Uncle John, Part Four

We drove out to the cabin. I found a trail leading down the hill to the edge of the river, and we started walking. 

“I want to be supportive and everything,” Rachel said, “but what the hell are we looking for?”

It had seemed like a good idea 15 minutes ago. “I don’t know. Footprints, cane marks, caves, body parts . . .”

“Yuck.” She stepped over a tree branch. “You take me on the crappiest dates.”

The ground was damp and muddy. The river, maybe 20 yards across, ran briskly, splashing through rocks and tossing twigs at our feet. Gray clouds covered the sky. I hoped it wouldn’t rain.

After half an hour we stopped to rest. The clouds loomed above us, and I was getting hungry. Maybe this was a stupid idea.

“Hey.” Rachel pointed. “That looks like a cave.”

I scrambled up a shallow slope and pushed some bushes aside. Rachel stood behind me as I crouched and used the flashlight to peer inside. I could only see shadows, part of a rock, and water dripping from above.

“Watch out for bats,” Rachel said. “Or bears hibernating. Is this the wrong season for that? Or dragons. I’m back here if you need me. Way back.”

The bushes I was holding back looked too healthy for anyone to have been creeping in or dragging bodies inside recently. I went to one knee and swept the flashlight left and right, looking at rocks, dirt, worms—nothing until something glinted in the light.

I reached down, brushing some dirt away. 

A candle. Red, with a gold stripe.

I held it, searching my memory. I’d seen one just like it. In the cabin. The cabin where we’d found the flier for Vining’s church. 

And I’d seen the same candles on the altar in the church. And in Vining’s office.

I crawled backward out of the cave. “We have to go back to the church.” 

“Okay . . .” She lifted her eyebrows.

I showed her the candle. “I saw one like this there. And there was one in the cabin.” I turned to head back the way we’d come.

“Wait.” She had her phone out. “We’re closer than if we went back. It’s maybe half a mile. We can take an Uber back to the car.”

“Okay.” 

I thought about calling Stogue, but I didn’t think he’d pay any attention to the candles. I wasn’t sure I’d blame him. This barely counted as evidence—just an unsettling coincidence, maybe? Or a hunch.

We made our way up the river as fast as we could. Rachel kept up without griping too lopud. Ten minutes later I spotted the spire of the church reaching up toward the sky, over the crest of the slope rising up from the river. “Up here.” 

I scrambled up on hands and knees, Rachel behind me. “Stop kicking dirt on me,” she snapped.

When we reached the top I could see the back of the church. A small vegetable garden grew next to the back door, inside a low wire fence. Between us and the garden sat a shed I hadn’t seen from the parking lot in front. 

We stood in the trees, catching our breath. Rachel brushed off her jeans. The breeze rustled the leaves above us. The clouds had started to break, and shafts of sunlight speared down onto the grass.

The shed had yellow aluminum siding and a tall metal door. A long thick padlock hung on the door of the shed, locked. Rachel and I looked at each other. 

            “After you, fearless leader.” Rachel motioned me forward.

            Cautious, I led the way across the lawn to the shed. The padlock was secure. I knocked on the door. “Hello? Anyone there?”

            Nothing. I pressed my ear to the wood. Rachel rapped with her fist. “Hello?”

            “Help . . .” The voice was faint. “H-help . . .”

            We both pulled out our phones. Rachel was faster. Mostly because I stopped when the back door of the church opened. 

A man with gray hair stepped out, looked at us, then limped forward. He wore overalls and a long coat, almost to his ankles, with a hood thrown back over his shoulders, and he clutched a cane in his bony fingers.

It was the old man I’d seen sweeping the church. 

Rachel was talking into her phone. I stood in front of her, watching the man make his way across the grass.

He stopped six feet away from us.

I stared at him. “Uncle John?”

He blinked. Then he responded with a slow, slight nod. “Yes.”

I felt my spine go cold. “Are they in there? The girls?”

His eyes flickered toward the shed door. “Yes.”

“Cops are coming,” Rachel said from behind me.

“Why are they in there?” I asked.

Uncle John lifted the cane a few inches from the ground. A silver skull was mounted at the top, small and shiny. “This,” he grunted, as if his throat was dry from long silence. “Blood.”

I kept my eyes on him. “The cane?”

He tilted it toward me, letting the skull dip forward. Its empty eye sockets peered at me, dark and bottomless, and for a moment I forgot what I was doing there. What I’d been asking him. Who Uncle John was. Who I was—

Then Rachel slugged me in the back of the shoulder. I staggered, coughing, and held up a hand to block the skull from my sight. This must be how he’d kidnapped the girls. The skull . . .

Uncle John stepped back, holding the up the cane like Gandalf wielding a magical staff. I took a step toward him, then stopped. My legs felt numb, my feet stuck in mud, my arms too heavy to lift. I expected another punch from Rachel, but from the corner of my eye I saw her standing stiff, too, paralyzed, like a well-dressed mannequin, her hazelnut eyes dim. 

The skull loomed at us. Something glowed from its eye sockets, red and pulsing. It knew my name. It knew everything about me. And it wanted to erase everything from me, leave my mind blank, my body helpless . . .

I bit my lip, trying to draw a little pain, enough to shock me free, wake me up, start moving again. I tasted blood. My heartbeat jumped a little. Maybe if I forced myself, even if I bit something off, maybe—

“Dad?”

I blinked, fighting to focus my eyes. Edward Vining Jr. walked out of the church’s back door, puzzled. “What are you doing? Why are these people here?”

Dad? Oh, hell. I could see the family resemblance now—ˆ’d missed it by dismissing the old man as a janitor. Damn it . . .

Uncle John—Edward Vining Sr.?—turned slightly, glancing over his shoulder. “It’s nothing, Ed. Just a few trespassers. They’re leaving now.”

Sirens sang in the distance. The younger Vining looked up. “What’s that?”

The cane’s control over me weakened. I lunged forward, spit or blood running down my chin, and grabbed it with both hands. My foot slipped and I fell, but I kept my grip, and the cane slipped from Uncle John’s startled fingers. 

Vining Jr. was standing over me, one hand on his father’s shoulder. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?”

I rolled away, and Rachel reached down to help me scramble to my feet. She pointed at the shed. “Those girls are in there! He’s Uncle John!” The sirens grew louder. Nearer.

I held the cane, looking it over. It was thick and heavy. The skull handle looked like it would crack a real skull. I wrapped my hand around it and twisted.

Uncle John tried to lunge toward me, but his son’s hand on his shoulder held him back. “Calm down, dad,” Vining said. “Let’s wait for the cops to deal with—”

The skull turned, unscrewing from the cane. Uncle John whimpered, clawing at his son’s hand. “N-no. No!”

I dropped the skull on the ground. Something dripped from the inside of the cane. 

Blood. Drops stained the grass. I tipped it upright before I got any on my shoes.

“It needs the blood,” Uncle John murmured, swaying on his feet. “It needs their blood—”

He collapsed. “Dad!” Vining dropped to the ground, kneeling next to him. “Dad?”

New voices interrupted him. “All right, what’s going on?” It was the same two cops we’d met outside the dorm yesterday. The woman groaned. “You.”

“Yeah.” Rachel and I both pointed to the shed. “The missing girls are inside.”

“Stay right there.” She looked at Vining Jr. “You got a key for that lock?”

He looked up, confused. He glanced at Rachel and me, then back at the two cops. “No. My dad needs an ambulance.”

The Black cop was already on his radio. The female walked to the door of the shed, pressed her ear against, and pounded a fist. “Anybody in there?”

“H-help! Help us! Please!” The voices were faint. But clear.

She looked at her partner. “Get the bolt cutters from the car. Now.”

 

 

STATEMENT OF EDWARD VINING SR

 

I was dreaming. I was looking for something. In a cave, but I didn’t find it. Then in a cabin. It was dark. I had candles from the church. It was in the cabin. I could hear it, under the floor in a back room. I could hear it. It wanted—it needed—blood? 

 

There was a girl. She looked at the face when I showed it to her, and she came with me. And I gave the cane what it needed. And then there was another girl. And I was going to have to find another one. Soon.

 

But then that man came. And his girlfriend. I don’t remember anything after that.

 

Kayla was alive. Dehydrated, half-starved, and anemic from blood loss, but alive. So was Benji, in better shape. They were both in the hospital. 

I managed to call Kayla’s grandparents before the cops shoved me into the back of their patrol car. At least they didn’t handcuff us. We watched ambulances come for the girls, and for Vining’s father, who seemed dazed but unhurt; he walked to the ambulance on his own, with his son holding his arm.

            We waited for an hour at campus security HQ before Stogue had our two favorite cops bring us into his office. He crossed his arms and glared as we sat down.

            “Uncle John?” Stogue leaned forward. “That’s what you expect me to put in my report?”

            We’d already made and signed our statements. I shrugged. “You’ve got the girls. You’ve got Vining’s father. You can put whatever you want into your report.”

            “It would suck if he went to jail because he was possessed by Uncle John, whoever he is,” Rachel said. “Does he say what happened?”

            Stogue snorted. “He’s got borderline dementia. Doesn’t know where he is. He’ll end up in confinement, and we’ll burn that cane when it’s all over.”

            “Good.” Rachel nodded.

            He shook his head. “There’s nothing good about this. You’re telling me—” He picked up a stack of papers. “He went looking for that cane, first in the cave, then in Garner’s cabin, found it hidden under the floor, and it made him start grabbing college girls?”

            “The candles,” I said. “I found them in the cave, and in the cabin. For light when he searched. Plus a church flier. I saw him cleaning them up from the floor in the sanctuary. I thought he was just a janitor”

            “The cane wants blood,” Rachel said. “Uncle John would drain the girls dry to keep it full.”

            Stogue grimaced. “Yeah. We’re testing what’s left in the cane right now. But I can’t say any of that in a press conference.”

            I’d heard all this before. The authorities are always afraid of the truth. It’ll scare people, start a panic. Better to keep it quiet. It was why I’d gotten fired as a reporter years ago.

I stood up before I said anything I’d regret, and Rachel would get mad at me for. “There’s no reason to keep us here, is there?”

            He snorted. “Hell, no. Get off my campus.”

            “As soon as we can.” We left.

            Rachel made a call while we packed up at the motel. When I finished checking out at the office, Guy Mantell was standing near our car.

            I stayed inside the office while they talked. Rachel smiled a lot, and then she kissed him. He smiled shyly, waved at me as I walked out the door, and headed down the sidewalk.

            “What was that?” I couldn’t restrain myself. 

            “He’s a nice guy.” Rachel sighed. “Gay. Good thing I’ve got you.” She leaned over to kiss me.

            My phone buzzed. Unknown number, but I answered. “Tom Jurgen speaking?”

            “Mr. Jurgen? This is Kayla Barth. My grandpa gave me your number.” She sounded young, breathless. Tired.

            “Are you all right?”

            “I’m okay. I guess. I’m in the hospital.” She stopped for a deep breath. “My grandpa told me you found me. I just wanted to say thank you.”

            “I had help.” I looked at Rachel. “I’m glad you’re okay.”

            “Yeah. I’m just so tired.”

            “Get some rest.” I hung up.

            Rachel squeezed my hand. “Let’s go home.”

            

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