"Come on, I'll lead the way this time."
Geoff moved off. He slid slowly down into the ditch and waved for Rick to follow. As he moved away, Rick felt the unmistakable feeling that someone was watching him. At the top of the ditch, he turned around–
Hey, asshole, whyn't you…
–but there was nobody there.
He slid down and followed Geoff across the floor of the ditch and then up the other side. They made their way slowly and with hardly any noise at all until they emerged once more at the side of the road. Ahead of them, they could see Main Street stretching over to the right and out of town towards Dawson.
There were no lights on, and hardly any moon, but what natural light there was enabled them to see that the folks down in Jesman's Bend were having problems sleeping. So they'd gathered in the town square where they had brought various vehicles onto the grass and were busy working on them.
"I don't get it," Rick whispered. "What the hell are they doing?"
"Never mind that," said Geoff, "why are they doing it without any lights?"
They watched and kept quiet. Then Rick said, "Geoff, they're all wearing dark glasses."
"And gloves," Geoff added.
Don Patterson stood up after being bent over into the engine of Luke Napier's Eldorado, which already seemed a little strange because Luke himself was across the street hitching some kind of wire siding to Martha McNeil's flatbed pickup. "What–"
Geoff shook his head and put a finger up to his mouth.
After another couple of minutes, Don Patterson, who had been standing with another couple of men – Rick couldn't tell who they were but one of them limped like Jim Ferumern – walked back to the Eldorado and slid behind the wheel.
"You see that?" Rick whispered.
"What?"
"Yeah, it was Jim."
"No, you see the way he walked?"
Geoff nodded. One-time quarterback Jim Ferumern was walking like he'd shit himself, slow and easy straight-legged steps, his arms held awkwardly, each about a foot away from the side of his body.
Ferumern pulled the door closed and turned the ignition a couple of times until the engine caught. Then the others stepped back a few feet – each of them displaying the same cumbersome gait – and Luke Napier's Eldorado slowly lifted into the air, wobbled a couple of times and then dropped back to the ground. As Don got out of the car again, another vehicle – neither Rick nor Geoff could identify the make or figure out who the driver was – rose into the night sky from somewhere down Derwent Street and angled over Main and moved slowly out to the east. Nobody on the town square so much as gave the vehicle a second look.
Neither Geoff nor Rick spoke. They just watched.
Down towards the end of Main, an open top pulled up into the sky out of the filling station. This one angled around and moved northwards.
Back down in the town square, Don Patterson was doing something beneath the Eldorado's hood. He stood up for a second and took off one of his gloves – then he bent over again.
Geoff slithered backwards and rested his head on the grass. "I think it's time we went back," he said.
Rick turned to face him, his eyes suddenly wide in either disbelief or outright fear. "Geoff–"
Geoff reached out a hand and steadied his brother. "Take it–"
"Geoff!" Rick hissed, nodding to something behind Geoff.
Geoff turned slowly and saw the imposing shape of Jerry Borgesson standing just a few yards to the side. Jerry was not looking at them. He was wearing dark glasses and he was standing straight-legged with his hands – his gloved hands – by his side staring down into the town square. All the activity from down below seemed to have stopped.
Geoff said, "Hey, Jerry…"
Jerry Borgesson turned slightly and half-looked in their direction, like a wily old fifth grade teacher glancing at a couple of errant pupils he'd caught giving him the bird behind his back. They couldn't see Jerry's eyes through the dark glasses – real nifty-looking jobs, like the ones the flyboys wore when they were flying billion dollar stealth airplanes – but the expression on his face spoke eloquently. Hoo, boy, the expression seemed to say, are you guys in for it now!
Lifting his left leg outwards, causing him to sway a little, Jerry started to turn towards them. And then he lifted his arms and started pulling off his gloves.
(19)
Melanie watched Geoff and Rick walk down the path away from the station with a sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach. She stepped back, half turning away while Johnny stepped forward and locked the door, pushing the dead bolt into place with a sound of grim finality.
"He'll be OK, Mel," Johnny said without turning around.
"I know," she said, though she wasn't exactly sure. "It's just that everything seems so, I dunno – so strange. I just don't feel comfortable with anything."
Turning around to face Melanie, with the sprawling radio station looming up and around her, empty, and without any shows being transmitted, Johnny knew exactly what she meant. Even the most familiar and dependable of things seemed to have assumed an air of mystery.
Melanie looked up at him and gave a trembling smile. He knew she was close to tears, fighting them back not just for her own sake but for his too.
"C'mon," he said, "let's go up on the roof. That way you can keep an eye on him, make sure he doesn't come to any harm." Even as he was saying it, Johnny wondered if he was doing the right thing. What if they were sitting up there watching Geoff being torn apart by some raging pissed-off flying-saucer-lagged lizard monster from Alpha Centauri? Yeah, but apart from that, Mrs. Grisham, how did you enjoy the show?
But second thoughts were far too late. Melanie's eyes lit up like a kid's at Christmas, and Johnny hadn't got the heart to sound a note of caution. It would teach him to think first before he spoke.
"That's a great idea." She ran ahead of Johnny and hit the stairs to the roof two at a time. "Quick, before they're out of sight."
"If you're gonna do it, Lizard Man, don't do it where we can see you," Johnny mumbled. Then he followed.
They crept out onto the roof, bent double, and made their way to the wall overlooking the concrete apron. The moon was about half-full and the clouds kept eating into what available light there was. Even so, they had a clear view of two figures making their way down the lane. As the figures reached the fork that turned left to head into town, one of them stopped and turned around. Johnny and Melanie couldn't make out who it was but Melanie knew deep in her heart that it was Geoff. "Take care, honey," she whispered to the night. Then, right on cue – as though he had acknowledged the communication – the figure waved his arm and turned around. And they continued down towards Jesman's Bend.
A few minutes later, they had disappeared behind the trees.
"What do you think they'll find?"
Johnny shrugged. "Well, either everyone is back or they're not." He patted his jacket pockets for his cigarettes.
Melanie slumped down against the wall and crossed her legs. "I hate it."
Johnny found the pack and shook a Marlboro free. "What? Him going off without you?"
She nodded. "Well, that. But it's the waiting that gets me." She drew her knees up and wrapped her arms around them. "It's the same when he's just going out to the store, even going out of the room. I don't like to be apart from him. You know what I mean?"
Johnny shrugged and lit the cigarette behind cupped hands. "I guess. I ain't never been that close to anybody. Not even my folks." He pulled on the Marlboro and blew out smoke. "I was," he added, "but then my pop died. Took a long time about it, too."
"What was it?"
"Cancer." He held up the cigarette. "Lungs. Only took him a couple of weeks to go once it had been diagnosed. But they were sad weeks. Seemed like forever."
"How old were you?"
"I dunno. Thirteen, maybe fourteen."
"You don't know exactly? Like what year he died?"
Johnny sat next to her and handed her t
he cigarette when she held out her hand. "Nope. He died. And that was that. Didn't seem important to know the year, or the day or the time."
"You must know the time!"
"It was late one night. I was watching TV and my mom called for me. I knew it was bad because her voice was strange."
"Strange how?"
He took the cigarette back and tapped the burning end against the wall, shaping it into a tiny glowing cone. "It was cracked and formal-sounding. She never spoke to me like that, before or after." He put his head back so that it rested partly on top of the wall and sighed.
"I went on up to their bedroom and pop was lying in bed, same as he'd been doing for the past couple days… but he was different."
Melanie didn't say anything. She waited.
"It was my pop but he was different. Like everything that actually was him – you know, all the stuff that made him who he was – like everything that made him who he really was had just up and left, leaving behind the body he wore." He took a drag on the cigarette and blew a couple of smoke rings.
"Anyway, seeing my mom so sad – I mean she was devastated when pop died – seeing her that way convinced me that relationships were bad–"
"What was that?"
"What?"
Melanie turned around, pulling her head down so that her eyes were level with the top of the wall. "I heard something."
Johnny stubbed out his cigarette and he too shuffled around so that he was looking over the wall. "Can't see anything."
Everything looked exactly the way it had been before. The clouds had left the moon uncovered and visibility was good. Johnny scanned the patches of road between the trees but couldn't see any movement. "They'll be well out of sight now," he said.
"No, it wasn't from the road," Melanie whispered. "It was nearer. Much nearer." She twisted onto her knees. "I'm going to go take a look."
"No." Johnny shot out his arm and took hold of Melanie's knee.
"What?"
"I don't think you should do that."
Melanie considered it for a few seconds. Then she said, "What does it matter if we're seen? If someone – something – is down there then we ought to know about it, don't you think?"
"Maybe it came from inside, downstairs someplace."
"Like what?"
Johnny shrugged. "I don't know what," he hissed. "Something falling over maybe?"
"Like what?"
"Will you stop with the 'like what'! I don't know like what… just something. There's a lot of stuff down there. Maybe it was a CD case slipping off a stack… something like that. Something completely innocent."
"And maybe it wasn't."
Maybe it's the Lizard Man come to pay you a call, Johnny's secret head-friend whispered to him, and he's brought various bits and pieces belonging to Geoff and Rick… dripping red pieces…
He shuffled the thought as far back as he could, out of sight.
"Shit, I'll look," he said, and he clambered up and leaned over the wall.
The concrete apron was deserted.
He scanned the grass and then looked across towards the bushes and trees that lined the driveway. Nobody there. No Lizard Men.
"All clear," he said.
Melanie scrabbled away from the wall. "I'll check inside."
Johnny thought about stopping her but decided against it. The station was secure – they'd spent long enough making sure that nobody but nobody could get inside unless someone let them in. He turned around, fighting back another thought: namely that he didn't want to go back into the station himself. And he hated himself for thinking such a thing – and then hated himself some more for letting Melanie go alone when, deep in the secret places inside his head, he feared that whatever she had heard it might not be a CD case falling off a stack.
He closed his eyes and stretched his neck back, feeling the tension ease a little. He heard a muffled grunt from the passageway and then a hissed "Shit!" Almost immediately Melanie called out that she was OK. Then more mumbling. Johnny smiled to himself and waggled his head from side to side. The tension eased a little more.
He opened his eyes and stared across at the town road, scanning for any signs of movement. The treetops looked still as paintings, shades of black against the deeper black that formed the woods at the far side of the road.
Johnny turned to the right and, slowly dropping his head, followed the road back, past the fork and all the way up to the concrete apron in front of the station. When the top of the wall in front of him appeared, Johnny moved his head slowly to the left, scanning the concrete.
Troy Vilawsky didn't register anything when Johnny's eyes met the deputy's dark glasses. He just stood there, arms hanging by his side but each of them standing a little away from his body, like he was an old-time gunfighter, his head tilted back and seemingly watching Johnny.
Johnny felt exposed. He nodded, a sinking feeling–
Why the hell's he wearing dark glasses when it's pitch black?
–starting off in the pit of his stomach and slowly–
And what the hell's wrong with his arms?
–working its way upwards like bile and–
Better still, when did he start wearing gloves, for Chrissakes?
–threatening to explode into his mouth.
"Hey, Troy? How's it hanging?"
Troy didn't respond.
The deputy had moved into Jesman's Bend a little over four years ago, transferred across from the coast, from some town nestled in the greater Los Angeles smog belt, for a break from the drug and gang warfare. "Some folks are made for that kind of shit, and some folks aren't," Troy had told the folks in Martha McNeil's diner couple of mornings after he'd moved in, his shirt pressed like a marine drill sergeant's. "Me, I'm made for things being a little quieter."
It wasn't that Troy was slow in coming forward when he was needed, nossir. It was Troy pulled the man and woman from the blazing Subaru up on the mountain road that time, even went back a couple of times to get their little girl but she was long gone and the fire held him back. It was a blessing really: the girl had flown forward between the front seats and smashed into the windshield. Wasn't anything anyone could have done for her, not even Troy.
And it was Troy who tackled Jack Salliday when he'd had just a little too much tequila, and finally managed to get the serrated knife out of Jack's hand before Jack slit his wife's throat with it, Conchita Salliday having passed around just a few too many favors to the guys at the truck stop over on Boedecker Street down in Dawson. Conchita had taken a skillet to the back of Troy's head while her ever-loving husband had proceeded to slice open the deputy's right side, the fleshy part just around from his belly. And Troy hadn't pressed charges that time either, making sure instead that Jack Salliday straightened himself out some and stayed away from the booze and home more with his wife. "Might solve a lot of problems," Troy had told Jack.
And now here he was, standing out in the night air wearing wraparound dark glasses like he was a Hollywood heartthrob or something. He didn't look relaxed and he didn't look tense. He looked wrong. He just stood there glaring up – at least that's what Johnny figured he was doing behind those dark glasses: glaring.
Johnny shuffled his way to a crouched position, his knees against the wall, and he nodded towards town. "Everything OK, in town I mean?"
Still nothing, but now at least Troy turned around stiffly, like Jim in Taxi–
Town? Whut's "town" mean, man?
–and looked in the direction Johnny had indicated.
As if on cue, Gram Kramer stepped out from behind a bush, ignoring the bush's branches scraping across his face. Gram's arms were hanging the same way as Troy's, awkward and lifeless. And he was wearing the same dark glasses, too.
Johnny glanced down at Gram's hands. Yep, the gloves were there.
All present and correct.
Johnny nodded. "Hey, Gram. How're you doing?"
Gram walked stiffly over to Troy and stopped. Troy turned around and joined
Gram in looking up at the roof, at Johnny.
Johnny forced a slight laugh. Nope, things were most decidedly not OK in town. "Hey, come on guys, talk to me, will ya? At least tell me why you need to wear shades at four o'clock in the goddam morning." There was a noise from deep inside the station, deep down right underneath where Johnny was crouching.
Troy and Gram turned their attention to something right in front of them.
Johnny frowned: what was right in front of them?
Darkness Falling Page 21
