Scare Tactics

by Farris, John

  (She didn’t fall, but the pain was so bad she couldn’t summon the strength to push herself the rest of the way over. Then he was there: a hand clamped on her dangling foot and he jerked her down from the)

  “Uncle John!” Edie gasped, her voice no more than a shocked whisper. “Is that you?”

  They were all watching the drive-in screen, Stone included. He had momentarily forgotten the revolver in his hand. His lips were taut in a grimace of disbelief. Beau lay shivering on the casket while Hero, as fascinated and horrified as anyone there, concentrated on projecting what Taryn had wanted them all to see of her last living moments.

  (She got up so slowly that at times she appeared static, posing grievously. Both hands were cupped to her forehead, filling up with blood as she tried to stanch the heavy flow from the cut that had half-scalped her)

  “Oh my God, I’m dreaming this!” Gaynell Bazemore shrieked, clutching at her husband.

  (She fell twice, muddying herself in red dirt, her own blood)

  Stone turned slowly away from the spectacle on the *Star-Light’s* screen, chaos in his face, his swollen right eye bulging from his head. He lifted his revolver and aimed it at Beauregard, at the casket he had closed himself with Taryn inside.

  (She was oblivious to him shuffling up behind her until the downward chop of his knife to the nape of her neck stopped the show)

  Edie screamed hysterically.

  Stone turned and stared at her and then at the drive-in screen as several mourners gasped. He saw himself driving the eight-inch blade of the hunting knife again and again, furiously, into Taryn’s body, saw his face in closeup so clearly little splatters of her blood were visible on it.

  Stone shook.

  The minister was beside him, one hand on his wrist, holding the revolver down.

  The show at the *Star-Light* Drive-In started all over again.

  Stone jerked away from the minister, the gun firing wildly, scattering the mourners who were still on their feet.

  Beau lifted his head and howled to the heavens.

  Stone went down on his knees beside Edie, laughing and crying, embracing her. When she shrieked and tried to get away from him, he pulled the trigger of the revolver snugged up against his chest and with one shot blew his heart to bits.

  • 12 •

  Beau R.I.P.

  His parents flew over from England the day they let Hero out of jail, and picked him up at the Sheriff’s station in Carverstown.

  His father owned a box factory and rental property in Sheffield; his mother decorated store windows. They were handsome, prosperous people who had never understood their son very well, but they loved him ungrudgingly nonetheless.

  “I should think,” his father said, “you might be ready for a lengthy visit home after this unpleasantness. Haven’t seen much of you, these past few years.”

  “All right,” Hero said, with uncharacteristic diffidence.

  “Shouldn’t we visit a doctor before we leave?” his mother suggested. “Really, Hero, you look dreadful.”

  “Feeling pretty well, though,” Hero said. “I admit I could use a rest ... oh, dad. Before we head for the airport, I must make some stops.”

  “What for?”

  Hero pulled a piece of paper from his pocket which Bob D. Grange, the acting sheriff of Carver County, had given him.

  “We’re going first to 1263 Audubon Street.” He read off the directions, and after three wrong turns they found themselves at the veterinarian’s where Hero had been told he could pick up Beauregard’s remains.

  “What in the world—?”

  “Mother, please. I made some promises.”

  The Flynns looked at each other as Hero got out of the car. Derek Flynn shrugged.

  “I’ll need a hand, dad. He weighed upward of eight stone. Lucky you rented a Cadillac.”

  “We put him to sleep last night,” the vet said. She was a pleasant woman in her mid-forties. “There was just too much wrong with him, and he was in constant pain.”

  “I know,” Hero said.

  With his father he carried the box out to the car. The trunk of the Caddy was smaller than he’d anticipated, but they were able to wedge the box inside and tie the lid down.

  “Where now?” his father asked him. “This won’t take long, will it? We’ve a plane to catch at six-thirty.”

  “Right. I need a shovel. Noticed a hardware store just up the street.”

  They were at Shoulderblade State Park shortly after two. The trip uphill with Beauregard was hard on Hero’s father, who had let himself go sadly to pot since Hero had last seen him; but the view from the site Hero chose was, to his mind, well worth their effort.

  “I’m sure it can’t make any difference to the dog,” his father grumbled. But he pitched in willingly to help with the digging.

  “Why is this so important to you, dear?” his mother asked.

  Hero put down the shovel, and stretched. He had begun to love this place, and was sad to leave. But in the digging of this grave he was laying more than Beauregard to rest. The weight of 35 centuries was off him at last, no more than dust. He could think, now, about what he must do with the rest of his life. Until he and Taryn met again.

  He smiled at his mother. “I’d like to be able to explain that to you,” he said. “But for now ... I wouldn’t know where to begin.”

  I Scream.

  You Scream.

  We All Scream

  for Ice Cream.

  Toot Embry was already a couple of sheets to the wind when he leaned across the table and said with a smile that was both frightened and insinuating, “You might not have noticed, Layne, but it all started after you came back to town.”

  Layne Bannixter swallowed the last of his Michelob and tried not to be annoyed.

  “I guess I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  Toot held up an unsteady right hand and counted on his fingers.

  “Skip Stockwell. Driving back from a three-day business trip to Memphis. The Highway Patrol found his car pulled off the Interstate just the other side of the Tennessee River. The car was okay, plenty of gas, but Skip was nowhere to be found. Ain’t been heard from to this day. Herb McKenzie, he left a patient in the chair and went into his office for a few minutes and flat-out disappeared. Nothing left of Herb but his white coat and crepe-soled shoes on the floor.”

  “Just a minute, Toot—”

  “Number three. Ollie Chambliss. Shacking up with one of his grad students at UT. They were both missing for three weeks. Then some hikers found her up around Gatlinburg, wandering in the woods. Incoherent. Amnesiac. Whatever happened to Ollie, she can’t or won’t talk about it.”

  “You think this is some kind of pattern, for God’s sake? Toot, we’ve all reached that certain age. Midlife crisis, isn’t that what the psychologists call it? Skip and Herb and Ollie, for whatever reasons, just got fed up with their lives and wanted out. I admit it’s unusual, three of the old bunch in eight months, but nothing to get paranoid about.”

  Toot reached for his Seven and Seven and miscalculated, or his hand jumped nervously, Layne couldn’t tell which; the glass hit the floor of Papa John’s Cozy Grill and shattered. Toot looked at the pieces, his mouth twitching a little.

  “Losing my coordination,” he muttered. “Hell, when I was forty, I could still jack off and play tennis at the same time.” His eyes met Layne’s. They were a soused red, and his face was blotchy, broken veins in the cheeks. He had trouble breathing. “Not so long ago.”

  Papa John came over. He was from the neighborhood where they’d all grown up. The West End Bunch. John Tredway was the best athlete, the first to marry, the quickest to age. As “Papa John” he now weighed close to three hundred pounds. Half of his beard was white.

  “Got the jim-jams tonight?” he said to Embry, and put a fresh Seven and Seven on the table in front of him. One of John’s eight kids, Layne couldn’t remember which one, brought a dustpan to clean up the broken glass.

/>   “Damn right.” Toot reached for his highball, grasped it with both hands, drank nearly half in a couple of swallows. He took a deep and shuddering breath. “The way I figure, there’s no coincidence. Somebody’s after us, all of us.” He looked from Papa John to Layne, his face swelling like a blowfish at their skeptical smiles. “Three gone. Five left, including Virg Constable.”

  Papa John said, with a shrug and a glance at Layne to let him know he wasn’t being all that serious, “Maybe it’s Virgil putting the snatch on the guys. He usually had a grudge against one or the other of us.”

  Layne said, “Virg is still around? I thought he disappeared, too, after they turned him out of the pen a few years ago.”

  “No, I’ve seen him in town on occasion.”

  Toot said, “He’s a recluse. Lives in a shack at the back end of that junkyard his uncle owns.” Toot put his elbows on the table again and clenched his hands in an effort to stop trembling. He’d tried AA twice and Jesus once, Layne knew; but there was no influence that could slow him down for long. “I’m not saying anything against anybody, even Virg. I just don’t know, damn it. But it’s got me—I can’t stop thinking, why? Who’s next?”

  “And you’ve got this notion in the back of your head, that my moving back had something to do with three of our buddies taking off? Like I’m some kind of guru? A Jim Jones—type who can persuade men to abandon their careers and wives and kids and make fresh starts somewhere else? Listen, Toot. I’ve been around the world a few times, that was my job. But there’s nothing glamorous about being an itinerant engineer, no matter where the big jobs take you. My work cost me my first wife, and after I married Angela I promised her and I promised myself I’d settle down when the chance came, raise my kids, live a nice steady uneventful life where I grew up. I’m happy as hell in Cromartie. I’ll tell you something else: none of those three guys ever said anything to give me the impression they weren’t happy, that they wanted—”

  “That’s just it! They were all successful, their marriages were ... okay, I reckon, and hell I know they doted on their kids. So Skip and Herb and Ollie didn’t just pull a vanishing act. They were—”

  Toot put his face in his hands and then, unexpectedly, began to sob. “They must have been killed! And whoever, whatever it is, we’re all in danger.”

  Papa John snorted hard enough to riffle the hairs of his beard.

  “Toot,” Layne said, “you’re going off the deep end. That’s booze talking. Why don’t you—”

  Toot got up suddenly, tilting the small table back in Layne’s lap. Layne grabbed the Michelob bottle in time.

  “You son of a bitch!” Toot said, pointing a trembling finger. The half-dozen other patrons in the Cozy were all watching the unscheduled floor show. “You know! You must know! Because the rest of us, the West End Bunch, we were doing just fine until you moved back. So it’s you, Layne, it’s got something to do with you—”

  “Partner,” Papa John said, getting up and putting a firm hand on Toot, “I love you and I always have, but this is the last place in town that’ll serve you a drink, and by God, I ain’t about to be letting you in here neither if you can’t control yourself. I believe as how you’re owing Layne an apology; then I’ll get one of my boys to drive you home.”

  Toot glared at him. “I c-can drive myself.”

  “No you can’t, son, because if you get in a wreck and kill somebody, then I’m liable, under the laws of this state, for serving you. Now I said I think you got something more to tell Layne.”

  “Don’t worry about it,” Layne said to both of them. He put a twenty on the table. “Time for me to head on home. Toot, take care, and we’ll try to get in a golf game soon as you’re feeling up to par.”

  —

  While driving home Layne regretted the misspent evening; but he’d been ducking Toot for several weeks because of his drinking problem, and that had made him feel guilty. Even though he knew all about bad drunks: dry them out and they often turned psychotic on you. Beth Embry had moved out of the house with the kids and around the corner to her parents’ home. She swore she had given Toot his last chance. Toot could still function well enough to sell used cars and earn a living, but for how long? Maybe if the Bunch all got together, they could come up with something that would help get Toot straightened out—but three of them were gone.

  Unexpectedly Layne took a chill, thinking about the disappearances. Hell, he didn’t want to think about his missing friends anymore; it was all the rest of them talked about when they got together. He took a couple of deep breaths, but his skin continued to prickle.

  The window of his pickup was down. It was a warm summer evening, and at this hour there was almost no traffic on the hilly residential streets of the West End. A right on Forestdale, three blocks to Summerlake ... Layne slowed when his headlights picked up someone running in the middle of the street. He flicked on his brights as the kid glanced over one shoulder. Six or seven years old. Too young to be out at this time of the night. Something furtive about the way he looked back, hesitated, then took off at another angle to the sidewalk and ducked through a hole in a hedge.

  Did he have something in his hand? Layne couldn’t be sure.

  Slowing a little more, Layne switched on his side-mounted spotlight, aimed it at the hedge as he approached the Beechmans’ place. They had lived in the small Colonial house on Summerlake for as long as Layne could remember. Their own children were grown and long gone from Cromartie. Then who was the boy, a visiting grandchild? No, both of the Beechmans were ailing, too old to look after kids anymore.

  Closer to the house, Layne saw other children. A boy and a girl. Not hiding, exactly. But they were standing, watchfully, well up on the Beechmans’ dark front lawn. When he put the light on them, Layne recognized Toot Embry’s oldest girl. Patty. She was going on fourteen. Tall, pigtail, pretty oval face; her pale eyes in the light from the truck seemed transparent as glass. She had that look some of them get during the metamorphosis of puberty. Distrustful, haughty, contemptuous of adults. Probably Toot’s alcoholism, the wretched family scene, were to blame for Patty’s attitude.

  As he drove by he counted at least seven more kids, some very young, here and there on the lawn of the unlighted house. They were all having ice cream, as if a birthday party was just ending. But he was aware of something clandestine about the gathering. They were too quiet; they looked prepared to scatter at any challenge. He’d seen kids with faces, with eyes like that in Cambodia, in Belfast. Very damn obvious they’d been up to something—but that was foolish, he thought. There were no delinquency problems in Cromartie, Tennessee, particularly in the all-white West End. They were good kids. Layne wondered if he should stop and say something, chide them about being out so close to midnight. He decided it wasn’t his place to do so: they had parents. His own two were enough for him to worry about. He wasn’t the neighborhood cop.

  But a glimpse of one face in particular distressed him. Jeremy Stockwell was a good friend of Layne’s son. For the most part the two had been inseparable, until Jeremy’s father disappeared while on his business trip. There was such sadness and desperation in Jeremy’s face that Layne’s throat closed in sympathy. For an instant he imagined that Jeremy, recognizing him, wanted to run toward Layne’s truck, climb in with him. But Patty Embry had the little boy by the hand; she seemed to be holding him back.

  Layne turned the spotlight off and continued to his own street.

  One-oh-one Oak Hill, the house his father had built, largely by himself, more than forty years ago. It was the last house on the left at the base of the hill where the street ended at a whitewashed wooden barricade. A short corduroy bridge across the stream that meandered through four acres, then up a willow-lined drive of river rock to the detached garage at the side of the two-story frame house. The outside lights were on, one of them above the garage doors.

  He parked his Silverado truck beside Angela’s hatchback in the drive and got out. There was a flash of cottonta
il alongside the sturdy wire fence he’d strung around Angela’s vegetable plot, and Layne grinned. No carrots tonight, pal. He heard the noise of the air-conditioning unit in a window of the master bedroom and thought of cool sheets, Angela’s sleeping face on her pillow. He paused, as he often did in the peace of night, to admire the lines of the house he’d inherited, the handsomely gabled roof and white brick chimneys. More than just shelter to him, the house was the center of his new life.

  Layne’s father had come home from World War II with a total disability pension, unable to speak, suffering from vicious headaches—there were tiny chits of shrapnel everywhere in his brain. But he’d designed and then built the house, and there was nothing that Layne, with his degrees and superior expertise, would’ve changed. He was gratified that Angela loved it here as much as he did.

  Layne was taking the steps to the back porch two at a time when he recognized a three-note tune, musical but as loud as an alarm clock (and loud enough to startle him), coming from the street.

  It was a sound he knew he hadn’t heard since he was ten years old: it could only be the Cheer-i-o Ice Cream man, but who had resurrected that antique of a truck? And where was the profit in coming around to the neighborhood when most kids were—should have been—long asleep in their beds?

  Layne hesitated with his hand on the knob of the screen door, looking up Oak Hill with an almost Pavlovian anticipation, a pang of greed fresh from childhood. A good many memories of the early 1950s had revived on his return to the neighborhood less than a year ago, but this was the first time Layne had given a thought to Buster Dockins and his circusy freezer truck. Painted in what would later be called “psychedelic” colors, swirls and exuberant rainbows of purple, pink, and yellow, with a mock ice-cream cone mounted on top. Smoky exhaust, bad tires, often overheating in high summer, the truck was a treasure to the kids of the West End, where Buster did most of his business.

  And Buster Dockins—well, it wasn’t hard to be nostalgic about Buster now, but the fact was almost all of the kids had been cruel to him. Buster was, as their parents put it, “a little slow.” He had a natural clown’s face—wiry red hair in a billowy cloud, an outstandingly bulbous nose, fat purple lips. “I scream, you scream, we all scream for ice cream,” Buster babbled happily as the kids clamored around, thrusting coins at him, each demanding to be served first. He’d bite his tongue while counting out change, and if the matter of making change was particularly difficult, as on those occasions when he was given a one- or five-dollar bill, spit bubbles would form at the corners of his mouth. They imitated his labial incontinence, they copied his high-pitched voice, his ungainly, tippy-toe walk. The older, bolder boys, like Virgil Constable, tricked and stole him blind.