Maggie prepared the iced tea standing sideways, half-facing the living room, without once turning her back. She wanted to keep an eye on him. Still, it took quite a while for the real horror to penetrate.
She stirred the tea and watched "Tony" fumble with the telephone, her mind a blank. He replaced the receiver and lifted his hands. Maggie had a mild notion that something wasn't right, hadn't been right (okay, what's wrong with this picture?), but she managed to keep on twirling the spoon, whipping the tea to death.
The hands. The way he'd kept one cupped and motionless on the table. Most people didn't do that, she realized. It was like he'd been holding the buttons down, keeping the line closed. Pretending to make a call.
Enough, she thought. That's it fella, drink your tea and split. She flashed on something else: Tony couldn't have made a phone call without going through Gladys Pierson, but he'd never spoken to her. He probably would have faked that, too — if he'd known that Dry Wells still had a party line. She reached into the drawer and grabbed the handle of a knife. He wasn't calling anyone. He had only wanted to get inside, close to her.
Maggie shuddered. She slipped the knife into the waist of her jeans, under her blouse. She decided to try and tough this out, act as if she hadn't noticed anything unusual. Don't get him upset, just get him the hell out of here without violence, if possible. And no letting on that you almost wet your pants a second ago.
When she gave him his glass of tea, the ice cubes started clattering. Her hands were shaking. That seemed to please him.
He started at her again, and Maggie really did wet her pants a little. He took her clothes off, sure he did, but the awful part came after... when she could see that he'd already imagined her naked. She realized that there was another lust inside of him, something unspeakable. It struck her numb with horror. She leaned against the wall, hands behind her, tense fingers on the handle of the knife.
She'd let a monster in, a real one; allowed him to walk right through her door and even served him a tall glass of iced tea. Jesus Christ, how long would he take to drink it? Was he going to leave, or was she already dead?
Tony shocked her further. He gulped his drink, set it down on the coffee table and turned to go. Like he was just some everyday guy with a busted down car, and Maggie had drummed the whole thing up in her head. Maybe suffered an anxiety attack. She let go of the knife and smoothed her blouse.
Tony walked out onto the porch and thanked her in a perfectly normal tone of voice. He strolled away, humming tunelessly.
But without touching the garden hose.
And on foot.
If he did have a car, he'd parked around the corner. Because someone might have noticed a strange automobile in front of Agatha's place? Maggie knew she was reaching, but what if he'd stashed the car to keep his options open? Never can tell when the urge might strike you. She could have had on a bathrobe, for example, and accidentally flashed him some skin. Or had the top of her swimsuit come loose; been wearing tight shorts and bent over at the wrong moment (cut it out!) The way he'd stared at her (stop this!) had done something foul, left her feeling filthy. Maggie put the knife away and took a long, hot shower. She did everything she could to clean herself, to scrub his expression from her body, but it lingered. In her clothes, on her skin, inside her head...
...And now here she was, well after midnight, going over it again. Rolling around on damp sheets, still spooked half out of her mind, listening to her pulse race and her tense blood sing opera. Damn it to hell, nothing happened. Nothing.
But, like a lot of other citizens of Two Trees, she didn't fall asleep until the reassuring warmth of dawn began to pierce her drawn curtains.
12
SHERIFF BATES
He is in Vietnam, a million years ago:
Corporal Glenn Bates is twenty years old. He sniffs and smells pot. Someone is passing a large joint down the tense, dark line of helmeted men. The last kid burns his lip, eats the roach and belches. A deafening roar: The whirling blades of Big Huey pumping. It's like this is fucking real, is actually happening again. Bates watches as the squat, muscular Captain, timing his move, motions with a clenched fist. The chopper shakes, then begins to hover and sway. The ramp drops away CLANK. It is replaced by a smear of blue sky and white clouds.
The pilot leans into a turn. They all feel their stomachs shift and start to squirm. The inexperienced replacements turn as pale green as their ponchos. All is clattering and banging and the metallic taste of fear. Every eye is on the deck, everyone's whole beaucoup puckered.
The drop zone is just beyond these mountains, a few klicks into the bush. As the fields, a jagged file of ruined brown and green teeth, looms closer, Bates feels his fingers tighten to grip the cold barrel of his rifle. He wishes he'd brought more booze along. Two shiny Cobra gunships streak by, all rainbow haze and roaring racket and dense smoke. Another abrupt turn. The ground — looming larger, rushing closer, oh shit…!
"Let's go!"
Out into an awesome air wash that blows the yellow grass flat. Assholes and elbows ahead of and behind him…Bates runs with no pattern, no predictable destination. Ngo is there, pacing him, a welcome and comforting sight. Fuck fuck fuck fuck…
Into the tree line; the stifling, smothering wet heat of the jungle. Jesus, it stinks in here. Over the shoulder: The Heroic Air Cav flies up, up and away in my beautiful balloon. No firing, nothing to react to for the moment. Deploy, sweat spreading wide wet stains under the armpits. Try to catch a breath. Wait, eyes constantly roving the solid, ominous wall of foliage, while the Captain struggles to figure if they are where they are supposed to be or somewhere else, somewhere deadly.
The bush is a reckless fucking mess, a child's finger painting, a riot of overlapping color. There's the mottled green phallus of a tree, covered with sickly grey moss. Fat brown spiders pirouette down trembling white threads. Icy blue streams, dark leeches, the constant buzz of whispering men. The bush can decide to explode at any time. Worse, it can be infuriatingly patient and do nothing.
POP POP crack crack POP!
Men fall flat or dance like hillbillies, spun around twice by bullets. Large crimson dots blossom on their already dirty uniforms. Bates tumbles into a tangled mess of thick roots, heart booming, and swallows a salt tablet. He peers up into the dark, can't find anything to shoot at, shoots anyway — screaming, demanding courage from hidden places. Corporal Rodriguez looks baffled, amazed that one hand is missing. He starts to say something to Bates, but then his lips fly away. Now there is only drool there at the lower part of his face, a gob of red and white froth. Bates curls up, shaking. God damn it!
Suddenly Ngo is there, tugging at his sleeve, forcing him to follow. They crawl away before it's too late.
And run.
Bates trips and falls. His nose sinks into the foul-smelling mud. In a flash, Ngo is beside him, tapping him on the back. The thin, diminutive Vietnamese points up the jungle trail toward a tall wall of vines. Bates, breathing through his mouth, remains frozen in position. One of the vines moves.
The VC point man steps out, a shadow in black pajamas. He sniffs the wind like an animal, his coal black eyes sweeping the clearing. The scout grunts softly. The sound carries across the rice paddy, a flawless imitation of a wild pig.
Bates adjusts the sights on his M16. Ngo tightly grips the detonator wires leading to the Claymore in his small, brown hands. They wait. Four other VC drift silently through the vines. They carry a variety of weapons, some of them American. Ngo mates the two wires, touches them together ever so gently, and Bates goes deaf.
A roar and a flash, the mine explodes. Arms and legs go flying. The moist ground buckles beneath them. Bates, half blind, fires steadily in the direction of the enemy. Then it is silent. Ngo gets up and trots over to make certain the VC are dead. He seems calm, barely breathing.
They are cut off from their patrol. Small arms fire, mixed with American voices and screams, has convinced them that they are now on their own.
The sense of elation wears off. Bates begins to tremble. It took no more than five VC to wipe out an entire platoon. Where are the rest?
Ngo begins to back away from the bodies, and Bates follows. They crawl in reverse for more than a hundred yards. Ngo hops up and begins to jog. Bates stumbles along behind him, half expecting to be shot at any moment. The jungle remains silent, except for the chirping of a few birds grown accustomed to the sounds of war.
As the two men run for their lives, it seems to Bates that everything he does makes an astonishing amount of noise. He feels his innards cramp from a sudden attack of dysentery but pushes on, trying to will away the need to defecate. Suddenly Ngo drops to his knees. He has his back to Glenn.
Bates stops too, unable to wait any longer. They must have put at least a mile between themselves and the ambush by now. He lowers his trousers; squats, groans and squeezes burning acid from his bowels. Ngo remains motionless.
Finally, it is over. The cramps ease. Glenn cleans himself with clumps of grass and stands, buckling his belt. He looks around, chest heaving. He notices that Ngo has still not moved. My God, Bates thinks in panic, he acts like he's lost. He approaches the Vietnamese.
Ngo is making a hissing sound from between his clenched teeth. It sounds like "shhh," an admonishment to be quiet. Bates listens, hears nothing. He glances at the Vietnamese, who is still kneeling. Can't see his feet.
Because he isn't kneeling.
The sharp punji stakes in the shallow little pit have impaled Ngo in a standing position. His lower torso is below ground, butchered. The boy's forehead is creased. He's pouring sweat and weeping softly from the pain, an agony so intense his eyes are bulging like a frog's ... Yet he hasn't made a sound, hasn't given Bates away. Those tortured eyes roll to face Glenn. They are pleading. The slim young soldier's body is shuddering and quivering. He is begging silently for release.
"I can't," Bates whispers.
The eyes: Wider. Ngo makes a gagging sound, as if trying to speak. Bates pulls his knife. He slits his friend's throat.
Bathed in a pumping spray of crimson, he moans and crawls away. He turns back once, barely able to bring himself to look into Ngo's staring, sightless eyes...
No!
Glen Bates, the aging sherrif of Two Trees, woke up screaming. Outside the sky was black as death itself. It wasn't even eleven; the morning would be a long time coming. Bates had a strangle hold on his pillow. He could hear himself making small, harsh whimpering sounds. He forced himself to think about the coming dawn, when sunshine would be streaming in through the window. He tried to ignore the gleeful howl of the desert wind outside. He was shaking.
Bates went into the kitchen. He poured himself a drink and gulped it down, then decided to keep the bottle near him. He sipped until he was able to fall asleep again.
13
MAGGIE/LOUISE/LANGSTROM
Maggie Moore was cooking supper, a heaping plate of freshly steamed vegetables straight from the garden. She sat on the couch and tucked her legs under her body. The old television set splattered weak black-and-white images around the room, and nondescript people did indecipherable things to loud theme music. The satellite dish was broken and the reception was miserable. She had tried to read one of her aunt's old large-print condensed novels, but her mind refused to cooperate.
In truth, Maggie found herself a bit frightened. Everywhere the house whispered of Agatha. For the first few weeks she'd had Monday around to keep her company, but now she felt lonely and small.
Photographs of Agatha and her ancestors dangled from the walls like bats sleeping in a cave. They seemed to stare down at Maggie from the splintered oval frames, their dead eyes all blank and shiny.
She would have to replace that collection. These walls were pages in a scrapbook, full of people long dead. She tried not to dwell on the thought, but what if they rose up at night? If poor Aggie did? What if there really were avenging night-creatures who came to punish bad little girls?
Maggie knew she was a bad little girl. The awareness was seldom more than a heartbeat away. Her formidable intelligence spoke to her of an old neurosis, sexual guilt from a long-ago molestation; she had paid a therapist thousands to relieve her of those symptoms, and for a time she'd been healed.
But now the voices were back.
She thought of Peter Rourke; the cautious look on his face, how strikingly intense his eyes were. They had pierced her defenses and warmed her blood. Maggie wanted him. His hands on her, his weight [dirty] his breath a humid mist stroking her cheek. Just when she had begun to wonder if she would ever feel desire again, this man had attracted her. And perhaps that fact alone had reawakened her tenacious insecurities.
Maggie Moore had been an athlete for as long as she could remember. Her body was supple and responsive, but she had started playing tennis far too late in life. The winning edge, that little extra ounce of endurance necessary to peak at the right time, was missing. Promising finishes led to dashed hopes. She went out on the low-paying semi-professional circuit, serving as a kind of opening act; a warm-up for better players who always won the big money.
The constant humiliation had eventually forced her to look elsewhere for a sense of worth, and men had always wanted her. So…Party time: Rooms crowded with strangers who laughed too loud and far too often. Desperate for something to hold on to, Maggie ended up in the arms of a series of nameless, faceless men. She was soon in a prison of her own making, behind bars created by an abusive childhood. She wanted to go back to college for a Masters, she wanted to change careers, but she did nothing but party. There seemed to be no way out.
Michael had come to visit. He'd read the signs immediately, and convinced her to drop out of the tour. He had yelled and screamed and cajoled and pleaded and eventually even slapped her back into reality. She withdrew from competition, enrolled at University of Nevada at Las Vegas and started a new life.
Maggie and Michael always took care of each other. She had lied once to keep him out of prison when they were younger, and he came through in her time of need. Michael covered the bills until she could think straight, and still sent money occasionally. There were alternatives now. She had a plan for the future, to teach English and PE, and….
[what?]
The wall had changed color.
Maggie blinked and put her plate of vegetables aside. Her mind was playing tricks on her. Funny, she loved this house during the day, when the sun was scorching the ground. But at night, with the desert wind howling [..?..] Maggie rubbed her eyes. For a moment she'd been positive there was a blanket on her lap, fuzzy and covered by a pattern of little square boxes. How bizarre. Agatha hadn't owned such a blanket, had she? Maggie knew she'd never bought one. She cautiously walked from room to room, but everything seemed normal. Typically drab; nine o'clock and all's well. What an imagination, kiddo, she thought. You're just projecting some of your mixed feelings. It's a spooky night.
Maggie had been ambivalent about remaining in Nevada at the start. She had come hoping to unload the house she'd inherited on another resident... But there were so few residents! Besides, she'd fallen in love with the place at first sight. She'd seriously considered staying, but soon changed her mind again. There was nothing in the town of Two Trees but slow decay.
And now that she realized how unlikely it was that she'd ever be able to sell the property, Maggie felt trapped. She had just enough money left to buy some time to think, and she wanted to avoid borrowing more, except perhaps for student loans. Maggie owed enough to Michael already. She didn't like the feeling.
She was not alone: Two blocks away, in her room at the top of the old adobe hotel, Evangalist Louise Polson was thinking about the debt she owed her husband Hiram. She didn't care for the feeling, either [..?..] Maggie decided she must have caught the flu. She felt all weak and spacy; numb, like her feet were half asleep.
Neither woman realized she'd been linked, briefly, to the other. It was a fluke, a tangential oddity, created by the paranorma
l energy concentrated on the little town. Emotional impulses had touched; found rhythms compatible and synchronized. The wrinkle in reality abruptly vanished.
Louise Polson straightened the checkered blanket, covering her useless legs. The mysterious illusion of youth and vigor drained away, and an arctic chill coursed through her body. It came to rest in the marrow of her bones.
So cold.
Hiram was out there somewhere, swapping lies with his old crony Jake. Louise estimated they'd be pretty looped by now, their moon faces bright red from howling at the same stale jokes. Hi Polson was bound to suffer come morning. He'd have a head full of broken glass and the belly of a seasick poodle.
Still, it wasn't all that bad. Louise knew that weeks would go by before the next one. This was just something Hi needed to do to blow off steam. It made him happy, and he'd earned the right to be happy. He didn't get that many chances.
Though her husband would be home soon enough, Louise found the waiting lonely. She hated being cooped up inside, stuck in her wheelchair, listening to the clock ticking and her heart beating. Hiram had asked her if she wanted to go along, but the love behind his offer had given her the strength to say no.
The elderly woman felt a familiar tug of longing: The ache to return to her life as Louise Morgan, healer and minister of the Lord. She'd once been a tower of confidence and strength.
Louise rolled her squeaking wheelchair over to the writing table, her palms slipping on the slick rubber, and located the tall stack of memorabilia. She pulled a large scrapbook into her lap and caressed the worn leather cover with thin, arthritic fingers.
She opened the door and entered the past.
People had been in awe of her, back then. The faithful were speechless in her presence. They'd flocked to hear her preach, to witness the miracles that so often occurred with the laying on of hands. Sick children made well, cripples whole — and all by a touch, at a whisper. From the raw energy that flowed through her prayers.
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