Summer of Night (44 page)
Cordie Cooke stepped out of the trees behind him. She was carrying a double-barreled shotgun that was as tall as she was, but it was broken open at the breech the way Harlen had seen men carrying the guns out hunting. She looked at him with her piggy little eyes scrunched up.
Jesus, thought Harlen, I'd forgotten how ugly she is. Cordie's face reminded him of a cream pie that someone had stuck eyes, skinny lips, and a lumpy potato of a nose in. Her hair was hacked just below her ears, and hung down over her eyes in greasy strands. She wore the same shapeless bag of a dress Harlen remembered from class, although it looked sweatier and dirtier now, gray socks that'd once been white, and lumpy brown shoes. Her little snaggly teeth were about the same tone of gray as her socks.
"Hey, Cordie," he said, lowering the pistol to his side and trying to look casual. "What's happening?"
She continued squinting at him. It was hard to tell if her eyes were even open under those bangs. She took three steps toward him. "Dropped your bullets," she said in that nasal monotone that Harlen had imitated more than a few times to make the other kids laugh.
He twitched a smile at her and crouched to pick them up. He could only find two.
"One's behind your left foot," she said. "T'other one's under your left foot."
Harlen found them, stuck them in his pocket rather than finish loading now, closed the loading gate, and stuck the pistol in the waistband of his jeans.
"Better watch it," drawled Cordie. "You'll shoot your weenie off."
Harlen felt a flush rise from his neck to his cheeks. He adjusted his sling and frowned at the girl. "What the hell do you want?"
She shrugged, moving the massive shotgun from one arm to the other. "Jes' curious who was bangin' away over here. Thought maybe that C. J."d got a bigger gun."
Harlen remembered Dale Stewart's story about his confron tation with Congden. "That why you're carrying around that cannon?" he asked as sarcastically as he could.
"Uh-uh. I ain't afraid of C. J. It's them others I gotta watch for."
"What others?"
She squinted more narrowly at him. "That piece of dog-poop Roon. Van Syke. Them what took Tubby."
"You think they kidnapped Tubby?"
The girl turned her flat face toward the sun and the railroad embankment. "They didn't kidnap him none. They kilt him."
"Killed him?" Harlen felt his insides contracting. "How do you know?"
She shrugged and set the shotgun on a stump. Her arms looked like skinny, pale pipes. She picked at a scab on her wrist. "I see him."
Harlen gaped. "You saw your brother's body? Where?"
"My window."
The face at the window. No, that was the old lady… Mrs. Duggan. "You're lying," he said.
Cordie looked at him with eyes the color of old dishwater. "I don't lie."
"You saw him out your window? Of your house?"
"What other window do I have, dipshit?"
Harlen considered shoving her flat face in. He glanced at the shotgun and hesitated. "Why didn't the police come get him?"
" "Cause he wouldn't have been there when they got there. And we ain't got a phone to call."
"Wouldn't have been there?" It was a hot day. The sun was out. Harlen's t-shirt was plastered to his back and his arm was sweating freely under his cast; it itched. But he shivered right then.
Cordie stepped closer until she could whisper and be heard. "He wouldn't have been there 'cause he was moving around. He was at my window,"n' then he went under the house. Where the dogs usually stay, but they won't go there no more."
"But you said he was…"
"Dead, yeah," said Cordie. "I thought maybe they just took him, but when I seen him, I knew he was dead." She walked over and looked at his row of bottles and cans. Only two of the cans had holes in them and all of the bottles were intact. She shook her head. "My ma, she seen him too, only she thinks he's a ghost. She thinks he just wants to come home."
"Does he?" Harlen was amazed to hear that his voice was a hoarse whisper.
"Naw." Cordie walked closer, stood staring at him through her bangs. Harlen could smell the dirty-towel scent of her. "It.ain't really Tubby. Tubby's dead. It's just his body that they're usin' somehow. He's tryin' to get me. "Cause of what I did to Roon."
"What'd you do to Dr. Roon?" asked Harlen. The.38 was a cold weight against his stomach. While the shotgun was open, he'd seen that there were two brass circles showing. Cordie was carrying it around loaded. And she was crazy. He wondered if he could get the pistol out in time if she snapped the shotgun shut and started to aim it at him.
"I shot him," Cordie said in the same flat tones. "Didn't kill him though. Wish't I had."
"You shot Dr. Roon? Our principal?"
"Yep." Suddenly she reached over, tugged up his t-shirt, and pulled out the pistol. Harlen was too surprised to stop her. "Goddamn, where'd you get this little thing?" She held it close, almost sniffing the cylinder.
"My dad…" managed Harlen.
"I had me an uncle'd had one of these. Little snub-nosed thing ain't worth shit over twenty feet or so," she said, still holding the shotgun in the crook of her left arm and pivoting to aim the pistol at the row of bottles. "Kapow," she said. She handed it back, butt first. "I wasn't kiddin' about not puttin' it in your pants like that," she said. "My uncle, he almost blew his weenie off once't when he stuck it in there when he was drunk and it was still cocked. Keep it in your back pocket and tug your shirt down."
Harlen did so. It was bulky and clumsy, but he could get at it quickly if he had to. "Why'd you shoot at Dr. Roon?"
"A few days ago," she said. "Right after the night Tubby come after me. I knew Roon'd sicced him on me."
"Not when;" said Harlen. "Why."
Cordie shook her head as if he were the slowest thing in the world." "Cause he killed my brother and sent that body-thing after me," she said patiently. "Something damn strange is goin' on this summer. Mama knows it. Pap does too, but he ain't hanging around to pay attention."
"You didn't kill him?" said Harlen. The woods were suddenly dark and ominous around them.
"Kill who?"
"Roon."
"Naw." She sighed. "I was too goddamn faraway. Pellets just tore the shit out of the side of his old Plymouth and hurt him a mite in the arm. Maybe I got him some in the ass, too, but I ain't sure."
"Where?"
"In the arm and the ass," she repeated, exasperated.
"No, I mean whereabouts did you shoot at him? In town?"
Cordie sat on the embankment. Her underpants were visible between skinny, pale thighs. Harlen had never thought he'd see a girl's underpants-on a girl-without being interested in the sight. He wasn't interested now. They were as gray as her socks. "If I shot him in town, shithead, don't you think I'd be in jail or somethin'?"
Harlen nodded.
"Uh-uh. I shot at him when he was out to the tallow factory. Just got out of his goddamn car. I woulda got closer, but the woods stop about forty feet from the front door. He hopped… that's why I think I got him in the ass, I could see where the linin' on the arm of his suit was tore up… and then he jumped in that truck and took off with Van Syke. I think they seen me though."
"What truck?" asked Harlen. He knew.
"You know what truck," sighed Cordie. "The goddamn Renderin' Truck." She grabbed Harlen by the wrist and tugged hard. He went to his knees next to her on the railroad embankment. Somewhere in the woods a woodpecker started up. Harlen could hear a car or truck on Catton Road a quarter of a mile to the southeast.
"Look," said Cordie, still hanging on to his wrist,"it don't take much in the way of brains to know that you seen something in Old Central. That's why you fell an' busted yourself up. And maybe you seen somethin' else, too."
Harlen shook his head but she ignored him.
"They killed your friend, too," she said. "Duane. I don't know how they done it, but I know it was them." She looked away then and a strange, vague look came over her face. "It's funny, I been in Duane McBride's class since we was all in kindergarten together, but I don't know if he ever said anything to me. I always thought he was real nice though. Always thinkin', but I didn't hold that against him. I useta imagine that maybe him and me would go for a walk someday, just talkin' about stuff and…" Her eyes focused and she looked down at Harlen's wrist. Released it. "Listen, you're not out here shootin' your daddy's gun 'cause you're tired of beatin' your weenie and you need some fresh air. You're scared shitless. An' I know what scared you."
Harlen took a deep breath. "OK," he said, voice rasping. "What do we do about it?"
Cordie Cooke nodded as if it was about time. "We get your buddies," she said. "All of them what's seen some of this stuff. We get 'em together and we go after Roon and the others-the dead ones and live ones. All of them that're after us."
"And then what?" Harlen was leaning so close that he could see the fine hairs on Cordie's upper lip.
"Then we kill the live ones," said Cordie and smiled, showing her gray teeth. "Kill the live ones, and the dead ones… well, we'll think of something." Suddenly she reached over and put her hand on Harlen's crotch, squeezing him through his jeans.
He jumped. No girl had ever done that. Now that one had, he seriously considered shooting her to get her to let go.
"You wanta take that out of there?" she whispered, her voice a caricature of seduction. "Want both of us to take our clothes off? Ain't nobody around."
Harlen licked his lips. "Not now," he managed. "Maybe later."
Cordie sighed, shrugged, stood, and hefted the shotgun. She clicked the breech shut. "Hokay-dokay. What 'ya say we go into town and find some of your buddies and get this show on the road?"
"Now?" Kill the live ones echoed in Harlen's brain. He remembered Barney's kind eyes from the night before and wondered how kind they'd be when he and the state troopers came to handcuff him for shooting the school principal, custodian, and God knows who else.
"Sure now," said Cordie. "What the hell's the use in waitin'? It's gonna be dark before too long, then they'll come out again."
"All right," Harlen heard himself say. He got up, dusted his jeans off, adjusted his father's revolver in his hip pocket, and followed Cordie down the train tracks toward town.
Mike had to go to the cemetery. There was no way in hell that he was going by himself, so he convinced his mother that they were overdue in bringing flowers to Grampa's grave. His dad started the night shift the next day, so it seemed like a good Sunday to visit the cemetery as a family.
He'd felt like a sneak reading Memo's diaries, hiding them under the quilt when his mother checked in on him. But it had been Memo's idea, hadn't it?
The journal was leatherbound and thick, keeping at least three years of Memo's almost daily entries, running from December of 1916 through the end of 1919. It told Mike what he wanted to know.
The photograph had said William Campbell Phillips, and he was mentioned as early as the summer of 1916. Evidently Phillips had been a schoolmate of Memo's… more than that, a childhood sweetheart. Mike had paused then, finding it strange to think of Memo as a schoolgirl.
Phillips had graduated from high school the same year Memo had, 1904, but when Memo went off to business school in Chicago-where, Mike knew from family stories, she'd met Grampa in an Automat on Madison Street-William Campbell Phillips evidently had gone to Jubilee College down the road and had been trained as a teacher. He was a teacher at Old Central, as far as Mike could tell from the entries in perfect Palmer script, when Memo had returned from Chicago in 1910 as a wife and mother.
But, according to the circumspect notes in Memo's diary in 1916, Phillips had not ceased showing signs of his affections. Several times he had stopped by the house with gifts while Grampa was off working at the grain elevator. Evidently he had sent letters, and although the diary did not mention the contents, Mike could guess. Memo burned them.
One entry fascinated Mike: July 29, 1917 Ran into that vile Mr. Phillips while at the Bazaar with Katriha and Eloise today. I remember William Campbell as a quiet and gentle boy, rarely speaking, always watching the world with those deep, dark eyes of his, but there has been a change. Katrina commented on it. Mothers have spoken to the principal about Mr. Phillips' temper. He canes the children at the slightest provocation. I am glad that little John will not be in his grade for some years yet.
The gentleman's advances are quite upsetting. Today he insisted on enjoining me in conversation despite my obvious reluctance. I told Mr. Phillips years ago that there could be no social intercourse between us while he continued to show such inappropriate behavior. It does not help.
Ryan thinks that it is a joke. Evidently the men of the town feel that William Campbell is still a mommy's boy and no threat to anyone. Of course, I have never told Ryan about the letters I burned.
And Mike found an interesting note in late October of that same year: Oct. 27, With the menfolk beginning to relax after the hard work of the harvest, talk of the town has turned to Mr. Phillips, the schoolteacher, enlisting to light the Hun.
At first it seemed a joke since the gentleman is almost thirty, but he returned to his mother's house from Peoria yesterday already in uniform. Katrina says that he looked quite handsome, but she also added that rumors abound that Mr. Phillips had to leave town because he was about to be dismissed from his position. Ever since the parents of that Catton child wrote to the School Board about Mr. Phillips' excessive use of force, of actual beatings in the classroom-Tommy Cat-ton was hospitalized at Oak Hill for several days, although Mr. P. contended that the boy fell down the stairs after having been detained after class-ever since then, other parents have been complaining.
Well, for whatever reason, it is an honorable choice he has made. Ryan says that he would go in a minute if it were not for John and Katherine and Ryan Jr.
And on November 9, 1917: Mr. Phillips stopped here today. I cannot write about what ensued, but I will be forever grateful that the iceman stopped by a few minutes after the teacher arrived. Otherwise…
He insists that he will return for me. The man is a cad, recognizing none of the sanctity of my marriage vows, nor the sacred trust I hold as a parent to my three little ones.
Everyone speaks of how handsome the man looks in his uniform, but I found him pathetic-a child in a baggy costume.
I hope he never comes back.
And the final mention of him on April 27, 1918: Much of the town turned out for the funeral of Mr. William Campbell Phillips today. I could not attend because of my headache.
Ryan says that the Army was prepared to bury him alongside the other men who had fallen in battle, in an American cemetery in France, but that his mother insisted that the government send his body home.
His last letter to me arrived after we had heard of his death. I made the mistake of reading it, out of sentiment, I suppose. He had written it while recovering in the French hospital, not knowing that the influenza would finish what the German bullets had begun. In the letter, he said that his resolve had sharpened in the trenches, that nothing would stop him from returning to claim me. Those were his words-'claim me."
But something did stop him.
My headache is very bad this afternoon. I must rest. I will not mention this sad, obsessive person again.
Grampa's grave was near the front of Calvary Cemetery, to the left of the pedestrian gate and about three rows back. All of the O'Rourkes and Reillys were there and there was more space to the north where Mike's parents, and he and his sisters, would someday lie.
They set the flowers in place and said their usual silent prayers. Then, while the others busied themselves with plucking weeds and tidying up the area, Mike quickly walked the rows.
He didn't have to look at all the headstones; many he knew, but the biggest help were the tiny American flags the Scouts had put there on Memorial Day. They were faded now, the colors bleached by the heavy rains and bright sunlight, but most of the flags were still in evidence, marking the veterans' graves. There were a lot of veterans.
Phillips was far toward the back, on the opposite side of the cemetery. The memorial read: william Campbell PHILLIPS, AUGUST 9, 1888-MARCH 3,1918 HE DIED SO THAT DEMOCRACY MIGHT LIVE.
The ground above the grave was freshly churned, as if someone had been digging there recently and had tossed the soil back in haphazardly. There were several circular depres sions nearby, some almost eighteen inches across, where the concave earth had seemed to sag.
Mike's parents were calling to him from the parking strip of grass beyond the black fence. He ran to join them.
Father C. was glad to see him. "Rusty can't get the Latin right even when he reads it," said the priest. "Here, have another cookie."
Mike's appetite still hadn't returned, but he took the cookie. "I need help, Father," he said between bites. "Your help."
"Anything, Michael," said the priest. "Anything at all."
Mike took a deep breath and began, telling the whole story. He'd resolved to do it during the lucid periods of his fever, but now that he'd started, it sounded even crazier than he'd thought. But he kept going.
When he finished there was a brief silence. Father Cavan-augh looked at him with hooded eyes. The priest's five-o'clock shadow was in evidence.
"Michael, you're serious about this? You wouldn't be pulling my leg, would you?"
Mike stared.
"No, I guess you wouldn't." Father C. let out a long sigh. "So you think that you've seen this soldier's ghost…"
"Uh-uh," Mike began vehemently. "That is, I don't think it's a ghost. I could see where it bent the screen in. It was… solid."
Father C. nodded, still watching Mike carefully. "But it could hardly be the William Campbell… whatever '
"Phillips."
"William Campbell Phillips, yes. It could hardly be him after forty-two years… so we're talking about a ghost or some sort of spiritual manifestation, correct?"
It was Mike's turn to nod.
"And you want me to do what, Michael?"
"An exorcism, Father. I've read about them in True and…"
The priest shook his head. "Michael, Michael… exorcisms were a product of the Middle Ages, a form of folk magic done to drive demons out of people when everyone thought that everything from illness to bedsores was caused by demons. You don't think this… this apparition you saw when you were suffering from fever was a demon, do you?"
Mike didn't correct Father C. about when he saw the Soldier. "I don't know," he said truthfully. "All I know is that it's after Memo and that I think you can do something about it. Will you go with me to the cemetery?"
Father Cavanaugh frowned. "Calvary Cemetery is sanctified ground, Michael. There's little I could do there that has not already been done. The dead there lie peacefully."
"But an exorcism…"
"An exorcism is meant to drive spirits out of a body or place they are possessing," interrupted the priest. "You're not suggesting that the spirit of this soldier has inhabited either your grandmother or your home, are you?"
Mike hesitated. "No…"
"And exorcisms are used against demonic forces, not the spirits of the departed. You know that we say prayers for our dead, don't you, Michael? We don't subscribe to the primitive tribal beliefs that the souls of the dead are malevolent… things to be avoided."
Mike shook his head, confused. "But will you come out to the cemetery with me, Father?" He did not know why it was so important, but he knew that it was.
"Of course. We can go right now."
Mike glanced toward the rectory windows. It was almost dark. "No, I meant tomorrow, Father."
"Tomorrow I have to leave right after early Mass to meet a Jesuit friend in Peoria," said the priest. "I'll be gone until very late. Tuesday and Wednesday I'll be back on retreat at St. Mary's. Can it wait until Thursday?"
Mike chewed his lip. "Let's go now," he said. There was still some light. "Can you bring something?"
Father Cavanaugh hesitated in the act of pulling on his windbreaker. "What do you mean?"
"You know, a crucifix. Better yet, a Host from the altar. Something in case it's there."
The older man shook his head. "The death of your friend has bothered you, hasn't it, Michael? Are we living a vampire movie now? Would you have me remove the Body of Our Lord from its sanctuary for a game?"
"Some holy water then," said Mike. He pulled a plastic water bottle from his pocket. "I brought this."
"Very well," sighed Father C. "You get our liquid ammunition while I get the Popemobile out of the garage. We'll have to hurry if we're going to get out there before the vampires arise for the night." He chuckled, but Mike didn't hear it. He was already out the door and running for St. Malachy's, water bottle in hand.
Dale's mother had called Dr. Viskes the day before, on Saturday. The Hungarian refugee had given Dale a hurried physical, noting the chattering teeth and the subdued symptoms of terror, announced that he was 'not a child zykologist," prescribed warm soup and no more comic books or Saturday monster movies for the boy, and gone off mumbling to himself.
Dale's mom had been upset, calling friends to find the name of an Oak Hill or Peoria doctor who was a child psychologist, calling Chicago twice to leave messages at her husband's hotel, but Dale had calmed her down. "I'm sorry, Mom," he'd said while sitting up in bed, restraining shivers and fighting to control his voice. It helped that it was daylight. "I've just always been scared of the basement," he said. "When the lights went out again and I felt that cat under the water… well…" He managed to look ashamed and chagrined and sane again. Only the last part was difficult.
His mother calmed down, bringing him enough hot soup to drown the dead cat all over again. Kevin came over, but was told that Dale was resting. Lawrence came back from visiting his friend, waited until their mother was back downstairs, and whispered, "Did you really see something?"
Dale hesitated a second. Lawrence had his fair share of annoying kid-brother habits, but telling secrets wasn't one of them. "Yeah," he said.
"What was it?" whispered Lawrence, coming closer to Dale's bed but not getting his legs too near his own bed. He didn't trust the dark under there even in the daytime.
"Tubby Cooke," whispered Dale, feeling the terror well up in him like nausea just from saying the words. "He was dead… but his eyes opened." As soon as Dale said it, he was glad that he hadn't been that specific with his mom or Mr. Grumbacher. He'd probably be sitting in a padded cell somewhere by now if he had.
Lawrence just nodded. Dale realized with a shock that his brother believed him immediately, implicitly, and without reservation. "It probably won't come back till tonight," said Lawrence. "We'll get Mom to leave all the lights on."
Dale let out a long breath. He just wished everything could be solved as simply as Lawrence thought it could: leave the lights on.
They'd left the lights on Saturday night. And taken turns sleeping and standing watch… lying watch, rather, for Dale lay reading Superman comics and watching the shadowed corners. Once, sometime around three, there came the slightest of sounds from beneath Lawrence's bed… the faintest rustle as of a kitten stirring from its nap… and Dale sat up' and gripped the tennis racket he'd brought to bed with him.
But the scratching was not repeated. Toward dawn, when the spaces between the black leaves beyond the screens began to be lighter than the leaves themselves, Dale allowed himself to sleep. His mother came in to rouse them for church around eight, but finding both boys so dead tired, she allowed them to go back to bed.
