“Me too, but isn’t this even better?” She frowned.
“Be better if I had someone else to drive the second bus.”
“You always look at the negative, don’t you?”
“Busses don’t drive themselves, child. And half the family is locked away.”
Jolene pulled out her cell phone and looked at the time. “Not for much longer.”
Lorne shook his head. “Let me see if Parson is available.” Without asking he took Jolene’s phone and dialed. She didn’t argue with him. She just wasn’t that foolish.
“You take care of that.” She smiled and stood up. “I’ll go say hello to Vince.” When she walked the sway in her hips was more pronounced than usual. Not exaggerated so much as more obvious. She was on the prowl.
Vince Cleburne stood outside of his bus as his passengers disembarked, and he smiled when he saw Jolene. He always smiled when he saw her. It was kind of cute. He was not at all cute, but his expression almost made up for it.
“Look at you, darlin’.” His voice was a drawl and he took his time drinking her in. Because it was Halloween, Jolene had dressed herself up as a witch, complete with pointy hat and a very short black dress. To help with her modesty there were fishnet stockings and high heeled black boots that she had liberated from her mother’s closet. Siobhan would be far too busy to notice that they were missing.
One meaty arm wrapped around her shoulders and Jolene put on her best smile. She was good at smiling. She had to be.
“You like it? I got it just for you.” She poked him in the chest with one black lacquered nail, and let that single digit trail halfway down his stomach. The man practically drooled.
“Jesus, that’s enough to make me feel a little sick.” The voice came from behind Vince and Jolene had the good sense to step back before Lorne reached forward. Lorne’s hand slid through the driver’s back like it was passing into water. Vince jerked, his mouth stretched in an expression of exquisite pain.
Lorne was especially good at murder. He was actually in town as a favor to Jolene, because she needed someone who could drive the bus, but he was very good at other things, too. His pale white hand came out of Vince’s back covered in a thick stream of red. Without a moment’s consideration, he started licking the blood away like a cat cleaning his paw.
“I was gonna play with him.” Jolene pouted and stomped her foot.
Lorne looked at her in the semi-darkness, his eyes glowing against his pale skin. “He stinks. Besides, we’re on a schedule.”
“Did you get Parson?” As soon as she realized pouting wasn’t going to get her anywhere, Jolene turned off the attempt and shook her head.
“He’s coming. He’ll be here in five minutes.”
“That gives us about ten minutes to handle the other driver.” Jolene looked toward the diner. She didn’t know the other man at all. He was probably reassigned just for the overflow.
Two busses. Her mother would be so pleased.
Maybe that would make up for the fact that she stole the boots.
Jolene spotted a couple of men she’d never seen before. They were pretty and they looked to have money. “You need me for anything else or have you got this?”
Lorne looked her way. “What? You’re not coming along?”
She gave him a look that said she’d just smelled something nasty. “No. Momma won’t let me. Says I’ll just cause trouble.”
Lorne smiled and revealed a mouthful of teeth that looked capable of chewing through bone. “You? Where would she get that notion?”
She gave him a one finger salute and headed for the strangers. They were both looking around for some trouble to get into. She knew the type very well. The good news for them was that she wanted to get into a little trouble, too.
The maybe not as good news? She was very, very good at getting into trouble.
By the time she’d introduced herself to the two men and convinced them that they had, in fact, introduced themselves to her, Lorne and Parson were climbing aboard the busses.
She was glad she got to miss Parson. He was a creepy bastard at the best of times.
***
Griffin had seen some carnage in his time. More than most people. As a result he didn’t feel queasy, as many would have, when confronted with the separated upper and lower halves of one of Carl’s deputies. He felt regret, yes, and amazement at the sheer strength of whoever had done this.
Carl was a different story. These were his men. His face, already haggard, had taken on a kind of grim determination. He knelt by a second body. This one seemed to have had his skull shattered from the front. There was little now left that resembled a human face. Carl looked up at Griffin and said, “This stops now, Wade. Whatever it takes.”
“Agreed. You figure it was Frank Blackbourne who did this?”
“Had to be. I’ve never seen anyone that strong.”
Griffin’s next remark was cut off by the arrival of two cruisers and an ambulance. A young deputy with curly brown hair approached the bodies and promptly turned and threw up in the bushes.
Carl said. “You men help the paramedics get these bodies back to town. And show some respect, damn it. These were brother officers.”
The kid who had lost his lunch looked ashamed as well as green, and he hurried to help the other officers. Griffin said, “Frank appears to be gone, but let’s be sure. He could have gone into the caves.”
“Don’t know that he’d fit,” Carl said, “And I doubt that makeshift ladder the boys rigged would hold him. Still, better have a look.”
Griffin began to attach a flashlight to the top of the Mossberg. “You got those shells I gave you loaded?”
Carl hefted his own shotgun, a Beretta gas
operated semi-auto. “Yeah and the .357s are in my sidearm. What’s in them?”
“Stuff that kills monsters. At least the ones that are in our dimension.”
“Works for me.” Carl looked back at his men. He said, “No one follows us in. You get the bodies together and get out of here. And if a guy about the size of a beer truck shows up, you do not engage him. Do not. Get the hell away from him. Is that clear?
There was a chorus of ╘yes sirs’ and Carl nodded. “Good.” He snapped a flashlight onto his shotgun and disengaged the safety. “Let’s get going.”
Without another word, Griffin went up the shaky ladder. It looked like it had once belonged to the Wellman Fire Dept. He reached the top, ducked his head, and stepped into the cave mouth. Carl was right behind him. Griffin thumbed the flashlight on and held the shotgun at the ready. Beside him Carl was also in target acquisition stance. It was strangely like the days when they were cops together, and though it had been years since they had been partners, they fell into their usual positions as if they had just cleared a crack house together days ago.
The tunnel was low and just wide enough that two men could walk side by side. Griffin saw a side tunnel branching off ahead. He nodded at Carl, then shone his light down the tunnel, keeping his body clear of the opening. He thought he caught some movement way down the tunnel, but a moment later it was gone. They passed the tunnel and moved deeper into the main shaft.
“Doesn’t look like Frank’s been this way,” Griffin said.
“No,” said Carl, “But the tunnel widens out
into a big chamber and he could be in there. Watch yourself. There’s a big hole in the middle of the floor.”
Griffin stepped into the wide chamber and turned his light on the floor. He said, “This looks like the hole I found inside the Blackbourne house. There’s a draft blowing up out of it, which means it leads somewhere.”
“Looks pretty deep,’ said Carl.
“Yeah, I can see bottom but it’s too far to jump. If we want to check it out, we’ll have to come back with some climbing gear.”
Carl said, “Back to the entrance then. Once we’re out, I’ll call dispatch and see if there’s been any further sign of Frank.”
As they moved back up t
he tunnel, Griffin said, “Can you believe we went to school with some of this family? Were they always this weird?”
“Some of them. Others were no stranger than anyone else. At least not that I could tell. The men always seemed to be more odd than the women.”
“Yeah, my uncle Paul used to go on about some Blackbourne girl he knew in school.”
Looking back, Griffin could forgive himself for becoming distracted. He and Carl had more or less cleared the tunnel on the way in. But in the casual conversation with an old friend, Griffin had forgotten the movement he thought he had seen down the side tunnel, so when or so pounds of dead white flesh came hurtling out of that tunnel he was caught flatfooted. A fist the size of a gallon jug slammed into him, sending him flying. The shotgun clattered away.
Carl raised his own shotgun, but the pale one slapped the barrel upward and the charge went into the ceiling, bringing a rain of rocks and dust. The pale one locked one giant hand around Carl’s gun and ripped it away. In the light from the dropped gun, Griffin got a good look at their attacker. Unlike most of the pale folk he had seen so far, who were gaunt to the point of emaciation, this one was wide and thick, with massive shoulders and huge arms. One of those arms was about half again as long as the other.
His skull was misshapen, so that he seemed to have very little cranium above his eyes, giving him the look of a Neanderthal returned from the past. A giant, white Neanderthal with mottled skin and eyes that glowed like foxfire. Like all the others Griffin had met, he smelled like he had been dead for a couple of weeks.
Carl shoulder-rushed the pale one, gaining enough room to throw a decent punch to the thing’s jaw. The Moon-Eye staggered back and Carl hit him in the gut. The Moon-Eye grunted and backhanded Carl, knocking him off his feet. Griffin was up and he reached the two just as the pale one was trying to stomp Carl’s head. Griffin shuffled in and slammed his elbow into the thing’s head, knocking it away from Carl.
The Moon-Eye swung its longer arm, fingers extended, claw-like nails raking for Griffin’s eyes. Griffin rolled his shoulder up, taking the blow there, then he lunged in with a low, straight kick to the Moon-Eye’s knee. There was a loud, snapping sound and Griffin felt the shock run up his leg as the pale one’s massive knee popped out of joint. The thing fell, but it wasn’t done. Howling, it lurched forward, grabbing at Griffin and trying to pull him down. Carl stepped up, put his .45 against the pale one’s temple and pulled the trigger. The gunshot was deafening in the enclosed space.
“Freeze,” said Carl to the dead Moon-Eye, “This is the police.”
***
“You know, Wade,” Carl said. “I’m getting a little tired of being used as a punching bag.”
“We got caught off guard. We have to do better or we won’t make it through this.” He could still feel the adrenaline high from the fight and from getting a good look at the thing that had attacked them. It had been even less human looking than he had originally thought. Its longer arm seemed to have two elbow joints and its hips had been oddly wide as well. Decamp had told him that the original Moon-Eyes, the ones left from the old days, were primarily humanoid in shape. But the others he and Carl had run into seemed to be mutations of some sort. Were they closer to the actual inhabitants of the other side, whatever the hell that was?
The two men were sitting on the tailgate of Carl’s truck, still in sight of the cave. They had taken the time to make a full sweep of the side tunnel after the Moon-Eye’s attack, but it was a dead end and there were no other signs of pale folk or anyone else. Still, they had decided it best to wait outside the cave, and they had pulled the ladder away for good measure.
Griffin checked his watch. It was a little before seven in the evening. “Be dark soon.”
Carl said, “Yep and things seem to have calmed down, at least here on the bluff. I haven’t heard anyone screaming in a while, anyway.” Griffin ignored his friend’s grim jest. “Yeah, well sundown means it’s for sure All Hallow’s Eve.”
“Thought your buddy Decamp said we probably had until the late night.”
“He did, but he did say probably. He also
mentioned that something seems to be different this time with the othersider’s plans. As usual I got the feeling he knew something he wasn’t telling me”
Carl said, “Seems to be his pattern. I don’t know what else we can do. We can try and keep them from using the bluff for their ceremony, but that doesn’t guarantee they don’t have an alternate location. No word from Decamp on that, I guess?”
Griffin shook his head. “Checked my phone once we were out of the cave. No calls.”
“Well, I got close to a hundred men spread out between the Hollow and this spot. If anything gets past them they still have to get past you and me.”
“Comforting thought.”
“Isn’t it just?”
***
Crawford’s Hollow was a desolate place that day as the sun set. Not desolate in location, but desolate in feeling. The locals were still recovering from the massive number of the arrests that had taken place and while there were a good number of deserved incarcerations, a few people might have protested that they’d done little or nothing wrong╤the law is sometimes gray for people, especially when they find themselves on the wrong side of it.
Those that could posted bail. In Crawford’s Hollow, where the average income was south of impoverished and slightly north of financially destitute, that wasn’t very many. By and large the people who lived in the Hollow weren’t there by choice, the sole exception being most of the Blackbournes.
Sometimes when you least expect it, the status quo changes.
Leonard Wilson sat on his front porch and listened to the Songs To Give You Chills CD that he’s picked up at the Walmart down on 41, tapping his foot to old, familiar tunes that had been bastardized by a group called The New Studio Oryginals. The vocals were horrid but the beat was normally right, so he made the most of it. Leonard liked Halloween. He’d always liked Halloween and he liked a good scare. Mostly he loved seeing the tykes come up in their costumes and giving them a little something to smile about. Life in the Hollow was sort of sucky most times and there weren’t exactly any playgrounds for the kids, but they liked to come around at Halloween and he liked to give the candy and see them on their way. He was old and retired. He was allowed a few pleasures.
Seven kids came before the sun went down. He complimented them on their costumes after slipping his dentures back in, because before that they could barely understand him. They were good kids and to the last they said “thank you,” and a couple of them even called him by his name. That was more than he expected, as he tended to keep to himself.
When the first group of older kids showed up, he didn’t think anything about it first except to notice that their costumes were rather similar and decidedly creepy. They came up the long dirt path leading to his house with their ghostly white skin shining in the gathering darkness. Ghosts. Ghosts were always popular disguises, but these were impressive. They had mobile faces and thin, wispy hair that trailed down their elongated skulls. Their arms were long and their legs were bowed and they moved in a way that almost hurt his eyes, like they were both walking smoothly forward and shivering at the same time.
One of the kids opened her mouth╤he could tell it was a her by the surprisingly full breasts on the costume, they were barely hidden by the long hair falling across the shoulders and down the chest╤and instead of calling out “trick or treat,” a sound like dried leaves blasting in a hard wind came from her mouth.
Leonard suppressed a shiver and then smiled. “I ain’t seen whatever movie those costumes are from, but they’re downright scary.” He was properly impressed and meant the words. All three of the kids looked at him╤if he’d had to guess they were around twelve to maybe fourteen years old by their height╤and their eyes flared with silvery light in the darkness.
Leonard grinned again as they came closer, marveling at the tricks the costume companies came
up with every year. He could still remember the first time he saw glo-sticks and how he thought they’d never top that one.
Then they moved closer, charging forward in a loping stride that let him realize how low to the ground their hips actually were.
Leonard had exactly enough time to realize that they weren’t wearing costumes before they were on him. Those long arms were incredibly strong and the fists at the ends of them beat him to unconsciousness in a matter of moments.
He had exactly enough time to wonder if this was how he was going to die before they took him down.
***
Take a left on Main Street and it becomes Scufflegrit Street and heads into the higher grounds leading to Mooney’s Bluff before it ends. Take a right and it stays Main Street a lot longer before breaking into Centennial Avenue╤ which in turn leads to Gatesville╤Cemetery road, which leads to, surprise, the largest cemetery in Brennert County, and finally state road which breaks down further into multiple unnamed dirt paths. One of those that veers hard to the right and downward, spirals lazily into the Hollow. No one on the two busses knew that the path they should have been on was on the left of the Wellman Town Square. Even if they had known they probably wouldn’t have paid much attention. The roads were already getting dark and all any of them was really interested in was getting to the casino to have a good time.
Had anyone asked Lorne Blackbourne, he might well have told them he was taking a short cut.
Had anyone even considered asking Parson╤no one was quite that brave╤he’d likely have simply ignored the question. And if that didn’t work, he wasn’t above breaking a few skulls.
The path into Crawford’s Hollow was a winding nightmare. Mostly the people on the busses were too damned busy trying not to get thrown from their seats to bother with any questions.
That’s okay. They wouldn’t have liked the answers.
***
Leonard woke up in a dark place, his arms held in place by hands that felt both cold and oddly feverish. He opened his eyes and looked toward a sky that made no sense, with stars that seemed as out of place as he was feeling and he let out a soft moan before he could stop himself. The white people were back, surrounding him, their skin almost iridescent in the starlight. He might have complained, but the woman who looked his way took his breath away.
Blind Shadows: A Griffin & Price Novel Page 26