Drummer Boy: A Supernatural Thriller (30 page)

No. Last time they took him without a fight. But I ain’t down for the count yet, and this battle’s just starting.

Without taking his eyes from the stairs, where the phantom platoon continued its climb, he reached behind him for the musket leaning against the wall.

His fingers came away empty.

“Hardy, look!” Pearl shouted.

The musket hovered in midair at the other end of the hall, moving away from them.

Hardy suspected that particular maneuver had never been taught on the grounds of West Point, where the great military minds sat down at their charts and maps and moved paper around as if those shifting lines didn’t cost the blood of thousands.

If you want to beat the enemy, just take the weapon out of his hands.

The musket floated a few more feet, as if it were made of dust instead of wood and steel. Then the motes around it swirled and thickened, collecting into a cottony shape.

It was the soldier from the barn, the mutineer who had been treated to the bayonet and sword at the hands of his brothers in arms. The man who had died again at the command and behest of his former leader, the dishonorable Col. Kirk.

Corporal Earley Eggers materialized, moving away from Hardy, the saber wound visible in his back. He carried the musket before him as if pushing unseen cobwebs out of the way. Maybe he was pushing through obstacles in
his
world, wading through something on the other side that Hardy couldn’t see. It was a land that prayers never touched and that God had seen fit to leave alone, and though Hardy felt the comfort of faith give way to the deep chill of utter solitude, he also steeled himself because he had nothing left but his own spare strength and will.

“Soldier,” he yelled, loudly enough to drown out the thrumming boots on the stairs. His commanding tone probably wasn’t as forceful as the orders the young recruit had heard at Bull Run or Chancellorsville, but the dead man hesitated all the same.

“You deserted once and you see where it got you,” Hardy said, knowing he was riding the greased rails of madness but finding no turnabout or detour. “It got you dead.”

Pearl touched Hardy’s shoulder but he gently shrugged her off. “Get in there with Donnie. I’ll take care of this.”

He was glad she didn’t question him, because he would have had no answer for her this time. The deadbolt slid from its sheath and the door creaked open, Donnie’s hammering interrupted. Earley Eggers waited, frozen in place, that gash in his old gray tunic oozing starstuff and darkness. Hardy waited for the door to close, ignoring the rattling snare drum that echoed toward the top of the stairs.

“When you going to stand and fight?” Hardy shouted at his ancestor’s back, and he could as easily have directed the words at himself. He’d always known the Hole was there and had sensed its potential to spew out plenty of damage and disaster. And yet he’d sat back and ignored it while it gobbled his son’s soul and took others along the way.

“You can’t fight what you can’t see,” he said. “But you can’t see the inside of your own heart, either.”

The drummer was on the second floor now and Hardy could sense the massed platoon coming up behind him, but he kept his gaze on Earley.

The corporal turned, those forlorn, weary eyes pouring out darkness with all their lifeless might. They were Eggers eyes, dark and flecked with gold, but the glint was more of hellfire than the spark of animation. His bony fingers clutched the musket, face set in grim determination. Earley raised the gun and pointed the barrel at Hardy, who could do nothing but stare back down the sight at the man who was readying to kill his own kin.

The barrel shifted to the right and the musket roared, the percussion hammering between the wooden walls of the narrow hallway, sulfur-rich blue smoke boiling from the end of the gun.

A cry erupted behind Hardy, the snare drum fell silent, and finally his limbs broke from their rigor and he fell with his back against the wall, sliding until he was half sitting.

At the end of the hallway stood a boy of about 12, a small kepi perched on his head in imitation of the rag-tag bunch of soldiers who gathered on the stairs behind him. A strap descended the boy’s shoulders, a snare drum against his hip. The drummer boy looked down at his chest, where a small hole appeared in the cloth just below the top brass button.

Hardy knew the boy was dead-
Christ, PLEASE let him be already dead
-but his flesh looked so solid that Hardy expected blood to bloom from the wound. Surprise and confusion battled on the kid’s smooth face, as if the thought of death had never crossed his mind, though surely he’d witnessed all manner of death and mayhem on those long-ago battlefields.

“What’s going on?” Pearl screeched from behind Donnie’s door, but Hardy wouldn’t have been able to describe it even if he could make his lips and windpipe work.

The boy looked first at Earley, then at Hardy, as if acknowledging the family resemblance, and toppled forward, his kepi rolling off the side of his tousled blond head.

Now Hardy recognized him.

It was one of the boys who’d been messing around the Jangling Hole the other day-only he’d been alive and well at the time.

A soldier standing behind the drummer boy opened his mouth, and though no sound came out, the name “Earley” bounced around the inside of Hardy’s concussed head. Hardy recognized his haggard face and possum-colored beard from the barn and Col. Kirk’s execution squad.

The soldier dropped his weapon and reached with one arm to catch the boy. But when flesh met flesh, there was no resistance, and the boy continued falling until his rusted snare drum banged on the floor of the hall.

Other soldiers crowded the stairwell, silent and grim, leveling their rifles down the hallway, and at such close range, none of the bullets would miss. They wouldn’t care whether the bullets ripped the flesh of the dead or the living.

Hardy wasn’t sure he cared, either. As long as Donnie was safe behind that thick wooden door, Hardy could go in peace, knowing he’d fought to the end. But spirits didn’t obey the rules of doors and deadbolts, and Pearl would be left alone in Donnie’s defense.

Since she had nothing but prayers as a weapon, Hardy didn’t hold out much hope. He glanced at his musket, knowing Earley wouldn’t have time to reload before the platoon’s fusillade sent him to the grave for the third time.

“Cease fire,” came a deep command from below, and in the sudden silence Hardy heard his own throat working as he fought to expel the thick, acrid gun-smoke from his lungs.

The soldiers stood poised in firing position, teeth gritted and hollow eyes cold, as boots strode across the kitchen floor and climbed the stairs.

Hardy couldn’t help hearing the boots as a drumbeat-
tatta tatta
.

The soldiers parted, allowing the colonel to squeeze through. The man gave one slow tug of his beard as he gazed down at the latest casualty in a war that never ended.

Then Kirk stooped and rolled the limp boy into his arms, standing with a creak of wood and hugging the boy to his chest.

“Retreat,” he whispered, or maybe the wind hit the tin eaves, or maybe the word was only a hallucination that flitted across Hardy’s ringing eardrums.

The soldiers followed their leader, but not before the possum-bearded soldier gave Earley a look that promised revenge.

After the soft parade back across the kitchen was over, Hardy dropped to his knees and sought out the corporal.

Earley Eggers was gone, the musket lying on the floor.

Pearl called out, but Hardy ignored her. He crawled to the musket and checked the magazine. The powder charge was intact. The gun had not been fired.

Goddamned mosquitoes. Can’t wait until the frost wipes your pointy asses out.

Elmer swatted at one of the bloodsuckers, but he missed, and a moment later it was whining against his ear again.

“Atten-
chun
,” Jeff Davis barked.

Yassuh, Cap’n, suh.

Elmer would have said it aloud in search of a laugh, but his fellow soldiers standing erect on both sides had let their faces go to granite. They swallowed up this make-believe shit, and Elmer played along. Truth was, he’d just as soon stand around sweating yesterday’s beer as crawl around laying pipe on the Collins job. The wool get-up was scratchy and trapped the morning heat against his skin, but all in all it wasn’t a bad way to spend a Thursday.

If only he didn’t have to lick his neighbor’s boots to earn his day off.

Wally Hampton, to Elmer’s left, didn’t seem to mind being a buck private, especially since he’d poured a little Jack Daniels in his thermos to spice up his coffee. Hampton, a carpenter who was riding a disability claim for all it was worth, was used to idle weekdays. Flanking Elmer’s other side was Darren Anderson, a teenager who had joined the Living History Society because he was dating a college girl and was trying to impress her with the uniform.

The trouble a guy went to for pussy. Well, it won’t be long until he’s hanging out with guys to get away from pussy, because all you got to do is marry it to turn it into a cunt.

The park was quiet in the morning, a few grosbeaks and cardinals working the branches of the big hardwoods. A Confederate battle flag dangled from a skinned locust post, as limp as a used handkerchief. The mountains sloped up from the creek that bordered the park, Mulatto the steepest and tallest, its autumn trees a little deeper in color than the rest. Pick-up trucks in the gravel lot were still packed with equipment, though Jeff and a couple of others had been up before dawn, erecting their tents and setting the stage for the re-enactment.

Jeff strutted like a peacock in front of the line of soldiers, his uniform so clean and starched that it looked like steel wool. He’d brought out his insignia for the occasion, pinned enough brass to his chest to stop a cannonball. Jeff was so spit-and-polish that he’d even held a mock enlistment, checking the recruits’ teeth to see if they had enough enamel to bite the paper off a powder charge. Elmer had nipped the officer’s finger.

Elmer grinned at the dregs of the memory, causing Jeff to stop his inspection and get in Elmer’s face.

“And what’s so funny, soldier?” Jeff said.

“Nothing,” Elmer answered.

“Nothing what?”

“Huh?”

“You’re speaking to a superior officer.”

Elmer wanted to grin bigger and slap Darren on the shoulder, let him in on the big joke, but Darren gulped and stood a little straighter. Wally Hampton also stood erect, though he swayed slightly from the booze.

Damn, these boys are taking it serious. And Jefferson Davis certainly got the role down pat, sausage breath and all.

It was too early to get into character. A few civilians were gathered in the gravel parking lot on the edge of the park, and the woman from the newspaper was there with her camera, getting ready to make a big fuss. A couple of the wives, wearing their bonnets and hoop skirts, were setting up iron kettles, spinning wheels, and other homestead displays.

But the unwritten rule of re-enactments, at least during Elmer’s service, was you goofed off during the warm-ups and didn’t get serious until the first fake shot was fired. But Jeff seemed to have a bug up his ass this year, as if he had something to prove and Pickett County’s future hinged on the outcome of a make-believe battle.

“Nothing what?” Jeff repeated.

“Nothing, sir,” Elmer said.

“Good,” Jeff said, slapping his pair of riding gloves against his sleeve as if to shake off the dust of a long furlough. “When Kirk and his bunch of blue-bellied demons ride through, you better not be doing much laughing, or else you’ll be picking grapeshot from between your teeth. If your head’s still attached, that is.”

“Sir?” Darren said, looking straight ahead.

Jeff stepped away from Elmer and stopped in front of Darren, adjusting the teenager’s kepi so that it tilted down over his forehead. “Yes, Private?”

“I thought it was General Stoneman that would be riding through here. Like in the history books.”

“Stoneman was the man in charge, but it was Kirk who did the hard riding and the hard killing. But I admire your research. Adds to the appreciation of the event.”

“Thank you, sir.”

Jeff stepped away so that he could face the entire troop, or at least those who’d been able to skip work. A bead of sweat ran down Elmer’s forehead, riding the slope between his eyes until a drop dangled at the end of his nose, tickling him. He didn’t dare reach up to wipe it away, though, because Jeff’s eyes had gone as hard and gray as a saber’s steel.

“Gentlemen, history is about to come alive, but it’s not just the past we’re about to honor,” Jeff said, his voice somehow becoming half an octave deeper. “It’s also the future. Because the Civil War truly pitted neighbor against neighbor, and the battle never ended in these parts.”

What the hell is he droning on about?
Elmer figured Jeff had been reading some of the newer, revisionist books on the war, which skewed toward bizarre social and psychological theory because the nuts-and-bolts history had been examined from every possible angle. Because there were plenty of collectors like Jeff who’d snatch up anything even remotely linked to the war, writers had plenty of incentive to slap books together and roll them out in expensive leather-bound editions, even if the grammar was so crappy that Elmer, a D student in English, found mistakes. At least on those occasions when he was able to get past the third page.

“Tonight you’ll be defending your homes, your families, and your country,” Jeff said, delivering the lines with a flourish as if he were channeling Honest Abe Lincoln minus the stovepipe hat and goofy sideburns. “I can’t rightly declare that God is on our side, because it’s God’s duty to be on all sides at the same time. But it’s our duty to fight for the blessings He’s bestowed upon us, lest we bring dishonor on ourselves and our forefathers.”

Elmer heard a snuffle and a choked intake of breath. He shifted his eyes to the right. It looked for all the world like Wally was weeping.