Chapter 5

Chief Harry MacGreggor needed a shot of whiskey. In his entire fifty years, including twenty four of those as a police officer, he couldn't remember feeling this helpless.

He got the call tonight from his deputy, Bucky Fasbinder, while sitting in Mandy’s Pub, ready to down a Jack and Coke. Bucky's breath came fast and shallow, and Harry felt the bad news coming before he said it.

"We've got another one, Chief," Bucky said.

Harry, who vowed he would never drink while on duty, downed a shot of straight Jack before he snapped his phone closed, then downed one more for good measure.

It took him only twelve minutes to make it to the Tucker residence. He found Sheila Tucker in shock in the front yard, gripping her children into herself as if someone might steal them. The sight of them gave him that gut punch feeling. Bucky stood like a dope by the front door, his car parked crookedly along the curb, cherries flashing through the old leafless oak trees.

Neighbor's gaped through their windows. Harry got out of his car, dressed in his plain clothes except for the badge pinned to his sweatshirt. Dried leaves crunched under his feet.

He couldn't believe it. Garrett Tucker this time. It struck too close to home. Harry counted Garrett Tucker as one of his closest friends, and there weren't very many of those in town. Garrett liked to shoot at the range and they jawed often about hunting though each rarely made it to the woods as often as they wanted to. Mostly, they’d meet at the coffee shop and chat over a few dull cups in Berger's Café.

He knew Garrett's family well. He'd been to their home for dinner and the occasional Sunday for football. Sheila made a hell of a casserole and his kids were great. A little rambunctious, but great.

Now it was gone. Sheila rose and paced the yard in shock. Bucky tried to hold her by the shoulders to comfort her but she slapped him square across the cheek and screamed something unintelligible. She wore her nightgown, a white cotton thing that fully displayed her bursting, pregnant belly. Her haggard hair tossed with the wind.

The children huddled together on the stoop, legs pressed together, silent. They were in shock as well. This is the worst thing that could have ever happened to them, Harry thought.

Sheila saw Harry and stumbled through the grass toward him, zombie like. She lost balance and he caught her by the wrists and held her up. She collapsed in his arms, dead weight.

"Harry! My God, Harry!" Her eyes were not the eyes of a sane woman. "I think Garrett's dead."

The way her voice retreated to the back of her throat when she said the last part caused Harry to quiver. He held her in the nook of his shoulder. Her tears wetted the front of his shirt.

"Contact the fire department," he called Bucky, who stood there without any purpose whatsoever, lost in the situation. "Tell them to get an ambulance here right away. Come on now, go."

Bucky hurried to his cruiser to make the call.

"Tell me what happened," he said to her. "Sheila, Sheila. Please. Tell me what happened."

Her lips trembled. Her eyes grew distant, unfocused. "It was that scream, Harry. I never even heard Garrett raise his voice let alone scream like that…we've got a little one coming…my mother never had to be without my father so what should I do now…I still have laundry in there, Harry…"

When Bucky returned, Harry motioned toward the house. "Go check it out, Buck. Keep your gun handy."

Harry held her until the ambulance arrived. The paramedics wheeled the cart to her and she no longer resisted when they placed her atop it and strapped her down for transport. A thin line of drool leaked from her mouth and ran down her cheek. Her eyes did not blink.

The children hadn't moved from the porch the whole while and Harry sat down beside them. Little Jacob spoke up first, his eyes never leaving the ground.

"He was just going to close the window for my mom," he said, as if reciting from a notebook. "She said she was cold so he went to close the window in the guest room. There was something in there. It grabbed him and the door slammed. He was screaming so loud Sally and me were so scared. My mom tried to get the door open but she couldn't do it. And then it started to smell…"

The Chief stopped the boy from going any further. He didn’t want him to have to think about what happened to his father. Sally burst into tears and he set his hand on her shoulder.

“Come on, you two,” he said. “Why don’t you go with your mother for now?”

The paramedics took them and Harry approached the front door. Bucky stood there in the middle of it, not wanting to touch anything. He looked to Harry too much like a little boy, and a little boy was not what he needed with a killer like this around.

“It’s the same thing, Chief.” Bucky’s voice gasped from his throat. “It’s...aw, God, Chief. What are we supposed to do?”

“Step aside.” He brushed past his deputy.

It hit him right away. The smell. The same scorched smell from investigating the other murders, only this time more intense. Fresher. Garrett’s cooked flesh, so overpowering, sweet, sickly, disgusting. It reeked of burnt hotdogs left on the grill mixed with the stench of smoldering hair.

“Jesus.” He didn’t realize he’d drawn his gun. His heart thudded. He entered the living room and peered toward the guestroom. Bucky followed behind at his heels.

The television blared. He flicked it off. The silence was worse.

“He’s in there,” Bucky said, pointing to the guestroom.

“Yeah.” Harry moved forward. He’d seen this before but it didn’t make it easier. Things felt different. He felt it in his skin. Without even seeing the body, he knew the killer was changing, evolving into something different. This was the first time the killer had come into someone’s home with other people inside.

There were no other cases where a witness had seen anything, let alone a stalker wandering about the place. Each death had been alone and in a solitary place...and no one heard a thing.

This was bad. It meant the killer was getting bolder, entering a new level. Maybe he needed something more from his victims. Maybe he didn’t care anymore. Maybe he thought he would never get caught. Maybe it was going to get worse from now on.

He tightened his grip on his pistol, still unable to shake the feeling of helplessness. Bucky stopped halfway through the living room. Harry was glad. He didn’t want him to see his reaction.

He opened the door and gazed down at the charred lump that used to be Garrett Tucker. The smell was a sword through the chest.

“Jesus, Garrett,” he breathed. “What the hell did they do to you? Who is doing this?”

He walked outside to try to catch his bearings. Bucky followed.

“So what do we do now?” Bucky asked, but Harry hushed him. He didn’t know. He needed to think.

Another ambulance arrived, this one for Garrett, only this one wouldn’t be going to the hospital. As it lurched into the drive, ominous, he caught site of someone walking from across the street, wearing a kimono.

“Oh great,” Harry thought. “This is the last thing I need right now.”

She lumbered through the yard and paused before Harry, her breath labored as a worn out horse.

“Mrs. Lanham, you know you shouldn’t be here right now.”

“Chief MacGreggor,” she said, still catching her breath. “Was it the killer? Was it here again?”

“Please, Mrs. Lanham.” He positioned himself to block her view of the house. She craned her neck to get herself a closer peek. “I want you to turn around and go back home now. This is a crime scene.”

“Then it was here.” Her eyes bulged from her face. “I knew it! I knew it was going to happen again. I was telling your deputy just the other night that I saw that evil creature lurking around here. I just knew it!”

“What did you say?” Harry leaned into her. “Did you say you spoke with my deputy about this?”

“Yes!” Her shrill voice shredded his eardrums. “It was Deputy Fasbinder, him!” She pointed to Bucky with an accusing finger.

Bucky shrugged with uncertainty. “Well, yes sir, she called, but...”

His voice trailed off and Harry knew why he hadn’t told him.

“Okay now, Mrs. Lanham. We’ll take it from here.”

Mrs. Lanham smirked and huffed off toward her home, heavy breathing and all. “I told him. I said this would happen! No one ever listens to me!”

“What exactly did she say?” Harry asked when she was finally out of earshot.

Bucky shook his head and his drooping frame was one big apology. “I’m sorry, Chief, but well, you know. I mean, you remember the space alien thing, right?”

“Just tell me what she said, okay?”

Bucky paused, considering his words before he finally just threw up his hands and said it. “She said she saw a demon in the Tucker’s yard.”

##

Joe, Lisa, and Burt slipped into Joe’s basement. Joe’s hands were still shaking. His heel burned where a jagged rock dug in as he ran with only one shoe. Blood bloomed into his sock.

“Don’t worry about it.” Burt grabbed himself a soda from the fridge.

“Don’t worry? Oh, sure. No problem. A killer has my shoe and now he probably knows who I am.”

Burt flopped on the couch, popped open his soda and took a long refreshing drink. “I mean, you said the note had your name on it, but it didn’t have your last name on it, right?”

“No,” Joe said, “but, I don’t know. I don’t think so.”

“So why would the guy know you?”

“He’s my neighbor.”

Burt chewed on that a moment. “Nah. The guy is clueless, don’t you think?”

Joe didn’t think so but it was pointless arguing with Burt. “Maybe you’re right. Maybe he’ll never know.”

In Joe’s mind, Burt’s unflinching optimism was more like a degree of stupidity.

"There's no way he'll ever know, man,” Burt went on. “Don't worry. And he didn't see your face, right? I mean, how could he have seen your face? I was pulling you up the window well. There's just no way."

Burt had a special way of ignoring all possible consequences, a fly-in-your-face disregard for the results of his actions that Joe normally found humorous and refreshing. But now, it just pissed him off. It made him nervous, as if some precursor to the inevitable dreadful end.

Burt hoisted himself off the couch and traipsed about the room, waving his soda can about as if to emphasize the profound point of his deduction. Joe cringed. It didn’t sit so well with Lisa, either. She hadn't said a word since they got out of there, and that worried him more than ever.

"You okay?" Joe asked her.

Lisa sat in the corner with her elbows propped up over her knees, staring into dead space. Her eyes glazed over.

“Fine," she said.

"Come on," he pushed. "What's on your mind?"

Her eyes formed perturbed slits. "It was a weird night, okay? I didn't like the fact that we were almost busted by the town's grossest person alive! Do you know what could have happened if we got caught? And now your shoe with that stupid note. Why’d you have to keep that stupid note?"

She began to cry, soft sobs muffled to practically nothing as her head lowered and chin pressed against her chest.

Burt froze, a dumfounded sculpture, unsure of what to do. Joe went to her and kneeled beside her. He brushed her hair away from her face as gently as he knew how and took a deep breath.

"We’ll be fine." He tried to soothe her though a quiver in his voice betrayed his confidence. He prayed she didn’t hear it. "Everything'll be okay. Nothing's going to happen. We’re just going to lay low, cool? Pretend like nothing happened. I’m sure things will blow over."

It occurred to him that he sounded a bit like Burt, irrationally positive to the point of denial. But those were only words. In his gut, fear churned like a swarm of insects, gnawing away at him from within.

##

Later that night, Joe stared through his bedroom window, alone, wondering what to do next. Everything he’d planned backfired on him. Of course Burt didn't see it that way. For Burt, everything turned out exactly how he wanted it. Maybe that was why he invited Lisa Grant along without asking. Maybe he wanted the whole thing to blow up in their faces for a little excitement. Not that he minded Lisa coming along, but Burt should have mentioned it to him. If he had known, maybe he could have planned better. Maybe he would have escaped through the window sooner and Stanley Gruber wouldn't have his shoe, and possibly his identity.

The shoe. Burt said the shoe wasn't a big deal. He said there was no way Stanley Gruber would figure out the shoe with the note in it belonged to Joe Madsen. Stanley Gruber wasn't that smart. Joe wanted to believe that, but his overactive imagination kicked into overdrive and wouldn’t let him. The look on Lisa's face didn't help. She was worried, and rightly so. Her name was on the note as well.

Despite the setback, Joe was glad Lisa tagged along. He learned a lot about her and she was tougher than expected. He sat next to her all semester, practically lusting after her, and never realized she held such an adventurous streak. It made her that much more appealing. She never was the cutesy cheerleader type, all prim and proper, but she never struck him as the sort of girl who would get involved in the action. He saw her differently now.

He wondered if, when this all blew over, he might gain to courage to ask her out on a real date. Maybe.

Outside, a wind picked up, tossing oak leaves and evergreen branches about the yard. He knew he wouldn’t sleep tonight. He’d toss and turn like a madman just out of the crazy house.

He poured over his book collection, gearing up for a sleepless night. He owned a large collection of books, large for a sixteen-year-old anyway, though they weren’t the conventional books of the average teenager. His interests had long been the stuff most people shied away from.

Books were books, right?

He couldn't help himself. The supernatural fascinated him. The librarian gave Joe a quizzical glare whenever he entered the library, her scrutinizing eye following him through her thick spectacles, probably wondering the same thing his mother always wondered – “Why does he have to read such trash?”

At one point he checked out a dozen books on witchcraft and tried to perform a spell of invisibility. It didn’t work. Probably because he had to substitute a few of the ingredients, like hair from the arm of a ten-year-old corpse. He snipped some of his own hair but it wasn't quite the same. This was a few years back, and in retrospect, he realized how ridiculous it was.

He understood why his mother might be concerned with his choice of reading material, but it wasn't like he didn’t learn anything real from it. He didn't just check this stuff out to learn magic. He enjoyed the history of it and even authored a report on the Salem witch trials that landed him one of his rare "A's" in English class.

Now he looked at his books differently. They weren't just the words on paper anymore. The strangeness, the odd subject matter, it all reflected a part of his new reality. Deep down he always hoped some of it was true, like the existence of a secret telekinetic power or an inherent natural magic, but there was never any proof of it. That was no longer true.

Now he had proof ghosts were real.

How could he deny it? He saw his father with his own eyes, heard him with his own ears. It would be easier to believe his mind was cracking up, slipping into the realm of insanity than to believe his dead father had come back from the grave, but that was the only explanation. The only one that didn’t mean he was a psycho nut job.

The front door clicked open. It was his mother and Kevin. He peered through the window again and caught Mrs. Bergin across the street peeking through her curtains, spying. It gave him a chuckle.

A moment later, his mother's footsteps came tapping up the stairs. She must have seen his light on because normally he'd be out and about on a Friday night. Not tonight. Her steps were quick and light, hurried. He fell into his chair and snatched up a magazine. He didn't want her to find him staring blankly out the window. That wasn't very normal, and he had to act normal. She had the uncanny ability to sense anything out of place, and if she thought he had a problem, the questions would fly like mad.

"What are you doing?", "What are you thinking about?", or "What kind of trouble did you get into tonight?"

He didn't want the questions because she also had the uncanny ability to see through his half-baked replies.

When she opened his door, the pained expression on her face shoved all thoughts of questions away. Something was wrong.

"What is it?" He jumped from his chair. She still smelled of her favorite perfume.

"There was another murder tonight," she said.

A chill scuttled down Joe’s back. Thoughts of Stanley Gruber raced through his head. Did Stanley come after them after all? Was he waiting for Burt and Lisa to leave his home so that he could jump them in the alley? He wanted to ask "who?" but his lips couldn't form the words to say it.

As if reading his mind, his mother blurted the answer. "It was Garrett Tucker," she said. "The gym teacher. I can't believe it."

Mr. Tucker? The timing of it made sense. Stanley Gruber had gone out tonight and didn't come back until nine. He had plenty of time to leave, murder Mr. Tucker, and return home to find him and Lisa in his house.

"It's horrible," his mother said, misjudging the shocked expression he wore. "I've been thinking about moving out of here, you know."

"How did you hear about this so fast?"

"This is Devonshire,” she said. “Half the town knows the color of your underwear."

Joe wrung his hands, thinking.

"Where's Burt?" she asked.

"He left a little bit ago," he lied. "We just kind of hung out tonight."

"I want you in before dark from now on," she told him. "This is too much."

"It gets dark at five!"

"I don't care," she said. "I'd rather listen to you complain about being stuck in the house than to have you dead. Got me?"

"Yeah."

She kissed him on the forehead. "Believe me. It's for your own good."

She left. Joe flopped onto his bed, and even though he’d prepared for a sleepless night, he fell asleep almost instantly.

##

"There is an evil in Devonshire," Joe whispered in that tenuous place between sleep and wakefulness, mimicking the very words his father said earlier that day. He normally didn’t remember his dreams, but this particular dream was a reoccurring one. When he was awake, he refused to engage his father. Anger welled up in him, but asleep, when his defenses were down, the warnings slipped through.

Maybe he should stay away from Stanley Gruber. Considering it now, it was a stupid thing to break into the man’s house. What did he expect to find? A smoking gun? Besides, if Stanley truly was the killer, it would have been like walking straight into the lion’s den. He could have been killed. Hell, he almost was.

And what if it wasn’t Stanley? Still stupid. The last thing his mother needed was to find her son sent off to juvenile detention because he busted into some goofy janitor’s place, reason or no reason. Burt and Lisa would have been slammed as well, and they’d all have a dark smear across their records. Then they’d have to tell their story of how they believed Stanley Gruber was the Devonshire killer. They’d become laughing stocks like that lady across town, Mrs. Lanham, the one who talked about UFOs all the time.

He imagined Stanley Gruber laughing in their faces, laughing because Joe knew he was the killer but he’d weasel out of it somehow, all because Joe and his friends screwed it up. That would tick him off to no end.

He slipped further into dreaming. He dreamt of his father. It wasn’t the ghost this time, but the memory. He wanted to speak with him. He wanted to see him. Not because he missed him, but because he wanted to know what his father knew. He wanted to hear about Stanley Gruber and the murders. He wanted his father to tell him what to do. He wanted answers and direction.

But his father would not come and he didn’t know why. He found he couldn’t simply summon his father’s ghost into being. His father had come before for a reason, to tell him something, and now that Joe wanted to listen, where was he? Joe didn’t pretend to understand the rules of the afterlife. Maybe he was bound by some spiritual regulations that prevented him from appearing at certain times of the night, or only when the conditions were right, like a full moon or some cosmic alignment. Either way, it sucked.

In his dream, he inched down flights of impossibly long stairs, spiraling downward into the basement where his father died. The musty damp odor reached out and pierced his nose, not entirely unpleasant. He saw his father’s trains lined against the walls and the worn, jagged tracks upon which they ran. Smoke puffed from the tiny engine and the soft whine of its wheels echoed as it strained to drag its heavy load.

And then he heard something else, a soft bump or a scrape. No, it was a tap. He reminded himself that this was all a dream, but could he be certain? He hesitated, still standing at the edge of the final stair, peering into the dark chasm of the basement. He didn’t want to see. His legs took him beyond his control. His foot set upon concrete.

Tap tap. Tap tap.

His mind painted an ugly picture.

Please, I don’t want to see this. I don’t want to see this.

Tap tap.

He paused again. Somehow, the sound was different. It changed. Something different was happening.

Tap tap.

He shifted in his sleep. The dream began to fade.

Tap tap. Tap tap.

The tapping changed. The dream dissipated. There was only darkness.

Tap. Scrape.

He slowly opened his eyes.

“What the...?”

Someone was at his window, trying to get in.

He bolted upright and tumbled from his bed. His pillow flipped against the wall. For the briefest instant he thought it might be his father, but when his pupils adjusted to the darkness he saw that, no, it was not his father.

It was Stanley Gruber.

Gruber stood on the overhang Joe had used several times himself to sneak out of the house through his bedroom window. Joe froze with terror. His mind screamed at him to go, run, get the hell away as fast as possible, but the shock of it left him paralyzed. He couldn’t even twitch his toes.

Stanley squatted on the awning, crouched low enough so that only his head and shoulders floated above the bottom of the window. Joe couldn’t tell if he was tapping to get his attention, or trying to get into the room. Whatever he was doing, it was scaring the hell out of him.

Stanley stopped and glared through the window. He reached down for something, and when his hand came back up, he held Joe’s shoe between his bony fingers. Stanley grinned with crooked, yellow teeth that shone like tiny daggers.

Joe saw past those teeth, deep into Stanley’s throat and down into his gullet. It was as if Stanley swallowed him whole with that evil grin and showed him the killer within the man.

It took everything Joe had to break out of himself. It grew from his gut like a wave that ripped through his body until it slammed into his chest. He opened his mouth but could only manage a pitiful yelp. That set the way for another one, and another, and finally a cry that echoed and bounced off the walls.

He finally let fly a scream.

Stanley quickly dropped out of sight and bounded from the overhang. Joe still couldn’t move, locked to the edge of his bed as if chains strapped him down. His mother crashed into the room, ramming through the door like a football player, pounding it into the wall.

“What’s wrong?” Her shrill voice rang out.

Joe turned to her, his eyes wide moons. He wanted to tell her there was a man at his window, that it was Stanley Gruber, Devonshire’s best candidate for a maniacal killer. But he didn’t. He checked himself. He couldn’t tell her what was happening. He couldn’t tell his mother that Stanley Gruber had his shoe and was retaliating. Because then he’d have to tell her the reason Stanley Gruber was here, because Burt, Lisa and he busted into the guy’s house and had a little look around. He’d have to explain his theory about Stanley, and maybe even tell her about the ghostly visitations of his father.

He wasn’t ready to unleash that level of madness. Not yet, at least.

He looked into his mother’s eyes and gave her his best sad face. “I had a bad dream.”

Her shoulders dropped and she fell to the edge of his bed. She stroked his knee.

“I haven’t heard you scream like that since…” She caught herself and he saw it. An awkward moment floated between then. “Since you were younger,” she said.

“I’m okay,” he lied. “I dreamt I was falling. It just got to me, is all.”

She patted his leg. “You going to be okay?”

“Yeah.” Nothing could be further from the truth.

As she left, all he could think of was what the hell had he gotten himself into?