by Jack Quaid
“Apologies for my tardiness,” Parker said.
Gaunt waited until Parker was settled in her seat next to Sam. “We seem to be making a habit out of this, don’t we, Christine?”
“Are we talking about me being late or Sam being a less-than-stellar student?”
Gaunt wasn’t exactly known for her sense of humor. “Both.”
Parker let the jab slide. “We’re trying to make progress with her behavior, but it doesn’t seem to be—”
“Working?” Gaunt asked.
“Not as yet, clearly,” Parker said. “Otherwise, we wouldn’t all be here, would we?”
“There’s only so much patience that Slaughter Beach Elementary has for… discipline cases, and that patience is running out.”
Parker put on a more serious tone. “What did she do this time?”
Principal Gaunt didn’t say a word. She just pointed to the four bruised and bloody boys sitting against the wall. Parker followed the bony finger to the boys. She saw fat lips, black eyes, and bloody noses.
Then she shifted her gaze back to Gaunt. “She did all that?”
“She certainly did.”
Parker dipped her eyes to her thin, tiny daughter then to the boys almost twice her size before that gaze settled back on Gaunt. “Are you sure?” Parker couldn’t help but let a smirk leak out of the side of her mouth. “Are you really sure? She’s tiny.”
“We’re quite certain.”
“So what happened?” Parker asked.
“She went nuts!” one of the boys erupted.
“Stephen,” Gaunt snapped. She clearly wasn’t in the mood for outbursts.
Stephen shut up.
Gaunt took a breath and fixed her gaze back on Parker. “Stephen pulled Sam’s ponytail, so Sam turned around and punched him a number of times.” She motioned to the other three. “When his friends tried to break it up, she beat up each of them as well. Who knows how much damage she could have inflicted before one of our teachers intervened. I just can’t see any other choice. We’re going to have to expel Sam.”
Parker looked at her daughter. “Is that what happened?”
Sam knew she was in trouble and looked down at her Converses. “Yes… and no.”
“What do you mean ‘and no’?”
Even principal Gaunt leaned forward in her chair to hear what was going to come next.
“He didn’t just pull my ponytail once,” Sam said.
“How many times did he pull it?” Parker asked.
Sam counted and mumbled the numbers under her breath, and it didn’t take her long to run out of fingers. “Eleven times—today.”
Parker’s eyes hardened as she looked back at the principal. “Eleven times.”
“We do not tolerate violence at Slaughter Beach Elementary,” Gaunt said defensively.
“I’ll take that into consideration when I discuss pressing assault charges with my husband, the sheriff.”
Gaunt leaned back in her chair, and even though it was only a couple of inches, it looked a hell of a lot like a retreat.
“Are we done here?” Parker asked.
Gaunt gave an ever-so-slight nod.
“That’s what I thought.”
Neither Parker nor Sam said a word as they made their way through the halls of Slaughter Beach Elementary, and it wasn’t until they were out in the parking lot and halfway to the minivan that Sam had the courage to open her mouth at all.
“Are you angry with me?” she asked.
Parker slowed to a stop and crouched down to eye level with the nine-year-old, who looked almost identical to Parker at that age. “What do you mean?”
“Are you angry with me for hitting those boys?”
“No, sweetie,” she said. “I’m not angry with you. Next time a boy pulls your ponytail, I want you to hit him as hard as you can, but I don’t want you to wait until the eleventh time. Do you understand me? Do it after the first, okay?”
The girl was relieved and gave Parker a little smile. “Can we get some ice cream on the way home?”
“You want some ice cream?”
“Yeah?”
“Have you been good?”
“I think that all depends on which way you look at it,” she said with a cheeky smile.
“I think you’re right,” Parker said.
And on the way home, they got ice cream.
Nineteen
The sun dipped into the horizon as Joe made the drive out to Big Al’s Auto on Lakeview Avenue. In twenty minutes or so, the sun would completely fade from the sky and the fog that rolled in from the ocean would engulf their small town in a layer of white. It didn’t matter what season they were in or how hot or cold it was, the fog was always there in Slaughter Beach.
The locals were used to it. They knew that when traveling through town to cut their speed by half just to avoid hitting some poor fool who happened to be crossing the road. They also knew that there was nothing spooky about it. They didn’t see the fog as some sort of cover for terror, and they certainly could have because at some angles on some nights, in some of Slaughter Beach’s lonelier streets, the fog looked damned well terrifying. But the folks of Slaughter Beach took a different view of the fog. They approached it as something magical, and although anything could have been hiding beneath the layer of white, they chose to believe that the wonders of the unknown were simply that—wonderful.
Despite that point of view, Joe never really liked driving in the fog, but given his role as sheriff, it was really unavoidable. He hoped he would get out to Big Al’s Auto and back before it rolled in, but given the hour, that was probably unlikely.
As a kid, Joe had never dreamed of being a sheriff. He didn’t even like guns all that much and only carried the one on his hip because of regulations. He didn’t grow up wanting to be Dirty Harry or Martin Riggs or anything like that. Nope, as a kid, Joe Turner wanted to grow up to be a ball player.
He’d grown up in Slaughter Beach, just like his old man and his old man before him. The family business was chicken farming and although Joe had nothing against chicken farming—he still did his chores every morning before class—he just loved hearing the snap of the ball against his bat and the long afternoons playing catch in the sun. His father, Dallas, had known that and hadn’t wanted his boy to grow up to be a chicken farmer either. He told anybody who would listen that one day, Joe would get out of Slaughter Beach and everybody would see him on the television, playing ball in Yankee Stadium.
For years, everybody would just smile politely at Dallas, as there was nothing wrong with a proud father having dreams for his boy. That was until Joe turned fifteen years old and after years of practicing every single night after school until the sun went down, he was finally a junior in high school and able to try out for the team. Six months later, he was their star player, and when Dallas Turner bragged about his son, the future baseball star, the polite smiles were replaced with knowing nods and slaps on the back.
As predicted, Joe Turner led Slaughter Beach to three championships and earned himself a scholarship to North Carolina, where he quickly rose up to be one of the standout players. Things were looking pretty bright for Joe Turner, and it was starting to look like that moment Dallas had been telling everybody about for years on end was no longer just wishful thinking but was quickly becoming a reality. That was until one morning in February.
Joe was back at the chicken farm for a couple of days just to help his old man with a couple of repairs that had gotten away from him. He was on the table saw, cutting up a plank of wood, when—and Joe doesn’t fully know what happened—something slipped. Instead of cutting through the timber, the blade cut through his hand. They rushed him to the hospital, and there was blood everywhere, all over the car and the waiting room, as Dallas half carried his son to the reception desk. The doctors were able to save his hand, but with half the tendons severed and the almost constant numbness Joe felt, there was no chance in hell he would ever play professional ball. Not that he didn
’t try. He put himself through a vigorous rehabilitation training schedule, and for six months, he worked his ass off. He was in the best shape of his life. He could run ten miles a day then go put in three hours at the gym. He could outrun, out lift, and outlast every single one of his teammates, but the one thing he could not do was feel the ball when it was in his hand.
After a year and a couple of embarrassing performances, North Carolina finally dropped him from the team. The future major league baseball star became nothing more than a college dropout. When he returned to Slaughter Beach, there were no smiles and slaps on the back for Joe Turner. Nobody knew what to say to him, so they simply averted their eyes and looked the other way.
And for months, that was just the way it was. Town hero Joe Turner was nothing more than a ghost to those who used to cheer him. He started up his drinking, and for a long time, he was in a pretty dark place. There was nothing his father, his brother, or any of his friends could say to him. They all tried, but they didn’t know the right things to say. Looking back at that time in his life, Joe would be the first to say that pity and a sympathetic ear wasn’t what he needed. What he needed was a firm kick in the ass. And that was exactly what he got from Sheriff Hook at around three in the morning one night. Joe had driven to the beach, drank half a bottle of Wild Turkey, listened to some Springsteen on his tape deck, and was on his way home to continue on with that other half of the bottle when he saw the flashing red and blue lights in his rearview mirror.
He took out a mailbox as he pulled his car over to the side of the road. He tried sweet-talking his way out of it, and he tried pleading his way out of it. When both of those tactics failed, he tried crying his way out of it, but Sheriff Hook wasn’t having any of it. He’d seen Joe mope around town for months and thought it was just about time for him to snap out of it. Sheriff Hook gave him two options. Go to jail, or in the morning take two aspirins and go to work for him. He offered Joe a job as one of his deputies on a couple of conditions. He had two conditions: Joe had to sober up and not give Hook any grief.
The very next day, Joe had turned up to work, and over the next several years, Joe had become one of the best deputies Hook or Slaughter Beach ever had. When Sheriff Hook retired, Joe had been the natural choice to replace him.
Joe was almost at Big Al’s, and as far back as he could remember, Big Al had kept six boxers on the used car lot. He told anybody who would listen that he needed to protect his stock late at night while he wasn’t there. Joe suspected that wasn’t the real reason for the dogs. Big Al had never had a car stolen from his car lot. In fact, there had only ever been one car stolen in all of Slaughter Beach in the past three years, and that was when the Hawkins kid got drunk and thought it would be fun to take Mr. DeSoto’s BMW out for a joyride. Nope, Joe suspected the real reason Big Al kept the dogs was simply that the sight of them running around out there put a smile on his face.
Joe pulled his Jeep into the main lot of Big Al’s Auto and parked next to a line of used Chevys. Big Al was waiting for him with a grim look on his face when he climbed out, and he gave Joe a slap on the back and thanked him for coming. Then after a couple of pleasantries and inquiries about wives and children, Big Al led Joe through a maze of used cars.
“How many dogs are we talking about here, Al? I mean is it one or two or…”
“All of them,” Big Al said. “Every single one of them.”
“All six? You sure it wasn’t something they ate, maybe?”
The words had barely left Joe’s lips when they stepped around a Ford Focus, and he stopped dead in his tracks at the sight of the dogs, which had been hacked to pieces and scattered around. “Does it look like something they ate?” Big Al asked.
Joe crouched and pushed the brim of his hat up a little higher as he took in the sight of the gruesome mess. “Oh, hell, Al. I’m sorry.”
Big Al’s voice shuddered a little. “I know they’re just dogs, but I loved those stupid dogs.”
“Maybe it was a coyote?”
“You ever see a coyote out here, Joe?”
The sheriff shook his head. “I’ll ask around and keep an eye out, Al, but I’m not going to lie to you. It’s not going to be easy to find out who did this unless they do it again.”
Al looked down at his poor dogs and muttered, “Goddamned son of a bitch.”
“You need a hand cleaning this up, Al? I can stick around.”
“Nah, thanks, Joe. My boy is coming over when he finishes work, and we’ll bury these guys then.”
Joe slapped him on the on the back. “I’ll do what I can, buddy.”
But Joe knew there wasn’t a hell of a lot he could do. By the time he was back in the Jeep and on his way back to the station, the fog was creeping its way into the town. It rolled in off the ocean and took over block by block, and it did it all within the first hour of the sun going down. Joe switched on the fog lights, cut his speed by almost half, and kept a keen eye on the road just in case something jumped out at him.
By the time he walked back through the doors of the station, it was a little after six o’clock. Morgan was hunched over her desk, poring over the pages of a fax.
“Is that the background on our houseguest?” Joe asked as he took a seat on the edge of her desk.
“It just came through.”
Joe scooped up a handful of Skittles from the bowl Morgan always kept full and chomped a few. “Anything interesting?”
“His real name is Corey Hayes, and as far as I can tell, Corey Hayes is a twenty-six-year-old high school dropout from Alaska. There’s nothing unique or special about him at all.”
“What about the fake ID in his wallet?”
“Michael Jarvis,” Morgan said as she picked up the license from her desk and held it up to the light to give it another inspection. “Now this character is far more interesting. According to the database, Michael Jarvis is a completely fabricated identity. He’s suspected of grand theft auto, assault, breaking and entering…”
“Breaking into what?”
She scanned the page. “A morgue.”
“Huh?”
“That’s what it says,” Morgan continued. “There’s a laundry list of suspected crimes here, and they all have something to do with the occult.”
Joe thought over everything Morgan had just said. “Suspected of… No arrests? No convictions?”
“Not a single one, boss. What are you thinking? You’re thinking about cutting him loose, aren’t you?”
“Yep. I’m thinking about it,” Joe said. “He can’t stay here forever, and all he did was take a swipe at me and not a very good one at that.”
“So we’re cutting him loose?”
Joe took a couple of more Skittles and a couple of more moments to think. “Yeah, we’re cutting him lose.”
Twenty
“It’s mighty neighborly for you to drive me back to my car,” Corey said as he rode shotgun next to the sheriff.
“You’ve got a trouble-making look about you,” Joe said. “So I’m pretty keen for you to leave town.”
“I’ve been told that by a few people.”
“I can’t say I’m surprised,” Joe said as he tapped the brakes to let some trick-or-treaters cross the street, their candy sacks thrown over their shoulders.
Corey counted one Freddy Krueger, two Ghostbusters, and a kid wearing a bucket on his head with two eyeholes cut out. He guessed it was a pretty poor attempt at an R2-D2 costume. Despite all the horror, killing, and damn right awfulness of everything Corey had seen over the years, he still loved the hell out of Halloween. Those kids running around out there on the street, pretending to be monsters, could do so because they wholeheartedly believed, without a shadow of a doubt, that the monster under their bed or in the closet was completely made up. They could believe that because their world was safe, and their world was safe because of people like Corey and Parker. So when Corey saw kids running around the streets trick-or-treating, it always brought a smile to his face. He fear
ed the day when there was no more Halloween and no more costumes, because if that day ever came, it would be because the kids knew beyond the shadow of a doubt that monsters were real and they wouldn’t be playing dress up.
Once the kids were on the sidewalk, Joe hit the gas again, and two blocks later, they were at Corey’s Eldorado.
“Thanks for the ride, lawman,” Corey said as he wrapped his fingers around the door handle.
“One last thing,” Joe said. “Who’s Parker Ames?”
Corey played dumb. “Who?”
“Before you took a swing at me, you said you were looking for someone called Parker Ames. Who is she?”
“Just somebody I used to know,” Corey said. “I don’t think she exists anymore.”
Joe gave him a stare, and Corey hoped that would be the end of it. Thankfully it was. “You stay out of trouble, Corey or Tommy or whatever your name is.”
Corey smiled. “We will.”
Corey climbed out of the Jeep and closed the door. Then he watched as it cruised away and disappeared into the fog.
Twenty-One
It was simply out of habit, but when Parker Ames heard the scream, she reached for a kitchen knife. Hurricane Williams wasn’t there, and neither was any other kind of slasher.
Sam was watching Butcher Ben’s Twenty-four-hour Monster Film Festival of Terror on Channel 14. Butcher Ben’s real name was Ben Baker, and he ran Delaware’s biggest horror video store, Spookbuster, and for the past fifteen years or so, Channel 14 had let him program a twenty-four-hour Halloween marathon that had become some sort of tradition in Delaware. Butcher Ben introduced every movie, and it wasn’t uncommon for every television in every house, bar, or waiting room to be tuned in to the movie marathon. Parker and Joe’s household was no different, although she would rather have been watching absolutely anything else other than The Creature from the Black Lagoon that was playing right then and there. Halloween was almost banned in the Ames/Harrison/Turner household. There was to be no trick-or-treating, no decorating, and certainly no dressing up. Butcher Ben’s Twenty-four-hour Monster Film Festival of Terror was as close as Parker allowed Sam to get to Halloween.