Authors: Jonathan Maberry
“Sounds like a plan.” Crow cleared his throat again.
“And stop clearing your goddamn throat.”
“Well, dude, cut me a break. My best friend is going crackers on me and I have no freaking clue about what to say or what to do.”
Terry looked at him and for a moment a smile softened the worry lines on his face. “Being my best friend is doing a lot, believe me.”
“Pardon me while I say nothing during the awkward pause that has to follow that kind of statement.”
Terry threw a small pillow at him; Crow ducked. “I really didn’t come here to discuss my lost marbles,” he said. “I think there’s something wrong with Saul.”
“
You
think there’s something wrong with someone else?” Which made Terry grin again. Crow liked to see it. “But I know what you mean. Coupla times we
almost
had a conversation about something, but each time we get right up to it he gets spooked and bugs out.”
“Saul’s gotten really withdrawn the last couple of days. Skipped dinner last night, and those plans were made weeks ago, and blew me off again for lunch today. I talked to Rachel and she says he’s acting weird at home, too. He’s all paranoid, jumps at his own shadow. I just think something’s wrong with him.”
“You think he’s sick?”
“If I had to guess, I’d say he was more scared than sick, and believe I know the signs and symptoms.”
“Scared? Of what?”
“I don’t know.”
“Maybe he’s seeing ghosts, too,” Crow said.
Terry shot him a look. “That a joke?”
“No—hard as it is to believe. At Henry’s funeral Saul asked me if I believed in ghosts.”
“What’d you tell him?”
“Just what you’d expect me to tell him, that of course I believed in ghosts. Let’s face it, big mon, I kind of believe in everything.”
“All this seems to have started around the time the whole Ruger-Boyd thing got going. Did he say why he was asking about ghosts?”
“No. Not yet, anyway. Maybe this is not about ghosts, bro. Maybe this is like some kind of mass hysteria. Like a town wide case of post-traumatic stress disorder. With the blight, the Ruger thing…everyone’s genuinely freaked, and for good reason. Happy suburbia doesn’t really prepare folks for this kind of stuff.”
“No kidding. Really?”
Crow grinned. He sipped his tea and said, “Terry…there’s something else I want to talk to you about. You know that reporter, Newton from Black Marsh? The one you hate?”
“How could I forget?”
“Well, he’s working on a feature piece about the town’s haunted history, hoping to sell it to one of the Sunday color supplements like
Parade
. Anyway, he came out to the farm the other day and interviewed me and Val, and…well, I decided to tell him all about the summer of ’76. Everything…including about Griswold.”
Terry dropped his teacup and it shattered on the floor, spattering his trouser cuffs.
(6)
“How’d he take it?” Val asked.
Crow was stretched out on his couch, alone in his apartment. Through the door he could hear Mike talking to a customer, but inside the room was quiet. Muddy Whiskers was curled into a warm ball against his hip. “It could have gone better. First he just sat there in stunned silence for like a minute, minute and a half—and then he started yelling. Called me stupid, called me an insensitive asshole, called me a few other words that a week ago I would have bet a thousand dollars that he didn’t even
know
, and then he stormed out.”
“Smooth,” she said. “They should send you to the Middle East to see if you can work your magic there. Is he even speaking to you?”
“He’ll get over it.”
“I guess. Before that happened, he was opening up about his dreams and all that. He’s a mess, Val, but at least he’s seeing a doc, and he’s able to discuss it with me. He said that when the season is over he’s going to take Sarah and the kids to the islands for a long vacation.”
“At least that sounds hopeful rather than crazy.” She sighed. “Everyone’s under a lot of pressure right now. Mark is still acting like a jerk and Connie spends half the day crying. I’m embarrassed to say it, but they’re both starting to get on my nerves. I’d rather be alone here than have to babysit them. I do have my own stuff to deal with right now.”
“I know you do, babe. Which is why I have something planned for tonight.”
“Tonight? I told you that I had a Growers Association meeting tonight. I won’t be getting home until after eight.”
“Eight’s good.”
“What’s the plan? And don’t tell me there’s a
Twilight Zone
marathon on—”
“Nope, but it is a secret. You go to your meeting and I’ll see you at home.”
After she’d hung up, Crow folded his phone and laid it on his chest as he stared at the ceiling, thinking about Terry and Weinstock, Mark and Connie. And Val. Always about Val.
Ubel Griswold sends his regards.
It popped into his head like a firecracker and he jumped, sitting up so fast that his cat tumbled to the floor and howled in surprise and fury and his cell phone bounced off the floor and then skittered under the couch. All at once the immense reality of what he was planning to do on Friday hit him like a fist. Friday morning—just three days from now—he was going to be going down the long slope from the Passion Pit, deep into the darkness of Dark Hollow, and through the woods to try and find the house of Ubel Griswold. On Friday the 13th.
“Jesus Christ,” he said.
(1)
Crow went back in to the store and worked for a few hours while Mike sat behind the counter and finished his homework, a paper on Ray Bradbury’s
Fahrenheit 451.
Crow used the time to make a battery of phone calls related to the big Halloween celebration. He called the Dead In Drive-in to make sure all of the films had been ordered, and then called Ken Foree, the star of the original
Dawn of the Dead
, and went over the itinerary for the presentation he’d be giving. Then he called Brinke Stevens and chatted amiably with the “scream queen” about the talk she would be giving after the screening of a couple of her films. Then he made a conference call to his two webmasters, David Kramer and Geoff Strauss, to remind them to post only PG-13 versions of Brinke Stevens’s publicity shots on the Hayride’s Web site—not the versions the two of them had downloaded and e-mailed to him. They were crushed, but Crow reminded them that the Hayride was a family attraction, after all.
He made a call to Pittsburgh and talked with Tom Savini, and went over the budget for the makeup effects workshop he was giving at the college. Savini was going to have the workshop students do full-on monster makeup so that the whole class would look like flesh-eating zombies. The materials were expensive, but every seat had already been booked and he asked Savini to consider doing a second workshop the following day. Pine Deep was going to
own
Halloween, no doubt of that.
When he was done with his calls, he ordered pizza delivery and when it arrived, Mike saved his file, shut down his laptop, and the two of them taunted each other with science fiction trivia while they plowed through double-pepperoni, onion rings, and large Cokes. Customers came and went, waited on by both of them, their mouths puffed out like chipmunks around big bites of pizza.
Munching the last onion ring, Crow strolled outside for some air. Corn Hill was crammed with cars as Tuesday afternoon faded into evening and the after-work crowd mingled with a fresh tide of tourists. There was laughter everywhere and music coming from at least three bars, the happy sounds spilling out into the street. It was dark, but the street was alight with neon and the glow from hundreds of store windows. Crow leaned against the wall by his door and watched the crowd as he chewed. He took his cell phone out of his pocket and punched in the number for Saul Weinstock. It was answered on the third ring.
“Crow! I’m so glad you finally called.”
“I tried earlier but you were in a meeting, and then I got busy at the store. So, what’s the big thing you want to tell me? You’re acting very weird these days.”
“A lot of things are very weird these days,” Weinstock said softly.
“Oh good, you’re being even more cryptic.”
“Look, I need to run a few things by you. Can you come over tomorrow?”
“Can’t…I’m taking a reporter down into Dark Hollow tomorrow. He’s doing a story on the Reaper Murders and I—”
“You’re
what
?”
Crow explained, but Weinstock replied with a huge sigh. “You’re a moron sometimes, Crow. Jesus H. Christ. Look, I need to see you. Soon.”
“Okay. How about tomorrow night?”
“‘Night’?” Weinstock echoed. “No, I don’t think that would be good. Can you meet me at my office Saturday morning? Say, nine?”
“Sure.”
“Good. And, Crow…be careful down there. I mean it…really careful.” With that he hung up.
Crow looked at his phone “Everyone in this town is freaking nuts!”
He went back inside. The store was empty of customers and Mike was perched on the stool behind the counter just staring off into space, his eyes half-closed like a mystic in a trance, and Crow had to snap his fingers a couple of times to shake the kid out of it.
“You’re not getting weird on me, too, are you?” he said with a smile, and though Mike smiled back and shook his head, there was an odd distant and dreamy quality about him that dissipated slowly over the next hour. Crow didn’t like that, either.
At five-thirty Crow pulled on his jacket and fished for his car keys from under the counter, shooting Mike a quick glance. The kid seemed to be back to his own self again, with no trace of the odd distance in his eyes. Even so, Crow lingered at the door and said, “I’m heading out to Val’s. You going to be okay closing up tonight?”
“Sure,” Mike said brightly. “I’m on it.”
“You’re sure?”
“Yeah?” Mike asked, surprised. “Why ask?”
Crow smiled and shook his head. “Just making sure I didn’t work you too hard earlier. I threw a lot of stuff at you today. Maybe we worked out too hard…?”
“No, I’m cool. It was fun.” His smile began a little lopsided. “Kind of.”
“Okay. But if you feel tired or sick or anything, give me a call.”
“Yesss, massster,” Mike said in his best Igor lisp.
(2)
When Terry left Crow’s apartment he had not gone directly back to his office. Instead he turned and headed the opposite way up Corn Hill, needing the simple mechanical exertion of walking to calm his nerves. Talking with Crow had neither calmed him down nor amused him as it often did. Crow was too deeply situated in what was going on—and what had gone on in 1976—to be of use as a diversion. Damn him.
It was late afternoon and the sky was thickening from pale blue to a darker purple and there was a promise of frost in the air. The Growers Association meeting was starting in a few minutes, and Terry had to be there, though God only knew what good it would do. What could
he
tell them that they didn’t already know? The blight was slackening, sure, but that was only because it had already done just about as much damage as it could. There was very little left to destroy. Why in hell they needed him to tell them that they were all going down the crapper was beyond him. Damn them, too.
Damn all of them.
He quickened his pace despite the heavy crowds of tourists and there was such a look on his face that the seas of people parted before him. Even so there were too many people for his needs, so he veered sharply to the right and went down Steadman’s Alley, which only had one store, and that only sold furniture, so the crowds were gone. Just a few stragglers looking for the main drag and a car or two looking for parking. At the first corner he turned again and was now walking behind the fenced yards of the stores and houses on Corn Hill. He passed Crow’s yard and saw that Crow had hung his heavy bag out there. Tough-guy Crow with all his jujutsu nonsense. Damn and blast him.
At the end of Crow’s yard he stopped, and turned and looked away from the line of fences up toward the fields beyond and the mountains that rose so powerfully to the southeast. Three tall tree-covered peaks—not tall enough to be snowcapped except in winter—but impressive and lovely against the darkening sky. Lovely to most, but not to him. Terry found them loathsome. Hateful. He stretched out his hand and the magicians of distance and perspective made his hand as great as the hand of God and the mountains were tiny mounds of dirt that he could just gather together in his fist and crush into dust. If only he could do that for real; if only it was within his power to take those mountains and what lay at their feet and crush it all to nothingness. With that one act he could, he was certain, wipe away thirty years of nightmares and pain. Of course, with godlike powers he could just roll back those thirty years and have kept the terror from ever coming near his family. If only. Terry lowered his arm and bowed his head and tried to fit his mind around the idea that Crow was really going to go out there in a couple of days. Out
there
. To where
he
used to live.
“Insane,” he murmured and his voice broke on the word and he had to clamp a hand to his mouth to keep from screaming. He had tried to reason with Crow, had argued, had even yelled, but the idiot wouldn’t budge from his plan.
“I need to do this,” Crow had said over and over again.
“What do you hope to accomplish by going out there? He’s dead!”
“I
need
to do this.”
“Damn it, Crow—Griswold’s dead!” Terry had roared and had then gasped and actually staggered as if saying that name was a punch to his own head. When had he spoken that name before? How long had it been? The name burned his throat like bile. He felt like his lips and tongue should have been blistered for having said it.
Now, half an hour later, he stood with his back to Crow’s yard and stared at the mountains that loomed up like evil djinn above the shadowy corruption of Dark Hollow, and as he stood there he said it again. Not in anger this time, but to himself, and in a pleading tone intended to convince a disbelieving jury.
“Griswold’s dead.” Thirty years dead, and damn him to hell.
“No,” she said, “he’s not dead.”
The voice came from behind him, but he didn’t turn; instead Terry buried his face in his hands, not wanting to see the blood-splattered ghost of his sister.
(3)
Weinstock had all of the information spread out in front of him. Videotapes from the morgue security cameras and from his clandestine second autopsy of Castle and Cowan, blood work and labs on both officers, photos and additional lab work on a half dozen other patients, mostly older folks who had passed on over the last few days. He still didn’t have the reports from the independent labs in New York and Philly, but they were due tomorrow and he already knew what they would say. He had reports from two attendings and one intern in his own hospital for patients who had died, and reports and some lab work from primary care physicians who had reported deaths from among their patients throughout the region. Since he was the assistant county coroner, these reports routinely passed through his office and he had started doing database searches. There were a surprising number of heart attacks, and of those there were five fatalities. A whole family was wiped out in a house fire. Seven people had died in car accidents—a high number even with the increased amount of tourist traffic. Two deaths from industrial accidents, two farm-related fatalities. The local papers even remarked on it, ascribing the deaths to carelessness due to the stress of recent events, plus tension-related heart attacks. That sort of thing. It was on the radar, but no one was seeing it for what it was.
Why would they? He could not actually tie these deaths in with Castle and Cowan, and ordinarily no connection would ever have been made, even by him. Now, however, he was looking for that connection, grouping any recent death under the umbrella of his suspicions. Since completing the autopsies on the two officers, and reading the resulting reports from the labs, Saul Weinstock had created a very strange picture of what had happened at the Guthrie farm, and with each day he was adding more information to that picture, expanding it into bizarre areas and at the same time making it more clear—but clear in a way that was patently impossible.
If ever there was a time for a second opinion, this was it—but who could he consult? Who on earth would even listen long enough to his suspicions to hear it all the way through? Terry was out of the question.
He looks worse than I feel
, Weinstock thought, then for no logical reason wondered:
Does he know? Does Terry already know about this? Is that why he’s so stressed out lately?
He thought about it, and then dismissed the idea. Terry had been showing signs of stress since long before Ruger and Boyd had come to town, and as far as he could tell that’s when all of this had started. Was it something those bastards brought to town? Who else could he tell? Crow wasn’t available until Saturday morning, but at least he would listen, so there was that to hold on to. As for the rest…well, Gus Bernhardt was a fool. Rachel? Could he tell her about this? No, probably not. Rachel would think that he was suffering from some kind of stress-related paranoia, and several times a day he wondered if maybe that was indeed the case. It would certainly be the best possible solution, because then he could just take a few weeks off and take the kids to Disney. But…no. This wasn’t something he could run away from. Not if he was even only partly right about what was happening, and he knew that he was certainly right about some of it.
So what was the solution, then? If he brought it to his medical colleagues, how would they react? Weinstock tried to put himself in the frame of mind of someone else, a doctor like Bob Colbert who was great with a scalpel but had little imagination. Would Bob believe, even after all the evidence?
“No,” he said aloud, and he knew that was true because too much of the evidence was speculation, and almost all of it could have been faked. Even the video. If they can make horror movies with special effects, then some clever kids at the film department at Pinelands could cook this up, and in Pine Deep elaborate Halloween pranks were run of the mill. Same with the tissue samples. Some jackass orderly or a nurse with a twisted sense of humor could have taken skin samples from a corpse in one of the anatomy classes and put it under the fingernails of Nels Cowan. It would be sick, but it wouldn’t be difficult.
The wounds on the officers’ throats could either be explained away as bites by a dog or other animal who happened onto the murder scene before the cops secured it. The fact that the skin bruising showed that some of the bites had been inflicted while the officers were still alive meant something, but could still be explained by animal attack. A dog or bear drawn by the scent of blood, biting the officers while they lay dying—it was a stretch, sure, but it was a hell of a lot more plausible than what Weinstock was thinking, and he knew that’s where Bob Colbert would go. As would any medical professional, and Weinstock knew that if he made the case and was not believed then his reputation, his career, and his job would be shot to hell, along with any chance he had of ever convincing anyone of the truth.
If it was the truth, and the more he played devil’s advocate with it, trying to see it from the outside, the shakier his own assumptions were becoming. “If you assume…” he murmured. So, where did that leave him? If every bit of the evidence, separately, could be disproved or cast into doubt, then what did he really have to make his case?