Chapter 3
Stu McLundy: At Your Service
It’s time to leave North Benning. Stu McLundy has been in this town for fifteen years and he’s pretty proud of the work he’s done here. He came in as a fifth grade teacher and ended up five years later as the superintendent of schools, a beloved figure about town who touched the lives of all he came in contact with.
When Stu first came to North Benning, the shadows were thick and lush, threatening to devour the town whole. Now the place was clean, any sign of the shadows gone. They found another town to invade, maybe one that would elude Stu’s grasp and give the shadows what they needed to thrive. But not here. Not North Benning. Not on Stu’s watch.
He announced his retirement at the annual student award dinner and the town collectively wept. Stu had worked wonders with not only the children, but the community at large and the news that he’d not only be leaving his position but leaving town did not sit well. They wished him good luck but in their hearts they were selfish and wanted to keep him all to themselves. Stu was proud of this, proud of all he did, but he couldn’t tell them the thing he was most proud of. “I kept evil from eating your souls” was not something you put on your resume.
He has new souls to save, anyway, and is being forwarded to a New York town called Greener Valley. He laughs at the name when he hears it. Green Valley wasn’t good enough. It had to be Greener, as if the town founders were saying “Our town is better than yours.” Who knows. Maybe it is.
There’s one thing Stu has left to do before he leaves North Benning for Greener Valley, and it’s not something written on his agenda. It’s a last minute thing. A mild heart attack.
Stu is closing up the last of the suitcases when the chest pains hit him. He falls to the floor, wondering if this is it, if after several hundred years of walking the earth he’s going to be taken out by something so mortal like. But he knows. In the back of his mind, as he’s crashing to his bedroom floor, he knows someone like himself doesn’t die in human ways. He knows how his end will come. Not like this.
Stu is in a hospital in North Benning. Some of his students had come to say goodbye to him and found him unconscious on the floor. They called 911 and Stu’s plans to leave for Greener Valley were suddenly put on hold. Now he’s laying in a hospital bed, a mess of wires and tubes, and he’s drifting in and out of sleep.
“Stu. Stu. STU.” A voice whispers to him in the dark, a scratchy, low voice barely heard above the beeps and hums of the machinery around him. “Stu, let’s go for a ride.”
He climbs into a vehicle that is part jalopy, part chariot. The front is open; there’s no windshield and the hood slopes down like a slide. At the end of the hood are two small, golden horses. There’s a roof but no windows. The car is small and mostly black except for the horse ornaments and maroon trim around the doors. The wheels are wooden and between the spokes are playing cards. Stu notices before he gets in the car that the cards are all jokers. The car makes a coughing, sputtering noise as if it’s about to gasp its last breath. The driver cracks a whip against the golden horses and the car spurts forward.
“This was not in the plan, Stu. You’re supposed to be in Greener Valley today.”
“Maybe I’ve been around too long and I’m starting to take on mortal ways.”
“Hmm. Not a precedent for that. Then again, nothing that happens here has precedents. It’s all seat of the pants.” The driver, a young man wearing a Kangol cap and pea coat, lets out a small laugh.
They drive in silence for a while and Stu watches as the landscape becomes familiar. He waits until they are about a mile from where he knows he’ll be let out before he talks again.
“Am I being let go?”
“No. Like I said, this wasn’t supposed to happen. I think you need to lay off the Jack Daniels and HoHos, Stu.”
“I’m practically immortal. I should be able to eat as many HoHos as I want.”
“Apparently not.”
“So why am I back here? Does She just want to talk to me?”
“You had a near death, Stu. Standard protocol.”
“I thought there was no precedent for this.”
“I lie a lot.”
“So maybe I am being let go?”
“Maybe She’s giving you a choice.”
“I don’t want a choice. I want to go where I’m supposed to go.”
“How do you know where you’re supposed to go, Stu? Maybe that little heart attack happened for a reason.”
Silence again and the driver turns on the radio. The driver starts singing along to “Heartbeat, It’s a Lovebeat.”
“I love this song,” says Stu.
“I know. Here, take it with you, you’re going to need it.”
The driver makes a motion like he’s pulling something out of the radio and flicks the imaginary thing at Stu. Stu flinches, but nothing hits him.
“Come on, Stu. You know how this shit works.”
He does. And he’s not always entirely comfortable with it. They make a turn just when Stu thinks they’re going to stop.
“Where are we going? I thought I was getting out there.”
“Change of plans. You’re going back. Not your choice to make today, after all.”
They head back to where Stu first got in the chariot. Stu shifts in his bed, feeling suddenly uncomfortable.
“Settle down, you’ll pull your IV out.”
“What?”
And then the driver is gone and Stu is in a hospital bed in North Bennington, a nurse hovering over him.
“Your doctor said you can go home today, Mr. McLundy. I don’t know why, I think you need to stay a few more days, but I’m not the doctor.” She roughly pulls the IV out of his arm and sticks a band-aid on him. “I have to say, your doctor is a little odd. He came in here wearing a hat and coat, like he was just stopping in on his way to the market or something.”
“Or something,” Stu says.
He leaves North Bennington in his trusty Subaru, heading east to New York. It’s going to be a long drive but he’s got company. He pops in a cassette tape of his favorite tunes. ‘60s and ‘70s pop. The first song is “Heartbeat, It’s a Lovebeat.” He sings along absentmindedly while he imagines what life in Greener Valley will hold for him.
*****
That was twelve years ago. Stu has become a fixture in Greener Valley since and every day he wakes up feeling lucky he landed this gig. The people are nice and easy to manipulate. He’s made many friends, he has a job he loves and he’s well loved by the town in return. It was easy to settle into the Greener Valley life and become just one of the people. Sometimes he would forget his role, forget what he was there for, but soon enough he’d spot a shadow out of the corner of his eye and he’d remember. He was there for a reason, and he couldn’t let that reason slip, not even for a second.
But sometimes fate has other plans for people, plans that don’t figure into a person’s perceived timeline of future events. For Stu, his timeline included just playing records and keeping the town sane and normal until such a time the chariot came for him again to tell him the shadows had given up and moved on. Deep inside, he knew this wouldn’t happen. He knew what went on in Greener Valley behind closed doors, under the cover of night, and he knew that’s what the shadows thrived on. No matter how at ease he kept the town, no matter how much of the music he played that lulled them into a sense of perfect suburbia town, there was always something else going on beneath the surface and he knew if he left, it would all explode.
That it would all explode while he was still there was not something Stu took into consideration.