sunbathing, and except for the surfers, the beach was deserted.
Bobby and Julie walked south until they found a low knoll, far enough
back from the water to escape the spray. They sat on the stiff grass
that flourished in patches in the sandy soil.
When at last she spoke, Julie said,
"A place like this, with a view like this. Not a big place."
"Doesn't have to be. A living room, one bedroom for us and one for
Thomas, maybe a cozy little den lined with books."
"We don't even need a dining room, but I'd like a big kitchen."
"Yeah. A kitchen you can really live in." She sighed.
"Music, books, real home-cooked meals instead of junk food grabbed on
the fly, lots of time to sit on the porch and enjoy the view-and the
three of us together."
That was the rest of The Dream: a place by the sea and by otherwise
living simply-enough financial security to retire twenty years early.
One of the things that had drawn Bobby to Julie-and Julie to him-was
their shared awareness of the shortness of life. Everyone knew that
life was too short, of course, but most people pushed that thought out
of mind, living as if there were endless tomorrows. If most people
weren't able to deceive themselves about death, they could not have
cared so passionately about the outcome of a ball game, the plot of a
soap opera, the blatherings of politicians, or a thousand other things
that actually meant nothing when considered against the inevitable fall
of the endless night that finally came to everyone. They could not have
endured to waste a minute standing in a supermarket line and would not
have suffered hours in the company of bores or fools. Maybe a world lay
beyond this on maybe even Heaven, but you couldn't count on it; you
could count only on darkness. Self-deception in this case was a
blessing. Neither Bobby nor Julie was a gloom-monger. She knew how to
enjoy life as well as anyone, and so did he, even if neither of them
could buy the fragile illusion of immortality than served most people as
a defense against the unthinkable. This awareness expressed itself not
in anxiety or depression, but in a strong resolve not to spend their
lives in a hurly-burly meaningless activity, to find a way to finance
long stretches time together in their own serene little tide pool.
As her chestnut hair streamed in the wind, Julie squinted at the far
horizon, which was filling up with honey-gold light as the sinking sun
drizzled toward it.
"What frightens Thomas about being out in the world is people, too many
people. But he'd be happy in a little house by the sea, a quiet stretch
of coast, few people.
"I'm sure he would."
"It'll happen," Bobby assured her.
"By the time we build the agency big enough to sell, the southern coast
will be too expensive. But north of Santa Barbara is pretty."
"It's a long coast," Bobby said, putting an arm around her.
"We'll still be able to find a place in the south. And we'll have time
to enjoy it. We're not going to live forever, but we're young. Our
numbers aren't going to come up for years an years yet." But he
remembered the premonition that had shivered through him in bed that
morning, after they had made love, the feeling that something malevolent
was out there in the windswept world, coming to take Julie away from
him.
The sun had touched the horizon and begun to melt into it. The golden
light deepened swiftly to orange and then to bloody red. The grass and
tall weeds behind them rustled in the wind, and Bobby looked over his
shoulder at the spirals of airborne sand that swirled across the slope
between the beach and the parking lot, like pale spirits that had fled a
graveyard with the coming of twilight. From the east a wall of night
was toppling over the world. The air had grown downright cold.
CANDY SLEPT all day in the front bedroom that had once been his
mother's, breathing her special scent. Two or three times a week, he
carefully shook a few drops of her favorite perfume-Channel Number
Five-onto a white, lace-trimmed handkerchief, which he kept on the
dresser beside her silver comb-and-brush set, so each breath he took in
the room reminded him of her. Occasionally he half woke from slumber to
readjust the pillows or pull the covers more tightly around him, and the
trace of perfume always lulled him as if it were a tranquilizer; each
time he happily drifted back into his dreams.
He slept in sweatpants and a T-shirt, because he had a hard time finding
pajamas large enough and because he was too modest to sleep in the nude
or even in his underwear. Being unclothed embarrassed Candy, even when
no one was around to see him.
All of that long Thursday afternoon, hard winter sun reeled the world
outside, but little got past the flower-patterned shades and
rose-colored drapes that guarded the two window The few times he woke
and blinked at the shadows, Candy saw only the pearl-gray glimmer of the
dresser mirror and glint from the silver-framed photographs on the night
stand Drugged by sleep and by the freshly applied perfume on the
handkerchief, he could easily imagine that his beloved mother was in her
rocking chair, watching over him, and he felt safe. He came fully awake
shortly before sunset and lay for a while with his hands folded behind
his head, staring up at the underside of the canopy that arched over the
four-poster; he could not see it, but he knew it was there, and in his
mind could conjure up a vivid image of the fabric's rosebud patter. For
a while he thought about his mother, about the best time of his life,
now all gone, and then he thought about the girl, the boy, and the woman
he had killed last night. He tried to recall the taste of their blood,
but that memory was not as intense as those involving his mother.
After a while he switched on a bedside lamp and looked around at the
comfortably familiar room: rosebud wallpaper; rosebud bedspread; rosebud
blinds; rose-colored drapes and carpets; dark mahogany bed, dresser, and
highboy. Two afghans-one green like the leaves of a rose, one the shade
of the petals-were draped over the arms of the rocking chair.
He went into the adjoining bathroom, locked and tested the door. The
only light came from the fluorescent panels in the soffit, over the
sink, for he had long ago lathered black paint on the small high window.
He studied his face in the mirror for a moment because he liked the way
he looked. He could see his mother in his face. He had her blond hair,
so pale it was almost white, and her sea-blue eyes. His face was all
hard planes and strong features, with none of her beauty or gentleness,
though his full mouth was as generous as hers.
As he undressed, he avoided looking down at himself. He was proud of
his powerful shoulders and arms, his broad chest, and his muscular legs,
but even catching a glimpse of the sex thing made him feel dirty and
mildly ill. He sat on the toilet to make water, so he wouldn't have to
touch himself. During his shower, when he soaped his crotch, he first
pulled on a mitten that he had sewn from a pair of washcloths, so the
flesh of his hand would not have to touch the wicked flesh below.
When he had dried off and dressed-athletic socks, running shoes, dark
gray cords, black shirt-he hesitantly left the reliable shelter of his
mother's old room. Night had fallen, and the upstairs hall was poorly
lit by two low-wattage bulbs in a ceiling fixture that was coated with
gray dust and missing half its pendant crystals. To his left was the
head of the staircase. To his right were his sisters' room, his old
room, and the other bath, the doors to which stood open; no lights were
on back there. The oak floor creaked, and the threadbare runner did
little to soften his footsteps. He sometimes thought he should give the
rest of the house a thorough cleaning, maybe even spring for some new
carpeting and fresh paint; however, though he kept his mother's room
spotless and in good repair, he was not motivated to spend time or money
on the rest of the house, and his sisters had little interest in-or
talent for homemaking.
A flurry of soft footfalls alerted him to the approach of the cats, and
he stopped short of the stairs, afraid of treading on one of their paws
or tails as they poured into the upstairs hallway. A moment later they
streamed over the top step and swarmed around him: twenty-six of them,
if his most recent count was not out of date. Eleven were black,
several more were chocolate-brown or tobacco-brown or charcoal-gray, two
were deep gold, and only one was white. Violet and Verbina, his
sisters, preferred dark cats, the darker the better.
The animals milled around him, walking over his shoes, rubbing against
his legs, curling their tails around his calve Among them were two
Angoras, an Abyssinian, a tall Manx, a Maltese, and a tortoise shell,
but most were mongrel cats of no easily distinguished lineage. Some had
green some yellow, some silver-gray, some blue, and they all regarded
him with great interest. Not one of them purred or mowed; their
inspection was conducted in absolute silence.
Candy did not particularly like cats, but he tolerated them not only
because they belonged to his sisters but because, in a way, they were
virtually an extension of Violet and Verbina To have hurt them, to have
spoken harshly to them, would have been the same as striking out at his
sisters, which he could never do because his mother, on her death bed,
had admonished him to provide for the girls and protect them.
In less than a minute the cats had fulfilled their mission and almost as
one, turned from him. With much swishing of tail and flexing of feline
muscles and rippling of fur, they flowed like a single beast to the head
of the stairs and down.
By the time he reached the first step, they were at the dining room
turning, slipping out of sight. He descended to the low hall, and the
cats were gone. He passed the lightless and must smelling parlor. The
odor of mildew drifted out of the stud where shelves were filled with
the moldering romance novels that his mother had liked so much, and when
he pass through the dimly lit dining room, litter crunched under his
shoes.
Violet and Verbina were in the kitchen. They were identical twins. They
were equally blond, with the same fair and flawless skin, with the same
china-blue eyes, smooth brows, high cheekbones, straight noses with
delicately carved nostrils, lips that were naturally red without
lipstick, and small even teeth as bone-white as those of their cats.
Candy tried to like his sisters, and failed. For his mother's sake he
could not dislike them, so he remained neutral, sharing the house with
them but not as a real family might share it. They were too thin, he
thought, fragile-looking, almost frail, and too pale, like creatures
that infrequently saw the sun which in fact seldom warmed them, since
they rarely went outside. Their slim hands were well manicured, for
they groomed themselves as constantly as if they, too, were cats; but,
to Candy, their fingers seemed excessively long, unnaturally flexible
and nimble. Their mother had been robust, with strong features and good
color, and Candy often wondered how such a vital woman could have
spawned this pallid pair.
The twins had piled up cotton blankets, six thick, in one corner of the
big kitchen, to make a large area where the cats could lie comfortably,
though the padding was actually for Violet and Verbina, so they could
sit on the floor among the cats for hours at a time. When Candy entered
the room, they were on the blankets, with cats all around them and in
their laps. Violet was filing Verbina's fingernails with an emery
board. Neither of them looked up, though of course they had already
greeted him through the cats. Verbina had never spoken a word within
Candy's hearing, not in her entire twenty-five years-the twins were four
years younger than he was,-but he was not sure whether she was unable to
talk, merely unwilling to talk, or shy of talking only when around him.
Violet was nearly as silent as her sister, but she did speak when
necessary; apparently, at the moment, she had nothing that needed to be
said.
He stood by the refrigerator, watching them as they huddled over
Verbina's pale right hand, grooming it, and he supposed that he was
unfair in his judgment of them. Other men might find them attractive in
a strange way. Though, to him, their limbs seemed too thin, other men
might see them as supple and erotic, like the legs of dancers and the
arms of acrobats. Their skin was clear as milk, and their breasts were
full. Because he was blessedly free of any interest in sex, he was not
qualified to judge their appeal.
They habitually wore as little as possible, as little as he would
tolerate before ordering them to put on more clothes. They kept the
house excessively warm in winter, and more often dressed-as now-in
T-shirts and short shorts or panties barefoot and bare-limbed. Only his
mother's room, which was now his, was kept cooler, because he had closed
the vents there. Without his presence to demand a degree of modesty
they would have roamed the house in the nude.
Lazily, lazily, Violet filed Verbina's thumbnail, and they both stared
at it was intently as if the meaning of life was to read in the curve of
the half-moon or the arc of the nail itself. Candy raided the
refrigerator, removing a chunk of canned ham, a package of Swiss cheese,
mustard, pickles, and a quart of milk. He got bread from one of the
cupboards and sat on a rail back chair at the age-yellowed table.
The table, chairs, cabinets, and woodwork had once been glossy white,
but they had not been painted since before his mother died. They were
yellow-white now, gray-white in the seams and corners, crackle-finished
by time. The dais patterned wallpaper was soiled and, in a couple of
places, peeling along the seams, and the chintz curtains hung limp
covered with grease and dust.
Candy made and consumed two thick ham-and-cheese sandwiches. He gulped
the milk straight from the carton.
Suddenly all twenty-six cats, which had been sprawling languidly around
the twins, sprang up simultaneously, proceeded to the pet door in the
bottom of the larger kitchen door, and went outside in orderly fashion.
Time to make their toilet, evidently.
Violet and Verbina didn't want the house smelling of litter boxes.
Candy closed his eyes and took a long swallow of milk.
He would have preferred it at room temperature or even slightly warm. It
tasted vaguely like blood, though not as pleasant pungent; it would have
been more like blood if it had not been chilled.
Within a couple of minutes the cats returned. Now Verbina was lying on
her back, with her head propped on a pillow, eyes closed, lips moving as
if talking to herself, though no sound issued from her. She extended
her other slender hand so his sister could meticulously file those nails
too. Her long legs were spread, and Candy could see between her smooth
thighs. She was wearing only a T-shirt and flimsy peach-colored panties
that defined rather than concealed the cleft of her womanhood. The
silent cats swarmed to her, draped themselves over her, more concerned
about propriety than she was, and they regarded Candy accusatory, as if
they knew that he'd been staring.
He lowered his eyes and studied the crumbs on the table.
Violet said, "Frankie was here."
At first he was more surprised by the fact that she had spoken than by
what she had said. Then the meaning of those three words reverberated
through him as if he were a brass gong struck by a mallet. He stood up
so abruptly that he knocked over his chair.
"He was here? In the house?"
Koontz, Dean R. - The Bad Place Page 10
