More Bitter Than Death

by Dana Cameron

  We got a seat with Laurel Fairchild, who always seemed to occupy the same spot in every bar at every conference she went to. As far as I knew, she left only to present her own papers; she believed that she would run into everyone she wanted to simply by staying put and letting the world come to her. This time we lucked out, and got seats during a lull in her evening.

  From a distance, Laurel resembled someone who’d been frozen in time at the last heyday of the hotel: black turtleneck, black cardigan, black Capri pants, a brunette bobbed Beatnik with cat’s-eye glasses. Closer up, you realized that she was maybe in her late forties or fifties, but it seemed like she’d always been at the conference and would always be. She swore like a trooper and would still be chain-smoking unfiltered Camels, if it hadn’t been for the fact that cigarettes were prohibited almost everywhere she had a reason to be.

  Lissa said, “Good Lord, Laurel. Don’t you ever get bored of just sitting there, like a lump?”

  “Christ, no. Not when I’ve got entertainment like the floorshow that’s been going on here for the past hour.” She gestured over to the corner, where Duncan was telling a joke, an energetic pantomime. I noticed that there were brownish spots on her hands now, something I didn’t recall from previous years. Yikes. It didn’t seem right that she should be showing signs of age.

  She continued. “And my feet are killing me. I shouldn’t have worn shoes that weren’t broken in.”

  I looked down and saw that she’d taken off her new pumps—pointy-toed, achingly narrow, and far too fashionable for me—and was rolling an unopened beer bottle with her stockinged foot. It was an old trick I knew from the field, but I usually saved it for more private venues. She was drinking a glass of wine, so I didn’t know what she was going to do with that beer when it warmed up…

  “You could wear sensible shoes,” I said.

  Laurel agreed so politely that I knew that my suggestion had been dismissed out of hand. “How you doing, Sue?” she asked, looking down past her glasses to the other woman. The effect made her look even more avian than ever, with her beaky nose and sharp, dark eyes. “Garrison unloaded a real shit-storm, huh?”

  Sue nodded. “I’m okay, now. You always think you can deal with this better than you do, you get the rug pulled out from under you like that. I felt like I was going to throw up for a while there.”

  Laurel nodded, looking sympathetic, and somehow at the same time gestured to the waitress as she passed with a tray of loaded drinks. Laurel had better bar karma than almost anyone I knew, and that was on top of her propensity for giving large tips. We’d be well looked after tonight, as long as we could stand the noise and the heat.

  “Let me get this. Happy New Year,” she said. “Or to a better year after this, I should say.”

  “Amen to that.”

  There was no talking among us after that. Sue sat and drank steadily, but although her shoulders were slumped with obvious fatigue, it didn’t seem as though she was getting destructive about it. I sipped at a bourbon, more for something to have in my hands than any real interest in the drink. Laurel held court from her chair, keeping track of a ridiculous number of meetings with apparent effortlessness, all arranged at the top of her voice to be heard over the din. Lissa went up to the bar for some popcorn and had never made it back; someone had waylaid her and the pair of them were talking animatedly, unheard over the racket. Somewhere in the background the bar’s sound system thumped and provided not so much a soundtrack as an underlying percussive structure to the cacophony. I was just glad that there was no smoking, else it would have been pretty nigh unbearable. As it was, it was only my friends who were keeping me there, and they were all in their own little worlds.

  I glanced across the room through a temporary gap in the bodies and saw Duncan holding forth, expressively and charismatically, alternating humor and seriousness. People were clustered around him, either because they were truly interested in what he had to say—his information was usually interesting and useful, if nothing else, and he had influence in the field as a professor at an important department in New Hampshire—or to bask in his reflected glow. Larger and larger concentric circles formed around him, satellites gravitating toward a bright star. At one point he leaned in, as if speaking confidentially, and the people around him leaned in too; then he exploded up, nailing whatever punch line or conclusion to a shout of laughter.

  I looked away and took another sip of my drink; I wasn’t so curious about the story as I was about my feelings, now that I’d seen him, testing them gingerly, the way you step on ice that you know is probably too thin to support you. When I got done being fascinated by the melting ice floating and clinking unheard in the glass, I looked up and saw that Laurel was watching me.

  She did a little chin jerk and eyebrow thing, asking me wordlessly if I was okay; I just rolled my eyes and nodded. There was no reason for me not to be okay, I just found myself going over a long-buried past and wishing I didn’t need to. I’d successfully avoided it for over a decade; I didn’t see why I should bother digging it out now. Laurel nodded and turned, immediately caught up in another round of where-can-we-meet-and-talk with yet another passerby.

  “Hey.”

  Meg and Neal had come into the bar. I hooked Lissa’s abandoned chair by the stretcher and pulled it over for them. They sat down, one butt-cheek each on the chair. “Not interrupting anything, are we?” Meg asked.

  I couldn’t detect any layer of hurt in her voice, but I was acutely aware enough of having been less than gracious in my dealings with her all day. “Nothing at all,” I said. I had just been about to excuse myself, but this seemed like a good time to make sure Meg and I were cool. “You guys got time for that congratulatory round I promised?”

  “Always,” Neal said. “Meg’s told you, then?”

  “Word’s been getting around.” I leaned over to Sue and Laurel and shouted, “Meg and Neal just got engaged. Two of my best students!”

  “Well, I know what we need to do, then!” Laurel once again easily caught the attention of the harried waitress, who came right over. Other tables might go dry and pine for a sup of beer, but those who sat with Laurel never would. “Got any champagne?” she shouted. “We’ve got an engagement to celebrate!”

  “I wouldn’t call it champagne,” the waitress said, shaking her head, looking alarmed. She glanced around her, and seeing none of the other staff, said confidentially, “I’d stick with the hard liquor and beer, if I were you.”

  “Thanks for the warning,” she said. “Emma?”

  I looked around. “Whiskey’s okay with everyone?”

  Everyone nodded. “Whiskeys all around, then,” I said. “Single malt, if you’ve got it.”

  By the time she came back with our drinks, Lissa had made it back with the popcorn and her colleague. I explained to them what was going on and lifted my glass. The others fell silent for a moment.

  “To Meg and Neal!”

  “To Meg and Neal,” the others chorused. One of their friends—the Gypsy-clad woman—already in the know, wandered over and added, “And all the babies to come!”

  “Go to hell, Jordan!” Meg said.

  Quick as lightning, she flicked a piece of popcorn and landed it squarely on Jordan’s chin. The young woman clearly knew to expect it, and her laughter infected the rest of the party.

  Suddenly it seemed that everyone was swarming around our table, and the energy of the bar changed, shifting to our side of the room. Meg and Neal answered all the usual questions—no, they didn’t have a date set, but probably after Neal defended his dissertation successfully; yes, they would probably stay in Maine for the time being; honeymoon destinations were limited by a graduate income, but there was a chance they could borrow a friend’s family’s condo in the Caribbean for a week. Pretty soon the conversation switched back to our work at Fort Providence and then early sites in general, and then everyone started to splinter off again, group energy renewed.

  My energy, however, was gone for
the day, and my head was starting to pound with the noise and excitement. After a decent interval and the second round, which for me was a quick soda, I excused myself, hugged the happy couple, and made my way toward my room. Leaving the bar was a good start, but my room was still an oven, and I knew that even if I sat up long enough to drink some water to stave off dehydration, it would still be an hour before I had any chance of getting to sleep in there.

  I got the water and cracked the window, but I knew I couldn’t stay in there to roast until it cooled off. Checking the thermometer, I saw that it had gone down ten degrees since my complaints, and was probably repaired for the night, but I decided to pull on my boots, jeans, and parka and go out to look at the moon in the snow. By the time I got bored and cold, it might be possible to get some sleep.

  I actually made it outside without getting caught by anyone in the lobby or the bar, which was something miraculous, even considering the conference attendance was lower because of the canceled flights. Although our group was often close to five hundred or more, I heard we were down to about four hundred today. There’s always someone wandering around at conferences, and it’s always a pick of the draw to see whose floor you’ll be on, what famous person you’ll run into in the restroom, or who’ll be sharing your table at the boxed lunch.

  The cold air shocked me as I stepped out of the revolving door on the side of the lobby. The wind had died down somewhat, but it was still snowing like fury, and the moon was nowhere to be found, of course, behind the clouds. There was plenty of ambient light from the Christmas-lit hotel and the parking lot, and I figured that I could follow the walks around to the back and maybe even down to the lake, if the outside lights were still on there.

  The walks weren’t shoveled out, but it still wasn’t deep enough to be a nuisance yet: The storm was swinging up the coast and we were still inland from it. The walking was easy, through the light fluffy stuff, and was actually easier than it had been earlier, as the slush had frozen solid, into an uneven surface. Now the new snow made it easier to keep from sliding. As long as I brushed myself off good before it melted on me when I returned inside, I wouldn’t even get all that wet.

  I love walking through snow, if only for the acoustical tricks that it plays on you, deadening sound, distorting the sonic impression of distance, and giving you a sense of solitude that is altogether too difficult to come by in the crowded Northeast. One of the benefits of doing archaeology out of cities, or traveling to places off the beaten path, was the comparative quiet. Or rather, there was a different, quieter set of sounds that weren’t purely human in origin. But there weren’t even any animal sounds now—everyone but me was safely snugged away for the duration of the storm—and the creak of branches overhead, the wind coming across the frozen lake, and the feathery soft sound of landing snowflakes were worth escaping the cacophony inside. The noise of my crunching boots made very little impression on the woods surrounding the hotel.

  The long, shallow path that led down to the lake was not only lit, it was pristine. The landscapers had created a series of many short steps punctuated by longer, level landings, so the trip down was designed to be inviting and gentle. I decided that I felt warm enough to continue to the bottom, and then would head back to my room, pleasantly worn out.

  I got the cadence of the staircase quickly: five regular stairs followed by three to ten regular paces of flat landing, then the next set of steps. Bump, bedumpt, bedumpt, swish, swish, swish. There was the occasional turn, so that it wasn’t a straight shot down to the lake, and I assumed that during the day, the walker would be treated to various vistas or landscaped intervals. I counted about twenty of the steps-and-strides combinations, and made it down to the bottom after several minutes of hard work. I wasn’t worried about getting lost, even though the snow was heavier now, as the railing would lead me back to the top of the stairs and the back of the hotel.

  There was a little beach down by the lake at the bottom of the steps, where the pines fell away into a circle. Maybe when it wasn’t covered by an even layer of snow that seemed to flatten and compress the difference between shapes and heights, you could identify boulders, chairs, perhaps outdoor grills and chimneys for lakeside gatherings. There was a raised area to the right, which was a gazebo or covered deck, which might have been ideal for small wedding parties, maybe a buffet or the bandstand for larger affairs. With the blanket of snow, it was impossible to tell but imagination filled in the spaces. Trees spread out to both sides beyond the clearing, and it looked as though paths followed the circumference of the lake to the left and right. Mountains rose up into the clouds across the lake, lit and shadowed by the snow. On the left-hand side of the clearing, I could see the dock, all closed down for the winter, and the ice spread across nearly half of the lake.

  I didn’t dare go down off the stairs to explore, though if the weather cleared up, I promised myself a walk around when it was a little easier to navigate. I looked out across the lake, through the veil of falling snow, and was rewarded with a glimpse of the moon, through a break in the wispy clouds. The vision lasted no more than two seconds, and it was quickly covered up again.

  I had just turned around to go back when I heard a tremendous thud, followed by a sharp noise like the crack of a rifle. That surprised me, but I immediately attributed it to snow falling off weakened branches and a branch cracking under the weight. It didn’t end there, though; I heard rustling/crunching noises that were too large to be scattering squirrels or birds and too small and consistent to be branches settling or rebounding.

  It sounded human.

  I felt my mouth go dry again. “Hello? Is someone out there?”

  The noises ceased suddenly, only to be replaced by what sounded like gargantuan moaning. That definitely sounded like something alive, in the animal-not-tree sense.

  “Hello?” I tried again, feeling nervous and vastly stupid, all at once.

  Nothing was to be heard but the wind, the snow, and the sound of my blood pounding in my ears. In the two minutes I’d stopped at the bottom of the stairs, the cold had driven its way through my parka and into my bones. In the long ten seconds during which I’d heard the not-quite-natural noises, it froze the heart of me as well. I wanted to be out of there, now.

  Sue’s ghost story in my head, I turned and ran up the stairs, stumbling over the roughness of the terrain, grateful for the handrail and the fact that I could see no other footprints but mine as I ascended, as hastily as I could. Whatever was out there, hadn’t come from the hotel, and so therefore was probably not human. My movements were clumsy, and I knew that I was probably just scaring myself, but that didn’t keep me from slogging as fast as I could until I got to the top and ran around the front to the doors of the hotel.

  I don’t care how dumb I might have looked: You don’t go wandering out by yourself in the middle of a snowstorm and then go off to investigate unearthly noises when instinct is telling you to run the hell out of there as fast as you can.

  Chapter 3

  I GOT BACK TO MY ROOM AND WAS IN A COLD SWEAT. The heat had gone down rapidly, and the room was now habitable. I took a shower to calm down. My heart rate slowed, but I was by no means relaxed. I checked the clock: It was just past one. Too late for company, though it would be easily found if I wanted it; too early to go to bed, as I was less inclined to sleep than before I went for my nerve-wracking walk. At home I would just be thinking about whether there was anything else to do before I hit the sack, but conference time and energy is never the same as at home, and I knew I needed to do something to unwind before I went to bed. I could check on my slides, that would burn a few minutes. The mundane task of reviewing the images and my forthcoming talk would calm me down enough to sleep.

  I found my tray, checked the location of the preview room, and found my way down to the second-floor mezzanine. As I wandered over to the rail, I could see the desk across from the main doors, several lounge areas scattered around, and the restaurants off to either side. Outside
the coffee shop was a pinball machine, now silent, and I promised myself a game later.

  I was lucky, and the room wasn’t locked; I found the light and the projectors were all out and waiting for use. Pretty soon I was immersed in scanning through my paper, reconsidering one image over another for a greater impact; the little plastic tack-tack of the slides being inserted into the carousel the only noise. It calmed me like nothing else could.

  The door opened. I glanced over.

  It was Duncan.

  I would have gnawed off my leg, like an animal in a trap, to get away from there. I very nearly turned and ran when I saw that we were going to be alone in there, but pride wouldn’t let me do that, and since I was already halfway done, I kept on going, stomach churning. Duncan paused by me, then went to work on his own slides. Maybe he would see that I wasn’t interested in talking. I would run through my slides as quickly as I could and get the hell out, pride intact, boundaries maintained, and no messy interactions.

  It was a good plan, but it went awry right away. I have a fifty-fifty chance of having the kind of carousel that doesn’t work on the projectors at any given conference, and I’d come up short this time. I kept promising myself that I was going to go to one of those computerized presentation programs, but I always worry about other, more pressing things and never got around to it. Now I was paying the price for it. I turned the carousel over to make sure that the little metal flange was in the right place, and then the plastic circle that keeps the slides in place fell off and my slides tumbled to the carpet, some of them cartwheeling clear across the room.

  “Fuck!” The word came unbidden and was pure acid; my emotions were getting the better of me. It had nothing to do with the possibility of getting lint on my slides.

  I got most of them and then paused as I crouched; there were three over by Duncan’s chair. Correction, there had been three. He’d picked them up and come over to where I was. I stood up slowly, and took them by the white plastic frames, careful not to touch the film or his hand.