Death of an Immortal (14 page)

He stopped smiling and looked her in the eye. “I mean it. I want you gone in the morning.” He said it as coldly as he could manage. And yet, he too had enjoyed the cuddling––not just the sex, not just the conversation, but the touch and feel of someone he liked.

Her own smile fell away. For a few moments, he could see her debating with herself about getting up, getting dressed, and leaving. He wouldn’t have stopped her.

But he was secretly glad when she moved closer to him and put her head on his chest. He was still smiling as he fell asleep.

#

Terrill awoke with fangs and claws fully extended.

There was no one in the tent. He quickly came to himself. Something had changed in the night. He felt a little stronger, a little more lucid.

It was midafternoon, he sensed––a cloudy day, dangerous but not lethal.

He was in a neat and tidy tent. His sleeping bag, while musty, smelled relatively clean. There was another sleeping bag matching his on the other side of the enclosure. He could hear voices outside, having what sounded like an everyday conversation, as if they were talking about the weather or the traffic or lunch.

It was strangely comforting, though it shouldn’t have been. He was in the camp of five armed and dangerous humans, who probably wouldn’t have any compunction about killing or at least running off anyone they considered a threat.

Terrill closed his eyes and assessed himself. He felt strangely healed. No doubt there were cuts and bruises and sores all over his body, but they weren’t getting worse, they were stabilizing.

Why? He hadn’t had any raw meat, and certainly no blood. Was it the insects he’d eaten? That didn’t seem likely.

He had a vague memory of waking up several times in the night and being fed some sort of broth. Something in the soup had helped him, he sensed. He was amazed. Most human food did nothing for him; indeed, more often than not, his body rejected most of what humans ate.

He listened to the soft murmurs of the voices for a while, and then drifted back off to sleep.

#

Terrill snapped awake at dusk, as he always did. He crawled out of the sleeping bag, surprised that he could move so freely. He opened his shirt to check the cross on his chest, which was a dull ache. To his amazement, the skin around the crucifix seemed to be healing; at the least, it was no longer festering.

“What the hell is that?” he heard a voice say.

The man sitting next to his sleeping bag sounded curious, not confrontational. He was stocky and appeared to be in his mid-forties, with a shaved head and the beginnings of a beard, each with about the same amount of black stubble. He had watery blue eyes and creases all across his face, as though he spent most of the time in the sun. His clothes were old and worn, but not too filthy.

Terrill closed his shirt quickly and buttoned it up.

“At first I thought it was a very ornate tattoo,” the man continued, “3-D, like. But then I felt it. Embedded in your skin. Never seen nothing like it.”

Terrill tried to say something, but it came out as a croak.

He tried again. “Thank you.”

“No worries,” the man said, smiling. “The cross is kinda cool. I’d like one like that.”

Terrill didn’t want to discuss the cross. “Thank you for helping me,” he repeated.

“Hey, what’s mine is yours.” The man looked down at Terrill, obviously curious. But he didn’t say anything else about the cross.

“What did you feed me?”

“We had some squirrel soup, with some carrots and broccoli.” He saw the look on Terrill’s face and misinterpreted the confusion he saw there. He laughed. “Don’t worry. It wasn’t really squirrel, just some lunchmeat we diced up.”

Terrill’s bewilderment had come from the description of vegetables in the broth. By now, he should have been sick and throwing up. But he felt fine, and he had no memory of upchucking.

“You sure? It wasn’t all meat?”

“Sadly little meat. Meat is expensive. Why, what’s the problem? You a vegetarian or something?”

Somehow that struck Terrill as immensely funny. He started laughing, and once he started, he couldn’t stop. He had never thought the day would come when he’d be suspected of being a vegetarian.

“So the old guy’s awake?” he heard another voice say. A second man entered the tent. He was younger than the first, in his late twenties, heavily tattooed on his neck and hands and probably the rest of his body, with giant black plugs in his earlobes. He was wearing a black T-shirt and camouflage pants, covered incongruously with a bright blue parka.

He stood over Terrill, but the look on his face wasn’t kindly.

“He’s a little woozy,” the first man said.

“He looks awake to me. I think he should take off, but if you insist on letting him stay, he needs to know the rules.”

“Yeah, sure. The damn rules.”

The tattooed man frowned but seemed to decide there was no point in arguing. “Perry here has agreed to let you stay in his tent, but you still have to contribute your fair share, understand?” he said.

“I’ll try,” Terrill replied. He took stock of himself. He felt better, and surely he could venture into the darkness tonight and contribute to the common good. “Yeah, no problem.”

“Better not be. This camp is getting crowded.” The tattooed guy left the tent, scowling.

“Mark’s a little overbearing,” Perry said. “But don’t worry. He can’t kick you out unless we all agree. This was my camp first, and Grime and Damien still owe me, though Harve might follow Mark’s lead.”

“I’ll try to help,” Terrill said. He stood up and shook the man’s hand. “Again, thank you for helping me.”

“Sure. You scared the daylights out of us,” Perry said. “We thought you were gonna die!”

Terrill smiled at the word “daylights.”

“You have no idea,” was all he said.

Chapter 22

The life insurance check for $100,000 bounced. Sylvie wasn’t really surprised. She’d never believed it was real; she’d just been curious to see if it would actually clear.

She’d woken up with the radio blaring and her parents excitedly telling her about the fugitive who had killed her sister––the same man who had been in this very house only the day before!

It disappointed her, more than anything. She was disappointed in herself that she’d been fooled, that she hadn’t sensed his evil. He had seemed so nice, so honest––so caring. He hadn’t seemed like the violent type; he’d even refused to fight back when those two rednecks in the bar attacked him.

Apparently the murderer felt guilty. Or was pretending to feel guilty. “I’m sorry,” he’d said, though Sylvie hadn’t known what he was referring to at the time. He’d sounded so sincere.
How nice.

The check bouncing probably meant that he’d been up to no good, no doubt trying to seduce her with his soft talk about education and opportunities and all those will-o’-the-wisps that she’d already given up on before he came along.

Somehow, until that moment at the teller’s window, Sylvie had managed not to think about what had happened to Jamie. It was as if Jamie was still alive, just over the mountains, and might walk through the front door any day. The teller saying “insufficient funds” had triggered a wave of grief.

Insufficient everything.
Jamie was gone, and Sylvie was alone.

She came back home from the bank, went to bed and stared at the ceiling. Most of the day passed before she looked at the clock again. Was this what depression felt like? Grief? She didn’t want to move, or to think. She wanted to close her eyes and block it all out.

It got darker in the bedroom as the sun stopped slanting through the windows. Sylvie didn’t turn on the lights, just stared into the shadows.

She took off her crucifix and held it up, swinging it on its silver chain. She’d given an exact duplicate to her sister. A lot of good that had done. She put it on the nightstand. But a few minutes later, without really thinking about it, she picked it up again and put it around her neck.

She reached over to the nightstand and opened the drawer. She took out a small purple book. It was her sister’s diary.

Sylvie had known something was going on with Richard, but Jamie had refused to talk about it. So one night she had taken the diary, intending to read it. Then, little flibbertigibbet that she used to be––a young girl who now seemed so innocent, so naïve, even though it had only been a month ago––she had gotten busy with some silly project or another.

It was only after Jamie left that she read the diary.

The entries had started out with Jamie’s usual cheerful voice, and then had become euphoric as she fell in love with the strong and handsome Officer Carlan. Then, one day, he’d struck her over some minor complaint.

Jamie had tried to excuse the man, to see it as a one-time event.

Then he’d done it again––and again.

Reading the diary, Sylvie could see where Jamie had come to the reluctant conclusion that she needed to stop seeing Richard, and then her growing dread as the man wouldn’t take no for an answer.

It was the final entry that haunted Sylvie:

“Richard insists that we go through with it. But I can’t imagine myself living my life with that man. I’m going to do something I never thought I would do. No one must know––especially Sylvie, my sweet sister who loves God. But it must be done.”

Sylvie put the diary back into the drawer, stared at the ceiling, and tried to imagine what Jamie had been running away from.

Her mother yelled from downstairs, sounding worried. “Dinner is ready, Sylvie. Come and get it before it gets cold!”

Sylvie didn’t move.

A few minutes later, the doorbell rang. Still she didn’t move. She heard a man’s voice downstairs, and somehow she knew it was Richard Carlan. Who else could it be? She turned her head into the pillow and hummed, trying to drown out the baritone drone of his voice.

“You have to come down and talk to him.” Her father was standing in the doorway. “It’s only polite.”

“I have nothing to say to him.”

“Come on, Sylvie. He’s a policeman––a good man. Jamie and he were going to get hitched someday, I’ll bet, if Jamie hadn’t…” He let the rest of the thought trail off.

Sylvie got up and walked to the door. Her hair was all over the place, her clothing wrinkled and disheveled, and she didn’t give a damn. She marched down the steps and into the kitchen.

“What do you want?” she said in a flat tone.

“Uh… I have to talk to you.” Carlan said.

“So talk.”

Carlan looked at her parents, who were obviously listening to every word but were trying to look preoccupied with other things, Mom doing the dishes and Dad picking up a day-old newspaper.

Sylvie walked into the living room and turned around. “What do you want?”

Her abruptness seemed to rattle the police officer, who was always so sure of himself. She took some small satisfaction in that, but really, she didn’t care. She never wanted to see this man again, this man who had been so horrible to Jamie that she’d run away.

The living room was dark. Sylvie, in her gloom, realized how tattered and sad it was. Even the bright light from the kitchen seemed faded and dimmed. The whole world seemed awash in tan tones: the green in the sofa, the awful red color Mom had insisted on painting the walls––all were beige and brown and dingy.

“You heard I found Jamie’s killer?” He didn’t say “we” or “the police,” she noticed. No, “he” had found the murderer. He sounded so proud, so excited, as if it was some kind of great career achievement, forgetting, probably, that the murder he’d just solved was of someone he had supposedly loved. Proof, not that Sylvie needed it, that Jamie had never really meant anything to him. She’d been a good-looking trophy, no more.

“Good for you,” she said.

Again he seemed nonplussed. “Why don’t you like me?” he blurted.

“You can seriously ask me that? You forget, I was home waiting for her when she walked in the door with a black eye and a cut lip. More than once.”

“We had some heated arguments. She hit me too, you know. You know how angry she could get!”

“What about that last time? You beat her.”

“I had a good reason,” he said.

“I found her diary, Richard. I know exactly what kind of bastard you are.”

“You think I hurt her because I wanted to?”

“You beat her. It doesn’t matter what you wanted to do. The fact is, you hurt her. She ran away because of you.”

“Your sister wasn’t who you thought she was.”

“Now you’re going to tell me what my own sister was like? There isn’t anything you could tell me that I don’t already know.”

He looked smug. “Yes, there is.”

Her heart fell. She was going to hear Jamie’s secret. Whatever he was going to tell her, it was bad. But at the last second, she admitted to herself that she already knew.

“We were going to have a baby, Sylvie. She was pregnant.”

She turned away, suddenly uncertain. A moment before, everything had been so clear. Her life was a mess, but she was damned if she’d let a snake like Richard Carlan get near her.

“She had an abortion, Sylvie. I know you’re religious, like me. It was a mortal sin! But even then, I would have forgiven her. I was ready to take her back!”

“She made a mistake,” Sylvie heard herself saying. “But it would have been an even bigger mistake to marry you.” No doubt she was damning her soul in defending her sister, but if she had to condemn Jamie, she’d rather be damned. Jamie had been a good person who had made mistakes. The biggest mistake was ever going out with this awful man.

“Look, Sylvie,” Carlan said. “I won’t hold what Jamie did against you. I’d like us to be friends. Maybe go out sometime.”

She couldn’t quite take in his words. Had he heard a word she said? Hadn’t he heard the anger in her voice? She laughed, a dull, disbelieving laugh. “I’d rather run away to Portland and become a prostitute.”

He turned white, and for a moment, she took great satisfaction in the fact that her words had hit home. But then she noticed that he was looking over her shoulder at the sliding doors that led to the back porch. She turned around and caught a glimpse of something moving away, but couldn’t make out what it was.