Valley of lights

by Stephen Gallagher

  The dust from the truck was still in the air as I put all other thoughts out of my mind and started the quarter-mile run to the house.

  TWENTY-SIX

  I kicked in the door and a moment later the smell hit me, and I knew that I hadn't been wrong. It was just like the room in the Paradise Motel, only worse. I stepped in off the front porch, the Special ready in my hand, and waited for my eyes to adjust to the shuttered gloom.

  Jesus, he'd been busy.

  Four bodies lay in the hallway between me and the stairs, their heads tilted forward and their faces in anonymous shadow, one of them a middle-aged woman with her skirt rucked up around her knees. The man at the end was snoring, gently. And that was only the beginning – when I stepped over them carefully, not wanting to touch anybody, and went through into the sitting room, I came into something that looked like one of those enormous family parties where all the scattered generations come together and then nobody has anything to say to each other. They sat in the chairs and all along the walls, their half-concealed faces grave as if in judgement, their eyes deep and expressionless pits of shadow. I felt as if I'd been left in the wax museum at night, and the doors had been locked, and now the statues had started to breathe. There was Winter, the college kid, sitting with his hand on the phone as if he'd only just put it down. After taking the call, the ghoul had obviously stepped out of him and into the body of the weatherbeaten man. Perhaps he was someone who belonged here, a caretaker maybe, someone who could move around the town without being seen as a stranger. A body too valuable to risk with a bizarre and memorable request like the store's entire stock of baby food.

  Winter was the one I shot first.

  He bucked once, like dead muscle being touched by a live wire, and then he slumped further forward with the breath rattling out of him. I did each of them the same way, working my way around the room and pausing only to reload as the still-air stink of the bodies gave way to the sharper, irritating smell of cordite. A couple of them bled heavily, but most of them didn't bleed at all. One of them I did sloppily, and made a big mess on the faded wallpaper behind his head. The gun became hotter and hotter in my hand and the air grew thicker in the room, but I made sure of every one of them. Every shot was a story's end.

  And then when I climbed the stairs, there were another half-dozen in the bedrooms.

  I didn't have enough rounds for them all, and so to save my last load I had to force myself to touch them and to turn them so that their faces were pushed into the pillows. I pressed on them hard, and they gave in without a whimper. The bedding was cheap and old, like everything else in the house. They talk about atmospheres that you can cut with a knife, but this was one you couldn't cut with anything; it would have been like trying to slash your way through a fog, and like a fog it seeped into you and soiled you and left you unclean. I came out of the bedroom checking my watch, wondering how long I had left, and it was then that I caught the sounds of some of the worst recorder playing that I've ever heard.

  It was so bad that I couldn't even make out the tune, and I knew that it had to be her. It was coming through muffled from somewhere above, which meant that there bad to be a loft or an attic overhead. I wondered how come she hadn't heard the shots or, if she had, why she hadn't reacted. She hardly sounded concerned.

  I'd checked all of the bedrooms by now, but I'd overlooked a narrow door which I'd assumed led to a closet but which opened onto an equally narrow ascending stairway. At the top of this was a further solid, six-panel door, and I banged on this and said, 'Georgie? Are you in there?'

  I didn't get any reply, but the recorder kept on squeaking away on the other side. Didn't even skip a beat, assuming the existence of a beat that could be skipped.

  I was wondering how I was going to get a run to break down the door with the stairs just behind me, when I noticed belatedly that the key was in the lock. I opened up and stepped inside.

  I got a surprise.

  I was expecting the same aura of sleaze that I'd seen in the rest of the house, but the loft appeared to have been cleaned out and made presentable. Georgie was sitting on the bed and was only just beginning to register wide-eyed astonishment at my unexpected appearance. She was wearing one of those lightweight Walkman headsets and must have been playing along to the music from a cassette, which was why she hadn't heard me. The bedding underneath her was new and so was the T-shirt that she was wearing, a couple of sizes too large and with an 'A' Team logo on the front. She scrambled to her feet, obviously pleased to see me but hesitating slightly, as if she wasn't quite sure whether she knew me well enough to come running over and show it. I went to her and crouched down to her level and took her face in my hands, studying it carefully.

  Loretta's eyes looked back at me, giving another twist to the knife.

  Georgie said, 'Is it okay for me to go home now?' Only she said it too loudly, and I had to reach up and unhook the headset before I replied.

  'You bet,' I said. 'Come on.'

  'Don't forget Hector. Bobby got him for me.'

  She was calm and I was shaking, it was ridiculous. I looked around for who or whatever Hector might be and saw one of those decorated cardboard boxes that pet stores give you to take birds home in, with air-slits cut so that it looks like a little cage. It was standing on the bedside table by her breakfast tray, and I could see that there was something moving around inside.

  'A present from Bobby, was he?' I said. 'Well, then, I suppose we'd better not leave him behind.' And I went to pick up the box by the cut-out loop on the top. I had to step over a video recorder and a stack of tapes to get to it; the TV was down at the end of the bed.

  'And my new recorder,' she said.

  'Yeah, your new recorder as well. Listen, I'm going to carry you down and I want you to keep your eyes tight shut, all right?'

  'If you mean so I won't see the zombies, I already saw them whenever I came down to the phone.'

  Something seemed to flip over inside me then, the way it does if you look down and see an unexpectedly long drop. But Georgie seemed completely unruffled, as if the 'zombies' were simply an accepted part of the scenery that wouldn't trouble her any more than the carpets or the wallpaper.

  'Well,' I said, 'just go along with me, anyway,' and I gathered her up and got as much of her luggage together as I could carry and then we squeezed out and down the loft stairs to the upper landing. She wasn't heavy, but she was getting just a tad too big to simply scoop up in one arm like a grocery bag. Her face was close to mine so I could see that she was keeping her eyes squeezed shut the way that I'd asked.

  As we started down the main stairs to the ground floor, she said, 'You forgot my comic books.'

  'I'll come back later for your comic books. We're in a hurry right now.'

  'Can I open my eyes yet?'

  'Just a minute longer.'

  'The zombies don't bother me. Bobby explained all that.'

  'Bobby's full of surprises,' I said.

  The main door was still half-open from when I'd kicked my way in, and it was letting some much-needed light and air into the hallway. Bobby – the original, at least – was dimly visible way across the sitting room on our left, a discarded glove no longer fit for use. He seemed to be contemplating the powder-stained hole through which I'd stopped his heart for good. An unexpected sliding of tyres on the gravel outside suddenly made me think that I'd allowed my time to run out, but a glimpse of the car through the open doorway told me that it was Angela. I'd have to hurry if she wasn't to see the bodies – the work wasn't finished yet, and a squawk raised too soon might ruin my chances – so I dumped the excess baggage at the foot of the stairs and went out alone with Georgie, pulling the door shut behind me so that Angela wouldn't see the carnage in the hall.

  'This is a friend,' I said to Georgie in a low voice, 'she works for the radio. Don't mention the zombies just yet, okay?'

  Georgie, feeling the light on her face at last, opened her eyes and nodded.

  Angela was o
ut of her car and coming around. 'Is she safe?' she said.

  'Great,' I told her. 'You did a good job.'

  She opened the door for me so that I could put Georgie into the back of the car. 'The pickup went by so fast, I didn't get a look at the driver,' she said. 'I was hoping that it was him.'

  'It was,' I said. 'Let me drive us back, now. There isn't much time.'

  He was in town now, and I had to find him before he'd had the chance to think too hard about the ruse which had prised him out of his hideaway. I'd succeeded in peeling his disguises from him one by one and now he was down to his last, the weatherbeaten face that I'd glimpsed behind the wheel of the pickup truck, but I'd only keep my advantage if I could get to him before he could realise how vulnerable he now was. The ghoul was there, only one layer of skin deep, and whatever the cost I was going to haul him out into the light to die.

  The red pickup was on the street by the post office when we got back into town. I cruised by as slowly as I dared, but I couldn't make out whether he was still inside the building or not. I turned a corner and then parked in the only shade that I could see, and as I started to get out of the car I said to Angela, 'Stay with her. Please.'

  Angela said, 'Are you going to the sheriff now?' I could see that she wasn't entirely confident any more, realising that the lines of a news story aren't always so clear when they're seen from the inside.

  I said, 'Where else?' and tried to smile as if it was all over now as I slammed the door.

  As soon as I was out of sight around the corner I started to run, drawing the overworked Special from its holster one more time as I moved. Two dogs in an old picket-fenced garden followed me hopefully from one end to the other, and I could hear their yelping behind me as I crossed the street. This time I wasn't going to hesitate. I'd shoot him out in the open if I had to, whether there were witnesses around or not.

  But he wasn't in the post office. Nobody was.

  Now I had to turn and look around, feeling awkward and conspicuous with the gun in my hand but knowing that I didn't dare have it any other way now that he was so close. I wasn't planning any confrontations or goodbyes, no wrap-up scenes. It would be spy and fire, and I was going to empty the gun into him to be a hundred per cent sure.

  Christ, I hoped I could recognise him.

  But there was no immediate risk of confusion here, because there was nobody else on the street other than me. Down at the far end a Dodge truck was making the turn, pulling a rusty trailer loaded with damp green hay. As it rattled and bumped out of sight I scanned both ways, wondering where he could have gone. Walking distance for him could cover a lot of ground, because I knew how he didn't like to drive if he didn't have to.

  The Rexell's, or one of the other stores, maybe? I set off over to check.

  I felt a little easier moving under the shade of the covered walkway, a little less conspicuous. Many of the windows along here that hadn't been boarded up carried bars. At the general store I stepped around the kiddy-sized rocking horse in the doorway and followed its cable inside, holding the short-barrelled Colt down and out of sight in order not to panic the owner who was rising from a seat behind the counter as I came in.

  'Hi,' I said, but then I saw the reply die on his lips as his gaze was drawn to one side of me. I reacted, but I was slow. When I turned I saw a rack of free-standing shelves, their contents already beginning to spill as the entire unit toppled towards me; and I was moving, but it was like I was moving through thick grease until the hail of cans passed over me and I was slammed to the floor by a shaky metal structure with all of a big man's weight behind it.

  TWENTY-SEVEN

  I was aware of him crouching over me. I'd lost a minute or so somewhere. Now I was lying on the floor and my head and my shoulder hurt, and a bag of oats had split somewhere so close by that I wanted to cough on the dust.

  'Don't shout too soon. Jack,' I heard him saying to the storekeeper. 'I may have messed up your display, but I just saved you from a robbery.'

  And then I heard the ignominious sound of a revolver's hammer being cocked, just inches from my head. It had to be my gun, because my hand was empty. I heard the storekeeper say, 'I guess you did, at that.'

  Groggily I tried to rise, and cat chow showered from my jacket. He was crouching by me and grinning, a hard-hewn mountain of a man who looked as if he'd. been carved from a single chunk of stone with a few uncorrected mistakes along the way. The deadly black 0 of the Colt hovered before me, but I looked over it and into his eyes. They were the eyes of the ghoul, regardless of the shell that they wore. And the time for playing around, they said to me, was over.

  'Wait a minute,' a voice said from the doorway, and any hope that I may have had of him being distracted died with the brief flicker of a glance that he spared. I didn't have to look to know that it was Angela, and I didn't know whether to be grateful for this unexpected appearance, or what to feel.

  She said, 'You're making a terrible mistake.' She was breathless, as if she'd run over. 'This man's a police officer working on a kidnap case.'

  'And who're you?' the ghoul said, his eyes still on me.

  'Angela Price, KTAR news. I'm kind of working with the sergeant, here. He was on his way over to see the sheriff.'

  The weatherbeaten man stood up slowly, my own gun staying on me like a well-trained pointer. I could almost see his mind working, wondering where this new card in the deck might have come from and what she might mean.

  And he said, 'Well, why don't the three of us go right over there together and sort this thing out?'

  'That's the best way,' Angela said. She'd never seen this shell before, didn't relate him to Winter, and so saw no reason to worry. She took hold of my arm and helped me to get to my feet, saying, 'You took off in entirely the wrong direction, Alex. What did you think you were doing?'

  I could have told her, but not in a couple of simple sentences. That would have been all the time I'd have had before we were out on the street again and the big man was suddenly switching the gun from me to Angela, grabbing her by the arm in case she should try to pull away.

  'There you go, Alex,' he said easily. 'I reckon that this way you're less likely to try anything.'

  Angela looked at me in astonished incomprehension, and then at the man, and then at me again.

  'Oh, shit,' she said bleakly. 'What did I do?'

  But I shook my head and briefly raised a hand to show that it was all right. She hadn't known, and couldn't have. And perhaps she'd even bought me a little time – not that I was feeling in much of a state to make good use of it.

  'That was a neat piece of business on the phone,' the man said. 'Now why don't we all get in my truck and then we can go somewhere and talk about this?'

  'Who's going to drive?'

  'You are. Should I assume that you know the way?'

  I walked across the street ahead of them. There was a breeze taking the edge off the sun's glare. He was walking Angela faster than she was really able to go, but she didn't say anything. I got in behind the wheel, and he pushed her in beside me. That way she was between us, and I'd have to reach across her if I wanted to try making a grab at the Colt. It couldn't be done, not even if I'd been feeling sharper and faster than I was now. I was feeling as if I'd had my head inside a big bell for the duration of the twelve o'clock chimes.

  I had to force myself into some kind of focus as I started the truck and swung out in a U-turn to head back out of town. As we passed by the general store I could see the owner standing watching us from the doorway, a can of ham in each hand. I couldn't make out his expression because of the shade of the overhang, but I'd have bet that he was wondering what the hell was going on.

  The ghoul had noticed it, too, because he looked back through the rear window of the cab and said, 'I suppose this means I'm going to have to move on again. But at least I'll know it will be for the last time.'

  'I wouldn't bet on it,' I said, but under the circumstances my bravado sounded distinctly hollow, ev
en to me.

  But at least he didn't have Georgie any more.

  The big man sighed happily, and said, 'Cocky to the last. I think that's one of the reasons why I'll be so sorry to say goodbye to you, Alex. You've been a pain, but you've made life a lot more interesting than it's been for a long time. I always looked forward to talking to you. I think that's probably what I'll miss the most.'

  'Think how I'll feel,' I said. It was weird, listening to him like this. He should have seemed like a total stranger, but in spite of the body and the voice I'd immediately tuned in to the fact that it was the same personality that I'd been dicing and dealing with all along. I couldn't imagine what Angela must be making of it.

  He nudged her and said, 'See what I mean?' And then he turned his attention back to me. 'I was going to tell you all kinds of things,' he said. 'Stuff that I've never told anyone else. You know that no two people ever see the world quite the same? The shapes and colors are always different, even the sounds. Took me a long time to get the hang of switching. There's a lot more to me than you ever really imagined, Alex. I'm not so stale, and I'm not so stupid, either. I mean, I really fooled you for a while with Michaels, didn't I?'

  Michaels.

  His body hadn't been anywhere in the house, and I hadn't even thought to notice the fact. Not even up in Georgie's loft, when I'd had to step over the video recorder that had most probably been looted from his den. I'd been starting to wonder whether I'd have the nerve, if a suitably big truck should appear heading toward us in the other lane, to swing us across into its path; but with a zombie still in reserve somewhere, it would be a wasted sacrifice. The bird would fly, the cycle would start again.

  As it always had.

  I said, 'I can't listen to much more of this. Why don't you kill me here, and get it over with?'

  'I wasn't planning to kill you,' he said, making himself comfortable in the angle between the seat and the door. He was too far away for me to reach. 'I've got a much better use for you than that.'