When he arrived that night, the waiting room was crowded with drab bundles of scarves and overcoats, whispers and moans and a few muffled sobs. Susan was standing by the window, looking out at the lights far colder than stars. She didn’t turn when she heard him, didn’t answer when he demanded to know why she had not contacted him. He grabbed her shoulder and spun her around; her eyes were dull, her face pinched with red hints of cold.
“All right,” she said. “All right, Frank, it’s because I didn’t want you to upset him.”
“What in hell are you talking about?”
“He would have seen you and he would have wanted to go back to Oxrun.” Her eyes narrowed. “This is his home, Frank! He’s got to learn to live with it.”
“I’ll get a lawyer.”
She smiled. “Do that. You do that, Frank.”
He didn’t have to. He saw Damon a few minutes later and could not stay more than a moment. The boy was in dim light and almost invisible, too thin to be real beneath the clear plastic tent and the tubes and the monitors . . . too frail, the doctor said in professional conciliation, too frail for too long, and Frank remembered the day on the porch with the saucer of milk when he had thought the same thing and had thought nothing of it.
He returned after the funeral, all anger gone. He had accused Susan of murder, knowing at the time how foolish it had been, but feeling better for it in his own absolution. He had apologized. Had been, for the moment, forgiven.
Had stepped off the train, had wept, had taken a deep breath and decided to live on.
Returned to the office the following day, piled folders onto his desk and hid behind them for most of the morning. He looked up only once, when his secretary tried to explain about a new client’s interest, and saw around her waist the indistinct form of his son peering through the window.
“Damon,” he muttered, brushed the woman to one side and ran out to the sidewalk. A fog encased the road whitely, but he could see nothing, not even a car, not even the blinking amber light at the nearest intersection.
Immediately after lunch he dialed Susan’s number, stared at the receiver when there was no answer and returned it to the cradle. Wondering.
“You look pale,” his secretary said softly. She pointed with a pencil at his desk. “You’ve already done a full day’s work. Why don’t you go home and lie down? I can lock up. I don’t mind.”
He smiled, turned as she held his coat for him, touched her cheek . . . and froze.
Damon was in the window.
No, he told himself . . . and Damon was gone.
He rested for two days, returned to work and lost himself in a battle over a will probated by a judge he thought nothing less than senile, to be charitable. He tried calling Susan again, and again received no answer.
And Damon would not leave him alone.
When there was fog, rain, clouds, wind . . . he would be there by the window, there by the cherry tree, there in the darkest corner of the porch.
He knew it was guilt, for not fighting hard enough to keep his son with him, thinking that if he had the boy might still be alive; seeing his face everywhere and the accusations that if the boy loved him, why wasn’t he loved just as much in return?
By February’s end he decided it was time to make a friendly call on a fellow professional, a doctor who shared the office building with him. It wasn’t so much the faces that he saw—he had grown somewhat accustomed to them and assumed they would vanish in time—but that morning there had been snow on the ground; and in the snow by the cherry tree the footprints of a small boy. When he brought the doctor to the yard to show him, they were gone.
“You’re quite right, Frank. You’re feeling guilty. But not because of the boy in and of himself. The law and the leanings of most judges are quite clear—you couldn’t be expected to keep him at his age. You’re still worrying yourself about that woman you kissed and the fact that Damon saw you; and the fact that you think you could have saved his life somehow, even if the doctors couldn’t; and lastly, the fact that you weren’t able to give him things, like pets, like that cat. None of it is your fault, really. It’s merely something unpleasant you’ll have to face up to. Now.”
Though he didn’t feel all that much better, Frank appreciated the calm that swept over him when the talk was done and they had parted. He worked hard for the rest of the day, for the rest of the week, but he knew that it was not guilt and it was not his imagination and it was not anything the. doctor would be able to explain away when he opened his door on Saturday morning and found, lying carefully atop his newspaper, the white-face Siamese. Dead. Its neck broken.
He stumbled back over the threshold, whirled around and raced into the downstairs bathroom where he fell onto his knees beside the bowl and lost his breakfast. The tears were acid, the sobs like blows to his lungs and stomach, and by the time he had pulled himself together, he knew what was happening.
The doctor, the secretary, even his wife . . . they were all wrong.
There was no guilt.
There was only . . . Damon.
A little boy with large brown eyes who loved his father. Who loved his father so much that he would never leave him. Who loved his father so much that he was going to make sure, absolutely sure, that he would never be alone.
You've been a bad boy, Daddy.
Frank stumbled to his feet, into the kitchen, leaned against the back door. There was a figure by the cherry tree dark and formless; but he knew there was no use running outside. The figure would vanish.
You never did like that cat, Daddy. Or the dogs. Or Mommy.
The telephone rang. He took his time getting to it, stared at it dumbly for several moments before lifting the receiver. He could see straight down the hall and into the kitchen. He had not turned on the overhead light and, as a consequence, could see through the small panes of the back door to the yard beyond. The air outside was heavy with impending snow. Gray. Almost lifeless.
“Frank? Frank, it’s Susan. Frank, I’ve been thinking . . . about you and me . . . and what happened.”
He kept his eyes on the door. “It’s done, Sue. Done.”
“Frank, I don’t know what happened. Honest to God, I was trying, really I was. He was getting the best grades in school, bad lots of friends . . . I even bought him a little dog, a poodle, two weeks before he . . . I don’t know what happened, Frank! I woke up this morning and all of a sudden I was so damned alone. Frank, I’m frightened. Can . . . can I come home?”
The gray darkened. There was a shadow on the porch, much larger now than the shadow in the yard.
“No,” he said.
“He thought about you all the damned time,” she said, her voice rising into hysteria. “He tried to run away once, to get back to you.”
The shadow filled the panes, the windows on either side, and suddenly there was static on the line and Susan’s voice vanished. He dropped the receiver and turned around.
In the front.
Shadows.
He heard the furnace humming, but the house was growing cold.
The lamp in the living room flickered, died, shone brightly for a moment before the bulb shattered.
He was . . . wrong.
God, he was wrong!
Damon . . . Damon didn’t love him.
Not since the night on the corner in the fog; not since the night he had not really tried to locate a cat with a milk-white face.
Damon knew.
And Damon didn’t love him.
He dropped to his hands and knees and searched in the darkness for the receiver, found it and nearly threw it away when the bitterly cold plastic threatened to burn through his fingers.
“Susan!” he shouted. “Susan, damnit, can you hear me?”
A bad boy, Daddy.
There was static, but he thought he could hear her crying into the wind.
“Susan . . . Susan, this is crazy, I’ve no time to explain, but you’ve got to help me. You’ve got to do something for me.”
Daddy.
“Susan, please . . . he’ll be back, I know he will. Don’t ask me how, but I know! Listen, you’ve got to do something for me. Susan, damnit, can you hear me?”
Daddy, I’m—
“For God’s sake, Susan, if Damon comes, tell him I’m sorry!”
home.
A Night of Dark Intent
The moon was a ghost in the house of night. It rose from the ashes of a sunset in crimson—silent, stained, setting free the shadows that drifted slowly round its passing. Its breath was the darkwind, drawn from catacombs of chilled and chilling dust; its voice the parchment husking of solitary leaves on solitary boughs that clawed at the nightair for purchase of a soul. Few saw it without turning aside to a friend, few heard it without wishing they hadn't known the tune.
And it crouched above the road that bound the summit of Pointer Hill where it watched, waited, and turned the single row of pine that flanked each shoulder into posts beneath a black bannister, posts through which startling white eyes blinked against the gathering of the mist... white eyes that became headlights nervously probing, searching the road for a sign, or an excuse, until they swept over the low mansion once the trees had fallen back.
It was a true English Tudor, white stone crisscrossed by thick dark beams, the second story overshadowing the first with leaded arched windows. Evergreen shrubs pressed close to the walls, and a brown brittle garden marked the center of the drive. To one side was a stable converted to a garage, to the other a shed in which tools were stored. The doors of the former had been pried open by the wind; the door of the latter was padlocked and warped.
Martin parked his car behind a row of four others, sat for a moment to hear the warm metal snap into cooling. His overcoat was heavy on his shoulders, his grey gloves tossed onto the seat beside him. Though there was plenty of comfortable light from the sheer-curtained windows, no one came to the door and there were no shadows that he could see.
He had been driving for almost an hour, out of Oxrun Station and through the farmland east of the village; a hesitation before slipping into foliage still dense despite the season, and across a broad stream that whispered when it should have laughed. And now that he was here, he wished he hadn't come. He should have kept his own promise: to quit his job on the Station Herald, head in the other direction, and not stop until he came to Boston. It wasn't that his pay was bad, but the quiet of the Station was driving him nuts.
And now he was paying for his curiosity's hold.
He considered lighting a cigarette, changed his mind when he saw a man bending over the hood of the first car in line. He frowned, opened the door, and pushed himself out. Immediately, the wind took hold of his thin sandy hair and veiled him. The frown turned to scowling, and he pulled his collar high, brushed back the hair, and walked slowly, loudly, along the slate walk that bordered the drive. When he was close enough, he saw that the man held what looked like a huge black moth in his left hand. It fluttered, darted, rose and poised before diving again.
Martin couldn't believe it; in the middle of the night the man was dusting the car.
The man turned then, startled, his free hand jumping to his chest. He was short, thin, his face sallow, his lips grinning.
“Scared me, sir," he said, stuffing the rag into his hip pocket. "You must be Mr. Worthy. From around here, huh? with a name like that."
Martin nodded, returned the smile.
"Well, they're waiting on you, sir." The man pointed to the front door, a gleaming split panel of darkly grained oak. "Don't bother to knock. Just walk in." He wasn't wearing a cap, but his hand made the gesture of tipping it just the same. "Good of you to come, Worthy. Hope you're not disappointed."
The black moth leaped to his hand again, and he turned back to the car.
Martin watched him a moment longer, then turned up the walk, climbed the four steps to the door, and hesitated. It was all right for that one to say just walk in, but he felt uneasy. Surely they suspected he would be something more than skeptical, and it somehow just didn't seem right to enter without invitation. On the other hand, he told himself, you could stand out here all night, idiot, and catch your death.
The door opened easily, almost at a touch, and he closed it quickly behind him, to keep the night wind from following. He was in a small foyer with oak wainscoting, coatrack, portraits on the wall. Idly, wondering how much all this would cost if it were built today, he slipped off his overcoat and hung it on the rack, smoothed a hand down the lapels of his brown suit, straightened his tie, and stepped to the middle of the bare hardwood floor.
To his right was a room with double doors solidly closed; to his left, what looked like a parlor similar in tone and style to the foyer and the outside. In the center of a faded oriental carpet was a round walnut table polished to glass, and around that four people were sitting, their hands flat on the insubstantial surface. Several lamps and a chandelier blazed brightly, and Martin thought it was hardly the proper setting for raising a spook.
He cleared his throat behind a loosely held fist.
Instantly, four heads turned to him, four pairs of lips smiled, and an elderly man rose with hand extended. He was dressed in a dark green velvet tuxedo, softly bronze and ruffled shirt, with diamond cuff links that caught the light and flared. His face was ruddy, hair white, eyes a steady and disconcerting blue.
"Mr. Worthy," he said, as though Martin had brought him the Fountain of Youth. "Come in, come in. My lord, we didn't expect you so soon." He took Martin's hand in a politely strong grip and led him to the others, all of whom had left their seats and were waiting patiently, smiling.
"I am, of course, Arthur Drummond," the man said, "and this is my wife, Dorothy."
Dorothy was blonde and slight, the age on her features proudly borne without cosmetics or surgery. Her dress was simple, a floral print pale and demanding no inspection.
"Kenneth Longwood."
Was a round head and a round stomach, a haircut that would have done justice to Oliver Cromwell, and a blue serge suit so shiny at the knees they seemed made of water.
"Zachery Child."
Was no child at all but the oldest of the lot. Once heavy and now inordinately thin, he wore his broad-lapelled evening clothes as though he were stumbling around inside them, searching for a way out.
Mrs. Drummond giggled when Martin took her soft hand, then turned to a Regency lowboard and poured him a glass of strong nutty sherry. They babbled, then, without clustering around him, their efforts to warm and comfort him making him feel as Judas must have done. But he kept his smile, nodded when he thought the time was right, listened attentively to every word that was said.
They didn't seem like nuts, he thought, believing that most people who involved themselves with mediums and crystal balls were either too desperate to know what lay beyond death to have better sense, or too delicately unbalanced to understand they were being conned. These people, however... they appeared perfectly normal. Their laughter was genuine, their attempts to put him at ease almost heroic. And when Child said again how delighted they were that he'd come so soon, he glanced at his watch and saw it was just gone eleven. He said nothing, however, but accepted another drink.
"I'll tell you something, Martin," Drummond said, taking him to one side, standing in front of the room's bay window, "when I sent the invitation to your editor, I half expected him to toss it out with the trash. But you're here, aren't you. Extraordinary." And he laughed. "Extraordinary how things work out, isn't it."
Martin nodded, sipped at the strong sherry, and wondered if he should tell the old man that his editor hadn't shown him the invitation at all. He had been at his desk in the office last Monday, trying to complete still another stale article on finance and survival. He hated the stuff, but it was what the Station demanded, and he'd overheard the editor laughing about something on the phone with his wife. He heard the word "seance," but not a single word more. And tonight, as he was driving around in search of the coura
ge to leave, he had wondered what would happen if he'd just dropped in for a snoop. That they knew his name was no surprise—there were only two others on the Herald's staff, and each one of them had a by-line.
And how he knew it would be tonight was something only his subconscious could tell him. Subliminal hearing was the obvious source.
No. He'd say nothing about it. The Drummonds and the others were being far too kind, and it was already difficult enough to keep his guilt from choking him.
"They think, of course," Drummond was saying, with Child nodding, "that we do nothing more than sit around waiting for some manifestation to appear to us. A long-lost relative, a wife, an aunt, something like that. Ridiculous, in point of fact. We do no such thing. There are no glass bowls to peer into, no tea leaves to read, no pretty little cards to set up in curious designs. No, nothing like that at all."
"Right," Child said, poking a boney finger toward Martin's chest. His voice was brittle, a long dead leaf refusing to fall from a long dead limb. "We see all the movies, you know. We know what the... what the...
"Theatrics," Drummond supplied quietly.
"Right. Theatrics." He laughed suddenly, quickly. "Houdini would love us. No charlatans here, m'boy. You can count on that."
Martin tried not to look sheepish, felt the room grow perceptively warmer as if the five of them had somehow become five hundred and were sucking out all the air. He was taller than all of them and kept his head down as though listening intently, his face an encyclopedia of nuance from which they could draw their inferences without effort. His gaze moved from face to face. Hands spotted with old decades swooped and postured in front of him. His glass was refilled.
But when, he wanted to ask them, was this stance going to begin?
He had almost found the courage to ask—not at all sure why he Hadn't the courage in the first place—when he realized they were probably waiting for midnight. The magical hour. The witching time. Ghosts, spirits, specters walking. He grinned and called himself four kinds of a fool, turned to the window, and the grin froze to a grimace.
Tales from the Nightside Page 7
