Dave was also the only person in town who probably resold what he purchased. Pharmacies didn’t always supply the comforts that a lot of the kids in town wanted and Patrick rather enjoyed the safety that came from dealing with the bullies in the school and cutting them deals. No one wanted to crack Patrick Wilson’s head open; everyone knew that Tony and the whole merry gang would stand up for him in a heartbeat. They had proven that several times.
Still, Dave was the one person Patrick didn’t like to sell to. Dave was the type that would sell it to twelve-year-olds. One of these days, he just might have to cut him off cold turkey.
Patrick saw Pete go storming off, Wolfman mask shoved in his back pocket, and almost made a comment about making sure he didn’t get himself bitten in the ass. One look at the nasty expression on Pete’s face changed his mind. Dave saw the look too and smiled about it. No love had ever been lost between Dave and Pete, opposite sides of town separated them as surely as the difference in what their parents made ever could. Even in Summitville, money meant too much to too many people. Patrick didn’t think it should matter at all, but then Patrick came from serious money.
6
Pete was furious; now the lard-ass had others standing up for him. Well, two could play that game and the adults wouldn’t be invited when the time came to rectify the situation. He couldn’t believe that he had actually seen Sandy holding hands with that twerpy little shit, Tyler, either. He gripped the steering wheel of his Jetta in a death clutch, as he turned off Main Street onto Second Avenue. His mind was awhirl with savage thoughts as he shot past his subdivision, heading out to the cemetery. He needed to think and he needed the clear air to aid him in his attempts.
He stopped about a hundred yards from the cemetery’s main entrance. His family owned the cemetery, so he didn’t worry about old man Terrell getting on his ass. The stupid fuck knew better.
Pete climbed out of the car and pulled out the bottle of Stoley’s he had been saving for later. Later, when he and Sandy got it on. Yeah, right. Thinking about Sandy started his mind going over the entire thing again and he felt himself getting angrier and angrier.
He thought about Andy and wondered just what the hell Mark had done to him. The fart wasn’t that ugly, he couldn’t have scared him badly enough to turn his hair white, fer Chrissakes.
So if he didn’t, what the hell did?
Not a good thought for almost midnight, on Halloween, in front of a graveyard. He looked around the area, suddenly uncomfortable about where he was and saw nothing but the same old hang out he’d been using since he got his car. Well-kept lawns, a few trees and evenly spaced, tasteful headstones, for as far as the eye could see. He snorted at his own nervousness, taking a pull off of the Stoley’s, for warmth—certainly not because it gave him courage, not a chance. He was plenty brave all on his own, thank you very fucking much.
He was just starting to relax when he heard the sound of something moving in the cemetery. He sat straight up, heart beating hard and looked around the area again. Nothing out of the ordinary.
He almost screamed when he heard the four gun-like reports of his tires exploding. “Sweet Jesus, what the hell was that?” No one answered him. When he felt the car sinking, he suddenly had a flash of his Jetta sinking into quicksand and fairly flew off of the hood to land on solid ground. Pete saw the four rapidly deflating tires. He was ready to explode; it was over a mile to his goddamn house, what the hell was he supposed to do, walk?
How did the tires get flattened? he thought. Does that sort of shit just happen? “Oh, shit,” he whispered, feeling his vocal cords tighten. “Shit, shit, shit, shit and shit.” The movie Night Of the Living Dead, started playing in the back of his mind and he felt the first serious flutters start in his stomach. Images of zombies clawing their way from their final resting places beneath the ground whirled through his mind and made his nerves dance a mad tango. He slugged back some more liquor, coughing as it seared the inside of his throat.
When he had finished with his coughing fit and was silent again, he dropped to his knees and looked under the car. No zombies, okay? No zombies and I’ll give up the drugs. Deal?
Something hard hit him in his ass and he bashed his head against the side of the car in his rush to look. “Sonuvabitch! What the hell else can go wrong!” Rubbing his head, he looked for some asshole throwing rocks in the distance.
Nothing. The only change he saw was the light in Old Man Terrell’s little dumpy house going on. “Don’t even think about calling my old man. Don’t you even fucking think about it.”
He was thinking about the best way to bribe the old goat faced boot-licker when he felt the searing pain in his right little toe. With a yelp of surprise, he stood up and felt the world tilt wildly, as the blood rushed eagerly into his head. When he could see again, without dark swirling explosions of color in his way, there was nothing to look at.
Except for the gaping hole and bleeding stump, where shoe and little toe had been before. Upon viewing the damage, he really started to feel the pain. It flared across his foot and ran up his leg in a blazing streak of agony. He let loose with a string of foul words as he hobbled over to the hood of his car for a better look. He was numbed enough by the alcohol in his system that he could actually bother with looking at the wound and not with passing out immediately. The meat had been torn clear off his toe and white broken bone glared up at him, mostly concealed by the free-flowing blood that insisted on pouring from the open wound.
While he was busy looking, something attacked the back of his left calf. Pete screamed as he felt the meat and flesh torn from his body. He looked down quickly and saw Them for the first time. They stood no more than six or seven inches tall, but there must have been a hundred of Them. Tiny little demons, just like the ones that writer had talked about in his story. The one closest to his leg eagerly munched on something raw and bloody as it leered up at him. Numbly, he noticed that the mouth on this creature seemed huge in proportion to the rest of its tiny little body. My, what big teeth you have, Grandma. It was dark, he couldn’t see enough to make Them out clearly in the shadows on the ground. But, what he could see sent shudders of blind panic through his brain. They had smooth, grayish skin, that still gave the impression of scales too small to be seen and ridiculously powerful little torsos. Their eyes burned a feverish green and large pointed ears that almost looked like horns jutted from the sides of Their triangular heads. They had very nasty looking teeth and tiny little claws, that looked very, very sharp, like needles.
They studied him with a like intensity. Unlike him, They didn’t seem to find the subject of Their studies very scary. But, judging by the bloody smile on the one chewing on his leg meat, They sure thought he was tasty and maybe even a little funny. The tittering, giggling, little noises They made annoyed his senses like a constant, monotonous beep, the kind a phone left off the hook makes. Just as he was wishing that they would shut up, the silence of midnight fell around him.
The sudden quiet told him that he had been judged, and he wondered idly what the verdict would be.
They moved as one and he was amazed by the speed and savagery They displayed. With unnatural strength for such tiny little creatures They pulled him to the ground. The alcohol in his system didn’t do a thing to stop the pain as They started to feed. Tiny little pieces of his body kept being shoved into Their tiny little mouths and he couldn’t help but wonder where They were putting it all.
Pete thought about the Living Dead movies for a brief second and wondered if maybe the dead did come to life after all. If they do, if I do, will it feel this bad all the time? Pete screamed for as long as it took the tiny demons to reach his throat.
Old Clarence Terrell heard the noise of exploding tires and it was enough to wake him from his fitful slumbers. He thought about getting up and then remembered it was Halloween. With a muttered curse, he rolled back over and went to sleep. Lord knew he’d have a fit when he had to clean up after that snot-nosed little Larson kid this
time.
Almost took all the fun away from the times he had watched the punk and his latest little girlfriend doing their thing in the cemetery, but only almost. Larson had some fine looking little girlfriends.
The screams stopped a little while later. The thrashing motions that Peter Larson made lasted a good hour longer. His last conscious thought, was that he’d never get Sandy down here now.
The sound of bones being broken, chewed and swallowed, lasted nearly until dawn. They liked the bones, many among Them even argued that the bones were the best part.
7
Doctor Richard Lewis hated having to do the Coroner’s reports, but he hated not having the money that they brought in even more. Summitville was a small town and didn’t have many violent crimes—with the exception of any given Saturday night at Dino’s Bar and Grill—so he didn’t really have that many bodies to examine. But, he still didn’t like it.
And he certainly didn’t like having to examine the body of Tanya Melissa Billingsley. Working meticulously on the examination had shown him a taste of what the folks in the big cities must go through. Someone had torn her apart and they had done it after she’d been dead for quite a long time. They had forced entry into her body from every available orifice and done serious harm to each of the body cavities in the process.
Rigor Mortis had long since set in and faded but whoever had worked her over, had forced the corpse into motion, not just once either. And there was a fluid trapped in her decayed body that he couldn’t comprehend. It was largely like an organic oil but like none he’d ever seen before.
Shivering to himself, he stepped away from his small desk, in the Larson Mortuary and poured himself another cup of coffee. He just couldn’t let this one lie. He had to understand what had been done to her.
His mind ran back to the actual examination and he ran over the details in his mind again. The mouth had been shredded, by whatever had been forced past the withered and tightly drawn lips and tiny little cuts had been involved in the process; it made the good doctor think of what a baseball bat would do, if it had been wrapped tightly in barbed wire and then coated liberally with fish-hooks. A good deal of her teeth had been knocked out in the process. The same baseball bat must have been used in her pelvic region as well.
But, that still didn’t explain the liquid. It didn’t explain how the liquid could have gotten into her body, even as far in as the torso and the cranium.
He was still contemplating the fluids, when Chuck Hanson called him. “Shit, what the hell is it now?” he mumbled, as he reached for the phone. “Hello?”
Charles Emery Hanson had a voice like distant thunder, it rumbled menacingly out of the phone. But Rick knew the menace wasn’t for him, just for any fool dumb enough to break the law in Hanson’s district. “Rick? This is Chuck. Listen, I know you’re busy, but I’ve got a real puzzle on my hands, out at the Cemet’ry. I need you out here, now if at all possible. Looks like we might have rain soon and I want you to see this in person, not just on film.”
“I’m as good as on my way,” he said. “Just give me ten minutes.”
Hanson was silent for a rather long moment and Rick was starting to think he’d hung up, when the Sheriff finally replied. “Sound’s good. Rick? Be prepared, it’s not a pretty sight. Whatever the hell it is.”
With that, the line went dead. Rick Lewis hated the job of Coroner for the small town and felt a cold and certain dread that told him he’d hate it a great deal more before the day was done.
8
Lewis arrived at the scene and was eagerly greeted by Hanson. Hanson was a true bear of a man, with thick auburn hair, shot with gray, that fell in cascading waves, down to his shoulders. Rick was certain that in most towns he would have been relieved from his position for the gross violation of what he was equally certain had to be a universal Police policy on hair length; not here. Hanson was too well respected as a peacekeeper. Hanson nodded grimly and Rick knew that his troubles were about to begin in earnest.
Hanson talked easily and walked with amazing grace for a man that carried as much extra weight as he did. As always, he was out of uniform, wearing his badge on the blue jean jacket that he wore, regardless of the temperature, year round in his duties as sheriff. He was also wearing his cowboy hat, pulled down low, almost hiding his gray eyes. On any other man, Rick thought the outfit would look ridiculous; Hanson carried it off with ease. “Clarence called me out here, ’bout an hour ago. He found the mess I’m about to show you and thought maybe it was a prank at first. But, he remembered hearing screams early this morning and thought he ought not touch anything, just in case. Smart move.”
Rick nodded to old Clarence, where he sat against the low stone wall in front of the cemetery. Clarence tried a smile that looked more like a wince and waved sheepishly. “How’re ya today, Doc?”
Rick smiled back and stated conversationally that he’d know in about two minutes. It took about thirty seconds, to decide that he’d been much better. The pool of congealed blood looked almost black in the early morning light. In and of itself it wouldn’t have bothered him in the least, but in light of the scattering of teeth and bone fragments mixed in liberally, he was glad that he’d skipped breakfast. He had to bend in close and use a small knife to move the fragments, before he was convinced that the remains were human. Four of the teeth had fillings.
“Photos already been taken?”
“Yeah, Dave’s got ’em down at the lab now, getting ’em developed.” Hanson lit a cigarette, snorting smoke out of his nostrils, before he continued. “What’s the verdict, Rick? Human, or other?”
“Human, Chuck. No two ways about it.” He got off of his knees and walked slowly back to his station wagon, which doubled as the Coroner’s wagon. “Let me get all of my stuff and we can talk while I gather what I’ll need. Who’s car is that anyway?”
Hanson hesitated before answering, obviously less than pleased about the answer. “Belongs to Pete Larson, so does the wallet lying just under the car, least that’d be my guess, I haven’t touched it, if you want to dust for prints.”
Rick groaned, audibly, as he realized the situation that Chuck and Clarence were in. Theodore Larson was a mean old bastard and wouldn’t be at all happy if these were his son’s remains and the killer wasn’t already behind bars. Not that he could blame the man, nobody liked to have a dead relative, let alone a son, go unavenged if there was a reason to believe that foul play had been involved. And he was pretty damned certain it was in this case. His instincts told him this hadn’t been an animal attack, it was simply too thorough.
Whatever had killed the person in front of him had torn every single bone into tiny little shreds, effectively peeling all of the marrow from the skeletal frame.
Most animals that he knew of would have either left the body intact for the most part, or they would have hidden the corpse where they could find it later. Not that he knew the habits of all animals, but he’d certainly seen enough documentaries that he’d remember having heard of one that did this kind of carnage. Also, he thought that most animals of a size to do this kind of damage would have left sizable tracks, and he couldn’t see any, not even in the pool of blood which, he noted, the animals had left undisturbed.
“Maybe Rats?” Rick almost jumped out of his skin: he’d forgotten all about Clarence Terrell. “Sorry, Doc, didn’t mean ta startle ye. Figured you’d jest about hear the old bones creakin’ yer way at a hunnert yards.” The man placed an arthritic claw on his shoulder and Rick had to force himself not to scramble away from the old man’s withered paw.
He looked at the older man and smiled tightly, seeing the need to be helpful in the old man’s eyes. “I hadn’t thought of that, Clarence, I’ll have to look into it, though I don’t honestly know if a rat-swarm could do a person in that thoroughly or not.” He saw the sheer happiness at having been of use in the old man’s eyes and smiled wider, filled with the simple joy of making someone else happy. “Good thinking on your part, I’ll
definitely make a note of it.”
“Yup, well, I guess I better get back to the office.” The man stood taller than he had before and Rick wondered just how nasty a boss that old bastard Larson was. “I ’magine the sheriff’s gonna need ta use the phone, ta call Larson on this one.” With that the caretaker turned smartly and strode with pride and purpose, towards the small shed that was his office and home.
“Better go on up there, Chuck, you’ll break his heart, if you don’t at least call the old man from his office.”
Hanson smiled ruefully and nodded. “Yeah, Lord knows Clarence is gonna get shit enough for this. Let him have his moment in the sun.” Hanson turned back, after only a few paces and smiled brightly. He didn’t say a word, but his look spoke for him. After silently thanking Rick for giving the old caretaker a little dignity, he walked on.
With a sigh, Rick got back to work. It looked like he’d be here awhile, pulling bone chips and hair out of the bloody mess in front of him.
9
It takes little time for news to spread word of mouth throughout a community as small as Summitville and bad news spreads even faster. By Noon, most of the town had heard about the death of Peter Larson. Most of them expressed grief or shock, but a good handful was glad to see him go. Although it was Tony Scarrabelli that led Pete’s little pack at school, most would have eagerly admitted, though not to his face, that Pete was the most vicious when it came to punishing the different.
ark didn’t know what to feel. Part of him was deeply saddened by Pete’s death, part of him was quietly pleased and a shadowy part that truly horrified him was disappointed. That part had wanted the pleasure of removing Pete from the face of the Earth personally.
He didn’t mention any of this to P.J. The man had enough problems of his own. At the present time, he was in the process of screaming into his over-abused phone, explaining once again to his editor, that the story had been written in the present tense, because he liked the present tense, not because he was ignorant of the fact that it wasn’t considered appropriate by his publisher. For the thirty-seventh time, he was explaining that he wouldn’t hesitate to break his contract.
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