Mom had that tight voice that meant she was crying. She always cried when they argued about Tommy. “We can put him in a special school,” she said.
“A special school ain’t gonna help him.” Dad’s voice was loud and deep. “He could go to jail this time.”
“They can’t put him in jail.”
“Then one of those juvie schools, where the bad apples go.”
Mom let out a wail. She was notorious for drama. “But it wasn’t his fault. He was provoked.”
“Gloria, a kid’s in the hospital because of what your son—”
“Our son, James. Don’t you excuse yourself of this responsibility.”
“Fine. Because of what our son did to him. Fighting is one thing, and defending yourself is another. But there’s a point when you stop beatin’ on the kid, and Tommy didn’t stop.”
Sam stood next to the door in his bedroom. There was no need to put his head against the wood; their voices were plenty loud enough to carry up the stairs.
“Will he be OK? The other boy?” Mom asked. She sounded scared.
A moment of silence followed. A chair scraped across the wooden floor, probably Dad pulling one out from the dining room table to sit down. “I don’t know.” His voice was lower now and more somber. “Tommy beat him good. Busted up his face and broke his skull. Broke a few ribs, and one went into the lung. He really did it this time.”
Mom said something, but her voice was too low to make out. Sam got down on his hands and knees and pressed his ear to the gap between the floor and the bottom of the door. He caught Mom’s final words.
“Sometimes I’m scared of him.”
Part of Sam was revolted by that—no mother should be scared of her own son—and part of him was relieved that he wasn’t the only one.
He rolled to his back and stared up at the ceiling. A crack in the plaster, like a jagged fault line, ran the entire length of the room.
Soft footsteps in the hallway caused him to turn his head toward the door again. They stopped right outside his room. Tommy’s Reeboks were visible under the door, and Sam’s heart stuttered. A gentle knock came at the door. Sam didn’t say anything, didn’t move. The knock came again. Then a whisper.
“Sammy.”
Sam still didn’t answer. He looked up at the doorknob, and yes, it was locked. Maybe Tommy would just go away.
“Sammy. Open up. I need your help with something.”
Tommy’s voice sounded … normal, like the old Tommy. But slightly panicked.
“Sammy, c’mon, bro. Open up. Please. You gotta help me.”
Although later Sam would question his decision, he got up and unlocked the door. The knob turned from the outside, and the door creaked open. Tommy stood there with his rifle, the military one with the shoulder sling. He had a look in his eyes that was scared, maybe even desperate, but not dangerous. In fact, it was the most lucid Sam had seen him in weeks.
Tommy surrendered the rifle to Sam. “Here. You take this. I need you to do something.” He turned to leave. “Come with me.”
Down the hall they went, into their parents’ bedroom. The window over the front porch was open, and Tommy climbed through it. From the porch roof, he stuck his head back in, and said, “C’mon bro. Can’t let Mom and Dad know we’re doing this. I need you to do something for me.”
Legs first, Sam climbed out the window and onto the rooftop. From there he and his brother shimmied down the latticework along the porch, Sam with the rifle slung over his shoulder.
When they were both on the ground, Tommy said, “Follow me to the north field.”
They walked in silence, Tommy slightly ahead. It took a good fifteen minutes to reach the other side of the north field, beyond the tree line that blocked the view of the house.
“What’s this about, Tommy?” Sam asked. He had the gun, yet he felt very anxious, like he did right before giving a speech in English class.
“I need you to shoot me,” Tommy said.
Sam forced a laugh. “Yeah, right. C’mon, really.”
But Tommy wasn’t joking. His eyes were clear and sharp. This was the real Tommy speaking. “Really, Sammy. No joke. Something’s happening to me. I’m changing and …” He looked Sam right in the eyes, and Sam detected the fear there. “I’m scaring myself. What I did to Eddie, I couldn’t stop myself. I wanted to, but I couldn’t. Once I saw the blood, I had to keep kicking.” He turned and faced the other direction. “There’s a darkness in me, bro, and it’s growing.”
Sam’s anxiety was gone. Now he was just scared. “I don’t understand. Mom and Dad can get you help.”
Tommy spun around. His hair was in his eyes now. “There is no help for me. Don’t you get it? This darkness is taking over me, changing me. You gotta kill me. You’re the one, Sammy.”
Those words. They still rang in Sam’s ears. Tommy had told Sam to move back a hundred yards so that he wouldn’t have to see his eyes, then to drop him from there, but Sam refused, threw the rifle, and ran home. A few days later—and every day since—he wished he had taken the shot when he had the opportunity.
“Mister.” A hand rested on Sam’s back. “Mister, are you OK?”
He looked up and found an elderly lady bending over him. A man, most likely her husband, stood a few feet back, hands in his jacket pockets, eyes narrowed.
“Are you all right? Do you need help?” the woman asked.
Sam straightened up. “No. No, thank you. I’m fine.”
“Are you sure?” she said. “You don’t look fine.”
The woman’s husband eyed Sam as if he were a criminal.
“Yeah. My, uh, great-grandfather fought for the … for the Minnesota, and I was just … you know.”
She patted his shoulder. “I know. It’s OK. They were all heroes, weren’t they?”
Sam nodded and got to his feet. “They were. Thanks.” He nodded again at the woman and her husband, then headed to his truck.
At the driver’s door he shot one last look at the Pennsylvania memorial and found it empty. He slid in behind the wheel, fired up the engine. Something on the passenger seat caught his eye, and he went numb.
Carefully placed blades of cut grass spelled two words: KILL LINCOLN.
Thirty-Three
THAD LEWIS WHEELED HIS CHAIR TO THE BOOKSHELF AND retrieved a massive volume of Civil War information. He’d done a cursory Internet search for Samuel Whiting and came up with nothing. No problem, though. Computers were great and the Internet was an amazing tool, but there was something to be said for doing the research the traditional way. In spite of all technology could do, he still loved the weight of a real book in his hands, the smell of old paper and ink, the feel of the pages as he flipped through them. Call him old-fashioned, call him a throwback. Thad Lewis was both—and proud of it.
Back at the desk he opened the book to the index and slid his finger down the page.
“C’mon, c’mon. Where are you?”
Yes, there he was. Whiting, Jefferson Samuel. Pages 798–799. Ah, that’s why Thad couldn’t find him on the Internet. Whiting’s first name was Jefferson.
He turned back to the entry on Captain Jefferson Samuel Whiting and skimmed the text. Nothing out of the ordinary. He’d started the war with Battery G of the 4th US Artillery, and sometime during the Gettysburg campaign found himself with the PA Independent. Thad read on.
“Wait a minute. Wait a country minute. What’s this?”
At the end of the entry, a single paragraph stated that in November of 1863, one day before Lincoln’s address from Gettysburg, Whiting was arrested for conspiring to assassinate the president. Six months later he was tried and found guilty of treason. Two months after that he was hanged as a traitor.
“Oh, Sam, what are you up to, man?”
Sam Travis’s claim that he knew nothing of the pages he himself wrote just didn’t sit right. He’d come across as sincere, but that was some weird prose to be spitting out in your sleep.
Thad leaned back
in his chair and rubbed his eyes. He then read over the scanned copies of Sam’s writings again. Sam obviously knew something of Whiting and his conspiratorial ideas. People just didn’t pull this stuff out of their heads and have no clue how it got there in the first place. But …
“Whoa, whoa, whoa. What’s this?”
The journal entries. He spread all four of them across the desk. Yes, why hadn’t he noticed that the first time through? He grabbed a pen and started writing as his finger traced the words of each entry.
“Sam, my man, what have you gone and gotten yourself tangled in?”
Thad dialed his friend’s phone number.
Down the hall the trailer’s front door opened and closed. No knock had preceded the intrusion.
Thad shut off the phone. “Yeah? Who’s there?”
Thirty-Four
SYMON HAD NO PROBLEM FINDING THE TRAILER. AS ALWAYS, THE voice had given him excellent directions and more than enough information. When he arrived, he knew exactly where the cripple would be. It was almost too easy. The trailer was secluded, the door unlocked. Inside, though, Symon met something he hadn’t expected. A memory …
He lay on a sofa in a living room, in a trailer just like this one. Same worn furniture, same clutter, same nicotine-stained walls. The lights were dim, the place hazy with greenish smoke. Canned laughter from the television mixed with the annoying fake laugh of the woman seated across the room from him on another sofa. It was one of those nervous laughs that miserable people force to convince others, and maybe themselves, that they really are enjoying life.
The door opened, and a slab of smoky daylight fell across the room. A man entered and kissed the woman. Really kissed her. She giggled, and Symon’s fists clenched. The man sat next to her on the sofa, said something to Symon. He was large, with a long gray ponytail and a goatee. He had beady eyes above an enormous, hooked nose. The facial hair was probably meant to hide some of that beak.
The man said something again to Symon. His words were long forgotten, but not the anger they ignited. Symon swore at the man and made some kind of threat.
The man with the hooked nose reached behind his back, fishing for something. He produced a pistol and pointed it at Symon. It shook a little in his hand.
The woman put her hand on the man’s arm. “Alan, don’t.”
Yes, that’s right. Alan. Alan Kosovich.
Alan’s eyes darkened, and his mouth hung open. Symon could see his tongue in there, moving side to side the way a slug squirms when you put salt on it.
Symon moved toward the trailer door. Before leaving, he turned and cursed at Alan and the woman … Vicki, yes. Alan jumped to his feet, Vicki hanging on his arm. The pistol was still pointed at Symon and still shaking in Alan’s hand.
Alan pulled the trigger. Symon saw only the first two flashes.
Here now, in this trailer, Symon paused to collect himself. The memory had produced no response other than anger. He felt his chest and the three tender spots capped with thick scar tissue.
“Hey,” the cripple called from down the hall. “What’s your business, man?”
Symon felt the pistol in his jacket pocket as he headed that direction. The light from the bedroom filtered onto the hall carpet and illuminated the filth on it.
The cripple, Thad, was in his chair, facing the doorway. The sight of the legless man turned Symon’s stomach, revolted him.
“Hey, what’s up? What’s the—”
“Sorry to bother you.” Symon clasped his hands in front of his chest and bowed a little. He tried to avert his eyes from the two stumps. “I’m doing a survey and wondered if I could ask you a few questions.”
Thad looked confused. His eyes darted between Symon and the hallway, seeming to doubt that someone would find their way down a dirt lane and into a run-down mobile home to do a survey. What survey could be that important?
“Uh, well—”
“Please, it’ll only take a moment of your time. I promise.”
Thad hesitated, glanced at his watch. “All right, man, but just a moment. I’m kinda in the middle of something, know what I mean?”
Symon smiled. “Sure I do. It’ll only take a moment.” He paused for effect, then said, “Do I look at all familiar to you?”
“Is this a joke?” Thad laughed.
It angered Symon. That laugh reminded him of Alan’s. Despite the cool November temperature, beads of sweat formed on Symon’s forehead. “No joke.” His voice broke a little. “Do I look familiar to you?”
“Should you?”
Symon didn’t answer.
Thad shifted in his chair, moved his eyes to the hallway again. “Man, I ain’t never seen you before. What’s your name?”
“Alan,” Symon said. Truth was, he still had no idea what his real name was. “Alan Jackson.”
“Like the country singer? ’Cause he’s the only Alan Jackson I ever heard of. Sorry, man.”
Symon closed the short distance between them and placed his hands on the armrests of Thad’s wheelchair. He didn’t like this cripple one bit, and being this close brought the taste of bile to his mouth. Regardless, he leaned forward till their faces were no more than twelve inches apart. “Look closer, man, and see if you find a resemblance to anyone you know from your past.”
Pushing back, Thad said, “Whoa, you’re kinda in my personal space here. I said I never seen you before. You got that familiar-face thing going on, but I don’t know you. Never have.”
Symon jerked upright and put his hand in his jacket pocket. “You sure about that?”
“Man, I’m sure. This is your survey? Do you look familiar? I’m gonna have to ask you to leave.”
In one smooth and casual motion, like he’d done it a hundred times, a thousand maybe, though he remembered only two, Symon pulled the pistol from his pocket and pointed it at Thad, the cripple.
Thad’s eyes widened to the size of walnuts, and his hands went up reflexively. “You gotta be kidding me.”
Symon pulled the trigger three times. The cripple wrenched upright then slumped over in his wheelchair. In seemingly slow motion, his body doubled over at the waist and tumbled onto the floor. Symon let it lie there and left the trailer. He felt no remorse, no guilt, no sorrow. He felt nothing.
Thirty-Five
SAM HAD ONE PLACE LEFT TO GO: THE OLD FARMHOUSE UP IN Cumberland County. But first he had to talk to his mother.
Since that final incident with Tommy, Sam’s parents had abandoned the farmhouse, leaving it to the forces of nature and whims of time. Mom believed it was possessed, but she didn’t want to vacate the premises completely. Instead, they moved into a rancher on the farm’s edge, near Route 187, a quarter mile over a rise from their previous dwelling. Mom was convinced that if she could see the farmhouse it would worm its way into her head and control her, like it had Tommy. Irrational, maybe, but nobody wanted to argue with her. Nor could they.
Sam turned off the road onto a short asphalt driveway that led to the rancher’s garage. He parked his truck and got out. Not much had changed in the past twenty-one years. Mom had leased their property to other local farmers for growing corn and soy. The Murphys still lived across the road a hundred yards down or so, with the same Buick in their driveway that had been there when Sam left home. Nothing but farmland and rolling hills stretched in the other direction.
Sam rounded the garage to the back of the house. Mom was already outside, hanging laundry.
“Samuel? What are you doing here?” She looked past his shoulder. “Where’s Molly and Eva?”
“Hey, Mom. Boy, it’s good to see you too. Eva’s in school, and Molly’s home.”
“You drove yourself here? Is everything OK?” In the two months or so since Sam had seen his mother, she had aged a lot. She looked much older than her sixty-three years. Especially when she wore that light green housecoat.
“Yeah, everything’s fine. The doctor gave me the OK to drive again.”
She hugged him and gave him a dry peck
on the cheek. “You sure you’re up to driving? I don’t want you doing anything you’re not ready to do. It’s no rush, you know. You could—”
“Mom, I’m fine. Man, you sound like Molly now.” Sam regretted not seeing his mother more, but the memories that surfaced when he did were ones he tried not to visit more than a few times a year.
She took his hand. “Well, come inside. I’ll get you a drink. Are you thirsty?”
“Parched as a sun-burnt cow patty.”
She laughed. “Your grandfather used to say that all the time.”
“I remember.” And he did. Being back here, even if only on the edge of the farm, brought back a rush of childhood memories. Some welcome, some very unwelcome.
Inside, the house smelled like tomato sauce and garlic.
“I’m making a batch of spaghetti for dinner,” Mom said. “Can you stay?”
As much as Sam was tempted, he knew he shouldn’t. He needed to get over to the farmhouse. “No. How’s Dad?”
Mom poured him a glass of instant iced tea. “The usual. Good days and bad days. Lately, more of the bad it seems.” She glanced toward the bedroom where Sam’s father spent most of his time. “Sometimes it seems as though … I don’t know. We’re managing.”
“Seems as though what?”
She shook her head. “Nothing. He’s just going through another tough spell, is all. They come and go.”
Sam drank down half the glass of tea. He used to have this tea every day. Dad would buy a huge tub of it, and Mom would keep it coming all summer long.
“Is it OK to go back and see him?”
Mom looked up, shocked he would feel the need to make such a request. “Of course it is. Might do him some good to see you.”
When Sam entered the bedroom, his father didn’t even lift his gaze. Dad was propped on the edge of a single bed. His plaid pajama bottoms and Penn State sweatshirt were wrinkled and covered with lint balls. His wispy white hair was plastered to one side of his head. His hands were on his knees, a blank expression on his face, mouth slightly ajar, a thin line of saliva gathered at the corner.
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