* * *
At the table in the dining room, Melanie hovered over John Simmons and dabbed at the small cut above his eyebrow with an alcohol soaked cotton ball. She figured she knew him well enough by now to rib him a little.
“You really do have a thing about glass don’t you, John,” she teased.
Simmons was already embarrassed enough—doubly so by the fuss Melanie was making over the tiny cut. The jibe made him blush. He said, “You wouldn’t have a rock handy, would you? …something I could crawl under?”
Melanie smiled. That was the second time she’d seen him blush—that boyish look—unpretentious. She wasn’t sure why she found it all that attractive, but she did.
“As long as you stay away from my good china,” she kidded.
She heard Amanda call from the foyer, “Hello, anybody home?”
From the living room, Claudia answered, “In here.”
Melanie dabbed one last time at Simmons’ eyebrow. Still in a ribbing mood, she yelled over her shoulder loud enough for Amanda to hear, “There’s no coffee here if that’s what you’re looking for.”
She heard Amanda say to Claudia, “Is she lying? She’s lying, isn’t she.”
And Claudia’s answer, “Yep, she’s lying.”
Amanda’s voice came through the dining room door, again. “Claudia say’s you’re lying.”
Melanie shouted back, “Claudia’s right, but I’m not making it.”
To Simmons, who was chuckling over their banter, she said, “There now. I’ve nursed you back to health and set straight that pesky neighbor. My work is done. What say we go in the living room and lend a little class to the party?” Simmons stood up. Melanie took his hand and led him into the living room. When they entered the living room, Amanda, spotting the rain-soaked Simmons, smiled and said, “Well, look what the cat dragged in.”
Melanie glanced at Simmons. “Yeah,” she snickered, “John just came through the door, so to speak.”
Claudia frowned. “Oh, come on you two. Leave the poor man alone, for cryin’ out loud.”
Jack Harris spoke up, “John, take my advice; get out of town before these two tear you to shreds. They’ve been terrorizing me since grade school. No mercy…either one of ’em.”
John Simmons was getting that good feeling, again—the openhearted warmth of these people of the valley, and Melanie still holding his hand. He cringed inwardly at the thought of going back to Charleston. “Well, so far, I’m enjoying the attention,” he said.
“Enjoy it while you can,” said Jack. “They’ll probably eat you, later.” That got him a poke in the ribs from Amanda. Louis walked in from the kitchen. The cup in his hand belied Melanie’s no-coffee claim.
“Hi, Louis,” said Jack. He indicated the cup. “Got any more of that in there?”
“Oh, hi Jack,” greeted Louis. “Didn’t know you were here. Uh, sure. There’s a fresh pot in the—”
“I’ll get it,” Amanda interrupted, and started towards the kitchen.
As she passed by Melanie, she whispered a barely audible, “Liar.”
Simmons heard it, and suppressed a laugh. Amanda walked through the dining room into the kitchen. As she reached for the pot on the counter, the basement door flung open and Jilly emerged, panting from her clamor up the basement steps.
“Mrs. Clark,” she cried, breathlessly, “Dread’s run off!”
SEVENTY-ONE
JOE AND WILEY stood on the sidewalk beside the drugstore watching Jack Harris’ cruiser race across the intersection with the emergency lights flashing.
“What the hell’s he up to? Ain’t nobody doing nothin’,” grumbled Joe.
Wiley craned his neck and gestured toward the Meljac house. “Aw, there’s Miz Amanda standin’ over there. He’s just messin’ ’round with her. That ole boy’s been sweet on her ever since I can remember.”
“Miz Amanda, hell,” mocked Joe. “You mean Witch Amanda, don’tcha?’
Wiley squinted up his face, fed up with Joe’s constant griping. “Jesus Christ, Joe—fer cryin’ out loud! You and me both been knowin’ all them girls since kindergarten. You was pullin’ Amanda’s pigtails up at the school when—”
Joe tried to interrupt, but Wiley went on, “No, just hold on a minute ’cause another thing. If I remember correct, and I do, you was a mite sweet on Sarah Crumb all through seventh grade, and her sister, Aubrey, too—’cause you couldn’t tell ’em apart. You remember that, do ya?”
Joe sneered, “Well, they’re all grow’d up now, ain’t they? And you know what happens when that bunch grows up; they turn into witches just like their mommas.”
Wiley squinted his face up again. “Joe, you dumb shit, sometimes you act like some outsider city idiot comin’ ’round here wagglin’ yer finger and going, ‘Ooo, Ooo, look at the witches and stuff.’ Just what do you think would happen if there weren’t no witches in Brandell?”
Joe deflated a little, and mumbled, “I don’t know, but still…”
Actually, Wiley didn’t know, either. It was something no one ever thought about. But at least it shut Joe up.
Wiley put a little conciliatory whine in his voice to smooth things over a bit. “Come on, Joe. Let’s go on out by the bridge and hitch a ride over to Stillman—play some pool or something.”
Joe was still staring back at the Meljac house. Jack Harris and Amanda had gone inside. “Huh uh!” he snapped with finality, his mind made up. “I told ya I was gonna find out what’s going on over there, and that’s just exactly what I’m gonna do right now.” He stepped off the sidewalk and started across Stillman Road towards the back of the Crumb’s house.
Wiley said, “Goddammit, Joe, I ain’t gonna—”
“You comin’ or not?” Joe called over his shoulder.
“Shit!” Wiley mumbled, and followed Joe across the street.
SEVENTY-TWO
THE REFLECTION ON THE LIVING ROOM WALL from the flashing lights of the sheriff’s cruiser caught Aubrey’s eye. She took a last swipe at the top of the piano with the feather duster, then stepped to the bay window and looked out across the Lane just in time to see Amanda Clark wiggle her hips at Jack Harris.
Aubrey Crumb had never wiggled her hips at a man. As a matter of fact, she never even smiled at one—no point in it; they never smiled back. Oh, there’d been some boys in high school, even some dates. But they never turned out very well. So Aubrey Crumb was not a romantic.
Hussy, she thought, watching Amanda saunter up to Harris’ cruiser. Aubrey turned away, sneering, dismissing the scene across the Lane. She stood for a moment, absently swiping the duster at the shade on the floor lamp beside the bay window, then turned back for another look through the glass panes. Jack Harris had gotten out of the cruiser. He and Amanda walked to the front porch of Melanie’s house and stood there for a moment hand-in-hand. Without knocking, Amanda opened the door, and they went inside.
For a moment, as Aubrey’s gaze lingered on the empty porch, an instant nostalgia, maudlin and bitter, whisked through her mind. Front porches with ceiling hung swings were for lovers, right? Not her front porch, of course. No lovers had ever stood hand-in-hand, or sat in the ceiling hung swing there; unless you included that idiot, Joe Paul, back in the seventh grade, hanging around her and Sarah…sniffin’ around both of them ’cause he couldn’t tell them apart. Idiot! How he’d ever managed to snag a nice girl like Emma was beyond Aubrey.
Speaking of idiots—now here was a coincidence. Through the picture window on the far side of the living room she saw idiot Joe and his worthless sidekick, Wiley Curtis, slinking across the street towards her house looking like two ferrets up to no good. Curious, she crossed to the picture window and watched as Joe and Wiley reached the sidewalk. They lingered a moment as if checking to see if anyone was watching, then hurried across the small lawn, disappearing from her view. Apparently, they were headed behind the house. Joe mowed her lawn once a week in the summertime, but it didn’t need mowing now. There was no reason f
or him, or Wiley, to be messing around back there. Still curious, she turned from the picture window and went to the kitchen. As she leaned across the sink to look out the back window, she heard Wiley scream. “Ohhhhhh, shit!”
SEVENTY-THREE
JOE INTENDED FOR THEM to sneak around the far side of the Crumb house, then across the Lane, hopefully unseen. A little more sneaking would get them to the Meljacs’ back patio where they could do some serious snooping.
Passing under Aubrey’s kitchen window and reaching the corner of the house, Joe gave the hesitant Wiley a shove and urged, “Go on!”
Wiley, whispered, “Awright, awright, I’m going.”
Although from different directions, Wiley, the town drunk, and Dread, the Keeper of the Unspeakable Archives, chose the exact same moment to step around the exact same corner. The terrified “Oh, shit” Aubrey had heard through her kitchen window came as Dread grabbed Wiley by the neck and lifted him off the ground—which wasn’t an aggressive move on Dread’s part; just a habit he’d gotten into lately to get a better look at people. Of course, Wiley, dangling from Dread’s grip thrashing and screaming, didn’t see it that way. It damned sure looked aggressive to him.
To Joe’s credit, as much as he wanted to, he didn’t run. Loyalty to his friend—but, mostly way too much of Wiley’s moonshine—filled ole Joe with the courage to rise to the rescue. Without thinking, he grabbed a garden hose conveniently hanging from a rack on the side of the house, ran right up to Dread, shoved the nozzle at the beast’s face, and squeezed the lever. Nothing happened. A little voice in Joe’s head said, …should of turned on the faucet, dumbass.
As Dread’s other hand closed around Joe’s neck, and he felt himself lifted off the ground, an image of last night’s encounter beside the bridge with the same monster flashed through his mind—been there, done that—and he didn’t even bother to scream. He just hung in the air, thrashing his legs and gasping at Wiley.
“Now, (choke)…do you (gurgle)…believe me?”
Dread examined the souls of the two people he held in front of him. One of them he’d seen before, and the other one didn’t look much different. Neither shone. Anyway, the whole shining soul thing was pretty much academic, now. The only way to get souls out of people was to kill them, and Quackrak had warned him about that…some kind of rule against it or something—very disappointing. He’d only picked these two up out of curiosity.
His examination of Joe and Wiley was interrupted by the appearance of another human just off to his side. Aubrey had grabbed the first thing she could find to use as a weapon and had rushed out the back door when she’d seen what was going on. As Dread turned his head to look, he caught a solid thwack in the face by Aubrey’s broom. Surprise, rather than pain, caused him to drop Joe and Wiley, and since Aubrey was winding up for another swing, he jumped back out of the way. Aubrey’s second swipe missed, and her cry of, “Abomination from hell…,” was cut short as she stumbled to recover from the momentum of the missed swing.
Wiley was sprawled on the ground clutching his bruised throat and whimpering. “Oh, Miz Aubrey…Miz Aubrey, thank God you showed up!”
Joe, also sprawling on the ground, wasn’t that concerned. He’d been grabbed, hoisted, examined, and dropped by the monster before. It was getting to be old hat. “Oh, stop yer blubbering,” he snapped at Wiley.
“…from Hell!” finished Aubrey, catching her balance and scrunching her face up in concentration, hoping to drag up some last vestige of her lost powers, at least enough to send the demon beast back to where it came from. The effort proved pointless, so she wound up for another swing with the broom.
Quackrak, having been in pursuit of Dread since the latter bolted from the Meljacs’ basement, arrived at the scene just in time for Aubrey to adjust the trajectory of her broom.
Thwack!
Taking the hit from the broom full in the face, and not having the advantage of Dread’s weight, Quackrak went tumbling.
“Get ’em, Miz Aubrey,” cried Wiley.
Joe’s mouth dropped open, aghast at seeing a new ghoulie. “Christ! Where the hell did that one come from?”
Dread stood back and watched as Quackrak took the broom in the face, tumbling head over heels and landing in a heap. He looked down at the two humans cringing on the ground, and at the one with the broom reeling off balance trying to recover from her overzealous swing. As he took it all in, Dread did something he’d never done in his entire existence.
He laughed.
SEVENTY-FOUR
MYRA’S BONY OLD RUMP WAS SORE from sitting on a stair step and raising herself up to the next one, one at a time all the way up the basement stairs. Thirty creaky old steps—she’d counted them. Now, if she could just remember why she’d gone to all the trouble to start with. It had something to do with Lucifer being out of Hell and wandering around. She couldn’t remember exactly what. But the spell had worked, and that’s all that mattered to Myra. It had been a very long time since she had done anything powerful, and even though it had only been a silly witch spell, not real sorcery, it still felt good.
Myra sat on the top step, exhausted, waiting for enough strength to return to her tortured old joints so she could stand up and make her way back to the front porch. Lord knows how many damn tourists were lurking around out there. Somebody had to keep an eye on them. Maybe, with a little luck the storm had blown them all away. Blown away…the smell…that was it! Now she remembered. She’d gone down to the basement looking for the book and hoping to conjure up a wind to blow away that horrible odor. Must have worked. She didn’t smell it now.
Enough lollygagging. Myra braced her hands against the door jam and managed to haul herself painfully to her feet. She stood a moment, waiting for the dizziness of old age to subside, then turned and shuffled her way through the house and out to the front porch. Her cane was propped against the wall by the front door, and since she was still a little wobbly from her ordeal, she snatched it up on the way by just in case.
The wind and rain had stopped. Only a slight breeze stirred the new spring weeds growing in Myra’s front yard. Gotta get that lazy Joe Paul up here to mow them damn weeds. She sniffed at the air. Yep, clean and clear. No more smell. Her thin lips curled into a toothless, but satisfied, smile. “Ole Myra’s not too old to save the day,” she murmured with a chuckle.
Unfortunately, more than the smell had blown away. Her geranium plant was gone, pot and all, along with the rusty little aluminum table it had set on. The plant hadn’t flowered yet—actually, it had looked kinda dead, but she had tended it all spring and had high hopes for it. Half of someone’s TV antenna lay crumpled out near the road. But more importantly, the spot near the end of the porch where her wheelchair had been was empty.
The beginnings of panic turned to relief as she caught sight of one of the chair’s wheels just visible over the edge of the porch where the wind had blown it off onto the ground and tipped it upside down. Good solid old chair. She sighed with confidence. Probably no damage done.
Myra hobbled across the porch, and with the help of her cane, sidled down the three steps to the weed covered ground. Good solid old cane don’t hurt none, either—although, once on the ground, the cane, with its tendency to sink into the wet earth proved more of a hindrance than a help. By the time she made it around to the side of the porch her slippers were soaking wet. No matter. They would dry out, eventually.
The wheelchair looked fine, just upside down was all. Getting it right side up was awkward; she almost fell over it several times in the process. An image came to her mind of her father standing over her when, as a little girl, she had tripped over a wheelbarrow. He had said, laughing at his own joke, “Seems like one never quite finishes falling over a wheelbarrow, do they, girl.” She hadn’t caught the humor in it till now.
Panting, exhausted from her efforts, Myra lowered her aching backside into the seat of the chair. She sat for a moment catching her breath, then grasped the rollers to wheel herself ar
ound the side of the porch to the front steps. No good. With her weight, the wheels had sunk almost an inch into the wet ground, and the strength in her frail arms wasn’t enough to budge the thing. She would have to get up and push it. Ain’t that just grand. She grimaced at the added hassle. It had yet to occur to her that without her powers, as limited as they had been, it would be next to impossible for her to get the chair up the steps onto the porch. After several minutes of pushing, grunting and stumbling, she stood in front of the steps, facing that fact.
For the first time since her powers had disappeared, Myra suddenly realized how much she depended on them—not for anything earthshaking, just a little extra boost for emergencies—like now, for instance.
Unacceptable. That’s what it was. Just plain unacceptable. Myra shook her head in disgust. Damn it, Claudia, what in the world was in your head; lettin’ them girls screw up everything like this—lettin’ the devil out, an all.
She pulled the wheelchair away from the steps, struggling to get it turned around so she could push it out to the street. Time to go down there and have a talk with Claudia and them girls—see what the hell was goin’ on. If they couldn’t figure out how to set things straight, then by God she would. A few more minutes of grunting and groaning and Myra managed to wrestle the chair over the wet ground and out to the pavement—and that was it. She collapsed into the seat, the last of her strength drained.
Myra settled back, relaxed for minute, and braced herself for the coast down Stillman Road to Claudia’s place—downhill all the way or she wouldn’t have even attempted it. She’d have to find that lazy Joe Paul and his crappy old pickup truck to get her and her wheelchair back home.
All settled in, she gave the rollers a little push, and the chair began its leisurely coast towards town. Myra’s wheelchair was a good one, and only the slightest touch of her fingertips on one or the other of the rollers kept its course straight and true as it coasted along. A gentle pressure on the brake lever would keep its speed in check on the downhill grade—or would have had not the fall over the edge of the porch bent the pads away from the rim of the wheel.
As the chair jigged a little to the right, Myra tapped the left roller and it straightened out, nicely. As it started picking up a bit too much speed, she gave a little tug on the brake lever and…nothing happened. She tried again. Nothing. The chair was beginning to roll too fast for comfort. Myra gave the lever a hard tug. Still nothing, and the speed was increasing. Myra tugged frantically at the brake lever, starting to panic as the chair continued to roll frighteningly fast down Stillman Road towards the intersection and the bridge…and the river.
One last fruitless tug of the lever and Myra gave up. She grasped both armrests and hung on for dear life. It was going to be a hell of a ride.
SEVENTY-FIVE
DAVID WAS PRETTY SURE somebody would figure out a way to blame him for Dread running off. He had never heard the expression “crap rolls downhill,” but being the youngest person in the family he’d had ample experience with the concept.
“Wasn’t my fault,” he said to the little demon sitting on the floor in front of him drooling red crayon.
“Quack,” agreed the demon.
When Dread had made his getaway, with Quackrak in hot pursuit, Jilly had bolted up the stairs to tell the grownups. David figured she was probably up there right now blaming it on him. He got up, went to the door and peeked outside to see if Dread and Quackrak were on the patio. Not seeing them, he went out for a better look. They were nowhere in sight. As he turned to go back inside, Jilly appeared at the door, frantic.
She cried out, “David, catch him!”
“Wha…?”
The little red-crayon drooling demon streaked by David, ran across the patio, and disappeared around the corner of the house.
“You little creep,” yelled Jilly. “Why’d you let him out?”
Yep, there was the blame, awright. David yelled back, protesting, “I didn’t…s’not my fault.”
Jilly rushed out, grabbed David by the arm, dragging him across the patio. “Come on. We’d better catch him before mom finds out, or you’re dead.”
“I’m not gonna be dead. I didn’t do nothin’,” David complained, but yielded to Jilly’s tugs. He followed her at a stumbling run around the house, and out into the Lane—too late. The demon was nowhere to be seen.
SEVENTY-SIX
“FRAZZLED!” Myra Hinkle shouted to the trees. “Frazzled all to hell and back. That’s what I am.” Myra liked the sound of that description.
“Nerves just frazzled all to hell,” she said it aloud again, satisfied that it fit the situation perfectly.
Flying down Stillman Road, whizzing through the intersection, her momentum finally giving out as she coasted across the bridge; the wheelchair had come to a stop just as the road began to curve up the slope of the mountain on the other side of the river. The ride had been harrowing, but without mishap, and if Myra hadn’t already settled on “frazzled,” she probably would have chosen “exhilarated” instead.
Kinda overshot it a little there, didn’t ya, old girl, thought Myra as she reached down to the chrome rollers to turn herself around for the trip back across the bridge.
Her fingers and palms were sore—friction burns from touching the rollers as she’d fought to keep the chair on a true course as it had sped down Stillman Road. “Had worse,” she muttered, absently.
Myra grasped the rollers, whispered an “ouch” or two, and with some pulling and tugging managed to get turned around and pointed back towards the bridge—and at whatever the hell that was that had appeared out of nowhere in the road behind her; although Myra knew very well what it was.
“Quack,” it said.
Gawking, Myra exclaimed in surprise, “Now, there’s something ya don’t see every day!”
Goodbye Lucifer Page 35