by John Everson
“We have to go there soon. I’ll go crazy if I don’t.”
“When we go—if we go—we’ll go as a group,” Karen cautioned. “Remember that.”
“Then call it soon. Please.”
CHAPTER FIVE
The Lower Space was a lot cleaner than Joe expected, but exactly as dark. The walls were painted black, and the floor was tiled in dark squares. A scuffed but impressive hardwood bar that might have once graced an ornate theater jutted from one wall. At the back of the club, an entire wall was devoted to nothing but posters and free handouts. There were magazines on the floor for the taking, and the walls were plastered with black marker–scrawled signs advertising civic club meetings and screaming “Looking for Roommate.” In between were posters for bands coming to town soon and other similar debris. A shelf held a variety of colored paper handouts. He’d been right to mark this as the place to come to find out about the underside of Terrel’s culture.
Cindy had raved about the place when he’d brought it up earlier at the beach.
The Space? She brightened. Yeah. Lots of cool bands play there. I go there sometimes—they don’t card much.
He told her that he was looking for a place that might clue him in to finding cults or weird groups that were active in Terrel.
She rolled her eyes at him. “You’re not going to find your cliff —sacrificing Druids in Terrel,” she warned. “If there were any, you’d probably find them at the Space, but I’m telling you, there aren’t any. That’s not what’s behind this.”
She had promised to meet him at the club tonight anyway. While he waited, he leafed through the assorted photocopies in the back of the club.
His eye was quickly drawn to a stack of purple paper that proclaimed, Readings by Angelica. See me, and see your future.
He shook his head and pulled another ad, this one for the Renaissance Revival Group, which met in the circle to “dissemble and play” on Wednesday nights at seven P.M.
There were other ads for locally produced comic books, bands looking for guitarists, and even a tantalizing massage off er. I come to you when your muscles are hard, it said, and leave you limp with relaxation.
And then he found one that looked like pay dirt. It was printed on yellow paper, bordered by a frame of twined snakes.
CLIFF COMBERS
is looking for new members.
Come worship the spirit of the earth with us.
Learn about the force that can swallow us all.
Learn about what dwells below Terrel’s Peak.
Explore the mystery with us.
Contact Ken Brownsell at (880) 555—3556.
Joe pocketed the announcement with a smile. Now, here he might find some interesting wackos to interview.
Someone tapped him on the shoulder.
“Excuse me sir, but didn’t I see you earlier today, indecently exposed in a pair of swim trunks?”
He smiled and turned to see Cindy grinning up at him. She was dressed casually mod in a loose gray top and tight black pants. Her hair was pulled back tight; the effect of that and her makeup made her easily look twenty-five. Tiny silver skull earrings dangled from her lobes.
“Yes, well, didn’t I see you flaunting yourself pretty indecently in a teeny bikini earlier?”
“Maybe. Got a problem with that?”
“Not at all.”
“C’mon and grab a seat. Another half hour and it’ll be standing room only.”
They worked their way through a maze of round tables and huddles of laughing, talking people until Cindy pointed at an apparently vacant table near the stage.
“Here, this one’s open. We might get pushed back by moshers later, but…”
Joe shrugged and pulled out a chair. Which Cindy passed by to take one of her own.
“I can get my own seat,” she pronounced. “But you can get me a beer. Miller—Genuine…please.”
He sat down himself and grinned. Cindy had a way of making him do that, he was finding. She was like some kind of human butterfly, flitting from place to place without ever quite settling still long enough to be caught. But he was enjoying the chase, and the humor she drew from him as easily as juice from a ripe orange.
The waitress was hovering over them before Joe had even glanced around. He ordered two MGDs, and with a nod she was gone to the next table, piling empty bottles onto her tray as she took new orders. She wrote nothing down, and how she could possibly remember who got what, he couldn’t imagine.
“So, have you seen these guys play before?” he asked.
“Toxic Gas? No.” She shook her head. “But I know a guy in the opening band ’cuz they’re from here. Anglicide. You’ll get a kick out of them. Last Halloween they did their whole show with an upside-down cross hanging behind the drum kit. Then at the end of the set, they dropped the cross into a flaming bucket. They’re really theatrical.”
“I didn’t wear enough black, did I?” Joe asked, looking around and noting the dominant color. Black lipstick, black pants, black nylons…
“Doesn’t matter,” she said, scooting closer to put her arm around his shoulders. “They get all kinds of people in here; tonight’s just more of a punk night. If I was really into it, I would have put on some ripped nylons and maybe a black low-cut top with some chain around my waist. And I’d probably tease my hair out some. And maybe get a double or triple pierce…”
“Okay, okay.” He laughed. “You’re scaring me. So, is your friend’s band any good?”
“They’re kinda like the Cult, but gloomier.”
The waitress returned with the bottles, and Joe handed her a ten.
“How long till they start?” he asked as the waitress left— without ever carding, as Cindy had promised.
“Oh, probably twenty or thirty minutes. They always advertise the start time like an hour earlier than it really is.”
She took a swig of the Miller and nodded at his.
“Drink fast.”
“Why?”
“You owe me a life story, but you said it had to be after a couple beers. So drink fast.”
He lifted the bottle obligingly. “What do you want to know?”
“How about…how old are you?”
“Worried I’m too ancient to be seen with?”
“No. Just curious. If I guess right, you can buy me another beer?”
“Sure.”
She leaned forward and stared hard at his face.
“Hmmm. No obvious wrinkles or liver spots, yet…”
He batted her hand away from his hairline. “Call it,” he demanded.
“Twenty-four.”
“Not bad. The girl gets points for under-guessing. Twenty-five.”
Her lips fell into a mock pout. “No beer?”
“Oh, never fear. Flattery gets you drunk,” he said. “Do your parents know you’re out with an older man?”
“Don’t they say a guy should be like four or five years older than a girl anyway?” she asked, flipping her hair over her shoulder. “Men don’t mature like us girls!”
“Please. Answer the question.”
“Actually, they do know. I told them I met a nice young reporter who was taking me to see a fine, artistic, musically challenging group.”
“Is that musically challenging, or musically challenged?”
“You decide. I think they’re about to start.”
She nodded at the stage, where a group of twentysomething guys were filing onto the stage. The singer slunk his way to the mike, lips glossy red against an obviously accentuated pale complexion. A faded picture of Robert Smith pouted on his chest.
“Wannabe,” Joe said.
Cindy’s gloomy Cult description turned out to be fairly accurate, Joe soon decided. As the bass pounded through the club, he was reminded of college nights spent hanging out in the dark caverns of Chicago’s Cabaret Metro, catching shows by Stabbing Westward and Black Tape for a Blue Girl and other punky, gothic-oriented bands. Anglicide, however, was
definitely more of an homage act than an original gestalt. Joe could hear ripped-off riffs and see affected “attitude” before they were through with three songs. But they had energy. And hair. And a certain knack for theater, as Cindy had pointed out. The singer raised his hands with every lyric, praying and spinning at the mike, as the mournful guitars twined.
Three rounds and a Joy Division cover later, and Anglicide turned the stage over to Toxic Gas. They brought a completely different air to the club, with their shaved heads and cutoff shorts and overdriven guitars. Joe quickly decided that this band believed in truth in advertising. They did nothing if not live up to their name. Cindy nodded with a pained frown when he asked if she wanted to go before the band had gotten halfway through its set.
“Oh, God,” she complained when they stepped out of the smoky club and into the fresh air of the street. “I felt like they were going to reach into my ears and pull out my brain!”
“Pretty noisy,” Joe agreed, trying to shake the buzzing out of his head.
Walking back to the car, she put her hand in his.
He grasped it like a lifeline.
“So do you want to go home, or try someplace else,” he asked, once they were in the car. “It’s still early.”
“I don’t feel like going home yet,” she said. “Would you mind?”
“Name the place.”
She thought a moment, and then brightened.
“How about Memorial Park?”
“Done.”
Ten minutes later they were walking across a clearing in the densely forested hillside on the west side of town. In the middle was a statue of a proud military figure astride a horse. A Civil War hero, Joe guessed. But he didn’t get close enough to see. Cindy led them to a giant white gazebo on the far side of the park.
“C’mon,” she urged, almost running.
She pulled him by the hand up the stairs, and then they were standing together on the main floor of the structure. It was obviously meant for small concerts and such, Joe thought, noting the benches that were built into the walls, leaving at least a fifteen-foot stretch of central flooring clear for bands, speakers, podiums—whatever.
They knelt side by side on one of the cool wooden benches and leaned over the rail to stare out at the lights of the town below. The park nestled high on a hill that looked down on the town. If you looked closely, you could see the tip of Terrel’s Peak through the cover of trees that rose above the valley on the other side of town. The whisper of the ocean drifted on the air, even here.
Joe cupped his palm over hers, and she looked up into his eyes. He thought she looked sad, the fire dimmed in those blue orbs that normally didn’t seem to slow from their pinball—bouncing course through life.
“Thanks for bringing me here,” she murmured.
He shrugged. “Not a problem.”
She gripped his hand tighter.
“I used to come up here a lot with James at night,” she said, staring back out at the twinkling lights of the town.
“We would sit right here and look at the stars, and the lights from the houses. It was like we were the only two people in the world sometimes. I haven’t been up here…since…”
Joe wrapped an arm around her shoulders.
“It’s okay.”
She bowed her head a moment, leaning back into his chest. And then he felt her take a deep breath. And sit forward.
“Do you know any constellations?” she asked. Her tenor was bright, an abrupt shift, but he thought there was still the faintest tremor in her voice.
“No. I think the sky looks a lot diff erent here than back home. I used to be able to find the Big Dipper sometimes, but out here, there’s so many stars, I don’t know how you can find anything!”
She laughed a little. “They are pretty. Have you ever seen a falling star?”
“No. I don’t think so.”
“Watch, then.”
She pointed toward the ocean.
“If you’re patient, you can almost always find one. And then you get to make a wish.”
“Wishing on a falling star, eh? That’s a little Disney, isn’t it?”
She didn’t answer.
Joe stared out into the sprinkle of stars against the velvet black night and waited. The wind whispered in the trees. The chirp of crickets sang through the night and locusts hummed in the trees around them. But otherwise, the town was silent. It was as if they’d left all of humanity behind. It made his eyes grow fuzzy to just wander across the heavens. Like there was nothing to do in the world but stare into space. He wasn’t used to this kind of kicking back. And he wasn’t one to be patient.
He remembered the constant barrage of voices and noises and smells of the big city and marveled. In gaining the cosmopolitan, one loses so much of where he comes from. And in leaving Chicago, he had lost so much of what he’d once been. Sometimes he missed it; sometimes he missed her. But not now. He looked at the silent girl next to him, face limned by the summer moon.
“I can’t think of what I would wish for,” he said quietly. “I think I have everything I want right now.”
The corner of her mouth drew up and she squeezed his hand.
“This is nice,” she said, but didn’t meet his gaze. Her eyes seemed far away.
“What would you wish for?” he asked.
She shook her head. “If you want it to come true, it has to be possible. And I don’t think it’s possible for James to come back.”
Joe fell silent, and watched the heavens for a chance to cast his wish. He didn’t want anything for himself now.
“There’s one,” she said, pointing low on the horizon, just above the dark pines.
He saw the faintest trail, like a scratch on film, and made his wish.
“I wish for you to be happy,” he whispered.
She kissed his cheek and met his eyes at last. Her cheeks glistened with quiet tears.
“They say wishes don’t come true if you say them out loud, silly.”
“Well then, we’ll just have to wait here until another star falls,” he said. “And this time I’ll keep my mouth shut.”
She drew closer to him, pressing the warmth of her chest against his. She hugged him tightly and kissed him again, this time on the lips. Her arms were dotted with goose bumps from the night air, but to Joe, she felt as hot as flame.
“You don’t need to wish for me,” she said. “You’ve already made me happy.”
Joe leaned in to kiss her again, but as her tongue met his in a delicate flutter, he looked past the halo of her hair to the sky, watching for another flaming stone to drop from the realm of angels.
He didn’t like to take chances.
CHAPTER SIX
It took a long time for Joe to fall asleep. He kept closing his eyes and remembering flashes of Cindy from their “double” date. He’d seen her both in Day-Glo frolic and night-club vision, and she’d been radiant both times. He felt her fingers slipping between his, and her cool shoulder pressing back into his own. Again and again, he relived her quick, warm kiss, just before she slid out of his car at the end of the night. He saw glimpses of her running like a kid across the pebbly sand of the beach in the afternoon. Of her golden hair tossed back across her shoulder at the bar. Of her eyes sparkling with mischief, and a hint of something else. Of promise?
But then he thought back to her words from the beach. Something she’d said had troubled him, nagged at him all day. When she’d talked about the founder of Terrel, she’d talked about a covenant.
Just like the title of Mrs. Sander’s painting. Could there be something here after all?
He pushed those thoughts away. He didn’t want to think about cliffs and suicides and murder. He wanted to concentrate on seeing Cindy’s face again, a wide-mouthed smile beaming at him from mere inches away. He wanted to slip into dreams with her kiss lingering on his lips like a prayer.
And eventually he did.
But Sunday when he woke up, he lay in bed staring at t
he ceiling feeling foolish. Here he was, having erotic day and night dreams about a pretty girl who was only a college kid, for chrissakes. What would she ever want with him? He was no Chippendale. Her hugs and handholding and soft kisses last night had probably just been the reaching out of a girl who needed a friend. Some nonthreatening dalliance that would blot out the horror of losing her true love. She’d told him what a difficult time this was for her, and how her parents couldn’t really help her.
He gave himself a mental shake. Enough already!
Time to get back to his pet case. Though he was starting to wonder why he bothered. If the whole town believed in a genie in a rock bottle, well, hell, why should he try to convince them different?
But he pulled out his jeans from the night before and fished around in the pocket.
The yellow snake-bordered paper was still there, folded and creased. He unfolded it and considered. Was there really any point to this? Would a group of cultists really advertise themselves through flyers on the wall of a club?
Learn about what dwells below Terrel’s Peak.
He read that line again and again. He wanted to learn exactly that.
What can it hurt, he thought finally, and took the paper over to the phone to dial Ken Brownsell.
On the sixth ring, a groggy voice picked up.
“Sorry to wake you,” Joe apologized after introducing himself. “I was wondering when I could get together with you to talk about your Cliff Combers group.”
“No problem, I had to get up anyway,” the voice gurgled. “We’re having a meeting this afternoon if you want to join us. On the north face of Terrel’s Peak. You wanna meet up with us there?”
“Sure. I’d love to,” Joe answered. “How do I get there?”
He copied down the directions, thanked Ken, and hung up.
Once again, a date at the cliff. But this time, he’d be a couple miles away from the murder sites. In an area he’d never visited.
He found it easily enough. Instead of taking the high fork of Main Street up to the top of Terrel’s Peak, he swung the Hyundai onto a gravel road that dug deep into the forest and wound the long way around the rocky crag. The meeting site was hard to miss, since the road dead-ended into it.
