The Thirteenth Child

by David Dean

  “Who am I supposed to gun down?”

  “It looks like a boy… a teenage boy.”

  “Looks like?” Jack asked.

  “Yeah… looks like. I’ll explain later. But for now, take my word for it, Jack, and kill it. I’ve seen it up close. And I’ve touched it. You’ll know what to do if we find it.”

  Turning to Beckam, Jack whispered loudly, “Are you taking the same drugs as him, and if so, can I have some?”

  Beckam answered, “I’m with the chief on this—he’s right—kill it.”

  They came to a halt before the narrow grey stone building. “He’s had more than enough time to get here and kill all three children, God help them,” Nick said. “But, I don’t think he would chance it. He knows that we’re hot on his heels now, and he’s got a very developed sense of self-preservation. He couldn’t know how quickly we would get here.” Then added, “That is, if we’re in the right place, if this is where he’s keeping them.”

  Advancing upon the barred gate that covered the door, Nick and Beckam took a deep breath. Nick gave it a yank but it remained fast. Without ceremony, the two men applied their pry bars, popping it open with a screech of metal-on-metal. Then they attacked the bronze-sheeted door within. This too gave way with a shriek and they stepped back, puffing with exertion and nerves, to allow Jack to illuminate the interior. The faint stench of the long dead wafted out to them as they crowded together in the narrow doorway. At the bottom of a short flight of carved stone steps lay the vault. Within, a tier of coffins lined each wall: one to a bier and three high. Dust lay thick and undisturbed on the floor.

  Jack laid his flashlight on the floor, rolling it gently from side-to-side, but no footprints revealed themselves—the chamber had not been visited in a very long time.

  “The next one,” Nick commanded. “It’s getting late.”

  With increasing proficiency the trio assaulted one vault after the next, the results varying only in degree by the horror they inspired. In some, the contents, like the first, were orderly and serene—the coffins unbroken and their occupants confined. In others, chaos had been introduced by the settling of foundations and seepage, through which roots and white tendrils had crept forth over the years to fill the fetid space with sickly growth.

  As their flashlight beams penetrated these funereal hot houses, Beckam saw that a number of the coffins had been pried open by the penetrating vegetation, the roots disappearing within and now, presumably, corpse-fed. The stench of rotted flesh had affected him little, but at this sight he struggled not to gag.

  Exhausted by their exertions and the prospect of failure, the searchers made their way to the final mausoleum. It lay closest to the edge of the woods that ran northward to join the great Pine Barrens, resting atop a slight knoll. Nick surmised that the small hillock had been the creation of the family that had erected the crypt, as it was the only elevated spot in the cemetery and certainly not natural to the terrain. With a growing sense of despair he urged the others forward.

  A great dying oak stretched its bare twisted limbs toward their final goal as if to seize it and uproot it from the earth itself. Its giant roots erupted here and there like petrified serpents. They pushed on, the odor of the dead clinging to their hair and clothes.

  Interrupting the exhausted silence that had fallen over them all, Jack said quietly, “I think that door is open a little.” He played the beam of his flashlight up and down on the entrance. Slowing, the men strained their eyes, but it was impossible to determine in the sharp black shadows thrown by the waning moon.

  “You got it, Jack?” Nick asked.

  “I’ve got it,” he responded bringing his pistol into alignment with his light which now remained steady on the door.

  Nodding to Beckam, Nick and he circled round to approach from the side.

  Drawing nearer, they could see that the door, a heavy-looking, copper-sheeted one with thick, narrow panes of glass in it, was indeed open, but just an inch or so.

  Nick and Beckam set their pry bars onto the grass, drawing their own weapons now. With his pocket light in his left hand, Nick edged closer still, bringing his left eye to the tiny aperture. He could detect no movement within the greater darkness that lay inside. The smell of the dead was present, but faint. The open door might account for that, he reasoned. His own ragged breathing interfering, Nick strained to hear any movement within; then risked the light.

  The beam flooded the cramped interior with brilliant bluish-white light illuminating the scene within like a flash-photo. Every detail of the death room was revealed with an intensity that burned itself onto his retina, but even so it took him several moments to comprehend what he was looking at: The coffins within had been swept onto the floor of the vault, their occupants tossed from their confines by the impact. These lay in a tangle of rotting bodies whose features had long ago been erased by a black fungus that even now masked the visages of the most recently dead, while the oldest had their faces eaten away by its ravages. The most ancient were little more than skeletons with clots of hair adhering to their skulls. Their tattered clothes showed that both male and female shared the crypt, and these same remnants displayed styles that hearkened back to the 1800s. The most recent sported a dark suit that was popular in the mid-sixties and, but for patches of damp that appeared to have seeped from within it, appeared almost serviceable.

  Nick recoiled, his brain momentarily overloaded by the morbid tableau. Why were they thrown to the floor? Who would do such a thing, and why, he wondered. He saw that Beckam was watching his face in some alarm. He had not yet looked in.

  Grimacing, Nick returned to the crack in the door, once again flooding the awful room with light. There’s a reason for this, he told himself, and that is what he must look for. Even so, it was difficult to tear his eyes away from the horror of the ravaged faces that appeared to seek his own. Those with empty eye sockets were awful, but it was the few that retained their eyes that were worse—the grey jelly reminding him of things that floated in the darkest depths of the sea.

  Forcing the beam of the light to move away from the tangled dead, he played it along the perimeter of the room. As the light rose to reveal the emptied biers on which the vandalized caskets had once rested, he saw why they had been displaced—on three of the lower shelves lay the bodies of a young girl and two teenage boys.

  Nick felt the breath stop in his chest, and for a moment he could make no sound. Having studied their photographs so closely over the past weeks, he had no doubt at whom he was looking—he had found the stolen children.

  The flashlight shook in his hand, its light wavering up and down within the crypt, giving the appearance that Megan’s chest rose and fell ever so slightly. With all the will he could muster, Nick steadied his hand and held his breath. In the dank air of the fetid room a tiny, almost invisible vapor arose from her whitened lips.

  Turning to the puzzled Beckam who had become transfixed by the play of emotion on his chief’s normally stoic face, Nick cried, “They’re in there, Beck—by God, the children are in there!” He set his shoulder to the door and began straining. Immediately, Beckam followed suit.

  With a groan they pushed the door open, Nick shouting in his excitement, “We’ve found’em, Jack, we’ve found’em—and I think they’re alive!” To his surprise he felt tears rolling down his stubbled cheeks.

  Jack jogged toward them, as Beckam stood arrested in the doorway by the awful spectacle within. Nick surged forth, stepping over the bodies to reach the children. Placing a finger to Megan’s carotid artery, he felt a rapid, thready pulse. Her face was so desiccated and white that she looked more like an old woman than a child. “Call for three rigs,” he commanded Beckam who was already doing exactly that on his cell phone.

  “Oh my God,” he heard Jack say as he arrived at the entrance and took in the scene.

  Nick hurried over to the boys. They too clung to life in bodies impossibly frail. It was clear that none had been given nourishment of any kind,
their life or death a matter of indifference to the creature, but for the blood they supplied. There was no sign of Gabriel.

  “Let’s get them out of here,” Nick said his voice hoarse with emotion. Lifting the near-weightless body of Megan into his arms, he carried her out of the crypt and toward the service road. The others followed suit with Jared and Connor.

  As the ambulances approached, Nick nodded at Jack, saying, “Do you mind sticking around and dealing with the prosecutor’s office on this? They’re going to need someone to explain to them what’s going on and they will not want it to be me—I’ve got to get to Fanny.”

  Jack smiled in agreement, “Always happy to cooperate with local law enforcement. Of course, I don’t have any idea at this point what is going on, but I’m sure you’ll enlighten me in the fullness of time. Meanwhile, I’ll just tell them that you were acting under exigent circumstances—that’s what I always tell my boss.”

  “Thanks, Jack. You’re the best.” He turned now to Beckam. “Beck, I’m going to ride over in the rig with Megan—follow me over in the unmarked… we may need it.”

  “Sure, Chief.”

  Nick studied the younger man for a moment before saying, “You’re a good man, Beck. I appreciate you sticking with me on this.”

  “Any reason I shouldn’t have, Boss?”

  “A few, maybe, but its better if you don’t know what they are… you’d lose deniability.”

  Hefting Jared into a more comfortable position in his arms, Beckam’s placid smile returned. “You got the kids back, Boss… that’s all anyone will care about in the end. That’s what was important.”

  “Yeah,” Nick agreed, adding, “But I still intend to kill the animal that did this.”

  Still smiling, Beckam replied, “Only if you get to him first, Chief.”

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  Nick stood in the doorway for several moments watching the rise and fall of Fanny’s chest in the darkened room. Her breathing appeared regular, if shallow. A white sheet had been pulled up to her chest and her thin arms, pierced by several tubes, lay to either side of her slender form. If it were not for the movements of her chest, he would have thought the presence of Father Gregory at her side was evidence of death. Even so, the sight gave rise to a feeling of panic and near despair.

  Preston sat with his back to the door, his chair drawn up to the bed. Stroking Fanny’s hand from time to time, he rested his forehead on the edge of the mattress. When Nick thought of the contagion and horror that had nearly taken her, he felt a terrible heat swell up into his heart, his brain.

  Father Gregory, his large eyes red and veined with lack of sleep, glanced up to see the policeman in the doorway. Rising to his feet, he cried in a hushed voice, “Chief Catesby, please do come in!” Appearing relieved, he held out his arms in welcome. “Come sit,” he indicated his own chair. “You must be exhausted from your efforts this night.”

  Nick took a few steps toward Fanny as Preston, lifting his head, turned to look at him. He appeared confused, as if he did not recognize Nick, then his exhausted features cleared and reaching out, he seized Nick’s wrist with surprising power, “Thank you… thank you for saving her,” he whispered.

  “The children,” Father Gregory ventured. “Were you also successful in this?”

  Nick smiled, “Yes… yes, we were. They are here in the hospital now. But I don’t know how well things will turn out for them, Father. They’ve been deprived of blood and oxygen for a very long time—it didn’t even bother to feed them—they’re in bad shape, and even if they survive they may never be whole again, maybe not even sane. I’m not sure that I’ve done them any good in the end.”

  “Leave that to God,” the priest directed him, “and do not take too much upon yourself.”

  Lowering himself into the recently vacated chair, Nick regarded the pale face of his lover. “And Fanny?” he asked.

  “She will be well according to the doctors here. They assure us that she has nothing to fear, but will be well once more—you’re intercession was most timely, Chief Catesby.”

  Taking Fanny’s thin hand into his, Nick studied the blue veins that threaded their way just beneath the surface of her flesh. He noticed that his own fingers were dirty with the filth of the graveyard.

  Nick looked across the bed to Preston, who watched the face of his daughter as if she were someone new and unknown to him. “Preston,” Nick murmured, “have you any idea where this boy… this thing might be? Did it tell you anything at all about where it might sleep?”

  Preston’s gaze shifted to the younger man’s face and he said quietly, “I should have killed it as soon as I knew what it was.

  “Vanity,” he continued after a moment. “It understood me well enough to appeal to my vanity. One of the deadly sins, isn’t it, Father?”

  “Oh yes,” he assured Preston.

  Nick said nothing to all this, but waited. Outside the window, he noticed the sky over the Atlantic had begun to redden—a thin crimson line at the far side of the ocean. The unpleasant aroma of institutional food wafted its way into the room mingling with the smell of carbolic cleansers. Nick felt the threat of nausea.

  “The only thing I can recall,” Preston resumed without inflection, “is something about a house with wings—he said he liked those.”

  “Wings…” Nick repeated, “… are you sure?”

  “Yes, that’s what he said, but I think he might have been referring to windmills.”

  “Windmills…?”

  “There used to be a number of them in the county, they were used as grist mills in the days before electricity. You forget,” Preston lapsed into his more usual lecturing tone, “there was a lot of Dutch influence in this region during the colonial period, but so far as I know, the last of them collapsed ages ago and it was a ruin even then. I think I read it was in the 1890s.”

  Sitting back in his chair, Nick replied, “Interesting… but not very helpful.”

  “May I add my own thoughts here?” Father Gregory asked from his position by the window. Both men turned to look at him. “As Preston instructed us as to windmills, I recalled the vampire’s words when kneeling at the Tabernacle. He said,” Father Gregory paused for effect, “‘I listen… .’” The other men stared at him. “These words had little meaning to me until now. I assumed that he listened at windows like a thief in the night. But when our professor reminded us of the history of this county, I recalled that Our Lady of the Visitation Church began at the site of a derelict mill, just as he described—the original part of the building being constructed on the foundations of the mill itself! This was told to me by none other than Monsignor Mulcahy.

  “The miller donated the land to the early church here out of the goodness of his heart, though he was not even Catholic… remarkable, don’t you think?”

  “Yes, yes,” Preston said. “Come to the point, for God’s sake!”

  “Have I not done so?” Father Gregory appeared perplexed. “I believe he is dwelling somewhere in the church itself—even he is drawn to the worship of God, though he cannot know Him, poor creature! I would imagine that he is hiding somewhere in the cellar—from there he can listen quite well to all that goes on above him.”

  Nick and Preston looked at one another as a voice at the door said, “I’ll bring the car around front.” It was Beckam.

  “Do that,” Nick agreed, then said to Father Gregory and Preston, “You two come with me.”

  Fanny suddenly gasped in her sedated sleep, startling the men. Outside, the widening red eye of the distant sun cast its first shadows of the day.

  ?

  Nick knelt to examine the padlock that secured the entrance to the church’s cellar. Showing no signs of tampering, it rested undamaged against the twin metal doors that lay almost flush to the ground. He looked up at Father Gregory whose dark face was impassive in the fading grey of the new dawn. The priest shrugged while Preston looked on. The hinges appeared unmolested as well.

  Nick saw Beck
am approaching them from the rear of the church. As he neared, the young officer announced with quiet urgency, “I think I’ve found the way he gets in.”

  Nick stood, feeling the blood rush from his head as he did so. Father Gregory seized his arm in a steadying grip. “You have exhausted yourself, Chief Catesby,” he observed.

  The senior policeman said nothing in reply, following his subordinate to a small window built into the foundation at the rear of the church. It, like the others that had been installed long ago, was meant to provide light and, if necessary, ventilation to the basement rooms of Our Lady. In a nod to the times, all were screened by metal grates bolted into their concrete casements. Kneeling, Beckam pulled it away from the window, holding it up for his superior’s inspection. “The window isn’t locked either, boss.”

  Nick could see at a glance that none of the men present could fit through the small aperture, not even the diminutive Father Gregory. It would only accommodate someone the size of a slender child. The glass was dusty and smeared, but Nick noted that no cobwebs had grown over it. The next nearest lay behind a cloud-like mass of spun quivering fibers, the rising sun captured in dozens of dewdrops trapped within it. Behind the filthy glass the cellar remained obscure, as precious little light penetrated the darkness within. Clearly, someone… or something had made use of the window Beckam had discovered. It was crafty of Gabriel to have left the cellar doors intact, Nick thought—he was a clever creature.

  “Beck, stay here and stand guard over this window. If that thing comes out… kill it.”

  The younger man, even paler than usual in the weak morning light, nodded in agreement while unlimbering his gun with the ease of much practice. He let it rest against his thigh in an easy grip and stood as casually as a man waiting for a bus. “Don’t worry, chief,” he said.

  Hurrying back to the other two men, Nick pointed at the lock. “Father, if you would do the honors.”