by Jan Strnad
"Like an excuse," Tom said. "Like he needed some reason to talk to him."
"Yeah," Brant said, as if the idea hadn't dawned on him before. "That's exactly what it was like. Then the...then Galen peeled out like, I don't know, like he'd just been given orders or something. Not that Haws told him to smash head-on into the Klempners and kill himself and them both. That'd be crazy. But it was like that. That's the kind of feel the whole thing had. Pretty strange, huh?"
"Pretty strange," Tom agreed. Looks shot around among the boys so fast it was like watching a juggling act.
The seed had been planted. Tom would do Brant's talking from this point on and report back to him at dinner. Brant, who'd been leaning against Darren's Satellite, stood up straight and stretched.
"So Haws knew you were watching?" Tom asked quickly. Brant noticed an urgency in his voice. Tom had something to tell him, but it was going to be awkward.
"Yeah. He saw."
The boys were all looking at Tom. What he wanted to say was, "Then you could be next," but he couldn't be so blunt.
"So?" Brant prodded.
"Nothing," Tom said. He looked around as if taking in the reservoir for the first time. "Warm today. Nice day to take a drive in the country or something. Spend the whole day away from the hassles of home."
"Yeah, I was thinking the same," Brant said, picking up on the veiled suggestion to make himself scarce. "Get out of the house. Stay as far away from the office as I can." He slapped Tom on the arm, said, "Hey, I may even check out the nudists' dock!"
He and Tom forced laughs and the other boys smiled. But nobody was laughing as Brant got back in his car and drove off. In the rear view mirror, he saw the boys talking and Buzzy pacing and Darren yelling about something to Tom. Kent just looked sick.
***
"Why would he do it? It doesn't make sense!"
That was Buzzy, talking and throwing his hands around as he paced back and forth in front of his Vega. He'd spent the morning getting it running again and was timing the engine when his dad came out to the garage and told him about Galen. A chill had gone up his spine then, and another one had appeared when Brant told them about Galen's meeting with Deputy Haws. The boys accepted as fact all that Brant had said and implied.
"Haws threatened him. Haws said he'd kill him if he didn't do it," Darren said.
"So he killed himself instead of getting killed? That's stupid," said Kent. "Either way he's dead."
"It makes sense," Tom said. He was teetering on the edge of the Blacklands, but he wasn't going to go over no matter how tempting it was. He wasn't going to space out.
"How?" Kent asked, almost pleaded.
"Because he plans to come back."
"Shit!" Buzzy said.
"Just because Haws came back doesn't mean Galen will," Darren stated.
"John Duffy came back, too."
"So what are you saying," Kent demanded, "that everybody that dies from now on is going to come back?"
"I don't know," Tom said. "But Galen wouldn't have killed himself if he didn't think so. Even if Haws threatened him with something. If he was that scared of Haws, he'd have just kept going. He'd have driven off and we'd never see him again."
"Maybe it was an accident," Buzzy suggested. "Maybe he didn't mean to kill himself at all. Maybe he was just fucking around with the old man and something happened."
"If you believe that, you wouldn't be peeing your pants right now."
"I'm not peeing my pants."
"Anyway, I guess we'll know soon enough."
"What do you mean?" Kent had gone a couple of shades whiter since Brant left. He looked like a little boy who'd been bedridden for a month and this was his first day in the sunshine.
"I mean we'll know soon enough if Galen's coming back. I figure it'll happen tonight or not at all."
The boys gathered around as Tom laid it out for them.
"From what I've heard about John Duffy's rise, he came back around midnight. It was before midnight when we buried Haws. We don't know when he came back but if it was the same time as Duffy...."
"This kind of shit always happens at midnight," Buzzy said. "I mean, when it does happen, it's at midnight."
"What do you know about it?" Darren asked sarcastically.
"As much as you."
"You know what this means, don't you?" asked Tom.
"No, please tell us, O Wise One." Darren's attitude was grating on Tom's nerves. Tom made a point of looking at Darren when he told them:
"It means we have to be at the mortuary tonight at midnight to see for ourselves."
"Shit! If he comes back, I do not want to be there!"
"You'd rather sit around all day waiting for the phone to ring?" Buzzy asked. "'Hello, this is Galen, I'm back from the fucking dead, man!'"
"First, I want to see the corpse," Tom explained. "I want to see it now so I know he's really dead."
"The corpse is a fucking charcoal briquette."
"So they say. I want to see it for myself. And if it comes back, I want to see that, too. I've got to know, all right?"
"Then you're going alone, man," Darren declared, "because I am not getting anywhere near a mortuary at fucking midnight."
"I don't blame you," Tom said, "for being afraid. If you want to stay home in bed...."
Darren was up like a shot with a fist headed for Tom's chin. Tom was expecting it and sidestepped, holding his foot out so that Darren took a header as he went by. Darren got back on his feet and charged Tom again, head down, and Tom got him in a headlock and swung him around and into the side of Buzzy's Vega. He still had a hold on Darren's head when he swung him the other way and let go and Darren stumbled a few steps but didn't fall. He had his fists balled and charged again but this time Buzzy stepped between them and pretty soon Kent and Buzzy both had hold of Darren and were holding him back.
Darren let forth with a stream of obscenities and struggled against Kent and Buzzy for about a minute before running out of steam and dirty words. They were surprised when he fell limp and they almost dropped him to the ground. His head was down so they didn't notice right away that tears were running down his cheeks.
Darren fell to his knees. He wasn't able to hold it in any longer. He started sobbing. Tom felt sorry for him, not because he was crying but because he needed Galen more desperately than anyone, including Darren, would have guessed.
Come midnight, Tom knew, Darren would be there at the mortuary with him. And if Darren came, then Kent and Buzzy would, too.
***
Brant could almost believe, standing there on the dock in the sunlight with the occasional fish jumping in the water and the breeze caressing his face, that there was nothing at all wrong anywhere in the world, particularly in Anderson. It was so quiet, so peaceful.
Kind of amazing that he had the dock to himself. He'd expected to find a few naked bodies there, anyway, on a day that came like a present the way this one had. There were cars parked nearby, but they could belong to hikers or boaters. He recognized Merle Tippert's Studebaker. Merle wouldn't have been at the dock, though, not an old prude like Merle. Would he?
If Brant had seen anyone there he wouldn't have intruded. He didn't want to gawk. But the dock was empty and he had a day to kill. He wanted to clean up before dinner at Peg's, but Tom's thinly disguised warning had hit home. He'd had those same thoughts himself. Better to avoid the usual places. It seemed unlikely now, standing in the sun on the most perfect of autumn days, that Haws was stalking him, but you never know. You just never know.
The longer he stood on the dock the more secure he felt. He told himself that his imagination was working overtime. Maybe he just wanted so badly for something worth reporting on to happen that he'd built the whole thing up in his head. There was a rational explanation for everything that had happened. He just didn't know what it was. He was chasing ghosts. If he stayed on the dock long enough he'd talk himself out of everything.
He felt so comfortable that he considered get
ting naked after all. There was no one around to see, and if someone showed up, they were probably a nudist. What would it hurt? No, he couldn't do it. But he could take his shoes off. He could at least take his shoes and socks off.
He leaned down to unlace his shoes and that's when he noticed the stains under his feet. He'd visited enough crime scenes to recognize them. They were blood, and they were fresh.
Brant cast a quick look around and then strode back to his car. He drove off with his heart pumping a mile a minute, never discovering the four bodies Deputy Haws had pulled into the brush and covered with branches and leaves, waiting for midnight to work its magic.
***
Haws cruised the town several times looking for Brant's Toyota, but he didn't see it anywhere. Brant could usually be found at home or at the diner or at his office and he was at none of these places today. Haws figured that he might have gone to Junction City, the nearest town with a five-digit population, to pick up some things he couldn't find in Anderson.
He was tempted to drive back out to the reservoir and check on the bodies he'd left there. He'd been careful to cover them up but, since he didn't want any of them going through the ordeal he'd suffered upon his rise, he didn't dig any earth or do any burying. He dragged them off to the side and covered them with debris and figured that was good enough to last until midnight. He wasn't too worried about anyone stumbling across them--it was getting cooler as the sun headed for the horizon so the dock would see no more business today--they just crossed his mind off-and-on the way things were prone to do.
He wondered about Seth's command to kill the nudists, but he didn't consider not doing it. Everyone would come to Seth sooner or later. He didn't see why they received such a high priority, that's all. Maybe it was a matter of opportunity, them being out there by themselves, easy targets, or maybe their nakedness was an offense to Seth in some way, a blasphemous celebration of the earthly flesh or life itself.
He didn't think of it as killing. He thought of it as introducing them to Seth, and dying was part of that process. When he'd drawn his gun and shot them one by one, he'd been puzzled by the terrified looks on their faces. But of course they didn't know that he was just sending them on a journey, that Haws was more of a conductor than an executioner. They thought they were really dying. Haws tried to see it from their perspective, but even with his newfound mental robustness he couldn't make that leap for more than a few moments at a time. There was only one way to see things, ultimately, and that was Seth's way.
Brant Kettering had gone to the head of the list of people who needed to meet Seth. The conversion process was at a critical point. As far as most of the people in town knew, John Duffy was the only person to come back. A few more knew about Deputy Haws, but the main troublemaker, Galen Ganger, would meet Seth tonight. He'd take care of the others.
Brant was a bit of a puzzle, though. Did he know about Haws or didn't he? Even Doc Milford wasn't sure and he was the one who'd talked to him. But it didn't really matter. Haws would introduce Brant to Seth and then everything would be all right.
All. Right.
Haws decided to park his car outside Brant's house. If he'd gone to Junction City, he'd be back shortly, and Haws could take care of him then.
It was warm inside the patrol vehicle so Haws rolled down the windows and let a breeze wander through. He scooted the seat back for more leg room and leaned his porky neck against the head rest. He decided to rest his eyes and listen for Brant's car to drive up. Five minutes later he was fast asleep.
He didn't see Brant ease his car through the intersection at the far end of the street, but Brant saw Haws and kept going. Maybe he'd just chosen Brant's street for an afternoon siesta, but Brant was taking no chances, not until he knew more. He was still operating on hearsay and conjecture and with an acute shortage of hard facts. Not a comfortable spot to be in. Part of him wanted to leave town and never look back, but another part reminded him of the words of Edmund Burke, a sentence he'd once, in his younger, fiery days, typed out and pinned to his bulletin board: The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.
He couldn't go to the authorities--he didn't trust Sheriff Clark, and anyone else would instantly write him off as a loony--and he couldn't go home. So he hit the highway and drove out to the Klempners' farm, thinking of Eloise. By all standards of decency (except those of television reporters, who had none) it was too soon to interview the grieving widower, but another day could be too late. If he had to err....
He knocked softly, figuring that Franz Klempner was probably in bed asleep. A dog barked inside, a fairly large one by the sound of him. Soon the old man appeared at the door. The dog scooted in between Brant and Franz and barked fiercely while his tail whipped the air, slapping against the old man's shins. Franz looked like he'd been beaten up but was remarkably hale for someone who'd been through such a serious accident. He should have been in a hospital bed, swathed in bandages, with tubes in his arms and a beeping monitor at his bedside.
"I'm Brant Kettering," Brant said. "I run the Cooves County Times. I was hoping--"
"I don't want to talk to the papers," Franz said, and he started to shut the door. It might have closed in Brant's face but for the dog who was in the way, trapped between the big door and the screen.
Brant quickly added, "I'm not here on business. In fact, I'd rather talk to you 'out of school,' as it were."
"Come back later," Franz said, shoving at the dog with his foot.
"It was no accident that killed your wife."
The words popped out of his mouth before Brant had time to think about them. It was a cruel and careless thing to say, but it worked. Franz held the door open and peered out at him, sizing him up.
"Something very strange is going on in town," Brant said. "Your wife may be the only person who knew exactly what it was."
The old man stood in the doorway for several long seconds. Finally he unlatched the screen door and turned his back on Brant saying, "You'd best come in. The dog won't bite."
Franz hobbled into the living room, obviously in considerable pain. He walked hunched over and picked his way slowly. When he lowered himself into an overstuffed chair that should have been sitting outside waiting for the trash truck, he moaned and freefell the last few inches. He fingered his side, where Brant could see through a gap in Franz' shirt that Doc had wrapped the cracked ribs.
Elmer the dog gave Brant the once over and received a scratch behind the ears, then he curled up at Franz' feet, lay his head on his paws and proceeded to ignore the ensuing conversation.
Brant sat in the rocking chair, the only other chair in the room. He expressed his condolences and Franz waved them away and steered him back to the main topic. Now that Brant had the audience he'd wanted, he wasn't sure where to begin.
"You heard about John Duffy," Brant said, and Franz acknowledged that he had. "Do you believe it?"
"I don't know," Franz answered. "If I'd seen it with my own eyes, maybe I would."
Brant angled his chair to point more squarely toward Franz and leaned forward. "It's true. And what's more, John Duffy isn't the only one. There are others. I don't know how many, but there's at least one more. There was no way to keep Duffy's rise a secret, but others could be dying and coming back and not telling anyone about it."
"Why would they do that?"
"That's the worrisome thing. One of them...well, it's Deputy Haws."
"I know him."
"He was shot the night John Duffy came back. He was shot and killed. The next day he was back, good as new, with a bullet hole in his shirt. He never said a word to anybody, not even to Sheriff Clark. Mr. Klempner, the boy who shot him was Galen Ganger."
Franz stiffened in his chair.
"I saw Haws talking to the Ganger boy shortly before your accident. I don't know for sure, but he may have ordered him to...do what he did. It may have had something to do with what Irma said at the church."
Brant became highly
aware of the antique clock ticking loudly on the mantel. Either Franz or Irma had probably bought it new. The clocked ticked off a good three minutes before Franz said anything.
"I thought it was me," Franz said. "Because I drive slow, the boys have their fun with me."
"Mr. Klempner, who is Eloise?"
Franz shook his head. "I don't know anyone by that name."
"Did Irma know anyone named Eloise?"
"Not that I recall."
"Maybe someone from long ago."
"No, no. I don't remember anyone by that name. I'm sorry. My wife, she wasn't right, you know, in the belfry. But she was a good woman."
Brant nodded with a sympathy that he discovered, to his surprise, was genuine. Maybe two years in Anderson had softened him more than he knew.
They sat in silence for some time, Franz in his big stuffed chair, rigid as a statue, the dog at his feet. Brant noticed the Bible on the lamp table next to him, well worn.
"She had nightmares," Franz said. "Always had them, but they were worse as of late. It was the bell that set her off, though. Scared her half to death."
"The bell?"
"The church bell. Some fool's taken to ringing it late at night. Midnight. It's that new preacher, I'd guess. It just set her off something awful."
Brant sat back and subconsciously began to rock. "Hm," he said, and he rocked slowly, back and forth, forward and back, while the mantel clock ticked and Elmer the dog chased a rabbit in his sleep, and Franz Klempner sat like a stone in his ratty old overstuffed chair, occasional tears running unashamedly down his cheeks.
As dusk fell in Anderson, Deputy Haws jerked in his sleep and his elbow honked the horn of his patrol vehicle and he woke with a start.
Tom Culler arrived home and helped his mother by peeling some potatoes.
Doc Milford called it a day.
And the roaches under Carl Tompkins' floor picked clean the skeleton of a cat who'd crawled under the house a few hours before, seeking someplace cool.
Fourteen
Tom felt like a time traveler in the Grand Ballroom of the Titanic watching the doomed dancers in their finery twirl and laugh, watching star-crossed lovers nuzzle each other under the chandeliers, knowing that soon the alarm would sound and there would be panic and the mad scrabble for the lifeboats would begin as the unthinkable happened, as the unsinkable ship sunk to an icy grave.
