Jeb looked up at Merle and maybe thought about trying to bite him a second time, but then reconsidered. Even if he somehow managed to hurt the man╤not likely╤there were others who would stand with the patriarch and defend him from anything Jeb wanted to do.
His voice was feeble. It was always feeble, as if to make up for the fact that he was one of the strongest that could exist in both worlds. “The hut where they should be was burned, Merle. I found them, but they’re dead.” He stood up and Merle pulled the meat hook from his arm. The pain was still there, but the wound was already mending. Jeb was strong. He knew that was why Merle felt the need to beat him worse than some of the others. Merle sometimes thought all of the Pale Family were feeble in the head. That was his mistake and one that he would pay for when the time was right. But for now Merle still had his uses.
“Now, the problem with that is I need those damned fools to turn themselves in to the police, so we don’t get all of our plans screwed up, Jeb.”
“I can bring you the bodies.” Well, most of them. Jeb was pretty sure some of their remains had crumbled.
Merle closed his eyes and rubbed at the bridge of his nose, a look of long suffering crossing his coarse features. “It’s not the bodies, Jeb. It’s the fact that you didn’t tell me about it when you found them. Instead you’ve been fucking around in the woods and acting like everything’s just fine. It isn’t just fine. You understand me?”
“You shouldn’t talk down to me, Merle.” He stood at his full height inside the house that Merle ruled. The room was tall enough to allow him that luxury. Many of the human houses were not.
Merle looked down at the ground for a moment and then looked back at Jeb. “You should go fuck yourself, Jeb. If you could follow orders, maybe we could have kept this all peaceful like, until we could get everyone over here. Now? Now if we’re really fucking lucky, the sheriff will wait until daylight before he comes here to arrest me and you and every last member of the family.”
Jeb smiled. Merle was joking. He had to be. “Merle, the sheriff can’t even see me. Not unless I let him.”
“Which is why I need you to go to his house tonight, Jeb. Take a few others with you, okay?”
Jeb shook his head. “That’s not what Mother wants. She said he was special.”
“Your mother always thinks everyone is special if he’s got a pretty face. She’ll get over it if he just happens to die. And I’ll tell her it was my idea, so you won’t have to worry about getting punished.”
Jeb thought long and hard about that, so long that Merle started looking at his meat hook and then at Jeb’s other shoulder. Jeb got the message, but he still took his time answering.
“I’ll do it, Merle. I’ll kill him good and proper. No more warnings.”
Merle nodded and smiled.
“But Merle, you better think twice before you use that meat hook again.”
Merle moved forward and swung a meaty hand that slapped against Jeb’s face with a hard report. “Next time I have to use the fucking hook on you, Jeb, I’ll take out your goddamned eyes and we’ll see if you like the darkness then, okay, Bubba?”
Jeb leaned down and snapped his teeth half an inch from Merle’s face. Most men would have been pissing themselves. Jeb knew that from experience. Merle didn’t so much as flinch.
“Ain’t a dog, Merle. Better stop treating me like one.”
“See? I was trying to be nice with you, Jeb. Because I like you.” Merle set his hand against Jeb’s chest and Jeb shrieked at the searing pain that ran through his entire body. He tried to back away, tried to even just flinch, but nothing happened. He could scream for a hundred hours and nothing would happen. How long did Merle leave his hand there? Jeb couldn’t have said. The pain was too big, larger than the sky and the moon.
After a few eternities Merle moved his hand and Jeb fell to the ground, shivering. “You’re right, Jeb. You ain’t a dog. You’re my little fucking bitch. Remember that.” The words were hissed into his ear. “I marked his car earlier. You go find him. You kill him. You let me down again, or give me any more reason to get angry, and I’ll burn your goddamned eyes out. You hear me, Jeb?”
Jeb nodded and whimpered. The pain was fading, but the memory lingered. He forgot himself. Merle was the Patriarch. He knew things. He knew words of power and all the gestures that could burn.
Jeb waited until Merle was moving away from him and then he stood up. It was time to go, time to hunt.
The sheriff had to die, no matter what Mother said. Otherwise the pain would come back and Jeb didn’t think he could take that again. Not this soon.
Jeb called and his brothers and sisters responded. Not all of them, of course, only a handful, some of the gifted who could walk both worlds.
Despite the ghost of pain that still haunted him, Jeb licked his lips. He was hungry. He wondered what sheriff tasted like.
***
The night was basically done and Andy settled back in his favorite recliner, put his feet up on the futon, and sighed a long, deep comfortable sigh. The cocoa was perfect. Just the right temperature and the marshmallows had melted into a confectionary goo guaranteed to shoot a diabetic’s blood sugar through the stratosphere. Vivaldi played softly on the speakers and exactly four pumpkin spice cookies were waiting for his consumption. Now all he had to do was pick up his book and start reading.
The book was right there. He just had to reach.
Instead he looked at the damned phone and felt a flush of urgency. “Moon-Eyed People. Pfeh.” Brave words, but he looked at the phone as he said them.
There were caves, you see, and then there were caves. Andrew Hunter had examined a great number of caves over the years and most of the ones in the area were merely a reminder that greedy men had once sought gold in the vicinity before heading on for greener pastures. Most of them.
A few phone calls earlier in the day, a couple of people he knew could answer questions about other caves in other areas. North Carolina, even one or two in Mississippi and further to the west. There were other people with other caves and other experiences. They were the exceptions. Aren’t there always exceptions? All he had to do was pick up the phone and tell Carl about what he’d seen in the distant past, let him know that there might actually be a decent reason for calling Mooney’s Bluff by the name it used to have. Just a few old markings on cave walls, a couple of old illustrations drawn hastily╤probably nothing more than a Cherokee child’s worried flight of fancy╤that showed a representation of warped, round-eyed people with too many teeth and pointed to a spot on the bluff that Andy knew was buried under foliage.
It went against logic to think there might be anything to the old stories. Logic was, of course, the foundation of Andrew Hunter’s world. You found data, studied data, and recorded data. You did not start believing the old myths and folk tales of the region where you grew up. That was the world according to Andy. Foolish to even give consideration to the old tales.
Even late in the night, when the cloud cover outside hid away the stars and the moon and the only lights left were the street lamps down the road and the ones that you were ready to read by.
“Andrew Machen Hunter, now is not the time to start spooking yourself into a tither.” He rose up abruptly and looked around the room. From where he stood he could see the front door, the kitchen door and the main windows in both the living room and the study. Mostly what he could see, however was the light reflected from his own lamps. He looked back down at his phone. The sheriff was exactly one call away and he owed Andy a few by now.
He closed his eyes and listened to Vivaldi’s notes. Soft, sweet sounds. They were countered by the light creaking of boards and the shuffle of feet on the porch of his house. He’d been born here, he’d spent most of his life in the house. He knew the history of the place and had replaced more than one or two boards on his own. Plumbing he left to professionals. The occasional replacement for a board on the porch or a doorknob he could manage all by himself. And how did
he know if a board needed replacing? Simple. He listened when he walked. That oversized baboon that Carl had wrestled with had cracked a few boards when he broke the table and when Carl dropped him to his knees. Nice trick that one. He’d have to ask Carl to show him how it was he’d so easily staggered a man twice his size.
Carl would be glad to show him. That was what made Carl the sort of man he’d voted for as sheriff and also what made him the sort of man that Andy gladly did research for, he wasn’t just the son of an old friend, he was a good man. His father would have been right and proper proud of him.
Andy didn’t let himself think as he grabbed the phone and dialed. He didn’t consider the fact that he was an old fool who lived alone, or that he didn’t even have a decent handgun, only an old hunting rifle for which there were no bullets. He didn’t bother trying to convince himself that the noises outside were made by a curious raccoon╤ he knew the sounds of the local animals well enough to know that whatever was moving across the weakened boards was bigger than a raccoon or even a coyote. He just dialed and tried not to let himself panic as he listened to the sounds. There were several figures out there. He looked away from the streetlights and toward the kitchen door. He could see the shape of something╤just possibly someone╤creeping around in the darkness. The kitchen lights were off he didn’t like to waste energy. The curtains were thin╤it wasn’t like he normally worried about anyone peeping on an old fart who liked to wander the house in his flannel pajamas.
The fourth ring and Carl picked up. “It’s Carl.”
“Carl, it’s Andy Hunter. I need you. There’s something here.”
“I’m on my way. Do you have any weapons?”
“No. Maybe a kitchen knife.” His heart was hammering.
“Better yet. Go to the kitchen and get some salt. If it’s...if anything comes for you that doesn’t look human, throw the salt.”
There were a dozen different legends of creatures that couldn’t stand salt. He’d never heard that about the Moon-Eyed Folk, but Carl sounded certain.
“Salt. Got it.”
“Better idea though? Stay in the light and maybe light a few candles just in case. I’ll be there in ten minutes.”
Andy looked through the back door window again and it seemed there were more of them, the round eyes glowing at him like they belonged to cats, only cats that were too big. Not the size of grown men, but close enough.
Andy moved toward the kitchen╤irrationally grateful for cordless phones╤and flipped on the light switch. His heart was pounding harder now, too hard. He didn’t like this one little bit.
“Carl? You might want to call for an ambulance, too. I think I might be having a heart attack.”
“God damn it, Andy. Don’t you dare go dying on me. I don’t have the time for any more goddamned funerals.”
“You sound just like your father.”
“Just hang on, all right? I’m on my damn way.”
The conversation ended with a click. Andy grabbed the round cardboard container of table salt from his spice cabinet and moved from room to room, turning on the lights and trembling.
By the time he was done turning on lights his hands were shaking and his chest felt like someone had decided to park a car on it. But the sounds were gone. The little noises had faded away and that feeling of being watched was, if not gone, at least muted.
And then he heard the voice, soft and feminine, that called from the other side of his kitchen door. “Take the hint, old man. Read the damned note and take the hint.”
Then the voice was gone and the silence was almost complete, broken only by the faint sounds of Vivaldi, and then by the distant wail of sirens growing closer by the second.
Andy sat still and waited, too scared to move.
But he remembered the words. He’d look around. He promised himself he’d find any possible note.
Just as soon as the sun was up.
***
Wellman, Georgia lay spread out in typical fashion, with the main square in the center of town spreading in all directions. At the very heart of the oldest part of the town was a small park, kept clean and clear of debris by a small community of citizens, mostly retired, who took particular pride in their hometown. There was a small playground, nothing elaborate, just a few swings and a small slide and, of course, monkey bars which were carefully placed in a large area filled with sand. There might have been a few people tempted to leave their trash in that sand, but they weren’t tempted for long. The reproachful looks of the three or four senior citizens who spent their days around the park would have sent most would-be litterers heading for the hills.
Currently that square was decorated for Halloween, much to the disgust of a few church groups who insisted that everything about Halloween was satanic and designed solely to send souls screaming down to hell. Streamers of orange and black plastic had been wrapped around each of the old style lamps in the square, and around the bandstand that would be used on the Saturday before Halloween as both a display of the various children’s costumes and to present awards for the same. The Jaycees liked to celebrate with a little show for the kids and that included live music from a band no one had ever heard of, costume contests and a few booths for selling refreshments and letting the tykes spend a few quarters on games of chance where they could win prizes that cost roughly a dime to manufacture.
Several displays adorned the fronts of the local shops that were fortunate enough to line the square; scarecrows, pumpkins carved into jack-o-lanterns, a mannequin wearing a hockey mask and sporting a plastic machete and a few other odds and ends helped set the mood.
Jolene Blackbourne sat on one of the swings and swayed softly in the chilly night air, looking at the man with her and smiling with just the right mixture of sexuality and naòvetÄ to make the poor sap fidget. The ability came as naturally to her as breathing. She could look at a man and know exactly how to play him. The sad part for her was that her mother was even better at it. Sometimes she thought about that for a while and wanted to carve her mother’s face off. She suspected that made her normal. But also knew better than to ever tell anyone about those thoughts. Especially her mother, who could crush her with ease. Whatever she thought she could do, she knew her mother could do it better.
The man with her was only special because of his job. He didn’t know that, and even if he’d suspected it╤he didn’t╤he didn’t much care.
Despite the chill in the air, they were both sweating a bit. Exercise did that sometimes.
Vince Cleburne was a bus driver. He drove the route from Rome, Georgia to a small casino on the Cherokee reservation in North Carolina five nights a week. For the last three weeks running he’d made a point of stopping at the Rabbit Hutch Diner on the Square. The first time was just a coincidence, because he had a desperate need to void his bladder after one cola too many on the drive up. That was the night he met Jolene, who smiled just so, and gave good flirt with her amazing blue eyes.
Since then he stopped every night. Not for long, only for about ten to fifteen minutes, long enough for the people on the bus to hit the bathrooms and maybe grab something to eat. The diner’s owner was glad to make to go boxes, and has started planning for the bus’s stops. Vince got free food and he got to spend time with Jolene. The diner made decent extra money.
And Jolene stayed in family’s good graces.
Because Jolene knew something that a lot of people didn’t know. She knew that the bus would be full to capacity on the Sunday before Halloween. And on the Saturday and Friday preceding as well. The Casino always made it a point to offer specials on drinks and hotel rooms for almost every holiday. They always did brisk business at Halloween.
How did Jolene know that? Because Vince was a talker. He liked to tell people how hard he worked, and he also liked to tell Jolene how well some people tipped on special occasions. They’d be stopping a little longer than usual on all of those nights because Vince was looking forward to spending a little time with Jolene.
>
She gave Vince one more deep kiss when he sighed and said he had to be on his way. Her hands promised him a very special event or two come the weekend just ahead. Vince walked a little awkwardly when he headed back for the diner and the free cheeseburger he’d take with him on the road.
Jolene waited until he was well away from her before she spat the taste of his kiss from her lips. “That boy’s about as fun as a pap smear.”
She looked over her shoulder. No one but her or her kin could have seen the figure waiting in the shadows. “Trust me, they ain’t any fun.”
It spoke only in the old tongue, which meant she had to listen carefully before responding to the sibilant hisses and the voice that sounded more like leaves blowing in the wind than anything else. “Why do you let him live?”
“Oh, he won’t live much longer. He just hasn’t served his need yet.”
“What is his purpose?” He stepped from the shadows, pale skin almost hidden in the darkness, his eyes squinting against the faded lights from the diner and the lamps in the square. It was very, very rare for one of his kind to move this far into town.
“Well now, doors don’t open without help, do they? He’s providing the necessary lambs for slaughter.” She looked into the glowing eyes and smiled as understanding came to them.
Just like that, her family was happy. The visitor would spread the word to all the right people, and Jolene would come out smelling like roses.
That was good. She needed to make everyone happy. It saved her a lot of trouble and stopped people from asking exactly the wrong questions about her.
A few moments later her guest left; the lights were too much for him to bear for long.
And half an hour after that the diner closed, leaving the square effectively empty except for Jolene.
Then she was off to handle her last meeting of the night.
There was so much to do and time was quickly running out.
***
Three in the damned morning. Carl yawned mightily and headed for his house, exhausted and tense and not really sure that sleep would ever be a possibility again. Andy was fine, but shaken up and vigorously at that. The man was a college professor and one of the sharpest minds that Carl knew, but he was not cut out for combat or even serious suspense.
Blind Shadows: A Griffin & Price Novel Page 18