Children of Chaos Page 6

  I dream of deliverance. Not granted but taken from the bloodied pious hands of those who cling to it so desperately.

  For the first time, he shows me his hands, pushing them closer until they puncture the darkness. They are coated with slick crimson which drips from each finger, shiny and brilliantly red. Fresh blood, I think, blood close to the surface just recently spilled. His eyes take on a mischievous glint like a naughty little boy who knows a secret. But in that moment he seems more sorrowful than frightening, something to be pitied rather than feared.

  A large black ant scurries through the blood along his index finger, dragging the carcass of its red brother. He studies it with great fascination.

  I dream of the dead.

  “So do I, Martin.”

  Flies buzz, collect in his hair. He seems pleased.

  I dream of you.

  * * *

  The moment I came awake it was evident my headache had evolved into a full-blown migraine. The pain was so excruciating I could barely stand it. I rolled out of bed, threw off my clothes, and turned on the shower as daggers stabbed down into the back of my skull, neck and shoulders. Staggering over to the toilet, I collapsed there a moment, head spinning and nausea frothing up into my throat. Just before steam clouded it over, I caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror over the sink. I was so pale I wiped a space clear just to be sure I’d truly seen my own reflection. The dark circles under my eyes and decided lack of blood in my ghostly white face gave me all the appeal of a demonic circus clown.

  Somewhere in my dreams I saw Martin’s painted face slowly emerging from beneath loose sand, his eyes wide and intense as he rose up and out of the earth.

  I stepped into the shower and forced myself under the hot water. As it stung my skin and I felt myself coming more fully awake, I fell back against the porcelain then slid down into a sitting position in the tub below. I stayed there a long while and let the pulsating water ease the tension in my muscles and sooth the pounding in my head.

  By the time I finally got around to washing I’d nearly run out of hot water. I dried off, brushed my teeth then wrapped the towel around my waist and pulled my old suitcase down off the closet shelf. Battered and scarred, it was the same one I’d brought with me years ago when I’d left Massachusetts and first briefly lived in New York City before settling upstate. I hadn’t used it in some time, but just holding it in my hands brought back memories of long ago. The things I’d dreamed of then. I’d still believed I might be able to escape all this, that I could write my way out of it and become a great author. Nine novels later I wasn’t any closer to that than I’d been when I started out.

  Maybe Janine Cummings was right. Maybe my career, such as it was, had already ended and I just didn’t realize it yet.

  I packed a few things, enough for a day or two, and then ventured over to my desk. Gillian and my parents watched me from under glass, trapped within their tiny frames. My laptop was there too, mocking me. A stack of pages I’d hoped would eventually become a new novel sat next to it, held in place with an old glass paperweight that had belonged to my mother.

  Turning my back on all of it, I sparked a cigarette and raised the window shade. Somewhere on the next block a car alarm went off. The day was winding down and the sun had already begun its descent. The air seeping in was cooler than earlier, and it felt good, sobering.

  Night was coming, unstoppable and creeping closer like always.

  And under its cover, for the first time in twenty years, I was going home.

  FOUR

  Located in the Mohawk Valley and not far from the city of Rome, Utica had a long and storied history dating back to its settlement in 1773. An industrial city on the Erie Canal, it was home to a mostly working-class population, and in recent years had suffered a rather severe economic decline. Though word was the city would soon be on track for a major rebound, the last several years had been rough. I don’t know why or how I ended up there exactly, there was just a certain gritty charm to the place that as a writer I’d found inspiring. Besides, any town that had produced Annette Funicello couldn’t be all bad.

  I rented a car from a place on South Street then swung onto Genesee and headed for the New York State Thruway. By six o’clock I was well on my way.

  I tried again to anticipate what might be waiting for me all those hours down the road. Would Martin himself be there? I wondered what he’d done with his life over the past twenty-six years. My memory of him as a teenager—the last memory I had of him—swept through my mind. Such a long time ago, I thought, glancing at myself in the rearview as evidence.

  Such a very long time.

  Two bathroom breaks, one stop for a quick dinner and five and a half hours later I pulled off the highway onto the exit for New Bethany. The small town I’d left behind had become something closer to a modest city, and it took me several minutes to get my bearings. Luckily an old motor lodge that had been on the outskirts of town since I was a kid was still there, though it had since been bought out by an inexpensive motel chain and completely renovated.

  Right around midnight I rented a room from a bored old man at the desk, and after filling my ice bucket, hunkered down with a few drinks and my free HBO. Between the long drive, lack of sleep the night before and general stress of the situation I’d found myself in, I was exhausted, so I let the booze relax me awhile and watched the tail end of a movie.

  Before long, I drifted off to sleep.

  This time, thankfully, the Devil let me be.

  * * *

  Morning brought with it my usual muscle aches and pains but thankfully no headache. Determined to make a few stops prior to Mrs. Doyle’s house, I rolled out of bed fairly early, showered and shaved, threw on some fresh jeans, a hooded sweatshirt and my leather jacket then hit the streets.

  I’d hoped for sun but found a downpour instead. The rain had followed me home—if I could even call this place that anymore—and could only wonder what it was disturbing, awakening as it assaulted the earth.

  Maneuvering through New Bethany I was amazed at how much it had changed. Where woods and open space had once resided there now stood strip malls, fast food restaurants, parking lots and apartment complexes. The sleepy little New England town I’d known had ceased to exist.

  New Bethany was located on the south shore of Massachusetts between Boston and Cape Cod. When I lived there the town population was right around three thousand people. Now it was closer to ten thousand.

  But Piney Lane, the quiet little avenue I’d grown up on, was largely the same tree-lined and typical small town street it had always been. Only now it catered to people with much higher incomes. All the homes there had changed. A few had been replaced entirely and the rest were renovated or substantially added onto. The house I’d lived in with my mother looked so different I didn’t even recognize it, and at first mistakenly drove right by.

  After doubling back, I saw that the wide-open side and backyards I’d spent countless hours playing in had been landscaped to include numerous shrubs, a stone fountain and even a tennis court in the back. A large, neatly trimmed hedge now stood along the front of the property, blocking much of the house behind it, but even with a limited view I could see the modest home I’d known had been converted into a much larger house.

  Feeling no connection to this place whatsoever, I moved on.

  The cemetery where my mother was buried had once been a secluded and quiet area at the end of a lonely country road, the grounds surrounded by acres of beautiful forest. Now a highway ran parallel to an island of tombstones plunked amidst numerous homes, convenience stores, office space and a movie multiplex.

  I followed the narrow paved paths between the rows of graves, creeping along in the rental car until I’d found the site I’d come looking for. There, in the rain, a dark gray stone with my mother’s name and dates of birth and death etched into its face. Someone had placed a small basket of flowers there at some point, but like everything else here they were long dead. I
turned off the engine and sat in the car awhile, watching the grave. My father took off when I was six and I never saw him again. I heard he moved to somewhere in Alaska but I barely knew the man and had few memories of him. There were times I missed him anyway, or the idea of him, but I’d gone so long without him he rarely occurred to me much anymore. My mother and I, on the other hand, had been very close, but I’d lost her quite young too. I was an only child, so there was no one else to lean on, confide or find comfort in, and I’d never felt as alone as I did the day I watched them lower my mother’s body into the earth. She was a good woman, and I adored her. A nurse, she worked long and grueling shifts at the local hospital to support us both, and though we were probably closer to poor than not for most of my childhood, I’d never known it. She dated frequently but never remarried, and I never wanted for a thing. I grew up knowing I was safe and loved, but what I hadn’t realized then was just how precious that was. I hadn’t felt it again since and probably never would. Everything now lay wrapped up and tucked away in one tight little lifeless cocoon, this old life, this old town, these old memories and emotions. None of it was alive anymore, all of it dead and so distant it often seemed like I was referencing experiences from a book or some dated movie I’d seen years ago. I’d shut the door on the remains of most of it myself. Survival required it. This life and these people were over. I had to keep moving and leave them behind. Gillian was my only family now. She was all I had left. The rest were ghosts.

  Ten minutes later I pulled into a parking lot across town. I’d broken out in a cold sweat when I was still several blocks away, but as I came to a stop and looked out over the lot and the enormous grocery store before me, I realized the field was gone. All of it, gone, paved over, and the surrounding forest flattened. I couldn’t even see the river on the far side, only the supermarket, a Best Buy, Wal-Mart, Staples and so on, with endless condominiums and office parks beyond. Twenty years before, when I’d come to bury my mother, the supermarket and some condos had already been built, but since then, like the rest of New Bethany, expansion had spread like wildfire.

  It was as if the entire landscape of my childhood had never existed.

  After a few deep breaths I slowly scanned the area in an attempt to estimate where things had been previously, but it was virtually impossible.

  In some small way, I was grateful.

  Moments later I learned even the dump road had changed. Developers had squeezed houses onto whatever scraps of land had been left there as well.

  But one small patch of field, and the boulder, remained.

  With a smile, I pulled over to the side of the road, left the engine running and let the memories wash over me.

  None came. Only flashes and whispers, as if something on the other side of that rain was holding them back, refusing to set them free even for an instant.

  An awful feeling of dread, of being not only watched but studied, suddenly became so strong it was palpable. I could feel something coming, moving closer. Leaning toward the window, I squinted through the downpour at the boulder and the tiny patch of field that remained beyond it.

  Something moving…not just through the rain but within it…

  I rubbed my eyes and forced a swallow as my heart crashed my chest. I was certain I’d seen someone moving across the field just then, methodically making his way through the rain toward the car. But it was gone now…or hidden by the rain, masked within the steady thick walls of it gushing from dark, gray, dead skies.

  Even here, where nothing bad had happened and where there should’ve been joy, there lived only sorrow, regret and fear. The stench of all three hung in the air like the slaughtered carcass of a slowly rotting animal.

  Rain drummed the roof and ran across the windshield, blurring it. Everything echoed like I’d been sealed inside a large and hollow drum.

  I dream of the dead.

  Over my right shoulder, the opposite direction I was looking in, something quietly squeaked along the passenger-side window. Like a hand pressed flat against the glass then slowly, deliberately dragged across it.

  A chill licked the nape of my neck.

  I dream of you.

  I spun and looked to the window, my back pressed against the door and my face a frightened grimace.

  Rain…only rain…

  Dropping the car into Drive, I slammed the gas and tore off back in the direction I’d come.

  Something along the road behind me screeched in agony.

  Or maybe it was just the wind.

  I didn’t look back.

  * * *

  Martin, Jamie and I grew up in the same neighborhood. Martin, his older sister Thelma, and his parents lived a few streets over, and Jamie, his parents and numerous siblings only a few doors down on Piney Lane. But the address Janine Cummings had given me was for Ocean Drive, a posh street that ran along the coastline. It was the wealthiest part of town, and as kids we’d rarely ventured there. Even years later, as I turned onto Ocean Drive and began searching for #12, I felt strange and out of place there. The homes were sprawling and luxurious, from extravagant bungalows set on beachfront properties to literal mansions hidden behind high hedges, ornate fences, stone pillars or at the end of long, winding driveways. Most who lived on Ocean Drive came from old money, and I couldn’t help but wonder how they’d welcomed Martin’s mother, a lowly teacher’s aide whose late husband had been a laborer. It also seemed odd that Mrs. Doyle would choose this neighborhood, but maybe in her mind it was a step up to live among the rich. After all, she was one of them now. For me, the area was still a source of discomfort, as I felt like at any moment the residents would discover I was there and have me escorted out.

  The strange happenings at the boulder were still clinging to me when I found the address I’d come looking for.

  I dismissed them as best I could, pulled onto a circular drive of white stone and parked in front of a large brick home book-ended by a three-stall garage and a beautiful glass sunroom. Extravagant flower gardens occupied much of the professionally maintained lawn and grounds, and in back I could see a gazebo and another wide swath of manicured lawn. Beyond lay a stretch of beach, a private dock and the Atlantic Ocean.

  As I left my rental car and moved through the rain, subtle yellow light filled the front windows, softened by the filter of translucent white curtains.

  I rang the bell. Had a butler in a tuxedo or a woman in a French maid’s outfit answered the door I wouldn’t have been the least bit surprised. Instead, it was Janine Cummings.

  “Mr. Moretti,” she said warmly, stepping aside so I could enter. “Mrs. Doyle will be so pleased you’re here. Please, come in, come in.”

  I stepped into a foyer larger than my apartment. Marble floors led to a staircase set back in the center of the front room, and an ornate chandelier was poised above mostly antique furniture, beautiful artwork in heavy wooden frames and numerous vases of fresh flowers. I shook the excess rain from my jacket and looked around guiltily. “This is quite the place.”

  “Yes, Mrs. Doyle has wonderful taste.” Janine said. She was dressed to the hilt again, this time in a tight black dress that stopped just above her knees, black heels, onyx dangle earrings and the same designer eyeglasses. One wrist sported a series of gold bangle bracelets that jingled whenever she moved. “How was your drive? Not too bad, I take it?”

  “Peachy.”

  She reached for my jacket. “Let me take that for you and I’ll—”

  “I’ll hang onto it if you don’t mind,” I said, waving her away.

  “Can I get you anything?”

  “I’m fine, thanks.”

  “Are you sure? Some coffee or—”

  “Look, I don’t mean to be rude, Ms. Cummings, but let’s just get to it, OK?”

  With an impervious smile, Janine escorted me through the foyer, her heels clicking on the marble with each step and enough jiggle in her stride to hold my attention. The house was huge and expensively furnished but utterly lifeless. It felt
more like a museum than a residence, was quiet as a morgue and about as warm. After following a long hallway and passing enormous formal living and dining rooms that looked like they’d been decorated in anticipation of a magazine shoot, we entered the sunroom.

  The furniture was mostly Rattan and expensive wicker, and coupled with the plethora of plants, gave the room a tropical feel.

  On a bright and sunny day I imagined the room was probably quite beautiful, but with the rain pummeling and sluicing along the curved glass walls, obscuring the world outside in a steady watery stream, it felt more like I’d wandered into an underwater cavern.

  In the far corner was a beautiful bistro set, and in the center of the room, looking wildly out of place, sat an oak cart with a television and a VCR that had obviously been wheeled in earlier and positioned there. At a table across from it sat a shockingly thin, frail elderly woman in an understated pale blue dress, her hair white as cotton and combed straight back from her face in a rather severe style. On the table before her were various folders and loose papers, as well as a silver tray containing two glasses filled with ice and a carafe of iced tea.

  Bernadette Doyle looked up at me with pastel eyes and smiled as if it hurt her to do so. “Phillip,” she said in a soft voice, her tone one of relief.

  “Hello Mrs. Doyle.” I moved closer and offered my hand. I barely recognized her. Though I guessed she was probably only in her late sixties she looked well into her seventies. She took my hand in hers so lightly I could barely feel it, her skin like cool sheer paper and the bones in her hand pronounced and pointy against my palm. “It’s good to see you.”