The doctor stood at the entrance of the old house. Voices within whispered. He turned his back on them. Through an archway window, he aimed his two ebony eyes. A dead cornfield was filling with snow. They’d been fortunate to find shelter this good, this fast. Heat roared through the vent registers. A furnace burned somewhere under him. Snow slid off his boots and dissolved into puddles on the oak planks.
With the warmth, odors roused.
The house attached to a Wisconsin farm. Hills climbed away in three directions. A gravel road swirled into the fourth. Any traveler stopping here in error might conclude he or she was alone in the world. The view offered no relief from the claustrophobic sense of isolation. It wasn’t so much lifelessness as a lack of humanity emanating from the place. If the road stopped without notice at a jumble of logs or a collapsed bridge, it wouldn’t be a big surprise. Cut off —that was the feeling imparted. Land and hearth slumped together after so many years of neglect. Abandonment, when the time finally came, must have been a blessing.
Leaving ended the suffering.
Or put it on pause.
The sound of water drip, drip, dripping ...
Busted windows; holes punched in the plaster. Leaf matter crunched underfoot. Spray-painted wallpaper: nobody’s home!!!
A pyramid of beer cans stood against one wall. Grimy floors. Fast-food wrappers. Condoms.
The heat smelled musty.
Dr. Horus Whiteside did not mind.
Someday I will have oceans of black and skies to match , he thought. It wasn’t the first time he reveled in dreams. The future was his business. Fie built stark visions into reality. From beyond a locked door came the sound of the thief begging for his life. He had been at it for hours.
Now and again he screamed.
Horus cocked his head and listened for beating wings.
A flying creature had been sputtering around upstairs, rising and diving, venturing bravely down the staircase to the landing and back up again in a fury. The doctor finally caught a glimpse of the thing—like a glove fluttering in midair.
A house bat.
Then it was gone.
So their recent intrusion had not been unnoticed.
They had upset the creature’s sanctuary dwelling among silences.
The silences they had broken.
Horus believed in destiny, and in destinations foretold. He didn’t believe in maps. Not the kind other people used. He carried a numerical tapestry in his head. It scrolled by constantly. A secret GPS system guided his every move. Longitude and latitude might describe him as crossing the state line between northern Illinois and south central Wisconsin, an invisible barrier he had breached only hours ago.
His real territory was the borderland between worlds.
Illinois towns with legends of haunting, like Bull Valley and Grass Lake, operated under a cloud. Reason could never explain it. Horus knew the source of their unease. Recognizing the situation made him feel superior. Driving through, Horus saw the dead populating the streets. Souls snarled like hungry golden-eyed foxes caught in traps. They were everywhere. Bodies marched along. They sat on
snow-covered frozen lawns or stood curbside at intersections. Some were following as close as shadows behind the living.
It was pitiful.
The dead were totally unaware of their condition.
Horus frowned at their predicament. He wanted to help set them free.
Death always held more fascination than life for him. Every time he killed someone his conviction was reconfirmed.
Death begat possibilities.
The dead gave his life meaning. He couldn’t have survived without them.
Earlier today, his journey pushed up the asphalt river into southern Wisconsin. The land of Ed Gein and Jeffrey Dahmer. Ghosts flocked the heavens. They perched in treetops and swooped down the valleys. Horus fought the urge to acknowledge them. He had a full agenda of business to conduct.
The American Heartland.
What a poisoned crow’s heart it was. Flyover country. Backwater USA—that’s what urbanites from the East Coast and Los Angeles thought of it. Under the veneer of ordinariness, plain- spoken accents, and flannel shirts, a grave robber or cannibal could find a nice place to call home.
Horus liked to be underestimated, even ignored.
Today, he and his flock had needed a meetinghouse. Somewhere discreet so the thief’s interrogation would not be interrupted. Time acted against them. The passing minutes and hours multiplied, popping and sticking, adding weight until Horus felt a tarry heaviness slowly encasing his body, bogging him down.
At an impasse, the pressure mounting behind his eyes, he had ordered his driver to pull the ambulance to the side of the highway. Passersby no doubt wondered at the sight of a vintage Cadillac from the mid-’70s, built like a hearse but painted shock white and topped with an enormous cherry light. They couldn’t see the refurbished engine installed under the hood, or have known the degree of meticulous care given to details inside and out. The
Caddy was primitive by today’s standards but it was fully supplied and everything was kept in working order. The back doors bore an emblem of a snake twirled around a staff: the rod of As- ciepius, ancient symbol of medicine. Yet this retro medical transport remained on-call to only one institution—the good doctor himself.
The company name—Chiron Ambulance, a Private Health Service—was fictitious. The telephone number listed beneath the name: disconnected.
In the back of the ambulance, Horus sat, silent.
Beside him, strapped facedown to a gurney, a bundle of tan canvas whimpered. It was the thief, Chan. He mumbled wet words of contrition.
The doctor disregarded him.
Horus simply let the pressure from behind his eyes do its job. He couldn’t make a vision happen. Force it and you lost. He was a receiver, a needle vibrating in space. He opened all channels and waited for the signal.
Tuned in, he listened.
Horus began describing an abandoned farm.
The thief, though he heard, didn’t understand. At this point in his odyssey, comprehension would have been premature. He had other worries to occupy his mind. Primarily fear.
The ambulance driver, however, strained to catch every word. He spoke into his cell phone. Repeating to the others, who were speeding miles ahead now in their vehicles, what it was they should be looking for. They split in different directions. Some drove straight. Most searched for exit ramps.
Half an hour passed.
An hour.
The cell rang back. One of them found a farm.
“Ask them what they see, Pinroth,” Horus said.
His loyal driver relayed the caller’s observations. Horus stared at the thief’s bound wrists peeking from under the canvas. Two purple hands opened and closed, as if they were squeezing invisible
tennis balls. The caller was running low on details. Pinroth’s eyes flashed in the rearview mirror.
In all matters, the flock sought the doctor’s wisdom and guidance.
“Yes, it will do,” said Horus.
Then they took the thief and forged ahead of the storm.
The first arrivals resorted to crowbarring the plywood nailed over the parlor window. Amazingly, the glass underneath remained intact. Other windows in the house shattered long ago. Winds came and went.
Looking out, Horus was oblivious to his reflection. Those seated behind him fixated on his strange eyewear. Metal goggles with black rubber eye guards and a leather strap sewn across the nose; an elastic band held them tight to his face. He never removed them except for sleeping. The doctor’s skin was unlined, his age indeterminate. It was a mannequin’s face, or no face at all, like something plastic peeled from a mold. At his throat he wore a velvet scarf. His tailored clothes underscored his angularity. Near the foot of the stairs, a mud-spattered overcoat hung on the banister. Around the room, the improvised lighting was dramatic. The doctor appeared to levitate inside a rippling antique windowpane.
Candlelight befitted this meeting. It was the season for burning tapers at windows. Uncommon stars beamed across the firmament. Prophecies were fulfilled. Wise men trekking from afar reached their objectives on nights like this. Prior to his arrival, the group attempted making a fire in the fireplace. Blockage in the chimney put a stop to that. The room clogged with smoke and its pungent odor greeted him when he swept open the door. His followers hushed the instant they heard him clopping on the front porch steps. They had no candles. An assortment of LED lanterns and opened laptops were stationed along the floor.
Horus Whiteside entered the unnatural blaze.
He believed he was not a man at all.
He was part of a larger whole that reached back for Eternity.
The Pitch.
Turning from the tall, now exposed, churchlike window, he addressed the others who eagerly leaned forward to receive their instruction. They were sitting on lawn furniture, sticky with spiderwebs, retrieved from the cellar.
His devoted believers: small in number, their fervor and willingness to please made all the difference. They were devoted. He hoped he had enough of them this time to get the job done.
He faced the gathering.
“Praise the darkness. My brothers and sisters, we must be thorough. We must be vicious in our quest. Tonight the thief has confessed that his girlfriend took the artifact and ran away.”
Grumbles and cries of disbelief erupted.
He pointed to the window.
“I have sent a pair of finders into the wilderness. They seek her. She has stolen what belongs to us, what is rightfully ours to keep. We paid a price yet received nothing in return so we shall exact one. She will die. That is the penalty. Anyone helping her will die. That is the penalty. So it shall be.”
“So it shall be,” they answered.
Order played a crucial role in any plan of attack. Thrust and defend your flanks. Advance, always advance. Victory would come later. Those who survived the battle would enjoy the spoils.
One day he would reveal his true nature to them.
After he had the girl and what she possessed.
Soon.
Very soon.
For the moment, he dismissed his army with a wave of his hand.
They filed out into the storm. The lone figure of Pinroth would be waiting, warming the ambulance’s interior, feeding gas to the big V-8 motor, and guarding the door until Horus summoned him.
Quiet now.
A beating of wings ...
The sound of water dripping ...
Weeping ... the thief was weeping ...
Horus spied a bent shape left behind on one of the sun loungers.
He picked up the crowbar.
Stretching his arms forward, he noticed for the first time the dried stains on his shirt cuffs and the blood gummed under his fingernails: ten red sickle moons. The bat was heavy, cold, the iron black. He swung and heard the satisfactory slicing of air. Without warning, he smashed the parlor window. Glass showered him. He crouched and chose a shard from the floor.
Broken glass and an iron bar.
A perfect pairing.
He would introduce them to the thief.