Allhallow's Eve: (Richard Laymon Horror Classic) (19 page)

From a distance, Eric watched the cheerleaders practice. He was still shaken up by his encounter with Nate, but he soon forgot about it as the girls leaped and twirled, and kicked their bare legs.

They all looked so beautiful.

Especially Aleshia. Her slim legs were golden in the afternoon sunlight. When she whirled around, her pleated skirt flew high, giving Eric glimpses of her thighs and green underpants. When she jumped, plunging her arms at the sky, her sweater slid up and uncovered her belly for an instant.

He knew she didn’t wear bras to school.

If only she would jump higher …

Once, she did a cartwheel and the sweater dropped nearly to her ribs before she whipped to her feet and it fell again into place. He imagined her doing another cartwheel, this time her sweater sliding down all the way and uncovering her small, pale breasts.

He realized he had an erection. Glancing down, he saw it pushing out his corduroys. He folded his hands in front of the bulge, and turned his eyes toward Beth.

Though nowhere as pretty as Aleshia, Beth was fairly cute. Doing the cheers, she seemed more enthusiastic
than the others. Compared to her, the rest of the girls looked lazy, almost bored.

Her arms snapped forward as the voices chanted, ‘Push ’em back, push ’em back, waaaay back.’ At the cheer’s end, she bounded from the ground, arching her back, waving her arms, kicking her feet up high behind her. Eric looked quickly at Aleshia and found her in mid-air, her sweater up, her belly showing pale and smooth.

He imagined sliding his hands up her belly, up under the sweater where it was warm and dark, and taking her breasts in his hands, holding them gently, his palms barely touching the velvet skin.

‘Hi Eric!’ Beth called, waving at him. ‘We’re almost done.’

He nodded and yelled, ‘Okay.’

A few of the girls huddled around Beth. Eric guessed they were talking about him. He wished he could hear them, but they spoke quietly and the distance was great.

What if they’d seen his bulge?

How could he face Beth, after that?

The girls weren’t giggling, though. Soon, they stopped talking and resumed practice.

Eric turned away. He walked along the side of the field, his back to the cheerleaders. Though he wished he could watch them, he didn’t want to embarrass himself by getting another erection. So he walked along, listening.

‘We are the Spartans, the mighty-mighty Spartans! Everywhere we go-o, people oughtta kno-ow, who we are
so
we tell ’em. We are the Spartans …’

He saw the football team ahead, running a scrimmage. The coach was there, so none of the jerks were likely to try anything with Eric. Just to be safe, though, he turned away and walked toward the school.

He glanced back at the cheerleaders and saw them in a line, kicking their legs high.

Finally, he reached the main building. He sat on the steps to wait for Beth. From there, he could barely hear the chants of the cheerleaders. He watched the girls dance and leap, but they were tiny now, their features less distinct. He found it difficult to tell one from another. Beth, the only stocky girl of the five, was easy to spot, but he couldn’t make up his mind which of the others was Aleshia.

As he waited, the coldness of the concrete seeped through his pants. He began to feel as if he were sitting on a slab of ice. Raising himself off the step, he slid his grammar book beneath him. He sat on it. The book felt warm under his buttocks.

Opening his three-ring binder to a blank page, he began to doodle. He drew a revolver, but it turned out crooked, the barrel curving upward as if bent by Superman. His Bowie knife came out well. He inked in drops of blood falling from its blade. Encouraged by his success with the knife, he tried to draw a P-40 Kittyhawk. The fuselage looked good, but he had trouble with the wings and tail. He went ahead, regardless, and drew the shark’s mouth on the engine cowling. When he was done, the combat plane looked lopsided but vicious.

On the back of the page, he drew an oblong and imagined it was a girl’s torso. Aleshia’s torso. He
sketched breasts onto it. They were merely two circles with dots in the middle, but as his pen stroked the paper he could almost feel their smooth flesh.

Then he heard voices nearby.

The cheerleaders, done with practice, were wandering in his direction.

With a few swift strokes, he drew a nose between the breasts, a grinning mouth below them. He put ears on the torso, and a patch of scraggly hair on top.

‘Okay, see you tonight,’ Beth said, breaking away from the group. She headed for Eric, while the other girls continued around the side of the school.

Eric stood up.

‘I hope you didn’t mind waiting,’ Beth said.

‘No, it was fun.’ He picked up his books, and saw that she had none. ‘Do you need anything inside?’

She shook her head, smiling. ‘I finished all my homework in study hall.’

‘Wish I had.’

They started to walk.

‘What’ve you got?’ Beth asked.

‘Homework? About six chapters of
Huckleberry Finn
. I fell behind this week.’

‘You have Miss Bennett, don’t you?’

‘Yeah. Fourth period.’

‘I’ve got her first. She’ll be at the party, you know.’

‘Aleshia’s?’

‘Yeah. She’s the only teacher Aleshia invited. So, what do you think we should wear?’

‘I don’t know. What do you think?’

‘It’d be neat if we could go as a pair. You know, like Laurel and Hardy or the Blues Brothers.’

‘How about Tarzan and Jane?’

Laughing, she bumped him with her shoulder. ‘That’s awful. Besides, we’d freeze.’

‘We’ll be inside.’

‘You go as Tarzan, if you want. I’ll wear clothes.’

Eric frowned. ‘Actually, I think we should go as something spooky. I mean, it’s Halloween. We oughtta dress up as ghosts or vampires or something.’

‘You’re right,’ Beth said. ‘Any ideas?’

‘I’d like to be something
real
spooky.’

‘Like what?’

Eric shrugged.

‘It’ll have to be something simple,’ Beth said as they crossed the deserted faculty parking lot. ‘We haven’t got much time.’

‘Do you have some old, ragged clothes? An old dress or something you can wreck up?’

‘I guess so.’

‘Great.’

‘What’s great?’

‘What’s the scariest thing you can think of?’

She shrugged. ‘I don’t know. I haven’t thought about it. A psycho, I guess. You know, like those guys that rape girls and torture them to death.’ She wrinkled her nose at the thought. ‘Wouldn’t be much fun to dress like that.’

‘What about the living dead?’

‘Like
Walkers
?’

‘I was thinking
Night of the Living Dead
.’

‘I never saw that. I heard it’s yucky.’

‘It’s great. Anyway, we can dress up like one of those – if you don’t mind looking sloppy.’

‘No, that’s fine.’

‘You want to?’

‘Sure. I guess.’

‘Okay. So wear a dress you don’t need anymore.’

‘Is that it?’

‘I’ll bring along some stuff.’ He grinned. ‘This’ll be great.’

Sam turned on his headlights as darkness lowered over the road to Ashburg. He was alone in the patrol car.

No need to bring Thelma back.

He believed her story.

She hadn’t killed Dexter. She’d been in the graveyard with Joe, just as she claimed. In Sam’s mind, the condom confirmed that. It might’ve belonged to anyone, of course, but its location fit her story. From the place where they found it, she would’ve had a clear view of the Sherwood house.

As he sped over the dark road, Sam recalled that Ruthie had seen Dexter drive away from home that night. Around ten-fifteen or ten-thirty, when she went out to her car for cigarettes. Dex might’ve been on his way to the Sherwood house.

Thelma had seen him there after midnight – seen him go in, and not come out.

What the hell was he doing there?

Off duty, but in uniform.

The bright neon sign of the Sleepy Hollow Inn pulled Sam’s thoughts away from the case. He stared at the lighted windows of the office. The curtains were open. He glimpsed movement inside, but couldn’t recognize
Melodie. His foot left the gas pedal. It brushed against the brake and started to descend. As he approached the motel driveway, he slammed his palm on the steering wheel, sending a shot of pain up his arm. He forced his foot back to the gas pedal.

For a few moments, he watched the motel in his side mirror. Then he took a curve, and darkness replaced its bright lights.

He imagined Melodie at a lighted window, peering out and seeing his car pass by. Would she feel the same disappointment Sam felt now – the same hungry ache and longing?

Sam shook his head.

Forget Melodie.

Melodie …
a melodie that’s sweetly played in tune
. What the hell is that, a poem?

‘That’s sweetly played in tune,’ he repeated. ‘As fair art thou, my bonnie lass, so deep in love am I, and I will love thee still, my dear, till a’ the seas gang dry. Sure. Burns. Rabbie Burns. Till a’ the seas gang dry.’

He hadn’t thought of that poem in ten years. He’d memorized it in college – his junior year – for Donna. God, he’d been crazy about Donna. He’d recited the poem to her, one night by the river, and afterwards they made love together for the first time.

Good old Rabbie Burns.

The memory soured as he remembered Donna dumping him for that jerk, Roy. He’d warned her that Roy was a sadistic sicko, but she’d laughed it off. Claimed it was sour grapes.

Well, he hoped Donna never had to find out the hard way.

Funny he should think of Donna, after all this time. It was the poem –
a melodie that’s sweetly played in tune
.

Melodie again.

I hardly know her, he told himself. Why can’t I just forget about her?

Think about the case. Dexter. The Sherwood house. Why had Dex gone over there late at night? To meet someone? Then why in uniform? Must’ve gone on police business, or he would’ve worn civvies. There’d been no calls to the station that might’ve taken him there. Maybe someone called him at home.

Clara Hayes? She’s next door to the Sherwood house. She and Dexter were old friends. Maybe she saw a prowler, something like that, and asked him to come over.

Sam remembered the newspaper – still on Clara’s lawn at mid-afternoon today.

He hadn’t seen her at the fire last night.

His foot eased the gas pedal down. Speeding around a curve, he saw a car ahead. As he gained on it, he switched on his flasher. The car pulled aside, and he shot past it.

He drove as fast as he dared, slowing at curves, picking up speed on the straight-aways. Finally, Clara’s house came into view. Her porch light was on, and pale light showed through the curtains of her picture window.

Morley’s car, he saw, was still parked in the driveway of the Sherwood house.

Pulling onto the road’s shoulder, he stopped in front of Clara’s place. He switched off his lights, killed his motor, and climbed out. A chilly wind blew against him
as he hurried across her lawn. He picked up the
Clarion
. Walking toward her door, he slipped off its rubber band and glanced at the headline: CHIEF BOYANSKI SLAIN.

On the front stoop, hidden behind a shrub, was another newspaper. Sam picked it up and opened it. The Thursday morning
Clarion
.

He pushed the doorbell.

As it rang, he heard an engine start. The car in the Sherwood driveway backed up. It swung onto the road, still in reverse, and sped backwards.

‘Hey!’ Sam yelled.

With a crunch of metal and glass it slammed into the front of Sam’s patrol car.

‘Damn it, Morley!’

He leaped from the stoop and raced across the lawn.

Morley’s car didn’t move.

As he ran toward it, the passenger window rolled down.

‘Morley, what the hell are …?’

Two quick gunshots crashed through his words. He dived for the ground. As he hit, Morley’s car took off. He drew his revolver and snapped off four shots. Through the roar of his gunfire, he heard three slugs thunk into the car. The last missed. He took careful aim at the distant target, but decided not to shoot again. Too chancy.

Scrambling to his feet, he ran the final yards to his patrol car.

Though the front was smashed in, the engine turned over. He swung onto the road. Far ahead, Morley’s car turned right. Sam floored the accelerator.

He tried the headlights. Dead. But the flasher and siren still worked.