A Soul To Steal

by Rob Blackwell

  A Soul To Steal

  Rob Blackwell

  Rob Blackwell

  A Soul To Steal

  For Maia, of course

  “The dominant spirit, however, that haunts this enchanted region, and seems to be commander-in-chief of all the powers of the air, is the apparition of a figure on horseback, without a head. It is said by some to be the ghost of a Hessian trooper, whose head had been carried away by a cannon-ball, in some nameless battle during the Revolutionary War, and who is ever and anon seen by the country folk hurrying along in the gloom of night, as if on the wings of the wind.

  Such is the general purport of this legendary superstition, which has furnished materials for many a wild story in that region of shadows; and the spectre is known at all the country firesides, by the name of the Headless Horseman of Sleepy Hollow.”

  — WashingtonIrving, “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow”

  “The situation is a good deal worse than we expected. Robert has barricaded himself within the castle walls and refuses to see me or Doctor Frank.

  I have grave concerns for his well being. Based on discrete inquiries into his activities, it appears your son has been publicly proclaiming himself some kind of Celtic prince with mystical powers. My contacts tell me he has some kind of ‘event’ planned for the feast of Sanheim

  — All Hallow’s Eve.

  I know you have always tolerated your son’s youthful artistic endeavors, but I worry he has gone too far. Word of his indiscretions could undermine your position if they reach London. I beg you to travel here as soon as you are well. There are some things that should best be discussed in private.”

  — Letter from David Burns to Sir Richard Crowley, Oct. 16, 1873

  Chapter 1

  Wed., Oct. 4, 2006

  Quinn stood in the living room, a large kitchen knife clutched in his hand. It had been the first thing he thought of when he woke up, bolting from bed and heading straight for the only weapon he had in the apartment.

  Just what good a knife, or any weapon, would do him was not clear. It did not even make him feel better. He just stood at the door, waiting for something to come through it.

  It was a dream, of course. Just another in a long string of nightmares. But it didn’t matter. He could not shake the feeling-no, the certainty-that something was coming for him. It could arrive at any minute. Worse, it may already be here.

  Quinn’s hands were sweating. The sound of his breath was so loud he held it briefly just to ensure there was no one else there. How many nights had he stood here, waiting for a demon that wouldn’t show? How much sleep had he even had?

  He glanced at the clock on his wall, saw the hands creep past 5:42 a.m. He mentally calculated that he had four hours sleep even while he anxiously watched the door.

  It would pass, he knew. He could not even remember how long he had been standing here. Fifteen minutes? Twenty? His heart was still racing. If he was lucky, he hadn’t screamed this time. If he had, he was certain to hear about it from Gertrude upstairs, who seemed to believe he was shouting in the middle of the night as a result of Satanism or some bizarre sexual practice. Somehow the real reason-a bad nightmare-just didn’t cut it with her.

  He wondered if he could at least bring himself to sit down. That was usually the first step toward calming down. Never taking his eyes off the door, he retreated to his armchair on the back wall.

  Janus had often joked that Quinn was the only guy he knew whose recliner was angled away from the television. Quinn never told him the reason why.

  After another fifteen minutes, the feeling of something watching him, waiting for him, began to subside. By the time 6:15 a.m. rolled around, he could at least look away from the door for 30 seconds at a time.

  By 6:40 a.m., he felt good enough to get himself a drink, pulling a Coke from the fridge, popping its top and gulping it down in giant sips.

  He lay down on the sofa and thought briefly of picking up the remote. But he worried. What if he turned on the TV and his dream was on it? It had happened before.

  He should be used to this, he thought. His nightmares began when he was a kid-but back then there was at least some feeling of relief when he woke up.

  Lately, Quinn had not felt that way. Instead, his dreams had taken on a tangible feel. The sound of a horse chasing him, the smell of the pine forest as he ran through it, even the feel of his feet slipping in the clay as he ran down a hill. In contrast, waking life felt vague and indistinct, as if it were the dream and not the other way around.

  Quinn heard a thump at the door.

  He was out of his chair in an instant, the knife back in his hand. The Coke in his lap had spilled to the ground, now seeping out its remaining brownish liquid onto the white carpet.

  He waited for the thing to come through the door. After what felt like an eternity he realized the noise had not been caused by any monster. It had just been the delivery kid dropping off newspapers near his front door. Quinn’s body sagged in relief.

  He sighed and went back to the kitchen, putting the knife on the counter and picking up some paper towels to soak up the spilled soda.

  He waited another ten minutes before going to the front door, opening it quickly and pulling the two papers inside. The first was the Washington Post, a must for anybody living in the suburbs of the District of Columbia. He dropped it on the ground as he sat back down.

  Instead, he turned his attention to the Loudoun Chronicle. The lead story had a headline, “Loudoun Board rejects new subdivision.” Another talked about a push to protect the site of a Civil War skirmish off Route 15. There was a giant photo of a football player catching a ball underneath a headline that read “PotomacFalls claims victory over Broad Run.”

  At the bottom of the page was a smaller headline that said “Phillips Farm Debate Started.”

  “Jesus, that will get their attention,” Quinn said sarcastically to the wall. The wall had never answered him, but Quinn had begun to worry in his present state it might. Then he knew he’d be in real trouble.

  He sighed. The tiny by-line-By Quinn O’Brion-would undoubtedly go unnoticed by most who bothered to read the story. But it hurt just a little to know he had worked two days on a story only to see the headline turn into a bright neon sign warning people not to read any further.

  “Phillips Farm Debate Started,” he said. “Why don’t they just say: ‘Boring White People Fight More,’ or ‘Trouble Sleeping? Read Further for Cure.’”

  Quinn didn’t read any further.

  It was hard not to be frustrated working for a paper that seemed to publish the same stuff every week, pouring over the most minute details of life in Loudoun County, Virginia. Year to year, you talked to the same people, wrote many of the same stories. And even when you had a good story-and the Phillips Farm debate mattered, he believed-it probably wouldn’t register.

  He dropped the Chronicle on the ground and picked up the Post. He leafed through it to find the “Loudoun Extra”-a 15-page insert that attempted to replicate a local paper. The Post had been on a kick lately. Seeing increasing numbers of readers turn to the Internet for news-which was free-the paper had begun local inserts in several regions.

  The end result was that fewer residents felt the need to subscribe to papers like the Chronicle. It did not matter that the Chronicle ’s staff had worked here longer or knew people better. People didn’t want to subscribe to two papers anymore.

  He glanced at the Extra’s headlines and groaned. “Gibson set to unveil new Phillips plan.”

  “Shit,” Quinn said.

  He read the story quickly. Sure enough, Paul Gibson, the chairman of Loudoun’s board of directors, had begun circulating a plan that would give a developer two-thirds of the old farmstead, but protect
the rest under a conservation easement.

  All his work, Quinn thought, and his story was already outdated. There was seldom anything worse than waking up and discovering you had been scooped. How had it happened? He had talked to everybody, including Gibson. And no one had breathed a word about any new plan. Damn.

  He did not even need to look at the by-line. He knew Summer had beaten him and she would find some way to bring it up the next time they met.

  Quinn dropped the paper in disgust and got up. He stumbled down the hall to the bathroom. He stopped when he passed the mirror above the sink. In the reflection was a 30-year-old of average height and regular build-he was thin enough, but not in great shape. He put his hand through his brown hair. Were those gray hairs? Maybe it was the nightmares. Was he good looking? He didn’t know. There seemed little exceptional about him.

  Except…his eyes. He stared back at himself with electric blue eyes. An old girlfriend had once told him his eyes were the only reason she had agreed to go out with him. She had been on the verge of saying no when she looked him in the eyes. And then she changed her mind.

  Quinn smiled, but the expression held little humor in it. If his eyes had ever been arresting, he doubted anyone would notice now. His skin looked gray and pallid, as if he hid himself from the sun. And his eyes were surrounded by dark circles, the sign of a man who does not sleep well.

  Jesus, he thought, I look… haunted.

  He turned on the water and washed his face, as if to brush the look away. But the only change that occurred was his reflection now looked wet.

  Screw it, he thought. It didn’t matter.

  But just as he turned and reached for the shower faucets, he paused and listened intently.

  Quinn grabbed the side of the shower door to steady himself. That couldn’t be right, could it? He walked into the hallway slowly and then to his window to look outside. His apartment faced the back, looking over a brief sparse of woods before another cluster of apartment buildings.

  He opened his window. Over the sounds of traffic winding its way through Leesburg and beyond the call of birds, it was the sound of a horse running. The sound caused his stomach to seize up and he struggled not to be sick. It sounded close.

  Quinn tried to dismiss it out of hand. Horses in Loudoun were hardly unusual, he thought. It meant nothing. But how could he hear these things? Most people wouldn’t hear the sounds of a horse if one were twenty feet away, much less through a bathroom wall-not to mention an apartment.

  Quinn shut the window. He didn’t want to think about it. Didn’t want to remember it. It was nothing but a horse lover out for a ride and there was no sense in making it into some kind of demon. He had enough real demons to worry him, didn’t he?

  He sighed as he stripped and turned on the shower. Mentally, he ticked off the things that had already gone wrong with his day: He got four hours sleep, began his morning threatening a door with a kitchen knife and was scooped by Summer Mandaville, Post reporter and pain-in-the-butt.

  The only benefit to starting the day in such a lousy manner was that at least things weren’t likely to get any worse.

  But he was wrong about that, too.

  LH File: Letter #1

  Date Oct. 1, 1994

  Investigation Status: Closed

  Contents: Classified

  Dear Mr. Anderson,

  Some of what I tell you will be lies. I don’t mean to get us off on the wrong foot, but I thought I should make that clear from the outset. There is, at least, a good reason for this caveat. Within the day, this letter will be in the hands of the police and they will pour over every detail, real and imagined. If I only offered truth, it might provide them with a roadmap to me and I’m not quite prepared for that. Yet.

  I am a longtime reader of the Chronicle-that part is no lie, I assure you. In particular, your work has captivated me. It’s something in how you write about crime. It seems pedestrian in others hands. But you offer me enough details that I can almost hear the squeal of tires at a roadside accident and smell the smoke from the fire. You are very talented and I have no doubt you will go far.

  So allow me to hand you the biggest story of your career.

  Approximately 6.7 miles from here to the northwest, just past Waterford on Clover Hill Road, lying in a shallow stream bed, you will find a body. While it’s possible some local urchin will spot it first, it’s sufficiently fresh that I think it likely you could be the first on the scene. Whether you want to see it yourself, or call the police, I leave up to you.

  The name of the victim is Henrietta Verclamp. I had nothing against her. She was an attractive 37-year-old artist given to painting nature scenes and we chatted quite amiably shortly before her death. Even when she saw the knife, she didn’t really understand. And why should she? Monsters lurk in the dark, not the daylight, and most don’t stop to chat.

  To help you with color for your story, I will tell you this: She attended GeorgeMasonUniversity and studied history. Art was something she took up to pass the time when she returned home to Leesburg, Va., while she decided what she wanted to do with her life. On a lark, she entered one of her paintings into a competition and the rest, as they say, is history. She won. In the 15 years since, she has never achieved widespread fame. But I think you will find her reputation was good and growing.

  She had wonderfully red hair, an easy laugh and a certain twinkle in her eye when she smiled. Oh, in case it’s relevant, she screamed delightfully when I sliced into her. Unfortunately, I cut a little too close to the left lung and she began choking on her own blood, which rather diminished the effect.

  No one heard her. She died at 11:33 a.m. this morning. Her parents, whom she mentioned still live in Leesburg, undoubtedly think she is out painting. Can you call them and tell them yourself, or is that too tacky? I really wish I understood more about the niceties of reporting. I mean, that way you would get a great scoop, right? Be able to tell all about their reactions right as they hear their only daughter has been murdered? That would make for great color, I would think. God, I wish I could see it, but I’ll have to rely on you to convey what you can. I leave it to you to best judge the situation. I can’t know everything and your work has left me sufficiently impressed that I’m confident you will know the best way to handle it.

  Now for your questions. I suppose the biggest one is: Why? As you know, it’s the hardest question for anyone to answer. Why does a man feel like watching football on a Saturday afternoon, a cold beer in his hand as he kicks his feet up on the couch? No, that’s a bad analogy.

  Why does a woman enjoy a good game of tennis with her best friend on a Sunday morning? That’s better-more active. Believe me, murder is an aerobic workout.

  My point is: You do these things because on some level, they are a lot of fun. A way to relax. A way to blow off steam after a hard day’s work. And I figured it was a good way to start the month off right.

  There are other reasons. I wouldn’t want you to think I murdered her just for fun. I did it because I wish to prove a point: the world is changing. It’s something indefinable in the air and water. History is a cycle of the rise and fall of civilizations and individuals. There comes a certain point where the apex has been reached and everything begins slipping into darkness.

  That point has now come. When it turned, I can’t exactly say, but I feel it under my skin. Underneath the perfume of the roses, you can begin to scent the rot and decay setting in.

  I don’t mean this just at a national level. You can feel it here too. Maybe you already do. You are a perceptive man.

  Loudoun County has stayed much the same as it has for 200 years. But that is beginning to slide. FairfaxCounty is growing and expanding. Pretty soon, the future will be at the door. There will be immigrants, developers and yuppies flooding through our gates. And that will bring with it the enemy of all humankind: change.

  Change is inevitable, but there are times in life when we must make a stand. I intend to do so. My medium is the on
e best understood by every being on this planet, from the lowly maggot to us-fear.

  Don’t worry, I won’t single out immigrants or minorities. I’m not prejudiced and-in all honesty-that would be trite and predictable. For terror to be most effective, it has to be indiscriminate. You can’t ever believe you are safe. You have to always be looking behind you, wondering who is there in the shadow beyond the streetlight. So, starting today, everyone is up for grabs.

  I will be the thing people fear. And for all time, my name will send a shiver down everyone’s spine. It will become synonymous with the creeping darkness.

  Today is the first day of October. By the end of it, five women, five men and five children will be rotting in the ground. You cannot stop me, just as you cannot stop change. I am night. I am cold. I am flesh rendered and torn. I am steel. I am the harbinger of fall: I am death.

  You can call me Lord Halloween.

  Chapter 2

  Wed., Oct. 4, 2006

  Kate woke up thinking about a corpse.

  The image should have been faded like an old photograph wearing around the edges. But instead it felt fresh, more real than yesterday, as vivid as a minute ago.

  There was a buzzing sound. She had to clear her head with some effort (she could still clearly see the hand lying awkwardly off the bed-the flesh was pink but it was cold to the touch) and realize it was just the alarm clock.

  Her hand reached out and fumbled over buttons until the noise stopped.

  She took a dim account of her surroundings and tried to let the dream go. Of course, it wasn’t really a dream at all. It was a memory, a related but fundamentally different beast.

  It felt stuffy in the room. Kate got up and walked to the sliding glass door. She opened it and felt a breeze blow past. She walked out onto the balcony of the Hotel Leesburg and was treated to a partial view of the town. Zoning laws did not permit any tall buildings within the city limits, so the view was a poor one.