Dead Willow (18 page)

“Then, let your spirit soar!” She beamed her full attention on him and he soaked it up greedily. Eunice glided over to the phonograph and replaced the needle to its outermost groove. The scratchy sounds of
Strauss
began wafting from the
Motorola
.

“This is a sprightly rendition I only recently borrowed from my cousin Grady. Do you remember him? He brought the elderberry wine to Cecilia’s wedding only to drink it himself. He had to be delivered home in the back of Jeremiah’s mule cart.” She chuckled at the memory.

Eunice remembered it as if it were only last week, and not the one hundred and fifty years that had truly passed. Davis remembered it not at all, having not met Eunice until long after her cousin’s moldering remains were in the ground.

The record had been in her collection for decades.

The angry knot in his chest pounded to get out. He had been cursed, and he did not remember doing anything to deserve it. He could not die because the tree would not let him. It would recreate him, with his memories intact. In another seven years, or six, he would get to do it all over again.

Davis laid a hand upon his jacket pocket, feeling the outline of the syringe and knowing that it was time.

Eunice had cleared a great circle in the center of the council hall. She flitted over to him and dusted her fingers lightly over his epaulets. Then, she took his left hand in hers and laid her left hand on his shoulder.

This made what he had to do bearable. This was the calm before the storm.

Davis guided her on a merry romp. It would be his final gift to her.

He waited impatiently just inside the iron fence and looked for some signs of the emergence.

He had fastened up all the buttons on his thick, wool coat and flipped the collar up, but it did little to warm his shivering bones. It was always a frigid, blustery day when he helped her from the soil and he should have taken that as a bad omen. Could anything good come from the frozen ground?

Davis pushed the toe of his boot into the edge of the soil and it crunched slightly. Not thoroughly frozen, just a hard crust that she would have to push through. What was life without its little challenges?

His numbed hands, shoved deep down into his scratchy coat pockets, were counting off the incarnations on his fingertips.

He was going to need more fingertips.

The Eunice that had helped Davis and the others from the soil so many years ago, was in her eleventh year when the dementia had first crept into her brain. By that year, every resident of the cemetery had come out. Davis was certain that the seventy-eight of them, all present and accounted for, were the entire population of Willow Tree.

He had no idea the depth of the tree’s ambition.

When Eunice had begun exhibiting signs of blackouts and memory loss, Davis had sheltered her from the others for a time. He told himself it was for her protection. She was too important an icon to be tainted by scandal.

Then, the tree had niggled its way into her brain during a closed session of the leadership council. Fenton had been sitting closest to her and had noticed a tremor in her hand.

He confided in his old friend, Colonel William Morgan Davis. Even though they had sprouted from different parts of the root and now belonged to different clans, some memories still remained of long ago campfires and bawdy songs and whiskey-fueled storytelling.

In a moment of trust, it was agreed that Davis would take Eunice into the soil a second time in as many weeks. It was believed that the tree would right that which was wrong.

It did not, of course.

What Fenton would not know was that there had been another Eunice waiting for them in the cemetery that night. By the next council meeting, this ‘new’ Eunice was her old self, and Davis decided that it was a secret best left in the soil.

This would take place fourteen more times over the next one hundred and thirty-two years. Eleven years apart became nine, and then seven, and then …

He had led the people of Willow Tree to believe that Eunice was the only resident to have never been duplicated by the tree. When it was noticed that she held no stone in the cemetery, her legend grew. When she began speaking for the tree, the legend crystallized.

What would happened, he wondered, if the next Eunice to come out of the soil turned out to be the last Eunice? What would that do to the legend? And without the legend …

Though he would never admit to it, Davis had come to suspect that the tree would not go on forever, that its power to resurrect had a shelf-life. That fleeting notion alone was enough to cause him to take a step back out of the soil.

Everyone knew to think happy thoughts in the soil.

He looked north to the grave of Josiah Pembry, where he thought that he saw some movement.

“Housekeeping.”

The voice shot passed Jess like an errant gust of wind, and she almost missed it. She stole a glance at the clock on the bedside table. Four A.M. Over two hours. She had been looking at this shit for over two hours with her mouth hanging open. And now, someone was knocking at her door.

She moved stiffly in her chair and was greeted by the numbing pain of a sleeping foot. As she reached down to massage it awake, she heard a ‘click’ and the door to her room creaked open.

Jess flashed on the graphic image still filling the screen of her laptop. She lunged at her computer as the young lady in the blue frock began to wheel in her cleaning cart. Jess slammed it shut and the woman jumped.

“Oh, I am so sorry!” she exclaimed, laying an anxious hand on her chest. “I thought no one was here!”

Jess let out an uneasy breath and cursed the pins and needles stabbing her in the foot. She knew the woman was waiting for her to respond, but nothing came to mind. Seemed this whole night had exhausted her ability to reason. Then, a candle pierced the fog.

“Do you know what time it is?” she snapped, vigorously rubbing the blood back into her foot. “Who does housekeeping at four in the morning?”

The woman seemed flustered, as if the lie wasn’t coming quickly enough. “I … I, um, got behind on my rooms. I thought this room was empty.”

“Do you always clean empty rooms in the middle of the night, or is that a question I should ask the manager?”

The woman’s lower lip started to quiver. “Should I come back later?” she asked, glancing suspiciously around the cluttered room.

Jess shot a guilty look at her laptop. The drive was still there, plugged into the port on the side, exposed.

“Yes,” she answered, a bit loudly. The woman’s attention was back on Jess. “Much later.”

“Very well.” The woman nodded politely. “Please call the front desk when you are ready.”

“Count on it.” Jess stood, favoring her groggy leg.

“Good evening.” The woman turned and pushed her cart back out into the hallway. She seemed curious about the espionage taking place in her midst. When Jess heard the door latch, she collapsed back into her chair. She wondered how much the woman had seen … and how quickly she would run and tell Eunice Pembry.

She might even get a bonus.

Jess felt the laptop calling, but she had already seen too much that couldn’t be true. Why was she drawn to it? Was it her journalistic instinct? Jess chuckled under her breath. She had only ever pretended that she had that; she never really believed it. She had always considered her audience to be a gullible lot who would gobble up whatever she fed them, and she had served them up some nasty swill.

But, they wouldn’t eat this.

Her eyes lit on the USB drive poking from the side of her laptop. She wrapped her tiny hand around it and yanked it free. It felt like a thousand pounds in her hand. Jess set it on the desk and stared at it, waiting for it to disappear in a puff of smoke, the way all of her other stories did. When it didn’t, she allowed herself to wonder.

What if …

Then she stopped, because if this ‘what if’ was actually true, then she had no business with it. A reporter much wiser and braver and more tenacious was needed here, not some third rate blogger. It needed a Snowden or a Kamkar or an Eckard. The fact that she even knew these names scared the shit out of her!

But, none of those people were in Willow Tree.

She squared her chair in front of the desk and laid her hands on the edges of her laptop. Jess imagined a burning in her fingers, and as she lifted it, she felt as if she were opening the lid to Pandora’s Box. She suspected that this was the moment she would look back on … most likely with regret.

The image was still alive on her screen.

She had seen pictures of people who had been through a fire, people whose skin had been melted off until only raw muscle remained. This was not that. These people looked like walking, blood-soaked scabs, and on some of them, the scabs were coming off.

Her zombie theory didn’t seem so far off now, except that, according to the Doctor’s notes, they didn’t walk much after this. If she understood correctly, this was how they died … unless they returned to the soil of the cemetery every time the moon was full.

What the fuck! Zombie werewolves? Jess thought that it was the biggest steaming pile of shit she had ever stepped in … and she wished she had thought of it! People who lived forever by bathing in graveyard dirt? She just might get a Pulitzer!

Except, the meteorite had been true.

The Doctor had mentioned it in her notes, the memory of a fiery ball in the sky, the feel of the heat, the sensation of the crash. How could she remember feeling something that happened one hundred and fifty years ago? To a
tree
? Jess hadn’t quite grasped that part of it, but the meteorite part she could check.

Her life would have been so much easier if there had not been a meteorite.

Newspaper clippings and letters from the war all spoke of a streaming ball of fire that had crashed into Lake Erie at the start of the Civil War. All the adjectives were used:
Blazing Fist of God
,
Fiery Angel Chariot
, the
Devil’s Tongue
.

Nothing was said of Willow Tree and the giant weeping willow, but the Doctor
remembered
it. Could she have seen those stories when she was concocting this swill? It would have been easy enough to google.

But then, there were the people. Those, who, according to Doc Crispin, had stayed out of the cemetery too long. The Doctor had shot their images with her phone, a phone which she claimed she wasn’t supposed to have. Jess was looking at one of the images right now, and it made her want to throw up.

Why invent such an elaborate deception? Publicity for the town? Jess knew that Willow Tree was a tourist trap. And while the festival surely brought in a ton of business, what about the other fifty-one weeks in the year? Did they really expect people to come looking for the undead? Did they want to become another Roswell, New Mexico?

Then, there was Josiah Pembry. Jess had met him up close and personal, and she had seen the portrait. Of course, portraits could be faked. But, had they also faked the headstone as well? Was the entire town of three thousand people in on this?

Patrick.

Where did he fall in this whole mess? Was it his job to flirt Jess into the cemetery, just as it had been Doc Crispin’s job to get her to Willow Tree? And, where had he mysteriously disappeared to after engaging the guards at the cemetery gates? He didn’t answer his phone, and when she had driven passed his shop, it was dark.

Jess had a thousand questions, none of which would make it on
Ask.com
. Journalism 101 said that if you wanted an answer, you went to the source. She looked at the USB drive sitting there ominously, not smoking, waiting for her next move.

It had been right where the Doctor had said it would be. Jess could still feel the ache in her finger joints from digging down a foot into the earth. She had begun to think she had been led on a goose chase when her gloved fingers touched the plastic bag.

Imagine her surprise at the gift the Doctor had left. Assuming that it
was
the Doctor … assuming that any of this had really happened.

Jess decided that if she couldn’t find Patrick, she would go see the only other person in Willow Tree she knew. Maybe she could get a beaker of
Jameson
for her trouble.

Jess stood at the curb and watched through the window like a beggar in front of a bakery. Doc Crispin was in her clinic doing doctorly stuff. She seemed to be cleaning her stethoscope with a spray disinfectant. Wouldn’t do for her patients to get a flesh-eating bug when they came in for a check-up.

The Doctor was also wearing a white lab coat, and she had cut her hair. Something off about that, but Jess chalked it up to a different time.

Jess had never considered herself to be prescient. She had stepped in more piles of horseshit than the average stable boy. So, when the prickly hairs on the back of her neck began to warn her that danger lurked within the walls of the clinic, she did what she always did and scratched her neck.

When she opened the door to the clinic, a little bell above her head tinkled. How quaint, but it had not been there on her first visit. The door opening sucked some of the scent from inside. Odors of bleach and other caustic chemicals attacked her nostrils. Two steps in and the silence entombed her in its cocoon. She never imagined that she would miss the strains of Merle Haggard.

Something had happened here. It looked the same, but not the same. The lighting appeared more stark, the shadows deeper. The surfaces sparkled darkly. Jess felt like she was standing on the moon.

The tinkling bell had gotten the Doctor’s attention. She laid her stethoscope on the counter and walked over to Jess. Was that a smile on her face? Jess wouldn’t have bet money on it.

“How nice to see you again, Ms. Granger,” said the Doctor amiably. “How is the finger?”

The Doctor’s posture was impeccable, and Jess had the urge to look over her shoulder. Was somebody watching them? Is that why the normally mellow Doc Crispin had such a stick up her ass this morning? Were they under surveillance?

Jess glanced over the pristine walls and cabinets and into the shadows of the corners. She didn't see any prying eyes, but that was the point of hidden cameras, wasn’t it? You never saw them before they saw you.

“Finger is fine.” Jess wiggled her digit and expected the Doctor would want to inspect it. But, she just stood her distance, hands clasped in front of her.

“Very good. It seems to be healing nicely.”

The bristly hairs on the back of Jess’ neck were doing the jitterbug.

“Maybe you should take a picture of that fine stitch work,” Jess prodded.

The Doctor smiled the same smile she had smiled since Jess had stepped in the door. “Oh, that should not be necessary. So, how may we help you today?”

She had missed her cue. Apparently, friendly banter was off the table. Jess decided to try the direct approach.

“Is what you said the truth?” she asked her head on.

The Doctor didn’t blink. “What did I say, Ms. Granger?”

Check. It was Jess’ move, and she didn’t even realize that they were playing.

“Are we going to do this dance all day?” she asked, rolling her eyes impatiently. “If we are, we need to figure out which one of us is leading.”

The Doctor took a beat, like a computer accessing a file. Then …

“Ms. Granger, why would you want to dance, when you can drink?”

Doctor Crispin walked to the cabinet, the same cabinet that had held the tall bottle of warm, brown liquor. She sat the bottle on the counter … then pulled two plastic cups from a dispenser on the wall.

It was all wrong, thought Jess; this wasn’t how it had happened. Everything about this was off. She watched the Doc pour the whiskey into the cups as if she were performing a magic trick. A couple of fingers in each, just like before. She sealed the bottle and slipped it back into the cabinet. When she handed her one of the cups, Jess stared at it like it had been pulled out of thin air. The Doctor brought her cup to her lips and tipped it up. The whiskey slid down her throat like she had been doing this all of her life.

Jess waited for her instincts to kick in, but she had ignored the hairs on her neck for so long that they had stopped pestering her. She looked longingly at the dark liquid in her cup. What was this? Some kind of secret handshake? Was she trying to let Jess know to smile for the cameras? That the old Doc was alive and well and living in this body? Or, was it a trick of cruel proportions, playing on Jess’ weakness for smooth Irish whiskey? Plying her with the alcohol and … what else?

But, the Doctor had drank first.

That was the linchpin Jess would grab onto, that someone else had done it first. It had been her justification for a large part of her life. Why stop now?

She passed the cup under her nose. No acrid fumes burned the hairs from her nostrils. The bottom of the cup had not been melted through. It did not bubble and smoke like the witches brew in an old horror movie.

Would she know if it was poisoned? Would she taste the difference, or would she drop dead before the odd flavor had tingled her taste buds?

Perhaps it would just render her unconscious while unspeakable things were done to her body.

She had been making this shit up for too long. By the time she had run through every possible scenario in her head, she would be dead of old age. Jess refused to give irony the satisfaction.

The Doctor kept throwing nervous glances at her frilly tan bonnet dangling from the coat rack. Jess expected the woman to fall off the wagon any minute now and swaddle it around her head like a warm blankie. She could only imagine the pressure she was under.

In the end, Doc Crispin would resist the temptation. Jess would not resist hers.

Maybe just a sip, she thought.