And Crawling Things Lurk

He was back searching alleys again, but without the cloud of ineptitude that had so darkened his earlier enthusiasm. Now he was confident he could actually accomplish his self-assigned mission. The first part, anyway. He was sure, now, that he would make his spear.

He wasn’t so sure he would be able to kill the creature he intended to kill. First, since he didn’t know where to find it, it had to return to come within his reach. And, to come within his reach, it had to return to his location rather than to some other place where it would simply take another victim. He refused to think about whom that might be. If it did show up at his location, he had to have his spear ready to use. He had to be able to engage it in battle, so he had to be sober. That might be tough. And, it had to be killable, because if it wasn’t...

So, first, he had to complete his weapon. And for that, he needed a spearhead. And for that, all he needed was a piece of pipe.

He carried his closet rod with him, using it like a hiking staff so no one would accuse him of walking around town armed with a big club. He considered just avoiding that problem by leaving it at the Hole, but he would need it with him if he found a pipe. He didn’t want to have to go all the way back to the Hole just find out it wouldn’t fit. If the pipe was too small, the pole could be shaved down as long it didn’t have to be too much. But if the pipe was too big, it just wouldn’t work, and he would have to find another one. He hoped a pipe would be easier to find than the pole had been.

He poked through every dumpster he came across, even the one behind the frame shop. He started to bypass that one, but turned around with a real hope of finding one there. It would be as though Sarge had guided him to it. But it wasn’t to be. There, as in other places, he found a few pieces of pipe, but none were even close to what he needed. He figured it should be at least six inches long, but a couple of feet would be better. He could use pipe for the entire thing, all six or more feet of it, but it would be heavy – not that a six-foot pipe would be any easier to find than a six-inch one. He’d rather use his wooden handle. Copper could work for the head, but he had an iron pipe in mind. True, it would take longer to grind it to a point, but when he did, it would be much stronger and sharper.

As the day wore on, he felt the old familiar feeling of uselessness coming on, and with it, a growing thirst. He had just fought off another urge to admit he couldn’t do it when a voice shouted from nearby, “Hey! Hey, what the hell are you doing?”

He looked back and saw Doug Keller coming out of Sally’s coffee shop. It was over a block from the TV shop, and Jackie was surprised to see him. He had deliberately avoided checking that alley and that dumpster.

“You been stealing stuff out of my dumpster, again?”

Jackie looked at the staff in his hand and back up at the man. He raised it an inch or so, just enough to indicate what he was talking about when he said, “No, this is mine. I brought it from –”

“Help! Help! He’s going to hit me! Stop him!” Then Keller ran back into Sally’s.

Jackie started to go in after him, to explain that he was mistaking, that Jackie didn’t try to hit him. But in his recently adopted clear-minded state of sobriety, he realized that no one would listen to his claims of innocence. All they would see was a wino carrying a big club, dogging the steps of a man who was yelling that Jackie was attacking him. He’d be lucky if they’d wait for the police before stringing him up. He turned around and walked back the other way, turning off at the first corner and then the other way at the next one.

When he thought he was far enough away to be safe, he began prowling the alleys again. In the third dumpster, he found it. It was galvanized iron, almost two feet long. It was threaded on both ends, and an elbow was screwed on one end, but that looked like it would come off, okay, since it wasn’t rusted on. When he tested the straight end on his pole, he got it on ever two inches before it jammed up. It would be tight enough to hold solid once he got it forced farther on, and shaving it may not even be needed. Perfect. Leaving the two pieces of his weapon joined, he started back toward the Hole. He still had to turn them into a spear.

He made it almost all the way before Evans stopped him.

“What the hell’re you up to, Jackie?”

“I’m not doing nothin’. Just goin’ to the Hole.”

“Doug Keller said you went after him with a big club. Looks to me like that’s what you’re holding right now.”

“This ain’t a club. It’s from my closet. I just found this pipe right back there. It wasn’t in his alley at all. I never even went there.”

“No, he didn’t say you did. He said you threatened to hit him with that thing when he came out of Sally’s. Said you were looking to get even with him for chasing you out of his alley a few days ago when he caught you stealing.”

Jackie felt his temper begin to heat up. He clenched his eyes shut for a moment and took a deep breath. When he looked back at Evans, he felt a little more like he could speak without shouting that the asshole didn’t own the alley behind his shop and that he hadn’t run Jackie out of it. But, even if he didn’t yell it, it could still be said.

“I wasn’t stealing anything behind his store, and he didn’t chase me out. It was in the dumpster, so I thought he didn’t want it anymore. It was just a broken flagpole. I needed it. That’s why I got this one from outa my own closet. He broke the one I found even more so I couldn’t use it.”

“What the hell did you want with a broken flagpole? And why are you carrying that pole around?”

Jackie thought for a moment about making up something else to tell Evans. But, it was hardly a secret around town what he was trying to do. He shrugged and described his plan, including how he was going to grind the end of the pipe to a point against a big rock that stuck out of the ground down at the Hole, just like he had learned long ago in army survival training. He ended his little discourse with the assertion that he had to be ready for when that thing came back again. He waited for Evans to either laugh or yell. Instead, the cop looked at him with his eyes sort of squinting like he was thinking hard about what he had just heard.

“That’d take you forever, you know. Why don’t you buy a file over at Nielson’s Hardware? They’re not much.”

Jackie felt like such an idiot for not thinking about that. But it was the same as not thinking about a closet rod until Muri brought one to him; he just wasn’t used to thinking. He had become so immersed in the memory of how he was instructed all those years ago he didn’t even consider improvising. Hell, improvising was what the class was all about, but that part apparently didn’t stick that well. He was glad Evans suggested it. And what game was Evans playing, anyway? He could still bust out laughing, or he could start yelling about how Jackie was a dummy and couldn’t do anything like that, and that he needed to stay down at the Hole and stop threatening decent citizens. But Evans still just sat there in his car looking out the window at Jackie and the beginnings of the spear in his hand. “You gonna let me keep it?”

“What, that? You said it was yours, didn’t you?”

“Yeah. You gonna bust me for trying to hit Keller? I didn’t, but he told ’em in Sally’s that I did.”

“Yeah, I know. They didn’t believe him, either. Sally’s waitress just happened to be looking out the window and saw it all. She said you didn’t look like you were trying to hit anyone. Keller is an ass, and everyone knows it.”

Jackie was having a hard time absorbing this new attitude from Evans. He was talking to Jackie like he was just like anyone else in town, even bad-mouthing a local business owner to him. It had been a long time since anyone except the others at the Hole had talked to him like that. Gramma and Muri talked nice to him, but they were special, anyway. Of course, it had been a long time since he had been sober enough for anyone to talk to like a normal person. The clerk at the bottle shop didn’t count. He didn’t really talk, just enough to tell Jackie how much he had to pay for his bottles. Sometimes, not even that. He’d just hold out his hand and let Jackie put his money into it, or more often, he’d wait for Jackie to put his money on the counter before he’d touch it, like it was filthy or something. He never even said thanks or come again. Probably because he knew Jackie’d be back, anyway. And, now, here Evans was almost holding a conversation with him.

“Tell me,” Evans said, “what makes you think the person, or whatever you think it was that killed Josie, is going to come back.”

“It already came back. It got Sarge.”

“How can you be sure it’s the same one?”

“I didn’t see him, but I heard he was the same as Josie. Was he?”

Just a short pause, then, “Yeah, he was. I don’t know how that information got out, but I guess some things are impossible to keep quiet in a small town.”

“Then, it already came back once. It’ll come back again.” In his mind he heard Josie’s voice saying how it would just keep coming back. “Someone has to kill it. If you won’t do it, I will.”

Don hung his head for a moment then turned to look at Jackie again. “Look, I’m not saying I’m completely sold on your claims, but I’m not closed to it anymore, either. It looks like there is a possibility that the...thing that killed them isn’t a person. It might be something like...well, like a big spider, or something.”

Jackie couldn’t believe he had just heard what he had heard. Maybe Evans was beginning to believe him. “Yeah, and it looks like an old woman.”

“Hold on, dammit! Don’t turn this into a monster hunt. Whatever it is, it’s natural, from the real world.”

“I didn’t say it wasn’t. I just said it looks like an old woman, not a spider.”

Don rubbed his forehead with both palms then peered up at Jackie. With a slow nod, he said, “Go ahead and make your spear, and protect yourself and whoever you can. I’m going to be working on it, too. I may have some help from out of town. Let me know if anything turns up, okay?”

“Okay,” Jackie answered, unable to keep a grin off his face.

As Don drove away, he called out, “Get a big file. You’ve got a lot of grinding to do.”