The Devil's Dust Read Free

the light trained. The table is covered in squares of burnt foil, ink pens that have had their stylus removed in order to be used as pipes. Nolan reaches out and picks one up, turns it in his hand. So this is how they do it. The emptied pen is scorched at one end from the constant flame. He raises it to his nose, curious, and flinches at the strength of the caustic residue. He tries to conjure an image of Travis Lacey sitting in the darkness, smoking drugs around the clock; his parents in Florida, oblivious.
    What makes a kid in a decent family do this, he wonders. The cause and effect of this fascinates him, truly. Is it the availability of drugs that make them desirable? Is it the forbidden fruit that tempts us? In the absence of evil and danger, what is it we shall seek for thrills?
    Nolan sets the pen on the table and straightens up. He wipes the light across the rest of the room. His breath stops, his knees go weak. He hears himself emit a sound. There, in the far corner, hanging from an electrical cord, is what remains of a small dog. It appears to have been skinned. And on the wall behind the dead animal words and strange symbols are scrawled in what can only be blood. Circles and triangles, crosses and arrows. Nolan feels sick to his stomach, out of place in the semi-darkness, this strange basement. It is as though in this instant he forgets he is a cop, why he is here, witness to something that seems so private and closed. He squints in an attempt to decipher the writing as though he is truly an explorer who has discovered hieroglyphics on a cave wall. His mind floods with ideas of what he must do next. Take the boy into custody, radio the Chief and Younger, get a psychological consult from Dr. Nichols up at the medical clinic …
    So there is no friend in the basement after all. Travis has conjured an illusion with his drug-addled mind. Images, incantations, whispers in the darkness. Nolan hears footfalls and he swivels with the light, startled by Travis’s sudden appearance — as though he simply appears from vapour. Nolan attempts to reconcile the youth standing before him with the hideous acts committed in this basement.
    â€œYou found Jenny,” Travis says in wonderment, and he points.
    â€œBack up,” Nolan says, but his voice sounds unsure even to himself.
    Travis turns a twisted-lip smile and he is gone up the stairs. Nolan’s body surges with endorphins, fear and excitement, panic and exhilaration. He takes the stairs three at a time, the flashlight heavy in his hand like a sidearm. There is only time to think this focused thought: I am in a police foot chase …
    â€œTravis!” Bob Lacey yells from the hallway.
    The teen pushes through the front door, Nolan at his heels. The sunshine hits Nolan’s eyes and he squints hard. A world of whiteness, the snow reflects the light and makes his eyes water. Travis is in sock feet but this does not slow his sprint across the front yard, the snow reaching to just below his knees, this wild animal sprung from a trap. Travis careens to the left, disappears around the side of the garage. Nolan’s boots provide better traction and he gains his footing now. He catches a glimpse of the teen’s dark shirt around the side of the garage and he hears the boy’s mother crying from the front step. Nolan negotiates the corner of the building at the same moment the clearest thought enters his mind: never come around the corner of a building unless you know for certain what is waiting for you … approach with caution, approach low and slow …
    In the void of recalled training there is now a looping arc of blurred motion as Travis swings a snow shovel like a home-run hitter. Nolan does the only thing he can do in the short time he has to react, which is to raise a forearm to protect his face. It is the last thing Ed Nolan does just before the concussive connection, sounds of disembodied voices, his seemingly weightless body