The Girl On Victoria Road: A Tim Reaper Novel

by Sean Cummings

  “You … Richter,” he began. “It is correct that I have seen the darkness and I know its name. It seems that only the people from old countries like mine know of such inhuman monstrosities that feed on the living. If you were Waxman and you knew me then, you will know that I carry with me the scars of many old battles. So, if you are him, you will tell me how many bullet holes I wear.”

  I didn’t even have to think about it. “Two in the chest. Left side. One in the right thigh. You caught all three fighting communists when you slipped across the Hungarian border during Prague Spring in 1968. That’s how you managed to escape. Supporters smuggled you into Austria and then you were stuffed into a container and you entered Canada illegally. Good enough?”

  The old man arched a pair of thick, bushy eyebrows and flashed me a smile beneath his enormous beard. He stepped forward and reached out to shake my hand. I glanced at Sparks and walked up to Harry. I took his hand in mine and emitted a tiny fragment of my essence through his skin. The old fisherman staggered for a moment and I placed my other hand on his left shoulder to steady him.

  “Y-You are … him,” he said with a look of astonishment on his face. “You are my old friend. But this body … it isn’t you.”

  I shook his hand firmly and flashed a toothy grin. “Yeah, well, I’m a super ancient death spirit who steals the bodies of the recently deceased. If you were to drop dead right now, I could hop into you if I felt like it. If we survive what’s about to happen, I’ll tell you everything you need to know, but right now we need your help. Please, Harry, help us save a little girl’s life. Just take us out to the island and drop us off. You don’t have to stick around.”

  Harry grunted as he released his grip on my hand. He stepped into his shack and returned seconds later with a metal baseball bat in one hand and a shotgun in the other. “If there is a little girl in danger on that island and you are my old friend then there are monsters out there. We three will go out and put all the monsters to death this morning. And if I die fighting the monsters, I know that God Almighty will keep me and I won’t fall into darkness. Maybe if I survive we can drink and smoke and talk about younger days and happier times. Get on my boat, the pair of you. We leave in ten minutes.”

  ***

  Devil’s Island got its name not from old Satan himself, but rather, from an early French merchant named Deville. Of course, it has gone by many names since a settlement was established on the rocky patch of land jutting out of the ocean at the mouth of Halifax harbour back in the 1830’s. Rous Island, and then Wood’s Island. A fire cleared all the vegetation off the twenty-nine acres that make up the island and it got its current name. A small settlement took up residence next to the lighthouse on the island in the late 1800’s. They built a tiny fishing village where they remained up to the start of the Second World War when they were moved to the mainland in case a Kriegsmarine U-Boat decided to use them for target practice. After the war, the lighthouse kept on running for a few more decades and the last resident of the island moved to the mainland back in 2000. Nowadays the lighthouse lamp has been extinguished and the island is a constant reminder of the Nova Scotia of yesteryear.

  Harry’s boat is an old thirty-foot cape islander that was probably built at some period during The Great Depression. It was powered by an equally ancient forty-five horsepower motor that hiccupped and sputtered as it pushed through the calm waters of Fisherman’s Village in Eastern Passage. The wheelhouse was barely big enough for one person and the hull was scabbed and scraped near clean of whatever colour it had once been. And it smelled of fish so much so that I was certain the stench had permeated the weathered maple slats that made up the deck. Sparks and I stood at the bow and watched as Harry’s pride and joy cut through the waves with the subtlety of a snow plough after a winter storm. To Harry’s credit, there was coffee for the three of us to share. Harry came out of the wheelhouse with a bottle of Lemon Hart Rum and offered to splash a bit in the old tin cup I was holding, but I politely declined. Sparks, on the other hand, grabbed the bottle and poured a good ounce or two into her cup.

  “Jesus, why do I live here?” Sparks asked nobody as she took a sip of her coffee. Her hands were shaking and neither of was dressed properly for a forty-minute trip to the island in frigid late November. It was nearly seven in the morning and I could see a thin ribbon of reddish-orange light on the horizon. So much for getting to the island under the cover of darkness. Not that it would have mattered much because angels can see anything, anywhere, any time of day.

  Harry disappeared into his wheelhouse and returned moments later with an old thick cardigan sweater. He draped it over Sparks shoulder and she smiled at the old man. “You live here because this is where you are meant to be,” he said as he lit up a cigarette. The tip glowed bright red in the gloom. “Black people came here to escape slavery. The bitter cold and all the snow – that has to be better than what your people lived under.”

  Sparks took another sip of her coffee. “We still live under it. All people of colour do. We’re slaves to people’s racism because the people in charge just happen to be white folks.”

  I wasn’t going to argue with her. I’d seen the kind of racism black people in the province experienced first-hand nearly every day I lived here. But for Sparks, I think it just made her mad and that anger wound up being channelled into her sense of justice. Her anger made her strong. I could only hope her strength would hold up because neither of us knew what was going to happen the moment we set foot on the island.

  “Try living under the communists,” said Harry.

  He left that statement hanging there as the hull of the boat bounced up and down. A sharp gust of wind rolled across the water as waves splashed over the sides and drenched the deck.

  “That came out of nowhere,” said Sparks as she steadied herself. To her immense credit, she hadn’t spilt a drop of rum-infused coffee.

  Harry emitted a cold laugh and said, “The ocean has a mind of its own and it changes its mind without warning. There’s a fog bank up ahead. I will turn on the spotlight. You two keep an eye for anything that might be out there.”

  “Like sea monsters?” asked Sparks.

  The old man shook his head. “Like rocks. That whole island is surrounded by rocks and we must be very careful coming in. There used to be a jetty on the south side. It’s a ruin now but that is where we will land.”

  I lit a cigarette and gazed out over the bow. Barbie Ross was alive and she had to be behind Charlotte’s abduction, didn’t she? But how? Mudstuffer the ghoul couldn’t confirm that she’d somehow contacted angels from up on high to take Charlotte back at the Bible Camp. Still, she sold us out to whoever sent the ghouls to kill us, but who could it have been? She’d fulfilled her obligation under Dave Exner’s shit list book by giving us sanctuary. I was too stupid to realize that even by giving the woman a glimpse into her imminent death by garrotting, she would have figured a way out for herself.

  And that’s when it came to me: she must have made a deal with someone from up on high or deep down below to save her bacon. By giving us sanctuary, she’d covered her ass with Dave Exner but by my offering a glimpse into her murder, I might possibly have given her a reason to sell us out. Self-preservation is one of the most powerful forces in the universe and me? I’m a fucking twat for not having realized the threat.

  “Sparks,” I said taking a drag off my cigarette. “You’re the best detective I know.”

  She gulped down the last of her coffee. “I’m the only detective that you know, Reaper.”

  I nodded. “I think I fucked up here.”

  Sparks kept her eyes on the way ahead. “In what way?”

  I drove my fist into the hull of the boat. “I’m an idiot. I think I served up Charlotte for the bad guys.”

  “How?”

  I explained everything in detail from the moment I set foot in Barbie Ross’s limousine right down to the gory details of how I’d shown the minister her own murder and how she’d fulfilled h
er obligation to Dave Exner by providing a hiding place. Sparks took it all in and chewed her lower lip for a moment.

  “That’s as good enough a reason as any to sell you out,” said Sparks. “If we get through this, I’m going to teach you the fine art of detective work because you are the world’s worst sleuth, Reaper.”

  “Just like I caused Amy’s death, I might wind up getting Charlotte killed. FUCK, I’m an idiot.”

  Sparks turned to face me. She placed a comforting hand on my shoulder and said, “You once told me that you can find anyone alive anywhere just by honing in on their living energy, remember? So, hone your super death spirit powers onto that island and tell us if Barbie Ross is there. Please tell me that when Ezekiel told us that Charlotte was on Devil’s Island that you used those same super death spirit powers to confirm that we’re not on a wild goose chase here, Reaper.”

  I glanced at Sparks and at the outline of the lighthouse on Devil’s Island that was just barely visible through the early morning mist. “I can feel Charlotte’s living energy. They haven’t killed her yet. I can also feel Barbie Ross but my death spirit GPS seems to be on the fritz.”

  Harry poked his head out of the wheelhouse and turned on the spotlight. “We should be there in a few minutes … Mother of God!”

  The bright beam of light shot across the bow and straight through the fog. Only it wasn’t actual fog that we were looking at. Dozens upon dozens of vaporous forms drifted just above the icy water and spread out across the horizon like a blanket. Men and women dressed in clothing that hadn’t been seen for more than one hundred years. Each face sported black holes where their eyes would have been and each mouth was wide open, frozen in terror.

  “What the hell are we looking at, Reaper?” Sparks shouted with an edge of panic in her voice. She tossed her cup onto the deck and pulled out her Glock.

  I shot her a pained glance and said, “Ghosts, Sparks. Hundreds and hundreds of ghosts.”

  22

  Ghosts exist. It’s all you need to know.

  They aren’t a form of purgatory because that was something invented by the Holy Church to generate revenue for a series of men with pointy hats and shiny red shoes who call The Vatican home. Spirits of the dead happen, usually, when there is an outside force diverting a departing soul for some nefarious purpose. (Think dark magic. Rituals from the Old Times. Voodoo.) In some cases, ghostly manifestations happen because of a particularly violent death like a train derailment or a plane crash. Why? Because reapers only collect souls when the souls have had their time. Accidents, where there are mass deaths, are cosmic anomalies that trap departing souls between here and there. Period. End of story. And we were ploughing through the choppy water into a fog bank comprised from a hell of a lot of souls.

  What lay ahead was like nothing I’d ever seen before. Row upon row of ghostly visages bobbed up and down as the sun began to peek over the horizon.

  “Spirits of the dead! Dear Lord protect us!” Harry said in a trembling voice as he crossed himself.

  “I don’t think He’s listening this morning, Harry,” I growled. “Get back in the wheelhouse, we’re ploughing through these sons of bitches.”

  “Can they harm us?” asked Sparks.

  I shrugged. “Lately, who the fuck knows. Ghosts technically can’t do a thing to you unless they are poltergeists and then, yeah, run for your life.”

  “Perfect,” she groaned. “Is there anything you can do?”

  I rolled my eyes and groaned right back. I’m egalitarian that way. “Maybe. I’m going to try something. Stand back.”

  Sparks stepped back while I climbed atop the bow, resting on my belly. I inched forward and then down and hooked my strong arm under the bow while I reached down to the water with my free hand. I felt my fingertips brush against the water’s surface, splashing my face with icy daggers. I shut my eyes and drew on the power from within. I felt a thin finger of my essence creep forward; down into the cold Atlantic. The blackness hummed with living energy the likes of which I’d never encountered. Currents of power arced from wave to wave; each tiny bolt a super-charged fragment of the ocean-sized well of power I’d tapped into. It would be so easy to draw on a wellspring of energy. To channel it through my body and forge it into a weapon to use against the angels and anyone else who had a hand in Charlotte’s abduction.

  Only I didn’t know the cost. When I draw on living energy, it comes from the life force of anything alive that my power touches. It drains living matter dry and kills it. What’s more, nothing ever comes back when I’m finished. Just like the huge zone of dead vegetation at Point Pleasant Park that scientists at Dalhousie were studying because they hadn’t considered that land could simply die. If you heard about dead lands as they call it through your Facebook feed, it’s not fake news. It’s real. That’s how you can tell that Tim Reaper has been in town. The sea was the single largest deposit of living energy I’d ever encountered and if I tapped it, there would be a dead zone of ocean surrounding Devil’s Island where nothing would ever come back. Hell, I could destroy the entire fishing industry off the coast of Halifax.

  The bow of the boat cut into the wall of spirits and their collective voices rang out in an almighty roar that vibrated across the water. The old cape island boat shuddered and pitched as the waves grew larger and larger. Within seconds the bow had climbed to a forty-degree angle sending the three of us tumbling backwards. Then without warning, the boat pitched forward sharply and the bow crashed into the water. We tumbled forward this time; Sparks and I crashed into the bow itself. I grabbed onto Sparks wrist as she was about to go overboard and I pulled with all my might. She fell on top of me and cursed loudly as she tried to get back to her feet.

  “Since when do ghosts attack tiny fishing boats, Reaper!” Sparks shouted. She was next to me and I could barely hear her amid the shrieks and wails of the ghosts.

  “No clue!” I bleated. “It’s real. We’re here. They don’t want us coming to the island!”

  Harry clawed his way up to the bow as the tiny boat was pitched and crashed against the waves. Faces of the dead surrounded us; each one screaming incomprehensibly as if they were being tortured. Their collective rage blotted out any sense of hope at finding Charlotte. Their despair dripped through the mist and onto the three of us. Sparks and Harry cupped their hands over their ears as I stood up and called out to the heavens. We needed help.

  “Ambriel!” I roared so hard my throat felt raw. “I need your help! Please!”

  The bow pitched sharply again and we rolled back on the slippery deck, crashing into the front of the wheelhouse. Water poured over the sides of the boat, we were drenched to the bone and clinging to anything we could for dear life. The wind picked up; a foul stench slithered across the waves. It smelled like rotting flesh and sulphur, an odour I’d become all too familiar with in recent months.

  “Reaper, what is that smell?” Sparks shouted.

  I lashed an arm inside some steel cable attached to an ancient hand-winch and then grabbed Sparks by the waist as we crashed against another huge wave. “That’s what Hell smells like, Sparks!” I said with a grimace. “I think we know who is behind the ghosts! It’s the faces of the damned and that means demons. Ambriel, this would be a great time for you to show up!”

  No sooner had the words slipped through my lips when a current of power shot through the air like a cruise missile. Almost immediately the faces of the damned gazed heavenward; the looks of torment and pain on their faces were replaced with that of stone cold fear. The ghostly mist parted and ahead, hovering over the waves was Ambriel resplendent in her golden armour and carrying her Holy Spear. The stormy sea that had been battering the hull of Harry’s small Cape Island boat began to calm as the rocky southern shore of Devil’s Island came into view. Harry turned off his spotlight, there wasn’t any need for it as Ambriel, a golden angelic beacon stood on the shore and waved for us to make landfall.

  Harry carefully piloted his boat between a series of r
ocks that jutted out of the sea like razor sharp dragon’s teeth. Any one of them would have ripped the hull apart like tissue paper. I lit up a cigarette and shivered as I watched for any more obstacles. Within minutes we had docked the boat next to a dilapidated jetty. I carefully stepped onto the rickety wooden structure and then lashed the boat to a post as Harry shut down the engine. Sparks climbed onto the jetty with Harry coming up from behind and we dashed for land as quickly as possible in case the jetty decided to collapse under our collective weight.

  I waved to Ambriel as Sparks nudged me in the ribs. “Is that who I think it is?” she asked.

  I nodded. “Yep, that’s Ambriel. She’s the one who saved my bacon back at the bunker. There’s some evil shit on this island, Sparks. She wouldn’t be here if this was going to be a cakewalk.”

  Sparks nodded as Harry cocked his shotgun. “If there is evil here then we will face it together,” the old man said. “Can’t hurt that we have an angel on our side, yes?”

  “Can’t hurt one bit,” I said taking a deep breath. “Let’s find out what Ambriel knows and then come up with a plan. Assuming the bad guys don’t come at us first. If that happens, then waste every fucking one of ‘em.”

  Sparks shot me a look of shock. She gaped at me, wide-eyed and speechless.

  “Come behind this rock immediately!” Ambriel ordered. Pink and orange light cast a bright glow across a choppy sea that was as black as ink.

  We dashed over quickly, careful not to trip on an island surface littered with broken clam shells, each one as sharp as a straight razor. If either of us did a face plant, we’d wind up being sliced to ribbons.

  Ambriel leaned on her spear and then dropped to one knee. “You summoned me and I am here. There is a great dark presence within that lighthouse.”

  I cocked an eyebrow and gazed out at the Devil’s Island lighthouse. It was first lit in 1852. It had seen more than its share of wrecks in one hundred and sixty-odd years. It’s one of the most haunted places in Nova Scotia and probably the entire country. While the light has long been decommissioned, residents of Eastern Passage claim there is a haunting glow from Devil’s Island on the nights where the fog is so thick you can’t see beyond your front steps. Naturally, the lighthouse was ground zero for a dark purpose. That’s how shit rolls in ol’ Tim Reaper’s life these days.