The Coming Night

                                                    The Coming Night

Cal stuck his head through my open window as I pulled to a stop at the bottom of the drive. Dust, grit, and the smell of Molson lager bloomed around him as he hollered at me.

“Jesus-H-Christ, Johnny! What the hell took you so long?”

“Nice to see you too, Cal. How have you been?”

“It must be goddamn three o’clock by now! What did you do, eh? Stop for a goddamn coffee at every service station between home and here?”

I glanced at my watch. “Actually, it’s about one thirty, and considering you didn’t call until ten, I think three and a half hours is pretty good time to wake myself, excuse and explain to Megan that my psychotic brother has a secret emergency that he can’t even tell me over the phone, and drive out here from the other end of Toronto. On a Saturday. And I only stopped once for coffee. Here.” I handed his to him as I got out of the car. He accepted it grudgingly, wiping his hands on his greasy jeans. Then he took a sip, put it on the hood of my Lexus, and forgot about it. As I pulled off my sunglasses, I took a moment to look around the old place. Cal had not been busy.

“Hey Cal, don’t you think it’s about time to put a fresh coat of paint on the house? Or a porch?”

“Don’t start that again. We got a serious problem here.” I waited for the explanation, watching him gather himself. Cal had a way of harnessing his mental resources that I always compared to harnessing a team of horses to a wagon. He checked every strap and buckle before he set the whip to it. And he started just as slow. I could tell that this was a big team. When he had asked to borrow $5,000 from me—that was an eight or ten horse team. This was at least a dozen.

Finally he opened his mouth to speak then promptly snapped it shut and grabbed my arm before he spoke. “Fuck it. I got to show you.” He pulled me to the old barn across the drive and up the hill from the house, jerking me fast enough to spill a dollop of my coffee.

I can assure you that the person that coined the phrase ‘Can’t hit the broad side of a barn’ wouldn’t have bothered if he had seen this barn. It was monstrous, like a dilapidated circus tent. As a kid, I told my friends that it had been used to stable elephants before our family bought the place. And even then it had been in rough shape. Gaps between the ragged planks of the walls cast bars of glaring light across the floor that only intensified the dark between. This variegated light barely revealed the contents of the barn—a clutter of old machine parts, mouldering hay, harnesses, and farm tools that, to a child’s eye, wouldn’t have looked out of place in an executioner’s workroom. Once-sturdy beams criss-crossed the ceiling, but the loft they had supported was no more, having collapsed to become part of the jumbled litter on the floor. Our dad had always warned us to stay out of there because even the floor wasn’t safe. It too was composed of rotten planks that covered a dirt-lined sub-basement that was once accessed through a sunken door on the east side, long since sealed off by collected debris and collapsed walls. Cal, as the big brother, never failed to point out those gaps in the floor wide enough to allow a withered, skeletal hand to slip through.

In the west side of the main floor of the barn was a set of sliding double wood doors that a marching band could enter without breaking stride. A comparatively smaller set of doors was set in the south side, facing the house. While dad was still alive, even after Cal and I were teenagers, he had big padlocks on both doors. But we were always able to get in. It wasn’t hard; we were kids. The hard part was explaining all the scrapes, splinters, and bruises to our parents. I think my mom always suspected, but she knew that dad’s blame would fall on Cal, him being the oldest, and she felt he had it hard enough, him being the thickest, as dad put it. As soon as dad was put in the ground and Cal moved back in, he wrenched those padlocks off the doors. Mom wanted to have Father Woodside, the local priest, come in and bless the barn, but Cal had his own version. He invited about 60 of his friends over, threw wide those side doors, and had a two-day party. Mom stayed in her room and prayed. I don’t know if the praying did a lot of good, considering six people ended up in hospital from having ceilings fall on them or falling through the floor. Maybe it did keep those accidents from being too serious.

Now those doors were wide open again, and Cal’s ’75 Dodge pickup was parked in front of it, the hood open and under the shade of the barn’s eaves. The sun was beating down on it from behind, throwing its shadow part way into the barn, glittering off the metallic cherry red paint and brilliant chrome pipes and running boards.

We stopped at the back of the pick-up and Cal looked me straight in the face.

“Listen, John. You remember Jill Connors?”

“Let’s see. Grew up together…let me feel her up at the age of 12…short, a little dead…went to her funeral two weeks ago. Yeh, the name rings a bell. What about her?”

“Well, I found her.”

“Don’t tell me. The cemetery?”

“No,” he said smugly. “In the barn.”

There was not a witty response in sight. “Somebody put her in the barn?”

“Well. I figure she got there herself.”

“Cal, go slow and tell me what the hell you’re talking about.”

His face furrowed in concentration as if remembering a previous life. Finally he said, “This morning, I pulled the engine from the Dodge with the winch in the barn. Then I put it on some sawhorses in front of her so I could hop it up.” I guess I looked confused. “I was hopping it up. Rebuilding it. Adding some horse to it.” Still nothing. “Anyway, I lifted her out and hauled her over to the sawhorses in the middle of the floor. Then I let her down. She set there for about two seconds then BOOM! Down she went! Right through the goddamn floor. I grabbed a flashlight ‘cause the cellar was dark as a bat’s ass but the battery was dead. So I found that fancy old mirror—you know the one that mom got from Mrs. Pendlebury and was going to fix up and put in the spare room?—anyway I got that and sorta’ reflected the light down the hole. See, the whole goddamn floor just fell to pieces. So I was shining the light around…and I saw her."

“Jill?” I said, still not sure what to believe.

He rubbed his face hard, like he was clearing dust from his eyes. “Goddamn it, Johnny, she was lying there right in the middle of the floor. The engine block couldn’t have missed any more than two feet. She was still in her coffin clothes—the glittery black dress with the white flower on the chest—but it was all dirty and torn. Her feet were bare. But you see, I only got a quick look at her.” He paused, as if collecting himself again. “See, when the light from the mirror hit her—the sunlight—well goddamn if she didn’t jump up screaming and running like she was on fire. Because…see Johnny, she was.”

I had never seen him so disturbed. His eyes darted from my face to his twisting hands to the barn and back to me. I tried to calm him down. “Listen Cal, that doesn’t make sense. If she was on fire, you would have seen her right away. You wouldn’t need the light.”

“Jesus Johnny, the light set her on fire! It was the sunlight. That’s what set her off. But she beat it out. Then I heard her scrambling to get out, and she was snarling like a goddamn ‘coon in a snare. Here nails were scraping and digging in the broken-up floor, and some of it broke up even more, but she kept working her way up. I was freaking out—I thought I was gonna piss my pants—then her hand came over the edge right into the sun and whoosh! The flame shot off of it. She fell back and started snarling and spitting again. So I ran back to the house and called you. I didn’t know what else to do. Then I had a beer—just one to calm me down—then I ran back here and started pulling the broken planks out so she couldn’t climb out again. But then she started grabbing at the other ends and pulling. She nearly pulled me over the fucking edge! Strong as a fucking horse! So I just kicked them all down into the hole, and sat down to wait for you. I might have had one or two more beer after that.”

I leaned against the Dodge. Cal was upset, that was obvious. And he was not a good enough liar or actor to be pulling this over on me. For that matter, he was also not cold or cruel enough to consider this funny. On the other hand, Jill was gone. I saw her lying in a casket, I touched her face, and I helped carry her to her grave. Whatever Cal thought he saw, it could not have been Jill. Finally, I said, “Is she still there?”

“I guess. I ain’t seen her leave.”

“Well,” I said reluctantly, “I’d better take a look.”

The two of us moved slowly past the Dodge. The sun was warm on our backs, birds chirped and played tag in the high grass beside us, a bee buzzed past my head. It was an idyllic autumn day, but I still had an overwhelming urge to take Cal’s hand in mine. I fought it, sticking my hand in my pocket as we reached the edge of the cellar and peered in. We both jumped at the faint click of wood on wood right below our feet. Cal poked me and his mouth silently formed the words ‘she’s down there’. My mouth formed the words ‘no kidding’.

I cleared my throat and shifted my feet. Finally I spoke. “Hello?” My voice squeaked.

There was nothing. Even the shuffling and scraping stopped. I glanced at Cal, he gave me a ‘Well, go on!’ look with his eyes. I leaned out over the hole, trying to pierce the darkness. There were some rotted wood planks and beams, and the engine from the Dodge out near the centre of the hole. Some of the wood had obviously been there a lot longer than just today.

The whole cellar wasn’t as big as the barn around us. It may have been compartmentalized for strength, or maybe that’s all that was dug out. I couldn’t tell. Right below me, though, the darkness was too intense to pierce. I strained my eyes, leaning farther and farther out. Then, just below me, I could swear I saw a deeper darkness, with just the hint of two pale spots, tiny, pointed right at me. I shrieked when Cal put a hand on my shoulder.

“Don’t go too far out,” he said, gesturing to the boards under my feet. “Those ain’t looking too sturdy.”

“Right,” I muttered, shuffling back a couple steps.

I cleared my throat first this time and spoke again. “Who’s down there? We’re not going to hurt you. We just want to help you out. Do you need help?”

Nothing.

I turned to Cal. “Where’s that mirror?”

He pointed across the gap to the far wall. The mirror leaned against it, a large crack marring its dusty surface. It was about the size of a small coffee table top, with a frame of twining grape vines carved in pine and painted gold. It could have used repainting.

After I carefully made my way around the edge I hefted it up and looked into the darkness on the far side of the cellar. There was definitely a shape moving there, back and forth, pacing restlessly. It was just a shadow among shadows, but to me it sure looked like a petite woman in a dark dress. I caught the sunlight on the mirror and played it off the far wall where it made a brilliant oval of white, cut by a ragged slash of darkness that matched the crack in the glass. The shape scurried to the far corner of the cellar. I began moving the oval of light towards it.

“No. Please.”

The voice was hoarse, whispery—like it hadn’t been used for a long time. I felt Cal stiffen behind my elbow, but I held the mirror still.

“Why not?”

“It hurts, Johnny.”

I swallowed hard. That voice—broken and soiled as it was—I knew. Even though I hadn’t heard it for, what, five years? Not since her wedding to Ed Fergus when we danced for the last time—slow and tight. It had felt like we were alone, revolving gently in the soft light, borne aloft by the sonorous music. Jill had asked me how was university and was I a lawyer yet, and I asked her how the hell she could marry Ed Fergus. She didn’t get mad, but spoke softly into my shoulder how he took care of her, and he made good money with his father’s construction company, and that it would be his one day. She never spoke of love. I rested my chin against the side of her head and smelled her hair and watched her husband across the dance floor grab her sister’s ass and watched as the two of them laughed about it.

Megan, I eventually noticed, had been glaring at us from the table. She and I ended up missing the divorce bash two years later.

“Jill?” I called.

“I’m tired. I wanna sleep.” The words ended in a sigh, barely audible.

“Jill, what are you doing here?”

“I’m just tired. Tha’s all. Just resting a bit. I’ll go soon. Soon as…” she trailed off and away. I put down the mirror and grabbed Cal’s elbow, dragging him from gape-mouthed shock and back around to the Dodge. I could see the cab of the truck roughly outlined in shadow on the far side of the dirt cellar wall.

Cal pulled from my grip and whispered, “Soon as what? Soon as fucking dark, that’s what! She’s a goddamn vampire or zombie or some shit! Jesus-H-Christ Johnny, she’s a goddamn comic-fucking-book vampire, right? ‘Cause the sunlight made her burn. Shit!”

“Look Cal, take it easy. We don’t even know that’s Jill.” But I knew. That part of me that never let go of her, that stayed here even when we drifted apart and I went to Toronto and fell in love with Megan. That part knew. “We’ve got to get someone. We’ll get a doctor.”

“What good will a doctor do? She’s dead! There ain’t no needle can fix that! We gotta, I don’t know, cut off her head or burn her up or something. Turn the mirror on her till she’s gone!”

“NO!” It came more fiercely than I intended. “No Cal. She’s got to…I don’t know. We’ve got to lay her to rest.” I snapped my fingers. “I’ll call father Woodside, get him out here. He can do some rite or something.”

Cal shook his head slowly. “I don’t think you’d be best to talk to Woodside. Priests got long memories, and I bet he still remembers what you last said to him when he was here tending ma.”

Now that Cal brought it up, I recalled the words I spoke. ‘Where was your fucking God when the lymphatic cancer was snuggling up nice and cozy inside her?!’

“Okay, you call.”

Cal dropped his eyes and scuffed his feet. “I can’t call. After I talked to you, I was all freaked out, and I went running back to the barn. But I still had the phone in my hand. I kinda’ pulled it out of the wall,” he said quietly.

“Great,” I said. I didn’t know whether to laugh or scream. “Megan has my cell phone. She’s gone shopping and I’m supposed to call her and let her know what’s going on. Shit.” I had no choice. I fished my car keys out of my pocked and held them out to Cal.

He stared. “You want me to drive the Lexus?”

“No I don’t want you to drive the Lexus!” I snapped. “But it looks like I don’t have any choice. We can’t call anyone, and Father Woody may not come for me. For all your faults, at least you’ve been good to the church, helping out and all.” I sighed then motioned to the barn. “And someone’s got to stay here with…that…her…until you get back.” He reverently plucked the keys from my fingers, which momentarily didn’t want to let go. I continued. “Remember, this is a fast car. And it doesn’t have the clearance of the Dodge, so don’t bottom it out on those trails they call roads around here. Do you remember how to drive stick?” He nodded mutely. “Then get going.” I glanced at my watch. It was quarter to five.

“And Cal. Hurry.”

He sprinted to the car, hopped in, turned it over, and threw a rooster tail of gravel behind him as he spun around the yard and shot up the driveway. I watched his forgotten coffee spill off the hood and stain the quarter panel, and had no desire to rebuke my brother. When the dust settled, I turned and warily re-entered the barn.

The shadow of the Dodge was higher up the wall of the cellar than it was the last time I saw it. I wondered what time sundown was. It was mid-autumn, though decidedly warm. Maybe six thirty or seven? That would be one-and-a-half or two hours. Plenty of time. I sat down on the front bumper of the Dodge.

“J…Jill?" I had a hard time saying the name. To say it would be the same as accepting it and I couldn’t accept it. Couldn’t. To accept that the girl I grew up with, played with, drank and danced and made love with, could become this thing pacing like a caged animal, held in a prison of darkness—I just couldn’t accept it.

“Come down.”

It was a whisper; it might not even have passed my ears. It appeared in my head, caressed my spine, and I found my hands on the bumper, ready to lever myself to my feet. I shook my head hard, then lifted my hands slowly and deliberately folded my arms across my chest.

“We’re going to help you Jill. Cal is going right now to get help. It won’t be long.”

I listened. Beneath the crickets in the fields and the wind rustling the leaves of the willows around the house was the hiss hiss of bare feet pacing across a dirt floor. A jay called, startling me. Then the footsteps stopped.

“Will you let me go?” The voice was fuller, clearer, and sweeter than the last time I heard her speak.

“We’re going to help you.”

“You and Cal?”

“And Father Woodside.”

She laughed then, and it sounded both terrifying to me and full of sorrow. “Woody? What can he do?”

“He’s a priest,” I replied, hoping it would be enough.

When she spoke again, her voice was low, rising and falling unsteadily. “At Christmas, when Woody dressed up like Santa, you know how he would give out the boys’ presents first? ‘Cause after that he’d have us girls up there on his lap, one after another. And he’d have one of his hands under our ass, and the other one too high up on top of our thigh, and his erection pressing into the bottom of the other thigh. His woody. But he was a priest, and we didn’t know better, and we were embarrassed, so we never said. But we all know; me and Suze and Chris and Jen and Kelly.” When she paused, I heard the pacing start again. “He can’t help you.”

“He’s a priest. He’ll know what to do.”

Hiss, hiss—feet brushing the soil.

I got to my feet and started pacing myself. It couldn’t be her, I thought. I saw here in her coffin at Eisermann and Hutching’s Funeral Home. She looked peaceful, almost like she was sleeping. I know it’s a cliché, but it’s true. They say the makeup lady there is a genius. But she didn’t look like Jill. Not really.

After the funeral, they filled me in on the details. They had all been out at the old gravel pit, drinking and listening to tunes. Most of the usual gang, though Cal didn’t make it that night. Then a stranger showed up at the edge of the firelight. Suze and Jennifer told me they thought he looked like a bum when he first showed up, but after he sat with them a while and lit up a couple joints it got so that they couldn’t keep their eyes off him. He was like some dirty, sexy buck—a Harlequin Romance version of a bush hermit. And he took a shine to Jill. They seemed to hit it off, and he offered to walk her home. Two days later they found her on the edge of Digby’s Pond, halfway home. Her face and neck and arms had taken some cuts; the coroner said she could have got them running through the bush at night. But they were unable to prove foul play, and the cops never found the guy. Nobody even knew his name.

“Johnny. You should go.”

I snapped out of my reverie. The floor of the barn across the hole neatly bisected the hazy shadow of the Dodge’s windshield. I glanced at my watch.

5:08.

It had been almost half an hour. Cal and Woody—I corrected myself—Father Woodside might be on their way back by now, I though.

Her voice rose again, almost pleading. “You shouldn’t stay.”

“Why?” I asked, sitting again on the bumper.

“It won’t be safe, soon. I don’t want to hurt you.”

“Jill wouldn’t hurt me.”

“But I’m so hungry. It hurts me so, that I don’t think I can stop myself. I don’t want to hurt you—I don’t want to hurt anyone else.”

“Who else have you hurt?”

“John, please. Just go. Now.”

“We’re going to help you, Jill.”

“It won’t work.”

“It’ll work.”

“NO!” A strangled snarl rolled up from the cellar that was lost beneath the crashing of wood on wood, a percussion of fury. Then a six-by-six beam as tall as I was flew from the hole, crashed into the wall to my left, and fell fifteen feet to the floor.

I scrambled back to put the Dodge between her and me then waited. My pulse was pounding in my head. A moment of silence passed before her voice rose again, now in a mournful wail.

“Please, Johnny. Go! Get away.”

I didn’t speak. I didn’t know what to do. What the hell kind of strength was necessary to hurl that huge a chunk of wood through the air? Where the hell was Cal? It occurred to me that if anything happened to him, I would be stuck here. No car, no phone. I doubted Jill would sit tight while I fished the engine out of the cellar and tried to figure out how it fit back in the Dodge. Maybe I should just run, I thought. I could get a good head start; I might even be in town, safe behind locked doors before darkness enveloped the barn. I would be safe, and Jill would be free. She could leave this country behind; lose herself in a city—Toronto or Hamilton. She would be free.

I don’t want to hurt anyone else.

But, I realized, I wouldn’t be freeing her. I would be abandoning her.

I stepped to the side of the Dodge.

“No Jill. I’m going to help you. I won’t leave you again.” I took a step forward, then another. “Even if Woody is half way to the Pacific by now, I will do something. I loved you once, I may still, and I can’t just leave you to this…” I took another step forward, and then I saw her.

The shadow of the Dodge had crept up the wall until it formed a solid bar of twilight right up past the floor of the barn. She stood in that shadow now, half turned toward me, staring up at me. She did still wear the dress she’d been buried in, but it was soiled and torn. A clump of burrs clung to the white silk flower on her breast. Leaves and twigs were caught up in her hair, and dirt smeared her bare arms and legs and face. But that face was unmistakably hers. She was as pretty as she had ever been, but the sweetness was lost, as if her face had been masterfully carven from smooth, cold marble.

We stared at each other for a moment, and then she turned suddenly and thrust her clawed hands into the dirt wall of the cellar. She was using the shadow of the pickup as a passage out of her prison.

The dirt crumbled beneath her and she fell, but instantly she was up again, attacking the wall in a savage rush.

I turned to run. Then I realized that to do so would be to abandon her—to let her loose. I had to contain her. Quickly, I checked the wheels of the Dodge, saw nothing, and ran around to the other side where I found what I was looking for—two short pieces of wood bracing the back wheel. I kicked them free and leaned on the Dodge. It didn’t budge. Then I remembered the emergency brake. When it came to his truck, Cal couldn’t be too careful. I wrenched the passenger door open and leaped across the seat. From the corner of my eye, I glimpsed Jill clinging to the dirt wall, splayed like a spider, one hand reaching out for the splintered edge of the floor where it overhung the cellar. My hand scrabbled under the dash until I found the brake release. I yanked hard and immediately felt the truck relax. Hauling myself back out, I glanced across the barn. Now Jill was hanging by both hands from the barn floor, pulling herself up. Her nails had dug into the planks. I threw myself against the truck’s doorframe. With a crunching of gravel, the tires began to roll and the truck slipped out from under the barn, picking up speed as it glided down the hill. Then I turned, readying myself to flee.

Jill was hunched over the edge of the floor in the act of hauling herself up, two arms and one leg resting on the planks, her head twisted around to stare at me, her mouth frozen open as if to scream. Then the shadow of the Dodge slid off her, and she did scream as blue-white flames burst from her, dancing a hissing ballet across her face and hair and limbs. She half tumbled and half leaped back through the ruined floor. I rushed to the edge and saw her rolling in the shadows on the floor, thrashing at the flames that were no longer there. Cries fell from her lips, but not the animalistic sounds that she had uttered earlier. Now she sobbed like a haunted little girl wracked with despair. The sound tore at my heart, and for a moment I wanted to leap down to her, to hold her and rock her and comfort her.

I think I would have if not for the boom that reverberated suddenly through the yard. I spun and saw Cal’s beautiful cherry-red ’75 Dodge pickup—the only thing he ever really took care of—crash through the side of the decayed old chicken coop. It twisted as it slid down the drainage ditch behind the coup, slipped onto its side then, after balancing precariously for a moment, gave up and turned gently over onto its roof. Cal was not going to be happy.

Below me, Jill was lying still, a dark shape in the dusk of the cellar, sobbing gently, her face pressed into folded arms.

“Jill,” I called softly. “Jill, the flames are out. You’re okay.” She didn’t respond but continued to weep. “I’m sorry I hurt you. It was all I could do. Do you want something? Some water or something?”

Finally she lifted her head. Even in the darkness of the cellar, I expected to see her ruined by flames, blackened and peeling, the flesh beneath the skin exposed and smouldering. Yet when she revealed her face to me I gasped, for what I saw shocked me even more. Her skin was radiant, smooth and unblemished, like the purest, most perfect cream, marred only by two tear streaks glistening on her cheeks. She glowed in he fading light, and I saw her more clearly than should have been possible. She had never looked more beautiful to me. I craved her, ached for her. Staggering back from the edge, I grabbed a pillar and pressed my face into the rough wood to drive that vision from my eyes. When she spoke, her voice was like a soft breath in my ear, on my neck, across my chest. I felt a stirring in my groin.

“I’m not crying for the hurt. I’m crying because I knew, there on the edge of the floor, so close to freedom, that I would have had you if I could. I would have fed, Johnny, and my feelings for you wouldn’t have stopped me. I’d have had no choice. The craving’s just too strong. That’s why you gotta go. I can feel you, so close. As the sun gets lower, I get stronger. I feel more. And you’re like a great big bonfire, and I’m a moth. I can feel you drawing me. I know where you’re standing, and I know the blood is pounding in you and I feel your fear and disgust and need. When the sun is gone down, Johnny, I’ll have you.”

I pushed away from the pillar and staggered out of the barn like a drunken man, finally dropping to my ass on the gravel and grass of the hill. The sun, slightly orange and shining full in my face, was two or three handbreadths above the horizon. I looked down at my watch then lifted my face to the sky.

5:49.

“Cal! Where are you?” Only the crickets chirped in response. The trees that bordered the property were getting dark in front of me, orange behind me. The driveway was empty; a stiff evening breeze blew in off Georgian Bay to stir the dust off the gravel. I was alone. There were no neighbours—this property was the only decent dry land in this otherwise marshy bush. The road that ended at the driveway was really just a continuation of that driveway. Fifteen minutes of driving would have got me to the next farm—the Taylor’s if I remembered right. Walking? I suspect I wouldn’t see it till after dark. So, I suspect I wouldn’t see it at all.

My mind was in turmoil, searching vainly for a brilliant plan. There would still be time, I thought, to follow Cal’s advice—use the mirror to turn the sunlight on her till she was gone. Could I do it? Thinking of how her pain tore me up inside when the sun hit her last, I realized probably not. What were some of the other classics? The wooden stake—I doubt she would let me. Cloves of garlic—Cal wouldn’t have garlic salt in the kitchen, let alone cloves of the stuff. Crosses, holy water, holy wafers…it suddenly occurred to me that I was convinced, truly convinced. In the midst of my successful, happy, barely regretful life, I believed in and accepted the idea that people could rise after death to drink the blood of mortals. Vampires. I rolled the word around on my tongue.

“Vampires. Vampyres.”

And Jill was one. My Jill, who would lie with me in the grassy field in back of the old mill and let me play ‘John and Jill went up the hill’ on her bare belly while she giggled madly and desperately tried to stay still. Now she wanted to sink her teeth in my neck and suck my blood, and I had no idea if I could stop her. Or, when the time came, if I would even want to.

Against my will, I stole a glance.

5:56.

“Johnny.”

It came to me again, the sound like the voice of sultry angels, full of yearning and want and love. I lifted my head and turned to the barn as a shiver passed down my spine to my tailbone and sent a tickling like the caress of electricity to my groin.

“I want you near.”

I was on my feet, wondering what she was up to, knowing I’d better go and check. I walked briskly to the barn, while the deepest recesses of my brain said She’s not up to anything. She can’t be! She’s trapped!

When I reached the barn with the sun throwing my shadow on the far wall, she stood in the middle of the cellar, blurred by the tears of love in my eyes.

“It’s almost time,” she said. “Soon we’ll be together again, as we should be.”

“We’ll help you.” I muttered the hollow litany while my mind rejoiced at the thought of our union. She stepped forward, and I did the same.

Now I was on the edge of the jagged planks of the barn floor and she was below me. Two more steps and I would be in her arms again. She lifted her hand to me.

“Take my hand John. Let me feel you, one more time, as you are now, warm and alive. Please?”

Without being aware of it, I dropped to me knees then tipped forward to my hands. Her hand was before me, filling my vision, the fingers gently curving and straightening. I saw how beautiful they were, long and graceful and delicate. Her palms still carried the calluses from when she worked at the nursery cashiering and potting flowers, but even these were beautiful. My own lifeless hand lifted, hovered above the border between the orange-lit planks and the twilight below, where Jill’s hand waited like a lover at the end of a long voyage. I shifted forward so my arm wouldn’t graze the splinters protruding from the edge of the planks, a leftover instinct from the old days, when the excursions to the barn had to be hidden from our mom. She hated to see us hurt, or in trouble. She prayed for us every day to protect us from harm, to keep us safe, to keep us together beside her. Cal and me. And when we did hurt, she would hold us close and tell us over and over that she would always be there for us, no matter what ruckus we got ourselves into.
Jill’s hand closed into a fist.

No.

She dissolved in fresh tears as I pushed myself back to my knees and rolled to my feet.

My throat choked out the words, “I’m sorry Jill.”

“No!”

As I stumbled to the house, I looked at my watch.

6:03.

“Nooooo!” The cry rose like a howl that goaded the evening wind to shove and tug the leaves and branches of the willows that hissed and clattered in response. I broke into a run. High in the west clouds mounted, their bellies lit orange by the setting sun.

As I burst through the side door into the kitchen, I was instantly struck by how dark it was in the house. My hand found the light switch, flicked, and I hurried through to the living room. Where mom’s crucifix had stood upon the mantelpiece there now was a framed poster of a blond in a thong bikini lounging across the hood of a Dodge pickup. I groaned in despair. “Cal, where the hell did you put all mom’s stuff?”

I ran to the basement. It stank of stale beer and mildew. Cardboard boxes balanced in haphazard stacks between mounds of rusted lawn furniture, car parts, and a corroded old fridge. One wall was lined with cases of empty beer bottles. I started flipping the boxes open then tossing them aside one after another. I attacked another stack, then another, then another.

“Fuck!”

I tore through the rusted car parts, but there were no more boxes. My shirt was damp with perspiration as I tossed my jacket to the floor then ran to the stairs.

When I reached the kitchen again, I glanced through the window. The barn was aflame with blazing red-orange sunshine, and every blade of grass threw a long shadow that wavered in the wind. I checked my watch.

6:18.

The front closet held only coats, boots, snowshoes, shovels, and rock salt.

The back room held our bikes, four decrepit televisions, fishing rods, and a mouldy sofa.
I went up the stairs three at a time.

A quick glance showed that Cal had moved into mom and dad’s room. Our room, with the old wooden bunk beds dressers, seemed like some holy shrine, untouched and eternal. That left the spare room.

My first look as I burst through the door confirmed my worst fears. It was a jumble of cardboard boxes.

6:21.

I grabbed the nearest box, flipped it open, dumped it out. Then I grabbed another and dumped it, then another, then another. As I worked through the boxes, I found myself beside the window. The same fear that makes a child tuck his head under the blankets to escape the monsters in his closet caused my eyes to slide across the window without ever looking through them. But I finally forced myself to look.

The heaving shadows of the trees that bordered the west edge of the property were clearly outlined across the cedar shingles of the barn roof. The doors were bathed in shadow. I squinted at the doorway, trying to pierce the twilight that filled it. Then I saw her, standing beside the gap in the floor, her eyes turned to the house—to me.

“Shit!”

I threw aside another box, then another. The next was heavy and I tore it open, spilling most of the contents across the floor. There were three crucifixes, rosary beads, a book of hymns, and a pocket-sized bible. The heavy family bible with the hand-tooled leather cover still sat in the bottom of the box. I scooped up the crosses and beads with one hand and hefted the big bible in the other.

There were two windows and the door in the room. I had to defend them.

I leaned one crucifix against one of the windows then did the same with another cross against the other. As I did so, a movement in the yard caught my eye—the white of Jill’s silken flower skimming across the darkened lawn.

I threw myself across the room to the door, tearing a handful of pages from the bible at the same time. I shoved them against one side of the doorframe, and then shrieked as a heavy wooden crash burst from downstairs. My hands trembled violently as I spread the pages across the doorway, each page overlapping the one below it, while the ghost of footsteps raced up the stairs. Crab-like, I scrambled from the door where she suddenly appeared, her face an inhuman mask of hunger and malice, her mouth wide and bordered by two long pale fangs that gleamed wetly in the last of the light that crept in through the window at the end of the hall. Crying triumphantly, she leapt at me, and then staggered back as if she had struck a solid wall. The flimsy sheets of paper had kept her at bay. In a moment she was gone. There was another crash, this time of glass. I looked around wildly and saw her at the first window, her face pale and glowing in the twilight. She pressed her hand to the glass then yanked it back as if burned. She saw the crucifix and hissed at me, and then she was at the second window where her eyes lingered over the other crucifix. Then she was gone again.

Now I was in the middle of the room, trying to watch the door and both windows simultaneously. The rosary twisted between the fingers of one hand while the other hand thrust before me the last crucifix—the big wooden piece that had held dominion atop the mantelpiece, carved with the image of Jesus splayed across it in the final moments of His suffering, His feet not quite touching the heavy pedestal that had held Him upright.

Suddenly, after twenty-six years, I was a believer. It had taken the ultimate evil to convince me of the existence of the greatest good, and I suppose the evidence of what had occurred only moments ago was proof enough for me.

The sound of footfalls like whispers ascended the stairs, now slow and solemn. She emerged again in the doorway, achingly beautiful yet filled with barely suppressed malevolence. Her lips couldn’t quite meet across her enlarged canines. The darkness of the hall blended with her black dress so that her head, arms, and the soiled white flower on her breast appeared to float before me. I involuntarily took a step back, and held the crucifix before me as I spoke.

“You’re free now Jill. You can go.”

When she responded, her voice was deep, husky, as I remembered it so many times from sweat-slicked evenings in the back seat of my old Buick. “You said you would help me. You said you wouldn’t abandon me.” She spread her arms wide, as if to embrace me. “Here I am.”

I expected the worst. I expected to rush blindly into her arms, give in to her kisses and caresses, and spend my last living moments in utter bliss.

But I felt nothing.

Perhaps the boundary and force of my mother’s paraphernalia gave me clarity of sight; perhaps, now that the last of my sweet Jill was no more—dead and buried within the spectral whore in the doorway—there was no bond anymore. Perhaps I was just too goddamn tired. I sighed, and sat heavily in the middle of the floor.

“I’m sorry Jill. I’m sorry I failed you. I guess in the end, love doesn’t conquer all. But I’ll never forget you. The real you—not this.” I waved the heavy crucifix vaguely at her and for a second she squinted as if I had shined a flashlight in her eyes. Then she slid back out of sight, into the darkness beyond the doorframe.

I waited, and heard nothing but the rain beginning to tap heavily against the windows. Rolling wearily to my feet, I looked out the window, wanting but not wanting to see her leave.

Instead, I saw headlights at the top of the drive, jolting toward the house. It was an old, creaking station wagon—Father Woodside’s car.

A scuffling sound drew my gaze back to the doorway. Jill was there, hefting a chair. Effortlessly, she hurled it through the window at the end of the hall. Too late, I understood why.

The wind hissed across the landing and into the room, chilled the sweat on my face, and lifted the delicate pages from their place across the doorway, scattering them into the room and down the hall.

“Shit!”

I staggered back, felt the crucifix in my hand crash against the wall behind me, heard a crack, then she was flying towards me, arms outstretched, mouth wide, eyes blazing. I thrust the cross before me and saw that the pedestal base had broken off, leaving a ragged end of pale wood. I turned it in my hand as she slammed into me, her hands closed around mine. We both bounced off the wall then fell to the floor, me beneath her, gasping and struggling. It took only a moment to realize that she was still.

I pushed, rolling her off me and onto her back. The crucifix was standing upright, the broken end half buried in her breast. Thick blood bubbled around it like molasses.
Her mouth and eyes were wide open, unmoving, her long sharp teeth flecked with blood. With one hand I took hers’ and with the other, I slid her eyelids shut. The downstairs door banged again.

“Holy shit! Sorry Father.” It was Cal’s voice, rising from the kitchen. “John! Johnny, where the hell are you?”

Her eyes snapped open; her hand squeezed mine in her cold grip. Then she gasped, long and thin and fetid, and the gasp turned into words.

“Help me.”

I squeezed her hand back, and a tear spilled from my eye and fell on her cheek.
Two pairs of feet rattled up the stairs.

“Holy shit Johnny, are you okay? What the hell hap— Oh shit. See? See, Father? Jus’ like I told you! Can you do something?”

I didn’t look up as a trembling hand was laid on my shoulder. Father Woodside, his voice quaking, softly said, “It’s alright John. I… I think I can help her now.”

He set down a leather bag then knelt beside her and made the sign of the cross on her brow. Her hand trembled momentarily in mine. Then he lifted a book from his bag, paged through it, and began to read.

“Rest eternal grant unto her, O Lord. And let perpetual light shine upon her…”

Her hand squeezed mine again, and another breath hissed from her throat, whether in agony or ecstasy I could not tell. As Father Woodside’s voice droned on, Cal crouched beside me. A heavy bandage was across his brow, and he had a shiner around his left eye.

“Sorry we were so long.”

I put my free hand on his shoulder, smiled at him, and said, “Cal. Where’s my car?”

His eyes dropped to the floor. “You know the co-op barn just inside town at the top of the hill where the Fifth Line turns sharp?”

“Yeah.”

“It’s sorta sticking outa’ there.”

“Shit.”

We were quiet for a moment, listening to Father Woodside.

“Oh Lord, hear my prayer. And let my cry come to Thee. The Lord be with you. And with thy spirit…”

Then Cal said, “Hey Johnny, where’s my truck?”

“Behind the chicken coup.”

He raised himself on one knee, peering through the window into the near dark night. Then he dropped back down beside me.

“Shit.”

Jill was lying still, but her eyes were upon me. They gleamed in the last of the light. I placed both my hands around hers’.

“Grant, we beseech thee, O Lord, to the soul of thy servant, who hath been held in the bond of excommunication, a place of refreshment, rest and repose, and the brightness of Thy eternal light. Through Christ our Lord.” Woodside looked at us pointedly.

“Amen,” we responded. Jill’s lips barely moved with ours.

Her eyes slid shut and her hand fell limp. And she was just Jill again. My Jill. I leaned over and placed a kiss on her cold brow, then wiped the tears from my eyes and grasped the crucifix with both hands.

“Is she okay, Father?”

“Yes, John.” And I slid it free from her breast. The wood was clean, and gleamed in my hand. Gently, I crossed her hands over the stain on her dress. Then we went downstairs to have a beer in the light of the kitchen.

When Father Woodside was ready to go and call the undertaker to collect Jill, I took him aside.

“Thank you, Father. For everything.”

He smiled and patted my back gently. “If there is anything else I can do for you…”

“Actually,” I replied, “You can burn the Santa suit, and never do that shit again.”

His face flushed, and then he nodded mutely and left.

When I turned back, Cal held out another beer for me. “What are you going to do now?”

“Well,” I said, opening the beer. “It’s going to take a few days to fix up the Lexus. I should call Meg and let her know that I’m stuck here. After that? I dunno. Maybe we’ll build a porch.”

Cal grinned and took a drink.


End