Chapter 26
“Kendall isn’t my dad,” Lisa began. “My biological father was a rotten bastard that I will never call dad. Kendall was my dad’s friend when I was growing up.” She paused, reflecting back. “I guess he wasn’t really ever his friend, not really. They were just business partners that spent a lot of time together.” Sighing, she said, “I guess I should start with Kendall.
“He grew up in Indiana, in Michigan City. It’s where the state prison is, so even though it isn’t a huge town, there’s a big mix of people. Some of them are the bad type, living there so they can be close to friends or relatives that are locked up.
“Kendall has always been a small guy, physically, and I guess he got picked on a lot growing up, but once he started Walking—that was when he really became an outcast. Like all of us, he had no idea what was happening to him and was just a scared boy who couldn’t make any lasting friends because he was afraid to be away from his house for fear of falling asleep. He got in a lot of fights at school and even though he was a smart kid, it alienated him from school as an institution, so he dropped out on his sixteenth birthday.
“His parents didn’t understand. They wanted to help with his problem, but they didn’t have the money. His mom was a waitress and his dad was a night prison guard who kept getting laid off every time the state made a budget cut. By the time he dropped out of school, they were exhausted. Their way of dealing with his condition was to kick him out of their home.”
Paul said, “I sympathize with Dittrich, but I don’t understand how this relates to you.”
“I’m getting to that,” she replied. “They kicked him out with just a few hundred dollars in his pocket. Angry and determined to never come back to them for help, he left and headed north to Michigan, which is where he met my biological father.
“I grew up in a town called Ionia, which is also a prison town. Kendall picked it because he knew prisons; he’d followed his dad to work enough nights as a Walker and had become familiar with the way they worked. His plan was fairly simple; if he could find the right prison guard to partner with, he could find every nickel of every stolen dollar that was ever written down or discussed by the convicts. I was three years old when Kendall approached my biological father, who was a prison guard for one of the biggest maximum security prisons in the state.
“Kendall and my sperm donor didn’t always make a lot of money, but they made enough. When it got tight, they didn’t just go after stolen money but also stole bank account information and took that money too. They did it for almost a decade. When times were good and we were flush with cash, my biological dad and my mom would go on benders, drinking themselves into oblivion at night and snorting cocaine in the mornings to pick themselves back up.”
Looking down at her hands, she continued softly, “When I was thirteen I started Walking for the first time. My parents were too wasted all the time to do anything about it. They told me I was just going through growing pains and needed extra sleep. Less than a month after it began, my biological dad started molesting me while I was asleep.”
She paused, breathing heavily. Paul, shocked, didn’t trust himself to say the right thing so he kept silent and waited for her to collect herself.
“Sometimes I watched. Of course there was nothing I could do about it and at that point I tried to tell myself they were just awful nightmares, but I knew. I knew because I would wake up… hurt.”
Paul turned his head away, wanting to say something, anything, but he knew that there was nothing he could say.
“My biological dad must have told Kendall about the way I was sleeping. Kendall had never come to our house before, not that I knew of anyway, but one night he did and he saw everything. He called the police the next day and they arrested my dad after talking to me.
“My mom…” again she paused. “When my mom found out, she locked herself in the bathroom with a bottle of tequila and slit her wrists. She didn’t say a word, didn’t leave a note—she just did it. I guess she just couldn’t face the world, or me, after that.”
“I’m so sorry, Lisa,” Paul said.
“I could have become a ward of the state or been placed in a home or any number of things. Can you imagine that? Can you imagine trying to make it in one of those places as a Walker?”
She took his hands in her own, looking intently at him. “Kendall took me in, took me away from that town and took care of me. He saved my life. He promised me when we left we would never want for anything; we would never be subject to any one or any thing again because we were special, we were better than regular people.”
“Lisa…” Paul began quietly in disagreement.
“No,” she said. “Kendall is a good man. He has tried to convince Abrams to change the way we operate, he has given him years of chances to do it. Kendall didn’t want it this way, but it’s time. Abrams is only worried about himself and finding his brother. He’s willing to keep us all prisoner to do that. It has to change, and no matter how it happens I have to stand by Kendall. My dad. My real dad. I owe him that much.”
“There has to be another way. Killing someone is not the answer.”
“Paul,” Lisa said with absolute certainty in her eyes, “Abrams will have one more chance to make the right choice. If he doesn’t, we will be forced to act. He is being given that chance tonight. As for you, Paul—we want you with us. I want you with us. But if you decide that you don’t want to be a part of what is inevitably going to happen, then you’re against us. If you don’t want to end up hurt too, you should leave. Soon.”
Watchers of the Night Page 57
