The Curse

by Charles L. Grant

  On the desk the telephone rang. Terry shook her head until she was dizzy. Sanity began to fray. It was impossible that she was listening to the phone. It was only an extension. The other was off the hook. It couldn't possibly be ringing. It should be disconnected. The other was off the hook!

  The telephone rang. She bit at her lower lip, tasted salt and gagged, wiping the blood from her chin with the back of her hand. Then she fell to her knees and crawled to the wall, felt along the baseboard until her fingers wrapped around the plug and yanked it out. Gasping, punching the floor once, twice.

  The telephone rang. Thunder and lightning simultaneously, a ripping and a single explosion like marble falling against marble. She stood quickly and her back scraped the corner of the desk. Yelping more in surprise than in pain, crying loudly, she lurched across the room, struck the easel again and fell, the canvas toppling onto her chest. She grabbed and hung onto it as if it were a life jacket, rolled to her side and used the nearest wall to help push her to her feet.

  Hugging herself until she remembered what was drawn on the canvas, and she held it away from her.

  And when again thunder and lightning thudded and licked across The Lane, she saw that the lines had been drawn over more heavily, the figures not quite as indistinct, the hand less flesh than bone, an old man's hand holding the hatchet that pointed toward the marker.

  The picture slid from her fingers, clattered onto the floor, but she didn't hear it. Her mind retreated, struggled to regain some balance. Her eyes reflected the turmoil, wide and shifting from door to wall to door, seeing nothing but a line of men and women trampling dead summer grass in a march that had begun far below the horizon. Seeing nothing but a shadow loom behind her, engulfing the old man's hand, stretching toward the advancing figures; a shadow without a shape, and though she wanted to know, had to know what it was and why it was covering her, she couldn't turn, couldn't breathe until the storm's cannonade restored her hearing, her vision, and the sound of her sobs.

  An arm stretched out to one side, a hand groped and found the light switch. Blinding, then, and she blinked away tears. The corners of her mouth trembled in an attempt to smile at the familiar disorder of the study. Attempted, and failed. She looked down at her feet, then, and wriggled her toes, held her fingers in front of her eyes until she was certain they had returned to her control. Her lungs ached, and she rubbed her breasts, pressed in her stomach, pulled at the skin at her throat until she felt air pass in, sigh out. A residue of dizziness tilted the room and warned her not to remain.

  With a pat on the wall for assurance, she took a step, stumbled over the canvas and easel, and nearly fell into the hallway. Wisps of hair had fallen over her face, and she could taste damp strands caught between her lips. She pulled and freed them, grabbed her hair and bunched it in one fist to drape it over a shoulder. It was cool despite her panic, and soft, and she stroked it for calming as she walked steadily into the front room and turned on all the lights.

  Thunder. Faint. The center of the storm drifting toward the city and leaving behind a slanting rain, the sound so incessant it was almost silent. A flutter of lightning. The lamp dimmed, brightened.

  Terry cocked her head. A wailing, a siren's wailing. Terror fanned out from her spine, checked itself when .she laughed nervously. The telephone was still dangling from its cord in the kitchen. The wailing was the company's warning to replace the receiver.

  "With pleasure," she said loudly, almost shouting. She immediately matched action to the thought, and then slumped wearily against the wall. She stared at the stove, not knowing whether to laugh or scream. Her chicken was burning, and the smell of scorched butter and charred meat was beginning to turn her stomach.

  This time, however, there was no burst of anger, no rain of self-recrimination. There was no feeling at all as she numbly scraped the ruined meal from the frying pan into the bag of garbage she kept under the sink. There was only the sound of the fork grating against the metal.

  The telephone rang. She froze. "No," she whispered. "Go away." Crouching now, on the floor like the rats she had seen in the retreating taillights of the car. Perspiration streamed obscenely down her stomach from between her breasts, slithered along her sides from under her arms, iced to her buttocks from her spine. Her eyelids could not open any wider. "Go away." She hissed. Spit. A hand clawed at the air toward the phone.

  Ringing. With one shoulder pressed against the cabinets, she inched toward the wall. Her knees protested, but she would not stand. She pulled at the cord, cursed, and pulled again until the receiver jumped from its cradle and she caught it in both hands. There was a voice. She could hear it. A voice. It was calling her name. Loudly. But not Theresa. Mrs. Guiness.

  Biting at her lips to keep back the sob that was blocked in her chest, she recognized Flaherty's voice. "Mrs. Guiness, are you all right out there?"

  She nodded, laughed at herself and pushed against the wall to stand. "I'm fine," she said, after several false starts. "Just fine, A little nervous, though. It's the storm, you see."

  "A gem, isn't it? It has some of my patients down here scared half to death. I've just, in fact, spent the last half hour keeping the children's ward from breaking into a stampede, riot, or whatever it is children do when they're scared." He laughed, and though she knew it was calculated therapy, joined him until she forced herself silent, feeling that if she continued she wouldn't be able to stop.

  "Well, I'm glad you're okay, Mrs. Guiness. What I called about was your sister. I hear you've been talking to some of the nurses on duty at the desk, and I want to be sure you've been getting the correct information. I know you're anxious, Mrs. Guiness, but I really wish you had waited until I had something to tell you."

  Not feeling the least guilty, Terry licked at her lips. "She said . . . she said, the last one I talked to, that Peg's fever has broken? Or at least it's come down some since yesterday?"

  A pause. Hesitation that made Terry sag against the wall. "Well, that had been the case earlier, Mrs. Guiness. But I'm afraid now that the fever has gone back up again. We're putting her into ice treatment to try to break it if we can."

  "What is it?" She was insistent now, catching the doubt in Flaherty's voice, a lack of confidence that he knew what he was up against. "What's going on down there, Doctor? Should I come down right away?"

  "No, Mrs. Guiness! No, you stay right where you are. Besides the dangers of driving in this storm, there wouldn't be a thing you could do around here but sit around and drink lousy coffee and get in my way. I promise you again: when it looks like Pegeen is coming out of it, I'll give you a call. But I don't want to see you here before that time."

  "But the ice thing?"

  "The ice is simply procedure, Mrs. Guiness. It's just another way of breaking through a fever that persists. And other than that, Mrs. Guiness, she's doing as well as when you last called."

  "In other words, she's not doing well at all, right?"

  "In other words, Mrs. Guiness, Pegeen is holding her own, and I can safely say we all here expect a breakthrough at any moment."

  A breakthrough in what, Terry wondered after she'd hung up. A breakthrough in the diagnosis or the treatment? She was angry enough to be tempted to call the hospital back, to ask the question, but she knew too that the only answer she would receive from either doctor or nurse would be another calming generality that served only in making her more nervous, and fearful.

  She stood at the dining room window and looked out at the yard.

  Syd was taking a long time. Too long for a confrontation or even a peace party. Should she call the Mclntyres and see if he'd left yet? He might have tripped over something in that miserable wind. A tree could have fallen on top of him. He could have fallen into the gutter and split open his head.

  The lightning became more infrequent, outlining the trees and the hedge in black against black. She thought for a moment there was a man standing in the yard, but in the next flash she saw it was only a branch wrenched from th
e elm she'd been pampering against the odds of its tremendous age. But still, it looked like a man. Caped. No hat. Its face remarkably wooden and expressionless.

  And then she remembered the doll.

  Chapter XII

  The advent of paralysis terrified her. She should have dashed out to the car without a second's deliberation, but her hand remained suspended in front of the window, fingers slightly spread to trace tracks in the beading condensation. The glow from the kitchen gave depth to the window, her reflection trapped within like a hologram portrait of a dark-haired mannequin. On the tiny watch that slowly weighted her wrist and made her arm quiver, she watched the progress of the second hand.

  Tick: Denver astride the white line, Mrs. Denbeau scuttling back into her house.

  Tick: William in black easing her away from the lip of the hill.

  Tick: Mary trembling at the door, beckoning to Pegeen as through a wall of barbed wire.

  Terry shuddered.

  Tick: Denver falling, no marks on his hand.

  Tick: The elder with two ringlets of white hair braided and dangling in front of his ears, in his hands a small, thin-bladed knife.

  Tick.

  Tick.

  The spider leg jerked a final time, then eased into a smooth circular sweep and Terry's hand dropped wearily to her side. Lightning momentarily erased her reflection, and her bonds were severed. She spun around, collided with the table and staggered back to the wall, biting her tongue against the sudden stab of pain. Rubbing at her hips, she sniffed once to swallow tears, pushed herself away from the wall and limped to the closet. Blindly she groped until she felt the cool plastic of a poncho, yanked it out and slipped it hastily over her head. On the shelf somewhere there was a flashlight, and she shoved aside boxes cursing before her fingers slid over the serrated metal cylinder. It was nearly a long as her forearm, but the weight reassured her and she thumbed the switch to check its brilliance before pulling the poncho hood over her hair and running outside.

  It was cold. The wind flattened the plastic against her back as she ran along the concrete porch and jumped off the edge onto the drive. A scurry of shredded forsythia branches bunched at her feet, grabbing as though to climb her leg. She kicked in disgust, bent to pull the wet wood away, kicking again until it vanished into the darkness. A look, then, frantically toward Denver's, but the light was still on in the front room and no sign at all of Syd.

  No time to run there, she thought, and ducked around the corner of the house under the protection of the carport. The wind followed, but the rain became a spray that dampened her face, gathered into droplets and slid toward her stomach. She gripped the car roof until she'd calmed enough to hold the flashlight steady. Wiped the moisture from her face. Took a deep breath.

  Now, she thought, and pressed the light against the rear passenger side window, squinting to bring into focus the doll lying opposite her on the floor. Hurrying around, she grabbed at the recessed handle and pulled. It was locked. Not believing it, she pulled again, sobbing aloud and aiming a vicious kick at the side of the car. She pounded on the roof with the flashlight, punched impotent fists against the door. A gust nearly toppled her off balance. She screamed in anger, then pressed her forehead against the window, staring.

  The doll was facing her. Its eyes were in shadow, giving it an unpleasantly blind appearance. The red hair seemed afire. Terry blinked, rubbed at her eyes, tried to force a closer look. Around the doll's neck was . . . she shook her head, looked again. A necklace, glittering as the light trembled in her hand. It must have been hidden under the buckskin shirt and jarred loose when Syd lifted Peg from the back. It was fashioned delicately of silver, highlights of which starred until they obliterated the soft malevolence of interspaced ovals of turquoise. Staring still, too numb for action, she spotted a pendant pressed against the doll's breast. Blinking, she tried to make out the shape, and when she saw the stylized outline of a human face glaring into the light, she stepped back until her hands gripped one of the carport's posts.

  The key, she told herself, deliberately turning her face into the rain to drive off the necklace's hypnotic effects. Pegeen.

  Stuffing the flashlight into a poncho pocket, she ran down the drive, slipping when she reached the sidewalk and grabbing at the hedge to maintain balance. The thorn-like branches gouged her palm and she cried out, pulling her hand to her mouth and sucking. There was no relief, and her original speed had been halved as she splashed through a puddle in the gutter and crossed the road.

  Here, there was nothing to block the full effects of the storm, and she was staggered by the wind, her breath forced from her lungs as it swept by her on the heels of rain that slapped and stung. As she leapt over the opposite curb, another gust struck her and she spun around, her arms flailing, failing to keep her on her feet. She fell facedown into mud and wet grass. Gasping. Spitting out filthy water. Pushing to her knees and retching dryly. On her feet again, her hands stretched in front like a grotesque version of blind man's bluff.

  The poncho grew heavy, the hood finally blown back from her face. But she felt nothing as she clambered up the steps and pressed a thumb against McIntyre's doorbell while her free hand pounded on the frame of the screen door. Minutes, she was sure, though it might have been hours, before the inner door swung rapidly inward and Mary peered into the darkness, her eyes suddenly widening in shocked recognition.

  "Syd!" Terry shouted. "I need Syd! He has the keys!" She was stammering, stuttering, and couldn't control the mistakes of her tongue. Mary hesitated and Terry yanked at the outer door, screaming Syd's name hysterically. Suddenly Mary was gone and William was in her place. He listened to Terry's ravings, then nodded as though the night was calm and she had stopped by merely to say hello. When he opened the door, she stumbled over the threshold into his arms, realized what had happened and shoved him away.

  "Syd," she gasped. "I have to get Syd. I need. . . ." She swallowed and took a deep breath. "I need the keys to the car. I must get to the hospital right away."

  "Syd isn't here," William said.

  "But he is!" She stared and held out a hand. "I mean, he came over here an hour ago to see Denver. And you and Mary. He. . . ." She faltered against his unwavering stare and wiped a hand across her face. This wasn't the time to be cowed. She had to get into the car. Syd. . . . She tried to look around William and past his wife, but they shifted slightly and she was prevented from seeing past the tiny entrance foyer. "Please, William," she said, hating the plea in her voice. "I've got to see him."

  "He is not here, Mrs. Guiness. He has not been here all night."

  She shook her head and took a step back. "Now I know that isn't true. I stood right over there," and she jerked a thumb over her shoulder, "and saw him come inside. You tell me where he is, or by God I'll call the police." Her voice rose at the last, and she felt a brief moment of triumph at the almost imperceptible change in his stolid expression.

  He looked carefully at Mary whose hands were folded protectively over her bulging stomach. If something passed between them, she missed it. William abruptly turned back to her and smiled, closemouthed. Mary disappeared down the hall toward the kitchen, her voice whispering to someone. There was no answer, or none that Terry could hear.

  "I'm sorry," William said, distracting her. "I was not here before and did not know Mr. Guiness had come. Mary will find out about him for you. Denver, you see, is not in. He went into town to see a movie." His smile became a caricature of a grin. "John Wayne. My father has what you call a thing about John Wayne."

  They continued to wait until Terry thought she would scream with impatience. Finally, Mary bustled back down the hall and spoke to William. Not in English, and Terry was instantly suspicious. She watched William's face, but there was no indication of duplicity or surprise. When he looked back at her, her hand was already on the latch.

  "I'm sorry," he said. "The elder does not know about Mr. Guiness. He says—"

  "Thanks," she said shortly. "Sorry I got
your rug wet."

  Gathering the neck of the poncho in one hand to keep the rain from lashing under its protection, she darted into the storm, dropped the hand when she nearly tripped over a small wagon dark on the grass. Both hands outstretched again, she fought the crosswind back to the car. Duplicates. She wasted no time in recriminations against Syd's fear of duplicate keys. Her lips were tight, her cheeks taut as she pulled the flashlight from her pocket and turned it so she could smash the butt end against the door's pane. And when she tried and nothing happened, she stared, unbelieving. Not a chip, not a crack. She struck again, then again, and the blows came faster and progressively weaker as frustration dissipated anger's strength. A quick flash inside and the doll stared blankly back at her.

  "Think!" she whispered, her own voice drowned by the storm.

  Then she grabbed the flashlight in both hands, tears now blending with the rain on her face, raised her arms and smashed the butt into the glass a final time. The protective shield of the flash shattered into her hand, but she ignored the running lances when she saw the pane had become webbed. Taking the broad head, she swung the light like a baseball bat and the window powdered. Again, and there was a gap large enough to force her arm through. Frantic, now, she scrambled for the lock release, yanked it up and pulled the door open. Her crying was louder, her lungs unable to hold air long enough to catch a decent breath. On her knees, she reached for the doll, grabbed its neck and shook it mindlessly, sobbing as much in relief as at the agony in her hand. "Later," she whispered, "do it later. Run now. Scream later."

  Slamming the door shut, she ran into the house and down the steps, her wet shoes sliding and, at the last step, kicking out from under her. Flinging her arms back, she caught herself before her head slammed against the floor. Then she crawled to the laundry room.