by David Dean
THE THIRTEENTH CHILD
David Dean
Copyright © 2012, 2014 David Dean
All Rights Reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced by any means without the written permission of the author or publisher, except for short passages used in critical reviews.
This book is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to actual places, events, or persons living or dead is entirely coincidental.
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Second Edition
CONTENTS
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
With the birth of a novel, the author, at some point, gratefully becomes a small cog in the machinery of creation. If he is truly fortunate, he awakes one day to discover how many people had faith in his efforts and loyally contributed their own. I am one of the fortunate.
“The Thirteenth Child” was saved from an early grave (no pun intended) by the intervention of my publisher, the dedicated, hardworking, and I like to think, keenly astute, Steven Booth. This intervention may not have happened had his equally perspicacious wife, Leya, not recognized the potential of my novel as she labored at proofreading it in its earliest incarnation. Their continued faith is demonstrated in this much improved second edition. To both of these folks I remain terribly grateful.
Developmental editor Chris Westphal weighed in and taught me that there is some brutality required in the creative process, and that the reader, not the writer, is the most important person in the relationship of book, author, and audience. He also suggested the title of the book which I instantly adopted as my own. My original title was more of a short story.
Finally, I must pay homage to my own family who has been my very earliest supporters and critics. Tanya, Bridgid, and Julian have suffered through numerous readings and been both kind, and demanding, seldom settling for my “best” efforts, in spite of the fact that I am their dear and beloved father.
And, of course, there is Robin, my wife and companion of many, many years, the patron saint of all that is worthy in me, and the forgiving lover of all that isn’t. Her faith has never wavered and I hope it never does.
CHAPTER ONE
Megan Guthrie watched from the swing as the older girls, all giggles and whispers, swirled across the schoolyard like a flock of starlings. The few boys left in the playground slashed away at one another with sticks, shouting and laughing, the entire group drifting toward the lit widows of their homes. As the autumn darkness crept forth from the nearby woods, the arc of Megan’s swing deteriorated with lack of attention, coming slowly to a standstill.
Hopping down from the rubber seat, she watched as the others broke into ever smaller groups, some girls now walking with boys as they headed for their respective houses. Megan had no idea why those girls should be interested in boys, who were always pushing and yelling.
Noticing the dust on her pink sneakers she knelt to brush them off so that she could see the white kittens imprinted on them, smiling at the bows on their heads. When she straightened up she saw a boy watching her from the wood line. Her mouth puckered in discomfort at being scrutinized, even as she stared back across the intervening distance.
In the graying twilight, she could see that he was a teenager, which did not so much surprise her, as she had overheard remarks from older kids in the playground about teenagers and their fondness for the woods. These types of remarks were always accompanied by the kind of laughter that made Megan feel stupid.
She did find it surprising that the boy was wearing a shirt much too small for him—a green tee shirt that was torn and stained. The rest of him was obscured by the vines and shrubs that grew in profusion right up to the short, chain-linked fence he stood behind. As evening settled over them, his partially exposed torso and face glowed whitely.
Raising a hand into the air, he held it there. Megan waved shyly back, then folding her hands together looked down at her shoes. She could no longer hear the other children and longed to turn and see where they might be, but the boy’s hand arrested her like a warning—a hand that was much larger than her own father’s, with fingers as long and thin as a crab’s legs. Even the crickets that had been so loud moments before were now silent. Megan’s small nose wrinkled at the cloying odor that crept across the damp grass like a fog. She studied the kitties in her discomfort, but they appeared very far away now.
Looking up once more, Megan found the boy on her side of the fence and scant yards away. She gasped, but he held up an impossibly long finger as if to silence her.
His large face was clearer to her now, and he was smiling, a panting half-smile that reminded her of her dog, Barclay, a big, happy Labrador retriever, always pleased to be in her company. Still he remained silent, as did the world around them; the musk that traveled with him cloaking Megan in a warm drowsiness.
She had never seen a boy, or anyone else for that matter, with such long arms and legs and she thought he looked like a large white spider, or perhaps a grasshopper. The blackened jeans he wore came half way down his stringy calves.
Then he was with her, and his face, its great eyes glistening with a color that reminded her of dragonfly wings, appeared before her own. The long thin arms, which he carried before him in the manner of a praying mantis, unfolded slowly toward her, the fingers spreading open like the clam rakes she had seen the local fishermen use. It was then she became afraid, a tiny moan escaping her lips.
?
Preston Howard awoke and sat abruptly upright, his head throbbing with every pulse of his heart. Clasping one side of his skull with one hand, the other fluttered through the dry leaves in search of the bottle he knew must lie close. Seizing it at last, he grunted in satisfaction, sweeping off the cap with a practiced motion while bringing the bottle to his parched lips.
The whiskey spread through his guts in a warm, welcome gush and, like a vapor, rose up his spine to arrive at his clouded brain. Once there it swept away the pressure and confusion, and he found the world around him taking on bearable color, recognizable definition. It was much darker than when he had sat down to rest and refresh himself.
Squinting through his smarting, bloodshot eyes, he was able to conclude that he rested at the very edge of the elementary schoolyard.
Sweeping a hand through his long, unclean hair, he tossed the now-empty bottle onto the grass. As he struggled to regain his feet he noticed a boy, revealed as a silhouette cut as sharply as if with scissors—a black crepe figure some twenty yards distant. The sun, sinking below the horizon, streaked the blue of the sky with fingers of crimson, its failing light clothing the field in shades of gray. Standing perfectly still, the boy appeared to be watching something intently. .
He leaned forward—was that a little girl standing there? The whole scene had an unearthly stillness about it, a sketching of something terrible about to happen.
Struggling to raise himself up, Preston felt suddenly alarmed. Using the tree he had passed out beneath, he pushed himself upwards by his long skinny legs, his worn tweed jacket sliding roughly up the bark. A flock of crows, hidden in the treetops, clucked and chuckled darkly to one another, then went silent once
more.
As Preston gained his considerable height, the boy who had somehow closed the distance between the girl and himself with eye-blurring speed stopped, frozen in the act of reaching out for the child, and turned his great head to look at Preston. The boy was now staring at him and Preston froze too, his thick, dry tongue sticking to the roof of his mouth.
“Hey,” he managed to gasp. “What are you doing there?” He flapped a hand helplessly at the two of them.
Even at a distance, the boy’s utter stillness was uncanny and unnerving, especially now that Preston understood himself to be the target of his patient scrutiny. No child could be that still, he thought.
The girl dropped to the earth like a marionette whose strings had been cut and lay still, the boy poised over her body.
Pushing off from the tree, Preston stumbled a few feet in her direction, beads of sweat forming along his receding hairline. “Little girl,” he slurred, “Are you hurt?”
The strange boy suddenly closed the distance that separated himself and Preston, arriving before him like a wind, his face mere inches from Preston’s own. Preston caught a whiff of a cloying, musky odor and felt himself back-pedaling until once more his back was against the tree.
Appearing no more than fourteen, the boy was indifferent to Preston’s startled scrutiny, studying the older man in his turn without the least appearance of self-consciousness. Beneath the patina of filth, Preston could see that the child’s flesh was a sickly white, his hair a muddy brown, thick and wavy, strewn with leaves, twigs, and other debris from the forest floor.
It was the eyes, though, that arrested Preston’s attention; the remarkable eyes, overly large and almond-shaped, quickening with any sudden movement made on Preston’s behalf—canine, or feline, Preston couldn’t decide, but hardly human. The mouth did nothing to dispel this animal impression, as it was impossibly wide, frog-like, the lower jaw hanging open in a parody of a smile.
The boy began to gently pant and Preston recoiled from his foul breath.
Though he tried to contain his horror at the child’s unnaturally long limbs and digits, he was certain that his disgust must be evident. Yet, the boy appeared unaffected, composed; almost cheerful.
What kind of child was this? Had the mother and father of this boy kept him hidden away, he wondered? It seemed incredible that he had ever run amongst the children of Wessex County.
“Who are you, boy?” he asked. “Who are your parents?”
The boy appeared to consider these questions while plucking something that wriggled from the tangle of his hair. After studying his capture for a moment, he plopped it into his mouth, chewing it thoughtfully before allowing the crushed remains to slide off the end of a long, pointed, blood-red tongue.
Wincing at this casual and nauseating act, Preston managed to say, “Where do you live then? Do you live nearby?”
The boy examined his horny nails before sucking on the one that had pierced the devoured insect. After a moment, he lisped, “Nearby.”
Preston observed the long, furred hand and felt faint. The feet were similarly covered in stiff hairs, and were too long and narrow. “Nearby?” he asked, “Where, nearby? Have you recently moved here?”
Ignoring the first half of his question, the boy answered the second. “I have always lived here,” he said through his teeming, overly-long teeth. “I live here, yet.”
“Yet…” Preston repeated. “I have never seen you before.”
“I have just awakened,” he replied.
Preston was unable to detect guile or sarcasm. In the near distance, the sun sank redly into the Delaware Bay.
“Why are you here anyway?”
“I like the children,” the boy answered. “I come to play with them.”
Preston’s thoughts returned to the little girl lying in the damp grass, even as he felt his head growing heavy. It seemed the musky odor of the boy had grown stronger in the last few moments, though the smell seemed less repellant than before.
A sudden and distant memory of his days as a literature professor occurred to him, even as he slid drunkenly back down the trunk of the tree, his narrow rump settling on the soft, damp earth. “Gabriel,” he said aloud to the darkening gloom, remembering the famous story by H. H. Munro about a gentleman who finds an unsettling, feral boy living on his estate. “That’s who you are—Gabriel-Earnest!”
The boy’s eyes remained fixed upon him, but Preston no longer felt afraid—he felt incapable of any fear at all. “Have you read the story?” he asked, then giggled. “Of course you haven’t… who reads anything good anymore?”
His head, sinking onto his chest, suddenly popped up once more before settling by degrees a final time. After a few moments he began to snore as the boy continued his uncanny scrutiny.
“Gabriel,” the boy said at last, as if trying the word out. Then, in the few remaining moments before the world was plunged into blackness, he turned with astounding swiftness, bounding like a deer across the playground. Slowing only long enough to scoop the still-unconscious girl into his arms, he carried her over the fence and into the woods. Not a branch was disturbed by his silent passage. He was gone.
After a few moments, Preston’s head snapped up once more, his eyes flying open. Scrambling to his feet at the thought of the little girl, he cried, “Hey… I…” But there was no one to be seen in the heavy dusk.
Turning round and round in the gloom, staring wildly, he feared his mind was, at last, coming loose from the drink. But as true darkness fell, he too fled towards home and away from the silent schoolyard.
CHAPTER TWO
Hearing the insistent summons through layers of exhaustion, Nicholas Catesby remained sunk into his mattress like a man dropped from a great height. After a while he heard someone say tiredly, “Oh God,” then realized that it was himself.
Shrilling into life once more, the sound of the cell phone sent his large hand slapping and pawing across the surface of the nightstand, seeking the source of his torment.
His thick fingers closing upon their prey at last, Nick sat up in a single motion, bringing the phone to his ear, and mumbling, “Chief Catesby.” The pause on the other end allowed the unmistakable crackle of police radio traffic to bleed over into the connection.
He heard a woman say in the background, “Ten-four; I’m getting him on the line now.” Then suddenly she was in his ear, “Chief,” a raspy female voice questioned, “Are you there?” His bedside clock glowed 4:40 AM.
Nick thought Diana sounded frightened and tired and he could tell from long experience that she had made herself hoarse making lots of phone calls. None of this was good.
“I’m here,” he answered. “What have you got?” He flicked on his bedside lamp, wincing at the sudden light. Reaching out to his wife’s side of the bed, he found only cool sheets awaiting his touch. After nearly a year it still surprised him.
“Brace yourself,” Diana said. Nick sat up straighter, finding himself doing exactly as she commanded. As she was not an alarmist, he was greatly alarmed. “We’ve got a missing child.”
Nick felt the pronouncement like a physical blow. “You’re fuckin’ kidding me, D,” he choked out. “Who is it?” He felt like he was waking up to a nightmare.
It was the anniversary of little Seth Busby’s disappearance seven years before; he had posters plastered all over town. He did it every year leading up to the anniversary in the hopes of someone remembering something after all these years. Every year he was disappointed. He was scheduled to meet with the child’s parents today, prior to making yet another televised plea for information. My God, he groaned inwardly, is this some kind of terrible, cruel joke?
“It’s a fourth grader from the public school. Her name is Megan Guthrie. Her family lives right next to the school as a matter of fact.”
“How long has she been missing?” Nick asked.
There was a slight pause, “Since yesterday evening, around sundown, between six-thirty or seven.”
&n
bsp; Nick glanced once more at the clock, making hasty calculations, then said, “D, that’s over ten hours ago, why wasn’t I called before now?”
There was another pause. “Chief, I was told by the captain not to bother you until he gave the word. He said he didn’t want to worry you.” She didn’t sound like she believed Weller’s excuse, and neither did Nick.
“That was very considerate of him,” he drawled. “Is there any reason to believe this is a kidnapping?”
“I don’t know, Chief, but I don’t think so from what I’ve picked up so far. It sounds like she just wandered away from the other kids when they were on their way home from the school playground.”
“I see,” he replied, thinking hard. “Am I to take it that little—or no—progress has been made up till now, and that since Captain Weller has not made himself a hero that I’m being called in to shoulder the blame?”
There was no answer to this from the other end and Nick felt ashamed for putting a dispatcher into the middle of a personal issue. “I’m sorry, D. Ignore what I just said… I’m not completely awake yet. Guess I’m a little cranky… sorry.”
“That’s okay, Chief,” Diana responded. “I’ve worked here for a while, you know… I understand.”
Nick swung his legs over the edge of the rumpled bed and strode toward the bathroom. “I know you do, D. That’s why you’re the best. I’ll be there in a few minutes,” he promised.
“Tell the Cap to get everyone together: detectives; the dayshift patrol sergeant, school resource officer, and ask for a K-9 team from the sheriff’s office. Also make sure the Prosecutor’s Office has been notified as well and see…”
“They’re all here, Boss,” she interrupted him. “They’re all in the squad room waiting on you.”
Nick stopped short. “I see,” he managed, imagining a room full of impatient officers awaiting their tardy chief and feeling the flush of humiliation warming his throat. “Well, I’ll be there as quickly as I can.” He decided to forego the shower and shave.