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  Standing where the father of this family had been struck down, Tom felt a rise of emotion. A rare thing, and it caught him off-guard.

  Standing there, Tom recognized he had no family.

  Perhaps, he thought, he could protect this one.

  Gabrielle Bernier, sixty-nine years old, and the wife of Police Chief Arthur Bernier for the last forty-six of those years, saw the Deputy Chief’s pick-up truck pull up from the road. She stretched off her blue, rubber dishwashing gloves and walked from the kitchen window to intercept the visitor. Today was not a good day for Arthur to greet anyone. She opened the front door before Tom could ring the doorbell.

  “Hi, Gabrielle, is the big guy in?”

  “He’s taking a day off today, Tom.”

  “I know, but I really need to see him.”

  “He’s not feeling well today. Can it wait?”

  “We’re kind of behind already on something, is the truth. I wanted his point of view before I decide what to do about it. I think he’d want me to get his input,” said Tom inching his way in. Madame Bernier blocked his way. They had done this countless times. He knew she was fond of him, deep down.

  “Arthur’s in no shape for it today, Tom.”

  “I just need a minute with him, Gabrielle. Just one minute.”

  Tom feigned to go around to the left of Madame Bernier. She moved that way, and Tom scooted right, leaving Madame Bernier spinning on her heels.

  “Tom, he’s in no mood!”

  “I promise, I won’t be two minutes! Two minutes, Gabrielle! He’s in his office, right?”

  Madame Bernier watched Tom disappear down the hall.

  Tom knocked and walked into Bernier’s office, as he had done many times before. It was full of outdoor sporting equipment of every kind, from hunting to fishing, to skiing, climbing and camping.

  “Tom, what are you doing here?”

  “I need to talk to you!” Tom made his way toward his boss’s scruffy, familiar voice.

  “Couldn’t it wait? I’m busy! Very busy today, Tom!”

  Tom came to a lounge area, where two couches faced each other, separated by a low coffee table made of raw lumber. Bernier was sitting on one of the couches, still in pajamas, wrapped in a bathrobe, with thick socks on his feet. On the table in front of him were a bottle of Jack Daniels, a shot glass, and an open pack of freeze-dried, strawberry-flavoured ice-cream chunks, the sort used on camping expeditions.

  “How goes?” asked Tom.

  “What are you doing here?”

  “I needed to see my boss on a police matter.”

  “He’s not in!”

  “I can see that. Who are you and what’ve you done with the Chief of Police?”

  “What?”

  “Never mind. Was trying to be funny. Doesn’t usually work for me.” Tom sat across from Bernier, on the other couch, and reached into the bag for some chunks of the dry ice cream. He inspected a pink cube and popped it in his mouth, where it instantly melted into a sugary substance.

  “Never seen you like this, Arthur. What’s going on?”

  “Can’t a guy take a day off after forty years of service?”

  “Why don’t you lie down?” Tom suggested. “Take it easy.”

  “I’m fine!”

  “Everyone keeps telling me that today. It’s official Beaufort ‘I’m fine’ day.”

  “I never know what you’re babbling about, junior.”

  “I’ll tell you what I’m babbling about. It starts with a question. Why didn’t we investigate the Paul Carignan shooting as a homicide?”

  “Where did that come from?”

  “The law, that’s where! How come the law is different in Beaufort County?”

  “It isn’t different, kid. You choose your battles in life. That’s the reality of it. It’s not in our interest to chase every stray bullet that gets fired in the county. You got that? It’s our county! My county! And that’s how it’s done.”

  “Yea, you look in super control of it too! You’re pissed.”

  “It’s my fucking day off, you insufferable punk!”

  “Tell me something I don’t know. Tell me why Jeffrey Lennox thinks he can do anything he wants, without repercussion. What’s he got on you? Why do you protect him?”

  “I don’t! I don’t protect him at all! Why do you come in here talking nonsense?”

  “Because the cop I know as Arthur Bernier, well he’s a good man. He listens to me. At least he listens to common sense. I don’t know who the fuck you are.”

  Bernier grabbed the aluminum bag and threw it at Tom, sending chunks of dessert flying in all directions. Tom stood up again, looked at Bernier and sighed, pink cubes all around. Bernier grabbed the bottle of Jack Daniels to refill his shot glass. Tom’s temper spiked, and he kicked down onto the wooden coffee table. A long board in the table splintered with a loud crack. The shot glass popped up and rolled away.

  “Now, Brooder, look what you’ve done,” said Arthur, calmly, but not caring that much, and dizzy from his drinking. He brought the bottle directly to his lips.

  “Ever drink Birchmore Whiskey, Arthur?”

  Bernier didn’t answer. Both men stared a moment at the bottle of Jack Daniels.

  “Not my brand, why?”

  “No reason,” said Tom. “In fact, forget I was even here at all. That shouldn’t be too hard for you.”

  “Get out,” said Bernier, holding his head in his hands. “Take your self-righteous bullshit with you!”

  Tom turned and walked away, a colossal sense of frustration rising in him. He tried to leave the farmhouse without saying a word to Madame Bernier.

  “I tried to tell you he was in no mood,” she quipped.

  “Yeah, well, me neither, Gabrielle,” he said to Madame Bernier, then completed his sentence under his breath. “I’m in no fucking mood!”

  He left the Bernier house without looking back, getting in his truck and slamming its door.

  Tom drove toward his home, but impulse veered him away. He knew what he was capable of but didn’t have a fixed plan as he drove toward Jeffrey Lennox’s likely location at this hour of the afternoon. His blood pulsed furiously, a familiar rush that brought a heaviness, gravitas, and power through his limbs as though he could bend the steering wheel he was holding or lift a five-tonne boulder and crash it into thousands. The raging bull in him had awakened, but it wasn’t a matador’s waving cape that had attracted his attention. The beacon for his temper was Jeffrey Lennox. In Tom’s view, the local pest had had fair warning from Chief Bernier.

  When Tom came over the third hill on Gordon Road, heading toward the centre of town, he spotted Lennox finishing his day’s work at the Buchan property. The Buchans had hired Lennox for maintenance, as they did every year, including winterizing their vast rock gardens. Landscapers and reliable general labour were still rare in the region and demand was high. Even a brute like Lennox could easily find clients for his rather ordinary skills.

  Seeing him, Tom accelerated slightly, and Lennox, who was busy moving boxes of garden materials, paid no attention to one more vehicle coming along the road. Then he put down the boxes and walked to his pick-up truck. Tossing aside a wood-handled shovel that was leaning on the driver’s door, he got into the truck and found his smokes and lighter on the seat.

  Tom left his truck in the middle of the road and strode over to Lennox. In one smooth motion, he grabbed the shovel Lennox had discarded, gripped its wooden staff firmly with both hands, and swung it like an ancient mace over his head.

  In the truck, Lennox had just popped a cigarette in his mouth, inhaled to light up and flicked the lighter, when the black-bladed shovel crashed into his windshield. Lennox ducked. The metal blade had pierced the windshield. Bits of glass fell around Lennox, and he saw the shovel pull away from the milky-coloured web of cracks
in the windshield.

  Tom yanked the shovel until he had the shaft horizontal at his waist, then swung again, bringing it down on the side mirror of truck. There was another terrible crashing sound as the shovel ripped into the mirror. And Tom was just getting started.

  As Lennox cowered in the driver’s seat, Tom brought his weapon down onto the truck over and over again. Lennox reached into the back seat for his rifle and stuck it out of the windshield, reaching for ammunition in the glove compartment with his other hand.

  This was of no concern to Tom, who walked back to the driver’s side, yanked the barrel of the rifle and pulled it away from Lennox. The move was so sudden and hard that Lennox, shaken, could do nothing but watch his unloaded rifle disappear among the grass and leaves on the Buchan estate.

  This time, Tom brought the shovel down onto the driver’s side window, which imploded in bits. When Lennox reappeared, having ducked down quickly, he was completely flustered and piping mad.

  “Son of a bitch!” he screamed. “I’m gonna fuckin’ kill you!”

  “You’re going to what?” asked Tom calmly. “Thought I heard you threaten me?”

  Tom brought the shovel flat into the side of the driver’s door. The crashing sound was thunderous.

  “Ahhhhhhh!” Lennox yelled. “You’re fuckin’ insane!”

  “Am I? I thought I was making perfect sense? A clear message! As clear as your message was to me! You didn’t like what I told Arthur, did you? So, you wanted to challenge it! You wanted to get back at them, didn’t you? So, you did what you did!”

  “Fuck you, Brooder! You’re insane!”

  “Oh. Good. Well, maybe I am! It was insane not to talk to you directly about all this to begin with! So here I am, Jeffrey! Giving you a clear, direct message! Do you understand it? Is it clear enough? Is it sinking in? Or will you act out against this innocent family again?”

  “What do you know about who’s innocent and who’s not? What do you fucking know, Brooder?”

  Tom was lining himself up for a strike at the front headlights and hood. Lennox came out of the truck slowly.

  “Okay, stop, I get it! I get it! Stop!” said Lennox, nearly pleading.

  Tom brought the shovel up just a bit higher, firming up for another hit.

  “Maybe I should make it clearer,” Tom said.

  “Stop. You crazy son-of-a-bitch, Brooder.” Lennox didn’t move, concerned that Tom would swing the shovel his way.

  Tom feigned to come at Lennox, who instantly moved back a step, his back coming against the truck. Tom looked Lennox directly in the eye as he swung the shovel and let it go into the air, far into the gardens. Lennox kept himself from charging Tom. He stood there, cursing him with his eyes.

  “Yeah, that’s right, Jeff. Don’t do anything. You don’t want me any angrier than I already am. Just go home and think about our friendly discussion. Imagine what a serious talk would be like. And stay away from the Carignans. You got it?”

  Silence from Lennox, who eyed Tom’s holstered police-issue .38.

  “Oh, don’t worry, it isn’t loaded. If it was, I might have already used it.”

  That surprised Lennox, the idea that the Deputy Chief of Beaufort County wouldn’t have bullets ready in his weapon. That went against what he thought was police protocol. He wasn’t sure whether to believe it, but his instinct told him to be cautious, so he didn’t move.

  “Good choice,” said Tom, as he walked off toward his own truck.

  “Hey, what about my truck?” yelled Lennox, after him, scanning the heavy damage to his precious wheels.

  “Call the police!” said Tom, unconcerned, walking on.

  “You’re a funny son-of-a-bitch!”

  Tom spun on his feet. Ice-cold stare.

  “Next time, I’m not smashing the truck. You get me?”

  Tom walked off and drove away, sending up a dust cloud around Lennox, who brushed glass off his jacket and kneeled down to pick up pieces of his bent and shattered truck mirror before throwing them back to the ground, cursing.

  The pale face of death, right up close at the car window, hardly human, slowly turned to look inside. Its eyes were fully black. No whites. Its lips were thin and translucent. The face did not express anything at all, except evil.

  Noah, sitting in the rear passenger seat of his father’s car, thought for a moment that the creature had not seen him. He held his breath, not daring to move at all. But then he had to breathe, knowing he risked being heard or his movements seen. Holding his breath so long had been a mistake. It made him gasp.

  The white creature faced him, and the black eyes saw.

  Noah screamed.

  It was two in the morning when Noah walked quietly to Jack’s room and up to his bed, where he stood quietly, waiting.

  “Jack, are you awake?” he asked, finally.

  “What do you think?” answered Jack, having been awakened by Noah’s screams.

  “Can I sleep with you?” asked Noah.

  “Yeah,” said Jack, without hesitation.

  Noah climbed under the covers. Moonlight lit up Jack’s face just enough to show the bruising.

  “Does it hurt?” asked Noah.

  “No,” said Jack, but then he nodded, and they smiled to each other. As they each snuggled deeper into the blankets, Catherine came to the door. She’d heard the screams, too.

  “Are you okay?” she asked.

  “Noah screamed like a Noofarg exploding,” said Jack, laughing.

  “A what?” asked Catherine.

  “I didn’t scream like that,” said Noah.

  “It’s a monster from Expedition X. And, yes, you did,” said Jack.

  “Monster?” said Catherine. “Try to sleep.”

  “I’m not a Noofarg,” insisted Noah.

  “I didn’t say you were a Noofarg. But you screamed like one. You did.”

  Noah punched Jack under the covers. Jack groaned.

  “Sorry,” said Noah.

  The boys continued whispering and giggling.

  Catherine hoped the violation of their home had only been a bad dream, but the strange smells of the mess downstairs confirmed it was real. She climbed back into her bed and tried to take her mind off the difficulties of the past weeks. The only thing that helped do that was to think of her two boys giggling themselves to sleep down the hall. The one thing she was most proud of in her life was her sons and their behaviour with one another. Their camaraderie and sheer love for each other was testimony to something she and Paul had done right, though she wasn’t certain how they had managed it. Considering this, in the dark early hours of the morning, after a mournful, catastrophic day, she hoped she could live up to the promise she had made to her dying husband.

  She had to.

  She had to steer them right, as a loving family, as a team. She had to keep them from getting lost and so frightened by life that they screamed themselves awake in the middle of the night.

  CHAPTER 8

  GOOD BEHAVIOUR

  The year that followed, from that fall to the next, brought first the cold of winter, blankets of snow, ice, gridlock and skidding cars. No one place was easier than another, not the city, not the country—everywhere was tested by the weather. Coats, hats, gloves, boots, shovels, windshield-wiper fluid, hot coffee and, most of all, patience, were the essentials. Kids went to school, parents to the office.

  Then the soundless white disappeared into grey. Grey streets, grey trees with no leaves, grey dirt dusting up from slowly softening grounds. As warmth returned, life crawled out of its hiding places. Green and sandy brown buds appeared on the fine ends of trees and bushes. Squirrels and critters skulked, replenishing their hidden stashes. The sky was brighter, bluer. Deep colour returned, only the streets and buildings remained grey. People took on colour too, with sweaters and shirts across the spect
rum, walking, jogging, cycling, resting in the parks, sailing

  on waters.

  Mornings began to rise gently, with thinner frost, with bees and other winged flocks taking flight, their cooing and chirping a delicate soundscape, then forgotten, drowned away, in mid-afternoon, by the complaints about humidity and sheer heat. Lawnmowers hummed. Night came with only slight cooling and the distant symphonies of whirring crickets.

  Nothing lasting, everything in motion, in this cycle of opposites, the tilt of the world’s axis inclined neither to the sun nor away from it, leading around to autumn again, radiating its unique spirit of change. Quintessential, transitional beauty, lost on those caught in a storm of bitterness and lament, wishing unimaginable things.

  A year, to a teenager, is an eternity. A year, to a teenager who has lost a father, is an eternity of solitude, devoid of happiness.

  Jack and Noah had done the best they could to bring home grades their mother could be proud of, or at least not worry about. Jack was always calm and successful in his course work and exams, with minimal preparation. Noah was a work machine, going to the bottom of things for fuller understanding, producing reams of potential answers, research and variations on any problem, his projects and submissions always profoundly detailed, and often accompanied by elaborate schematics and texts. Technology was his passion, and he carried a laptop, electronic tablet and smartphone everywhere he went.

  While others made basic use of such devices, Noah had made it his mission to push his knowledge of technology to its full extent for his own benefit, or for Jack’s. It was no longer a challenge for him to hack into West Kirkland Academy’s main servers and secretly modify data. When Jack’s first girlfriend, Lana, had fallen apart, crying one lunch hour over the pressure she felt at taking home a less-than-perfect interim report card, Noah took it upon himself to produce a more positive version she could bring home instead. Lana’s tears dried. Noah felt powerful, heroic, earning a sweet thank you from the cutest girl in the school and a slap on the shoulder from his impressed big brother. Ample reward.