THE TWILIGHT ZONE, Book 1: Shades of Night, Falling

by John J. Miller

Thomas dug a hole in the back of the tub behind the great bell of the immense flower, and buried the bag as McCool rinsed the Captain’s blood off his hands. He rejoined Thomas after a moment, but hesitated as they started to leave.

  [178] “Half a mo’,” he said. “Almost forgot.”

  He took his knife out and leaned over the Captain’s body and carved the usual letters and symbols upon it. Since Benjamin Noir was so heavily bearded there was no room for them on his face. He chose the Captain’s upper chest above the gaping hole through which he’d removed the man’s heart.

  “Jaysus,” McCool complained. “His damn chest hair is almost as thick as his beard. Maybe I should shave it first—”

  “That’s good enough,” Thomas said. Suddenly he was wild to depart. It was as if warning bells were going off in his mind.

  Finally McCool was done. They stopped at the outer door and glanced about the yard, making sure no one was in sight. Thomas nodded. The coast was clear.

  They walked nonchalantly out of the Glass House, immediately separating. McCool went around to the manor’s rear. Thomas went up the stairs to the front entrance.

  “Hello,” a voice suddenly said and it was only the total exertion of his iron will kept Thomas from jumping into the air. “Nice day, eh?”

  Thomas turned, forcing his features into a politely neutral mask. Washington Irving was reclining on the settee at the end of the porch, a glass of brandy to hand.

  “Yes,” Thomas said as heartily as he could. “Very.”

  “Missed you at the funeral,” Irving said.

  “Yes. Sorry I couldn’t make it.”

  “Sad business. Even sadder, the villagers wouldn’t let [179] Fraulein Schmidt bury her father in the cemetery. She was quite disturbed. Couldn’t blame her, really.”

  “No,” Thomas said. “No, you couldn’t.” About the last thing in the world he wanted to do was hold polite chitchat with this old man. On the other hand, he had to seem natural. He couldn’t dash away without seeming to be concerned about his betrothed’s well being. “What happened?”

  “Well, your brother Jon and that large Negro boy took him up to bury him in the old cemetery and the most extraordinary thing happened. This flock of crows—”

  “Sorry,” Thomas said suddenly. “Must run.”

  He left Irving on the porch with his glass of brandy. Jon, he thought. That figured. He was still trying to hold onto her. He barked sudden hard laughter as he went up the stairs to his room. He’d take care of that, now that he was the head of the family.

  Still, he reminded himself, he had to be patient. He had seen his father’s will. It left him everything, but he couldn’t be the one to bring that up. Be patient, he told himself. Be patient just a little longer.

  It wasn’t until he gained the sanctuary of his room and sat down in his comfortable chair with a contented sigh that he noticed the large, blotchy blood stain on the right thigh of his burgundy-colored trousers.

  The question running through his mind as he sat motionless in his chair was, did Irving notice it, as well?

  11.

  Trudi had gone back to her father’s shop to find something to hold the Hessian’s remains, while Jon and Isaac continued digging the unmarked grave deeper so that it could decently contain the en-coffined body of Trudi’s father.

  “I don’t even know what we’re supposed to do with these bones,” Jon said.

  Isaac glanced at the remnants piled neatly by the side of their former grave.

  “Don’t ask me,” he said. “I don’t want nothing to do with dead bones. Especially the dead bones of someone cut up and killed. Especially someone cut up and killed who was pretty mean himself.”

  “Katja Derlicht seemed to think it was important that they be disinterred. The way she spoke indicated that fate guided us to dig in this spot.” Jon paused. “I suppose they have a lot of heka.”

  “What’s that?” Isaac asked.

  “Heka? It’s ... I’m not sure. It’s magic, that’s for sure. Maybe—it’s more like fuel you use to do magic. Like oil you burn in a lamp. My father knows all about it. He’s just started to teach me about it recently. Very recently.”

  Isaac stopped digging himself and leaned on his shovel. He looked seriously at his friend.

  “Jon—” He started, stopped for a moment, then started again. “Your father took me in five years ago. He didn’t have to. He could have sold me. Could have turned me [181] over to the slave catchers. But he let me build a life here. He made me work hard, but he paid fair. Some day, because of him, I’ll be able to buy my own place, maybe.”

  “So?” Jon interrupted.

  “So—what I’m sayin’ is I got reason to be grateful to the man. And I am. But ... he’s a hard man to warm to. He never treated you right, nor any of your brothers and sisters ’cept Thomas.”

  “You think I don’t know that?”

  “I think you try to forget it,” Isaac said. “People talk, Jon. They respect him, maybe, but they’re also afraid of him. He’s a witch man, Jon.” Isaac shook his head. “It’ll all come to no good in the end. I know it. You were free from that part of him. It didn’t touch you. Sure, maybe you don’t go to church regular, but your soul is good, Jon. Your soul is bright. You won’t burn in Hell.”

  “But my father will?”

  Isaac just nodded.

  “Maybe he will,” Jon said softly.

  “This talk of ... heka ... of whatever ... Maybe he’s trying to draw you in, like Thomas. Thomas will follow him to Hell. Mark my words. But I don’t want you going down, too.”

  Jon smiled, touched by the worried look on his friend’s face.

  “Don’t worry about me, Isaac. I’ve got a lot of years left before the fires of Hell singe my hindquarters—”

  “Don’t none of us know how many years we got, Jon,” Isaac said soberly. “Look at Mister Derlicht.”

  Jon was saved from continued contemplation of his [182] mortality as Trudi approached, bearing a small elongated wooden cask that had been made by her father.

  “This should do to contain the ... remains,” she said after a moment of silent groping for the proper word.

  Jon nodded. He vaulted easily out of the pit and took the wooden cask from Trudi. It was about the size of a coffin made for a child. He knelt down on the grass beside the remains of the unnamed Hessian and carefully transferred them to the cask. They fit perfectly, almost as if the container had been made for them.

  There are no coincidences, Katja Derlicht had said before she’d mysteriously disappeared. Jon was beginning to think that she was right. Only, Jon thought, he had to be smart enough to understand the unseen connections, and he doubted that he was.

  They’d almost dug deep enough. After a few more shovelfuls of dirt Jon and Isaac looked at each other and nodded. It was finished. It took some doing to properly lower the coffin. Isaac finally had to scramble into the grave and support the narrow end as Jon at one end of the rope and Trudi at the other, slowly lowered the casket into the hole. Isaac had barely enough room to lower the end he was supporting, then squeeze aside and clamber out with Jon’s help.

  Jon wanted to go home, put his feet up and have a long, cool glass of cider, but they weren’t finished yet. Together, he and Isaac filled in the hole, finally tamping the leftover dirt into a two-foot-high mound.

  “I’ll make a cross as soon as I can, Miss Trudi,” Isaac said, when they were done.

  “And we can plant some flowers,” Jon offered.

  [183] “You’ve both been so kind,” she said, blinking back tears.

  Jon felt acutely uncomfortable. He wanted nothing more than to take her in his arms and comfort her, but he couldn’t. Circumstances wouldn’t allow it. They bound him tighter than unseen chains.

  “It’s nothing,” he finally said. “The least we can do.”

  Finally, as if she could hold back no longer, the tears came. They streamed down Trudi’s face as, helplessly, she went to Jon and Isaac both, hug
ging them and sobbing aloud. Isaac and Jon looked at each other helplessly, then back down to Trudi. They each held her awkwardly until she cried herself out and finally released them.

  “I—” she started to say, but shook her head as if the words couldn’t get past her lips. “Thank you,” she finally said.

  “Whatever you need,” Jon told her, “whenever you need it, you can call on me.”

  It looked like she wanted to speak again, but settled for a single quick nod of her head. If she couldn’t say anything more, Jon thought, certainly he couldn’t. Together, the three of them went down the slope of HangedMan’s Hill to Geiststadt. They parted at Trudi’s home.

  “Remember what I said,” Jon murmured.

  She nodded, and as if not trusting herself to speak, turned and ran into the shop.

  “Your brother,” Isaac said, “should be taking care of her, if they’re really to be married.”

  “You don’t believe he wants to marry her?” Jon asked. He didn’t ask Isaac how he knew of the supposed [184] upcoming nuptials. He knew all too well how fast news traveled in Geiststadt.

  Isaac shook his head. “Not for me to say, Jon.” He fell silent, a speculative look in his eye. “I wonder, though, at the quickness of it. Suppose he put a spell on her?”

  Jon was about to reply sharply, but he caught his tongue. Suppose, he wondered, Thomas did? It would explain the unreasonable speed at which their courtship—though you could hardly call it that—had moved. He doubted that Thomas intended to actually go through with the wedding. He knew that in the past Thomas had made easy promises to other women, and broken them just as easily when it suited him.

  “Maybe I should look into it,” he finally said.

  “Maybe you should,” Isaac agreed.

  The two friends headed toward Noir Manor in companionable silence. Jon was too tired to make conversation, almost too tired to think. It wasn’t a physical weariness. A strange mental malaise was pressing down on him, as if he were moving through water instead of air and the effort cost almost more energy than his mind could expend. He was too tired to discover a solution to his problems and then find the will to implement it.

  But he would. He would, after a bit of rest. After a short period of quiet contemplation in one of his favorite places.

  “Take the shovels,” he said, handing the implement he was carrying to Isaac. “Meet me in the kitchen in half an hour. I’ll have Callie rustle up some food and we’ll talk. We’ll make some plans.”

  Isaac nodded. “I’m feeling more than a little empty. [185] Maybe we can come up with something after we fill our bellies.”

  “Maybe,” Jon said. I hope so, he thought.

  He waved at his friend as they split up, Isaac taking the shovels back to their place in the barn, Jon heading for the Glass House. He hadn’t had a chance to observe the Corpse Flower for awhile now. He’d been too occupied with other things. A few minutes spent pondering the enigma that was the Corpse Flower would be more refreshing than eight hours of dreamless sleep.

  He entered the Glass House wondering how much longer the flower would remain in bloom before its stalk collapsed, when he saw the strange bundle stretched out before its basin. He stared at it for several long seconds, realizing almost immediately what it was but refusing to believe the evidence of his eyes.

  He walked up to it on stiff, unwilling legs, his mind just mumbling no, no, no, no, no, over and over again. He stood over it, sinking down to his knees without realizing it, his hand reaching out and touching the face, cool and dead, dead with bulging eyes unseeing, open mouth unspeaking, missing heart no longer pumping the blood pooled on the floor around it attracting buzzing flies by the score. His father, his great, powerful, commanding, mighty figure of a father was dead. Murdered. Slaughtered viciously like an animal, but with less thought and even less purpose because you killed an animal when you had to eat.

  Kneeling over his father’s body, hand outstretched and gently resting among the forest of beard that covered his cheek, Jon Noir swore vengeance upon the murderer [186] of his father, human or inhuman, vengeance as awful and bloody as the death that had called it out.

  By the time Thomas decided he’d better respond to the commotion a thick crowd had gathered around the Glass House. Everyone in Geiststadt, from Agatha Derlicht on down to the boys who shoveled the horse shit out of the barn stalls was milling around the structure, trying to get a look at the dead man who had once figured so high and mighty in their lives. They crowded around the entrance like children drawn to a puppet show, whispering the news like gossips meeting over a backyard fence.

  “He’s dead, ain’t he?”

  “It’s too much, too much—”

  “I’m scared, I am. Who’s to be next?”

  “Let me through,” Thomas said in his most commanding voice, to little avail. The bumpkins trampled the shrubbery planted around the Glass House, pressing their eager, dirty faces against the structure’s transparent sides like urchins peering through the front windows of a candy store.

  McCool suddenly appeared from nowhere and cleared a path for Thomas using his strident voice and sharp elbows.

  “Coming through! Look out! Let us through!”

  They met James at the entrance. He was coming out the door, his clubfoot dragging on the ground, his pale face empty.

  “Is it true?” Thomas demanded, trying hard to keep his expression stern and concerned at the same time. “Is it the Captain?”

  [187] “It is,” was all James could say, and he dragged himself to Noir Manor as fast as his crippled leg could take him.

  Enjoy the brandy, Thomas thought. It’ll be your last.

  It was stifling inside the House. The Corpse Flower reeked. The press of bodies in the enclosed room didn’t help, nor did the smell emanating from the Captain’s corpse.

  Jon was standing to one side, leaning against the great tub that held the Corpse Flower. Isaac was at his side. Seth looked pale and uncomfortable, but then he usually did. Callie had come from her accustomed spot in the kitchen. Somehow she’d had no trouble making her way through the crowd. Maybe it was because she was so small. Maybe it was because somehow the crowd unconsciously parted for her. She took one look at the Captain’s corpse, said some words in her native language too quietly for Thomas to understand, then left.

  Constable Pierce was standing over the body. He was murmuring his customary, “Good gracious.” Irving, next to him, managed to look excited and nauseated at the same time. Thomas was worried about him. Worried about whether or not the writer had noticed the bloodstain on his trousers earlier that afternoon. But when Irving looked up and caught Thomas’s eye, his reaction, his outpourings meant to be a consolation to a shocked and grieving son—a role Thomas knew that he had to play simply, without extravagance because he realized that he couldn’t afford to break nearly twenty-one-year’s worth of character—made it almost certain that he’d failed to notice the evidence. There were methods, though, that Thomas could use to make sure. He would, later.

  [188] That, basically, had been it. Much sound and fury, signifying nothing. No one had a single clue. Not even a single thought as to what had actually happened. It was time, Thomas thought, to broadcast the seeds of his purported theory far and wide.

  “Nothing human could have done this to the Captain,” he declaimed in his strong, husky voice, so much like that of Benjamin Noir’s that Thomas startled more than a few of the onlookers.

  “I beg your pardon?” Constable Pierce asked.

  “Nothing human could have done this to the Captain,” Thomas willingly repeated. “Physically, he was too strong. Too alert. Emotionally—he was too much loved. He had no enemies in Geiststadt.” Thomas smiled at Agatha Derlicht, who had just made her way through the crowd. She looked at him stonily. “Besides—those words carved into his chest: I AM RETURNED.”

  Thomas fell silent.

  “Yes?” Constable Pierce prompted.

  “Those words. Those terribl
e wounds.” Unexpectedly Thomas turned to Jon, who was still staring off sightless at some far distant vista playing in his own mind. “What do they suggest to you, Jonathan?”

  “To me?” his brother parroted like a dullard.

  “Yes. You remember the stories?”

  Jon nodded slowly. Every eye in the Glass House was on him. He was looking away, off to one side of the structure. Meeting no one’s gaze but seemingly staring at a small wooden barrel-shaped box that Thomas didn’t remember seeing there before.

  “Yes. They’ve been going through my head lately, as [189] well. The stories of the Hessian killed and mutilated on HangedMan’s Hill all those years ago.”

  “Tell us,” Washington Irving said eagerly.

  “Yes,” Thomas urged. This was going better than he had planned. Let Jon tell the story. He’d be remembered as the one who placed the blame for the unsolved killings on the ghostly shoulders of the long-dead Hessian. That was fine with Thomas.

  Jon started to recount the story of the horrific events of 1776. The audience was enthralled. They hung on his every word, even Constable Pierce. Especially, Thomas thought, Washington Irving.

  Thomas left before Jon had finished the tale. He’d heard it all before from Callie’s lips. His work done, his seeds planted, Thomas withdrew to Noir Manor to grieve.

  Besides, unless he missed his guess, it was time for supper.

  12.

  Monday, June 20th, the Fifth Intercalary Day

  Thomas thought it best to grieve in solitude. He had McCool bring a tray of food to his room and opened up a bottle of a nice hock he’d been saving for a special occasion. Even McCool was in a jolly mood. He’d “sorred” Thomas with only a hint of condescension—though, of course, Thomas was not one to discount past slights. Thomas ate his fill and drank perhaps a little to excess, but still, if you can’t celebrate when your ambitions have all been fulfilled, when can you?

  Thomas was now master of Noir Manor, and all the properties and monies accrued. It was all in the Captain’s will. He’d seen it himself. It was just a matter of being patient until it was brought forth and the terms announced. It wouldn’t do, he realized, to discover it himself. Perhaps Seth should. He would, too. It would be just like him to go snooping for it at the first opportunity.