When Dixon and Braddock returned, they didn’t bother with the routine they’d run him through last time—questions and threatening posture. The bigger one just held open the door while his partner said, “Let’s go.” Mitch stood and followed them.
He hadn’t been able to see the road during the ride to New Hampshire a month ago, but he still felt a sense of déjà vu riding in the back of the detectives’ car. Wherever they were taking him, it wasn’t jail. They were on their way out of town. According to the late afternoon sun, they were headed northeast this time. Toward Revere, he guessed. Maybe Arkham. Beyond that, it was hard to get his bearings. He tried to orient himself with the scenery passing by. The majority of it, however, was so uniformly commercial—cell phone merchant, pawn shop, shuttered video store, Dunkin’ Donuts—that he couldn’t tell anything about the neighborhood by looking at the landmarks, except that he wasn’t being taken on a sightseeing tour of historic Miskatonic River Valley mansions. After a while, the city congestion lessened and the highways through thickly-settled neighborhoods began to thin to the urban blight of office parks and old factory buildings that populated the borders between contiguous towns. If you missed the signs, there was no way to tell when you left one municipality and entered another. They’d left Kingsport far behind, that much was certain.
Eventually, the car slowed. His hope that the world might show him some mercy diminished. Braddock pulled off of the highway and into the lot behind an abandoned-looking industrial building. The air smelled of caramelized sugar and machine oil. Mitch leaned over to see if the blocky building still boasted a sign for whatever concern had once occupied its rooms. Painted on the weathered brick wall between the third and fourth floor windows was a long, faded banner that read “MANTOOTH AND ROWE CANDY CO.” Beyond the far wall, a dark river flowed.
That’s where they’ll find my body. If they find my body.
Without his niece to save him, he knew this to be his final stop. He figured it was time for deep blue justice and wondered how long the end of his life was about to last, and how badly it was going to hurt. Although there were no other cars parked in the lot that he could see, he figured there was a line of policemen inside each waiting to take a strip of his hide to tie to the lamp posts like memorial ribbons.
Braddock pulled up next to a yellow school bus and shut off the engine. Both men climbed out of the car. Dixon opened the rear door and Mitch flinched waiting for the cop to seize his bicep and drag him from the back seat. Instead, Dixon stepped aside and gestured as though he were inviting him to step out onto a red carpet. Mitch slid over and crawled out. “Where are we?”
“Welcome to Aylesbury,” Dixon said.
Braddock walked ahead of them, saying, “Let’s get this over with,” over his shoulder. Mitch wanted to feel like his feet were rooted to the spot. It was surprisingly easy to move in the direction of his doom, though. He fell in behind the bigger man, trailed by his partner, as they walked into the factory through a pair of solid metal doors that screeched from years of rusted neglect as they opened.
It took Mitch’s eyes a moment to adjust to the dimness inside. Shapes to the left and right began to emerge from the gloom, floating by like half-realized symbols in a dream. They passed giant tarnished vats with dusty electrical control boxes standing guard in front, three-tiered industrial grinders, and metal link belts stretching along long tables. The austere functionality and cool efficiency of it all reminded him of Dr. Downum’s autopsy theater.
They led him up two flights of stairs. “In here,” Braddock said, pulling back an opaque plastic strip curtain. Mitch stepped through into a long room with dusty wooden floors and thick support beams rising up to metal pulley wheels like some steampunk forest. The windows at the far end of the room practically glowed white with the bright sun beaming through years of built up dust and sugar residue that made it hard to see. He walked toward them, thinking maybe he could leap through one to get away. If he was lucky, he might catch his carotid on the way through and bleed out peacefully in the gravel outside, if the fall was insufficient to kill him.
The room stank of sweat and fear and shit and rot. It was what he imagined an abattoir must smell like. There was no remnant of confectionery labor in this chamber. As his eyes adjusted, he saw them. Four bodies, laid head to toe in a line in the dark along the far wall. Three men and one woman. A miasma of copper and ammonia hung in the stale unmoving air. Dixon and Braddock are settling scores. The whole world has gone mad and this is what it looks like. Lines of bodies in candy factories converted into secret execution chambers. Who are these people? Parents of returned kids? Killed for what? Doing the wrong things for the right reasons? He took a step toward them, ready to take his place at the end of the line. Room for one more.
Dixon laid a hand on his shoulder, redirecting him toward the far wall. “That’s none of your business,” he said.
“In here,” Braddock said, holding open an office door. Mitch stopped, trying not to imagine what special Hell they had awaiting him in the next room. Though he’d led himself through the corral chute up to this point, he couldn’t force himself to take another step forward into the all-too-brief future. He couldn’t run to face the pneumatic bolt. Dixon took Mitch’s arm gently and guided him the last few steps.
“What is this?”
Dixon exchanged a glance with his partner and said, “Your last bite at the apple. Make it a good one.”
That sense of having been somewhere before swirled in his head, threatening to uproot him from the present. He walked into the room, unmoored from reality like a man waking from a dream. Feeling like he was stepping back in time, walking into the medical examiner’s office weeks earlier, looking at his niece propped up in a chair and thinking, there is no word for someone who’s lost a child because it’s too horrible a thing to name. When Sophie slipped off the worn old office chair and ran toward him, he doubted his sanity. They’ve already killed me. They killed me and I didn’t even know it. And where am I? The things I’ve done, this isn’t Heaven. He dropped to his knees and the girl wrapped her arms around his neck, exclaiming, “Papa!” He cried and hugged the ghost and waited for everything to slip away into hard reality again. This reunion, a quantum memory before the rope tied to the Owl Creek Bridge snapped his neck. A dead man’s dream of a life he wished he could have.
But she persisted. Squeezing him, the scents of sweat and dirt and unwashed child. He pulled back to look in her face. The places where her skull had been torn away by Meghan’s bullet were covered in fresh pink flesh that looked tender, like newborn skin. One of her eyes was brighter than the other, but both were clear and blue. Her hair was uneven, only stubble over the new skin and bone, but the rest of it was as he remembered once upon a time. Dark and brown, not gray.
“Why you crying?” she asked. She reached up and wiped away his tears with brown-stained fingers. She tasted his tears the way he’d always joked when she cried. Mmm. Baby tears. So sweet, like syrup. It had always made her laugh in the midst of crying and soothed her. This time, she said the words, pulling him from his daze and grounding him in the present. Bringing him back to the dirty, dark office in an abandoned candy factory. A Hell of Heaven on Earth.
“I’m just so happy to see you,” he said, trying to explain his tears. “You make me so happy.”
He turned to Dixon and Braddock. The men stood in the doorway of the room watching. A smile played around the edges of Dixon’s mouth, his crooked, boxer’s jaw jutting a little sideways. Braddock’s face remained as it always did, bearing the inscrutable expression of a man caught for posterity in an antique photo. Mitch wouldn’t have been surprised if the world from the other side of his eyes appeared sepia. “What did you do? Who are those people out there?”
Braddock said, “They’re not your problem.”
Mitch pulled Sophie closer, realizing what made their reunion possible. His niece was not dead, as she’d been before, but fully alive. He knew that meant one thing.
“What’s going to happen to Meghan?” he asked.
“Forget about her. She’s not your responsibility,” Braddock told him. “That girl is.”
“Why are you doing this?”
Dixon stepped forward and crouched down. He pulled a picture of a reanimate child out of his pocket. “This kid crawled out of the basement belonging to a guy who told the Sex Offender Registry Board that he was living at his mother’s house. Turns out he was living on the other side of town near the public library and an elementary school. Four other kids crawled out behind him. The guy greased himself before any of them could... take back what they lost. So we have five missing children whose parents never gave up... until their kids came home. We got the kid you brought back, but we can’t find his people. He got traded like some baseball card and who knows where he really came from. Romania, Poland, Utah. It’s all the same. There’s no one to take him. You follow me?”
Mitch nodded.
“Those… humans out in the hall are like the rapist, murdering coward who ate his bullet: scumbag liars who should have been one place and weren’t. Guys who weren’t sorry for anything they did, just sorry they got caught. Don’t you dare feel bad for them. Nobody’s going to miss a single one of ‘em.”
“Meghan?”
“Nobody’s going to miss her either.” Braddock said, tilting his head toward the hallway.
Dixon smoothed down part of Sophie’s uneven hair. “We weren’t planning on doing things like this, but once we got her back the way she belonged, the only thing she’d say was, ‘I want my Papa.’”
Mitch sighed. “I’m only her uncle. Her father—”
Braddock stepped forward. “You’re not an uncle any more. You hear me, Papa? You’re getting a second chance at a second chance, Mitch. It’s more than most people get. It’s probably more than you deserve. Tough thing is, she wants you, and we can see you need her. So here we all are.”
“Thank you.”
“Don’t thank us. Do the right thing by her. Take this fresh start and do it right. My guess is, she needs more than you can give her all by yourself. You’re already behind the eight ball, it being just the two of you.”
He thought of Liana waiting for them in Canada. “Three. We’re three.”
Dixon reached in his other pocket and pulled out an envelope. “There’s nothing left for you at your house or Faye’s. You copy? Stay away from there. Use this and get that fresh start.”
Mitch allowed himself the brief fantasy he’d banished in the interrogation room. His friends Brett and Sandra in Ontario had a big place. Liana was there, waiting for them. “We will.” He stood up, holding Sophie to his chest. She lay her head on his shoulder the way she did when she was too tired to walk home from the library or day care. Her head fitting just right into the space between his neck and shoulder. The way that made him feel like they were made to be together. Puzzle pieces that fit into each other and formed the big picture.
He walked toward the door to leave. Braddock held out a set of keys. “Your car’s parked around back. You got a full tank and a free State Police pass out of Massachusetts. After that, you’re on your own.” Mitch took the keys and stepped through the door. “Don’t get caught in New Hampshire,” the detective called out after him.
He stepped out into the hallway and walked past the bodies lined up against the wall. He walked out of the factory without looking back.
It all finally felt right.
Epilogue: Scenes from a Beginning
They sat on the same side of the booth toward the rear of the diner. The place was starting to get busy, and Mitch cut Sophie’s hot dog into pieces hoping it would cool faster and they could get back on the road before long. The waitress came by and asked if everything was all right. They hadn’t had a chance to have a bite yet, but he said, “Yup. Everything’s great.” Sophie took an exaggerated breath of air and blew as hard as she could on the hotdog, missing most of her plate and sending a paper napkin sailing off the other end of the table. The server lingered. He liked the image of eggs and bacon arranged like a skull and crossbones over her heart. Mitch was about to ask if they sold copies of the T-shirt when she cut him off with her own question.
“I’m sorry if this is rude, but can I ask...?” She gestured in front of her chest, as if she wanted to point to her face, but couldn’t bring herself to do it.
Mitch slipped a twenty-dollar bill out of his pocket, keeping it hidden in his palm for the moment. In the last couple of days, he’d mentally prepared himself to drop money on a table for a meal they hadn’t had time to eat just so they could leave quickly. He hadn’t yet had to do it, but up until this moment, there had been only stares, no questions. Along with the cash, he prepared his lie, silently repeating it before speaking aloud. He cleared his throat and said, “It’s okay. We can talk about it now. A faulty night light started a fire in our house. We all got out alive, but she got burned a little. If you’ve got kids, do not buy those little plug-in star projectors from the drug store.” He turned to Sophie and fed her the line they’d rehearsed. “You’re all better now, though. Aren’t you?”
She nodded and smiled at the waitress. “Like my punk rock?” she said. She rubbed a hand over the shorter portion of her hair, misspeaking her line, but nailing the delivery.
The server smiled back and said, “Oh, I’m so sorry. You look great, sweetie.” She slipped the order pad that she’d been nervously fumbling into the pocket in the front of her apron. Leaning down, she whispered to Mitch, “You let me know when you’re done, and if it’s okay, she can have some i-c-e c-r-e-a-m for dessert.” Before he could protest, she added, “On me.” Mitch smiled and said that’d be great. He didn’t want the woman to pay for Sophie’s dessert, but then, she hadn’t had any ice cream in a very long time. Not in this lifetime. A customer at another table waved the server over and she left to see what he wanted.
Sophie stabbed a piece of hotdog and smeared it around in a pool of mustard Mitch had squirted into the corner of the paper lining the plastic basket it had come in. He sweated a little just thinking about how much mustard she had on the dog, but she didn’t seem to mind. She chewed it eagerly with her mouth open, smacking loudly. He picked up his own dog and took a big bite. Mustard only; no ketchup.
The television against the opposite wall caught Mitch’s attention. It was set to the local mid-day broadcast, and he’d been ignoring it. The news from Burlington didn’t interest him. He didn’t intend to stay long enough for anything that happened in the town to matter to them. But then the local news ended. And regular programming resumed.
Pastor Roper’s wolf smile filled the big screen and the camera panned out to show him sitting next to a talk show host Mitch didn’t recognize. He tried to tune his ear to the broadcast, but the growing restaurant noise drowned out half of what they were saying.
“Today on The Wendy... religious leader and... Gideon Roper... New Life... Welcome!”
“Thank you, Wendy... to be here.”
Mitch put down his lunch and tried to breathe deeply and slow his heartbeat. He tried to convince himself that he couldn’t have a panic attack every single time he saw Roper on the television. But seeing the man brought back all the sights and sounds of the compound. The cheering “amens” and the distant crackle of a bonfire. He heard gunshots and screaming. The sound of an explosion and the smell of burning gasoline—and something else—overtook the aroma of the diner. He felt the weight of Mike’s body across his shoulders and the despairing defeat of pulling into a closed weigh station on the way home, to move him from the backseat of the car into the trunk, just in case they got pulled over. The quiet rustle of his ashes slipping out of an urn into the Charles River in a secret memorial in the middle of the night, and Liana’s sobs. All of it came rushing back in an overwhelming flood of sense memory that blinded and deafened him.
Sophie laid a hand on his forearm and slowly the world reshaped itself into the Thru-Way Diner. The clinking of knives and forks ag
ainst plates was louder than the memory of rifle cracks echoing in the woods. “I love you, Papa,” she said. She knew him as well as he knew himself. And she always knew when he needed that touch, the spark of life that ignited him.
“I love you too, hon.”
“When do we get to see Lia?” She’d given Liana a new nickname, and he liked it. Liana had said on the phone that she did too.
“Soon, sweetie. She’s waiting for us.” It was another ninety-minute drive to the crossing at Hemmingford, where he understood there was a U.S. border agent with his own reanimate child. More were waking up every day. According to their contact, he’d be working for another five hours. Even though there was time to finish lunch before getting back on the road, Mitch didn’t want to cut it too close. If they missed him, they might not have another chance.
“And who is this with... today?”
“This, Wendy, is Violette Wilson. Her husband, Junior... injured in the attack on…” Mitch’s head whipped around at the sound of Junior’s name being spoken on television. Injured? Violette sat smiling next to Pastor Roper on the studio sofa. On a large screen behind them in the studio was a picture of a bandaged and badly-bruised Junior lying in a hospital bed. Mitch heard his sister say the words “stable” and “awake” but was too shocked at the sight of the man who’d shot Mike in the back becoming the face of the “tragedy” at the compound to be able to comprehend everything she was saying. When she pressed her hands together and said, “God has blessed us,” it was as loud and clear as if she was sitting in the seat across the table from them.
The camera panned out again to show another person on the sofa. Amye’s son, Brendan, sat next to Violette. “And who is this?” Wendy Whatsername asked.
Come to Dust Page 25