The Tea Party - A Novel of Horror

by Charles L. Grant

  “The doctor,” Liz said, trying to sort it all out and give it some sense. “Look, the guy at the clinic wasn’t looking for pregnancy, so he didn’t find it. That’s simple enough, and not unusual. You had—”

  “The tests, right,” Ollie said tonelessly. “Hey look, I’m not stupid. I know what the symptoms are, I know what to expect. So when I got them again Tuesday morning, I kind of got paranoid, y’know? I don’t always remember to take the pill, but nothing’s happened before. So when I tossed breakfast again, I figured . . . I got scared is what happened. So I went back to the clinic and told them to get a rabbit. And do you know what the guy said to me when he called me at the shop on Thursday? He said I should go out and celebrate, that I was healthy as a horse, and may the kid live to be a hundred.” She inhaled loudly. Closed her eyes. “He told me, Liz, I was at least four months gone.”

  “It’s a mistake,” she said automatically.

  “Oh, of course it is,” Ollie answered sarcastically. “And do you want to know something else?” she said, her voice tight with hysteria. “Do you want to know something else?” She laughed, a cold and unearthly sound that raised gooseflesh on Liz’s arms. “Are you ready for this?” She pointed to her stomach, her knife too much like a dagger. “That . . . that thing wasn’t that big when I went to bed last night.”

  6

  “You’re nothing but a big fat chicken,” Keith sneered in disgust.

  “Oh yeah?” Heather said, flipping her ponytail as though giving him the finger. “Well, who won’t even try to feed a horse, huh, smarty? Who’s so afraid of horses he practically wets his pants every time he sees one?”

  “I am not,” he insisted loudly. “I just don’t like them, that’s all. Besides, I could get hurt bad. Even Mr. Muir says so. He says if you don’t hold your hand just right they could take off a finger.”

  “Yeah, well, who won’t even try, huh? Who won’t even try to feed Maggie?”

  They stood at the Meadow View pillars, each leaning against one, facing each other across the narrow road in undisguised disgust. They had already talked out the bewildering events of the night before and had reluctantly concluded that their mother was right, that she had only tripped over someone’s feet in her rush to get away and had hit her head on the ground—she hadn’t stopped Casey Lockhart from killing anybody at all.

  And, as usual, Mr. Davermain was wrong.

  That was too bad. It had been fun for a while, thinking Mom was a hero, and if it had been anyone else telling them—like Mr. Muir, or Ollie West—they would have probably believed it for practically ever. Mr. Davermain, on the other hand, wasn’t the best source for legends. He wasn’t, as far as they were concerned, the best source for much of anything, not even a few loose dollars when he wanted to be alone with their mother and they were giggling and perverse enough to hang around until someone got testy.

  He was, Keith had once told her, a big fat shithead.

  She had scolded him for his language, but she had also been forced to agree. Mr. Davermain was fat, and he patted her on the head, and he acted as if her brother was still in diapers. It was humiliating when he was around, mortifying when he came by and one of their friends was at the house. Like that time in June when he came over and Mother talked him into mowing the lawn and he took off his shirt and looked like a blubbery whale puffing around the grass. The only good thing about that day was the great sunburn he got so bad that he couldn’t even put his shirt back on. Mary Gram had been there, and wouldn’t stop teasing her about how would she like to have that for a new father.

  Heather had almost cried.

  Though they had long since given up saying their prayers at night, they both managed a plea or two before falling asleep that their mother should not be so stupid as to marry fat Mr. Davermain just because she thought they might need a father.

  “Cluck,” Keith said. “Cluck. You’re an ugly hen that can’t even lay an egg.”

  “I’m not a chicken either, Keith Michael Egan, so you can just stop that right now. I’m as brave as you are, that’s for sure. It’s just that Mother said—”

  “Mother said, Mother said,” he mimicked, high-pitched and derisively. “That’s all you ever say.” He jammed his hands into his pockets, took them out again, and pointed. “You’re no fun anymore. Just because you’re thirteen going on fourteen you think you’re so big. Well, you’re not. You’re just a big chicken.”

  When she didn’t respond, he glowered as fiercely as he could at her, pushed off the pillar, and started for the highway.

  Heather frowned uncertainly. “Where are you going?”

  He paused without looking back, started walking again.

  “Keith, where are you going?”

  “Where do you think?”

  In dismay, she ran after him and grabbed his arm. “Keith, you can’t go there alone! Mother’ll kill you!”

  He smiled, and slowly removed her hand. “I went there last night. While you were over at stupid Mary Grum’s, I went there all by myself.”

  Fury turned her hands to fists and made her blush. “I knew it. I just knew it! All that crap about falling asleep on the floor. I knew you were lying, I knew it, I knew it.”

  “Then why didn’t you tell, smarty pants?” he said, turning his back on her to continue on up the road.

  She hurried to keep pace, arms swinging wildly at her sides. “Because she’d kill you, that’s why. She’d just kill you.”

  “Well, thanks for saving my life. The next time you say you’re at Mary’s and you’re out in the field with Barry Mancuso smoking cigarettes, I won’t tell either.”

  “Keith, that’s a lie.”

  “Okay.”

  “Well, it is.”

  “I said okay, didn’t I? You never, never go out into the field with Barry Mancuso, smoke cigarettes, and then chew gum so Mom doesn’t smell it on your breath. You never do, and Artie never told me.”

  Heather slapped his shoulder, but not very hard. “Oh, Keith, you’re impossible. You’re really and absolutely impossible.”

  “See?” he said. “I told you you sound just like Mom.”

  They walked silently to the intersection and stopped. The road was empty in all directions. Sitter McMahon’s chair was there, but he wasn’t in it, and Heather was glad. She didn’t like the way he looked at her when she passed him; she had heard about men like him at school, and whenever she decided to walk into Deerford she always crossed the road long before she got to the intersection.

  The light blinked amber; a single dark cloud drifted over the sun, drifted away, and it was summer again.

  Heather looked behind her, and wrinkled her nose. “They taste horrible, anyway,” she said, the admission an attempt to get Keith to talk. “Really terrible.”

  “Then why do you do it?”

  “I don’t know. Barry says it’s cool.”

  “It’s stupid. It’ll stunt your growth. You’ll be a midget when you’re thirty.”

  “Who told you that?”

  “Mom.”

  “Mom isn’t always right, you know.”

  Keith lifted a hand; he didn’t care.

  She checked the empty road again, the empty chair, the rocky hillside across the way. “You’re really going?”

  “Sure. Just to the wall, that’s all.”

  When he started off again, she stayed with him, her attitude clearly informing him that she was going along just for a little way, and don’t you dare get any smart ideas of getting me into trouble.

  Then: “What was it like?”

  He grinned. “You really want to know?”

  “No,” she said casually. “But just in case somebody asks.”

  They passed McMahon’s house before he stopped and looked her straight in the eye. “You’re not gonna say anything?”

  “Cross my heart,” she promised, matching gesture to words.

  “Really?”

  “Keith, I crossed my heart, didn’t I? C’mon, what’s it lik
e over there?”

  “Well, first of all,” he said, “there’s this really neat little house, kind of like a shed, out back.”

  7

  Bernie Hallman was pissed. All that extra gas he had ordered for the weekend rush, and now there wasn’t one. Hell, he hadn’t had a single customer since noon. It was a bitch. And wouldn’t you know the damned phone was ringing and the office door was stuck again and shit on it, he should’ve listened to Wanda and stood in bed. As a wife she wasn’t much good for anything but keeping the sheets warm in winter, but she always knew when there would be days like this.

  Yep, no question, he should’ve declared himself a goddamned holiday and stood himself in bed.

  Damn, it was a bitch.

  The warped door finally gave with a rusty scream, and he slammed it open with a broad, callused palm, paying no attention to its crash against the cinder block wall. He grabbed up the pay phone with a strangle hold that turned all his knuckles white.

  “Yeah?”

  “Mr. Hallman?”

  Bernie stared through the large plate glass window, trying to see through the shade to the real estate office down the street a ways. He turned his head and cleared his throat, his free hand unconsciously brushing through his hair and smoothing down the front of his shirt.

  “Yes, Mr. Parrish?”

  “Mr. Hallman, I do hate to disturb you since I’m sure that Saturdays are terribly busy for you, especially during the summer months, but I am somewhat pressed for time, and would like to ask a favor of you.”

  “Hey, sure thing,” he said expansively, sitting on the corner of his metal desk, shoving aside the credit card press with his rump. “What can I do for you?”

  “I have a very dear friend who is just recently arrived in town, Mr. Hallman, and he seems to be having some trouble with his new automobile. I am not a vehicle owner myself, as you well know, so I am unable to give him the advice he requires.”

  Bernie stretched, but didn’t see anything that looked like a new car parked at the curb.

  “Well, what’s the problem? I’ll see what I can do.”

  Parrish gave him a short, self-deprecating laugh that made him stare at the receiver. “That I couldn’t tell you either, I’m forced to admit. Which brings me to why I’m calling. The favor I’m asking is this—would you be so kind as to have a look at the car personally?”

  “Well, jeez, Mr. Parrish, it’s Saturday, y’know, and I ain’t got anyone working with me today. Tell you the truth, I don’t think I could leave—”

  “Mr. Hallman,” Parrish interrupted smoothly, “my friend is, to put it bluntly, rich. He is also generous to a fault, something I have often chided him about, alas to no avail. But I don’t believe I’d be very far off the mark if I said that one hundred dollars for fifteen minutes of your time would not be entirely unthinkable.”

  “A hundred bucks? Are you shittin—are you pulling my leg, Mr. Parrish?”

  There was silence, and Bernie gave up trying to see Parrish in his lair.

  “All right, I guess I could make it. But I, uh, don’t see a car anywhere, Mr. Parrish. You’ll have to give me directions to where your friend is stuck.”

  “No directions needed, Mr. Hallman. You’ll find my friend and his vehicle waiting for you at Winterrest.”

  8

  “See?” Keith said as though she should have trusted him all along. “There’s nobody here. We can go right over and I can show you that place.”

  Heather was doubtful. Standing at the wooden gate, she could see the bulk of the mansion, the beautiful lawn flat in front and rolling behind, and the tops of large greystones poking up here and there through the grass. It looked okay, but her mother’s frequent admonitions were as strong as the temptation Keith dangled in front of her. She shook her head, not refusing, not agreeing.

  “C’mon, Heather, what can happen?”

  What could happen was that someone could drive by and see them sneaking around, know they weren’t supposed to be there because no one was ever supposed to be there except maybe for Mr. Parrish, and it wouldn’t be long after that before their mother found out. And if she did, Heather would be grounded for so long she’d practically graduate high school before she would be allowed to go out again.

  “I . . . I don’t know.”

  Keith sneered at her nervousness and climbed up onto the wall. His balance was precarious and she felt her heart leap, skip, stutter as his arms flailed wildly.

  “Keith!”

  “It’s okay,” he said absently, intent on finding the proper distribution of his weight. And when he had, he strutted up and down, stopping at the gate, daring her to dare him to try to jump to the other side. When she didn’t rise to the bait, he rolled his eyes skyward, and marched a hundred feet westward, returning with knees high and arms swinging as if he were a drum major and the band was right behind him.

  “See?” he said, standing over her with hands on his hips. “See? It’s easy.”

  She looked up, and the sky was glaring behind him, shading his features, a cardboard cutout wavering in the breeze.

  “God, it’s not gonna fall down, y’know.”

  “Well, I know that,” she snapped, and to prove she wasn’t entirely frightened to death, she took a bold step closer and put a hand on the stone. It was cold. Much colder than it should have been under the July sun, and she snatched her hand away.

  “Cluck,” said Keith, and he jumped to the ground on the other side. “Cluck, cluck, cluck.”

  Nervously, she glanced up and down the highway. “Keith, you better get out of there. Now.”

  “I thought you were goin with me?”

  She looked away haughtily. “I’ve changed my mind. This whole thing is silly. It’s for kids.” A groping, then, for the ultimate insult: “It’s something that stupid gang of yours would do.”

  “But what about the little house?” he said, paying no attention to the jibe.

  She leaned her elbows on the wall and stared at him. “I thought you said it was a shed.”

  “Well, a shed’s sorta like a little house.”

  A raspberry made him jump back. “I know what a shed looks like, Keith, and it’s not a little house. It’s like a shed, and that’s all.”

  Finally exasperated at her intransigence, Keith flung up his hands and started to walk away, stopping ten paces beyond the wall and turning. “God, the Gang isn’t chicken like you, y’know. The Mohawks come here all the time and they aren’t afraid.”

  Her expression told him what she thought of his gang. “And I’m not afraid, either. I’m just being careful.”

  “Yeah, yeah.”

  “Keith, this isn’t right and you know it.”

  He took a long step back. “Well?”

  “No,” she said, retreating nervously to the shoulder. The house was dark in spite of the sun, the panes reflecting nothing but the grass—a dozen green eyes, cats’ eyes looking right down at her, right through her own eyes and into her mind. Her left arm was chilled, and she rubbed warmth back into it, her gaze flicking from the house to her brother and back again.

  And when a sudden stiff breeze raced across the lawn, the green rippled and danced.

  Keith picked up a stone and tossed it up, caught it, tossed it up, caught it. He was smiling, but she saw nothing funny about the green eyes he had suddenly, where the light caught them just wrong and the green rippled, like all the windows.

  “Keith, please.”

  “Cluck,” her brother said.

  This wasn’t her brother. This was a stranger.

  “Cluck.”

  This was silly. He was only a kid, and she didn’t have to do it just because he called her a chicken. But if she didn’t, he’d be clucking at her forever and she would be totally and absolutely miserable, and she wouldn’t be able to say anything to Mother about it because then she would have to tell why, and then she’d be in just as much trouble as if she’d actually gone over the wall.

  A sigh for
her predicament, and another check of the road.

  “Cluck.” Softly, on the breeze. “Cluck.”

  So, she thought, as long as I’m gonna get in trouble anyway, it might as well be for a reason.

  Not wanting to give him the satisfaction of knowing that he’d maneuvered her, she picked up a pebble and tossed it at him without much strength behind the throw. He laughed when it fell far short of the mark. She threw another one, stepping closer. A third, and she was at the wall. Keith danced away and lobbed his own missile; it struck the wall and bounced back.

  “You . . . !”

  The wall was low. She had no trouble vaulting it sideways and landing on her hands and knees. Keith yelled with delight and ran a few yards toward the house, picked up another rock and waited, tossing it up, catching it, tossing it, smiling.

  The house seemed large over here, cats’ eyes, rippling green and black.

  “Heather, come on.”

  Well, as long as she was this far.

  She broke into a trot and Keith cheered, ran up and took her hand.

  “Neat,” he said. “Boy, is it neat. Wait’ll you see it. Come on, let’s go.”

  They were halfway to the house when she stopped, yanking him off his feet. He sprawled on the grass, rolled over, and scowled as he got up again.

  “Jeez, Heather, you almost killed me!”

  The house was huge now, the lines between the stones filled with shadows that crept down to the ground and over the grass toward him. She shook her head, suddenly disgusted with herself. This was dumb. This was really dumb. He and the Mohawk Gang could go to hell for all she cared; it was Saturday, and tonight Barry was going to come over and they were going to listen to records, and if she were caught now she wouldn’t see Barry again until he had a beard.

  “Look!” she said, pointing sharply over his shoulder. “Wow, look at that!”

  Keith followed her finger, saw nothing, and when he looked back she was already racing for the wall.

  “Bye!” she shouted. “And if you don’t come with me, I’m gonna tell Mother!”