Darkness on the Edge of Town (14 page)

People gathered in the street and peeked out their windows and doors, watching us leave with the same interest usually reserved for car wrecks along the highway.
And who knows? Maybe that’s all we were to them. Maybe they figured that we wouldn’t be coming back and they wanted to witness our death march.

Dez grabbed my arm as we passed him. His body odor nearly knocked me over. It burned my nose and made my eyes water.

“Don’t go past the runes,” he whispered. “Don’t break the pattern.”

I shrugged him off. “What are you talking about?”

“You know what I’m talking about. I heard your speech.”

Cranston, T, and Anna slowed to listen to our exchange.

“Weird guy,” Anna muttered. “I hear tell he’s a Satanist or something.”

“Fucking retard is what he is.” T chuckled. “Know what I’m saying?”

If Dez overheard them, he didn’t react. I wondered if he was used to hearing such taunts and derision. I’d seen people making fun of him many times before.

“I put the runes at the four points,” Dez told me. “North, south, east, and west. Then I put more at the points in between. It makes a line. An unbroken line. A pattern. The runes hold the darkness back. It can’t cross them. But you shouldn’t cross them either.”

“You’re talking about the graffiti on the road? Holy shit! You did that?”

Smiling, he nodded. “I knew the words. I made a barrier.”

“Is that what the picture is supposed to be?”

“All magic is just words and names. Runes are words.”

“I don’t understand, Dez.”

“That’s okay. Nobody else does either. I understand for everyone. I have to.”

Scowling, Anna muttered, “Witch.”

She and T walked away. T seemed to have already forgotten about Dez, but Anna glanced over her shoulder and delivered one last jab. “Goddamn Satanist is what you are.”

Dez pouted. His bottom lip quivered. He looked like he was getting ready to cry.

“Are you okay?” I asked, feeling bad for him.

He nodded.

“Look, they didn’t mean it. Okay? Everyone is just scared. Fear makes people say things that they don’t mean.”

Dez wiped his nose with his hand, then wiped his hand on his pants.

“It’s not fear,” he said. “It’s not fear that makes them mean. It’s the darkness. He Who Shall Not Be Named.”

“Robbie,” Russ called, “let’s get going before we start to lose our nerve.”

I cast one last glance at Dez, and then I turned away and walked on. Cranston hurried to catch up with me, and he cast a wary look over his shoulder.

“He still back there?” I asked.

“Yeah, man. He is. And he’s crying.”

None of us had a vehicle big enough to carry the entire group, and I didn’t want to waste any more time by sending folks back home again to retrieve their cars. I was worried that if we did, we’d lose even more volunteers. So in the end, we walked. This time, instead of going out to Route 711, we went to the vacant lot behind the half-empty strip mall on Tenth Street. All of us had working flashlights, and Drew had brought along his walkie-talkies, as promised. He and Clay led the way, holding tight to the dogs’ leashes. The animals kept their noses to the ground, sniffing and tracking. Their tails wagged back and forth, and their ears were up. They seemed happy.

“Them beagles will run off soon as we unleash them,” Clay said. “They’re good dogs, but let ’em get a whiff of a rabbit or a cat or something and they’ll be gone like lightning. The black-and-tan would, too, except that he’s too old. His joints bother him these days.”

He unleashed a stream of brown spit all over the road. Then, still holding the dogs’ leashes with one hand, he stuck his index finger into his mouth and prodded a wad of snuff out from his bottom lip. He flicked the wet tobacco onto the curb, and with the practiced movements of someone who’d done this one-handed
many times before, he fished a round can of mintflavored Skoal out of his back pocket, removed the lid, and put a fresh pinch into his mouth. I’d never liked smokeless tobacco before, but the smell teased my senses now. Remembering how good the nicotine rush from the cigarette Tony lent me had felt, I considered asking Clay if I could bum a dip but decided against it. Last thing I needed to do right now was get sick off Skoal and spend twenty minutes throwing up behind the strip mall.

“You’d better slow down on that dip,” Drew told Clay. “What are you gonna do if you run out?”

“That won’t happen for a while. I got me a whole bunch of cans from the grocery store and the gas station. And my neighbor Dale dipped, too. He was one of those who never came back, so last night, I went into his house and got his supply, too.”

“You broke into your neighbor’s home?” Cranston asked.

“Hell, no. Dale always kept a spare key under a lawn gnome he had sitting between his shrubs. I used the key. He always kept his Skoal in his refrigerator, so it’d stay fresh. He took his tobacco very seriously. I reckon he’d want it to go to a good home.”

Drew shook his head, as if ashamed by what he was hearing, but the grin on his face said something different. “Stealing dip from a man’s home. What’s the world coming to?”

“I just said I didn’t steal it, now didn’t I?”

“Yeah, but it ain’t like you asked Dale’s permission either.”

“True,” Clay agreed, “but I guarantee one thing.”

“What’s that?” Drew asked, tugging on the dog’s leash.

“I guarantee you I won’t run out for a while.”

“Let’s hope not. You’re like a bear with a sore ass when you have a nicotine fit.”

“Fuck you.”

I tensed, expecting their tempers to flare, but that didn’t happen. They bickered and teased as longtime friends do, but if the strange, emotional response we’d all been experiencing was affecting them, too, they didn’t show it.

Russ and I walked behind them. Cranston dropped back to join Ms. Stevens (who told us to call her by her first name, Olivia), Clevon, and Anna, all of whom walked close behind us. Clevon was in bad shape—panting for breath and continually asking if we could stop and rest. Given what he did for a living, I got the feeling that most of his exercise was limited to lifting coffee cups and typing. T, Irish, Stan the Man, Mad Mike, and Mario brought up the rear. The occasion was solemn enough that Mario had put away his video game.

Cranston began quietly humming an off-key tune. After a minute, I recognized it as something by John Prine. I wasn’t sure what the name of the song was, but I remembered it as something my mother had used to listen to. It made me sad. All the sudden, I missed her terribly. Then my thoughts turned to my grandfather—and what I’d seen in the darkness; something pretending to be his ghost. It made me want to scream. Cranston must have subconsciously picked up on my mood because he stopped humming. Maybe he just decided that nobody else was in the mood, since none of them joined in.

The three dogs kept their noses to the ground, ignoring everything but the subtle commands of their masters. Occasionally they strained at their leashes,
trying to follow lines of scent, but Drew and Clay always pulled them back. The dogs didn’t seem particularly bothered by the darkness, but as we neared the edge of town, I noticed that their speed decreased and they no longer wanted to stray. They stuck close to their masters instead. Their tails no longer wagged. Their ears drooped.

Russ leaned close to me and whispered, “You know we’re being followed, right?”

I turned around but didn’t see anyone in the shadows.

“By who? Where?”

“That homeless guy—Dez. He’s been sneaking along behind us ever since we left.”

Olivia, Cranston, and Anna overheard us, and they all turned around, too. T and his boys did the same.

“Go on,” Anna shouted, stomping her foot. “Get out of here, you psycho. Git!”

“He’s not a stray dog,” Olivia said.

“No, he’s not. I’d take pity on a stray dog. That guy is just plain wrong.”

I frowned. “He’s mentally ill, but I always thought he was pretty harmless.”

Anna snorted. “Harmless? Ask Kathy Crawford what he did to her cat three years ago.”

“What did he do?”

“Killed it. And I ain’t talking he accidentally ran it over with a car or anything like that. He snatched it out of their backyard. Her daughter saw him do it from the kitchen window. Later they found the cat out in the woods. The poor thing was all burned up and there was a little ring of stones around it, and candles and other weird shit. He’s a goddamned devil worshipper, plain and simple. Ought to be locked up. None of us are safe long as he’s around.”

“That’s some fucked-up shit,” T said. “Motherfucker be burning cats and shit.”

I had to admit, T was right. It
was
some fucked up shit, if it was true. Hurting animals was how serial killers usually started out. I peered into the blackness but still didn’t see anything.

“You sure he’s back there?” I asked Russ. “I don’t see him, and the dogs don’t seem to be reacting.”

“He was. Maybe he snuck off now. Anna might have scared him away.”

“Dogs wouldn’t pay him no mind, anyway,” Drew explained. “Unless he was a rabbit or a fox or something.”

“Do we have any kind of protection?” Olivia whispered.

“Robbie and I both have handguns,” Russ said.

“So do me and Clay,” Drew admitted.

Anna bent over, pulled up her pant leg, and produced a hunting knife with a thick, eight-inch-long locking blade. “I’ve got this. He comes around again, I’ll gut him like a fish. See if I don’t.”

We reached the mall and crossed the parking lot. The dogs grew increasingly hesitant, and Drew and Clay had to prod them along more and more. The pavement was dirty and pitted, and scraggly brown weeds grew through the cracks. Broken bottles glittered in our flashlight beams. Trash crunched and rustled beneath our feet—aluminum cans, fast-food wrappers, cigarette butts, and a soiled baby diaper. There were a few cars in the parking lot, but it was mostly empty. I wondered where the vehicles’ owners were.

Clevon reached into his pocket and pulled out a candy bar. He slowly unwrapped it, dropped the wrapper on the ground, and then took a bite. There
was an almost worshipful expression on his face as he chewed.

“Where did you get that?” Olivia asked.

“The grocery store. I got boxes of them.”

“Can I have one?”

He quickly shoved the rest of the candy bar in his mouth. His lips were ringed with chocolate and crumbs.

“Don’t have any more with me. Sorry about that.”

Olivia glared at him but said nothing.

A few yards behind the strip mall, we stepped onto an adjacent vacant lot. It was overgrown with weeds and brambles, and cluttered with more trash. Halfway across the vacant lot, the barrier became apparent again. The blackness turned into something more than just darkness. Russ and I had seen it before, but the others stared at it with a mix of awe and trepidation. They also stared at the runes and symbols etched into the dirt. It looked like Dez had used a shovel or a garden trowel to make them because they were dug deep—eight or nine inches into the ground, at least, and wide enough so that if the soil collapsed in on them, they wouldn’t be obliterated.

“What are those?” Olivia asked, pointing.

“Some
Evil Dead
shit,” T said. “Motherfucking Bruce Campbell–style shit. Know what I’m saying?”

Irish screwed up his expression, and the freckles stood out on his cheeks and forehead. “Man, you always be trippin’ over those old movies.”

“That’s because they good, yo. You ain’t got no love for the classics. You down with all those weak-ass remakes Hollywood be churning out.”

“Can one of you translate for me?” Anna asked.

“What?” Russ smirked. “The symbols on the ground or what these guys are saying to each other?”

Clevon, Drew, and Clay all snickered at the joke. Olivia rolled her eyes.

“The symbols are runes of some kind,” I explained.

Anna scowled. “Like the occult?”

“Not necessarily. Lots of different religions use symbols like this—Wiccans, Pagans, the Vikings, Drui—”

“Like I said, the occult. Witches. I overheard you and Dez. I know what’s going on here, Robbie.”

“Excuse me?”

“‘Thou shall have no other gods before me, and thou shall not suffer a witch to live.’ God’s word.”

“And that will be enough of that,” Cranston groaned. “Jesus Christ, man, for all we know, we might be the last people left alive on Earth, and one of them has to be a narrow-minded, Bible-thumping extremist. That’s the kind of thinking that screwed this planet up the first time around. You don’t need Jesus to practice peace and love.”

“I’m no extremist.” Anna stomped toward him. “What, you think just because I recognize Jesus Christ as my Lord and Savior, that I’m crazy? Extremists blow up abortion clinics or fly their airplanes into buildings. They kill innocents. I don’t. There’s no need to. God deals with everyone eventually.”

She jabbed a finger into Cranston’s chest, but he refused to back down.

“Well, I can’t speak for everyone else, but I don’t appreciate the sermon. You could be a little more tolerant and respectful of other people’s beliefs.”

“Screw you, hippy.”

Cranston laughed. “See? That’s what I mean. I bet you don’t talk like that on Sunday.”

Anna’s hands curled into fists. Russ and I stepped in before the situation spiraled out of control. I didn’t
know Anna, but I knew Cranston well enough to realize that this wasn’t normal behavior for him. I glanced at the darkness, then back to him. The blackness seemed to shine in his eyes. Then Cranston moved his head and I realized that it was just an illusion—a trick of the light.

Except there was no light.

“Come on, guys,” I urged. “Let’s focus on what we came here for. This isn’t helping anybody.”

“I’m sorry, Robbie,” Cranston said. “You’re right. But she started it.”

“And I’ll damn well finish it, too.”

“Enough,” Russ shouted, pulling Anna away from Cranston. “Knock it the hell off, both of you!”

“Get your paws off me!”

Before Russ could react, Anna hauled back and slapped him openhanded across the face. It was loud—like the crack of a bat hitting a baseball. The dogs howled at the commotion, straining at their leashes and jumping into the air. Drew and Clay cursed, trying to control them. Russ’s flashlight tumbled from his hand and rolled across the ground. For a moment, Anna’s handprint stood out stark white against his cheek. Then it turned red. Russ stood there, hands at his sides, mouth open. He didn’t speak. He didn’t have to. The look in his eyes said it all.

“I warned you,” Anna said. “Nobody touches me like—”

Russ punched her square in the mouth. He moved so quickly that at first, I didn’t realize what had happened. One moment he was standing there. The next, he was swinging. He threw all his weight into the blow, his entire body moving in tandem with his fist. Teeth and blood flew through the air. Shrieking,
Anna stumbled backward. Her hands fluttered to her ruined lips. Blood spurted from between her fingers. Russ examined his still-clenched fist. A broken shard from one of her teeth jutted from his knuckle. Wincing, he pulled it out and stepped toward her. Blood welled up in the wound and dribbled across his fingers.

“Damn,” Stan the Man murmured. “Homeboy just smacked that old bitch right in the mouth.”

“Word,” Mad Mike added. “That’s some cold-ass shit right there.”

The rest of T’s group nodded in agreement. I resisted the urge to shoot the teens. Apparently, Drew felt the urge, too, because he pulled his pistol out of his wais-tband. It had been hidden beneath his flannel shirt. But instead of pointing it at T’s crew, he aimed it with one hand, alternating between Russ and Anna. The barrel bobbed up and down in tandem with his shaking hands. Drew’s eyes were narrowed. His lips were pressed together in a tight grimace. Clay stared at us, wide-eyed, trying to control the black-and-tan, whose howls had turned to growls. Drew’s aim returned to Russ. He seemed to have forgotten all about the dogs. He held the beagles’ leashes in one hand, and the dogs strained the leads to their limit.

“Hey!” I yanked out my own handgun and pointed it at Drew. “What the hell are you doing? Put that away, man. The fuck is wrong with you?”

With one hand clutching her face, Anna grabbed her knife. The blade shone in Olivia’s flashlight beam.

“Ya’ll get ready to jet,” T muttered to his friends. “Shit’s about to go down hard.”

“That’s not going to help you,” Russ told Anna, nodding at her knife.

He reached behind him and produced his gun. Anna whimpered, and her eyes widened. Russ grinned.

“Jesus,” Clevon gasped. “Oh, Jesus Christ…”

“Shoot her, man,” Cranston moaned. “We don’t need her kind around here. Especially not now. She’s part of the problem.”