Nights Towns: Three Novels, a Box Set

by Douglas Clegg

  He was sheriff, after all.

  Folks looked up to him.

  (Except that one person, that all-seeing person who wrote the notes.

  Naughty, naughty man.)

  It was almost two a.m. He knew he would be up all night, wondering what to do with Lannie and Nelda, each of them, the rock and the hard place. Lannie, the slut he loved, and Nelda, the icebox he married. It was always the same choice, he knew, all of womankind was either one or the other.

  He started typing up a couple of reports for the morning, mainly his comments on the performance of his office.

  And then, about the Hoskins boy, he wrote:

  Possible runaway. Possible kidnapping. Possible murder.

  He looked at those possibilities. Rubbed his eyes.

  "Goddamn it," he said, slamming his fist on his desk.

  From the outer office, Cathy Zane, who worked the night shift dispatch, came in with a cup of coffee. "Who you gettin' pissed off at now, Gump?"

  "You ever call me that again," he said, "your ass is gonna be grass."

  "My ass already got mowed this week," she said, smiling. She set the coffee down. "White, like you like it. So, what's all the cussing for?"

  "Oh"—Dale waved his hand in a vague gesture—"that Hoskins kid."

  "Billy? I'm sure he's fine. Boys always run off at that age and they always come home. Heck, he may just've snuck out to meet some girl." She sat on the edge of his desk and thumbed the dozen pieces of paper in his to-be-filed box. Idly, she said, "Two accidents out on Twenty-Eight. Big rig and a trailer. Looks messy. Stone Valley's got it, though. The other one was some fool drove his car into the river. Don't know who it is yet."

  "Ten dollars on Pearl Watson."

  "I don't waste my money on a sure thing. We got Jud on it. Quiet night, 'cept for those two."

  Dale couldn't keep another cuss in. The thought of Lannie taking Jud's thing in her mouth, well, it got his blood boiling but good. "Goddamn it," he said.

  "Cross yourself when you do that."

  "I ain't Catholic."

  "Well, do it anyway. What is worth using the Lord's name in vain?"

  "Well, I was thinking about Billy Hoskins. I mean, Cathy, if he's run off, we can find him or he'll come home. Right?"

  "Right."

  "But if he's dead—"

  "Billy Hoskins? He ain't dead. He ain't. Don't say that. He just run off."

  "But if he's dead, the state boys'll be down on us so fast we won't know what hit us. I hate the state boys. They're always going through my papers, always trying to piss me off."

  Cathy clucked her tongue. "My, but you are a worrywart. Listen, that kid might be lying in his own bed right now for all we know. You know how kids are these days. Lying, cheating, stealing, running, hiding, sneaking. No morals, no cares. He'll be back before dawn in his own bed, and if his folks're right in the head, they'll give him a whupping he won't forget." She slid off his desk and walked out.

  Dale heard the static and distant voices as dispatch came on, informing Cathy of yet some other disturbance in the long night.

  He leaned back in his chair and looked up at the ceiling.

  Damn kids, he thought, damn women and the fruits of their wombs.

  5

  Byron Cheever reached his arms above his head. With his hands, he tugged at the extension cord as it hung from the lantern fixture. It did not give; it held too tight. The thing that had spoken to him, the thing that had looked like a child, it had given him some kind of push, some brief shot of energy, so that he was able to grasp the cord. Now it was up to him. Only he could save himself from the despair and madness that this town had doomed him to. Only he could be hero to his soul.

  His finger tugged at the cord. It was so damn thick. He'd never get it to break. He'd never get out of it.

  What had everyone done to him? They had made him want to die, want to strangle himself, for God's sake.

  And then, it gave. He was stronger; it was as if his fingernails were sharp knives, cutting through the insulation around the cord, right down to the tiny wires inside. He split a finger open doing it, but he would be free in a moment.

  Free to live and breathe and get back at them, all of them, everyone who had ever hurt him.

  A reason to live. A point. A purpose.

  Release.

  Byron Cheever dropped to the ground, hunkering down like an animal. He inhaled clean, sweet air. Oh, he had thought he would never taste its like again.

  The child thing was gone.

  It had been, he knew, a vision, as had the others he saw in that brief time while he'd been hanging.

  Others, rising from graves, not like zombies or ghosts, but like people, real people who had been buried all wrong, who had been buried alive by Colony and its minions.

  He knew it because he had almost crossed over to them, almost given dominion to the assholes of town who would murder the sensitive and loving and intelligent in favor of lowlifes and scum.

  He half stood, but crouched down again as his back hurt badly now.

  His senses seemed heightened.

  I've been touched. Touched by some great being. A gift from the most Holy of Holies. He sniffed the air and smelled. Oh God the air, the wet trees the bugs the dead possum rotting at the roadside the heat-stink of animals nesting nearby my own flesh oh dear God how sweet the smell that saved a wretch like me.

  And then, a stronger smell above all the others.

  Coming from just beyond Watch Hill.

  Rotting apples on the ground, sweet grass, dust of stone and wood, a house, a great house-stink and sweet sweet flesh.

  He loped in the direction of that strongest, most vital of odors.

  Byron Cheever felt a wave of greatness sweep over him, and he knew now that he was capable of the most wonderful and terrible things.

  6

  The geography of Colony is simple: there is a town and a river surrounding it. It is not an island, however, by geological definition, for the river runs so narrow at certain points, particularly to the southwest, as to be a thin sliver of water going through rock; at its southeast corner, the river is completely underground, dripping through the man-made caverns which widened since the days of the old mines.

  The night birds that rake their wings across the cloak of the dark are not silent; neither are the trucks out on Route 28. If your ears are attuned, you can hear beyond these noises, too, to the sounds of lusts and passions and snores and coughs.

  If you are of the mind, the most hidden and precious gems of the mind, you can hear beyond, you can hear thoughts and wishes and prayers.

  7

  Old Man Feely was on the toilet, having been woken up by the kicking noises. He rarely had a full night's sleep anymore; it seemed the older he got, the less time he wished to waste in bed. He was not a true insomniac, for he caught catnaps during the day, after lunch, before supper. Night was his time. He could read his Bible or clean his various collections—the guns and the stuffed carcasses of his favorite hobby, taxidermy. He could walk room to room of the great house that his great-grandfather had built with his own two hands, the farmhouse with rooms upon rooms and halls upon halls. Each room covered with a layer of dust and spider webs, each with gaslight in the window, each with mementos of family or of the past. God demanded so much from him. God did not forgive moral laxity. He tried to keep the farmhouse up, but his savings had been eaten away. He only had money for the most necessary items: simple food, enough nourishment for survival, and enough clothing for his thick frame. If cleanliness were truly next to godliness, then he was surely last in line.

  He was on the toilet, reading from the Book of Abaddon, the Angel of Shadows. It was a part of the bible that his father's father heard in a dream, and had written down in the morning. It was the story of how the fallen of God's beloved, the Light Bearer, had been cast from heaven:

  And so, the Light Bearer spake unto the Lord God Jehovah, "It is not for man that I love thee, but for thee a
lone, Creator of Light."

  But God was not pleased, for created he man and woman, like unto Him. "My most cherished, above all," the Lord God spaketh unto him, "Ye must cleave unto man and woman, lest ye betray Him whom you claim to love."

  The terror of the Light Bearer was of the magnitude of oceans, likewise, his fear was of the depth of the abyss. He shrank from God's light, and hid among the blessed of the firmament, until Jehovah cried out to him, "Be ye known to me, beloved, shun not the light of the Lord Your God."

  Revealed to the Heavenly Host, the Light Bearer uttered these words, "I will not love that which is beneath thee. I will not love that which is undeserved. I will not love the sinner called man nor the wanton called woman, just as I do not worship the eel or slug nor kiss the foot of the goat."

  Lo, the most High Lord Jehovah cast the Light Bearer and his lovers down to the very clay they had despised. "May you and your generation live beneath the rocks of the earth, imprisoned within the waters of Creation. May the eel and the slug be thy sustenance, and may the goat tread upon thy dark kingdom. I bequeath to thee a hundred acres which shall be thy lot and thine own heaven. Man shall not be thy servant, but thou shalt serve his most base desires, thou shalt be the Lord of Murderers and the Drinker of Blood, thou shalt suck the breath from babes and milk blood from the teats of the wet nurse, be honored Lord of Maggots and Pestilence, and crowned King of Plagues and Throat of the Underworld, whereby its water shall cover thee and its mountains hide thee from my sight. Thou art no longer our beloved."

  And so, as God spake, it was to the land of Calyx, west of Eden by ten hundred million leagues, to which the Light Bearer was driven, in the caves of man, and there he resides in Colony, so named for the hundred acres which Jehovah decreed when he cast him from the heavens.

  And Jehovah said, "Let no man feed the hand of the Light Bearer who now is named Abaddon, the Angel of the Pit, for thou hast foolishly snuffed thy Light and dwell in the Shadows of Sin and Damnation. For if man or woman so much as give themselves to his desolation, so shall they become as he and be damned from my sight."

  Old Man Feely had pretty much memorized this passage from among the thirty pages of the Book of Abaddon. It was his favorite part, in fact, because it reminded him of his sacred obligation. Even being such a slow reader, he still read the entire book every night, particularly when the kicking became too loud, or when he heard the creatures below the house trying to scramble up from the pit.

  He set his bible down. It was enormous, hand sewn and bound by his great-grandmother, and printed in his grandfather's hand. He'd been told as a child that the binding had been made from the dried skin of one of the escaped devils.

  He was finished with the toilet, and reached over for some Charmin (one of his few modern luxuries, for he could not abide uncleanliness down there).

  The roll was empty, the last roll. There were no rags or newspapers lying nearby.

  "Father forgive me," he prayed, and tore one of the sheets from the Book of Abaddon out, putting it to a new, and less than dignified, use.

  8

  After leaving the bathroom, he went and checked the crosses.

  There were thirteen of them, representing the Angel of the Pit's place at the table, the Uninvited Guest at the Last Supper in the disguise of Judas. Some were old wooden crosses of his grandparents' generation. Others were newer, stolen from certain churches, all consecrated by priests and preachers. Although he had never seen the angel with his own two eyes, his father had told about how his uncle, an unbeliever, had once removed the last cross and had let out the angel until his father was able to put it back in its place of torment.

  The gas lamps, too, were lit. The garlands of flowers and the profane blood of the innocent lamb dressed the marble slab altar across the threshold. The dried goat's foot hung suspended above the altar, and the water in the bowl rocked gently, for the creature in one of its guises was kicking at the floor.

  He did not hear the sound of glass breaking at the window in the front room.

  9

  Byron Cheever sliced his arm raw, but crept in through the window, all the while listening for the old man. He wiped his arm on his shirt and plucked two small shards of glass from his wrist. He did not bother to stop up the wound; it would bleed profusely, but he had more important work here, the work of the greatest of beings to attend to.

  The house was feebly lit, but his eyes no longer needed brightness. He saw the spider as it lurked in the shadows, and even the shade was light.

  He followed the scent of the old man until he came to the room at the bottom of the stairs.

  He opened the door and saw the old man, one hand clutching a bible, the other a shotgun.

  "Sinner," Old Man Feely said. "You ain't here on the Lord's business, I know that just by looking at you."

  "Oh." Byron shivered with the overpowering stink of the old man, the smell of sweat from dilated pores, the perfume of blood and flesh. He felt something like an orgasm but without his dick, just that feeling that started at the base of his spine and shot up to the base of his skull, full with pleasure. "Oh, I am here for you."

  Old Man Feely hefted the shotgun up, eye level. "I can take that pretty look off your face right now. You been listenin' to the wrong side of the cow's tit, boy. Just back out real slow from here right now, right up those stairs. Or I'm gonna have to send you on to your Maker."

  "Can't you hear them?" Byron asked. "Can't you hear them? Their sweet songs. All the children, all there"—he pointed to the baseboards—"buried too soon, too soon. But you can't hear them, can you? You have defiled yourself, Old Man." Byron Cheever grinned. "How much you want to bet, Old Man, that I can get you before you get me? You're ancient, you have no muscle tone. Perhaps ten years ago, you might've had the strength to resist. But now? Now, when your bones ache and your heart is sore tired. Who will win this battle, Old Man? You?"

  Old Man Feely shook his head. "Meet your Maker, boy."

  Then, he let Byron Cheever have it with both barrels.

  10

  But Byron was faster. He had such power in him now, drawn so quickly back from the crossroads. It was as if some of the strength of the dead had infused his bloodstream. He dropped to the floor and crawled forward, as the shot whizzed over his head.

  11

  Old Man Feely, known as John to some, Johannes to his mother, thought for a second that he'd hit the boy. Then he thought the boy was the devil himself, transformed into a snake at his feet, for he saw a blurry slithering form move faster than he had known a human being to move.

  And then, the boy with the blood on his arm was upon him.

  12

  Byron felt like a jaguar. He tore into the old man 'til there was no more struggle in him. He dropped the body, then turned towards the small closet door. He knocked the crucifixes off of it and wiped at the ones drawn crudely in chalk on the walls. He kicked the candles over. He barely noticed the heavy red drapes catching fire. He barely noticed anything, save the sensation of pleasure that washed over him.

  He flung the door open and let the dark light, which was within the stone cave beneath the house, draw across his hand. He followed the light downward, through the tunnel; the rest of it drifted smokily upwards.

  The dark light covered the burgeoning fire, and soon the fire had stopped.

  He felt the others down there as he clung to the damp walls, knocking down the crosses put there, snuffing the candles with his fingers.

  Finally, he reached the round and wet bottom of the man-made cave.

  The others moved, brushing by him, reading his flesh with their fingers, understanding him with dry tongues wiped across his neck and ear.

  Byron, they whispered.

  Their touch felt delicious to him. He felt an electric current run smoothly down his spine, through his testicles, up his chest, along his lips.

  And then, he saw the angel.

  At first, he thought he saw something that looked like a large insect, wit
h a mosquito proboscis-like tube beneath its multiple eyes. Then, it was more like a lizard with white skin and empty eye sockets. Then, it was a child. Vision is a faulty sense, Byron, the voice in his head said, it leads us to believe that what cannot be seen by mortal eyes does not exist. You can only see what your mind can handle, without being pushed too far. What you see is the most beautiful creature in all of creation.

  He saw the creature more clearly: a child with razor eyes that flashed with radiance. He was lashed with chains and crosses to two great stones. The dark light hovered across his face.

  The child was Byron himself, the year he molested his brother.

  The dark light painted a dim brilliance on the face.

  The razor eyes gleamed.

  Byron dropped to his knees. "Oh, most beloved, I worship you."

  The child reached out his hand, its shackles pulling at the stone. As its skin met Byron's, he felt as if something within him was fighting to be born, fighting to burst through his skin, trying to burst his bones and flesh and blood outward in a spray of red.

  He heard the sound of wet splitting, and where the child touched him, a bone broke through the surface of his flesh.

  The child's mouth went eagerly to the bone and Byron, shivering and feeling cold, watched while he sucked at the bone of his forearm as if it were sugar cane.

  But it didn't hurt, not then, oh, no, it felt different, but it did not hurt.