The Stake

by Richard Laymon

  Who reallyate the coyote? he wondered. What if it’s the same guy who fixed the hotel landing and straightened the blanket on the stiff?

  What if he was watching us?

  What if he followed us?

  Larry downspaced a couple of times.

  “Somebody,” he wrote, “hammered a pointed shaft of wood through the heart of a woman. He left her inside a lidless coffin, and hid her corpse beneath the stairway of an abandoned hotel in the town of Sagebrush Flat.

  “We found it there.

  “My name is Lawrence Dunbar. I am a writer of horror fiction. This book is not fiction. You may judge for yourself whether it is horror.

  “This is what happened.

  “On Sunday, October 2, we left our home in Mulehead Bend for a day trip to visit an old west town in the desert to the west. The morning was clear and warm as we started off. Pete drove his van. I rode shotgun. Our wives poured coffee from a thermos bottle, passed the plastic cups to us, and gave us first dibs at the assortment of doughnuts I’d bought earlier that morning.”

  Not bad for a space cadet, he thought.

  And kept writing.

  It flowed. He finished his coffee. He fired up his pipe. The words came so easily. As if a voice were speaking in his head and he merely had to copy the dictation.

  He introduced Jean and Pete and Barbara. He described the beauty and desolation of the desert they drove through on the way to Silver Junction. He told about the old west town: the quaint shops they’d visited, the characters in cowboy garb, the gunfight staged on Main Street, their sandwiches and beer in the saloon. Finally they were ready to leave the picturesque town. They climbed into the van. Pete said, “How about a little detour on the way home?”

  Larry returned to the start. He numbered the pages, then shook his head in astonishment. He’d written fifteen. He couldn’t believe it. He looked at the wall clock. Eight-thirty. He’d been working for nearly three hours. That’s about five pages per hour, he realized. Usually, he averaged two.

  I should always write when I’m zoned, he thought.

  Maybe it’s garbage.

  He read the chapter. Sure didn’t seemlike garbage. It seemed as good as anything he’d ever done. Maybe better. He felt as if he had transformed the somewhat mundane visit to Silver Junction into a sharp, colorful portrait, rich with incident, fast-paced.

  The characters lived. Perhaps too well, in the case of Barbara. Her presence dominated the chapter.

  That’s as it should be, he told himself. Barbara is certainly a major figure in this tale.

  But he worried that his infatuation with her might be too apparent. Alter all, Jean would eventually read the book. So would Barbara. Even Pete, the nonreader, was certain to plow through this one.

  Can’t let them get the wrong idea.

  Better be careful, he warned himself. Watch out when you revise. Take out anything too suggestive.

  Though eager to continue, Larry felt hot. He pulled off his sweatshirt and stretched, sighing with pleasure as his muscles drew taut and a warm breeze caressed his skin. He stood up, stretched some more, then went into the bathroom. He rolled deodorant onto his armpits. He urinated. Then he entered the bedroom and tossed his sweat clothes onto a chair. He put on shorts and a T-shirt. The loose, lightweight garments let the air in. Feeling a lot better, he headed for the kitchen.

  He found a hardboiled egg in the refrigerator. He peeled off its shell and started to eat it over the wastebasket. It was dry in his mouth. He knew it would taste much better sprinkled with salt. But he couldn’t be bothered. He stood at the wastebasket until the egg was gone. Then he refilled his coffee mug and returned to the office.

  The second chapter went nearly as well as the first. But he was more cautious with it. He censored the voice in his head, refusing to tap out several, descriptions it provided of Barbara’s appearance. When he came to the part about the ruin of the old stone house they’d passed shortly before arriving at Sagebrush Flat, he stopped himself. He lit a fresh pipe and stared at the screen. Should he omit Pete and Barbara’s dialogue about screwing in that place?

  This is supposed to be a true story. They didsay those things.

  It’s already strayed from the truth, he realized. I’ve certainly tampered with my own side of it.

  Hell, the conversation happened. Tell it like it was. Besides, it’ll say a lot about their relationship, help to flesh them out, make them seem more real.

  “ ‘We spent too much time screwing around in there.’

  “ ‘Watch it, mister.’

  “From the tone of Barbara’s voice, I realized that Pete hadn’t been speaking figuratively. I imagined what it must have been like, picturing myself with Jean inside the tumble down walls of the ruin. Hard on the knees, probably. But exciting. I found myself wishing we were there now, rather than riding with Pete and Barbara toward the remains of a dead town.”

  Larry grinned at the screen.

  Nicely done.

  He kept on writing. It went smoothly until the time came for Barbara to answer nature’s call. Should he put that in? Without it, how would he get her over to the stream bed behind Holman’s?

  Tell it like it was, he decided.

  And he did: Barbara wandering away, Pete going in search of her, the waiting, the worry, he and Jean finally going to look for them. All four were down in the gully studying the jukebox when the door bell rang.

  Larry looked at the clock. Ten to eleven. He groaned as he got to his feet. He made his way through the house on legs that felt nearly too weak to support him. He blinked sweat out of his eyes and opened the front door.

  Pete, in a knit shirt and jeans, looked well rested, alert, cool, chipper. “You taken up exercise?” he asked as he stepped inside.

  “I’ve been writing.”

  “Didn’t know writing was such hard work. You ought a turn the air on, man, it’s hotter than hell in here.”

  “Yeah,” Larry muttered. He peeled the seat of his shorts away from his rear. “Want some coffee or something?”

  Pete shook his head. “Already had my morning dose.”

  “You look so bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, it makes me want to barf.”

  He laughed. “You look like death warmed over. How about cleaning up and coming with us? Barb and I are going across the river and checking out the casino action. You’re welcome to come along.”

  Larry felt the fuzz coming back into his head. “You’ve gotta be kidding. I’d probably collapse.” He rubbed his face, yawned.

  “Stay out too late last night?”

  “Ha ha. I got about an hour of sleep.”

  “Should’ve slept in like I did. I feel like a million bucks.”

  “Speaking of which... I started on the book.”

  “Thebook?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Fantastic! Man, you didn’t waste any time.”

  “Maybe I just want to get it over with.”

  “You’re actually writingit?”

  He nodded. His head felt heavy. “Almost done with the third chapter. It’s... I’m on a roll, I guess. It’s really moving.”

  “Well, God, don’t let me stop you. Forget I mentioned the casinos. I’ll tell Barb I couldn’t drag you away.”

  “You didn’t tell her about... the thing?”

  Pete looked as if he thought Larry had lost his mind.

  “She’s gonna find out sooner or later.”

  “The later the better. How much can you write before Jean and Lane get back?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “You’ve got the rest of today and tomorrow. And the coffin’s pretty well hidden. Might be a week or so before anyone catches on. Hell, by then, who knows? You might be so far along in the book that it won’t even matter.”

  “I don’t know,” Larry said again.

  “How many pages you got?”

  He shrugged. “Around thirty, I think.”

  Pete’s face lit up. “All right! Thirty! That’s inc
redible. You did all that this morning? No wonder you look like shit.”

  “Thanks.”

  “Hey, I’m getting out of here. Go back and pound out some more pages. This is terrific.” He stepped out the door and faced Larry again. “If you feel up for drinks and dinner, stop by around five.”

  “Okay. Thanks. I don’t know, though.”

  When Pete was gone, Larry staggered into the bedroom. He peeled off his wet clothes and flopped on the mattress.

  Just a quick nap, he thought.

  He woke up, gasping for air and drenched with sweat. The clock on the nightstand showed 2:15.

  Eighteen

  Larry toweled himself dry and stepped into his shorts. They were still damp, but they felt cool. In the kitchen he poured himself a glass of iced tea. He put salami and cheese on a few crackers and took them along with his drink to the work room.

  Just stick with it for a couple of hours, he thought. Then have a nice, cool shower, get dressed, and head on over to Pete and Barbara’s.

  It would be wonderful. Sit out in back with them like yesterday, have a few cocktails...

  He read the last few sentences on the screen, and added a new one. Then another. Then it was flowing again, the words in his mind rushing ahead of his typing fingers.

  He was in the story. He was living it.

  The iced tea and crackers disappeared. He smoked his pipe. He had another glass of tea. After that was gone, he couldn’t force himself away from the story to get another. He wrote and wrote. He rubbed the sweat off his face with slick forearms. Drops dribbled down his chest and sides, tickling until they stopped at the waist band of his shorts. Later, a breeze cooled his wet skin. Dried him. His mouth was parched. He told himself he would quit soon and go over to Pete and Barbara’s and drink up a storm. After this page. Or after the next.

  Suddenly he noticed that his room was dark except for the amber glow of the words on the computer screen. Dark and cold. A chill night breeze blew through the open window. He realized that he was sitting rigid, shivering, teeth clenched as the breeze scurried over his bare skin.

  Feeling disoriented, he squinted up at the dim face of the clock.

  Ten after seven.

  Impossible. What had happened to the time? He knew he’d been deeply involved in the story, but he could hardly believe he’d been so immersed that he’d allowed himself to miss the cocktails and dinner.

  He hadn’t even been aware for the past hour that he’d been writing in the dark, nearly naked and freezing.

  He read the final sentence.

  “It was with a strange mixture of sadness and expectation that I watched the car vanish around the corner, carrying my wife and daughter away from me for the weekend.”

  He muttered, “Good God.”

  He scrolled upward to the start of the chapter. It was labeled Chapter Six. No page number. How many pages hadhe written today? Seventy? Eighty?

  His normal output was seven to ten pages.

  The most he’d everdone before in a single day was thirty. That was on a piece-of-garbage romance novel a few years ago when money was short and his agent had lined up a lousy deal for two romances at a thousand bucks a whack.

  This was more than twice his record.

  And I’m not done yet, he thought.

  Holy smoke.

  He folded his arms across his chest for warmth and shook his head.

  Well, he thought, this is a true story. I’m just more or less reporting what happened.

  It was astonishing, anyway.

  If he’d gone over to Pete and Barbara’s... He realized he ought to give them a call and apologize. He left his work room and wandered through the house, turning on a few lights. In the bedroom he got rid of the shorts and put on his sweatsuit and socks. As if his skin resented the loss of cold, it tingled and itched. Larry rubbed himself through the soft fabric while he walked to the kitchen.

  Tacked to a bulletin board beside the wall phone was a card on which Jean had written emergency numbers along with those of repair people and friends. Larry found the number for Pete and Barbara.

  Do I really want to call them? he wondered. It had been an open invitation, not the kind of thing that required much of an apology. No big deal that I didn’t show up.

  They’re sure to ask me over.

  I’ll probably go. And that’ll be the end of today’s writing.

  For godsake, I’ve written enough for one day. Enough for a week.

  But if I stick with it, I can bring the story all the way up to the present. And be done with it. Nothing more to tell, once I get to where we hid the coffin in the garage. Tomorrow I’ll be able to finish the corrections on Madhouse, get it into the mail on Monday, and spend next week finishing Night Stranger. Then start on The Box.

  Only if I don’t go over to Pete and Barbara’s tonight.

  He wondered if Barbara was in her nightgown. And he realized that he didn’t much care.

  He stepped away from the telephone and opened the refrigerator’s freezer compartment. His eyes roamed its contents. A lot to choose from. The lasagna would be easy. Just throw it in the microwave for a few minutes.

  Too much trouble.

  He shut the freezer door and checked the refrigerator. There he found a pack of hot dogs. He opened it, slid out a wet frank, and poked it into his mouth. Holding it there like a pink cigar, he put away the package. He took out a bottle of Michelob beer, twisted off its cap and returned to his work room.

  He wrote. The hot dog and beer distracted him for a few minutes, but when they were gone he sank deeply into the story. He was there, over at Pete and Barbara’s, first on their patio and then in their house, telling it all just as it had happened. Almost. Censoring, as if by reflex, every mention of Barbara’s appearance and his own reactions to her. Then he was in the van with Pete. Then in the gully behind Holman’s.

  As he tapped out, “ ‘I’ve got to take a leak,’ ” he realized that he did need to do exactly that. He went to the bathroom. As he urinated he thought about what would come next in the story.

  Finding the campfire of the coyote eater.

  Shivers crawled up his back.

  He flushed the toilet, walked to his work room and stared through the doorway at his waiting chair.

  I’m not sure I want to write about that tonight, he thought. Not about the coyote eater, not about what happened in the hotel.

  He turned away from the work room. He wandered into the kitchen and looked at the clock. A quarter past ten.

  That’s no time of night to be writing scary shit, he told himself.

  I’m so close to the finish, though.

  Hang in there for a couple more hours, you’ll be done with it.

  Right, hang in there.

  With a little help.

  He dropped a few ice cubes into a glass, filled the glass with vodka, and added a touch of Rose’s Lime Juice. He took a sip. Sighed with pleasure. Drank some more. Then carried the glass to his room, slumped against the back of the chair and gazed at the screen.

  Once this stuff hits the system, you won’t be able to write.

  Hell, this isn’t writing. This is typing.

  The beer had been enough to turn his typing a trifle sloppy. This should really mess it up.

  Who cares? he asked himself. Just fix it when you revise. Or don’t. Give the copy editor something constructive to do for a change. If she has to correct real errors, maybe she won’t mess with the good stuff.

  He took a few more swallows, then set the glass down and faced the dead campfire, the bones, the severed eyeless head of the coyote.

  He was glad to have the vodka in him. Though the words flowed, he felt slightly disconnected, more an observer than a participant. He described the Larry character’s fear and revulsion, but hardly felt them at all.

  Then they were out of the ditch. Then in the van. Then about to enter the dark lobby of the hotel.

  His glass was empty. He took it into the kitchen. This time he
didn’t bother adding lime juice to the vodka. He felt very fine as he sauntered back to his computer. He took a drink. He filled a pipe and lit it. He looked at the last sentence on the screen.

  “Side bu side, we stoppped across teh threshold and entered the black mouth og the hotel.”

  Grinning, he shook his head.

  “Take care of that later,” he muttered.

  He puffed his pipe, checked the keyboard to make sure his fingers were positioned correctly, and continued.

  He wrote, and sipped vodka and smoked his pipe.

  Somehow, a while later, the stem flipped over between his teeth and the briar bowl turned upside down, dumping ashes down the front of his sweatshirt and onto his lap. Luckily, no embers fell out. Larry brushed the gray dust off his clothes, put the pipe aside, and took another drink.

  When he looked at the screen, he saw double.

  “Oh, am I fucked up,” he muttered.

  With a little effort, however, he was able to line up his eyes and read the amber print.

  “ ‘Take you’re hand off of that steak!’ ”

  “Pete let go teh thing real fast. ‘If’s off! Christ! Don-t shootl’ ”

  Larry muttered, “Oh, shit.”

  Concentrating hard, knowing he could lose a lot if he messed up, he fingered the save key and followed his usual procedure for exiting the computer. He put the disks away, then turned off the machine.

  “Better hit the ol‘ sacko,” he mumbled.

  * * *

  Larry woke up, but couldn’t bring himself to open his eyes. He felt as if the back of his head had been split open with an axe. His dry tongue was glued to the roof of his mouth. He was shuddering with cold, and his bed felt like concrete. As he struggled to free his tongue, he reached down. He found the blanket near his waist and pulled it up. That helped a little, but not much. The real coldness was under him.

  I am on concrete!

  Larry forced his eyes open.

  Though the light was faint, he knew that day had come and he knew where he was.