Something in the Dark Chapter 1

While I couldn’t put my finger on it when I drove into town, there was something about Leutenburg that was just a little off.

Now, granted, when you’ve spent as much time as I have in this profession, you start to realize that every place is a little off.  Evil likes to burrow in like a tick, whenever it’s given an opening.  And human nature being what it is, somebody’s always going to open that door.  Demons are legalistic, and once they’re given a foothold, they’ll cling to it by right like the miserliest miser who ever went to sleep holding onto bags of cash.

That metaphor got away from me a little, but you get the idea.  The point is, no matter how bucolic and peaceful a place looks on the surface, somewhere there’s a dark side to it.  Nature of the world as it is.

Of course, the Otherworld is every bit as tenacious in the legalistic department, even if they aren’t usually quite as bad as the demons.

I paused at the first of the three stop lights on Main Street, thankful for the momentary red light so that I could take stock. Try to figure out what I’d sensed. I’d gotten hunches before. When you’ve been on the spooky side of the tracks for long enough, you learn to listen to those hunches. What’s going on isn’t necessarily always obvious to the naked eye.

And I’d been on the spooky side of the tracks for a long time.

I scanned the street again, looking for whatever might have struck me as Otherworldly. Fr. O’Neill had once called the Otherworld the world that’s just out of sight, but every once in a while, you could catch a glimpse, especially when the Otherworlders are being cocky or sloppy.

Or when they’re hunting you.

I was just passing through, heading home to Eryn after investigating what might have been a cult, but had turned out to be nothing more than some dumb kids playing with fire. Eryn hadn’t come with me because she was due with our first kid in about four more months. I hadn’t heard about anything happening in Leutenberg that required the expertise of a Witch Hunter. In fact, I don’t think I had even heard of the town before about half an hour ago, when I saw the sign on the highway.

So, what had I stumbled on?

Nothing caught my attention. Whatever was going on, it wasn’t going to be obvious on the surface. It never was.

You might ask how I’d picked up on it, if it was so hidden. I don’t know. Maybe my guardian angel gave me a nudge. He does that sometimes. Sometimes he’s more subtle than others.

Yes, he’s quite real. I’ve actually met him. He doesn’t show up very often, but when he does, it’s usually a good sign that things have gone very sideways. He wasn’t showing up right then, but that didn’t mean things weren’t about to get weird.

Main Street was only two lanes wide, lined with parked cars and trucks. The buildings along either side were mostly old, brick, two-story shopfronts from the late 1800s, early 1900s. Several more modern buildings, including what looked like a four-story condo, stood behind, closer to the hills along the west side of town, but most of the city looked like it hadn’t changed much since the ‘80s. I was pretty well off the beaten track. Ray’s ranch, where Eryn and I had made our home, was pretty well out in the boonies, so that was going to happen.

There were about a dozen streetlights every few yards along the sidewalks; the old, sculpted kind with the spherical lampshades. They were already lit, as the sun was going down and the clouds were getting thicker in the north. Several of the storefronts, especially the diner down the street, still glowed, but given what time it was, I was surprised to see how many were already turning the lights out.

The light turned green, and I eased my truck back into motion, rolling down Main Street toward the low motel at the far end of downtown. I didn’t move very quickly, just easily cruising down the street in the lack of traffic, taking the opportunity to watch the locals and the rest of the town.

I was getting looks. They were hard to read, in no small part because it was getting dark. But I got the distinct impression that I was being watched with a combination of nervousness and… pity?

That didn’t bode well.

Still, I wasn’t worried about the locals. Maybe I was getting cocky in my old age, or maybe I’d just seen too much from the darker side of the veil. Sure, ordinary people could still be a threat, but I wasn’t getting the cult zombie feeling that I’d seen before, either. There was something wrong here, but I didn’t think the locals were necessarily behind it.

They knew about it, but they weren’t going to mob me for it. At least, I didn’t think so.

From a viewpoint of pure self-preservation, I probably should have kept rolling. Gotten out of town and gotten back to my family. There was no reason I could see to stay, and the heebie-jeebies were usually a warning, not an invitation.

But I’d been on the road for a long time already, and I was hungry. At the very least, I needed to stop, stretch my legs, and get some chow. So, I pulled my truck into the parking lot of the little diner just past the last stoplight, parked, checked that my old 1911 was covered by my jacket, and got out.

It was getting late, and the diner was probably going to close soon. Instinctively, I checked the place out as I walked toward the door, scanning the interior through the big picture windows. There were still about half a dozen people inside, seated at widely separated tables. None of them were watching the door, though every head turned as I walked in.

While I could have sworn that a few of those looks held the same combination of suspicion and pity that I’d seen on main street, after a moment they all turned away, except for the waitress, who seemed awfully nervous as she came up to my table.

Now, I’ve never been what might be considered harmless looking. I’m tall and raw boned, with deep set eyes and a beak of a nose that’s been broken a couple times and that I’ve never much liked, myself. I don’t necessarily get a haircut or a shave all that often, or even eat with the kind of regularity that keeps me filled out. So, I wasn’t that surprised that she was nervous, despite the ring on my left hand.

“We’re gonna be closing up soon, mister.” She didn’t quite look straight at me while she spoke, tapping the pen in her hand against her order pad.

I had to raise an eyebrow at that, while I leaned forward on the table. “Seems a little early to be closing. Does this town really roll the sidewalks up at sunset, or something?”

She still looked nervous, glancing over her shoulder toward the back of the restaurant, and still avoiding looking me in the eye. “It’s just not very busy around here, so we close up early.”

There was definitely something wrong here, and I followed her gaze toward the back, though all I could see was the door leading into the kitchen. I shifted my eyes toward the other clientele, but while I caught a couple of furtive looks, quickly turned away as they saw me looking at them, there was nothing that presented an immediate threat.

None of the other folks there in the diner seemed to be in a hurry to finish up. The lights were all still on. The sense of disquiet I’d felt since rolling into town intensified a couple notches.

“I’m mighty hungry, so I promise I won’t dawdle over my food.” I was hesitant to come right out and ask her what was wrong. My protective streak made me want to, but I hadn’t survived as long as I had walking through the shadowy parts of the world without a healthy dose of caution when I couldn’t see all the cards. The Otherworld is sneaky, and the demons of the Abyss are worse. “Sure you can’t stay open for an extra thirty minutes? It’s not that late.”

She looked over her shoulder again, taking half a step back toward the kitchen. I was watching the shadows. It was entirely possible that I was barking up the wrong tree. There might still be something wrong, but it might just be the regular, homegrown crime sort of wrong. There were small towns like this one that were run like mafia front companies. They were usually somewhere down in the Southwest, but every once in a while, you might find one up here in the mountain states, my usual stomping grounds.

I couldn’t be sure, though, so I watched to see if the shadows moved.

“I’ll go ask.” It sounded like a temporizing measure, but I couldn’t really object. She was the waitress, after all. She didn’t run the place.

She disappeared into the back, and kept my eyes and my ears open, all without making it obvious that I was keeping tabs on the other diners. They were all studiously ignoring me. Either they had other ways of watching, or they were really trying to mind their own business.

A few minutes later, as the sheriff’s SUV pulled up outside, I figured it was probably the latter.

Jed Horn returns in Something in the Dark, available October 8.