Dead Man's Song

Newton did look at it and his mouth slowly opened. “Oh,” he said.

“Look at the nail heads. Shiny bright. They’re brand-new.”

“Oh…shit.”

“I’ll bet this hasn’t been up for more than a couple of weeks. All of the windows are the same. I checked. All the lumber is new, all the nails are new.”

“Oh,” Newton said, “shit.”

“Uh huh,” Crow said and his eyes were bright and even a little wild, “but there’s more, kid, and this is the kicker. This is the cat’s ass.” He pointed to the double front doors. They were heavy and ornate, and once had long glass panels, but the panes were covered over with neatly sawn strips of plywood as green as what covered the windows. But what Crow was indicating was the chain that held the doors closed. One hole had been drilled through each door and a heavy length of brand-new steel welded chain was laced through, effectively chaining the doors shut. Crow lifted the slack and gave it a shake to show how solidly the doors were held fast. The links were as thick as Crow’s thumb.

“Damn,” Newton observed, bending close to examine the chain. “We’ll never break that.”

“No shit. It’s the same on the backdoor.”

“What do you think? Caretaker?”

Crow felt like punching the man. “Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, Newton, are you friggin’ blind?”

“What? I can see the chain. I can see that it’s as new as the plywood.”

“Newt,” Crow said with as much patience as he could muster. “Where’s the lock?”

“The, er, lock?” Newton looked blank, then he got it. The loop of chain emerged from one drilled hole and reentered the house through the hole on the other door. What Crow held in his hand was an uninterrupted length of slack. “Oh, shit,” Newton said again, with greater emphasis.

“Yeah.”

The chain was padlocked on the inside of Griswold’s house.

“Back door?”

“The same?”

“Cellar door?”

“Uh huh.”

“Crow…whoever slung those chains—”

“—is inside that house,” Crow said and then gave Newton a ghastly smile. “Inside with all the windows all boarded up.”

“So no sunlight can get in,” Newton said softly. Even more softly he said, “Uh oh.”

“Yeah.”

“Crow, trite as may be to say it, I have a very bad feeling about this.”

“Yeah. I’ve had a bad feeling since we came out of the woods. The place is in too good a shape, and that bothers the hell out of me.” Licking his lips nervously, Crow stepped closer to the door and reached out with one tentative hand to touch the wood. The plywood was cool and felt slightly damp. “That’s weird.”

“Put your hand on the wood.”

“I really don’t want to.”

Crow said nothing, but continued to touch the door. There was a faint tremble and he couldn’t tell if it was coming through the wood or was the shaking of his own hand. He closed his eyes to try to focus his sense of touch and instantly the trembling became more pronounced, and it wasn’t just in the wood. He could feel it rippling in waves up his arm as if the whole house was vibrating. Then, in the deepest part of his brain, the place where his fears lived, where those last words of Ruger echoed without end, he heard a voice whisper to him.

She is going to die and there is nothing you can do to save her. Nothing!

It was so deep, so tangled up with his own fears that he almost didn’t hear it, but then the vibration in the wood spiked and he cried out and staggered back as if the wood had sent a shock through his skin.

Newton looked at him. “What’s wrong with you?”

Crow just shook his head, looking pale and shaken.

“Why’d you call out like that? Why’d you call her name?”

Crow frowned at him. “What?”

“Just now. You yelped like you’d been burned and then said ‘Val!’ real loud. What’s the deal?”

“I…don’t know,” Crow said. “I don’t think I said that…did I?” He looked down at his hand and his palm was an angry red. In his mind the words replayed in a nasty whisper: She is going to die and there is nothing you can do to save her. Nothing! “Jesus Christ,” he said slowly, “I wanted to come here, you know, to ease my fears, to put this shit to rest. I didn’t come here for this shit.”

“No argument.”

“I think we should get the fuck out of here and I mean now!”

Newton only nodded and together they backed off the porch, lingering at the top step just long enough for Newton to take a picture of the front door, but as he did so he dropped the walking stick that he’d tucked under his arm. He bent down to pick it up and instantly there was a tremendous CRACK! and the entire center section of the sagging porch tore free from the age-weakened supports and plummeted downward. Newton heard the sound and looked up but he was shocked into immobility, absolutely frozen to the spot; then something hit him in the side hard enough to drive all the air out of his lungs and he was swept off the porch and went tumbling down into the yard, banging elbows and knees as he went. Crow, who had tackled him, rolled over and over with him until they both lay sprawled in the weeds two yards from the porch. The sound of a ton of wood and plaster crashing down onto the tired boards of the porch floor was like a slow thunderclap that chased them down into the yard and washed over them to echo off the stone wall and the distant line of trees.

Sprawled among the weeds in a tangle of too many arms and legs, chests heaving with shock, hearts hammering like fists against the insides of their sternums, mouths dry with dust and terror, they looked up to where the bare porch should have been, but what they saw was a mass of jagged spikes of wood, torn plaster, ripped shingle, and splintered lath. A cloud of gray dust hung over everything like smog.

“My…God!”

Crow struggled to a sitting position and spit grit onto the ground between his shoes. “You almost met your God.”

“That was…the roof?”

“Used to be,” Crow said and winced as weeks-old aches flared up again. The wrist Ruger had nearly crushed was throbbing badly, and his palm felt burned.

“Oh my…it could have…” Newton sputtered. “I mean, it nearly fell on us.”

“Yes, it sure as hell did.”

Newton swallowed and they sat there, staring at the porch. He cleared his throat. “Kind of strange, it happening just now.”

“Oh, you think?” Crow shook his head.

Another chunk of the roof sagged down, hung swaying for a moment, and then broke off and thudded down onto the mess, kicking up more dust.

“That’s not normal,” Newton said.

Crow said, “We left normal when we started down that hill.”

Newton felt something warm on his forehead and wiped his hand over his face. It came away with a smear of blood across the palm. “Shit.” He glanced at Crow, who was picking pieces of dust off his tongue. “Is it bad?”

Crow leaned over and peered at the cut. “You’ll live.” He dug a Kleenex out of his shirt pocket and handed it to him.

“You saved my life,” Newton said, marveling at the idea. He had never been close to death before and the thought that he was actually in a real life-or-death moment excited him, despite his fear. He dabbed at the cut and then stared at the tissue, amazed at how intensely red his own blood was. “I don’t know what to say.”

“For the love of God, do us both a favor and save the gushy shit for some other time. Preferably after time ends. Besides, I was trying to save my own ass and I jumped off the porch. You were in the way, so you got to come along for the ride. End of story.”

“Fair enough.”

“So—let’s go back to Plan A, which is hauling ass out of here.” Crow crossed his legs under him and got to his