The Bleeding Season

by Greg F. Gifune

  CHAPTER 37

  I came awake with a start to find a young nurse gently shaking me by the shoulder. “Mr. Chance?”

  “Yeah—yes.” My body was sore from head to toe, and the hard plastic chair I had fallen asleep in wasn’t helping. My clothes were filthy and still damp in places, and mud from my shoes had marred the waiting room floor.

  “I’m sorry I startled you,” she said warmly. “Are you all right?”

  A daytime talk show was playing silently on a small television in the corner, and in a chair across from me a middle-aged Hispanic woman sat nervously leafing through an old magazine. “Yes, sorry,” I said to the nurse. “I was just—I fell asleep.”

  She smiled. “Mr. Brisco is out of surgery and awake.”

  I struggled to my feet and followed her down a quiet hallway. “How is he?”

  “He’s got a long road ahead of him in terms of physical therapy before he’ll walk again, and he may need further surgery at some point, but he’s doing miraculously well.” She stopped at an open doorway, motioned for me to enter then left us as I slipped into the room.

  Rick lay in a bed against the wall. It didn’t seem possible he could be so seriously damaged.

  I sat in a chair next to the bed. “Hey, man. How you feeling?”

  He opened his eyes. He was pale, drawn and groggy, but his face brightened a bit when he saw me. “Well, there goes my fucking ballet career.”

  I wanted to laugh but couldn’t quite summon one. “You’re going to be all right.”

  “So they tell me. You OK?”

  “Little banged up, but yeah.”

  Without raising his head from the pillow he tried to take in as much of the room as he could. “Is it still night?”

  “No, morning.” I checked my watch, still uncertain of how long I’d slept in the waiting room. “I called Donald. He’s on his way.”

  His arm flopped onto the edge of the bed. He opened his hand, offering it to me. “You saved my life.”

  I put my hand in his. He gripped it weakly.

  “I must’ve hit shallow water, I don’t know what the hell happened.”

  “We got lucky,” I said. “When the mill let go, police and rescue responded to check it out. By the time they got there I had us a ways up the beach. They saw us, thank God.”

  He sighed faintly. “I’m all doped up, man. Can’t think straight yet.”

  “It’s OK, just try to rest.”

  His glassy eyes searched mine. “What’d you tell the cops?”

  I checked behind me. The doorway was clear; we were still alone. “That we were up on the cliffs watching the fireworks,” I said quietly. “I told them we were a bit farther down the coast than we actually were, and when the mill collapsed it shook the cliffs. We were closer to the edge than we should’ve been, lost our balance and fell.”

  “They buy it?”

  “Yeah, no reason not to. Chalked it up as an accident and our own stupidity for being up there in the first place. They said they’d be by to talk to you about it. It’s no big deal, just a formality. Tell them the same thing and we’ll be all right.”

  His thoughts seemed to wander elsewhere, and I saw fear rise in him then gradually recede. I was sure he’d sensed the same in me. “I saw him, you know. When I fell. Down in that hole, I saw him.” He motioned for me to come closer, so I leaned in. “He was biting me,” he whispered. His eyes filled with tears. “He was down there waiting for me and he—he—”

  “Easy,” I said softly. I tightened my grip on his hand. I understood his tears all too well, but it was still difficult to believe he was actually crying. “I saw him too.”

  He looked deep into my eyes then, like he was praying I had told the truth. “How could we both—”

  “I don’t know.”

  “I killed him,” he said. “I think I—I’m pretty sure I killed him.”

  I nodded. “Me too.”

  He sniffled, fought off the tears. “You think they’ll find what’s up there?”

  “I don’t know. I don’t think so.”

  “But they’re bound to find—”

  “What if it wasn’t really there?”

  “We both know what we fucking saw, Alan.”

  “Like I said before, maybe it’s all in who’s looking.”

  “Well, when I look, I…I don’t want to see this anymore.”

  “Hopefully there’s nothing more to see.”

  His fear now in check, he turned to anger. “Why us?”

  “Maybe he knew we’d listen. Maybe he knew we had to.”

  The devils in our heads grew quiet, slowly faded. Shadows moved along the walls.

  “Always figured something was either real or it wasn’t. But it’s not that simple, is it?” When I didn’t answer, he said, “I don’t remember anything anyway. If I did I…I think my mind might come apart, you know? So I don’t. I don’t remember anything. OK?”

  “OK, man.” I gave him a look that let him know I understood. “OK.”

  “Had some horrible dreams while I was out, though. Horrible dreams.” He pulled his hand free of mine and wearily rubbed his temple. “But I can sleep now. They’re over.”

  “Yeah,” I said. “They’re over.”

  * * *

  Just outside the Emergency Room exit I found Donald smoking a cigarette in his typical manic fashion beneath a sign on the side of the building that read: No Smoking On Hospital Grounds. He looked tired and hung-over but otherwise all right.

  The sky stretched above us like a giant cloud-filled canopy, the sun a dull sphere veiled in haze. It wasn’t yet noon and humidity had already thickened the air.

  Donald noticed me standing there like the disheveled survivor I was. He looked guarded, uncertain. “I hate hospitals,” he said. “I’ve been standing out here for at least ten minutes trying to convince myself to go inside.”

  I could think of nothing to say.

  Smoke leaked from his nostrils. “Quite a Fourth in old Potter’s Cove this year. First the Buchanan Mill collapses and a good portion of it falls into the ocean, then very late last night—the wee hours of the morning, actually—a terrible fire broke out over on Bridge Street. Seems Bernard’s old house burned to the ground. Completely gutted and destroyed. The authorities are convinced it was arson. Isn’t that scandalous?” Donald smiled ever so slightly. “Damn kids.”

  “Shame,” I muttered.

  “Mmm, pity.”

  I was glad Donald had torched the place, and was only sorry I hadn’t been there to watch it burn.

  “I saw him.” His face cracked into an overwrought smirk. “In that house. In the flames, I saw him, Alan. I watched him watching me through the windows. I watched him burn.” He studied me a while, taking stock. “As I was leaving something drew me to the backyard, to the trees. I saw Tommy standing there, but I wasn’t afraid. I felt safe, protected, and completely out of my mind. And then they were gone and so was I.”

  I knew what it felt like to be gone, to feel like the world had devoured you from the inside out and left behind only a husk. We all did. We always had.

  “What happened up on those cliffs last night?” I could tell Donald sensed my apprehension the moment he asked, but he gave no indication of letting me off the hook.

  “We put a stop to it. In our own ways, we all did.”

  “It’s over then?”

  “As much as it ever can be.”

  “Why did he do this?” he asked angrily.

  “I think Bernard came apart when Tommy died. Then when his mother…Donald, the same evil touched us. All those years ago Bernard drowned in it and the rest of us pretended none of it ever happened. He knew what frightened us because it frightened him too. It consumed him and wanted more. It wanted us.”

  His lips became a thin tight line. “But what did it—he—want?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe he wanted all of us to be together again. Maybe he woke up alone and afraid in the dark. Not a god, just a scared little
kid. He knew us, knew our lives, our pasts. He knew what was inside us, what was lacking in us.” I ran my hands through my hair and sighed. “But he was just out of reach. And to him, so were we. Kind of like knights chasing dragons, you know? They never caught one because in the end all they were really chasing was some dark, fire-breathing piece of themselves.”

  “How do you know they never caught one?” He exhaled some smoke for emphasis, perhaps in a desperate effort to lighten the mood and salvage our sanity. A moment later he said, “Nothing’s ever going to be the same again.”

  “Would you want it to be?”

  Donald pulled his sunglasses from his shirt pocket and slid them on. Our childhoods seemed so very long ago. “What did you find in that mill, Alan?”

  “Hell.”

  “I’m not sure I believe in Hell.”

  I moved closer to him and lowered my voice. “They say you can’t see evil, but you can feel it. Well we saw it, Donald. We all did. For Rick and me it was up in that mill, for you it was in that old house. We all saw what we needed to see—whatever versions we needed to confront and kill off. Whether they were a real entity, a part of our own souls, or both, I don’t know. Is he really out there somewhere, watching us? Or is he only in our heads? Does it even matter? The only thing I know for sure is that sometimes you have to believe certain things to make it through the night. And sometimes you have to not believe them. It doesn’t matter if they’re real or not. Either way, it’s all we’ve got.”

  “What about Bernard then?” he asked. “Do you still believe in him?”

  I plucked the cigarette from his lips and tossed it away. “Bernard’s dead.”

  CHAPTER 38

  Toni was waiting for me on the apartment steps. I was too tired to be anything but happy to see her, but she was tense and looked worried to death. We said hello with our now customary awkwardness and went inside. I walked directly into the kitchen to pour myself a drink. She followed without being invited. I dropped into one of the kitchen chairs and said, “There was an accident.”

  “I know.” She nodded so furiously a sprig of hair fell across her face. She hooked it back behind her ear without missing a beat. “Donald called me. He said Rick was hurt.”

  “He filled you in then?” I asked, hopeful I wouldn’t have to.

  “Yes.” I could tell she wasn’t having any of it. “Is he going to be OK?”

  “He was sleeping peacefully when I left him.”

  Toni stepped from the doorway into the kitchen as if for the first time, looking around like I’d redecorated in her absence. “And how are you?”

  “I feel like somebody worked me over with a crowbar, but I’m not hurt.”

  “I’m glad you’re OK.”

  “Never said I was OK.”

  We were quiet for a long time, and in our self-imposed silence I thought of her alone in that cottage by the beach, and me alone here. Maybe being alone together had been worse, but even now I wasn’t so sure. I thought of her smiling, pleased I was still able to recall it. I thought of how deeply I loved this woman. How I loved the lines in her face and the depth in her eyes. I thought of her body, familiar even as it changed—evolved and improved with age—the way living things do, even though they’re also slowly dying.

  “I’m sorry, Toni,” I said. “For everything I’ve ever done or didn’t do, I’m sorry.”

  She let me touch her, and instead of wincing or recoiling, she fell into me the same as she had years ago, before we knew the future.

  “Me too.” She kissed my cheek.

  “Come home.”

  “I can’t,” she said faintly. “And you know it.”

  I sat back, away from her, only then aware that for her, our embrace had been a goodbye. She was already there, already living a different life, a life apart from me.

  As Donald had said, nothing would ever be the same again.

  She began to cry, though silently, one hand pressed flat against her forehead and the other gripping her side, her delicate frame bucking subtly. “I love you, Alan,” she finally said, her voice shaking. “But we can’t do this anymore.”

  “I always meant to protect you, Toni. Not to drive you away or to hurt you, never to hurt you.”

  She wiped the tears from her cheeks, and I envied her. I wanted to do it, to be the one to dry her tears like I once had. “I’m not having an affair.” She said it in a way so void of emotion it startled me to silence. “I didn’t leave you for someone else. I just left.”

  Despite the ghosts, we had once found safety in our love; it had protected us. But now our very presence tied us to a past we both wanted to forget enormous pieces of, and no matter how much we loved each other we could never undo that which was already done. Our pain had always outweighed our joy, but in these recent seasons of violence and blood, memory and nightmares, death and rebirth, it had become impossible to segregate one from the other.

  “Gene’s just a friend,” she said. “He helps me sometimes. He’d help you too, if only you’d let him.”

  “If I did…would you stay?”

  “I’m sorry,” she whispered. “I’m sorry.”

  Like a drowning man still clinging to a life preserver he knows he’ll eventually lose the strength to hold onto, at first I refused to let go. In my mind I fell into bed, asleep in her arms while we nursed each other back to health. I was whole and she was happy loving me. But then I let the life preserver go, felt myself slip beneath the surface and slowly sink, deeper and deeper, further and further away from her.

  Although the finality was frightening, there was also something peaceful about it.

  Our secrets were safe with each other, even if we no longer were.

  I pictured Claudia as I sat there stupidly, not for reasons of guilt or anger or even revenge, but because despite her very brief but real influence on my life—on my still being alive—she seemed make-believe, in a sense. And Toni did not.

  I stood, wrapped my arms around her and kissed her forehead. She held on tight, but only for a while, and when she left, all I could think of was the escape sleep might once again provide. I wanted to sleep away the rest of this awful summer. I wanted to sleep until it all went away. I wanted to sleep until I learned how to live again without this madness creeping through my brain.

  I’d already seen what was behind the curtain, and I didn’t want to look anymore. I didn’t want to look ever again.

  I only wanted to sleep.

  FALL

  CHAPTER 39

  Summer eventually left us but it refused to go without a fight. Though nothing of significance was ever found in the ruins of the mill itself, after its dramatic collapse the town selectmen ordered the remains bulldozed and immediately set out to have the rest of the old mills either destroyed or inspected for structural damage.

  In late July, while crews were still working onsite, a worker accidentally came upon a shallow grave when he wandered into the neighboring forest to urinate. The skeletal remains of two more bodies were uncovered, and dental records identified them as a woman and her young son. They had lived in a low income section of a nearby city, and though both had been reported missing months prior, because the woman had a minor criminal record and drug problems police assumed she and her son had moved away in order to skip out on their rent. From the location described in the newspapers and on television, Rick and I must have walked right by it. Another of Bernard’s slight-of-hand tricks, perhaps.

  The bodies brought the total number of victims in town found to four. The fact that one was a child caused even more press and greater anger and fear from residents and local politicians alike.

  No one was safe now, they said. Imagine that.

  But summer became fall and still the police had no answers or even any decent leads. Little did they know, they never would. A few people were paraded about as possible suspects in the press but all were quickly exonerated, and the violent transient theory remained the favorite of the day with both Potter’s Cov
e residents and the media. By the time September rolled around the town and the “unsolved” murders had been featured on numerous national media programs, written about in scores of newspapers, and even two books were authored on the subject and quickly released. But nothing came of any of it.

  Oddly, by October the murders were becoming a thing of the past, and people had gone back behind their picket fences and into their tidy homes, content with the knowledge that whoever perpetrated these hideous crimes was gone. Like someone who wakes up terrified but just as quickly slips back once they realize it was only a nightmare, the people of Potter’s Cove closed their eyes and went back to sleep. The same quiet secrets, the same quiet screams still resided here, but townsfolk were no longer listening. A few well-meaning law enforcement people vowed to solve the murders, but no one ever did. News reports became fewer and further between, and the police and FBI presence in town dwindled. Interest waned, and I fell into line with everyone else, just another sleepwalker pretending all was well.

  Of course the knowledge I had left me with tremendous guilt, and every time I’d see a family member of one of the murder victims in the newspaper, their faces so full of dread and anguish, I wanted desperately to tell them what I knew. But who would believe it? Even months later I wasn’t sure I believed it myself. Anything I might have done would only make things worse for them, would only complicate matters. Their loved ones were gone and they weren’t coming back whether I told them ghost stories or not. Bernard would never be found out, and even I had no proof that he had done anything other than kill himself. So I lived with the knowledge and stopped reading the articles, stopped looking at the pictures of mourning and confused family members hoping for explanations.

  The leaves turned and the air became crisper—especially in the evenings. I tried my best to occupy my mind with things more pleasant. I even tried to write again, but every time I sat down with paper and pen, all I could see was Toni or Rick or Donald or Bernard, or those faces in the newspaper and all the sorrow and screams and blood that came with them.