Vapors: The Essential G. Wayne Miller Fiction Vol. 2

by G. Wayne Miller

  AND SO, on the eve of his 12th birthday, as the sun was still high over the horizon, a smiling Jack strode to the water.

  “Cheers!” said his grandmother, sipping champagne. “Happy birthday!”

  “Ready?” said his mother. She was in the boat, ready to follow him and bring him back when he’d reached Partridge, which was uninhabited except for birds.

  Sheila had dragged Toby out of his room and onto the dock with her. He did not want to watch . . . hated the idea . . . but he had no choice. In a whisper, when they were alone after supper, his mother had told him it was come or be spanked. It had been years since she’d made such a threat (which she had no intention of fulfilling), but it had also been years since she’d been so frustrated with her son, normally so well behaved. She couldn’t threaten to keep him out of the water, or to cut short their vacation - Toby would welcome those punishments. Besides, she wanted to stay at least until the weekend, when her husband would join them for the Rockwells’ annual croquet tournament, said to be the biggest party of the year on Lake George.

  “Ready!” Jack announced.

  Don’t! Toby thought but didn’t say.

  “Set!” said Jack’s mother.

  “Go!” said Mrs. Rockwell, hoisting the champagne bottle over her head.

  Jack’s strokes were strong, sure, and in no time he was halfway to Partridge Isle.

  “Such a marvelous swimmer!” cried his grandmother.

  “Excellent,” said Sheila. Beside her, Toby cast his glance at his feet. He was ashamed.

  “I suppose I should head over to fetch him now,” said Anne, starting the Evinrude. “Not that he couldn’t swim back by himself,” she added, with no small measure of maternal pride.

  The motor masked Jack’s first scream.

  From the dock, it was impossible to determine why he went under the first time. Probably he’s just being playful, his mother thought. He does so love to swim underwater.

  By the second time, a crisis was apparent.

  “My God, he’s drowning!” shrieked Mrs. Rockwell, dropping her champagne. He was thrashing wildly, churning up the water like the victim of a shark attack. His mother raced toward him in the boat. As the motor’s noise receded on the shore, Toby could hear Jack’s cry:

  “There’s something . . . down. . . there!”

  It was only seconds before Anne reached the spot where he’d gone under for the last time.

  Already, the ripples were subsiding.

  His body - at least, the bits and pieces that the dental charts indicated were Jack’s body - wasn’t found until two days later, when two locals came across it while fishing one of Partridge’s secluded lagoons. Jack was belly up, bloated, gray, weighing less than a quarter of what he should have weighed, according to the medical examiner’s scales.

  They were quite the characters, these two locals, fond of whiskey and a good story, and not the least averse to pulling a leg every now and then. And so naturally no one believed them when they told what else they’d seen, staring up at them from the weedy bottom of the lagoon: some kind of creature, green, with scales and the black head of a snake, seemingly smiling.

  Monster

  Paul D’Orio and his blond-haired charges, Tammy, 5, and Timmy, 2 1/2 , were parked on a Herculon couch in front of The Cosby Show when the lights went out that evening. Bill Cosby’s first glowing, then fading face would be the last light inside the house for the next 16 minutes, according to the police report.

  “Uh-oh,” Tammy said.

  “Ooooh,” her little brother tried to mimic.

  “Nothing to panic about, kids,” said the baby sitter. “Probably just a fuse. Know where the box is, Tammy?”

  “Down-cellar, by the burner. On the wall. Where the big black spiders live.”

  “Spi-da. Spi-da,” Timmy said, agreeably enough, without any trace of the panic Paul would have expected of a 2 1/2 -year-old sitting in the dark. Tammy didn’t seem frightened, either. Maybe blown fuses were a regular event around the King household.

  Paul was new to the neighborhood, one of those quickie raised-ranch developments that sprang up everywhere around Boston during the ‘50s and ‘60s, and this was his first assignment with the King kids. From Bobby Spratt, who’d recently retired from the baby-sitting ranks, he’d heard that Mrs. King paid $3 an hour - 50 cents over the going rate; not bad for an evening of Fritos and Coke. Not only that, get this. She’s divorced . . . if you know what I mean, Bobby’d said in the same greasy voice he’d had when they’d flipped through Playboy that time under the stands. Paul didn’t know what he meant, not exactly, but that was OK. Bobby was 15. Paul had just turned 13.

  “I wouldn’t go down there,” Tammy said in her singsong told-you-so voice. Already, Paul didn’t like that voice. And he’d only been here an hour.

  “Why not?”

  “The monster’s down there.”

  “Monster? What monster?”

  “The big, giant monster that eats people.”

  “Now, Tammy, you know there are no such things as monsters.” Paul’s tone was firm. If he had learned one cardinal rule of baby-sitting it was that children must be repeatedly reminded that there are no monsters, wicked witches, goblins, ghosts, werewolves, vampires or Draculas. Only good witches, fairy godmothers, elves, talking rabbits and flying reindeer. Otherwise, it could be a major problem getting them into bed and to sleep.

  “But there are monsters. There’s one in our cellar. He’d never come up here, but he might get you if you go down. ‘Specially when it’s dark. Monsters love dark, everybody knows that.”

  “Mon-sta. Grrrrr,” Timmy said.

  “And he’s not a good monster. He’s a scary bad monster, and he’s got black fur all over him. Very terrible and ugly, Paulie.”

  “Big ‘n’ furr, Paulie. Big ‘n’ furr, Paulie-Waulie.”

  Paul resisted the temptation to whack Timmy. He didn’t like this new nickname - it made him sound like some kind of pansy, and pansy wasn’t any too cool around Burlington Junior High.

  “There are no such things as monsters, good or bad,” Paul continued in his grown-up voice. “They’re make-believe, like in books. Didn’t your mother ever tell you that?”

  “What does Momma know? Momma never saw the monster.”

  “Did you?” This, Paul figured, would be the clincher.

  “No, but I know he’s there. You can hear him sometimes. His breathing sounds like the vaporizer. And he smells icky, too. Like the hamper when it’s full.”

  Why am I listening for breathing now? Paul thought. Silly.

  “ ‘Course, he’s not down there all the time. Only sometimes. Only nighttime, when it’s dark. Monsters don’t like the light, everybody knows that.”

  Paul was peeved. There was another cardinal rule of baby-sitting he’d learned, and learned the hard way, and that was: Never argue with a spoiled brat unless it’s absolutely necessary - absolutely necessary being only questions of bedtime and who gets the last handful of Fritos. “Monster or no monster, the fuse has to be changed,” he said. “Where’s your mom keep the flashlight?”

  “Over the refrigerator.”

  Paul’s eyes had adjusted to the dark - actually, the semi-darkness. The streetlight outside the picture window was still on, and its incandescence was enough for him to make out the shapes of furniture, the general floor plan of the house. It ought to be enough to keep the kids quiet until he checked the box. Paul rose, and with a cautious tread set off for the kitchen.

  He was halfway there when Tammy announced: “Batteries are dead.”

  “What?”

  “Timmy wore the batteries down. He was playing Star Wars. Wasn’t that naughty of him?”

  “Not-tee.”

  “Yes, that was naughty. What about candles?”

  “Nope. Momma got rid of ‘em all the day she had the yard sale. Said they reminded her too much of Dad. My momma doesn’t like my dad. Did you know that?”

  “No, I didn’t.” Pau
l was momentarily silent. What did you say to a 5-year-old about divorce, anyway? Sorry Daddyo blew town, kid, but that’s life?

  “So that’s why there’re no candles.”

  “Well, we can’t stay like this all night. I’ll just have to go down in the dark.”

  Which I really don’t want to do, he thought. And not because of what that little pain in the butt is saying - just ‘cause I don’t feel like it, that’s all.

  Only I don’t really have a choice, do I?

  Mrs. King finds us like this, she’s gonna think she’s got the world’s biggest jerk minding her kids. I bet it’d get back to Bobby, too. Wouldn’t want it to get back to Bobby.

  He patted the back pocket of his Levi’s. There they were, the book of matches he’d saved from the cigarettes he and Bobby had been smoking at the playground on the way home from school. Good. Those matches would come in handy when he found the box. Wouldn’t want his fingers to be poking around inside there in the dark. He’d heard about people who’d fried their brains out being real stupid like that with 120 volts of live juice.

  He was at the cellar door now, pausing momentarily.

  He imagined it would be like any old cellar - his, for instance, which his mother considered the shame of the D’Orio family. It would be damp, crammed chock-full, mostly with junk: stuff like a plastic Christmas tree, rusted Hibachis, bicycles, broken lawn chairs, boxes and boxes of family garbage that should’ve been tossed out years ago but by silent conspiracy never had been. A tool bench Daddyo had left behind. A washer and dryer. The oil tank. The burner. The water meter some clown had to trudge down every month to read. And on a wall, with a piece of plywood on the concrete floor beneath, the fuse box. House this age probably has breaker switches. It would be a simple job - one Bakelite flick and the power would be back on. He’d probably even be able to salvage the end of Cosby.

  So why do I have a knot in my stomach?

  Silly.

  “I’m going down, now. You kids stay put. I’ll be back in a jiff.”

  “No you won’t. Monster’s gonna get you! Just ‘member I told you,” Tammy said, unflustered.

  “How could I forget?” Paul answered sullenly.

  The cellar door opened noiselessly, as if the hinges had been recently oiled. Paul looked down. The cast of the streetlight penetrated to several of the steps, then was swallowed by blackness. Was this one of those cellars without windows? He started to descend, his right hand never leaving the railing, each foot feeling for the next step incrementally, unsteadily. He was counting the steps. On 15, his foot made contact with concrete. He stopped, thinking that a short wait might acclimate his eyes to the pitch darkness.

  Suddenly, the hairs on the back of his neck bristled, and he thought he felt a cold draft. Behind him, he was sure, someone was . . . watching him.

  Eyes.

  He didn’t have to see them to know they were there. The feeling was too strong, too unnerving. He whirled, nearly toppling himself to the floor . . .

  . . . and he saw the grainy outline of Tammy King perched at the top of the stairs.

  “Jesus Christ!” he shouted. “You get back, you hear?”

  “You mean it didn’t get you yet, Paulie?” Tammy said innocently.

  “Of course it didn’t get me,” he snapped. “How many times do I have to tell you, monsters are make-believe. And another thing. Don’t ever call me Paulie again. Name’s Paul. No E on the end. Got it?

  “Now go on. Go back to the couch. I want you to keep an eye on your brother.”

  This time, she obeyed.

  Paul waited another moment, and decided this was as far as his eyes were going to take him. Which wasn’t very far; except for the door to upstairs, he could see virtually nothing. No windows here.

  But he could smell, probably better than if there had been any light. He remembered that from Cub Scout camp, how smells and sounds seemed to grow stronger, more vivid, when it got too dark to see. Something about one sense compensating for another, an instinctive repatterning of brain waves, which blind people used to great advantage, as the pack leader had explained.

  Paul was now sniffing for oil, a smell that would help indicate the location of the burner. Tammy had said that’s where the fuse box was. Under the circumstances, he had to believe her.

  And there was a smell, all right, coming from over there on the left. A basementy smell, old and greasy and been-locked-away-forever, like all cellar smells. But was it oil? Oil or an old mower, one or the other. He had his money on heating oil - the mower, he bet, was in the garage.

  Paul fished in his pocket for the matchbook. He opened the cover and ran his fingers over the insides.

  He fingered the matches again. Three left.

  Great. Could they really have smoked that many cigarettes? Two matches, he guessed, he’d need at the box. Which left him one spare. One match, maybe 10 seconds, to get the lay of the land down here. For a second he considered lighting a piece of paper or a rag that he might be able to find, then decided that would be too risky.

  Burn the sucker down and the you-know-what would really hit the fan, he thought.

  He lit a match.

  The sulfur flared, fizzled and died away in a smoky haze, all in the space of about three seconds. Damn near burned his fingers, too. But there had been enough light in that one fizzle to confirm what he had suspected: The place was full of junk, junk piled literally to the ceiling, from one end of the basement to the other.

  Paul concentrated, trying to remember what the floor plan upstairs was like. It was an L-shaped house, a ranch on which had been built a small addition. Living room, dining room, spare bedroom; then, around a 90-degree corner, kitchen and den. Assuming it was a full-size basement - and the depth of the shadows the match had thrown seemed to indicate it was - the layout down here would be an L, too.

  Holding his arms in front of his face, zombielike, Paul shuffled toward his left. Methodically, he scraped his feet on the dry concrete, producing a deliberately harsh sound that echoed strangely off the walls. If there were any rats down here, he wanted to give them plenty of warning.

  It isn’t oil I smell.

  The thought was unexpected and unsettling, and now it was the only thing in his mind.

  It smells like the locker room after gym class.

  Like the hamper when it’s full. Wasn’t that what she’d said?

  A couple of seconds and the smell - whatever it had been - was gone. Paul sniffed the air, trying vainly to get a whiff of it again. Gone. If, in fact, it was ever there. Did noses, like minds, play tricks on you?

  He felt suddenly ashamed. What a hometown hero he was tonight, getting spooked by a 5-year-old girl, and now, by the dark. Wouldn’t Bobby Spratt love to get a hold of this. Bobby had the kind of clout to make a pansy label stick. Well, this kid wasn’t going to give him the chance, that was for sure.

  Paul continued his shuffle across the floor. Hero or no, he wasn’t in any rush to break his ankle or get his eye poked out trying to change some dumb fuse in some dumb divorced lady’s basement. In front of him, he rotated his arms, probing the damp, heavy air for anything solid. Should be something soon - that pile of boxes he’d seen in the match’s momentary flare, most likely. It had only been a few paces across the floor.

  So the feel of cardboard at his fingertips was not surprising. He ran his fingers along the boxes. Even on his tiptoes, Paul was still touching them; straight to the ceiling, this pile went. Which suggested the pile had to be leaning against a wall, since he knew from experience in his own cluttered cellar that it was impossible to build a stack that high without support.

  By now, he had a game plan.

  He had no choice but to believe Tammy that the fuse box was on the wall, by the oil burner. Rather than randomly look for it, and end up bouncing all over the place, Paul would find the nearest section of wall, then follow the concrete around the circumference of the cellar until he stumbled on the fuse box. Simple. Five minutes, absolute
max, and they’d have power again.

  He was in the middle of these deliberations when the boxes crashed to the floor. Something glass shattered. Something metal hit the floor and clanged across the concrete. Something rubbery bounced, bounced, then stopped.

  He jumped, every muscle in his body instinctively tightening. He was more jittery than he’d thought.

  The accident was still reverberating in his head when, from over there somewhere, he heard it: a sound like breathing. Breathing he remembered all too clearly from that nursing home when he’d visited Grampa the Sunday he finally died. A raspy, drawn-out, wet breathing, like a drowning person’s last weak gasps as he slips under the surface the final time.

  Paul was away from the steps now, but he could still see a crescent of light from upstairs.

  “Tammy, that you?” His voice was childlike, uncertain.

  No answer.

  “Tammy!”

  Again, no answer.

  Only that rasping, a distance away but not too far off, like . . .

  . . . like the vaporizer.

  For the first time, Paul was desperate to leave. His instincts told him he should charge back up those stairs, forget the fuse - he could take care of that later - and just get the hell out of the house and into the open air. Air, where there would be safety.

  One thing was sure: He wasn’t coming back here again, no matter how much Mrs. King paid, or how divorced she was.

  “T-T-Tammy?” He didn’t know it, but his voice had dropped to a whisper. “Tammy?”

  Still no answer.

  Without warning, without explanation, it had become stuffy and hot down here, as if he were in the sauna at his father’s health club, the heat turned up full. Perspiration began to form on his forehead.