Applewood (Book 3): The Space of Life Between

by Myers, Brendan P.

  Dan was moved beyond words. “Claro,” he said in response. Chocolate. Of course.

  Looking at Ana, he reached out and ran his hand along her arm. When he lifted his other hand to reach a finger into the frosting, Ana yanked the cake away.

  “No ahora!” she scolded. “Mas tarde. Con Scott!”

  Dan pretended to be put out and then sat back while Ana moved the box out of his reach, instructing Margarite to keep an eye on both him and it.

  While eating his breakfast, he thumbed through the days old Los Angeles Times that Carlos had scavenged from somewhere. Since paying less attention to the news, he was regularly startled by how all the headlines seemed recycled from one week to the next: hostages in Lebanon; bombings in Germany; hijackings in Algeria; ten-thousand dead in Bangladesh.

  Lather. Rinse. Repeat.

  One story did catch his eye, that of a thirteen-year-old Indiana boy with AIDS, who because of local hysteria, had been barred from attending school. Articles on this new disease always captured Dan’s attention, more so since it appeared that at least one mechanism for transmitting it was blood. Dan maintained his belief that science would one day supply an answer to his nephew’s own affliction, and given its nature, it was a virtual certainty that central to it was blood.

  Reading further, he learned that this poor kid had contracted it from his hemophilia medication, which was distilled from the blood platelets of countless donors. With a pang of sadness, he set the paper aside after reading the boy had a paper route, and his mind turned inevitably to Scott, who would turn eighteen today.

  Jesus, he thought. I’m too young to have an eighteen-year-old nephew. It seemed only yesterday that he was eighteen. With a retiring smile, he reminded himself he was pushing forty and felt every second of it.

  Still, it provided a great excuse to see Scott. He was looking forward to it. They had been spending less time with each other of late, down to maybe once or twice a week. Dan figured it was simply his nephew not wanting to be a burden. Or maybe, he just didn’t want to be reminded of the bad old days when the two were on the run.

  No matter the reason, Scott had a place of his own now, a small ranch in the mountain foothills about twenty miles away. He had some servants, though how much they knew about his condition, Dan could only guess. One or two must know, he reasoned. There were things necessary to Scott’s way of life that required at least one or two humans be available for everyday needs. Sighing, knowing it was wrong to remember such things as bittersweet, he recalled that one of those humans used to be him.

  Shaking off his melancholy, he forbade himself from thinking any further along those lines. It was the way Scott wanted it, and was probably best for them both. At any rate, he would be seeing him tonight, to share cake and birthday greetings, and that was enough for now. Dan calculated Scott would awaken sometime around seven forty-five or so, the days getting shorter as the calendar neared autumn.

  In spite of his earlier declarations, a rush of nostalgia did course through him to remember how he liked to be there when it happened, to be present the moment his nephew awoke from the dead. It was a daily miracle he had felt honored to witness. Again, he put such thoughts out of his mind. Scott would be here tonight and they would have a wonderful evening. That was what mattered. And of one thing he remained certain, if there was cake involved, his nephew could be counted on to be there.

  4

  Dugan was in that twilight stage between death and life that occurred for him each evening when the last traces of the afternoon sun were shunted aside by the encroaching darkness. It was always unsettling, though not as bad as it once was, during the year or so he had wandered the country a hunted man, though he hadn’t known he was being hunted at the time. When the chase ended with Dugan victorious – as victorious as the living dead could be – and he and his uncle were safely across the border, he was surprised to find some gifts awaiting him in his uncle’s car. They had returned everything; perhaps better said, they had returned what little everything he still owned in this world, those small number of items that his friends and uncle had assembled for him and placed in a knapsack, which not long before had carried pointed wooden stakes that Dugan had used to kill what were now his own kind.

  Of course, he hadn’t known any of that then, nor any of what was to come. He was in his closing hours as a mortal, quite literally on his last legs. His human body had been ravaged, first by a gunshot wound to the head that had taken off most of an ear, next by a sharpened stake to the belly, and lastly, with his final breath, the corrupt and rancid bite of a vampire. What came after was a period he thought of now only as the Hunger, a hunger that was temporarily sated by the merciful drip of life-giving fluid into his arm.

  Yet even as he and his uncle raced across the country, on the run from those who would kill his resurrected body, and from others who wanted him for their own obscene purposes, the knapsack had been with him. Ransacked from his hometown sporting goods store, it was a nylon, expandable duffel bag. At the time, he’d have had no interest in the things inside. To him, they would have been the paltry possessions of a stranger. Only after his final death and resurrection through the intercession of a creature like himself did he recollect who he was.

  Dugan still wondered every so often why they had returned his belongings, and who had made that decision. He hadn’t asked for them, indeed, hadn’t given the things any thought. He concluded it could only have been the man whose son he had kidnapped to barter in exchange for his uncle, the man in charge of the agency that had exterminated his kind for generations. His best guess was that the man simply wanted to be rid of all traces of him, and that was just fine with Dugan.

  Since that time, most every morning before the sun came up and he died yet again, he had made a habit of clutching one of the totems that had been in that knapsack. He did vary them somewhat. Sometimes, it was a photo of his prior self with a girl named Andrea Rourke. Other times, it was a lock of his mother’s hair. Still others, it was one of the tattered journals into which the boy he had once been compulsively recorded his most intimate thoughts and hopes.

  On this night, he had chosen a different talisman, but one he returned to again and again. This evening, in this twilight time while drifting from death to life, he clasped in his hands a pair of geeky looking eyeglasses that had once belonged to his best friend.

  In early adolescence, Dugan had discovered pretty much by accident that by touching certain things, he could divine echoes of memories that had been imprinted on the object. He hadn’t told his friends about it, though the always sharp Jimmy figured out some of it. It was an ability that had come in handy as they battled the horde of demons that had taken over their town, and it was a talent that stayed with him when he became one of those very demons. If anything, the ability had only grown stronger.

  The holding of this particular item most often brought back happy memories. Sometimes, they would return him to the fun he and his friends had riding horses at the Circle-L Ranch in their hometown of Grantham, Massachusetts. On other occasions, Dugan relived that evening at the church carnival where he and Jimmy competed to see who could win the biggest prize for Dugan’s girlfriend. It was funny and a trifle disconcerting to see your own life lived through the eyes of another, but it was the best that he could do.

  That was why, in the midst of this evening’s reanimation from death to life, in his mind, he heard a once familiar wiseass voice.

  “Earth to Dugan. Come in Dugan,” it said.

  Dugan smiled inside to hear that even in death, always self-conscious about a slight lisp, his friend Larry avoided saying S’s whenever he could.

  “Hey, buddy,” he replied, though only in his head. “How’s it hanging? You been slamming the salami?”

  Larry laughed. “No, but I will admit I’ve had a few interviews with the Major.”

  Unknown to his revivifying consciousness, at that moment, Dugan’s dead body shuddered. This had always been the scariest part for h
im, this swimming up from the bottomless pit of death to the nighttime world he inhabited. His fingers involuntarily twitched in what a pathologist might offhandedly dismiss as merely a “postmortem muscle spasm.”

  The effect was that he clutched his talisman tighter as a darker memory surfaced, Larry’s last moments on earth flashing in his mind’s eye. But of course, they would. Larry had been wearing these very eyeglasses at the end. Because he held himself responsible for Larry’s death, Dugan hated being reminded of that, but it was unavoidable. Whatever this gift was that allowed him to recover vestigial memories from inanimate objects, he had long ago learned you had to take the bad with the good. And so again, through Larry’s eyes, he felt him come to terms with his impending doom, then watched him stand upright in the window of a granite tower before dropping his fly to offer his unique urinary opinion on those who waited below.

  “You really were brave, you know that?” Dugan asked quietly. He said it every time he and Larry talked.

  In Dugan’s mind, Larry rolled his eyes. “You say that every time we talk,” he said irritably.

  Dugan’s awakening lips turned upward in the rictus of a smile.

  “Can’t say it enough,” he replied, reminded anew that when Larry knew it was the end, he decided to go out on his own terms. As always, Dugan looked within himself and asked if he’d have been as brave.

  Once more, Larry rolled his eyes. “There you go again,” he said, in dead on mimicry of the words and manner of the doddering president who had been in office just a few months when Larry was killed.

  Though Dugan laughed, Larry would have none of it.

  “You know this is what Jimmy was talking about that day at the quarry, don’t you?” he chided.

  “Yeah, yeah,” Dugan said dismissively, remembering asking Jimmy about it after Larry died. “I know. And I appreciate you reminding me.”

  Jimmy said that Dugan never gave himself credit for anything. But he was working on it. He liked to think he had come a long way.

  “Anyway,” Larry said, “I gotta get going soon, I think. They serve homemade fried chicken on Tuesdays, and the angels get pissed if you’re late. Hey, and you know what else?”

  His eyelids twitching, Dugan was near to fully awake now.

  “What?” he asked.

  Larry waited a beat. “You can douse the whole thing in butter and eat as much as you want!”

  Dugan laughed at the lame joke for the benefit of his dead friend, though that brand of humor was beyond him now. His diet had changed considerably since the two were last together.

  “Oh!” Larry said suddenly, though faintly, as if from far away. “I almost forgot. Happy Birthday!”

  “Thanks, buddy,” Dugan replied, then asked, “See you tomorrow?”

  But Dugan was alive now. His dead friend was gone.

  5

  It was a festive, though low-key affair. Ana and Margarite had spent the day decorating, blowing up balloons, and draping a gold and silver banner reading “Feliz Cumpleanos!” across the archway leading into a sitting room that overlooked the ocean. Eying him upon his arrival, Dan thought Scott seemed both surprised and humbled by the attention lavished upon him.

  When he walked in, Dan was struck again watching Ana and Scott greet each other, Ana executing a deep curtsy before taking him into her arms. Scott’s back was to Dan as the two embraced, but he observed Ana grip the boy tightly while putting her head on his shoulder, keeping her eyes open to stare upward at something only she could see, but Dan knew, Scott shared. Whatever that secret was, it seemed to Dan at times it might be almost as darkly forbidding as the boy’s. He hoped some day to learn what it was, for one day the two of them to be close enough where she felt she could disclose it. But when looking at her eyes when they got this way, he sometimes prayed she would never speak of it.

  However, Scott seemed in fine spirits and looked well. Though too thin and always pale, his skin this night had a familiar scarlet pallor that informed Dan his nephew had fed recently. He recalled with some pride just how far the two had come from that night at the pig farm, his emaciated nephew shaking and sick and refusing to eat. Dan did what he could that night and thereafter to persuade Scott to take sustenance wherever he could find it.

  After their initial greetings were out of the way, they all got comfortable. Dan gave Scott a present, a beat up American first edition of The Old Man and The Sea he had found in a used bookstore in town. Without a dust jacket, it wasn’t worth much, but it had been one of Dan’s favorites when he was young. Scott smiled and thanked him, joking he had missed out on reading it in school. He had been slated to read it in his next year, his sophomore year, one that he would now never attend.

  Though Dan chuckled at the attempt at humor, he burned inside at the unfairness of it all. Looking over at his now eighteen-year-old nephew, he was disquieted as always by just how youthful he looked, no older than the fourteen-year-old boy he had been when first afflicted by his disease. He could think of no one on Earth who deserved it less.

  And though they hadn’t discussed it for some time due to Scott’s recalcitrance, Dan still held out hope that one day, they’d seek out a cure. Before their cross-country odyssey was summarily aborted, their destination had been a clinic in San Diego specializing in blood-borne diseases. A woman Dan had gone to college with worked there. It would be a desperate Hail Mary, he knew, but he could think of no other way. Despite all they had been through and the seeming impossibility of it all, he planned one day to broach the subject with Scott again.

  Ana brought out a present of her own. After unwrapping it, they saw it was an idealized painting of a rural Mexican village done by a local artist whose work Dan recognized. Scott stared at it a while transfixed, seemingly choked up, before looking up and thanking Ana for her thoughtfulness. Dan again watched what looked like some kind of secret pass between them before Scott once more looked down at the painting before reluctantly setting it off to the side.

  As predicted, the cake went over big, with Scott eating three large slices. He declined the ice cream, though. Dan knew his nephew was always cold, even now wearing a long-sleeved, thick turtleneck sweater in the otherwise temperate house. Secretly, Dan wondered if this was why Scott had selected this location to finally stop running and set down roots, if only for a short while. On a peninsula with a tropical microclimate, the average year-round temperature in San Marcos was a pleasant eighty degrees. It certainly seemed to agree with his nephew, not to mention himself.

  As the hour advanced toward midnight, Carlos put away the guitar with which he’d entertained them with traditional Mexican folk songs. Margarite and Carlos said goodnight and took their leave, retiring to the guest quarters at the rear of the house. Ana said her goodnights, embracing Scott once again and wishing him happy birthday, leaving Scott and Dan alone in the sitting room.

  After a protracted silence, Scott asked, “So, are you going to tell me?”

  Dan looked away before smiling and looking into his nephew’s yellowish eyes. “I forget sometimes there aren’t any secrets with you.”

  Scott sent an arch smile his way. “I’d argue that my present situation has nothing to do with it. Not my fault you were always an open book.”

  Dan laughed out loud, but averted his eyes. There was indeed something he needed to share with his nephew.

  6

  He had received a visit that afternoon from their overly friendly, always smiling police chief. Dan hadn’t heard his car approach, simply happened to look out the window to see the chief ambling slowly up the walk, glancing at the house and grounds as if appraising the property. A thick-bodied man with a wiry mustache and a bulbous nose, whose uniform was always a size small and liberally stained with sweat, Dan watched him stop to take a deep sniff of bougainvillea. Curious, he moved from the window and opened the front door.

  “Smells nice, doesn’t it?” Dan asked as he walked down the porch steps.

  The chief started in surprise before
smiling vapidly and looking down in embarrassment. “Life is short, Mister Proctor. It is important to – how do you say – stop and smell the flowers, no?”

  Dan returned the smile, though warily, and extended his hand.

  “To what do we owe the pleasure, Chief Torres?” he asked. Shaking the cop’s soft and beefy hand always made Dan’s skin crawl. Afterward, he had to stop himself from wiping it on his pants. He suppressed his smirk to recall his nephew had met the man just once and took an instant dislike. When pressed why, Scott said only that he smelled like buttsweat.

  “I’m afraid today is not a social call, Mister Proctor,” Torres answered in an apologetic tone. “In fact, might I have a few minutes of your time?”

  Dan nodded his assent, motioning the chief take one of the two rattan chairs on the shaded porch. “What can I do for you, Chief?” he asked once they were seated. Torres would not meet his eye.

  “I confess I have come here today not on my own account, Mister Proctor, but on behalf of others. People very high up. Important people, if you know what I mean.”

  When Torres paused to glance at him, Dan’s wariness grew. Still, he nodded and waited for the chief to go on.

  “You perhaps wonder why I visit you so often, no?” he asked. “Sometimes, no doubt, to the point where I make myself a nuisance?”

  Looking at Dan, he smiled thinly and preemptively waved away any attempt Dan might make to deny it.

  “Now now, we both know it is true. Even so, you have been nothing but hospitable to me, and I must say, I have always appreciated your indulgence and indeed, your company.”

  Not knowing what else to do, Dan nodded again.

  “However,” the chief went on more somberly, “there are people who have always been . . . how shall I say . . . concerned for your well being? And more so, I must admit, for that of the boy, your nephew. These people – again, very important people – have instructed me since you came to our town to make certain you are both getting along well and that no harm come to you. Do you understand?” He looked at Dan and captured his eye.