Sitting beside Terry in the cabin of his truck, I found that Bon Temps had a few surprises. Chiefly – it was a lot bigger than the hole in the ground I had initially taken it for. Once the tow-truck had trundled past Merlotte's, strip malls and shopping plazas began to punctuate the side of the road – though in between these developments, the forest still grew right up against the shoulder of the street. Steadily, however, the wilderness began to regress, and the sporadic passing cars heading in the opposite direction began to appear with a greater frequency until they were passing regularly.
By the time we arrived at the first intersection bearing a stoplight, the trees had been beaten back entirely from the road, replaced with a neat little sidewalk upon which the rare pedestrian strolled. The parking lots of the plazas were now more or less continuous, and one or two of the buildings actually had multiple stories. There weren't any skyscrapers, of course. Bon Temps was too small to section off its commercial district from its residential zone, so when Terry pulled his car over the curb and into the yard of his house, I noticed that he had a bar for a neighbor and a Tackle and Bait store for the other.
Several cars were already occupying his yard – all of them as forlorn and far from ambulatory as mine was. Most seemed to have been recently moved here, but a few were actually up on cinder blocks – their paint beginning to wear from the exposure. If I don't find some way to pay this guy, mine's going to end up the same way. Terry strummed his fingers thoughtfully on the wheel as he tried to locate a place to set my Mustang down. If he sensed my unease, he was keeping his opinion to himself, and the truck lurched into reverse as my disabled car was backed into an appropriate plot on the lawn.
"You go on inside and I'll let you know what the score is. There's some drinks in the fridge. Help yourself." Terry 's voice, though gravelly, was still easy as he threw open his door and stepped out of the truck, and I followed suite, stepping out onto the compacted dirt that formed his driveway. While Terry navigated to the driver's door of the Mustang in order to pop the hood, I climbed the low stairs that rose to his porch, each of which groaned plaintively as they took my weight. The door was open, but the screen was latched, and I made a point to close it behind me as I passed through. I figured I was taking advantage enough of Terry's hospitality without raiding his fridge, so I didn't make for the kitchen. Instead, I chose to linger in the hallway that extended from the front door towards the living room at the back of the house.
Terry was a Vietnam vet. The grainy black and white photos that hung on the walls showed him in a much younger state, smiling in combat dress mostly. I was examining an exposure in which he was sitting on an ammo crate, a cigarette between his lips and an M60 'Pig' resting against his bare shoulder, when I felt an uneasy pressure begin to press against the back of my head. I turned around instinctively and found myself facing a doorway I had failed to notice in my absorbed state. It hung open – a gaping void of darkness. For a short way within, I could see the wooden stairs that descended into Terry's basement.
I felt my temples begin to pulse, and I licked my lips – which were suddenly noticeably dry. The air began to grow heavy, carrying with it the cloying scent of decay as I stood frozen in place. And then the shadows that hunched within the doorway began to shift. Opaque black tendrils began to bleed like ink out of the threshold and across the wooden paneling of the hallway, writhing sinuously as they inched towards me. Beyond, somewhere on the stairs, I heard a long, slow breath being drawn, rattling as if in the throat of a dying man. The fingers of shadow that defied nature and pushed back the light coiled and slunk towards the toe of my motionless boot.
"Jonathan?" I glanced up and aside. Terry was standing in the doorway, wiping a hand off with a rag. He looked nervous – unsure – and I was guessing he had called my name before without response. I glanced back to the doorway, but it was innocuous now, the gloom beyond inert and precisely where it should be. I managed a threadbare smile for Terry's sake, prompting him to go on.
"Looks like the entire thermostat casing for the Mustang is gone. You had a hairline crack in it, best as I can tell, but it finally ruptured. The whole thing is just… gone. I don't have the parts to fix that, but I can order them in."
I knew right away that I wouldn't be able to pay for that, I but I kept a straight face, and didn't mention it. "How long until then?"
"A few days. I'll have it by the weekend."
I nodded my head, doing my best to look understanding and resigned before I glanced towards the front door. Terry followed my eyes and then raised and lowered a shoulder.
"Want me to drive you somewhere?"
It wasn't much past midday, and I had very little money and even less to do. I declined Terry's offer to drive me – I didn't know anywhere in Bon Temps to go. I decided to walk back towards Merlotte's. I figured that by the time I got there, it would be late enough that business would be picking up, and I'd stand a better chance of finding somewhere to stay the night. I'm not a particularly proud man.
I wandered around 'downtown' Bon Temps for a little bit, looking in the store windows. This hobby quickly fell by the wayside as I found out that small business owners are generally more suspicious to window-shoppers than chain stores, and after one too many dirty looks, I gave up. I found park situated just to the side of the main street near the 'edge' of the developed area, composed mostly of a currently abandoned play area next to a medium sized lake that had attracted the placement of several picnic tables and a jogging path. I didn't want to go too close to the water, so I sat on the swings instead.
I swung my legs idly as I watched the water, and I thought about Jessica for the first time in years, the tranquil surface stirring memories – the same memories that would in turn bring dreams. I felt a familiar lurch in my stomach, recalling the feeling of that horrific grip closing around my chest. I could still vividly see the look of terror in Jessica's face. The last thing any of us saw of her. I sat for a long while, watching the clouds crawl across the sky, before I reached down, stooping out of the swing to dig a finger into the dirt of the playground, looking to excavate a stone.
When I had a suitable candidate, I palmed it and edged down closer to the little path by the water, before I tossed my makeshift projectile out over the pond. It turned a few times in the air before impacting the surface with a 'plunk' of water. "Why don't you fuck off and leave me alone?" I didn't expect an answer from the inert water, but it didn't stop me from speaking anyway. I stood there for a second or so longer, growing increasingly aware of how stupid I was looking, before I turned – resolved to walk back to Merlotte's.
Before I could take my first step away from the park, I felt a sharp sting across the back of my head, and flicked a hand up to the base of my skull instinctively. A clattered echoed from the path at my feet as the rock – still dripping from the water – spun down to rest on the pavement. The pond itself betrayed not a ripple when I turned to look.
The sun has sunk low enough that once I was out of the developed part of Bon Temps, the trees to either side of the roadway blocked out much of the sunlight. As a result, it was much cooler walking back to Merlotte's from town than it had been walking in from the Interstate. With the summer daylight hours in effect, it was still light enough out that I wasn't too worried walking along the rural roadway – which naturally lacked any sort of artificial illumination. It was about eight in the evening when I strolled past the Kwik Stop and into the loosely packed gravel lot of the bar for the second time that day. It was a week night, so I didn't expect a lot of traffic – but I was surprised to find quite a few cars parked up haphazardly across the lot. Amongst them, the distinctive Aqua-flamed truck had staked a place of prominence near the front doors. I passed it as I went inside, untucking my shirt and cinching my holster higher up around my waist to hide the gun. Sam would know it was there, but no one else needed to be concerned about it, as far as I cared.
Merlotte's had a PA radio that hadn't been in use when I went in for breakfast – Billy Joel's River of Dreams was in the process of being drowned out by the oppressive buzz of conversation, punctuated by the occasionally click of glass or bark of laughter. The bell affixed to the edge of the door was still audible, however, and Sam – in the process of pouring a pint for some wag at the bar – glanced up, only to nod and go back to more pressing issues. I glanced over the room, counting heads. There were maybe two dozen people in the bar at most, about a third of them were at least casual alcoholics – middle aged and hunched over the bar. The rest were more interesting fair – younger and clustered around in various groups about the room. I saw the owner of the pickup leaning against the bar talking to a couple of guys still in their construction digs – apparently Merlotte's didn't have a dress code. Despite the majority of the patrons clustering around the bar, there were still a few waitresses tending to the sparsely populated tables.
"Uh… hi?" The voice came from a tan-skinned, exotic looking girl bidding for my attention from where she was positioned behind the formerly vacated podium. When I glanced over her, she gave the traditional hostess' smile – fake and overly excited to see you. "Booth, bar, or table?"
"Booth'll do me fine, thanks." My reply was short, but the presence of so many 'th's gave my accent away easily, so when she smiled again, she seemed more engaged, shuffling through her menus unnecessarily before leading me aside to a booth near to the door. She assured me someone would be with me, and returned to her post. As I waited, I let my gaze drift to the window mounted on the wall over my booth. I watched the final fingers of light from the dying sun shift and then fade, heralding the coming of the damnable night. Absently, I dug a fingernail into a crease in the grainy wood of the booth's table as I waited.
"Hi." I looked up to find the owner of the perky, hospitable voice. My waitress was a shorter, curvy blonde with an open, honest face. She just screamed country girl. She was also top heavy, to say the least.
I tapped the pad of my finger against the front of the menu, where a little box declared the dollar draft promotion Sam had mentioned earlier in the day. "Is that for everything on tap?"
"Sure is. But we only have domestics on tap anyway."
Looks like Smithwicks is out of the question. "Amber Bock?"
"Can do!" Another one of those toothy, tight smiles waitresses are renowned for, before she was gone. She didn't use a pad. I guess she doesn't have trouble remembering. I turned my attention back to the window, considering the growing dim, and what it hid.
It hadn't always been this bad. I'd feel them once in a while – generally around late October to early Spring. But then, a few months ago, something had changed. I started to see things again, started to taste the decay in the air with growing frequency and concern. And for the first time since I had been a child, I started to fear the dark again. It wasn't long until I started running – but no amount of distance behind me seemed to change anything. What the fuck is happening to me?
There was a clink of glass that brought me out of my reverie. The girl had returned with my drinks, and she brought with her a new expression on her slightly oval face. Her smile was still there, but it had grown marginally less confident, and her eyes were scrutinizing me closely. I thought for a moment that my shirt had slipped and she had seen the gun, but an absent brush of my hands across my ribs betrayed the holster was still well covered.
"Thanks very much", I ventured, before adding, "Is everything alright?" I felt one of my eyebrows creep upwards reflexively.
"Uh-huh", she murmured distractedly – leaving me wholly unconvinced, before she cocked her head curiously. "Can I get y'all anything else?"
I shook my head, and she retreated, but as I sipped on my drink slowly, I could sense she was still casting occasional glances my way. I don't know if I had said to spook her, or if she had picked up on my own unease. Either way, I felt it best to sip pensively on my glass – which had already begun to sweat; in the bayou, even the air indoors was muggy. I was drinking on an empty stomach, and by the time I was mostly done with my beer, I could feel it start to sink it. I ordered another.
Bon Temps was the first town I had stopped in for more than sleep since I had left New York. I guess I had forgotten how things operate in small towns. It was the middle of the week and Merlotte's wasn't staying open long. The construction crew left before I had finished my second drink, but the younger truck driver stayed at the bar, splitting his attention between a brunette on his arm and my waitress. The alcoholics at the bar were still hanging on, but the majority of Sam's business had begun to slow before eleven. Even in my rapidly dulling state, I felt a twinge of nerves at the prospect of leaving the bar.
"We close at twelve on week nights", the girl serving me explained distractedly as she delivered my third glass. I hadn't noticed her approach.
"Dollar drafts all night?"
"Well, it'll be morning then", she replied triumphantly after a moment's thought. Though she looked pleased with herself for the verbal footwork, she was still jittery. Whatever. I have my own problems. Coinciding with the thought, a soft plink echoed through the bar as Sam touched a finger against the bell mounted on the bar. Closing time. Nowhere to run. Time to face the music.
I made a big pretense of finishing my drink as the rest of the customers shuffled out of the bar, In the end, only the young guy and his date outlasted me – apparently a friend of Sam's, they sat at the bar talking while the latter wiped down the taps. When the blonde waitress approached my booth with a wet cloth, I took it as my cue. As I stood to go, she straightened slightly and opened her mouth to speak, only to snap it shut again and proceed to furiously swiping down the table. By then, I didn't take much notice – she'd been acting strange like that all night.
I made for the door, feeling my pulse slowly thudding in my temples as I pushed open the door, and stepped out into the gloom to leave the dim glow of Merlotte's behind me.
Being at the very edge of town, there was absolutely no light beyond what managed to escape from the windows of the bar at my back. Even that didn't make it much farther than the parking lot. The loose pebbles that comprised the lot crunched under my boots as I wove between the cars and headed for the road. I didn't know where I was going – but I knew it didn't matter. I figured I'd shoot for the far side of the road and then see how far I got from there. If it wasn't for the beer, I'd probably be running by now. As I was now, I didn't really think it mattered. The Irish were inherently fatalists.
Crossing the road went down without any incident, and I was surprised to find myself standing on the far embankment, unscathed. The wind whispered through the silhouettes of the trees before me, causing them to sigh and lean in a ghostly dance. I glanced down the road in either direction, trying to decide on a course – I was already farther along than I had planned. I was feeling fairly frustrated and the drink wasn't helping. "Well?" My voice was laden with provocative expectation as I directed it into the shrouded woods.
"Who are you talking to?" The tone of the voice was conversational, but when I turned on the spot, I could see she was anything but. It was my waitress again. She had forsaken her washcloth in favour of an aluminum baseball bat, which she had clenched in a death grip. She was trying to look confident, but she was clearly terrified – practically shaking. I don't know what she was nervous about. This wasn't about her.
"Absolutely fookin' not." I put special emphasis on my accent. "Go back inside the bar, love."
She didn't like that at all. Maybe it was the profanity, or the direct address. Maybe it was the whole idea of being told what to do she didn't like. Now she really was confident, the nerves gone entirely. She opened her mouth angrily, her face darkening with an argumentative flush. Before she could get started, however, her nose wrinkled and her expression went from annoyed to disgusted. "Ugh. What's that smell?"
Oh, fuck me.
"Give me the bat." I held out a hand as I inhaled a deep breath through my nose. The familiar lurch inducing scent of decomposition flung itself at my nostrils. With my hand still extended, I turned back to the trees.
"What's going on?" Her voice was trembling slightly again. I felt the handle of the bat press against my hand and I curled my fingers around the shaft as it was given over to me.
"You just got in over your head." I took a few practice winds with the bat as I spoke. "Probably. Maybe you're tougher than I am." Go down swinging.
The smell was becoming overwhelming now, reaching a sickening pitch that added a physical weight to the air. The girl at my hip gagged but kept her stomach in check.
"Breathe through your mouth." I suggested, taking my own advise in the process. But then breathing stopped being the priority it had been.
A snapping protest of wood being bent beyond the breaking point silenced any further conversation. The light from Marlette's was faint, but my eyes had adjusted enough to watch two of the trees in the copse directly adjacent to the road bow low as something passed between them. I felt the waitress shrink away, crowding behind me slightly even as I felt the bat droop down off of my shoulder. The thing stepped out of the total gloom and into the shadow on the side of the roadway, where I could finally see it, for the first time.
It was hideous, and horrifically proportioned.
It was… thin.
We were dwarfed on the roadway. The creature standing at the edge of the embankment towered over us, easily eight feet in height. Even in the barest light that I had to work with, I could see clearly that its' skin was pitch black, mottled with ugly patches of bile and rot. A full half of its stature was in its legs, which seemed preposterously slender. Its' equally tapered arms hung low, even standing straight-backed as it was, to terminate near its knees. Capping each was a bony, overlarge hand – each finger curved into a talon suited for nothing but inflicting havoc.
Its waist was narrow, and its' ribcage was prominent. I was certain in stronger light, I could count each of the monstrosity's ribs from across the road. Its head was contradictorily heavy, with a deep brow and a jutting, primate jaw that lend it a massive under bite, further accentuated by two yellowed canines. It was as if someone had attached the head of a gorilla to a corpse – as if this… thing had shambled out of a Lovecraftian story and onto the road. I edged back in tandem with my unfortunate companion.
"We… we should run", I suggested, but my words caught in my throat as the creature spoke. It fucking talks. It didn't speak in English. It spoke in Gaeilge.
"A fair child?" Even in the fluid tongue of the Irish Celts, its voice sounded like rocks in a tumble-dryer; thick, and full of menace. It took a swaying step closer, but its eyes were fixed on the girl now, not me. "This night, I claim two foemen." He seemed pleased.
Chich-choch. The pleasure was gone just as quickly as it arrived from the thing's face as the young guy from the bar pumped a slug into the chamber of his shotgun. A Benelli SuperNova – tactical model. This guys' all about quality. His expression was a race mixture of horror and resolve. He had left his girlfriend in the bar, but at his knee in her place was a muscular Rottweiler, his mottled white and brown fur on end as he splayed his paws and arched his back aggressively, and issued a thunderous huff of a bark.
"The… fuck is that thing?" The guy's voice was bewildered – yet still retained some anger.
The 'thing' in question caught wind of his confusion and seized on it. Its thin legs bunched and I lifted the bat. It was unnecessary, as it opted to propel itself backwards, sending its spindly form crashing through the trees and out of sight before the shotgun could be retrained on it. I took a massive, shaky breath. The scent of death in the air was gone almost immediately. I lowered the head of the bat to the pavement and leant my weight on it.
"Good timing, Jason." The girl's voice was shivering with relief. "How'd you know to bring the shotgun?"
And how'd you know to come help me, lass? I certainly hadn't told her I was being stalked.
"You see your little sister leaving a bar with a baseball bat and all the appearance of using it, and you'd be damned sure to follow after her, Sook." He clicked the safety on the shotgun and rested it in the ready position across his chest. "You okay, buddy?" He was fixing me with an honest expression, brows lifted, and the family resemblance between the two immediately leapt out.
"I'm fine."
"Not to repeat myself, but what was that fuckin' thing?"
I rolled my shoulders helplessly. "I don't know. It's been following me. I have no idea what it is."
"Why didn't you use your revolver?" Sam asked, rising from his crouch – fresh from his return to his human form. He was stark naked, but it didn't seem to bother him any.
"It's empty. I can't afford ammunition."
He laughed, hollowly.
"Where were you walking to anyway?" It was the girl now. 'Sook'. "Where are you staying?"
"I wasn't walking anywhere. I just came out here to…" My voice drifted away.
"Die?" Jason now, his voice skeptical and a bit reproachful. "Comon, man, I don't know where you've been, but we don't let folks – even strangers – walk out to die. 'Specially not to something as fucked up at whatever that thing was."
Sam seemed to be just as critical of my decision, but he spoke to the girl first. "Hey, Sookie. Go on inside. The other girls need to divide up the tips." She seemed to be just dying for an excuse to cut and run at this point, and she fairly jogged back to the bar while Sam turned his attention on me instead. He wiped his hands on his bare thighs before he spoke. "Jonathan, I'll put you up for the night. I own a couple of condos in town."
He turned to Jason. "You mind driving him out for me? It's the same complex your sister stayed in when her house nearly burnt down."
"I got it." Jason reply was easy as he slung the shotgun up over his shoulder like some action hero. He waved his free hand at me. "Jonathan, huh? Comon, then. I'll get you there in a hurry."
When I turned my back on the copse of trees to follow after him, I felt an immense pressure, like a wave of hatred beating between my shoulder blades.