The Collector laughed. “You can’t be entirely surprised by what has happened to you,” he said. “You were living on borrowed time, and even your friends couldn’t protect you any longer.”
“My friends?”
“My mistake: your unseen friends, your secret friends. I don’t mean your lethally amusing colleagues from New York. Oh, and don’t worry about them. I have other, more worthy objects of my disaffection to pursue. I think I’ll leave them be, for now. They are making recompense for past evils, and I wouldn’t want to render you entirely bereft. No, I’m talking about those who have followed your progress quietly, the ones who have facilitated all that you have done, who have smoothed over the damage that you have left in your wake, who have leaned gently on those who would rather have seen you resting behind bars.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“No, I don’t suppose that you do. You were careless this time: your lies tripped you up. There was momentum building against you, and the consequences have now become apparent. You are a curious, empathic man who has been deprived of a license to do the thing that he does best, a violent individual whose toys have been taken away. Who can say what will happen to you now?”
“Don’t tell me that you’re one of these ‘secret friends’; otherwise, I’m in more trouble than I thought.”
“No, I’m neither your friend nor your enemy, and I answer to a higher power.”
“You’re deluded.”
“Am I? Very well, then it is a delusion that we both share. I’ve just done you a favor of which you don’t yet know. Now I’ll do you one final service. You have spent years drifting from the light into the shadows and back again, moving between them in your search for answers, but the longer you spend in the darkness, the greater the chance that the presence within it will become aware of you and will move against you. Soon, it will come.”
“I’ve met things in the darkness before. They’ve gone, and I am here.”
“This is not a ‘thing’ in the darkness,” he replied. “This is the darkness. Now, we are done.”
He turned to walk away, sending another dying cigarette after the first. I reached out to stop him. I wanted more. I grabbed his shoulder, and my hand brushed his skin-
And I had a vision of figures writhing in torment, of others alone in desolate places, crying for that which had abandoned them. And I saw the Hollow Men, and in that instant I knew truly what they were.
The Collector pirouetted like a dancer. My grip on him was broken with a sweep of his arm, then I was against the wall, his fingers on my neck, my feet slowly leaving the ground as he forced me up. I tried to kick out at him, and he closed the distance between us as the pressure on my neck increased, choking the life from me.
“Don’t ever touch me,” he said. “Nobody touches me.”
He released his hold upon me, and I slid down the wall and collapsed onto my knees, painfully drawing ragged gulps of air through my open mouth.
“Look at you,” he said, and his words dripped with pity and contempt. “A man tormented by unanswered questions, a man without a father, without a mother, a man who has allowed two families to slip through his fingers.”
“I had a father,” I said. “I had a mother, and I still have my family.”
“Do you? Not for long.” Something cruel transformed his features, like those of a small boy who sees the opportunity to continue the torture of a dumb animal. “And as for a father and a mother, answer this: your blood type is B. See the things I know about you? Now, here’s my problem.” He leaned in close to me. “How can a child with B blood have a father who was type A and a mother who was type O? It’s quite the mystery.”
“You’re lying.”
“Am I? Well, then, so be it.”
He stepped away from me. “But perhaps you have other things to occupy your time: half-seen things, dead things, a child who whispers in the night and a mother who rages in the dark. Stay with them, if you wish. Live with them, in the place where they wait.”
And I asked him the question that had troubled me for so long, and for which I thought he might have some answer.
“Where are my wife and child?” The words burned my damaged throat, and I hated myself for seeking answers from this vile creature. “You spoke of beings cut off from the Divine. You knew about the writing in the dust. You know. Tell me, is that what they are, lost souls? Is that what I am?”
“Do you even have a soul?” he whispered. “As for where your wife and child dwell, they are where you keep them.”
He squatted before me, bathing me in nicotine as he spoke his final words.
“I took him while you were at dinner, so you would have an alibi. That is my last gift to you, Mr. Parker, and my last indulgence.”
He rose and walked away, and by the time I got to my feet, he was long gone. I went to my car and drove home, and I thought about what he had said.
Joel Harmon disappeared that night. Todd was ill and Harmon had driven himself to a town meeting in Falmouth, where he handed over a check for $25,000 as part of a drive to buy minibuses for a local school. His car was found abandoned at Wildwood Park, and he was never seen again.
Shortly after nine the next morning, I received a telephone call. The caller didn’t identify himself, but he told me that a search warrant for my property had just been signed by Judge Hight, authorizing the state police to seek any and all unlicensed firearms. They would be at my house within the hour.
They were led by Hansen when they came, and they went through every room. They managed to open the panel in the wall behind which I used to keep the guns I had retained, despite the suspension of my permit, but I had sealed them in oilcloths and plastic and dropped them in a marsh pond at the back of my property, anchored by a rope to a rock on the bank, so all they found was dust. They even searched the attic, but they did not stay there long, and I could see in the faces of the uniformed men who descended that they were grateful to leave that cold, dark space. Hansen did not speak to me from the time the warrant was served until the moment the search was complete. His final words to me were: “This isn’t over.”
When they were gone, I began to empty the attic. I removed boxes and cases without even looking at their contents, casting them onto the landing before carrying them down to the patch of bare earth and stones at the end of my yard. I opened the attic window and let fresh air flood in, and I wiped away the dust from the glass, cleansing it of the words that remained upon it. Then I went through the rest of the house, cleaning every surface, opening cupboards and airing rooms, until all was in order and it was as cold inside the house as it was outside.
They are where you keep them.
I thought that I felt their anger and their rage, or perhaps it was all inside me, and even as I purged it, it fought to survive. As the sun went down, I lit a pyre, and I watched as grief and memories ascended into the sky, forming gray smoke and charred fragments that fell into dust as the wind carried them away.
“I am sorry,” I whispered. “I am sorry for all of the ways that I failed you. I am sorry that I was not there to save you, or to die alongside you. I am sorry that I have kept you with me for so long, trapped in my heart, bound in sorrow and remorse. I forgive you too. I forgive you for leaving me, and I forgive you for returning. I forgive you your anger, and your grief. Let this be an end to it. Let this be an end to it all.
“You have to go now,” I said aloud to the shadows. “It’s time for you to leave.”
And through the flames, I saw the marshes gleaming, and the moonlight picked out two shapes upon the water, shimmering in the heat of the fire. Then they turned away as others joined them, a host journeying onward, soul upon soul, until they were lost at last in the crashing triumph of dying waves.