Poe must die

THIRTY-FIVE

Jonathan. The second day.

The sun was a hard brilliance; it shone down on the snow to create an eye-piercing glare. Dark shapes slunk in and out of the glare, heading towards the barn on Hugh Larney’s abandoned horse farm. The shapes were starving wolves and they had heard the whinny of the two horses used by Jonathan and Laertes. The wolves, experienced and intelligent, had killed horses before. Made desperate by hunger and a bitter February cold, the wolves closed in on the barn.

There were seven of them and they moved in killing formation, spread out and alert, lean gray bodies loping easily and gracefully across the snow, heads turning left and right to sense danger. Their eyes glittered, their jaws hung down to reveal deadly teeth.

Suddenly the wolves stopped, freezing in their tracks. Their ears flattened against their skulls and a couple of them began inching backwards, mouths closed, heads darting left and right, eagerly seeking the source of the overwhelming danger they now felt.

There was no sound except the howl of the wind. Then came the howl of the wolf leader and the others took it up. The leader’s sense of danger was stronger and he had warned the others. They felt it too and answered him.

The wolves turned and fled, leaving their tracks in the snow and soon they had gone. Behind them all was quiet. No sound came from the barn where Jonathan and Laertes slept.

But the wolves had felt the danger and evil now accumulating around the barn and even these most vicious of killers in nature’s scheme of destruction did not want to confront it.

* * * *

A worried Poe sat on the edge of Rachel’s bed, holding her hand. Behind him the doctor said, “She rests now but that is because of the medicine. According to the servants, her screams occurred too frequently during the night.”

“Jonathan,” whispered Poe.

“I beg your pardon?”

“It is of no matter, sir.”

“There is a great disturbance within her, Mr. Poe. She is deeply troubled and I would assume that her recent ordeal-”

“Yes doctor. She suffers from having confronted an evil most of us can barely imagine.”

Jonathan. The corpse of Justin. The savagery of Hamlet Sproul. Near death and degradation at the hands of Sproul’s cohorts. Yes doctor, there is indeed a great disturbance with her and I pray to God it does not last, for she will grow to dread the night as I do and she will quake at the thought of what terror sleep can hold for her.

“I leave you now, Mr. Poe. Her maid-servant has instructions as to the proper medication and she is to contact me immediately should the crisis reassert itself.”

Poe didn’t turn around. “Yes, doctor. You have my deepest gratitude.”

“Yes, well … ”

Poe still did not turn around. He kept his eyes on Rachel, now deep in a drugged sleep. Was she again having nightmares about Jonathan?

Her fingers clutched Poe’s hand and her lovely face suddenly contorted and Poe’s heart fluttered.

He turned to look at the door, on the verge of calling the doctor back. Then Rachel relaxed her grip and Poe looked down at her once more. My dearest, my dearest. Leaning over her, he gently kissed her perspiring brow. My dearest Rachel.

A tear fell from Poe’s eye, disappearing into the thick, soft redness that was Rachel Coltman’s lovely hair.

* * * *

Sarah Clannon screamed Jonathan’s name over and over. She was delirious, thrashing about on the bed and Hugh Larney could barely hold her down. The wound in her side was infected, turning yellow and an ugly green. If she died, if she died …

Larney screamed over his shoulder, “Get the bloody doctor, you fool! Get him!”

The servant turned and ran.