The Howls of Boom Hall

The Midnight Call

Corrine Henderson once said that Hydra Falls was like a pretty cake that swallowed you first. The town is named after the nine waterfalls that cascade down to form Cold Soup Creek. Years ago, they'd tried to put a dam over one neck, causing for another to sprout elsewhere. Cold Soup Creek isn't so much of a creek as it is a vast, deep lake-like body of water at the bottom of a quarry, where the submerged remains of Boom Hall have been left to rot, a sunken mansion that has glowed eerily underwater like a centrepiece in a fish bowl for several centuries. The last time I saw Corey, she was running down the street after our old brown station wagon. I was sitting in the way-back seat on the day we left, surrounded by all my things like a storefront view of my bedroom. I used to dream of her chasing after that car sometimes, back when I remembered her fully: long hair flurrying around a desperate face, beautiful white teeth clenched in a furious grimace, crystal-like eyes full of determination, the buttons of her denim short shorts glinting like firecrackers in the evening sunset, her white t-shirt stained with a dinner that she'd been given no time to eat because we'd been given no time to say goodbye, and one of the mouths of Hydra's many heads closing in around her heels to swallow her whole. On that last day, her tears matched mine. I still often wonder if the ghost of my handprint is still pressed to the glass of that car window in some junkyard somewhere, placed there just as Corey vanished in the orange dusk and me around the corner of Sycamore Avenue.

Or so I'd thought that that was the last time.

Here I am, taking the Interstate 70 from Pennsylvania, where I had ended up all those years ago, speeding towards Hydra Falls, Indiana, back to where it all began—the Crossroads of America. I'm going home. And only now do I realise that I still think of it as my hometown, even though my family hasn't lived there in a decade. "Drive" by The Cars is playing on the radio like a ghostly reminder. A part of me wants to turn it off, but I don't. Because we all loved listening to it that last summer, we outplayed every tape we recorded it on, and because it's making this Marlboro cigarette taste as bittersweet as the memories. "Free Bird" by Lynyrd Skynyrd starts to play shortly after I light the second one, and with it comes memories of the gang that I'd forgotten on purpose by avoiding these certain songs. A weird cocktail of both fear and excitement forces me to put the pedal to the metal and make the rust-coloured Mercury Cougar rental roar until states blend and blur on either side of me into water colour paintings, bringing Indiana closer to the horizon.

Michael Cohen's voice was exactly the shock I needed to get me out of my drunken stupor and on this dangerous trip. Late in the night, it crawled out of the grave that I'd made of all things in the past to whisper of home. I was clearing the last of my dad's things out of his house when the call came through to the landline the other night. It rang shrilly throughout the quiet house, and rang and rang and rang, until I'd no other choice but to answer. Although I didn't know what time it was, I knew it was an unusual hour for someone to call. Long past midnight anyhow.

'Hello?' said an unfamiliar voice, aged by time. He didn't even wait for me to speak. 'Hello, is this William Parish?'
'Yeah,' I'd answered groggily. 'Who's this?'
'William Parish from Hydra Falls?' he'd followed up hurriedly.
'Yeah,' I repeated. 'Or so I used to be.'
'You moved away to Havertown in '84?' said the guy.
Again, I'd responded with: 'Yeah.'   
'Your mom is called Evelyn Parish?'
'Yup. Well, it's Evelyn Wallis now,' I muttered impatiently as I lit a cigarette and kicked aside a box full of photographs and vinyls. 'Look, could you cut the bullshit and get to the point? I'm pretty busy right now. Before you say anything, I ain't buying what you're selling, buddy. Just so you know.'
'It really is you, Billy!' The voice on the phone laughed heartily. 'Gosh, it's good to hear your voice! Gee, I'm sorry for calling you so late, but it's really important. How—how've you been?'
'I've had better days.' I'd blinked heavily and stumbled closer to the telephone, looking over Dad's stuff that I'd packed away. I guess that's all we amount to in the end: just a few boxes full of shitty stuff that we no longer need. When the lamp light stung my eyes, recognition twigged somewhere between my ears and brain. 'Wait—is that you, Mike?' I'd almost called him Mikey, just like I'd used to, it was on the very tip of my tongue, but I'd stopped myself because it sounded too childish now that I could kinda grow a beard. 'Michael Cohen?'
'Yeah! Yeah! It's me! Goddammit, I've spent all week calling every goddam William Parish in Pennsylvania to get you!' Mike chuckled excitedly again. 'I wasn't sure if you still lived out there. Goddammit, it's you! It's Billy fucking Parish!'
'Mikey fucking Cohen. Well, I'll be damned.' I'd snorted out trails of smoke. Despite the weight of my heart, there was a nostalgic, boyish sense of giddiness in it now, too. 'My god, how long has it been?'
There was a beat, then Mike answered: 'Ten years. It's been exactly ten years.'
I'd scratched my brow with the hand holding my cigarette in the silence that followed, struggling over what else to say to someone who used to be my childhood best friend. There were a thousand things I wanted to say, but I couldn't find the courage to drudge up just one. That summer had cost us all everything. Instead of filling the gap with nonsense, pleasantries, or small talk, I'd asked him, 'So, what's going on? Everything alright?'
'Yeah, yeah ...' he'd answered, but his voice had trailed off towards the end to whisper that it wasn't. 'Just ... it's been ten years. We were wondering if you were gonna go to the anniversary.'
'"We"?' I'd questioned.
'You know, everyone else,' he'd replied. 'The old gang. The Knights of the Midwest. We were gonna treat it like some sorta reunion. It's about time, don't you think? Time to bring everyone back east of the Rockies. Unless you're busy, that is?'
'You've spoken to the others?'
'Most of 'em. So, you coming? If you don't, Parish, I'm gonna come get you.'
'I ... I dunno, Mike.' I'd rested my sweaty forehead against the wall of the hallway. 'This isn't really a good time for me.'
'You gotta, Billy. Everyone's going back,' Mike had said. 'We're all going home again.'
'So, you did leave.'
'I sure did.' Mike had sighed. 'Of course I did. But I'm going back, too. Even though I'd swore that I never would.'
'I guess it would be great to see you all again.' I'd closed my eyes tight until my heart started to throb. The draw of catching up with the old gang and getting away almost overpowered the terror of returning, but I knew that wouldn't last the closer I got to Hydra. The thought of it weakened my legs, so I sat down with my back against the peeling radiator. 'I'm not sure I can. I've got a lot going on at the moment, Mike.'
'It's only for a few days at the most,' Mike had answered desperately. I could hear the sounds of a Tv from down the line, just about drowning out the steady whooshes and thrums of a highway. Mike was already on the road. He could've been close to Hydra now, for all I knew. 'It would be good for you. Dude, maybe there are some things that you just gotta confront—'
'Fine,' I'd found myself saying, both reluctantly and against my will, as I watched dust settle on the bare floorboards of the gutted house. Maybe I just said it to shut him up, to stop him from mentioning anything about that summer. There it was: that old fear. It stirred in my gut like a monster under the bed, the coming of it scraping along my spine like the claws of the creature as it dragged itself out from the black places. Some things were better left buried. 'Okay,' I'd sighed deeply again.
'Okay? Really?' Mike cried. Before I could change my mind, he'd added, 'So, I'll see you tomorrow? Or I guess it's more appropriate to say I'll see you tonight now, going by the clock.'
'Tomorrow?' I'd choked. 'Are you kidding me? That doesn't give me much time. I've things to do—'
'Can't it wait until you come back? Hey, I'm sorry it took me so long to get to you,' Mike had muttered, 'but I did have to go through nearly every William Parish of Pennsylvania until I found you. You'll still come back, right? Come on. I haven't asked a favour from you in over a decade. If you do this for me, there's some Milk Duds in it for you.'
'I—'
'Tonight, Billy. It has to be tonight,' he'd said urgently, not a note of comedy in his adamancy. I thought I'd even heard his voice tremble. 'You need to leave as soon as possible. I can only stay around for a day.'
I'd scratched my head and looked to the unwashed cups in the sink, cups that he'd put his mouth against and never would again, and realised that the dead weren't getting any deader. 'I'll see you in a few, I guess.'
'YEAH!' Michael had cried; and I could almost hear him punch the air. 'I knew you wouldn't pussy out on me. And I didn't even have to mention the girl. She was gonna be my fumblerooski.'
'What girl?' I'd said dumbly, feigning obliviousness.
'Oh, you know what girl, Billy Parish,' Mike had tittered. 'The only girl.'
'Cor—Corrine Henderson?' I'd asked, trying to sound as casual as possible to keep the tone of surprise out of my voice. 'She's still there?'
'Corey never left.' There was a grin in his voice. 'She's still there, Billy, waiting for us all to come back. Waiting for you to come home.'
'Okay. Well, I gotta finish up a few things here first when I wake up. Then I'll hit the road, I guess.' I'd glanced at the half-empty bottle of whiskey sitting under the rusted radiator, where I'd spent most of today. 'I'll see you tonight or tomorrow.'
'Great! I knew you were a true Hoosier, through and through. Hopefully I'll see you then,' Mike had replied. When the line fell quiet again, he whispered, 'Hey, Billy?'
'Yeah, Mike?'
'I ... I'm real sorry about your dad,' he'd said sombrely. 'I read about it in the obituaries. He was a good man. A real good man. I hope you're keeping well ... well, as well as can be. Shit, so much has happened since—'
'Thanks, Mike. I appreciate that.' I'd tried a glib smile in the hope that he'd hear it and to keep my eyes from welling up. 'I'll see you, old pal.'
'You swear an oath to the Knights of the Midwest that you'll come?'
'I promise.' I sighed.
     'No matter what?' he demanded.
I laughed emptily. 'No matter what.'
'Good.' There was a beat. 'Because I found something, Billy,' he continued rapidly, no time to spare. 'Something that could put an end to what we started all those years ago. Meet me in Hydra. It has to be there, and it has to be all of us. It's not over. We've got to go back to the beginning to end it. They're still out there, Billy, in the dark, in the night, and they're coming for all of us.'
The line went dead.
Mom called shortly afterwards to talk about the funeral arrangements. I dunno if it was concern that put me on the road, or maybe just an excuse to run away and avoid everything right now, but it's almost seventeen hours later, and I'm just about to finish a ten-hour journey across America to a place I, too, had swore never to return to if I could help it. What Michael had said at the end of the call was childhood nonsense, I knew that, but a part of me wanted to make sure that he was in the right state of mind. Something about that phone call worried me gravely. Sure, I didn't know what he sounded like these days, but it sure as shit didn't sound like him from the old days. And if he wasn't in a good place right now, I owe it to the years he has given to being my best friend to help him out if needs be. So, I'm going home again. But I guess that same fifteen-year-old boy isn't going back in more ways than one: when death visits your doorstep, it either takes a part of you or all of you. I'd left with a dad at home, and returned to Hydra without one. I glanced in the rear-view mirror and a stranger looked back at me. Whoever I thought I was didn't move over 660 miles away with me; only creases of him can be found in the ever so slight wrinkles of adulthood around my eyes. But the miles are beginning to feel like years, as if I'm traveling back to the past. By the time I get passed Columbus, Ohio, I can almost smell the faint aroma of the warm cornfields during a hot Indiana summer filling the car, the very ones we'd played hide-and-seek in. Another sixty miles done, another year closer to the past. The air was getting a little more humid, and I knew wheat fields would soon replace the highway. I can smell the warm nights of Hydra Falls, heat that lay sticky on your skin, when the dark was loud with clicking insects and faint conversations in neighbouring porches. Today, it's perfect Indiana weather: the heat of the sun is cooled by the speed dial, gusts of wind pouring through the open window to tug at the back of my shirt like a spurned lover unwilling to let me go, pleading with me not to leave, promising that I shouldn't return. I spy the first sparks of softly glowing lightning bugs in the hedges overhanging the gardens and forest edges. They're not much different from the ones back at Havertown, but I know they are. They're little Indianapolis lights. Some night soon, the cicadas will emerge from seventeen years of being underground to scream, just like me. I'm so lost in memory that I've forgotten that I'm stuck between a state of having a hangover and still being drunk.

And the others, shaped by whatever life has thrown at them over the years, just couldn't possibly be the same boys I knew going back. It has been years since I've seen the Knights of the Midwest—made up of myself, Michael "Mikey" Cohen, John Fox, Myles Kilfeather, Norman "Norm" Spychalski, and Corrine "Corey" Henderson. I haven't thought about them in a very long time, but it looks like I'm making up for all of that on this drive. The postcards, the letters, and the pictures had gradually stopped over the years; and in each passing one, someone else went missing from them. We'd tried to arrange meet-ups in the early days, but Pennsylvania was too far away a state for a kid to travel alone to. Last I'd heard, Mikey, the outer space fanatic, and the rest of the Cohen family had moved away to somewhere in New England. Maine, I think. He didn't make it to the moon, but I'd hoped he'd made it out of Hydra Falls. Smarty-pants Norm joined the Ivy League colleges—either Yale University in Connecticut, Brown University in Rhode Island, or Dartmouth College in New Hampshire. It had to be one of those, because I couldn't imagine him finding many fascinating bugs under the great lights of New York. The ever wayward Myles had went off west before graduation after somehow wrangling an apprenticeship as a mechanic. With forged credentials, I'd bet, just to get out of ending up in the same systematic likelihood of heading to Nowhere just like his deadbeat dad. Myles had always been obsessed with ticking Route 66 off his bucket list first, and I hope he did it. He could hot-wire a car back in Indiana faster than he could smoke a cigarette, so it would only make sense if he was able to put one together from scratch by the time he reached California. Who knows where smooth-talker John Fox went? Towards greatness, no doubt. With a voice for radio and a charm for TV, John Fox was always destined for a platform that put him front and centre on a stage. Corey was the last one to be forgotten out of the gang, and the only one I heard absolutely nothing about. I think I made it my mission not to. To be honest, I hadn't thought about any of them properly in about five years. When I did, it was always during that sublime sunset in the suburbs, when we were saying our goodbyes before they were due. But here we all are now, me and all my old friends, the Knights of the Midwest, heading that way from all corners of the country, back to Hydra Falls.
It was a big year, that last one we spent together: the Boston Celtics beat the Los Angeles Lakers in seven games to capture their 15th NBA Championship; and Mikey had been so happy about it that he'd puked on his red pair of Converse Chuck Taylor All Stars and cried with joy. President Ronald Reagan had made his pretty controversial blunder by joking about Russia during a voice check for a radio broadcast that year, declaring, "My fellow Americans, I'm pleased to tell you today that I've signed legislation that will outlaw Russia forever. We begin bombing in five minutes". Although off-the-record, unfortunately, it remains infamous for being said during the second Cold War. Sally Ride became the first woman in Space, which Corey was all too happy to remind Mikey about despite hating absolutely everything that lies beyond this planet because she found it too depressing. Bruce Springsteen released "Born in the U.S.A.", which we'd played as we swam in the Hendersons' pool until it degraded beyond listenable. And lastly, the Beauty Queen Killer began his six-week cross-country killing spree across the United States. I'd became haunted by the Beauty Queen Killer, sure as shit that he'd come to Hydra and try to kill Corey Henderson. I'd spent nearly every night cycling up and down our block that spring with a baseball bat roped around my shoulder, making sure that Christopher Wilder wasn't waiting underneath her porch to abduct her when she came home from cheerleading practice. She'd pop out of Bobby Nickel's Rally Red 1972 Dodge Challenger and ask me what I was doing every night, but I'd just say that I was doing nothing ... nothing except protecting her.
'You're a weird kid, Parish,' she'd say with a smile. Then she'd go inside, where I was sure the beauty queen was safe from the Beauty Queen Killer.
But Corey Henderson never needed much protection from a guy: I'd seen her shrug off a dislocated shoulder when a stunt went wrong during practice, punch Colt Everett out cold for trying to look up Emily Wren's skirt at a party, and climb brazenly up to her roof most nights to look to the stars that she swore she hated so much. She was a tough nut—the toughest knight of the midwest. Truth be told, she'd have done a better job keeping me safe from the Beauty Queen Killer—except I was no beauty queen; I was all skinny limbs, messy black hair, and a complexion paler than milk, and time hasn't changed that all that much.

The sky quickly darkens, so I turn the rental into the next motel to catch a few hours sleep, to wash off a week worth of alcohol, and to shave off a couple of years from my face. As the car careens into the lot, that old terror catches up—the one that I'd thought I'd left behind in Hydra, the one that I'd spent most of my adulthood trying to drink and smoke and screw away—but it had raced out to meet me halfway there. It lingers over me as I stand beneath the cold stuttering shower, it starts to grow as I shave off my five o'clock shadow, and it fully forms as a shadow over my shoulder as I'm buying Milk Duds and Skittles from the vending machine and shovelling shards into the ice bucket from the machine below my room.
Cold sweat sprouts on my upper lip. My breathing gets faster, until I can hear my shallow breaths over the buzz of the motel sign. Every hair on my shivering body is standing on edge, goosebumps flushing my skin like electricity to push them up. The dark and faceless shadow of a boy reflects in the glass of the vending machine, appearing and disappearing and reappearing underneath the blinking bulbs. In my mind and against the glass, I see his last breath shatter into bubbles, his bloody face screaming for me not to let him die. I'd been obsessed that summer with a serial killer on the loose, I'd never dreamed that I'd have become a killer myself by the end of it.
No. I can't think of that night now. Not yet. I'll face his ghost once I've reached home. Bobby Nickel has waited ten years; he can wait another hour or two. I close my eyes and grip the edges of the vending machine to steady my trembling legs, until that bloated pale-blue face over my shoulder stops screaming and sobbing, Cold Creek Soup dripping from his blonde hair and sopping letterman jacket. I can smell the cold water on his dead skin. Bile burns my throat as the vomit arises from my empty guts until I'm forced to swallow it again.
'It's not real,' I whisper to myself, wiping spittle from my lips. 'You're not real!'
But he is. But he was.