He thought about the eyes in the loft and felt foolish. Rat eyes most likely. He ought to unlock the padlock, go back inside, and put that harness up right. That's what he ought to do. Spare himself a beating from his pa by hanging the harness up right.
But it was getting darker, and inside the livery it would be darker yet. And he just couldn't bring himself to go back in there.
He began walking briskly toward home.
VI
Darkness had not taken full hold, but it had set in, and fingers of its shadow clutched the town, drawing it slowly into its fists.
And the nightwalkers were almost to town.
And in the livery the horses trembled in their stalls, rolled their eyes to the loft and finally to the ladder, as a shape—fluid as water—descended.
VII
The sheriff, in his office, looked out at the darkening street and locked his door.
He put on his new hat and sat down at his desk, the barred window at his back, got out the whisky and a glass and poured himself a healthy shot.
He wasn't going to make his rounds tonight. No way. In fact, he might never make them again. He was considering moving on. Maybe to West Texas, or Oklahoma. He wanted to be shut of Mud Creek, and fast.
He poured another shot. Then another.
Damn. He couldn't even get drunk.
VIII
When Jim and Mary Glass heard their granddaughter's voice outside, it was more than a pleasant surprise. She had been given up for dead.
They had just been considering how they could tell their daughter and her husband. The idea of sending a wire or a letter did not appeal, yet they hated taking a wagon trip to Beaumont and telling them face to face that the child had not arrived, and they had no idea where she was.
They felt responsible. It was their suggestion that the little girl come to visit them by stage, and now the stage and the girl were missing.
Until now.
A child's voice, and they knew it was Mignon's, was calling outside their door.
Almost together they rushed the door.
Mary won out and opened it.
There, standing in the early darkness, in the dirtiest clothes imaginable, was Mignon. She held a doll in her hand, her fist clutched tightly about its cotton neck.
"Grandma," the little girl said, and the voice was as cold and hollow as the first blow of winter.
"There's something wrong with her eyes," Jim said as Mary reached out for the little girl, and Mignon went into those arms rapidly, her teeth clamping through her grandmother's neck like a hot knife through butter.
Mary screamed. Blood spewed out of her neck, and she fell back against the doorjamb holding her hand to her throat.
The little girl whipped away from her grandmother and charged Jim. She latched both arms around his right leg and shot her head into his crotch, her teeth crunching into his testicles, ripping his clothes and flesh like rotting sailcloth.
Jim swung his arm around and knocked her across the floor.
At a glance he saw that his wife was dead. The blood flowed from her neck in small streams. Her eyes had rolled back into her head.
He stumbled two steps, grabbed a hat rack for support, and turned toward his granddaughter.
She came running across the floor fast as a cat. She put a foot on his knee and climbed him. She dropped the doll. Her hands went around his neck and her fingers latched together.
"A kiss for grandpa," she said, and her head arched forward, and with a clamp of her teeth and a twist of her head, she tore his throat out.
Jim collapsed to the floor. He tugged at her some more, but to no avail. He could hear and feel her tongue darting between her teeth, lapping at his blood. Then he heard no more.
IX
When Mignon finished feeding, there was little left of Jim's face.
A few moments later, faceless, he rose. His teeth—
looking like sugar cubes in the midst of tomato pulp with eyes—snapped open and closed a few times. He was hungry.
Mary stood up. Her head hung at an angle, and one side of her dress was bright red.
She walked out the door toward town and the living.
Jim followed.
Then Mignon picked up her doll and went after them.
Grandfather, grandmother, and granddaughter were going into town for supper.
X
Just about dark, Buela heard the singing.
It was bad singing and it was muffled and it was coming from somewhere outside the house. Still, she recognized the voice.
Her sister, Millie.
Buela went outside, carrying a lantern.
"Millie, my God, is that you?"
No answer—just the singing—like a dying bird chirping down in a well.
"Millie, I'm here. Where are you?"
"Hungry," came Millie's voice. "So hungry."
Now Buela had it pinpointed. The voice was coming from the root cellar. But there was nothing but water in there.
Buela suddenly had it. Millie had been lost. Something terrible had happened to the stage, and Millie had been lost. Maybe she was delirious with hunger, half out of her mind, hiding in the root cellar. Down there in that foul water.
Buela hiked up her skirts and rushed toward the root cellar.
"I'll feed you, darling. Just you hang on. I'll feed you."
Buela jerked back the door on the root cellar.
There was no voice or singing now. Just blackness. Lizards of fear scuttled up her body.
"Millie?"
She held the lantern down into the root cellar.
And there was Millie's face, a dirty moon in which worms squirmed. Slime dripped out of her hair.
"My God" Buela said.
Millie's hand shot forward and grabbed the arm with the lantern and yanked.
Buela screamed, but only briefly. She went under the water, and the lantern went out.
But true to Buela's word, she did feed Millie.
XI
The undertaker, Mertz, was at work. He had Nate Foster fixed up and dressed in a suit the sheriff had brought over from the banker's house, and Mertz was of the opinion that Nate had never looked better. He hoped the worms appreciated all this work.
On the other hand, the amount of work he'd put in on Nate had tired him. And considering Nate had about as many friends as a ground rattler, he should have just stuck him in the box and got him buried before he bloated.
Looking at Nolan lying there on his slab, he decided that was exactly what he was going to do with this one. Neither were exactly the sort that drew mourners—though Nate would have some paid-for mourners. They were more the sort that drew flies.
Mertz thought the best move with Nolan would be to strip him of his clothes, wrap him in an old sheet, and put morning early—before he stunk so bad and swole out the sides of his pine box. That had happened to Mertz once at a cheap funeral. He'd stuffed old man Crider in a box without embalming him and kept him overnight. Next day at the funeral—out in the hot, July sun—the bastard bloated like a whale. Luck had been with Mertz, however, and the body didn't cause the sides of the coffin to break open until after the family left. And stink—it was worse than a week-old rotted string of fish. Mertz and his gravediggers pushed Crider in the hole and got him covered pronto.
Course, Nolan already stunk. And something awful.
Mertz went over and looked down at the body. He was an ugly hombre. Maybe Mertz should at least clean the dirt out of his eye socket.
Nah. In for a penny, in for a pound. He'd just strip him, put him on ice, and get him planted early tomorrow morning. He already had a couple of gravediggers lined up. When that was over, he had Nate's funeral, and he would make some money off that. Even if no one cared about Nate. There might even be a few people come by to gloat.