Prologue
Daniel Tanner sat hunched over his desk, creating an ache in his back. A rough-edged notebook lay before him, a poor replacement for the leather-bound journal he had in better days, but he’d lost the taste for such things long ago.
He drew out his pen and tried hard not to scribble the next words.
They say that when you look into the abyss, it looks back into you. I never really understood what that meant.
The shaking of his hand made the words nearly illegible, but he found some power in placing them on paper. They were words for him, and no one else.
What you could become.
He stopped when the tears began dripping onto the paper. The pages swallowing his pain like so much else had. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath, then poured himself another shot and drained it. He needed the warmth that rushed down his throat and steadied his hand.
I thought I could handle it. I thought I wouldn’t be like this. I didn’t know I’d become like them.
Daniel stopped and squeezed his eyes tightly shut, wondering again why writing always seemed to make things easier, as if it somehow made them certain, a thing no longer to be questioned. The pen dropped and his head slid into his hands. It felt heavy in his grasp, but surely another drink would make it lighter. It did.
When I’ve finished this drink, I’ll go to that thing in my basement and cut it. I’ll hurt it until it gives me what I want. What does that make me? When I stared into the abyss . . .
The next drink went down as easily as the others.
Did it stare back into me?
Chapter 1
Daniel stared at the dirt pile, the spot where his son had been buried mere hours ago. A temporary grave marker sat above his son’s final resting place. In a few weeks, when the dirt had settled, it would be replaced by a stone that read: Sam Tanner. Beloved son. He is missed.
But that’s a lie, isn’t it?
There was no holding the thought back. His gaze wandered to where his wife, Julia, had a seat; it was empty. His throat tightened at the thought of a mother who wouldn’t even come to her son’s funeral.
How could I have loved someone who grew so cold so fast? Someone who turned her back so easily when her son was sick?
Sam rested deep in the cold dirt, that part was true; but he was the beloved son of his father, not his mother. They found Sam that one dreadful morning, sickly and pale in his bed, barely able to form words.
“I don’t want to go to sleep. I don’t like the people in my dreams,” Sam had said.
Daniel shushed him, read him a book, and rubbed his head.
“Monsters aren’t real, Sam. Those were just stories people used to tell naughty boys. But you don’t believe in those kinds of things, do you? You’re a good guy, right?” Sam nodded, his eyes heavy for want of sleep. “So, you just go to sleep, and if you have any bad dreams, you come and wake me up, okay? Daddy will always come and help you when you need him.”
That too was a lie, though, wasn’t it?
Monsters are real. Sam’s mother is a monster.
It all played back like a single blurred event. The memories raced in and out of his mind, giving him no relief. First, the doctors failed him by saying that they didn’t know what was happening. But now, he remembered the phone call with Julia just after the consultation.
“They can’t stop the fever, they don’t know why.” He barely choked the words out over the phone. “What is happening to our son?”
“That’s not our son,” Julia hissed.
“What the hell are you talking about? Your son needs you, Julia. You get your ass down here. He needs you.”
She didn’t come.
That wasn’t their first argument, or their last. Over the next few weeks, Julia descended into madness, unraveling like a cut ball of string and howling about how it wasn’t their son, all while poor Sam’s brain cooked. In the end, Sam could only form rough, incoherent words or sounds more akin to a caged animal than a sick boy.
And he did—he did look like a caged animal. Daniel remembered Sam’s eyes, that gaze that seemed to wander and look through him, like he wasn’t even there anymore.
“He’s doing terrible, Julia,” Daniel whispered into the phone. “He . . . he doesn’t have long. It would help him to see you one last time.”
“No,” she said. “I hope he dies.”
I hope he dies?
Daniel couldn’t recall what he said next, but those stark words ran through his head again and again. He couldn’t believe them then, and they hadn’t softened since.
I hope he dies? She’s a monster, a cold-hearted bitch. Evil.
He couldn’t live with someone like that. He left her before Sam had even died, and the divorce would be in order shortly. She barely resisted. It was strange—she did seem sad over it all, but devoid of any energy to do anything about it. There might have been a chance for her to change the tide, to come and pour her heart out, tell him how it was all too terrifying to deal with—he was scared too, after all. Maybe they could have gone to a counselor, worked through the death of their son together, been there for each other, healed one another.
But she never changed. And some wounds didn’t heal, only festered.
And now I’m alone with this. Alone with thoughts of my son, my wife.
Standing over his son’s plot of dirt, Sam’s final place on Earth, and still the woman occupied his mind. Daniel’s gaze drifted to her seat once more. Empty.
Just like that bitch’s soul.
The thought made tears form in his eyes and his throat started to tighten with the awful reality that Sam died without a mother to hold his hand.
How could she do that to our son?
A crack in the sky opened and rain began, suitable weather for the miserable day. Daniel had stayed several hours after the funeral, just watching. He couldn’t choke out more than a few words at a time to any of the guests. Daniel’s parents stayed with him, silently watching their grandson’s grave, before they too left. Even Julia’s parents had shown up, but Daniel didn’t dare make eye contact with them. He had no interest in speaking with the people who had raised that woman.
He thought only of his son—he had lost a beloved child and the man Sam would never become. Sam would never grow old, would never go to high school, or marry, or have children. He lost everything that he would be.
And so had Daniel. He would never see him run a race, teach him to drive, meet his fiancée, or bounce a grandchild on his knee.
What is left for a man who’s lost his family? He was a novelist. He wrote comedies for God’s sake, but he knew that he would never write another comedy. That part of his life was over now. He couldn’t foresee any jokes in his future.
“Mr. Tanner?”
An older man appeared behind him, holding an umbrella to shield against the cold rain. The clean-shaven man had a hard jawline, and it was clear from his white hair and weathered face that he was well into his sixties.
Daniel nodded.
“I’m sorry to bother you. My name is Larry Maker, and I’d like to talk with you soon. How about you give me a call?” Maker fished a card from his pocket and held it out to Daniel. One glance at it showed only the name Larry Maker and a phone number under it.
Daniel reached automatically for the card and slid it into his pocket as he muttered just one word:
“Okay.”
Larry’s gaze searched Daniel’s face. “I’d really like to talk with you. I’ll be looking forward to it. My condolences for your loss.” He gave Daniel a tilt of his head, then turned and walked away, leaving Daniel to the wind and his sorrow.
Daniel returned to Sam’s grave, and any thoughts of Larry blew away with the breeze.
That’s more than my son in the dirt. That’s my wife. That’s my career. That’s my life. My God, that’s my son.
That web of thoughts laced through his mind over and over, like a virus that corrupted everything it touched, then wound back like a circle to do it all again.
His son, his wife, his life, his son.
In the seven weeks since they found him in his room, the illness had run through his body, weakening his heart and dulling his senses. He’d been fine just the day before they found him, up and walking around, talking, getting ready for school. Then, in one night, he couldn’t walk or even talk. It took seven weeks for his heart to stop, but they had lost their son in just that one night.
And now he was in the ground.
Daniel turned away and walked home, only because there was nowhere else to go. Each step felt heavier than the last. He left his car at the graveyard, as if walking would somehow clear his mind, would somehow break him away from it all.
He’d told Julia that he was leaving her, but she had cleared out by the time he came back from the hospital. He hated her, hated what she’d done to his son, their son. But even now, after everything that had happened, some part of him wanted her there. Wanted her to be there, to cry with him for their son, wanted her to be someone who could feel what he felt. But she wasn’t.
I hope he dies?
* * *
A dead man’s stink crept up from the back seat of the car. It clung to clothing, seeped out through open windows and pierced the senses of those nearby. A cheerful whistle in the air said the pale man wasn’t concerned about the smell; rather, it brought a tune to his lips. His feet were propped up on the dashboard as he enjoyed the glowing lights of New Athens.
“You know what I like about small cities?” he asked the dead man. “They just fit so comfortably, don’t they?”
“He can’t hear you,” came a childish voice, as fingers dug at the dead man’s flesh. “He’s dead!”
“Heh, heh, heh. I always find the dead are the best listeners.”
A thing prowled around in the darkness between the trees, snorting, followed by a low growl.
“Looks like we have company,” the pale man said with a thin, gray-lipped grin toward the dead. He stretched up to his feet and stepped from the car, wiping a long, stringy strand of hair from his face and leaving the car door hanging open in the cool night air.
“Oh boy, oh boy! Does that mean I can see my family now?” The creature in the back seat climbed out through the window and hopped to the ground, barely able to contain its excitement.
“I think it does.” The pale man patted the creature’s raw, bald head. “You were always my favorite.”
It looked up to him and smiled with a mouth full of needle teeth and pinkish, rubbery gums laced with purple veins.
The thing from the woods stalked out, heavy and large, a nightmare given form. It used its arms like an extra set of legs, and its neck snaked out several feet. It dropped large chunks of mauled meat into the grass before the pale man, a gift of submission to a greater beast. The meat was so torn and violated that it gave no hint to what it once had been.
Without hesitation, the small child leapt at the offering, tearing meat from bone with its pointed teeth. Nearly a half-dozen sets of eyes opened in the darkness, and their hungry mouths followed the scent of meat. The pale man took one last deep breath as he looked out over the city.
“Great city.” His grin stretched even farther. “I think I’ll take it.”