Totentanz Read online

  TOTENTANZ

  By Al Sarrantonio

  Smashwords Edition published at Smashwords by Crossroad Press

  Copyright 2011 Al Sarrantonio

  Cover design by David Dodd / Copy-Edited by Patricia Lee Macomber

  Background image courtesy of:

  http://mysticbubblesz.deviantart.com/

  LICENSE NOTES:

  This eBook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This eBook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person you share it with. If you're reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then you should return the vendor of your choice and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  ALSO FROM AL SARRANTONIO & CROSSROAD PRESS

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  Kitt Peak

  The Boy With Penny Eyes

  Haydn of Mars – Book I of the Masters of Mars Trilogy

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  Collections:

  Toybox

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  If it be summer, he is easy to see, for he comes dressed in mourning, his breath smelling of retribution, asking only for a kiss. . . .

  —Anonymous

  ONE

  There was ice in the summer night, but it was not in the trees or on the ground. It was not in the July air, hot and close around them, as sticky as dried vanilla ice cream. Their skin sweated because of the night, yet there was nothing but snow in their bones. Ice, long shivers of it, ran through them like clear cold blood.

  "The box opened," Reggie Carson said in a fierce whisper, leaning forward, spreading his hands over his two friends like an Old Testament prophet, "and the thing sat straight up, its waxy face running flesh, its eyeballs popping out, and in its half-eaten hand it held . . . the claw!"

  Reggie tossed something at them, a mass of twigs or pipe cleaners in the shape of a talon.

  They jumped, and another wash of cool fright broke over them and then rolled back.

  Heat lightning flashed suddenly overhead, illuminating the scene like a postcard: three boys on a hill in a churchyard. Around them, like bumps on a blanket, sat a thousand graves in neatly planted rows or older, jumbled clusters. Just behind the three boys, on the summit of their grave hill, stood a mystery vault, a squat, locked death box, its darkly mottled, stained-glass windows like eyes, its big rectangular door like an owl's hooting mouth. Another lightning flash, revealing those three boys: Jack and Pup, sitting down, knees drawn up, a scattering of candy wrappers and sandwich leavings around them, a knocked-over can of Coke and a half-full bottle of orange soda between them, their faces looking up expectantly at Reggie, who stood above them, dark face momentarily still.

  "Tell us about the tomb again," Jack said. Long and lean, he stretched his legs out, pulling the creases out of his jeans. He sometimes said he wanted to be a Marine, like his father. Pup, with brighter, smaller eyes, was not quite fat but might someday be so: he reached for the fallen Coke can and cursed to find it nearly empty, its contents puddled on the ground.

  "Yeah, tell us about that Jeff Scott guy, and why they never put him in the crypt," Pup added.

  "This one's real," Reggie said, and for a moment disappointment crossed his friends' faces, as if his hinting that the other story had not been real was a kind of betrayal: as if to reinforce this, lightning shone once again. "Well, anyway, I know this one's for real because it's in the town history books. They call this the Tomb of the Unknown Man, not because they don't know who he is, but because they don't know what happened to him. It was built for a guy named Jeff Scott. I never found out what, but the town did something to him, and so in nineteen twenty, a long time after he died, they built him this crypt, to say they were sorry, I guess. Only, when they went to dig up his old grave"—Reggie pointed downhill to a ragged group of tilted headstones around a huge oak tree, barely discernible in the night except when the lightning illuminated it"—they found that he wasn't in it. There was just a pile of churned-up dirt in the hole."

  They had studied that grave site a hundred times, the earth now patted down, the stone reading "Jeff Scott, 1846-1865," had put their hands upon it, had tried to draw meaning and sustenance from it.

  "What happened to him?" Pup asked. He knew the good part was coming. He swatted at a mosquito, trapping it on his palm and pinching it between his thumb and forefinger. He watched the blot of bright red that came from it and then wiped his hands on his pants.

  Reggie's face grew serious. "Barney Bates told me he rose up by himself and left Montvale and that someday he's coming back." Slowly he looked around at the stone building behind him, then back at the other boys. "I don't know what that means, but Barney Bates says he's coming back not to sleep in this tomb, but for revenge."

  A delicious chill crept over Jack and Pup, and they let it wrap around them for a few moments.

  "Did you ever think there might be something locked in there anyway?" Pup asked finally, pointing to the vault. The feeling was fading, and he wanted to revive it. "Did you ever think that maybe it's not empty? I think there's a bucket of bats in there, or something worse. Maybe something that would come out and kill everyone in Montvale."

  Jack said to Pup, laughing, "It'd have a tough time getting you. There's so much of you to get." A dark look passed over Pup's face.

  "Sometimes," Reggie said dreamily, "I do think there's something in there, waiting for me." Cautiously they looked around at the windows, imagining something moving behind the stained glass.

  "Jesus." Jack said, pointing to what looked like motion—but it was only the weak reflection of a cloud across the winking half-moon.

  "Sometimes I really think there's something in there." Reggie repeated. His voice was low and serious. Jack and Pup looked at each other, and a smile passed between them because they knew what was coming. They knew Reggie was going into one of his real weird moods, one of his death moods, and nothing but a good thrill would come of it.

  Reggie said. "I think there's something in there calling to me. I'd walk up there, the doors would swing open and it would reach out, whatever it is." The other two boys squirmed. Its touch would be warm, and then icy cold. Just a long blue vapory arm, trailing off into the darkness behind it. The fingers of the hands would tighten around me and begin to pull me forward. I'd hear something inside, a scratching sound like nails down a blackboard, but I wouldn't be able to get away from the grip of the thing. It's reeling me into the darkness like I'm a fish.–

  Reggie's face resembled a sleepwalker's, and his voice became a whisper. "Inside, the scratching sound stops. And there's dead silence. It smells like damp wood in there. At the door the hand stops, and then it pulls me inside. I hear the door close slowly, and I struggle but I can't loosen the grip the thing has on me. It's so wet and cold. I begin to shiver. I reach out to the door, trying to stop it from closing. But it clangs shut, and I'm in darkness."

  Reggie's body was shaking as he spoke.

  "And then," he went on, his voice rising, "and then something with claws reaches out in the dark and grabs me!"

  With a scream of laughter, he pulled two more twig talons from his pockets and leaped at his two friends, bowling them over. They rolled on the ground together, squealing, three boys as one, and then they separated.

  Re
ggie wiped tears of laughter from his eyes. But as he glanced back at the sepulcher, a darkness crossed his features again.

  "You really had us going, man," Pup said.

  Jack said, "I didn't believe it for a second." They looked at him gravely, and he broke into a grin.

  "Well...."

  Reggie and Pup leaped on him, and they rolled around again.

  Another sheet of lightning glimmered off to the west, making the sky purple and gray. This time there was distant thunder, telling the boys that a different kind of lightning was here, rolling toward them with a possible storm. To reinforce this, a thin line of cloud moved across the moon, cutting its half into a quarter. Lightning sparked yet again, and the windows of the mausoleum winked, red and green and blue, and the doorway mouth said "Ooooo" at them before blinking out into darkness.

  The three of them brooded.

  "Hey, Reggie," Pup said, "tell us what it was like to die."

  Instantly the air changed.

  "Maybe I shouldn't have said that," Pup added, only half-sincerely, and Jack said, "Yeah, maybe you shouldn't have, jerk."

  They regarded Reggie, whose eyes were on the ground.

  "Not tonight, okay?" he said.

  "You're not chicken, are you?" Pup asked impulsively.

  "Hey, Pup!" Jack pushed him.

  "Just kidding," Pup protested.

  "If you want to get heavy," Jack said, "why don't you tell us about the time you shot the Wiggins' cat?"

  Pup grew quickly angry, his heavy face setting into blue blotches in the warm darkness. "I told you that was an accident, didn't I? Even if it wasn't, the fucking cat deserved it."

  "Sure it was an accident?" Jack pursued.

  "I said it was."

  "Just kidding," Jack mimicked, backing off. He held his hands up for peace. "Really, just kidding."

  A silence dropped among them. A mood they had carried with them for a long time had somehow fractured. For the first time, without their being able to put a finger on how or why, a crack was forming in their bond.

  "Well, we're still the Three Musketeers, aren't we?" Jack urged, sensing the change and not wanting it.

  "I guess so," Pup answered grudgingly, and then he smiled, holding out his fist. The other two held out their fists and they made the stack of three, the sacred handshake.

  Another awkward silence engulfed them.

  "Hey," Pup said, trying to sound nonchalant, "what do you guys think of Lavinia Crawford? You think she's a good-looker?"

  "Good-looker?" Jack tried to sound sarcastic, but there was an uneasiness in his manner. They had never really talked, never really thought, about girls before. Not the three of them, the Three Musketeers.

  Pup plunged ahead. "Pretty good-looking, don't you think?"

  "You going to ask her out or something?" Jack inquired. The smirk on his face was artificial.

  The embarrassment was tangible; it had driven out the tingling chill they had orchestrated among the gravestones and replaced it with this feeling of . . . well, not of what they were about.

  No one spoke, and then Pup suddenly got to his feet. "Jesus Christ!" he said. "What is it with you guys? You going to stay like this forever? Don't you think there's anything else in the world except scaring the crap out of yourselves and building model airplanes?" His face was flushed, he was unsure of himself. "Don't you think there's anything else?"

  "Like girls?" Jack smirked.

  Pup turned on him. "Yeah, like girls. Don't you ever think about girls?"

  Jack hesitated. "Sure . . .”

  "And that's not only it," Pup continued, his confidence suddenly there. He turned toward Reggie, who had held his silence. "Who made Reggie boss? Why is he always the one that tells the stories, tells us what to do, sets up all the plans?” He turned on Jack again. "You're the jerk who wants to be a Marine when you get older. Who made Reggie God?"

  Jack answered, shrugging, "We've always done things this way."

  "Don't you think maybe we could take turns or something?" Pup turned on Reggie directly. "Hell, I am fourteen, a year older than you guys."

  "Sure, if you want,” Reggie said.

  "Is that all you've got to say?" Pup was pacing around. "What about you, Marine? Don't you ever want to do anything?"

  "Like what?" Jack said.

  "I don't know, like. . ." Pup faltered, his emotions getting ahead of his mind. There was obvious rage building within him. He stopped and faced Reggie again, pointing an accusatory finger at him.

  "Why won't you ever talk about that time you almost died?" he shouted. "What's the big deal? You carry it around like a crown—like it's something you don't want anybody else to know about."

  "Pup!" Jack warned, putting a hand on Pup's shoulder.

  Pup pushed the hand away. "Let me finish! Just because your old man was a hotshot in Vietnam doesn't make you the leader, either." He looked at Reggie. "It's like you're some kind of big shot, or martyr. You tell us how much you like all this scary stuff, but you've been there—you saw what it was like. You died and then came back. And you won't even tell us—"

  He caught himself in the middle of his tirade and said nothing more.

  Quietly, Reggie said, "I don't talk about it because it bothers me."

  Pup's head was down; Jack put his hand on Pup's shoulder again, and this time Pup let it stay.

  "I'm sorry, Reg," Pup said after a moment. He sat down on the grass and crossed his legs. "I shouldn't have let my temper blow off like that."

  "It's okay," Reggie replied. He bent down and suddenly jabbed Pup in the ribs, clumsily. "I bet Lavinia Crawford doesn't like guys with bad tempers, so you'd better watch it."

  "Yeah," Pup began, and then he rose to his feet as a glare of headlights blinded them. "Oh, shit," he said. "It's Poundridge."

  The mayor's long black Chevy pulled up the rise in front of them. It stopped next to the white picket gate leading into the churchyard. The bright beams of the headlights stabbed at the boys, pinning them like bugs against a board.

  One long black door opened out. With a light grunt, a thin figure climbed out and made its way toward them. It stopped, said "Damn," and walked back to slam the car door shut. Then he was walking in front of the headlights, advancing slowly and wagging a finger.

  "What in heck are you boys doing up here this time of night?" The voice was not altogether harsh, though it did hold a mildly accusatory tone. "Not doing mischief, are you?"

  "Just sitting and talking, sir," Reggie said.

  "That the Carson boy there?" Poundridge inquired, stopping before them. The headlights behind him made his body seem gaunter than it was. Vaguely, behind the windshield of the car, they could see his small wife Emma.

  "Talking in a graveyard? Sounds a bit strange to me."

  Arrogantly Pup said, "It's the truth. You don't want to call us liars and mess with my father about it, do you?"

  Poundridge turned his bird's eyes on Pup. "I wonder what your father would do if he knew you had sneaked out to sit in a cemetery all night, eh?"

  "Not a damn thing," Pup shot back.

  "That'll be enough of that bad talk, Pup Malamut," Poundridge said.

  There was a sound from the car, and Emma Poundridge's voice came crystal clear. "Leave those boys alone, Jonathan. It's summer, and they're not hurting anybody. Probably just telling ghost stories or something of the sort—that right, boys?"

  Jack nodded.

  Emma Poundridge said, "There, you see, Jonathan? Pup, Reggie, Jack, why don't you head on home now? Getting late and there's a storm coming." Her voice was firm and gentle at the same time, and she turned it on her husband. "You come back here and leave them alone. Anyway, that television show of yours will be on soon."

  "Well," Poundridge said, scratching his chin, "that's true enough. You boys head on home." He turned to go.

  "Mayor Poundridge?" Jack asked suddenly. "Do you know anything about that vault back there?"

  There was another crack of lightning,
followed by a snap of thunder and the first sharp, hot raindrops of the arriving storm. Poundridge looked at the small, square building. Again he scratched his chin, assuming his speech-making manner.

  "Only what my father told me, and that wasn't much. I got the feeling that his father told him more. Seems it was built for a fellow named Jeff Scott, a Civil War veteran, but they never put him in it. His family owned all that land out behind Barney Bates' place. Farmed it, but my father said this Jeff Scott's father built a carousel on the property for all the Montvale kids to use." Poundridge bent down, and a conspiratorial light came into his small eyes. "If you boys can keep a secret, I don't mind telling you there's a brand-new carousel coming to that property—along with all sorts of other things."

  "An amusement park?" Pup asked excitedly. "Here?"

  The mayor straightened. "Any day now. Signed the papers last week. Looks like we'll finally be able to do something with that land—been fallow a long time. Maybe that'll keep you boys out of graveyards, eh?"

  "Jonathan, come on now, it's getting late!" Emma called.

  The mayor waved a hand at her and then held it out to feel for rain. "Stopped already. Looks like that storm's going to miss us after all. You boys go on home now." He walked back to the car, stopping halfway. "And tell your folks I'll be making a speech at the opening of that amusement park!"

  The car door opened and closed.

  The Chevy backed down the hill, away from the fence, turned and moved slowly off. The boys saw Mrs. Poundridge's face looking back at them to make sure they left.

  "Guess we should go," Jack said, gathering up the candy wrappers and empty cans they had scattered.

  "We could circle around and come back," Pup said halfheartedly.

  "I'm tired anyway," Reggie said. He was staring at the crypt. "I've had enough for tonight."

  Lightning winked high among the clouds, but there was no thunder. The storm had slipped by. The vault stared at Reggie in the flash, disappeared, stared at him again. Disappeared. Reggie's gaze stayed on it in the darkness. He could almost see those swirling, vaporous hands at the windows, reaching out for him. . . .