Читать книгу The Demon Road Trilogy: The Complete Collection: Demon Road; Desolation; American Monsters - Derek Landy - Страница 26

THEY SPENT THE NIGHT at a Motel 6 somewhere in Indiana. Amber barricaded her door again, and she tossed and turned, but didn’t fall asleep until a half-hour before Milo knocked. She didn’t eat any breakfast and she kept her head down and her cap on while walking out to the Charger. It gleamed, the dust and dirt of the previous day’s travel washed away like it had never happened.

If only that was true.

As they were bypassing Chicago, Amber relented and told Glen about Shanks. He’d earned the right to sit at the table with the cool kids, she reckoned. They drove through an endless suburban sprawl of strip malls and chain restaurants, the parking lots and signs repeating as if copied and pasted, and got into Springton, Wisconsin a little before three that afternoon. The day had dulled, become cold, and sporadic showers of rain splattered the windshield. They passed the high school, a building of red brick set a dozen steps above street level, and carried on to the town square. The library sat on one side, and opposite it, on the south side, sat the Mayor’s Office – white, with pillars outside denoting its obvious importance. The buildings to the east and west housed various businesses and eateries.

They got out. Stretched. It was maybe ten degrees cooler than when they’d started their journey, and Amber was wearing jeans now. They felt weird on her legs. She pulled on a jacket and made sure her cap was secure.

“What do we do now?” she asked.

“We ask about Dacre Shanks,” said Glen before Milo could answer. “We split up. We’ll cover more ground that way. The sooner we get to him, the better, am I right? We’ve got your parents on our tail, Amber. I may have been able to throw them off the scent yesterday, but that won’t stop them for long. Here, that guy looks like he might know something.”

Glen strode towards an old man walking his dog.

Amber looked at Milo. “He’s trying really hard.”

Milo nodded. “You notice how quiet he was this morning? He didn’t make one single stupid comment.”

“And he was very useful yesterday.”

Milo hesitated, then shook his head. “Doesn’t make one bit of difference. This is where we cut him loose, before we talk to Shanks. The less he knows …” He trailed off.

Amber frowned. “What?”

“Nothing.”

“What, Milo?”

Milo sighed. “Your parents know him now. If we leave him here and they find him, they might …”

“Do you think they’d kill him?”

“They killed those cops without a second thought, didn’t they?”

They both looked at Glen, who was now arguing with the old man while the dog yapped and nipped at his legs.

“So,” Milo said, “should we leave him, or …?”

They looked at each other and burst out laughing.

Glen jogged back. “What? What are you laughing about?”

“Nothing,” said Amber, trying to contain herself. “Did you learn anything?”

“No,” said Glen. “Turns out that old guy is German and doesn’t speak a word of English.”

“Then what were you arguing about?”

Glen looked puzzled. “How should I know?”

This set Amber and Milo off again. Glen tried to laugh along with them, then gave up and went for a walk.

A full third of the library was given over to computers, the bookcases crammed together in the space left. Amber walked the labyrinth until she found a section marked Local History. It was a single shelf with five books on it – four of them the same book. She flicked through the fifth – Springton: A Legacy, by a local author with a bad photo. She learned that Springton was established in 1829, and got its name from its wondrous spring-water reserve. She learned that the industry that built up around it polluted that reserve so much that the water became virtually undrinkable. The author called that ‘ironic’.

Amber flicked through the rest of it, then checked the index. No mention of Dacre Shanks.

She replaced the book and wandered out of the stacks. Glen found her.

“They have a Springton Gazette,” he said. “I asked the librarian if I could see the old editions, y’know, to read the articles on Shanks as they were printed? She said they’re only available on microfiche.”

“What’s microfiche?”

“I don’t know. Some kind of small fish, presumably.”

Amber frowned. “Where’s Milo?”

“Chatting up the other librarian. The cute one.”

Amber looked around. Milo stood in that slouchy way of his, giving a smile she hadn’t imagined he possessed to an attractive woman in her forties. She had brown hair with a streak of silver running through it. The librarian laughed and Milo’s smile widened.

“I could do that,” said Glen. “I just picked the wrong librarian to charm, that’s all. I picked the old one. I thought she’d be the one to ask. If I’d known there was a younger one, I’d have called dibs.”

“She’s twice your age.”

“Older women find me intensely attractive.”

“Well, that’s good, because younger women certainly don’t.”

Glen stopped glaring across at Milo, and switched his attention to Amber. “Oh, is that so? So you’re telling me that you feel no attraction to me whatsoever?”

She blinked at him. “What? Where has this come from? No. None. None at all.”

“Yeah,” he said, laughing. “Right.”

“Seriously.”

“There have been studies carried out that say the Irish accent is the sexiest in the world.”

“Who carried it out? Irish people?”

His smile faltered for a moment. “Maybe,” he said, and then it was back. “I could charm you. You know I could charm you. The only thing stopping me is your age. You’re too young for me. I prefer girls in their twenties.”

“I will have to live with that crushing disappointment.”

“Of course,” he said, moving closer, “I could make an exception.”

“Please don’t.”

“I could overlook the age thing if … you know.”

Amber frowned. “What?”

“If you transformed,” he whispered.

She lost all good humour. “Drop dead, Glen.”

She made for the exit. He followed.

“Oh, go on! Just transform once for me. You’re amazing when you transform. You’re astonishing. Those horns are just the most beautiful—”

She spun round to face him. “Stop calling it that. Stop calling it transforming. You make me sound like an Autobot.”

“Well, what’s it called?”

“I don’t know. Shifting. There isn’t really an official term for it.”

A slow grin spread across his face. “I’ve got one. Do you want to hear it?”

She walked away. “No.”

“It’s a good one,” he said from right behind her.

“I don’t care.”

“You’ll love it,” he said. “I promise you, you’ll love it.”

They reached the exit. Milo was walking towards them. Amber couldn’t help herself.

“Fine,” she said. “What? What would you call it when I change?”

Glen’s grin was immense. “Getting horny.”

“Oh, I hate you so much.”

Milo joined them. “She’s hiding something,” he said. “The moment she guessed where I was steering the conversation she closed down. You find anything?”

“Just a new level of annoyance,” said Amber.

“She wants to join me in my utter hilarity,” said Glen. “You can see it in her face, can’t you? She wants to joke around. Give in to it, Amber. Give in.”

She sighed. “Are you finished yet?”

Glen grinned, and turned to Milo. “What’s microfiche?”

“Microfilm.”

“Ohhh. So it’s not a small fish.”

“Come on,” said Amber, “let’s get something to eat. I’m starving.”

They had lunch sitting in the window of one of the cafes on the square. They watched the high-school kids pass on their way home. A bunch of younger kids came into the cafe, and Amber looked at Milo with her eyebrows raised. He shrugged, and nodded, and she turned on her stool.

“Hi,” she said, keeping her voice down. “I was wondering if you could help me? Have any of you heard of a man called Dacre Shanks?”

The name made the kids draw back in suspicion.

“Ask someone else,” one of them said.

“So you’ve heard of him?”

“We’re not talking about that.”

“Why not?”

“Cos they’re scared,” said the smallest kid, black, with adorably huge eyes. “They’re afraid their allowance might be taken away.”

“Whatever,” the other one said, and got up and walked out, followed by his friends. All except the little kid.

“You’ve heard of Shanks?” said Amber.

“Course,” the kid said.

“And the others – they won’t talk because they’re scared of him?”

The kid laughed. “Scared of who? The boogie man? Naw, they’re scared cos last year a bunch of us trashed two of those dollhouses they got up in the school, and when people found out they beat the hell out of us. I’m talking grown-ups here, y’know? Punching and kicking me while I’m all curled up on the floor, crying for my momma. Disgraceful behaviour, know what I’m saying?”

“I’m sorry, dollhouses?”

“I know, right? Dollhouses. This town’s obsessed with them.”

“What’s your name? I’m Amber.”

“Name’s Walter,” said the kid. “Walter S. Bryant. The S stands for Samuel. Had a teacher once, said my destiny was to become a poet with a name like that. But he didn’t know what the hell he was talking about. I can barely spell, and most of the words I know don’t even rhyme with each other.”

“Walter, what’s so important about a few dollhouses?”

“Where you from?”

“Florida.”

“Florida,” he repeated. “Wait, you mean with Disney World and all?”

“Yep, we have Disney World.”

“You ever been?”

“A few times,” she said. Always with friends, though – never with her parents.

“Aw man,” said Walter. “Disney World. I’d like that, walking around and everything looking like it’s out of a cartoon or something. Ever meet Mickey Mouse?”

“I have.”

Walter laughed. “That’s cool. You met Mickey Mouse. That’s cool.”

“I’m from Ireland,” said Glen.

“I don’t care,” said Walter.

“Can you tell me about the dollhouses?” Amber asked.

“Oh yeah,” said Walter. “I knew you weren’t from around here, cos if you were you’d know already. There’s this dumb story everyone’s been telling us our entire lives, and they all expect us to believe it, y’know? Dacre Shanks. He was a real person, back in the 1970s, cos I looked him up. He was a toymaker, right? He had a little store down beside where the arcade once was, but he only made crappy toys like dolls and model railways and stuff. Nothing cool. But what nobody knew was that he was also this serial killer, and he killed a ton of people before the cops figured out who he was and came and shot him.”

“I looked him up, too,” said Amber. “I didn’t see any mention of dollhouses.”

“Course not,” said Walter, “cos that’s the part they made up, isn’t it? The story is, he came back from the dead, right, ten years later, and kept killing and he, like, shrank his victims or something and put them in these dollhouses he made.”

Amber frowned. “He shrank them?”

“How stupid is that, right? Not only do they have him come back from the dead, but they have him shrinking people, too. Anyway, the school had three dollhouses that supposedly held these shrunken victims – although officially they’re just normal dollhouses with nothing weird about them at all. Cos every school has a few dollhouses in a huge glass cabinet right inside the door, don’t they? I mean, that part’s totally normal. Nothing weird about that. Ask any of the teachers; they all say the story’s a load of crap, but they say it in a way that’s supposed to make you think they’re lying. We had to pass those dollhouses every single day. I’m not stupid. I know why they were there. It was a message, wasn’t it? Stay in school. Keep your head down. Don’t question authority. Or Dacre Shanks will get you.

“Well, practically everyone else in my school were cool about going along with it, but me and a couple of others, and you just met them a few minutes ago, got talking one day and figured hey, we were getting a little tired of being treated like fools.”

“So you trashed the dollhouses.”

Walter nodded. “Stomped two of them to splinters before we were caught.”

“What happened then?”

“Aw, everyone went insane. I knew the school would be mad and all, but they were threatening to expel us. It was crazy. Only reason they didn’t is cos they didn’t want the State Board to know about their dumb stories. But everyone, like, the whole entire town, was against us. Everyone except the old people. They didn’t see what the fuss was about. But our folks, some of our older brothers and sisters, they just … I didn’t know they’d take it so seriously.”

“Is that when you were beaten up?”

“Yeah,” Walter said, with an impressive amount of bitterness. “Broad daylight. Had to stay indoors the whole summer after that. People in this town are nuts, and they all worship that Medina chick.”

“Who?”

“Heather Medina. She’s the one who stopped Dacre Shanks from killing any more kids. According to the story.”

“Does she still live around here?”

“Yeah, lives over on Pine Street. Works in the library.”

“Brown hair?” asked Milo. “Silver in it?”

Walter nodded. “That’s her. She won’t even mention his name, though, so good luck trying to get anything out of her. She looks perfectly normal, but she’s as crazy as the rest of them. That’s why her husband left her, I heard. They expected us to believe a story like that, and then they were actually angry when we didn’t. Moment I’m old enough to drive I am out of here. I may not be able to spell or rhyme, but I’m pretty smart. Smarter than everyone in this town, anyway.”

“Definitely looks like it,” said Amber. “Thank you so much for your help.”

“Don’t worry about it,” the kid replied. “I’m assuming you’ll take care of this?”

He held up his bag of doughnuts so the teller could see it, and Amber smiled. “Sure thing, Walter. See you around.”

“Stay frosty,” Walter said, and walked out.

Amber paid for the doughnuts, and rejoined Milo and Glen as they were putting on their jackets.

“You think you’ll be able to get back in the librarian’s good books?” Amber asked.

“Don’t know,” admitted Milo. “Women have a tendency to learn fast around me.”

“Told you I should have talked to her first,” Glen said.

They left the cafe and walked back to the Charger, where a stocky man in his late sixties stood admiring her. He gave them a quick smile as they approached, and when Amber saw the star on his shirt her own smile faded.

“Now this is a damn fine automobile,” the man said. His moustache was a deeper shade of grey than his hair. “A friend of mine had one, back in my youth. Light gold, it was. A thing of beauty. He crashed it not far from here, going too fast, and he just lost control. That’s all there was to it. Nobody else was hurt, thank God, but my friend, he was killed instantly. I don’t know, ever since then, I see one of these cars and I just think … death.” He gave a little smile and a little shrug.

“Well, that is a story with a sad ending,” said Milo.

“Isn’t it just?” The man smiled at them, for real this time, though there wasn’t much friendliness in it. “How are you folks? My name is Theodore Roosevelt, no relation to the big man, I’m afraid. You can call me Teddy. As you can probably tell by the badge, I’m the sheriff ’round these parts. If no one has bothered to do it, I bid you welcome to Springton. Now what brings you nice people to our little town, I wonder?”

“Just passing through.”

“Ah, that old staple. Just passing through. It’s hard to make new friends when everyone’s just passing through, that ever strike you as a truism? I’m collecting them – truisms, that is. Collecting them, coming up with them, going to put them all into a book when I’m done, try and get it published some day. Kind of going for a homespun sort of feel, you know? Going to call it Words of Wisdom, something hokey like that. Hokiness sells.”

“That another truism?”

Teddy smiled. “I guess it is. Might not include it in the collection, though. So is this a family trip?”

“That’s what it is,” said Milo.

“You and the kids, on a family trip. Your wife not come with you?”

“I’m afraid she’s not with us anymore.”

“Oh, I am sorry to hear that, Mr Sebastian. I am truly sorry.”

The air went quiet around them.

“You checked the plates, huh?” said Milo.

“One of the perks of being the sheriff,” Teddy answered. “Funny, your details mention nothing about you having a family.”

Milo nodded. “The kids were born out of wedlock. They’re very self-conscious about it.”

“Very,” said Glen.

“Your kids don’t look a whole lot like you,” Teddy said. “Also, from what I hear from a certain elderly librarian, your son is Irish.” He hooked his thumbs into his belt loops. “We get people like you passing through all the time. Oh, and by ‘people like you’, I don’t mean the Irish. I mean gawkers. What I like to call bloodhounds. They hear about our town, hear we used to have a serial killer, and they come sniffing around, thinking how exciting it all is, how fun. But the wounds that man made still haven’t closed over, and you walking around asking clumsy questions is just going to get people’s backs up.”

“It’s my fault,” said Glen, his shoulders drooping. “I’m not his son, I’m his nephew. Yes, I’m from Ireland. But I’m dying. I don’t have long left.”

“That so?”

“It is. I came over here to see America before I … before I pass on. And yeah, you’re right, I asked to come to Springton because of the serial killer. I’ve always been fascinated with that stuff. A kind of morbid curiosity, I suppose. But I never intended to upset anyone, Sheriff. I’m really sorry.”

“What’s your name, son?”

“Glen, sir.”

“Well, Glen, I’m sorry to hear of your ill-health. What have you got, if you don’t mind me asking?”

“Lupus,” said Glen.

Teddy frowned. “Is that fatal?”

“Oh yes,” said Glen. “Very.”

“You sure? I don’t think it is.”

“It’s not always fatal,” Glen said quickly. “If you get treatment for it, no, it’s not fatal. Rarely fatal. But I have a rare form of lupus that is very fatal.”

“Glen, forgive me for asking this, but do you know what lupus is? A friend of mine has lupus, a reverend. His joints get all swollen up, he gets rashes, he’s tired all the time, and his hair even fell out.”

Glen nodded. “I have the other kind of lupus.”

“The kind that has none of those symptoms?”

Glen bit his lip for a moment. “I get the feeling you’re not believing me.”

Teddy sighed. “You’re not too bright, son, and that’s okay. There’s no law against being stupid. There’s also no law against being a bloodhound, but I’m going to have to ask you to stop pestering people with questions – especially my daughter.”

“Your daughter?”

Teddy nodded. “She works in the library. She’s the librarian who is not elderly.”

“Ah,” said Milo. “Heather called you.”

“She may have mentioned it during one of our regular father-daughter chats.”

“So are you going to run us out of town?”

Teddy chuckled. “I don’t think I have to do anything quite so dramatic, do you? Quite the opposite, in fact. It’s getting late in the day and, as you folks aren’t from around here, I’d like to invite you to stay overnight in our little town.”

“That’s mighty Christian of you.”

“And to save you some money, you’ll be staying with us, my wife and I. Have a good home-cooked meal. That sound good?”

“We really couldn’t impose,” said Milo.

“It is not an imposition, I assure you,” said Teddy. “I insist on you staying with us. That okay with you?”

Milo glanced at Amber, and nodded. “Sure,” he said. “That’d be great.”

“Excellent,” Teddy said, beaming. “I’ll tell her to make up the rooms. Our bed-and-breakfast rates are quite competitive, just so you know.”