Instinctively he knew that he would be able to recognize it. He had seen it first when they were at the Jones’s house, and he had sensed its remaining presence even when they were about to leave with Charlie Williams. Eventually, he would be able to point it out to others who could stop it.
He felt confident of this, but with this confidence came a new and even greater fear, for he realized that the evil one could know what he could do to him.
He spun around quickly as if the dark shadow in the forest had emerged on the street behind him and listened. There were no strange sounds and nothing changed. Then he saw someone ahead of him, up the street, walking in the opposite direction.
He sped up, practically going at a run, until he could make out the person clearly.
It was Gerry Porter, walking quickly and gesturing widely as he spoke to himself.
Or, to someone or something beside him in the night.
He didn’t get in trouble; his grandmother never knew he was gone, and his mother didn’t return until after he had gone to bed. No one knew anything in the morning, and he was able to eat his breakfast and go off to school without any questions asked.
The excitement started remarkably slowly at school. It wasn’t until the fourth period that most of David’s friends had found out why Buzzy wasn’t in school. Everyone assumed he was just playing hooky, as usual. But Diane Jones’s sister told some of her friends, who told some of theirs, and the story spread up the grade levels until the whole high school was alive with the tale.
Only Carl and Merle knew enough to challenge the fabricated story David had concocted. He, Rube, and Tony had to tell them the truth later on in the lunchroom.
“I was going to come,” Merle said, “but we had to visit my uncle in Middletown. Shit, I missed all the action.”
“I think I would have rather been with an uncle in Middletown,” David said, but no one believed him.
He had to remain after school for awhile to do some work in the library on his final social studies report. By the time he left the building, none of his friends were around, but Ted Davis and two of his buddies, Donald Westlake and Paul Shatsky, were standing by his car in front of the school talking. David looked over because he thought Diane might be with them, but she wasn’t. Even so, Ted spotted him and waved him over.
“Tell us about Buzzy,” he said. David went through the story, taking care to leave out any reference to Diane’s house. From the way he described the events, it could have occurred on the other side of town.
Westlake, a short, but very muscular kid, who was about the best high school wrestler Centerville ever had, said he thought it might have been one of the hobos who regularly ride the freight trains.
“One just might have gotten lost,” he said. “I come across a couple the other day, down past the feed mill. They were just sitting by the tracks guzzling cheap gin.”
“How would they get so far away from the tracks though?” Shatsky asked.
Ted agreed that it had to be someone else.
“Forget this bullshit,” he said suddenly. “I was telling the guys how you found my key the other day. Diane said you didn’t even look; you just knew it was there. How’d you do it?”
David blushed.
“I just guessed,” he said.
“Saved my ass,” Ted said. “You’re okay, Houdini.” He gave David a playful punch on the shoulder. “Hey,” he said, “we’re taking a ride up to Liberty to get a cold root beer at the new A and W. Westlake here wants to check out a couple of Liberty chicks. Wanna come along? I’ll buy you a root beer.”
For a moment David couldn’t respond. He looked at the three high school seniors, all three among the most popular boys at his school. They wanted him along? He didn’t know anyone else his age whom they would ask, except Rube, who occasionally went along with the older guys somewhere. Usually it was just to drink beer down at the lake or harass guys from another school. Rube was a good asset to have along for something like that. But what could David offer the older boys?
“Sure,” he said. He got into the back seat with Shatsky and they drove off.
“Maybe Boris Harding grabbed Buzzy last night,” Shatsky said, and that started a discussion of the old murder. David fanned the fantasy when he described how the dark, shadowy figure appeared and then disappeared in moments. It left them all quiet for a moment.
“You don’t really believe in this shit, do you?” Westlake asked turning around.
“I don’t know what to believe,” David said. He wondered if he should bring up Gerry Porter. Maybe these guys knew something more about him. “When I started home from the police station though, I saw Gerry Porter wandering the streets.”
“Porter?” Ted said. “Yeah, that’s a possibility. What do you think, Paul?”
Shatsky’s mother was very friendly with Mrs. Porter. She often visited his house and brought Gerry along.
“I don’t see it,” he said. “He’s harmless. You can’t even get the dumb bastard to defend himself when he should. People shit all over him, and he stands there smiling.”
“Maybe he’s planning behind that smile,” Westlake said.
“I doubt it,” Shatsky insisted.
“Maybe he thought he was in the game,” Ted said. “And he got carried away with it.” Everyone was quiet for a moment.
“Yeah, that’s possible,” Shatsky conceded. “Did you guys talk to him at all before you started playing?”
David hesitated, wondering if Gerry Porter was capable of remembering what they had discussed with him before they left him at Chonin’s.
“Yeah, but…no one mentioned a game.”
“He might have seen what you were doing and joined in,” Ted said. “What do you think, Paul?”
“Yeah,” Paul Shatsky said. “Real possibility. Maybe you oughta tell Charlie Williams,” he said to David.
When they got to the A and W in Liberty, they found a number of the Liberty High School students sitting around in their cars and at the outside picnic tables. Many of them knew Ted from the ball games. They got their root beers and stood around the car, drinking them and observing the action. Finally, Westlake pointed out the two girls he had found interesting. The girls had gotten their drinks and taken a corner table all by themselves.
“What’dya think?” Westlake said. “The tall one with the light-brown hair is perfect for you, Shatsky. I’ll take the shorter one with the big tits.”
Shatsky laughed nervously.
“Just go over and pick ’em up,” Ted said. He winked at David.
“Just like that, huh?”
“Trouble with you, Westlake, is you spend all of your time in a gym with other boys and not enough time sweating around girls,” Ted said.
“Why don’t you show us how it’s done?” Westlake said. Ted shook his head.
“I’ve got what I want in women. I’m not fucking things up just for you,” he said.
David admired him for his loyalty to Diane, but he was also jealous of that loyalty. He looked at the two Liberty girls, neither of whom could hold a candle to Diane. They had identical hairdos, both cut neatly at the nape of the neck with the strands brushed straight down and bangs cut just above the eyebrows. The shorter girl’s tight sweater blouse did emphasize her heavy bosom, the lines of her bra clearly outlined.
“There’s a comb under the table,” David said. “Maybe it belongs to one of them.”
“There you go,” Ted said. “The kid’s given you an opening line.”
“Oh yeah.” Westlake looked at David. “Your good luck charm,” he said, and David realized why Ted was so friendly. “He comes through again.” He patted David on the shoulder, and he and Shatsky headed for the table.
“Watch them make assholes out of themselves,” Ted said. Westlake, without saying anything first, crawled under the table to fetch the comb. The girls shrieked until he came up with it. Both shook their heads when he offered it.
Ted and he couldn’t hear the convers
ation, but it was clear to David that they weren’t making any headway. In fact, Shatsky took on a look of disgust pretty quickly. Westlake continued to press on, even though the girls were showing little interest.
“Let’s rescue the bastards,” Ted said. David followed him over to the table. “What’s the matter, Westlake? The old comb under the table routine didn’t work?” Westlake smirked, but the girls smiled. They had recognized Ted from his ball games. “Well, introduce us.”
Westlake grimaced. He hadn’t gotten as far as learning their names.
“This is Brenda and I’m Lois,” the shorter girl said quickly.
“Neither of them wants to own up to the comb,” Westlake said. The comb had become the only topic of conversation and had quickly lost its value. Westlake’s smirk widened with disgust, and he tossed the comb to David, silently saying, “So much for your idea.” David caught it in midair, his quick reflexive action drawing the girls’ attention to him.
“It’s Brenda’s,” he said. “But she didn’t drop it today; she dropped it yesterday.”
“Huh?” Brenda said. The tall girl looked at her friend. David could tell from her expression that she hadn’t wanted to claim the comb. She had been embarrassed by Westlake’s discovery. “Let me see that comb again.”
David handed it to her, and she studied it for a moment. Then she opened her pocketbook and looked inside.
“It is my comb,” she said and laughed.
“You saw her drop it yesterday?” Lois asked. The boys looked at David, and suddenly he realized he had no explanation for what he had done.
“No, I…just guessed,” he said. Ted’s eyes widened. “Lucky guess,” he added.
“Wait a minute,” Lois said turning back to Westlake. “You are a varsity wrestler for Centerville, aren’t you? I saw you wrestle this winter. You beat Carey Dreiser, didn’t you? I remember now,” she said.
“That’s right,” Westlake said. He came around the table and sat down beside her. Shatsky looked at Ted, who gestured for him to talk to the taller girl. After a few moments, Ted and David walked back to the car.
“What are we going to do?” David asked when Ted got in behind the wheel and started the engine.
“We’re going to leave them here. They’ll get a ride back. Maybe the girls will take them. Get in,” he said. David got into the front seat. He looked over to the table where Westlake and Shatsky sat. They saw they were being left, but they were making headway now and didn’t care.
Ted pulled out of the A and W lot and drove off.
“You didn’t just take another guess back there, did you, Champ?” Ted asked him as they rode through downtown Liberty. “How did you do that?”
“I don’t know,” David said. He looked at Ted Davis. There was no question that he admired him a great deal. In his mind Ted was a celebrity. He had gone to the ball games and watched him outscore taller and stronger boys. He had been at the Centerville-Monticello game when Ted won the game with a basket in the last five seconds, a one-handed set shot from at least twenty-five feet out. The victory meant Centerville would be in the division playoffs. It turned the gym crowd into a mob, and his teammates carried him off the court, people trying to reach him just to touch him.
And here he was now, riding alone in his car, talking to him as though they were lifelong buddies. More importantly for David now, Ted was the boy who was having the romantic relationship with Diane. He kissed her, spoke softly to her, touched her. He could call her, go to see her, be with her any time he wanted. If David could trade places with anyone, it would be Ted Davis.
For a short time, sitting in this car and talking with Ted, David felt what it must be like to have an older brother, someone in whom he could confide.
“Well, you’re doing something special. You can’t tell me you knew the girl back there and saw her drop her comb yesterday, right?”
“Right. I’ll tell you, but don’t laugh,” David said. Ted looked at him and nodded softly. They headed out of Liberty and started down Route 52 toward home. “As soon as that comb touched my hand, I saw a vision of that girl. I saw her at the table, and I saw the comb fall from her pocketbook. She probably didn’t put it in all the way or something, and it shook out.”
“What?” Ted smiled. “You saw a vision?”
“Yeah. And the same kind of thing happened when I went to look for your key. I touched the ignition and saw a picture of a basketball. That confused me, but then, I saw your keys with the little metal basketball on the chain under the seat.”
“And that’s why you didn’t even have to look first. Diane said it was creepy the way you just looked at her and told her where the key was without even looking. She said you sounded so positive.”
“Creepy? She said it was creepy?”
“Well…you know.” He shook his head. “Jesus, this is fantastic. You got some kind of power.”
“I don’t know what it is. Don’t call it a power,” he said. The word triggered off a fear in him, even though he couldn’t explain why. “It’s just good guessing, that’s all.”
“Not if you see things. Jesus, this is fantastic,” Ted repeated. David started to feel nervous.
“Please don’t tell anyone about this,” he said.
“Yeah, sure. I promise. I understand,” Ted said, but from the tone of his voice, David wasn’t confident about his promise. “But it’s going to be hard to keep it a secret long. Diane already feels something strange is going on,” he added.
“I don’t mind Diane knowing,” David said.
“Can you do this at anytime, anytime you want?”
“I don’t know.”
“Do something now,” Ted said.
“What?”
Ted thought for a moment.
“Okay,” he said. He took his left hand off the steering wheel and put it into his pants pocket. “I’ve got my fingers around a coin. What coin?”
“I don’t know,” David said. “It doesn’t work that way.”
“How does it work?” Ted asked with disappointment. “You said you just get a vision, right?”
“I don’t know how or why it works. It just works sometimes.”
“You can’t tell me what coin I have?”
David closed his eyes and thought about it a moment. Then he shook his head.
“It’s just a guess…a nickel.”
“No, it’s a quarter,” Ted said. “Shit, I thought you could do it whenever you wanted.”
“I can’t,” David said. He looked out the side window, regretting the whole conversation now. It didn’t go the way he thought it would. Instead of Ted sympathizing with him and giving him the kind of brotherly advice that would come from an older, wiser brother, he was acting like a younger brother. In fact, David felt as though he were the older and wiser one.
“Yeah, well still it’s something,” Ted said. He smiled. “Especially what you did back there.”
David looked at him. He had been hoping to feel comfortable enough to tell him about the feeling of evil, the sense of ominous danger he experienced when Ted and Diane brought him home the other day, and the feeling he experienced at Diane’s house just before he, Rube, and Tony were driven away by Charlie Williams. He wanted to warn him about something, but because he didn’t know exactly what it was, and because of the way Ted was acting now, he decided against it.
Instead, he was quiet for most of the remaining trip home. Ted told him about a story he had read in the comic book, Tales of Terror.
“In it, this undertaker developed the power to know who was going to die before they died. He’d get their coffins ready, only one day, he sees his own death. You know what he did? He got his own coffin ready.”
David didn’t really respond. He only said he never read Tales of Terror.
“My grandmother won’t let me bring it into the house.”
Ted laughed.
“Hey,” he said, “does your mother know what you can do?”
“No.” He wasn’
t really lying. She hadn’t believed him when he told her years ago, and he hadn’t told her anything since.
Ted pulled up to his house.
“I got an idea,” he said before David got out. “We’ll try a couple of tricks and see how you do. Maybe we could make something out of this.”
“I don’t know,” David said. “Like I told you…I can’t do it all the time.”
“Maybe we’ll figure out how to work around that. Maybe there’s some secret we’ve got to discover. This is great.”
“Don’t say anything,” David warned him.
“Leave it to me, buddy,” Ted said. He laughed. “Westlake and Shatsky owe you,” he added.
David watched him drive off. Ted was a disappointment after all. Worse than that, David sensed he wouldn’t be able to protect Diane. He didn’t have the vision. She was in more danger than he had thought. Somehow he had to get her to understand.
He turned around slowly, but when he lifted his head and looked at the house, his heart skipped a beat. Something was wrong; something was terribly, terribly wrong. The whole building looked depressed. Colors were suddenly dull. The windows were gray, yet it was still bright out with a relatively clear sky. There was no reason for that shadow to be cast so darkly over his front porch.
He rushed to the door and opened it quickly, charging down the corridor and into his house. Mrs. Novak was sitting in his kitchen. His grandmother’s old friend looked up at him with tear-filled eyes. She had been running her fingers through the sides of her hair, and the thin, gray strands stood out as though electrified.
“Grandma?”
“She’s at the hospital,” she said. “They took her in an ambulance. Your mother’s there.”
“What happened to her?”
“Heart attack,” she said.
He turned to run out, but realized that was foolish. Yet he didn’t want to remain in the house. He felt trapped. Why had he been off fooling around with the senior boys while his grandmother needed help? How come he didn’t know what was happening to her? Where were his so-called superpowers then? Not only couldn’t he call upon them when he wanted to, but they could betray him. He couldn’t trust them; he couldn’t trust himself.
Sight Unseen Page 9
