Nights Towns: Three Novels, a Box Set

by Douglas Clegg

  George pushed the stop button on the tape recorder. He couldn't stand to listen to it anymore. Just imagining that poor man's body. The way he was found. His suit, which had once been white, now blood-red, ripped apart and in tatters. And beneath that suit, his skin torn off in strips like bacon, covered in blood from his neck down to his stomach, the fingers of his left hand still embedded in his ribs—even in his last moment, he was trying to pry more skin from his bones.

  But what bothered George the most, what paralyzed him with fear, was located in the middle of the tape, when Whalen referred to somebody by name. Somebody George knew.

  George had not mentioned this to the detective, Hank Firestone, nor to Lyle when they first listened to the tape. The reference hadn't clicked with Lyle, and George was wondering if maybe there was nothing to click. If this was not just a crazy man gibbering to himself before taking his own life.

  George rewound the tape back to that middle section, when Whalen was introducing himself to his mute acquaintances.

  "Say," Whalen was saying, "don't I know you from some place?" Then he paused, listening. "What kind of message?" A pause. "How sweet," he said, into the condenser mike, "a message of love. Gad, I feel like a DJ. And here's a message of love going out to whom it may concern, from Frank and Louise, who are doing this because of love Any other messages from you folks?"

  George turned off the tape recorder. He covered his face with his hands, rubbing the skin as if doing so would change things, would obliterate his memory of nearly eight winters back. A memory that continued to haunt him.

  But George remembered without wanting to.

  Frank and Louise Gaston, who had been like second parents to him, who had funded his education at the University of Virginia, had loaned him money for the house when he and Rita were newlyweds; Frank and Louise lying dead in the old hunting cabin in the woods near the west side of the lake. Frank had shot Louise and then himself. A couple in their late seventies, with their brains blown out. And some time after killing his wife, before putting the gun to his own head, Frank had written on the wall in blood: LOVE DID THIS.

  To whom it may concern, George thought angrily, that concerns me.

  George Connally pounded his metal desk with his fist. At last, the sadness he had been holding onto like a precious stone came out. He began crying softly.

  13

  Prescott's Tape

  "I want you to hear this, Cup. It won't convince you of anything, but it certainly will open your eyes, I think," Prescott said, setting up the reel-to-reel in the claustrophobic cubicle at the Historical Society. As he threaded the tape through the player he explained: "The girl's mother gave me permission. I suppose she thought since I have a PhD that somehow this was scientific research. I watched Teddy Amory go into one of her seizures—an unpleasant experience, which I might compare to witnessing a rape and being unable to make a move to stop it. And the guilt, Cup, afterwards, of knowing you should've stopped it. But I was fascinated by it. This girl seemed authentic. She went into ecstasy. Ecstasy, Cup, a little girl. Her dull empty face took on a new aspect. It was like watching someone literally come alive. From a shy, quiet little girl to this radiant and terrified creature completely out-of-control but listen."

  He pressed the button, and the wheels began turning.

  Cup closed his eyes and listened.

  He heard a gasping, choking sound, and a noise like a bird's wings fanning the air. "It's coming over her," Prescott said, but then settled back in his desk chair and lit his pipe.

  The tape played with no further interruptions.

  Prescott: Who are you?

  Teddy: You know.

  Prescott; No, I don't. I—

  (The girl made some more choking noises, as if she were trying to keep food down. When she spoke again, her voice was lighter, but with a mature resonance.)

  Teddy: Scotty—

  Prescott: Oh, my, God

  Teddy: It's so cold here, Scotty, so cold. I'm freezing, why aren't you here with me? Scotty, it's so cold. This is the coldest night—and the horses, Scotty, the horses

  Prescott: Cass? Cassie?

  Teddy: Oh, Scotty, you do still love me, don't you? Am I still first in your heart?

  Prescott: Cassie, I—

  Teddy: We'll be together soon, Scotty, he says we will. He says that we'll all go riding, all three of us, you, me and—

  Prescott: Stop it, Jesus, stop this, whoever you are. This is not—

  Teddy: Scotty, you've upset the balance

  Prescott: How have I upset the balance?

  Teddy: Lady Day, Lady Day.

  Prescott: Who am I speaking with? Who the hell are you?

  Teddy: Why don't you just come by for a visit, Scotty, you seem to know where we are

  (The voice changed, and Cup gasped as he recognized Lily's voice.)

  You've found the door, Dr. Nagle, but now you need a key, don't you? You're on the edge of a great mystery, the adventure to end all adventures. Well, very soon it will be the Last of the First. All of us, bound by blood and love. The sins of our fathers. And dreams, Dr. Nagle, don't forget dreams. I have a friend who is even now disturbed by his dreams, what they show him. But we'll be calling him back this winter, rest assured, to show him that dreams sometimes really do come true. You remember my friend Cup Coffey?

  Cup opened his eyes as Prescott reached over and shut the tape player off. Cup looked over at the older man, confused.

  Prescott was blinking his eyes and turned his face away from Cup. "There are some things I want you to look over. My own research on this matter. You see, you are involved in this. I don't understand how or why. But I absolutely believe that there is something supernatural occurring here in Pontefract. Something more dangerous than I at first imagined. Now that Warren Whalen is dead."

  Chapter Twelve

  THE DEAR DEPARTED

  1

  From The Nightmare Book of Cup Coffey:

  MONDAY, JANUARY 5, 1987

  Everything—too bizarre for words. I can't even begin to describe I don't know what I believe and what I don't. It's like everything rational I've ever had drummed into my head has just flown out the window. I didn't even think I'd be picking this book up again to write in it. But here I am. The nightmares don't end just 'cause you want 'em to.

  Prescott and I (since we are on a first-name basis now) sat around his office at the Historical Society, each of us trying to put together pieces of this puzzle in our own very different ways. Every time he mentioned the field he calls the goat dance, as if that name has a particular significance, I kept thinking "bullshit, bullshit." I tried to convince him that maybe this sister of Lily's had made that phone call to me, and even murdered her husband. But I couldn't convince him because, to be honest, I couldn't even convince myself.

  My feelings on Clare Terry: she struck me (pardon the pun) as someone who is so afraid of something that she is willing to punish herself rather than face that fear. A lot like me. I knew when I met her that I only wanted to believe that she'd made that phone call up to DC and pretended she was Lily. Had she also rigged my run-in with Billy Bates? I am sure—yes, now I know it was Bart Kinter there in the darkness, somehow pulling the strings, not Billy Bates's strings, but mine, pushing me over the edge. Clare Terry is a bystander, like myself. But not innocent—no. I know that look. Guilty bystander. And that something that I saw in her mysterious, brooding eyes was a vulnerable guilt, like putty just waiting for someone to make their imprint on it. I see it in my own eyes when I look in the mirror sometimes. It's the quality that makes both of us, her and me, ideal victims. We believe in our own badness. Just as Billy Bates believed in his badness. It is reinforced by everything around us.

  This could be bullshit, too. I mean, I only really got one good look at Clare, and maybe I saw too much of my own reflection in those eyes. I do that a lot—sometimes I think my ego knows no bounds.

  Meanwhile, back at the ranch Listened to tape of the Teddy Amory "s anc
e," in which Prescott is fairly sure he spoke with his late wife, Cassie. Then Lily's voice. Prescott showed me the copied pages from this diary he had. Looked like a crazy man's handwriting, this guy Worthy Houston, and he basically wrote what Prescott had said. About the ghosts of these kids coming back, the ones that were bumped off in a fire back in the 1750s. I didn't believe a word of it, but it did give me a strong case of the shivers. In one part of it, Worthy's father, Stephen, kept digging up these bones and burying them in different places, all around the field, and it was pretty gruesome the way the charred bones of these kids were described in loving, almost lascivious detail by Worthy. Eventually, Stephen Houston buried the "infested remains" beneath the Marlowe-Houston House itself. The coup de grace comes in this diary when Stephen takes one of the ribcages, if you can imagine this, and without my being excessively morbid, has spare ribs one evening. Well, actually, he grinds some of the bones up and then eats the powder. He died that night. Worthy describes his father rolling around on the ground, scratching at himself as if he were covered with ants.

  "An unusual death," Prescott said, "but not that much different than the one this past weekend."

  It got late, so Prescott brought out what I guess he considers further proof, and we copied some of them right there in the office so that I could spend time alone reading them. Newspaper clippings from the local paper.

  More about Teddy Amory, a nine-year-old who was crowned with such epithets as: THE LITTLE GIRL WHO CAME BACK FROM THE DEAD, TELEPHONE TO THE SPIRITS? and THE VOICE OF THE BEYOND.

  I've only skimmed the articles, but I know now that I'll be up all night reading them.

  Because, as they say in that old time religion, I have seen the light. I am converted. I am a believer.

  And Jesus, I am scared to death.

  I collect all this stuff from Prescott tonight, all these clippings and this diary; he sticks it in an old beat-up accordion file folder, and ties it neatly with a string. He says to me, "You think it's a load of horse manure, I know, but just read this, and let's talk some more tomorrow." Then he offers me a ride back to Patsy Campbell's, and I politely refuse. I tell him I need a long walk in the cold air. I feel like I've been spun around in circles with a blindfold on.

  When I walk outside it's snowing. Like a kid, I catch a few flakes on my tongue. Now, up in Washington, you can't do this anymore because the snow is gray before it even touches the ground. But in Pontefract, the air is still clean, and the snow when it falls is still white and pure. It has been a long day; I don't know the time as I walk down Main Street, but I figure it's somewhere around eight or nine o'clock. I've been in one stuffy office after another, with only one meal between, a greasy burger and fries at the Columns (which still has this huge portrait of Jefferson Davis up over the bar and I ask the owner if the Confederates won the war, and she looks at me funny like it's no joke). So, anyway, it's nice to get out in the open air.

  The wind picks up, and I raise the hood of my jacket. I pass a few people heading up the street. Some are parking their cars. The streetlamps have a soft, warm glow. Pontefract looks a lot like one of those towns in the glass ball filled with water, and someone has just shaken it so that the snow falls. Peaceful, quiet snow. Everything seems so normal, so in order. I am even looking forward to reading all this fiction that Prescott has handed me.

  I take Lakeview Drive down to the footbridge. Patsy Campbell informed me over the weekend that this is the longest unsuspended footbridge in the world. I didn't believe her, but now as I start across it in the dark, it appears to be miles long. The lake is a black bottomless pit below me as I walk. I start thinking about what I am going to do next: getting back to DC, asking Uncle Phil for another loan, retyping my r sum . Getting into some major psychotherapy

  As I am walking, at about the halfway point, I hear footsteps behind me. I stop, figuring they might just be the echoes of my own footsteps. But I still hear them. Getting closer. I clutch the folder with the diary and clipping copies and start to walk faster. The whole day has been pretty spooky, and who doesn't worry when they hear someone following them? The footsteps are also coming faster. This is classic fear escalation at work. My heart's beating a hundred miles a minute, and so to prove to myself that it's just some kid behind me, or a lady out walking her dog, I turn around.

  And see nothing.

  This is worse than anything my brain could cook up. Because even while I'm looking behind me on the shadowy bridge, with dappled illumination from the sky and the streetlights on both shores, I can still hear the footsteps coming closer and closer and closer, now almost on tiptoe.

  Then I know.

  Whoever has been walking just behind me is standing directly beneath me now. Under the bridge. Walking on the ice.

  I hear his breathing.

  I don't know why I do it, but I try to look down between the slats to see whoever is down there.

  And then something that looks like a crab shoots out from beneath the bridge and attaches itself to my ankle. It is a hand. And attached to that hand, a wrist. And, I suppose, an arm, and then a body. I don't have to see the body to know whose it is. Not when he starts speaking. "I fuck her every night, Coffeybutt." Bart Kinter's nasal southern twang is like a razor slicing metal. His grip is as cold as ice. "We do it down in the cellar doggy style. She loves it. Your friend Lily's got the whitest ass I've ever seen."

  I can't move. I feel like a thousand volts of electricity are going through me, and I am manacled, unable to resist. I can't even adequately describe the feeling of helplessness, of hopelessness. Of imminent death.

  Then he pulls on my ankle. He is trying to bring me down there with him, trying to drag me under the bridge. My knees buckle, and I fall onto the wood. His hand, at first cold, now is burning into my skin—flesh feels like it's bubbling and blistering where he is touching it. "I've been waiting a long time for this," he hisses, "I've got something for you, something I know you're gonna want, asswipe."

  The whole time I'm screaming, "Jesus Christ! Somebody help me! "

  To keep myself from going over the edge of the bridge, I grab onto one of the side rails with both hands. It feels like my arms are going to burst, but I grip the rails and pull with all my might, trying to get farther away, so that he will have to let go. I hear a stretching sound, and I think it's my leg about to tear apart at the ankle. My breathing is rapid, and I just want this to end, I just want it to end, I'll die, but I'll die up here on top of the bridge, I don't need to see what's beneath it. With every ounce of strength I pull myself forward, away from that hand.

  I hear a rending sound, like an elastic band about to snap, and it does. The wet pop. I expect to feel a searing pain down at my ankle. But there is none. I look back, and there is his hand, lying on the boards beside me. Torn off at the wrist. Fingers still wriggling. Then the hand crawls on its fingers and drops down between the slats. I hear him laughing beneath the bridge, laughing, and saying: "It's you, Coffeybreath, I'm in your blood." Then the sound of his running away. At the far end of the bridge, on the side of the town, I see the silhouette of a figure scrambling from under the bridge and running across the ice, up on shore. Back into the shadows along the street.

  I pick the folder up and make it back to Patsy Campbell's half-running, half-limping, trying to convince myself that a) I am crazy, b) it never happened, and c) I died and this is hell.

  I'm still hoping one of these is true.

  Called Prescott as soon as I got in. All I could bring myself to say was, sort of a guess what? I've seen a ghost, with a few nervous chuckles thrown in for good measure in case he was about to tell me that it was all a practical joke, and he'd hired an impressionist to do Lily Cammack and Bart Kinter, and that hand, oh, yeah, Cup, that hand was rubber and had a little battery in it to keep the fingers wiggling around.

  But all he said was, "Are you all right?"

  I told him I was in one piece, if that's what he meant.

  "I can come get you, you could stay
in my spare room for the night," he said.

  "Oh, this place is okay for tonight," I lied. For some strange reason I felt breezy; why is that? Why, when something reaches out and grabs you, as Bart Kinter has tonight, when fear incarnate does its song-and-dance routine, do you suddenly feel free? I felt as if I had been living under the misconception that the past cannot catch up with you. And now I knew the truth: it can and does. Somehow Bart Kinter had found me in an elementary school, and brought me back to the place where my nightmares began. Lily, too, was somehow involved. And knowing this kind of thinking isn't just crazy, but crazier than crazy. Crazy is murdering people on the advice of your pet dog; crazy is going ape shit for Jodie Foster and trying to bump off the president to prove it; crazy is walking into a McDonald's and gunning down people while they're scarfing Big Macs.

  Those things are crazy because you can't understand them.

  Now ghosts, ghosts is just plain folks.

  But ghosts have something that separates them from the rest of us. They have a reason; we don't. Ghosts want something when they come back. They want something very, very badly.

  Well, I'm writing this and it's getting late. I have a lot of reading to do before morning. Prescott said he'd be by to pick me up in the morning and after breakfast we'd go find out about the infamous missing pages from Worthy Houston's Diary. I don't know if I believe all this stuff Dr. Nagle is onto, but after tonight I am open to the experience.