A Host of Shadows

by Harry Shannon

  Grandpa got home after sundown. I’d cleaned up some but didn’t eat much supper. He commented on how poorly I was looking, and I told him I’d been sunstroked again during the drive. He chewed me out because I was all red and losing so much skin and then went off to bed.

  That never happened, it was the heat.

  Eventually, I opened the back door and stepped out onto the wooden porch. I could hear crickets sawing symphonies and some grasshoppers clicking down by the dried up streambed. Now, normally I loved the desert at night, but this time the sky was squid ink and the smattering of stars seemed swollen with pus.

  I looked down the path that led to the bunkhouse, a million questions crowding my adolescent mind. Sparks flew high into the air like fireflies, and the faint sound of chanting stroked my ears.

  That never happened. We never saw him. It was the heat, boy.

  After a time, I went back inside and tried to rest. Sure enough, a good night’s sleep made the whole thing just a bad dream. The very next day, Grandpa set Injun Tom to bailing hay and me to gathering eggs, slopping the hogs and all the regular chores. I sat there milking the cows, my stomach still flipping around like a fish on the dock, and came to believe I’d imagined the whole thing. Heat does funny things to the mind.

  Summer passed, and the season came to a close. It was time for me to go back down to Reno, where my no-account Daddy lived. I went looking for Tom to say good-bye, but he was nowhere to be found.

  “Don’t worry on that,” Grandpa said. “He comes and goes when he feels like it. He’ll be here next year.”

  But there never was a next year.

  My Grandpa had a stroke that winter while trying to shovel snow. The county and the state came down hard on the family over back taxes, so they sold the ranch to the highest bidder. By spring, the land had been parceled off for smaller spreads and one of the largest cattle ranches in the state was gone.

  I returned once, when I was in my mid-twenties. I was headed for Korea, and wanted to see what was left before shipping out. It was fall, and the climate was more hospitable.

  It was hard to get there. I took a bus down from Salt Lake City, crossed the state line at Wendover, and hiked down into Dry Wells. I talked an old man with a battered truck into taking me down into Starr Valley. We arrived by the old place in a cloud of dust, and he waited for me, humming Hank Williams songs on the radio. I walked up the dirt road to what had been my Grandpa’s ranch.

  Picture me there in my dress blues, white hat under my arm, a grown man. I walk down the trail. Grandpa’s house is still there. I don’t bother the family that lives in it. I find the old bunk house, and it’s all fallen in now; roof beams scorched from some long-ago fire. All along I’m hearing, it never happened.

  The outhouse has completely collapsed. I pass it by, step around the fire pit Tom used to use. I kneel by the streambed, thinking of Tom and wondering whatever happened to him; wondering again about that hot summer day when I thought he’d saved my life. I raise my eyes up, and I’ll be damned if that automobile graveyard ain’t still there. I would have thought it would have been sold for parts by now. Maybe nobody has figured out yet who owned rights to the damned thing. I stretch and walk up the hill, my nostrils filled with the stench of buried animals. I stop in my tracks and a shudder runs through me.

  For right down in front is that dark, dusty 1940 Ford with the silver trim.

  Some Are Born To Endless Night

  Sometimes at night, Carter heard voices. The old motel mumbled and groaned on its own, floorboards creaking and crusted pipes squeaking. But these sounds were different somehow. Not ambient noise at all, once you paid attention. That’s how Carter knew that, despite his exclusive lease, there were other people on the premises. They whispered a lot, tried and failed to disguise their presence. The occasional laugh gave them away. He’d paid three thousand dollars cash to have the place to himself, and it flat fucking pissed him off to be taken for a fool.

  The bank had taken over the motel via a foreclosure proceeding, back in 2009 when the bottom had fallen out of Arizona real estate. Bad business, lots of folks out of work, dead lawns spray painted a vibrant green, half-empty swimming pools turning black with algae, giving birth to swarms of possibly dangerous mosquitoes. The Canyon Motel was just one of many casualties of the time. It squatted sullenly on a dead-end road at the edge of a town called Clearwater, one classic misnomer of a name. Eight small rooms, a parking lot and a coffee shop. Place had been out of business for four years, and it showed. Fortunately, the tiny figure-eight pool had been drained, eliminating any risk of West Nile virus.

  Hell, no script was worth dying for.

  Carter yawned and rubbed his eyes. He had a dozen index cards spread out on the worn, puke purple carpet, each with scene notes scribbled in pencil. For hours he’d walked in circles, sometimes changing the order, or just adding to the scope of the outline. No matter how hard he tried to focus on it, the story continued to resist. It was not that the plot was too complicated; it was distressingly simple. Without complexity, depth, the tale simply could not effectively stand up to the standard Aristotelian three-act structure. And that meant one of the twenty-something “suits” back in Hollywood was bound to notice it sagging in the middle. However, since the project was based on a true story, Carter’s hands were somewhat tied. He could combine characters, flex his muscles a bit, but had been constrained up front to “tell it as it happened.”

  Something was missing. Something right smack dab in the middle. Carter knew it. The plot just wouldn’t work as currently envisioned.

  Laughter. He grimaced and walked to the tattered curtains, peered out. All of the rooms were dark, no lights in the coffee shop or lobby, but he could still hear them faintly, those people. Probably playing a card game by candlelight. Or perhaps teens who broke in to smoke dope and get laid. Whoever it was, the sounds came nightly, and continued on and off until sunrise. Just enough to distract him, make it hard to work or sleep. Carter had gone outside with a flashlight numerous times, but never caught anyone on the premises. He’d avoided going in to any of the rooms, of course. They were dusty and filthy and empty save for the vibes. Almost palpable echoes of people passing through, souls come and gone for decades, fighting and fucking and snoring and dying.

  He closed the drapes and went back to the cards. Once more through it all. The most recent owners of the motel, a survivalist and his family. The paranoia, the crystal methamphetamine lab, the tragic explosion that killed the man’s wife and baby. His suicide. The motel had sat empty for six months before being purchased by a young couple from Tuscon, who had run it for a few months before proclaiming it haunted. A TV show had been made, with the usual bullshit videotapes purporting to show ectoplasm and traces of supernatural events. A book on the motel had done quite well, especially when the young couple’s bodies were discovered on the premises. They had apparently left their new home in Phoenix, purchased with proceeds from their book and movie rights, driven all night to the little town where it had all taken place. They had broken in to the empty motel and hanged themselves in the so-called haunted room. Pure Hollywood gold.

  The rights were sold and Carter was assigned to rush the screenplay for a B movie, all within a matter of weeks. The studio had arranged for Carter to stay on the premises, soak up the atmosphere, and bang out a first draft. Only problem was, they had a beginning and an ending, but no middle. One family, then another. But what had happened, and why? Even the book, a somewhat boring account of various eerie events, did not attempt to address that central question. And Carter did not believe in the supernatural. He wanted to write a story of psychological horror, of people who had gradually become obsessed with the history of the place, until it both became a gold mine and sealed their fate. Now that was a story worth telling. Only problem was, nothing much happened in it; nothing the camera could see.

  A chill passed through the room. Carter rubbed his skin. There was a hole in the bathroom window, likely some
kid with a .22 rifle fooling around. Sometimes a breeze moved in through the opening, abruptly dropping the temperature.

  Carter backed up and looked at the beam for the hundredth time. Pictured the two ropes knotted, the authors’ faces dark and mottled, tongues protruding and eyes bulging. He imagined the smell of feces and urine and decaying flesh. The same breeze causing them to sway gently to and fro, perhaps with a squeaking sound similar to the one he heard the wood make when the building shifted. His stomach rolled a bit. Had he eaten dinner? Hell, lunch? Carter could not remember. He peered into the filthy mirror at his unshaven face. Damn, I’ve lost a lot of weight. Look like shit. Have to get this thing finished and e-mailed, get the hell home.

  Something interesting struck him, drove Carter to an empty index card, pencil ready. He’d considered the idea before of course, hell there wasn’t one thing he hadn’t already tried and rejected, but what if the story began with the Sheriff discovering the bodies, then flashed back to the young couple buying the motel? Then slowly revealed the history, the survivalist and his family, so that the authors and the audience learned it at the same time? That could drop the first deaths right in the middle of the movie, to keep it from becoming boring…

  God damn it!

  That laughter again, louder than before. Carter lost his train of thought. The bank had promised total privacy, this was just outrageous. He’d already complained once, left a message on their machine. He paused. Last night? The night before? How long have I been here? Carter could not remember. It was impossible to sleep, the stress and the noises, plus the place was flat out creepy. Even to an atheist who didn’t believe in anything more supernatural than getting laid by an actress who thought the screenwriter actually had power.

  Carter grunted. Annoyed, he searched for the flashlight. Found it on the bureau and went to the door. What time is it? His watch had stopped. One, two days ago. He opened his cell phone. It said 2:46 AM. Also said clear as day that there was no signal.

  Strange. Carter could remember having called the bank. Or had he just thought about it? Dreamed it? He wasn’t really sure. Just tired and hungry and frazzled. And really, really pissed off by the distractions.

  He went to the door, opened it and stepped outside. The night was bitter cold. Bright stars freckled the blackened sky. The moon hung like bruised flesh just above the shadowy mountains. A black ribbon of highway rolled off into nothingness, with the little town winking back from two miles away. Again, a woman laughed, and this time there was a harshness there, a sound he’d not detected previously. As if someone were doing an impression of the Wicked Witch, maybe, or telling a scary story. Goddamned kids. They probably built a fire in the lobby, could get us all killed.

  Carter felt his blood rise. He was so tired, so frustrated, and now this. He walked towards the office, bare feet quietly slapping cold cement. His heart thudded heavily against his rib cage. The anger gave him a headache, pain gripped the back of his neck and squeezed. Carter sent the beam of light up and down the walkway, towards the office and lobby. No one moved and nothing was reflected. He assumed they had a lookout, someone to alert them when he came their way. Well, this time he was going to catch them and demand they leave. This time, he’d break into the lobby if necessary.

  He paused, exhausted all over again. Carter suddenly could not remember exactly where he was going, nor why he’d left the motel room. He heard the mournful wail of a lone coyote somewhere up ahead in the rocks. Need to work smarter, not harder, he thought. Tired. Should lay down.

  But he’d come outside for some purpose. What was it? Carter paused on the sidewalk, puzzled. Clouds crossed the moon then parted, revealing a stretch of cracked blacktop. His rental car was not where he’d left it. He turned in a full circle. The premises were deserted. No one there after all. Carter swallowed, stepped down from the sidewalk and walked out into the glowering moonlight. The small parking lot sat empty, mocking him. The rooms were all dark, as was the office window. The voices were gone.

  Someone else ordered him to turn, to walk back to the motel, where only darkness waited. Slowly, the faint sound of his footsteps faded away to be replaced by silence. Something else made Carter step up onto the porch, shove the creaking, already open door. To enter the darkened room. Oddly, he was not even surprised to see the shadowy bodies, all three of them hanging there, swaying to and fro, one of them his own.

  The Place of Excrement

  Thomas Cutler sat motionless by the bed, holding Mother’s dry and motionless hand. The omnipresent machines did not beep so much as emit a hapless, chirping sound like a group of sightless baby birds left to starve in the nest. An overworked nurse came and went, dour in her rustling whites. The phone mocked him, refusing to ring. Outside, the afternoon sun laid siege to the tinted back window. The air was too warm and the small room fetid with sweat and the stinging scents of alcohol and floor cleanser.

  Cutler looked down at her hand again, the tubing, the needle covered with tape. He studied the ropy blue veins and dirty nails. The relentless chirping continued.

  I’m not sure what to do Mom, and this time you can’t tell me...

  He’d been on the road selling when they’d called. Well, on the road drinking was more accurate. Going to barrooms and conventions with the usual group of mostly older men, laughing too loudly, sweating, bending arms at the bar in suits gone shiny at the elbows. Then the call. Cutler had never felt so abandoned. Oh, Mother’s ex-husband supposedly knew, Mr. Dick the Prick, but as expected hadn’t even bothered to check in. Nothing in it for him, not one red cent, they’d been divorced far too long. That left Cutler flying solo as usual, nursing another hangover and his sick mother, carrying the whole load again.

  Mother had been okay lately, at least according to her neighbors, often outside in her housecoat and curlers, a bit too quick with that leer and a dirty joke. Normal, in other words. The Sunday paper hadn’t been collected, so on Monday her nemesis, the divorced bitch next door, had checked to see if Mother was dead. Peeked through the window, saw her sprawled on the kitchen floor, called 911 with an element of glee. Mother wasn’t dead, but she’d popped an aneurism the size of a grape, then somehow broken a rib or two while falling. She’d seemed a bit crazier than usual lately. What a mess. Fortunately her insurance was covering the hospital bills. Cutler had known her physician, Dr. Garris, all of his life. So that part was easy. Dr. Garris had admitted her, and a call had gone out. But now what?

  That house. God, how could someone live like that? She wasn’t that old, more late middle age for Christ’s sake. Cutler had been disgusted as well as disturbed by the mess, walking slowly through the rooms, remembering his childhood. How he’d cowered in his room sometimes, listening to the bead squeaking and the men grunting, the whiskey bottles breaking. The slaps and the shouts get the fuck out of my house you cheap sonofabitch...

  Somehow in her late forties Mother had become the archetypal cat lady. The house she’d inherited and owned since Cutler’s birth was now a cluttered place, filthy with animal droppings and piles of unwashed laundry and sticky dishes. At least it wasn’t the worst property on a good block. It ought to go for a decent price, even with the local economy in shambles. Somebody would want to buy it, fix it up and flip it. Cash him out.

  Mother moaned. Probably the busted ribs. Her eyelids fluttered a bit and she seemed to clench his hand in her own. She was a stranger to him now, not some mythical figure from the mists of time, some creature who had damned him with her negligence. Just a helpless forty-seven year old woman, drugged up, far too deep in fevered dreams.

  Cutler frowned. His eyes moistened. Mother was still pretty, and she looked so small. Helpless. After a lifetime of resentment, it was abruptly difficult not only to be angry, but even to remember why he’d been so hurt.

  I’m young, but we’re all dying. I’ll be there too, soon enough,

  Cutler mused. The thought of being this weak, and so alone, made his heart kick a bit. He shivered. His blood ran as
cold as a mountain stream.

  Mother...

  In his mind she remained a giant, slapping his drunken stepfather before a dinner party, spanking Cutler with a hairbrush, red-faced and outraged to have caught him masturbating frantically in his room, as if her own sexual escapades were an entirely different matter. Down deep, Cutler knew she’d done her best, come to his plays in middle school, supported his activities. But Mother had always managed to drop something into the conversation after, something that would steal a smidgen of the credit, “he’s so talented, isn’t he? Got that from me, you know...” And so the hand that giveth, taketh away.

  I’m thirty-one years old,

  he thought. Am I ever going to stop whining?

  “You okay in there?”

  Cutler jumped a bit. His chair gave a squeak. The nurse was a stern woman with blonde hair pulled back into a high pony tail that was so tight it spread her features. She wore thick glasses over salmon eyes—too wide open, too far apart.

  “I’m fine, thank you.”

  The nurse wore a black name tag on her white breast, J. FLETCHER. She busied herself at his bedside for a moment, put down her small tray, read the chart, injected something into Mother’s IV line. Seemed unaware her ass end was almost in his face. Cutler had a brief erotic fantasy. His face reddened. Nurse Fletcher’s stomach gurgled. He looked down and away. Mother’s hand twitched as the new drugs hit her system.

  “There you go,” Nurse Fletcher said, soothingly. Cutler assumed she’d just given something for pain. He couldn’t keep all the drugs straight. There were already so many, all for different reasons, some to preserve the integrity of her organs, some for the side effects created by all the others. The nurse left the room, the door swooshed closed behind her.