“I don’t know, hon. I just come in here to check on him.”
Tommy Lee was staring at the bed. “Where’d he go to?”
“I don’t know. I was just trying to find him. I was looking for him when you come in.”
Tommy Lee wasn’t listening. He was standing in front of the window and staring out into the dark, at the woods that came right up to the back of the house.
‘What’s wrong, Tommy Lee?” she said.
“I thought I done heard something,” he whispered, squinting into the dark. “Hush,” he whispered. Then, his mouth open, he listened, swallowing hard, so hard that Priscilla saw his Adam’s apple bounce. This time she heard it, too.
“What was it, Tommy Lee?”
“Didn’t you hear?”
“I heard something, Tommy Lee. Only I ain’t sure—”
“It was somebody calling out ‘Daddy”’
“Something must have happened to Alvin!” Priscilla exclaimed. But as she started to turn around in a flurry, Tommy Lee took hold of her arm.
“You wait,” he whispered.
“Hon, Alvin must have done hurt hisself out there.”
Tommy Lee shook his head. “It ain’t coming from out there. It ain’t coming from outside at all.” Tommy Lee’s voice croaked. “The parlor.”
“The parlor?” Priscilla repeated, shaking her head. “Why, that can’t be. Alvin, he ain’t going to be down there in the middle of the night. You know that. Why, he don’t even like to go past that door during the day. Especially seeing how old Doc’s still a-laying out.”
“Hush up and listen.”
Priscilla heard it this time, too. Tommy Lee had been right. The noise was coming from downstairs. She looked at her husband, wide-eyed, her mouth hanging open for a second. “What’d Alvin be doing down there?”
“Don’t know. But I’m sure as hell going to find out, I’ll tell you.”
With Priscilla following closely after him, he turned and walked back down the hallway, toward the door leading into the basement.
Both of them stopped.
The door was partway open. It was one of Tommy Lee’s very few concessions. The door leading down to the parlor was always closed. Closed and locked at night. The few times he had forgotten merely to shut it behind him when he came up, Alvin had nearly had a fit.
“He’s down there, all right.”
“Hon, something ain’t right,” Priscilla whispered, clutching Tommy Lee’s arm.
Tommy Lee stood there, giving a slight nod of his head. Then they heard it again. It was Alvin’s voice. And he was calling out from downstairs, from down in the funeral parlor that he had stepped foot in only once before in his life, and then only after his daddy dragged him down there screaming and yelling.
“Tommy Lee,” Priscilla said, gasping.
“Daddy? Daddy?” the voice said. “Alvin’s been a good boy, Daddy. Come look.”
“What’s he talking about?”
“How the hell should I know?”
“He don’t sound like hisself,” Priscilla said, tightening her grip on Tommy Lee’s arm. Tommy Lee pulled away and pushed the door all the way open, peering down the long and narrow flight of basement steps.
“Shit, he don’t even have the light on.”
“What’d he be doing down there in the dark? It ain’t right.” Then, leaning forward a little, as if over some great chasm, she called out, “Alvin, honey, what you doing down there. Why you—”
“Daddy, come look, Daddy. Come look.”
“I’m scared, ’ Priscilla said, pulling Tommy Lee back. But jerking his arm away, Tommy Lee said, “If this is some trick, he’s going to be real sorry.” Reaching behind the door, Tommy Lee went to click on the basement light.
“Goddamn.”
“What’s wrong?”
“The bulb must’ve blown.”
“What you going to do?”
“What you think? I’m going down there.”
“But there ain’t no light, Tommy Lee!” Priscilla pleaded. “I know my way around.”
Tommy Lee started down the basement steps, holding on to the railing. From behind him he could still hear Priscilla going on in the same vein. It wasn’t right. It wasn’t like Alvin.
At the bottom of the steps, Tommy Lee stopped a moment, waiting for his eyes to adjust. There was enough moonlight coming in through the basement window for him to make out everything he needed to see to keep from running into something. He looked around.
“Alvin? Where’d you go to?”
Tommy Lee squinted into the dark corners. “Alvin, you come out right now if you know what’s good for you.” From upstairs Tommy Lee heard his wife calling down, “You seen him yet?”
“No, I don’t see him!” Tommy Lee yelled back up. Then, cautiously, he stepped deeper into the dark parlor.
“Here, Daddy.”
Tommy Lee jerked around. “Where?”
“Over here.”
Not sure where the voice was coming from, Tommy Lee looked all around him.
“Don’t it look lifelike, Daddy? Come and see. Don’t he look like he could just sit up and talk to you?”
Tommy Lee frowned. He was looking straight at the open coffin over in the corner. The coffin he had set old Doc in the other day, right after he had finished the embalming. But that wasn’t what had caught his attention. It was what Alvin said. They were Tommy Lee’s own words. Words he had used that day when he had taken Alvin down to see the body of the little boy he had just finished fixing up. The exact same words.
“Alvin?”
“Come look, Daddy.”
That was where the voice was coming from. The coffin. Old Doc’s coffin.
Tommy Lee stood there a moment longer. Upstairs he could hear his wife calling him, but he didn’t answer her. Tommy Lee began walking toward the coffin.
“You done messed up old Doc, I’m going to tan your hide, you hear?” But somehow, even to Tommy Lee, the words had a hollow ring. “You hear?” he repeated, trying to make them sound a little more convincing.
“Ain’t it lifelike?”
Only a few feet from the coffin, Tommy Lee stopped. “That ain’t. . . that ain’t the old. . .” But he didn’t finish.
Even in the darkness, Tommy Lee could tell it wasn’t old Doc. His hair wasn’t white. It was dark. “What you done, Alvin? What you done with old Doc?”
He stood there a moment, then took a few steps closer to the coffin.
He stared inside.
His mouth fell slack and he felt his legs weakening under him. “What you done?” he whispered, his eyes fixed on the face in the coffin. “This...this some joke?” He stepped closer, as if, as the shadows lifted, he’d see it was just a trick, that Alvin had done something to old Doc to make him look that way.
Standing right over it, Tommy Lee reached down his hand and held it only inches from the head lying on the satin pillow, his fingers nearly touching the motionless face.
But it wasn’t a trick.
“What you done, boy?” Tommy Lee whispered, staring down at the thing. “How’d you make it look that way? Alvin, how’d you—”
“Don’t it look lifelike? Like it could sit up and talk to you?”
Tommy Lee jumped and looked on the other side of the coffin. Alvin was standing there, grinning. “Look, Daddy. Look real close.”
And staring at the thing, Tommy Lee Anderson looked down into his own face, his own hands clasped over his own best suit. “It’s me,” he said. Then, as Tommy Lee stood there watching, the eyes slowly opened. He watched the mouth as it twisted into a grin. Unable to move, he looked down into the eyes.
“Where’d you get them? Where’d you get them eyes from? Them ain’t—”
Suddenly Tommy Lee felt the thing in the coffin grab his arm. H
e tried to jerk back, but it held him there. Tommy Lee went to scream, but not a single sound came out.
The eyes were looking at him. And, for a moment, the thing held his hand there, right in front of its mouth. Then, opening it wide, so wide that Tommy Lee thought the cheeks would rip apart, it crammed Tommy Lee’s hand into the gaping hole.
“No,” Tommy Lee said with a gasp, watching as the thing kept pushing his arm farther and farther into its mouth, the hand, the wrist, the lower arm, as he felt himself being sucked down into it, being devoured whole, and as he fell toward it, into it, he could hear only the mocking words of the boy as the darkness of the thing swallowed him up.
“Ain’t nobody died of a bad dream yet. Ain’t nobody died from no dream.’’
Upstairs, Priscilla stood at the door to the basement, peeking in, still calling out for Tommy Lee, still hearing not a sound.
“You want me to go call the sheriff, hon?” she asked, her voice frantic. “Tommy Lee? You hear me?”
Suddenly she heard a scuffling sound. She held her breath. “That you? You got Alvin with you? You bringing him back up?”
She listened in the darkness.
Somebody was coming up the steps, creaking them one by one.
“Tommy Lee, that you? Why don’t you answer me, hon? Hon? Why—”
“Momma?”
Priscilla’s heart skipped a beat. “Alvin!”
“He wants you, Momma.”
“Alvin? That you?”
“He says, You come on down.’”
“What you been doing down there?”
“Daddy says, ‘You go get your momma. You bring her on down.’”
“Something happen?” she asked, her voice cracking. “What your daddy need me down there for? He say?”
“‘You bring your momma on down. ”
“Alvin, you come up first. You let me see you first. You... you just don’t sound right to me, hon. You sound...kind of...”
The creaking of the steps had stopped. Priscilla, still standing in the doorway, could see the outline of her son a few steps down, though his face and body were dark.
“Alvin? What’s wrong with you, hon?”
“I’m tired, Momma. I had me one of them bad dreams.” Priscilla tilted her head from one side to the other, trying to make out Alvin’s face. “Well, you come on up then.”
“It was so bad. It was about you and Daddy. Something awful. Something terrible, Momma. Something down in the parlor. Something waiting for you down in the parlor, Momma. Waiting...waiting to do things to you. I was so scared.”
“Well...Look... see, ain’t nothing happened to your momma. Now, you come on up.”
“Here,” Alvin said, “you help me.”
She saw the shadowy outline of the boy’s hands come up from where he was standing. He was holding them out for her to take, to help him up the last few steps.
But instead of taking them, Priscilla could just stand there, clutching her housecoat tighter to her.
“I want to kiss my momma. I want to feel my momma’s big arms around me,” he said. “And Daddy, too. He wants you, too, Momma. We both want you. You help me up.”
“Why, you can make them last steps. You can make them last steps yourself, Alvin.”
“No, Momma, you got to help me. You help me, Momma.”
She stood there, then nodded. “Okay, hon. I’ll help you. I’ll...” Then, slowly, she extended both her hands.
The hands on the steps reached out toward hers and took them. His hands were covered with something wet.
Priscilla’s nostrils suddenly were filled with the nauseating but familiar stench. It was the smell of embalming fluid. “What you been into?” But looking at the hands in the light she saw that it wasn’t just embalming fluid on them. It was also blood. “What you—?”
“Ain’t you happy for me, Momma? Out of all the fat boys in this whole wide world, your Alvin’s done been chosen to be one of them special ones. And his momma, she done been chosen, too.”
Suddenly what was attached to the hands came up the last few steps. Priscilla looked into its face, lit by the light from the hallway.
“We got us a brand Newjesus.”
“You ain’t my Alvin,” she said with a gasp. But before she could even get the scream out, the thing yanked her down into darkness.
19
Larry lay in his bed, staring up at the ceiling. He looked over at the clock on the nightstand and saw that it was after one. He frowned, still unable to fall asleep. Every time he had heard the slightest noise outside, the rustle of a branch against his window, or a dog two houses down, he had sat up and looked out the window, checking every corner of the dark yard for a sign of Jamey. Twice he had been sure he had heard him calling Larry’s name, but each time it had turned out to have been his imagination.
“Shit,” he whispered, rolling back over. Since the night the two boys had gone out to the Randolph house, Larry had not heard a single word from Jamey. After Abigail’s reception the night before—the night he had encountered Robins on her front porch—Larry had gone over three times, in each case determined to sneak up Abigail’s back stairs. But somehow he couldn’t work up the courage to do it. And, as he lay there, he realized it wasn’t Abigail he was afraid of. It was Jamey.
He wasn’t sure what exactly made him afraid. Certainly he was not afraid Jamey would do anything to him. It was nothing like that. It was a deeper fear What happened that night at the Randolph house had somehow changed, not just their relationship, but everything else as well. He kept trying to explain away what had happened, what they had witnessed, just as he had tried to smooth it all out with Jamey that same night. After all, it was one of those basic convictions that Larry had been raised on, something repeated to him by both his father and his mother, the belief that if you don’t give up, you can work anything out. That there was no obstacle you couldn’t overcome if you just made the right effort. But for the first time in his life, Larry found himself wondering if it was still true. Things sometimes did happen, horrible things, and there was nothing anybody could do about them.
Lying there in bed, Larry realized he could never go back to believing the old way. He knew now there was something in the world his parents had wanted to hide from him, something so dark and terrible that no mother, no father would ever wish for their child to hear of it, let alone see it. But Larry had seen it at the Randolph house. In the painting of Catherine, in the lines that disfigured her body. Catherine’s father had desperately wanted to keep the world’s dark secret from her, too. But he had failed. As much as he had loved his daughter, he had failed her. And the darkness had destroyed them both.
Larry remembered again what Hattie had spoken to him that day long ago. For so long he had tried to tell himself that she had just been trying to scare him, that things really were the way his parents told him they were, fair and reasonable and just. But what if they were wrong and Hattie was right? What if she had really been trying to make him strong for the suffering, strong enough to face it bravely? Strong enough to do whatever he had to do, even knowing that whatever he did. it would not stop what was coming, could not diminish the power of the darkness? Strong enough even to know and accept that the darkness still would be there when he was gone?
Larry sat up on the edge of the bed.
He had to talk to Jamey. And he knew what he had to talk to him about. He had to tell him that no matter what it meant, he would be with him, he would stay with him through everything. No matter what.
Fifteen minutes later, Larry pushed open the screen door on Abigail Parker’s back porch. He looked around, letting his eves adjust, then found the door that led up the back stairs. He pushed it open and made his way to the second floor.
He stopped before entering the dark hallway and looked it up and down. He caught his breath, then went to the door of Jamey s
room.
It was standing open.
“Jamey? It’s me. You awake?”
He turned the light on and blinked.
“Jamey?”
Larry stood there, confused. There in front of him was Jamey’s bed, but it was empty. He stepped over to it. The covers had been thrown back. The sheets were twisted and crumpled. But that was not what caught Larry’s attention.
He lifted the covers farther back and sat down on the end, staring at the end of it. There, attached to the bedpost, was a piece of rope. He pulled on it. It was tied tight. Pushing the sheets back, he saw that there was another piece ol rope, of about the same length. It was tied to the other bedpost. He pulled them together. They reached to the middle of the bed. The loose ends were both knotted into a noose.
Larry stood up, then pulled the sheets and cover back to the way he had found them. “Shit,” he whispered. He turned and quickly made his way down the back steps of the house.
Outside, something caught his eye. He blinked, then took a step forward. In a far corner of the yard he saw Jamey. He was standing there, looking right at Larry.
“Jamey?”
The other boy didn’t move. Larry walked closer. He looked at Jamey s clothes. His trousers were covered with briars, and not just at the cuffs, but all over. His t-shirt was ripped in several places.
“What happened to you, Jamey? Where have you been?” Larry called, his voice registering the shock he felt at Jamey’s appearance.
The other boy said nothing. He simply stood there, trembling all over, his eyes filled with fear and panic. He shook his head and made a low, gasping sound.
“You were sleepwalking. Like you did that night, the night we went to the Randolph house. That’s why you had those ropes in your bed. To keep you from going anywhere. Right?” Larry asked, stepping closer to his friend. “But it didn’t work, did it? You went anyway. Where, Jamey?”
Jamey stepped back, still making the stricken, gasping noises, like an animal in pain.
“Where did you go, Jamey? How did you get these?” Larry asked, reaching out and touching the stains that covered the T-shirt. It was blood. “You must have cut yourself.” Larry took hold of the boy’s arms, first the right, then the left. But there was not the slightest trace of a cut on either of them. That was when the stench filled Larry’s nostrils. “Jesus, Jamey, what is that?” Larry said, nearly gagging on the odor.
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