Night Things: A Novel of Supernatural Terror

by Talbot, Michael

  “No problem at all, Georgie,” returned the muscular driver of the last limo. “How about you folks?” he asked, turning toward the frumpy couple. “You fare all right back there with the rest of these rowdies?”

  Several of the people in the crowd jeered the driver playfully.

  “Oh, we were fine,” the petite blond woman gushed. “We’re just very grateful you happened along when you did, aren’t we, Arnie?” She looked at her companion, and seeing that he seemed too tongue-tied to respond, elbowed him in the ribs.

  “Y-yes. Very grateful,” Arnie stammered.

  Georgie smiled. “What did you two say your names were?”

  “I’m June and this is Arnie,” the blond woman bubbled. Her eyes zeroed in on Stephen. “I just wanted to thank you again for giving us a lift. I don’t know what we would have done sitting out there on the highway all alone—”

  “It’s nothing,” Stephen said curtly. “Let’s get up to the house. I’m thirsty.”

  “So you are pissed about Chris picking those two up, aren’t you?” Miko whispered as she walked along beside him.

  “It’s just that he works for me.”

  “Well, what did you want him to do, just leave ’em sitting on the side of the road?” asked Pig.

  “No, I didn’t want him to just leave them. But I would have appreciated it if he had asked me first instead of just stopping and inviting them to come along with us. I mean, I was looking forward to a real blowout of a party tonight. But with these two along...”

  “Oh, I don’t know,” Miko said. “Arnie seems a bit out of his element, but June certainly seems to be adapting very well. Who knows, she may turn out to be a real party girl.”

  “That’s what he’s afraid of!” Pig chuckled, gulping down some more champagne. They all laughed and ran the rest of the way to the house.

  When they reached the front door, Stephen opened the door and they went inside.

  Several people in the crowd whistled. “Whoa, man, this place is great!”

  “Isn’t it,” Stephen agreed.

  “Why did you say Lauren left?” Georgie asked.

  “The old guy I hired to run the generators wandered off and fell down a ravine. He must have been senile or something, because he broke his neck. But you don’t have to worry. I’ve got a young guy running the generators now.”

  “But didn’t you say this place has a history of that kind of stuff?” Georgie asked with a lurid and hopeful grin.

  “Yeah, a real dark past!” Stephen said, smiling ghoulishly. He spun around and wriggled his fingers in the air. “So everyone be careful!” he shouted.

  A chorus of delighted giggles and ahs rose from the crowd, as they broke like billiard balls and started to run through the house. For the first half hour they did nothing but explore, and each time Stephen showed them one of the house’s architectural oddities, their partying only became more abandoned. Georgie, Chris, and the third limo driver—a tall Swedish kid named Ben—kept the champagne flowing, and Pig saw to it that the stereo in the drawing room was cranked into high gear.

  But as the party started to gravitate toward the front porch, Stephen’s attention was once again drawn to June and Arnie. June, although still playing the roll of wideeyed and overly smilish spectator, had at least begun to drink champagne. But Arnie was still stiff and uncomfortable.

  “So what do you think their story is?” he asked, turning toward Miko.

  Miko, who had been talking to a handsome young Italian, turned and sidled up beside Stephen like a cat. “Whose story? Oh, are they still bothering you?”

  Stephen just folded his arms. He did not know why the presence of the frumpy couple annoyed him so much. Perhaps he really was still brooding over Lauren.

  He looked in Miko’s dark and penetrating eyes and decided to open up. “Yeah, they’re bothering me a lot, but I don’t know why. Something about them just mbs me the wrong way.”

  Sensing a new level of seriousness in his voice, Miko appraised the couple again. “Well, let’s see what we can figure out about them just by looking at them.” She laughed and gave Stephen a sip from her champagne glass, and he loosened up a little.

  “Okay,” he said, delighted by the idea.

  She perched one of her venomously red fingernails against her lip. “First, I don’t think they’re married.”

  “Come on! You think they’re just screwing? I don’t believe it.”

  Miko held her ground. “No, look, neither of them is wearing a wedding ring.”

  “But Miko, that guy doesn’t look like he has the balls—”

  “I didn’t say they were fucking each other. I just said I didn’t think they were married.”

  Stephen’s doubt increased. “So what are they doing together? What’s their relationship?”

  “Well, I don’t think they’re related. They don’t look anything like each other. I don’t even think they’re friends. They don’t behave like friends together. They stay close to each other, but neither of them ever smiles at the other, or gives any of the other cues that friends give to each other.” Miko ran her finger around the rim of her glass. “No, if you ask me, I’d say they just met.”

  Stephen glanced skeptically in June and Arnie’s direction. “Okay, now that you mention it, they do seem a bit stiff with each other. Kind of like two frightened children.”

  “No, he’s frightened. He’s not happy at all about being here. But she’s having a ball. Yeah—she’s a little nerdy, but look at the way her eyes keep lighting up. She’s never been at a party like this and she’s loving every minute of it.”

  Stephen sighed. “But you still haven’t explained what they’re doing together. I mean, if they just met, why were they traveling together?”

  Miko shook her head. “I don’t know. Maybe they’re on some kind of business trip together.” She grinned. “Or maybe she’s a damsel in distress. Maybe they met at a coffee shop or something and she asked him if he would give her a ride. That would explain why they don’t seem to know each other. It would also explain Arnie’s unease. Maybe it’s been a long time since he’s been with a woman. Maybe this is all really new to him.”

  Stephen began to buy it. “Okay, I think you may be right, but still none of what you’re saying explains why they give me the creeps.”

  Miko looked at him with astonishment. “The creeps?” Even Stephen was a bit surprised by his admission. “You know, that’s it. I didn’t realize it at first, but the reason I’ve been so teed off about Chris’s stopping and picking them up is there’s something about June that I just don’t like.”

  “Oh, well, that’s easy. I can tell you what that is.”

  He looked at the Asian woman quizzically. “What?” Miko took another sip of her champagne. “Everything!” Stephen laughed.

  “No, look, I’m serious. First, if you look at her really close, she’s really quite homely. Oh, on the surface she presents a neat little package, but look at each of her features by themselves. For example, her hair’s pretty, all right, but you can see her scalp through it. There’s nothing more unattractive than a blonde whose hair is so thin you can see pink scalp through it everywhere.”

  Stephen’s laughing became more uncontrolled, but at the same time he was becoming increasingly mesmerized by what Miko was saying.

  “Go on. Go on.”

  “And her teeth. I mean, they’re straight and they’re white, but there are spaces between each of them. They’re like little snaky pegs. That’s icky.” Amused at her own wickedness, Miko also started to laugh.

  “Finally, there are those eyes. I mean, it looks like she’s got her finger in an electric socket they’re so wide and perky.”

  They had once again started to convulse with laughter when suddenly June looked right in their direction and smiled. She was too far away to have heard them, but something about the knowing, even delighted way her eyes gleamed made them go silent.

  “You don’t think she could have heard us?”
Miko asked under her breath.

  “No,” Stephen snorted, but suddenly he wasn’t so sure. Angered that he could be made to feel so self-conscious by someone as insignificant as June, he started down the porch steps. “Come on, we’re going to wipe that shit-eating grin off her face,” he whispered.

  “How?”

  He raised his hands into the air. “Hey, everybody down to the lake! We’re all going to go skinny-dipping.” Then he turned to Miko and said quietly: “That ought to embarrass the middle-class hell out of her.”

  Miko clapped her hands together mischievously. “Perfect, darling,” she said, nipping him in the ear as she ran toward the lake.

  The crowd whooped and followed.

  When they reached the lake, Stephen looked back and was pleased to see that June and Arnie were tagging along. However, to his surprise, Arnie was the only who seemed discomforted by the events enveloping them. Far from being unsettled at the idea of skinny-dippying with a group of strangers, June appeared to be delighted. She strode down the lawn with her arms swinging wildly, and when she reached the edge of the lake, she quickly slipped out of her clothes, her sagging, middle-aged body gleaming in the moonlight, and plodded down into the water.

  Nettled, Stephen decided that he could at least put Arnie on the hot seat.

  “Hey, Arnie, come on in. The water’s fine!” he goaded as he took off his clothes and marched down into the lake. He looked back and saw that on hearing the words, Arnie’s agitation only increased. It was the response Stephen had desired, but seeing how mortified, and even frightened, Arnie looked, Stephen suddenly felt contrite.

  He was just about to call Arnie and tell him that he did not have to join them if he did not want to when June abruptly intervened.

  “It’s all right, Arnie. Come on in!” she called.

  “No, thank you. I’d rather not.”

  “But I want you to, Arnie,” June returned sweetly, but with an undertone so insistent it was obvious she was not going to take no for an answer.

  Arnie looked first at Stephen and then at the growing crowd of rowdy, naked people splashing in the water. Then he looked back imploringly at June.

  “Arnieee,” she pressed, and falteringly Arnie began to take off his clothes.

  Even Miko was a bit put off. “Well, I guess my theory about their having just met is wrong if she’s already got him that pussy-whipped,” she sniffed.

  Stephen agreed and was just about to say something else when suddenly Georgie came charging down into the water and threw a volley ball out over everyone’s head. “Water hockey, anyone?” he shouted.

  The crowd roared and dove for the ball.

  For the first twenty minutes everyone played, laughing and fighting over the ball with equal gusto. But finally, people began to tire and leave the lake, and the only players remaining were Stephen, a few of the other men, and June.

  It annoyed him that his ploy to embarrass her had failed so miserably, but what unnerved him all the more was how boisterously she was playing. Despite her size and age, she fought for the ball with a vigor that put even Chris, the muscle-bound chauffeur, to shame. She was also aggressive to the point of rudeness and displayed no qualm about knocking men twice her size out of the way and occasionally even hitting them, just to keep control of the ball. And always, after she indulged in one of these graceless tactics, she would give a raucous and throaty laugh, her head thrown back and her strangely peglike teeth flashing faintly in the moonlight.

  “What is her story?” Miko asked as she swam over to Stephen from the lake’s edge.

  A thwacking sound rang out, followed by a howl of pain, as June slapped Ben in the back and stole the ball from him. She guffawed coarsely.

  “I don’t know,” Stephen complained, “but I’m going to find out.”

  He swam over to where Arnie was wading timidly in the shallows.

  “Hey, Arnie, what the hell is wrong with your wife?”

  “She’s not my wife,” Arnie returned quickly.

  “Well, what is she? Is she your girlfriend?”

  Arnie began to fidget as if he did not know how to answer the question. But before he could say anything, June quickly swam over to where they were standing.

  “We’re just friends. Aren’t we, Arnie?” she said, hugging him tightly against her naked and doughy body.

  “R-right. Friends,” Arnie agreed.

  “Well, I don’t know how you define friendship, lady, but it seems to me that you play a little rough,” Stephen shot back.

  A glimmer of delight rippled through June’s unnaturally wide and luminous eyes. “You’re right. I do like to play rough.” She gave another of her unctuously artless smiles.

  Her frankness startled Stephen. “Well, if it’s rough you want, maybe we should raise the stakes a little?”

  “What did you have in mind?”

  “How good a swimmer are you?”

  “I’m an excellent swimmer.”

  Stephen glanced over to a large log floating several hundred feet away in the middle of the lake. “Do you think you’re a good enough swimmer to make it to that log and back?” Miko became frightened. “Stephen, please.”

  “That would be child’s play,” June returned.

  By this time both Chris and Ben had swum over to see what the excitement was about.

  “What about you two?” Stephen asked. “Do you think you could make it over to that log and back?”

  “I don’t know. It’s pretty far,” Chris hesitated.

  “Ah, it’s not that far. I could do it,” Ben countered. Stephen looked back at June. “What do you think, June? Do you think you could beat us if we did a little race?”

  “Easily,” June murmured. “But only under one condition.” She gave Arnie another hug. “Arnie here has to do it with us. I never do anything without Arnie.”

  Arnie went white. “Oh, no, June. I don’t think I could begin to swim that far.”

  “Sure you could, Arnie.”

  “No, June, I...”

  June gave him another steely glance. “Arnie.”

  All the life seemed to drain out of Arnie, and he gave in. “Okay, June. Okay.”

  June looked back at Stephen. “Then you’re on!”

  “Great!”

  Miko looked at Stephen worriedly. “Stephen, are you sure?”

  But before she could say anything else, June pushed Arnie roughly in the direction of the log and they were off.

  They swam madly through the moonlit waters, June, Arnie, Stephen, Ben, and Chris, and several times as they advanced Stephen thought Arnie was not going to make it. The sound of the little man’s breathing was so strained and raspy that it could even be heard above their splashing, and once he stopped and looked as if he was going to go under.

  But when he did, June just urged him on, callously and insistently, and he somehow marshaled his strength and continued.

  Halfway there, Ben and Chris turned back, and Stephen’s lungs began to ache so much he almost did the same. But when he looked and saw how effortlessly June seemed to be keeping ahead of him, his pride reasserted itself and he pushed on.

  Finally, they reached the log, and Stephen grasped hold of it desperately, gasping for breath. Arnie also clung to the log for dear life, his face so blood-gorged and his breathing so strained he looked as if he was about to have a heart attack. Only June seemed unscathed by the race, and she smiled triumphantly as she treaded water a few feet away.

  Seeing the agony Arnie was in, Stephen could no longer contain his anger. “Arnie, why in the fuck do you let her do this to you?”

  For several seconds Arnie’s gasping remained too convulsive for him to answer, but then finally he summoned the strength to speak. “Why do you let her do it to you?” he croaked.

  “Do what?” Stephen asked, not understanding.

  For the first time a flash of life surfaced in Arnie’s eyes, accompanied by a glint of something that seemed almost like pity. “Let her manipulate you in
to challenging her just so she could get you out here alone?”

  Stephen was still confused. “June manipulate me?” He looked at the little blond woman bobbling in the water, and she leered back at him with strange amusement.

  “Don’t you see?” Arnie entreated.

  “Arnie,” June cautioned.

  But despite his exhaustion, the mote of fire that had kindled in Arnie only increased. “No!” he exclaimed. “I’m not going to take it anymore. Your threats just aren’t going to work anymore.”

  “What do you mean, threats? What kind of threats?” Stephen asked, his perplexity growing.

  At this Arnie lost all patience. “Don’t you see, yet? Don’t you understand?” He lowered his head frustratedly toward the floating log and then lifted it up again. “I don’t know who she is. I don’t even know what she is—”

  But as soon as the words left his lips, June slithered beneath the water.

  Arnie panicked. “Oh, God, no!” he cried as he tried vainly to clamber up onto the log. But it just slipped and spun away.

  Stephen had no idea why June’s momentary submersion should cause Arnie so much alarm, but Arnie’s terror seemed so real Stephen also began to panic.

  “What is it?” he shouted, looking around desperately and trying to make some sense out of what was happening. “What do you mean, you don’t know what she is?”

  “Oh, God!” Arnie screamed and started to jerk around as if something was grabbing at his legs. He looked at Stephen one last time before he went under. “I didn’t know what she was! She was just walking along the side of the road—!”

  Then he vanished beneath the water.

  Paralyzed with disbelief, Stephen continued to just look around, half expecting to see June and Arnie come laughing to the surface at any moment.

  But when they didn’t, he finally grasped the danger he was in and started thrashing violently toward the shore.

  He had only swum a few feet when he felt something brush against his leg. He kicked at it, and for a moment he thought he might have pushed it away. But then he felt it bump against him again, this time holding tight.

  And he too vanished beneath the water.

  ★ ★ ★