Dead Man's Song

(2)



“He hates me,” Connie said hollowly, staring bleakly over the steam rising from her teacup. The kitchen was painted in shadows with only a single lamp on.



Val squeezed her shoulder. “No, he doesn’t. He’s just confused. I don’t think he’s gotten over Dad’s death yet. He’s rattled and upset and doesn’t know how to react.” She stroked Connie’s hair.



“But you yourself said—”



“I was mad at him,” she admitted, “and I was trying to shock him enough to snap him out of it. But…I seem to have only made him madder. We’d better give him time to cool down, sweetie. He’ll come around.” Her words did not match her thoughts, though. She prayed that Mark was out there now, wherever he was—sulking over a beer at the Harvestman, probably—thinking about those horrible things he had said and feeling bad about it. Maybe he’d come back soon, not crawling or abashed, but like a man, owning up to the things he’d said and done over these last couple of weeks, and ready to make things right. That would be great, but it was a bit too storybook and Val had her doubts. Maybe one day, but today didn’t feel like it was going to end with a Kodak moment.



They sat staring through the kitchen windows at the golden sunlight shining on the autumn-colored leaves of the big oak in the yard. All day it had been cloudy and now, just before sunset, the sun had drilled its way through the gray and the yard looked beautiful. It made her wonder what the forest was like down by Dark Hollow where Crow was. Was he seeing the same sunlight all the way down there? He could use it, she thought. Crow had been sweating his little hiking trip for days. Unconsciously she touched her stomach, and to the tiny baby just beginning to grow inside of her, she said, Your daddy’s a crazy man.



Connie said, “It’s not that I don’t want to…you know…do things with him. You know what I mean. In the bedroom and all—it’s just that I can’t. I just can’t.” Connie stared into the depths of her teacup as if there were answers down there. “Every time Mark tries to touch me, all I can feel is that man’s hands on me, and—and—”



“Whoa…shhhhh, girl,” Val said, reaching over to squeeze her hand. “Don’t go there. Try to let it be. I understand what you’re going through. I’m still going through some of it myself.”



Connie looked at her, surprised. “You?”



“Uh huh. Nearly every night I see him in my dreams. Sometimes I wake up and imagine I can see him standing at my window. Pale, like a ghost. Scares hell out of me.”



With a shudder and a nod, Connie said, “Yes! That’s how I see him!”



Val laughed. “God, will you listen to us? We’re worse than a couple of Girl Scouts around a campfire.”



Connie tried on a smile, but it was too weak to hold. “I know…but I can’t help it.”



“Yeah, me neither, but I do remind myself that it’s just dreams…and dreams can’t hurt us. At least we have the satisfaction of knowing he’s dead.” Val stood up and gave Connie a quick hug and repeated, “He can’t hurt us.” She stepped back and smoothed her jeans. “Come on. Let’s take a walk. I need to get out of the house for a few minutes, catch the last of the sunshine.”



Connie looked doubtfully at the silent phone. “What if Mark calls?”



“Then he can damn well leave a message. Come on.”



(3)



Tow-Truck Eddie cruised the black road from Corn Hill all the way down to the Black Marsh Bridge and didn’t see a single kid on a bike. There were plenty of kids out, but they were older, mostly college kids in crowded cars heading out to the campus for the Little Halloween parties. No child on a bike, no Beast.



At the bridge he turned around and headed back to town. His frustration level was mounting, but as he drove the slow miles the voice in his head kept whispering one immensely powerful word, over and over.



Tonight! it said. Eddie’s hands held the steering wheel with a strangler’s grip.



(4)



Newton ran. It felt like ten miles to the light, but he ran. The roaches—some of them were actually leaping up at him—were piling over themselves in front of him, layer upon layer of them, and he had to plow shin-deep through them. Roaches were swarming up his pants legs—outside and inside—and as he ran he started slapping them off his clothes. One crawled down out of his hair and Newton screamed as shrilly as a little girl as he swatted it off his cheek. Suddenly Crow was there and he was reaching out with both hands to grab Newton and drag him into the patch of sunlight. Then he, too, was swatting and pawing at Newton, brushing away dozens of gleaming black bugs, knocking them down to the ground where they twitched and fled toward the shadows that surrounded them.



“Pants…pants!” Newton was yelling as he shook and danced in place and Crow grabbed his belt buckle, yanked it open, and then grabbed his pockets and pulled, tearing the cloth but also dragging Newton’s jeans down to his ankles. His legs were covered with roaches and as the sunlight touched them they leaped off and raced for shadows, while others scuttled up under the hems of Newton’s boxer shorts. Newton screamed when he felt them begin to crawl over his scrotum and try to wriggle between his buttocks. He tore off his boxers and danced a frantic jig and within seconds all of the insects had fallen off or been swatted away by his desperate hands. His legs were covered with tiny red marks from where some of the roaches had tried to bite through his skin. None of the bites had broken the skin, however, though Newton shuddered at the thought of what would have happened had the creatures had more than just a few seconds to gnaw at him.



They froze there—Crow with his chest heaving, eyes bugged out in terror, pants smeared to the knees with a paste made of insect guts and crushed shell, Newton with his pants and undershorts around his ankles, face white with shock. Around them in a circle thirty feet across the sea of roaches had come to a complete stop. Only their antennae twitched, but they did not move, did not mill around. They stood in their endless ranks and watched hungrily.



Crow stared at the insects for a moment and then slowly looked up at the cloudy sky. There were three beams of sunlight angling down and as he watched, a fourth broke through and its light touched the upper near corner of Griswold’s old house. It was still gloomy but the false sunset was ebbing. Just a bit. He looked at his watch. Sunset—real night—was less than an hour from now. “Newt,” he whispered. “Get dressed. Hurry up.”



Tears ran down through the dust and grime on Newton’s cheeks. “Crow—what’s happening?” There was a hysterical edge to Newton’s voice.



“The sunlight’s keeping them back, so might have a chance here…but you gotta be ready.”



The reporter looked at Crow, and then at the ring of light around them. The clouds were thinning and the circle of sunshine started expanding outward. Suddenly the insects began hissing again as they drew back away from it. “See!” Crow yelled in a voice filled with fierce triumph. “They can’t stand the light.”



“But…roaches always run when you turn on the light.”



Crow shook his head. “That’s because they don’t want to get stepped on…this is different. I don’t think they can abide the light.” It was a strange word to use and it hung there in the air, both of them aware of it and of what it implied.



Newton looked up at the sky. There were a dozen beams of light—the pillars of heaven, he thought, remembering the phrase from an old book. The pillars of heaven, and these little monsters can’t abide them. “No,” he whispered, but he meant yes.



Around them the gloom was visibly diminishing as the clouds above burned away. Now there was a big central column—heaven’s mainstay, Newton thought—and its light washed across the entire field. The sunlight, cold and raw with the humidity of a lurking storm, was still rich and pure and it washed over them and over the sea of roaches that instantly turned and fled in a swarm back toward the house. In thirty seconds every one of them was gone except the bugs that lay smashed and dead in the line from where they had first been attacked. How many had they killed? A thousand? Five thousand? It hadn’t made even a dent in the ocean of them there had been.



Newton suddenly became entirely self-conscious about the fact that he was standing there with his pants down and turned with an absurd stab at modesty away from Crow and pulled up his boxers and jeans—checking to make sure there were no roaches hiding in the folds—and zipped and buckled. As he slipped his belt through the last loop a huge shiver of absolute disgust shook him from head to toes and he took a step away from Crow and vomited into the brush. While he spit and gagged the forest seemed to tilt and sway around him.



“We’ve got less than an hour before sunset, Newt,” Crow said urgently. “We have to make it to the pitch long before then.”



Newton straightened, his face green and his eyes runny with tears from straining to empty his gut, and he stared at Crow for a long second, then looked up at the sky. The light was slanting down from an extreme angle as the sun slid toward the southern treeline. They would be in darkness long before the sun actually set on the region.



“Little bastards must have gone back into the house…don’t ask me how. Or why. But if they’re regrouping or some shit then it’s our cue to haul ass.”



They started running toward the forest and this time Newton ran as fast as Crow.



(5)



Vic punched the dashboard lighter in and when it popped he lit his cigarette and then handed it to Ruger. They smoked in silence for a long time, watching as the sun slipped below the treeline. Vic’s pickup was tucked back into a copse of trees, safe within shadows as dense as the bottom of a well. They could see the sun, but the rays did not penetrate even as far as the truck’s hood. Ruger’s ski mask, hat, and gloves were on the backseat. He wouldn’t need them again tonight. Vic looked at his wristwatch. “Sun’ll be down in ten minutes.”