Mr. Shivers

by Robert Jackson Bennett

  “All right,” said Nina. “Enough of this. We’re done. I’m tired.”

  “I got what I wanted,” Connelly said.

  “You like things simple, don’t you, boy?” Dexy asked.

  Connelly shrugged.

  “Well,” she said. “They ain’t going to be for long.”

  Nina spat through her teeth, the glob of saliva arcing out through a gap and landing yards away. She sniffed and said, “It’s cold as hell out here. Get on back up to the house, boy. We got some talking to do and you look like you could use a year of sleep.”

  Connelly rose and did as she asked. When he looked back the women were gone, but he thought he saw their figures moving into the trees, and unless his fatigue was playing with his eyes he thought there were three of them.

  He slept before the hearth and in the morning Dexy awoke him with breakfast. She served him chicken once more, now with rye bread. Neither of them spoke. Nina rose and went to the third room to tend to the last one’s waking.

  “I suppose I’ll get going,” said Connelly once she came out.

  “Yeah,” she said.

  He went to the junk heap out front and picked through it. He found two old boots worn raw with age and a thick black coat, streaked with gray mud. He washed it off in the stream and let it dry before putting it on and going out. They packed him a small bag of dry foods and a canteen of water, its punctured skin roughly patched with old bandages. He slung it over his shoulder and walked out front.

  The mist had receded. Sunlight sparkled on the crinkled waters of the stream. Dexy and Nina came to watch his departure and he was not sure but he thought he spotted a dark shape move in the far window.

  “I thank you for your hospitality, and for your advice,” he said.

  “Didn’t give you no advice,” said Nina. “Just told you how it was going to be.”

  “Well. I thank you anyways.”

  “Wasn’t anything.”

  “I hope I see you again,” he said.

  “You won’t,” Dexy said. “Boys like you are always running off chasing one thing or another. They never know when to sit still.”

  “Maybe.”

  They bid their farewells and he walked upstream and turned north through a passage of hills. Each time he turned around he expected to see the stream of smoke was suddenly gone. But it was always there, threading up into the sky. Watching him, perhaps, and frowning.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  Wandering days came then, drifting days. He learned he was in Colorado from a passing motorist who then gave him a ride to Hawtache and provided directions to Willison. His travels became quick, desperate jaunts between towns. Each time he reached the next his resources were exhausted and his belly empty. He bought food when he could and lived off of garbage when he had to, stayed in the little Hoovers that grew in the backlots like so much fungus and slept in ditches and alleys when he could not find these. Children thought him a boogey man, a great, shambling shaman, wandering backroads and scavenging whatever he could find.

  The sheriff’s town had been called Marion, Connelly learned. He made a crude map of charcoal and newspaper and began scouting the areas around the town of his capture. He heard no news of the gray man but he did catch wind of some wounded men making their way north, men with bad business on their mind. People could only guess at their numbers. Some said four, others five or three. Connelly wondered how many of his companions were still alive.

  He kept to their backtrail, following the followers. He learned to survive. Taught himself how to trap and kill small animals and through trial and error he learned how to gut and cook them. It was a messy process and sometimes he was tempted to eat them raw.

  By necessity he was drawn back to the rail, but not to ride. Hobo jungles offered the most protection and news, no matter the size, and he knew his companions would have slept there if it came to it.

  He met a great many strange people in the Hoovers. In one encampment he ate a strange, stringy meat for the first time and did not find it unpalatable. A grime-covered man came and sat down by him as he ate and confided, “They’s fought over it.”

  “What?” said Connelly.

  “They’s fought when we killed it. Fought over it and ate his body.”

  “Whose?”

  “Dog’s,” said the man, and nodded at the leg in Connelly’s hand. “His pack. We killed him and cooked him and when we was done his brothers fought over the pickings. Ate it up.” He grinned wickedly. “Ate it all up,” he said, and laughed.

  Connelly looked at the meat in his hand. Turned it over. Then he finished it and tossed the bone away.

  In one shanty Connelly watched a man build a lute out of a coffee can and sit playing it and whistling songs, to the great delight of everyone. In another he fought and beat a drunk senseless while the rest of the jungle watched and clapped. When he was done his opponent left the clutch of foul homes, weeping like a child. And in yet another he awoke one morning to find all the others crowded around one woman who would never wake again, having succumbed to some infection or addiction. They did not know her name but buried her under stones and sang for her regardless.

  One evening he came upon a jungle that was no more than a collection of tents and rags. He spotted a young man with an eye patch and a bandaged hand sitting guard before a fire. Connelly approached slowly as he always did, showing that he was unarmed. The young man stood and said, “What do you want?”

  “Calling in. Just rest and a bit of talk.”

  “Well, I’m not in a talkative mood. Look elsewhere.”

  “I got some food on me.”

  “Whoopte-doo. I don’t care. We don’t want you here.”

  “You sure are unfriendly. All the other places have been okay.”

  “Well, all the other places aren’t here. I—” The young man stopped and peered at him. “Holy hell, Connelly?”

  “Yeah?” He looked closer. “Hammond?”

  Hammond crowed laughter. “Hot damn, I knew you hadn’t kicked the bucket! I damn knew it!” He threw his arms around him and they spun around. “Where you been?”

  “All over. I was in the woods a while. Been moving from town to town. I almost didn’t recognize you, you look… Well…”

  “Yeah,” said Hammond. “I got kind of roughed up getting you all out of jail. You lost some weight, Connelly, Jesus. You’re skinny as a rail.”

  “Not too much.”

  Pike and Peachy emerged from tents behind Hammond. Pike grinned humorlessly. “Of course!” he said. “Of course, it’s Mr. Connelly. A man such as you doesn’t die easy, Mr. Connelly, if he dies at all.”

  Peachy ambled over and shook his hand, pumping it up and down. “Oh, damn, I thought you were dead. I really did. I thought that’d be a shame, you getting busted out and dying just after.”

  “Sorry to disappoint. Why are you still sticking with these bums?”

  “These boys broke me out. I’m indebted to them. Got to do good by those who done you a decent thing.” He smiled. His bright teeth shone in the night, his dark skin making the rest of him almost invisible. “I am glad to see you, I must say. Seems odd us talking all the time and not seeing each other.”

  “I’m glad to see you, too. Good to match a voice with a face.”

  “Yes,” said Pike. “Though it’s been no easy thing traveling with a colored, we’re happy to have him along. It’s useful having someone healthy around.”

  Hammond glanced at Peachy, but Peachy’s eyes were fixed on the ground.

  “Where’s Rosie?” asked Connelly.

  “In the tent in the back,” Pike said. “He has weakened since your run from the jail. We worry about him, but I think he’s doing better.”

  “And Monk?”

  “Gone,” said Pike. “Decided he did not want to keep with us much further.” Hammond frowned behind him but still did not speak.

  “Oh,” said Connelly. “What happened at the jail? Did you all get away all right?”


  “Easily enough,” he said glibly. “Scratches and bruises here and there. But we survived.”

  “And Roonie?” Hammond asked.

  Connelly shook his head.

  “Damn,” Hammond whispered.

  “The way is hard,” Pike said, and sat before the fire with a grunt. “The Lord is testing us, perhaps. One should not complain if He beats us, for surely He is beating us to serve as some great tool, like iron in the fire.”

  Connelly sat beside him. The rest followed suit and rain began to lightly fall. They set out cups to catch the drops to later funnel into their canteens.

  “I heard one or two things while I was wandering,” Connelly told them. “I ran into some folk who knew a thing or two about Shivers.”

  “How?” asked Hammond.

  “I didn’t ask. They were nice but sort of strange. I listened and when that was done I left.”

  “What did they say, Mr. Connelly?” Pike asked. “What news did they give you?”

  He told them.

  They were not all that surprised, he thought. Then again, the idea was not new to them. They had imagined the gray man as a monster for so long that labels and names became pointless.

  “So,” said Pike. “We hunt Death itself, do we?”

  “It would seem,” Connelly said.

  He stared into the fire. “I would call that a worthy cause.”

  “Folks been having trouble with Mr. Death since forever, though,” said Peachy. “Why are we different?”

  “Change is in the wind,” Pike said.

  “Yes,” Connelly said. “Things are changing. Shifting. He knows he’s weak and he’s slowing down.”

  “His time is over,” Pike added. “And he fears you, does he not, Mr. Connelly?”

  Peachy nodded glumly. “If you say so.”

  “I’d take a run at that,” Hammond said. “Yes sir, I would.” He rubbed his mouth and toyed with his makeshift eyepatch, his face hungrier than Connelly had ever seen.

  “And when we’re done we can rest,” said Connelly. “We can rest and go home.”

  “Wishing is bad,” said a muffled voice.

  “What?” said Connelly.

  They turned. Roosevelt crawled out of a tent and sat in the dirt, looking confused. His eyes were little and unfocused. “Wishing is bad,” he said again. “It makes you hurt. Makes all the missing parts hurt, makes them open up new and makes them bleed.”

  “Rosie, go back to bed,” Hammond said.

  “You take out a part of you,” Roosevelt murmured. “Take it out and blow on it and toss it to the winds like dust, and you say, ‘Find all the missing parts of me. Go out among the world and find the missing parts of me.’ But instead of getting back what you lost you just lose more. Wishing is bad. Wish long enough and there won’t be any of you left.”

  “Go back to bed, Mr. Roosevelt,” Pike said sternly. “Go back and rest. You need it.”

  Roosevelt played with his bottom lip, then crawled back into his tent. He did not seem aware of anything around him at all.

  “He’s gotten worse,” Pike explained. “He mutters often. Whatever the gray man did to him, there does not seem to be any repair.”

  Connelly looked at Roosevelt’s tent. Remembered the screaming he had heard in the jail and the way his friend had pawed at his knees like an animal. He pulled his coat tight.

  “We have heard some strange news ourselves, Mr. Connelly,” Pike said to him. “Though it was by no means as stunning as yours.”

  “What was it?”

  “Apparently our quarry traveled through Marion before. I suspect it was a safe haven for him where the sheriff could offer protection, or perhaps it was just an entertaining trap to toy with us.”

  “I had heard that, too,” said Connelly, frowning at Pike.

  “You may have been right to have believed that man so long ago,” admitted Pike. “Korsher? Was that him?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Yes. I-I wanted so badly to… to be able to hurt this man that I was not willing to listen.” He rubbed his beard, took off his cap, then replaced it. He said, “But I listen now, as should you—there was a young man Hammond met not more than a week ago who had heard a story from his grandmother. A story about another group of men who had come through these very towns and cities, looking for a man with revenge on their minds. The boy could not recall if the man they searched for was scarred or not, or if he was the same thing as we hunt now, but I feel it is. He told us they were all found dead,” he said flatly. “All of them killed, up in the mountains. Found by a mining team. Well, all but one. There was one they never found. A young blond man, they never did find his corpse. But the rest died in their attempt.”

  “How long ago was this?” asked Connelly.

  “Sixty years. Seventy. Maybe even a hundred. It’s a story, the boy said, just a story… But out here, tales and stories don’t seem like playthings. It feels as though time sits and stagnates and ferments in some spots out here. It’s a feeling you get.” He looked down at the fire. “The road is not like other places.”

  “What do you mean? It’s just a road,” said Peachy. “Just a road, I think.”

  “Do you? I think everyone’s seen a few strange things along it, yes, but… but sometimes the road goes through places that are… not normal.” He scratched his face and said, “The road is more than just dirt. Or stone. It’s bigger than that. And where it’s bigger it goes into other places. That or these places cling to the road. They cling to it as mistletoe clings to the tree branch, desperate to be seen by those walking by. Perhaps desperate to lure someone away from the road, and draw them in.”

  “We’ve been there,” said Connelly. “We’ve been in those places. Yes.”

  “And seen the truth of things,” Pike said.

  “This has happened before,” Hammond said softly.

  “Yes,” said Pike. “But your news gives us heart, Mr. Connelly. This thing can be killed, you say, and I believe you. You said it could not be done easily. I agree. And yet I feel that all of us, all of us here, have enough strength to do it. More strength than those who failed before.”

  “I think I understand, a little,” said Connelly. “This… this man and the world he walks in. They’re twined together. He’s its Death, the end of everything alive in it. But look at what the world has become. Old and broken and dying. And there’s him. Crazy and mad. An animal. A wild thing. He’s winding down and so it’s winding down. The world is dying and so is he.” Connelly licked his lips. “If we kill the Death of this world, well. Maybe we change it.”

  “But what comes next?” said Hammond.

  Connelly shrugged. “Anything’s better than this. Anything.”

  The rain increased. They moved the fire beneath a tree stick by stick, but once there Pike shook his head and said, “Enough of this. I’m tired as it is. I’m going to my tent and I advise all of you to do the same.” He stood up and entered his shelter and was quiet.

  “How are you doing?” said Hammond once he was gone. “I mean, really.”

  “Okay, I guess.”

  “Monk didn’t just leave,” he said softly.

  “What?”

  “Monk didn’t just leave. Or at least, I don’t think he did.”

  “What happened?”

  “After the fight at the jail we was all shook up,” said Hammond. “I lost a finger and an eye but I’ve gotten along all right. Monk took one in the arm, Pike got grazed. We had guns we had bought or stolen from a few places and we shot back, maybe killed a few, I don’t know. We got away and recovered once they couldn’t find the sheriff. When we had healed up Monk said he didn’t want to go any further. Said he should have gone with Lottie. Said this wasn’t worth it anymore and he was giving up and he encouraged all of us to do the same.”

  “And?”

  “Pike said he and him should have a talk. Talk about this like learned gentlemen, he said. So they went off and did. They were gone a long while. Only Pike
came back and he said they discussed it and he gave Monk his blessing and sent him on the road. Said Monk felt so guilty he didn’t want to say goodbye or take any of our food. But Pike was all out of breath. All out of breath and he had hurt his hand. I don’t know where Monk is now but I don’t think he’s on the road and I don’t think he’s looking for Lottie, neither.”

  “Pike is a strong man,” said Peachy quietly. “But he’s a frightful man, too.”

  “Yeah,” Hammond said.

  “Maybe we need frightening men to fight other scary men, but it just don’t sit right with me, Connelly. It just don’t.”

  “I know,” said Connelly. “Are you armed?”

  Hammond nodded.

  “Where’s it at?”

  “Two. In the bindlestick. Both loaded.” He pointed to the satchel.

  “Okay,” said Connelly.

  They looked at the two tents. Neither Pike nor Roosevelt stirred. Then Hammond and Peachy went to bed and Connelly slept beneath the tree.

  They went north again the next day. Roosevelt had to be led, like an old man.

  “We know he went this way, Mr. Connelly,” said Pike, striding along with his walking stick. He did not seem nearly so tired or beaten as all the rest. “You are right, he is weakening. Slowing. We will prevail, don’t you worry.”

  “Let’s hope,” said Hammond, more to himself than anyone. He limped slightly but his face did not show any pain, or at least what remained of it.

  Connelly dropped back to speak to Peachy. “You don’t have to come with us, you know.”

  Peachy smiled. “I know.”

  “This is dangerous stuff.”

  “Know that, too.”

  “I appreciate you keeping me up and going in jail but, hell, that isn’t worth this. You don’t have to do this.”

  Peachy laughed. “It ain’t about worth. We’re not bargaining, keeping a ledger or nothing. I just figure, well, you folks need help. Seems like you all have a rough road ahead, but… Well, these fellas believe in what they’re doing. They believe it’s right. And I think it may be, though it scares me. Besides,” he said, and lifted his face to the sun, “you got to keep to those who keep to you. If I’m not good, then who will be?”