Where Stars Won't Shine

by Patrick Lacey

  “What is it?” Amy and Ivy said in unison.

  He didn’t answer at first. He couldn’t. Fear clenched his jaw, held it in place. Under other circumstances he would’ve thought the words were fake, that he’d lost his mind. But then he remembered where he was—where they all were—and he knew the words to be real. “It’s an invitation.”

  “For what?” Their voices shook.

  He cleared his throat. “Dear Ethan, Amy, and Ivy. You are cordially invited to the Ashton family reunion, taking place tonight at the Hotel Marlowe in lovely and historic Marlowe, Massachusetts. Enjoy unlimited cocktails and hors d’oeuvres, live music, and dancing. Fun will be had by all. No RSVP necessary. Attendance is mandatory.” He paused, did not want to read on.

  Amy whimpered. “Is that all?”

  He shook his head. “There’s more. But I don’t think you want to hear it.”

  “You’re probably right,” Ivy said. “But read it anyway.”

  His throat was thick with bile and acid. “Please do not get any funny ideas like trying to leave. If you haven’t noticed, there’s no way out of Marlowe. This is my town now. My home. And if you ruin my party, you’ll regret it. Hope to see you all there tonight. Yours truly. TA.”

  He crumpled the note but it didn’t seem final enough. He walked back into the kitchen, lit the stove, and held the letter over the open flame, took great joy in watching it burn until only ash remained.

  With the burner on, he gathered every last rag he could find and set them over the stove. They caught quickly, the age working in Ethan’s favor. The flames grew. The kitchen filled with dark smoke. He coughed on his way out.

  “Come on.” He grabbed Amy’s arm and steered her toward the entrance.

  Ivy pulled the metal rod from the handles and opened the door. A chilly breeze blew from outside. It was disorienting. Frigid in the front, smoldering in the back. “Why’d you do that?” she said.

  He shrugged, helped Amy down the stairs. “Because I wanted to. I want to burn every block of this town.”

  Ivy opened the back door of the PT Cruiser and Amy slid in. “Tell me we’re not going to that party.”

  They sat down, slid on their seatbelts. Ethan started the engine, driving this time around. He clenched the steering wheel and looked into the rearview mirror. The diner was ablaze now. Several windows shattered from the heat. It felt good to watch the place turn to debris. He wondered if Tucker could see the smoke floating into the starless sky.

  A hand on his arm. “Ethan?” Ivy said.

  “Yeah?”

  “The party. We’re not going, right? We’d have to be crazy to go anywhere near that place.”

  “Of course not. But there’s one problem we’ve overlooked all night.”

  “What’s that?”

  He put the car into drive. “This isn’t the real Marlowe and we’re sure as hell not in control.”

  He sped out of the parking lot, kicking up more rocks.

  The diner continued to burn.

  It came as no surprise the crack in the earth was farther spread than they’d hoped. It surrounded all of Marlowe, sealed it off from the rest of the real world. If you’d viewed the town from above, in a plane or helicopter, it would’ve looked perfectly symmetrical. A gouge in the planet’s exterior that should not have been there.

  Ethan steered the car around the town’s perimeter, taking great care not to travel anywhere near its heart, near the hotel and the party.

  In the backseat, Amy whimpered. It felt like that’s all she’d done for the last twenty-four hours, perhaps longer. The pain in her leg grew worse with each movement. The rag was crimson now, not quite sopping with her blood but well on its way. It would not hold for long. If they didn’t get her stitches in a functioning hospital … her mind trailed off. There was enough to worry about.

  She heard Ethan and Ivy up front, cursing as they rode parallel to the crack, keeping their voices down so as not to scare the child in back. She didn’t blame them. She was a weak, stupid girl who’d been drawn to Zeke like flies to shit. In a way, tonight was partly her fault. If she’d been able to convince Zeke to call the trip off, if she’d confronted him about his chosen line of work—

  You think he would’ve listened? He would’ve come here with or without you. There’s nothing you could’ve done. You’re nothing more than a set of tits and a pussy to him.

  She shook her head. That wasn’t true. Not exactly. Zeke may not have been of the sanest mind during their relationship, but there was love there. Faint, sure. Buried under his website and his memorabilia and his sleep letters but present nonetheless.

  Love or no love, look where it got you.

  She forced back more tears coming. Her eyes were red and sore. She would not give her nerves the satisfaction of opening the floodgates again. She cursed the day she’d let life slip away from her. She’d let her mother’s death cripple her. She’d sat back and wallowed, cut everyone else out of her life. She could’ve used the death as a means to rekindle her relationship with her stepfather. She could’ve reached out to her old friends. Instead she’d grown lazy and lonely and now she sat in the backseat of a PT Cruiser with two strangers. In a foreign place that may not have existed to begin with.

  She looked at the dashboard clock. It spun through numbers at random, never settling on any one digit. She looked at the black sky and noted another development.

  “It should be morning by now.”

  Ethan and Ivy stopped discussing the crack. “How do you mean?” the latter said.

  She nodded toward the sky. “I don’t know what time we woke up at the hotel but it was hours ago. It should be morning, not night. Where the hell is the sun?”

  Neither of them answered.

  She tried to keep her panic at bay, to stop it from boiling up out of her chest. She could feel a scream forming in her throat. It was quite insistent on being let out.

  “This isn’t Marlowe,” Ivy finally said. It did nothing for Amy’s nerves but it delayed her inevitable breakdown for the moment.

  “I beg to differ,” Ethan said, his eyes following the crack.

  “You grew up here,” Ivy said to Ethan. “Does is it look like the same town you remember as a kid?”

  “Of course not. That was twenty years ago. Times change and so do places.”

  Ivy lit another cigarette. The car filled with smoke, though no one dared to roll the windows down. “Tell me you don’t feel it in the air. Tell me this place isn’t haunted.”

  He scratched his face. The stubble had grown exponentially in the time Amy had known him. “Something is definitely wrong with Marlowe. There’s no denying that. I didn’t believe in ghosts this morning—or yesterday morning, whenever we got here—but now I’m not so sure.”

  Ivy nodded, blew smoke from her nostrils. “Then hear me out. This isn’t the same Marlowe you remember. It isn’t the real Marlowe. It’s another version. We’re not in control here. You said so yourself.”

  “Fair enough but if we’re not …” he trailed off.

  “Tucker,” Amy said, beating him to the punch. “Tucker is in control, has been since we crossed the town line. Ivy’s right. This isn’t his real hometown. It’s his own version of it.”

  “You’re saying we came to a make-believe place created by a killer?” Ethan said.

  Ivy snapped her fingers. “Bingo.”

  More silence. Heavy and thick like the darkness outside. They rode for what could’ve been hours. The landscape was all the same: trees and shadows and things that may or may not have hidden within them.

  A question formed in Amy’s mind. It was related to their new theory, only worse, like the answer was so above what her rational mind could handle, she’d crumble when she learned the truth. But her lips were already open and her jaw was already moving. “Why us?”

  “I was going to ask the same thing,” Ivy said. “In fact, that’s all I’ve been able to think about tonight. We all have some connection to Tucker but s
o do hundreds of other people. Why choose three strangers?”

  Ethan slowed the car. His eyes focused on something up ahead. “Impossible.”

  They looked through the windshield at the lights up ahead, the ones what were familiar by now. Amy was by no means an expert on Marlowe’s landscape but she was certain they couldn’t have traveled back to Main Street. Yet there it was, no more than a football field’s distance away. Gone was the rural road they’d circled.

  “It’s the party,” she said.

  “What about it?” Ethan was already backing up, trying to get them away from the hotel. As if that were an option anymore.

  Amy stared at the structures ahead, the shops and restaurants, the bar and hotel. “Attendance is mandatory, remember? We’ll wind up back there whether or not we want to go.”

  “Not if I have any say in the matter,” he said, speeding now.

  They must have backed up a quarter of a mile by the time he spun the car in the opposite direction.

  Yet the heart of Marlowe had only grown closer.

  SEVENTEEN

  BRAD ASHTON WOKE slowly, his lids sticking to his eyes. He made to move his hands but they didn’t budge. His wrists were raw and numb at the same time. His feet followed suit, pins and needles crawling toward his knees. Darkness surrounded him, so thick it made no difference that his eyes were open.

  For a moment he thought he’d fallen into a deep sleep. He did that often these days. The older he got, the stronger his dreams became.

  And nightmares. He shivered just thinking about them. They’d grown worse over the last few years, ever since Tucker’s rampage.

  The thought of his son did something to his mind, unseen gears turning.

  Ahead, in the sludge-like shadows, something skittered. It sounded close by, though he wasn’t sure in which direction. The darkness played tricks with him but he was suddenly certain of one thing.

  He was not alone.

  He bit his lip, hoping to wake from the dream. He knew where this was heading. The same place they always headed. Diana would show up, bleeding out of the several stab wounds she’d suffered in reality. He’d been the one to identify her that night, after the mugging, after that sick fuck had taken her from him. The blood, he recalled, had still been seeping, even hours after the clotting began to take place. A punishment for becoming the man he had, for letting life turn him into a monster.

  The old Brad—what little of him remained—died in that moment. Now there was only this husk, this decaying pile of skin and bones that would no doubt die in the next couple of years. Perhaps sooner if he didn’t wake up.

  He tasted something warm and coppery in his mouth. He’d been biting so hard he’d torn away a small bit of flesh. The taste seeped toward his throat. He swallowed.

  You can’t taste things in dreams.

  There came more movement from nearby, another fluttering, skittering sound. His mind conjured a bird or bat but he knew it was nothing so innocent. He wasn’t dreaming but wide awake and, if his memories of the man—had Zeke been his name?—were to be trusted, he knew exactly where he was.

  A rectangle of light appeared up ahead. A figure stepped into the room. It seemed misshapen, walked with a horrid limp. Something stuck out of its back. He thought at first it was an extra limb, one arm or foot too many.

  As his eyes adjusted he saw it was not a creature but a man, though that did not help his hammering heart. An axe hung out of the stranger’s back. The wound had grown infected, as had the rest of his body. His skin was gray with death, not unlike Diana’s had been that night.

  He squinted and realized he was not just a stranger.

  “I was starting to think you’d never wake up,” Jacob said. Most of his teeth were gone. Those that remained had rotted. A flurry of flies hung above him. That accounted for the sound.

  “I’d be so lucky,” Brad said, spitting a wad of blood onto the floor.

  “Knock it off with that, will you? I just cleaned this place up for the party.”

  “Party?”

  Jacob nodded. “Your boy’s gone through a lot of trouble to make this night special. If I were you, I’d make an effort to seem appreciative. Hell, if you play your cards right, maybe he’ll even let you live.” A fly landed on his wound, dining on the blackened flesh. He didn’t seem to notice.

  “You’re not real,” Brad said.

  “You’re talking to me, aren’t you?”

  “You’ve been dead for two years.”

  “Going on three actually.” He scratched at a scab on his shoulder blade. A chunk of skin fell to the floor. Brad swore he saw it slither away of its own accord.

  “Then how the hell are you standing there with an axe in your back instead of in a casket? I went to your funeral.”

  “How was it?”

  Brad bowed his head, willed himself to go back to sleep. The coma-like blackness had been much better than this. “You want to tell me what the hell’s going on?”

  “It would take hours. We don’t have that kind of time. I’ll give you an abbreviated version. You deserve that much. You were one of my biggest customers after all. You put my kids through college.”

  “Don’t mention it.”

  Jacob extended his fingers. Several flies landed in the palm of his hand. He petted them like puppies. “You ever heard of mind over matter?”

  “I guess so.”

  “There’s documented proof of that sort of thing, people bending spoons with their mind, moving objects just by concentrating. This place is no different. Tucker—he wanted a town of his own, one where he was in control. He wanted to be the ruler, the mayor, the king. You catch my drift?”

  Brad shook his head but Jacob went on.

  “And when you want something bad enough, when you concentrate all your energy and willpower on one thing, sometimes it happens, you know?”

  No, I don’t know. I’ve wanted to have my wife back for years now. I’ve thought about it every waking moment of my pathetic life. Yet she’s still in the ground and I’m here in, what, a make believe town? A make believe Marlowe?

  “Are you even listening?” Jacob said.

  “I’m trying but it sounds a bit crazy.”

  He nodded. “I can see why you’d say that. Your son is a very special young man. He’s capable of more than just killing. Tonight, you’ll see the rest of his talents. Speaking of which …” He looked at his watch. The flies buzzed away from his fingers, forming a single organism above him, a black, swarming balloon. “It’s almost party time.” The watch was broken, a spider web of cracks. The minute and second hands, though—they moved quite freely, spinning in opposite direction like a compass in the Bermuda Triangle.

  “You could let me go.” Brad hated the sound of his voice, hated the way it begged and pleaded.

  “No can do, boss.” Jacob helped Brad to his feet, catching him when he nearly fell to the floor. “It’s good to see you, though. You could be a real son of bitch but now and then, you were all right. Told a good joke, carried on a conversation with the best of them. When you had enough PBRs in you, that is.” He pulled Brad out of the dark room and into the main area of Jacob’s Pub. The place had seen better days. Floorboards were cracked. Tables were warped. The windows were yellowed and smudged but he could see Hotel Marlowe. Could see the movement over there, the shapes filing in the entrance excitedly.

  He surrendered, allowed Jacob to guide him toward the exit and onto the street. His head hung low and he closed his eyes once again. “I just want to go home.”

  Jacob smiled, patted him on the back. “You are home, Brad.”

  “It’s not working.” Amy’s voice went through phases of hysteria, screaming one moment, crying the next, then growing slow and steady as if she’d become catatonic.

  Ivy didn’t blame the girl one bit. Her own mind felt ready to come undone as she stared through the windshield toward the city center. Downtown was alive with movement, countless shapes walking and strolling and skipping to
ward the one place Ivy did not wish to see ever again. Every light in Hotel Marlowe glowed in the night.

  The night that won’t end, she thought. I’ll never see the sun again because the sun doesn’t visit Marlowe. Not this Marlowe at least.

  “Faster,” she told Ethan.

  “I’m trying my best.” His skin was soaked with sweat. His eyes had not blinked in the last ten minutes.

  The faster they sped backward, the closer the town got. It was not possible yet it was the truth. Finally, he spun the Cruiser around and sped off in the opposite direction. The town, though it should have been behind them now, stood in their direct line of vision. It did not want them to leave. Tucker did not want them to leave.

  The engine made a defeated noise, popping and crackling then hissing as the car died. The gas gauge was on empty. The lights turned off yet the radio turned on. Static filled the interior, piercing her ears. Odd circus music cut through the noise, distorted and sporadic, followed by a voice that sent her nerves into a frenzy.

  “I see you got my invitation,” Tucker said over the airwaves. “I’m so glad you could make it. As you may have noticed, this party has a way of … sucking people in. Try as you might, you’re all residents of Marlowe now and we’re so glad to have you.”

  Amy reached forward and pressed the power button. Tucker’s voice did not stop. “As I was saying, it’s nearly time for our big bash and you can’t wander in wearing street clothes. It’s high time you freshened up.”

  “What the hell’s he talking about?” Ethan said.

  Before Ivy could respond, they got their answer in the form of several shapes stepping out of the darkness. The doors opened with such force the metal tore from its hinges. The shapes tossed the doors onto the ground and ripped through their seatbelts with ease. The one that grabbed Ivy was obese beyond return, bloated even worse by death. The man’s skin was the color of ash. His jaw was missing. In its place, a loose tongue slithered, worm-like, trying to find its missing companion.

  On the other side of the Cruiser, Ethan fell to the ground. A woman stood above him. She was old, her hair the same color as her dead skin. One of her eyes was bruised shut. The other one hung loose by its optical nerve, swinging every so often like a pendulum. It was soothing in a sick sort of way. Ivy felt her pulse slow as she was hauled away from the others. She did not struggle. Giving up felt much more apt.