Black Valley

by Jim Brown

  Dean cackled with delight.

  The truck pulled up to Dean’s house and glided to a halt like a lapping wave.

  “Home, Doc. So, going to invite me in for a nightcap?” The glow of the dash lights brushed the left side of her face, highlighting her apple-round checks and pert nose.

  Dean wanted to kiss her. It was an urge so potent and overwhelming, it squelched his concern over their age difference and his usual guilt at the thought of wanting anyone other than Judy. A simple gesture would somehow convey all his thoughts and hopes, his needs, and fears.

  The world waited.

  “Doc?” She cocked her head, favoring him with her right eye, the dash lights now sketching a soft emerald line across her jaw.

  “Hello, Doc? Anybody home?”

  Invite her in? He never invited anyone in.

  He looked at the simple clapboard house.

  A dagger of fear stabbed his heart.

  “Doc?”

  “A light’s on.” His voice dropped to a whisper, his words as cold, as vicious, as the north wind. “Someone’s in the house.”

  21

  Snow mantled the steps, creating an ivory altar leading to a long, dark porch. A fringe of icicles hung from the roof like a row of vulgar, jagged teeth. The house waited, dark, cold, empty, save for a small, flickering light from the upstairs window.

  “Could you have left it on?” Piper whispered.

  Dean shook his head. The corners of his mouth pulled down in distress. “It’s not a lamp. It’s a candle. And I’m sure I didn’t light a candle.”

  “Maybe we should call the sheriff?”

  “No time. It could be a fire. Wait here.” Dean opened the truck door. The cold snapped at his cheeks.

  “I’m coming with you.”

  “No, you’re not. You’re staying here.” He stepped into the storm.

  The coarse breeze scrubbed his cheeks. The snow was four inches deep. He sank to his ankles, each step crunching, the sound of breaking bones – tiny, fragile baby bones.

  He mounted the steps carefully, slowly pulling his keys from his coat pocket. His hands were shaking; he looked at them as if they belonged to someone else, and touched the key to the lock. The door swung open.

  Unlocked?

  Muscles tensed in the back of his neck. His hand went to the light switch. Nothing happened. He tried again and again, as if repetition alone would cause the lights to flame.

  Dark.

  The acidic taste of bile rose in the back of his throat. No electricity. His breath was ragged, alarmingly irregular. He sucked cold air between his teeth and tried not to pant. Two steps in. The dark seemed to swallow him. He could barely make out shapes, guided more by memory than the feeble light leaking from a streetlamp. The house, the place that had been his home for more than twenty years, suddenly felt sinister.

  A palpable sense of dread settled over him.

  “Dean.”

  He jumped and turned, blood rushing to his temples. Piper stood behind him. “Jesus, you scared the hell out of me. I told you to stay in the car.”

  “I thought you might need this.” She held up a gun. “I keep it in the dash.”

  “I don’t know how to use a gun,” he whispered.

  “I do.” She was looking around him, peering into the unnaturally oily blackness. “No lights.”

  “Not down here.”

  They had left the door open. Ice crystals skiffed in on puffs of frigid air. The door moved. Hinges moaned. Dean inched forward, Piper at his back.

  Somewhere in the sturdy darkness a radio exploded to life.

  They jerked to a stop.

  “What the hell is that?” Dean asked.

  Piper cocked her head. “The radio? I know that song. It’s ‘Rock On’ by David Essex, only . . .different somehow. A remix? It’s coming from upstairs.”

  “There is no radio upstairs,” Dean muttered. “Not even an mp3 player.”

  “There is now. Either that or David Essex just broke into your house and launched into an impromptu concert. Where are the stairs?”

  Dean moved forward. The music continued, loud and distant, at the same time – the notes echoing as if played in a house ten times as large. He and Piper mounted the stairs slowly.

  “Maybe I should lead?” Piper suggested. “I’m the one with the gun.”

  “No.” His hands trembled, the start of a mutiny by his body. But the music held him.

  Something about the music?

  “You’re right. It’s the same, only it’s not.”

  He continued up the stairs, the music growing louder with each step, becoming a physical presence in the dense darkness.

  He gasped, his body betraying what the mind wanted to hide. His heart beat so hard, he feared his chest would explode. His memory reached the chorus a nanosecond before the song.

  He reached the top of the stairs as the song reached the dreadful phrase.

  “ . . . Jimmy Dean . . . thump, thump, thump . . . Jimmy Dean . . . thump, thump, thump . . .”

  He froze. Piper collided into his back. The chorus continued. “ Jimmy Dean . . . thump, thump, thump . . . Jimmy Dean . . . thump, thump, thump . . .”

  “The song’s been edited. It’s repeating the same line,” she said. “Someone inserted the sound of a heartbeat.”

  Currents of fear sparked and sizzled in the deep chambers of his heart. His forehead was bathed in a clammy vapor.

  “Dean?” Piper asked, her voice coming from somewhere far away and possibly underwater.

  “Jimmy Dean . . . thump, thump, thump . . . Jimmy Dean . . . thump, thump, thump . . .”

  Dean tried to swallow. His throat was as dry as a desert bed.

  “Why would someone edit the song?”

  “Why?”

  Why? Because only one person ever called him that. Because that person disappeared twenty-two years ago. Because someone was pushing Dean toward insanity, to a mental breech beyond which all reason was lost and thoughts were doomed to plunge down, forever dropping in a bottomless cavern of despair.

  “ Jimmy Dean . . . thump, thump, thump . . . Jimmy Dean . . . thump, thump, thump . . .”

  The music had risen in volume. The heartbeats throbbed in his head, shaking his very body, his mind, his soul.

  There was a quarter-inch gap between the closed door and the carpet. The gap was illuminated by a thin pulsing band of light. The bedroom. It was coming from the bedroom.

  Piper moved around him and headed for the door.

  “Don’t,” he called after her. She wasn’t stopping. Her body became a shadow, dark on dark. Dean had the irrational feeling that a stiff breeze would whisk her away.

  “ Jimmy Dean . . . thump, thump, thump . . . Jimmy Dean . . . thump, thump, thump . . .”

  He rushed after her. She reached the door. Gun in her right hand, she turned the knob with her left. Slowly, slowly. The door moved in silence or was perhaps overwhelmed by the thriving beat of the song.

  She entered the room,

  The candle sat on a table near the window. A small, thumb-size flame, flickering yellow and orange, fluttering in an imperceptible draft, casting a feeble cone of light. Piper started toward it. Dean stopped her, pulled her back, and took the lead. Fire shadows flashed like black lighting. The room seemed alive, writhing with the flame. Dean saw strobing snapshots of the bed, the end table, a desk.

  The air seemed even colder here. If he could see, Dean was sure he would witness his breath crystallizing before him. The music was louder as well. But the flame offered too little light for the source to be found. A sustained shudder ran through his body.

  Tentatively he stepped into the flickering tableau. Something touched his face . . . something cold and malleable.

  Fear hit him with a lumberjack’s fist. He re
eled back, brushing against Piper. They both collided into the wall.

  “Jimmy Dean . . . thump, thump, thump . . . Jimmy Dean . . . thump, thump, thump . . .”

  His hands found the dresser. The dresser. There was a flashlight in the top right drawer. His throat was tight and tasted of acid. Fatigue was gone, shrugged off and replaced by dread.

  “Jesus, what was that?” Piper asked.

  His fingers found the knob and pulled it open. The drawer squeaked. He found the light and thumbed the switch.

  Flick.

  A fan of harsh white spilled into the bedroom. Momentarily blinded, he nonetheless caught the glimpse of an image.

  Something . . . dangling . . .

  He blinked for vision.

  . . . dangling . . . turning . . .

  His eyes cleared.

  Piper screamed. Dean tried to scream, but his throat was sealed by disbelief.

  The body hung from the ceiling beam, a short, tight noose around the victim’s neck. The rope was obscured by the awkward fall of her head – hanging unnaturally to the side, an impossible position – unless the neck was broken.

  When he had touched her, it had set the body swinging, twisting slowly at the end of the rope. It moved in and out of the flashlight’s beam. Dean knew the face even before it turned into view. Still, he watched as the back of her head gave way to a profile, then her cheek, her eyes . . .

  Mavis Connetti hung from the rafters – neck broken. On her face was an unforgettable look of pure, unfiltered horror.

  “ Jimmy Dean . . . thump, thump, thump . . . Jimmy Dean . . . thump, thump, thump . . .”

  Pinned to her breast was a large, awkward cardboard sign. Dean read the message before he could stop himself.

  The note said:

  “Jimmy Dean . . . thump, thump, thump . . . Jimmy Dean . . . thump, thump, thump . . .”

  22

  Dub Pelts knew chickens. He knew them like other men knew their hunting rifle, fishing pole, or car engine. He knew their likes, dislikes, attitudes, and even knew their moods. Most people didn’t even know chickens had moods, but Dub did. He knew how to look for the tiny but significant signs. Too much running and too little pecking meant something was afoot – unseen eyes of a predator were watching. Too much time at the water bucket could be the first hint of sickness.

  Dub raised chickens because he had nothing better to do. He had retired four years earlier when the sawmill shut down. His wife was dead, his children grown and busy making messes of their own lives.

  He raised the chickens as a hobby. Truth was, the girls, as he called them, were his only form of entertainment. It was like his own personal soap opera, except it was live and enclosed in chicken wire.

  All that watching and all that studying was how he had come to know the chickens and their moods so well. “You watch, and if you have half a brain, you learn,” he often said. No one heard but the chickens, and indications were they didn’t listen.

  But he always did, and this morning something was happening.

  The mood in the coop was different – erratic. The snow had forced the birds inside. That, in itself, was enough to make them jittery, but there was something else. He could tell. There was something else entirely. Maybe a possum, a raccoon, or even a bobcat watching from the woods. Something was bothering the girls.

  Most folks thought of chickens as dumb. And maybe they were, but they were smart, too, at least in an instinctual way. They could sense things other creatures couldn’t. Maybe it was the good Lord’s way of compensating them for a lack of brain power. Whatever the case, Dub knew enough to take the shift in mood seriously.

  Putting on his winter gear – a dark green, hooded poncho and calf-high rubber boots – he started out the back door toward the chicken coop, thought a second, then went back inside and returned with his double-barreled shotgun.

  Chickens knew stuff.

  There were bears in this part of the county. You didn’t see them often, but you did see them. He loaded shells into both barrels, snapped the barrels back in place, then stepped out into the yard.

  His boots sank in the deep snow as he plodded toward the coop.

  He rubbed his thumb against the cold metal side of the shotgun. He heard something – a whistling, shooshing sound – and looked up. Snow found its way into his poncho. Cold beads melted, pooling in the nape of his neck. Others crawled beneath his flannel shirt, leaving a frigid trail in their wake. But Dub Pelts couldn’t feel the cold. His eyes were held by the object in the sky, an object growing bigger and bigger and bigger.

  He brought the double-barrel up without thinking, moving out of fear for himself and his girls. He fired until the gun dry-clicked. He didn’t drop it. He couldn’t move.

  Ice on ice.

  His heart froze in his chest. His breath ceased to move.

  He was immobilized, stunned as he watched the flaming object score the sky.

  The Sheriff’s Department had had its share of prisoners. Mostly just the drunk and disorderly, mostly overnight, and a few vagrants. And once, the Bendez brothers, who had gone on some cattle-shooting jag that ended when they turned on each other. It wasn’t often, but it was enough for there to be a routine, a ritual.

  Each morning Coye Cheevers would go across the street to the IHOP and get a breakfast for their visitor. He preferred the term visitor to inmate. Visitors weren’t as scary. The breakfast was always the same: buttermilk pancakes, scrambled eggs, hash browns, and orange juice. But this morning was different. This morning the visitor was a killer, a real cut-’em-to-pieces, honest-to-goodness serial killer, just like in the movies. Just like Sir Anthony Hopkins in The Silence of the Lambs.” Just like that.

  What does a man who slices people to pieces eat for breakfast? Fava beans?

  This quandary consumed several minutes. Finally, he decided on sausage links and eggs, poached not scrambled. Blueberry pancakes – no reason, it just felt right – and both milk and orange juice. Better to be safe than sorry.

  Coye was feeling pretty good about his selection when he returned to the station and bounded down the stairs leading to the holding area. But doubt was never far away. What if the visitor didn’t like eggs? What if he didn’t like pancakes? He could be allergic to blueberries. He hadn’t thought of that. And the sausage links? What if he took it the wrong way? Coye’s mouth was dry, his steps slowed by the morass of indecision. What if . . .?

  “No, don’t matter,” he said aloud, to make it so. “Don’t matter at all. This is what I got him and this is what he can eat, like it or not. He’s the prisoner and I’m the police. Simple as that.”

  He reached out and touched the metal doorknob. Skknapp – a thin, jagged spark of blue electricity flared from the knob to his finger. He jerked his hand away, almost dropping the tray. “Lord God!” Static electricity. He must have been dragging his feet on the thick, new carpet the sheriff had put in last summer. He tried the knob again, slower this time. It didn’t bite. He sighed with relief, opened the door, and went inside.

  “Breakfast time. Now look, I got you sausage links, poached eggs, blueberry pancakes, and . . . ”

  Coye dropped the tray. His knees wobbled.

  Holding cell number two was empty.

  “Lord God.”

  “Two babbling madmen in two days,” Jerry mumbled to himself. “Got to be a record.” He pulled the squad car into a vacant spot outside of Macky’s Bar. A brisk wind skimmed crystals of snow off the ground. Jerry hugged himself and shivered as he hurried into the bar.

  He was standing in the foyer, stomping snow off his boots, when something caught his attention. A shadow. A vague impression of white hair. Someone outside. Standing. Just standing. On the other side of the street watching the bar. On a day like this? Jerry pressed his face against the cold, ice-encrusted window. His breath immediately fogged the glass. H
e used the sleeve of his coat to wipe it clean.

  The man, the shadow, was gone. If he had ever been there. Was insanity contagious?

  Jerry chortled to himself. “Getting jumpy, Deputy.”

  There were only two people in the bar: Leonard, the bartender who lived in the back, and Dub Pelts. The latter sat at the end of the bar, sucking on the long neck of a bottle of Heineken. Based on his posture, it wasn’t his first.

  It was Leonard who had called Jerry. The bartender met him as he walked in. “Been like that for the past half hour. Took me twenty minutes and almost as many drinks to get him to calm down.”

  Jerry pushed his hat back with his thumb. “Give it to me again. What did he say happened?”

  Leonard wiped his hands on the ever-present apron. His voice was crusty, with a low, husky, mucus rattle, the consequence of spending too much time in smoke-thick rooms. “He was waiting outside when I got up, begging to come in. Eyes as wide as hubcaps. Started babbling, I mean crazy talk. Says his chicken coop was destroyed.”

  “His chicken coop?”

  Leonard checked the old man at the end of the bar. “Yeah, completely destroyed.”

  “By what?”

  “Fire.”

  Jerry sighed, a little relieved. That wasn’t so bad.

  Leonard squelched the relief. “Wait till you hear what started the fire.”

  “Fire?” At the end of the bar Dub Pelts raised his head. It wobbled like a buoy on a choppy sea. “Fire. Gone. Completely gone.”

  He squinted as if attempting to hold his eyes steady. He found Jerry. “That you, Sheriff?”

  “No, Dub. It’s Niles, Deputy Jerry Niles.” He headed toward the end of the bar before the old man could get up and attempt some perilous feat such as walking. “Sorry to hear about your chickens.”

  The wizened head nodded. His eyes closed, first the right one, then the left. For a second Jerry thought he had nodded off. Then his right eye opened again, the left following suit, but slowly, like a man swimming in mud.