The Deep Hours of the Night

by Jonathan Schlosser

  “You’re sick.”

  “But you’re jealous. I can see it.” Gerald’s eyes narrowed. “Come on, Sara. Convert. Let me remake you. Then you can get what you know you want.”

  Sara tipped her chin back. “You have no idea what I want.”

  “Of course I do; you asked for it.” With a flourish, Gerald waved a hand at himself. “You want me. And I’ll give it to you, as much as you desire. But you have to convert to what I am.”

  “I would never sleep with you.”

  Gerald chuckled. “I don’t think sleep was ever the issue.” He waved a hand at the fire, and it roared even stronger. “Look at the power I have over this world, Sara. I want to share that with you. Our offspring will be even more adapt, even more perfect for this world. Perfect enough to inherit it, to rule it.”

  “Get away from me.”

  “Fine. But you’ll be begging soon. Just wait until I decide to break more than your ankle.”

  Gerald retreated to the only other room the cabin held – his bedroom. He needed to rest after his excursions, to rest both his stolen body and whatever passed for his soul. Sara had discovered that fairly quickly, after seeing him leave the first time. That had been to kill some investigators working under the chief, he’d said, and that time he’d just left the body in one piece. He’d only started removing the head in order to unnerve her, to torture her. And, she suspected, just because he could.

  An hour slipped by as Gerald slept, and Sara spent it trying to undo the tape. She got nowhere but angry, and she tore one fingernail almost completely off before she gave up. The nail fell away, the size of a dime, leaving a stinging patch of cool flesh in its wake. She heard the flesh tear as it gave way, like thick, wet paper. Somehow she kept her cry of pain behind her lips.

  That straw proved the last. Slowly, gently, Sara began to wiggle her upper body forward. She wouldn’t need much room to do what she had in mind.

  Gerald couldn’t live forever; of that she was certain. In fact, guessing by his aging, he couldn’t hang on in this world much longer at all. He said he didn’t need the body – but if that were true, why did he keep using it at all? She set her jaw. No, he did need it. He was tethered to it, and that tether was also killing it. When it died, so would he. If she could get away from him, he wouldn’t have enough time left.

  The branch was behind her head, sharp as ever. With a little more room to swing her torso out and then slam it back, she figured she could drive that spike far enough into her brain to make any sort of breeding with the monster in the next room impossible.

  “Don’t even think about it, babe.” Gerald stood before her, a machete in his right hand. He raised it, letting the fire’s light glint off the blade. “How about I cut off your arms? How would you like that? Should hurt like nothing you’ve ever imagined; maybe it’ll even be enough to keep you from getting any more stupid ideas.”

  Sara watched Gerald’s eyes. A hard edge lined them; he would do what he threatened. She leaned forward as far as she could – not far enough, it felt, but it would have to do. She held for a second, unable to go through with it, then swallowed hard and swung her head back.

  Her skull connected with the beam with a snap that sent torrents of pain rushing down her neck. The world went completely white in a flash and then came back into focus. It looked like everything was underwater. She could see Gerald bringing the machete down, and realized in that moment that she’d missed. All this, and she’d missed the branch. She could feel a small river of fire where it had skimmed the side of her head, but she was as alive as ever.

  The machete connected with her shoulder, tearing through the tape as if it didn’t exist and continuing down through the flesh. Sara felt herself screaming, her cry ravaging the back of her throat, but found she still couldn’t hear anything. The machete caught on the bone, and Gerald pulled it out to hack down again. And again. On the fourth strike, her arm fell away.

  He’d been right – it was more pain than she’d ever cared to imagine. It felt like someone had doused her whole side in gasoline and tossed on a lit cigarette. The fingers of torment running from her shoulder cut into every portion of her body, leaving nothing untouched.

  She began to fall sideways. With the tape and her arm severed, nothing held her to the post. At least not there. The tape on her left held fast, acting like a hinge to fling her outward. Though red lined her vision, Sara saw Gerald step forward. He stood where she had a moment before, sideways and next to the beam, giving him the perfect angle to hack off her left arm as well.

  In a moment, Sara knew. She had one chance left to end it. If not, she’d be too weak to resist Gerald. And then all would be lost.

  Trying to fight back the pain, Sara shoved down on her good ankle. She pushed back, using the hinge to propel her around. Her spine collided with Gerald’s side, and his aged knees gave out. He fell toward the post, dropping as he went, and the broken stem of the branch plunged deep into his ear. She could hear the wet sound of it and a sharp crack as it broke off. His eyes went very wide, then slowly turn to glass. Blood trickling out of his ear, the corner of his mouth. Running down the side of his quivering neck.

  Then Sara fell, the tape ripping away from her body, and Gerald fell lifeless next to her.

  She was still alive. Sara dragged her damaged body toward the cabin’s door. The effort caused more pain, but she hardly noticed it now. She just knew she had to get help, had to get medical help before she lost much more blood. As she pushed the door open, however, and saw the storm falling on her with terrible beauty, that dream died as swiftly as Gerald a moment before.

  Goat Island was, after all, an island.

  Necessary Death

  1

  Willis poured two shots of whiskey into his coffee and sat down next to the body. The smell was horrible, and the dead man’s face had begun to turn a pallid shade of gray. Six days would do that to you. Willis sipped his drink and stared out the double windows in front of him.

  Windows were the only part of his house that provided light. The rising sun glared through like a police spotlight, orange and huge as it clawed its way up over the horizon. Willis squinted – at sixty-eight, his eyes weren’t what they used to be – but didn’t turn away from the show. It took that light to wake him up every morning.

  “No luck, Johnny-Boy?” Willis didn’t turn to look at the body as he spoke, but he could see the man – his ragged, unkempt beard, bushy eyebrows, and gaunt face – out of the corner of his eye. “I really had faith in you, you know? I thought you were the one.” Willis took another drink and licked his lips with an audible smack. “Thought you were the one.”

  He’d found Johnny at the bus stop, curled up on a bench with his hands clasping an empty bottle of gin. A bottle that hadn’t been empty long, judging from the smell of Johnny’s breath and the glassy look in his eyes. Willis had shaken him awake, appropriated the bottle, and made his proposal. Johnny had taken it up in a drunken stupor, though Willis figured he would have accepted just as quickly had he been stone cold sober. After all, Johnny had nothing else to do.

  Just write what I tell you, Willis had said. My hands shake too much, my eyes blur the letters on the page. I’ll dictate and you write. Just like the Romans and their scribes. And I’ll give you all the gin you can drink.

  Johnny hadn’t looked like much of a writer, but that had been just fine with Willis. Better, even. Willis picked up the remote from where he’d set it on Johnny’s knee the night before and flipped on the ancient television at the end of the living room. Luckily the room wasn’t that long, or he wouldn’t have been able to see it. The television came on with a small snap of electricity.

  “…traffic accident on the Montieth Overpass, on the outskirts of Gaviston,” the announcer said in monotone. “The bus, full of fifth-grade students, plummeted into the valley below…”

  Willis scowled. They were already dead; they wouldn’t do him any good.

  “…Meanwhile, a fire in Hale b
roke out and ravaged an apartment building…”

  At least you could count on the news services to report disasters. There had been a movement lately to bring out the more upbeat stories (to make the news more like the damned Reader's Digest, Willis thought). It hadn’t caught on yet, and Willis hoped it never did. Hearing about cats being rescued out of trees and Boy Scouts assisting old women across the road wouldn’t help him in the least.

  “…and, as our final story for the day, a young boy has gone missing in the forest north of Gaviston. He was last seen on a camping trip with his parents, David and Judith Breaston, but wandered off while they were taking photographs of Gearing Rock.” The screen switched from the greasy-haired newscaster to a grainy black-and-white of a smiling boy in a collared shirt. Willis took him to be about seven. “His name is Gage Alan Breaston, and he has now been missing for forty-seven hours. If you have any information regarding his whereabouts…”

  Willis sat back in the battered brown couch, sinking into the cushion. A grin played across his craggy features; skin pulled tight against his cheekbones. Gage Alan Breaston. A child. Of course.

  “Well, time’s up Johnny-Boy.” Willis reached over and patted the dead man’s cheek; the cold flesh felt like a sponge. “Thanks for the effort, anyway.” He finished his coffee and whiskey in one gulp and stared at the rising sun.

  2

  He buried Johnny in the backyard. His house, though technically boasting a Gaviston mailing address, could hardly be said to be within the city limits. His nearest neighbors – Robert and Deny Warton – lived almost a half a mile away, and acres of pine and cedar trees covered the distance. The Bristol River split the two properties on its way to Chelson Bay – though that bay sat a few hours’ drive away on the coast of the big lake. And even if the Wartons decided to make the drive over, his two-story house blocked the view from the long, winding driveway.

  Digging the shallow grave took three hours and all of the energy that Willis had. He took breaks every half an hour, punctuating them with more whiskey and coffee or with water, depending how he felt. As the day drew on and the August sun became hot, he more frequently turned to water. When he finally got the hole finished, he dragged Johnny outside. The man hadn’t weighed much before and weighed even less now, but the task still proved difficult. Johnny’s limbs thumped against the wooden steps as Willis dragged him down. Willis pulled him across the yard (one shoe fell off, revealing twisted, yellowed toenails) and dumped him on his face in the hole. He then pushed the loose dirt back over the top, patted it down, and went inside to take a nap.

  3

  He woke up four hours later, feeling much better. The smell of rotting flesh had somewhat left the living room, and he made a ham and cheese sandwich. He ate it at the small kitchen table, reading a newspaper without turning on the lights. It wasn’t that he couldn’t turn them on, just that he didn’t.

  Gage Alan Breaston had made the paper as well as the news. He was eight, a student at Gaviston Elementary, and apparently very bright. His parents were distraught over his loss (no surprise there) and begging for anyone to help them find their son. The police had been combing the forest around Gearing Rock with no success and few leads.

  Willis looked up at the clock that hung over his kitchen with a scowl. His nap had cost him precious time; it was now just after two o’clock in the afternoon. Not too late to find the Breaston boy, not considering the way Willis knew the backcountry around Gaviston, but too late for anything to go wrong, lest he give the police a chance to find Gage first. Then Willis would have to start all over from scratch. He didn’t want that at all.

  His scowl turned to a grin that only tugged at one side of his upper lip. “But you do,” he whispered, looking from the clock to the shadows deeper within the house. “You want that more than anything, don’t you?”

  A slight hiss answered him. Anyone else would have assumed it to be the breeze, maybe a draft. Only Willis knew the truth.

  4

  Gearing Rock had been named for the Englishman Travis Gearing, one of the first settlers to the area over two hundred years previous. He hadn’t done much more than establish the little trapping and logging settlement that had evolved into the town of Gaviston, and even that had been no feat to boast of. Gaviston had remained an insignificant town as long as Gearing had lived, emerging only later when the farming community began to encroach on the surrounding land.

  As Willis leaned against the rock, panting and relishing the shadow, he wondered what its significance had been. Perhaps the Gearing homestead had been nearby. Perhaps the ruins still were, or the graves. He chuckled under his breath. Not that he needed any more graves in his life. Except for two, of course, and he figured he still had a few years left in him.

  “Gage Alan Breaston, where have you gone?” Willis knelt, wincing as his knees popped. He’d been here as a boy more times than he could remember, but never had the trip been as hard. He pulled a flask from his hip pocket, took a drink, and felt the fire burn down his throat. “Where have you gone?”

  The forest had been more entertainment than anything as Willis grew up. He looked out through the trees and underbrush, remembering hours of hiking through those same woods, searching for hideouts or running down rabbits and pheasants with a twenty-gauge. He still remembered every inch of the land; his eyes might be going, but his memory was not. The Bristol wound through like a serpent half a mile west; a bog lay in the opposite direction. He swallowed hard, stood, and headed for the river. He could hear it crashing along, ice-cold water churned white over the rocks.

  He’d camped along the banks at least thirty times a summer, often with other boys his age. Mac Johnson and Billy Tennison, mostly. Sometimes Fritz Gordon, but no one liked him; he wet the bed even at thirteen and had a tendency to chicken out and run for home as the sun went down. Still, Willis knew the lure of the river. And if it had appealed to him as a boy, he would have put money on its appealing to Gage Alan Breaston.

  A good deal of money.

  As he walked along at his slow, laborious pace, his mind drifted. The summers had been carefree and fun. Until July of ‘45, the that summer childhood as he knew it had ended.

  He’d been fourteen, the oldest out of his group of friends (that group being dictated by proximity in the rural community rather than any active choice on his part) and the self-proclaimed ringleader. School had ended in June as it always did, and the first month had been spent running amuck with the joy of freedom. The Fourth had come and passed with fireworks and barbecues, and life could not have been better. Willis’s one complaint had been his brother, Danny, all of eight years old and eager to tag along with his older sibling on every mission and adventure he could. Willis’s parents both worked, sticking Willis with the occupation of babysitter more times than he cared for.

  July twenty-ninth had started out just like any other camping trip on the Bristol. They’d packed plenty of sandwiches, matches, marshmallows, and sleeping bags. The bags were heavy and awkward to carry, but necessary if the nights got cold. Danny had begged to come along, something Willis couldn’t get out of – seeing as how his parents were both on night shifts (his father as a cop and his mother at Rabner Hospital as a receptionist) and they’d told him to take care of Danny. The group set out at eight o’clock, late by their standards, and got to the Bristol as the shadows grew long.

  What happened then had happened so quickly Willis couldn’t even remember the rest of the trip. He knew they’d been there long enough to set down their gear – he could still picture himself, standing near the trees as he watched Danny fall, empty-handed – but not long enough even to build a fire for the marshmallows.

  Willis reached the Bristol and stopped at the treeline. He could hear the river but not see it. The embankment before him dropped away at a ninety degree angle, descending ten feet or so before hitting the water. Willis made his way over to the bank, lowered himself to one knee, and leaned over the edge.

  It looked exactly l
ike he remembered it. A trail of sand ran along the edge of the river, cut through with clay and gravel. Thin bushes struggled to grow out of the side of the bank. And there, alone and taunting, stood a looming boulder. The gray surface shot through with black and shadows. So large it looked unreal. Taller than he stood now and twice the height Danny had been that day, all those years ago. Nestled around its base were smaller stones, half submerged in the clay and the mud. One of them stained red from the iron in the water.

  How Danny had tripped and fallen, Willis figured he would never know. Willis had heard the yelp of fright and turned in time to see his brother’s arms pinwheel as he plummeted over the side. Danny’s eyes had been as huge as the rising moon, and he’d locked gazes with Willis for a split second before he dropped out of sight.

  On the Fourth of July, Willis had been carrying a watermelon out back to give to his mother. He’d tripped on his own shoelace, which he’d neglected to tie, and the watermelon had lurched out of his hands. It spun in slow motion and then smashed down on the sidewalk with a sickening crunch.

  The sound of Danny’s head hitting the stones had been exactly the same as that watermelon hitting the sidewalk.

  Willis had carried him home in sheer terror, trying to stop the bleeding with his shirt. Danny had been breathing – shallow, wheezing breaths that sounded as if they were being drawn through a straw. He stayed conscious, a curse from whatever gods there were, but only spoke in broken sentences that alluded to pain and little else.

  No one had been home; Mac and Billy had made excuses and run off as soon as they could, their eyes wild. Willis had carried Danny upstairs and laid him on his bed, sobbing, with no idea what else to do. By the time he’d remembered to call the police, Danny’s breathing had stopped.