Dead Silent

by Ivan Blake

  From what little he’d been able to learn about Lewis in the detention center library, he knew it had about 900 inhabitants and touted itself as the geographic center of Vermont’s ‘Northeast Kingdom.’ The town had been established to service the Monsegur Granite Company and had prospered along with the granite business from the 1880s into the 1930s. Lewis had been an important stop on the Grand Trunk Railway which ran between Montreal and the eastern seaboard, and the railway had carried Lewis’s granite to the world. But the Grand Trunk was no more, and Lewis’s quarries were now flooded. The only sources of work in the area were tourism and timber, and neither provided much security for the locals. As a result, the town was in a slow death spiral. Businesses withered because of uncertainty, and tourists no longer came because a dying town had little to offer.

  Up until a year ago, the town had held an annual Maple Sugar Festival but the festival had been canceled for want of business sponsors. A once-popular October reenactment of an historical skirmish on the town common between confederate soldiers fleeing to Canada following their raid on Saint Albans and the pursuing Vermont Militia was itself now history since most of the reenactors had moved away and the captain of militia had died in a hunting accident.

  A recent story in the Montpelier Times-Daily reported that the Mayor of Lewis was in negotiation with the State Police to have it take over the town’s small force. The local high school was to close permanently at the end of spring term; in the autumn, the few remaining Lewis students of high school age were to be bussed to nearby Jay. Even so, the town still had a 7-Eleven, a diner, a Chinese restaurant, and a small hardware store, and they were all Chris thought he might need to get through the next several months. “Suck it up,” he muttered to himself. Six months and his future would be his own.

  The driver announced, “Lewis. Five-minute bathroom break.” The bus stopped in front of Paget’s Bowlerama and Launderette. “Ladies inside, next to shoe rentals, Men’s downstairs by the janitor’s office. Show your bus ticket at the lunch counter for the key.”

  Judging by the few dim lights visible through the plate-glass window of the Bowlerama, there wasn’t much bowling going on at that hour, just a few kids hovering near the front door smoking and shoving one another. Yellow Christmas lights were still strung across the main window and a festive, hand-painted sign read, Why not bowl in the New Year! Special Hot Turkey Sandwich Dinner at Midnight! First twenty partygoers receive a free glass of champagne! Chris shook his head. Doesn’t anyone in New England ever take down their holiday crap?

  Steam billowed out of the Launderette into the cold March air as muffled figures carrying hampers and sacks came and went in the late afternoon drear. The thought of clean laundry made Chris realize how filthy and uncomfortable he felt. His scalp itched. He hadn’t had a change of clothes in three days. Every joint ached. His tongue felt like he’d spent the last ten hours sucking on an army blanket. Overnight in the Portland bus station, he’d tried to wash some of the spatter from Mallory’s attack off his pant legs and shoes, but sensed the smell of Balzer’s fluids still lingered. When most of his fellow passengers had exited the bus, Chris grabbed his case from the overhead rack and followed them off. He considered trying to clean up in the Bowlerama toilet, but then saw the line of passengers waiting for the toilet key and thought better of the idea. Instead he set off in search of his contact in town, one Rose DuCalice, the local librarian.

  There wasn’t much to Lewis’s Main Street, just a string of small businesses on one side and an abandoned rail line and large open area on the other. The houses in town all appeared to be set away from Main Street, either behind the business district or across the park. In the failing afternoon light, it was difficult to gauge which homes were occupied and which vacant.

  Chris headed east past the small shops in search of the library or at least for someone who might direct him to it. A few businesses were still in operation—like Gerry’s Diner with a couple of customers sitting at the counter sipping coffee, and the hardware store with a sale on deck paint, which given the bitter March weather, seemed ill-timed—but most shops appeared to have closed for good.

  He came to the Bijou Burgoyne, once the town’s movie palace, but no more. One might have supposed from the marquee—Lost Weekend Starring Ray Milland and Jane Wyman—that the Bijou had been closed for many years. Apparently however there was still some life in the place. While the Bijou was a building of no particular architectural interest, its color scheme was arresting indeed. It had been painted from top to bottom—and very recently judging by all the wet paint signs—in black and purple. From beneath the theater’s boarded-up doors, Chris saw light and heard heavy metal music. And in the Coming Attractions display cases on either side of the ticket booth were signs announcing:

  Opening Soon, Vermont’s Own Grand Guignol Theater, and Don’t miss The Mad Surgeon of Rottingwood Asylum playing April 1st to 15th, a tale of terror not suitable for the squeamish, and Rottingwood Asylum will be the first production in a season of original, blood-curdling plays. Inquire at the freight entrance in the rear for tickets...if you dare.

  “Never expected that,” Chris mumbled. Lewis might have some life after all.

  A gust of bitter March wind whistled down Main Street. A car driving past threw a wave of slush across Chris’s feet.

  The large open field across the street was probably the town park. Matted grass poked through the filthy slush; several misshapen shrubs pushed through their shrouds of ice and snow. In a large bed of frozen soil, a battered sign which read Lewis Common in scrolled iron letters dangled from an off-kilter post and rocked gently in the light breeze. On the far side of the common, an imposing granite church without windows or ornamentation of any kind looked more like a military bunker or a bank than a place of worship. Its spire seemed disproportionately short for the bulk and mass of its sanctuary. The church stood amidst a line of uninteresting and seemingly abandoned warehouses and workers’ cottages.

  Near the centre of a network of walking paths was an ornate cast-iron fountain with the arms of cherubs and necks of dragons poking like snakes through the heaped-up ice and snow. At the far end of the park were the burnt remains of a wooden structure of some sort, likely a band shell or stage. At the edge of the park, a couple of rail cars were parked on a short length of track. They’d once perhaps been considered an exotic addition to the park’s small play area but were now badly rusted and covered in graffiti, and with all their broken metal and jagged edges, they posed a terrifying danger to any child foolish enough to play on them. And finally, beyond the ruins of the band shell, a large cemetery—without trees or gardens or elevation of any kind to relieve its tedium and its regimented symmetry—stretched away to the edge of town.

  Chris continued along Main Street toward what looked like a municipal building, an imposing four-story ornate granite structure with pillars flanking its grand front steps and its towering double doors. Set into its slate mansard roof was an enormous clock ringed with carved gargoyles and serpents. The building seemed entirely out of place amid the dilapidated clapboard structures on Main Street and appeared to be in remarkably fine repair. It had obviously been built in a time when Lewis’s prospects looked bright.

  Chris intended to ask at the town hall for directions to the library, so he was shocked when he got to the steps and discovered the imposing building was itself the library. On one of the pillars was an elegant brass plaque that read, Lewis Library and Museum--Gift of the Monsegur Family 1889.

  He climbed the dozen stone steps, but before he could grab the handle, the door opened and a large man, wearing an ill-fitting caramel-colored suit and pulling on a puffy down parka, stormed out of the building, muttering what sounded for all the world like, “I’ll kill that crazy bitch!”

  “Excuse me?” Chris said in surprise.

  It took the sweaty, red-faced man a moment to register Chris’s presence. He looked Chris up and down and turned away in disgust. “None of your go
ddamn business,” he said, and rushed away.

  “Nice to meet you too,” Chris called after him, and entered the library.

  The library reading room was extraordinary, grand beyond Chris’s comprehension and entirely out of place in Lewis. How in God’s name could such a room and such a building have ever been built in a tiny town in the middle of nowhere?

  The room was almost perfectly round. Curved marble steps led from the enormous front doors down to a vast expanse of gray and white terrazzo. Four enormous, dark gray granite columns soared thirty feet or more up to a spectacular, domed ceiling that covered the entire space. The interior of the dome was painted midnight blue with stars scattered across its surface. To his surprise, Chris realized the stars weren’t random; with little effort he picked out the Big Dipper, the Pole Star, and even Cassiopeia. A dozen feet below the dome, a mezzanine with a wrought iron railing encircled the room. The mezzanine was filled with display cases and presumably functioned as the Lewis museum.

  Half of the enormous room was given over to bookshelves radiating out from the center of the room like spokes in a wheel. The wall around the back half of the room was also lined with shelves. The front half of the room was filled with reading tables and armchairs, racks of magazines and newspapers, and small tables for reference works like dictionaries and atlases. Opposite the entrance, behind the two far columns, were doors which presumably led to the library offices and upstairs to the mezzanine. In the middle of the room, like the hub in the wheel, was a large circular counter, and on it, a plaque which read, Reference. Inside the circular counter were two desks and chairs, and at the very center of the reference area, an enormous card catalog.

  There appeared to be no one on duty at Reference. Above the whispers and the rustle of newspapers, however, Chris heard quiet sobbing and a woman’s voice speaking in hushed tones. He walked softly across the room and spotted two women in conversation at the far end of a shelving unit. The first was an older lady, slim, tall, and smartly dressed; and the second, a younger person, probably in her late teens, dressed in a red knitted sweater and powder blue polyester stretch pants, with limp blond hair, pimply cheeks and the figure of an oil barrel. The girl was flushed and crying.

  “You don’t need to quit,” the older woman said.

  “But Dad will find out.”

  “Not from me. If you want to continue working here, you can.” She patted the sobbing young woman on the shoulder but from the look of impatience on her face, Chris guessed she found the girl’s display somewhat distasteful.

  “I...I know he loves me...but he can be so cruel sometimes.”

  “Let’s stop this now. I won’t tell him you’re working here if you don’t. So, are we all right?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then let’s finish this shelving.”

  “Mrs. DuCalice?” Chris said as he stepped forward.

  The girl turned away, sniffed loudly, and wiped her nose on her sweater sleeve. The woman faced Chris.

  “May I help you?” she asked.

  “Hi. I’m Chris Chandler? From Maine? I believe you were expecting me?”

  “Ah, the grave robber.”

  Chris was taken aback. “No, no I’m not.”

  The DuCalice woman turned to the girl. “Geraldine, this is Chris. Chris, Geraldine. So, Geraldine, are we all right now? Can you finish the shelving by yourself? I have to leave early with this young man. Will you lock up tonight? We’ll talk about your father in the morning, make up some kind of cover story.”

  “Uh, all right.” The girl leaned toward Chris, grinned and whispered, “You’re that boy from Maine, aren’t you, the one who stopped the grave robber.”

  Chris was horrified to realize his cover had been blown already.

  “No, don’t worry,” the girl said. “I won’t tell anybody. It’s just that I read all the papers here every day and I saw your picture and I...I thought you were handsome.”

  “I hope you won’t tell anyone I’m here.”

  “No. Certainly not.”

  “Right, if that’s settled, come,” Rose DuCalice said. “We’ll talk in my office.” She turned and marched away toward the door behind the right pillar.

  With a smile and a shrug at Geraldine, Chris followed Rose.

  She entered the office first, held the door for Chris, and then closed it. She then turned to him and said, “So, grave robber.”

  “But I’m not.”

  “Relax, I’m pulling your leg. I know your story. My brother filled me in. You’re going to cottage sit for Bernard.”

  “I didn’t know his name.”

  “Bernard Monsegur. No, I expect not. I must tell you I’m not comfortable with this arrangement, not comfortable at all. How old are you?”

  “Nineteen.”

  “Nineteen. Are you sick? You look sick.”

  “I’ve had some health issues.”

  “So how in heaven’s name can you possibly be expected to look after a cottage and a—”

  “A what?”

  “A large estate.”

  “I’m stronger than I look. I’ve been through a lot recently, but I’m doing pretty well.”

  “How well can you be doing if you have to hide out?”

  “I’m not hiding.” Chris shifted uncomfortably at the turn the grilling had taken.

  “And what about your parents, why aren’t you with them?”

  “They wanted me to join them in Wisconsin, but because of all the press and because of my mother’s own health issues, I said no. Besides, my lawyer says I need to be near enough to return to Maine quickly if the Inquiry there summons me. That’s when Nigel Harrow spoke to Mr. Monsegur. I’m officially in Nigel’s custody, but he trusts me to live on my own.”

  “To be frank, I’m dubious about your suitability, but I trust my brother’s judgment, so for the moment, I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt. Let’s get you settled in.”

  * * * *

  A single light illuminated the grisly scene. A young girl in a flimsy chemise was strapped to a gurney, her torso and legs held fast by wide leather straps, her face white and her eyes rolled back in her head with shock. A rusted saw was embedded in her right arm. A tourniquet slowed the blood that dripped from her arm into an overflowing bucket on the floor by the gurney.

  “Please, please stop,” she pleaded.

  “Not a chance,” replied a woman’s voice from the darkness.

  “Why, why are you doing this?”

  “You know why. Because you robbed me of everything I loved.” A woman in medical scrubs—unusually tall and skeletal, with a chalky white face and arms bloodied to her elbows—stepped from the shadows.

  “I...I couldn’t stop him,” the girl on the gurney said. Her voice was barely above a whisper. “I never led him on. Please, I beg you, ask your husband!”

  The woman replied with a smile, “Too late for that now, since you ate him for dinner.”

  The woman on the gurney turned her face to one side, retched, and cried out in despair, “You’re a monster. You’re mad!”

  The skeletal woman laughed and said, “I think that goes without saying.”

  She moved to the young woman’s side, stoked her brow, and then tightened the tourniquet immediately above the saw cut. Suddenly, with a howl of laughter, she grasped the saw and hacked through the remaining tissue of the girl’s arm. The severed limb dropped into the bucket below. A stream of blood from the stump missed the bucket and splashed onto the floor in a widening pool of gore. The young woman screamed and closed her eyes in a deathly swoon.

  The skeletal woman dropped her saw and tightened the tourniquet a second time. The blood from the stump slowed to a trickle once again. “I can’t have you bleeding out on me. We’re far from done.”

  Somewhere in the darkness, a door opened and then slammed shut.

  “I don’t intend to kill you,” the skeletal woman said, “With your body, you robbed me of half my life. So I intend to cut away half your flesh.” />
  Footsteps echoed in the darkness, then someone called out, “Burgoyne, are you in here?”

  The skeletal girl turned away from her victim and said with obvious irritation. “Is there a problem?”

  “No! Continue!” a male voice shouted angrily.

  The skeletal woman turned back to her victim, repeated the line, “So I intend to cut away half your flesh.” Then she ripped away the flimsy hospital gown covering the girl’s torso, and raised an enormous knife into the air.

  “What the hell are you doing?” Mayor Paget cried out. In spite of his large size, he ran across the stage and tackled the skeletal woman. They crashed to the floor. The gurney toppled sideways, overturning the bucket of blood as it did. A headless rubber dummy fell from the gurney, bounced on the boards and rolled away. A young woman partially concealed inside the gurney, with her head stuck through the top, screamed, “My neck! It’s choking me!”

  “Stop! Stop! Someone get Twilight out of the gurney,” Gilbert Burgoyne shouted from the darkness. “Mayor Paget? What the hell are you doing here? You’ve ruined our rehearsal!”

  Paget rolled away from the girl he’d tackled and sat rubbing his elbow in the enormous pool of blood. “You’re what?” he muttered.

  Gilbert appeared from stage right and ran to the rubber corpse. “You better not have damaged our bleeder. It cost a fortune!”

  Paget was obviously still stunned. “What the hell’s a bleeder?”

  The house lights came up. A handful of people seated in the front two rows of the theater roared with laughter.

  “For Christ sake, someone help Twilight and Lassa,” Gilbert said.

  Several people clambered onstage to help the first girl to her feet and to disentangle the second girl from the gurney.

  “And clean up that mess,” Gilbert said. “We have to go again. Are you all right, Lassa?”

  “That fat bastard weighs a ton. He nearly crushed me. God, my elbow!”

  “Manfred,” Gilbert called to someone offstage, “the blood is coming out of the bleeder way too fast. You need to slow the pump down.”