Charles L. Grant - Something Stirs

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2024-12-24 0 0 908.56KB 114 页 5.9玖币
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The bright-eyed lad becomes a man,
The bonny lass a woman shines,
And leave behind both doll and dream.
It matters not that you grow old,
That ghoul and witch are night-told tales;
It matters not for anything.
Believe it then.
Believe it now.
It matters not what you believe. What matters is what you forgot:
The sun will shine on loch and kirk, But in the dark, child, Something stirs.
Part One
WHEN WE WERE YOUNG
ONE
Nobody died until Eddie Roman screamed.
TWO
A mild night in November, though not so mild that the season was forgotten. Dead leaves stirred in gutters
at the touch of a breeze, dead leaves on branches just waiting for a wind. The air still damp after a sudden
day-long rain. Puddles quivering. Neon hissing. A small dog, muddy and white with a wire tail and pointed snout,
rooting in the garbage left in an alley behind a closed Chinese restaurant. A large cat, bedraggled and white with a puffed tail
and flattened muzzle, tightroping the chain-link fence around the Little League field. A car backfiring, and several
young voices in it laughing hysterically, a beer can spinning into the gutter, rattling across the bars of a storm
drain before settling against the curb. A wheezing bus stalling at a traffic light, the driver swearing, his four
passengers saying nothing, only staring out the windows at the shops long since emptied. On a poncho behind the
high school, in the middle of the gridiron, a boy and a girl playing out a dare, though the girl had less qualms about
finally taking off her clothes.
A haze that blurred all the lights, even the stars, especially the low and hazy hanging moon.
On a dark street a boy in a black leather jacket, collar turned up, hands jammed into his black jeans pockets with
thumbs hanging out, walking slowly, turning around every ten yards or so and looking back, into the dark, turning
around and kicking morosely at the shadows. His boots, bulky and black, made too much noise, their pointed
chrome studs catching too much of the diffused light when he glanced down at the pavement. His jeans
were too thin, too cold when a breeze swung out of a driveway and slapped against his calves. And he
should have listened to his mother's nagging, should have worn some kind of sweater; but no, not him, he
was tough, he was cool, he knew he could stand it when the unseasonable warmth finally deserted the
night, he could take the chill as the warmth bled from concrete and blacktop and wood and his bones, he didn't need
any damn sweater. He was tough. He could take it.
He shivered.
He was a jerk.
He looked back again, this time only over his shoulder, and resigned himself to the fact that Laine wasn't
going to be there. She wouldn't follow him. She wouldn't chase him. She wouldn't throw herself at his feet and beg his
forgive-ness. She wouldn't call out his name, from back there in the dark, and make him feel less like a total
jackass. She was going to see this anger thing through, make him suffer.
He stopped at an intersection and looked east, toward Summit Boulevard, thinking maybe he should walk
up there and catch a bus. Otherwise he'd have to walk all the way to the South End, another half hour at
least, and probably freeze half to death before he got there. Plus which, he'd catch holy hell from his father
for being out so late on a school night. Which would serve her right. Serve them all right. On the other
hand, walking would give him time to cool off, think a little, and give her a long chance to change her mind and chase
him.
Frustrated, he scratched angrily through his ducktailed black hair, sniffed hard, and turned down Lamb
Street, heels forcefully loud, his whistle less a recognizable tune than a series of dares to the neighborhood
to complain.
It made him feel better.
Not much, but better, and by the time he had gone three blocks more he had almost forgotten why he
was being stupid enough to walk when all he had to do was drop a quarter in the damn collection box and
let the bus driver take him practically to his door.
Almost.
"Idiot!" he whispered to his shadow. "Costello, you're a goddamn idiot."
He lashed out at a tree trunk, pulling his punch just in time.
She always did this to him, all the time, always made him feel one thing, then another, and left him
hanging like a jerk, not knowing which way to turn. Eddie was right. Women, sometimes, just don't
understand guys. They read some books, they listen to some teachers, they figure they got it all nailed.
Especially guys. But they can't get into a guy's head, that's for damn sure. So they play games, brain
games, and sometimes they're lucky and everybody's cool, and sometimes they just drive him up the
goddamn wall.
Eddie was right.
Women aren't human.
Another street, a third, and the breeze kicked him again, blew hair into his eyes, made him hunch his
shoulders.
He wasn't so sure about this part of town, wasn't sure he liked it so late at night. His own neighborhood
was almost entirely rowhouses, old and faded, with one or two regular homes so narrow they looked like
the rest. Here in the Manor, all the houses were settled behind fences, hedges, shrubs, trees, once in a
while a low fieldstone or brick wall tangling with ivy. A place so neat it didn't seem real. Most of the windows were
dark, cars in their garages or, on those rare blocks where the houses were too close together, settled at the
curbs, reflecting the streetlights and giving back false color.
His street had a voice most nights of the year, guys hanging out, girls hanging with them, radios and
televi-sions, couples screaming at each other, old people scream-ing back, cars racing, cats spitting and screaming.
It had a life, he thought; this place is like a graveyard.
It's too quiet.
He paused for a moment, to listen to some birds arguing in an evergreen.
Quiet.
He looked behind him.
Nothing back there but the dark.
Maybe this wasn't such a good idea after all.
He came abreast of a tall barberry hedge, taller than he, and he did his best to ignore it, thinking instead
about how he would give Laine tomorrow morning to make up her mind to catch up with him in school, to
apologize, before he tried to find a date for Friday night. Maybe Tang Porter. A quick grin. Boy, would
Laine be pissed. Worse; she'd raise hell, want to know what the hell he thought he was doing, going out
with someone else, didn't he love her anymore?
He rubbed the back of his neck.
Well, he wasn't so sure about the love part, but he definitely didn't want to see anyone but her. Not
regular. Teach her a lesson, was all. Like Eddie says, you gotta keep 'em in line, don't let 'em take you for
granted. That's the way they used to do it, before all this sensitive crap started and women started acting
more weird than ever.
What was funny, though, was that Eddie Roman didn't have a steady. Not since he had called at the
beginning of the summer, said he had this humongously great idea out of which, within a week, the Pack
had been born. Since then, the guy had been pretty much on his own. Oh, he dated now and then, always had a
girl when the Pack went down to the movies on the boulevard Strip, or to the Starlite Diner just to hang. But
there wasn't anyone special.
"Like to spread myself around, Joey," he explained once, before school started. "Keep one to myself, all
the others tear my throat out, you know what I mean?"
"Jealous?"
"You got it."
"Bullshit."
Eddie had laughed, slapped and grabbed his shoulder. Hard. "Yeah. But what the hell, at least I don't
have no stupid ring through my nose."
Joey didn't like that. Laine didn't have a ring through his nose, his ears, his balls, any damn place. He did
what he wanted. It just happened that, most of the time, what he wanted happened to be what Laine
wanted. No big deal.
A gust rattled the trees, and droplets spattered his head, his face. He danced into the open, slapping the
water away, cursing until he found himself facing the hedge.
A rustle.
Quick; nothing more.
Not exactly a footstep.
More like a gliding.
Cat, he decided, and moved on.
Heard it following.
Rustle. Snap.
On the far side of a driveway, the hedge higher, not really trimmed, a twig snagging his jacket until he
slapped it away.
Something on the other side, untouched by a streetlamp that created black caves between the tiny black
leaves.
One of the Pack out to tease him.
Furtive. Quick.
Quiet.
It wasn't them. They never would have been able to stop from laughing for so long.
A breeze carried something light and wet to tickle his neck, and he yelped, spun wildly, spun again and ran a few
stumbling steps, giggling when he finally passed the ragged end of the hedging, turning and laughing once he'd run
another ten yards.
A cat.
It had been a cat.
He hadn't seen it, but he knew it.
It had only been a cat.
Now listen, Costello, he said to his shadow, hands back in his pockets, you're being a jerk-off here, man.
You get into a little fight, you're letting a stupid damn cat spook you, for god's sake. You're a big boy now,
right? Like Momma says, practically a man, and men don't let things like cats in hedges spook them.
Right?
He nodded sharply.
Right.
So get your ass home before your mother tears if off and hangs it in the hall.
Grinning, he walked, and yawned unexpectedly, laughed aloud when his jaw popped.
Quiet.
The creak of a branch.
A wink of light, low to the ground.
You're spooking yourself, pal.
Damn right.
He passed another hedgewall, trimmed low this time, and glanced at it warily.
Something was behind it.
No there wasn't.
"Damn."
The soft sound of a leaf pressed under a careful foot.
Yes there was.
When his pace quickened, boots too loud, he tried to slow down, telling himself that this was his town,
damnit, it wasn't so damn big there wasn't anything in it he couldn't recognize, even in the damn dark.
The air stirred into a breeze he could barely feel against his cheek, but the top of the hedge shook for a
moment as if someone, something, was trying to climb over.
He stared.
The shaking stopped.
Damnit, it's a cat.
Another leaf crushed.
Not it isn't.
Of course it is.
When the hedge was left behind, the noise-stopped.
Nothing there. Yes there is.
"Ha!" he said loudly.
Scare it away; make it vanish.
He didn't look back.
Instead, he moved faster, thinking it would be the weekend before he got home if he didn't haul ass, and
his old man would ground him for the next hundred years just for grins. He grunted. Actually, not much chance of
that, practically no way in hell. Grounding would mean he'd have to stay home, wouldn't be able to work at the old
man's truck yard after school and on weekends, and his father depended too much on his free labor to do
that. He didn't much care, not all the time, because it gave him the chance to work his magic. What Laine called
his magic. Look at an engine, dare it to screw up, and when it did, take out his tools and do a surgeon job on it.
No motor, no engine, not a goddamn thing that had moving parts died while Joseph Francis Costello was on
duty.
Soon he'd be able to do it to his own motorcycle; as soon, that is, as Momma got over her thinking that
only punks and ex-cons and drug dealers used them these days. Soon he'd have his own bike to work his
magic on, turn it into a frigging rocket, take him out of this frigging place.
"Laine, don't say that, okay? It isn't magic."
"It is," she insisted. "Some people do magic with numbers, some do it with rabbits and hats, you do it with
motors. I don't care what you say, it's magic."
Okay, he had conceded, so it's magic.
He bowed to the houses, to the street, turned around and bowed to the dark. When he straightened, he
stopped, a slight frown nearly closing one eye.
He was on Eddie's block.
Now how the hell had he managed that?
A police siren cried, and was almost immediately fol-lowed by a fire engine's high and low wailing.
A quick crossing of his fingers—please, God, let it be the school—and he hurried on.
There was no temptation to stop at the Romans' and say hi. None at all. For one thing, he saw enough of
Mr. Roman in school. Though he never had him for any history classes, Jon Roman seemed like he was
everywhere—in the halls, in the cafeteria, out in the yard—just when Joey was about to do something the
school didn't like. Like breathe, for god's sake.
For another, for the last couple of weeks, Eddie had been acting really strange. Bizarre. When he was
with the Pack, he stayed in the background, not saying much, not laughing, not teasing Tang about all her
hair or Pancho about his gut, not doing much of anything except standing there; and when they were alone, walking
home from school, he acted like he was walking on a bed of exposed wires that someone every so often
sent some juice through. He was jumpy, sweaty, and nothing Joey could say would coax an explanation. If it was
dope, Joey might understand it, but Eddie, like the others, wasn't that far gone.
Dumb but not stupid, like his old man always said.
Okay, a little peculiar maybe, that's all. Just this side of a little bit weird. They had to be, though, right,
dressing like they'd been warped back to the Fifties, listening to the Big Bopper and Lithe Richard, telling elephant
and knock-knock jokes, Barnaby even going so far as to try to corner the market on anything and everything
that had to do with James Dean. Katie spending all her allowance on what she called atom-bomb-bug
movies and scaring herself shitless once a week and twice on Sundays. Laine letting Fern make her a
poodle skirt even.
Peculiar.
But not that bad.
So what the hell was wrong with Eddie?
He didn't know, and it had begun to make him uncom-fortable just to be near the guy. He looked, in fact, like that
nut case on cable, on the old TV show, who was running away, every week for damn ever, from the cop who
never, ever, stopped coming.
He looked like he was being chased.
He looked like he was haunted.
Oh Christ, Costello, knock it the hell off.
He decided to take the next corner, the hell with it, and go on to Summit, catch a bus. If, by some
miserable miracle, Eddie was looking out a window or something, he didn't want to be spotted. Not tonight. Tonight
was—
He froze when he heard the scream.
"Jesus!"
So high and shrill it was sexless.
He swallowed hard and looked around, hands opening and closing, opening and closing.
He didn't know how, but he knew it was Eddie.
Another scream that hung in the dark; it didn't fade, it had been cut off.
That one wasn't Eddie at all.
Immediately, Joey sprinted down the sidewalk, willing himself not to think, swerving at last into the
Romans' driveway and slowing as he stared up at a lighted window on the second floor. Shades down.
Curtain drawn. That was Eddie's father's room. He told himself he didn't belong here, that someone else must have
heard it and was calling the cops right now. But he couldn't get rid of the scream, and, when he noticed
other lights in other houses snapping on, he ran around the side of the house toward the back.
Someone screamed.
Fear and anger.
An unpainted stockade fence stretched from the side of the house to the neighbor's rose hedge. The gate
was unlocked, and he shoved it open, ran a few steps, and in trying to stop, skidded on the wet grass to his
hands and knees.
Sonofabitch, he thought, looked up, and didn't move.
The back door was open, kitchen light escaping over a concrete stoop and three concrete steps, falling
on the lawn, turning the air and the grass grey.
Eddie stood in the middle of the glow, stringy black hair in glistening tangles over his face and shoulders, his black leather
jacket torn at both shoulders. He had no pants on, no shoes, no shirt.
"I got him!" the boy declared hoarsely, panting, pointing at the open door.
His face was mottled with exertion.
He carried a hatchet in one hand.
"Got him, Joey. Oh man, I got him."
Joey almost threw up he was so scared, but he held up a hand instead, palm out. "Okay, Eddie, okay. It's
cool man, it's cool."
Eddie stepped back, swung the hatchet lazily in front of him. The blade was dark, and dark dripped from
the steel, the haft, and the hand that held it.
"Got him," Eddie whispered.
Joey moved to stand, and the boy glared at him, freezing him with one knee off the ground. Again he
raised his hand. "Okay, Eddie, okay, take it easy. It's me, all right? It's Joey, man, don't do anything stupid."
The hatchet swung side to side.
Pendulum.
Catching the light, sliding into shadow.
"Eddie, where's your dad?"
Eddie sniffed, wiped a sleeve over his face. Something dark smeared over his lips and chin. "In there."
Side to side.
Joey looked at the door. He could see a corner of the table, part of the refrigerator, a length of the
counter and the cabinets over it. "Where?"
Catching the light.
The boy sniffed again. "There."
Joey felt a cramp threaten his right leg; he shifted, and when Eddie scowled, he said, "Aw, c'mon, man,
it's cold down here, okay? I'm not gonna hurt you, you know that. I ain't gonna do anything." He swallowed
hard, his throat felt packed with sand. "Look, I'm standing up, right? You got the ax, what the hell you figure I'm going
to do, pull a damn cannon?"
He stood.
Nothing moved in the doorway.
Beyond the light the back yard was black.
"Mr. Roman?" he called. "Hey, Mr. Roman, can you hear me?"
"Got him," Eddie whispered.
"What?"
"Not me." Eddie shook his head quickly, twice. "Not me." He pointed at the house with the hatchet. "I
told him not to come in, see, but he wouldn't listen. Big man. Christ, I told him, but he did anyway." He
pulled the weapon to his chest and hugged it. "I had to save myself."
"Sure, sure you did." Joey wanted to spit but his mouth was too dry. Wishing to hell someone would come
and get him out of here. Now.
In the distance, a siren.
Eddie's head snapped up, and Joey braced himself.
Then Eddie said, "Son of a bitch, they'll all get killed, they're all gonna die," and ran into the house.
Oh man, Joey thought, rubbing his fingertips hard against his jeans; oh man, Jesus help me.
Indecision forced him to take a hesitant step toward the street, made him shift his weight from one foot
to the other, made him take a deep breath and finally charge up the steps, bursting through the kitchen
entrance just in time to see Eddie spin around the newel post and vanish up the hall staircase. He took a
step, whirled, yanked open several drawers and clawed through them before he found a knife.
It wasn't much better, but he felt better.
He didn't bother to move cautiously because he could hear his friend up in the hall, running, slamming
doors, yelling incoherently; he took the stairs to the midway landing two at a time, and crouched there, a
hand trem-bling on the banister, looking up just as all the lights went out.
Damn, he thought.
Then Eddie screamed.
Screamed again.
Run! Joey thought; Jesus God, run!
He moved upward, knowing that he was too slow and feeling as if he were running too damn fast.
Listening. Straining, but hearing nothing.
He licked his lips.
Scraping; something sharp digging into wood, or bone.
He reached the top step and eased himself up against the wall.
Lake's gonna kill me; Momma's gonna skin me.
His vision adjusted from dark to shadow and, still pressed against the wall, he switched the knife to his
other hand, scrubbed his palm against his leg, and made his way along the carpeted hallway toward the room at the
far end.
Eddie's.
The door was open.
He switched the knife again, nearly lost it, closed his eyes and held it close against his chest.
Okay, he thought; okay, there are two ways to do this, Joey: wait for the cops, or be a hero.
There was no sound in there. The scraping had stopped; he couldn't even hear his own breathing.
Sweat slipped into his eyes. He blinked furiously and tried to think. The light switch was just around the
frame, shoulder high. No; no, it wasn't. Yes; yes, it was. He could reach in, then flip it up, turn on the Roy Rogers
lamp Eddie kept on the dresser.
He raised his arm.
It was dark in there.
Reach in; flip it on; no sweat, no sweat.
He could smell something strong, too strong, and when he looked down, the light from Mr. Roman's
room drifted across the floor and let him see over the threshold. Only a few inches, but it was enough to
explode bile in his stomach.
Pressing harder against the wall, then, and breathing quick and shallow, almost panting; swallowing, choking, finally
exploding with a soundless cry into a run, stumbling back down the stairs, tripping in the front hall and falling hard
against the door, fumbling for the knob he couldn't get hold of because his hands were slick with sweat, his eyes
were stinging, there were barbs in his chest that kept him from taking a breath that wouldn't stab him.
The door opened.
He ran outside, leapt off the small porch and fell onto the grass. Dropping the knife. Hands and knees. Throwing
up and sobbing.
A hard hand grabbed his shoulder, someone giving him harsh orders while trying to yank him to his feet, but he
couldn't stop his stomach from trying to climb into his throat and he' kept falling back down. The hand was
replaced by a gentler one, the voice softer, and he looked up, wiped his mouth with the back of his hand,
and said, "Al? Oh Jesus, Al, Jesus God."
* * *
too much blood
he could hardly see anything because there was too much blood
Too much light; he couldn't see a thing because there was too much light, and it forced him to lower his head and
stare at the kitchen table, wait for the light to fade so he could trace the erratic patterns in the worn
Formica top until he had to close his eyes.
"Joseph, are you all right?"
For god's sake, no, Momma, he wanted to shout; I'm not all right Jesus Christ how the fuck do you think
I am what kind of goddamn stupidass question is that?
"Okay," he whispered. And shrugged. And picked up the glass of water his mother had placed before
him five minutes ago, drank, shuddered, he couldn't get rid of the sour taste, couldn't get rid of the smell.
The same hand rested on his shoulder, only this time it wasn't out there in the yard, people in overcoats
over their bathrobes standing on their lawns, drifting to the side-walks, the curbs, trying to see what was
going on, lights flaring from cruisers and an ambulance and static that carried voices he couldn't understand
. This time the hand telling him it was okay, take it easy, was right here in his own kitchen, and he looked
gratefully at his brother, tilted his head slightly, quickly, and looked at the table again.
The glass was empty.
He didn't remember drinking.
Opposite him, his mother held a cup in her hands but didn't use it; to his right his father held a cup and
sipped from it noisily. He looked at them all and almost smiled. Uniforms, he thought; god, they're all
wearing uniforms, even in the middle of the stupid night.
His mother in her dark print dress covered the moment he walked into the house by a polka-dot apron
loosely tied around her ample waist; his father in his rumpled plaid shirt opened midway down his chest,
white T-shirt stained with grease and something else; and his brother in his cop suit, the hat squared on the
table in front of him. No gunbelt here, though. Never a gunbelt. The first time he had walked into the house with
it strapped around his waist and started for the kitchen, his mother, without raising her voice, screamed bloody
murder.
"That . . . that thing," she had declared, for all she was proud of her oldest child, "does not go into my
kitchen, Al. That's the family place, and that gun never goes in there while I'm alive."
On a wood peg specially placed in the hall by the front door, then. Murderers, thieves, terrorists,
arsonists— guns were all right for them, but never in Momma's kitchen, not even if it was her son's.
"Joey," Al said, voice low. "Joey, are you sure?"
He shuddered air from his lungs—it seemed the only way to breathe anymore—and nodded.
"You sure?" his father asked hoarsely.
"Yes, Poppa," he said, tight with impatience. "I didn't see anything. Not straight out. It was pretty dark, remember?"
He hadn't.
Just glistening blood streaked like a worm's tail across the part of the bedroom carpet that he could see.
Before he ran. Before he ran like hell, like a baby, and the whole goddamn neighborhood had seen him crying,
blubbering in his brother's arms. A detective had talked to him, a guy called Jorgen, but he had been okay too. No
yelling, not like the first guy. Just quiet questions until he told Al to take the kid home. With no blood on his clothes, no blood on the
knife, Jorgen knew he was telling the truth Which told him he was glad, thank you God, he hadn't seen anything more, hadn't
seen how bad it really had been in that room.
He only knew that Eddie was dead. So was Mr. Roman. And no one had gotten out of that room past him.
"You did a brave thing, going in there, Joey," Al told him. "Not too bright, but brave."
"Brave?" his mother said. Coffee slopped from her cup; she wiped it up with her apron. "Brave?" Her eyes were
puffed, bloodshot from crying. A curl of dark hair that wouldn't stay off her brow. "He could've been killed
, Al! My baby could've been cut to pieces in there! Some maniac could've cut his heart out, maybe—"
"Ma, c'mon," Joey complained. He'd been listening to that song since his brother had brought him home.
She was right, but god, she didn't have to keep at it. She was always keeping at it. Never let go.
"Alfred, tell him," she appealed to his father.
Brother was always Al, Poppa was always Alfred, he was Joseph when she decided he was in trouble,
Joey when he was her baby.
"Anna, why don't you just let the boy alone. I think he's been through enough for one night."
"Poppa's right, Momma. It's done now. Okay? It's all over."
Joey agreed with a weary bowing of his head, and stared at his hands clasped on the table. They were clean. With all the
work at the truck yard, they were a little scraped, a little bruised, but always clean. Even under the nails.
Not like his father's. And sometimes he wondered if he was really part of this family. The three of them,
摘要：

Thebright-eyedladbecomesaman,Thebonnylassawomanshines,Andleavebehindbothdollanddream.Itmattersnotthatyougrowold,Thatghoulandwitcharenight-toldtales;Itmattersnotforanything.Believeitthen.Believeitnow.Itmattersnotwhatyoubelieve.Whatmattersiswhatyouforgot:Thesunwillshineonlochandkirk,Butinthedark,child...

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