All the Inside Howling (Hollow Folk #2)(21)

“—just riding them, riding them all night long, like you’re the big old cock in the henhouse, and the hens swinging on their fishline, all of them, just waiting for you to take a ride, and them screaming, just screaming, and you got them Orpington hens, and you got them painted hens, and you got them peahens, and you got them Commune hens, and you got them—”

Great. This was just my luck, to get stuck in a cell next to a crazy guy. I dropped onto the narrow cot, and the metal frame squeaked. All at once, my neighbor cut off. For a moment, there was only silence, and then he took a wet, huffy breath and spat. Clothing rustled and his soles squeaked again as he shuffled along the bars, closer to my cell.

I knew he was locked in his cell. I knew I was locked in mine. But suddenly, my skin was prickling all over, practically crawling. He couldn’t get in here. He couldn’t reach me. And what the hell if he could? He was some wine-o. Maybe he picked up shifts at the mines, maybe he was a drifter. He didn’t care about me, didn’t mean me any harm, didn’t even know who I was. But why wasn’t he talking? Why had he gone so quiet? Why were the sounds of rustling clothing and squeaking rubber getting closer and closer and closer?

The chime startled me so badly that I almost fell off the cot. It came again, and this time I saw the dirty, gnarled finger that had curled around the cement wall and struck, once, twice, and now a third time, the iron bars of my cell. The nail was thick and yellow and split down the middle, where a scab that was an even darker yellow was flecked with brown. The nail snapped against the bar again, and again, and again, faster and faster. As the iron thrummed, the man spoke again. “Boy-o.” His voice had that same quavering pitch, that same layering of old rage and new rage and crazy. “I’m saying, boy-o.”

Another day, another time, maybe it would have seemed funny, or simply weird, or even sad. But right then, with that metallic ringing and that mottled nail and the fury sifting through the old man’s voice, I was scared. Luke, part of me thought. This was Luke. He was inside that old man, inside him like a hand in a sock-puppet, twisting that dirty, crooked finger around and around, striking that iron over and over, thrum, thrum, thrum, thrum.

“Boy-o.” And then, with no trace of the singsong quaver, the man snapped, “Candy ass, I’m speaking at you.”

“What?”

“You think I didn’t see you. You think I didn’t see you none. I seen you come in, seen you parade in with old Hatcher. But I seen you lots, heaps, plenty. I seen you in Denver, preening your tail feathers under the light, preening and plucking and clucking and cawing, just pretty as a jay, like you was looking for a ride, a real ride. And I seen you last night. Hey, boy-o. Hey. DeHaven Knight’s speaking at you, and I seen you last night, and you don’t want me twisting that pretty jay-bird neck, don’t want DeHaven Knight laying on the hand. Hey. Hey. Hey!”

The words rose in volume until the last hey was a shout, and all the old man’s rage broke to the surface. All of a sudden, the fear gripping me shattered. The strange chiming of the bars, that single arthritic finger tapping its insistent rhythm, those things had combined with the isolation of the cell to scare me, and scare me bad. But shouting—well, shouting was familiar, old-hat. I’d grown up with every kind of screaming and wailing and bellowing you could imagine, and all of the sudden I was right back at home. I rolled off the cot and paced towards the cell door.

“What?”

The grimy hand drifted away from the bars, towards me, but not close enough to touch. Still, I fought the urge to take a step back. This close, the smell of pee and B.O. and vomit wafted in from the next cell. With a lazy, almost feminine gesture, DeHaven Knight rolled his wrist and beckoned me with that split nail.

“You think I forgot. You think DeHaven Knight, him that’s got a brain like Jesus the Christ His god-awful self, you think he forgot.”

“I don’t know—”

Faster than I could believe, that grubby hand surged forward and snagged the denim jacket. DeHaven Knight hauled me to the bars, and even though I fought and pulled back, he was much stronger than I had expected. With my face pressed against the iron, I could see into the next cell and glimpse the man who had a hold of me.

DeHaven Knight, if that was his name, had a wet, ropy look to him, as if he were all dense knots and tangles. He wore a chamois shirt with blue pinstripes and the name Roderick in red stitching, and his jeans were three sizes too big with ragged bell-bottoms. I had expected him to be old, and his face was lined and weathered and too tight, like it would split if he turned his head too fast. But his hair was dark, without any gray, and it ended at his jaw in a ragged chop. When DeHaven Knight saw me looking at him, he jerked on the jacket again and smiled. It was a smile like you’d see painted up fourteen feet of billboard: too bright, too wide, too open for the rest of DeHaven Knight’s face, and it made me think that serial killers were charming, of that huge generalization, which had always seemed insane and simplistic and unbelievable, but here it was, staring me in the face, DeHaven Knight with a smile he could have peeled off Broadway.

“Boy-o,” was all he said, and breath smelled like spearmint and yeast and hops.

“Get off me,” I said. I pried at his hand, but his grip was iron.

As soon as I touched him, the world froze, turned to black, and vanished. A memory dragged me sideways, and for a disorienting moment I felt myself in two places at once: my body pressed against the bars of the cell, and some other part of me hurtling forward at an incredible speed. The movement was like flying and falling, like having a rocket strapped to my back. I had one dizzying heartbeat in which I thought this is wrong, this is all wrong, it’s never been like this before. Before it had been nothing, only darkness, but now—