Home for the Holidays: A Short Story

HOME FOR THE HOLIDAYS 

James A. Moore

CEMETERY DANCE PUBLICATIONS 

Baltimore 

2008 

Copyright © 2008 by James A. Moore

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer who may quote brief passages in a review.

Cemetery Dance Publications 

132-B Industry Lane, Unit #7 

Forest Hill, MD 21050 

http://www.cemeterydance.com 

First Edition eBook 

HOME FOR THE HOLIDAYS 

’Twas the season. 

The roads leading into town were nearly cleaned of the thick sheath of snow that had blanketed the area for the last week and there were Christmas lights in the windows of most of the houses and all of the shops. One elemental truth stood against any and all religious differences during the holiday season: Christmas decorations meant more customers. Even the very Scroogiest shop owners knew that simple fact, and all of them did their best to take advantage of it. 

They’d have had the damnedest time when it came to Jonathan Crowley. He’d been known to celebrate the season on behalf of others a few times, but not in longer than most of the stores on Main Street had been around. 

Black Stone Bay was a beautiful town and half deserted for the holidays. Two universities took up a good portion of the area and with school out of session most of the students had gone home, leaving the campuses oddly silent despite the festive decorations. It leant the town a haunted air, though he could easily sense there were other reasons for that sensation. No town of any age managed to stay free of dark spots, places where life had gone wrong or death had grown cancerous. Black Stone Bay was a town most places aspired to; the people were well off, the crime rate was light—with a few exceptions—and the town was postcard perfect. It had been years since he’d come through the town and remarkably little had changed since then. There were no new developments, no subdivisions that had grown into the area or overshadowed older neighborhoods. No matter who might want to bring change to the town, the people who lived there would never tolerate the idea. 

There was little space for the nouveau riche in the place. The old money families saw to that. 

The very notion set Crowley’s teeth on edge. He had no special love of the wealthy, or of the needy. He had no special love for people, if the truth must be known, but they called on him just the same, and with no consideration of what they asked when they made their requests. 

“So, tell me about your friend.” He looked at the latest in an endless line of people who’d asked for help. The woman was not a stranger. He’d met her twenty years earlier when she was in college herself and living in Los Angeles. Back then Laura Natchez Montgomery had planned to be the next big thing as an actress. Two decades had removed that desire and replaced it with a fairly large family, including a husband, three children and two dogs. Dreams change. Jonathan Crowley could have told her that when they met, but knew she wouldn’t have listened. Most people don’t want to hear unpleasant or inconvenient truths when they’re young and still know everything.  

Laura sighed and looked out the window while she composed herself and tried to figure out exactly what to say. 

She was not a previous client. He had never been asked to help her out of a dilemma, but he’d come to her assistance just the same. They met while he was on the hunt and tracking down a killer. A flesh eater if he remembered correctly, one that killed its victims and then let them rot for a few days before it picked the bones clean. Laura had been unlucky enough to find one of the bodies and catch the damned thing’s attention. She was a striking girl as he recalled, and the thing that had run across her agreed. It was a matter of timing really, blind luck that kept her from being raped by the nightmare. It was just tearing her clothes away, cackling as she screamed and tried to fight it off. 

For Crowley it had also been a perfect distraction to let him take the damned thing down once and for all. The seams on Laura’s jeans split open and she cried out at exactly the same time he was driving a ceremonial sword into the back of the demon’s skull. The impact had broken the blade, much to his disgust. He hadn’t been able to find a replacement and it wasn’t for lack of looking over the years. 

As he often did, he made sure she forgot about his existence and what had been done to her, with the simple added command that she would remember him and how to contact him should she run across another situation where he might be useful.  

Two decades later she called him about a friend of the family.  

“I still can’t get over how little you’ve changed…” Her voice drifted almost sleepily. He hadn’t changed. She had. Two decades weighed on her, etching fine lines in her features and transforming her from a tiny sexpot into a mother of three with the hips to prove it. Crowley looked exactly the same. The only noticeable difference was likely in his clothes and that was just because it was a damned site colder in New England at Christmastime than it was in California at the height of the summer. 

“That’s not why we’re here, Laura. You wanted to tell me about your husband’s friend.” He allowed himself a small flash of a smile and waited while she thought over the situation.  

Her eyes traveled along the length of him, not ogling, but absorbing. He was not normal and sometimes it took people a while to adjust to that fact. He was tolerant. Well, at least for the moment. The silences were stretching his willingness to behave himself. 

“He’s not…” She sighed. “He’s not my husband’s friend. He’s my uncle. I just, I didn’t know if you would take me seriously if I said he was a family member.”  

His lips pressed together and he forced himself to remain pleasant. He wasn’t known for his patience, and liars, while amazingly common in his experience, almost always managed to piss him off.  

“Oh, nothing to worry about. I don’t need him to be anything to you one way or the other. I just need to know what the situation is that has me in Rhode Island instead of home for the holidays.” He stared pointedly until she got the hint and nodded her head. He had nothing to go home to, but that wasn’t any of her business and so he opted not to share the information. 

“Turner is my uncle. My mother’s brother, but a lot younger than her. He’s only around five years older than me. We have never been overly close, but we know each other, of course.” She smiled apologetically and Crowley nodded his encouragement. For some people talking about family was like pulling teeth. “He lost his family a few years ago.” She looked out the passenger’s side window of his car as he moved slowly, smoothly down the road. “He was at work, and somebody broke in. Somebody killed all of them. His wife, his children.” She sounded apologetic, as if she were responsible for the entire situation. He was always amazed by how many people seemed to worry about that. 

The silence stretched again, until he shook his head. “We’re almost there. You should give me the details. Hit the high points.” 

“Well, the murders, they changed him. Turner became sullen, withdrawn, not that anyone blamed him, of course. He got better when he remarried, that made a big difference. It was almost like he’d been sick for a long time and then recovered. I don’t know. Maybe it’s that some people just need to have family with them to be complete, you know?” 

He nodded. He could remember what that was like.  

“Anyway, last year everything started going south again. He was fine, his new wife, his new step kids, even the new baby on the way, everything seemed like it was perfect and then he just…he lost it.”  

The light on the road ahead turned red and Crowley slowed the car down and stopped. He turned to look at her. Her expression was one he’d grown far too familiar with over the years; she looked quietly, desperately stunned, as if she’d just survived an unexpected car wreck where she was fine and everyone else was mangled.  

When she spoke again the words were rushed, as if getting them out quickly would make it easier somehow. “Turner was fine at Thanksgiving, and for a week after that, but then he started changing. He went from open and friendly and loving to quiet and angry. He wouldn’t answer my calls, and his new wife, Holly, she stopped by three days before Christmas in tears. He was screaming all the time, losing his temper and finally he told her to get out of the house before things got worse. So we took her in, we kept her over the holidays and did what we could to make everything okay. And then three days after Christmas, Turner came around apologizing and said he’d just succumbed to the pressure from work. That he’d basically lost it but he was better.”  

The light changed and Crowley started driving again. 

“He was fine.” Her tone said it all. She couldn’t understand how her uncle could go crazy and get better so fast, but she believed he had done just that. “It took almost four months before Holly forgave him, really forgave him, I mean. The baby’s what made the difference. And Turner loves that little boy, you can see it, you know? Even if he’d had any sort of problems with Holly or her children, he loves that little baby.” 

He could see the house now; there was a tree in the front yard with glowing lights and decorations, an illuminated tribute to the birth of a demigod to some, and to others merely a sign of the time of year when most people seemed a little more tolerant of their neighbors. He looked her way and asked with his eyes if he had the right place and she nodded her answer. A moment later he was pulling over in front of the place and killing the engine. 

Inside the house there were lights and decorations as well, but even knowing that a family lived there, the house felt empty, cored out and abandoned.  

“Finish it. Tell me.” He pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose and stared hard at her. 

“The baby, he started crying all the time about two weeks ago. I mean all the time. He wouldn’t sleep, he wouldn’t eat. He just screamed and cried like he was being tortured. And around the same time Turner started acting like he was acting last year.” 

Crowley nodded. “You think he’s being haunted.” 

“Well, yes, I suppose I do.” 

“When did his family die?” 

“It was right around Christmas time.” 

“His family, are they staying with you again?” he remembered the suitcases, and there had been a hint of baby powder in the air. 

“Yes.” She sounded just a little puzzled by his knowing. 

“The baby. Did the baby stop crying when he got to your house?” 

“How did you know that?” She didn’t just sound surprised. She sounded suspicious. 

“You called me, remember?” He stared hard at her, unflinching, until she looked down and nodded her head. “It’s a good sign. It means whatever is affecting your uncle isn’t following the rest of his family, it’s just dealing with him.” That was true enough, but if there had been anything in her house when he came to see her he’d have noticed it.  

“Of course. I’m sorry.” Her voice was a whisper. He looked away from her and opened his door.  

“Well, there it is and here we are. Let’s see what we can do for your Uncle Turner, shall we?” 

Laura nodded and they stepped out of the warmth of the car and into the harsh cold wind. She was bundled into a thick fur coat that probably cost as much as her maid earned in a year. The wealth was something she took for granted, which meant she had changed a great deal from when she was a teenager. She was happy, deep inside where it counted, she was pleased with her world. Crowley envied her that.  

He’d spent fifteen minutes inside her home and taken in all of the details he needed. In addition to the signs of visitors, he’d seen pictures of the woman and her husband, her kids. Three children, two daughters and a son, and didn’t that put an ache in his heart? Didn’t that bring back a special twist of pain when he remembered his past and the family he’d had? Oh, yes, my yes, it most certainly did. The family room had been rearranged to accommodate a massive Christmas tree that already had an explosion of gifts under it. Packages wrapped in every imaginable color and festooned with ribbons and bows. He looked away before he could let himself stare too openly.  

There was no time for sentimentality and really, no desire. The past was best left behind. 

A smile played around his mouth as he looked at the house Laura had directed him to. “Mostly. Mostly the past is best left behind.” He stepped onto the walkway, not as clean as it could have been and in need of repairs, he noted. “There are always exceptions.” 

“I’m sorry?” Laura hadn’t heard his words clearly. That was all right, too. They weren’t meant for her.  

“Nothing to worry yourself about,” he waved a hand to dismiss her query. “Why don’t you introduce me to your friend so we can get this over with?” 

Laura didn’t question him. Few people did. Most seemed to understand on an instinctive level that letting him have his way was the quickest method of getting him to leave, and even the people who wanted his help seldom wanted him around for long.  

She walked up to the door and knocked briskly, her gloved knuckles rapping the wood hard enough to make her presence known to anyone around.  

Almost a minute later the door opened and a young woman peered out: she was either a hooker—unlikely—or hired help. Crowley stared only long enough to acknowledge that she was the maid. He ignored the conversation between Laura and the woman and instead looked around the outside of the house. A nice place, not overwhelmingly fine, but better than average. There was a darkness around the place, however, that made perfect sense to Crowley. Something was wrong. Something had invited itself into the house and made itself comfortable.  

He opened his senses, did his best to find the source of the discomfort, but that was too easy and whatever was there didn’t want to be seen. Not by him, at least.