“Naw.” Mike shook his head and turned up his bottle to drain the last of the foam. “hell, I didn’t even know it was for sell. Why? Who bought it?”
“Some guy named Aliger,” Tyler told them. “A real pretty looking fella. Looks like a banker or something. Came over to Aunt Mary’s house to introduce himself and brought her some tea. His damned suit musta cost nearly a thousand bucks, I’ll bet. Had a diamond tie tack the size of a shirt button.”
“No shit?” Billy finished off his own beer. “What’s his name? Ballinger?”
“No, Aliger,” Tyler corrected him. “Says he’s from out of state somewhere. Kind of talks funny.”
“Funny like a Yankee? Or like a foreigner?” Billy narrowed his eyes. “He ain’t one of them damned A rabs, is he? Or a Paki Stanni? They takin’ over everthing.”
“Yeah and chargin’ us a arm and a leg for a six pack,” Mike agreed.
“No, he’s not like that.” Tyler waited while their beers were replaced by a bored waitress. “This guy is blonde and he had Aunt Mary eatin’ outta his hand like I never saw her do before to anybody. She actually let him pat her arm and he kissed the back of her hand like Rhett Butler and she blushed, mind you, like a damned schoolgirl. Aunt Mary! Blushin’. hell, I thought I was gonna have to call him out or something.”
They all laughed at that, drowning out Hank Williams on the jukebox at least momentarily.
“Boy howdy!” Billy held his stomach as if it hurt him to laugh. “I’d like to’ve seen that. Your aunt is a hellacious woman, Ty. Last time I went over there to read her meter, she came flyin’ outta the house, givin’ me holy hell for steppin’ in her flowers. hell, she planted ’em all over the place and right up next to the meter, too. What can a man do? I guess I outta get a pair of binoculars and read the damned thing from acrost the street.”
“Might be a good idea.” Mike laughed again and swatted at Billy with his beer bottle. “But knowin’ you, you’d be standin’ in somebody elses flowerbed readin’ her meter with ’em.”
“Oh, you’re real cute,” Billy grinned. He was hell on flowerbeds and had been fighting complaints for the last ten years.
“Yeah, and they’d be Mr. Aliger’s flowers this time,” Tyler told him. “He bought that property right across the street from Aunt Mary where you’d have to stand. But he sure came at the wrong time to visit. I’d been up on a chair tryin’ to fix a light bulb for Aunt Mary and the damned socket shorted out and zapped me clean across the room. There I was, layin’ on the floor, lookin’ like a damned fool and in he come. When I opened my eyes I was lookin’ dead into his. Scared the shit outta me! He’s got the weirdest eyes I ever saw. Violet colored, I guess you’d call ’em.”
“Oh, come on now, Tyler,” Mike grinned at him. “I’ve heard of violet eyes before. Why’d that scare you? What was he doin’? Tryin’ to give you mouth to mouth? He wasn’t tryin’ to kiss you like a prince, was he?”
“Yeah.” Billy leaned forward to join the teasing. “He ain’t no fairy, is he?”
“No! Dammit,” Tyler shook his head. “He was just kneelin’ there in front of me. I guess he thought I was dead. hell, I thought I was dead, too.” Tyler leaned forward as well and lowered his voice. “I had one of them N.D.E.’s. You know? Near death experiences?”
“Oh, hell, there you go.” Billy rolled his eyes and leaned back in his chair causing it to pop and squeak. “There you go with that X-file stuff again.”
“No, no really. I was driftin’ down this tunnel, see? And there was a kind of mist in there. At the end I could see a bright light and there was this beautiful music...”
“Wuddin Hank Williams, was it?” Billy looked around as the same song started over on the jukebox again.
“No, it was more like a church choir. Like Angels singin’. Then I saw my grandmother, Effie and my granddad, Jesse. They just smiled at me when I passed by.” Tyler was very serious.
“Oh, man, shut up,” Mike drank from his bottle and shivered. “You’re givin’ me the willies.”
“It’s the truth.” Tyler looked at Mike. He raised both eyebrows and nodded. Mike was very obviously deeply disturbed by Tyler’s revelation.
Mike was a tough little guy, but he was extremely sensitive to anything that had to do with ghosts and ghoulies or UFO’s and government conspiracies. He never watched horror movies and he never crossed the path of a black cat. He would not even watch the X-files or Unsolved Mysteries reruns.
“You know how scary Mike is, Tyler,” Billy guffawed at them. “If you keep it up, I’ll have to drive him home and tuck ’em into bed with Carla.”
“Eat shit and die, Billy!” Mike glared at the big man. “There’s things out there you don’t even know about. One of these days, you’re gonna regret bein’ so stupid.”
“Oh, yeah?” Billy sat up straight in the chair. He hated being called stupid or dumb. “You better watch your teeth, you little weasel or I’ll knock ’em all over the floor for you. Then I’ll be your damned boogey man.”
“Go to hell,” Mike told him and leaned back in his chair gloomily.
“Anyhow...” Tyler continued his story “I was almost to the end of the tunnel when I heard somebody callin’ my name ‘Ty ler, Ty ler’ I didn’t recognize this voice at all. Everything kinda blanked out and that’s when I opened my eyes and there he was.”
“Who?” Billy hiccoughed.
“Aliger! For God’s sake, motormouth!” Tyler looked at him incredulously. “The guy we been talkin’ about.”
“Oh.” Billy looked put out. “You sure you had a N.D.E. or you sure it wuddin a N.F.E.?”
“What’s a N.F.E.?” Mike perked up.
Billy leaned forward again and looked around. He waved one arm at them to come closer.
“N.F.E.” He whispered. “A near faggot experience.”
Mike and Tyler looked at each other in disgust. Billy reared back in his poor chair and laughed at both of them, holding his belly with both hands.
“Suckers!” He bellowed at them and slapped the table. The big man stood up and hoisted his jeans. “Don’t get taken in by them eyes, Tyler. I heard they’re real hempnotical.”
Tyler leaned back and watched Billy leave the bar with a pained look on his face.
“Don’t pay no attention to him, Tyler,” Mike told him. “He’s as ignorant as a box of rocks.”
“Yeah, sure.” Tyler picked up his beer and wiped the table with his hand. “That guy is strange though. There’s something about him that bugs me.”
“You heard about Reggie Greene? Bobby’s boy?” Mike asked as if suddenly remembering something. “He must’ve had one of them near death experiences, too. Got hit by a truck this evenin’ and doctor over at the hospital pronounced him dead on the table. They said he was all flat lines. Gone. Plum dead as a doorknob. And then, Poof! He wakes up cryin’ for his daddy.”
“I didn’t know he died!” Tyler blinked at him. “I mean I heard about the accident. Ol’ Buck Stanford told me himself. He’s the one run over him. I didn’t know it was that bad.”
“Yeah and Carla was workin’ when it happened,” Mike told him confidentially. “She was on duty in the E.R. She came home early all busted up over it. She said a guy that sounds like your man was there at the hospital. Said she caught him in the room with Reggie just before he woke up. Come to find out, this guy had caught Reggie when he went flyin’ off his bike. They say the man saved Reggie’s life by breakin’ his fall. Said he was a blonde guy in a fancy suit. Had blood all over him.”
“Could have been him,” Tyler said thoughtfully. “Aunt Mary was real impressed with him.” Tyler subconsciously slipped back into his normal mode of behavior. He usually put on his redneck mode when he was at Harold’s for appearance’s sake. He used the same language as Billy and the rest of the fellows who hung out there, rarely expressing his deeper feelings. The guys at Harold’s would not have appreciated his more intellectual side anyway. He tried hard to hide it from them. It would
not bode well for him to let on that he had actually gone to college and had almost completed a degree in engineering. Tyler actually thought about things other than fishing and hunting and watching girls’ asses when they walked by. Aunt Mary had never forgiven him for dropping out of school to get married. He’d been too much in love with Paula Ann to abandon her when she had told him she was pregnant. That had been the end of college and Aunt Mary’s support as well. When he should have been graduating, he was at the hospital having a baby. Even after the baby had died Aunt Mary had never offered to send him back to finish his degree. She didn’t like Paula Ann much and blamed her for Tyler’s failure.
Sometimes he didn’t like Paula Ann much himself. She was a sweet girl, but a bit dipsy at times. But what did he expect of her? She’d never been able to have another baby and it had changed her quite a bit. She had her life teaching dancing lessons to the flag team and cheerleaders at the high school and he had his. They rarely ever had conversations anymore. But they did all right. A nice brick home with a garage and a workshop and even an aboveground swimming pool and a privacy fence. Not bad at all for Magnolia Springs. But if Billy Johnson ever came by his workshop and caught him reading Smithsonian or National Geographic, he would be in for it. If the man had ever heard him listening to Stravinsky instead of Strait, he would never live it down.
The near death experience and the close encounter with Aliger served to make him forget where he was and who he was talking to.
“Do you believe in the existence of some higher plane?” He asked Mike. “Do you believe in Heaven and hell and that death is just a transformation into another state of being?”
Mike blinked at him and frowned.
“Gee, Tyler,” he said after a moment of silence. “That guy must have really shook you up. I ain’t never heard you talk like that before. But, yeah, I believe in Heaven and hell, for sure. I believe hell is a lot bigger and a lot closer than most people think it is. A lot closer.”
“That’s what Aunt Mary said,” Tyler nodded. “She thinks the devil, himself is on his way to Magnolia Springs.”
“Oh, God, Tyler.” Mike’s frown deepened. “Why would she say a thing like that?”
“She calls him the beast,” Tyler continued. He was really depressed now. Maybe he was actually mad at Aliger for bringing him back. He’d never felt so wonderful before as he had when he’d been in that tunnel. “She said one day he would walk right up and stamp a number on my forehead. She thinks Mildred Morris might be one of his minions.”
“Mildred Morris?” Mike’s eyes widened and bulged from their sockets even more than usual reminding Tyler of Barney Fife. “My Uncle Jim told me that old man Morris was a Necromancer.”
“A what?” Tyler looked at Mike in surprise. It was hard to believe he had such a big word in his vocabulary.
“A Necromancer,” Mike repeated and looked around nervously at the deserted bar. “You know, somebody who communicates with the dead? Works black magic and sorcery. That kind of thing. Said that’s why he run the funeral home. Said strange things go on over there after dark.”
“Mike, that’s a little absurd, don’t you think?” Tyler shook his head and tried to smile.
“You tell me, Tyler.” Mike raised both eyebrows. “One of Hitler’s generals claimed to be a Necromancer.”
“Necrophiliac, more likely,” Tyler laughed softly.
“No, really... what’s a necro... necrophiliac?” Mike frowned. “This was like he would kill his prisoners first, see? Like spies and informants and then he would get inside their minds after they were dead and learn everything they knew.”
“Oh, that’s horseshit, Mike.” It was Tyler’s turn to frown. He’d never heard of such and he didn’t like the sound of it at all. He actually shuddered at the thought. Now Mike was beginning to scare him. “You don’t really believe that, do you?”
Mike turned suddenly in his chair and held up his hand. The waitress looked up from her magazine and he made the sign of an O, then two fingers. She rolled her eyes and then fished two pickled eggs out of a jar on the counter for him.
“I believe you had one of them N.D.E.’s.” Mike looked hurt by Tyler’s outburst. “There’s things out there, Tyler. Evil things. Things beyond our understandin’. I’ve seen some of ’em myself. These people who write them horror stories, like Koontz ’n King, well, where do you think they gets their ideas? They don’t just dream that stuff up in their head, you know. There’s always a speck of truth in the core of every story. Take werewolves and vampires...” Mike looked around again and lowered his voice even more.
“I read one of Anne Rice’s books, Interview with the Vampire.”
“I thought you didn’t read that stuff.” Tyler was surprised to hear Mike talking about such things.
“I keep myself posted,” Mike told him matter-of-factly. “Anyhow, there’s no way she made all that up. Have you read it? That ain’t all fiction, I’m tellin’ you. I mean some of it is of course just to make the story, but the fact is, she knows something about vampires and from what I’ve heard and read, she knows about Voo Doo and Egyptian mysticism too.”
“Oh, Mike...” Tyler groaned, but Mike cut him off, holding up one hand while he paid for his eggs and then bit into one of them. Tyler waited impatiently while his friend chomped down on the unlikely snack.
“Look, Tyler, we’re friends, ain’t we?” Mike looked closely at him. “Real friends?”
Tyler nodded.
“There’s all kinds of people in the world. And they ain’t all like me and you and Billy Johnson. Just keep it in mind. Just between you and me and the lamppost, I’ve been around. I’ve driven forty-eight out of fifty states. All the big cities. Some of them are just big cities full of people. But some of them are old and full of other things. There’s places with auras you can see from miles away if you know what to look for. Take Boston, for instance. I ain’t never slept overnight there. And New Orleans is another place I won’t stay in. That’s where Anne Rice lives. And there’s a whole slew of places up and down the East Coast especially. And up in Maine where Stephen King lives. And Savannah, Georgia! Good God! I hated drivin’ through there in broad daylight. Them places are seethin’ with evil and it ain’t human evil like your Aunt Mary thinks.”
“Mike...” Tyler began, but Mike held up one hand to stop him again as he popped the second half of the egg in his mouth.
“I’m tellin’ you as a friend. I know. I’ve been there.”
“What about Carrollton?” Tyler asked remembering his aunt’s words.
“Naw, ain’t nothin’ goin’ on in Carrollton.” Mike smiled. “But it don’t have to be a big city, though. Look at Marfa, Texas. Now there’s a spooky place if I ever saw one. There’s definitely something wrong out there. And have you ever heard of a little ghost town called Bragg? A whole different kind of evil there, but evil all the same. And don’t even ask me about Galveston!”
“I won’t,” Tyler laughed. “I’m afraid if I do, I’ll never leave town again.”
“Don’t laugh.” Mike looked steadily at him causing him to swallow hard. “Just mark my words, Tyler McDaniels. You be careful and watch out. What happened to you today can weaken your soul and then something could get inside you. You look out for that Aliger fellow. It don’t sound like no accident that he showed up just in time to save you. And that talk about him making your aunt blush. You watch him. He might really have designs on her.”
“I will,” Tyler promised him solemnly. He raised his beer bottle to peer at the little bubbles rising through the amber colored liquid. “I’ll be careful.” He didn’t know whether to appreciate his friend’s concern or not. Mike had certainly made him feel even worse than before and he wished he had not told him about the incident at all. Mike offered him the second egg and Tyler waved him off.
Mike continued to nod his head as he popped the egg in his mouth and chewed.
The door to the honkytonk burst open and they looked up to see who was co
ming in. Louis Parks, totally out of place in his uniform, walked into the dim lights and looked around. His shirt was unbuttoned and his sidearm was missing. Very unusual. Louis was usually the most reliable officer on the force. Tyler didn’t like the sight of it.
“Hey, Lou!” He called to him from the table and waved as if they might have been overlooked in the empty room.
Parks focused on them and headed for the table. He waved to the waitress leaning against the bar and asked for a beer before pulling out the chair vacated by Billy Johnson.
“What’s up fellers?” He asked sitting down and putting on his best cowboy drawl.
“Nothin’ much,” Mike answered him. “Where you been? You look plum tuckered out.”
“It’s been a long day,” Louis sighed as his beer arrived. He threw three dollar bills on her tray and then turned it up immediately drinking down half of it. “That felt good.” He clunked the bottle on the table. “How you been, Tyler? Ain’t seen you around much lately.”
“Been workin’ and then workin’ some more,” Tyler told him. “Gotta go to work in the mornin’, matter of fact. How bout you?”
“Same. Same,” Louis nodded and then shrugged and adjusted his back against the creaky chair. “Just left from talking to those new folks who moved in the old junk shop.”
“Yeah, really?” Mike perked up and looked at Tyler. “What about?”
“If I told you, I’d have to kill you,” Louis winked at Tyler. “Police business. You understand.”
“I don’t want to know about your damned ’fficial business, Louis,” Mike said indignantly. “I just want to know the un’fficial part.”
“Oh, that.” Louis smiled knowingly. “Nothin’ much to tell.”
“Come on, Louis.” Tyler’s curiosity was stirred by the look on Louis’ face. “What’s his wife look like?”
The mention of Perry Aliger’s wife sent an electric shock through him. He took another swallow of beer. She was the reason he was here and not home. He wasn’t ready to go home and face Julia yet. He was still on a self imposed guilt trip.
The Pandora Effect Page 5
