Ghouls

bottom of the casement, and she looked out.

Darkness flooded the backyard. Trees were ebon streaks, bushes lumps without shape, and the wood line a high black wall. Night had turned the grass to the hue of dark slate. The backyard was nothing but a confinement of shadows, all different shades of black.

The sound came again, but hurried this time—a frenetic snuffling that whispered through the merged shadows of the yard. Then one of the shadows stepped forward and looked up at her.

Vicky’s heart seemed to rise to her throat. Her fingers dug into the casement, whitening the tips. She stared.

There was a figure on the back lawn, an inklike blur with only one feature—it bore the shape of a man. It stood still for several seconds, very still, then shifted its position, took one step back.

And was gone.

— | — | —

CHAPTER SIX

At first, Kurt thought he was dreaming about burglar alarms. That’s what the noise reminded him of—a loud, jarring bell-sound that screamed in his ear and through his head. But then he turned, senseless; his eyes fluttered, and as he gradually came awake, he realized it was only the telephone.

One eye opened on the clock, focusing, and unmentionable phrases came to mind when he saw the time— 5:00 a.m. His hand crawled out and took up the receiver.

“Yeah.”

“Kurt, it’s me. We got trouble out at Merkel’s cornfield.”

Kurt rubbed his brow, trying to make his brain work. It took several seconds to figure out that me was Chief Bard. His answer came thick as mud. “Merkel’s, huh? Someone ripped off the scarecrow again, right? Want me to call the FBI?”

“No, funny boy. I want you to get your hand out of your shorts, your ass out of bed, and meet me there in fifteen minutes,” Bard cracked. “I gotta be around when the tow truck arrives.”

Kurt nodded groggily, said, “Right, Merkel’s in fifteen—” But then he thought: What did he…tow truck? “Wait a minute, Chief. Did you say—”

“Just shut up and be there as soon as you can,” Bard cut in. “No time to explain now, Higgins is here. Gotta go.”

Click.

Kurt dropped the phone back in its cradle. He sat up and shook his head, mystified as the edges of sleep drifted off. What do they need a tow truck for at Merkel`s cornfield? For a dumb, misted moment, he wondered if he had dreamed the phone call from Bard.

Getting dressed, he felt like something risen from a lime pit. He staggered out to the Ford, buttoning up one of his father’s old coal shirts. The fresh air cleared his senses, and the cogs turned at last. It must’ve been a car wreck out at Merkel’s, and Bard needed him to help direct traffic. But when he started up and pulled out onto 154, his cop’s curiosity turned dark. His mind flashed a tumult of glaring images, like scenes from a driver’s training film, only these images he had witnessed for real. Cars crushed to twisted hulks, some tipped over, some burning greedily. Windshields spiderwebbed, blown out, safety glass spread across the road like halite. Bloodless faces agape in death, or worse, crisped black, and the endless pools of blood turning brown on the asphalt. Kurt had seen it all before, and he steeled himself as he drove on, knowing that he’d probably see it all again in a few minutes.

The road curved gently but steadily each way; trees passed in a whoosh of morning-dark green. The dead possums he’d noticed yesterday no longer littered the shoulder. There would be more, he knew—people would be running them down and smashing them flat for the next five months, but at least the first wave had been cleaned up. It was odd, though. The sun was just now peeking over the horizon; he’d never known the animal control crew to come through at night.

Another few bends in the road, and he could see Merkel’s field in the gray morning darkness. The cornfield had always baffled them; there was no one in town named Merkel, and nobody really knew who owned or worked the field. The corn would grow heartily all summer, then would suddenly be gone, as if harvested overnight, all without a single sign of farmers. Every so often kids would steal or dismember the scarecrow, but there would always be a new one up the next day.

Kurt stopped on the shoulder just past the farthest boundary of the field, where the break in the forest ended and the trees began again. Parked directly ahead of him was Bard’s T-bird, the hazard flashers blinking rhythmically on and off. Bard and Mark Higgins stood off to the side, arms crossed contemplatively, their figures pale in the gray light. Swaggert and the town cruiser were not to be seen, nor was there any sign of the mangling car crash he’d envisioned earlier.

Bard greeted him with his usual inexplicable question. “Was Swaggert fucked up last night at shift change?”

“No,” Kurt said, and arched a brow. It was a question without pretense; Doug Swaggert was straight and everyone knew it. “Swaggert doesn’t drink, and he doesn’t do dope, either. That’s common knowledge.”

Bard glared at Kurt, then at Higgins. His face seemed to be giving off heat. Kurt could tell he was fired up about something.

Higgins said, “Christ.”

“If he wasn’t shitfaced, then he must’ve fallen asleep at the wheel, the dumb fuck. Take a look at that.” Bard pointed down into the narrow gulch that descended off the shoulder.

The town patrol car was settled there at the bottom, as if dropped. Kurt could see that the entire left of it was crumpled in; the car lay on its side so that the two right wheels hung aloft in the air. Dew beaded on the shiny metal and glass, sparkling. The passenger door was cocked open, precariously defying gravity.

“Holy shit,” Kurt said. “Where’s Swaggert?”

“That’s what I’m trying to figure out.”

“There’s no blood inside,” Higgins told him. “Whatever happened, he walked away from it.”

“Did you call South County General?”

Higgins nodded. “Not admitted. And the dispatcher says she didn’t hear from him all night.”

“He must’ve bolted,” Bard said. “Probably thought I’d hold him responsible for the car, so he just took off and left town.”

“No way, Chief,” Kurt said. “If Swaggert wrecked the car through his own negligence, he’d own up to it. He’s not the kind of guy to head for the hills just because of one departmental.”

They all turned their heads then, exactly at the same time. The sudden whine of an engine tore through the dawn silence, and a tow truck from DeHenzel’s Texaco appeared from around the bend. Gears ground as it jerked to a halt. The driver got out and looked into the gulley; he was young, lanky, frighteningly tall, and had freckles and bright blond hair. Frowning, he nodded dumbly, then hitched the cruiser up and hauled it out of the ditch. Bard’s distress shone plainly on his face; he nearly fell over when he got full view of the cruiser’s damage—body work alone would kill the emergency fund, in addition to the cost of a new front end, a new visibar, and probably a new radiator. Damn crying shame, Kurt thought; it had been a good cruiser. But it was better the car than Swaggert, wherever he was.

“I’ll probably have to buy a whole new cruiser,” Bard said after the tow truck had left. “The mayor’s gonna shit bowling pins… Wait’ll I get my hands on that fuckin’ Swaggert. I’ll murder him.”

Higgins was leaning back on Bard’s fender; he ran a tiny comb through his mustache. “I have to agree with Kurt, Chief. Swaggert didn’t do this and run off. We all know him better than that.”

Bard and Higgins began to bicker back and forth, making liberal use of four-letter words. Kurt wandered out to the yellow line ten or fifteen yards back. Two even black slashes streaked diagonally across the line; they led toward the gulley where the cruiser had been. cruiserOver here,” he called out.