The Thirteenth Child

by David Dean

  “That’s j-j-just it,” he stuttered at last. “Why not?—May as well before you poison yourself!” Rising unsteadily from his perch, he took Megan by a thin arm. “This one,” he bluffed; his voice shaky in spite of his best efforts, “she’s outlived her usefulness—that’s obvious. I’ll just take her off your hands before she sickens you. You’re not looking well, did you know that? I noticed it right off.” He tugged Megan to her feet to sway uncertainly at his side, his jacket brushing the wet ground.

  “As to those sad-looking specimens,” Preston waved airily at Connor and Jared, “I may as well take them off your hands, too. What do you say?” He gave Megan a slight shove in the direction of a distant street lamp, and hearing the faint scuffle of her small shoes, turned for the boys. The corners of Gabriel’s frog-like mouth turned more downward still.

  Ignoring this, he leaned over the creature to seize the arms of Connor and Jared, his heart thumping and straining within his chest. “Come along, boys,” he admonished them. “Stop wasting Gabriel’s time and endangering his health, you’ve done enough harm here already.” Jared began to struggle up, but Connor lay as heavy as death, his eyes fixed upon the cold, alien moon. “Up, up,” Preston commanded, “time to be on our way.”

  Gabriel shot out an arm, pressing his long white hand into Connor’s bony chest and seizing Jared by his thin wrist in the same moment. “None may leave here,” he hissed at Preston, pulling the smaller boy back down beside him, wrapping an arm around his quaking shoulders. Connor moaned from the pressure of the vampire’s hand upon his heart. Preston staggered back.

  “It cannot be that any return home. Now, return me my blood-calf,” he cried, pointing a dirty fingernail at Megan’s back. The musky bloom that Preston had come to associate with the vampire rose like a miasma amongst the drunkenly titling stones. Preston felt himself growing stupid and slow.

  “I’m only thinking of you,” he slurred, “Haven’t I made that much clear? You are poisoning yourself with these sickly brats!” From the corner of his eye he saw that Megan had somehow made it halfway to the perimeter road, his jacket trailing like a cape on her tiny frame. She appeared to be following the beacon of the distant street lamp as if on instinct.

  “No, the thing to do here is to cut your losses… move on to better choices. Only the weak-minded, or lazy, keep making the same mistake when they’ve been told better. That’s absurd on the face of it.” Blathering on, he was determined to buy the little girl as much time as he could—after all, did Gabriel understand any of this to begin with?

  “I’m only trying to help, to be of some service,” Preston struggled against the malaise that was enveloping him. “And far be it from me to tell you your own business, but if I were to be asked…”

  Springing to his feet, Gabriel swept Preston aside. The old man stumbled backwards, falling over a headstone and landing on the ground with a burst of exhaled breath. “Christ,” he managed to gasp, as Gabriel rushed past him like a wind. He struggled to sit up and catch his breath once more.

  From his low vantage, he could see that the creature was already upon the little girl. Though she was now but yards from the sporadic traffic of Cedar Drive, Gabriel overtook her, scooping her small, weakened frame into his nightmarish arms.

  Turning to the near insensate boys, he croaked, “Get up and run… do you hear me? Connor… Jared, get up and run—he can’t possibly manage all of us at once! Go!” Neither boy stirred, while already the creature was rushing back with his prize, bounding across tombstones and vaults like an elk.

  “Run,” he pleaded once more, as Gabriel bore down upon them, but still the boys sprawled amongst the markers, insensible to the impending danger.

  Crawling to some old fencing that surrounded one of the family plots, Preston strove to pull himself up, straining to find his feet as the poison of Gabriel’s presence dissipated. The upright he clung to separated itself from the rest with a tired groan and a scattering of rust, flinging Preston onto the muddy earth once more.

  As Gabriel closed the final yards to their location, Preston discovered that he held a short rusted spear in his grasp. “Run… please,” he managed one last time, but the ancient predator was upon them.

  Tossing Megan to the ground with a sickening thud, Gabriel stood looming over Preston. “They will speak of me should they live,” he declared, his breathing easy in spite of his exertions, “and this they must not do.”

  Even as the old man heard these measured words, he thrust upwards with the corroded paling. It was a poor position in which to gain the leverage he needed to kill the thing, but he knew that this might be his only chance. The point, with its heart-shaped flanges, flew towards the creature’s breast as Preston cried, “Die, Goddamn you!”

  Raking a furrow across the vampire’s ribcage, the crude tip brought a dark stain to the filthy shirt that clothed him. But Gabriel was quicker yet, twisting away from the point like a serpent while seizing Preston’s thin wrist and squeezing until the sound of grinding bone could be heard. Preston screamed like an animal as the impromptu spear went flying from his fingers.

  Retrieving the makeshift weapon with his free hand, Gabriel raised it on high, his wide jaw unhinging as if to swallow the moon. In spite of his excruciating pain, Preston understood that he had arrived at the end of his life, and gritted his teeth in anticipation. Yet Gabriel hesitated, the lower jaw reconnecting with a nauseating snap of cartilage.

  With a shrug, he tossed the iron spike into the tall yellow grasses, saying, “Soon enough you will take responsibility for these children, Preston Howard. Meanwhile, say nothing of my prizes to those that hunt me—these children belong to me now. Betray me, old man, and your own child shall surely die.”

  The languor that he had experienced earlier returned and Preston felt himself swooning into unconsciousness. He saw the glowing white moon sailing above him in the starry sky, a dark cloud reaching out to shroud it like a tattered funeral pall. Then, in the fast fading light, Gabriel’s broad pale face appeared inches from his own, his breath reeking, and Preston felt something warm dripping onto his shirt front. The scent of blood filled his nostrils.

  “I will require another before I sleep again,” Gabriel said quietly, his eyes never leaving Preston’s own, “and when that time is nigh, I will come to you. Until then, remember your own daughter… as I certainly shall.”

  Then the darkness that lapped at the edges of Preston’s consciousness rushed over him, sinking him into the crushing black depths of a subterranean sea.

  CHAPTER NINE

  Awakening to sunlight filtering through the yellow curtains, Nick watched Fanny’s bedroom glow into coherence. Lying in the warm bed, he wished he could be suspended in time, encapsulated in this moment that divided rest and pleasure, stress and responsibility. Fanny’s smooth backside was fitted against his hip, the naked flesh of her shoulders and long neck exposed by the ardor of their earlier exertions. Remembering his confused earlier waking in the small hours of the morning, he smiled.

  He had found Fanny studying his face from the pillow next to his, her eyes warm and dark in the faint light. How natural it had seemed to find her there at that moment, he thought. He had reached out for her and she had responded without reservation, and now he couldn’t recall having opened his eyes more happily on a new day in a very long time.

  Not wishing to disturb Fanny, or hasten the end of this interlude, he lay his head back down as softly as he could. But a gentle shifting beneath the covers told him he had failed in one thing already. Turning to see, he found Fanny regarding him with eyes narrowed in concern, her emotions flickering in rapid succession across her pale face. Nick knew, without a word, that she was wondering if she had done the right thing. It was clear she did not give herself lightly.

  Smiling warmly, Nick touched her cheek, and she took his hand within her own, pressing it against the softness of her flesh. “Good morning,” he said.

  Fanny smiled back. “Good morning.”
<
br />   “Do I know you?” he asked pleasantly, still smiling. “Have we met?”

  Fanny’s eyes widened.

  “I will say that you look familiar,” he continued, stroking his chin in thought. “Ever been arrested?”

  She punched his bicep… hard.

  “Hey,” Nick cried out, “that really hurt! There are laws against assaulting police officers, you know.”

  The trill of her laughter flew like a bird around the early morning room. “I don’t see a badge,” she countered, arching an eyebrow at his nakedness.

  “No, no badge…” he agreed, lifting the covers and peeking beneath them, raising an eyebrow in return. “But I do have a nightstick, madam… and I’m not afraid to use it.”

  Fanny snatched up a pillow and reared back.

  Nick sat up and threw his arms out. “Wait, wait! It’s coming back to me now… I’m beginning to remember.” He looked hard at her pouting face. “Let me see now… Franny is it? Did I get that right?”

  She flung the pillow at him. “I’m gonna kill you,” she promised, laughing once more, the upper half of her body springing free of the entangling blankets. Nick saw in the soft glow of the rising sun what he had only glimpsed in the earlier shadows of the night. She was beautiful—slender and fragile, with near pendulous breasts, her hair a wild tangle, her face alight with passion and happiness.

  He caught up the next pillow before she could hurl it, pulling her to him—on this morning he was not tired.

  ?

  When Nick awoke for the third time, it was to the ring tones of his own cell phone. Carefully pulling himself free of the tangle of Fanny’s long legs and arms, he felt for the trousers that he last remembered being on the bedroom floor. After several attempts he finally snagged them, searching the pockets for the persistent summons. Locating it at last, he glanced at the still-sleeping Fanny, before whispering, “Chief Catesby, may I help you?” Fanny stirred.

  “Chief?” the voice on the end inquired. “Is that you?—I can barely hear you.”

  Nick recognized the rasp of Captain Weller on the other end. “Yeah, Shad, it’s me,” he answered, raising his voice a little.

  “Are you coming in today?”

  “Yeah, I’m coming in… what… what time is it anyway?” Nick looked around the room for a clock.

  “It’s nearly eleven,” his second-in-command chuckled. “You tie one on last night or something?”

  Nick got the impression that Weller was speaking for the benefit of others in the room with him. “No,” he snapped, “I did not tie one on… or something. What’s this about… is there a problem, Captain?” He had overslept terribly. He should have been out with the search parties hours ago. Thank God he had Jack Kimbo heading up that effort—he would take care of things until he could arrive.

  “Depends on how you look at it,” Weller replied. “We’ve got that old drunk down here—the ‘professor.’ One of the patrols picked him up about dawn this morning—he was passed out in the Baptist cemetery. He’s a real piece of work, that one.”

  Stiffening at the news, Nick glanced at Fanny. Her eyes were open now and she was watching his face. He smiled easily at her, stroking the curve of her hip beneath the blankets. She mouthed the word, “Problem?”

  Nick shrugged, shaking his head. “That’s not all that unusual, Shad. What’s so special about this time?”

  “That would be the blood, Chief. He was found with blood on the front of his shirt and we can’t find a scratch on him. We thought that was a bit suspicious.” A long pause built up between the men.

  Nick knew he was being played, but had to ask, “What else, Shad? I get the feeling there’s something more to this… want to fill me in?”

  “Yeah,” Weller agreed, “there is something else. About thirty yards from the old man we found his parka. He identified it without batting an eye. He also demanded the brandy bottle we found in the pocket be returned to him forthwith… that was the word he used… forthwith.” Nick heard Weller’s sour chuckle in his ear.

  “You mind wrapping this up, Shad?”

  “Oh sure, Chief, yeah… there was a shoe underneath the jacket… it was a little girl’s pink sneaker with kittens on it. I thought it might be important so I called you.”

  Nick thought he heard suppressed laughter in the background. The sneaker sounded identical to the one Megan Guthrie had been wearing at the time of her disappearance. “Who’s there with you, Shad?”

  There was a too long pause, “Nobody, Chief… why?”

  “No reason,” Nick lied right back, sliding out of the warm bed and snatching up his pants on his way to the bathroom. Once inside he shut the door with his shoulder and said, “Except for this one, Shad—all the info you just told is strictly confidential to this investigation and I hope for your sake that you’re keeping it that way.”

  “Are you threatening me, Chief?”

  “No, Captain. I’m reminding you. Now, has Howard been questioned yet?”

  “No, we were waiting to hear from you.”

  “How about the shoe,” Nick asked, struggling into his underwear and trousers, “has that been shown to Megan’s parents yet?”

  “No, it hasn’t.”

  “Dogs…?”

  “They were brought to the scene and did what they’ve done every time… they tracked from the scent item a short distance before starting to tremble and whine and walk in circles—they were useless. Fuckin’ Sheriff’s Canine Unit ought to all be fired, if you asked me.”

  “Has the blood on his shirt been collected for evidence?”

  “Yep, that’s been done… anything else… Chief?”

  “Nope,” Nick answered in the same laconic tone. “I’ll be there shortly, just keep everything as is until I do.”

  Returning the phone to his pocket, he felt his heart pounding at the first real break in the case. In the same moment, he thought of where he was and who he had spent the night with and felt the excitement changing to dread. He splashed some cold water on his face, toweled off, and turned to the door, his mind racing. When he threw it open, Fanny sat up in alarm. She read his expression instantly.

  “Was that about dad? Is he down at the station?”

  Nick nodded, crossing to her and taking her hands. He hated himself for what he was about to do, but he had three missing children, possibly and quite probably murdered. “Do you believe in your dad’s innocence, Fanny? Do you truly feel that he’s had nothing to do with what’s happened to these children?”

  “Of course I do, Nick,” Fanny answered pulling her hands free of his. “I’ve already told you this, you know I do!”

  Looking directly into her eyes, Nick asked, “Then let me search his room, Fanny. You have the legal authority as the owner of this house to give me permission. If you believe as you say you do, and really want to help him, then you’ll give me that permission.”

  “Is that what this was all about Nick?” Fanny’s gaze took in the wrecked bed. “Is that why you’re here?”

  He seized her hands firmly in his once more and wouldn’t let go, “No it isn’t… I think you really know that, Fanny. But they’ve found your dad with blood on his shirt and a little girl’s sneaker… possibly Megan Guthrie’s. Do you understand? This isn’t about us at all—it’s about those kids.”

  Fanny looked back at Nick, her struggles dying away. She thought of Preston’s stories of Gabriel, his wild boy of the woods, and of her own research that appeared to bolster his crazy beliefs. She thought of the boy dressed like a scarecrow standing in the misting rain, his terrifying hand raised in mute greeting, his skin glowing as whitely as a slug’s. She thought of those children gone missing, both now and in the past, then she said quietly, “You have my permission, Nick, but I know you won’t find anything. He’s not like that. I know he’s not a good man… my God, I’ve known that my whole life… but he’s not like that.

  “I’m not sure what the truth is, Nick, but maybe dad’s stumbled onto something out t
here… but I know he didn’t harm those children… I know that much.”

  Pulling her housecoat around her, she stood up. “Come on, I’ll show you.” Taking Nick’s hand in her own, she led him down the hall to her father’s room.

  ?

  Sliding his shoeless feet off the narrow metal bunk, Preston placed them gingerly onto the grey cement floor, pushing himself upright. The cold seeped immediately through his worn socks and he flexed his toes to circulate the blood in his feet. His head felt as if it might burst with the steady unrelenting throb of his hangover, and his stomach was percolating with gastric acids.

  Staring at the toilet bolted into the corner of his tiny cell, its steel surface spattered with the squalid effluvia of earlier occupants, he prayed that he would not have to embrace this awful receptacle. Above this woeful throne, the unblinking lens of a camera observed his movements from within a plastic globe. The globe was speckled with tiny balls of moistened toilet paper. Preston glared up at it for several moments with a defiant expression he did not feel.

  Shivering now, he clasped his torso with his thin arms and began to rock himself. It was only then that he noticed he was in his undershirt, and that his shirt and parka had been taken along with his shoes and belt.

  “Bastards,” he murmured, his chapped lips adhering to one another. “Could I, at least, have some water?” he challenged the cloudy globe.

  “I know you people can hear me,” he said a little more loudly, causing the throbbing in his head to worsen. “Bastards,” he repeated more softly now.

  As if only waiting for this simple request, he heard the metal door to the cell block clang open. Startled, he wondered if they heard what he said. He set his expression and hoped that it did not reveal his alarm.

  He heard a quick confident tread, and then a young uniformed officer arrived at his cell door. They looked at one another through the bars.

  “Well,” Preston managed, “am I being released? On what charges are you holding me, I would like to know, and where are my clothes?—I demand them back this instant.”