Nights Towns: Three Novels, a Box Set

by Douglas Clegg

  He ran into the darkened theater, looking through the rows of seats, praying his father was right, that something had happened back there at the M-H, that it wasn't anything like the Boy-Eating Spider, it was some kind of gag, just another one of Rick's practical jokes. Tommy shone his flashlight over the passive faces turned up to the man on screen with the long, sharp fingernails.

  5

  Torch Smells Something

  Torch first noticed the smell as he was combing through the Dempsey Dumpster in the alley behind the Columns. The Columns restaurant threw out perfectly good baked potatoes, and sometimes even those square pats of butter were left in the baggie with the old French bread they tossed away. Torch could sniff out a good garbage can from a mile away.

  But the other smell soon overpowered that of table scraps and soggy baked potatoes.

  It was the smell that had been growing stronger in town. They were growing stronger, even while Teddy was weakening.

  The odor was as palpable to Torch as a freight train would be bearing down on him; it was a crushing weight, making him feel all his human frailty against its evil stench.

  The scent of the grave. Of bones long buried. Of nightmares made flesh.

  Torch followed the smell out of the dark alley.

  Torch stood, partially hidden by the wall that said MILLER'S FEED AND SUPPLY, watching as the dark-haired man in the white suit paid for his movie theater ticket. The man looked around the street as if expecting to see someone. But there was no one else on Main Street. Then the man went inside the Key Theater. He paused near the concession stand just inside the glass doors. The man turned and jogged up a stairway, out of Torch's sight.

  Torch knew what he would have to do.

  He reached beneath his raggedy outer clothes and felt around in his pocket.

  When he'd located what he was after, he ran across the street to the theater, wondering if he was already too late.

  6

  Tommy almost tripped on a popcorn box stuck in the middle of the aisle, and as he grabbed the edge of a seatback to balance himself, he heard Rick Stetson say, "I really scared the shit out of you back there, didn't I?" Tommy smelled that same gassy smell that Rick had made a joke about when he'd lifted the lid of the shelf in the cellar.

  Tommy wheeled around and flashed the light upon Rick's face, only it wasn't all of Rick Stetson's face, it was only the parts that hadn't been ripped off. There was the mop of unruly carrot-red hair, and the pale eyes, but most of his nose was gone, and his entire lower jaw. His face was streaked with blood.

  Someone behind them yelled, "Sit down, bozo, and shut off the damn light!"

  "You're dead," Tommy said, not trying to understand any of what had happened. He kept the light on what was left of Rick's face, hoping that it would become someone else's, that he was hallucinating, that there was some normal explanation for all this, like he was crazy, had gone off the deep end, went looney tunes.

  Rick said, "It should've been you, Tombo, it was your ring." And Rick held up something into the beam of light, something that at first looked like a bone that had been torn into by dogs, with some meat still on it. It was Rick Stetson's hand, and in the center of it gleamed a gold ring. "The Boy-Eating Spider only eats bad little boys, Tommy. Like you."

  Tommy repeated, "You're dead."

  He heard a gurgling sound come up from Rick's throat. Tommy assumed this was a laugh. "Part of the inevitability of things, buckaroo. You'll be dead, too, and soon. The door is opening and then we'll all be dead together. Why, old Hardass Whalen is upstairs introducing himself to your old man right now."

  7

  The boy sitting in the ticket booth shouted after Torch, "It ain't a freebie, Mister!" But Torch ran past him, through the glass doors and into the lobby.

  He gagged when he inhaled the air inside. The smell was so strong—it was as if the place was crawling with them. The stench made him sick to his stomach. There was no time. They might all be here. He had to act fast.

  The boy from the ticket booth was approaching him, shouting, but the words didn't seem to have any meaning. "What are you, some kinda weirdo—Oh, I heard about you, you're the crazy guy who—"

  Torch was already running up the stairs to the projection booth.

  8

  Tommy dropped the flashlight; it rolled down the aisle. He felt paralyzed, rooted to where he stood in the semidarkness of the Key Theater. Somebody yelled for him to sit down and shut up, and just then, someone else booed, but not at Tommy. More boos and hisses followed, and someone in one of the back rows started clapping slowly, rhythmically, beginning the chant: "Fix it, fix it, fix it " Tommy turned slowly to the movie screen. The film had caught in the projector mid-frame, and the image was already melting, transforming into a celluloid bubble. Other kids in the theater were chanting, "Fix it, fix it." Tommy looked back in the darkness for Rick Stetson, but the seat was empty. "Itsy-bitsy spider climbed up to the projection booth," Tommy heard the voice buzzing around his ear like an angry hornet; he stood, terrified, waiting to be stung.

  9

  When Torch rushed inside the projection booth, the odor was overpowering.

  The man, who Torch did not know, but who was Warren Whalen, had Tom Mackenzie, Sr., literally by the balls.

  The dead man in the white suit tightened his grip on Tom, Sr.'s crotch. The theater owner was standing, his back pressed against the small rectangular window that looked down on the theater. The loud chanting of "Fix it, fix it, fix it" seemed like a distant swarm of locusts.

  Tom, Sr., was not saying a word, but as Warren Whalen tightened his grasp on the man's genitals, he emitted a sound like wind through rotted wood that seemed to come right out from between his ribs.

  Warren Whalen smiled. His teeth were yellowed, and as he spoke he seemed to be experiencing difficulty in pulling his jaws apart. Thick mucus dripped from his mouth. "We were expecting you, Mr. Torch, for our little private screening."

  Torch bleated at the dead man.

  "As at home in the barnyard as in town, I see, Mr. Torch," Warren said. Tom, Sr., rolled his eyes in his head and passed out. A trickle of dark blood leaked down his pants where Warren was holding him. Warren let go. Tom, Sr., slid to the floor in a heap.

  Warren brought his bloody fingers up to his mouth and licked each one. "Mmm—no, he's not dead yet, Mr. Torch, no need to be filled with human pity. We intend to feed on this one—nice and plump, don't you think? No, he'll live for a few more days. But you know, big fish eat little fish. It must be a bit of a disappointment to realize you the living are not at the top of the food chain, mustn't it?"

  Torch clutched the thing in his hand. The thing he had taken from his pocket moments before entering the theater. The only weapon he knew of, the only thing he'd ever had against them. "Muuu," Torch snarled, feeling triumphant as he pulled his box of matches out from under the rags.

  Warren's eyes filmed over for an instant, as if the sight of the matches made him remember something. "Yes, 'matches.' And you're a very smart man, Mr. Torch, but you must not let yourself burn the candle at both ends. You see, we know you pride yourself on your sense of smell, we know how you tracked us here. But there is one of you, and we are infinite. We have no beginning and no end. And Mr. Torch, we have an ability similar to yours. We, too, can smell things. For example, right now, your, shall we call it a suit, exudes a cool, delicate aroma, like our own. An eau de what—oil? Gasoline, perhaps? Old tires? What a delightful cologne. Every scent tells a story, does it not?"

  Torch sniffed at the air; the stink of the grave seemed to be fading, receding, slipping under the door, even while the dead man spoke.

  "And the musk that you anoint yourself with, Mr. Torch, has already told us all we need to know. A gas station. Close by. There is only one. And you are here, and she is there." Warren Whalen took a step toward Torch. "You believe that she is somehow protected from us, do you not? Hope among your kind certainly does spring eternal. But we have a member of the loca
l police rescuing her even as you and I speak—one of your own, the living. Now, if you give me those matches, perhaps we will show some mercy. Death need not be painful, Mr. Torch, and we do appreciate your playing the guardian angel for our own anointed one "

  "Baaakkk," Torch said, and held a match in the air, ready to strike it against the wall of the projection booth.

  Warren Whalen, his violet eyes gleaming in anticipated triumph, took another step forward. "There are innocent lives sitting in that theater. Fires are dangerous things—you of all people should know that." Warren reached his hand out. "Give me the matches, Mr. Torch, now."

  Torch looked at the man's hand. Ants crawled across deep red gouges in the skin around his wrists. He glanced back at the dead man's face, which was oozing pus from its sores and cuts.

  Torch struck the match against the side of the wall.

  10

  Something bright caught Tommy's eye and drew his vision up to the projection booth. A ball of fire seemed to explode outward, through the Plexiglas of the projection window. The flames spread quickly to the rippled red velvet curtains alongside the wall. Cries of panic filled the dark theater, but Tommy, frozen in the aisle, stared up at the projection booth where his father had been, only hearing the roar of the fire as it stretched its canopy around him. Then he was pushed aside by people running down to the emergency exits; he came to himself, and also ran down to the double doors. The rush of air that swept through the theater as patrons ran out into the alley fanned the fire, and as Tommy ran out the doors he heard glass exploding, and the screams of those who were not making it out in time.

  Tommy now ran with a blind animal instinct, afraid that if he looked back he would see the flames licking at his neck with their rough tongues. If he stopped running, he thought, he would die.

  11

  Lyle

  Deputy Lyle Holroyd was convinced he was going to come out of this a hero. It was worth any minor confusion he might be experiencing: the memory lapse between this afternoon and this evening, as soon as he'd entered the Marlowe-Houston House with Hank Firestone, the detective from Roanoke. Lyle just could not for the life of him account for the time between the moment he'd crossed the threshold of that house and ten minutes ago. He thought he'd been talking with some of Firestone's state police friends, but he could not recall a single face. In fact, standing in the dark alley waiting for the signal over his walkie-talkie, Lyle could not even remember exactly what Firestone looked like.

  Fire engines shrieked past him; he heard police sirens down Main Street, but Lyle could not be bothered. Detective Firestone had warned him there might be some trouble when they got hold of the kidnapper. Lyle stood firm. When the signal came, giving him the precise location of the kidnapper's hideout, Lyle tried to stay in the shadows as he headed to the back entrance of the dilapidated Mobil Station across from the Henchman Lounge.

  All the back windows were blackened over with paint, and when he kicked the back door of the deserted gas station open, the inside looked like it had been set up as a last stand. The front garage doors boarded from the inside. Tires were set up along the windows as reinforcements against break-ins. Several cans of gasoline lined up end-to-end along one wall.

  And on the other wall, burning candles. Lyle gasped; this kidnapper was some fire freak.

  "Hello?" Lyle called out. "Teddy? Where are you? It's all right now, you're safe—" Don't let me find her dead. Don't let her be dead—you can't be a hero if you're lugging a corpse.

  "You're safe. It's all over," his words echoed back to him.

  He glanced down into the pit. There were a bunch of old torn and wadded sheets piled up. A filthy mattress. A children's toy that Lyle himself had once owned when he was a kid: Etch A Sketch. Lyle continued talking as he walked back into the run-down office, "It's all right, Teddy, we'll take care of you, everything's going to be fine."

  The dozens of candles burned in the office; Lyle wondered that this place hadn't gone up in flames.

  A noise. A shuffling noise, and then the creaking shut of some door. Not far from where he stood.

  She is in the washroom. Please God Almighty let her not be dead in that room, let her be tied up, even let her have been tortured to within an inch; but not dead.

  He tried the door to the washroom; locked.

  "Look, everything's okay, it's all right."

  No answer.

  "Honey, I know you're in there. My name's Lyle, I'm a policeman."

  No answer.

  "Now, honey, I know you're in there, so try to move as far away from that door as you can. You understand?" Lyle pushed against the washroom door.

  He heard a noise from inside the bathroom. She was coming to the door. "Wait," the girl said, and she sounded weak.

  He heard the metal click as she unlocked the door and opened it a crack. She thrust an oil lamp in his face. Her hand was trembling. The flame of the lamp wiggled. "Where is he?"

  "It's all right, everything's going to be all right, you got nothing to worry about from here on in, Teddy, just let Deputy Lyle carry you out of here." He pushed the door open wider.

  "You're not one of them," she said, and her voice was frail and uncertain. In the lamplight, he saw she looked like a living skeleton, she was so skinny and drawn. Dark rings around her eyes like a raccoon's mask. Her once frizzy hair had thinned and clung to her scalp.

  "Honey, you're safe and sound now, ain't nothing gonna hurt you." He took the lamp from her hand and set it down on the concrete floor. He lifted her up. She seemed ridiculously light. Her entire body was greasy with sweat.

  Lyle carried her out of the gas station, the way he'd come in. He walked through the alley, expecting the cruisers to be out on Main Street, and an ambulance waiting for the girl. But he never made it that far.

  "We'll take her from here, Lyle." The voice was Hank Firestone's, but Lyle could not see anyone in the dark alley. He held Teddy Amory against his chest, her legs flopping over his arms, her own arms hugging around his neck.

  Lyle looked around. "We?"

  12

  Cassie

  It had been at Prescott's suggestion that he and Cup drive over to Cabelsville for dinner. "Get our minds off this morbid stuff for a while," he said. They took the overpass to Route 64, and then followed it for about forty minutes before taking the Cabelsville exit. Cup observed that Cabelsville didn't look a whole lot different than Pontefract, just more brand-name places: a Safeway, a Baskin-Robbins, a Pizza Hut, and several fast food hamburger chains. They settled on McDonald's.

  "Gee, this Mc-whatever looked really good when I ordered it, but I just don't feel all that hungry," Cup said.

  "Need to keep your strength up," Prescott said, reaching over the table and picking at Cup's french fries.

  "I think I'm more afraid of dying right now than at any other time in my life." Prescott looked out the side window, and Cup felt he could read his thoughts: the damn nerve of this world to go on with such normal things as Drive-Thru Windows and Big Macs. "I always thought that when you get to be up in years death looks like a friend. Bull, as they say."

  "I thought we weren't going to get into this morbid stuff tonight."

  "Well, we're geographically removed from it. In a McDonald's you could be anywhere in the world."

  "I know what you mean, though. Death just doesn't seem like the same obscure threat it was a week ago. God, Prescott, less than a week ago. I feel like I've been here months, but it's only been—what —five days?"

  "But you've been preparing for this week for twelve years. And in my own way, I've been preparing for over forty years."

  "I knew there was something you hadn't told me. It was that little interchange between you and Lowry today. Something about that portrait of him on the horse."

  "Yes," Prescott said, "and I suppose McDonald's is as safe a place as any to tell it."

  13

  Prescott's Story

  When I was one and twenty—do you know that poem by Hous
man? Well, that could've been me. In the golden olden days, the halcyon days, the salad days. But, Cup, my most cherished memories are not of my youth, but of you boys, my students, watching you discover what was exciting, and always seeing the world with your enthusiasm, newness. Teenage boys have few bad memories, their whole lives are something to look forward to. I suppose that was what I found in teaching, the ability to capture that contagion for the possibilities ahead, not those prisons of the past. Or if the past, then the distant past, the past that was far enough removed from my own situation that I could get lost in it.

  And yes, that horse. The one in Gower's portrait was called Lady Day for Billie Holiday, and I suppose is as good a starting point as any for what I am about to tell you.

  My wife Cassie loved horses. She and Gower were childhood friends—perhaps something like you and Lily Cammack. Except they had the extra bond of being first cousins. They were closer to each other than I was with her. Gower's father owned the only half-decent stables in town. My barn is the last remnant of what they were. I bought it from Gower's father when he was selling them off in the fifties. Gower was a much different man then—you can't imagine from seeing him now. He was, first, the richest young man in the county—they had been the only family in the area to prosper during the Depression, mainly because of the furniture factories his father had gotten hold of down in North Carolina. Also, Gower was one of the handsomest young men. He's about six years my junior, and I remember all manner of women between the ages of sixteen and thirty literally swooning over him. And yet, he was an affable fellow, and his heart belonged to one woman and one woman alone, so men didn't feel in the least threatened by him.