Nights Towns: Three Novels, a Box Set

by Douglas Clegg

  That other voice, too, not of anyone dead, but of Mister Fate, always there in the background whispered, "What do you want most, kid? You want happiness? Love? Fortune? Family? You want to see what happens when you return home? You want to see everything you've ever loved die again and again and again? You want to know what happens to kids who defeat the dragon and then grow up? The dragon comes back, King Joe, It comes back hungry for blood."

  4

  Had he run to his Buick? Joe couldn't even remember, for the fever had taken him, the fever and the fear, too. It had been a blur, since holding Becky as she wept for Tad, abducted somehow from his room without anyone noticing, and seeing someone who looked like grizzled old Dr. Cobb, the man who had been perhaps too close a friend to his mother in the past, and down the driveway to the car; fumbling with his keys in the rain, dropping them, picking them up, dropping them again. Joe had just about put them in the car, when someone called his name.

  He spun around, half expecting an assault, and there, in the rain, stood a spindly, dried up old rummy of a man, barely a hair on his head, his plaid flannel shirt untucked and half buttoned, his coat ragged, his eyes burning with fire. "Joe? That you, you son of a bitch?" It was Gary Welles. Joe recognized the voice. "You killed my baby and now I'm gonna kill you."

  In Gary Welles's shaking hand, a gun. Joe didn't know guns very well, but this one seemed real enough. "I knew I'd find you at your old buddy's house—I knew you'd come back and laugh at us little people the way you laughed at my little girl!"

  Joe held his hands up. "Please, my family..."

  Gary gnashed his teeth. "What about my family, you son of a whore? What about my little girl, Missy, my baby Missy, the most precious... oh, you sweet-talking pervert, you lured her and then you made sure she got killed, and then my wife left me, and my son, sure he was gimpy, sure he was a feeb, but he was my boy! Now, he don't even talk to me—he's too good for me, now, but he weren't back then—it's 'cause of what you done, you low-life shit-eater! And then you had to dig my girl's body up and do that—disgusting, sickening—you're no better than that Jeffrey Dahmer feller was, but at least somebody put out his lights, just like I'm gonna do to you."

  Joe was about to say something (although he wasn't sure what) when he saw a bright light, something that wasn't quite lightning, and then he felt blood rush like the sea in his head, and he realized he'd been shot. Rather than feel the numbness that he'd always heard was associated with getting shot, he felt a tremendous heat spread like a rash around his side. He fell to the muddy ground.

  Gary Welles laughed triumphantly and knelt beside him. "When you're in hell, boy," he said, "send 'em my regards and tell 'em I'll be along in no time."

  The man started laughing, waving the gun around in the rain.

  Then Gary put the gun to Joe's head and pulled the trigger.

  5

  The gun made a clicking noise. Then Joe heard nothing.

  Then he heard the rain, spattering on his face.

  Then he heard Gary Welles cuss and shout and click the gun a few more times.

  "Shit," Gary said, tossing the gun onto the drive, "I paid good money for it, too."

  By that time, Joe was able to sit up and, with every ounce of strength left in him, sock Gary Welles as hard as he could in the jaw.

  Then Joe slid back down to the ground, to blissful unconsciousness with the one last thought before darkness took hold: just when you think you know who the monsters are...

  6

  If you had wings, you could fly over the tops of the houses and look down at the woman who lay in the street, one leg propped up on the sidewalk, her body in the curb, her own daughter, not more than four years old, giving what appeared to be mouth to mouth resuscitation, but which, on closer examination, might be something else, for the little girl had blood across her cheeks as if she were a messy eater; Jeptha Bonchance had just finished nailing boards across the bedroom which contained four of his children, but one of them, Hank, was still there, behind him, watching his father with what Jeptha might call a Wild Turkey grin, his hands torn and ragged from clawing his way through the walls. Minnie Harper, at seventy-eight years old, was sitting, as usual, in the window of her apartment above Logan's Market on Main Street. Outside, at the door, a child was wailing, as if for his mother, so Minnie began to move slowly, practically hearing her bones creak as she went. Cally Harper was fixing some late night tea when they got her, a whole gang of them, and she thought at first that it was still Halloween, because they had drawn, almost shriveled faces, like raisins waiting to be plumped. If you had wings, you could fly and see all of this, and when you came to the dark house at River Road, the one with the mailbox with the word Gardner on it, you would know that something wicked was going on inside this house as well.

  7

  In the upstairs bedroom, what had once been Joe Gardner's room, Byron Cheever took the body, and cutting just so, sprayed blood onto the walls in a pattern.

  He dipped his fingers into this and wrote the words which his Great Master had commanded him to write.

  8

  Joe awoke in the rain, with Virgil Cobb kneeling beside him. The old man said, "It's not too bad, just grazed your side, but there's some bleeding. How are you feeling?"

  "Bad. Where's Gary?"

  "He's inside. Passed out. Becky and Homer are inside, too."

  "I need to get home," Joe said.

  "Not right now." Virgil shook his head. "I'll need to get you down to my office so we can clean this properly."

  Joe shook his head, tried to rise, but sank back down. "For a graze, this sure hurts."

  Virgil took a length of gauze and wrapped it around Joe's side. "With a little pressure, the bleeding should stop."

  "My family," Joe said. "I've got to get them."

  "Yes, you do," Virgil said. "After I clean this out."

  "No," Joe said, "now!"

  9

  Joe felt his adrenaline pumping as Virgil drove the rain slicked streets.

  "I've met this before," Virgil said. "This adversary."

  "I have too."

  "I know. Homer told me. There are ways of stopping it, at least temporarily." Virgil reached to the floor of his car. He brought a bag up and set it on the seat between them. "Tools of the trade. Screwdrivers, crucifixes, even some holy water I've stolen through the years from the church in Stone Valley."

  "You think it's a vampire..."

  "No, I don't. But it can be stopped the same way. John Feely put religious symbols everywhere in his house to keep it out. He would even go to Watch Hill and hammer in extra crosses. Did you know Watch Hill was once the main entrance to the mines? It's where the tracks had been put in to load coal and take it down to the river, where they'd load it onto barges."

  "How many mines were there?"

  "Twenty-eight in all, all interconnected. They ran for five square miles."

  "Under the whole town?"

  Virgil nodded.

  "Christ," Joe sputtered. "The whole town."

  "John Feely learned to put the crosses up from his grandfather, who must've had his own encounters with whatever is down there. And you, too."

  "Huh?"

  "You've had your encounters with it. I remember the voices, the stories you told people. I had the body of Patty Glass in my office. Before I put a scalpel through her heart, she told me something that involved you."

  Virgil brought his car into the driveway of Anna Gardner's house. He said, "She told me that you were what she was looking for. It wasn't Patty's voice, but a synthesis of many voices, and one voice. She told me she needed Joe Gardner's blood."

  Joe looked at his mother's house; it was dark, and seemed to be empty.

  10

  Joe searched the house from room to room. It seemed empty. Joe pointed his flashlight's beam into every closet, half expecting something to jump out at him. Virgil called to him from one of the upstairs bedrooms. Although his side ached and burned, he climbed the stairs, fee
ling as if he was moving in slow motion through viscous air. When he got to the open doorway to his old bedroom, Virgil had his flashlight on the wall.

  "I am sorry to say that I found your mother's body," Virgil said.

  Joe read the words that had been written messily in blood:

  Melissa + Joe

  forever

  Then both men turned at a sound. The sound of someone sucking, as if siphoning the juices from ripe fruit.

  Joe felt frozen, no longer in pain, but numb and perhaps dying somewhere inside his flesh, at least the part of him that had ever been happy or ever hoped or ever dreamed.

  The beam of his flashlight struck the blood-soaked figure of Byron Cheever, naked, slick, as he lapped greedily at Anna Gardner's ankle.

  Flinching at the light, covering his eyes, Byron turned towards them. "Joe," he said, his voice thick as if he were completely glutted. "Your mother has proved quite the treat. I'm sure when my Master has your children, he will find them equally delightful."

  Virgil drew something from his bag, and held it into the beam of light.

  It was a small cross, and it cast its shadow across Byron's face.

  Byron drew back, but did not hide from it as Joe had expected. Instead, he seemed hypnotized, even stunned by it. He remained motionless.

  Virgil said, "Notice how it reacts to the cross. Not afraid, just stunned."

  And then, still holding the cross before him, Virgil walked cautiously over to him. He knelt beside Byron, pressing the cross into Byron's forehead. With his free hand, he took the screwdriver and jammed it swiftly and surely into Byron Cheever's heart. He said to Joe, "Now I need to operate on him, because the physical body needs to be completely incapacitated or there's a chance It can still use this body to harvest."

  Joe stood there, holding the flashlight, but in his mind, he had already gone to a dark, silent place, a place with no family, no love, no warmth, no life. He was a statue now. All of this pain around him, all of this fear, all of this tragedy, was a dream world, where the real world was darkness and a frozen wasteland. He remembered having felt that way when he had attempted suicide after Melissa's death, as if he were in some arctic country, as if he could not even imagine that life existed anywhere else. He had placed himself here because of physical pain and the pain of knowing that everything he loved was dead.

  Somewhere in that deep state of isolation, he thought he heard his son cry out for him, and for a moment he hurtled through the rooms of his consciousness, trying to find the door that would lead him back to sanity.

  He thought he saw, in his mind's eye, his son, Aaron, running towards him, only it was not his son, for the skin on his body ripped off as if caught in barbed wire, and instead, was an angel, not of death or of mercy, but The Angel of the Pit, its face smeared with red juice, winging its way to embrace him.

  "Joe." Virgil's voice cut through his numbness. "Joe?"

  Joe Gardner opened his eyes.

  There were three children in the doorway, moving towards them, like wolves.

  Joe shined his flashlight across them. They flinched at the light, but kept moving. Their clothes were bloody rags, their hair twisted with mud and leaves.

  One child, a girl who had only recently been known as Tenley McWhorter but was now simply one of the pack, stepped forward. "We have eaten your wife and your mama, Joe." She grinned, her hands clawing at the shreds of her own dress. "Your children are with us. Your mama's blood was like warm jelly, Joe. So delicious."

  Virgil reached for the cross, which he'd left by Byron's body, but could not find it in the darkness.

  "Your little girl will be the flower of hell." Tenley giggled. The boy who was with her hunkered down on all fours and leaped across the floor to stand before Joe.

  He made a grab for the flashlight, but Joe slammed it against the boy's head. He fell. What seemed to be glowing white worms burst from the side of his skull. The boy grabbed Joe's ankle.

  Joe heard Virgil cry out, but Joe had to turn his attention to the boy. He kicked the kid against the wall, and then, using one of the spikes in his belt, smashed it into the boy's chest, ripping through the cavity to find his heart. It happened in a matter of seconds, and when he brought the flashlight up, he saw that the girl and the other little boy had Virgil down on the ground.

  Joe gripped the flashlight under his armpit and held it on the girl; then he made the sign of the cross with his fingers.

  The shadow burned into the side of the girl's face, ripping skin from her nose and cheek.

  She screeched and fell away from Virgil.

  At the same time, Virgil found his cross and jammed its pointy base into the boy's throat. He wrestled the boy to the ground and then the two men performed the operations necessary to ensure permanent death for these creatures.

  "Don't think of them as children," Virgil said. "Think of them as the Thing that murdered your family."

  11

  When it was done, Joe's side ached where the bullet had grazed him and he slumped down against the wall. "I want to sleep forever," he said, "but my body won't. It's like something in me is fighting."

  "Survival instinct," Virgil said, matter-of-factly. "There'll be more of these after us. Let's get back to the others and try to fortify ourselves for one night. We can continue the fight in the morning."

  The words in blood burned into Joe's mind: Melissa + Joe forever.

  12

  "Oh, good lord," Virgil said as he brought the Buick to a stop two houses from Hopfrog's house. "It's like a last stand."

  Joe, who was feeling hyperaware, was not even surprised by the sight that greeted them: twenty or thirty children surrounding the house, shadows and shapes in the bushes and trees, some crawling up the walls, some already on the roof.

  "I hope Hop and Becky made it. I hope they're alive," Joe said.

  "And how do we destroy all these?"

  "Don't look at me. It's not like I have all the answers."

  The front door opened, but it was too dark to see what was happening. It was a man, standing, so Joe assumed it wasn't Hopfrog.

  "It's Gary Welles," Joe said. "What the hell is he doing?"

  13

  Gary was feeling a little better now. As far as he knew, he'd gotten one good shot at Joe, and next time he saw him, he was going to finish him off for sure. He'd managed to kick down the fucking door to the room they'd locked him in, stumble through the dark house, avoiding anyone in it. He stepped out on the porch and laughed at fate. He shouted, "Fuck you all! Fuck you, stupid Colony, for being such a dumbass town, for killing my girl and poisoning my marriage! Fuck you all!"

  By the moonlight, he could see the shapes of children all around him, and although he thought this was odd, he was still fairly drunk and wondered if these might not be pink elephant sightings.

  Before he could think much else, the children were upon him, and Gary felt dozens of small mouths close around his pulse points, their teeth digging in, their rough little tongues lapping.

  14

  Joe gasped, "Jesus!" He reached over to open his door, but Virgil grabbed his wrist. "We can't let him die like that!"

  Virgil said, "It's too late, Joe. They have him."

  "No." Joe shook Virgil off and got out of the car. He held the cross up and ran into the circle of children, slicing them across their scalps and faces with the cross. He could smell it then, they had the stink of death, of worms and earth and sulphur. He took his spike and began ramming it indiscriminately into each child, as if he were working an assembly line, and although they grabbed at him and bit his arms, he kept stabbing, gutting, slashing. By the time he was finished, he was laughing, laughing so hard he thought the world, the universe, and God were all laughing with him.

  He looked at the piles of bodies.

  You have driven me insane. You have made me inhuman, he thought.

  Joe Gardner fell to his knees, dropping cross and spike. He laughed until he couldn't remember ever not laughing.

>   Becky came out of the house. She wrapped him in a blanket, but he kept laughing, knowing that there was no saving them. There was no way to stop the children, no way to stop It, no way to slay this dragon.

  Morning was a long time in coming. As the sun slowly lit the sky with its purple and blue dawn, the house was thick with the corpses of children and with crucifixes fashioned from bits of wood and anything that could be turned into a cross.

  Hopfrog sat beside Joe's bed as he slept, and in the morning told the others that even in his dreams, Joe was laughing.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  PREY

  1

  Joe Gardner slept until late in the morning. He was not plagued by nightmares, neither was he disturbed by the chill, for he had left the bedroom window open, as if hoping that his children would crawl over the frame after some adventure with Peter Pan. When he first awoke, he saw the sun and the frost on the windowsill. He watched his breath as it clouded the air. He heard the ticking of the hall clock. He closed his eyes again and fell into the blackness of sleep.

  In the frozen, sunless dreamscape, he felt nothing, but heard the endless beating of its wings, of the Angel of the Pit, as It drew Its arms around him.