Piercing the Darkness: A Charity Horror Anthology for the Children's Literacy Initiative

by Joe R. Lansdale

  “That’s not true,” Uncle Liam said, his volume increasing. “Besides, there are many his age. How many young people left in Marshall Creek? Any at all? And who does he have here to look out for him? Tell me that.”

  “Me.”

  “Maybe. But what about if this operation and the treatments don’t work out? Who knows? Maybe you’ve put this off too long. What then, Kathleen? Martha and I can’t provide a permanent home for him. Not with the girls growing up and—”

  “Oh, for God’s sake, Liam.” His mother sounded really disappointed and hurt. But her voice wasn’t so loud now.

  Tim listened on for a while, finally realizing that Uncle Liam wanted to send him away. Away to someplace called Sonoma State Hospital. And he was starting to convince Tim’s mother. He could tell she was weakening.

  “Okay, okay, but let’s see how the treatment goes.”

  “Well, I think it is past time now, Kathleen. Time to face up to reality. The boy needs to be with his own kind. Sonoma State Hospital is a great spot for him.”

  My own kind? Tim thought. And go away to a, a…hospital? He didn’t feel sick. Leave his mother? Marshall Creek? His job? The Blue Lady? The flood of questions made his head hurt, his chest tight, his throat dry, and his eyes teary. He didn’t want to go away anywhere. Tim sucked in a long breath, turning up the sound on the TV.

  ««—»»

  Late that night, after his mother and uncle were asleep, Tim dressed and slipped out of the house.

  A full moon lit up Marshall Creek, almost as if it were daytime. The stars were out and twinkling. A beautiful night. But cold. He’d forgotten to slip on his coat, and rubbed his arms through his sweatshirt, shivering in the early spring air.

  Tim crossed Main Street, then walked across the park to the restrooms. He stopped for a moment and looked up into the darkness of the oak. Despite not seeing Chatterbox, he whispered, “Goodbye, old friend.” Then he took out a plastic bag from his pants pocket, and shook out a small pile of Cheerios onto the ground. Maybe Mr. Spinoza would come over and feed his friend.

  With a sad heart, Tim slipped around behind the building. He unlocked the storage shed and gazed inside. “Hello, Blue Lady,” he said, dragging the sculpture out and around the building. She was heavy. He sucked in a deep breath, and with an effort, he hauled the statue across half the park to the gazebo. Then, he rested a moment at the steps, catching his breath before pulling the Lady up onto the stage. Placing her in the center of the platform, he stepped back and nodded to himself. Grandpa had been wrong about her. She belonged out where people could see her. With moist eyes, he whispered, “Goodbye, Blue Lady, I will miss you very much. But I have to go away with Mom and Uncle Liam, maybe go live at a hospital far away in a place called Glen Ellen—”

  Timothy, don’t feel bad, a soft voice said in his head.

  Shocked, frozen in place, Tim just stared at the Blue Lady. She’d never spoken before. Her features seemed finer now, too, and she was smiling, staring directly at him.

  Come here, Timothy, to me. She held out her hands, beckoning with her fingers.

  Clumsily, he shuffled forward.

  Good, now take my hands. Tim reached out and clasped the Lady’s hands. They were not cold and metallic like usual. No indeed. The Blue Lady’s hands were warm and alive. He could feel an electric tingling moving up his arms, into his chest, and spreading through his body.

  Feel the magic?

  Yes, I do, he thought, puzzled by the sensation.

  Good. Close your eyes. Listen. Can you hear the music, now? Guitars were beginning to play, but not the usual classical music.

  Yes, I can hear it. And he recognized the song! “City of New Orleans.” His best favorite.

  That’s right, she said, a smile in her voice. Let’s dance, Timothy.

  But I don’t know how, he thought, blinking, trying to pull away. I never went to any of the high school dances over at Jackson. I just don’t know how.

  The Blue Lady laughed, gripping his hands tightly. Oh, but you do now, Timothy. Yes you do. At that moment she pulled him closer, Tim slipping into her arms. She was soft, but strong, too. And her head leaned against his shoulder. She smelled nice. Keep your eyes closed for now. Listen to the music. It will talk to your feet. Listen and feel.

  He listened…He felt. Then, they began to dance, slowly at first, Tim a little stiff and tentative. But after a few minutes he began to catch on, the appeal of the music seeming to grip and lead him.

  Relax, give yourself up.

  He could indeed do it.

  Around and around, they danced on the stage, as one. Gracefully. And the music played on—“Hotel California,” and “You’ve Lost That Lovin Feelin,” and “Me And Bobby McGee,” and “Desperado,”—playing all of his favorites. It was too wonderful.

  She whispered in his ear, You can open your eyes now, Timothy.

  He blinked, staring into a perfectly lovely face, her sparkling eyes matching the color of her emerald gown. The moon overhead was shining down on them like a spotlight, as they laughed and twirled about like TV dancers on the stage, Tim and the Blue Lady, the magic invading them in the cool evening air under the twinkling stars. The magic, the magic, the magic...

  ««—»»

  Despite the customary 72-hour waiting period, the Amador County Sheriff ignored the missing person statute after Liam Shaw’s concerned late night phone call; and early the next morning, he sent over three of his deputies to Marshall Creek. All day the lawmen led search parties of volunteers through the dilapidated buildings, abandoned mining junk, and open shafts surrounding the dying town, searching for the missing young man.

  But Mr. Spinoza was too crippled up to scramble around with any of the search parties. Instead, he checked out the park at 9:00 a.m., hoping to find Timmy there. He was positive the conscientious boy would show up for work, that he’d find him cleaning the restrooms or mowing the lawn. But Timmy wasn’t anywhere around the park.

  In fact, the grounds were empty.

  Completely empty, except for a gray squirrel chattering over at the gazebo.

  Mr. Spinoza shuffled closer to the bandstand. Hmmm—needs paint, he thought, stopping at the foot of the stairs up to the platform, looking over the structure, then noticing the new addition in the middle of the stage.

  Looked like Timmy had recently drug up one of the old rough sculptures to the gazebo from the Quonset hut down near the creek. Mr. Spinoza shook his head, thinking, Old Man Shaw had been right locking this stuff up years ago—most of it nothing but lumpy blobs of poorly casted metal. He shook his head, snorting dismissively, and saying to himself: Modern art, who needs it? But he peered more closely at the piece, not really remembering this one, which didn’t look too bad actually. Nope, not really so abstract as the others…Looked like a pair of dancers, twirling around with smiles on their faces.

  — | — | —

  DINOSAUR DAY

  GARY A. BRAUNBECK

  Well, you got some idea of what happened then or else you wouldn’t be here talking to me now, would you? Don’t look at me like that. Every couple of years one of you new reporters over at the Ally stumbles on that old story and then comes around asking your questions, so if you don’t mind I’ll tell it in my own way, thanks very much.

  Besides, this has got nothing to do with me. Not really. This is about a couple of folks I used to know and the nice little kid they had who they didn’t much like and so did everything they could to horsewhip the nice right out of him. I understand all about the so-called “tough-love” approach to raising a child, but I think these folks carried it a little too far. Seems to me more and more folks these days want their kid to pop out of the womb fully-raised and don’t much have the patience or care to take the time to teach them things, instill values and such. They let the movies and video games and cable channels do all of that for them, or else the belt and fist, then wonder why in hell it is every so often a kid or two walks into their school and opens up with a
Howitzer or rocket-launcher or something. I’m getting off the subject, sorry. My mind wanders a bit these days. Got that tape recorder running? Good.

  Jackson Banks is the name. Appreciate it if you spelled it right this time. I’ve lived in Cedar Hill all my life, including the last six years here at the Healthcare Center. Got a nice private apartment-style unit all to myself, round-the-clock care, and—I’m proud to say—money in the bank, thanks to the retirement package I had waiting when I punched the clock for the last time at Miller Tool & Die almost a decade ago. That’s where I knew Don Hogan. Him and me worked the line there. On the job Don seemed a decent-enough fellow, hard-working, friendly, never what you’d call antisocial. We’d go out for some beers and burgers with the other fellows after the shift and bitch about the foreman’s brown nose or some such—you know, the usual guys-after-work kind of talk. We’d make jokes about the wives (except me, my Maggie had passed on the year before and the fellahs were always careful not to make jokes about wives buying the farm), piss and moan about the economy (when you work the line in a place like Cedar Hill, the economy’s always in the crapper), and then get on to things like sports.

  That’s when something about Don would change. Other guys, they’d be talking about the game that had been on TV over the weekend or what OSU’s chances were of winning the national championship, and Don, he’d talk about this some, but then the other fellahs’d get on about their kids; so-and-so’s boy was going out for football at Cedar Hill Catholic this year, or such-and-such’s daughter was making a name for herself on the Blessed Sacrament volleyball team, that sort of thing. That’s when Don’d clam up. Oh, he’d listen and nod his head and ask questions, but you could never get him to talk about what sports his own son was into. There was a reason for that, but I need to tell you about something else first, so bear with me.

  This was back in 1970. We still had boys over in Vietnam and the Kent State shootings were so fresh the wound hadn’t even begun to scab over yet. Our involvement in Vietnam had been good for Ohio’s economy but not so hot for Cedar Hill’s. We didn’t have any major manufacturing plants that could fill military contracts fast enough to suit Washington, so most of that went to places like Columbus and Dayton. Even back then the industrial heart of the city was starting to murmur (it wouldn’t ever completely stop, but it’s been on life-support since the mid-80’s) and the city needed some kind of new industry to come in and boost the local economy. So Cedar Hill got into the gravel business.

  See, there was this rock quarry a couple miles out past the old county home that had gone under during the Great Depression. For decades it’d just been sitting there, this big-ass hole in the ground, no use whatsoever, except during the rainy season when it’d fill with water and high-school kids’d go out there to skinny-dip and smoke dope. Well, the city leased this land to a gravel company, and they came in with their Allis Chalmers and their feeder hoppers, radial stackers, jaw crushers, and a couple hundred jobs to fill, and set about the business of digging the living shit out of that quarry. Now, they had this one piece of equipment called a PIP (short for Portable Impactor Plant) that was basically a sixteen-wheeled horizontal hydraulic pile-driver. They fired this bad boy up every Sunday afternoon and the operator’d drive it up to one of the quarry’s lower walls and start hammering away. One hit from the impactor would go about twenty feet into the wall, and inside of a couple hours, there’d be tons of rocks and boulders for the workers to go at on Monday. Thing is, it made a noise the likes of which shook the ground and rattled windows over a good quarter of the town. Imagine an hour or two of continuous sonic booms. It wasn’t so bad for folks who lived far away from the area, but if you lived anywhere near the north side of Cedar Hill, it felt like bombs going off in your backyard.

  I know this last part because Don Hogan and his family lived on the north side, and every Monday he’d come in to work with another list of things that had happened during the previous Sunday. Mostly it was minor stuff like windows rattling or his wife’s glassware being shook off a shelf, but it was Don’s kid usually provided him with the biggest complaints.

  “I swear to Christ,” he’d say, “that damn kid’s afraid of his own shadow. Yesterday, when they started in over at the quarry, he comes running into the house all crying and shaking because he thinks there are giant monsters coming. I keep telling Cathy not to let him stay up on Friday nights and watch Chiller Theater, but does she listen to me? Hell no. Then we gotta put up with him having nightmares and shit and thinking that giant monsters are out there walking around Cedar Hill every Sunday afternoon. I don’t know what we’re gonna do with the likes of him, I really don’t.”

  The likes of him. That’s just what he said, and in those four little words I knew right away that Don and Cathy Hogan didn’t much like their own son. I felt for the kid, I did, but how a man manages his own house is his own business and it ain’t nobody else’s place to tell him how to do things otherwise.

  I got to meet his kid a couple of weeks later. There was a company picnic out at Mound Builder’s Park that Sunday, and rare as it was for the company to shell out any extra money for its employees’ benefit, everyone came and brought their families with them. (You offer an afternoon of free food and beer and soda pop, you’d better watch out.) Anyway, Don’s kid was named Kyle. He was seven. A small, thin, fair-haired and -skinned nervous kid who wore glasses and spent most of the afternoon with his nose buried in a stack of comic books while the other kids played games and sports. He struck me as having a lot on the ball, had those kind of eyes where there was always something going on behind them. None of the other kids paid him much mind, which seemed like something he was used to, so he’d brought the comic books along.

  I wandered over to where he was sitting and introduced myself. I have to tell you, he was one courteous and well-mannered little guy. He stood up and shook my hand all adult-like and said it was a pleasure to meet me. “It’s a real pleasure to meet you, sir.” Said it just like that.

  “I work at the plant with your dad,” I said. “He talks about you a lot.” Which was within spitting distance of a lie, but I didn’t think it my place to tell this kid that his dad hardly ever talked about him, except to make fun of him.

  Kyle seemed to sense right off I was white-washing something, because he got this look in his eyes like he wanted to believe me—it would’ve been the greatest thing in the world if his dad did talk proud of him, you could just tell the kid wanted that more than anything—but then he looked over to where the other kids were deep into a serious ball game, saw the way his dad was cheering the kids on and not looking over in his direction, not even once, and his whole body kind of deflated.

  “What’cha reading there?” I asked, pointing to the stack of comics.

  “Just comics.”

  “Anything good?”

  He shrugged. “Ghost Rider, mostly. I think he’s a neat hero.”

  “Ever read Green Lantern?”

  “No, sir.”

  “How about Prince Namor, the Sub-Mariner?”

  “You know about Sub-Mariner?” Ought to’ve seen the way he looked at me right then. There’s a grown-up who reads comics? What’s the world coming to?

  So I sat down next to him and we talked about Prince Namor and Spider-Man and Hawk-Man and monster movies and the like (I had a nephew who was really into those things so, being a good uncle, I stayed current on important matters such as these), and somewhere in there I happened to look down and see that one of Kyle’s shoes had a thicker sole than the other one, and that’s when I realized, genius that I am, that he had a club foot. Turns out he also had asthma, because he had to use his inhaler once when he got real excited talking about The Green Hornet and lost his breath.

  “So what’cha want to be when you grow up, Kyle?” I asked after he’d settled down and got his breath back.

  “I wanna…I wanna write stories. About spaceships and monsters and ghosts and things, like that Rod Serling does.”

/>   “You watch them Twilight Zone re-runs, do you?”

  “Uh-huh. And that one movie? Night Gallery? A man on television said that they’re gonna make a weekly series out of that this year. That’ll be so cool. So I’m gonna be a writer.”

  “That’ll make your folks proud,” I said because it seemed like the kind of thing you ought to say to a kid. Then Kyle looked over at his folks, at the way they were cheering the other kids on, and he started to cry.

  I felt about an inch tall right then. Here I’d come over to give the kid some company, cheer him up and make sure he wasn’t feeling too lonely, and I wind up reducing him to tears. Me and Maggie, we never had any kids, but I’d like to think if we’d had, we would’ve been real supportive of whatever dreams they found appealed to them. I’d’ve been damned proud to have me a kid who wanted to be a writer. Ain’t nothing better to me than to spend the weekend curled up with a good book, nosir. I read Raymond Chandler and Ray Bradbury and writers like that who tell stories like they’re reciting poetry. Never much good with words myself, I admired that, and I thought it was just terrific that Kyle wanted to write and I told him so but it didn’t stop him from crying and trying to turn away so I wouldn’t see it.

  “Don’t your folks think that’s a good idea?” I asked him, realizing that I was about to cross a line that men don’t talk about among themselves, the line where you go from being just an outsider to someone who knows their private business. It’s one thing when you’re invited to cross the line; it’s another thing altogether when you take it upon yourself to do the crossing, but no way in hell was I just gonna get up and walk away from this kid with his inhaler and his club foot and nervous ways. My guess was everybody’d been walking away from him at times like this for most of his life and probably sleeping the sleep of the just after. No snowflake in an avalanche ever feels responsible.