Summer of Night

  Mike felt the shivering in him again and recognized the onset of flu. "But I didn't imagine the Soldier. I swear. I saw him."

  Mr. O'Rourke had a broad, friendly face, heavy jowls, the remnants of a thousand childhood freckles that he had passed on to all of his children-much to the dismay of three of his four daughters. Now his jowls shook slightly as he nodded. "I believe you saw something. I also think you're getting sick from staying up nights to catch this Peeping Tom…"

  Mike wanted to protest. This was no Peeping Tom. But he knew it was better to keep his mouth shut right now.

  "… you get up to bed, let your mother take your temperature," his father was saying. "I'll move the cot downstairs to Memo's room and sleep in there for a while. I don't go on nights again at the brewery until a week from yesterday." He set the baseball bat aside, went to the locked pantry, fumbled the key from the crack over the sill, and brought out Memo's 'squirrel gun'-a short-barreled shotgun with a pistol grip. "And if that… soldier… comes around again, he'll get more than a Louisville Slugger."

  Mike wanted to say something but he felt actually dizzy from relief and the fever that he felt now as a pounding in his ears and a general lightheadedness. He hugged his father and turned away before tears came.

  His mother stepped into the room, frowning but gentle as she hustled him upstairs to bed.

  Mike was in bed for four days. At times the fever was so bad that he found himself awakening from dreams only to find that the awakening was a dream. He did not dream about the Soldier, or Duane McBride, or any of the things that had been haunting him: mostly he dreamt about St. Malachy's and saying Mass with Father Cavanaugh. Only in his fever dreams, it was he-Mike-who was the priest, and Father C. was a little kid in an oversized cassock and surplice who kept screwing up his responses despite the laminated card with printed lines lying right there on the altar step where the boy/man knelt. Mike dreamt that he was consecrating the Eucharist, lifting the Host high in the most sacred moment a Catholic could experience, much less actually perform…

  The strange part of the dream was that St. Malachy's was now a vast cavern and there was no congregation. Only dark shapes that moved just beyond the circle of light generated by the altar candles. And, in his dream, Mike knew that the altar boy Father C. was messing up his Latin responses because he was afraid of that dark and the things in it. But as long as the dream-priest Michael O'Brian O'Rourke was holding the Eucharist high, as long as he was whispering the sacred and magical words of the High Mass, he would be safe enough.

  Beyond the cone of light, large things circled and waited.

  Jim Harlen was thinking that this was the summer that wasn't. First he breaks his goddamn arm and busts his skull open and loses his memory of how he did it-the face is just a dream, only a nightmare-and then when he finally gets well enough to get out and about, one of the guys he knows gets killed in some dumbass farm accident and the others seemed to have retreated to their houses like turtles pulling in their dumbshit heads. And, of course, there was the rain. Weeks of rain.

  The first few weeks he was home, his ma stayed home every night, rushed to get him things when he was hungry and thirsty, and sat and watched TV with him. It was almost like the old days, minus his dad, of course. Harlen had been nervous as hell when the Stewarts had invited his ma to go with them out to Dale's Uncle Henry's place-Ma had the habit of drinking too much, laughing too loud, and generally making a drunken asshole of herself-but the evening had turned out pretty well, actually. Harlen hadn't talked a whole lot, but he'd sort of enjoyed being with his buddies and listening, even when the McBride kid was talking about interstellar travel and time-space continuums and a bunch of stuff that Harlen had no fix on whatsoever. Still, it'd been a pretty good night… Duane McBride's getting killed excepted.

  Harlen's accident and long stay in the hospital had given him a different outlook on death; it was something he'd heard and smelled and come close to… the old guy in the next room who wasn't there the morning after all the nurses and doctors had rushed in there with a cart… and he had no intention of coming close to it again for another sixty or seventy years, thank you. McBride's death had rattled him, he admitted it to himself, but that kind of shit is what happened when you lived on a farm and screwed around with tractors and plows and shit like that.

  Harlen's ma didn't spend every evening with him anymore. She snapped at him now when he didn't make his bed or pick up his breakfast dishes. He still complained of headaches, but the heavy cast had come off and even with the sling-which Harlen thought was sort of romantic, it should knock Michelle Staffney right out of her lacey pants if he got invited to her birthday party on the fourteenth-even with the sling, the lighter cast didn't create quite that much sympathy in his mother. Or perhaps she'd used up all the sympathy she could spare. Occasionally she'd be sweet and talk to him in that soft, slightly apologetic voice she'd used during the week or so after the accident, but more and more now she just snapped or reverted to the silence that had lain between them for so long.

  Many weekend nights now, she wasn't there at all.

  At first she'd paid Mona Shepard to come over and watch him. Actually it was Harlen who watched Mona, always trying to get a glimpse of the sixteen-year-old's tits or a shot up her skirt. Mona teased him sometimes… like leaving the bathroom door open a little bit when she was taking a leak and then shouting at him when he tiptoed up to it. But mostly she ignored him-Ma might as well have been home-and frequently she made him go to bed early so she could call one of her limpdick boyfriends over. Harlen hated the sounds he heard coming up from the living room; he hated his reaction to them. He wondered if O'Rourke was right and you went blind if you did it enough. Anyway, he'd threatened Mona that he was going to tell his ma all about the little panting sessions on the divan, so she stayed away. Ma was pissed that Mona was always busy and there was hardly anyone else to call this summer-the O'Rourke girls used to baby-sit, but they were too busy panting in the backseats of cars this summer.

  So Harlen stayed home alone a lot.

  Sometimes he went out, riding his bike-although he was forbidden by the doctor to do so until the second cast came off. It wasn't hard riding one-handed. Hell, he'd ridden no-handed enough times, and so had everybody else in that sissy Bike Patrol club they used to have. Only it was a little trickier with a cast.

  He'd ridden down to the Free Show on the ninth of July, expecting to see a repeat of Somebody Up There Likes Me, a boxing movie that Mr. A.-M. had shown a few summers ago; everybody'd liked it so much that he brought it back every summer. Only instead of the movie, Harlen found Bandstand Park empty except for a couple of hick farm families who-like him-hadn't got the word that the thing'd been canceled for the third Saturday in a row because of rotten weather.

  But the weather wasn't rotten. The almost nightly storms had held off this night, the sunlight was low and rich across long yards where the grass was growing as you watched it. Harlen hated the fact that the yards were so damned big around here, almost fields although they were all tidily mowed. There were almost no fences and it was hard to tell where one yard ran into the next. He wasn't sure why he hated it, but he knew that yards weren't supposed to be like that; they didn't look that way in the TV shows he liked… Naked City, for example. There weren't any yards at all in the Naked City. Eight million stories, but no damn yards.

  Harlen had ridden his bike around town that night, oblivious of night falling until the bats came and started screeching against the sky. By habit, he'd stayed away from the school-it was one of the reasons he didn't go up to see Stewart and those dickheads more often-but he found that even pedaling down Main or Broad in the dark made him nervous.

  He turned left on Church Street to avoid Mrs. Doubbet's place-not sure why he did it even as he did so-and pedaled fast through the dark stretches down there where the houses were smaller and the streetlights few and farther between. There were bright lights around O'Rourke's dinky little church and the priest pla
ce next to it, and Harlen tarried there on the corner a minute before turning up West End Drive, the narrow and poorly lighted lane that led up to his house and the old depot.

  He was moving fast, pedaling hard, confident that nobody could catch him in the dark sections between pole lights-unless they stuck an arm in the spokes and sent you hurtling, then moved in on you-that no one could catch him. He shook his head as he pedaled, the moist air a breeze in his short hair, trying to get rid of the bad thoughts. Goddamn her. She won't be home until one or two, if then. I'll watch the late show again. No, dammit. Its the Creature Feature on Channel 19. Can't watch that.

  Harlen decided he'd play the radio real loud, maybe get into Ma's stash of bottles in the bottom of the buffet again. He found if he measured them real carefully and filled them up to the mark with water when he was done, she'd never notice. She'd probably never notice anyway because she was always putting new bottles in there or slurping from the old ones when she was tipsy. He'd listen to the radio, playing the rock-and-roll stuff real loud, and have a few drinks mixed with Coke the way he liked it.

  He passed the depot at full speed-the place had always given him the willies, even when he was little-and skidded around the broad corner onto Depot Street. He could see the long three blocks down the street-they'd be at least seven or eight city blocks in a real city, he knew, it was just here they were longer because they didn't have enough streets-all the way down the tunnel of branches and leaf-shadow and half-hidden lights and porches to where Stewart and old Grumpy-backer lived.

  And the school.

  He shook his head and wheeled into the drive, sliding to a stop by the garage and sticking his bike under the overhang.

  Ma wasn't home; the Rambler was still gone. All the lights were on, just like he'd left them. Harlen started for the back door.

  Something moved in front of the light in his room upstairs.

  Harlen paused, one hand still on the doorknob. Ma was home. The goddamn car'd broken down again, or one of her new boyfriends had given her a lift because she'd had too much to drink. Christ, he was going to catch hell for being out of the house after dark. He'd tell her that Dale and his little Father-Knows-Best family had come by to take him to the Free Show. She'd never know that it'd been canceled.

  The shadow moved in front of the light again.

  What the hell's she doing poking around my room? With a sudden flush of guilt he thought of the new magazines he'd bought from Archie Kreck and hidden under the floorboard. She'd found and thrown out all his old ones while he was in the hospital, although she hadn't yelled at him about it for more than two weeks after he came home.

  Blushing, cold with the thought of the confrontation-especially if she was tipsy-Harlen took three steps back toward the garage, trying to think of something. Maybe they're Mona's. Yeah, or one of her boyfriends'. She put them there. If she denies it, I'll tell Ma about the condom I found floating in the toilet the last time she was over to baby-sit.

  He took a breath. It wasn't perfect, but it was better than nothing. He glanced up, trying to see if she was going through his closet.

  It wasn't Ma.

  The woman in his room crossed the lighted rectangle of window again. He caught a glimpse of a rotted-looking sweater, humped back, tendrils of white hair gleaming on a too-small head.

  Harlen moved blindly away from the back door, backed into his bike. It fell and hit the garage door with a resounding racket.

  The shadow eclipsed his light again. A face pressed against the window and looked down at him.

  The face… looking at him… turning and looking at him.

  Harlen fell to his knees, vomited on the gravel of the pavement, wiped his mouth with his sleeve, and was up and on his bike, pedaling like mad, away from the house before the shadow even left the window. He did not look back as he roared down Depot Street, swerving wildly as if someone were shooting at him, trying to stay close to the few streetlights. C. J. Congden, Archie Kreck, and a few of their punk friends were sitting on the hoods of some cars parked op the dirt lawn of J.P."s place and they screamed something nasty at him over the blare of their car radios.

  Harlen didn't pause or look back. He skidded to a stop at the wide intersection of Depot and Broad. Old Central was straight ahead. Double-Butt's and Mrs. Duggan's place was to the right.

  The face at the window. Holes where the eyes should be. Maggots under the tongue. Teeth glistening.

  In my room!

  Harlen hung over the handlebars, panting, trying not to throw up again. Down Depot Street a block, where the school lights still glowed through the elms there, the black silhouette of a truck turned left from Third and came his way.

  The Rendering Truck. He could smell it.

  Harlen pedaled north on Broad. The trees were huge here, overhanging even the thirty-foot-wide street, the shadows deep. But there were more porch lights and streetlights.

  He could hear the truck approaching the intersection behind him, grinding up through gears. Harlen clattered up onto the sidewalk, bounced across tilted paving stones there, and swerved down a driveway. There were barns back here, gar ages, and endless yards all interconnected without fences. He thought he was passing Dr. Staffney's place when a dog ahead of him went wild, barking and tugging at a clothesline leash, teeth gleaming in the yellow light from the back porch.

  Harlen swerved left, skidded into the cinder-paved alley that ran behind the barns and garages, continued north. He could hear the truck coming up Broad even over the wild sound of all the dogs going crazy on the block. He had no idea where he was going.

  He'd think of something.

  Dale Stewart dropped his flashlight and ran through the thigh-deep water, screaming for his mother, striking a wall in the darkness and bouncing backward, stunned, losing his balance. He fell into black iciness up to his neck and screamed again when something under the water nudged his bare arm. He struggled to his feet and waded ahead, not sure of which way he was going in the almost absolute darkness of the basement.

  What if I'm heading back toward the back room? Back toward the sump-pump hole?

  He didn't care. He couldn't stand there in the midnight blackness, water swirling around his legs like cold oil, and wait for the damned thing to find him. He imagined the Tubby-thing opening that dead mouth wider, those long exposed teeth sinking into his leg under the water.

  Dale quit imagining and concentrated on running, crashing into something that might have been his dad's workbench in the second room or maybe the laundry bench in the back room. He spun to his left, went to all fours again in water suddenly warm as urine or blood, and then staggered forward, seeing-thinking that he saw-a rectangle of somewhat lesser darkness that might have been the door from the workroom to the furnace room.

  He crashed into something hollow and echoing, cutting his forehead but not caring. The furnace! Go right, around it. Find the corridor past the coal bin… He shouted again, hearing his mother's answering screams mixing with his own cries in the echoing maze. There was the sound of something sliding through the water behind him and he turned to see it, could see nothing, staggered backward again, struck some thing harder than the furnace or hopper, and went face forward into the water… tasting the sewage-and-black-soil foulness of it mixing with the salt-sweetness of blood in his mouth.

  Arms closed around him, hands forced him deeper and then lifted him.

  Dale kicked and clawed and thrashed at the force. His face went under again and then was pulled against wet wool.

  "Dale! Dale, stop it! Stop it! Calm down… it's Mom. Dale!" She did not slap him but the words had the same effect. He went limp, trying not to whimper but thinking of the dark water all around. It'll trap us both. It'll cut us off and pull us down.

  His mother was helping him slosh through the corridor, the water somehow much shallower here. He could see the weak light now from the winding staircase. His mother hugged him tighter to her as his shaking began in earnest.

  "It's all r
ight," she said, although she was shaking too as they climbed the oversized stairs. "It's OK," she whispered as they went out-not into the kitchen but through the outside door-out into rich afternoon sunlight, staggering away from the house like two survivors of an accident trying to put distance between themselves and the wreckage.

  They collapsed onto the lawn under the small apple tree, both of them wet and shaking, Dale blinking and half-blinded by the light. The heat and sunlight and color seemed unreal, a dream after the nightmare reality of the darkness and dead thing under the water… he shut his eyes and concentrated on not shaking.

  Mr. Grumbacher had been mowing his yard on the riding mower, and Dale heard the engine die, heard the man shout-asking if anything was wrong-and then came the long strides across the grass. Dale tried to explain without sounding insane.

  "Some… some… something under the w-w-water," he said, furious that his teeth were chattering so. "Someth-thing tried to g-gr-grab me." His mother was hugging him, reassuring him, making jokes, her voice on the verge of tears. Mr. Grumbacher looked down-he was tall and was wearing the same gray uniform he wore each day to drive the milk truck; it made him look official somehow-and then he was gone and Dale's mother hugged him again and told him it was all right, and then Mr. Grumbacher was back, Kevin standing in the door of their ranch house and looking curiously across the broad lawn at them sprawled under the apple tree, and there was a blanket around Dale's shoulders and his mother's, and then Mr. Grumbacher was going through then-door, down into the basement…

  "Don't!" screamed Dale in spite of himself. He tried to smile. "Please don't go down there."

  Mr. Grumbacher glanced back at Kevin, still staring from the doorway. He motioned him back, tapped a long five-cell flashlight in his hand, and closed the screen door. The basement stairs descended from an enclosed little anteroom on the alley side of the kitchen; it kept the cold out in winter; they hung their extra coats on nails on the landing. It was waiting for them down there. Mr. Grumbacher wouldn't have a chance.