2004
Elise and Terence attract stares as they walk down her block to Terence’s motorcycle. She looks like some preppy college girl in her sweatshirt and jeans (already the sweatshirt is doing just that: making her sweat; but she doesn’t have the voice to tell him she wants to go back inside and change. Besides it’s always cold inside their house), her long hair hanging loose; step easy (oh, really?) in her running shoes. And Terence, pale, almost albino, in head to toe black leather; there are some freaky characters in this neighborhood, and some potential lethal ones, but everyone seems to sense that Terence has them all beat. People see him, pause, and then move aside to let them pass, turning their heads to watch them go.
And all the while, Terence simply smiles, confident, cocky, sure of his presence and its effect.
They get to the bike and Elise steps back into the shadows. “I don’t know if this is the right thing to do. Are you sure Maria is sick?”
Terence shakes his head, slowly, as if he’s disappointed in her, as if she’s some animal that can’t be made to understand the simplest of concepts. He takes his time to answer her, scanning the streets with his dark eyes, nodding to a couple of guys who slow in their passage to admire the Harley. Then he smiles at her, but his words are tinged with acid. “Listen, honey, I wouldn’t be here if it weren’t important to Maria. I’ve seen thousands of pathetic little streetwalkers like you over the years, and, believe me, unless I’m looking for a meal, I wouldn’t have even the energy to come after you. Don’t think you hold out any fascination for me because you happen to be able to draw some sweet little pictures.” He pulls a box of Marlboro Reds from his back pocket and pauses to light one. She’s surprised he isn’t lighting up the bowl of a pipe or at least a joint. Inside she giggles: perhaps he fears the law. He exhales the smoke through his nostrils and regards her. He shakes his head. “Do what you want, Elise. Go back to your grimy little room. I’ll just tell Maria you didn’t care enough to come and see if she’s all right.”
“I…” Elise begins to speak, then realizes she doesn’t know what to say. She feels trapped. “What’s the matter with her again?” she mumbles, already knowing she will get on the back of the Harley, leaning with Terence into the winds and the curves. God only knows what waits at the other end of the ride.
Terence makes the tip of the cigarette glow bright orange. “She hasn’t fed in several days. We’re like you in that regard; if we don’t nourish ourselves, we get sick. We die.”
“I thought you were already dead.”
“Don’t be stupid. She’s despondent, sweetheart, sad. She won’t talk. She just stays in bed and stares at the wall. Now, I can’t think of anything other than a broken heart that could make Maria depressed. I’m thinking if you just come and talk to her and pat her little head, she might be convinced to take some sustenance, to revive herself. It would be a shame to waste such a long and beautiful life on someone like you.” He sizes her up and down, pursing his lips. He blows out a sigh. “Are you coming or not? I’m running out of time.”
Maybe I am, too,
Elise thinks. But that doesn’t stop her from wordlessly climbing on the bike seat behind Terence.
He guns the Harley into roaring, smoking, stinking life and Elise closes her eyes and wraps her arms around him. His broad, leather-clad back feels good, cool, against her face. And just thinking about this simple pleasure blocks out the chorus of voices inside her, all clamoring to tell her the same thing: flee.
But she can’t.
They jerk away from the curb, and Terence turns the throttle to make the bike go faster and faster, racing down Sheridan Road, cutting in and out between traffic, ignoring the screeching brakes, blaring horns, and the shouts of profanity. Elise simply keeps her eyes squeezed tight, thinking at least they will be there quickly.
They reach the curve around Loyola University, head east for a minute, and then curve again, heading south. The big old house is only a couple blocks away. Elise finds herself beginning to anticipate, against all logic and reason, seeing Maria again. She imagines her pale and weak, wrapped in thick, heavy cream-colored sheets, her black hair a fan on the pillow. She imagines taking her hand. Elise gives herself the glorious power of being able to make Maria want to live once more.
And how many more lives will that cost?
Elise ignores the thought and opens her eyes just in time to see the big brick house, with its darkened windows, looking so dead against a gray night sky, whiz by.
She tenses, licks her lips, and tries to produce the saliva and voice that will allow her to find words. At last, she manages to scream, “Where are you taking me? The house is back there!”
She leans a bit and sees Terence’s sculptured profile betraying nothing. It’s as though he hasn’t heard her.
“The house is back there,” she whimpers. The high-rise apartment buildings are a blur, and at last, they are at Hollywood, which will lead them on to Lake Shore Drive. Terence waits for the light to change, engine idling, the turn signal going
tick, tick, tick
.
Elise knows this is her chance to jump off the bike.
But she can’t.
The light goes green and they head south on Lake Shore, faster, faster, heading into a future that’s mysterious and dread-inspiring.
What has she let herself in for? She thinks, with longing, of the hominess of a fluorescent-lit bus station, the anticipation of travel, and—at the other hand—the prospect of her parents’ surprised and delighted expressions when they open the big oak door and see her waiting outside, curling a strand of her hair and grinning sheepishly at them, the light shining in from the foyer, warm and inviting. Knowing she has forfeited the scene above and all that would follow, Elise hugs Terence tighter and buries her face in the broad expanse of black leather cloaking his back.
Terence bumps the speed up to—what?—eighty? Ninety?
Elise grinds her teeth and feels nothing.
2004
Evans Millworks sits, dead and forgotten, south of the Chicago city limits, beyond suburbs like Oak Lawn and Alsip, and drawing near to the industrial Northwest Indiana towns of East Chicago and Gary. The abandoned foundry is the victim of the downsizing of the steel industry in this part of the Midwest and although its buildings still stand, it has become redundant, no longer of use to anyone. Well, almost anyone.
The foundry is made up of six large buildings looming black in the night, great hulks whose smokestacks once shot fire and belched smoke into the sky, clogging it and sending an effluvium of industrial stink out over the waters of Lake Michigan, upon whose shores the foundry rests.
Now the smokestacks are lifeless and the buildings themselves empty structures of rough concrete and crumbling brick with metal roofs. Windows are broken, some boarded over, and some completely cleared of the metal-laced glass that once filled the frames. Those that do retain any glass frame the darkness with shards projecting outward from the windows’ sides. They are threatening; more imaginative fancies might liken these windows to the dark mouths of monsters, fangs at the ready to cut, to draw blood from those unwitting enough to draw near.
Inside each building, certain things are constant: the drip of water from the roofs above, the scuffling and squeaking noises of rats, and the smell of mildew and the tang of rusty metal.
The small interior roads of the foundry, which once saw forklift trucks bearing huge cylinders of steel, delivery trucks, and the footsteps of thousands of working men, are now silent and unused, weedy byways of glistening black cinder.
Rusted roofs leak water inside, onto eroding concrete floors, turning back to the soil from whence they came.
Even here, decomposition is almost an organic process.
Evans Millworks is a place of darkness and silence, dense with shadows. Cold. Not only is it foreboding in its dark quiet, but it almost has the character of something alive, something that waits silently for its prey, blending into the background and then, when that prey is in sight, pounces with lethal certainty.
This is the kind of place where people disappear.
*
From the shadows, Maria and Edward watch.
Edward is resigned. His face betrays nothing; it’s little more than a pair of dark eyes glinting in the darkness, features devoid of expression. He wears black camouflage pants, a black T-shirt, boots, and a black windbreaker. If it weren’t for the white of his face, he would vanish into the place where they have positioned themselves: an alcove formed where two industrial buildings meet. There isn’t much room for the two of them here, but it’s ideal because it conceals them, providing access to a vantage point where they will be able to see Terence’s arrival, even though that arrival will have been heralded long before by the bass of his motorcycle engine. But they already accept that his mission may have been unsuccessful; it will be important to see if he has arrived alone. Edward’s calm masks a hope Terence will show up with only the wind at his back, disappointment plain on his fine, chiseled features. He will perhaps say something along the lines of, “She was gone. Completely gone. I was able to look inside her apartment and it was bare. Cleaned out.”
This is what Edward hoped to hear, even if it meant that Terence would be like a spoiled child—for weeks—who didn’t get the present he wanted. Edward had stopped loving this monstrous beauty years ago, almost as soon as he “crossed over.” He takes a perverse pleasure in seeing Terence disappointed, in seeing that his charms have failed (although they rarely do). Terence lives to cause misery (unlike Maria and Edward, Terence loves the act of killing and does it more for the pain and suffering he causes than for survival). Edward shakes his head, clearing it of hopes and—mostly—of thought. He wants to be a tool tonight, an automaton, a creature doing simply what must be done. He views their plan as self-defense, even though the person who has the power to harm or even destroy them is benign. It doesn’t change anything.
One thing, though: he will not let Terence have the pleasure of feeding on Elise. He will see to that and is certain Maria will support him in ensuring the young woman is given a proper burial (even if it’s only beneath weeds, broken pieces of machinery, and scraps of twisted, disintegrating metal).
While Edward appears calm, Maria displays her horror and despair. She is dressed like Edward all in black, but her face is a kabuki mask of anguish. Her eyes are reddened with tears that appear black in the darkness. Her lips are parted with panting sobs. Edward leans close every so often to caution her to be quiet. “She can’t know we’re here.”
“Why?” Maria turns to Edward, mouth in a line, eyebrows furrowed, betraying both rage and bewilderment. “What difference does it make?”
“You want this to be quick, don’t you? It will all be over much faster if she doesn’t know we’re here, if she doesn’t have the chance to ask questions.” Edward thinks, but doesn’t say:
If she doesn’t have a chance to run
.
“How can we…” Maria leaves the question unfinished and turns back to staring out at the night, at the detritus of dead industry, the scraps of metal, the corroded and rusting hulks of machinery. What more is there to say?
They had agreed earlier on this place, here on the south side of the city. The city’s skyline, with its lights festooned on towers, practically leans over them in the darkness, at once protective and menacing; a mute giant with a thousand eyes, all glowering. These gleaming towers speak of wealth, commerce, and creativity. Life. They present a bizarre contrast to where Edward and Maria now wait. Here, the buildings seem surreal and distant, something out of fantasy, as if a set designer has placed them against the background of the abandoned factory for effect.
But all they need do to remind themselves of the contrast between what they see in the distance and where they are now is to look down at their feet at the evidence that others have passed through this place, and those trespassers were all bent on mischief, though nothing as horrific as what Edward, Terence, and Maria have planned. At their feet are mashed carcasses of rusting tin cans, discarded rubbers, rat droppings, tiny plastic baggies, and pieces of torn newspaper and advertising flyers, all begrimed with grit and smeared with mud. Maria wonders if others have died here.
Behind them are double doors, the glass long ago boarded up, passage in and out of them dim memory. There was once a padlock and chain, but now the chain hangs down from a door handle, useless. Maria thinks the pitch inside might be a good place to carry out what has to be done. Or, if the kill is so quick that it won’t allow even movement into the building, a good place to bring Elise’s body; she doesn’t think she will have the strength to bury her as she knows Edward will want to do. She can only imagine leaving her there and fleeing as quickly as possible. It’s cowardice, she knows, but the thought of looking at Elise, beautiful and lifeless, will tear her apart. She will have to minimize the hurt. The anguish, she reckons, will be nearly unbearable.
She wishes there was a way out, a way to avoid what’s coming down the road, like a beast slouching toward them, changing who they are forever. To calm herself, she imagines Elise lying still on the concrete floor, her arms tenderly crossed over her chest, eyelids pulled down to hide the horror reflected in her final vision. Maria tries to delude herself into thinking this odd scene of tranquil repose is serene, as if Elise is only resting before getting up once more and taking up her paintbrush or charcoal stick.
Edward picks up on her thoughts. “And they won’t find the body for a long, long time.”
“Be quiet,” Maria snaps. She sighs and continues to try to think of a way out. She has been trying all day. She has always been clever, always the one the other two turned to for solutions. But she sees no passage out of what they are bound to do.
The darkness around is so palpable it presses in, defying the moonlight and the lights of the city.
The two of them turn outward once more, eyes trained on the darkness, waiting for change, anticipating movement in the still night air.
Edward wraps his arms around Maria and draws her back, close to his chest, his lips on her neck. He lifts his head and says, “I’ll make sure we get through this quickly. I can’t make it not hurt, but for you, I’ll do my best to make sure we don’t linger. We can put this behind us.”
Maria lifts her hand to Edward’s stubbled face. She thinks, “Never,” but says nothing.
Distantly, they hear Terence approaching, the great bass thrum of his Harley engine. Maria tenses, pulling away from Edward. She looks back at him and the terror in her eyes is wild, the orbs glinting and sparkling like the crushed cinders of the roads around them, reflecting back the moon. She trembles. “I can’t do this.”
“Shhh. It’s going to be okay.”
Maria wants to run. She has never felt so out of control. She wonders, for the thousandth time, if there isn’t a way out, if the rules can be bent just this one time. She has never loved anyone with such astonishing depth and abandon, so much it snatches her breath away.
The engine’s roar grows louder and Maria cannot avert her eyes from the tear in the chain link fence where they all agreed earlier Terence would enter the foundry. She stares, unable to look away and, at the same time, not wanting to see.
Maria clutches handfuls of Edward’s flesh in her hands as she sees Elise, behind Terence on the bike. She looks so tiny behind him. It makes Maria grip even more tightly onto Edward, digging her nails deep into his flesh. It hurts, but Edward doesn’t complain; he knows how hard this is. She turns and buries her head in his chest, whimpering. But she can’t allow herself even this small comfort. Comfort is for the innocent.
She turns her head back to the blinding light of the motorcycle’s headlight and the two dark figures behind it. If she were human, she would see only silhouettes behind the halogen, but her night vision has been acutely honed throughout the centuries and she sees far too much of the woman they are about to kill. The woman she loves… This nightmare image of Elise’s approach, Maria knows, will be burned on her retinas for eternity.
Elise is clinging to Terence’s back, her dark hair moving like liquid in the air behind her. Something catches in Maria’s throat as she sees the terrified look on her lover’s face, as she picks up on the scattered hysteria of her thoughts. She lets out a little yelp and then silences herself before Edward has a chance to caution her. She knows that, once Terence roared by their house on Sheridan Road Elise will have grown more and more frightened, terrified, knowing she is about to be delivered to something more awful than she ever imagined.
Maria wants to run out from their hiding place and signal Terence to stop. She wants to take Elise in her arms and bite deeply into the flesh at her throat and continue the process until Elise dies, and then doing what it takes to bring her back, to keep her with her for all time.
But she can’t. She thinks of Elise’s art. And even though they plan to kill her, living death without her creativity is not an alternative.
There are some things worse than death.
*
The ride has gone so fast. Elise is panting, gasping for air. She feels trapped in the memory of their ride here, how they approached the house the three of them shared…and then passed it. Elise had looked longingly back at its yellow brick façade and remembers, now, how the house seemed benign and innocent, its usually foreboding appearance replaced by her desperate need to be there. She knew that not stopping there was a bad omen; something was going to happen to her, something she might not have the opportunity—much longer—to regret.
Why hadn’t she jumped off the back of the bike when she had the chance, where Hollywood Avenue curved into Lake Shore Drive? Why had she remained on the bike, trembling, unable to put enough breath behind words enough to protest, to ask where he was taking her, to find out what was going on? Instead, she remained mute, a docile animal stunned into submission.
She tried to close her mind as they roared south, far too fast, shutting out thoughts of what might await her with the hopes they would crash and she would be sent flying through the night air to crumple like a china doll beside the road. It was a measure of her despair to realize this image was preferable to the mystery of what was waiting for her on the end of this ride.
She couldn’t even find the strength to scream, to pound on his back, demanding release, as he pointed the bike south and rode on and on, past Lake Michigan on their left, the towers of downtown on their right, the Museum of Natural History, Soldier Field, Shedd Aquarium, on and on until the city landmarks disappeared, replaced by hulking shadows of housing projects and dying industry. Once they were south of the city, the air seemed colder, and Elise could no longer feel her fingers or toes; they had turned to ice. This sensation was not due to the air temperature.
She closed her eyes and thought of nothing until she felt the bike slow after making a turn. Terence was maneuvering the bike through a hole in a rusty chain-link fence. Ahead of her were ruins; the corpse of industry, an abandoned factory and its warehouses. This could come to no good. She tried to steel herself, to endow herself to run once the bike stopped.
Could she do it? Could she make her legs work instead of standing, dumb, like a lamb to slaughter? Yes. She can do this. She can run. She will suck in deeply of the air, and set her adrenaline to flowing and she will be impossible to catch…
But when the bike stops, she is seized with terror. It feels as though her body has become metal, stiff and unyielding. She has the weird sensation that her physical being belongs to someone else and she is only watching from a distance this helpless young woman being taken to carnage and mayhem.
The only thing that continues working is her mind, revving like the engine of the motorcycle only moments ago. Even if she did run, a defeated voice inside her says, where would she go? They are miles from the city now. There may be some people in the looming housing projects to the west of them, but that too is a long journey. Who would hear her even if she could find the voice to scream? And in this area, where screams are commonplace, if someone did hear, would they bother to respond? Would the ghouls that would find her should she run screaming for help be worse than the one she knows? A woman and alone? In her mind, she hears a man’s voice: “Can I ask you a question?”