by S. L. LUCK
Pandora sensed the juvenile fear of the being inside Troy. The coward didn’t want to get caught. It was so attached to Troy that it compelled him away from capture. She, too, used to do that with Harold, but only because his capture had meant the end of his life. But things were different in Canada. If Troy were convicted of murder, for the nurse or the others he’d killed, the most he could get was a life sentence behind bars in a Canadian penitentiary. They wouldn’t force poison into his body like would have happened to Harold had Pandora not ended him first, so she saw no reason to hurry.
“Let me go,” she pleaded in Sylvia’s elderly voice as a group of young families approached.
When concern rose on the adults’ faces, Troy donned the look of a worried son so convincingly that their concern turned to pity. Wrapping an arm around her waist and leading her away from them, he said, “She forgot to take her medicine. Don’t mind us. We’re still adjusting.” The families all hurried off without another look back. Pandora slapped Troy’s hands. He pinched the droopy skin on Sylvia’s side and doubled his efforts to haul her to his car. “Don’t make this any harder than it has to be, Mother. You had your visit, now it’s time to go home.”
Pandora reached inside Sylvia’s son now to where the other like herself was and squeezed. Troy winced but kept his pace. Last warning, Pandora cautioned Troy’s other and stung it. She was countered by tight fingers around the back of Sylvia’s neck. There was the mumbling sound of the thing trying to converse with her, but it was too inferior to breach Pandora’s psyche. She let it curse in its indecipherable primitive language and made her decision. Retracting from Sylvia’s spaces, she allowed Troy to lead her to his car, wobbling beside him as an old woman would. “I’m tired, Troy. Why am I tired?”
Surrendering the hold on her neck, he said, “It’s been a long day for both of us.”
Nearer now to Troy’s car, Pandora daubed the sheen of senility onto Sylvia’s guiltless face and turned the woman’s head to look at her son. “Have I ever spanked you, Troy?” she asked. He responded with the electronic beep of his car unlocking. “I don’t remember ever striking you like other mothers did to their children back then. I should have spanked you.”
“You need a nap,” Troy said, and held the passenger door open until she was tucked inside. Relishing in its deluded dominion over the being in Sylvia, Troy’s Dark Friend stroked the tender filaments of Troy’s ego while he started the car.
They were pulling out of the parking lot when Pandora inflated Sylvia’s lungs and vented through Sylvia’s mouth. “How many people have you murdered? Tell me, and maybe I’ll go easy on you,” she said.
Dark Friend’s hackles rose within Troy and caused him to wring the steering wheel. Pandora wasn’t averse to murder, of course, but she was averse to the power it bestowed on its perpetrators. It made beings like herself stronger, and Pandora simply could not have that. Not at all.
“Talk to me,” Pandora commanded, and Troy’s hand went to his throat where confession began pouring out of him.
“N-nine-nineteen,” he stammered against his will.
“Child’s play. I’m at over four thousand. Let’s see if you scream like they did,” she growled.
Then her skin began to bubble and dissolve in a flash of acid smoke, and his mother’s liver-spotted skin grew dark, darker, until it was the ash-grey slag of death. Her short hair stretched and spidered toward him, coiling around his wrists, his feet, so that he could not remove his foot from the gas pedal. Troy screamed. Dark Friend hissed. Pandora cackled and pressed Troy’s foot further down. The Mercedes sped down one city block, two, three, the sound of the accelerating engine a roar inside the vehicle but barely a whisper to confused onlookers who sprang out of the way of the little old lady and the maniacal man behind the wheel.
“You should have taken me back, Troy. You didn’t take me back, so now I’m taking you.”
Sylvia’s eyes sucked inward, and when Troy looked at his mother’s face, he saw two spectral chasms swirling above her nose.
“What are you?” Troy cried. “What the hell are you!”
“I’m your Mother.”
Pandora’s black tongue slid from Sylvia’s lips and split into a serpentine cable that brushed against his ear. Her ancient fingers worked open the healing cuts on his hands and dug deep until she found the shuddering thing inside him and dragged it out. Outside the protection of his body, Dark Friend squealed and writhed until Troy vomited at the abominable vision of what came out of him.
“Please—” Troy begged. “No more. Please.”
“Do you love me, Troy? Do you love your mother? Say you love your mother, and I’ll make this end.”
Pandora razored into Dark Friend until it, too, begged her to stop in its underdeveloped tongue. The sound of chasing sirens gave Troy sudden hope, and he yanked his foot away from the gas pedal and onto the brake. The car did not stop.
“Naughty boy,” Pandora growled again and thrust her might onto the gas pedal until it touched the floor. Then she pitched the wheel left, away from the sirens, toward a grove of oaks. “Say you love me, Troy. Say you love your mother!” Pandora roared.
“I—”
And then the Mercedes rammed into a tree.
39
In the breezy, gray-dressed air, ten thousand citizens abandoned their sadness and welcomed the spell of anticipation as they spread like garland on sidewalks, in windows, on designated intersections, along the dried banks of the Callingwood River. Children clutched bags for the scavenging of treats and parents gripped tumblers of coffee or stronger drinks, enjoying the ageless experience of unrestrained glee. Temporary barricades erected during earlier hours were now abutted by eager bodies large and small, with a peppering of much smaller faces perched high onto shoulders of parents.
In the staging area between the fairground and the western edge of Roy Botcher’s farm, meanwhile, Fathers Bonner and Pauliuk prepared for a post-parade intercession, uniting their Catholic and Anglican parishes, respectively, along with the clergy and congregants from six other local parishes. In all, there would be representation from the Catholic, Anglican, Baptist, Orthodox, and Presbyterian communities, and the two men took comfort in their ability to rally their members on behalf of God. They shared a short prayer and strode over the looped length of floats, marching bands, vintage cars, fire trucks, farm tractors, dance troops, community groups, horse riders, and law enforcement.
Approaching Southbridge Retirement’s entry, they waved to Ed as he stepped down from the platform to greet them.
“You shared our plan with the others?” Father Pauliuk asked, gesturing to the dozen or so residents settling into their positions beside a big red dragon hunkered in the middle of the platform.
Ed said, “I shared what I could. You’ll have their support, Fathers.” The way he sighed concerned his former spiritual leader, who frowned.
“How are you feeling, Ed?”
“Like I’m fighting the devil. I think I’m going to need a new pacemaker after this.”
Robert put his hand on his old friend’s shoulder. “He only gives us what we can handle,” he said, reminding Ed of Ed’s own advice to him when their parish suffered a catastrophic fire decades ago. The advice, and much prayer, saw both men through the ordeal, though it was only Robert whose belief hadn’t wavered since then. He said, “Roy’s been kind enough to allow us the use of his home should we need it today. Maybe you’d like to lie down before we gather?”
Ed shook his head. “I’m all right, Robert.”
Robert craned his neck to inspect the Southbridge float. “Is she with you?”
“No,” Ed told him, scanning the populated field for sight of a woman he preferred not to see. “She left early this morning. I don’t know what to make of it.”
“The devil doesn’t like to make things easy for us.” Robert sighed.
Behind the Styrofoam castle wall, Chester raised a ruckus among the residents. “Where the hell is Eddie
? I told him to get his goddamn ass in place. We’re about to go—oh! Forgive me, Fathers!” The excited blush on Chester’s cheeks paled to white and he hurried off the platform to atone for his outburst. “I didn’t know Eddie was with you. Please excuse me; I’m having a heck of a time trying to get everyone together.” He swiped the sweat off his forehead and looked apologetically at the men in cloth. “You ready, Eddie?”
“We’ll see you later,” Father Bonner said and left Ed to contend with Chester, who, out of earshot of the priests, lectured Ed for wandering away.
Chester was not, however, out of range of Evie and Dorothy, who fell on him with mother-bear defense on behalf of their beloved Eddie. It was their incensed rebuke, heard a great distance away, that generated a much-needed chuckle from the two men. They carried on, grinning silently through their apprehension until they came upon the Cardinal family’s woodland entry. There, on a long trailer bed, the family had assembled taxidermied bears, beavers, and moose on a small moss-covered meadow. The animals were making pies that scrolled along on a conveyor belt Dak had installed the week before toward an imitation stone oven built by Johnny the day after that. A banner on the side of the trailer proudly advertised Cardinal & Sons Construction, though it was widely known that the company relied on Dak’s efforts alone, at least as far as the family was concerned.
Wendy was using a staple gun to reattach a corner of the banner when Father Bonner tapped her shoulder. Startled into a scream, she flung the stapler backward. She spun around and saw him. “Father! Oh my goodness I’m sorry! Did I hurt you?”
“Serves me right for sneaking up on you,” he said, rubbing the sting from his side.
Nikonha’s gritty old voice said, “Give him some credit, Wendy. He’s tougher than he looks.” She came from behind the moose and took Johnny’s hand as he led her onto the ground. “Old friend, how are you?”
“It’s good to see you, Nikonha,” he said, reciprocating the strength of her embrace.
The Elder released him and poked at his wrist. “I haven’t seen you since your spill; how is your arm?”
Long-serving volunteers at Garrett’s only community soup kitchen, the priest and the Elder’s kitchen appointments coincided precisely every six weeks, and it was on the most recent occasion that a new volunteer had inadvertently knocked a boiling pot of soup onto the floor. The resulting splash caught the newcomer’s leather boots and a good portion of Alistair’s left wrist, not badly enough for a hospital visit but enough to keep him awake at night. It was only when Nikonha knocked on his door with a jar of what she called “special honey” that he was able to rest comfortably.
He slid back the sleeve of his coat and presented a faint pink scar on his wrist. “Much better, thanks to you.” Nikonha smiled.
Returning from a last-minute inspection of the ready participants, Dak said to the other men, “Any sight of her?”
Robert and Alistair sighed the contrary just as the timer on Dak’s phone went off, signalling the commencement of the parade. He dragged his fingers down the side of his face, reluctant to leave his family but required at the starting area to oversee the opening.
“Go,” Nikonha ordered, gently nudging Dak. “We’ve got it from here,” she said and turned to the band of Elders seated on the Cardinal family float.
There was June Goodleaf, Lillian and Edward Leveque, Cherie Farmer, Russell Honyoust, Georgina Poodry, and several other wise faces that reassured Dak more than he was prepared for. A small hitch rose up his throat. Wendy hugged him and he promised to meet them along the route once he ensured the parade monitors had everything under control. A moment later, with the Elders ready, the priests off to prepare, and the participants and spectators nearly frenzied with anticipation, Dak drew his whistle from the string around his neck and blew it three times.
The parade had officially begun.
40
Driving the lead car in the parade, Dan felt somewhat comforted that Anabelle was cocooned by security in the Prime Minister’s motorcade directly behind him. One of the few locals apprised of the Prime Minister’s visit, Dan knew she was in safe hands. Anabelle, in turn, was comforted by Dan’s offer to have her parents ride with him.
Now inching away from the starting area with William and Susan Cheever in his back seat and Greg Huxley in the front, Dan smiled and waved through his open window to the crowd. The wide-eyed adoration of candy-coated toddlers did not alleviate the unease that crept through him and he proceeded slowly, slowly, with the cruiser’s lights flashing, simultaneously monitoring his rear-view mirror and offhandedly fluttering his fingers to no one in particular. A glance in Huxley’s direction verified the other man’s disinterest in the parade.
“Ooo! I bet she’s having the time of her life back there!” Susan Cheever said of her daughter, saluting the spectators. She’d received Dan’s invitation to ride in his cruiser as though she was being received by the queen herself, so Dan made the last-minute effort of sounding his siren when he collected them and watched her light up. The world was going to hell, Dan reasoned, so why not have a little fun on the way out?
“She’s probably forgotten about us already,” William joked. He and his wife fell into a companionable discussion about which social media channel they would post the pictures of Annabelle with the Prime Minister on and who would get the first phone call so they could gloat about it. William’s cousins over in Sarnia seemed like a good option, though they both agreed that Susan’s ridiculously pretentious sister in Toronto might be a better choice.
Huxley and Dan quietly disengaged themselves from the conversation and, satisfied the couple weren’t listening, Huxley asked, “Any ideas for what we’re going to do when this is over?”
Dan spied the Cheevers’ preoccupied faces in the mirror. “Shut the city down and move to Reno.”
“I’m coming with you,” the doctor said.
“You can monitor my liver.”
“I’ve had worse jobs.”
They moved on, gliding past new faces while Susan and William tossed miniature chocolate bars from their windows. The rise of tiny faces at the approach of Dan’s cruiser—rivaled only by the shock of their parents at the sight of the Prime Minister sitting atop the back seat of a heavily guarded Mustang convertible next to Garrett’s own Anabelle Cheever—never wavered.
Proceeding at a crawl, Dan led the hundred and seventeen entries away from the fairground, past the eastern slice of the Craig Valley golf course, the jammed parking lot of the city’s upscale retirement village, the newly renovated Gilford Boutique Hotel, the Callingwood Baptist Church, and the stroller-lined frontage of the city’s most expansive low-rental apartment district.
Their nerves stretched tight, Dan and Huxley searched for Sylvia’s face among the crowd, both men believing they’d spotted her beside a sleeping toddler, a yawning grandfather, amidst a gang of candy-scavenging kids, but they knew this was her trick, and they imagined the black tunnel of her throat rumbling with laughter at their hysteria.
Huxley let out a long push of air. “This is ridiculous,” he said after a time. Dan agreed and kept the gas pedal at an even five.
They were beginning their turn in front of the Garrett Gazette when the radio on Dan’s shoulder buzzed. “222, this is 137, over,” came Sarah’s steady voice.
“137, code 10-12, over,” Dan responded, informing Sarah that there were passengers in his cruiser who could overhear her communication.
There was a brief pause, then Sarah said, “We have a 10-50 at the north entrance to the Callingwood Gardens walking trail. Subject is 10-45, over.”
Dan eased onto the brake pedal. Huxley’s eyes swept to Dan while Susan and William, oblivious, tossed more candy and leaned out their windows to wave back at their daughter.
“10-9, over,” Dan instructed and waited for Sarah to repeat the message that Troy Baker had been killed in a motor vehicle accident. When she repeated the communication, he relayed his own encrypted message asking if she neede
d immediate assistance, but Sarah declined. “Do we have a 20 on the female?” he asked.
“Negative,” Sarah said.
Dan spied the clock on his dashboard and explained that he would arrive once the parade was over, approximately in thirty minutes, then ended the communication. Were the fatality that of an innocent citizen, Dan would have been compelled to rush to the scene, but he felt no hurry now, especially because a hasty departure would attract too much attention. Before the Prime Minister’s security team could react to his delay, Dan once again pressed the gas pedal and continued leading the entrants north along the river-facing promenade, where a wind-battered memorial for the tour bus victims had been erected on a twelve-foot stretch of fence.
“Everything all right?” Huxley asked once he confirmed the Cheevers weren’t listening.
Dan said, “One down, one to go.”
“Her?” Huxley responded without looking at him.
“Uh-huh.”
Huxley drummed his fingers on the window frame. “Why don’t I feel happy about that?”
“Shit situation,” Dan reasoned.
When they reached the memorial, Dan slowed to a stop. Here, there would be a ten-minute delay while the Prime Minister publicly paid his respects. A sixty-foot perimeter previously cordoned off gave the Prime Minister a wide berth when he and Anabelle stepped out of the Mustang, but he waved generously to the distant spectators before clasping his hands together and proceeding to the promenade.
Riding in the second to last vehicle of the Prime Minister’s motorcade, Mayor Ada Falconer soon joined their doleful observation of the forty-two laminated faces affixed to a weathered scrap of plywood. The wooden borders above, below, and between each picture were filled with messages of sympathy and there were a number of moldy-looking teddy bears and rotting floral arrangements stapled on the edges of the board. Several crosses below the sign stood sturdily in place with bricks on their bases, most of which were covered by a layer of deflated balloons, plastic flowers, rain-dimpled cards, and dozens of candles with spent wicks. A matching pair of World’s Best Grandma and World’s Best Grandpa coffee mugs at the base of one of the crosses sprouted wires with pictures of several children, all with the same brown eyes and the same dark hair.