The Unquiet

He advanced on the slumped figure slowly, feeling the blood flowing down his side, soaking his shirt and his pants. He kicked the Russian’s gun away and stood over him. The redheaded man was lying on his side against the right rear wheel. There was a wound beneath his neck and another almost dead in the center of his chest. His eyes were half-closed, but he was still breathing. Gasping at the pain of his injury, Merrick bent down, picked up the Russian’s Colt, then searched the pockets of the man’s jacket until he found a wallet and a spare magazine for the pistol. The name on the driver’s license was Yevgeny Utarov. It meant nothing to him.

Merrick took the $326 from the wallet and jammed it into his own pocket, then tossed the wallet on the dying man’s lap. He spit on the ground and was happy to see that there was no blood in the sputum. Nevertheless, he was angry at himself for being wounded. It was the first time he had been hit in many, many years. It seemed to speak to him of the slow march of time, of his age and his impending mortality. He swayed slightly on his feet. The movement seemed to distract the man named Yevgeny from the fact of his own dying. His eyes opened wider, and he tried to say something. Merrick stood over him.

“Give me a name,” he said. “You got time in you yet. Otherwise, I’ll leave you here to die. It’ll be slow, and that pain you’re feeling will get worse. You give me a name, and it’ll go easier on you.”

Utarov whispered something.

“Speak up, now,” said Merrick. “I ain’t bending down again.”

Utarov tried once more. This time, the words sounded like blades being whetted against rough stone deep in his throat.

“Dubus,” he said.

Merrick shot the Russian twice more in the chest, then staggered away, leaving a trail of blood behind him on the road like squashed berries. He leaned against his car and stripped to the waist, exposing the wound. The bullet was lodged deep in the flesh. In the past, there were men whom he could have called upon to help him, but they were all gone now. He tied his shirt around his waist to stem the bleeding, then put his coat and jacket on over his naked torso and got back in the car. He slipped the Smith 10, with only three rounds left, back under the driver’s seat, and placed the Colt in the pocket of his coat. Turning the car back toward the main road was agony, and the ride along the trail caused him to grit his teeth so that he would not have to hear himself cry out, but he managed it. He drove for three miles before he found a veterinary practice, and there he made the old man whose name was on the sign outside remove the bullet while Merrick held a gun on him. He did not pass out from the pain, but it was a close thing.

Merrick knew who Dubus was. Somehow, all of this had started with him, had begun the first time Dubus forced himself upon a child. He had brought his appetites with him to Gilead, and from there they had spread. Merrick held a gun to the veterinarian’s head and asked him if he knew where Mason Dubus lived, and the old man told him, for Dubus was well-known in the region. Merrick locked the veterinarian in the basement, with two pint bottles of water and some bread and cheese so that he could keep body and soul together. He promised the vet that he would call the cops within twenty-four hours. Until then, he would just have to amuse himself as best he could. He found a bottle of Tylenol in a medicine cabinet and helped himself to some rolls of clean dressing and a pair of fresh pants from the old man’s closet, then left and continued on his journey, but driving was hard. The Tylenol took some of the edge off the pain, though, and at Caratunk he turned off the 201 again, as the vet had told him to do, and came at last to Mason Dubus’s house.

Dubus saw him coming. In a way, Dubus had been expecting him. He was still talking on his cell phone when Merrick shot the lock from the front door and entered the house, already dripping the spots of blood on the pristine floor. Dubus pressed the red button to end the call, then dropped the phone on a chair beside him.

“I know who you are,” he said.

“That’s good,” said Merrick.

“Your little girl is dead.”

“I know that.”

“Soon, you’ll be dead too.”

“Maybe, but you’ll be dead sooner.”

Dubus pointed a trembling finger at Merrick. “You think I’m going to plead with you for my life? You think I’m going to help you?”

Merrick raised the Colt. “No, I don’t,” he said, and he shot Dubus twice. As the old man lay spasming on the floor, Merrick picked up the cell phone and redialed. The phone was answered after two rings. There was no voice, but Merrick could hear a man breathing. Then the co

Dubus listened to Merrick ’s footsteps, then the noise of a car driving away. There was a great weight on his chest, studded with pain, as though a bed of nails had been laid upon him. He stared at the ceiling. There was blood in his mouth. He knew that he was only moments away from death. He began to pray, to ask God to forgive his sins. His lips moved soundlessly as he tried to remember the right words, but he was distracted by memories, and by his anger at the fact that he should die this way, the victim of a killer who would shoot an unarmed old man.

He felt cold air, and there came a sound from behind him. Someone approached, and he thought that Merrick had come back to finish him off, but when he moved his head he saw, not Merrick, but the end of a filthy tan coat, and old brown shoes stained with dirt. There was a stench in the air, and even in the time of his dying it made him gag. Then there were more footsteps to his left, and he was aware of presences behind him, of unseen figures watching him. Dubus tilted his head, and saw pale features, and black holes gaping in withered skin. He opened his mouth to speak, but there were no more words left to say, and no more breaths left in his body.

And he died with the Hollow Men in his eyes.

Merrick drove for miles, but his vision began to blur, and the pain and the loss of blood had weakened him. He made it as far as the Old Moose Lodge and there, fooled, like so many others in the past, by the name’s false promise of a bed, he stopped.

Now he was sitting at the deuce, drinking Jack Daniels on top of the Tylenol, snoozing a little in the hope that he might recover some of his strength so that he could continue on to Gilead. Nobody bothered him. The Old Moose Lodge actively encouraged its customers to take the occasional short rest, as long as they got back to drinking when they were done. A jukebox played honky-tonk music, and the glass eyes of dead animals stared down at the patrons from the walls, while Merrick drifted, unsure if he was sleeping or waking. At some point, a waitress asked him if he was okay and Merrick nodded, pointing to his whiskey glass to order another, even though he had barely touched the first. He was afraid that they might ask him to move on, and he wasn’t ready to do that yet.

Waking. Sleeping. Music, then no music. Voices. Whispers.

daddy

Merrick opened his eyes. There was a little girl sitting across from him. She had dark hair, and her skin was broken where the gas had erupted from within. A bug was crawling across her forehead. He wanted to brush it away, but his hands wouldn’t move.

“Hi, honey,” he said. “Where you been?”

There was dirt on the little girl’s hands, and two of her fingernails were broken.

waiting

“Waiting for what, honey?”

for you

Merrick nodded. “I couldn’t come until now. I was-They had me locked up, but I was always thinking about you. I never forgot about you.”

i know. you were too far away. now you’re near. now I can come to you.