Pale Immortal

by Anne Frasier

  Only this was real.

  His mother.

  Alive, her flesh rotting and falling off her bones right before his eyes. He didn't know why she was here, and why she was a stinking, bloody horror. It didn't make sense, but nothing made sense.

  He tried to scramble away, moving off the mattress, his back to the wall, the chain pulled tight.

  She was coming for him.

  Chapter 30

  Her clawed, bloody hand latched around Graham's injured ankle.

  He screamed. Then fainted.

  When he came to, she was hovering over him, her hair hanging on either side of her discolored face as she stared at him with glassy eyes.

  "Gra-ham." She spoke his name on a broken exhale.

  This can't be real. This can't be happening.

  It was a twisted parody of everything he'd always feared. It was like somebody had crawled into his brain, discovered his biggest nightmare, and presented it to him.

  She lifted her hand. With a ragged nail she touched his cheek, scratching him. "You gotta get outta this place."

  What?

  Those weren't the words he'd been expecting. He hadn't expected her to be on his side.

  "What are you doing here?" He pulled his head back into the mattress as far as he could, trying to get away. "How did you get here?"

  "Your friends ... tried to kill me. They attacked me." Her sentences were short and broken. "Put me in the trunk. Thought I was dead. I could hear you." She pulled in a breath. "Talking. In the backseat."

  Graham struggled to put it together, to make sense of what she was telling him.

  She'd been in the trunk. While they were laughing and drinking vodka, she had been in the trunk. That was so messed up.

  "They dumped me. In a well. I finally got out. Couldn't walk. Didn't know what direction to go. I think... I kept going 'round in circles." She touched his face again. "Then I heard you scream."

  She was the person he'd heard crying and sobbing and calling for help.

  He put a hand on her shoulder. That felt weird, so he took it away. "You're right. We have to get out of here. Now."

  She looked down at the chains wrapped about his body and around his good leg. She looked at the lock. "The key? Where is the key?"

  "I... I don't know." Alba probably had it.

  Graham had a sudden flashback of Travis's reaction when he'd begged him to let him loose. He'd looked in the direction of the door.

  "Maybe the key is stashed over there somewhere. I saw somebody lookin' that way." He pointed. "On a ledge, or under a stone or something."

  Remaining on the floor, she pushed herself upright with both arms, swiveled around, and began dragging herself toward the door. That's when it dawned on Graham that both of her legs were broken. Somehow she'd managed to pull herself out of the well using only the strength of her arms.

  For so many years he'd been terrified of her, resentful of her. Now, as he watched her struggle, tears burned his eyes and he had to blink them away.

  Between ragged breaths she tugged up the flat stones of the entryway one after the other, occasionally collapsing while she waited for the weakness to pass.

  "No," she finally sobbed. "Nothing."

  "What about the wood floor?"

  She shifted her body, then felt around between the broken boards. She pulled up a loose slat. "I see something." She stretched herself out to reach inside the gap. "A key!"

  Graham's heart soared. Maybe they would get out of here. Maybe they would make it.

  She dragged herself back across the floor.

  "Here." He reached for the key.

  She put it in his palm, her hand trembling violently. Once he had the key, she collapsed.

  He was shaking almost as much as she was, and for a moment he thought it was the wrong key, put there as a trick, as a twisted mental game. It slid into the lock, but he couldn't get it to turn.

  No! It had to be the key.

  His heart was slamming in his chest. He pulled out the key and jammed it in again, turning it back and forth.

  The lock fell open.

  He let out a laugh of exhilaration.

  He unhooked the lock, then unwrapped the chain, letting it drop to the floor with a heavy crash. He didn't know where they would go, but they would run. They would get away and hide, then figure out the next move.

  "Go!" she gasped. "Hurry! Before somebody comes!"

  He looked at her in question. "What about you?"

  "Can't."

  "You have to!"

  "I've been a bad mother. I want... to make it up to you. Let me ... make it up to you. Here. Now."

  "You can take me out for pizza."

  She laughed. She actually laughed. He'd never had much luck getting that reaction out of her.

  "I wasn't supposed to be... a mother. The idea ... of being a mother made me sick. I resented it. I took it out on you."

  "You hated me."

  She stared at him for a long time. "Yes."

  It was no secret. He'd always known. It had been hard growing up with that kind of hatred. He waited for her to tell him that she loved him. That deep down she'd always loved him.

  "Go," she said. "Get the hell out of here."

  He grabbed his boot. His foot was swollen, and he had trouble getting the boot on. The pain almost made him pass out again.

  "Don't think about how much if hurts," she said. "Focus ... on getting away."

  He stood up, keeping most of his weight on his good foot. "You can't stay here." He couldn't leave her for Alba to find.

  He grabbed the blanket and spread it on the floor next to her. He somehow managed to drag her onto the blanket. She was light, but it wasn't easy. Then he grabbed two corners of fabric and began limping backward, pulling her across the floor, stopping at the door.

  "You have to help me get you outside." He shifted out of her way. "I'll hide you in the woods, then come back for you."

  She gave him a familiar look that was full of exasperated annoyance and disgust. Then she rolled to her side and started to squeeze through the doorway.

  Halfway through the opening, she froze.

  "Go! Go!" Graham urged from inside.

  "Turn around," Lydia said quietly in a way you might talk if you were afraid of stirring up a mean dog. "Turn around ... and run."

  Graham looked through the gap.

  Alba stood a few feet away, his arms crossed at his chest. Beside him were Travis and the blond kid, Craig.

  Graham turned and ran.

  Ignoring the pain in his ankle, he skirted a pew and dodged across gaping floorboards to pull himself onto a window sill. Feet braced in the opening, he jumped, crying out and folding when he hit the ground.

  On his feet again, he scrambled through the ragged underbrush, limping heavily. Behind him, he heard a scream.

  He paused and turned in time to see a massive rock, held in two hands, coming at him.

  Chapter 31

  "Isobel."

  Isobel let out a startled gasp, then peered intently into the darkness of the alley, where light from the street lamp didn't fall. She was about ready to jump into her truck when a man stepped out of the shadows.

  Evan Stroud. Graham's father. He was dressed in a long black coat, his skin almost translucent. Crow black brows slanted beneath hair of the same shade.

  She'd met him only once, but she sure remembered him. And knew all about him. She didn't believe in vampires, but damn! Where had he come from? How had he appeared so suddenly like that? So soundlessly? Like he'd stepped right out of the night. Or had she just been preoccupied?

  "You should be more careful," he told her. "You should park your truck closer to the theater under a light."

  "It wasn't dark when I got here."

  "You have to think about those things. Especially now."

  What he meant was, now that teenage girls were being murdered and somebody was drinking their blood. People said it was vampires.

  People said it
was Evan Stroud. She couldn't help but notice the dark bruises under his eyes, the combined sense of fragility and power.

  "This place may look tranquil on the surface," he said, waving long white fingers, "but that's an illusion."

  She moved toward her truck. He took one step out of the deeper shadows of a tall building.

  "I have to talk to you. About Graham."

  She gripped her keys tightly. "I've already talked to the police—Officer Burton and some state cop."

  "I know that. I'm sorry." He shifted back into the shadows so that he was only a vague shape with a deep, low voice. "Come closer."

  In all of her confusion over her concern for Graham and the shock of having Evan Stroud jump out at her, she'd completely forgotten that he was a suspect in the Chelsea Gerber murder.

  There was even a warrant out for his arrest. They were looking for him. The whole damn town was looking for him.

  Her heart pounded in her throat, and she braced herself to turn and run. He must have read her mind, because suddenly he shot forward. He pressed a hand to her mouth and dragged her deep into the alley, into an alcove that had once been a loading dock.

  She could feel his breath against her cheek. "I just want to talk," he whispered. "I haven't hurt anybody. I'm not going to hurt you. Graham could be in danger. I have to find him, and I need your help."

  He sounded sincere. A father concerned for his son. And she wanted Graham to be found too.

  "Okay?" Evan asked, his hand still pressed to her mouth, but looser now.

  She nodded; he slowly released his grip.

  Last night she'd cried herself to sleep over Graham.

  "Do you think he's dead?" Oh, jeez! Why had she said that? But it's what everybody was thinking and just not saying.

  "If he's alive, he could be in danger."

  "Maybe he ran away. Maybe he's just hiding somewhere."

  "That would be my first guess if his mother weren't also missing."

  "Oh, yeah. That's really weird."

  "You knew him as well as anybody around here. Has he tried to contact you?"

  She sensed that he was holding his breath, the next moment hinging on her response. "No." She hadn't even considered that Graham might try to get in touch with her.

  "Are you sure? You have to tell the truth."

  "I am telling the truth. I swear. I knew him, but we really didn't have that kind of relationship. I mean, we hung out at school and at play rehearsal, but he didn't come to my house or anything."

  "I believe you."

  She felt his disappointment; it was heavy and dark.

  "I-I'm sorry," she said.

  A sound crept into her awareness. A ping that at first she couldn't place. As the sound became more frequent, she realized it was rain—falling on the bricks in the alley, on metal trash can lids.

  "I have to go," she said.

  "Wait!"

  He grabbed her once more, and for a moment she was afraid all over again.

  "If you hear from him, get in touch with the coroner. With Rachel Burton, okay?"

  She nodded, even though he couldn't see her. Unless he could see in the dark. "Yeah." Graham wouldn't call her. He wouldn't come to her house He hadn't even told her good-bye. "I will."

  "Isobel?" a male voice shouted from the street. "Is that you?"

  "It's Mr. Alba," she whispered. "I gotta go."

  Stroud released her arm and dissolved into the shadows. She turned and ran up the alley.

  "What were you doing down there?" Alba asked, his voice full of concern. He held a black umbrella over his head.

  "I thought I saw something."

  "What?" He tipped the umbrella toward her, and she stepped a little closer, her arms hugging herself as the cold rain increased.

  "An animal. A kitten, I thought."

  She didn't know why she lied. She should call the police so Stroud could be put in jail. But what if he was telling the truth? What if he was innocent? Not only innocent, but also the only person who could find Graham?

  "You'd better get home," Alba said. "You don't want to get sick before the play."

  Using the remote on her keychain, she opened the truck door and jumped inside. Engine running, she coasted down the street and lowered the passenger window when she was even with Alba. Her left arm looped over the steering wheel, she leaned toward him. "Want a ride to your car?"

  Without hesitation he ran for the truck, closed his umbrella, and jumped in, settling the point of the umbrella between his feet. "Thanks." He flashed her a smile that made her stomach feel funny.

  With his back pressed into the alcove, Evan waited until he heard the truck pull away. Then he stepped into the middle of the alley and lifted his face to the cold rain.

  It was coming down hard now. The bricks had absorbed the heat of the sun, and they released a scent Evan associated with summer and sudden storms. It took only a minute for the rain to soak through his coat and shirt, cooling skin that was so hot he thought he must have a fever.

  In case Isobel had called the cops, Evan took off, running down the alley in the opposite direction from the street where he'd found her truck. Ending up in the warehouse district, he crossed a series of railroad tracks, then cut behind freight cars and through a tunnel that opened onto a walkway that edged the bluff and overlooked the river.

  Once he was out in the open, wind whipped his saturated coattails, and cold rain pelted his face. He jammed his hands into his pockets, tipped his chin down, and walked into the deluge. At the crest of a hill he came to an area where he could view the curve of the river and the steeples of downtown Tuonela.

  He braced his hands against a wrought-iron fence and gazed over the river. Even though it was dark, he could make out the curve of the water, and the softer, darker form of trees on the opposite bank.

  He felt so strange. Exhilarated. Blood thrummed through his veins. The wrought iron beneath his palms was wet and cold and solid.

  Back in the diagnostic stages of his illness he'd had a series of transfusions. Sometimes, even years later, he would wake up from a deep sleep with the feeling that someone else was living inside him, or that he was in some way linked to the new blood that had been pumped into his veins. He knew the blood system rejuvenated itself and that the foreign blood had long ago been replenished by his own, but someone else still lingered in the dark areas. He could feel a stranger sometimes. It was an unnerving sensation.

  This feeling was like that, only much more intense.

  He opened his coat and pulled out a small, insulated container he'd found in Rachel's kitchen. One of those metal hot-drink holders, the kind they sold at coffee shops. He opened it and took a long swallow of tea brewed from the mixture in the antique tin. The dark liquid was lukewarm, but that didn't matter. He drank.

  Deep in the shadows, coroner assistant Dan Sals-berry watched Evan Stroud drop to the ground.

  Dan had been following him for quite some time. He started to move closer, then paused when Stroud staggered to his feet and straightened—like a man reborn.

  Rachel woke with a start. She lay in bed, heart pounding, ears straining for the sound that had dragged her from deep sleep. Had she dreamed it? What was it called when you thought the sound in a dream was real, when it came from something in the room? In a movie it was called diegetic.

  She tossed back the covers and swung her feet to the floor. Blue light from the street cut through a crack in the shades, creating a narrow path to the hallway. She followed the light, pausing outside the bathroom door, which was partly ajar. From inside she heard a faint splash.

  "Evan?"

  When no one answered, she slowly pushed open the door.

  Someone was in the claw-foot tub. Someone with long, dark hair.

  Victoria.

  Unlike last time, this was no morphing of Chelsea Gerber's face into a vision from Rachel's past. What was the woman doing here? In her apartment?

  What do you want from me?

  Rachel cou
ldn't move. She couldn't look away or even close her eyes. All she could do was stare in horror.

  Victoria turned, long hair hanging down either side of her face.

  She lifted a hand and reached for Rachel. Something dripped from Victoria's fingertips.

  Blood.

  Rachel finally moved. She ran down the hall to the living room. "Evan!"

  She could have sworn he was nearby.

  When she didn't find him in her apartment, she dashed down the stairs to the morgue, to the autopsy suite and the coolers.

  She felt compelled to open the two empty drawers, then the one containing the remains of Richard Manchester. She stared at the hollow pits where eyes had once been. As she watched, the mummified face changed. It grew flesh until the apparition before her was no longer a mummy, but Evan Stroud.

  Chapter 32

  Standing on the small overlook, Evan occasionally spotted headlights in the distance. Whenever that happened he stepped behind the trunk of a tree and waited until they were gone. The night air, the cold rain, the smell of the earth, all reminded him that he was alive.

  He needed to be reminded of that. He always needed to be reminded of that.

  He stayed until the rain slowed to a drizzle. He stayed until frogs began to croak in a nearby marsh, and fog began to roll in. Morning would be coming soon.

  He flipped up the wet, limp collar of his coat and strode back down the hill, retracing his path through the tunnel and along the railroad tracks. Instead of taking another slope to Main Street, he kept to the tracks, following them through the heart of town to where the bluff resurfaced and houses clung to the steep hillside.

  It was easy to spot the morgue, with its turret rising from the landscape. He imagined Rachel asleep and warm. He recalled the time he'd spent in her bed, enveloped by her scent.

  He closed his eyes and inhaled. He could smell her now. Like sage and lavender.

  He walked toward the turret and the hill and the light. A steep set of broken cement steps, darkened by years of mildew, led straight up from what had once been a riverbed. He didn't have any trouble seeing in the dark, and he took the steps as they turned left and right, then left again, always moving up. He was hardly out of breath when he reached the curved street that led to the house on the bluff.