Faces in the Night

by Thomas Conuel

  David Scone vaulted over her and charged the few feet to the cross where it lay at Blake’s feet. He stood for a second glaring at Blake expecting resistance. And then he bent quickly scooped up the cross and turned back to the coffin with his prize in hand.

  Blake didn’t move.

  * * *

  Chapter 96

  Blake looked across at what seemed a wide chasm of dark space--though he stood only 10 yards from the open coffin. Above the coffin he saw for the first time the face that Katherine and Lester Carlson had described—a horrible, distorted partly human visage, and he heard the shrieking wind and saw a hard blue light hovering over the coffin and an arm sticking at a disjointed angle from the polished wooden box.

  Blake didn’t move.

  He felt he could never move again.

  He would stand and watch. Why not?

  A strange and frantic little man, heavily muscled, but much smaller than him, smashed Katherine in the neck and bounded over her to stand in front of him. He should hit the little bastard, he thought, smash him good for hitting Katherine like that. And maybe he would. But in a minute or so. The little man was a force, angry and pushing up against Blake’s chest and then reaching quickly down at Blake’s feet and grabbing the small cross that Katherine had lobbed at him. He should have just stepped on the cross, he realized, and in that way prevented the little man from getting it. Too late for that now.

  “Blake,” he heard Katherine screaming with desperation, but from a great distance. “Blake, do something. The cross. Get it. Please do it. Blake.”

  The little man stared hard at Blake and then turned his back contemptuously and moved away. Blake closed his eyes and Alan Ambrose swam into view--the simian bully from the 8th grade still leering and salivating at the chance to hurt somebody. Alan Ambrose smirked at him through the thick night here on an island in Quabbin Reservoir.

  “Do it, Blake,” Alan Ambrose said in a mocking voice. “Do it, Blake. Fuck! You ain’t ever gonna do squat,” the big face with yellow teeth taunted him. “You ain’t ever gonna do a thing.” Alan Ambrose pushed his face closer to Blake’s, and then reached out and knocked Blake’s stack of text books to the ground. “You fucking wimp,” Alan Ambrose said.

  And then Blake found himself in Vietnam, a hot day in May, and he was sitting there in the helicopter on the ground while his best friend, Kevin Flanagan, died trying to stop a slaughter of civilians.

  Maybe, Blake thought, there was a purpose in all things that occurred here on earth. That was the Buddhist belief—kill a butterfly wantonly and you upset, in a small way, some part of the great plan for the universe; rescue that butterfly and you contribute to the greater good of the universe. It all fits together—everything you do; everything you are; everyplace you go. All the pieces fit together to make a whole.

  Perhaps that humiliation with Alan Ambrose over 30 years ago was part of the bigger plan; perhaps his inaction in Vietnam the day Kevin Flanagan died was also part of the bigger plan. Perhaps it was all preplanned and inevitable that he would be here on an island in Quabbin Reservoir called on to act, or to forever walk away from everything he loved.

  He looked over at Katherine. She was struggling to her feet dazed, rubbing her neck where she had been hit, but getting up, coming back, stumbling toward the coffin to intercept the little man, refusing to surrender.

  Unexpectedly, Blake recalled the dream that had come to him on the morning when he left Ohio. The young girl with the smile and the blue eyes staring at him as he struggled up from a troubled sleep and writing a message on a whiteboard: “It’s your turn now to stop him.”

  Blake felt something let go; something that had held him down for most of his life. A refusal to believe in himself, a reluctance to admit that he might not win so why bother trying; a deep feeling that he might indeed disappoint, and be held accountable. He wanted to fail at the start. It was easier that way.

  And then, Kevin Flanagan was standing by his side. He had seen the grimacing face of Alan Ambrose in his mind. But this was different. This was the real Kevin Flanagan. The real Kevin he had known and called a friend in Vietnam, not the creepy one whose bones were about to be harvested by the thing lurking over there by the coffin.

  Later, when he thought about it, Blake guessed that the next sequence of events took only 4 maybe 5 seconds. But he also came to believe that possibly that was not true—that maybe time had simply stood still for many moments on an island in Quabbin Reservoir.

  One moment he was standing frozen in place—alone several yards from a coffin and three other human beings. And then Kevin Flanagan appeared--materializing at Blake’s side--riding in on a wind separate from the wind that swirled around the coffin--or so it seemed to Blake.

  “Come on Blake,” Kevin said, nodding and smiling at the same time in a manner that Blake remembered well from their Vietnam days together. Kevin’s eyes were flashing and his grin wide and defiant--just like in the old days when they set off for a dangerous mission.

  “Come on Blake,” Kevin said, nodding his head and tilting it toward the coffin. It was such a familiar gesture even across all these years. They would fly into an area in Vietnam, and Kevin would look over at Blake and tilt his head and grin that grin, and Blake knew they were landing and going in. And now Kevin was standing by his side with that same tilt of the head and the same crazy wide smile. In Vietnam, Blake had come to realize how much he relied on that smile—a smile that meant Kevin Flanagan and whoever was with him was going to do what had to be done no matter what, and screw everything else.

  “Come on Blake,” Kevin said. “This is your baby. You gotta stop this shit.”

  “You gotta stop this shit,” Kevin said. Blake picked up on it immediately. Not “We’ve gotta stop this shit,” as he had in Vietnam that day.

  No, it was “You gotta stop this shit.” Kevin Flanagan flashed that big grin again and tilted his head toward the coffin. He was here. He was with Blake tonight. This was no flashback to Vietnam.

  “You gotta stop this shit,” he said again. “It’s your turn Blake. It’s your turn, buddy.”

  Blake reached out to touch him. Kevin grinned and nodded, but Blake touched only air.

  “You’ll always be my buddy, Blake,” he heard the words in the night air. “But now it’s your turn. Your turn to do what you gotta do.” Blake looked at the spot where Kevin had been, but Kevin was gone.

  * * *

  Chapter 97

  Blake took a deep breathe. Kevin was gone. He was on his own. But hell, being on your own wasn’t so bad, wasn’t so terrible that you had to crawl away every time the going got rough. Kevin would have said—”Hey, keep it simple; do what you gotta do, and leave the rest for somebody else to sort out”.

  “Kevin,” Blake said aloud into the night. “Kevin?”

  There was no reply, but Blake felt the air stir and then inexplicably a flash of heat lightning broke across the dark reservoir. Blake took another deep breath. Kevin’s words from so many years ago echoed in his head.

  “Keep it simple, but do what you’ve gotta do.”

  Blake took yet another deep breath and then bounded across the ground charging directly at the coffin. David Scone, still several feet from the coffin, turned to face him pulling the cross tight to his chest prepared to fight for it, but Blake raced past him.

  “Don’t you dare” David Scone called realizing too late Blake’s intent, and that he was out of position to stop him. “Don’t you dare go near him.” David Scone held the stone cross aloft.

  “Stop, you fool,” David Scone yelled with all the intensity he could muster. “Don’t you dare touch that coffin. Stop!”

  But Blake had already reached the coffin. The hard blue light swirled above it and the fierce wind tore at him, but he knew what needed to be done. He looked back. David Scone had broken into a clumsy run; a few feet away Katherine was on her feet but dazed, grappling with David Scone.

  The skeletal hand that he had seen from 10 ya
rds away twitched on the satin floor of the coffin trying it seemed to rise and grapple with Blake. Above him, Blake saw the horrible face, gasping in desperation like a man underwater and fighting for air. The face bobbed and jerked in the air, but something had changed in a second’s time. A confidence and sureness in its movements had evaporated.

  Frantically, it hovered seeking Blake’s eye.

  Time was running out. The moment of the Summer Solstice was about to pass.

  Blake looked once into the apparition’s eye and for a second or two it held him mesmerized. He saw the hard blue light out of focus now—but seeking to engage and hold him. He gritted his teeth and jerked his head to the side breaking the spell.

  The hard blue light wavered and began retreating. The face screamed imprecations, or so it seemed. He couldn’t really tell. But somewhere through the mad rush of wind that battered him he heard what sounded like a voice crying down a long tunnel.

  “Mine. Mine. Mine,” it screamed. “This is mine. Put that cross back on those bones. My time is running out. They are mine. Stop. Stop. Stop, I command you to stop. Mine. Mine. Mine.”

  Blake stood, fighting to keep his balance as the wind caught at his legs. The face summoned some last element of strength and resolution. It grew large and luminescent and the blue light glittered in the eye sockets. It danced there in the night close to Blake’s head bobbing up and down on the wind seeking its promised body. The eyes locked into Blake’s. The blue light stopped spinning and focused on him.

  Blake blinked once to break the spell, and opened his eyes looking only at the lid of the coffin. The wind whipped him, and the blue light spun again furiously. But Blake knew what to do--finally.

  David Scone saw it all too--Blake’s hands on the lid of the coffin; the small push back to free the hinges; the forward slamming movement that would close the coffin and forever doom the entity. David Scone threw the cross as hard as he could from 6 feet away toward the still open coffin.

  Blake slammed the lid down as the stone cross whirled through the air. It hit the top of the closed coffin and bounced off at Blake’s feet. He turned in a single fluid motion and picked the cross up while the wind whipped about him in a frenzy.

  David Scone was charging the coffin. The voice in the wind was screaming in a high-pitched wail. “ Mine. Mine. Mine. Hurry” The blue light fell to the ground and began spinning and bouncing randomly around the coffin and then darted back into the eyes of the face like a creature injured and confused. The face hovered in the air, but now diminished and looking like a small gray cloud.

  “Kevin,” Blake said, whispering the name into the wind. “Kevin, my friend, rest in peace. Goodbye good friend.”

  “Don’t you dare,” David Scone’s voice was choked like a man with a severe sore throat. “You bastard, don’t you dare.” He lunged and reached out to tear and hit at Blake, but Blake was already in motion. With one long step he rocked back on his right foot and then forward on his left foot and threw the cross overhand as far as could out toward the dark waters of Quabbin Reservoir. The cross hung in the night sky for a moment—the fierce wind trying, it seemed, to retrieve it. The stone cross spun slowly out toward the dark waters, cartwheeling through the night, throwing off glints of hard blue light like sparks from a flint.

  They all heard the scream. The face let out a long howl of pure pain and hate, hovered for a moment in the air near the coffin, and then began to fade like a mist exposed to sunlight. The hard blue light struggled against dimness in the apparition’s eyes, and then, as the cross hit the water, the blue light shattered like thin crystal struck by a hammer. The wind died down immediately and Blake and Katherine watched in astonishment as hundreds of tiny fragments of blue light burst from the face and exploded like miniature fireworks in the dark sky. They spread out trailing tails of blue fire as they fell into the dark waters. As the last blue fireball fell, the face swirled one last time in the night and vanished. Somewhere from across the dark waters and deep in the blackness of night, a thin long moan like a dying animal thrilled in the air for several seconds and then silence.

  * * *

  Chapter 98

  David Scone gasped. “You bastard,” he croaked turning on Blake, his voice hoarse and stunned. “You no good bastard,” Blake turned to face him, but David Scone whirled away from the coffin and scrambled down the hill to his canoe. Blake stood for a moment unsure what to do. David Scone dragged his canoe toward the water while Blake on the ledge above reached over to Katherine and drew her close. “Are you OK, babe,” he asked.

  Katherine, instead of answering, pointed below and out toward the waters of Quabbin. The dark clouds in the sky had passed to the north and the moon now threw a strong clear light over the water. The surface of the reservoir was smooth and calm. Blake looked down the bank. Lester Carlson, hobbling on a broken ankle, was dragging himself toward David Scone who paused for a moment as if to confront Lester Carlson but then turned away and jumped into his canoe.

  In seconds, David Scone was paddling furiously toward the spot where the cross had fallen into the water. Lester Carlson dragged himself to the water’s edge and dove into the water. As Blake and Katherine watched, he grabbed hold of the side of David Scone’s canoe. David Scone whacked at him once with his paddle but then turned back to his paddling. Near the spot where the cross had fallen into the reservoir, a waterspout was rising—a funnel-shaped column of water like a long silver tube protruding from the dark surface of the reservoir.

  David Scone paddled toward it with Lester Carlson clinging to the side of his canoe. The waterspout rose higher and began spinning across the water toward the canoe. In seconds it towered over the canoe foam flying from the top of the waterspout. Katherine took hold of Blake’s hand. Together they watched.

  The waterspout swirled counter-clockwise and grew taller and wider spinning in place in front of the canoe. Finally, as if it were an afterthought, it skipped forward a few feet and sucked the canoe into its vortex.

  One moment the canoe was bobbling along, riding the waves, the next it had vanished like a scrap of paper caught in a high wind. It appeared a moment later and shot to the top of the waterspout. Lester Carlson was still clinging to its side and David Scone sat in the stern, paddle raised as if to take another stroke, but his mouth open in a scream.

  For several seconds the canoe hung suspended, high in the air on its bed of water. And then the wind and foam tore at the canoe like an angry child dismembering an out-of-favor toy. The wind plucked Lester Carlson from the side of the canoe, tossed him high into the dark sky, and then hurled him back down into the boiling water. He hit the water with great impact and sank below the dark surface. David Scone sat for a long second at the top of the silver waterspout still holding his paddle. The wind and water toyed with him for several seconds, spinning him about and then tearing the paddle from his hand. He grabbed after it for a frantic second and from the shore Blake and Katherine heard his cry of fear and terror. “No, no! Don’t take me. Please, no!”

  He hovered like that in the air screaming and pleading suspended on the wind, and then the tornado-force wind rocketed through the air like a small missile and flipped him over tossing him downward. His screams filled the night air. He struck the water head first with great force and sank from sight.. The waterspout started to move on, skimming across the water, and then without warning, collapsing into a few small billowing waves.

  Katherine and Blake said nothing for a long moment. The waters of Quabbin were again calm and covered with a silver sheen of moonlight. The waterspout had passed leaving only bits of canoe wreckage floating on the water as evidence of its fury. Lester Carlson and David Scone were nowhere to be seen.

  “A tornado,” Blake said. “It was just like a tornado.”

  Katherine said nothing then began to cry quietly.

  “They’re both gone,” Blake said. “No way anybody could survive that.”

  Katherine closed her eyes. The image of the little girl
encountered on Old Enfield Road that afternoon floated unbidden into her mind. “When you do bad things; when you kill people, you can never come back,” the little girl was again saying. “But your friend will be fine. He’ll find his peace. But not the other.”

  Katherine reached out and took Blake’s hand.

  * * *

  Chapter 99

  Daybreak came to Quabbin Reservoir and a chorus of bird song trilled across Curtis Hill Island. Large crows cawed and scolded in the pines near the inlet while smaller warblers and sparrows bustled from tree to bush chirping and whistling. Nearby, on an old oak tree, a downy woodpecker started a rat-tat-tat search for breakfast. The sun poked above the eastern horizon turning the dark waters of the great reservoir a deep blue with tinges of green. Katherine and Blake had waited through the night for the sun. While they waited, they talked—more talking than they had done since the week they first met in Boston years ago.

  When the eastern horizon finally tinted pink, they had stripped off their clothes and waded into the cold water for a swim. Emerging naked from the water with the first rays of sun just hitting the field behind the stone building, Katherine had taken Blake by the hand and led him to a soft grassy spot under an oak tree. Lay down, she commanded him, and then straddled his naked body. When they were finished, they walked naked down to the water

  Katherine stood beside Blake, the morning sun streaking her wet hair with strands of gold. He wanted always to remember Katherine like this—with the morning sun behind her standing without clothes on this island in the middle of Quabbin Reservoir. He turned as she turned and they hugged each other for a long moment.

  “No more ghosts,” Katherine said. “No more ghosts, and no more Lester Carlson. I’ll miss him, though.”