The House On Gable Street (A Jack Nightingale Short Story) Page 3

  ‘So, what can I tell you, Jack?’ Deadman asked.

  ‘How about a little background,’ said Nightingale. ‘Who chose the name Jimmy Deadman?’

  ‘My parents, Tom and Cathy Deadman.’

  Nightingale waited for the laugh, but it didn’t come. Was the man serious? ‘Sorry, I didn’t realise...’

  ‘That’s okay, most people thought it was a stage name. Turned out very appropriate, or maybe the name pushed me in the right direction. Not that it’s got anything to do with death, I researched it on one of our British tours, it comes from a village in a place in Norfolk called Debenham, changed over the years to DeDebeham then Deadman. It was a blast finding out.’

  ‘Sure,’ said Nightingale. ‘You come from round here?’

  ‘No, my folks lived in Florida, my father was an air-force Colonel, got through Vietnam, then posted to Canaveral to work with NASA. I left home after high school, that’s when the band started.’

  ‘High school? You were successful that early?’

  Deadman laughed again. ‘No sir, we played every shitty little club from Florida to Texas and back, lived out of a van, ate burgers and barely made enough for strings. That lasted two years. Then suddenly we hit big.’

  ‘How?’

  ‘Hey, I still don’t know. Right place, right time. We were playing some bar in Pig’s Knuckle, Iowa, and the owner’s son was home on vacation, turned out to be an A&R man for Demonseed Records. Before we could spit, we were signed, the first album was out and the shitty bars turned into stadium gigs. The money started coming in, and, as you can see, it’s never stopped.’

  He waved a hand around to illustrate the point.

  ‘So the band’s still together?’

  ‘Well, we do an album every two years, and a tour every three, but we just meet up for the tours. The albums are done via email.’

  ‘How does that work?’

  ‘Hah, easy enough. Our singer sends me lyrics, I write the music, rough out a demo, send it to the boys, they drop in their parts, I put in all the lead guitar, then send it back for the vocal tracks to be recorded. Final mixing gets done by our engineer.’

  Nightingale wasn’t sure he really understood, but it didn’t seem that important, so he moved on.

  ‘Joshua told me The Ungodly were pretty much the first and biggest Occult Metal band around. Have you always been interested in the supernatural?’

  ‘Actually, I was never into it at all. That was just the image. I wrote all the music, but the Occult stuff came from Evie. She wrote all the words, she was the one who was always into all that stuff.’

  ‘Evie?’

  ‘I’m guessing you’re not a fan. Our singer, Eva-Lynn Garnett.’

  Nightingale was ready this time, and kept a straight face. ‘Really?’

  Another smile from Deadman

  ‘Well, it’s been a long time since she went by any other name, but I seem to remember a girl called Patty Kauffman back in the early days. She changed it just before we hit big. Take a look.’

  Deadman led the way to some framed photos on the wall. The first one was a copy of the one he’d seen in Joshua’s office.

  ‘1984,’ said Deadman. ‘Our first tour. Now look here. Our last one, last year.’

  The next photo was clearly more recent, the bass and keyboard players had put on weight, Deadman seemed in good shape, but Nightingale’s eyes were drawn to the girl. A long black leather coat, over a leather basque, fishnet tights and long leather boots. Her hair was long and jet-black, the fringe cut in spikes over her brow, and her eye make-up thick and dark. The eyes themselves were so dark they seemed completely black, like lumps of polished coal. He shuddered. She was the spitting image of Proserpine, the demon from Hell. ‘She looks the same in both of them,’ said Nightingale. ‘Doesn’t seem to have changed.’

  ‘Yeah, she keeps in good shape, either that or she’s got one of those paintings in her attic that do the aging for her. Or maybe she sold her soul.’

  Nightingale looked at him sharply, but the man was smiling again.

  ‘I’m just joking, but people did say it at first, we just went from nothing to world domination inside a year.’

  ‘And it’s still happening?’

  ‘It’s kind of self-perpetuating now. The back catalog sells everywhere, radio plays, licensing deals for using our tracks in movies, TV shows. You ever watch Blood Network?’

  ‘Once, I think,’ said Nightingale. ‘Just the once.’

  ‘It’s canceled now, think the lead actress disappeared or something, but we got around five million for use of a couple of old tracks, plus DVD money, the whole thing’s a gold mine, and as half the songwriting team, I’m in for a huge share.’

  From anyone else, it might have seemed arrogant, but Deadman just stated the facts without seeming to want to impress. Nightingale was starting to like the man. ‘Tell me about the house,’ said Nightingale. ‘Why did you decide to build here?’

  Deadman sucked his teeth and grunted.

  ‘Not sure I know. Little Bend was one of the places we played back in the early years, and I remember driving out down Gable Street past the old house that used to be here. I stopped the van and just looked at it for five minutes, something about it spoke to me, and I kind of promised myself that some day I’d buy it, if I had the money.’

  ‘But you tore it down?’

  ‘It was falling down, there’d been a fire fifteen years ago, it had been left empty. Much easier to start again.’

  ‘Little Bend looks rather quiet?’

  ‘That’s the idea, almost nobody knows we live here. We bought the place through a shell company, most people think we’re in computer software, we can just wander around town and be regular folks.’

  ‘Nobody recognizes you?’

  ‘No, Mary’s gorgeous, but in sweats and no make-up, people don’t associate her with the glossy image on the covers. That’s mostly illusion. As for me, well, you didn’t recognize me in my own home.’

  ‘I was coming to that,’ said Nightingale. ‘I assume the hair was a wig?’

  ‘Not back then, but I’m nearly fifty now, and the hair’s disappearing from my head and showing up in my ears. Comes to us all.’

  ‘But the tattoos? You had them removed?’

  ‘They were never there, just fakes, painted on for each show. I have got one, a small skull on my back, but that hurt quite enough, and I kind of had the feeling I didn’t want to cover myself in stuff that was going to be there for ever, you know?’

  ‘That works? People couldn’t tell?’

  ‘Ever see a movie with tattooed guys? They don’t find someone covered in ink and hope he can act, they get an actor and paint him up. Worked fine. Always thought that if I got tattooed, maybe some day I’d have to explain to my grandchildren what all that funny faded ink was about. Best decision I ever made. I can clean off the paint, take off the wig and nobody knows who I am. Like Superman and Clark Kent. Even got the eyeglasses.’

  Nightingale nodded. Deadman seemed pretty relaxed now, so it was time to steer the conversation onto less comfortable ground. ‘So, you’ve been married to Mary seven years?’

  ‘In June, yes. First time for her, second for me.’

  ‘And the first was?’

  ‘Anna Lucas, the actress. You didn’t know?’

  ‘I don’t read the papers much,’ said Nightingale. ‘Divorced?’

  ‘Leukemia, ten years ago.’

  ‘I’m sorry.’

  ‘So was I. Went off the rails a lot, back then. You can buy a shitload of tequila on my royalties. Then I met Mary at an after-show party, and it felt like someone had thrown me a lifeline. Still does.’

  Nightingale nodded. Slowly now, slowly, he thought. When people were relaxed they’d often tell more than they realized they knew.

  ‘And the children?’

  ‘Yeah, just when we’d kind of started to lose hope...I was even booked in for tests, then Mary discovers she’s pregnant. Twins to
o, who would have thought it could get better?’

  ‘And they’re one year old?’

  ‘Last month. Beautiful, healthy, everything going fine. Now this, and it’s driving us insane.’

  ‘Your wife told me about it at Joshua’s place. Maybe you could tell me how you see it?’

  Deadman shook his head. ‘I can do better than that,’ he said. ‘I can show you.’ Deadman led the way into the control room, and Nightingale saw that there was a full audio-visual system set up in one corner. Deadman looked at his watch.

  ‘We’re good,’ he said. ‘Mary’ll be meditating another thirty minutes, we don’t need to make her see this again. I use this for checking the band videos, normally. We used to have a standard monitor and audio system for the twins, with feeds into Sarah’s suite, our bedrooms, down here, pretty much anywhere we might be likely to be, After the second time, I installed extra cameras, full digital recording, anything else I could think of. This one comes from last week.’

  He took a memory stick from the desk, put it into the slot in the laptop there and loaded the file. He aimed a remote at the big screen, and pressed play. Nightingale fixed his attention on the screen as the playback started.

  ‘I’ve edited it down to the important part,’ said Deadman. ‘In the corner you can see the room thermostat, but the heating isn’t on. They’re sleeping now, but watch the mobiles above their cribs.’

  Nightingale focused on the motionless mobiles, and checked the thermostat, which read sixty-eight.

  Nothing happened.

  Nightingale noticed the slightest trace of a movement in the mobile above the pink crib, followed by the one above the blue one. Soon they were spinning slowly, but gathering speed, and the two babies opened their eyes. The thermostat temperature was falling, and now read just sixty.

  The mobiles were spinning free, and the twins smiled up at them, then simultaneously sat up, rolled towards the bars of the cribs and pulled themselves to their feet. They were facing each other now, the temperature was fifty-five, but they didn’t seem to be looking at each other. Instead they stared to the left of the screen, chuckled, and raised their arms, to point at something in between the two cribs. Their breath was clearly visible as their eyes widened and they smiled.

  Then they covered their eyes with their hands, sat down hard on their mattresses and started to scream. Nightingale had heard babies cry before, but this was nothing like that, the children almost howled in fear and misery, their eyes still covered. Around ten seconds later, the door burst open, and Mary ran in, Sarah right behind her. They picked up a baby each, and carried them out of the room. Deadman let the video run for a few seconds on the empty room, then stopped it. ‘As soon as they’re out of the room, they’re fine,’ he said. ‘They calm down almost immediately, but we’ve never put them back in there again on the same night. Now they sleep fine in the spare cribs in our suite.’

  ‘They’re looking at something,’ said Nightingale. ‘Something they find funny at first, then terrifying.’

  ‘Sure,’ said Deadman. ‘That’s what it looks like, but you’ve seen the video. There’s absolutely nothing there.’

  ‘Nothing the camera can see, maybe nothing we can see, but they can. You have other videos?’

  ‘Sure, but they’re all exactly the same. Even when we moved the nursery to a different part of the house. Exactly the same.’

  ‘Where do they sleep now?’

  ‘Like I said, we’ve put their cribs in our room.’

  ‘And since then?’

  ‘Nothing, that’s four days now.’

  ‘So, problem solved?’

  ‘Who knows? But they can’t sleep in our room forever. And dammit, Jack, this is my house and I’m scared. What if this thing means to harm them, what if it shows up during the day?’

  ‘You believe in spirits, Jimmy?’

  ‘Not until now. Now I’m not sure what I believe. There’s something they can see that we can’t, and it scares us. Can you help?’

  Nightingale really didn’t know whether he could or not, but that wasn’t what Deadman needed to hear right now. ‘I’ll do everything I can, Jimmy.’

  * * *

  His first dinner with the Deadmans wasn’t a meal that Nightingale ever looked back on with relish. The company was fine, Mary, Jimmy and Sarah were all interesting enough, and seemed to be making a special effort to ignore the nighttime problems. The two babies sat in high chairs, and Sarah and Mary fed them. ‘We swap round feeding duties every meal,’ said Mary. ‘Now, introductions are in order. Jack, say hello to Myrrh and Storm.’

  Not a trace of surprise showed on Nightingale’s face, what he knew of celebrity babies had prepared him for something worse, but he took careful note that Myrrh was the girl, and Storm the boy. He smiled at them both in turn, Myrrh returned the smile and banged her spoon on the tray, Storm was busy with a mouthful of something that might once have been food before it had been chewed, spat and tried again. They were good-looking kids, Myrrh had inherited her mother’s lighter coloring, but Storm had his father’s brown eyes and dark hair.

  ‘And this is the lady who keeps us fed,’ said Jimmy. ‘Jack Nightingale, Helen Campbell.’

  Helen was a short, slightly dumpy woman with plentiful freckles and red curly hair, Nightingale detected a slight Scottish burr when she spoke to him. ‘Pleased to meet you, Mr Nightingale.’

  ‘Jack, please.’

  She nodded. ‘Shall I serve now, Mary?’ she asked.

  ‘Thanks, Helen, I think we’re ready.’

  Helen ducked out of the room, and returned with a trolley, bearing two glasses of brown fluid, and two plates under domed metal covers. She put the glasses in front of Mary and Jimmy, and set the plates in front of Nightingale and Sarah.

  ‘It’s one of our juicing days,’ said Mary. ‘But we don’t expect you to join us, unless you decide to. Sarah doesn’t, so Helen’s cooked for you, and she’s very good.’

  Nightingale looked at his plate. There was a slice of something pinky gray, some steamed carrots, broccoli and zucchini, plus an ice-cream scoop of something brown that he was pretty sure wouldn’t be ice-cream, And a selection of what looked to be tree-leaves. He looked at Sarah, who smiled weakly.

  ‘Please do start,’ said Mary. ‘Hope you enjoy it, Jack, it’s energizing and detoxifying. Helen doesn’t work with gluten, dairy, animals or free radicals.’

  Nightingale returned Sarah’s smile, decided not to make further inquiries, and got started. Mary and Jimmy started sipping their brown juice, Mary with markedly more enthusiasm than her husband, who seemed to be looking enviously at whatever it was Nightingale was eating.

  Ten minutes later, everyone was finished. Nightingale was forced to concede to himself that it hadn’t been an unpleasant experience, but it was no substitute for real food. He was pretty sure he’d be stocking up from Domino’s and Subway on his first visit into town. Dessert was gluten and dairy-free kumquat sorbet, which tasted of ice, and which the two juicers didn’t bother with. Nightingale would have paid good money to soothe his nerves with a cigarette, but he might as well have suggested spraying weedkiller round the room.

  ‘So, Jack,’ said Mary. ‘How are you going to play this?’

  ‘On two fronts,’ said Nightingale. ‘The present and the past. What do you know of the history of the house?’

  ‘Well, this house has hardly any history. The old house was in the same family forever, the Whartons. They still live in town, but we don’t know of any history. Like I said, our people did all the negotiations.’

  ‘I’ll get started looking into that tomorrow,’ said Nightingale. ‘Tonight I’d like you to put the twins in their old nursery.’

  Mary darted an apprehensive glance at her husband, who coughed. ‘Jack,’ he said. ‘We’re not sure...’

  ‘It’s okay, said Nightingale. I plan to spend the night in the room with them.’

  Jimmy nodded, and looked at his wife, who hesitated, then gave an an
swering nod. ‘Fine,’ she said. ‘Sarah and I will do bath-time tonight, and get them settled, we’ll put a mattress in there for you.’

  ‘A chair will be fine,’ said Nightingale. ‘I’m not planning on sleeping.’

  No problem,’ said Jimmy. ‘I guess you don’t need to watch bath-time, Jack, and it’s still light, why don’t we take a walk round the grounds?’

  * * *

  The two men walked out in the evening sunlight, Deadman pointing out some of the landscaping and new trees, in which Nightingale took little interest, his mind still searching for some explanation for the behavior of the twins. They walked behind a line of trees that put them out of sight of the house, and Deadman stopped, holding out a hand to Nightingale. ‘Okay, give,’ he said.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Look, that’s a pack-shaped bulge in your jacket pocket, and your fingers tell no lies. Hand one over.’

  Nightingale laughed, took out the Marlboro and lit one for each of them. Deadman took a long drag and let out a contented sigh.

  ‘Jeez, these are the things I miss the most.’

  ‘How long?’ asked Nightingale.

  ‘Pretty much since I met Mary, I sneak one every couple of weeks, but it kind of feels like I’m cheating on her.’

  ‘She’s a lady of strong views on health and nutrition,’ said Nightingale.

  ‘These days, yeah, but it hasn’t always been that way. Like I said, we’ve both had our issues in the past, some of hers were with food, but the new system she’s found seems to keep her on an even keel.’

  ‘And you?’

  ‘You’re thinking I’m a little pussy-whipped?’ said Deadman. ‘Well, could be, but the fact is I feel pretty good these days. I can’t say kale-juice and Quorn are that exciting, but I have a whole lot more energy, and it’s a damned sight better for us than cocaine, booze, cigarettes and take-out. Having kids puts a different perspective on things too.’

  ‘So I hear,’ said Nightingale. ‘Anyway, it’s none of my business, I’m down here to see what’s bothering them, not give life-style advice. Who else is in the house, apart from the people I’ve seen?’

  ‘Nobody, full-time,’ said Deadman. ‘We have cleaners and gardeners who come in from town, but they don’t sleep in. Neither of us is comfortable with the idea of servants. You were expecting butlers and chambermaids?’