Part VI: After You've Gone

Submitted by SpartanAltego on Sat, 05/12/2018 - 02:13

Let the Long Night End
Part VI
After You’ve Gone

Oh, after the years, we've been together
The joy and tears and all kinds of weather
Someday, blue and downhearted
You'll long to be with me right back where you started
After I'm gone, after I'm gone away

“Hunting is a relic of the barbarous spirit that thirsted formerly for human blood, but is now content with the blood of animals.” ―Christian Nestell Bovee

LANGLEY
1982, August 12th
Near Charlottesville, West Virginia

Damien Langley grunted, muscles straining as he pulled the cable wrapped around either knee of the stag and tied it fast against a post. The Winchester had sliced a hole through its sternum, but not out through to the other side, and the spry thing had led him on a chase until it finally keeled over. He suspected he would have to carefully pick out shards of a fragmented bullet, in addition to having bitterer meat.

Irritation raises a blister in him for just a moment. He vents it by slipping his knife into the beast’s groin, ignoring the still warm blood that begins to fountain down over his gloved fingers, inured to the sight and smell. The dressing takes him no time at all, and he is pleased when he discovers that the .375 had not indeed fragmented, though the deer’s sternum certainly had. Good.

He quickly ices his selected portions of meat in the two coolers he had brought along for the occasion, then cuts the deer free to fall unceremoniously to the leaf-covered forest floor. Some of the blood he had drained into a small jug, also placed into a cooler. He would sterilize and filter it, then freeze-dry the remains into a powder rich in iron and protein.

Slipping off a glove, he takes a moment to gently run his hand through the magnificent creature’s furry scalp and along the edges of its mantle. Langley found it difficult to understand how anyone could bear to take just the antlers and leave the head behind; the two parts made a greater whole. A stag without its antlers was mutilated, all but castrated. Antlers without a stag were merely twisted racks of bone. To take one but leave the other struck him as gravely insulting to the animal, as tasteless as scratching out the name engraved into a tombstone.

A stag’s antlers were its resume. Its pride. To strip it of its life was acceptable; to steal its dignity, disgraceful.

He started his Buick and began the drive home. The indignity suffered by so many animals and humans alike clung to the wet, dark interior of his mind like the scent of smoke.

Langley had learned at a young age that the loss of dignity could be more crushing to the spirit than the sight of death. That lesson had been carried with him into adulthood, reinforced daily as he studied life, death, and everything in between for years to achieve his dream: work as a psychological profiler for the sanctified Federal Bureau of Investigation.

He found that most people looked at him differently when they learned that. Langley supposed they imagined some insight into his attitude or behaviors to reconcile the knowledge of who he was with what they assumed an FBI profiler must be; tortured, brooding, analytical lonely hearts. Once he had heard it whispered that he hunted so often to substitute the rush of hunting the deadliest game of all – killers of men. A mind absent of wisdom will manufacture it. The adage was only multiplied where gossip was involved.

Their mistake was believing that because he had worked as a profiler, he must have been broken to have left his career in Washington behind. A common, entertainment-media originated misconception. Langley didn’t bother to contradict them; his assumed attitude kept others at arm’s length, just the way he preferred.

On the highway he was startled by the angry screeching of a car horn. Twisting his head, he was greeted by the charming visage of a liver-spotted man in a truck extending a particular finger in a particular gesture, before speeding past. It took him a moment to recognize why – he had been driving nearly twenty miles under the speed limit. Ordinary people were quite hostile, in Langley’s experience.

Home was a bungalow in the forests just outside Charlottesville. His nearest neighbors were half a mile away, with lives that seldom intersected with his own, and he had wide fields and open skies all to himself. Elbow room, and then some, apart from his occasional house guests. A two-bedroom home, kitchen, living area, and a tool shed were his idea of domestic living, and it had all been his for a year and some months.

Going about his business of trimming fat from his collected venison, Langley found himself startled by the sudden appearance of one of his usual ‘guests’ - a mangy, dusky grey Siamese cat through his kitchen window, resting patiently on the windowsill with its tail lazily swinging back and forth. Its eyes stood out against the growing shadows of night with which the rest of its body so easily melted into, just the slightest bit aglow.

“Damn it, Caspar,” the beleaguered man’s mismatched eyes glowered at the feline who simply stared without any contrition. Langley dried his hands, then opened the window, allowing the beast entrance. It slithered gracefully down from the windowsill to the kitchen counter, sniffing curiously at the meat.

“No. That’s not for you. Get,” Langley snapped his fingers twice, pointing to the living room. Caspar eyed him balefully, but deigned to obey, stepping off the counter top and trotting vaguely in the direction he’d given. The silent new arrival was greeted in turn by two other cat-calls, belonging to a white Maine Coon and its matching black twin; his ‘bunk-mates’ as Langley liked to call them. Balthazar and Melchior.

“A little on the nose, don’t you think?” A familiar voice teased him lightly, the words slipping through the ajar opening of a room in the corridor of his memories.

He had smiled and admitted that maybe the names were a bit pretentious. But he had kept to himself the meaning behind the names, as he’d known them. The three strays had steadily found their way to this place in the first months after he and Nessa had moved in, with Balthazar coming first and Caspar last. It was only with Caspar’s appearance in the dead of winter that Langley had finally decided to name their unusual houseguests, who came and went as they pleased and rarely lingered long.

Langley liked cats. They were one of the few animals left in the world that could be said to have not entirely succumbed to domestication, yet still found themselves in company with humans. Like the first wolves whose descendants would evolve into canis familiaris. Evolution in real-time.

Sometimes, Langley liked to wander out of the comfort of his house and walk out into the unkempt grasses surrounding his home, feet bare, his three magi with him. The tentative Balthazar, three-legged Melchior, and the ever-quiet Caspar. Tonight was one of those times. He walked with his shepherds, calm and comfortably empty-minded, eyes to the sky. The stars were like shards of glass scattered across a black canvas, and the smell of wildflowers made his eyes droopy.

When he closed his eyes, there was no way for him to be certain that his love was not indeed standing right behind him, fingers entwined with his own.

“Look there,” he heard her whisper. He envisioned a small, dark hand pointing a single lovely finger to the sky. “I think that’s Altair…”

“I don’t know, Nessa. It looks like Vega to me.”

- - - - - - -

1982, August 13th

Langley awoke to the sound of gentle thumping against his front door. Rubbing his eyes, he slid off his living room couch to plant his feet on the floor, lackadaisically cracking his neck. He was still dressed in his hunting clothes from the day before, and cat hair clung to him from where Balthazar had slept on his chest. The cats were nowhere to be seen now, as expected. His hands smelled faintly of meat and blood.

Approaching the door, he examines the peephole and is surprised to see an older man, mustached with cropped hair and tinted glasses, waiting patiently outside. He held a police I.D. up in one hand – the name said ‘Howard Burns.’

Langley opened the door.

“Good morning, Mr. Langley,” Burns greeted pleasantly. They shake hands, and Langley notices the man’s knuckles are heavily callused. “My name is Howard Burns. I work for the Maryland State Police Department. May I come in?”

Langley doesn’t especially want this man in his home but acquiesces nonetheless. He quietly steps aside, inviting the officer in. Burns glances around at Langley’s home, eyes shadowed behind the buffer of his glasses. He sneezes once into his shoulder, rubbing his nose. “Not allergic to much, but I can sure feel them acting up now. You have a cat?”

“I wouldn’t say I have a cat. More like I sometimes entertain a cat or three,” Langley gestures to his dining room table. “Please, have a seat. I’ll heat up some coffee.”

“Thank you,” Burns seems sincerely grateful. “No cream, just sugar for me.”

While he goes about the business of brewing a pot, Langley mulls over potential causes for this unannounced visit. He doubted he was a suspect or potential witness in any ongoing case. Burns acted too passively to be here for that kind of interview. Langley didn’t know anybody who would be the type to get mixed up with the law, at least not in Maryland.

Burns’ leg was bouncing, though. He was anxious. Burns accepted coffee. He needed a pick-me-up.

The former profiler frowns, but finishes his work and sits across from the officer. He sips at his mug. “This is a surprise,” he begins slowly, hiding his caution behind a casual façade. He notes that Burns occasionally stares at Langley’s mismatched eyes. “I don’t get many houseguests these days. What brings you here, Mr. Burns?”

Burns sighs, setting his mug down after a long drink. “Well, I’m here because some recent events have stirred up a bit of a hornet’s nest up in Baltimore. Have you seen the news lately?”

Langley shakes his head. He didn’t own a television and didn’t much bother with newspapers. The only radio stations he listened to were musical. Come to think of it, he’d left his telephone unplugged for several months. No wonder this fellow had decided to come calling in person.

Burns takes that in, lips pursed. “Well, here’s the thing. Over in Alexandria, we found a body – young woman, white, about sixteen. No signs of struggle, no traces from the perp besides some hair. None of the usual leads turned up anything to suggest they were involved; no money, no boyfriend, none of that. Her body was left where it was and she had all her possessions accounted for on her person. She died a virgin.”

Ah. There it was. Langley grinds his teeth somewhat. “You think it’s not a first-timer.”

“Almost certain of it,” Burns nods. “It’s too clean in the right kind of ways. I was hoping that, with your reputation, I could get you to come down to Baltimore and help us out a little. Right now, it’s a state investigation. But if it turns out that this guy has killed before then the Bureau will be taking over. Until we confirm, though…”

“So you want me to rule out this as a random act.”

“Something like that.”

“Why me?”

“We’ve got a mutual friend in the Bureau. When I called to talk to him, he recommended you. Said you’ve caught one of these before.”

“If it’s really a serial killer. But yes, I’ve helped in investigations that led to arrests. One of them was fairly prolific. But you haven’t given me anything so far to suggest this was anything like that.”

Burns exhales. “It’s…it’s the damnedest thing, y’know? This kid, her body was almost completely drained of blood, and I mean drained. There was barely a pint left in her, but only a few drops left at the scene. Evidence indicates she died where she was found, so that means the guy must’ve bled her right there and then took off with the blood. That sound like a first-timer to you?”

It sounded like a fucking pulp novel to Langley. “The body could’ve been moved.”

“I’m telling you, it wasn’t. And that’s not the strangest part.”

“Go on?”

Burns slides off his shades smoothly, pinching the bridge of his nose. When he looks back to Langley, his gaze is haunted. “Kid was strung up from a street light. Gutted down the middle, like you’d do with a deer or a rabbit, left to hang down by the docks. Neck broken. Never seen anything like that before, and to tell you the truth I hope I never have to again.”

Langley swallows, his mouth suddenly a little drier. “…I see your point. So, you want me in as a consultant.”

“Just for long enough to get the Bureau off their asses so we can catch this guy fast, and in the meantime show the public we’re actually doing something. It’s a frenzy right now. I’d understand if you didn’t want to, given – “

“Actually,” Langley interrupts, fingers drumming on the table. He stares down at the silhouetted reflection in the depths of his drink. “I think there’s nothing I’d like better. You can consider me aboard.”

“Thank you, Mr. Langley.”

“Did you bring pictures? Reports?”

“Yes.”

“Bring them in, would you? We’ll see if anything leaps out at me. Then we can hit the morgue.”

- - - - - - -

During the drive down to Alexandria, Langley examines the folder Burns had brought to him once again. Lab reports were certain that the victim’s heart had still been pumping when they were drained. Rigor had only just begun to set in by the time the incident was reported at 3 a.m., meaning it had happened somewhere between midnight and one o’clock. Just a few drops shy of a pint left in the body, as Burns had said. Free histamine levels were low, something he was thankful for. If she had lived long into the bleeding, she had at least been unconscious for most of it.

So the perp had killed the victim, drained them, then strung them up and added a colostomy for good measure. Gutting had happened posthumously. There were ligature marks from bruising where the neck had been broken, snapping the spinal cord.

He examined the photo of the victim again – Elizabeth Gray, pale, blue eyed with dark hair, formerly among the living. Sixteen forever. She had been dressed in running clothes, and she’d had a pack and water bottle with her that had been left near the body. The killer had targeted her near the waterfront, which Burns had said was a popular spot for runners.

Not so popular anymore, probably.

At the waterfront, Burns pointed to the place where the body had been hung, a single lamp-post with scattered droplets of blood dried on the flat pavement. The river-scented air was refreshing, and there was a steady hum from above as automobiles traversed the bridge across the river. It was a nice place to die, in Langley’s opinion.

“See here? We’re thinking the guy must’ve waited here, just beyond this point, behind one of these bridge supports, waiting for her to be out of sight. Then he took her.”

“That makes the most sense,” Langley agreed. “This trail is probably pretty empty at night, too. More than enough time and cover to do the work and leave without anyone noticing. Probably just pulled up a hood and jogged away. Who found her?”

“Another runner, older fellow named Reinhardt. Was out with his dogs when they came across her. He’s definitely not our guy, though.”

“What makes you say that?”

“For starters, he only has one hand. Lost his other one in Germany, ‘round ’44. I don’t see a guy pushing seventy killing this girl and doing his good work single handedly, do you?”

Langley pauses. “…No. No, I don’t.”

He can feel Burns’ curiosity threatening to break into outright questioning, so he speaks quickly. “Single handedly. We’re assuming that whoever did this did it alone. That’s an awful lot of work, catching this girl, killing her, draining the body to almost nothing, stringing her up and then gutting her. All within an hour before she’s found.”

The older man raises a blonde eyebrow. “So now there’s more than one killer.”

“At least one killer, but probably two participants. The way the neck was snapped, she had been facing forwards…” Langley points. “This way. And the person who killed her had also been facing the same direction. She was grabbed from behind, but there’s no sign she had any idea someone was coming. Now, sure, it’s loud enough under here to mask movement somewhat.”

He begins to pace. “But that’s during the day. Traffic is slow in evenings. You’re a jogger, young woman in the middle of the night. You’re maybe not smart enough to pick a better trail, but you’re definitely not going to be ignoring your surroundings. You’d pick up that something was coming up on you before they had their hands on your throat.”

“She was distracted by something. A lure,” Burns completes the thought.

Langley smiles, pleased. “Like a hunter. Or, well,” he glances at the river. “Maybe more like a fisher.”

A fisher of men.

- - - - - - -

LANGLEY
1982, August 15th
Alexandria, Maryland

“Could be Satanic,” Burns muses sitting across from Langley as they visited a local diner for a quick lunch. “See how she’s hung? Our guy – or guys – made sure to secure her upside down by the torso and feet. Then they wrapped her wrists and hung them to the sides.”

“It’s possibly religious, but not necessarily Satanic,” Langley replies, swallowing a mouthful of egg and toast. He liked having breakfast for lunch, particularly when he was awoken at ungodly hours to continue looking at dead bodies.

“Because of the St. Peter connection.”

Langley blinks. Nods slowly. “Exactly. You a religious man, Burns?”

The older man shakes his head. “No, but my wife and son are. So I picked up a few things. So regardless of what kind of flavor, we can safely figure that our guy – sorry, guys – did a bit of spiritual reading. Maybe gone to church.”

“Right. I get the feeling that this isn’t some douchebag with a devil-worshipping fetish. This doesn’t feel like that.”

“Those have a feel?”

“They’re sloppier, and the people who do them are dumb enough to see something like a flipped cross and think ‘devil.’ You’d be looking at younger people, personal grudges, and there’d be more traces left behind. Those kinds of killers are rarely good at covering their tracks.”

Langley pokes at his omelet, running his fork down its belly the way he imagined the killers might’ve with poor Elizabeth. “But something about this one…they killed her quick. Snapped the neck, then up the body goes. Gravity drains the blood, girl is paralyzed and fades quietly during the process. But then they keep going. They mutilate the body and pose her. They don’t hide what they’ve done – they advertise.”

Burns hums. “So they’re sending a message to someone. Personal or public?”

“I’m going to say public. The kind of person who does this and gets away with it doesn’t need anything but a shovel and switchblade to send a personal message.”

“Lovely. So we’ve got a showboat on our hands. Which means more bodies to come.”

“Right. They’ve killed before. They’ll kill again – maybe not in this specific way, but they definitely will.”

“One thing, though,” Burns leans forward a little, elbow on the table. “I don’t know about you, but the riverfront isn’t the most public place to pose a corpse. Good for getting away after, but there are better places. So why there? Killers like this never pick randomly. Something drew them to this spot and this girl.”

“Water has plenty of religious connections. Maybe the spot was simply habit and the girl happened to walk into the spider’s web. All they would have to do is wait and watch. Any disappearances in Alexandria the last month or so?”

“Two, split by about a week each.”

“What about statewide?”

“Three in the last two months, not counting the two here. Each in a different city,” Burns frowns. “We thought there might be a connection, but there are no immediate ties between any of the other missing persons and Gray. Different colors, genders, wealth status, and ages. Oldest was thirty-two. Youngest was ten.”

Lucky number six. The server brings them their bill, and Langley notices a flash of surprise in her eyes that quickly turns into a studious desire to look anywhere else. He realizes he’s left the photo of Gray’s body laying out on the table, where he could continue to look at it

He smiles pleasantly at the waitress who strides away as fast as propriety will allow. Langley decides she’s earned a decent tip.

“All the cities where the disappearances happened – were they near bodies of water?”

“Body storage.”

“Right. I think we better comb the rivers, bays, anywhere there’s water in all the places there were missing persons. Something tells me we’re about to find some of them. It fits the pattern.”

“Religious?”

“Yes. 1 Peter 3:21 – ‘The like figure whereunto even baptism doth also now save us, not the putting away of the filth of the flesh, but the answer of a good conscience toward God, by the resurrection of Jesus Christ.’

Langley leaves a ten-dollar bill on the table, scooping up the photo and his jacket. “It’s not just a reference. It’s a signpost. They’re pointing us to where the other bodies are.”

- - - - - - -

1982, August 19th
3 a.m.

Langley lay on his couch, pillow propped beneath his head, hands folded on his chest. Caspar prowls the top of the sofa restlessly, while Balthazar and Melchior sleep soundly on the man’s legs. He had hunted animals for too long. This familiar-yet-unknown chase was disorienting and macabre, even in light of his past experiences. Not one but perhaps two psychopaths, armed with spiritual awakening and worst of all patience and skill – the two things you prayed a killer did not have.

Saltpeter had yielded one body – the youngest of the lost. Patapsco, and Back River were currently being combed. At the very least, they could be properly laid to rest now.

Leaving them for the fishes. The gall of it infuriated Langley – whoever killed them had pretensions of affluency. As though they were some kind of fucking high-concept performance artist. Elizabeth Gray had been given an impressive death and died barely aware of what had happened to her.

The same could not be said for the little boy who had been weighed down and thrown into the currents of a river like garbage. His corpse had been down there long enough that it was almost falling apart when it was pulled out. And what injuries couldn’t be blamed on the river were…savage. His neck hadn’t just been broken, it had been turned all the way around, facing the opposite direction from the rest of his body. There were bite marks and missing chunks of flesh all throughout his arms, torso, and legs. Like he had been mauled.

Langley had decided then and there that he would see to it this particular pretentious pair of sociopaths were apprehended. And he would be happy to rub into their faces precisely how mediocre and childish their attempts at playing avant-garde illustrators were right as they walked into court to appeal their death sentence.

What kind of mind would dress up Gray’s death into a muralist art piece, yet so ruthlessly destroy the bodies of his previous work? Who also potentially worked as a pair with another, similar mind? Serial killers were usually solitary – union came from shared goals and the ability to achieve them mutually. So what were these two getting out of all of this?

The little boy had been drained of blood at well, though not nearly so neatly – it had likely gushed from the ragged hole where his jugular had been. All those precious vital fluids…and what were they doing with it, exactly? It wasn’t like they could freeze dry the shit and make protein powder out of the stuff.

Langley’s thoughts grind to a halt. He blinks once, twice, and mentally walks himself backward.

At least one victim was confirmed to have died at night, in an isolated location. Drained of blood and flipped to let gravity assist the process. Little blood left on the scene. Bite marks and drained blood with the kid.

He’d heard of this before.

Sitting upright, he gently prods the two felines resting atop his legs until they begrudgingly remove themselves and he can put his feet to the floor. He needed to retrieve something from his old room, had to be certain before rushing to any conclusions. Langley pauses at the closed door of his bedroom, hand drifting just out of reach of the door knob.

He takes a breath and opens the door. Ignoring the ghosts in his vision, Langley calmly walks to the bed and crouches, reaching under until he grasps an old briefcase. Setting it atop the bed, he flicks the combination to one-hundred-and-eight and lifts the lid. An array of old notes, newspapers, and scattered photographs greets him, his trophies and curios from a past life that had become his present once again if only for a little while.

During his tenure at the FBI, Langley had enjoyed the privilege of having a line on all sorts of interesting news both domestic and international. Often, he used foreign affairs crimes that made headlines as a kind of thought exercise to keep his mind sharp. If the suspect in question was apprehended, he liked to compare his rough-and-tumble profiling with the truth and see where his darts had struck true.

Eventually he found what he had needed – November 21st, 1981. ‘Ritual killings in Sweden, one suspect apprehended, escaped, and now deceased. Hung his victims and bled them. Suspect believed to have been accompanied by a child. Caused a national fervor, even made news out over here. Definitely unique.’

He reads further down. ‘Massacre at an after-school program. Two boys dead, a third missing. Witnesses traumatized and claiming a winged child burst inside and whisked away a boy they’d been bullying after killing the other two. Said she drank some of their blood.’

Drinking blood. Langley feels the approach of a grin in the muscles of his face. “Oh, dear friends. Aren’t you a little old to be playing make-believe?”

When the sun creeps over the horizon, he calls Burns.

LEVI
1982, August 29th
Waynesboro, West Virginia
1 p.m.

“Again.”

“Really?”

“Really.”

“Okay. Rock, paper, scissors, shoot!”

Levi’s paper is thoroughly sliced by Oskar’s scissors, leaving him in defeat for the sixth time in a row. The older boy stares helplessly at the result, disbelieving. “I don’t understand. Why are you so good at this?”

Oskar shrugs. “I just know things, sometimes. And you’re predictable.”

Levi scowls, but doesn’t argue the point. They had been playing various games in the cellar since their return from church, and although Levi had very little initial interest in puzzles or card games he was discovering that they could be quite fun when played with the genuine enthusiasm Oskar brought to the table. Some of that enthusiasm was doubtlessly attributable to the fact that his ‘cousin’ consistently trounced him in competition, but he also suspected that it was due to the fact that Oskar – although the boy hated to be told as much – was still a kid barely past fourteen. Levi couldn’t remember how it felt to be fourteen anymore. But sometimes he got an inkling when he saw Oskar smile or make a silly pun.

He liked seeing Oskar smile.

“Levi?”

The boy realizes he had been staring blankly at Oskar and quickly redirects his vision, thankful that he didn’t have the right kind of skin tone to advertise embarrassment. “Sorry, I spaced out there for a minute. Think I’m going to need to go for a run soon. Starting to get restless.”

“Because of the moon.”

“Yes.”

“Will you let me help?”

Levi frowns, chewing the interior of his bottom lip. “We’ve talked about this.”

You’ve talked about this. I never get to.”

“Church and state,” Oskar’s flat stare spurs him to reiterate. “We keep this life and…my other life separate as much as we can. There’s nothing you could do about it, anyway.”

“I could help Milton when you get sick. Help you stay clean, safe.”

“You already do that for your friend there,” Levi gestures to a certain inconspicuous wine barrel, safely tucked away and thankfully no longer quite as ripe smelling. Oskar had taken that as a sign that Eli would be waking soon. Levi still wasn’t certain how he felt about that.

Oskar’s eyes narrow. “You’re my friend too.”

Levi cannot think of a retort for that. Instead, he redirects. “Maybe, but I’m not your girlfriend, now am I? Unless there’s something you need to tell me.”

“Oh, shut up.”

Levi adopts a falsetto tone, waving his hands aflutter. “Oh, Oskar, I didn’t know you felt that way about me! But what will the neighbors say?”

Oskar’s cheeks redden. “Knock it off.”

“Make me.”

Oskar inches closer, leaning forward. “You’re asking for it.”

Levi grins. “Are you going to give it?”

There’s something in the air. A spark. A tingling that runs up and down Levi’s spine as Oskar and he refuse to back down. It felt like…like…

Levi retreats back, suddenly feeling ill. He was…he couldn’t be…

“I should get going,” he mutters quickly, rising and making for the stairs. “Can’t put it off any longer.”

“But – “

“Just…give me a little room, okay? I’ll be back soon.”

Levi hurries up the stairs before Oskar can reply, pulling on his shoes and getting out the door soon as he can. Away from home, away from confusing feelings.

Was he really so desperate?

Levi ran, legs easily carrying him in a looping circuit around the outskirts of town, past the church where Milton was certain to still be working. He considered asking his uncle for advice about his predicament, but decided it was best to keep to himself for the time being. The old man had too much to worry over as it was when it came to him. And what exactly, was he in need of confessing? “Forgive me, uncle, for I may like boys?”

Sin on top of sin. Levi wondered if it was simply in his nature to be an offense before God.

And before his own father.

He comes to an old schoolyard, abandoned in the summertime, woodchips covering the ground and slides and jungle gyms left untouched by the hands of children.

He lets his feet go where they will, thinking back to those days when life was quiet, simple. Free. The days when his uncle smiled without the sad refrain behind his eyes. When his father read to him, to help him sleep. When he didn’t have to feel ashamed about feeling…whatever he felt, for someone.

It was best not to dwell on the peaceful past. Not when the present and the future held such promises of pain to come. The melancholy teen finds a seat on a lonesome swing-set and lazily drifts back, then forth. The chain had been broken the last time he had come here, rendering it useless. He’d used it as an impromptu vine instead, swinging back and forth yelling like an ape, to the cheers and giggles of…

Green eyes not unlike his own drift through his thoughts, belonging to a face he had known since childhood. A face he had tried to forget. He hadn’t expected to see her – she hadn’t attended Sunday Mass in a year.

No. Don’t remember. Let it lie.

He swings.

CARMEN
1982, August 29th
Earlier…

Carmen had never placed too much stock in the power of prayer, or the validity of faith, something she quite studiously kept from ever reaching the ears of her family for years, until she had finally decided to make herself heard. To her, it all seemed so…make-believe. She had outgrown Santa Claus, the Easter bunny, and the lucky pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. But it seemed nobody could quite decide what age was the right time to outgrow God. She had endured many a lecture for her refusal to participate in community gatherings.

Today, however, she had been bidden by an impulse to join her family in their weekly trip to St. Peter’s – they were some of the most consistent churchgoers in town. Her family and the Matthews brood had been very well acquainted, and still enjoyed inviting the elder Matthews over for dinner and discussion now and then. Her father loved to debate with Milton, and she knew Milton himself found it quite engaging, even if the tired weight on his slightly slouched shoulders never seemed to lift entirely.

The younger Matthews, few saw these days. Carmen wasn’t proud to admit she had stopped the pretense of coming to church because of that fact. Disbelief and distance were two elements that made for a potent deterrent.

Still, she clasps her hands and prays alongside the gathered masses at Father Milton’s behest, imagining for an instant that something, somewhere might be listening. She prayed for the welfare of her mother and father, her two younger brothers. She prays for a long summer and a short winter.

And, if you are listening, Carmen thinks on her last, most secret prayer, as her eyes wander to the two pair of boys standing in the pew closest to the front – one a stranger, the other painfully familiar. If he notices her gaze, he gives no sign of caring. Let the soul of Levi’s father find peace in your embrace. And let him, too, find joy again.

“Amen.”

- - - - - - -

“I hadn’t expected to see you here again, Carmen. What brought you here?”

“Nostalgia,” she replies, crossing one leg over the other. Milton sits beside her in the pew, both of them supplicants before a statue of Christ. Green and orange light filters through the stained-glass windows, coloring the world strange and magnificent hues as if the very air was saturated with color.

“I see. Have you been to see him?”

She shakes her head. “No. I’ve tried, but he avoids me. And when I do corner him he barely says a word and leaves as quick as he can get away with. How has he been?”

The older man smiles wanly, the way he always had for as long as Carmen had known him. “He has his good days. And the bad days are…a little farther between now.”

“That’s good.”

“How have you been?”

Carmen shrugs. “My application to Uni of Virginia was accepted. I’m a little late to register for the fall, so I won’t be moving out until a little before winter.”

“You still want to be a psychologist?”

“Either that or a social worker. I haven’t decided yet.”

“Whichever you pick, I can tell you that you definitely have the aptitude for it.”

“Thanks.”

They lounge in comfortable silence for a while. Carmen liked that most about the old pastor; he didn’t feel the need to speak when there was nothing to be said. So much of conversation was static, white noise to drown out the possibility of quiet. He respected the difference between talking and communicating, like her.

“That boy who was standing with Levi. He’s your nephew, too? I heard you talking to mom and dad the other week.”

Milton nods. “Yep, that’s Oscar – he’s Maribeth’s boy, come to stay with us for a while. Some domestic issues she wants him away from for the time being.”

“You never mentioned she had a son.”

The pastor looks uncomfortable, grimacing and briefly looking to the side. “Tell you the truth, I barely knew anything about him anyway. Mari and I aren’t on…well, the best of terms. You know that.”

“Oh,” she winces at her faux-pas. She’d forgotten that the older Matthews family members were estranged, to put it mildly. “Right. Sorry.”

He waves it off, relaxing. “Don’t worry about it. It is what it is. What about your family business? Your mom tells me she may be expecting a new sibling for you soon.”

“Better not,” Carmen groans, but smiles a little despite.

She purses her lips, weighing her next words carefully. “Milton?”

“Yes?”

“Do you think I could…come over, some time? Just for a visit.”

She can tell by the way the pastor’s eyes immediately shoot to the floor that the answer will not be yes. He speaks tentatively, trying to ease the blow. “I’d love to have you over, Carmen. If I had my way you could come and go as you pleased. But…”

“Levi,” she finishes for him.

He nods. “Yes. I can try to bring it up when there’s a good time, but – “

Carmen shakes her head. “No, don’t. Please. It was a long shot anyhow,” a note of bitterness poisons her tongue. “Guess I’ll have to just be resigned to him hating me forever.”

Milton looked stricken. “He doesn’t hate you, Carmen. You know that. He’s just…scared.”

“Of me?”

“Of everything. Grief whips the soul raw. Even the gentlest touch will hurt.”

“You make it sound like he’ll never get better.”

Milton is quiet.

The silence, Carmen finds, is not one she is comfortable with. “Well...I should get going,” she rises and Milton rises with her. They embrace briefly and she enjoys the comfort she feels in the old man’s embrace. “Thank you for the company. See you soon?”

“Whenever you like, missy. Be well.”

Out in the fresh summer air, Carmen feels more at ease. The church had its appeal, with its impersonal grandiosity and sweeping color. But it was an echo chamber, and she found that the longer she sat within there the more her own thoughts threatened to bounce back off the walls and smother her under their weight. Milton’s temple was a place of reflection.

She didn’t need more reflection for a while. She needed to see something new. Something present. She purchases an ice cream sandwich from the local creamery and wanders the streets, smiling and nodding whenever she passes a familiar face.

It was funny. For such a closely bound town, Carmen found that it was all too easy to feel quite lonesome. She decides to retreat to her favorite spot – the playground of the now closed school at which both she and Levi had attended as children. She liked to visit there often, sit inside the jungle gym or play aimlessly with a basketball. It reminded her of times when life hadn’t been so…gray.

She does not expect to find someone already there, swinging steadily to and fro.

And if she had, she would never have anticipated the someone she was faced with.

“Levi.”

“Carmen,” He says her name strangely, like it’s a new and unfamiliar word. “Didn’t know you’d be here.”

“I guess if you did, you wouldn’t have come,” the words leave her mouth before she can stop them, and she sees them land in the way Levi’s face goes blank. Hastily, she goes on. “I’m sorry. That was uncalled for.”

He shrugs. “I earned it. It was true, anyway.”

She feels a sting in her chest at his blasé admission, but masters herself before it can spark into an inferno. Now wasn’t the time for resentment. “It’s weird, isn’t it? We haven’t been in elementary for so long, but the place still looks exactly the same. It’s like time stopped going forward.”

“Or maybe we just never moved on,” Levi graces her with something approaching a smile. For an instant he looked like the little boy with puffy cheeks and wide green eyes that used to spend every waking moment with her, and her heart breaks, just a little.

She clears her throat, folding her arms. “You come here often?”

He shakes his head. “Just visiting. You?”

“I like to stop by now and again. I have a lot of good memories here.”

“Me too.”

Carmen finds that the silence they lapse into is intolerable. It must be a Matthews family trait, she thinks with some irritation. “So are we going to have a conversation here or are you going to stick to grunts?”

The boy shrugs, fingers entwined with the chains binding his swing-seat. “What is there to talk about?”

“You, for starters,” she takes a step forward and sees no sign of withdrawal. A good sign. “How have you been the last…since I saw you.”

Levi chuckles flatly.

“Dumb question, huh,” she sighs. “Look, Levi…”

“Don’t.”

“I know you’re upset over your father – “

“You should stop.”

“But it’s been two years. You need to try to move – “

“Stop!” The word is barked with such stinging fury that it startles her into silence. Levi’s visage is livid, his frame taut – she realizes that the cracking sound that accompanied his yell was not simply his voice. The chains of his swing are giving way beneath his grip.

It unsettled her, even though it was clear that the metal must’ve simply been frail.

Levi rises from his seat, green eyes seething with fury. “Don’t talk to me about moving on, Carmen. I’m not your fucking thesis paper. Go play head doctor with some other asshole.”

The venom behind his words touches her more deeply than the words themselves, barbed and cruel as they are. Meant to wound. She closes her eyes to prevent tears from flowing – she won’t give him the satisfaction. Instead, she turns and walks away. He says nothing and he doesn’t follow after her.

Levi had stopped moving forward. She wanted dearly for him to find a reason to live again, but she knew now that couldn’t bear to wait up for him any longer. It was like Milton had told her – he was a stray animal beaten too many times to trust again. And he would bite any hand that reached for him. Even hers.

It was time to take her own advice – it was time to move on.

OSKAR
1982, August 29th
7 p.m.

Oskar was in the process of finishing dinner when he heard the front door open, and a pair of heavy footsteps thump into the den. He hadn’t heard the radio signal go off, which meant that it must be Levi.

“Välkommen,” he greets. ”I started dinner. Should be done soon.”

He receives no reply.

“Levi?”

Oskar ensures that there will be no kitchen disasters should he leave for a few minutes and decides to follow after his moody housemate, running a hand through his short black hair – it was still taking some getting used to, seeing that every morning, and the feel of it always weirded him out a little. Climbing the steps, he is surprised to see Levi’s door left open – he’d been living with the Matthews for nearly a month and it was rare that Levi’s room was ever left wide open to intrude on.

Which meant that he was in a mood Oskar was unfamiliar with – disturbed enough to seek solitude but not enough to ensure it. He’d better tread carefully. Knocking twice on the doorframe, he waits for a reply.

“Come in,” the invitation comes, muffled. Oskar enters Levi’s room, yet sees no sign of him. The bathroom door is closed, however, and the light is on, visible underneath. Oskar approaches tentatively, considering whether he should reach out and open the door or remain at a distance.

Deciding on discretion, he raises his voice enough to be heard. “Levi, it’s Oskar. Are you alright?”

“No,” the reply comes as a funny-sounding sigh. “No. I’m not.”

“Is it your…condition?”

A bitter laugh chills him to the bone. “It’s always my fucking condition.”

Oskar swallows. “What happened?”

“Who do you write to, in that journal of yours,” The question takes him aback, and his hesitancy costs him the next word. “I see you working on it now and then. You always rip out the page after and put them away in that big folder. They look like letters.”

“They’re…to my mom.”

“Why do you write to her if you never send them?”

“They’re…they’re like prayers, I guess. I just write them and hope somehow she’ll know I’m okay.”

“Why don’t you go back to her?”

“I…can’t.”

“Can’t? Or won’t?”

Oskar hesitates. He didn’t know why Levi was suddenly so interested in this particular topic, but he knew that his first answer would not be entirely honest. And Levi…there was something about him that told Oskar he needed to be honest here. If he wasn’t, he could lose whatever opening he had earned with the older boy forever.

He steels himself, anticipating the sting of the words he must speak if he is to reach the heart of this trouble. “I…won’t,” he admits, pained. “I won’t. If I went back to her, I would have to let Eli go. I don’t want to do that. I can’t.”

“You really care a lot for her, huh?”

“More than anything.”

“Even your own happiness?”

“They’re the same thing.”

He receives no reply.

“Look, Levi…” Oskar begins, standing closer to the door. “I can’t go back home. Not anymore. I can’t go back to my mom again. But…I won’t just leave you behind. So when you’re ready to let me in, I’ll be here.”

Oskar hears shuffling, and the click of a lock being undone. The door opens, and Levi stands before him, eyes red and tear-stricken.

“Why,” he rasps.

“Because you’re my friend. Even if I’m not yours.”

Levi swallows thickly. “T-that’s…good.”

Oskar takes a step forward. Levi does not move. Another step. Another.

He takes the plunge and wraps his arms around the older boy’s torso, feeling Levi’s chin tickle the top of his scalp. Levi does not move, but he does not pull away either. Eventually, he begins to shiver, and he leans into Oskar’s embrace as he sobs. Oskar holds him the whole way through, hoping that as he soaks in Levi’s tears that he will find some peace in being emptied of them.

It is a start.

- - - - - - -

When Levi has cried his fill, Oskar wipes his face clean of tears and snot and moves them to the bed. They sit side-by-side, hands in their laps. He waits.

“I’m…a werewolf,” Levi admits quietly, sitting beside Oskar on his own bed. “You probably guessed, given your friend is a vampire.”

Oskar nods, silently imploring him to continue.

“It started about two years ago. At least, I think it was two years. It’s hard for me to tell time, because…” he sighs. “Just because. And when it happened, I only had my uncle to help me get through it. Every month, as the moon gets fuller, I become less and less myself and more of something else. I rot. I pace. I get…douchey. Sorry for that, by the way.”

Oskar shrugs. “It’s nothing. I’ve met really terrible people. You aren’t anything like that.”

“Thanks.”

“Did you get bitten by something? Another werewolf?”

Levi shakes his head. “No. It started the month after my father died. No warning. My uncle saw what was happening and managed to get me to the well you saw out in Shenandoah. It’s where I go to…molt. Where I can’t hurt anybody.”

“What happens when the moon goes away?”

“I molt again. It’s not a good feeling. And as the moon starts fading over the weeks I get sicker and sicker. When it’s vanished completely I lose my mind. Like I contracted some brain fever. You saw some of that.”

Oskar swallows. “And that morning you came back. You didn’t recognize me.”

Levi’s eyes grow flat, devoid of feeling. “When I first wake up, it’s like I’ve been born again for the first time. Sometimes it comes back in pieces. Sometimes everything hits me one after another. But for at least a few seconds after every full moon, it’s a total blank. Then the memories come, and…not all of them are good.”

Realizing he needs to divert Levi’s attention if he is to prevent a total emotional shutdown, Oskar asks another question: “Why wouldn’t you tell me any of this? I mean, I’m not like most people. You know I would believe you.”

“Believing wasn’t the problem. It’s the problem that comes with belief. You’ve seen my uncle. I…don’t want other people to go through what he does. Ever.”

“But by hiding it, aren’t you just making it harder for yourselves? You have friends in this town. Wouldn’t they want to help you?”

“They can’t help me, Oskar. That’s the problem. This isn’t something I can control or make go away. It will happen, again and again, every month for forever. The less people who know, the less chance someone will get hurt because they tried to help me when they shouldn’t have. Milton knows what he’s doing.”

“And some people…” Levi pauses. “If this ever got out, I know some people would want what I have. They’d do anything to get it. There are people in this world who enjoy being an animal.”

Before…
Alexandria, Maryland
The Passing of Elizabeth Gray

Midnight in Alexandria was a thing of splendor. Gargantuan monoliths of steel and stone that stretched so high they threatened to brush the moon, lights that outshone the very stars themselves. In this concrete jungle, one vanished soul would hardly go amiss. The city was a menagerie of opportunities for some.

For others, the opportunity and the menagerie were one in the same.

Two figures drift down the pavement along the waterfront, walking in tandem with slow yet purposeful steps. One, a taller man of unknown descent, fair skinned yet somehow exotic, with short brown hair and eyes the color of amber. The other, a short young girl with blonde hair and a distant look, feet bare and hands dirty. They travel in silence, dressed well for their surroundings in heavy dark clothes and smelling faintly of spiced wine and fresh flowers.

The cologne was the older man’s idea, to more easily cover the certain smells that emanated from a body long meant to be dead. He preferred that events proceed as neatly and cleanly as circumstances would allow, before, during, and after.

The girl was of a different mind – that the deed should simply be done and that they then leave as quickly as they came.

But she knew better than to argue the point. After all, as the older man was so fond of pointing out, they only did things his way because she refused to do it herself.

“You know what to do,” the man gestured to their chosen spot beneath the bridge, voice deep and accent thick as a jar of honey. “Just as before.”

“Do we have to do this tonight,” the girl was careful not to show any sign of pleading. “I can go another day without.”

“Starving yourself isn’t wise. Especially when we have a journey ahead of us and will need to be more careful where to hunt. I’d rather not wake up to discover you went on a rampage because someone in the hotel room next to us had a bloody nose and you couldn’t help yourself.”

“Then let’s just take them when they come,” the girl insists. “This play-acting is…cruel. There’s no point.”

“Observe or participate.”

The girl stiffened, fists slowly clenching.

“Observe or participate,” the man repeats. “Which would you prefer?”

The girl mumbles.

“I can’t hear you. A little louder, please.”

“…Observe,” she murmurs, shoulders sagging in defeat. She doesn’t react to the gentle touch of a hand to her cheek.

“It’s better this way,” the man says, not unkindly. “If we did it as you preferred, there would be suffering. The most important rule of any hunt is that the animal dies quickly and with as little fear as possible. You know why.”

She nods. She knows why.

“Good. Now take your position. Your dinner should be here any minute now.”

When the deed is done, the girl lifts her mouth from the tube connected to the jogger’s throat, having drunk her fill. She closes her eyes and steps away, shaking in equal parts euphoria and disgust as the new blood mingles with her own, rejuvenating and rapturous. She turns to stare out at the riverfront as her companion finishes cleaning up after her, not wanting to look at the results of their handiwork any longer than she must.

They were always so kind to her. Crouching down, heedless of any threat she posed, always with questions like “What are you doing out so late? Where are your parents? Are you lost? Are you cold?”

She was always cold. And she was always not-cold. The only times she felt warm were when the heat of their blood squirmed within the depths of her belly.

But she was colder still, when the feeling of that blood faded.

Light footsteps behind her. She turns. “Here, clean yourself up.”

He hands her a towel and a water bottle – she hadn’t remembered him bringing anything like that along when they had left home. Her eyes trail to the runner’s dangling corpse, then back to the offering. Revulsion rises in her and she nearly slaps the stolen items from the bastard’s hands.

“It’s not like she will have any use for it anymore.”

Resisting the desire to rip his head off, the girl takes the offering and pours some water onto the towel, wiping at her teeth, lips, and chin to scrub away the blood. “Why leave her like…this? Wouldn’t it be better to leave her in the river?” She hated herself for saying it, knowing that such a path would deny the friends and family of this poor girl any closure, but survival was paramount and dominant over pity.

The man shakes his head. “She’s too lovely to just throw to the fishes like that. And besides, her death will be more meaningful this way. Special.”

“Special,” the girl spits the word like a mouthful of vomit. “There’s nothing special about dying.”

The man considers this response, then hums approvingly. “You’re right. There isn’t. Not unless we make it so. She died for your needs. Now it’s up to us to make sure her death has some measure of…grace, I suppose. Something to make her stand out among all the other countless dead.”

“Besides,” the man takes a single sharp instrument and begins to slice down their victim’s belly. “We’ve fed the rivers enough. I think it’s time we take a different approach, don’t you? Abigail?”

Abigail says nothing. The man watches her for a moment, then continues his work.