The Tear Collector

by Shawn Burgess

  "During the desperate search, Maybin Jones, a Negro vagabond, was found near where the girls went missing. According to reports Jones was blackout drunk and unresponsive at the foot of an oak tree with a half-drank bottle of rye at his side. With no means to speak of, it’s being presumed that the bottle of rye was stolen. Authorities have charged Maybin Jones with petty theft and also strongly suspect that Maybin Jones may be involved in the disappearance of the twin girls. Jones has been brought in for questioning in connection with the disappearance but has yet to provide any meaningful assistance according to authorities.

  "The girls’ father, Roger Davis, said, 'If that nigger done somethin’ to my girls, he needs to hang. If he ain’t got no answers, he needs to hang.' Roger’s wife, Gertrude Davis, was overheard saying to the authorities, 'It ain’t the Negro. It’s the Davis Curse. It’s her!'

  "Mrs. Davis is understandably distraught at the disappearance of her daughters and is now being cared for closely by their family doctor.

  “That’s the end guys.”

  Tee shakes his head and frowns. “Damn. They gonna pin it on that dude. Them’s some racist assholes!”

  Devin nods. “You got that right.”

  After a contemplative pause, Tee asks, “What’s a baron?”

  “I think it’s like someone who’s real big in business or something. Like Rockefeller,” Robby pipes from his chair while still engrossed in his book.

  “His name’s Jay-Z. Roc-A-Fella’s his label, dude.” Devin and I start giggling at Tee. “What?”

  “Sleep in history class much?” There’s laughter in Robby’s voice. “Not Roc-A-Fella. Rockefeller. Rockefeller was a super-rich big oil guy or something like that.”

  “So, who’s this Walton Davis guy?”

  Robby hops up from his cubby at Devin’s question and brings a book, The Local Heritage of Harper Pass. He turns it back several pages to an image.

  “Here.” Robby points to a black and white picture of a stoic man clad in an old-fashioned suit. He adorns a long, manicured mustache juxtaposed against his cold, hard face. “He was the richest, most powerful man in Harper Pass. You know where Davis Quarry is?”

  We nod except for Devin, and Robby continues. “That whole area used to be a timber farm. His timber farm. And later, his family’s quarry. The Davis family owned all of Harper Pass and more.”

  Robby turns a few more pages in the book to a two-page spread with a family tree. He points to the elaborate family tree there titled, The Davis Lineage. “Look. This is where it gets really interesting. You see Maxwell Davis at the top there? Looks like he died in 1843. He was Walton Davis’ grandfather.”

  Robby traces a line from the head patriarch, Maxwell Davis, and his finger follows a twisting path of descending branches until he stops on a name.

  “That’s my great grandfather, on my mom’s side, Vernon Davis. I’m related to this guy.” Robby gives a wide-eyed shake of his head.

  “Let me see that.” Tee snatches the book away.

  Tee scans the multitude of names. His finger stops on a name, and his eyes grow wide. “I ain’t believin’ it, man. But that’s my great-great-nanny.”

  My eyes click wide. “Wait. Are you sure?”

  “I know it, man. Ida Karless. Me and Angela used to joke about her name. My mom caught me sayin’ ‘Ida Care-less to be given that name.’ She ‘bout ripped my head off. It was her favorite grandma. Me and Angela never met her though.”

  Energy beams from Robby’s face like a supernova. “You know what this means, right?”

  “Yeah, I’m related to this baron dude’s piece of shit family.” Tee grumbles the words as he hands the book to me.

  “No, dude! It means you and I are actually related!” Robby’s eyes gleam as he gives an enthusiastic fist bump to Tee.

  “Brotha from another mutha!” Tee trumpets as the fist-bumping euphoria continues.

  I study the family tree for a moment.

  “Guys, this list. Look at the names. It’s almost all the most common last names in our town. Here’s my great grandfather, Michael Raker. And here’s Brady’s last name and Alyssa’s last name. Further down, Margo’s last name, Sammy’s last name, and Myron’s last name. Seth and Shane. Cam. They’re all here! It’s like half of the town’s somehow related to Maxwell Davis.”

  “Too bad his sorry ass didn’t leave me nothin’ in his will.” Tee’s punchline falls flat.

  Robby’s eyes meet mine. “In the article. What did the mom say? They’re cursed, right? They thought she was crazy, but what if she wasn’t?”

  “Yeah. What if it’s all connected?” A shiver passes through me as I consider the implication of my supposition.

  “Only one way to find out. Look at more of those slides. And older too.”

  Tee tilts his head at Devin.

  “Why older, Dev?”

  “So we can compare the names against that list right there.”

  Robby’s eyes brighten. “Damn, man. That’s smart.”

  I nod in agreement.

  “What you got up next for us, N.C.B.?” Tee asks.

  I pull another slide and place it in the microfiche reader. As I scan through the newspaper print, I find what I’m looking for, an article entitled, Tragedy Strikes During Davis Timber Harvest: Six in Logging Crew Dead, Another Three Missing. I examine the article with the other boys hovering.

  “Guys, this is from 1894. It says, during a timber harvest, six workers were found brutally mutilated, and another three, they couldn’t find. Looks like they thought the three missing men might have orchestrated the massacre because they determined the injuries didn’t come from a logging accident. They didn’t think it was an animal attack either.”

  Robby lifts his brows. “Sounds like what we’re looking for. What are the names?”

  “They were led by Dalton Davis.”

  “Got him right here!” Devin points to a name in the book. “He was one of Walton Davis’ sons. Who else?”

  I list off the names of the men they found dead that day in 1894, and Devin checks them one by one. Name by name, we find that each one appears somewhere in the Davis family tree. Even two of the three names of the missing men from that day appear on the family tree, pushing us all to the point of believing the unbelievable. This isn’t a new phenomenon. It’s been happening for years. Can’t be Sammy. Margo, either. The skin-walker is old.

  My tummy gurgles, nervous energy bubbling inside me. The realization that bad things far too aligned with our experiences to be cast off as coincidence date back more than a century sours the contents of my stomach. The toxic brew simmers inside me like a ticking belly bomb. And from that apprehension, I let out a long, groaning fart. The pants-rippling type that reverberates in my wooden chair like a drum.

  “Oh! Damn, man.” Devin recoils, taking a step away from the blast radius.

  “Better check your pants.” Robby grins from ear to ear.

  “Guys. My stomach just gets uneasy sometimes. You know, stress and stuff?” My cheeks streak red.

  “Yeah, man. Best we back up. Don’t want to get sprayed by any farticles!”

  Devin cocks his head at Tee. “Farticles? What the hell’s a farticle, Tee?”

  “Shit particles carried in the air by a fart, man. You don’t want to breathe that stuff in, man. It’ll mess you all up.” Tee preaches his words with grinning confidence, excavating a laugh from all of us. Robby grins at him.

  “You’re a moron, Tee.”

  “What? Don’t complain to me when you’re all laid up in the hospital with a bad case of shitty lung.”

  “Yeah, yeah, Tee. But in all seriousness, we need a plan.” Robby surveys the group, but no one offers anything.

  “We’re taking this book. It could hold more clues.” Devin clutches The Local Heritage of Harper Pass under his arm.

  “And this one too.” Robby holds up the History and Legends of Harper Pass.

  I shake my head. “We still don’t know who this thing i
s. But it’s got to be related to the Davis family. Too much coincidence for it not to be.”

  “But we know what hurts it. What can kill it.” Robby’s eyes blaze with intensity. “It was stupid to go out today without our paintball guns.”

  “But you saw it today. That’s all we got left. Wadlow’s lab is trashed.”

  “Good point, Tee. And besides, if we did have ‘em, how many shots would we have wasted in that dark basement today?”

  Robby nods.

  “Dev’s right. We can’t fight this thing in a closed-up space. We need to draw this thing out. Get it out in the open. Then, we make the most of what we got.”

  “We should go to the quarry!” Tee pauses for a moment and takes a deep breath before continuing. “We know it’s been there. And it’s wide open there once you get past the pine forest. It’ll have nowhere to hide.”

  I draw in my lips and nod at Tee. “In too deep to turn back now. If we don’t find it, it’ll be coming for us, anyway. And pick us off one by one. Better to be ready. On our terms, not its.”

  “So, it’s settled then. Tomorrow. Dawn. We meet and head to the quarry.” Robby’s jawline tenses after he delivers the decree.

  “And we need to get Brady and Angela on board with the plan too,” Devin remarks.

  “Ah, come on. Does he really have to go?”

  Robby locks eyes with Tee. “Being that he saved my ass, yeah. And the more the better to face this thing.”

  Chapter 50

  Cracks to the Incredulous Veneer

  AT AROUND THE same time Brooks Raker and his friends settle into the library basement, Detective Holt eases behind Officer Ivansek’s patrol car, his hands still trembling from his near-death encounter at Latravious Wadlow’s house. He’s in uncharted territory having broken every police protocol by leaving a crime scene without securing or reporting it. What the hell even was that back there? Jesus. He takes a deep breath and examines himself in the rearview mirror. His face carries a new, unfamiliar pallor, but that physiological manifestation is a faithful rendering of the embroiling turmoil beneath the surface.

  Holt’s mind slips its moorings, pushing adrift. Every promising island of rational thought he seeks for refuge makes false promise, concealing the lie of the mirage. And once he plants a firm first step of conjecture on it, it crumbles into the churning sea. The changes to his perspective and understanding of the world since the morning border on immeasurable. He struggles to reconcile the impossibility of what he’s witnessed. He displayed natural aptitude for his career because of his inherent belief system, an underlying doctrine that wielded his thinking and guided his actions like an invisible hand. He saw the world with clarity, unencumbered by the gray areas of moral ambivalence that hamstrung others. No, he saw the world with an infallible delineation between right and wrong. What is true and what is not.

  But the encounter with Latravious Wadlow and the creature in his basement rails against that doctrine. He accepts that he’s no longer dealing with a who, but a what—an impossibility thirty minutes prior. And this profound epiphany tears at the fabric of his identity. It’s a rather odd feeling for a man who’s spent a lifetime never putting any stock into the occult, having to accept that his assumptions were flawed all along. What else was he wrong about? A new math begins to supplant the calculus by which he’s made a lifetime of decisions. No way to ever look at things as simplistically as before. Moving forward, he’ll face an unfathomable amount of possibilities that will work like a slow poison, gradually retarding his judgment and altering his decision making forever.

  As Officer Ivansek spots Holt in his rearview and gets out of his car, Detective Holt wrestles all of his internal contortions down and does his best to project a façade of normalcy. He’s not ready to reveal what he’s witnessed to anyone, much less Ivansek. He’s somewhat surprised that Ivansek’s followed his order to keep Brady and Angela waiting. And Brady Palmer, the closest living link to Latravious Wadlow, may be Holt’s best chance at making some sense of this.

  “Holt, you okay man? You look like shit.”

  “Fine,” Holt rattles.

  “You don’t look fine.” A disapproving frown from Holt spurs Ivansek to continue. “I held ‘em up like what you said. Morrow’s been tryin’ to reach you on the radio.”

  “Radio had a little glitch for a minute. It’s working again now, though. Thanks for holding them up. Why don’t you go on and get back on patrol? I’ll take it from here.”

  “You sure, Holt? I mean, that Brady kid’s got a record and all. Maybe I should stay and back you up.”

  “Ivansek, just do what I say.” Holt’s words snap like bones.

  “Okay, okay. Just didn’t want you to go it alone is all,” Ivansek mutters as he walks to his patrol car, gets in, and pulls away disgruntled.

  Ivansek turns a corner and disappears. Brady and Angela shoot neck-craning glances at him from their car as he approaches on foot. Holt grabs the passenger door and flings it open.

  “Brady, step outside.”

  Brady looks up with big eyes.

  “We done something wrong, Detective Holt?”

  “Just get out of the car.”

  Brady complies with the order. Angela unlatches her seatbelt and begins to get out as well.

  “You stay there.” Holt gestures for Angela to remain in the vehicle. “Follow me.” Holt leads Brady a few paces behind the car.

  In all of Brady’s past interactions with Detective Holt, Brady can’t remember a time Holt treated him with such coarse abruptness. What if Detective Holt’s found Wadlow? He’ll surely try to pin the murder on me. It’ll be hard to explain away all of my connections with Latravious Wadlow. Motive just one speculation away. My fingerprints are all over that house. Brady Palmer glances at his wounded hand. Oh shit! My blood, too. I’m screwed.

  “What were you doing at Latravious Wadlow’s house?” The certainty of Detective Holt’s tone plummets Brady’s stomach.

  Brady’s posture slumps, and Holt’s eyes land on a bit of blood on Brady’s jeans. Fuck! I’m had. Dark memories of Longfellow flood Brady’s mind, the terrible shame, the contemplating ending his life every day after a new guard, Officer Robbins, arrived. The one who took an unnatural liking to him. The terrible things he made him do. He cringes as the haunting hillbilly voice invades his mind. ‘Come on now. That’s right. Get that head to bobbin’ for ole Uncle Robbins.’ Brady takes a heavy gulp, the phantom odor of Officer Robbins’ rank breath filling his nostrils. Maybe prison will be better than Longfellow Juvenile Detention Center… Bullshit. It’ll be worse. Much worse. I’ll take the rap. Angela will be okay. Nothing tying her to a crime. But Brady’s not ready to surrender his freedom yet.

  “Professor Wadlow?”

  “Don’t fuck with me, Brady,” Holt warns, his stern tone of voice emblematic of his seriousness. “I know that was you and Angela on High Street. Saw you fly past me.”

  Shit! He knows Angela was there.

  “We’re friends. Me and Professor Wadlow.”

  “So why the secrecy? And what did you do to your hand?” Holt inquires as he inspects Brady’s bloodied hand.

  “I cut myself.”

  “No shit. Where?”

  “I can’t remember.” Brady rattles off the words.

  “You know what I think? I think you cut your hand in Latravious Wadlow’s house. I think your blood’s in that house. And if it is, you know we’re going to figure that out, don’t you?” Brady’s posture wilts further. “Let me see your shoe.”

  “What?” Brady tilts his head and squints his eyes at Detective Holt.

  “Your shoe. Let me see the bottom of your shoe.”

  With his gut drowning in quicksand, Brady puts all his weight on one leg, bends his other leg at the knee, and lifts his foot into the air, exposing the bottom of his shoe. Detective Holt makes a quick mental match. It’s the same zigzag pattern as the bloody shoe prints leading away from the crawlspace in Latravious Wadlow’s basement. H
e’s sure of it. And Brady’s eyes balloon at the narrowing of Detective Holt’s eyes.

  “Angela didn’t have anything to do with it,” Brady blurts out.

  “To do with what? What exactly?”

  Brady blinks his eyes several times. Where are the handcuffs? No Miranda rights?

  “Professor Wadlow. He’s…” Brady’s voice quivers, before he continues. “He’s dead.”

  A tear slides out from the corner of Brady’s eye and blazes a trail on his cheek. I’m going to prison. Repeat offender. It’ll be a quick trial. A quick sentence. I’ll be behind bars before Christmas. He looks at Angela, who’s all he can ever remember wanting in his entire life, as tears well in his eyes, before he offers his wrists to Detective Holt. But instead of cuffing them, Detective Holt places his hand on Brady’s back.

  “Put your hands down, son. How long we known each other, Brady? Years, right? I’ve always been straight with you. And fair, I think.” Detective Holt pauses, and Brady gives him a head nod.

  “I need you to be honest with me, to level with me. I know you’re a good kid in spite of what happened that day in Grief Hollow. Some folks in this town hate ya for it, I know, but I’m not one of them. These are small-minded folk in these parts. You got a raw deal, son. Right now, though, I need you to explain to me what the hell’s going on. ‘Cause I just saw a bunch of shit back there I can’t explain. You say Latravious Wadlow’s dead. But I just saw him. Spoke to him. Not twenty minutes ago. And if I didn’t know any better, I would say it was him. But it wasn’t him. It…it was something else.”

  Brady’s eyes swell and cloud with darkness.

  “What is it, Brady? Just tell me.”

  Brady wonders if Holt’s plea spearheads some kind of trick. But deep down, there’s a level of trust—forged in fire—that he’s built with Detective Holt through the years. It’s enough to override his fears. He takes in a deep breath before he begins.

  “I don’t even know where to start.”

  “The beginning. How do you know Latravious Wadlow?”

  “I know Professor Wadlow from Longfellow. He came to see me there. I didn’t even know why at first, but it was nice to have someone to talk to. I found him both strange and interesting. And as time went on and the visits continued, we became friends. Then, one day, it suddenly occurred to me, and I asked him why. Funny I didn’t think of it before, but I was really lonely, and it was nice to have the regular company. So, I asked him, why out of all the people did he decide to start visiting me. He didn’t try to hide it. He was honest. Told me that bad things had happened in Grief Hollow over the years like the bad thing that had happened to me and Misty Owens. That bad things had been happening all over this town for some time, that he was tracking them.”