But he wouldn’t let himself think that.
He moved off in the waiting, sullen darkness.
He got up on the sidewalk, tried to press himself into the brick facade of shop fronts. He sought shadows, but none that were large enough to conceal any surprises. He decided the thing to do was to make for the end of the road, the end of Chestnut. That big, gothic-looking building at the end, squatting darkly on the hill. It had to be the town hall, probably the police station and fire hall as well. Maybe the courthouse, too. If there was any law in this town it would be there.
The shadows were everywhere, clawing and conspiring.
Lou had a nasty feeling this was his last night on earth.
3
The night was dark and wet.
Lisa Tabano climbed from her car, greeted the chill air with a shiver. She opened her purse, made sure her stash was still there and breathed a sigh of relief.
Yeah, okay. It was cool. Everything was in order.
Her heart rate slowed, her hands stopped trembling—or as much as they ever did these days—and something unknotted in her belly. And all this over the remote possibility that she was out. It was getting bad, she knew, but she wasn’t going to think about that. She needed a hot bath, a long sleep. Then tomorrow—
Then tomorrow, a voice told her, you’ll get up and start right away. Because, girl, you don’t have a choice any more. It’s not just social now, it’s chemical. You need it.
She went to the trunk, tried to get the key in the lock and scratched the shit out of the paint job when a wild, almost convulsive shudder passed through her. She got the trunk open, staring blankly at her suitcases, travel bags, and her guitar case.
The idea of lugging all that into a house she might not be welcome in anymore was fatiguing. It made her slump over.
God, she was tired.
I’ll compromise, she decided, I’ll take the guitar.
Like her head, she didn’t go anywhere without it.
She had other guitars—twelve other guitars as a matter of fact, everything from customized Strats to Flying-Vs—but it was this one she would not part from. An ultra-rare ’59 Gibson Les Paul Flametop. Mint condition. A beauty, a collector’s dream, worth mega-thousands.
It did not get out of her sight.
She left just about everything else at her apartment in LA—her custom leathers, her other guitars—but never the Flametop. She wouldn’t even let the roadies touch it. Sometimes, she even brought it in the can with her, slept with it nearby. Obsessed? Yes, she was and would happily admit it.
Taking the guitar in its hardshell case by the handle, she moved up the walk to the porch.
Surely they’d heard her pull up.
Surely they’d seen the lights.
She knew damn well they didn’t sleep that soundly; when she was sixteen coming home from some drunken binge, they’d always heard her.
But not now?
At the door, she hesitated, figuring this was probably a real colossal mistake. But what was she to do? She’d tried to call, but that goddamn storm knocked everything out. She’d lived in Cut River most of her life (before you went big-time, she reminded herself) and if that experience taught her nothing else it was this: Cut River would be one of the last places to get their juice and phones back. It had no true factories anymore, no mills, no real industry to speak of. Places like that weren’t a priority.
The storm had really trashed the countryside.
They were saying on the radio that even a few twisters had touched down.
It didn’t look too bad.
When Lisa came into town, she drove by her old haunts—the school, Chestnut Street, the football field—and found nothing damaged very badly. Somehow, this was what she needed: to find her hometown unchanged. After the frenetic pace of the past three years, she needed that sense of sameness, of roots.
She was about to knock—knock for chrissake at her own door, except it wasn’t her door anymore and she knew it—but decided, on a whim, to try the doorknob.
It was unlocked.
She opened it, went in.
God, it smelled like home. Mom’s incense, dad’s cigars… but overpowering these was a strange, almost forbidden odor. Metallic, savage.
Smelling it, Lisa instantly tensed.
She stood there, just inside the door, feeling somehow naked and vulnerable, at risk. She tried the lights. They came on. She set her keys on the hallway table, but couldn’t bring herself to set down the guitar, her purse.
The house looked the same.
Dad’s chair, his pile of newspapers and magazines alongside it, his ashtray, TV Guide, remote controls. And over there, mom’s chair, a stack of paperback romances on the end table, a few cooking magazines, a bag of cashews.
Very normal, very ordinary.
Memories flooded her head. Above the fireplace mantel was what really caught her eye. There was a framed reproduction of the band’s first CD cover. It showed a blighted, saffron-colored field of stunted grasses and gnarled bushes. In the background were the crumbling ruins of a medieval castle. In the foreground, a svelte raven-haired woman, arms outstretched. She was flaking away into tatters, flames climbing up her black dress. ELECTRIC WITCH, it said in red Gothic print, and at the bottom, BURNING TIMES.
It brought a lump into Lisa’s throat.
Her father had raged at the idea of her being a musician, a guitarist in what he called an “acid-rock” band (though progressive Goth metal would have been more accurate). When Lisa had left home, journeyed to Chicago and formed up the band months later, he’d refused to speak to her. Even when Electric Witch landed a recording contract, a top ten single and video, he still looked on her in shame. It was only in the past few months that he began talking to her again on the phone, offering her a sort of begrudging respect.
But this… the CD album cover on the wall.
That was something.
It proved that he was proud of her.
Dad was old-fashioned; he ruled the roost like something from the 1950’s. Mom, though staunchly independent in her own way, was very submissive when it came to him. The dutiful little wifey of lore.
But one thing was for sure: if dad hadn’t wanted the album cover on the wall, it would not be there. The fact that it was displayed so prominently spoke volumes.
Proud of me, Lisa thought, close to tears, he is proud of me.
For reasons she didn’t completely understand this was very important.
As much as she denied or dismissed parental acceptance, she very much needed it. But the smile on her face suddenly began to dissipate. She wondered what dad would think of her habit, what it would do to him if they found her OD’d backstage or in some shitty motel room.
Not now, she told herself.
There were always rehab centers, methadone clinics. They worked… if you could stand the agony of going cold off junk. It took real balls to kick it, to willingly throw yourself into the arms of a nightmare.
“Mom?” she called out. “Dad?”
It was so silent she could hear herself breathing, hear the wind rattling the eaves outside. She swallowed down hard, chewed her lower lip. Maybe they were sleeping. But for some reason she didn’t think so… she only knew that she was definitely not alone.
Footsteps.
She heard them coming up the hall, slow and stalking.
Not the way her mother or father walked at all.
Not unless they were trying to sneak up on her.
She turned quickly, the hairs at the back of her neck rising up, something thick and heavy stirring in her belly.