Nights Towns: Three Novels, a Box Set

by Douglas Clegg

  Lyle, who was drooling and moaning from getting hit on the head with the brass crucifix, muttered, "Yeah, bu-but it's g-g-getting dark, George, and you know v-v-vam-pires—"

  George pushed Lyle into the backseat of the cruiser. "Yeah, Lyle, I do know vampires, don't I?"

  George shut the door, and then went around the other side of the car and got in behind the wheel. He took the mike from his radio and said into it, "Bonnie? You there?"

  "George?" She croaked the name. Her voice was laced with weariness and fear.

  "Well, I found your husband, and it isn't too pretty, but we're going to take a trip over to the Marlowe-Houston House right now—"

  "You can't take me there!" Lyle bellowed from the backseat. "They're gonna kill me!"

  9

  Cup turned around when he heard the bedroom door creak open. Patsy stood there grinning. Her teeth, normally black from MoonPies, looked like they'd been smeared with some kind of strawberry jam. The foamy pink curlers were dropping out of her hair like petals from a dying rose. Her face seemed more bloated than usual, and in the harsh bedroom light had a bluish tint to it. "I read that nasty book of yours," she said, clutching her robe closed.

  "That was none of your business," Cup said, and then noticed something else; she stank. He hadn't gotten a good whiff of her downstairs, but she didn't smell like MoonPies or Lilac Vegetal. She smelled like an old outhouse on a hot summer day.

  "Mowing lawns, Mr. Coffey, is that what you want to do? The Good Book says that all flesh is grass, isn't that right? And you'd like to mow that field over, but it's their flesh, don't you see, it's their flesh, you filthy, nasty man, you nasty man. Bringing your filth in here, pushing it on me, smearing my face in it, you nasty, nasty man, pushing it in me, that's what you want to do, isn't it? Nasty men like you, you're not even a man, are you? You nasty little boy, you nasty, filthy, filthy—"

  The whole time she was spitting the words out, raising her right hand in emphasis like a tent revival preacher calling for the Holy Spirit, she was moving slowly toward him. Her words were punctuated by the piffling sound of her slippers. Without realizing it, Cup was also moving, backwards, his back to the wall. He stumbled back against the carton of empty bottles that Patsy had been storing in the room. Gingerly, he stepped over them, moving backwards, more bottles, rows of bottles all the way back to the wall.

  And when Patsy let go of her blue chenille robe, it fell open like a curtain just drawn apart, and he screamed.

  10

  "We go there," Lyle said, leaning his head over next to George's shoulder, "they'll get both of us now, George, and they only want you—it's not fair! It's not fair!" When he shrieked, his voice sounded like someone was raking razors across his vocal cords.

  "Will you shut up!" George shouted.

  "No please, please no—they got what they wanted—the girl the girl Firestone—" Lyle whimpered.

  "Firestone?" George asked, and almost ran down Betty Henderson as she jaywalked across Main Street. He pulled over abruptly to the side of the road, skidding into some slush. It sprayed crud all across the right-hand side of the windshield. George kept the car running, his foot on the brake. "What the hell does Firestone have to do with this bullshit, Lyle?"

  "I'll tell you if you promise not not to take me back there—please, please!" Lyle began sobbing, dropping his head against the vinyl of the seatback.

  "You're going to tell me, Lyle, or I'll take you to that house and leave you handcuffed to the goddamn banister!" George kept his eyes on the street as Lyle began relating the events of the previous day, from Firestone's discussion about the Amory girl to Lyle's carrying the girl into the alley behind the abandoned Mobil Station and being hit over the head.

  " And I woke up, and all these bones, sticking up, it was like a cage, and I was tied up and that Jake Amory—and then those Gastons, saying they wanted you, you, George "

  When Lyle collapsed in the backseat, carrying on about werewolves and vampires, George let out a string of profanities he didn't even know existed within himself. When he'd recovered, feeling that the worst of what was inside him had been unleashed, he said: "Damn it, Lyle, I don't know if you're flipped out or I'm crazy, but we are going to that house before I put a bullet in somebody's head—yours or mine!"

  George tapped his foot on the accelerator and drove on down the street

  "George," Bonnie's voice came over the radio, sounding even more drained of spirit and energy, "I've been getting calls from East Campus about Campbell's Boardinghouse, and now we got a report somebody's screaming over there, I can't get ahold of any of the boys, and I think you should—Oh, God, I've got to get out of here, George, I've been in here all night, I hate this job, I hate it—"

  11

  Inside Patsy Campbell's robe, her naked, bloated body, the sagging, pendulous breasts, shriveled like a scrotum, her belly elliptical, and beneath the great folds of flesh, between her legs, silver jaws embedded with needlelike teeth. Slick strands of pubic hair dangled over the lips as the jaws snapped open and shut, and Cup was not sure if the voice that was speaking came from Patsy's mouth or from this feral nether maw.

  Patsy continued speaking, her robe open, moving toward Cup, slowly, slowly. "Inside me, Mr. Coffey, I want you inside me, in there, you'll find what you're looking for—you're looking for that slut, aren't you? Well, she's in there, just take a peek, she's there waiting for you, why, I've had whole armies inside me, Mr. Coffey, one more won't hurt, you filthy filthy—"

  Cup pressed himself against the wall; he scratched at the flowered wallpaper with his fingers as if he could dig himself into it. His legs gave out like jelly and he crumpled down on the floor. An empty RC Cola bottle rolled around as he knocked a six-pack over. He began yelling at the top of his lungs, "Help! Help me! For the love of God—"

  "Love," Patsy dribbled, spraying blood across Cup's face as she spoke. "Love me, no one's ever loved me, it's awful to die and to never know love, true love—do you believe in true love, Cup?" Her voice had gone from Patsy's adenoidal southernness into the smooth dulcet tones that Cup recognized as Lily's. "Mow it down, Cup, mow the field, all flesh is grass. Cup, all flesh, all flesh "

  Cup reached over and grabbed one of the empty RC bottles by its neck. He held it up like a shield.

  But when he used that bottle, breaking it against the wall to give it a cutting edge, brandishing it against those gnashing silver teeth between Patsy Campbell's legs, he would use it as a weapon.

  12

  George's head reeled when he entered Patsy Campbell's home. It stank to high heaven. He heard the shout for help coming from upstairs, and as he ran up the stairs he felt cold, invisible fingers holding him back. The stairway didn't seem to end. George felt like his feet were mired in a bog, could hear his shoes thudding on the carpet, but his movements seemed to be in slow motion.

  The shouts from upstairs were drawn out, lasting for hours. The house was chilly, and the smell

  George felt as if he were undergoing hypnosis, regressing to a past event through this present one, and the other scene flickered in his head. The hunting cabin in the woods behind the lake, and in that scene he wasn't running up stairs, but across a muddy driveway, freezing, as if the ice had gotten under his skin and into his blood. This was his chance to do something nice for them, he knew he could, he knew that the phone call Frank Gaston had made down to the courthouse was a plea for help, a last chance

  He knew he could rescue them, and when George got to the top of the stairs, he clung with both hands to the banister. He was out of breath and it felt like a gas-soaked rag had been stuffed down his throat, gagging him. The stench was so repulsive and strong it knocked him backwards, reeling. George fell to his knees and began hawking phlegm up into the back of his throat, his stomach heaving convulsively. He leaned on all fours, hacking and vomiting a greenish yellow lumpy cud onto the carpeting.

  When he recovered from vomiting, he covered his nose and mouth with a handkerchief. He was
completely disoriented. George did not think that the hunting cabin Frank and Louise owned had a stairway up to a third story. He stood up and walked cautiously over to the bedroom door. A woman was speaking rapidly behind the door, but the shouts for help had ceased.

  No pools of blood, no skull fragments, no words written on the wall, no death, no death, please, no death

  Then the flashback to the Gaston tragedy tore apart, and George remembered where he was: the third floor of Campbell's Boardinghouse.

  George heard a loud thumping sound, and he pushed the door open.

  Patsy Campbell lay face up on the floor, which was littered with pink curlers and pop bottles still rolling like felled bowling pins. Her robe was open. There was something shiny protruding from between her legs, at her pubic area. It was, George found out later, a broken RC Cola bottle. Cup Coffey, whom George had interviewed just two days before, was sitting against the wall, shivering as if he'd been sprayed with ice water. His eyes bulged from their sockets. He did not even seem to notice George.

  The smell of decay and death like some just-sprayed room deodorizer lingered in the air.

  "You have the right," George gasped, unsure of his own sanity but able to repeat these words even in his sleep, "to remain silent."

  PART THREE: VALLEY OF THE SHADOW

  Chapter Sixteen

  IN THE FLESH

  1

  In the sheriff's office, Clare Terry watched as Bonnie Holroyd took her car keys out of her purse, and then went over to the coatrack. Someone was calling on the radio, and Bonnie went over and disconnected the machine. She even tore apart some of the cables.

  Then she returned to the coatrack and unhooked her down vest.

  "I don't understand," Clare said helplessly, not able to hide the desperation in her voice. "You know my father, Bonnie, if you could just get one of the officers on the—"

  As Bonnie put the vest on, buttoning it up, she said, "This town is falling apart, honey, I've gotten twenty-five emergency calls today from folks saying their dead friends and relatives are up and breathing, and we only have so many cops to go out on wild goose chases, and we had some burn victims from last night who aren't going to live to see tomorrow morning. Jesus, one boy lost his dad in that fire, and he's sitting in there, been there all damn night as far as I can tell," she pointed to the sheriff's private office, "and it makes me nervous 'cause he was talking ghosts, too. I hear my man Lyle is high as a kite and talking about vampires. And some joker keeps calling me up and telling me he's Lyle's dad, who, if you don't know, bought the farm a while back but now he's paying off the loan, if you know what I mean, because this joker tells me he wanted to be back for Founders Day, and to tell his favorite son that they know what he did and are not terribly happy about it. And the crazy thing is, Clare, this joker sounds so much like the old guy I peed my panties when he called. And you're worried about your old man disappearing? Wandering off in the morning like a chicken with its head cut off? I tell you, don't you worry about it one bit, 'cause he'll be back, dead or alive, he ll be back." Bonnie's face seemed to have aged decades since Clare had last seen her; it could've been a middle-aged woman's rather than that of a girl more than ten years younger than herself.

  "But, my father," Clare said, gesturing despair with her hands, "can't the sheriff do—"

  "Stick around and you can find out what he can do, but Bonnie's got to say bye-bye." Bonnie picked up her purse and slung the strap over her shoulder. She wiped her eyes. "If you want that state detective, Mister Hank Firestone, I believe he's camped out in the john flushing his brains away for all the good he's done here. Oh, and give this message to George for me, and Lyle, too, if you see him. Tell 'em I said: fuck it. That's all, just fuck it." Her voice cracked, and she walked swiftly past Clare, out of the office.

  From inside the sheriff's private office, Clare heard a familiar young boy's voice: "Is it safe to come out now?"

  2

  "Hello, Tommy," Clare said. Tommy Mackenzie, his whole body trembling as if from cold, gently nudged the inner office door open. The hood was up on his gray sweatshirt, and he held the corners of his navy blue jacket together as if it was thirty below inside. His blue eyes were lined with red.

  "Hi, Mrs. Terry. Did you see him, too?" Tommy spoke in a shaky tenor, and he kept glancing around to the corners of the room, hardly even looking at Clare.

  Clare are raised her eyebrows. "Who?"

  "Rick Stetson. He's dead, and then I talked to him." He said this just as if there was nothing contradictory in the statement. Tommy's eyes were smudged with charcoal gray and he kept blinking like he was afraid Clare was making a move to hit him as she came closer to the open door. "I heard you talking in here with Mrs. Holroyd. The Boy-Eating Spider got your father, too, didn't it?"

  3

  "Goddamn dispatch is off!" George swung the cruiser in a sharp left onto Lakeview Drive off of East Campus. Cup was riding shotgun and had not said a word since he and George left the house. George had not asked any questions other than, "You all right?" Cup had nodded, and George told him to walk ahead of him down the staircase and out the front door. While George fiddled with the radio with one hand and drove with the other, Lyle, still handcuffed in the backseat, began sniffing the air.

  "He might be one of them, one of them, vampires, ghouls—" Lyle wailed, and pushed himself up against the back of his seat, sliding toward the door behind George's seat.

  Cup's voice was stoical. "I don't think they're anything as simple as vampires." Only his haggard, pale demeanor belied the calmness that came up from his throat.

  "What the—" George watched the road as he drove; in fact, he didn't even want to look at either of the other two men in the car.

  "I wish they were. If we're dealing with vampires, it's just a matter of waiting the night out surrounded with garlic and then getting some wooden stakes. Then we could do the job in the morning." Cup looked out the car window, across the frozen lake.

  George looked bewildered. "Well, this takes it, doesn't it?"

  Lyle chimed in, "They are too vampires: they eat people."

  "It's a thin distinction, I know," Cup said evenly, "but vampires are supposedly bloodsuckers. Prescott Nagle believes they're part of some spirit. Maybe several spirits."

  "You're wrong, what touched me was skin, you hear?" Lyle had also calmed down, and leaned his head against the window.

  "Dr. Nagle said that?" George asked, incredulous.

  "He's got some documentation to back up his theory."

  "I can't wait to hear about it from him." They were approaching the courthouse on Main Street, and George parked the car illegally, but, he thought, who the hell is going to notice?

  "Well, what do you think, Sheriff? That I did that to Mrs. Campbell?"

  "Look, buddy," George said as he unbuckled his seatbelt, "some psycho cut my wife's tongue out with glass, and I find a dead woman who just got it with a broken bottle up the kazoo, and you want to tell me there aren't any similarities?"

  Cup held his hands up for George's inspection. "If I'm such a psycho, what, are you all out of handcuffs?"

  "What is that, a smart-ass comment?" George got out of the car and opened the back door. "Come on, Lyle," George said as he reached in and grabbed hold of Lyle's shoulder.

  Cup got out of his side of the cruiser. His head hung down and when George glanced across the hood of the car at him, Cup reminded him of himself at that age whenever he spoke with his own father (which had been rare if at all). "Look," George said to Cup. George was steadying Lyle, who'd almost slipped in the snow; when Cup looked at him, and George saw the shattered, uncertain look in the man's brown eyes, he was unable to remember what he was about to say. "Let's just go inside and figure this thing out."

  4

  "Saunders?" Gower Lowry said as he went into the kitchen. He had been waiting in the dining room for fifteen minutes. She knew supper was promptly at six. His time was valuable. This may have been a vacation break for o
ther teachers, but for the Acting Headmaster at Pontefract Prep there was no respite. He'd spent the entire afternoon reviewing administrative spending. After such a day be did not enjoy being kept waiting at table. He drummed his fingers against the oak table. "Saunders!"

  He heard her customary shuffling in the kitchen. "Saunders, when you're quite ready "

  She came through the kitchen door. But that is not how Gower Lowry saw it. He saw someone come through the kitchen door. He thought he was hallucinating again. He hated being old. Because the woman standing before him looked like Saunders in every respect save one: the skin of her face had been turned inside out. That was the way Gower would've put it, although he knew it didn't do her justice. After his recent nightmares, this didn't seem all that surprising. He pretended not to notice. I am just seeing things; this happens to old men sometimes. The trick is to not let on. Gower did not want Saunders to think he was completely senile, so he said, "Saunders, I am ravenous, I hope the menu this evening is up to your usual standards."

  The Saunders-thing didn't react to this. She went over to the dining room table and pulled out a chair for herself. She sat down. It was very odd to see this Saunders-thing with her bluish hair streaked with blood, her lacy collar coming up right to the point where her throat seemed to have been slit. Gower kept watching her, assuming that if he didn't turn away, she would become ordinary, homely Saunders again. He waited for this flicker of sanity. When she spoke, it was not with Saunders' voice, but Gower assumed this was simply another symptom he would never admit to a doctor.