mentally terrorizing strangers until they’d killed themselves. This could have been the outcome if Reggie had not destroyed the Vour inside Henry.

  The latest article was from 1919, a blurb in a Pittsburgh newspaper reporting the disappearance of Hiram Abel and requesting anyone with knowledge of the incident to notify police. There was no information in the file dated after that, and Aaron guessed why. Abel had been one of Eben’s marks, and the Tracer had tracked him and killed him in 1919.

  But Eben had said he’d joined the Tracers when he was a teenager. Aaron did some quick calculations in his head: even if Eben had been only fifteen when he had killed Abel, that would make him over a hundred years old today.

  “You don’t keep small secrets, do you, Eb?” Aaron muttered to himself as he replaced the file and perused another.

  All of them contained details on various men and women throughout the previous century; some were marked with the “Closed Case” stamp and some weren’t. But from what Aaron could tell, Eben had indeed “liberated” hundreds of souls during his time as a Tracer.

  There was nothing, however, that could help Reggie and Aaron now. The files were more like criminal records than exhaustive research about the monsters, and nowhere could Aaron find anything about the solstices or a greater Vour collective. He closed the drawers and glanced around the rest of the room, satisfied that there was nothing else to find here.

  He next went to Eben’s bedroom. He had not been in here before, and the room was Spartan, with only a twin bed with a threadbare quilt, and a night table with a collection of twentieth century poetry on it. Aaron checked under the bed but found only Eben’s leather slippers. A door on the far side of the room led to a small walk-in closet where Eben’s tweed jackets and pressed trousers hung. Aaron was about to leave this room as well when he noticed a trunk shoved under the clothes.

  He heaved the trunk out into the bedroom. It was a heavy wood, and Aaron broke a sweat even though it was just a few feet. There was a latch on the top, but it was unlocked, and Aaron swung the lid open.

  The trunk was filled with weapons. There were a couple of shotguns and handguns, several knives of varying sizes, switchblades, boot daggers, even a large axe. Aaron picked through the armory, examining each piece with fascination. He supposed it made sense that Eben would have all this equipment stashed away, given what he’d spent his life doing. But now, seeing the gleaming steel of the blades, handling the barrels of the guns, the unbelievable became real.

  Eben—old, frail, loyal Eben—was a killer.

  Aaron gritted his teeth. He opened his backpack and began to fill it with a couple of the knives and daggers. He considered the guns, then packed the 9mm. As he was putting the rest of the weapons back in the trunk, he noticed a wrapped package at the very bottom. Inside were half a dozen sticks of C4.

  “Well, Eben, I’m glad you’re prepared for everything,” Aaron said as he stuck the explosives in his bag and zipped it shut. He dragged the trunk back into the closet and left the apartment, hoping he had left no obvious eviden
ce of his presence.

  At home, all Reggie could think of were those woods and what it meant that Henry had felt a weak presence. The rain had cleared, and the sun was going down. Reggie took off on her bike for the train trestle by the river.

  When she got there she saw evidence that Quinn was still using the place as a hideout, but there was no sign of him. She waited for ten minutes, but she wanted to be home before dark and she still didn’t know where he was. She found a piece of charred wood on the ground and left a note for Quinn written on one of the trestle’s cement pylons.

  Check out forest behind Thornwood.

  May be V’s new HQ.

  She just prayed it wouldn’t rain again before he got back.

  18

  Friday rolled around. June 20th. Reggie felt a heavy weight on her heart as she rose from bed. She had heard from neither Machen nor Quinn, and she knew nothing more about her enemies’ plots to derail humanity. The summer solstice was the next day. She felt like a failure.

  She and Aaron spent a couple hours at the local library, looking up county divisions, building permits, and land titles in the Thornwood area. They’d discovered that the hospital only owned a small portion of the land; the rest, some eighty acres of forest preserve, was was owned and managed by the state of Massachusetts.

  “We could take Henry to the governor’s mansion and see if he gets the heebie-jeebies,” said Aaron as they walked back to Reggie’s house in the afternoon. “My dad always said that guy looked shifty.”

  The TV’s pale flashing light illuminated her home’s living room window, and a single lamp shone up in Henry’s room. In the quiet summer evening, scattered fireflies blinked among the yard’s lengthening shadows. The world seemed calm and unaware of its impending doom, and Reggie had no idea what to do next. She wanted to contact Quinn, but after the motorcycle attack, he’d become a ghost again. She chuckled bitterly. Now, on the eve of the solstice, she was placing her hope in a Vour. Midsummer had already brought the world to madness.