Revenant (8 page)

“Yeah, Sharon, we just got a call about a missing person. We need you to go out to Old Mill Road and take the complaint.”

“I’m on it. What’s the name and address of the complainant?”

“Address is Forty-Seven Old Mill Road.”

Sharon’s heart skipped a beat. Forty-Seven Old Mill Road. That was an address she knew from a lifetime ago, when her entire being revolved around drugs and alcohol and sexual favors. Her stomach seized and she thought she might be sick.

The dispatcher continued. “The complainant is the victim’s mother. Name of the victim is Earl Manning.”

***

Sharon rolled the cruiser to a stop in the dusty driveway outside a run-down mobile home that had probably not seen any significant maintenance in forty years. Threadbare roofing shingles covered a home tilting precariously to one side, as if the concrete foundation was simply crumbling away, which was probably exactly what was happening. Ancient aluminum siding, warped and cracked and weathered, covered the exterior walls, and the windows appeared not to have been washed since the Nixon Administration.

An old Ford F-150 pickup was parked next to the home; a vehicle Sharon remembered all too well from her high school days. It had been creaky and rust-dotted and ready for the junkyard back then and she could hardly believe the thing was even safe to drive now. Based on her memories of its owner, that wouldn’t have stopped him. She sat staring at the truck, stomach churning, until it occurred to her that it might look odd to be seen sitting motionless inside her cruiser staring in horror at a rusted hunk of metal.

She sighed nervously and exited the car, glancing in all directions as she approached the broken-down trailer. The area seemed deserted, which was unsurprising since this address was remote even by Paskagankee standards. Sharon rapped once with her knuckles on the flimsy door and it swung open before she had a chance to knock a second time. It was obvious the trailer’s occupant had been waiting for her to approach and she wondered briefly if her reluctance to exit her cruiser had been observed.

Standing in the door was a fleshy woman who might have been fifty or eighty or anywhere in between. The woman didn’t strike Sharon as grossly overweight; she was just
large
. Her arms hung from her sides like they had been tacked on after the rest of her body was sculpted from a chunk of Maine granite. Deep crevasses lined her haggard face and sagging jowls made it look as though she might be storing food in her mouth for her next meal.

“’Bout time,” the woman said by way of greeting.

“Hello, Mrs.Manning. You called about a missing person?”

“That’s right. My boy’s disappeared. Someone goes missing and the best the cops can do is send a tiny little girl?” The woman gave a snort that sounded like the air being let out of a balloon and threw the door open the rest of the way, retreating into the trailer’s tiny kitchen. “Come on in, then.”

Sharon pulled a small notebook and a pen out of her breast pocket. “This is about Earl?”

The woman dropped onto a tubular aluminum chair with a padded seat covered in garish orange vinyl that had to have been manufactured in the 1950’s and swiveled her head, looking up at Sharon suspiciously. “You know my boy?”

“Uh . . . yes. We . . . uh, we went to school together, Mrs. Manning. Earl was a couple of years ahead of me but I . . . uh, knew him.” She knew she sounded like the village idiot and mentally kicked herself. She was here to take a missing person’s report, not to review her long history of poor life choices.

“How long has Earl been missing?” she asked, determined to rebound from her poor first impression.

“Well, let’s see,” the woman answered, placing her massive chin into one cupped palm. “I’d say it’s been over a week now.”

“Your son has been missing a week and you’re just getting around to reporting it now?”

Anger flashed in the woman’s eyes and she gazed at Sharon with contempt. “That’s right, missy. I’m just reporting it now. You’re quite the sharp detective, ain’t you? Sometimes Earl goes away for a few days; stays with friends and such. Better he stay put if he’s on a bender than to be driving around this God-forsaken town trying to get home, don’t you think?”

Sharon mentally kicked herself again. She hoped her brain didn’t start to bruise inside her head from all the kicking going on. “I wasn’t passing judgment, Mrs. Manning, just trying to pin down exactly how long Earl has been gone. When was the last time you saw him, exactly?”

“Guess it woulda been a week ago yesterday. Friday night, I believe, before he went down to the Ridge Runner like normal.”

“And he didn’t come home last Friday night?”

“Already told ya that. I ain’t seen him since.” The woman started to cry, one large teardrop rolling down her face, zig-zagging from one crevasse to another until it arrived at her chin and dropped onto the kitchen table where she angrily wiped it away with the sleeve of her housedress. “Earl’s stayed away a few days every now and then, but never for this long. Something’s happened to him, I’m sure of it.”

“Did Earl seem upset or preoccupied at all before he disappeared?”

“No more’n usual,” his mother replied. “Earl ain’t never been what you’d call a fountain of optimism, even on his best days. What would he have to be happy about? No job, no money, alcohol problems, always getting harassed by
you
people.” She gestured vaguely in Sharon’s direction.

She felt the woman’s attention wandering and tried to refocus her. “So in the days before his disappearance, Earl seemed to be acting normally.”

“You catch right on, don’t ya?”

“Mrs. Manning, I’m trying to help here. Is it possible Earl took a trip without telling you?”

“A trip. And how would he get where he was going on this ‘trip’ when his truck is right out front? What’d he do, walk? No,” she said, finally answering the question. “Earl didn’t go on any trip. He don’t know anyone outside this town, anyway. He ain’t got no reason to go nowhere.”

“You said he went to the Ridge Runner last Friday night. How did he get there if his truck is parked here?”

Mrs. Manning nodded and a smile tugged at the edges of her mouth. She pulled it down before continuing. “Maybe you ain’t quite as hopeless as you look, little missy. Good question. The answer is,
I
went and picked up Earl’s truck. When Monday come around and it was still sitting in the Ridge Runner lot, Ol’ Bo Pellerin called me and told me he ain’t seen Earl in a few days and if he didn’t want his truck towed, he better come get it. So I called my sister and she come and took me down there and I picked it up and drove it home. That was Monday afternoon. The truck ain’t moved from here since.”

“We’ll get right on this, Mrs. Manning, I promise,” Sharon said, closing her notebook and ignoring the woman’s snort of derision. “If you think of anything else that might be helpful, anything at all, please call.”

“Yeah, call, right. Sure.

Sharon retreated out the front door of the trailer and struggled to close it behind her. The sagging structure had pulled the aluminum door frame out of square and the damned thing didn’t want to click shut. Finally she heard it catch and she hurried to her cruiser, glad to be out of there. She backed out of the dirt driveway in a cloud of dust and turned toward Paskagankee proper.

10

Max Acton stared at Earl Manning’s heart, severed from Manning’s dead body and sealed inside a plastic bag next to the mystical Navajo stone. The heart was beating softly, throbbing roughly once per second, steadily regaining color as Max watched despite the fact it was connected to nothing—no blood supply, no oxygen, nothing. The detached veins and arteries jiggled slightly with each beat.

The scene was terrifying and awe-inspiring. Max had fully expected their plan to work; he was a believer in much that was non-traditional. In fact, he had barely batted an eye when Raven—one of his followers back in the Arizona co-op that was really a cult—came to him with the story of a mystical Navajo stone with the power to reanimate the dead. But now, seeing the actual heart of a man he had killed and gutted with his own hands beating serenely inside the box, it was almost too much to comprehend.

Almost.

Max feasted his eyes, not wanting to move, wanting to drag this moment out forever. This was what it must feel like to be God. He could hear Raven’s ragged breathing as she peeked around him and into the box, getting her own view of what could fairly be described as a miracle.

The possibilities were endless. Max’s brain swirled with possibilities. He had always craved power, and in fact was a natural leader. The impressive following he had built up over a very short time in Arizona testified to the truth of that statement. Max was handsome and charismatic and inspired loyalty in his followers. He was Jim Jones minus the suicidal tendencies.

But this discovery, this stone he had liberated from that idiot Indian back on the reservation, was a game-changer. A world-changer, in fact. Max now had in his grasp the key to the acquisition of more power than even he had ever had the temerity to envision. His own heart, the one beating inside his chest, soared as he allowed himself to visualize all the possibilities.

But first things first. He had a job to do that must be completed to everyone’s satisfaction before beginning to fulfill his true destiny. The job involved a transaction which would earn Max money, lots of it, money which would give him the freedom to pursue his bold vision.

Behind them, a crinkling noise coming from the heavy plastic tarp on the floor brought Max back to the present, reminding him of the short-term significance of the miracle he had just wrought. He and Raven turned simultaneously and he gasped at the sight greeting him despite being prepared for it. Raven stumbled backward, beginning to scream and then clapping her tiny hands to her mouth. She took shelter behind Max, squeezing into the space between his body and the table holding the two wooden boxes.

Atop the heavy tarp, Manning’s dead body began to stir. Already the deathly grey pallor of the corpse was receding, replaced by a more life-like hue. His cheeks couldn’t be described as rosy, not exactly, not even by the most wide-eyed optimist, but the skin-tone appeared slightly more alive.

It was impossible, of course, all of it; Manning had no heart in his chest with which to pump blood through his body. And he was dead. There was no question about that. Max had done the job himself, making absolutely certain the poor sucker’s heart had stopped beating. Then he had frozen the man for a week and cut his heart out.

Dead.

This was impossible.

But right here on the basement floor was proof of the opposite: Earl Manning, his legs and arms moving in more or less a random manner, before seeming to coordinate themselves and forcing his corpse into a sitting position. His back was to Max and Raven, facing the other end of the basement, and he swiveled his head nearly one hundred eighty degrees—another impossibility, but there it was—and gazed at the two of them with clear, questioning bewilderment in his eyes.

The milky caul was gone. His eyes were blue and piercing. Lifelike. The corpse opened its mouth as if to speak and then closed it again. Behind Max, Raven was breathing heavily. He thought she might pass out. He didn’t care.

“Hello, Earl,” he said.

The corpse blinked once and behind him Raven screamed again, this time long and loud. “Who are you?” the thing that used to be Earl Manning asked. Its voice was low and rough and Max didn’t remember it sounding like that when the drunken loser appeared at their door on Raven’s arm. Whether the change was a result of the Navajo stone’s magic or the gaping hole Max had cut in the man’s chest he had no idea.

Max smiled. “I’m your owner,” he said. “Your God. My name is Maxwell Acton, but I don’t believe in standing on formalities, so you may call me Max.”

“Owner? God? What the hell are you talking about?” The corpse adopted an aggrieved look, then spied Raven and continued. “What did you do to me, bitch? The last thing I remember is you coming on to me at the Ridge Runner and us leaving together. Just what’s going on here?”

Max snickered, mumbling to Raven. “Apparently this transformation doesn’t add any brain power to the stiff, does it?”

She didn’t answer and he addressed Manning. “You were duped, my friend, suckered, played, used, hornswoggled. You were had. We needed a subject for our little test, and you volunteered. Unfortunately for you, it was unknowingly, but, hey, if you were stupid enough to believe a once-in-a-lifetime piece of ass like Raven Tahoma would give a loser like you a second look, then in my book you deserve what you got. And my book is the only one that matters now, at least to you.”

Earl Manning looked back and forth between the two of them, head swiveling slowly, uncomprehending. Finally Max said, “Run your hand across your chest.”

The corpse did so, a look of confusion crossing his reanimated face as his hand dipped into the cavity in the middle of his chest caused by the missing heart muscle and broken rib bones. “What have you done to me?” he whispered. The sound was paper-thin and plaintive, and the look of confusion on his face was replaced in an instant by one of anger and utter, undiluted hatred.

“I told you,” Max answered, “I own you now. You see, you are what is known in technical parlance as a ‘revenant.’ Fancy word, I’ll admit, especially for someone of your limited intellectual capacity, but it’s one with a pretty simple definition. You’re dead, Earl, I’m sorry to say, but on the bright side, you’ve been reanimated. Brought back to life. By me. I am now your God, and your sole purpose from this moment on is to do what I tell you. You’ll find you have no choice in the matter, literally; your actions will be exactly as prescribed be me, no matter how you feel about your instructions. Agree with them, disagree, it doesn’t matter in the least. You
must
do as you’re told.”

Manning shook his head, either in disagreement or disbelief, Max wasn’t sure which, but the look of loathing on his face never changed or diminished. Max decided it was time for a demonstration. Manning needed to understand the truth of his words.