“Hot damn,” said Ernie. He swung his bat and smashed the right headlight. This made a louder noise, almost a clang. The rim of the headlight sprang off and rolled across the grass like a small silver hoop.
Hark swung the bat at the rear window. The window starred and Hark hit it again, knocking the glass inward, then poking at the remnants with the head of the bat. There were books on the rear shelf and they were sprinkled with beads of glass. Ernie smashed the other headlight. Hark began smashing at the side windows. He would crouch down in a hitter’s stance, then swing violently. He hit the side mirror, knocking it off so that it skittered along the driveway toward the street. Ernie knocked off the mirror on the passenger’s side.
In the next few minutes the two men became completely caught up in the destruction, so when Chihani appeared neither Hark nor Ernie knew if he had come out the front door or had run around from behind the house. Even with his limp he moved quickly, swinging out the leg with the oversized shoe and pushing himself forward on his cane. He wore his beret and a dark sport coat. As he approached the two men, he raised his cane.
“Stop that!” he shouted.
Hark and Ernie were sufficiently startled that they stopped and turned toward Chihani. Both swayed a little.
“This is entirely unacceptable!” shouted Chihani. His voice was high and his accent seemed thicker. He was taller than either Hark or Ernie, as well as thinner. He was also sober.
Hark began to say something rude and dismissive, but as he turned, Chihani swung his cane, striking Hark across the face.
“Yeow!” said Hark, stumbling back and holding his cheek.
Ernie smashed his bat down on the hood of the car, which made a hollow clanging noise.
“You are no better than thugs!” shouted Chihani. He swung his cane at Ernie, striking him across the back. Ernie staggered forward. Chihani struck him across his plastic Mickey Mouse mask, cracking it in half. The rain and wet leaves made the driveway slippery. Ernie lost his balance, slipped, and fell backward. His mask slid down around his neck. He sat on the wet driveway holding his shoulder. Chihani hit him again on the head and Ernie yelped.
From the Blazer, Jimmy Feldman and Jeb Hendricks watched Chihani attacking their friends. They were startled by his speed. They couldn’t imagine how he moved so fast. They kept waiting for Chihani to stop but he didn’t stop.
“We got to get out of here,” said Jeb.
“We can’t leave them.” Jimmy had difficulty speaking. He slowly screwed the top back on the fifth of Seagram’s Seven.
“The cops will be here any second.”
“Jesus, that Arab’s beating both of them.” Jimmy climbed out of the backseat and ran toward the others in a zigzagging lope. Ernie still sat on the ground, holding his head. Chihani had again struck Hark across the face with his cane and Hark fell against the side of the car.
Jimmy scooped up the bat that was lying on the ground next to Ernie. He had pulled down his grasshopper mask and had trouble seeing out of the eyeholes. As he tried to focus on Chihani, he tripped over Ernie’s feet and stumbled toward the Citroën. He put out his hands to catch himself and his hands slid across the wet metal of the hood. Chihani swung his cane, striking Jimmy across the back of his head so his grasshopper mask flew off.
“Hey,” shouted Jimmy.
Hark rubbed his face with one hand and hung on to the baseball bat with the other. Chihani swung at him again and Hark blocked the cane with the bat. He felt dazed and he couldn’t get over how fast the Arab moved. The cane came at him again, hitting his knee so that Hark stumbled sideways. Hark thought of the humiliation of one foreigner in a beret beating up the three of them. It seemed like a form of cheating. He was amazed by the world’s unfairness. He swung out with the bat but didn’t hit anything. His mask had slipped down, partly covering his eyes, so that it was hard to see.
Jimmy pushed himself off the hood of the Citroën and swung his bat at Chihani, hitting him in the arm. Chihani smashed his cane across Jimmy’s shoulder and Jimmy fell backward, stumbling again across Ernie’s legs.
Hark saw that Chihani had his back to him. He swung at Chihani, hitting him in the shoulder. Chihani was immediately on him again, swinging his cane and pushing him back against the car. Hark managed to block several of the blows but he was still struck across the face.
Jimmy got to his feet and again struck Chihani across the arm. By now Jeb had left the Blazer and ran toward them across the wet leaves. He grabbed Ernie by the collar and began pulling him to his feet. His over-the-head ghoul mask didn’t look like a mask. It looked real. But Jeb also had a problem with the eyeholes. As he was pulling Ernie to his feet, he was struck across the back of the head. He stumbled forward, dropping Ernie and falling on top of him. Jimmy swung at Chihani again and missed.
Hark pulled off his mask and his baseball cap and threw them to the ground. He saw Chihani driving Jimmy Feldman backward as Jeb and Ernie struggled to get to their feet. He couldn’t get over how this Arab was beating them. Hark pushed himself away from the car, got a better grip on the bat, and ran a few steps at Chihani, lifting the bat. He swung hard, aiming at Chihani’s shoulders. Chihani heard him and began to turn. He lifted his cane but couldn’t block the blow. He received the full force of the bat across the back of his neck. His beret popped off his head like a flipped coin. He staggered forward a few feet, then fell to the ground. His cane slid across the wet leaves.
“Fuckin’ son of a bitch,” said Hark. He kicked Chihani in the ribs but the man made no sound.
“Let’s get the hell out of here,” said Jeb. He got to his feet. Ernie was on all fours like a dog. His broken Mickey Mouse mask was twisted around onto the side of his face so that it looked as if he had two faces. Jimmy Feldman was sitting in the driveway rubbing his head. His grasshopper mask lay nearby.
Hark kicked Chihani again, kicked him hard enough to move his body.
“Come on,” said Jeb. “Leave him alone.” He pulled Ernie to his feet. Ernie began to stagger toward the house. Jeb grabbed his arm and turned him back toward the street. Ernie staggered about five feet and abruptly vomited. The Mickey Mouse mask fell off his head and Ernie vomited onto it.
“Jesus,” said Jeb.
Jimmy Feldman stood up and swayed back and forth. He picked up the baseball bat and swung it at the car but missed. He spun around and fell down again. Hark dragged him to his feet.
Jeb took Ernie’s arm and led him toward the Blazer.
“My head hurts and my stomach hurts,” said Ernie.
“Let’s get that fucker,” said Jimmy.
“We did that already,” said Jeb. “Let’s go home.” He pushed Ernie into the Blazer, then ran back for the others. After another minute, he had Jimmy in the backseat. Hark was standing in the yard staring at Chihani’s house. He had unzipped his pants and he was peeing. The light from the streetlight glittered on the yellow arc. The rain was increasingly turning to snow. Chihani still lay on the ground. Hark finished peeing, zipped his pants, and picked up both bats so he held one in each hand.
“Let’s smash up his house,” said Hark.
“We’ve got to go,” said Jeb. “The police are going to come.” He pulled Hark toward the street.
Hark yanked away and swung one of the bats at him, missing. “Leave me alone.”
“Jesus, you’re as crazy as he is. Come on!”
Jeb led the way back to the street and Hark followed, but slowly. He kept glancing back at the house as if he wanted to do more damage. Jeb pushed him into the car. Jimmy and Ernie were in the backseat moaning and holding their heads. Hark was still staring at Chihani’s house. His door was open.
“Shut the door, Hark,” said Jeb.
Hark didn’t move. Jeb jumped out of the car, ran around the front, slammed Hark’s door, then ran around the car again. He couldn’t understand why the police hadn’t arrived alr
eady. He felt tremendous gratitude for that. He felt lucky.
“We going to Bud’s?” asked Hark.
Jeb didn’t say anything. He was going to take his friends home, then go home himself. His evening was over. Ernie had the dry heaves in the back, hacking and choking. Jeb kept seeing Chihani lying in the front yard and he tried to push the image from his mind. He’ll wake up, he kept thinking. He yanked off his ghoul mask. It was all sweaty inside. Jeb was the only one who hadn’t lost his mask and he felt lucky about this as well. By the time he got everybody home it was snowing hard and the streets were covered. Jeb had about five inches of snow in his lap.
Houari Chihani lay in his front yard about fifteen feet from his car. The windows were smashed, the headlights were smashed, and there were dents in the hood. Hark’s black mask lay by the passenger door. Jimmy’s grasshopper mask lay in front of the car. In the middle of the yard, the two halves of the Mickey Mouse mask grinned up at the trees until the snow covered them completely.
The snow covered Chihani as well. About seven inches fell that night and in the morning Chihani was no more than a white mound. His cane had disappeared and so had the masks. The front seat of his car had filled with snow.
—
Every morning around six Irving Powell walked his chocolate Lab up Maple Street. The Lab’s name was Sidney. Because of the hour, Powell never used a leash since no one else was about. And Sidney was well-behaved, always came when he was called, though he liked the snow and liked rooting his nose through it, then shaking himself. It was dark and the streetlights were still on.
Powell saw Chihani’s Citroën and saw the windows had been smashed. He knew the car and knew Chihani’s history, as did everyone else in Aurelius. Sidney was sniffing at a mound covered by the snow. Powell called his dog but the dog kept fussing with whatever he had found. Powell walked toward it. Sidney had pawed away some of the snow and Powell saw that it was one of those Halloween dummies people put in their yards. Powell didn’t like Halloween. The previous evening had been a nuisance from start to finish. He ran out of candy early and had turned out his lights. Then his garbage cans had disappeared.
“Come on, Sidney,” he called.
The dog kept pawing and snuffling the Halloween dummy.
Irving Powell hurried up to the dog and grabbed Sidney’s collar. He disliked trespassing on people’s lawns and was angry with Sidney. “Bad dog,” he said. He glanced at the Halloween dummy. The snow had fallen off the dummy’s face. The dummy’s eyes were open and he seemed to be staring at Irving Powell.
Twenty-eight
It would be a mistake to think that Houari Chihani’s neighbors didn’t call the police. The dull clang of a baseball bat striking the hood of an automobile will upset the peace of mind of any property owner. Mrs. Morotti across the street called the police at ten-fifteen, and her neighbor on the right, James Pejewski, called a few minutes later. Neither, however, saw Chihani fall and so their telephone calls concerned only the vandalism. When they looked again, they saw Chihani lying in the wet in his front yard but they didn’t realize it was him. It was Halloween. Many houses had bodies in their front yards.
Around two in the morning, long after the police had been summoned, a patrol car drove past Chihani’s house. By this time it was snowing hard. The two officers, Tommy Flanaghan and Ray Hanna, knew nothing of the earlier calls but they noted the smashed Citroën. Hanna wanted to stop but Flanaghan said to keep going. Chihani’s house was dark and these problems would keep till morning. In any case, they had more pressing business on their minds than vandalism.
Presumably the calls of Chihani’s neighbors had been noted in the police log. Perhaps an officer had even been told to investigate when he had time. But the calls had been forgotten in the wave of other events that had their beginning early in the evening.
Sadie, Meg Shiller, and Hillary Debois had gone trick-or-treating from six-thirty to eight, but what with the wet and the cold, they didn’t have much fun after the first half hour. Sadie and Meg had umbrellas, which felt out of place on Halloween and got tangled up with the pillowcases they used to carry their candy. They saw some friends and several times they joined other kids, going together to five or six houses, then separating.
By eight o’clock they were back at Sadie’s. Franklin was still out in search of Halloween stories, so the girls were alone. Mrs. Kelly had been there earlier but she had left, even though Franklin expected her to stay until ten. She was afraid that someone would steal her garbage cans unless she was home to watch them. The girls were soaked through and they stripped off their clothes, putting on bathrobes of Franklin’s that Sadie found for them. They tossed their wet clothes in the dryer. Meg and Hillary telephoned their parents to say where they were. Meg lived two blocks in one direction and Hillary lived about a block in the other. As they waited for their clothes to dry, they made hot chocolate and snacked on Halloween candy. What did they talk about? Their history homework for the next day. How Shirley Potter seemed to have a crush on Bobby McBride. That Meg meant to go horseback riding on Saturday. That Hillary’s cousin Anne was coming to visit from Albany that weekend. That Meg thought Frank Howard was cute but the others didn’t agree. He was too stuck-up. Did they talk about Sharon Malloy and what might have happened to her? No, they didn’t, which doesn’t mean the question didn’t occur to them. They talked quickly and kept interrupting each other and laughed a lot.
“Of course we thought about Sharon,” Sadie told me later. “It’s something we think about all the time. It’s just too depressing to keep talking about.”
By nine o’clock their clothes were dry. Meg had worn jeans, and over her jacket she wore a white shirt of her father’s smeared with red paint to look like blood. As a hit-and-run victim, she hadn’t needed an elaborate costume, and she didn’t bother putting the cast back on her leg. In any case, made from newspapers, it was wet and falling apart. Nor did she put back the bloody bandages around her head and arms.
Hillary had dressed in one of her father’s suits, and Sadie had decided a black dress that had belonged to her mother made a suitable vampire outfit. The lipstick she snitched from Paula, wiping the tip with a tissue so her lips wouldn’t touch where Paula’s had touched.
Because it was a school night Meg and Hillary had promised their parents they would be home by nine-thirty, or ten at the latest. They were a little giddy from the amount of candy they had eaten, but they were also tired, so shortly after nine-thirty they telephoned their parents to say they were coming home. Franklin was still out with the photographer. I was home with my lab reports, glad that no Halloween reveler had rung my doorbell for at least forty-five minutes.
Hillary’s mother said she would drive over and pick up her daughter, though it was little more than a block. Meg said she didn’t want to be picked up. Her parents were endlessly pokey and she could be in bed before her parents even found their car keys. It was still raining, but Meg had her umbrella, a long black umbrella of her father’s. Hillary said that her mother could easily drive Meg home as well, but Meg was impatient.
So around nine-forty-five Meg said good-bye and hurried into the rain. Joan Debois’s Dodge Caravan pulled into the driveway about five minutes later and honked. Sadie stood on the porch and watched Hillary run out to the car, which then backed out the driveway. Hillary waved through the window. Sadie closed and locked the door, then returned to the kitchen. She still had math problems to do so she settled down at the kitchen table with another cup of hot chocolate and her math textbook. She hoped her father would be home before she went to bed, but often he visited Paula McNeal. On some nights, if she was alone, Sadie would call me around ten-thirty to say hello. I disapproved of Franklin’s leaving Sadie alone, but I was hesitant to speak to him about it. It amazes me how we keep silent when we feel we should speak up. But we don’t want to offend someone by calling attention to a problem, something we feel this person should d
o. I felt it was unsafe for Sadie to spend so much time by herself, but instead of doing something about it and possibly irritating Franklin, I let Sadie go on being unsafe.
At ten-fifteen Meg Shiller’s mother called Sadie, asking to speak to Meg. She sounded cross that her daughter had stayed out late despite assuring her that she was coming home right away.
The refrigerator abruptly turned on and Sadie jumped. “Meg left half an hour ago,” she said.
Both must have immediately calculated how long it would take to walk two blocks.
“Are you sure?” said Meg’s mother. “Be serious now.” Helen Shiller taught second grade at Pickering Elementary School. She knew how kids could make jokes when they shouldn’t.
“She left at quarter to ten,” said Sadie, growing scared.
“Oh, my God,” said Helen Shiller, and she hung up.
Sadie called Hillary Debois but the phone was busy. Then she called me. I said I’d be right over. I put on my raincoat and grabbed an umbrella. Sadie met me on the front porch. “She’s not at Hillary’s,” she said. “I just talked to her.”
I had a flashlight and I shone it at her. I was struck by how old Sadie looked, how frightened.
“Let’s walk up to Meg’s house,” she said. “Maybe she’s home by now.”
The rain was just turning to snow. I kept my umbrella over both of us. As we hurried along the sidewalk, Sadie told me about her evening and how Meg had decided to walk home. We had only gone half a block when a station wagon pulled up to the curb. It was Helen Shiller.
“Have you seen her?” she asked.
We said no. The streets were dark and deserted. The houses on this block had large yards, sometimes stretching back to the next street. A few snowflakes had begun sticking to the ground.
Helen Shiller pulled away from the curb. The fear I saw in her face, I see it still: the eyes panicked in the dash lights. Sadie and I continued up the street toward Meg’s house, jostling each other under my umbrella. I kept shining my light into the dark yards. We had gone about thirty more feet when my light picked out a thin black shape in Herb Gladstone’s front yard.
The Church of Dead Girls Page 24