by Hunt, James
She turned away from the window, her head down as she paced back to the counter where Chloe was still working on her drawings. She was glad that her daughter had something to do, something to distract her young mind from the worry of all the strange things happening around her.
Owen should have been back by now. He’d been gone for hours. She tried going to the police station as Owen suggested if he didn’t return, but when she arrived, she’d found it empty. So she returned to Queen’s.
“Mary. Mary? Is dinner ready yet?” Roger’s incoherent thoughts filtered from the back room. Since Madame Crepaux used him for opening the door to whatever realm the creature lived, he’d relapsed into his dementia further and longer than he’d ever done before. “No, I don’t want to go to the movies tonight. Nothing good to see.”
She walked back to the room where he was kept and saw him lying down on a table. Roger swayed his head back and forth, his cloudy eyes glancing up at the ceiling, his mouth moving and forming words, but his brain not making the connection of the reality that surrounded him.
She wondered what it would be like to look at his mind, to see what he saw in those moments where the circuits were crossed and confusion set in. She knew he didn’t even realize it was happening and was glad for it. This wasn’t Roger Templeton on the table. This was Alzheimer’s. And he was a son of a bitch.
“Goddammit, Mary, I said no!” Roger slammed his fists against the table, the muscles along his arms and neck thickening from the strenuous pull. “I-I’m fine,” he answered, keeping his eyes tight shut. “I’m okay. I’m not hungry, Mary.”
Claire’s mom had been dead for almost three years, but anytime he said her name like this, it still wrenched her heart. When Alzheimer’s took control, it brought the ghost of her mother to life. And it was always haunting.
“I’m not hungry!” Alzheimer’s opened his eyes, staring up to the ceiling and screaming at the top of his lungs. He looked at Claire. Those angry, violent eyes were upon her. They didn’t recognize her, and she didn’t recognize him. He got up from the table and Claire stepped in front of the door to keep him in the room.
“Dad, you need to calm down,” Claire said, approaching slowly, her hands held up passively. “Just lay back down on the table.”
Alzheimer’s lunged forward, grabbing Claire by the shoulders, her father still surprisingly strong. “Who are you? Get out of my house! Mary! Mary!” His voice grew angrier, more frantic, more violent.
“Dad! You need to—”
The harsh crack of the backhand knocked Claire off balance, leaving a hot, burning mark that sat high on her cheek. She remained hunched over, one of her fingers grazing the mark, and Alzheimer’s stood there, panting heavily.
“GAAHH!” Alzheimer’s lunged forward, fists swinging wildly, and Claire flung herself in his path to protect him from Chloe.
Claire braced for the inevitable impact, shutting her eyes and turning her face away from the monster in her father’s body. But after she tensed, there was nothing. She opened her eyes and saw Madame Crepaux standing behind her, the rock at the top of her staff glowing and Alzheimer’s frozen in mid-step.
“Get him back on the table,” Madame Crepaux said. “Tie him down.”
Claire did as she was told, moving the shell of her father with surprising ease. Once he was tied down, the rock ended its glow, and Alzheimer’s slowly returned, blinking and thrashing against the straps.
“Let me go! Let me go!” Alzheimer’s howled and snarled, and Claire retreated until a hand fell on her shoulder.
“The trip into the monster’s world has only tired his mind,” Madame Crepaux said. “He will be better soon.”
“And he has to do it again? Help open up that… door?” Claire asked, staring at her father, who blinked absentmindedly at the ceiling. “Can his mind handle that?”
Madame Crepaux stared at Claire, and then at her father. “It must. There is no other way to reach Bacalou’s domain without your father as a conduit.”
“Will it kill him?” Claire asked.
Madame Crepaux shook her head. “I do not know.” She handed a bowl of something that she had mixed. “Give this to him. It will help get him ready.”
Claire took the bowl, and Madame Crepaux left, leaving her alone with Alzheimer’s. He thrashed on the table, his eyes shut, mumbling something. “Dad?” He didn’t respond. “Roger?”
Alzheimer’s looked at her, then to the bowl. His tone was stern, but some of the anger had lessened. “I’m not hungry.”
Claire forced the rim of the bowl to his lips and lifted his head. “It’s good for you.” She forced his head steady, and he grimaced as she funneled the concoction down his throat.
Alzheimer’s consumed about half of it before he closed his lips and the liquid spilled over his face. He violently shook his head. “Poison! It’s poison!” He thrashed and knocked the bowl from her hands and it crashed to the floor, some of the liquid spilling over Claire’s clothes.
Alzheimer’s screamed and howled, snarling at the woman who used to be his daughter, but had transformed into a demon trying to kill him.
The raised welt where she’d been struck burned hot, and Claire trembled. Her son was gone, her husband was missing, and the one man in her life that was still here wasn’t really here at all. “Stop it! Just stop it!” She gripped her father by the shoulders and his thrashing ended, but he kept the snarl. “I know you’re going to take him from me. I know what you’re going to do to all of the memories of him and his family. But you give him back to me now. You hear me? You let him go for a little while longer.”
Alzheimer’s gave a mistrusting look, but the snarl disappeared.
Desperation was plastered over Claire’s face, and she was ashamed at the hate coursing through her veins, but she needed something to help her get through this.
“Please,” Claire said, tears in her eyes now. “Let me have him back.”
The cloudy haze vanished, and for a moment Claire believed that her father was back. The anger disappeared and he squinted at her, the rusted wheels of his mind trying to make a connection that would have been the easiest thing in the world just a year ago.
“Do I know you?”
And just like that, the brief ray of light was snuffed out. Claire shook her head and backed away, sobbing openly now as she lifted her hand to the welt on her cheek. “No. You don’t.” She turned and saw Chloe crying, and she wrapped her arms around her, the past twenty-four hours flooding out of her like water from a busted dam.
* * *
The cotton candy sunset had turned pitch black, clouds covering the moon and stars, casting the earth below in darkness. Owen panted, stumbling a few steps out of the water until he collapsed against one of the trees for support. His eyes had adjusted to the darkness and in the shades of night he saw the trees, the moss, the swamp, and the tiny ripples of water among the reeds and water from the wind or whatever animals lay beneath the surface.
Owen tilted his head back, his mouth open. Despite the swim on his escape, the day had dried him out. The night concealed the sunburns on his face and neck, but when he ran his tongue over his lips, he felt the cracks and chapped skin. His muscles spasmed randomly in fatigue and defiance of movement. But if it was already nightfall, then the window to save his son was nearly closed.
Owen pushed forward, catapulting himself off from the tree trunks like a monkey swinging from branch to branch. He paused for another breath, his muscles forcing him to stop. He glanced down at his fist and then uncurled his aching fingers.
The green stone glowed in the darkness, and Owen tried to understand how something so small, something so ordinary could possess so much power. He closed the stone back into his fist, thoughts of Matthew pushing him onward. He’d circled a few memories of his son over the past day, but all of them led back to one.
It was spring, about four years ago. Chloe was still a baby at the time, and both Owen and Claire had expressed to their eldest how prou
d they were of him for being such a good big brother. He fell into the role like a natural, holding her, giving her kisses on the top of her head, helping her eat once she transitioned from breastfeeding to baby food.
He and Claire wanted to do something special for him on his upcoming birthday. With the attention that Chloe required, that any new baby required, they knew that they sometimes had put Matt on the back burner. And because of the type of kid he was, so soft-spoken and well-behaved, it was easy for him to go unnoticed. Out of the two of them, Chloe had always been the squeaky wheel, and as the old saying goes, she got the grease.
When Owen was still at the shipyard in Baltimore, he worked with a guy whose son was in the PR department for the Orioles. And if there was a bigger Baltimore Orioles fan than Matt Cooley, Owen had yet to meet them. So, after handing over a week of vacation time, Owen managed to score some front row seats along the first base line right next to the Orioles dugout. Matt also got to throw out the first pitch of the game and had his baseball signed by every player in the dugout. Matt couldn’t wipe the smile off his face for the whole four hours the game lasted.
And while the joy of watching his son’s face light up at the players, the game, the crowd, the food, and the atmosphere was rewarding, it wasn’t until the end of the game and they had walked back to the parking lot that he finally got to the moment that had replayed in his mind like the favorite scene in a favorite movie.
“Dad?” Matt asked after Owen had clicked on his seatbelt.
“Yeah, buddy?”
Matt kept his head down, twirling the baseball in his hands, the smile faded a little bit but still creasing his lips upward. “Thank you.”
Owen brushed his son’s hair back behind his ear and smiled. “You deserve it, buddy. You’ve done such a great job this past year.”
Matt looked up at him, his eyes wide but sleepy.
“So,” Owen asked. “What was your favorite part of the day?”
“Right now,” Matt answered.
Owen laughed, shaking his head. “Really? It wasn’t the game or the fact that you got to throw out the first pitch?”
Matt was quiet for a moment, and then looked up at Owen. “You made this happen, Dad. And when I grow up, I want to be just like you so I can make my son feel the same way.”
With his son’s words ringing clearly in his memory, Owen shut his eyes and dropped to his knees in the middle of the swamp. His shoulders bounced, sobbing, as his mouth downturned and he drew in a snot-riddled breath, trying to regain his composure.
Most kids think their dad is Superman. Owen thought that about his own father when he was younger. But Owen knew Matt would discover how much better he was than him as he grew older. Still, hearing those words come out of his son’s mouth filled him with a pride that couldn’t be bought, sold, or replaced. It was priceless.
A pair of lights flashed in Owen’s peripheral vision. He turned to the sight, blinked a few times, unsure if the moving illumination was real or just a mirage derived from hopeful thoughts. But then he heard an engine, and he realized the road was close.
He waved his arms, his voice cracking as he called out. “Hey!” He didn’t care who it was out there on the road so long as they could take him back to Main Street. The closer he drew to the road, the clearer the headlights came into view. They were attached to an old truck, the driver in the cab hidden by darkness.
Owen broke through the edge of the swamp and stumbled up the embankment of the road, his dirty hand outstretched to flag the driver down. His fingers penetrated the cones of lights from the headlights, then collapsed onto the asphalt.
Brakes squealed as the truck slowed, casting the top half of Owen’s body into view. The truck’s engine rumbled as the driver shifted into park. Door hinges squeaked, and boots scraped against the asphalt.
Owen could barely find the strength to lift his head. His fingernails clawed at the bits of exposed rock on the road, which was still warm from baking in the sun all day.
“Holy mother of Christ. Owen?”
Owen lifted his head, the voice unfamiliar as the pair of boots moved closer. He felt hands on him and was then flipped over onto his back, blinking as Marty Wiggins’s face came into view.
“What the hell happened to you?”
Owen moved his mouth to try and respond, but nothing escaped his lips except for a wheezing groan. It was the weight of the amulet in his hand, which had grown oddly heavy, that finally snapped him out of the dazed confusion muddling his brain.
“Town,” Owen said, taking a hard, dry swallow of spit. “Take me into town.” He rolled to his left, groaning as Marty’s hands fell over him and provided the needed strength to lift him off the ground.
Once on two legs, Owen wobbled but Marty steadied him by taking hold of his shoulders. Marty pinched his eyebrows together, a single, greasy brown line down his chin that could be traced to the wad of dip protruding from his lower lip.
“Damn, Yankee, you look like shit.” Marty steered Owen toward the truck and opened the passenger side door, then helped him up inside.
Goose bumps suddenly formed over Owen’s skin from the cold A/C, and he hugged himself as he shivered. His mind swirled with fatigue, and he glanced down at his closed fist.
The driver side door shut, and the cabin rocked as Marty stepped inside. The truck’s transmission grunted in defiance before spurting them forward.
Owen caught himself drifting to sleep twice, and he jerked himself from rest, sucking in deep breaths of air as he kept his eyes on the illuminated road that stretched for miles with nothing on either side but the swamp that Owen had traveled through.
“Everybody was talking about what happened to your son today at work,” Marty said, hawking some brown spittle into an old Diet Coke can. “My wife’s been having a fit all day trying to get a hold of her dad. I knew the old bastard was crooked, but I didn’t know he was that crooked.”
Owen frowned, Marty’s words slow to sink in, but he finally remembered from his first few days on the job that Billy Rouche was Marty’s father-in-law. He turned to Marty, slowly, unsure of the man’s allegiance. “Did you know?”
Marty glanced over, and with the man’s lower lip puffed out from the dip, he looked like a sulking child that had been caught with his hand in the cookie jar. “Look, Yankee, I might be an asshole, but I’m not a criminal. Not on the scale of ol’ Billy Rouche.” He raised his eyebrows and briefly took his hands from the wheel and held them up in defense. “Why would I have picked you up if I was in cahoots with the old man? Huh? It would have made more sense to just run you over!”
And in Owen’s fractured and tired mind, he conceded the Southern drawling, dip-spitting, self-proclaimed ragin’ Cajun had a point. Owen’s muscles relaxed and he leaned back on the seat. “Take me to Queen’s.”
Marty nearly swallowed the dip in his mouth, and then coughed brown spittle over his dash and windshield. “Ah, shit.” He wiped his lips with the back of his hand, and then reached for a dirty rag in the center console and cleaned up the mess. “What the hell you want to go there for?”
Owen glanced down to the rock in his palm. The green glowed brighter now.
“What the hell is that?” Marty asked, his attention more on Owen now than the road, and they drifted more freely over the lanes of traffic, which were thankfully empty on both sides.
“It’s how I’m getting my son back,” Owen answered, then looked up to the window outside and the starless, moonless night. “But I don’t have much time left.”
12
Sheriff Bellingham eyed Queen’s from across the street. The windows were tinted, and the closed sign was flipped at the door. While he had always thought Madame Crepaux strange, he never considered her a danger to anyone, not the least some Yankee who just moved down from Baltimore.
The house on Cypress Lane was empty when Bellingham checked after leaving Billy Rouche’s residence, so the sheriff thought Madame Crepaux’s shop would be a good place to start
, seeing as how this was the last place Mrs. Cooley was seen after the hospital.
Two of the sheriff’s deputies were with him, and both men had taken a few steps back when the sheriff walked toward the store. He was almost halfway across the street when he realized he was alone.
He turned around and frowned, giving them the same hard stare their fathers would. Both men looked at each other, then reluctantly followed, their eyes cast sheepishly down to their feet, still keeping a safe distance as Bellingham pounded on the front door.
“Ms. Crepaux! It’s Sheriff Bellingham. Open up!” He took a step back, hands on his hips. He looked back to his deputies, who had remained in the road and off the sidewalk in front of the store. “You know that you two are going in there with me.”
“Sheriff, we shouldn’t be bothering this woman,” Deputy Hurt said. “She’s,” he looked down to his feet, wiggling uncomfortably like a kid in church. “Well, she’s crazy!”
“Yeah, Sheriff,” Deputy Lane said. “I’m not saying I believe in all of this stuff, but no reason to go and kick the hornet’s nest, you know?”
“You two nancys get your asses up on this sidewalk now!” Bellingham pointed down to the concrete with his right index finger extended, revealing his swollen and knobby knuckles that had started to ache. He wished he had some type of future telling to go along with the aches. His grandmother had a knee that swelled up just before it rained, and he recalled a great aunt that had a hip that ached whenever a high tide was coming in to break the levees. The only thing that he saw in his future was an Ibuprofen.
Bellingham knocked again, then tried the handle, which was locked. He leaned closer, trying to get a look inside, but whomever the woman had gotten to tint her windows had done a damned fine job. He spun around, and both deputies jumped from the old man’s speed. “You two stay put and you radio me the moment you see anyone come by.”
A unanimous “yes, sir” rang through the air, and Bellingham marched back across the street, the night air still lingering with the heat of the day. He checked his watch. If he was lucky, he’d be able to pull Judge Harlow out of bed. The old hag was probably already asleep in her coffin. The judge should have retired ten years ago, but she was still useful for getting a warrant at still hop up on her bench and spell out the law better than any other clerk of the court this side of the grand ol’ Mississippi.