“Jimmy, wake up.”
His heart began to race as he jumped from the bed and ran to the window. The figure below was a blur, but Jimmy knew it was Todd before he even fumbled his glasses on. “Todd! Where have you been?” he hissed, aware of his parents’ open window just feet away.
“Come down,” Todd whispered.
Jimmy crept downstairs and stepped out onto the porch. “You’re back! Caroline’s parents have been going crazy.” He frowned. “Why’re you wearing sunglasses? It’s past midnight.”
“I ain’t staying. I just came to tell you to quit looking for me.”
“What happened?”
“We had to take off.”
Something wasn’t right, a detail other than the sunglasses that Jimmy couldn’t figure out. “But that’s crazy, Todd.”
His friend grinned. “You could come with me, buddy.”
Jimmy shivered and knew in an instant what was wrong. The low, monotone voice coming from his friend’s mouth sounded nothing like Todd’s. “I can’t go with you. I got school and stuff.”
Todd took two slow strides to the bottom of the porch. “Don’t be such a pussy,” he said, and Jimmy gagged at the sight of the maggot he saw wriggling in the little gap between Todd’s front teeth. Todd removed his dark glasses to reveal two pure white pupil-less eyes and Jimmy stumbled backwards, unable to break his gaze from Todd’s, whose eyes had begun to take on a glow as if lit from within.
“Come on,” Todd said. “There’s another side of Bow Creek. It’s beautiful.”
Jimmy tried to turn away but felt himself drawn to Todd’s eye-lights that shone like the brightest of stars. The light was around him, and within him, and he felt himself fading, becoming nothing. Who am I? he thought, and heard a voice singing to him from another universe, about a girl named Peggy Sue. “Buddy,” he mumbled, and with a hand as heavy as lead he swiped his glasses off his face. The spell was broken in an instant as Todd and his beautiful, deadly eyes became no more than a blur under the moonlight. Jimmy reeled away and felt for the door handle with shaking hands, the sound of Buddy Holly’s voice floating to him from his bedroom window.
Behind him, the thing that wasn’t Todd laughed. “Saved by your hero, you blind bastard,” he said. “Sorry to break the news, pal, but Buddy gets his in a plane crash next year.” His voice dropped low then, as all mirth disappeared from its tone. “And you get yours tomorrow.”
~ ~ ~
It was the longest of nights, and by the time the sun rose Jimmy was up and dressed and supping on his third coffee. His mind had turned in spirals all night, going over and over his encounter with Todd until he began to doubt if it had ever happened. He knew what he’d seen though, and was sure it was no dream. You get yours tomorrow. Goose bumps crawled across the flesh on his arms. He had no idea what Todd had become, other than the obvious fact that he was dangerous, and if it wasn’t for his piss-poor eyesight Jimmy knew he’d be dead by now. Or worse. Yeah, having seen what had become of his friend, Jimmy understood that there were perhaps some things worse than death. I have to tell somebody. Who would believe him though? He considered his parents and dismissed the idea immediately. They blamed anything bad on everything he loved, from rock ‘n’ roll to the way he styled his hair. He’d barely gotten permission to go to the drive-in on Saturday nights, his father believing the movies shown there to be full of un-Christian content. If he told them about Todd it would give his parents all the ammunition they needed to take away everything that made his life worth living. As for the sheriff, he’d laugh Jimmy out of his office, or accuse him of drinking.
He glanced out through the kitchen window at the golden tinted hue spread across the back yard from the rising sun. It was going to be another scorcher of a summer’s day.
According to Todd, it was going to be his last.
~ ~ ~
“Wait a minute, let me get this straight.” Henry tucked his hands into the pockets on his dressing gown and sat on the steps alongside Jimmy. “Todd’s back, and he threatened to kill you.”
Jimmy glanced at Henry’s front door. “Keep it down.”
“Don’t worry, everyone’s still asleep in this house. I’m the only asshole in town you decided to wake up at this hour.” He pulled a cigarette and lighter from his gown and lit it. “So,” he said in a thoughtful tone, “he has maggots in his mouth and eyes like stars.”
“That’s right,” Jimmy said, though it sounded even crazier hearing it spoken out loud.
Henry smiled. “Cool.”
“You believe me?”
“Have you taken in anything from those movies we watch every week? Nobody believes the poor sucker whose town’s being taken over by blobs or giant ants or aliens with massive fucking heads.” He patted Jimmy’s leg. “Not until the last scene, when I turn up and help you chase the boogeyman away. Until then, when I see it for myself, I think you’re as crazy as an attic full of bats.” He stood up. “I gotta go back to bed. You ought to do the same, Pops. I’ll catch you later.”
Jimmy strolled back through the town, his eyelids heavy at last. The streets were still, the slap of his sneakers the only sound besides the birdsong coming from the blossom trees that lined the sidewalk. He wanted to believe that Henry was right, that it had all just been some kind of dream or weird mental episode, but it wasn’t just the incident with Todd, it was the town itself. Something was different, something he hadn’t seen before. The white painted houses, so homely and perfect, had taken on an ominous appearance, as if he could sense a putrid rottenness held in behind the thin veil of their facades. Twice he glimpsed someone spying on him from an upstairs window from the corner of his eye, only for the watcher to duck back as he turned his head to look. The town seemed small, suffocating, and a tremble started somewhere deep inside his stomach. He dry heaved and put one hand out to steady himself on a tree as a sweat broke out on his brow.
“You okay, Jimmy?”
Jimmy turned and leaned his back on the smooth bark of the tree. Sheriff Kotter—despite the fact Jimmy hadn’t heard the sound of his approaching car—was leaning through the window of his vehicle, its engine idling.
“You look a little off color, son.”
“I’m fine,” Jimmy managed.
Kotter shook his head. “You should have taken my advice, son. It doesn’t do to get yourself noticed. You start noticing things yourself in return.”
Jimmy felt something brush his ear, then the back of his hand, and saw they were blossoms from the tree. The pink of their petals withered to a dark brown as they hit the ground. He looked back at the sheriff and noticed a pair of maggots squirming from a puss filled ulcer that had appeared on his throat. A sharp pain stabbed at his spine and he pushed himself away from the bark of the blossom tree which had become gnarled and spiked. The sheriff revved his engine, and Jimmy saw that his eyes had begun to take on a milky sheen. Jimmy ran back home then, as fast as he could, and collapsed onto his bed as his exhausted mind slipped into a deep dreamless sleep.
~ ~ ~
He woke with a jolt and looked around the dim room. His confusion took a moment to clear, and when it did the force of his situation hit him like a cement truck. He straightened his glasses which he’d not even had time to take off before falling unconscious and crossed to the window. The sun had dropped below the tree line at the western end of his street so that the white clad houses and picket fences had taken on an indigo hue, and the realization that he had somehow slept through the whole day arrived with one thought: Todd was coming for him.
He opened his closet and stuffed his sports bag with clothes and underwear. The memory of his encounter with Sheriff Kotter that morning filled him with a sudden nausea, and a hatred for the town he’d loved so much. Bow Creek was no longer safe for him, and he knew there wasn’t anybody in town that could help. He looked around his bedroom for what he expected would be the last time, and with his bag slung over his shoulder he ran down the stairs.
“Hey, Jimmy!
Where are you off to? I just served dinner.”
He stopped in the hallway and closed his eyes. “Ma,” he muttered. He turned towards the dining room where his mother had called from. He hadn’t made any plans for where he was running to, but he was pretty sure he’d never set foot in Bow Creek again. He opened the door and stepped inside the room to see his parents for the last time.
“Sit down,” his father said. “We’re waiting to eat.”
“I haven’t the time,” Jimmy said as he walked around the table and stood behind his seat. “I have to go out.” He looked down at his plate and grabbed the back of his chair to stop himself from collapsing at what he saw there, and noticed his parents had the same meal set before them.
“What’s the matter, Jimmy?” His mother lifted her cutlery. “Have you lost your appetite?” She stabbed her fork into the putrid, bulging body of the rat on her plate and cut a lump off its back with her knife before putting the morsel, matted hair and all, into her mouth.
Jimmy felt tears on his cheeks and cuffed them off. “What’s going on, Pa?”
His father revealed a set of blackened teeth in what passed for a grin. “Oh, you know,” he said. “Just the usual.”
He ran from the house and was about to get into the pick-up when he heard the gentle lilt of violin music on the air, and looked across at Miss Russell’s place. She often played her instrument around sundown—it had been the comforting backdrop to the many nights he’d sat doing his homework in his bedroom for as long as he could remember. The cladding on her house, though the same as every other on the street, had somehow stayed white despite the twilight, like a beacon among the other houses whose fronts were turning a deeper shade of blue with every instant. Jimmy dumped his bag on the passenger seat and ran across the road.
The door opened on the first rap of his knuckles. “Come in, Jimmy,” Miss Russell said as she led him into her parlor which was well lit despite her blindness. “I like folk to know I’m home,” she said, as if reading his thoughts. She sat in an armchair and nodded at the one opposite. “Make yourself comfortable,” she said. “I guess we have some things to discuss.”
“I’m in trouble, Miss Russell, I ain’t got much time. Todd’s back, but he’s not right. He means to kill me tonight.” Jimmy ran his hand through his hair. “I don’t know what’s going on. The whole town’s changed. My own parents are over there right now...” His voice cracked, unable to finish the sentence.
“That’s just another version of your parents. I told you, there are things about Bow Creek that are rotten.”
“But everything was fine until two days ago.”
“No, Jimmy. It’s always been this way.”
Jimmy shook his head. “It doesn’t make sense.”
“Bow Creek has two sides, Jimmy, just like a coin. Most folk in town only see the good side, and some get a glimpse of the other side maybe once in their lifetime, and think maybe they’ve seen a ghost.” She lowered her voice. “And there are a few plain unlucky ones, like yourself, that see too much.”
“But what is the other side?”
“It’s a nasty, perverted version of everything and everybody in this town, and once you’ve seen it, it can’t be unseen. That’s when they come for you.”
Jimmy slumped into the chair. “So that’s what happened to Todd and Caroline.”
“And a few others that I know of over the years.”
“They’re going to kill me.”
“I’m sorry to tell you this, Jimmy, but what they’re going to do is much worse. I believe the word is assimilation. You’ll become part of them, and on this side of the thin veil, you’ll simply cease to exist.”
“I’ve got to get out of this town.” Jimmy stood and was about to leave as a terrible realization surfaced in his mind. “Oh, no.”
“What’s wrong?”
“I told Henry everything. I’ve put him in as much danger as me. I have to go get him.”
Miss Russell reached out and found his hand. “You haven’t time. You have to go right now and never come back.”
“But I...”
“You have to,” she interrupted.
Jimmy walked to the door and stopped. “How come they haven’t taken you, if you know so much?”
“I got the idea into my head that if I couldn’t see them they mightn’t be able to see me. Turned out I was right.”
An image came into Jimmy’s mind of Miss Russell as a young girl, a skewer clenched in her hand, and he recalled how his own short-sightedness had been enough to break Todd’s spell on him, if only for a while. “I have to go.”
“Run, Jimmy. Run like the wind and never look back.” Miss Russell lifted the violin and continued her slow, mournful tune, her sightless eyes streaming tears as Jimmy left the house.
Outside, the trees had become jagged and spiked, and every front lawn was overgrown, the flowerbeds strangled with weeds. Sheriff Kotter was waiting on the pavement, his cigar poking from his mouth. “Time to take you in, Jimmy.”
Jimmy looked past him, figuring he might be able to run to his pick-up on the opposite side of the street, but it was no longer there. He stepped down from the porch on shaking legs. “You don’t have to take me. I could just leave and never tell anybody about this place. Who’d believe me anyway?”
“Who’d believe me?” Kotter mimicked in a little girl’s voice. He grinned. “Boy, we’re gonna have some fun with you.” The dark pupils of his eyes faded to white, and Jimmy felt the breath sucked from his lungs at the same time as he heard the sound of a truck approaching fast. Kotter began to turn his head and just had time to mutter “what the—” before a baseball bat smashed through his skull from the driver’s open window. Jimmy’s truck skidded to a halt and Henry jumped out, the bat swinging by his hip.
Jimmy looked from the lawman’s spread-eagled body to his friend. “I guess you believe me, then.”
“Yeah, ever since Todd turned up at my place with maggots coming out his fucking ears. The trick with these guys is you have to see them before they see you.” Henry waved the bat. “I had to introduce him to this baby. Anyway, I told you I’d turn up in the last reel and save your ass, Pops.”
Henry’s usual expression, as if he were always on the verge of cracking a joke, had been replaced by something much darker, and Jimmy walked over and put his hand on his friend’s shoulder. “Hey,” he said, “that wasn’t Todd you killed. The Todd we know is dead already, along with Caroline.”
“I know. It don’t stop me from feeling bad, though.”
“I’m leaving town,” Jimmy said. “The old place makes me feel sick, now. You could come with me.”
Henry shook his head. “No way. This thing, whatever it is, ain’t running me out of Bow Creek. And besides, I have a feeling this is the first time anybody’s fought back—and it don’t like it. No, I’m staying put, Pops. I know the signs, now, and if the weird side of this town wants to show its face again I know what to do.” He looked up and down the road and held the baseball bat aloft like a warrior’s sword. “Do you hear me? Keep the fuck out of my side of town!”
As if in response, the sharp angles of the blossom trees straightened back into something beautiful and the weeds receded in the front gardens to reveal the summer blooms, and as the boys watched, the sheriff’s body became translucent before vanishing from the curbside.
“Where will you go?” Henry asked.
“I don’t know. I have an aunt in New Jersey.” He remembered Miss Russell’s advice. “Maybe I could finish my education there.”
Henry handed over the keys to the pick-up. “Take care, Pops. Keep in touch.”
“Sure thing.”
~ ~ ~
Jimmy did keep in touch, though the weekly letters became a monthly affair. But time and distance works on the soul, and he had begun to wonder if any of it had been real at all, until he turned on the radio one winter’s morning eight months later to the news that Buddy Holly had died. Jimmy pulled his truck to the
side of the road and cried until his eyes were sore.
As the years and life moved on for them both, their sole communication became a Christmas card. Henry’s code for affairs in Bow Creek was simple—a smiley face at the bottom of his communications meant a trouble free year, a sad one that he’d had to use the bat. That only happened twice. It was almost ten years to the date of Jimmy’s departure that he received the letter from Miss Russell. The best friend he’d ever have, Henry Alcock the warrior, had been killed in action in a land far away from home, along with so many other young men, in an American nightmare that was almost too real to bear. In his own nightmares, Jimmy wondered if Kotter’s face was the last one Henry had seen as he was cut down in that distant jungle, or maybe even Todd’s. Whatever you do, Miss Russell had finished off the letter, stay away from Bow Creek.
Jimmy glanced at the baseball bat on the passenger seat of his old Ford pick-up and started the engine. He had no intention of following her advice.
GLOW
ADREAN MESSMER
Thomas led Elise down the beach, his fingers tangled loosely in hers as she trailed behind him. The motion of each step threatened to break the contact between their hands until he finally stopped and pulled her down onto the moon-cooled sand. The waves licked at their feet, splashing at the rubber on his tennis shoes and covering her painted toenails. She held her sandals in her hand.
He pointed up to the sky and hoped she could follow the invisible line he was making through all the stars. There were so many more of them out here. Well, not really more. He knew it was just the lights from the city that made them disappear, but he liked to pretend this was a wholly different world, completely separate from life back there. Especially on nights like this.
The water was calm, barely whispering against the shore.
“Up there. See the red one?”
“No.” She shook her head. The breeze caught the smell of her hair, sweet and floral.
American Nightmare Page 5
