Johnny Halloween Page 10

  And now the killer who carved that trophy is heading his way. A cold wind travels with him, filling the narrow brick tunnel, tumbling newspapers and trash, moving the black around. But it does nothing to dispel the murderous stench, or the blood splattering the Boy in Rorschach droplets, or the orange beam of light that connects the Boy’s gaze to the killer’s raised knife.

  The Boy levels his shotgun, but the killer doesn’t slow his step.

  The masked thing only laughs, sending another shower of blood across the alley.

  “Sawtooth Jack,” the killer says. “That’s what they call you. I’ll give you all you can take, Jack. I’ll give you a bellyful.”

  The bloody hand flicks again. Blood slaps the October Boy’s carved face. A drop flies between his teeth and he tastes its bitter salt. And now, his anger rises. Because no one can tell him about blood, or what it’s for, or what it costs. Especially not a pretender who hides behind a rubber face that’s a mockery of his own. The October Boy doesn’t have a single drop of red in him anymore, but he knows all about blood. He spilled every drop he could spare last year in that cornfield where a cop put a bullet in his brain. Now he’s just a rooted thing that doesn’t bleed, a thing bred by photosynthesis and sunlight and the cursed light of the moon, a thing fed by the dark earth whose roots are now severed and dying at the tips of his twisted feet.

  “C’mon,” the killer says, because he understands none of that. “We both know how this game is played. Hell, I’ve worked in a slaughterhouse for the last year. I’ve spilled blood. I’ve washed my hands in it. I’d drink it straight from the vein if that’s what it took to get what I want. And I’ll give it up, too. I’ll give as much as I need to get everything I want.”

  Another red gout flies through the air, but this time it doesn’t reach the October Boy. Stoked fire flares in his carved head, and the alley lights up with angry flame. That spray of blood sizzles to ash in midair, long before it can touch the Boy.

  A second later, slivers of ash drift to the ground. That stops the maniac cold. The fire in the Boy’s head remains a stoked, banked glow. He steadies the shotgun, backing off slowly, but he knows he won’t pull the trigger. The report of his weapon would be too high a price for killing this maniac. Instantly, every boy in town would know where he was.

  And now the Boy speaks, his sandpaper voice scraping the silence.

  “We’ll settle this,” the Boy says. “Another night.”

  The words are a promise. And now that the promise has been scorched on the night, this is no place to linger.

  The October Boy doesn’t.

  ****

  Kehoe parks in front of a little house on North Harvest Street. Scrabby lawn, paint peeling. Jack Ricks hadn’t really taken care of the place since his wife died two years ago.

  Of course, Jack hadn’t taken care of what was inside the house, either. Hadn’t gotten along with his boy, Jerry, for a good long time. They tussled and then some. Especially when Jerry started pushing to be a cop, when anyone who could read the writing on the wall knew there were only so many guys in town that the Guild slotted for the job each generation. But Jerry didn’t want to wait his turn, and now Kehoe is almost positive it’s led to this—slaughterhouse patricide out in a cornfield, a job done by a kid who definitely had plenty of experience with the tools of the trade.

  That’s the way Dan sees it, anyway. Hell, he’s spent thirty years peeling away secrets in this town and learning how to add them up. And Dan’s learned something else during that time: you manage to stick around a lot longer in this town if you work things out with a gun in your hand.

  He gets out of the car, .38 drawn, approaching the house as if he’s walking into a meat-grinder. The drapes are drawn. There’s a frosted-glass window in the door, and a patch of dull light behind it. Kehoe gives the knob a twist. It’s open. He eases inside, closing the door behind him.

  The house is quiet. Unless they’re on Guild business or wearing a badge, everyone who’s over the age of eighteen should be inside tonight. And there’s no sign of Jerry here…which means the younger Mr. Ricks certainly isn’t playing things the way he should.

  Kehoe moves down the hallway leading to Jerry’s room. There are no pictures on the walls, but that doesn’t surprise Dan. There isn’t a family in this house. Just two men jockeying for one life. He opens the bedroom door and turns on the light. Nothing much in there but a low stale reek. Slaughterhouse clothes on the floor. A bed without sheets and a balled up sleeping bag on the mattress. A couple empty orange juice jugs. A butcher knife on the table, and a bunch of brown, peeled apples in a garbage can on the floor. As if Jack’s son had been starving himself for the last five days, drinking nothing but OJ while he peeled apples he wasn’t going to eat, torturing himself the way some of the hardcore town jocks do to get themselves geared up for the Run.

  The smell of slaughterhouse blood and rotting apples makes Dan’s gut churn.

  He hears a creak. Outside. Somewhere in the back yard.

  He whirls toward the door, steps into the hallway, pausing just a moment and—

  That creak again.

  Quickly, deliberately, Kehoe moves into the living room. He follows the barrel of his .38 through the dining room and into the kitchen. The back window faces a covered patio. There’s something out there in the moonlight. A twist of shadows and it moves.

  Creak.

  Kehoe’s free hand is already on the doorknob.

  The back door flies open.

  Dan steps outside, pistol leveled at the thing.

  A held breath escapes him. Hanging from the patio overhang is a heavy bag. The kind boxers use. Kehoe sees that now, and the sight triggers a memory. Dan remembers nights he’s worked the graveyard shift, spotting Jerry Ricks out on the streets doing roadwork, as if Jerry were training for a fight when there are no fights to train for around here but the ones you can never quite win—

  Out on North Harvest, a car door slams.

  Footsteps click along the sidewalk, turn up the front walk.

  “Shit,” Kehoe whispers.

  He’s back in the house in a second, heading for the front door with that .38 in his hand.

  ****

  The farm boy drives a pitchfork forward, catching the October Boy hard, pinning his right leg against a big boat of a black sedan.

  The shotgun thunders. The farm boy drops. The Boy jacks another shell into the chamber. Others are coming. Two kids dressed in black, closing from the movie theater on Main Street. The Boy’s right hand vines around the slide handle and the shotgun barrel. The blue steel is so hot it’s scorching his tendril fingers, but he ignores the pain.

  He fires again. Lead shot tatters leather jackets and the flesh beneath. Blood spills. Boys go down. For just a moment, nothing moves in the darkness. The October Boy glances up Main Street. There’s the brick church, just a few hundred yards away. If he can just get free of the pitchfork, he can make it. If only this moment will last a little longer—

  But it can’t last. The Boy knows that. In the distance, Chuck Taylors whisper on asphalt. Shadows spill beneath streetlights on Main, stretching across brick and glass and sidewalk.

  The boys are getting ready for another assault. It won’t be long before they come at him again. The Boy knows this. He has to free himself, and he has to do it now. He leans the shotgun against the car, and his fingers twine around the pitchfork’s steel shafts. He yanks at it…then he yanks again, sucking a hard breath that flares the stoked fire in his head—

  A bitter tang fills his mouth. The harsh perfume of gasoline. The Boy looks down, sees that the pitchfork has pinned him near the sedan’s gas cap. One of the tines has pierced the capped line. And now that he’s trying to free himself, a thin stream of gas is pumping from the tank. It’s trickling down the side of the car, dripping on the ground at his feet—

  The Boy yanks again. The pitchfork won’t budge.

  A taut whisper from the shadows across the street, and an arrow sha
tters the car window just inches from the Boy’s arm.

  Another arrow cuts the night, striking the Boy in the chest.

  A third pierces the knotted coil of creepers that form his right shoulder.

  And now they’re coming again. Fast. Four kids in letterman’s jackets. The Boy’s carved head swivels up, orange streams of light revealing eyes as dark as the madman’s blood that stains the October Boy’s clothes. The streets are heavy with the stink of it. The young men jump puddles spilled by the October Boy’s victims, vaulting dead bodies as if they’re no more than sacks of grain.

  They don’t care about anything that’s dead. Not tonight. They only care about their quarry, and they’re closing on him now.

  The Boy can only watch them come. At the front of the pack, there’s another kid with a pitchfork. He’s big, with a shock of cornhusk hair and a circular brand on one cheek.

  He’s close now, as close as he needs to be. One grunt, and his pitchfork flies through the air. In a second, it will split the Boy’s head wide open.

  For the October Boy, it doesn’t matter.

  Once again, the shotgun fills his hands.

  The barrel points down at a thin puddle of spreading gasoline.

  The Boy stares at the church as the pitchfork hits him.

  He pulls the trigger.

  Gasoline ignites.

  A moment later, all that remains is fire.

  ****

  Kehoe’s near the front door, his back to the wall, the .38 cocked and ready.

  The door whispers open. The first thing through it is a shotgun barrel, guided by a pair of gloved hands. Dan is just a foot away, but he’d have to holster his pistol to make a grab for the scattergun. No way he’ll do that. Instead, he’ll wait…just a second…until the intruder has entered the room.

  The man moves on, his face pushing at shadows as he passes. It’s grotesque. Black eyes. Ridges of orange skin. A Jack o’ Lantern grin. For an instant, Kehoe is certain it’s the Boy himself. Then he smells the rubber mask. He grabs the back of it, twists it to the side so the guy inside can’t see anything. Then he hammers him with the butt of the .38.

  The shotgun clatters to the floor. Kehoe shucks that mask like it’s a cornhusk as the intruder goes down. Dan jams the .38’s barrel against Jerry Ricks’ sweaty face as soon as Ricks plants his knees on the floorboards.

  “You almost had me,” Kehoe says. “ Almost.”

  He pushes Jerry forward, dropping him on all fours while he kicks the shotgun across hardwood floor. Dan presses the pistol barrel against the back of Ricks’ head. He’s done this kind of thing before. Many times. Out there in the cornfield where the Run’s winners are put down. Other places, too. It’s how the old take care of the young around here—the ones who never learn to toe the line.

  And that’s the way it is with Jack Ricks’ boy. He’s much too dangerous to live. “You thought you were smart,” Kehoe tells him. “Thought you’d take out your old man. Take me out, too. Blame both killings on the October Boy and get a badge pinned to your chest just that quick. Too bad it’s not going to work out that way.”

  “It’s the only way it can work out,” Ricks says.

  “You’re wrong about that, Jerry. You should have paid attention to how things work around here. You should have waited your turn.”

  “Waiting your turn is just waiting to die.”

  Kehoe’s fury rises. The .38 whips out before he knows it. He hits Ricks again, and the kid crumples. A thin line of blood spills from his scalp. Dan hears it strike the floor, very softly, drop by drop.

  “That was a good one,” Ricks says, almost laughing now. “That almost did the job.”

  “Jobs only get done one way around here, boy. Your daddy should have taught you that a long time ago.”

  Kehoe cocks the .38.

  He feels the pressure of another pistol against his neck.

  “Drop the gun, Dan,” Steve Marlowe says. “And do it now.”

  ****

  And now it’s Kehoe’s turn. Marlowe stands in front of him with a .38. Young Jerry Ricks is at the chief’s side with that Winchester shotgun leveled at Dan’s chest.

  And no one really needs to say anything. Least of all Dan Kehoe. Seeing the look in Marlowe’s eyes, the events of this night makes perfect sense now. It’s just another changing of the guard. Different than the one that happens every year around here when the October Boy makes his Run to nowhere and is replaced by a corpse who’ll take his place the following year, but inevitable in just the same way.

  One young Chief of Police who wants things done his way. Two older cops who maybe do things their own way a little too often, who maybe have lost a step or two over the years. One young and eager recruit, crazy enough to do anything he’s told as long as he gets to trade a life hacking up beef-on-the-hoof for one where he gets to do pretty much the same thing to human beings while wearing a badge.

  Yeah. That’s how it plays out here tonight. Kehoe knows it, the same way he knows the way the story will spread tomorrow. “Did you hear the news? The October Boy killed Jack Ricks and Dan Kehoe last night. Cut off Ricks’ head out in the cornfield, then stole a shotgun from Jack’s prowl car. Once he crossed the Line, he put so much buckshot in Kehoe that he chopped the old hardcase in half. Hell of a thing…but at least it looks like young Jerry Ricks is going to take his old man’s place. They’ll keep that badge in the family. Marlowe’s swearing him in this morning. Too bad Kehoe didn’t have himself a son….”

  Uh-huh. That’s the way it will go. Dan sucks a deep breath. There’s not much left now, but his mind keeps working it over. There’s really nothing else to do.

  And it’s funny where his mind takes him in those last seconds of life. Funny. He remembers other moments just like this one, out in the cornfield. He remembers boys down on their knees in front of his gun. Sixteen years old…or seventeen, or eighteen. He thinks of all the years he had that they never got. And he remembers that single moment when this night was younger, out there in the cemetery when he was all alone, feeling the pull of those boxes that wait beneath the ground.

  All those years he had in between. All those years—

  Jerry Ricks jacks a load into the shotgun.

  “Nothing personal, Dan,” Steve Marlowe says. “It’s just hell to get old.”

  ****

  Of course, the candles in his father’s skull have long since burned out by the time Jerry revisits the cornfield with Chief Marlowe. They’re in a different clearing this time. This year’s winner is down on his knees. Jerry has a .38 in his hand. The kid who brought down the October Boy is big—he looks like a football player. His clothes are scorched, and so is his blond hair—it’s as if the kid slaughtered the October Boy in a blast furnace or something. Even weirder, the guy has a circle branded on one cheek. Jerry wonders how he got it…but he doesn’t wonder too hard.

  After all, he’s got work to do.

  It starts with a gun, and it ends with a shovel.

  ****

  The Chief says, “You did all right tonight, kid.”

  Jerry says, “Yeah.”

  They’re alone now, just the two of them out in the cornfield. Just them and that dead boy at their feet, and a hole in the ground that’s waiting to become his cradle.

  Jerry has a shovel. Marlowe has a couple of badges. He hands them over.

  “Souvenirs,” he says. “You get your own tomorrow.”

  “Sure,” Jerry says, pinning the badges to his shirt.

  Marlowe grins, then turns his back and walks away. He’s almost to the edge of the clearing when he stops in a patch of moonlight. “One other thing,” he says.

  “Yeah, Chief?”

  “You work for the Harvester’s Guild now, Jerry. And that means there’s only one rule: we’ll take care of you…as long as you take care of this town.”

  Jerry doesn’t hesitate.

  “I can do that, Chief,” he says. “For a long, long time.”

  ****
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br />   And it’s strange how the night stretches out, expanding to contain all the work that needs to be done. Jerry Ricks gets busy. Digging that grave a little deeper. Rolling this year’s winner into it. Filling it in—working that shovel so his back feels the pure hurt of it, not to mention his bandaged hand.

  It’s bleeding again—that cut he made when he stood face-to-face with the October Boy. The stained gauze is wet with rust-colored grime, and now and again a drop falls at Jerry’s feet or into the open grave. He leans on the shovel for a minute, and he watches one drop descend into the black hole, and then another, and he almost feels like he travels with them.

  No lie. He sure enough took a test-drive through the darkness tonight. But Jerry doesn’t worry about that. In a way, it hardly seems real, all the things he’s done. It’s like all the things around here that no one ever talks about. All those things that happen and get shoveled into a thousand black holes.

  And it doesn’t matter anyway. In a few more hours the sun will rise, and the night will move off somewhere else. A few more weeks, and Jerry’s wounded hand will heal. That’s the way it always is around here. The darkness opens up, and it pulls you down inside for a while. And you do what you need to do while it wraps you up in there, and then you crawl back once you’ve earned your time in the light. And sure, you spill some blood…but in the end you stitch up your wounds, and your skin scars over. And that’s just the way it is.

  Everyone has scars.

  Everyone around here, anyway.

  Jerry knows that. He stares down in the hole. He wonders about that hunk of dead meat down there—he imagines it’s the one thing around here with wounds that never truly scar over. He wonders, too, if it’s already starting to change. Three feet of dirt on top of that corpse already. Another couple feet of good topsoil to go before Jerry tamps it down and turns his back on this night, leaving next year’s October Boy alone in a dirty cradle where it will sprout, and grow, and strain toward the light.