Summer of Night (48 page)

"I see you!" cried the dead boy's father. But his footsteps receded into the other part of the basement. "Goddammit, I know somebody's down here. Come out now!"

He didn't see me. Something sharp, part of a pipe maybe, was digging into Dale's back. Electronic stuff scratched his bowed neck. There was some sort of shelf down here that cut into his shoulder. Dale was not about to move to get more comfortable.

The footsteps came back into the bedroom part of the basement. They moved slowly-stalking-to the far wall, across to the closet, back to the base of the stairs, then… stealthily… up to the desk not three feet from where Dale crouched behind the Atwater Kent.

There was a sudden noise as Mr. McBride crouched, flung back the bedspread, and scraped the shotgun barrel under the bed. He stood up then, almost leaning on the radio, Dale knew; he could smell the man. Can he smell me?

For a long moment there was silence so deep that Dale was sure that the half-crazy father could hear his heart beating behind the radio shell. Then Dale heard something that almost made him cry aloud.

"Duanie?" came Mr. McBride's voice, no longer fierce, no longer threatening, only cracked and broken. "Duanie, is that you, son?"

Dale held his breath.

After an eternity, the heavy footsteps, heavier now, moved back to the staircase, paused, and went up the stairs. There was the sound of breaking glass in the dining room as bottles were thrown around. Footsteps. The kitchen door banged open and shut. A moment later there came the sound of a truck engine starting up from behind the house… We couldn't see it back there… and tires crunching gravel, turning down the drive.

Dale waited another four or five minutes, his back and neck aching wildly now, but making sure that the silence was real. Then he shoved the radio away from the wall and crawled out, massaging his arm where it had been pinched against the shelf or something.

He paused by the bed, still on all fours, then pulled the radio cabinet farther out. There was just enough light to see by.

Duane's spiral notebooks were stacked on the shelf, at least several dozen of them. Dale could see how easy it had been to lean over from the bed or desk and set them in place.

Dale tugged off his t-shirt, ripped and sweaty as it was, wrapped the notebooks in them, and went into the other room to climb out the window. He could've gone up the stairs and out through the kitchen with less scraping to his hide, but he wasn't sure that Mr. McBride had driven off.

Dale was heading for the place he'd left the others when half a dozen arms lurched out from the first row of corn and pulled him in. He tumbled into the cornstalks. A dirty hand covered his mouth.

"God," whispered Mike. "We'd just decided he'd killed you. Let him go, Harlen."

Jim Harlen removed his hand.

Dale spat and mopped blood from a cut lip. "Why'd you do that, shithead?"

Harlen glared at him but said nothing.

"You got 'em!" cried Lawrence, holding up the bundle of notebooks.

The boys started poring through them.

"Shit!" said Harlen.

"Hey," said Kevin. He looked quizzically at Dale. "Do you get this?"

Dale shook his head. The notebooks were filled with scrig-gles and scrawls, strange loops and dashes and curlicues. It was either some sort of impossible code or Martian.

"We're screwed," said Harlen. "Let's go home."

"Wait," said Mike. He was frowning at one of the small notebooks. Suddenly he grinned. "I know this."

"You can read it?" Lawrence's voice was awestruck.

"Uh-uh," said Mike, "I can't read it, but I know it."

Dale leaned closer. "You can figure out this code?"

"It isn't code," said Mike, grin still in place. "My stupid sister Peg took a course in this stuff. It's shorthand… you know, the sort of fast writing secretaries do?"

The boys whooped and hollered until Kevin suggested they get quiet. They set the notebooks in Lawrence's backpack as carefully as if they'd been new-gathered eggs, then ran in a commando crouch back to where they'd left their bikes.

Dale felt the sun burning his neck and arms, despite his tan, long before they got to Jubilee College Road. The distant water tower shimmered in the rising heat waves as if the entire town were an illusion, a mirage on the verge of disappearing.

They were halfway to town when the cloud of dust rose behind them, a truck closing rapidly.

Mike gestured and he and Harlen and Kev took one side, Dale and Lawrence the other. They crossed the ditch, dropped their bikes, and made ready to climb the fence into the fields.

The truck slowed, the dark cab shimmering badly in the heat from the road and its own engine. The driver stared curiously as he crept by. The truck stopped and backed up.

"What're you doing?" called Kevin's father from the high cab of the milk truck. The long trailer tank gleamed of polished steel, almost too bright to look at in the midday sun. "What are you guys up to?"

Kevin grinned, made a meaningless gesture toward town. "Just riding."

His father squinted at the boys perched on the fence wire like birds ready to take wing. "Get home quick," he said. "I need help cleaning out the tank, and your mother wanted you to weed the garden this afternoon."

"Yessir," said Kevin and gave a salute. His dad frowned and the long truck geared up, disappearing into its own dust.

They stood a minute on the road, holding their bikes awhile before remounting. Dale wondered if the others had wobbly legs.

There were no more cars or trucks before they reached the shade of town. It was dinner there, the lights filtered through a dozen layers of leaves everywhere along the streets, but the day was just as hot, summer still crushing them beneath its heel as they met briefly in the chickenhouse and then fanned out for lunch and their various chores.

Mike kept the notebooks. His sister still had one of her Gregg shorthand textbooks around and he promised to find it and start decoding. Dale came over after lunch to help.

Mike checked on Memo, found Peg's book on a shelf next to her stupid diary-she'd kill him if she caught him in her room-and took the whole batch of books out to the chickenhouse.

He and Dale started looking just to confirm it was shorthand, decided to decode a line or two, found it tough going at first, and then fell into the rhythm of it. Duane McBride's squiggles weren't quite the same as the ones in the textbook, but they were close enough. Mike went back into the house, found a Big Chief tablet and two pencils, and went back to the chickenhouse. The boys worked in silence.

Six hours later, they were still reading when Mike's mother called him in for supper.

TWENTY-SIX

Mike volunteered to go talk to Mrs. Moon. He knew her best.

The evening before, after supper and during the long, slow waning of the day's heat and light, everybody but Cordie had rendezvoused at the chickenhouse to hear what was in the notebooks.

"Where's the girl?" asked Mike.

Jim Harlen shrugged. "I went out to her rattrap of a house…"

"Alone?" interrupted Lawrence.

Harlen squinted at the younger boy, then ignored him. "I went out there this afternoon, but nobody was home."

"Maybe they were out shopping or something," said Dale.

Harlen shook his head. He looked pale and oddly vulnerable in his cast and sling this evening. "Uh-uh, I mean it was empty. Crap scattered around everywhere… old newspapers, bits of furniture, an ax… like the family threw everything in the back of a truck and took off.”

" "Not a bad idea,” whispered Mike. He had finished decoding Duane's journals.

"Huh?" said Kevin.

"Listen," said Mike O'Rourke, lifting the pertinent notebooks and beginning to read.

The four boys listened for almost an hour, Dale finishing reading when Mike's voice began to get raspy. Dale had read it all before-he and Mike had compared notes as they decoded the stuff-but just hearing it out loud, even in his own voice, made his legs feel shaky.

"Jesus Christ," whispered Harlen as they finished the stuff about the Borgia Bell and Duane's uncle. "Holy shit," he added in the same reverent tone.

Kevin crossed his arms. It was getting quite dark out and Kev's t-shirt glowed the brightest of any of them there." "That bell was hanging up there all the time we were in school… all those years?"

"Mr. Ashley-Montague told Duane that it'd been removed and melted down and everything," said Dale. "It's in one of the notebooks here and I heard it myself, at the Free Show last month."

"There hasn't been a Free Show for a long time," whined Lawrence.

"Shut up," said Dale. "Here… I'm going to skip some of this stuff… this is from when Duane talked to Mrs. Moon… it was the same day we all had dinner out at Uncle Henry's, the same day that…"

"… that Duane was killed," finished Mike.

" "Yeah,” said Dale." "Listen.” He read the notes verbatim: June 17: Talking to Mrs. Emma Moon. Remembers the bell! Talking about a terrible thing. Says her Or-ville wasn't involved. A terrible thing about the bell. Winter of 1899-1900. Several children in town… one on a farm she thinks… disappeared. Mr. Ashley (no Montague then, before the families joined names) offered a $1,000 reward. No clues.

Then in January… Mrs. M's pretty sure it was January, 1900… they found a body of an eleven-year-old girl who had disappeared just before Christmas. Name: Sarah Lewellyn Campbell.

CHECK IN RECORDS! WHY NO NEWSPAPER ACCOUNTS?

Mrs. Moon's sure… Sarah L. Campbell. Doesn't want to talk about it but I keep asking questions: girl was killed, possibly raped, decapitated, and partially eaten. Mrs. M's sure about the last part.

Caught a Negro…"colored man' ·… sleeping out behind the tallow factory. Posse formed. Says her husband Orville wasn't even in the county. Was on a 'horse-buying trip' to Gales-burg. Four day trip. (Check later what his job is…)

The Klan was big in Elm Haven then. Mrs. M says that her Orville went to the meetings… most of the men did… but he wasn't a night rider. Besides, he was out of town… buying horses.

The other men in the town, led by Mr. Ashley (the one who bought the bell) and Mr. Ashley's son-21 yrs. old-dragged the Negro to Old Central. Mrs. M. doesn't know the Negro's name. A vagrant.

They had a sort of trial. (Klan justice?) Condemned him right there. Hanged him that night.

From the bell.

Mrs. Moon remembers hearing the bell ringing, late that night. Her husband told her it was because the Negro kept swinging and kicking. (Mrs. M. forgetting that her husband was supposed to be in Galesburg!)… (Note: regular hangings, executions, drop the condemned to break his neck; this man swung for a long time…)

In the belfry? Mrs. Moon doesn't know. Thinks so. Or in the central stairwell.

She won't tell me the worst part… coaxing…

The worst part is that they left the Negro's body in the belfry. Sealed up the belfry and left it there.

Why? She doesn't know. Her Orville didn't know. Mr. Ashley insisted that they leave the Negro's body there. (GOT TO CHECK WITH ASHLEY-MONTAGUE. VISIT HIS HOUSE, SEE THE HISTORICAL SOCIETY BOOKS HE STOLE.)

Mrs. M. crying. Why? Says that there was something worse.

I wait. These cookies are awful. Waiting. She's talking to her cats now more than me.

She says that the worst part… worse than the hanging… is that two months after the Negro was lynched there, another child disappeared.

They'd hanged the wrong man.

"There's more," said Dale,"but it's just going over the same stuff. His last notes were about planning to see Mr. Dennis Ashley-Montague in person to get more details."

The five boys in the chickenhouse looked at each other.

"The Borgia Bell," whispered Kevin. "Cripes."

"Fucking aye, cripes," whispered Harlen. "Something about it's still working, still evil."

Mike crouched, touched one of the notebooks as if it were a talisman. "You think it's all centered around the bell?" he asked Dale.

Dale nodded.

"You think Roon and Van Syke and Old Double-Butt are part of it because they're with the school?" asked Mike.

"Yeah," whispered Dale. "I don't know how or why. Somehow."

"Me too," said Mike. He turned to look at Jim Harlen. "You still got your pistol?"

Harlen reached into his sling with his right hand, came out with the snub-nosed revolver.

Mike's head moved up and down. "Dale? You have guns in the house, don't you?"

Dale looked at his little brother, then returned Mike's gaze. "Yes. Dad has a shotgun. I have the Savage."

Mike did not blink." "The thing he lets you go quail hunting with?"

"Uh-huh. It'll be my gun when I'm twelve."

"It's a shotgun, right?"

"Four-ten on the bottom," said Dale. "Twenty-two on top."

"Fires just one shell from each barrel, right?" Mike's voice sounded flat, almost distracted.

"Yeah," said Dale. "You open it to reload."

Mike nodded. "Can you get it?"

Dale was silent for a moment. "Dad'd kill me if I took it out of the house without permission, without him along.” He looked out the door at the darkness there. Fireflies winked against the line of apple trees in Mike's backyard. "Yes," said Dale, "I can get it."

"Good." Mike turned toward Kevin. "Do you have something?"

Kev rubbed his cheek. "No. I mean, my dad has his forty-five service automatic… semiautomatic, really… but it's in the bottom drawer of his desk. Locked."

"Could you get it?"

Kevin paced back and forth, rubbing his cheek. "It's his service pistoll It's like… like a trophy or souvenir the guys in his platoon gave him. He was an officer in World War Two and…" Kevin stopped pacing. "You think guns will do any good against these things that killed Duane?"

Mike was a crouched and curled shape in the semidarkness, poised like some animal waiting to pounce. But all the tension was in the posture of his body, not in his voice. "I don't know," he said softly, so softly that his voice was barely discernible beneath the insect sounds from the garden beyond the chickenhouse. "But I think Roon and Van Syke were part of it, and nobody said they couldn't be hurt. Can you get the gun?"

"Yes," said Kevin after thirty seconds of silence.

"Some bullets for it?"

"Yes. My father keeps them in the same drawer."

"We'll keep the stuff here," said Mike. "If we need it we can get at it. I have an idea…"

"What about you?" said Dale. "Your dad doesn't hunt, does he?"

"No," said Mike,"but there's Memo's squirrel gun."

"What's that?"

Mike held his hands about eighteen inches apart. "You know that long gun that Wyatt Earp used on the show?"

"The Buntline Special?" said Harlen, his voice too loud. "Your grandma has a Buntline Special?"

"Uh-uh," said Mike,"but it looks sort of like that. My grandpa had it made in Chicago for her about forty years ago. It's a four-ten shotgun like Dale's, only it's on a pistol whatchamacallit…" "Grip," said Kevin.

"Yeah. The barrel's about a foot and half long and it's got this nice wooden pistol grip. Memo always called it her squirrel gun, but I think Grampa got it for her 'cause the place they lived in… Cicero… was real tough back then."

Kevin Grumbacher whistled. "Boy, that kind of gun is as illegal as all get-out. It's a sawed-off shotgun is what it is. Was your grandpa part of Capone's mob, Mike?"

"Shut up, Grumbacher," Mike said without heat. "OK, we get the guns and as much ammunition as we can get. We don't let our folks know they're gone. And we hide them…"He looked around, poking the sprung couch. "Behind the big radio," said Dale. Mike turned slowly, his grin visible even in the poor light. "Got it. Tomorrow we've got some things to do. Who wants to go talk to Mrs. Moon?"

The boys shifted position and stayed silent. Finally Lawrence said, "I will."

"No," Mike said gently. "We're going to need you for some other important stuff.”

"Like what?" said Lawrence, kicking at a can on the wooden floor." "I don't even have a gun like the rest of you.” "You're too young…" began Dale harshly. Mike touched Dale's arm, spoke to Lawrence. "If you need one, you'll share Dale's over-and-under. Did you ever fire it?"

"Yeah, lots of times… well, a couple." "Good," said Mike. "In the meantime, we're going to need someone who can ride really fast on his bike to try to find Roon and report back."

Lawrence nodded, obviously knowing that he was being bought off but figuring that was the best deal he was going to get.

"I'll talk to Mrs. Moon," said Mike. "I know her pretty well from mowing her yard and taking her for walks and stuff. I'll just see if she's got any information she didn't give Duane."

They sat there another few moments, knowing that the meeting was over but not wanting to go home in the dark.

“ What're you gonna do if the Soldier guy comes tonight?” Harlen asked Mike.

"I'm going to find the squirrel gun," whispered Mike,"but I'll try the holy water first." He snapped his fingers as if remembering something. "I'll get some more for you guys. Get some sort of bottle to carry it in."

Kevin folded his arms. "How come only your Catholic holy water works? Wouldn't my Lutheran stuff work, or Dale's Presbyterian junk?"

"Don't call my Presbyterian stuff junk," snapped Dale. Mike looked curious. "Do you guys have holy water in your churches?"

Three boys shook their heads. Harlen said, "Nobody has that weird stuff but you Catholics, dipshit."

Mike shrugged. "It worked on the Soldier. At least the holy water… I haven't tried the consecrated Host yet. Don't you guys have Communion?"

"Yeah," answered Dale and Kevin. "We could get some of the Communion bread," Dale said to Lawrence.

"How?" asked his little brother.

Dale thought a moment. "You're right, it's easier to steal the over-and-under than to get the Communion stuff." He gestured toward Mike. "OK, since we know your stuff works, get some of your holy water for us."

"We could fill water balloons with it," said Harlen. "Bomb these fuckers. Make 'em hiss and shrivel like slugs getting salted."

The others didn't know if Harlen was pulling their chains or not. They decided to adjourn and think about it until morning.

Mike did his paper route in record time and was at the rectory by seven a.m. Mrs. McCafferty was already there. "He's sleeping," she whispered in the downstairs hall. "Doctor Powell gave him something." Mike was puzzled. "Who's Doctor Powell?" The diminutive housekeeper kept wringing her hands in her apron. "He's a doctor from Peoria that Doctor Staffney brought yesterday evening."

"It's that serious?" whispered Mike, but part of him was remembering: the brown slugs falling from the Soldier's funnel-shaped mouth, the maggots writhing, burrowing.

Mrs. McCafferty put one of her reddened hands over her mouth as if she were about to cry. "They don't know what it is. I heard Doctor Powell tell Doctor Staffney that they'd have to move him into St. Francis today if his fever didn't go down…"

"St. Francis," whispered Mike, glancing up the staircase. "All the way to Peoria?"

"They have iron lungs there," whispered the old lady and then seemed unable to go on. Almost to herself, she said, "I was up all night saying the rosary, asking the Virgin to help the poor young man…"

"Can I just look in on him?" insisted Mike.

"Oh, no, they're afraid it's contagious. No one's allowed to go in but me and the doctors."

"I was with him when he got sick," said Mike, not pointing out to her that she'd already let him in the house, exposing him if she were a carrier. He didn't think the slugs would travel to another person… but the thought of it made him queasy for a moment. "Please," he asked, putting on his most angelic, altar-boy look, "I won't even go in the room, just peek in."