Dead Silent

by Ivan Blake

  “Anyway,” Chris replied, “I have to write a paper for one of my courses, and I wondered if you’d mind me using the books at the house to write about the Cathars.”

  “If my brother had no objections, then I can’t see the harm.”

  * * * *

  The Willard farmhouse was quiet when Gillian got home from school—no radio, no sounds from the kitchen. Through the back window, she saw her mother out in the orchard trimming limbs. Her grandfather was probably napping upstairs in his room, something he did most afternoons now. With a few moments to herself before she joined her mother outside, Gillian sat down at the kitchen table and let herself have a good cry.

  It wasn’t the insults, or the indifference of her teachers, and or even the open hostility from everyone that hurt so much. She knew how to handle the nastiness; she had Chris’s example to guide her. No, what truly hurt was the loneliness. She couldn’t tell her mother what was going on at school; her mother had her own kind of loneliness to contend with, loneliness that she suppressed with hard labor. She couldn’t tell her grandfather; he was growing weaker by the month and would have been shattered to learn of his beloved granddaughter’s pain. Gillian knew they were going to lose him soon, and when she thought of their rambling old house without her grandfather padding about, the sadness nearly stopped her heart.

  Some afternoons, Gillian climbed the hill to sit by Felicity’s grave and pour out her anguish. That helped a bit, but not enough.

  She wanted to tell her best friend Madelyn about the terrible things that were happening to her at school, but she couldn’t even do that, because Madelyn was suffering through her own nightmare. Everyone knew Madelyn’s mother was the School Board Chair, so poor Madelyn was taking abuse for all the cuts to school services—sports, music, school clubs—the Board had recently imposed. And since everyone now knew a teacher in the Board had died of AIDS without parents being advised of his illness, many parents and teachers were demanding the Chairwoman’s scalp. Gillian and Madelyn had been best friends since kindergarten. They’d always comforted each other, shared secrets, helped each other through the darkest times, but now they were afraid to even speak for fear of compounding their suffering.

  The irony was that since her father had died, Gillian had been a solitary soul and comfortable as such. She’d never had many friends, beyond her mother and her grandfather, Madelyn, and from time to time, Felicity up the hill. That had been her circle and it had seemed sufficient. But then Chris had come into her life, and the size of her world had suddenly exploded. It had been filled with the kind of dangers, intrigue, secrets and passions that she’d never before experienced, and more important, her heart had been filled with the kinds of longings and desires she barely comprehended. Then Chris had been taken away, and her world had become narrow and cold again.

  In her mind, Gillian understood why Chris had gone to Vermont: to protect her and her family from Mallory. In Gillian’s heart, however, she was at sea. No matter the risk, she longed to have Chris near. She longed to talk to him, to feel his strength, and to rekindle that sense of purpose she’d experienced with him beside her. Above all, she yearned to feel his arms around her again, as she had the night they’d walked down the hill together, the night Felicity died.

  The kitchen ceiling creaked. Her grandfather was getting up. She sniffled and took a tissue from the box on the fridge. On the counter by the stove lay the day’s mail. She wiped her nose and picked through the bills and flyers. That’s when she found the letter from Indonesia.

  She tore it open and read aloud.

  Dear Miss Willard,

  Thank you for your beautiful words about my darling daughter. It gives me some comfort to know Mallory had wonderful friends like you right until the end of her life. I confess, I am surprised my former wife allowed people outside our immediate family participate in my daughter’s second cleansing death, but if you were close enough to Mallory to have been invited, then I am pleased. I am also pleased to learn the beautiful prayers of our Torajan faith made you want to know more about our beliefs. As you requested, I am attaching for your further study the two prayers used in Mallory’s cleansing death. I must warn you, the prayers have to be sung correctly or danger may befall you. I am also including, as you requested, the name of a Torajan priest living near Boston with whom I am acquainted. Mention my name when you contact him. Again, thanks for your words of consolation, and for your friendship with my beloved daughter. Perhaps we could meet sometime when I’m next in Boston, and I could express more intimately my appreciation for your kind wishes.

  Yours sincerely,

  Damian Dahlman, Captain

  Gillian’s heart soared. She’d done it, just as she promised Chris she would. She’d gotten the prayers and the contact they needed to lay Mallory’s spirit to rest. Once they were free of Mallory’s vengeance, she and Chris might then.... Oh, God, her heart was beating a thousand times a minute.

  “Mother,” she called out as she ran to the kitchen door. “Mother, I have to go to Vermont! I have to go right away.”

  * * * *

  “But, Mother. I’m eighteen!”

  “My house, my rules. A chaperone or you don’t go.”

  “Okay, can you come?”

  “No, of course not, I’ve got to finish all the pruning, you know that.”

  “Grandad?”

  “Gillian.”

  “No, of course not, but then who?”

  “Call Nigel Harrow. Didn’t he say he wanted to drop in on Chris some time to see how he’s doing? Perhaps he’d go with you.”

  * * * *

  Nigel picked up on the first ring. In the year since his first visit, he’d become like an uncle, and even though he was considerably older, Gillian suspected Nigel harbored feelings for her mother. And why not? Nigel was elegant and her mother was still beautiful. They’d both lost spouses, and both liked, what...? Okay, so maybe Gillian was reaching, maybe they didn’t have all that much in common, but he’d been so nice to the Willards throughout Chris’s trial, Gillian’s recovery, and now the inquiry. Most important of all, Nigel had done so much to make her mother’s life easier. And when Gillian had told him about Mallory’s attacks, he hadn’t laughed—he hadn’t believed her, but he hadn’t laughed—and that had been pretty amazing, all things considered.

  Gillian hurriedly explained to Nigel she’d received a letter they’d been waiting for from Indonesia and she wanted to tell Chris as soon as possible. Nigel suggested asking Bernard Monsegur to telephone the cottage with the news, but Gillian said she wanted to be there to see Chris’s face when he read the letter. Nigel agreed to fly into Bangor the following Friday, rent a car and pick Gillian up immediately after school for the drive to Vermont. Gillian was bursting with excitement. Secretly, she longed to undo the damage from their previous unfortunate parting.

  No sooner had she hung up than the phone rang again.

  “Nigel?”

  “Uh, no. Miss Willard? It’s Jackie Cormier. We met outside your school yesterday. I’m with the Bangor Daily Courier.”

  “I told you, Miss Cormier, I’ve nothing to say.”

  “Miss Willard, I need to speak with Chris Chandler. I believe I can help him. Will you help me get in touch with him?”

  “No, I can’t do that.”

  “I’ve some information...about his injuries...that I’d like him to confirm.”

  Was the woman fishing? Or had she somehow gotten wind of Mallory? “What sort of information?”

  “Why he keeps getting attacked...and why others close to Chris do as well.”

  “I can’t help you.”

  “Can’t or won’t?”

  “Same thing,” Gillian said and hung up.

  Maybe she should have told the journalist she was going to see Chris on the weekend, perhaps told Cormier she’d pass along the request. There was something about the Cormier woman that made Gillian wary, however. Was it because of Cormier’s looks—a tiny powerhouse, gorgeous in a
n unkempt, freewheeling kind of way—or because Cormier came off like a pitbull in full attack mode.

  * * * *

  Chris and Geraldine walked down the street to the theater. The double front doors were propped open and a huge fellow in black chaps and a baggy pink sweater was reglazing the ticket booth windows. “Is Gilbert Burgoyne around?” Chris asked.

  “Ooh, hello there,” the enormous man said, giving Chris a lecherous examination. “He most certainly is. Inside. The company is having a production meeting onstage. You’re welcome to watch...or come back later and chat if you’d like. Sweat’s the name.”

  “Thank you, Sweat.” Chris offered a weak smile. Geraldine was transfixed by the enormous fellow. Holding her hand, Chris dragged her inside. The lobby stank of rancid butter and damp carpet. A mouse ran across Chris’s foot while walking past the dust-covered concession stand. He held the auditorium door open for Geraldine and followed her inside. The smell of forty years of cigarette smoke still hung in the air.

  Save for two bright white spotlights aimed at center stage, the auditorium was in darkness. Set as a panelled drawing room, easy chairs, settees, and oversized portraits filled the stage. Through French doors on either side of the enormous room could be seen a grim landscape of dead trees and dark hills. Center stage, a wide staircase rose a dozen steps to an imposing landing. There the staircase split and the halves each continued to the left and right into the darkness above. Seated halfway up the staircase, Gilbert Burgoyne was the sole focus of the two spotlights. At the back of the landing an enormous arched window of many leaded panes opened onto an enormous leafless tree with a noose hanging from a gnarled limb. Gregorian music played quietly, and sprawled around the set, a handful of people ate pizza and practiced lines.

  Chris and Geraldine remained in the shadows at the back of the theater.

  “So you’re saying pain lets us know we’re really alive,” said a small girl, reclining on a settee.

  “For me it’s loneliness,” a heavy girl said as she paced back and forth in front of the French window, holding a bundle of papers.

  “Ah,” Gilbert said, “but loneliness is pain. It’s the pain of the soul.”

  “It’s like you can’t see the stars in daylight,” said a kid in black as he painted one of the set walls. “You need darkness to see their beauty, and you need pain to feel the real beauty of life.”

  “When I was very young and told my parents I see ghosts,” the small girl chimed in again, “my daddy said, ‘Grow up,’ and I wondered, why should I grow up? So I can be a cheating monster and a fat slob without a soul like him? I knew then I would remain a child forever and embrace the spirit world around me. Parents lose the ability to see beauty in darkness. It’s why they can’t see ghosts.”

  A tall, thin woman seated in a chair at the far right of the stage asked, “And you can?”

  “Oh yes,” the little girl answered, “and I can teach you how, if you’d like?”

  “Sure...maybe we could go down to the cemetery tonight, just us two. Take a couple of blankets...” The thin woman had a lascivious grin on her face.

  Gilbert shot the thin woman an angry glance, and said, “That’s what we’re here for, what we’re trying to do. I want our audiences to walk in darkness, to walk to the edge of death, to the edge of their sanity where they feel the winds of misfortune and hear the sighs of souls who’ve gone before. I want sorrow and madness to wash over our audience. I want to show them the true meaning of being alive…and dead.”

  Chris didn’t know what prompted him, but he called out, “And then there stole into my fancy, like a rich musical note, the thought of what sweet rest there must be in the grave.”

  “Poe,” someone called back from the stage.

  “Yes, of course, Poe,” Gilbert said. “Poe knew that everything we see is but a dream.” He shielded his eyes against the spot lights and said, “Stranger, come into the light.”

  Chris started down the aisle. Geraldine held back. Approaching the stage, Chris said, “Actually, what Poe meant was darkness is like blood. It courses through us, feeding us. We are nourished by the darkness, not by the light.”

  “Sure,” Gilbert said. “Like I said.”

  At the foot of the stage, Chris added, “Jim Morrison couldn’t understand why people fear death even more than pain. Morrison thought that was nuts because life hurts a lot more than death. At the point of death, our pain is over.”

  “So cool,” muttered the kid in black.

  Gilbert recognized Chris. “Ah, the DuCalice woman’s house-sitter. So, you decided to check us out.”

  “Yes, and I’ve brought a friend.” Chris signalled for Geraldine to join him down front. “She’s always wanted to work in a theater, so if you can use more help….”

  “Hi,” Geraldine said sheepishly.

  “Hi, Pumpkin,” some young kid sacked out on the floor called back.

  “You know our guest, do you, Dr. Shadow?” Gilbert asked.

  “She’s the mayor’s daughter,” the boy explained. “Everybody calls her Pumpkin.”

  “You’re most welcome here,” Gilbert said. “The darkness shall wash away your past and you shall be born again in the Realm of Shadows.”

  Geraldine grinned. “I love Poe…and Lovecraft.”

  “That’s good,” Gilbert continued. “So what shall we call you?”

  Geraldine didn’t hesitate for a moment. “Crimson Tempest,” she announced.

  “Sounds like a stripper,” Doctor Shadow muttered.

  “Then Crimson Tempest it is,” Gilbert announced to all, and then turned to Chris. “And now you, Rose’s friend, what shall we call you?”

  “Chris...uh Chris Holcomb.”

  “Okay, so Chris Holcomb, any luck with the bitch?”

  “We’re still discussing.”

  “Good. Then let me show you around.” Chris climbed onto the stage. “Mr. Holcomb,” Gilbert said, “you have an interesting look under the lights. Perhaps we could cast you in something.”

  * * * *

  Rudy Dahlman stared down into his mother’s filthy face. “Need anything, my dear?” That’s what Rudy intended to say; what emerged from his devastated mouth was nothing more than a string of grunts and a river of drool. After Mallory’s attack, Rudy’d spent months in hospital recovering. However, Mother’s medical insurance had run out before doctors could reconstruct his shattered teeth, stump of a tongue, and misshapen jaw. Since being released, he’d consumed only liquids and gone nowhere without a mask. No one except Mother saw the real him, and miracle of miracles, she somehow understood his twisted words. Fat lot of good that did her.

  “You want more medicine? Is that it, Mother?”

  Her eyes emphasized terror. She tried to shake her head from side to side, but the restraints across her chest and forehead allowed little movement.

  Rudy stepped over the piles of stained towels and filthy bed sheets on the floor and around the many buckets of soiled adult diapers to retrieve one of the used syringes from the bureau near the window. He then rifled through a large bowl of vials, found one that still had something in it, drew as much liquid into the syringe as possible, and squeezed his mother’s arm. In truth, there wasn’t much left to squeeze. Rudy suspected little effort would be needed to pull the arm from the socket like a drumstick from an overcooked turkey. Tears streamed down her cheeks. Rudy smiled, and whispered with such malice, “There, there, my darling. This hurts me more than it does you,” and drove the needle deep into the emaciated arm.

  “Now, what’s that look, Mother? Anger? No? Pity then? Better not be pity. We’ve talked about this. You will not pity me, or I’ll be forced...”Mother’s eyelids drooped and then closed. “That’s better.”

  Rudy had returned home from hospital to find Mother healthier than ever before. She’d apparently been sober for weeks, was exercising, and had even cleaned the house...herself! And she’d been making her own decisions for the first time in years. She’d decided to sel
l the place and move back to Boston, where she’d lived before marrying Captain Dahlman. Well, of course, Rudy couldn’t permit that.

  First he spiked her food with his own pain killers, then filled her full of alcohol, and finally kept her in a morphine stupor. As luck would have it, she’d recently suffered some sort of stroke—likely from all the medication he’d administered—which made her quite easy to handle.

  As for their business affairs, since Rudy dealt with the family lawyers in town exclusively by fax, he had all the authority and resources required. And good to Captain Dahlman’s word, support checks arrived regularly. All things considered, life for the moment was pretty good.

  Mother’s room had become a cesspit. Not a surprise since she was changed rarely, and ate the most awful food, and threw most of it up. The stink now permeated the house, but who cared? Rudy figured Mother couldn’t last much longer; the bed sores alone might kill her at any moment. Anyway, once she died, he’d set fire to the house, blame it on Mother’s smoking, and claim both her life and house insurance, then pay the best surgeons to rebuild his mouth, and get the hell out of New England.

  The only loose end in this plan remained Chris Chandler. Rudy wanted revenge. Chandler had to suffer as he’d suffered, know all the same pain, humiliation, and looks of pity. Trouble was, Rudy didn’t want to tangle with Mallory again. That was the challenge, how to get past Mallory?

  The phone rang in the living room.

  Taking his time to answer, he eventually said, “Mmm?”

  “May I speak with Rudy Dahlman, please?”

  A woman’s voice. Interesting. “Uh hmm.”

  “Is that you, Mr. Dahlman?”

  “Mmmm.”

  “Mr. Dahlman, this is Jackie Cormier.”

  He recognized the name immediately, the bitch who’d made Chris Chandler into a hero, even got him sprung from prison. Rudy almost slammed the phone down, but hesitated.

  “I’m with the Bangor paper, Mr. Dahlman, and I’m looking into the attacks on you and Chris Chandler and the recent fatal attack on Ed Balzer. You were not able to testify during Chandler’s trial about your attack, so I’m wondering if you can tell me anything about it now.”