The Strangers

by Mort Castle

  “We can’t!” Marcy said. The girls were forbidden to cross 394, a four lane divided highway. “Daddy would…”

  “I’m not going to tell Dad,” Kim sneered. “And you’d better not, either!” Kim slipped up onto her bicycle seat and began pedaling slowly. She looked back over her shoulder, calling, “Come on and quit being such a wimp!”

  When Kim was halfway down the block, Marcy came after her, standing up on the pedals and riding fast.

  Wilbert C. Clarkson wasn’t joking when he told people that his middle initial stood for “Careful.” That was the way he lived his life and he credited that philosophy for getting him through sixty-three years—so far. No, Wilbert and his wife didn’t get swine flu shots a few years ago because of the possibility of side effects, and no, Wilbert refused to wear contact lenses because “who really knows what putting them on your eyes could do” and so Wilbert wore thick, unfashionable, old style hornrims.

  Nor was it time well spent talking to Wilbert Careful Clarkson about the safety of air travel, either; the engines on a 727 went, say, you didn’t pull over to the side of the road and wait for the tow truck! You went down and that was it.

  You were far safer in a car, if it was the right car. You wouldn’t find Wilbert behind the wheel of one of those Honda Civics or Dodge Omnis or whatever; an accident in one of those baby buggies, say “Goodbye.”

  Willbert Clarkson drove a Cadillac, trading it every three years. (Rich? No, sir, his four franchise quick-print shops hadn’t made him wealthy but he did all right—all right enough to afford a sensible car.)

  Wilbert drove his Caddy…carefully. The speed limit was 55—the gasoline crunch had had one good effect on American society, Wilbert figured—so Wilbert set the cruise control at 55 on the nose.

  This afternoon, he was heading south from his home to Oakdale to visit the manager of his print shop in Carmody. Nice guy, that manager. He and his wife, both of them youngsters, were running the place, but they were having trouble. Of course it was trouble they didn’t have to have. If they had only been—careful. They just didn’t take the extra time, the extra care, to make sure the ink and water were mixed exactly right. You could quick print anything if you just made certain that your equipment was right—so much ink and so much water and the customer had as pretty a copy as anyone could ask for.

  Okay, Wilbert would explain it all to them. If you had the right machinery and treated it properly, no sir, you never had problems.

  The yellow, diamond-shaped sign on the side of Route 394 warned him: “Crossroad.” Wilbert Clarkson slowed down. You couldn’t be too careful, you know.

  Then his foot, heel on floor, toe up, was ready to hit the brake, because… That kid had no brains! Look at her, just shooting out across the highway like that!

  Okay… He had nothing to worry about. And neither did the kid. She had made it halfway across the road and—a quick glance showed Wilbert—it was all clear in the northbound lanes.

  But then the kid lifted a hand from the handlebar and waved and another kid came scooting out…

  And Wilbert had his foot on the brake and he hit the horn and he was saying, “Oh no, oh no,” and he had the wrenching, awful realization that, no matter how careful you were, accidents happened!

  Accidents happened!

  He swerved, zigging toward the shoulder, and it made no difference. His foot on the brake pedal made no difference, slowing the Cadillac, but not enough, not enough… Wilbert C. Clarkson wanted to believe in magic, that somehow the day-shattering blare of the horn would transport the little girl on a bicycle into another dimension where she would be safe.

  In a splinter of a second, Wilbert C. Clarkson had a revelation: as careful as he was, as careful as he had always been, he was going to have an accident, an accident—and there was not a single thing he could do to prevent it.

  Then the Cadillac hit a bicycle.

  There was a sound of shredding and twisting that Wilbert would never forget.

  A child flew through the air.

  An instant’s image burned into his mind: the girl, her face slightly distorted by his thick glasses, the tinted windshield, the haze of hot summer, as she flew from the bicycle seat, riding only air for a suspended moment, her mouth and eyes so surprised…

  Wilbert C. Clarkson pulled onto the shoulder of the road.

  I’ve killed her. I’ve killed her. I’ve killed her, he thought, and then he got out of his Cadillac to do what he could for the child who had not been spared by his lifetime of “taking care.”

  — | — | —

  SEVEN

  LIKE SO many libraries in the Midwest, Belford’s was not air-conditioned, and so the windows were open, a light breeze fluttering the American flag in its socket in the corner of the high-ceilinged room. It was warm, but not uncomfortably so, and there was the pleasant odor of old books and dark woods. Claire Wynkoop’s feeling of serenity made her think her personal vision of heaven needed neither angels nor sweet-singing choirs; she’d gladly spend the afterlife in nothing more elaborate than an other-dimensional version of the Belford Public Library.

  “Mrs. Wynkoop, is this a good one? Should I take it out?”

  Through her bifocals, Claire Wynkoop looked at the book the girl, Nelda Jarvis, placed on the checkout counter. It was by Judy Blume, and, like all the popular Blume titles, a frequent check-out of the junior high age group. Some of the more conservative parents in town didn’t like Blume’s honest treatment of frank themes, but Claire Wynkoop decided what belonged on the shelves, and besides, you didn’t have to worry about what kids read. It was the kids who didn’t read—or couldn’t—who found trouble for themselves and made it for others.

  “Yes, Nelda,” Claire told the child. “I think you’ll enjoy it.” Stamping the return card, Claire was pleased that so many children consulted her about what to read, pleased that she—yes, she; nothing wrong with taking credit when credit was due!—had made the library a place that children frequented.

  When it happened, it was sudden, so sudden that while she had reason to anticipate it—she’d awakened that morning with “the old brain itch,” the cold, menacing, ringing in her cars, her classic harbingers of premonition—it still caught her by surprise. She was looking at Nelda, knowing it was Nelda but not seeing her, seeing instead the face of the little girl who…

  …screamed and floated, spinning in the air, wrapped in the shock of impact and enveloped by the sound of metal twisting and tearing the little girl who sees now, sees with the ultra-clarity of fear, the ground racing up toward her…

  Claire Wynkoop braced the heels of her fisted hands on the countertop. The moment of clairvoyance was over but during it and now, in its aftermath, her blood pressure had shot up to 200 over 110. The book stacks were whirling in a soundless hurricane. The ceiling was dropping to crush her. The earth itself was trying to dislodge her from its face.

  “Mrs. Wynkoop, are you all right?”

  She heard Nelda, Nelda in the here and now.

  She couldn’t answer, not yet, but a portion of her mind, coolly disinterested, spoke up: Now? Is this it? Stroke? Heart attack? Is this death?

  And, with ironic detachment, she thought:

  Is it going to be the Big Library in the Sky?

  No. She could feel her body decide the issue, and she knew …

  Not this time.

  “Mrs. Wynkoop!”

  She forced herself to focus, to see Nelda’s plain, concerned childish face. The girl was frightened, tugging at a strand of mouse brown hair.

  “Yes, Nelda,” Claire said, “I just had a spell.” Spell, she thought, now that was a word that showed her age; she doubted if people nowadays had “spells.” Then she mentally added, And I also had, no, not a premonition this time, but the clarification of one! Before she had not known exactly what would happen, but now she knew what had happened, and to which child.

  In the office, she telephoned Beth, but there was no answer.

  Beth w
as already at the hospital.

  With his silver hair, Vern Engelking looked strikingly like a Santa Claus who’d gone modem and shorn his beard. He projected good humor and fine high spirits as he talked about “Superior Chemical’s, ah, difficulty with Mr. Herbert Cantlon.”

  Michael and Eddie Markell were seated with Vern at the round conference table in Engelking’s tenth floor office. “Now,” Vern asked Eddie, “just how long has our less than conscientious representative been defrauding us and our esteemed clients?”

  “Three years at least,” Eddie Markell said. “Maybe longer, but I know for sure three.

  Way I see it, he’s one of those guys that figures if he’s an asshole, everyone else is an asshole, too.”

  Vern Engelking laughed. “Eddie, you have a unique way of expressing yourself.”

  Eddie Markell didn’t answer. Eddie Markell was forty years old, and when he was younger, he had a passing resemblance to Sam Spade in the definitive incarnation by Humphrey Bogart in The Maltese Falcon. Perhaps that was what had led Eddie to become a private detective. What had led him to become a heavy drinker, though, was the pressure of having to hide what he really was—a Stranger. Eddie Markell did industrial investigations for suburban firms, Vern Engelking’s among them, and he drank. When he had the opportunity, he killed people. His aura was the telltale red of a Stranger, but he had another aura as well, the’ internal smell of decay that came from years of mummifying himself with liquor.

  “Tell us more unsavory facts about our hitherto trusted salesman, Herb,” Vern Engelking said.

  “What’s there to say?” Eddie shrugged. He had lost weight in the past two or three years and his lightweight sportcoat did not fit well. When his shoulders moved, the cloth bunched up at the collarbone and stayed wrinkled. “Fucker uses his own set of price books for all his territory; he’s skimming good coin from southern Illinois, northern Kentucky and Missouri. So I kill his fucking ass and that’s that.”

  Michael had his misgivings about Eddie.

  Yes, Eddie was a Stranger, but he might soon prove a liability. Eddie seemed less and less capable of maintaining his disguise, of thinking of every possibility and planning for it. When The Time of The Strangers at last arrived it would only be those who had never, never once given themselves away, those who had been as shrewd as Michael Louden, who would partake of the countryside feast of blood and screaming and death.

  Vern Engelking raised an index finger. “If you please, we kill his fornicating ass. These group endeavors are so rewarding for us all.”

  “Yeah,” Eddie said. “See, Herb’s got this nineteen year old sweetie-pie he shacks up with in Mt. Claron. Wednesday night’s his usual for getting his cookies. I’ll fix it so we can have a surprise party. We can do them both, put some heavy shit on ’em.

  “Michael?” Vern asked, raising his eyebrows, “We’ll have to go away on business next week. Does that suit you?”

  Business, Michael thought, the business that was the sole reason for a Stranger’s existence! Herb Cantlon, pot-bellied yokel with white socks and jokes about traveling salesman and farmboys who loved sheep, a good ole boy hick in hicksville territory—lumpy-dumpy Herby—and a woman!

  A tingling shudder ran through Michael at the thought of what Vern and Eddie and he would do. How could the thrill be described? He wondered. Sex? It was so far beyond any pleasure that the brain or body could know from any of the varieties of that act that the comparison was ludicrous. Had he been capable of pity, Michael would have felt sorry for the poor sadist who found only—sexual pleasure in inflicting pain; A Stranger knew transendent, illuminating, overwhelming pure pleasure—became himself all pleasure when the blood poured hot and red and copper-stinking …

  “Sure, Vern,” Michael smiled. “I knew when you appointed me national sales manager that there’d be some travel involved.”

  “Indeed,” Vern Engelking said.

  “Yeah, whatever,” Eddie Markell said. “See you guys,” he said, and left.

  With Eddie gone, Michael voiced his concern. If there was anyone he trusted in the world, it was Vern Engelking. “Vern, do you think Eddie could be a problem for us? The way he’s drinking, well, his lungs ought to be marked ‘flammable.’ I’m not so sure he’s in control.”

  Vern nodded, leaning back in his ergonomically designed executive chair. He folded his hands, twiddling his thumbs; he was one of the very few who could do that without looking like an untalented actor in an amateur melodrama. Vern sighed. “The fact is, I don’t know. Eddie has his virtues, but your fears are not ungrounded. The man imbibes immoderately and that might create unfortunate situations in the future.”

  Then Vern smiled at Michael. “But for every problem, there is indeed a solution. If Eddie becomes a problem, we’ll—solve him. Let’s hope it won’t come to that.”

  “All right,” Michael said.

  The beige telephone beeped and blinked. Vern rose and went to his desk.

  The call was for Michael.

  When he hung up, he answered Vern’s unspoken question. “Beth,” he said. “She’s at the hospital. Kid had an accident, got hit by a car. She’s in X-ray right now.”

  “Ah, “ Vern said, “children can cause their parents ever so much worry. Is she seriously injured?”

  “Don’t think so. Of course, with my kids, there’s no need to worry about brain damage. You can’t hurt what you don’t have.”

  “Michael, it’s remarkable how you can joke despite your shock and upset.”

  “Believe me, Boss, I’m only putting up a brave front. You know how I love those kids; no one’s ever seen a more devoted dear old dad than me.”

  “Don’t let me keep you. Please hurry to the bedside of your unfortunate infant. But try to look more the grievously concerned parent!”

  “Yes,” Michael said. He willed his face to change. He could feel it happen, a perfect imitation of fearful anxiety creating worrydark hollows beneath jumpy eyes, even a tic-twitch along the jawline. Michael Louden had a thousand faces and all—all but one of them—the face of a normal man.

  Now, he was the father suffering the terrible fears and concerns about his beloved child.

  “By the way,” Vern Engelking asked as Michael was on his way out, “which precious lamb was injured?”

  “Kim,” Michael said. “It figures.”

  ««—»»

  It took Michael forty-five minutes to reach South Suburban Medical Center. The moment he stepped into the waiting room, directly across the hall from Emergency, Beth ran to him. “Oh, Michael…” He held her tightly, realizing that “Oh, Michael” was a statement of relief and not anguish.

  “Kim’s—Kim’s okay?” he tentatively asked.

  “They think she’ll be…she is fine!”

  Michael let out a deep breath. “Thank God,” he whispered. He looked over Beth’s shoulder and saw Marcy, seated in one of the plastic chairs that lined the walls of the waiting room. For a second, her eyes met his, and then she quickly glanced down, moving the toe of her sneaker from side to side on the tile floor.

  “Mr. Louden?”

  Michael turned, and Beth, standing at his side, said, “This is Dr. Hasselbrink. He took care of…” Beth had to struggle to say her child’s name as she realized for the thousandth time how near her child their little girl, had come to death.

  Dr. Hasselbrink shook Michael’s hand. “That is a kid and a half you’ve got there, Mr. Louden.”

  “She’s…”

  “She’s what I’d have to call a miracle,” Dr Hasselbrink said. “We’ve got negative skull and chest X-rays, no signs of internal bleeding, and, except for some bruises, Kim seems to be a hundred percent.” The young intern had a reddish-blond mustache that was heavier on the left than the right, giving his otherwise pleasant face a disconcertingly unbalanced appearance. In his white tunic, Dr. Hasselbrink reminded Michael of the college kids who used to earn summer money by selling ice cream from three-wheel bikes in the parks.
<
br />   “We’ll want to keep her for twenty-four hour observation,” Dr. Hasselbrink continued, “just to play it safe, but I think we’re A-OK.”

  A-OK, Michael thought, Dr. Kildare goes hip.

  “I…I can’t tell you how Michael paused, made himself choke slightly with the emotion he was supposed to be feeling, and then—he congratulated himself for the extra touch—willed his eyes to mist as he put his hand on Dr. Hasselbrink’s shoulder and squeezed. “How grateful we are!”

  “It’s okay.” Dr. Hasselbrink blushed, apparently not at all comfortable receiving gratitude. Just like the Lone Ranger, Michael thought. The insecure sonofabitch can’t handle anyone saying ‘Thank you.’

  “Thank you,” Michael said, “I mean that from the bottom of my heart.” Dr. Hasselbrink tried to slip free—politely—of Michael’s hand; Michael squeezed the intern’s shoulder emphatically. “I wish I knew how to tell you how much we appreciate everything you’ve done.”

  Hasselbrink turned as red as a high school sophomore who’d just learned he’d given his oral report in American History with his zipper at half mast. “Really,” Dr. Hasselbrink said, “I’m only glad I was able to give you good news.”

  “I want you to know…” Enough! ordered Michael’s mental warning system. “Well, thank you.” He released the doctor.

  “They’re getting Kim settled into Pediatrics now,” Dr. Hasselbrink said, backing away. “You should be able to see her in ten minutes or so, okay?”

  “Thanks again, Doctor,” Michael said, and Dr. Hasselbrink was out of the room, moving like he’d been summoned to perform emergency surgery on the Pope.

  Michael glanced over at Marcy. She was slumped forward, elbows on her knees, hands folded, head bowed. “Daddy’s girl” was staying away from Daddy, and Michael softly asked Beth to step out into the hall. Keeping his voice down, he asked, “Why is Marcy so down? She knows Kim’s going to be all right, doesn’t she?”