Nightrunners (7 page)
Authors: Joe R. Lansdale
"
gonna
cut her cunt out
..."
She stood upright. What the hell was that? Oh God, not again. She could feel the sweat running down her face and neck. Oh please
". . .
ram it all the wag up her ass
..."
not again. She stood with her teeth clenched, silence inside her head.
The pines whispered. The lake gurgled. She bent once again to the steps, found the key box. Put the rusted key in the lock
". . .
wanta be first
..."
turned it, pulled the lock loose
". . .
up her ass
..."
and went inside. The tin shed was hot, cluttered. There were a few tools: hoes, shovels, an axe, a hammer, a saw. There were some long plastic rod and reel cases hung on the wall.
That made her think of something Dean had said:
"It's isolated up there, but people around those parts are honest. Why, we've had that stuff up there for the past three years. Safe as it can be. Wouldn't be nothing to snapping that old rusty padlock if they took a mind to."
For some reason she could not explain, that memory struck a note of fear in her, something important that she couldn't quite put together. It was all too vague . . . too symbolic.
". . .
ram it all the way up her ass . . ."
In the corner of the shed she saw something she couldn't quite put a name to, but it was familiar
". . .
ram it. . ."
her brother had owned one of those awful things, back when she lived in Gladewater. She could remember them taunting her with it, and with what they had collected between its metal jaws. It was a frog gig. A spring-cocked device that snapped
". . .
all the way up her ass . . .
"
together on an unsuspecting frog—a device for acquiring frog legs. In the case of her brother, a device for inflicting torture on the harmless creatures . . . and then using it to chase her around, sometimes with the poor frog still squirming between the sharp claws, struggling with painful futility.
". . .
isolated up there
..."
She backed out of the shed as if the gig were something alive. The mere sight of it
". . .
up her ass
..."
made her want to vomit. Trembling, she replaced the padlock and returned the key to the box beneath the steps, got away from there quick.
She turned toward the lake, walked out to the dock, hoping somehow the sight of the calm lake would calm her as well.
Potpourri thoughts gathered, flapped like bats in her skull. She could not shake them.
". . .
cut her cunt out
..."
". . .
all the way up . . ."
". . . be first
..."
". . .
isolated up there
..."
". . .
all the way up her ass
..."
Becky sat down on the dock suddenly, placed her hands over her ears.
No good. Voices bounced around in her head; racquetball game of voices.
Images now:
Dock gone. Lake gone. Trees gone. Sky turning dark.
She stood in darkness, alone, among the pines. No! Not alone. Something
was
there with
her.
Shadows. Shadows that moved among the tree trunks, scuffled across the dry leaves and rust-colored pine needles.
She was running. The shadows were running after her.
The lake , . . she could see the lake. And then something horrible jumped in front of her.
Daylight winked in. Nighttime winked out. She was lying on her back on the dock. Above her, cotton-candy clouds raced between the green tips of the pines that grew by the lake.
She sat up, looked out over the water. Her body shook. Her mouth was dry.
Slowly, it was going away. Images less than shadows now. But there was a sound, the hungry animal growl she heard last night. And then it died inside her head. Birds chirped.
The water lapped. The wind sighed. Then she heard the sound again, outside her head, entering the skull through the ears.
For a moment fear possessed her, then it died like a broken fever.
She recognized that sound. It wasn't like the one that had been in her head, it was a familiar sound, the sewing-machine hum of the Rabbit.
Tires crunched in the drive. The motor stopped. A door opened.
At a run, Becky went to meet Monty, tears streaming down her face, and for the time being, the thought of his arms was not so repulsive.
TEN
From the October 30 edition of the
Galveston News,
page 1.
COUPLE MURDERED
Mr. Dean Beaumont and his wife,
Eva Beaumont, were found murdered in their
home at 75011/2 Heard's Lane this morning.
The bodies were discovered by police when
Mr.
Beaumont's
employer,
Ball
High
School, reported Mr. Beaumont absent from
work, and not responding to phone calls.
Police discovered the bodies shortly after 9
a.m. The bodies were found in the bedroom
and
both
had been
mutilated
beyond
immediate and positive identification. The
motive for the murders has not been
determined, though robbery is suspected. No
missing items were verified, however. There
was a considerable amount of vandalism.
Paintings had been smashed over a bedpost
and blood from the victims had been poured
into a flower vase. The next-door neighbors
reported that they had heard nothing out of the
ordinary. The couple had been dead for at least
twelve hours . . .
At this point, no one knew there was a connection between the two savaged bodies and what was going to happen to Montgomery and Becky Jones.
ELEVEN
Later that night, while highway patrolmen and local law officers searched for the car Trawler had identified before he was murdered, the kids continued to sit in the pasture and while away the hours eating candy bars and drinking hot Cokes.
And Becky lay in her bed and dreamed:
Shadows moved from behind the pines. Faces burst into the glow of the moon—
goblin faces.
Laughter.
"
I wanta ram it all the way up her ass."
More darkness.
Moonlight.
Darkness.
Alternating slats of each.
A body, dangling, upside down; a woman, her feet attached to something . . .
something Becky could not define.
The shoulder-length hair was dark and undulated with the breeze. Blood dripped from the face, congealed in the hair, splattered the ground. The face . . . she couldn't see the face, but it seemed to be turning, like the earth orbiting the sun, turning, so slow, but turning, half-profile . . . the face was a mess. Hair was plastered to it with blood. There was a deep, dark crack in the skull. The face was turning even more . . . looking like . . .
NO!
Becky awoke. Sat upright in bed. The face had looked like . . . Oh God, could it have been?
Monty was awake. He turned to her. "What's wrong, hon?"
"What's always wrong? The dreams . . . the premonitions."
"Just nightmares—"
"Fuck you!"
She pulled away from him, rolled over on her side and closed her eyes. But she did not try to sleep. She did not want to sleep. Did not want to see the rest of that face, for she feared whose face it might be.
Monty called to her once, softly.
She did not answer.
He sighed, rolled over and tugged at the bedclothes. Soon she could hear the sound of regular breathing. He was asleep.
Good, that was what she wanted, to be left alone.
Or was it?
Oh God, she did and she didn't. She wanted to be alone and she never wanted to be alone.
One moment it was comfortable, the next it was if she were on the face of the moon looking out at earth, thousands of lonely miles away.
Today when Monty held her on the dock after the premonition, it had been wonderful.
The love and concern he felt for her had radiated from him as warmly as the sun, so why now, when he was merely expressing his concern, should she be so angry with him?
What if things were reversed? It was him telling her that he was having premonitions.
Would she believe him? She wondered.
And who says the dreams are premonitions? she asked herself. What dream have you had that has come true other than the first?
Perhaps the doctor was right, it's all in your head and the first dream was nothing more than a coincidence, wishful thinking. It was possible. Even likely.
After a while, Becky rolled over gently and looked at Monty. He slept clutching the pillow to his cheek. She reached out and stroked his hair. Why can't we touch? Really touch? Why can't we?
No answers came to her. She rolled away from him and stared into the darkness, willing away sleep.
But it came anyway, this time without dreams.
Until just before morning, then she had a very ugly one.
TWELVE
October 31, 12:02 A.M.
The blond kid driving the '66 Chevy through the velvet night was named Brian Blackwood. He had the Chevy vent glass cranked all the way open and the wind was blasting his hair back. His eyes were watered with tears, but they were not tears of remorse, sadness or pain; they were fostered by the cool October wind and the rapid movement of the car. There was no room left inside Brian for idle tears, not anymore.
From here on out he was a rock,. and a rock felt no pain.
The waiting had gotten to him. He wanted to push on, get to the task at hand.
But he knew that wasn't wise. If he could lay low one more night, the law would pretty much be through with the area and things would be safe.
Yet, the waiting was eating at him, and the voice in his head was persistent. He had decided to change locations, find a place a little closer to their destination. Camp there.
Just being closer would help ease the pain in his head.
He mentally visualized the map he had made Dean Beaumont draw; it was clearly outlined in his head, and he no longer needed to look at it, even if he was making his way there by roundabout methods.
Soon . . . Soon . . . Soon.
In the last few days he had witnessed three murders, contributed to all three, and personally performed one himself (he could still visualize the deep, red arc he had made in her throat shortly after slicing the nipples from her breasts). He hated that the highway cop had not been his kill, but that was unavoidable. Looney Tunes had the shotgun, and it was only fair.
Still, kicking a dead cop in the balls didn't do much for his disposition; didn't squelch the desire to kill; a thing that had become like an itch with him. (Thank you, Clyde, for the rash, because it feels so good to scratch.) Soon, tomorrow night, he would scratch that itch again. He had two murders planned— no, let's be accurate about this; executions. But before these executions took place, the victims would know fear. They would suffer the torment Clyde suffered waiting in his cell. Thinking about those grey walls and steel bars . . , And they would feel much more pain than he felt when he hung himself.
Why, Clyde? Why? Not like you to do that sort of thing.
Ah, but maybe there is a why. Is that you I feel stomping about in the back of my brain, Clyde? Is that your mind mating with my mind, possessing my soul with your own?
Are you me? Am I you?
Huh?
Oh yeah, I hear you, baby, I hear you, and they'll get theirs soon. Forgive my doubts about you. I'm tired, and it's so weird.
What?
Tomorrow night. No later. I promise.
And so for a few more miles the car rolled on. Brian driving with his pale face ghostlike in the night, the others sleeping, storing up.
PART TWO:
The Guts of the Fish
One year earlier (October
to October)
"Some of our neighborhood kids will
shoot you for a buck or maybe just
for laughs. It's got me so I'm soared
to walk my own turf after dark, and
I'm pretty tough. But they're real
monsters, some of them. And they
come younger every year."
—Anonymous Chicago car thief
possessed adj. 2. Controlled by or as
by a spirit or force.
—The American Heritage Dictionary
Houses are like the human beings
who inhabit them.
—Victor Hugo
(1)
BOYS WILL
BE BOYS
ONE
Not so long ago, about a year back, a very rotten kid named Clyde Edson walked the earth. He was street-mean and full of savvy and he knew what he wanted and got it any way he wanted.
He lived in a big, evil house on a dying, grey street in Galveston, Texas, and he collected to him, like an old lady who brings in cats half-starved and near-eaten with mange, the human refuse and the young discards of a sick society.
He molded them. He breathed life into them. He made them feel they belonged.
They were his creations, but he did not love them. They were just things to be toyed with until the paint wore thin and the batteries ran down, then out they went.
And this is the way it was until he met Brian Blackwood.
Things got worse after that.
TWO
—guy had a black leather jacket and dark hair combed back virgin-ass tight, slicked down with enough grease to lube a bone-dry Buick; came down the hall walking slow, head up, ice-blue eye working like acid on everyone in sight; had the hall nearly to himself, plenty of room for his slow-stroll swagger. The other high school kids were shouldering the wall, shedding out of his path like frenzied snakes shedding out of their skins.
You could see this Clyde was bad news. Hung in time. Fifties-looking. Out of step. But who's going to say, "Hey, dude, you look funny"?
Tough, this guy. Hide like the jacket he wore. No books under his arm, nothing at all. Just cool.
Brian was standing at the water fountain when he first saw him, sipping water, just blowing time between classes; thinking about nothing until along came Clyde, and suddenly he found himself attracted to him. Not in a sexual way. He wasn't funny. But in the manner metal shavings are attracted to a magnet—can't do a thing about it, just got to go to it and cling.
Brian knew who Clyde was, but this was the first time he'd ever been close enough to feel the heat. Before, the guy'd been a tough greaser in a leather jacket who spent most of his time expelled from school. Nothing more.
But now he saw for the first time that the guy had something; something that up close shone like a well-honed razor in the noonday sun.
Cool. He had that.
Class. He had that.
Difference. He had that.
He was a walking power plant.
Name was Clyde. Ol', mean, weird, don't-fuck-with-me Clyde.
"You looking at something?" Clyde growled.
Brian just stood there, one hand resting on the water fountain.
After a while he said innocently: "You."
"That right?"
"Uh-huh."
"Staring at me?"
"I guess."
"I see."
And then Clyde was on Brian, had him by the hair, jerking his head down, driving a knee into his face. Brian went back seeing constellations. Got kicked in the ribs then.
Hit in the eye as he leaned forward from that. Clyde was making a regular bop bag out of him.
He hit Clyde back, aimed a nose shot through a swirling haze of colored dots.
And it hurt so good. Like when he made that fat pig Betty Sue Flowers fingernail his back until he bled; thrust up her hips until his cock ached and the rotten-fish smell of her filled his brain . . . Only this hurt better. Ten times better.
Clyde wasn't expecting that. This guy was coming back like he liked it.
Clyde dug that.
He kicked Brian in the nuts, grabbed him by the hair and slammed his forehead against the kid's nose. Made him bleed good, but didn't get a good enough lick in to break it.
Brian went down, grabbed Clyde's ankle, bit it.
Clyde yowled, drug Brian around the hall.
The students watched, fascinated. Some wanted to laugh at what was happening, but none dared.
Clyde used his free foot to kick Brian in the face. That made Brian let go ... for a moment.
He dove at Clyde, slammed the top of his head into Clyde's bread basket, carried him back against the wall crying loudly, "Motherfucker!"
Then the principal came, separated them, screamed at them, and Clyde hit the principal and the principal went down and now Clyde and Brian were both standing up, together,
kicking the goddamned shit out of the goddamned principal in the middle of the
goddamned hall.
Side by side they stood. Kicking.
One. Two. Three. One. Two. Three.
Left leg. Right leg. Feet moving together like the legs of a scurrying centipede . . .
THREE
They got some heat slapped on them for that; juvenile court action. It was a bad scene.
Brian's mother sat at a long table with his lawyer and whined like a blender on whip.
Good old mom. She was actually good for something. She had told the judge:
"He's a good boy, your honor. Never got in any trouble before. Probably wouldn't have gotten into this, but he's got no father at home to be an example . . . ," and so forth.
If it hadn't been to his advantage, he'd have been disgusted. As it was, he sat in his place with his nice clean suit and tried to look ashamed and a little surprised at what he had done. And in a way he was surprised.
He looked over at Clyde. He hadn't bothered with a suit. He had his jacket and jeans on.
He was cleaning his fingernails with a fingernail clipper.
When Mrs. Blackwood finished, Judge Lowry yawned. It was going to be one of those days. He thought: the dockets are full, this Blackwood kid has no priors, looks clean-cut enough, and this other little shit has a bookful . . . Yet, he is a kid, and I feel big-hearted.
Or to put this into perspective, there's enough of a backlog without adding this silly case to it.
If I let the Blackwood kid go, it'll look like favoritism because he's clean-cut and this is his first time—and that is good for something. Yet, if I don't let the Edson kid go too, then I'm saying the same crime is not as bad when its committed by a clean-cut kid with a whining momma.
All right, he thought. We'll keep it simple. Let them both go, but give it all some window dressing.
And it was window dressing, nothing more. Brian was put on light probation, and Clyde, who was already on probation, was given the order to report to his probation officer more frequently, and that was the end of that.
Piece of cake.
The school expelled them for the rest of the term, but that was no mean thing.
They were back on the streets before the day was out.
For the moment, Clyde went his way and Brian went his.
But the bond was formed.
FOUR
A week later, mid-October
Brian Blackwood sat in his room, his head full of pleasant but overwhelming emotions.
He got a pen and loose-leaf notebook out of his desk drawer, began to write savagely.
I've never kept a journal before, and I don't know if I'll continue to keep one after
tonight,
but the stuff that's going on inside of me is boiling up something awful and I feel
if I don't
get it out I'm going to explode and there isn't going to be anything left of me but
blood
and shit stains on the goddamned wall.
In school I read about this writer who said he was like that, and if he could write
down
what was bothering him, what was pushing his skull from the inside, he could find
relief,
so I'm going to try that and hope for the best, because I've got to tell somebody,
and I
sure as hell can't tell Mommy-dear this, not that I can really tell her anything, but
I've got
to let this out of me and I only wish that I could write faster, put it down as fast as
I can
think.
This guy, Clyde Edson, he's really different and he's changed my life and I can
feel it, I
know it, it's down in my guts, squirming around like some kind of cancer, eating
at me
from the inside out, changing me into something new and fresh.
Being around Clyde is like being next to pure power, yeah, like that. Energy
comes off of
htm in waves that nearly knock you down, and it's almost as if I'm absorbing
that energy,
and like maybe Clyde is sucking something out of me, something he can use,
and the
thought of that, of me giving Clyde something, whatever it is, makes me feel
strong and
whole. I mean, being around Clyde is like touching evil, or like that sappy
Star Wars
shit
about being seduced by the Dark Side of The Force, or some such fucking
malarky. But
you see, this seduction by the Dark Side, it's a damn good fuck, a real jism-spurter, kind
that makes your eyes bug, your back pop and your asshole pucker.
Maybe I don't understand this yet, but I think it's sort of like this guy I read about
once,
this philosopher whose name I can't remember, but who said something about
becoming
a Superman. Not the guy with the cape. I'm not talking comic book, do-gooder
crap here,
I'm talking the real palooka. Can't remember just what he said, but from
memory of what
I read, and from the way I feel now, I figure that Clyde and I are two of
the chosen, the
Supermen of now, this moment, mutants for the future. I see it sort of like
this: man was
once a wild animal type that made right by the size of his muscles and not
by no bullshit
government and laws. Time came when he had to become civilized to
survive all the other
hardnoses, but now that time has passed 'cause most of the
hardnoses have died off and
there isn't anything left but a bunch of fucking pussies who
couldn't find their ass with a
road map or figure how to wipe it without a blueprint. But
you see, the mutations are
happening again. New survivors are being born, and instead
of that muck scientists say
we crawled out of in the first place, we're crawling out of this
mess the pussies have
created with all their human rights shit and laws to protect the
weak. Only this time, it
isn't like before. Man might have crawled out of that slime to
escape the sharks of the sea
back then, but this time it's the goddamned sharks that are
crawling out and we're mean
sonofabitches with razor-sharp teeth and hides like fresh-dug gravel. And most different
of all, there's a single-mindedness about us that just won't
let up.
I don't know if I'm saying this right, it's not all clear in my head and it's hard to
put into
words, but I can feel it, goddamnit, I can feel it. Time has come when we've
become too
civilized, overpopulated, so evolution has taken care of that, it's created a
social
mutation
—
Supermen like Clyde and me.
Clyde, he's the raw stuff, sewer sludge. He gets what he wants because he doesn 't
let
anything stand in the way of what he wants, nothing. God, the conversations we had
the
last couple of days . . . See now, lost my train of thought. . . Oh yeah, the social
mutations.
You see, I thought I was some kind of fucking freak all this time. But what it is, I'm
just
new, different. I mean, from as far back as I can remember, I've been different. I just
don't
react the way other people do, and I didn't understand why. Crying over dead
puppies
and shit like that. Big fucking deal. Dog's dead, he's dead. What the fuck do I
care? It's
the fucking dog that's dead, not me, so why should I be upset?
I mean, I remember this little girl next door that had this kitten when we were
kids. She
was always cooing and petting that little mangy bastard. And one day my
Dad
—
that was
before he got tired of the Old Lady's whining and ran off, and good
riddance, I say
—
sent
me out to mow the yard. He had this thing about the yard being
mowed, and he had this
thing about me doing it. Well, I'm out there mowing it, and
there's that kitten, wandering
around in our yard. Now, I was sick of that kitten, Mr.
Journal, so I picked it up and
petted it, went to the garage and got myself a trowel.' I
went out in the front yard and dug
a nice deep hole and put that kitten in it, all except the
head, I left that sticking up. I
patted the dirt around its neck real tight, then I went back
and got the lawn mower,
started it and began pushing it toward that little fucking cat. I
could see its head twisting
and it started moving its mouth
—
meowing, but I couldn't
hear it, though I wish I could
have
—
and I pushed the mower slowlike toward it,
watching the grass chute from time to
time, making sure the grass was really coming out
of there in thick green blasts, and then
I'd look up and see that kitten. When I got a few
feet from it, I noticed that I was on a
hard. I mean, I had a pecker you could have used
for a cold chisel.