Bloodstone (20 page)

“You’re talking about possession.”

“In a sense.”

“So if Ronnie believed the amulet—”

“He would have to be educated in the ways of the Egyptians. This sort of stuff isn’t common knowledge.”

“But he could read,” Smith continued doggedly. “He could have done the research.”

“There are some decent books on the subject.”

“Okay. What else? You talked about the powers of the demon.”

“Yes,” Rutherford said. “Each of them could possess the living, and command the spirits in the second realm. Then they had individual specialties, which could be called upon in certain places and situations. According to the old texts, this one could raise the dead.”

“How?”

“By letting their spirits return to this world. The Egyptians believed in many places these spirits surrounded us, but they could not always make contact. In the right hands, and with the proper rituals…this amulet opened the door.”

“What kind of door?”

“A door to the afterlife. But their idea of the afterlife wasn’t exactly the same as ours. For them, the dead could be a great deal more frightening—and dangerous.”

Smith stared down at the image captured on film. Just an old stone, chipped and worn, the carvings barely recognizable. So many years had passed since this thing had any practical use, and yet there was something compelling about it, the very simplicity of shape, of form. The serpents, writhing around the middle eye, dizzied him. Suddenly his dreams rushed at him with almost palpable force; the living dead, clawing up out of soft, black-colored earth, hunger on their moss-covered faces. He saw a circle of blood like an open eye, and within it a struggling human form.

Dead men walking those who have reached the end and
been born again
…

“Are you all right?” Rutherford was up out of his chair, a look of concern on his face. He had taken the book from
Smith’s cramping fingers and placed it aside. “You look like you’ve seen a ghost. Excuse the expression.”

J
esus Christ
. “Sorry.” He rubbed at his face with a hand, found his fingers trembling. “I’m fine. Just a little tired, that’s all.”

But the chill that had prickled the hair of his neck and turned the backs of his arms to gooseflesh would not leave him. Looking up at the older man’s face, searching his features for warmth and understanding, he saw instead the shadowy afterimage of the amulet, two serpents intertwined, floating softly in darkness.

“The ancient Egyptians believed in other realms beyond ours, other worlds—not all that different from Christian beliefs, in some ways. There are theories that say the Christian religion is simply an offshoot of a much older one. But in one important way they differ. To Egyptians, the dead would not always stay dead. If they did not make the journey to the next world, they could be stuck in limbo. And they would try to get back. It kept the Egyptians more honest, I suppose. After all, if you felt that anything you ever did to anyone might return to haunt you, even long after that person’s death, you’d be pretty careful not to wrong anybody. Don’t you think?”

“I suppose so.”

Rutherford returned to his chair, picked up his coffee cup. “I have an appointment in town in half an hour. Have I given you enough to think about?”

Smith nodded. He extended his hand; Rutherford shook it. His grip was cool and dry. “Thank you,” Smith said. “You been very helpful.”

“I wish you luck.” Rutherford held his hand a moment longer, then released it. “In finding whatever it is you’re looking for.”

He returned to the hotel that Tuesday evening in a mood of quiet contemplation. The idea of underworld spirits,
possession, demons and charms, black masses, all of it began to fill his head like an ancient voice that would not stop its ravings and let him think for himself. A world so very different from the modern one, beliefs that had supposedly died out hundreds of years ago. Beliefs that should have been banished with the coming of Christ. And yet, some of the Bible’s teachings he found no less unbelievable; Christ healing the crippled, the blind, then rising from the dead. Why were people so eager to believe those stories, waiting patiently for the second coming of the savior, the afterlife, the resurrection, all the while denying the existence of a devil?

And below all that, another voice, like a chant, the voice from his dreams.
You must come, William. Break the circle.
You must come home
.

Coming home. The idea of it was almost enough to make him laugh. His adopted mother was dead and gone, and he had never met his real parents. His life had, for almost as long as he could remember, consisted of running from place to place.

Had he been chasing something, or had something been chasing him?

When he opened the door to their hotel suite, everything was quiet. He slipped softly into the next room where Angel waited, her breathing deep and even in the stillness. How he envied her ability to sleep now, letting everything dissolve itself in blessed darkness. How he wished he could lie down beside her and sleep too. But he knew that as soon as he closed his eyes the images would come again, and he would wake up screaming.

He touched her face and her eyes opened dreamily, a smile working at the corners of her mouth. She half turned to him, her arms coming up at him out of the warmth of the blankets (so stifling in the room; how could she stand it?) like the gesture of a child wanting to be held. He pulled off his shoes and climbed into bed with her, and she enfolded him, drew him into her little cocoon under the sheets. Soon,
he knew, he would be struggling against the heat, but now he welcomed it, stretching his aching muscles, feeling them relax. “The middle of the afternoon,” he teased, “the height of laziness. Are you
ever
going to get out of bed?”

She nuzzled his ear, still half asleep. Murmured.
I love
you
. Had she said it out loud, or had he imagined it? Settled into him, her shape reworking itself around his. Her breath warm against his neck. Soon he could feel her breathing deepen and even out again.

He held her close, feeling that constant struggle going on within him. The dam gaining one more crack. He wanted to take her away from here, just gather her up and run, get as far away as possible. Forget all of this madness, and try to live their lives together in peace.

When the heat under the blankets had become unbearable he managed to extract himself from her arms. Still she slept, as if gathering strength for battle. Which was what he should be doing; that was what was coming, wasn’t it? The old woman had said as much. Besides, he could feel it, the way you could feel electricity in the wires when you put your hand against a telephone pole. A deep and terrible thrumming beneath his feet.

He put his shoes on and walked down through the inn, back out into the sunshine that came more slanted now as evening wound into night. The air was heavy, the roads still, the parking lot of the inn almost empty. Directly across from him was the entrance to the scenic turn-out above the falls. He crossed the road and wandered across the dusty surface of the dirt track. The dirt road widened into a small parking lot, and a guardrail ran along the edge of the steep drop. He could hear the water roaring through the narrow chute, boiling out over the drop, the spray reaching his face like mist as the river crashed into the deep pool below. He listened as the muffled roar grew louder, watching the river on his left as it spilled over the dam, flowed swiftly under the bridge and
down between the deepening banks, getting narrower and faster, more purposeful as it sped toward the drop. He imagined how it must have been for Annie Arsenault’s boy, the one who had fallen to his death so many years ago. Joseph would have stood here for a moment in the middle of an empty parking lot, a little towheaded boy, his gaze wide and curious, a bit frightened, his heart beating heavy and fast.

Don’t play near the falls, honey. They’re dangerous for
little boys like you
.

I’m not little, Mama!

Taking a small step closer. The roaring coming louder now; the voice more insistent. Catching just a glimpse of white froth, imagining an animal caged down there, furious and bloodthirsty, leaping at the steep sides, snarling, jaws flecked with foam. Another step taking him to the rail, and then he was ducking under it, standing on the edge of the cliff, his small chubby legs trembling at the sight; not the river pouring from a rocky spout, but a great dark shape throwing itself against the sides of the cliff, foam flying from its ragged jaws, eyes like two silver moons. The head rolling up on a thick neck, catching sight of him; grinning! And then the leap, huge, dark haunches tensed for the spring upward, even as it came for him, the dripping teeth shifting until they became a dark wall of water smashing into his feet.

Smith came to and found himself standing on the edge of the drop. What had he meant to do, throw himself off? The water twisted and churned below his feet, the spray wetting his hair, his face, turning the last of the dying sunlight into a thousand shimmering colors before his eyes. Below the boiling pool the river ran swiftly away again through a deep channel gouged into the earth, a dark ribbon flowing past the Gedford’s fields and through the thickening alders and cattails, until it reached the pond and beyond that, the bog. The river, running with the blood of the land, the falls its beating heart.

He shivered. The drop here was merciless; if the boy had survived the fall, the water would have dragged him under
and spun him about like a whirlpool, battering him against the rocks before it carried him away to oblivion. Or perhaps it had sucked him down and kept him there below the boiling currents; perhaps he was there still.

A gust of wind blew more spray into his face, and for a moment it almost did seem as if the water had reared up and grabbed at him. He took half a step back to more solid ground. But another little voice in the back of his mind was saying
wouldn’t be so bad, champ, just a quick unpleasant
minute, a couple of bruises, and then it’s all over, all of it
…

He thought about Angel. Was he really going to try to love her, and if so, could he do it and remain here, in the middle of something so foul he could almost smell it on the air? On the other hand, if they tried to run, would they ever be able to live with themselves? Assuming they could get away at all, would their lives slowly turn sour, all the purpose bleeding away until they were left with two empty husks?

I could love her. I could
. She was everything he was not; passionate and warm, open, at peace with herself now, after those difficult years since her brother’s death and in Miami. He was falling in love with her for all those reasons, and yet there was something else between them, something darker and less definable and even more intense, something that would frighten him if he dared to confront it. Perhaps it was the way they had met, the promise of violence during those first days. He didn’t know. But he felt as if he had known her forever, and that she was as much a part of him as his own conscience.

The taste of candy apples. The color blue. The fluttering
of wings
.

Yes, that was close to the way he felt about her, the essence of her. But they were feelings that could not really be expressed by words.

In the fading light of late afternoon his thoughts turned again to that thick, high wall he had built up around his heart, and he wondered if the wall, or at least its foundation,
had been laid not during his time in prison, but during his very first few years, when he had been told of his adoption; growing up without a father, losing his adopted mother in his late teens, never feeling entirely safe in the world. It was true that he had always felt something was missing in his life. He had needed an escape, something that would banish those thoughts that always seemed to come to him in the dead of night, the feeling that he was doomed from the very beginning, and that he would not live to see another day. For the first time in years, he wondered about his natural parents, who they were, where they were, whether they were still alive, or dead and buried. If he knew, would it make a difference?

A chill had entered the air, the promise of another cold night. He backed farther away from the edge until he felt the guardrail against his legs. No, they could not run from this.
He
could not. Hadn’t he already decided? Perhaps he had decided the night he had stood at the edge of the salt flats in Salt Lake City. Or even farther back. Every particle of his being told him that he needed to confront his fears or risk losing something more important than his sanity. He began to understand how the most dedicated priests must feel, giving up the most intimate parts of life, taking vows of poverty, chastity, assuming the burdens of others, all for the love of something greater than themselves.

What was it Annie had said about him? He tried to remember the way Angel had related it;
He will come to understand
things that will make him scream—but I do not
think they will break him. He is stronger than he thinks
.

That feeling of dread. A battle he could not win. And an odd sense of loss, as if he were mourning in advance; later, there would not be time.

Billy Smith turned and slowly made his way back to the inn, his back bent as if to ward off a blow.

At six o’clock, people gathered at the high school for the town meeting, which was held in the Henry Thomas Memorial Auditorium. The parking lot slowly filled with cars; a couple of BMWs and Mercedes Benzes, but most of them ten-year-old Dodges and Fords and Chevrolets with the mufflers rusting out and the motors skipping a beat or two.

Pat Friedman wasted little time getting inside, for the temperature had dropped below fifty degrees again and would go much lower before morning. The whole town seemed to be going crazy lately. This week had brought even hotter days and colder nights. Early Monday afternoon the temperature had crept up over ninety, another record, and by Monday night it had plummeted to twelve degrees above zero. It was as though some crazy obsessive-compulsive upstairs had his finger on the thermostat,
turn it up, turn it down, up, down
, and so on, each time gaining a little more momentum; as if someone was trying to wreak havoc, fray nerves, shorten tempers and generally turn people inside out. Sooner or later it was inevitable that cracks would start showing up.

The building was warm and bright. He followed the hallway past the classrooms and the brown lockers and bright arts and crafts that peppered the walls and sat down in the auditorium, which was already half-full of noisy people.
Everyone knew about his wife and the handyman, he thought sickly. She was fucking that little shit, it was obvious to Pat now, and the fact that he had been blind to it before made him burn inside. That disastrous party. People had been staring at him all night, it was painfully obvious. He was the laughingstock of White Falls already.

He watched the people coming in, waiting to see if anyone stared at him or pointed and said something to their friends. But no one seemed to notice him and after a while he was able to relax. An hour later he was listening to the town treasurer drone on and on about the festival budget, hardly paying attention. He had something else on his mind, something that had been taking up more and more of his attention lately; that little shit Jeb Taylor, and the strange…

Visions? Dreams?

Whatever they were. He had them at all different times of the day and night. It didn’t matter if he was at work, or eating supper, or in bed. Once he had seen a flash of blinding light and when he had come to, he was in his car and on the wrong side of the road headed for a tree. Jesus, that had given him a scare. He wondered if he was breaking under the stress, or if it was something even worse than that, like cancer or a brain tumor. He looked at himself every day in the mirror and wondered,
Is this the day? Is this the day I’m
going to drop dead?
Morbid, he knew. But he was a different man than he had been just a few short days ago. That man had been getting fat and comfortable and a little lazy within the easy routines of his life. This one was struggling just to hang on as the world tilted and whirled.

The real reason he had come to the meeting was to talk to Sheriff Pepper. He had heard there had been some vandalism at the church yesterday and had sensed some sort of connection with that little pissant. He wasn’t sure what, but he knew he had to pursue it, had to trust his instincts.

Pat Friedman had come close to the breaking point last night. He had had the same dream he had been having for
the past three nights, the one where the things came up out of the ground, only this time when he had turned to run he looked back over his shoulder and saw something that stopped him short; one of
them
stood over a fallen woman, bludgeoning her, swinging something again and again with horrible force on the woman’s arms, shoulders, head. He could hear bones snapping, cracking ribs, and the thing didn’t stop, just kept swinging with machine-like precision, the blows raining down. Unable to help himself, he had turned back, drawn by the horror of it, wanting a closer look,
closer, closer
, and then the thing had turned around and hissed at him, bloody weapon raised for another strike. Its features were twisted into a snarl of rage and hatred, hardly human, but recognizable nonetheless.

He had been staring into his own face.

Even now, sitting in this large room with a hundred people talking at once, it gave him the chills. He looked around the room, searching for old Ruth Taylor or maybe Jeb himself, but he didn’t see either one. The next half-hour passed in a dim blur, the room too warm, the flashes of people’s faces like pale ghosts, the noise a thundering din that threatened to send him over the edge. But finally the meeting was over and he was left wondering why he had come.
Could
have spoken to the sheriff some other time, maybe gone
down to the station tomorrow
.

Somebody was saying something to him. Myrtle from the office, standing in the aisle, staring. She leaned in close, and he could see the beginnings of black stubble on her upper lip (
time for a wax, Myrtle honey
, he thought, and pressed a hand to his mouth to suppress a grin).

“Excuse me?”

“I was just saying you look a little ill. Do you feel all right?”

He nodded, told her he had a headache and excused himself, just catching a glimpse of Sheriff Pepper as he disappeared through the auditorium doors. Pat fought his way
through the groups of people lingering in the aisles, until he caught up with the sheriff at the front doors.

He must have seemed like a maniac, because when he put a hand on Pepper’s shoulder the man turned and took a step back, a look of surprise on his face.

“I wonder if I could talk with you a minute.”

“Well.” The sheriff scratched his head. “I’ve got to get back to the station…”

“I heard about the vandalism at the church. Horrible business.”

“Is that what you wanted to talk about?”

“I thought maybe I could help, you know, take up the case for the town. I’ve got some pro-bono hours I could give you—”

“That’s mighty kind of you to offer, but I don’t know that we’ll be making any arrests right away. Probably a couple of kids that did it. Maybe even an animal. The point is, there aren’t too many leads to follow.” Sheriff Pepper looked at him strangely again, as if he half-expected Pat to start slobbering at the mouth, maybe grow a couple of fangs.

“I’d be happy to start a search party, organize a neighborhood watch—”

“Do you feel okay, Pat? I mean you look a little tired.”

Everybody’s asking me that lately. Just shut up and mind
your own business, shut up, shut UP
—

“I just hate to hear about our pretty church being the object of such awful…pranks.” Pat forced another smile and felt his jaw pop as the muscles tightened. “What exactly happened anyway?”

“Well, a basement window was broken, for one,” Pepper said. He hitched at his belt. “And a few gravestones got knocked over. All in a line from front to back, like something big and clumsy jumped the fence and ran right on through. That’s why I thought maybe an animal done it.” His face got suddenly hard, his eyes faraway, and his hand touched the butt of his gun in an unconscious motion. “I got
a few ideas about that. That fucking Trask’s dog…excuse the language.”

Pat didn’t notice. He was too busy thinking about what the sheriff had said.
Pushed a few gravestones over
. He felt a trickle of sweat run down his side. He licked his lips. “Were any of the graves…violated? Dug up?”

Pepper’s eyes snapped back and he frowned. “That’s kind of a strange question.”

“I heard of it happening before. In this kind of case.” The sweat was pouring off him now, though he suddenly felt cold as ice. He continued to flash his painted-on smile.

“No, I didn’t see anything like that.”

“Are you
sure?
”

“I told you, didn’t I?” Sheriff Pepper showed the first signs of annoyance. “You sure you’re all right, Pat? You’re looking kinda green around the gills. Don’t know what the hell’s happening in this town lately. Christ, Jack Perot was almost killed the other day when Hank Gunderson just about run him over. Jack started swearing, Hank stopped that goddamn truck and started right in swinging. Jack had a black eye and a chipped front tooth by the time someone pulled him off. But hell, that was nothing compared to the brawl out at Indian Road Trailer Heaven…”

“I’m fine, sheriff.” Pat made a move toward the front doors, the painted-on smile still plastered to his face, and Pepper touched his arm, stopping him.

“Listen, let me give you a little advice. I appreciate you wanting to help and all, but let me do my job. Like I said, I’ve got a few ideas of my own about what happened at the church.”

Oh I don’t think you have the faintest idea,
Pat thought,
not the faintest
. The world tipped crazily for a moment, came back the other way, and settled again. He thought of Jeb Taylor in his house, on his bed, making love to his wife.

He swallowed hard. Whatever it was that seemed suddenly caught in his throat went down, a little. He spoke over
it, and to him, his voice sounded quite normal. “Yes. You’re absolutely right. I’m sorry for bothering you.”

“No problem. Get some sleep, okay?”

Pat nodded, pulled his collar up over his cheeks and stepped out into the cold, leaving Sheriff Pepper standing at the school doors, shaking his head and staring after him.

Jeb Taylor was not, in fact, at the Friedman’s house with Julie (though another man still was, and having a fine time of it, too). Jeb Taylor was at Johnny’s, having a drink. Actually, he was having several. Drinking with an old friend.

Just a few minutes ago, as Pat Friedman was standing in the school lobby talking with Sheriff Pepper, Ronnie Taylor had walked into the old schoolhouse, sat down on the next stool and said hello to his son.

Jeb had changed into the black leather jacket he had found in his father’s suitcase. Since he had been at Johnny’s, he had been drinking whiskey and beer and anything else he could get his hands on. Anything to get that image out of his head, what he had just seen. Julie Friedman naked and sweaty, clinging to another man’s shoulders.

After the Friedman’s party he had lapsed into an alcoholic coma, a paralysis of voluntary thought, spending the next day and night drinking and as close to the edge as he had ever been, not wanting to think about what that
thing
had done when it touched his skin. That
burrowing
. The next morning had found him at a crossroads; lying in bed, fiercely hung over, he had known that one more false step would send him into a downward spiral from which he would never be able to recover. And what frightened him the most was that he knew he wasn’t strong enough to resist.

But yesterday, it had gotten better. He had somehow stayed away from Johnny’s and the whiskey and kept himself busy with other things, and slowly his head began to clear. He had worked on his car, which was in dire need of a carburetor cleaning and an oil change, and when Ruth had
come tottering out the back door of the house to ask him if he would help her “find her tea,” he had gone willingly, for reasons he did not entirely understand. He had thought she was having one of her spells, but after he got out the teabags and put the water on the stove, she touched his arm and her eyes were bright and wet. “I’ve been praying for you, boy,” she said. “I don’t know what kind of trouble you got yourself into, but I’ve been praying real hard.”

He surprised himself again by smiling at her and patting her hand. “That’s awful good of you, Gramma,” he said. And meant it. She hadn’t asked him about his job or pressed him about his drinking, or even mentioned the doctor’s visit. He had a glimpse of something better in his life, a goodness that most people take for granted.

That had kept him off the bottle another night.

This morning, he had left the house early and took the newly-tuned car out on the open road, whipping up Route 27 to Route 1 and up the coast, touring through the small towns that all began to look the same after a while; railroad tracks and trailers, junkyards filled with the ghosts of old Gremlins and AMC Chargers, 7-Elevens, Mom and Pop stores, Shell gas stations, old brick buildings along the water filled with pizza joints and hardware stores and gift shops. He rolled the windows down and let the wind tear through the car’s heated interior, roaring through Camden and Lincolnville and Belfast, Searsport and Stockton Springs, feeling like he was on the run, a man being chased by something large and mean. That brought back memories of his wild trip down from Thomaston with his father’s things on the seat next to him, and thinking of that left a sour taste in his mouth.

By the time he had returned, though, the sour taste was washed away and he was ready for something more. He had started wondering if maybe Mrs. Friedman hadn’t been making fun after all. Maybe he should have given her more of a chance to explain. Before he lost his nerve, he drove straight home and dressed in the best clothes he owned; a
dark blue sweater and gray slacks, something Ruth had bought for him at the K-Mart in Brunswick for his seventeenth birthday. Then he went down to the store just before it closed and bought a red rose from Thelma, who reminded him of the town meeting tonight. Pat Friedman would be at that meeting, he thought. Which meant maybe Julie would be home alone. It was more than he could hope for.

He forced himself to wait half an hour until six-thirty. Then he got back in the car and drove back up the road to the logging track, feeling remarkably sharp and sober, the voices that had been clamoring in his head the past few weeks blessedly silent. He parked, crept back along the road and then around the storage shed, carrying the rose in one sweaty fist.

Pat usually kept his car in the drive. The driveway was empty. He ran a hand through his hair, straightened his sweater across his middle and wished he had thought of ironing his pants. Too late. This was the best he could do. If she didn’t take him now, she never would. Stepping up to the front door, he raised his fist to knock, and hesitated.
Just because
Pat’s car isn’t in the drive, doesn’t mean he’s not home.
Car could be in the shop or something, getting some work
done. Maybe he put it in the garage tonight. Maybe he left it
at the office and she gave him a ride home from work so they
could go to the meeting together
.