Ma was still standing there at the door. He could feel her, feel the worry and layers of long-suffering coming off her in waves. She bore it with grace, sure. But this was his problem.
“Go away, Ma.”
“It’s okay, Stuart,” she said over the sound of the water. “You just need someone to talk to. After everythi—”
“I got it,” he interrupted. “Now leave me alone.”
He fixed on the rising steam and flashed back to the dense smoke rising from the many fires that had raged along Main Street a few months before. And he felt like a real heel.
“Ma?” he called, opening to the door to try and catch her before she retreated to the bedroom where she had slept alone for years. She was halfway there, clutching the pockets of her maroon bathrobe in little trembling fists. “I’m sorry. I’m really sorry, Ma.”
She trod back to him and put an arm on his shoulder. “Can I call somebody?”
“I’ll get past it, Ma.” Had he heard Dennis say this to her about his drinking?
“Reverend McGlazer is doing better. You could…”
“Ma. Please.” Her expression reminded him of his father’s funeral. Hey, is there anything besides downers rattling around up there? he asked his own brain. “I can’t.”
* * * *
For the first hour of his shift, Security Officer Bartholomew Cheek always stood in the breezeway of the rest stop’s vending building.
Rowed with soda, snack and sandwich dispensers along either wall, the corrugated hut was a good lookout onto the exit from the highway to see vehicles pulling into the rest stop. An ex-Military Policeman, Cheek found his post-retirement gig made him feel almost important, or at least justified in settling in at his desk for hours at a time to toss occasional glances at the stack of six monitors displaying the lots, the lobby and this very building. He glanced up at the camera and almost winked, as if he might rewind and watch it later, just for chuckles.
A handful of big rigs idled in the far lot, and maybe an average of seven cars at a time dotted the lot in front of the restrooms. Farther out, isolated spots hosted catnapping motorists.
His expression was vigilant, but his mind was already slowing for his (early) mid-shift nap.
A few folks would no doubt slink in for semi-discreet sexual rendezvous, and Cheek didn’t see any need to disrupt them. He had engaged in the same a few times himself back in the day.
Motorcycles, though—that might be a different matter.
He heard them half a mile away and raised one of the few prayers he ever did that they would pass on by.
They roared right in though; three of them. A couple of the Harleys bore passengers bundled up in rain slickers or something. Big fellows.
The bikes made a beeline to a dark spot at the edge of the lawn, next to a little patch of forest behind the wooden sign that clearly read:
‘RESTRICTED AREA
NO VISITORS ALLOWED’
Then the bikes fell silent.
Bikers parking in the distant dark of a rest stop meant one thing only: doping.
* * * *
Nico closed his eyes to inhale the scents of leather, perspiration, and autumnal woods behind them while the wolves shook off their tarps and dropped to all fours to prowl around the trees, their roving instincts uncorked after sitting still for too long.
Rhino extended a tiny brass telescope—acquired during a horrific home invasion—and gazed over the parking lot. “Rent-a-pig coming.”
Indeed, an overweight security officer was ambling across the lot, hand on sidearm.
“I got it,” Nico said. “Been too long anyway.”
Hobie, the sixth Firehead, tossed Nico his leather jacket to cover up the prison coveralls.
Nico walked to the edge of the shadows to meet the guard, casual as Sunday afternoon. “Hey brother,” he said. “A friend had a wreck.” He gestured to the blood spatters on his face and neck. “A coupla my crew are changing clothes. Need privacy.”
Officer Cheek gave Nico a once-over, half unable to see the prison garb in the darkness, half unwilling to, out of complacency. “Still trespassing, buddy,” said Cheek. “Your pals can use the john, like everybody else.”
Nico smashed the guard’s nose with a headbutt, catching his necktie as he fell backward. Nico dragged him into the shadows, issuing a quick whistle.
Officer Cheek came to just in time to see two sets of curved fangs, just ahead of two sets of glowing eyes. The fangs descended on him like pinpoints of consuming starlight. His throat was gone before he could scream, his body torn to pieces in seconds.
While Aura and Pipsqueak feasted, Nico caught a pack of smokes and a lighter tossed to him by Hobie. “What about my Luger?”
Rhino drew the antique Nazi handgun from his jacket and handed it over. “I kept her clean, Chief.”
Nico smiled as he checked the magazine and chamber, then stuffed the weapon in the waistband of the prison-issue denims he was soon to replace, as he gestured toward the visitor center and parking lots. “Jiggy, shiv anybody in the crappers. Rhino, nab that Jeep.”
He whistled again, and the two skinwalkers rose to acknowledge, blood dripping from their massive muzzles “Save room for the truckers. Then, we find you two a place to change back.”
It took less than ten minutes for the wolves to savage the sleeping truckers, the anonymous copulators, and the travelers resting and relieving themselves, while the three human-form Fireheads collected money and valuables for the adventure ahead.
The Fireheads finished by torching one of the big rigs to keep local emergency services busy while they gained distance—after slitting the throat of the sleeping driver.
A few miles later, the bikes took an off ramp into the country and went dark, parking behind a hay barn, where Aura and Pipsqueak tore off their tarp covers.
Jiggy took a clay jar from his saddlebag. He and Rhino scooped out double handfuls of the musky, goopy contents and rubbed it on their wolf brother and sister.
Aura snapped at Rhino as he moved to apply the goop to her breasts, eyeing Nico with wild hunger.
“Oh, for Christ’s sake.” Nico took the ointment and slathered Aura. She responded with a lazy-eyed panting.
Transformation completed, the naked Aura stretched languidly, making lustful eye contact with Nico as he lit another cigarette. “Don’t you want a roll in the dirt?” she purred. “You know, to celebrate your freedom?”
Nico didn’t hide his head-to-toe study of her taut six-foot frame. “Hot or not, girl, you’re pushing it,” he told her. “Let me mourn.”
With a playful pout, she dug into her backpack and dressed, pulling on leather chaps over panty-cut denim shorts. A black vest to match the pants and a steel chain choker completed the Looks That Kill.
Pipsqueak rolled on the ground, snuffling as his fur and fangs withdrew. “You gotta try it, boss.”
“Don’t you worry about that, Pips. The Fireheads are all gonna run as wolves together,” Nico said.
Chapter 2
Devil’s Gateway
Ember Hollow’s town Main Street ended at an iron gate that opened into a hilly cemetery leading up to Saint Saturn Unitarian Church. Forty-year-old Stella Riesling had served full time there as Reverend Abe McGlazer’s assistant for the best part of a year.
The previous Halloween’s parade tragedy had claimed McGlazer’s previous assistant, Ruth Treadway, a.k.a. Ragdoll Ruth—after she had logged a good few dozen murders herself.
Trying to stop her, McGlazer had come close to joining the casualties. He still bore deep scars and nagging pain to show for his heroism.
Luckily, Stella had been on hand that night. She was a trained EMT, a job she had since relinquished so she could help McGlazer work and heal.
Today, McGlazer had attended a town council meeting, then lunched with his friend C
hief Deputy Hudson Lott. It was a rigorous schedule considering he was still recovering. Upon returning to Saint Saturn, he had retreated to his office where he’d remained for a long time, until Stella felt compelled to check on him. She held off, hoping not to disturb him if he was dozing or praying.
Does he still do that?
She found him awake and pensive at his desk, a letter from Cronus County’s Department of Social Services lying open before him. Staring at it, he pried at the deepest of his facial scars, a jagged line from eyebrow to hairline.
“How was the meeting?” Stella asked.
“They’re still not sure what to do about this year’s parade. Mayor Stuyvesant wants to cancel it.”
Stella was careful not to express her opinions, which were mixed.
“And Hudson?”
“Busier than usual, even for this time of year.”
She sat and waited for him to talk, troubled by the twitchy blinking habit he had picked up.
Stella pointed to the letter. “What’s that?”
McGlazer glanced at it only briefly. “The adoption appears unlikely.”
Stella frowned. She wanted to hug him. “I’ve been thinking.” She smiled, hoping he would too. “How would you feel if Bernard and I took a shot at it?”
He blinked several times, rapidly. “Adopt Candace, you mean?”
“We don’t have the hurdles you have. She would be here, in town, with us. All of us.”
He was speechless—and, clearly, a little hurt.
On that same fateful Halloween night, the little girl’s parents were killed by her brother Everett; now world-renowned as “Evil Everett,” “The Trick or Treat Terror,” the “Halloween Hacker,” and any number of variations.
“I know it was important to you to take her in,” Stella continued. “I know you love her and want to make up for her hardships. You would see her as much as you wanted, I promise. Between us all, she would have so much love.”
McGlazer was silent for several seconds. “What about Bernard?”
“Might be an obstacle,” Stella admitted, frowning.
Lately her husband, forever seeking knowledge, was obsessed with learning all he could about the hallucinogenic candy Ragdoll Ruth had inflicted upon the town. At times, Bernard barely seemed to tolerate her—much less even the best behaved of children.
“But I think I should try.” She reached across the desk to him and took his hand in a tight squeeze. Tears welled but did not spill.
Stella feared she had said too much too soon—she hadn’t even considered how to broach it with Bernard yet.
But after all that had happened to her extended Ember Hollow family she understood that what they all needed, more than anything, was each other.
* * * *
The Fireheads roared through the night till they reached the hilly outskirts of Ember Hollow, then onto Crabtree Road, into a vast wilderness that expanded with its miles. They headed toward the camp set up days earlier in an isolated clearing at the end of eight rough miles, not all of which could reasonably be called road.
Nico swung his leg over the Fatboy and looked around as the morning sun unfurled upon the clearing. “Not bad, brothers.”
Four tents—Nico always got his own—a row of coolers, a tarp-roofed stump with a police band radio, and a thick poplar to which paper targets were nailed, already pocked with closely-grouped holes left by Rhino, the best shot, when he’d dialed in the sights on Nico’s Luger. Looser shot patterns from everyone else scattered out from there.
“What’s next, Chief?” asked Pipsqueak. Despite his name—and his size when transformed—he was of average height and build, sporting neck-length straight brown hair. He might have passed for a normie if not for his bushy mutton chops.
“We eat, we smoke, we rest” Nico said, lighting a fresh cigarette. “Then, the boneyard. After that—the mission.”
Nico caught a beer tossed by Hobie. “There’s a square on the other end of the county, into my pin-stripe kin for about twenty thou. Hobie and Rhino, you’ll handle that.”
Jiggy lit the campfire as well as a joint, which he gave to Nico as he continued. “Pip, you’ll take me to see this nice lady you’ve told me so much about.” Whistling a Jethro Tull medley, he rolled several more.
* * * *
McGlazer propped his feet on his desk, something he had not done since before Ruth Treadwell got saved and had come along to make herself his assistant. Her attention to detail in keeping Saint Saturn Unitarian running smoothly was now long-lost in the lurid sensation of her exploits as mass murderer Ragdoll Ruth.
Hoping to get his mind off the rejection of his application to adopt Candace, he thought of his one and only glance into a possible afterlife.
A year ago, to the very day. A piece of hard candy, lying on his desk had darted into his mouth, his esophagus. He’d immediately choked on it. Panicking, he had witnessed a strange white cloud forming from nothingness to glide toward him as he fought to cough out the killer confection, vanishing once he was in the clear.
He would later learn that the candy was planted by Ruth—one of her deadly hallucinogenic treats meant to end Halloween. Could the effect have been retroactive? He’d had a clear image of it attacking him.
Yet, given what Stella’s chemist husband Bernard had determined, the candy should not have had time to take effect.
Thus, the entity had been…real?
The phantasm had glided toward him, as if to cloak him—until he’d vomited the candy out and caught his breath—no small labor.
In the year since, he had heard all the accounts—Stuart, DeShaun, Candace, Stella—describing the ghostly presence that had brought an end to the murderous rampage of Everett Geelens, and then wafted back to the grave like a magician walking off stage.
McGlazer gave thought also to his alcoholism—yet another phantom hovering over his head, marking itself clearly by a border between “before” and “after.” As it ever would be.
And what is really the difference? asked nobody. No body. A drunk is a drunk.
Burgeoning rock star Dennis Barcroft, whom he sponsored, had fallen.
Off the stage, off the wagon, off the towering pedestal on which so many had placed him. This despite McGlazer’s weekly support sessions; his hours of work helping to rehabilitate the young musician.
“Why should you—I—be any different?”
McGlazer grasped the hasp of the bottom desk drawer, where he had once kept his stash of Jefferson Select—and later, moonshine. It slid half-open. Maybe McGlazer did it. Or maybe something else.
It held only a half-empty bag of bite-size chocolate bars and some scattered index cards.
McGlazer was ready to push the drawer closed when he spotted a darkness in its far back corner, more substantial than shadow. He pulled the drawer all the way out to see a patch of fuzzy brown mold there.
Tiny black tendrils—like capillaries—meandered from the core. Peering closer, McGlazer saw that this fine fuzz surrounded a mushroom sprout about an inch in width, speckled with tiny white dots.
He took a pen from his desk and lowered it toward the mushroom to break off the button. Then he’d get a bottle of disinfectant, and—
On contact, the fuzz puffed a surprisingly thick little cloud. Fascinated, McGlazer leaned closer.
“Where did you come from?” He closed the drawer and knelt to look under his desk, where he found a much larger patch growing on the carpet, its powdery fibers attached to the desk drawer bottom like black cobwebs. A good-sized cluster of bulbous heads squatted amid the threads.
McGlazer took a long-stemmed candle lighter from the upper drawer. When he extended the flame to within a few inches, the mushroom caps shriveled upon themselves like a triggered Venus flytrap. He had never seen anything like it, but that was the least of his concerns.
; McGlazer sat up and huffed, annoyed that he would have to get someone to come in and check for mold. The last thing he needed was for the church to be shut down due to a health hazard.
Perhaps it was better to deal with it himself for now, as best he could. He rose from the floor to close the desk drawer and stayed his hand. A sealed bottle of Jefferson Presidential Select now lay on its back like a seductive temptress, just inches from the fungus in the corner. The label and wax stamp were like the comforting cover of an old family bible to him.
McGlazer felt the saliva gather in his mouth, felt his fingers tingle to twist the cap, to hear the snap of the paper seal.
A quick prayer gave him the strength to shut the drawer. But curiosity was stronger. He immediately opened it again, finding himself profoundly disappointed to find the bottle was gone.
No matter. He could always hop down to the spirits store…
…And what?
McGlazer closed and reopened the drawer three times before storming out of the room, angry with himself for being angry that the bottle hadn’t been real—nevermind the implications of hallucinating it.
He decided to do something about the fungus before Stella discovered it and worried both of them to death over it.
He went to the closet and collected an old towel, a bottle of cleaner, and an ice scraper. As he set himself to push the desk back, the temptation to check the drawer again came to him like an attack dog; charging for his throat, determined to overpower him. It succeeded.
No Jefferson Select. Instead, the drawer was filled with neat rows of Mason canning jars.
Madison County moonshine.
Well, this was unprecedented. He decided he’d better examine one…
The cold, smooth curve and heft of the full jar were undeniable. He did a shake for quality assurance. The telltale maelstrom of tiny bubbles rose to the surface, eager to please.
McGlazer felt sudden paranoia—and no small amount of guilt. Someone was tormenting him, working some sadistic sleight of hand.
He set the jar on the desk and reached for another. But that jar was empty, and light, even so. The glass was a thin illusion made of spun sugar, or less. It disintegrated in his hand; dissolving to flimsy filaments, the lid rusting to dust in a millisecond.
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