“Not much. Not anymore. Used to be the cotton mill was open. They named this town after it, Doour’s Mill. Owned by Mr. Jonathan Doour.”
“What happened to him?”
“He died and it closed down. All the mill folk moved away. We got only a real few left in the town now. Real few.”
“Why do you stay?”
“I own the place is why.” She shrugged, picking at a shred of loose skin on her lower lip. “Mama wanted me to keep it going. Besides”—and for the first time she smiled—“people gotta eat!”
“I didn’t see any other lights along the street,” he said. “Are you the only one open at night?”
“Mr. Exetor’s drug store stays open. Half a block down.” She pointed. “He’s open to ten, like here.”
“Good. I could use some cigarettes.”
“He’s a widowman, Mr. Exetor is. Wife passed on end of the summer. Just wasted away.”
He finished eating, pushed his plate back.
“More coffee?”
“I’ll pass. Too strong for me.”
“Yeah, like I said, it’s kinda strong.” She looked at him with intense, shadowed dark eyes. “You’re invited to the Ceremony.”
“What?”
“You’re invited. We have it each Holiday. On October 31st, each year. And you’re invited.”
“I don’t go to church,” he said. “But thanks anyhow.” He got out his wallet. “How much do I owe you?”
“That’ll be seventy-five cents,” she said.
“Here’s a buck. Keep the change.”
“Thanks, mister.” She rang up his order on the ancient cash register. “Ceremony’s not in church. Fact is, we don’t have a church here anymore. I mean, we have one, but it’s boarded up. They broke all the windows.”
“I see.” He picked up his travel bag, moved to the door.
“Happy Holiday,” said the girl.
“Same to you,” he said, and walked out.
It was raining now. A thin misting foggy rain. The street glistened like black leather under the pale light cast by the cafe’s overhead neon.
He turned up the collar of his coat and walked to the drugstore. No sign outside, but the window said EXETOR’S, in chipped gilt. He walked in, and a tiny bell tinkled over the door.
Exetor was round-shouldered, cadaverous, with a bald head and long, big-knuckled hands. A thick vein pulsed, wormlike, in his mottled neck. Looked as if he’d be joining his wife soon. Well, in a town like this, it didn’t matter much whether you were alive or dead. The old man had been fiddling with a box of pipe cleaners and now he put the box down. “Might I help you, sir?”
“Salem Hundreds. Two packs.”
Exetor walked behind a dust-filmed tobacco counter and got the cigarettes. “You from the bus?”
“That’s right.”
“I saw it come in.”
“Our driver had some engine trouble. We were due in Providence. Is there a hotel in town?”
“Certainly,” said Exetor, accepting payment for the cigarettes and ringing up the sale. “The Blackthorn. Just down the way. Right at the intersection. You walk left. Big three-story building on the corner. Can’t miss it.”
“I sure never expected to be staying here tonight.”
“No problem getting a room at the Blackthorn. Not many folks around anymore. Expect they’ll be closing one of these days. Like me. Just not enough business to keep any of us going.”
He nodded. “I can see that.”
Exetor smiled thinly. “Sad. About this town, I mean. So much history here. Have you heard of Roger Williams?”
“Can’t say I have.”
“Strong-minded man, he was. They banned him from Massachusetts for religious nonconformity. But that didn’t stop him. He established the first settlement in Providence, in 1636. Remarkable man.” Exetor’s voice grew more intense. “Jonathan Doour was related to Williams. Had an oil painting of him hanging on the wall of his office at the mill. So this town’s part of history, you see. All of it, tied together—going back to 1636.”
“Gives you something to hang on to, I guess.” The old guy was a real bore. Who gives a damn about some religious nut from the 1600’s? Maybe that’s what the Ceremony was all about—honoring his memory or some such crap.
“Each year, more of us pass on,” said Exetor. “Just don’t make it to the Holiday.”
“You people seem to think a lot of Halloween.”
“Oh, yes, indeed we do.” Exetor nodded, the neck vein pulsing. “It’s very important to us here at the Mill. We have our Ceremony at this time each year.”
“So I’ve been told. I’m not much for ceremonies.”
Exetor clucked his tongue against yellowed teeth. “It’s the only day I really look forward to anymore,” he said, his voice soft with regret. “My wife and I always attended together. I’ll be alone this year.”
“Oh, yes—I heard about your wife. That’s tough.” He edged toward the door. This old geezer planned to talk all night.
“It’s most difficult, getting on without Ettie.”
He was almost to the door when a wall sign caught his eye.
HAPPY ALL HOLLOWS EVE
Again, misspelled. Should be All Hallows. Didn’t anybody ever go to school in this burg?
He reached the door, opened it. The bell tinkled.
“You are invited to the Ceremony,” said Exetor.
“No thanks.” He started out—and heard Exetor say: “Attendance is not voluntary.”
He left the drugstore. Now what the hell did that mean? He looked back through the cracked plate-glass window at the old guy. Exetor was standing there, staring out at him, not moving.
Weirdo. Him and that chick at the cafe. Both of them, weirdos.
It was still raining. He shifted the weight of his travel bag from right to left hand and began to walk in the direction of the Blackthorn. He was feeling kind of lousy. Stomach upset. Headache. Maybe it was the long bus ride and his missing the Sutter contract. He’d be fine once he’d moved up his total to fourteen.
Right now, he just needed a good night’s sacktime. He checked his watch. Getting toward ten. Exetor and the cafe girl would be closing up, probably heading for their Ceremony. Fine. Just so they were quiet about it. No loud music or dancing. He grinned, thinking what ole Exetor would look like hopping around the floor. Exetor, the Dancing Skeleton!
He heard something behind him—the low-purring sound of a car’s motor in the misting rain.
Cop’s car. Sheriff. And with a deputy in the seat next to him. The car glided slowly alongside, stopped. Jeeze, he hated cops. All cops.
“Evening,” said the sheriff.
“Evening,” he said.
The lawman was gaunt and sharp-featured. So was his deputy. And both solemn. No smiles. But then, cops don’t smile much.
“Just inta town, are you?”
They damn well knew he was—but they liked playing their cop games.
“I came in earlier with the bus. They’re fixing it. We had a breakdown.”
“Uh huh,” said the sheriff. “Harley, over to the garage, he told me about the trouble.”
A pause—as they stared at him from the car’s shadowed interior. The motor throbbed softly, like a beating heart in the wet darkness.
Finally, the sheriff asked: “You staying at the hotel?”
“I plan to. Guess they’ve got plenty of room.”
The sheriff chuckled wetly, a bubbling sound. “That they have, mister.” Another pause. Then: “Mind if we look over your suitcase?”
He stiffened. The Mag .357! But unless they tore the travel bag to pieces, they wouldn’t find it.
The sheriff remained behind the wheel as his deputy got out, knelt in the wet street to open the bag.
“Gonna ruin your pants, Dave,” said the sheriff.
“They’ll dry,” said the deputy, sifting through the contents, patting down shirts, fingering coats.
He tried to look
normal, but he was sweating. The hidden gun compartment was just under the deputy’s right hand. If he ...
“Thanks, mister,” said the deputy, snapping the bag closed. “Never can tell what folks’ll carry.”
“Guess not.”
The deputy got back in the car, leaned out from the rolled-down window. His voice was reedy. “Happy Holiday,” he said.
The car rolled forward, gradually losing definition in the misting darkness.
The hotel was no surprise. Meaning it looked crappy. Sagging. Falling apart. Paint-blistered. Wood missing from the upper porch steps.
Well, it’s like my sweet mother used to say, beggars can’t be choosers.
He walked up the steps, avoiding the broken areas, and entered the lobby through a loose-hinged, leaded-glass door. The lobby was bare, dusty, deserted.
A clerk dozed behind the wall counter. Another skinny character. Middle-aged scarecrow in a rumpled suit. His nose was long, thin, almost transparent.
“I’ll need a room.”
The clerk’s head jerked up like a stringed puppet. He blinked, reached for a pair of thick-lensed glasses, put them on. Pale blue eyes swam behind the lenses. “Cost you five dollars.”
“I think I can handle that.”
“Sign here. Name and address.” The clerk pushed a card across the grimed counter.
He signed it, using a phony name and address. Never tell anybody the truth about yourself. He’d learned that in Kansas City. And a lot of other places.
He gave the clerk a five-dollar bill. And got a key.
“Guess I’m not the First here tonight,” he said.
“Don’t get you, mister.”
“There was an elderly couple on the bus with me, coming in. They must have registered earlier.”
“Nope.” The clerk shook his head. “You’re our first in ’bout a week. Nobody else tonight.”
Strange. Where would they go?
“Yours is on three. Use the elevator. Stairs are rotted out. Sidney will take you up. If he’s sleepin’, just give him a poke. Room 3-H.”
He nodded, moved across the wide, vacant lobby with his travel bag to the elevator. Its metal-pleated door was open. Inside, draped over a high wooden stool like a discarded bundle of dirty clothes, was a stick-thin old man. His patchy hair was streaked gray-white over his long skull.
“You got a customer, Pop.”
The deep-socket eyes opened slowly. He stared at the stranger out of large milky pupils. “What floor?”
“The top. Three.”
He stepped into the cage and felt it give perceptibly under his weight. “This thing safe?”
“Weren’t, I wouldn’t be in it,” said the old man.
The pitted grill-door slid closed and the old man pushed down a corroded wall lever. His wrist was ropy, spotted with sores. The ancient cage creaked rustily into upward motion.
The old man’s odor was strong, almost fetid. “Staying the night, are you?”
“I’m not here for the floor show.”
He was getting sick of dealing with these weirdos. Nothing to gain by continuing to answer their stupid questions. He was amused by the fact that a sleazy hotel like this actually employed an elevator operator. No wonder the old croak slept on the job; nothing the hell else to do.
“We were the first state to declare independence from the Mother Country. You know that?”
He grunted.
“May the 4th, 1776, it was. We declared two months ahead of all the other colonies! Little Rhody was first, yes sir. First to declare.”
“Were you there, Pop?”
The old man chuckled like dry leaves scraping. “Not hardly. But I’ve been around a spell. Seen things happen. Seen a lotta people die. But I made it again this year. Made it to the Holiday.”
Another Halloween Freak.
They reached the top, and the black door folded back into itself like an iron spider.
He stepped out. The cage rattled downward as he walked toward 3-H. The hall reeked of mold and decay. Rug was damp, lumped. Ceiling was peeling away in thick, hanging folds, like strips of dead meat. He could hear the steady drip-drip-drip of rain coming in through holes in the roof. Jeez, what a pit!
He reached the hallway’s end. The door on 3-H startled him. It was a lot fancier than the others, ornamented in an intricately carved rose design. The knob was scrolled brass. He keyed the door open and swore softly. They’d given him the bridal suite! Well, why not? Nobody was about to pick the Blackthorn in Doour’s Mill for a honeymoon!
It wasn’t a suite, actually, Just one big chamber, with a bathroom off to the side. The bed, centered in the room, was enormous. Talk about your antiques! The tall gilt headboard was decorated with plaster angels. The gold paint had dimmed, and most of the angels had cracked wings, but he had to admit that the effect was still damned impressive.
A big faded-pink dresser loomed against one wall. Two velvet-black chairs, seedy but elegant, stood beside a huge cut-velvet couch fitted with rose-carved brass studs. A large mirror dominated the wall above them, framed in faded gold.
He walked over to it, looked at himself. Needed a shave. Coat and shirt wrinkled, damp from the rain. Looked like his old man. A bum.
The bathroom was full of badly chipped tile and rusted brass fittings. But at least there was a shower. He hadn’t counted on one. Real bonus in a fleapit like this.
He opened his bag, took out the travel clock, set it for five-thirty. That would give him plenty of time to get dressed and down to the garage by six, when the bus was ready to leave. He’d be glad to shake this freak town. Gave him the creeps. After Doour’s Mill, New York would be Paris in the spring!
Damn! No inside chain lock. Just the regular knob lock. Well, that was okay. He always slept with the .357 under his pillow. Best protection in the world.
He had expected that the hot shower would make him feel better, but it hadn’t. He still felt lousy, really kind of hung over. Dog tired. And sickish. Had to be the food at Alma’s. Those eggs were probably half-spoiled. And that rat-piss coffee—that stuff would kill Frankenstein!
He slid his loaded Magnum under the pillow and put on a pair of white silk pajamas. The bed was great. Deep and soft, not at all lumpy or damp. And the sheets were crisp, freshly ironed. Not so bad after all.
It wasn’t much after ten. He’d get a full night’s rest. God, but he was beat. He stretched out on the big mattress, closed his eyes—and was instantly asleep.
He awoke slowly. Not to the clock alarm. To a low murmur of voices. Here. In the room with him.
“It’s wearing off.” Man’s voice. Old.
“He’s coming round.” Woman’s. Also old.
His eyes opened. He blinked, trying to get a clear focus on the dim figures in the room. The only light came from the bathroom and the door was partially shut. Things were murky.
There were several of them, surrounding the bed in a rustling circle.
“Welcome to the Ceremony,” said the bus driver.
It was him, all right, and no mistake. Before he could fully register the shock of this, another voice said: “Happy Holiday!”
Focus. On the source of this second voice. It was Harley, the garage owner. His greasy mechanic stood next to him.
Now, rapidly, he ran his gaze over all of them: the elderly couple from the bus ... Exetor ... Alma’s daughter ... the lobby clerk ... the old elevator man ... the two skinny teenagers ... Even the sheriff and his bony-faced deputy were here. Everybody he’d seen in the whole damn town—all here, around his bed, smiling down at him. And all of them thin, gaunt, wasted-looking.
He counted. There must be ... Oh, Christ, yes, there were 13 of them!
A long iced wave of absolute fear engulfed him, and he closed his eyes to shut out the horrific ring of skulled faces.
“As I pointed out earlier this evening,” said Exetor, “your attendance at the Ceremony was not voluntary. It was required.”
“Yes, indeedy,” agree
d the hotel clerk, peering down at him with swimming fish eyes. “You’re our Guest of Honor.”
He tried to speak but could not; the words were choked bile in his throat.
“Can’t give our Ceremony without a Guest of Honor,” said the elevator man.
The elderly couple were holding hands. The woman spoke slowly, distinctly. “Henry and I weren’t at all sure we’d last till the Hollow Day. Not at all sure.”
“Each year at this time we gather to be replenished,” said Exetor, “thanks to our Guest of Honor. Believe me, sir, we appreciate what you are giving us.”
“I can have my baby now!” said the teenaged girl excitedly. The boy put his arm around her narrow waist. He kissed her gently on the cheek. Beside them, the garage owner’s eyes shone with pride.
“Ain’t many new babies born to Mill folk anymore,” he said. “We cherish our young, we surely do. Laurie here—she’ll have the strength to bear, thanks to you.”
“That’s right,” the bus driver said. “I tell ya, buddy, we’re deeply grateful!”
“I’m sure sorry that coffee I served you was so darn bitter,” said Alma’s daughter. “But the stuff I had to use in it tastes plain awful. Still, it’s very restful. Keeps you from hurting when we’re getting you ready.”
He was fully awake now, and anger flushed through him. Under his pillow. The loaded .357 Magnum. He’d blow them away, every damned freakish one of them!
But he couldn’t reach the gun. He suddenly became aware that his wrists were strapped to the sides of the bed, as were his ankles. And there was another wide leather strap across his chest, holding him down.
And ... oh, God ... there were the snakes!
Thirteen of them!
No, not snakes, they were ... some kind of rubbery tubes. Coiling out from his body into the figures surrounding him, a tube for each of them, attached to his flesh and ending in their flesh—like obscene umbilical cords.
Jesus—they were feeder tubes!
“Ettie so wanted to be here,” said Exetor sadly. “It would have meant more months of life for her. But she just couldn’t last to the Ceremony.”
The sheriff patted the old man’s arm in sympathy. “Ettie was a mighty fine woman.”
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