Nightscape

by Stephen R. George

  ESTABLISHED 1898. POP. 3,266

  Another sign, closer to the town, but fallen over and now half covered with high grass, boasted:

  WELCOME TO THE DAIRY CAPITAL

  OF THE NORTHSTAR STATE!

  “Guess they figured someplace else had a better claim to the title,” Shep said.

  Bonnie said nothing. She had been silent since leaving Minneapolis. Shep was making her nervous. He was acting so strangely. He turned off the highway, onto the state road. A Mobil gas station guarded one side of the road. Pickup trucks had gathered around the Triple A Grill on the other side.

  The road climbed a steep grade ahead, then flattened out. At the top of the incline was Marchmount proper. About a quarter mile of main drag. A few streets with houses met the road, but the town didn’t look big enough to hold three thousand people. Bonnie guessed they lived in outlying areas, had been conscripted into the town census by default.

  “There’s the flags Evan was talking about!” Shep said.

  There they were, all right. The sidewalks on both sides of the road were lined with flags. Some of them were tattered and faded.

  “This must have been where he called from,” Bonnie said. “It had to have been.”

  “Look there.” Shep pointed to a sign that said DRUGSTORE. On the other side of the street were the Banner Weekly and Kroeker Foods. “Crocker Foods? He mispronounced it, that’s all.”

  “This is it! This is definitely where he called from,” Bonnie said.

  She chewed her lower lip. She had expected the town to be strange, somehow. But Marchmount was as wholesome as any small town she had ever seen. Pedestrians walked on the streets, staring in store windows. A young family sat on a bench outside an ice-cream parlor, licking at cones.

  “Why did the sheriff seem so sure?” Bonnie asked.

  “Maybe he didn’t want to get your hopes up.”

  They drove until the storefronts and the flags thinned out. There, on a knoll overlooking a stream, was the Marchmount Motel. The parking lot was empty.

  “Shouldn’t have trouble getting a room,” Shep said.

  “What if he was lying, Shep?”

  Shep turned the car around.

  “Why would he lie?”

  “I don’t know. I didn’t hear his voice.”

  “Peterson would have said something.”

  “Do policemen distrust other policemen?”

  “Why not? I do.”

  He drove slowly back downtown and parked in front of the sheriff’s office. A cruiser was parked at the side of the building.

  “What are we going to tell him?”

  “That we want to look around for ourselves.”

  “What if he says no?”

  “It’s a free country.”

  “I mean, wouldn’t it be better not to tell him we’re here?”

  “Look at this place. How much do you think we can do without attracting his attention? This way, we get him on our side.”

  Shep got out of the car and walked to the front door of the building. He waited for Bonnie to catch up, and they went in together.

  The right half of the building was taken up by three cells, all empty. The left half was an open area with four neat, well-organized desks. At one of the desks sat a woman. She was wearing the khaki uniform of the sheriff’s department. Her face was wide, shiny, free of makeup. Her brown hair was combed back into a tight bun.

  She looked up surprised as Shep and Bonnie came in.

  “Good morning,” Shep said.

  She looked from Shep to Bonnie, then glanced at a door behind the desks.

  “Can I help you?”

  “My name is Shep Thomas, and this is Bonnie Laine. We just drove up from Minneapolis. Your sheriff was talking with the police department in Minneapolis. Lieutenant Peterson? About a missing boy. Evan Laws. Thought we’d drive up and take a look for ourselves.”

  Her expression did not change, but her hands, which had been carefully cleaning a handgun on her desk, stopped moving.

  “Ron told me he didn’t find anything.”

  “Yeah, but we thought we’d take a look. It’s the only clue we’ve got.”

  “I don’t think there’s much point,” she said.

  “What’s your name?” Shep asked.

  “Why?”

  Her tone had become very defensive. Bonnie found the nameplate on her desk. MARY GREENE. Shep found it, too.

  “Mary,” Shep said, “is Ron in?”

  Her eyes darted to a door behind the desks. “He’s busy.”

  “I can see why,” Shep said. “Town’s a madhouse. But this won’t take a minute. Maybe he’d like to talk to us before we go poking our noses into places they don’t belong.”

  Bonnie cringed at Shep’s sarcasm, but Mary Greene apparently missed it. She stared at him steadily. Her brown eyes did not blink. Shep stared back, his mouth a tight line. Finally, Mary Greene got up and went to the door behind the desks. She took her gun with her. She knocked once, then opened the door and went in. The door closed behind her.

  Bonnie poked Shep hard in the arm.

  “Did you have to be so damned pushy?”

  “She was stalling us.”

  “There was no need to provoke her.”

  The door behind the desks opened again, and a tall, thin man, wearing the same uniform as Mary Greene came out. His face was brown and lined and his teeth were very white. Mary Greene dogged his heals, watching Shep suspiciously.

  “Mr. Thomas? Miss Laine?”

  “Hi,” Shep said.

  “I’m Ron Risely. Sheriff Ron Risely, that is. You’re the folks with the missing boy?”

  “That’s right,” Shep said.

  “Sorry to hear about that. A missing kid is the worst, isn’t it? The not knowing is what does it. How you holding up, Miss Laine?”

  Bonnie shuffled her feet nervously. “Fine, I guess.”

  “That’s good. Now, how can I help you? I talked with Lieutenant Peterson, and I told him the boy didn’t make his call from here. I asked around, nobody had seen him.”

  “That’s not …” Bonnie began, and Shep jabbed her with his elbow.

  “We understand that. But the boy seemed very sure. We thought we’d just take a look around for ourselves. Maybe we can see something you missed, us knowing the boy, I mean.”

  “Don’t think it’ll do much good. Pretty much guarantee he didn’t call from here.”

  “If that’s true, we’ll have to live with it, I guess. But we’d never feel good about this unless we checked,, can you see what I mean?”

  “I think so,” Ron Risely said. He looked at Bonnie, and his smile was sympathetic. “Guess if it was my boy, not that I have a boy, but if I did, you understand, I’d probably feel the same way.”

  Mary Green was leaning on one of the desks, eyes steady on Shep. Bonnie was glad she wasn’t the object of scrutiny of those dark eyes.

  “Just thought we’d let you know we were here.”

  “I appreciate that, Mr. Thomas, you too, Miss Laine. Why don’t I come with you? Maybe I can show you around.”

  “Thanks for the offer, but we don’t need help,” Shep said. He smiled to soften his rebuff.

  Ron Risely studied Shep carefully. His expression was unreadable.

  “How long are you planning on staying?”

  Bonnie wrung her hands nervously, staring at Mary Greene.

  “Overnight, probably,” Shep said.

  “Doesn’t seem to me to be enough here to look at to keep you here that long.”

  “It’s good to be out of the city, though,” Shep said.

  Ron Risely nodded. The corners of his mouth had turned down. He was looking less happy now.

  “Lieutenant Peterson knows you’re here?”

  “Not unless he’s a mind reader.”

  “Might be a good idea to let him know.”

  “Why’s that?”

  “Well, he might be wondering where you are, mightn’t he?”

&
nbsp; “Not unless he’s trying to arrest us. If we think of it, we’ll let him know when we get back.”

  Risely chewed his lower lip. He looked positively belligerent, now. He looked ready to speak, then thought better of it. He looked down, and when he looked up again his expression had softened. He smiled, flash of white cutting his brown face in half.

  “Well, if you need any kind of help, just let me know. Or if I’m not here, Mary’ll do. We’ll help out any way we can, isn’t that right, Mary?”

  Mary nodded without saying anything.

  Shep led Bonnie outside. She tugged her arm free.

  “What was that all about? I thought he was going to arrest us!”

  “Just typical cop paranoia,” Shep said. “This is his pond.”

  “I don’t know, Shep. I got the distinct impression he was hiding something.”

  “We’ll never know just standing here. Come on.”

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  They walked across the street. There were no cars in sight. Street lights, suspended above the road by cables, flashed amber at three intersections through the town.

  The drugstore had late 1970’s lipstick and eyeliner ads in the window. The cosmetics display looked like it hadn’t even been dusted since then. A sign in the window said the pharmacist was Bill Garagee, since 1969. Inside, air-conditioning rattled somewhere above. The strips of fluorescent lights flickered.

  Bonnie held tightly to Shep’s arm. Inside the door, she saw the pay phone.

  “He called from here,” she said, her voice choked. “He was right here. I can feel it.”

  Shep read the number off the dial. “That’s the number.”

  From the phone, they could see the pharmacy counter at the rear. Bill Garagee was gaunt and wiry. He looked almost shrunken, Bonnie thought, as if by disease or poverty. His eyes were recessed in bruised hollows. He looked up as they approached.

  “Mr. Garagee, my name is Shep Thomas. I just drove up from Minneapolis. We’re looking for a missing boy.” He handed a photograph of Evan over the counter.

  Garagee looked down at the photograph. “Nice-looking boy. Sheriff was asking about him, but I haven’t seen him. Nobody was in here making phone calls.”

  “He seemed pretty sure of the number.”

  “Kids make mistakes.”

  Bonnie stepped up beside Shep. “Please, Mr. Garagee, he’s just a little boy. He was probably wearing pajamas.”

  Garagee chewed his lower lip. “I’m pretty sure. He didn’t come in here.”

  “Are you really sure? When he called, he seemed so positive.”

  “Don’t push the man, Bonnie. He already told us, Evan wasn’t here,” Shep said evenly.

  “I’m not pushing!”

  “Thanks for your help, Mr. Garagee.”

  “I just want to make sure!”

  Shep took her firmly by the elbow and led her back through the store, then outside. Bonnie tugged angrily free. She was near to tears.

  “I’m sorry,” she said. “I’m sorry, it’s just, how are we ever going to find out if he was here? If nobody has seen him?”

  Shep walked across the street toward the car. “He was there, all right.”

  “He was? But the old man seemed so sure.”

  “He was lying.”

  Before he could open the door, she had grabbed him and twisted him around.

  “What do you mean? How do you know?”

  “The floor in there was spotless. Except by the phone. There were footprints there. Bare feet. Kid-sized.”

  “Oh, God, I didn’t even look.”

  “I did. Now, get in.”

  Shep started the car and turned on the air-conditioning.

  “What are we going to do?” Bonnie asked in a small voice.

  “First, we’re going to get a room at the motel. And then we’re going to tear this town apart, inch by inch if we have to.”

  Pinpricks of light appeared in the darkness, tiny stars light years away. One of them flared into a supernova, incandescent, white-hot, blinding. The murky, swirling fog inside his head began to burn away.

  Evan fought his way slowly back to consciousness. And it was a fight. The fog was tenacious, clinging to his inner landscape like something alive.

  When he was six years old, his dad had taken him swimming to the Bicentennial Pool. Evan liked to dive to the bottom, of the shallow end of course, and blow out his air. With empty lungs his body was less buoyant, and he would lie on the bottom of the pool for nearly twenty seconds before the burning pain drove him for the surface. Once, he had imagined, for just a few seconds, that he was sleeping, that it was a dream, that he was really in bed, that the wavering image of shadow and light above him was not really six feet of water at all. He had almost believed it. And then had come the burning in his lungs, and a moment of exquisite panic. He had thought he was drowning. He had exploded to the surface like a bomb, screaming for air.

  He felt like that now. Memory came back in shreds. He was drowning in the fog.

  He swam up through the darkness and the dancing lights, and everything came back at once. He choked off his scream with clamped lips.

  He was lying on a mattress, on the floor. Not the mattress in the basement. The window was too high and too bright. He could see sky beyond it, gray and blue. The walls were peeling wallpaper.

  He was in one of the main-floor rooms now. They had moved him. He looked at the door in terror. He recognized it. The door from his dreams, but from the other side.

  He felt sticky all over, and light-headed. His stomach rumbled and he felt a pang of hunger. When was the last time he had eaten? He couldn’t remember.

  But he did remember running away. Going into town. Phoning Mom.

  He sat up, suddenly wide awake.

  He had phoned Mom!

  Something crinkled and tore in the bed. It sounded like paper. Memories forgotten for the moment, he looked down at himself.

  At first he thought he was still wearing his pajamas. They seemed to have changed color, and to have shrunk somewhat. But as sunlight broke free from cloud cover, and the room brightened, he saw that he was wrong.

  The tearing sound had been his belly. The skin had split, and now hung loose. But it was not just his belly. His arms, his legs, his shoulders. Everything seemed loose, as if he’d suffered the universe’s worst sunburn.

  “Oh, jeez,” he said softly.

  He felt dizzy again, and a bit sick. He lay back down on the bed, and there was more crinkling. Warm liquid squeezed out of the gash in his belly.

  He touched his thighs and felt skin tear. There was no pain. He tugged and picked until a soggy piece of skin at least a foot long pulled away at his knee.

  Underneath the skin, he found smooth liquid.

  He froze.

  For just a moment, he thought he was imagining it. But when he moved his leg, he was sure something was growing beneath the skin. Something hard-edged, ridged, where before had been smooth muscle. With his fingers he could delineate the shape, long and thin, rising from his flesh near his groin, tapering and disappearing again before his knee.

  A wavering sound filled the room, and he realized that it was himself. He closed his eyes and choked off the moan.

  He was sick. Really sick. Something had happened to him. Something bad.

  He curled his knees up to his chin and hugged himself into a ball. He felt the skin on his back split.

  This time he could not help himself. He let out a small cry.

  Almost immediately there were sounds beyond the room. Thumping. A voice. Footsteps.

  At the other side of the room, the door opened.

  She was standing there. The woman. Constance. Or whatever her name was. And for the first time, he was glad to see her. Was glad to see anybody.

  “Help me,” he said.

  She crossed the room in two strides and kneeled by the bed. A cool hand touched his forehead. She bent down and leaned close to him. Her kiss was soft, but insistent,
more than a kiss. When she pulled back, she was smiling.

  “Oh, Evan, you’re doing fine. I can taste it.”

  “Help me.”

  “Don’t be frightened. What’s happening is normal. It’s natural.”

  “My skin!”

  “It will come off. Don’t worry about it. Do as I tell you, and it will be easier.”

  She stroked his hair. Even that crinkled.

  Evan could not hold back his tears. They spilled from his eyes, mingling with the other fluid on his cheeks.

  “Curl up. Curl up tight. Hug your knees to your chin.”

  Her voice was calm, soothing. It held no malice. She really did want to help him.

  He did as she said, pulling his knees sharply upward. He felt a tension in his thighs, and across his back. Something popped. It sounded like a sunflower seed being crushed. A line of cold suddenly appeared from his shoulders down to his bum.

  “That’s it,” she said. “Perfect. Bend your back. That’s it. Now flex the muscles in your arms. You see? It’s not so hard.”

  The room filled with crinkling, tearing sounds. Across his body, Evan felt tension releasing. It was as if he’d been wrapped in bandages, and was now being freed. Cool air flowed across him. Without prompting, he wiggled his shoulders. More crinkling.

  He was inside a shell. A creature waiting to be born. He need only shuck this old skin, wriggle out of it, and he would be free.

  “Now you’ve got it. You’re doing fine.”

  Her voice was becoming distant, as if she had moved to the other side of the room. The pinpricks of light were back. And the fog.

  And suddenly, without warning, there was something else. Something in the fog. Something huge and sluggish moving toward him.

  Constance’s voice was still there. He heard her as if over a telephone line.

  “That’s it, Evan. Don’t be frightened. It’s something brand new. An adventure. Don’t fight.”

  And then he knew it wasn’t something in the fog. It was the fog itself. Swirling, surrounding him, filling him.

  He remembered his dream, the terror he had felt seeing the door. And now he understood. He’d feared the thing beyond the door, and now he knew what that thing was.

  Himself. This new self. The dream had shown him what was to be.

  His eyes were open. He could see Constance, bending over him. He could see the window. He could feel the skin tearing all over his body.