The Crymost

by Dean H Wild

  He heard Harley mutter behind him. “What the hell? Do you see that?”

  “I do.”

  “People with flawed agendas sometimes go to great lengths,” Thekan said, his shoulders rigid, his eyes hard. “Too arrogant to see the futility of their actions. Sometimes they need a sign to direct them, to shoo them away from their needless acts like summer flies. Do you believe in signs, Mr. Logan?”

  “I believe in a lot of things, Thekan. Signs from the past. Signs from the dead, even.”

  From behind him, Will said, “I want to go, now.”

  “Yeah,” Harley said and put a hand on Mick’s shoulder. His voice sounded strained. “Me, too.”

  Mick’s first reaction was to challenge the two men behind him, but it was quelled by the sensation of an idea being dashed against the back of his head, like an outside thought searching for entry. Its message leaked in with the sketchiness of a storm-ravaged radio signal. You want to leave this place, it said, you want to leave this place now.

  It was all the explanation he needed. Thekan was getting inside Will’s thoughts, and Harley’s. His own well-formed mental doors of resistance, on the other hand, were holding. He wondered for how long. “I think your vandal is on to something, Thekan. Does it trouble you that people are figuring you out?”

  “Presumption has always troubled me.” Thekan’s hands swept out before him as if making a presentation. “Especially when it inspires the uneducated. Stay away from this, Mick Logan. Listen to your friends. Go away from here.”

  “How long do you think it will be before this town realizes what you are? Some know it already, am I right?”

  Mick directed his gaze at Chastity Mellar Borth. She turned away from him, her face hard and neutral. Then he inched closer, his heart hammering, an accusatory finger aimed at the Judge.

  “You might be trying to clear the way for whatever is descending on this town, but certain things can’t be erased or eradicated from the world, Thekan. And there are those of us who have a pretty good idea of what’s coming. And we mean to fight it.”

  “You challenge that which you know little about.” Thekan raised his hands like a pastor commanding his congregation to rise. “That, Mr. Logan, is folly.”

  “We won’t be intimidated.”

  Thekan’s eyes narrowed to slits. His mouth trembled. “Folly,” he said again.

  A hot spot of pain bloomed on Mick’s right shoulder. It was followed by the sound of a stone tumbling away. He clutched at the pain, his gaze caught by hints of motion around Thekan’s feet. Broken pavement vibrated there, restless, as if trying to tear free of the ground. Before Mick could react, a softball sized hunk of tar and concrete tore free from the ground and rocketed forward, catching him on the thigh.

  “What the hell?” Harley asked again, just before an acorn-sized fragment clopped him on the forehead and drew blood. Half a dozen more scraps of pavement lifted in the air, suspended in the sunny May afternoon.

  “Let’s go,” Mick said. “To the car. Now.”

  They all turned in retreat. A chunk the size of an apple caught Mick’s elbow and sent pins and needles up to his shoulder and down to his fingertips. Another struck him on the shoulder blade. Another bounced off the fender of his car with an efficient clunk. Will let go with a throaty “Holy crap,” as a particularly large portion slammed into his lower back and nearly sent him sprawling.

  They got into the car and Mick pulled away quickly, but not before one last look in the rear-view mirror. Chastity gazed after them with dazed astonishment. Thekan stood in the shade of the mercantile trees, his hands on his knees, either panting with exhaustion . . . or laughing.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  “That was some kind of freakshow,” Will said from the backseat. A trickle of blood trailed down his cheek to his chin. His hair was mussed in a way that would have been comical had the circumstances been different. “The rocks was one thing. But it was like he was in my head, too, telling me I should leave.”

  “What was it you said about this?” Harley asked. “Forces at work? That’s what we’ve got here, all right. Thekan included, the murdering bastard.”

  “You noticed his shoes, too,” Mick said.

  “Sure as hell did.”

  Will sat forward. “What about his shoes?”

  Mick’s hands twisted at the wheel. “Kippy Evert’s killer stepped on him like he was some kind of garbage, and left shoe prints in the process. I bet you ten to one the prints will match those outdated shoes of Thekan’s.”

  “Then we’ve got him,” Will said. “If the cops are told about it—”

  “They’ll question him.” Mick made a suggestion at the futility of it with his hand. “And that might be nothing more than a waste of time. You saw what he’s capable of doing to people’s thoughts. More than saw it, you were subjected to it. What’s to say he won’t fill up their heads with a bunch of dismissive reasoning? Put them pretty much in his pocket? It seems he’s already hooked Chastity Mellar Borth by the gills, and who knows how many others in town since he’s been making the rounds like a regular circuit preacher.”

  “Only it’s not the good word he’s spreading around, that’s for damned sure.” Harley touched the bloody knot above his eyebrow and winced. “He’s dangerous. And he’s got us singled out as troublemakers now.”

  Mick parked in front of his house and looked directly at both of them. “Are we up for a car trip? After we let the wives know we haven’t been trucked off in county jail jumpsuits, of course.”

  Will blinked. “I thought we were going to tour the tunnel this afternoon.”

  “Since we’re clearly in Thekan’s crosshairs, I think there’s something else we need to do first,” Mick said.

  Harley was already nodding. “Irma Casper.”

  CHAPTER SIX

  Mick would think later about the phrase best laid plans. But initially, when Judy met them at the Kroener’s door, what registered was the scattered clumps of earth and broken crockery in the front entrance and his wife’s harried expression. “I was just about to call you.”

  A moan from the living room punctuated it.

  Harley, who was just behind Mick, pushed past the both of them and rushed in. “Beth Ann. Oh Christ, not now. Stay still.” Then over his shoulder he said, “Could I get some water and a cold rag?”

  Judy responded and Mick let her go. The air felt heavy and electrified with urgency. The calm sway of the trees outside was like a contrary gesture from another world. He ducked into the living room.

  “Migraine,” Harley said. “One of her bad ones.” He was on his knees next to the couch where his wife was stretched out, pale and panting.

  Judy returned, cloth in hand. “We were talking and she just went down. Like a dead faint. She took a bunch of houseplants down with her.”

  Harley took the cloth and began daubing his wife’s cheeks. “How bad is it, honey pie?”

  Beth Ann’s hair fell across her face in stray tangles. A rim of blood seeped into the outer edge of her left eye. “My miracle,” she said with a cracked type of discovery. Her arms creaked upward to receive him with underwater slowness. “Oh, praises be. Oh, angels.”

  Will stood in the doorway, seeming lost. Mick shrugged. “I never knew she was prone to migraines.”

  “She mentioned it once, but—what happened to you? Your lip is bleeding.” She glanced at Will, noted his injuries and turned back, more wide-eyed.

  “I’ll explain in a minute,” he said. “How is she, Harley? Do you need anything else?”

  “Just to get her up to bed is all,” Harley said and eased Beth Ann to her feet.

  “I’m not seeing so well,” she said, her searching left eye halfway flooded over with crimson. “Oh, Harley, it’s a bad one.” And then to Judy, “I’m sorry to be such a disappointing bother.”

  Judy intervened, slipped an arm around Beth Ann and led her to the hall, speaking in the low confident tones of friendship. She glanced back at Mick before mou
nting the stairs and the meaning in her expression was clear. Go to it, Mister. Whatever it is, just go. Mick’s heart swelled. His brilliant Judy.

  He stepped up to Harley. “You need to stay here. Be with your wife.”

  “I hate like hell to leave you boys.”

  “You’ll hate leaving Beth Ann even more. Don’t sweat it. Will and I can handle this.”

  “Sure.” Will stepped up, his hands working against one another. “We’ve got this nursing home thing.”

  “Bring back something. Anything. Jesus, I hope Irma’s lucid.”

  Mick nodded. “Me, too.”

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  The Drury Meadows Long Term Care Facility used a lot of white in their decorating: receiving desk, walls, side tables, ceilings, and floors. If it was an attempt to project sterility or bright cheer, it failed. The place merely seemed uncertain and blurred as if viewed through a cataract eye. Will fidgeted next to Mick, taking it all in with a sort of controlled alarm as they waited. Finally, he said, “It’s as if everyone here is waiting for something.”

  The profoundness of it left Mick without a reply. It reminded him of Robbie Vaughn’s dark handshake.

  A nurse in powder blue scrubs came up and took them to a day room large enough to hold a dozen people but was, at the moment, empty. They sat in worn and faintly stained armchairs near a bank of windows overlooking a stream lined with old willow trees. The sun threw rectangles of light at their feet.

  The nurse slipped away for only a moment and returned pushing Irma Casper in a wheelchair. Irma was petite, as Mick expected. She wore a flowered blouse a mile too big for her, stretch slacks and slippers patterned after ballet shoes. What he didn’t expect was the conspiratorial expression on her tiny, lined face. It shone beneath her sheaf of thin, white hair and added a brightness to her nearly colorless eyes.

  “Hello, Irma,” he said and got out of his chair to crouch next to her.

  “Hi,” Will added with a wave.

  The nurse seemed satisfied with the exchange and stepped away.

  “Irma, we’re from Knoll,” Mick said. “Do you remember Knoll?”

  There was a slight twitch in her jaw, but there was no change in her expression of unshared secrets.

  Will sat forward and looked directly at her, almost into her. His hand covered one of the thick-veined claws on the wheelchair armrest. “We want to know about the old church. And a man who we think helped shut the place down. A man named Roderick Thekan.”

  Sighing violin music, so low it was nearly nonexistent, was drifting down from an overhead speaker. It cut out. Came back with a crackle. It made Mick think of Harley’s hospital room. Then thin notes of sound escaped Irma Casper’s throat, so light they seemed to sail like dandelion fluff. “Thekan. The judge from Royal Center.”

  “Yes.” Mick leaned closer. “That’s the one.”

  Irma’s voice startled them. “Thekan did more than shut down the church with a casual bang of his gavel. He took the last breath.”

  “His last breath, Irma?” Will added his other hand to his grip on her. “Did he die there?”

  Her brow furrowed as she stared into a well of memories. Outside, the sun slipped behind a cloud. Wind stirred the willows. The music cut out again, and this time it stayed out. “No. He took the breath from the church. Forced all the good air out. Knocked the sanctity right out of the place with one thoughtless decree. All in a day’s work for him. Even though the town needed that little bit of godliness in light of what was coming, as it turned out. Took it and regretted it, I’d say. He died all right, in his Royal Center home, a week after he made his foolish decree, right while other folks started passing away in Mellar’s Knoll.”

  A shiver, part chill and part obsession, fell over Mick. “How did he die, Irma?”

  Her slippered feet began to bounce on the footrests of her chair. “Who knows why men of power make the decisions they do. But they make ’em, just like that.” Her free hand rose into the air, her wizened fingers pinched, and she made a twisting motion. “I believe he was warned not to shut up the church, warned by those who knew better, but he went ahead. And when Knoll folk started dying not two sunrises later, he felt the weight of what he done. Unbearable weight. He locked himself up in his home, agonizing over how to make it right, and realized he couldn’t because the dead were piling up in Mellar’s Knoll like cordwood. Ending it all for himself was his final decision. And that he did. With two nails and a board.”

  Every telephone in Drury Meadows rang in unison, creating a single sustained note. The overhead lights blinked. The air seethed with energy. Mick felt the small hairs on his body bristle. Will looked around, pale but determined. “This is unbelievable.”

  Mick nodded and then, with revelation, he said to Irma, “What do you mean by nails and a board?”

  She raised her gnarled fingers in the air near her eyes in a forked fashion. “Done it himself. Board was laid out on his kitchen table with two big old spikey nails, points up. Slammed his head down, hands behind his back as if he was at some kind of pie eat. Them nails went clear through his peepers and into his brain meat. He should have brought some of the good air back first, if he was so sorry. It coulda been done. Still can be done for all I know, if you got the right fire of devotion in you.”

  The lights went out and the gloom was nearly suffocating. Alarms ramped up from rooms where critical equipment sensed the loss of power. Nurses scattered.

  A voice cracked from the overhead speakers, a yawning and distorted declaration. “Out of Knoll.”

  Toilets flushed in every room. The seething air turned heavy. The halls filled with shouting nurses. “Shit,” Mick said.

  Irma’s eyes fixed on Will, burning with imperative need. Her free hand clamped down on his. “My Orlin wants you to know you need the good air at your backs, boys.”

  “And the tributes.” Will raised his voice, his face twisted with bafflement over the words coming out of his mouth. He jerked like a man being electrocuted. “We sent as many as we could. Sent them while The Crymost began its stirring.” He attempted to free his hands from the grip entwining them, but was unable. With panic, but more control, he said, “Mick, what’s happening to me?”

  “Enough, goddamn it.”

  Mick reached over and pried the old woman’s hands away from Will’s. A heavy blow shook the building. The window behind them cracked in a huge silver X shape. Mick staggered back into one of the armchairs. Residents’ voices rose up from the halls and the nearby rooms in a chorus, some of them sprung from dusty vocal chords unused for months, or years. What they exclaimed was clear for all of its feeble ululations. “Out of Knoll.”

  The character of the air changed with the abruptness of a summer dust devil’s collapse. It took on the stale, vacant attributes one not only accepted in such a place but came to expect. The music and the lights blinked on. Drury Meadows returned to its proper cataract state.

  Will backed away from Irma on unsteady feet. “Wow. My heart’s going ninety miles an hour and my balls feel wrapped up somewhere around my kidneys. Was I really talking about The Crymost just now?”

  “You were. Should you sit down?”

  Will shook his head and set his gaze on Irma. “Is she going to be all right? If she got the same vibes I did, I’m surprised she’s not stroking out right now.”

  Mick crouched next to Irma’s chair once again. “Irma, what is good air? How do we get it? And these tributes that were sent, who has them?”

  Irma slumped, her eyes dull windows, devoid of any brightness or conspiracy. He thought of a vessel with its contents poured out.

  “We’re done,” he said to Will and stood up again. “Goddamn it.”

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  “So, there’s good air, which I kind of understand,” Will said when they were on the road, “and tributes, which are trinkets pushed over here by some kind of creepy intervention but probably look like they’re barfed up by The Crymost. And spooks shouting ‘out of Kno
ll’ at us.”

  Peter Fyvie flickered through Mick’s thoughts. “Ghosts. It’s a simple term, but you can use it.”

  “Great. So we got Boo-Berry and Christmas Yet To Come tossing knickknacks around town. Unbelievable.”

  “You’re not as hard headed as Kippy might have thought. Good for you. And I think our ‘out of Knoll’ crowd is more like Hamlet’s father, laying it on the line for us, planting ideas, using any mouthpiece they can find, hopeful we’ll do something about it.” Mick was starting to relax. They turned onto Highway 130, which meant home was only a half hour away. “Something sure brought the chaos to Drury Meadows back there.”

  Will made a humorless laugh. “Chaos again, you mean. Like at my bar, or what you told me about Harley’s hospital room.”

  “It makes me believe we’re on the right track about certain things.”

  “And certain people. Our friend the Honorable Judge Suicide, to be exact.”

  Mick slowly nodded. His heart was thumping in an agonized way he hadn’t known since he looked into Robbie Vaughn’s coffin and found it empty. “But Thekan is no ghost. Hell, I don’t know exactly what he is. Everything is so balls up. My head is a mess.”

  “You found a dead body today for crying out loud, and then faced off with His-Honor-Dead-Head—we’ve both got the bruises to prove it—and talked with an old lady who was serving as a ham radio for the great beyond with me as the speaker system. I think you put in a full day, my friend.”

  When summarized in such a way, it seemed stymying. His old therapists would have had a field day with it. “But we have so much we need to find out,” he said and scowled into the late afternoon light. “And I feel like we’re running out of time. Don’t you?”