“Can we go in?” the boy asked.
“It’s closed,” he said. “See? Sign says closed at five.”
“Later on I mean,” the boy said.
Stony said nothing. He glanced at the small shack, painted a brilliant sky blue with its tarpaper roof coming off. Out in front, several statues of Greek youths, all cheesy imitations, flamingos and plastic geese. On a wide flat plywood board, a painting of the Virgin Mary holding the Baby Jesus. She wore a blue robe, and a diadem of stars across her forehead. The Baby Jesus held a red jewel in his tiny hand. The morning sunlight, coming up in the east, flashed across the chrome of old hubcaps that surrounded this painted plank, like round mirrors of distortion. Flashes of sunlight burned like fire on the round shiny metal.
A sign by the highway, Food-Lodging, 3 mi.
“You ever gonna tell me who you are?” the boy asked, sounding only mildly interested.
He glanced at the boy in the rearview mirror. He was already bundling under the thin blanket, getting ready to fall asleep.
“Sure,” he said. “Sure, I will. Later on.”
He wasn’t sure if he would tell the boy anything.
He wasn’t sure if he himself knew why we was doing this.
Why he was going home again with a boy he had taken from a shack in Texas.
* * *
7
* * *
The motel was a Mom & Pop outfit, twenty rooms, and no other tenants for the day. The middle-aged woman at the front desk glanced at the Chevy parked in the shade off to the side of the parking lot. “How many are there?”
“Just one,” he said. “I’m exhausted.”
“Traveling all night?” she asked, slowly reaching for the key.
He nodded. “Going to Baltimore to see my sister.”
“I’ve never been there, but I heard it’s some place. I heard that the traffic’s terrible,” the woman said. She held the key up, its huge orange tag hanging down, jingling in her hand. “Room 15. First floor. If you open it without pushing, you won’t get in. You must push and turn the key. If you don’t, you’ll end up jamming the lock. Then I have to call a locksmith and it’ll cost me twenty dollars for a room that only goes for twenty-two dollars.”
“Yes,” he nodded, holding his hand out. Thanks for the Southern hospitality.
“15,” she repeated, “to the left and down. Put out your do not disturb sign for the maid.”
Feeling slightly punchy, he said, “Couldn’t you just tell the maid not to go there?”
“I’m the maid,” she said. “But I will forget, Mister...” she glanced at the card he’d just filled out, “Rogers. I have a thousand and one things to keep track of this morning and I have yet to drink my coffee. You must put out the do not disturb sign.”
“Sure,” he said. Mr. Rogers. It’s a wonderful day in the neighborhood, he thought. That’s me.
“Fifteen,” she repeated, as he took the key from her.
* * *
8
* * *
He kept the blanket wrapped around the boy, carrying him into Room 15. Once inside, with the boy snoring lightly, Stony locked the handcuffs around one of the table legs near the television set. Some inner compulsion led him to do this. He didn’t think the boy would run, and the boy had acted so far as if they were old friends or family. But something within him told him that he needed to tie the boy down. It’s not that he was afraid of the kid running away; it was what the kid might do to him, or at least attempt. The kid knew about the gun. He didn’t know about the other things, like what was in the glove compartment.
He set up a series of pillows around the boy’s head. Then, he sat on the double bed. In seconds, he lay back, staring at the ceiling. He would have to fall asleep, but something within him didn’t want to.
He watched three or four houseflies gather in the air just above him. He smelled the musty yet clean smell of the motel, hearing the buzzing of the large black flies. Somewhere nearby, he heard car doors slam open, the click of high heels out on the sidewalk as guests left their rooms. His eyes fluttered closed, but behind their darkness, he was still staring at the flies gathering in the still air above his head.
When he awoke, he was in a sweat.
The boy sat at the edge of the bed watching him. He held the handcuffs in his hands, free. “It’s an old trick I learned from this book on magic tricks,” the boy said. “You just raise your hands so the blood drains out of them. If you got small wrists and hands like I do. After about an hour, you get loose.”
He felt the old fear, as if it had always been caged up inside him.
The boy reached into his lap, bringing up a wallet. “I went through your things, too,” he said matter-of-factly. “You’re a cop.”
“Yeah,” he said. “Sort of. I’ve been a cop, among other things.”
“Your name is Stony Crawford. You’re twenty-eight, almost. You live in some town in Arizona.”
“Outside Winslow, yeah.” A slight nervousness crept into his voice.
“Don’t worry,” the boy said, looking slightly beat, as if what he’d learned from the contents of the wallet was not what he wanted to find out. “If I wanted to do anything I already woulda done it. I held your gun. I don’t like guns all that much. So, am I under arrest or something?”
“No,” he said.
“I don’t get it. You bring me here, you’re actually kinda nice and okay if a little squirrelly.”
“It’s a long story,” he said.
“You killed the old woman who took care of me, Stony?”
Stony Crawford shook his head. “No. But I know who did.”
The boy glared at him. He started making goofy faces. Then, he glanced at the clock on the bedside table. The boy shook his head. “I guess we got time, you and me. You one of those men who does nasty things to kids?”
He shook his head. “Jesus, no.”
“Then why? Why me?” The boy, who must’ve been nearly twelve, looked wholly innocent for the moment.
Stony wondered, how could he not know?
It seemed so obvious, from the moment he’d seen heard the stories in the mountains, the miracles, the boy wonder, the little boy they called Prophet. Then, at a fair in the valley, nearly nine months before, they’d taken him down there to show him off, to show off that power that they knew radiated from him. He recognized the boy without ever having seen him before. Others would recognize him, too. The wrong kind of others, like the family who lived among the rocky crags at the Mentirosa Pass. The way the boy walked, the smile, the hair, the eyes. Almost everything about the kid. And then, those people who he was with, the wild people who had somehow kept him to themselves, like a totem, like a fetish. They knew, too, which was why they kept themselves secret.
They even kept the boy’s own identity secret from him.
“If I told you, it might frighten you,” he said, finally, sitting up. “Mind if I smoke?”
The boy shrugged. “Like I could stop you. That’s a nasty habit. Mind if I take a leak?” Then, he got off the bed, and went into the bathroom. When the bathroom door was shut, Stony heard the tap turn on. He lit up his Camel, and breathed in the smoke. He was not a habitual smoker, but took it up in times of stress. Then, he went and opened one of the small suitcases. Underwear, some colored T-shirts, and a newspaper. The newspaper was folded over on itself, a string tied around it. He pulled it loose, opening the paper.
On the front page, a photograph of three men examining what looked like the foundation of a burnt-down house. A cloudy day. They wore rain slickers. Behind the men, a lighthouse. Nothing remarkable in that photograph. Beneath the picture, an article.
* * *
9
* * *
THE VANISHING ON HIGH STREET
By George Crandall, Special To The Day
In the aftermath of Hurricane Matilda, the mysteries at Stonehaven are still unraveling. This is not an ordinary hit from a hurricane, and the fires along Land’s End were no
t set by lightning. What remains the biggest mystery is the disappearance of an entire town, not unlike the disappearance of the Roanoke Colony in Virginia in the 1600s. Could everyone in this place actually have been swept out to sea?
* * *
10
* * *
He turned the newspaper over. An ad for men’s shirts adorned the back page. He didn’t want to read the articles after all.
The hunting knife.
Souvenir from a memorable night.
A way to never forget what had happened. Or what he had done.
Slipped it back in the newspaper, which he wrapped over it. Tied the string around it. Dropped the newspaper back in the suitcase, shutting it.
“Some world,” he said, as he squatted beside the suitcase. When he stood up, he heard the water in the bathroom.
After two cigarettes, he called to the boy, but there was no answer. This worried him. He went to the bathroom door, turning it, but it was locked.
“Open up,” he said. He felt sweat break out on his neck, but he told himself to stay calm.
Was there a window in the bathroom? He couldn’t remember seeing one, but maybe there was one behind the shower curtain. Shit, he hadn’t counted on this. In the fourteen hours they’d been on the road, the kid hadn’t seemed interested in running.
He took a paper clip off his wallet, twisted it and thrust it into the lock. Turning it slightly, the door popped open.
The bathroom was empty, and as he pulled the shower curtain back, the boy huddled, weeping, in a corner of the tub, in his underwear, his jeans and T-shirt wadded up behind him like a pillow.
“What is it?” he asked.
The boy wouldn’t open his eyes. “They used to do some bad things to me, those people down there.”
“Like what?”
The boy lifted his arm up, showing him the scarred flesh.
“Is that a tattoo?” he asked.
The boy shook his head, working to keep his teeth from chattering. “It’s them. What they do. If I touch it sometimes, they move. They know where we are. They’re gonna find us.”
“No,” he said. “They can’t.”
“They can,” the boy said. “They have the power.”
The man shook his head, crouching down beside the tub. “No,” he said flinching slightly as he looked at the way they’d cut a design down the boy’s side. “It’s you. You have the power.” He didn’t want to explain this. Or dwell on it. Not till they reached their destination. “Let’s get out of here and get something to eat. Okay?”
The boy’s vestigial eyelids, like a gossamer skin, flicked down over his eyes for just a second.
The man blinked, too. Had he imagined it?
Or was it there?
He watched the boy’s face, but the boy seemed to betray no knowledge of what the man had just witnessed.
Chapter Two
THE MADONNA OF THE HIGHWAYS
* * *
1
* * *
“You get hungry,” Stony said, watching the boy as he seemingly swallowed the sandwich whole. Stony stubbed the last of his cigarette out in his coffee cup. A thin ribbon of smoke curled up from it. The tar caught in his throat. His tongue tasted of ashes.
“And you get smoky.” The boy tapped his fingers next to the ashtray. “That’s three in a row in the last ten minutes. Maybe it’s time to kick the habit, huh?”
“Just finish your sandwich, kid.”
“I’m Steve. Them people, the Rapturists, they call me Prophet, sometimes they call me Shiloh, but they ain’t my real names.” The boy chomped another bite of bread and turkey.
His name is Steve. Can’t even call him that. Can’t think of him as a little Stevie. Not with what I have to do.
“I know,” the man said. “I’m Stony. But my real name is Stephen, too.”
“Yeah, funny, huh? They wanted to call me something else. But I knew my name. I wouldn’t let them. They had all these weirdo names and stuff. Hey, I got a good joke. You know ‘Confucius say’ jokes? I love ‘em. The old lady’s brother used to tell me them. Here’s one: ‘Confucius say, he who fart in church must sit in own pew’.” He grinned. “Don’tcha think it’s funny? You never been in church and wondered why they call ‘em pews?”
Stony dropped a dollar bill on the tabletop, and slid out of the booth. The boy followed him. As he opened the door to the Biscuit Heaven coffee shop, he asked the kid, “Why’d you stay with them if you didn’t like it?”
The air outside was fresh and cool, with a slight nip in the air. The parkway beyond was still green, with full trees thick with leaves. October hadn’t hit the South yet. That’s what Stony had always liked about the desert. On the desert, there was no October; there was only summer and hell.
“Where the hell else was I gonna go?” the boy asked. “You tell me. They took care of me, it was the place the Great Father told me to go to, and they treated me better than you do.”
They got in the car, the boy sliding across the pillows and blankets in the backseat. The car stank of cigarettes and old junk food, and maybe a little bit of body odor as well. It had come with the requisite stink of old men and whiskey when he’d bought it. The layers of its interior smell were like excavations in an ancient cave. Stony rolled down all the windows. “Comfortable back there?” Stony asked.
“Mmm-hmm,” came the reply. In the rearview mirror, all Stony saw were the kid’s eyes shining like red marbles, reflected through the late afternoon sun.
Stony scratched the back of his neck. “You’re pretty agreeable. I don’t know who kidnapped whom.”
“You ever hear that song, ‘You Can Steal Me When You Wanna’?”
“Nope, can’t say that I have.” Stony had to keep telling himself that this was just a kid. This was a little kid. This was not some terrible creature. This was not some monster. This was a kid, and he was a kid-napper. Likelihood was, he would do something terrible to this boy before their trip together was over. Likelihood was, he’d take the hunting knife and plunge it into this kid’s heart, or slice it across his throat. Likelihood was, the kid was just a kid who happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.
And what if it was all a big damn mistake?
Self-doubt. The destroyer of all men, he chuckled to himself.
“It’s an old country song,” the boy continued. “It goes like—You can steal me when ya wanna, but’cha cain’t take me where I ain’t already gonna.” The kid’s voice was a pretty good alto, and he even managed to put in the country twang and break his voice mournfully at the high note. “‘Cuz I been down this highway many times. And if runnin’ off’s a crime, then I better serve my time, ‘cuz yoo-hoo can steal me when ya wanna.”
Stony clapped his hands twice. “You are the next Garth Brooks. So, you trying to tell me you wanted me to take you from that place?”
Then, the boy glanced at the dashboard clock. “It’s almost four. That roadside place closes at five. Can we go? I want to see the Madonna of the Highways.”
“Okay. Maybe for ten minutes. If it’s cheap.”
“Sure,” the boy said, grinning for once like a kid his age without malice or darkness or enigma.
* * *
2
* * *
The grin didn’t fade until they’d paid the eighty-cent admission, and gone through the turnstile. “You believe in the Madonna?”
Stony laughed. “Well, I like some of her songs. Like A Virgin?”
“Ha, before my time old man, before my time,” the kid said, moving ahead. For just a moment, Stony figured the kid might escape through this maze of darkly lit rooms. He had to walk fast to keep up with the kid. The hallway was strung with the story of how the gas station curio shop had gotten hold of the Madonna, where she had been “Ven-er-ate-ed by man-y” the boy read aloud as he went. “Venerated sounds like venereal disease, which I only know about on accounta I heard that VD’ll kill ya from the Great Father who had it from time to time.” They
passed through several small rooms, each with various religious paraphernalia. “Lookit,” the boy said, pointing to a glass-encased rusty nail. Then, he read the placard below it. “This is from the Holy Land, Jerusalem. From the Place of the Skull, this is one of the nails from the kind of cross that Jesus was crucified on. Wow.”
“No way,” Stony said. “It’s just a nail. Trust me, this place wouldn’t have the real thing.”
The boy shrugged. “I guess you ain’t a believer,” he said, and went off to the next room.
Stony glanced at the iconography along the walls, of saints and virgins and martyrs. In the next room, a poor imitation of a Bosch painting of hell, complete with little devils poking red forks at a naked Adam and Eve.
“Eve has a rack,” the boy said. He pointed to something mounted on the wall. “What’s that?”
A shamble of white feathers, a beak, all crusted over and dried up.
Stony walked over to stand behind him. “Looks like a dead dove.”
“Gruesome,” the boy said, a thrill in his voice.
A brass plate sat beneath the stuffed dove, its eyes perfect small marbles, its wings spread outward.
“The Holy Spirit came to them as a dove from heaven,” Stony read aloud. He scratched the back of his head. “What kind of sick person put this display together?”
Then, he noticed the bottle of water set on a high table. The water looked as if someone had put yellow and red dye in it. It was almost like a lava lamp. A banner beneath it read: “From the Miracle Waters of Lourdes, France where the Sick crawl on their knees for miles to be healed. One drink of this water will heal the sinner.”
Stony looked at the bottle for a moment, the red and yellow swirling mixture.
The miracle of Lourdes.
Halloween Chillers: A Box Set of Three Books of Horror & Suspense Page 3