“Fire?” I asked.
“Yes! The one thing that will defeat him, the gift of the Titan to humankind. Fire, my friend, is our ally....”
- Godfrey Herbert Polwood, The Blood-Drinker’s Doom, or, The Lambeth Vampyre. (London: 1896)
5
. . . hardly less bloody than the depredations of such a creature are the recommended methods of dealing with it. Like the vampire of European legend, the dream-spirit feeds on blood; but, unlike the vampire, it is spirit rather than flesh, evil impulse given form by the blood it consumes. As it feeds, it becomes more solid, and so its visible form may be arrested by methods familiar to students of vampire lore: a stake, though of metal rather than wood, through its body will effectively pinion the creature, though this is only a very temporary measure.
In its true form, the dream-spirit is said to be unearthly, inhuman; but, like the manitou of Amerind myth, it normally disguises its shape by assuming the form of a human being. This form, when the dream-spirit is weak, is insubstantial. However, after the spirit has sated itself on blood, say the legends, its outer form, its human disguise, becomes palpable. This form may be transfixed with a stake, but this is (unlike in the case of the vampire) a brief respite at best. With the passage of time (seven changes of the moon, according to Tibetan myth), the body fades into insubstantiality again, dissolving into dust and falling loose from the stake, and the spirit is freed. Then it is only a matter of time before the body re-forms itself. Alternately, the body may be dismembered completely, chopped into fine pieces and fed to animals; the animals then must be slaughtered and buried widely apart. Under no circumstances may their flesh be eaten. Still, with seven times seventy-seven changes of the moon, the bits and pieces of the body will begin to coalesce again, and once more the spirit will be at large.
In fact, the Tibetans believe there is no absolute end to the evil, for do what one will, the spirit of evil will eventually re-gather. However, the best method of disposing of a dream-spirit seems to be fire. If the false body is completely burnt, the shamans say, its unhoused spirit cannot take form again for seven times seven hundred and seventy-seven cycles of the moon....
In a hut on the eastern slopes of the mountain I spoke with an old Sherpa who professed his complete belief in such notions as the dream-spirit I had heard about in the lower elevations. I teased him, arguing that the spirits, if they existed at all, were so powerful that they would have long ago taken over all the earth.
“No,” the man assured me. “That cannot be. There is only one dream-spirit, and there has never been more than one.”
I mentioned all the old legends of dream-spirits in different villages. The old man shook his head patiently. “There is only one. It does not die, and it moves about from place to place....”
- Bill Andersen, Legends from the Roof of the World (New York: 1975)
Part IV
ShadowShow
Thirteen
1
Morning: milky sunlight filtered through tall windows but did little to brighten the dark-paneled office of Cliff Warner. Sam Quarles’s eyes burned from lack of sleep, his uniform felt tight and sweaty under his arms, and his chin bristled with a steel-filing growth of beard.
“I won’t let this town go to hell, Sam,” Warner said quietly. The mayor, a balding man of forty-five who had a habit of tilting his head up to hide a growing double chin, leaned far back in his chair. “I want you to find out what’s been going on. Find out and stop it.”
Quarles shook his head. “I don’t know how to start.”
Warner rubbed his eyes. “How many last night?”
“Nine out around and in the town. Three in the jail.”
“Jake Harris just killed himself?”
“Looks that way. Put the barrel under his chin and — ”
The mayor raised a hand. “No need to go into details.”
Quarles stifled a yawn. His jaw creaked. “This could just as well go to the city police,” he said. “A bunch of the — ”
Warner shook his head. “It started with the Sheriff’s Office,” he said.
“Then if you’re gonna give it to me, give me some help to go with it.”
“I’ll tell Bob Goss to cooperate with you — ”
“More than that.”
Warner’s small eyes were carefully blank. “What do you mean?”
“Call out the Guard.”
The mayor shook his head. “Can’t do it, Sam. How would it look? Gaither has to handle its own problems — ”
“I can’t do it by myself. And I’m runnin’ out of deputies.”
“ — and besides, everybody would think of Little Rock if I tried something like that. Now, you know how the mills have been fighting to stay open. I can tell you in confidence that the commissioners and the Chamber of Commerce are right on the edge of bringing in some new industry. But if this town gets a reputation of — ”
“People are dying, Cliff. If we can’t stop that — ”
“ — let me finish. If this town gets a reputation of not being a good place to live and work, if we can’t stop this problem of ours, then we might as well forget about any new industry. And without it, this town’s going to dry right up and blow away.”
Quarles sighed and dropped his head. When he looked back up, he said, “At least do this much for me. Take the county prisoners off my hands. Put ’em in the work camp, or put ’em in the city jail. I can’t keep ’em in that place after what happened last night.”
“But they’re county prisoners — ”
“Two of ’em tore each other to pieces. The others saw it. If you won’t let me move them, I swear to God, I’ll open the cells and let ’em go.”
Cliff Warner looked at Quarles for a long time. Then he shrugged. “All right. You see how many Buford can take in the work camp. I’ll see what I can arrange with the city. How many do you have altogether?”
“Twenty-six. This morning.”
“Say a dozen in the jail and the rest to the camp, then. You take care of transport?”
Quarles smiled without any sign of mirth. “Cliff, if those guys know they can stay anywhere else but the county jail, they’ll walk there, get inside the cells, and lock themselves in.”
“I want some answers, Quarles.”
“Yeah, yeah.”
“This woman out in New Haven.”
“Mrs. Woodley,” Quarles supplied.
“Yes, that’s the one. She died a natural death?”
Quarles said, “She had a shotgun under her arm. She’d fired at least twice through the screen door, once through the wood. I don’t know how natural you’d call that.”
“But she died of natural causes herself?”
The sheriff frowned. “Heart attack, looked like, the doc said. But — ”
“One step might be to see how many others we can write off like that. Natural death, accidental electrocutions. I have a feeling these things aren’t even related, you know. That’s the approach.”
“Yeah,” Quarles said.
Cliff Warner blew out his cheeks. “Well. At least some people are recovering.”
“I don’t follow.”
“Ballew Jefferson,” Warner said. “He sort of dropped out of sight for a while there. But I talked to him a few minutes ago on the phone. He’s feeling better, he says. He’s coming over to my house tonight for drinks.”
2
Alan felt detached, as if he were not really there, felt light-headed and weak. But he sat in the pine-yellow wooden chair at the library table and obediently went through the indexes of ponderous books. The incandescent lights overhead were dim, and the whole place smelled of dust and old bindings.
Laying out of school, Alan thought. First time I’ve done that in a long time. And Miss Lewis, calling in sick. And Daddy.
His father sat across from him. It was the first time Alan had been inside the University of Georgia Library — only the third or fourth time he had been to Athens, come to that — and he fe
lt daunted by the shelves upon shelves of books. The Gaither library might have fitted easily within the tall marble foyer of the university library; though down here in the sub-basement, with its dim illumination and its reading tables shoved against the walls at the periphery of the stacks, the spicy, old-book-scented atmosphere was much the same.
Ann Lewis had stationed John and Alan at the table. She herself disappeared into the heart of the library, and now and again she returned with an armload of new books for the others to examine. They had come down early that morning, after Tate and Miss Lewis had spent the night at Alan’s house, Miss Lewis taking John Kirby’s bed, John sleeping with Alan, and Mr. Tate sleeping on the sofa. Tate, professing himself too unschooled in any book other than the Bible to be of help, had stayed behind. The three had been at their tasks for more than three hours.
Miss Lewis came back, tugging a pine library cart, its top shelf packed with more books. “This is about it,” she whispered, and she transferred the books to the table. She took a seat at the end of the table and reached for a book. “I didn’t think you’d believe us,” she said to John.
“I don’t know if I do, altogether.” Kirby smiled back at her. “But something’s wrong in Gaither. I can’t think of any rational explanation. We might as well look into the crazy ones.”
Alan slipped a torn piece of paper into Volume III of the Coghill Reference Encyclopaedia of Myth and Folklore and coughed. His father gave him a hard look. “Are you feeling all right, son?”
The boy nodded. “Just woozy, that’s all.”
Miss Lewis put a warm hand on his forehead. “He doesn’t have a fever,” she said.
“If you feel bad, you let us know.”
“Yes, sir.”
They bent over the books, with Alan locating references and his father and Miss Lewis reading and comparing them. A few students, not many, drifted by. They had come in from the sunny, warm October afternoon, and the fragments of talk Alan overheard covered matters from the coming game against Tulane next Friday to Jack Benny’s gag appearance on “The $64,000 Question” the previous night, but nothing about classes, papers, or study.
During breaks they talked a little themselves, not about Gaither or its troubles, but about other things: the Red satellite, for one. Alan still could not get used to the altered sky, to the idea of a hostile presence in space itself. The adults, too, seemed newly aware of the vast space above them, of the dangers it might hold, and of their vulnerability below. Not that gloom about outer space occupied them completely; they also talked about school, about the increasing absences from classes of students down with flu. In the whole state, only Atlanta had been hit harder by illness so far — but the flu was gaining strength in other communities, and it looked to be a long, hard siege.
They took only a few breaks. At noon, they did take an hour off for lunch, going downtown to a little restaurant where Alan merely picked at his fried chicken, and afterward they returned to the library. Finally at about three o’clock, Ann Lewis leafed through a nearly filled notebook. “Vampires. Demon possession. Nightmares. Ghosts.” She sighed. “What if there’s something real behind them all?”
“And what if it’s come to Gaither?” Alan’s father took off his glasses and rubbed his eyes. “Assume it has. What do we do about it?”
Miss Lewis closed the notebook. “I suppose we have to try the old remedies. The ones in the legends and the stories. The ones in the books.”
“It’s the theater,” Alan said, his throat dry and tight.
The other two looked at him.
“It wasn’t like this before the theater came. It’s Mr. Badon. What did Mr. Tate call him? The Angel of Destruction? I don’t think he’s human at all.”
“Well,” his father said.
3
“Is Mr. Badon here?”
Behind the glass of the ticket booth, Clarice Singer bent her head toward the round hole. “Excuse me?”
The scarecrow man in black repeated her question.
“No,” Clarice told him. “He’s not in yet. He may come in later on.”
“I’ll wait on the Square.”
She watched him cross the street, watched him sit on one of the benches. He was familiar, though for a few moments she couldn’t place him. Then she had it: he was the crazy old preacher who used to be there every afternoon. Funny, she hadn’t seen him actually preaching since the theater opened. “Who was that?” Beebee Venner asked from behind her. It was a dead time, during the first show: too early for anybody much to be buying tickets. Only five or six people were inside now, and Beebee could easily leave the concession stand while she pulled up a stool to sit and talk to Clarice.
“That old preacher fellow. Wanted to see Mr. Badon.”
“Yeah, well, good luck, huh?”
“I told him he might be in later on.”
“Sure. When was the last time we seen him?”
“I don’t remember. What was it you were saying?”
“This guy shows up at Mama’s house this morning,” Beebee said, taking up the thread of her story. “Old guy. He saw the room-for-rent sign in the yard and come up to ask Mama about it. Already had his suitcases in his hand. So she rented him the room. Now, he’s an old guy around here. Name’s Cox, Henry Cox. And he has his own house away out yonder in the sticks somewhere, right?”
“Why did he want to rent your mama’s room, then?”
“That’s the crazy part of it. That’s why Mama was askin’ me if I thought she should call the police or what. See, he’d already give her a week’s rent when she asked him how come he wanted to stay in town. And he told her a ghost was after him.”
“A ghost?”
“Uh-huh. Some colored man that got killed away back yonder sometime. He said the man got burnt up here on this very spot.”
“What do you mean?”
“Back when this was a stable or something instead of a show. Said the man got all burnt up right here, probably right where we’re settin’ now.”
“Oh, hush, Beebee. You got my arms all goose skin.”
Beebee laughed. “So Mama wanted to know did I think Mr. Cox was too crazy to let him stay there. I told her, I said, ‘Mama, if Daddy ain’t been too crazy for you for thirty years, I reckon Mr. Cox won’t be no worse.’”
“He’s just settin’ out there starin’ at us,” Clarice said.
“Who is?”
“That preacher man. On the bench over there. See him?”
“Oh. I thought you meant it was the ghost.”
“Beebee, you hush.”
“Woo — ooo — ooo,” moaned Beebee, grinning.
“Hush, now,” pleaded Clarice.
4
Jack Harwell noticed that something was different about Ballew Jefferson’s house. For a moment he couldn’t place it; then he realized all the newspapers were gone. He had tossed one paper a day onto the porch every afternoon for weeks (except for the Sunday paper, which came before dawn and which he tossed there early every Sunday morning), and a formidable pile of them had stacked up. He was on the verge of cutting off service altogether: Mr. Jefferson hadn’t paid his bill since August, and here it was halfway through October.
Rich people, Jack thought, walking down the drive toward the big house. It was easier to collect from poor families that lived down in the mill village than it was from the people up here on the ridge. The mill hands paid their ninety cents every week with no fuss and no grumbling. The rich folks on the ridge paid by the month, three-sixty, but just try to get it from them. It was always, “My husband’s out right now. You’ll have to see him,” or “Come back next week. I don’t have anything smaller than a twenty.” Still, most of them eventually paid up, though some fell three months into arrears first. And it didn’t pay to antagonize rich people.
Jack heaved the pouch of newspapers into a marginally more comfortable position, took one out, and hurled it from thirty feet away onto the front porch of Mr. Jefferson’s house. It thwacked solidl
y against the door, then lay there, the only paper on the porch now, looking a little sad. Jack shivered for no reason and hurried back up the driveway. But before he crossed the street, he paused to look back. Did someone twitch aside a curtain in the upstairs window? He frowned. He could almost swear that there, in the dark rectangle of the panes, he saw a form standing and looking down at him. He put a hand up over his spectacles, in the attitude of a saluting soldier, shading his eyes.
It was a woman, he decided, a woman’s silhouette. Was she — he swallowed — was she naked? She looked that way, smooth figure dark against a slightly darker background. Jack squeezed his eyes shut and opened them again.
No, it was no woman. It was a man, and a bulky one at that; and he was not naked. He wore, at least, the broad-brimmed Smokey Bear hat of a deputy, and the tilt of his head, the slouch of his shoulders was somehow familiar.
Harmon Presley.
Jack bit down on his own heart, which had tried to leap right out of his mouth. He blinked. Was the figure still there? Yes, but it was not Presley. It was — it was old Mr. Jefferson himself, of course it was.
Jack hesitated. A Buick came down the street, forcing him over to the other side. He thought of the two months’ subscription that Mr. Jefferson owed him. Every week he had to pay for all the papers he delivered, whether his customers paid him or not. Most weeks he cleared eleven, twelve dollars; once a month, when his monthly customers paid, his take zoomed to sixty or seventy. Seven dollars and twenty cents would make a difference when he settled up this week.
The figure was still there. Jack shivered again, shivered the warm flood of October sunshine, and made the most important decision of his life.
He turned on the heel of his P.F. Flyers and continued on up the ridge, leaving the Jefferson house behind him.
5
Sundown.
In Athens, Alan, his father, and Miss Lewis walk from the library down the hill to the visitors’ parking lot at the north end of the football stadium. It seems a long walk to Alan, most of it downhill: a long flight of concrete steps, then another, then another. A few clouds are in the sky, and the evening air has just the barest edge of chill in it. A couple passes by them, holding hands, giving them a curious look.
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