Enter, Night

by Michael Rowe

  He didn’t see Adeline’s spindly dressing table chair, but he surely felt it when he collided with it. He said, “Ooooh!” Then his legs buckled and he collapsed on the floor at the foot of the bed, disoriented and unable to see.

  He heard Christina screaming his name, but—still smoke-blind—he didn’t understand why, and he couldn’t see what they saw until it was long past too late.

  The old man in black streaked toward Finn with the speed of a deadly underwater snake. Christina screamed Finn’s name as she saw the man’s blackrobed arms with their long-fingered white hands uncoil from his sides and seize the boy in a possessive grip, yanking Finn back towards him, enfolding him in his arms. He slipped his elbow around Finn’s throat in a crushing chokehold. Finn’s face turned a dull, airless red as he began to suffocate. As he dragged Finn towards the French doors leading to Adeline’s balcony, the old man’s eyes met Morgan’s.

  “Let him go!” she screamed. “Let Finn go!”

  Christina shouted, “Morgan, stay away from him!”

  But if Morgan could hear at all, she gave no sign of it. She launched herself at the old man, her fists raised. But she never reached him or Finn.

  Finn’s face was the colour of the dark pink flush of an overripe peach, and his eyes bulged and watered from lack of oxygen. He reached out one arm and choked out one ragged, pleading word that sounded like Morgan at the same time as Morgan reached out to him, fully intending to wrench Finn from the old man’s death grip.

  Their fingers brushed, once.

  Then the old man threw himself back against the closed French doors. The glass shattered around him in his wake, and the momentum sent them tumbling over the edge of the balcony, thirty feet above the ground. Clouds of wet snow and cold rain blew into the bedroom from the broken doors and the night outside, curtains flapping into the room like flags.

  But instead of the sound of their bodies striking the lawn below, Morgan heard the sound of giant wings churning the air outside the window—and Finn screaming her name, over and over again.

  When she ran to the balcony and tried to follow the sound, Morgan saw a great dark mass, nearly indistinguishable from the general blackness, rising into the night sky.

  She might have missed it entirely except for the helplessly flailing figure of a small, screaming boy in white pyjamas it carried in its claws, growing smaller and smaller as they drifted almost lazily into the deeper darkness towards the outlying forests and the cliffs beyond. Then it was swallowed up entirely by the rain and the sheets of snow.

  Adeline Parr’s bedroom reeked of blood and acid smoke. Christina stood up carefully, but spears of white-sharp pain still shot up her left leg from the impact of her collision. Her head throbbed. Morgan, her hair wet with melting snow, stood on the balcony, wailing Finn’s name over and again.

  Adeline Parr’s headless body was motionless on the carpet. Where her head had been, there was only a nimbus of boiled slush and bits of stubborn bone fragment that had survived the annihilation of the holy water.

  Christina had a great longing to kick the body as hard as she could, but there was still some lingering fear in her that, even now, Adeline would reach out and grasp her ankle, diamond rings and red-lacquered scimitar fingernails digging into Christina’s soft skin. Instead, she stepped over Adeline’s body and went to the gory tangle of silk sheets where Jeremy had bled out and died.

  Christina couldn’t breathe. She looked down at the familiar face, so much like Jack’s, and felt a band of grief tighten around her chest so strongly that she feared she might literally suffocate from the pain of this second tragic severing from their lives of the second of the two men who had meant the most to her and Morgan.

  Oh, Jeremy , she thought. Oh, my poor, sweet Jeremy. What did they do to you?

  Christina pulled one of the sheets out from under him—a cleaner one than the others, at least—and carefully and lovingly covered his broken and torn body with it.

  As she did, a glitter of silver on the carpet caught her eye. It was Jeremy’s St. Christopher’s medal. The chain was broken as though it had been ripped off his neck and thrown down. Christina bent and picked it up. She put it in the pocket of her jeans.

  By the window, Morgan had stopped calling Finn’s name, but her body still shook with sobs. Her shoulders were hunched forward and her hands were loosely clasped in front of her, as though praying.

  Christina called out softly, “Morgan? Honey?”

  Morgan turned around. Her face was white and stiff with shock. “Hi, Mom,” she said. “What did you say? Mom . . . he took Finn. He carried Finn away.” Fresh tears streamed from her eyes. “There really are vampires. Just like Finn said there were. It was all true.”

  She shook her daughter gently. “Morgan, we have to leave,” Christina said, struggling to keep her voice calm without sacrificing the force of her words, words she needed Morgan to hear and heed. “We have to leave right now. Are you OK to walk? Can you make it downstairs to the car?”

  “But what about Finn?” She stared frantically through the broken French doors.

  “Morgan, listen to me,” she said urgently. “We have to leave the house. It’s too dangerous here. We can’t worry about Finn now. Finn would want you safe.”

  “OK,” Morgan said. She glanced down at Jeremy’s body on the bed and started to shake again. “Oh, Mom . . .”

  “Don’t look at it, Morgan. Don’t look at him. Come on now—here, look at me instead. Look at my face.” When she did, Christina smiled encouragingly. “That’s it. Just keep your eyes on me.”

  She put her arm around Morgan’s shoulders and gently herded her past the carnage in the bedroom and out into the hallway. Once there, she hurried her daughter down the stairs. The keys to the Chevelle were where she left them—on the console table near the front door, next to her purse. The only light downstairs came from the embers of the fire in Adeline’s study bleeding through the half-closed doors, and a greenshaded library lamp on the other side of the hallway.

  Christina took one last look back at the foyer of Parr House, which seemed to have gorged itself on the darkness, both natural and unnatural, until it was bloated. Whatever the source of the monsters that seemed to have stepped out of the storybooks and into her world, they had all been drawn here, to Parr’s Landing and to this awful place. Nothing could live here—could ever have lived here, she corrected herself—except anguish and misery.

  Christina wished she had a can of propane and a match. She thought briefly of looking for just that in one of the pantries off the kitchen, but she realized that there just wasn’t time. Every moment she remained in this house, they were in danger. She had to get Morgan to safety, whatever “safety” meant in the middle of this horror.

  “Come on, sweetheart,” Christina said. “Let’s go. We never have to come back to this place again.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  The Gold Nugget motel was dark when Christina pulled into the parking lot in the snow.

  The Chevelle’s headlights played across the windows of the diner, illuminating empty tables and shining through empty water glasses that went dark again when the high beams veered away as she parked the car.

  Morgan opened the passenger-side door and looked around fearfully. “Mom, what are we doing here? Where is this place?” She leaned close to her mother, away from the snow and rain that was now falling in an even mixture of both.

  “It’s the motel, Morgan,” Christina said, with a calmness she didn’t feel. “It’s the Nugget. It’s where Billy is staying.” She stepped out and locked the car, realizing at once what a futile gesture it was. If those things wanted to get in somewhere, they seemed to just do it. They didn’t ask questions or worry much about locks.

  At some point, when I can think about it without going insane, I must take some time to sit down and consider the fact that my gay brother-in-law was just killed by his mother. Oh, but it gets better: he was killed by his mother who drank his blood and then bit h
is cock off with teeth the size of fingers. Then spat it out.

  At which point, a twelve-year-old friend of my daughter’s threw a jar of holy water in the bitch’s face and melted it right off because he’d read it in a vampire comic. Then—wait for it!—my daughter’s friend was carried off by an old man dressed like a seventeenth-century Jesuit priest in one of our history books from school.

  I’m living in a monster movie—which is crazy, of course. But crazy or not, here we are.

  And it’s dark and I’m cold and there’s no one anywhere around here who can help me except a man I barely know. And if I think about any of this right now, I’ll go right off my goddamn head.

  She reached for Morgan’s hand and pulled her along as quickly as she could. “We need to find him, quickly. Let’s hope he left his room unlocked. It’ll give us a place to stay where it’s safe, at least for now.”

  “What if he’s not here? What if we have to go back to Grandmother’s house?”

  “Morgan, we’re not going back there to that house, ever—no matter what. If Billy’s not here, I’ll kick the door in if I have to.”

  In the absence of light from any of the rooms, let alone the diner or the front office, Christina tried to recall which room Billy had entered when she dropped him off a thousand years ago this afternoon. She hadn’t been paying attention of course, because at that time, she and reality still shared mutually agreed-upon parameters.

  Christina and Morgan stopped in front of room 938.

  “This is the one, I think,” Christina said, trying the doorknob. It was locked, of course, and the room was dark as all the others. “Jesus Christ!” she shouted, kicking the door in frustration. Christina thought for a moment, then said, “Morgan, stay right here. I’m going to break into the office and get the spare key.”

  “Mom, no! Are you kidding me? I’m not waiting out here!”

  “You’re right. It was a stupid idea. Forget it. Come with me—but stay close, Morgan, I mean it.”

  The office, as it turned out, was not locked. It wasn’t even closed. The office door banged in the wind. A cold cup of coffee sat atop the front desk and the floor was littered with shards of broken light bulb glass. Her foot slipped in a pool of something sticky and dark that she couldn’t see, but which smelled like dirty pennies. She wondered what had happened to Darcy Morin, then decided that she couldn’t bear the knowledge right now anyway.

  “Morgan, step back please,” Christina said, blocking the entrance to the office with her body. “Stay in the doorway here, but don’t come in. But stay close enough for me to grab you, OK, honey?”

  “Mom, what is it,” she asked fearfully. “What’s in there?”

  “Nothing, honey, just looking for the key to Billy’s room.” Privately, she was grateful for the darkness—there was nothing she might stumble upon here in the office that she had any desire to see in the light. Under her breath she muttered, “935, 936 . . . aha! Got it!” She took the key to room 938 down off the peg and stepped outside, taking Morgan by the arm. “Come on, honey, let’s get warm! Hurry-hurry-hurry!”

  Outside, she slipped the key into the lock of room 938.

  Blessedly, there was a click. She pushed the door open and stepped into the warmth of Billy’s room, which smelled of leather and pipe tobacco and kindness, and when she switched on the light, it revealed nothing out of the ordinary.

  Billy found them in his motel room an hour later with the doors barricaded from the inside, a chair wedged up against the handle.

  He peered in through his window. Christina was sitting on the bed with her knees up. Morgan was in her arms, leaning with her head on her mother’s breast. Morgan’s eyes were closed, but Billy doubted she was sleeping. Christina’s eyes were trained on the door, wide open and alert. In her hands was some sort of silver medal on a chain.

  Billy could spot a St. Christopher’s medal at thirty paces. All of the children at St. Rita’s were given one and had been expected to wear it all the time.

  Ironic , Billy thought. For the first time in my life, it would have come in handy.

  He looked down at his clothes and wondered what sort of a picture he would present if he knocked on the door of his own motel room and asked Christina to let him in. Not a good one, he expected. He stank, and his clothes were covered with dirt and blood. He looked down at his hands, which were the colour of coal dust. I could just leave them in there and not knock. They’d probably be safe. Then he shook his head and sighed. Of course they wouldn’t be safe in there. They’re completely unsafe in there.

  He knocked on the motel room door and called out, “Christina?”

  From inside, Christina’s muffled voice: “Billy, is that you?”

  “Yeah, it’s me,” he said. “Let me in.”

  Christina opened the door and fell into Billy Lightning’s arms. She hadn’t intended to fall into his arms, or any man’s arms, especially not in front of Morgan. But the momentum of her own relief propelled her.

  Billy was solid and real and reassuring, and his presence was warm and strong. Christina was tired of being the strong one, and she was dead tired of being afraid.

  “Billy, what’s that smell?” She pulled away, wrinkling her nose in distaste. Her eyes widened as she took in his appearance. “Jesus, what happened? Were you in an accident? Are you all right?”

  He stepped back, away from her. “Sorry. I should have warned you about that. Look,” he said, pointing at her. “I’ve gotten you dirty.” He reached out to brush the smear of dirt off her pale pink sweater. “Here, let me.”

  Christina’s eyes darted to Morgan on the bed, who was watching their interaction with wide eyes, silently. Christina shook her head almost undetectably at Billy, who understood. “No, I’ve got it, thanks,” she said, brushing the ash off the sweater herself.

  “Of course,” he said politely. “Yeah, that’s it. There, you’ve got it.” She smiled, grateful for his understanding.

  “Billy. What happened to you? When you weren’t here, we took the key from the front office. Mr. Marin wasn’t there—no one was there. The whole place is empty.”

  “Marin is down at the old hockey arena,” he said. “The one on Brandon Nixon Road. So are Elliot and Sergeant Thomson, and about thirty other . . . residents of Parr’s Landing.”

  Christina was confused. “What do you mean, they’re at the arena?” She shook her head. “The old arena? The Takacs one? Is that even still standing? Elliot and Jack used to play there. It burned down. It’s a ruin.”

  “It’s more than a ruin, Christina,” Billy said. “It’s a grave.”

  “Billy, what are you talking about?”

  He glanced at Morgan, then back at Christina. “Maybe not here? Outside?”

  From the bed, Morgan’s voice was surprisingly strong and clear. “Dr. Lightning,” she said. “Finn’s dead. Uncle Jeremy’s dead. I saw it happen with my very own eyes. Please tell my mom what you’re talking about. I’m never going to forget the things I saw tonight, and words aren’t going to scare me.”

  Billy sighed. “OK, fair enough. I found the place they were all . . . uh . . . sleeping. The . . . uh . . .” He faltered, looking helplessly to Christina for help, adult to adult.

  “The vampires,” Morgan finished impatiently. Her face was pale and hard, her mouth set in a steely line Christina had never seen before. “Finn said they were vampires. He knew what they were, but nobody believed him because we all thought he was just a dumb kid who read Tomb of Dracula comics. And now he’s dead,” she added flatly. “And it’s our fault. And now we believe him. And now it’s too late.”

  “OK, vampires,” Billy said. “I found them there. It was everything Finn said it would be. Also, I found Richard Weal. I was right. He killed my father and stole his manuscript. Weal said he came here to wake someone up, someone who had been sleeping here in the caves. Those ‘voices,’ in 1952? He wasn’t imagining them. They were real. Probably all the people who heard them were really hearing them
.”

  “The priest,” Christina said suddenly. “He looked like a priest. The one who carried Finn away.”

  “What priest? What are you talking about?”

  Christina replied, “They killed Jeremy, him and Adeline. When we found him in Adeline’s room, there was someone else there. An old man. I’d never seen him before. He was in a long black robe. I remember thinking he looked like a picture of one of the Jesuit martyrs in the church here. The ones who came here to settle. The ones who died here three hundred years ago.”

  Billy said, “Figures it would be a goddamn priest.”

  Morgan watched Billy carefully. She said nothing, but every nerve in her body was stretched as taut as wire. Something about him wasn’t right. He was different. Maybe not different like Adeline was different . . . afterwards. Not quite, anyway. But she wished he wasn’t standing so close to her mother.

  “We need to get you two someplace safe,” Billy said. “At least until dawn. Then you have to leave. You have to leave Parr’s Landing. You have to drive to Toronto and you have to not look back. Never, ever come back here, Christina. I mean it.”

  “I don’t think the car will survive the trip, Billy. Adeline’s chauffeur has the keys to her car, and he and his wife are missing, too. And Jeremy said he found some money in Adeline’s room, but he didn’t give it to me before he . . . well, before what happened.”

  Billy fished in his pockets and handed Christina the keys to his truck. “Take the Ford,” he said. “It’s practically new. It’ll get you home to Toronto. And there’s about seven hundred dollars in the glove box. Take it. Just promise me you’ll go. Get Morgan away from here.”

  “You mean ‘we,’ don’t you? You don’t mean without you, do you, Billy?”

  Billy’s expression was unreadable. “I can’t leave,” he said.

  “What do you mean you can’t leave? Are you kidding me?” Hysteria made Christina’s voice shrill and jagged. “You can leave. You have to leave! There’s nothing here for you! Nothing!”