Nebulon Horror

by Cave, Hugh

  "Yes. That's right."

  "I'll do it now. If you'll just come outside and show me where you want them."

  "Just—just let me get my hat," she said, and disappeared into the house.

  Keith waited, bewildered by what was happening. She was gone all of five minutes and wore a wide-brimmed straw hat when she reappeared. "My gardening hat," she said, as though telling him where to plant four small hibiscus were an exercise in gardening. "I think this way." But after limping a few yards from the porch she stopped, seemingly confused again. "No, this way perhaps." More limping. The limp was really noticeable today, Keith realized. Another abrupt halt. "Oh, dear, I just don't know," she stammered.

  "Mrs. Ellstrom," Keith said with compassion, "don't you feel well?"

  She shook her head. "I'm—I'm afraid I'm terribly upset."

  "Is there something I can do? Can I call your husband? Or a doctor?"

  "No, no. No, please, Mister Wilding. I'll be all right."

  "But—"

  "Something terrible happened in school today. I must stop thinking about it, that's all. But if you could come back tomorrow . . . ? Would you? Please? Come tomorrow?"

  "Of course." Keith put a gentle hand on her arm and turned her toward the house, wishing there were some way he could help her but not knowing how. At his touch she let her breath out in a shuddery sigh, perhaps in relief at not having to continue her struggle for self-control.

  He walked her slowly to the door. There he said, "Tomorrow, Mrs. Ellstrom" but waited on the stoop to be sure she would be able to pull the door shut.

  She did so at last, trying to smile to show her appreciation.

  Returning to his pickup, he took out the four hibiscus and left them in their burlap root-wrappings under a handsome flame-of-the-forest tree in the yard. Then he drove downtown. If he could not plant the trees, he could at least delay his return to the nursery by calling on Melanie Skipworth. If, of course, she was not busy. He had telephoned her earlier in the day, but phoning this girl was a poor substitute for being with her.

  He passed the photography studio of Lois Ellstrom's husband and was tempted to stop. But what could he say to the man? "Mister Ellstrom, I've just talked to your wife and she seems deeply disturbed about something that happened at school. Perhaps you ought to go home?" He didn't know Willard Ellstrom that well. He drove on by.

  Nor did he, after all, stop at Melanie's. The shop was open, but as he approached it a man and woman unknown to him—tourists, probably—stopped peering at the window display and with obvious enthusiasm went on in. He might have to wait quite a while for a chance to see Mel alone.

  As he headed homeward in frustration he wondered again what Mrs. Ellstrom, usually so self-assured, had been so dramatically upset about.

  6

  Lois Ellstrom did not know what to do. She had blundered, she knew she had blundered, and she could lose her job for it. Still wearing the gardening hat she had put on to show Mr. Wilding where to plant the hibiscus, she sat in her kitchen and thought about it while waiting for her husband to come home.

  The worst part of the whole thing was that Mrs. Hostetter, the mayor's wife, had not believed her. Mrs. Hostetter had not come right out and said so, of course, but she knew it was a fact.

  But then, she herself would never have believed Raymond could be guilty of such behavior had she not seen it with her own eyes. Raymond Hostetter had always been one of the nicest little boys in the whole school. Always polite. Always gentle.

  Why had he done it?

  She had been standing at a window in her office when it happened. At least, when the first part of it happened, for in evaluating the incident one ought to consider it in its separate phases. At a window, yes. As she often did at recess in order to watch the children at play in the school yard. A good teacher should always watch her children at play when time permitted. One learned so much about them that way.

  The popular recess diversion just now was a marbles game, at least for grades two and three, which were the ones in the yard at the time. Almost every child in those grades brought a collection of glass marbles to school. Most were transparent with gay swirls of color in them as if tiny rivers of dye were imprisoned inside. Pretty. As for the game itself, some child with a good eye and a steady hand would take a stick and draw a circle perhaps ten feet in diameter in the playground earth. Another would scoop out a shallow depression in the center. Then any number of youngsters would kneel or squat outside the circle and try to roll the marbles into the hole. There were some childishly complicated rules, of course. Games had to have rules. Lois hadn't the slightest idea how a winner was determined.

  From the window she had been watching such a game, a big one involving at least twenty children. Quite exciting, too, if one were to judge by the shouting and jumping up and down that went on. The odd thing was that Raymond Hostetter was not one of the players. He was not even an interested spectator. He sat alone on a bench at the far end of the yard, listlessly making marks in the dirt with a stick. She had noticed him because almost no one ever used that bench; it was too isolated. She had wondered if perhaps he didn't feel well. He was not a robust child.

  But she was watching the other children, not Raymond, when it happened. The game had been going on for quite some time and the ground inside the circle was strewn with glass marbles flashing and sparkling in the sunlight. And suddenly there was Raymond, roughly thrusting two kneeling girls aside and striding across the line into the circle.

  The children were dumbfounded. Naturally. Rude behavior like this from Raymond Hostetter who was always so gentle? It was not possible.

  He walked to the center of the circle, and there was something strange about the way he walked. Lois Ellstrom got the distinct impression that he was not a child any more but a giant of a man, old and knowing and somehow evil. Slowly turning, he touched every child with his gaze, and the children recoiled as though seared. Then he slowly walked about, putting his right foot on each of the pretty marbles and grinding them one by one into the soft earth.

  Not a voice was raised in protest, perhaps because of the expression on his face and the strangely challenging light in his eyes.

  Then Miss Aube, the teacher in the yard at the time, at last awoke to what was happening and ran to stop it.

  Stephanie Aube was the second-grade teacher, a pretty woman of twenty-seven who loved her pupils and was adored by them. She was really not equipped to handle disciplinary problems. In her four years at the school she simply hadn't had any of consequence. This totally unexpected behavior by one of the mildest boys in school unnerved her, and she had no idea how to cope with it, obviously. Grabbing at Raymond Hostetter's arm, she shook him and demanded shrilly, "What are you doing?"

  Raymond bared his teeth and laughed in her face. Stephanie recoiled as though slapped, but recovered and snatched at him again. She was angry now. "You wicked boy!" she said loudly. "You come with me!"

  Hauling him after her—it seemed he was not a giant after all—she crossed the yard at a stumbling trot, unaware that she was all but pulling his arm out of its socket. A moment later she dragged him after her into the principal's office, where Lois Ellstrom, badly shaken, was struggling to prepare herself to confront them.

  "Mrs. Ellstrom," Stephanie blurted, "this boy—"

  "I saw it," Lois said. "Raymond, sit down." With what she hoped was a commanding gesture, she indicated the chair she usually sat pupils in when she talked to them.

  Grinning at her, Raymond said in a voice that dripped sarcasm, "Yes, Mrs. Ellstrom."

  "All right, Miss Aube. You may go."

  Obviously relieved, Stephanie Aube hurried from the office, closing the door behind her.

  Lois stepped around her desk, sat down, looked at the boy, and said, "Why, Raymond?"

  "Why what, Mrs. Ellstrom?"

  "You know what I mean. I stood here at the window and watched what you did. Why did you do it?"

  "I wanted to."

&n
bsp; "You wanted to? You, one of the nicest boys in school, suddenly wanted to do something nasty and ugly, so you just did it?"

  "Ah, shut up," said second-grader Raymond Hostetter calmly.

  Almost too stunned to reply, Lois did manage to gasp out, "What? What did you say?"

  His mouth curled. "I said shut up, you fucking old cripple. Who gives a shit about you?"

  Lois Ellstrom heard herself struggle for breath and felt a sudden sharp pain in her chest. The pain slowly departed but left her chilled and trembling. Children in this school, of which she was the principal, did not speak the way Raymond Hostetter had just spoken, not even in this permissive day and age. They simply did not.

  And Raymond Hostetter with his almost angelic face was the boy she least would have expected to use such language. Shut up? You fucking old cripple? Who gives a shit? Dear God! This boy's father, the town's mayor and owner of Nebulon's lucrative Cadillac agency, was a handsome, soft-spoken man of great charm. His mother was the kind of woman you would expect to be the wife of such a man. The family lived in one of the half dozen private homes on the lake—the most exclusive homes in Nebulon.

  And that word cripple. No one—no one—had ever hurled that cruel word at Lois Ellstrom before.

  She looked at Raymond in horror. Completely relaxed, he sat there and grinned at her, seemingly delighted by her reaction to his incredible behavior. Were his staring eyes an unusual color, a kind of burnt red, or was she imagining that? She was imagining it, of course. She wasn't herself.

  What in heaven's name was she to say to him?

  "Raymond, I don't think you know what you are doing. I'm sure you don't. That kind of language, wherever you heard it—" The telephone on her desk saved her from blundering deeper into that quagmire. It rang, and with an almost physical feeling of escape she snatched up the instrument and turned her back on the boy. Just being able to say "Nebulon School, Mrs. Ellstrom speaking" was like stepping back through the looking glass or out of the rabbit hole into a sane world again.

  It was a parent with a problem. She was glad to discuss the problem. Anything to postpone a resumption of her confrontation with Raymond. When the parent hung up, she braced herself before turning back to face the boy.

  His chair was empty. He was nowhere in the room. The door to the corridor was open.

  Stunned, she crossed the room at a limping run and glanced along the hall. The hall was empty. She ran to the yard. It was full of children, and she had to stand and look for several minutes before she could be certain he was not among them. Panicky now, she hurried the full length of the building to the front door but knew he would be out of sight had he fled that way.

  Ten minutes later, convinced with the help of some of the teachers that Raymond was nowhere on the school premises, she was back in her office. Knowing she must call the boy's home, she hesitated before the phone on her desk as though, like a snake, it might fatally strike her if she touched it. It did not strike, but she felt as though it had as she waited for an answer after dialing.

  It was Raymond's mother who answered. Lois haltingly told her what had happened, forcing herself to repeat the boy's exact words. It was not easy to use such words when speaking to the wife of Nebulon's mayor, but she felt she could do no less if her report were to have any impact.

  Raymond's mother was obviously upset. "Mrs. Ellstrom, I don't understand," she kept saying. It finally seemed to penetrate her confusion that her son had run away from the school. "But where could he have gone?" she cried then. "He isn't here."

  Perhaps he hadn't had time to get there yet, Lois suggested. That must be it. But she hoped—oh, she did hope—that he would go directly home. Would Mrs. Hostetter call her when he arrived? Please? At once?

  Mrs. Hostetter would not commit herself. Obviously she was annoyed. "I'm going to phone my husband," she said. "Good-bye, Mrs. Ellstrom." She hung up.

  She did not call back, but an hour or so later a police car stopped at the school and two members of Nebulon's small force asked Lois a number of questions. She sensed that they too were annoyed with her. If she had not allowed Raymond to disappear, they could be making better use of their time. They seemed especially annoyed that she could not tell them in which direction Raymond had fled. They departed shaking their heads.

  When the school day ended and the children left, she again searched the building. Every room. Every niche in every room. She called the Hostetter residence. A maid answered the phone and said that no, Mrs. Hostetter was not there and no, Raymond had not shown up yet.

  Not knowing what else to do then, Lois went home. That nice Mr. Wilding from the nursery had come with the hibiscus plants Willard wanted for beside the garage. He had seen she was upset and had gone away promising to return tomorrow. For a long time she just sat in the kitchen feeling numb. Then she telephoned Willard and begged him to come home because she was in trouble.

  Why didn't he come after saying he would? Or hadn't there been time enough yet? That was it; there hadn't been time enough. Why had Raymond Hostetter, that lovely little boy, done such an ugly thing in the playground and behaved so awfully in the office? Had his eyes really turned that peculiar color? Where was he now if he hadn't gone home? He was only a little boy in the second grade, seven years old. He mustn't go wandering all around town in his present state.

  Through the kitchen window she saw her husband's car turn into the driveway. He bent himself out of it—he was a very tall man—almost before it came to a stop. She stood up and went to the door with tears in her eyes. The door opened and Willard took her straight into his arms, gently saying, "What is it, sweetheart? What's the matter?"

  It took her a long time to tell him the story, and he was fidgeting before she finished. He was like that. Thin and wiry with only a few wisps of silky hair left, he was several years older than she but seemed younger because of his pink complexion and unflagging energy. Though gentle by nature, he could never be called a patient man. "Tidy yourself," he said briskly. "We'll go find out what's happened."

  "Go where, Willard?"

  "The Hostetters', of course. Where else?"

  "But should we? After all, he's the mayor."

  "He sells cars, too," Willard said, shaking his head at her in mild reproach. "Come now. You've had a bad day and your face shows it."

  On the way to the Hostetters' Willard asked a few questions, saying he wanted to be sure he had the story straight. He asked if she were certain of what Raymond had said in her office. "He actually called you a cripple? You're positive?"

  "Yes, he did."

  "And used those gutter words? You couldn't be mistaken about that?"

  "He used the words, Willard. Do you think I'd invent such a thing?"

  "Strange." He shook his head. "Calling you a cripple is bad enough, God knows, but kids do tend to be cruel at times. Where he got the rest of it is a mystery, though. I'd be willing to bet he's never heard such talk at home."

  "Perhaps he got it from a playmate," Lois said.

  "I suppose that's possible."

  "Anyway, he said what I've told you he said. I'm not mistaken."

  At the lake he turned in past some new apartment houses—Melanie Skipworth lived in one of them—and followed the shore drive to a row of private homes. The mayor's house was handsomely built of old colonial brick with white wooden columns flanking its entrance. There were a dozen or more cars in the crescent of driveway, including a number of police cars. There was a police motorcycle, too.

  "He hasn't been found," Willard speculated aloud. "There wouldn't be this crowd here if he had been."

  Lois said, "Dear, I'm frightened. I don't think we ought—"

  "Wait here," he told her, stopping the car and bending himself out of it.

  He walked with long strides to the house and found the white front door open and a cluster of men standing in a large entrance hall, talking. The mayor was one of them, a normally very handsome man who now looked only harassed and anxious. After a brief he
sitation Willard went toward him but was stopped by a burly individual in the brown uniform and black boots of a motorcycle cop. He had a scowling face nearly as red as the bricks of the house, and his name, Willard knew, was Leonard Quigley.

  "Something you want?" Quigley demanded.

  "I'd like to speak to the mayor."

  "Uh-uh. He's busy."

  Willard thought of persisting but decided not to. By reputation this particular guardian of law and order was not a man you could successfully argue with. "Tell me then," he said, "has the boy been found yet?"

  "No."

  "But he left the school before noon. In a town this size—"

  "Mister Ellstrom," Quigley said, "if we knowed where he was, he wouldn't be missin' and we wouldn't be lookin' all over hell and creation for him. Now you'll have to excuse me. I got things to do."

  With a glance at the group around the mayor, Willard returned to his car. "I'm sorry," he said to Lois. "They seem to be pretty busy. I couldn't talk to anyone. But the boy is still missing."

  Lois bit her lip and made a sobbing sound.

  "Now, now," he said, touching her hand, "it isn't your fault, no matter what you may think. And they'll find him before long. I'm sure they will."

  He drove out of the crescent driveway and headed for home.

  Inside the mayor's house Leonard Quigley said to a younger policeman beside him, "It's stupid, searchin' the whole lousy town. You mark what I say, we'll end up with that guy Otto. We had a molester of kids in this town once before, and I know what I'm talking about. I know how we handled him, too."

  7

  The man and woman Keith Wilding saw going into Melanie's Gift Shop that afternoon were tourists from Rhode Island. "What a nice shop!" the woman exclaimed to her husband. "I knew we'd find something in a town as pretty as this." What they sought was a souvenir of their trip to take home, something of Florida but worthwhile too.