Nick hefted his duffel high up on his shoulder and turned away from the woods to look down the long barrel of the road; the tree limbs hung over it and tangled above it to create a hollow. He stood at the bottom of a hill in a well of oil-black night, the air colder and somehow closer here than it was where the road was more open. He took a step forward then froze again. He cocked his head and listened. He could hear something breathing. Each breath sounded like gusts gently pushed from a bellows. He listened to the watcher’s breath and thought he heard it shift its weight, its breath changing in pitch. There was a rasping undertone to the sound, like it was holding back a growl. Ice grew inside of Nick, slid through him like a caress.
Barking dogs weren’t to be feared necessarily, it was a warning and they didn’t mean to attack if they were barking. It was when they growled that you should be afraid. A growling dog was a dangerous dog because a growling dog aimed to bite you. A growling dog meant business.
If a growling dog understood some people might know that and therefore held itself in check, what did that mean? How dangerous was that dog?
Nick cut his eyes to the side, back to the woods, breath held and muscles tense. He didn’t know where such a thought had come from. That rasp though—it rumbled low on the exhale, the sound rolling like small thunder. Nick shivered and took another step forward. He had to tell himself to move because the longer he stood there the more dangerous the situation became. He was watching nothing but the dark, but something in the dark was watching him. He didn’t want to stick around to hear that held back growl find its voice with a sound like the gates of Hell swinging open on rusted hinges.
As he took another step, a branch cracked behind him and Nick jumped, breath catching in his throat. He wanted to run. He would not allow himself to. Running was the worst thing in the world. If he ran, he would die. He knew that instinctively, the knowledge so old it had always been there. You can’t outrun death, but you can walk away from it if you show no fear. In prison, fear meant a shiv in the kidney, walking away meant a shove or two; the other side of that was learning when to stand and fight was the best course of action. Everything was a complex system of weights and measures though on the surface it looked primitive—beasts snapping at beasts to establish the hierarchy. Respect was built and in prison respect was currency. In the outside world, showing no fear showed the big bad beastie in the woods that you were its equal because a lesser beast would bolt. It was the duty of the predator to give chase then.
With a slow breath—stay calm, stay calm—Nick took another step and another. He kept his stride even and casual; even a brisk walk was a bad idea when things drew so tense. As he walked, so did the thing in the woods. It kept pace with him. It followed him and didn’t even try to mask the sounds of its steps. Nick’s heart beat so hard in his throat that he could feel the vibration in his teeth, the thump of it in his temples. If he stopped, his unwelcome sidekick stopped as well.
Nick could not shake the feeling that he was being fucked with.
It was another mile before he reached Nancy’s driveway and never in his life had he been so thankful that something was on the left side of the road. He wasn’t sure he could have crossed to the right—that was where the animal was. He wondered if it was a feral dog; they didn’t have the same fear of humans something like a coyote would. He quickly pushed the thought away though; feral dogs tended to form packs and they’d have attacked him by that point. Whatever was taking in the air with Nick was too smart and too patient to be a wild dog. It was too amused to be anything like what Nick knew of the local wildlife.
Cats would toy with their prey, but not for so long without attacking. If they did not attack then they would wander off elsewhere. Cats were patient, but they did grow bored eventually and they didn’t play Stop Sign with their food. Whatever was following Nick had been making a game of it, which suggested curiosity, boredom and/or creative sadism. The only animals capable of such controlled, thoughtful malice were humans. That bothered Nick the most; human beings were the most dangerous of all animals.
He turned down Nancy’s driveway and the crunch of the gravel under his boots was a relief. From the trees behind him and across the road came the sound of a soft growl at last. Nighty-night and thanks for playing.
Nick’s pulse stuttered and thumped, but his steps did not falter. This was the homestretch, the last leg of the last mile he had to go. This was when people panicked the most—when they felt they were closest to safety. Safety would not save Nick from the monster (man) that had accompanied him on his walk. Safety would be a word that meant nothing to them. If Nick stayed brave though; if he did not flinch then he would make it to the door and would be allowed to knock and go inside.
Ahead of him was Nancy’s house sitting small and modest on its big lawn, grass too long and waving like the thin tentacles of underwater creatures as yet unnamed. The porch light was on—it was waiting for him to come home. It burned his eyes after so long without light and though he had been thankful for the dark only an hour earlier, he was glad to see it by then.
From behind him came the rustle of underbrush followed a second later by a soft tick-tick sound. Nick swallowed and kept walking. He was beginning to breathe heavily, sweat greasing his face as he waited for the crunch of gravel to follow that tick-tick. He didn’t know what that was, but he knew what the rustling of the grass and flowers in the ditch meant. If he turned around there was enough light he might be able to see the person standing there at the foot of the driveway, watching him.
Nick bit the inside of his cheek and stuffed his hand back in his pocket to palm his lighter. He would not turn and look; he would not grant his unwanted companion the satisfaction. Nancy’s door was so close, twenty yards and some doorsteps away then he’d be there and that was all that Nick cared about. It was all he’d allow himself to care about. His muscles strained and trembled beneath his skin, his entire being screamed at him to run except for that one, quiet voice in the center of the chaos that said, Don’t you dare.
With a shaking exhalation, Nick kept going though his eyes stung and a scream twitched in his throat. He knew he’d hear it any second; the sound of heavy feet hitting the gravel at a dead run, the sudden weight of a speeding body hitting his back so hard it lifted him off his feet and sent him sailing before he landed again. The waiting was driving him mad, the knowing it was going to happen was excruciating because with that knowledge was also the awareness that he had nothing to defend himself with. He would die a few feet from his homecoming and that would be the real pisser.
Then he was up the doorsteps and not even sure how he’d done that, his legs were shaking so badly he felt like one of those old cartoon characters whose knees would knock together like hollow logs with fear. Nancy’s door was painted a crisp, clean white though it looked like someone had drawn on it with a marker; angry slashes of dark against the stark white of the paint. When it registered that he was looking at the dark wood of the old door beneath the paint, Nick frowned. It wasn’t marker or paint, it was gouges in the wood. Long gashes carved into the heavy oak so deep that the gouges were full of shadows.
Still frowning, still listening, still trying to tell himself to breathe and be calm, Nick raised his shaking fist and knocked. It landed between two of the gashes, rap-rap-rap, an anxious, nervous knock against the damaged wood. He ran the tip of his index finger through one of the ravines in the door and felt the prickle of splinters beneath his fingertip. He tracked the line of the marks up to the top of the door frame where they began off to the side and about three inches above the door. He raised his eyebrows and mouthed, What the fuck?
“Nick!”
He jumped and nearly fell on his ass at the sound of Nancy’s voice. Nancy was watching him with tired blue eyes the color of faded denim, her straw-gold hair twisted up in a clip on top of her head like a lopsided cock’s comb. Nick wanted to smile and hug her; he wanted to push her aside and slam the door behind them so he could barricade the
m inside.
“Come on in here,” Nancy said, stepping back to motion for Nick to hurry it up. She looked around him, gaze jittery and mouth twitching faintly at the corners as she stared out into the darkness.
Nick pulled the door closed behind himself and the snick of the latch catching made them both jump.
“Good lord, look at you,” Nancy said after a moment of awkward staring between the two of them.
“Heya, Nance,” he managed after swallowing a couple of times and licking his lips with his dry tongue.
She smiled at him and held her arms out. “I am so damn glad to see you again, boy, you don’t have any idea.”
“I might have some idea,” Nick said as he hugged her back. It was damn good to be hugged by someone again. He was amazed at how good it felt—at how starved for something as simple as a hug he had been.
“Twelve years is a long damn time,” she said.
“Goddamn, don’t I know it.” He smiled and slumped back against the front door. The image of the gouges on the other side slid through his mind and he jerked upright again like he’d been goosed. Nick turned and locked the door, noticed that there were six locks there, four of which still gleamed with newness, so shiny they looked wet in the hallway light.
“I didn’t even hear you pull in,” Nancy said.
“Well, I didn’t hear you unlocking Fort Lange, either,” Nick said.
Nancy paled beneath her peaches-and-cream skin and nodded. “I’m sneaky like that. But maybe I ain’t the only one, huh? After all, I didn’t hear a vehicle.” She looked Nick over and then her eyes widened. “Didn’t see one neither now that I think about it. Good God, did you walk here?”
“I hitchhiked part of the way,” he said. “Been full time since I hit town though.”
“Oh, sweet mercy,” Nancy said. “Come sit down. Right now, you come in the living room and rest your bones. Why didn’t you call me, Nick?”
“Well… I don’t have myself a cell phone like everyone else and all the pay phones between here and Texas seem to have vanished,” Nick said.
“You called me a couple nights back,” Nancy pointed out. “And when you did, you said you were all right.”
“I said it because I was,” Nick said. “I borrowed the phone off a trucker.”
“Uh-huh,” Nancy said. “That all you did?”
Nick rubbed at his face then glanced at her. She raised her eyebrows at him as she sat on her sagging sofa and lit a partially smoked cigarette.
“I wouldn’t fuck somebody for the price of a phone call, Nancy. He thought I should though.” It was a little insulting that she would even think that; then again, she had been living in the world as it changed. Maybe the world had, in turn, changed her with it. He turned his head to show his jaw. “He wasn’t happy about it, but that’s how it goes when you say no and they think you owe them anyway.”
“Sounds like a real charmer,” Nancy said with a curl of her lip. “You said no though and that’s good. You want some ice for your jaw?”
Nancy knew all about Nick’s part-time prostitution; had known since they were teenagers. He had turned his first trick at fourteen because it had seemed like easy money—and he’d been right. Over the years, whenever he found himself a little strapped for cash, he went out and laid on his back or laid someone down; Nick would get on his knees and suck cock all night long if the price was right.
“I’ll be okay,” Nick said. Johns didn’t get rough with him very often, though the couple of times they had, it was a real mess. A broken jaw and fractured ribs levels of messy.
“You always say that,” Nancy said. “Being a… a…
“Whore,” Nick offered. Nancy grimaced, which made him grin.
He thought of it as whoring himself because it sounded more honest than dressing it up with softer terms like prostitute, strumpet, harlot or even rent-boy. Whore was a word that filled up the mouth and dragged over the teeth. It was a word that was spat out even if it was said slowly or whispered. It was crass and ugly; it left a film on the tongue. It fit.
“Being a hooker, even only a sometimes hooker is a good way to end up dead in a ditch somewhere,” she said instead of whore because that was a damn ugly word and she didn’t think Nick was worthless enough to use it on. “I don’t care how big you are, Nick, you can’t stop a bullet or a hammer to the back of your head.”
“I’m not doing that,” Nick said. “I told him no. For fuck’s sake, try to be a little more optimistic about things, huh?”
They’d been having some variation of the same conversation since he sat on the edge of her bed and showed her the hundred dollars he’d sold his virginity for. The best way to keep from beating that dead horse once again was to change the subject, of course. Nick had the perfect topic, too; it had been burning at him all the time he’d been sitting there making what passed for small talk between him and Nancy.
“Nance? What the hell happened to your door?”
She startled at the question so badly she dropped her fresh cigarette. As she leaned down to pick it up from the floor, a lock of her hair came loose and curved across her cheek. Nancy brushed it away with absentminded irritation as she sat back.
“Now that’s a story,” she said.
“I’m all ears,” Nick said.
“It’s mighty early—or late, depending on how you look at it—to be getting into this mess,” Nancy said.
Nick yawned, but still shook his head. “Nuh-uh, c’mon, I didn’t come all this way just to be sent to bed the minute I got here.”
“We’ve been talking,” Nancy said. “For crying out loud, the sun’s coming up.”
“What do you care?” Nick asked. “You work nights.”
“Fuck you,” Nancy sighed. She was a doctor at Sparrow Falls Memorial. She’d sent Nick a picture of her graduation day and he’d kept it tacked up on the wall of his cell until the day he was released.
“Sorry,” Nick said. “I’ll leave you be about it if that’s what you want. I was just wondering is all because… well. You have claw marks in your door.”
Nancy had been rubbing at her forehead like she was getting a headache, but at that she stopped and peeked at Nick through her fingers.
“It’s too late… early… whatever, to get into that, Nicky,” she said. She went back to rubbing her forehead. “I’ll tell you everything you want to know in the morning, but if I start now, we’ll be here until noon probably. A lot has been going on lately, weird stuff, you know? Weirder than usual even.”
Nancy was doing nothing to quiet Nick’s curiosity, but he got it. It was way past time for sane people to go to bed, but they’d never been sane. Nick thought that the real truth was that in order to lay out the newest treat Sparrow Falls’s high weirdness had vomited up on its residents. Nancy needed a little time and some rest to prepare herself.
“All right,” Nick said. “Sorry I bugged you about it, but later, right? You’re not exactly making me less curious.”
Nancy smiled faintly. “Yeah, later,” she promised. “You should know anyway.”
“It’s like a homecoming gift: Look at all the fucked up shit you’ve been missing out on,” Nick said.
“Should I have kept you a scrap book?” Nancy asked.
“Absolutely,” Nick said. He stood up and grabbed his duffel. “My old room still there?”
“Uh-huh. Where would it have gone?” Nancy said with a lazy smile, voice faint and far away. She was starting to drift off. “None of your shit’s in there anymore. Bed is though and the sheets are clean.”
Nick nudged her foot with the toe of his boot to rouse her. “You need to get up, too,” Nick said.
“Hmm? Oh, right. Bed. I should do that,” Nancy muttered. She sat there another minute and Nick was about to bump her foot again when she finally pulled herself up off the sofa. “There. I’m up. Off we go.”
“To see the wizard…”
“The wonderful wizard of Odd,” Nancy sang, pronouncing it like she had
when she was a little girl. It had stuck and become the way they both sang it even still.
“Night-night, Nancy,” Nick said as she took the first right into her bedroom. His was the next door down.
“Goodnight, Nicky,” she said. She walked back into the hallway and gave him another hug. She smiled when she stepped back into her room. “And welcome home.”
“It’s good to be back,” Nick said.
He moved on to his room, walls bare, areas of plaster still lighter even after all these years, the ghostly shapes of rectangles where posters had once hung. He threw his duffel in the closet, stripped off his boots then flopped down on the bed with a groan. Blinking up at his old ceiling, head full of so many memories he could never hope to untangle and sort them all, Nick smiled. It really was good to be home.
4
The next day, Nancy filled Nick in on what had been happening, launching into the tale before he was even halfway through his first cup of coffee. She talked fast, like she just wanted to get it all out. There wasn’t anything for him to do other than sit back and listen as she unfolded the strange new tableau for him.
It had started back in August. People in the area, a small, rural community of sixty-five about ten miles outside of Sparrow Falls, started hearing strange noises at night. Odd things would happen that they couldn’t quite explain or didn’t dare try to. The first sign that something was wrong was the night an elderly woman named Zelma Tindel heard something answer the coyotes, which were in no short supply. She swore up and down it wasn’t another coyote or a dog. She said it sounded too damn big and too damn different. Zelma had heard coyotes yipping, giggling and howling her entire life; she wasn’t senile and she wasn’t hard of hearing even at eighty-five years old. She knew what she had heard. No one really believed her though—at least not until things started happening to them, too.
A couple of days after Zelma heard what she called the “not-coyote”, Josephine Miller at the general store told Nancy she thought there was some kind of big animal lurking around her property; maybe a dog though she didn’t sound too convinced. One night she went to bed early with a migraine only to wake up when she heard whining under her bedroom window. Her head was clear by then and she’d almost gotten out of bed to go check on it. Josephine loved animals and had set up her own little rural rescue network and she volunteered for the small no-kill shelter in town. Josephine had a whole slew of animals at her place, all housed in the barn on her property. Just that month she had put in to have her work declared a charity so she could begin applying for grants to help her out with expenses. Everyone knew what Josephine did, so it wasn’t that uncommon for her to wake up and find someone had dumped off an unwanted pet or a stray they had found somewhere.
Shades of Night (Sparrow Falls Book 1) Page 2
