Burrows Page 10

  Having someone from Griffin’s shop accompany him in town would go a long way in smoothing any potentially ruffled feathers. O.C. was impressed with the new constable’s bureaucratic instincts.

  “All right, then. Take him with you. Having Big John nearby is a good idy, too. Give him a holler. Have you heard about Randal Wicker? They found his body outside Tishomingo, Oklahoma, yesterday. His head was gone, just like those others.”

  “No, I hadn’t. I wish I knew what Kendal is after, besides a bag full of people’s heads.”

  “We’ll find out, eventually. Randal had two little old kids that are sure going to miss him.”

  I’m sorry about him. He was a pretty good ol’ boy.”

  “You got that right.” O.C. twirled his flyswatter. “How’s Ned?”

  “Settling in to being a regular citizen, I reckon. He feels a little left out of things.”

  “I hate to hear that, but he earned his time off.”

  “Yessir, folks are still calling him when they have problems and that helps, but the weather’s changing and he won’t be plowing for a while. I hope he don’t take to sitting around all day. That’ll kill him.”

  “Ned’s too mean to die. He’ll find a way to keep busy. I imagine he’ll buy a few more cows so he’ll have something to complain about.”

  “I wouldn’t put it past him.” Cody stood. “I’ll let you know what I find out at the Exchange.”

  “You do that. Y’all be careful.”

  “You bet. I’ll get back to you later.”

  O.C. waved his hand and watched Cody leave. He’ll do fine, but dammit, talking with him ain’t near as much fun as arguing with Ned.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chisum had changed since Cody Parker left for his senior trip to Vietnam.

  His El Camino rolled slowly past the corner Stop & Grab convenience store. It drew out-of-work men as if the business offered free money. He felt the store’s name invited shoplifters to load their pockets and wondered why they didn’t change it to something more appropriate.

  Jeff Andrews scarcely glanced out the window. “So I was in this little café late one night down on Harry Hines in Dallas when these three punks walked in and started giving a couple of middle-aged guys some grief.”

  He tilted the little Stetson back on his high forehead. “They ignored the little bastards and left. I paid my tab and left too, but them punks thought it was a good idea to follow me outside and one of them stuck a gun in my ribs.”

  Cody steered the El Camino with his right wrist resting on top of the wheel, wishing he’d chosen someone else instead of the blowhard in the seat beside him. Dictated by a long line of genetics, Cody’s left elbow jutted out of the half-breed car’s open window.

  Andrews waved his hand. “I couldn’t believe it. They tried to rob me…me! When I turned around, the second punk tried to job me with a little knife in his hand but it missed. The third one hit me in the mouth with a lead sap, like Mr. Ned carried. It broke out these three front teeth.” He pointed to the upper bridge for emphasis. “That pissed me off, so I reached under my shirt for this little .38 I carry and shot the one with the gun. He hit the ground and I shot the other’n before he could hit me again. The one with the knife run off. That’s when I decided I was done with Dallas, and I came back here as a deputy.”

  Cody wondered how much of the story was true. He found it hard to believe that so much had happened to the man in the short time since he became an officer. Cody thought about his own hitch in the military and decided Andrews was full of hot air.

  Finished with the story for the moment, Andrews finally watched the houses roll past.

  Cody glanced down the street lined with giant elms shading old Victorian homes. He pointed through the bug-splattered windshield toward the largest structure in Lamar County, a full five stories, six hundred feet long and one hundred feet wide. “Good lord, this old place is falling down.”

  The crumbling brick Victorian Cotton Exchange Building sat on a railroad spur, south of the main tracks, the unofficial line between the white and colored sections of town. Despite its age, the neighborhood north of the tracks was owned by white folks and in mostly good condition. Past the tracks and the railroad depot, the streets crumbled, houses sagged, and tired people struggled to live from day to day.

  They coasted to a stop next to the inset main entrance in the middle of the block and cut the motor. At their quiet arrival, someone ducked around the corner as the sun winked out behind the Catholic Church steeple several blocks away. The figure’s quick disappearance failed to send a warning signal. It was the first error in a long night of terror.

  The shadows cast by the ragged trees emphasized the desolation of the elderly neighborhood behind them. A tingle ran up Cody’s neck as he stared at the dilapidated facade.

  The snippet of a dream rose and burst like a bubble in his mind. Scarce grass and lush weeds in the courtyard were knee high in the surprisingly warm fall weather.

  Repeating arches running the entire length of the first floor reminded Cody of buildings in Italy. They were covered in a nightmare of vines reaching outward to the curb, shading a wide sidewalk running along the entire street side of the building. The tangled vegetation gave the building a feeling of decay and depression.

  Another bubble burst. A house with many rooms.

  After examining the exterior, Cody was convinced the vegetation was all that held one corner together.

  Still another bubble surfaced and popped. A nest of yellow jackets, undisturbed for weeks, buzzed under the front eave.

  The wall nearest the car appeared to have been used as target practice by someone with a howitzer. The rubble of bricks littered the sidewalk and had been there long enough to crumble in place. Leaves and debris drifted against the rubble, holding water and allowing rot to find a foothold in the eroding bricks.

  Outside of a junkyard, Cody had never seen so much trash in his life. The desolate building seemed to be a magnet for discarded garbage. It was piled against the exterior like sand blown by a hard wind.

  Pop. A Model A Ford at the curb rusted to dust on bent rims in a nest of weeds and dying grasses growing through the crumbling concrete…

  Dented metal trash cans and bedsprings, old bicycle and automobile parts, and stacks of decaying lumber lay in great tangled drifts up to the bottom windowsills. From outward appearances, the accumulated debris was the only thing holding the massive structure upright.

  A rusty second-hand wire screen on the wooden door frame was full of holes. Obviously not original to the stately building, it defied gravity as the rails and styles warped in the weather.

  “They said this was a showplace,” Cody said, and then paused.

  He remembered. He was staring at the physical reality of his nightmares!

  His face flushed hot and drained of blood.

  “What do you think?” Oblivious to Cody’s growing feelings of dread, Andrews breathed deeply as cool air caressed his face. He enjoyed the season, tired of the recent dry north Texas summer. “Do you smell anything?”

  Cody fought his rising unease. “Only the onions you had with supper. I bet a stray dog or cat crawled into all that junk and died.” He glanced past the young man. “At least there’s a little path to the door.”

  “This shouldn’t take but a minute.” Their visit was only a knock and talk, but Andrews had asked to do it alone. “I can’t believe anyone actually lives in this spooky old place.”

  “Here if you need me.” Cody called over the slamming car door.

  The sour feeling in the pit of his stomach increased when Andrews leaned back through the open window. “You may have to help me after all, Cody. There’s about a month’s worth of junk sticking out of the mailbox slot. I’ll bet you we’ve got a ripe one inside.”

  Cody stepped from the car and adjusted the hand-tooled holster that held his pistol. Settling the belt, he reached back through the open window without taking his eyes off the foreboding
pile of bricks looming above them.

  He lifted the microphone from its hanger. “Martha, this is Cody and we’re at the Exchange building.” He took stock of the immediate area before the light was completely gone. “You’d better send an ambulance. And we’ll probably need uniforms here.”

  He heard the background discussion as the sheriff’s office dispatch contacted an ambulance from Cobb and Oaks funeral home, and the Chisum police. “Gotcha, Cody.”

  “You coming?” Andrews started up the walk.

  One more glance at the lengthening shadows and Cody rounded the front of the El Camino. Its cooling motor quietly ticked under the hood. He moved into step behind the deputy, dreading the disgusting job of dealing with another decomposing body.

  They crunched in tandem up the crumbling concrete walkway. Chips of rock, gravel, and glass crackled under their brightly polished black cowboy boots. Andrews stopped before the entrance.

  Despite his self-professed experience, he was grateful for Cody’s company. Frankly, though he hadn’t told anyone, he was terrified that one day he’d face the Nebraska killers. He was on edge from daylight to dark, worried that he’d come across the murderer of the entire Brooks family when he was by himself.

  He hoped someone would capture the man so he could rest easy at night.

  Cody scanned the area.

  Broken tennis rackets, window frames, assorted lumber and bundles of newspapers accumulated against the outside wall.

  He wondered how the material had gotten there in the first place. His stomach cramped. He was awake, staring at his own nightmares.

  Ancient, matted wisteria vines hung from the support posts and exposed rafters like malignant green spaghetti. English ivy ran rampant, clinging tightly to every surface.

  Cody shivered, suddenly enveloped by a sense of déjà vu. “My god. I’ve been dreaming about this place for weeks.” This was the thing that all Parkers hated about the questionable gift they shared. They usually understood the dreams after they came to pass, or after an event was over and they recognized the connections.

  Andrews snorted. “I swear, this spooky old place is right out of a monster movie. It never fails to surprise me that people can be so trashy.”

  “Have you ever seen anything so bad?”

  “I’ve seen junk heaps, but this takes the cake.” Andrews picked his way up the four granite steps to the warped boardwalk. He looked left to right before stepping around a rusty car fender. “The front door is open a crack.”

  With one foot propped on the bottom step, Cody tilted his hat back with a thumb and glanced around the property. He scanned the block, seeing dozens of windows lined up along each floor and vertically to the roofline. Windows blocked by rotting plywood or yellowed shades once provided the only ventilation at the turn of the century, so each was separated from its neighbor by only three or four feet.

  With growing unease, Andrews started talking to salve his nervousness. “This reminds me of a house over in Dallas when I first started this job. I was getting calls there two or three times a week from the neighbors who were concerned about this old nutcase lady’s health. She lived alone and never threw anything away. Had little aisles everywhere, like narrow hallways through clothes piles of trash. You wouldn’t believe what it was like inside. Newspapers, magazines, and cardboard boxes full of God-knows-what were stacked from the floor to the ceiling.”

  Cody half listened to Andrews’ nervous rambling as he stepped to the side of the screen door’s peeling doorjamb and knocked loudly. “Sheriff’s office!”

  “But the kitchen was the real trip,” Andrews continued.

  Oh lordy, I really do recognize this place.

  “This woman cooked on a stove with only one burner not covered with junk. She barely had enough room to open the icebox.” Andrews kicked the door with the toe of his boot. “Sheriff’s office! Open up!”

  Cody’s hands shook.

  “Imagine a house packed waist-high with trash and you’ll get the idea. I handled that all right. It was the roaches in the kitchen that got me, though. They climbed up my pants legs like ants.

  “I was standing beside this one table made from two-by-fours and realized what I thought was filler between the boards turned out to be live roaches packed so tight you couldn’t see any light around their bodies.”

  Cody shivered, wishing Andrews would quit talking.

  “It still gives me the heebie-jeebies to think about it.”

  Cody studied the mountain of trash around them.

  Andrews slipped an index finger through the metal handle on the wooden screen door and gave it a tug. It opened with a screech of rusty springs. He pondered the sight before him. “Look here. Someone re-hung the front door so that it swings outward. I’ve never seen a front door that didn’t open to the inside.”

  Foot still propped on the bottom steps, Cody leaned an elbow on his knee and rested his right hand on the handle of the .45. “Did you say it was unlocked?”

  “Yup.”

  “Well, beat on it again. If no one answers we go to step two.” He glanced to the right and thought he saw someone peek around the corner at the end of the long walkway, covered with broken glass.

  His attention was on the corner when Andrews kicked harder, rattling the nearby remaining panes in the window frames. “Open up! This is the law. Open the door!”

  Cody scanned the yellowed, water-stained paper shades hiding the interior from outside eyes. An unknown force pressed the shades against grimy glass, most cracked or broken.

  Although the day had been over seventy degrees with no wind to speak of, not one window visible from the street was open. Cody listened, but not even the telltale hum of a water cooler broke the silence.

  The sun slipped completely below the horizon, its glow reflected on the low clouds accumulating in the north.

  “We need to get done with this, Jeff. That’s a blue norther heading for us and I bet it’ll be a booger when it gets here.”

  “Nobody home.” Andrews turned the knob, opened the door, and visibly flinched at the interior. “What the hell?”

  Cody tensed, his hand grasping the butt of his pistol. “What is it? What’s the matter?”

  Andrews held out his palm. “Relax, nothing’s wrong, but I ain’t never seen anything like this before.”

  Cody knew no situation was as it first seemed.

  Their present situation required careful handling, in Cody’s opinion. The unknown and unexpected got an officer in trouble, or killed. Andrews stayed where he was beside the peeling wooden door. Stepping to the right of the deputy, Parker placed his body in front of a solid wall between the entrance and the blocked window.

  Buckets of machine parts and empty beer bottles sinking through a rotten linoleum floor popped into his mind. This really is my nightmare.

  “What’cha got, partner?” Cody asked softly.

  “Your guess is as good as mine.” Andrews moved a step closer. “It’s all blocked with bales of newspapers and old magazines.”

  Cody peered through rapidly collecting shadows. The entrance was completely packed with bound papers and tangled household items.

  Andrews placed his open palm against the trash at shoulder height and pushed. The barrier wouldn’t budge. He steadily increased the pressure and when he attacked with all his strength, nothing even shifted.

  “We’ve got some tonnage in here.”

  “Seems pretty solid to me,” Parker agreed.

  With both hands Andrews shoved at the barrier, testing to see if he could find any give in the stacks. Kneeling on one knee, he shoved a ragged bundle of Life magazines dated 1944. A hollow-eyed American soldier stared at unseen horrors behind the camera. The magazines shifted.

  “This one is loose. Gimme a hand here and let’s see if we can work it out.”

  Parker knelt on one knee and they gripped the twine binding, finally working it out of the mass. When it fell free with a thump, an overpowering odor of death wafted fr
om the hole.

  The lawmen recoiled from the stench. Andrews turned and retched while Cody held his breath. He removed his light colored hat and used it to reflect the last of the sun’s rays a few more inches into the hole they’d created.

  “It’s a tunnel!” Andrews exclaimed.

  Cody replaced his hat, gritted his teeth, and choked.

  Oh God, please let this not be true. I can’t take any more tunnels in this lifetime.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Crumbling cardboard boxes spilled an assortment of rusty pistons into drifts of leaves.

  ***

  While Andrews moved bundles of newspapers, Cody retrieved his flashlight from the El Camino. He returned to a two-by-two foot hole that gaped like an animal’s burrow.

  Cody’s flashlight illuminated the waist-high tunnel. He paused, transfixed between the past and the present. The passage’s design brought back horrifying memories he’d hoped to bury.

  The dying light from the sky barely illuminated the entry as they peered inside. The stench dissipated slightly in the evening breeze which had almost completely stilled, an indication that the weather was about to change.

  Satisfied with what he’d seen, Cody rose and stepped back to play the beam over the building. He mumbled to himself in an unconscious impersonation of his Uncle Ned. “We’ve got a crazy person living here.”

  Vietnam images of heat, humidity, water, mud, jungle, and terror rushed back like a freight train.

  Andrews studied the dark hole in wonder. “This thing leads way inside. It goes for about five feet and then makes a right turn. It’s a tunnel through garbage.”

  “I don’t like this.” Cody handed him the flashlight and hesitantly picked his way through the trash. “I’ll call in and get the Sheriff.” He resisted the urge to turn and run back to the car. Cold dread settled into the pit of his stomach.

  I’m sure as hell not going inside that thing. When I left the Nam I said I’d never crawl into anything like that again. Houses…I been dreaming of big old houses in neighborhoods like this one…but nothing like this evil thing here.