Nights Towns: Three Novels, a Box Set

by Douglas Clegg

  I laughed when I locked my windows and pushed a chair up against my door. How do you keep the dead out? If they want you, they'll find a way.

  2

  From the Westbridge County (Va.) Sentinel, September 12, 1986:

  TELEPHONE TO THE SPIRITS?

  PONTEFRACT - Table-rapping is pass , Ouija boards are out, the rage in Pontefract this year is a nine-year-old girl named Teddy Amory who has developed a reputation for herself as a medium. And her only prop is a sofa so she can lie down comfortably during the proceedings. "I don't know what happens," Teddy told this reporter. "It just comes over me. It's like someone's making a phone call through me." Her mother, Odessa, tells us, "My daughter is a natural medium. It is a gift, like speaking in tongues, and comes direct from the Holy Spirit."

  Thelma Kidd traveled all the way from Lookout Mountain, Ga., to have an audience with Teddy Amory. "My sister over in Covington wrote me about how this girl was the genuine article. I am a firm believer that the spirits are all around us, even now, as we speak." And what was Thelma's verdict about her visit with Teddy? "She is a doorway from the other side to this. When my grandfather Marshall spoke through her, there was no doubt in my mind. She is blessed, that girl."

  Cappie Hartstone, married to William Hartstone, the President of Westbridge Savings and Loan, said of her own experience with the half-pint psychic: "It was just like when I read this book about stuff like past lives and a New Age. Teddy Amory spoke directly to me, I felt 'connected.' Isn't it wonderful to be living in America where these things seem to be happening?"

  The Edgar Cayce Foundation has yet to give Teddy Amory their seal of approval. Nor have a half a dozen other such institutions for exploration into so-called "paranormal" activities. In spite of queries sent to the Amory household, Odessa Amory, who was recently widowed, prefers not to subject her daughter to any kind of testing.

  In spite of numerous seances in which several of the dear-departed have been summoned, there still remain those who are skeptical. According to Dr. Walter Scott from Westbridge Medical Center, Mrs. Amory "should be seeking proper medical treatment for her daughter rather than turning her into a side-show. She has a form of epilepsy the likes of which I have never before witnessed or read of in any medical journal."

  To which Odessa Amory replies, on her daughter's behalf, "If the Lord Jesus came down from heaven and went to Dr. Scott, the doctor would take one look at Him and ask Him if someone was treating those wounds. That is the extent of his understanding of things that are not of this earth."

  Beside this article was a photograph of the mother and daughter. Teddy, plain, her face blank, no emotion showing. Her hair pouring wildly down her shoulders as if in conflict with this blankness. Small, deep-set eyes like two buttons pushed into the fabric of her skin. Dressed in a smock that looked as if it should be worn by a girl four years younger. Her hand was clutching part of her mother's sweater. Odessa Amory, obviously enjoying this minor-league celebrity, smiling, her hair cut short and held back with a plastic hair band, again a little girlish touch as if the mother wanted to keep herself and her daughter within the age range from four to twelve.

  From the Richmond Times-Dispatch, October 31, 1986:

  THINGS THAT GO BUMP IN THE NIGHT

  PONTEFRACT, VA. - For a surefire case of the heebie-jeebies this Halloween, the place to be is a picturesque town in the Shenandoah Valley called Pontefract. Hardly a ghost town, Pontefract is best known for the Pontefract Preparatory School, one of this state's premier private institutions, a rival for such schools as Christchurch and St. Christopher's. But in the near future, Pontefract may best be known as the place where the spiritualism craze is reborn. All because of a nine-year-old girl named Theodora Amory.

  Teddy, as she is called by just about everyone in this town, with a population of 3000, is just your ordinary kid most of the time. She likes to watch Moonlighting and says she wants to be just like Maddie Hayes when she grows up. Her favorite singer is Madonna, although her mother won't let her buy any of her records. And she absolutely hates piano lessons.

  One other thing. She is a medium on the side and will call up your great-grandmother who died last year or your uncle who kicked off and didn't put you in his will. While other children her age will be attending parties, bobbing for apples, and counting up trick-or-treat candy, Teddy will be summoning spirits in the family's living room.

  Tonight, from 7 p.m. to midnight, she will be "in session," as her mother, Odessa Amory, told the Times-Dispatch. The fee is Teddy's standard $20 a head, reservations required. Groups of more than three at a time are discouraged. Although Teddy was taking her afternoon nap and unavailable for comment at press-time, her mother told us that "the spirits should be out in force tonight. As the winter comes on, they seem to grow stronger."

  From the Westbridge County (Va.) Sentinel, December 3, 1986:

  PONTEFRACT - Teddy Amory, 9, known locally as the little girl who came back from the dead because of a near-drowning episode a few years ago, has been reported missing along with her brother, Jake, 16, after a fire destroyed their house located in the western section of Pontefract, Virginia. If anyone has any knowledge of the whereabouts of either brother or sister, they are requested to contact the Pontefract Sheriff's Office immediately.

  Accompanying this brief article were two school photographs. One of Teddy Amory, again with that blank expression, as if anything that might vaguely be termed personality had been washed out of her, and those shiny button eyes. Her brother looked sinister, glaring into the camera, his hair greased back, his lips thick and pouty, the requisite teenage acne sprouting across his face. He looked like trouble.

  3

  Excerpts from Worthy Houston's Diary, 1801–1802:

  Since Mother's death, we only see our father at twilight when he leaves his bed and comes to supper. His eyes are like glowing embers, he gnashes his teeth like a madman. He has left his field to grow wild, and will not suffer any one of the slaves to till the soil. He tears at his hair at sunset, and smites his breast. He will not stand much human intercourse, and as the dark comes, Father goes down to the root cellar to dig. My sister has confided her fears to me. Virginia is afraid that he is digging his own grave.

  Our neighbor has brought our father in this morning, early before cock's crow, waking my sister and disturbing both of us greatly. He found Father in the field, the old goat dance, on all fours like a beast, eating the grass and digging in the clay. We are afraid now that our father's madness will be known to the community.

  "Spirits of the dark earth," he tells me, "they will not leave until they are given their due." Giles, Olivia, Andrew, Thomas, Matthew, Anne, Nathaniel—the children of that madman Nathaniel Carson, who brought so much sorrow to Pontefract, the innocents slain by our grandfather and the other townsfolk. Father believes that they call for him at night, calling for us all. He believes that they have become one single demon upon their deaths, he calls this spirit the Goatman, and he is afraid this Goatman will come for his immortal soul.

  He has at last shown me the treasure which he buries deep each fortnight. The infested remains of the children. Our house has become unclean with those bones and our father's madness. I have entreated him to turn his eyes to God, and away from this heathen obsession. To repent him of his sins. Like a devil he laughs and tells me God has forsaken him and all his seed He bids me touch the bones The bones sing, and their song wreaks discord upon the mind, and the children of the bones bind my fingers to them and bid me: behold, your soul is damned.

  We have heard the sounds in the night. As if the pit of hell lies directly beneath our house, and its legion of damned spirits clamber the labyrinthine tunnels Father has carved throughout this earth.

  Oh, God, would that these children were never so basely murdered by the hands of our forefathers. The stain of that sin finds no absolution. Our father speaks truthfully of demons, but the demons in our town of Pontefract have been within the cages of our own mortal souls,
and we have loosed the door. The evil we have sown is risen. And though, after my skin, worms destroy my body, yet in my flesh shall I see God.

  They have taken Virginia. Oh, dear Lord, deliver us from evil, from evil yea, though I walk through the shadow the shadow of the valley of the valley, death, death, death Virginia.

  I will find her, I will not allow their corruption to invade my sister further. If this be the Indian Devil, or the spirit seeking righteous revenge, I will bring her back from perdition, I will save her from this infestation, Oh, Lord, make my flesh strong, turn not thy divine mercy from me.

  4

  The nightmares came riding in that night, Monday, January 5, 1987, to Pontefract.

  Members of the Altar Guild are dreaming:

  Georgia Stetson, popularly known as the Rona Barrett of Pontefract, had been on the phone all evening with Patsy Campbell discussing Warren Whalen's death and Patsy's new boarder. "Of course I'm upset," Georgia said, but the glee was apparent in her voice. Her husband Ken, lying next to her in bed, glanced up from his Wall Street Journal and raised his eyebrows doubtfully at her. She wrinkled her nose at him. The phone cord was stretched across him, and he tugged at it playfully. Georgia continued, "I counted Mr. Whalen as one of my friends. Remember the time he brought the college catalogs over for Ricky to look at? And Ricky being in public school, too Yes, I should say, Patsy, I should say "

  Ken groaned and folded his paper down. He caught his wife's attention again and pointed to his watch; it was 11:00 p.m. She swatted at him as if he were a fly. He took the telephone out of her hands ("Oh, you!" she exclaimed), and said into the mouthpiece, "I'm sorry, Patsy, but Georgia is signing off now." And then he hung up the phone.

  Georgia clucked her tongue against the roof of her mouth. "You're so rude, Kenny. Do you know that George Connally himself came to get the man staying at Patsy's?"

  "No, but if you hum a few bars " Ken reached up and turned off the lamp.

  "Very funny. But it's got me thinking. Here this man comes to town and another man gets killed. Mr. Whalen."

  "Are you going to play Miss Marple again like you did when that white trash Amory family burned up?"

  "Now, you know they never found those children. They could be right here in town somewhere, right under our noses."

  "Maybe they're the ones who killed the teacher."

  "Very funny, Ken. But I'll have you know Warren Whalen died in a very mysterious way. I heard from Bonnie Holroyd that he had scratched himself, clean into his skin and bones. Over at the Marlowe-Houston House. A one-man bloodbath, she called it. They found slivers of his own flesh between his fingernails did you hear that?"

  "What?"

  "I thought I heard something at the door Ken, go see what's out there?"

  Ken turned the lamp back on, sighing. "It was probably just the wind. You're scaring yourself with your own damn gossip." But Ken got out of bed and stomped over to the door. When he opened it, he laughed.

  "Well, what is it?" his wife asked.

  "Just Ricky, who at this very moment is tiptoeing down the stairs so I won't know it's him. Hey, son, just go on to bed, will you?"

  From downstairs came a muffled, "Okay."

  When Ken returned to bed and the lamp was out, Georgia began repeating a name aloud. "Coffey, Coffey, Coffey "

  Ken poked her. "Can't a man get to sleep in his own bed?"

  "It's the man staying with Patsy. I know that name from somewhere, Ken, and I am not sleeping until I remember."

  "The name will still be there in the morning."

  Georgia ignored him, but brought her chanting down to a whisper, "Coffey, Coffey, Coffey "

  But she did fall asleep, and dreamed. In her dream, her father, Virgil McDonald, who had been dead sixteen years, was dressed in his Sunday best, covered from head to foot with dirt as if he'd just dug himself out of his own grave. "Daddy, I miss you," she said. Her father, his white hair scraggly and down to his shoulders, his fingernails yellow, long and twisted, reached out to hold her, and she went to him.

  In the dream, Virgil tore into his daughter, Georgia, and his fingers were like straight razors slashing her.

  She awoke screaming, her hands clawing at the thing in the dark that was holding her.

  "For God sake!" her husband shouted; she calmed down. He switched the lamp on and she saw she was back in her bedroom. Ken was holding her arms firmly in his hands. There were gouges along his arm, tiny blood marks where she'd scratched him with her own fingernails.

  Georgia looked at Ken and said meekly, "I did that?"

  * * * *

  Cappie Hartstone recruited her husband, Bill, and the children, Heather, Jennifer, and Jason, to help her with a church mailing. She was keeping the kids up late, until nearly midnight, but they were in their last week of Christmas vacation, so she didn't see any harm in it. They would just sleep late into the morning. Only Bill grumbled about helping out. "You do more things for that damn Altar Guild " he complained.

  But Cappie, who had been head cheerleader of Newton High, class of '66, got everyone organized as usual. Heather was in charge of the stamps, while Jason and Jennifer wetted the envelopes and stuffed them. "Daddy here is going to do the honors," Cappie said, and handed the letters to Bill for folding.

  "What the hell do I do with these?" he muttered.

  "Well, honey, you just fold them over. No, dear, not like that, like this." She turned one of the letters over and creased it in two places. "See, it's plain and simple. I'm sure you can handle it."

  "I don't see why I have to sit down at this table and do this rag picker bullshit when I have to get up in six hours and put in a full day."

  Cappie riffled through the box of envelopes. "Heather-Jason-Jennifer, you don't remember any of these words your daddy's saying, hear?"

  "Hey, Mommy," Jennifer said, "Jason's getting jelly all over everything."

  "Am not, for crying out loud!" Jason whined and licked his fingers.

  "If you don't watch out," Jennifer said to her brother, "the psycho's gonna get you!"

  "Enough of that kind of talk," Cappie said, clapping her hands in punctuation.

  Bill pushed his chair back and stood up. He slapped an envelope down on the table. "That's it, I'm through with this bullshit, I'm going to bed."

  Cappie pointed both index fingers at Bill as if she were laying a curse on him. "You promised me you'd help, William."

  "Yeah, well, I seem to remember a promise you made to me a few years back about honoring and obeying. And I say, it's time for bed!" He raised his hand as if to slap her, but stopped himself.

  Cappie knew why he had taken control of himself. It wasn't because the kids were there. The kids were used to seeing Bill hit her when he thought she was getting out of line. No. The reason he did not go ahead and take a swing at her was because of the look in her eyes just then. They flashed like lightning at him. In that moment she knew she hated her husband with all her heart and all her soul.

  Cappie Hartstone wrote in her Day Runner before she went up to bed an hour after Bill had:

  No more. That's it. He has hurt and humiliated me for the last time. He just had to cause some kind of scene tonight to show who's boss. I know it is un-Christian of me to hate him, but I do.

  Did forty leg lifts tonight.

  Finish Guild mailing in the a.m.

  Call all Altar Guild members for contributions.

  No more chocolate chip cookies, and this time I mean it.

  An additional note, scrawled in a corner of the page:

  Fuck you, William Hartstone!

  Cappie's nightmare that night concerned her uncle, Arthur Abbott, whom they had just held services for the past weekend. It did not immediately seem unusual to see him: Cappie had been dreaming about him since his death the previous week, as if he hadn't died. They were standing in the upstairs hall of her house. She went toward him, and stood very close because she knew how hard-of-hearing her uncle was.

  "You've always been
such a handsome gentleman," Cappie told him in this dream. And he was: dressed in a shiny black dinner jacket, his sparse gray hair neatly combed back across his forehead to disguise his bald spot. Uncle Arthur smiled pleasantly. "They said I died peacefully in my sleep, Cappie. But don't you believe them. I was in pain, my dear, excruciating pain, they vivisected me in that hospital."

  Cappie shook her head, unbelieving. "No, Uncle Arthur, in your sleep."

  "They put me in a vise, my dear, and they sliced me up like some animal for study." As if to prove it to her, Arthur Abbott unbuttoned his dinner jacket, pulled several of the brass studs out of the pressed white shirt, and tore the shirt open. Long scars crisscrossed his chest and stomach. "Touch them," he said.

  Without really wanting to, Cappie reached over and laid both hands against his chest, feeling the moist furrows of the cuts. Arthur brought his hands over hers. His hands felt clammy, and she tried to pull away, but he was strong. And then, his hands crushing hers, he pulled his own skin from his chest and ribcage, plunging her trembling fingers into the steamy, viscous cavity where his sternum had been cut away.

  Rita Connally, realizing that her husband George was putting in yet another late night down at the courthouse, went to bed before eleven. Just herself in that king-size bed. The wind rattled through the eaves of the house, which made her nervous, so she lay awake in the dark for a long time before she dropped off to sleep.

  George had been home for dinner, briefly, barely putting in a performance, and then all they did was argue about everything. She had gone to the trouble of following Julia Child's recipe for steak au poivre, with a garden salad, stuffed mushroom caps, and a bottle of Pouilly-Fum , harboring the thin hope that after a good dinner and a few glasses of wine, George would be too full and sleepy to return to his office. But he barely touched his plate, and would not have a single glass of the white wine.