The motorcycle man’s knife.
She still remembered its weight and shine singing promises of freedom and power to her in the whispered erratic voice of her dead brother Everett.
He too had been restrained once, by a pair of deviant priests. Under the pretense of exorcising the boy, they had unwittingly made him a demon.
An hour later, the home went dark and quiet, and the Dietrichs moved from room to room as always, Candace and Ana’s being the exception this time.
Ostracized and forgotten. Candace knew well when evil was afoot.
In the shadowy sepia of the faded Casper nightlight, Candace thought of her rough introduction to the Dietrich home.
Less than twenty-four hours after Candace had watched her brother die, Cronus County social services had shown up in Ember Hollow. As they’d comforted one another in the sanctuary, Reverend McGlazer asked Candace how she would feel if he adopted her. It was the one truly fatherly gesture she had experienced since she was very small. She’d requested, even begged of the county officials, to be placed with him, rejoicing as much as her broken heart would allow that she could have a family and be close to her only friends.
But those particular DSS agents, sleepy-eyed and slurry-speeched volunteers roused from post-party beds, had only been there to collect her. Placement was not their job.
A hearing was held a few days later. McGlazer, battered and broken, could barely stand, but he had been there, with help from Stella.
She would be right in the heart of the very town where her family had literally been torn apart, the judge had determined, and McGlazer could not even care for himself at the time. The judge, feeling that Candace needed distance from the town and tragedy, had ordered her transported to another county.
The Dietrichs had stepped in like haggard angels, strangely eager to volunteer their already maxed out household. Candace was emergency placed with them until hearings and more hearings, and meetings and pontifications—most yet to come—could place her where she would fit.
The first few days had been no less challenging than now. She’d done her best to keep to herself, despite encouragement by the Dietrichs to make friends with her new housemates. It had been clear by the expressions on the other young faces that they knew at least some of her story.
While the kids had played in the front yard that cold sunny November day, Radley had broken away to approach her, followed by a sneering Rebecca. “Did you ever see your brother kill anybody?”
Candace had just looked down.
“You better leave her alone.” Rebecca, tall and strong as a linebacker at eleven years old, was as bold as she was spiteful, once she’d seen Candace’s reaction. “She might be a psycho too.”
“I ain’t scared,” Radley had asserted, simultaneously flipping off Candace and sticking out his tongue, even knowing that Mrs. Dietrich was coming over.
“Radley, you get inside right now, mister, and Rebecca you can go too!”
“I didn’t do it!” Rebecca had protested, giving Candace a vengeful scowl over her shoulder.
Radley had hidden his hand behind his back and flipped her off again, but the housemother had been too savvy for that. She’d grabbed his elbow and yanked his arm straight, firing off a blistering litany of rebuke that would have withered Candace. Radley had seemed to just take it in stride.
Watching them go, Candace had realized what she had to do, and it was not personal or vindictive. It was simply a very important task she had to complete, for there was something missing from her environment, and more than anything, Candace needed to correct this. She’d gazed all around and felt great disappointment; that there was no Halloween here, no blood, and no death. Yet she knew without doubt she could change this.
These children did not seem to appreciate these wonderful and beautiful things, and so they would have to be changed, transformed, into—what else? Halloween, blood, death.
“Can—diss!” called a strange and familiar voice through the barrier of chain link fence that separated the Dietrich’s property from the neighbors and the thick, high shrubbery just next to it.
Though the sky was darkening from a fast-moving cloud cover, a glint on the ground beckoned Candace. She knelt to see the mirror sliver of a thin steak knife.
She could just grip the point between fingertip and thumb, if she squeezed them together really hard, enough to draw a little globe of blood.
The figure who slid her the knife was just a vague shape behind the shrubs. But his weird movement was unmistakable.
Candace wanted to whisper to him but the back door slammed, drawing her attention. It was Mrs. Dietrich, stern-faced and righteous, marching her tormentors toward her. Radley and Rebecca walked side by side, annoyance on the boy’s face, but possibly sincerity on the girl’s.
“Sorry for what I said,” offered Radley, rote and meaningless.
Rebecca stepped forward. “That was mean of me. I’m sorry and I’ll try not be mean anymore.” Candace was surprised by the sincerity. The girl was large for her age—for any age—and totally fearless from a brief lifetime of subhuman treatment.
But it wasn’t about what they said to Candace anymore. It was about Halloween.
Candace reached into her waistband, drew the knife and stabbed Rebecca in the throat.
Her eyes bulged like gum bubbles. Everyone screamed.
Candace yanked the knife out. The sound of splashes against her jacket as the blood spurted in pulsing bursts didn’t sound like Candace expected. It sounded like the ticking of a clock.
She sat up in bed, violently wiping the blood from her chest.
Then she realized that her memory of that first day had seamlessly become a dream. She tried to determine where they had separated, praying she hadn’t actually st—
The ticking came again, and now Candace realized it was a timebomb.
Someone had planted it while she was sleeping, and it was counting down. In her mind she saw the dynamite sticks taped together with a coiled wire running to an alarm clock, but made more destructive, more sadistic, by the addition of knives, forks, icepicks and hammerheads, tightly taped all around the outside.
There were no numbers on the clock; only letters. There was no discernible order to them, but she knew they were the letters of her name, and of her brother’s.
The ticking stopped, for a second, then began anew. Its rhythm was odd; three at a time, every few seconds.
Candace knew the bomb would blow soon. And when it did it, it would destroy the world.
Candace’s eyes snapped open. She was sure she was in her brother Everett’s bed in his shed out behind the house where she’d lived with her parents, on the outskirts of Ember Hollow.
No. It was not strands of orange Halloween lights casting sharp shadows across Everett’s childish drawings and construction paper masks, but the Casper nightlight in the room she shared with tiny Emera, in a group home far from home—any home.
Yet the ticking continued.
It was coming from the window, emanating some dark and familiar urgency. Candace checked on Emera. The little one remained asleep. The ticking was subtle enough that the Dietrichs hadn’t heard it on the baby monitor.
Freeing herself from the useless bonds, she padded to the window, waiting until she heard the ticking again to draw the curtains, in case it had just been dream residue.
But there it was again—three soft clicks, meant for only her to hear.
Candace stayed back from the curtain, leaning as far as she could to reach the edge, in case she needed to run from whatever was there.
She yanked it open, but did not, could not, run.
Big brother Everett stood just inches away, separated only by brittle glass and flimsy wood.
He wore one of his construction paper masks, meant to be a frog. Under Everett’s hands, it was a mutant, fitted wit
h jagged teeth, smiling like Everett himself had on October 30th.
He waved at her, his knife tucked between thumb and palm.
Candace blinked, then closed her eyes longer; maybe a second.
When she opened them, her brother was still there, still waving the knife.
She didn’t panic or despair. She waved back, happy to see him again.
Everett put his hand on the glass, and she did the same, against his. They blinked at one another.
Then Everett stepped back and placed the knife on the outside windowsill.
He waved goodbye and backed into the dark to disappear.
Candace waited, catching her breath. When she was sure he was gone, she opened the window and took the knife.
* * * *
Jill motored home on her Indian, ignorant of the Harley riding dark far behind her. She cut the engine and coasted down the driveway to her basement apartment entrance, careful not to wake her early-bed landlords in the upper house. Mr. Topper had worked first shift his whole life and wasn’t about to adjust to godawful late comings and goings, such as Jill’s 10:30 arrival time.
She went inside and flipped on the outside light, as she always had when she was still dating Dennis, in case he came by for late snuggles.
Pipsqueak parked his bike a hundred yards away and quietly skulked to the house, making mental notes of landmarks, hiding spots, etcetera. He peeked in the upper level windows of the Topper home, assessing the occupants by their décor and furnishings, then headed back to his bike.
Chapter 13
Identity
Candace went back to bed and refastened her pointless restraints.
She lay wondering how much of the night she had dreamed, whether dreams were real, whether she was insane.
The eight-inch meat knife Everett had brought her, that she clutched against her chest like a deadly steel doll, was real enough, wasn’t it? If she used it, would her victim—most likely either Radley or Rebecca—regard her with bewilderment while she repeatedly arced an empty useless fistful of nothing at them?
Why was she thinking of such things?
A fear grew in her that she had lost touch with reality, like Everett. Perhaps she really was soon to follow in his footsteps. What if, she wondered, there really is no difference between us?
She found herself wishing the Velcro straps weren’t useless; that she was securely restrained. She could not imagine herself hurting anyone, but, oh God—had Everett ever known that he was really killing?
She needed help. She had to do something soon. Before she hurt someone, God forbid Emera.
Candace got up and put the knife in the elastic waistband of her pajama bottoms.
…Why though?
Everett.
If he was real, she couldn’t take any chances, right?
She had just stepped outside the bedroom when she was startled by grabbing hands—on her legs.
Little Emera clung to Candace like a baby possum, her imploring sleepy eyes leaving Candace helpless to do anything but let her tag along.
Candace peered down the long shadowed hallway, trying to ignore her anticipation of a blood-covered Everett emerging from any one of the doors.
Emera hugged against her hips, creeping with her into the kitchen.
The cordless telephone sat just a few feet from the familiar butcher’s block, which was still in easy reach, oddly enough, blued by moonlight like a violin soloist under a spotlight.
Candace punched Stuart’s number into the illuminated keypad, clenching her teeth and holding Emera tight to her side as she listened to the dial tone, certain it was loud enough to wake the Dietrichs.
Stuart’s mom Elaine answered on the second ring, sounding harried.
“Mrs. Barcroft?” Candace whispered.
“Candace? Is that you?”
“Yes ma’am. Sorry I have to whisper.”
“Is something wrong, Sweetie?”
“There might be,” Candace kept her eyes on the dark hall beyond the kitchen doorway. “Could I please speak to Stuart?”
“Certainly,” Elaine answered. “But don’t get into trouble!”
The line was quiet for a full harrowing minute.
Then: “Candace?”
“Stuart!” Her whisper was too loud. She was so relieved, and happy to talk to him, she could barely contain it.
“Hey! What’s wrong?” Stuart asked in a groggy voice.
“It’s just, I’m not supposed to call, you know. So I’m sneaking.”
“Oh. Wow. Glad you did, but—”
“I know, don’t get in trouble.” She drew a quick deep breath, hoping to get out everything she needed to say. “Listen. I think something’s really wrong here.”
Emera tensed and hid behind Candace’s legs.
A shadow in the hallway—someone about to catch her. Candace swung around to hang up the handset but dropped it in her panic.
The overhead light came on and there stood Mr. Dietrich in his wrinkled striped pajamas. “Candace? What in the name of God are you doing out here?” The question was soaked with melodramatic accusation, indignation. “And with Emera?”
She didn’t answer, but Dietrich saw the phone on the floor. “Who did you call?”
“No one! I was just starting.” Candace pushed Emera behind her. “I just wanted to talk to Stuart.”
Dietrich scowled at Candace, then lunged to seize her by the shoulders. He jerked her away from the phone so fast it made her dizzy.
Emera screamed to wake the dead.
Perhaps it was the abruptness of Dietrich’s movement, along with Emera’s scream, that triggered something already hovering close.
As Dietrich held her out at shoulder length to scold her, she snapped her teeth at him, missing his nose by a hair’s width.
When Dietrich released her and fell back, Candace reached into her waistband and drew the knife. She saw his terror, and she liked it.
She felt her legs coiling for a pounce onto the house father, when Mrs. Dietrich arrived, screaming at Candace. “Stop!”
Candace did.
She gazed down at Mr. Dietrich with instant remorse, the knife shaking. Mrs. Dietrich stepped around her husband and took Candace by the shoulders, much quieter and more gently than he had. “Candace. Calm down baby.”
Mrs. Dietrich hugged her, as much a restraint as an embrace. “Shhhhh, shh, shh…”
Candace beheld the knife, wanting to drop it as she had the time before, but unable. Mr. Dietrich seemed like he was trying to decide whether to reach for it or not.
Emera came close, wanting to join the hug. Candace motioned her in. Just as Dietrich gained the courage to reach out for the knife, she released it, letting him catch it.
In the embrace, Candace sensed something strange in Mrs. Dietrich, though she could not see her mime the words I can’t do this to her husband right before she pulled away. “Is everyone okay?”
“…Yes.” Candace knew she would cry soon. “I’m very sorry, Mr. Dietrich.”
He got to his feet, his gaze darting between Candace and his wife. “It’s okay. Everything’s okay.”
When he cast a glance down the hallway Candace realized the other children stood outside their rooms. All except Rebecca, who peeked around her door nervously.
“I’m going to give you a sleep pill again,” said Mrs. Dietrich. “We’ll deal with all this in the morning.”
As Emera clenched against Candace’s hip again, Mr. Dietrich gave his wife a look like she had just signed his death warrant.
* * * *
Shivering, Reverend McGlazer tightly clutched himself, as if he could squeeze out the malignant man whipping his body like a horse into committing awful actions.
“That girl deserves better than to be used again, damn you,” Reverend McGlazer told
his possessor.
“What does it say about ye, Man of Yahweh and Yeshua,” countered the spiteful spirit, “that you expect me to ravage the girl?”
“I feel what you are,” McGlazer said.
“You’re but a fading voice,” said the voice. “A slave to the demon drink, quickly outgrowing any usefulness to anyone.”
Ragdoll Ruth’s pistol, covered with his own blood, appeared to McGlazer on the desk of his mind’s office. Beside it, the glass and the bottle. The tranquility. Both the opposite and the complement.
McGlazer sobbed, unaware that his hijacker had to plumb considerable reserves of otherworldly power and resolve to keep this sadness from spilling out upon the material world and revealing itself.
* * * *
Stella realized she was on edge when she yelped at a wet maple leaf that stuck to her windshield.
Given the silent sprinkle falling from the sepia sky, she might have dismissed her tension as autumn melancholia. WICH radio personality Abel the Weird had spun a string of moody tracks—Gothminister’s “March of The Dead,” Bauhaus’s “Stigmata Martyr” and Mechanical Moth’s “Cathedral”—that only underscored her gloom.
She pulled into Saint Saturn Unitarian’s gravel lot and parked beside a Nissan truck she knew belonged to Brianna Holland. The young lady, struggling with suicidal thoughts after her divorce, had a counseling session with McGlazer, which must have gone over the scheduled hour. The reverend was already behind on his sermon for the next day’s service, a task he aimed to finish immediately following Brianna’s session.
She stopped at the church’s rear door, fearing to open it. Retracing her day, Stella searched for some mundane instant of tiny distress so she could see it for what it was and chase it away along with the haze of dread that clung to her like wet clothes.
It didn’t help that the corridor lights she had switched on that morning were now dark. She entered and flicked the switch, grimacing at the erratic flicker of two ancient fluorescent tubes she’d been meaning to climb up and change for months.
McGlazer’s office door was closed. Stella’s heart reached out to poor Brianna, who must surely be in need of—
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