Suspended In Dusk

by Ramsey Campbell

  “Look what happened to Heffer and her brats,” I said. “And they’re going to ask me for two more names tomorrow night.”

  “Not if you stop them. Go to Chuck and tell him.”

  “Tell him what? Monsters from the woods are to blame for these murders? Creatures that talk to me without moving their mouths, getting inside my head. He’ll lock me up after he charges me for the killings. No thank you, God. I’ll figure this out on my own. I’m going to stay away from the diner, too.”

  “And draw suspicion?” she said, folding her arms. “You just sit right here with me tonight and don’t leave my side. If those two are really dead come morning I’ll know it wasn’t you.”

  I felt like I’d been slapped. “What do you mean? You think I’m killing them?”

  Sandra shrugged. “Maybe you snapped and are hearing Satan in your head telling you to kill, kill, kill. I’m just saying… have a seat on the couch with me and we’ll get to the bottom of this.” She fixed me with a hard look and stuck her finger in the air. “But, as God is my witness, if you try to kill me in my sleep I’ll be pissed.”

  “You’re making a joke out of this?”

  “After all these years and all these hardships we’ve been through, why shouldn’t I? It gets you nowhere fast by worrying. If you don’t know me by now…”

  “I’m not comfortable joking about this. I’m helping to kill people.”

  She led me to the couch, where we snuggled into each other like we’d done more nights than I could remember. The old couch knew our bodies and we slipped right into our grooves. “Shh. No more talking about it. We’ll figure something out in the morning. But you need to go to the diner and act like nothing is out of sorts with you.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  * * *

  Mabel dropped my food in front of me, her makeup streaked down her face from the tears.

  “You heard?”

  “Heard what?”

  “Clint and Susie. Dead,” she said before pouring coffee for those crowded around the counter. The diner was packed this morning.

  “Same as Heffer and the brats?” I asked, already knowing the answer. I needed to show just enough interest to get me through breakfast.

  “Yep. Such a tragedy. Who knows what’s going on?” Mabel babbled as she kept serving.

  “I’ll tell you what’s going on,” Chuck said from where he now stood inside the open doorway, one hand on his holstered gun and the other flicking his sheriff hat back a tad, sunglasses still on even though he was inside and it was overcast today. He dangled a toothpick from his lips. All eyes went to him and I could see his mouth turned up slightly at the edges like he wanted to give a big grin. He was pausing for effect and had all of our attention.

  “You gonna tell us already?” someone said from a back table.

  Chuck looked annoyed as he took off his sunglasses and looked right at me, but I hadn’t said a word. “We have a serial killer in our midst.”

  “In the diner?” Mabel asked and laughed. She looked around, damp eyes lingering on me for a second. I think. Maybe I was getting paranoid. “This motley crew can barely count out change when it comes to a tip.”

  “If we even make the mistake of tipping,” John Murphy, a retired heavy machine operator, said next to me. We all laughed.

  “It’s all a joke until two more dead bodies show up, isn’t that always the case? The Lynchs were killed last night,” Chuck said and slapped a hand on the counter. Everyone went quiet.

  “Who are the Lynchs?” Mabel asked. I already knew.

  “Clint and his wife, of course.” Chuck came and stood right next to me, his sunglasses dangling in my face. “They’re your neighbors, ain’t that right? So was Heffer and her brats. Pretty coincidental, eh?”

  I shrugged and looked around. “There’s at least five people in this diner this morning who live around me and Clint. Are we all suspects?” I asked. I wanted to remain calm but my nerves were shot. “I was home last night. You can ask my beautiful wife.” I smiled. “Or, better yet, ask the one I’m married to now.”

  Everyone burst into laughing, and even Chuck smiled.

  * * *

  “Come inside and stop beating yourself up,” Sandra finally said in that scolding manner I’d grown to love and hate over the years. “There’s a solution and I figured it out.”

  “I doubt it,” I said and squeezed my unlit pipe until I thought either it or my brittle fingers would break. “I’m cursed to keep killing off my neighbors.”

  “Shh, don’t speak like that out here. You know everyone is a Nosy Nelly. Get your bony butt in here. I’m going to give you some of my pills.”

  “Your heart medicine?”

  She laughed. “No, you dang fool. My sleepers. It will put you right out.”

  “I can’t take that stuff. It will knock me out til Tuesday. Maybe if I just don’t give them a name. Clear my head and smoke my pipe and stare them down?”

  “You can try it, or you can do it the sensible way and go to sleep. You said they come at dusk. All you need to do is be sleeping at that time.”

  “What if they find someone else to do their dirty work?”

  “If they find someone, it will then be on their shoulders and you’ll be off the hook. But who are they going to get? Everyone is hiding in their houses after supper. People are scared and they should be. Ain’t no one but you going to be sitting out on their porch tonight or any night. Now get moving before the sun drops anymore.”

  I went inside. What did I really have to lose?

  I took two of her pills and she pulled down the sheets, closing the windows and blinds and turning up the fan on the desk and pointing it at me.

  “Is this Christmas?” I asked, since she never angled the fan directly at me at night. She liked it blowing right in her face.

  “Shut yer trap and lie down. Here, put my mask on so it’s dark.”

  “I’m not going to wear that stupid girlie thing,” I said. To be honest, I’d worn it once when she was visiting her sister last summer and I slept nicely, but I wasn’t going to let her know it.

  “I’m not asking. I’m telling,” Sandra said.

  “Yes, ma’am.” I put it on and snuggled in for what I hoped was a cozy sleep without nightmares.

  * * *

  “Good morning,” I said to Sandra, who was scrambling some eggs.

  “How’d you sleep?”

  “Like a log.” I stretched and sat down at the table.

  “I’m making lunch.”

  “Lunch? I’ll be heading to the diner in a second,” I said.

  She turned and smiled at me. “It’s after two. You slept about twenty hours.”

  “You lie,” I said slowly. How was that even possible? “I haven’t slept more than eight since before my stint in the Navy. Why’d you let me sleep so much?”

  “Because you needed it. The stress over the last few days was killing you. Chuck is sniffing around, too. He was here this morning looking for you. Even peeked in and remarked how loud you snored.”

  “Why was he here?”

  Sandra smiled and dropped fresh bacon into another pan. “He thinks you know something you’re not telling him about these incidents. He thinks you might be involved somehow and it’s eating him alive. I told him you were sick, you’ve been sick since after dinner last night and slept through. I gave you a real alibi.”

  I poured myself a cup of coffee. “Anything happen last night?”

  She smiled as she tended to the bacon. “Not a thing. It was a nice and quiet evening, but I’d stick around inside today. If Chuck comes back over he’ll want to talk with you. I think we let it go for a couple more nights and then he’ll go find someone else to bother.”

  “But if the… incidents stopped, he’ll really think it was me.”

  “Nope. I made it perfectly clear I was with you those nights and you and I were in the living room until bedtime. You never even stepped outside to smoke your pipe because you haven’
t been feeling well. But you’re a stubborn old man and refused to take medicine until last night. I got it all covered. Go get me a plate. I know you’re hungry and since you missed breakfast I made some for you.”

  I smiled. She always took care of me. “A man could get used to this.”

  * * *

  For four days I puttered around the house, taking the sleeping pills and wearing my mask and wondering how I’d ever slept without them before. I was refreshed and felt like I was ten years younger. I finally got around to fixing the motor on the John Deere and getting the slats in the back fence nailed back up. When I announced I was going into town to get gasoline she frowned.

  “I’ll go get it. You stay here and relax.”

  “Honey, as much as I love being around you all day and working on some projects that have sat, I need to go into town and stretch my legs. I’m getting antsy. I’ve never been away from the action for this long.”

  “What action? You aren’t missing anything. Besides, I like having you all to myself,” she said. “These last few days have been nice, haven’t they? I like us just spending time together like we did when we first met.”

  “Who can remember that far ago? Heck, I can’t remember what I had for breakfast,” I said but I had to smile. These last few days had been great. We’d spend time in the late afternoon in the living room, her reading a book and me finally finishing the lighthouse carving I’d started years ago. My fingers made it slow going but I had all the time in the world. “We could go into town together.”

  Sandra shook her head. “Or we can stay right here and enjoy another peaceful day.”

  I was mad and I didn’t really know why. “What’s going on? I’m starting to feel like something is afoot. You’re hiding something from me, aren’t you?”

  “What could I possibly hide?”

  I rubbed at my stubbly chin and sighed. “I’m sorry. I’m just getting antsy is all.”

  “You said that already. You want pork chops for dinner tonight?”

  “Yeah, that sounds fine. I’ll be back in a bit,” I said.

  She turned to me and pursed her lips like she did when she was really mad. Then she dropped her look and gave me a fake smile. I’d seen it a million times and I knew what was going to come out of her mouth. “Fine. Have fun. Don’t say I didn’t warn you. You never listen. And you better be home before dusk.”

  * * *

  Boyette’s Diner was closed, even though they shoulda been open for business. I peeked through the dusty windows. Nothing. I decided to take a walk down Main Street but after four steps my knee was acting up so I climbed back into my pickup truck and took it for a ride.

  I stopped at the intersection in the middle of town and looked around. There was no one in sight. I laid on the horn, the blast echoing up and down the streets, bouncing off the shuttered stores. What was going on?

  As I went past the police station I saw Chuck’s patrol car parked outside. The windows were rolled down and it was still running. I pulled up next to it and could smell something rotting. I didn’t need to look to know what I was gonna find.

  I drove back to the trailer park, not passing or seeing another soul as I did twenty miles over the speed limit. It wasn’t like Chuck was gonna pull me over.

  When I got into the park I slowed down. There were always kids running around and it was habit to do no more than ten miles an hour. Only, right now I didn’t see or hear any kids. Or anyone for that matter. Every trailer looked quiet, like the dead staring back at me.

  I was just getting around the turn to my own trailer when Mabel stepped out onto the road with a wild look in her eyes. I pulled up next to her but kept it in drive. The woman was scared but scary-looking, too. “Hey,” I managed.

  “You’re alive?”

  “I guess for now,” I said, trying to make her relax. I really didn’t know her except from the diner. Heck, I didn’t even know she lived in the trailer park until the other morning. “What’s going on?”

  Mabel threw her hands in the air. I could see by the mascara streaks on her face she’d been crying. “Everyone is dead. I thought you were dead, too.”

  “What do you mean by everyone?”

  “Look around. Open your ears, old man! No one is alive. The town is empty. Bodies everywhere you look. You can’t smell it?”

  “My nose ain’t what it used to be,” I said quietly but I could detect something spoiled. “I saw Chuck in his cruiser. Or, rather, I smelled what was left of him.”

  “I need to leave but I’m scared,” Mabel said. “I have nowhere to go.”

  “You can come and stay with us if you want.”

  Without another word she climbed into the passenger side of the pickup and we drove to my place.

  * * *

  My wife sat in silence while I told her what I’d seen and Mabel filled in the blanks.

  “Then we need to leave,” Sandra finally said. “But we can’t go tonight. Mabel can stay here, with us, and we’ll barricade the doors and windows. In the morning we can head to my sister’s and get some help.”

  “We should leave now,” Mabel yelled. “Before it gets dark.”

  I looked outside. We were only about an hour away from dusk. I didn’t want to be driving when the sun dropped and those things came out to hunt. “I guess they found someone else to do the picking,” I said.

  “What?” Mabel asked. I felt responsible but I wasn’t going to get her panicked. More than she was. But I knew I would turn myself in when we got to safety tomorrow.

  “You are both going to take sleeping pills and get to bed now. We’ll get up before dawn and head out. I’ll pack a few things and get the house in order.”

  “I won’t be able to sleep,” Mabel said.

  “You look like heck, girl,” my wife said. “You need your rest. If you’re tossing and turning and up all night you won’t be much help come daylight. Trust me on this.”

  I couldn’t argue with the logic. I’d felt great after a good night’s sleep. And running at night would be suicide.

  We set up Mabel in the unused bedroom I stored stuff in, but the bed was still good enough for one night once I got my boxes of lawn mower parts off of it.

  “Isn’t it odd she’s the only one still alive?” my wife asked me after Mabel took her pills and settled in. “She’s the only one. I think they found someone else to answer their summons, and Mabel did it. We’re the only two left and now she knows it.”

  “Then we both need to stand guard,” I said.

  My wife kissed my cheek and handed me my sleeping pills. “Go to bed.”

  * * *

  Through hazy eyes I saw the creatures in the room, dark and filled with teeth and claws, yellow irises seeming to float at me. Inside they were even scarier, a blob of darkness against the backdrop of the faded walls.

  I saw my wife, standing in the doorway, hall light behind her.

  “What are you doing?” I mumbled through a drugged haze.

  “I had to give them five names. You never told me how this worked. Never told me if I give ‘em more names each night they demand that many the next night. And the next. I ran out of people, honey. Mabel was a gift from God, though. Because if I don’t give them five by dusk, we’re next. Don’t you see? I had no choice. I wish I knew more people, though. My sister is going to be found in the morning, and they’ve promised me they will move onto another town as long as I help them. But I need to keep helping. They’ve been asleep in the woods for so long and now they’re so hungry.”

  She held up a yellow phone book. I noticed Sandra had been crying. “I just need to do some research every afternoon. But I’m sorry… I panicked tonight and thought of Junior.”

  A Woman of Disrepute

  Icy Sedgwick

  I always made a point to never visit artists while they were working on a painting but, given the chosen profession of a large number of my friends, it often happened that I had no choice in the matter if I wanted to see them. That desir
e for companionship in the face of tedium explained why I found myself standing in the doorway of Henry Woollenby’s workshop, waiting for an invitation to sit. No invite was forthcoming, nor did I feel it would be in the immediate future, so I hung my hat and coat on a stand by the door.

  “So this is what you called me to see? What is it?”

  I walked across the room to view the vast canvas that dominated the narrow end of the wedge-shaped workshop. The painting depicted a misty scene on the banks of the Thames, and globules of fog clung to the lampposts in the distance. The black waters of the river lapped at the edge of the beach, low tide having deposited the body of a young woman on the dirty sand. Blackfriars Bridge loomed to the west. Henry darted about in front of the painting, dabbing a spot of paint here, or a streak of oil there. I wrinkled my nose.

  “Henry, why must you persist in painting such morbid subjects?”

  “I believe it to be reality. I seek only to paint the truth.” Henry did not look up from his work, but I considered myself fortunate to have received a reply at all.

  “The truth? What is true about what you’ve produced?”

  “Isn’t it obvious?” Henry paused, and turned away from the painting. I should have been repulsed, but I could not avert my eyes from the pale, outstretched arm of the fallen woman, her fingers curled as if to beckon me closer. I wanted to know her plight, what sorry state of affairs could have drawn her to such an ignominious end.

  “No.”

  “This is a regular occurrence, my friend. These women do not fall from grace, they are pushed! What happy ending can they possibly hope for in such a world? Their only salvation lies in the Thames.”

  “I could not agree more, but do you have to paint pictures of it?”

  “Is that not the duty of art? To ‘make glorious’ that which the greater public would rather ignore?”

  “The duty of art is to bring beauty into the world. It is simple decoration, and nothing more—you cannot pretend that art’s function should be that of moral instruction. No, you should leave such lofty ambitions to writers and orators,” I said.