Excavation

Chapter 31

Ben had been on his way out of town. The spare pickup, the old Chevy, had been hard to start, so hard that at first he thought he’d be stuck here, to face the flood. Maybe that was proper; he’d missed the first one. But finally the engine had fired, and though the truck did sound like a cross between an old washing machine and a vacuum cleaner, it still ran. The old logging road that passed behind his house was barely negotiable, but the main road had been filled by that eerie fog. The logging road ran a little ways up the slope behind the town, then parallel to it for a while before cutting up a narrow hollow past the old Maynard place. From there Ben could take a couple of dirt roads that eventually came out above the Taylor homeplace.

Maybe he could get Reed out of there before the flood moved up the hollow.

But Ben stopped in his escape when he heard the gray boards flying apart behind him. He pulled the truck onto a wide place overlooking the town, got out, and leaned against the hood. He should be going, time was short, but it was important that he see the last moments of Simpson Creeks, the town he’d lived in all of his life.

He watched in fascination as the concrete slab suddenly seemed flexible, buckling all up and down its length like a series of piano keys being played. Great cracks broke the slab into dozens of large pieces, it settled into a rough sort of levelness, then buckled once again, more explosively this time, sending sprays of gravel and plumes of dust high into the air, followed by smaller eruptions of cans, bottles, bits of wood, that had been hiding under the stone.

Then the shadows slipped out of the cracks, long and narrow with a strange delicacy to their movements. They didn’t linger for Ben to identify any of them, but blended quickly into the lines of the waves, adding a further darkness to the water.

The surf foamed suddenly whiter over the slab, and then the slab sank beneath the waves, trailing a mass of air bubbles.

The hotel was the first building to come down, as he would have expected. The north wall buckled in completely and the flood, discovering the breach, pushed in with all its force, expanding the wound and bringing down most of the second story. The other walls wavered, seeming to expand and contract, then the front facade collapsed in all directions with an explosion of bricks. The roof hung on a little longer, bobbing up and down like one of those statues with the bounding, spring-necked head. Then it too fell, bringing down all the uprights with it. The roof spun around loose in the water, then the flood took it down the road and out of town, toward Inez Pierce’s.

The flooded street was full of shadowy debris at this point, gathering around the main buildings and clustering in pockets here and there. The debris seemed somehow softer in the increasing darkness, with more curves than before.

Like heads, backs, shoulders, arms, hands.

He could see them now, the hands grasping at the sides of the cafe, the railroad station, the Parkey house. Shoulders pushing against Simpson’s General Store, his own Feed Store. Bodies massing against every wall. Dark fingers tore at the tar paper covering the Simpson Creeks Post Office, pulling at its small support beams, rending it from the side of the General Store.

The dark flood rushed in through the door of his Feed Store, carrying a mass of the black shapes with it, and the walls suddenly pushed outward, the building collapsing like a house of cards.

Dozens of the dark shapes clumped together like black mushrooms on the side of Charlie’s store. There was a brief pause, then the entire building went over on its side. Some of the shapes drifted away on the flood, others slipped inside the fallen structure with the water. Hundreds of cans, bottles, packages, barrels, masses of paper and cardboard, tools, household goods, spread fan-like into the swift-running water.

Then everything fell silent. Maybe it was all over. But Ben felt compelled to lean forward off the hood, holding his breath, waiting.

Reflections suddenly broke the darkness of the water. Highlights. Dim lights under the surface. Here and there, a growing clarity of movement.

When they were first married, Ben and Martha went on a honeymoon trip through Pennsylvania and some of the New England states. One afternoon they had stopped at a shop outside Philadelphia, where an old watchmaker had a model village displayed in his window. Periodically small figures came out of the buildings of that village to perform—clockwork automatons. Fine Swiss movements, the old man had said.

That model village had looked exactly like Simpson Creeks did at the moment. Bustling with people going about their daily activities.

Several old-timers walked around the remains of Charlie Simpson’s store, chatting animatedly, gesturing, occasionally picking up cans and bottles out of the water and examining them. Ben recognized “Moldy” Clarke and Jessie Flanders, who’d both been killed in the first flood, but their bodies never found. He could also see—if he could believe his eyes—Bobbie Gibson, who’d died of a heart attack when Ben had been a teenager. Vivid, brighter than life. He could see the bright pinkness of their faces, the dazzling white of their hair. They were much more real than the landscape around them.

Lizzy Gibson, Bobbie’s ancient mother, was walking down the street using her cane, a paper sack under her arm. Her feet and cane tip touched the surface of the flood and sank no further. Ben couldn’t remember if she’d survived Bobbie or not.

Johnny Shedako, the Japanese man who’d been many things throughout Ben’s childhood—junk dealer, insurance salesman, farm equipment mechanic—was helping Garter Jones with his corn husker at the site of Ben’s wrecked store. The corn husker was a twisted wreck, rusted throughout, pieces missing, and, unless Ben was mistaken, upside down there in the water.

Jimmy Decker, Wilson Fenton, and Jackie DeLanny were racing each other down the street, their feet making no noise as they struck the water. They’d all lived in houses in a row along the banks of the main channel of the Simpson Creeks, and had perished when those houses were reduced to kindling by the flood.

Gillian Marsh was flirting with Harold Specktor near what used to be the cafe. Emil Johannsen was chasing his dog Crawdad up the street. The oil-colored hound had a tail like a snake. When Ben had been six or seven, Mr. Johannsen had spent several hours each week showing off the tricks his dog could do with that tail.

Ben heard the tinny sound of the bicycle bell and was suddenly a boy again, ten years old and running terrified down the gravel road past their house. He jerked the truck door open and leaped into the cab.

Alan Marley passed the pickup slowly on the ancient bicycle, the shiny hell-wheels spinning, spinning in the air a good three feet above the roof of the truck.

Ben shuddered and tried to pull his eyes away. Marley doffed his hat and cracked his mouth, filling it with shark’s teeth. A great purple birthmark clotted the entire right side of his face; it seemed to move like a separate, living parasite when Marley turned his head.

Alan Marley had delivered mail for Charlie Simpson’s dad when Mr. Simpson was postmaster. Marley had been the terror of Ben’s childhood, of all the children of that long-ago time. If he caught you out on the road alone, he’d chase you with that bicycle, trying to break a foot or a leg if he could. Cindy Gasson became a cripple because of him. And the worst thing was, none of the adults would believe them; they thought the children had made it up because of Marley’s unfortunate birthmark.

Then Marley finally killed somebody, little Timmy Peters; Timmy’s brother saw the whole thing and said Marley had ridden back and forth over the three-year-old dozens of times. Later Ben heard the little boy’s neck and back were broken, the ribs crushed into the lungs. Dan Peters caught up with Marley the next day—he’d been riding his bike down to Four Corners trying to get away—and shot him twelve times, reloading as he went. There never was a trial.

Marley grinned and rang the bell again and again. Ben thought he was going to cry. Then Marley was gone, and there was a tall man in black, preacher-looking clothes striding toward the pickup out of the darkness and the fog ahead. As he neared, Ben could see it was his father, with the same grim face.

Ben started the engine and stamped the gas pedal. His father flew apart into dozens of strands of sooty smoke as the truck hit him.

Ben kept going. The fog was creeping up this side of the mountain now.

For the past half hour or so Audra had been climbing the slope. Heavy mist still surrounded her, but she could feel the additional pressure on her ankles the way they were bending, so she could tell she was walking up an incline.

A gnashing behind her. A whispering.

It had been going on for so long, she couldn’t even be scared anymore. She just wanted it over. She would have stopped and faced it, waited for it, but her body wouldn’t let her. The cold, wet fog had somehow gotten between her mind and her legs.

A little boy was crying somewhere in the fog. Then a slightly older boy, moaning and sobbing. Then the sobbing became snarls, animal whines.

Dark streaks in the fog behind her. Dark movement. Giggling. Then the popping of animal lips.

“Stop it!” she screamed, and stumbled forward, bringing sharp pains into her ankles and feet. Her lower legs ached with sharp points of pain, as if an animal’s needle-sharp teeth were entering her skin again and again.

Giggling again. He was playing with her. There was nothing human in him, to play with her like that.

“Reed!”

More giggling. Then a sound like beast laughter, short and grunty puffs of sound.

A swift moving behind her. She screamed and tried to fly up the slope.

A tree caught her full in the face, a broken-off branch pierced her cheek, and with a shock she knew it had penetrated all the way to the mouth cavity. She jerked away and sobbed; bile came up to her teeth. Swiftness behind her. A whisper-movement through the dense fog. She began frantically climbing the tree. Branch after branch clutched or clawed with broken fingernails, bleeding hands, and soon she was hugging a section of bark above the branches, her cheek rubbing the sandpaper like bark as she screamed and shook, kicking down with her feet to break off the branches below her so that he couldn’t get up, no way could he get up here please GOD!

A thin shadow approached the tree out of white mist. Sniffling. She looked down… only a few feet below her, but could not see past the shadows shrouding his face, could just see the dull pink highlight of eye. Hair that was coal black, straight. Quarter moon reflection off a pasty-white cheek. He… it whimpered. And began scratching at the trunk with its fingernails, long fingernails glistening even through the dulling mist.

She sobbed.

Giggling. Giggling. It began to scratch more vigorously, furiously.

She looked down. The fog was rising, swirling around the tree. She could see no traces of her stalker anymore. The fog began working on the tree on contact, putting it through temperature changes—she could feel alternating waves of intense heat and intense cold. It caused a ticking noise in the tree, the ticking spreading out into the fog. Soon the whole area was ticking, slowly, and she couldn’t tell if her stalker was scratching anymore. She had no idea if he was still there.

Inez had calmed considerably since they’d left the mine, Charlie really had to admire her; he wondered why he hadn’t noticed this strength in her before. She was really some woman. There were things to do now, and she seemed pretty clear-headed about that.

“We’ve gotta get to the boarding house, Charlie… get those people out.” She was running at a good clip down the gravel road, plunging right through large, evil-feeling fog patches where neither one of them could see a thing, but she wasn’t even slowing down. Charlie was afraid he was going to have a heart attack before they’d made it half way.

When they reached the junction of a couple of dirt and gravel logging trails, he could see the town below them for the first time. He stopped short and grabbed her arm.

“Charlie!” She turned on him, enraged.

All the energy, and, curiously, the fear, had run out of him. He could see the worry passing over her face. He turned her to the town and pointed.

A dark lake, thick with assorted debris and strange, writhing shadows, covered what used to be the town of Simpson Creeks. Patches of green and blue and yellow darted back and forth beneath the surface like some sort of underwater moths or fireflies.

“We can’t see the house from here,” she said quietly.

“That’s even lower than the town, Inez.” He squeezed her shoulder. “It would have gone under before anything else.”

“Those people… our neighbors…”

Charlie saw headlights moving off above the town. “Somebody made it! Maybe a whole bunch!” He started dragging her down one of the log trails. “We can meet up with ‘em if we hurry!”

He didn’t have to say more; Inez had already raced ahead of him. Charlie could hear the pounding of his old heart. It filled his head. Likely as not just the sound of it was goin’ to kill him.

As the bear leaped through the window into Reed’s old room, the stalker in the woods started across the marshy, green-shadowed land at a slow plod.

Hector Pierce went rigid on his bed. One of the salesmen shouted, and Joe Manors began to beat on Hector’s chest.

His mother was bringing him cookies. Reed smiled gratefully. He could see her now, her red hair floating about her head as she stood in the kitchen doorway, the dim green light behind her.

He’d hoped he could finish the cookies and have a nice pleasant time with her before his father came down, but he could already hear the old man’s heavy tread on the stairs, his angry voice…

“The boy’s… got teeth, now…” Hector whispered faintly. But Joe Manors was the only one to hear. The face on the bed went slightly pale, the form trembled, then stopped.

“What he say?” the salesman asked when Joe straightened up from the now-still form.

“Oh, nothin’… nothin’. You know… he was just a crazy old man.”

But Joe could not help looking out the window and into the distance where the old Taylor place used to be.

Reed backed against the wall as his father came bellowing down the staircase, black and swollen, sending debris flying through the room. Part of the staircase collapsed on one side as the large man with the red eyes reached the bottom. His lips pulled back from his teeth.

Reed began to moan as Daddy Taylor stepped toward him, his great hands raised to bash Reed’s face.

But a scream sounded suddenly from across the room, and Reed’s mother was leaping on his father, her hair in flames, her pale hands ripping at his shadowed flesh with long, translucent fingernails. Reed gasped as the flames spread down her body and onto Daddy Taylor while the two did their strange, almost beautiful dance around the room.

Reed began to cry as the flames enveloped them. Then he stopped. And looked around him. The two figures were fading rapidly into the shadows of the room. Only a faint stench of smoke, the slight silvery highlights in a corner told Reed they’d ever been here at all.

He crawled over to where they had struggled and felt the carpet. There was nothing… but dirt, a little dampness, nothing else. Dirt and more dirt, all around him. His head seemed clearer now, and he wondered if he’d been hallucinating, dreaming, something… Reed stood up and walked toward the darkness where the staircase should have been.

The stalker looked out of the darkness into Reed’s pale, red-eyed, and sharp-edged face. Agitated gestures. He looked half-dead. The stalker grinned, self-consciously proud of the sharp teeth against his lower lip. Reed should never have left him behind.

He smiled. Reed might not survive that mistake.

Reed examined himself in the darkened mirror. He could not remember there being a full-length mirror in his old room before, but there it was.

He moved closer. His face was streaked with dirt, his matted black hair pushed back off his face so he could see his high forehead. Gleaming white teeth. Filling the mouth. He looked surprisingly healthy.

He was filled once again with a sense of loss, loss of his wife, his daughter, his son. There was a sense of relief. Something had broken inside.

“Carol?” he said to the mirror. “Carol…” He began to cry. “Something… died down there.” He could barely see his reflection through the tears. “I should have drowned… that night of the flood. Now… Carol, something in me died down there!” He cried more loudly, ashamed.

As the moon rose over the trees and fog outside, it illuminated more of the mirror. And then he realized his image was holding something in its hands. But he wasn’t holding anything in his hands. He was not looking at a mirror, he now knew, but at someone else.

The stalker held up his old teddy bear, the eyes ripped out of the stuffed skull.

“You’re the one,” Reed choked. “The part of me that stayed…”

Then the stalker’s long, thin fingers began pulling at the cloth, ripping it, tearing his old toy to pieces.

When Reed looked up, the stalker was beginning to smile.