His laugh had a haunting quality. “No my child, I’m afraid that you are the architect of your own visions, with a little help from our friend Brenda.”
The little girl curtseyed behind Ellie, emitting a sickly popping sound of crackling flesh that made Ellie want to vomit. Ellie looked around her taking in the details of the room like a high-speed camera. She could almost her the clicking inside of her head as if she were the one being photographed, her photographer spewing out encouragement in a barrage of well-canned catch phrases.
(Come on baby make me feel it, that’s it beautiful, now show me pouty, you’re pouty and feisty and sexy, that’s it baby yeah.)
The walls were red brick, or at least they once were, their sharp red color had faded over time to a reddish brown, burnt sienna she thought, that’s what it’s called on the Crayola box, burnt sienna, the perfect hue for faded red bricks. And the room was massive, forty feet by forty feet with a high ceiling to match. Talcott sat on a wicker chair directly in the center. She was unaware but she had begun to move closer to him as she looked around, walking slowly into the massive chamber, when she was no more than ten feet from him she stopped.
“What do you want from me?”
“Ah straight and to the point, I like that.”
“Then I ask that you return the favor.”
Talcott took a deep breath and began. “Very well then, I’ll get started. In 1898 I took an expedition, suffice it to say one I wish I had not taken. But back then I was enamored with a taste for adventure that could not be satisfied, and so when a friend of mine called me with a proposition to embark upon a modern day treasure hunt I jumped at the opportunity. My friend’s name was John McGinty, an Irish immigrant and renowned archeologist. He had been working in Northern Africa just outside of Cairo for the past two decades petitioning various universities for grant monies to fund his research and leading various groups of aspiring archeology students in digs around the fabled city. But the work was tedious and dangerous. Rising political tensions and tropical diseases had convinced most of McGinty’s financial backers that the risks were too great, especially when John moved the base of his operations to the southeast on the southernmost tip of Lake Nasser, in what is present day Sudan.”
“This is the short version?” Ellie interjected.
Talcott dismissed her impatience with a wave of his hand and began again. “The British had recently begun to occupy the area and tensions with Egypt were running high, with much of the region falling under joint Egyptian and British rule. In addition religious tensions had begun to mount between the Islamic Arabic peoples of the north and the black African Christians in the south. Malaria was rampant in the area and few archeologists were willing to place their lives at risk, so McGinty’s task of excavating the area was two-fold, he needed money and he needed men. Fortunately I was able to provide both.”
Ellie heard a crackling sound behind her and turned to see that Brenda had taken a seat on the floor sitting Indian style. She resisted the urge to do the same, although her legs and feet were weary. The dream was all too real. How the hell can I be physically exhausted in a dream?
“I assembled a team of twenty men, mostly drifters and bootleggers, thieves and cutthroats, they were the dredges of society and they were expendable, men with nothing left to live for except the promise of quick riches and abundant booze. We lost nearly half of them in the first three months from malaria, the rest were beat down by the scorching temperature and long hours of grueling labor. By the time we had been at the site for four months the men had begun to grow restless and bitter. Our efforts had turned up nothing of value, and we had yet to even make a discovery of architectural merit. We began to fear that we would have a mutiny on our hands and awake to find ourselves being lynched by our own men. With fear on our minds we pressed on.
“The problem you see is that we weren’t looking for the remnants of any known city or temple, what we were searching for was much more elusive, for we sought a burial shrine of an ancient nomadic people which were said to dabble in the black arts. We refer to it today as Satanism, devil worship, even witchcraft, but to the nomadic peoples it was much more than just a craft, it was a way of life, one developed in defiance of the Christian missionaries that were hard at work in Northern Africa trying to convert the masses. Today that nomadic tribe is called the Bedouin, and they are mostly made up of Arab Muslims, but in the late nineteenth century they were referred to as the Mayatube, or Shadow Walkers. They were called the Shadow Walker’s because they moved mostly at night to avoid the searing sun, following the banks of the Nile and hunting for human sacrifices to offer up to their God, or so it was rumored. Their favorite sacrifices were the missionaries of course, but native peoples who had recently converted were also given no quarter.
“We had searched for nearly six months and we were beginning to think that we were chasing a myth, a rural legend about a people that never existed, a story made to scare the native peoples away from Christianity. We had all but given up and had conceded that the entire excavation was a loss, but then a week prior to the time when we had decided to bring our search to an end, we found what we were looking for, a burial shrine carved out into the sand twenty mile east of the Nile River. What we found in that shrine I dare not speak of for to mention it by name is to evoke an evil so great that I fear it even in death. Four years later we brought our find back here, to Talcott manor, a place I had recently constructed for McGinty and I to research our discovery in private before we announced our findings to the archeological community. But I fear that neither of us lived to see our discovery made public. The fame and the fortune we so greatly sought had eluded us, and we both died shortly after.”
“What the hell does this have to do with me?”
“More than you know Ellie. John McGinty was your great great grandfather.”
The words struck Ellie like a thunderbolt.
“That’s not possible.” Her breath had to be forced from her lungs. “YOU’RE A FUCKING LIAR!”
Talcott was silent for a moment, letting Ellie collect her thoughts and regain her composure. “McGinty had a daughter, a sixteen year old beauty name Sofia. After her father’s death she turned to prostitution to support herself. Nearly twenty years later she bore an illegitimate daughter to a widower named Pritchard, Bernard Pritchard, you’re great grandfather. Wishing to avoid a scandal in the small town Sofia gave up custody to Pritchard who raised the little girl as his own. Her name became Dana Pritchard, your grandmother.”
“No that’s not true, she was my grandfather’s wife. Are you saying that my mother was born from incest? How dare you! You despicable vile man.”
“Calm down Ellie. I’m not saying that. Cletus isn’t your grandfather, he’s your great uncle. Dana was Cletus’ sister, neither one of them ever married. They lived together and raised your mother as their own. Over time people forgot, or just assumed they were married, same address, same name, it just made sense.”
“Liar! I don’t believe you. You’re a LIAR!”
The last word raped her throat as she screeched and then collapsed on the floor in a trembling mass, shaking and sobbing into near convulsions. The little girl called Brenda placed her skeletal hand on Ellie’s shoulder, it should have been terrifying but it was oddly comforting.
“Put your feelings behind you.” Talcott said. “There is no time for personal grief. We need your help. Help us Ellie. Help Abby.”
Talcott’s last words faded into her subconscious as she pulled back from her sleep. When she opened her eyes she was back in her bedroom laying next to Randall who was snoring blissfully, unaware of the terror she had been experiencing. Her face was plastered in tears and her nightgown clung to her perspiration soaked skin. It was all a dream, a horrible horrible dream, and nothing more. She convinced herself over and over nothing but a dream, but in the back of her mind she somehow knew that it was all true.
THIRTY-FIVE
Jack sat with his back to the w
all, churning thoughts in his head like butter. I suppose there’s a time in every man’s life when he sits at a crossroad, and Jack Darrow, back to the wall, sat at his. The revolver that his uncle had given him when he was just sixteen sat polished and idle in his lap. It was a Smith and Wesson thirty-two caliber and until tonight Jack Darrow had never considered shooting anything with it other than crows and cans. Tonight however, he considered the unthinkable, putting a slug through the center of his brain, a gentle squeeze, a loud bang, and then eternal sleep. To have Jack tell the truth –which would be a rarity- that option didn’t sound half bad.
The decision that plagued him most was whether or not to take Abby with him. What would she do without him, if he were to selfishly take his life? Would she move on, find someone else to take care of her? Or was she capable now of taking care of herself? Would she miss him? He doubted it. They say a man’s life is judged by the number of people who attend his funeral and Jack Darrow, had a sobering thought, he wasn’t even sure if his own wife would attend his. And he wouldn’t blame her if she didn’t.
He had moved his bedroom to the first floor, to keep the demon from whispering in his head. A box of bullets sat at his feet, their copper coated heads gleaming in the moonlight filtering softly through his bedroom window. With a shaking hand he pulled a single bullet from the cardboard container and loaded it into the cylinder. It slid in easily with a gentle click as it locked in place. He snapped the cylinder closed and spun it once with his left hand, listening to it whir before it fell gently into place.
If there were one guess I could make as to what was going through Jack Darrow’s mind at that moment it would be fear. You see I’ve known Jack for a long time, far too long if you ask me, and behind that hard exterior is a scared little boy. Perhaps his intellectual development stopped around the time his mother began beating him, perhaps his brazen attitude was nothing more than a front to cover the inadequacy he felt during his whole life, but one thing was for certain, faced with a choice Jack Darrow would almost inevitably choose the wrong one, and he was well aware of this. For this reason, tonight he decided to let chance determine his fate. He gave himself fifty-fifty odds, much better than he deserved in my opinion. The demon had begun to grow restless, annoyed at the fact that Darrow had moved his bedroom upstairs and had ceased, for the time being anyway, searching for more victims to feed the insatiable beast. Now he feared that the demon would seek retribution against him, why wouldn’t he? Darrow was just a pawn to him, a tool to get things done, and if that tool stopped serving its intended purpose then the demon would most likely discard it. So he was faced with a choice, kill Abby, kill himself, or seek another to take their place. He decided that he couldn’t kill his wife, as much as she pained him there was no way he could do it. He didn’t want to kill anyone else either, he was tired of it, the hollow feeling it gave him afterwards, and always fearing that the next knock on the door would be the feds, or worse, that jackass Jackson standing there ready to snap the cuffs on him, but he didn’t want to kill himself either. In Jack’s irrational mind it was either someone else or him. Three quick clicks, that was all it would take. If he survived he would seek others, if he didn’t, well then he wouldn’t have to worry about it now would he?
Darrow placed the gun to his head and pulled the trigger. It clicked softly. Again he pulled the trigger, another click. Jack’s hands shook and beads of sweat poured from his forehead. If there were a God surely he would make him pay for all of the things that he had done, and right now would be his retribution, his reckoning. One more time he squeezed the trigger. The firing pin clicked in the empty chamber. Very well then, he thought, fate has decided, I was not meant to die this night.
Jack Darrow collected his thoughts and rose from his bed. He clicked off the light and stood for a moment in the darkness, it was soothing to him, nonjudgmental, and in its blackness he felt comfort. He embraced the feeling and then he turned and headed for the basement, the demon was waiting.
In her bedroom Abby lay still, the sheets wrapped around her tucked beneath her chin. It was cold again tonight, colder than it had been in a long time. She couldn’t place her finger on it, but she felt like a prisoner waiting for the guillotine to fall, and she had learned to trust her instincts. Jack was up to something and that could only mean trouble. Piercing the darkness was a bone chilling sound she hoped that she would never hear again. It was the call of a raven. Slowly, she turned her head towards the window. The large black bird rested on the windowsill staring at her with those blood red eyes. She knew instantly what it meant. Jack was speaking to the demon once again.
THIRTY-SIX
Whoever developed the microfiche should have been strung up and quartered, at least that was Ellie’s opinion. She had been turning the dial in futility now for the last half hour, scouring the pages of newspapers written long ago. In the back of her mind a voice whispered to her that she was crazy, no doubt about it.
Finally an article caught her eye. It was dated April 4th 1902. The headline read: prominent businessman makes home in Saltar’s Point. Beneath the article a small photo depicted two men standing in front of a half-constructed mansion, the Talcott mansion she figured. As she stared at the picture she had to force herself to breath. The man standing on the right was the same man she had seen in her dreams the night before. Impeccable groomed, three-piece suit, tidy mustache and beard, no doubt about it, it was George Talcott. Overwhelming anxiety flooded her with a mass of endorphins that caused her hands to shake and her brow to sweat. She felt as though she were going to faint but with resounding effort she forced herself to remain calm. More disturbing than Talcott was the figure on the left hand side of the picture. Ellie must have stared at his image for five minutes, taking in his features with an eagle eye. The slight nose, angular jaw, rounded eyes, it was almost as though she were looking in a mirror. She read the caption beneath the picture and as she knew it would be, the man was listed as John McGinty. She sat back in her chair, the finality of what she had just read ringing in her head. The dream was right. Not only did Talcott appear just as she had envisioned him but she had the name of John McGinty right, and that was too much of a coincidence for anyone to ignore.
With this sudden realization came great sadness, she was mired in a web of horror too great to be true. If the dream was correct about this then surely the facts about Cletus were true as well, he was not her grandfather. All these years he had lied to her, or at least been untruthful. Or maybe the dream was wrong, about that at least, after all dreams were unpredictable. Maybe her insecurities were weaving themselves into the fabric of her dreams. There was only one way to be sure, she would have to ask him. It was an idea that she did not relish.
It would be a furtive operation to be sure. Sensitive subjects were best broached with tact. She could not just come out and accuse Cletus of lying to her for all these years. That would most likely lead to him shutting down and providing less information than if she asked him. One thing was for sure. It had been kept from her for a reason, perhaps to protect her, perhaps to protect the family name, but she had to find out why.
She continued to scroll through the microfiche, determined to find out more information about John McGinty, relation or not. He was involved in this somehow, the nightmares and the odd occurrences that had been happening within Saltar’s Point lately were not by accident. The next article that caught her eye was dated nearly six months later, May 27 1902. The headline read, Local businessman dead at age 62. She scanned the article looking for McGinty’s name but it was nowhere to be found. The article was entirely about George Talcott, detailing his businesses in Missouri, his dabbling in the archeology rare artifact trade business, and his new acquired logging company right here in Saltar’s Point. His sudden passage had left his company in ruins and hundreds of loggers out of work. One line in the article was of particular interest. ‘Doctors think that his death may have been attributed to pneumonia.’ Ellie paused for a second. That seemed like o
dd phrasing for a cause of death. It sounded like a cover up to her. Perhaps Talcott had been killed or poisoned, that short of thing wasn’t unusual for a man with as many wheelings and dealings that Talcott would have had in his several business ventures. Some disgruntled employee or shunned business partner might have thought it easier just to off him instead of continue to do business with him, but why would anyone want to cover that up?
She continued to scan the microfiche but could find nothing more about Talcott or McGinty. In her dream Talcott had mentioned that McGinty too had died shortly after their return from Africa, but there was nothing more to find on him. It was as if he had disappeared off the face of the earth. She pushed her chair back clicked off the light and pulled the microfiche slide from the machine. Everything was just too odd for her to accept. How the hell could she have known so much about men she had never met, never even known existed until last night in a haunting dream? There was only one other thing she could think of to do. She would ask Cletus, even if he thought she was crazy, she had to know if he knew something about it all. Ellie had to know where she came from. Right now she felt like a thirty-five year old woman who had just been told she had been adopted, like one of those people she had seen on Unsolved Mysteries. If you have any information about the whereabouts of Ellie’s family please call our number and speak to one of our operators.
Ellie placed the slide back in its box, the box back in the rack, slung her purse over her shoulder and headed for the exit. She rounded the last shelf in the young adult section and slammed right into Beth Little coming the other way, causing the elderly librarian to drop the stack of books she was carrying.
“Oh my gosh, I’m so sorry.” Was all Ellie was able to say. “Here, let me help you.”
The two women knelt down and began picking up the books.
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