Supernatural Noir

The girl made a weak noise; for a second he was not sure how she had come to be there.

“Where are we?” he asked, and she said, “Wha . . . ,” and sat up straight, as if she were in a classroom, trying to give the impression that she had been paying attention.

“We in Oregon yet?” he asked.

“Uh . . . I don’t know. Maybe. There was a sign back a ways.”

He fingered a cigarette from a crumpled pack and lit up. The smoke tasted stale, but cleared his head. The radio, with its crackle of static and glowing green dial, seemed like an instrument for measuring background radiation.

“I remember now,” said the girl with sober assurance. “We been in Oregon a long time.”

Curls of mist trailed across the road, and towering into a starless sky, a group of neon signs ahead was haloed by a doubled ring of shining air. Apart from the rank grasses along the shoulder, Michael could see nothing of the land. A road sign shot past. One thirteen to Portland, twelve to Whidby Bay. On the left a pancake house with glaring picture windows looked as bright and isolated as an orbital station. The mist was thickening and it tired him to peer through it.

“Break out the coke,” he told the girl.

Dutifully, she fed his nose. His heart raced, the skin on his forehead tightened, but there was no sharpness, no shrugging off of fatigue. His skull was impacted with something that prevented all but the most rudimentary thought. He was exhausted, he stank, his fingernails were rimmed with black. At the last possible moment he swung off the interstate and sent the Cadillac squealing along the curving access road that led to Whidby Bay.

“Where we going?” the girl asked.

His mouth was so dry he could barely speak and, when he did, the word he spoke sounded guttural and unfamiliar, like troll language.

“Motel.”

——

Set at the end of the main street, capping off a row of muffin shops, gift shops, restaurants that resembled cabins and had cutesy names, and a closed-up Boron station, the Elfland Lodge appeared to be too much motel for a town the size of Whidby Bay, a three-story green-and-white structure with a wing at one end and no more than a half-dozen cars in a huge parking lot bordered by a chest-high hedge. Michael supposed that the town must have a booming tourist season, a time for macramй festivals and vegan-paloozas, and this was not that time—either that or someone was using the place to launder money. An electrified sign featuring a leprechaun-like figure in a green suit doing a jig was mounted on a pole out front. Stick-on letters applied to its facing promised free cable and welcomed the Whidby Bay HS Class of ’87 for their 25th Year Reunion—dates showed this glorious event was scheduled to begin and end the week previous.

The night man was a plump, thirtyish guy with frizzy hair and a beer gut, wearing Mother Goose glasses and a T-shirt that read ORYCON 26 and sported a cartoon of a chubby rocket put-putting through the void, propelled by little poots of smoke. He was kicked back in a swivel chair behind the reception desk when Michael entered, listening to an iPod, his head nodding as if to a sprightly rhythm. The lights in the office were dim, there was a strong scent of air freshener, and a stubbed-out roach lay in an ashtray back of the desk.

“One twenty . . . it’s out back,” the night man said, handing over a key card. Then as Michael was about to leave, he called, “Dude! Check out the elves.”

This roused a mild paranoia in Michael. “Elves?”

The night man adopted a fatuous air and a fruity tone of voice. “Those from which our establishment derives its name. The owner brought them back from the Black Forest. Believe me, they are not to be missed.”

“What are you talking about?”

“The Black Forest. In Germany, you know,” the night man said defensively. “Elves . . . little statues of elves.”

“Why the fuck should I care about some dumb-ass statues?”

“They’re artifacts. Relics. I guess some old Nazi guy owned them.”

Michael continued to glare at him, unsure whether or not he was being played in some way.

“Hey, forget it,” said the night man. “I simply thought you’d find them amusing.”

Michael parked in front of 120, a few slots away from a brown Dodge minivan, the only other vehicle on the seaward side of the motel. Heavy surf pounded close by. Salty air. Orange light bulbs ranging the breezeway illuminated a wide stretch of lawn bounded by a waist-high flagstone wall; beyond the wall, the darkness was absolute. He saw no elves.

There were, however, what looked to be a bunch of oddly shaped, painted rocks standing at the far end of the property. With the girl in tow, he strolled across the lawn toward the rocks and soon realized that these were the elves of which the night man had spoken. There were twenty of them, each about three, three and a half feet tall, carved from wood, disturbingly lifelike, and they had been arranged into groups of five, distinct within the larger grouping. They had dark brown faces, floppy caps like Santa hats but green, shirts with embroidered buttonholes and seven-league boots with sagging tops. Their laminated surfaces held a sticky-looking gloss.

“Lord help us,” said the girl. “Those things are wicked.”

Michael was inclined to agree. These were not the benign creatures of heroic fantasy, but the corrupt denizens of Grimms’ fairy tales. More like dwarves than elves. Their faces were those of long-chi

The girl tried to drag him away. “I got to pee!”

“I’ll be in in a minute.” He handed her the key card.

“C’mon with me.”

She plucked at his arm and he shook her off, saying, “You need help to pee?”

Her lips thi

He chuckled and shook out a cigarette from his pack. “I wasn’t counting on you being responsible.”

“They got evil in ’em. You’re just stirring ’em up, standing here and all. They’ll hurt you. Or maybe worse.”

“The elves?”

“Whatever you want to call ’em.”

“And you know this how? You have these amazing powers, right? Your mama’s a witch back in West Virgi

“Te

“So you are a witch? You whup up potions out of possum guts and a pinch of geechee root? You cure warts and love troubles? How’d you get to be a witch if your mama didn’t teach you?”

She fixed him with a hateful stare.

“I bet I know.” He lit up and adopted a hick drawl. “You was standing on a corner over to Taterville one evening, waiting on the bus to Hog Jowl, when this here beam of light pierced down from heaven . . .”

She stalked off toward the motel.

“Or maybe you was in Hog Jowl! Waiting on the bus to Taterville!” he called after her. “I get them two places confused!”

She whirled about and said venomously, “You think you’re so damn smart! Well, go on! Stay there and see what happens!”

Startled by her defiance, he watched after her until she vanished inside the room. Little Missy, he thought, could serve up a side of mean. He returned his attention to the elves. He gave some of them names—Groper, Sleazy, Ratfuck, Spongehead—but became bored, distracted by the booming surf. Peering over the flagstone wall, he could see nothing, but it was apparent that the motel stood atop a cliff, a high cliff if his spider senses were reliable. The darkness beneath wanted him, drew him down, and he had a fleeting impulse to vault over the wall. Not a good sign. Almost as not-good as no longer being able to amuse oneself with one’s own wit.