The first peal of thunder cracked across the endless fields to the south of town, rumbling from the subsonic up through the teeth-rattling and ending on a shrill note.
"Shall we call it a night, sir?'' called Tyler from the projector. The butler/chauffeur was holding his cloth cap in place against the wind. Only four or five people remained in their cars or under trees in the park to watch the film.
Mr. Ashley-Montague looked up at the screen. The coffin was vibrating; fingernails clawed against the interior of the bronze casket. Four floors above, Roderick Usher's almost supernatural hearing picked up every sound. Vincent Price shuddered and put his hands over his ears, shouting something that was lost under another peal of thunder. "No," said Mr. Ashley-Montague. "It's almost over. Let's allow it to run a bit."
Tyler nodded, visibly displeased, and held his suit tight around his throat as the wind rose again.
"Denissssss." The whisper was coming from the shrubbery under the front of the bandstand. "Deniiiisssssss ..."
Mr. Ashley-Montague frowned and walked to the railing there. He could see no one in the bushes below, although the wild commotion caused by the wind and the relative darkness there made it hard to tell who might be crouching in the tall shrubs. "Who is it?" he snapped. No one in Elm Haven took the liberty of calling him by his Christian name . . . and few people elsewhere were granted that right either.
'' Deniiiiissssssss." It was as if the wind in the bushes were whispering.
Mr. Ashley-Montague had no intention of going down there. He turned and snapped his fingers at Tyler. "Someone is playing a prank. Go and see who it is. Remove them." Tyler nodded and moved gracefully down the steps. Tyler was older than he looked-he had, in fact, been a British commando in World War II, heading a small unit which specialized in dropping behind Japanese lines in Burma and elsewhere to create havoc and fear. Tyler's family had fallen on hard times since the war, but the man's experience was the primary factor in Mr. Dennis Ashley-Montague hiring him as body servant and bodyguard.
On the screen, the broad white canvas rippling wildly as the wind got between it and the wall of the Parkside Cafe, Vincent Price was screaming that his sister was alive, alive, alive! The young man grabbed a lantern and rushed toward the crypt.
Overhead, the first bolt of lightning exploded, illuminating the entire town in a moment of stroboscopic clarity, and making Mr. Ashley-Montague blink blindly for several seconds. The thunderclap was staggering. The last of the movie-watchers ran for home or drove off to beat the storm. Only the millionaire's limousine remained on the strip of gravel parking behind the bandstand.
Mr. Ashley-Montague walked to the front of the bandstand, feeling the first cold drops of rain touching his cheeks like icy tears. "Tyler . . . never mind! Let's load up the equipment and . . ."
It was the wristwatch that he saw first, Tyler's gold Rolex catching the flare of light from the next stroke of lightning. It was on Tyler's wrist, which was on the ground between the bushes and the bandstand. The wrist was not attached to an arm. A large hole had been kicked . . . or chewed ... in the wooden latticework at the base of the bandstand. Noises came from that hole.
Mr. Ashley-Montague backed up to the rear railing of the bandstand. He opened his mouth to shout but realized that he was alone-Main Street was as empty as if it were three a.m. , not even a solitary car moved down the Hard Road-he tried to shout anyway but the thunder was almost continuous now, one clap overlapping the next. The sky was insane with backlit black clouds and the winds of a full-fledged witch's storm.
Mr. Ashley-Montague looked at his limousine parked less than fifty feet away. Branches whipped overhead, one tearing free and falling across a park bench.
It wants me to run for the car.
Mr. Ashley-Montague shook his head and remained right where he was. So he would get a little wet. The storm would stop eventually. Sooner or later the town constable or the county sheriff or someone would stop by on their nightly inspection, curious why the movie was still running in the rain.
On the screen, a woman with a white face, bloodied fingernails, and a tattered burial gown moved through a secret passage. Vincent Price screamed.
Beneath Mr. Ashley-Montague, the wooden floor of the seventy-two-year-old bandstand suddenly bowed upward and splintered with a sound rivaling the crash of thunder overhead.
Mr. Dennis Ashley-Montague had time to scream once before the lamprey mouth and six-inch teeth closed on his calves and legs to the knee and dragged him down through the splintered hole.
On the screen, a long shot of the House of Usher was backlighted with lightning much less dramatic than the real explosions above the Parkside Cafe.
"Here's the plan," said Mike. They were all by the pump next to Kevin's truck shed. The doors were open to the shed and the pump was unlocked. Dale was filling Coke bottles but looked up now.
"Dale and Harlen go to the school. You know a way in?"
Dale shook his head.
"I do," said Harlen.
"OK," said Mike. "Start in the basement. I'll try to meet you there. If I can't, search the place on your own."
"Who has the radios?" asked Harlen. He had taken his sling off so both arms were free, although the light cast still made his left arm clumsy.
Mike handed his radio to Harlen. "You and Kev. Kev, you know what you're supposed to do?"
The thin boy nodded but then shook his head. "But instead of a couple of hundred gallons like we'd planned, you want it all pumped?"
Mike nodded. He was tucking squirt guns in the waistband on his back, filling his pockets with .410 shells.
Kev made a fist. "Why? You just wanted a bit of it pumped onto the doors and windows."
"That plan's not going to work," said Mike. He clicked open his grandmother's squirrel gun, checked the cartridge, slammed it shut. "I want that thing full. If we have to, we'll drive it right through the north door there.'' He pointed across the schoolyard. The wind had come up, the lightning was ripping the sky, and the sentinel elms were waving yard-thick limbs like palsied arms.
Kevin stared at Mike. "How the heck do we do that? There are four or five steps on that front porch. Even if the thing is wide enough for the truck, it'd never get up those steps."
Mike pointed at Dale and Harlen. "You guys know those thick old boards they stacked up by the dumpster when they ripped the old porch off the west end of the school last year?''
Harlen nodded. "I know 'em. I almost fell onto them a few weeks ago."
"OK-we'll stick those on the front porch of the school before you go in. Like a ramp, sort of."
"Like a ramp . . . sort of," mimicked Kevin, looking in at his father's four-ton bulk tanker. Every time the lightning rippled across the sky-which was almost constant now-the huge stainless-steel tank reflected the flash. "You've got to be shitting me," he said to no one in particular.
"Let's go," said Dale. He was already starting down the hill toward the school, leaving the others behind. "Let's go!" There was no sign of his mother's car. All the lights were out in this part of town. Only Old Central seemed to glow with the same sick light that illuminated the interior of the clouds.
Mike clapped Harlen on the back, did the same with Kevin, and jogged down the slope toward Dale's house. Dale had paused across the street, looking back at his friend. Mike heard the edge of a shout but the words were drowned by the next roll of thunder from the storm. It might have been "Good luck." Or possibly "Good-bye."