by Joey Ruff
He smiled, nodded. I thought back to the cave, the image I saw when I awoke: the Groundskeeper fending off a dragon with nothing but a crossbow. I turned, and whether by magic or coincidence, saw the weapon standing in the corner.
“Can I ask you something?” I said.
He nodded.
I motioned to the bow. “How did you do that…with the dragon? Hold him back like that. Dragons aren’t warded off by crosses.”
“The crossbow is made of Gopher wood,” he said. “Dragons are animals. They are bigger, and they are meaner. But they were created the same as a stallion or a heron or the great ox. The Wood works on them like any other.”
“What happens to the dragon? We just leave him there?”
“No,” he said. “We fenced him in. He will be safe there until your priest friend can arrange for the Hand of Shanai to pick him up and take him some place safer.”
“You aren’t worried he’ll try to break free?”
Crestmohr shook his head. “He was hostile only because he was under the control of the Bogey.” He took a sip of his tea.
“You seem pretty sure about that.”
“I looked into its eyes.”
“He didn’t have any eyes left.”
“In a manner of speaking.”
I waited for some deeper explanation, but that’s all he gave, like that answered everything.
“How does a Bogey get reigns on a dragon, anyway? Or more importantly, why?”
“Ours is not to question, John Swyftt. A dragon is a formidable weapon, to be sure. Perhaps he had need of such a weapon.”
“That’s one sodding hell of an arsenal to stockpile. Dragon and a legion of meat-suit zombies? Gotta make you wonder what the bloke was running from…?”
Crestmohr didn’t say anything, just smiled as though he’d remembered something funny.
“Whatever.” I scratched the dog’s head once more and stood up. “It’s a special dog,” I said. “The way it stood up to Brom. How it carried Ape. It…” I looked down at Taboo, and he cocked his head at me. “He…he saved my life.”
“He has saved my life before as well. It is what he does. What they both do.”
I nodded at him. “I’ll let you get back to the book.”
“You are welcome to stay.”
“I need to take my medicine,” I admitted. “I’m tired and in pain.”
He nodded, and I went back to the house.
I was glad to have him around after that.
The following Tuesday, when the pain was a little more tolerable under high doses of medication, I drove out to see Eric Gables. It was early in the morning, and he stood on the curb waiting for the school bus.
When I pulled up in the El Camino, he smiled. “Mr. Swyftt,” he said. “I didn’t know if I’d get to see you. I’ve been calling your office. I even stopped by once. I wanted to thank you in person.”
“I’ve been catching up on some sleep. How’s your brother?”
His smile darkened. “He’s…I don’t know. He’s fine, I guess.”
“What does that mean?”
“He’s different,” he said.
I arched an eyebrow. “Different how?”
“Well…,” he stopped, looked around a bit awkwardly. “It sounds stupid, but he…I think he can read my mind.”
I shrugged. “What’s so strange about that?”
“My brother’s autistic, Mr. Swyftt. He’s not psychic.”
“Lie down with dogs, mate, you get fleas.”
“What does that mean?” he asked with a puzzled look.
“The thing that took your brother was a little psychic,” I said. “I don’t know. It’s more advanced than you really need to know, but like you said, your brother’s special. Maybe he picked up on it?”
“I guess.”
“Look. I don’t know any more than you do, but as far as I know, your brother lived with that fucking thing for weeks. There’s no telling what was done to him. Only Adam knows that, and if he starts talking…give me a call.”
“Okay,” he said and was silent.
“Listen,” I said. “I wanted to come by and talk to you about the money.”
His eyes got a little wider, a hint of panic reflected in them. “Oh,” he said. “How much do I still owe you? I’ll get it. It’s gonna take some time, but I promise to pay it all.”
I handed him a bundle in a crumpled, brown paper sack. He took it, his brow furled, an uncertain look in his eyes. “What’s this?”
“I can’t take your money. I…I wouldn’t feel right.”
“No,” he said, pushed the bag back at me. “You helped. You brought my brother back. I…it’s the right thing to do.”
I shook my head. “Kid, trust me. What I got from this…,” and my thoughts filtered to the vision of Anna in the cave, “means more than anything you could offer.”
He watched me for a minute, maybe trying to tell if I was kidding. “No shit?” he said, his eyes beginning to water a little.
I laughed. “No shit.”
“Umm…thanks.” He slid his backpack off of his shoulder and slipped the sack into one of the zippered pouches. He looked back up at me, and I could see in the rearview mirror that the bus was approaching.
“Well, I’ll let you get on.”
He nodded to me, and then as if he just remembered something, he said, “Hey, wait. One more thing.”
“What is it?”
“I’ve been wondering, and I don’t know if you can answer this or not, but…Adam was missing for weeks.
The other kids had been missing for days and they were all dead. Why didn’t he kill Adam?”
“I don’t know for sure, but I think Adam was kept alive because he was different. He wasn’t like the other kids, and that intrigued the thing that took him.”
“So he was kept alive,” Eric said, “because he’s autistic?”
“It’s a theory.”
“Will…,” he started to say, but there was a reluctance in his voice. “Do…do you think he’ll get better? Maybe he’ll be normal again?”
I had no fucking clue, but as I looked at him and those big, sad, dopey, hopeful eyes, all I could do was sigh deeply and shake my head. “I don’t know, kid,” I said. “As far as I know, Adam’s the only one to survive…what he did. It’s possible, I guess, but….” I shrugged.
I wanted to say more, thought the kid expected more, but he nodded at me as if to say, I understand.
“Thanks again, Mr. Swyftt.”
I waited until he climbed aboard the school bus and drove off.
In the days that followed, Arthur’s body was released into Ape’s custody, and the Towers’ family, with Ape at the helm, planned a quiet funeral. I don’t know how he managed it, but the press never got word of anything. Typically, when eccentric, world-famous explorer billionaires have a funeral, it's scattered across the Times, Newsweek, CNN, and all the fucking tabloid papers. Hell, late night comedians made jokes about it.
I didn’t go.
After the funeral, I found Ape out at the apple tree in the back of the estate, the one he’d planted as a boy.
He didn’t seem to hear me approach, and stood silently against the trunk. One hand absently caressed the rugged stump where the tree had lost a limb in the storm.
I watched him for a long moment, then said, “How was the service?”
“Quiet,” he said, took a deep breath. “It’s okay you weren’t there, Jono. If you’re worried about that at all, what I might think or say. He wasn’t your family.”
“I meant to be,” I said. “Nadia said it was nice.”
He nodded. “How’s Anna?”
I shrugged. “Still dead.”
“But at least you get to see her.”
“Sometimes, that’s harder.”
Ape nodded, and he turned to me. “I know. You’d let her go, and she came back to you. It rips open the old wounds that had healed. It’s not good that you spend so much time there.”
“Ape…”
“You’re not going to start quoting poetry again, are you?”
When I was younger, after Anna and Lara died, I used to quote songs, poetry, Bible verses, anything to keep my head clear, whatever kept my thoughts from wandering too long where they didn’t need to be. I hadn’t done that in years. Hell, I hadn’t even thought about it.
When Anna was sick, I read a lot to her. It kept us from talking about what was happening to her, kept her from asking questions like, if God loves me, why doesn’t he heal me? Of course, I had a different opinion of God back then.
I read to Anna because it helped keep her mind off things. She loved stories, poetry. Maybe I quoted poems because it helped me forget her. Maybe the quoting helped keep her close.
I shrugged. “Seeing her’s the only thing that helps the pain,” I said. “What about you?”
“What about me?”
“I don’t know,” I said. “Your uncle, maybe? How you had to pull the trigger? I don’t know, mate, I’m just saying. Sometimes it helps to talk the shit out, sometimes it doesn’t matter either way and you just want to hold the pain of his memory close because it’s all you have left to hold on to. Do you…want to talk about it?”
He shook his head. “No.”
“Good.”
“I know he loved me,” he said. “And I know the kind of man he really was. He wasn’t the monster that Brom turned him into. I know that. And he lived a much fuller life than most ever could.” He closed his eyes. “I think I’m at peace with it. And I can let go of the pain, because it’s not all I have left.” He put his palm flat against the trunk of the tree.
“Speaking of pain… How’s Finnegan doing?”
“All things considered? He’ll be fine. It’s going to take some time for the burns to fully heal, and even then, he’ll bear the scars for the rest of his life. But he’s got a good spirit. He’ll be okay. And it’ll be some time before he goes back to work.”
“Vacation,” I said. “Good for him.” Ape didn’t say anything. “He really did a lot back there. I was wrong about him. Next time you talk to him, you can tell him I said that.”
“I will. He wanted me to tell you, also, that the Hand’s been dispatched for clean-up duty. Chances are, Brom still has children out there and if they have even a modicum of their own willpower left, they might go after innocents. They’ll find them all.”
“Good,” I said. There was a moment of silence, then I added, “You came for me when I was down.”
“I came for Brom,” he said.
“Yeah, well, you saved my life.”
His smile was weak. “Guess we’re even now.”
“Not even close.”
“I’m glad you’re okay. And for what it’s worth, I’m glad you got to see Anna again.”
I nodded and headed back to the house. As I started to walk, Ape said, “Do you know what the pool is?”
The truth is, I had no fucking idea. Nobody really knew where it came from or what it was, but since Anna’s death, I’d lived with the guilt and pain of her passing every day of my life, and my only desire was to see her again.
“It’s a wishing well.”
Though I’d missed Arthur’s funeral, I’d made it to Barnes’. He’d been in the Army before joining the force, and they gave him a standard military funeral, gun salute and everything. I stood off to the side, under the heavy branches of a tree and listened to the old priest read from the Bible: “…Ashes to ashes, and dust to dust,” while the cold Seattle rain fell heavy in mourning.
After they lowered the coffin, Chuck found his way out of the sea of umbrellas and headed my way. Behind him, I could see Stone, eyes boring holes into me.
“Don’t worry about her,” he said. “It took some convincing, but she’s dropping all charges against you. Anderson and I both vouched for you.”
“She’s still mad,” I said.
“She’s a girl, man. Give her some time.”
“What did you tell her happened?”
“You mean about the dragon and all that?”
I nodded.
“Enraged psycho bums, man. She saw them with her own eyes, it wasn’t hard for her to believe it.” He laughed a little to himself, more nerves than humor. “Now the fun part begins.”
“What does that mean?”
“All those bodies. The homeless people. Recovering and identifying the bodies.”
“What’s left of them.”
“Right. Probably most of them were lost in the fire, but still…the ones that are left. They were people. Once, at least. They deserve a burial.”
There was room enough under the tree for both of us, and he joined me under there, folded his umbrella and shook against the cold, autumn air.
“Thank you,” he said.
“You don’t have to thank me, mate.”
“Are you kidding? You saved my life. Anderson, too.”
For a few silent moments, we both stared after the umbrellas that slowly lulled their way across the damp field of tombstones to the great serpent of cars in the funeral procession.
“Wanna grab a bite?” he asked. “On me. I think I at least owe you a dinner.”
“I can do that,” I said. “I’ll follow you.”
I got in the car and drove a short ways down the coast of the Sound just outside the city to a restaurant that wasn’t much to look at, just a little elevated shack in the marshlands surrounded by fishing boats, but the food was incredible and the beers were cold.
I got lobster.
EPILOGUE
For a couple weeks after, I stopped getting hate mail and started receiving thank you cards and phone messages expressing gratitude and relief and blah blah blah, not only from the Wright and Gables parents but from parents I hadn’t even met whose children had gone missing and their bodies recovered in that warehouse. That was fucking weird.
Apparently, Chuck and Anderson gave me some credit in their reports. I didn’t know about it before hand, but the press kept calling my office for a few days. I kept forgetting to return their phone calls, but word got out anyway. For a solid two months, I had more work than I could turn down. I did a few consulting jobs for Anderson and the local boys. The pay was good, and the cases were more interesting than the shit in the private sector. Luckily, there weren’t any more abductions.
I knew there wouldn’t be, not as far as Brom was concerned. From what I’d been told, the Bogey ran off. I didn’t know where he went and couldn’t fucking care less. I took his source of power. I cut off his supply lines. He’d scrounge around in back alleys and dig for scraps to feed on. No doubt, he’d end up outside the viewing rooms of some porn shop while lonely truck drivers wanked off. To feed on their lust. Maybe he’d find a seedy hotel somewhere, a quiet place where desperate businessmen took their mistresses and hookers turned tricks for drug money. One thing was for sure, he wouldn’t starve, not in a big city, and there were plenty of them to choose from.
Brom didn’t know the shit he was getting into coming to my city. We fucked him over hard and long and left him sore and wet.
I thought about him often, the game he played for so long before I even knew he was there. I kept the ring safe, knew if he dared come back, he’d come for that. It was his Precious, after all. His love. His power. And he was nothing without it. I didn’t want to think about him, but spent so much time in his old dressing room that it was difficult not to.
Everything he’d collected was consumed in the fire, and aside from the black-ash walls and piles of cinders, the only thing that remained in the room was my well. Anna’s well.
I started taking books with me into the Underground, sat on the rim of her well and read to her from the glow that nearly filled the room every time the pool of water came to life. It was just like when she was sick, except this time it wasn’t her that needed to not ask questions, to not wonder about why God let her die. Of course, I knew why He let her. It’s one of the reasons I hated him so mu
ch.
So I read to her to distract myself. Stories, poems, it didn’t matter. In life, she loved them all. But there was one that I read the most to her, and it began like this: “All children, except one, grow up. They soon know that they will grow up, and the way Wendy knew was this…”
Swyftt’s adventure continues in book 2 of the
Midnight Defenders:
THE STARS NEVER RISE
AVAILABLE FALL 2013
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Joey Ruff lives in Franklin, Tennessee with his wife and two children. This is his first novel.
For questions, comments, and feedback, please write the author at: [email protected]