Cage of Night

by Ed Gorman

  Little kids in our town believe that there are two long-haunted places. One is the old red brick school abandoned back in the fifties. The story they tell is that there was this really wicked principal, a warted crone who looked a lot like Miss Grundy in "Archie" comics, who on two occasions took two different first-graders to the basement and beat them so badly that they died. Legend has it that she cracked the concrete floor, buried them beneath it and poured fresh concrete. Legend also has it that even today the spirits of those two little kids still haunt the old schoolhouse and that, on certain nights, the ghost of the principal can be seen carrying a blood-dripping axe.

  The other legend concerns Parkinson's cabin, a place built in the mid-1800s by a white man who planned to do a lot of business with the Mesquakie Indians. Except something went wrong. The local newspaper noted that a huge meteor was seen by many locals one night, and that it crashed to earth not far from Trapper Parkinson's crude cabin. The odd thing was, nobody ever saw or talked to Parkinson again after the meteor crash. Perfect soil for a legend to grow.

  It took us thirty-five minutes to reach the cabin from the road. About halfway there, Cindy finally told me that that was where we were headed. Bramble and first-growth pine made the last of our passage slow. But then we stood on a small hill, the moon big and round and blanched white like the one the Aztec priests always called a demon moon, and looked down on a disintegrating lean-to of boards and tar paper. Over the years, hobos had periodically tried to fix the place up. An ancient plow, all blade-rusted and wood-rotted, stood next to the cabin. A silver snake of moon-touched creek ran behind.

  And then Cindy said, "You see it over there? The well?"

  Sometime in the early part of this century, when the last of the Mormons were trekking their way across the country to Utah, a straggling band stopped here long enough to help a young couple finish the well they'd started digging. The Mormons, being decent folks indeed, even built the people a pit made of native stone and a roof made of birch. And the well itself hadn't been easy to dig. You started with a sharp-pointed augur looking for water and then you dug with a shovel when you found it. Sometimes you dug two hundred feet, sending up buckets of rock and dirt and shale for days before you were done. It was all tumbledown now, of course, but you could see in the remnants of the pit how impressive it must have been when it was new.

  We went over to the well. Cindy ducked beneath the shabby roof and peered straight down into the darkness. I dropped a rock down there. The rock broke a thin skin of ice. The echoes rose. I shone my light down. This was what they call a dug well, about the only kind most people made back then. Most of the dug wells in this area went down into clay and shale about fifty feet.

  I kept my light trained down there.

  "He probably doesn't like the light."

  I looked up at her. "Who doesn't like the light?"

  "I guess I shouldn't say 'he.' I should say 'it.'"

  "I guess I'm not following you, Cindy."

  She sighed and walked a few feet away from the well. I didn't go after her. Right now, for some reason, I didn't want to touch her. It was almost as if I was afraid to touch her.

  There was white moonlit snow and there was deep prairie shadow around the cabin, and on a smaller hill nearby there were deer.

  But mostly there was just the wind whipping up snow crystals, and the silence. There was a whole lot of silence.

  "You'll just laugh at me if I tell you," she said. She sounded almost angry.

  "No, I won't."

  "You know I had a breakdown. Everybody in this whole fucking town knows I had a breakdown."

  "I won't laugh at you, Cindy. I promise."

  She didn't speak, didn't move, for maybe half a minute, and then she walked back over to me and said, "You really promise?"

  "I really promise."

  "I can't stand it when people laugh at me. That's what it was like when I came back from the hospital. I'd walk by people and I could hear them whispering and see them smirking. And I'd tell this to my so-called shrink and he'd just say I was being paranoid. He also tried putting the moves on me, the asshole."

  "Your shrink?"

  "Yeah. I really hated him."

  "Why didn't you tell somebody?"

  She glared at me. "Why didn't I tell somebody? Because I was crazy and if I told anybody they'd just see that as proof that I was crazy. Dr. Granger is an important man in this town." She shook her head. "But I don't give a shit about that. It's the well I want to tell you about."

  "And I want to hear it."

  She walked over to the fieldstone edge of the well and looked down inside.

  "He's some kind of space alien."

  I didn't say anything.

  "He was inside the meteor that crashed here that time.

  "And he stays down in the well?"

  "Yes."

  "Why?"

  "Because if humans ever laid eyes on him, they'd go insane. Right on the spot."

  "How do you know that?"

  "I—communicate with him."

  "I see."

  She glanced up at me. "You don't believe me, do you?"

  "I'm listening, Cindy. With an open mind. I really am."

  "You think space aliens exist?"

  "I think it's possible."

  "You think one could exist down this well?"

  "I think that's possible, too."

  "You're not just saying that?"

  "No."

  "Really?"

  "Really."

  "Good," she said.

  "How did you find out about it?" I said.

  "That's the part I can't tell you."

  "Why not?"

  "Because I'd get my friend in trouble. My ex-friend, I guess."

  As soon as she said ex-friend, I suspected who she was talking about.

  "David Myles told you about the alien, didn't he?"

  "I really can't talk about that part of it. I hate him, but I don't want to get him in trouble."

  I thought of what Garrett had hinted at, that he thought Myles was in some serious trouble. "We did things," she said.

  She spoke so softly, I could barely hear.

  At first, I assumed she was talking about sexual relationships. Maybe now that they'd broken up she regretted sleeping with him.

  But then she said, "He did the things. But I was there. I didn't stop him."

  Then: "Put your head down into the well a little."

  "Like this?" I said.

  "Yeah."

  I kept my head down there for a full minute. The wind whined as it whipped in circles inside the well.

  "You hear anything?" she said.

  "Just the wind."

  "Listen harder."

  I knew what she wanted me to hear. And I wanted to hear it, too.

  But I didn't hear anything.

  When I brought my head up, I saw her watching me, disappointed.

  "Maybe it takes a couple of times," she said.

  "I'm willing to try it again sometime."

  "You're just so damned good to me."

  She came over to me then and pulled me to her. She kissed me with a kind of desperation that alarmed me a little.

  And then we were making love.

  It was crazy, it was so cold, and there really wasn't even any good place to lean against.

  But she was slipping her jeans down. She got one leg of them off entirely so that I could put myself up inside her.

  And then we were doing it, her leaning back against the well, and finding the rhythm and the moisture to pull me up way deep inside her. Her thighs were cold but her sex was so hot and nurturing that it warmed my entire body.

  She had a wonderful body and she really knew what she was doing.

  I just kind of followed her lead. When she went fast, I went fast. When she slowed down, I slowed down.

  One time something funny happened, I heard this voice, it was very strange, it wasn't hers, it wasn't mine, it wasn't even out loud, at least I don't t
hink it was. It was just this voice in my head, and it said something that I couldn't understand, I couldn't understand at all. I thought maybe it was the wind—out here on the prairie, the wind gets pretty strange sometimes.

  But mostly I just gave myself over to making love to Cindy.

  There was passion, but there was tenderness, too. That was the part I liked.

  She'd pause every once in a while and hold my face between her hands and look at me and say, "I'm really falling in love with you."

  And then we'd start up again.

  I held on as long as I could.

  Every time I thought I was going to come, I'd slow down so I could hold out longer.

  But then I couldn't help myself and I said, "I'm going to come," and she said "oh, yes; yes yes," and I came and it was sort of like dying, I don't know how else to describe it, it was like I was surrendering my entire being to her, and I wanted to, I wanted her to take me and control me the rest of my life.

  And then we were done, spent.

  I got down on my haunches and helped get the leg of her jeans back on. I couldn't help myself from touching her there again. I felt where I'd just been, felt where we commingled, and she must have sensed what I was feeling because she put her hand on mine and left it there for a long and tender moment.

  On the way back to town, her driving her dad's nice new car, she said, "I wish you would've heard it."

  "Maybe I did."

  "God, really?"

  I told her about the strange brief muffled words in my head as we'd been making love.

  "That's how it was the first time for me, too," she said.

  Then we were quiet for a time, there was just the heater blowing and a rock ballad playing, and the farm fields blue in the midnight moon ran on and on, flat and beautiful, for endless miles.

  "I want to tell you something," I said.

  She looked at me curiously. "All right."

  "I was a virgin until tonight."

  She smiled. "God, I wish I could say the same."

  "I mean, you didn't guess?"

  "Huh-uh. You did just fine."

  I could feel myself grinning. Couldn't help it. "I was afraid I'd do something stupid."

  "Like what?"

  "Oh, I don't know. Come too fast or something like that."

  "You did just great. Really. Just great."

  Then she reached over and took my hand and gave it a quick squeeze. "I really am falling in love with you."

  "I'm falling in love with you, too."

  "I know," she smiled. "And that's what makes it so nice."

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  Summer came the following week.

  That's a local joke, about how you can have summer and winter and summer again all within the same month. Sometimes within the same week.

  But it really was sort of like summer, people walking around downtown in their shirtsleeves and dresses.

  By noon, the temperature was in the seventies and the sunlight was very warm. Convertible tops went down and everywhere you went you heard loud rock and roll music. It was like the town was having this party.

  On my lunch hour, I walked over to Taubman's Cigar Store. That's what it's always been called, but even though they sell cigarettes and cigars it's mostly a newsstand where I buy all my science fiction paperbacks.

  The big thing at Taubman's is the skin magazines. Two or three times in the past few years, The Women Of Righteousness picketed the place, but Mr. Taubman didn't give in.

  Mr. Taubman keeps the skin magazines in the back of his store, so that's where you usually find the crowd. It's always kind of fun to watch guys go back there. Some of them look kind of sneaky and furtive. Some kind of swagger, as if they're daring you to say anything about what they're doing. And some are just fast, shoot back there, thumb through a few pages, and then shoot back out into the street.

  I spent twenty minutes going through the new paperbacks. I bought two of them, a Koontz and a King, them pretty much being my favorite writers.

  I was just leaving when I saw Garrett coming

  through the doorway.

  Even though his shift didn't start for a couple of hours, he was already in uniform.

  Any self-consciousness he'd had those first few days was already gone.

  When he saw me, he paused in the doorway, nodded for me to follow, and then turned around and walked back outside.

  He said hello to a couple of passing people, and then gave a long, hard look to a very pretty young mother pushing her baby in his stroller down the block. She had beautiful ankles.

  He didn't say anything to me, just started walking, and I fell in next to him.

  It was kind of strange, neither of us saying anything, just walking. We passed the Lutheran church with its towering spire; and the First Trust bank building where, according to legend, John Dillinger stopped one day while fleeing federal agents; and the Orpheum theater that closed down after the four-plex went up in the mall.

  Then we reached the city park, and it was all pretty women, and little kids playing Frisbee with dogs, and old men on park benches, and motorboats out on the river.

  "You eat yet?" Garrett said.

  "Huh-uh."

  "You want a hot dog?"

  "Yeah, OK."

  There was a small concrete block concession stand. We got two Pepsis and two chili dogs and went over and sat on a bench by the river.

  I could tell he wanted to say something.

  He said, "Guess what I read this weekend?"

  "What?"

  "Four of those old Roy Thomas Conan comic books."

  "Wow, I haven't seen those since I was a kid."

  "They were really good."

  But that wasn't what he really wanted to say. That was just talk. Nervous talk.

  He said, "Went on my first drug-bust last night."

  "Yeah?"

  "Yeah. I was scared shitless. The Captain said that these guys would be armed. You know, dealers."

  "Were they?"

  "Yeah, they were. One of them even had a sawed-off shotgun. Lucky for us, they were stoned out of their fucking minds. All we had to do was waltz in there and bust the bastards."

  He was already a cop. With the attitude, I mean, and hard edge. He'd only been wearing the uniform about three weeks.

  But the drug bust wasn't what he wanted to tell me about, either.

  We sat in silence a little longer and the little kids laughing and toddling around on the grass was kind of fun to watch.

  He said, "He's a big hero."

  "Who is?"

  "Myles."

  "Oh."

  "You didn't press charges so he could play that game and he goes and scores more points than he ever has and we win the conference championship so now he's king shit again instead of this creep who beat you up."

  "Well, I got something good out of it." I looked over at him and smiled. "Cindy."

  We watched each other for a moment and then looked back at the river. Sometimes it's easy to imagine the days when the big paddle-wheelers plied this river and unloaded supplies here on the shore. The old-timers say that Indians used to run for miles on the shore right along with the paddle-wheelers, waving and laughing the whole time.

  He said, "I've got to tell you something."

  Whatever he was about to say was the real thing he wanted to tell me. Not Conan, not drug busts. This.

  "She's seeing him again."

  "Cindy?"

  "Uh-huh."

  "Bullshit."

  There was a sweet, soft breeze, but I couldn't enjoy it. I didn't believe what he'd told me, but somehow I didn't quite dis-believe him, either.

  The last few days, Cindy had been acting odd. The nights we went out, she found a reason to go home early. And any plans I suggested, she always put off, saying she wasn't sure what her schedule would be like.

  She wouldn't even kiss me right, either.

  I guess that was the worst of it because that's where I could really feel her slip
ping away from me, her kisses too quick, too cold.

  "She hates him," I said.

  "Maybe."

  "And since she hates him, it wouldn't make any sense that she was seeing him, would it?"

  "I just thought you should know."

  I was quiet for a time.

  Then, "Somebody tell you this or you see it for yourself?"

  "I saw it for myself."

  "When?"

  "Last few nights."

  "Where?"

  "Couple of different places. Out behind McDonald's where all the kids hang out?"

  "Yeah?"

  "He was kissing her."

  I felt a lot of things just then, but mostly I felt sick. I saw a little kid tottering across the grass in search of his fallen Frisbee. It really would be good to be a kid again and not give a damn about a girl betraying you.

  He said, "She tell you anything about him?"

  "Like what?"

  "Anything he might have done that was against the law."

  I'd forgotten his suspicions about David Myles.

  "She hinted at a couple of things, I guess."

  "Like what?"

  "Nothing specific."

  "She ever mention the Franson woman?"

  "The old lady who got murdered?"

  "Yeah, murdered and robbed. Her."

  "No, she never mentioned her. You don't think Myles had anything to do with the Franson woman, do you?"

  He shot his sleeve and looked at his wristwatch. It was silver and new and impressive. I guessed his folks gave it to him as a gift.

  "I'm not sure yet."

  He stood up and I saw it in him, too, the way I'd seen it in my younger brother Josh. Garrett the cop here was becoming an adult. We were the same age and I was still a boy and he was becoming an adult.

  Then I remembered the well and said, "She's got this weird thing about a well."

  "What kind of well?"

  I told him.

  "You know she was in the mental hospital, don't you?"

  "Yeah."

  "Now I can see why."

  I should have defended her, but I was too angry. I had no doubt that Garrett had told me the truth about Myles kissing her. I wanted somebody to dislike Myles as much as I did. Garrett seemed willing to take on the role.

  He checked his wristwatch again. "I'd better get going."

  His Sam Browne creaked; his Magnum was as imposing as ever.