by Ray Garton
Mike rushed toward him suddenly and Marvin stiffened, terrified, as Mike clutched the arms of the chair, pressed his face so close to Marvin’s that he could smell Mike’s fetid breath, and spittle sprayed Marvin’s face as Mike screamed at the top of his lungs, “I knew she’d FUCKED one-a them THINGS, one-a them THINGS with giant DICKS and WINGS and then she’d had that fucking MONSTER and made me think it came from ME and she was EVIL I knew she was EVIL as SATAN and I had to KILL HER!”
Footsteps scuffled outside the room and the door shot open and three men—Ted among them—burst into the room and pulled Mike away from Marvin. Mike struggled, flailing his arms uselessly as they held him back.
“But she KNEW I was gonna kill her so she made my Mama come over she MADE her come over so I’d STAB her stab my own Mama instead of her SHE done it SHE made me stab my Mama—”
He screamed on and on, fighting the men as a nurse rushed in with a hypodermic on a small rectangular tray and Ted shouted above it all, “You’d better go, Mister. Sorry, but—” Then he went back to holding Mike, dragging him to the bed with the other two men, trying to avoid Mike’s attempts to bite them and scratch them.
“She’s EVIL she FUCKED them THINGS and she’s EVIL and she’s gonna take ’em ALL she’s gonna take all them PEOPLE straight to HELL she’s EVIL and SHE’S GONNA TAKE ALL THEM PEOPLE TO HELLLL!”
Marvin hurried from the room and fought the urge to run down the hall. He stayed close to the wall, occasionally running his hand over it for balance as he rushed out of the hospital, his heart pounding like a quiet drum roll.
2.
Marvin felt clammy as he drove away from the hospital and switched on the air conditioner, then reached into his coat pocket, rewound the tape a bit and hit the PLAY button. Mike Lumley’s pinched voice screamed from the recorder:
“—I knew, I knew Benjamin wasn’t human, he wasn’t, and I knew … he wasn’t … my son. I knew she’d FUCKED one-a them THINGS, one-a them—”
Marvin turned it off, wincing at the sound of Lumley’s tortured voice, seeing again the man’s mad saucered eyes.
He was sorry Lumley had snapped so soon, before he could find out what had really happened to Benjamin. All the articles on Hester Thorne had said the boy had died years ago of complications brought on by his deformities. None of them had specified what the complications had been or where and when the boy had died, just that Ms. Thorne became “very emotional and quiet” or that she “paused tearfully and asked that the interviewer proceed to the next topic.” Cross and Marvin both suspected that the details surrounding Benjamin Lumley were probably more interesting and, perhaps, more unusual than Hester Thorne wanted anyone to believe. Marvin had been certain he’d learn something, or at least get a lead, from Mike Lumley, but he, of course, hadn’t expected Lumley’s outburst.
After what he’d just seen, it was pretty obvious to Marvin why Lumley was residing at the state hospital, but then again …
Before his story had become so frantic and disjointed, Marvin had seen more fear than frenzy in Lumley’s behavior. His reluctance to tell his story had been obvious, but once he’d started, he seemed lucid enough. At least, until the story had become so … fantastic, so unbelievable. As unbelievable as it had been, though, Marvin couldn’t ignore its vividness. The picture Lumley had painted—great bat-like beasts with glistening erections flying around a vaginal opening in a deep, dark cave—was undeniably chilling … chilling enough to make Marvin work hard to forget it.
He left Napa and went east on Interstate 80, heading for his next stop.
3.
Corben and Ida Thorne lived on a farm just east of Wheatland, a tiny town surrounded by flat fields yellowed by the summer sun. Houses and barns speckled the fields and cows roamed lazily within the expansive confines of barbed-wire fences. Occasionally, a tractor could be seen moving at a crawl in the distance, leaving behind a misty cloud of dust that would hover in the still, hot air, taking its sweet time to disperse. Most people who had never been to California—and even people native to many parts of California—thought the state was made up entirely of beaches and movie stars and golden gates; places like Wheatland, they assumed, existed only in the Midwest. They were mistaken.
Marvin despised such flat rural areas, and although he hadn’t quite reached the town yet, the slight downward curl of his lips showed his disdain as he headed southeast on Highway 65, looking through the tinted glass at the bleak surroundings. Small towns and old houses and miles of fences and power lines disappearing on the horizon always reminded him of those grainy B horror movies in which tourists got butchered and served up as sausage or barbecued ribs at a roadside diner or were simply chopped up and fed to grinning old Farmer Brown’s pigs. They looked too innocent and quiet for his comfort and he didn’t trust them. Stupid and paranoid, maybe, but having been a city man all his life, he couldn’t shake the association.
Marvin had the Thorne’s’ address written in the notebook on the seat beside him but knew that a few numbers and the name of a road would be no help; he would need directions. He needed gas anyway, so he pulled into the first gas station he saw: Lahey’s Fill-n-Grill, about ten or twelve miles east of town.
It was little more than a run-down shack—it actually seemed to sit at an angle, as if it were about to fall over—with a garage attached to one end and a half dozen or so cars scattered around in various states of repair. A dirty old-fashioned soda cooler sat on the wooden porch beneath the crooked eave that appeared on the verge of collapse. A handwritten sign hung in the grimy window:
HOMEMADE BBQ RIBS
TO GO
Marvin’s stomach tightened as bloody, low-budget movie images flashed through his mind in faded living color.
A man who resembled a dirty, over-ripe fig in grease stained overalls and wearing a dirty cap that bore the slogan BEAVER HUNTER emerged from the darkness of the garage wiping his blackened hands on a filthy red rag, smiling as he chewed something sloppily, making his fleshy, wrinkled, sun-browned jowls jiggle. Considering the wisdom of it, Marvin rolled down his window, getting a blast of hot dusty air.
“Do for ya?” the man barked, showing tobacco-stained teeth through his smile.
“Premium. Fill it up.”
The man went about his business and Marvin tried to ignore his surroundings. As the gas pumped, the man began cleaning the windshield.
Marvin leaned his head out the window and asked, “Can you tell me how to get to Emmet Road?”
“Goin’ out t’the Thorne place, haw?”
“Yeah, as a matter of fact.” He tried to sound amiable, harmless, and at ease.
“I c’n tell ya. Won’t talk t’ya, though.”
“Beg pardon?”
“Them Thornes. Won’t talk t’ya. Don’t like you reporters.”
“I’m not a reporter.”
He laughed. “S’what they all say.”
“All? You get a lot of reporters out here?”
“Oh, ever once in a while. Comin’ out lookin’ for Ida n’ Corben. Askin’ ’bout the daughter.” He shook his head and snorted. “Crazy bitch n’ her crystals. New Age phil-los-o-phee.” He snorted, speaking the last three words as if they were in a foreign tongue, then craned his head back and spat tobacco over his shoulder.
“Well, I’m not a reporter. I’ve come to see them about some business matters,” Marvin lied. “A small inheritance.”
“No shit?” The man stopped and grinned through the windshield, cocking the bill of his cap back. “Yeah, I c’n tell ya how t’get there. But they prob’ly won’t see ya nohow. Don’t see nobody, let alone strangers.”
“Well, I guess I’ll just have to see, won’t I.”
“Yeah, you’ll see. Check unner th’ hood?”
“No, thanks. But you can answer one more question if you don’t mind.”
“Answer it if I can.
”
“Do you know of a woman named Elizabeth Murphy?”
The man’s face brightened. “Lessee, Elizabeth Murphy. Hmm. Oh, you mean Lizzie. Lizzie Dayton. Murphy’s her married name. Husband kicked off. Hell, yeah, I ’member her. Crazy bitch ’n’ her bible. Sal-voy-shun!” He laughed, a pig-like sound.
“Does she still live around here?”
“Oh, no, not Lizzie. No, Lizzie went south, far as I know. Last I heard she was somewhere ’round Irving, or thereabouts, runnin’ some kinda church or shelter or somethin’.”
“A shelter?”
“Yeah, y’know, one-a them places for homeless drunks n’ such.”
“Any idea how to find this place?”
“From what I heard, it’s right on Interstate 5.”
“Near Irving.”
“Thereabouts.” He sent another missile of chewing tobacco to the ground.
“Thanks, I appreciate it. Now, how do I get to the Thorne’s’ place?”
The man leaned his arm on the door and gave Marvin detailed directions in what amounted to broken English and Marvin jotted some notes, trying to avoid the man’s spoiled-fruit-and-garlic breath.
“They ain’t gone see ya, though,” the man said when he was finished reciting the directions. He returned the nozzle to the pump when the car was full, spat again, and said, “Twenny-one forty.”
Marvin gave him cash.
As he made change: “Got mighty fine ribs. To go. M’wife made ’em herseff.”
“No, thanks.”
“Hot ’n’ juicy. Been travelin’—” He nodded toward the garment bag hanging behind Marvin, “—prob’ly hungry.”
Marvin’s stomach began to rebel against his fleeting but morbid thoughts of nubile teenage travelers and chainsaws and meat cleavers. “No thanks. Just ate awhile back.”
He shrugged and clucked his tongue wetly. “Well, you take care. Tell the Thornes hey for me. They ain’t gone see ya, though. Prob’ly chase y’off with a garden hose. Or their dog. Strange folk, them Thornes. Ain’t sociable types ’tall.”
Marvin attempted a smile. “We’ll see.” He drove away from Lahey’s Fill-n-Grill with great relief and a little shame for entertaining such ludicrous fantasies.
The Beaver Hunter’s directions led Marvin through the small town, then down a narrow pot-holed road that wandered through the fields beyond. He came to the silo the old man had mentioned, then the crooked mailbox with no name or box number. Just beyond that was Emmet Road, which was little more than an unmarked dirt trail.
“Terrific,” he muttered, stopping the car to look down the road with a scowl. It led to a house that looked tiny in the distance and, beyond that, a barn and, further still, more structures made indistinguishable by motionless clouds of dust.
Marvin was not pleased. If there was any truth to the old man’s claim that the Thornes were strange folks, they’d be waiting for him when he arrived; the Thunderbird would kick up a trail of dust visible for miles over the flat terrain.
“You owe me big-time, Jordan,” he growled under his breath as he turned onto the road and drove slowly through the cloud of dry, gritty dust that rose around him. The car would definitely need a wash after this stop.
The wooden fences along the road had not been tended; the white paint had long since peeled and some of the slats—between which cows stared blankly—had rotted.
As the distance closed, the house grew larger and more distinct and Marvin saw the remains of an old swing set, rusted and collapsed, in the shade of a huge oak tree in the front yard. A battered old pickup truck was parked between the house and a squat building that was apparently some kind of shop or storage shed. A rustic aged station wagon was up on blocks and beside it was parked a well-worn Ford sedan from the late eighties. Even the house itself looked neglected. Paint was peeling, the roof was in need of some repair and the roomy wooden porch was cluttered with boxes and bags, some chairs and a crooked end table with several dried-up potted plants on it. Dark tendrils of ivy crawled up a corner support post, over the porch’s roof, and up a side of the house, creeping around the corner eagerly.
As Marvin stopped the car at the edge of the yard, he saw some faded pink curtains fluttering in an open front window. An old pale face with eyes lost deep in oval shadows appeared in the darkness beyond, but only for a moment.
Marvin didn’t like it one bit and reaching under his coat to touch the loaded .38 strapped to his side reassured him only slightly. He killed the engine and reached between the front seats for a clipboard. On the clipboard were three sheets of paper, each of which contained a number of questions written by Jordan and Marvin and printed out on Marvin’s computer. He got out of the car and tucked the clipboard under his arm, trying to look professional.
The dusty heat made his body prickle with sweat immediately. His glasses began to slide down his nose and he straightened them, then reached into his pocket and turned on the recorder as he started toward the house.
Jagged cracks separated chunks of the walk leading to the house and bits of the concrete crunched beneath Marvin’s feet as he approached the porch. He was halfway up the sagging wooden steps when the front door opened a crack and one squinting eye peered out at him.
“What can I do for you?” It was a woman’s voice, thin and more than a little suspicious.
Marvin gave her his best smile and said, “Good afternoon, ma’am. Are you the lady of the house?”
“Who’re you?”
He was on the porch and tilted his head in an old-fashioned, gentlemanly way as he said, “My name is Marvin Ackroyd and I—”
“Whatta you want?”
“Well, I’d like to speak to the lady or the man of the house, if it wouldn’t be any—”
“I mean why? Whatta you want with ’em? You a reporter?”
Sure are a lot of people worried about reporters today, Marvin thought. “No, I’m not.” Still smiling: “I’m conducting a poll.”
“A what?”
“A poll. A, uh, survey. It’s a CNN poll concerning—”
“A what poll?”
“CNN? The Cable News Network?”
“We don’t have tee-vee.”
“Ah. I see. Well, that’s very interesting.” He plucked a pen from his pocket and scribbled on the clipboard as if making a note. “Well, then, let me explain. Occasionally the Cable News Network conducts polls on various topics to determine the American public’s opinions and habits. Sometimes these polls are conducted by telephone, sometimes—”
“You’d better go now,” the woman said solemnly, her voice dropping almost to a whisper.
“This won’t take long, I promise. I’d just like to ask you a few questions about—”
“No you wouldn’t.”
“I’m sorry?”
“You’re lying.”
“No, I assure you I’m conducting a legitimate—”
“You wanna ask questions about her!” she hissed.
Marvin stopped midsentence, not quite sure how to react to that one; he hadn’t expected it but didn’t want to look surprised. Jordan was much better at this sort of thing than he.
“I’m sorry, I don’t know what you’re—”
“You gotta go now,” the woman whispered urgently, closing the door a little, narrowing the crack even more. “My husband’s gonna come.”
That didn’t sound encouraging. “But I’d like to speak to both of you, if you’ll—”
“He’ll know, too. He’ll know why you’re here and he won’t like it. You don’t wanna be here then.”
He knew the wise thing to do was to take her advice, get in the car and make a clean exit, but he had a job to do and he was determined to give it his best shot. But before he could continue:
“I mean it, mister. You better get outta here while you can.”
Something about that—either what she said or the way she said it, he wasn’t sure—gave Marvin a bad feeling standing there in the heat with sweat trickling down his back and temples, a sinking feeling in his gut that gradually got worse, so bad that he took a step back from the door without even thinking about it and was about to turn around and head down the steps, just go while he could, because there was something wrong here, something he couldn’t do anything about and the wisest move would be to go, but before he could do that—
—gravel crunched under heavy feet and Marvin jerked to his left to see a tall thin aging man standing at the end of the house. He stood with the knuckles of his left fist resting on his blue-jeaned hip and his right hand hanging loose at his side. Just beneath his right hand, a dog stood still and silent, its glistening eyes locked on Marvin. It was a squat solid pit bull the color of old bones and it didn’t move a muscle, didn’t even pant as most dogs would in such heat, just stood there with its mouth closed and stared.
“Can I do for ya?” the man asked in a low, gravelly voice. His narrow head was tilted forward and he stared up at Marvin through wiry grey brows. A lock of thin silver hair fell on the creased sun-browned skin of his forehead.
Too late, Marvin thought, his chest tightening. I waited too long and now it’s too damned late and what the hell are you gonna do now? he asked himself as he stared open-mouthed at the man.
“I told you!” the woman hissed and the door slammed shut.
Marvin licked his gummy lips and tried to smile. “Well, sir, I’m conducting a, uh, a survey. For, uh, CNN.”
The man stared at him coldly.
So did the dog.
“Uh, you know, the Cable News Network?”
“We don’t have tee-vee.”
The lie wasn’t working.
“Well, sir, that’s okay, I think I’ll just—”
“I don’t think you’re doin’ no survey,” the man said, finally tilting his head up, exposing his long craggy face. His eyes were so narrow, Marvin couldn’t see what color they were.