Sons of Dust

by P. Dalton Updyke

  “There aren’t many names that sound like Bosauvia. Jeez, Bo, I’m positive.”

  Bo sighed and twirled a piece of hair around her forefinger. Katie waited for Bo to laugh. She’s going to tell me I’m crazy. She’s going to laugh so hard she’ll puke or pee her pants and then she’s going to tell everyone I’ve gone mental and they’ll all start calling me Crazy Katie—

  But when Bo spoke, her words shocked Katie. “We have to do something.”

  “WHAT?”

  The sun was behind Bo now, so Katie had to squint to make out her face. She had no trouble seeing the nod.

  “We have to help that poor man.”

  “Help him??”

  “Of course we have to help! He’s chained to a dead woman, Katie!”

  “That’s exactly why we should never, never, ever touch Ouija again!”

  Bo hitched forward so her knees were touching Katie’s. She took one of Katie’s hands. “Katie, he needs us. He’s someplace terrible until we help him.”

  “How do you know?”

  Bo shrugged. “I just do,” she said simply. “And besides there’s another reason we have to try to do something.” Her eyes filled with tears, her chin trembled. “He told you a horrible pit is waiting for me. He said my name, Katie. I don’t think I can stand thinking about that, truly. It’ll make me crazy, not knowing what the pit is or how to stay away from it. I need to know more, Katie. I do.”

  And Katie knew that Bo wouldn’t let it drop. She wouldn’t be able to shrug it off and forget about it. What the man had said would eat at her until she was skinny and sick and probably half nuts.

  “Please Katie, you have to help me.”

  The bright summer sun lit Bo in shades in white and gold and Katie was struck again by how much Bo looked like the picture in Sister Theresa’s class, because the sun--

  --turned Marcus into a dark outline against a white background. Kate shook her head as if to clear it. She walked diagonally across Congress, cutting a path through parked cars and Marcus was striding toward her, cutting through traffic as she was.

  When she reached him, he didn’t say a word. His eyes searched her face and maybe there was something in her expression that told of the turmoil in her soul, because he took her in his arms and whispered, “It’s going to be okay, Katie. We’re the sons of dust, remember?”

  And in that instant, Katie knew she wasn’t alone. Marcus remembered, too. From over his shoulder, she could see the others making their way down the hill.

  But will they still be there when they know the whole story? she thought, when they know what Bo and I did? For the life of her, she didn’t know.

  “I have a lot to tell you,” her voice was muffled against Marcus’s chest.

  Marcus let her go and stepped back. His lips curved into a soft smile that reminded her of childhood. “There’s no time like the present.”

  Chapter 15

  Marcus

  Marcus expected to see furniture shrouded in white sheets, bare walls dotted with darker wallpaper in square shapes where pictures once hung, but when Kate opened the front door and ushered them into the living room, he was surprised to see the house hadn’t changed at all. The yellow couch was still under the long window, tables at either end. The chair Katie’s dad used to sit in looked oddly empty, but the fabric was still solid, no holes or tears. The house didn’t look lived in, exactly, but it didn’t look like it had stood empty for eight years, either.

  “You kept the place up good,” Vinny’s voice, coming from the hallway, sounded hollow. “What did you do, Katie? Hire a cleaning service?”

  “I didn’t do anything,” Kate said shortly. She tossed her keys on the table next to the stairs. “I found it like this this morning.” She moved through the room, snapping on lamps as she went. Puddles of light illuminated the burgundy Oriental rug, the watercolor over the fireplace, the knick knacks on the shelves. Marcus noted something else: the room was free of dust, the tables polished to a shine, the rug vacuumed.

  “I’d forgotten how dark it gets in here,” Kate said as she flicked on another light. “My mother preferred the house dim because of her headaches, but I like a lot of light.”

  She pulled open the heavy drapes on the French doors leading to the porch, then immediately shut them again. “Police,” she said over her shoulder. “There’s still a whole crew out there.”

  “They’ll be here for hours yet,” Marcus said. He walked across the room to stand next to Kate and touched the corner of the drapes with his finger, moving it apart slightly so he could see outside.

  Detective Corville was there, just within his line of vision. Marcus opened the curtain wider and looked to the right. He could see the edge of the porch, yellow crime scene tape strung between the posts. “Is that where they found the body?”

  “No,” Kate moved away and sat on the couch. She looked exhausted. “He was found out by the curb, but the police think he was killed in the alley and dragged out there.”

  Marcus looked harder and now he could see crimson stains against the white clapboards., splashes on the cement walkway. He moved his hand away and let the drapes fall closed. “When Vinny called, he said the body had been found by sanitation workers.”

  “He was right.”

  “Hey, aren’t I always?” Vinny said as he came back into the room. He looked from Kate to Marcus. “What am I right about now?”

  “The body being found by the curb.”

  Vinny nodded. “He was dragged out there, right where the cans would be. It was like the killer was tossing the body out with the rest of the trash.”

  Kate shuddered and wrapped her arms around her body. “I still can’t believe it happened here.”

  Vinny looked at her for a long moment. “It was right on your doorstep, so to speak, and if that isn’t a message, I don’t know what is.”

  “I think you might be right,” Marcus said.

  Gina came around the corner, still in her coat. “Don’t keep telling Vinny he’s right. His ego is big enough.”

  Kate smiled wanly. “One thing Vinny never lacked is ego.”

  “Hey, you’re gonna hurt my feelings, talking about me like I wasn’t here.”

  “Sorry,” Gina smiled, a warmer smile this time. She was dressed in jeans and a button down red silk shirt, black boots and short leather jacket. It struck Marcus that Gina was beautiful. Funny, he’d never thought of her as pretty before—she was always just Gina. But now, framed in the doorway, she looked young and vital. Alive, Bo’s voice said in his mind. That’s the word you really mean, isn’t it? She’s alive.

  “Katie?” Gina asked, “Why don’t I go down to the store and get a few things? Tea, coffee, bagels, maybe some sandwich stuff for later.”

  “That’s a great idea.”

  “I’ll go with you,” Vinny said, rising from his spot on the couch. “I’ll carry the bags.”

  “I can handle the bags just fine on my own, Vincent, but if you want to come along for the walk, that’s fine by me.”

  “Hey,” Marcus heard Vinny say as he opened the front door, “you’re gonna be glad I came along, once you start trying to lug all that crap up Blood Hill.”

  The door swung shut, cutting off Gina’s reply.

  “I think I’ll set the dining room table while they’re gone,” Kate said. “Put the water on.”

  “I’ll help,” Marcus said quickly. He followed Kate down the hall and into a kitchen he remembered well. Like the rest of the house, this room appeared to have been stopped in time. The yellow daisy wallpaper was faded near the windows, the curtains thinner than Marcus remembered, but the table was still red and white porcelain, the counters gold speckled tile, the refrigerator avocado green. There was a faint hum from the fridge and when Marcus idly turned a knob on the stove, blue flame issued from the jets. “You had the gas turned back on, too.”

  Kate, reaching into a cabinet over the sink, hesitated and then pulled out a stack of coffee mugs. “Marcus?”
>
  “Hmm?”

  “I didn’t have the gas turned back on.”

  He turned from the stove, puzzled. “What?”

  She wouldn’t meet his eyes. “I didn’t call the electric or the gas company. The service was turned off last year when Aunt Hannah died. You remember Aunt Hannah, don’t you Marc? My dad’s sister. She stayed here for a couple of weeks last year. The last time I called a utilities company about this place was to tell them to turn everything off – not on.”

  Marcus didn’t say anything at all for a few minutes, turning it over in his mind. “If you didn’t, who did? Any other relatives who might be using the place without asking you first?”

  “No. I’m it.”

  “But if you didn’t call them, who did?”

  Kate shrugged helplessly and Marcus saw something else in her eyes. Fear.

  “At first, I thought maybe there were squatters here, but I walked through the whole house earlier, up here as well as downstairs and I don’t think anyone has been living here. There’s no food, nothing in the bathroom, no clothes in the closet. I can’t understand it for the life of me and I keep wondering if this whole thing is some kind of …sick joke.”

  Marcus pushed himself away from the wall. “Why don’t we call the gas and electric company and find out when service was restored – and by whom?”

  Kate’s expression cleared. “I don’t know why I didn’t think of that.”

  “My cell phone is right in the car. I’ll get it.”

  “Don’t bother,” Kate said “The house phone was reconnected, too.”

  Marcus set the dining room table with bright blue mugs and saucers. Just as he was folding the cloth napkins into triangles, Kate came into the room, a notebook in her hand.

  “The service was turned back on by a woman claiming to be me on August 23. Following the phone calls to reconnect the house, the electric, gas and phone companies received written confirmation, with money orders enclosed for reconnection, signed with my name. Since then, the monthly service bills – sent here – have been paid on time and in full.”

  Marcus thought it over. “And you’re sure, no one is squatting?”

  “I’m sure.”

  Monthly service bills… it struck Marcus and he said, “Did they tell you how much the last bills were?”

  Kate looked at the notebook in her hand. “Electric bill was $48.27, gas was $32.60, telephone $21.50.”

  “$48.27, $32.60 and $21.50?”

  Kate nodded.

  “It was Bo,” Marcus said slowly. “She named me the executor of her estate. Yesterday, before the funeral, I was going through her papers, trying to get a handle on what bills had to be paid. I figured it help take my mind off…” his voice dwindled. “I came across several journal entries with just amounts. No check numbers or notations. Last month, there were three entries in her budget book -- $48.27, $32.60 and $21.50.”

  “You’re sure?”

  “Positive. I thought it was odd. Bo was meticulous about her book keeping; everything listed under headings and categorized. It wasn’t like her to list something without at least a note.”

  “What category did Bo list these expenses under?”

  “Religious contributions. That’s why it struck me. All of Bo’s contributions to the church were in even sums – usually $30 a week to St. Stand’s, $50 for the Cardinal’s appeal, $20 to smaller causes. But there were three sums, odd amounts, with no entry next to them.”

  “But why would Bo have the lights and gas turned back on here?”

  It was Marcus’s turn to shrug. “She didn’t say anything to me. And you said it was all turned on in August?”

  Kate nodded. “August twenty third.”

  “We were still together then.” He looked down at the table and began folding napkins again. It made no sense. No sense at all and Marcus was suddenly filled with anger. How could she do something like this and not tell him? What other secrets had she kept from him?

  “Did she say anything about it in her letter?”

  Kate’s eyes grew wide. “The letter! I forgot all about it.” Her coat was over the back of a chair and Kate fumbled through the pockets, pulling out an envelope Marcus recognized.

  “I didn’t want to read it,” she began, but Marcus interrupted, “Read it now.”

  Kate slid a fingernail under the flap and ripped the envelope open. There was just a single sheet inside and Kate read it quickly, her eyes moving across the blue lined paper and then she handed it wordlessly to Marcus.

  “It opened up again,” was written in Bo’s back slanting handwriting. “I think I found a way to close the pit, for all of us. I love you, Katie.”

  Under that, she had written: Isaiah 24:17-21

  Marcus read the letter through twice and then handed it back. “Do you have a Bible here?”

  Kate rose without a word, coming back a few minutes later, the Bible open in her hands. She lowered herself into a chair and began reading aloud.

  “Terror and captivity of hell are still your lot, O men of the world. When you flee in terror you will fall into a pit and if you escape from the pit you will step into a trap, for destruction falls from the heavens upon you; the world is shaken beneath you. The earth has broken down in utter collapse, everything is lost, abandoned and confused. The world staggers like a drunkard; it shakes like a tent in a storm. It falls and will not rise again, for the sins of the earth are very great. On that day, the Lord will punish the fallen angels in the heavens, and the proud rulers of the nations on earth, they will be rounded up like prisoners and imprisoned in a dungeon until they are tried and condemned.”

  Kate looked up, her long hair falling over her shoulder. She stared at Marcus with an expression he didn’t understand, then looked down at the page again. “The denizens of hell grow to meet you as you enter their domain. With one voice they all cry out ‘Now you are as weak as we are! Your might and power are gone, buried with you… now maggots are your sheet, worms your blanket…”

  Kate snapped the book closed and laid it on the table.

  “Make any sense to you?”

  “The Bible never did,” Kate said wearily.

  “What about the rest of it? The part about something opening again?”

  Kate shook her head. Marcus folded the letter across the seam lines before handing it back.

  “Maybe it’ll make sense in time.”

  Kate turned quickly, but not before Marcus saw that her eyes had filled with tears. “Time,” she said so softly Marcus barely heard her. “We have time, but Bo doesn’t.”

  Chapter 16

  Alex

  Alex walked down Blood Hill quickly, his mind in turmoil. Several people called out to him and he waved automatically, without hearing what they said. He tried to think about the notes for his sermon on Sunday, or how he was going to handle Sophie Turner this afternoon, but he couldn’t do it. His thoughts kept returning to the body in front of Kate’s house and Vinny’s words, “sons of dust.”

  Trying to deflect his thoughts was useless. He’d start to think about work, only to find that his thoughts kept doubling back to Bo, like a tongue working over a broken tooth.

  Sons of dust.

  It’s ridiculous, he thought, ludicrous. I can’t understand how any of them—grown adults—could believe—

  Believe what?

  Believe in spirits and Ouija boards and men that changed into demons. There’s no defense for that kind of belief. Traveling down that road could drive a man insane. And where does Vinny get the idea that the deaths of Bo and that man are not only connected, but have something to do with—

  With what?

  With a nightmare. How could Marcus and Gina stand there and let Vinny ramble on, like they understood what he was saying and believed it? Alex shook his head. Yes, walking down that path could make a man crazy. He didn’t understand Marcus at all. Marcus was a lawyer. He saw the evil men were capable of every day. He had to know that Bo’s death wasn’t the work
of a ghost, but of someone insane.

  There had to be a reason Marcus was willing to entertain Vinny’s nonsense, and as Alex crossed Shurtliff Street, a block away from the church, it came to him. It was easier for Marc to accept death Bo’s death as something supernatural because he couldn’t accept her death as a random act of violence. Easier to think fate was involved. Destiny. A demon.

  The smell of baking bread drifted from the shop on the corner. Some of the tension eased out of Alex, the muscles in his shoulders relaxed.

  And Gina. She was willing to listen to Vinny’s bullshit theories because she’d just lost her father. Gina, like the rest of his parishioners, was having trouble accepting the finality of death. They clung to the hope that there was life everlasting, something beyond this world, and Vinny’s reminder of the game they’d played as children—

  Game?

  Yes. A game. It was make-pretend, ghosts coming back to the living. Vinny’s memories of that game sparked Marcus and Gina’s hope that there was something more. That’s all it was. Hope.

  When the next person called to him, “Hey! Father!” Alex smiled when he waved.

  Grief. That was the explanation. There was a scientific reason for everything. Alex had read the articles that explained the after-death experiences so many people ranted about. The bright light, the tunnel to travel down, was no more or less than a chemical reaction in the brain. When shutting down, the brain emitted a substance that caused the dying to see bright lights. Mini explosions, breakdowns in the circuits that were once a nerve center. And the feeling of racing down a tunnel was the body’s attempt to bring in oxygen.

  Simple biology.

  It made perfect sense to Alex. Life was now. Present. But Marcus and Gina wanted to believe in life after death, they wanted the fairy tale of white lights and a loving deity. Alex could sympathize with that. When he was a kid, he’d found it easy to believe that Bo and Kate had somehow opened a door to a spirit world. He believed the story Bo told him about a man chained to a dead woman. But he was eleven years old then. Eager to believe that—