Thirty Miles South Of Dry County (6 page)

“Odd, sure. Can’t say I’m all that excited though.”

He smiled wistfully and the look in his eyes told me he hadn’t heard. “I remember my first day in this town. I felt like a young artist, looking at his first canvas with paint of every conceivable hue spread out around him.” The smile faded. “But it wasn’t a canvas, Mr. Tanner. It was just a wall. Oh, I’m sure a more talented individual could have composed something magical from all that blank space, but sadly, that was not me. I thought all along that I was meant to rebuild, and I was right. In that regard, Milestone didn’t trick me.” He raised a stubby finger. “But only to a point, you understand. Milestone does not want to thrive. It doesn’t want to be recreated, only restored. And restored to what it has always been happy to be.”

“What’s that?”

“Functional.”

“And what is its function?” I asked, surprised I were fueling his speech when all I wanted to do were find out where my friends was, then go fetch them and put as much distance between us and Milestone as possible while we was still drawin’ breath.

“Milestone is flypaper, Mr. Tanner. It attracts bad people, to keep them from being out in the world. But I don’t believe it’s consciously evil. It just happens to be attuned to a frequency shared by sinners.”

“But everybody sins,” I said. “Who gets to decide which sins are bad enough to justify bein’ called here? God?”

Kirkland shook his head and looked at me with a great sadness in his eyes. “God’s not here, Mr. Tanner. I looked for him.”

I took a sip of my whiskey and looked around the room as if it were worth studyin’. “Well…seems to me if all this place did were draw sinners, you’d have a bigger population.”

“It ebbs and flows, Mr. Tanner. Like everything else.”

He seemed to believe what he were sayin’, but that didn’t mean much. Only all those old stories and what I had seen of the place myself gave me any reason at all to think he weren’t lyin’. “Why would you want to be the mayor of such a place?”

He looked at me for a long time before speakin’. “I wanted no such thing, Mr. Tanner. I’m here because there was no place left to go, and it was fitting that after all the destruction I caused others in my lifetime that I should find myself in a place that needed to be restored. The title of mayor was bestowed on me, long before I ever stepped foot here. The Bicycle Man appointed me, just like that, and there isn’t any arguing with him. Milestone needs me. Or at least, it used to.” He looked down at his hands, at pale tapered fingers that put me in mind of Iris’s candles. “But things are changing.”

“Changin’ how?”

“Tomorrow is the town’s anniversary. Afterward, things will be different. They always are. Iris will have a new clipping for her window. Appointments will be decided. Lives will be altered. And someone will die.”

I felt a chill run through me. “Why?”

Kirkland shrugged. “Because Milestone is its own universe, and every universe needs an equal balance of order and chaos. We’ve had a modicum of order since my appointment here. Perhaps, too much. As a result, it needs to be equalized.”

“Sounds crazy,” I told him. “This place is just a…” And stopped, remembering my words to Sven, or, more importantly, what he had said to me:
It’s a town, Tan. Just a town
. I had argued against the truth of that, and now here I were takin’ the opposite tack, probably because I were here and ignorin’ the truth of it when it were crawlin’ over me seemed like madness.

Kirkland looked up at me, irritated. “What? What is it? Do you know? Because if you do, I’m sure the few townspeople who remain would be interested in hearing the opinion of an outsider, of someone who hasn’t the slightest idea of what it is like to be at the mercy of a place you should consider home, but hate with every fiber of your being. This, is prison. It’s a life sentence you bring on yourself by virtue of your past transgressions. And that, Mr. Tanner, should concern you.”

“Why?”

His smile were completely empty of humor. “Because you think you came here by choice, under your own steam, but nothing is arbitrary here. And now Milestone will use you too.”

Disturbed by the look in his eyes, the certainty I could see there that told me I’d made the biggest mistake of my life comin’ here, and would soon pay for it, I decided I’d had enough chit-chat. “Where are my friends?”

“I don’t know.”

I reflected on Iris’s words to me earlier, about not everyone knowin’ everythin’ that happened in Milestone, but the fact remained that if anyone did know what went on here, this pitiful lookin’ man before me were the one.

“I don’t believe you.” Though, grudgingly, I guess I did.

Kirkland stared evenly at me. “Why should that concern me?”

“Because two men are missin’, that’s why.” I felt my anger rise, fueled by the sense that every moment that passed were pullin’ me further from any chance of findin’ Sven and Dick in good health. “Two men whose car is parked up on that hill busted to hell like somethin’ run into it, and if you didn’t
hear
about it, or didn’t
see
a couple of strangers walkin’ through
your
town, strangers who was lookin’ for
you
, then by God you’d better point me in the direction of someone who did or I’ll have the state police here faster than you can blow out a candle.”

The mayor smiled. “That’s an excellent idea.”

“What is?”

“If you say your friends came here and now they’ve gone missing, then that is indeed a matter for the police.” His smile faded as he rose from the bed. “But I can tell you honestly, Mr. Tanner, the only stranger this town has seen in quite some time, is you.”

“Then where did they go?”

He shrugged. “If I knew, I would tell you.”

At that moment, I felt cheated and drained. I had come here to face off against this man, a man I had imagined to be some terrible, barely human thing capable of wicked evil, only to find this sad little soul who not only had no answers, but offered little in the way of an immediate threat either. I had no idea what to do next.

“You ruined Sven’s store,” I blurted.

He frowned. “And how did I do that?”

“The vines. They…” I trailed off, sure by the look on his face that again, he had no idea what I were talkin’ about but were curious to hear the tale.

“The vines aren’t my work, Mr. Tanner. That’s just nature, doing what nature does. Reclaiming what man neglects.”

“Sven said you wanted his land. That you destroyed the store because he wouldn’t sell it to you.”

“The first part is almost true. But Milestone wanted the land, not me. I’m not the kind of man to resort to such vulgar means to acquire things that have been denied to me. The town, however…well, as I’ve already made clear, it does what it wants.”

“He were comin’ here to have it out with you.”

“Which would have given me the perfect opportunity to explain the situation to his face, if he’d shown up here. But as I’ve told you and I think you believe, I never saw him.”

I shook my head. “Don’t make any sense.”

“Not everything does, Mr. Tanner.” He put his hands on his hips and leaned back until his spine cracked, then he sighed. “Iris?”

She appeared in the kitchen doorway.

“Think I’m going to skip our…” He glanced briefly at me before offerin’ her a tight smile. “Our meeting today. I have a lot of preparation to do before the festivities. I’m sure you understand.”

She nodded, lookin’ not at all put out.

“Wait,” I said, as he started on the candle-path to the door.

He paused, looked over his shoulder at me, but did not turn. “Mr. Tanner, I’m sorry you can’t find your friends, but I’m sure they’ll turn up. Within or without.”

Before I could say another word, he tipped an imaginary hat at me and descended the stairs, his squat shadow hoppin’ on the wall.

I stood there lookin’ after him, the breath sucked from my lungs.

After a moment, I smelled that exotic scent again. Iris, at my back.

“There’s only one person in this town can help you, but it’ll cost you to talk to him. Maybe more than you’re willin’ to pay.”

I turned. Her eyes caught and held the candlelight and for just a moment I could see how a man could fall head over heels in love with her. “Who?”

“His name’s Cadaver. Or at least that’s the name he goes by. You’ll find him up at Eddie’s Tavern. I’m sure he’ll be expectin’ you.”

“I thought Eddie’s burned down?” I asked, recallin’ the tales of magic and murder that had reached out all the way to Sven’s the night the fire had claimed the bar.

“It did.”

* * *

As soon as I stepped out of Iris’s place into the thickenin’ fog, the hair on the back of my neck prickled. Then I heard a sound, kinda like someone peggin’ small stones on the pavement. Tryin’ to find the source of it were a waste of time, because the fog made it seem as if the noise were comin’ from all around me.

Iris had directed me back toward the southern edge of town, back where I had come in and a squat hill nearby the fog had kept hidden from me. There, she said, I’d find the remains of the tavern, so with no other options, and despite the strange sound and the sensation that someone were standin’ real close and takin’ in everythin’ I did, I pushed away from the door and started that way.

I felt like a swimmer, had to resist the urge to reach out and part the fog like it were nothin’ more than big, dirty gray sheets someone had hung from the sky, and for most of the walk I had only the vaguest sense that I were goin’ in the right direction. I didn’t stop though, not once, because all the while that odd tickin’ sound followed close behind me. A couple of times I got the impression of somethin’ dark and low to the ground and I wondered what Milestone’s stance might be on wolves within the town’s limits. I figured given all I knew by then, it wouldn’t have surprised me none to find that such a thing were perfectly fine and dandy.

Whether by luck, or because I were supposed to, I came to the edge of town and hung a left. The fog had lessened a little so I could just make out the uneven rise of a small hill before the top of it got lost in the low clouds. Only then did I stop. Not because I wanted to, mind you, but because the aches and pains from the day before made themselves known in the worst way. I were out of breath, feelin’ my age, my joints achin’ and even with that growin’ feelin’ that somethin’ terrible were bearin’ down on me, I had to rest. If the fog suddenly split wide and some nightmare creature came flyin’ at me with teeth and claws gleamin’, well then I figured the pain would be over mighty quick anyway.

There was boulders here and there linin’ a rough path up the hill and I sat myself down on one of them, my lungs hurtin’, heart beatin’ faster than I could ever remember. I put a hand to my chest and took a deep breath that tasted like wet leaves, blinked the sweat from my eyes, and waited.

Click, click, click, click.

Whatever it were, it were close now.

I waited, resistin’ the urge to run, knowin’ I’d never make it, and turned my head in the direction of the sound now that it were clear where it were comin’ from.

Click, click, click, click.

Closer.

A small voice whispered to me to run anyway, to at least try, that of all the horrors I could imagine comin’ out of that fog, none could be worse than dyin’ right here, alone, in this godforsaken place. But for once, I were too old and too tired to run, too tired to even rightly be scared. So I stayed where I were, and I kept on waitin’.

Then it came. Not leapin’, not snarlin’, not bound for my throat with razor sharp claws. It
trotted
toward me, and when I saw it, I couldn’t help myself, I laughed out loud and shook my head, the swell of relief tellin’ me I’d been more scared than I’d let on.

It were a dog, a Black Labrador, so starved-lookin’ his ribs showed through his coat like wires under a garbage bag. His tongue were hangin’ out, his unclipped nails ticking on the ground as he approached me, head lowered, as if he thought I might be wearin’ a coat full of steaks. I rubbed his head and found it greasy. Probably sick from the hunger, the poor thing, and I wondered if he might be regrettin’ his decision to run off from his owner, because it seemed to me too much of a coincidence that the mutt fit the description of Moses, June Wheeler’s long lost companion. If he’d ever had a collar, it were gone now, and his eyes was somewhat sunken and spoke of pain. I wondered if mine did too. I sat there for a while until Moses gave up sniffin’ at me for sustenance, and when he sat down, I stood, my knees crackin’ loudly.

“You goin’ to stay here?” I asked him. He raised his head, gave a half-hearted wag of his tail.

“I’ll take that as a yes. Well, if you’re here when I come back this way, maybe we can get you somethin’ to eat.”

He were only a dog and I guess I were talkin’ just because it were nice to find some innocent company in this place, especially after what I had imagined Moses to be when the fog had hidden him, but damned if he didn’t look at me with a gleam of hope in those sad little eyes of his.

“All right then,” I said, and gave him a smile before makin’ my way up the hill. “Maybe if we make it out of here, I can claim the bounty on you.”