He had her coat off and her sweater pushed up over her breasts before her terror allowed her to cry out. It was a slow, choking wail of despair that Wally heard in his bedroom, but he did not open his door. He only sat on his bed, hands in his lap, hoping that whatever the man was doing to his mother would satisfy him. He listened to the first cry, then to the high keening, and finally to the primitive, almost rhythmic grunts of pain that followed. The silence lasted then, and he thought perhaps that, for this time, it was over; he was safe.
One other person heard Christine’s cries. The ears were old, yet still sharp enough to catch the sounds through the closed windows and above the purr of Saturday morning Market Street traffic. Eddie Karl frowned and spat, looking up toward the second-floor window from which the cries had come. “Mean shit,” he muttered, shaking his head and shuffling through the melting snow. “Turned into a mean little shit.” Eddie stepped to the curb and crossed the street. He passed the Western Auto store, glancing briefly at the makeshift plywood box that stood where the bench had been. “Mornin’, Rorrie,” he said as he passed it and made his way to the Hitching Post.
It was a typical small-town restaurant—six booths, a counter with red leather stools, tired-looking pies under dull plastic shells. There were greasy menus and greasier food, and a waitress called Jake who handled the whole with aplomb. When Eddie entered, only a few people were having a late breakfast, and he sat on the empty stool between Fred Hibbs and Tom Markley. “Howdy, Jake,” he called to the chubby waitress. “Coffee ’n a doughnut, please. And how’s Mr. Mayor today?” he asked Markley, who didn’t look up from his coffee cup.
“Okay, Eddie,” he said, taking a deep drag on his Camel. “How’s the store doin’?”
“It … could be better.”
“Yeah, I bet. Hell, a lot fewer customers these days. And I’m bettin’ they don’t feel much like Christmas, am I right?”
“You’re right.”
Eddie shook his head. “Just a coupla days away, and everybody’s walkin’ around with Good Friday faces. Don’t know what they’re so scared of.”
“They’re scared of what they don’t understand.”
“Maybe so. Thanks, Jake.” Eddie dunked the doughnut in his cup and took a large, wet bite. “This Thornton guy finding out anything yet?”
Markley snorted, the smoke rushing from his nostrils in twin torrents. “Thornton. Biggest waste of taxpayers’ money I’ve ever seen. Him and his fucking scientists have been here almost three months now, and nothing. Got the power companies and the chemical firms kissing his ass every day too.”
“You think he’s a crook?”
“Don’t know what to think, but he sure as hell doesn’t give a damn about Merridale. I had to fight like hell to get us declared a disaster area. Son of a bitch didn’t wanta do that. You believe it? People running out of town, businesses gone to hell, being shut off like we’re in quarantine.” Markley’s voice fell. “You know what would’ve saved our asses? Tourists.”
Eddie grinned crookedly. “Tourists?”
“Sure!” Markley seemed obsessed with the idea. “Why, people want to come in here. What do you think the road, blocks are for? Personally, I think they’re sickos, but they want to see these things. So why shouldn’t the town make some money off of it. You could do plates, T-shirts, even religious stuff.”
“Some people’d say that’s just as sick as wantin’ to look.”
Markley stubbed out his cigarette. “It’s just an idea. There’s no harm in ideas.”
“I ain’t so sure of that,” said Eddie Karl. “That Hitler had ideas.”
Markley stood up and threw two singles on the counter, then turned back, pocketed one bill, replaced it with three quarters, and walked out without another word.
“Testy, ain’t he?” Eddie said, turning with a friendly smile to Fred Hibbs. “Just ’cause I didn’t agree with turning Merridale into Disneyland. Might not be too bad at that.” He dunked, chewed, and swallowed. “Deadland. And we could have like a Dracula mascot—the Count of Merridale. You know, like they got Mickey Mouse at Disneyland? Sure. Buttons and T-shirts and beer mugs and pennants for the kids. Maybe we could even use some old ’39 World’s Fair stuff. You know, ‘I have seen the future.’ ”
Jake laughed in spite of herself. “You’re awful, Eddie!”
“Just thinking of ways to make a buck, Jakie. Just like our mayor.”
“It ain’t funny,” Fred Hibbs said. “You shouldn’t make fun.”
“Well, I’m goddamn sorry, Loafer, but when I see some greedy tweedly-pom like Tom Markley all bent out of shape because his business is gone to shit, damned if it don’t make me chuckle a little.”
Jake refilled Eddie’s coffee cup, grimacing at the multitude of crumbs that bubbled up as she poured. “Mr. Markley’s not all that bad. We had worse mayors.”
“ ’Sides,” added Fred, “it ain’t just his store, it’s the whole town. Whole town’s dead.” He blanched. “I didn’t mean that.”
Eddie sent up a whoop of laughter. “Maybe not, but you’re right as rain anyway. Yep. Deadest place I ever saw.”
Fred Hibbs stared down at his soiled plate. “Jeez, I hate it here.”
“Why don’t ya go?”
“Go where? Got no relatives. All I got’s my daddy’s house.”
“Sell it.”
Hibbs grunted. “I can see you ain’t been talking to no realtors lately. Nobody’s sold a house here since this’s all started. “
“Been renting some,” Jake said.
“Oh, sure, to them scientists and such. But now most of them are pullin’ out. I talked to Melva Dupes about sellin’ my place, and she told me no way. Said Merridale’s just another—what’d she call it—Love Channel or something.”
“Love Canal,” said Jake. “Where they dumped those chemicals.”
“Yeah. Love Channel’s a pussy.” Eddie raised an eyebrow. “Sorry, Jakie.”
Jake blushed pleasantly, said, “You’re a dirty old man, Eddie,” and disappeared into the kitchen with Fred Hibbs’s empty plate.
The two men sat for a while without speaking, and then Eddie said, “You still seeing your parents?”
Hibbs shook his head. “I put … like sheets of cardboard around ’em. But I know they’re there.”
“Really bothers you, huh?”
“Wouldn’t it you?”
Eddie shrugged. “My folks weren’t from around here. Never got married, nor nobody ever lived with me. Folks lived there before moved away.” He sighed. “I got nobody in my house. Lotsa old friends though. All around town. I can see them a whole lot better now, if only people didn’t keep tryin’ to hide them.”
“You’re crazy, Eddie, you know that?”
“Crazy, huh? You just remember who seen ’em first, son. You remember that.” He dropped the final piece of doughnut into the coffee and wolfed it down, licking a crumb from his wrinkled lips before bending them in a smile.
“I may be crazy, but I ain’t scared.”
While Eddie Karl was finishing his breakfast, Tom Markley was pushing open the door of his sporting goods store on High Street, noticing as he did that it was empty as usual. Max Douglas, his only remaining salesman, sat behind the counter reading a paperback Executioner novel, which he tried to hide when he saw Markley enter. Markley pretended not to notice. He was past caring. “Anything?”
“Cy Holland was in, bought a headband. He and his family’s going skiing for two weeks over Christmas. I think they just want to—” He stopped as Markley held up his hand.
“Take an early lunch, huh?” Markley said. “Be back around noon or so.”
“Sure, Tom. Whatever.” Max bundled up and left the store.
Alone, Markley looked at the single bill of sale registered that morning. A headband. A four-fucking-ninety-five headband. The Friday before Christmas, and a total of five bucks. It was enough to make a body sick.
Markley ripped off his bifocals and looked around hi
s empty store. Empty? Not quite. In one way it was full—full of merchandise that sat and sat and sat waiting for someone to come in and buy it. He kicked the side of the counter savagely, doing more harm to his foot than to the sturdy wood, but it helped nonetheless.
Goddamn Clyde Thornton, he thought. It was Thornton who was responsible, Thornton up there in Ted Bashore’s big house, rented for a pittance because rich old Ted couldn’t bear to sell it, oh, no, not even if he could have found a buyer, but he could afford to run, couldn’t he? Off to goddamn Florida for a few months until this unpleasantness clears up. Sure, that’s what everybody with money does—runs away. Doesn’t matter if their town goes down the toilet, that there’s no money left to keep the merchants in business.
Why doesn’t Thornton find something? That’s what he’s here for! Markley was starting to think maybe Thornton really didn’t want to. Maybe he liked being the big man too much. Markley shook his head and jammed a Camel in his mouth. Not only was his business shit, he was barely even mayor anymore. At the town meetings everyone deferred to Thornton; everyone asked Thornton questions. And Thornton would smile and be gracious, while never saying a goddamn thing, and would refer to Markley as “Mr. Mayor,” while wearing a smirk broad enough to tell the whole town that “Mr. Mayor” meant absolutely nothing in his scheme of things.
That thinly veiled contempt had begun to spread, touching the rest of the town, so that when before people had smiled, had helloed, had stopped to chat with the mayor, now they only nodded and walked on, the ends of their mouths twitching skyward in a vague memory of warmth toward this man who was now an impotent fool, who could only say, “I don’t know,” when they asked their questions. Thornton would never say that. Instead it was always, “We’ve thought of that possibility and are looking into it at this time. We’ll inform you as soon as we learn anything definite.” Or maybe, “Our investigations have so far not disproved those possibilities, but we can’t make a positive statement yet.” Or, “No, radioactivity cannot be ruled out as a possible source for the phenomenon, although it seems highly doubtful,” and, “Chemicals, combined with the precise amount of wind or underground stream activity, are a somewhat remote possible source, but we’re not ruling anything out yet.”
Tom Markley would sit there fuming, wanting to stand up and yell at Thornton to cut the bullshit and confess that he didn’t know any more than anybody else. But he didn’t. He was afraid to, afraid that the people of Merridale would interpret his outbreak as jealousy and think even less of him than they already did. God, but it was a lot of crap to put up with for a token $500 a year.
What was happening with Mim didn’t make it any easier. Of all the things he did not understand, Tom Markley understood that least of all. Miriam, his wife of thirty—what was it?—thirty-six years, and rock-steady all through them. When he was in Korea and she had to have Katy on her own, when he quit his job at Shaub’s in Lansford to go into business for himself, when he had his operation and she had to handle the store and the books for a month and a half because he didn’t trust his clerks to, she’d been as strong and supportive as he’d ever hoped a woman would be. But lately, in just the past few weeks, she’d been strangely aloof, only half listening to what he was saying. Last weekend, too, they hadn’t made love.
It was that which hurt him the most. Rejection did not come easy to him, nor did failure. And he knew somehow that he had failed with Merridale, and with Mim. Their relationship, like the town itself, was deteriorating, small pieces of it being eaten away. He wished that none of this had ever happened, that the ghosts and the TV crews and Clyde Thornton had never set foot in Merridale.
Clyde Thornton, on the other hand, was delighted with his lot. From his first fearful doubts about what he would do and find in the town, he had fallen comfortably into his role of media hero, guru, and surrogate mayor. People finally realized who he was, knew what he did, even if, up to this point, he had done nothing but stonewall. But hell, people were used to that, used to getting no answers, only verbal disguises that reassured while they confused.
There were side benefits too. The recognition was damn nice—the sense of being someone important, someone looked up to. It was him the people listened to at the town meetings, not the mayor or the police chief. It was him the TV cameras were on, him the reporters wanted to talk to. Maybe there weren’t as many now as when it started, but there were enough. Besides, fewer reporters meant fewer eyes to see things that shouldn’t necessarily be seen.
Ted Bashore’s house had been a godsend for purposes of secrecy. Bashore had practically forced it on Thornton. It was a huge, three-story colonial with two large wings, one of which Thornton occupied, and the other of which was shared by Jackson and Pruett, who had turned the large recreation room in the basement into a laboratory, where they continued to poke and probe, checking water, air, and soil samples until Thornton wondered if they were really humans or just cleverly disguised androids. The agency was happy to pay Ted Bashore’s account $300 a month rather than the $700 they’d been paying the Lansford Holiday Inn, and Thornton was happy to finally have a residence private enough to entertain some of the women who’d been yapping at his heels.
The first one he’d taken back had been a thin, wiry blonde in her late thirties whom he’d met in a cocktail lounge. Her first words to him were, “Hey, you’re a lot better looking in person than you are on TV.” He’d bought her a drink, unable to keep his eyes off the spots on her leotard top where her nipples pushed out the fabric like rounded buttons. He could have sworn that they were growing larger as he watched, and she proved later that their propensity for rapid change was no illusion.
She’d balled him silly, worn him out fast, and if she hadn’t come, he hadn’t been aware of it. To his delight and slight embarrassment, she seemed to be in a constant orgasmic state from the time they got in his rented Fairmont to when he drove her home just before sunrise. It was as though just being with him excited her, and he realized later that it wasn’t he who thrilled her, not his kisses, or his fingers, or his cock, but rather his image, the one on the TV screens and magazine covers, that she’d been fucking. And he thought, quite rightly, that there must be other women like this.
He found them readily enough. They’d been there all along, smiling and teasing, but before the blonde he’d made no reprisals owing to the simple fact that even if they were serious, he was too recognizable to be seen leading a woman to a motel room that opened directly on a crowded and well-lit parking lot. But Ted Bashore’s house changed things. There was no one to see him drive the women off the main road and down the tree-lined private lane, no one to watch as they got out of the car and went inside, and no one to watch what followed. Oh, one or two of the girls had run into Jackson or Pruett the next morning in the kitchen, but the scientists were circumspect.
The big benefit of this whole trip however, the crème de la crème of benefits, far above media exposure or free and eager sex, was the financial arrangements he’d made. Not that he had gone to any great effort to make them; rather they had fallen into his lap like ripe plums, dark and juicy with promise. The man had not given Thornton his name when he called. It had been late at night and Thornton had been alone in the house.
“Dr. Clyde Thornton?”
“Yes?”
“Dr. Thornton, I believe I have a proposition that might interest you.”
“Yes?”
“I represent a coalition of people who call themselves Friends of TriCounty Power.”
“Never heard of it.”
“It’s a very exclusive group. Private.”
“So what can I do for you?”
“A great deal. A man with your influence could be very helpful to us.”
“Look, I don’t know what you’re driving at, but—”
“There’s no tap.”
“What?”
“I just wanted to let you know that there is no tap on the phone, so we can speak freely.”
“Hey.
If you’re talking about what I think you’re—”
“I’ll tell you what I’m talking about, Dr. Thornton. I’m talking about your trading your help for our money. That’s it in a nutshell. We wouldn’t ask you to withhold any information that posed a real threat to the public … not a real threat. But we would hope to be informed first. We would simply like a bit of heat taken off of us and perhaps put elsewhere. “
“I’m not interested! Who are you, anyway?”
“I could be the best friend you ever had.”
“I said I’m not interested.”
“All right. Just think about it. Think about more money than you ever dreamed of having. More than the six hundred and four dollars and seventy-three cents the government pays you every week and takes back two hundred before you get it. Think about the house you’re in now and what it would be like to live in a house like that all the time. And think of the women that money would buy. Think of safety and secrecy and cash and just bending the rules a little. We’ll be in touch.”
Clyde Thornton did think about it, and the more he thought, the more harmless his participation seemed. Take some heat off, that’s all, and it would be easy enough. So far no one, not the Russians or the French or the independents or Jackson and Pruett, had found a damn thing linking the Merridale phenomenon to Thorn Hill. Nor had they found proof of a link to any other source, natural or man-made. It must be the uncertainty, Thornton thought, that was driving the power people crazy. In the eyes of the public, nuclear power was already at fault; a Newsweek poll had found that sixty-two percent of those questioned felt that the nearby nuclear facility was somehow responsible for what had happened. Thornton didn’t blame them for their fears. He knew damn well that N-plants weren’t as safe as they could be, but he also knew that the easily panicked public would blame nearly any mysterious happening on a nuke if there were one within a hundred miles. Odds were that Thorn Hill was in no way responsible, so where would the harm be if he made that implication public?
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