Cemetery Club (12 page)

“Goddamned fools,” he muttered, as he tried to concentrate on the classic John Wayne movie he'd just come across. He wanted to curse his own curiosity as well. After more than twenty years of living in Lowland Gardens, the mobile home park on the south end of the Lowlands, he should have been used to the sounds of family squabbles. Raised voices were as common as illegitimate children and welfare checks. Hell, before Alice had passed away, he and his wife had been known to contribute their fair share of arguments for the neighbors’ listening pleasure. It was part of the scenery, just like the factories over the hill and the flock of pink flamingos in the Mackley’s front grass.

Only difference between them and the rest of the trash around them was they’d never resorted to raising fists or using household objects as weapons of personal destruction.

Truth was, if you lived in Lowland Gardens, you learned quickly that it was better to stay out of other peoples’ affairs. People who had no qualms about smacking their own kin around were as apt as not to bust a neighbor in the nose when that nose stuck itself where it didn’t belong.

“Fuck ‘em,” was Henry’s personal motto and he muttered it now as he turned up the volume. Then he said it again for the hell of it.

Problem was, even with the Duke’s voice blasting his aged ears he still heard the next scream that came from the Mackley’s trailer.

“Christ, it sounds like they’re slaughtering each other.” He knew the couple well enough. Typical trailer-park trash. Both of them approaching forty but looking ten years older. She worked down at the Shop-N-Save; he mostly sat home and drank beer. No surprise if they were the type to prefer knuckles to words when it came to making a point, but in the couple of years they’d been living there, he’d never heard anything like the ruckus they were causing now.

More glass shattered and a man shouted for help. That’s when it hit Henry that maybe it wasn’t a fight at all, maybe they were just drunk and had their own television turned up way too loud, watchin’ some goddamned monster movie or karate flick.

“Inconsiderate bastards.” With a groan he pushed himself from his chair and headed for his bedroom window, which he knew would give him a good view of the Mackley’s living room.
God knows I’ve stared at their place enough times, hoping to catch a peek of Stacy Mackley in her birthday suit.
He grinned at his peeping tom tendency, one of the few joys left in his life. “Folks don’t know enough to buy curtains, they’re fair game,” he liked to tell himself, while waiting for a glimpse of Stacy’s titties. When you couldn't afford HBO you had to make your own entertainment.

A quick look now, just to make sure they were having a party and not a brawl, and then he’d head over there and give them a piece of what for.

Pulling the curtain aside a few inches, Henry peered across the tiny patch of so-called yard separating the two double-wides. Sure enough, the lights were off in the Mackley’s living room but their big old TV - a twenty-year-old giant - was on, illuminating the room in grayish-blue light.

It only took a moment for Henry to determine that the TV wasn’t the cause of the noises he'd been hearing.

Stacy’s face was pressed up against the picture window so hard her features were deformed, like her face was melting against the glass. A man stood behind her, his arm wrapped around her neck in a chokehold. Her arms flailed back and forth, trying to dislodge his grip, and her tongue protruded from her mouth like a panting dog’s, leaving snail trails of spit on the glass.

While Henry watched, the man used his free hand to grab Stacy by the hair and bang her head against the window. The second time he did it, a crack appeared in the heavy glass. The third time, she stopped struggling and went limp. He let go of her neck and she slowly slid down the clear surface, her face stretching even more as the glass pulled it out of shape, until her body came to rest draped over the television set.

Only then did Henry get a good look at her attacker, who up to that point he’d assumed was her good-for-nothing husband. Instead, the TV’s flickering light revealed a large, powerfully-built man in a police uniform.

Jesus H. Christ. A cop just killed someone.

Henry backed away from favorite voyeur spot. What the fuck was he supposed to do now? Call the cops on one of their own? Who’d believe him? Plus, any time you called the police, they automatically got your name and number - he knew that much from watching television - and they sent out the nearest patrol car.

What if the lunatic across the way got the call to respond?

Something moved behind the cop and Henry focused his attention on the Mackley’s living room again. At first he thought a child had entered the room, which was odd, since the Mackley’s didn’t have any kids. Then the figure moved closer to the TV and Henry had to clap a hand over his mouth to keep from screaming. He’d watched his fair share of movies over the years, especially after Alice passed and he had nothing else better to do, and he recognized the creature right away.

Aliens! It’s a fucking invasion.

The egg-shaped head, glowing eyes and tiny arms - just like he’d seen in UFO movies and specials. As he watched, the alien reached out with its hands and grabbed hold of Stacy’s face. The cop stared impassively while the deformity pushed itself into Stacy’s throat. Her body twitched and convulsed as the dark form disappeared down her neck like a lizard squeezing into a hole.

Stacy stopped struggling and stood up, her face now wearing the same emotionless expression as the cop.

Shit on a stick. They’ve both been taken over.
Now it made sense to Henry. The aliens were parasites and the cop already had one of the little gray bastards living inside him. He’d knocked Stacy out so his friend could have a home.

The alien-cop bent down out of sight and when he stood up he had Stacy’s husband slung over his shoulder. Henry leaned closer to the glass, trying to see if Ed was alive. At that exact moment, his air conditioner kicked on, the whirring noise of the compressor sending his heart into overdrive. He instinctively turned to see what the noise was and in the process banged his elbow against the glass.

When he looked back at the Mackley’s, Stacy and cop were both staring back at him.

Shit. Shitmutherfuckingshit!

Henry backed away from the window and ran across the small living room towards the door, then stopped. He couldn’t go outside; his front door faced the Mackley’s. That would be like jumping out of the pan and into the fire. He could go out the back, but he’d fenced his yard in years ago, when they'd still had their dog, meaning he’d have to either climb the fence—an impossibility with his arthritis—or use the gate.

Which faced the front.

“They’re gonna be coming over here any second. Think, Henry, think.” He looked around the trailer.

And saw the picture of the dog.

Sparky had been a big dumb-as-shit mutt Alice rescued from the pound. He’d died just a few months before Alice did and Henry often thought she’d given up the ghost just so she could be with Sparky again. God knew she loved that damn dog more than anyone, himself included.

Most importantly, they’d never gotten rid of his doghouse.

Henry ran for the back door and chugged across the yard as fast as his aching knees would carry him. Bending down to crawl into the musty sanctuary set his back to complaining something fierce but he ignored it, squeezing himself as deep into the dusty space as he could.

His knees and elbows howled in pain as he pulled his legs against his chest and wrapped his arms around his shins. Breathing in heavy pants, he sat among the spiderwebs, dead bugs and dried leaves, waiting. In the darkness, the glowing face of his watch showed ten to nine.

Across the yard, the gate squealed as someone opened it.

*  *  *

Cory and Marisol paused by Marisol’s aging Toyota Corolla. She pulled her keys from her pocket but didn’t move to unlock her door.

“What shift are you working tomorrow?” he asked, the soft, deep tones of his voice echoing the sultry, smooth atmosphere of the warm summer night.

“Day shift,” Marisol said, wondering if she was having the same effect on him as he was on her. It had been an effort not to reach out and hold his hand or lean her head against his shoulder as they sat next to each other on Todd Randolph’s couch for the past several hours.

“So, um, maybe we could grab lunch? You still owe me.”

God, yes. Yes!
she wanted to say, but common sense overrode her feelings. “I’d love to but with everything that’s going on, I don’t know what kind of day it’s going to be. I might end up working overtime.”

Cory gave her one of his lopsided, carefree grins. “All right. Well, I’ll see you soon then.” He stepped back so she could open her door.

Todd had made plans for everyone to get together again in two days to compare notes but Marisol had no intention of waiting that long. “Wait, how about this? I’ll call you in the afternoon, let you know how my day’s going, and then we can make plans for dinner? My treat.”

“It’s a date,” he said. He stepped towards her and leaned down, his lips aimed towards a spot on her cheek.

Before she could stop herself, Marisol tilted her head and intercepted his friendly goodnight kiss by planting her lips firmly on his. Then, quick as she’d started it, she broke the stolen kiss and turned away, covering her sudden embarrassment by fumbling the key into the door lock.

When she looked up again, Cory was halfway to his pride and joy, a classic black Cadillac Seville he’d restored in his spare time. Marisol waited, her lips tingling, until he drove away. At that moment, the haunting wail of police sirens filled the night, making her jump. The ululating cries grew closer and for a brief moment she was convinced they were heading for Todd’s house. Then the direction changed and she realized their goal was someplace even more familiar.

The Lowlands.

Where she’d spent the first eighteen years of her life.

That can’t be good.
Not that sirens in the Lowlands were anything new. She’d grown up with the cops visiting her house and those of her neighbors more times than she could count, usually for domestic disputes but on occasion to break up fights between drunken neighbors or to arrest someone wanted for a crime of some sort.

Yet there was something about these sirens that set her nerves on edge, something in their primitive howling that screamed
Beware! Danger is near!

The feeling of impending doom washed away the giddy schoolgirl after-effects of her kiss, leaving behind nothing but a nameless anxiety that was all the more nerve-wracking for its lack of a source. With a sigh, Marisol started her car and headed home.

Todd Randolph happened to glance through the kitchen window just in time to catch Marisol and Cory as they kissed. A brief kiss, to be sure, but a kiss nevertheless.

Their first one? Wouldn’t it be something if in the middle of all this, they finally got together after all this time?

He returned his gaze to the pot he was scrubbing, wondering if their burgeoning romance was a good omen or a bad one. He decided to take it as good, because the rest of the night had gone so well. Granted, John had stuck to his aliens-among-us theory. Todd still felt sure that the creatures had to be something from the depths of Hell. After all, he’d used Holy water and a Bible against them the last time. That had to count for something. Cory and Marisol were still on the fence, caught between Todd's previous success and the idea that there had to be a more logical explanation than demons.

But there’d been a lot less arguing than he’d expected and in the end they’d compromised - John would continue to research the alien angle while Todd would stick with the same line of investigation he’d been pursuing since he’d been committed. Over the next two days, each of them would put together a summary of what they’d learned and brief the rest of the group at the next meeting.

In the meantime, Cory’s job was to go back and learn as much as he could about the murders from two decades ago and find any commonalities between them and the current killings. And Marisol would use her position with the ME’s office to try and get copies of evidence and reports from all the cases.

Todd closed the door of the dishwasher and wiped his hands on a towel. Funny how things work out. Once the four of them had sat down, it was like no time had passed. They’d simply picked up where they left off twenty years ago, each of them assuming the roles they’d held as teenagers: John the quiet, reserved onlooker; Cory the shy, happy kid who was completely oblivious to how good he had things; Marisol, troubled and abused.

And me? I’m like the den mother. Back then I stole food and liquor because I was rebelling but also because I enjoyed playing host to the others. Now I’m doing the same thing.

“Hey, you okay?”

Turning, Todd found John staring at him, a concerned look on his face. “Yeah, I was just...I don’t know. Reminiscing, I guess.”

“I have a feeling we’re going to be doing a lot of that the next few days. And not all of it good either.”

“No, I’m afraid not. What are your plans for tonight?”

John shrugged. “I hadn’t really thought that far ahead. Usually I just crash at one of the shelters.”

“Well, you’re welcome to stay here. The guest bedroom isn’t much but it’s got clean sheets and no roommates.”

A ghost of a smile touched John’s lips. “That’d be great.” He held his arms out, indicating the clean clothes he’d just retrieved from the dryer. “I’d forgotten what fresh-washed clothes smell like.”

“You want to watch a little TV? I’ve got more soda and food in the ‘fridge.”

“No, I think I’ll turn in if you don’t mind. It’s been a pretty exhausting day and my belly’s not used to being this full.”

“Okay.” Todd grabbed a soda for himself. “The spare room’s right next to mine. I’m gonna stay up for a while; I always do. Nowadays I don't even think about closing my eyes before the end of Letterman. I’ve had trouble sleeping ever since...well, you know. ”

“Yeah.” John paused by the steps, as if he was going to say something else and then turned away and went upstairs.