The Orchard

by Charles L. Grant

  “Weird, huh?” the usher said, stabbing his flashlight at the stage. “Happens all the time. Absorbs the light or something, Mr. Davidson says, and makes it look like some kind of monster TV screen.”

  “Seth,” Ellery said to the young man sourly, “Mr. Davidson has a lousy imagination.”

  The usher shrugged.

  Easy, Ellery told himself; it isn’t the kid’s fault.

  He turned to apologize, and lifted his head when he heard what he thought was someone falling, and falling hard. Seth heard it, too, and after exchanging alarmed glances, they stepped back down the aisle, trying to see past the flashlight’s reach, listening for a moan or a crying or someone swearing as he got back to his feet. But the only sounds were the distant rumble of thunder and the muffled chatter of the people in the lobby.

  “I heard it,” he said when they reached the first row, the screen looming behind him. “I know I did.”

  Seth shifted the light from one hand to the other and rubbed his chest nervously. “I know. Me, too. Here,” and they moved to the other aisle and started back up, slowly, then more rapidly as they approached the last seats and Ellery had about decided they had made a mistake.

  They found him in the corner, slumped on the floor.

  “Oh, Jesus,” the usher said as Ellery squeezed into the row, his shadow blotting out the fallen man until Seth ran around the back wall and poked the light through the short drapes that blocked the lobby’s glow from the theater. The brass rings that held the velvet on its rod rattled too much like bones, and Ellery knelt quickly, reached out a hand and pulled it back.

  “You’d better get Callum,” he said, and was handed the long silver cylinder.

  The man was old without an age, his hair sparse and white, his face lightly tinged as if he had jaundice. His coat was worn, and when Ellery pulled back a lapel, he saw a suit underneath, a white shirt, a black knitted tie pulled away from the collar. The eyes were closed, but a touch of his hand to the man’s boney chest and the side of his scrawny neck proved a heartbeat, which made him sigh and lean back, wipe a hand over his forehead and dry it on his thigh.

  Davidson arrived in a hurry and leaned over the wall, staring as Ellery played the flashlight along the old man’s body.

  “Is he dead?”

  “No.”

  “What the hell happened?”

  “I guess he tripped.”

  “Wonderful.”

  “God, you think maybe he had a heart attack or something?” Seth whispered, a suggestion Ellery didn’t want to hear and the manager snorted at.

  “You know who he is, El?”

  He shook his head. “Never saw him before.”

  “Is there something wrong?” a voice asked, and he looked to the end of the row, at a young woman peering anxiously through the gloom.

  “Toni?” he said.

  She took a step in. “Mr. Phillips? Mr. Phillips, are you okay?”

  “It’s not me, thank god,” he answered, stood, and pointed at the old man.

  “Let me take a look.”

  He looked to Davidson and shrugged why not?, pressing as best he could against the seatback behind him while she squeezed past. She was wearing a white T-shirt and washed-out jeans, and it was all he could do to resist patting her rump as she passed. When she knelt down, he explained softly to Callum that she was a student at Hawksted College, her father a doctor and she studying to be the same. She used to come often to the bookshop, and there were times, more than several, when he wished he were ten years younger.

  “He’s knocked his head pretty good,” she said without looking up. “There’s a nasty bruise here.”

  “Heart attack?” Callum asked.

  “No, I doubt it. But I think you’d better get a doctor here just in case.”

  “Toni,” Ellery said softly, “we can’t leave him there on the floor.”

  “It’s okay to move him, if that’s what you’re worried about,” she answered. “Just be careful of his head, okay?” Then she straightened, rubbed a hand over the back of her neck, and waved him out to the aisle. He grinned and did as he was told, thanked her when she joined him, took her arm and pulled her down a pace while Davidson and Seth moved to carry the old man to the manager’s office.

  “I haven’t seen you for a while,” he said quietly, feeling the dark on his back, watching the two men swaying away with their burden.

  She looked up at him and, after a long moment’s study, smiled sadly. His hand was taken in hers, and he felt the cold there in her long, soft fingers, as he felt a cold he hadn’t noticed before filling the auditorium, seeping through the walls from the storm outside. It made him shiver and hunch his shoulders, and she tightened her grip briefly before letting him go.

  “I’ve been around,” she whispered.

  “Busy with the new semester?” and let her pull him slowly up the aisle toward the light.

  She shook her head. “I didn’t go back.”

  “What? No kidding. Well, why not, Toni? I thought you were doing so well.”

  She stopped and faced him, eyes hidden in shadow, features blurred. “Things are different, Mr. Phillips,” she said, in a quiet voice, a low voice.

  He wasn’t sure what to say, didn’t know what she meant and called himself a damned fool for just standing there and smiling.

  Then she tilted her head to one side, her lips slightly parted, colorless, and dry. “Have you ever been to the orchard, Mr. Phillips?”

  “Huh? What are you … what orchard?”

  “There’s an orchard. On the other side of Mainland Road, on the old Armstrong farm. Some of it’s dead, some of it’s not.”

  He shifted to step around her, to move up the aisle back to the others. He hadn’t the slightest idea what the hell she was talking about, but he was afraid she had changed too much for him to know her.

  “It’s really nice there,” she said still whispering, taking a sidestep to block him. “I had a picnic there once.”

  “Picnics are good things,” he told her, wincing at how inane he must sound. “I used to go on them myself when I was younger.” Thinking: She’s on something, that’s why she’s not in school anymore. What a hell of a thing to happen to such a nice kid. A hell of a thing. “But I have to admit I’ve never—”

  “It’s cold there,” she said. “Really cold.”

  He looked over her shoulder for someone to help him, and unconsciously pulled his raincoat closed against the chill that still worked the theater.

  “Toni, look, why don’t we—”

  “Be careful,” she whispered then. “I wasn’t kidding before. Things are different now, Mr. Phillips. Things aren’t ever going to be the same.”

  And before he could move away, she leaned against him and kissed his cheek, released his hand, and ran away.

  Leaving him in the flickering twilight of the auditorium, one finger touching the cold mark of her lips while thunder whispered in the black above his head.

  Seconds later, realizing he had been left alone, he rushed into the lobby, paused to let his eyes adjust to the light, then turned left and stepped into Davidson’s small, cluttered office beside the concession stand. Seth was waiting glumly by the door. The old man was lying on a leather couch, his overcoat for a blanket.

  “Did you call the police, a doctor?” he asked.

  Davidson shook his head and pointed to his desk. “Phone’s out. Someone will have to go for one.”

  “He’s going to have a hell of a headache when he wakes up,” he said, nodding toward a faint bruise on the old man’s temple. “He must have hit the wall, or an armrest, on his way down.”

  “Great. A lawsuit is just what I need.”

  Ellery hesitated, unsure what to do next. He could offer to wait with Callum until someone came, but he barely knew him, and Davidson’s size—well over six feet, with the weight to go with it—made him feel uncomfortable. He smiled weakly, looked again at the unconscious man on the couch, and went into the lobby as
the manager began suggesting that Seth, if he were a truly good human being, should volunteer to fetch the doctor.

  When the door closed behind him, he headed for the nearest exit, buttoning his coat, preparing to leave. But he stopped when he saw Katherine Avalon, part owner of the record shop, standing in the middle of the floor, head back, staring up at a huge chandelier whose teardrop crystals were reflecting and amplifying the light from the candelabra set at each of the concession counters and on two of the low Sheraton tables between the couches and chairs.

  “Wow,” she said excitedly. “Hey, look at this. God, they look just like stars!”

  No one moved, and he noted with a puzzled frown that if all the people in the lobby were the only ones who had come to the late show that night, the theater had been a lot more empty than it felt.

  There were only six, including a couple sitting on the center couch, and another pair much younger on the far staircase, sharing a cigarette.

  Something was wrong.

  He glanced back at the office.

  Something … and he saw it. In the glass doors that led to the street. The black outside.

  Jesus, he thought, and walked over to take a look.

  In the candleglow that stretched weakly to the curb, he saw the rain—sheets and lashes of it exploding on the pavement, driven in hard slants and silvered cyclones by the wind charging down Park Street, sweeping around the corner, spilling over the theater roof, and slamming against the doors. At times it rattled against the glass like pellets of ice, sending white webs to the frames and obscuring the street; then the wind took another direction, and he saw black rivers rushing high in the gutters.

  He turned, pointing behind him in amazement, and let his arm drop.

  That’s what was wrong.

  Not the rain—the people. No one had their coats on; no one was leaving.

  Flustered for a moment, and blaming his reaction on Toni’s odd behavior, he forced himself with a deep breath to relax, understanding that those who stayed behind were probably hoping the rain would ease soon, or the wind calm down, to give them a chance outside without drowning on their feet. Cozy, he thought then; just like in the movies, where everybody gets to know everybody else, secrets are spilled, murders are committed, and when the sun shines again, the hero and heroine walk off to a new life. He chuckled at the images that formed and re-formed, and decided that he might as well do the same. He took off his coat and wandered over to the nearest refreshment stand, grunted when he saw the clerk had already gone, and jumped when a hand lightly tapped his shoulder.

  “Nerves, El?” Katherine said.

  He laughed and leaned back against the display case. “Just had a sudden attack of the hungries, that’s all.”

  She patted his stomach and shook a finger at him. “Hungries, at your age, will get you a pot.”

  “At my age, I’m lucky to get the hungries at all,” he answered, not at all sure he was making any sense, and knowing he seldom did when she was around. Ever since he had taken the job to manage Yarrow’s a year ago, he had not lost a single opportunity to get a glimpse of her whenever he walked to the luncheonette for his noon meal; he had even, for a stretch of three weeks during the winter, tried to time his arrival on Centre Street with hers. It made him feel like a jerk. And he felt even worse when he twice asked her to dinner and was twice refused—politely, even regretfully—but he hadn’t found the courage to ask her out again.

  A sudden splash of rain against the doors made her turn around. “I think I’m on the Ark, you know?”

  Then Seth came out of the office, bundled in a green plastic poncho, a floppy-brimmed hat, and holding an umbrella a dazzling red. He grimaced comically when Ellery lifted an eyebrow, ignored good-natured jeers from the others, and stood at the exit. Waited. Lifted his shoulders and pushed through, and they flinched at the wind that sailed into the room. Several candles went out, and the rest danced unpleasant shadows on the floor and the walls.

  The usher hadn’t gone two steps before the storm yanked the umbrella from his hands. There was a brilliant burst of blue-white that turned the rain to silver slashes as he hurried to the curb; and in the afterimage, after Seth had vanished, Ellery was sure the boy had thrown up his hands.

  “Christ, will you look at that damned rain,” a man said from the couch.

  The woman beside him shifted uneasily. “I think we ought to leave now, Gary. It doesn’t look like it’s going to get any better.” She blinked then when she realized the others were watching, and a faint blush darkened her already darkly rouged cheeks. Her husband leaned toward her and lay a hand on her leg. She sat back, her fingers busily twisting a handkerchief, her eyes on the chandelier.

  Ellery looked away, embarrassed for the woman’s fear and understanding it perfectly. Storms like this were better suffered at home, not in the company of strangers. He leaned his forearms on the top of the glass case and stared at the empty popcorn machine.

  Katherine mimicked his stance and whispered, “Paula Richards.”

  “What?”

  “That’s Paula Richards,” she said, lowering her voice still further.

  “No kidding? Of the Richards?”

  She nodded.

  “I’ll be damned.”

  He had never seen any of that family before, knew them only by reputation as a somewhat reclusive clan, and by their address on Williamston Pike, assuming it was one of the estates that lined the road out to the valley. Once a month, at least since he’d worked there, one of the household staff dropped by the store and ordered over a hundred dollars’ worth of books. All sorts of books. All in paperback. And once a month, another staff member came by to pick them up.

  A quick guilty glance, and he nodded to himself. She was slender, and rather pretty in spite of the severe tweed suit, the unruffled white blouse, the shoes almost large enough to be brogans. The effect was, in fact, almost pathetic, straight out of a Forties’ film, the plain-jane clerk waiting for Cary Grant and getting instead the man he’d guessed rightly was her husband, himself in a dark blue tailored suit, and a pair of sneakers that had seen better days.

  Again he turned around, leaned back, stuffed his hands in his pockets. Katherine said something before turning as well, and he stared dumbly at her.

  “As a cat,” she repeated with a gently mocking smile. “As in ‘as nervous as.’ That’s you.”

  “It shows?”

  A wink for a nod. “Bad day?”

  “Bad day. Bad week. Bad month. I think I’ll go outside and throw myself into the gutter.”

  Understatement, he thought. The owners of the bookstore had been watching him closely for the past few weeks, doublechecking his bookkeeping without being obvious about it, suggesting more than once—and kindly, he had to admit—that perhaps he might like to take the vacation time he’d accumulated over the year. But he couldn’t leave. From home to store to home again he was safe, prevented by his work and his solitude from making the mistakes that had brought him here in the first place. The bumbling, foolish errors that had cost him his previous job, his previous lover, and all jobs and lovers before them. A therapist had told him—no charge, El, you’re a friend—he was tailoring his own excuses for running back home from a world that didn’t know he existed. He wasn’t sure. It didn’t matter. He was home, after twenty years, and nothing had changed.

  Katherine lay a hand on his arm, stroked it once, and gave him sympathy with a look. Then she tilted her head toward the office door. “Who’s the old guy?”

  “I don’t know. He fell.”

  “Is he all right?”

  “Toni says so. Just hit his head. Seth’s gone for—”

  “Toni?” she said, eyes wide now and the smile broad. “Toni who?”

  “Toni Keane,” he answered peevishly, not liking her tone, thinking she knew of his infatuation and was rubbing it in. “She’s Doctor Keane’s—” He scanned the lobby for her and frowned. “Guess she’s in the ladies’ room.”

&nb
sp; The couple on the balcony steps were whispering and passing another cigarette back and forth, and he watched them for a minute, envious of the boy’s hand draped casually over her shoulder, the tips of his fingers just brushing across the top of her breast, envious of the girl’s self-assurance that didn’t force her to drive them away with a pout for convention. The sexual revolution, he thought glumly; only they didn’t come by and draft me. The rats.

  Davidson stalked out of the office then, scowling, his raincoat on. “Phone’s still out,” he announced as he slapped a hat on his head. “Seth’s not back. I’ll head over to the police, okay, folks? Don’t worry about a thing. See you in a minute.”

  And he was gone before anyone could say a word, the door wind-slammed behind him, rain spattering in on the carpet, the candles dancing and dying again.

  Though Ellery waited for it, half expected it, there was no bolt of lightning. The manager strode through the light, into the black, and all they could hear was the hiss of running water.

  “I’ll be damned,” said Gary Richards as he pushed off the couch and walked to the door. “Can you beat that? He just walked out, just like that. God, some people, you know?”

  His wife stood as if to join him, saw Ellery and smiled shyly. When he returned the smile, she walked over hesitantly, nodded politely to Katherine, and said, “Excuse me, but you … you’re the man from Yarrow’s, aren’t you.”

  “And you’re the lady who’s keeping us in business.”

  Her laugh was high and quiet, though it didn’t quite reach to her eyes. “I like to read,” she said apologetically. “There isn’t much else to do, really.” A movement of her hand. “Gary’s always busy with this and that and the business. I—” She paused, ducked her head, lifted it again. “He thinks I’m going to ruin my eyes.”

  “Never,” he said. “Look at me. I read all the time, and I’m only half blind.”

  Paula Richards stared, then laughed again. “I guess we’d better go. We, uh … it doesn’t look like it’s going to stop anytime soon.”

  “Think of this as a dream,” he said as she turned to leave. “Your head or mine.”