Seven Kinds of Hell
Read Seven Kinds of Hell Online
Authors: Dana Cameron
The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.
Text copyright © 2013 Dana Cameron
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.
Published by 47North
P.O. Box 400818
Las Vegas, NV 89140
Cover Illustration by Chris McGrath copyright © 2013
ISBN-13: 9781611097955
ISBN-10: 1611097959
Library of Congress Control Number: 2012948380
To James:
Here’s to the next twenty-five years.
Usual terms.
Chapter 1
I was sorting a box of objects in the Museum of Salem’s accession office when the call came. My mother was dying. I knew this day was coming, had known for months, but the news hit me like a freight train all the same. Numbly, I saved the work file, turned off the computer, pocketed my pen, phone, and the antique clay figurine I’d been working on. Locked the empty artifact box in the cabinet. Dug my keys from my bag.
The drive across town to the hospital seemed to take forever.
I stood there, frustrated that there was nothing I could do to help her, wishing I was back at the museum or, better yet, at the bottom of a nice, square hole in the ground, excavating and recording a thick Native American hearth with a scatter of stone flakes in it.
Ma had lost so much weight, and she had never had any to spare. Her hair had thinned, the once-vibrant red dulled against the pillow with dark roots showing an inch. Once she’d been tiny, but a dynamo. Now she barely had the energy to breathe. She turned and spoke what I knew were her last words to me.
“Your father, goddamn it,” my mother said. “He was a good person. But you see any of his family, you turn, you run as fast as you can.”
I nodded, not wanting to say anything. Running and distrust had always been our way of life. But I wished she’d talk about
something else. I didn’t want her to waste her breath on what I already knew.
“Ma—I love you—”
I knew she wouldn’t say it back, but I needed her to hear it from me.
My mother’s hand tightened on mine. For such a sick woman, her grip was incredibly strong.
I couldn’t stand it. I knew she’d been hoarding the breath for this final set of instructions. It wasn’t long now.
“Promise me. You see them, you’ll run like hell.”
“I promise, Ma.” I kept swallowing so I wouldn’t cry. I didn’t want to worry her. We knew this was coming. “I talked to Ian at work and let him know…about you. That I might have to move. He put me on lab and office work, so I don’t have any field projects outstanding for him.” I brushed my eyes. “He even offered to call a couple of colleagues, to help me get another contract job. And the museum, the grant they hired me for is almost done, so…I can go.”
“OK, good. You lose yourself now; you have a good, quiet, dull life. What we did was only to keep it together until you were grown and could look after yourself. And I’m sorry you had to worry about me the past coupla months. Now you can fade away, settle down. I kept you hidden; they don’t know about you. When I’m gone, they won’t look for you.”
I knew that was a fairy tale, but nodded anyway. Ma was usually tight as a clam; this was volumes.
“You go visit your grandma. I left something there for you.”
“Huh? Grandma—” It took me a minute to figure out what she meant. My eyes filled up and spilled over when I nodded again. “OK, I got it, Ma. I’ll do everything you say.” That much I could do, to make her happy.
“OK, good.” Satisfied, she sank back into her pillow, all effort spent. “Good.”
A few moments later, Ma moved her hand. I leaned in to hear.
“Ginger ale?” came the hoarse whisper.
I nodded and went down the hall, glad I could do something for her. When I returned two minutes later, my mother was gone. Her eyes were closed, her head tilted, but it was nothing like sleep. Her face was free of pain for the first time in months.
I set the ginger ale down on the table. “Ma, don’t—”
Don’t what, Zoe
? I thought.
Don’t go. Don’t worry. Don’t hurt anymore.
She didn’t even look like herself. Something had left her body, and there was no more Ma.
I felt my eyes start to burn. Sensors beeped and a nurse appeared.
“DNR,” I said robotically, turning away and wiping my eyes. “She didn’t want any extreme measures.”
She didn’t even want me to see her die. Didn’t want me to have to say good-bye.
The attending nurse, a new one, was very nice. I filled out the paperwork I’d become so familiar with, all the while biting the inside of my cheek. I’d cry later.
I took the next few days to work out the funeral arrangements before following Ma’s orders to take off. I wasn’t a fool, but there were some things you had to do, no matter what. I let the folks who worked at the university dean’s office with Ma know. I gave notice at the contract archaeology company I’d been working for and wrapped things up at the museum, grateful my skills as an archaeologist were transferable and I’d be able to find another job shovel-bumming wherever I ended up. I filled out yet more paperwork and answered interminable questions. I cleaned out the apartment we’d been renting, sold everything I could, and emptied out my mother’s checking account.
I wanted to make three calls. I’d left a message for my cousin Danny, but wanted to talk to him. He would have been there in an
instant, but, disastrously, was out of town with work. And Will and Sean didn’t want to hear from me. Not after…
That was it. After the funeral, I’d run. I’d lose myself and figure out what to do with the rest of my life. I was almost twenty-five years old. The rest of my life seemed a very long time.
It was a good plan, but the day before the funeral, my last day temping at the museum, I could barely control my emotions. One minute, I thought I’d explode, feeling too much. The next, everything seemed distant, and I felt numb and detached.
I opened up the file of acquisitions I’d been working on the day Ma died. A quick look around; I was alone. I took out the figurine I’d stuck in my pocket on my way to the hospital and looked at it. It was dirty and ugly, not much longer than my middle finger. It looked a little like a doll of painted clay, its colors faded almost to a uniform beige, a woman with her hair piled on top of her head and dressed in what looked like Greek robes. It was so crudely done, so battered, it couldn’t possibly be real; it was just a souvenir from some classical tourist trap, an imitation of a votive offering or a miniature of a famous statue. It had been rolling around loose in a box of objects from a donor’s collection, probably swept up when they were clearing out her house. The box it came in could have been a museum piece itself, having originally held a Radio Shack TRS-80 Color Computer, with—dig it—four whole kilobytes of memory.
An honest mistake, picking it up that day. I’d found it that night and realized I could return it as soon as I got back to the museum. No harm done.
Looking at it now, something about the figurine spoke to me. Reminded me of something, maybe from a dream. Maybe it was the wall of sadness surrounding my better judgment, but impulsively
I deleted the description I’d just typed—
Greek, late 19th-century replica, clay
—and put the figurine back in my pocket.
I’d never stolen before, not really, and certainly not an artifact. I was as ethical in my archaeology as only the righteous new professional can be, as rigorous in my recording as in my analysis, never ignoring data that didn’t support my theories. Never even touched an artifact out of context on the spoils heap without checking with the crew boss, and even then, I marked the object with the site location.
But the box was full of old junk the donor’s heirs clearly didn’t want to be bothered with, and that thing was just…calling to me. I couldn’t look away from it, couldn’t make myself enter it into the collection, where it would be ignored again for the next hundred years.
It wasn’t gold or in any way precious; it was dirty and it was really hard to identify it until you looked hard, I told myself. It had no provenience other than the box it had come in.
I had just erased its official existence. No one would be able to tell anything was missing. I was good at leaving no trace of my passing in the world, and this was no different.
I didn’t give it another thought the rest of the day.
That night, a few of the museum folks invited me out for farewell drinks. I went, surprised they’d noticed me at all, and even more surprised when they presented me with a glossy program from a past exhibit on daily life in ancient Greece. It was out of print, hard to come by, and expensive. It was an unexpected kindness, and it made me nervous. I liked thinking I’d been invisible.
On my way home, my skin began to crawl. I’d been mugged twice in my life, despite all my vigilance and despite what I’d learned from Ma. It had turned out very badly both times. Now I saw no one. This made me even more afraid.
Then I caught a passing glimpse of a man, but my eyes are sharp, and that glimpse, in the dark at fifty meters, was enough.
The jawline and nose looked too much like the faded picture I kept in the bottom of my backpack. While he didn’t have my dark hair, cut above shoulder length in an attempt to mitigate split ends and the occasional Kool-Aid home coloring, I could see other resemblances to me in his big eyes, small nose, and pointed chin. Slight build, Harley-Davidson T-shirt…