Restless Dead

by Cave, Hugh

  "This package you're going to the bus station for," he said. "Has it some connection with what you're doing here?"

  She nodded. "I asked my prof at the university to send me some fossils, so I could say I found them here. If I don't find something, people might wonder."

  "What people?"

  "Earl Watson, for one. He keeps asking me if I've found anything."

  "Did he know your sister? He knows about her disappearance, of course, if the police questioned the townspeople. I mean did her meet her personally."

  "He says no."

  "Do you look like her?"

  She shook her head. "Not enough for him to have guessed who I really am, if that's what you mean." Her dinner finished, she took a twenty-dollar bill from her handbag and passed it to him. "You pay, will you? In a place like this, it might look funny if I did."

  He signaled the waiter, then said as they were leaving the dining room, "Is there a Western Union office in town?"

  "Just a couple of doors down from here."

  "I have to call a friend back home, ask him to wire me some money."

  "There'll be a phone at the bus station," she said.

  The bus station was straight out of a Norman Rockwell painting portraying life in backwoods America. Except for an agent almost as old as the building, it was empty. The agent told them the bus was running late.

  Using change from the twenty Verna had handed him at the hotel, Jeff made his call. The man he called was a fellow professor who on occasion had accompanied him on investigations. The money he needed would be in Clandon in the morning, his friend promised.

  Relieved, he joined Verna on a station bench and they resumed their conversation. And presently he began to realize that Miss Verna Clark, or Miss Linda Mason, was the kind of young woman it was fun to wait with in a bus station.

  Her enthusiasms, for instance, were many and contagious. When she explained that Florida during the Ice Age had been a stamping ground for practically every kind of creature then living on the continent, she made it so interesting that he hung on every word. When she told him about her mother in Fort Lauderdale, he would have been happy to board the next bus with her to pay the lady a visit.

  He told her about himself—a narrative he had never before inflicted on any woman. About growing up in Massachusetts and going to college in Connecticut, and landing a teaching job there after earning his degree. About some of the investigations he had carried out while pursuing his hobby. "You come up empty more often than not, but it's exciting. I have to admit, though, that I've never tackled anything as scary as this Everol case."

  Verna could listen as enthusiastically as she talked, he discovered. That had to mean something. It did to him. It made him take her hand, finally, and look straight into her eyes there on the bus station bench, and say, "Verna Clark, I want to help you. I won't be going back to Connecticut until we've done everything we can to find out about your sister."

  She squeezed his hand. He thought he saw a wetness in her eyes, but it was hard to be sure in the bus station gloom. "Thanks," she said softly, as the bus rolled up outside.

  They stood up. No one got off the bus, but the driver handed a package to the station agent and he brought it in. "I guess this is what you're waitin' for, miss," he said. "Miss Verna Clark, care of Jack Watson?"

  Miss Verna Clark, Jeff thought as he carried the box to the car. Miss Verna Clark, who is certain her sister Kim did not simply walk out of her life and is determined to find out what really happened to her. And someone who knows or suspects this has already tried to kill her and may try again.

  As they were leaving the building, he thought of something. "Hold on a minute, will you? I need a crayon of some sort. Something to mark glass with. Maybe the old fellow here has one he can sell me."

  Verna pulled him forward. "I'll bet he doesn't. But I have something at the Watsons', and we have to go by there."

  "Good. Maybe I'll get to meet this Earl who keeps asking you if you've found anything."

  The Watsons were on their veranda when Verna and he climbed the steps. Verna introduced them as Mr. and Mrs. "Name's Earl," the man corrected with something like a snort. "This here's Marj. Glad to know you, mister." He was a lean, husky man in his fifties, with a face that seemed made of leather and long hair that looked as if it hadn't felt a comb lately. His wife was twice as wide and a foot shorter and obviously didn't care much about her looks either. At their invitation, Jeff sat while Verna went into the house.

  "Verna's been telling me how you found that child," Jeff said. "The one who drowned, I mean."

  "Yeah?" Earl shrugged.

  "We was real proud of him," Marj said. The air on the veranda was warm and sticky; she fanned herself with a folded newspaper.

  Jeff fished a little deeper. "I've seen the place you call the Drowning Pit. It's hard to imagine people went there for picnics and such."

  "They never swam there, mister." Earl leaned from his chair, scowling. "And let me tell you, that sinkhole ain't no place to mess around with. It's real deep and dangerous."

  "Oh, I wasn't planning another visit."

  "Better not. You ask me, the Everols ought to fence it in and put signs up to warn folks off." Apparently convinced he had made his point, Earl settled back on his chair again. "You a friend of the Everols?"

  Careful, Jeff thought. "Not exactly. I'm—well, I'm a writer, and I thought I might do a book about what happened there." He had almost said, "what's happening" but shifted gears in mid-sentence.

  "To Jacob and Ethel, you mean?"

  Jeff nodded.

  "Got your work cut out for you, I'd say. You ask me, lookin' for the truth of what happened there might be near as risky as swimmin' in that sinkhole. And like I said"—leaning from his chair again, Earl used a knobby forefinger this time to punch home his words—"that Drownin' Pit is a killer, mister. Nobody in their right mind would fool around with it."

  "And Earl should know." His wife nodded vigorously. "He come near to drowning there himself, the time he brought up that little girl's body."

  "You nearly drowned, Mr. Watson?"

  "Well, it was sure deeper'n I'd counted on."

  Before Jeff could try for more, Verna reappeared, letting the screened door shut with a slight thud behind her. "Will this do?" she asked, handing him a box of crayons.

  He looked at them and thanked her, then turned to the Watsons. "It's been nice talking with you two. We'll meet again, perhaps."

  "Yeah," said Earl.

  "If you and Verna here are friends, I guess we will," said Marj.

  Verna and he went to the car.

  "Well, what do you think of them?" she asked while driving.

  "What does he do for a living?"

  "He's a house painter. Self-employed."

  "He seems pretty anxious for me to stay away from that sinkhole. So if I come up empty elsewhere, maybe I'll just have a look at it."

  She took her gaze off the road long enough to frown at him. "You're into scuba diving?"

  "I've done a little."

  "Where would you get the gear?"

  "We're not far from the gulf here. There'll be a diving shop somewhere."

  "Jeff, if you go there with that in mind, I want to be with you," she said. "Remember that."

  When she stopped to let him off at the Everols' gate, he took her in his arms and kissed her. She returned the kiss, apparently as eager as he was to make it more than a mere good night.

  "When do I see you again?" he asked.

  "Tomorrow? Here? Same time?"

  "Until then, be careful. Please, Verna. Be very careful."

  Chapter Nine

  Again it was Blanche who opened the Everol door to him. Again the others were seated in the living room. This time they were watching television.

  Everett reached for the remote control and shut off the TV, apparently indifferent to whether the others wished to continue or not. He made a face at the watch on his wrist. "It's past our bedtim
e, mister. If you're going to stay here with us and go out of an evenin', it'd be considerate of you to get back earlier."

  "I'm sorry," Jeff said. "I didn't realize."

  "No harm done this time. But we're not as young as you."

  "There's something else," Jeff said. "I should be paying you for your kindness in putting me up. Just as soon as I'm able to get some money, I intend to do that."

  Everol peered at him under lowered, bushy brows and said, "Where you plan on getting money? From that girl who picked you up at the gate this evening?"

  "How do you know someone picked me up?"

  "Lelio saw you and told us. It was that Clark girl, wasn't it? The one who's been snooping around here."

  Jeff returned their challenging stares in silence while groping for a response they might find acceptable. "I intended to walk to town," he said with care. "Just as I reached the gate, she came along and offered me a lift. To tell the truth, I don't know who she is. I didn't ask her."

  "It was the Clark girl," Blanche said, as if the name felt sour in her mouth. "Lelio said so."

  "And?"

  "Like Everett said, she's not welcome around here. She snoops too much."

  "She told me she's—I'm not sure whether she said student or teacher—but connected with some university and looking for fossils."

  "Well, she's got no business looking for them on our property," Everett said. "And if you see her again, we'll thank you to tell her that." Rising, he punctuated his remark with a grunted "Good night" and made for the stairs.

  Blanche and Amanda followed. Little white-haired Susan, as though performing an assigned nightly chore, began to gather up cups and saucers and put them on a tray.

  She took her time doing so, Jeff noticed. In fact, she went through a number of unnecessary motions while the others unhurriedly climbed the stairs and disappeared. Then the tiny, rather pretty sister of Everett's equally doll-like wife put the tray on a table and came over to Jeff.

  In a voice too low to reach those upstairs, she said while gazing intently up at his face, "After what happened, are you going to sleep in Jacob's room again?"

  "I was planning to, Miss Susan."

  "Shh." She put a finger to her lips. "We don't want them to hear us. I don't think you should, you know. Not after what happened there last night."

  "You think it might happen again?"

  "Who can say?"

  "Miss Susan, can we sit down and talk a little? In the kitchen, maybe, with some coffee?"

  Her head bobbed up and down. Reaching for the tray, she turned and trotted with it across the living room, through the dining room, into the kitchen. She was like a bird of some kind, Jeff thought as he followed. One of those little ones—sandpipers, were they?—that ran along beaches and always seemed to be in a hurry. But at the kitchen door she stopped to wait for him, then shut the door after him and motioned him to the table.

  He sat.

  "Sugar and cream?" she asked, trotting past him to the counter.

  "No, thanks. Black."

  "I like mine that way, too." To the table she came with coffee for both of them. But after seating herself she pushed her cup aside and leaned toward him with a conspiratorial smile. "Tell me something. Does the name Jeffrey Gordon mean anything to you?"

  He very nearly dropped the cup he was lifting toward his mouth. "Who?"

  "That's your name. Everett said not to tell you but I'm doing it anyway because I think he's wrong." She nodded briskly. "You're Jeffrey Gordon and you're a professor of English in Connecticut. Yes. You're also an investigator of psychic phenomena, which is why you're here in our house. How I know about all this—when you wrote to ask if you could come here, you sent a magazine that had a story about you and a picture of you. Now do you remember?"

  Trying to imagine how a character in a play might act in such a situation, Jeff at first forced himself to look puzzled, then slowly replaced that expression with what he hoped was one of understanding. "Jeffrey Gordon. . . Jeff Gordon. . . yes, of course, Miss Susan. That's who I am. Of course!"

  "Not Miss Susan, please." She was smiling now, as though delighted to have been able to help him. "This isn't an old Southern plantation you know, even if it is in Florida and run down. Just plain Susan will do."

  "Susan. Yes."

  "And you really remember?"

  "Yes. Thank you." He reached across the table to touch her hand, remembering how he had felt when Verna Clark did the same to him at dinner. "Now tell me why Everett doesn't want me to know."

  "He said if we told you, you'd leave us and go somewhere to find out if your accident caused any serious damage. All of us disagreed with him and insisted you'd leave as soon as your car was fixed if you didn't learn who you are, but Everett is the kind of man who thinks women are stupid."

  "Am I to pretend I still don't know who I am, then?"

  "Could you say you just remembered?"

  "Well, of course, but—"

  "That's the way to do it, I think." Susan's white hair and pretty face were bobbing up and down again. "You will stay now that you know, won't you?"

  "Yes, I will."

  "So tell me. . . what really happened in your room last night, Jeffrey Gordon? You can trust me. I won't tell anyone else."

  With care and a frown Jeff said, "I'm afraid it was nothing more than I've already told you. I dreamed I saw a snake at the window and—"

  "How could a snake appear at a second-floor window?"

  "Yes, how? But anything can happen in a dream, can't it? Anyway, it was a huge snake. Enormous. All I ever saw was its head, and that was so big its body could easily have reached the ground. You know, like that very long African snake—the mamba, is it?—that can make itself so vertical it seems to be walking on its tail?"

  Evidently Susan was not interested in snakes that walked on their tails. "Are you certain it wasn't a bird?"

  "It wasn't a bird, Susan."

  "The thing that killed Jacob was a bird," she said in a low voice, again leaning toward him, though this time with her coffee cup in her hand. "Ethel says it was, and I believe her. A huge, ugly bird with awful claws, she said. And that was what she saw the second time, too. Are you sure you saw a snake, Jeffrey?"

  "Well, who can ever be sure about a dream?"

  "We have other rooms. You could stay in one of those tonight."

  Jeff drank some coffee to give himself time to think. "Are you afraid some harm might come to me, Susan? Because of what happened to Jacob and Ethel?"

  "I don't want any more terrible things happening in this house."

  "Tell me something: You say Ethel saw what happened to Jacob and then saw the bird again. Ethel is in an institution now, isn't she?"

  "Yes."

  "Did the bird attack her, too?"

  "Yes, it did, but she got away from it somehow before it could kill her. After Jacob was killed she bought some books about such things and was reading them. But the fright did something to her mind and Everett had to put her away."

  "Where did this second appearance of the bird happen? In Jacob's room again?"

  "No. In her own room, next to his."

  "Is that where you want me to sleep tonight?"

  "No!" Susan's voice was sharp with indignation. "How could you even think such a thing? I told you I don't want any more to happen in this house!"

  "But if the vult—if the bird has already appeared in two different rooms, how can you be sure any room here is safe? What difference does it make where I sleep, Susan?"

  Seemingly bewildered, the white-haired little woman gazed at him in silence, then looked into her coffee cup as though expecting to find an answer there. Lifting the cup to her lips, she emptied it, then put it down again. At last she said, "I suppose it doesn't make any difference where anyone sleeps, does it?"

  "Besides," Jeff said, "Everett wouldn't like my using a different room without his permission, I'm sure."

  She nodded.

  "So shall we say good night, S
usan?"

  "Yes. Good night, Jeffrey."

  "Perhaps I won't dream again."

  Rising, she reached for the cups and saucers.

  But before turning away with them, she looked intently at his face again and said in a voice that was little more than a whisper, "Let me tell you something, Jeffrey. When you saw that thing at your window, it wasn't a dream. If you've really convinced yourself it was a dream, you're a very foolish man. Snake, bird, whatever it was, it was real, and it will be real the next time it comes, too. Believe me."

  Before he could answer she had turned her back on him and was a sandpiper again, briskly trotting to the sink.

  Chapter Ten

  Jacob's room.

  The room in which Ethel had seen a monstrous bird, a kind of prehistoric vulture, perched on her brother's chest with its great black wings outspread and its awful claws tearing its victim's face off.

  That was Ethel's story, told to him by Verna Clark this evening and repeated just now by Susan. He had seen and heard it first, though, in various media accounts of the "Everol Horrors."

  The vulture-thing, when disturbed by Ethel's entrance, had flown out through a great hole where a window had been—a hole it must have made when it crashed into the room from outdoors. Again, that was Ethel's story, reported by the media and repeated this evening.

  Should he stay in this room tonight? Yes. He had come here hoping to solve the Everol mystery, and that had begun here in this room. He would learn nothing by running away from it.

  Closing the bedroom door behind him, he walked to the window where he had seen the snake. This morning, after returning from his walk with a functioning memory and certain personal questions to be answered, he had carefully examined it. There was no reason now, he decided, for him to change the conclusions arrived at then. This window frame was much newer than the others in the room. The plastered wall surrounding it had recently been patched.

  Well. . . if he was going to spend a second night here, he had better get to work. If, as white-haired little Susan insisted, the thing he had seen was real and not a creature he had conjured up in a nightmare, it could come again anytime now.