Darkness

by John Saul

  Jenny hesitated, but finally nodded. She’d known Dr. Phillips as long as she could remember, and he’d never hurt her, not really. Sometimes, when he gave her shots, it stung a little, but after he took the needle out of her arm, he always gave her a lollipop and she always felt better.

  Except this time she kept feeling worse every time she woke up.

  It was a funny kind of feeling. Every time she went to sleep, she hoped she’d feel better when she woke up, but she didn’t. She always woke up feeling empty, as if something inside of her was slowly draining out. She felt all cold inside, and when she thought about her mother and father, and even Michael, something was different.

  She still wished they’d come and see her, and take her away from this place, but each time she woke up, the ache inside her when she thought about them didn’t hurt as much.

  Instead, that strange icy lump inside seemed to get a little bit bigger each day, numbing her.

  Jenny silently wondered if she was dying, and if she was, what being dead would be like. But she was afraid she already knew—it would be like being in the dream again, with the man coming after her, reaching for her, wanting something from her.

  But if she was dead, she wouldn’t wake up from the dream, and it would just go on and on and on.

  The thought made her gasp, and Dr. Phillips frowned down at her, his eyes leaving the bottle that hung on the rack above her, dripping clear liquid that she had been told was food into a tube that went into her arm.

  There was another tube, coming from a big needle that was in her chest, held in place with a piece of tape. That needle hurt, and the tape itched, but she couldn’t scratch it because of the straps that bound her to the bed, which were only undone when she had to go to the bathroom.

  “Are you all right? Does something hurt?” Dr. Phillips asked.

  Jenny shook her head. “What are you doing?”

  “I’m just adding something to your food.”

  “What?”

  Phillips smiled at her. “Something to make you sleep,” he told her. “Haven’t you been telling Lavinia that you can’t sleep?”

  Lavinia. That was the name of the woman who came to take her to the bathroom, and change the babies’ diapers, and sat with her sometimes, even holding her hand, though she never said a word. “I don’t want to sleep,” she complained. “If I go to sleep, the dream will come back.”

  “No, it won’t,” Dr. Phillips promised. “I’m putting something in your food to make it go away, and when you go to sleep, it won’t be there at all.”

  Jenny looked up at him, her eyes wide with apprehension. “Promise?”

  “Promise,” Phillips repeated. He finished attaching the morphine vial to the IV, and turned the valve that switched the feeder tube from the glucose solution to the narcotic. “Go to sleep, Jenny,” he said. “Just let yourself drift away.”

  He stayed with her, waiting for the narcotic to take effect. Only when she had fallen once more into a deathlike coma did he unstrap her bonds and carefully remove the needles that had been inserted in her body. Finally he picked her up, carrying her out of the room, then up the stairs to the main floor of his isolated house. He stepped out into the darkness, glancing to the east, but there was no sign yet of the rising sun.

  It had been three days since he’d brought Jenny here. Each day he’d brought her up from the subterranean chambers before dawn and taken her back to Villejeune, where she’d lain all day in her coffin, deep in a narcotic-induced coma, her life apparently over. And each night, after dark, he’d taken her back to the laboratory beneath his house, bringing her out of the deathlike sleep.

  Each day, he’d drained a little more of the priceless fluid from her thymus.

  Stolen her youth, to prolong his own.

  Stolen her soul to stave off his own mortality.

  But this would be the last time he would take her into Villejeune, for today was a very special day for Jenny Sheffield.

  Today was the day of her funeral.

  Just a few more minutes, Barbara told herself. Just a few more minutes, and then I’ll be alone with Craig and Michael, and I can let go.

  She was sitting in the small darkened alcove to the right of the altar in the chapel of the Childress Funeral Home. Though a gauzy curtain separated her and her husband and son from the rest of the people who had come to Jenny’s funeral, she could see their faces clearly enough, see the confusion they were feeling as they listened to the eulogy for the little girl whose body lay in the coffin in front of the altar.

  A funeral for a child.

  It was wrong—children don’t have funerals; they have parties. Birthday parties, and graduation parties, and parties after proms, and finally wedding parties.

  But not funerals.

  What would they say to her when it was finally over and they had to take her hand and try to soothe the pain she was feeling? With an aged parent, especially one who had been ill, it was simple enough.

  “It’s a blessing, Barbara.”

  “I know it’s hard, Barbara, but at least your mother’s pain is over.”

  “It’s better this way, Barbara.”

  She’d heard it all, first at her father’s funeral ten years ago, and then at her mother’s two years later.

  But there was no blessing in losing your six-year-old daughter.

  Jenny had had no pain, rarely suffered so much as a day in her life.

  And she hadn’t wanted to die.

  Barbara had tried not to think about it during the last three days, tried to keep her mind from focusing on her little girl, slipping on the muddy edge of the canal, tumbling into the water and then struggling to get out.

  Struggling, and calling, with no one to hear her or to help her.

  Her hands, resting tensely in her lap, clenched the handkerchief that was soaked through from her tears, and she resolutely pushed the image out of her mind.

  It won’t change anything, she told herself. It won’t bring her back.

  She forced herself to gaze through the filmy curtain once again, but found herself unable to look at Jenny’s coffin. Instead, she scanned the faces of her friends and neighbors—people she had known for years—and wondered yet again what they would say to her after this ordeal was over.

  Would they—could they—find any words of comfort?

  Suddenly the organ began to play, and the gathering of mourners rose to its feet as the first strains of Jenny’s favorite hymn began to sound.

  “Away in a Manger.”

  As Barbara, too, rose shakily to her feet, she could almost hear Jenny’s piping voice as she sang in the Christmas pageant last year, looking like a tiny angel in the costume Barbara had spent three days working on.

  The costume she was being buried in today.

  Barbara tried to imagine her entering into heaven, dressed as the angel she had already become.

  She raised the handkerchief to her eyes, dabbing once more at the tears she was powerless to control.

  The last chords of the hymn died away, the final prayer was softly uttered by the minister who had christened Jenny only six short years ago, and then the service was over. The curtain was raised, and Barbara felt Craig’s hand on her arm, steadying her as he led her toward the altar to look at her daughter’s face for the last time.

  Sleeping, she thought as she gazed into Jenny’s gentle countenance a moment later.

  She looks as though she’s sleeping.

  As Craig’s grip tightened on her elbow, she turned away and let him guide her up the aisle and out of the chapel.

  Michael paused in front of his sister’s coffin, his eyes searching her face for some sign of life. And yet he’d seen her each day as she’d lain in the viewing room, and each day she’d looked the same.

  Her eyes closed, her face expressionless.

  At last he reached down to touch her, resting his hand on her own much smaller ones, which were folded on her breast, holding a flower.

  He squeezed
her hands gently and was about to withdraw his fingers from her when he thought he felt a movement.

  He froze, his hand remaining where it was, waiting for it to come again.

  But no.

  He’d only imagined it.

  And yet as he, too, turned away from the coffin, he still couldn’t bring himself to believe that Jenny was really gone, that he’d never see her again.

  Something inside him, something he didn’t quite understand, told him that she was still alive, that she wasn’t dead at all, that she was still a part of his life.

  “I feel the same way,” his father had told him last night when he’d finally confessed the strange feeling he had. “We all feel like that. It’s so hard to accept the finality of death, especially with someone like Jenny. I still expect her to come running in, climb into my lap, and plant one of those wet kisses on my cheek. Sometimes I wake up in the night and think I hear her crying. It’s part of mourning, Michael. I know it all seems impossible, but it’s happened. We have to accept it.”

  But for Michael it was different. Each morning, when he woke up, the feeling that Jenny was alive was stronger.

  It was as if she was reaching out to him, calling to him, crying out for him to help her.

  He moved down the aisle, searching the crowd for Kelly Anderson, and finally spotted her sitting with her parents and grandfather. As their eyes met, she nodded at him, not in greeting, but as if they shared some unspoken secret.

  He understood.

  She had the same feeling he had.

  She had it, and recognized it in him.

  Barbara watched in silence as Jenny’s coffin was placed in the crypt, a cold chill passing over her as the door closed and her daughter’s body was sealed into the stone chamber. Almost involuntarily, her eyes shifted to the crypt next to Jenny’s, and she read the inscription on its door.

  SHARON SHEFFIELD

  JULY 26, 1975

  TAKEN HOME BY THE LORD THE SAME DAY

  For Sharon, there had been no funeral. Her tiny body had simply been taken from the hospital to Childress’s, then interred here.

  On the first Sunday that Barbara had felt well enough, there had been a prayer said for her at church.

  And that was all.

  She’d never seen her, never once held that first little girl in her arms.

  Suddenly she sensed a movement behind her, and turned to see Amelie Coulton pushing her way through the small gathering in the cemetery. Her lifeless blond hair, unwashed, hung limply around her face, and she was clad in a shapeless dress whose color had long ago faded into a mottled off-white.

  But it was Amelie’s eyes that riveted Barbara’s attention, for they burned feverishly with an inner light that reached out to Barbara, seizing her.

  “She ain’t dead!” Amelie said, her voice quavering. “She ain’t dead any more’n my own little baby is!”

  Barbara’s heart lurched as the words struck her. What was Amelie saying? She’d seen Jenny.

  Not Jenny.

  Sharon!

  Was she talking about Sharon?

  “Ask Clarey Lambert!” Amelie went on. “She knows! She knows it all!”

  Suddenly two men appeared at Amelie’s side, taking her arms. Amelie tried to shake them off, but they held her tight, keeping her from coming any closer to Barbara.

  “I ain’t lyin’,” Amelie went on, her voice breaking now. “You got to believe me, Miz Sheffield. You was nice to me—I wouldn’t lie to you!”

  Barbara said nothing for a moment, her mind swimming.

  “It’s all right, Barbara,” she heard someone saying. “We’ll get her out—”

  “No,” Barbara said, her voice suddenly coming back to her. “Let her go. Please. She’s all right.”

  The men hesitated, but finally released Amelie, who stayed where she was for a second, then came forward to put her hand gently on Barbara’s arm. “I ain’t wrong,” she said. “If’n your baby’d died, you’d know. A mama knows them things.” She seemed about to say something else, but then apparently changed her mind. Turning away, she disappeared through the crowd as quickly as she’d come.

  But her words stuck in Barbara’s mind, echoing there, festering.

  Could it be true?

  No!

  But as the graveside service finally came to an end a few minutes later, Barbara’s eyes fell on Kelly Anderson.

  Kelly, who looked so much like her niece Tisha.

  Kelly, who was the same age Sharon would have been had she lived.

  Kelly, who was adopted.

  Kelly was approaching her now, her eyes serious, her face pale beneath the simple makeup she was wearing.

  “I’m so sorry, Mrs. Sheffield,” she said. “I—I don’t know what—”

  Barbara put her arms around the girl and pulled her close. “You don’t have to say anything, Kelly,” she whispered. “I’m just so glad you’re here. Sometimes, when I look at you, I can almost imagine I haven’t lost both my little girls. I can almost believe that maybe Sharon didn’t die at all, and grew up to be you.” She felt Kelly stiffen in her arms, and immediately regretted her words. “I’m sorry,” she said, releasing Kelly from the embrace and dabbing at her suddenly tear-filled eyes. “I had no right to say that. I—”

  But before she could go on, Kelly stopped her. “It’s all right, Mrs. Sheffield,” she said so softly that Barbara could barely make out the words. “If I ever find out who my real mother is, I wish it could turn out to be you.”

  Their eyes met for a moment, neither of them speaking. Finally Kelly turned away, but as she rejoined her parents and grandfather, Barbara kept watching her.

  Who is she? she thought. Where did she come from?

  Suddenly, with an intensity she’d rarely felt before, she knew she had to find out.

  Kelly and Michael were sitting on the dock behind the Sheffield house. Above them, on the lawn, they could hear the buzz of conversation, as people talked quietly among themselves. The reception had been going on for an hour, and people were finally beginning to drift away, but Michael was certain that some of them—his parents’ closest friends—would stay on into the evening, unwilling to leave his mother alone.

  “I don’t know why they don’t just go away,” he said, glancing over his shoulder. “It’s not like they can do anything.”

  “I know,” Kelly agreed. “I guess it’s just what people do at funerals.” She was silent for a moment, and when she spoke again, she didn’t look at Michael. “Do you think Jenny’s really dead?”

  Michael stiffened, knowing instantly what she was talking about. “No. I don’t know what happened. But when Judd Duval told me how he found her, I didn’t believe him.” He shifted position, his brows knitting into a deep frown. “I just don’t feel like she’s dead. It’s really weird—but I keep feeling like she’s still alive and needs me to help her.”

  Kelly finally looked at him. “I know. I keep getting the same feeling. Last night I dreamed about Jenny. And in the dream, I saw that old man, too. Only he was trying to get Jenny, not me.”

  “But—”

  “We have to find out, Michael. And it’s not just about Jenny, either.” Michael cocked his head curiously. “I keep thinking about what Amelie said, too.”

  Michael’s frown deepened. “She said to ask Clarey. She said that Clarey knows.”

  They were silent for a few minutes, and then Kelly said, “There’s a way we can find out.”

  Michael looked at her intently. “I know. I’ve been thinking about it, too.” He was silent for a moment, then: “Tonight?”

  Kelly hesitated, then nodded.

  22

  Fred Childress picked up the large ring of keys he’d brought home with him from the mortuary that afternoon and glanced at his watch. Ten more minutes.

  Midnight, Warren Phillips had told him.

  Childress had known better than to argue with Phillips. He’d done that once, years ago, and though he hadn’t thought much of it at
the time, the next week, when he’d gone for his shot, Phillips had refused to give it to him. Two days later, when he’d gotten up in the morning and seen himself in the mirror, he’d felt a cold wave of fear he never wanted to experience again. Overnight, he’d aged at least thirty years, and when he’d called Phillips, begging for the shot, Phillips had coolly replied that the mortician didn’t seem to understand the rules. “I’ll give you the shot,” he’d said. “But you’ll never argue with me again. Is that clear?” With the reflection of his own death mocking him from the mirror, Fred Childress had quickly agreed.

  Now, at a few minutes before midnight, he got into his Cadillac and drove out to Judd Duval’s shack at the edge of the swamp.

  Judd was sitting in front of the television, a can of beer in his hand, two empty ones sitting on the scarred table next to his chair.

  “Are you drunk?” the mortician demanded.

  Duval glared at him through bloodshot eyes. “Ain’t you that has to watch out for them kids every night,” he growled, lifting himself out of the chair and draining the beer in a single long pull. Leaving the television on, he followed Childress out to the car.

  Childress said little on the way to the cemetery, nervously glancing in the mirror every few seconds, certain that unseen eyes were following every move the car made.

  The deputy chuckled darkly. “What’s the problem, Fred? The way you’re actin’, anyone’d think you’d never even been in a graveyard before!” The chuckle turned into an ugly laugh as Childress glared at Duval, but he said nothing more until the undertaker had parked his dark blue Cadillac in the deep shadows of the dirt road that led around to the back gate of the cemetery. But before he got out of the car, Judd saw Childress glancing around yet again. “Shit, Fred, would you take it easy? There warn’t another car on the road. Now let’s just get this done, so’s you can go on home while I do the hard part, okay? Sometimes I don’t know why Phillips puts up with a chickenshit like you.”

  Fred Childress’s temper flared. “For the same reason he puts up with an ignorant swamp rat like you,” he snapped. “He needs us.”