by James Newman
They named the child Christopher James, and he was perfect.
Perfect.
Both Kate and baby Christopher came through the whole thing wonderfully, and though the infant was a tad small considering the circumstances—five pounds, eight ounces and 19.5 inches, not unexpected for an infant born a few weeks early—Dr. Bullard assured the Littles that everything was “as fine as fine could be.”
But most important of all, perhaps—at least for David—their questions were finally answered.
They knew the first time they saw the child, as soon as the umbilical cord had been snipped and Dr. Bullard placed the infant upon Kate’s chest, the moment that purple, pinched little face stared up at them both with those wide, ocean-blue eyes.
Any fool could see: those were David’s eyes.
David dropped to his knees right there in the delivery room, on its cold, blood-specked floor. He clasped his hands, and pressed them to his forehead, softly whimpering his gratitude toward God.
He was Christopher’s father.
He knew it at last.
Christopher James was his son.
CHAPTER 34
David stood by Kate’s bed, staring proudly at their new son as she breastfed little Christopher for the first time, when a young nurse they had not seen before opened the door to Kate’s room. SANDRA C. read the hospital ID card clipped to her uniform.
“Knock, knock,” said the nurse.
David turned to her. “Yes?”
“Mr. and Mrs. Little? Please pardon my intrusion. You have a call on line one-oh-one, Mr. Little. Says it’s urgent.”
“Oh,” David said. He looked at Kate, frowned. He walked toward the nurse, preparing to leave the room. “I hope everything’s okay—”
“You’re welcome to take it in your room, if you’d like,” the nurse offered. “Just dial one-oh-one.”
“Oh, okay,” David said, sounding dazed. He reached for the phone by Kate’s bed. “Thank you.”
“Don’t mention it.” The nurse exited then, smiling over her shoulder toward Kate and the baby as she closed the door behind her.
David picked up the beige phone beside Kate’s bed, punched 1-0-1 on the number pad.
“David Little speaking.”
“David,” said the voice on the other end. “It’s Joel.”
“Joel!” David said. “Hey, buddy. I was gonna call you soon, tell you the good news. Everything’s been very hectic, you know.”
“I understand,” said Joel. “So are you gonna tell me already? What’s the good word?”
“Well, Uncle Joel, you have a beautiful nephew by the name of Christopher James.”
“Fantastic! I’ll bet he’s perfect.”
“Oh, he is. Wait till you see him, man. Five pounds, eight ounces. Nineteen and half inches.”
“That’s great, David. I’m so happy for you two.”
“Thanks. You’ll see him soon.”
“I can’t wait.”
“Anyway, what’s up? Lady who gave me the message said it was urgent.”
Joel cleared his throat. “Yeah. I’ve got a problem. I hate to do this to you, David, but I don’t have a choice.”
“What is it?”
“There’s been an accident out near the old Heller Home property. I have to take it.”
“Ah, shit.”
“I’m sorry, man. I feel terrible. I told you guys I would watch Becca, and now this.”
“Nah,” David said. “It’s your job. You gotta do what you gotta do.”
“Well, what do you suggest we do? Should I drop Becca off on the way?”
“No, no,” David said. “You don’t have to do that. Kate’s fine, the baby’s fine. He’s eating. I’ll come pick Becca up.”
“Are you sure?”
“Absolutely. It’s not a problem at all.”
“Hey, man—I really appreciate it. And again, I apologize.”
“Just sit tight. I’ll be there in about twenty minutes, okay?”
“Okay,” Joel said. “Thanks, David.”
David hung up, turned to Kate. He offered her a reassuring smile as he pulled on his jacket and reached into his pocket for his keys.
“Everything okay?” Kate asked, as the baby’s mouth made gentle sucking noises upon her right nipple.
“Joel has to respond to a call,” David said. “There’s been a bad wreck near where that children’s hospital used to be.”
“Oh, no. There’s never a dull moment out at that place, is there?”
“Apparently not.” He kissed her on the forehead, did the same to his son. “I’m going to pick up Becca. Shouldn’t take more than a few minutes.”
“Hurry back, Daddy.” Kate’s proud grin stretched from ear to ear as she gazed down at baby Christopher.
“Count on it,” David replied.
CHAPTER 35
Joel wasn’t sure what to do. He paced back and forth on the Littles’ front porch, peering down Honeysuckle Lane for the sight of David’s 4Runner.
Still nothing. It had been over thirty minutes since he had spoken to his brother-in-law on the phone, and he had to go. Soon. His job depended on it.
Once, he saw headlights and began to descend the porch steps before he realized the vehicle in question was a Chevy pickup. A very loud, ugly Chevy pickup. Someone turning around in the cul-de-sac, that was all.
No 4Runner. No David. Not yet.
Joel shot one more glance down the road before heading for his Mustang at the curb.
He figured he would wait in the car. No harm. He’d keep an eye on the house, but the second David arrived he would take off.
Surely he’d be here any second.
CHAPTER 36
Fred Dawson smirked as he watched the little faggot prance across the lawn to that fancy Mustang of his, start it up. He had seen Joel Rohrig around town, and knew all about him. Maybe he kept it well hidden from the rest of the world, but Fred Dawson could smell a cocksucker a mile away.
From his vantage point in the bushes between the Little house and George Heatherly’s yard, Fred wondered why he had waited. He could have taken the fairy down. Rohrig was half his size, and with those limp wrists he probably fought like a woman, too.
Oh, well. That hadn’t been the plan. To bring unnecessary attention to himself, Fred knew, would ruin the whole thing.
Fred tipped back his fat bottle of Pepe Lopez tequila, finished the last few swallows in one loud gulp. It no longer burned going down these days. It was like liquid ecstasy. Fred moaned, gave a satisfied smack of his lips, and tossed the bottle into the yard behind him.
He knew what he was doing was wrong. Sneaking around in the middle of the night, watching a little girl through her bedroom window like some sicko pedophile.
But this wasn’t like that. Not at all.
Fred Dawson assured himself for the umpteenth time since he first started watching the Little house a couple weeks ago that he wasn’t no fuckin’ pervert. He had no desire to touch the little girl.
The kid wasn’t for him anyway.
Fred wasn’t doing this for himself.
He was doing it because he had to. He was doing it for the old guy with the really long beard.
The nightmares had grown worse since that day at the mall when Fred lost his job because of that little bitch and her bastard father. He still couldn’t believe that motherfucker had the nerve to punch him! Oh, if he’d been sober, if he’d been just ten years younger, he would have shown him who was the better man. He had just been talking to the kid, hadn’t even known yet that the man with the beard had plans for her. If the kid’s fuckin’ father hadn’t caused such a scene, Fred’s boss wouldn’t have known he’d been drinking, and wouldn’t have fired him on the spot.
The child had been right there, in his grasp, and he had blown it.
But that was okay. Because Fred hadn’t known back then what was expected of him.
Finally, just a couple days ago, the old man in his dreams had told him w
hat to do. And now that Fred knew, he would obey.
As he stared at his own sweaty, trembling hands in the darkness, Fred tried to remember the last time he’d felt normal. Sometime before his son’s death, for sure.
Oh, well. What had to be done had to be done. What was that saying he’d heard a few times, usually from his friends at the bar?
“It isn’t paranoia when they’re really out to get you,” Fred said aloud to the night’s growing breeze.
He chuckled nervously as he shambled toward the Little house.
Toward the child inside.
The first really bad nightmare came just a couple days after the Santa fiasco at the mall. But even that had been only a start of the surreal dreamscape which had become Fred Dawson’s dark reality. Oh, the things Fred saw when he lay down to sleep at night. And his growing habit of driving out to the old Heller place more and more frequently didn’t help matters. He’d drive out there to the ruins against his better judgment, and he would just sit for hours in his truck, sipping at a can of Milwaukee’s Best, watching the breeze stir up the ashes, listening to the weeds whisper his name. Sometimes he would sit there well past sundown, thinking about the things that lurked out there. Wondering what had killed his son.
Hallucinations, that quack Dr. Whitman would’ve called the things Fred saw not only when he slept but also in broad daylight. You need to quit drinking, Mr. Dawson, that holier-than-thou sonofabitch said the last time Fred kept one of his appointments, before it kills you once and for all. Remind me sometime, I’ll take you down to the County Morgue, show you what your liver’s gonna look like one day. Heck, what it probably looks like now.
Fuck that self-righteous prick. Dr. Whitman didn’t know what it was like to lose a son. He didn’t know what it was like to feel...things all around you, every second of the day. To hear them hissing in your ear, crawling across your skin, telling you what to do. You couldn’t understand their arcane language, though you knew what they wanted all the same.
Fred couldn’t forget the things Mr. Moloch had showed him even if he tried. The visions he displayed before Fred’s terrified, bloodshot eyes as he peeled back that filthy curtain of beard and the darkness came out to play. Fred didn’t like to think about that, though he couldn’t deny the other things he had seen in there. Inside the gray man’s beard, there also lived a world of good. Beautiful things, miraculous things man was not meant to see, but only because God was so fucking selfish He wanted to keep all those secrets to Himself. How fair was that? So much more in there, so much goodness beyond this hateful world, beyond that awful darkness. It was breathtaking.
Once, Fred even caught a glimpse of Billy in there. Precious Billy, waiting. Waiting for Daddy to save him.
“Please help me, Daddy,” Billy had said as Fred stared into the swirling eternity of the old man’s matted beard. Fred had known right then, recognized the opportunity clearer than anything he had ever seen in his life, that this Moloch dude had given him one last chance to make right again everything he had fucked up.
First things first, though.
Moloch wanted the little girl.
Fred licked his lips. God, how he needed another fuckin’ beer. Shot of booze. Something. He couldn’t function without it.
But he had to go on, he knew.
It was his destiny.
To take the child.
Tonight.
Now, here she was. Through the window. Sleeping. Such a precious little angel. Golden curls spread out on her pillow, tiny nightgown with the puppy-dog paw-prints all over it hitched up above her ass so Fred could see a hint of soft pink panties.
This wasn’t right. It wasn’t.
Fred Dawson swallowed loudly in the night, ignored his conscience as best he could. He had no choice in the matter, goddammit. This had to be done. Mr. Moloch commanded it.
He stared at the moon for several long minutes before opening the little girl’s window.
Wouldn’t be long now.
Soon, Moloch would have the brat. He could take her away, to the Land of Tears or wherever the hell he said he was from...
And then, even if Billy did not come back to him, maybe that old bastard would get out of his head once and for all.
CHAPTER 37
David parked the 4Runner alongside the curb, flinched when Joel appeared beside him in the Mustang before the vehicle had rolled to a complete stop.
“Thanks for coming, man,” Joel said through the open passenger side window. “I’m sorry to run off like this, after I promised I’d watch Becca for you.”
David shook his head as he climbed out of the 4Runner. “It’s not a problem at all. You have a job to do.”
“Mommy and Christopher are doing well?”
“They’re doing great. Now get to work. I’ll take it from here.”
“Thanks, David. I’ll talk to you guys later, okay?”
David threw up one hand as he headed across the lawn toward home.
Joel took off with a short, sharp squeal of tires.
At first, David thought Becca might have merely gotten up in the middle of the night to use the bathroom.
But then he saw the open window.
And he heard his daughter’s scream.
“Becca...?”
She had only been alone for a minute or so at the very most, hadn’t she?
He turned on the light.
“Jesus...Becca!”
She was gone.
His little girl was gone.
He ran to the open window.
His breath caught in his throat when he saw the scene in his back yard.
“Becca!”
CHAPTER 38
Joel turned down the Mustang’s radio as he pulled off of Pellham Road and onto the property where Heller Home once stood. Instantly his senses were assaulted by the sights and sounds of an accident across the meadow: swirling emergency lights, the smell of burnt rubber, the shouts of bustling police and rescue squad personnel. In the foreground, all about the scorched perimeter of Heller Home, the dozens of white crosses seemed to triple in number, their gaunt black shadows stretching across the meadow beneath the frantic emergency strobes. This despite the fact that most of them had been destroyed in the accident, and now those former rows of crosses looked like crooked, gapped teeth against the thick black night behind them.
Nothing could have prepared Joel for the hot rush of terror that shot through his body like a shock of electricity as his eyes fell upon the car in the heart of the chaos.
“Oh, God,” he cried, throwing open the Mustang’s door. “No!”
It was his lover’s Dodge Charger, out there in the meadow. Black and maroon, so sleek and shark-like when it had prowled Morganville’s streets, now crumpled against that oak tree like some cheap plastic toy fallen prey to a spoiled toddler’s tantrum.
Nonononono. This couldn’t be. This wasn’t right.
Michael. Out there. Lying half in and half out of the Charger. Joel took it all in, unable to believe his eyes. His knees grew weak.
Jesus. So much blood. All over him. Michael looked like he’d taken a bath in the stuff. Even from where he stood, still a hundred feet or so from the scene, Joel could see the blood splashed everywhere. On the interior of Michael’s car. In the weeds. A grisly swath of it led away from the car and off into the woods like a trail left by some monstrous crimson snail.
“Michael! Michael...no!”
In the state of mind he was in, Joel did not consider for even a second how the other men on the scene might view his reaction. He did not care, at the moment, whether Sheriff Guice and his deputies knew of his love for the man who lay in the Charger. He had never been sure if they were aware of his “alternative lifestyle”, but none of that mattered now as he ran toward the men he loved, his eyes burning with salty tears. He wanted to hold Michael, to know his boyfriend was okay despite the ragged red-black hole that gaped open in his groin.
“Jesus...God...what happened?” Joel cried.
“Joel,” Guice said. “Hey—”
“Oh, G-God...what happened to him?”
“You knew this guy?” Guice asked, moving toward Joel.
“I can’t handle this right now,” Joel wept. “I can’t...”
Joel fell to his knees then, could do nothing else but collapse onto Michael’s corpse even as Guice and Keenan tried to pull him off. He held Michael, ignoring the steady dripping which came from his boyfriend’s body as he held it close, ignoring the cloying copper-smell of freshly-spilled blood which seemed to coat not only his nostrils but the inside of his mouth as well. He raised his head toward the heavens, sobbing uncontrollably.
“Here, here,” said Sheriff Guice.
“I loved him,” Joel said, tears streaming down his face. “Oh, God, Michael, I’m so sorry...”
“Joel?” Deputy Keenan called to him.
“Leave him alone,” Joel said. He kissed Michael’s still-warm forehead, started rocking the corpse in his arms. “Oh, God, Michael. What happened to you, why...?”
Guice and Keenan stared at one another, until finally Guice looked away. Understanding now. It all made sense.
“Oh,” Keenan grunted. “I get it.”
“Joel, come on,” said the sheriff, but for several minutes his gentle reassurances and comforting touches were ignored.
Joel just kept kissing the dead man’s head, oblivious to everything else around him.
CHAPTER 39
“Hey!” David shouted at the man in the filthy Santa suit. He was running through George Heatherly’s yard with the little girl tucked under one arm. Becca fought him all the way, kicking and punching and screaming, but the man did not seem fazed by her struggling.
