by J-F. Dubeau
It wasn’t what she expected. Nor was she sure that the form that had flashed before her eyes wasn’t just what the creature wanted her to see. The god, for all the power it radiated, was the size of a child. One perhaps a few years younger than Venus. The thing’s eyes glowed with inhuman intensity and it wore the flesh of an alien anatomy, but there was also a vulnerability that took her by surprise.
“I’m not Neil,” she repeated. Venus had never really known her grandfather, but from what her parents had told her, he wasn’t a person she’d have liked very much.
“No, but I own you just the same.”
Her god.
Or was it?
“You don’t own me. I’m the one who holds the keys to your jail.”
Shadows spiraled over the floor like dervishes before the voice came back into her mind. The words were gentle, but the edge to its thoughts was a little sharper.
“Yet you came back to me.”
“I did.” The attempt to inject authority into her voice had failed.
“You want something.”
Venus sat on the ground, in the very spot where she had fallen, terrified, on the night she’d first found the creature. Circumstances were slightly more comfortable this time. Her abject horror, at least, had been replaced by a dull, manageable fear.
“What happens if I free you?”
It wasn’t an idea she had seriously considered until the words fell from her lips. Darkness, blood, glowing red eyes: the thing had all the traditional hallmarks of evil. She could feel the malicious intent in its voice every time it spoke. Freeing it would spell disaster. And yet here she was, considering the ramifications.
“Rewards beyond your wildest dreams.” Warm thoughts accompanied its answer.
“You keep saying that, but what does it mean? Be more specific.”
“How can you define infinite possibilities?”
It was not a question but rather a confirmation that the sky was the limit. She’d read enough books to know that these sorts of Faustian bargains always came with a price. Nothing came for free. Not without consequence. Before her was a genie, and the shed was its lamp. She’d rubbed the thing three times; maybe it was time to make a wish.
“Bullies,” she said.
She’d mulled it over. It wasn’t the most important thing in her life, but it was probably the safest thing to ask for. So many other things could backfire. She’d considered asking for Gabrielle LaForest’s life back, but in such a potential “Monkey’s Paw” scenario, what shape would the results take? What if the god brought her back . . . wrong? It was better to keep the stakes low and the investment minor.
“I get bullied. A lot. For dumb reasons.”
The shadows hung low to the ground as she spoke. She could see the eyes through the dark fog, but somehow they had lost some of the malice that animated them. Instead there was a sort of alien understanding. It was the same look she gave Sherbet when she thought she might relate to what the animal was thinking.
“Bullies?” The god sampled the word with curiosity. It was the first emotion not laced with hatred to filter through its speech so far.
“Kids my age who pick on me. They treat me like crap because I’m not like them. I don’t come from here, so I don’t act or think or dress like them. I don’t like the same things and I don’t play the same games. I don’t know why that offends them so much, though.
“It’s not the end of the world, I guess. They push me around and call me names, but . . . it’s just so exhausting. I want it to stop. Can you make them stop?
“I don’t know how you grant your so-called rewards. I’m not sure I want to know, or that I’d even understand. I don’t want you to kill them, but I want the bullies to stop. Is that something you can do?”
During the explanation of her wish, Venus had focused on the tip of her running shoe. She had wanted to put her thoughts in order and make sure her request was clear.
Now she looked up to find the creature sitting cross-legged before the hideous mural it had created. The shadows were gone. The god was naked, exposed for the first time for Venus to see. Even as a physical creature, it was hard to describe. Dark skin and smoldering red eyes on the frame of a child. The anatomy was wrong. An elegant caricature of humanity. And although its flesh was intact, the god looked wounded.
If there were a crossroads of vulnerability and magnificence, that would be where this god could be found at that very moment.
“Yes,” came its chilling answer.
BRAD
FREEDOM!
It was a feeling that Brad Ludwig hadn’t fully experienced since moving to Saint-Ferdinand. But today? Today was all about freedom.
Of course he still had a curfew and of course he couldn’t leave the city limits, but for the very first time since as long as he could remember, Brad could go where he wanted, do what he wanted. A pocketful of allowance money and a new bike gave him access to a world of possibilities. The sun was shining and his friends were waiting for him.
This was going to be the best day ever.
Brad didn’t realize it, but it wasn’t only his parents’ ever-watchful presence from which he was finally released. He had also been freed from the resentment it engendered. Back when they’d lived in Saint-Jérôme, his older sister, Heather, had been in a car accident. She had been out riding her bicycle alone, much like he was right now, when the Ford pickup had sideswiped her.
It wasn’t a terrible accident, but when she fell from her bike, Heather’s head struck the pavement. She was admitted to the hospital with a concussion that eventually turned into a coma, all because they simply couldn’t stop the bleeding in her skull. Three weeks later, after two surgeries failed to stop the hemorrhage, she passed away.
The event took its toll on the whole family. Mourning led to depression, which in turn led to professional difficulties. Soon Brad’s father lost his job, and when he was offered a new position at the local drugstore, the Ludwigs became one of the first families to move to Saint-Ferdinand in years.
Needless to say, when his parents heard of the Saint-Ferdinand Killer, not wanting to go through the sorrow of losing another child, they clamped down on Brad’s activities. From that day forward, the fifteen-year-old boy was never allowed out without his father or mother shadowing him. If he wanted to go to a friend’s house, he was driven there. Under no circumstances was he ever permitted to be alone.
Until today. Today the killer was behind bars, and as the village embraced its freedom, so did Brad. Tentatively, he’d asked his father if he could bike to André’s place, alone. His dad gave it a long minute of thought before he agreed. There was still reason to be careful. The local paper had an article about how Gabrielle LaForest’s body had been found in the woods, but the police had issued a statement that it was most likely a bear attack, judging by the remains. This had made negotiations more difficult between Brad and his father, but after copious promises to be careful and to call once he reached his destination, Brad was on his way.
He rode through the back roads, cut through the Hawthorn apple orchard, and drew close to the edge of the village where his friend lived. This, he thought, must be how it feels to be that McKenzie girl. To do whatever you wanted without supervision.
“Hey, kid!”
Brad turned to look at whoever had called out his name, stopping his bike with what he thought was a particularly smooth skid brake.
“Can you help me look for something?”
The voice was coming from the woods. He couldn’t make out the source of the words, but they sounded friendly enough. Savoring his newfound independence, the boy propped his bike on its kickstand and walked into the woods to see what was up.
When Brad woke up, the road and the forest were gone. He was in a dark place, lying on the ground. No. Not on the ground—he was elevated. On a table of some sort, but he couldn’t move.
He could hear a clinking noise. What sounded like a belt being removed, then a rustling of clothes
, and some humming. He didn’t recognize the tune, but it sounded like one of those old songs his grandparents used to listen to. The boy had seen enough horror movies to know what was going on, but he suppressed his desire to scream. Whatever had happened, whoever was in the dark room with him, there was no need to attract his attention.
“How’s your head?”
The same voice from the woods. Calm and pleasant, if a bit cold and detached. His head felt fine, though he was hesitant to move it.
Bare feet padded toward him. The shadow of a hand reached over him to pick up something else on the table. A knife. It came and went from his line of sight.
“Do you feel that?” the voice asked with some concern.
Brad couldn’t answer, shaking his head instead. The motion did reveal some level of discomfort in his skull. The same feeling he had when diving to the bottom of the deep end at the pool.
“Good! Then this won’t be too bad.” The voice seemed genuinely relieved, and for a moment so was Brad.
Then he saw the knife again as it passed in front of his face. It was covered in blood.
“You should be glad. You know you were chosen for this? Not by me, but by something greater than us both. I heard the call, and it told me to pick you. I don’t know who you are, kid, but you should be proud. Now, don’t move. This will only take a little while.”
The next hour was a nightmare of surrealism for Brad. It was hard to tell what exactly was happening in the dim light, but as the minutes drained off the clock, so did the blood in his body. He couldn’t feel anything, however. Either drugs or some kind of damage to his spine prevented him from moving and experiencing any pain. Judging from what was being pulled out of him, though, he was glad for the reprieve.
He couldn’t be sure at what point he died. Some level of distress started to seep into his mind. Images became blurry. Thoughts, elusive. Eventually he knew he was no longer alive. Enough blood and organs had been removed that his body had given out. Whatever had kept the hurt at bay also prevented him from giving his death too much thought. The loss to his parents, the erasure of his hopes and dreams, all of that meant nothing in the numbing haze that protected him from the depredations done to his flesh.
There was no need to fight it anymore. His spirit was no longer tethered to the meat-and-bone vessel he’d occupied for fifteen years. He was no longer in the dark room, though where he found himself was no brighter. He could somehow perceive the silhouette of the man with the voice. He was still speaking to him.
“Don’t fight it, boy. Let the shadow call to you. Help me find it.”
As the words filtered to this place in between life and death, Brad understood what the man meant. There was a call from a shadow. Terrifying, repulsive, yet pervasive and inescapable. It was pulling him to a specific location in the complete and implacable darkness.
No. Not complete. There was a light in the shadows. A young girl, about eight years old, surrounded by a blinding glow, like a lighthouse in a storm at sea. Heather? he thought, rejoicing at the thought of seeing his sister again.
Ignoring the shadow and the voice, Brad went toward the light. Maybe he was dreaming after all. Only, when he got close, he recognized that this wasn’t Heather. It was another girl, about the same age as his sister had been when she’d fallen. Her hair was straight, while Heather’s had been short and curly, and this girl wore a fancy white dress, whereas his sister had refused to wear anything but overalls and T-shirts.
“Don’t listen to it . . . Don’t go . . . ,” the girl in white said.
Brad almost obeyed. He tried to walk toward her and take the hand she was offering, but as he got close, he saw her eyes. Dark nails, driven into the sockets. The stuff of nightmares. The shadows were calling to him. Brad turned from the girl to follow the voice in the darkness. She cried out to him again, but he ignored her, focusing instead on the lure of the shadows. Maybe that was where he’d find Heather?
VENUS
THE OFFICE WAS COLD. Much colder than Venus had expected it would be. Clad in summer clothes, denim shorts, and a loose T-shirt, she couldn’t help but shiver.
Dr. Hazelwood, who sat across the desk from her, noticed and smiled. The psychologist was better equipped to deal with the temperature, wearing a beige pantsuit that would have been unbearable outdoors.
“The AC’s been in overdrive the past few days,” she apologized.
“It’s like a meat locker in here.”
“Yeah, I’m sorry. I’ve asked Inspector Crowley to get it fixed. Drinking hot coffee helps. Would you like a cup?”
Venus shook her head. She’d already been drinking more than a healthy dose of caffeinated products. With her nights taken over by worrying about the contents of her shed and the days trying to act as if all was normal, her consumption had gone through the roof.
“All right then. Shall we get started?” Dr. Hazelwood ripped off a page from the legal pad on her desk. “First let me say that I was getting curious about when you’d be paying me a visit.”
“Why is that? I haven’t lost anyone in my family.”
Dr. Hazelwood took a note, but Venus couldn’t see what it was.
“No one immediate to you, perhaps, but you can’t say Ms. LaForest’s death didn’t affect you. Or Audrey’s.”
“Penny’s been talking to you about me, hasn’t she?” Venus asked.
The doctor took another note. She had a friendly smile and was young enough that Venus could almost feel like she related to her. Also, Dr. Hazelwood was a city girl, much like her. The village was alien to both of them—a far cry from the noisier, more hectic streets of Montreal, or even Sherbrooke, for that matter.
“Obviously she has,” Dr. Hazelwood answered. “We talk a lot about her mother and father, of course, but also about her friends and relationships. The whole point of grief therapy is to process the feelings. Confront any issues of guilt and, if I can, offer some guidance about how to emotionally handle the difficult task of moving forward.”
“Right. And I’m a relationship.”
“To Penny? You are much more than that, Venus. I don’t think I’m exaggerating when I say that you’re the sister she never had.”
The girl shivered again, passing it off as a symptom of the cold. Truth was, the words cut deep. Even before moving to Saint-Ferdinand, Venus couldn’t remember getting along as well with anyone as she did with Penny. It made lying to her grieving friend much more shameful.
“I get it,” she said. “You told me, back at the ice cream parlor, to take care of Penny, and . . . I haven’t been doing that very well.”
Dr. Hazelwood frowned, tapping the tip of her pencil on the paper. She looked at Venus as if the girl had given her the wrong answer to a simple question.
“No one ever said that. If anything, Penny has expressed a lot of worry about you. You seem like a smart, capable young lady, so I hope that if you weren’t processing the last few weeks’ events well, you’d come to me.”
Venus couldn’t ask the doctor to understand the breadth of what she’d been dealing with. Dr. Hazelwood knew about the murders and, through her grief counseling, probably a lot about Saint-Ferdinand. But she didn’t know about the thing in Venus’s backyard shed. Just thinking about it, she felt her blood turn to ice.
“So let’s talk about you,” Dr. Hazelwood continued. “How are you, Venus? Be completely honest with me.”
“I’m fine.”
Dr. Hazelwood took down another note. The act irritated Venus. She’d come here for help. To learn more about how Penny was doing and maybe figure out how to get her friend back in control of herself. Venus knew she wouldn’t be a fan of therapy. Talking about her feelings was something she was only comfortable doing with her best friend. Spilling her guts to a stranger felt wrong.
“Then why did you ask to see me then?”
“I want to be better at helping Penny.”
“Have you ever flown on a plane?”
“Uh, a few times, I guess. I
went to Germany with my uncle once, and my parents used to take me out west to Vancouver when I was a kid. Why?”
“Oh! I love Vancouver. Such a beautiful city. I’ve never been to Germany, though,” Dr. Hazelwood said. “Anyway, you know during the safety demonstration? How they tell you in the unlikely event of a loss of cabin pressure, et cetera, et cetera, you should always put your mask on first?”
Venus sighed, figuring out where the doctor was going. “Best way to help Penny is to first help myself?”
“Bingo,” Dr. Hazelwood answered with a smile. “So where do we start, Venus? Do you want to tell me you’re fine again?”
“No.”
“Good. How are you?”
“I don’t know.”
Dr. Hazelwood leaned over to jot down yet another note. Anytime Venus pushed back at the questions, the doctor would write something about it.
“Okay, you know what? I’m not fine! I’m doing terrible, and I don’t know what to do.” Venus became agitated, almost yelling at the doctor. “I’m not sleeping and I’m not taking care of my best friend and I can’t tell you why. I don’t know who can help me with this. Probably no one and certainly not you!”
Slowly, Dr. Hazelwood put the cap back on her pen. Her smile gone. For a moment, Venus thought she’d gone too far by losing her temper. But then Erica put the pen down, calmly turned her notepad around, and pushed it over the desk so Venus could see what she’d written so far.
Salad, carrots, dressing, feta cheese. A grocery list.
“You . . . baited me . . . ,” Venus said.
“You’re right. I probably can’t help you with whatever’s eating at you. I’m not here to offer ready-made solutions. I’m here to listen to whatever you have to say. I get it, though: it’s difficult to open up to a stranger. Especially about intimate stuff. That’s fine, but you have to talk to someone.”
Venus fell silent, her eyes still stuck on the notepad. She’d gone from being livid about Dr. Hazelwood’s manipulation to being ashamed of her own childishness. The solution to her problem was simple: she wanted to take better care of her friend, but to do so, she needed to get things off her chest. She needed to tell someone about the thing she was keeping prisoner, this god of hate and death. And the best person to talk to was Penelope. The thought gave her another shiver, or was it the room?