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Right … so, she wasn’t going to be any help. Sure, he was leaving her on the side of the road, but he had just saved her life. Humans could be so ungrateful.
He pulled away. She’d called him an outsider. What the hell had that been about? As much as he didn’t want to head back toward … whatever it was that had destroyed the gas station, he really didn’t want to drive straight to the heart of some religious commune, either. He blew past a THANKS FOR VISITING PENANCE sign with peeling paint and a faded metal Rotary Club seal on it and pressed the accelerator to the floor. He didn’t want to see the gas station when he passed it—at least, not as anything more than a blur. It had been about three miles since he’d passed the last county road. He’d backtrack to that and take it wherever it ended up leading. If he had to sleep in the trunk to stay out of the sun, well, he would. It wouldn’t be pleasant, but it would be a hell of a lot more pleasant than being held hostage by religious freaks.
After a few long, silent moments, he turned on his iPod. Weird stuff happened all the time. It didn’t bear thinking about. He found Lily Allen’s latest album and turned it up, singing along absentmindedly as he struggled with the TomTom once more.
Three songs later, he noticed he hadn’t made it back to the road yet. No, that couldn’t be right. He probably was just too distracted trying to change the settings back to English to notice that he’d passed it. He pulled a U-turn and headed back. He’d only gone about a quarter mile before the ruined gas station loomed to his left, and he passed a WELCOME TO PENANCE sign on his right.
“What the …” Up ahead, a figure walked at the shoulder of the road, her head hanging, arms wrapped around her middle. He slowed beside her, double-checking the odometer. He’d driven fifteen miles. It was right there, in black and white on the little dials that worked just as well as the rest of the car.
The girl shot him an angry look over her shoulder, then faced forward again, tossing her long, brown hair.
He drove past her and waited, watching in the mirror as she tried to look anywhere but at the car she approached. He couldn’t help but notice her long, suntanned legs sticking out of a nice, short pair of denim cutoffs. Country girls. Yum. He rolled down the window as she walked by. “Something strange just happened.”
She didn’t answer, but kept walking. He gave her a little room, then rolled after her. When he pulled up even again, he continued, “I just tried to drive back to county-road-number-whatever-that-number-was, but I don’t seem to be getting anywhere. Got any idea what that’s about?”
Still no answer.
He let her get ahead again, then drove up beside her once more. “You can either get into this car, or stay out here with whatever that was that just wrecked a building.”
She laughed humorlessly and kept walking. “You didn’t seem to care about leaving me out here when you thought you were going to be able to drive away and never see me again.”
“Well, yeah,” he said, creeping slowly alongside her. “But that’s only because I thought I was going to drive away and never see you again … Why didn’t that work out?”
“You’re a real gentleman.” She shook her head, still walking. “You can’t leave because It keeps us here.”
“It?” She’d said the word like it was a name, like it should be obvious what she was talking about, but Graf had no clue. “What do you mean, ‘It'?”
There was something hard about the way she wrinkled her nose, as though she had been defeated a long time ago and didn’t like talking about the fight. Whatever bad memories were associated with the subject, they made her voice a little less strident. “I don’t know. No one does.”
“Well, what do you mean I’m—” His foot slipped on the accelerator, and the car lurched forward. He hit the clutch and downshifted into Neutral. “Damn it, get in! This is ridiculous.”
To his surprise, she walked around the front of the car and opened the passenger door. “Are you going to drive me home, or just abandon me on the side of the road a little farther down?”
He ignored her. “You told me to enjoy my stay. So, I take it other people have had this same trouble?”
“No. You’re the first.” She wasn’t being sarcastic. She dropped into the seat and pulled in her long legs as she closed the door. “The rest of us have been trapped here, but outsiders never stop.”
Trapped. Well, that sounded great. “‘Never’ meaning … how long exactly?”
“Five years.” She pointed to a dirt road ahead. “Turn there.”
He complied, too confused to do much other than ask questions and take orders. That wasn’t like him at all, and it made him uncomfortable. “Five years, no one has been able to …”
“To leave Penance, or get in. No visits to or from. No one with car trouble on the side of the road.” She closed her eyes. “No ambulances.”
“So, I’m the first person to come to Penance for the past five years?” There was a fallow field to one side of the road, a swamp to the other. “What is this?”
“A town.” She looked at him like he was crazy. “A small one, but a town. And everything within the city limits has been trapped for the past five years. No one gets in, no one gets out.”
That explained the lack of cars on the road, the closed-down gas station. “So, what’s this ‘It’ that you’re so worried about? The ‘It’ that tried to bring a building down on us. What’s with that?”
“I don’t know.” She got a faraway look, as if she didn’t want to talk about it. “I’ve seen It before. A lot of people have. It kills. Not every night, not on a schedule. Some people have had It come right up to them and not do anything at all. Other people get slaughtered.”
“Okay.” He pinched the bridge of his nose. “But what is it?”
She looked dead-on at him like he was stupid. “It’s a monster.”
Two
Realistically, Graf couldn’t doubt the existence of monsters. It just wouldn’t make sense. Obviously, vampires existed. And werewolves. He’d met one of those. Zombies, he’d never heard of those existing, but he wouldn’t have been surprised. Witches? Wouldn’t want to tangle with one. But unclassifiable bogeyman-type creatures that could bring down a gas station roof right over his head? It wasn’t that they couldn’t exist, they probably did, but such information was hard to believe when it was coming from a human.
“A monster?”
The woman nodded, still eyeing him like he might be a little bit “special.” “Yes. You don’t really think a tornado did that? And left the power lines up? And us able to run? And your car sitting right there, not getting a scratch on it?”
“I thought they were notorious for that kind of thing,” he muttered, but he didn’t admit that everything he knew about tornadoes came from the movie Twister. “So, what kind of a monster are we talking about?”
“I’ve never exactly asked It to classify itself while it was chasing me.” She blew out a breath and raised her hand to push her hair back. She still shook, giving Graf the visual interpretation of the old “like a leaf on a tree” expression. She didn’t stink of fear anymore, so she must have just been burning off adrenaline. “It’s just a monster. That’s the only way to describe it. Some people thought It was some mutant kind of giant possum when it first started attacking people, but …”
He frowned. “When did it start attacking people?”
“About five years ago,” she replied in a “Gee, what do you think?” tone. “Right after we all got stuck here.”
For a few minutes, Graf didn’t say anything, just kept his eyes on the painfully straight road and let everything she said tumble around in his mind. For five years, an entire town had been held captive by some kind of monster, and no one on the outside had noticed? There was clearly more at work here than just plain old monstering. That was the kind of thing only a spell could accomplish, not that he’d tell her that. He never liked to reveal the existence of the supernatural to a human, even if they had already experienced it in some form. There was always a ton of explaining to be done, and the same tiresome questions. Questions a lot like the ones he’d had for her.
“My place is right up there.” The girl indicated, pointing to where a mercury light cast the side of a white farmhouse in a sickly green glow.
Graf pulled into the driveway, lined on both sides with milk cans rusting under their coats of white paint. “Nice decor.” He sneered.
“Yeah, well, I’ve been really worried about my curb appeal during the last five years that I’ve been unable to leave town and lived in constant fear of a monster, so go fuck yourself,” she snapped, pushing the passenger door open.
She was feisty. Now, he didn’t know if he wanted to fuck her or eat her. Or, he could do both, but only if she let him into her house.
“Wait,” he called after her, turning off the engine.
He got out of the car, and she stopped, hands on her slim hips as she turned to face him. “I hope you don’t think you’re coming into my house.”
“Look, I know that we got off on the wrong foot—”
“The wrong foot?” She laughed, tilted her head back, and gave the trees above her an imploring look, like they could save her from his stupidity. “I’m going to have to disagree with your assessment of the situation. You see, getting nearly killed by It and then being left for dead by the person you think is trying to save you, that’s not getting off on the wrong foot. That’s called getting screwed, and I’ll be damned if you’re going to do that to me again.”
“I’m not trying to … screw you.” He forced away an immature giggle. That would not help his cause in the slightest. “If I’m trapped here, I’m going to need a place to stay. Can’t you at least give me directions to a motel?”
“Yeah. I can.” She smiled sweetly. “It’s about twenty miles away, just over the state line in West Virginia.”
He cursed and turned away, then turned back. “Is there anyone in town who would put me up?”
“As charming as you are, I’m sure you’ll find someone delighted to have you as a guest in their home. But not here. There is no room in this inn.” She walked up the lawn, toward the wide front porch.
“Just, wait.” He wasn’t asking this time. The sun would be up soon. The sky was already turning that weird grayish-blue color that it did toward dawn. She was going to let him inside, or she was going to die trying to keep him out. “I need a place to stay, and you owe me.”
She stopped with a noise of disbelief. “I owe you? For what? Stranding me on the side of the road?”
“For saving you from your monster. And for the ride home.” He could have left it at that, but he didn’t, striding up the lawn to loom over her. “You stranded yourself. You ran out there. You were going to be walking home, anyway, so I was good enough to give you a temporary reprieve, not really stranding you at all.”
Her jaw dropped, but thankfully no words came out of her pretty little mouth.
“I won’t be here for long. Just give me a place to stay until I figure out a way to get out of here.” It still sounded like he was asking permission. What he needed to do was rip out her throat and go right on inside.
“We’ve been trapped here for five years, and you think you’re going to waltz right on in and out in a few days?” She shook her head. “Oh, yes, please do come into my house and continue to insult me.”
“Look, I know I’ve been a huge asshole. But listen, I have this … medical condition.” He fished in the pocket of his pants. It was time to play the card that most people saw right through, the one that practically screamed, “I’m a vampire, put a coffee table leg through my heart.” His fingers closed on the slender piece of metal and chain. “See this? It’s a medic alert bracelet.”
“Good for you, you’re allergic to penicillin.” She turned away and took the steps up to the porch two at a time. When he followed, she whirled and shouted, “Get away from me!”
“Would you listen to me for a minute? I have photosensitivity. Polymorphous light eruption. I won’t go into details, because it’s disgusting. Pus is involved. I can’t be in the sunlight. I need to be indoors.” He had one more trick to pull out of his sleeve before he decided to bite her and be done with it, an option that was looking less and less appetizing the more she opened her mouth. It was drastic, and he hated to say it, but he braced himself and added, “Please.”
She considered a moment. A sick part of his mind wondered if she would look so serious and doubtful if she knew the only option left was getting her blood sprayed across the faded white siding. Finally, with an annoyed sigh, she said, “Look. I don’t know you. You could be a psychopath. There is no way that, under normal circumstances, I should let you into my house. But normal circumstances went out the window about, oh, five years ago. You can’t stay here permanently, and I think it’s only fair for you to know that I have my dad’s double-barrel shotgun inside and it’ll be the last thing you see if you try to lay one finger on me.”
He held up his hands and tried not to smile at the absurdity of her statement. He was too strong and way too fast. He could do anything he wanted to her; she wouldn’t even have time to load. At this point, though, he didn’t want to do anything but get her to shut up. “Understood.”
She hesitated a moment, then turned to open the door. “You’re going to stay in the basement.”
“That’s fine.” He’d slept in worse places. And most basements he’d been in had couches and pool tables.
Inside, she flipped on a light switch, and the full Midwestern horror of the house became instantly apparent. Everywhere Graf looked, doilies covered end tables and decorative plates hung on the walls. Beyond the living room—and the hideous floral couch—the archway leading to what Graf assumed was the kitchen had a pair of antlers mounted over it.
“This is.” He closed his eyes for a moment, trying to mentally erase the figurines of chubby German children on the fireplace mantel. “You decorate this yourself?”
The girl stopped, her mouth again in the increasingly familiar half-open position, like she’d never heard someone say that her place was hideous before, which Graf couldn’t believe. “Don’t worry. The basement isn’t anywhere near this nice.”
She marched into the kitchen and turned on the lights there and a ceiling fan began to whirl gently. Graf watched it for a moment, something nagging at his brain. “No one can leave, and no one can really arrive, right?”
“Yup.” The woman went to the refrigerator and took out a pitcher of plain water. “Thirsty?”
Yes, but not for anything you’re going to give up willingly. He shook his head and took a seat at the small island. A pot rack hung overhead, with oven mitts shaped like chickens’ heads dangling from a hook. “If no one can get in and no one can leave, then there isn’t any way that mail is getting out.”
She poured herself a glass of water, keeping her eyes on him as much as possible. “You just found out you’re trapped in a town where no one has been able to leave for five years, and you’re worried about the mail?”
He shrugged. “Not worried. Curious. You’ve got electricity. Who’s paying the bill?”
“I don’t know. It just never turns off. Water neither. Some people think we’re frozen in time, but I don’t buy it. The physics teacher over at the high school held a town meeting to explain it once, but he’s gone now.” She took a swallow from her glass, her slender throat moving as she did so.
Usually, that would have been a temptation, especially on a woman as good-looking as she was. But while the package was sexy, what was inside was annoying as hell, and he wanted no part of it. “I thought you said no one had left in five years.”
“Not ‘gone’ gone. Gone. He put a gun in his mouth over on Pleasant Creek Road.” She looked down sadly. “He didn’t live here. Just worked here. His family was over in Bucksville County. He hadn’t seen them in a year when he finally gave up hope and did it.”
Graf couldn’t bring himself to actually care. “That would suck.”
He looked at the refrigerator, where a magnetic chore list adhered to the door. Someone had written on it in dry-erase marker: MOM, DAD, JONATHAN, and another name half swiped off and unreadable. “So, I know you’re not ‘Dad’ or ‘Jonathan,’ so should I call you ‘Mom'?”
“What?” She looked in the direction he pointed, and she stiffened. “Oh. That’s just … old.”
He studied the stilted way she moved as she went to the refrigerator and pulled down the chart, scattering little round magnets with pictures of dishes and brooms all over the floor. She opened a drawer and shoved the whole thing in, then slammed it closed.
“So, I’m going to guess that Jonathan, not being a feminine name, belongs to someone else. Maybe someone who used to live in this house, but doesn’t anymore.” He drummed his fingers on the island. “Is this really your house?”
“Yes, it’s my house.” She didn’t turn to face him. Her shoulders were tense and she gripped the edge of the counter as though it supported her. “Jonathan was … Jonathan is my brother.”
“‘Is’ or ‘was'?” Graf asked absentmindedly, examining the carved wooden chickens in wacky poses on the windowsill. A family had lived here. A family with very bad taste in interior decorating. “That’s kind of crucial to the story, I’m guessing.”
“Is. He’s dead, but he’s still my brother.” Her voice trembled. She was crying.
Oh, this is just precious. He rolled his eyes and managed a semi-interested-sounding “I’m sorry.”
She turned, a fake smile on her face. She didn’t need to pretend anything. Graf didn’t care. And smiling was the exact opposite of what she’d been doing to him all night. She killed the lying expression and pushed away from the counter. “You’re probably tired. Let me show you where the basement is.”
To his left was the outside door, the window covered in a red-and-white-checked shade. Perpendicular to that, a door covered with too many coats of thick, white paint, with an antique porcelain knob. About a foot above the knob there was a chain lock, attached by two measly screws. That wasn’t going to keep him out, no way, no how. But he wouldn’t tell her that. “I have some stuff I need to get out of the car, before it’s too late. I’ll meet you down there.”
Nocturnal though he might be, he wasn’t prepared to descend into his tomb yet. He already felt trapped. In the basement he would feel completely claustrophobic.
As he unloaded his bags, he caught sight of his BlackBerry lying on the passenger side floor, and he dove for it. Miraculously, four bars glowed reassuringly on the screen. He redialed the most recent call—if anyone would know how to get out of this mess, Sophia would—and held his breath.
It never connected. It rang—once, twice, four times, five—and the voice mail never picked up. Seven, eight rings, ten and still nothing. He waited out twenty rings, then cursed and hurled the phone to the ground.
“I know the feeling.”
Graf whirled to face the girl. She stood behind him, an expression of true pity on her face. He didn’t need her pity. He needed a way out.
“When we first all started to realize that we were stuck here … we didn’t know how long it had gone on. We thought there was something wrong with the phone lines.” She looked down at her hands. “You’ll get used to it. We don’t really rely on each other here, but you’ll learn to rely on yourself.”
Oh, for Christ’s sake, I had to get trapped in a Lifetime original movie, didn’t I? He couldn’t take any more homespun wisdom from the woman who appeared to be the queen of all mood swings. “Well, that basement is sounding awfully comfy right now. You can lead the way.”
He carried his overnight bag and cursed his light packing. Not only would a pair of jeans and change of shirt not last him for eternity, if he was really trapped here that long, but he hadn’t brought an eternity’s worth of blood with him. He’d fed off a waitress when he’d stopped earlier in the evening, but he’d been planning to gorge himself like a tick at the Independence Day party, so he’d only brought emergency rations. Like her or not, he’d be tearing into this woman before too long.
He followed her down the basement stairs. It was not the kind of basement that the word basement described in his mind. A “basement” was a place where somebody puts the aforementioned pool table and maybe a miniature refrigerator. They put up drywall and maybe some wood paneling and called it a den or a family room. This place, with its bare rock walls and dirt floor, was more like what someone would call a cellar. Or a hole. “You’re seriously going to keep me down here?” He wiped a finger through the cobwebs clinging to visible floorboards of the house over his head.
“I’m not going to serve you breakfast in bed, if that’s what you were hoping,” she called over her shoulder as she tugged futilely at a mound of various, unrelated objects stuffed in a corner.
That’s what you think. He watched her struggle for a while with whatever it was that she was doing, then reached past her, shouldering her out of the way.
“Very gentlemanly of you,” she griped, wiping her hands on her jeans.
“I never claimed to be a gentleman.” The metal frame and musty canvas of an army cot pulled free from the rubble of tent parts and Christmas decorations. He untangled a string of colored lights from the cot and set it on the ground at his feet. “Is this what I’m sleeping on?”
“That or the floor.” Beneath the moldering wooden stairs was a stack of plastic totes. She pulled one out, examined the label, and popped open the lid. “Blankets in here. They’re old, but they’ll do.”
“Your hospitality amazes me,” Graf quipped, snapping open the cot’s folded frame.
