The Spectral Book of Horror Stories Page 21

  Peck opened his mouth but found he had nothing to say.

  “Clocks running backward. Windows and doors blowing open. Rain falling hard on the house and not a cloud in the sky. Flies everywhere, inside the house and out—so many damn flies. And don’t get me started on the smell.”

  “Like ammonia?” Peck shifted in his seat.

  “I guess,” Mary said. “Sharp and bitter. Back of the throat.”

  Peck knew the smell, and this at least rang true, but he let everything else sit for now. Very little about this whole mess was normal, but a picture had started to form in his mind. He saw Cindy leaving home, getting in with some vigilante group—strong boys and arsonists among them—who decided to take the law into their own hands. It didn’t come close to explaining everything, but Peck felt he was on the right track.

  “This place,” he said, studying Mary’s dark-ringed eyes. “Where Cindy went. Where she wanted to take you. She ever tell you where it is?”

  “No, sir.”

  “You don’t know anything about it?”

  “I tried asking, but she wouldn’t say much. Got all tight-lipped and sullen.”

  “Tell me whatever you remember, Mary.”

  She thought a while, sitting back in her chair with her brow knitted, picking at her fingernails. Peck, for his part, worked to push away the unexplainable, and concentrate on solid facts. He figured everything else would slide into place once he had a strong foundation.

  “Outside Heavenly,” Mary said. She frowned a little deeper, then nodded. “She went on foot. That I know. Must’ve gone east because she said she passed the old water tower—said its shadow was like a big ol’ spider. All them legs, you know?”

  Peck nodded.

  “She walked, but I don’t know how far. All she said about the place was that the raptors circle clockwise there, except for one—him bigger—going aboutways.”

  Peck pulled a notebook from his pocket and wrote this down. “Anything else? Landmarks? Or distinct sounds—you know, like a river, or a train? Anything?”

  “No, sir.”

  “How about the people she was with? She give you any names? Descriptions?”

  Mary stopped picking her fingernails and linked her hands much as Peck had in the clearing. “For what it’s worth.” And here the frown was replaced with a cold little smile. “She called them the boys with the black feet.”

  #

  Peck pulled over at the side of Cotton Road. Sun on the windshield like a branding iron. To his left, beyond a rusted chain link fence, Ring Field and the old water tower which had stood dry for more than ten years. Faded letters across the tank once read HEAVENLY. In a certain light you could see the ghosts of those letters, but not now. Peck stepped out of the cruiser and Tyler Bray followed. They scaled the fence like children. Ty tore his pants and swore.

  East the way was flat and hard. Rocky ground and dust devils with the sun always like a hammer thrashing. A mile beyond, Forney Creek marked the town limits. They stopped to douse their hats in water, to fill their hands and drink. They crossed where it was shallowest but still got wet to the thighs, even Ty with his crane fly legs. Here Peck had no jurisdiction. Here he turned from a lawmaker to a citizen with a gun.

  “How far we walking, Chief?”

  “Until I say.”

  “This ain’t even Heavenly.”

  Across the cracked grassland to the southwest of Gray Point, through a sparse forest where the boughs rattled dryly, skirting marshland where bullfrogs croaked and a fetid mist rose from between the reeds. Beyond this the flies grew fat and many. The men slapped at them with their hats. Peck looked at the sky but it was bare and blue. They walked another twenty minutes then rested a while. Peck checked the time but his watch had stopped.

  “Got the time there, Ty?”

  Ty checked. “I got two twenty.”

  “Well, shit. That can’t be right.”

  “That’s what I got.”

  They carried on but with languor, following no course other than Peck’s instinct. Across barren fields and through a narrow valley of mostly shale, where the sun was reflected in bullets and horned lizards blinked at them sleepily. They emerged into a field where grass swayed chest-high. The flies grew in number but were slower, fatter. Ty wheezed and wanted to rest but Peck spurred him on. He was tired too, and the heat had placed a fierce ache across the inside of his skull. Whenever he felt like stopping, he remembered Mary Roth in her borrowed, too-big clothes. So many tears, like a face in the rain.

  Tell me about the night of the fire, Mary.

  She’d be with the state police now. They’d lean hard on her. Cross-examine her. They’d listen to the tape and believe not a word.

  Daddy saw all the strange happenings, too. He was stupid and angry, but not blind. It all got too much for him. He felt threatened, I guess. So he took me aside and told me that Cindy had been chained by the devil, and that it was our duty to set her free. I’d had the same thoughts—had even contemplated calling Reverend Mathis. I told Daddy this, but he wouldn’t let me bring an outsider into the house. Not even a man of the cloth. He said he had his own way of handling it, and just as Christian.

  Their hats dried in the heat and felt stiff on their heads, and Ty peeled his off and fanned his face with it. His shirt was black with sweat.

  “You notice anything strange?” he gasped.

  Peck searched the sky and the long grass and it all felt strange. Thin, almost, like a bleached and moistureless backdrop with something darker behind. He thought Ty was referring to the smell, though. It rose from the earth here. Caustic and foul. Back of the throat, Mary had said.

  “That smell,” Peck said, nodding. “Same as at the Roth place. Maybe we’re getting close.”

  “Smell’s bad, but that ain’t it.” Ty knuckled sweat from his eyes. Foamy spittle nestled at the corners of his mouth. “We’re walking east, right?”

  “More or less.”

  “Then why is the sun setting ahead of us?” Ty pointed at the fried bullet hole in the sky, and even it appeared to be sweating. “Should be behind us, this time of day.”

  Peck pulled up and frowned and turned a loose circle. He took off his hat and scratched his head. “Must’ve got turned around somehow.”

  “We walked a straight line and you know it.”

  “Just keep going.” Peck put on his hat and sniffed the air, following his nose now. “East or west, don’t matter. We’re close.”

  Ty used his hat to shade the sun. “And don’t it look like a drop of blood?”

  It was the early hours. I was sleeping. Not deeply. I’m always aware of the sounds around me. It’s like sleeping with one eye open, I guess. I heard a commotion and stirred, but then the screaming started and I jumped out of bed like there was a rattler between the sheets. I ran downstairs and saw Daddy stepping outside, Cindy slung over one shoulder like a sack of firewood. He’d tied her wrists and ankles with rope. I screamed and followed, and he shouted back at me to stay in the house, that I didn’t need to see any of this. Normally I do what Daddy says, but not this time. No, sir. I staggered outside and saw Daddy drop Cindy next to the woodpile. He grabbed her hair and dragged her head down across the chopping block. Then he took up his axe.

  They kept walking and Peck felt blisters growing inside his boots and it wasn’t long after that he noticed the sleek shapes in the grass. They flowed alongside and the grass rippled. Peck tried to get a sense of their number. He knew what they were long before Ty drew his sidearm.

  “Coyotes,” Ty said.

  “They won’t hurt you.” But Peck wasn’t sure about that. He placed a hand on the grip of his own Glock and walked wary.

  “This is crazy, Chief.”

  “Keep walking.”

  “We shouldn’t be doing this.” Ty stopped suddenly and the shapes in the grass stopped too. “We got no business out here.”

  “We got every business.”

  “You’re chasing shadows.” Ty holster
ed his weapon. Flies crawled across his face. Some were so big they dragged. “This is a state police matter. Let them trek through hell and back.” He flapped at the flies but only some buzzed away.

  “You listen to me, Ty Bray, and you listen good. We—that’s you, me, the whole damn town—we spent too many years ignoring what was happening at the Roth place. Hid inside our comfortable little lives and didn’t do a goddamn thing to help those girls. It’s time to put that right. There’s a truth out here somewhere and we’re going to find it.”

  Ty wiped his eyes. “Let the state cops find it.”

  “They won’t believe a word Mary tells them.” Peck’s face was a shade of red and his headache almost blinding. “They’ll think she’s hiding something and tear her to pieces. She may wind up confessing to something she didn’t do, and I can’t let that happen. She’s been through enough.”

  Daddy raised his axe and I ran at him—bounced off him, more than anything. I clawed at his legs and he kicked me away. I would have gone at him again, of course, but then Cindy started talking in that weird language, same as when she spoke to the coyotes. I saw a glow beneath her skin, deep and orange, and the ropes binding her turned to ash. She got to her feet as Daddy was raising the axe again, and he just about fell over backward. Her eyes… they were like burning coals, pouring smoke. The axe toppled from his hands and she pushed him. It was like she was pushing a door open—that easy—and he flew halfway across the yard like a leaf in the wind. He got to his feet and reeled into the house. Cindy picked up the axe and followed.

  Ty now fifteen feet behind and staggering. Teeth clamped, shaking his head. He’d given up on swatting away the flies and they droned around him and settled and drank the sweat from his open pink pores. Peck flapped his own hat and saw ahead a scratch of forest. He sniffed at the bitter air and walked that way.

  Cooler beneath the canopy, but darker. Here the coyotes were shadows and some howled in the gloom. Something else ticked among the branches. Peck waited for Ty, resting his hand on a gnarled trunk that twisted beneath him and when he looked he saw no trunk, no tree. Evening light spilled through the canopy, like wine through a cracked glass.

  “Let’s stop awhile,” Ty panted.

  “I don’t want to stop here.”

  They trudged on with Peck barely looking, his dread tamped down by determination. The thunder in his head was his heartbeat – a reckless, spirited thing. They made it through the forest and the light now was burned purple. Across a wide, dry riverbed and into a field marked by the outlines of trees and rocks. The grass here was knee-high and the coyotes’ backs showed like otters in water.

  “There’s a hill ahead,” Peck said, pointing to where the ground rose. “We can maybe get a bearing from there.”

  Ty nodded but he looked close to tears, no doubt wishing he was changing oil at Go Auto or hanging out with his girl. They struggled up the hill, which wasn’t steep, but both men fairly crawled. At the summit, Peck looked around but saw nothing he recognised. The sky had grown pale. He’d swear it was getting light again. They caught their breaths and pushed on. Midway down the hill, Peck noticed—not a mile away—a small settlement. Glass and aluminum winked in the sunlight. It was definitely getting lighter. Hotter, too.

  “This is some kind of nightmare,” Ty said.

  Peck’s gaze drifted upward, and he saw several birds in the sky above the settlement. Red-tailed hawks, he thought, judging from the size. They circled clockwise, all but one—a raptor Peck had no name for, with a broader, crooked span—looping the other way.

  He moved on. His stride was long.

  “We’re here,” he said.

  I can’t tell you what happened in the house because I stayed in the yard. And I wasn’t alone. The coyotes were back, sitting in the long grass with their ears high and their eyes shining. Seemed the devil was all ways and if there was any heaven to be found, I didn’t know where. So I stayed put. And how I screamed, but not as loud as Daddy, and not for as long. Then the house went up. You know when you set fire to a book of matches and it flares in your hand all at once? It was like that. I thought for sure they were both dead, then Cindy stepped out of the flames. She was on fire, but she wasn’t burning. I know how that sounds, but I swear it’s true. It’s like she controlled those flames; like the coyotes, they did whatever she told them to, and ain’t that the devil’s way? I watched her walk across the grass and away, all those coyotes by her side, and for a while I followed her flame and then she was gone. Then I took to my heels. I wanted to find my clearing but got lost in the dark. I wound up by that old truck in the field, and there I hid, and there you found me.

  Peck thought ‘settlement’ too grand a word for what amounted to a few tumble-down shacks and trailers. Some were painted faded colours, their windows either blacked-out or boarded over. There were no satellite dishes or barbecues. No washing strung to dry. Peck would think it abandoned but for the feeling they were being watched—and not only by the coyotes, mostly gathered in the grass around the site. Others sat on the tall rocks with their backs straight.

  “What is this place?” Ty asked. He was a step or two behind Peck.

  “I’m not sure.”

  Cogongrass sprung from the baked earth, strewn with trash. A dusty flag Peck didn’t recognise rippled softly. They advanced cautiously and came across four listless hogs tied to a stake in the earth. The smell in the air was that same bitter ammonia, hard to breathe. The sun rode directly overhead and the heat was thick as tar.

  “Anybody home?” Ty screamed. He brushed at the flies on his face. “Anybody? I figured hell would be busier.”

  “Hush.” Peck placed a hand on Ty’s chest and he knocked it away.

  “Don’t touch me.”

  Sound of a door opening, closing with a snap. They turned and saw a boy walking toward them, bare-chested, eating something from a bowl. Five years old, Peck figured, having a boy of his own that age.

  “Keep it together,” Peck whispered to Ty. “Remember, we got no jurisdiction here, but these people don’t know that. Keep your weapon holstered. Pull that trigger and you’ll have a lot of questions to answer.”

  The boy wore faded blue jeans turned up at the ankles. His feet were soot-black. The bowl was filled with dry corn. It rattled between his teeth when he spoke.

  “You probably shouldn’t be here.”

  “We’re looking for somebody,” Peck said. He turned on his friendly police officer smile, perhaps to make up for his shapeless hat and the flies on his throat. “Maybe you can help me. Girl. Fifteen years old. Brown hair. Goes by the name of Cindy.”

  “She’s with us now,” the little boy said. He took a mouthful of corn that rattled. “And she ain’t Cindy no more.”

  Even in the heat, these words sent a chill motoring up Peck’s spine. They mirrored what Mary had said. Not that he needed more convincing. As a lawman he’d always favoured a logical line, but after everything he’d seen and heard, that line wasn’t nearly as solid.

  “Where is she?” Ty asked.

  The boy softened corn in his mouth. He spat yellow in the dirt, then turned around and walked away.

  “Hey!”

  “Rubin’s trailer.” He flicked a finger to his left.

  The men—bone-weary but still upright—moved in that direction, beyond a screen of raggedy shrubs and toward a trailer the colour of an old dime. It sat on its underbelly, wheels and jack long gone. Dry weed snaked through holes in the panelling and the windows were marked with red Xs. There were two coyotes perched on the roof, coats clotted with dirt and teeth showing. Somebody had buried an axe in the trunk of a nearby tree. A tin bucket hung from a branch by a length of twine.

  Peck looked over his shoulder and saw the little boy watching and grinning. In the heat it looked like his black feet were smoking.

  “We find her and go,” Peck said. “We’ll send the big boys back here to ask questions.”

  “Amen,” Ty said.

  Peck turned
back toward the trailer and in so doing walked clumsily into the tin bucket hanging from the branch. A drove of flies were disturbed but didn’t go far. The bucket swung and the branch creaked. Peck looked inside and saw Beau Roth’s head, parched and blistered. One eye was filled with flies.

  “Christ and Jesus.” He staggered backward and drew his gun and Ty drew his too. Peck flapped a hand at him that didn’t make any sense and Ty hunkered, confused, and the barrel of his weapon moved unsurely. The flies settled again on the bucket. The coyotes on the roof howled. Peck looked the way they had come and saw the little boy laughing. He imagined the corn rattling between his teeth and had an urge to run a bullet through his narrow chest, then a door squeaked open and he turned to see Cindy Roth standing outside the trailer. Not the same girl who sat quietly at the back of the class while Peck gave one of his school talks, or the girl he often saw walking the mile from Sunshine Shopper to her house, weighed down with groceries, and who wouldn’t accept a ride when he offered it. Cindy Roth now was fierce-eyed, closer to a woman, and with a charge about her—some deep thing desperate to break out. She smiled and stepped toward Peck. Her feet were black.

  “Hello, Chief,” she said.

  #

  All Peck wanted was a shred of solid evidence, something to lend credence to Mary Roth’s story, enough for the state police to investigate further. He’d brought Ty along because he didn’t want to be alone, but also because Ty—unlike Calloway—was green enough to follow, even when they went beyond the town limits.

  He hoped he’d live to regret his decisions.

  It all happened quickly.

  There came a whirl of heat and dust and suddenly they were surrounded by black-footed boys, including two atop Rubin’s trailer—thin and naked both—in place of the coyotes. Peck backed away and raised his gun in warning. Ty showed no such restraint. He fired two shots at the boys on the trailer and missed them both. Peck screamed at him to cease fire but he didn’t listen. He turned and shot the little boy dead. Blew him backward, black feet smoking. His bowl of corn spilled everywhere.