Sandman

by William W. Johnstone

  “She’ll be all right,” the EMT said. “If she starts feeling bad, give us a call.”

  He left the room and Janis looked at Linda. “I didn’t dream it, did I?”

  Linda shook her head. “No. You didn’t. But I’m sorry you had to hear it the way you did.”

  “It wouldn’t have made any difference,” the girl said pragmatically. “Would it? My daddy would still be dead, wouldn’t he?”

  When no one responded to that, Janis sat up. She felt all right. Maybe just a little weak. “Where is Mother?”

  Linda answered. “She just called. She’ll be here in about an hour. She asked me if I’d stay on for a few days. I said I would.”

  “Paul?”

  “In his room. He knows about his father.”

  “How did he react?”

  “He just smiled.”

  “He would. Those people at the Harvey house?”

  “The cops took them away. The man we bashed on the head has a concussion, the medic said. Becky’s been taken to the hospital. The cuts on her looked a lot worse than they really were; that’s what the medic told me.”

  “What kind of cuts?”

  “Someone took a real sharp knife and made a lot of cuts on her body. Stars and moons and other shapes. But they weren’t very deep.”

  Janis accepted a Coke from Melissa. “How long have I been out?”

  “ ’Bout ten minutes.”

  “Bing and Roy?”

  “I don’t know what’s going on down at the police station.”

  * * *

  “Fuck you!” Rex told the cop. “I don’t have to tell you a goddamn thing.”

  “And that goes for me, too,” Clark said.

  Outside the interrogation room, the booking area was filled with half-dressed and loudly protesting men and women, all from the Harvey house. Astonished lawyers were trying to figure out exactly how this had happened to outwardly successful and decent men and women.

  The detective questioning the boys resisted an almost overwhelming impulse to slap the daylights out of both of them.

  He had to keep telling himself that this was all in a day’s work; just part of his job. The attitude of the boys was nothing new.

  But it wouldn’t wash. Something was terribly wrong with these two kids. Something the detective had never before encountered. Usually boys were outwardly scared or they tried to put up a false front to hide their fear.

  Not these two.

  They weren’t afraid. Not even a little bit.

  “And you still maintain that Lisa and the others were not with you when Bing and Roy were attacked?”

  “Hey, man!” Clark grinned at him. “We didn’t attack them. They attacked us.”

  The detective knew none of these answers could be used in a court of law. The boys’ parents were not present and neither was an attorney. But Mike had told him to question the boys.

  Clark leaned forward, putting both elbows on the table. He spat in the detective’s face.

  The man rose from his chair and walked out of the room, barely holding on to his temper.

  Behind him, just before the door closed, both boys laughed.

  The detective walked over to a coffee pot and poured a cup.

  He had never seen anything like these two.

  Peter approached him. “Sol. What’d you get out of them?”

  “Attitude and arrogance.” He sipped his strong coffee. “They’re not afraid, Pete. Looking at them, I have to keep reminding myself that they’re really just boys—and human!”

  Deputy sheriff and city detective locked gazes.

  The detective’s hand, still holding the cup of coffee, began to tremble.

  “You don’t believe that, do you, Pete?”

  Loneman stared at him.

  Sol got the unspoken message in Pete’s eyes and a thin trickle of sweat formed and wormed its way down his forehead.

  “They’re just kids, Pete!”

  “Yeah. You just keep on believing that. I’m goin’ to take a run over to the boys’ homes. Me, Mike, Leo, and Stanford. We’ll get back to you, Sol.”

  * * *

  “So what do you want me to do about it?” Clark’s father asked.

  He stood shirtless in the doorway of his expensive home. He had not asked them inside. His manner was both hostile and belligerent. And he smelled bad. The men could see his wife lying on the couch in the living room.

  She was nude, and had made no attempt to hide her nakedness.

  It was embarrassing.

  She opened her legs wide, and smiled at Mike.

  Her husband laughed at the expression on Mike’s face.

  Mike composed himself—with an effort. “We would like you to come down to the station and get your son, sir.”

  “Oh, yeah? Well, why don’t you just send him on home? He’ll get here directly, I reckon.”

  Mike sighed. “Mr. Mahoney, your son was involved in a very serious incident earlier this evening. Don’t you even care?”

  The man shrugged his shoulders. “Sure. But he ain’t hurt is he?”

  Mike shook his head.

  “Then send him home.”

  “Sir,” Leo spoke. “What do you have to do that is more important than seeing to the needs of your son?”

  Mahoney blinked and then grinned. “Well, me and the old lady was plannin’ on having some fun.”

  * * *

  On the short trip over to the home of Rex Grummen, Stanford, who was sitting in the back with Leo, said, “The boy has to be destroyed—and quickly. Surely you can all see what’s happening here. Townwide. His power is growing at a phenomenal rate. If we wait much longer, there’s a possibility he could become invincible. Do I have to tell you what will happen then?”

  No one said anything.

  “You must understand,” the inspector persisted. “This is an open pool of raw filth, growing and growing, spewing disease in all directions. Unless one neutralizes the filth, it just keeps on contaminating everyone and everything around it. Surely, after the events of this evening, you can all see that.”

  “I can’t cold-bloodedly kill an eight-year-old boy, Stanford.” Mike spoke without taking his eyes off the road.

  “Nor can I,” Peter said.

  Stanford’s sigh was loud. “Satan is laughing at your predictable attitudes.”

  No one spoke again until they reached the Grummen home. It was almost a repeat of what they’d seen and heard at the Mahoney house.

  Rex’s father answered the door, in his underwear. “Oh, yeah?” he smirked. “Well, goddamn! I guess that makes the kid just a chip off the old block, huh?”

  “You won’t come down to the station and pick up your son?” Mike asked.

  “Naw! Just let him go. He’ll get here when he’s good and ready, I suppose.”

  Mr. Grummen got a good laugh out of that.

  Even though Rex was only thirteen.

  Mike and Peter knew that, just hours before, Mr. Grummen had been a well-respected member of the community; a devoted family man, a churchgoer, a solid citizen.

  As they rode back to the station, Peter said, “Two successful businessmen. Car-dealership and furniture-store owner. Both of them upper middle class. Nice people. Neither of them had ever been in trouble before. Did you smell them? It seemed neither of them had been near soap and water in days. But I know that’s impossible. I was in Grummen’s store day before yesterday. I’ve got a question: Why them and not us?”

  Not one of the men in the car was terribly religious.

  Finally Stanford said, “It isn’t over yet.”

  “ ’Til the fat lady sings,” Peter retorted.

  No one laughed.

  Mike pulled into the parking lot of the police station, his headlights picking up Lisa and her gang, sitting on the curb. He walked over to them.

  “What are you kids doing here?”

  “Sittin’, man,” Lisa told him, looking up. “Waitin’ on Rex and Clark to get out of your bucket. Is
there any law against us doin’ that?”

  Mike tried to stare her down. He could not. Her eyes, young/old/evil locked into his. “What makes you think I’m going to cut them loose?”

  “Hey, man!” Lisa grinned up at him. “What are you going to hold them on? The other boys attacked them. We seen it. Your move now.”

  Mike wished his next move could be to blink his eyes and have all that had happened prove to be a dream.

  He blinked his eyes.

  Nothing had changed.

  Lisa and her gang rose as one and walked out of the police parking area. They crossed the street and sat down on the curb.

  “So much has come unglued the past few days, Mike. These kids—why has this happened to them? I know their families attend Nils Masterson’s church. Is that part of it? I don’t know what to think anymore.” Peter Loneman shook his head.

  “You mean you think they’ll have to die like Paul?” Mike asked.

  “Not . . . like Paul,” Stanford said.

  “They’re just kids,” Mike said wearily.

  Leo tactfully changed the subject. “Speaking of Nils and his . . . followers, what are you going to do with them?”

  “Do with them? I’m going to hold them. Rape, kidnapping, torture, crimes against nature. Anything else I can come up with.”

  Sheriff Sandry had walked up. “No, you’re not, Mike.”

  The men turned to the sheriff.

  “Why not, Burt?” Mike demanded.

  Sandry took a long breath. “I don’t like this any better than you do, Mike. But here it is. Becky Matthews is not pressing any charges. She just made that statement from her hospital bed. She now says she was a willing participant.”

  “It can’t be!” Leo exploded.

  “He’s just getting stronger and stronger,” Stanford muttered.

  “Who is getting stronger and stronger?” Sandry asked.

  Before Stanford could reply, Mike ripped off his cowboy hat and threw it down on the concrete. He kicked it across the parking lot, cursing as he did so.

  Across the street, Lisa and her gang laughed.

  The wind picked up, sending bits of paper and other scraps flying through the downtown streets.

  And Inspector Stanford Willingston shook hands with all the men, then walked silently away, into the night.

  FOUR

  Mike had no choice but to release Jane and Todd Harvey and the others found at their house. There were some minor charges he could have held them on, but to keep the press at bay for as long as possible, he released them all. Jailing a respected minister and other pillars of the community would have brought the press in at full gallop. As it was, the local paper was probably going to give the whole situation front-page space.

  Mike said to hell with it, and went home to try to get some sleep.

  Sheriff Sandry drove back to the county seat, saying he’d return the next day. Call him if anything else weird happened.

  “You can expect a call,” Deputy Loneman said with a grin.

  Sandry’s reply was a disgusted grunt and a wave of his hand.

  As Rex and Clark walked out of the police station, Leo and Peter watched them link up with Lisa and her gang, then wander off into the murk of the night.

  Mark Kelly’s body had been taken to a local funeral home.

  Bing and Roy were driven home in a police unit.

  The police and the sheriff’s deputies were edgy and frustrated and uncertain as to what they might be facing as the night dragged on.

  They soon found out.

  Incidents of family violence went up astronomically, and no cop likes to work domestic trouble.

  “Any of you guys want to tell me what is going on?” a young reporter for the Tepehuanes Guardian asked. The Guardian was a small daily.

  “Full moon,” he was told.

  “Right,” the reporter said drily, as he heard yet another family fight called in and the dispatcher rolled a unit.

  Connie Kelly, given a strong sedative before she left the hospital, was out on her feet by the time she arrived home. She fell into her bed, and was asleep in thirty seconds.

  Mercifully, her sleep was dreamless.

  Every doctor who worked at Tepehuanes General was called in that night to help in the emergency rooms, patching up and stitching up men and women who suddenly seemed to think beating each other about the head and shoulders was the best way to settle minor marital disagreements.

  It seemed to the doctors that at least half the town was involved in family squabbles.

  Father Dan Gomez spent the night alternately sleeping and praying.

  Leo tossed on his motel bed. He was worried about his friend, Stanford, in the next room. Sleep did come to Leo, but it was slow in arriving.

  Stanford cleaned his pistol and carefully loaded it. Then he made his peace with God. He asked forgiveness for what he was going to do come the dawning.

  Peter Loneman drove the lonely roads that led back to the place of his birth. At the edge of the reservation proper, he stopped and got out of his unit. Stood on the road, listening to the drumming in the night.

  “It’s no longer my world,” he muttered. “I don’t belong there anymore.”

  After a time, he slid under the wheel of his car and drove back to town, putting the drumming behind him, knowing the hideousness could not be avoided, but must be faced.

  Nearly everyone concerned longed for the light of day.

  * * *

  A salesman, whose home base was in California, unfortunately had elected to spend the night in Tepehuanes, and was having trouble sleeping. He stepped out of his motel room for a breath of air. He had never been in Tepehuanes before, thought it a pretty little city. Except for that awful smell. And the lack of whores. If he could find some action that might help him sleep.

  He sniffed. Phew! Must be some industry here that fouled the air, he guessed.

  But the brochure he’d picked up had mentioned nothing about heavy industry.

  He concluded that it was too late to go barhopping, turned back to his motel-room door and ran into a lump, sandy smelly thing!

  It grunted at him.

  The salesman had only a few excruciatingly painful seconds to ponder what on earth had grabbed him.

  But he would never know.

  Neither would his wife and four kids back in San Bernardino.

  Powerful arms crushed his chest and broke his back while a lipless slit of a mouth ate his face.

  Another sandman jerked off one arm and munched on it, as if eating an ear of corn, while yet another lumpy creature reached inside the salesman and pulled out his intestines, stuffing them into its mouth.

  What was left of the salesman was hauled off, to the rear of the motel, into even murkier darkness. A slick trail of blood marked his journey.

  Soon nothing remained except for a few cracked and sucked-dry, white bones.

  The lumpy shapes drifted away into the darkness, content for the moment.

  * * *

  In his hospital room, on his bed, there more for drying-out purposes than for any injury, Old Jake moaned in his sleep. He dreamed of being pursued across the desert by naked zombies on horseback.

  About fifteen miles outside of town, for Mona and Darrel Lewis, Old Jake’s nightmare was fast becoming hard reality.

  Mona had awakened out of a deep and dreamless sleep to sounds of sucking and of her husband thrashing about on the bed. She had opened her eyes and turned her head. When she recovered from mind-numbing shock, she opened her mouth to scream.

  A cold mouth covered hers.

  At first, she thought it must be a mustached mouth, for she could feel whiskers scraping her upper lip. Then, when her attacker raised his head, Mona could fully see the horror descending on her.

  She passed out.

  When she awakened, the horror had intensified, going far beyond any nightmare she had ever endured.

  She was being sexually assaulted.

  And she was cold.
So very cold. Oddly, the cold was a pleasant feeling. Her neck felt slick and wet. A very strange sensation.

  And in her mind was a new awareness. The awakening of evil. Long buried and suppressed, the need to do evil had now come to the fore.

  Mona welcomed it. She felt as though she had just been released from prison.

  She cut her eyes to her husband’s side of the bed. Darrel was flat on his back, and Mary, her mouth red and sticky with blood was on top of him. His face and neck were bloody, too.

  But that did not alarm Mona. It all seemed very natural to her. She felt it was meant to be. An occurrence she had long been waiting for.

  Mona screamed as she experienced a climax like none she had ever felt. She pulled the dead, cold, stinking, and bloody mouth of Andy to her own lips and kissed him.

  The four of them rested in the bed for a time, a sprawl of living dead. Until the desert began calling them in a silent voice. Then they rose, naked and bloody, and walked out of the house. Burrs and rocks dug into the soles of their feet. But they felt no pain. They felt nothing at all.

  Except the primal urge to kill. To destroy. To gain souls for their new master.

  The moon hung full and heavy in the sky.

  Andy threw back his head and howled.

  The others joined him, howling in voices that were born in the burning pits.

  Joyful howlings.

  The four of them walked to the garage, Andy and Darrel getting into the front seat of the luxury car, Mary and Mona into the back.

  The men looked at each other, communicating without words.

  Andy grinned, a macabre curving of the stitch-hung lips.

  Darrel cranked the car’s engine, dropped the shift into R, and floorboarded the pedal. The heavy car roared out of the garage, demolished a bird bath, flattened a lawn mower, and tore away part of the stone fence around the front yard before Darrel could find the brake pedal and bring it under control.

  But the four of them found the wild ride exhilarating and highly amusing. They grunted and slobbered their laughter in the closed car, their lips very red and full in their pale faces.

  After bouncing and spinning across the yard, they wandered around in the desert before finally finding the road that would lead them to Tepehuanes.

  They did not know why they should go to Tepehuanes. It just seemed the right thing to do.