“I don’t think it was meant for him at all. I think it was intended for whoever happened to come along, and it just so happened to be that boy’s bad luck he was driving that road at that exact time. Could’ve just as easily been me or you. I don’t believe it would’ve mattered one bit to this person. If for some reason he had a target on Danny’s back, there’re far simpler ways to go about it.” Corbin crumpled the parchment paper Meryl had wrapped the sandwiches in, then dropped it in the wastebasket beside his desk. “No, I think this was something else altogether.”
“Who’d do a thing like that? That’s some bad stuff, Chief.”
“Not sure. For a time, I thought it could’ve been Elhouse trying to teach someone a lesson, but I don’t really buy that anymore.”
“No? He came down here a few times to complain about kids speeding down Waldingfield. Makes sense, doesn’t it? And after all that weirdness that went down at their house, I wouldn’t put it past the old coot. It sounds like that man’s tractor might’ve been missing a tire or two, if you catch what I mean.”
Corbin caught what he meant and glanced at Billy. Thing was, he didn’t entirely disagree, but he felt defensive of Elhouse. He was reminded of what Gertie had said: We were married for forty-five years, and the thing that attacked me yesterday was not my Elhouse.
He didn’t exactly understand it, yet he respected it in the way a person respects any truth that’s hard to believe.
The story already making its way around Gilchrist was, by and large, the truth: Elhouse had attacked his wife—for what reason, maybe only God would ever know—then somehow managed to get himself killed in a barn fire. There was no mention, however, of how the fire had started. Corbin had decided he was going to bury the detail of Elhouse dousing himself in gasoline and lighting himself up like a birthday candle. Gertie didn’t need to hear about it, and neither did the town. It changed absolutely nothing. It only added acid to an already-churning pot. There had been three deaths in town in as many days, and people were starting to talk nervously among themselves about it, almost as if they feared it was catching.
“Yeah… yeah, I know what you mean. But it just didn’t sit right with me. Not after I found this stuff.” Corbin pointed to the cigarette butts and MoonPie wrapper arranged neatly on a piece of newspaper on his desk. “I know it could very well be unrelated—and I might be making jumps I have no business making—but I just have a feeling it’s connected. And I’ve learned over the years that it’s a bad idea to ignore what your gut gives you. We don’t know nearly as much as we think we do. You’d do well to take that advice, Billy. Might save your life someday.”
Billy nodded, then finally dabbed the mustard on his lip after finishing his sandwich and downing the rest of his soda. “So what now?” he asked, popping a piece of gum in his mouth.
“I’m not sure. I suppose we could go door-to-door and ask everyone if they did it,” Corbin said. “We could stake out Virgil’s Gas ’N Go or the General Store and see who buys MoonPies and Lucky Strikes. Or we could figure out who has access to chain. That ought to narrow down the list of suspects to around a thousand people or so, give or take a hundred.”
“Okay, okay, okay. It ain’t gonna be easy,” Billy said.
“What I know is that there’s a better than good chance we have someone dangerous walking around our streets. And we haven’t a clue who he is, if he’ll do this again, or if he’s done something like this before. I’d wager my best Woolly Bugger he’s got some sorta history.” Corbin wiped an open hand across his mouth, then put on his hat and stood up. “Well, anyway,” he said, and sighed.
“Heading out?” Billy asked, eyes tracking up.
“Gotta go talk to Ricky Osterman about his lead foot. I told Gertie I’d make sure he never sped down her road again, and I aim to make good on that. Do me a favor and put this evidence in the safe. It’s all we got at the moment.”
“I’ll take care of it.”
The phone rang on Corbin’s desk as he was walking out from behind it.
He picked it up and cleared his throat. “Yeah, this is Chief Delancey.” Worry and confusion mixed over his face at the sound of crying on the other end of the receiver. “Who is this?”
“Corbin, it’s Sarah. I need to talk to Billy. Is he there? Oh please… please tell me he’s there. It’s important.”
“Hold on, just slow down. You want to talk to Billy?” Corbin said. “What on earth do you want with him?”
“Please. It’s important… I… I just need to speak with him. Please, Corbin, just put him on.”
“All right, all right, take it easy. He’s right here. Hold on.” He looked at Billy and shook his head. He handed him the phone, palm covering the mouthpiece. “It’s for you, I guess. Dave’s wife. God, Billy, tell me you aren’t that stupid.”
Billy, still sitting, looked like the cat who’d just ate the canary. If the yellow mustard had still been on his lip, that would’ve added a nice touch.
“For me?” he asked sheepishly, and slowly got to his feet. “I… shit.”
“I’d say shit is right,” Corbin said. “And something tells me you just stepped in awfully big pile of it.”
Billy took the phone. “Sarah?… Slow down. I can’t understand you… What happened?… You told him? Oh jeez… No, all right… Wait—what?… He did?… That son of a bitch!… I’m gonna kill him!… It’s him who should worry… No, he’s not.”
Corbin stood on the other side of the desk, arms folded like a disappointed parent, and watched Billy’s face work through the corresponding emotions: concern, surprise, relief, a flash of something like happiness, then quickly to hot anger.
Corbin liked Billy. He was a good police officer and a nice kid. Of all the people in his department, he was the one Corbin didn’t mind sharing a lunch and a chat with. They had even had him over for dinner a few times, and Meryl had said he seemed like a kind boy. Corbin could tell Billy had a good heart. But he was young and often a little too naïve for his own good. That was why Corbin had held off on promoting him. He wasn’t ready.
Out front of the station, rubber screamed against road. A car door slammed. Then someone yelled: “Billy, you piece of shit, get the fuck out here!” Dave was hot under the collar about something, and Corbin could take a pretty good guess about what.
“I gotta go,” Billy said into the phone. “No, it’s okay, I’ll be fine… Yes. Now pack a bag and get out of there. Go to your cousin’s. I’ll pick you up soon. I’m just gonna talk to him.”
“Billy, listen to me, not in front of the station,” Corbin said, but Billy was already storming out.
“I’ll kill that prick,” Billy muttered, his hands clenched into fists. He started opening and closing them rapidly.
Corbin had never seen the kid angry before in his life. There was always something unsettling, he thought, about seeing a person who was normally calm blow their top. It was a lot like watching a bomb go off in church.
He followed after him. “Shit. This is just what I need.” He passed by Ray Stanski, who was working dispatch.
Ray looked at him dumbly and blinked without saying a word.
“Don’t just sit there. These two assholes are about to go at it. Give me a hand.”
“Yes, sir.” Ray scrambled to his feet and around the radio desk.
Through the door, Corbin could see Dave standing in the street, pacing back and forth. His fists were tight white balls. The cruiser he had pulled up in was taking up three spaces, its door still open.
“I’m the piece of shit?” Billy said as he burst out the front door, almost tearing it off its hinges. He pedaled down the steps in a hurry. “What kind of a man hits a woman? You’re pathetic. No wonder she’s leaving you. I swear I’ll make sure you never come near her again.”
Dave stopped when he spotted Billy. He stared him down, then started toward him. No more than forty feet separated the two men. They were two violent storm fronts headed for each other.
“
You ruined her,” Dave said, eerily calm. “You had no right to break my home that way.” He no longer looked mad; he actually looked sad. Something was off.
Corbin came out onto the front steps of the station. “Hey!” he shouted. “You two morons want to knock each other around, take it out back. You hear me? Not here, or I swear I’ll crack both your skulls and suspend you without pay for a month.”
Neither listened, but he hadn’t really thought they would. If Billy had been up to what it sounded like he had been up to, then there was no stopping it. This particular fuse could not be unlit once it had been set.
Billy and Dave were closing the distance between each other, both pushing up their sleeves. Across the street, Immie Davenport—the biggest gossip in Gilchrist County—was walking by, but she stopped, her face locked in a show of appalled curiosity. The scene was simply far too juicy to ignore. Two kids had stopped on their bikes in the middle of the sidewalk and were watching, leaning on their handlebars and sipping milkshakes.
Corbin couldn’t help but notice that Billy was outmatched by about fifty pounds, although he did have a couple inches on Dave. He didn’t know if either man could fight, but if Dave was even halfway capable, he had the clear advantage. Corbin was reluctant to get involved, but he couldn’t just stand there and watch like some dumb-eyed street gawker as two of his officers pounded the spit out of each other.
He was halfway down the steps when he saw the thing in the street, and it stopped him cold in his tracks. To someone watching, it might’ve looked as though he had just walked into an invisible wall. He nearly fell backward but caught his balance. He blinked hard. It had to be some kind of hallucination.
There was something—something big—standing behind Dave. It was maybe ten or twelve feet tall, with long arms that hung down to the ground, and muscular, avian legs. It had gray skin, except for the face, which was a dizzying, swirling blur of shimmering colors. The back of its head was covered in welts that seemed to flutter open and closed, and around which black tendrils of thick hair grew. The creature was just standing behind Dave, looming over him like a giant, ugly shadow. And he could see right through the thing, just how he could see through his own reflection when he stood in front of a window. It was there, but it wasn’t.
Corbin only saw it for a couple seconds before it vanished. He glanced over his shoulder at Ray, who was right on his heels. “Did you just see…?”
He didn’t finish the question because he already knew the answer. If anyone else had seen that hideous thing, there would have been screaming.
“Did I see what?” Ray asked.
“Nothing. Never mind. Just help me put a stop to this. I’ll grab Billy. You get Dave.”
The last thing that went through his head before things turned horrible was once more Gertie’s voice from their conversation earlier that day: It’s like there’s some invisible wall between this place and another terrible place, and it has grown far too thin.
What happened next, happened fast.
At twenty feet from Dave, Billy spat out his gum and started raising his fists. Dave didn’t raise his. Instead he widened his stance and brought his right hip back a quarter turn. Then at ten feet, he pulled his pistol from his holster and fired two shots into Billy Porter’s angry, charging face.
Crack! Crack! The sound rebounded off the brick buildings and danced down Market Street, leaving a haunted wake behind it.
The onlookers on the street let out a collective gasp of stunned horror. A flock of birds took flight from a nearby tree, spooked by the gunshots. Mrs. Davenport dropped the bags she had been carrying. A stiff hand covering her mouth, she was silent with shock, each one of her eyes roughly the size—and color—of a cast-iron cannonball.
Billy reeled back, his legs folding underneath him. Then he crumpled into a pile on the ground like a wet towel. Bits of brain and skull were scattered on the street behind him. His right eye had exploded, and what was left hung out of its socket, still attached to a bundle of sinewy nerves and veins. Dave calmly stood over him, and fired three more rounds from his .38 into Billy’s chest.
When the gun was finished barking, the street fell silent. The smell of cordite slowly permeated the air. Only it didn’t smell quite like spent gunpowder. It smelled mixed with something sour and rotten.
For a few horrible seconds, Corbin could only stand there in shock, his senses taking a snapshot of the moment and searing it into his mind. His head did a dazed panoramic sweep from left to right, recording the scene.
The two kids on bikes had their jaws hanging open. One had dropped his milkshake, which was oozing out on the sidewalk. It was pink. Probably strawberry. Allan Shepard, a local CPA, was standing in the front window of his accounting firm across the street, hands planted on his hips. The Open flag hung listlessly over his door. The engine of the police car Dave had pulled up in was running. Its radiator fan kicked on with a loud whir.
Dave kept his place standing over Billy, his arm still extended and holding his revolver. He showed an indifferent face.
Immie Davenport finally started to scream, and it was her shrill cry that called Corbin to action.
“Jesus Christ Almighty, he’s lost his mind. What the hell did he just do?” Ray Stanski said from behind him.
5
Dave could feel his heartbeat in his hand as he squeezed the pistol grip. It was thumping in his fingers. Sweat was starting to itch his palm.
“Drop the gun!” someone shouted.
Dave didn’t focus on who had said it; he was looking down at Billy’s dead body. He didn’t think he had been planning to do that on the drive over. But somewhere between leaving his house and arriving at the police station, something must’ve boiled over inside him.
I had no choice, he thought. What kind of a man would I be if I didn’t defend what’s mine?
Someone repeated the command: “Drop the gun, Dave. Now!” And this time he recognized it as Chief Delancey’s voice.
Dave turned his head and looked across his shoulder. The chief had his gun pointed at him. Ray Stanski was doing the same, but he looked nervous and pale—unsure of himself. Corbin looked plain furious, but there was also a hint of something like sadness in his eyes.
It felt odd to see the law from this side. In a matter of seconds, he had completely flipped his life upside down. And all it had taken was a few tiny flicks of his finger on a trigger. He couldn’t decide if that was a terrifying or exhilarating thing to understand.
Ray leaned toward Corbin and said, “He only fired five shots, Chief. Gun’s not empty, I don’t think.”
“I can count, Ray,” Corbin said.
Immie was screaming, “He killed him. He killed him. I saw him do it. Oh dear God, he’s killed him,” over and over again.
“Goddammit, Dave, put your gun down. I won’t tell you again.”
Dave lowered the gun so that it was pointed at the ground, but he didn’t drop it. He faced Corbin squarely, who stiffened his stance. “He ruined her,” Dave said. “He might as well have killed her. Billy got what he deserved and nothing more.”
“You didn’t have to shoot him,” Corbin said, taking a step toward him. “Jesus Christ, you didn’t have to do that.”
“People get what’s due them.” Dave nodded. “That’s all this wa—” Grrr… Garoof! The sound startled Dave, and he looked to his right. “The hell?”
The dog he had found out near Nipmuc the day before was standing in the middle of the street. It was growling at him, its giant, sharp teeth bared. There was something different about the dog. It had strange, shimmering eyes that seemed to shift colors like two black pearls. The thing was huge, too. At least twice the size as he remembered it being. He didn’t think Labradors could even get that big. Its mouth was dripping with silver slobber, and its coat was covered in something oily.
“What the fuck are you doing here?” he said, turning to Black Dog. “Didn’t I already teach you not to sneak up on people?”
He
started to raise his gun at the dog, but it leapt at him and sank its teeth into his arm. He felt the bones crunch, and his fingers went numb.
Dave dropped the revolver, fell onto his back, and started to shriek with pain.
6
“Holy hell, he just bit himself! Did you see that? Did you see that?” Ray said, horrified. He was pointing his gun at Dave, but the barrel was shaking. “Jesus, what’s the matter with him?”
“I don’t know,” Corbin said. “But you’re going to have to cover me, in case he reaches for that pistol. Can you do that while I put the cuffs on him?”
“Yeah… Yes. Yessir,” Ray said, wiping the back of his hand across his forehead.
“Don’t you take that gun off him, you hear? I haven’t a clue what he’ll do.”
“It looks like he’s havin a seizure,” Ray said. “My brother used to get em.”
“That ain’t no seizure,” Corbin said. “Just make sure he doesn’t move for that gun. If he does, plug him. He just shot Billy Porter in the face. You don’t forget that. If you and Dave was friends before, you ain’t right now. Don’t hesitate, because he sure as hell won’t.”
Dave was flopping around on his back in the street, screaming. It looked like he was wrestling some invisible thing. If he was faking it—which of course he was, because what other explanation could there be?—it was one hell of a mime act. The muscles in his arms and neck were corded with straining tendons. He was giving it his all. “Help, you assholes! Get this thing off me. Somebody shoot this mutt, for chrissakes.”
But there was nothing there. There was no mutt. Only a grown man in the throes of some strange episode. He had bitten himself in the meat of the forearm hard enough to draw blood.
Across the street, Immie was still screaming. She had changed her refrain, though: “What’s he doing? Oh Lord, why is he doing that? Why? Oh no, why? Dear God, someone stop him.”
“Show’s over,” Corbin said, moving toward him cautiously. “Now get up. I’m going to cuff you and take you inside.” He kept his eye on the revolver on the ground. It sat in a pool of Billy’s blood.
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