The Hour of the Oxrun Dead (Necon Classic Horror)

by Charles L. Grant

  The library was in mourning. Adriana had not come in except for a brief hour before eleven to tell the staff they’d be given half a day in honor of Miriam’s passing. Nobody worked, and Natalie’s mood wasn’t helped at all by Arlene’s constant sniffling. By one, she’d had enough and ran to the grocer’s to fetch dinner for two, giving her a giddily pleasant feeling that lasted until she arrived back home in time to catch the telephone’s shrill command.

  It was Sam, requesting she drop by the station some time that afternoon.

  “An inquiry, Sam?”

  “I’m afraid so, Nat.”

  She agreed to come immediately, made a quick call to the newspaper and was told Marc was out on assignment.

  Lovely, she thought as she dashed back out again. Probably some idiot flower show, or whatever it is women’s clubs have two days before Halloween.

  And as she crossed the Pike, she stopped suddenly and looked to her right. There were no cars moving in her direction. And to her left, only a slow drifting in and out of the side streets where the shops were located.

  It was the same on High Street and Steuben Avenue, both of which emptied onto the Mainland Road.

  When she reached Chancellor and turned to walk up to the police station, she was trembling in spite of the Indian summer heat that had again driven off the clouds and replaced them with a startling blue. She told herself the lack of traffic was only the time of day, but she didn’t quite believe it.

  “Hey, Mrs. Windsor!”

  Just outside headquarters she stopped and turned around. A young boy was running toward her, and it was a confusing moment before she recognized a teen-ager who practically lived in the library’s astronomy section. As he loped to a halt, she struggled to fit a name to the thin and bespectacled face. “Andy!” she said, holding out a hand and trying not to wince as he squeezed it. “What can I do for you?”

  “Mrs. Windsor, I ... I’m sorry about Miss Burke.”

  And the day took on the shroud she’d almost managed to shed.

  “But I had this book of hers, see, and I was going to return it this afternoon, but I went to the library and it was closed.”

  He looked as though he was going to cry.

  “Don’t worry about it, Andy. Tomorrow’ll do just fine.”

  “No,” he said, shaking his head violently. “No, you see, we’re moving this afternoon. I really don’t have the money to pay for it, and I didn’t want you to think I’d steal from you because I wouldn’t. I never have, you know.”

  “Hey,” she said, suppressing a smile. “There’s no problem, no problem at all. You just wait until you’re settled in your new house and then drop it in the mail. I’ll make sure we don’t send the Gestapo charging after you.” He brightened and shook her hand vigorously. “Hey, now that’s cool, Mrs. Windsor, really. No kidding, thanks a lot. Really. Hey, I got to go. I’m really sorry about .,. well, you know. See you around, Mrs. Windsor, and thanks a lot.”

  A whirlwind, and he was gone, leaving her breathless. Another one gone, she thought as she climbed the short flight of steps to the station. There had been so many over the past year, she didn’t know how the town managed to stay on its feet when, by all rights, it should have been long on the road to dying.

  Sam was waiting at the office door, officially solemn, almost pompously so. He led her quickly inside, introduced her to the police stenographer and apologized for the occasion. She nodded, and gripped her hands in her lap.

  “Natalie,” he began after seating himself behind his desk and lifting a manila folder in the cradle of his hands, “you knew Miriam Burke, is that right?”

  “You know it is, Sam.”

  “Natalie, please.” He pointed to the stenographer. “This poor guy has to take down every word you say. Have a heart and play the game, okay?”

  She shrugged. “If it’ll make you feel better, Sam.”

  “Okay. So you knew Miriam Burke. Does she usually work late nights?”

  “No, I do. The late hours were my idea, you know, and I usually volunteered for them.”

  “Then why did Miriam work late last night?”

  “I had a headache, and she wanted someplace quiet to study. She asked if she could switch with me and I said sure, why not? Adriana okayed it.”

  “ Mrs. Hall?”

  “Right.”

  “So except for Mrs. Hall, everyone else had a right to expect you to be working there last night.”

  “Sure,” and she couldn’t contain herself: “Sam, are you trying to say that whoever did . . . that thing to Miriam — ”

  He waved a massive hand and she quieted. “I am saying nothing, Natalie. I just want to be clear on what happened. Where, exactly, were you last night?”

  “Home,” she said, flatly. “Alone.”

  “I’m sure you were.”

  “At least until I got your call about Miriam. Then Marc and Elaine came over.” She looked straight at him and admired the control he exhibited when she added, “Elaine left early. Marc stayed around a while after.

  “You, uh, had no trouble while you were home?”

  “No, should I have?” She asked the question quickly, without thinking, and was startled to see his eyes narrow. Don’t, she ordered herself then, don’t interpret, just observe.

  “Nonsense, I was just looking for ... forget it. So you went home with this headache and . . . “

  “And puttered around until I got the call, and I fainted, and Marc and Elaine were there and that’s all, Chief.”

  “You’re right about that,” he said stiffly. “That’s all. All right, Kevin,” he said to the stenographer, “you type that up and bring it back for Mrs. Windsor to sign. You can stay awhile, can’t you?”

  “Sure,” she said. “Adriana closed the library. I’m just killing time until Marc gets back from an assignment.”

  “Oh, yeah,” he said, scrubbing his jaw line, then loosening his tie. “Natalie, do you mind if I give you some advice?”

  “Yes,” she said. “I mind quite a bit, in fact. Especially if it’s about Marc.”

  He blew out slowly, and nodded. “All right, then, I’ll keep quiet. And if you don’t mind me saying so, you’re taking all this pretty well.” I’m not, she thought, but you can’t see the bleeding inside.

  The stenographer returned, and the next few minutes were spent rereading her statement, making one minor correction and signing all the copies.”

  “Do I get my picture in the paper?” she asked.

  “No,” Sam said. “This won’t be in the paper.”

  “Well, for God’s sake, why not?”

  His face grew florid and she stepped back from his desk. “Oxrun is a small town, Nattie, and you know what would happen if we spread this all over like some kind of ... of I don’t know what. Halloween’s coming up day after tomorrow. The paper comes out tomorrow. You want folks to be keeping their kids in just because some nut has a thing about the library? We have to think of the merchants, too, you know. It’s a holiday.”

  “And suppose one of those kids in costume is murdered?”

  “It won’t happen.”

  She glared her frustration. “So, no papers. Isn’t that suppressing the news or something?”

  “What,” he said, “do you care?”

  It was time for another engagement, another round in their constant battling, but she resolutely refused to be drawn into anything she couldn’t handle. Sam was beginning to frighten her. “I’ll see you soon, Sam,” she said, picking up her purse and opening the door. “And please, let me know if you find out about the man that did this thing to Miriam.”

  “I will.” He smiled blankly. “And, Natalie?”

  She stopped in the hall and looked at him over her shoulder.

  “I’m sorry you still don’t want my protection. I don’t think Clayton is going to do you much good.”

  “That’s funny, Sam, but I always had the feeling that the police would protect me whether I wanted it or not. I thought
that’s the way things worked.”

  “Sometimes,” he said, and turned away to look at the citations framed on his wall.

  Evening, then, and dinner with Marc, a few silent hours in front of the television, sleeping again in separate beds.

  There were no nightmares, just a few quiet tears.

  For Miriam.

  For herself, because she didn’t know what to do, and didn’t know if there was anything to be done.

  The funeral Friday morning was an exercise in controlled hysteria. Aside from the silent partings, the desperate wishes that it be all part of a dream before waking, there was a caldron waiting for the right level of crying, the proper chance remark to boil into terror. The mood made skitterish instead of playful the breeze that pushed at floral displays and rode herd over dead leaves scuttling between the graves. A large contingent of Miriam’s college classmates were solemn in awkward black, and their faces reflected unwitting resentment that Miriam should so violently remind them of their own mortality. Yet they prayed over their sobs and ignored the scattering of police through the mourners.

  Natalie held tightly to Mrs. Burke’s frail arm. The elderly woman had sought her out immediately after the church service, had stared up into her eyes for remnants of her daughter’s laughter.

  “You were her friend, Mrs. Windsor,” the old woman said. “She had nothing but aunts and uncles. A sister, maybe, rather than a friend.”

  It was a lie, but Natalie refused guilt; it was enough that Mrs. Burke believed it.

  And for herself, the tears had already been shed. Despite Reverend Hampton’s basso requiem, she felt now a peculiar coolness, and her initial lack of emotional response had at first frightened her and made her clutch at Marc’s arm until he winced and gently pried her fingers loose. But by the time the ritual earth had been scattered over the polished brown casket, she realized that the coolness was a camouflage for hardened anger. The girl she was watching condemned to a blanket of grass and marble had died in her place, and there was no remorse-instead, a terrifying hatred she’d never thought possible, and a desire for revenge that nearly blinded her.

  As the crowd passed around the Burkes and pressed their hands and accepted momentary embraces, Natalie scanned their expressions for hints of complicity.

  As they drifted in twos and threes toward the cars parked in the nearby lane, she watched for telltale signs of animosity cast in her direction.

  “Natalie.”

  As they drove away in hastened procession, the only word she could think of was automaton.

  “Natalie, it’s been a long time.”

  Karl Hampton moved to stand in front of her. He was dark, heavily lined, seemingly too large for the black leonine crest over his brow. His lips thick, his nose bulbous, his eyes too deeply set to look at comfortably; worse than ugly, she thought, because ugly has its own shade of beauty. Hampton was homely — nothing more, nothing less.

  And plainly disapproving of her relationship with Marc.

  “Nat,” Marc said softly, “do you feel all right?”

  She shook herself and forced a smile tight and friendless. “Fine,” she said. “Just thinking, that’s all.”

  “She was a fine young woman,” the minister said with a backward jerk of his head. “It’s a pity.”

  “All murder is,” Marc said.

  “What I meant was,” Hampton continued coldly, “that it’s a shame one so young has to die, no matter what the cause of death. So often it seems such a waste.”

  Natalie was forced to agree, yet became unaccountably nervous. Everything he said had suddenly taken on variant meanings. Her death a waste? Did he mean I should be in that hole? Dammit, girl, what the hell are you doing — looking for a partnership with paranoia?

  “ ... and I’m sure the family appreciates your concern,” Marc was saying, a careful tug on her arm starting her away. “It was really a fine service, Reverend. A fine one.”

  Hampton inclined his head in modest acceptance of praise.

  “You will come around and pay us a visit?” he said, to Natalie only. “It seems we live so close, yet so far away from each other.” He paused, but she said nothing. “I looked for you at Toal’s party the other week. I was hoping you’d take a drink with me in honor of that magnificent statue.” He grinned suddenly, feral and mocking.

  “Somehow, Karl, I don’t think you really meant that.”

  “Somehow, I think you’re right,” and his grin took on good and honest humor. “But still, I would have liked a drink or two with you. However,” and he shrugged, “you have other things to keep you busy.”

  “Some things,” she said, allowing a blush to heat her cheeks. “I keep making myself promises, you know, but I never keep them.”

  “Oh?” he said quickly, “you’ve made promises?”

  “Really, Karl,” she said, hating his fishing.

  “You did marry Ben and me, you know. At one time, then, you were rather important to my life.”

  “At one time,” he said to Marc with theatrical regret. “At one time. You see how quickly they forget. It is the plight of the clergy, Mr. Clayton, that we are like doctors in the sense that when we’re needed, we are there, and when we are not, we are as forgotten as the … “ He looked around, seeking a completion of his analogy. “Well, you know what I mean.”

  Marc nodded politely.

  “But, I have things to worry about, too. Please, Natalie, don’t let another tragedy be the meeting for us. Come around for tea, and we’ll talk about the days when you didn’t know the difference between a Fox Road and a brandy Alexander.”

  “I will,” she said as he turned toward the funeral parlor’s limousine.

  “Now what,” Marc wanted to know, “was that last remark about?”

  “Not here,” she said. “Let’s walk a bit.”

  They moved aimlessly along the paved paths between the gravestones, reading the inscriptions, smiling at some, groaning at others. They made quick subtractions to discover the ages of the dead, exclaiming over pathetic youth or extraordinary longevity. The breeze geared into a mild wind, and they soon found themselves at the last row of graves fronting the lawn that spread to the hurricane fence. Through the skeleton leaves and shrubs, then, she could see the shadowed white of her house.

  “Nice view,” Marc said. “Now about that remark.”

  It referred, she said, to the time she and Ben had met with Karl to discuss their marriage. They’d found the minister in his kitchen practicing mixing drinks for, he said, his meetings with the local big shots. “They never drink anything as prosaic as whiskey and soda,” he’d said, “so I have to make this ... what shall we call it? An experiment in religious control.” Natalie had tested everything he’d made and had ended up being sick over his kitchen counter.

  “Quite a man, the minister,” Marc said, and she pressed her arms tightly against her side in delight of his obvious jealousy.

  “Hey,” she said suddenly, “what do you say we get out of here?”

  “Ah,” and he turned slowly toward her, rubbing his hands together and leering. “My apartment, what?”

  She shoved him, toppled him to the ground, and after a quick laugh at the look on his face, began running, delighting in the slap of cold air against her cheeks, blinking away the wind’s tears and squealing when she heard him breathing heavily behind her.

  She veered onto the grass and headed for the fence, scattering a dozen blackbirds, darting beneath them and watching as Marc moved to cut her off. She stopped, gulping, laughing, started again when he raced at her. To the fence and back again until she reached the far side of the cemetery and collapsed on a grey stone bench.

  Her lungs ached, her ears burned, and when he pulled up in front of her, she lifted her hands to ward off the expected playful blows. A second, a minute, and she felt his grip on her elbows. She stood, shook her head slowly. It was not a moment of precognition, but rather a time she knew would arrive when circumstances could no longer cont
ain themselves. She knew what he would say before his lips opened and formed the words. She knew what he would be sacrificing before his hands shifted to her shoulders and pulled her even closer.

  And she wanted more than anything else to be able to say yes and pull the curtain down around them.

  “No,” she said. “I can’t.”

  He didn’t release her.

  “I’m a danger, you know, and there’s no sense in complicating things further.”

  “You’re not telling me anything I don’t know, librarian. I’m also not exactly in the best position in the world, in case you’ve forgotten.”

  “After,” she said. “When we find out. Ask me again later, okay?”

  He nodded, then swept a curve with his arm. “If you don’t mind, though, I’ll try to choose a more appropriate place. This, I think, is a little too much.”

  “I expected nothing more,” she said, taking his arm and leading him to the gates. “You just can’t do anything right, can you?”

  “Oh, I don’t know about that.”

  “You, sir, have a gutter for a mind.”

  “I,” he said in a hurt voice, “never said anything about anything. I didn’t imply, lady. You inferred.”

  “To the park, Marcus,” she said, then laughed. “Hey, that rhymes.”

  “Some librarian,” he said to the sky. “Marcus, park. Oh, brother!”

  And, laughing loudly, holding each other tightly, they reached the front gates noisily, ignoring one or two glares and a single pointed comment about staff who get the day off for the funeral of a colleague and spend it in frivolity. The remark almost sobered her, but Natalie had known Miriam better than most, so she grinned inanely at the speaker and kissed Marc’s cheek.

  And once into the trees, stumbling around children already bundled in bulky winter clothes, she felt transported. Oxrun Station had vanished, and there was in its place laurel and oak and barberry and elm. Water fountains on concrete bases; wooden slat benches a peeling cold green.

  A football bounced in front of them, and Marc quickly chased it down, made as though to pass it back to the boy who had come for it, then waited until he could toss it underhand.