Joe Schreiber - Chasing the dead

"White's Cove," the kid corrects her. "You have to remember that. From Ocean Street in old White's Cove, across the virgin land he drove…"

Sue feels something curdling inside her. She knows this tune or at least it's familiar to her from when she was young. "What is that?"

"It's an old poem," he says. "You have to remember it. It can help you."

"Help me how?"

"He hates the poem. They made it up a long time ago as a kind of charm to keep him away. It's like the only thing around that's as old as he is, so it's got some kind of power over him. Pushes him back inside so that whatever he's infected has a chance to get out. Maybe not for very long, just a few seconds, but hell, sometimes that can make the difference, you know what I mean?"

Sue just looks at him. "No."

"Just listen," he says, and in a slightly more audible voice he begins to recite:

"From Ocean Street in old White's Cove

Across the virgin land he drove

To paint each town and hamlet red

With the dying and the dead.

He walked through Wickham and Newbury

In Ashford or Stoneview he might tarry

To call a child to his knee

Where he slew it-One! Two! Three!

Then from Winslow to Gray Haven

Where he may begin again

Bedecked in his unholy shroud

To paint the Commonwealth with blood."

"Who ishe?" Sue asks.

"You don't know?" The kid looks at her, his eyes as big as silver dollars. "Isaac Hamilton." Then somewhat bizarrely he reaches for the radio dial and seems to remember it's not his. "You mind if I turn this on?"

"The radio? Why?"

"There's something I want to hear." Without waiting for express permission he hits the power switch. Sue has it set for the Boston NPR affiliate, but the kid thumbs the scan button up to 102.8 and sits back as an obnoxious modern rock song, half-rap and half-screaming, plays through. Sue winces but doesn't say anything. She regards this music with the kind of irritation she reserves for mosquitoes and coffee shop hipsters who wear desert camouflage ironically.

Finally, as the DJ comes on, Sue looks back at the kid. "You know, I've still got a lot of questions for you."

"Shh." The kid cocks his head to the speaker, listening to the DJ's voice.

"You're listening to Damien on the midnight shift, WBTX, 102.8," the DJ says, "playing all your requests right on through till morning. Keep listening for more requests including one for that new War Pigs track and…" There's the sound of paper being flipped over and the DJ laughs. "Oh, I like this, Elton John's 'Daniel,' for my good buddy Jeff in Gray Haven."

Sue sees the kid nodding to himself. "Jeff in Gray Haven," she says. "Is he talking about you?"

"Yeah."

"You requested an Elton John song?"

He nods. When the DJ comes back he says, "Okay, Damien here on the X midnight shift and like I said, I had a request here from Jeff to play Elton John's 'Daniel.' Now, obviously this isn't the sort of thing we normally play here on the X but Jeff's what you might call a special case. Some of you might remember when he called in to the midnight shift last summer and told us how he lost his brother, who died a few years ago-the kid's name was Daniel." The DJ hesitates like he's not sure he wants to go into this, then plunges right in anyway. "And as we're on the air Jeff mentioned the Engineer."

Just like that, Sue's whole body goes cold. She looks at Jeff. "What is he-"

"Shh," Jeff hisses, staring at the radio dial.

"Now," the DJ continues, "I don't know if any of you were listening that night but if you were you know what I'm talking about, because we had some pretty messed-up people calling in to say some wild things. It turned into kind of a big deal, actually, the cops came by the station afterward and the whole thing was just totally out of control. Anyway, I'm just going to play the song, so here you go, Jeff."

The song starts, Elton John hitting those first few notes, and Sue sees the kid tilt his head forward toward the glowing dial. Two tear tracks shine down either side of his face, the kid crying silently in the dashboard light.

And Sue says, "What's the story with your brother?"

Jeff Tatum, monotone: "He died."

"What does the Engineer have to do with it?"

The kid doesn't say anything. He sniffles and wipes his eyes with the heels of his hands. Lets out a shaky breath. "The Engineer killed him."

"What? When was this?"

Jeff Tatum looks at her. "Three years ago."

"That's crazy." Sue feels herself go numb from the stomach outward. "That's not possible."

"That's what you think," he says, reaching into his pocket. "First, though, you better listen to this. I taped it last summer because I had a feeling he'd call in and I wanted to have proof." Without further explanation he pulls out a cassette tape from his hip pocket and pops it into the Expedition's tape deck. Static hisses and Sue hears the DJ's voice come on again, Damien, cut back in mid-sentence, saying, "listening to 102.8, the midnight shift, all-request line…"

Then her phone starts beeping.

Sue stabs the power on the cassette deck off and gropes down to answer the phone. "Yes."

"Hello, Susan," the voice says. "How's your passenger?"

She freezes. How would he know about Jeff? Had he seen Tatum come out of the truck? Was there some kind of bug in the Expedition?Say something, she commands herself.Anything is better than just staying silent. "I don't know what you're talking about."

"I hope you don't mind that I took out her eyes. Don't worry. They'll come back."

"Her…" Then Sue realizes that he's talking about Marilyn. "Her eyes."

"Oh yes. They are the windows of the soul, after all."

Sue doesn't answer. Her mouth feels sealed shut. Up ahead on the right side of the road she sees a white sign coming up.WINSLOW-ESTABLISHED 1802. The same year as Gray Haven.

"Susan, are you still there?"

"I'm here."

"That's good. So am I. I'm very close."

She frowns, leaning forward, squinting through the glass. There's a shape behind the sign. It's not hiding-it's much too big to hide behind such a small sign-but there is a sense of itcrouching there, a shadow tensed to spring. Then Sue realizes what it is.

It's the van.

And there's something else too. In front of the van, all but invisible in the falling snow, the outline of a man stands motionless at the side of the road. All Sue can tell is that he's holding something in his hands. Then the headlights hit him and Sue sees a glimmer of something shiny. Teeth? Eyes? His face is blanched by the intensity of the lights. It's actually like he has no face. Then he's moving, taking five or six quick strides straight out until he's standing in the middle of the road ahead of them. Sue hears the kid in the passenger seat groan with terror.

"What was that, Susan?" the voice on the phone asks immediately.

"What was what?"

"That sound. Is there someone else there with you?"

"No." Sue has time to grab Jeff's shoulder, pushing him toward the floor and mouthing the wordsget down.

But he's not moving, his eyes locked on the figure in front of the van. Sue starts to turn the wheel. "Get down!" She feels the tires hiss and glide, losing their grip on the road. At last the kid seems to get it. He comes uncoiled all at once and starts to leap up between the passenger seat and the driver's seat, heading for the back. But his right leg catches on the lever for the emergency brake, his ankle twisting as he flails, kicks, trying to get free.

"Who's in the car with you, Susan?"

"Nobody, I told you, I'm alone."

"You lied to me."

"No, please." At the same time Sue is able to see with a kind of dismal clarity the figure in front of them raising the object in his hands. From twenty feet away she can tell that it's a rifle. The man in the road brings it up to shoulder level, tilts his head, and takes aim.