So, I still do this. Honest. I’ve just been busy. Which is unfortunate because November is coming up and we all know how well that goes. Maybe because of my horrible neglect in October, I shall post in November. Maybe I’ll just post my rambling nonsense from NaNo. That sounds fun right?

Right?

 

II

 

I hate motels. They’re dingy pits filled with a perpetual smell of petroleum, ubiquitous and unidentifiable stains covering dated carpets and continental breakfasts solely composed of stale coffee and week old muffins. The only thing I ever like about them is they’re typically staffed by workers who are just as embarrassed about the place as the guests are.

The Dickie Bird Motel is such a place barring the staff.

The proprietor and, from what I could tell the sole worker, is a middle aged man who introduced himself as Emile Masson. Despite the name, I can’t get over his dark complexion and hair or his short stature. He has a splotchy beard and crinkly face that’s jovial but eerily out of place. He doesn’t speak with an accent, thankfully. And I am polite enough to not ask about his background.

“Around for another day are you?”

I blow on the lukewarm swill in my cup.

“Guess so.”

“Keep this up and I’d think you’d want to take up residence!”

He laughs at his own joke. I wrap up the half-eaten muffin.

“Seriously though, don’t get many people staying too long. Bit of a surprise is all, as most are just laying-over from the highway. Heading down south for those nice beaches. T’is a pity, I always say. We’ve got some perfectly fine surf here. But folks just want that sun, I suppose.”

“Guess so.”

My chair scrapes loudly as I stand and deposit the remains of my breakfast in the black garbage bag. Emile is moving about the tables, pretending to be cleaning. Hardly a speck of dirt on them as most guests have already packed up and moved on. Not that there’s any reason to hang around. The breakfast area is in the same foyer as Emile’s front desk and this motel is hardly sporting any pools or spas.

“I’ve got a few brochures of the area. Some fine old lighthouses dotted about. Get a few motorists that make a hobby of checking out historical places. Think we’ve got a few geocaches too if that’s your interest.”

He’s dead set on a conversation. My neck is still sore from his rock-hard pillows and lumpy mattress. The Dickie Bird is the only thing in the area with a decent recommendation online, however. Which worries me what the state of the Maryhill hotel would be.

“Not really here for sight-seeing.”

“Fishing is it? Didn’t think I noticed a canoe or anything on your car. A few rentals not too far out.”

“I’m actually looking for someone.”

Emile pauses in his housekeeping.

“Is that so?”

It’s clear he doesn’t know what to do with this information. I can hardly blame him. I get a lot of those blank stares.

“You wouldn’t happen to know anything about Maryhill, would you?”

His mood sours instantly. I watch as he turns instinctively from the window, suddenly becoming preoccupied with a spot on the table.

“You came all this way for that place, huh?”

“Not specifically. Got some word they were headed this way. You ever heard of the Pitch Dark?”

Emile is visibly shaken. He folds up his cloth and makes his way to the counter.

“You sure you aren’t looking for some fishing?”

I don’t know why I press. Maybe I feel guilty for his sudden change in disposition. Maybe I am worried about his brief look of horror. I reach into my coat pocket and extract a small photograph. It’s worn, now. The edges are bent. I place it on the counter and slide it across.

“These are my cousins.” I look him hard in the face. “Been gone for a few years now. Just up and left one night. Took their children with them and didn’t say a word. I’m trying to find them.”

Emile tries to keep from the photograph. His conscience gets the better of him. He picks it up, turning on the side lamp to look at it clearer.

“Cute girls.”

“Eleven and seven at the time. That one’s Madison. The other’s Zoe.”

He looks at it for a time. I can’t read his expression but it’s clear he’s wrestling with something. I pinch the photo, gently removing it from his grasp.

“I just want to make sure they’re alright.”

He nods, blinking as I put the photograph back in my jacket pocket.

“And you think they’re here?”

“As I said, I got word they were headed this way.”

“I don’t know much about… Maryhill.” He chokes on the word as though it’s poison to his throat. “Don’t have any reason to be heading that way, myself. Not a lot of people go there. Oh, she’s seen better days, that’s for certain. But there’s an unpleasantness about her that puts visitors right off. Been like that ever since I’ve worked here.”

“What of the Pitch Dark?”

“What of it?”

“You don’t know anything about that?”

“Only what I got on the news,” Emile says, nodding towards the small television in the corner. “Wasn’t a pleasant business, overall. Most are happy to have it go away and be forgotten. We still get a few curiosity seekers come through. Poking around for it and all that. For the most part, though, it’s come and gone.”

I shake my head.

“You haven’t really said what it is.”

“I wouldn’t know!” Emile says quickly. He looks around, as though he expects some phantom audience to be listening in on the conversation. “I just… heard the gossip and whatnot. Honest.”

“What was the gossip.”

“Not good.”

I can tell when things are heading in circles. I rap an anxious knuckle on the counter before realizing my options are exhausted.

“Well, thank you very much.”

Maybe it’s my tone, but Emile calls as I’m pushing open the door.

“It was an unpleasant sort of business!” I look back at him, door still open to the grey skies. “It was no family establishment, that’s for certain. They held midnight performances only… of a peculiar sort. I remember some of the people who’d come for them. You can tell the type. Strangers they were, in more ways than one. Most didn’t stay here though. Don’t rightly know where they stayed. They’d come for their shows and then… who knows.”

“What kind of shows are we talking about? Everything online was vague.”

“They wouldn’t post something like the Pitch Dark online.” Emile shakes his head as though to dislodge something from his mind. “Unwholesome. Debauched. Exotic-like. As I said, nothing suitable for a good family.”

“And now it’s closed.”

“That’s a blessing, it is,” Emile says. “Not sure why. Police got involved after some anonymous tip. Launched an investigation and everything. Their press release was brief. Said they found things. Disturbing things. Didn’t go into detail and no one pressed. So it just sort of… blew on by.”

“You haven’t seen a Volkswagen by chance?”

“Seen a lot.”

“Recently?”

“I don’t keep a car registry, I’m afraid.”

“Thanks.”

I make sure to sound appreciative this time. His reply feels genuine.

“Be safe.”

The Dickie Bird is placed along the highway and it takes me a good two hours of meandering country road to get back to dreary Maryhill. It’s still muted and lifeless in the daylight with its disquieting residents shambling along the paths. I don’t have much of a direction this time. I drive by the theatre but have no energy to search it. One look and the exhaustion of last night’s visit hits me like a pile of bricks. But I’m not looking for decrepit ruins today.

I need to find that car.

I spend the better part of the morning driving up and down those few streets. I keep telling myself that I’ll happen upon it at any moment. When lunch comes around, I stop at the smallest store I’ve ever seen. The clerk is sullen as he sells me some plain bread and a few over-priced fruit. Grumbles about the lack of fish and I can’t help but notice he hasn’t bothered to update his signs to reflect the lack of stock.

I eat in the lot beneath the local church. The bright red roof gives some life to the wretched village. But it doesn’t bring any comfort. I watch the sea churn its thick, dark waves. A few boats blink amongst the crests, near drowned in the carpeting clouds stifling the horizon. I find my heart racing just thinking of those desolate souls tossing back and forth. My lunch lurches in my stomach.

Maybe a drive will help clear my mind.

I put Maryhill behind me, following the languid road through the scoured rocky seaside. Though the town proper falls away, there’s still far flung homes scattered amongst the scraggly grass. It might have looked serene on a sunny day but to me it’s all desolation. Gives the sense of a worn battlefield than quaint countryside. I can’t help but wonder how much blood has been put into the earth but a glance to the dark waters makes me think it’s all gone to a different end.

I don’t think much of the outcropping when it pops up from the ground as I mount the ridge. The thick stone is smoothed and worn from weathering and has the appearance of a broken and hunched giant’s back. Nothing grows across his pale sides as the stone behemoth appears to be dragging his tired body into the hungry waves breaking across his neck. I wonder if it’s a lookout and briefly consider searching for a route up.

It’s then I notice the shack.

It’s a small, grey wood structure like something that has been washed out to sea centuries ago and only recently been tossed back. Its windows are dark, the glass rippled like a pond disturbed by an unseen finger. A multitude of empty drying racks dot the plot, the bare wood all that’s left of a long dead carcass picked clean.

But it’s not the traditional architecture that makes me swerve onto the narrow path running towards its fastened front door. There’s a Volkswagen parked beside it. A Volkswagen with a familiar dint above the back right wheel well.

I’m rubbing my eyes as I come to a stop mere feet from the fender. My headlights pool across the metal, glittering off the flecks of sea spray and early drizzle. I open my door in a daze, the wind slamming me inside my car as I shake the eerie grip of delusion from my mind.

I can hardly believe the letters stamped across the licence plate.

BAHC-353.

I near slip on the moistened rock underfoot as I stumble from my vehicle still thrumming with its live engine. I have to touch it. I have to reassure myself that my sight isn’t deceiving me.

The metal is biting cold beneath my fingers. My breath fogs the glass. I press my nose against the windows but there are no familiar faces peering  from the interior.

I turn towards the rundown shack. My fist rings against the wood. The door nearly buckles from my greeting.

Perhaps it is the ferocity of my announcement but there’s an immediate answer to my summons. The face that peels the door away is a withered and creased thing half-hidden beneath a beard so ferocious and ratty that it looks like something had hooked on the man’s face and perished. It is impossible to age the man beneath the sagging cowls of his upper-lids and the splotchy skin pulled taut across his wiry frame. He could be ancient, some relic even older than his home spat from the sea. Or he could be a handful of years my junior, aged well beyond recognition from toils demanded by the small dingy clattering along the pier out the back of his abode.

“Who are you?”

It is not much of a welcome but a befitting one for a stranger clutching his coat and staring as hard as he can at the native.

“This your house?”

“What’s it to you?”

“Is that your car?”

This makes the bearded man falter. His response is noticeably less assured. “Yes.”

“Where did you get it?”

“What’s it to you?”

I don’t know where the surge of adrenaline originates, but I grab the man fiercely by his frayed sweater and pull him from his stoop. His hands are upon mine, far stronger than I expect. We wrestle but briefly. My shoes slip upon the stones and sense is jostled harshly into my body as I bang against the unrelenting earth.

The man scrambles for some object to defend himself but his rusted hammer is no good against the weapon I wield.

He pauses as I hold the photograph aloft.

“Where are they!” I cry into the wind. The sea pulls hungrily at the photo. Water streaks my burning face but the ocean spray and mist refuse to reveal whether it is tears of rage or not. The fisherman lowers his tool.

“Get out before I call the cops!”

I stumble to my feet, my clothes heavy with the moisture they have stolen.

“Where are they!” I demand again.

The fisherman turns to his modest home but I stumble after him before he can shut the door.

“I’ll go to the police. I know they were here!”

He stands in his entryway, water dripping upon the naked boards.

“I don’t know nothing about them!”

“That’s their car!” I point, still reassuring myself that it rests in the driveway.

“I don’t know anything!”

“Where did you get their car? Were they here? Did you invite them in?”

“I don’t know nothing about no damn family!”

He turns, a flurry of emotion written across his face. He looks sternly in my eye. His hands ball into fists. And yet, the picture still shakes in my grip. He looks down on the faces as though transfixed by the frozen people trapped in their old frame.

My voice is hoarse as it struggles through my lips.

“Where are they?”

He holds one of his wizened hands over his eyes, rubbing something away. When last he looks at me, his face is drained. All that’s left is a crippling fatigue that sags his shoulders.

“I found it,” he whispers. The words are nearly lost in the wind. “I found it just up the ways. Headed into town. Just sitting on the side of the road there like a little gosling that lost her mother. Doors were all open. The light was like a beacon…”

He shakes his head again and waves towards the car.

“Not a sign of nobody, I swear.”

I shake my head. This makes no sense.

“Why didn’t you report it?”

“Have you seen this place?” the fisherman cries. “My hauls are empty. The sea’s been angry for years now. I haven’t… I have to eat. I have to eat! I can barely afford to keep my boat in repair. I thought… well maybe this was my time, you know. Old Maryhill’s supposed to bring about fortunes when the Lord is pleased and all. I figured maybe this was that sign. I swore if the owner ever came back, I’d be right as happy to return it. I would! But, well, no one ever came.”

I can’t tell if he’s lying or not. I look about his property though it’s not like I’m going to find an open grave with my cousins all piled inside. I look the photograph over, wiping off what rain I can before putting it safely back in my coat.

“I want to look at it.”

“Yes,” he says, nodding. “Of course.”

He takes only a moment, disappearing behind his door. He returns with keys jangling in hand. He motions towards the car but I hold out my palm. He looks at them reluctantly before passing them over.

I circle the car as I search for anything. I try opening the door but I don’t recognize all the keys on the chain. It takes a couple of tries before I get it unlocked.

The smell is the first thing to hit.

I don’t have a lot of memories of this vehicle. My familiarity has developed by pouring over old albums and photographs. But I’m certain I would have remembered the heavy stench of fish and rot that permeates it. I gulp what fresh air I can before climbing inside.

The interior is disgusting. Garbage piles on the passenger seats. Stains and grime stick upon every surface. I don’t want to touch anything. I poke through it anyway.

There’s little in the glove compartment that hints at any prior owner. There’s nothing of my cousins amongst the filth that litters the floor. Cigarette burns mar the dashboard but they never smoked. It wasn’t good for the kids. There isn’t even a CD in the tray.

Whatever was left of my cousins has been buried or removed by the slimy, greasy fingers of that man.

Yet another dead end.

I slam my fists against the wheel. The horn echoes the forlorn cry I cannot give.

No, I’m on the right track. I have to be. This is proof. This is what I’ve been looking for all these years. I pull myself from the car, breathing in the fresh air. I take out my phone, snapping a few shots of the vehicle. I make sure to angle my pictures to include the fisherman in them without him realizing.

“So there was nothing in the car?” I ask.

“No.”

He isn’t convincing.

“I want to see inside your home.”

“No way! Look, I’ve been plenty accommodating. But I really don’t know what happened to the last owners.”

I try to sneak a peek of his house as I hand back the keys and he locks himself inside. It’s not likely that he’d have something of theirs anyway.

I remember searching their home and noting much of the kids’ things were gone–as was the luggage. It is as though they packed up for an impromptu vacation. For this vehicle to be here, they had to have travelled a great ways with it packed to the brim. It’s simply not possible that he found the car without anything inside.

I make sure to take a shot of his house before climbing into my car. I’ll poke around the shops and see if I can’t find something of theirs. He probably pawned it and probably locally. He doesn’t seem the type to offload a bunch of stolen belongings without leaving a paper trail.

I’m giddy as I drive into Maryhill. Perhaps it’s the first time I actually face the village with a smile. It doesn’t last long. I’m across town in a few minutes before I even remember that I didn’t find any pawnshops in my prior searches. I stop in that sad little store where I bought lunch and get a confirmation. The closest one is a few days travel down the highway.

The wind is gathering more furor so I decide to call it early and head back to the Dickie Bird.