Glimpses: The Best Short Stories of Rick Hautala Page 14

  That was a foolish thing to say since it was already all the way dark. Stars sprinkled the deep purple sky.

  I didn't notice that I was backin' up toward the fallen stone, but when my foot tripped up on somethin', maybe the edge of the stone, I fell backwards onto the surface of that cold stone. I grunted softly as I twisted around 'n managed to bang my knees on the edge of the gravestone. It took off a coupla layers of skin from my knees, but that ain't why I let fly a scream.

  Hell no, I was scared ... scared right outta my mind!

  I rolled off the stone 'n onto the soggy ground, tuckin' my head down 'n puilin' my legs up tight to my chest as if that was gonna protect me or somethin'. George was laughin' at me, ‘n the sound stung my ears. When I finally dared to look up, though, in the faint light of the stars overhead, I noticed somethin' on the stone—some writin' or somethin' we hadn't noticed before. Maybe our pushin' had removed enough of the crud coverin' it, or else I just had the right angle to see it. I crawled toward the stone on my hands 'n knees, tryin' to make out what I saw written there.

  "Look at this!" I said. My hand shook like a branch in the wind as I pointed at the stone.

  The years had all but erased the letterin', but by tracin' each letter with my finger, I was able to spell out the name—"S-T-E-P-H-E-N-L-O-G-A-N. .. Stephen Logan!" My voice threatened to break into a scream. "It says Stephen Logan!"

  George looked at me, 'n I could tell by the expression on his face that he was 'bout ready to pass out. His face was white as a sheet.

  "What the—?" he said, but then his voice cut off like he was chokin' on somethin'. He started moving toward me. His throat all the while was makin' this weird clickin' sound.

  "That's what's carved on the stone here," I said, surprising myself by the sound of my voice. I stood up stiffly and rubbed my hands on my shirt again. "Is this someone ... someone from your family who’s buried here?"

  For the first time in my life, I saw surprise and, I think it'd be fair to say, genuine fear on George's face.

  "That was my ... my grandfather's name!" George said softly. One of his hands was coverin' his face, so the words was muffled. "I was ... named after him—George Stephen Logan!"

  "What the heck's he doin' buried out here?" I asked.

  I was hopin' a sensible question might calm him down, but I gotta admit, I was scared out of my knickers, too.

  Damned questions!

  You see? That's how trouble always starts!

  George shrugged and shook his head.

  "I dunno," he said. "I mean, all my mother's ever told me 'bout him was I was named after him. He died a long time before I was born."

  "But why's he buried out here?" I asked. My voice was shooting up the scale like one of them thermometers in them cartoons.

  My cut knee was startin' to sting. My legs were soaked up to the knees. My arms 'n shoulders were wicked sore from pushing against the tombstone. All I wanted to do was get back to camp 'n clean myself up before supper. I knew we was gonna catch a lickin' for bein' out so late and being so far from the camp. My mom was probably out in the yard, hollering for us, and we was too far away to hear her.

  But I could face the prospect of a lickin’ a heck of a lot easier than I could the idea that George's grandfather was buried out here in the middle of the woods ... that his body was right down there where we'd moved the stone from.

  George was about to say somethin' when I saw—I swear to God I saw somethin' movin' behind him. He had his back to the gravestone, 'n I swear to Christ one of them darker shadows under the trees started to, like, shift and move toward us. All I could do was whimper and point weakly at the hole in the ground behind George when I realized that the shadow was comin' up out of the hole.

  Just as he turned around to look, we both heard … somethin'—a deep, hollow sound … like someone sighin'.

  I know we both heard it 'cause George looked at me, his eyes wide with terror. I couldn't look away from the spot above the grave where I could see this shadow gettin' bigger ‘n thicker 'n blacker. It was takin' on a human shape. ‘N then it started to move. What looked like this long, black arm reached out toward us. With a terrified scream, I turned and started to run.

  I wasn't aware of anythin'—my mind was a blank as I ran. I didn't feel the water I splashed through or the branches that slapped against my face. I didn't even hear George runnin' along behind me. 'N I certainly wasn't about to turn around 'n look! All I could think was that black shape was comin' after us, bearin' down on us from behind. That drove my feet with a speed they ain't seen before nor since, I'll tell you that much.

  It must've been luck more 'n anythin' else that kept me on the path back to the camp. I was in such a panic I sure as hell had no idea where I was goin’. The woods were pitch dark by then. I couldn't even see my own feet as they beat against the soggy ground. One thought I remember was thinkin' how strange it was that George hadn't caught up with me yet. He'd always been a better runner than me. I figured maybe he'd lit out across Holland's field, but I just kept runnin'. I knew, sure as shit, that shadow was comin’ up behind me, getting closer.

  Finally, up ahead through the trees, miraculously, I saw the camp lights. The back porch light was on, 'n I could see two people—mine and George's mom—sittin' on the steps. I made that light my goal as I pumped my arms like they was pistons 'n gave it a final burst of energy.

  I broke out of the woods near them moss-covered stones where George 'n me'd been sittin' earlier that afternoon. Racin' frantically across the lawn, trippin’ ‘n stumblin’, I tried to call out, but I couldn’t make a sound other than my ragged breathin’. I was halfway to the camp when my foot snagged on a tree root or somethin', 'n down I went, face-first on the grass.

  Panic still had me in its grip, and I let out a howl as I rolled over onto my back and started scramblin' backwards, like a crab. All the while, I was staring at the woods behind me.

  Everything was pitch dark, but I collapsed on the ground 'n cried out shrilly when one of them shadows under the trees that was darker than the night moved straight toward me.

  It came on silently, with a swiftness ‘n a purpose that riveted me to the ground. I tried to get back up and run but couldn't.

  The shadow rushed at me out of the woods like a black freight train or somethin'. I knew it was gonna flatten me right then and there. I tightened myself up into a ball 'n waited, knowing I was gonna die.

  And then, with a sudden whoosh, it was on me, touchin' me with cold, clammy hands that slid across me like slime. The shadow wrapped around me so tight I couldn't breathe. The left side of my face felt like it was on fire, 'n then it rushed past me, shooting up into the air and dissolving into the night sky, leavin' behind this wicked nauseatin' stench of swamp water and rot. After that, I fainted.

  Hours later—warm 'n dry 'n tucked into my bed with clean, fresh sheets—I woke up. I had a thick pad of bandage on the left side of my face. Soon as my eyes were open, I started babblin' 'bout what happened. I kept askin' if George was back home yet—if he was okay. My mom just smiled weakly and, tucking the blanket up under my chin, told me to get some sleep. When she left the room, I wouldn't let her turn out the light.

  'T'wasn't until the next day, round 'bout noon, that they finally told me what had happened to George.

  After my mom heard me 'n found me sprawled on the lawn, she and George's mom carried me inside. I started talkin' real crazy, they said, like I was out of my head, but once they pieced together what we'd done, George's father called the Windham police 'n then headed out to the grave site alone. It wasn't until later, once I thought about it, that I realized he went straight out there like he'd known all along where that grave was. I was told he found George not twenty feet from the opened grave. He was dead, lyin' facedown in the black muck.

  Years later, before she died, my mom told me the doctor said George had died of cardiac arrest.

  A heart attack!

  Can you believe it?

&nbs
p; I'm an old man now. I've had to live with this fair to middlin' sized scar on the left side of my face my whole life. Now, I've had a bit of heart trouble my whole life, too, so I know what it's like to have a bad ticker. But one of the questions I have after all these years is—how in the hell does a ten-year-old boy die of a heart attack?

  Sure, I know all about them congenital diseases 'n such, but still ... You can’t convince me George didn't die of pure fright.

  'N that's somethin' I've been wonderin' about my whole life.

  What in the blazes did George see that could do that to him?

  What was down there under that stone, what did we release from that hole when we pushed that gravestone over?

  The nurses here think it's kinda funny, 'specially now that it's August again, how every day 'round six o'clock, after supper, I won't let 'em take me outside. No matter how much they try to convince me what a beautiful day it is and that I could use some fresh air, I won't go out there on the lawn. Not as evenin' approaches. I don't wanna see them late summer shadows, inchin' their way across the lawn. No way! 'Cause you know—and this is my last question: Who the hell knows what those shadows are as they slip out silently from the woods behind the rest home?

  Like I said at the start, I sure hope to hell I never meet George again so's I can ask him!

  Burning Man Decapitated in Fatal Fall

  Most everyone at the newspaper office called Jay Benson “The Ghoul.” This was behind his back, of course, but he knew what everyone said. In his own defense, he never considered what he reported for the Morning Express was particularly “ghoulish.” Truth was, some of the stories struck him as rather funny. He convinced himself that he always showed the proper respect for the individuals involved—especially if they died—but privately he had to admit that some of the bizarre things that happened to people genuinely amused him, so he wrote headlines that had a gruesome little twist to them.

  Take, for instance, a guy named Mark Hodgson. He lived out in Standish. A year or so ago, his daughter’s kitten, Patches, got chased up into a tree by a neighborhood dog. Long after the dog was gone, the kitten wouldn’t come down. Maybe it was too young to know how to climb back down. Well, instead of doing what any sensible person would do and call the fire department of animal rescue, Mark got a ladder from his garage and climbed up to fetch the little kitty. Problem was, he lost his footing on one of the high branches. Jay thought he should have known better than to climb a tree wearing shoes with leather soles instead of sneakers. Any kid could have told him how slippery leather is on tree bark. But big, brave daddy had to prove to his daughter, who was in tears at the base of the tree, how much of a hero he was.

  When Mark lost his footing, though, he didn’t just fall and break a leg or his damned fool neck. No, somehow, he twisted around so his head got caught in the V of a branch. He was lodged there pretty good, kicking and screaming and thrashing about, trying to get loose. He kicked so hard his leather-soled shoes flew off, for all the good they did him. But try as he might, he couldn’t get his head out from between those branches. By the time the town rescue crew showed up, Mark Hodgson had strangled to death.

  “Man Accidentally Hangs Self,” Jay’s headline read on the front page of the local section the next morning. It was the sad, simple truth. Jay (and probably a high percentage of his readers) found this incident amusing in a “Darwin Awards” sort of way, but Jay figured that’s just the way it went sometimes. You win some. You lose some. Some get rained out. And sometimes you just get hung out to dry—literally.

  Or take what happened to this guy named Norman Riley. Norm was painting his house one fine summer day when he inadvertently bumped his ladder against the electrical power line coming into the house from the pole. A couple of things were working against Norm that day. The ladder he was using was made of aluminum, and the wire he hit had a frayed spot that just happened to make contact with the ladder. Needless to say, the electricity grounded out through the ladder—and Norm, who—a neighbor who witnessed the accident said—lit up like a Christmas tree before dropping to the ground with tendrils of black smoke curling up from his scalp into the bright summer sky. The singed hair left a bad smell hanging in the air.

  Jay had wanted to run with “Man Paints House Shocking New Color,” but Mel Parker, his editor, nixed that idea. Too grim. Instead, they went with “Shocking Death.” Jay also wanted to mention something about Norm’s new hairdo, but he didn’t even try to get that past Mel.

  Jay would be the first to admit that these stories were sad if not downright tragic, but he would also be the first to say that you (and by “you” he meant just about everyone who reads the morning newspaper) had to see at least a touch of humor in these situations. Like the old saying goes: “If you don’t laugh, you’ll cry.”

  But there was nothing funny about the death of Marie Kilburn. Marie was a local celebrity of sorts, having been married at one time to a ridiculously wealthy man by the name of Preston Kilburn. Yes … that Preston Kilburn. The man who owned Kilburn News Service … The man whose company published the Morning Express where Jay worked.

  Preston and Marie had divorced decades ago. He died a few years ago in Paris in the arms of his lover, who was half his age. (Apparently, Preston had too much of something besides money to go around.) Marie inherited the newspaper and became a celebrity in town, making a career of being the local philanthropist. She would show up at every grand opening and charity event, and the next day, the photo on the front page of the newspaper (her newspaper) would inevitably feature her. The joke was, she’d show up at the opening of an envelope. Marie had a reputation for hogging the limelight from the organizers and anyone else who perhaps should have been featured in the article. She might have taught Paris Hilton a lesson or two in her time. So when Marie “fell” from the eighteenth floor balcony of her penthouse suite, it—of course—made the state and national news.

  Jay didn’t think Marie’s death was particularly funny or even instructive in the way that some deaths can and possibly should be funny or instructive, but he wasn’t exactly broken up about it, either. He considered Marie Kilburn a press hog, a diva, and a showboat whose life probably was as miserable as her thinly disguised suicide indicated. The fact that she was his boss had nothing to do with the … dare he admit it? … the “ghoulish” delight he took in her “accident.”

  “Social Plunge” and “Down in the Ratings” were two headlines he wanted to consider.

  But Jay had only one concern. He had to get the perfect photograph to accompany his article for tomorrow’s edition that would reveal the high alcohol level in Marie’s blood and the hastily scrawled attempt at a suicide note the police purportedly found—but weren’t releasing to the public—on her coffee table.

  Jay was determined to get a shot of the sidewalk eighteen stories down from the balcony from which Marie had … err … “fallen.” Another headline he was toying with headlines was: “Local Philanthropist Found to be a Fallen Woman.” That had a little more class than, say, “Newspaper Heiress Makes Big Impression on Sidewalk.”

  The first thing he did at the front desk was ask for the manager. When Mr. Saunders appeared, Jay humbly requested that he be allowed to take a few shots inside Marie’s suite. Mr. Saunders informed him that he would need permission from the surviving family, but since Marie and Preston never had any children, Jay wasn’t sure who that might be. A cousin somewhere in Utah, maybe, who had never heard of e-mail?

  So after Mr. Saunders returned to his office, Jay approached the man at the front desk and subtly offered him a bribe. He wasn’t so explicit the man couldn’t deny it later if he had to, but it not only didn’t work; it got him a stern warning from the desk clerk that he would not hesitate to call security and the police if necessary and have Jay forcibly removed if he didn’t leave on his own.

  Jay knew a man name “Hoggie” who worked in the restaurant inside the same building, but his bad luck was holding true; “Hoggie” had been fir
ed a few weeks ago, apparently for a drug-related offense. Why did stuff like that always happen to his best contacts?

  So that left Jay one and only one option.

  He would have to break into Marie’s apartment to get his picture.

  Of course, that presented a few problems since the desk clerk already knew what he looked like and what he wanted, and he had already warned Jay in no uncertain terms that he was to leave the premises immediately.

  Finally, though, Jay’s streak of bad luck turned when he came back later that evening. A different person—a young and very attractive young woman—was at the front desk. Jay didn’t want to bother asking for permission. He knew where that would get him. Being honest with himself, he had to admit that he was a few years past his prime if he was going to try sweet-talking this woman. He knew where that would end up, so he loitered in the lobby, concealing his camera as best he could, until one of the other tenants arrived and unlocked the door leading to the residents’ elevators. Muttering something about having forgotten his keys, he followed the elderly couple through the door, casting a wary glance over his shoulder to make sure the woman at the desk wasn’t already on the phone, calling security.

  From there, it was a simple matter of taking the elevator to the eighteenth floor—the top floor of the building—jimmying the door lock to Marie’s apartment—never as easy as they make it out to be on TV—and letting himself into the penthouse, CRIME SCENE – DO NOT CROSS tape be damned.

  Jay was impressed.

  Marie’s “apartment” was the kind of place he could never afford, not with his pay. True, Marie was his boss, and since he worked for Marie’s company and his work helped pay the rent, he told himself he had a perfect right to be here.

  Marie would appreciate the lengths he went to for a story.

  Off-duty, Jay enjoyed spending his time with people whose lives—like his—could be bought ten times over with the spare change rattling around at the bottom of the purse of someone like Marie Preston. He didn’t go for “fancy.” Still, he couldn’t help but be impressed, so he took a few moments to look around and savor the luxury.