In Silent Graves

by Gary A Braunbeck

Do not hesitate.

  He swallowed it in one gulp. Its taste was thick and meaty but not unpleasant.

  Denise ran her hand along the body, removed a scalpel from the bag, and cut away the tiny face, exposing bone. She used the bone-saw and something that looked like small tongs (only with teeth) to work loose a section of skull. “Close your eyes, Robert.”

  He was more than happy to do so; the sight of the baby’s blood and exposed tissues was more than he could handle.

  Denise began to apply pressure at various points on his body. His head went numb.

  “Shhh, that’s it, just take steady breaths and keep your eyes closed.”

  He lost track of how long he sat that way; her every touch was a gentle caress, soothing and sensual. He was aware of slight pressure, of muscle tissue being manipulated and reshaped, of sections of his skull being cracked apart and added to, of the prick of a needle against his lips and cheeks, of something being scooped from around the inside of his throat.

  “Done,” she said in a self-satisfied tone.

  Robert opened his eyes and turned toward the mirror.

  Though the face in the mirror was not his, it was one he recognized, nonetheless.

  It was the face that had been painted on the last matryoshka doll he’d found, the one from inside the Robert-doll.

  It was a different face, but a good one.

  A kind face.

  It was my face.

  And that is when the man I once was closed his eyes and gave up his existence to me.

  I saw my new face and smiled. Denise had straightened those two lower teeth that had always bugged me. “Good grief,” I said. “I look like the young Fredric March.”

  “He was always our favorite movie actor, so I figured, why not? It was either that or Robert Mitchum and, frankly, Mitchum always sort of gave me the creeps. Guess it was because Night of the Hunter was the first movie of his I ever saw. After that....” She gave a mock-shiver. “Even when I saw Ryan’s Daughter, I kept expecting him to whip out a knife and start slicing away at everyone.”

  I started to respond but was stopped by something large walloping against the wall of the room next door. Someone let fly with a loud “Whoo-ee!” and then hit the wall again.

  “What the hell...?”

  Denise shot an irritated glance to the right. “It’s six-thirty. The Pacers Parade has started.”

  I rose from the chair and pulled back the curtain. Outside it was growing dark, the street lights surrounding the parking lot beginning their slow rise to full brightness. I looked left, then right, and saw that well over half of the parking spaces were now occupied.

  The wall-slammer next door was at it again, but this time I realized what they were doing: bouncing a basketball against the paneling.

  I turned and looked at the room. Blood, organs, and tissue from the fetus were scattered on the bureau, a chair, and the second bed. The body where my true love had once resided was losing its battle against decomposition; I could see a loop of gray intestine pressing against a thin membrane. I moved to cover up the body and accidentally bumped it. The membrane burst and the loop of intestine popped free, uncoiling like slick rope.

  “No use in trying to clean up,” said Denise, gathering up the cat-carriers and shaking Suzy awake. “I know where Rael is now. We have to leave. The children need us.”

  I began to take one of the carriers when the basketball next door hit the wall with five times the force it had before, and the second adjoining door came open, swinging into the next room and allowing our door to swing.

  There were three men and a woman in the next room, and they had a clear line of sight into the slaughterhouse next door.

  The woman was the first to see it; noticing that their door had opened, she rose to close it, laughing through her apology for having bothered us, she hoped that we hadn’t been scared when—

  —she saw the bloody, mutilated monstrosity on the bed and screamed.

  One of the men jumped up and pulled her away, then got a clear look for himself. “Oh, Goddamn!”

  The other men yelled for him. The woman was shrieking and babbling incoherently. One of the unseen men screamed, as well, and then a door opened. I could hear footsteps outside, the door of a truck being opened and something large and metallic pulled from inside the cab.

  The first man charged into the room shouting, “You sick fucks!” but Denise tripped him. He fell face-first into the body on the bed, scrambled to regain his balance, and rose with a face covered in the moist flotsam of death.

  “JesusjesusjesusJeeeeeezuuuuusssss!” he screamed, clawing at what clung to his cheeks and chin. Denise grabbed the lighted lamp from the table and smashed it against the back of his skull, sending his unconscious form back onto the bed. His face and chest sank into the corpse like it was a down-filled pillow.

  I could hear the other man yelling into the telephone at the police, trying to make them understand what was happening. I grabbed something from the medical bag, moved past Denise, and stormed into the other room. I used the stun-gun on the woman first, then yanked the phone cord from the wall and zapped the other man. He and the woman lay on the floor, two glassy-eyed mannequins but still alive.

  I turned toward their open door just as the third man stumbled into the doorway, trying to load a pump-action shotgun with trembling hands.

  I started toward him. He pumped a shell into the chamber and was raising the shotgun but I was faster, lifting my foot and bringing it down on the barrel. Why he didn’t panic-fire anyway I’ll never know.

  I heard a couple of doors opening on this side of building. Confused voices tinged with potential panic began spilling into the encroaching night.

  I grabbed the barrel of the shotgun, pulling it and him into the room. I swung him around and slammed the door. The man and I did an insane, twirling dance for a few seconds as he held the trigger and stock and I held the barrel with one hand. I had killed no one else so far and I didn’t want to—I didn’t even want to hurt anyone, but there was no choice on that point.

  I dropped the stun-gun, gripped the barrel of the shotgun with both hands, and shoved it into the other man’s groin. He doubled over, releasing his grip. I spun the gun around and brought the stock down hard against the middle of his back. His face was the first thing to hit the floor, breaking his nose. Denise was right on top of him with the stun-gun—zzzzipht!—and he was still.

  She and I stood looking at each other, listening as the people outside—three, maybe four of them—milled around and asked questions of each other. “Did you hear someone screaming?” “I thought so, what’d it sound like to you?” “Maybe somebody’s getting laid and she’s a real screaming meemee, huh?”

  We stood there, silent, not daring to move.

  Finally someone knocked on the door. Denise, much to my shock, walked over and answered, pulling the door open only a few inches; enough for her and the person on the other side to see one another without their being able to see into the room.

  “Hi,” said Denise, sounding embarrassed.

  “I don’t mean to be nibby, miss, but is everything all right? Some of us heard a scream and—”

  “—that was me, I’m sorry. I was using the bathroom and a cockroach crawled up my leg.”

  The man on the other side groaned in sympathy. “Oh, that’s awful. Did’ya at least kill it?”

  “My husband did. He’s the exterminator in the family.”

  This got a laugh. “Well,” he said, “glad to hear it’s nothing serious. Doesn’t surprise me that this place’d have a roach or two, though, being so close to the creek and all.”

  “Thanks for checking,” said Denise.

  “Could I ask a favor? Would you and your husband mind not bouncing that basketball off the wall quite so hard? It’s making my wife a little grumpy.”

  “I’ll tell him,” replied Denise cheerfully. “He gets a little over-excited right before a Pacers home game.”

  “Don’t we al
l?”

  The man said good-bye and Go Pacers, then returned to his room.

  I finally released the breath I’d been holding.

  Denise closed the door and locked it. Then her shoulders slumped. “Now can we go?”

  “Way ahead of you.”

  We loaded the pets into the Jeep (after all three of them insisted on being taken into the foliage outside so they could relieve themselves) then closed the door of the room.

  I am more sorry than I can say that I did not think to move the man who had fallen into the body on the bed. It never once crossed my mind that he might drown in the sour juices of that corpse.

  I never meant to kill anyone.

  Denise got into the back seat of the Jeep with the animals. I figured she wanted to sleep while I drove, even though I had no idea where I was going. I climbed in behind the wheel and damn near jumped out of my skin when I saw someone in the passenger seat.

  “Some pretty snazzy wheels you got here, Willy. How’s the mileage? We have a bit of traveling ahead of us.”

  Denise reached over the back seat and gripped Rael’s hand. I sensed what was passing between them because I could hear, somewhere in the distant night, thousands of children sigh, as one, with relief.

  “What a long, strange trip it’s been, huh?” I said, dazzled by my originality and eloquence.

  Rael looked at me and, for what I think might have been the first time, genuinely smiled at me. He clapped a hand on my shoulder and said, “Thanks for not letting us down, Willy. I think we’re gonna be okay now. Is there anything you want to do before we—”

  “Yes. There’s one thing I very much want us to do before we go home.”

  Rael gestured at the steering wheel. “Then let’s hit the road, Jack.”

  “It’s Willy to you, handsome.”

  “Don’t be a smartass.”

  I pulled out of the motel parking lot and turned onto the night road. The sky was clear of overcast and a million silver stars guided us with their light.

  The world of man fell into memory behind us as I drove on. My center was full and strong and new, with compassion and despair and hardened with anger to a shine. What a tale this would make for the children. I could hardly contain my excitement.

  When the four of us returned to Chiaroscuro with the pets, I was stunned at the grandeur of the mountain as it opened to receive us. The children flowed forward from the depths of their chambers. They smiled and laughed with healthy bodies no longer threatened by chronos. They kissed and embraced us. They told us about what they’d been doing while we were away. They looked upon Denise with wonder. They spoke to Rael with a new respect. Andrea held my hand and whispered happy stories about Ian. Suzy was already a fixture here and found everyone wanting to play with her. The cats were a bit wary of their new home but eventually came around; thousands of pairs of hands to pet and feed them? You bet they came around.

  As the mountain closed behind us and we moved toward the deeper chambers, a group of very small children formed a circle around me as we walked. Those who could not reach my hands held the sleeves of my jacket; those too small to reach the sleeves of my jacket held onto a pant leg. They told me how happy they were to see me. They had missed me since I left. There was lots and lots to tell me about. They had some secrets to share. They had stories to tell. They asked if I knew any stories.

  They called me Father.

  * * *

  This place has been my home for a while now, though the more I learn about what I have Become the less I think about the man-made concept of Time. Denise and Rael have grown strong, stronger than either of them has ever been before. We still journey to find other children who need a home like this, where they can be safe and loved and unafraid, but since there are now three of us who carry Hallower strength, chronos cannot infect us during these trips.

  I thought it best to write down everything that had happened so that you will have answers to your many questions. Andrea gave me Ian’s old typewriter, and I used it until the ribbon ran out of ink.

  That is why some of these pages are typed while others are handwritten. The writing is not all mine. I have been teaching Rael proper penmanship, so he has been helping me. (He’s doing very well, by the way.) Denise also has written some of this as I dictated it, as has Andrea and several of the other children. It is, after all, our story.

  As I sit here at Denise’s writing table finishing these last few pages and listening to One Foot in History, the thought occurs that you who find this may label everything the ravings of lunatic. It’s very important that our story not be dismissed, that you know what’s been written here is true, so I am going to perform a Parlor Trick for you (as my powers have grown, Rael has taught me a thing or two, as well).

  When the last of this tale has been written down, I am going to slip through one of the gaps where the walls of the infinite and finite are not quite squared and leave this manuscript in the very Montrose motel room where my True Love was returned to me and the man I once was gave his life so that I might live in his place.

  I will put the manuscript in an envelope and tape it to the bottom of the drawer in the writing table.

  I will do this during the four seconds that elapsed between Detective James Anderson’s leaving the room and Officer Greg Harrison’s entering it to find Denise’s note tucked into the corner of the bureau’s chipped and dingy mirror.

  I can do this because Time is your prison, not ours. So to all those who read this after it was found, ask yourselves this question: With so many police officers and detectives searching so small a room, how did you manage to miss something as glaringly large as the envelope that contained this manuscript?

  You missed it because when Officer Dale Wilkins ran his hand under that table at 9:47 p.m. this manuscript was not there; however, when Detective Anderson—purely out of habit—checked under the table at 9:50 p.m....there it was. No one else was in the room at that moment—check Wilkins’ and Anderson’s reports.

  If you still don’t believe what you’ve read here, I will enclose something that you will not have the courage to make public, and which will prove the truth of our tale.

  There will be seven fingerprints on the last sheet of this manuscript; a top row of three, then one print all by itself, then a second row of three. They were taken from seven different children—as I’m sure your fingerprint experts will quickly deduce. All of them have been missing for no less than ten years, and all of them came from homes where abuse was strongly suspected but never proven. If you dismiss this by saying I could have stolen or copied the prints from police or hospital records, then I draw your attention to the print which is all by itself. It belongs to Nicholas Roger Dawson (who likes us to call him “Nick” because it sounds like such a grownup’s name), who vanished from his home in Whitby, North Yorkshire, England, on January 17th, 1874. He was nine years old at the time of his disappearance. Nick was born with Down’s Syndrome (called “mongolism” on his birth certificate) and was rarely allowed to leave the house, except to visit with his favorite aunt (the only member of the family who showed him any degree of kindness), Rachel Dawson, the sister of Nick’s father, Harry. Rachel taught Nick how to read simple words and sentences, taught him how to write his name, showed him the proper way to clean and dress himself, and, in short, provided him with the only education he was to ever receive. Rachel Dawson was a nurse, and during one of Nick’s visits escorted him to Hospital and took two sets of fingerprints. One she placed in the official files, the other she kept for herself.

  Nick was remembered as being a shy and quiet boy who only seemed to smile when not with his parents. There is a reason for this. Harry Dawson, his father, was a brutal man who often drank and beat Nick into unconsciousness while “Mumsy” sat at the table and watched, urging Harry to “give it to” the “idiot beast” God had cursed them with. When Harry wasn’t beating Nick, “Mumsy” was burning his arms and buttocks and genitals with cigarettes her husband left burnin
g around the house after he passed out. Nick would never scream or cry out, because any sound meant that he would be locked in the cellar and not allowed to eat for a week. (He kept himself from starving by hiding table scraps in the cellar for these times. For water, he would lick condensation from the walls.) He learned to endure the pain. Then one night both Harry and “Mumsy” got stinking drunk and fell on him at the same time.

  They tortured Nick for nearly two solid days before he fully lost consciousness and could not be revived. They put him in cloth sack. Sometime between midnight and one a.m. on the morning of January 14th, Harry left their house, threw Nick into the back of his wagon, hitched up the horse, and left the city.

  Nick isn’t sure where his father loaded the sack with heavy stones and then threw him in the river; he can only remember the feel of the water forcing itself down into his throat. Nick—who had regained consciousness a few hours earlier—freed himself from the sack (Harry could never tie a strong knot) and swam to the surface.

  Rael was waiting for him on shore.

  The Dawson’s waited three days before reporting Nick’s disappearance. Scotland Yard had very little to go on and the search for Nick lasted only four days. The Dawsons happily wallowed in the attention and sympathy they received from friends and neighbors. One year after their “poor, sweet little boy” vanished inexplicably from his bed in the middle of the night, Harry Dawson went on a drunken rampage and murdered his wife with a sharpening stone, then stumbled around and fell down the cellar stairs, breaking his neck.

  Rachel Dawson kept the fingerprint card which she had made for herself. She put it in a small, tasteful frame, along with a photograph of herself and Nick which she’d had taken during one of their days out. It became a Dawson family heirloom, as did the sad story of sweet Nicholas’ tragically short life. Rachel eventually married, and gave birth to a daughter, Cynthia, who was to later marry and have a son, Graham. Graham would marry, and himself be the proud father of a little girl, Emma—

  —and I am starting to wander off the highway here; you need only know two other names in the long succession of Dawsons.