Darkness Follows

by Mike Dellosso

  “It’s not there,” the man said. His smile was wide and thin and flat. He looked at his watch, then lifted a pistol—a Beretta equipped with a silencer—and pointed it at Ned. “We don’t have much time, so we’ll have to make our chat time quick.”

  Ned knew if he didn’t check in with Nancy soon, she’d be radioing him. She may have already tried. If so, backup would be on its way. He needed to stall only a few minutes. Every movement of his jaw sent percussive pain through his head, but he had to ignore it and keep this guy talking.

  “Wha’s you num?”

  “You tell me.” The man leaned in.

  A little closer and Ned thought he might have a chance at lunging for the gun.

  “Do I look familiar to you?” The man turned his head to the left, to the right. There were flecks of dry skin in his eyebrows.

  Ned had never seen him before in his life. He was good with faces, so-so with names. With a mug like that, this guy would be hard to forget. He shook his head slowly and looked around. “No. Wher’s da Moelluhs?”

  “Look at me!” the man said, jabbing the gun at Ned. Red blotches covered his face and neck. He checked his watch again, seeming to realize backup was en route. “Have you seen my face before? On a poster, a bulletin board, the computer? Anywhere?”

  Ned nodded. “Compootuh.” It was what the guy wanted to hear.

  The man’s face brightened. Either he was a wannabe serial looking for recognition, or he was totally whacked in the head and talking nonsense. For now it didn’t matter. Ned just needed to keep his mind off that watch.

  “Where? When?” the man said.

  “Last wik. Ef-bee-eye must wuhntid.” That should keep him going. Every serial nut-job wanted to be on the FBI’s Most Wanted List.

  A smile stretched the man’s lips, but he quickly recomposed himself. “What’s my name?”

  It was a test to see if Ned was lying. He said nothing.

  “What’s my name?” More emphatic this time.

  Ned’s attempt at a shrug was punished by a jolt of pain in his right shoulder. Best to just play it dumb. Backup had to be arriving any minute.

  After another look at his watch, the man grunted and jabbed the pistol at Ned’s chest. “Out of time, sunshine. Sorry you couldn’t be more helpful.” He pointed the barrel directly at Ned’s face. “Nothing personal.”

  Ned heard only the first shot.

  Forty-Five

  SOFT CRYING WOKE MOLLY TRAVIS FROM A LIGHT SLEEP. She lay in the darkness of the bedroom, one foot in reality, one still in dreamland. In her dream Sam’s mother had presented her with an attractive apple pie with flaky golden crust, but when Molly cut into it, she discovered it was filled not with slices of golden apple but with balls of plastic wrap. An argument followed, hollering, blaming, tears. It was not a pleasant dream, and she was thankful to escape it, only to awaken to the sounds of crying. The crying of her daughter.

  Eva didn’t sound panicked, at least.

  Sam was next to Molly, on his side, still fast asleep. They hadn’t spoken more than five words to each other all evening. In fact, she’d barely seen him except for the fifteen minutes he took to throw down his dinner, then it was back to the study for him. She’d gone to bed at eleven and felt him climb in beside her well after midnight.

  She lifted her head and looked at the clock on his side of the bed: 3:07. She nudged her husband. “Sam, Eva’s crying.”

  He grunted and nuzzled his pillow.

  “Sam. You gonna get her?”

  No answer. Not even a grunt this time.

  “Fine. I’ll get her.” She pushed back the covers, slid her legs off the side of the bed, and sat, letting her head reorient itself. Bright moonlight filtered through the windows, casting the bedroom in a bluish lunar glow. They were calling for a storm front to move in during the early morning hours, and steady rain was forecast for the daytime.

  Molly rubbed her face, tucked her hair behind her ears, and said again, “I’ll get her,” hoping Sam would awaken and offer to do it himself as he used to do. With the way he’d been acting, she wasn’t surprised when he remained asleep, oblivious.

  Down the hall Molly found Eva curled in her bed, pillow over her head muffling her crying. She sat next to her little girl and put a hand on her shoulder. “Hey, baby girl, it’s OK. I’m here. Mommy’s here.”

  Eva rolled onto her back and wiped at her eyes.

  “What is it, baby? What’s wrong?”

  Eva hitched a breath and wiped at her eyes again with her sheet. “I had a scary dream.”

  Molly smoothed hair from Eva’s face. “Sweetie, dreams aren’t real. You know that, right? Just a bunch of memories and stuff your brain mixes all together and uses to make a movie. That’s all.”

  “Can I tell you about it?”

  “Of course you can.”

  Eva looked at Molly with tearstained eyes and wet cheeks. “It was about Daddy. We were at the store, and he was lost. We didn’t know where he was. We called for him and looked for him, but we couldn’t find him. I was scared. Then we did find him, but he didn’t know who we were. I hugged him and told him he was my daddy, but he pushed me away. Jacob was there too. He was trying to help Daddy remember us. He was showing Daddy pictures of things we did together. Pictures of our vacation to the beach and our picnic in the park and hiking and riding bikes. But Daddy still didn’t remember. Then he left. We all tried, but even Jacob couldn’t stop him.” She paused and sniffed. “That’s when I woke up.”

  Molly swung her legs up in the bed and lay next to Eva. “Sweetheart, it was just a dream. That’s all. Try not to think about it anymore. Let’s think of funny things, OK?”

  Eva nodded.

  “All right, what’s first? What makes you laugh?”

  “Mr. Curtis at school does,” Eva said. Mr. Curtis was her music teacher. “He sings silly songs with us and does silly dances. And he makes funny googly eyes at us. He’s really weird.”

  “Googly eyes, huh? I don’t think I’ve ever seen them. Show me.”

  Eva opened her eyes wide so that the whites showed all around her irises, then moved them in big circles, clockwise, counterclockwise.

  Molly laughed. “Hey, look. I can do it too.”

  Eva watched and giggled, taking Molly’s hand in hers. Her finger traced a vein on the back of her mother’s hand. “What makes you laugh, Mommy?”

  The question was innocent, of course it was, but it bit at Molly. When was the last time she had laughed, really laughed from the belly? She couldn’t remember. “Well, you do, when you do one of your shows with your stuffed animals. I love them. They’re very funny. And you just made me laugh with your googly eyes.”

  “Yeah.” Eva turned on her side and looked at Molly. “Do you think Daddy is starting to forget us?”

  It was no arbitrary question. Molly knew this was something Eva had been thinking about for a while now. Long enough that it’d found its way into her dreams.

  “No, sweetie. Absolutely not. How could he ever forget us?”

  Eva looked away then back at Molly. “Mommy?”

  “Yes.”

  “There’s something else too.”

  “What is it?”

  “Jacob said Daddy needs us to pray for him.”

  Jacob again. “I know, baby; you said that before.”

  “No, it’s different this time. He said Daddy needs us to really pray for him. He said…”

  Eva’s hesitation put a foreboding feeling in Molly’s gut, and she waited, not wanting to encourage the whole Jacob thing.

  Eva continued. “He said Daddy’s going to do something really bad.”

  A chill poured over Molly’s skin. She stroked her daughter’s hair again. “It was just a dream, Eva.”

  “No, Mommy. This wasn’t part of the dream. This was after I woke up.”

  Forty-Six

  sAM SLIPPED NOISELESSLY OUT OF BED BEFORE THE ALARM went off. Molly didn’t stir. A plan was formulating in his mind, a pl
an that would work, that only he could pull off. He was the one.

  You’re the one, Sammy.

  His sleep had been restless, disturbed more than once by voices feeding him details and timelines. Today he had to make arrangements, and tomorrow he would satisfy the darkness. That’s what this was all about really—satisfying the darkness, appeasing it, giving it what it wanted. It was the only way to ease the burden and relieve the pressure. The darkness would have its way; he was sure of that. And he could resist it no longer.

  Outside, rain pattered against the window like an old woman tapping her thin fingers. The sun had yet to rise, and a ghostly haze filled the room. Sam looked at the sleeping Molly and thought, for the briefest of moments, of taking his pillow and placing it over her face.

  The suggestion did not arise from within himself—he loved Molly—but rather from the darkness. It wanted death, fed on it, celebrated it. And death it would have.

  Kill Lincoln.

  Sam crossed the room as silently as dusk moves across a lawn, opened his dresser drawer with only a slight scraping sound, and retrieved a pair of jeans and a sweatshirt. He changed his clothes in the bathroom and left his sweatpants on the floor in a heap. Without stopping to look in on Eva, something he’d done every morning since she was born, Sam tiptoed downstairs, avoiding the noisy steps, and donned his jacket. He needed to get out before Molly and Eva awoke, before he did something he would forever regret, something horrible and vile.

  Sam stepped through the back door into the cool, damp morning and felt a surge of energy. At least his wife and daughter were safely behind him. Now his task lay ahead. Was this how Samuel Whiting felt once he resolved to follow the course before him?

  Ignoring the raindrops that plinked at his head and face, Sam walked across the backyard and through the field. He was headed for the woods a couple hundred yards behind the house. He would wait there.

  It took him no more than five minutes to reach the first trees, and as he passed from field to woods, a sense of power came over him. He was calling the shots now. No longer would he be told what he could and could not do. No longer would he be treated like an invalid. He was in charge. Again, Samuel Whiting came to mind. He must have felt so helpless watching enemy lead slaughter his men. And later he must have felt so powerful knowing he would be the one standing over life and death.

  Ten feet into the woods Sam found a fallen tree to sit on. Overhead most of the leaves had let go of their branches, leaving no canopy to block the falling rain. Never mind. From here he could see the house and driveway. He would know the second Molly left to take Eva to school.

  Sitting in the woods, watching his home, Sam felt memories stir, but the one his mind fixated on was the sound of Mom …

  … screaming like a poltergeist. Furniture scraped in the dining room and crashed on the first floor of the house, glass broke, Dad grunted and cursed, Tommy continued his garbled rant, and through it all, Mom screamed. In his room, crouched by the door, Sam kept thinking that Mom had to run out of air soon. And then what?

  Dad’s heavy footsteps stomped to the bottom of the stairs. He was wearing his work boots.

  Sam threw open his bedroom door and dashed for the top of the stairs. He needed to see that Dad had things under control, that Tommy would be subdued and returned to his cage in the basement. That the nightmare unfolding on the first floor would end and all would be back to normal.

  Sam looked down the staircase and saw Dad standing there, one bloodied hand on the banister. Sweat matted his hair to his forehead in an odd, swirled pattern. His face was tight and shiny. He set himself, then launched out of view. Mom screamed again and said something like lookowjim right before the sickening wet thud that sounded like a pumpkin dropped from the barn loft.

  Dad stumbled back into view, the left side of his head dented and moist with blood. Tommy appeared, holding a hammer in his right hand. Where had he gotten hold of a hammer? He raised it over his shoulder. Dad flinched and lifted an arm to protect himself, but Tommy was too quick and brought the hammer down on Dad’s head again. Dad dropped to one knee, let out a pitiful moan. Mom’s screams turned to whimpers.

  That’s when Tommy swiveled his gaze up the steps. What Sam saw in his eyes was anything but human. Hunger was there, and hatred and fire, but not one speck of remorse or one plea for help. For a second Sam thought Tommy would charge the stairs and come after him with the hammer, but instead Tommy turned and disappeared again.

  Mom screeched.

  Sam rushed into his room to grab the rifle from his closet, but he tripped and toppled to the floor, banging his knee hard. Downstairs Tommy wailed, “YEEW NECK,” and something big crashed to the floor. It couldn’t have been Mom; please, not Mom. Scrambling to his feet, Sam threw open the closet door and reached for his rifle, only it wasn’t there. Oh, yes, it was under his bed. He’d hidden it there from Tommy. He dropped to the floor, forgetting the pain in his right knee, and snatched the rifle. It was already loaded. He always kept one round in the chamber, just in case. Out of his room and down the hall he went, to Mom and Dad’s room, then out the …

  … window. In the house, the bedroom light flicked on, illuminating the glass.

  Forty-Seven

  SENATOR STEPHEN LINCOLN WAS PONDERING HIS SPEECH before the day’s events unfolded and the office suite became a hub of activity. He enjoyed this early stillness of the Capitol building. It gave him pause to think about the others who had occupied these halls, these rooms, before him. Some great men, some not so great. And what separated the two? The great ones knew their convictions and stuck to them, unwavering in the face of opposition. They showed resolve.

  Lincoln didn’t know if he’d ever be counted among the great men, but he would stand by his convictions regardless. He couldn’t govern out of fear or even ambition. Fear crippled conviction; ambition blurred it. Whether he was ever considered great or not was in God’s hands; he knew that much.

  Outside his office, in the suite’s foyer, a door opened and closed. Lincoln heard the whispers of two men, signaling that the suite was waking up, and seconds later John Lipsik and Tony Wu, head of the Capitol police, entered his office.

  Lincoln looked up. “Good morning, guys.”

  John glanced at Tony then at Lincoln. “Mornin’, Steve. We have a situation in Gettysburg.”

  “What kind of a situation?”

  John nodded at Tony, who put his hands behind his back and spoke. “In the last three days, four people have been murdered, one of them a state trooper.”

  Lincoln’s chest tightened, and he had to take a breath. He sat back in his chair.

  Tony continued. “We don’t think this has anything to do with you, but it is creating quite a strain on law enforcement, and we’re concerned your visit will strain them even more. We’ll have our own details in place, of course, but we still rely rather heavily on local law enforcement as well.”

  “Have you asked them how they feel about us continuing with the visit?”

  Tony nodded. “I have. And they’re confident they can deliver.”

  “Do they think the murders are connected to each other?”

  Tony nodded. “They do. All four victims suffered three gunshots. The first two were homeowners doing their morning routines, the third was a single man shot in his trailer, and the last, the trooper, was responding to a call at one of the homes after a neighbor reported a suspicious car in the driveway.”

  Lincoln looked down and noticed his white-knuckled grip on the armrest. “So what’s the connection?”

  “They don’t know yet. It appears there’s one perp but no connection between the victims, no motive.”

  John cleared his throat. “Steve, we need to know if you want to go through with the visit or reschedule it.”

  “What do you think?”

  John clasped his hands behind his back. “Well, under the circumstances I think it might be prudent to reschedule. Things are a little stressed in Gettysburg right now, and you
r visit would only add more strain. Not to mention the risks to your own safety.”

  Lincoln turned to the head of Capitol police. “And what do you think?”

  “Sir, I can only work from the facts. My men are ready; there’s no issue there. And if Gettysburg and state law enforcement say they can handle this visit, I have to take them at their word. With that, I defer to the judgment of you and Mr. Lipsik.”

  “Spoken like a politician, Tony. I think you’re in the wrong line of work.”

  Tony smiled. “Not in a million years. I enjoy what I do, sir.”

  “I know you do.” Lincoln paused, sat forward, and rested his elbows on his desk. “I want to go through with this. Let’s stay on schedule, as planned.”

  “You sure, Steve?” John said. “I’m concerned about your safety.”

  “I’m not. We have the best on the job.”

  “Agreed.” John nodded at Tony. “We proceed as scheduled.”

  As they left, Lincoln dialed the number for his wife. She needed to know about this too.

  Forty-Eight

  MOLLY WAS IN THE KITCHEN MAKING BREAKFAST, HASH browns and bacon, when she heard the clip-clop of Eva’s shoes on the stairs, then in the hallway. She turned and found her daughter in the doorway, sleepy-eyed and slump-shouldered.

  “Good morning, darling. How did you do after going back to sleep last night?”

  Eva shrugged and climbed up on a barstool.

  “You look like you’re still tired.” Molly also saw a fleeting shadow of fear in her eyes.

  “Where’s Daddy?” Eva said.

  Molly put two strips of bacon on a plate. “I don’t know.” She’d awakened to no sign of Sam, no message or trace of where he’d gone. His truck was still in the driveway; so was the Explorer. “Maybe he went out.”

  “Out where?”

  She set the plate in front of Eva. “You need to eat your breakfast so we can get you to school.”

  “Is he coming back?”

  “Of course he’s coming back. He probably went for a jog or a walk.” Sam had run a lot in the mornings before the accident, often up and out the door before dawn.