The Long Dark January
A Nadine Kelso Mystery
A.S. Andrews
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2020 by A.S. Andrews
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or used in any manner without written permission of the copyright owner except for the use of quotations in a book review. For more information, contact [email protected].
First paperback edition August 2020
ISBN 978-1-7772894-1-6 (paperback)
ISBN 978-1-7772894-0-9 (ebook)
www.movingtargetpress.com
Contents
New Year’s Eve
I. The Governing Dark
1. January 2nd
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
4. January 6th
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
II. The Steadfast Dark
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
III. The Ultimate Dark
Chapter 49
Chapter 50
Chapter 51
Chapter 52
Chapter 53
Chapter 54
Chapter 55
Chapter 56
Chapter 57
Author’s Note
About the Author
It freezes—all across a soundless sky
The birds go home. The governing dark's begun:
The steadfast dark that waits not for a sun;
The ultimate dark wherein the race shall die.
Hillaire Belloc, “January”
New Year’s Eve
The two old men might have been ordinary fisherman, friends or friendly rivals. Most mornings they could be found on opposite banks of the Cowlitz River, setting out leaders and flies for salmon or steelhead, depending on the season. Always within view of each other. That was by mutual design.
That morning, though, the man on the western bank saw no one across from him. He’d been dogged by his rival for so long that he felt the absence as sorrow, at first, and was at something of a loss. The nature of pursuit, he thought. At a certain point you end up missing your pursuer.
He took his gear and lunch sack to his favorite stretch of the river, where the gravel footpath gradually led down to the bank. His rival usually cast off from a rocky spot half a mile upstream. They could observe each other at that distance, without being directly in each other’s line of sight. If he was to be watched constantly, persecuted, he preferred to be reminded of it peripherally.
Today, though, the man left the road and started along the path only to halt after a couple of steps. On the bank—his bank—stood his tormentor.
A cigarette hung from his rival’s mouth. He was pissing. Not in the river, though. All over the bank, the trampled grass, the weather-beaten footstool that the man had carved and glued himself and placed there months ago.
His rival took his time finishing and zipping up the trousers of his uniform.
“Why are you here?” the man said, his voice carrying a trace of a Norwegian accent.
“Don’t want you getting too comfortable. Start thinking it’s a game. It’s almost over for you. I bet deep down you know that, don’t you?”
“I don’t know what you talk about.”
He wanted to walk away, but his rival was larger than him, and while he didn’t fear physical punishment, he could admit to being intimidated. He waited for his rival to finish speaking.
“You’re pretty cute, know that? You got all these folks in town believing you’re harmless. But I know you. Don’t I? Time’s coming they will, too.”
“What is it you want?”
The rival smiled. “You know.”
“I know nothing.”
“Write out what you did and why.”
“You do not know for certain what I—”
“Write it out. Can be in English or Swedish, or whatever it is you speak.”
“Insanity,” the man said.
“When you’re done writing, leave it on the bank where I can find it. Then all you got to do is just walk straight ahead.”
His rival sliced the air with the edge of his open hand, indicating the river.
“Keep walking till you touch bottom. Then when you get there, you ask all of those people you killed to forgive you. And then wait. Wait down there till you get an answer.”
His rival started up the bank, forcing the man to step onto the soaked, smoking grass.
When they were eye to eye, the rival said, “That’s the only way this ends, freak. You and I both know it.”
“You think I’m something I’m not,” the man said.
“I know what I know about you.” His rival held an index finger up to his temple, then directed it towards the man. “Someday soon everyone else will. Unless you do the right thing.”
Denials and counter-accusations came to mind. Just once the man would have liked to have the last word. But each phrase smashed to pieces on the limits of his English. Thirty years in this country and the man still lacked confidence in his speech.
Instead of words there was a cold, maddening rage.
He thought of his rival being held down underwater by a stronger, younger, more confident version of himself. The rival’s last breath burbling out beneath the frigid shallows of the river. A tremor of bubbles. Then nothing. Still water. The thought brought him pleasure and he smiled.
But he said nothing, and the last word went to his persecutor.
“Happy New Year,” the rival said.
When he was alone, the man picked the stool up by a leg and dipped it into the river, rinsing it off. The sun was breaking through the gray shield of winter clouds. He’d heard on the radio that a snowstorm was expected, severe enough to close the roads. That didn’t worry him. He’d spent his youth hunting reindeer in Svalbard, where six hours’ sun wasn’t uncommon. This, the so-called Pacific Northwest, had only insignificant weather.
He sat and began assembling his rod, thinking that he’d vary his bait. He’d brought a small container of cured shrimp with him, but decided the current was moving faster than usual, and lifted the top tray off his tackle box in search of artificial roe.
As he did, his eyes caught something unusual on the other side of the river. A plank of silvered wood, propped up lengthwise, facing him. Black marks scarred onto the wood. Letters.
He didn’t see so well anymore. Layi
ng down his rod, he opened the case in his pocket and unfolded his glasses. They’d been purchased from a drugstore in Olympia, non-prescription, and he still had to squint. But he could make out the message his rival had left for him. In childish block letters the message said:
TO
THE
ENDS
OF
THE
EARTH
Part I
The Governing Dark
1
January 2nd
Gary Gordon prayed to the porcelain gods to please lift this damned hangover. He waited until the toilet water had stopped spinning, closed his eyes, and attempted to stand.
He’d done a lot of regrettable things this New Year’s. He’d pay for them, he knew that much. Eventually. But please oh please not yet.
Gary swirled mouthwash, swallowed it. The power was still out in the northeast half of Castle Rock, and the bathroom was shrouded in dark. He was glad not to be greeted with his reflection right now.
Christ, what kind of tragic bastard shows up for work hungover on January 2nd?
Gary had taken the work truck home last night, though there’d been no calls for towing. He’d driven up and down the I-5 for hours. The interstate highway was empty of traffic for once. Gary had taken a few road pops to keep his buzz going. Nothing serious, only light beers. It was the snow that did it—on foot he felt trapped, at the mercy of whatever fell from the sky. But in the warm cab of the truck, eight feet above the powdered road, he felt halfway free.
Free, but alone. No kids. No wife. Still working for pennies at a business that should rightly be half his. If he couldn’t blow off steam and burn a little fuel on these midnight runs…well, what was left for him?
He’d gotten home just after two. Finished the bottle of Crown Royal and passed out on the couch in his trailer beneath three heavy, scratchy Hudson’s Bay blankets. Woke up shivering at 6:20, dehydrated and needing to purge.
It was 8:15 now. He’d have to be at the garage in forty-five minutes, and would need to explain to Andrew why the needle on the truck’s gas gauge was buried in the red hash marks. $190 worth of fuel. No doubt Andrew would take it out of his wages.
He hoped his brother was in a better mood. New Year’s Eve dinner had been a disaster. The man-made kind. In addition to being Gary’s boss and brother, Andrew Gordon was a gifted destroyer of holiday fun. Black Cloud Andy, Gary called him behind his back. The name had even brought a smile to Susan’s face after the dinner.
That damn dinner.
The power had gone off on the 30th, with warnings that it wouldn’t be completely restored for forty-eight hours. Something to do with the wiring of the northern grids, though Gary suspected the linemen simply wanted New Year’s off. Andrew and Susan usually hosted holiday dinners, but this year it was held at Susan’s mother’s. Ingrid was on the hospital grid, and her power had barely been off this entire long, cold winter.
The tableau at dinner had spoken volumes to him. The old woman at the head of the table. Andrew and Susan and their son Bobby seated across from him. Gary alone on his side.
Gary alone.
The meal had ended inevitably with a fight between Andrew and Susan. Some vein of resentment had been present between husband and wife before they’d even sat down. His brother seemed agitated, cutting into whatever topic of conversation the others lighted on. Black Cloud Andy was as smart a person as Gary knew, but unaware of his emotions, and seemingly uncaring about how they influenced his treatment of people.
Susan had held her tongue until he’d started in on her mother. Something about Ingrid not maximizing her tax deductions on the café. Typical Andrew, he’d offered to do her books for her, and then when she’d declined, kept on about how she was cutting into her grandchild’s inheritance.
“For heaven’s sake,” Ingrid had finally said. “I like to keep things plain jane. Simple and the same every year. I don’t need any fancy tax dodging. But thank you, Andrew, thank you very much for the offer.”
“Okay, fine,” Andrew said. “It’ll cost you long-term, I’m just saying.”
Susan had dropped her fork onto her plate. “Have you finished just saying, Andrew? Anything else you need to just say? Or can we have our crumble now?”
“Know what, Sue? Have all the goddamn crumble you want.”
He’d stood up and begun pulling on his boots. Bobby had looked between his father and mother and begun to cry. Susan smoothed her son’s hair, an apologetic look on her face, as if to tell her mother and Gary, I don’t know what’s up with him. She’d called after her husband, asking what Andrew was thinking, stomping out of there on New Year’s, going home to a house with no power.
It was all so stupid, so horribly awkward. Gary had sat wedged between his brother’s wife and her mother as they watched some lame ball-dropping ceremony on television. Bobby had fallen asleep on the floor. Gary had only brought a six-pack, so for an hour he nursed a glass of Ingrid’s white wine, hoping she’d open a second bottle.
Finally it was over. He made his excuses to leave. A quick peck on the cheek from Susan, a hearty embrace from Ingrid. “Get home safe now.”
Gary drained the bottle of mouthwash. He’d tried to avoid his family on January 1st, except for that one short walk. A disastrous mistake. What had he been thinking? It had gone so wrong that he’d needed a long drink and an equally long drive in order to clear his head.
He hoped Andrew was in a better mood today. Decided, since Andrew wouldn’t leave until Bobby was off to school, he’d pick up coffee and give his brother a lift to the garage. Andrew wouldn’t appreciate the actual tasks, but maybe the effort would thaw him a little.
Funny how, with their father dead now almost ten years, Andrew had quietly taken on that parental role. They were only five years apart, but Gary looked at his brother as being somehow more adult. More complete as a man, if that made sense. Andrew never showed up for work squinting through a headache, sweating like a beast. Gary had never seen him hungover at all. Andrew drank like he did everything, sensibly and dull.
Gary stopped the truck next to Ingrid’s Café, hopped down and knocked on the door. Ingrid was behind the counter, pulling something out of the fryer. She held up two fingers.
Almost two minutes to the second, she opened the door for him. They said their Happy New Years and she allowed him inside.
“Two coffees and a dozen of whatever’s fresh,” Gary said.
“Bringing breakfast for His Majesty?”
That caused him to grin. “Hoping it’ll melt the ice. You talk to him yesterday?”
Ingrid shrugged and busied herself unfolding a cardboard take-out box, filling it with sour cream glazed and chocolate dipped. The chocolate was still hot from the fryer, the frosting slightly runny.
“Your brother’s a tough old nut to crack,” Susan said.
“You’re telling me. Their power still out?”
“I wouldn’t know. $8.70 for the donuts, no charge for the coffee.”
He left her the change from the ten and placed the box on the passenger’s side floor of the truck. Gary left the main thoroughfare, turned right onto Mallory and parked at the edge of Andrew’s driveway, careful not to block in Susan’s Jeep.
The bank was open, wasn’t it? So why was her Jeep still there?
Probably just one of these whatdoyoucallits. Pro-D Days? The teachers taking a day off, so mom and dad had to, as well. Nice racket.
He climbed out, thinking he should’ve brought a third coffee. Hell, Susan could have his, if she drank hers black.
The generator was purring from around back. Gary rang the bell, heard it chime from inside. He knocked and hollered Andrew’s name. Nothing.
He moved around the side of the house, to the kitchen window, and peered through the curtain. The clock light blinked on the stove. No kettle or coffee maker, no sign anyone was up. Five after nine and the whole family was still crashed out? That was a first. Bobby was famously cranky in the morning. But then And
rew was no better.
Gary stumbled over the snow-covered flower bed, heading around back. Coffee sloshed over his hand. Andrew’s, thankfully, the milk cooling it so it only stung a little.
Around back he found the generator growling contentedly. It sat on the slab of concrete that skirted the back side of the house, in the far corner, away from the kitchen.
The sliding door was unlocked. Gary let himself in. He could see through the kitchen the Christmas tree, not plugged in, the TV stand moved away from the wall to accommodate it. He took two steps in, felt headachy, his vision like looking through gauze. Beneath that, in his already agitated guts, Gary felt something was wrong.
The world was swimming. Gary ran outside, shut the generator off, waited for it to sputter into silence. He counted to ten, took a gulp of air, and then entered the house once again.
The Long Dark January: A Nadine Kelso Mystery Page 1