Fading Light: An Anthology of the Monstrous: Tim Marquitz (4 page)

The array of shops that passed for Main Street were
shuttered and quiet. He spotted a bar, its door half open, and pulled
close by, killing the engine.

“We’ll ask here,” he said. “There’s
bound to be a hotel or B&B around here somewhere.”

“George,” she began, but stopped abruptly,
not liking the scratch of her voice, or the way the silence stirred
like something provoked.

“This is the first town we’ve hit in miles.
God knows how far it is to the next one. Besides, it’ll be dark
soon.” He turned to face the little girl hugging her dolly in
the backseat. “And you know what Emily’s like when she
gets tired.”

She smiled at her daughter, then at her husband; he was
right of course. But something told her she would rather drive all
night with a busload of cranky Emilys than remain here, wherever
here
was; there had been no signposts.

Holding her daughter’s hand tightly, she followed
him into the bar. It was dull inside. The faint glow of the pumps
offered only token resistance against the gloom. She pulled down the
sleeves of her sweater as the air grew chill. The heat lay at the
door like a panting dog, refusing to enter.

There were three figures by the bar, little more than
silhouettes. One approached them from the murk of cigarette smoke and
the little girl dropped her doll to cling to her mother’s
skirt. The figure bent to pick it up, staring at it all the while as
if he thought it might suddenly spring to life in his calloused
hands. He stood that way for a long, awkward moment, then burst into
tears.

“My Beth had one,” he said to the little
girl, wiping the snot from his nose on a thick plaid sleeve. “My
Beth had one just like that.” He handed the doll to the mother
and left, the thunder of his work boots on the wooden slats unable to
mask his grief.

“I’ll take Emily back out to the car and
wait for you there,” she said to her husband, who nodded,
heeding the unspoken order in her voice.

He strolled over to the bar and saw the man at the far
end hunch apprehensively as he drew near. The man’s face was in
shadow, a baseball cap pulled all the way down over his eyes, and on
his hands, slick black gloves creaked as he clenched and unclenched
his fists. The barman, his bald head veined and wrinkled like a
prehistoric egg, put down the glass he had been pretending to clean.

“Bit of a ghost town you’ve got here,”
said the stranger, the echo of his voice mocking his attempt at
casualness.

“Well,” said the barman, giving the
throwaway line much credence, “if ghosts are memories, then
this place is haunted sure enough.” Again, the creak and whine
of leather as the gloves flexed in the corner. “You must
forgive the welcome. We don’t like strangers here, and as for
the child, well … ”

“I was wondering if there was anywhere we could
hole up for the night. We’ve been on the road all day. We’re
heading to—”

“Then I suggest you just keep on heading.”
The man in the corner spoke for the first time. “This is no
place for children.”

The barman sighed, poured out a glass of whiskey for the
stranger and pushed it toward him. “Maybe you should hear our
story friend, then maybe you’ll forgive us our manners.”

“Dwight—” began the man in the
corner.

“S’alright, Hector, he has a right to know
if he’s planning to stick around. Hell, it might even do
us
some good to chew it over.” He took a
large pull from the whiskey bottle, and then refilled the stranger’s
glass. “It all began when a new face, just like yourself,
dropped in one night. It was different then, swinging, jukebox up to
the max and everyone dancing. Anyway, this guy just saunters up to me
and introduces himself, says his name is … ”

“ … Baird, pleased to make your
acquaintance.”

“Mutual, I’m sure. Name’s Dwight,”
the barman cleaned his hands on his sodden apron, “I own this
place. What can I get you?”

“Coke. No ice.” Baird’s voice was
little more than a whisper, yet it cut easily through the clamor.
Dwight poured his drink and passed it over, careful not to touch him.
Baird was almost unbearably thin, like a man stricken by some fatal
illness. Dwight noticed how, even though the bar was filled to
bursting, the others automatically gave him room, stepped out of his
way as if he might break on contact.

And yet, there was cunning in his hawkish face, a sense
of strength in his eyes that belied his physical appearance. They
suggested this invalid image was just a façade, a ploy that
happened to suit his purpose. Dwight gingerly picked up the note that
Baird had somehow managed to place on the bar without him seeing; the
stranger kept his hands buried in his pockets as if he were ashamed
of them. When Dwight returned with his change, Baird looked at him as
if he found him amusing.

“Just leave it on the bar …
Dwight.”

Maybe that was it, maybe it was his hands, maybe they
were crippled and gnarled and the uneasiness that Dwight felt
emanated from them. But, when he set the coins down on the counter,
Baird’s right hand shot out, a predator at a watering hole, and
scooped them up. In the lightning flash of their presence, the barman
saw they were very white, very pale, and seemed to shine from within
like porcelain. In the midst of the clouds of hot breath and smoke
that engulfed him, Dwight felt a chill at the sight of them.

“So, you just passing through? We’re a bit
off the beaten track so to speak. We don’t get a lot of
visitors from the outside world.”

“Cut off?” Again, that piercing whisper.
“Sounds ideal for my work. I’ve bought the house out by
the Lonewalk road, opposite the mill.”

“Old Manny Robbins’ place? Why, I didn’t
think anyone would ever buy that. I mean, I didn’t think anyone
could afford it.”

“Oh, money is of no concern to me …
Dwight.”

“You some fancy business type then? ’Scuse
me for saying, but you don’t look it. No, not business. Don’t
tell me … you’re one of those collectors, right?”

Baird seemed pleased with this and laughed, revealing
sharp little teeth. “Yes, a collector, I like that. How apt.
You are really quite astute my friend.”

“And will you be working here?”

Baird’s smile faded, but not from his eyes. “Oh,
I certainly hope so … Dwight.”

He left then, without touching his drink or saying
goodbye, the crowd parting before him. Dwight watched him go,
pondering the man’s odd manner. His reverie was broken when the
juke stopped abruptly and a torrent of blood gushed from his nose and
down his white apron, freshly washed that morning.

“Damnedest thing,” said the barman, “I
must’ve lost a pint.”

The stranger walked to the window and peered out through
the blind at his wife and daughter. The man in the corner flexed his
gloves, their creaks underlining the throbbing vein he knew was
pulsing in his wife’s neck as she stared back at him.

“Listen, if you could suggest some place, I’d
best be moving on.”

But the barman didn’t hear him, he was watching
events unfold behind his eyes; he carried on accompanied by the
relentless crackle of leather.

“Now, let me see, all was quiet for a week or two,
and I’d all but forgotten Baird, when Artie Hanlon comes
running in as I’m calling time, screaming and a’hollering—”

“—They’re dead! The whole herd,
they’re all dead!”

Old Peggy Veneer, seduced momentarily from her nightly
stupor, knocked over her gin as she crossed herself. As the glass
smashed on the wooden floor, so did the shocked calm.

“Where there any marks, Artie? Any signs of …
” Dwight knew he was treading water, he knew nothing of
farming, but he understood if there were a disease or virus abroad it
would kill more than the cattle; the town would die a lingering
death.

“Nope. No marks, no nothing. They looked perfect,
peaceful like … excepting they were dead.”

“Poisoned!” shouted Jem French, “I
guarantee it. They’ve all been poisoned! We’ll get the
Landrovers and the shotguns. They can’t have got far.” He
sounded hopeful, almost relieved. If Artie’s herd had been
poisoned, his would be safe providing they caught the culprit. Jem
liked those odds a whole lot better than the unmentionable ones of
disease.

“It won’t be my gun they’ll get if I
catch them,” said Artie. “I’ll set my bloody dogs
on them.”

He didn’t know the dogs would be next.

“And the cats, and the ferrets. Even little Amy
Fisher’s budgie. Every pet in the whole damn town.” The
barman rubbed the counter with a damp cloth in slow meandering
circles. “Vet couldn’t find a single thing wrong with any
of them.”

“It was Baird, wasn’t it? He was poisoning
them somehow.”

“It was Baird, alright, but it wasn’t
poison, leastways not any kind of poison you’d buy in a bottle.
After a while, his name kept cropping up, people saying how this all
started when he arrived. The talk got kinda crazy. I took it on
myself to go and pay him a visit, warn him the town was itching for a
scapegoat. I walked out to that big house of his, and he’s
sitting on the porch like he’s expecting me, smiling like an
invitation to Hell. In his hands he’s got a flute, a big—”

—white flute that looked as if it had been carved
from bone.

“Hello … Dwight. What brings you here this
balmy evening?” His thin voice threw Dwight. He had been
wondering how to broach the subject without his warning sounding like
a veiled threat, but now all he was left with was small-talk.

“You a musician?”

“To my ears it is sweet, but alas, to my ears
only. Others avoid my symphonies like the plague.” Baird
laughed at the expression on the barman’s face. “Sorry. A
badly chosen phrase given your slight problem.”

“Far from slight, Mister Baird. My bar’s
filled with ruined men drinking away their anger, or fuelling it.
They’ve been blaming everything from the moon to tea-leaves
over this, and now—”

“They’re blaming me. I’m used to it. I
am a solitary man, and I’ve lived in many small towns. People
can interpret solitude as arrogance and resent it. It’s quite
natural.”

“Natural’s not a word I’d use for
what’s been going on around here lately.”

Baird laughed. “I agree … Dwight. Listen, I
plan to put on a show, for the children you understand. They’ve
lost their little pets and mummy and daddy have other things to think
about. It’ll take their minds off things awhile, and show the
good folks I’m not a monster. Yes, it’s decided. It’s
time I went to town.”

“So this Baird put on a show? What was it? Punch
and Judy? Clown act? Some sort of magic?”

Dwight laughed ruefully, and the man in the corner
looked at his gloved hands as if the answer lay there.

“Oh, it was some sort of magic, alright.”

Dwight’s Bar was dressed up for a party. A crude
stage had been erected using apple boxes draped with a few curtains.
The decorations served only to make the place appear more miserable;
the contrast between the sparkling tinsel and the dour faces beneath
was unsettling. The funereal atmosphere swallowed the slightest
sound.

Baird mounted the stage and kicked off with a few basic
tricks bereft of skill and applause, working his way up to a
ventriloquist act with a sock that made a few of the children cry.
Dwight almost felt sorry for him. They would lynch him out of sheer
boredom now.

“Could I have a volunteer from the audience?”

Sandra Warner pushed her youngest, Janet, forward. She
alone seemed to be enjoying this diversion, and like all optimists,
felt the need to inflict her hopefulness on everyone else.

“And what is your name, child?”

Janet merely stared, confused. This was exactly the type
of man her mother had warned her never to speak to. Undeterred, Baird
reached his long white hand under the table and produced a toy cat,
stuffed and stiff, its eyes as indifferent as Janet’s. “This
is for you.”

The little girl took it gingerly, pouted. “But
it’s not as nice as Captain.”

“Was Captain your cat?” She nodded her head,
shaking warm tears down her cheeks. “Well, this little fellow
is called Earl. Why don’t you give him a stroke, and then tell
me what you think.”

Janet rubbed her hand delicately along the synthetic fur
and Earl sprang to life, licking frantically at her shocked but
ecstatic face. For a moment, the bar grew even quieter, then a
rumbling of voices came hurtling down on Baird, who smiled and
whispered “Who’s next?”, and the bar was filled
with noise, with laughter, with life.

He handed out rabbits and ducks, puppies and parrots, an
endless menagerie of cloth. After a while, as the bar reverberated
with the scrape of claws and the flutter of wings, it didn’t
seem like a miracle anymore. It seemed a necessity.

As each child grasped their gift, gaping wide mouthed as
it lurched to flesh and bone, Baird laid one cold hand on their
forehead and whispered, “Say thank you.”

“Next morning, all the kids were dead. Dead in
their beds, hugging the animals he’d given them, but the only
life left in those furry critters was the maggots devouring them.”

The man in the corner, the one the barman had called
Hector, coughed out a pitiful sob.

“All of them?” asked the stranger, looking
anxiously toward the door. “My God, is the virus or whatever it
was—”

“No, friend, whatever it was has left us. Used us
up and moved on.”

“So, this Baird, he was carrying some disease
after all?”

“Yeah, he was diseased. Riddled with it. Riddled
with evil itself.”

Hector flexed his gloves in the gloom. The stranger made
to leave, an apology forming on his lips, but the barman hadn’t
finished.