Mr. Shivers

by Robert Jackson Bennett

  Connelly’s skull pounded. “What’s that on your arm?” he whispered stupidly.

  “What’s that?” said the sheriff. “What’s that you say? What?”

  “On your… On your…” mumbled Connelly.

  “Speak up boy, speak up,” said the sheriff. His mouth quivered and he began savagely kicking Connelly over and over again, in the side, then the arms, and then finally landing one blow on the head.

  Things blurred. Darkness melted in from the corner of his vision. He heard someone laughing but was unable to see who before his mind failed once more.

  Connelly’s body clanked to life. Air forced its way through his shuddering lungs and when his consciousness rose he doubled up and retched in the corner. He lay there breathing and trying to still the nausea before flexing his fingers, then his arms and toes, then his knees. Nothing seemed broken. He pushed himself up to a sitting position and looked around.

  He was in a small, damp cell, no doubt in the jail. Like the rest of the town it was poorly built. The floor was uneven and there seemed to be no straight lines, every board badly cut and every surface warped. Gray light streamed through a window at the top. It was day but he could not pull himself up to see. The door was heavy and there was a slot for food and water, but none had arrived yet.

  He checked the money sewn into the cuffs of his pants. It was still there.

  “Hey,” said a voice. “Hey.”

  Connelly looked around. The cell was empty except for him.

  “Over here,” said a voice.

  He looked down and saw there was a thin crack at the bottom of the wall that ran through to the other cell. He peered through and saw a sliver of a face, no more than a smiling eye.

  “You alive in there?” said the voice.

  “Yeah.”

  “You okay?” said the voice.

  “I guess,” said Connelly.

  “I’m Peachy.”

  “You’re what?”

  “Peachy. That’s me. That’s my name.”

  “Oh.”

  Connelly held a hand to his head and rubbed at his temple. He wished he hadn’t vomited in a closed room, especially since he wasn’t going anywhere.

  “What’s your name?” said the voice.

  “Connelly,” he said.

  “What’d you do, Connelly?”

  “Puked.”

  “No, I mean to get in here.”

  “Oh. I don’t know.”

  “You don’t?”

  “Not really.”

  Connelly looked around. He thought over the last few days. The boy had only noticed him out of all of them. And there was only one person who knew what Connelly looked like who wasn’t in his group, and that happened to be the man he was hunting.

  He stood up and went to the door. It was thick and heavy and the hinges seemed strong, as was the lock. There were two slots, one for food, one for the guards to observe him. He pushed on it. It did not even rattle.

  “What you doing?” said Peachy.

  “Nothing.”

  Connelly tested the door, the ceiling, the floor, the wall with the window. They were all heavy, not even flexing to his touch.

  Peachy chuckled. “Ain’t no popping out of these boxes. They might not look like much but they do their job.”

  Connelly grunted.

  “What you think they’re going to do to you?”

  “I don’t know. I hope not much. Doubt that, though.”

  “Maybe someone will bust you out.”

  “You ever hear of anyone doing that in here?”

  “No.”

  Connelly shut his eyes. His legs trembled underneath him and his head throbbed. “Well,” he said. “I’m going to sleep now.”

  “At least, no one’s broked out while I been in here. I been in here three months,” said Peachy. “I broke a man’s hand in a fight.”

  “Okay.”

  “He was a son of a bitch.”

  “Okay. I’m going to sleep now.”

  There was a pause.

  “They kill people in here,” said Peachy softly. “Did you know that, Connelly?”

  Connelly shook his head.

  “I said, did you know that?” said Peachy again.

  “No,” said Connelly.

  “I just… I just thought you would want to know that.”

  “Well. Thanks.”

  “Connelly?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Think they going to kill you?”

  He paused. “Yeah.”

  “Why would they kill you?”

  “Don’t think they need a reason,” said Connelly, and he lay down to sleep.

  As he drifted off he heard Peachy’s voice say, “Shit.”

  The door opened. Flat electric light bored into his darkened room. He lifted his hand to block it and someone said, “Up you get,” and grabbed his arm and hoisted him to his feet.

  He was dragged out and led down a long low hallway at the end of which was an iron door that opened on a room with walls of cinderblocks. Again, a lone bulb in the ceiling. Plain, boring desk at the end. A small drain in the center of the cement floor. It was the sort of room in which wars were planned.

  The men pushed Connelly in and the door clanked shut behind them. Pike and Roosevelt were sitting on two stools set in the floor. A third was empty. At the far end of the room was the sheriff, leaning on the desk and smiling at them. His men forced Connelly onto the third stool. It was absurdly small for him. Pike and Roosevelt did not look at him or at each other, though it was hard to tell through their bruised faces. Connelly guessed that some of the marks were fresh.

  “How was your night?” asked the sheriff.

  Connelly shrugged. He kept his eyes on the floor, then found himself looking at the drain set in its middle. Faint rust-red stains ran around its rim. The floor itself was scrubbed clean.

  “You thirsty?” said the sheriff. “You look thirsty.”

  “I’m pretty thirsty, yeah,” said Connelly.

  The sheriff nodded and took out a small tin cup and filled it with water from a basin. He brought it to Connelly and Connelly drank it quickly.

  “Yeah,” said the sheriff. “You were thirsty. Care for some more?”

  Connelly shrugged, nodded. The sheriff filled the cup once more and brought it to him. Connelly drank just as fast, fearing some imminent violence would kick it from his hands.

  “Rainwater,” said the sheriff. “Rainwater’s never been sweeter than it is in dry countries. Now. I’m going to ask you a question. Are you ready? I hope so.” He sniffed and rubbed his nose. “Where’s your friends?”

  “Friends?”

  “Yeah. Your friends. Where they at, big boy?”

  Connelly gave him a puzzled look and pointed to Roosevelt and Pike sitting on their stools.

  He almost didn’t see the sheriff move. The only thing he sensed was the lightning bolt of pain that shot through his shoulder, from his wrist to the base of his brain, every ligament and nerve turned to razor wire. He looked up and the sheriff was gently patting a short, thick pipe in one hand.

  “Like that?” he said cheerfully.

  “No,” said Connelly.

  “That’s okay. You weren’t supposed to. Where are your friends at?” he said more clearly.

  Connelly didn’t say anything.

  “Why don’t you answer, boy?”

  “Don’t want to get hit again.”

  “You won’t get hit again if you give me the right answer.”

  “But I don’t know the right answer.”

  “Hmm,” said the sheriff thoughtfully. “Hmm.” He walked around like he was contemplating something and then he brought the pipe down on Pike’s forehead, stabbing down with the short base. Pike roared and bent over, a stream of blood flowing from his hairline.

  “Did all of you like that?” asked the sheriff. “Did you? You going to tell me where they’re at now? Huh?”

  None of them answered. Pike sat frozen, ignoring the flow
of blood from his forehead. He could have been carved from wood.

  The sheriff looked at them all, face fixed in disgust. “Reynolds?” he called.

  “Yes, Sheriff Miles?” said a voice outside the door.

  “Cuffs, please.”

  “Sure.”

  A young man brought in cuffs and they were handcuffed with their wrists behind their backs. The chain of the cuffs went down around one leg of their stools so they could not move forward or away.

  “Now then,” said the sheriff. He rolled his sleeves up, again revealing the raw brand on his arm, the snake eating itself. “Now then. I know that you boys aren’t alone. No sir, not a chance. So there’s some other boys out there running around and, well, I’d like to chat with them, too. Are they chatty folk? Are they personable?”

  No one said anything. The sheriff paced around them, walked behind Pike, then Roosevelt, then Connelly. Connelly tried to turn to see the little man but he could not. Suddenly there was a fierce pain in his wrist and he groaned and slid forward and tried to twist it in his cuffs. He could not see what the man had done but he felt sure his wrist was broken.

  “Oh, relax, son,” said the sheriff. “It’s barely a hairline. Barely a hairline, if that.”

  Roosevelt muttered something.

  “What was that? What?”

  “I said, you can’t do this,” said Roosevelt.

  “Can’t do what?”

  “Can’t just haul up some fellas and cuff them to the floor and beat the hell out of them and not have a reason for doing it.”

  “I do have a reason. You boys killed some men on a train. Some good men. Killed them dead, like they were animals.”

  “We didn’t do any such thing.”

  The sheriff looked at them, eyes flat and dead and distant. They looked alien on such a quaint little old man. “Yes you did.”

  “You can’t do this,” said Roosevelt. “Can’t beat on prisoners. There are laws. This is America.”

  “What is?” said the sheriff.

  “Huh? This is. All this is.”

  “This?” said the sheriff, and waved at the bland, gray room.

  “No, this… this country. We’re… we’re in America, right now. There are laws.”

  “Show me,” said the sheriff.

  “What?”

  The sheriff grinned. “Show me America.”

  “I don’t… I…”

  “If it’s going to tell me what to do and what not to do, it better be on hand. You know?”

  Roosevelt frowned.

  “Show me a law,” the sheriff demanded. “Pick it up and show it to me. Show me a part of America. What, is it this country? This is just dirt we’re standing on, son. Dirt and stone. Ain’t no lines in the earth, no directions saying what I can and can’t do. Show me a right. Pick it up and hold it in your hands and put it beneath my ever-loving nose and show me a thing that says I cannot do what I am doing now. Show me that this is forbidden.”

  “This is America,” insisted Roosevelt.

  “America is back east,” said the sheriff. “Rights are back east. You’re out on your own out here. And no one gives a damn about any such thing. See?” He sidearmed Roosevelt across the neck with the pipe. Roosevelt gagged and cried out and spittle hung from his lips in streams.

  The sheriff crouched and smiled into Roosevelt’s face. “All this stuff you talking about,” said the sheriff. “All this stuff. Well. You take it out here and you see it’s just made up. Imaginary. Santy Claus. It’s only real if you and everyone else shuts your eyes and pretends with every inch your pretty little hearts. And no one out here’s willing to do that, son. Now,” he whispered. “Now, now. You want to see what is real?”

  The sheriff smiled, then reached behind him and held up the lead pipe, like a lawyer presenting evidence. He laid it on the cement floor in front of them. Then he took out his gun, the metal wicked black and lustrous, and laid it in front of Roosevelt. All of them watched it, their eyes following its movements.

  “Argue with that as you would a law,” he said. “Argue your rights with that. Go on. Do it.”

  None of them spoke.

  The sheriff smiled. “With things like that a fella makes a place far more… I don’t know, real than one of laws and rights. What about you, old man?” said the sheriff to Pike. “What do you have to say?”

  Pike’s cold stare moved to the sheriff. “Laws are made by men,” said Pike. “I serve a higher power. A power higher than any butchery you have in your hands and heart.”

  The sheriff laughed. “If God wants to come on down and give me a yell about what I’m doing, I—”

  “I bet if the scarred man came out here and said not to, you’d jump,” interrupted Connelly.

  The sheriff froze and turned to look at him, eyes thin with fury. “What?”

  “You’re his man, aren’t you?” said Connelly. “He’s put some cash in your pocket to scoop us up. Isn’t that it?”

  The sheriff stared at him a long while, then stooped and picked up the gun and held it to Connelly’s head. Connelly felt the muzzle bite into the patch of scalp behind his ear, felt it grinding into his skull, felt the sheriff’s hand quivering with rage and felt Pike’s and Roosevelt’s stares. He shut his eyes and waited for the mindless lump of metal to enter his head and push everything that made him what he was out the other side onto the cement floor to be washed down into the drain with God knows what else that had met its end in that room.

  “Say that again, boy,” said the sheriff softly. “You just say that again.”

  Connelly did nothing.

  “You say it!”

  He still did not move. The sheriff let the gun fall and he walked around and pressed the gun under Connelly’s chin, forcing him to look up at the sheriff’s face. “He says I can’t kill you,” said the sheriff. “You know that? I said, did you know that?”

  “No,” said Connelly.

  “What do you think about that?”

  “I-I guess I’d say that’s mighty polite of him,” he said, confused.

  “No!” shouted the sheriff, and cracked Connelly with the handle, then placed the gun under his chin once more. “Not like that. The Mithras-man says… says you’re unkillable, boy. Like even if I tried it wouldn’t stick. You think that’s true?”

  “No,” Connelly said honestly.

  “No,” echoed the sheriff. “No. Me neither. I don’t believe that at all, boy.” He took the gun away, inspected it. Wiped off the small flecks of blood. “Not at all. Reynolds?”

  “Yes?” said the young man.

  “Get these men out of here. Make sure to rig up the big fella’s cell nice and good.” He stayed focused on the gun, cleaning it over and over again. “Nice and good, you hear me? Nice and good.”

  “Yes, Sheriff,” said the young man, and opened the door.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  They tossed Connelly back into his cell a little more than ten minutes later. He looked up and inspected the walls, the ceiling, the floor. He did not know what they had meant by rigging up his cell. It seemed just as damp and uncomfortable as before. His sick was still pooling in the corner.

  Except it was a little different. The light felt different, like the source had changed, but he could see the sunlight still streaming through the window at the top. Yet it seemed greasier, oilier, like water tainted and fouled by some foreign contaminant. Connelly dismissed it. Surely a man who had taken as many beatings as he had over the past days was allowed some confusion. He felt ill as well. There was a constant ringing in his ears that would not go away. Perhaps he was permanently damaged.

  “Connelly?” said Peachy’s voice through the crack in the wall.

  “Yeah?” he asked.

  “They beat on you?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Oh,” said Peachy. “They beat on me sometimes, too. Not too often.”

  “When are they going to let you out?” asked Connelly.

  “They never said.-I-I don’t
think anyone knows I’m in here. Except maybe a few of the other deputies and I don’t think they care.”

  “Christ,” said Connelly. Never had he felt more alone and miserable. Before this he had trudged through whatever he needed to but at that moment all the lonely days and terrified nights collapsed on him at once. He curled up and shrank into the corner.

  “What do you think of the sheriff?” asked Peachy.

  “Don’t care for him much.”

  “They had a man in the cell before you. Did you know that? It was him that pried open the little slivers of wood so he could talk to me. Do you see any carvings he left there? Anything at all?”

  “No.” For the first time Connelly wished Peachy would be quiet. The ringing in his ears had increased to a whine.

  “He was old and crazy as hell. I don’t know how long he’d been in here. I almost wished he never did carve that gap. At night he’d just sit there and lean against it and whisper to me. He’d say the most terrible things. About screamings coming from under the jailhouse and about the sheriff. He said the sheriff could make the cells sing to you at night, sing about all the bad things that had happened to you, and drown you in them. And he said he was old. You know how old he said the sheriff was? How old would you say he is by looking at him, Connelly?”

  “Don’t know. Fifty. Fifty-five.”

  “He said he thought the sheriff was nearly ninety years old.”

  “Bullshit.”

  “I know. That’s what he said, though. But it makes sense, don’t it? I mean, you’ve seen him. Have you… Have you seen his eyes?”

  “Yeah.”

  “They ain’t right, are they? Even though he’s a little old man, his eyes is older. Like they seen too much. Or maybe they seen things most folks shouldn’t see.”

  “What are you saying?”

  “Oh, just something that crazy old man in your cell said once. Said the sheriff’d been working in this town for so long it was unreal. Said the sheriff’d made a deal with a god.”

  Connelly stopped. “What did you say?”

  “Huh? I said the sheriff made a deal with a god.”