The Dead Town

Chapter 10

Mr. Lyss parked at the curb and switched off the headlights, and all the bright tumbling snowflakes came down dimmer in the dark, as if the light that was turned off had been in each of them.

“You positive this is Bozeman’s house?”

Nummy said, “Yes, sir. This here’s just one block over from Grandmama’s place, where I lived before the Martians come.”

The cozy brick house was one story with white shutters at the windows. The front porch had a white painted-iron railing and white iron corner posts and what they called a baked-aluminum roof. Nummy always wondered where they found an oven to bake something as big as that roof.

“You sure he lives alone, Peaches?”

“Kiku she’s dead and the kids was never born.”

“How long ago did Kiku buy the farm?”

“She didn’t buy no farm, it was a grave plot.”

“I guess I misunderstood. How long’s she been dead?”

“It might be like two years. Longer than Grandmama.”

“Maybe Bozeman doesn’t live alone.”

“Who would he live with?” Nummy wondered.

“A girlfriend, a boyfriend, one of each, his grandmama, a damn pet alligator. How the hell should I know? The sonofabitch could live with anybody. If you used what brain you have, boy, you wouldn’t ask so many dumb questions.”

“The Boze lives alone. I’m pretty sure. Anyway, there’s no lights on in there, so nobody’s home.”

“Alligators can see in the dark,” Mr. Lyss said. “But come on, let’s go. I want that snowmobile, and I want out of this village of the damned.”

The house next door was dark, too, and there were no streetlamps. The blacktop and the lawns were covered with snow, but although that white blanket seemed like it was giving off light, it really didn’t. And the falling flakes were so thick they were almost like a fog, so you couldn’t see far. Even if someone might be looking out a window somewhere, he wouldn’t be able to see that Mr. Lyss carried a long gun held down at his right side.

Mr. Lyss had two pistols and all kinds of extra bullets in the pockets of his big coat. He found the guns in the preacher’s house that they burned down because it was full of the giant cocoons growing monsters inside. Mr. Lyss said he was going to pay for the guns with his lottery winnings — he had a ticket in his wallet with what he knew would be the right number — but Nummy had the bad feeling that Mr. Lyss really just stole them. Mr. Lyss seemed like his folks had never churched him when he was growing up.

The snow made a soft crunching sound under their feet as they walked around the house to the back porch, where they couldn’t be seen from the street. Mr. Lyss didn’t need his set of lock picks, because when he tried the kitchen door, it opened inward, hinges creaking.

Suddenly Nummy didn’t want to go into Officer Barry Bozeman’s house, not because it was wrong to go into a house when you weren’t invited, but because something bad waited for them in there. He didn’t know how he knew, but he knew. A sick, sliding feeling in his stomach. A tightness in his chest that prevented him from drawing deep breaths.

“Let’s leave now,” Nummy whispered.

“Nowhere to go,” said Mr. Lyss. “And not enough time to go there.”

The old man crossed the threshold, slid one hand along the wall beside the door, and switched on the lights.

When Nummy reluctantly followed Mr. Lyss, he saw the Boze in his underwear and open bathrobe, sitting in a chair at the kitchen table. The Boze’s head was tipped back, his mouth hanging open, his eyes rolled back in their sockets.

“Dead,” said Mr. Lyss.

Nummy knew dead when he saw it.

Even though Officer Bozeman was dead, Nummy was uncomfortable, seeing him in his underwear. He was also uncomfortable because it seemed wrong to stare at a dead person when he didn’t know you were there and he couldn’t tell you to get out or even make himself more presentable.

You couldn’t look away from a dead person, either. Then it would seem you were embarrassed for him, as though it must be his fault he died.

When the dead person was someone you knew, like the Boze — or like Grandmama — you felt a little like you wanted to die yourself. But you just had to look at him anyway, because this was the last time you would see him except in photos, and photos were just photos, they weren’t the person.

A silver bead glistened on the Boze’s left temple, just like the beads on the faces of those zombie people in the jail cells.

All the people in jail had waited like good dogs told “Stay.” And then the handsome young man had arrived and turned into an angel, but then not an angel, and then he had torn them all apart and had taken them into himself.

Nummy hoped the handsome young man didn’t show up here anytime soon.

Mr. Lyss closed the back door and crossed the room, leaving clumps of snow on the vinyl floor. He peered closely at the corpse but didn’t touch it.

“He’s been dead awhile. At least eight or ten hours, probably longer. Probably it happened before dawn.”

Nummy didn’t have any idea how you could know when a person must have died, and he didn’t want to learn. To learn such a thing, you’d have to see a lot of dead people and most likely examine them close, but what Nummy wanted most was never to see another dead person as long as he lived.

From the table, Mr. Lyss picked up a sort of gun made of shiny metal. He turned it this way and that, studying it.

On the table stood a bowl of fresh fruit: a few bananas, a pear, a couple of big apples that didn’t look quite ripe. Mr. Lyss pointed the strange-looking gun at an apple and pulled the trigger. Thhuuup! Suddenly on the apple appeared a gleaming silvery bead just like the one on Officer Bozeman’s face.

Mr. Lyss pulled the trigger again, but nothing happened. When he fired the gun a third time—Thhuuup! — the second apple now had a silver bead, too. The fourth time, nothing happened again.

“A two-cycle mechanism. What’s it do on the second cycle?” Mr. Lyss asked.

There wasn’t any kind of cycle in the kitchen, not a bicycle or a tricycle, or a motorcycle. Nummy didn’t know how to answer the old man’s question, and he didn’t want to be snarled at again and told that he was dumb. They both knew he was dumb, he always had been, so neither of them needed to be reminded of it all the time. Nummy kept silent.

As Mr. Lyss returned the silver-bead gun to the table where he’d found it, piano music rose from the living room. The Boze had a piano. He called it an upright, so Nummy figured it originally must have been in a church or somewhere clean and holy like that, not in some barroom. Kiku played the upright, and she taught the Boze to play it, but neither of them could be playing it now, both being dead.

“Let’s get out of here,” Nummy said.

“No. We’re in it now, boy.” The old man raised his long gun. “Cowardice is often a fine thing, but there’s times when it can get you killed.”

Mr. Lyss went to the hallway door, which stood open. He found the light switch, and the dark hall brightened.

As Mr. Lyss stepped out of the kitchen, Nummy decided it was scarier to be alone with a dead person than it was to go see who was at the piano. He followed the old man.

The music was pretty but sad.

At the end of the hall, the living room remained dark. Nummy wondered how anyone could play a piano so well in total darkness.