Tucker’s Grove (29 page)

Will nodded, and went into the darkroom.

Henry Franklin
’
s testament, recounting the end of his photo
g
raphy business and his resultant seclusion, 1968
–
1979:

“
For nineteen years I watched the incubus feed on the souls of others. I guess that made me a par
asite too. But then the i
n
cubus grew bolder, greedier.

“
A young girl vacationing from St. Louis, all bright eyed and full of tourist awe, sat down in front of my camera,
the
camera, while her parents watched, amused. I remember the girl wore a little weste
rn outfit, a miniature Calamity Jane. Let
’
s have a big smile, little girl, for your
special
portrait. Parents always need to have something for their scrapbook. She smiled into the lens. I opened the shutter and closed it, like the wink of an infernal eye.
The girl shuddered and collapsed, deathly pale.

“
The parents urgently took her back outside to get some fresh air, babbling to themselves about “
too much excitement.”
I put the “
Closed”
sign in my window and padlocked the door, vowing never to open the sh
op again.

“
I couldn
’
t destroy the incubus, not then or now
—
even if I were strong enough, I didn
’
t dare risk it. Now, at least it is co
n
tained in the jar
—
I can
’
t take the chance that I might set it free.

“
But I could stop feeding it!

“
As soon as I made my d
ecision, clammy chills broke out on my skin, and my head pounded. My hands shook as I turned to leave. All my nerves were going off like firecrackers. But I had seen the little girl
’
s eyes through the lens, and I kept holding that memory up like a shield
—
a
nd I won my first test of strength. I managed to turn my back from the shop. I took everything with me into seclusion, deep in the Black Hills. A retiree…
a hermit.

“
I fell violently ill for days
—
but the incubus couldn
’
t let me die. We needed each other too
much, especially now that I had taken away its prey. In the following years, I began to lose the unnatural health I
’
d had for so long. But I wondered if I was ge
t
ting my own soul back, if the incubus was releasing me in di
s
gust. I realized with a kind of
terrified joy that if my health was fading, then the incubus must also be dying. It had to be. I had a chance
—
imagine the ecstasy that simple idea brought to a man who has been without any real hope for thirty years!

“
And then I felt cheated, outraged, in despair, when the old woman and her chauffeur arrived. Like misguided sacrificial lambs.

“
The wealthy old lady had seen one of my Sarsaparilla Stud
i
os photographs and sought me out. She insisted that I take her portrai
t, as a surprise gift for her husband. She had secretly come out to South Dakota while he went away on business. How convenient. Nobody knew she had come, nobody could trace her here. I should have denied her, thrown them out of my house…
anything. I refus
e
d to photograph her. I insisted that I would never stand behind the lens again. But she would not be turned away, and the ravenous incubus stole my will like a rug out from under my feet.

“
As if watching from a distance, I saw myself become a co
r
dial man i
n front of the victims. I insisted on taking a free phot
o
graph of the chauffeur as well, as a gift for such a devout fan who would come so far just to find little old me.

“
The incubus was ravenous. Years earlier, in the tourist-filled photography shop, it
had been able to feed several times each day, like a spider with so many insects in its web that it needs only a drop of blood from each. Then, it could afford to sip a tiny bit from each victim and let them go, none the wiser. But now the starving incubu
s
dug in its psychic fangs, forging a permanent link through the camera. The incubus sucked up the life force of the old woman and her chauffeur like a glutton, draining them dry.

“
They were both dead in hours, shriveled and empty. And to my horror I found
that I felt nourished, too
—
vibrant and alive. The thought made me physically sick. If the incubus has disco
v
ered a taste for killing, then it will never end.”

The glass plate was still wet, but in the dim red light Will could see that his family portrait
had come out even better than he
’
d hoped. He used a squeegee to wipe off the excess water, dabbed the plate with a soft cloth, then zig-zagged his way through the light baffle and out of the darkroom. He held the edges of the plate with his fingertips and
grinned, proud of hi
m
self.

He strutted to the bedroom, eager to show Nancy the phot
o
graph. Will paused at the door, frowning first and then smiling. His wife lay sound asleep on the bed with Chet curled up next to her, both of them looking as if they could
sleep through the end of the world. They had forgotten even to take off their shoes, just collapsed on the bed. With a fond smile, Will shook his head, then glanced in the other bedroom to see Beth sleeping peacefu
l
ly in her crib with one small hand curle
d around her nose.

He set his still-wet photograph on the nightstand and moved closer to the baby. A nightmare skittered up and down his spine. She was so still! His eyes focused with tunnel-vision on his baby daughter
’
s face, her mouth.

Beth didn
’
t appear
to be breathing. He watched her in petr
i
fied silence for an instant before he let the words “
My God!”
fall one after the other out of his mouth. Beth
’
s skin looked dry and desiccated, and Will was unable to stop his hand from reaching out to touch his dau
ghter
’
s forehead. She was indeed breat
h
ing
—
barely. The skin was rough and stiff, like a dry leaf; her eyelids seemed to be cracked, as if about to shatter.

“
Nancy!”
His voice twisted in his throat like a stinging bull whip. He felt Beth
’
s chest with his fi
ngertips, finding only a small heartbeat. “
Nancy!
”
Why wasn
’
t she answering?

Carrying the baby, he stumbled into the other bedroom. Na
n
cy and Chet still slept undisturbed. “
Nancy!”
Will began shaking his wife. Her skin felt strange to his touch, stiff instead of pliable. She began to respond, groggy, listless. Her eyes opened, milky and confused.

“
What is
wrong
with you?”
He took her limp arms and hauled her into a sitting position.
She tried to shake her head to clear cobwebs from her brain, but she could not. Will wondered for a paranoid instant if his family had been drugged or poisoned. He slapped her gently on the cheeks, then harder, but she did not r
e
spond…
and her pasty skin d
idn
’
t even show a red blotch where he
’
d struck her.

Time moved in slow motion for him. Things had been going too well only an hour ago. None of them would wake up. Na
n
cy
’
s face also looked dry, as if shriveling into one of those hid
e
ous dried apple dolls h
e had seen at country fairs…
or like a mummy.

A mummy?
Hadn
’
t Chet said something about mummies?

Setting the baby down on the bed, he shook his son, all the time muttering things that didn
’
t make sense even to himself. Nancy had fallen back into unconscious
ness on the bed.

“
Chet! Where are the mummies? Chet!”

The boy woke more easily than Nancy had. Will scooped him up in one arm and ran to the bathroom, turning on the cold shower. He pulled the boy with him under the icy water, letting the cold shower blast
at his pores and making his head pound. He shook Chet, praying for him to wake up, and laughed out loud when he saw the boy
’
s teeth begin to chatter.

“
Chet! Tell me where the mummies are! It
’
s important!”

The boy had trouble working his mouth, forming the
words. But he sensed his father
’
s urgency and he genuinely tried until his voice came out in a brittle whisper. “
In back Daddy…
by the dump…
there
’
s a trapdoor.”

Will propped him up against the back of the bathtub and let the cold water continue to spatter
down on him. Will jumped out of the shower and sprinted across the floor, leaving slops from his dripping clothes and soaked tennis shoes. He dashed out of the house, flinging water out of his eyes.

The afternoon was filled with hulking shadows thrown by t
he steep bluffs and the old pines, and Will lost his bearings for a moment. In frantic impatience, he looked around and finally saw a pile of garbage in back of the cottage where Chet would have wandered during his explorations. Will ran to it, seeing the
trash Uncle Henry had collected during his years of seclusion: rusted cans, decaying paper packages, broken jars and bottles.

He had no intention of calming himself. He felt adrenalin now and did not want to let it peter out before he could find som
e
thing
to help him, to help his family. What would Chet
’
s vivid imagination call a “
trapdoor?”
He found some old boards set into the ground and held together by three thin crossbars nailed to the top.

Will snatched at the construction and yanked it upward so forc
efully that one of the boards splintered and pulled away from the rest of the door. Below, he found a pit that must have been a root cellar. He saw shapes inside and dropped down into the shadowy pit without hesitating. His family was dying
—
he didn
’
t dare
risk being cautious.

Musty smells of earth and mold hit Will
’
s nostrils, along with something else, but he ignored them as his eyes adjusted to the gloom. Chet had been telling the truth
—
two “
mummies”
were propped up in the small dirt cellar, withered and
dry, as if their lives had been sucked out of them.

Will had no time to gape in horror
—
this was no match for the horror that was happening to his own family. From the phot
o
graphs in the library, he recognized the shriveled chauffeur and the rich old woman.
They both looked dried and empty…
what his family was looking like.

And suddenly, like a battering ram in his head, Will connec
t
ed the family portrait he had taken, the photographs of these vi
c
tims, even the strange old camera with the symbols etched aroun
d the lens. “
What the hell!”

Then he noticed a sheaf of papers on the lap of the rich old woman, lying on the mold of her dress. He snatched at it, and saw in the dim light that it was something of Uncle Henry
’
s. Will needed answers if he was going to help
his family. Nancy! Chet! Beth! What
’
s wrong with the camera? He leaped back out of the root cellar and sat down on the ground, tilting the handwritten papers into the slanted afternoon light, feverishly skimming page after page.

Henry Franklin
’
s testament, final entry:

“
I don
’
t care anymore what happens to me. I don
’
t have much left inside to fight the incubus with
—
so I
’
ve got to make my stand now. The worst that can happen is that I
’
ll die. At least I hope that
’
s the worst.