Rob Thorn took it with a practiced ease, the nimble fingers of his other hand brushing strands of curly, blond hair out of the way so he could take a drag without bursting into flames. He gestured with the burning end of the joint as he exhaled a huge cloud of fragrant smoke.
“Are you sure we should be doing this?” he asked, “I mean, this is breaking and entering, you know.”
Mark snorted. “Two ‘puss’ demerits, Rob, ‘ole buddy. We’re going in, and none of your pathetic whining is going to change that.”
“Hey, calm down, Mr. Macho. I’m just stating the obvious. Just like it’s obvious that little wench is pullin’ you around by the chain.”
Mark allowed his brows to crumple inward, head tilting to one side as his eyes locked onto his friend with a sharp, predatory look. It had the desired effect; Rob took a step back, holding up his hands in mock surrender.
“Don’t get me wrong,” he clarified, darting another glance at the graveyard dwelling, “I want to go in as much as you do. Hell, it’ll be loads of fun.” Handing the joint back, he concluded, “That’s if we don’t get arrested...”
“Look, you weenie,” Mark sneered, “you know how I feel about Kelly. She wants this set up, and I’m gonna get it done. The cops don’t patrol around here no more and this place is totally abandoned. Let’s just get on with it and...” Pausing, he took a copious hit, his voice finally squeaking out around the huge lungful of smoke, “have a few laughs.”
Grinning, he passed the joint back, studying Rob’s face. He knew his friend wouldn’t wuss out on him. Rob was the kind of guy who always did what he felt like, no matter what the consequences. But now, after his last few run-ins with the law, he was trying to practice more self-control. Sticking the joint in his mouth, Rob dusted off the front of his black leather jacket and then grabbed the backpack resting by his leg.
“Well, come on then – I didn’t skip school this morning to hang out with the dead. Let’s find a way inside and set up Kelly’s little party so we can get the hell outta here.”
Mark laughed, slapping his companion on the back.
“Let’s rock and roll then! Once we get inside and set up all this stuff, Kelly will be all mine...”
Rob snorted. “You think she’s gonna let you get anywhere just for this? Ha! Better guys than you have tried. She just wants you to make a fool of yourself so she can lead you on some more.”
“You don’t know shit!” Mark snarled back, rounding on his friend. “She’s been looking at me different these past few days. You just wait and see.”
“Yeah, but does she give good head, is what I want to know...”
“Shut your filthy mouth!” Mark cried, eyes going a little wild. “A girl like Kelly don’t do things like that. She’s sweet and sophisticated. Don’t even say shit like that about her!”
They came around the side of the building and Rob pulled up short.
“Did you hear that?” he whispered, his iron-hard fingers digging into Mark’s shoulder.
“What?” Mark gasped, trying to look in all directions at once.
“Your pansy heart doing flip-flops, lover boy!”
Mark snatched the joint away from him. “Well, I may be a ‘pansy lover boy’, but I’m also the one with the weed, so you better cut out the bullshit if you want any more of this!”
They grinned at each other, then broke into delirious laughter, fragrant smoke swirling around their heads like a cloud of fluttering gray butterflies. Continuing onward, they soon came across a small door at the back of the house.
“This should lead to the basement,” Rob said, setting his pack down and pulling out a crowbar.
“Yeah, but someone’s already made us an easy entrance.”
Bending down, Mark pulled at the bottom of the warped wooden door panel. It bent away from the siding, peeling back from the frame to expose a triangular gap wide enough to crawl through.
“Lem’me see the flashlight...”
Rob handed it to him and they eased through the hole on hands and knees, letting the flap slap closed behind them. It was darker inside than he’d expected. At seven o’clock in the morning some light should have been getting through, but the stairwell they found themselves in was as black as the shores of midnight. The flashlight didn’t shed much light in the encroaching gloom, but they were just able to make out their surroundings.
The walls were covered with brown and green lichens and the old wooden stairs appeared cracked and wormy from many years of disuse. As they started downward, the dank air clung to them, bringing the sharp, unpleasant odor of decay. It was not a very welcoming place. In fact, Mark thought, it’s downright creepy.
Reaching the bottom of the steps, he shined the pitiful light around. They were in a large, rectangular chamber with a high ceiling made up of old, prehistoric-looking timbers. From where they were standing, they could see it was filled with rotted boxes and ancient, shroud-covered furniture. Mark winced at the harsh sound of Rob’s sudden laughter.
“Looks like they didn’t get rid of it all at the ‘yard sale’.”
“Yeah,” Mark breathed, trying not to taste the fetid air, “this place is nasty.”
“Hey, what’s that?”
Shining the flashlight upward, he scanned the ceiling arches, viewing what appeared to be long, voluminous sheets of silk.
“Holy shit,” Rob whispered. “Look at the size of those cobwebs!”
“Yeah, I see ’em...”
Mark reached around behind himself to pull a baseball cap from his back pocket. Shoveling a hand though his thick, black hair, he scrunched it down onto his head.
“That’s better; I don’t want to get any of that crap in my hair. Let’s get going. I want to get this over with so I can visit Kelly during lunch. Won’t she be surprised when we tell her that everything’s ready for her little shin-dig?”
“Yeah, and won’t they all be surprised when they discover our own little additions?”
Dissolving into laughter, their peals of mirth echoed throughout the darkness. What they’d planned for the girls would be a great deal more exciting than just some run-of-the-mill scavenger hunt; it would be a monument to thrill seekers everywhere. Removing their packs, they started working their way toward the opposite end of the house, passing the roach back and forth and joking around as they did so. It was sure to be one hell of a weekend indeed.
They were about halfway done setting things up when they stumbled upon the rat, but it didn’t really look like any rat they’d ever heard of. Its body was mostly hairless and also quite malformed.
“Whew! What an ugly bugger!” Rob breathed, pushing a discarded beer bottle over for a size comparison. “Look how huge it is! It looks like a goddamn beaver.”
“Yeah, and take a gander at those teeth! I wonder if this is some kind of new species? Maybe it only lives near graveyards.”
“Come off it, Mark. There hasn’t been a fresh corpse around here in ages; what would it eat? It’s probably some kind of muskrat or something.”
“Well, whatever it is, it didn’t die happy – check out its stomach!”
Rob leaned down, playing a splash of light over the rodent’s midsection. “Wow! That looks like a friggin knife wound. I wonder who would be crazy enough to go around cutting up something this freaky-looking? I know that I wouldn’t want to find one of these critters alive; I mean, just look at those teeth!”
Mark studied the creature a moment more, silently agreeing with his friend – it would definitely be a very bad idea to tangle with something like this if it were alive and kicking. An icy chill ran through him.
“Maybe we ought to go tell Kelly about this,” he said slowly. “I don’t think she’d have much of a good time if there are any more of these things around.” Not to mention, he thought, whatever had done it in.
“Come on, lover boy,” Rob quipped, “remember Kelly? Those smooth, soft legs, that slender, silken neck, those firm, ripe –”
Mark took a pla
yful swipe at his friend. “Watch it, buddy! You’re talking about the girl of my dreams there!”
Laughing, Rob danced back out of the way. “Whoa, I’m like, really scared. ‘Please, mister big, bad, barroom brawler, don’t hurt me or nothin’ like that’.”
Mark chuckled at his friend’s bad impersonation of Jerry Lewis. He was such a clown, but he was right; this thing probably crawled in here to die. The stomach gash could have been made by anything, and as for the chew marks, maybe a cat or something. Anyway, disappointing Kelly was not on his list of things to do today. Pushing the feelings of unease to the back of his mind once more, he cleared his throat.
“Yeah, well, let’s just leave it here. They gotta come this way to get to the rest of the house, and it’ll scare the shit out of them. Let’s get going on the rest of the stuff, though; I want to finish with the upstairs and get back before lunch.”
“You mean, ‘get back to my darling, Kelly,’ don’t you?”
“You’re asking for it, Rob – Just keep it up...”
“Oh, you’re so tough! When I grow up, I want to be just like you!”
Trading insults back and forth, they worked their way around to another staircase, this one leading upward. The basement was now completely rigged, and the scavenger hunt items all placed as ordered. Their own embellishments guaranteed that there would be plenty of girlish screaming during the upcoming weekend, and, taking a last look around, they started up the stairs toward the hallways above.
It was as they reached the second landing that they heard it. It was a soft, scrabbling sort of noise, accompanied by a slithery hissing sound. Within moments, they found themselves surrounded by a glowing mist that sprang up out of nowhere. It curled around them, roiling, clinging, and brushing like an unwelcome lover. They cried out, bumping into one another in an effort to flee, but there were things in the mist, strange, coiling, half-formed shapes, that prevented their escape. As they were swallowed up by the haze, they heard a repellent voice barking out harsh commands in an unfamiliar tongue.
From deep within the dwelling, their screams rose to such a fevered pitch, that, had there been anyone around to hear it, it would have been the cause for deepest concern. But the graveyard remained deserted. A chilling wind blew among the stones, lifting leaves and debris with its gentle touch and scattering them in small whorls about the long unattended grounds. The screams slowly faded with the sighing of the breeze and, once again, the house fell silent.
7
Williams hadn’t slept very well and he doubted that he ever would again. He’d broken his own personal code of ethics by lying to the LePrades. How could he live with himself now knowing that he’d only prolonged the problem instead of correcting it? Then again, how could he correct it? He simply could not see himself involved in something so horrifying and dangerous. After all, what could a small-town psychologist do to help them out of their dilemma? There was nothing, nothing that he could do.
There had to be something.
Sighing, he leaned back in his chair. He’d gotten to the office early after being unable to find sleep at his small, suburban home. He was jumping at shadows and thought that getting a head start on the morning might help to calm his nerves. It hadn’t. His mind kept going over what had happened in his office the previous day. Shaking his head to clear it, he glanced down at his hands. The right one was fiddling with a pen, the left, now bandaged and still throbbing, was cradling a lumpy object. Setting the pen down, he gazed at the remains of his watch. She had melted it down to slag. Or, ‘it’ had. And whatever that thing was, it had made him a believer. Now, for the first time in his life, he actually believed in the supernatural. He was still in shock because of it.
Putting the remains of the watch away in a drawer, he turned and tapped the intercom button.
“Oh! Good morning!” came Terry’s familiar voice, “I didn’t know you were in so early.”
“Yes. Well, I couldn’t sleep. Will you please reschedule all my appointments for today? Also, bring me a cup of coffee, black. A large cup.”
“But you don’t drink coffee!”
“I do now. Just get it for me, okay? Please?”
“Sure thing, Doc. Coming right up.”
The intercom clicked off. Leaning back again in his chair, he smoothed his rumpled tie and tried, without much success, to think of a solution. After a few minutes, Terry came in. She was beautiful, as always. This morning she was wearing a soft, brown shirt and a pair of black slacks. Her long, silken hair was pulled back into a loose braid, and her black boots made small scuffing sounds as she crossed the hardwood floor. Her face wore a look of deepening concern as she placed the coffee in front of him.
“Is there anything wrong?” she ventured.
“No... Yes! I don’t know...” he faltered. “I... I just don’t know anymore.”
Terry gazed at him a moment, taking in his disheveled condition as he grimaced around a large gulp of coffee. “You don’t look so good, Doc. You want to talk about it?”
“I can’t; it’s about a patient. Confidentiality and all that.”
Sitting down, she quirked a smile at him. “Well, you do realize that whatever you say to me won’t leave this office? Ever since I started working here, you’ve treated me more like a colleague than a receptionist. In fact, you’ve been almost like family, and, although you may not realize it, I consider you one of my closest friends. No, no, wait... let me finish!” With a wave of her hand, she cut off his half-formed demurral. “You work very hard at what you do, and you’re damned good at it. I’ve really learned a lot from watching you handle your patients and it’s made me decide that it’s what I want to do when I graduate. Help people, I mean.
“Now, I can tell there’s something bothering you, something disturbing enough to make you cancel all your appointments and start drinking a beverage you completely despise. Why don’t you get it off your chest? It will make you feel better. And, if it helps, you can think of yourself as my first real patient. What do you say?”
He gazed into her deep brown eyes and found nothing but compassion there. He’d already broken his own code of ethics; what was one more infraction? Besides, this thing was eating him up inside. He had to get it out in the open so he could meet it head-on and resolve it. It was the only way.
If she’d only believe him.
Slowly, and with many false starts, he told her about the horrifying events of the previous day. All the terror of what he’d witnessed, all the monstrous implications, all the deception he’d propagated – he told her everything, everything and more. He began to tell her what he thought of himself for deceiving his patients this way, but Terry interrupted.
“There was nothing else you could have done. Prescribing sleeping pills, in any event, was probably a stroke of genius. It will buy us some time to work out what we’re going to do.”
Startled into near speechlessness, he managed to sputter, “What we’re going to do?”
“Certainly,” she said, leaning forward. “You’re going to need help in finding out the best way to diffuse this situation. You forget, I’ve taken a couple classes in parapsychology, and while I know this should all be sounding crazy to me, I totally believe you. Trust me – I’ve studied a lot stranger cases than this. But we’re going to need to do some heavy research to find out what we’re up against. You know we have to do this; if not for the girl, then for your own peace of mind. Once we put this thing to rest, I think you’ll feel a lot better. Now come on, let’s get your coat and head downtown. We’ve got a lot of work to do.”
“Where are we going?” he managed, still stunned by her ready acceptance and sincere offer of help.
“This town, you might not realize, has a dark history. I’m sure you’ve heard the rumors, haven’t you?”
He shook his head.
“Well,” Terry continued, listing them off on her fingers, “there have been disappearances, unsolved murders, unexplained events; the list just goes on and on. Yo
u’d be surprised. Also, there’s all those old stories about that graveyard over on Mercury Street. Maybe we can find out if there’s been any other occurrences like this in the past. Now come on; we’ve got to get to the library and try and dig up some more info. It could take us a whole day just to check the backdated news files.”
Suddenly at a loss for words, he allowed himself to be pushed along as she hurried him into his overcoat and then out the door. They reached the parking lot and she hesitated.
“Do you want me to drive?” she asked.
He peered at her small VW Rabbit. It was hot pink and had fuzzy dice hanging from the rear-view mirror.
Clearing his throat, he led her toward his shiny, black Buick Century. “No, that’s okay; I’ll drive. You know, you really don’t have to do this. It’s not your problem, and it could get pretty dangerous. Maybe you should just stay out of it.”
“No way, buddy. This is my first chance to crack open a real occult case. Plus, there are lives at stake here! Besides, it became my problem the moment you told me about it. We’ve got to stick together on this; there’s strength in numbers.”
Williams opened the passenger door for her and then moved around to the driver’s side. He was worried for her safety, but, at the same time, relieved to have her support. He had to admit that he was also quite flattered. It was a boost to his self confidence that he was sorely in need of.
As they drove through town, he reflected on what Terry had said about the strange goings on she’d heard of. This old town didn’t seem like the kind of location that could harbor any hidden secrets. It was just a tiny little place on the border of California and Arizona, hardly even a pimple on the face of America. The people were friendly enough, for the most part, and he certainly didn’t have any knowledge of these supposed mysterious occurrences. Still, he trusted her – needed to trust her – and she’d never given him any reason not to.
Sighing, he continued to drive toward the south side where the Pritchford Library was located, noticing the everyday bustle of the small community. People were walking along the sidewalks, ordinary people, moving with a purpose in their daily lives. This was a town of simple, hardworking folk, not some place out of a Steven King novel. Glancing at Terry, he had to wonder. Even though he’d witnessed the reality of the LePrade girl’s... ‘possession’ he guessed he should call it... he still had trouble assimilating his new found beliefs. They were not something he’d thought he’d ever have to deal with. For God’s sake, he was a psychologist, not a witch doctor! But Terry had accepted his version of the events without even blinking an eye. He supposed that he would just have to get used to it.
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