Alan felt sick with knowing. “Let’s check it out,” he heard himself say.
Jack glanced at the window. “You nuts, man? Look how dark it is, almost night out there. And it’s damn cold.”
“Let’s go,” Donalds said. “This fuckin’ show’s no good. I wanna see the beaver. You’re a big fan of the beaver, ain’t you, Jack? Hell, let’s go see the beaver.”
Jack wavered. “You guys both want to go?”
Reese nodded. After a moment Alan did, too.
Jack sighed. “Shit. But we’re not goin’ in, all right? I’ll show you the house, but that’s it. That’s all. We are not goin’ in that place, you guys got that?”
Alan went to his room for his jacket. He could have told his father then that he was going, and he could even have told him where.
But for some reason he didn’t want to.
They left the house on their bikes at 6:57. At that moment Michael Estes was leaving Odum Tate’s boardinghouse, feeling numb with shock: somehow he had missed the word on the old preacher’s death. Mrs. Hudson had kindly given him John Kirby’s address. It would take Michael a long while to make up his mind to go there.
Across town three bikes rolled through dark, empty streets and then rode the rising ground of the ridge up toward Ballew Jefferson’s white house.
Where things moved.
2
Ann Lewis tossed clean underwear into her last overnight case and cursed herself for being so foolish. Two boys, two little boys that she had taught, looked at her appraisingly and she blushed like a seventh-grader with a crush on the vice-principal. Well, she was going back. And if John Kirby wanted to make something of her presence —
Well, let it happen, she told herself. He likes you. There’s nothing wrong with that. Nothing wrong with the way you feel about him.
But there was something wrong, tonight, with her apartment.
She shivered. Mrs. Maddons’s son had turned off the heat, prudently saving pennies, and the place felt dank and cold. She took a last look around, closed the overnight case, and picked it up. I wish I never had to come back, she thought.
She turned off the light and stepped outside. Cold, the night was unseasonably cold, for Georgia, for October. It was almost freezing out here in the dark. She found her latchkey and locked the door. Crossing the yard, she felt the crunch of dry leaves under her feet. Poor Mrs. Maddons. She hated having an untidy yard. She’d be upset when she got back from the hospital and saw that her son hadn’t had the leaves raked.
Ann opened the Rambler and tossed the overnight case into the backseat. With the door open and the dome light on, she isolated her ignition key on the ring. Then she got behind the wheel and slipped the key into the ignition.
She paused for a moment, sniffing. What was that smell? Mint? She had it: Wrigley’s Spearmint. She occasionally made her students spit out wads of it. But she never chewed gum herself.
“Turn the engine on,” a man’s voice said beside her.
She sat upright, eyes wide. From the corner of her eye she saw him, a bulking brown shape in the seat beside her, a heavy man. She felt the flesh of her belly crawl beneath her clothes.
“You’re all right,” the voice crooned. “You’re gonna be just fine, little lady. You turn on the engine. See, you gotta do what I tell you ’cause I’m the law.”
Her traitor fingers turned the key, switched on the motor. That’s right,” the voice purred. “That’s just fine. Now I’m gonna tell you where to go, little lady. We gonna have a party.”
She had dwindled away to a tiny little woman locked in the darkness of her own skull. As her body obeyed Harmon Presley’s commands, she collapsed somewhere there inside herself and screamed and screamed.
Silently.
So silently.
3
Sam Quarles was bone-tired. He dropped Lee McCory off at her house at seven, then went to the office. Gil Ort was there, alone: the tough old man was the only member of the squad who didn’t seem to mind the building and its bloody history, even at night, even when he was by himself. “Any problems tonight?” Quarles asked.
“Nah, nothin’ much.” Ort leaned back, stretched his hands far over his head, and yawned. “Got Alberts out makin’ the rounds. I know he’s no damn good, but somebody needs to run a patrol. You ever run down Andy McCory, Sheriff?”
“Nobody’s seen him. We checked with the others who work for the show, all but Badon. You know somethin’ funny, Gil? That guy Badon doesn’t have an address. Nobody knows where he lives. I checked with the phone company, the paper, everything. There’s just no record of him livin’ in this town. And Beebee Venner and Joey Fulham tell me he ain’t been at work for two-three weeks.”
“Another MP?”
“Nobody’s reported him missin’ yet. Damned if I’m gonna pile up any more files than I have to.” Quarles hooked a chair over, fell into it, rubbed his eyes. “God, Gil, Miz McCory’s pitiful. That baby dead and her old man God knows where.”
“Andy McCory’s never been no good. People like that, they oughta be shot.”
“Not worth the powder,” Quarles said. “There was somethin’ I was gonna do today that I never got around to.”
“Ought to put some damn antifreeze in the patrol cars,” Ort said. “It’s cold out there. Never remember an October when it got this cold.”
“It’s a bad year.”
“Uh-huh. You know what you oughta do? You ought to see if Warner’s really gonna try to get us another car — ”
“Warner,” Quarles said, sitting up straighter. “That’s it. I meant to check on Cliff Warner and see if he’s all right. Put in a call to him, will you?”
Ort dialed from the switchboard. After half a minute, he shook his head. “Nobody’s gonna answer.”
Quarles frowned. “Anybody seen Ballew Jefferson around town lately?”
“I thought he’d retired,” Ort said. “Somebody over at the bank was tellin’ me he ain’t comin’ in anymore — ”
The sheriff got up. “I think I’ll run up to the ridge,” he said. “An old man alone like that — I think I better check on him.” The switchboard buzzed as he turned away. He had just pushed open the outer door when Ort’s voice called him back.
“What is it?” Quarles asked, coming back into the squad room.
“Your wife. I think you better — ”
Quarles grabbed the phone. Ilona’s voice, shrill and reedy, was audible before he got it to his ear. “ — his arms are all bleeding, oh, God, he’s trying to get in the door, oh Jesus help me he’s all torn up — ”
Quarles threw the receiver to Ort, spun on his heel, and dashed for the door, the Jefferson house forgotten.
4
Ransom Ridge was a hard pull for boys on one-speed bikes. The three of them had to dismount and walk the bikes up, panting out breath that steamed in the light from street lamps. Houses here were widely spaced, separated by vine-covered wooden fences or by short rows of trees. “Over there,” Jack gasped, nodding to the right.
The house stood well back from the street, dark windows looking blind. The cold air brought a wispy scent of decay and rot to Alan. He shuddered.
“Just a house,” Reese Donalds said.
“Yeah, you weren’t here when I saw it,” Jack puffed. They stood their bikes on the sidewalk, looking across the broad lawn, through the six widely spaced trees, at the bulk of the house. It was even darker than it should have been. Jack looked up. “Damn streetlight’s out.”
“Which window’d you see the sonbitch in, Harwell?”
Jack paused before answering Reese’s question. “Top window, over on the left,” he said. “I was closer. I’d gone up the drive to throw the paper and all. But that’s where it was.”
The top left window showed suddenly in a blaze of yellow light. They all jumped. “Shit fire,” Reese whispered. Then he drew a long, shaky breath and laughed softly. “See the beaver now, Jack?”
“Shut up,” Jack said. “Let�
�s go, man. I don’t like this at all.”
Alan stared at the window.
Ye shall not surely die.
“Dare you to run up and touch the door,” Donalds said.
“Dares are for kids. Come on, Alan.”
Alan shook his head in the cold, in the dark, and stared at the warm yellow promise of the window.
She was there.
He could not see her, but she was there.
Live forever, live forever
Lies, he thought. Someone tugged at his arm. He jerked away.
“Betcha Kirby ain’t chicken,” Reese Donalds said. “You a pussy, Kirby? Run up and slap the door if you ain’t.”
“Shut up!” Jack’s voice, but far away.
“You ain’t got hair on your ass if you don’t do it,” Reese taunted.
Alan dropped his bike and started down the drive.
“Oh, shit,” Jack groaned. “Alan! Come back here!”
Even Reese’s voice changed register: “Kirby! I was just kiddin’ you, man!”
They whispered around Alan’s ears, telling him this was right, this walk in the dark, this golden reward at the end of the cold journey, voices thick, clustering, echoing down all the years: some spoke in exotic tongues, some blandished with the thees and thous of a bygone year, some sounded like mutterings only with no words to offer, but all bore him onward. The night was full of shadows, and they spoke to Alan Kirby. He reached the steps, took them, crossed the porch. Someone cried out far behind him.
The door opened. Light, warmth spilled out. She was there, not naked now, but trim in a light tan dress with white collar and cuffs. She stepped back. He walked into the house.
“Oh, shit,” groaned Jack Harwell again. He turned his bike and leaped on it.
“Wait up!” Reese Donalds behind him, pumping hard to catch up. “Doddamn it!”
“I’m gonna tell,” Jack gibbered, the cold wind whistling around his ears as the bike took up speed, the tires whistling almost against the pavement. “I’m goin’ back to Alan’s house and tell his dad.”
“Who is it?”
The streetlights flashed by as they hurtled downhill. “It was Mollie Avery, you dumb fuck!” Jack was weeping, his voice hitching. “She’s dead, but she let him in that goddamn house!”
“Look out, man!”
They swerved around an oncoming car. Jack lost it, went ass over head rolling across a lawn. Reese swung around, U-turned, lost his speed heading back up hill. By the time he got to Jack, the other boy was already mounting his bike again. “You okay?” Reese asked.
“Yeah. Skinned my hands. Oh, God.”
“You go on,” Reese panted. “I’m headin’ back.”
“What?”
“God, man, didn’t you see who was in that car?”
Jack shook his head.
“It was Miz Lewis, man. And I think that dead policeman was with her. Go on, hurry, get!” Reese stood on the pedals and got a wobbly uphill start. Jack pushed off and let gravity ride him downhill. His hands smarted as the icy wind found the blood, and his legs already ached from the trip up the ridge, but he lost no thought for that in his headlong flight to Rainey Hill.
5
In an antique chair with a high carved back he who called himself Athaniel Badon sat, thin arms resting on either side of him. “Well, boy,” he said.
Alan stood alone. Alan stood in a crowd. He saw them from the corners of his eyes, filling every inch of floor space in the big old room: Mollie Avery, naked again now, her guts dangling; Johnny Williams, his head lolling on a broken neck; a little girl with a bloody hole where her right eye once was and no back to her skull at all; others, thick, crowding in, until he looked directly at them, and then they were gone.
“Well, boy.”
He doesn’t even look frightening, Alan thought. Skinny old man with bony knees. Big knobby head. Deep dark eyes. Bag of bones.
“So we are together at last. Together forever, wouldn’t you say?”
Alan shook his head. His lips felt numb. He heard himself breathing but could not feel the heaving of his chest.
“You are the worthy one,” he said. “You can visualize, you can almost make them real just by thinking about them. That’s power, son.”
There was a faraway sound, animal gruntings.
The old man grinned. “In the next room is a fool. He had served me for the pleasure I gave him. In exchange he has given me blood and souls. But a fool is a blunted instrument. I think he will die tonight, yes?”
His eyes so dark in their deep hollows
“Do you know what he is doing? He killed a woman for me not long ago, yes, killed her and gave her blood to me. And so I animate her for him now, and she does whatever he wishes, and he has her — ” the thin lips turned down, tasting something rotten — “her love. Anything he wishes she will do, do you understand? Anything.”
Wet sounds from the next room, slapping sound of flesh against flesh
“I took his blood, but only a little. He is too stupid to become part of me. But you, you are a clever boy. A clever, clever boy. Some who enter my service hardly change, for they are stupid, and they act as animals act, by instinct, even after I free them from their shells. But a clever, clever boy like you, my son, will learn and grow over the years, perhaps even become like me, eh? A taker of blood? There is life in blood, young Alan. And when you give your life to me, I keep it safe forever. You will be my right hand, eh? You will do the tasks I require. And you will do them wisely, not as that fool does them. We will start with the town, eh? You hate certain people in it. You may have them to play with, just to begin. Yes, you will pipe the tune and they will dance! And you will live forever.”
Mollie was right at his side, her soft breast almost touching his arm, her soft fingers stroking his cheek, but when he turned he found empty air.
“My service is sweet.”
Resist temptation
“Come, boy. My son.”
who had said that, resist, resist
The old hands spread wide for him. He took a step forward.
The old face split in an ivory smile.
6
She parked the Rambler in front of the house.
“Get out now, little lady,” Harmon Presley said.
She opened the door and got out. She stood, hands dangling, beside the car.
He had not opened the door but somehow he was out and beside her. “That’s right. Now we gonna go meet some people. We goin’ up the steps — ”
A demon screamed out of the night. A red-haired demon flew headlong into Harmon Presley, went through him, and racked up his bike against the front steps. Reese Donalds did a flip and crashed hard on his back on the porch.
Ann Lewis screamed.
“Now, now,” Harmon Presley said, turning toward her with the same easy grin, but uncertainty flickered in his empty eyes now, like a bad light bulb.
Reese was down the stairs, crying, cursing. “Let her alone, you son-bitch. You let Miz Lewis alone!”
“Son, I’m the law.”
Reese stood chest to chest. “Fuck that! You’re dead! You get out of here!”
The deputy reached for him, clutched at him.
Reese spat in the slack face. “You sorry sonbitch! You ain't real. Santy Claus and the Easter Rabbit ain't real, and you ain't, too! I sure as hell don’t believe in you!”
There wasn’t much light, only what spilled from the windows of the Jefferson house (all now blazing), but in that light Harmon Presley dissolved. He tottered for a moment, a rotten fabric, a derelict scarecrow guarding crops long gone, a tatter of flesh and bone and rotting clothes, and then he folded into himself, went out like a candle flame.
“Run!” Ann Lewis screamed.
Reese Donalds collapsed, crying. “Can’t! My doddamn arm is broke!”
It’s a dream, she thought, and knowing it wasn’t, she bent to pick up Reese, heavier than she was but bawling like a baby.
7
Joh
n Kirby had to pull over at the bridge to avoid hitting Jack Harwell. The boy leaped off his bike, let it fall clamoring to the side of the road, and tore the door open. “You gotta come,” he screamed, lack of breath making his voice a screek. “The Jefferson place — ”
“I know. Get in.” Alan’s father turned and opened the back door. Jack clambered in, feeling his heart nearly burst at every beat from fear and exertion.
He closed his eyes. When he opened them, he said, “Who’s that?”
“My name’s Estes,” said the black man beside John’s father. “I think we both came for the same reason.”
“They got him,” Jack groaned. As the car ran through a red light, he began to cough out the story.
8
Sam Quarles got his hands on Billy Resaca’s shoulders before the apparition could even turn around. He felt a momentary lurch of surprise — damn, he’s solid — before he spun the ghost around. A wet string of artery swung loose from the bitten flesh and slapped Sam across the forehead.
He planted his own fist in Resaca’s face.
It shot through as if he had punched a rotten Halloween jack-o’lantern. Pain lit his eyes as his fist connected with the doorpost. Billy Resaca collapsed down, dwindling like the Wicked Witch in The Wizard of Oz when the water hit her: and then he was gone.
Sam cursed, shaking his hand, feeling the grind of broken bone. “Ilona! It’s me!”
She rushed into his arms, still screaming. She buried her screams in his shoulder, and they became great hitching sobs. Behind her the telephone was ringing. “Goddamn,” Sam muttered. He walked Ilona into the house, put his right arm around her, his damaged hand clenched, and picked up the receiver with his left. “Yeah?”
“Sheriff?” It was Gil Ort, back at the switchboard. “Listen, I just got a call from John Kirby. Somethin’s goin’ on up at Ballew Jefferson’s place. I think we better get somebody on it before somebody else gets killed.”
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