Dead Souls (12 page)

Faith looked at him, surprised. She ran a hand over her stomach, and grimaced. "So then…we have not failed?"

For a moment he did not reply, because he wasn't certain if he could answer that question truthfully, and knew that if he'd looked in the mirror at this moment, he would see an expression of uncertainty. He did his best to hide it. "I shall not steer my beliefs toward failure. I am convinced of only success. Only success."

I am fooling myself. There was something else at play there today. Some sort of outside interference. The boy could not have been that dumb
.

She blew out a nervous gush of air, seemingly relieved, and her blue eyes, still bloodshot from the smoke, glossed over with tears. "I love you Benjamin. And I will follow you to the end."

She walked to him and hugged him, and Benjamin accepted her comforting embrace with open arms, feeling decent despite the morning's bitter disappointment. She pressed against him, accepting of his warmth, and it made Benjamin realize that no matter what the future held, a never-ending happiness would always exist in her, and that was something he was ever so very grateful for.
She is my strength, my power. I love her, and all that she has done for me. And she loves me, and our children, more than the sun and stars. And that is why I have chosen to assure an everlasting afterlife together. For all of us. So that we can remain together long after we grow old and die. Forever.

He whispered in his ear: "We shall go together, as a family. And then, a family we shall remain."

Faith released him, nodded, then grabbed her stomach again and frowned.

"Faith?"

"I am not feeling well. My stomach, it is hurting me."

"It is from the smoke," Benjamin answered hastily, unconvinced of his diagnosis.

She nodded, then turned and paced silently from the room, Benjamin watching her suspiciously as she closed the door behind her.

Yes
, Benjamin thought, shuddering as the baby began to cry again.
When one goes, then we all shall go
. He closed his eyes, stated a prayer to Osiris,
forgive me for my sins
, then attempted to clear his mind in an effort to mentally prepare for the final stage of the life-long ritual.

September 7th, 2005

12:08 AM

J
ohnny returned to the apartment feeling tired and hungry. The first thing he saw was the note he'd left for his father, still on the table, untouched. The apartment lay in unfamiliar silence except for the ticking of the kitchen clock, and it was Johnny's first assumption that his father was probably riding the subway, either en route to the hospital, or on his way back. It was very easy to cross paths in the city, and this was what had most likely happened.

After a drink of milk and a handful of shortbread cookies, he went into his bedroom and closed out the rest of the world, realizing that this would be the first time in his life that he'd gone to bed all alone in the apartment. It unnerved him slightly:
what if I see a ghost, or rotten hands coming over the edge of the bed to get me?
Mary would blame those 'damn science-fiction books' for my overactive imagination.
But after changing into his red plaid pajama bottoms and a tee-shirt, fatigue beat back the shudder wrenching up his back, and he fell asleep immediately after covering himself with the sheet…

…and he dreamed of the golden pain, of lying prone to the elements as the hooded witnesses crowded around him, grabbing him…of how one of the shrouded figures let go of him and made a vain attempt to free him of the pain soon to be delivered: a sharp, burning agony seared upon his chest…he screamed, and then complete darkness followed, and while ensconced in this hot astringent gloom, he dreamed of another previously lost memory where he saw himself as a baby again, completely naked, and he was being carried by a young man, a
teenaged
boy perhaps, and he could clearly see the boy with his keen features and blond hair and intense gray eyes…this boy…someone he'd never encountered before, and Johnny shuddered with uncertainty because he looked terribly frightened…he was running, crying, clutching Johnny close to his chest…they were in a house, somewhere dark and musty with the smell of mud and rain and of things thick with mildew, and the young man in all his sheer panic wrapped Johnny up in a shred of burlap and slid him into a cool dark space, then turned and disappeared into the shadows, where he screamed and screamed and screamed…

Johnny awoke with his own scream.

He shivered in a cold sweat, curling himself into a fetal position, arms wrapped protectively around his knees. He opened his eyes, and when he looked down he saw that, as in his dream, he was naked. He shuddered uncontrollably, feeling immediately terrified, not because he'd undressed himself while sleeping, but because he was lying outside on the fire escape with the perforated steel grates of the platform carving indentations into his goose-fleshed skin. Nearby, a siren ripped through the night. He startled, wholly confused, looking toward the lighted window which was wide open, Mary's beige linen curtain billowing in the gentle breeze. He clambered up and groped for the sill. And that was when he saw the feather clutched tightly in his hand.

The bird I saw earlier today
...

He felt his face contort as he made an immediate attempt to analyze the situation, eyes staring uncomprehendingly at the large black feather. He squeezed the feather's quill tightly between two fingers, guessing it to carry some vital significance, and that he needed to hold onto it.
Jesus, what am I doing out here?
He lifted his heavy eyes toward the partial moon, then crawled back into the apartment, heedful not to snag himself on the window frame.

Once on his feet, Johnny gathered his balance, then looked up and nearly repeated Mary Petrie's conscious-dropping performance from earlier.

His father was sitting at the kitchen table.

A wave of unexplainable embarrassment hit Johnny like a gale-force wind, and it wasn't until he was halfway into the living room that he realized his father hadn't yet noticed him. Ed Petrie's eyes were closed, brow furrowed as though examining some sort of problem, one that he, despite his efforts, had no idea how to solve.

From the corners of his eyes, Johnny could see his pajamas crumpled on the floor at the foot of the sofa. He immediately sneaked over and slid back into them, careful not to damage the feather as he did so. He made just enough noise for Ed to hear him, but his father, probably drunk, remained uncommunicative with his elbows on the table.

Johnny placed the feather down on the end table next to the sofa, then paced into the kitchen, where he quietly waited for Ed to open his swollen eyes. It took a few moments, but eventually Ed acknowledged Johnny's presence, revealing to him a gaze that was wet and red and weary.

Ed Petrie had been crying.

"Dad?"

"
Hmmmm
?" He looked at Johnny, and Johnny thought he recognized a kind of pale distraction in his features: a dismal facade that might have been the end result of a few too many. Ed shifted his hands, and Johnny noticed the note he'd left earlier crumpled up in his father's right fist. He took a deep, nervous breath, then turned his attention back to his father's face; although unchanged, it now seemed to suggest the possibility of fear settling in.
Am I reading into this too much?

"Are you all right, dad?"

Ed grunted and pointed his gaze toward some non-descript point in the kitchen between the refrigerator and stove. A frown line dipped into the space between his eyebrows when he said, "Just spoke with your mother." Johnny could smell the sour stench of alcohol on his breath.

"You did? Just now?"

Ed unexpectedly stood up, hesitated, then paced unevenly across the living room, stopping halfway between the kitchen and his bedroom. After a long pause, he uttered methodically, "I called the hospital. They put me through to her room."

Johnny swallowed something hard in his throat, thinking,
Surely he saw the fire escape window open. Surely he saw me crawl in without my clothes on. So, why didn't he say anything? Why? Is it because he's piss-assed drunk and doesn't really give a damn?
He wanted to ask his father what was wrong, but was quickly able to put some of the pieces into place: Mary had shared her secret fear with Ed, and Ed, like Mary, had spent his entire life being terrified of it as well...

(Benjamin Conroy)

…and now here he was attempting to cope with this sudden quandary, but was having a real tough go at it because he was completely smashed and his sanity was systematically disconnecting itself from his brain, one plug at a time.

"What did she say, dad?"

He didn't answer. He looked through Johnny with glassy eyes and said, "I'm going to bed, now," then turned and exited the living room, gently shutting the door behind him.

Johnny remained standing in the kitchen, fully mystified, staring at the closed door until his vision blurred and his own fatigue begged to be dealt with. He stepped quietly into the living room and picked up the feather from the end table. He gazed at it curiously, thinking unexplainably,
This is some kind of gift
, then went back into his bedroom, clutching it close to his heart as if it were a security blanket.

August 24th, 1988

11:11 AM

P
ilate lay next to Daniel, tongue lolling, pleased with the attention he was getting from his thirteen year-old master. Daniel scratched behind the lab's ears, digging deeply with his fingers all the way down to the hide, covering every last spot the dog positioned his head for.

What a perfect day this would have been had it not been for his father's utter foolishness this morning. The sky was a bright crisp blue, the sun beaming proudly from its climbing position. A temperate breeze kept all of the flies at bay, and the birds were out in a full-chorus swing. In the distance, the goats nagged loudly.

The storm door behind him screeched, and Elizabeth appeared carrying a plate of buttermilk muffins and a pitcher of milk. She was wearing a pair of blue jeans and a plain white tee, her hair tied back into a ponytail. "Cooked them myself." She came down the wooden steps and sat in the grass alongside Daniel where they ate and drank in silence, shooing Pilate away as he made his bid for a muffin.

"Lizzie?" Daniel asked, taking a small bite; his throat still stung from inhaling all the smoke in the barn, and he grimaced with every swallow.

"Yeah?"

"Can I ask you something?"

"Of course."

He hesitated speaking his mind, peering toward the door to make sure neither of his parents were listening. Finally he whispered, "What's wrong with dad? I mean, what's the real story behind this ritual thing?"

What followed was a long moment of silence that could have been awkward, but eventually proved otherwise. Elizabeth seemed to have a few thoughts rolling around in her head as well, and as a big sister who appeared as sane as he, her opinions carried a lot of weight. "He is a man of conviction. He believes that our business here on earth is a stepping-stone into a much bigger and better place. He is just trying to make certain that we reach this better place together, as a family."

"But…do you believe it?" Daniel asked mildly, hoping she'd say no.

Elizabeth picked a buttercup from the grass and held it under his chin. "Do you?"

"No…not really."

"The reflection on your skin says you're lying."

"I'm not!"

She giggled and tossed the flower away. The wind picked up and Daniel caught the clean scent of strawberries rising from her damp hair. His own hair still carried the acrid stench of smoke, and he decided at that moment to trade it in for Elizabeth's fruity shampoo, first chance he got.

"I believe in God, and I believe in heaven," she finally answered.

Daniel felt a familiar weight of dismay settle around his heart, something he continually carried around with him, unfelt until a conversation like this drew it out. "And so do I. I really, really do…but this other stuff, Osiris, and the astral plane. I mean, I don't remember reading about
any
of this in the bible. Do you?"

Elizabeth shook her head sympathetically, and picked at the corner of a muffin. "Dad seems to believe it's in there. It's a code of some sort."

This simple, matter-of-fact statement from her triggered an intuitive, not-so-irrational fear in him, and he felt as though he were suddenly treading in deep water:
A code? Something only dad can see? This is scary…I mean, why can't I see this code? I think we've all been pulled into something, me, Elizabeth, Bryan, and even mom, and I'll be damned, but none of us have any choice in the matter. I wonder…is there any escape? Will the wrath of God strike us dead should we defy our father's beliefs? For Christ's sake, we all nearly passed out from the smoke this morning!
"Well I don't," he blurted, then added, "And I didn't see any of those things dad was talking about this morning. Did you?"

"You mean—"

"The spirit, the mist, the bird, the cowbell. And I also remember him saying that he had a gift in his hand…but his hand was empty, Lizzie."