* * *
Out on West Stillman Road, old Mrs. Hinkle sat in her wheelchair on her front porch muttering, “Damn tourist,” with each car that passed. Young Teddy Kroger, on his way home from school waved and smiled at her as he rode by on his bicycle. She raised her bone thin arm as if to wave back, but instead shook her fist at him and yelled, “Damn tourist,” but he had already disappeared down the road.
She sat there grumbling for a moment then, groaning with the effort, lifted her old body, unsteadily, from the chair and hobbled across the porch. She opened the screen door and went inside. A few minutes later she reappeared carrying a carton of raw eggs. Making her way back to the wheelchair, old Mrs. Hinkle sat down and waited.
The UPS driver took a right off Brandell Boulevard onto Stillman Road heading west. Over the engine noise of the big brown van he didn’t hear the egg splatter against its side, or old Mrs. Hinkle yell, “Damn tourist!”
Emma Paul drove all the way to the hardware store in Stillman Township trying to find shotgun shells. They didn’t have any.
She muttered, “Shit, shit, shit,” all the way back.
It was going to be a strange day in Brandell Valley.
EIGHT
BREAKFAST OVER, kids packed off to school, Melanie and Claudia walked over to the drug store for their usual morning coffee with Louis. As they reached the entrance, the heavy glass door flung open, causing them to jump back to avoid being hit by it. A tall middle-aged man, obviously angry, stormed out mumbling something that sounded like, “Asshole.” Ignoring Melanie and Claudia, he stomped away down the sidewalk.
“What was that all about?” Melanie asked Louis once they were inside. “Who was that, Dad?”
“Got me,” answered Louis, sounding a bit shook up. “Never saw him before. He just came in here wanting a prescription filled that was out of date. When I wouldn’t fill it he started yelling and cussing, threatening me. Pissed me off—all that yelling. I told him if he didn’t get out of my store I’d help him out.”
“Jeez, Dad, gettin’ cocky in your old age, aren’t you? Seriously, he looked kinda rough.”
Louis shrugged. “Well, what could I do? I can’t have customers coming in to a scene like that.”
The screech of tires on pavement came from out front.
Louis said, “What the hell?” and went to the window to look outside. Amanda Clark stood at the curb with an astonished look on her face. Joe Paul’s old pickup truck was stopped in the middle of the street, Joe’s head sticking out the window. He was yelling something Louis couldn’t make out through the store’s window glass. A second later Joe sped off, tires spinning.
Amanda stood there in a daze for a moment watching the old pickup speed away, then she turned and walked in the drug store.
“What in the world is with Joe Paul, today?” she exclaimed. “He comes roaring down the road like a bat out of hell in that old piece-of-crap truck of his and almost runs me down. Then he has the nerve to stop and cuss at me for being in his way.”
Amanda took a deep breath. “Oh, hey! I got another one for you. Get this; Reverend Morgan was over this morning acting all freaky and—”
The little bells over the door jingled, and Emma Paul peeked in, timidly. “Mr. Walker, do you by any chance sell shotgun shells?” she asked through the half-opened door.
“No, Emma. Sorry,” answered Louis.
Amanda almost shouted, “Emma, what’s wrong with your husband? He almost ran me down a minute ago.”
Emma, retreating back out the door, said with a smile, “Oh, don’t worry. That won’t be happening again.” The door closed and she was gone.
Melanie, Claudia, Amanda and Louis looked at each other, wondering the same thing.
“Shotgun shells?” Louis voiced the thought with a puzzled expression. “What would mousy little Emma want with shotgun shells?”
“Amanda,” said Claudia. She paused for a moment, then in a suspicious tone, “Uh, what were you saying about Albert Morgan?”
“Oh, yeah. He came by this morning—you know, just out visiting. I made coffee and sat down beside him, and suddenly he got… I don’t know…just weird. He couldn’t wait to get out of there; looked like the devil was after him, or something. Oh, speaking of the devil, I wonder how Harry is doing out in the real world.”
“Hmmm. Harry, indeed,” ventured Claudia, still looking thoughtful, and still using the same suspicious tone.
Louis hadn’t lost his puzzled look. “Harry who?” He glanced at each of the women. “What’d I miss here?”
Melanie, catching Claudia’s drift, said, “Whoa there, Claudia. Come on, it’s a little early to be jumping to conclusions, isn’t it? I mean, a few people seem to be goofed out this morning, but surely you don’t think Harry is—I don’t know—doing something?
Claudia’s gaze seemed focused somewhere in the distance. She spoke thoughtfully, speculating. “No, probably not, but it does make you think, doesn’t it? All that stuff with Harry; now all this. No, I don’t really think he’s doing anything, but it’s funny though, right? There still could be a link of some kind. Maybe—maybe he’s not doing something—something he’s supposed to do.”
Louis looked exasperated. “Is somebody gonna fill me in on this?”
Amanda said, “You know, she’s right, Melanie. You gotta admit, people are acting mighty peculiar, and the only difference between today, and any other day, is yesterday Harry—today, no Harry. A little far fetched but still—”
Claudia sat up straight and said decisively, “I’m thinking at least it might be a good idea to run it by Aubrey and Sarah; see what they think. Maybe the five of us do a little brainstorming before—well, just for the heck of it.”
Louis threw his hands in the air. “Never mind. I give up. Bunch of crazy women!”
Claudia laughed, “I’m sorry, Louis; it’s complicated. We’re gonna have to skip coffee, but I promise I’ll drop by later and explain what’s going on, if anything. That is, if we can figure it out ourselves.”
Louis groaned. “This is one of those weird-valley-wizard-women things, isn’t it?”
The women were already leaving. Louis yelled after them, “I should have had a son!”
Melanie hollered back over her shoulder, “Careful there, Dad; just remember who’s gonna be taking care of you when you’re old and feeble.”
Aubrey Crumb was a powerful “weird-valley-wizard-woman,” as Louis would have put it. So was Sarah Crumb. Neither was any more or less powerful than Melanie, Claudia or Amanda, but being twins, a special bond existed between them that greatly enhanced their combined abilities when they got worked up, which however rarely happened. Short, rather plain and a little on the dumpy side, their unimpressive appearance suggested that neither were much to be reckoned with, which was far from true.
“The Reverend knows!” declared Sarah, wringing her hands, nervously. “He senses that evil is loose in the world. Why else would he visit Amanda on this very morning?”
“To accuse her of heresy!” lamented Aubrey, visibly distressed, “and bring damnation down upon her. He’ll surely be here next. We’ll tell him we were against it—that we were outvoted.”
Aubrey folded her arms in front of her, frowning, then shrugged. “Oh, posh. We’re already damned; why bother.”
There was a knock at the front door. Sarah jumped, “It’s him! It’s Reverend Morgan.”
Aubrey stood up from the sofa. “Calm down, Sarah. Let me see who it is before we start worrying about getting more damned.”
Aubrey went to the front door. As she opened it, Claudia walked in without invitation. Melanie and Amanda followed.
“We need to talk, ladies,” announced Claudia. “At least, we think we do.”
Sarah stood abruptly. She cried, “He came to you all, didn’t he? He damned you all, and he’ll be coming here next, won’t he!”
“Huh?” from Claudia.
Aubrey said, “We saw Rev
erend Morgan going into Amanda’s earlier. He knows about Harry, right?”
“Yeah,” said Amanda. “I mean, no… I mean, yes, he came to visit, but I don’t know if he knows about Harry, or not. Why?”
Sarah looked relieved. “He didn’t damn you?”
Melanie piped up, “All right, guys. You’ve got my head spinning. Let’s just sit down quietly and start all over again, okay?”
NINE
QUACKRAK WAS A DEMON, which was no big deal. He had no extraordinary powers, and didn’t consider himself particularly evil—at least no more evil than anyone else. The only demonic thing about him was his appearance. He wasn’t very pretty. Of course, not being pretty doesn’t necessarily make one demonic, but one look at Quackrak and you’d have to say, “Yep, that’s a demon; no doubt about it.” Then again, it wouldn’t be fair to single out Quackrak as far as looks go. Basically, he was a pretty decent fellow.
Quackrak lived in Hell, naturally, and had only one purpose—which he liked to call his profession—and that was to monitor the machine that kept track of incoming souls. Every few seconds, a slimy, foul smelling soul would slide down a chute and plop into a sorter to be automatically logged in and filed away where it would be forgotten for eternity: no fire, no brimstone, just filed and forgotten. He sometimes wondered what happened to souls that weren’t slimy or foul smelling. From the little he knew about mankind, he suspected there weren’t any. Luckily, he was wrong, but not too wrong.
Of course, Quackrak wasn’t the only demon in Hell. There were others: like for sweeping the floors, cleaning, cooking, and running errands and stuff like that, and to Quackrak’s credit, they weren’t very pretty either.
For the last twelve hours, Quackrak had sat at his desk twiddling his thumbs and humming to himself, watching slimy souls slide down the chute into the sorter. There seemed to be a few more of them than usual, and the machine was having a little trouble keeping up. He wondered if there was something he should do about it, but he couldn’t think of anything so he just sat there twiddling and humming.
Finally overtaken by boredom, he decided to take a break. He gave a quick check to make sure everything was working okay, then stood up and walked out of his cubicle. Out in the hall, several demons sat on the floor doing nothing constructive and looking bored.
Slackers, thought Quackrak.
He wandered down the hall looking for something to do—anything to relieve the boredom. As he passed Lucifer’s office, he stopped and peeked in the open door. The office lights were off, the room lit only by the glow from the brightly lit hall. Quackrak stepped inside and flipped the light switch by the door. The room flooded with harsh light from the overhead fluorescents, exposing the sterile neatness that places have when someone has moved out, never expecting to return.
The empty office echoed Lucifer’s parting words.
“I’m leaving,” Lucy had said. “I’ve had it. I’m outta here. You’re in charge now.” And that had been that! Quackrak stood in the deserted office feeling, suddenly, very alone and a little scared. Lucifer gone: demons slacking off—
“Everything is going to Hell,” Quackrak said out loud, chuckling uneasily at the pun despite his anxiety.
With a last glance around the room, he turned to leave, then stopped and looked back. A door on the other side of the room was slightly ajar. Probably a closet, he thought.
Curious, he crossed the room and pulled open the door. There seemed to be nothing there—no closet, not another room, just nothing. He wondered what would happen if he stepped through the door.
Goodbye Lucifer Page 12