Ghouls (31 page)

He stared a moment more. He blinked steadily, daring this scene to be a mirage that might disappear between blinks.

The two girls stopped screaming. Glen could tell by the looks on their faces that they weren’t exactly happy to see him.

“I told you we shouldn’t have come here,” the blonde said.

“Oh, shut up,” the brunette said back to her.

Frowning, the blonde dared to look up at Glen. “Well, you’ve scared the shit out of us,” she said. “What happens now?”

From the driver’s side, the brunette leaned over, her lips sealed in a similar, defiant smirk. She wore a black T-shirt with the white letters DISCHORD RECORDS centered breast level. “Are you gonna arrest us, or what?” she inquired of him.

Neither of them could’ve been more than eighteen.

“What the hell is this?”
he was eventually able to say.

“We’re parking,” said the blonde.

“You’re both girls!”

“Clever of you to notice,” said the brunette.

Glen shined the light in back. “Girls don’t go parking without guys. Where are the guys?”

“We’re not into guys,” the brunette answered. This she stated quite solidly. There was no shame, no embarrassment.

“We’re into each other,” the blonde said.

No, no, come on. I can’t be expected to believe this. I just…can’t…believe
—

“Why are you staring at us like that?” the blonde asked. “It’s not polite to stare.”

The brunette: “Yeah, what’s the matter? Haven’t you ever seen two girls make it before?”

“No,” he said. “This is Maryland, not California.”

“We’re gay. We admit it.”

Glen squinted at them. He was thrown over. “How can you
not
admit it? I just saw you take your hand out of that girl’s pants!”

“That’s no reason to treat us like criminals!” the brunette shouted back. Her voice echoed through the forest. “We haven’t done anything wrong, so instead of staring at us like we’re a pair of midgets, why don’t you give us a break? If our parents find out about this, they’d make us go see shrinks.”

Finally, the shock began to rise. “How did you get in here?” he demanded. “Are you the people who’ve been cutting my chains?”

The blonde’s frown drew to a grimace. “We didn’t cut any damn chains.”

“We used one of those back roads on the town line,” the brunette added. “We didn’t mean any harm.”

“Yeah, I can see that,” he said. “Look, what you do with each other is your business, but when you do it here, it becomes
my
business. This is private property, and there’re signs posted all over the place, and did you ever stop to think that maybe the guy who owns this land doesn’t want you two coming out here to feel each other up? How would you like it if I parked my car in your yard and
dorked
my girlfriend there?”

“You don’t have to insult us,” the brunette snapped back. “It’s not against the law to be gay, you know.”

“Fine, I realize that. Just go be gay somewhere else.”

Excitement sparkled in the blonde’s eyes. “You mean you’re not going to squeal on us? You’re not going to report us?”

“No, I’m not going to report you. Just leave. Go out the way you came.”

“You mean that?” prodded the brunette. “You won’t tell our parents?”

“I won’t even tell your parents. Go away now. Beat it. Scram. Be like a hockey player and get the puck out of here.”

Seconds later, they were gone, the roar of their engine immense in the night. Glen made a small note of the incident in his daily log, then glanced up in time to see their taillights fade.

This was a first in his career. Crunching back through the woods to the truck, he could still scarcely believe it had even happened.
Two girls,
he thought.
The new age has dawned before my very eyes.
Wait’ll
Kurt hears about this.

Vague light shifted in the trees. Overhead, the moon glared through a rive in the clouds. Glen marched on, stepping high instinctively to avoid unseen branches and stumps. Too many times this forest’s bag of tricks had landed him on his face.

He promptly tripped and fell. He landed on his face.

Stupid clod.
He’d dropped the shotgun and flashlight, failing, though, to break his fall. But what had he tripped on? Fallen branches? A rotten log? When he moved to get back up, his hand pressed against something slimy and stiff.

“Jesus.”

There was an odor, faint but awful. His hand was wet. “What the hell is this?” he said, for the second time that night.

He found the flashlight, and pointed it, and—

— | — | —

PART TWO

In your love is my death;

feel my dead heart beat stronger.

This goes on forever,

but I can wait longer.

It kills me when he touches you,

every whisper, every kiss.

But your years are my seconds,

and your misery
—
my bliss.

—from “Three” by RODERICK BYERS

You’ll never know where,

and you’ll never know when.

“Murder,” it whispers.

“The mirror. “ Again.

You’ll never know how,

and you’ll never know who.

It’s coming, though, and it’s coming for you.

—from “Double” by L. EDWARD S.

they are neither man nor woman,

they are neither brute nor human;

they are ghouls.

—E. A. POE

— | — | —

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

THUNK, THUNK, THUNK

Kurt looked up and frowned. He was reading in the den, the
floorlamp
glowing softly behind his chair. In his lap he held a book entitled
The Red Confession,
but its pages were all blank.

At once the house fell silent again, though he was certain he’d heard a heavy, loud
thunking
sound only a moment ago. Perhaps he had imagined it.

He looked around the room, on edge, as if suspicious of something. A thin but very icy draft nagged at the back of his neck; when he turned, it seemed to follow him. And what was wrong with the furniture? It all seemed slightly out of place, as though someone had moved each piece an inch or two. The curtains hung open to reveal a window full of blackness. When he looked down, he noticed thick black-red carpet on the floor, but he could’ve sworn it had always been brown. Next, he put away
The Red Confession,
only to be left to gaze speechlessly at the bookshelves. His books were gone, replaced by titles he’d never seen.
The King in Yellow, The Lair of the White Worm, The Book of Dead Names.
Just what kind of books were these? There weren’t even authors listed on the spines, except for one on the end, /
Have Seen the Inside,
by the Duke of Clarence, whoever he was. Someone had taken the old books out, and switched them with these.

He sensed it was very late. Soon he became aware of a soft, rapid ticking sound.
The clock?
he thought. But it was much too fast and erratic to be a clock of any kind. Likewise, the corner which had always been occupied by Uncle Roy’s grandfather clock was now curiously vacant. Someone had taken the clock also. He would have to ask Melissa what had happened to the books and the clock and the carpet.

THUNK, THUNK, THUNK

There it was again; he hadn’t imagined it after all.

Someone was at the door.

He walked across the room with alarming effort. He felt sluggish, dragged, as if all his pockets had been filled with lead shot. Then he realized he was dressed in his police uniform, and about the same time he
knew
something was wrong. Too much strangeness had piled up at once. He couldn’t figure it. The books, the carpet, the clock, and now himself in uniform at some wan hour when only the other day he’d been suspended from work.

THUNK, THUNK, THUNK

But the strangest part was that he felt extremely averse to answering the door. He couldn’t explain it. He just didn’t want to do it.

He stuck his head into the foyer, refusing to even look at the front door. What did he sense waiting for him behind it? “Melissa, be a sport and get the door for me, will you? I’m…busy.”

He waited, but she made no reply.

And again—

THUNK, THUNK, THUNK

It was much louder this time, driven by insistence; Kurt actually felt the frame of the house vibrate. He pictured Conan pounding on the door with a giant wooden mallet.

“Melissa!” He paused, waited. “Melissa! Get the door!”

“Get it yourself!” her small, pointed voice shot back. Hostility gave a crack to the words.

THUNK, THUNK, THUNK

“Come on, Melissa,” he pleaded. “Someone’s at the door, and I don’t feel like getting it.”

From deep in the house, Melissa’s voice unwound as an enraged squeal: “Go fuck yourself! Lazy do-nothing son of a
bitch! FUCK
yourself!”

Kurt’s face darkened. Melissa had been brought up liberally, he knew and understood, but now her precocity had slipped too far. It was fine for him to swear, he was an adult. He would not, however, tolerate language like that from a twelve-year-old.

THUNK, THUNK, THUNK

“No one’s home!” he spat at the door. To hell with whoever was knocking. Kurt crossed the foyer, the TV room, then marched purposefully into the long hall. It was hot, a dense wet
ensliming
sensation; the darkness seemed to bleed out of the walls and drip. He breathed the dark, he could feel it fill his chest. But he paid no attention to the incompatibilities he’d observed since finding himself in the den.

He pushed open Melissa’s bedroom door.