Totentanz

Smashwords Edition published at Smashwords by
Crossroad Press

Copyright 2011 Al Sarrantonio

Cover design by David Dodd / Copy-Edited by
Patricia Lee Macomber

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http://mysticbubblesz.deviantart.com/

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Novels:

Moonbane

Skeletons

October

West Texas

Kitt Peak

The Boy With Penny Eyes

Haydn of Mars – Book I of the Masters of Mars
Trilogy

House Haunted

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Toybox

Halloween & Other
Seasons

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If it be summer, he is easy to see, for he
comes dressed in mourning, his breath smelling of retribution,
asking only for a kiss. . . .

—Anonymous

There was ice in the summer night, but it was
not in the trees or on the ground. It was not in the July air, hot
and close around them, as sticky as dried vanilla ice cream. Their
skin sweated because of the night, yet there was nothing but snow
in their bones. Ice, long shivers of it, ran through them like
clear cold blood.

"The box opened," Reggie
Carson said in a fierce whisper, leaning forward, spreading his
hands over his two friends like an Old Testament prophet, "and the
thing sat straight up, its waxy face running flesh, its eyeballs
popping out, and in its half-eaten hand it held . . .
the claw!"

Reggie tossed something at them, a mass of
twigs or pipe cleaners in the shape of a talon.

They jumped, and another wash of cool fright
broke over them and then rolled back.

Heat lightning flashed suddenly overhead,
illuminating the scene like a postcard: three boys on a hill in a
churchyard. Around them, like bumps on a blanket, sat a thousand
graves in neatly planted rows or older, jumbled clusters. Just
behind the three boys, on the summit of their grave hill, stood a
mystery vault, a squat, locked death box, its darkly mottled,
stained-glass windows like eyes, its big rectangular door like an
owl's hooting mouth. Another lightning flash, revealing those three
boys: Jack and Pup, sitting down, knees drawn up, a scattering of
candy wrappers and sandwich leavings around them, a knocked-over
can of Coke and a half-full bottle of orange soda between them,
their faces looking up expectantly at Reggie, who stood above them,
dark face momentarily still.

"Tell us about the tomb again," Jack said.
Long and lean, he stretched his legs out, pulling the creases out
of his jeans. He sometimes said he wanted to be a Marine, like his
father. Pup, with brighter, smaller eyes, was not quite fat but
might someday be so: he reached for the fallen Coke can and cursed
to find it nearly empty, its contents puddled on the ground.

"Yeah, tell us about that Jeff Scott guy, and
why they never put him in the crypt," Pup added.

"This one's real," Reggie said, and for a
moment disappointment crossed his friends' faces, as if his hinting
that the other story had not been real was a kind of betrayal: as
if to reinforce this, lightning shone once again. "Well, anyway, I
know this one's for real because it's in the town history books.
They call this the Tomb of the Unknown Man, not because they don't
know who he is, but because they don't know what happened to him.
It was built for a guy named Jeff Scott. I never found out what,
but the town did something to him, and so in nineteen twenty, a
long time after he died, they built him this crypt, to say they
were sorry, I guess. Only, when they went to dig up his old
grave"—Reggie pointed downhill to a ragged group of tilted
headstones around a huge oak tree, barely discernible in the night
except when the lightning illuminated it"—they found that he wasn't
in it. There was just a pile of churned-up dirt in the hole."

They had studied that grave site a hundred
times, the earth now patted down, the stone reading "Jeff Scott,
1846-1865," had put their hands upon it, had tried to draw meaning
and sustenance from it.

"What happened to him?" Pup asked. He knew
the good part was coming. He swatted at a mosquito, trapping it on
his palm and pinching it between his thumb and forefinger. He
watched the blot of bright red that came from it and then wiped his
hands on his pants.

Reggie's face grew serious. "Barney Bates
told me he rose up by himself and left Montvale and that someday
he's coming back." Slowly he looked around at the stone building
behind him, then back at the other boys. "I don't know what that
means, but Barney Bates says he's coming back not to sleep in this
tomb, but for revenge."

A delicious chill crept over Jack and Pup,
and they let it wrap around them for a few moments.

"Did you ever think there might be something
locked in there anyway?" Pup asked finally, pointing to the vault.
The feeling was fading, and he wanted to revive it. "Did you ever
think that maybe it's not empty? I think there's a bucket of bats
in there, or something worse. Maybe something that would come out
and kill everyone in Montvale."

Jack said to Pup, laughing, "It'd have a
tough time getting you. There's so much of you to get." A dark look
passed over Pup's face.

"Sometimes," Reggie said dreamily, "I do
think there's something in there, waiting for me." Cautiously they
looked around at the windows, imagining something moving behind the
stained glass.

"Jesus." Jack said, pointing to what looked
like motion—but it was only the weak reflection of a cloud across
the winking half-moon.

"Sometimes I really think there's something
in there." Reggie repeated. His voice was low and serious. Jack and
Pup looked at each other, and a smile passed between them because
they knew what was coming. They knew Reggie was going into one of
his real weird moods, one of his death moods, and nothing but a
good thrill would come of it.

Reggie said. "I think there's something in
there calling to me. I'd walk up there, the doors would swing open
and it would reach out, whatever it is." The other two boys
squirmed. Its touch would be warm, and then icy cold. Just a long
blue vapory arm, trailing off into the darkness behind it. The
fingers of the hands would tighten around me and begin to pull me
forward. I'd hear something inside, a scratching sound like nails
down a blackboard, but I wouldn't be able to get away from the grip
of the thing. It's reeling me into the darkness like I'm a
fish.–

Reggie's face resembled a sleepwalker's, and
his voice became a whisper. "Inside, the scratching sound stops.
And there's dead silence. It smells like damp wood in there. At the
door the hand stops, and then it pulls me inside. I hear the door
close slowly, and I struggle but I can't loosen the grip the thing
has on me. It's so wet and cold. I begin to shiver. I reach out to
the door, trying to stop it from closing. But it clangs shut, and
I'm in darkness."

Reggie's body was shaking as he spoke.

"And then," he went on, his
voice rising, "and then something with claws
reaches out in the dark and grabs me!
"

With a scream of laughter, he pulled two more
twig talons from his pockets and leaped at his two friends, bowling
them over. They rolled on the ground together, squealing, three
boys as one, and then they separated.

Reggie wiped tears of laughter from his eyes.
But as he glanced back at the sepulcher, a darkness crossed his
features again.

"You really had us going, man," Pup said.

Jack said, "I didn't believe it for a
second." They looked at him gravely, and he broke into a grin.

"Well...."

Reggie and Pup leaped on him, and they rolled
around again.

Another sheet of lightning glimmered off to
the west, making the sky purple and gray. This time there was
distant thunder, telling the boys that a different kind of
lightning was here, rolling toward them with a possible storm. To
reinforce this, a thin line of cloud moved across the moon, cutting
its half into a quarter. Lightning sparked yet again, and the
windows of the mausoleum winked, red and green and blue, and the
doorway mouth said "Ooooo" at them before blinking out into
darkness.

The three of them brooded.

"Hey, Reggie," Pup said, "tell us what it was
like to die."

Instantly the air changed.

"Maybe I shouldn't have said that," Pup
added, only half-sincerely, and Jack said, "Yeah, maybe you
shouldn't have, jerk."

They regarded Reggie, whose eyes were on the
ground.

"Not tonight, okay?" he said.

"You're not chicken, are you?" Pup asked
impulsively.

"Hey, Pup!" Jack pushed him.

"Just kidding," Pup protested.

"If you want to get heavy," Jack said, "why
don't you tell us about the time you shot the Wiggins' cat?"

Pup grew quickly angry, his heavy face
setting into blue blotches in the warm darkness. "I told you that
was an accident, didn't I? Even if it wasn't, the fucking cat
deserved it."

"Sure it was an accident?" Jack pursued.

"I said it was."

"Just kidding," Jack mimicked, backing off.
He held his hands up for peace. "Really, just kidding."

A silence dropped among them. A mood they had
carried with them for a long time had somehow fractured. For the
first time, without their being able to put a finger on how or why,
a crack was forming in their bond.

"Well, we're still the Three Musketeers,
aren't we?" Jack urged, sensing the change and not wanting it.