Garden of Darkness (3 page)

All roads led back to Tuonela. That’s what Rachel was discovering. Like a board game with paths that kept returning you to Start.

Alligator swamp, go back ten squares. Quicksand, go back to Start. Sucking chest wound, go back to Start. Nutcases who think they’re vampires, go back to Start.

It was crazy to think a place could control you. That the ground was somehow more than just soil and plants. More than just a place for vegetation and burying the dead.

She could see that Alastair could see the resignation in her eyes. He took advantage of it. “There’s an abandoned farmhouse up the road about a half mile. Pull in there and I’ll pick you up. I’ll take you to the crime scene.”

Rachel put the truck in gear and moved forward.

She should just keep driving, but that wasn’t who she was. Instead, she spotted the narrow gravel drive, overgrown with weeds, and pulled in. She locked the truck, hoping her plants wouldn’t get too hot, then walked to where Alastair was waiting.

Aspen Grove.

Rachel recognized the place. Part of the state forest bordered by the highway and Evan Stroud’s land, which included Old Tuonela. Several acres of aspen trees planted in carefully checked rows. It was relatively easy to plant straight rows of anything, but checking them meant they lined up perfectly no matter where you stood. It was an old technique, done with string. One that had been abandoned once people started planting by machine.

Unlike the heart of Tuonela, the ground here had been worn flat. The soil was black and as fine as sand, and if you looked down the rows of trees from any angle you would swear they went into infinity.

“Are those quaking aspens?” Rachel asked.

The sun had risen completely, and the leaves against the white trunks were almost blinding in their brilliance and contrast to the gray sky.

“Big tooth,” Alastair said.

Side by side they waded through dry, knee-deep weeds at the edge of the road. Alastair bent and picked up a soft yellow leaf and handed it to her. “Like the quaking aspen, except for the teeth.”

The leaf was heart-shaped, edged with scalloped points. It didn’t seem right, like suddenly finding out butterflies had fangs.

Stepping into the grove was like diving underwater. The temperature plunged, and Rachel’s ears felt plugged. Sounds she’d been unaware of until that moment were cut off.

“A guy shows up in town just before dawn,” Alastair told her. “Hysterical. Said his wife had vanished.”

Rachel was aware of the strength and life and vitality of the trees. They absorbed sound, sucking the resonance from Alastair’s voice, making it fall flat.

The husband may have killed the wife and dumped her. Trees that bordered old highways were popular spots for the uninitiated. A first kill. Panic. Dump it the first place you find just to get rid of it. It was common. But if this was so common, why hadn’t Alastair waited for Becker?

“So he brought me out here.” Alastair was a little breathless, walking and talking, plus carrying the additional weight of his belt and gun. Her dad used to complain about the equipment adding forty pounds, giving cops bad backs and bad knees.

They walked for so long that Rachel began to think they should have reached the other side. Her head began to feel funny, and she had the strange notion that they were caught in some kind of loop. Things got weird when she hadn’t had her morning coffee, she tried to tell herself. But she knew better.

This wasn’t Peoria.

Rachel was about to ask the age-old question, “Are we there yet?” when the visual repetition of trees changed.

As they moved closer, she made out a patch of solid beige that ended up being a police uniform worn by a young officer who looked familiar but whose name she couldn’t place. He was jittery. Some of the tension drained from his body, and his shoulders visibly relaxed when Rachel and Alastair got close enough to be recognized as the good guys.

The grove would have been disquieting under normal circumstances, but to be left there alone to guard a dead body . . . Well, no wonder he was anxious.

She spotted something on the ground, near the base of a tree. At first glance it looked like a hundred-pound skinned squirrel, but then she realized it was human.

She had to turn away, a hand to her mouth.

“We came out here and searched the entire area,” Alastair said. “This is all we found. No skin.” When she didn’t reply, he continued: “I’ve never seen anything like it, but I thought maybe you had. Since you used to live in L.A.”

L.A. got a bad rap. L.A. had nothing on Tuonela and Old Tuonela. But Tuonelians had to always think there were worse places out there. It gave the residents something to feel good about.

You think it’s bad here? Pshaw. You should live in California. Crazy shit happens there. Crazy shit, lemme tell ya.

The young cop shifted in his beige uniform, hands resting on his belt, elbows out. “This is some crazy shit.”

Rachel frowned. Had she spoken her thoughts out loud? Was he just agreeing? She looked at Alastair. He was staring down at the remains.

Rachel had been a coroner a long time. She’d seen a lot of awful things; she’d seen a lot of weird, crazy shit. “I’ve never seen anything like this.”

Selfishly, she thought about the U-Haul truck with the African violet and Christmas cactus waiting to resume their journey to California. And she knew that wasn’t going to be happening anytime soon.

Chapter Three

We were a few miles from Tuonela when we spotted the flashing emergency lights just as our rented minivan crested the hill. I leaned forward from the backseat to get a better view and saw a cluster of vehicles and dark dots of people against a rural backdrop of dead grass, yellow leaves, and blue sky. Cop cars and an ambulance were parked in the ditch alongside the road.

“Slow down,” I said.

“It’s almost noon.” Stewart didn’t let up on the gas. “We’re gonna be late for the museum opening.”

“Really late if you get us killed or run over somebody.” Did I need to point out the obvious?

From the passenger seat, Claire glared to remind me that she was in charge.

I’ve always had a problem with authority, especially if that authority comes from somebody close to my own age. I’m also paranoid about dying. None of the other three in the van knew I’d already died twice, once from electrocution, and once when I fell through the ice and was underwater for almost an hour.

Sometimes it felt like death was chasing me, and now I was going to be spending two weeks in a town that meant “land of the dead.” So wrong. But they were paying me a hundred bucks a day. An unemployed, starving artist couldn’t turn her back on that kind of money. Not to mention that this could be a chance to unfuck my life.

Stewart slowed the minivan.

Ian and I had been in the backseat for several hours, and even though we were all close to the same age, it was a flashback to childhood. It felt like he and I were the kids, Claire and Stewart the parents. Too weird. Especially strange since I’d met Ian and Stewart only that morning.

I was surprised when they’d accepted my application to be part of the documentary crew, but I’m cheap. Cheaper than anybody else in Minneapolis. And I have most of my own equipment, plus I can shoot both video and film. Some people can’t. But it’s still pretty funny that a group of journalism majors would hire a college dropout to shoot their documentary.

Now that we were closer I saw a white van with the words COUNTY CORONER painted on the side in black lettering. A somber group of people emerged from a stand of trees. They were carrying a gurney. On top of the gurney was a black body bag.

Welcome to Tuonela.

Never one to miss a photo op, I dug out my camera. “Pull over.”

Stewart shot Claire a question.
Should I?
Claire shrugged. “Might be something for the documentary. I’ll wait here.”

Stewart stopped the minivan and I jumped out.

The camera was a small handheld. I kept it down, hoping nobody would notice. It’s my job to be invisible. Most of the time people don’t even acknowledge my existence.

Watching the viewfinder, I made the shot long and low, capturing the foreground and keeping the lens wide open for maximum depth of field.

Stewart came up behind me. “I don’t see any wreck.”

I zoomed in on a policeman. His face registered shock and horror. Other faces held the same emotion.

“I don’t think it’s a wreck.”

I panned, then paused on a woman who seemed to be in charge. She stood off by herself, legs braced, arms crossed, watching the body being loaded into the van. The wind blew, and dry prairie grass rustled. Distantly I knew the capture would be nice in review.

The breeze lifted the woman’s short, dark hair and created waves in her navy blue jacket, molding the fabric across an obviously pregnant belly. She didn’t look shocked like the others. Instead she appeared worried and maybe even resigned.

“Kristin.” Stewart tapped my arm and pointed to a guy who was doubled over, hands on his knees. “That cop is puking. Wouldn’t you like to know what he just saw?”

“Not really.”

“Hey!”

We’d been spotted.

A policeman strode toward us, arms pumping. “What are you doing? You can’t film here.” He waved his hands, shooing us away.

I lowered the camera but didn’t shut it off. “Sorry.” I expected him to demand the videotape, but he didn’t.

Stewart was already scrambling for the vehicle. Before the cop realized he might want to confiscate the footage, I turned and ran. The minivan wheels rolled as I slammed the door.

“What the hell do you think that was all about?” Stewart’s voice trembled.

On the seat beside me, Ian stirred and came awake, looking about groggily. “What?”

“Must have found a nasty dead body, that’s for sure,” I said. “We haven’t even reached Tuonela, and weird things are already happening.”

“What’s so weird about a dead body and people getting sick?” Claire looked over the seat. “I mean, it’s unusual, but not weird.”

This was going to be a tough gig. Claire was already bugging the hell out of me. And it wasn’t just her attitude. I don’t like to judge people on outward appearances, but it was almost impossible for me to ignore her expensive blond hairdo and upscale business clothes. Right now she was wearing a cashmere sweater, black skirt, and black knee boots that were probably equivalent to two months’ rent.

“I always miss everything,” Ian muttered.

“We should ask about it when we get to town,” Stewart said. “See if anybody knows what was going on.”

A few more miles and we hit the outskirts of Tuonela.

I was disappointed to find that it looked as nondescript as any other Midwestern town, with a bunch of flat, boring buildings. But that ended up being the new area. The same street finally narrowed to a two-lane that dipped toward the river. We hit steep hills that pitched us forward and dropped us into Tuonela, the
real
Tuonela.

The road was suddenly lined with Victorian houses perched precariously as they struggled to cling to their foundations. Buildings were stone or dark brick, several stories tall, some with jagged peaks, some flat. At the bottom of the valley, a decay enveloped us. The sky darkened, and I found myself looking up to make sure the sun was still there.

A dying town.

There were thousands of them scattered throughout the United States, where you could feel the hope and vibrancy of the past, and the desolation of the future.

“Hey—karaoke.” Claire pointed to a two-story bar with gray clapboard siding and a neon OPEN sign.

“Tomorrow night,” Ian added. He laughed in delight. “I’m definitely going to check that out.”

They were here to make fun of people. To expose ignorance and put it on the big screen.
Let’s go to this
little town in the Midwest. People say a vampire used to live there.

That was what they’d really come for. To make a documentary on a man called Richard Manchester, a man who’d died a hundred years ago.

Our plan was to focus on Manchester, the town, and the culture of fear and superstition that went along with small-town ignorance. We would interview people. We hoped to interview one guy in particular: a man named Evan Stroud some people claimed was a living vampire.

It would be a hoot.

That was the one part of accepting the job that made me uncomfortable. I sure as hell don’t believe in vampires, but I have a documentary ethic. I don’t make fun of people unless they ask for it. If vampires were a part of someone’s culture, so what? Document it. That was fine. But don’t ridicule.

“Look!” Claire pointed to another building. “Vampire Candy Shoppe.” She laughed. “We have to get that on video. And we have to get some candy. Hopefully an interview.”

We followed the directions Claire had gotten off the Internet. It was easy to find the museum.

“Oh, my God.” Claire stared out the window at a line of people that went around the block.

“This must be the place,” Stewart said. “What a goddamn circus. Looks like we’re not the only ones here to immortalize the event. I told you we should have done our project on something more obscure.”

The WXOW news team had set up with a van, live-feed dish, and black cables snaking across the parking lot. People were selling hot dogs and cotton candy. It was like some huge street fair.

Not everybody was happy with the opening of the new exhibit. A man with a ragged gray beard paced with a sign that read, REPENT SINNERS, on one
side, BURN THE VAMPIRE on the other.

I taped it.

“They burn vampires?” Ian asked. “I thought they burned witches and staked vampires.”

Claire laughed. “Guess they can’t keep their folklore straight.”

The museum ramp was full. We ended up parking blocks away.

“Save me a place in line.” I rewound the videotape. “I want to see what I got back there.”

The others went on without me.

What I love about film and video is how it captures action and small scenes the human brain can’t process at the actual time of the event. I’m always surprised when I play back footage. It’s new and different—almost as if I’d never been there at all. Sure, there was the stuff in the foreground, the main action that I always remember, but it’s the small dramas that often tell bigger stories.