Dreams of love and dreams of passion where she was always safe in his arms. Lately, the Folk had been forced to work almost continuously to make the changes necessary in Cassie. They didn’t mind. They were almost done now.
3
Joe and Jenny Howell were watching the news and getting more depressed by the moment as a result, nothing pleasant ever seemed to occur anymore. Not in Summitville, not in Denver, not it seemed, anywhere on the whole freaking planet. Jenny watched her husband grow more and more sour by the minute and finally turned the television off.
When Joe started to protest, she smiled demurely and kissed him on the side of his mouth. Joe was, by his own estimation, not the brightest guy on the planet, but he wasn’t stupid either. He got the hint and he took the hint. Inside of twenty minutes later, all of his worries over Mark were gone from his mind.
That was just fine with Jenny, in fact that was why she had decided it was time for a little whoopee in the first place. In her mind, she heard the voices continue their promises, “Soon Jennifer, very soon…”
4
Over at the Basilisk, three men stood warily watching another who scared them all on a primal level. P.J. was quite literally too scared to move, even to think, looking at the man before him. Nothing about him had changed in the last twenty-three years, nothing. He was the same height, build, even hair color as P.J. had remembered. That really didn’t surprise him, at least not in his heart, where it counted. The dreams he had been having about this man, well, let’s be honest here, the nightmares he had been having about this man for the last two-decades-and-change years pretty much assured that he would know every detail of his face. Unlike most of his dreams, the details never seemed to fade when it came to Crowley.
For Tyler and Tony, it was more along the lines of the hairs rising on the backs of their necks, a vague unease caused by his presence, like the feeling of having someone walk across their final resting place and then having that someone point to the spot, look them in the eyes and say, “Here, good buddy, right fuckin’ here. That’s where you’re going to be planted. Would you like me to tell you when and how you get here?”
Crowley simply stared at P.J. Sanderson, as if they were the very best of friends and the author had just told him a mildly humorous joke. The smile was casual and friendly, not at all the sort of thing that should make a person nervous, until you looked closely at his eyes. There was something there, something very unpleasant; a light that reflected towards you from no definable source, or perhaps it was not reflected at all, that bone white light, perhaps it came from inside of his eyes…
With a cat’s grace, Crowley moved closer to the three nervous men, approaching his good buddies for a pleasant conversation, or at worst a ghost story told around the campfire, late at night when a spectral cloud smudges the light from a moon that stares down on all below without interest. Nothing to be afraid of, not here and just how the hell are you guys doin’? He pulled the last chair out from under the table in the store’s island and turning it around, sat down easily. Never in the entire span of time, did his eyes leave P.J.’s. He didn’t even seem to blink.
“Tell me a story, Philly, tell me a good one, better than that shit you call fiction. Tell me a real story, one that counts.” The voice spoke in silken tones, like the sound made when a spider spins its web, amplified just enough for them all to hear him speak.
P.J. swallowed hard, his throat clicking dryly. He would have given every cent he ever made, just to look away from those cold hard eyes. “O-Okay, listen closely folks. This is a story I’ve never told, except in bits and pieces and I never want to tell it again. So just listen, no questions.” He hesitated there, praying for some intervention that would stop the memories from coming together. None came.
“Once upon a time, in this very town there lived a man.”
5
The man’s name was Stoney Miles, well, Albert really, but every one called him Stoney. Stoney was the kind of person that everybody liked, because Stoney always knew just the right things to say, in order to assure everyone that he was likeable.
A few people only knew the truth about Stoney and only one of them lived in town. That one was his wife, Jillian Wadsworth Miles. Jillian was as easily tricked as the rest of the world by the quick smile and the pleasant conversations that Stoney had with her, she was so taken in fact, that she actually married him against her family’s protests. Contrary to popular belief, that wasn’t the kind of thing that happened every day in England. To avoid the problems that the marriage incurred the young couple moved to the colonies, the United States.
They started in Boston and later, after they had gathered a very large sum of money, they moved here. Nobody knew why, not even Jillian. Stoney never volunteered information to anyone, at least not information that could be considered important. Even in the book that was just returned to me, Stoney never tells why he came here, save that the Stone could be found in this vicinity. He always wrote down the name with a capital letter at the beginning, so I have always assumed it was a proper title, at least in his eyes.
But I digress, the subject of this tale is the kind of man that Stoney was, later I’ll tell of the Stone and Stoney’s search for it. Albert Miles was a man who needed to own things, be it a house, be it a horse and carriage, or even a person, Stoney had to own things. One of the possessions he was most proud of, was his wife. Stoney wooed her, seduced her away from the security of her upper-class family and then possessed her entirely. What never seemed to cross his mind, was that she may not want to be possessed. Jillian learned over the course of time to hate her husband. She learned that once an item was in his possession, he really no longer cared for it. She had her son, of course, but a son’s affections are decidedly different from a husband’s, she needed more than a smile and a hug. Like most every creature, she had desires that needed to be sated. That was where Abraham Smythe entered the scene. Everyone knows the silly old legends about their lover’s tryst and I won’t bore you with the details, suffice to say that the legends had their foundings in truth.
What the stories can’t tell you, is that Smythe had plans to run away with Jillian, to start a new life in another part of the country. They planned to take the child together and make for California, where the gold was supposed to be easy to find and where riches were but a day’s labor away. Abraham Smythe must have told someone, somewhere in town about his plans; because that someone told Stoney and Stoney went to find Smythe.
He killed him too and yes, he also killed Jillian. He carved the flesh off of both of the bodies and left them to die in each other’s arms. The stories told around the campfires come Halloween don’t mention that part, or the truth of what he did to his son, either. Yes, his son was found in the well and he was found alive, cold and shaken, but alive. But he was found with one finger from each hand removed and the hair cut away from his head, another little part of the tale that is missing.
Joshua Miles was taken in by the Smythe family, because some thought he was the son of Abraham Smythe. So what’s wrong with this picture? As I said before, Stoney came into the village of Summit Town with his wife and his son.
Joshua was his second child by Jillian, not his first. Nowhere in the old battered legends about Stoney Miles does the mention of two children come into play. But there was another child, I know that for a fact. I can even tell you what happened to him, he was sacrificed, on a large stone in the woods near where Summit Town once stood. How do I know this? Well, Stoney talked all about it, in the diary he kept, the one now in my hands. The entry basically says that Stoney had found the Stone of his family and in the traditions of his family, he had surrendered his first born child to the Stone, in order to prepare the way. He never clarifies just who or what he is preparing the way for, even in his own private journals, Stoney had a tendency to keep secrets. If the tale is told, then it is in one of the parts of this journal that makes no sense, written in a gibberish code with no clear pattern that I could
discern. That is the first part of my story. The prelude, if you will.
The rest of the story takes place only a handful of years ago, at least by my reckoning. I was fifteen then. I never had a great number of friends, like another young man I can think of. While I had lived here all of my life, I really never fit in Summitville; to be honest, that has never really changed. One must often work very hard to make friends and I lacked in Stoney’s innate ability to hide my opinions from those around me. My mouth, like a certain young man named Wilson that lives in this town, was simply too large to be tolerated by others in town. Those I knew I wished I hadn’t had the pleasure of meeting, as often as not.
There was one exception to the rule. There are always exceptions to the rules. In my case, the exception was a new boy in town, Alex Harris. Summitville almost never gets new kids, or as I have heard them called, “Fresh Meat.”
When Alex came to town, the local welcoming committee took a fancy to laying verbal abuses upon him without end. Alex took them all in stride, as if nothing in this world could hurt him. I took them in stride too, they were only words, nothing as serious as what was done to Mark when he came here.
Tony flinched at the comment, nobody but Jonathan Crowley noticed.
The part about the whole thing that shamed me, was that Alex ended up coming to my rescue on one of the occasions where my mouth got the better of my common sense. Alex wasn’t an unstoppable juggernaut, he wasn’t even above average in height or in muscle tone, but I always seem to remember him that way. What he lacked in size he made up for in speed and prowess. He fought like a mad man, taking ridiculous risks and somehow getting away with it, as well as dodging nearly every punch thrown at him by the local bully squad. I still remember the look on Chuck Hanson’s face, when Alex shot a knee into his testicles and followed through with an elbow to the side of his head. Yes, the very same Chuck Hanson who is now the sheriff in town. He was a wild one as a youth, always instigating the fights and normally winning them. Chuck lived in the slums back then, that part of town delegated to the poor of Summitville. Not that they were slums then, anymore than they are slums now, but the name always stuck just the same. Everyone talked down about the people that lived there, except for Chuck, no one ever said a word about Chuck, they were all too scared.
Anyhow, when the fight was over and Alex was helping me to my feet, I learned a lesson about friendship and I had learned it from a stranger. I never minded my own business when it came to the underdog again. I suppose that’s why I decided to be Alex’s friend, he was the only person who was more of an underdog than I was. No, maybe it was simply because he would let me be his friend. I don’t know.
Summer came not long after that and we went about enjoying the summer as much as we could, often burdened by Alex’s little brother…for the life of me, I can never remember his name. The little boy was almost a tragedy, he looked so much like Alex, but he had none of the grace or confidence of his older brother. He was possibly the most awkward child I ever saw. Everyday it was a surprise to see how he had injured himself. One day a scraped knee, the next a bruised forearm, Alex used to say that he had “the grace of a gazelle, with four broken legs.” Sometimes I was honestly surprised that the child managed to live through the day.
That boy worshipped Alex and Alex in turn seemed to worship him. Anything that happened to his little brother sent Alex to his side instantly. The slightest scratch and Alex was there to make it all better. It was like his little brother was all he had room in his heart to love and he was going to make certain that his heart never got broken.
It was a good summer, lots of swimming at Overtree, lots of wrestling in the woods with the girls that found us attractive, even time for the ever popular ghost stories around the campfire. I felt like that summer would never end, like I had all the time in the world to be popular with Alex, Susan and Antoinette as my friends. I was wrong, nothing is forever in this world, certainly not the friends we have and certainly not the summers. But maybe they could have been, if not for the book.
It’s just a collection of Stoney Miles’ thoughts, almost a diary, but some of the book, a small part really, holds rituals. Alex was fascinated by the entire thing, loved the idea of performing these rituals like a séance at Halloween. And that was even the day he picked for us to perform one, Halloween. I’ve never believed in magic, at least not the type that calls demons from the bowels of hell and such nonsense. But I was willing to believe in it that day. I really can’t remember all that happened, sometimes it’s like a part of that day is gone for me and sometimes it’s like a flash from a dream that fades if you focus on it. All I can say for certain is that things were different afterwards. No one acted like they had before. I had a small gathering of friends that I held dear to me before that Halloween day and afterwards we just drifted apart. The ones who had meant the most to me during that summer vacation were all just strangers I’d pass a smile with by Christmas.
Susan and Antoinette had always been the best of friends until then and then none of it seemed to matter to them; they broke away from a life-long friendship and found other people to call by that special title. The only other person I’d ever had a chance to grow truly close to, seemed only a shadow of what he had been, drained of all vitality, a god whose feet were clay. The only person who seemed better off for the experience, was Alex’s little brother. During the month that followed, before Alex and his family moved away from Summitville, I saw his brother three more times. He looked sturdier somehow, as if at three years of age, he had found the purpose for his existence. He was also as graceful a child as I have ever seen, no longer getting injured or even stumbling any longer.
Mostly, I remember the look he gave me on all three of those occasions; it was a warning to be quiet, a warning to be careful of what I said and a promise to hurt me, all rolled into the eyes of a three year old boy. It was amazing how scary he managed to be. It was amazing how scared I was. I hope I never see a child that young with a stride so purposeful again, it scared me. It scared me because he was a little boy with a very important mission in his heart and no little boy should have so much weight on his shoulders, no matter how sturdy he seems to be.
6
“I’ve only ever seen a look that was even close to his haunted, terrifying look in the eyes of one other boy, a boy who was injured in the woods near here. He told me that he had cut his face on a stone, in a part of the woods between his school and his home, when four or five boys, all bigger than he was, beat him into the ground.” P.J. Sanderson looked around the room, finally free of whatever Crowley had done to him, finally able to look at the other people around him.
“That boy told me that he would handle his beating by himself and in that moment, when I saw that same haunted look in his eyes, I believed him.
“I had no doubt in my mind that Mark Howell would do exactly as he promised and I fear he already has, on most of the boys that hurt him.” P.J. Sanderson looked his nephew straight in the eyes and Tony grew cold under the rage focused there, a rage his uncle had never before shown to him. “Of course, times and people change and I suppose that there might yet be a chance he’ll forgive the one that got away.”
Across the table from P.J., Jonathan Crowley clapped his hands in the unearthly silence, a smile perched sardonically on his lips. He stood up then, towering over the writer and plucked the book from Sanderson’s hands. “A delightful story, Philly, a true treat.” He scanned the book quickly, flicking pages with hardly a glance at their contents. When he had found what he wanted, he shoved the book in P.J.’s face. “Is this the ritual your little friend called out that night? And don’t tell me you don’t remember, Phil, I hate liars.”
P.J. nodded his affirmation.
“Well, well, well, that does make this a nasty thing you’ve called forward, provided that your friend even managed to pronounce the words properly.” He folded a corner of the page over and grinned down at the man before him as he tucked the book under his ar
m. “Let’s get down to business here, Philly. The way I see it, you’re responsible for this mess, you let him read the damned thing. So, what’re we going to do about this nastiness?” The last was as much a rhetorical question as it was an actual question waiting for an answer. No one seemed to have the vaguest clue how to respond.
Crowley leaned in close to the writer, sneering down on the man who visibly quaked before him. “Well, let’s just say I have a few ideas that might prove helpful.”
7
While Summitville’s only famous resident was telling a story that made him afraid, made him never want to remember his past, Rick Lewis was sleeping. Next to him, not more than a hand away, Jaquelyn Fitzgerald Rosenquist slept too. For her, the images that slumber inescapably brought where far more pleasurable. Rick was dreaming about Mark Howell and in those dreams the two of them discussed any number of subjects, calmly and clearly. Most of the subjects were the victims of something not quite within Rick’s view; something that was watching him and that he could almost see out of the corner of his eye.
Try though he might, he couldn’t quite turn his head enough to see it clearly.
He could feel the presence nearby, its attention on him like a bitingly cold breath of winter air from the mountain tops that embraced Summitville. He could sense the way in which it studied him and he could feel its malignancy. Cancer, he thought. It’s like a Cancer that wants to grow, wants to devour me and all of the people around me.
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