Chapter Five
SHERIFF JIM HALLOWAY stood next to the counter and stared at the coffee pot forlornly. He watched the water seep through the coffee grounds and drip through the filter into the pot below, causing a small splash in the coffee already produced. Although his eyes followed each drip, his mind drifted far away from anything with caffeine. Like a machine, he reached into a crumpled, brown paper bag and drew out an apple slowly. The drips slowed and finally stopped before he picked up the pot and poured the hot liquid into his mug, taking a bite of the apple as he did. Jim shook himself out of the far away land of thought and returned to the main room of the police station.
The police station was really just an old apartment, originally built for living but modified for use as an office. It was cramped at times, but Jim enjoyed the homey atmosphere and considered it a privilege to work in a place that was so much like his own home. Or how is own home used to be. Lately however, he spent more and more time at the office or out on the road in his truck, driving and watching after the little town he had been entrusted to take care of.
Lettie, his secretary and dispatcher in one, looked up from a flimsy harlequin book and smiled a wide, toothy smile. One did not even have to talk with Lettie to know she was a happy person, as her very being in the room lit it up completely. An older woman with a flowing mane of curly hair and never without a smile, she read constantly. Jim nodded back, but did so only half-heartedly before taking a long swig from his mug. She sighed and folded the corner down of her current page and placed the book aside.
“Jim. You don’t look well,” she commented quietly, concerned but trying to be as casual as possible. Jim knew that she, of course, knew everything that was happening to him, not many secrets made it very long in tiny towns secluded in the forest, but she respected him enough not to come right out and give her advice without him asking for it. He played along with her game, “I never look well, Lettie. You know that.” She chuckled and batted at the air, feigning embarrassment. Jim could never quite figure out what she implied when she made those strange gestures.
“Come on Jim,” she said, “it always helps to talk to someone when you’re mulling through something in the old onion. Problems at home?” The smile had somehow transformed while talking and although she was still the image of giddy happiness, he knew she was sincerely concerned.
“No, Lettie,” he responded, examining the shiny surface of his apple, “we’re fixing those problems, you know. I’m just…” What the hell, he thought. She knew about him and Cindy and their problems—the entire town probably knew, as small towns go—and Lettie probably understood the problems better than he did. He had his reasons for liking his job, and the fact that his home didn’t follow him here was one of them. He took a deep breath, exhaled, and then finished, “I’m just tired. It’s been a long couple of days.” And with that, he turned and walked to his office. Lettie watched him go and sighed. She picked up her book, but could not quite find the pacing she had just had; she wondered why life wasn’t as easy as her harlequin novels.
In his office, Jim took another bite of the apple, but lost the desire to continue eating it as soon as it was in his mouth. With the chunk of apple still in his mouth, he began to cry. Sheriff Halloway was a formidable man, though not necessarily large in size. He stood almost 6 feet tall and was built somewhat heavily, but was still on the small scale compared to most men. He was a bear, though, when it came to the law and his job, and would not let things go – he was not someone you’d like to meet in a dark alley, especially if you and he were on the opposite side of things. Mostly kind and good-natured, he had recently developed a streak of bitterness that ran deep. His life was falling apart around him and nothing he did could stop it.
The front door swung open, slamming into the wall and vibrating the glass of the windows in the small room. Cindy, his attractive wife of 18 years stepped through the door. She gazed at him with eyes that were somehow cold but burned through him with scorching force. She stomped through the room and stood inches away from his face. In another setting, and with different moods floating through the air, the stance would have invited a kiss, but not today.
“Where were you, Jim.” She demanded, not as a question but as a statement of guilt applied squarely to him. “I reminded you and you knew and you broke his heart.”
For a few seconds Jim couldn’t remember what she was talking about, and then it hit him. Their six-year-old son, Caleb, had been working on for several months now. He played the part of King Arthur in a children’s version of Camelot, and was absolutely certain that this play would break him into show business.
Cindy stood in front of him, her nose almost touching his and he stood with his shoulders slumped, defeated. Lettie busied herself with unnecessary paperwork and effectively shrunk from the scene, making herself practically invisible. Jim glanced over at her, noticing her effective maneuver and wished that she would lend a hand. He turned his gaze back to his wife and shook his head slowly. He said, “I don’t know. I’m sorry.”
“I’m sick of hearing you say you’re sorry!” she erupted, “why don’t you ever change what you do rather than just say you’re sorry! You’re son looks up to you, you are his hero and you blew it, you jerk, you blew it again!” She stopped, catching her breath, “Where were you?” The rage in her voice startled him, she had never yelled like this before in their entire marriage. Sure, they’d had their fights, and they were currently in a stagnant relationship freeze, but never this.
“What do you want me to say, Cindy? I’m working. I told you that this morning, I told you that last night. Both you and he knew that I wouldn’t make his play.”
“And I told you how important it was to him that you were there. What’d you do today at work that was so important, that you couldn’t take an hour out of your time, huh? Fish a raccoon out of Mabel’s trash? Did you help someone across the street today? Did you do your good turn? This place is a hole, Jim, and you know it. You could have been with your son if you’d wanted to.”
She stopped talking, choking back something that could have been another explosion or a sob, Jim couldn’t be sure. Jim stood there and thought about how much he had once loved this woman, how he would have done anything for her, and how much he hated her now. She had never yelled at him like this, but she had done a great job making his life miserable for a good portion of their married life. It seemed he could never do enough, and she always demanded more. Maybe it was important for him to have been there at his son’s play, but it was showing again on the weekend and he would make it then. And he had no idea why his son was so set that he be at the school today, for this exact performance, but now was not the time. He responded in a calculated, safe-guarded way that further infuriated his wife but made it possible for him escape the conversation alive.
“Cindy. Can we talk about this at home? Please?” he asked, knowing how pathetic he sounded, but he also felt also stuck in a corner with no way out. He could think of nothing else to say that wouldn’t just anger her more. She looked into his eyes, and for a brief moment he thought he saw a spark of light, a faint glow of warmth, or possibly hope, flash across that part of the eye that conveys the human being beneath. In an instant, however, the spark vanished and the coldness returned.
“No, Jim. No.” she said, hesitating before, “I don’t want you to come home tonight.” She took a deep breath, then, “I think you should find somewhere else to stay.”
“Cindy-,” he started. His wife interrupted quietly, the fight seeming to have leaked out of her, “I’m done, Jim. I can’t do this anymore. I love you too much.” She reached and almost touched his arm, but thought better of it, turned around and walked out the door. Jim stood in place for several seconds, thinking about her last statement about love and scoffed at her in his mind. If she loved him, she would not treat him the way she did, if she really loved him- he stopped. What’s the point? He asked himself. He shook his head bitterly and turned to go back into his office. His life had changed so much within the past few years, and even more drastically in the past few months. He hated how he felt and how he treated people, even the people closest to him. In reality, he missed his family more than anything, despite how he felt when around his wife. Not to mention Caleb, who needed his father. Jim couldn’t think of a reason why his son had needed him there at the specific performance today, but he guessed it didn’t matter; he should have been there. For a moment, he thought about a different time when he and his son had been friends—he and Cindy too. They used to be able to talk, to discuss things, but his wife, rather than approaching him nicely like she used to, began exploding which made him feel that sinking, bitter feeling so common in their recent years. If she loved him, really loved him, she would have- Lettie interrupted his thoughts.
“Aren’t you going to go after her,” Lettie said quietly from her spot behind the desk. Jim sighed and said, “Lettie, this is not a romance novel, where everything works out in the end. This is life.”
She looked away, hurt, and muttered beneath her breath, “then maybe you really don’t deserve her.” Jim almost walked away, upset that he had offended Lettie, but sick of trying to explain himself to everyone he spoke to.
“Listen, Lettie, I’m a Jerk. I’m sorry,” he said, “You’re right and Cindy’s right, I have been a jerk, not just to her but to you too.” He took a deep breath and sighed, “What do you think I could do?” He asked and her response surprised him, she said, “The first thing you should do is go home to her tonight. She clearly needs you right now.”
“Did you hear the conversation? She said explicitly not to come home tonight, to find somewhere else to stay.”
Lettie held up one of her manicured hands to stop him, and responded, “she said those things cause she’s mad. She also told you that she loves you and doesn’t like fighting with you. Your wife is pleading for you to come back to her, not just physically, tonight, but emotionally as well. She misses you.”
Jim chuckled, “I’m not sure we heard the same, screaming woman. I’m pretty sure that she doesn’t miss me at all.”
“That’s where you’re wrong. Trust me.”
***
Darkness overtook the town before Kevin reached the diner. The night had come quickly, darkening the streets and extending the shadows from the trees and buildings to create a general pool of blackness. Fog swept through the trees and around the buildings like a devilish specter. The mist coated everything with moisture, including the street, giving it a glimmer whenever light shone upon it. The storm still hovered in the distance, but several rogue clouds had floated through the deep blue sky, closing in on the city. The full moon, swollen with light, occasionally shone through the clouds like an eerie spotlight.
Kevin walked slowly through the streets and up to the entrance of Mabel’s diner. The lights shone through the front window onto the street below. Before walking up the steps, Kevin turned and glanced up the street. The buildings and street were dark and empty. The single stop light in the town had switched from its cycle and now just blinked yellow. Just across the street, lights still glowed at the police station, and several cars occupied a few of the parking spaces in front of the building.
Kevin stood deep in thought and watched the town fall asleep. He couldn’t shake the feeling that accompanied him from his room and he dreaded going back. A nice aroma awoke his senses and shook him from thoughts of the day’s events. The thought of his wife also entered his mind and he made a mental note to give her a call when he got back to the room. Maybe this place wasn’t where he would spend his month away, if he kept getting distracted like this—he didn’t think he’d ever have time to work. He thought that maybe a nice cup of coffee and a meal, with a slice of pumpkin pie to top it off, would help clear his mind and allow him to get started with his temporary new life in Mapleton.
He turned back to the diner and started up the stairs, but stopped. Something caught his eye as he turned, but he really wasn’t sure what it was. He turned back to the police station and stared, trying to find what had caught his attention so completely. He saw a woman sitting at a desk through the front window, and a man who appeared to be the sheriff was talking to her, standing like a pathetic teenager, with an expression on his face indicating that either he was upset about something or had just eaten a rotten grape.
To the side of the building was the town bank, separated from the police station by a tiny alley. In the shadows of the alley, a man stood watching him. Kevin could not make out anything other than his shadow, but the massive size of the man seemed somehow familiar.
“Creepy hillbillies,” Kevin muttered under his breath as he turned back to the diner. He stopped cold when he realized why the man looked familiar. The chill that spent so much on his spine today went fanatical, making him shudder. He remembered the television flickering onto an image of a country highway, bordered by thick forest. A figure had stood off in the shadows, just beyond the tree line. The man watching him from the alley had a remarkably similar shadow to the other he had just seen an hour ago on the television. Kevin was frozen on the steps of the diner, not wanting to turn and look, but knowing that he had to, that his shaky frame of mind depended on it. In one motion, he whipped around to face the shadow in the alley, and was startled (secretly thankful) to see that the man no longer stood in the shadows; in fact, Kevin couldn’t see the man at all. Kevin looked up and down the street, looking for anyone resembling the shadow in the alley. The moon slid behind some clouds, casting the street into further darkness, but despite the darkness, Kevin saw that he was alone.
His eyes fell again on the dark alley, to the side of the police station. He briefly debated going to the station and talking to the sheriff about the suspicious man in the alley, but the sheriff was waving his arms and speaking rather heatedly, making himself appear more like a buffoon than he had before. Kevin had some real doubts about this place; it seemed that he simply picked the wrong town.
The darkness in the alley shifted and Kevin thought that maybe the guy was still in there, hiding and watching him. Of course the creep was still there, he thought, why would it be any different right now than it had been all day? Why not just load every creepy thing you can into one day and see what happens.
“The population of Mapleton is going to be one person less by tomorrow morning,” Kevin muttered, “that’s what happens.” Having come to a decision, he took a deep breath and started across the wide street toward the alley on the other side.
The shadows shifted again and Kevin wondered how he saw the shifting—looking into the alley was like looking into a cave, completely dark and shapeless. He supposed that maybe a source of light towards the rear caused the shift when the person moved, but Kevin could see nothing but darkness. His footsteps echoed hollowly through the street as he walked. The mist was thick now, and spreading quickly.
Before he reached the other side of the street, he began to smell the dead, electric odor of rotting flesh, so strong that it stung his nostrils and made his lungs ache, much like breathing in bitter cold air. He lifted his shirt up and over his mouth and began to breath through the cloth to lessen the effects of the stench, but his makeshift mask only enhanced the sensation of death in his mouth.
The mouth of the alley loomed like some gigantic monster waiting for him in the darkness. The smell only got worse as he got closer to the shadows between the two brick walls. A low whisper and a shuffle made him stop dead in his tracks, the echoes of his footsteps reverberating on the walls; then ceasing. The smell unbearably caught in his throat, unmoving, and Kevin realized what he had before mistaken as the static smell of electricity, smelled more like the stagnant, metallic smell of iron, reminding him distinctly of breathing through a bloody nose.
He was careful not to enter the darkness of shadows. “Hello?” he asked into the darkness, “I know you’re in there and you don’t scare me, if that’s what you’re trying to do.” No answer. He heard something shuffle, moving like a zombie in one of those old movies. “I don’t know why you’d scare me, but it certainly seems that you’re trying to. Who are you?”
Another shuffle or maybe a whisper, then silence. Kevin said, in a voice that he thought commanded respect, “I’m coming in there. So if you want to scare me, do it now, cause when I’m in there I’ll be mad as hell.” He sighed as he stepped closer, peering into the realms of darkness, sure that the guy in there called his bluff. The fear that rose within him reminded him of a time when, as a child, he watched a horror film with his father. Afterward his dad had asked him to turn off an upstairs light. He obeyed, doing the task quickly, then, running back down the stairs to the light and company of other people, his father simply reached his arm through the railing of the stairs. The action was juvenile, but it was enough to cause terror to explode within and push Kevin into unconsciousness. He passed out and fell down the rest of the stairs. The fear he felt now was much the same as he had felt then, almost enveloping his body and causing him to pass out. Adding to the uneasiness that rumbled and coiled inside of him, he felt cold. He pulled his jacket tighter around his shoulders, realizing that he was much colder than he should have been in this weather. His body quivered as he peered into the shadows a second longer—he needed to get inside and get warmed up.
Another whisper, slightly louder this time, brought Kevin back to reality and the task at hand. He asked into the darkness, “I didn’t hear you. Do you need help or something?” The voice that responded scratched his eardrums like sandpaper on his ears, somehow screeching at the same time that it scraped and rumbled. It said something he didn't quite understand.
Kevin stepped closer to the alley, so close that if had taken another step, he would have stepped into shadow. He leaned forward; peering into the space just beyond. It appeared to be empty, but somehow he knew that something more terrible than he could ever imagine waited for him in the dark. Something sinister that would crush his sanity, along with his body, and leave him for dead. Kevin knew that the line where the shadow of the alley met the pavement was a line that separated him from a loony bin, and raving craziness. Another voice from behind saved him.
“What, you don’t have alleys where you come from? I’d show you more, but I think this is the only one the town has to offer.” Pastor Henri stood several feet behind Kevin, smiling. Kevin turned, slightly shaken, and grinned sheepishly. Henri continued, “We have a little space behind the market, but I think that’s the only other place that even comes close to being an alley. Sorry about that.” The pastor shrugged, “It’s a small town.”
Kevin shook his head and offered his hand to the other man. He said, “I’m Kevin Johnson, from down in Charlotte. I’m just passing through.”
“You intend to stay awhile don’t you?” Henri asked, and watched Kevin turn his head several times toward the alley as if watching or waiting for something to happen. It took Kevin several seconds to respond, his mind still on that guy in the shadows.
“I was going to stay, but I don’t know. I’m working on a pretty big project and I’m looking for a place a little,” another glance over his shoulder, “less distracting.”
“My name is Henri, I’m the pastor here in town,” he looked into the alley curiously, “I hope you change your mind. This is a beautiful town and I’m sure it will work to your benefit to stay.” Kevin shook his head, determined not to look again. He crossed over the sidewalk closer to Henri and put his hands in his pockets. He said, “Oh I don’t disagree, this place is pretty. Today though… has just been strange for me.” The pastor nodded toward the east and smiled.
“I’m sure it’s just the storm,” he commented, “you know how it gets with all those negative and positive charges in the air. And it looks to be a whopper.”
“You saw it too?” Kevin asked, feeling his senses returning little by little. The line he had almost crossed, onto the stage of insanity, seemed to be moving farther and farther away. Something had changed in his mind though, as if released by some invisible force. Before, he had been obsessed with the film he had seen on television, and when he had seen the man in the shadows, he had obsessed about that as well. Now, however, a resonating calm filled his mind, a calmness that told him to dismiss everything he had heard and seen that day, similar to the invitation he thought he’d felt when he neared the alley. The preacher’s laughing pulled him back into reality, away from his reflections.
“Is something wrong, Mr. Johnson?” Henri chuckled, “I mean, if you want me to leave you alone with the alley, that’s fine. But why don’t we go get a bite to eat first.” The pastor motioned to the diner then took Kevin by the arm. He continued, “You really ought not to stand out here in the cold so long, you’re wearing a jacket and you still feel like a corpse.”
The comment startled Kevin who, now fully aware of the conversation, cocked his head curiously, and asked, “How long was I standing there? It couldn’t have been more than a few minutes.”
“I live just up the street, in an apartment above the church,” Henri said, “and it took me about 30 minutes to shuffle my body over here. You were standing there, looking into that alley when I came out of my apartment. You’ve been standing there for a good part of an hour.”
To be continued next Friday, August 14, 2015, the full novel to be revealed in parts by Halloween.
Follow this blog by entering your email address on the right side of the page -- get these chapters delivered straight to your inbox!
© 2008, Derrick Hibbard. All Rights Reserved.
No comments:
Post a Comment