Joe Schreiber - Chasing the dead

Now the pause is longer. Sue can sense the DJ trying to formulate some kind of diplomatic reply. "Excuse me, Jeff. Did you say the Engineer killed your brother?"

"That's right."

"Three years ago?"

"To the day."

"Jeff, are you aware that the Engineer hasn't killed anybody since 1983?"

"That's not true," Jeff Tatum's voice says patiently. "Hedisappeared in August of 1983-in fact the last killing he was connected with happened right in my town on August 22 of that year-but his body was never found. And since then he's resurfaced more than once. The police just haven't put two and two together."

"Is that a fact?" DJ Damien sounds dubious, to say the least. "So you're actually telling us that the Engineer is connected with killings but the police in the area somehow haven't noticed?"

"I tried going to the cops," Jeff's voice says. "They told me I was crazy."

"Imagine," DJ Damien says.

"I'm serious." If Jeff's aware he's being made fun of, he doesn't show it. "It was him."

"What makes you so sure?"

"He always shoots out the eyes."

"Have you ever heard the termcopycat, Jeff?"

"This was no copycat. No coincidence, either. He left the body where the police would find it. Then, after the funeral, he dug the body up again. It disappeared. Just like the kids in 1983."

"You're kidding, aren't you, Jeff?" DJ Damien asks. "Hey, Jeff?" There's a long pause, too long, before Damien seems to realize he's talking to a dead line. "All right, I guess we've heard the end of that; what do the rest of you think? Come on, folks, it's twoA.M., our sponsors have all gone to bed, it's dead silent out there, what else is there to talk about besides mass murder?" Sue can hear him sigh. "Meanwhile, for Jeff in Gray Haven, here's the song I wouldn't normally play under any circumstances."

And Sue hears "Daniel" start playing. She waits, watching the broken yellow line jumping on the other side of her windshield, snow flickering through it, and when the song ends, Damien comes back on.

"Well, children, like it or not, it seems tonight's topic has become the Engineer. Honest to God, people, I never would've dreamt there were so many of you out there with an opinion on this. Hello, you're live on the X midnight shift, who's this?"

"This is Vicky. I'm working third-shift out in Woburn."

"Vicky, what do you think about what our pal Jeff said about the Engineer?"

"I think the guy's on to something."

"So you think the Engineer's still out there?"

"Absolutely. I think I dated him."

Damien laughs. "All right, thanks a lot." He goes to the next call. "Hey, the X, who's this?"

"This is Randall."

"Where you calling from, Randall?"

"Dorchester."

"Randall, what's your take on the Engineer, dead or alive?"

"It's irrelevant."

Damien makes a yawning sound. "Fascinating answer, Randall. Thanks for weighing in."

"I'm totally serious. To understand the Engineer you have to know about Isaac Hamilton. That's the real story."

"Never heard of him."

"That's because no one pays attention to the tabloids," Randall says. "Hamilton's the guy whose statue is up in all seven towns that the Engineer went through, from White's Cove right to Gray Haven. Whoever the Engineer was, you can't tell me he wasn't influenced by Hamilton."

"All I said was, I never heard of the guy. Suppose you enlighten us."

"Well…" Randall holds back a second, considering his reply. "Let's just say that what Isaac Hamilton did back in the late eighteenth century makes the Engineer look like a Boy Scout by comparison. Depending on what account you read, he put away something like twenty, twenty-five kids in his day."

"How intriguing," DJ Damien says, though Sue doesn't think he sounds intrigued. He sounds like he wishes he never started this conversation. "Okay, I'm going to take a couple more calls on this, children, and then we're going to move on to a more wholesome topic like, oh, I don't know, famous celebrity suicides. Hello, you're on the air, who's this?"

"This is Terry from Chelmsford."

"Terry, I hope you've got something down to earth to say on this topic that can help put the rest of these paranoid freaks at ease."

Terry gives a high-pitched little giggle, the giggle of a man, Sue thinks, wired to the eyeballs on an all-night binge of coffee, cigarettes, and nothing to do. "As a matter of fact, I read a history book about Isaac Hamilton," he says. "As far as the connection between the Engineer and Hamilton goes, I don't see how you can ignore it."

"Is that so. I guess the police managed to overlook all this when they were hunting the Engineer?"

"No, they know about it, they just don't have the imagination to put it in context."

"Uh-huh."

"I'm serious. This book talked about how Hamilton was, like, this sea captain in the days of whaling and how he ended up in Haiti way back in the late 1700s."

"Gripping stuff, Terry, but-"

"It said when he came back to Boston he was already going crazy from a wicked case of syphilis, but the voodoo priests taught him the so-called secrets of everlasting life."

"I'm sorry, did you sayvoodoo priests, Terry?"

"It's pretty obvious to anybody who does a little reading that wherever the Engineer is right now, Isaac Hamilton is with him, firing up the old barbecue grill. So if you live between White's Cove and Gray Haven, watch your back!"

"Thanks a bunch, Terry. What are you people on tonight, anyway? Okay, one more call. Who is this?"

There's a long pause on the other end.

"Hello, caller? You there?"

"Hello?"

"While we're young, caller. Let's start with your name."

"You want to know my name?" The caller's voice is formal, anxious. Sue recognizes it instantly. The realization sucks the breath from her lungs in one unpleasant tug, leaves her with nothing but a dry ache where her heart should be.

She stops the tape, hitsREWIND, and plays it back to make sure, but that's not really necessary.

"You want to know my name?"

She knows it immediately. She would've recognized it from a single syllable, perhaps not even that.

The caller is Phillip.

"That's right, what's your name?" the DJ asks patiently.

Phillip clears his throat. "I'd rather not give it, if that's all right with you."

"Suit yourself, mystery man. Can you tell us where you're calling from on this disgustingly hot August night, or is that classified top secret too?"

"Not that it matters, but I'm listening to a webcast of your show. I'm in California."

"Fantastic. Just keep it short, huh?"

"I'm responding to the callers who seem to believe that the child-killer known as the Engineer might still be alive somewhere, possibly due to supernatural reasons, simply because he was never apprehended and his body was never found."

"Okay…"

"Trust me, this is not the case. I was born and raised in Gray Haven, and I can assure you beyond the slightest shadow of a doubt that the Engineer is dead. He died-a long time ago."

"You sound pretty sure of yourself there," Damien says. "What, do you have proof or something?"

Sue can't believe she's hearing this. She resists the temptation to stop the tape again and rewind, to try listening from the beginning, because there's no point. There's no way the man talking on this call-in show from six months earlier is not her husband.

"Like I said," Phillip says, "I grew up in Gray Haven. I was there when everything happened. For those who didn't live through it, it's almost impossible to convey the atmosphere of pure dread that existed during that summer. Thirteen children murdered, including one in our own town; police had zero leads, no identification, no physical description of the killer beyond the fact that he wore overalls and looked like a locomotive engineer."