Thirty Miles South Of Dry County (4 page)

If they was alive, and just trussed up or locked up somewhere, what exactly was I supposed to do about it?

And if they wasn’t, then most likely my bein’ there was gonna change nothin’ but the number of names on that roadside rock.

But in the end, I knew it really weren’t about tryin’ to save no one. As my wife—God rest her soul—had often told me over the years, I ain’t no rescuer. I’m usually the one who needs rescuin’, which is how I met her in the first place. And I let that poor woman rescue me for the rest of her life, only to find that when it come time, I couldn’t do nothin’ in return but watch her die.

So I figured me bein’ there that day were about somethin’ else. Didn’t quite know yet what that might be, but I suspected it were about tryin’, about compensatin’ in some way for never havin’ the guts to stick my neck out for nothin’ or no one in my whole sorry life.

I also figured it might be about simple curiosity. Kids go into a haunted house because they can’t help but want to catch a glimpse of whatever’s hauntin’ it, even if they know inside themselves it’s all make-believe.

On that day, standin’ at the top of a small hill where the Volkswagen Sven adored so much sat ruined, and with the ugly town of Milestone laid out before me, I guess I felt the same.

* * *

The air got thinner as I tromped down that hill, and though I ain’t much educated—left school when I were fourteen to get a job so my mother didn’t have to add another to the two she already had—I know air’s supposed to be thinner the higher up you go. Not only that but it seemed thick, heady, much like it had back at Sven’s with all that vegetation cloggin’ up the place.

Then I saw why.

I knew there wasn’t many people in Milestone, hadn’t been in some time, and much of it had fallen to decay. The stories I’d heard over the years painted it to be a kind of ghost town, with whole blocks abandoned. The wrecked cars on the road on the way in had been proof enough, but standin’ there at the foot of that hill, I saw for myself that the stories was true. How bad the decay might have been, whether those buildin’s was burned out or just deserted, I couldn’t tell, because the vines had claimed ‘em. On the first sweep of my gaze, I assumed the two story buildin’s linin’ both sides of Main Street, at least until it faded into the mist, was covered with ivy, which I’d always thought made a place look distinguished and aged in a good way, like a sick old lady in expensive clothes. But another look told me the leaves was far too big, and last time I checked, ivy don’t move like it’s a livin’ thing. I could even
hear
it, which were worse, a faint rustlin’ sound with creaks here and there as the vines crisscrossed and cinched themselves tighter than straightjackets around the walls.

I walked as if in a dream, the mist above and around me glowin’ as the sun hit it, and noticed that there was buildin’s the vines hadn’t touched at all. Brown and grey teeth in a green smile. Those businesses looked deserted too, but somethin’ told me they wasn’t. Maybe it were the small things, like a smear of clear glass in a dusty window, or a lone flower-pot on a sill, or the muffled sound of a door being eased shut. Maybe it were the shadows in the doorways, or the slightest hint of a pale ghost of a face behind a lazily shiftin’ curtain. Whatever it were, I knew the vines hadn’t claimed those places because they wasn’t permitted to. Yet. Or maybe
they
had permitted the residents to live there, happy to wait until they died or tried to leave before swallowin’ up the places they’d called home. Whichever way it worked, it was still an unnervin’ thing to see.

My footsteps sounded like gunshots on the empty street. I were sweatin’ somethin’ fierce. The air were thin, I figured, because those vines was drawin’ it in, usin’ it up then pumpin’ it back out again after they’d taken all the good out of it.

I’d expected a feelin’ of doom when I got there, and though it were obvious it were not a good place in any sense of the word, I didn’t feel threatened, only lost, like I’d entered a day I couldn’t hope to find my way to the other end of. The air made the place feel unhealthy, bound to poison you if you dawdled too long, and that rustlin’ sound brought fears of seein’ those vines untangle themselves and wrap around your neck. Otherwise it weren’t no different than the dead towns you see all over the country in places where mines was the only thing that had ever kept the place alive.

I walked faster, stoppin’ only when a shadow I’d taken to be a bundle of rags detached itself from the stoop of one of those unclaimed buildings to my right and started shamblin’ toward me. His approach out of the mist were like watchin’ an old Polaroid develop.

I panicked, steeled myself for whatever harm this creature had in mind for me, and clenched my fists, adjustin’ my posture so I were close to a fightin’ stance, which I bet looked ridiculous, and waited.

“Change?” said the shadow, and a homeless man wrapped in a ratty gray blanket emerged from the gloom.

“Sorry,” I said, when I found my voice. It sounded strangled, and didn’t carry far, tamped down as it were by the heady air. “Left my wallet at home.”

“Not what I meant,” said the hobo, and his thin lips moved into what looked like a small smile. It were hard to tell around his thick, scraggly beard, which, like the vines, seemed like it were tryin’ to claim the man’s face entirely. Beneath the peak of a saggy purple cap, his eyes was still hidden. Only the bridge and tip of a hawk-like nose was visible. “No need for money ‘round here.”

“Oh,” I said, because I didn’t know what else to say.

“Anyway…” A bottle of whiskey emerged from the blanket, as if the hobo had been protectin’ it until he were sure I weren’t goin’ to steal it from him. “You ain’t local. Where you headed?”

“Mayor Kirkland’s office,” I told him. “Assumin’ he’s even got one.”

The hobo shrugged. “No city hall here, mister, mostly ‘cuz we ain’t a city. Not even a town hall no more, but then, we’re hardly a town neither.”

“I see.”

“Kirkland’s made a nest for hisself up at what used to be Reverend Hill’s place. Long walk though. Man of your age’d need a vehicle. Not that I’d advise that route either. People don’t have much luck around here in vehicles. Keep gettin’ themselves mashed up. Used to be a kind of sport back in the day. Not a good one, mind you, but then…” He gestured at the town around us. “Case you ain’t noticed, ain’t much of nothin’ good left around here anyways.”

I asked him the question I had always imagined myself askin’ the people of Milestone if I was ever unfortunate enough to find myself there. “So why do you stay?”

“Why not? It ain’t never done me no harm, ‘cept maybe takin’ some of the people I cared about, but that’ll happen anywhere. And even then, weren’t the town that did it. Were the people it called here.” What he didn’t say was:
People like you
. But I heard the implication in his voice.

“You want a sip?” He offered me the half-empty bottle. I noticed the amber liquid had a thin layer of bubblin’ yellow scum atop it. “No, thank you.”

He shrugged and started to turn away.

“If I can’t drive to Kirkland’s, what should I do?” I asked him.

“Your ride busted?”

I shook my head.

He turned back to face me. “Then fetch it and go home. That’s what you should do. Free advice. One time only.”

“I need to see him.”

“What for?”

“Some friends of mine come to talk to him yesterday and I ain’t seen them since.”

He breathed a short laugh. “And if you mess with things in this town, someone’ll come lookin’ for
you
. And I’ll tell them the same thing. That they’d be better off anyplace else. And they won’t listen neither. World’s forgot how to listen.” Then he shuffled away until the shadows erased him from sight. I heard him groan a little from the strain of lowerin’ his old bones back onto his perch.

I stared into the mist, waitin’ for him to say somethin’ else, but all I heard were that ugly rustlin’ from the vines as they tightened themselves around the buildin’s on both sides of the hobo’s tenement.

It weren’t until I sighed and started walkin’ again that he spoke.

“He has a whore. Name of Iris. Lives on Winter Street.”

“Where’s…?”

“Follow this street up a ways, and turn left. Easy to spot her place. Only one on the block the vines ain’t suffocated yet. He’ll be there in about a half hour. Same as always, though he probably won’t take too kindly to
you
bein’ there.”

“Don’t much care whether he do or he don’t,” I said, and kept movin’, knowin’ the bravery in my words were about as hollow as the hobo’s laughter at my back.

* * *

Winter Street were a crooked one, full of buildin’s that looked fit to fall over. The shingles was gone from most of them, the vines threading in and out of the holes. Black stains streaked from the windows, most of which had been boarded up. The street were cracked cobblestone, which seemed an odd touch for a western town, like the civil engineer had been some homesick European loon. I could almost imagine myself in Victorian times, watchin’ the shiftin’ gray veils of mist for a sign of some caped shadow stabbin’ his scalpel at the gloom. All that were missin’ was the gaslight lamps. But there was no lights at all on this street, save the dull flickerin’ glow of candles in the third story window of a buildin’ that bore the name THE HOUSE OF IRIS. I saw no vines on this one, as the hobo had said, and though there were a large plate-glass window in the storefront, it were so caked in grime I couldn’t see much through it except the impression of a crowd of figures standin’ stock-still and lookin’ toward me, like they’d been chatterin’ before I arrived but stopped to watch me approach. It made the hair prickle on the back of my neck. I stared at those black blurs for a few moments more, hopin’ they was statues or mannequins, then kept goin’ until I got to a short flight of stone steps leadin’ to a badly scarred door.

I mounted the steps and waited on the threshold, fist raised, before I were suddenly overcome with doubt. It were Kirkland I needed to see, and yet here I stood at the door of a strange woman, about to invade her world. What were I goin’ to say by way of introduction?
Hello, I’ve come to talk to the man who’s pokin’ you. Think I could wait a while?

I’d decided to go somewhere and sit for a spell to give the whole mess a bit more thought, when I heard a shufflin’ sound on the other side of the door, then a slight tap against the wood.

“Hello?” I asked, softly.

“Jack?” came the reply.

“Um…no Ma’am. Name’s Warrick Tanner.”

“And what do you want, Warrick Tanner?”

“I need to speak to Mayor Kirkland.”

“He ain’t here.”

“Yeah, I know, but it’s my understandin’ that he will be soon, and I kinda need to talk to him. It’s urgent.”

“What’s your business with him?”

“I’m lookin’ for some friends of mine.”

Silence.

“Ma’am?”

“Suppose you best come in then.”

* * *

The woman who opened the door to me might once have been pretty—I could kinda see it there, like beauty hidden behind a dusty veil—but time had not been kind to her. Although she were not yet old enough to fear the reaper, her face looked like she’d dodged his blade a few times. Deep grooves ran from beneath her hooded green eyes to the corners of her mouth, and her russet hair were lank and threaded with gray. Her thin face looked like it hadn’t seen much sun, and she squinted at the frail light as she beckoned me to come inside. She wore a shapeless gray dress, which showed how thin she were beneath.

“Much obliged, Ma’am,” I said. I entered the gloomy hallway, which smelled of dust and smoke, my feet catchin’ with a scratchin’ sound on some of the old yellow newspapers that lay scattered around the foot of a rickety lookin’ staircase.

“So what is it you want Jack to do about your problem?” the woman asked me as she led the way up the stairs. The handrail shuddered off dust, the steps groanin’ under her bare feet.

“I want him to tell me what happened to my friends. That’s all.”

“What makes you think he knows?”

“Well, he’s the mayor. Don’t he know everythin’ that happens around here?”

She were backlit by the glow of the candlelight in the room behind her, so her face were lost in shadow as she turned. She sounded amused as she spoke.

“Honey,
nobody
knows everythin’ that happens in this town.”

She stared at me for a moment, maybe studyin’ me some to see if I were a danger, then moved away into the room. I followed, certain I’d made a mistake comin’ here and still unsure what I were goin’ to say.

The room were just large enough to accommodate a pine-framed double bed which sat beneath a boarded up window upon which was tacked a bunch of newspaper clippin’s that, from my limited view, didn’t seem connected in one way or another. Just some pieces about random incidents and people. In fact, the only order to ‘em were a series of numbers scribbled in pencil above each one.

“Anniversaries,” Iris said.

“Ma’am?”

“Every year this town celebrates an anniversary, whether the people choose to participate or not. And the day after each one, there’s a newspaper piece about it.”