Ghost Road Blues

“Yeah. Maybe.”

“Look, Crow, I want to be serious for just a bit, okay? We both know how tough Val is, and believe me, when she’s in form I would never want to cross her. But with everything that’s happened she’s likely to be a little flaky. And you”—he reached over and tapped Crow’s knee with a thick finger—“have to be the stabilizing force in her life. You’re going to have to represent sense and order so she can get back to herself.”

“Sense and order? Me?”

“I know, it’s a stretch for you.”

“Eat me.”

“You’re not kosher.”

“How do you know?”

“I’m a doctor, I know everything.”

“Ah.”

“Anyway…she’s going to need time and a lot of love. And patience. This could take weeks or even months for her to get over. You up for all that?”

Crow laughed. “Can I share something with you, Saul?”

“Of course.”

“Last night I was going to ask Val to go away with me for a weekend to a nice bed-and-breakfast in New Hope. Over a nice dinner and a superb bottle of nonalcoholic wine I was going to pop the ol’ question.”

A great big grin broke out on Weinstock’s face. “Then I guess you’re all set for the long haul.”

“As the routine goes…in sickness and in health.”

Weinstock patted his leg and stood up. “Good man.”

(4)

Saul Weinstock closed the door but lingered for a moment outside Crow’s room, staring up the hallway to where Val lay asleep. A police officer paced the hallway between the two rooms, and when he saw Weinstock looking in his direction he blushed and dropped his eyes. The officer — Barry Whitsover — had snuck downstairs for a smoke, leaving both Val and Crow unprotected, and hadn’t been on post when Val had gone truant. Weinstock had taken him aside and had reamed him out so long and so hard that the man’s ears were still bright red. Weinstock told him that it was only his compassion for the mentally impaired that prevented him from reporting it to Chief Bernhardt. The officer had no defense and had slunk away, relieved but humiliated.

But Weinstock wasn’t staring at him at the moment. He was looking at the door to Val’s room and thinking about what Crow had just said about proposing to Val. He smiled. The timing couldn’t be better. First, it would probably give her something to feel joyful about when everything else around her was dragging her down. Optimism was the best drug in the world. And, more importantly, it was a damn good thing because, based on what Val had said — and the blood and urine tests done when Val was admitted — they were already a fair way to starting a family.

He wandered away to start his rounds, his happy whistle at odds with the pall of dread that hung over the town.

Chapter 24

(1)

As a quiet autumn darkness settled over Pine Deep, Vic Wingate pulled his truck right up to the edge of the drop-off at the Passion Pit, his bumper jutting out of the steep drop down to Dark Hollow. He killed the engine, fired up a cigarette, and settled back to wait. No radio, no sound.

He was in a happy mood. Everything was in motion and things were working well, just as the Man had assured him they would. And just as he, himself, had planned. Ruger had come to town, as the Man had foreseen, been stranded here, and had begun the Change. The Man had sicced Tow-Truck Eddie on Mike, which should efficiently take care of that problem — after all, considering what Mike was and how soon he might discover his own nature, it was best to get him off the board as soon as possible. Vic just wished that he could kill the little snot himself, but he knew the folklore and shared the Man’s dread of what would happen to their plans if Mike died by a corrupt hand. It had to be a clean hand, or the whole plan would fail — and whose hands were cleaner than Tow-Truck Eddie’s? The guy was a fucking saint. A major league fruitcake, to be sure, but as clean as a whistle when it came to matters of the spirit. That meant that Mike — and his potential — would be neutralized. With him out of the game the Red Wave could really work, and that jazzed Vic so much he actually got hard.

He smoked and considered the Ruger thing. There was still way too much heat around Ruger. Far too much for comfort. If that psychopath did what he was supposed to do, though, then the heat would be turned off. Vic wondered how Ruger would manage it, and what he’d do. Would he take his suggestion and take Crow and Val Guthrie with him, down in that blaze of glory? If so, that would simplify things, too, because the Man hated Crow. The “one that got away” all those years ago. Griswold had literally been a second away from tearing out Crow’s throat when that fucking Oren Morse had stepped in and saved the boy. That’s when things had gone wrong thirty years ago. Morse had saved young Crow, and had then managed to kill Griswold.

Vic shook his head in wonder. How that skinny guitar-strumming nigger had managed to kill the Man was beyond him, but then he smiled when he thought about how bad a move that had been for Morse. Not just because it gave Vic a reason to orchestrate his murder — which had been quite a lot of fun — but because it had started the Great Change for Griswold. Not even the Man knew about that. Vic had always thought dead was dead, and though he served Griswold back then, the Man had been more or less mortal. Yeah, a werewolf, but still alive and still mortal. Then he’d been killed and buried in the swamp. Not in hallowed ground; not blessed by clergy or read over; but stuffed down in the swamp just the way he had died: halfway between man and monster.

That’s when Vic had learned that evil never dies. It waits, it changes, and it always comes back. Unless its force is blocked by prayers and the proper burial rites, it always comes back — and it comes back far stronger, and in the Man’s case, different. Not a werewolf anymore, and certainly nothing human. Now the Man was evolving into something beyond anything the people in this town would understand. Nor was the Man becoming like Boyd or Ruger. Hell, once the Man finished manifesting his new body and rose from his swampy grave, garlic or stakes wouldn’t mean dick to him.

Vic broke off in his reverie and thought about that for a second. Garlic and stakes. He realized that he didn’t actually know if they would stop Boyd and Ruger, either. He’d have to find out. Not just so that he would always have an edge over them, but because he wanted to make sure they wouldn’t be stopped by some asshole who’d just had an Italian dinner and sneezed on them. Stakes he could experiment with to see if the legends held up, but if they did work, he knew that he wouldn’t be able to do much about it. Garlic, on the other hand, could be bought locally from growers, which meant that the supply had to be controlled. He made a mental note to work on that tomorrow.

His cigarette was low and he chain-lit another, but just as he rolled down the window to toss away the butt he heard the crack of a twig under a foot. Automatically he pulled the old Mauser C-96 Bolo short-barreled pistol from the shoulder rig he wore. The gun had been made in the 1920s and had belonged to Griswold, which made it sacred to Vic.

He laid the barrel on the frame of the open cab window and waited as someone thrashed his way up the sloop toward the parking area. If it was anyone else than the person the Man had sent him here to meet, he’d blow their head off. The Mauser was unregistered and untraceable. Vic had killed five women with it and three vagrants over the last thirty-five years, and every one had been a one-shot kill. You have to love efficiency of that kind.

The bushes at the top of the drop-off trembled, the dry leaves shivering and flickering with silver moonlight, and then a man stepped up onto the flat ground of the Passion Pit. He was covered with mud and blood and his right leg was twisted askew, though he walked with no flicker of pain on his mushroom-white face. The man’s eyes were dark, hostile pits and his mouth hung open, revealing teeth that were caked with blood and strings of raw meat. He saw Vic’s truck and snarled, baring those filthy teeth in a mask of pure hatred.

Vic relaxed and clicked the safety back on.

“Over here, asshole,” he said. “Get the fuck in, we’re wasting time.”