Where the Dead Talk (23 page)

"Major," he said.

Morrill and the tavernkeep made their way over to the pile. Pomeroy began making his way over too, muttering as he went. Morrill was over the wreckage first, but he immediately waved the boys off.

"Andrew, take Daniel out of here," he said. "Now."

With a bit of care, Pomeroy was able to skirt around some leaning timbers and – bracing himself against a portion of wall – get up high enough to see what Morrill was looking at.

And he immediately wished he’d not.

"MacGuire," Morrill said. His voice was thick, as he struggled to keep his gorge down. Pomeroy wasn’t sure how he’d recognized it as MacGuire. Process of elimination, perhaps – a shred of clothing that wasn’t a dress.

MacGuire had been turned inside out.

"Christ on the cross," Pomeroy said.

The area of the torso was easiest to identify, as it was the largest. Rolls of grayish intestines were knotted and folded over beside dark-colored organs. Strips of skin were spread apart, resting on the dark sac of a lung. Up the arms and down the legs, the skin had been flayed apart, revealing bunches of muscles and fascia, lined with burst veins. The head itself was a mess that Pomeroy had to turn away from. None of them said a word, but Pomeroy was quite sure that they were all thinking the same thing – thinking back to the terror that had flooded them when whatever had knocked the tavern down and moved across it.

"Well at least I had good cause to almost crap my breeches last night," Pomeroy said.

"How could it have done that?" Morrill said. His voice had a tremor to it.

"I’d imagine that if we saw it, we’d know all too well – and I, for one, hope to never acquire that knowledge," Pomeroy said.

"We have to keep looking," Jude said.

"This isn’t encouraging," Pomeroy said.

"Doesn't matter. I wasn't touched," Jude said.

"And MacGuire was. Forgive my bluntness, but I’m not sure I’m prepared to spend the rest of the day sifting through huge beams and stone only to find another shredded corpse – and risk still being here by nightfall," he said.

He hobbled toward the stable yard. Morrill’s boys were looking at him with eyes wide. He walked past Carolyn. If he was smart, he’d turn and hobble off.

"Don't," Carolyn said.

"Ask Brewster what he just saw over there," he said, "and you might, too."

He pointed to the destroyed back of the tavern. Over the piles, the tavernkeep and Morrill moved about. Carolyn looked back at him. Her eyes were gray, flecked through with green. Patches of plaster dust colored her hair white in places. There was something in her eyes – uncertainty, a searching. She looked like she was going to say something, but he turned and began walking up the road, leaning on the musket.

"I'm leaving," he said. Why was she looking at him that way?

Voices were raised behind him. He wasn’t going to look, damn them.

"Ho, Major!"

It was Morrill; he was waving furiously for him, then cupping his hands around his mouth to call to him.

"We found her, Major," he said, "we found her, and she’s alright. Help us."

Fool, fool, fool. For days he'd been trying just to leave, but had let himself get caught up with the boy. Now this. Yesterday, he wouldn't have cared one whit what Carolyn Bucknell thought of him, nor the others. He could have lived with himself quite well. He shook his head and stopped. He could feel her gaze on him, even from behind. He turned around, back towards Morrill’s frantic waving. Carolyn watched him go past. He ignored her, and said nothing.

Just A Crack

They split up, an idea that the Major made a point of telling them was grossly ill-advised. Carolyn pointed out that it was also the quickest way to leave. Morrill and the grief-numb boys went across the green with the tavernkeep and Elizabeth to look for horses and check in on the church. Pomeroy accompanied Carolyn up the hill to her parents house. They didn’t speak as they went up the narrow lane. The walls of her house were visible through the trees. They turned and went up the flagstone path to the front. She stopped at the door.

"Tell them to hurry," Pomeroy said. "I’ll wait here."

She didn’t bother with a reply, just turned and went into the house. It was a wonder that he’d even come this far, being as blind as he was to the fact that there were other people besides him who’d gone through the events of the night before.

"Father?" she said. "Mother?"

Her voice carried through the house, but there was no reply. Several pairs of shoes and a collection of walking sticks were lined against the wall.

"Hello," she called out again.

The entry way opened into an elegant foyer, with a staircase leading up to the second story. A large formal room opened up and stretched off to the left, while a hallway ran to the back of the house next to the stairs. Carolyn followed the hallway back to the dining room. Three plates were set at the end of the table. One of the chairs was lying on its back. She took a step forward and something crunched underneath her foot. She crouched down and picked a pair of spectacles, one lens now cracked and the frame flattened.

Father's.

The house was completely silent.

"Mother?" she called out.

Carolyn put the spectacles down on the table. She went to the door that led into the kitchen. Windows looked out on the backyard. Bread crumbs were scattered on a wooden table in the center of the room. She stepped forward, letting the door swing closed behind her with a squeal. She walked to the middle of the kitchen, her steps loud. The cooking fireplace was cold, a pair of carbonized logs black and gray in the center. A few bowls and pots were out, some vegetables next to them. The back door was closed and bolted. She left the kitchen and moved through the formal room, finding nothing else amiss. At the bottom of the stairs, she paused.

"Father?"

She started up the stairs. Her heart beat fast. At the top, she slowed. Muddy tracks marked the floor at the top. She wanted to call for the Major, but her voice was stuck, her mouth suddenly dry. Her mother should be here, even while it was quite normal for her father to miss a meal or be out at all hours. The horrible words of Jonathon came back to her like an icy knife in her belly.

But don’t worry, I tucked them both in.

She girded herself and walked down the hallway.

"Mother?"

A few steps to the left was her father’s study. She walked over and looked in. Empty. She headed the other way, down a hallway that turned towards the front of the house. The door to the room on the right was open, her parent’s bedroom. It was neat and tidy, except that the bed itself was slightly askew. With a step forward, she scanned the room. Nothing by the dresser or the small reading table near the window. A narrow closet door was shut. At the bed, she leaned down and lifted a corner of the coverlet to look underneath.

A pair of heels faced her.

Carolyn yelled and stepped back. With her face pulled tight, she pushed the bed forward. It moved easily over the wood floor. A pair of feet and legs poked out.

"Oh no," she said.

Before she had time to think about it, she leaned over and grabbed the ankles and pulled, stepping back and sliding the body out to the center of the floor. It was her father. One of his eyes was open, just a crack. Around his neck were vicious purple-and-blue bruises, and something black was smeared around his nose and mouth. She ran out of the room, calling for her mother. Her room was empty, as was the linen room. She ran to her mother’s sewing room at the end of the hallway; the door smacked into something heavy. A bureau had been pushed away from the wall, brushes and ivory combs scattered across the floor. There were dents and raw wood on the inside of the door, as if someone had slammed the door again and again into the bureau. The top canopy of the four-poster bed was hanging down, a corner post broken. A long tatter of fabric poked out from beneath the door to a closet in the corner.

"Mother?" she called.

Carolyn pushed her way in. The corner of the room beneath the windows was bathed in sunlight. Clothes were strewn about. There was a movement – her mother.

"Mother!" Carolyn said, rushing over. Her mother looked up at her, her eyes quicksilver and shimmering in the sunlight.

"Sit with me, child," her mother said, "I'll feed you as I used to."

A twist of black liquid spilled from her cold lips. Blood was pooled on the floor beneath her and her mouth and nose were blackened. She held her arms up to her daughter.

Carolyn screamed, and kept screaming.

Down the hill, the church was empty. Jude and Elizabeth stood in the doorway, listening. Not a sound floated out.

"I was a fool," he said.

She didn’t reply.

"When I thought I might have lost you, too –"

"Easier to say now that your tavern is lying in ruins," she said.

"That’s not it."

She nodded, the very gesture saying: But I’ll never know that for sure.

"You told me that part of your heart was a room, boarded up," he said. "It’s even more than that for me. It’s a whole floor, a wing. Walled off. There are dark places in my heart, Elizabeth."

"Then I won’t be more darkness for you," she said, stepping into the church. "Let’s just see if there’s anyone here, so we can leave."

She went in ahead of him, and she already knew. She could feel it. The door was wide open, the horses and wagons gone, and a perfect silence inside the entryway. Their footsteps felt intrusive as they headed towards the main room.

"Hello," Jude called out.

His voice hung in the large room. Nearly every one of the windows was smashed in. The benches were thrown about, most of them knocked over, others pushed together up against the wall. One of them was broken, long bits of white wood showing among the dark varnish of the surface. The air was still, the silence of the room taking on a weight. Elizabeth stood in the doorway, amazed at how different it seemed. She’d taken no comfort or joy from the little church, dragged there by duty and finding herself daily shutting out what her life had become. There were occasions when images of the church burning to timbers had helped her fall asleep at night, but this was different. Filthy tracks ran across the floor.

"Where did they all go?" Jude said. His voice caught some of the natural reverberation that Adonijah had used to such effect.

"I don’t know," she said. "The Simpson girls, their mother, old Liam Waters, the Dornan’s."

Jude stooped down by the window and straightened up. He held a tiny shoe in his hand. Without a word, he put it carefully down on the windowsill.

"Could they have gotten away?" he said.

Elizabeth looked around, remembering what had attacked the tavern, the way the bodies lurched about, climbing on the walls, through the windows. The way they had coordinated and communicated. And the shadow that had moved slowly in the darkness. She didn't say anything. Jude pushed a pile of tumbled hymnals with his boot. She walked along the front wall, pieces of broken glass grinding and snapping beneath her steps.

"And I heard no horses," she said.

She looked out of the window. The town was still.

"The tracks go up the stairs. Lots of tracks," Jude said. They both caught the scent on the air – rot and corruption and putrefaction – wafting down from the belfry where the tracks led. Elizabeth crossed the room, but stopped when something crunched beneath her shoe. She looked at it for a few moments before realizing that it was dried blood. The pattern was strange, with drops moving almost evenly out from the center in all directions.

"Let’s go," he said. "We should tell the others."

"Jude, wait," she said.

He turned from the doorway and looked up.

"There’s something –" she began.

"Elizabeth," he said, cutting her off. She looked up and followed his glance. Above her. She stepped back and craned her neck.

It was Adonijah.

He was staked to the slanted ceiling, long triangles of wood from the smashed bench driven through his shoulder, his belly, his neck. His eyes and mouth were open. His arms hung down, as though he was reaching for her. Elizabeth put a hand to her mouth. It was several long moments before she could take her eyes off of him. There was a scream in her, but it was stuck far down deep and she didn’t let it go. She straightened the torn front of her dress.

"Do we have any working weapons?" Pomeroy said. They were gathered out in front of the rubble that had been the tavern. A wounded lot they were, too – and more than just the cuts and bruises. To one extent or another, they all appeared to be in shock. Carolyn had gone - and remained - white as a sheet, hands atremble. He couldn’t blame any one of them.

"I’ve two pistols," Morrill said, "and Daniel has one of the muskets."

"Now’s when that bloody weapons cache would come in handy," Pomeroy said. Morrill looked at the others and then back at him.

"Williams the cooper."

"Pardon?"

"Williams the cooper, sir."

"Williams the cooper what?" Pomeroy said.

"Ah hell, Major. Never did think I’d be telling this to a lobster-back – but that ain’t the only thing I never did think until last night."

He turned and pointed to a pair of shops down the lane, across from the green.

"There’s our powder store, the whole thing. Should still be plenty of muskets and shot. We moved it there a few days back, when we got word that you’d been tipped off to our old spot. Boy died moving it, too – broke his neck."

The cooper’s was adjacent to a blacksmithy, a half-barrel hung out in front of it. It was a long building. Pomeroy pushed open the front door. He walked in, pausing a moment while his eyes adjusted to the darkness of the interior. It was one long room: a workshop. To the left, windows ran along the walls, the many small panes letting in watery light. Two long benches stood by the wall, a third out in the middle of the floor. On the other wall, tools were hung – planes, chisels, mallets. Piles of woodchips were scattered beneath the benches and on some of the work surfaces, and the air hung with the scent of wood and pitch.