Summer of Night

  "Yessir."

  The sheriff scratched his cheek slowly, obviously not satisfied with something. "And what about his face, son?”His face, sir?" This was a new question.

  "Yes. Was it… strange? Lacerated or distorted in any way?"

  Not if you don't call turning itself into a sort of lamprey snout distorted, thought Mike. He said, "No, sir. I don't think so. He was pale. But it was pretty dark."

  "But you didn't see any scars or lesions?"

  "What are lesions, sir?"

  "Like deep scratches? Or open sores?"

  "No, sir."

  The sheriff sighed and reached into a small gym bag. "Is this yours, son?" He held the wafer pistol.

  Mike's first inclination was to deny it. "Yessir," he said.

  The sheriff nodded. "Your sister said it was. Aren't you a little old to be playing with squirt guns?"

  Mike shrugged and allowed himself to look embarrassed.

  "Did you have this out on the porch last night? When Father Cavanaugh was visiting?"

  "No," said Mike.

  "You're sure?"

  "Yessir."

  "We found it below the window," said the sheriff. He pushed his hat back on his head and smiled for the first time during the interview. "It shows how paranoid I'm getting in my old age… I had the police lab up at Oak Hill actually analyze the contents. Water. Just water." Mike returned the big man's smile. "Here, son. Here's your toy back. Is there anything else you can tell me that could help? Where this came from, for instance?" He held up the Soldier's campaign hat.

  "No, sir. Maybe it was in the bushes. Father C. had it on when he pulled the screen off."

  “And it's the same hat you saw when you reported a soldier as a Peeping Tom a few weeks ago?" "I guess so, sir. I don't know." "But it's the same style of hat?" "Yessir."

  "But you didn't recognize this soldier as your priest the other times you saw him out on the lawn?" The sheriff watched Mike very carefully.

  Mike thought a minute, just as he had the last couple of times he'd been asked this. "No, sir," he said at last. "Before I would've said it wasn't Father Cavanaugh… he seemed smaller the first time I saw him… but it was dark, and I was looking through the curtains." Mike made a confused gesture with his hands. "Sorry, sir."

  The tall man unlimbered from where he sat on the couch, touched Mike's shoulder with one large hand, and said, "That's all right, son. Thank you for your help. I'm sorry you had to see that last night. We may never know what was wrong with that gentleman… your Father Cavanaugh, I mean… but I doubt that he meant to do what he did. Whether it was the fever his doctors were talking about or whatever, I don't think the gentleman was in his right mind." "I don't either, sir," said Mike, walking the sheriff to the door. Mike's father and mother were waiting on the porch. All three of them waved as the sheriff's car moved away slowly down First.

  "Let's do it this afternoon," Harlen said in the treehouse an hour later. All of them were there… all except Cordie Cooke. Harlen and Dale had gone out to the dump just after breakfast to find her, but there was no sign except for some ratty blankets in a shattered lean-to near the railroad embankment.

  Mike sighed, too tired to argue. Dale said, "We've been over this, Jim."

  Kevin was thumbing through a Scrooge McDuck comic-something about finding Viking gold to judge from the cover-but he put it down to say, "We're waiting till morning. I'm not going to steal Dad's truck right in front of him. We have to convince him that somebody else took it and sprayed Old Central with gas."

  Harlen snorted. "Who? All the suspects are ending up dead. This'11 be the goddamnedist week in the history of Elm Haven, and somebody's gonna figure out that we had something to do with it sooner or later…"

  "Not if you keep your big trap shut," said Dale.

  "Who's going to make me, Stewart?" sneered Harlen.

  The two boys leaned toward each other until Mike pushed them apart." "Cool it.” His voice was very tired.”One thing's for sure, we're not going to sleep apart tonight and let those things pick us off one by one."

  "Right," said Harlen, settling back against a huge limb,"let's all get together so they can pick us off in one big gulp."

  Mike shook his head. "Two teams. My folks've already said I could stay with Dale and Lawrence tonight. They think I just want to get out of the house because of last night.”

  The boys said nothing.

  "Harlen, you got it cleared to spend the night at Kev's?"

  "Yeah."

  "Good. That way we can keep in touch all night with the walkie-talkies."

  Dale tore a leaf from a branch and began stripping it into smaller and smaller pieces. "Sounds good. Then we load the tanker with gas in the morning and spray the school. Just after first light, right?"

  "Right," said Mike. He turned toward Kevin. "Grum-bacher, you sure you can drive it?"

  Kev raised an eyebrow. "I told you I could, didn't I?"

  "Yeah, but we don't want any surprises come tomorrow morning."

  "No surprises," said Kevin. "My father lets me drive it on back roads every once in a while. I can do the gears. I can reach the pedals. I can get it to the schoolyard."

  "Coast it out quietly," said Dale. "We don't want your folks waking up."

  Kevin moved his chin up and down slowly. "Their bedroom's in the basement, and they've got the air conditioning going. That'll help."

  Lawrence had been silent but now he leaned into the group. "You guys really think that whatever's in that school's just going to sit and wait for us to do something? That it's not going to fight back?"

  Mike snapped a twig. "It's been fighting back. I think it's running out of allies to fight with."

  "Nobody can find Dr. Roon," said Harlen. He scratched at his cast. It was scheduled to come off in a few days and the itching was driving him nuts.

  "The lady that rents his room says he's on vacation in Minnesota," said Kevin.

  "And the Soldier's still out there somewhere," said Mike.

  No one made a joke this time.

  "And old Double-Butt and her partner," said Harlen. "And the burrowing things. And Tubby."

  "Minus his hand," said Dale. "He can't give us the finger." No one laughed.

  "That's seven of 'em right there," said Lawrence, who'd been counting on his fingers. "There's only five of us."

  "Plus Cordie," said Dale. "Sometimes."

  Lawrence made a face. "I don't count girls. Seven of them… not counting the bell thing itself… and only five of us."

  "Yeah," said Mike,"but we've got a secret weapon." He took his squirt gun out of his belt and shot Lawrence in the face.

  The eight-year-old spluttered. Dale shouted, "Hey, don't waste it!"

  "Don't worry," said Mike, setting it back in his belt. "That's not holy water. I'm saving it for later."

  "Did you get the other thing?" said Harlen. "The bread stuff?"

  "The Eucharist," said Mike He chewed his lip. "Uh-uh, I wasn't able to. Father Dinmen came over from Oak Hill this morning to say Mass, but he locked the church afterward. I can't get in. I was lucky to grab the last of the holy water after the service."

  "You've got that half you kept with your grandmother," Dale reminded him.

  Mike's head moved slowly back and forth. "Nope, that stays with Memo. Dad's home tonight, but I'm not taking any chances."

  Dale started to say something but at that minute they heard the cry "Kev-INNNN," echoing down Depot Street. They all scrambled down out of the oak.

  "See you after dinner!" Dale called to Mike as he and his brother ran for home.

  Mike nodded and walked back to the house, pausing by the outhouse to watch the black clouds that were moving low over the fields. Despite the apparent motion of the clouds, there was no breeze. The light had a yellowish tinge.

  Mike went in to wash up and to pack his bedroll and pajamas for the sleepover.

  THIRTY-SIX

  Mr. Dennis Ashley-Montague sat in the back of his black limou
sine and stared at the passing cornfields and crossroads towns during the hour drive to Elm Haven. Tyler, his head butler, chauffeur, and bodyguard, did not speak, and Mr. Ashley-Montague saw no reason to break the silence. The limousine's tinted windows always imparted a certain element of storm light to the view, so Mr. Ashley-Montague did not take undue notice of the dark skies and sickly light that lay over the forests and fields and rivers like a rotting curtain on the verge of opening.

  Elm Haven's Main Street was emptier than usual, even for a Saturday night, and when Mr. Ashley-Montague stepped out of the limousine at Bandstand Park, the darkness overhead was immediately perceptible. Instead of the usual scores of families waiting patiently on the grass, only a few faces watched Tyler carry the massive projector from the limousine's trunk to the bandstand. A handful of other trucks and cars pulled in to park diagonally while Tyler was arranging the speakers and other equipment, but overall the turnout was one of the lowest in the nineteen years that the Ashley-Montagues had been providing this free Saturday-evening entertainment for the dying little town.

  Dennis Ashley-Montague returned to the backseat of the limousine, locked the doors, and poured a tall glass of Glenli-vet unblended Scotch from the bar set into the soundproofed partition behind the driver. He had considered not coming tonight-not allowing any more Free Shows-but the tradition ran deep and his sense of being the village squire to this assortment of inbred bumpkins and rednecks served a certain perverse purpose in his life.

  And he wanted to speak to the boys.

  He had seen them at previous Free Shows over the years; their grimy little faces watching the movie as if it were some bright miracle, their cheeks protruding with gum and popcorn… but he had never really looked at one until that fat boy-the one whose friend said he had been killed-had questioned him on the bandstand over a month earlier. Then that amazing little fellow who had shown up at Mr. Ashley-Montague's front door… he had actually had the temerity to steal a leatherbound copy of Crowley's translation of The Book of the Law. Mr. Ashley-Montague saw nothing in that book that could help the boys if his grandfather's Stele of Revealing were actually awakening from its long slumber. Mr. Ashley-Montague knew of nothing that could help any of them if that were the case, himself included.

  The millionaire finished his drink and strolled back to the bandstand, where Tyler had finished his final arrangements. It was not yet eight-thirty in the evening… usually the twilight would linger another thirty minutes in these latitudes… but the clouds had brought night early.

  Mr. Ashley-Montague felt a great sense of claustrophobia seize him: from where he stood the town seemed sealed in by eight-foot-tall corn-to the south beyond the ruins of his ancestral mansion, to the north four long blocks up the dark tunnel of Broad Avenue, west only a few hundred yards to where the Hard Road doglegged to the north, and east down the silent gauntlet of Main Street with its dark shops. The timer had not yet turned on the streetlights.

  Mr. Ashley-Montague did not see the boys he was looking for. He saw Charles Sperling, the bratty son of that Sperling man who had had the sheer temerity to approach Mr. Ashley-Montague for a loan for some business venture, and next to him the flat-faced, overly muscled Taylor boy-his grandfather had received capital injections from Dennis Ashley-Montague's grandfather in exchange for some favors of forgetfulness at the time of the Scandal.

  But few other children, and not many families tonight. Perhaps they were worried that a tornado was coming.

  Mr. Ashley-Montague checked the darkening yellow sky and realized that no birds were making a racket as they usually did in the tall trees here at sunset. There was no insect noise whatsoever. No breeze moved the branches, and even the darkness had a yellowish tinge to it.

  The millionaire lighted a cigarette, rested on the railing of the bandstand, and considered where he would take cover if the sirens suddenly warned of an approaching tornado. There were no homes open to him here and he would not go to the ruins of the mansion, despite the wine cellar still intact there, since the workmen clearing the place had found the suspicious tunnels burrowed through solid rock there last fall.

  No, Mr. Ashley-Montague decided, if there were solid warning of a tornado or serious storm, he would simply get back in the limousine and have Tyler drive him home. Tornadoes might smash little towns like Elm Haven, but they did not bother with luxury vehicles on the highway, and there was no record of one ever touching down along Grand View Drive.

  He nodded to Tyler and the other man cued up the first cartoon and switched on the projector lamp. There was a smattering of halfhearted applause from the few people on their benches and blankets. Tom and Jerry began chasing each other around a primary-colored house while Mr. Ashley Montague smoked another cigarette and watched the skies south of town.

  "Tornado, do you think?" said Dale as they stood on the porch of his house and looked down Second Avenue. Few cars passed on the Hard Road and those that did had their lights on and were going slowly.

  "I don't know," said Mike. They'd all seen tornado weather before-it was the bane of the Midwest and the one form of weather most of their parents feared-but those bruise-black clouds to the south had seemed to be building for days now. The sky there seemed like a negative emulsion of daytime, the trees and rooftops illuminated by the last of a yellow light while the sky was like the opening to a black abyss. A faint ripple of greenish light along the horizon of cornstalks suggested lightning, but there were no actual flashes as such, no visible lightning strokes, only an occasional surge of green-white phosphoresence that got the old-timers at the store talking about chain lightning and ball lightning and other phenomena that they knew nothing about.

  Mike lifted the walkie-talkie and keyed transmit. Two clicks came back, showing that Kevin was listening.

  "Can you talk?" Mike said softly into the radio, not playing around with codes or call signs.

  "Yeah," responded Kevin's voice. Even though the other boy was less than a hundred feet away in the ranch house next door, the transmission was broken up by static and hissing. It was as if the atmosphere was boiling on some plane they couldn't see.

  "We're going to go inside and turn in," said Mike. "Unless you guys want to go down to the Free Show."

  "Ha ha," came Harlen's voice. Mike could just imagine the smaller boy grabbing the radio.

  "You guys all tucked in over there?" asked Dale, leaning close to Mike's walkie-talkie.

  "Very funny," said Harlen. "We're watching Grum-belly's TV in the basement. The bad guys just kidnapped Miss Kitty."

  Dale grinned." "They kidnap Miss Kitty every week. I think Matt should just let them have her.”

  Kevin's voice came back, low and tense. "I have the key for the morning."

  Mike sighed. "Roger that. You guys have pleasant dreams tonight… but make sure you've got fresh batteries and leave the line open."

  "Roger' was Kev's laconic reply. The static crackled and popped.

  The three boys went upstairs to Dale and Lawrence's bedroom. Mrs. Stewart had set up an extra cot under the south window; she had been very understanding that Mike was upset after the previous day's terrible accident with Father Cavanaugh. She didn't mind a bit if Mike slept over. Mr. Stewart was going to be home early Sunday afternoon and perhaps all of them could go on a picnic down along the Spoon or Illinois rivers.

  They got into their pajamas. They would have preferred staying dressed this night, but Dale's mom would surely check in on them and they didn't want any problems. They kept their clothes laid out, and Dale set the small alarm clock for four forty-five. He noticed that his hand was shaking slightly as he wound the clock.

  They lay on their beds, Mike on his cot, reading comics and talking about everything except what they were thinking about.

  "I wish we could've gone to the Free Show," Lawrence said during a lull in the talk about the Chicago Cubs. "That new Vincent Price movie's playing-The House ofUsser."

  "House of Usher," said Dale. "It's from an Edgar All
an Poe story. Remember when I read you the 'Masque of the Red Death' last Halloween?" Dale felt a strange pang of sorrow and it took him a moment to realize that it had been Duane who had told him about the wonderful Poe stories and poems. He looked at his nightstand, where Duane's notebooks were carefully banded together. Downstairs, the phone rang twice. They could hear the muffled tones of Dale's mom answering it.

  "Whatever," said Lawrence, putting his hands behind his head on the pillow. His pajamas showed little cowboys on rearing Palominos. "I just wish we could see the movie." Mike set down his Batman comic. He was wearing nonde script blue pajama bottoms with his t-shirt. "You don't want to walk home in the dark, do you? Your mom didn't want to go because of the storm, and I don't think it's a great night to be wandering the streets."

  There came the sound of footsteps on the stairs and Mike glanced toward his duffel bag, but Dale said, "It's mom."

  She stood in the doorway, attractive in her soft white summer dress.”That was Aunt Lena. Uncle Henry's hurt his back again… trying to move some stumps out of that back pasture… and now he can't unbend at all. Dr. Viskes has prescribed some painkillers, but you know how Lena hates to drive. She wonders if I could bring the pills out."

  Dale sat up in bed. "The pharmacy's closed."

  "I called Mr. Aikins. He'll go down and open it up to fill the prescription." She glanced out the window at the ripple of lightning still outlining trees and homes to the south. "I'm not sure I want to leave you guys here with a storm coming. Do you want to come along?"

  Dale started to speak, then looked at Mike, who nodded at the walkie-talkie on the floor next to him. Dale understood: if they went out to Uncle Henry's, they'd be out of touch with Kevin and Harlen. They'd promised.

  "Uh-uh," said Dale. "We'll be OK here."

  His mother looked out at the storm-tinged darkness. "You're sure?"

  Dale grinned and waved a comic. "Sure… we've got snacks and pop and comics… what more could we want?"

  She smiled. "All right. I'll just be gone twenty minutes or so. Call the farm if you need me." She glanced at her watch. "It's almost eleven. Be thinking about putting out the lights in a few minutes."