Dark Omen: A Northern Michigan Asylum Novel

by Erickson, J. R.

  Bette had been less interested in the clocks and much more interested in the library, which they were rarely allowed to enter. It was for students of the college and professors like their father. Like Homer, Bette could pass hours between the stacks. Crystal loved to read as well, but her tastes tended toward fiction and poetry.

  “Crystal,” Wes jogged out of the library, smiling.

  She stood and he grabbed her hand, pulling her into a dense bracket of trees. He wrapped his arms around her waist and picked her up, kissing her.

  “Ugh, you feel so good. I thought this day would never end,” he told her.

  She laughed and breathed deep, smelling gardenias and the sun-warmed grass.

  “My place?” he whispered, kissing her closed eyes and then her cheeks and finally her mouth.

  “I’ll meet you there,” she promised.

  They’d gotten more relaxed about their affection for one another.

  In the first month, Wes had been adamant they keep it a secret. They still hid their romance, showing no outright affection on campus, but they touched each other in little ways now. Anyone looking closely could have seen they were in love.

  Wes owned a house in Lansing, outside the high real estate prices of East Lansing, not to mention the watchful eyes of the other professors, but Crystal seldom joined him there. They mostly stayed at her apartment.

  She parked on the street, leaving room for him to pull into his driveway.

  As she waited, she tapped her fingers on the wheel, which reminded her of Bette and her father. They were terrible fidgeters. On road trips, one of them would drum the wheel while the other clicked a pen open and closed, until Crystal insisted they turn up the radio to drown out the sound of their constant fiddling.

  The little white stick poked from an interior pocket in her purse. She didn’t know why she’d brought it. Surely, Wes wouldn’t demand proof. It had been a combination of excitement and anxiety. The part of her that was unsure how he’d react compelled her to bring something concrete to show him.

  Crystal knew Wes had secrets. Mysteries that he’d almost revealed a dozen times in their few months together, but each time he pulled back from those secrets before letting them loose.

  Wes parked his Jeep Wagoneer, complete with wood siding, in the driveway and hopped out. He trotted over and opened Crystal’s door.

  “I stopped by the party store and grabbed a bottle of wine. It’s not the good stuff, but I’ve had it before. It’s drinkable.” He grabbed her hand and helped her out, kissing her on the mouth.

  “Great,” she murmured, reaching back in to grab her purse before following him inside.

  He stood at the counter, uncorking the wine, while Crystal wandered to the glass sliding doors that opened onto his little back porch. He neglected his yard. The overgrown grass nearly reached the top step of the porch.

  It was the curse of living two lives, he’d once said, no time to mow. His statement had unnerved her. Teaching in Traverse City and Lansing was hardly living two lives, but when she’d probed the subject, he’d shifted the conversation.

  He paid a neighbor kid to mow the lawn every couple of weeks, but in the interval it always turned unruly, and he started to get annoyed looks from the old woman who lived across the street. The woman, whose name Crystal had learned was Henrietta, kept her lawn pristine. Every time Crystal had spent the night with Wes, she’d spotted the woman in her yard stalking the weeds with garden gloves and a trowel.

  Wes handed her a glass of red wine.

  Crystal smelled it, started to take a sip and felt her stomach clench. Saliva filled her mouth.

  Wes noticed as she pulled away.

  “What? Smells funky?” he asked, sniffing his own wine.

  “Wes,” Crystal said, her stomach continuing to churn as she set her glass on the table.

  He studied her, his eyes shifting to the glass and back to her face.

  “What is it, love?” he asked, taking her hand and kissing her palm.

  “I’m pregnant,” she blurted.

  She’d intended a more eloquent delivery, but her mouth had jumped ahead.

  As the words floated in the quiet kitchen, Crystal realized it was the first time she’d spoken them out loud. She’d thought it a thousand times in the previous two hours. Now the truth seemed larger, more alive.

  Wes’s eyes were wide, his mouth parted. When he swallowed, she watched the slow bob of his Adam’s apple. He set his wine down next to hers.

  He glanced at her stomach.

  “Are you sure?” he asked.

  Before she answered, he picked up his glass of wine and drained the red liquid in a single gulp.

  “A baby?” he said in a detached voice.

  She could see the revelation had knocked him off-kilter, and he hadn’t quite grasped it.

  Crystal walked to her purse and opened it. She extracted the small plastic stick, wondering if this is how she’d expected it to go. Wondering if she was disappointed and had hoped he’d smile and laugh and jump in the air. She didn’t know. She hadn’t considered how he might react.

  He took the little stick. Two narrow pink lines.

  He pulled out a chair and sat down heavily.

  “Holy…” but he didn’t finish. He just sat and stared at the test.

  Crystal’s eyes welled with tears.

  A single drop slipped off her chin. It seemed to fall in slow motion and splash on the table.

  Wes looked up, startled.

  “I’m sorry,” he stammered. “I’m doing this all wrong.”

  Crystal wiped her cheek and shook her head.

  “No, it’s okay,” she backed away from him. “Just… take some time. Okay?”

  She didn’t wait for him to respond.

  She walked out the door and climbed into her car. As she turned the key, she looked at the front door, hoping, wondering if he’d follow her, but the door didn’t fly open.

  Weston didn’t run across the lawn and insist she come back inside.

  Crystal started her car and drove away.

  28

  1970

  Joseph Claude

  Joseph saw the black man leaving the dance hall. He wore a powder-blue tuxedo and walked confidently, as if he owned the street, the whole damn world.

  A throb pulsed behind Joseph’s eyes. The steady pulse of a hunger that lived within him but outside him as well. He appeased not only his needs but the needs of the land, of the forest, of the chamber.

  He pulled alongside the man and rolled his window down.

  “Care to make ten dollars?” he called.

  The man looked at him with happy, drunken eyes.

  “Ten dollars?” he exclaimed. “Sure would.” The smile fell from his face as he looked down at his clean tux. “Best if I go on home and change first. I’m staying two blocks from here.” He gestured down the dark road.

  “Hop in and I’ll give you a ride,” Joseph told him.

  “What do you need help with, sir?” the man asked, settling into the deep bucket seat and resting his hands on his knees.

  “Can you grab my pen there?” Joseph asked, gesturing to the pen he’d deliberately knocked to the passenger floor.

  As the man bent down, Joseph glanced in the rear-view mirror before lifting the iron bar he’d held tucked against his leg. He brought it down on the back of the man’s head. A sickening crunch rang out as the bar connected with his skull.

  People believed skulls were powerful, unbreakable even, but Joseph had seen how easily they cracked and caved. It took much less force than one imagined.

  The man slumped forward. He hadn’t let out a single cry.

  As Joseph drove into the dark trees around the asylum, the pulsing grew in intensity. He parked on the hidden trail behind his house and pulled open his passenger door, grabbing the man beneath the armpits and hauling him from the car.

  He slumped over in the dirt.

  Blood had pooled on the floor of the car, but Joseph had
come prepared with throwaway floor mats and, beneath those, two dark towels.

  He didn’t bother with the cleanup yet. He grabbed the man and dragged him into the house.

  From her bedroom window, Greta watched the black man in the powder-blue tuxedo. The suit near his neck was stained dark, and she knew he was leaking blood, though she couldn’t see the wound in his head.

  She listened as her father threw open the back door and dragged the man through the front hall, pausing to open the basement door.

  Thump-thump-thump went the man’s head as her father dragged him down.

  29

  Now

  Bette slipped on a pair of soft leather gloves. She usually wore them in winter. In June they looked ridiculous, but she stuffed her hands into the pockets of her shorts as she left her car and crept down the dark sidewalk.

  It was an older neighborhood, and streetlights illuminated the corners but left the spaces between mostly in shadow. Weston’s house was dark except for a small light over the garage door.

  She pulled the key from her pocket.

  The black “W” marked on the silver key could have stood for anything. A key for one of Crystal’s many jobs, but when Bette discovered the key tucked into the interior pouch of her sister’s purple rain jacket, she knew it belonged to Weston Meeks’ house.

  She slipped behind the house and took the two cement steps that led to the back door. The key slid into the lock, but stuck halfway.

  “No,” she breathed, resting her head against the door and trying to wiggle it in further. The key didn’t move.

  When she tried to pull it out, the key remained stuck. Bette pulled off her gloves and stuffed them in her back pockets. She cursed silently as she shook the key. Finally, it jerked free.

  As she retreated from the stoop, Bette missed the bottom stair. She flung her arms out to break her fall and landed with a crack on hands and knees. The key flew from her grasp as both palms smacked the cement walkway.

  She winced at the pain and fought back her tears, leaning forward and searching gingerly for the bit of metal that would allow passage into Weston’s home.

  “Shit… shit… shit,” she murmured, pausing and lifting one of her scraped palms.

  The tears didn’t stay put. They flowed down her cheeks as she pressed her lips to her tender skin.

  Through her tears, she spotted a glint of metal on the path in front of her.

  “Yes, thank you,“ she gasped, standing and hurrying over to the silver key.

  She picked it up, hugging the house to stay in shadow, and moved to the front porch. She crept up the wooden stairs, glancing toward the house across the street, hoping whoever lived inside wasn’t watching her too.

  Bette opened the screen door and propped it on her hip as she slipped the key into the lock. It pushed in all the way and when she turned her hand, the lock slid open with a quiet click.

  “Yes,” she whispered, pushing into the dark foyer. She kept one hand on the screen door and eased it shut before shuffling in and firmly closing the door behind her.

  As Bette crept down the hallway, pitch black as if the shades in every room had been drawn closed, she realized she hadn’t brought a flashlight. Not even a lighter or a book of matches.

  “I’m a terrible sleuth,” she murmured.

  She squinted into each room, frustrated as her eyes took ages to adjust to the shapes of the various pieces of furniture.

  A sliver of light snaked beneath a curtain at the window over the kitchen sink. She walked in, nearly bumped into the table, and made her way to the counter. She peeled back the curtain, allowing the scant light to filter across the blue linoleum.

  She opened drawers and pushed aside silverware, cooking utensils with plastic ladles and spatulas before finding the jumbled drawer of miscellaneous junk.

  Bette bit her lip and sifted through the drawer, leaning her head close to it, which only blocked the sliver of light.

  “Ugh,” she hissed, squeezing her hand into a fist against her lips.

  She pushed around guitar picks, dozens of poems scrawled on napkins, and twenty or more pencils.

  “Where’s the flashlight?” she demanded, but there was no flashlight.

  She slammed the drawer shut, too hard.

  Without light, she couldn’t search for anything. What good would it do to stumble through a black house?

  She leaned her back against the counter, panic rising as if her nervous system had only just gotten wind of what she was up to. The slender cut of light grew dark as her vision narrowed. Her lungs seemed to shrivel and collapse behind her ribs, and she opened her mouth, gulping for a breath. She gasped and pressed a hand to her chest.

  She’d lose consciousness. Weston Meeks would find her on his kitchen floor and then he’d dispose of her just as he had disposed of Crystal.

  Bette hadn’t told her father where she was going. She’d parked several blocks away. How long would it take for the police to find her car?

  Her knees trembled as she sank to the floor, her mind kicking into overdrive, the terrified what-if thoughts drowning her.

  “Three things,” she croaked, reciting one of the many calming techniques she’d learned from Crystal to quell panic attacks. Focus on three objects in front of her.

  She spotted Weston’s phone and then her eyes slid down to a nail poking from the wall. A small blue flashlight hung from the nail.

  She stared at the flashlight and pulled in a shaky breath.

  “Oh, thank god,” she croaked.

  She started counting by threes, practicing another of the many coping mechanisms she usually forgot when a panic attack took hold.

  “Three, six, nine, twelve, fifteen, eighteen…” Bette continued until she reached sixty and then forced herself up.

  She swallowed, gulped two more deep breaths, and walked to the flashlight, pulling it from the nail.

  During attacks, the sounds of the world grew muted, blocked by the rush of blood between her ears. Now she strained to hear any sounds, but nothing stirred in the dark house.

  She walked from room to room, letting the small halo of light drift over furniture. Poetry and paintings of musicians hung from the walls. In the sitting room, piles of books sat on the coffee and side tables that butted against matching brown-leather furniture.

  Bette walked up the stairs, coming first to a large bedroom with a queen bed covered in a black and white checked comforter. Draped across the foot of the bed was a fluffy orange blanket. Bette recognized it immediately. It was Crystal’s blanket, and if she were to unfold it, she’d see a smiling sun with yellow and red rays streaming from its perimeter.

  A dresser revealed a few stacks of clean laundry separated into jeans and shirts. More of Crystal appeared in the bathroom. Long red hairs in a black brush. Two tubes of vanilla lip gloss, Crystal’s favorite, lay inside the medicine cabinet.

  Only one other room stood on the second floor. It was a study with a cheap particle-board desk in the room's corner — the kind of furniture her father hated. It had multiple heights with space for files, a desktop computer and plenty of room that Weston filled with books and stacks of student papers.

  Bette swung her light over the papers before she slid into the rolling ergonomic chair.

  She opened drawers, shifting around pens and more papers.

  Nothing offered any clues to Crystal’s whereabouts.

  Bette’s foot kicked something tucked beneath the desk. She squatted and groped in the darkness until her hands found a hard suitcase, propped on its edge.

  She pulled out the suitcase and laid it on its back, flipping open the fake gold clasps.

  The suitcase was a jumble of stuff: photographs, letters in envelopes, old concert tickets. She lifted out a single pearl earring, frowning at the tiny piece of jewelry lost in the mass of stuff.

  A shrill ring cut across the silence, and Bette gasped. Her heart pounded as she listened to the rings.

  Downstairs, the message machi
ne kicked on. Bette dropped the earring and stood, sprinting from the room and down the stairs.

  “Hi, you’ve reached the phone of Weston Meeks. I’m currently unavailable. Please leave your name and phone number, and I’ll call you at my earliest convenience.”

  “Hi, this is Eliza Sanders returning your call, Mr. Meeks. As I’m sure you’re aware, my days at Sunny Angels are not terribly busy, but you caught me during a nap. Feel free to return my call when it suits you. I’m happy to answer any questions you have about Joseph Claude and the Northern Michigan Asylum.”

  The call ended and silence fell once more.

  Unsure of the caller’s purpose, Bette walked to the phone stand and scribbled the woman’s information on a slip of paper, tearing it from the pad and stuffing it in her pocket.

  30

  Now

  Homer hadn’t moved from the picture window where he stood, staring at the street as if he expected the next clue might be somewhere in the yard, like an I Spy game with a pair of eyeglasses neatly tucked into a bush or a shovel lengthwise against the post of a mailbox.

  The muted television played in the background.

  “I have to fly home today,” Lilith announced. “Irina has been covering the shop while I’m gone, but she’s got her own work. I promised I’d only be gone for a couple days, and it’s been nearly five.”

  She carried her suitcase down from her room upstairs

  Bette hugged Lilith hard.

  “Thank you for coming, Lil.”

  Lilith nodded, her eyes swimming with tears.

  “I hate to go…” She glanced at Homer, who hadn’t moved and seemed like a statue at the window.

  “It’s okay. I’ll call you the minute we find out anything,” Bette promised.

  She wanted to say the minute we find her, but more than a week had passed. Finding her now meant something very different than it had in those first days.

  Bette glanced at the television and saw Weston Meeks, hounded by reporters as he walked away from the East Lansing Police Station