Dead Silent

by Ivan Blake

  Jackie approached carefully. There was no knowing whether Chandler might recognize her and bolt. As she moved closer, she caught snippets of his conversation with a smart-looking older woman. The conversation was hushed but apparently quite intense.

  “Rose,” she heard Chandler say, “I’m so sorry I haven’t been more help, but I’m going to try, I promise, and I’m going to the graveyard this afternoon—”

  The woman spotted Jackie hovering nearby. “May I help you?”

  “Uh, yes, hi. Uh Chris Chandler, hello again? I visited you in the detention center, remember? And I was wondering if we could talk?”

  Chris looked at the woman, then spun away. “Goddamn it!” he said.

  “Is there a problem?” Rose asked.

  “She’s a reporter with the Bangor Daily Courier. Her name is Jackie Cormier.” Chris turned back to Jackie. “How the hell did you find me?”

  The anger in Chandler’s ice blue eyes gave Jackie a start. She hadn’t expected him to be pleased to see her, but his rage was unsettling.

  “It’s my job,” she replied.

  “Rose,” Chandler said to the older woman, “I’m sorry about this. I had no idea.”

  “No, I don’t suppose you did.” The woman was obviously irritated. “Look, young lady, if Mr. Chandler doesn’t wish to speak with you, then you will leave the Library immediately.”

  “But this is a public place,” Jackie said.

  “Actually, it’s not. It’s mine,” the woman replied. “And you’re trespassing if I say you are.”

  “It’s okay. I’ll get rid of her,” Chris said. “Follow me.” He grabbed his coat from a chair nearby and headed for the exit. Jackie hurried after him.

  Outside on the steps, Chris turned on her. “What do you want?”

  “I don’t know why you’re so upset with me. You should be grateful. My boss and I wrote the story that got you sprung. You owe me.”

  “I owe you nothing. You were handed the story on a silver platter.”

  “No. Meath’s notes from the fire started us looking into your story. Wait, so does that mean you know who sent the notes to us?”

  “Look, I’m here trying to get my life back. I’ve nothing to say to you.” He started across the street. “The story’s in Bemishstock, so go back there,” he shouted over his shoulder.

  “I don’t think so,” Jackie called after him. “I think the real story is you.”

  Chris entered the park.

  “Why does everybody close to you get hurt?” Jackie shouted as she ran after Chris. “And you, why are you still so badly injured after all this time? You look like someone beat you up yesterday. What’s going on?”

  “Nothing that concerns you,” Chris said, walking as fast as his limp would allow.

  “Okay then, did you attack Ed Balzer?” Jackie asked as she closed on him.

  “No.”

  Drawing alongside Chris, she said in a low voice, “One of the guards in the detention center showed me a tape.”

  “So what?”

  “So it showed some kind of force attacking a kid. A force you controlled.”

  “And you saw what exactly?” Chris seemed excited.

  “A bright light.”

  “That’s it?”

  “What should I have seen?”

  “Nothing. The tape’s worthless.” Chris walked away.

  “Is that what your girlfriend will say when I talk to her?”

  Chris spun around and glared back at Jackie. His voice was low and filled with rage. He started toward her. “Don’t you dare torment my friends!”

  Whoa! That hit a nerve.

  “Seems like she’s your only friend, and you’re certainly the only friend she has these day. She might appreciate having someone like me to talk to.”

  “That’s crap. Gillian has lots of friends.”

  Confusion and concern were written all over Chris’s face. Time to press the point. “In Bemishstock? You’ve got to be kidding! Now that everyone knows she helped you, a lot of people blame her for humiliating the town, like they used to blame you. The poor kid is a pariah. You didn’t know?”

  “No.”

  “I guess she didn’t tell you because you’d worry. But hey, maybe I can help, maybe deflect some attention away from her by telling a new and completely different story.”

  Chris’s gaze bore into her. God, in spite of all his injuries, even the obvious swelling around his eyes and the scars on his cheeks, Chandler was one hell of a good-looking young man. He might be seven or eight years younger, but Jackie knew she could get seriously swept away in those eyes. Chandler had always intrigued her, his smoldering stare, his lean body, his angry independence, his courage...but here, now, standing right in front of him, she was surprised how quietly powerful he seemed, like a jaguar about to leap.

  After a lengthy silence, he asked, “You have a car?”

  “Yes, over there,” and she pointed to a VW Beetle parked opposite.

  “All right, you can drive me home. Then we’ll talk.”

  * * * *

  Gilbert had been going into the diner for breakfast when he’d passed the attractive young woman coming out. She’d been carrying a coffee and bagel and hadn’t given him a second look, but he’d sure given her a look-see. Great rack, he remembered thinking. Then, a half hour later, heading back to the theater for rehearsal, he’d seen her again, this time in some kind of argument with the DuCalice woman’s new friend, Chris Holcomb. The short girl then chased Holcomb halfway across the park, where they’d continued their fight, and then they’d driven off together. So who was this new girl? And why was she mixed up with Holcomb and the DuCalice woman? Gilbert was going to have to find out what the hell they were up to.

  * * * *

  Clouds of foul-smelling smoke filled the stage, and in the midst of it, three shrieking harpies stirred a great bubbling cauldron. Geraldine, in the role of witch number three, was on the verge of losing her breakfast, and things only got worse when she heard a familiar voice.

  “What in hell are you doing?” Geraldine’s father suddenly bellowed from the back of the theater.

  Oh God, was her father speaking to her? She hadn’t been home for three days. Had he actually noticed? Could he really be looking for her?

  “Mr. Mayor. Welcome,” Gilbert replied from the edge of the stage. “Haven’t seen you for a while.”

  The Mayor screwed up his face. “What the hell is that stink?”

  So, her dad wasn’t looking for her after all. Of course not. Probably hadn’t even noticed she’d been missing. He’d simply assumed she was hiding in her bedroom all alone as usual. Nor had he recognised her beneath all the heavy makeup. Geraldine turned her back and pretended to be adjusting something in the cauldron as her dad strolled down the aisle.

  “This will be our version of the witches’ scene from Macbeth,” Gilbert said. “We call it, Of Haggis and the Highland Heart, only our witches are supposed to be boiling up body parts from the battlefield for their supper—hence the Highland Heart—and we’re trying to get the right kind of cooking smell. It needs to be a mix of barbecue and abattoir.”

  “And you seriously think people will put up with that stink? They’ll walk out for sure!”

  Gilbert smiled, apparently not inclined to engage her dad that morning, not after the hard night they’d all had. “To what do we owe this pleasure?”

  “I need to speak with you, now.”

  “Take five, everyone,” Gilbert called out. “Oh, Crimson, will you hang up the Mayor’s coat?”

  What the hell was Gilbert doing? Was he trying to expose her? She turned to Gilbert who grinned as if to say, ‘I know what you’re up to girl. Make one move against me, and you’re dead.’ But what could Gilbert possibly know? That she was spying for Rose DuCalice? Or was Gilbert simply having a cruel chuckle at her expense? Then he laughed. “No, Crimson, don’t bother. I don’t think the Mayor will be staying that long.”

  “I came to tell
you I figured out who the kid is, the one house-sitting out at Marymount. The guy from Maine who’s been on television and in all the papers. His name is Chandler. He stopped some doctor from stealing bodies by killing him.”

  “Not Holcomb then? And he’s some kind of hero?”

  “Not sure about being a hero, but he’s all over the news, and could help us big time!”

  “Interesting. I saw him in town earlier today. Oh, and he came by the theater a couple of days ago, mentioned he was thinking about helping us.”

  “Well, Christ, get him back here!” Paget said. “He could do wonders for publicity! The Lewis Goth Festival featuring Maine’s Defender of the Dead.”

  “Interesting.” Gilbert seemed to be mulling the idea over. “I’ll talk to him.”

  “Damn right you will, and while you’re at it, ask him when we’re gonna get the DuCalice woman’s decision on the wagon ride. I’ll get a chain saw and start cutting the road myself if she hasn’t decided by the end of the week.”

  * * * *

  Chris and Jackie drove to the house in silence. “They call this a cottage?” was all Jackie said as she parked her car by the back door.

  Chris didn’t know how to handle the situation. He had no intention of telling a journalist anything about Mallory. He’d sound like a madman, and the last thing he wanted was to make his reputation any more weird and sensational than it already was.

  “You’re living here by yourself?” Jackie asked as Chris unlocked the door and went inside.

  He said nothing.

  “Okay so if you don’t want to make small talk, can we talk about Bemishstock?”

  “We’ll eat first.”

  Chris made macaroni cheese and wieners and they ate in silence. Cleaning up consumed another awkward half hour.

  Finally, Chris said, “Follow me,” and went through to the parlor. There, he pointed Jackie to the sofa, sat himself down in the large armchair by the window, sighed, and said, “All right, what do you want to know?”

  For the next hour, Jackie described what she thought had happened in Bemishstock and asked Chris to confirm or correct her conclusions. Her questioning was all about Doctor Meath’s experiments, the funeral parlor, Mr. Duncan the teacher, and of course Chief Boucher—nothing which made Chris uncomfortable. She had, for example, already figured out for herself the Chief had been protecting his society of gentlemen friends when he made Chris the scapegoat for the letter threatening to expose the priest. Then the conversation took a strange turn.

  “So, Chris, why did you get involved in all this? Was it Chief Boucher’s vendetta that sucked you in? Or was it something more? I remember you said to me the last time we talked that the dead deserve retribution, but that was a crock, wasn’t it? When you realized what Meath was doing, you could have ignored it, and walked away. So why did you get involved?”

  Chris thought about giving a pat answer like, ‘Somebody had to stop Meath,’ or, ‘Body snatching is illegal’. But then an epiphany struck; nothing he told this journalist was going to do her the slightest bit of good. She’d sound like a crazy person if she tried to write the truth. No editor in his right mind would ever agree to print it. So instead of a canned response, Chris sent the conversation careening off in an entirely new direction.

  “Because,” he said, “I read somewhere the spirits of the deceased, whose graves are despoiled, are yanked back from Paradise to suffer for eternity alongside their defiled remains.”

  “Wait, so you’re saying you tried to stop Meath because you were worried about ghosts?” Jackie moved to the edge of the sofa.

  He shrugged.

  “You’re not going to give me a serious answer, are you?”

  “Who says I haven’t?”

  “Oh yeah, sure you have,” she said with a shake of her head. “Okay, then let me ask you this, what’s this special power you have?”

  “I have no special power.”

  “You can’t deny it because I’ve seen what you can do, on a video tape in the Portland detention center. You only touched the guy, and he was suddenly ripped to pieces. Was it some sleight of hand thing? Or are you a freak or a mutant or a secret government science project with telekinetic powers to hurt people simply by waving your hands around? Have you escaped from some secret lab?”

  Chris looked out the window.

  “All right then, who keeps hurting you?”

  “The doctors say I’ve been hurting myself.”

  “But it’s not true, is it?” Jackie said.

  Some time passed before Chris shook his head.

  “So if you’re not hurting yourself, then who is?”

  No answer.

  “You’re not going to tell me?”

  “You wouldn’t believe me if I did. Besides, I guarantee, you’ll never be permitted to print the truth.”

  “Maybe not, but let me decide what I can and cannot write.”

  “Look, I have to go to the cemetery,” Chris said as he stood. “I promised a friend, and I could use some help.”

  They scrabbled down the muddy slope to the pond. Ice still covered some of its surface, but where the afternoon sun lingered the longest, there was now open water. The air down by the pond was biting and the snow still deep on the grasses, bay bushes and scrub trees that ringed it. Chris and Jackie pushed their way through the snow, Chris using Jackie as a crutch when the pain in his spine became too much.

  “When you said you could use my help, I didn’t think you meant as a walking stick.”

  Chris said nothing as they hobbled on.

  “So tell me about this cemetery. Why do we have to go there when it’s freezing and the sun is about to set?”

  “Long ago, there was a French-Canadian settlement here, and its cemetery is still important to the Monsegur family who own all this land. Descendants of the original settlers still have their remains shipped back here for burial from all over the world. The Monsegurs have done a lot for Lewis, but now they’re in a fight with some locals over public use of their private land. And the fight has been getting nasty. A skull was recently stolen from one of the graves. And the Monsegurs have asked for help in protecting the rest of the graves.”

  “So you’re protecting the dead once again. But what could you do?”

  “You mean injured the way I am?”

  “Okay, yeah.”

  “I’ve been trying to broker a peace with the locals, and I promised the Monsegurs I’d keep an eye on the place.”

  They climbed up through the last of the bay bushes and wild blueberries, and as the cemetery came into view, Chris’s blood ran cold.

  “Not much of a cemetery,” Jackie said. “Why are there so many broken stones?”

  “Because we’re too late.”

  Headstones had been shattered and tossed about, a few into the bushes, and the rest onto a pile. Filthy and rotting clothes—dresses, uniforms, suits and undergarments—had been tossed into a pit. There was even a pile of coffin parts, hinges and handles and scraps of silk lining. Chris counted nine or ten muddy holes which had once been graves.

  “Oh Christ, I said I’d help.” He dropped down onto a log. Then it hit him. He could feel the pain—not his own pain—but the pain of the defiled around him.

  “Not sure why you’re so upset. You didn’t do the damage. Besides, I’m sure volunteers from town could straighten this up in an afternoon.”

  “No, they couldn’t, because whoever ransacked the cemetery didn’t just smash headstones, they took away remains. Don’t you see? The broken coffins? They’re empty. Whoever did this, did it for the bones.”

  “Who would want a bunch of old bones?”

  “There’s a group of Goths in town.”

  “Goths? They don’t usually go in for vandalism. Any Goths I’ve met are a pretty harmless lot. They’re into dark poetry and morbid music, not grave robbing. What would they want with so many bones?”

  Chris didn’t know the answer. He was far more worried about how he’d tell Ro
se.

  “So, is this where you see your ghosts?”

  The late afternoon sun now touched the tops of the trees on the surrounding hills. The sky was crisscrossed with wispy lines of rose and gold. The long shadows played tricks on the mind. Out of the corner of an eye, one might glimpse movement among the trees, things creeping about in the shadows, creatures watching from the long grass.

  Jackie sat down beside Chris. “Can you explain to me how you do that?”

  “Well...you have to look across the cemetery, not at anything in particular. Try to see between the light. Beyond the images. Try to see changes in the density of the air, like the air is fuzzy, like a wave of warmth is rising from the earth. And when you see the air begin to move and shift, then you wait, and slowly you begin to see shapes...like a shoulder, an arm, a cascade of hair. Or maybe you see a flicker of light, like sunlight reflecting off water or off a mirror. Sometimes the light sparkles like silver, other times in different colors, like pink, green. Or perhaps you see an entire figure, whitish and smoky, waiting, watching.”

  “And that’s what you’ve seen?” Jackie asked.

  “Yes. And I’ve seen...waves of scorching heat, a blue light, a ball of smoke and flashes and sparks of electricity. Then eyes...” Suddenly, Chris pointed excitedly, and whispered, “Look there! Other side of the cemetery, beside the pit filled with clothes, the air is moving. Do you see it?”

  “By all the rags? Yes...oh God!”

  “And there, by the boards sticking out of the hole?”

  “It’s a woman,” Jackie whispered. The faintest hint of an outline, like the line a bright light might leave on our vision after we’ve closed our eyes. “She’s kneeling down.”

  More and more figures appeared. “Over there,” Chris said, “A man, lying across the rock.”

  “What are they doing?”

  “They’re weeping.”

  Jackie turned to see Chris weeping as well.

  * * * *

  After a supper of leftover macaroni and cheese and ice cream, Chris and Jackie sat in the parlor, in silence.