The Bleeding Season (32 page)

“Bodies popping up out of the fucking ground and all they’re worried about are summer businesses being down,” Rick said.

My hands were sore, my knuckles covered in several small cuts and gashes, but the bleeding had been minor and stopped on the ride back to Potter’s Cove.  I looked down at them, flexed my fingers.  “Let me get one of those beers.”

Rick held the cans out, dangled them from his grip on the vacant ring of plastic.  I reached out and plucked one loose.  It was cold and felt good in my hand.  The heat was still high but a slight ocean wind made it somewhat tolerable.  I opened the can and took a long swig.  It could have been—should have been—a beautiful night.

“We could’ve been killed tonight,” Donald said, and it was then that I realized we’d been speaking in hushed tones.

“But we weren’t,” I answered.

“We could have been.”

“Yeah, but we weren’t.”

Donald ran a hand through his hair, eyes trained on the beach below.  “The bodies will keep turning up, and once they’ve reached the end of the road Bernard created, all of this will end.  They’ll either never know who the killer was, or they’ll somehow discover it was Bernard.  Regardless, he’s dead and gone, and there’ll be nothing anyone can do.  After the news stories have been reported, the television shows have aired and the books have been written, this whole horrible business will end.  It’ll just fade away quietly until it’s reduced to some vaguely heinous memory, a scar Potter’s Cove will always have to endure, but little else.  It’ll be a
Remember When
 bit, that’s all.  And in the end, none of it will have meant a goddamn thing.  It’s a storm, Alan, and I plan to sit and wait it out.”  He turned to me, his face half concealed in darkness, half illuminated by the moon and alternating swaths of police lights.  “And once it passes, I’ll get on with this semblance of a fucking life I have.  It’s not much—God knows—but it’s all I’ve got.  I’m out.”

I killed the beer.  “I’m sorry about tonight, I never should’ve—”

“I’m out.”

“Donald, you heard what that woman said tonight, you saw—you
saw
 her hands.”

Rick moved a few feet ahead of us toward the edge of the bluff and sunk down onto the seat of his pants, the beers balanced in his lap.

“Yes,” Donald told me, “I heard what she said and I saw her hands.”

“And you still want to just walk away?”

“You’re flipping over rocks, Alan.  Don’t be upset with me if I don’t want to roll around with the bugs slithering in the mud beneath them.”  He nervously wiped a bead of sweat from his temple.  “I’ve never been in a brawl in my life, and here I am pushing forty and suddenly I’m in some used tampon of a bar trying to avoid being killed by lowlife thugs who may or may not have known some prostitute Bernard was seeing.  I’m listening to a woman either possessed or insane babbling about evil spirits and darkness and grave soil, her skin splitting and bleeding right in front of me like some cheap parlor trick only it’s real—it’s real because I saw it and felt it.  But it’s still madness, Alan, and it’s only going to get worse.  I want nothing more to do with any of it.”

I tossed the empty can aside, in Rick’s direction, and squared off with Donald.  “Sticking your head in the sand and hiding isn’t the answer.”

“Call it whatever you’d like.  I’m out.”

“Donald, I—”

“I’m sorry, Alan.  I’m out.”

I was hoping Rick might back me up but he was watching the beach or the water or the night sky and clearly had no intention of getting involved.

Donald let a hand rest on my shoulder and gave it a gentle squeeze.  “I need a cigarette and a drink.  Beer’s not going to come anywhere near touching what I require this evening.  I’ll be inside, you guys are welcome to join me.”

I watched him turn and walk back along the path toward his cottage.  The darkness and trees swallowed him within seconds.

“He’s right, man,” Rick said from behind me.

I moved over toward him and crouched down.  He had opened another beer and was nearly finished with it.  “You out too?” I asked.

“It’s a miracle one of those assholes wasn’t packed, Alan.”  He glanced at me and smiled, somewhat helplessly.  His eyes were red and glassy.  “I get into scuffles all the time, shit, it’s my fucking job, happens at the club on a regular basis.  But it’s different there.  It’s my turf, I’m in control, I know the situation, the score, and in most cases, the players.  It’s a controlled setting.  But in a place like tonight it’s different.  You never know what you’re walking into.”

I knelt into the sand, felt it shift and sink under my weight, then sat back on my heels.  The faint sounds of a police radio echoed up along the dunes before escaping across the slow steady waves of the Atlantic.  “You saved our asses back there.”

Rick shrugged.  “You’re gonna go look for that chick, aren’t you.”

“Yes.”

“You’re playing around with people who aren’t like us, man.  These people don’t live in the same world we do.  Shit, they’re just barely on the same planet.  You go fucking around with that kind of crowd and all the shit they’re into and sooner or later you’re gonna find yourself in a situation.  It’ll either get you killed or you’ll end up killing somebody else, and either way, Alan, you fucking lose.”  He chugged some beer, belched.  “I can’t be in situations like that, man, you understand?  What if I’d killed that guy tonight?  Oh, sorry, your honor, my dead friend and the motherfucking spirit world made me do it in self-defense.  I can bring that fucking whale into court in a wheelbarrow and she can do her bleeding fingers trick.  Yeah, that’ll work.”

“This shit’s not funny, man.”

“You see me laughing?”  Rick shook his head to emphasize the point.  “I’m not ever going back to prison.  Not for anything.  Not for anybody.  What if somebody had gotten killed tonight?”

“Rick, what if whatever’s out there wants us dead anyway?”

A cooler breeze rustled the tall dune grass as if in answer, but it was chased by a swell of heat and continued on through the trees behind us, making the respite from humidity short-lived.

“Then we’re probably gonna die,” he said.  “Look, I’ll always be here if you need me—you know that—but I can’t keep chasing—”

“You saw what happened in that backroom tonight.”

He turned to me quickly, like he planned to snap at me, but instead looked away and drank his beer.  After a while he said, “Let the dead lie, Alan.”  Rick opened another beer, held it out for me.  “Let the Devil have his Hell, and let Bernard and the rest of them rot there.  Go find Toni and get her back.  Whatever’s real or whatever isn’t, that’s the only world—the only life that matters.”

I began to respond but thought better of it.  I took the beer he was offering and replaced it with my hand.  We shook for what seemed forever.  When he finally let go he looked out at the water and quietly continued drinking.  I wanted to tell him there wasn’t enough beer in the world to make all this go away, but stayed quiet and gazed down on the scene of the crime instead.

Somewhere down there was that darkness beneath the dirt Mama had spoken of.  Darkness you didn’t come back from because you had to be dead to be there.

And not only was I on my way there, I knew now I’d be going alone.

CHAPTER 24

The prospect of returning to an empty apartment was less than thrilling, but I did it anyway.  I checked the answering machine, hopeful to find something from Toni, but there were no messages.  The refrigerator was nearly empty and the cupboards weren’t doing much better, so I called downstairs and caught the pizza parlor just before they closed.  One of the kids who worked there ran me up a couple of plain slices and a Coke. I ate out on the steps and let the sounds of Saturday night in downtown Potter’s Cove distract me for a while.  The apartment was beyond hot, and everywhere I looked I saw Toni.  The place still smelled of her, of her cologne and gels and powders and lotions, and even though she had taken quite a few things with her traces remained, traces of
us
.

By the time I’d finished eating and forced myself under a cold shower, it was nearly two in the morning.  My back was sore, the side of my head where I’d been punched was throbbing and my hands still ached.  Rather than think about how old and out of shape I felt at that moment, I did my best to enjoy the brief break from the humidity the cool water provided.

I emerged to find that things had quieted the way things do in towns—even big towns—after midnight.  I stood at the foot of the bed and looked at the rumpled sheets for a while.  I’d been unable to sleep in it since Toni left.

I wrapped a towel around my waist, went into the den and settled down onto the couch, certain I’d be unable to sleep.  Within minutes, I had slipped off.

I awakened in the morning to the realization that I’d had the dream again.  This time, in addition to Bernard and the strange people accompanying him, Mama Toots was there too, wiggling fat bloody fingers at me and grinning demonically with her grimy teeth.

My body was stiff and sore, and although I had slept, I didn’t feel rested at all, and wondered if I’d ever be able to totally relax again.  I rubbed my eyes, stood up and shuffled to the bathroom.

While I dressed all I could think about was the bar and everything that had happened there.  The events continued to replay in my mind despite my attempts to concentrate on other things, and I felt confronted by a strange fusion of satisfaction and anxiety.

I dressed in a pair of jeans, sneakers and t-shirt, then went to the bedroom closet and pulled a large lockbox from the top shelf.  It contained several holsters, my 9mm, a box of ammo and two clips.  I checked the weapon over, laid it on the bed then turned to the holsters and selected one that attached to my belt.  Grabbing a clip of ammo, I shut the box, locked it and returned it to the shelf.

Because of my job I was licensed to carry a concealed firearm, but the only time I ever did was during periodic work details that required me to do so.  I felt strange strapping on a gun outside of work, but I had no idea what might be waiting for me out there this time.  Wading through the dark alone was bad enough; I didn’t intend to do it empty-handed as well.

I secured the holster and gun to the back of my belt and pulled my t-shirt down over it.  Studying myself in the mirror, I stretched the shirt out a bit until it hung looser and the bulge was less noticeable.  Sweat had already formed across my forehead and down the back of my neck.  It was a little after eight o’clock, so I knew if the humidity was already this high we were in for another scorcher.  Strange to see a heat wave this early in the season, I thought.  But then again, everything else had gone haywire, why not weather patterns too?  

On the nearby bureau one of our wedding pictures distracted me.  We looked impossibly young, happy and unaware, the two us sitting at the head table, Toni in her gown and me in my tuxedo, arms entwined while sipping champagne from each other’s glasses.

Bells from a church about a mile up the street chimed, echoed beautifully in the distance, reminding me today was Sunday.

I reached out and gently laid the photograph face down.

*   *   *

Milner Avenue was an old, nearly forgotten stretch of desolate road not far from the airport.  At the very end of the road sat the shell of an ancient mill that was slowly crumbling from years of neglect.  Most of the outer walls were covered in graffiti, and the grass around the property was badly overgrown and unkempt.  Garbage littered the area.  Amidst the brush and vacant sand lots an occasional ramshackle cottage emerged, remnants of the inexpensive housing provided decades earlier for some of the workers employed by the then thriving mill.  Most of the tenements were condemned and boarded shut.

I drove the four-mile length of Milner so I’d know where it came out, and found that beyond the old mill was a dirt road that eventually led to an intersecting paved boulevard.  Less than a mile from there, I came across an onramp back to the state highway.        

Comfortable with the way in and out, I circled around and this time paid closer attention to the tachometer from the moment I pulled onto the avenue.

A little more than a mile in, in the middle of a dirt lot horseshoed by an expanse of brush and dead trees, I saw a small cottage off by itself just as Mama had described.  It was set atop cinder blocks and in horrible shape, but still looked somewhat livable.  There were no cars parked alongside the cottage, but there was an old mailbox at the edge of the lot closest to the road.  I checked my watch.  It was nearly nine o’clock.

I continued on a ways, then turned around and came back again.  Diagonally across from the cottage I pulled over to the side and dropped the car into Park.  The far-off rumblings of a slowly awakening city battled with the hum of the engine.  The desolation of this empty and forgotten corridor on the outskirts of the city made me uncomfortable.  It was the kind of place where you could scream, and even if anyone in the distance was able to hear you, odds are, no one would care.  I leaned back against the seat and felt my gun press into the small of my back.  Although I had never drawn or fired it except at the range, the reminder of its presence gave me a slight sense of security nonetheless.

After watching the house for a few minutes, I climbed from the car and slowly approached the property.

Dulled by the haze of humidity, just over the span of brush and dead trees, the sun hung low but fierce in the sky.  I moved across the dirt lot until the shade of the cottage itself blocked the rays.  I gave a quick look around.  The building was in rough shape, and the screen door and screens on the front windows were old and battered.  A filthy bare bulb sat in a socket above the front door and an ancient welcome mat had been thrown down before it.  I knocked and waited.  Nothing.  I knocked again.  More nothing.

After a moment I stepped over to the window to the left of the door and leaned into it, cupping my hands on either side of my head so I might see the interior of the cottage.  The screen was hard to see through however, and the window itself was so dirty it blurred all that lay beyond it.  I backed away, knocked a third time.