Rockabilly Limbo Read online

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Though known largely for his epic tales of the American West including The Mountain Man series, New York Times bestselling author William W. Johnstone began his career by writing some of the most frightening and nightmare-inducing novels of his generation, including The Devil’s Heart and The Devil’s Kiss, which have developed a cult following in the years since their first publication.

  You can learn more about Johnstone’s books including upcoming releases and special promotions by visiting williamjohnstone.net or kensingtonbooks.com.

  Click here to get all the latest news from William W. Johnstone!

  Rockabilly Limbo

  WILLIAM W. JOHNSTONE

  KENSINGTON PUBLISHING CORP.

  www.kensingtonbooks.com

  All copyrighted material within is Attributor Protected.

  LYRICAL UNDERGROUND BOOKS are published by

  Kensington Publishing Corp.

  119 West 40th Street

  New York, NY 10018

  Copyright © 1996 William W. Johnstone

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means without the prior written consent of the publisher, excepting brief quotes used in reviews.

  To the extent that the image or images on the cover of this book depict a person or persons, such person or persons are merely models, and are not intended to portray any character or characters featured in the book.

  PUBLISHER’S NOTE

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, organizations, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  LYRICAL PRESS, LYRICAL UNDERGROUND, and the Lyrical

  Underground logo are Reg. U.S. Pat. & TM Office.

  First electronic edition: November 2016

  ISBN: 978-1-6018-3539-0

  Table of Contents

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Book One

  One

  Two

  Three

  Four

  Five

  Six

  Seven

  Eight

  Nine

  Ten

  Eleven

  Twelve

  Thirteen

  Book Two

  One

  Two

  Three

  Four

  Five

  Six

  Seven

  Eight

  Nine

  Ten

  Eleven

  Twelve

  Thirteen

  Fourteen

  Book Three

  One

  Two

  Three

  Four

  Five

  Six

  The Beginning

  Notes

  Book One

  Into a limbo large and broad, since called

  The Paradise of Fools.

  —John Milton

  One

  Cole parked the car in the drive and got out, standing for a moment staring at the house. Cole had spent more than twenty years behind a badge, retired just about a year now, but once a cop, always a cop.

  He stared at the house just off Interstate 40, a few miles east of the city limits of Memphis. Something was wrong here. Every cop instinct he possessed told him so.

  Immediately, thoughts of those horrible and unbelievable scenes in Northeast Arkansas flitted through his mind. It hadn’t been that long ago. Less than a year. But no. That was over. Through. Done with. At least he hoped it was.

  But Hank Milam, the Episcopal priest, didn’t think it was over. He maintained that the worst was yet to come.

  Cole shook those thoughts from his head and reached into his Bronco, closing one big hand around the butt of a 9 mm. He tucked the pistol behind his belt and walked toward the house, the uneasiness within him growing with each step.

  Something was wrong. But he just didn’t know what.

  Soon after their return to Memphis last year, Jesse Cole Younger and Katti Baylor had married. Katti continued her writing career and Cole did occasional work for Jim Deaton’s private detective agency. Not that he needed to work, for he didn’t. Cole was a moderately wealthy man, mostly from his parents’ estate and careful investing over the years, and there was his pension from the sheriffs department. But Cole was only in his mid-forties; he was too young to retire.

  The house loomed before him as he walked across the lawn. It was quiet. No birds singing. No breeze moved the air. He stopped abruptly as the very faint sounds of music drifted toward him.

  Oh, Jesus! he thought. Not again.

  The music was from the 1950s. Rockabilly music.

  Cole did a slow 360. He could not locate the source of the music. He remembered what some of the press had called the deadly incident in Northeast Arkansas: Rockabilly Hell.

  They were sure right about that.

  The very faint music stopped. “Maybe it was my imagination, working overtime,” Cole muttered.

  He hoped that was it.

  He walked on toward the house.

  He heard the music again. Stopped in the yard, just a few feet from the front porch. Listened.

  It was an old Johnny Cash tune. Back when the Man in Black was recording for Sun Records. “I Walk the Line.”

  Cole felt a sweaty chill in the center of his back. The music stopped as he stepped up on the porch. Cole put his hand on the doorknob. No need for that. The door was cracked open. That wasn’t like Kat. Not at all like her.

  Using his left hand, Cole pushed the door open and stepped into the house.

  “Kat?” He waited. Nothing. “Kat?”

  Behind him, just audible through the open door, Cole again heard the music, very faint. Dale Hawkins singing “Susie Q.”

  Cole touched the butt of the 9 mm. Started to pull it from his waistband. Thought better of it. Walked into the large den and stopped. What was that smell? A very sweet smell, very pleasant. He couldn’t place the savory odor.

  “Kat, honey?” he called.

  Silence.

  He heard the wind pick up outside. He glanced out the big picture window. Storm clouds were gathering. Cole turned just as the front door slammed shut.

  “Come on, Cole. Relax,” he muttered. “Just settle down and take it easy.”

  Rain began splattering heavily against the house. A late summer thunderstorm was blowing through, tracking eastward.

  Cole turned on a lamp against the darkness created by the storm. The light glowed warmly and cast a comforting light in the den.

  The faint sounds of 1950s music had been cut off with the slamming of the front door.

  But where was Kat?

  The doors to the big double garage had been closed when Cole drove up, but that was not unusual.

  He looked around for a note. No note to be seen. And that sure as hell wasn’t like Kat.

  Hell.

  Hell on earth, someone had called that bloody, awful incident in Northeast Arkansas.

  “Damn,” Cole whispered. “Why did that suddenly come to mind?”

  Outside, the storm was reaching its apex, the wind bending branches, ripping off leaves as it howled its fury, lashing out at the land.

  That sweet smell Cole had detected grew stronger as he walked toward the den, then began to fade as he stepped into the long hall leading to their bedroom.

  He stopped, his ears straining. Was that a giggle he heard?

  Some of those . . . things back in Arkansas last year had giggled. A giggle totally devoid of humor. The giggle of evil and torture and humiliation and death.r />
  Cole looked into their bedroom. Nothing was out of place. He opened the doors to the other bedrooms in that wing of the house. Everything seemed to be in order.

  Thunder shook the house. Wind slammed against the native stone of the home, seeking entrance, gaining none. Storm was getting worse. The lamp Cole had turned on flickered, faded, then came back on full strength. Cole stepped out of the hallway and into the den. He turned on more lights, for the sky had darkened so it looked like night out.

  That sweet smell once more assailed his nostrils. But it wasn’t the sickly sweet smell of, say, a funeral home with several services going on at once, with hundreds of flowers scenting the solemn air.

  This was more like . . . well, Cole didn’t know what it was like. But it was puzzling. The smell had not been in the house when he’d left that morning.

  There was a savage flash of lightning, striking something so close Cole could smell the burn, followed by a nearly deafening crash of thunder.

  The lights went out, abruptly plunging the den into near darkness.

  The sweet smell in Cole’s nostrils was replaced by the distinctive and unpleasant odor of burning sulfur. Cole picked up the phone. The line was dead. The lightning probably hit a transformer, exploded it, and brought the pole down, lines and all.

  He whirled around as another giggle reached him. The giggling came from the kitchen, closed off from the dining area by bat-wing doors.

  “Now, goddamnit!” Cole said, his voice hard. “I’ve had about all this I’m going to take.” His fingers were closing around the butt of the 9 mm when the giggling was replaced by singing.

  “Happy birthday to you,

  Happy birthday to you,

  Happy birthday, dear Cole,

  Happy birthday to you!”

  He had forgotten all about it. Today was his birthday. He was forty-six years old.

  The bat-wings were pushed open and Katti walked out, carrying a huge birthday cake. That was the source of the sweet smell. She was grinning mischievously at him.

  Katti was followed by the Episcopal priest, Hank Milam, and his new wife, Beverly, who still worked for Jim Deaton’s private detective agency. Beverly was holding a flashlight, the beam lighting the way through the dimness caused by the storm. She laughed at the expression on Cole’s face.

  The whole crew was there: Jim Deaton, Bob Jordan, from the Memphis PD, Gary Markham, a PI who worked for Jim. And there was Scott Frey, the newly named Special Agent in charge of the Memphis office of the FBI, and George Steckler, another FBI agent, all of them grinning at Cole, and all carrying presents.

  Katti set the cake down on the table and gave Cole a kiss. That was followed by a lot of backslapping and handshaking and remarks about his being over the hill and married to a younger woman.

  The candles were lit and Cole blew them out. Cole opened his presents, the cake was cut, and the punch poured. Then they all sat down in the darkened den to eat and talk.

  “Had you going there for a while, didn’t we, Cole?” George asked, a grin on his face. George had been a real horse’s ass when they’d first met in Arkansas, but had turned into a genuinely likeable fellow . . . after several encounters with some homicidal ghosts.

  “You sure did. Especially with that music. That did it for me.”

  That was met by blank stares. Finally, Hank asked, “What music, Cole?”

  “All those old fifties tunes. Come on, where did you rig the tape recorder?”

  The smiles faded, the cake and punch forgotten. George said, “We didn’t rig any recorders, Cole. And we didn’t hear any music.”

  “Hey, gang,” Cole said. “This joke is getting old.”

  “No joke,” Katti said. “We didn’t have any fifties music playing. Where did you hear it?”

  “Outside, in the yard. And then faintly when I came into the house. But it was coming from the outside.”

  Scott Frey leaned forward, placing his punch glass and cake plate on the coffee table. “No one here rigged up any music, Cole.”

  “That’s the truth, honey,” Katti said. “That would be going just a little too far.”

  Bob Jordan used his cell phone to call his precinct, to check on how much damage, if any, the storm had caused. After asking, he was silent for a moment, then, “What the hell do you mean, what storm? We’re sitting out here with no electricity and no phone service. We had a hell of a blow.”

  He listened for a moment. “Okay,” he said, and punched off. He looked at the group. “There was no storm there, and no reports of any storm anywhere in the metro or suburbs.”

  The group all looked toward the big picture window, at the rain still splattering the window, the branches still bending from the wind, the dark storm clouds swirling close to the ground, and the lightning ripping at the sky.

  “Really?” Gary Markham said, his tone as dry as the world’s finest martini.

  Then they all heard the music, very clearly. It was the old Buddy Holly hit: “Raining in My Heart.”

  “Oh, shit!” George said softly.

  * * *

  There had been no more music from the past, the storm was soon over, the sky becoming blue and cloudless, the late afternoon air hot and humid.

  But a damper had sure been put on the party.

  “Maybe we really didn’t hear that music,” Beverly said, a hopeful note to her voice.

  Hank cut his eyes to his wife.

  “All right,” Bev said. “So we heard it. But it might have come from a passing car. That’s possible, isn’t it?”

  “Possible,” Cole said. “But not likely. I heard several different tunes from the fifties.”

  The phone rang, startling everyone in the room. Cole reached for the phone just as all the lights popped back on. It was a representative from the power company. Bob’s office had called them.

  Cole listened for a moment, thanked the person, and hung up. “No other outages reported in this area,” he told the group. “No lines down, no transformers out of service. He said we must have thrown a breaker. I didn’t tell him that was the first thing we checked.”

  George stepped back into the house. “I did a walk-around of the area,” the FBI agent said. “Not a drop of rain fell anywhere else. Not even on the highway out front. It was all centralized right over this house.”

  Cole said nothing. He ate the remainder of his birthday cake and finished his glass of punch. Katti began gathering up the dishes, Bev helping. “I’ll fix coffee,” Katti said. The women disappeared into the kitchen.

  The men sat in the den and looked at each other for a moment.

  “All right,” Cole broke the silence. “Let’s talk it out. We know there was a very strange and violent storm and it was felt nowhere else. We know this house—and only this house—lost power and phone service. We all heard the music. Anyone have any ideas or suggestions?”

  No one said anything. Katti and Bev came out of the kitchen and sat down, Katti saying, “Coffee will be ready in about five minutes.”

  “Maybe that wasn’t the devil we faced in Arkansas,” Hank said abruptly. All eyes turned toward him. “Maybe . . . well. I’m talking out of turn. It’s just a theory of mine.”

  Bev patted her husband’s leg. “Now just how did you reach that conclusion?”

  “North Arkansas was a skirmish before the real battle,” Hank said. “In one month it will be a year to the day we all confronted the evil. That was just a little test. Now we have the final exam.”

  “You sound damn sure of yourself, Hank,” Jim Deaton said. “If it wasn’t the devil, who was it?”

  “I don’t know,” the priest hedged the question. And that really wasn’t like him at all.

  The odor of fresh-brewed coffee began wafting through the house. Bev started to get up. Cole held up a hand. “Sit still. I’ll help Katti.”

  “But you’re the birthday boy,” Bev said, forcing a smile.

  “Let’s hope it isn’t my last,” Cole’s words wiped the smile from th
e woman’s lips. “I did hear that music.”

  “At the risk of sounding repetitious,” George said. “Shit!”

  Coffee poured and everyone again seated, Gary asked, “If not the devil, then who, Hank? And why?”

  “Let’s assume it is the devil. Why? My God, people. Morally and spiritually, the nation is bankrupt! It’s been going steadily downhill for years. You can’t turn on the television without seeing and hearing some jackass reporter openly sneering at the views presented by the Christian Coalition. Mocking the words found in the Bible. Many people have lost both their love of God and fear of His wrath. Many of the men and women who now fill the pulpits don’t ever preach of punishment for sins; they preach pardon and forgiveness and forget all about Hell. That doesn’t exist. Do your own thing. Lie, cheat, steal, fornicate, kill, corrupt, rape, assault . . . do anything you want to do, just be sure and confess your sins and take Jesus into your heart before you croak, and the Church will guarantee you a place in Heaven. It’s a crock of horseshit,” the always blunt and outspoken priest said. “Why do you think I’m always on the edge of being kicked out of the Church? I’ve been censured so many times for my views, I’ve been warned that one more screwup on my part and I’m out. Well, it’s my belief that the biggest screwup the world has ever seen is about to take place.”

  The controversial priest stood up and walked to the picture window. “In a way, I’m glad it’s come to this. It’s going to be very interesting.” He turned to face the group. “You can only mock God for so long before He gets a bellyful of it. God said He would not destroy the earth by flood . . . not again. So what does that leave? Take your choice. The sky’s the limit. Well, just maybe God has become so disgusted with us, He’s stepped back and let Ol’ Nick open the door. I think He did it several years ago. But at first, the Dark Prince suspected a trick. You have to remember, those two have been fighting each other for time immemorial. Now, Ol’ Nick has stepped through that door and he’s having the time of his long and evil life. But what is the devil really doing? Nothing. He doesn’t have to do a thing. He’s letting us do it for him. Remember, all God ever said was that He’d show us the way. He never said He’d personally lead us and keep us on the road. He left that to us. And brothers and sisters, we took the wrong turn. He’s going to let us destroy ourselves.”