“Todd,” she called. “Where is your father?”
He stepped into the foyer as if expecting to say he’s right here, can’t you see him? and suddenly frowned. “Gavin, did you see Dad when you were upstairs?”
A grunt.
April demanded they leave.
“I’ll check again,” Todd said, and took the steps up two at a time.
What? she asked; what’s going on?
And in a curious way was unafraid, so unafraid it was paradoxically fearful. What was happening tonight couldn’t happen, that much was clear — yet if she’d been outside, Paul might have killed her; if the Quicks had been in their house, they’d surely be dead.
Out there.
But in here there had been no threats, no matter what the others thought.
She wandered into the short hall and idly opened the coat closet door, shut it again and moved into the foyer.
The clock chimed eleven; the man-in-the-moon didn’t move, it never had.
She looked to the wall beneath the staircase and widened her eyes.
The basement.
He must have gone to the basement to find another way out.
She called for Todd as she hurried over and opened the door. Narrow steps led down to the right, a bare bulb on the top landing unlit. She pulled the string chain and shaded her eyes as she started toward the bottom, almost sideways, one hand leading along the unpainted banister.
“Mr. Zaber?”
There was dark at the bottom, not even a shadow.
“Montgomery?”
A chill that defied the heat that filled the house. Midway down she flicked a wall switch, and another bare bulb blossomed in the uncovered ceiling.
“Mr. Zaber, are yon all right?”
The basement floor had been cemented and painted gray, the walls were of gray-painted stone, and in the far corner by the furnace and hot-water heater there were lines of rust stains where the boiler had once leaked. Cobwebs. The scent and must of dust and oil and the age of the beams along which wires were strung and the pipes were attached.
Aside from a few empty cartons tucked in the space under the stairs, a cluttered worktable along one wall, a rusting metal cabinet that held most of the tools she used for repairs, the area was empty.
There was no room to hide.
There were no doors to the outside, and the cardboard she’d taped over the windows hadn’t been disturbed.
“Anything?”
She did her best not to scream as she whirled and glared up at Todd on the landing.
“The attic door’s stuck.”
She started up. “You have to kick and pull at the same time. It’s temperamental.”
He was gone before she reached the top, but not before she realized how silly her instructions sounded after all the trouble with getting out.
She snapped off the bottom light.
She pulled the string.
She closed the door just as April came out of the parlor and said, “Listen, bitch, if you don’t tell me what the hell’s going on here, I’m gonna tear out your throat.”
Gavin appeared behind her then, put his hands on her shoulders and tried to turn her around.
“No!” she said angrily. “Damnit . . . no!”
He whispered in her ear; she sagged a little against him, but her face was still twisted.
“Lois?” Gavin said.
She felt the first tears then, tasted the salt, and blinked as fast as she could before they could fall. “I don’t know.” She lifted one hand. “I swear to god, I don’t know.”
April raised a fist, but it was instantly covered by Gavin’s hand, lowered slowly, held at her side. Her lips trembled for a smile. “Drunk, huh? I guess we’re drunk, right?”
Two drinks each, Lois wanted to say; how drunk can you get on two lousy drinks?
“God, it’s hot.” April lifted a shirttail and wiped off her face. “Maybe next year you could invest in some air-conditioning, okay?”
Todd came down the stairs. “He’s not up there.”
Lois had no chance to argue that he had to be there, there was nowhere else to be, but the sudden blare of a bullhorn snapped their heads around. A squawk, a high-pitched whistle, and someone began to talk, the words slurred but the intent clear — it was a warning to the gunman to stop firing and come out from wherever he was hiding.
The answering shot made them start, and Lois backed against the wall.
The bullhorn spoke again.
Another shot, and one of the fire engines exploded.
April turned — “Oh, Jesus!” — and thrust her face against Gavin’s chest, who pulled her gently through the parlor into the living room. Lois watched them, watched the fire, watched as Todd came to her side and took her arm with his good hand.
“We have to talk,” he said.
She didn’t say a word, only allowed herself to be led to her chair, where she sat with her hands clasped in her lap.
The Quicks were on the couch, close but not touching.
And suddenly Lois said, “It’s the house.”
Todd lowered himself to the ottoman and stretched his legs out, crossing them at the ankles. “The house,” he repeated flatly.
She nodded. “It’s crazy.”
“Yeah,” April answered.
“I think . . .” The heat, of course; it was the heat that made her think this, that made her remember the windows that closed on their own, the window glass that hardened to protect them from the blast, the doors that wouldn’t open to let them out to face Paul’s madness.
She said all this haltingly, without conviction, offering it without looking up to see what the others were thinking, minding instead the way her fingers squirmed around each other, bloodless and stiff and unbelievably cold. It wouldn’t have mattered anyway. She herself didn’t know where the idea had come from, why it had come, why as she spoke she found increasing belief and no fear at all.
After all, why not? As long as she was going nuts, why shouldn’t it be true? Hadn’t she protected and bound and balmed and spruced up the house all these years, on her own? Hadn’t she talked to it when she came home, said her good-byes when she left, thought aloud to it when she was troubled, and laughed with it when she was happy? So why couldn’t it be time for the thing to reciprocate?
She giggled.
The thing?
My god, she was acting as if it were alive. A pet. A pet dog that gives her protection because she feeds it and nurses it and makes sure it gets all the exercise it needs.
When she felt them staring, she told them, but only April laughed, Only April saw the absurdity.
“What about my father?” Todd asked. His face streamed with perspiration; blood seeped into the bandages she’d wrapped around his hand. “If you’re so goddamned smart, where the hell is my father?”
“I don’t know,” she said. “I don’t even believe what I just told you, for Christ’s sake.”
He rose and took a step toward her, eyes in a squint, one hand jammed into his waistband. “Of course you don’t know,” he said, almost sneering. “All these great ideas of yours, it’s just like always.” He slapped his thigh. “Just like always. You speak before you think. For god’s sake, it’s a wonder you can still make a living.”
He stomped out of the room. She heard him on the stairs.
And drew back when April suddenly appeared in front of her, kneeling and smiling tightly and patting her knee so rapidly it was almost like punching. “It’s okay, Lo, it’s okay, don’t let him get to you, okay? It’s hot, we’re a little drunk, you know how it is.”
She felt the tears again.
She forced them back.
Gavin stretched out on the couch. “Then I suppose, if we’re going to follow this ridiculous line of thought to its logical conclusion” — he laughed shortly —”that when all the danger’s over, this place will let us go.” He coughed back another laugh. “In which case, I’m going to rest, if you don’t mind.” He turne
d his head and grinned. “I’m still a shit, Lois. But I’m getting old, and I need my rest.”
He closed his eyes.
April glowered at him and pushed herself up. “I’m thirsty,” she said to the room. “I hope to hell there’s something cold in the refrigerator.”
When she left, Lois sat there, hands still clasped, bobbing without lifting off the cushion. What the hell did they want from her anyway? She didn’t have any answers. She didn’t know why or how or whatever the hell the right question was.
All she knew was, she was hot. Her shirt was drenched, her hair felt weighted. and when she finally rose because she couldn’t stand the silence, she had to wait a few seconds before a pass of dizziness let her keep her eyes open. Then she walked to the front door, tried to open it, and sighed when she couldn’t.
She didn’t know, she told them all; she really didn’t know.
Until she saw a man standing behind the hedge across the street, not much more than a shadow, all the light at his back. He shifted, and the fire raged; he leaned forward, and the willows burned. He took two steps sideways, away from the blackened shell of the fire engine that lay smoking on its side.
“Oh no,” she said.
It was Paul, and he saw her, and before she could react, could scream, could call Todd, he had a rifle at his shoulder, his cheek on the stock.
She took one step back, and he fired.
She took another step back when the bullet struck the pane and didn’t so much as cause a crack.
She knew it all then, and knew she was right when he fired a second time and a third, and each time the glass shuddered and each time she jumped and each time the glass settled without losing a chip.
He ducked out of sight.
And the trunk of the first willow cracked down to the ground as it spit fire and sparks, part of it toppling onto April’s house just as the roof collapsed, the rest of it falling onto the hedge and the pavement, flames surging and growling, Paul standing in flames and screaming silently as he waved the rifle over his head, then jerking and falling back and merging with the dark the fire left behind.
“Oh,” she whispered.
A step. Another. Her palm against the glass, and she yanked it back.
It was cold.
Dear Jesus, it’s real.
Do I laugh, or do I cry?
The sound of breaking glass drew her toward the kitchen, muttering to herself, swiping at her hair, not at all sure she wasn’t floating instead of using her legs, not at all sure she was completely sane.
More glass, and a muffled sob.
She sighed as she glanced into the living room and saw Gavin still on the couch; April had found the other bottle, the one in the cupboard above the stove. With everything else, that’s just what she needed; and she knew that if she was right, then she faced one of her friend’s self-pitying tirades against her husband and the world.
And once there she felt no satisfaction at the prediction when she saw April kneeling in the center of the floor, bits of a broken bottle around her, dark liquid pooling by her knees. The room stank of bourbon. It stank of sweat. It stank of fear.
“April,” she said wearily, leaning against the jamb.
“God, April, c’mon. We haven’t got time for this crap, all right? We’ve got to figure —”
April looked up and smiled, and her eyes were too wide and her teeth were too bright and her chin quivered as if she wanted to speak and couldn’t say a word because lodged in the hollow of her throat was what looked like a blade, partly rounded, partly jagged, the broken bottom of the bottle. Her left hand tried to sweep away the mess; her right hand fumbled with the glass in her neck until it came away and she didn’t bleed but she couldn’t speak, she could only gasp and form deep red bubbles that glimmered on her lips before breaking, before running, before smearing down her chest while she rocked back on her heels and grinned and winked and shook her head slowly and pointed at the ceiling and pointed to her heart and pointed to Lois, who didn’t have the strength to take a step toward her or turn around or look away, while April said through the bubbling of the blood, “He’s never home the son of a bitch is never home and when he’s home do you know that I have to clean up after him every goddamn minute of every goddamn day and what the hell do I have to show for it but one goddamn abortion and one goddamn broken arm and holy Jesus, Lois, you don’t have any goddamn idea how goddamn lucky you are,” while she tore at her buttons and bared her breasts, tore at her hair and yanked it out, tore at her thighs and her calves and the soles of her feet until her fingers dripped flesh and blood and blood beaded on her brow and spilled from her nostrils and dribbled from her ears and welled in shimmering droplets at the corners of her eyes.
Lois screamed.
The lights went out.
And April said, “Jesus God, I’m so damned tired.”
The screaming. All the screaming.
And it lasted until the burning in her throat made her choke. Then she spun away from the kitchen and collided with the corner of the sideboard, went down on one knee with her hand pressed against her hip. It felt as if she’d been gouged; breath took a while before it returned to her lungs; strength took a while longer before she was able to stand.
“Todd!”
The only light now danced in from the dying fire, catching the edges of the windows, blinding the clock, turning everything to shadow.
“Todd!”
She limped into the living room, leaning against the wall, the television, reaching for the arm of her chair and freezing when she saw Gavin stand up and face her.
“I am not a passionate man,” he said, stepping around the coffee table and walking to the mantel.
“Gavin,” she said, tight with pain, “there’s —”
“And I am not a man who believes in ghosts.”
He turned toward her and smiled without a shred of mirth. “You do not know what it’s like, not to have a real home.” He held his tie up and stared at it. “When you’re on the road so much, home is only another hotel room, if you know what I mean.”
She fell into the chair, still holding her hip. Firelight reflected in his eyes, the bowls and goblets behind him lit like candles.
Then he reached over his shoulder without looking away and picked up a goblet and brought it around and held it up while with his free hand he began to unbutton his shirt, pulling every so often to free it from his trousers, finally finishing and letting it hang open to expose his hairless chest, breasts sagging like an old woman’s, paunch slipping over his belt, which he tugged at and shifted until the buckle parted and he slipped it off his waist and draped it over his shoulder, pulled down his zipper and let the trousers fall to the brick hearth, legs thin, knees inward-turned, high dark socks sagging in the middle until he kicked off the trousers, took off his socks, hooked a thumb in the waistband of his boxer shorts and still he stared at the goblet as if it were the Grail, shaking his head and grinning and cupping it now in both hands, a priest with the wine he brought to his mouth and sipped, and licked his lips, and smacked his lips, and pursed his lips and kissed the silver and drank again and said, “I would have taken you to bed if I’d had half a chance, you know, Lois, and it would have been pretty good, not perfect, but you wouldn’t have been too disappointed, though I suppose, being you, you would have thought about good old April while I wouldn’t have thought about her at all, not a single damned second while we were fucking because odd as it may seem I don’t think I’ve ever made love to anyone in my life and it doesn’t matter now anyway because the house is gone and the company’s gone all to hell and I haven’t the damnedest idea what the hell I’m going to do with all those bills and all those phone calls in the middle of the night and all those people who keep pounding and knocking and screaming at my door, what’s a guy to do except screw the brains out of his neighbor?” and he drank from the goblet again and threw it behind, into the mouth of the fireplace, where it bounced off the ashes and landed against his bare
foot, the rim slicing through his ankle and making him wince and look down, and take the belt from his shoulder and knot it to the tie he hadn’t yet taken off and throw the end of that into the dark that hovered below the ceiling.
He was lifted.
Lois screamed.
His face purpled.
Lois screamed.
Blood dripped from the gash and darkened the hearth, and he looked down at her and he smiled and he shrugged and he sighed and he laughed once and he said, “Once a shit, Lois, always a shit, and don’t you ever forget it,” and closed his eyes and shriveled and wrinkled and was rocked by her screams side to side like the pendulum of the clock in the hall.
When she found the way to breathe again, she bolted from the chair and caught her shoulder on the doorframe, stumbled into the hall before she finally fell.
“Please,” she whimpered.
Her eyes were closed, her mouth gulped for air, her left leg twitched as she tried to stand and failed.
“Please.”
Sirens outside.
The weakening voice of the fire and the rush of water from several hoses.
“Please.”
Pushing herself up to her hands and knees. Letting her head hang, panting, using the ache in her shoulder and the burning in her hip to keep her from fainting while she used the closet door to get her to her feet.
“Todd,” was little more than a sob and less than a whisper, a drop of acid in her throat that felt now filled with blood.
A step toward the staircase, and another that launched her into a shambling run she broke off as she passed the door. She tried the knob; it wouldn’t turn. She saw police and firemen and neighbors in the street, and she pounded on the glass and the wood and shrieked wordlessly until she lurched away, unheard, unseen, and hauled herself up the stairs, reeling from banister to wall until she reached the top.
The Complete Short Fiction of Charles L. Grant Volume 3: Dialing the Wind (Neccon Classic Horror) Page 13
