At the western edge of town, and with an outlook over the valley and river below, stands the town’s assisted living community. A single row of identical houses huddle together, all constructed from the same cream-coloured brick. Father Moore lived in number seven, his board paid for by the church he served for forty-five years.
The sun fought to break through a sky of bleak and monotone white. The morning air prickled the skin on my neck. I rapped on the door and heard a faint rustling from within.
Father Moore is a man of eighty. Age has bent his back and he relies on a cane to shuffle his weary frame around his home. He blinked at me through the screen door, his blue eyes bright. He furrowed his brow, trying to place where, or if, he knew me. I held up my badge. He opened the door.
The television blared a report about the latest murder. Subtitles struggled to keep up with the live reporting. Father Moore motioned to the small two-seater couch and inserted his hearing aids and turned up the dials.
“What can I do for you?”
I pointed to the television.
Father Moore narrowed his eyes and turned to the television and then back to me. “Terrible business. You hope such things will never touch you or your community. I know only what I have seen on the television I am afraid.”
“You buried Jack Lassiter and his father Ivan.”
He sighed. “The days are few that I do not think of those two. They are both in the ground, thirty years now. What could they have to do with this?”
“The three victims have all had teeth pulled.”
“The Tooth Fairy.” He shook his head.
“Some would call it a coincidence. Jack Lassiter dies after pulling his own teeth and now kids are showing up dead with teeth missing. In my line of work coincidences like that do not exist. I’m going to tell you something else. Something the press do not yet know. The three victims all had a parent who was in the room when Jack Lassiter died.”
Father Moore’s face darkened. “Exodus chapter 20, verse 5. ‘For I the Lord, thy God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me.’ Ivan Lassiter carved the verse number on the gravestone of his son.”
My brain struggled to find a foothold. “God is doing this?”
“My heavens no.” Father Moore clicked his tongue. “Jesus forgave. This is not God. It is the great Adversary.”
I clapped my hands together. “People are dying Father.”
“The final acts of Ivan Lassiter were confided to me in confession and in confidence. It is between him and God. My conscience will not allow…”
“Three dead in three nights. What will be the state of your conscience if another dies because you refused to help?”
Father Moore leaned his forehead on his cane. He took a deep breath and looked to the ceiling.
You will not find answers there, I thought, but did not say. I let silence do its work. What transpired on the day Ivan Lassiter died was the next piece of the puzzle. Without it we may not stop whatever was out there killing these kids. I needed him. His town and former congregation needed him. Father Moore shook his head slowly, almost imperceptibly. A clock mounted on the wall ticked incessantly. The news broadcast rehashed a summary of known events at the top of the hour.
“It was a Friday,” he said. “Ivan Lassiter came into the church and requested a confession. He was drunk, that much I knew. I rarely saw him at Sunday service. But I complied. What he told me in the booth I took to be the ravings of a grieving man infected by drink.
“The night following Jack’s burial, so Ivan said, he had prayed over the grave. His prayers were not answered by God, but by the Adversary, the Beast. Ivan bargained with him. He would give his blood so that his son could enact his revenge. The Devil appeared before him, cloaked in black, and accepted the deal. All it required was for Ivan to spill his own blood.”
“What did you tell him?”
“That grief passes if we give it time. I did not believe there was ever such a bargain. A dream perhaps, or a fantasy, but not reality. I advised him to return home and sleep and return to me in the morning. We would make better progress when we were both of clear mind.
“He exited the booth and I sat there for some time. I did not know what to make of it. When I left the booth I witnessed the most terrible sight of my life. Ivan had slit his wrists and hung himself from the balcony with a tablecloth. His blood dripped onto the pulpit from which I gave my sermons. I mourned him and buried him.”
“What are you suggesting?”
“I am suggesting nothing Detective Hassell. You asked and I told. My conscience is clear.”
I stood and took a pace towards the door. I turned back. “Where are they buried?”
“Ivan in the town cemetery. Jack in the forest. I don’t remember the exact place. I never cared to return. Somewhere special to Jack. He counted the trees as his only friends, Ivan had said.”
I nodded and moved to the door.
“Good luck Detective Hassell.”
-—
If Father Moore couldn’t remember where the grave of Jack Lassiter was, I hoped there were others who knew. It took me the rest of the afternoon to find them.
Derek McPharlin and Meredith Aimes, old school friends and parents to butchered children, had gone to visit a third friend from school, the father of Chrissie, the first victim. Speaking in person to Peter Yates had been top of my priority list until two more kids turned up dead. Now the three school friends, all who were in the room when Jack Lassiter collapsed and died, sat around the same kitchen table joined in grief.
Meredith and Peter peered up at me suspiciously. Derek kept his eyes on the mug of coffee captive between his hands. It was Derek who spoke.
“Shouldn’t you be searching for the killer?”
“Why do you think I’m here?”
“Do you think the killer is in this room?”
“No. Does anyone here know where Jack Lassiter is buried?”
I called Sergeant Wood and told him to patrol the streets without me that night. He had enough boots on the ground. I did not tell him where I was going, only that I was following a hunch. And with an officer stationed outside the house of everyone else in town who had been in that room when Smiling Jack died, we had our best chance of preventing a fourth straight night of horror.
Meredith remembered best where to go. We drove up to the head of the trails, not far from where we found her daughter the night before. She explained that kids used to go to the grave site on dares, usually around Halloween. No one did it anymore. The whereabouts of the grave was not passed to the next generation. Most of the kids in town had no idea Jack Lassiter even existed.
The light was fading fast. The cloudless sky turned a shade of purple and the warmth vanished from the air. It would be another cold night. I asked Meredith if we were close. She responded by extending her arm. In the last of the light the dark silhouette of a gravestone rose up between the trees.
We gathered around. I shone my flashlight onto the lettering carved into the stone. Here Lies Jack Lassiter. And below it the bible verse requested by Ivan, Exodus 20:5. Derek asked if anyone knew the verse. I recited it as best as I could remember. Something about visiting the iniquities of the father on the children.
Derek shuffled on his feet. “You don’t believe it?”
I didn’t respond. I wasn’t sure what I believed. All I knew is that the common thread in this case was the people in the room when Jack Lassiter died, and the only living witnesses of the murderer described what could have been Jack himself. And then there was Ivan’s deal with the Devil. I had to rule it out, as mad as it sounded.
I pressed at the ground in front of the gravestone with my shoe. Compared to the hard ground either side, it felt spongey. I dropped to my haunches and took a handful of black earth. The soil crumbled wet and granular through my fingers. It smelled as my grandfather’s vegetable garden had in the fall, a pungent mixture of life and decay.
“What is the plan?” Derek asked.
I shrugged. I played the flashlight around, searching the immediate area in the growing gloom. A stone’s throw away stood the remnants of a crude structure, the frame twisted and warped.
“What is that?” I asked.
Meredith said, “He built himself a cubby house out here.”
I thought about what Father Moore had said. He didn’t have any friends so he made his own out in the trees.
I stepped over to the structure and the others followed. I poked around and kicked at a rusted sheet of corrugated roofing.
The moon, a couple of days past full, rose above the horizon. The pale silver light cast subtle shadows on the dark forest floor. The cloudless sky and lack of wind brought in the fog once more.
I sighed. We were on a fool’s errand. I should be back in town where I could at least be of some use. Someone was avenging Jack Lassiter, but I didn’t know who.
From behind came a rustling. I figured one of the three parents had nipped off to relieve themselves. But everyone stood close by. Meredith had heard it too, her head turned back towards the gravestone of Jack Lassiter. She shrieked. A dark, shadowy figure stood before the gravestone. The figure turned towards the moon and held out its arms as if taking in the warmth of the sun.
I trained my flashlight on the figure and yelled out, my voice sharp and jumpy. I caught a glimpse of black and white in the clothing. A pale face. Thin arms and legs. And then he ran, almost gliding over the ground and weaving through the trees. I sprinted after him but lost him on the darkness.
I waited for the others to catch up.
“You all saw that right?”
They all stared back at me, mouths agape.
I grabbed the radio from my belt and called Sergeant Wood.
-—
It took almost an hour before we arrived at the Police Station. The descent through the forest was slow in the dark. Sergeant Wood demanded answers. I gave away only the details that were important. We saw someone matching the description of the killer at the grave of Jack Lassiter, and he had run through the forest and towards the town. That it appeared he had risen from the ground and was Jack Lassiter himself was a detail that would only invite incredulity.
Sergeant Wood checked in again with all the officers watching the homes of Jack’s former schoolmates and the cars patrolling the street, and no one reported anything. An hour dragged by and then another. I started to consider the possibility that I was crazy, that this case was getting to me and we were all jumping at shadows. Except I had three other witnesses who all saw the same thing.
I asked to see the list of names of the people who had been in the room when Jack ripped out his own teeth and collapsed dead. There were ten names. Three were with me in the station. Another three still lived in town, their names highlighted. Of the four remaining: one died a few years back from a heart attack, one was in prison across the other side of the country, one moved overseas, and the fourth lived a few towns over, about an hour by car.
I tapped the name. Marcus Krajicek. “Get me the local police station on the line.”
I spoke to a Cadet on the front desk. She explained they were short staffed, they had sent a couple of cars over to help with our patrol. I asked her to send someone out to wherever Marcus Krajicek lived.
“Have you had any reports tonight?” I asked her.
“Only one. A local farmer coming back from visiting his brother picked up a hitchhiker. Said the hitchhiker was a strange kid wearing a tuxedo. He didn’t have any teeth. Smelled to high heaven. Thought he was up to something and figured we should know.”
“How long ago?”
The clack of a keyboard sounded through the receiver. “Forty minutes ago.”
“We might already be too late.”
We were.
We drove in silence, Sergeant Wood wringing his hands on the steering wheel. The lights flashed and he kept his foot down, but it mattered little. The radio crackled to life and announced they had found another victim. The six year old daughter of Marcus Krajicek was the latest and youngest victim of a merciless killer exacting revenge.
Even though we knew what to expect, the scene was a grisly one. He used the garden shed like the first slaying. The floor was wet with blood. The smiley face drawn on the inside of the timber siding. Again two teeth missing, either side of the canine on the top row.
I interviewed Marcus. He had no idea why someone would do this to his daughter. When I told him about Smiling Jack and the other victims he cast his eyes to the floor. He told me he always felt bad about it. It was one of the reasons he left town. He always felt responsible, and now doubly so.
We asked local law enforcement to keep the murder under wraps as best they could. At least for a couple of days. The press would not be up here asking questions. Not yet.
The local Chief asked if we had any ideas about who might have committed the crime. I nodded, but told him I needed a couple of days. The problem was I had no idea what to do. How do you stop such a thing? If we went back to the burial site of Jack Lassiter what would we find? Would it be empty? Would we come face to face with an undead monster who we could not kill? Such things were for stories written to scare children.
We gathered what we could from the site and jumped back in the car, exhausted. The sun rose as we rolled down the highway. When we reached the bridge over the river at the outskirts of town, Sergeant Wood broke the silence.
“What now?”
“We’re going to need some shovels.”
-—
We roped in Cadet Watts and weaved our way up the mountain between the redwoods. It was mid-morning before we left. Sergeant Wood took some time to inform the gathered press that there would be no press conference and no questions. He would catch some blowback, but he didn’t want to lie. In the meantime we would find out once and for all what lay in the ground in front of Jack Lassiter’s gravestone. All else could be dealt with after.
Sergeant Wood didn’t believe me when I told him the full truth. His initial anger at my keeping him in the dark was tempered by the ridiculousness of it all. But he was desperate and so we took a pair of shovels and our weapons and climbed up to the makeshift cemetery deep in the forest.
As we came nearer we heard voices from up ahead. I had spent enough time with them over the last couple of days to recognise who was talking. Meredith and Peter leaned on shovels. Derek cradled an axe in his right hand. Their heads snapped around when they saw us, like kids caught sneaking candy from the cupboard.
The ground lay undisturbed by their feet.
“We’ve been here an hour,” Derek said. “Can’t bring ourselves to start.”
I pushed through them and jammed my shovel into the ground and turned the first sod. I had to know. The ground gave little resistance. Someone had disturbed the soil recently.
The others joined and soon we excavated down to the coffin lid, a simple box of dark wood. I ran a hand over the smooth timber. The wood looked new, it could have been put in the ground yesterday. I looked up at Sergeant Wood. He leaned on a shovel and nodded. I gripped the edges of the lid and lifted.
The coffin lid came easily, as if the hinges were freshly oiled. Inside lay the corpse of a boy dressed in a tuxedo. His eyes closed, his skin white. I reached out a finger to touch the skin and then withdrew my hand. It was the strangest thing. He could have been alive and sleeping. There was no degradation of the body at all. There was something unnatural about it. This was no thirty year old corpse.
There was little doubt in my mind this was the same boy I had seen the night before. It had been dark, but I was sure. And then I noticed the detail that put it all beyond doubt. I put a finger to the cold skin of the boy’s chin and opened the mouth further to be sure. Embedded on the top row of his jaw were eight teeth of varying shape and size. The teeth of the victims. He was collecting them for himself.
“What if he wakes up?” Meredith said.
“Everything has happened at night,” I said. I checked the sky and found the sun, partially obscured by the canopy of trees above.
“What is he, some sort of vampire?” Sergeant Wood said.
I shrugged. I had no idea how this worked. Vampires were make believe, and yet here we had a perfectly preserved corpse that was reanimating at night and terrorising the community.
“What do we do?” The thin voice of Cadet Watts voiced the question we all had.
“We need a Priest,” Peter said.
Derek scrambled into the hole and grabbed a limp arm. “Help me get him out.”
Derek dragged the corpse to a thick fallen branch. He positioned the neck directly over the branch and told us to stand back. He lifted the axe above his head and brought it down with malice. The impact made a dull thud and the head rolled onto the forest floor.
After a brief debate, we re-interred the headless body into the grave and filled in the displaced dirt. We wrapped the head in Derek’s raincoat and made our way back to town. The plan was to separate the head from the body and we hoped that would be an end of it all.
We waited until nightfall and took the head to the bridge. We dumped a few cinder blocks in a sack and under the cover of night dropped the head in the sack. I took one last look before we tied it off. As the moon rose and cast the first of its light, Jack Lassiter opened his eyes. The head opened its mouth and wailed. I stumbled backwards in fright and dropped the sack to the deck. Derek swept in as if gathering a fumbled football. He secured the top with a plastic zip-tie and dropped the screaming sack into the river. It made a dull plop and disappeared under the black water.
We watched the meandering water for some time. None of us knew what to expect. It felt too easy.
Derek said, “It’s done.” And we left.
The killings stopped and the curfew was lifted. We had no killer to present to the press, but as happens with news cycles, everyone outside the town moved on to something else and forgot. Eventually the town will follow.
I call Sergeant Wood from time to time. His small town is quiet again.
I think about it often. I have nightmares. Of Jack Lassiter’s eyes and his scream.
Cadet Watts called me last week. He was working a night shift and took a call. It was a kid out of breath. Him and his friends were mucking around in the forest at night and saw something they couldn’t explain, what looked like a headless corpse roaming the forest.
Smiling Jack Lassiter is searching for his head. I fear what happens if he finds it.