Whistling Past the Graveyard

by Jonathan Maberry

  He stopped as if considering the kind of picture his words were painting.

  He sighed.

  “Long story short, man,” he half-mumbled, “I only died that one time. And if I’m careful and smart and follow the rules, I won’t ever die again.”

  Donny echoed those last four words. “Won’t ever die again.”

  “Yeah.”

  “But you’re killing other people?”

  Donny looked momentarily surprised. “Oh, the vampire thing. No, man, that’s yesterday’s news. I don’t hunt like that.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “What I said. I haven’t made that kind of kill in years, man. Not since right after the Trouble.”

  Donny narrowed his eyes. “You expect me to believe that?”

  “Shit, man, you can believe what you want. But it’s true. I can live off of animals. There’s a whole state forest right here. As long as I feed every couple of weeks, I’m good to go. The taste blows, but I figure it’s kind of like being a vegan. It may not taste good but it’s better for my health.”

  “Why? What made you stop?”

  “The Big Bad got killed. That night when the town burned, somebody must have killed the vampire that started all this.”

  “Who?”

  “Shit if I know. I wasn’t there when it happened. I was, um...doing other stuff.”

  “Killing people?”

  Jim looked away once more. “You don’t understand how hard it is. The hunger? It screams in your head. Especially back then, especially when the Big Bad was alive. It was like he juiced us all, amped us up. You couldn’t fight it. And when he died? Christ, it was like a part of me died, too. I wanted to die. Really, man, I wanted to kill myself.”

  “But you can’t die.”

  Jim snorted. “Everything can die.”

  “But you said that you couldn’t die.”

  “No, I said that if I was careful I wouldn’t die. Not the same thing.”

  Donny frowned. “You can die?”

  “Sure. That night, when we had the Trouble? Couple of hundred of us died.”

  “There were that many?”

  “Yeah. Would have been thousands if the Big Bad had his way. But we almost all died that night.”

  “Almost all? There’s more like you?”

  Jim didn’t answer that, but that was answer enough.

  “This is bullshit,” grumbled Donny. Then he corrected himself. “This is nuts.”

  “It’s the world, man. Bigger, weirder, badder than we ever thought. And lately it’s started to get worse. There’s more...of them, of people like me.”

  “Vampires,” Donny supplied.

  Jim flinched. “Yeah. More vampires and maybe something coming—something like the Big Bad we had—coming back. People…or something…are starting to hunt. Not animals, like we been doing...but humans.”

  “What do you mean something’s coming? What’s coming?”

  Jim said, “Bad times are coming, Donny. Bad times are here. It’s getting dark and there’s something coming. I...can feel it. I can feel the pull. It’s Halloween, man. Stuff…happens on Halloween. Halloween kicks open a door. You’re from here, you know that. Something’s going to take a bite out of town.”

  “No,” said Donny, dismissing all of this as if it was unreal.

  His gaze drifted over to the rusted out car. Jim followed his line of gaze.

  “Is that yours?” asked Donny.

  “Yeah. I miss that old heap. We had some fun with that.”

  “It’s a wreck.”

  “Well, yeah. Been like that for years.”

  “But I saw you driving it.”

  Jim frowned.

  “No, man.”

  “I did. On the bridge and then ten minutes ago.”

  “Really,” said Jim, “that car’s deader than me. It’s dead dead, you know?”

  “No, I don’t know,” snapped Donny. “None of this makes sense. I finally manage to get home, and you want me to just accept all this shit?”

  Jim shrugged.

  “It’s bullshit,” snarled Donny suddenly. “This? All of this? It’s bullshit.”

  “It is what it is.”

  Donny stepped forward and suddenly shoved Jim. “Don’t give me that crap, Jim. We went to fucking war, man. We enlisted to fight for this, to protect all of this.” He waved his arms as if to indicate the whole of Pine Deep and everyone in it. “And while we’re out there fighting real bad guys—terrorists, the Taliban, Al-Qaeda and shit—you’re trying to tell me that vampires came in and killed everyone I know? You want me to believe that?”

  Jim spread his hands again.

  Donny shoved him again. “No! I fought every day to get back home. I bled to get back home. Do you have any idea how many firefights I’ve been in? How many times I was nearly killed? How many times I got hurt? Do you have any idea what kind of hell I went through?”

  “I know, man.”

  “No you don’t. You went into the navy, Jim. You played it safe. But I went to fucking war. Real war. I fought to protect....to protect...”

  Fresh tears ran down his face. They felt as cold as the rain.

  Colder.

  “And it’s all for shit. There are more like you out there. They’re going to keep feeding on my town. They’re going to make a punk out of me because they’ll just take away everything I fought for.”

  Jim looked at him, and there was a deep sadness in his eyes. “Donny...believe me, man, I do know what you went through. I know all about it. Everything.”

  “Oh yeah? And how the hell are you supposed to know that shit? You get psychic powers, too?”

  “No, man...I read it.”

  Donny blinked. “Read it?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Read it where?”

  A single tear broke from Jim’s right eye. It carved a path through the grime on his face. “I may sleep under the dirt, dude, but I do read the papers. I read all about you.”

  “What are you...?”

  “They did a whole big story on you. Donny Castleberry, Pine Deep’s war hero.” Jim shook his head. “Donny...I read your obituary, man.”

  Donny said nothing.

  “They had the whole story. You saving a couple of guys. Getting shot. They played it up big, too. Said that you killed four Taliban including the one who shot you. You went down swinging, boy. You never gave up the fight.”

  Donny said nothing. What could he say? How could he possibly respond to statements as ridiculous as these? As absurd?

  The ground seemed to tilt under him. The hammering of the rain took on a surreal cadence. None of the colors of the forest made sense to him.

  He touched his chest, and slowly trailed his fingers slantwise across his body, pausing at each dead place where a bullet had hit him.

  He wanted to laugh at Jim. To spit in his face and throw his stupid words back at him. He wanted to kick Jim, to knock him down and stomp him for being such a liar. He wanted to scream at him. To make him take back those words.

  He wanted to.

  He wanted.

  He...

  He fought to remember the process of recovering in the hospital in Afghanistan, but he couldn’t remember a single thing about it. Not the hospital, not a single face of a nurse or doctor, not the post-surgical therapy. Nothing. He remembered the bullets. But it seemed so long ago. He felt as if there should be weeks of memories. Months, maybe years of memories. His discharge, his flight back to the States. But as hard as he tried, all he could grab was shadows.

  After all, he couldn’t remember how he came to the bridge that crossed the river to Pine Deep. None of it was in his head.

  None of it was....

  Even there?

  “God...” he breathed. If, in fact, he breathed at all.

  “I’m sorry,” said Jim. “I’m so sorry.”

  Off away in the woods there was a long, protracted shriek. It was female. Cold and high and completely inhuman.

 
It’s getting dark.

  “What is that?” he asked.

  Jim shook his head. “I don’t know. Not really. Whatever it is, it’s not right, you know?”

  Donny said nothing.

  “When it screams like that, it means that it’s starting to hunt.”

  “It’s a vampire, though,” said Donny hoarsely.

  “Yeah,” said Jim. “I think so. Some...kind of vampire. Something I haven’t seen before. Something bad.”

  Donny turned and looked toward the road. “And it wants to kill Pine Deep.”

  “It doesn’t care about the town. It just wants the people.”

  “No,” said Donny. He wiped at the tears in his face. The wetness was cold on the back of his hand. As cold as ice. “I didn’t fight and...”

  He couldn’t bring himself to say the rest.

  Fight and die.

  “I didn’t come home...come back... just to see terrorists destroy my town.”

  “Terrorists?” Jim almost laughed. “They’re not terrorists, man, they’re...”

  But his words trailed off, and it was clear from his expression that he was reevaluating the word “terrorists.”

  “Donny?” he asked.

  “Yeah?”

  “I don’t have any inside track on this shit,” Jim began, “but I wonder if that’s why you’re back.”

  Donny said nothing.

  “What if the town needed you and you were...I don’t know....available?”

  Donny said nothing, but inside his head something went click.

  “You said that you can die,” he murmured.

  “Yeah.”

  “Can you tell me…how?”

  Jim only paused for a single second. “Yeah,” he said.

  The scream tore the air again. Deep in the woods, hidden by the rain. But coming closer, angling through the darkened forest and the pounding storm, toward Pine Deep.

  “Maybe you’re right,” said Donny. And as he said those words he felt a smile force its way onto his mouth. He couldn’t see it, but he knew that it wouldn’t be a nice smile. Not pleasant, not comforting.

  He turned to Jim.

  “All bullshit aside, Jim, we both signed up to serve. To protect our homes and our folks and our town, right?”

  Jim nodded.

  “So...let’s serve. Let’s be soldiers,” said Donny. “You tell me how to kill them, and I’ll bring the fight right to them. Right fucking to them.”

  “Are you serious?” asked Jim.

  A third scream slashed at the air.

  Donny touched the dead places on his chest.

  “Yeah,” he said, and he could feel a small, cold smile form on his mouth. “Dead serious.”

  Jim looked at him and his eyes filled with fresh tears. Not of pain, nor of fear. There was love there. And joy. And something else, some indefinable quality that Donny could not label.

  “Okay,” said Jim. “Dead serious.”

  The scream came again, louder and closer than before.

  Donny stared in the direction of the approaching monster.

  And he smiled.

  A soldier’s smile.

  Author’s Note on “Mister Pockets”

  This is the second of four Pine Deep stories in this collection, and like Long Way Home, takes place after the events in the Trilogy.

  It’s also a dual homage to two great writers I’ve had the good fortune to meet and get to know. The first is Ray Bradbury, who—along with Richard Matheson—was a mentor of mine when I was a young teen. The other is Stephen King, who I met at the Edgar Awards the year he was named Grand Master. Ray and Steve have not only become household names, their stories—long form and short—have added significantly to the body of fine American literature. Their impact and influence on countless writers cannot be understated. Ray was a kind and decent man; Steve is a kind and decent man. They each also put their mark on creepy stories about kids in small towns. So, this one is for them.

  Mister Pockets

  -1-

  There were towns like Pine Deep.

  A few.

  But not many.

  Luckily, not many.

  -2-

  The kid’s name was Lefty Horrigan.

  Real name.

  His father was a baseball fanatic and something of an asshole. Big Dave Horrigan thought that naming his only son Lefty would somehow turn the boy into a ballplayer, ideally a pitcher with a smoking fastball and a whole collection of curves and breakers. Big Dave played in high school and might have made it to the minors if he hadn’t screwed up his right shoulder in Afghanistan during the first year of the war. It wasn’t a shrapnel hit from an IED or enemy gunfire. Big Dave had tripped over a rock and fell shoulder-first onto a low stone wall, breaking a lot of important stuff. When he got home and got his wife pregnant, he transferred his burning love of the game to Lefty. Papered the kid’s room in baseball images. Bought him a new cap and glove just about every year. Took him all the way to Philly to watch the Phils. Subscribed to every sports channel on the Net and had Lefty snugged up beside him from first pitch to last out.

  Yeah, Lefty was going to go places. Lefty was going to be the ball playing star of the Horrigan clan, by god so he was.

  Lefty Horrigan hated baseball.

  He wasn’t entirely sure he’d have loathed baseball as much if his name had been Louis or Larry. Lefty was pretty damn sure, however, that being hung with a jackass name like that was not going to make him enjoy the sport. No way.

  He was a small kid for his age. A little chubby, not the best looking kid who ever pulled on a pair of too white, too tight gym shorts in the seventh grade. He had an ass and he had a bit of a gut and he had knocked knees. When he ran the hundred yard dash the gym teacher threw away the stopwatch and pulled out a calendar. Or so he said. Often.

  When the other kids lined up to climb the rope, Lefty just went over and sat down. His doctor’s note got a lot more workout than he did, and it had more calluses than his hands did. Nobody thought much of it. Fat kids didn’t climb the rope. Fat kids sucked at gym class and none of them went out for sports unless it was on a dare.

  And it didn’t much matter.

  Nobody bullied Lefty about it. This was farm country, out beyond the suburban sprawl and infil of Bucks County, out where Pennsylvania looked like it did on holiday calendars. Not the gray stone towers of Philadelphia or the steel bridges of Pittsburgh, but the endless fields of wheat and corn. Out here, a fat kid could ride a tractor all day, or work the barns in a milking shed. Weight didn’t mean much of anything out there.

  So it didn’t mean much in gym class.

  Most that happened was people made certain assumptions if you were the fat kid. They knew you wouldn’t volunteer for anything physical. They knew you were always a good person to tap for a candy bar. They knew you’d be funny, because if you weren’t good looking you had to be funny to fit in. Lefty was kind of funny. Not hilarious enough to hang with the coolest kids, but funnier than the spotty lumps that orbited the lowest cliques in the social order. Lefty could tell a joke, and sometimes he watched Comedy Central just to cram for the school days ahead. Stuff Jon Stewart or Stephen Colbert said was usually good for a pat on the back or a smile from one of the smarter pretty girls. If he made them laugh once in a while he was part of the group, and all judgment pretty much ended there.

  But his dad was still on him about baseball.

  Fucking baseball, Lefty thought. What was the big freaking deal with baseball? A bunch of millionaires standing around in a field, spitting tobacco and adjusting their cups as if their dicks were crowded for room. Once in a while one of them would have to run to catch a ball.

  Shit.

  Lefty worked harder than that pedaling his bike up Corn Hill. That was more of a workout than most of those guys saw in a whole game. And biking all the way across town or, worse, out to one of the farms, probably took more effort than playing a whole series. Lefty was sure of it. Just as he was sure that one o
f these days puberty would kick in so that he grew tall enough to stretch his ass and gut into a leaner hide. Just like Mom said would happen.

  So far, though, he had hair on his balls, hair under his arms, pit-sweat stink that could drop an elk at forty paces, and painful erections every time he saw either of the Mueller twins walk past. But he hadn’t grown an inch.

  At the same time, his dad was hoping that the growth spurt would somehow unlock the baseball gene that must be sitting dormant in him. Big Dave usually hovered between hopeful expectation and active denial about his son’s views on the American pastime.

  -3-

  He saw someone cut in front of him and head across the street. Old Mr. Pockets, the town’s only homeless person. What grandpa called a ‘hobo.’

  Mr. Pockets looked like he was older than the big oaks that lined the street. Older than anything. Even through the thick gray dirt caked on his skin, the hobo’s face was covered in thousands of lines and creases. His brown eyes were so dark they looked black, deep-set as they were and half hidden under bushy brows that looked like sickly caterpillars. Mr. Pockets wore so many layers of clothing that it was impossible to tell what was what. The only theme was that everything he seemed to wear—shirts, jackets, topcoats, aprons—had pockets. Dozens and dozens of pockets into which he stuffed whatever it was he found in the gutters and alleys of town.

  Lefty smiled at Mr. Pockets and the old man paused halfway across the street and stared at him in the blank way he does, then he smiled and waved. Mr. Pockets, for all of his personal filth, had the whitest teeth. Big and white and wet.

  Then he turned away and went trotting down a side street. Lefty rolled forward to watch him and saw that there was something going on half a block away. So, he pushed down on the pedals and followed the hobo, curious about what the cops were doing.