Sons of Dust

by P. Dalton Updyke

  “Are your parents living?”

  His expression shifted enough so that Kate knew she’d caught him off guard.

  “Yes, they are.”

  “Then you have no idea what it’s like to go back to the house you grew up in when it’s empty. I have a lot of wonderful memories of Chelsea, but this is a huge, empty house. Too big for a single woman, and to be honest, the idea of spending the night here alone just didn’t appeal to me.”

  “I can understand that,” Detective Corville said, and then he winked. “Ghosts, huh?”

  Kate forced a smile on lips that felt too tight and too cold. “If you believe in such things.”

  The detective nodded again and walked down the rest of the stairs, one hand on the railing. “We’ll be in touch,” he said over this shoulder, but Kate barely heard him. She wasn’t listening to him anymore, she was hearing the word ghost reverberate in her mind. We should be so lucky, she thought, Ghosts don’t bite.

  As she crossed the street, Marcus left the hill, walking in her direction. The sun was directly behind him, framing in him in a soft gold light and a feeling of déjà vu struck Kate so suddenly her feet stopped moving.

  The past doubled over the present and it wasn’t Marcus anymore, it was Bo. Bo in sixth grade, her hair in pigtails, wearing jeans, pushing her bike thought the high grass and weeds. The sun was at her back and for a moment, she was framed in light and Kate stopped walking because Bo looked like

  she looked like—

  “—the picture in Sister Theresa’s class.”

  The bike swerved and Bo straightened it again, slapping a bug on her arm. They were walking across the Forest Field, heading back towards Katie’s house.

  “What picture?” Bo asked.

  “The one on the wall.”

  Bo frowned, her bangs fell into her eyes. “The baboon?”

  Katie laughed. “No. The picture next to the atlas. It’s a picture of a Saint but I can’t remember which one.”

  “You think I look like a saint?”

  “Just for a second you did.” Katie stopped walking. They were halfway across the field now, Blood Hill to the left, Essex Street behind them. This was her favorite part of the field because it was the wildest. From here, it was easy to pretend they weren’t in the city anymore and instead were in a deep, dark jungle.

  Bo stopped walking and put the kickstand down. The air smelled of oil, gas and juicy fruit gum. “I hope it’s not the picture of Joan of Arc.”

  “Why?”

  “Because she was so weird.” Bo plopped on the ground, shielding her eyes to look up at Katie. “Can we rest here for a minute before we go to your house?”

  Katie shrugged. “Sure.”

  “I told Marc and Alex we’d meet them after lunch,” Bo said as Katie flopped beside her. The grass smelled sweet; a foreign scent. It tickled the back of her legs and made her think, for no reason she could fathom, of Revere Beach.

  “It’s so bloody hot,” Bo sighed and lay down on her back, crossing her bare arms under her head. “I guess you’re wrong, Katie. I’m not much of a saint. I can’t abide discomfort.”

  Katie stretched out beside Bo, staring up at the sky. Another jet streaked past and the grass stirred. “I didn’t say you were a saint. I said you kind of looked like one.”

  They were silent after that, the quiet broken only by the sounds of traffic and the cooing of pigeons. Katie closed her eyes, enjoying the sun on her face and the grass under her head.

  “Katie?”

  “Hmmmm?”

  Bo sat back up, her shadow fell on Katie and Katie shielded her eyes with her hand. Bo picked a blade of grass and began tearing it into shreds. “Remember the other day? When we were playing Ouija?”

  The temperature seemed to drop. Katie grew cold and still. “What about it?”

  Bo didn’t look at her. She was still tearing the grass into narrow strips and the scent of green floated to Katie. Bo’s head was bent forward, her long bangs glowed almost white in the summer heat. “Do you remember asking it my fortune?”

  For a second, Katie thought about lying. The words I don’t know what you’re talking about were on her lips, but this was Bo next to her, and she couldn’t lie to Bo. “I remember,” she whispered.

  Bo twirled the grass between her fingers. “What happened to you?”

  Katie didn’t answer. It wasn’t so much she didn’t want to answer Bo; it was more like couldn’t.

  “Katie?”

  “I’m not sure,” Katie said slowly. “I think I fell asleep and had a dream.”

  “You weren’t sleeping and it wasn’t a dream.”

  “How do you know?”

  Bo stretched her legs out and put her palms on the ground behind her. “All of a sudden, you got really pale and your eyes looked glassy and then the Ouija stopped moving.”

  “It did?” Katie cut in.

  Bo nodded. “It stopped on YES and then you started talking, only it wasn’t like your voice at all. It was deep. Grown-up.”

  Sitting in the tall grass, Katie was mindful of the sky, a powder blue, the breeze light, scented by the sea. Yet despite the warm sun, the bright sky, the smell of the ocean, Katie had a feeling that Bo was going to say something that would ruin this perfect summer day. Turn it black.

  “You sounded like a man.” Bo was looking across the field, toward Congress Ave. From Katie’s angle, she looked haunted. Sweat trickled down Katie’s back, she could feel her shirt sticking to her skin.

  “Of course I didn’t sound like a man,” she said as lightly as she could, trying desperately to sound like her mother—full of confidence and gentle scorn. “We were playing around and you got caught up in the game. You just imagined too much.”

  Bo turned and looked at her. “No. I didn’t imagine it. And you know it, Katie.”

  Over Bo’s left shoulder, Katie could see Alex and Vinny coming up Blood Hill. They only had a few minutes alone now and Katie was glad. Bo wouldn’t talk in front of them. Whatever Bo was going to tell her was meant to be between the two of them. At least, for now.

  “It wasn’t imagination,” Bo said again. “You weren’t there, Katie. You were gone.”

  “What do you mean, gone?”

  Bo shrugged. “That’s the only word I can think of. It was like your body was there, but you, the real inside you, was gone.” She looked at Katie again and Katie was struck by the intensity on Bo’s face. “That’s what happened, isn’t it?”

  Katie’s chest felt like it had taken on weight, like someone had dropped cold stones inside her shirt to hold her down. “Yes,” she whispered.

  Bo made a sound and Katie realized her friend had been holding her breath. “I knew it! I just knew it!”

  “You don’t have to sound so happy about it.”

  Bo wriggled forward and took one of Katie’s hands. “I’m not happy it happened. I’m just glad you told me. Now.” She squeezed Katie’s hand, her own damp. “Tell me what happened. Everything. Don’t you dare leave out a single detail.”

  Alex and Vinny were just on the other side of Congress Ave. They hadn’t seen Bo and Katie yet, they were still too far away.

  If I call them, they’ll hear me, though, and they’ll come right over and Bo will stop talking—

  They turned and walked up the street, not bothering to look at the field.

  They’re going to my house, Katie thought. They’ll be gone at least fifteen minutes. Plenty of time to tell Bo what happened. “If I tell you, you better not laugh.”

  Katie didn’t need to hear Bo’s answer, she could see it in the white lines around Bo’s mouth. Bo wouldn’t laugh at what Katie had to say. She wouldn’t be able to.

  Taking a deep breath, Katie said, “When you put your fingers on the board, that’s when it started to happen.” Katie looked up quickly to see what effect her words had. What she’d said hadn’t shocked Bo. In fact, the expression on Bo’s face wasn’t surprise. It was recognition. “You knew that?”
/>   “I felt something,” Bo said. Until that moment, Katie hadn’t realized they were whispering. She licked her lips.

  “What did you feel?”

  Bo’s hand was clammy and cold in hers but Katie didn’t mind. She squeezed Bo’s fingers and Bo said, “The triangle started to shake under my hands and then it got really hot.”

  “Yes!” Katie said excitedly. “I felt that, too! And then--”

  “Then what?”

  “I was gone.”

  She was standing in a decaying hallway. There was something familiar about the room, but when Katie turned around, she didn’t recognize anything in particular. Dusty light drifted in from the narrow window over the front door, throwing pale, distorted cones of radiance on the dirty floor. The walls were painted a dark red, stenciled with pink flowers the size of her hand. The walls, oddly uneven and a texture she’d never seen before, were full of holes. Small cakes of plaster littered the wooden floor. To the left was an archway, leading into what might have been a parlor, once upon a time, but the room was filthy. A love seat upholstered in blue or black tapestry was pushed against a wall, its fabric rotted and moldy. A hole in the seat exposed an eruption of springs and yellow string. Strips of torn and rotted cloth hung from curtain rods. The smell of mildew almost made her gag.

  To her right was another door, but it was closed. She went to turn the knob, but when her fingers closed on the cut glass handle, a small shock went through her and she withdrew her hand with a hiss. She looked at her palm. There was a red mark where her skin had touched the glass.

  She looked down the hallway and saw that there was a door at the far end. A stripe of light oozed from the crack at the bottom. Katie moved towards it, not walking so much as being pushed. The door at the end was painted the same dusky pink as the flowers on the decaying walls, but the paint was blistered and peeling, exposing raw wood underneath in deep slashes. As she got closer, the smell of urine and waste grew stronger and she didn’t want to be here anymore. She didn’t want to be here at all.

  It’s too late.

  Katie was sure she heard the voice, but not with her ears. With her mind. The stripe of light under the door was flickering and she knew instinctively it was candle light. She was aware of something else now, some other sound. It was coming from behind the door. Her heart was thudding, trip hammering in her chest. She reached for the knob, not because she wanted to, but because she had to. The knob turned as soon as Katie’s fingers touched it. The door swung open by itself, swinging inward.

  There was light inside the room. Not as much light as the dusty corridor offered, but a light of a different sort. She looked around the room, her throat closed and aching with fear. This room was familiar too, but not in a direct sense. It reminded her of something, but the connection was elusive. She was in a bedroom. Like the rest of the house, it was rotting. Chunks of plaster had given way, tattered curtains trailed onto the floor. The walls were papered and she squinted to make out the pattern. At one time, the walls might have been purple, but now they were black with age and soot. She could make out a floral design of some sort, yellowed flowers on a dark background. Two long windows were encrusted with dirt. She couldn’t make out anything beyond them. Cobwebs drifted from everything, dust covered the cracked and broken bureau. Katie turned her head and her eyes came to rest on the bed.

  Her heart froze in her chest.

  There was a body on the bed.

  It was a woman. A woman in a long, rotting gown. Katie could see pockets of dust cradled in the folds of fabric. One of the woman’s arms was crossed over her chest; the other dangled off the bed and there was something else there, something kneeling beside the bed, but that part of the room was in shadow.

  “Can you bring her?”

  A man’s voice, soft, caressing, a stroke of melancholy.

  The woman’s chest moved and at first, Katie thought it was breathing, but then saw it wasn’t the woman’s chest moving, it was something on her chest. Kate stared harder, trying to make out what it was and then she saw—

  bugs

  Katie opened her mouth to scream, her breath hitching in her chest because the thing on the bed was dead, it was—

  “Dead, yes,” the voice said again. The shadow next to the bed shifted. “Dead many, many years. Beyond pain now, beyond this world.”

  The voice was like music, soft and rolling. The bodice of the dead woman squirmed again and Katie slapped a hand over her mouth.

  “There’s no need to be frightened. Death is always present, although perhaps in not so dramatic a form.” The speaker paused and then added, “Is it the insects that bother you?”

  Katie couldn’t speak. Her eyes felt like they were about to bulge out of the head and her heart was aching now it was banging so hard and she wanted to wake up, she wanted to go home—

  “That is all anyone wants my child. To go home. Where it is safe.”

  Katie squinted in the dim light, but the speaker was in thick shadow. Candles, long red tapers, burned from a black candelabra, the flamers flickered orange and gold behind the man. When his shape shifted, Katie could see wisps of smoke trailing from the candles’ end across the ceiling. Melting wax dropped onto a long, low table, creating odd, humped shapes.

  “Did you bring her?” This time, his voice was accompanied by a metallic jingle and Katie thought keys. The man moved, a long arm reached forward, the metallic jingle filled the room and then there was a blaze of light as a third candle was lit.

  “I have to go now,” Katie said. Her voice sounded like it was coming from far away. “I have homework and chores.”

  “Bosauvia.”

  Katie was frozen into place by the sound of her friend’s name.

  “Please,” the man said. His voice was a dusty croak. “Please tell me. It is Bosauvia with you, is it not?”

  Katie’s lips moved, but nothing came out.

  The jingle was louder this time, longer, another candle blazed with light and finally, she could see him. She thought, Gone with the wind…

  He was dressed like Rhett Butler, wearing a torn white shirt with a frilly collar, the collar open, exposing his throat. His hair was long and dark, drifting over his shoulders. His eyes were a brilliant blue, so bright they seemed to burn. He had a narrow nose, high cheekbones. He was smiling at her, his teeth were even and white. The smile, though, wasn’t a happy one. It made Katie think of the way her father’s clients looked when they stood in the reception line at memorial services.

  “Have you brought her?”

  “Who?” Katie’s throat burned, the word was a scratch.

  “Bosauvia.” He said her name as if he knew her, loved her. He stretched a hand out to Katie and Katie took a step backward. His eyes flared, bright blue, Katie looked away, her gaze falling to the woman on the bed, and this time, she was able to find a scream.

  The woman’s face had rotted away, leaving nothing but bleached bone and tissue that had gone soft and spongy. A worm crawled out of one of the thing’s eye sockets and slithered across what once had been a cheek, only there was no cheek left, just a gray—

  “Do not look,” the man said, his voice musical again. “It distresses you.”

  Katie took another step backward, her back bumped the wall and she edged sideways, away from the man in the torn white shirt, away from the decaying woman on the bed. The man’s eyes burned again, brighter than before.

  “Bosauvia needs me as I need her.”

  Katie eased down the wall. The door had to be close. Wasn’t it right behind her before? She cast an eye over her shoulder, but couldn’t see the opening. The door—where was the door?

  “I will help you find your way home,” the man said. “But you must promise to tell her I need her now. As she will soon need me.”

  “Bo doesn’t need you.” Katie was surprised at how strong her words sounded.

  The man shook his head slowly, his long black hair swung over his shoulders, glistened in the candle light. “You do n
ot understand. It is waiting for her.”

  “What is?”

  “The dark pit, where fire burns black and soot is red, where ashes glow blue with heat never to be extinguished.” His eyes burned brighter and he was getting to his feet now, rising slowly from his spot next to the rotting bed. Candlelight flickered and everything faded into terror because now Katie could see what was making the jingling noise, and it wasn’t keys.

  Chains dangled from the man’s wrists to the woman on the bed. The chains were thick and heavy, black with oil or age. They led from the man’s wrists to the woman’s and even though the woman’s wrist was nothing but bone, the chains were tight. The chain wrapped around the woman’s waist, linking her completely to the man in the Rhett Butler clothes.

  “Chained to her?” Katie whispered. Her stomach rolled and as she stared, and the woman’s chest wriggled again and the biggest roach she’d ever seen crawled from between two pearl buttons on the woman’s gown and scurried up to her neck.

  Katie took another sliding step and her back wasn’t against the wall any more, she was standing in the doorway again and she whirled around as fast as she could and ran, but the hallway was gone, the painted roses were gone, she was running down a different corridor, one with earth walls, hard-packed dirt floor, the smell of urine and waste so strong it made her gag. The man screamed behind her, his bellows echoed against the rock and earth so that his cries surrounded her, filling her head until she thought she’d go crazy from the sound.

  He was screaming.

  Screaming—

  “—your name,” Katie finished.

  Bo’s eyes were huge, her face pale. “Are you sure?”

  Katie nodded miserably. A breeze picked up, stirring the grass. Sweat trickled under her arms and she was suddenly aware of how hot it had gotten. She looked down Essex Street, but Vinny, Alex and Marcus were long gone.

  They’re at my house, Katie thought, sitting on the front stoop, waiting for Bo and me to come home so we can play Monopoly or maybe kick the can.

  “You’re positive he was saying my name? Absolutely positive?”