She’d hoped to learn their language, stay long enough to tell them about herself and why she was racing along the star corridor, and leave long before this; it had never occurred to her that they wouldn’t have interstellar vehicles, since most of the civilizations she was familiar with did. The trap is about to spring, she thought—but I must not throw myself into it. Not yet, not until there is no more chance. She had promised this daughter would be safe, and she kept her promises.
Her head swiveled away from the skygrid and the black pyramid, but they remained as ugly as open wounds behind her eyes.
They reached the Hammond house. Sarge knocked at the door, waited, knocked again when there was no response. “Nobody to home,” he said. “Think they’re out lookin’ for you?”
“I am here,” she answered, not fully understanding. This Sarge creature was a disrupter of language.
“I know you’re here, and Scooter knows you’re here, but… little lady, you sure know how to throw a curveball, don’t you?”
“Curveball?”
“Yeah. Y’know. Fastball, curveball, spitball—baseball.”
“Ah.” A smile of recognition skittered across her mouth. She remembered the spectacle on the teeah-veeah. “Safe!”
“Right.” Sarge tried the doorknob, and the door opened. “Looky here! They must’ve left in a mighty big hurry!” He poked his head in. “Hey, it’s Sarge Dennison! Anybody to home?” He didn’t figure there was going to be a reply, and there was none. He closed the door and looked up and down the street. Candles flickered in a few windows. There was no telling where the Hammonds might be, with all the confusion of the last hour. “You want to go lookin’ for your folks?” he asked her. “Maybe we can track ’em do—”
His voice was drowned out by the rotors of the helicopter as it flashed past overhead, going west, sixty or seventy feet off the ground. The noise shot Daufin off her feet and propelled her forward. She clamped both hands to one of Sarge’s and stood close, her body shivering.
Child’s scared to death, Sarge thought. Skin’s cold too, and… Lord, she’s got a strong grip for a kid! He could feel his fingers prickling with a needles-and-pins sensation, as if his hand was snared by a low-voltage electric cable. The feeling wasn’t unpleasant, just strange. He saw Scooter running around in circles, also spooked by the ’copter’s passage. “Ain’t nothin’ to be scared of. Just a machine,” he said. “Your folks oughta be home pretty soon.”
Daufin hung on to his hand. The electric tingling was moving up Sarge’s forearm. He heard her stomach growl again, and he asked, “You had any dinner?” She was still too skittish to speak. “I don’t live too far from here. Just up Brazos Street a ways. Got some pork ’n beans and some ‘tater chips.” The tingling had advanced to his elbow. She wouldn’t let go. “You want to have a bowl of pork ’n beans? Then I’ll bring you back here and we’ll wait for your folks?” He couldn’t tell if that was okay by her or not, but he took the first step and she did too. “Anybody ever tell you you walk funny?” he asked.
They continued toward Brazos, Daufin’s hands latched to Sarge’s. The steady pulse of energy she emitted continued through Sarge Dennison’s nerves, into his shoulder and neck, along his spine, and up into his cerebral cortex. He had a mild headache; the steel plate’s playin’ its tune again, he thought.
Scooter trotted alongside. Sarge said to the animal, “You’re a mighty prancy thing, ain’t—”
There was a pain in his head. Just a little one, as if a spark plug had fired.
Scooter vanished.
“Uh-uh-uh…” Sarge muttered; the spark plug short-circuited.
And there was Scooter again. A mighty prancy thing.
Sarge’s face was sweating. Something had happened; he didn’t know what, but something. The child’s hand clung tight, and his head was hurting. Scooter ran ahead, to wait on the front porch, pink tongue hanging out.
The door was unlocked; it always was. Sarge let Scooter in first, and then Daufin finally released his hand as he searched for an oil lamp and matches. But the spark plug kept sputtering in his brain, and one side of his body—the side she’d been standing on—was full of prickly fire. Sarge got the lamp lit, and the glow chased some of the shadows away—but they were tricky shadows, and sometimes Scooter was there and the next second he wasn’t.
“Little lady,” he said as he sank into a chair in the immaculate room with its swept and mopped floor, “I’m… not feelin’ so good.” Scooter jumped into his lap and licked his face. He put his arms around Scooter. The little girl was watching him, standing just at the edge of the lamplight. “Lord… my head. Really beatin’ the band in—” He blinked.
His arms were enfolded around nothing.
His brain sizzled. Cold sweat trickled down his face. “Scooter?” he whispered. His voice cracked, went haywire; his face contorted. “Scooter? Oh Jesus… oh Jesus… don’t bring the stick.” His eyelids fluttered. “Don’t bring the stick. Don’t bring the stick!”
Daufin stood at his side. She realized he was seeing into that dimension that she could not, and she said, very softly, “Tell me. What is Scooter?”
He moaned. The spark plug fired, sputtered, fired; ghostly images of Scooter faded in and out on his lap, like scenes caught in a strobe light. His hands clutched at empty air. “Oh dear God… don’t… don’t bring the stick,” he pleaded.
“Tell me,” she said.
His head turned. Saw her there. Scooter. Where was Scooter? The dark things in his mind were lurching toward the light.
Tears burned his eyes. “Scooter… brought the stick,” he said—and then he began to tell her the rest of it.
* * *
26
The Creech House
“Found her walkin’ right in the middle of the street, a block south of the church,” Curt Lockett explained. “Just about knocked her flyin’, but I put on the brakes in time.”
Sheriff Vance regarded Ginger Creech again; she was standing barefoot in his office, and from the door she’d left bloody prints. Must’ve slashed her feet on broken glass, he figured. Lord, she’s ready for the funny farm!
Ginger’s eyes stared straight ahead, a few remaining curlers drooping in her hair, her face a pale mask of dust.
“Swear to God, she scared shit out of me,” Curt said, glancing at Danny Chaffin. The deputy made another circle of Ginger. “I was on my way to the liquor store. Know where a man can get a drink?”
“Liquor store’s locked up,” Vance told him, rising from his chair. “That was one of the first things we did.”
“Reckon so.” Curt rubbed his mouth and gave a nervous smile; he felt as if he were shaking to pieces, and finding Ginger Creech walking like a brainblasted zombie hadn’t helped his jitters any, either. “It’s just… y’know, I kinda need somethin’ to take me through the night.” From the open collar of his wrinkled white shirt hung his newly discovered necktie.
“Ginger?” Vance waved his hand in front of her face. She blinked but did not speak. “Can you hear me?”
“I’m lookin’ for my boy,” Curt said. “Either of you seen Cody?”
Vance had to laugh. He felt like he’d gone ten rounds with Celeste Preston thirty minutes ago, when he’d driven over to the Chaffin house on Oakley Street to pick up his deputy. He’d wound up explaining about the spaceship to Vic and Arleen Chaffin too, and Arleen had begun crying and moaning about it being the end of the world. Vance had returned Celeste to her car, and the last he’d seen of her she was driving westward in that big yellow Cadillac. Probably headin’ for her hacienda and gonna hide under her bed, he thought. Well, nobody wanted her hangin’ around here anyway!
“Curt,” he said, “if you didn’t sleep twenty hours out of the day, you’d be dangerous. Your boy raised hell at the Warp Room around nine-thirty, started a gang fight that put a bunch of kids in the clinic—which, with all these hurt people we’ve got, Doc McNeil sure as shit don’t need.”
“Cody… in a f
ight?” Time was all screwed up for Curt. He glanced at the clock, saw it had stopped at two minutes after ten. “Is he all right? I mean…”
“Yeah, he’s okay. Busted up some, though. He headed over to the clinic.”
Which meant a doctor’s bill, Curt thought. Damned fool kid! He didn’t have the sense God gave a bug!
“Ginger? It’s Ed Vance. Danny, hand me that flashlight on the desk.” He gripped it, flicked it on, and aimed it at the woman’s sightless eyes. She flinched just a fraction, her arms stiffening at her sides. “Ginger? What happened? How come you’re—”
She gave a terrible shudder, and her face strained as if its muscles were about to burst through the flesh.
“She’s having a fit!” Curt squalled, and backed across the woman’s bloody tracks toward the door.
Her gray lips trembled and opened. “‘The… Lord… is my shepherd, I shall not want,’” she whispered. “‘He maketh me lie down in green pastures. He… He leadeth me beside still waters…’” Tears broke and ran, and she stumbled on through the Twenty-third Psalm.
Vance’s heart was pounding. “Danny, we’d better get over to Dodge’s house. I sure as hell don’t like the looks of this.”
“Yes sir.” Danny glanced at the glass-fronted cabinet that held the assortment of firearms, and Vance read his mind because he was thinking the same thing.
“Break out a shotgun for me,” Vance said. “A rifle for you. Get ’em loaded.” Danny took the key ring from him and unlocked the cabinet.
“‘I will… fear no…’” The words gripped in her throat. “‘Fear no… fear no…’” She couldn’t make herself say it, and fresh tears streamed down her face.
“Curt, I want you to get Ginger to the clinic. Find Early and tell him—”
“Hold on!” Curt protested. He wanted nothing to do with this. “I ain’t a deputy!”
“You are now. I’ll swear you in later. Right now I want you to do what I say: take Ginger over there and tell Early how you found her.” He took the shotgun Danny gave him and put a few extra shells in his pockets.
“Uh… what do you think happened?” Curt’s voice trembled. “To Dodge, I mean?”
“I don’t know, but we’re gonna find out. Ginger, I want you to go with Curt. Okay? Can you hear me?”
“ ‘Fear no…’” She squeezed her eyes shut, opened them again. “ ‘Fear no…’”
“Ed, I don’t know about this,” Curt said. “I’m not deputy material. Can’t you get somebody else to take her over?”
“Oh, Christ!” Vance shouted as his own raw nerves stretched toward the breaking point. Ginger jumped and whimpered and retreated from him. “Here! I’ll pay you to do it!” He dug into his back pocket, brought out his wallet, and flipped it open. The only thing in there was a five-dollar bill. “Go on, take it! Go buy yourself a damned bottle at the Bob Wire Club, just move your ass!”
Curt’s licked his lower lip. His hand burrowed into the wallet and came out five dollars richer.
Vance gently took Ginger’s arm and led her out. She came along docilely, her feet leaving bloody prints and her strained whisper of “‘Fear no… fear no…’” sending shivers down the sheriff’s backbone. Danny locked the door behind them and Curt guided the madwoman to his Buick, got her inside, and drove away toward the clinic, the tailpipe dragging and scratching sparks off the pavement.
Vance drove the patrol car while Danny sat in silence on the passenger side with his hands clamped like vises around the rifle. Dodge Creech’s house, made of sand-colored stucco with a red slate roof, stood near the corner of Celeste and Brazos streets. The front door was wide open. The sheriff and deputy could see the faint glow of candles or lamps within the house, but there was no sign of Dodge. Vance pulled the car to the curb, and they got out and started up the pebbled walk.
About eight feet from the door, Vance’s legs seized up. He’d seen one of Ginger’s slippers lying on the dry lawn. A coldness was writhing in his belly, and the doorway looked like a mouth, ready to crunch down on him as he entered. From a great distance he thought he heard brutal young voices taunting Burro! Burro! Burro!
“Sheriff?” Danny had stopped at the door. “You okay?” In the dim violet light Vance’s face glittered with sweat.
“Yeah. Fine.” He bent over and rubbed his knees. “Just old football knees. Sometimes they flare up on me.”
“I didn’t know you ever played football.”
“It was a long time ago.” He was perspiring everywhere: face, chest, back, ass. A cold, oily sweat. His career as a sheriff had been limited to breaking up fights, investigating traffic accidents, and hunting down lost dogs. He’d never had to fire a gun in the line of duty, and the idea of going into that house and seeing what had made Ginger Creech go crazy made his balls crawl as if they were packed full of spiders.
“Want me to go on in?” Danny asked.
Yes, he almost said. But as he stared at the doorway, he knew he had to go in first. He had to, because he was the sheriff. Besides, he had a shotgun and Danny had a rifle. Whatever it was in there, it could be shot full of holes just like anything else. “No,” he said huskily. “I’ll go first.”
It took all his flabby willpower to start walking again. He entered the Creech house, flinching as he cleared the hungry doorway. A loose floorboard mewled under his right boot.
“Dodge!” he called. His voice cracked. “Dodge, where are you?”
They walked toward the light, through a foyer and into the living room, where a couple of oil lamps threw shadows and dust floated in layers from floor to ceiling.
“Sheriff, look at that!” Danny had seen it first, and he pointed to the jagged-edged hole in the floor. Vance approached it, and he and Danny stood over the hole peering down into darkness.
Squeak squeak. Squeak squeak.
Both of them looked up at the same time, and both of them saw it.
A figure sat in the rocking chair in the far corner of the room, slowly rocking back and forth, back and forth. A scatter of National Geographics lay on the floor beside the chair.
Squeak squeak. Squeak squeak.
“D-Dodge?” Vance whispered.
“Howdy,” Dodge Creech said. Most of his face was in shadow, but he was still wearing his yellow-and-blue-plaid coat, dark blue slacks, pearl-gray shirt, two-toned loafers. His red lick of hair was greased back on his pate, and his hands were folded in his lap as he rocked.
“What’s… what’s goin’ on?” Vance asked. “Ginger’s about out of her—”
“Howdy,” the other man said again, still rocking. There was no color in his face, and his eyes glittered in the light of the two remaining lamps that hung from the ceiling’s wagon-wheel fixture. The wagon wheel was crooked. Squeak, squeak went the chair’s runners.
His voice, Vance thought: his voice is funny. Raspy, like air through the bass pipes of a church organ. It sounded like Dodge’s voice, yes, but… different too.
The glittering eyes were watching him carefully. “You’re a person of authority, ain’t you?” the voice asked, with a humming of sinus cavities.
“I’m Ed Vance. You know me. Come on, Dodge, what’s this all about?” His knees were freezing solid again. Something was wrong with Dodge’s mouth.
“Ed Vance.” Dodge’s head tilted slightly to one side. “Ed Vance,” he repeated, as if he’d never heard the name before and he was making sure not to forget it. “Yessir, I knew they’d send a person of authority. That’d be you, wouldn’t it?”
Vance looked at Danny; the boy was about a hair away from jumping out of his shoes, his hands clutching the rifle to his chest. The cadence of Dodge Creech’s voice, the flat phrasing, the drawl: all of it was the same, yet there was that low church-organ undertone, and a rattling like loose phlegm in Dodge’s throat.
“So let me pose a question to you, pardner,” the figure in the rocking chair said. “Who’s the guardian?”
“The… guardian?”
“I didn’t st
utter. Who’s the guardian?”
“Dodge… what’re you talkin’ about? I don’t know anythin’ about a guardian.”
The rocking ceased. Danny gasped and took a backward step, and he might have plunged into the hole if he hadn’t checked himself.
“Maybe you don’t at that,” the man in the chair replied. “Maybe you do, and maybe you’re handin’ me bullshit on a platter, Ed Vance.”
“No, I swear it! I don’t know what you’re talkin’ about!” The thought hit him like a bullet between the eyes: This isn’t Dodge anymore.
The figure stood up. Its clothes made a stiff crackling noise. Dodge Creech seemed two or three inches taller than Vance remembered, and much larger around the shoulders too. There was something funny about the way he moved his head—something like the jerky motion of a puppet on strings, guided by an unseen hand. The figure walked toward Vance, with that strange puppet’s gait, and Vance backed away; it stopped, looked from Vance to Danny and back again, and then the white face with its wormy gray lips smiled—a teeth-clenched salesman’s smile.
“The guardian,” he repeated, and the light gleamed off teeth that were no longer teeth, but thousands of close-packed, blue metallic needles. “Who is it?”
Vance couldn’t seem to get his breath. “I swear… don’t know…”
“Well sir, maybe I believe you.” The figure in the garish sport coat slowly rubbed its thick, colorless hands together, and Vance saw that the fingernails were about an inch long, made of that same blue-tinged metal and edged with tiny saw-blade-like teeth. “You bein’ a person of authority and all, I ought to believe you, right?” the thing in Dodge’s skin asked.
Vance had lost his voice.
Danny’s back hit the wall, and a framed picture of Dodge receiving an award at an insurance salesmen’s convention clattered to the floor.
1988 - Stinger Page 24
