Pale Immortal

Other Books by Anne Frasier

Hush

Sleep Tight

Play Dead

Before I Wake

for Martha

On a road trip from St. Paul, Minnesota, to Milwaukee, Wisconsin, I stopped for breakfast in a Black River Falls cafe and happened upon a conversation between two men about the Wisconsin town of Tuonela, where they claimed a vampire once roamed the streets.

I introduced myself and asked if they'd mind telling me more. They fell silent, looked at each other, then grudgingly continued. The story they told was so outrageous I decided they must be having fun at my expense. They'd probably meant for me to overhear their conversation; I was their entertainment for the day. Tuonela didn't exist, and we all know vampires don't exist.

In the car, I pulled out an atlas and was surprised to find a town called Tuonela on the map. If you were to draw a triangle by connecting Wausau to La Crosse to Portage, Tuonela would be somewhere in the center on the Wisconsin River. That area of Wisconsin was settled by Finns, and if you're up on your Finnish mythology and the
Kalevala,
you'll know that
Tuonela
means "land of the dead" in Finnish.

That left me to ponder about the men and our conversation, and about the vampire they'd referred to as the Pale Immortal. Had they been telling the truth after all? Was I now included in a secret only a handful of people knew? I have no answers to these questions. All I know is that day in the Black River Falls cafe the men told me the town often vanishes, and many don't believe it even exists. In case you think I'm making this up, dig out a map of Wisconsin and try to find Tuonela. Ninety percent of the time it won't be there.

Anne Frasier

The car moved through the night, the two occupants staring silently out the windshield as the road unfolded before them.

They'd been traveling for over twenty-four hours, with only a few stops for gas and a bathroom. Food amounted to what packaged snacks could be grabbed while waiting in line to pay.

What had begun as desert and interstate had given way to narrow two-lanes that twisted through rural Midwest woodland and pasture unveiled in the yellow headlight beams. The landscape looked foreign.

At least to Graham Yates, who was used to millions of stars and a sky that stretched from horizon to horizon. His eyes couldn't get used to hills that blocked the sky, a curved road that hid what was ahead, and fog that clung to low areas.

The passenger window was open a crack, and the smell that came in reminded him of the tropical forest he'd once visited at a science museum. Or the compost bin at one of the schools he'd gone to. Like rotting plants and wet dirt.

How much longer?

Were they almost there?

He wanted to ask, but she wouldn't answer anyway She hadn't said anything to him since they'd left Arizona. That was okay. Silence was better than yelling.

A second after she turned off the wipers, the windshield became covered with mist that he'd finally figured out was dew. She couldn't get rid of it. So weird It just kept reappearing.

Graham had a plan He'd had a lot of time to think—once he'd come down from a fairly major high. When they got there, he would run away.

What kind of plan is that? That's no plan.

Knocking her out and stealing the car—that was a plan. But he wasn't a violent person Even after all she'd done to him, he couldn't hit her. And knowing her, being hit would just send her into a rage. She'd come at him spitting and hissing, adding a new element to an already bad situation.

Never make the situation worse than it already is
....

He wasn't afraid, he told himself, heart pounding. He wasn't afraid of anything. Not even death, which he'd been thinking about a lot lately, even before she'd dragged him into the car. What kid a few days away from his sixteenth birthday didn't think about death?

The thought of dying was one of the only things that gave him comfort. It meant there was a way out. And as long as you knew death was waiting, you knew this could end.

At four fifteen a.m., they arrived in the town of Tuonela, Wisconsin.

Their car was the only one on the street. House shades and curtains were pulled tight. Everyone was asleep, unaware of the drama just outside their doors.

So quiet.

And still. Almost as if nobody really lived there.

Tuonela was a place Graham had been threatened with ever since he could remember.

If you aren't good, I'll send you to Tuonela. You don't want to go to Tuonela, do you?

The threat was always delivered in a tone that implied the worst. Tuonela was a bad place. Tuonela was a horrible place. Tuonela was the troll under the bridge.

Last year Graham had seen a car wreck. A really bad car wreck. The man inside had been impaled by the steering column. Graham hadn't been able to stop staring. Just before he died, the guy had opened his eyes and looked directly at Graham.

That's how Tuonela had always seemed. Like looking at something terrifying. But now that they were here, the place didn't live up to the image of horror in Graham's head.
This
is Tuonela? he wanted to ask.

It was what some old lady might call quaint. Old-fashioned, maybe. It reminded Graham of a toy train village he'd played with as a little kid. Not his village, but a neighbor's. Some kooky guy who wore an engineer cap and had his basement set up with all sorts of train stuff.

They pulled to a stop in front of a dark house with a straight sidewalk that led to a porch and front door. Two faint streetlights gave off a blue haze. He could barely make out tree branches spread above the roof, and what looked like black, misshapen bushes littering a yard surrounded by a short fence.

He wouldn't give her the satisfaction of tears. He wouldn't even look at her, because that's what she wanted. She wanted him to cry and beg and tell her he'd be good. That he was sorry.

They'd played this game before, and he was done playing.

He grabbed the handles of his giant backpack, opened the passenger door, and tumbled out, slamming the door behind him. From somewhere a dog barked. It was a hollow, distant cry, given with only half a heart and coming from another world.