Deeper into Darkness

by James, Russell

“Damn it, Alfie, are you camping outside her window? You dreamed up some fantasy blonde, then came across someone who looked similar. Wow, in crowded New York City, big surprise. Then you hammered all these pieces together, and built up this whole thing in your mind.”

  “What if I didn’t?” Alfie said. “What if I’m seeing premonitions of our future together? What if she’s seeing the same thing?”

  “Jesus!” Stan threw his hands up in the air. The handwritten page sailed off toward the kitchen. “You won’t end up in Riker’s, you’ll end up in Bellevue. Are you listening to yourself?”

  “I know it will work out,” Alfie said. He stood and pulled a narrow envelope from his back pocket. His voice turned dreamy. “The rest is all arranged. The getaway we’ve both been dreaming of.”

  Stan snatched the envelope from his hands. Inside were two plane tickets to Hawaii. One carried the name of Linda Latsko.

  “You’re out of your damn mind!” Stan said. “You make minimum wage. How did you pay for these?”

  “I’ve been saving.” Alfie’s voice drifted back into reverie. “There’s something that binds us all together. Currents that can push us in the right direction, if we are smart enough to not swim against them. That’s what’s happening here. I’m getting a message, a preview of our future together. And I know she is too. Once we finally meet—”

  Stan grabbed him by the shoulders. His face turned red and he shook his little brother.

  “Don’t even think about it! You hear me! You’ll scare this poor woman to death with this crazy story. She’ll call a cop, or mace you, or maybe even shoot you, if she’s armed. She’s not your soul mate. She’s a stranger. She’s not dreaming of you!”

  Alfie’s head hurt from the shaking. His brother’s fingers dug hot divots in his upper arms.

  “Okay! Okay! I get it. You’re hurting me!”

  Stan let him go and took a deep breath. “I’m sorry. Everything you’re saying just scares the hell out of me. This fuse your imagination has lit goes straight to a keg of dynamite. I’ve seen this kind of thing in court all the time. Don’t I always look out for you?”

  “Well, yes.”

  “Then promise me you won’t approach this woman again.”

  Alfie sighed. “Okay. I won’t. I promise.”

  Stan stuffed the notes, tickets and pictures into the manila envelope and shoved it under his arm. “And I’ll take care of this mess, which is good for a misdemeanor, minimum.”

  Stan left in a hurry.

  Alfie feared from the beginning Stan wouldn’t be convinced. He had to try anyway. He’d hoped that maybe this one time, his big brother would take a leap of faith about something, instead of having to have that “preponderance of evidence” he always talked about. Too much to hope for. His brother was a hard facts kind of guy.

  Alfie would just have to talk with Linda tomorrow, and get those hard facts.

  ♦♦♦

  Alfie spied Linda at a corner table on the Verdant Café’s patio, where she met her friend Connie for lunch every Friday. She always arrived at a quarter to twelve, Connie at noon. Linda wore a dark brown patterned dress that ended just past her knees. The familiar dress was one of his favorites. A good omen.

  His window of opportunity opened. A public place, in daylight, where she’d feel safe. She’d recognize him from her dreams, but be unsure how to admit it, until he told her that she haunted his as well. Then they could both relax and relish the moment, the moment when they both began the rest of their lives.

  Alfie tucked a few stray hairs back behind his ear. He straightened his tie, an uncomfortable addition for his crucial first real-life impression. He took a deep breath and marched past the gate into the outdoor dining area.

  Linda’s face was buried in her slab-sided menu. Alfie stopped next to her table. His mouth went dry. Nervous muscles in his arms twitched.

  “Linda?” he nearly whispered.

  Linda looked up. Her mouth dropped open. The menu hit the table with a thud that rattled the silverware. Alfie raised his hands in surrender.

  “Sorry, didn’t mean to startle you.”

  The moment was here. Her stunned reaction could mean only one thing. His knees locked in anticipation of her jubilant response to his next question.

  “Do you recognize me?”

  Her eyes went wide, though it did not seem with joy. Then they darted about the café, as if searching for an exit. She straightened up in her seat and looked back to the menu on the table.

  “No, I don’t. You must have me confused with someone else.”

  He’d half-expected that answer. He might have said the same if their roles were reversed. He sat in the chair Connie always took.

  “It’s okay. I know you know who I am. I’ve been trying to find you for so long.”

  Heavy hands clamped down on his shoulders and pressed him into his seat. Linda jumped up and back so quickly that her chair skidded practically into the street. She looked to Alfie’s left with fire in her eyes.

  “What the hell is this?” she yelled as she pointed at Alfie.

  Alfie looked up. Two uniformed police officers held him in place. His brother stood to the left. The three were panting.

  “I’m so sorry,” Stan said to Linda. “We lost him on the subway. He shouldn’t have gotten this far. This really wasn’t supposed to happen.”

  “You’re damn right it isn’t supposed to happen. I’d have never agreed to the plea bargain if crap like this was going to happen. You promised that the memory wipe would be permanent.”

  “It is, sort of. He only thinks he knows who you are.”

  Alfie’s head started to spin. None of this made any sense.

  “You said I wouldn’t have to leave the city,” Linda said. “I’d be anonymous in nine million people. Does this look anonymous to you?”

  “Stan?” Alfie said. “You know her?”

  “He’s not dangerous,” Stan said to Linda.

  “Liar! The obsessive son of a bitch tried to kill me with a meat cleaver! You think I don’t remember that?”

  Alfie shook his head as he tried to rise. “No, Linda, I would never—”

  The cops shoved him down harder.

  “I’ll take him back to the Institute,” Stan said. “They’ll give him another treatment. Stronger, this time.”

  “Forget it! I’ve already spent too many years of my life with him. I’m not spending the rest of it worrying he’ll return. It’s bad enough that my trust issues keep me alone as it is. I rescind my consent, as the judge’s sentence allowed. Send him back to prison.”

  She swept her purse off the ground and stomped off down the sidewalk. The two cops hoisted Alfie to his feet. Every patron in the café stared at Alfie in silent shock. Alfie watched the woman of his dreams disappear into the crowd. His knees went weak.

  “Stan,” Alfie pleaded, “I don’t understand what’s going on.”

  “And the sad thing is,” Stan said with a shake of his head, “you probably never will. Unless the bad memories eventually surface with the good. Memory wipes are experimental treatment for obsessive behavior. I got you off of an attempted murder charge with an insanity plea, as long as you agreed to the treatment. It’s supposed to erase the obsession, and eliminate you being a danger to society.”

  “I tried to kill Linda?” Alfie couldn’t believe it.

  “When she left you for someone else,” Stan said. “This violates the condition of your parole. Now the situation’s out of my hands. You couldn’t listen to me and leave her alone. Don’t I always look out for you?”

  I read a story in the news about scientists who manipulated the memories of mice. I seemed to be the only person concerned with the implications, like no one else ever saw the movie Total Recall.

  We can only be better people by learning from the mistakes and sad memories from our pasts. Too bad.

  Ω

  The Devil’s Eyes

  1864

  Corporal Geary’s lamentable
first command plodded down the dirt road. Just two infantrymen of the 21st Michigan followed him, all astride stolen horses. Private Hobbs sat slouched in his saddle, a purloined, handmade quilt wrapped around his barrel chest in response to the Georgia cold. Salty sweat from the summer’s campaign edged his cap in a crusty white. Private Dobrey followed behind, gaunt and haggard in his oversized uniform, a testimony to his long-term bout with dysentery. His red-rimmed eyes bulged from his face. Their last shaves and haircuts had been a hundred miles away, before Sherman started the Atlanta campaign.

  While a career NCO would look upon these two with disgust, the quality of his soldiers suited Geary just fine. He’d shed his tiny kepi cap for a wide-brimmed slouch hat borrowed from a surrendered Johnny Reb. Mud splattered his boots and pants. Tobacco juice stained his right sleeve where the wind had rearranged the stream of his already errant spitting. His long, dark hair covered his collar in greasy strands. A draftee, he’d never much taken to the discipline of military life, and was happy to have two men under him who shared his disdain.

  “How you liking this cavalry life, boys?” Geary said. He was proud of the three horses they had liberated at bayonet point from a tobacco farmer days ago.

  “Yes, sir, I can stand it fine,” Hobbs said. “Let the animal do the marching.”

  After taking Atlanta, Sherman wheeled the Army of the Tennessee eastward and set it out on a near unopposed march to Savannah and the sea. Abandoning supply lines, Sherman ordered to army to “liberally forage” for supplies en route and swore to “make Georgia howl.” Geary’s sergeant had sent the three of them out to forage a week ago, and Geary just hadn’t found time to come back yet. His stomach was full, his feet didn’t hurt and he could do what he wanted to whomever he wanted, without retribution. He was in no hurry to trade that for the strictures of military life.

  “Ohhh,” Dobrey moaned. “Gotta stop!”

  “Damn it,” Geary cursed as he pulled his horse to a stop. Woods bordered both sides of the road, and he didn’t like not having a clear view of any approaching soldiers, from any army.

  He looked over his shoulder to admonish Dobrey, but the private had already squatted by the side of the road, drawers at his ankles, bony butt delivering a stinking, steaming, runny gift to the red Georgia clay.

  “Jesus, Dobrey,” Hobbs said. “How can you have something left inside you? You done crapped out a river by now.”

  Underbrush rustled off to the left. Geary pulled a revolver from his belt, a battlefield souvenir his rank would never merit. Hobbs lifted his rifle from his lap and trained it at the sound. Dobrey sprang up and hitched up his pants.

  “Who’s in there?” Geary said. “Come out or we’ll shoot.”

  Hushed whispers sounded from the bushes.

  “I ain’t joking,” Geary said.

  “Don’t shoot,” a deep voice said. “We’re coming out.”

  Seven black men and women rose from the undergrowth. They wore layers of ragged clothing and carried the dirt of many days’ travel. Most had some kind of bundle with them, most likely containing all their possessions. One man in his mid-twenties, dark as coal and broad in the shoulders, stepped forward. The missing sleeves of his shirt exposed scars on his strong upper arms.

  Geary swung his head in dismay. Another group of runaways. No sooner had word of the Emancipation Proclamation filtered south, than the woods teemed with escaping slaves. The draft had gotten Geary into this war, and his job was to get himself out of it alive. He barely cared about preserving the glorious Federal union. He didn’t give a tinker’s damn about freeing coloreds so they could move up north.

  “Looks like we got some contrabands,” Hobbs said.

  “Just what we need,” Geary sighed.

  “We’re supposed to help ‘em,” Dobrey said.

  Geary shot Dobrey a derisive look. He leaned forward in the saddle and pointed his pistol at the group’s apparent leader. “Where you coming from, boy?”

  The man stared Geary down with big dark eyes that burned hot with hatred. This wasn’t the docile slave type he’d been familiar with. Geary realized that there was a good chance this man could rip him from the saddle and beat him senseless, even if Geary got a Colt .44 slug in him. Geary sat back in the saddle.

  “Little further south,” the man said, voice cold as iron. “Overseer had an accident.”

  The rest of the group stepped out of the woods, Geary shivered, suddenly feeling exposed and vulnerable. Behind him, Dobrey mounted his horse. It whinnied and stamped.

  “See any Rebs up ahead?” Geary asked.

  “They’re all running,” the man said. “Sugar Hill Plantation up ahead, though. I’d steer around it.”

  “And why’s that?”

  A woman in the group clutched her bundle to her chest. The man next to her wrapped an arm around her shoulder.

  “That’s the Devil’s house,” the man said. “Slaves go in, they don’t never come out. Not as men, at least, just as demons.”

  Geary broke into a smile and patted his purloined pistol. “Ain’t seen a demon yet can survive hot lead.”

  “That’s cause you ain’t seen the Devil. Doc Piercy ain’t no man. He’s got the Devil’s eyes, the mark of a bartered soul. We only got a half a loaf of bread between us, but we’ll starve before we set foot on that property to find food.”

  “That’s why slaves and soldiers is two different things,” Geary said.

  The man cast Geary one more withering look, then waved his people out and down the road. Most had no shoes on their feet. Geary started down the road in the opposite direction.

  “Ain’t we gonna help them?” Dobrey said.

  “Looks like they’re helping themselves just fine,” Geary said without turning around. “Ain’t like they’re people.”

  Dobrey bit his lower lip as he took another look at the retreating runaways, then turned back. “Where we going?”

  “We’re gonna find that plantation.”

  “You heard that man, right?”

  “What I heard was superstitious slaves afraid to set foot there. That means the place hasn’t been looted yet. That means food, liquor, cigars and silver. We could hole up in there for days.”

  Hobbs brimmed with enthusiasm. “Then what are we waiting for? Might even be a Southern belle there in need of some Northern comfort.”

  ♦♦♦

  Four miles down the road, they came upon Sugar Hill Plantation. The white main house stood three stories tall, capped with a steep red roof. Enormous pillars supported a large, second story balcony. Massive oaks around the perimeter spread thick, moss-draped branches like shielding hands. Doors stood open on the outbuildings behind the mansion. No one worked the fields. No livestock grazed beyond the fences.

  “Ain’t nothing there,” Dobrey said. “Nothing at all. Deserted as a whorehouse on Christmas Day. Let’s leave it be.”

  “If you’re right,” Geary said. “Then we got nothing to worry about.”

  The three approached slowly, weapons up and ready. They pulled their horses to a halt at the front porch.

  “See, yellow-belly?” Hobbs chided Dobrey. “Nothing.”

  “Yeah,” Dobrey said. “That’s just it. No people, no animals, no sounds. Don’t that all seem odd to any of you?”

  Geary realized Dobrey was right. There wasn’t a breath of air, not the sound of one buzzing insect. It was strange…

  “Stop your nonsense,” he said. “Get inside.”

  The three men dismounted and lashed their horses to the pillars.

  Geary eased the unlocked front door open with the barrel of his pistol. A red carpet covered a central hall that led to a staircase. Mirrors hung along both walls between the open doorways to other rooms. A gold and crystal chandelier hung from the ceiling.

  “Well, I’ll be goddamned,” Hobbs said. “Fancy as the King of Spain in here.”

  “And if he’s half as rich,” Geary said, “we may never find our way back to Sherman’s little par
ty.”

  “You’re the corporal,” Hobbs said. “You give the orders.”

  Dobrey remained on the porch. He toed the threshold’s edge like the floor might be molten lava. His head swiveled around like a turtle’s.

  “What’s the matter with you?” Geary said. “Get in here.”

  “You know, I’ll just stay out here, make a shout if I see any Reb soldiers.”

  “More like make a quick exit if’n he gets the squirts going again,” Hobbs said.

  Geary’d had enough of dragging Dobrey around like a cur on a rope. He shooed the private off with a wave of his pistol and Dobrey disappeared. Geary led Hobbs through a doorway on the left.

  They entered a dining room. Stacks of formal china sat on the long central table. An open box revealed rows of silverware. Portraits of family members hung on the walls, looking down as if guarding this stash of privilege. Geary scooped a fork from the box and tried to bend it in half.

  “Real silver,” he whispered.

  “If all this is still here,” Hobbs said, “the owners must be too. Nobody’d leave all this.”

  “People running scared of the mighty power of the Army of the Tennessee,” Geary said. He flashed a wicked smile. “And of fearsome warriors like ourselves.”

  He grabbed a handful of silverware from the box. It was halfway to his pocket when a scream from Dobrey broke the silence. The silverware hit the table with a clatter. The two men ran toward the front porch, weapons at the ready.

  They burst through the doorway to a still-life scene. Dobrey was gone. The three horses lay on their sides on the ground. Their necks had been slashed and their heads lay in pools of thick, red blood. Steam rose from the open wounds like escaping souls. The razor-clean cut was in the exact same position on each horse.

  No wind rustled the trees. In the stillness and the deafening silence, Dobrey’s scream seemed like a hallucination.

  “Goddamn it!” Geary shouted. “Dobrey! Dobrey!”

  His calls carried far across the field. No one answered.

  “How the hell can someone kill horses without a making a sound?” Hobbs said.

  Geary slammed his pistol against his open palm. “Whoever it was didn’t kill Dobrey. He’s here somewhere.” He pointed the pistol left. “You go around that way, I’ll go the other and meet you around back. Then we’ll search the outbuildings.”