Brimstone

by Tamara Thorne

  “Yes,” she said. “Those. I haven’t seen any either. Uh, she says they’re boring.”

  “Any plans tomorrow, Holly?” Meredith asked.

  “I don’t think so.”

  “Maybe Becky can introduce you to some of the other kids. Or you two could go into town and have a look around.”

  “We could go to the Uncle Sheldon’s stables and go horseback riding!” Becky chirped.

  “Let’s give Holly a chance to get acclimated first,” Meredith countered.

  “Okay. We can do whatever you want tomorrow, Holly. If you want to go horseback riding …”

  “Maybe in a few days?” Holly had never even been on a horse and it sounded like fun, but she really wanted to see the town. “I’d like to go downtown. And I want to go by the Humble Station.”

  “Sure. We can get sodas there. Did you bring your bike?”

  “We had to leave it behind, but Cherry said we’d get one here when she has time.”

  “You can use mine,” Meredith said. “I never ride it anymore.”

  “Are you sure?” Holly asked, surprised.

  “I’m positive, sweetie. It’s been gathering dust in the garage for years.”

  “Maybe Greg can clean it up and check the tires in the morning?” Mike Granger said. “That okay, son?”

  “Sure.” The boy spoke around a mouthful of garlic bread.

  Holly felt like a frog who’d just been kissed. “You’re so nice to me.” Tears of happiness threatened but she refused to let them spill.

  “We only need bikes when we use the road, like for going to the Humble Station,” Becky said. “Mostly, we go downtown on foot. There’s a shortcut.”

  “It all sounds nice.” Holly looked around the table. Meredith and Michael Granger sat at either end. Little Todd was next to his mother, and she, Becky, and Greg took up the middle. The dining room was just off the kitchen, and it was so warm and cozy and the food so incredible and the Grangers so nice, that she felt like she’d walked into a fairy tale. Or a TV show where everybody was happy and normal. She liked it a lot.

  “It’s really fast going down but not so fast coming back up,” Becky was saying.

  “You have to get used to the climb,” Greg added. “But it’s easy.”

  “I’m sorry? Where is the shortcut?”

  “The path starts near the playground. There are even stairs when you get close to Main Street. It only takes ten or fifteen minutes to get there.”

  “Wow! That sounds great.”

  “But it’ll probably take a lot longer for you to come back up the first few times,” Greg added. “The air is thin because we’re a mile up - and it’s a steep climb. But you’ll get used to it.”

  Holly loved to run and figured it wouldn’t be too bad.

  “There’s a haunted house a little way down, not too far from the trail,” Greg said. “They found a body in there a couple years ago.”

  “Greg!” Meredith said. “Knock it off. No one found any bodies.”

  “But-”

  “Greg,” said his father. “Those rumors have been circulating since your grandpa was a boy.” He looked at Holly. “There is an old wreck of a not-haunted house but don’t go near it. You’ll break your neck.”

  “So, there weren’t any bodies?” Holly asked, disappointed. “No murders?”

  “No,” Meredith said. “It’s just an old house that should’ve been torn down years ago. It’s dangerous because it’s falling apart. That’s all. More salad, anyone?”

  “There’s this old rocking chair in there,” Greg said. “It rocks by itself.”

  “Greg-” began Meredith.

  “Really?” Holly asked. “Did you see it?”

  Greg shook his head too quickly. “Nah. I just heard about it is all.”

  “That rocking chair must be pretty old by now,” Meredith said. “Didn’t your grandfather tell you the same story, Mike?”

  “Sure did. That and the one about the Brimstone Beast.”

  Holly grinned. “I love folklore. Adeline Chance, at the Humble Station, gave me a book about Brimstone folklore and the Beast is in it.”

  Mike Granger cleared his throat. “The copper miners told stories about it - kind of like the tommyknocker stories the Cornish miners brought to the Pennsylvania coal mines, but the Brimstone Beast originally comes from a local Indian legend. It’s a fun story.”

  At that moment, it felt like an invisible giant pushed the table up with his knees, a single big bump that made the dishes rattle. Holly found herself hanging onto her plate and looking at the Grangers. Todd was oblivious but Becky’s eyes were wide. So were Greg’s, but then he saw her looking at him and he put on an unconcerned smile. Their parents looked alert.

  “Aftershock,” Mike Granger said.

  “If it happens again, under the table, all of you.” Meredith’s voice was steel.

  They waited, half empty plates untouched. One minute, two. Nothing happened. Greg started eating. Everyone else followed suit.

  “Did the Brimstone Beast cause earthquakes?” Holly asked, half-smiling. So far, she kind of liked quakes, thinking they were like E-ticket rides at Disneyland.

  “They blamed everything on the Beast,” Greg said. “But the Beast is just a fairy tale.”

  “They used the stories to scare children into minding their parents.” Meredith smiled. “I bet the Indians did, too.”

  “The Brimstone Beast is quite a fairytale,” added Mr. Granger. “And not a nice one, unless you like your fairies big, dark, and deadly. The legend goes back centuries. Maybe even a thousand years or more if those petroglyphs up in the ancient Puebloan ruins are being read correctly.”

  “I want to see the petroglyphs,” Holly said. “I love history!”

  Becky rolled her eyes. “There’s just a bunch of lines and squiggles up there.”

  “Only if you don’t know how to read them,” Greg said.

  9

  Ticket to Ride

  Darkside Johnnie’s was a roadhouse in every sense of the word. When Cherry pulled up to the low-slung building way out on Main, she had to cruise the red Falcon past three dozen motorcycles before she found a place to park.

  Johnnie’s was done up Western-style so it looked like a gigantic false-front miner’s shack turned into a saloon. It belonged on a movie set, except for the green neon sign that read, “Darkside Johnnie’s.” Above the name a neon cowboy waved his hat from atop a bucking bronco. What a dive.

  Cherry grabbed her black macramé handbag, checked to make sure her smokes, lighter, gum, lipstick, and a couple of condoms were tucked in alongside her wallet, then got out and locked up the Falcon, checking all the doors and the trunk. You couldn’t be too careful in a piece-of-shit place like Brimstone. At the last minute, she shucked her jacket and left it in the car. It was black leather, made just for her, and she didn’t need to lose it to some light-fingered bimbo while she was taking a piss. And, as nice as it looked, you couldn’t show off the goods in a jacket.

  Country music twanged as she moved between the building and the bikes. The windows were blacked out so you couldn’t see what was going on inside, but behind the music she picked up the sound of drunken men having a good time. That was a good sign. On her right, motorcycles gleamed. There were a few dirt bikes mixed in, too. Or maybe just dirty bikes. Who fucking knows?

  She approached the entry doors - they had big X-shaped barn door crosses on them. Two guys, one in a black Stetson, were holding up the wall. The cowboy tipped his hat without taking it off. “Evening, ma’am. How you doin’ tonight?” His eyes crawled up her body and came to rest on her tits.

  The other guy, in a red ball cap and dirty jeans - he looked like a mechanic - just smoked and stared. It didn’t bother her; she was used to creeps like him.

  “Real good if this place doesn’t water the drinks.”

  “It sure don’t, ma’am,” Cowboy replied. “And we have the good stuff.” He pulled a door open wide for her. The music ampli
fied and the smell of smoke and beer roiled out into the night.

  “Cover charge?” she asked, batting her lashes at the cowboy.

  “No, ma’am, no cover for the ladies.” His eyes roamed her body as she drew near. “Are you a local? You look familiar.”

  “I have that effect.” Cherry headed into the bar.

  It was pretty much one big room with a bar on a long wall, and a little stage on the short one. Cherry stood among tables that ended at the big dance floor in front of the stage. Half a dozen couples hung on each other, slow-dancing. Oh, brother. This place is one big backcountry shithole.

  The band was dressed in jeans, cowboy hats, and fringed leather jackets. Only the bass player had long hippie hair - the other four had Elvis-style ‘dos and that was a good sign that they might be able to play something besides the twangy country shit that was always about some guy and his horse and the girl that threw them out. She hated that crap - it all sounded the same. She wondered if they could play Heartbreak Hotel.

  They finished the horsey love song then plowed into more country with The Legend of Bonnie and Clyde, which had been a big deal a few months back. Cherry didn’t care for it - it wasn’t the movie theme by a long shot. Too horsey-sounding.

  She headed to the bar and ordered a gin rickey, then surveyed the room. Men hugged the bar on either side of her, leering at her cleavage under the shiny red pullover clinging to her breasts like a drowning sailor to a buoy. Half looked like they couldn’t afford to buy her a drink. The other half looked like assholes. And they all needed showers.

  The tables - there must have been thirty of them - were half filled, some with couples, most with two to six good old boys sharing pitchers of beer. So far, the cowboy she met outside looked like the best stud available. But he wasn’t all that interesting, probably just a beer-swilling local who kept himself up.

  Nursing her drink, she made her way toward the band. She sipped and waited until the latest number died down - another song about a man done in by a bad horse and saved by a good woman, or something like that - and then caught the eye of the lead guitarist, who looked barely old enough to drink. He had brown eyes and dimples and a bulge in his blue jeans. He played the last chord, took off his Stetson to reveal his Elvis ‘do in its full glory, then bent down.

  She gave him a good look at her boobs. “Do you take requests?”

  “I’ll take anything you want to give me, darlin’.”

  “Can you do Heartbreak Hotel?”

  “Just a sec.” He huddled with his bandmates, who all looked her way. She smiled at them.

  “Well?” she asked as he returned.

  “You’ve got it if I can buy you a drink when we break.”

  She batted her lashes. “What’s your name?”

  “Kevin.”

  “Well, Kevin, you can buy me a drink.” Slowly, she licked her lips. His eyes bulged and as he stood erect she saw that his pants did, too. Young guys. Fastest guns in the west, but they can shoot off again in ten minutes.

  Grinning, he tipped his Stetson at her then rejoined the band. A moment later, they began a pretty fair rendition of the song. She tossed back the last of her drink and swayed to the music until someone tapped her shoulder. “Care to dance, miss?”

  She turned and looked at a running-to-fat but still handsome man in his late thirties. He wore a blue Hawaiian shirt covered with pineapples, a pair of jeans, and he didn’t smell bad, if you were partial to Old Spice. Burst blood vessels edged his nose and pinked his cheeks, but he wasn’t drunk, so maybe it was just the blond complexion giving him that look. She never bothered with drunks unless they were wealthy - they couldn’t keep it up.

  She glanced at Kevin Guitar. He was watching, so she accepted the invitation to dance, making sure to sway her hips and jut her breasts at every opportunity. The song ended but Hawaiian Shirt didn’t let go. She waited to see what would happen.

  “Excuse me,” Kevin said as he jumped off the low stage right next to them. “I promised this lady a drink.”

  Hawaiian Shirt watched as Kevin Guitar took her arm, led her to the bar, ordered her another gin rickey and a martini for himself. They sat in the shadows at a table for two and when Kevin offered her his olive, she suckled and licked it until he groaned aloud and his hand disappeared below the table to push down a raging boner. He looked flustered and horny. “I wish I’d ordered extra olives.”

  Cherry just blew him a kiss.

  10

  Settling In

  After dinner, when everyone else piled into the den to watch Bewitched and That Girl, Meredith took Holly upstairs to a small room containing a daybed, a chair, an ironing board, dress model, and a sewing machine. Fluffy leapt from the daybed to Holly’s lap and gave a purry meow. She petted him until his purr filled the room and together, they watched Meredith measure, cut, and stitch the beige drape that would hang over the glass door in Holly’s new room.

  “Meredith?”

  “Yes?” Meredith folded the finished drape.

  “I saw a missing poster for a little girl. It looked old. Did she ever show up?”

  “No, I’m afraid not. Several girls have gone missing over the last few years.” Meredith paused. “It hasn’t happened for a while, but be careful, okay? If you go to the playground, go with friends.”

  “Okay.”

  “It’s almost ten. Let’s go back to your room and see if this drape fits.”

  Moments later, Holly and Meredith, the drape in a grocery sack, returned to the Brimstone Grand. Handsome Steven Cross nodded to them from behind the registration desk.

  “How’s everything?” Meredith asked.

  “Picture perfect. That little jolt a couple hours ago didn’t affect a thing.”

  “Good. Is Miss Delilah back yet?”

  “No- but here she comes now.” Steve nodded at the alcove that led to the restaurant.

  Delilah, still on the arm of the Commodore, stood staring down at them. She nodded at Holly then looked at Meredith and her brown bag. “What have you there?”

  “A drape for the glass door in Holly’s room,” she said. “It’ll give her more privacy. Holly helped me stitch it up after dinner.”

  “How domestic of you, Holly.” Delilah raised an eyebrow. “It’s an excellent thought, but don’t all of the balcony doors already have Venetian blinds on them?”

  Holly spoke up. “I don’t want Cherry to see the balcony door, Miss Delilah. She’d feel bad that she doesn’t have one, too.”

  “As I said, there will be no switching rooms. If she tries, you tell me.”

  Holly nodded. “I just don’t want her to feel bad.”

  “You’re a very thoughtful young lady. Are you coming up?”

  “In a few minutes,” Holly said.

  Delilah nodded. “Is your mother home yet?”

  “I- probably.”

  Her grandmother arched an eyebrow, nodded, then she and the white-haired man stepped into the elevator.

  “Steve?” Holly asked as soon as they disappeared. “Is my mom back?”

  “I haven’t seen her.”

  “Good,” Holly said. “Meredith, would it take long to hang the drape?”

  “Five minutes, tops.”

  “Can we do it now?”

  “Of course.”

  Meredith led her to the old elevator and pushed a button. Inside, it was like a little parlor. The walls were papered with an old-fashioned floral print and there were small framed photos of old-time Brimstone on them. A petite wooden table in one corner held a vase of flowers. Meredith set the bag down and pulled a brass accordion door closed, pushed “4” and stood back. The main door slowly closed and up they went.

  “I love this ancient elevator!” Holly said. “I’ve seen them in movies.”

  “It’s the same one the hospital used. It’s over fifty years old.”

  “Wow. That’s old. Maybe even older than my grandmother.”

  Meredith laughed. “Don’t let her hear you say that!
” She paused. “This elevator is supposed to be haunted.”

  “Really?”

  “Really. A caretaker lost his life under it a long time ago and they say he rides it up and down to this day.”

  “So, he might be in here with us right now?” Holly tried not to sound too hopeful.

  Again, Meredith laughed. “Maybe. We always say he’s riding when the elevator runs by itself.”

  “By itself?”

  “Well, since the accordion door has to be closed for it to run, it might be live people playing tricks, but we sometimes hear it running - even though it’s not.”

  “Like a ghost train. But a ghost elevator?”

  “I suppose you could say that.” A ding announced their arrival at the fourth floor. The main doors slid open.

  Holly carefully opened the accordion door, stepped out and waited for Meredith. “Will I hear it? The ghost elevator?”

  “I daresay you might. The ghost is supposed to be friendly but none of us has ever run into him - I doubt he even exists, so don’t let it give you nightmares. I shouldn’t tell you such stories this time of night.”

  “It’s fine! I love ghost stories. They never give me nightmares.”

  They approached 429 and Holly extracted her key. “I have real nightmares,” she said as the door swung open.

  “Real? What do you mean?”

  Holly closed the door behind them. “Nightmares about real people. They’re a lot scarier than ghosts.”

  Arthur Meeks lived in an unrenovated room on the fourth floor. It was small - it had served as a storage room and staff toilet back in the days of the Clementine Hospital. It had one little window right up against the back of the mountain. He’d dragged an old iron hospital bed in, and added a decent used mattress and box springs that he’d bought after getting permission to live in the room in exchange for ten bucks a month rent and a promise to pull overtime whenever things got busy. It was elevator-adjacent so he heard the comings and goings of the guests whether he wanted to or not.