The Thief of All Light

by Bernard Schaffer

  Waylon grimaced at the notion. “Jesus, Jacob. Did you?”

  “No. And fuck you right back for asking me that.”

  “Listen, goddamn it. I know you been through a lot. A pretty young girl like that showing some attention would drive anyone crazy. I’m just saying. She’s not in her right frame of mind to be making good decisions, so I’m asking you, as a friend, to leave her be. She doesn’t need someone like you making it worse.”

  “Oh, don’t worry, Bill,” Rein said. “The second we find the little girl, I’m gone. You can all go back to your perfect lives and never have to worry about me again. Bender was right, okay? You want to hear me say it? I’m a disgrace to the job and everything it stands for. I get it. I make myself sick just being here. There? You happy?”

  “That isn’t what I meant.”

  “I know exactly what you meant.” Rein pointed at Carrie’s vanishing lights down the dark street. “Are we going to let her go interview Travis Berry by herself, or are you waiting for me to get out?”

  Waylon shifted the car into drive and stepped on the gas. “You know all that shit is not what I meant. You’re twisting it all up! For Christ’s sake, man, I’m grateful you came back. You hear me? It was never the same once you were gone.”

  Rein watched the road ahead of them for signs of Carrie’s car, letting things cool back down. “So,” he said, “you went and saw Jacob Junior?”

  “I did. He looks real good. Doing a hell of a job with the DA’s office.”

  “I try to keep up as best I can. It’s hard without a computer or phone, though. The papers out my way didn’t cover much about Harrisburg crime.”

  “Plus, all the newspapers where you were living were in Spanish, I bet,” Waylon said. He laughed at the notion, not meaning to but unable to help himself.

  “Yeah, pretty much. Hey, just so I’m clear,” he said, sounding more serious. “Carrie’s like a daughter to you?”

  “That’s right.”

  “Good to know,” Rein said. “Because, you know, if this all ends, and she and I become a thing, I intend on calling you Dad.”

  “You even think about it and I will kick your ass so hard your grandmama will fall down.”

  “Don’t be like that. It’s wrong for future family to fight.”

  “That part I said about being glad you’re back?” Waylon said. “I didn’t mean it.”

  “I’m just glad we can have these kinds of conversations. It’s hard for a girl’s father to talk to his son-in-law sometimes.”

  Waylon glanced at him. “I don’t know what I’m worried about anyway. Nobody who has a beard like that can possibly be interested in women. Real men have mustaches. Everybody knows that.”

  “Are you mocking my duckbill?”

  “Yes, I do believe I am.”

  Rein scratched his chin, feeling the length of his beard. “Well, the ladies love it. One in particular. I think you might know her.”

  “Shut your ass,” Waylon said as he accelerated, trying to catch up to the car that had already faded into the distance. “Duckbill. What kind of a stupid name is that for a beard, anyway?”

  * * *

  The road signs were obscured by tall corn, or they’d been knocked down and never replaced. The people in West Croatan did not seem to care. The only people who visited the area were people with a need to be there, who already knew their way around—others should not have come. The houses were unnumbered. There were no mailboxes. Carrie saw newspapers and mailing circulars piled around people’s front porches, most of the publications old and yellowing, surrounded by large coffee cans filled with cigarette butts. West Croatan was one of the unincorporated parts of the county, covered by state troopers who did not patrol and, when they were called, might not be able to respond for hours.

  Carrie’s cell phone had stopped receiving or sending messages forty minutes before she turned down the long dirt stretch that was Bores Road. Road was a generous term for the unpaven, leftover horse trails that wound in around the cornfields of West Croatan.

  She rolled down her window and smelled death. Her headlights picked up the carcass of a fawn splayed out in the middle of the road, its white ribs sticking up through its open chest. Birds and bugs had been feasting there, stretching long lengths of intestines from the crumpled body in every direction. Carrie’s lights shined on the white spots on its fur as she drove past, maneuvering her car around it.

  The crickets were symphonic, loud and surrounding her on all sides. Her car emerged from the fields, its headlights spread wide across sudden, flat darkness, showing her several feet of the road ahead and a sky without stars.

  She saw the house at the end of the road and stopped.

  She cut off her headlights and watched, listening, waiting. The living-room lights were on but the blinds were drawn tight. The house had two stories, with windows along the second floor, also covered in blinds, also drawn tight. The yard was vast beyond the house, but the fences had long since fallen away, so where its property line started and other unused farm lands began she could not tell. She saw trees and scattered scrub growth in places but nothing planned or tended to. In the driveway sat a white work van.

  She looked at the van, feeling something stir deep within but not trusting it. She put the car in park and shut it off, stuffing the keys down inside her pocket, where they would not jingle. The road was dark behind her. She pulled out her phone, saw no signal, but texted Waylon anyway. Where are you guys? I’m at the house.

  The message indicator swirled uselessly. She put the phone in her pocket, slid out of the car, and eased the door shut behind her. A shadow moved behind one of the first-story windows, a blotch of darkness that sent Carrie flat to the ground, chest deep in dirt. There was no cover in the open field. Nothing to hide behind. She watched the shadow move away from the window and stayed low, creeping across the field as quickly as she could.

  She went wide around the front of the house, checking the side and as much of the rear as she could see from that angle. The air was heavy with moisture. Rain was coming. The fields stunk of leaking septic tanks and squished beneath her boots. She looked over the rotting woodshed and garage set behind the house. Both were overgrown with brown vines that crept in and around the dozens of scattered tools leaning up against their walls.

  She crept farther onto the property, close enough to see the house’s crumbling stucco façade and the ugly yellow sealant bubbling up beneath it. She slid her feet as she walked, using old tricks from when she and Molly used to hide from the cops in the woods, finding branches that would crack with the tip of her boot and stepping over them, finding clumps of rock and dirt that would crumble and toeing them out of her way. As she came to the back of the house she saw something parked beside the garage: a newer model red tractor. Carrie looked around the landscape surrounding the house. Nothing looked plowed or turned. Nothing even looked mowed.

  The window nearest her darkened, and she looked up to see a large shadow standing behind the blinds, big enough to fill the entire frame. She froze in place, the tendons in her legs tightening like steel cords rooting her in place. The shadow stopped, then moved away, and the light filling the window went out.

  One by one, the lights in the downstairs turned off, removing all ambient light from the yard. Carrie backed away, moving toward the edge of the road, away from the house. She squatted in a large dirt rut, wanting nothing more than to hear Waylon’s car coming up the road.

  It didn’t come. There was nothing but her and the sound of crickets.

  She cursed and slapped the side of her neck, plucking a beetle from her skin and tossing it to the ground. Damn bugs, she thought. They probably don’t get many humans to feed on out here. Me sitting in this field is like ringing the dinner bell to them.

  She watched the house for signs of movement, thinking maybe they’ve just gone to bed. Not unusual for a working man. Depending on his trade, he probably had to be up before dawn to get to the job site. She looked ba
ck at the van and frowned, wondering what kind of work it was used for. It could be for anything, from carpet cleaning to painting to plumbing. It had no logos, nothing but plain white panel along the sides. Then again, almost every police dispatch reporting an attempted child luring involved a suspect driving a white van. So, there was that.

  Carrie turned and looked down the road, searching for signs of Waylon’s car. She slid her phone out of her pocket and checked for new messages. Signal lost.

  “I’m going to wait,” she said aloud. “They’ll be here soon. Bill said to wait. So I’m going to wait.”

  She moved in a crouch, circling around the front of the property back toward the van, wanting to get a better look at it. She went to the driver’s side and peered in. The front compartment was empty and completely clean. There was a heavy black curtain behind the front seats, blocking anyone’s view of the back. She tried the door handle, but the locks were down on both doors. She looked again. Even the cup holders were empty. For a working man’s van, this was unusual, she knew. Working men spent a lot of time in their cars. They ate fast food going from one job to another. They scribbled addresses on little bits of paper that they discarded when they didn’t need them anymore. They collected receipts. This van was empty.

  Carrie went around the back of the van and tried the rear door, already knowing it would be locked. The windows were blacked out.

  Not unusual, she told herself. A working man would want to keep his tools and equipment out of view.

  She tried the rear door again, jiggling the handle, but it was locked tight. She stepped back, staring at the house, trying to make up her mind what to do next, when she felt another bite on the side of her neck. She smacked the bug away and felt a bump forming on her skin, starting to swell where she’d been bitten. She looked at her fingers, seeing drops of blood and scowled, but then stopped. Something was wrong.

  Carrie lowered her head and smelled her fingers, unsure at first. She went back to the van and grabbed the handle with her other hand, wrapping her fingers around its length, then took her hand away and pressed it against her nose, inhaling deeply, and was certain. On the handle was the unmistakable smell of bleach.

  A soft, audible click sounded from the house, and she looked up to see the metal doorknob turning ever so slightly. The front door opened an inch, revealing nothing but pitch black inside the home, and stopped. Carrie’s heart pounded hard in her chest as she drew her weapon, aiming it at the dark space behind the door.

  She took a deep breath and said, “Aunt Carrie is coming, baby.”

  She started forward, taking short, sharp breaths. The abyss beyond the door was inviting her in.

  She squeezed the gun’s handle as she nudged the door the rest of the way open, jerking back out of the way as she turned side to side, checking for signs of movement. Nothing. She switched the gun to her left hand and searched the wall with her right, finding a light switch and flicking it up and down several times, but no lights came on. She inched forward, as quietly as she could, not to avoid being heard but to hear anyone approaching her.

  You always hear people say it is so dark I can’t see my hands in front of my face, she thought. This is the first time I’ve ever seen it in real life.

  She could see only three bright dots forming a triangle at the top of her weapon. Two years prior, Bill Waylon had blown half his equipment budget on installing tritium sights on every gun in his department, and now it was the only visible thing. She continued deeper into the house, scanning, scanning, moving around the entryway with her gun, searching for anyone inside. She told herself the wind had blown the door open. The owner was already in bed.

  I smelled bleach, she told herself.

  He uses it to clean his equipment. You’ve broken into someone’s house without a warrant and now you’re about to shoot the first thing you see. You’re a scared little girl. Put your gun away, back out of the house before it’s too late, and wait for your chief.

  There is bleach on that van. Strong. That’s no coincidence. There are no such things as coincidences.

  She heard a creak above her head and looked up. Something had moved across the floorboards above, a distant, muffled sound, but she’d heard it. Then she heard it again. She crept across the room, keeping her free hand extended to search for the staircase, and found a warm wooden length of handrail just as her foot bumped against the kickboard of the lowest stair. She looked up, seeing a faint, flickering green light at the top of the steps. She stared at the light, trying to understand what it could be, and the metal pad affixed to the light began to clarify beneath it. A metal pad with a series of numbered keys beneath it. An electronic lock, she realized with a start. “Nubs?” she called out. “Are you up there?”

  Another thump on the floor, louder this time. Carrie started up the stairs, keeping her gun centered on the door, ready for it to open. One step, then another, moving upward toward the blinking green light. She hurried as she drew closer, eager to be through the door, to confront whatever waited there. The door appeared to be nothing more than a plain white hardware store model, hollow and flimsy, but when she touched it, it felt cool. Reinforced metal.

  She wrapped her hand around the doorknob and turned, keeping her gun trained in front of her, ready to fire. It opened. A door that locks in whoever is inside the room, she thought. She pushed forward, into the impenetrable darkness, too dark for her to see who or what was inside of it. She grimaced and clenched her fists, tired of being cautious. She shouldered the door open the rest of the way and barged forward, twisting and turning in every direction with her weapon, until a tiny voice, spoken through cracked lips, managed to utter words that struck her like bright streaks of lightning.

  “Aunt Carrie? Is that you?”

  27

  A HUNDRED KISSES AND FRANTIC EMBRACING AS SHE RAN HER HANDS up and down the little girl’s body, checking every inch of her, making sure that she was all in one piece. Words tumbled out of her mouth as she kissed Nubs on the forehead and face, wet tears on her lips, not knowing who they belonged to. Promises spilled out of her, swearing they were getting out of there, everything was going to be all right.

  “My mommy,” Nubs whispered, clutching Carrie.

  Clenching her eyes shut. Her teeth grinding together in outrage. “I know, baby, I know. No one is going to hurt you again.”

  “Mommy told me to be brave.”

  “You are so, so brave, baby.”

  “Where is she?”

  “Just hang on a little bit longer. Just a few more minutes, and everything will be okay.”

  A sound behind the door turned both of their heads, something creaking on the stairs, and Nubs cried out, “He’s coming! No! Tell him to leave us alone!”

  Carrie pushed the little girl behind her and raised her weapon, listening, trying to hear over Nubs’s whimpering and the rush of blood pulsating in her own ears. She’d never heard her own heart beating before. Now it was a pounding drum.

  Another creak on the stairs, closer this time, and Carrie fired. Two bullets, center mass on the door, flame spouting from the gun’s barrel that lit the entire room for one instant. Nubs covered her ears and screamed, her cries muffled by the painful ringing in Carrie’s ears from the gunshots. She waited, holding the pistol steady, ready to fire again. If the bullets had hit the target, a body would be falling backward down the steps. There would be a giant crash, then hopefully the sweet sounds of a murderous freak sobbing at the bottom, crying that his femur was sticking out through his flesh or his neck was broken but he was still alive. Instead, there was nothing but the ringing. Carrie waited, holding her position.

  “Sweetheart?” Carrie said.

  Nubs only whimpered in reply.

  “You have to stay here for a second.”

  “No!” Nubs cried. “Don’t leave me!”

  Carrie felt her tiny arms clench around her leg, but she did not move, did not lower her pistol.

  “I need to make sure the bad man is
gone, okay? I will not leave this room without you. I promise.”

  The hold on her leg only got tighter. The little girl was crying so hard that Carrie could feel tears soaking through her pants leg. She tried to talk, found her voice locked inside her throat, and the door grew blurry from the thick tears forming in her eyes.

  Carrie.

  The awkward teenager rolling her eyes at everything their math teacher said, making her laugh uncontrollably.

  Carrie.

  The two of them shaving the sides of their heads in Penny’s bathroom. Stealing from the used CD store. Working odd jobs together. Making out with their boyfriends in the same car.

  Molly, the one person she’d always had in a life filled with shitty people you could not rely on.

  You take good care of that little girl, Carrie. That’s my sweet little angel, and you protect her, goddamn it. I’m watching you, bitch.

  “Baby?” Carrie said, forcing herself to breathe. “Mommy said to be strong, right? That’s what she said. Well, this is what she meant. I need you to let go of my leg, because I have to open the door. After that, we are leaving this place forever. Can you do that, baby? Just be strong, one more time, for Mommy, okay? One more time for me.”

  She felt Nubs’s arms release from her, enough for her to move her leg, and she inched forward. Her arms ached from holding the gun up for so long; they were starting to shake. She gripped the handle with one hand and reached for the doorknob with the other, twisting it slowly, slowly, until it popped open and she pulled it inward.

  She kept the gun in front, moving it as she moved, looking with it as she looked. As she came around the corner of the door, holding it outright, something grabbed her wrist. Carrie twisted and squeezed the trigger again, the gun’s deafening bark echoing in the stairwell, but the man’s grip was like iron. He wrenched her forward, slamming her arm against the door’s steel frame so hard that she felt her fingers loosen around the handle. She struck out with her knee and stomped with her foot, driving the heel of her boot into his shin, his ankle, any part of him she could find, whatever it took to keep the gun in her hands.