The Dampness Of Mourning

by Lee Thompson

  FOURTEEN

  After work, I drove home still partly shaken. I worried about Doug, thought I’d have heard something from Mike or at least Officer McCoy, but my cell never rang. And my heart hurt, and my head ached, because everywhere I looked I saw April, and David, and in the shadows beyond them, something darker than anything I could fathom. Darker than Proserpine or her brood. I imagined Adolf Hitler and his armies dining on cooked Jews, holding severed legs and arms, and juices staining their chins as they feasted. I thought, Sometimes that’s all it amounts to. Everything eats something else in one way or another, and we just let it happen, or ignore it, or join them because not many want to be on the losing side when the consequences are painful.

  I pulled into my driveway. All around me hills rose. Sunlight faded. I climbed from the car, emotionally and physically exhausted, and wondered if this was what every day would be like, the physical toll of putting up with other people’s bad driving on the highway, the lost children who were so young yet had more experience with hopelessness than most adults. It made me wish my parents were there, and it made me want to visit my sister Connie, but I was tired and mostly just wanted to be alone. Tomorrow was a new day. Perhaps it’d bring better things, news of Doug, draw Nutley and the others out. I stood at the backdoor and looked up the steep grade and winding ribbon of asphalt leading to the Johnston Manor. I half expected to see demons, lithe and dark, their eyes full of light so bright it illuminated all our secrets, perched in the trees crowding All Saints Cemetery.

  But there was nothing there, nothing seen with the physical eye, yet I could sense them all close by and stood in awe of the patience they possessed. I heard Uncle Red’s voice in my head, whispering, Don’t run. No matter how dark it gets. No matter who gets hurt. And heard my father, when I’d been a boy, when all I’d wanted to do was have fun and learn and be myself, saying, Everything your generation surrounds themselves with is just a distraction, and I remembered—sometimes reveled in—the look on his face, the shock and the anger, when I asked if he ever considered that his religion was nothing more than a distraction as well.

  I unlocked the door and stepped inside, and listened, thinking again how many noises we miss because we’re so caught up in our own heads, or searching out white noise. The house popped and coughed and crackled as if a giant had taken it between massive hands. My tinderbox home all I had to show according to other people’s standards. And even it didn’t matter. It didn’t bring me joy or peace or pride. It was just a box. A place to lay my head, to have privacy. I looked out the windows and smiled sadly, wondering what ever happened to my dreams. What happens to everyone’s? I’m not convinced that we give them up, I think we just trade them for easier ones because the effort and the time it takes to build something great hardly seems worth it when the end is elusive and the horizon dark and everyone you know has traded theirs for something easier and they give you funny looks, wondering why the hell you are still holding claim to yours.

  I shook my head and kicked my shoes off and moved into the living room.

  The room was cast in shadows as dusk crept closer.

  A figure on the couch leaned forward.

  My hand went for the pistol.

  Mike said, “Have a seat.”

  Relief flooded me but it quickly subsided and left me drained. I sat in the dark with him, part of me hoping that he wasn’t about to start telling ghost stories like when we’d been kids. He toyed with an unlit cigarette. He said, “I saw something today.”

  “I saw some stuff too.”

  “I paid a visit to Nutley’s doctor.”

  “And?” I braced an elbow on the arm of the La-Z-Boy.

  Mike told me what little he’d learned of Nutley’s history. I tried imagining being crazy, tried to wrap my mind around loving someone so much that when they told you the truth you took steps to rectify it as Nutley did when he admitted himself to New Wave.

  Mike said, “Did you ever see that old Twilight Zone episode where the insurance investigator goes to this airport because a plane landed but there wasn’t anyone on it?”

  I nodded. “The one where they all see the same thing but not exactly.”

  “Right. Where he thinks it’s a mass hypnosis, tests his theory by having them start the blades and slowly walks toward it with his arm outstretched, and he’s so happy when his arm doesn’t get hacked off. The plane disappears. He’s thrilled, turns to the other men knowing they’ll share his joy, but one by one they blink out of existence.”

  “I’m tired, Mike. Where are you going with this?”

  “In the end of that episode it turned out he just couldn’t let go of something he’d never solved.”

  “Yeah?”

  “What I’m trying to say is twofold. One: We may never have all the answers. That drives some people crazy.” His eyes glistened in the encroaching darkness. He tapped the cigarette butt against his knee. “We can’t let it drive us crazy.”

  “Right.”

  “And two: I think there is hypnosis involved. Nutley’s doctor thought he was seeing the crazy fuck in the room but he wasn’t in there.”

  I shuddered, remembered how the man had stood out from the others, wearing a black cape and top hat like some kind of magician. “If he can make his psychologist see something that’s not really there then he could do that to us. Like when we confronted him and Lucas in the woods, is that—”

  “No,” Mike said. “I think that was real. See, he had a long time to work on his doctor. He was probably planning his escape the whole time he programmed Kerr.”

  “Kerr?”

  “His doctor.” Mike shook his head. He stood and walked to the front door and opened it. He stepped onto the porch and lit his cigarette. I’d told him countless times in the past few months that he could smoke inside, that it wouldn’t bother me, but he still went outside. He said over his shoulder, “We haven’t been hypnotized.”

  I thought, How can you be so sure?

  But I said nothing because I didn’t even want to think about it, only wanting sleep, but that was also when my mind was hyperactive. I scanned the last twenty-four hours and found plenty I didn’t like. I said, “Was Kerr his doctor since he self-admitted?”

  Mike smiled. “That’s a damn good question. If not, I’ll find out in the morning.”

  “I remember something Nutley told me when we first met.”

  “What?”

  “He said that the others with him might look like freaks, but they were all handpicked.”

  “Handpicked for?”

  “He didn’t say.”

  “Proserpine picked us too.”

  Yeah, I thought. You for exaltation and me for damnation.

  “And the sisters,” Mike said. He blew smoke toward the sky, his head tilted back, his posture and profile such a mirror image of how I remembered his father looking when I’d been a boy, collected and cool and in the know and not even aware of it, not even trying. I envied him that sometimes.

  “What about them?”

  “We can figure things out with Nutley and Lucas. They have history. The sisters. All we’re going to get is what they offer or hint at. Pay attention if you see them again.” Mike stretched. “Behind the falls there are tunnels into the mountain. It’s not just a cave.”

  I sat straighter. “Did you go into them?”

  He laughed. “You are fucking crazy.”

  I laughed too. Shrugged, said, “Who knows what you’d do.”

  “I’ll go in but I want to plan first and have you with me. Plus, I want to see if Nutley comes for either of us in that time.” He chewed on his lip. “Scratch that. We can’t wait for him to come at us.” He shook his head and smiled. “Our brains are so weird.”

  “How so?”

  “I think that’s why I went out to the falls. To see if the sisters could help me find him and the others so we can save Doug.”

  I leaned back into the chair and closed my eyes.

  He came back inside a
nd locked the door. He asked how my first day went. I kept my eyes closed and told him what I could remember, of David, and Kim, and the weirdo staying at his brother’s house.

  Mike said, “What did the cops say?”

  “About what?”

  “You having a pistol.”

  “They didn’t like it.”

  “But you still have it.”

  I nodded. “Before Doug disappeared, he hooked me up with a concealed carry permit, only I didn’t know it. He told Kim though, and she told the police when she came out to the residence where the incident took place. They looked into it. I’m not legally supposed to be able to carry it yet, but cops talk. They’d all ran across Doug at some point, and they all knew Kim. Are you staying here tonight?”

  “Might as well. We should stick together at night.” He wanted to say more, say that we should stick together during the day too until this was all settled, but he didn’t. I liked to think that it was due to respect and friendship, but like so many other things there was more to it, and part of me worried that Mike was shadowing me during the day, using me as bait to draw Lucas and Nutley out. I shook it off the best I could, hating myself for a moment that the thought had even crossed my mind.

  * * *

  Uncle Red stood silently over my bed. His left hand was open, palm tapping his thigh, his right a fist, a balled block of granite that I sensed he wanted to bash against my face until all that remained was pulp. He stared at me, seeing himself, the parts he hated and those he loved. The sisters were perched on his shoulders like angels and demons, whispering incantations and urging him to do something.

  He held his hand over my face, and beyond his opening hand the ceiling churned with gathering storm clouds. I coughed, and tried to sit up but couldn’t move. I tried to speak but fingers held my jaw, pressed against my forehead and against the hollow of my cheeks. Uncle Red stared down at me, his eyes like empty black sockets as hands forced my mouth open and his hand turned and what looked like golden dust spilled from his palm and into my mouth. I gagged, feeling as if I’d throw up and scared to death that I’d choke on my vomit, die that way, while the sisters held me and my uncle closed his eyes and the room grew still as a midnight funeral procession.

  But I swallowed it and my eyes opened, though I knew they were already open, and the darkness grew darker and what light shone from the living room grew brighter, and I saw Mike there around Red’s side, motionless in the doorway to my bedroom and I wanted to cry to him for help, curse him for not stopping them, but I had little strength and my head ached and my limbs burned. The sisters cupped their hands and whispered in Red’s ear. He nodded and put a cold hand to my face. He whispered, “Keep your eyes open.”

  “Open to what?” I thought.

  The room buzzed with the beat of insect voices. Raven wings scraped the ceiling. Outside, angels gathered for battle and demons dreamed of raping the maimed.

  Red said, “Words of the dead. Memories. And pain. Understanding.”

  FIFTEEN

  I woke to a fist pounding the door.

  Mike sat at the kitchen table. He said, “You expecting company?”

  I shook my head and trudged to the door, expecting to see Officer McCoy there on the steps, his hands on his hips, ready to tell me that they’d found Doug…what was left of him. I opened the door and my jaw dropped as Kim fell into my arms, her skin coated in blood, clothing torn, eyes blackened. I picked her up and carried her to the couch as Mike pulled his knife and moved quickly to the front door to make sure nothing else followed her across the threshold.

  Her wounds were many and small, as if she’d been trapped in a bin of scorpions and every sting of their tails had dotted her flesh and caused droplets of blood to burst from her skin like sacrificial roses. She whimpered in my arms and I held her tight, fingers going to her pulse, the steady rat-a-tat-tat of a swinging beat that frightened me. I cradled her in my lap and stroked hair from her face, her eyes open to slits and glistening with tears.

  Mike said, “Her car’s not here. It’s like they just dropped her from the sky.”

  She shivered and it worked its way into my flesh, my mind not wanting to fathom what they’d done to her, what they’d hoped to learn or a lesson they chose to teach me, because the way to enlightenment, though few could admit it, was many times paid in blood. So many things were senseless, except when they made sense to someone else.

  I cooed to her as if she were a child. I whispered, “It’s all right. I have you. You’re safe here.”

  Mike said, “We’re sitting ducks if we’re stuck here nursing her back to health. We need to get her to a hospital and let them take care of her.”

  There was no coldness to his voice; it matched his face, full of concern, and wisdom. He was right. There was little we could do for her and she needed professionals who could discover the depth of her wounds. But I wanted to carry her into the bathroom and peel her clothes back and wash her clean, to sanitize and bandage every infliction, and watch her sleep, knowing that even though I’d stand over her as she slept, her silent guardian, in her dreams she’d be reliving every slash and pinprick Nutley and Lucas had inflicted on her body.

  I nodded to myself. “Okay,” I said. “Let’s get her to the Jeep.”

  “My Jag is faster. Place her in the back seat.”

  We were only a mile from Our Lady of Mercy, but there wasn’t time to argue the point. I carried her outside and Mike shut the door behind us, opened the back of the Jag, and I sunk into the seat holding Kim, her blood staining my T-shirt and pajama pants, as Mike climbed behind the wheel and the Jag’s engine roared.

  At Our Lady of Mercy, Mike whipped around back to the Emergency Room entrance as I held Kim tight to my chest and kissed her bloody forehead. Two men were smoking out back but threw their cigarettes aside and hustled to the Jag, their hands quick, both firing questions at me and Mike as a third man came out the doors pushing a gurney. I thought, We’re so fucking lucky this isn’t a big city where they’d make us fill out a ton of paperwork before they’d even look at her.

  Mike crossed the parking lot as they pushed Kim inside. He stood near the road and looked over the barren field. I wanted to go to him and ask him what he saw, but I followed the men inside, holding Kim’s hand as she thrashed on the gurney, her eyes glazed and red spouting from the pinprick holes throughout her body as if every pore bled.

  They took her in and held me back. I waited by the door, hardly able to breathe, thinking I should have protected her, and knowing, at least deep down, that it wasn’t my fault. I walked back outside, wishing I had a drink, wishing I had Nutley’s neck in my hands so I could show him what it felt like to suffer. When the doctor came out, I told him who Kim was and how she’d just appeared outside my door in her present condition. His face grew ashen as if he kept reliving the moments he’d inspected her body. He said, “I’d hope this wasn’t what I assumed it to be.”

  “How bad is she hurt?” I feared internal bleeding, brain damage, her lady parts mutilated. I straightened my stance, ready to take it on the chin like a man, knowing that the pain I felt for her in my chest was nothing close to what she felt throughout her whole body. I wanted to hold her again. I stopped myself from begging, or asking Mike to bribe him, but only because he spoke first.

  “She’s been tortured.”

  I nodded, thought, Of course she has. It’s a message to me.

  I said, “What did they do to her?”

  “You know who did this?”

  “Yes. I’ve got state troopers on the way.”

  “Maybe I should save my statement for them.” But then his face softened, as if he thought maybe I was Kim’s boyfriend, the love of her life, or maybe there was just so much anguish in my eyes that he pitied me, or maybe he just pitied her. He said, “I’ve never seen anything like it. It’s going to take a long time to work them all free.”

  “Work what free?” My heart slammed a steady, ferocious beat in my throat.

&nbs
p; “She’s full of glass slivers. They were worked down into her pores, from the crown of her head to the tips of her toes. All of them are hitting bone. Every time she moves a muscle…” he flinched.

  Rage boiled, soft and slow at first, and then rose like a jet of bile in my throat. I said, “But you can get them all, right? Is she drugged up? Can you put her under?”

  He nodded, then shook his head. He looked lost. I thought, They’re going to ship her to a bigger town, maybe Philadelphia. I thought that was good, for her to be far away from here.

  He said, “I’m going to get started again.” He turned away without another word, his shoulders squared.

  I walked outside to where Mike stood and stared at the vacant field, at first seeing nothing, because nothing should have been there…But I blinked sweat from my eyes and David’s house floated above the field, its windows drenched in blood, the roof torn free by massive winds, and on the porch, the little boy stood, smiling and waving while his mother moved in the shadows consuming the living room.

  Mike said, “Who is this kid?”

  “I don’t know,” I said. “Just one I met on a case.”

  “He’s more than that.” Mike pulled a pack of cigarettes from his coat pocket and shook one free. He lit up and stuffed the pack back in his jacket. “Did they ask what happened to your boss?”

  “The receptionist asked when I first went in but I didn’t have an answer. I told them to call McCoy and have someone run by her house.”

  “We need to do something about this guy.”

  “I know. I’m ready.”

  Mike smiled but wouldn’t look at me. We stood out there for a while until a police car pulled into the lot and McCoy got out, adjusting his gun belt and wiping sweat from his forehead. He looked ill. He said, “Is Kim going to be okay?”

  I shook my head, said, “I don’t know.” I told him what the doctor had told me, which wasn’t much but it was enough to raise steel in the cop’s eyes, and I realized I’d been pushing the thought away…They’ve done the same, or worse, to Doug…