Conceiving (Subdue Book 3)

by Thomas S. Flowers

  Chapter 29

  Strange Irony

  Bobby

  Bobby kept to the outskirts of town. As much as possible anyway. This was a dangerous game. Anyone or everyone in Jotham could be a part of whatever sent those kids to kill him. Part of this strange University cult or whatever they were. After twenty or so miles the trees became denser. The rolling hills behind him smoothed out, into massed areas of elm and oak whose leaves had withered and died from the bitter winter season. Branches gnarled like skeleton specters, void of life, and all the joy that came with spring. Baelo University unfolded on a cobblestone road of faint browns and greys that gave way to a castle-like fort with vaulted walls surrounding the school. The university was magnificent and terrifying in its size, with shuttered windows and grand pillars and archways. The architecture was of some other place and time, not altogether archaic but certainly reminiscent of some masonic era. At the great entrance, the pass was blocked by a giant black iron gate. A large brick sign lay a few meters from the fence line with the university name, and beside the entrance sat a small box filled from roof to stern with a rather portly looking fellow, forty-ish with reddish brown hair and an equally appalling poorly grown rug lying flaccid just beneath a bulb-like cheery-red nose.

  The box was lit in the gloom of approaching nightfall. By the flickering lights, Bobby assumed the guard was watching television. Perfectly banal and wholesomely American in an otherwise eldritch place. As he slowed the Fatboy, killing the engine in a single rumble of protest, he could hear the chattering voices of Anne, George, and Mitchell in a somewhat popular British show about vampires and werewolves and ghosts he was vaguely familiar with, arguing over what it meant to be cursed, discussing to a point if the curse was something that happened once a month or something that happens every day, watching people walk and talk about plans and dates and dinners and lunches, being what they used to be.

  We’re all hiding something.

  What are you hiding behind your tall walls and impressive looking school?

  Bobby quietly inched his motorcycle over behind a patch of landscaped brush. He was several meters away from the guard box, but not entirely out of sight. He would need to be careful. No sudden noises. Angling a glance along the wall, there were no visible cameras. Perhaps the guard was the only security. Or maybe the school didn’t have to worry about break-ins. Chilling thought. And now here he was, positioning himself to climb over the fence. The one place he never in a million years imagined himself breaking into, to do something he never wanted to do. How horribly ironic. To hide someone for so long from the world and now, at the precipice, willing to do monstrous things. To let loose what he feared the most. Or die trying.

  Bobby hoisted himself. Standing on the saddle of the Harley. Grunting, he pulled himself up, lying flat as he could at the top of the wall. Glancing below, the drop was a tad more than he had anticipated. Holding his breath, he angled down, hanging by the strength of his hands and arms and shoulders. Burning unused muscles. Feet dangling. He dropped and landed hard.

  “Fuck!” Bobby hissed, rolling over in the grass.

  Something had snapped, he was sure. Testing his ankle, he could scarcely rotate it. He tested his weight, standing slowly up, pressing his back against the tall wall.

  Not broken.

  At least that much.

  Despite the cold, sweat was beading along his forehead. Bobby combed the grime back into his greasy hair. Ahead, beyond the quarter mile or so of short trimmed lawn, the school loomed out in the distance. The parking lot adjacent was full of cars. People were still pulling in through some other, unseen, entrance. The lights were on inside. Something was going on at the school.

  At such an hour?

  Witching hour, as Luna would have said.

  Bobby took a long breath, wondering what that something might be, if he was willing to let loose the devil-eyed wolf. “Or die trying,” he whispered.

  Brushing off his jeans and jean jacket, he limped off toward the school.

  Chapter 30

  Gathering

  Neville

  She could hear the springs of Boris’ black-and-red striped Peugeot bounce as the dual headlamps rounded up the drive. Neville had been sitting at the kitchen table, unmoving, for what seemed like hours. The sun had fallen below the horizon of mom and pop stores and townhouses on Main Street. The dark red and orange snuffed out like candle flame. The gloom of night seemed heavy over Jotham. A strange wind in the night. Shadows moving, shifting, watching. Whispers in the cold. The brakes of her husband’s car halted with a screech. A door opened and closed outside. The jingle of keys at the lock. If this was a sitcom, one of the ones her mother used to watch, I Love Lucy reruns and Andy Griffith and Happy Days and I Dream of Jeannie, some snarky theme song would play as Boris would come walking in, ushered by the applause of an unseen ghostly audience. Alas, no, her husband came into a dark home with only the faint moonbeams that slithered in from the window blinds. She could hear him fumbling for a switch.

  A click.

  Dazzling light chased away the dark, momentarily blinding Neville as she shielded her face with her hand. Boris seemed to yelp.

  “Jesus, Neville. Hun, you scared me. What are you doing sitting in the dark? I thought you’d be in bed by now. Hey…where’s your necklace? The black stone one the Bachman’s gave you?” Boris stood at the entry way, briefcase in one hand, the other positioned mockingly on his hip.

  “I tossed it away.” Neville folded her arms across her chest.

  “What do you mean, you tossed it?” Was that concern on his face?

  “What is this?” Neville slid the book she refused to touch for the last few hours across the table for her husband to get a bird’s eye view of. Her tone was neither whimsical nor was it fool hearty. Her tone was cold. As cold as the winter storm outside. Her hand retracted quickly, as if she’d touched some foul rag or molded piece of cardboard.

  Boris looked at the book. His eyes seemed to widen. “You went into my desk?” he asked.

  Neville ignored the implication. “What is it?” she demanded again.

  “The drawer was locked, hun.”

  “Yes, it was.”

  “You broke in?”

  “Why was it locked?”

  “That’s not the point.”

  “It very much is.”

  “Nev…”

  “What is it?”

  “Huh?”

  “The book, what is it?”

  “It’s just a book, hun. You know, pages grouped together.”

  “Don’t be flippant.”

  “You asked.”

  “Tell me what the book is…there are weird things…is it…?”

  “Real?”

  “Yes.”

  Boris shrugged.

  “Damnit, Boris. Tell me.”

  “Maybe. Maybe not. That’s all I have for you. The book was given to me as a gift. I’m studying it for a possible class next spring on Slavery in America. Research. For the University.”

  Neville relaxed, slightly. “Who gave you the book?”

  “Who else.”

  “Bachman.” Neville rolled her eyes.

  “Yes. He found it during one of their trips back east, thought I’d find it useful.” Boris set his briefcase on the floor and pulled out a chair.

  “I don’t like it, Boris. What I read…did those things really happen?”

  Boris strolled to the sink and put the kettle on. They waited together in silence. Both confused no doubt with thoughts uncanny, thoughts that ought to be no concern for such a late stage of pregnancy. During these last few weeks, talk should be involved with names and when to call the folks back in Ole Miss, thank you cards for baby gifts, belly updates on Facebook. As it were, in the here and now, those mundane issues seem juvenile and equally distant, belonging perhaps to some other family down the road. Their concerns were utterly consumed by strange and unusual matters, and worse, paranoia.

  The kettle screamed and Boris
poured two mugs of tea dipped from contents in a tin can, the can Martha Bachman had given Neville with herbs to settle her nerves. He sat down at the table with two steaming cups, handing one to his wife who took it naturally. He was frowning now, in one of his patent pondering faces. Sneering sideways a bit, chewing on some half thought idea, wondering more like on what to say and how to say it that would bring some comfort to his wife. After a long while of silence, he looked back up at Neville who was sipping on her tea.

  “It’s just a book, hun,” he said. Hands folded together. Leg dancing under the table.

  Neville took another sip. “Is it?”

  “What else would it be, Nev?” Palms open. Boris was huffing. Skin looking clammy in the harsh kitchen light. His eyes were pleading, begging.

  What? A confession? For whom? This is getting ridiculous, Nev. You’re letting your big dumb pregnant brain get the better of you.

  —Am I? He’s been so distant. And the dreams. The odds of finally getting pregnant just after the welcome dinner at the Bachman’s behest. Coincidence.

  —Are there such things anymore?

  The journal.

  —What about the journal.

  And the robes. And locked drawers. Secrets. That’s what that means. Hidden things. Whispers.

  “I don’t know,” she whispered.

  “Exactly. Just a book. Some fictional dribble or maybe some plantation that’d come down with a plague of some kind. Nothing more.”

  “Okay.” Dazed, her mind felt muddied. She took another sip from her mug.

  “Maybe we should call Doctor Taylor in the morning.” Boris looked into his untouched mug.

  “What for?” Neville wobbled in her chair. Words slurred, the way she talked after have three or more glasses of red wine.

  “Hun, you okay?” Boris’ concern; was he?

  “Sorry…I’m just tired, I think.” Neville held her head. The baby started kicking, rumbling inside her. She meant to giggle, but it only came out in a hiccup.

  “Let’s get you to bed, shall we?” Boris stood.

  “What…what are those robes for?” The world was fading away. The question seemed to come out of some dream. Floating at the forefront of her mind as if pulled by horse gut string by a sinister smiling puppeteer.

  “What robes?” Boris moved to help her up. Putting an arm around her back and waist, draping her arm across his shoulder.

  “From your drawer…I found them…book.” Her words rung inside her skull, echoing and quickly fading as if caught by some malcontent breath breathed from a colossus content to watch the ants crawl about and labor under the heat of a magnify glass. If Boris answered, Neville Petry did not hear nor would she have understood her desire in knowing why her husband had locked away those robes and that book. She fell and fell, devoured into a deep and dreamless sleep, caught in tangled web of slaves and dusty books and robes and dead mothers and red glowing eyes, clicking, clicking in a rancorous song. The world around her pulsed between realities and…something else. She was on the floor…no, her bed. It was soft, yes. Very soft. And Boris was there, on the phone.

  Fade.

  He was urgent.

  Angry.

  Impudent.

  Obedient.

  Fade.

  Her mother was knitting beside her, but her face look ghostly white, as if glued together with the flesh of something else. She smelled of the grave. Teasing her. Another lecture. Another reminding of why Neville was ill suited to become a mother. Needles ticking, clinking together. And smoke, nasty tar-ridden chaff hinting at something sweet laced with stale bread. Filling the room with its awful perfume.

  Neville opened her eyes, or at least she thought she did. Boris was standing over her, not looking at her, talking with…Dean Theodore Bachman, looming like some monstrous tower with impossibly wide shoulders, puffing on a pipe, thoughtful and eager behind his thick circled glasses, and another man she did not recognize right away. One of the other history teachers, she’d forgotten his name, nervous with equal parts giddiness. Clapping his hands softly as if he’d heard some delightful news.

  “What’s…going on?” Did she speak the words? The others did not seem to hear. They spoke harshly between each other. More blurred faces came into the room, cooing and wooing over her like foggy apparitions with cruel yellow grins.

  Darkness swept over her again, dragging her under the cold current of sleep.

  Chapter 31

  Providence

  Bobby

  The University grounds were a frozen block of ice. The low-cut grass crunched with each painful step. His ankle felt swollen beneath his boots. Jeans stiff with iced sweat. The only heat, his ragged breath heaving under his jean jacket and flannel button-up fogging the air like some diesel smokestack. Frost had grown in his beard. Shoulders hunched. Marching forward. Always forward, toward the masonic school. The temperature must have dipped to the negatives. How cold it had gotten in such a short amount of time. God forbid, what he’d give for a full moon. Let the yellow-eyed wolf take him the rest of the way. Have some real fun. Wake up the next morning in a glacial pool of cultish blood, assuming of course this was a cult he was dealing with. What else could they be? Who else would gather the young and impressionable and brainwash them into throwing their lives away, into commenting murder of all things? Who else would carry on and on as that kid Justin had done with talk of fate and other such nonsense. What had the kid said, “Providence, Mr. Weeks, is bound by what we are prepared to do to survive and the lengths in which we are willing to go in order to reach our destination.”

  Providence was one of them old time words poets liked to use. Carried a bit of a sting, right? As if some higher power truly cared about anyone. Who are we? Ants under the magnify glass. Shadow puppets in the cave. Particles of dust caught in a sunbeam.

  The kid was right about one thing. What we do in life is bound to what we are prepared to do and how far we’re willing to go to get there. How far will I go?

  The chow hall dream came to mind.

  His childhood friends, waiting.

  To the end of the line.

  The last car had pulled into the lot and parked about fifteen minutes ago as Bobby shambled across the lawn. Apparently, whatever was going on at such a late hour at the school had started.

  Limping to the corner of the building facing the parking lot, Bobby moved quietly along the brick wall toward the side entrance, convinced he would find it locked with one of those new age ID card readers most fancy universities have nowadays. Reaching for the handle, he nearly jerked, surprised to find the door unlocked.

  An invitation?

  Who in their right mind would want in? Aren’t most folks trying to get out of places like this?

  Laughing at his own private joke, Bobby peered inside. The entryway lead into a long and dark corridor, lit only by the neon glow of the red emergency exit signs and the soft flickers of light coming from the end of the hallway. Poster boards covered the walls, littered with random mentioning’s of school clubs and groups, the Gamer’s Guide and Photography Club and Outdoor Runners and the Psychology Club and Young Americans for Liberty club and History Club (this one had the most names on the signup sheet) and Arts and all the Greeks, Beta Beta Beta and Alpha Phi Sigma and Psi Chi and Alpha Kappa Delta. There were sheets for tutors and listings for undergrads seeking quiet roommates, used text books for sale, humanitarian causes, etc. etc.

  Moving deeper, he let the door close, cursing himself as it slammed shut. The shrill bang echoed down the otherwise still tile floors and empty archways. Inching farther down, voices, countless excited whispers rolled out from the growing light. Tall dark shadows danced like wicker flame against the opposing wall.

  How many were in the room?

  There was no way to tell.

  His imagination went wild.

  What if—what if this was some strange sacrifice? With cauldrons and orange and yellow fires and pitchforks and leather bound books as ancient as death,
summoning demons and God knows what else. What if there’re goats in there, bleating and crying. Pentagrams and hexagrams and horned beasts and uncivilized perversion with chalices filled with the blood of virgins. Rape and sodomy and shouts of puss ridden penetration and splatting children upon some preposterous green gnarled obelisk.

  What if…

  Clenched his fists. Slowly approaching the open door. At the frame edge, he hunched down, keeping most of his weight on one leg. His own heart pumping and pumping, hard against his chest. Soaked in sweat. Legs trembling and exhausted. Ankle screaming. Closing his eyes, he thought of Rudy. He wasn’t what you’d call close to the man, but Rudy was a good guy all the same. He didn’t deserve what happened. He thought of the girls, all killed but for the one who now walked the earth as he did, with the feral curse. And those kids, who threw away their lives, and for what? Bobby knew he was partially to blame for all the death. But he didn’t start this fight, they did. Those bug eyed freaks living below the house on Oak Lee and whatever asshole who ran things here. They started this, not him. He would end it, though, oh yes. He would end this fight, one way or another.

  The voices were getting louder.

  Laughing.

  Flowing naturally between each person and the next.

  Enormous shadows casted on the wall by some kind iridescent glow.

  Bobby could feel his blood pumping in his ears.

  A smell.

  And music.

  Logs burning. Crackling.

  The voices formed into conversation, joyful and full of good cheer.

  A party? A celebration perhaps? Of what?

  Keeping low, Bobby peered inside.

  The hell?

  The gathered horde of what he thought would be the most pungent foul thing imaginable were dressed in black tuxedos and glimmering expensive jeweled dresses. A masquerade without the masks. Smelling of rich, expensive foods. The room was spacious with an impressive vaulted ceiling. A large fireplace roared on one side. On the other, a jazz band huddled together, softly carrying the tempo. A trumpet player stood in front of the slightly lifted stage playing something with a teasing suggestive melody, similar, Bobby thought, to Miles Davis’ “So What.” Piano and snares and large bass behind him, keeping the beat flowing. Some of those gathered in the great hall danced, not provocatively; elegantly. Small cubes of what he assumed to be food was being served on large shimmering platters, the odor of smoked fish and salted bacon took hold of his stomach, vengefully reminding him how long it’s had been since he last ate. Drinks were toasted with crystalline glasses. Those who smoked, smoked pipes or cigars. The women pinched thin cigarettes between fingers free of yellow stains. Conversations bloomed naturally from one person to the next, never rising above a fever.