“I think we need to find a cop, Christina. I can’t believe I actually
just said that, but we need some help. I suggest we pay up here, then take
a drive past the Parr’s Landing police station and find either the young
jackass or the old one. Any cop in a storm,” he said lamely, trying to make
a joke.
But Christina didn’t laugh and, of course, neither did Billy.
Outside, the rain had turned to wet snow, and the skies were bitter
and dark with low-hanging clouds, the same argentite colour as the cliffs.
The police station
was as Jeremy had found it that morning—still
empty, still illuminated. Billy thought briefly about searching for the
hockey bag with his father’s manuscript in it, but there was a fine line
between checking out a bizarre story about an abandoned police station
and committing an actual crime by tampering with tagged evidence.
He looked through the station window where Christina watched
him anxiously from the Chevelle. He shook his head at her:
Nope, no one
here.
After Billy got back in the car, Christina said, “What now?”
Billy thought for a moment, then said, “Let’s go back to your mother-in-law’s Norman chateau. It might be worth talking to Morgan about her
friend, Finn. He may have told her something that might help us find
him before he—”
“Before he what?”
“Before it gets any colder,” Billy said quickly.
They found Finn huddled
by the side of the hill leading up to the
driveway to Parr House as though he was trying to decide whether to
proceed up to the house itself.
Finn was leaning against his Schwinn, his pyjamas stiff with icy rain.
In the basket of his bike, Christina saw that he still had the mason jar of
water he’d brought into the house that morning—‘holy water,’ he’d called
it, whatever that meant. Finn’s body was shaking dangerously. He was
clearly skirting hypothermia.
“For the love of
God,
” Christina said, slamming on the brakes. “What
on earth is he doing out in this rain?”
Billy said, “That’s the kid? That’s Morgan’s friend?”
“Yes! Billy, get him, would you? Put him in the back seat? Mother of
Christ.”
Billy opened his door and ran out to where Finn stood. Christina
couldn’t hear what Billy said, but she saw Finn flinch away, then draw
in close to him. Then she saw Billy take off his leather jacket and wrap it
around the boy.
Billy picked him up in his arms—effortlessly, she noted—and
carried him to the car. He opened the back passenger-side door and put
him on the seat.
Christina turned around in the driver’s seat and said, “Finn, for
heaven’s sake, what are you doing out here? Let’s get you up to the house,
and warm. You’ll catch your death!”
“I’m cuh-cuh-cuh cold,” Finn said through chattering teeth.
“Of course you’re cold,” Christina said. “Good Lord, let’s get you into
a hot bath right away and warm you up. Why did you leave?”
Finn looked down, refusing to meet her eyes. His narrow shoulders
rocked with repeated waves of shivering.
“Never mind,” she said, flooring the accelerator. In that moment,
she didn’t care whether Adeline was watching her through the upstairs
window, ready to berate her for whipping up the gravel drive. She needed
to get Finn inside. Whatever else was going on, Christina was still a
mother.
Morgan could just make out
Finn’s face under the high stack of
blankets atop Christina’s bed. Finn had let Christina bathe him in a hot
tub, and had let her dry him with rough Turkish towels and put him to
bed.
Christina knew that boys could be strange about being nude in front
of anyone, let alone females, related or otherwise, but Finn hadn’t been
strange. He’d been compliant and docile with Christina, looking anxious
and fretful when she stepped out of his line of sight. He even called her
“Mom” once.
She didn’t believe the story he’d told her in the bathtub, the story
about vampires and monsters and sunlight burning up his dog, but
whatever had happened to this boy—whatever he’d seen—had clearly
shattered him.
“Finn,” Christina said softly when she’d cleared away his bowl. “Is it
OK if Dr. Lightning—Billy—comes in and talks with you? He wants to
hear what you told Morgan and me?”
Finn nodded. “OK,” he said. “But he won’t believe me.”
“It’s all right, Finn. Just tell him what you told us.”
Christina nodded to Billy, who had been standing in the doorway.
He entered the room and sat down in an armchair across from the bed.
Christina had made Billy promise not to ask about the bloody hockey bag.
Billy asked, “How are you feeling, son?”
“Fine, I guess,” Finn replied. “Cold.”
“You’ll warm right up,” Billy said. “Now, would you mind telling me what happened? Just like you told Morgan and her mom? Morgan told me it’s a bit of a scary story. I don’t want you to be scared, because you’re safe here. But I know a bit about spooky stories myself. I’m a teacher, you know. At a university. Do you know what a university is?”
“Of course I know what a university is,” Finn said weakly. “Just because I’m a kid doesn’t mean I’m stupid.”
Billy laughed, a full-throated, warm laugh. “Of course not, Finn.
Sorry, it was a stupid question. Grownups can be the dumb ones sometimes. Now, can you tell me what happened?”
“OK. Well,” Finn said, “a vampire must have taken my dog, Sadie. I put her out in the yard and the next morning she was gone. When she came back, she was all bitten up. When I took her for a walk, the sun came up and she went on fire. Then my dad went up to look for her body and he didn’t come home. When he came home, he was different. He was horrible. He had long sharp teeth and he bit my mom in the neck and killed her.”
Billy spoke calmly and neutrally. “How do you know he was a vampire, Finn?”
“Because he had long sharp teeth and he bit my mom in the neck and killed her,” Finn said patiently. “Because when I put a cross in his face, it burned him,” Finn said. “My dad screamed when it touched him. That’s the only way you can hurt them—crosses, holy water. Stuff like that. And you can only kill them with wooden stakes or by dragging them out into the sunlight. Everybody knows that.”
“Finn, have you ever thought there were vampires here before? I mean, in Parr’s Landing?”
Finn’s expression was scornful. “You don’t believe me,” he said. “You’re just fibbing.”
“I’m really interested, Finn,” Billy said softly. “There have been some strange things happening up here over the years. And, most of all, I believe you that something pretty awful happened to your mother and father. Now, why do you think that there are vampires in Parr’s Landing?”
Finn thought for a moment. “Once when I went for a walk with Sadie, we were up by Spirit Rock and she was really scared. She was barking and whining. She never made that much noise. She was
scared
.”
“Do you remember where you were, Finn? I mean, pretty close?”
“Up under by the paintings, on the cliffs. In my comics, sometimes dogs can tell when there’s a vampire’s grave around. I think this vampire’s grave was there. I think the vampire woke up somehow.”
Billy sat very still. “Finn, do you know any other stories from around here? You know, scary ones?”
“No,” he said. “What kind of stories?”
“You know, legends?”
Finn paused. “Not really. I once heard some of the older guys talking about a Wendigo. But that’s just a spook story to scare kids,” he added scornfully. “Nobody believes that one. It’s so fake.”
“What do you think?”
Christina and Billy were sitting in front of the fire Jeremy had
built in Adeline’s ground-floor study. Even though Jeremy had assured
her that Adeline wasn’t in the house—no one knew where she was, nor
much cared at the moment—Christina was still uncomfortable there.
She was convinced that Adeline was going to come walking through the
door any second, eyes blazing, demanding to know how they
dared
make
themselves so at home in her study. Jeremy, for his own reasons, couldn’t
bear to remain in the study, and Christina had sent Morgan to her room
to read.
Billy said, “Are you asking me if I think Finn’s father is a vampire?”
“Of course not! For heaven’s sake, Billy.” She shook her head. “I’m
asking what you think actually happened?”
“I have no idea,” he admitted. He stood up and walked over to
the fire. “But Finn believes his story exactly as he told to us. I’m no
psychologist, Christina, but he really believes it. As an anthropologist, I
have to take into account that Finn—who has no connection to Richard
Weal, other than finding the hockey bag—seems to be suffering from
another variation of the documented Wendigo psychosis, minus the
anthropophagy.”
“The
what
?”
“The desire to eat human flesh,” Billy said. “It’s an established
element of Wendigo psychosis. In Finn’s case, he just believes the myth
without wanting to be part of it.”
“Jesus Christ, Billy,” she said, shuddering. “He’s a child. And he’s not
talking about the Wendigo, he’s talking about vampires. Actual ones, like
in the Dracula movies.”
Billy shrugged. “One legend or another,” he said, sounding
embarrassingly professorial, even to himself. “Finn has just grafted
his version on the myth in response to the trauma he experienced.” He
looked at his watch. “Christina, it’s four in the afternoon. We need to find
a cop. This is ridiculous. We have a boy upstairs in bed with no parents.
I’m not sure that’s even legal. I’m going to drive into town. If Thomson
and McKitrick still aren’t in the goddamn station, I’ll drive around until
I find someone. You stay here. I’ll be back with the cavalry.”
“Billy?” Christina said. “Please be careful?”
He thought of making another lame joke, or a glib retort, but Billy
realized two things: that Christina meant it, that she cared. And that he
felt warmed by that care.
Not for the first time, he cursed the circumstances of meeting this
woman so early in her widowhood, when mourning was still so fresh. But
he still felt warmed.
“Hold on,” Christina said. “I’ll drive you back to the motel so you can
pick up your truck. I’d let you take the Chevelle, but we may need it for
Finn later.”
Billy had done two loops
through the empty streets of Parr’s Landing
before, entirely by haphazard chance, he turned onto Brandon Nixon
Road and found himself pulling up in front of the scorched-out jumble of
charred buildings with the police cruiser parked in front of it.
How did I never see this before?
Billy thought, surveying the darkened
ruin.
What a goddamn fuck-ugly mess, even in a town full of goddamn fuckugly messes.
Wet snow had begun to fall heavily, and it was starting to cling to
the ground, flowering the autumn oaks and maples along the side of the
road. The snow had begun to layer the burnt boards, highlighting them
with streaks and clumps of white.
Billy approached the police cruiser and peered in through the
windows. He rapped on the glass with his knuckles—softly, but with
tredpidation.
Of course it was empty. He hadn’t expected to find McKitrick or his
boss in it, crouched wolfishly on the edge of the road in their police car
on this lonely road, had he? Or
had
he? And what was the cruiser doing
parked here in the first place—empty like the police station, like the
streets of the town itself?
Billy called out, “Hello? Constable McKitrick? Sergeant Thomson?”
The wind suddenly picked up, scattering the wet snow and carrying
away the sound of his voice. He looked up at the darkening sky, then
down at his watch. It was now nearly five. It would be dark soon, and
there were no lights on Brandon Nixon Road.
Who do you report an abandoned cop car to? Well, to the cops. But if
there aren’t any cops around, what then?
He hesitated, then went back to his truck and took the flashlight out
of the glove box. Billy Lightning had never been a coward in his life, and
he didn’t plan to start now.
He reached behind the back seat and picked up the crowbar he kept
there, telling himself it was for just in case.
Billy smelled something inside
the rink that made his stomach twist
inside him. It was a smell that brought back a memory from St. Rita’s
with horrible vividness. It was the smell of rotten pork.
There had been a sausage plant inside the school. All the boys had
been forced to work in it at one point or another, manufacturing pork
sausage that the priests would sell locally to earn extra money for the
school. The priests told the boys their labour was pleasing in the sight of
God, and might help redeem them from their fallen Indian state. There
was no question of paying the boys, the priests explained, since the
Indian children were already subsisting on the charity of the Canadian
public and the Church.
Occasionally the pork went bad and had to be thrown out when it
was too far gone even to feed to the children.
Fuck, that awful stench,
Billy thought, covering his face in the crook
of his arm and gagging. But the smell, putrescent though it was, was
the smell of active decay. It had no place out here in a charred hockey
arena on a snowswept northern Ontario road on the edge of dusk where
nothing lived.
Billy felt his foot strike something soft. He shone the light on the
ground.
Dave Thomson, still wearing his uniform, lay at Billy’s feet, curled
up in a foetal position, eyes closed, apparently fast asleep.
Billy played his light along Thomson’s face and neck, stifling a scream
with difficulty. The wounds to Thomson’s throat had been mortal ones:
the flesh had been grated away from his jugular area, the flaps of skin
hanging like a string of maggots from two ghastly, jagged holes. There
was no way Thomson—anyone—could have survived those wounds.