Applewood (Book 2): Fledge

by Myers, Brendan P.

  Mercifully, he felt himself breathe again as the potion or whatever it was began to wear off. He began opening and closing his right hand to verify he could when he began to hear the sound of hammering. His wooden prison shuddered with each hammer strike. They were nailing it shut. An endless howl escaped his throat that soon turned into a hoarse wail. He remembered then that he could move. By the time the seventh or eighth nail was hammered home, he was pounding on the roof. But he had no room to lift his arms or any leverage so his fists made no sound at all.

  He began to cry and shout.

  “Julian! Lucas! I’ve changed my mind. Please let me out! I’ve changed my mind!” When he felt the box begin to move as if on wheels his shouts became more urgent.

  “Julian! Please stop! How can you do this to me? Please . . . please . . . stop!”

  The casket bumped against the wall as it left his bedroom to go into the hallway he had passed down so many times before. It rolled halfway down the hall to where the elevator was. He felt it begin to rise and a moment later they were out. After passing down the carpeted hallway, the wheels began to make a metallic whirring sound as it began moving across the heavy marble of the main lobby floor. When bitter winter chill drifted into his coffin, he knew they were outside.

  “Stop . . . please! I’m cold, Julian. I’m so cold. I haven’t even eaten yet. How can you do this to me? I thought you liked me? I thought we were friends!”

  He hated the way his voice sounded, hated to beg for anything. He felt his rolling vessel begin bumping along over what could only be snow encrusted earth. His head bounced up and down upon the small satin pillow and then he felt a pang of hunger to go along with the cold. “Julian . . . please!” he screamed. “Stop!”

  Then, mercifully, it did stop. They had finally heard him.

  He let out a long breath. So that was it, he thought, and then knew with certainty that it was. His eyes began to tear up with relief. He pondered what he would say to Julian in a moment or two when he opened the casket. He was aware the experience had changed him somehow. It was hard to put into words, but he felt it deep inside. Whether simply the natural fear of death, or his anger at being forced to plead for his life. Whatever it was, he knew then he was a deeply changed person. And though still angry with Julian, he understood now why he had done it. Strangely, he felt almost grateful for it and looked forward to talking with him about it.

  While waiting for them to let him out, he felt the box begin to dip backward before sliding forward headfirst with a loud crash. His body rose and fell inside, bouncing around within until it banged down again on the layer of thin satin not built for comfort. Moments later, he heard a hydraulic, mechanical sound and then felt himself being lowered.

  He screamed.

  He pounded his fists bloody against the top of the coffin.

  “Julian! Julian!”

  Then, his fear turned to anger. His fangs extended. His words were lost amid the snarling and snapping of teeth.

  The hydraulic movement stopped. A moment later, he heard metallic thuds against the wood followed by the high pitched whine of a hydraulic mechanism reversing gear. He had a sudden, remembered vision of standing beside an open grave and watching someone he loved being put into the ground. When he heard the first shovelfuls of earth being dropped onto his own grave, he screamed himself bloody.

  They were going to bury him alive.

  5

  On the redeye back to Oklahoma City, Arthur motioned the stewardess for another Chivas in a so far unsuccessful attempt to try to drown out all thoughts of the day. He had stayed in the boy’s room only another minute or two, until both he and Mrs. Stetson had been unceremoniously ushered from the room when the stern massage therapist arrived. After politely declining Mrs. Stetson’s offer of tea, he practically ran from the house and down the steps to his car. After turning the heat up full blast, he drove too fast down the long driveway. His tires squealed as he sped away from the home where a dead boy lay.

  But after putting some distance between himself and the abomination, while safely ensconced in his rent-a-car on the way back to D.C., thinking about it made him giggle. I’ll bet that boy needs LOTS of massage therapy, he thought. His giggles soon turned into full blown laughter. His eyes teared up. Forced to pull over to the side of the road, he laughed and laughed until it was all out of him. After he began driving again, a few more giggles escaped before he was finally all laughed out. Only when he realized what they were doing to that poor boy did his mirth leave him entirely.

  The trip hadn’t been a total loss. For example, one thing he knew for certain now was the boy in the bed no longer bore any resemblance to the Dugan kid. He almost laughed again to think they at last had something in common. Still, none of it made any sense. Why bother — and this next thought came with difficulty — keeping the boy ‘alive’ at all? Arthur worked it over and over in his mind before another chill ran down his spine. Maybe they thought that Dugan could somehow bring the boy back? Was that even possible? What kind of a . . . thing would it be?

  Then, he began to get angry. This is what came of going against the oath, he thought. There was only one way to stop the whole thing dead in its tracks. They needed to redouble their efforts to find the boy. Dugan must either be killed or confirmed dead for the madness to end. It was the only way.

  6

  Dugan’s voice was long gone. He knew the air would soon follow. He realized only later he’d been stupid to use any of it in his failed attempts to get them to stop. Then again, he’d had plenty of time to think about it, so it was easy to see that now.

  He wasn’t sure how much time had already passed. Probably just a few hours, he knew, time enough that he no longer heard the sound of earth and small rocks pummel his casket from above. Even after a thick layer of dirt already covered him, through the ground above he heard earth continue to fall. Dugan knew Julian would be thorough about that.

  He wondered if they had buried him in the garden. He hoped that they had, because it was a lovely place, the garden. When his first pang of hunger hit, he kept his thoughts upon the garden.

  Julian had spoiled him with food and drink. That was obvious now. Perhaps it had even been part of his plan. When Dugan had been with his uncle, he’d gone days and weeks without feeding on very much at all. Yet here he was, only a few hours in the ground, and he was hungry. He almost laughed, but worried that exertion added to the hunger. Sped it up somehow. Looking back on it, it hadn’t taken much energy at all to sit in a car and drive across country. Even then, he’d had his Hostess treats to provide him quick bursts of energy, though that was not the protein his body truly needed. He began to wonder just what it was about his kind that made them crave sweet things in the absence of blood. Even when blood was plentiful, there was something about a Twinkie that just hit the spot. Dugan recalled that Julian had Lucas bring him sweet cakes and jam most every evening. When another pang of hunger clawed away at his stomach, Dugan put all thoughts of food out of his mind.

  He spent time trying to recall the faces of people he knew. Julian and Lucas he could summon with ease, but the faces of his friends from the carnival were now only shadows. He thought for a moment about Alice, and how he was now in the same place as she. Something else gnawed away at him, the memory of someone else in his past, someone important. Who was it again? Yes, his uncle. He could not at all summon his face, but he had a photograph of him to look at every now and then. Perhaps he had used that as a crutch. Then, he recalled the piece of paper, and wondered if his uncle truly was a bank robber. Maybe he had merely used Dugan as a prop in his scheme. He simply couldn’t remember any of the details. How much air did this thing hold anyway? he wondered, just before he felt his first pang of thirst. Thirst was far worse than hunger.

  Mercifully, he felt his strength begin to ebb, and knew that the sun would soon be rising. Had it already been that long?

  7

  In the dense blackness of his underground prison, there was no di
fference between day and night. There was no sound but that of his labored breathing of increasingly foul air. Dugan marked time only by being awake or asleep. Making things worse, it was that time of the year when daylight was short, so he found himself now more often awake than asleep. Shivers and tremors quaked through his body at his hunger and thirst. Hours or days or weeks later, he began again to relive his prior transformation. He felt his insides burn and rip and tear, though there was nothing left of his former self to be excreted. But the pain was as he remembered. And in the moments of his deepest agony, his thoughts returned to Julian. His only solace was the vengeance he promised himself to one day reap upon him.

  8

  On the television in his office, Arthur watched senators from both sides of the aisle praise Stetson for his strong character and willingness to serve the nation in this, its hour of peril. It was all but certain now that his confirmation would sail through, and Arthur wasn’t at all sure how he felt about that. Setting aside the thing which breathed but did not live, in a bedroom on the second floor of the man’s home, Arthur found himself returning to what the Harvard professor had said that evening on Nightline. Appointing a “Czar” of anything, even if only informally, just seemed so damned un-American. And what was that other thing he’d said, that next we’d be calling our country the Fatherland or the Homeland or some such thing? It sounded so ludicrous, but then again, he’d have said the same thing about an American Czar not so long ago.

  9

  Hunger and thirst of the sort he’d known only once before swept through Dugan’s body. He again went through the phantom pain of having two new palates sprout inside his mouth, rearranging his jaw and tearing through his gums. When his fangs leaped from his mouth of their own volition, to snap away at the air, he realized suddenly it was at this specific moment in his previous change that his uncle had come to inject him with the precious fluid that took away his thirst. A new fear rose up within him to realize he had sailed into uncharted territory.

  10

  Arthur arrived in D.C. two days before Christmas to spend the holiday with his ex-wife and son. The mysterious Dave that C.J. had whispered about was no longer a mystery. In their phone call to make arrangements, his ex was up front about him. Arthur replied he was happy for her, going on to say she was a young and beautiful woman who had every right to happiness. And though he’d meant every word, he found it filled him with a melancholy he could not shake. Perhaps some air would help.

  While out window shopping along the slushy avenue for last minute gifts, from behind he heard the squeal of brakes. He turned in time to see a long black car pull up alongside the curb. Moments later, the rear door opened as if to beckon him. He turned both left and right and saw it could only be meant for him. Walking to the open door, he bent over and peered inside.

  11

  Dugan spent most of his time convulsing now. In his brief moments of lucidity, he wondered whether he was doing it in his sleep. He suspected he was, because he could feel his body mass melting away. Convulsion seemed the only movement he was capable of now. He wondered if the Colonel had gone through this same process while he lay in his crypt in Grantham, then wondered just who the hell the Colonel was, before slipping away once again.

  12

  With Agent Richards sitting beside him smiling his placid smile, the DCI tore Arthur a new one as the car meandered along the snowy streets of Washington. To his dismay, Arthur learned the DCI was every bit the bastard everyone said he was. He kept his finger pointed inches from Arthur’s face. His craggy face shook. The DCI had heard all about his little visit with Mrs. Stetson. Worse, he knew about his visit with the boy. Just where the hell was the Dugan kid anyway? That was what they were paying him for. Wouldn’t that be a better way to spend his time? Just what the hell kind of an outfit is your father running over there?

  Maybe it was past time to review the relationship between Atlas Consulting and the government. Maybe it was time to put the contract out to bid. They could find another company that would carry on the work less expensively. Maybe they’d go completely private and outsource the whole damn thing. The DCI hadn’t decided yet. But whatever the hell they did, Arthur was no longer to stick his nose into things that didn’t concern him. His job was to find the Dugan kid and be done with it.

  It went on and on. Arthur didn’t even bother trying to get a word in, but inside, he shuddered to think that his actions might have put the Company in jeopardy. And somewhere, in between the expletives and the veiled threats, he got the message.

  13

  Dugan shuddered and struggled for breath when the air finally ran out. His back arched. His knees kicked reflexively at the top of his coffin. He clawed his torn and scabby fingernails into the satin lining and ripped away what was left. In the midst of these violent paroxysms, a once familiar light appeared before him. He closed his eyes in fear, but the bright orange orb remained. Shrinking away from its light and heat, it occurred to him then that what he was seeing was his remembered image of the sun. Opening his eyes for the last time in this life, he saw the light was still there.

  With his last tortured breath, the brutal, biting cold that had been his only companion throughout his time underground abated. He felt warm all over. His pain drifted away. He didn’t dare close his eyes for fear the image would disappear, then realized that he had closed his eyes, yet the image of the sun remained.

  On the outskirts of his vision, a scene played itself out in which he had a starring role. As if from high above, he watched in slow motion a bullet whiz toward his head, tearing off his ear and putting a long groove in his skull. He saw his fully human self staked in the belly by the falling weight of a crazed woman. To his horror, he watched his lifeblood begin to flow.

  With the bright orange vision still in his mind, the cloudy mists and fog of memory began to lift. He watched himself drag and claw his dying body toward the coffin of a boy named Stephen Harris, remembering then how and where he had suffered his grievous injuries. Harris was the one who had made him. It had happened inside a cave at a place called Grantham. That was his home, the place where his friends and family . . . no, not family. He remembered then both his parents were dead. He had no brothers or sisters. He shivered to think of himself alone and without family before remembering his uncle. His friends in the carnival had laughed when he asked what an uncle was, but they had lovingly explained it.

  He remembered that his Uncle Dan was his only remaining family, provided those bastards hadn’t already killed him. In addition to his uncle, the names of those important to him in his former life returned as well. He easily recalled the names and faces of those people who had haunted him: Jimmy, Andy, Larry, Moon, Mike, and others. He recalled the gentle face of his mother, and his remembered vision of the sun was still there to warm him. It was then he knew with the certainty of a hammer blow he would never see the sun again. That thought filled his heart with anguish. He let out a howl.

  Perhaps this is what it means to die, he thought suddenly. Or maybe, this is what happens when you finally come to terms with it.

  He realized then that throughout the days and weeks trapped within his tomb, in all the days since his transformation, his greatest unrecognized and subconscious anguish was caused by the hidden yet now revealed knowledge that his days in the sun were over. He was now and would forever be a creature of the night. He realized then, for the first time, that there were worse things than that. Far, far worse. And with that realization came the darkness.

  14

  “The clerk will now call the roll.”

  With that announcement, one by one, each senator stood up at their desk and announced whether they would vote for Stetson to become the president’s Special Envoy for Democracy Affairs. Republicans had warned beforehand that Democrats would be guilty of partisan politics if they voted against Stetson, who had proved during his confirmation hearing to be both tough and smart.

  “Robert Stetson has fulfilled his obligation to the
Senate,” the Majority Leader remarked on a Sunday talk show before the vote. “It is now time for us to fulfill our obligation to the American people. It’s time for each of us to stand up and answer the question: Is Robert Stetson the right man for the job?”

  Stetson and his wife were at the White House as the Senate called the roll. Nobody was surprised when a number of Democrats also voted for the president’s nominee. The good feelings generated from his attempted assassination in the spring had yet to wear off.

  “On this vote, the ayes are 82. The nays are 18. The nomination of Robert R. Stetson of Virginia is confirmed,” announced Sen. Bill Lambert (R-ME).

  The president came out to offer words of congratulations to Stetson in front of the assembled media. When he was finished, Stetson himself came forward to say a few words.

  “My family and I are proud and humbled, Mr. President,” Stetson remarked. “We won’t let you down.”

  His wife looked on lovingly.

  Chapter Eight

  1

  Julian fed well in the days leading up to it. He would need all the strength he could muster. Because it was a necessary part of the ritual, it was human blood that now coursed through his veins, the unwilling gift of a nascent serial murderer that Colorado Springs didn’t even know they had. Julian had kept him alive for a week before putting him out of his deserved misery. Lucas used the backhoe to break through the icy ground. The two of them together raised the blackened coffin from the earth and returned it to the basement room.