Black Evening (16 page)

And a service station where I lurched to a raw-nerved stop, my hands still shaking from the vibrations of the steering wheel. I shut off the engine, grateful for the sudden quiet, and noticed two men at the pump, their backs to me. Self-conscious about my beard stubble and my sweat-drenched clothes, I got out wearily to ask directions.

They had their backs to me. That should have told me right away that something was wrong. I'd made such a racket pulling up it wasn't normal for them not to turn, curious, wondering what the hell was coming.

But they didn't, and I was too exhausted for my instincts to jangle, warning me. Stiff-legged, I approached them. "Excuse me," I said. "I guess you can tell I've got some trouble. Is the mechanic still on duty?"

Neither turned or answered.

They must have heard me, I thought. All the same, I repeated louder. "The mechanic. Is he still on duty?"

No response.

For Christ sake, are they deaf or what? So I walked around to face them.

Even as they pivoted to show me their backs again, I gaped. Because I'd seen a brief glimpse of their faces. Oh, my God. I felt as if an ice cold needle had pierced my spine. I've never seen a leper. All the same, from what I've read, I imagine a leper might have been less ugly than what I was looking at. Ugly isn't strong enough to describe what I saw. Not just the swollen goiter bulging from each throat like an obscene Adam's apple. Not just the twisted jaws and cheekbones or the massive lumps on their forehead. Or the distended lips and misshapen nostrils. Worse, their skin itself seemed rotten, gray and mushy. Like open festering sores.

I nearly gagged. My throat contracted so I couldn't breath. Get control, I told myself. Whatever's wrong with them, it's not their fault. Don't gape like a six-year-old who's never seen someone malformed before. Obviously that's why they didn't want to look at me. Because they hated the disgusted reaction, the awful sickened stare.

They faced the door to the service station now, and I certainly wasn't about to walk in front of them again, so I repeated, "The mechanic. Where is he?"

As one, they each raised their right arm and pointed horribly twisted fingers toward the right, toward a gravel road that led out of town, parallel to the Interstate miles away.

Well, damn it, I thought. I'm sorry about what's happened to you. I wish there was some way to help you, but right now I need help myself, and you two guys are rude.

I stalked away, my head beginning to ache, my throat feeling raw. A quick glance at my watch showed seven o'clock. The sun, of course, was lower. If I didn't find a mechanic soon…

Across the street, on the corner, I saw a restaurant. Perhaps too kind a word. Greasy spoon would have been more accurate. The windows looked grimy. The posters for Pepsi and Schlitz looked ten years old. BAR-B-CUE, a dingy neon sign said. Why not shorten it, I thought, to B.B.C., which if you change the c to g stands for botulism and bad gas?

And why not stop with the jokes? You might be eating there tonight.

That's almost funny now. Eating, I mean. Dear God, I don't know how long I can stand this.

… So I walked across the dusty street and opened the fly-covered creaky screen door, peering in at five customers. "Hey, anybody know where — "

The words caught in my throat. My mind reeled. Because the customers had already shifted, turning, with their backs to me — and
these
had humps and twisted spines and shoulders wrenched in directions nature had never intended. In shock, I hurriedly glanced at the waitress behind the corner, and she'd turned her back as well. The mirror, though. The goddamn mirror. Her face reflecting off it seemed the result of a hideous genetic experiment. She had no jaw. And only one eye. I stumbled back, letting the door swing shut with a creak and a bang, my mind still retaining the terrible impression of — it couldn't be — two slits where there should have been a nose.

I'll make this quick. Everywhere I went, growing ever more apprehensive, I found monsters. The town was like a hundred horror movies squeezed together. Lon Chaney's worst makeup inventions almost seemed normal by comparison. The island of Dr. Moreau would have been a resort for beauty contest winners.

Jesus.

Eight o'clock. The eastern sky was turning gray. The western horizon was the red of blood. I wondered if I'd gone insane. A town of monsters, no one speaking to me, everyone turning away, most pointing toward the gravel road that headed east out of town.

Appalled, I scrambled into the Porsche, turned the key, and the rest hadn't done the car any good. If anything, the engine roared and shuddered more extremely. Stomach scalding, I prayed. Although the Porsche shook and protested, it blessedly managed to move.

A town, I thought. Maybe there's another town a few miles along that gravel road. Maybe that's why they pointed down there.

I rattled and heaved and jolted out of town, switching on my emergency flashers, although I didn't know why since I'd seen no traffic. All the same, with dusk coming on, it didn't hurt to be careful.

A quarter mile. Then half a mile. That's as far as I got before the engine failed completely. It's probable that only one cylinder was working by then. I'd hear a bang, then three silent beats, then another bang and three more silent beats. With every bang, the car crept forward a little. Then it finally wheezed and coasted to a stop. The motor pinged from the heat. A Porsche doesn't have a radiator, but I swear I heard a hiss.

And that was that, stuck in the middle of nowhere, a town of horrors behind me, an empty landscape ahead of me, and an Interstate God knew how far away.

With night approaching.

On the prairie.

I've said I was frightened. But then I got mad. At my luck and the guy in Lander who'd "fixed" my car, at me and my stupidity for having left the highway, not to mention my failure to think ahead when I was back in town. I should have bought some soft drinks anyhow, some candy bars and potato chips or something — anything to keep from starving all night out here in the dark. A beer. Hell, considering the way I felt, a six-pack. Might as well get shit-faced.

Angry, I stepped from the car. I leaned against a fender and lit a cigarette and cursed. Eight-thirty now. Dusk thickened. What was I going to do?

I try to convince myself I was being logical. By nine, I'd made my choice. The town was only half a mile away. Ten minutes' walk at most. If that stupid BAR-B-CUE had stayed open, I could still get some beer and chips. At the moment, I didn't care how revolting those people looked. I'd be damned if I was going to spend the night out here with my stomach rumbling. That'd be one discomfort too many.

So I walked, and when I reached the outskirts, night at last had fallen. The lights were on in the BAR-B-CUE; at least my luck hadn't failed entirely. Or so I thought, because the lights quickly went off as I came closer. Swell, I thought in disgust.

The place stayed dark.

But then the door creaked open. The waitress — a vague white shape — stepped out. She locked the door behind her. I almost asked if she'd mind waiting so I could buy some food. Naturally I assumed she hadn't seen me. That's why she surprised me when she turned.

I blinked, astonished. In contrast with the way the town had treated me, she actually spoke. Her voice was frail and wispy, the words slurred, suggestive of a cleft palate or a hair lip. "I saw you," she said. "Through the window. Coming back." Maybe I imagined it, but her whispered cadence sounded musical.

And this is important, too. Although we faced each other, the street had no lights, and the darkness had thickened enough that I couldn't see her features. For the first time since I'd arrived in town, I felt as if I was having a normal conversation. It wasn't hard to pretend, as long as I forced myself not to remember the horror of what she looked like.

I managed a shrug, a laugh of despair. "My car broke down. I'm stuck out there." Although I knew she couldn't see my gesture, I pointed down the pitch dark road. "I hoped you'd still be open so I could get something to eat."

She didn't answer for a moment. Then abruptly she said, "I'm sorry. The owner closed a half hour ago. I stayed to clean up and get things ready for tomorrow. The grill's cold."

"But just some beer? Potato chips or something?"

"Can't. The cash register's empty."

"But I don't care about change. I'll pay you more than the stuff is worth."

Again she didn't answer for a moment. "Beer and potato chips?"

"Please." My hopes rose. "If you wouldn't mind."

"While you spend the night in your car?"

"Unless there's a hotel."

"There isn't. You need a decent meal, a proper place to sleep. Considering the trouble you're in."

She paused. I remember the night was silent. Not even crickets sang.

"I live alone," she said, her cadence even more musical. "You can sleep on the sofa in the living room. I'll broil a steak for you."

"I couldn't," I said. The thought of seeing her face again filled me with panic.

"I won't turn the lights on. I won't disgust you."

I lied. "It's just that I don't want to inconvenience you."

"No trouble." She sounded emphatic. "I want to help. I've always believed in charity."

She began to walk away. Paralyzed, I thought about it. For sure, the steak sounded good. And the sofa. A hell of a lot better than sleeping hunched in the car.

But Jesus, the way she looked.

And maybe my attitude was painfully familiar to her. How would I feel, I wondered, if I was deformed and people shunned me? Charity. Hadn't she said she believed in charity? Well, maybe it was time I believed in it myself. I followed her, less motivated by the steak and the sofa than by my determination to be kind.

She lived three blocks away, on a street as dark as the one we'd left. The houses were still, no sounds, no sign of anyone. It was the strangest walk of my life.

From what I could tell in the dark, she lived in an old two-story Victorian house. The porch floor squeaked as we crossed it to go inside. And true to her word, she didn't turn on the lights.

"The living room's through an arch to your left," she said. "The sofa's against the wall straight ahead. I'll fix the steak."

I thanked her and did what she said. The sofa was deep and soft. I hadn't realized how tired I was until I leaned back. In the dark, I heard the sizzle of the steak from somewhere at the back of the house. I assume she turned the kitchen lights on to cook it, but I didn't see even the edge of a glow. Then the fragrance of the beef drifted toward me. Echoing footsteps came near.

"I should have asked how well done you like it. Most customers ask for medium rare." Her wispy voice sounded like wind chimes.

"Great." I no longer cared if she was ugly. By then I was ravenous.

In the dark, she cautiously set up a tray, brought the steak, bread and butter, A-l sauce, and a beer. Although awkward because I couldn't see, I ate amazingly fast. I couldn't get enough of it. Delicious couldn't describe it. Mouth-watering. Taste-bud expanding. Incredible.

I sopped up sauce and steak juice with my final remnant of bread, stuffed it in my mouth, washed it down with my final sip of beer, and sagged back, knowing I'd eaten the best meal of my life.

Throughout, she'd sat in a chair across the room and hadn't spoken once.

"That was wonderful," I said. "I don't know how to thank you."

"You already have."

I wasn't sure what she meant. My belly felt reassuringly packed to the bursting point.

"You haven't asked," she said.

I frowned. "Asked what? I don't understand."

"You do. You're dying to ask. I know you are. They always are."

"They?"

"Why the people here are horribly deformed."

I felt a chill. In truth, I had been tempted to ask. The town was so unusual, the people so strange, I could barely stifle my curiosity. She'd been so generous, though, I didn't want to draw attention to her infirmity and be rude. At once, her reflection in the mirror at the BAR-B-CUE popped up terribly in my mind. No chin. One eye. Flat slits where there should have been a nose. Oozing sores.

I almost vomited. And not just from the memory. Something was happening in my stomach. It churned and complained, growling, swelling larger, as if it were crammed with a million tiny darting hornets.

"Sins," she said.

I squirmed, afraid.

"Long ago," she said, "in the Middle Ages, certain priests used to travel from village to village. Instead of hearing confessions, they performed a ceremony to cleanse the souls of the villagers. Each member of the group brought something to eat and set it on a table in front of the priest. At last, an enormous meal awaited him. He said the necessary words. All the sins of the village were transferred into the food."

I swallowed bile, unaccountably terrified.

"And then he ate the meal. Their sins," she said. "He stuffed himself with sins."

Her tone was so hateful I wanted to scream and run.

"The villagers knew he'd damned himself to save their souls. For this, they gave him money. Of course, there were disbelievers who maintained the priest was nothing more than a cheat, a con man tricking the villagers into feeding him and giving him money. They were wrong."

I heard her stand.

"Because the evidence was clear. The sins had their effect. The evil spread through the sin-eater's body, festering, twisting, bulging to escape."

I heard her doing something in the corner. I tensed from the sound of scratching.

"And not just priests ate sins," she said. "Sometimes special women did it too. But the problem was, suppose the sin-eater wanted to be redeemed as well? How could a sin-eater get rid of the sins? Get rid of the ugliness. By passing the sins along, of course. By having them eaten by someone else."

"You're crazy," I said. "I'm getting out of here."

"No, not just yet."

I realized the scratching sound was a match being struck. A tiny flame appeared. My stomach soured in pulsing agony.

"A town filled with sin-eaters," she said. "Monsters shunned by the world. Bearable only to each other. Suffering out of charity for the millions of souls who've been redeemed."