Summer of Night (46 page)

There was more of a reaction.

The holy water made a sound like acid burning through meat. A line of holes appeared in the khaki fabric, stitching across the back of the Soldier's uniform like machine-gun bullets. The Soldier made a sound like a large animal dropped in scalding water, more hiss and gurgle than scream, and it arched backward, bending impossibly far, the back of its waxy head almost touching the heels of its combat boots. Boneless arms twisted and flailed like tentacles, the fingers ten inches long and bladed now.

Mike jumped back and flung the last of the contents of the bottle onto the thing's front.

There was the stench of sulfur, the front of the Soldier's tunic burst into green flame, and the creature rolled away at an impossible speed, writhing in postures impossible for a human skeleton to assume. Father Cavanaugh rolled free and lay retching against a headstone.

Mike stepped forward, realized that he had used the last of his holy water, and stopped five feet from the circle of junipers as the Soldier scrabbled into the darkness there, laid its face and forearms against the bare soil, and burrowed-sliding into the black dirt and dead needles there as easily as the maggots had burrowed into Father C."s flesh.

The Soldier was gone, out of sight in twenty seconds. Mike stepped closer, saw the raw-ridged tunnel there, smelled the sewage and decayed meat stench, and blinked as the tunnel folded in on itself and collapsed, becoming merely another depression of fresh-turned soil. He turned back to Father C.

The priest had reached his knees but was bent across the headstone, head down, vomiting repeatedly until there was nothing left to vomit. There was no sign of the slugs except for red marks on the priest's cheeks and chest-he had evidently ripped open his own shirt to find them. Between dry retches and gasps for air, the priest was whispering, "Oh, Jesus, Jesus, Jesus, Jesus." It was a litany.

Mike took a breath, stepped closer, and put his arm around the man.

Father Cavanaugh was weeping now. He allowed Mike to help him to his feet; he leaned on Mike as they staggered toward the gate of the cemetery.

It was quite dark now. The Popemobile was a dark shape beyond the black iron. Every breeze rustled leaves and the corn across the way and made Mike think of the sound of things sliding across the grass behind him, tunneling under the soil they walked on. He tried to get Father C. to hurry.

It was difficult to stay in contact with the priest-Mike imagined the brown-black slugs sliding through flesh from the other man to him-but Father C. could not stand alone.

They made the gate, the parking area. He tumbled Father Cavanaugh behind the steering wheel, ran around to get in, and leaned across the moaning man to lock the power doors and windows. Father C. had left the key in the ignition and now Mike turned it. The Popemobile started and Mike immediately switched on the lights, illuminating headstones and the clump of junipers thirty feet away. The tall cross at the back of the cemetery was beyond the reach of the lights.

The priest whispered something between labored gasps for air.

"What?" said Mike, having trouble breathing himself. Are those dark shapes moving in the cemetery? It was hard to tell.

"You'll… have to… drive," gasped Father Cavanaugh. He slumped sideways, blocking the seat.

Mike counted to three, unlocked the doors, and ran around to the driver's side, shoving the priest's moaning body aside as he set himself behind the wheel and locked the doors again. Something had been moving out there, near the storage shed at the back of the cemetery.

Mike had driven his dad's car a few times, and Father C. had let him steer the Popemobile down a grassy lane once when they were on a pastoral visit. Mike could hardly see over the Lincoln town car's high dashboard and hood, but his feet could reach the pedals. He thanked God that it was an automatic transmission.

Mike got the thing into gear, backed out onto County Six without looking for traffic, almost ran it into the ditch on the other side, and stalled it when he stopped too quickly. He smelled gasoline when he restarted it, but it roared to life quickly enough.

Shadows among the headstones, moving toward the gate.

Mike peeled out, throwing gravel thirty feet behind him as he roared down the steep hill, still accelerating over the Cave and up past the Black Tree, seeing only the darkness of the woods in his peripheral vision, almost not making the turn onto Jubilee Road, finally slowing as he realized that he was approaching the town water tower at seventy-eight miles per hour.

He crept through the dark streets of Elm Haven, sure that Barney or someone would see him and stop him, half wishing that they would. Father Cavanaugh lay silent and shivering on the front seat.

Mike shut off the engine and almost wept when he parked under the pole light alongside the rectory. He went around the other side to help Father C. out.

The priest was pale and feverish, eyes almost rolled up in his head under fluttering eyelids. The marks on his chest and cheeks looked like ringworm scars. They were livid in the harsh overhead light.

Mike stood shouting at the rectory door, praying that Mrs. McCafferty-the priest's housekeeper-was still waiting dinner on Father C. The porch lights came on and the short woman stepped out, face flushed, apron still on.

"Good heavens," she exclaimed, rough hands rising toward her face. "What on earth…" She glowered at Mike as if the boy had assaulted her young priest.

"He got sick," was all that Mike could say.

Mrs. McCafferty looked at Father C."s appearance, nodded once, and helped Mike get him up the stairs to his bedroom. Mike thought it was strange that this lady helped undress the priest, pulling on an old-fashioned nightshirt as the priest sat moaning on the edge of the bed, but then he figured that she was like a mother to Father C.

Finally the priest was under the clean sheets, moaning slightly, face filmed with sweat. Mrs. McCafferty had already taken his temperature-a hundred and three-and was mopping his face with damp washcloths. "What are these marks?" she asked, finger almost touching one of the ringworm crescents.

Mike shrugged, not trusting himself to talk. When she had been out of the room, he'd tugged up his shirt and checked his own chest, looking in the dresser mirror to make sure that there were no marks on his own face and neck. They burrowed right into him. The adrenaline rush of the battle was fading now, and Mike felt the nausea and slight vertigo of its aftermath.

"I'll call the doctor," said Mrs. McCafferty. "Not that Viskes fellow, but Doctor Staffney."

Mike nodded. Doctor Staffney did not have a local prac tice;-he was an orthopedic surgeon based at St. Francis Hospital in Peoria-but he was Catholic, sort of-Mike noticed him at Mass about twice a year-and Mrs. McM. didn't trust the Protestant Hungarian doctor.

"You'll stay," she said. It was not a question. She expected Mike to hang around to tell the doctor anything he could. The maggots burrowing under flesh.

Mike shook his head. He wanted to, but it was dark and his dad had to work the night shift starting tonight. Memo's home alone except for Mom and the girls. He shook his head again.

Mrs. McCafferty started to reprimand him, but he touched Father C."s hand-it was cold and clammy-and ran down the stairs and out into the night on shaky legs.

He was half a block away before he thought of something. Panting, close to tears, he jogged back to the rectory, went past it, and let himself in the side door of St. Malachy's. He picked up a clean linen altar cloth from the dressing room and went into the darkened sanctuary.

The interior of the church was warm and silent, smelling of incense from Masses long past, the red lights from the votive candles giving a soft illumination to the Stations of the Cross on the walls. Mike filled his plastic bottle from the font of holy water at the front entrance, genuflected, and approached the altar again.

He knelt there for a moment, knowing in his heart that what he was about to do had to be a mortal sin. He was not allowed to touch the Host with his hands even if it fell during Communion and Mike missed it with the small bronze plate he held beneath the communicant's chin. Only Father Cavan-augh-an ordained priest-was allowed to touch the wafer of bread once it was consecrated as the literal Body of Christ.

Mike said a silent Act of Contrition, climbed the steps, and removed a consecrated Eucharist from its closed and curtained alcove in the small sanctuary atop the altar. He genuflected again, said a short prayer, wrapped the Host in the clean linen, and put it in his pocket.

He ran all the way home.

Mike was headed for the back door when he heard a movement in the darkness behind the outhouse, near the chick-enhouse. He paused, heart pounding but emotions oddly numb. He took out the bottle of holy water and thumbed off the lid, holding it high.

There was movement in the darkness of the chickenhouse.

"Come on, goddamn you," whispered Mike, stepping closer. "Come on if you're coming."

"Hey, O'Rourke," came Jim Harlen's voice. "What the hell kept you?" A lighter flared and Mike could see the faces of Harlen, Kev, Dale, Lawrence, and Cordie Cooke. Even the girl's improbable presence did not surprise him. He stepped into the darkened shed.

Harlen's lighter flicked off and would not relight. Mike let his eyes adjust to the dark.

"You're not going to believe what's been happening," began Dale Stewart, voice taut.

Mike smiled, knowing they couldn't see the smile in the dark. "Try me," he whispered.

TWENTY-FIVE

The boys left for Duane's farm in the morning. They were all on bikes, and there was some nervousness about the ride, but Mike suggested a strategy if the Rendering Truck appeared: half go into the fields on the north side of the road, half on the south. It had been Harlen who said, "Duane was in a field. They got him."

No one had a better idea.

It had been Dale's idea to go out to Duane's farm. They'd talked for over an hour in the chickenhouse on Sunday night, each person telling a story. The rule was that nobody keep any secrets if it had to do with the weird goings-on this summer. Each story seemed stranger than the last, ending with Mike's, but nobody challenged anybody else or called anyone crazy.

"Okey-dokey," Cordie Cooke had said at last,"we heard what everybody had to say. Some goddamn somebody's killed my brother and your friend an's tryin' to kill the rest of us. Whatta we do?"

There'd been general babble at that point. It was Kevin who said, "How come you guys didn't tell the grown-ups?"

"I did!" said Dale. "I told your dad there was something awful in the basement."

"He found a dead cat."

"Yeah, but that's not what I saw…"

"I believe you," said Kevin,"but why didn't you tell him and your mom that it was Tubby Cooke. His body, I mean. Sorry, Cordie."

"I seen him too," said Cordie.

"So why didn't you tell?" Kev asked Dale. "Or you, Jim. Why didn't you show Barney and Dr. Staffney the evidence?"

Harlen hesitated. "I guess I thought they'd think I was nuts, and put me away somewhere. It didn't make any sense. When I said it was just an intruder, they paid attention."

"Yeah," said Dale. "Look, I just got a little crazy in the basement and my mom was ready to send me to a child psychologist in Oak Hill. Think of what she'd've done if I'd…"

"I told my ma," Cordie said softly.

There was a silence in the dark shed while everyone waited.

"She believed me," said Cordie." "Course, the next night, she saw Tubby's corpse alurchin' around the yard, too."

"What'd she do about it?" asked Mike.

Cordie had shrugged. "What could she do about it? She told my old man, but he hit her and told her to shut up. She keeps the little kids inside at night and bars the door. What else can she do? She thinks it's Tubby's spirit tryin' to come home. Ma growed up in the south and heard a lot of them nigger stories about spooks."

Dale winced at the word 'nigger." No one said anything for a minute. Finally Harlen said, "Look, O'Rourke, you told someone. See what good that did."

Mike had sighed. "At least Father C. knows what's going on."

"Yeah, if he doesn't die of worms in his insides," said Harlen.

"Shut up.” Mike had paced back and forth.”I know what you guys mean. My dad believed me when I said there was some guy peeping in our window. If I told him it was an old boyfriend of Memo's, coming back from the cemetery, my dad'd think I was nuts. He'd never believe me."

"We need proof," said Lawrence.

Everyone looked at him in the darkness. Lawrence hadn't spoken since he described the thing from the closet that had run under his bed.

"What do we know?" said Kevin in that little-professor voice of his.

"We know you're a dipshit," volunteered Harlen.

"No, shut up, he's right," said Mike. "Let's think. Who are we fighting?"

"Your soldier," said Dale. "Unless you killed it with your sacred water."

"Holy water," said Mike. "Uh-uh, it wasn't dead… I mean destroyed… I could tell that. He's still out there somewhere." Mike stood and looked through the window toward the house.

"It's OK," Dale said softly. "Your mom and sisters are still up. Your grandma's all right."

Mike nodded. "The Soldier," he said, as if ticking off a list.

"Roon," said Cordie. "That piss-ant."

"Are we sure Roon's in on it?" asked Harlen from the dark mass of the couch.

"Yep," said Cordie. There was no arguing with that tone of voice.

"The Soldier and Roon," said Mike. "Who else?"

"Van Syke," said Dale. "Duane was fairly sure it'd been Van Syke who tried to run him down on the road."

"Maybe it was him who finally got him at home," said Harlen.

Dale made a pained sound from where he sat against the old console radio.

"Roon, the Soldier, Van Syke," said Mike.

"Old Double-Butt and Mrs. Duggan," Harlen said in a strained voice.

"Duggan's like Tubby sort of," said Kevin. "It may be some thing that's being used. We don't know about Mrs. Doubbet."

"I saw them," snapped Harlen. "Together."

Mike paced back and forth. "All right. Old Double-Butt's either one of them or with them."

"What's the difference?" asked Kevin from the back corner.

"Shut up," said Mike, still pacing. "We've got the Soldier, Van Syke, Roon, the Duggan thing, Mrs. Doubbet… who're we forgetting?"

"Terence," said Cordie. Her voice was so soft they could hardly hear her.

"Who?" asked five voices.

"Terence Mulready Cooke," she said. "Tubby."

"Oh, yeah," said Mike. He ticked off the names again, adding Tubby. "That's at least six of them. Who else?"

"Congden," said Dale.

Mike stopped pacing. "J.P. or his kid C. J.?"

Dale shrugged. "Maybe both."

"I don't think so," said Harlen. "At least with C. J. He's too stupid. His old man hangs around Van Syke, but I don't think he's part of whatever's going on."

"We'll put J. P. on the list," said Mike,"until we know. All right, that's at least seven of them. Some of them are human. Some of them are…"

"Dead," furnished Dale. "Things they're using somehow."

"Oh, Jesus Christ," whispered Harlen.

"What?"

" "What if they have Duane McBride come back like Tubby? What if his corpse comes scratching at our windows like Tubby's did?"

"Can't," said Dale. He could barely speak. "His dad cremated the remains."

"You sure?" asked Kevin.

"Yeah."

Mike moved to the centerof the circle and crouched there. "So what do we do?" he whispered.

Dale broke the silence. "I think Duane had figured something out. That's why he wanted to meet with us that Saturday."

Harlen cleared his throat. "But he's…"

"Yes," said Dale. "But you remember how Duane was always writing stuff down?"

Mike snapped his fingers. "His notebooks! But how're we going to get them?"

"Let's go now," said Cordie. "It's not even ten yet."

There was a chorus of reasons no one could go that night. All of them valid-Mike had to stay with Memo, Harlen's mother would skin him if he didn't get home soon, after he had made her stay home, Kevin was out after curfew as it was, and Dale was still on the sick list at home. No one mentioned the real reason they couldn't go then. It was dark.

"Chickenshits," said Cordie.

"We'll go early tomorrow," said Dale. "Eight at the latest."

"All of us?" said Harlen.

"Why not. They might think twice about jumping us if we're all together. The things are always trying to get us alone. Look at what happened to Duane."

"Yeah," said Harlen. "Or maybe they're just waiting for us to get together in one lump."

Mike ended the debate. "We'll go together in the morning. But only one of us will go up to the house. The rest of us will stand watch and help if we need to."

Cordie cleared her throat and spat on the wood floor. "There's one other thing," she said.

"What's that?"

"I mean, really, one other thing. At least one."

"What the fuck are you talking about, Cooke?" asked Harlen.

Cordie shifted in the sprung armchair. The barrels of the shotgun shifted with her until they were pointed in Jim Harlen's general direction. "Don't go giving me none of your profane mouth," she said to him "What I mean is I seen somethin' else. Somethin' movin' in the ground near the house."

"The Soldier disappeared in the ground," said Mike.

"Uh-uh. This'n was big… longer'n any person… sorta like a snake or somethin'."

The kids looked at each other in the dim light.

"Under the ground?" said Harlen.

"Yep."

"The holes…" Dale said to no one in particular. The idea of something else, something they hadn't seen yet, made him sick to his stomach.

"Maybe it's like the thing that went under my bed," suggested Lawrence.

Dale had heard the conversation from a distance at that point, as if he were eavesdropping on talk in an insane asylum. And he was one of the inmates.

"It's settled," said Mike. "We meet tomorrow at eight to go to Duane's house and see if he left any notes that could help us."

No one had wanted to go home alone in the dark. They'd left in clusters, hanging together as long as they could until one by one they'd run for porch lights and the light behind screen doors. In the end, only Cordie Cooke had gone off in the darkness alone.

Mike pedaled to keep up with the group. As early as it was, the day was very hot, the sky cloudless, and small mirages and heat ripples were rising from the long gravel road ahead of them. And Mike was tired.

He'd been up with Memo much of the night, sneaking down after his mother was asleep. He'd sprinkled some of the holy water on the window frame, although he had no idea if that would help. Did the effect wear off when the water dried up? At any rate, there'd been no visitor in the night, and only one time that Mike had startled himself awake at what might have been a sound from beneath the house and might as easily have been the house settling. The chorus of crickets and buzz of cicadas had been quite loud through the screens, and Mike seemed to remember silence descending before he saw the Soldier at the window before.

Mike had delivered his papers on time, yawning from his hour or two of snatched sleep, and then rushed to the rectory to see Father C. before Mass.

There was no Mass said today. Mrs. McCafferty had hushed Mike and moved the conversation from the rectory kitchen to the back step; the priest was very ill; Dr. Staffney had recommended total bed rest and hospitalization if Father C. weren't better by Tuesday. In the meantime, said the housekeeper, Father Dinmen, the assistant pastor at St. Bona-venture's in Oak Hill, had agreed to come say morning Mass on Wednesday. Mike was to tell the parishioners.

Mike argued that he had to see Father C, that it was extremely urgent, but Mrs. McCafferty had been unrelenting. Perhaps that evening if the Father were feeling better.

So Mike had stayed around the church long enough to inform the half dozen or so elderly parishioners and to restock on holy water-he'd brought his canteen this time, and emptied one of the fonts into it-and then he was off to meet Dale and the others.He had his doubts about going back to the McBride farm-it meant passing the cemetery for one thing-but the bright sunlight and presence of the four other boys made it hard to say no. Besides, Dale might be right: perhaps Duane had left some clue for them.

They pulled the bikes into the cornfield right at the entrance to the McBride driveway and went forward on foot, stopping at the last row of corn and peering at the McBride farm. The house was dark and silent. They couldn't see Mr. McBride's pickup in the lot anywhere, and the barn holding the combine and other equipment was shut and sealed; they could see the heavy padlock and chain on the door.

"I think he's gone," whispered Harlen. The ride out and crouching run through the corn seemed to have worn the smaller boy out; Harlen's face was pale and sheened with sweat. He scratched at his sling and cast every other minute. The heat was worse now, pressing down on the fields like a hot fist.

"Don't bet on it," whispered Mike. "Can I look through those?" he asked Kev, who'd thought to bring his binoculars.

"Let's have a drink," hissed Harlen and reached for the canteen slung over Mike's shoulder.

Mike pulled it away. "Lawrence has a water bottle. Get some of his."

"Greedy asshole," whispered Harlen and made beckoning motions toward Lawrence. Dale's brother shook his head but pulled the plastic bottle from the small Cub Scout pack he was wearing.

"I don't see anything," said Mike, handing the binoculars to Dale. "But we've got to think that he's in there."

Dale took the water bottle from Harlen. After rinsing his mouth out and spitting into the dusty soil, he peered between the cornstalks again. "I'll go in."

Mike shook his head. "We'll all go."

"No," said Dale. "It makes sense that I'd come out. And if there's trouble, I want you guys out here ready to help."

"I'll help," whispered Harlen and pulled a small pistol from the depths of his sling.

"Jesus," hissed Dale. "Is that real?"

"Wow," said Lawrence, leaning closer.

"Oh, shit," sighed Kevin. "Don't point that thing my direction."