by Clive Barker
Boone had been a mystery in life, his affection a miracle which gave her a sense of herself she’d never had. Now, in death, that mystery deepened. It seemed she’d not known him at all, even in those moments of traumatic lucidity between them, when he’d been ready to break his skull open till she coaxed the distress from him; even then he’d been hiding a secret life of murder from her.
It scarcely seemed possible. When she pictured him now, making idiot faces at her, or weeping in her lap, the thought that she’d never known him properly was like a physical hurt. Somehow, she had to heal that hurt, or be prepared to bear the wound of his betrayal for ever. She had to know why his other life had taken him off to the back of beyond. Maybe the best solution was to go looking where he’d been found: in Midian. Perhaps there she’d find the mystery answered.
The police had instructed her not to leave Calgary until after the inquest, but she was a creature of impulse like her mother. She’d woken at three in the morning with the idea of going to Midian. She was packing by five, and was heading north on Highway 2 an hour after dawn.
3
Things went well at first. It was good to be away from the office – where she’d be missed, but what the hell? – and the apartment, with all its reminders of her time with Boone. She wasn’t quite driving blind, but as near as damn it; no map she’d been able to lay hands on marked any town called Midian. She’d heard mention of other towns, however, in exchanges between the police. Shere Neck was one, she remembered – and that was marked on the maps. She made that her target.
She knew little or nothing about the landscape she was crossing. Her family had come from Toronto – the civilized east as her mother had called it to the day she died, resenting her husband for the move that had taken them into the hinterland. The prejudice had rubbed off. The sight of wheat fields stretching as far as the eye could see had never done much for Lori’s imagination and nothing she saw as she drove changed her mind. The grain was being left to grow, its planters and reapers about other business. The sheer monotony of it wearied her more than she’d anticipated. She broke her journey at McLennan, an hour’s drive short of Peace River, and slept a full night undisturbed on a motel bed, to be up good and early the next morning, and off again. She’d make Shere Neck by noon, she estimated.
Things didn’t quite work out that way, however. Somewhere east of Peace River she lost her bearings, and had to drive forty miles in what she suspected was the wrong direction till she found a gas station, and someone to help her on her way.
There were twin boys playing with plastic armies in the dirt of the station office step. Their father, whose blond hair they shared, ground a cigarette out amongst the battalions and crossed to the car.
‘What can I get you?’
‘Gas, please. And some information?’
‘It’ll cost you,’ he said, not smiling.
‘I’m looking for a town called Shere Neck. Do you know it?’
The war games had escalated behind him. He turned on the children.
‘Will you shut up?’ he said.
The boys threw each other sideways glances, and fell silent, until he turned back to Lori. Too many years of working outdoors in the summer sun had aged him prematurely.
‘What do you want Shere Neck for?’ he said.
‘I’m trying … to track somebody.’
‘That so?’ he replied, plainly intrigued. He offered her a grin designed for better teeth. ‘Anyone I know?’ he said. ‘We don’t get too many strangers through here.’
There was no harm in asking, she supposed. She reached back into the car and fetched a photograph from her bag.
‘You didn’t ever see this man I suppose?’
Armageddon was looming at the step. Before looking at Boone’s photograph he turned on the children.
‘I told you to shut the fuck up!’ he said, then turned back to study the picture. His response was immediate. ‘You know who this guy is?’
Lori hesitated. The raw face before her was scowling. It was too late to claim ignorance, however.
‘Yes,’ she said, trying not to sound offensive. ‘I know who it is.’
‘And you know what he did?’ The man’s lip curled as he spoke. ‘There were pictures of him. I saw them.’ Again, he turned on the children. ‘Will you shut up?’
‘It wasn’t me,’ one of the pair protested.
‘I don’t give a fuck who it was!’ came the reply.
He moved towards them, arm raised. They were out from his shadow in seconds, forsaking the armies in fear of him. His rage at the children and his disgust at the picture were welded into one revulsion now.
‘A fucking animal,’ he said, turning to Lori. ‘That’s what he was. A fucking animal.’
He thrust the tainted photograph back at her.
‘Damn good thing they took him out. What you wanna do, go bless the spot?’
She claimed the photograph from his oily fingers without replying, but he read her expression well enough. Unbowed he continued his tirade.
‘Man like that should be put down like a dog, lady. Like a fucking dog.’
She retreated before his vehemence, her hands trembling so much she could barely open the car door.
‘Don’t you want no gas?’ he suddenly said.
‘Go to hell,’ she replied.
He looked bewildered.
‘What’s your problem?’ he spat back.
She turned the ignition, muttering a prayer that the car would not play dead. She was in luck. Driving away at speed she glanced in her mirror to see the man shouting after her through the dust she’d kicked up.
She didn’t know where his anger had come from, but she knew where it would go: to the children. No use to fret about it. The world was full of brutal fathers and tyrannical mothers; and come to that, cruel and uncaring children. It was the way of things. She couldn’t police the species.
Relief at her escape kept any other response at bay for ten minutes, but then it ran out, and a trembling overtook her, so violent she had to stop at the first sign of civilization and find somewhere to calm herself down. There was a small diner amongst the dozen or so stores, where she ordered coffee and a sugar fix of pie, then retired to the rest room to splash some cold water on her flushed cheeks. Solitude, albeit snatched, was the only cue her tears needed. Staring at her blotchy, agitated features in the cracked mirror she began to sob so insistently, nothing – not even the entrance of another customer – could shame her into stopping.
The newcomer didn’t do as Lori would have done in such circumstances, and withdraw. Instead, catching Lori’s eye in the mirror, she said:
‘What is it? Men or money?’
Lori wiped the tears away with her fingers.
‘I’m sorry?’ she said.
‘When I cry –’ the girl said, putting a comb through her hennaed hair. ‘– it’s only ever men or money.’
‘Oh.’ The girl’s unabashed curiosity helped hold fresh tears at bay. ‘A man,’ Lori said.
‘Leave you, did he?’
‘Not exactly.’
‘Jesus,’ said the girl. ‘Did he come back? That’s even worse.’
The remark earned a tiny smile from Lori.
‘It’s usually the ones you don’t want, right?’ the girl went on. ‘You tell ’em to piss off, they just keep coming back, like dogs –’
Mention of dogs reminded Lori of the scene at the garage, and she felt tears mustering again.
‘Oh shut up, Sheryl,’ the newcomer chided herself, ‘you’re making it worse.’
‘No,’ said Lori. ‘No really. I need to talk.’
Sheryl smiled.
‘As badly as I need coffee?’
Sheryl Margaret Clark was her name, and she could have coaxed gossip from angels. By their second hour of conversation and their fifth coffee, Lori had told her the whole sorry story, from her first meeting with Boone to the moment she and Sheryl had exchanged looks in the mirror. Sheryl herself had a
story to tell – more comedy than tragedy – about her lover’s passion for cars and hers for his brother, which had ended in hard words and parting. She was on the road to clear her head.
‘I’ve not done this since I was a kid,’ she said, ‘just going where the fancy takes me. I’ve forgotten how good it feels. Maybe we could go on together. To Shere Neck. I’ve always wanted to see the place.’
‘Is that right?’
Sheryl laughed.
‘No. But it’s as good a destination as any. All directions being equal to the fancy-free.’
VIII
Where He Fell
So they travelled on together, having taken directions from the owner of the diner, who claimed he had a better than vague idea of Midian’s whereabouts. The instructions were good. Their route took them through Shere Neck, which was bigger than Lori had expected, and on down an unmarked road that in theory led to Midian.
‘Why d’you wanna go there?’ the diner owner had wanted to know. ‘Nobody goes there anymore. It’s empty.’
‘I’m writing an article on the gold rush,’ Sheryl had replied, an enthusiastic liar. ‘She’s sightseeing.’
‘Some sight,’ came the response.
The remark had been made ironically, but it was truer than its speaker had known. It was late afternoon, the light golden on the gravel road, when the town came into view, and until they were in the streets themselves they were certain this could not be the right place, because what ghost town ever looked so welcoming? Once out of the sun, however, that impression changed. There was something forlornly romantic about the deserted houses, but finally the sight was dispiriting and not a little eerie. Seeing the place, Lori’s first thought was:
‘Why would Boone come here?’
Her second:
‘He didn’t come of his own volition. He was chased. It was an accident that he was here at all.’
They parked the car in the middle of the main street, which was, give or take an alleyway, the only street.
‘No need to lock it,’ Sheryl said. ‘Ain’t anybody coming to steal it.’
Now that they were here, Lori was gladder than ever of Sheryl’s company. Her verve and good humour were an affront to this sombre place; they kept whatever haunted it at bay.
Ghosts could be laid with laughter; misery was made of sterner stuff. For the first time since Decker’s telephone call she felt something approximating bereavement. It was so easy to imagine Boone here, alone and confused, knowing his pursuers were closing on him. It was easier still to find the place where they’d shot him down. The holes the stray bullets had made were ringed with chalk marks; smears and splashes of blood had soaked into the planks of the porch. She stood off from the spot for several minutes, unable to approach it yet equally unable to retreat. Sheryl had tactfully taken herself off exploring: there was nobody to break the hypnotic hold the sight of his death-bed had upon her.
She would miss him forever. Yet there were no tears. Perhaps she’d sobbed them out back in the diner washroom. What she felt instead, fuelling her loss, was the mystery of how a man she’d known and loved – or loved and thought she’d known – could have died here for crimes she’d never have suspected him of Perhaps it was the anger she felt towards him that prevented tears, knowing that despite his professions of love he’d hidden so much from her, and was now beyond the reach of her demands for explanation. Could he not at least have left a sign? She found herself staring at the blood stains wondering if eyes more acute than hers might have found some meaning in them. If prophecies could be read from the dregs in a coffee cup surely the last mark Boone had made on the world carried some significance. But she was no interpreter. The signs were just of many unsolved mysteries, chief amongst them the feeling she voiced aloud as she stared at the stairs:
‘I still love you Boone.’
Now there was a puzzle, that despite her anger and her bewilderment she’d have traded the life that was left in her just to have him walk out through that door now and embrace her.
But there was no reply to her declaration, however oblique. No wraith breath against her cheek; no sigh against her inner ear. If Boone was still here in some phantom form he was mute, and breathless; not released by death, but its prisoner.
Somebody spoke her name. She looked up.
‘– don’t you think?’ Sheryl was saying.
‘I’m sorry?’
‘Time we went,’ Sheryl repeated. ‘Don’t you think it’s time we went?’
‘Oh.’
‘You don’t mind me saying, you look like shit.’
‘Thanks.’
Lori put her hand out, in need of steadying. Sheryl grasped it.
‘You’ve seen all you need to, honey,’ she said.
‘Yes …’
‘Let it go.’
‘You know it still doesn’t seem quite real,’ Lori said. ‘Even standing here. Even seeing the place. I can’t quite believe it. How can he be so … irretrievable? There should be some way we could reach, don’t you think, some way to reach and touch them.’
‘Who?’
‘The dead. Otherwise it’s all nonsense, isn’t it? It’s all sadistic nonsense.’ She broke her hold with Sheryl; put her hand to her brow and rubbed it with her fingertips.
‘I’m sorry,’ she said, ‘I’m not making much sense, am I?’
‘Honestly? No.’
Lori proffered an apologetic look.
‘Listen,’ Sheryl said, ‘the old town’s not what it used to be. I think we should get out of here and leave it to fall apart. Whadda you say?’
‘I’d vote for that.’
‘I keep thinking …’ Sheryl stopped.
‘What?’
‘I just don’t like the company very much,’ she said. ‘I don’t mean you,’ she added hurriedly.
‘Who then?’
‘All these dead folk,’ she said.
‘What dead folk?’
‘Over the hill. There’s a bloody cemetery.’
‘Really?’
‘It’s not ideal viewing in your state of mind,’ Sheryl said hurriedly. But she could tell by the expression on Lori’s face she shouldn’t have volunteered the information.
‘You don’t want to see,’ she said. ‘Really you don’t.’
‘Just a minute or two.’ Lori said.
‘If we stay much longer, we’ll be driving back in the dark.’
‘I’ll never come here again.’
‘Oh sure. You should see the sights. Great sights. Dead people’s houses.’
Lori made a small smile.
‘I’ll be quick,’ she said, starting down the street in the direction of the cemetery. Sheryl hesitated. She’d left her sweater in the car, and was getting chilly. But all the time she’d been here she hadn’t been able to dislodge the suspicion that they were being watched. With dusk close she didn’t want to be alone in the street.
‘Wait for me,’ she said, and caught up with Lori who was already in sight of the graveyard wall.
‘Why’s it so big?’ Lori wondered aloud.
‘Lord knows. Maybe they all died out at once.’
‘So many? It’s just a little town.’
‘True.’
‘And look at the size of the tombs.’
‘I should be impressed?’
‘Did you go in?’
‘No. And I don’t much want to.’
‘Just a little way.’
‘Where have I heard that before?’
There was no reply from Lori. She was at the cemetery gates now, reaching through the ironwork to operate the latch. She succeeded. Pushing one of the gates open far enough to slip through, she entered. Reluctantly, Sheryl followed.
‘Why so many?’ Lori said again. It wasn’t simply curiosity that had her voice the question; it was that this strange spectacle made her wonder again if Boone had simply been cornered here by accident or whether Midian had been his destination. Was somebody buried here he’d come hoping to find ali
ve?; or at whose grave he’d wanted to confess his crimes? Though it was all conjecture, the avenues of tombs seemed to offer some faint hope of comprehension the blood he’d shed would not have supplied had she studied it till the sky fell.
‘It’s late,’ Sheryl reminded her.
‘Yes.’
‘And I’m cold.’
‘Are you?’
‘I’d like to go, Lori.’
‘Oh … I’m sorry. Yes. Of course. It’s getting too dark to see much anyhow.’
‘You noticed.’
They started back up the hill towards the town, Sheryl making the pace.
What little light remained was almost gone by the time they reached the outskirts of the town. Letting Sheryl march on to the car Lori stopped to take one final look at the cemetery. From this vantage point it resembled a fortress. Perhaps the high walls kept animals out, though it seemed an unnecessary precaution. The dead were surely secure, beneath their memorial stones. More likely the walls were the mourners’ way to keep the dead from having power over them. Within those gates the ground was sacred to the departed, tended in their name. Outside, the world belonged to the living, who had nothing left to learn from those they’d lost.
She was not so arrogant. There was much she wanted to say to the dead tonight; and much to hear. That was the pity of it.
She returned to the car oddly exhilarated. It was only once the doors were locked and the engine running that Sheryl said:
‘There’s been somebody watching us.’
‘You sure?’
‘I swear. I saw him just as I got to the car.’
She was rubbing her breasts vigorously. ‘Jesus, my nipples get numb when I’m cold.’
‘What did he look like?’ Lori said.
Sheryl shrugged. ‘Too dark to see,’ she said. ‘Doesn’t matter now. Like you said, we won’t be coming back here again.’
True, Lori thought. They could drive away down a straight road and never look back. Maybe the deceased citizens of Midian envied them that, behind their fortress walls.