Darkheart

The Present: His & Hers

Kai was waiting for him. Or, at least, the woman he'd known as Kai was waiting for him, right at that lip of pavement where the resort road met the public lot, that threshold into hell. She was so entirely different in affect and attire, and yet this woman--this chic, elegant woman--was exactly whom he'd have expected to bite him like some vampire. He'd existed alongside the resort long enough to know its people were mendacious and corrupt, that they weren't at all what they seemed to be. Kai, she'd been warm and kind; she'd genuinely cared about him. Besides Caroline, Kai had been the first person to show him patience and understanding.

But she'd never existed, of course. And maybe that was fitting--people like that, who operated from some inner goodness without any reservation or expectations--they didn't, couldn't exist.

Jeremiah arrived alone; Crystal had never responded to his messages, and neither Kevin nor Heather had answered his calls. It seemed, truly, as if Cris had just disappeared. And so he'd biked into town by himself. Behind him, quite a ways behind him, were the party lights and banging band and smoking grills and colorful tents of the annual Maritime Festival. Walking through it had been something of a sadistic exercise, as his last experience with the festival had been on one unfortunate Fourth of July fifteen years prior, and while he'd been recognized by a few people and recognized a few himself, there were many more he no longer knew. The festival, for all the high-tech updates of the world beyond, was still as stubbornly local as it always had been with its backyard games and giant inflatables, its lighted boat parade and raffles, its glow-sticks and kettle corn. How like a small town, to mutate into more versions of itself rather than anything new. And Port Killdeer was a pro at mutation; why, it'd been eating itself only to regurgitate itself since its inception.

Jeremiah had brought nothing with him. He understood he'd not be going home once he arrived, said goodbye to the father he'd never quite known and the mother he'd never felt had quite known him. Weapons would've been useless, for how could he fight nothing and everything at once? Perhaps one of the most insidious aspects of everything that had happened was that the thing had stripped him and the others of hope. Up until that night at the lighthouse, they might have thought there'd be a way to fight back; if it had been only the resorters, the people-- but he couldn't defeat a monster he couldn't define, one who'd taken the liberty of defining him. Because whatever it was, the source and fount of all despair, all unbearable veracity, it knew them. It knew him. It knew him inside and out, every intricate, dissolute chamber and corridor, what stimulated each nerve and fueled his nightmares. It knew each layer of the shadow in his heart, and it wouldn't let him go.

"I'm so happy to see you've come," Kai smiled, and he considered with great sadness those perfect lips, the ones he'd pondered many times as she'd sat across a table from him.

Jeremiah didn't want to reply. He wanted to cold-shoulder her, but his inherent politeness wouldn't allow him to do so. "I didn't really have a choice."

"No. No, you didn't." Kai reached out her delicate fingers, nails polished into perfection, and brushed them along his neck, her eyes sparkling when he flinched. "Seems to have healed nicely, then." She crossed her arms. "I am sorry. I didn't mean to get so carried away. But you're so . . . interesting. They'd told me. I wanted to know. You were my favorite."

What was she talking about? He didn't want to ask. In fact, Jeremiah asked none of his copious questions as Kai walked him down the road, past the children playing, ghosts amongst the trees, their laughter more unsettling than joyful. The cottages were lit from within, glowing against the dusk like dim lanterns. The forest thinned to his left, where the land descended into beach and lake, and between the buildings he caught sight of sparklers zipping past in the hands of invisible revelers and a fire lit in a circular pit, the figures of adults in deck chairs around it. So many stars against the night, so much contentment atop the desolation. Kai did not stop at the dining hall or at the casino, as he'd expected her to (though truly, he had very few expectations). Instead, she continued down the road, greeting various resort members. Even in the dimness, Jeremiah could make out their inquisitive faces; he was a curiosity to them, no doubt. Did they pity him? Did they despise him? He couldn't tell.