“Have you made it back yet? You’re not answering your phone and I’m getting worried. You were supposed to be back hours ago. I miss you. Call me when you can.”
Karen scrolled down to the other messages from M. Tanner. They went back for weeks, beginning innocently enough: Martin first emailing to ask how the sessions were going, from one doctor to another, you see. Later the emails became more personal, more playful. A flirtatious comment here, a proposition there, all the while pivoting around a rather large elephant in the room: Karen’s sanity.
“I’m worried about you being alone with her, Martin. Her depersonalization isn’t improving, and I’m concerned that there’s a deeper psychosis we haven’t seen yet. I’m afraid that when she snaps again it won’t be with suicidal tendencies.”
Martin replied: “I know that, but I’m stuck for now. We talked about this, Meredith. I’m scared to leave her. Scared of what she might do to herself or what she might do to me.”
Meredith again: “Do you still love her? You can be honest with me, Martin.”
And Martin: “I care about her, but I don’t love her anymore. I can’t after what she put me through. I need something real, something stable. I need you.”
Karen pressed the power button, leaned back against the rocky wall, and began to cry. Her sobs were long and loud, pulled up from the deepest recesses of her soul, beginning in hoarse, guttural fits and rising into quick animal shrieks. A coyote returned her cry, its ghostly howl echoing from somewhere below the ridge.
She waited there until morning, sobbing in dry uncontrollable fits until the heat of the rising sun became unbearable. Her throat was swollen from dehydration, and her muscles ached as she climbed to her feet. A pit opened in her stomach and growled with disapproval.
Martin was near, but the thought of facing him terrified her.
Get on with it, possum. He broke your heart after all, but that ain’t no reason to lay down and die.
No, it wasn’t. Karen pushed away from the rock wall, stepping out of the shadow of the ridge and continued her ascent toward the summit.
Blondie hadn’t lied: the altar was at the flattened top of the butte, erected some twenty feet from the edge. A series of stones circled a dusty old refrigerator positioned to serve as a bed of sacrifice. Martin lay sprawled across its surface, his arms and legs tied at uncomfortable angles over the edges, each extremity pointed outward like a perverted form of the Vitruvian man.
At another time, Karen might have rushed to the side of her husband, showering him with kisses, working to untie his restraints, but not this morning. Not now. Not after shedding her humanity and spilling blood in his name. His heart belonged to another now.
Vultures circled overhead, casting brief shadows that flickered over her unconscious husband. Soon they would descend when he was not quite dead, ready to pluck the softer meats from his skull and relishing their sweet flavor. A part of Karen wanted to watch that happen, but she was not yet so removed from herself as to allow such inaction. No, she needed to say goodbye to Martin once and for all.
He stirred as she approached. His lips were chapped and his forehead blistering from sunburn. A puddle of blood had dried beneath his wounded foot, the loafer forever stained a rich shade of scarlet.
“Martin?”
He turned his head, groaning as the muscles popped in protest. He squinted through sun-blasted eyes. “Karen? That you, honey?”
Honey. She let the word roll off her like a bead of sweat, taking a seat at the foot of the hollow refrigerator. A soft breeze lifted up around them, stirring sand among the stones. She closed her eyes, relishing the air on her burned shoulders.
“Karen, you’ve got to get me out of here. Untie me so—” He strained to get a look at her. “My God, honey, you’re covered in blood. What the hell happened? What—”
“When I was young,” she began, “Daddy used to tell me the story about the binding of Isaac by his father Abraham. See, God commanded Abraham to sacrifice his son at the top of a mountain. He loved his son, but he loved and feared God even more. But an angel intervened, Martin. An angel intervened and saved Isaac from his father’s blade. And you know what Abraham did?” She waited, watching the vultures circle overhead. Martin was too weak, too awestruck to respond, and she went on when he didn’t answer. “He sacrificed a ram instead because he still owed God something for His mercy.”
“Karen, this isn’t funny,” he croaked. “Untie me so we can get the fuck out of here!”
She turned and glared over her shoulder. He froze at the sight of her. Blood was smeared down her forehead and cheeks, dried and caked in the cracks of her skin like red powder makeup, and her hair was matted to her face.
“Do you think an angel will intervene, Martin? Do you think God will forgive your adultery?” She lifted the hatchet and traced one bloody edge along the side of Martin’s leg. “I’m feeling a bit like Abraham right now, and there’s not a ram in sight.”
Martin’s cell phone rang. Karen looked at the device vibrating in her hand and smirked. Dr. Meredith Tanner’s name lit up the screen, along with a picture of her dark brown curls and bubbly baby cheeks. She glared at her husband and answered the call.
“Hello, Dr. Tanner. My husband is right here and you can talk to him for as long as you want. Until the battery dies, anyway. He said your lips were like heaven and I find that fitting because you’re his angel today.” Karen put the phone on speaker and placed it beside her husband. Meredith’s frantic voice filled the air.
“Martin? Martin? What’s happened? What’s wrong?”
“Karen, I’m sorry,” Martin croaked. Tears streamed down the side of his face. “Just let me go and we can sort this out. I didn’t mean to hurt you. I was going to tell you, I swear.”
Karen turned back toward the horizon, watching the morning sun begin its arc across the sky.
“I love you, Martin, but you’re in God’s hands now. Maybe your angel will save you.”
She turned back toward the trail, kicking up sand as she plodded down the path, her husband’s scratchy shrieks and Meredith Tanner’s distorted cellular cries a form of intermingling poetry all their own.
-6-
Karen wandered back to the encampment and dug through pockets of the dead. Ezra had the keys, and she took them back to the red pickup. A sorrowful, twangy tune filled her ears as she started the pickup. She smiled.
Hank Williams. Daddy’s favorite.
She drove until the truck ran out of gas just outside of Prescott, and rather than stew in her own thoughts she decided she would walk until someone found her or until her mind baked in her skull. Either way was fine with her.
Parched, her skin burning from the late morning sun, Karen walked down that empty highway, her favorite Sunday dress stained with the blood of the damned. Squinting upward to the sun, her daddy spoke up once more in her head:
Remember what I used to ask you when you were little? What would you do when you met your mountain?
Karen Singleton cracked a dry smile as she walked along the desert and away from sanity.
“I’ll climb over it if I have to, Daddy.” Her words were empty, lifeless, but her heart smoldered with a quiet rage that had only begun to burn. “I’ll climb over it if I have to.”
THE HARBINGER
“This town reeks.”
Grimacing, Felix Proust lifted his suitcase and slammed the car door. He’d passed a sign for a pig farm a few miles back. The stench of the farm’s crop wafted over the motel parking lot, thickening the air. Felix’s stomach tumbled over itself and he swallowed hard to fight the bile lingering at the back of his throat.
His cell phone made a knock-knock sound from within his pocket. He reached for it and ran his thumb across the screen. There was a text from his editor, which read “Let me know when you arrive.”
Felix responded, “Just made it.”
A few seconds later: “Good. Everything okay?”
“Fine. Tired. Really could u
se a drink.”
A flight delay had left him stranded in the airport for two hours. Years ago he would’ve gone straight to the lounge for a drink, but over half a decade of sobriety kept him grounded, focused. He wanted the drink, but he wanted his job even more.
The phone knocked again. “Very funny. How is Doll Town?”
“It smells like pig shit, Larry. Thanks for asking.”
Amused with himself, Felix shoved the phone into his pocket and made his way to the motel’s office. A large, hand-carved sign over the door read “DALTON R&R MOTEL—WHERE REST AND RELAXATION MEET!” He gave it a quick glance before opening the door.
An old man with thick glasses and a ratty blue flannel shirt sat behind the counter, hunched to one side and watching a portable television. A long, silver antenna protruded from the side. Christ, Felix thought, didn’t realize they still made those things. The sound was garbled, and the screen flickered erratically. The elderly clerk slammed his fist on the top of the TV.
“Damn thing,” he spat. Felix shuffled his weight from one foot to the other, waiting for the old man to acknowledge him. A sign on the counter read “Please ring bell for assistance,” and Felix did so carefully, punctuating his annoyance one ring at a time.
Ding. Ding. Ding.
The clerk turned around with a big grin on his face, moving almost mechanically, as though he’d rehearsed this a thousand times. Based on his apparent age, Felix suspected this wasn’t too far from the truth.
“Good afternoon!”
“Hi,” Felix said. “I’d like a room.”
“Well, friend, I reckon you’ve come to the right place.” The old man leaned down, reaching for something beneath the counter. Felix caught sight of his nametag—JERRY—and smirked. Jerry, an eccentric good old boy working down at the Dalton R&R. I’ll have to mention him in the article.
Jerry pulled out a large brown book and flipped it open. The motel register was worn and dusty, and the last entry was dated almost a year prior.
“Looks like I’m the first visitor in quite a while,” Felix said. “How do you keep this place up and running?”
Jerry smiled. “You’re ahead of the tourist season. The folks come from far and wide to see those dolls. You might say Miss Maggie keeps this place runnin’ all year ‘round.”
“Miss Maggie Eloquence,” Felix said, signing the register. “She’s actually why I’m here.”
The old man tilted his chin, squinting over the edge of his glasses. “That so?”
Felix smiled. “I work for Toys in the Attic. I’m here to interview her for an article.”
“I see . . . ” The old man turned the register and read his visitor’s scrawl. “Mr. Proust. I’ll go fetch your room key.”
“You don’t want my credit card?”
Jerry smiled, shaking his head. “No, Mr. Proust. We still do things the old-fashioned way down here in Dalton. Besides, you look like you’re good for it.”
He gave Felix a quick wink before turning away from the counter and hobbling into the back office. Felix eyed the old man, noting his suspenders and feeble gait. He wondered how long Jerry had worked at the motel. Probably all his life, he thought. Not much else to do in this Podunk town.
Felix leaned against the counter, taking in the mise en scène as Larry would say. A pair of potted plants stood on an end table, accompanied by a folding chair and a water cooler missing its jug. Yellowing floral wallpaper was complimented by dusty photographs of the town’s heyday, documenting a history of hard labor. The largest photograph showed a group of tired men in dirty overalls and hardhats standing in front of a mine entrance.
Felix had done his homework before booking his flight to Charleston. The small town of Dalton was built by the mining company’s owner, Ezra Dalton. Maggie Eloquence was Ezra Dalton’s daughter and sole heir to the family fortune—or what was left of it. His research had stopped at a long list of liquidated properties and bad investments.
When the coal mine dried up in the 1970s, so did most of the Dalton fortune—until Maggie opened Dalton Dollworks, that is. Felix followed the trail of photographs to the far end of the room where a large color print of the Dollworks factory hung in the center of the wall, a shrine to the last artery keeping the town alive.
Felix almost didn’t see the child when he turned back around. The kid was standing in the corner, obscured by the edge of the motel counter and the waxy leaves of a potted plant. He glimpsed black hair and a tiny arm drawn up against the wall. Confused, he pulled away from the counter and turned the corner to get a better look.
What the hell?
The little boy stood in the corner, his arms drawn up against the wall, face buried in his hands as though hiding away from the world. Felix stood frozen in place, unsure of what to say. The air in the room was suddenly thick with the stench of shit. He felt the miasma pressing against his face like a warm pillow, its smell invading his nasal passages, burning away at his nerves. His eyes watered, and he feared he might throw up his breakfast.
“I see you’ve found Noah.” Jerry walked past him, twirling a key ring around his index finger. He leaned down next to the boy. “Cat got your tongue? No need to be shy, now. He’s a guest!”
Noah said nothing.
“Sir,” Felix began, swallowing back the taste of bile. He held out his hand for the key. “I can find my way to the room—”
“Nonsense.” Jerry reached down, grabbed the kid by the back of his collar, and turned the boy around. “This is why you came, isn’t it?”
The doll’s arms fell away, revealing a pale, emotionless face and black eyes. Relief slipped over Felix like a warm blanket, but even that wasn’t enough to mask the hideous stench. He wondered how the old man seemed to mind it, but figured that after years of living so close to the pig farms, the acrid aroma had burned away most of his sense of smell.
A tag hung from the doll’s sleeve, adorned with the logo for Miss Maggie’s company, Dalton Dollworks. Jerry reached down and flipped over the tag, revealing the name “Noah” written in rich, black calligraphy.
“Miss Maggie gave him to me herself. As a gift.”
Felix couldn’t take his eyes off the figure. The doll’s face was smooth, almost pale with a hint of rosy hue, but lacked the typical luster found with most dolls. That was Miss Maggie’s trademark secret. No one but her staff knew how the dolls were made, or so the story went.
“Do you have kids, Mr. Proust?”
Felix met Jerry’s gaze and offered a weak smile. “Uh, no. Kids aren’t my thing. My ex . . . ” He trailed off, biting back his words while his cheeks flushed. No matter where he went, Helen haunted him now even more than when they were still married. A familiar thirst rose from the back of his throat, and he tried to swallow it down. Thoughts of his ex-wife always brought on an urge to drink.
Realizing his silence, Felix reached out and shook Noah’s hand. His white, chiseled fingers were surprisingly warm.
“Charming. Lots of personality, too.”
“No two are the same,” Jerry said, his eyes enormous and bulging behind his thick glass lenses. He stood the doll back in the corner. “They say Miss Maggie tailors them herself out of her dreams. And Noah, well, she made him just for me after I lost my son some years ago. She even named the doll after him, God bless her soul.” The old man held up the key and wandered over to the office door. “You never know, Mr. Proust. Dalton has a way of changing a man’s mind. Maybe Miss Maggie will make a doll just for you.”
Jerry opened the door and held it for his guest. Felix looked back, ruminating on the old innkeeper’s words. Noah the Doll stood in the corner, staring out into empty space with those pitch black eyes. I sure as hell hope not, Felix thought.
***
Dalton, West Virginia spread out below the motel, nestled in a short valley at the foot of the Appalachian Mountains, alight with the afternoon sun. Felix Proust’s first impression of the small burg was that the town looked ancient, and in that respect, he wa
s right. A single road snaked its way down the hill and connected to Dalton’s Main Street.
I’m going to give Larry hell for sending me to this shitty town. Felix came to a stop sign at the corner of Main and First. The local drugstore stood to his right, its picture window sparse and adorned with aged, yellowing signs. The fluorescent lights inside went out, and a moment later an old man emerged. A young, brown-haired boy followed after him.
The child gave Felix a piercing scowl while the old man locked up for the night. When he was finished, the store owner took the boy’s hand and led him around the corner. The child craned his head around, continuing to glare in Felix’s direction until he fell out of view.
A chill crept across Felix’s shoulders just as the sun passed behind a patch of clouds. For a moment he felt like the last man alive on earth, shivering alone in the dark. He shook his head and moved on.
He saw everything Dalton had to offer within the span of ten minutes, creeping along from one block to the next, passing a closed post office, an empty Dalton IGA supermarket, a clothing store displaying the latest fashions right out of the 1970s, and Dalton’s town hall. At the last corner stood a place called Meyer’s Diner, and it was the only business on Main Street that seemed to be teeming with life.
Felix sat at the stop sign and looked through the picture window at the patrons within. Every booth was occupied by families—possibly every family the town had left—one man, woman, and child to a table. They sat solemnly, eyes averted downward, eating their meals with joyless discipline. Even the waitress who brought their meals looked tired, lifeless.
A little girl sitting across from her parents in a window booth looked up from her plate, turning almost mechanically toward Felix. She had bright red curls that spilled over her shoulders, accented by a red and white polka-dotted bow atop her head. When their eyes met, Felix felt something give way within his mind. That feeling wasn’t quite fear, but a distinct mixture of sorrow and urgency. Sorrow for the way she was living, for the fact that her odds of leaving this town were slim to none; urgency for the scorn and contempt beaming back to him from those dark eyes. They weren’t the eyes of a child.
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