“It’s supposed to be ‘turning,’” Bone said, still invisible. “’Stop the turning hands of Fate.’ No wonder you dropped out of school.”
“Have you been watching us practice?”
“What else is there to do? Besides, if you haven’t noticed, Lurken don’t have hands. So come up with something that rhymes with ‘nub.’”
“Young lady, if you’re going to shout at me, I shall report you to the proprietor,” Madame Fingers said, pointing a knotty finger.
Crystal wished she knew a good transformation spell, so she could turn the old bat into an old bat. Madame Fingers appeared oblivious to the tentacle, which now hovered around the woman’s face, as if the nub ended in a nose and was sniffing her. Maybe seeing if she were edible.
That might solve two problems at once. Lurken eat, Lurken go home, no more Madame Fingers.
But how many times had Momma preached it was an Aldridge’s job to guard the afterlife Orifices and protect Parson’s Ford from what she called “untelling horrors”?
To hell with Parson’s Ford, or maybe Parson’s Ford to hell. Whatever. I’m all out of spells and my lifetime supply of give-a-dookie is running low.
“This is not going to be pretty,” Bone said, as the tentacle inched forward.
“Whoever figured the end of the world would start in a video store?” Crystal said.
Madame Fingers, getting her dentures out of joint with her pout, said, “You need some churching to learn some respect.”
The tentacle brushed a tuft of her brittle gray hair and the woman swatted at the air as if a gnat were buzzing in her ear.
The tentacle curled like a hook, but just before the Lurken grabbed her, the door swung open.
Dempsey burst into the store, slamming into Madame Fingers and knocking her purse from her shoulder. As the purse struck the floor, DVD’s spilled across the carpet.
The tentacle stiffened and beat a hasty retreat back into the black, greasy hole and into the unseen world of Darkmeet.
“My bad,” Dempsey said, bending to pick up the woman’s purse and collect the fallen DVD’s. “You okay?”
Madame Fingers sprang up in a blur of knobby knuckles and elbows, tugged her coat tight around her ribs, and snatched her purse from Dempsey. Throwing a last evil glare at Crystal, she pushed past him and hurried down the sidewalk.
“Hey, you forgot your videos,” Dempsey shouted.
“I don’t think she forgot,” Crystal said.
Dempsey shuffled through them like they were a deck of cards. “This crap, I don’t blame her for leaving them. Do people still watch Jimmy Stewart and Cary Grant?”
The Orifice was folding in upon itself, collapsing like a tunnel of mud. Dempsey didn’t seem to notice the splashing and squishing, or the tarry balls of Darkmeet that squirted out and plopped on the carpet.
Dempsey approached the counter, the DVD’s stacked in his hands. He grinned at Crystal. She noticed for the first time that he had diastema, a cute gap between his upper front teeth. A nice accoutrement to the nasal wool.
“Sorry I was such a jerk,” he said. “If I’m going to make you like horror movies, I’ll have to make you like me.”
“Uh oh,” Bone whispered. “This could get interesting.”
“It’s okay,” Crystal said to Dempsey. “I sort of like horror. I watched ‘Twilight.’”
Dempsey chuckled. “One step above Casper the Friendly Ghost, but it’s a start.”
He laid the DVD’s on the counter. “When do you get off?”
At first, Crystal thought he was making some sort of lewd comment. “None of your business.”
“The time, dummy,” Bone called from somewhere in game rentals. “He wants to know when you get off work.”
“Four,” she said, glancing at the clock above the wall, the one Fatback Bob set 10 minutes fast so the overdue fines would rack up more quickly. An hour to go.
“Groovy,” he said. “I’ll be back and we’ll have coffee.”
He repeated his journey out the door, this time not looking back, confident she was watching him.
“Insouciant,” Crystal said. “He’s got an insouciant stroll.”
Bone went solid. “You’ve been reading big books again?”
“Studying for GED’s. Community college is my only ticket out of this town.”
“Unless you jump on a broom and fly South for the winter.”
“We don’t use brooms anymore. That went out with Salem and getting burnt at the stake.”
“Dempsey might be worth sticking around for.”
“I’ve got Pettigrew. I told you, I’m not interested.”
“Then why are you meeting him for coffee?”
“Professional development.”
“You’re a high school drop-out. Are you trying to be the best video clerk ever?”
“You’re one to talk. You didn’t get past the tenth grade, either.”
“My excuse was better.”
Bone’s eyes did that thing where the pupils seemed to swell until the orbs were completely black. It always made Crystal shudder and wonder what went on inside that skull.
Part of her knew her best friend was a pile of rotted cloth, bones, and worm food under six feet of dirt in Greenway Meadows Memorial Gardens & Landscaping Supplies. But right now she seemed so tangible and human, it was easy to forget she was roadkill.
Bone glanced at the wall and the slick cave that was now opening again. Her head cocked as if her mother were calling her home for dinner.
“Gotta go?” Crystal asked.
Bone nodded and brushed her red bangs out of her eyes. She was so fresh and real that she might have been getting ready to paint her nails or dial a guy on her cell phone. She always got this way just before stepping back through. Then came the next part, which Crystal could never bear to watch but couldn’t look away from, either.
Bone’s flesh curdled and crinkled, clothes giving way as the off-the-rack JC Penney threads unraveled and faded, then her skin melted away until she was a stack of ropy meat on a crooked, broken skeleton. The hinge of the jawbone creaked, and the grinning rictus of the skull fixed on Crystal.
“So,” said the toothy, trash-fashion skeleton. “You going to meet him?”
“I don’t know. Pettigrew–”
“—is a Big Mac, but this guy is caviar and champagne.”
“I like Big Macs.”
“Sure, it’s filling, but you should sample the buffet.”
Crystal looked down at the black-and-white movies Madame Fingers had tried to steal and thought of long-dead dreams and flickering fantasies. “Maybe.”
“See you later, kiddo,” Bone said, teeth clacking. “I got homework.”
Bone crawled into the hole and merged with the darkness, and the Orifice collapsed upon itself with the sound like the dropping of a watermelon—thwunk-splorsh.
Crystal supposed she should call Momma and tell her she would be late for dinner.
And hopefully late for the end of the world.
Chapter 3
Parson’s Ford’s only coffee shop, The Daily Grind & Fabric Outlet, was a former auto parts store. Instead of modern art, local photography, or even stylized posters of New York City coffee-shop interiors, the walls were covered with junk. Vanity license plates were lined like a periodic chart, jumbled alphabet that required at least six shots of espresso to decipher. One section of the shop was devoted to an array of cloth wrapped around long, slender spools, along with a table for measuring and cutting fabric.
Dempsey had been waiting at a table in the corner, positioned where he could watch the door. The dim shadows and scent of scorched Folger’s heightened his moody edge. Perhaps that was why he chose this milieu.
Crystal had even been tempted to say, “You look like a man in his milieu,” but she wasn’t sure whether it was pronounced “mill-you” or “mill-oo.” Best to skip it.
“So, been here long?” Dempsey asked. In the dim light, his protruding nose ha
irs were less noticeable. In a spirit of generosity, she’d originally considered them a mark of virility, but it was hard to put positive spin on nasal wool for long.
Concentrate on the eyes.
“I got here five minutes ago. You saw me walk in.”
The soulful brown eyes narrowed and flicked wide. “I mean, did you grow up here?”
“Born and bred.” Though she wasn’t so sure about the “bred” part. It’s possible she’d been hatched, or perhaps conjured up from one of Momma’s ceramic crucibles.
“Not a bad little town, if you like Hicksville.” Dempsey gulped his latte.
“It ain’t so bad,” she said, immediately wishing she’d bitten down the word “ain’t.” If she wasn’t careful, she’d be cutting in with “ya’ll” and “possum butter” and this little dance would be over before she even put on her shoes.
Instead of defending Parson’s Ford, which held no special place in her heart but was home turf all the same, she remembered something she’d read in Cosmopolitan: “To interest your man, turn the conversation back to him.”
“What brought you here?” She spun her coffee cup a quarter turn.
“The usual.”
Right. Like she knew what “the usual” was. Could be anything from distilling moonshine to retracing Daniel Boone’s footsteps. “Passing through or staying a while?”
“Depends,” he said, drooping his eyelids just a little. “I kind of like the scenery here.”
She fought an urge to touch her hair. Damn, where was Cosmo when you needed it?
“If you like mountains, it ain’t so bad, I reckon.”
Jeez, “ain’t” and “reckon” in the same sentence. Might as well cram some snuff behind my lower lip.
Before he could respond, she copped a phrase from the tourism brochures. “I mean, well, if you enjoy a milieu of scenic mountain vistas.”
She went with “mill-you,” saying it with such certainty that even if Dempsey were a direct descendant of the headless Louis XVI, he wouldn’t have challenged her. Dempsey grinned, milk stippling his soul patch and taking the “sexy factor” down a notch.
“It will be a great setting for my next movie,” he said. “Small-town horror is hot right now.”
“That auteur thing, right?”
“I’m breaking in a new star,” he said. “And I’m going to need some extras. Know any actors?”
Crystal immediately thought of Cindy Summerhill. Every town had a Cindy Summerhill. Beautiful, spoiled, rich, and utterly cunning. If there was a homecoming crown or dance trophy to be won, she’d do whatever it took. If that didn’t work, her dad, the attorney and county commissioner, would be twisting arms behind the scenes.
Of course, all the guys followed Cindy like hungry puppies, sniffing at the crumbs even if they could never touch the pie. Crystal was almost glad she’d dropped out of high school, just so she wouldn’t have to witness that sickening display.
“There’s a drama club at school,” she said, hoping he wouldn’t ask her about school. Then she’d have to explain why she’d dropped out. Or else lie.
But he went on, as if thinking aloud to himself. “And a killer location. A set with atmosphere.”
Like maybe my bedroom? There’s a gateway to the afterlife and a lot of slimy creatures on the other side just waiting to crawl through. What’s the market these days for trailer-park horror?
“Parson’s Ford is pretty creepy,” she said.
“It’s got that ‘straight-to-video’ vibe, for sure.”
Still not listening. At least not to me.
Cosmo advised that if you wanted to open him up, catch him off guard, and see the real man inside, you asked questions. “What’s your movie called?”
“’The Halloweening.’ There’s this Halloween party, and some teenagers play around with an Ouija board and summon a ghost. Only it’s a real ghost.”
The idea didn’t sound so original to Crystal. But Cosmo said not to challenge your man on a first date.
But this is NOT a date, dang it. I’m perfectly happy with Pettigrew.
I think.
Before she could respond, Dempsey launched into a caffeine-fueled jabber. “The movie’s the easy part. The real trick is spreading the word. I need fans. I need a street team, social media disciples. I need a well-placed person, someone I can trust to help me take over this one-horse town.”
He leaned forward and the silver cross in his left ear lobe caught the shine from the counter lights. “And that’s where you come in.”
She didn’t know whether to be thrilled that he trusted her or annoyed that he was trying to use her. “I don’t get it.”
“The movie biz is tough. Without word of mouth, you’re dead in the water. And you got a mouth that looks like it could work wonders.”
Cosmo never said anything about a line like that. “Thanks, I guess.”
She glanced around the shop, wondering if she could count on help if Dempsey turned into a pervert or creep. Or Lurken, Momma silently warned. Darkmeet could send its advance scouts any day now. Talk about a street team.
The pimply-faced clerk was busy thumbing through a muscle magazine. Three other people occupied the shop: a middle-aged couple who hunched furtively over their cups as if not wanting spouses to find out, and a nerdy guy in wire-rimmed spectacles who held a thick book. None of them particularly looked like demonic denizens from beyond.
“Dude,” she said. “I’m sure you know what you’re doing, but there’s no reason to come to Parson’s Ford to start a tech business. Shouldn’t you be in Hollywood or Toronto or something?”
“It’s not a tech business, it’s a people business.”
“Blah blah. That’s what Fatback Bob says. ‘It’s not a video business, it’s a people business.’ Or ‘It’s not a tanning business, it’s a people business.’”
“Sounds like the guy’s got some smarts.”
“Smart enough to pay me minimum wage plus a quarter.”
The Kenny Chesney soundtrack finished and the counter clerk, making a predictable uberhip grope for eclecticism, punched up a Dandy Warhols disc that sounded like sex on a bed of cotton candy.
“So, are you in?” Dempsey said, leaning forward and doing the eye-roll thing. She suspected not many women answered in the negative to anything once that lighthouse beacon swept their waters.
But she also didn’t like to dive headfirst until she’d poked underwater for rocks. “Tell me more,” she said. “My coffee’s getting cold.”
Dempsey wiped his latte soul patch. “Here’s the deal. You order six of my horror movies for the price of one, then you keep the one and send five to your friends. When they join, you get five more, and they get the same deal.”
“But then I only end up with six, just like I started with. Why should I bother?”
“That’s the beauty part. Every time one of your friends signs somebody up, you get an additional five.”
“A pyramid scheme?”
“’Viral marketing’ is the preferred nomenclature.”
“Sure. But still, Parson’s Ford?”
Dempsey tipped his Styrofoam cup to the corner. “See that?”
She glanced, and if she hadn’t seen such things before, she would have chalked it up to imagination or maybe a contaminated bran muffin emitting hallucinogenic mold spores. The crack where the two walls and floor met expanded for a split second, showing a black fissure.
The third gateway? So soon?
Darkness seeped across the floor like spilled motor oil or boiled-down coffee sludge, a tendril of it rolling toward Crystal’s sensible shoes. Even though they’d been on sale at JC Penney for $19.95 and would be out of fashion by December, she lifted her feet up to avoid any stains.
“I see it, but I didn’t think anyone else was supposed to,” she said.
He flung his half-filled cup at the wall, and latte splashed into the crack. The clerk glanced at the corner, which had returned to its previous angles. “Hey,”
the clerk yelled over the alt-rock music, “why you want to trash the place?”
“Sorry,” Dempsey said. “Thought I saw a spider.”
“Ease off on the caffeine, man.”
Dempsey had the muscle mass to rearrange the clerk’s pointy chin and nose and stuff a drip-ground bag of flavor-of-the-day up the runt’s backside. But he relaxed and leaned back in his chair. “Like I said, sorry. Thought the lady here might be afraid of spiders.”
“I’m not afraid of spiders,” Crystal said.
“What about ghosts?”
“Depends.”
“Maybe you got potential.” He grinned, and she was a wreck.
Luckily, he gave her a break.
“I’ll get some paper towels.” He went to the bathroom, and the clerk returned to scrubbing the espresso machine, a petulant glower giving him premature wrinkles.
So Dempsey sees down the rabbit hole. And we thought Darkmeet was a secret. Curiouser and curiouser.
Sure, Momma knew about it, because the main gateway was in her mobile home. Bone knew, because she sneaked back and forth like it was the skipping trail at high school.
And now a stranger–a guy making a horror movie–came into town and into Crystal’s life just when things couldn’t get any more complicated.
And then they got worse, because she appeared.
“He thinks you’re cute,” Bone said, voice carrying over the dandy music.
“How come you show up every time things get weird?”
“That’s what friends are for.”
Crystal squinted into the corner. “Where are you?”
“It was a tiny crack,” Bone said. “I had to hitch a ride.”
“Don’t see you.”
“Look higher.”
The cobwebs shook, and a single silver line descended toward the table. Swinging from the end was a black spider with red eyes. “Hola, chiquita.”
“What is this, a Tim Burton version of ‘Charlotte’s Web’?”
“Cute pop-culture references will get you nowhere. Did you already drive Chain Boy away? I told you to start using breath mints.”
“Go find your own toys. Oh, yeah, I forgot, you’re dead.”
“Don’t be mean. I’m on your side here.”
October Girls: Crystal & Bone Page 2