Tatterdemon

by Vernon, Steve

  He heard a soft voice, whispering like a knife against a leather strop.

  “I will wait for you like a seed waits for rain,” the memory of the old witch, Thessaly Cross, whispered. “I will wait for you and your descendants.”

  The thing that was Vic lay there and listened to the slow, coaxing whisper.

  Throughout the day he continued to grow.

  The daisies bloomed unseasonably early, over his lonely, discontented grave.

  CHAPTER 8

  One Last Mess

  * 1 *

  Maddy lifted the newspaper.

  “Oh, Jesus Christ.”

  The goddamn flies had grown a whole crop of bouncing baby maggots, sucking on what brains that Vic had left behind.

  Maddy puked on the table. The maggots loved that. It was like maggot manna from heaven. She wiped her lips and breathed slowly, through her mouth. It was all Vic’s fault. The bastard was always leaving messes behind. Dirty plates. Teacups stained piss yellow. Apple cores tucked in the couch, beer bottles by the easy chair and chip crumbs on the mattress.

  “Not no more.”

  Not no more, but he sure had left a hell of lot of brains. She’d have to burn the whole table. Maybe that was the way to go. Maybe she should burn the whole house, maybe the whole field.

  Why not?

  It was time for a clean break – but then what the fuck could she do?

  Go to college, and her as old as Methuselah’s first diaper?

  Hell.

  It was too late for a fresh start. She had grown herself a set of roots. She had land and a home. It wasn’t much, but it was better than nothing. She would deal in her own way with what she had been dealt.

  She needed a wet rag and some paint. She needed a fresh coat of paint. She needed to hide everything and to start fresh. She would go to the barn. She would feed the horses and then she would drag out every can of paint she could find. She would paint this house so bright folks would swear it was burning down.

  She headed for the barn, knowing damn well it was an excuse to keep from cleaning the puke and brains.

  Zigger kept on baying.

  “Bowooo, bowooo, you old hound. Why don’t you grab a brush from the barn?” she asked him, not expecting an answer. “You and me got some painting to do.”

  She was so excited about painting she didn’t notice Marvin Pusser’s immaculate white cube van driving up the road towards the house.

  * 2 *

  Wendy Joe rubbed her eyes hard.

  She did everything hard. There was no halfway or near enough for Wendy Joe. No sir, if she needed something she needed it hard and fast. The patience of a boiling tea kettle, that’s what momma called it.

  She opened her desk drawer and took the doll out. It was an ugly thing, made of stiff unbleached linen stitched with red cotton thread and stuffed with straw and bits of Emma.

  Fingernails, dead skin, eyelashes.

  The devil doll’s hair was made of a handful of Emma’s mouse-brown hair.

  Wendy Joe had worked on it for months.

  Valentine’s Day gave her the last pieces she’d needed.

  Now she just needed the nerve to use it.

  She heard the outer door open. She slid the doll into the drawer. She slammed the drawer shut, damn near catching her fingers.

  The inner door opened.

  She knew it was Earl by his whistling. Earl was always whistling and always happy.

  She liked that in a man. She liked his shape too. Earl was a tough man, built low to the ground and hard and round as an October apple. He was way too young to interest her that way, though. She wasn’t made for boy toys. No sir. If you owned a vintage Cadillac, you didn’t go training up no junior chauffer. You found a man who knew how to drive.

  “Are you still here?” Earl asked.

  “Just hanging around,” Wendy Joe replied. “Making sure nothing goes wrong.”

  Just waiting for Wilfred was what she was doing. Even Earl knew that. Still, he was nice enough to let her go on pretending.

  “That’s what I like about you, Wendy Joe. You’re a hard-going girl. There’s not one inch of slack in you at all.”

  “That’s a fact.”

  “Still, you ought to go home. Get some shuteye. Better yet, you ought to take yourself out on the town.”

  “On the town? In Crossfall?” she asked. “The best I could do is find an exciting field where the grass is growing exceptionally fast. Sure, there is a whole lot to do in Crossfall – like sit around and watch the pollen blow. Maybe talk to the crows about the latest in road kill.”

  “There’s a movie playing in the movie house.”

  “A lady don’t go to no movie house alone. It ain’t proper.”

  Wendy Joe was old school.

  She learned her ways from her momma, and she never forgot them.

  “Who said you were a lady,” Earl asked. “And who said you had to go alone?”

  She tilted her head with a grin.

  “So who’d I go with?” she asked. “You?”

  Earl opened his mouth to speak, before turning his unasked question into a yawn.

  Lost his nerve, Wendy Joe thought. That was Earl’s problem. He was just a boy wearing a man’s set of bones. He couldn’t find the gumption to ask her direct.

  Not like she’d say yes.

  Hell no.

  That was as foolish a notion as Chester making a pass at Miss Kitty. Not when Marshall Dillon was in town.

  No sir.

  Still, you never knew when a mood would strike a body. It wouldn’t hurt for him to ask. Hell, if a fellow asks nice enough, any girl might consider. Didn’t he know women were built that way?

  No sir, women didn’t come with any rulebook or guide.

  It was just like fishing. You dangle the bait proper, there was no telling what might bite, but you had to put a line out if you hoped for a nibble.

  No sir.

  Earl figured he was beat before he started. He wasn’t asking anything today. He looked at his shoe laces, like they’d magically come untied. He looked to the ceiling, checking for leaks.

  He looked anywhere but at Wendy Joe.

  She almost laughed, but that would have been mean.

  Finally, he spoke.

  “Wilfred probably won’t be in for a while.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  The telephone rang, just in time to save Earl from making up another answer. He grabbed it.

  “Hello?”

  He cleared his throat like something was stuck.

  “Oh hello, Miss Milton.”

  Wendy Joe left while Earl was saying his second hello to Lily Milton. He hadn’t earned a second chance. She’d get herself a coffee at the cafeteria across the street.

  Hell yes. Why not? She would take herself out on the town.

  Then, when Earl headed out, she’d come back for the doll.

  * 3 *

  Earl held the telephone a half-inch from his ear while Lily freight-trained down the other end of the line.

  “Are you going to do something about that Marvin Pusser or not?” she asked.

  “So what do you want me to do about him, Miss Milton?”

  “Arrest him.”

  “We usually need a charge before we arrest people, Miss Milton.”

  “He was delivering mail on Sunday again, and I’ve told that old bastard a thousand times to stay the hell home on his weekends.”

  “There ain’t no law against that ma’am. It might be against postal regulations, but I ain’t even sure about that.”

  “Well, the bastard was peeping at me. And he tried to rape me. That’s for sure against the law, isn’t it?”

  Earl studied the polish of his shoes intently.

  “Now Miss Milton. If I try and arrest Marvin Pusser for that, he’ll just swear he didn’t do anything. I got to have proof before I go arresting anyone.”

  “Proof my ass.”

  “Did he touch you?”


  “I hit the bastard,” she replied. “That’s touching, isn’t it?”

  “We call that assault, Miss Milton. If I go after him I got to charge you first. That wouldn’t do, now would it?”

  He looked around for Wendy Joe.

  Gone.

  Coward, he thought.

  “So, are you telling me you can’t do anything?” Lily asked.

  “I’m telling you I can’t with what you’re telling me. I got to have proof. Just your say-so ain’t enough.”

  “Well, hell,” Lily swore. “Earl Toad, you are about as useless as a cocksucker at a lesbian’s ball.”

  She slammed it, hard.

  Earl stared at the receiver.

  He tried to think what Wilfred would do in his place. Wilfred would know what to do. Wilfred was always cool-headed.

  Wilfred could sleep with Wendy Joe, anytime he wanted to.

  Damn.

  He sure wished he was Wilfred, right now.

  * 4 *

  The sound the nail made as it socked through the meaty part of Clavis’s palm should have been a hell of a lot louder than it was.

  It was way too soft.

  It was way too quick.

  One minute Clavis was swinging his hammer, the next he was dangling on his toes like an ugly ballerina, his weight supported by one galvanized nail.

  Wilfred froze.

  Just for an instant he saw Emma, dangled from the beam above the freezer – the blue of her lips, like clown paint; the extension cord cutting into her neck like a snake swallowing a straight razor.

  Clavis kept on screaming.

  Wilfred shook his head clear of the past. He caught his arm beneath Clavis, trying to keep the man’s weight from pulling any further on the nail. It would have been easy if Clavis didn’t kick so damned much. Wilfred reached down to catch the man’s legs, to take the weight.

  Then he felt something warm spilling about his hand.

  Blood?

  Hell.

  Clavis was pissing himself.

  “Christ, Christ, Christ,” Wilfred swore and prayed.

  He hung onto the half-crucified man. He reached up one hand and caught the nail, slippery with blood, and tried to pry it from the wood.

  No good.

  Clavis had given it an awfully good whack. The thing was sunk nearly halfway into the molding and all the way through Clavis’s hand.

  Clavis kept on kicking.

  “Hang on, damn it. I got you.”

  It sounded good, saying it.

  Then Wilfred slid in the pissy, blood-soaked mud. He felt his knee give way beneath him.

  Shit.

  Clavis nearly dangled free. Wilfred jammed his arm straight up, catching the man’s weight at the most convenient spot. His open palm flattened against Clavis’s piss-soaked testicles, and for one hell of a Kodak moment, Wilfred balanced the man by his balls on one unexpectedly smelled-up hand – which was right about when Clavis leaned over and puked down the back of Wilfred’s shirt.

  “Oh bloody Christ!”

  Wilfred let Clavis drop.

  Clavis screamed, hitting notes a boy soprano might nightmare over.

  Wilfred caught the spike with both hands.

  He braced himself, mashing Clavis’s palm against the unforgiving church siding. Then he slammed his left boot against the wall and torque-yanked the nail out of the wood.

  Clavis was pulled free with it.

  The two of them sprawled in a single messy heap.

  Wilfred dragged and carried Clavis towards the big blue Thunderbird that served as his squad car. He cleaned up Clavis as best he could, bandaging the hand with the inadequate wrappings he dug from the first aid kit, swearing all the way.

  “Jesus jumping Christ,” he prayed. “Hold still, damn it.”

  The radio squawked.

  Wilfred grabbed for the hand set at the same time that Clavis squirmed. The bandage slipped, smearing some more blood across Wilfred’s sleeve. Not that it made much of a difference. About the only thing that might save the uniform was total incineration.

  Wilfred grabbed for the bandage, Clavis, and the radio at the same damned time. He caught the bandage and radio, pinning Clavis to the car with his shoulder. Then he inadvertently slammed the handset in the car door, nearly jamming his own hand in the process.

  “Shit on a gold-plated asshole!”

  The handset was smashed.

  Wilfred shoved Clavis into the back seat.

  “Hold your damn hand up, so’s the blood don’t flow.”

  Clavis held his hand up. He looked like a kid, asking permission to pee. Wilfred snorted in rueful amusement. It was way too late for asking. Clavis had already peed and crapped and yonked up everything he had in him.

  Wilfred started the car, keeping his mouth open to avoid smelling the reek of his uniform.

  There was no way the day would get any worse than this.

  Until Clavis began to sing.

  “Shall we gather at the river, the beautiful, the beautiful river...”

  It was horrifying.

  As flat as a hammered tin roof.

  “Shut the fuck up. Hymns anywhere outside of church and graveyards are acceptable grounds for homicide in my book.”

  The speaker crackled.

  “Chief Wilfred? Wendy Joe. Pick up.”

  “Chief Wilfred here,” he yelled into the broken handset.

  “Pick up, Wilfred.”

  “I am picking up, goddamn it.”

  He shook the handset, banging it against the dash. Nothing helped.

  “Wendy Joe? Wendy Joe?”

  Clavis kept on singing.

  Wilfred slammed the handset against the receiver. He broke both handset and receiver, damn near smashing his hand in.

  He stared mutely at the mess.

  Clavis kept on singing.

  “Attention home base,” Wilfred said to nobody in particular. “I am refusing to break radio silence, because I’ve broken and silenced the frigging radio.”

  He threw the handset on the floor.

  It lay there, rattling beside an empty Tim Horton’s coffee cup, which was about the time he saw Helliard Jollienne’s rust-red Mercury rolling past his squad car faster than a greased-up thunderbolt.

  CHAPTER 9

  Hot Pursuit

  * 1 *

  Helliard shot through town and headed for the highway.

  He was feeling good, still chuckling over the way that Mountie looked back at the Lucky Burger, after Helliard had shot him the third time.

  Duane flopped loosely in his seat, despite the seatbelt latched about him.

  “You don’t stop your stinking,” Helliard told Duane, “and I’m going to have to throw you out of the car.”

  Helliard shifted gears like this was his last day on earth. He was flying high. This was the way to go. Live large, die hard, and leave a lousy corpse for someone else to bury.

  He was planning to leave a hell of lot of corpses, if things went his way.

  He’d been seeing this field of dead men, hanging like scarecrows, for the last half hour. Right behind his eyeballs, like a movie screen running all night long. It was like a dream, or a vision, or a masterpiece.

  To hell with it.

  If he was nuts, fine.

  He’d still go down running for it.

  Why not?

  The way cancer worked down his family tree, way he kept itching for another cigarette, way he shot up the Night Owl and Lucky Burger, what the fuck he have to live for?

  Shift.

  He loved the throb of driving. He loved the power. Moving so fast, he couldn’t tell if he drove the car or the car drove him.

  He loved that who-gives-a-fuck kind of feeling.

  “This is the way to die, isn’t it, Duane?”

  Duane just bounced.

  Helliard took that as a yes.

  “Damn it, Duane. Ain’t you better company since you got killed? So damned agreeable. You never say a goddamn thing I don’t want to
hear.”

  He skidded against the shoulder of the road and nearly turned the car over. He turned into the skid and rode it out.

  “Nearly got it then. Maybe later. You can’t win if you don’t play. Hell, everyone ought to get themselves killed like this, don’t you think, Duane?”

  Duane bounced.

  Then Helliard saw Wilfred.

  “What the hell?”

  He saw a cop, in a big blue Thunderbird, following fast behind.

  Helliard reached for Big Fuck.

  Hell yes.

  It was time to make one more dead body.

  * 2 *

  Lily slammed the phone.

  The room began to spin.

  Another vision?

  She hoped not. She didn’t want to see what was coming. It never did any good. It just gave you an excuse to figure you should have seen it coming, before it finally happened.

  She stared at the pictures on the wall.

  Lily the Large – a modern wonder, dead now for six long years.

  She ought to take them all down. She ought to burn them and the trailer and herself along with it. Just imagine it. All of that built-up fat sizzling in the flames like a giant suet ball, my Christ what a lovely dance that’d be.

  She opened her eyes.

  Nothing had changed.

  That was the hell of these visions. They never gave you what you wanted to see – just what you had to. They didn’t change a thing. All she had in front of her was years of nothing stretching for miles like an unloved field.

  She stared at her mother’s picture.

  “You had all the luck, mom,” Lily complained. “You were thin and beautiful and had no damn visions.”

  Grandma hadn’t been so lucky. She’d died screaming in a New Brunswick madhouse, committed by her husband. He got tired of sharing her visions.

  So Momma taught little Lily how to keep her mouth shut.

  “You see something you don’t think is there, don’t tell a soul,” her Momma told her. “If you feel you got to speak, stuff something in your mouth.”

  That’s how it started – the eating and then the growing.

  “Thanks Momma,” she said bitterly.