Faces in the Night

by Thomas Conuel

  “There was,” Father Baker had written decades ago, “another important item in that box of Sebastien Rale’s possessions. A strange crucifix with a blue-stone inlaid in the center. The crucifix was accompanied by a letter from Sebastien Rale, which I have examined, describing how he crafted the crucifix himself, he was after all a talented craftsman, using a small blue stone he had found under mysterious circumstances one afternoon along the banks of the Kennebec.”

  Father Baker went on to say that the cross was later stolen by a rogue English trader who preyed on the native tribes in the region by offering casks of rum for deeds of hundreds of acres of land. Aided by his Abenakis followers, Sebastien Rale pursued the thief into the wilderness of northern Maine, and after some months took back the cross from the man who he described as part devil.

  The cross, Sebastien Rale wrote in his letter, a copy of which he had sent to his Jesuit superiors in France, held special powers, why, he was not sure, but perhaps because of the blue stone inlaid in the cross, a stone he had found, he thought by accident, but now wondered otherwise. Walking along the banks of the Kennebec on a late autumn afternoon, Sebastien Rale had described in his letter being overcome by an unexpected faintness and a great chill. He then felt a force join with him, perhaps it was what was meant by God, he could not be sure, but he found himself guided and drawn closer to the river bank where even as he stood watching a small wave from the green-gray waters of the Kennebec River deposited a blue stone at his feet, a stone he described as shaped like an eye, but light blue on the outside with a darker blue interior.

  Father Phil pondered the next paragraph written by Father Baker some 50 years ago. “The papers and the cross taken from Sebastien Rale upon his death were never returned to the Jesuits, but several generations of Jesuit priests have been assigned the task of finding that cross with the blue-stone eye in the center. Starting shortly after the death of Sebastien Rale in 1724, the Jesuits have pursued that cross as an icon that must be held by the Holy Church to prevent the emergence of great evil.”

  Father Baker went on: “The man who Sebastien Rale confronted, and overcame and stripped of his power by taking back the cross with the blue-stone eye was a notorious and vicious killer named Jonathan Flanagan, a brute who slaughtered members of the Norridgewocks for both sport and to provoke them into violence against the English, thereby creating conditions for war.”

  Father Phil studied the final paragraph from Father Baker, a single sentence: “This cross, with the inlaid blue stone, in the wrong hands, and used with the remains of a member of the Flanagan family at a specific time of year, which time I have yet to determine, could exert an unholy and perhaps eternal influence allowing the devil to assume a human form in this century.”

  * * *

  PART IV: The Reservoir

  Chapter 11

  The entity was back and it was impatient.

  This morning, standing in the semi-darkness of his kitchen at 5 a.m., the entity had come for him. First, that familiar blue light spinning about in the darkness outside his kitchen window, and then the surge of adrenaline that set his pulse and heart pounding like a sting from a yellow jacket, followed by the voice in his head and the visions, crisp and bright like new paintings hung on an old neglected wall—the call to action that cut through all the clutter and tedium of his small life. He had been sipping coffee and flipping through the local newspaper, The Daily Hampshire Gazette, when the entity joined him, jolting him from his reverie--first with a clear vision of a woman alone, asleep upstairs in a dark house, and then a video playing in his mind of a broken-down man of around 50 with a cane snoring on a couch in a shabby trailer home. He wanted badly to harm both these people, though he had no idea who they were or where he would find them.

  He took several deep breaths and exhaled noisily through pursed lips as the visions played in his head. When the entity came for him, its presence left him gasping for breath--at least at the start. He clenched and unclenched his fists, He swiveled his head slowly left and then right loosening his tight neck muscles. At last—the entity needed and wanted him again. And that was good.

  He had not felt its presence or been energized by its commands for many months, going back to the encounter with the housewife in the red bikini. He had begun to worry that perhaps the entity was no longer interested in training and using him. Perhaps, it had even found a better, more competent human servant?

  He’d heard the voice inside and felt the presence of the entity for the first time some 12 years ago. Not far from here; in Vermont near the banks of the Connecticut River. Out of nowhere. Something had joined him; possessed him; gripped him. Driving along that night; a hitchhiker huddled in the darkness by the side of the road. He was going to drive on by, but then came the strange blue light the size of a tennis ball hovering far up in the sky overhead; and he was stopping, chatting, inviting the hitchhiker into the car; the hitchhiker dozing in the passenger seat beside him as he drove through the night pretending to be going somewhere. He unfolded the 6-inch-blade of the Buck knife that he carried in his jacket pocket and slipped it hard up against the hitchhiker’s chin—a young guy, down on his luck, grabbing a ride to the Northeast Kingdom to stay with his sister.

  The hitchhiker had awoken with a start and great fear. And the voice inside had filled his head and guided him. Later he felt an incredible rush; a sense of power and entitlement.

  Possession. Control. That was perhaps as close as one could come to describing the feelings. He alone possessed another person’s life. And he could take it away. And what a thrill that was. There had been nothing like it in his life.

  The entity had stayed with him after that night and for most of the past decade, but then inexplicably it left him. Now it was back.

  He bent over his kitchen counter peering nearsightedly at the newspaper. Perhaps it was something in the newspaper that had brought the entity here this morning. He flipped a page. And then he spotted a small news item.

  Quabbin Reservoir?

  He loved local history and had spent much of the past decade researching Quabbin Reservoir, the water supply for Boston 80 miles to the east. He knew as much about Quabbin Reservoir as anybody.

  An hour later he was walking down Old Enfield Road, a busy main road some 50 years ago, now a lonely access road leading to the waters of Quabbin. The lands around the reservoir were stitched together by these old town roads. Police and maintenance workers still used them to patrol and maintain the sprawling reservoir. He had walked all the old roads, though Old Enfield Road was his favorite.

  He took a deep breath of the cool air and listened to the silence of the place. The accidental wilderness some called it. Well, maybe so. But it was that and more. Four towns lay beneath these waters; four towns now gone--buildings, grave markers, memories, and family histories all erased from the map of Massachusetts, eradicated and then washed away with the rising waters of the reservoir in 1939.

  This was a place of deep woods, old fields, and brush-filled cellar holes tangled with poison ivy surrounding the waters that now covered the four lost towns; 117 miles of shoreline; 60 islands, thousands of acres of woodlands—all a restricted wilderness because of the need to protect the Boston water supply.

  He was halfway down Old Enfield Road when he saw a woman approaching from the opposite direction, hiking up from the water to the access gate. He had noticed a car there when he parked his truck and squeezed himself past the metal gate that prevented vehicular access to the reservoir. He took a deep breath. For a moment he felt the beginning of a possession—the rush of blood and adrenaline that brought great focus and tension, but later great release. He stared and then slowly moved his head back and forth as the muscles at the base of his skull tightened.

  The woman was nervous at the appearance of a stranger at this lonely spot. She edged toward the side of the road and for a second or two seemed about to turn around. His heart began to thump in anticipation. He reached into his jacket pocket and hefted
his trusty Buck knife. But the feeling passed. The entity was not interested in a stray hiker. Not today, at least. The woman regained her confidence and walked forward. She smiled tentatively as they passed. She was in her 50s, with an open face and dark hair now gone mostly gray.

  “Great day for a hike,” she said in a forced-friendly voice.

  “There’s never a bad day to hike here,” he called back with his own false heartiness. He was disappointed. When he had seen her lone figure here on the abandoned road with the mists of dawn swirling about, he felt certain that the entity would set him after her, as he had so often in the past. But apparently not. He exhaled noisily when she was past and let go of the Buck knife.

  He walked on and then stopped. A wooden storage hut stood to his left; not an original building from the days before the reservoir changed the landscape here. No, it was of fairly recent origin, perhaps a bit more than a decade ago. He had just moved to town when the storage hut was put up. Work crews used it to store equipment and on occasion the funeral home in nearby Belton would keep a body there until spring thawed the ground in the town cemetery.

  He felt the presence of the entity now. Strong and almost physical. Focus, he told himself. Focus. The entity was with him and wanted him to stay here. He did so for several minutes, walking around the storage hut, examining it and its wooden door, chained shut with a bicycle lock.

  He had come to realize many years ago that he was almost alone in his peculiar ability to feel the presence of the entity. Almost! He had read true crime books—skimmed through dozens of them--looking for evidence that the entity visited others, and he thought perhaps he had found hints of its presence in some of these characters considered monsters by society. They too were possessed, but in a different way.

  Perhaps, there were different entities out there, all seeking their human servants to perpetrate their will, to carry out the great driving desires that they could no longer perform because of the loss of their physical bodies. That seemed a possible and likely explanation for the presence of the entity in his life.

  And then he was moving again. Down the road a mile to its end where it vanished into the waters of the reservoir. When they closed the dam and began filling the reservoir in 1939, scores of valley residents stood on this very road over several days watching the waters slowly rise to cover what had once been the town of Enfield, but was now a broken denuded landscape with all building and trees gone. They stood and watched as the rising water seeped out over the muddy flats and fields and inundated great sections of Old Enfield Road, once the main road in a prosperous valley in central Massachusetts. In had been a long slow goodbye to the Quabbin Valley.

  He stood now on a piece of broken pavement with water lapping at his feet and looked out over the great slice of blue-gray water gaining color and shape in the thin light of dawn, gradually limning in a distant shoreline. Ahead he could see the land formations of several of the Quabbin islands, large wooded hills from the pre-reservoir days that now poked above the waters. The entity wanted him to see these islands.

  He reached into his pocket and removed the item he had cut from the newspaper earlier. So odd. A coincidence really.

  But maybe not.

  Maybe it was more than a coincidence.

  Could the entity have planned all this?

  Picked him out and trained him for this--a day, an encounter, an assignment in the future that only the entity could envision? Here at Quabbin Reservoir?

  He read the small square of newsprint again. It was a wire service story.

  A family’s 25 year wait to learn the fate of a son who was reported missing in action in North Vietnam in 1969 ended with a call from the Pentagon earlier this week that said their son’s remains had been recovered and identified. Kevin Flanagan of Belton, Massachusetts was reported missing in action on April 9, 1969.

  There it was. That name. Plain and simple and right out in the open in the newspaper. But could anybody, beside himself, figure out the connection?

  Not likely. You’d have to really know your local history.

  And those visions in his kitchen earlier? How were they connected to this dead soldier?

  He glanced again at the short news item. The body was at an Air Force base in Hawaii. It was coming home soon. There would be a Memorial Day service in Belton, the newspaper reported, a small town right next to the giant Quabbin Reservoir.

  * * *

  Chapter 12

  How had he ended up being so different?

  He was back in his small, immaculate office in Belton, Massachusetts, one of the towns spared when Quabbin Reservoir was built in the 1930s. He was looking out over the Town Common, scanning through some of the old regional history books he kept in a glass-enclosed bookcase to the left of his green steel desk.

  In college, he never fit in. In that way, he was unlike some of the others he read about in the true crime books he purchased and stored in a metal bookcase in his apartment. There had been Ted Bundy--a sex killer, a master of the snatch and kill method who held a particular fascination for him. Bundy had been so successful and for so many years--well, if they had a hall of fame for this type of thing, Bundy would be the first inductee. But Bundy had always fit in—law student, average guy, nice girlfriend whom he never harmed.

  He had not been as lucky as Bundy. He had never fit in.

  In college, a bunch of rowdy dorm mates grabbed him one night and forced him into the shower—stripped him of his clothes down to his undershorts and held him under the sizzling spray. Somebody yanked off his glasses and he blinked and struggled and squinted through a watery haze at his tormentors. He kicked, flailed, and cried out as they held him there under the steaming water. “You smell really bad,” someone said by way of justification. And he knew that was indeed true. He hated to shower, to let water cover his body. It had been years since he had actually bathed.

  They had let him go after only a minute or so in the shower, sensing his desperation. This was supposed to be a lark, not a struggle. He had run to his room and locked the door. And he had learned from that. To fit in, to go unnoticed among these unfeeling dolts, he must shower. So he began a morning ritual that included a short, hot shower that he still, to this day, dreaded—the watery pellets from the shower head stinging like insects biting him. After the shower incident, he could never face any of the college freshmen who lived on that dorm floor. He scurried past them with his eyes locked downward and switched dormitories the next semester.

  He managed to hold on, but just barely, and graduate from the state college. He was very average. That would have been OK, but almost immediately upon graduation he fell deeper into his self-imposed isolation. He had never had a girlfriend—really felt no need or impulses in that direction. He was an only child and both his parents died soon after college. They didn’t really leave a gap though. He had never felt connected to them either. He built a life around routine.

  He rose each morning a few minutes before 5 a.m.; performed exercises and floor calisthenics with small weights for 20 minutes, and then endured the dreaded shower, had a breakfast of a banana and cold cereal with skim milk, and then went to work. In the early days work was as a low-level accountant at a trucking firm. In the evening, he drove home, prepared a dinner of tomato soup and a tuna fish sandwich on whole-wheat bread, and then watched old movies on television until 9, when he went to bed.

  On weekends, deprived of the routine of work, he substituted visits to historical sites and museums, or simply drove through all the small towns in the area--driving from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m., just as if he were at work. That was how he had first discovered Quabbin Reservoir.

  The shower incident in college still flashed through his mind. The gang of dorm bullies so sure of themselves, arrogant bastards, grabbing him and dragging him into the shower. Yes, his roommate complained about the smell of his unwashed clothes, and yes he knew he smelt bad, but there had been an invasion of privacy; a crossing of boundaries that he could not forgive. H
e dreamed at times of seeking out the college bullies and harming them--pay back time. But it was a cumbersome, unlikely fantasy. Instead something better had come into his life. The entity.

  He found his first job after college at a trucking firm in a Vermont town near the Connecticut River. Every Friday evening, the town would fill with protestors holding a peace vigil on the Town Common. He stopped one evening, parking his car a careful block away so that none of the protestors would be tempted to vandalize the car. But they weren’t violent protestors here in Vermont. A white-haired grandmother was making a speech her hands clasped together in supplication beneath her chin; a minister led the crowd in a roaring prayer for peace; a tall guy in an old army jacket and long-stringy hair passed around a petition. The tall man came up to him.

  “Would you sign this open letter calling for the President’s impeachment,” the tall guy said. “We got to stop this fucking war machine, brother.”

  He looked at the tall guy and the faded army jacket--now a scurvy green. What was this person talking about? “No, I don’t sign anything,” he said and turned away, scurrying back into the crowd. He never thought of the war, and he had no friends, so he had no friends or classmates who had gone to the war. A high draft lottery number in his senior year had protected him from military service. The Vietnam War did not exist for him.

  He’d quit that first job after two years and moved further upriver. “Why? Where are you going?” his boss, a balding older man who wore bow ties asked him. “You’re not going to find anything better. I’ve got to be honest with you. I don’t care whether you go or not. But you’re no superstar, and you won’t find anything better.”

  Which was true. But he wasn’t leaving to find a better job. The entity had found him, and his so called crimes had begun. He felt the need for a new territory--a fresh landscape in which to wander. The entity guided him as he moved from job to job in towns up and down the Connecticut River, from Massachusetts, to Vermont, to New Hampshire and then back to Massachusetts. And always, he left several victims behind.