"Damned if I know."
"Let's find out," she said.
It did.
***
Two hours later they lay side by side on the uneven mattress of the folded-out sofa bed. Charity propped herself up on an elbow and brushed a hand through the graying hair on Kettering's chest.
"I missed you," she said.
"It's been what, two days?"
"I don't mean since the last time I saw you, I mean just now. You weren't exactly totally involved, were you?"
"You're telling me the earth didn't move?"
She smacked him hard on the stomach. "Will you quit doing shtick from Moonlighting? Something's bothering you, isn't it? I mean something more visible than the trouble at home."
"Okay," he said. "Something's bothering me." He waited. "So, aren't you going to ask me what?" he said at last.
"Nope. I figure if you want to tell me, you will. If you don't, I'm not going to drag it out of you."
"Since you insist," he said, "I'll tell you about it."
And to his surprise, he did. He told her about the shooting on his doorstep of the child who wasn't there. When she made no comment, he went all the way back to the church picnic and started over with the strange conversation he'd overhead, and the mental curtain that had dropped over what he'd seen in the house on Bailey Street. If he'd really seen anything. He told her about his life after his father died and the coming of the Greasers. He even found himself telling her about Uncle Art and his story of Doomstalker and how it haunted him. When he stopped talking he was exhausted.
He rolled over in the sofa bed and looked at her. "Do I sound like a nut case?"
"Yeah," she said.
"Thanks."
"But you know what?"
"What?"
"I think your Doomstalker is real."
"You're kidding me."
She ignored this. "And you know what else?"
Kettering sat up and looked down at Charity. Her eyes were clear, her expression grave.
"Tell me," he said.
"I think he's found you."
Chapter 12
Charity put her face close to the door of the bathroom. She spoke loudly to carry over the sound of the shower inside.
"You hungry?"
Kettering called back, "Yeah."
"Where do you keep the food?"
"What food?"
"Don't you have any food?"
"Give me a break, I just moved in."
"There's a 7-Eleven on the corner. I'll run down and get something."
The hiss of the shower stopped. Kettering opened the door, dripping wet, a towel around his waist.
"You don't have to do that."
"I'm on my way." She pulled his wet face down and kissed him. "I'll be back by the time you get out of there."
She did not quite make it, but by the time Kettering had toweled himself dry and dressed in fresh jeans and a T-shirt with a picture of Clint Eastwood and a legend reading MAKE MY DAY, she was back with two big bags full of groceries. He sat at the kitchen table and watched appreciatively while she pulled out the utensils that had come with the apartment and went to work on the small gas range.
"You've got nice kitchen moves," he said.
"Don't expect this kind of service all the time," she told him. "I'm not what you'd call a career homemaker."
"Smells good," Kettering said. "What is it?"
"Hamburger and onions, cream of tomato soup, sourdough bread, cheddar cheese. A gourmet's delight."
"Terrific."
They ate in companionable silence, sharing a bottle of French Columbard Charity had brought from the market.
When they had finished, Kettering lit a cigarette. "Did you mean what you said before?"
"What was that?"
"About my phantom - the Doomstalker - being real."
"I meant it."
"You're not just humoring a stressed-out cop?"
"Dammit, Kettering, don't you know me at all? I do not humor people. I am telling you I think your Doomstalker exists. Sure, maybe you're crazy, maybe we're both crazy, but God help me, I believe you. I think this bogey of yours is real and it's found you. So don't get cute with me."
Kettering stared at her across the table. "Sorry."
He finished his cigarette and ground it out against the side of an empty coffee can.
"You need ashtrays," Charity said.
"I'll decorate later."
"You started to tell me about your sister."
He looked at her sharply.
"Where is she now?"
"At a place up in Ojai. A hospital. I had her moved out here from Indiana. Don't ask me why."
"What do you mean?"
Kettering tapped the side of his head. "Her mind's gone. It doesn't make any difference to Jessie where she is."
"You can't really be sure of that."
"Maybe not."
Charity studied his expression. "You really love your sister, don't you?"
"I suppose."
"Do you ever tell her?"
He answered her with a dark look.
"Kettering, you just don't want anybody to suspect you've got a heart. Why don't we go and see your sister?"
"We?"
"Why not? If we're going to whip this Doomstalker business together, I'm going to have to be included in your life. At least for a while."
"Why do you want to get mixed up in this?" he said.
"Because I like hanging out with you?"
"Not good enough."
"Okay, call it a career move. I'm tired of standing in front of a building with the sun in my eyes, staring into a minicam and reciting twenty seconds worth of on-the-spot news. If somehow, on some plane, this monster of yours does exist - and right now I'm ready to say it does - I am going to have an exclusive on one hell of a story."
"For who? National Enquirer?"
"Come on, Kettering, think big. I can already see a book, serialization, movie rights."
"Why not T-shirts and a stuffed toy that clings to car windows with suction-cup hands and feet?"
"Don't try to be clever, Kettering, it doesn't suit you."
"Okay, so we go after it together and you get rich and famous."
"Maybe. And you get rid of whatever's haunting you. Maybe."
"You're sure you want to get involved?"
"Hell, Kettering, I am involved. Are you going to argue?"
He raised his glass to her. "Nope."
"You learned something, anyway."
Charity refilled their glasses with wine and they drank.
"So let's go see your sister," she said.
"Okay, but I don't think it will do much good."
"How long since you've talked to her?"
Kettering smiled grimly. "Thirty years. It's been more than a year since I've even been up to see her. Jessie doesn't speak. She doesn't react."
"She's catatonic?"
"That's the word."
"So when do we leave?"
"Are you available tomorrow morning?"
"I'm available."
"What about your job?"
"I'll take a leave of absence."
"You're pretty sure this is going to work out, aren't you?"
"Aren't you?"
Kettering could hold his frown only so long. He relaxed into a grin. "I'll pick you up at ten. "
***
The drive north on the Ventura Freeway was a pleasant one. In the morning most of the traffic was commuters heading the other way into Los Angeles to work. Kettering felt relaxed and good with the window rolled down to a pleasant sea breeze and the vital redheaded woman beside him. He could almost forget the dark circumstances that had brought them together.
"You haven't asked what happened to my sister," he said.
"I figured you'd tell me when you were ready."
"Since you insist on being a part of this, you might as well hear it now." Kettering let the rhythm of the freeway take his mind back. Back to Prescott an
d a time he did not want to remember.
"It started with the Greasers. I told you about them."
He could sense Charity's nod.
"Jessie wouldn't listen to anybody ..."
With Charity sitting silently beside him, intent on his words, Kettering told the story.
The warnings of her mother, the anger of her little brother, the disapproval of her schoolmates and the town in general, did nothing to pull Jessie Kettering away from the newcomers. If anything, she spent even more time with the Greasers, in open defiance of everybody. She partied with them in the park, she walked down the street arm in arm with them. She rode behind them on their motorcycles. Sometimes she came home walking unsteadily and smelling of cigarettes and beer.
Finally, as the townspeople neared the end of their patience, the Greasers decided to leave. Word circulated among the young people of Prescott that they were planning a big farewell party at their grubby campground. It was to be, so went the word, a total orgy. While the citizens hoped the "farewell" part was true, they strictly forbade their sons and daughters to go anywhere near the ragged settlement on the designated night.
Lucille Kettering gave orders that her daughter was not even to leave the house. This, of course, guaranteed that Jessie would somehow attend.
That night Brian lay fully dressed, awake in his bed while his mother, tired from a day of inventory-taking at the shop, fell quickly into a deep sleep. When he heard the window in his sister's room slide softly in its frame, he climbed out of bed, crossed to his own window, and looked out.
Jessie, dressed in a pink blouse, white cardigan sweater, and the jeans their mother hated because they were so tight, stepped down to the soft grass and hurried furtively across the lawn to the street. Brian pushed the window up in its frame, eased himself out, and followed.
Jessie walked quickly two blocks down Bailey Street to the intersection with Rose Avenue. Brian kept close to the bushes, staying about half a block behind her. Several times Jessie stopped to look back, but he was quick enough to jump into the shadows before she saw him.
At the intersection Jessie stood outside the pool of light thrown by the streetlamp. There she waited. Every minute or so she checked her wristwatch, peering expectantly down Rose Avenue as though she were waiting for a bus. Brian crouched behind a brick wall back up the street and waited with her. The night closed in and it got cold. He wished he had thought to grab a jacket.
After a quarter of an hour he heard the snarl of a motorcycle approaching. One of the Greasers wheeled up, spun his heavy bike under the streedamp, and slid over to the curb where Jessie was standing. The Greaser said something Brian could not hear and laughed. His sister climbed onto the saddle seat behind him. He revved the motor a couple of times and they roared off into the night.
Brian knew where they were going. He ran the two blocks back to his house, got his Schwinn three-speed out of the garage, and pedaled furiously for the edge of town where the Greasers had set up their camp.
Half a mile away he could clearly hear the music. Loud, pounding, dissonant. It made Elvis's "Jailhouse Rock" sound like a hymn. And the Everly Brothers' "Wake Up Little Susie," considered risque by the parents of Prescott, was sugary sweet by comparison. This music was savage, with whanging guitars and a thumping, sensual drumbeat that stirred alien emotions even in twelve-year-old Brian Kettering.
As he drew near, he could see the flames of a bonfire licking at the night sky. He walked his bicycle as close as he dared, then hid it behind a clump of brush and crept still closer.
The tents and makeshift shelters were arranged in a ragged circle. Parked safely within the circle were the motorcycles, shiny and powerful. The fire blazed in the center of the clearing. Around it the Greasers gyrated and stomped in some primeval dance.
Crawling as close as he dared, Brian could make out the red, sweaty faces contorted in some savage emotion. Most of the dancers were bare to the waist, some completely naked. Their faces and bodies were smeared with some dark substance. Blood?
From their gaping mouths came no words, but the howls and barks of animals. They leaped and spun and stomped and flailed their arms like souls in torment. Brian strained forward, terrified yet fascinated. He squinted so he could peer through the flames, looking for his sister. For a moment he clutched at a small hope that maybe, maybe she wasn't here. Then he found her.
Jessie danced in the circle with the others, her mouth wide, teeth biting at the darkness. Her sweater was gone, her blouse was open all the way down the front and pulled out of her waistband. She wore no bra. Brian stared with a guilty mixture of arousal and disgust at the bouncing rhythm of his sister's firm young breasts.
The tempo of the music increased. The dancers grew more frenzied. One of the males grabbed Jessie and pulled her against him. She leaned into his body and did not resist. Her captor lowered his head and took one of her breasts into his mouth.
Brian had to do something or he would burst. He stood up, still not sure whether he was going to yell or run down there or call his sister's name or what.
He never had a chance to do anything. A hand hard as sun-baked leather clamped over his nose and mouth. Brian tasted sweat and dirt and motor oil. He struggled to pull the hand from his face, but it would not budge. His chest heaved. Darkness squeezed in around the outside of his vision as he fought vainly to pull air into his lungs.
Just as he felt his chest must burst, the hand eased its grip enough to let him snort in a noseful of air.
A grainy voice rasped close to his ear. "Little boy, do you want to die?"
Brian's eyes watered at the stink of rotten teeth. He shook his head.
"Then get your skinny little ass back on that bicycle and get the fuck out of here. Don't come back. And don't tell anybody what you saw. If you do, we'll come after you."
The hand released him, and Brian ran stumbling and gasping back to where he had stashed the bike. He jumped on and pedaled away at top speed, his eyes streaming from the wind in his face and from the shame of being unable to help his sister.
What could he do? Tell his mother? Call the police?
We'll come after you.
What good would it do? Jessie was there by her own choice. God help her. Nobody else could now.
Back at home Brian got into bed and lay there staring up at the hanging model of a P-51 Mustang that turned slowly in the air currents of the darkened room. The luminous dial of his wristwatch read four o'clock when he heard the soft scrape of Jessie's shoe on the windowsill. He eased out of bed and went to her room.
Jessie stood between the open window and the bed and stared at him with strange wide eyes. There were blue-green bruises on her arms. Her blouse was misbuttoned, the jeans were torn at the knee. The crotch was stained.
"What do you want?" she said.
"Are you hurt?"
"I'm all right."
"I know where you went tonight."
"What of it?"
"If they ... hurt you, we can call the police."
"Nobody hurt me."
"What did they do to you?"
"Leave me alone. I'm tired."
"Did you drink something? Or smoke some of their dope?"
"What do you know about dope?"
"I know plenty. Did you? Did you?"
Jessie flared out at him. "Goddamn it, get out of here, you little shit. What I do is none of your business."
The cruel words hit Brian like an open-handed slap. He stood looking at his sister for a moment, then turned and walked back to his own room. It was dawn before he fell asleep. A shallow sleep shot through with ugly dreams.
***
The day after the farewell orgy, the Greasers were gone. As dawn lightened the Indiana sky, those citizens who were awake heard the cycles roar down the deserted main street of Prescott and away, heading for God knew where. Their stay in town had been only a month, but it seemed like a long, long time.
The clearing where they had lived was a left a morass of r
otting food, filthy rags, discarded clothing, wine bottles, beer cans, rubbers, and excrement. A group of local farmers got together and plowed the whole field under. They planted sawgrass, which grows anywhere, but the fouled soil of the Greasers' field remained barren, and the stink hung in the air for many months.
***
No one in the Kettering house spoke of Jessie's midnight visit to the bikers' camp. Brian kept his distance and said nothing. If Lucille knew her daughter had disobeyed, she never let on. Jessie wore long sleeves to cover her bruises, and was quieter than usual in the days that followed.
Then one morning Brian walked into the unlocked bathroom to find Jessie on tiptoe in front of the medicine-cabinet mirror. She wore only a bra and panties, and she had the panties pulled down to where the downy pubic hair began.
Brian began at once to back out, then he stopped and stared.
Jessie turned toward him. She did not look angry, only afraid. She made no move to cover herself in front of her brother.
"Oh, Bri," she said, "something awful has happened."
He stood in the doorway, unable to speak.
"I'm pregnant."
He heard the words and he knew what they meant, but Brian could not at that moment think about his sister's condition. He could not pull his eyes away from the angry red blotch on her abdomen.
"What's that?" he said.
Jessie touched the reddened area. "I don't know. Some kind of a rash, I guess. That's the least of my worries."
Brian did not think so. He thought it might be the very worst of her worries. The angry red rash was vaguely man-shaped, with hunched shoulders and long dangling arms. The mark of the Doomstalker.
***
Kettering fell silent. He turned off the freeway to the tree-lined state highway leading to Ojai. Charity reached over and touched his shoulder.
"What a rotten experience for you two kids," she said. "It's not surprising that it damaged your sister's mind."
"That didn't do it. Jessie was shook up, but she was a tough kid. There's more to the story."
Charity sat back to listen, but Kettering braked the car abruptly. To their left was a stone archway with an open wrought-iron gate. A plaque on one of the stone pillars read:
GOOD SHEPHERD
Gary Brandner Page 9
