Tommy Nightmare(32)

Mr. Tanner’s face looked fishlike, big cold eyes and lips gulping at the air, reminding Tommy of Pap-pap on his way into death. Tommy could feel the darkness flowing out in a river now, washing away any doubts Mr. Tanner might have had about Tommy’s devilish nature.

Tommy turned back to Mrs. Tanner.

“I’m looking for them witches,” Tommy said. As always, his deep-country accent grew thicker when he was angry, or scared, or just excited. He was a little of each right now. “You tell me how to find ‘em.”

“I don’t know,” Mrs. Tanner whispered. “It’s been years—”

“Tell me!” Tommy snapped, and she cringed.

“I have the phone number upstairs,” Mrs. Tanner whispered. “I’ll go get it.”

“Don’t try to pull any tricks on me,” Tommy said. He was still pinning Mr. Tanner against the wall. “I can kill him. All I got to do is think about it.”

“Do what he says,” Mr. Tanner whispered. “Do anything he says.”

Mrs. Tanner whimpered and scurried from the room.

The ten-year-old, Paul, was crying louder than the girl now. He knelt on the kitchen floor, weeping.

Tommy pulled Mr. Tanner off the wall and turned him so his back faced the doorway where Mrs. Tanner had gone. If Mrs. Tanner tried to pull anything—if she came back with that shotgun, for instance—she would have to go through her husband first.

Fortunately, Mrs. Tanner was timid. How could she be otherwise, Tommy thought, after a lifetime with Mr. Tanner? When she returned to the kitchen, she was holding nothing but a scrap of yellowed paper in her shaking hand.

“What’s that?” Tommy asked.

“Her phone number,” Mrs. Tanner whispered. “It’s all I have. I’m sorry.”

“Bring it.” Tommy tightened his grasp on Mr. Tanner’s throat. He reached out his other hand to Mrs. Tanner.

She approached Tommy with small, trembling footsteps. When she was close enough, Tommy snatched the paper from her hand, and she gasped and darted away.

The scrap of paper was a grocery store receipt.

“On back,” Mrs. Tanner whispered.

Tommy turned it over. GUADALUPE RIOS was hand-written on the back, along with a phone number.

“What area code is this?” Tommy asked.

“Texas,” Mrs. Tanner said. Her voice was almost too quiet to hear. “Fort Worth.”

“Okay. Perfect.” Tommy folded the paper and stuffed it into his jacket pocket.

“It won’t do you any good,” Mrs. Tanner added. “They’re scam artists. They never did come up with any money.”

Tommy smiled. He looked at Mr. Tanner, who was downright terrified from being in Tommy’s grasp so long. He could let the man go now. Then Tommy looked at the three frightened children. He remembered his own childhood, how often Mr. Tanner’s twisted, insane ideas about religion seemed to involve stripping and beating the children.

“You were right,” Tommy said to Mr. Tanner. “I do have the Devil in me. And today, the Devil wants you.”

Tommy let the black lightning rip out of him, filling Mr. Tanner. Mr. Tanner’s shuddered hard in Tommy’s hand, and a trickle of blood leaked from Mr. Tanner’s nose. Then the man slouched, and Tommy let him fall to the floor.

Tommy kicked him, but Mr. Tanner didn’t respond. His eyes stared into empty space. Heart attack, stroke or seizure—one way or another, Mr. Tanner had died of fright.

Mrs. Tanner screamed and dropped to the floor to embrace her husband’s corpse. “Oh, Jesus!” she cried. “Oh, Jesus. Oh, Jesus…”

Tommy ignored her. He grabbed a box of long kitchen matches and walked outside.

In the biggest barn, where the horse trailer and the ancient canvas-sheathed Buick were parked, there were also large plastic jugs of gasoline for the tractor. Tommy picked up two of them.

The three children trickled out of the farmhouse to look at him. They trailed him, at a great distance, as he walked to the old barn Mr. Tanner had converted into a church for his weird little personal cult.

Tommy pulled open the barn door. He splashed gasoline on the handmade pews, the wooden dais, the willow cross. He splattered more along each of the four walls.

The children stood outside, several feet from the open door, and watched him with open mouths.

When he’d emptied both containers, he walked to the door, and the children ran back ten or twenty feet. Then they turned to watch him again.

Tommy gave them a grin as he struck a kitchen match. Then he flicked it into the barn. The burning matchstick tumbled end over end, until it landed in a gasoline puddle in the middle of the dirt floor. For a moment, he thought the match had simply gone out.