AN EX-CON on the run from his own shattered past…
A WOMAN taken against her will…
A YOUNG MAN consumed by rage…
AND A TOWN on the edge of darkness.

In White Falls, a horrifying truth is about to be uncovered that will unleash an ancient evil. Some secrets should remain buried…

A recovering alcoholic on the run from his past, all Billy Smith wants is to be left alone. But the visions that torture his every living moment will not let him rest. Commanded by the voices in his head to commit acts of violence he does not understand, he kidnaps a prostitute known only as Angel and heads north to a bucolic little New England town called White Falls.

There, the two strangers try to blend in while they struggle to understand the bizarre circumstances that have brought them together. But in this town all is not what it seems. Something monstrous has taken root in White Falls, and has waited centuries for the right time to awaken.

As the town draws closer to its Spring Festival, psyches begin to unravel and violence erupts. Nobody is safe from the madness that spreads from neighbor to neighbor, kin to kin. As Billy Smith and Angel hurtle headlong towards their ultimate destiny, they find themselves in the grip of a power much greater than they can imagine.

The fate of the living ultimately rests on the back of one man.

For the dead are watching . . . and they are hungry.

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On a cloudless night in April an ancient gray Volkswagen drifted through the outskirts of a town called Holy Hill, South Carolina, before pulling into the Sleepy Inn parking lot. The two people inside the car had seen many such towns over the past few days, and many such motels. They parked near the manager’s office.

“I’ll just get us a room,” the man said to the woman driving. She was pretty and thin but too pale. “Remember,” he said, “I’ll be able to see you from the window. Don’t try anything stupid. I don’t want to cuff you again.”

The woman nodded. She knew enough about that. Last time the handcuffs were too tight and had cut cruelly into her flesh. She rubbed her wrist absently, touching the dark-blue bruises that marked their passage.

The man opened the passenger door and got out, flakes of rust fluttering to the ground, then reached back in and pulled the keys from the ignition. Then he closed the door with a thunk and walked quickly to the office.

He was such a tall man, almost as thin as me, the woman thought. She could see his head and shoulders through the grime-smeared window, and she could see the top half of another man’s head. He had thick, white hair and looked like someone’s grandfather.

She started to shiver uncontrollably. Help me, she pleaded silently to the old man. Oh please, help . . .

* * * * *

“. . . a room for me and my wife,” the man was saying. He stood at the counter facing the manager of the motel. The manager had a deeply lined country face and his hands were large and chapped, and he cupped them together on the counter like two lifeless birds.

“Just the one night?”

“We’ll be leaving early.”

“We got single rooms with twin beds. You can push ‘em together if you want.”

“That’s fine,” the man said. He stole a quick glance out the window. “Twin beds are just fine.”

The manager reached for a key from the rack behind his head and then opened the dog-eared register on the counter. A brand-new computer monitor and keyboard sat nearby gathering dust. “Sign in here. Out by ten tomorrow or you’ll be paying for another night whether you stay or not. There’s a breakfast place down the road where you can get a cup of joe. Opens up early.”

The man took up a pen, hesitated just a moment and signed, Mr. and Mrs. Claude Barnes.
“Okay, Mr. Barnes,” the manager said. “Room twenty-three, just two doors down—”

“Do you have anything toward the end of the motel?” the man interrupted. Then, seeing the look on the manager’s face, he continued, “my wife is a light sleeper. If there’s anything farther away from the road . . .”

The manager nodded. “Sure. I’ll put you in room four.” He took another key down from the rack.

The man took the key and left the office, his palms sweaty and his blood thumping. He could see as he stepped back into the parking lot that the woman hadn’t moved from the driver’s seat. He slid a hand in his coat pocket and fingered the handcuffs, feeling their weight, their substance. The metal was cool and slippery. He couldn’t possibly watch the woman all the time. He would have to begin to trust her eventually. He was tired, so very tired. They had been on the road for two days straight, driving through the night.

He walked around the car and opened the driver’s side door. The woman looked up at him like a dog that had been kicked. It made him sick to see her looking at him like that. “Get out,” he said roughly, and stepped back. She stood up and he couldn’t help noticing her flinch as he reached out to close the door. He knew he would have to cuff her later, and it made him angry. He didn’t like getting angry but couldn’t seem to help it. He’d never been good with women, had never been able to understand them. She was scared and there was nothing he could do to change that now.

A cold wind had come up, the kind that brings tears. It ruffled their hair and tore at their clothes as they walked quickly across the mostly empty parking lot, and brought a smell of leaves and cold mud, dead things lying in watery ground.

The man fumbled the key into the door lock and turned it. The motel room was dark and hot. He felt around on the wall until he found the light switch, and then he closed the door quickly behind them. The room looked like it had last been remodeled sometime in the 1960s; water-stained wallpaper, lamps with pale green shades, landscape prints in chipped frames and faded pastel colors. He smelled pine-scented cleaner and stale sweat, a room that cried out to be opened up to the wind and stripped to the bare boards.

He sat down heavily on the nearest bed, feeling it sag under him. The springs poked at him like little bony fingers. He wanted a hot shower but didn’t dare take one yet.

She was staring at the twin beds. “Will you handcuff me again tonight?”

“Damn it,” he said softly, the fight slipping away from him at once. “Don’t talk to me about that. Not now.”

The woman had turned her eyes on him. “I won’t run. I promise.”

“Yes you will,” he said. “I would.”

“I didn’t run away just now. I saw you in there through the window. I could have gotten away any time. I could have screamed for help. That man would have helped me. He looked like a nice guy.”

“I would have had to kill him,” he said quietly. “Do you want that?”

“You couldn’t kill him!” she said, her voice rising in pitch. “You don’t have the guts. Fucking coward.”

The man looked at her for a moment and shook his head. “I’m sorry. Really I am. But you’ve got to understand—”

“I don’t understand anything!” the woman shouted suddenly, forcefully, the words torn from her throat. Her hands had curled into fists; tears welled up behind bruise-colored lids. She struggled out of the light jacket he had given her and threw it onto the floor, then pulled her white haltertop over her slender neck and head. She ripped at her skirt until it gave and fell around her ankles, and she stood trembling in front of him in lace bra and panties, her chest flushing red.

“Go ahead.” She stared at him, her eyes wild. “Rape me if that’s what you want. Come on, you son of a bitch. Get it over with, why don’t you?”

“I’m not going to touch you.”

“Can’t get it up? Always trying to push women around when there’s nothing between your legs? I know you. I know who you are.”

“Shut up.”

“Fuck you! Coward!”

The last shriek of words hung in the air and drifted away to silence. He remained still on the bed, watching her face, wondering if anyone had heard. A vein in her throat jumped. She was so thin, he thought, but beautiful. A strange thing to be thinking now but he couldn’t help it. This was the first time since he had taken her that she had put up a fight, and it was about time.

“Come here,” he said, and added, “please.” He patted the mattress beside him and waited.
She shook her head. But then she sat. He reached into his coat pocket and withdrew the handcuffs, and she sighed as he touched her arm, letting out a single, choked sob. He closed one of the cuffs on the cross bar at the head of the bed and the other on her wrist. Then he stood up from the mattress and gathered her things from the floor. “Cover yourself,” he said.

Then he went into the bathroom and closed the door, leaning his head against the slippery wood. The woman was quiet in the other room. Was he crazy, taking her like this? The thought had crept into his head lately; he had begun to think of it as a real possibility. Slowly, he undressed and climbed under the scalding spray, letting his head hang down, letting the needles of water wash away the dirt from his skin. Wash away the guilt.

* * * * *

Twenty minutes later he left the bathroom and found the woman asleep on the mattress. She had not dressed. He stood looking down at her a moment, watching her sleep. Needle marks and bruises dotted her arm. Tears streaked her face.

Maybe he was crazy, after all. The thought did not afford him any comfort, nor did it change things much. It did not stop the images that kept churning through his head, did not stop the voices. Real or not, they were there, clamoring to be heard. They wouldn’t stop until he had done what they asked him to do.

He turned out the light and quietly climbed in between the sheets on the other bed. Lying in the blackness, listening to the sound of the cars on the road, he realized he only knew her first name. Angel. Surely that wasn’t her real name. Nothing but a stage name, like the dancers in Las Vegas used to keep the crazies out of their backyards. She knew where they were going and something of what they had to do, even if she wouldn’t admit it. But that didn’t make it any easier.

“I’m sorry, Angel,” he whispered softly, but her breathing did not change, and he was sure she hadn’t heard. He closed his eyes in the darkness, and prayed the dreams would not come again tonight.

Read the opening to part one: Past Haunts

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I’m sitting on the couch in my living room, laptop balanced on my knees. The sound of the shower drifts in from the first floor bathroom, along with the Beach Boy’s “Wouldn’t It Be Nice” from the shower radio. Among the splashing sounds come the voices of my daughters; the four year old’s high, happy laughter, the eleven year old’s voice a bit deeper, stronger, a little wiser. My older daughter treats her sister like a princess to be pampered, calling her sweetheart as she helps shampoo her hair.

They are in the shower together because it is now our only bathroom, and there is no tub. Last weekend I took a sledgehammer to the upstairs bathroom and back bedroom. Now it is a tangled mess of dangling wires, nubs of shattered lathe and piles of insulation.

Our little one is too small to shower on her own, and our oldest, because she loves her sister (and her parents), has agreed to help out. She has already showered once today, but the four year old has syrup in her hair and sauce on her nose. She hasn’t seen a bar of soap since Friday. Back to school tomorrow. Time to get clean.

I’ve just come in from a trip to the grocery store with the four year old to get supplies for the week. An hour and a half of jogging up and down the aisles, keeping one eye on the shelves and another on the little girl who keeps yanking things off of them. “Can we buy this one, Daddy? How about this? This one?” When we returned home I juggled putting items away while she pulled them right back out, delighted all over again in what she had found.

I am exhausted. I feel it deep in my bones. This Sunday began even earlier than usual. My wife got up at 6 a.m. to take a friend to the airport, while I tried to sneak in some writing time on the laptop before the kids found me, and before the chorus of breakfast and demands for playtime invaded my private thoughts.

We’ve been to the movies once today (Chicken Little); watched another on DVD (Robots); after the first movie and before the second, while the four year old took her nap, I lugged all the yard furniture into the garage, installed a lock to keep the doors from banging in the wind, packed up the transformer for the ground lights, and cleaned up a few stray pieces of the demolition project I’d tossed out the second-floor window a few days before. The dumpster gets picked up tomorrow morning. Anything not in for the ride will be left behind, bits and pieces to be discovered like an archeological find after the snow melts in the spring.

Already my brain is buzzing with a million other things to do. Update the website, get another new page or two written, tweak that ad for the newsletter, polish up a short story, read a few pages of a book I need to review. Then there’s work tomorrow, meetings and deadlines, phone calls and emails to write. Somehow we have to move ahead with the backroom project I started last week–make sure the dumpster gets picked up, juggle the carpenters and plumber and electrician, scheduling everyone so they don’t run into each other or fall through the open floor joists. We won’t be at home, so we have to make sure every instruction is clear.

The project needed to be done. We’d been living for the past three years with a second floor bathroom about five by seven feet, with a slanted floor, leaky pipes and a light switch that worked only when it felt inspired. But all this is enough to make my head throb. I can feel myself slowly simmering inside. A cough that has been lingering for the past few days feels like it might develop into something nasty, and my body is filled with a sledgehammer’s aches and pains. Why do we do it to ourselves, I wonder. I don’t need all this. Why not just let things go, just a little? Crack open a beer and flip on an episode of CSI? Why do we fight so hard to be always moving, always trying to cram in one more thing before we fall into bed for a few hours of restless sleep?

I hear the girls again as the shower turns off. The little one giggles as her sister towels down her hair. My wife smiles at me over the screen of her laptop. Green Day’s on the radio now; “When September Ends.” The little one starts singing along, and her sister joins in before the hair dryer drowns them both out.

My wife smiles at me, stretches her toes out to touch mine. Our dueling laptop keys pause as we recognize this fleeting moment, one of those rare suspended seconds when you see your life spread out like a fresh canvas, when you know the love that is always there, but too often buried deep beneath the remains of the day.

Then the four year old comes running in like a miniature bulldog, flinging her still-wet hair, shouting about her snack, and wanting to play for just one more minute; our oldest calls out that there’s water on the floor, and that her sister tried to bite her when she wouldn’t give her the hair dryer. The living room looks like it’s been ransacked by a gang of thieves. The moment is over. But I’m able to smile again.

I might miss a deadline tomorrow, and my story might not get done. I don’t know about the updates to the site, and I’m not sure if the electrician will show up or not. But I do know, once again, why we do this: we push ourselves to make everything as perfect as we can for our loved ones. But sometimes we lose sight of them in the process. And that’s a shame.

I’m ready to take on tomorrow. I’m going to tackle each and every thing on my list, one at a time. But first, I’m going to go read my little girl a story. Because this, this is my life.

This is why I do what I do.

PART ONE: PAST HAUNTS

If a man die, shall he live again?
All the days of my service I would wait,
Till my release should come.
-Job 14:14

August 20th, 1726.

Regards,
Frederick

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On the way to Thomaston to pick up his dead father’s things, Jeboriah Taylor found himself thinking back on the events that had shaped his life. He wasn’t usually one to dwell upon old memories, particularly those that involved his father. What was done was done; if you spent your life looking back, you had the tendency to keep running into walls. But tonight was different. Tonight was a celebration of sorts, a new chapter. Tonight he would finally be free.

Drinking and yelling, that’s what he remembered about his daddy. That and the thing his daddy had done, the thing that nobody in this town could ever forget, no matter how hard they tried. The thing that had shaped the family’s reputation in everyone’s eyes forever.

And all that somehow had to do with another funny thing; the confrontation he had this morning with his Gramma Ruth, who was still alive, but going senile. He could never be sure if Ruth was following things or not. She hadn’t been truly herself for years. But this morning her eyes had been unusually bright, and he knew she was having one of her clear days. Jeb hadn’t been sure if she even understood her son had died until then.

“You going to that prison, Jeboriah?” she’d said, when he walked through the kitchen on his way to the door.

“Later today. I gotta pick up his things.”

“There’s nothing of his that suits a boy like you. He’s dead, Jeboriah. I don’t want his things in this house. I don’t want him buried near your Momma and I don’t want any service.” She peered at him until he got the uncomfortable feeling she could see right through his head and glimpse what he was thinking. “I want him buried somewhere far away from here. And I want you to promise me. Promise me you won’t even look at his things. Don’t touch them. Just throw them away.”

Jeb started to say something, but she had turned back to the stove and he could see she was already fading away, that light in her eyes a swiftly sputtering candle. Anything else he said would make little difference to her. He left her staring aimlessly into space, a smile on her face, as if she were thinking of things far away from him and her dead son.
What the hell all that had meant, he couldn’t say. Maybe she hadn’t been having one of her clear days after all, maybe her mind had run out on her again. But none of that really mattered anymore. Now he felt the dark all around him and the loneliness of the open road and he thought to himself, tonight I’ll finally be free of it all. Free forever.

Route One wound its way along the coast, through the old sea towns and stretches of thick woods. The road was already narrow and the way the pine trees crowded the shoulder made the corners tend to sneak up on you. But Jeb Taylor drove like he might take off at any moment, lift right off the ground and into space like some nightmare ship bound for the stars. He felt a strange kinship with the darkness of space, the way he’d heard talk about the coldness up there, the distance. He felt like outrunning whatever was chasing him, but no matter how fast the car went, whatever it was kept right on behind.

The car’s headlights sliced through the darkness ahead and the sixty-nine Chevy gobbled up asphalt and spit it out behind, dual side pipes growling like a wounded bear. Nothing like a sixty-nine for pure, raw speed. The seats were big and slippery and the clutch was looser than a whore, but the engine was good old USA steel. Gas tank could eat a twenty quicker than you could turn around, but ain’t nobody gonna catch me out here unless he’s Superman. Jeb used to watch Superfriends on Saturdays, and he always thought a good double barrel in the chest would stop the Wonder Twins, and maybe Aquaman because he was such a pussy and talked to fish, but Superman could do anything. Superman was made of pure steel.

Into a straightaway the car surged again, the speedometer ticking up past eighty and still climbing as the tires scrambled for purchase. The dash lights were green and pulsed slowly as the alternator struggled along under the hood. Jeb’s face seemed to pulse like a bullfrog’s throat. He smelled burning oil and hot rubber, watching the road with one hand gripping the wheel, the other piloting the stereo controls.

The oldies station was playing one of his favorites by the Thunder Five;

Good doctor-man, can ya lend me a hand
There’s a feelin’ I get and I don’t understand
Gotta fever burnin’ in my brain
Good doctor-man, ‘fraid I’m going insane

The song suited his mood just fine. What was it like to go crazy anyway? Was it like old Annie Arsenault out at the swap shop who sometimes forgot her own name and wandered around outside buck naked? Crazy old witch sometimes made it all the way down Route Twenty-seven to town before anyone saw her. Jeb’s Gramma Ruth used to find her sitting on a bench outside the Railway Cafe wearing nothing but a straw hat, and when she tried to get her in the car old Annie Arsenault would tell her to go to hell.

Maybe, he thought, your daddy could have told you something about crazy. But it’s too late for that now.

Jeb took the next corner a little too fast, and fat tires squealed on tar as the big car swung sideways into the wrong lane. He wondered for a moment as he twisted the wheel and pumped the brakes if he was going to make it. Then the car righted itself and he was left wondering whether he was actually trying to kill himself or whether he was just plain stupid. He drummed his fingers nervously on the steering wheel in time with the music. It was nerves, that was all. He had to be honest with himself, tonight of all nights; he was dreading what was ahead, what was waiting for him at the prison. Not for what his father could do to him physically, of course; it was way too late for that. Ronnie Taylor had died in his cell the night before from some kind of heart failure, and was already rotting away on a cold slab in the morgue.

No, Jeb was afraid of what other old memories might come floating to the surface. He hadn’t even seen his father in ten years, never mind heard his voice. The sound of that voice wouldn’t ever be able to touch him again; but he would surely see Ronnie Taylor in his dreams.

* * * * *

Thomaston State Prison was located just outside the town of Rockland, on a straight, dull stretch of Route One. It looked like a factory building, and you might think it was somebody’s place of business, except for the high fences and barbed wire. Jeb parked and went around to the visitor’s entrance, where he was met by a fat guard with a black mustache and a stain on his blue prison shirt that looked like mustard. The guard’s face was greasy and his collar ringed with sweat. “About goddamn time,” the fat guard said. His beady eyes blinked through pockets of fat. Jeb could see bits of white that clung to the hairs of the guard’s mustache, remnants of his last meal. “Taylor, ain’t it? What took you so long?”

“Sorry,” Jeb muttered. He tried but could not meet the guard’s stare. This was what he hated the most about himself. When it came time to stand up to people, to show them who was boss, he just couldn’t do it. People took one look at him and assumed control like this guard was doing already.

Fucking fat bastard. I oughta show you a thing or two . . .

But he didn’t say anything, just followed numbly along as the guard led him through a maze of corridors and barred doors. The doors rolled and clanged shut heavily behind them, sounding like distant thunder. They saw no one, but now and again noises floated down from the prison cells that sounded more animal than human. The corridors were thick with the smell of hot male sweat. Jeb couldn’t help thinking that this was where his father had spent the last ten years of his life, caged up like something less than a man. Something to be feared. But that was part of what his father had wanted, after all; and wasn’t that just a little of what he wanted too? For people to take a step back when they saw him, for the other person to look away first?

At a desk they met a second guard propped up next to a wall of television screens, his feet on the counter, hands locked behind his head. This guard was short and completely bald, his head so shiny and smooth it reflected the lights in the ceiling. “Watched you come in,” he said, as the other guard disappeared into another room. “Nice wheels.”

“My father’s car. Restored it myself.”

“Yeah?”

Jeb smiled at the man, wondering what he was thinking. Bet you think my daddy stole it, don’t you, you prick? For all I know he did. But it’s mine now.

The fat guard came back from the inner room carrying a stack of papers in one hand and a suitcase in another. “This is all Ronald’s things,” he said, dropping the suitcase on the floor. “There ain’t a lot. Few old clothes, couple of books and girlie mags. You don’t go out shopping much when you’re in for murder, eh? No field trips to the mall.” He grinned, then slapped the papers down on the counter. “You need to sign a few places here.” He pointed with a pen. “Here, and here.”

“You’re Ronnie Taylor’s son,” the bald guard said, as if he’d figured out a riddle. He took his feet off the counter and sat up. “You must be how old, eighteen, nineteen maybe? I don’t remember seeing you around here.”

“Me and my father aren’t too close. Weren’t, I mean.” Jeb straightened up and handed the signed papers to the fat guard.

“Didn’t like him much?” the bald guard asked, persisting.

“Ronnie was an ornery bastard,” the fat guard interrupted. “Always causing an uproar around here, getting the inmates going so as we’d have to lock him up in solitary. Son of a bitch.” He looked at Jeb with little squinting pig eyes. Some crumbs fell off his mustache onto his shirt. “No offense.”

Jeb wanted to leave. The fat guard was blocking the door. “You said you wanted him buried, right?” the guard said. “Potter’s Field, eh? No service?”

Yeah, you fat sick blubbering pig, now get the fuck out of my way.

He nodded. “That’s right.”

“Just making sure. Normally the funeral parlor has them cremated if nobody claims the body. The parlor will send you a bill for the plot.”

“How much?”

“Depends.” The guard paused, squinted at him as if sizing up the competition. “Costs less to cremate. What the fuck you care, anyway?”

Both guards were looking at him now. Jeb’s throat felt as if it were about to close; he was starting to sweat. He looked at the floor. The corners of the room were yellow and crusted with dirt.

“Maybe you ought to talk it over with the rest of the family?”

“No. Cremate him.”

The fat guard looked like he’d just won something. He led Jeb back through the dim hallways, unlocking and locking the doors as they went. Each one clanged again, and this time the sounds seemed hollow, following them as they continued to the outer doors. Jeb carried his father’s suitcase in his right hand, the handle slippery under his sweating fingers. An image of the bald guard hung in his mind; watching him through the cameras, hands clutching his belly, laughing. Those damn guards had been laughing at him the whole time, but what was he going to do about it?

If I were back there now I’d shut their mouths. He imagined jacking the fat guard up against the wall with his forearm, holding him there while he gave the other one a look, saying, don’t fuck with me, I’ll look through my father’s things whenever I goddamn please. The other one just standing white-faced, nodding yes sir, whatever you say sir.

The plastic handle of the suitcase felt as if it were on fire in his hand. He imagined something moving around inside, thumping and wriggling and bulging. Popping the latch, lifting the lid, feeling things flying out at him, liquid screams through open mouths, nightmares and memories of nightmares thrusting their cold, moist jaws into his face. And he felt that if he opened it now it would be like opening up his father’s life again, ready to swallow him whole.

Ronnie’s an ornery bastard.

Maybe he was, Jeb thought. But not anymore. My daddy’s dead now, and nothing else. I’m free now, you hear me?

He left the fat guard behind and when he was out of sight of the doors, he broke into a run for the car.

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My wife and I were delighted with our new apartment. On the third floor of an attractive, red brick building, situated on a pleasant street away from the noise of the city, it was all we had hoped to find and more. We moved in quickly, settling our belongings the way we liked in each room, laying out rugs, hanging pictures, and filling the closets. The living room was bright and sunny, with a fireplace, high ceilings, and large windows that faced the south, looking out over a pleasant lot filled with green grass. The bedroom was darker, and often gloomy, which I did not like as much; but my wife seemed to take to it, and spent much of her time sitting in the rocking chair beside the only window.

Our neighbors seemed to be pleasant people, though for the first few days we heard little from them other than a quick hello in the stairwell as my wife and I headed out to dinner one evening. That was why I was so surprised when I was approached by the woman who lived in the next-door apartment, as I was leaving one morning. She had heard a racket through the walls last night and wondered if everything was all right. I assured her everything was fine, that my wife and I had christened our home with our first fight, a few pots and pans had been thrown, but that otherwise we had survived. I apologized for alarming her, and told her things would be quieter from now on.

I missed the bus and was late for work, which only irritated me more, and by the time I was on my way home that night I was in an extremely agitated mood. I was a bit worried about how my wife would react to me when I returned. What we had fought about the night before I could barely recall, but I knew that it had been important to her, and that for all intents and purposes I had spoiled the first week in our new home.

I detoured to pick up a bouquet of wildflowers from the local shop and a bottle of wine. When I returned to our apartment I found my wife in the bedroom, reading a book in what had swiftly become her favorite spot, that rocking chair by the window. I asked her forgiveness and gave her the flowers. But while we were preparing dinner I thought she reacted rather coolly to my questions, and that set my mind to worrying. My wife had been occasionally distant during the course of our marriage, and lately it had seemed to get worse, which was one of the reasons I had wanted to move in the first place. I was afraid she had been losing feelings for me, while I was still desperately in love with her. I had always wondered why she married me. She was a beautiful woman. Many better men had been attracted to her, and still were, I knew. So I had always tried to be attentive and kind, heaping my affections on her, knowing that if she left me I would lose my mind with grief.

During the meal, I told her about my conversation with the old lady next door. She seemed to find it amusing for some reason, or perhaps it was just the wine. After the dishes were done we made love in the living room in front of the fire, and although she returned my embrace, it seemed that some of her usual passion was missing, though I did not question her about it. Later I awoke in the middle of the night and saw her sitting in her chair by the window, her eyes moist in the moonlight, hands clasped in her lap.

The next day I took the afternoon off to buy her a present. I shopped for hours, becoming obsessed with finding the right gift, something that would restore her feelings for me. I had done her wrong, and she had evidently not forgiven me though I had tried everything I could to convince her. Something more drastic was in order. Finally I ended up in the most expensive jewelry shop in town, and bought a diamond choker the jeweler assured me would warm any woman’s heart. I hurried home after the sun had fallen.

But if I had hoped for a warmer reception at the door, I was sorely disappointed. I found her in the bedroom rocking chair again, reading glasses perched in her nose and a book in her hand, though she was not looking at the print but staring into space, deep in thought. When I entered the room she did not realize I was there at first, and then I believed I saw a frown pass across her face as she glimpsed my reflection in the window. I showed her the necklace, and helped her put it on. She seemed to brighten a bit, and as she appraised herself in the mirror I imagined a smile touched the corners of her mouth. But when I kissed her she turned away.

I was crestfallen. What had I done to deserve this treatment? I had a good job with a decent salary. I had always provided for her, in every sense of the word. I rarely raised my voice in anger. If she wanted something I had a habit of getting it for her as soon as I could. I was attentive and loving. What more could she ask for in a husband?

I asked her what was wrong. She only glared at me, as if she could not believe I did not remember. Again, I apologized for the fight, and told her it would never happen again. I had lost my temper, but, I reminded her gently, so had she. Weren’t we both equally at fault? And, if not, then couldn’t she accept that I had suffered enough?

Nothing I said had any effect. I wanted to throw my arms around her. I wanted to fall at her feet and beg her forgiveness. But in the end I did nothing. That night I ate alone in the kitchen, and when I entered the bedroom and climbed into bed, she was asleep, and did not stir. The diamond choker sat in its box on the dressing table by the mirror.

When I awoke the next morning she was not in the bedroom, and her side of the bed was cold to the touch. I found her in the living room, sitting by the dead embers of the fireplace and dressed only in her nightgown. I told her she looked a bit pale and she would catch a chill, but she only glanced at me in disdain, her wide, beautiful eyes seeming to mock my every word. I draped my coat around her bare shoulders and went into the kitchen to make us breakfast, but my stomach was churning, and I could not eat.

At work I grew desperate. I tried to come up with another way to prove myself, but I could think of nothing. I had spent a good part of my savings on the necklace, and anything else I bought for her would seem ridiculous in contrast.

My mind had turned to darker thoughts by lunchtime. I began to fixate on all sorts of things once again. Picking up the ringing phone and finding no one on the other end; discovering a pair of panties I had never seen before in her dresser. What if she had been having an affair after all? Suddenly the idea would not leave my mind. I called the apartment, and got no answer. I imagined all sorts of scenarios; I imagined her in bed with another man, and my heart twisted in my chest. Making up my mind to confront her, I gathered my things and headed for the bus.

When I arrived home, I found her alone in the bedroom. I asked her why she had not answered the phone. She continued to read in her chair, as if I weren’t there. I asked her why she would not speak to me. Could I have been that much of a brute? After all, I had done everything in my power to make her happy. Our fight had been such a trivial one; I knew she had been faithful to me, I told her. Why I had ever doubted it I couldn’t say. We were in love. We would always be together. Nothing could change that, nothing.

I paced, I raised my voice to her. She did not respond. Did she want the neighbors to hear? I raised my voice further; I ranted and raved. I pulled at my hair, pacing back and forth in front of her. Why was she torturing me this way, I asked her. If I had hit her I regretted it, I would do anything to take it back. I fell on my knees in front of her, begging her to forgive me for what I had done. When still she did not answer I grew wild. She had the run of the house, I said. Why should she remain in that damned chair all the time? It wasn’t healthy, a young woman like her, sitting in such a gloomy room all alone, such a gloomy, stuffy room, with that smell hanging in the air like spoiled fruit. She was suffering for it, that much was clear. She had simply to look in the mirror, see her pale skin, her limp hair and bloodless lips.

Still, she mocked me. That look on her face! I grabbed her by the arms and shook her, her odd slippery arms, so cold and slimy to the touch, her eyes staring, couldn’t she stop that staring, that staring all the time…

A noise in the other room, a shuffling of feet, a voice calling out to ask if anything was wrong. Suddenly I heard a scream.

I looked up. There in the open doorway stood my neighbor, hand clasped across her mouth, looking into our bedroom in horror, looking at me and the ever silent form of my wife in her rocking chair.

—END—

“A solid first novel by any standard…one part ghost story, one part spiritual journey, and one part Our Town rolled up into a neat package. Nate Kenyon is a writer to be watched.”
- THE HORROR CHANNEL

“A solid first novel by any standard…one part ghost story, one part spiritual journey, and one part Our Town rolled up into a neat package. Nate Kenyon is a writer to be watched.” — The Horror Channel

The Horror Channel is an online and broadcast channel dedicated to the horror genre, providing both shared and original content. Their mission, as stated on their website, is “to create the first and only 24-hour cable and satellite network dedicated to the Horror genre and to become the branded television gateway for the underserved Horror fan base.”

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