Death And Darkness

by E. A. Copen

  What was it he’d written? Something about looking deeper on the last page.

  I flipped to the last page but found it blank. Just because there was nothing visible written there didn’t mean there wasn’t some clue. There were lots of ways to make writing invisible. It was a simple enough trick anyone could do with a couple of items from their fridge. But my old man wouldn’t have had access to lemon juice or baking soda in his cell. He’d have gone for the simplest thing. If he had access to magic like Mom had suggested…

  I extended my senses and ran my hand over the page, feeling for the buzz of magic. It was faint, but it was there. Dammit, I hated it when I was right.

  I opened my glove box and pulled out the emergency kit I kept in there. It was mostly small-time stuff. Quartz on a silver chain, a lighter and two tealights, two sticks of white chalk, five salt packets from a fast food place, and a pincushion loaded with sewing needles. The needles were what I was after. I grabbed one and pricked my thumb, squeezing the skin to get the blood to well to the surface. Once I had a small bead, I touched it to the page and infused it with a little bit of my will. The tiny drop of blood raced over the surface of the paper in all directions, making impossible ninety-degree turns and curving as if some unseen hand directed it. I hadn’t shed enough blood to mark that much of the paper, and yet somehow it spread everywhere, carving out: ROMAN 6128. Our old street address.

  I shivered, and it had nothing to do with the cold. I hadn’t been back there since the incident and had no desire to return. But Dad must’ve wanted me to go back for a reason. If it helped stop all these crazy deaths, I could at least try it. Anything to get some sleep.

  My tiny car groaned to life and puttered down the road toward the highway. Our old family home had been in the Lower Ninth Ward, a neighborhood that hadn’t gotten any better with age. It was one of the worst in the city as far as violent crime went, with median incomes hovering at or below the poverty line, depending on which census you checked. The only place that could best it for murders and rapes per capita was the Desire Developments directly to the north. Butting up against canals that connected the Mississippi and Lake Pontchartrain, the Ward was always wet and swampy.

  When Katrina hit, the Ward became famous. News outlets all over the world flew down to film the devastation the hurricane left in its wake, with the Ninth Ward being the poster child for the mess. Everyone living there got moved to FEMA trailers while everyone tried to figure out what to do. Thanks to donations from movie stars and private citizens, about half the houses were rebuilt, but the rest were still boarded-up piles of rubble filled with vermin.

  Our house might not even still be there. I was fifteen when Katrina hit and living with Pony in Algiers. We evacuated and missed the worst of it. After Mom and Dad went to prison, I wondered what the city did with the house. Maybe they tried to sell it, but they would’ve had a time. It wasn’t in good shape. Chances were good it’d sat empty, only to be flooded and blown off the map. A small part of me hoped that were true.

  As I turned down Claiborne Avenue, a familiar fear gripped my spine. The houses lining the streets looked different, but the neighborhood was still familiar. There was where Allen Tullance had his birthday party. I’d spilled Kool-Aid on my new shirt during the party and got a whipping for it after. Another street over was where Larry Lawt’s dog had her puppies. I remembered they were fat, ugly things. Larry’s dad was sure my dog, Buddy, violated his prized pitbull, producing the ugly pups. I remembered that fight too. Only years later did I realize the real reason Larry Senior was pissed about it. He thought he was getting new fighting dogs and instead got adorable ugly pit bull-beagle mixes.

  North Roman Street was two blocks over from Claiborne. The block where I’d grown up was at the southern end of the street, so I turned right.

  Shadows of unfamiliar houses crept into the street under watery streetlights. Telephone lines stretched between poles like tightropes, connecting new houses to single-wide trailers and passing the cracked concrete slabs of empty lots. A pattern sprang up as I drove: nice house, trailer, slab, condemned house. I could almost count on that order.

  My childhood home had been a ranch-style three-bedroom home built in the fifties. Low ceilings and small rooms gave the place a cramped feeling. It had never been in great condition. I remembered Dad was always fixing something.

  The few good memories I had of him came from that. He’d be somewhere in the house making a repair in the evening, and I’d get to sit next to him and hand him whatever he called for. Sometimes, we’d talk. Most of the time, we didn’t. I’d seen the chore as an opportunity to be near the enigmatic man I’d never understood, to learn something. Maybe get a word of encouragement or thanks as we worked. Even if I didn’t get that, if I did a good job, Dad would hand me a five at the end of the day and send me down the street to get a soda and candy bar for me, and a pack of cigarettes for him. The clerk wasn’t supposed to sell the cigarettes to an eight-year-old, but the Ninth Ward was like a small town. Everybody knew everybody, and everybody knew they were for Bill Kerrigan and not his quiet kid. Nobody was calling the cops. It was an unspoken rule I’d grown up with. Good or bad, the citizens of the Ward took care of their own problems.

  The corner store was little more than a big concrete slab with a “for sale” sign out front now. I slowed as I passed it and stared at the sign. Looking at it made my chest hurt, though I couldn’t explain why. The little store wasn’t significant, and I couldn’t recall an exact memory that made me sad to see it gone. It was just a place I used to know, gone.

  I pressed the gas and sped away.

  A rickety old structure loomed at the end of the block, leaning as if it were listening to the night tell a secret. Chipboard covered the doors and windows. Patchy grass grew tall and wild. The mailbox was gone, and the blue paint had faded to gray, but there was no mistaking it. This was my house.

  I parked on the street but left the car running and sat inside it, staring. Why hadn’t it just blown away? If it had, I wouldn’t have to go inside. I could just drive by and say I tried. Whatever Dad wanted me to see, I could pretend I couldn’t get to it if only the house had been destroyed. But no, it was still standing, just barely.

  No one came out to the street to call to me or ask me if I was Bill’s boy. I don’t know why I was expecting that either at one in the morning. It just seemed like the sort of thing people around here would do. Most of the residents I knew had probably moved away anyway.

  I grabbed the box of my dad’s things from behind the seat, turned off the car, and got out.

  The night was quiet but for the peepers in the nearby canals. They seemed to scream, drowning out the sound of traffic on the main thoroughfares. Usually, there was a siren, a car alarm, something going off. But not that night.

  With the box of Dad’s things in my hands, I crossed the street and stood in the yard. Had anyone lived here since Mom and Dad got arrested? That was five years before Katrina. Maybe the city had sold it to someone else. I tried to imagine a happy family living there. A mom, dad, two kids. They might’ve played catch in that yard or chased around a hyperactive puppy. Maybe a sweet little old lady had lived there and sat on the porch in a rocking chair with her knitting. Hell, I’d have settled for a grumpy old man with a glass of sweet tea shouting at the neighborhood kids to get off his lawn.

  I couldn’t picture any of it. This wasn’t a house where happy people lived. It was a house made of broken dreams, anger, and fear. A house of nightmares.

  Rather than going up onto the porch, I went around back. A chain-link fence once stood around the yard, but it was gone, replaced by dead grass. The stump near the rear of the yard that I’d buried Buddy near was still there. I went to it, standing next to it and looking at the patch of dead grass where the grave had been. His ghost had long ago passed on, leaving only bones in the ground. If I listened hard enough, I could almost swear I heard my younger self on the stump, bawling over the dead dog and whispering,
“Come back, Buddy.” It was like a chant.

  At the time, I hadn’t realized I was infusing the command with any magic. To me, magic wasn’t real. It was a fairy tale, a myth. In the real world, things didn’t happen just because you willed them to. Yet when Buddy dug his way out of the grave, I was overjoyed to have him back. Not just because my best friend was by my side again, but because it meant wanting something was enough to make it happen. Magic was real, and I could use it. For the first time in my life, I’d felt powerful.

  And then he took it all away from me. With fists, with a belt, and angry words, Bill Kerrigan robbed me of everything and left me a bleeding, broken body that had to be revived twice en route to the hospital.

  I clenched my fists at my side. He didn’t get to apologize for that. The anger over it wasn’t something he could take away with words and guilt. It was mine, and I wasn’t ready to give it up. Not for him. Not for anyone, dead or alive.

  I turned away from the stump and trudged toward the back porch. The roof sagged low over it, and I had to duck to step up onto it. Wood groaned underfoot and bowed. Some boards were so swollen with moisture they’d popped out of the porch. Rusty nails poked through everywhere. I did my best to avoid them. Didn’t need a second trip to the emergency room for a tetanus shot.

  The screen door was gone, and someone had nailed a slab of wood over the entrance and the nearby window. No major obstacle for someone with magic. I extended a hand, pressed my palm against the swollen wood blocking my way, and pushed a little magic into the wood. It splintered inward as if I’d hit it with a giant hammer. Another push of magic, and it snapped in half. I grabbed both halves and pushed them in like batwing doors.

  The smell from inside made me recoil. Though the floodwaters had receded, they’d left the rotten stink of the river in their wake. Mud caked the walls up to my shoulder, and piles of it still sat around the corners. Holes in the walls marked places where rats had chewed through. I saw a few scurry away to darker places on my entry. The roaches didn’t mind my being there. Several crunched underfoot with my next step. Mold crawled up the wall like black hexagonal ivy. It dripped from the ceiling, especially where several ceiling tiles had been ripped away. The one saving grace was the lack of junk blocking my path. It must’ve been empty when Katrina struck.

  I wandered into the living room, avoiding a fallen ceiling fan. Glass littered the crunchy carpet from where the light had busted. “Okay, Dad,” I muttered, under my breath. “I’m here. What is it you wanted me to find?”

  A crash down the hallway made me spin just in time to see a raccoon jump through the door. It stared at me, chittered, and disappeared into the bathroom.

  I let out the breath I’d been holding. Damn woodland creatures.

  Something else rustled in the same direction. Another raccoon, maybe? I didn’t want the damn thing sneaking up on me and biting me. Just my luck that my old house would be infested with rabies carrying raccoons or something. Best to scare it out of the house so I could have my look around.

  The rustling sound continued as I crept down the hall. Broken picture frames lay on the ground atop more shattered glass. No pictures remained. I stepped over the glass and paused by the door that had once been my parents’ bedroom. Whatever was making that noise was inside that room.

  I gathered my will into a ball of energy in my hand, ready to throw it at the offending critter, and flung myself into the doorway, hand raised.

  A spectral form floated in the thin shaft of moonlight coming through the boarded-up window. He was shorter than I remembered him, but then, everyone’s taller when you’re a kid. His back was to me as he stared at the wall as if something was there. I saw nothing but mold and colorful streaks of mud. At least, I hoped it was mud.

  My foot bumped a board that had fallen to lean against the wall, knocking it over with a dull thud.

  The ghost turned around, regarding me with sad eyes. “Hello, son.”

  Chapter Sixteen

  I fought the urge to turn and walk out. Just seeing him made me taste bile. My jaw clenched, and I found myself unable to choke out even a greeting.

  He frowned. “Can you even see me?”

  “I see you,” I ground out. “You have thirty seconds to convince me not to banish your ass to the After.”

  “That’s no way to talk to your old man.”

  I crossed my arms. “Twenty-five seconds.”

  He raised his arms defensively. “Fine. You want me to get to the point? How’s this for a point? There’s a monster you gotta kill before it kills a whole bunch of other people.”

  I lifted a hand to measure a height about two inches above my head. “About so tall. Bug-eyed freak. Makes people have nightmares and kill family members?”

  Dad blinked. “You know, then.”

  “Yeah, and I know all the people who are being affected are connected to Angola in some way. They’ve all been there recently and left. Everyone except you. In fact, you don’t fit the pattern in just about every way. You didn’t kill any family members.”

  “I fought it.” My father floated closer but stopped when I stepped back. “I worked out how to get rid of it. Or thought I did. This thing, I called it a Terror. Not sure what it really was. But it’d been whispering to me for weeks. Every time I fell asleep, there it was, waiting for me. I knew if I told anyone, they’d just put me on meds, but this wasn’t that type of thing. I knew it was real. I could feel it. And it knew things about me. Things I didn’t tell no one else.”

  “Like that you had magic of your own?”

  He shrank back, saying nothing.

  I pressed the issue and stepped forward. “You were a fucking hypocrite, weren’t you? Beating the shit out of me after I did what I did when you could do the same damn thing.”

  “I couldn’t!” he snapped, his spectral form suddenly glowing brighter. He calmed himself, letting his body fade before continuing. It must’ve taken a lot of energy to remain visible, even to me. “Not like that. Dead things stayed dead. But I did see ghosts sometimes. Saw and heard. Only thing that made it stop was the drink.”

  “It would’ve stopped if you’d embraced your gift instead of trying to drown it.”

  “Gift?” He spat. A glowing green smear of ectoplasm appeared in a puddle on the floor. “Magic ain’t no gift. It’s a curse. What’d it get me but misery? What’s it gotten you?” He gestured to me.

  I shook my head. “You earned your own misery without any help from magic. So did I. Magic’s not good or bad. I didn’t come here to get a lecture from a liar and a drunk. Did you actually want something other than to waste my time?”

  My father’s ghost grimaced with the effort of holding back whatever tirade he’d been working up to. “I wanted to warn you, but I see you already know about the Terror.”

  I took another step forward. “Where’d it come from? What does it want? How do I stop this thing? You must know something.”

  “You see the drawing?” he asked. “The man who did that drawing, Drew Littlefox, told me a way to catch the Terror. Said I needed a dreamcatcher. Said it would protect me.”

  “Looks like it worked real well.” I scoffed.

  “The pigs confiscated every single one I tried to make,” Dad replied defensively. “I never got one up. But you can’t fight this thing when you’re awake. Once it gets in you, there’s nothing you can do, no matter how strong. No magic can stop it. No power can slow it down. Only death and dream warriors.”

  “Dream warriors?” I raised an eyebrow. “I’m pretty sure that was a Nightmare on Elm Street sequel.”

  “That’s what he called them. You want to know more? Talk to Drew Littlefox. I didn’t have time.”

  I made a mental note of that, though I wasn’t sure how I’d get in to see him. Without being on his approved visitor’s list, the correctional officers wouldn’t allow it.

  “Fine,” I said, eager to get this encounter over with. “Once I trap it, how do I kill it?”

 
He shrugged. “How should I know? Ask Drew.”

  “Okay. You know, you could’ve just written all this down in the diary. Would’ve saved me the time and trouble of coming out here.”

  My father was silent, his form fading and brightening like a pulse. He lowered his head and put his hands behind his back.

  “You wanted me to come out here. Why?”

  “Because this was the only place I knew I could manifest.” He floated closer. This time, I stood my ground. “I shed blood here. A lot of it. Putting in walls, new floors, those cabinets your ma liked. My DNA is all over this house.” As if to demonstrate, he touched a wall. His hand passed through it, though he barely seemed to notice. “I tried to tell you in the car, right after you left Angola, but it was too much of a stretch. After I adjusted the radio, I almost faded completely from here. Took me until tonight to get my form back. Lucky you took so long figuring it out. You never were that bright.”

  I shrugged off the casual insult. He’d said worse to me many times before. “Why the hell did you want to see me? No, never mind. Scratch that. What made you think I wanted to see you?”

  His mouth opened, then snapped closed. He watched me with sunken, dead eyes for a long moment before saying, “I’m your father. I raised you. I thought…”

  “You thought you were entitled to my time.” I stuck my hands deep into my pockets to keep myself from making fists. “Contributing to my DNA doesn’t entitle you to be anything to me.” I turned my back to him.

  “We’re family, boy.” He shook a finger at me. “Don’t you turn your back on me! You get right back here and listen to what I’ve got to say!”

  “No, we’re not,” I said, shaking my head. “Family isn’t about blood, or DNA, or who raised whom. Family gives their time and their heart to other people. They’re there when you need them, no matter what, even if it’s only being a shoulder to lean on when things get rough. Love makes a family, Bill, and a man doesn’t say I love you with his fists.”