[Oxrun Station] The Last Call of Mourning

by Charles L. Grant

  But there was no right time.

  There was only now.

  And with a wrench that was nearly a physical agony, she shoved the store aside. It would endure; it would be there when she was done.

  Done, she thought.

  Done with what?

  Ed grunted.

  She glanced to her left and saw a sudden flare of headlights at the side of the road, a car slowly moving out of the trees and falling in behind them. It was too dark to see the make or model, the color or the driver, but she twisted around in her seat and stared out the rear window.

  "Ed," she said flatly. "Ed, it's him."

  11

  Greybeast, following.

  She heard the creak of the accelerator, felt the car hesitate and thought for a moment it would stall. Ed swore softly, incoherently, and abruptly they surged forward, pushing her into the backrest. She turned back around, one leg drawn beneath her on the seat, one hand out to brace herself against the dash. There was no time to breathe; the air had turned arctic.

  The fog turned to cloud that writhed past them in patches, clearing the road for yards at a stretch, suddenly closing them off to nothing but the sound of the engine, and the headlights maintaining a distance between them. Within minutes they had thudded over the railroad tracks, gates and reflectors snapping in and out of focus, vanishing as if they were only an illusion. Her throat went dry. Something small, something dark, raced out from the shoulder and before she could call out a warning she heard sickening multiple bumps beneath the chassis, saw Ed wince and grip the wheel more tightly as he chanced a glance at the rearview mirror.

  "I should have a tank," he muttered.

  She had no words to make him feel better, nothing light, nothing witty, only a weak animal sound that sounded like agreement as she stared at the headlights blaring behind them, desperately trying to pierce the glare in some telepathic manner in order to identify the driver, and by that the reason for his pursuit. She raised her free hand to shade her eyes, lowered it as soon as she realized the Greybeast was drawing nearer.

  "Ed—" but he had already noticed, and the car eased forward again.

  "Too dark," he said.

  The trees had fallen away, and the shoulder was bordered by low white posts strung with thick steel cables; amber eyes winked at them in passing, turned red as the post grew taller and the cables became rusted rows of barbed wire. Beyond, through the dark and the cloud-mist were deserted fields of small-parcel farms that had been cultivated in the valley since the seventeenth century, only recently succumbing to the malaise that had struck most of the rural communities throughout New England. There were a few that were too stubborn to yield, however, and every so often a long window light broke through the cover, seemingly static until it abruptly whipped to one side and was gone.

  Was gone.

  The car swerved sharply to avoid a pothole.

  The limousine closed.

  Who are you? Cyd demanded without making a sound, could not take her eyes from the diffusion of light that seemed to envelop them, sweep over the roof to join the headlights in front. A gaping seam in the road jarred her head around, and suddenly she remembered the last time she'd been out here.

  "Ed the intersection," she whispered, her knuckles pale on the dash.

  Williamston Pike ended at a broad T-crossing, running into a two-lane road that bisected the valley north to south. Without turning around, however, there was no other way out—at either terminus the hills stalled it, chewed it, turned it into little more than a pair of trails that led, on the north, to deserted lumber camps, and, on the south, to a small iron mine that had long been played out before the turn of the century. She knew, then, their only chance was to take the right-hand turn at the crossing and reach the mouth of Chancellor Avenue, head back into the village before they were—

  An exclamation escaped her before she could stifle it.

  The Greybeast had drifted into the left lane, heedless of whatever traffic might be heading toward it, trying to pull parallel to Ed's smaller car. Gaining, only slightly. And with the harsh light temporarily bled from the interior she stared on ahead, trying to judge the time they had left before they had to make the turn . . . or smash through whatever barrier was set in front of them, into the field that lay beyond.

  The headlights moved to a line with the rear bumper.

  Ed was hunched over the wheel, perspiration falling from his hair into his eyes. He shook his head vigorously, and Cyd quickly wiped a palm over his brow. And felt the cold skin drawn damp and tight.

  "Any time now," she said fearfully.

  "I know, I know."

  They pulled ahead slightly as the engine began a knocking protest that made her chest leaden, made her wish they were in her car instead. She glanced at the speedometer and wished she hadn't, looked up just as the fog tore apart in rags and she could see the stop sign slightly canted and glaring. Immediately, she braced herself as Ed applied the brakes, worked his hands to the left and, at the last possible moment, wrenched the wheel around to the song of screaming tires. She nearly slid into his lap then as the car fishtailed on the damp road, thudded onto the opposite shoulder and tightroped for nearly fifty yards before sliding back to the tarmac.

  An oak tree reached out, scraped and missed them.

  Another pothole bounced them so hard she nearly struck the ceiling.

  And when she finally looked behind them, the limousine was gone.

  She closed her eyes. Opened them. Let her hands fall into her lap where they fluttered weakly toward each other, clasped and were still. And there was no sound beyond the whispers and the tires and the increasing sharp agony of the overheated motor.

  No explosion. No crash.

  Ed slowed, made the turn onto Chancellor at virtually a crawl.

  As he passed the railroad station, dark and hulking save for the red-and-green warning lights that flanked the tracks, he sighed and pulled over. Set the handbrake. Lowered his head until his brow rested on the steering wheel. He took several deep breaths, shuddering violently until Cyd broke through her stupor and lay an arm around his shoulders.

  "How did he know?" she said to the windshield. "How did he know it was us?"

  "Maybe he didn't."

  "You don't believe that for a moment, do you? Any more than you still think the last time was just a bunch of kids out for a ride. I know you don't believe it. Not now, anyway."

  "No. But I'll tell you the truth—I wish to hell I did."

  She sat back, slumped, rested her head on the back of the seat and stared blindly at the roof. She felt as if she had run four hundred miles, four hundred miles without respite or water; and wondered for a moment what kind of animal they had hit. She tried to remember if groundhogs came out after sunset. Unless it was a rabbit. A fox. She wondered if it mattered.

  Ed tried a dry whistle. "I don't like to say this, Cyd, I don't want you to take it the wrong way . . . but I really don't think you'll want to stay at your place tonight."

  "Ed, come on! It wasn't one of my folks who was trying to kill me."

  "But they weren't there before, and they may not be there now. And if you don't mind, I really don't feel like driving the Pike again tonight."

  "Ed, look—"

  "You look, Cyd—I've got a bed and a sofa. Make your choice soon because I'm not stopping until I get there."

  The only thing she could do was sigh, and nod. Knowing that there was nothing in the world that would let her sleep; knowing too that unless she did, she would lose all control.

  And when she awoke, the afternoon sun fell loosely into the small bedroom. She tried to rise, gasped at the ache that exploded inside her skull, and fell back onto the pillows, eyes closed, mouth open. Counting slowly to one hundred as she remembered Ed practically carrying her up the steps and into the apartment, undressing her and forcing some kind of pills into her throat. She had gagged, but she'd swallowed, and as he sat on the mattress holding tight to her hand she had felt he
rself sailing, gliding, then falling into black.

  There were no dreams.

  Or none she could remember.

  A shuffling, and she tensed, her hands gripping the bedclothes and pulling them to her chin. Waiting. Listening. Until an out-of-tune humming made her smile, relax, let her stretch her arms over her head.

  "For a minute I thought I had given you too many."

  She grinned more broadly, saw him standing by a battered dresser with his overcoat on.

  "How do you feel?"

  "If I said I felt wanton, you'd make some crack about soup, and then I would have to say something about your being in duck soup for ages, and then you would say something about Groucho, and then I'll demand to know if that's a crack about my disposition, and then you'll have to—hey!" She laughed and squirmed from beneath the covers when he tossed a hair brush at her and bounced it off the headboard.

  "Your clothes are in the front room," he said.

  She walked past him quickly, tensing for a pinch or a slap, at the same time pleased and disappointed he did neither. Then she saw the alarm clock set on an endtable. "My God, Ed, it's quarter to one!"

  "I called Iris first thing and told her you might not be in today. I made up some story about celebrating last night. I don't think she approved."

  "Would you if you were Iris?"

  He moved to a ladder-back chair that sat near the door and leaned back to watch her. Arms folded. One ankle over the other. "I ... I was wondering what you're going to do about last night."

  "I never touched you."

  "I didn't mean that."

  She sighed as she sat on the lumpy divan and pulled on her shoes. "I know that," she said. "And I don't know. My God, my head hurts!"

  "The pills. It'll wear off once you get some coffee in you."

  "Great. Wonderful."

  "Meanwhile, I thought I would do some prowling around, see if I can't come up with that damned car. Or maybe somebody who knows it."

  "The police?"

  He shrugged. Then reached for the door. "Cyd ... you know, I'm sorry I didn't believe you the last time."

  She nodded and gave him a shrug in return. And when the door closed, she stared at it for several minutes before rising and finding her way to his kitchen, grimacing at the remains of his last several meals, poking and searching until she had found the instant coffee and keeping her mind a blank until the kettle was boiling to a high-pitched whistle. Then she carried her cup to the window, stared out and down at the face of her shop. A customer walked in, several walked out, and she wondered why she wasn't happy because they carried large bags.

  The shops, the cars, the people seemed so . . . small. She realized then that she'd never seen Centre Street from a height before, and the perspective it gave her was a curious one, as if she were staring into the open roof of some little girl's doll house, with wind-up vehicles and wind-up people and a small fan at one end to create a false breeze.

  It didn't seem real.

  Last night wasn't real.

  Nor was the first time, and neither was the fire.

  "Wrong," she whispered, set the cup on the sill and hurried into the bathroom where she ran a comb through her hair and fought back the melancholy when she saw the lines by her eyes.

  Ten minutes later she was down in the shop, grinning at Paul's sly jibes about hangovers and parties, chatting quickly with several people who wanted to greet her, then moving into the back where she called the cab to meet her as soon as it could while she explained to Iris that she had simply a million things to do and she would be taking most of the afternoon off, would it be too much to ask if someone would help Sandy with his first day when he came in at four, he would be staying until nine, but don't wait for me if I'm not back at five, unless one of you thinks that Sandy couldn't be left alone.

  Iris tried not to laugh, tried not to frown, and Cyd shook her head slowly and kissed the old woman soundly.

  "Iris, I know you think I'm nuts, but bear with me, all right?"

  "So what else is new?" Iris said, and looked back to her ledgers. .

  The taxi left her at the foot of the drive.

  Sometime past midnight there had been a hard rain, and islands of mud and dead leaves dotted the blacktop, broken twigs in profusion and a long string of pebbles where the water ran off from the house to the Pike. The sky through the trees was a sharp winter blue, and in spite of the return to a near-freezing temperature, she left her coat open and her hands from her pockets. Her purse thumped against her hip as she walked. A cardinal on a limb overhead eyed her without moving. There's nothing sinister here at all, she told herself as the house came into view; it's just the way it always is, isn't it, my girl?

  A bird called, and she jumped, brushed a finger through her hair and ordered herself calm.

  And when she was able to move again, she knew there was no panic. Not now. Not again. Now . . . there was anger in the wake of her fear; and a rage she knew would be useful as long as she kept it channeled safely about the walls of her reason. A rage born of a notion she had had in the cab: that Angus had been trying to protect her by not telling her a thing, that her father and brothers were doing the same, and Ed in his gentle way was playing the knight too hard to her lady. Protection. As if power to act were something she lacked behind her carefully wrought facade of individual strength. As if they all believed they could see through her, through a world-weary, wealth-weary, age-weary shell of gleaming lacquer to an interior composed of nothing but fluff of the stuff dandelions are made of that scatters in a high wind to cower in the shadows, take root and produce only more of the same.

  At the foot of the oval she paused to stare at the house. On the day after Thanksgiving she had thought the place smaller by virtue of her growing older; now it was smaller stiff, huddling beneath the abrupt keels of white-and-grey clouds that sailed overhead before an unfelt wind. The sky was still blue, but it was beginning to haze, and she judged that before sunset the blue would be pale. She glanced to her right—all the cars but her own were gone from the garage. Again her family was gone, to somewhere she was sure was not the city, and she felt more than foolish for not noting it sooner—that more often than not she'd been in the house alone.

  For a change she was pleased; it would give her more freedom.

  To do what, she asked herself as she let herself in. From the moment she had left Ed Grange's apartment she had been acting as if she thought she knew what she was doing, behaving as though she knew what she wanted. She unbuttoned her coat as she headed immediately upstairs. To do what? An admittance, then, that she had no idea. Except that if she searched, if she took the house one step at a time, if she stopped trying to find handles to hang on her confusion then she would more quickly find the key . . . any key at all ... to any answer at all.

  She began with her parents' rooms, then, unashamed and uncaring. Through desk drawers and bureaus, under cushions, behind curtains. For a time she felt silly at looking over her shoulder when the house began creaking and the wind finally rose. But it was daylight, she told herself when she headed toward the back; in daylight there are shadows that are made by the sun.

  Evan's rooms. Empty. As spartan and cold as the man who lived there. One picture on the bedroom wall facing the four-poster—a blurred photograph of her grandfather in uniform. Army. Major. She thought the term was: cashiered.

  The more you know, the less you understand, she thought as she left for Rob's suite and stood on the threshold. Here the decor was as masculine as she thought any room could get without dead-eyed trophies staring down from the walls. The colors were dark, earthen and solid, as was the furniture placed in such a way that a minimum of paces would take him from studying to sleeping, from sleeping to leaving. It was an old man's room, and it began to make her nervous.

  Daylight, she reminded herself sternly. There are no ghosts.

  And there was nothing in any of the drawers she could open; no papers, no books, no deep secret diaries.


  Foolish.

  She felt a warmth around her throat as a blush began to form, and she almost walked out without checking the desk—a nineteenth-century pine roll-top tucked carefully into the far corner of the parlor. Foolish again, but this time because of her hesitation; as long as she had invaded the privacy of the others, why should Rob be any different, then? She almost laughed as she crossed the room, a low nervous sound that belied the deceptively warm sun that caught the colors of the carpeting and flashed them to the walls.

  The drawers down the front yielded her nothing. Papers, nothing more, about the running of the bank, deals made and deals lost, an overwhelming amount of legalese that meant nothing to her. She closed them all softly, stepped back and pushed at the top. It was locked. She pushed again with the palms of both hands. Nothing in the house had been denied her until now, and she knew that her sudden impatience was unreasonable, and wrong. This was Rob's property; Rob was her brother; and it was quite well possible that he had a life of his own she had no business knowing. But the top was locked, and her rage was seething, and if she left this alone she might be missing one of the answers.

  He can scream at me later, she decided as she looked around the room, saw a pair of crossed Confederate swords on the far wall and fetched one before she could change her mind. He can scream all he wants, but damnit they've lied to me!

  Carefully, she worked the tip of the ceremonial saber between the top and the base, next to the bolt. The steel was thick, bending only reluctantly as she pressed down on the hilt, slowly moving the blade until the leverage was secure. Then she leaned her entire weight on the weapon, grunting, suddenly afraid that the wood would be stronger.

  It wasn't.

  The top gave with a loud tearing shriek, clattered back into its slot as Cyd stumbled away, the saber falling to the floor.

  "Lord," she said, moved back to the desk and stared at the pigeon holes and tiny drawers set into the back. Her fingers trembled; she ordered them to stop. Was careful to replace each letter, each card right where she found it, working so slowly that not even the light film of dust was disturbed. And despite her anxiousness to find some sort of clue—not knowing what it would be, but knowing she would recognize it when it appeared—she was relieved when she was almost done and had found precisely nothing.