“Easy,” I said softly. I tightened my grip on his hand. I understood his tears all too well, but it was still difficult to believe he was actually crying. “I saw him too.”
He looked deep into my eyes then, like he was praying I had told the truth. “How could we both—”
“I don’t know.”
“I killed him,” he said. “I think I—I’m pretty sure I killed him.”
I nodded. “Me too.”
He sniffled, fought off the tears. “You think they’ll find what’s up there?”
“I don’t know. I don’t think so.”
“But they’re bound to find—”
“What if it wasn’t really there?”
“We both know what we fucking saw, Alan.”
“Like I said before, maybe it’s all in who’s looking.”
“Well, when I look, I… I don’t want to see this anymore.”
“Hopefully there’s nothing more to see.”
His fear now in check, he turned to anger. “Why us?”
“Maybe he knew we’d listen. Maybe he knew we had to.”
The devils in our heads grew quiet, slowly faded. Shadows moved along the walls.
“Always figured something was either real or it wasn’t. But it’s not that simple, is it?” When I didn’t answer, he said, “I don’t remember anything anyway. If I did I… I think my mind might come apart, you know? So I don’t. I don’t remember anything. OK?”
“OK, man.” I gave him a look that let him know I understood. “OK.”
“Had some horrible dreams while I was out, though. Horrible dreams.” He pulled his hand free of mine and wearily rubbed his temple. “But I can sleep now. They’re over.”
“Yeah,” I said. “They’re over.”
Just outside the Emergency Room exit I found Donald smoking a cigarette in his typical manic fashion beneath a sign on the side of the building that read: No Smoking On Hospital Grounds. He looked tired and hung-over but otherwise all right.
The sky stretched above us like a giant cloud-filled canopy, the sun a dull sphere veiled in haze. It wasn’t yet noon and humidity had already thickened the air.
Donald noticed me standing there like the disheveled survivor I was. He looked guarded, uncertain. “I hate hospitals,” he said. “I’ve been standing out here for at least ten minutes trying to convince myself to go inside.”
I could think of nothing to say.
Smoke leaked from his nostrils. “Quite a Fourth in old Potter’s Cove this year. First the Buchanan Mill collapses and a good portion of it falls into the ocean, then very late last night—the wee hours of the morning, actually—a terrible fire broke out over on Bridge Street. Seems Bernard’s old house burned to the ground. Completely gutted and destroyed. The authorities are convinced it was arson. Isn’t that scandalous?” Donald smiled ever so slightly. “Damn kids.”
“Shame,” I muttered.
“Mmm, pity.”
I was glad Donald had torched the place, and was only sorry I hadn’t been there to watch it burn.
“I saw him.” His face cracked into an overwrought smirk. “In that house. In the flames, I saw him, Alan. I watched him watching me through the windows. I watched him burn.” He studied me a while, taking stock. “As I was leaving something drew me to the backyard, to the trees. I saw Tommy standing there, but I wasn’t afraid. I felt safe, protected, and completely out of my mind. And then they were gone and so was I.”
I knew what it felt like to be gone, to feel like the world had devoured you from the inside out and left behind only a husk. We all did. We always had.
“What happened up on those cliffs last night?” I could tell Donald sensed my apprehension the moment he asked, but he gave no indication of letting me off the hook.
“We put a stop to it. In our own ways, we all did.”
“It’s over then?”
“As much as it ever can be.”
“Why did he do this?” he asked angrily.
“I think Bernard came apart when Tommy died. Then when his mother… Donald, the same evil touched us. All those years ago Bernard drowned in it and the rest of us pretended none of it ever happened. He knew what frightened us because it frightened him too. It consumed him and wanted more. It wanted us.”
His lips became a thin tight line. “But what did it—he—want?”
“I don’t know. Maybe he wanted all of us to be together again. Maybe he woke up alone and afraid in the dark. Not a god, just a scared little kid. He knew us, knew our lives, our pasts. He knew what was inside us, what was lacking in us.” I ran my hands through my hair and sighed. “But he was just out of reach. And to him, so were we. Kind of like knights chasing dragons, you know? They never caught one because in the end all they were really chasing was some dark, fire-breathing piece of themselves.”
“How do you know they never caught one?” He exhaled some smoke for emphasis, perhaps in a desperate effort to lighten the mood and salvage our sanity. A moment later he said, “Nothing’s ever going to be the same again.”
“Would you want it to be?”
Donald pulled his sunglasses from his shirt pocket and slid them on. Our childhoods seemed so very long ago. “What did you find in that mill, Alan?”
“Hell.”
“I’m not sure I believe in Hell.”
I moved closer to him and lowered my voice. “They say you can’t see evil, but you can feel it. Well we saw it, Donald. We all did. For Rick and me it was up in that mill, for you it was in that old house. We all saw what we needed to see—whatever versions we needed to confront and kill off. Whether they were a real entity, a part of our own souls, or both, I don’t know. Is he really out there somewhere, watching us? Or is he only in our heads? Does it even matter? The only thing I know for sure is that sometimes you have to believe certain things to make it through the night. And sometimes you have to not believe them. It doesn’t matter if they’re real or not. Either way, it’s all we’ve got.”
“What about Bernard then?” he asked. “Do you still believe in him?”
I plucked the cigarette from his lips and tossed it away. “Bernard’s dead.”
CHAPTER 38
Toni was waiting for me on the apartment steps. I was too tired to be anything but happy to see her, but she was tense and looked worried to death. We said hello with our now customary awkwardness and went inside. I walked directly into the kitchen to pour myself a drink. She followed without being invited. I dropped into one of the kitchen chairs and said, “There was an accident.”
“I know.” She nodded so furiously a sprig of hair fell across her face. She hooked it back behind her ear without missing a beat. “Donald called me. He said Rick was hurt.”
“He filled you in then?” I asked, hopeful I wouldn’t have to.
“Yes.” I could tell she wasn’t having any of it. “Is he going to be OK?”
“He was sleeping peacefully when I left him.”
Toni stepped from the doorway into the kitchen as if for the first time, looking around like I’d redecorated in her absence. “And how are you?”
“I feel like somebody worked me over with a crowbar, but I’m not hurt.”
“I’m glad you’re OK.”
“Never said I was OK.”
We were quiet for a long time, and in our self-imposed silence I thought of her alone in that cottage by the beach, and me alone here. Maybe being alone together had been worse, but even now I wasn’t so sure. I thought of her smiling, pleased I was still able to recall it. I thought of how deeply I loved this woman. How I loved the lines in her face and the depth in her eyes. I thought of her body, familiar even as it changed—evolved and improved with age—the way living things do, even though they’re also slowly dying.