Philomena walked to the desk, Click-Clack over the stone floor, stopping before him. “Hello, Ass Face.”
The mule-headed librarian drummed his fingers on the desk top. “What do you want, Philomena?”
“Access to the Secrets Collection, please.”
The librarian scowled. “Out of the question.”
“I said please.”
“Doesn’t matter.”
“The Secrets Collection, Ass Face.”
“You’ve already read everything in there.”
“Not everything. There’s one shelf left. The top shelf.”
“I don’t have a ladder for you.”
“I’ll climb.”
“We’re closing.”
“You never close, and you know it.”
The librarian scowled deeper. “That’s a restricted collection. You can’t check anything out.”
“I’ll read here.”
“I don’t know where the key is.”
“It’s on the peg board behind you. J-4.”
The librarian curled his mule lip in what passed for a mule sneer, and the little girl smiled up at him.
“What if I just say no?”
Philomena sighed. She reached into the pocket of her dress slowly, holding the librarian with her eyes, like a gunfighter, then in a blur drew out her library card and held it before her like a talisman. “Out damned spot! Get thee behind me! Give up the booty!”
The librarian flinched and looked away, quickly retrieving the large brass key and slapping it down on the counter. He kept his eyes averted from the library card, and only dared to look once Philomena had returned it to her pocket and snatched up the key.
“I hope you fall and break your neck,” he muttered.
“I’ll be fine,” she called, Click-Clacking away across the room towards an archway. “Thanks, Ass Face.”
“Bring it back when you’re done!” he shouted after her.
Before she entered the archway she had selected, Courageous Little Philomena picked up a lit candelabra from a table and held it high to chase back the darkness. She always felt like she should be wearing a long black cape when she held one of these, a ghostly organ playing somewhere in the background. She marched down a long stone corridor, Click-Clack-Click-Clack, until she reached a small iron door which opened with the brass key. She pushed into a ten by ten room with three full bookcases, two hard chairs and a table. The door squealed shut behind her on rusty hinges. As far as Philomena knew, she was the only one who ever came here. Probably the only one in Petershead who could read something other than comic books and tabloids, she thought.
She set the candelabra on the table and inspected the shelves.
Ass Face was right, she had read just about everything in here. The entire, encyclopedic series on childhood secrets, petty crimes and cheating in high school and college, endless lies, an affair… and of course the volumes of creepier information from the Twilight Time. These were dark tales indeed, stories of arson, slaughtered animals, girls abducted at knife-point only to vanish into the woods, never to be found. She shuddered in forbidden delight. And there was more. The top shelf, every book still unread, no doubt revealing the deepest caverns of depravity, the true onset of Midnight.
But today what she wanted was a location, directions to bait which would prove irresistible to the Crusk.
She dragged a wooden chair to the bookcase with a squeal and climbed upon it, standing on her pointed little toes and gripping the uppermost shelf as if she would do a chin up. She read the titles along each spine.
Although each intrigued her more than the one before, and she promised herself to come back and read every word (How To Cut A Mini-Van’s Brakes looked especially interesting), it wasn’t until she came upon a small, untitled book bound in brittle black leather that her little heart began to pound. She took it down and carried it to the table.
Running a small hand over the simple unmarked cover, she opened the book and began to read, slowly at first, then faster and faster, fingers snapping over pages as a pointed grin spread over her face.
Here it was, and the location of the bait both shocked and delighted her. She closed the book with a satisfied thump, tapping out a happy little dance in her pointy little shoes. Philomena patted the library card in her pocket. Now she needed to call her friends, and she was confident Ass Face would let her use his phone.
Johnny and Stumpy and One-Eyed Kate sat at a picnic table, the three of them on one side, watching Big Moose on the other cracking walnuts between his thumb and index finger before passing the nut meat to his companions. He didn’t like walnuts himself. One-Eyed Kate was wearing her favorite red jumper, and kindly shared her walnuts with Stumpy, popping every other one into his eager mouth. Eating was tough for him, seeing as he had no arms or legs, and he wasn’t so much sitting on the picnic bench as he was propped on it.
Johnny shoved his walnuts down his gullet as fast as his pudgy fingers could move, wheezing through perpetually stuffed nostrils, his swollen belly growling for more. Flies buzzed around his bloated and hairless head, and he waved at them with his beefy hands when they weren’t otherwise engaged.
Big Moose concentrated on his task, tongue sticking out the corner of his mouth. The eight-year-old was six-foot-nine and weighed three-hundred pounds, was obscenely muscled and considerably hairy. Pelt kind of hairy. He would have passed for an adult had it not been for his simple, sunny disposition, speech impediment and a runny nose he was always wiping on the Sponge Bob pajamas which he was always wearing. And he had great, heavy moose antlers, one of the reasons for his heavily muscled neck. Every year on Moose’s birthday, One-Eyed Kate tied a red balloon to each antler and sang to him, making him tear up and smile.
“What time is it?” asked Kate, blinking her big, blue eye at Moose. It was an old joke, but still made Stumpy and Johnny laugh.
Big Moose squinched up his face as he thought about it. “Midnight?”
They exploded in laughter. That was funnier than the question.
“That’s right, Moose,” said the little Cyclops girl, patting one of his big hands. Stumpy started to whine, so she fed him another walnut.
“Mmmph mmff Hmmph?”
“Don’t talk with food in your mouth, Johnny.”
Johnny gulped and belched. “I said, where’s Philomena?”
One-Eyed Kate shrugged and ate a walnut. “She said she’d be here. Why, do you have something better to do?”
Big Moose watched Johnny closely, wondering if he did.
Johnny shrugged back at her. “My mom made a roast. It’s Rottweiler. I want a sandwich.”
Kate shook her head at the pale, fat little boy.
“This won’t work anyway,” Johnny continued, leaning his elbows on the table and slumping. “We’re gonna end up getting eaten.”
“You are eatin’,” said Moose.
“No, you big dummy,” Johnny said, flicking a walnut shell at the giant moose-child. “Eaten. Eat-en. As in, the Crusk is going to eat us.”
Moose thought about that for a minute, then brightened. “Then you don’t hafta go to school no more!”
That didn’t seem to appease Johnny. In his opinion, his mom should keep him out of school completely, instead of putting his life in peril on a daily basis. That hadn’t happened, for him or any of the kids in Petershead. Despite the fact that the Crusk caught and ate an average of one kid per week as they headed to or from school, and despite the fact that the bridge over the Crusk’s ravine had to be crossed in order to get to that school, the adults of Petershead sent their young off every weekday to either learn or be devoured. And what did the learning even matter? Johnny had been in the third grade for as long as he could remember, and would always be. Perpetually nine equaled perpetual third grade.
“Grownups suck,” he said.
“Philomena says it will work,” Kate pointed out, as if that settled the matter.
“Uh-huh, and Phil’s always right. Like when she
said those wings she built would work, right before she strapped them to Stumpy and pushed him out of the bell tower. That worked great, didn’t it?”
One-Eyed Kate frowned, and Stumpy shook his head vigorously and grunted. It most certainly had not worked, as the permanent dent in the side of his head demonstrated.
“And what about her little experiment with the woodchuck, the cattle prod and my ass? That worked like a charm, huh?”
“No,” said Kate, “that was so funny I almost peed myself.”
Big Moose chuckled at that and cracked a walnut. “Peed.”
“And how about the…”
Kate held up a hand, her eye narrowed. “We get the point, Johnny. No one’s making you stay. Go home and stuff your face with Rottweiler if you want to. Just remember you’ll have to explain to Clap why you weren’t there when she needed you.”
Johnny thought about that. He thought about friendship. He thought about teeth.
Johnny stayed on the bench.
Big Moose cracked another walnut.
The night wind kicked up a storm of dead leaves that spun through the playground like a little tornado, making the kids cover their eyes to keep out the grit. Stumpy couldn’t, and caught the worst of it. Big Moose opened his mouth wide to catch the grit on his tongue.
Courageous Little Philomena walked into the playground and saw her friends sitting at a picnic table on the far side. She pushed through rusty swings, making the chains creak, and strode towards them, a canvas bag slung over one shoulder.
Big Moose saw her first and grinned broadly, revealing his single tooth and showing off a severe cleft. “Mena! Mena!” Johnny and Kate ran to her, and Stumpy, left on the bench, craned his neck to see over his shoulder, grunting.
“Did you get it?” One-Eyed Kate asked, jumping up and down in excitement.
“Yep,” said Philomena, unslinging the bag and setting it on the picnic table. “It wasn’t hard at all.”
“Where did you find it?” asked Johnny, poking a fat finger at the bag, then jerking it back quickly when the bag twitched.
“You’ll never believe it. It was hiding in a corner of my Uncle Waldo’s potato cellar. Can you imagine? It’s been right there all along.”
Johnny raised an eyebrow. “Wait a minute. The ultimate bait to catch the Crusk has been hiding in your family’s potato cellar?”
“Yep.”
“And no one knew it was there?”
“Nope.”
“And no one ever saw it?”
“Nope”
“And it never tried to get out?”
“Uh…nope, guess not. Anything else?”
Johnny shrugged and waved at a fly.
“It wasn’t hard to catch, either. I just grabbed it and stuffed it in this bag. I think it’s scared.”
The children watched as Philomena dumped the bag out on the table. Its contents rolled onto the splintered and initial-carved wood like a soft blob, then shuddered. About the size of a basketball, the bait was translucent, cloudy, shimmering with a soft, internal white light. It quivered now and again like Jell-O.
“This is it?” Johnny said, frowning.
Philomena ignored him, watching the blob of light with fascination. “Touch it,” she said, and they all did, little hands – or in Moose’s case big hands – crawling over its surface. It was smooth and spongy and cool to the touch. One-Eyed Kate lifted Stumpy off the bench and held him so he could rub his head against the thing. The limbless child closed his eyes and made a purring sound.
“Did you bring what I told you?” Philomena asked her friends. They all nodded and pointed to a Red Flyer wagon they normally used to pull Stumpy around town. It was piled high with heavy chain, and something long was underneath, shiny metal peeking out between the links.
“Moose pulled it,” Johnny said. “It was way too heavy for us.” A fly landed on his ear and he swatted it away.
Philomena inspected the wagon’s contents, then, satisfied, she re-bagged the bright blob of bait and tossed the canvas sack over her shoulder once more.
“Let’s go catch the Crusk.”
Petershead School sat on the far edge of town, a one room structure in the classic style, complete with shuttered bell steeple, which had once been painted a cheerful red with white trim. Now, the paint was gray and peeling (and, as it turned out, lead-based), its windows had broken panes, and the steeple which had once housed a resonant bell was now a home for crows.
The town limits of Petershead were clearly marked in all directions by a sheer cliff with crumbling edges, and beyond was only misty darkness. Petershead was literally an island. At this edge, a finger of land had splintered off at an angle, forming a smaller island, and it was upon this that the Petershead School rested. A creaky wooden plank bridge with broken railings was the only way across the hundred foot gap, known as the Ravine, and it was deep within this slash of darkness that the Crusk made its home. The travelers across the bridge supplied its meals.
No adults came here, except for the School Marm, simply referred to as Miss Marm. A stick-figure of a woman, she never left the school, slept on a cot near the chalk board, and ate who knew what. Crows was the best guess any of her pupils had. Therefore the only visitors were the school children, doomed to trudge out here from town each day and take their chances crossing the bridge, hoping that a hungry black mass didn’t lunge out of the darkness below and carry them down to a brief and horrible end.
Courageous Little Philomena and her pals made their way up the path towards the bridge. Here and there, old chestnut trees grew along the ravine’s edge, some leaning precariously out over the nothingness, roots straining to keep their grip on the stony bank. Others were set back and solid-looking, and it was towards one of these that Philomena headed, leaving the path and motioning for her friends to follow. Stopping at one tree in particular, she planted her hands on her pointy little hips and looked it up and down.
One-Eyed Kate, carrying Stumpy in her arms like a baby, stood beside her, and Johnny, sulking, shuffled a distance behind, not at all happy to be here. Big Moose pulled the heavy wagon up to the girls.
“This one should do,” Philomena pronounced, pointing at the tree and looking over at Moose, who began unloading the Red Flyer.
“Do you really think this will work?” Kate asked, hugging Stumpy close.
“It has to, Katie.”
One-Eyed Kate nodded and wiped at a tear that rolled down from the big blue eye in the center of her face. Petershead was dangerous enough for children without the Crusk thinning out their numbers even more on a weekly basis. She was proud of Philomena, and happy to be her friend.
“Why do you think it will work?” demanded Johnny, one hand digging deep into a pants pocket. He thought he felt a piece of hard candy down there somewhere. Or it could just be lint.
Philomena explained her plan. Kate and Big Moose and Stumpy thought it was a good idea. Johnny thought about his Rottweiler sandwich.
“But why this bait?” Johnny pressed. “What makes it so special?”
“Because the book at the library says it’s one of a kind, and irresistible.”
“It seems to like kids just fine,” he said.
“Well, I don’t think using a kid as bait is okay. Do you know of any extra kids we could use, Johnny?”
One-Eyed Kate elbowed her fat friend. “I can think of one.”
Philomena carefully paced off the distance from the tree she had chosen to the bridge, then returned and had Big Moose lay out the chain in a straight line. She paced this off as well, then instructed Moose to anchor the chain to the tree at a particular point. Moose did as he was told, then heaved all his weight against it, grunting and making a big vein stand out on the side of his head. The chestnut tree creaked and the bark splintered a little, but the chain only dug in deeper to the wood, holding fast.
Next, Philomena pointed to the remaining item in the wagon, an enormous steel fishhook, five feet long, weighing close to a hundred p
ounds. Moose had found it in the barn behind his house, hanging on a wall between a snow shovel and a dried-out garden hose. It had a wicked-looking barbed head, and appeared sharp enough to cut a person in half. Under the little girl’s direction, Big Moose clipped it onto the loose end of chain, tugging to make sure it too was secure.
“And now for the bait.” Philomena upended the bag, dumping the glowing blob onto the ground.
Johnny tapped her on the shoulder. “Uh, Clap? I still don’t understand how this is supposed to work. Even if it does take the bait, how are we gonna pull it up? It’ll be too heavy, even with Moose pulling.”
“Didn’t I go over this already?”
Johnny pressed on. “And if we do get it up out of the ravine, what’s to stop it from just eating us right here by the edge?”
“Johnny…” Philomena said, clenching her fists.
“And Phil, what if…?”
Philomena grabbed the fat boy by his shirt and hauled him in close, pushing her nose to his. “Ever see a running dog reach the end of a short leash?”
Johnny blinked at her. “No.”
Philomena gasped and dropped her chin to her chest, letting him go. “Nevermind.”
“But Phil…”
She pointed a finger at him. “Another word, fat boy, and we’re using different bait.”
Johnny closed his lips tightly and went digging for lint or candy.
Philomena picked up the luminescent blob, and without ceremony impaled it on the fishhook’s barb. The midnight sky shattered with a dozen forks of lightning in that instant, and the thunder immediately after sounded like a scream, shaking the ground and then fading off to a whimper.
The children huddled together, wide eyes staring up at the sky, which had transformed to a tumult of charcoal and ebony clouds, roiling against each other. A bitter wind kicked up and made the trees sway, plastering their clothing against them.
“Did the book talk about that?” whispered Kate.
“No,” Philomena whispered back, her little body shaking, not feeling particularly courageous anymore.
“Wanna go home,” said Big Moose, starting to cry and holding one of Johnny’s hands so tightly that a bone cracked and Johnny squealed.
In The Falling Light Page 12