The Face of Midnight

by Dan Padavona

  Then a fireball burst from the second-story bedroom. A chunk of panel exploded off the window and clipped my forehead. The night spun around me. I lost balance, toppling onto all fours.

  The next thing I knew I was staggering down Myers Road.

  Dazed and surrounded by bramble, I slumped into the cold meadow and lay staring up at the heavens. Stars, more than I’d seen in a lifetime, sparkled down from a sea of black. A ghostly finger of smoke billowed and expanded through the sky as I coughed and choked on the singed air.

  I hold a hazy recollection of hearing my mother’s voice calling for me in the night. I was too tired and parched to answer. She wasn’t there, of course. Couldn’t have been. Soon her voice faded below the wail of approaching sirens.

  A car engine rumbled by. Slow-moving tires crunched over the gravel road. I raised my head to look and collapsed.

  The world went black.

  CHAPTER TEN

  Epilogue

  I awakened to two voices arguing, one male, one female. The hospital room was blurry, as though smoke from the house fire had spread to my new location.

  The female voice belonged to a heavyset nurse with one thick slash of eyebrow that dove angrily down to the bridge of her nose. A unibrow, Riley once called it. Remembering put an ache into my heart. The male voice was of a young-looking police officer the nurse comically dwarfed.

  He argued his need to speak to the patient as I awoke. He was losing the argument.

  “It’s okay,” I said. “I’ll answer his questions.”

  My voice didn’t sound like mine at all. It was gravely and dry, the way it might sound if I was lucky enough to live until ninety-five.

  “Five minutes,” the nurse said. “And not a minute more, Officer Michaels.”

  The look of warning she gave him made the officer bite his lip and nod. Then he was by my bedside with a pen and pad, furiously scribbling notes as I talked.

  Sometimes his eyes studied me as though I were an entity unexplainable through science. This unassuming, shattered twenty-four-year-old in the hospital bed had ended The Midnight Killer’s reign of terror, and within a few hours, my name would be all over the news.

  “What I need to know is what you were doing there in the first place,” he said. “How did you know Brian Kealan was inside the house?”

  “Who?”

  “Brian Kealan, The Midnight Killer. Yeah, I know,” he said, turning his head toward the window where a team of paramedics raced past, pushing a gurney. “His real name isn’t as news-friendly or exciting as The Midnight Killer.”

  “Brian Kealan. Sounds damn scary to me.”

  “I suppose it does once you link the crimes to the name. Like Ted Bundy or David Berkowitz. The squatter—the woman living inside the farm house on Myers Road. Was she a friend of yours?”

  “The woman?”

  He shot a look over his shoulder, probably searching for the nurse. Then he turned back with tired eyes, eyes which wanted answers before the sun rose.

  “Help me out here. You’ve been through a real shit storm, but I need you to take a deep breath and remember. The woman, Donna Berwick. We found her murdered outside the residence. We also pulled three bodies out of the basement. Fortunately, the fire hadn’t gotten to them, and we were able to identify two of the victims. One is Erin Tuttle, the missing woman from Barton Falls. The second is a known drug dealer from the east side. The third…”

  His voice trailed off as I pictured Riley, bloody and stacked like cord wood in the basement locker. I closed my eyes, and he was still there, hollow sockets for eyes, flesh crawling with spiders and roaches.

  “Why did you let me die, Steve?” Riley seemed to say.

  The large outline of the nurse waited outside my door.

  In the hallway, a tattooed man showing ass cheek through the back slit in his hospital gown tried to push past a throng of doctors and orderlies.

  “…and maybe you tried to talk some sense into Miss Berwick for trespassing. Which is why you were there?”

  His voice brought me back. I could tell by the way he led me toward an optimal answer that he was more interested in Donna’s crimes than why I was there. He wasn’t going to arrest the man who’d murdered The Midnight Killer.

  Officer Michaels sighed and rubbed at his eyes. It was after four in the morning.

  “Look, I don’t much care if you trespassed. We’ve got three bodies on that hill, plus The Midnight Killer, so what I need to know is…”

  Three bodies.

  I couldn’t hear his voice anymore. Beside me, the heart rate monitor drew sharp, irregular waves as the beeping quickened.

  “You okay, Mr. Morgan?”

  Three.

  Donna, Erin Tuttle, and Riley.

  What happened to Becca’s body?

  “Mr. Morgan?”

  “Yeah. I’m okay.” My fingers searched beneath the blankets and found a spaghetti dish of probes connected to my body. Suddenly, I wanted to join Tattoo Man and escape the hospital. “It’s like you said. Donna shouldn’t have been staying up there. I tried to talk some sense into her, tried to get her to leave, but she wouldn’t listen.”

  “And you had no idea The Midnight Killer was inside the house?”

  “None.”

  “Who started the fire?”

  “I did.”

  He raised his eyebrows. I felt relieved Officer Jenkins wasn’t doing the interrogation. He would have loved to pin an arson charge on me.

  “Why?”

  “The Midnight Killer was inside the house, and Donna was already dead. I thought if I trapped him—”

  “So you just grabbed your handy lighter and—”

  “A pack of matches and fuel from the generator.”

  I could tell he already knew how I’d started the fire. I’d given him the answer he wanted.

  “Just out of curiosity, do you have any idea why Miss Berwick attacked Harry Jenkins? We checked: Jenkins was your landlord, and you were evicted under questionable circumstances. Did you have anything to do with Berwick assaulting Jenkins?”

  I shook my head.

  “She knew about my eviction, yes. But I had no idea she’d try to avenge me like that.”

  “None?”

  “She hadn’t been right for a few months. Donna was under a lot of pressure. Guy issues, I think.”

  “Guy issues. As in you?”

  “No, sir. I was just a concerned friend.”

  “Hmm.”

  He glanced to where the blanket covered my taped midsection.

  “How are the ribs?”

  “Shitty.”

  “Yeah.”

  He started to get up and sat back down. The glint in his eye told me he knew I wasn’t telling him the whole story.

  “Another question, if I may. How did you get all the way to Myers Road from Barton Falls?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Well, it’s too far to walk considering the way the weather has been. One side of the farmhouse was struck by a vehicle, but there’s no sign of a car.”

  Jesus.

  I remembered the keys dangling from the Subaru’s ignition, the voice calling to me as I drifted unconscious in the meadow.

  Becca.

  The heart monitor got active again.

  He started to ask another question when the door flew open, and the nurse barreled into the room.

  “Your five minutes are up, Officer Michaels.”

  “Just a few more questions—”

  “You can come back in the morning. The patient needs his sleep.”

  My parents arrived after breakfast. They’d only just heard the news. Mom always unplugged the phone at bedtime, not wanting to be disturbed, and Dad always swore it would come back to haunt her some night when a real emergency occurred.

  Mom wrung her hands and did a lot of apologizing. She was overly cautious about touching me as if I were shattered pieces of china glued together.

  Dad rolled his eyes at her fretting
and gave me ‘atta-boy slaps on the shoulder. Yet his eyes regarded me as Officer Michaels’ had. I might have suddenly revealed I was an international spy or the first astronaut to walk on the sun.

  “It was so sweet of you to help that girl,” Mom said, wetting the corner of the bed sheet in a cup of water and dabbing dirt off my face. “You were always the first to help a friend in need. Breaking into an abandoned house in the middle of nowhere…who would do such a thing?”

  I saw Officer Michaels three more times before the doctors released me two days later. He feigned concern for my healing ribs and joked about my sudden fame—I’d done three television interviews, all of which were picked up by the major networks, and spoken to seven newspapers, including THE NEW YORK TIMES—but mostly he threw me a scattershot of questions which revealed he knew his story was missing something important.

  I half-considered asking him if a girl with a lacerated leg had arrived at the hospital the night they brought me in.

  I kept my mouth shut. Becca, after all, was the something missing that Michaels couldn’t put a finger on.

  Better she remained a ghost.

  The day I walked out of the hospital was sunny and warm, exactly the late-autumn warmth Becca and I had hoped for.

  A year has passed since that awful Halloween night.

  You’ll be pleased to know I have my own apartment in the big city.

  Well, Syracuse.

  Compared to Barton Falls and Smith Glen, Syracuse might as well be New York City. I’m halfway to an associates degree at the local community college, where I major in computer science and ask my professor uncomfortable questions about scraping data off of web pages. He probably thinks I plan to hack Yahoo or Amazon upon graduation.

  I’m seeing someone. A girl, yes, but not what you think. Though attractive, she’s thirty years older than me and doesn’t date patients. Her office is warm and dark and safe.

  It took several months, but my nightmares aren’t as frequent or violent. The pretty doctor is the only living person who knows of my dark autumn with the homeless girl.

  Since moving to Syracuse I’ve become active on Twitter and Facebook. Though I know it’s a bad idea, I list my current address on my profile pages, and I use my Twitter feed to update whenever I’m at class, out to dinner, or shopping at the mall. Sometimes I leave my first-story window open a crack.

  Mom and Dad aren’t getting any younger. My strange fame and brush with death aged them several years.

  Last week, I spent fall break with my folks in Smith Glen. I made it clear on social media that I’d be gone for seven days and wouldn’t be back in Syracuse until Sunday evening. We went apple picking, toured the Finger Lakes, and posed for pictures everywhere we went. You’d have to have been living under a rock to not know my apartment was vacant. The few friends I have online, mostly old high school classmates and a smattering of new friends from college, seemed mildly amused.

  I wondered if someone else was watching.

  I came home tonight. The door was locked, the window still open a crack and letting in a cold breeze off Lake Ontario. Indian summer is over. Halloween is coming again.

  The extra food I’d left in the cupboards and refrigerator was untouched. The blanket hanging over my second-hand couch appeared exactly as I’d left it.

  Yet something was different.

  A scent.

  The hint of bath soap mingling with the fresh water smell of the lake.

  Goosebumps rippled down my arms, the adrenaline before ripping open the big mystery box on Christmas morning.

  I ran to the bathroom and threw open the door.

  A still-moist, tattered towel I hadn’t seen since last year hung from the rack. Three beads of water, barely perceptible against the white tub, clung to the porcelain bottom.

  I know you’re close, Becca.

  Come home.

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  Read on for an excerpt

  From

  Crawlspace

  “One of the most exciting writers to burst upon the scene in quite some time.” – Brian Keene, 2014 World Horror Grand Master

  I flew over the crest of Court Hill without a bike helmet. My headphones were on, which is why I never heard the pickup truck creep up on my back wheel.

  When the driver laid heavy on the horn, I nearly jumped out of my skin. You can’t appreciate how loud a big truck’s horn is until the grille is two feet from your ass. You don’t just hear the horn, you feel it blasting hot air against the back of your neck while the wail rattles through your bones. The horn made me lose control and nearly careen over the curb, but I straightened the front wheel and managed to stay upright. I twisted my head around and saw the hardened, beady eyes of a man laughing at me over the steering wheel.

  Doing what any sane person outweighed by 6000 pounds would do, I edged toward the curb to give the driver room to pass.

  He didn’t pass.

  He swerved the grille directly behind me again and blared the horn. I inched closer to the curb, afraid the bike pedal would clip the concrete and I’d tumble over the handlebars. He flicked on his high beams.

  The smartest choice would’ve been to hop the curb and get onto the sidewalk, but it was too dangerous to attempt at high speed. The sun was almost down, and downtown, at the bottom of the hill, was still a mile away. I realized we were the only two people barreling down the incline. If the driver was crazy enough to run me over, there would be no witnesses.

  When I looked over my shoulder, the driver stuck his middle finger up at me and rode the horn for several seconds. I swerved into the oncoming lane, hoping he’d finally pass. As I angled across the road at over twenty mph, the headlight beams swept across the pavement and followed. I veered back, the driver right on my tail.

  We zigzagged again; I couldn’t shake him.

  The horn brayed in triumph, and I did another stupid thing: I flipped my middle finger back at him.

  The pickup lurched angrily forward and grazed my back wheel. The touch was so subtle that I wouldn’t have noticed if every nerve in my body hadn’t been on high alert, red-hot and standing at attention. The bike trembled dangerously. I white-knuckle-gripped the handlebars, knowing that if I so much as touched the brakes, the bike would fly out from under me, and three tons of steel would drag me under.

  The faster I pedaled, the more the driver pressed down on the accelerator. We were one entity, the truck and I, accelerating in lockstep toward downtown. A quarter-mile below, a train of vehicles crossed the intersection, growing closer by the second. I felt the trap closing around me. The motor growled down the back of my neck.

  Then the truck whipped around me and passed. He shot downhill doing highway speeds in a residential zone, the red eyes of the taillights glaring back at me. Watching the truck instead of the road, I lost control. The bike tires flew out from under me, and for one awful, frozen moment, I saw the cruel macadam rush underneath and imagined the amount of skin it would tear off my body when I landed.

  In that precious split second, I had enough presence of mind to clutch my arms protectively around my head. The bike careened over the curb. I smashed shoulder-first against blacktop.

  The air rushed from my lungs, and the pavement peeled away skin from shoulder to hip. It seemed as though I slid forever across that cheese grater of roadway before I finally stopped. Ringing trailed through my eardrums, and when I tried to make a fist, my hands refused to respond.

  Shaking, I rolled gingerly onto my stomach. I didn’t want to see
how much skin I’d lost. Strips of shirt were torn away and in pieces up the incline. What I saw of my arm I didn’t recognize: the layer of skin the macadam had excavated was as white as January snow, dotted by pinpricks of blood. I think my body was too shocked to bleed.

  As I lay at the base of the hill, a car pulled up beside me. A middle-aged man in glasses leaned out the window.

  “Good Lord. Are you okay?”

  His wife stared from the passenger seat, both hands over her mouth. A young girl in the backseat held a stuffed dog in front of the window, making it dance for me. She seemed quite amused.

  Putting his phone to his ear, he waved reassuringly and said, “I’m calling 911.”

  “No, don’t,” I said to his amazement. My school health insurance had lapsed because I took the spring semester off, and my family’s health plan wasn’t worth the paper it was printed on.

  “Look, you could have broken bones and a concussion—”

  “I’m fine,” I said, cutting him off. He shook his head, muttering something about idiot college kids, and squealed off toward downtown.

  Then she was there.

  A thousand wasp stings stabbed my skin when I moved my shoulder, but when she knelt down and offered me her arm, I took it and crawled up to my knees, vaguely aware of her car, a pearl blue Mazda RX-8, purring curbside. The first thing I noticed was her legs—tan, fit, and sexy beneath a jean miniskirt that barely caressed her mid-thigh. I must have stared for too long, because she said, “My eyes are up here, Don Juan.”

  I rushed my eyes to her face, thinking she wouldn’t take kindly to them lingering elsewhere. My legs were gelatin, and if she hadn’t grabbed hold of my arm, I would have collapsed.

  “You okay now?”

  “I don’t have a clue.”

  I looked into her eyes and gasped. I know how corny this sounds, and believe me, I’m no romantic, but I wanted to melt in the endless depth of those blues. My knees buckled again, and this time she ducked under my arm and let me lean against her. I caught scent of her perfume, subtle yet alluring, redolent of distant wildflowers after a warm rain. The sun flooded orange and red into her blonde curls, which draped down to her shoulders and tickled my nose.