The Collected Horrors of Tim Wellman (26 page)

There was a swishing sound, only one, but it was
all that was needed. The large machete Mildred was holding had done
its job, slicing cleanly through the old man's neck. The loud thump
of his head hitting the floor caused the brothers to run up the
stairs faster, just in time to get out of the way of the
decapitated body falling backwards and rolling back into the
basement.

"Well shit, now I have to walk all the way back
down there to get the formula out of his pocket," Jonathan said.
"Nice job, Mildred. I often wonder where this family would be
without you."

"In shallow graves, probably," she said with a
smile. "I'll get some of the staff to get rid of the body. What's
one more added to the pile?"

Sylvia stood smiling, her eyes darting back and
forth between the brothers and the dismembered head at her feet.
Steven looked at Jonathan and they both nodded. "Go ahead."

She dropped to her knees and began sucking the
bloody stump of a neck, pulling veins out with her teeth. She was
humming an old church hymn, the one her father used to sing.

"I'll get the formula," Steven said, barely
audible above the slurping sounds at his feet. "She's not normal...
even when she's normal."

"But at least she asks first," Jonathan said.
"We can handle a well-behaved monster."

The Legend Of Julie
Black

She had turned six years old the day before and
after the usual party and shopping spree at Beechum's five-and-dime
store, Sally Ann Moore was finally allowed to visit the Clatterbox
Diner for the first time in her life. She had reached the age; six
was determined many generations before in her family to be the age
when a child could act mature enough to be among adults in an adult
place.  Her mother tugged the stainless steel bar across the
door and with a good bit of effort against the hydraulic closer,
pulled the door open as a blast of air-conditioned air hit them
both.

"Okay, now remember," her mother said. "You're a
big girl, now. Act like it!"

"There she is!" Minnie was behind the counter,
wiping it down for probably the hundredth time that day. "Hey there
birthday girl!"

It was all the color that hit Sally first:
bright red and white vinyl seats and booths, black and white
checkered floor, chrome and polished metal everywhere, reflecting
everything like funhouse mirrors. Even the cigarette machine was a
marvel of modern design with blue and yellow enameled patterns over
the shiniest metal she had ever seen, and red knobs and the colors
of twenty different brands lined up through the large glass
display. There was too much to take in and she realized as she
looked over the people eating lunch that she had entered a
completely different world. If this was the adult world, she wanted
it, and wanted it now.

"Just slide over next to the window," her mother
said as she pointed to an empty booth.

"Don't we have to order first?" she said.

"No, Minnie will come and take our order," her
mother said. She pulled a laminated menu out of the napkin rack and
ran her finger down the list.

"Oh." It was nothing like a fast food
restaurant; eating in a diner was serious business.

"I'm going to have the roast beef with mashed
potatoes and green beans."

"No hamburgers?" Sally said.

"You have hamburgers all the time, they have
real
food here," she said. "So, you want roast beef,
Salisbury steak, or fried chicken?" She continued to read over the
menu.

"We got chicken and dumplings today, too,"
Minnie said as she walked toward their booth. "It's good, too, I
been sampling it all morning! Aunt Bonnie came in early this
mornin' and put it on for us."

"Well, I've changed my mind, then," her mother
said. "I'll have that with mashed potatoes and green beans. What
about you, Sally?"

There were too many choices and she was starting
to panic. "Uh..." She looked at her mother. "Can I have chicken and
dumplings, too?"

"Of course," her mother said.

"All righty, then," Minnie said. "What ya want
to drink?" She smiled and looked at Sally. "I'm just talkin' to you
because I know what your mom wants, black coffee, so strong ya have
to eat it with a spoon."

"Can I have pop?" She looked at her mother and
she nodded. "Orange pop?"

"You got it, sweetie. I'll bring out your
drinks." Minnie walked away and Sally looked at her mother. She was
seeking some affirmation that she had done well.

"Stop being so nervous," she whispered. "You've
seen all these people your entire life."

"I know, but I have to act like an adult here,"
she said.

"No you don't," her mother said. "Just act like
well-behaved kid."

"Hey Mary." A man's voice from across the diner
broke the relative drone of clanging cutlery and small talk. "You
tell her about the ghost of Julie Black, yet?"

"No," her mother said. "And don't you go
starting stuff about it again, either, Steve."

"Oh, come on," he said. "She needs to know all
the town secrets since she's a big girl, now. Besides, ya cain't
come in here and leave without hearin' the story."

"Ghost?" Sally said. She smiled. "Like a
real
ghost?"

"Don't you start, either!" her mother said.
"It's just some rumor that got started a long time ago to get more
customers."

"Except it backfired and chased most of the
customers away," Minnie said as she sat their drinks on the table.
"Charlie Rayburn owned the place back then and my aunt was doin' my
job."

"I seen it with my own eyes," Steve said as he
walked toward them. "I was here when Charlie saw it, too."

"Don't let him scare you, sweetie," Minnie said.
"You know most of the men in this town are so full of hot air we
don't need 'em to be minin' coal. Just use
them
ta heat our
houses."

"Oh, he's not scaring her," Mary said. "She eats
this sorta thing up. Loves ghosts and scary movies and stuff. Has a
stack of picture books tall as she is about all that stuff, stuff I
can't even look at without feeling sick."

"Oh, well," Minnie said. She slid into the booth
next to Sally and nudged the child with her elbow. "Them stories is
real. Julie Black was killed right over there by the old jukebox.
There's a bullet hole from goin' straight through her heart and
lodging right in the record spinner." She pointed toward the back
wall of the diner. "You can go check. No one has dared to change
the records since that night... they're all from the fifties."

Sally turned quickly and looked at her mother
with the biggest, saddest eyes she could muster. Her entire face
was screaming 'please!'. Her mother nodded. "Go on, you can look,"
she said. "But make it quick, the food will be here soon."

Minnie had barely stood up when Sally squeezed
by her and literally ran to the old music box. By the time Minnie
got there, the young girl was standing on he toes, her face and
hands pressed against the glass, looking down into the
mechanism.

"See there?" she said. "A bunch a old rockabilly
and whiny-assed country songs from twenty years ago. We still keep
it plugged in now 'cause all the lights look so pretty, but it
don't play at all."

Sally nodded. She really couldn't read many of
the words on the forty-five that was still on the platter, but it
looked old enough. "The bullet is still in there?" she said, barely
above a whisper.

"Yep," Minnie said. "They say if you walk by
here at the witchin' hour, 3:00am, some nights you can still hear
that record playin', and then a gunshot and the music stops. And
look here." She tapped Sally on the shoulder with the back of her
hand and Sally looked around and followed the waitress's extended
arm down to the floor. "That there spot on the floor is her
blood."

Everyone in the diner had gathered around,
including Sally's mother who was casually holding her cup of coffee
and trying not to be sucked into Minnie's story. It was difficult
because with years of practice, she had learned to tell it so well.
"Or paint," she said.

"No matter how many times it gets cleaned up,
the stain keeps comin' back."

"Or someone keeps repainting it," her mother
said.

"You're taking the fun out of it, Mary," one of
the men said. "That's why Barry left ya, ya's just a stick in the
mud."

"I thought it was because he wore himself out on
your wife," Mary said.

Sally was listening. People in diners had adult
conversations, some apparently even got
killed
. "Who killed
her? Who killed Julie Black?"

"Well, all anybody really knows is it was a man
in a black leather jacket and sunglasses," Minnie said. "Just came
in, she jumped up and tried to run, and he nailed her right in the
back with a single shot."

"Yeah, yeah, Elvis did it," Mary said.

"Hey Minnie, food's up!" Bonnie yelled from the
kitchen.

"Oh, y'all needs ta eat while it's hot," she
said and slipped behind the counter and grabbed the plates through
the kitchen window.

Sally's mother put her hands on the girl's
shoulders and pulled her away from the scene of the crime and back
to their booth just as Minnie sat the tray on the table. "Now, if
ya can't eat all of this, let me know and I'll put it in a
Styrofoam tray for you to take home." She pointed to Sally's glass.
"Drink that last bit and I'll get you a refill."

She watched Minnie walk away and noticed her
mother was rubbing her fork between her fingers. She decided to do
the same, then plunged it into the stiff mashed potatoes and took a
bite. It was good, better than her mom could make, better than she
had ever tasted. A bite of dumplings brought the same judgment.
Diner food was amazing!

"Mom," she whispered. "Did that really happen?
Julie Black getting killed?"

Her mother nodded. "I know that part is real
because I was a little girl back then and can remember it. We lived
across the street, up there in the apartment over the Sew Right
shop, though it was a movie theater back then. So, I could see it
all from the window, the old police cars and ambulance." She
pointed to Sally's plate to remind her to eat. "But that's just
made up about the ghost."

"Still, if she was killed here she might still
be here," Sally said and dumped several more spoonfuls of food into
her mouth. "You should ask for this recipe."

"Very funny, funny girl," her mother said. She
took another bite of chicken and nodded. "Bonnie really outdone
herself on this, though."

"Wonder why no one ever told me about Julie
Black?" Sally said. "You'd think if our town had a ghost, I'd be
the one people would tell about it. I mean,
I'm
the one
doing research on ghosts." She finished off her glass of pop and
burped.

"I heard that!" Minnie said from the back of the
diner. "On my way!" She appeared almost instantly with the
half-empty pop bottle and refilled Sally's glass again. "Service
with a smile!" she said and smiled a very unnatural, almost
menacing smile.

"I wonder what's under the jukebox?" Sally said
abruptly. "And inside. Maybe it's full of Julie Black's dried blood
and it just leaks out sometimes when it gets wet or something."

Minnie turned and looked at the jukebox and so
did everyone else in the diner. It was apparent that no one had
ever thought of that before, an actual, plausible reason for the
pooling blood.

"I don't reckon no one ever wanted to look,"
Minnie said. Tim Smithers walked by her in a rush. "What's up,
Tim?"

"I'm gonna pull that damned thing out from the
wall and take the back off," he said. "It's bugged the hell outa me
for years."

"You all are letting a little girl rile you up,"
Mary said.

"We just needed a fresh mind ta come up with the
truth!" Steve said. "And a child will lead 'em; that's bible!"

"Fools proclaimeth foolishness. That's bible,
too," Mary said.

Sally jumped up and was halfway to the jukebox
before her mother could tell her to sit down and finish eating.

"Ya can't just be destroying the diner's stuff,"
Minnie said. Connie stepped through the swinging kitchen doors and
out to the counter. "Here's a tool kit," she said. Minnie looked at
her. "What? It's damned time we found out what's up with that piece
a junk. Maybe he can get it working again."

"You don't believe the ghost story, right
Connie?" Mary said. She climbed up on one of the counter stools
nearby and watched as a couple of the other men helped Tim pull the
heavy machine away from the wall.

"I ain't never seen a ghost," she said as she
poured Mary's cup full of coffee again. "I seen the killin',
though, but dead is dead far as I can witness to."

"There, that will do," Tim said as he smacked
his hands together. "That's far enough from the wall." He started
to bend down, but then noticed the entire floor where the jukebox
had sat for all those years was dark red. He touched it with the
tip of his finger and it was wet and came off on his skin. "I'll be
damned, but that there sure does look like blood ta me."

Sally wormed her way through the men, dropped to
her knees, and pulled her finger through the fluid.

"Sally!" her mother yelled. "Jesus Christ, clean
that off!"

But instead, she touched it to the tip of her
tongue. "It's salty," she said. Everyone backed away. She held up
her finger, offering anyone a chance to take a lick. No one did.
She marched around with her finger in the air, and as she passed by
people, they backed away.

"Let me see," Bonnie said. Sally marched her
finger over to the old woman who grabbed her little hand, paused,
and then touched the tip of her tongue to the red finger. "It's
blood," she said calmly.

Steve bent down and touched it, then brought his
finger up to his tongue. "Blood," he said. "Cain't be nothin' else
but."