by Anne Frasier
He went out on the roof of the museum and lit up.
The sky was clear and the moon was full. And the pot was new and potent as hell. Damn. After a few hits he started feeling almost too fucked-up. If there was such a thing. He put out the joint, tucked it into a little plastic film canister, and slipped the canister into his pocket.
Whoa. Had to sit down. Had to lie down.
He sprawled out on his back on the tar-and-pea-gravel roof.
The stars above his head swirled.
He put on his headphones and turned on his iPod. Tunes. The tunes would stabilize him.
He lost track of time.
Maybe he’d been there three minutes or three hours.
He checked the luminescent dial on his watch, but immediately forgot what it said.
Gotta go clean the museum. Gotta go get stuff done.
He shoved himself to his feet and went back inside. Instead of using the stairs, he took the service elevator down to the basement level, where he’d left his supplies.
He dug out his insulated lunch bag and began eating everything in it.
Maybe if he ate enough he’d come down.
Pretty soon his chicken sandwich was gone. The chips were gone. His diet soda was gone, along with a giant peanut-butter cookie he’d picked up at the gas station near his house. Now he was stuffed, stoned, but still thinking about food.
Something chocolate would be nice. . . .
He pulled out his duty list.
Buff the floors.
Shit. He didn’t feel like doing that. It was hard enough when he was straight. The buffer had a mind of its own, and sometimes it got away from him. He’d do it tomorrow. Maybe he’d just drag the dry mop across the floors tonight.
That’s what he did.
And became absorbed in the rhythmic pattern of the red mop sliding across the maple floor, the contrast of deep red against the pale wood, the way the handle’s shadow shifted from right to left as he swept, stark and sharp.
The shadow vanished.
Had a bulb gone out? Then he realized something was blocking the light. His own body?
With mop handle in hand, he shifted slightly.
Nothing changed.
Something wrong.
Something very wrong.
And yet he didn’t want to turn and look behind him. If somebody was back there he didn’t want him to know he was onto him.
He casually shut off his iPod. Then sweep, sweep, sweep.
Turn and look.
Nothing.
Nobody.
He swung back around. Something still blocked the light.
He wanted to run. He wanted to get the hell out of there. Instead, he forced himself to walk around.
He checked the restrooms. He checked the storage closet. The last place he looked was the new room.
He let out a gasp and dropped the mop. He took two steps back, his mouth hanging open. Son of a bitch.
Gloria Raymond woke up, tossed back the covers, and got out of bed. Without putting on shoes or a coat, without pulling up her hair or even covering it with a hat, she walked out the front door, then down the sidewalk to the center of the street.
A mile took her through the park and through vacant lots and woodland, across railroads tracks and broken glass. Feeling no pain, her feet cut and bleeding enough to leave footprints, she walked to the levee and climbed the chain-link fence that had been put up last year when a three-year-old had drowned. Her pink cotton nightgown snagged and ripped as she dropped to the other side.
Even though she would be seventy-five next month, she jumped nimbly to the bobbing dock and walked to the end that jutted out into the Wisconsin River.
The moon reflected off the surface.
A full moon, round like a face. The water rippled, creating a pretty, repeating design that was mesmerizing.
Under the surface of the water Gloria saw her husband smiling up at her, his eyes wide open. He reached for her hand, and she reached back. . . .
Evan followed the skin to Old Tuonela, where crumbling buildings had been reclaimed by nature. The skin collapsed in a dark corner near a stone wall.
Evan finally understood.
He jabbed the shovel in the ground and began digging.
Rachel couldn’t sleep.
She kept dreaming that someone was in her apartment. She would awaken with a jolt, lie there and listen to the ticking clock, then go back to sleep, only to have it happen again. The dream itself was so real that even after waking up she felt a presence and imagined the sound of breathing coming from nearby.
Earlier in the day the mayor had sent a crew over to unload the moving truck. Within an hour of their arrival her apartment was almost back to the way it had been before she’d tried to get the hell out of Dodge. They’d even put the dishes in the cupboard and returned books to the bookshelves. Boxes that had taken her weeks to pack were unpacked, broken down, and waiting to be picked up by Recycling.
Erase and rewind.
Part of her was shocked that she’d given in so easily. That same part wanted to call a cab and head for the nearest airport, get on a plane, and that would be that. Job done. Because once she had some physical distance between herself and Tuonela, the pull wouldn’t be as strong. She knew that from experience. Close proximity brought about confusion and mental chaos.
But there was another part of her that was almost smug about the way things had turned out. Maybe she could have a better life somewhere else, but this was where she belonged. All roads led back.
She drifted off to sleep again.
Tossing and turning, she began to dream of food. That dream mingled with the dream about the man in the house, and then it shifted to the skinned body in the basement morgue, then back to food.
There was nothing to eat in her apartment.
She got up, slipped on a pair of jeans and a jacket, and drove to a twenty-four-hour grocery store in a strip mall on the edge of town.
The streets were deserted, and the moon created deep shadows that moved and lingered in her peripheral vision. She heard faint voices and checked to see if the radio was on.
No.
She listened intently.
The van’s engine, along with the tires singing over pavement, sounded like voices. Or maybe it was the wind, which let out a whistle whenever it hit the driver’s window just right. Or maybe it was the whisper of leaves as they marched through intersections. . . .
The parking lot was empty; she pulled into a spot near the entrance.
Automatic doors and metal railings.
Inside, fluorescent lights were a blinding assault.
“Looking for something in particular?”
She was startled to find herself staring at the meat cooler.
Somehow she’d traversed the length of the store.
With no memory of the brief journey, she looked up at the stock boy. “Just browsing.”
Anything that happened in the middle of the night took on a strange quality. Had she been asleep? Had she driven here in some dreamlike state? Humans weren’t nocturnal. Humans weren’t supposed to be awake after the sun went down.
She caught a distorted glimpse of herself in the chrome trim of the meat case. Ashen skin and dark-circled eyes.
The stock boy left and she glanced back down at the meat—and began to salivate. She grabbed both pint containers and flat trays, and carried them to the checkout counter.
Why couldn’t she crave pickles and ice cream, like most pregnant women?
The clerk commented on her purchases as she scanned. “You must be doing the raw diet. I started my dogs on that three months ago, and you should see them now. They have the shiniest coats and brightest eyes. Course, I’m going broke feeding them.” She rattled off the amount due. “What kind of dog do you have?”
Rachel looked up from staring at a pool of blood that had leaked onto the conveyor belt. “What?”
“Dog. What kind of dog?”
“Oh.” She
fished out her credit card and handed it to the woman. “A mutt.” She couldn’t believe she was lying about having a dog. “He has some shepherd in him. Maybe some collie.” She didn’t want to tell the woman the meat was all for her.
The woman slid the card through the reader and passed it back. “Mutts are good. When you get special breeds you can run into all sorts of trouble. Blindness, hip problems. And you’re supposed to kill them if they have a defect. I can’t imagine doing that.”
“That would be awful,” Rachel agreed, unable to fully concentrate on the conversation.
The woman double-bagged the dripping meat and handed the plastic bags to Rachel. “Wait.” She ducked and produced a dog biscuit from under the cash register. “I keep them there for working dogs, but give your guy a treat from me when you get home.” The automatic door banged. Both women turned, but no one was there.
“The wind is crazy tonight,” the clerk said. “And every time I turn on the vacuum, I think I hear a buncha people talking.”
Rachel remembered the radio—or what she’d thought had been the radio.
On the way back to the morgue, she could smell the rich scent of blood. She drove too fast, but the streets were deserted.
Lights continued to control intersections, even though there was no traffic. Impatient, she gunned the van and ran a red light. She listened for a siren, and watched the rearview mirror for police.
Nothing.
At home she got out a frying pan and put it over a flame on the gas stove. Then she pulled the lid from one of the plastic containers. With a fork, she lifted out a piece of liver that unfolded until it was twelve inches long and six inches wide.
It sizzled when it hit the pan.
She picked up the container and carried it to the sink. She started to dump the contents, paused, then lifted the plastic tub to her mouth—and drank the blood.
She used to get out-of-control chocolate cravings before her period. One candy bar or brownie was never enough. This was like that, multiplied by a thousand. Once she tasted the salty richness of the blood, she had to have more.
She shut off the flame under the pan and slipped the still-raw liver onto a plate. She cut a piece and took a bite. It was rubbery, but the chill of refrigeration had been seared away. She chewed and swallowed. Unsated, she picked up the liver with her bare hands.
Evan’s shovel hit something hard. Probably a rock. He brought the lantern closer and scraped loose dirt away.
A skull, crushed by the impact of the shovel blade. He continued more carefully, uncovering the rest of the body. That was followed by another skeleton, this one smaller.
He’d found a mass grave.
Rachel slept, her mind full of strange dreams that were mixed with combined images of the Pale Immortal. She awoke confused, her body humming from a touch that seemed as real as the room and the bed.
It had to be the pregnancy.
Her nightgown was soaked with sweat. Tendrils of damp hair clung to her neck. The bedsheets were twisted and soaked.
She turned on a night-light and removed the damp gown, dropping it to the floor near her bare feet. From a drawer she grabbed a large T-shirt and tugged it over her head, then reached under her arms for the hem, looked down, and let out a gasp.
On her stomach were two red areas of discoloration that looked like handprints. As she watched, the imprints faded until they were gone.
Chapter Ten
Alastair was drunk.
Not proud of himself for that. He’d had a drinking problem that had started shortly after Evan’s illness had manifested itself, but he’d finally pulled himself together and gotten the problem under control. Now he was afraid he’d opened the floodgate. But his drinking was the least of his worries. There was something going on, something that seemed to have started about the time the body of the Pale Immortal had been moved from a secret location to the museum. It could be argued that it had really started months ago, with a gang of kids and one crazy guy who thought he was the reincarnation of the Pale Immortal. Or some might even argue that it had started a hundred years ago.
Alastair’s phone rang.
Let it go.
He wasn’t going to answer it, but then he remembered he was chief of police, and if he didn’t answer it somebody would probably start pounding on his door. He sure as hell didn’t want that to happen.
Reports coming in of sightings, he was told. Not UFO sightings, but people claiming to have seen the Pale Immortal, or someone who looked like the Pale Immortal, roaming through town. There were other reports, even more disturbing, of someone wandering around dressed in what looked like a human skin.
That sobered him up.
He disconnected and immediately got another call from his deputy and assistant, Brian Finn. “Got a report from the museum. The Pale Immortal moved.” There was laughter in the man’s voice, but also a hint of doubt.
This was Tuonela.
“Moved? What does that mean?”
“I’m not sure.”
Alastair got out of bed, drank some strong coffee that had been sitting in the pot for who knew how long, gargled with Listerine, slapped on some aftershave, popped gum in his mouth, and headed downtown.
His attempts at covering up the stink had probably helped, but he could still smell alcohol on himself, seeping out of his pores.
When he arrived at the museum, the sun wasn’t up yet. Two cop cars were parked near the door, and a smiling young officer let him inside, looking sheepish and saying something about a wild-goose chase.
The Pale Immortal was in the Plexiglas case, where it was supposed to be, looking like it was supposed to look.
“Sorry to get you down here for nothing,” the custodian said.
Matthew Torrance was a good guy, but he had a drug habit everybody in town knew about and pretended didn’t exist, since he kept it to himself and wasn’t dealing. You did what you had to do to get by. To get through life. But in this case, drugs made Matthew an unreliable witness.
“I could have sworn . . . ” Matthew’s words trailed off, and he hung his head in embarrassment.
“Lot of weirdness going on tonight,” Alastair said in an attempt to make light of the situation. “Something in the air.” He was just talking, making noise to reassure the guy, but he also knew there was some truth to what he said.
Matthew nodded. “It’s a hum. A buzz. Like a bun-cha people talking. Ever go to sleep at night, and just as you’re drifting off you hear them? Like a huge auditorium full of people? I used to think I was hearing other people’s thoughts, you know? Like the collective unconscious. You get to that place, that door between sleeping and waking, and you can hear them. That’s when you connect. But now I’m not so sure. Now I wonder . . .” He glanced at the mummy.
They were all related. The people of Tuonela. Like some strange dynasty of horror, most of them could trace their ancestry back to Old Tuonela.
And those reports of the Pale Immortal walking through town . . .
Mass hysteria.
Occasionally Alastair thought of time as liquid, the past reaching into the future and vice versa. Were the residents of Tuonela seeing imprints of the past? Reenactments of past events? Were uneasy spirits wandering through town, searching for answers to their own unanswered questions?
Alastair looked down at the floor inside the case. Was that disturbed dust?
He didn’t point it out. He didn’t say anything. Instead, he left the museum and drove to Old Tuonela.
The sun was up, but it hadn’t yet reached the shrouded, overhanging lane that led to Evan’s house. Steam curled from the wet ground and lay heavily in dips and valleys, clinging to low vegetation.
Once again, Evan’s car wasn’t there. Alastair suddenly remembered Graham stopping by his place last night. A fresh wave of shame washed over him.
A lantern and a dirt-encrusted shovel had been left by the front door—signs of Evan’s excavating.
Alastair walked toward the stand o
f timber that marked the edge of Old Tuonela. He climbed the gate and headed down the worn path that led into the woods, the heavy dew soaking into his pant legs.
Towering pines and cottonwoods that hadn’t lost their leaves blocked the sunlight. The air smelled of damp earth, crushed plants, and compost.
Decay and fermentation. Life and death.
Alastair had been jerked from a drunken sleep, and he realized he hadn’t been completely sober at the museum. In fact, he’d been pretty lit. Now he was crashing, his body beginning to ache. His head hurt like hell, and he felt a little queasy. The shameful thing was that he wanted another drink. Vodka with a beer chaser. He could almost taste it. . . .
He paused and braced his hands on his knees, catching his breath but also struggling with the sense of dread that had been living in his heart ever since he’d come back to Tuonela. He wanted to pack up his son and grandson and take them away from here. Take them far away to a town so different they would soon forget about this dark, rotten place.
But Evan would never leave. Alastair knew that. He could dream about a different kind of life for his son, but in his heart he knew it wasn’t going to happen.
Alastair crested the final hill and stopped.
Before him was a small, timber-filled valley dotted with the crumbling carcasses of structures that had once been buildings. Buildings where people had once worked and lived. Now the homes were nothing more than misshapen objects covered with moss and tangled vines, encased, protected, yet also devoured.
Holes.
Everywhere.
Some as large as small buildings. Others smaller, more the size of a grave. How many? A hundred? More?
Jesus.
How had one man possibly moved so much earth?
And his next thought, the thought that had been lurking for a long time: His son had lost his mind.
Back at the house, Alastair entered without knocking. The eggs from yesterday had been cleaned up—a good sign.
This time he didn’t call Evan’s name. Instead, he moved quietly through the silent structure and up the stairs.
