Night in the Lonesome October

by Richard Laymon

  ‘Or maybe to keep out everyone who isn’t invited inside.’

  She smiled at me. ‘They might invite me in if they knew me.’

  ‘I’m sure they would.’

  ‘Marianne would.’

  ‘Not her parents, though.’

  ‘Not hardly. But you can’t please everyone, and I don’t even try. That’s a nice thing about night roaming; you’re mostly on your own md don’t have to deal with people. You can watch them. You can nide from them. You can even get to know them pretty well if you want, but they never have to know you.’

  ‘Like going around invisible.’

  ‘Precisely.’

  ‘And being invisible, you make a habit of sneaking into people’s houses?’

  Her smile broke out again. ‘It’s been known to happen.’

  ‘Why do you do it?’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘It’s against the law. It’s dangerous.’

  ‘It’s exciting.’

  ‘Is that why you do it?’ I asked.

  ‘I just do it. I like to do it and I do it. You did it tonight. What’d you think?’

  ‘I thought you lived there. In fact, you said it was your house.’

  She gave my hand a squeeze. ‘I was speaking figuratively, college boy.’

  ‘How is someone else’s house yours figuratively?’

  Not even pausing to consider her answer, she said, ‘It’s like mine while I’m in it.’

  Laughing, I said, ‘That’s a stretch.’

  ‘Perchance.’

  Suddenly, a thought struck me with concern and sorrow. ‘Do you have a home?’

  ‘What makes you ask?’

  ‘You’re roaming around all night, obviously going into other people’s homes.’

  ‘Does that mean I don’t have one of my own?’

  ‘It might.’

  ‘But not necessarily.’

  ‘Where do you live?’

  Her smile died. ‘Wherever I want.’

  ‘You don’t have a place?’

  ‘Of course I do.’

  ‘I mean a place of your own. Not somebody else’s house. Your own house or apartment or something.’

  ‘Maybe I do and maybe I don’t.’

  ‘You don’t,’ I said.

  ‘Think not?’

  ‘Where are your parents?’ I asked.

  ‘Who says I have any?’

  ‘Are you an orphan?’

  ‘That’d make them dead.’

  ‘So you do have parents.’

  ‘Somewhere.’

  ‘But not here?’

  ‘Let me ask you something,’ she said.

  ‘Okay.’

  ‘Do you want to see me tomorrow night?’

  ‘Sure.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Why? Because ...’ Be careful, I warned myself. ‘I like being with you.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘I don’t know. Because you’re interesting. And funny.’

  ‘Isn’t Eileen interesting and funny?’

  ‘Sort of. Not like you, though.’

  ‘But she’s your girlfriend. You said so yourself. Don’t you want to be with her tomorrow night?’

  ‘Which night is that? This is already Friday morning ...’

  ‘To me, it’s still Thursday night.’

  ‘When does it become Friday?’

  ‘Sunrise.’

  ‘So “tomorrow night” is Friday night?’

  ‘Exactly.’

  ‘I’m free,’ I said.

  ‘What about Eileen? Friday night, shouldn’t you be seeing your girlfriend?’

  Oh, boy.

  ‘We agreed to stay away from each other for a few days.’

  ‘How come?’

  I wanted to tell Casey the truth. Easy enough to explain about getting attacked and probably killing a guy and the rest that happened Wednesday night; my real problem would be admitting that I’d gone under the bridge to have sex with Eileen.

  ‘I think I mentioned she hasn’t been feeling very well?’

  Casey nodded.

  ‘It’s probably nothing serious, but she doesn’t want me to catch it. So we definitely won’t be getting together tomorrow night.’

  ‘Are you sure you didn’t have a fight with her?’

  I frowned and said nothing.

  ‘You look like you were in a fight with somebody.’

  I almost cringed. I’d forgotten about the bruises and scratches on my face. ‘Oh, that,’ I said.

  ‘You didn’t beat her up, did you?’

  ‘No!’

  ‘What happened to you?’

  Stalling, I shrugged. Then I thought of something. ‘There’s this guy I know, Kirkus. He’s a real jerk.’ So far, I wasn’t lying. ‘We’re both on the staff of the university’s literary magazine. We get together a couple of times a month to read the stories and poems that people submit. Anyway, Kirkus read this story of mine ...’

  ‘You wrote it?’

  ‘Yeah. Anyway, Kirkus read it and said it was lousy. “Pedestrian and sophomoric, full of gratuitous violence and sex,” he said. So I called him a tight-ass, illiterate old prig and one thing sorta led to another.’ Still the truth. ‘Next thing you know, I said something he really didn’t like and he punched me in the face. So I punched him.’ I smiled and shook my head. ‘It was all pretty dumb. We threw a lot of punches and both of us got bruised up a little. It was no big deal.’

  All the truth.

  But it had happened the previous May.

  ‘So you and Eileen didn’t have a fight?’

  What if Casey sees her?

  We didn’t fight.

  ‘No,’ I said. ‘We’ve never had an actual fight.’

  ‘Do you ever hit girls?’

  ‘Not if you don’t count Kirkus.’

  ‘I thought he was a guy.’

  ‘Nobody’s absolutely sure. Anyway, I think Eileen’s just down with a bug. Like maybe the flu or something.’

  ‘What happens when she gets well?’

  I took a few moments, trying to think of a good answer. Then I said, ‘She’s never up past eleven or twelve, anyway. And she lives over at the sorority house, not with me. So I can come out whenever I want to.’

  ‘On the sly?’

  ‘She doesn’t have to know everything I do. We’re not ... engaged or anything. We haven’t even been going together all that long.’

  ‘How long?’

  Since Monday night. And this was Thursday night, by Casey’s calculations.

  ‘Well,’ I said, ‘we got to know each other last spring, but we didn’t really start going together until this semester.’

  ‘So that makes it okay to see someone else behind her back?’

  ‘I’m not exactly seeing you. We only met ... what, a couple of hours ago?’

  ‘But we’re getting together tomorrow night, aren’t we?’

  ‘I hope so.’

  ‘Will you tell Eileen about it?’

  ‘Probably not.’

  ‘So you will be seeing me behind her back.’

  ‘Yeah, but we’re not doing anything.’

  ‘We’re doing something.’

  ‘Well, yeah, but not—’

  Casey stepped up against me, wrapped her arms around me and kissed me on the mouth. As the kiss went on, I put my arms around her. We were pressed tightly together. I could feel her breasts and ribcage against my chest, her belly against mine, the curve of her mons pushing against my crotch.

  Her mouth eased away. ‘Are we doing anything yet?’

  ‘Sure are.’

  ‘Just so you know,’ she said. Then, ‘See you tomorrow night.’

  ‘You’re leaving?’

  She walked backward, smiling. ‘Going, goinggg ...’ She whirled around. As she ran down the sidewalk, she called over her shoulder, ‘Gone!’

  ‘But where’ll ...’

  ... she dodged out of sight behind a hedge ...

  ‘... we meet?’

  Sh
e didn’t answer.

  I ran past the hedge, but she wasn’t there. I couldn’t see her anywhere.

  ‘Casey?’ I called.

  She didn’t answer.

  I wandered around looking for her, thinking that perhaps she was playing a small prank and might turn up again. Finally, I realized she was gone for the night.

  Giving up, I took a few moments to figure out which way to go for Division Street, and commenced my journey home.

  A few times, I had occasion to play Ride or Hide. Each time, I hid.

  I watched from my hiding places.

  A police car cruised by. So did a moving van. And Linda and Walinda Wiggins in their Jeep. (Why were they still out?) But I didn’t see Randy’s pickup truck or the van I’d encountered at the Fairmont Street bridge.

  A guy in a sweatsuit ran down the middle of the street alongside his Doberman, which may or may not have been on a leash. I heard the tinny rattle and clank of a shopping cart somewhere nearby, but saw neither the cart nor the person pushing it.

  I didn’t see any trolls at all ... ‘night loonies,’ as Casey called them.

  I didn’t see the bike hag, either.

  Most of all, I didn’t see Casey.

  When I came to the Franklin Street bridge over the Old Mill stream, I ran across it.

  Soon after that, I was safe inside my apartment.

  Chapter Forty-three

  After a couple of hours of sleep, a shower and a cup of coffee, I left the building to head for my eight o’clock Romantic Literature class and found Eileen coming up the sidewalk toward me.

  I felt a moment of alarm. But she looked cheerful. Seeing me, she smiled and waved and quickened her pace.

  It was a windy autumn morning. Her thick hair blew, some of it flying across her face. She wore a green sweater, a plaid skirt and green knee socks. Her breasts went up and down inside the sweater with the motions of her walking. The wind flung her skirt against her legs.

  She looked wonderful.

  Except for her face. Even her face, however, looked better than when I’d seen her yesterday morning. She still had bandages above her left eyebrow, on her right cheekbone and on her jaw, but her eye and lip were less puffy. Nor did her bruises show. I guess she’d covered them with makeup.

  ‘Good morning,’ she said.

  ‘Hi.’

  ‘Surprised to see me?’

  ‘Yeah.’ Surprised and disoriented. Though I’d only been with Casey for a couple of hours last night, Eileen now seemed a little foreign to me: bigger, heavier, older, more steady and mature, more stable, less dangerous and less exciting.

  All she carried was the purse hanging from her shoulder. When she opened her arms, I swung my book bag down to the sidewalk. We embraced. She squeezed herself against me and I felt the soft push of her breasts. Her cheek was cool against my face.

  ‘I’ve missed you so much,’ she whispered.

  ‘Me, too.’ Then I added, ‘Missed you.’

  Then she eased her hold, moved her face back and kissed me on the mouth ... a gentle touch to avoid hurting her split lip. Stepping away, she said, ‘I just thought I’d come by and see you safely to your eight o’clock.’

  ‘Good deal.’ I shouldered my book bag and we started walking. ‘Anything going on?’ I asked.

  ‘Not a thing. It’s like nothing ever happened Wednesday night.’

  ‘Let’s hope it stays that way.’

  ‘I’m halfway thinking nothing did happen. Except I can feel the aftereffects. And see ’em when I look in a mirror.’

  ‘You’re looking a lot better.’

  ‘You, too. But I still feel like a disaster.’

  ‘You got it a lot worse than me,’ I said, and wondered again if her injuries included rape.

  ‘The worst part was staying away from you yesterday. I hated that.’

  ‘Me, too.’

  ‘And I got to thinking it was really sort of pointless. I mean, what’ve we got to hide?’

  ‘Murder.’

  ‘You didn’t murder anyone. Even if you did kill that guy, it was self-defense. But there doesn’t seem to be any sort of investigation going on. I don’t think they’ve even found his body. As far as the cops go, nothing happened. So I don’t know if we really need to stay away from each other any more.’

  ‘I don’t know,’ I said. ‘People see us side by side, they’ve gotta figure we got hurt together.’

  ‘We have our tree stories,’ she said. Though she smiled, she looked troubled. Apparently, she had expected me to go along with her new idea.

  It took me a few moments to remember the tree stories. ‘I ran into one chasing a Frisbee, and you fell out of a tree rescuing a kitten?’

  ‘A kite.’

  ‘Yeah. In my professional opinion as an amateur writer, the two stories are somewhat lame and marginally believable, taken separately. Put them together, though, and nobody’ll believe them.’

  ‘Do you really think it matters?’

  ‘It might matter if the body turns up.’

  ‘Maybe,’ she said. ‘But Kirkus saw us together right after it happened, anyway. He knows we got beaten up.’

  ‘He won’t tell.’

  ‘He won’t?’

  ‘Nah. If he thought I killed someone, the last thing he would do is turn me in. He might threaten to, but he wouldn’t actually do it. He’d keep what he knows a secret and try to control me with it.’

  She smiled. ‘You really think so?’

  ‘Pretty sure.’

  ‘Why on earth would he do that?’

  ‘He’s got the hots for me.’

  ‘Wooo!’ she blurted, and laughed. Then she said, ‘You’re awful.’

  ‘I might be awful, but I think I’m right. He’s careful not to let it show too much ...’

  ‘Disguises it with overt hostility?’ Eileen suggested, smiling and nodding.

  ‘Exactly.’

  ‘I’d never thought of it that way. I’ve always just seen him as a self-important pain in the ass, but you might be right.’

  ‘If I am, we probably don’t need to worry about Kirkus tipping off the cops.’

  ‘He might do it in a fit of jealous rage.’

  ‘Nah.’

  ‘Or good citizenship might overcome his lust for you.’

  ‘I doubt it.’

  ‘Anyway,’ said Eileen, ‘it’s a moot point since there’s no body and no investigation.’

  ‘Yet,’ I added.

  ‘I don’t think there will be. Those awful creeps under the bridge must’ve done something ... hidden the body somewhere ... maybe buried it.

  ‘Or devoured it completely,’ I threw in.

  ‘All but the bones.’

  ‘Even the bones, maybe. Dogs eat bones down to nothing.’

  ‘Ug.’

  Closer to campus, the streets and sidewalks were busy with students and faculty members. I recognized most of them. So far, however, nobody seemed to be paying attention to Eileen or me.

  ‘Maybe we’d better split up,’ I said.

  ‘Do we have to?’

  ‘If we don’t, we’ll have to start fielding questions about our faces. And it’s the sort of thing people will probably talk about and remember.’

  ‘I don’t think it’ll matter.’

  ‘I’m the one who killed the guy.’

  ‘You don’t know that for sure.’

  ‘Let’s just play it safe. Okay? Just for today, let’s keep our distance. It’s Friday, so we’ll have the whole weekend to heal up some more before everyone starts seeing us together.’

  We both stopped at the corner.

  Eileen’s smile was gone. ‘You think we should stay away from each other till Monday?’

  ‘It might be a good idea. Just to play it safe.’

  Frowning, she asked, ‘Is something going on?’

  ‘It was your idea in the first place, you know. Staying away from each other till our faces heal. Remember your note?’

  She nodded, but
she didn’t look happy.

  ‘And we discussed it last night.’

  ‘I know,’ she said.

  ‘I thought we’d agreed that we shouldn’t be seen together for... I don’t know, several days.’

  ‘I guess we did,’ she admitted.

  ‘So if we just wait till Monday ...’

  ‘Being seen together isn’t the same as being together. We can still be together if nobody’s around to see us, can’t we? What would that hurt?’

  My chances of being with Casey tonight.

  Realizing I was in hazardous territory, I said, ‘You’re right,’ and tried to look pleased. ‘The thing is not to be seen together. So how about coming over to my place later on?’

  ‘You don’t sound very sure.’

  ‘No, I’m sure. Yeah! It’ll be great. We’ll need to stay in, but ...’

  ‘No problem.’ She seemed happier. ‘I tell you what; I’ll bring everything over. Drinks, food. You won’t have to do anything but be there.’

  ‘Great!’ I said.

  ‘What time should I come by?’

  The earlier, the better.

  ‘How about five?’

  ‘You got it. See you then.’ Smiling, she whirled around and went striding off down the sidewalk, hair and skirt blowing in the wind.

  I muttered, ‘Just great.’

  Chapter Forty-four

  Kirkus intercepted me as I walked past the student union. Raising a hand, he called out, ‘What ho, Eduardo!’

  Speaking of the devil, I thought.

  I wasn’t surprised to see him, though; like me, he was in Dr Trueman’s eight o’clock Romantic Lit class. More often than not, he met me along the way to it, suddenly popping out of a door or out from behind a nearby tree as if he’d been waiting in ambuscade.

  ‘Hey there, Rudy,’ I called to him.

  He came striding toward me, bouncing on the balls of his feet. Around his neck was a tangerine-colored ascot. He wore his usual corduroy jacket, blue chambray shirt and blue jeans. Though just about everyone else on campus lugged book bags on their shoulders, jaunty Kirkus carried a large leather briefcase.

  I hadn’t seen him since Wednesday night, but I’d spoken badly about him much more recently ... to both Casey and Eileen. He had no way of knowing about any of that. I felt a little guilty, anyway.

  ‘How you doing?’ I asked as he caught up with me.

  ‘Tip top, old bean.’