Rockabilly Hell

by William W. Johnstone

  Cole and Katti had decided to work south from Cairo, Illinois.

  The friendly Illinois cop that Cole had met at the convention waved his hand. “There used to be nightclubs all around this two/three block area. A lot of them are gone now. Honky-tonks, strip joints; you name it, we had it. You and me, Cole, we were just grade-schoolers when this area was jumping.” He looked at Katti and smiled. “And you, Katti, weren’t even born! Well, I’ve got to get back to work. You two nose around all you like. I’ve told the guys and gals patrolling this area that you’re here. You won’t be bothered. Have fun.”

  They sat in the Bronco in front of what used to be a notorious nightclub. Now there was nothing left except for a building that looked to be ready for demolition.

  Katti said, “Along the way, we’ve pulled over and paused at the ruins of—or just the land that used to be the home of—the Do-Drop-Inn, the Stateline, the G & K, the Courts, the Bloody Bucket, and a dozen others. The feeling is the same at each one. Do you agree?”

  “Very reluctantly.”

  “But you do agree?”

  “Yes.”

  “So what is it we feel?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “The files we looked at this morning tell us that since this club finally closed its doors, fifteen years ago, there have been two disappearances and three unsolved murders here, right?”

  “Yes. Right where we’re sitting.”

  “And right across the street, in that vacant lot, there used to be a club called the Glass Slipper, right?”

  “Right.”

  “Two teenagers—a boy and girl—vanished there one night, right?”

  “That’s right. Their bodies were never found. Before the building was torn down, it used to be a favorite place for kids to park and smooch.”

  She giggled. “Smooch, Cole? Smooch?”

  “That’s what I said.”

  “You’re a little behind the times, dear.”

  “Well . . . suck-face, then. Is that better?”

  “No. Are you ready to head back to the motel?”

  “What do you have in mind?”

  “I’ll think of something.”

  “I just bet you will.”

  * * *

  They had stated their intentions to both the city police and the sheriffs department, and there were no objections from either department. Just to be on the safe side, the sheriff informed the Illinois State Police about what was going on, further insuring that Cole and Katti would not be bothered that night.

  There were a few houses along the two-block area, but they were all unoccupied. A realtor had very reluctantly told them that people did try to live in the homes from time to time, but always moved out after a few months.

  “Why?” Katti asked.

  The realtor had looked pained, like he needed desperately to fart. “Things that go bump in the night,” he finally said. “It’s all nonsense, of course. There are no such things as ghosts. We’re going to have to eventually tear those houses down. The insurance premiums for unoccupied dwellings are killing us.”

  Cole and Katti had picked up a dozen cassette tapes before leaving Memphis—the remastered originals of early rock and roll. Elvis, Orbison, Jerry Lee, Rich, Cash, Perkins, Smith, Feathers, Riley.

  They were now parked in the grassy lot where the Glass Slipper used to stand. Cole checked his 9 mm.

  “What are you going to do with that?” Katti asked. “Shoot a ghost?”

  “I feel better with it.”

  “I’d feel better with an exorcist.”

  “Tell you the truth, I feel like an idiot.”

  “That makes two of us.”

  There was very little traffic, and the skies were overcast. A couple of the street lamps along this particular section of town were not working, and it was very dark. The only light came from the interstate that ran close by.

  “You ready for the tape?”

  Katti sighed. “Why not?”

  Cole hit the play button, and the Bronco and the night all around it for twenty or so yards was filled with the sounds of early rock and roll—rompin’, stompin’, pure rock and roll. Drums, bass, lead, and rhythm, without any of the electronic gimmicks that eventually bastardized the music and changed it into so much clashing, banging, fuzzy-noted crap.

  “Jesus, Cole!” Katti said, clutching at his arm. “Look over there!”

  A shadowy form had materialized out of the brush and weeds. Whatever it was, it was indistinct in the gloom of night. From their distance, it was impossible to tell exactly what it was.

  “Katti,” Cole said. “You are paralyzing my right arm.”

  “Oh!” She relaxed her death grip on his forearm. “What is that thing?”

  “I don’t know. But it sure appeared out of nowhere.”

  Cole felt the comforting weight of the 9 mm tucked behind his belt, and then realized that maybe it wasn’t so comforting. What good was a bullet against a ghost?

  “It’s coming this way!” Katti said, real fear behind the words.

  Cole watched the . . . thing, not really feeling all that brave himself. The dark shadow drew closer, moving very slowly through the weeds. They both watched as the shadow reached down and picked something up off the ground.

  “Whatever it is just picked up a club,” Cole said.

  “Why would a ghost want a club?” Katti asked, reaching over to turn down the volume of the music.

  “That’s better,” came the voice from the strange form. “It’s bad enough I have to sleep on the ground like an animal, but puttin’ up with that damn racket is just too much. Why don’t you kids go somewheres else to make out?”

  “Homeless,” Cole said, after expelling some pent-up air. He opened the driver’s side door and stepped out. “Come over here,” he called. “I want to talk to you.”

  “You the cops? I ain’t done nothin’, man.”

  “I’m not the cops. I just want to talk to you. I’ll give you a couple of bucks for a few minutes’ time.”

  The man drew closer and Cole could smell a strange odor. He knew that in many cases, that was not the individual’s fault—not entirely. Where can the homeless go for a hot bath? Over the years, Cole had personally seen dozens of homeless men and women who were made that way through no fault of their own. Hundreds of thousands of Americans live just one paycheck away from disaster.

  Cole dismissed the smell as he laid a five dollar bill on the hood of the Bronco. “There’s five bucks. Can we talk?”

  The man stepped closer and snatched away the bill. “All right. What’d you have on your mind?”

  “How long have you been . . . living out here?”

  “Couple of months or so. I got me a cardboard house over there,” he pointed. “I take it down durin’ the day, so’s the cops won’t see and roust me away. ’Course I have to replace it ever’ time it rains.”

  “You ever seen anything, well, odd, around here at night?”

  The homeless man thought about that for a moment. “Seen, no. Heard, yeah. Twice in last two and a half months.”

  Seated in the Bronco, Katti had punched on a cassette recorder and was taping every word.

  Cole stared at the man through the darkness. He figured the guy to be in his mid- to late-thirties. “What have you heard?”

  The man hesitated, then said, “The same goddamn music that you was playin’, that’s what. Not necessarily the same songs, but the same beat—the sound, you know what I mean? Kinda hillbilly, but more rock and roll. Then I hear laughin’, jokin’, talkin’. Then the sounds of what seems like fightin’. A scream. Then ... nothin’. I hear all this, but I can’t figure out where it’s comin’ from. There ain’t no place around here where it could be comin’ from. There ain’t nothin’ out here.”

  “Does this happen at about the same time each month?”

  The man laughed, but it was a bitter sound, void of any trace of humor. “Man, how the hell should I know? I ain’t got no calendar. I swapped
my watch for a pair of shoes last year. All I know is I’ve heard the same sounds twice. It’s spooky, that’s what it is.”

  “How long have you been down on your luck?” Cole asked.

  The homeless man grunted. “Three years, I think. I had me a good job up in Chicago. Home, wife, kid, all that good stuff. Lost my job, went through the savings in two months. Couldn’t pay the mortgage. Couldn’t find a job. Unemployment ran out. First the car went, then my old pickup. When the mortgage company took the house, the wife took the kid and left. It’s still all ... unreal, you know? It all happened so fast. One day I’m a regular workin’ guy, with a home and everything. Just like regular people. The wife and I could afford to go out maybe once a month or so, for supper and a movie. Maybe down to the tavern for a few beers and some laughs with the neighborhood crowd. Then I look up, and I don’t have anything. I’m wiped out. When the shop started hirin’ again, you know who got my old job? A fuckin’ foreigner, that’s who! Comes into this country without a pot to piss in, stays on welfare for a year, then the son of a bitch gets my job. I been a welder all my life. Ever since I was fifteen years old. I don’t know nothin’ else. When everything else run out, I borrowed money from a finance company against my equipment. I couldn’t pay the notes, so they come got that. I been payin’ taxes and obeyin’ the law all my life. And this is what my country does to me. I’m ruined, and my job goes to some fuckin’ foreigner. Something is awful wrong with the way this country is run, man. Really bad wrong.” He turned to go, then paused, and turned around. “Thanks for the money, man. That’ll buy some pork and beans for me and some food for my little dog . . .” The man’s voice caught in his throat. “Well, I forgot. I don’t have my little dog no more. He got run over, and the son of a bitch who hit him didn’t even stop to see about him. I buried him right next to my cardboard house. I got to find me another dog. They love you no matter what you have or don’t have. Animals are better than people, man. You know that? It’s true. I never realized that until I got put out on the street.” The man walked away, back to his cardboard house, by the grave site of his little dog.

  Cole stepped back into the Bronco in time to see Katti put away the tissue she had used to wipe her eyes.

  “Yeah, I know, Katti. It gets to me, too. And I’ve seen a lot more of it up close, than you have.”

  “Why doesn’t the government do something to help people like that?”

  Cole cut his eyes to her, glad that she couldn’t see his expression in the darkness. After a few seconds, he said, “I warn you now, dear: don’t get me started on this wonderful government of ours.”

  Katti cut off the music, and they sat in silence for a time. After a moment, she said, “If what that homeless man said is true, we’re on the right track.”

  “It looks that way. But if so, what triggers the appearance of the clubs? Why could he hear the music, but not see the building and the people, like I did down in Arkansas. I’m way out of my league here, Katti. This is paranormal stuff. I was just a plain ol’ cop. A pretty good investigator. I don’t know anything about ghosts.”

  “Neither does anybody else, Cole. Not really. There are a lot of theories, but no facts. I’ve done a lot of research on the subject over the past few years. Even the so-called experts can’t really agree on much.”

  “If those . . . clubs do exist—and I’m convinced that they do—why have the ... hell, spirits, left that homeless man alone?”

  “Maybe they haven’t,” Katti said, after a few seconds’ pause.

  “What do you mean?”

  “You got a flashlight?”

  “Sure. Two of them. One in the glove box and another in the console.”

  “I forgot. Always prepared, that’s you.”

  “Just like a Boy Scout.”

  “I’ll remind you of that in a few hours.”

  “What if I have a headache?”

  “I’ll give you two aspirin—among other things.” Katti got the flashlights and handed one to Cole.

  “What are we doing?” Cole asked.

  “Come on. I’ve got an idea.”

  They walked all over the weed-grown area, covering every foot of it, then went over it again. There was no cardboard house, no grave site of the little dog, no ashes from old fires, nothing to indicate that the homeless man lived anywhere near here.

  “You people are getting just too damn smart,” the disembodied voice sprang out of the darkness.

  Katti and Cole spun around, spearing the darkness with narrow beams of light. There was nothing out there. But there was something out there.

  Cole instinctively reached for his pistol. Grimacing, he pulled his hand back. No point in that. The wild thought came to him that perhaps he should to try to get some silver bullets. But then he recalled that only worked on werewolves.

  “Cole?” Katti’s voice was decidedly shaky.

  It was only with a great effort that Cole kept his own voice strong. “I’m right here. Take it easy. Start working your way back to the truck. Go on, I’m with you.”

  They made it to the Bronco without incident, with no more ghostly voices springing from the night.

  Cole started the engine and cut on the lights. The homeless man was nowhere to be seen. Cole hit the button on his side panel that locked both doors. He turned to face Katti. “That was probably that homeless guy, having a little fun with us.”

  She did not respond vocally to that. But she did shake her head in the negative.

  “All right. Let’s say it was . . . someone from the other side, for want of a better description. Katti ... this is only the beginning of the investigation. Judging from what I saw in that joint down in Arkansas, I can assure you, it’s going to get a lot worse as we progress. Are you sure you want to go on?”

  She sat quite still for a moment, her hands in her lap. When she spoke, her voice was low, but steady. “Yes. I’m quite sure, Cole. ”

  “All right. Now then, do you have books at your house on ghosts and spirits and so forth?”

  “Dozens of them. Why?”

  “I want to read them.”

  “All of them?”

  “Yes. I’m a fast reader.”

  “What are you looking for?”

  “I don’t know. A thread . . . some common link—I’ll know it when I see it.”

  “You’re talking about ghosts?”

  “Yes.”

  “There is no common thread. Not one that will do us any good.”

  “There has to be. And I’ll find it,” he added stubbornly.

  Suddenly, from the darkness on either side of the Bronco, out of the glare of the headlights, music began, a wild guitar piece that hammered and shattered the night.

  “I guess that lets out the homeless man playing games with us,” Katti said. “If he was a homeless man.”

  “Which I doubt.”

  “Yeah. Me, too.”

  “What is that song, Cole?”

  “I can’t place it right off. Wait a minute.” After a moment, he strung together some pretty impressive cuss words.

  “What’s the matter? Other than the obvious, that is.”

  “That song. Somebody has a really sick sense of humor.”

  “Why? What is it?”

  Cole looked at her. “Ghost Riders In The Sky.”

  Four

  Before leaving town the next morning, Cole and Katti drove back to the vacant lot and walked the area, double-checking. Absolutely no trace of any cardboard house, no ashes from old fires, no little dog’s grave site they could find, no sign that anything human ever lived in the weeds and the brush.

  Neither one of them said anything, just exchanged glances, returned to the Bronco, and pulled out, heading south. They were back in Memphis in time for lunch.

  Cole began reading the books on psychic phenomena, haunted houses, ghosts of the south, poltergeists, and various other books about things that go bump in the night.

  After two days of reading and making careful notes,
Cole left the house one morning and went to a Memphis police supply house. He was still a fully bonded and commissioned deputy, so he had no trouble buying what he wanted. He said nothing to Katti about his purchases, for he was playing a long shot and had no idea if it would work.

  Over drinks that evening before dinner, Cole asked, “Exactly where did your brother disappear, Katti?”

  She found a road map and pointed. “ Right there. Used to be a roadhouse called the County Line. His car was in the parking lot, but no trace of him was ever found.”

  He studied her face. “You’ve been there?”

  “Once. Just before it closed down. It was a really, well, seedy place. Strictly low-class types hung out there.” She smiled. “You know what we call them here in the South.”

  “White trash.”

  “Of the worst kind.”

  “Is the building still standing?”

  “No. It was torn down about a year after it closed.”

  “What in the world was your brother doing in a joint like that?”

  “I never could figure that out. Tommy hated places like that. He was a bourbon and water man. He couldn’t drink beer; it made him sick. The County Line was a beer joint, not a bottle club. No hard liquor sold or allowed on the premises. Of course, it was consumed there, but on the sly.” She shook her head. “I never understood what he was doing there.”

  The next day, Cole did some checking on the County Line club.

  “Back in the fifties and early sixties,” he told Katti, “there was a roadhouse there called the Corral. In 1965 it was torn down and another building put up. The second building was named the County Line. But a lot of the materials from the Corral was used to build the County Line—cypress, mostly.”

  “Well, now. How come I couldn’t find that out?”

  “You did not make a good impression with them after your brother went missing. They remember you well.”

  “So I was a pain in the ass. What else did you find out?”

  “The joint was a rough place in its day. Started out nice, but the ’necks took it over and soon the original clientele stopped going there. That’s when the shootings and knifings and brawls started. Several people were killed there before it was closed down.”