He paused as if allowing a response, though Patrick didn’t feel that one would be appropriate.
“At first, it was the most amazing thing that had ever happened to me,” he continued. “Suddenly I had so much power… It was like being superhuman!”
Patrick’s stomach churned a little as he heard his own words coming back at him from a ruined and tired man, and he wondered if he were talking with a future version of himself.
“My life had never felt more meaningful.” Mr. Vincent dropped his hands onto his knees and looked around the entire room as he spoke, as though he were seeing the memory all around him and was trying to catch every detail. “After a while it felt like that world was more real than this one, and I started spending every moment possible just running around town and through the woods…” He paused, apparently finding a detail in his vision which troubled him. “But it didn’t take long before it began to affect my marriage. She thought I was having an affair. And in a way, I was… I gave my whole life to my other half, and the daytime world seemed less and less meaningful all the time. When she finally left I could tell that my life was crashing down around me. I was…” He groped for the proper words. “…angry. I was angry at her for not understanding, angry at the school’s threats to fire me, angry at myself… I just lost it. And as you probably know, when your mind isn’t all there, it’s hard to control yourself or even remember what you’ve done some nights. I had so much rage inside me that everything went black. It’s like the wolf-mind just sort of swallowed up my own. There was only one single thing that I remembered about that night…”
He stopped, perhaps probing his memory, or maybe looking for the right words to say and the courage to say them. He looked back down to the floor.
“Mr. Fitzgerald was the groundskeeper for the school. He had insomnia, like me. He was really old, but he could never seem to stop working. Most nights when he couldn’t sleep he would get in some off-the-clock lawn work. The school told him he shouldn’t work unless he was getting paid, but he kept on doing it and eventually they quit bugging him about it. It was just the way he was, I guess…”
Another pause, this one much longer. Mr. Vincent sat so still he might not have been breathing.
“I have the smallest snippet of memory. He was spreading fertilizer out in the field, and I…” Mr. Vincent’s mouth remained open, but no sound came out. Behind the weariness Patrick could now see a pain in the man’s eyes so intense that he could hardly stand to look.
The vision apparently broke, and Mr. Vincent slumped back into his chair and stared blankly at his lap. He waited several more seconds before speaking again.
“Some kids found him the next morning. That night someone’s dog had come home with blood all over its fur. It had probably just killed an opossum out in the woods, but they had no reason to believe that. They had it put down and the case was closed.
“I couldn’t believe what I had done… I didn’t want it to happen again, I wanted to get away from this town and try to get my life back, but… I couldn’t. I couldn’t risk losing the power. I found myself going day to day as I always had, not making any effort to move or change. I didn’t want to hurt anyone else, but it’s like a drug. No matter what I do, I can’t get away from it. I’ve lived here all these years, moving nowhere in life, just so every once in a while I can feel like I have an ounce of power in the world. I’ve tried to maintain control of myself, but it doesn’t always work. Some mornings I wake up and I just know that I went out, yet I don’t have the faintest memory of doing so. And every day I wait to hear the news from a student or another teacher—that someone else has died. Every day I feel my luck wearing thinner and thinner. Yet I’m still here… because I’m a coward.”
He shut his eyes and very slowly wiped a few strands of hair from his forehead. Then he looked at Patrick with those weary eyes as though to say “And now here we are.”
Patrick didn’t know what he could say. He had wanted so badly to believe that the man he had come to respect was completely innocent. Mr. Vincent had always seem so collected and confident, as if he was in on some special secret about the world…
Patrick fished around his frazzled brain and found a question to start with.
“Why did you stop coming to school?”
“I couldn’t stand to see Dean every day and know that there was nothing I could do to stop him. I’ve seen his other form; he’s built like a bull, and he’s got nothing but fight in him. But most of all I couldn’t keep going to work as though nothing was wrong. Something had to change, and even if it wasn’t moving away or locking myself up or taking more…” His eyes fell to the ground for a moment. “…drastic measures… at least it was something. I can’t pretend like I’m a normal person anymore. And I don’t deserve to teach you kids when I don’t even have the courage to try and fix things…”
“you kids” reminded him of Rachel. He decided to get to the root of the matter.
“Mr. Vincent, what do you know about… the change?”
“Probably as much as you do,” he said, his body now apparently resigned to remaining completely static on his chair. “It started when I saw the crow. I never looked into it more… I thought I might disturb the process somehow. Plus, I never thought there was anything to find. I suppose you saw the crow too?”
Patrick leaned forward and shook his head, dismissing the question.
“Mr. Vincent, something’s happened, something’s changed. The crow was looking for something, and Dean didn’t want me to find it. I think he probably had the same fear you did. But I found it… I think the crow might have been a person, someone who died.”
It looked like Mr. Vincent’s brow raised slightly, though it may have just been a trick of his eyes.
“I found it… I found the body. It was buried in a box in the woods. I searched for so many nights until I found it, and I dug it up. There was a pendant or something lying on it. Then Dean came and we fought.”
The man leaned forward, the surprise now clear on his face. It looked like he might have hardly believed what he was hearing.
“And then we heard the crow and there it was, holding the pendant. Rachel had followed me into the woods to bring me my backpack and the crow flew over to her, and I think whatever was in the crow went into her. Her face and her… her spirit, her aura, her whatever-you-want-to-call-it changed, and she picked up the pendant and disappeared in a gust of leaves. I tried to track her, but she’d simply vanished… And now I don’t know what to do.”
Mr. Vincent regarded him incredulously for several long moments. Then he leaned back onto the chair.
“Patrick, I’m not sure what to make of all this.”
“There’s nothing to make of it. All that matters is that we find this thing that took her and get her back. She’s been missing for days, everyone thinks Dean got her. But we can do something about this if we work together.” In the still house his voice rang uncomfortably in his ears.
“I don’t…” Mr. Vincent shook his head slightly. “I don’t think there’s anything I can do.”
“But we can do something if we just try! We have to!” He was leaning forward, practically on the edge of his seat, speaking directly to the man sitting in front of him, but he couldn’t shake the feeling that he was actually giving the pep talk to himself. He hadn’t known that there was an ounce of hope left inside of him, but he found these feelings forming in his mind as quickly as he could spout them out to someone else. Mr. Vincent might not have discerned just how similar the two of them were, but Patrick could see it. Speaking to what might have been a failed version of himself empowered him in a way he would have never expected.
“Patrick,” Mr. Vincent said, “I don’t know anything more than you do. You seem to at least have an idea of what’s going on. I gave up the chance to help myself a long time ago. I don’t think I have the power to help you, or anyone else, for
that matter. I’m sorry.”
Patrick wanted to assure the man that he wasn’t a coward after all, and that he could help… but looking at his sad, weary body on that chair, in this dark house where he did nothing but wallow in shame day in and day out, it was hard to think otherwise. He wanted to be mad, but only pity surfaced inside him. He wished that he could press his point further, but it didn’t look as though reasoning would work.
The two stared at each other for several seconds, then Patrick stood up. He didn’t want to stay in this place any longer. He walked to the door without looking at the man, opened it, and paused.
“I’m sorry you feel that way,” he said, and stepped outside without waiting for Mr. Vincent to respond.
*****
When Patrick had left for Mr. Vincent’s house night was falling, and now the day had been reduced to a blood red strip above the trees. He had told his mother that he should be back before dinner, but it was undoubtedly finished and cleaned up by now. Fortunately he had had the foresight however to assure her that he would find a ride home from his “homework-related meeting”.
Patrick walked through town and noticed that even at this early stage in the evening the number of cars had dwindled down to nothing. He wondered if this was due to recent events or if the majority of the town simply shared the “early to bed, early to rise” philosophy. There were only two cars parked outside of Sunset Market, and he would bet money that they were owned by employees who were either scared out of their wits or packing a loaded shotgun under their front seats. The darker part of Patrick hoped it was the latter.
Eventually the buildings turned back into houses and the road became more familiar. Patrick must have been walking very slowly, he thought, because by the time he reached the high school the sky was completely dark. Every light was off save for two street lamps, and not a single car was parked in the lot or along the street. He remembered how his old school had never been empty; there were always at least two nighttime custodians and one or two security guards to keep the place in ship-shape. Hillward High however was apparently too small to bother with any sort of security, and could probably be cleaned by a single janitor on a Saturday or Sunday.
Patrick was about to look away from the school and continue down the dark tunnel of trees and houses when he spotted something dark on the ground beside him. He stopped and kneeled to get a better look, but he couldn’t identify the dark little circle that sat stark black against the white dust until he inhaled and tasted a tinge of copper in the back of his throat.
It was blood.
His heart began pumping and he looked around wildly, searching for any movement and almost expecting an attack. When the dark street proved to be wholly silent and still, he looked back to the blood. Several feet beyond it there appeared to be something else on the ground, though it may have simply been the shadow of a rock. He stepped around the spot and walked to it anyway, hoping deeply that it wasn’t what it appeared to be.
Bingo, he thought to himself, immediately wondering why he chose that particular word. The second bit of blood was more of a smear in the gravel, mashed into the ground as though it had been stepped on. Patrick saw that the splotches of blood were leading toward the grass, where he somehow hoped that the trail would be lost, but as his line of sight followed the trajectory across the lawn and up the steps to the hallway he saw that one of the double doors was slightly ajar. His heart beat even faster, and he found himself wishing that he had never looked down. He told himself that he was being a coward, just like Mr. Vincent, and it actually helped bolster his courage a little. Keeping the image of that sad husk of a man slumped in a recliner in mind, he crossed the grass and walked quietly up the steps.
One door was resting against the other, as though it had simply not shut all the way when the last person went through. Did they lock these at night? Maybe that was another protocol they failed to enforce in a town this small…
Patrick scanned the street to assure himself that no one was watching, then opened the door slowly, mindful of squeaking. It gave without a sound and he stepped into the dark hallway. There was just enough lamplight coming in through the high windows to see the vague outline of the L-shaped hall, the blurry faces of the lockers, the tall and threatening doors that gave way to classrooms by day, but led to strange other worlds of pitch black once the sun went down. Patrick couldn’t see any more immediate signs of intrusion, and quickly began to consider how the blood had probably been left by a teacher with a nosebleed earlier in the day, and how the door had simply been left open by a negligent janitor after his or her shift, and how he was now majorly breaking the law.
Something compelled him further however, and he crept down the hall as silently as possible, as though at the slightest noise one of these doors would open and out would pop a raging dragon, angered by the disturbance of its slumber. He stopped dead in his tracks when he saw a strip of black to his left.
One of the doors was open.
Only a few inches of the darkness beyond was showing, but it was enough to give Patrick the distinct impression that he was wavering on the brink of an abyss. He had all but tossed the negligent janitor theory aside, and he knew that if he thought on it more he might end up turning back. So, feeling the all too familiar sensation that he was stepping into the mouth of a great beast, he pushed the door open slowly, the hinges creaking.
He smelled the blood before he saw a single thing.
The coppery taste in his throat was back, now fresh and bitter. He never knew that blood could stick to the air with such intensity. But there was another smell, too—one that he couldn’t place. His eyes darted around the dark room and finally landed on the figure sitting against the wall in the far corner, half-obscured by desks.
The pale light of the moon shone on Dean’s large face, casting his features into shadow and making them sharp and menacing. He sat holding his legs in his arms, his head hung low. Even during Patrick’s entry he didn’t look up.
Patrick stood and stared for several moments. Then, still fighting the urge to run home and forget that any of this had happened, he walked as slowly as he could deeper into the room, never taking his eye off the shadow in the corner. He reached the window and made it half way down the line of desks, and completely unsure as to why, sat down warily, half-expecting the guy to strike at any misstep. He crossed his legs and watched the huddled figure in the shadows, waiting for something, anything.
Dean’s eyes were two glints of light in pools of darkness, completely unmoving. The shadows contorted any emotion that may have been on his face.
It was several moments before Patrick could work up the courage to speak.
“What are you doing here?” His words reverberated in the empty room.
Dean blinked, but still didn’t move.
“What do you care? She’s gone.”
Patrick stared at him for another moment or so, waiting to see if he would say something else, but he didn’t.
“Are you hurt?” Patrick asked. It sounded stupid coming out of his mouth, but it was all he could think to say.
Dean’s eyes flicked up at him for an instant and fell back to the floor.
“Yeah, but a lot of other people are too, huh?”
Patrick watched as Dean lifted a huge hand and rubbed his eyebrow as if wiping something away, though there appeared to be nothing there. Afterward, Dean spoke again.
“It got out of control.” His voice was almost a whisper; nothing like the invasive mental voice that had forced itself into Patrick’s mind. “When it started, I was just having fun. I had this power, and I wanted to use it.” He gave long pauses between his sentences. “I didn’t know why I had it, but I didn’t care. The whole town was mine… Every single person in this town is a lying, cheating, stealing idiot, and I thought I would send them all a message… I wanted them all to know fear… It was fun hurting them. I loved to hear their stupid screams, I loved to wa
tch them try to crawl away from me. I felt so free. It was like I was God. I could make anyone in the whole town unhappy at a whim. No one was safe…” He shifted his legs and bent his head down to wipe his forehead on the back of his hand.
“I heard him opening his door as I was walking by. This old guy, his sprinklers were on, and he was stepping outside to turn them off. He was so stupid to go outside, just like every other moron I’d messed up. That was reason enough to do it. Someone so stupid didn’t deserve to live happily. So I snuck up on him. He was turning off the faucets and they were squeaking so loud he didn’t even hear me come up.” He gave a small, humorless laugh. “It was great. Then he turned around and I gave him the scare of his life. I knocked him down and messed with him for a while. He screamed and screamed, and I just loved it…”
He paused for a long time now, and Patrick could only look at him stupidly with his legs crossed and his hands in his lap. Dean swallowed and spoke again.
“…until he started crying.” Dean’s brow appeared to furrow, and his eyes grew even darker. “He didn’t just scream, like the others had… He whimpered and cried like a baby, and he begged me to stop. And I did stop. I looked at him, and his face was so wet with tears and he was covered in blood. He was pitiful. He was totally helpless and begged me to stop hurting him. I didn’t know what to think… I just watched him, crying and wriggling on the ground, and I could feel his blood dripping from my mouth. For a second I didn’t know why I had been doing it…
“But before I could do anything else I heard a noise and I looked up and saw his wife standing on the steps. She was so small and frail, like he was, but she was holding a shotgun. I jumped backwards and she fired. It grazed my chest. It was so loud… I couldn’t hear anything afterwards. I ran away, and she fired at me again, but she missed. I could feel blood on myself again, but this time it was mine. I was bleeding because I attacked an old man and his wife shot at me to save him. Because I attacked him as he went outside to turn off the sprinklers…”