"You're the only one who can help. I know you are. I knew the others could not help, but I had to do something. I had to do something while I was waiting for you. You can help! Please help!"
But the thought would give me no course of action. I was its pawn, and it wanted me to do something. But it would not allow me to move from my position on the floor.
She stopped paying attention to me. I was afraid that she had given up and would go away forever. I sensed her looking out the window, staring at something frightening her. I wanted to look with her, but the thought would not let me move my head.
"Listen to those screams! They see those savages coming! The screams! The screams!"
The thought told me that there were indeed screams, but I could not hear them. I wanted to convince her that I was trying to hear, but I didn't know how.
"Daddy! Daddy!" Then she turned toward me. "How can you just sit there and watch them murder Daddy? You've already let them kill Mommy and my brothers! And we did nothing to them, nothing! How can you just sit there?"
The thought told me that she had broken contact with me; she would no longer speak to me. Neither would she let me go. I saw her form shrink; she was falling to her knees and burying her face in her hands. I wanted to touch her, but the thought told me that if I tried, she would disappear. I decided not to touch her because I wanted her to be with me.
When she raised her head, it was not to look at me. She was becoming a wisp again. I sensed her opening her mouth to scream, and I could imagine what her scream would be like. I tensed myself, hoping to shut it out of my mind, but the scream never came.
It was over fast; the yellow wisp was suddenly gone and I was alone in the blackness.
I don't know how long I sat there. My eyes were closed most of the time and I concentrated on my wasted feeling. The remaining joint had been crushed out in my fist, but I couldn't summon any sorrow for it. And the thought was still there. The thought, whatever it was supposed to represent after her going, would always be with me; that didn't make me feel any less lonely.
Finally I left Cook's Cabin and walked toward the car; my movements were made without desire because I didn't care if I ever got home or not. The sky was clear, the stars were sparkling, but in the distance a silver fog hung over the mountains. Glancing at the fields across the highway—those reputed to have been the Indian burial grounds—startled me for some reason. I realized that the fields were fertile, good for planting crops. Then I knew what she and her family had done to the Indians, why they had been slaughtered. I leaned on my car and smoked a cigarette, keeping my mind as blank as possible.
When I woke up (with a headache) the next morning I wanted to continue my life as before, as if it had all been a dream. I opened my eyes to see a yellow wisp in front of me. I waved my hand and it was gone. My vision was not over, I realized as I took a couple of aspirin in the bathroom; and on top of that, something important had been taken from me; something had been pushed out of my brain by the thought. I cursed out loud, just as my mother passed the bathroom. She glared at me and spoke my name in anger.
"Uh, sorry, Mom."
"Well? What's the matter?"
"Uh, nothing."
"Nothing," she said, tapping her foot. "Come and get your breakfast." She walked toward the kitchen.
I didn't eat much. I drank some orange juice and left for the pool a little early because my father tried to talk to me about what I was going to do when I got out of school. Despite the fact that I saw the yellow wisp while he spoke, I remained noncommittal, as usual.
And as usual, the morning sun was very bright. Sometimes it was hidden from me by the tree next to the highway, but not often enough to suit me. Once the sunlight changed into that yellow wisp and I almost wrecked the car; fortunately the police weren't anywhere around. After that I looked for my sunglasses beside me on the seat and couldn't find them; they were either at home or lost. Not looking forward to spending the whole day squinting my eyes, I stopped at a drugstore and bought a new pair with yellow-orange lenses. I hoped that Jack Walker wouldn't see me and ask where my money had come from.
Jack Walker; I had a few things to say to him.
Twenty minutes after I arrived at the pool, thick gray and white clouds rolled from the mountains in the west. They rolled until they covered the whole sky. I sat on the table with my feet on the bench and twirled my sunglasses. Every once in a while, when I wasn't seeing the yellow wisp and when the few people at the pool were out of hearing range, I said, "Come on out, you bastard. Come on out."
Chip and Ted arrived late that afternoon, earlier than usual because Chip had left the Health Department without permission.
"Well? Is it good?" asked Ted.
"Yeah, it's gotta be good because I don't want to spend good poker money on something that's not gonna get me high," said Chip.
"How was moving?" I asked, not really interested.
"It sucked," said Ted. "How's the dope?"
"Uh, it's good. We'll have to make sure Walker gives us some of the same shit, though." There wasn't much enthusiasm in my voice.
"Yeah," said Chip. "I wouldn't trust him with nothing."
"How good?" asked Ted.
"For Christ's sake, it's good!"
Ted smiled and lit my cigarette. "Well, you don't have to get bitchy about it. Peace, love, and all that shit."
"Yeah," I said. "Seen Walker today?"
"No," said Chip, "but I imagine that Scrooge will be here soon enough."
Walker was at the pool twenty minutes later, after I had to suffer through the yellow wisp twice more and Ted telling me about how Chip had dropped a table, stepped into a box of expensive china, and had been jilted by his ugly second cousin. When Walker saw us, he "trucked on up," looking like the silly animation I had seen once in an Italian movie about Sinbad. "Do you want some?" he asked. "Do you want some?"
"Must you wear that damn shirt?" I asked.
"We want some," said Ted.
"Yeah. How much?" said Chip.
Walker cited the going price for dope. Ted cursed and muttered something about inflation being everywhere these days.
"What's in it?" I asked. "Any angel dust?
"No. I wish there was," replied Walker, smiling.
"You sure?" I asked. "I mean, you better not be lying or nothing." I was sitting on my hands because I didn't want to use them. The thought was telling me that he was telling the truth, and I had given up fighting people because I didn't like their looks long ago.
"I'm sure. Nothing but good, fresh, healthy dope. Some of the best."
I didn't know how much Chip and Ted bought I didn't get any, myself.
The next day I didn't have to work, so I watched quiz shows, soap operas, and Mike Douglas. I also ate a lot of popcorn. I enjoyed watching TV because I was able to ignore to some extent the thought buzzing around in my head. The yellow wisp didn't bother me as much either; I didn't even adjust the color on the set when it came. Outside clouds still covered the sky; I looked once or twice. The temperature was lower than usual, and when chills ran up and down my body, I closed the windows. There was a lot of smoke in the living room after that.
At about four o'clock Bill Roberts called me. I had seen him only once or twice this summer, but I used to hang around with him when I was in high school and he was in college. He was a strange boy who grew up to be an even stranger young man. Long ago he wanted to be a writer, and I had to listen to him talk for hours about the big parties he would go to in New York, about how he would tell Norman Mailer what he really thought of him, and about how all his books would be on the best-seller lists. And he was smart; I couldn't believe it. Once I asked him an innocent question about who in the world Oliver Goldsmith was; he delivered a long lecture about him being an ugly poet. Bill also used to talk about how he was going to leave Blackton, just as soon as he graduated from college. He was going to go to New York, get a job somewhere, and write. For some reason it never happened; occasionally he h
ad written a few things and sent them off, but they didn't sell. Then he just gave up. Threw his arms up in the air and said to heck with it. Went to work for the Health Department.
Anyway, he called to tell me that his folks had asked him to take some clothes and books to his sister in Richlands and he wanted to know if I would go along. Since Chip and Ted were smoking that dope and I didn't particularly want to, I said I would.
He picked me up at six. Bill was putting on a gut. With those Arrow shirts and clean blue jeans, and with that black hair dangling over the top of his ears, he looked like he was already married, and liking it, even though he wasn't supposed to marry Jenna Hughes for another six months. His face was puffy and round and he was clean-shaven. I liked him better when he was thin and dressed in rags like a true freak and three days' stubble was on his chin and his eyes looked like they were about to drill into something. During those days he looked like someone who just might become a great author. But there was nothing I could do about that. He was still a nice guy.
For a few minutes we didn't say much. The yellow wisp was in front of me and the thought was still buzzing around; what it was trying to say I didn't know, didn't care. Funny; I was beginning to feel like I was a comrade with Bill again, for the first time in years. He cursed some old woman who pulled out in front of him at an intersection and I forced a laugh. He turned on the radio, asked me to light a cigarette for him, and said, "Well, Bob ol' boy, what's you been doing with yourself?"
"Getting stoned. Lounging around. The usual." I was uncomfortable because we were going to pass Cook's Cabin soon, but I tried not to show it
"Yeah. Same here." He took the cigarette I was handing him.
"Been doing any writing?" I don't know why I asked that; I didn't know if that was the right thing to say or not. If it was wrong, he didn't show it. He said:
"No. I don't read much anymore either. I just get drunk with Jenna on weekends at her father's cabin in Thompson Valley."
"How come you don't write?" I used to enjoy pumping him because he had always been quick with the Christ-figure answers. Now I was acting toward him as I had several years ago, when we had been close, and the only reason I had for doing so was the notion that he might understand if he knew what I was going through. I still wanted to help the girl I had seen last night.
"Not much point to it." He sped up around a curve so his tires would squeal; they did and he chuckled, squinting his eyes in the setting sun, which had just come out of the clouds.
It was good to see sunlight, even if it was fogged by that yellow mist. The grass next to the highway flicked by me, and I watched it until we passed a hitchhiker with long hair; I flipped him the finger, just for the fun of it. Bill saw me do it and laughed. "Remember when we used to shoot moons?" he asked.
"I shot 'em. You always drove because you were so damn shy."
"Something like that." He repeated the words, as if saying them again somehow gave them more meaning. Maybe it did.
"How come you stayed here in Blackton? I always expected you to leave and you never did. How come?"
Bill didn't answer until we neared Cook's Cabin and the burial grounds. He took his foot off the gas and looked to his left, to the cabin on the hill. Twilight was coining, and the cabin seemed as if it were now a dream, and everything else (but the wisp and the thought) was real.
"I just wanted to stay," Bill said. "I figured that anything I could do away, I could do here. And Mom and Dad need me. Jenna needs me." He paused for a moment, waiting until we couldn't see Cook's Cabin for the curves, and said, "And maybe somebody else will need me. I couldn't leave knowing she might need me."
I let it hang there for a moment, but I couldn't let it hang for too long. I thought I knew whom he was talking about, and I had to be sure. After a moment I asked him who.
He flicked his cigarette out the window. "You know who as well as I do, Bob ol' boy. You're one of us now. I sensed it this morning."
I guessed my mouth dropped open. I wanted to say something else, but instead I slumped down in my seat and lit a cigarette for myself. I realized what had been taken away from me; the wasted feeling the thought carried with it would be with me for the rest of my life in Blackton County.
As we drove in silence toward Richlands, I allowed myself to think of the many things I had tried to ignore since the night before. I thought of the girl in the cabin, and I wondered how many more times she would try to find someone who could save her. I wondered how it felt to die again and again and again. And I wondered how many more people there were like Bill and me.
THE BLACK CAPTAIN by H. Warner Munn
Critics frequently seem to regard it as sufficient praise of a story to say that the horror takes place in daylight. H. Warner Munn gives us a story that takes place in the most blistering sort of daylight, and in doing so he probes a little more deeply than may first be apparent. For this sun-drenched gem is really about the night and the horrors that can lurk in darkness—waiting . . . waiting . . .
A hunting tarantula moved cautiously out of the spot of shade provided by the body of the man in the rocking chair. Exploring the heat-warped floor boards of the roofless porch for possible prey, it tiptoed on the points of its claws into the full blaze of the desert sun.
The man saw it coming—a shaggy, black blotch, progressing in little quick leaps, delicately tensing as it waited for any answering vibration that would indicate the presence of quarry which its nearsighted vision might not detect
He regarded it incuriously, neither with enmity or fear, although his bare foot was directly in its path. If he felt any emotion concerning the tarantula, it was not apparent.
So far as the eye could see, between the shack and the distant mountain rim quivering fantastically through the heat haze, no other life disturbed the barren, arid vista. Yet life was there, waiting for the comparative cool of night to go about its business in all its diverse ways.
This was not a new thought, being ever present in his mind. It recurred now, with the usual sense of dread. It was time to make his daily trip across that shelterless expanse after water.
The tarantula reached his foot. It tested the hot, calloused skin. A flake of scurf fell away. It pounced viciously, mumbling the juiceless trophy.
The man felt the roughness of savagely working mandibles, so close it was. Harsh fur crowded against his instep. He did not move. The haunting terror in his hollowed eyes was not for the deadly spider.
His gaze, diverted for an instant, returned to an evanescent cloud drifting toward the shack, detached from the edge of the far peaks. There was a spot of shadow beneath, shrinking as it came. He watched this, intently, estimating its speed, its direction, its rapid attenuation and probable time of arrival.
Now the tarantula had mounted the obstacle and was crossing his foot. He remained passive under the tickling scratch of taloned, wide scrabbling legs. He could sense its hunger. It was furious with disappointment. A tiny drop of venom from the rapidly palpitating jaws fell upon his skin. He felt the wetness through fine-drawn nerves. In his bloodstream, this would have brought immediate pain, fever, perhaps delirium and death.
As though this were a minor problem, he watched only the cloud. It was this approach which brought an increase in his heartbeat, as adrenalin pumped into his veins—and that alone.
The tarantula crossed the barrier without sinking its fangs. It hopped down upon the cracked, desiccated wood with an audible plop.
As though drawn by the sound, a tarantula-wasp dived down out of nowhere, sting extended, driving it deep into the spider's body at the precise spot to bring about immediate paralysis.
The tarantula shuddered, drew its legs tightly together in convulsion, and relaxed into a shapeless bundle. The wasp, heavily laden, went staggering away toward its burrow, skimming low to the ground through the breathless heat.
The man sighed, following its course almost as though he regretted the end of the incident. It appeared that he had deliberately court
ed the danger of the bite.
He looked for the cloud. It had completely evaporated. His face showed some relief. Temporarily, there was nothing to fear.
Subconsciously, he was aware that the small generator in the shed behind the shack was throbbing with its usual regularity. Gasoline and supplies would arrive tomorrow. There was no immediate problem to hinder the journey for water, yet he hesitated.
He glanced into the shack. Four one-hundred-watt bulbs, one to each corner of the small room, were blazing to compete with the midday sun which streamed in, unimpeded by curtains. A Coleman lantern hung ready in the center, its globe raised, ready for instant lighting. A kerosene lamp stood on a small table at the head of his cot, its glass chimney set beside it, and candles were laid close at hand, with loose matches in several places conveniently in reach—day and night—should the generators fail.
Skull-cracking rays drove upon the shack, but he did not enter its protection and comparative coolness. There were no shadows inside, but there was always the possibility under a roof.
The man cast a calculating eye toward the zenith. The flaming sky was an oven lid clamped firmly to the horizon rim. He wheeled slowly, encompassing the entire circumference of it. It seemed impossible that any breeze could force a way through such a joint to alleviate the oppressive heat.
Distantly, a black speck circled above the cinnabar red, wind-worn peaks of the baked Infiernillo Range. Little Hell, he mentally translated, and was not aware that he had repeated the words aloud until startled by his own creaking voice.
For a moment he toyed with the thought. If this was so—could the observant winged creature be searching for him? He shook away the fancy, as his eyesight, keened by anticipatory dread, resolved the moving dot into its truthful aspect.
Only a buzzard, tracking carrion, and waiting. If it was not yet existent, because of the lack of water, old age, and injury, the bird would eventually feed.
He searched the surface of the desert through slitted eyelids, almost closed against the glare which pounded against them. Nothing. His smile of satisfaction gashed his unkempt beard as, reassured, he took down the empty olla from its hook.
The Year's Best Horror Stories 4 Page 19
