A Lincoln Town Car pulled up to the curb and Danielle recognized the man sitting behind the wheel. He kept glancing at her through the window, a look of astonishment on his face. She tried to ignore him and kept walking, but the car kept pace.
“Hey, Danielle,” the man called through the open window. “Is that you? Jesus, I thought you were dead. What happened? Where have you been?”
“Working at a boarding house.”
“What? Are you kidding me?”
Danielle shook her head.
“Well, when are you coming back to work for me, girl?” The man’s voice sounded hurt, almost pleading.
“When hell freezes over.”
“Oh, don’t be that way, Danielle. You were one of my best girls. One of my best money makers.”
“I don’t give a shit about you or your lousy money, Jimmy. I have a new life now. So fuck off.”
Jimmy laughed. “Life?” he said, his voice filled with incredulity. “I haven’t seen you in months and now you tell me you’re working at a boarding house. I’m finding this really hard to believe.” The car stopped abruptly. Jimmy got out and swiftly approached Danielle. “You better not be holding out on me, girl—”
Danielle pulled a hand gun out of her coat pocket and pressed the muzzle against Jimmy’s forehead, cocking the hammer with her thumb. “I paid with the lives of my children because of the things I did for you, asshole.”
Jimmy backed away, his hands in the air. “That fire was an accident, Danielle. Jesus Christ, it wasn’t my fault.”
“If I’d been at home with my children instead of out with one of your perverted tricks, they might still be alive.”
Jimmy’s face crumbled. “You’ll pay for this, you bitch,” he said, his voice filled with hate.
“What will you do, asshole, kill me?” Danielle laughed. “If you try you’d better make it good. I’ve got mental problems now, you know. I’m certified. I could blow your ass away and walk within a year. So, if you’re smart you’ll get back in that piece of shit pimpmobile of yours and get the fuck out of here.”
Jimmy did as he was told, stumbling toward the driver’s door, his face purple with rage. Danielle’s trembling hands held the revolver pointed at him. “You’re dead, girl!” he screamed. “Dead! Dead! Dead! Do you hear me?” The sound of his voice was like syncopated hammer blows in Danielle’s ears.
Danielle went back to her room. She paced back and forth across the floor, unsure what to do. She lit a cigarette, hands shaking. There was a small cubby at the foot of the bed, too small to be considered a closet. She opened the door and pulled out a small cardboard box. She sat the box on the bed looking at it for a long time, waiting—trying to get her thoughts straight. She dropped the lit cigarette onto the floor and crushed it out beneath her shoe. She sat down on the bed and opened the box. Inside there were drawings her children had done and given her. They were the only things salvaged from her other life. The only evidence her children had ever existed. It had been more than a year since she’d looked at them. She carefully lifted the sheets of paper out of the box smoothing them with her fingers as she did so. One by one she put the sheets to her lips and began kissing them as though she could taste her children on them. She pressed them against her face, hearing the noise her eyelashes made as they scratched against the paper. Tears flowed from her eyes and onto the drawings. But the wetness from her tears seemed to be distorting the images. What once had been happy moon-faces with wide smiles and bright eyes now looked like demons with black gaping mouths. Each nose had become a jagged red gash; the eyes were dark sinkholes of despair. And the twisted faces seemed to be screaming in abject agony. The more Danielle wept the more the images morphed into visions of horror and despair. Danielle could almost hear their shrieking voices. She began pulling more sheets from the box, looking at them, spilling tears on them. Now they were all the same. Tortured faces with gaping mouths and abysmal eyes. Was this some new pathos she would have to endure, or had the images been this way from the beginning? Had she just refused to see the truth?
Are you absolutely sure that everything happened the way you think it happened, Danielle?
She quickly put the images back in the box and buried it beneath some old clothes in the closet. She sat on the bed smoking cigarettes until nearly all the light had drained out of the day.
She kept thinking about herself and the stranger, how his cold body had pressed against hers, feeling like an emptiness. They were like two dead things floating on the surface of a lake.
Twilight came on the heels of a cold, dry wind and clear skies. The dampness had moved on across the Atlantic Ocean to settle into someone else’s bones. She approached the ruins just as evening’s shadows began to descend over them. She stopped at the rope, gazing into the heart of the partially demolished cathedral. It was as if the workmen had totally abandoned the project. Everything seemed exactly as it had earlier, abysmal, depressing, an emptiness unto itself. She ducked under the barricade making her way toward the heart of the crypt. Footsteps followed her, keeping a short distance. She did not turn to identify her pursuer, confident as she was in his identity. She stopped where the catacombs began. There were square indentations in the earth where bodies had once lain. She stared into them.
What sort of bodies had they been? Human? Something else?
In the darkness just beyond the catacombs she saw three small standing forms, unmoving. She could see no individual features, however. They were just ghosts, shadows cast by the very same darkness that had plagued her life for so long.
“Why?” she asked.
“You needed comfort,” said the stranger.
“And you were the one sent to offer it.”
“You needed to see what you have refused all along to see.”
“That my children are dead?”
“No, Danielle. You’ve always accepted that.”
“What then?”
“Remember the day at the park, the morning after your children . . . well.”
“Yes, the day I walked into the lake . . . a man came along and . . . saved . . . me.” She stared at the stranger, studying him. God, why had she not recognized him sooner? She’d felt it in his coldness, seen it in the paleness of his flesh, in his thin, nearly emaciated body. And she’d heard it in his words. Yes, every one had been a clue, but she hadn’t had the sense to pick up on it. “It was you.”
Decker gave a short bow. “At your service, Danielle.”
“But you didn’t save me,” Danielle said. “You didn’t even try. In fact you dragged me under. Why, for God’s sake?
“I was sent to give you comfort.”
“Comfort?”
“From the moment your children died you were stricken with grief. You blamed yourself. You wanted death. It is why you walked into the lake, is it not?”
“But I lived.”
“Are you absolutely sure about that, Danielle?”
“Who are you?”
The stranger stared.
“No,” Danielle said, backing away. “I don’t believe you.” She closed her eyes, now not wanting to see. She wondered what she would find if she returned to her room. Would there be a lock on the door? A sign that said vacancy? Would there be a box filled with children’s drawings hidden under a stack of clothing in a cubby that wasn’t large enough to be a closet? Had everything that had happened in the past year been some colossal and twisted deception?
“Open your eyes, Danielle. See the wonders.”
Danielle obeyed the stranger. She opened her eyes and stared. The ruins were filled with death, she saw, dozens, perhaps hundreds of small creatures occupied the vast space there. There were black gaping mouths and sunken eye sockets. Each nose was a jagged red gash; the eyes were dark sinkholes of despair. And the twisted faces seemed to be screaming in abject agony. Just like in the pictures her children had drawn and left for her to discover and shed tears over. Had they somehow known about this? Had they known that this is where the
y would end up?
“The children have gathered here for centuries,” Decker said.
“Why didn’t you just tell me?”
“You needed to see for yourself. Now, sadly they are being disturbed and they need a guardian to show them the way.”
“But I don’t know . . . how.”
“I think you do, Danielle.”
Danielle stared into the ruins, at the carnival of wickedness that had gathered there. It was a veritable festival of rot and suffering, absurdly beautiful in its grotesquery. Her children were there among them, of course, the architects of her demise, all three of them, standing at the forefront, waiting to be taken home.
“There, see what you’ve been missing,” Decker said.
“Yes, I see,” Danielle replied. “Life only allows us a partial glimpse of what actually exists, doesn’t it?”
“Ah, now you believe.”
“I have finally found my children. That’s all that counts.”
The stranger nodded and gave a slight smile. He was death, of course, his business here finished, at least for the moment. But death would soon again beckon in all its myriad complexities and peculiarities, and he’d be off to usher it forth. It was the way of life, after all. Why had it taken her so long to see this simple truth? Danielle took hold of the stranger’s cold hand and together they moved into the heart of the ruins toward the shadows that awaited them on the other side.
BugShot
“Damndest thing,” Herb Pellem said to his wife. “Ain’t never seen so many wasps. The barn’s full of em this spring. Think I’ll drive on over to Tookey’s, get me some of that BugShot insect spray stuff I been hearin so much about. Shoots a twenty-foot stream. Kills wasps on contact. At least that’s what the commercial says.” Herb shuddered. “Jesus I hate them things!”
“You better go now, Herb.” Lillian said with a nervous little quaver in her voice. “John, Betty and the kids are coming over for supper and you know how those children like to play in the barn. Wouldn’t want the little dears getting stung.”
“They ain’t playing in the barn today, Lil.” Herb said crossly. “Not till I get rid of those cussed red devils.”
“All right, Herb . . . all right. Whatever you say.”
“I’ve had to work around wasps all my life,” Herb raved. “And I ain’t never been able to get used to the idea. The damn things terrorize me, Lil.”
“I know they do, Herb, I know.”
“I’ll bet I been stung a hundred times in my life,” Herb ranted on. “They fly down your shirt, land in your hair, and before you can get the sons-of-bitches out, that goddamn poison pecker’s stickin in ya. Jesus, I hate wasps.”
“I know you do, Herb, I know.”
Herb Pellem picked a misshapen duck-billed cap off his head, exposing the skeletal architecture of his seventy-year-old skull. He swiped the sleeve of his flannel shirt across his sweaty brow. “Too damned hot for this,” he said, unbuttoning the shirt and peeling it off. Underneath he wore a sleeveless undershirt, grayed with age. His arms were thin and paste-white, the muscles taut, like cords of stressed rope beneath bleached muslin.
He handed the old flannel shirt to Lil who turned around and started for the house. “Now don’t go burning yourself to a cinder, Herb,” she said as she went. “You know how the sun dislikes you.”
“Yeah, Lil, I know.” Overhead the sun bore down, oppressively hot for mid May. Herb squinted up at it, and thought about something he’d heard on television the other night. How global warming was going to change everything. Instead of suntans, people would get skin cancer and radiation sickness. Hell, it was already happening. By the middle of the twenty-first century outdoor activities would be a thing of the past, and soon after that, the unfortunate survivors of this doomed planet would be forced to leave their homes behind and tunnel underground. This new dark, subterranean world would then be colonized by a whole new race of parchment-white zombies. By then the surface would be too poisonous for habitation. Life-forms would still exist on the surface, of course. If you could call mutants that thrive on radiation life-forms. Sounded like a right fine world to Herb. He was just glad he wasn’t going to be around to see it. And then he thought of something else the announcer had said: “Mutations were already in the process of being formed. A combination of things—the depleting ozone, global warming, hydrocarbons, pesticides, smokestack chemicals—were all in the process of mutating certain insect species at this very moment.” Herb remembered the tiny black-fly from his childhood. Today they were three times that size. He wondered what those pesky little buggers would look like fifty years from now.
Like his father before him, Herb had been a farmer all his life. The farm had been passed down. Two hundred and fifty acres of flat rich land where he grew feed corn and raised cattle. The cattle were all gone now. They’d been auctioned off more than ten years ago. Small farms couldn’t compete with the bigger dairies in this day and age. Now the old gray barn was falling into disrepair. Swallows nested in the rafters, in the north corner the footings were beginning to rot, and the building was canting slightly off center. And now the goddamned thing was being overtaken by wasps.
Herb intended to pass it all on to his son John, what was left of it, that is. He knew John wouldn’t farm it though. Didn’t expect him to. John was a college graduate, the first one in the history of the Pellem family. Now he was a big shot engineer over at the chemical plant in Stockton. Made fertilizer, defoliants, and insect sprays.
“There’s been a run on that stuff this spring,” said Jake Tookey. “Hard to get. That’s the third order I’ve made this year. A normal year I only do one. They say I might not be able to get more. You’re a lucky man, Herb, the order just came in, and customers are lined up all the way to the exit.” Jake pointed. Herb looked up and saw that Jake wasn’t joking.
“They can’t all be here for the BugShot, Jake!”
Jake glared at Herb over the top of his wire-rimmed spectacles. “You wouldn’t want to put a little wager on that, would you?”
Herb had picked up a can of BugShot and was inspecting it. That thin face, those thin lips, the sharp blue eyes narrowed and squinting under the glare of fluorescent lighting. “This is the stuff they make over in Stockton, ain’t it? Says right here. How come you can’t get it when they make it right next door?”
“It doesn’t matter where it’s made, Herb. We still have to go through a distributor. What do you think; we just drive over to the Stockton chemical dock and load it up?”
“Says here that it’s safe for the environment,” Herb said ignoring Jake’s comment. “Don’t know how it can be safe when it kills insects. Ain’t insects a part of the environment?”
“Sure, Herb,” Jake Tookey said, his voice rising slightly in irritation. “But they’re not what you’d call a necessary part of the environment. Now if you don’t want it I’ve got lots of customers who do.”
Herb looked sharply at Jake. A few jagged teeth gleamed in the black hole of his mouth. “Don’t go gettin your shorts all in a bunch, Jake, I’ll take it. Give me three cans if you’ve got em.”
On his way out, Herb passed a group of people coming in. He noticed a curious thing. They all had sun tans. As a matter of fact he’d noticed that Jake had had a tan as well. It’s only the middle of May, Herb thought. Why in hell’s everybody out sunning themselves this early? Ain’t they worried about global warming and skin cancer? He briefly wondered how much intelligent life there actually was on Planet Earth.
When Herb got home he climbed the old wooden ladder up into the barn’s loft and began spraying nests. There were more than he had at first thought. Hundreds more. He didn’t like being up there in the rafters with them. But he didn’t have much of a choice. The wasps had to go. Simple as that. It took a few minutes for the stuff to soak in, turning the gray paper-like honeycombs to an oily black hue. Reddish-brown wasps, some with white-striped patterns on their bodies, began falling from the nests. They made lit
tle ticking sounds as they struck the dry, gray boards of the loft floor. Herb stepped on some of them. They crunched like dry oats beneath his feet. The ones he didn’t step on writhed around in the dust for a few moments until they became still. Every time one would fall near Herb he would jump back and shiver in revulsion, fearful of being stung.
A thick cloud of mist from the spray settled back down and shrouded around Herb. There was a moment when he held his breath, not wanting to inhale any of the vile stuff. But he wasn’t as young as he used to be and he couldn’t hold his breath for long. When he began to breath again he noticed a pleasant almost intoxicating aroma. Herb put the nozzle of the can to his nose and took a big whiff. It made him dizzy, but it was a good dizzy. Not like glue or gasoline made you feel.
Outside the sun was high and Herb knew there were hundreds more of the insects flying around the eves, going about their daily wasp business. They were in for a big surprise when they returned to their nests. Yep, a big surprise. It took Herb more than an hour to soak down all the nests he could find, and by the time he left the barn he’d snorted almost half a can of BugShot himself.
At dinner Herb asked his son John if he could buy BugShot directly from the factory instead of paying retail for it. Herb saw that John had an early tan too. So did Betty, who sat silently through the meal smiling demurely. The children sat quietly as well, which was a small miracle in itself.
“Sure, Pop,” John replied. “But why do you need so much insect spray?”
“Wasps!” Herb said disdainfully. “Ain’t never seen nothin like it. Want to make sure I got enough to go me the summer. Jake Tookey says he can’t get no more.”
John put down his fork and stared at his father. “Why do you think there are so many wasps this year, Pop? You’re not the only one I’ve heard complaining about them. And over at the plant they’re making that stuff like it’s going out of style.”
Servants of Darkness (Thirteen Creepy Tales) Page 2
