The Devil Walks in Mattingly (15 page)

The man lay curled up on the cot no more than a dozen
feet away, legs drawn to his chest, resembling nothing but a shadow of the person who had trekked her through a haunted wilderness. Now he appeared as a little boy, lost and alone.

His book lay on the table beside a worn stub of pencil. Lucy could see the faded glue marks where a cover had once been. The first pages were curled upward and torn. The page on top (Lucy believed it was the book’s table of contents, though the paper was so stained with dirt and sweat she couldn’t be sure) had been sheared halfway down the spine and repaired with a layer of peeling Scotch tape. She looked at the cot and slowly drew the book to herself, angling it to the fading light as she turned the pages. Chicken scratch covered them all. They had been written upon, erased, and written upon again so many times that tiny holes had been worn into the paper, obliterating the original words beneath. Twice she made out
Charly
and
hole
, but nothing more.

Yet deciphering what the man on the cot had written didn’t matter to Lucy nearly as much as deciphering why he had written it. Page after page, scrawl after scrawl, with little regard for spelling or punctuation. Almost, she thought, like some sort of stream of consciousness. Lucy looked at the body on the bed and thought this was a man trying to make sense of his life. Trying to find his answers.

Only a single page near the back had been spared, but before Lucy could read it the man released a torrent of sleep-filled cries that sounded as if death itself had him. She shut the book and pushed it across the table, where it fell and crashed onto the floor with a sharp
bang
. Her muscles tensed into a ball. The candle flickered. The man fell back into slumber. Lucy decided she could wait no longer.

No more than an hour had passed since her captor had warned her not to run, but now Lucy decided it was time to do
just that. She stretched out her legs and winced. Her muscles ached from the long walk and her knees burned from the deep scratches left by her stumbles. Lucy raised herself as quietly as she could and walked to the door.

The moon would help her, and her ears. She’d heard the river as they’d climbed the last big hill to the cabin. If Lucy could find that, she felt sure she could be saved. Rivers always led to civilization, and that particular waterway cut straight through town. She reached for the shotgun beside the crates. It was heavy and loaded and felt like death. Lucy eased the door open, careful not to squeak the hinges. The memory of the dark shadow they’d met in the field gave her pause, as did the Hollow’s deep night. But there was no other choice. Leaving would be a risk, but out there was the only way of getting back to her life.

Lucy stood at the open door and paused at that last thought—
back to my life
. The black confronted her like a wall. One perhaps not there to keep her in, but to caution against her going.

Out there is my best chance.

Of getting
back
to my life.

Yes. But what was the life to which Lucy Seekins would return? The one waiting for her in the big empty house on the hill. The one of loneliness and searching. The days of playing party girl at school and nights poring over her books, playing philosopher in her own thoughts as she searched for answers she knew would never satisfy her pain. The life where classmates called her cool to her face and whore when she turned away. The mother who was gone

(And that’s because of you
, Lucy reminded herself,
don’t forget that)

and the father who smelled of corn mash and who was about to send her away forever.

That life.

Lucy’s hand went to the crooked ends and patchy tufts of her hair. She swayed on her heels. Something inside her broke away as the great truth of what had caused her troubles came to bear. She had arrived in Happy Hollow not because of the man on the cot, but because of the very life she was about to run back to.

She looked at the man and thought,
I want to be awake. I want to be like you.

At the time, Lucy hadn’t known if that had been the right thing to say (or, for that matter, if there even was a right thing to say). And yet she knew she’d spent the better part of her life asleep. Her every day felt like a nightmare in which she flailed in quicksand, sinking ever deeper the more she struggled for freedom. And she wanted nothing more than to have those dreams end, even if it took a madman to do it.

Lucy Seekins rested the shotgun against the wall and eased the door closed. She returned to her spot at the table, where she watched the man sleep until the last candle died.

12

I was in my office when Kate called to say they were home and Zach was asleep. She offered no reason why it had taken so long to call, and I didn’t ask. I knew she was bound for the cemetery when she kissed me good-bye. It had been the weight of her lips and the sadness with which she’d pressed them against mine. There had been times over the years when those trips to Phillip’s grave (which ran at least monthly and sometimes once a week, if the names to Kate’s notebook came quick enough) became too much for me. I said nothing,
though, neither that time nor all the others. Some pasts exist as a fog that rolls in and out of the present, formed not by air that condenses into mist but memories that condense into tiny doors that open to forgotten moments. Maybe you glance at a stranger on a crowded street who reminds you of a childhood friend or hear a song that was popular the first summer you fell in love, and in the space of that single beat of time you are flung backward to a who or a when long past. And yet it is only for that one beat. Those tiny doors never remain open for long for most of us. They ensure our former times are kept as relics, and the dust upon them is wiped clean only occasionally.

Yet the door to Kate’s
when
was forever propped open. Her past existed as a light that shone upon her every day, blinding her to all else. Everyone else could see that past as well. All you had to do was drive through the gates of Oak Lawn and climb the knoll.

I told Kate I’d meet her and Zach at church and then called Alan Martin with Taylor’s last name. Alan said he’d get in touch with the Camden sheriff and be down to collect Charlie. I hung up, leaned back in the chair, and put my feet atop the desk.

From the hallway came, “Sheruff, you still there?”

“I am,” I yelled. “Go t’sleep, Charlie.”

Charlie wept. The dark outside the windows and the faint hum of the office lights brought that familiar heaviness, and I felt my body draw away like a low tide. I stood before sleep could take hold, not wanting to be found dozing when Alan arrived, not wanting to see Phillip more. Doc March’s pills sat next to the phone. I couldn’t remember if they were to keep me awake or put me so far under I wouldn’t dream of anything, so I let them be. I moved to the bookcase instead and brushed aside the uniform Mayor Wallis had presented to me
along with the pistol. The thick plastic bag with
Kimball’s Dry Cleaning—Stanley, VA
stenciled across the front had never been unzipped. I watched the office lights flicker at the edges of the silver name tag above the pocket—it read BARNETT, nothing else—and remembered what I’d said to Kate and the mayor that day:

“I don’t need a uniform. Everyone knows who I am.”

Of course what I’d meant was, I’ll store the softball equipment in the cell and take the Widow Cash to market every Monday and I’ll ride in the parades, but don’t expect anything else from me because the only reason I took this job was so I’d never find trouble again.

The uniform made a soft swooshing sound when I brushed it aside. I reached onto the shelf behind and brought Hollis’s jar to my desk. The tide in me retreated further, building, making me sit. I couldn’t remember if Hollis had said Jenny was good for remembering or forgetting. I didn’t care as long as she kept me awake. The lid hissed and popped as I wedged it open. The scent of peach filled the air.

I toasted dead boys and living burdens and turned the jar upward. Cold fire washed over my teeth and gums. My throat clenched and let go, forming a vacuum that sucked most of the moonshine down. Every nerve in my body protested. I bent over, gagging as tears wet my eyes.

From down the hall: “Sheruff? I need you, Sheruff. Something’s goin’ on.”

“What’s wrong?” I asked, but my voice was clipped and hoarse and barely carried beyond the door.

“Sheruff, help me, Sheruff.”

The tide rushed in. It was a roaring wall of sleep that turned my bones to liquid. I fell back into the chair and tried to push myself up—

“Sher . . . huff . . .”

—but couldn’t. The tiredness held. So tired. Of that weight, of that everything. My eyes fell on Bessie. I’d need Bessie, Charlie needed help and he was scared. I moved my hand and
stretch for another heavy stone to place upon the ever-growing mound of rocks beneath my feet. The cliffs tower over me, framing a dying sun. White butterflies fill the trees around us. I look down, but Phillip isn’t there. He stands along the riverbank now, peering out from beneath the drawn hood of his sweatshirt. I place the rock atop the mound anyway, trying to cover the place where he doesn’t lie, hoping I can still hide him, that I can still make him go away.

It won’t work, Jake
, he says.
Do you know why?

“I need to go back,” I scream.

No, Jake
, he says.
There’s no more back. Back is dead. You’re all dead.

I lift another rock, place it down. The mound grows high against the drawing sky. My own Tower of Babel.

“Charlie’s in trouble.”

He’s no paths left, Jake. Just as the boy Eric. I was there, Jake. Do you know that? I stood with him as the angels bore him away. Do not mourn him. Mourn Charlie. He’s come to the end of his choosing. He’s met his end.

Phillip raises
his
fist the
same
as before, the same as always. His bloody fingernails gleam in the evening.

Do you remember, Jake? I’m coming. I’m coming to give you this.

“No,” I scream. “I don’t want it I just WANT YOU TO LEAVE ME ALONE.”

I’m coming, Jake. I’m coming for you all.

Phillip inches his fist closer, lifting it to me. The Hollow seems to lengthen and widen around us, as though taking a deep breath. Phillip’s fingers begin to loosen, and I
screamed and jumped from
the chair, toppling it into the wall. Silence filled the office. There were no calls for Sheruff. I reached for Bessie (knocking over both Doc’s and Hollis’s medicines in the process) and raced down the hall.

The figure inside the cell was still, mouth open to his chest in an expression of frozen surprise. Vacant eyes stared out at nothing.

Charlie Givens was dead.

Standing there staring at him, not knowing what to do and wanting nothing more than to wake up, I believed Phillip McBride had come for him.

And I believed I was next.

13

The Sunday edition of the
Mattingly Gazette
was the week’s largest and most important. As such, it took the longest to compile. That night it had taken even longer than usual, because Trevor Morgan kept having to answer the phone.

At first he counted the calls as the very sort of breathless speculation that had sold many a Sunday edition over the years. And yet the calls had kept coming, and from all over. Saying that
something
—that was what they always said, people never used the precise nouns and detailed verbs Trevor Morgan had built his life upon—had happened down at the BP, and that
something else
had happened up at the Texaco, and Jake Barnett had been seen driving with his flasher on. None of this was enough to take Trevor away from his assigned duties, however. He’d chased late-night phone calls before, only to find the vague
something
nothing more than a wayward cow or swamp gas or someone dipping into Hollis Devereaux’s moonshine.

But then the mayor had called, and what Trevor Morgan’s uncle said was fuzzy enough to excite and terse enough to frighten—“Get down to the sheriff’s office, and hurry up. Something’s happened.”

The foyer stood empty when Trevor arrived. He thought that odd, considering he’d parked behind Jake’s beat-up Blazer, the mayor’s Caddy, Doc March’s pickup, and two county police vehicles. He looked through the window into Jake’s office. Empty too.

“Hello?” he called. “Anybody here?”

A noise from down the hallway. Mayor Wallis walked around the corner. An unlit half of a cigar poked from the wrinkles around his mouth. Gone were the ramrod posture and unflappable confidence Big Jim had cultivated over the years. In their place were slumped shoulders that squeezed his swollen paunch into a rectangle between a pair of red suspenders and the top of his blue dress pants. He rubbed his sparse head, turning his comb-over into a push-down.

“Hey, Uncle Jimmy,” Trevor said. “What’s going on?”

“We’re on the clock, Trevor. It’s Mayor Wallis.” He fingered the gray stubble on his chin and winced. “Come on, boy. It’s all back here.”

Big Jim turned and disappeared back down the hallway. Trevor followed, mindful that the bottom half of his stomach had firmly pressed against his spine. He turned the corner to find the mayor settled next to a suited county man he did not know. Jake stood to the man’s left. His face held a milky pallor and his hair was slick with sweat, making what looked like dark commas plunge down over his ears.

Trevor said, “Hey, Jake.”

The sheriff nodded and made his way over. “Trevor, what’re you doing here?”

“Big Jim called me.”

Jake nodded and leaned in close. When he whispered, the small patch of space between them filled with the scent of peaches.

“Can I ask you something, Trevor?”

“Sure, Jake.”

“Am I awake?”

“What?” Trevor turned from Jake to Mayor Wallis, asked, “What’s going—” and then stopped as he followed Big Jim’s gaze into the cell, where a county coroner stood watching Doc March flash a small penlight into a dead man’s eyes. “—on?” he finished. “Holy cow, Jake, who is that? What happened?”