like that, but he was worried. About her. About Chrissy. About a lot of things.
Tommy lit a cigarette and Miriam did not object. “Listen to me, all of you. I don’t know where you’ve been today or what you might have seen, but there’s some ugly shit going on in this town. I’ve seen it and I still don’t believe it myself. There’s gonna be shit happening tonight. Bad shit. Now, me and Mitch have been going through the neighborhood here, just warning people. It’s gonna be dark soon and all of you had better just lock your doors and wait it out.”
Which got Russel nodding his head. “He’s right. From what I been hearing, there’s things out in the rain. Things like dead people walking around.”
“Excuse me?” Lou Darin said. “Did I just hear you right? Because certainly I could not have. Dead people walking around? Are you losing your mind? We’ve got a situation out there, surely, but I hardly think we’ve stumbled into a trashy B-movie.”
“Maybe we have,” Mitch said.
Russel said, “It’s more than that, Mr. Darin. A lot more. There were these people came knocking at our door-mom you were still at work-and they started talking, started telling me stuff and it all fits in. This is the end of the world. That’s what it is. It’s all in the Book of Enoch…said so in the pamphlet they gave me. God is sending this flood to wash people off the earth. To punish them for being wicked and stuff. They said that foul abominations will crawl forth from the cellar of hell. That’s what they said and I believe them.”
His mother kept nodding her head. Though, truth be told, to Margaret, the Book of Enoch could have been a collection of dirty jokes for all she knew. But if Russel had said it, well, then it had to be true.
As Lou Darin rolled his eyes, Tommy said, “Excuse me, but who were these people that came to your door?”
“Why does that matter?”
“Oh, no, I’d really like to hear this,” Lou Darin said.
Russel got a little red around the cheeks like somebody had just sandpapered his face. “They were Jehovah’s Witnesses…but I don’t see why that matters.”
“The JoHo’s?” Tommy said. “Christ, I lived next door to one for years. They predict the end of the world every time the Pope farts.”
Russel stared at him. “You know, I don’t recall you being from this neighborhood, smartass. Who the hell are you?”
Tommy smiled. “I’m a spy sent by the Seventh Day Adventists.”
Even Lou Darin managed a thin smile at that. “Let’s try and be rational here, shall we? These individuals you’re talking about, Russel…well, they’re fringe. You can’t go around believing anyone who wears an END OF THE WORLD placard. People like that are a dime a dozen. So, no, sorry, I think maybe you’re more than a little gullible, but don’t expect me to stand here and listen to that sort of nonsense.” Then he looked over at Russel’s mom. “Margaret? Are you with me on this?”
Oh, Christ, now that was tough. Margaret never disagreed with Russel. She looked from Darin to her son. “Well, I, um…that is…”
But Mitch saved her. “All right,” he said, “I want you to listen to what I have to say. You may not like it, but you’re gonna listen. You’re gonna hear what I have to say.”
They were all looking at him, so he started talking. He told them about the things at Sadler Brother’s and the living severed arm, the burned woman in the culvert pipe and what happened at Lisa Bell’s house. And finished it all off with what came up out of the flooded cellar of Bonnie’s One-Stop over in Elmwood Hills. He left out the part about the dead man exploding when they’d mowed him down in Tommy’s truck. Thing was, about half way through his tale that sounded like something he’d cribbed from a horror comic like The Vault of Horror, he started to run out of steam. It was the subject matter. By the time he’d finished he didn’t even sound like he believed it himself.
Of course, halfway through, Lou Darin began to roll his eyes and then shake his head. He took off his glasses, wiped them clean on a tissue, and then put them back on in time to roll his eyes yet again.
“What do you take me for?” he finally said when nobody laughed. Because he’d spent any number of years in the school system and he’d heard his share of whoppers told by kids and this had to be something along those lines. “No, really, Mitch: what in the hell do you take me for? Do you think I’m a complete idiot that will believe any ridiculous story shoved down my throat? Do I look stupid? What do you think I am?”
Miriam was grinning ear to ear, just eating it up.
Tommy said, “Go ahead, Mitch, tell him what you think he is.”
“I think maybe you should stay out of this,” Lou Darin warned him. “Because, you know, you wiseass, we’ve got enough trouble without every idiot in the city crawling out of the woodwork and flapping their mouth. So, as I said, I think maybe you should just stay out of this.”
Tommy had the smirk on his face that told Mitch he was looking for a fight. And would keep looking until he found one. “And I think maybe your mother should have kept her legs crossed.”
Lou Darin was a very slick and officious man. He was master and commander and he was not used to being talked to like that. Standing there in his yellow L.L. Bean Southwester with his three-piece Kuppenheimer’s pinstripe beneath and his shiny black rubbers, you could see he was a man who demanded respect. “Who the hell do you think you are talking to me like that? Do you know who I am, you inbred little shit?”
“Easy now,” Tommy said. “You make ‘inbreeding’ sound like a bad thing.”
“It’s all just like the pamphlet said,” Russel piped up. “These are the End Times and all the horrors of hell have been unleashed.”
Miriam started laughing. “Well, isn’t this a fine kettle of fish, Mr. Mitch Barron! See what you and your kind have brought about? Do you see the evils you have set lose? You and your effing unions and your no prayer in school? Do you see what you’ve set into motion?”
Margaret had tears in her eyes. She looked like she wanted to swoon.
Mitch just stood there, getting pissed and feeling frustrated. If this really is the end of the world, he thought, then God must be laughing his ass off, because he left it in real good hands. He looked over at Tommy and Tommy just shrugged.
“I’m telling you, each and everyone of you, what I saw out there today,” Mitch tried again in a very calm voice, speaking very slowly. “I’m not making this shit up. I wish to God above that I was, but I am not. I have nothing to gain by lying here.”
“Except to stir a general panic,” Lou Darin pointed out. “And I believe there are laws against that. Now listen to me, all of you. This has gone far enough. Halloween is some weeks away and I’m really not in the mood for anymore ghost stories.” Then he turned to Mitch. “You know, I would have thought better of you, Mitch. A lot better. I would have thought you would have known better than to play silly, childish games like this. No, no, don’t waste your time arguing. I can see it in your eyes and, believe me, I couldn’t possibly swallow that nonsense. I don’t believe in ghosts or the boogeyman or prophecy for that matter. I know there are no such things. The sun rises and it sets. The sky is blue and the world keeps turning.”
“And when you wipe your ass,” Tommy said, “I bet it smells like a cup of sunshine.”
Mitch burst out laughing, couldn’t help himself.
“That’s enough!” Lou Darin said. “That’s enough from all of you, do you hear me? I won’t stand here and be insulted! I won’t stand here and have you tell me that this is the end of the world! Because if that’s the flavor of the day, then it flat out stinks!”
Mitch thought for a moment there he was going to drop that uppity sonofabitch. But he didn’t. There were bigger fish to fry here than Lou Darin. So he swallowed down his anger and sighed. “All right, Mr. Darin. You say I’m a liar? Okay, fine. Now, here’s what we’re going to do. You and I are going to jump in my friend’s truck here and take a little drive over to River Town. And I’m going to show you those things first hand.”
“The hell we are,” Darin said.
“Come again? I think maybe you misunderstood me, you greasy little sonofabitch. I wasn’t asking you, I was telling you.”
“You better stay away from me!”
Tommy grabbed Darin by the arm. “He’s not kidding, friend. I saw those things: they’re real.”
Darin pulled himself free. “You idiots! You goddamned idiots! Who in the name of Christ do you think you small-minded, shitkicking yahoos are dealing with here? Do you think I fell out of a tree yesterday?” His voice had taken on a high, whining timbre that you usually heard in brats who’d been denied candy or adults that had slipped
