Off Season - Jack Ketchum [46]
“That so?”
“Absolutely, Officer.” The old man blinked at him excitedly—or was that some sort of tic? “I wouldn’t forget them folks too quick. Most fucked-up thing I ever saw, drunk or sober. And that night I was pretty sober, too, though I don’t expect you to believe me on that exactly.”
“We’re willing to tonight, Mr. Donner,” said Peters. “And if we had you wrong at the time, we’re very sorry, aren’t we, Sam?”
“Only human, Mr. Donner,” said Shearing.
“True enough, son,” said Donner, “and that’s why I’m willin’ to help you. Because I’m not at all sure about them other folks. And by the way, call me Paulie, okay?”
“Sure, Paulie,” said Peters. “Care for a cup of coffee?”
“I’d appreciate that.”
“Sam, get Paulie here a cup of coffee, will you?”
“Black, no sugar,” said Donner.
“You on a diet too, Paulie?” Peters asked.
“Hell, no. Only I got a sensitive stomach. Doesn’t take to milk and sugar. Black coffee’s a lot like whiskey, you know? All devil and no trimmin’s. Always liked my sins pure and take it as it comes.”
Peters smiled. Donner was a likable old wreck. Funny thing about drunks. Get them halfway sober and they were smarter than half the professors, and a lot more amiable, too. He suspected he’d be able to rely on Donner’s information, give or take a little.
“So where were you that night, Paulie?”
“Like I said at the time, me and a buddy of mine had been doin’ a little drinkin’ down by the shoreline, just up a ways from Dead River. It was a nice night, summertime then you know, so we just sat ourselves down and pretty soon my buddy was sound asleep. And me, I was about five minutes more finishing that pint, and you know how it is, I started lookin’ around for more. So I thought I’d take a walk down to . . . what’s the package store in Dead River, son?”
“Banyan’s.”
“Banyan’s. Figured he’d be open. So I’m walking down the beach a ways, figuring to hit the cutoff to the old dump road in a few yards or so—which is where we had the pickup waitin’—and then I’d drive to Banyan’s and make my purchase and get right back there. And hell, my buddy wouldn’t even know I’d gone.
“Well, I’m walking kind of slow and all, and then all of a sudden I hear all this laughin’ up ahead, gigglin’ you know, like the kind of noise little girls make, and I stop and look around and I see a whole pack of ‘em fussin’ around along the dunes up ahead to my right. And there’s somethin’ about it I don’t like. I don’t know what it is, but there’s somethin’ about all that laughin’ that I don’t trust the sound of, you know? So I kind of edge over a bit and stand by the rocks for a few minutes, figuring they’ll be gone before too long, and then I start to see what they’re doin’ up there.
“They got this dog on the end of a rope, see, and they’re pullin’ on the rope and kicking the poor damn animal fit to beat the band, and laughing all the while like it’s great fun. And I could tell they’d been at it for some time already because that dog, he isn’t even saying nothing, not barkin’ or even whimpering anymore. They got that animal completely beat. Hell, I can see its poor old bug eyes starin’ up at them like it would just like to lay down and die right there, only they damn well wouldn’t let it.
“Well shit, I wasn’t gonna do nothing. That dog was a pretty good size. I didn’t want ‘em comin’ after me, Lord no!” The old man paused and licked his lips. Shearing entered the room and handed him a cup of coffee.
“You hear all this already, Sam?” Peters asked.
“Sure did.”
“Go on, Paulie.”
“Well, I just hunkered down to wait ‘em out. And pretty soon there wasn’t nothing they could do to make that dog stand up anymore. The way they’d been kickin’ at it I figure it was anybody’s guess whether the legs busted first or the ribs did. So then one of them, kind of a big