Koontz, Dean R. - Strangers

by Strangers(Lit)

  Ned joined them for a closer look at the stranger, and to insinuate

  himself between the guy and Sandy. When he got to their table, he was

  surprised to see that Sandy had a bottle of beer and had opened one for

  him, too. He did not drink much; Sandy drank less.

  "You'll need it when you hear what they have to tell us," Sandy said.

  "In fact, you might even need a couple more bottles."

  The guy's name was Dominick Corvaisis, and he had an amazing tale that

  drove all worries of infidelity from Ned's mind. When Corvaisis was

  finished, Ernie and Faye had an incredible story of their own, and that

  was when Ned first learned about the ex-Marine's fear of the dark.

  "But I remember we were evacuated," Ned said. "We couldn't have been

  here at the motel those three days, 'cause I remember we had a sort of

  mini-vacation at home-watching TV, reading Louis L'Amour."

  "I believe that's what you were told to remember," Corvaisis said. "Did

  anyone visit you at the trailer during that time? Any neighbors drop

  by? Anyone who could confirm that you were actually there?"

  "We're outside Beowawe, where we don't really have neighbors. Far as I

  remember, we didn't see anybody who could swear we was there."

  Sandy said, "Ned, they wondered if anything strange has been happening

  to either of us."

  Ned met his wife's eyes. Without words, he let her know it was up to

  her whether she told them about the changes she had been undergoing.

  Corvaisis said, "The two of you were here the night it happened.

  Whatever it was, it started while I was having dinner. So you must have

  been a part of it. But the memory was stolen from you."

  The thought of strangers messing with his mind gave Ned the creeps.

  Uneasy, he studied the five Polaroid snapshots that Faye had fanned out

  on the table, especially the picture of Corvaisis staring empty-eyed.

  To Sandy, Faye said, "Honey, Ernie and I would have to've been blind not

  to've noticed the changes in you recently. I don't mean to embarrass

  you, and I don't want to pry, but if those changes might be related to

  whatever happened to us, then we ought to know about it."

  Sandy reached for Ned's hand, held it. Her love for him was so evident

  that he was ashamed of himself for the ridiculous thoughts of betrayal

  that had preoccupied him earlier.

  Staring intently at her beer, she said, "Most all my life, I've had the

  lowest opinion of myself. I'll tell you why, because you've got to know

  how bad it was for me when I was a kid if you want to understand how

  miraculous it is that I ever found any self-respect. It was Ned who

  first lifted me up, believed in me, gave me a chance to be somebody."

  Her hand tightened on his. "Almost nine years ago, he started courting

  me, and he was the first person ever treated me like a lady. He married

  me knowing that inside I was tied up in tangled knots, and he's spent

  eight years doing his best to untie and untangle them. He thinks I

  don't know how hard he's tried to help me, but I know all right."

  Her voice cracked with emotion. She paused for a swallow of beer.

  Ned was unable to speak.

  Sandy said, "The thing is . . . I want everyone to know that maybe

  what happened the summer before last, the thing none of us remembers . .

  . maybe it did have a powerful effect on me. But if Ned hadn't taken

  me under his wing all those years ago, I never would've had a chance."

  Love enwrapped Ned as if it were bands of iron, closing his throat,

  constricting his chest, applying a pleasant pressure to his heart.

  She glanced at him, returned her gaze to the bottle of beer, and

  recounted a childhood in hell. She did not describe her father's

  violations of her in explicit detail, and she spoke demurely-almost

  primly-of her periodic exploitation as a child prostitute under the

  management of a Vegas pimp. Her account of this monstrous abuse was all

  the more shocking and moving because she related it without drama.

  Everyone at the table listened in a silence resulting not merely from

  shock but from respect for her suffering and from a certain reverence

  for her ultimate triumph.

  When Sandy finished, Ned embraced her, held her close. He was amazed by

  her strength. He had always known she was special, and the things she

  told them tonight only strengthened his love and admiration.

  Though he was deeply saddened by what had been done to Sandy, he was

  delighted that she was at last able to talk about it. Surely this meant

  that the past had lost its hold on her.

  Faye and Ernie commiserated with her in the awkward manner of friends

  who want to help but who know they can offer only words.

  Everyone needed another beer. Ned got five bottles of Dos Equis out of

  the cooler and brought them to the table.

  Corvaisis, who no longer seemed like the enemy to Ned, shook his head

  and blinked as if Sandy's story had left him in a daze of horror. "This

  turns things upside down. I mean, if our unremembered experience had

  one basic effect on the rest of us, it was terror. Oh, I benefited

  because I was brought out of my shell; I share that with Sandy. But

  Ernie, Dr. Weiss, Lomack, and me . . . we were for the most part left

  with a residue of fear. Now Sandy tells us the effect on her was

  strictly beneficial, not frightening in the least. How could it affect

  us so differently? You really have no fear, Sandy?"

  "None," Sandy said.

  Ever since Ernie pulled a chair up to the table, he'd been sitting with

  his shoulders hunched and his head lowered, as if protecting his neck

  from attack. Now, with one hand clamped around a bottle of Dos Equis,

  he leaned back and relaxed, though not much. "Yeah, fear's the core of

  it. But you remember that place along the interstate I told you about,

  little more than a quarter-mile from here? I'm sure something weird

  happened there, something that relates to the brainwashing. But when I'm

  standing at that place, I feel more than just fear. My heart starts to

  race . . . and I get excited . . . but it's not entirely a bad

  excitement. Fear's a part of it, yeah, maybe the biggest part of it,

  but there's a stew of other emotions, as well."

  Sandy said, "I think the place Ernie's talking about is where I often

  wind up when I take the truck out for a ride. I'm . . . drawn there."

  Ernie leaned forward, excited. "I knew it! Coming back from the

  airport this morning, as we were passing that place, you let the truck

  slow way down. And I said to myself, 'Sandy feels it, too." "

  Faye said, "Sandy, what exactly do you feel when you're drawn to that

  piece of ground?"

  With a smile so warm that Ned could almost feel the heat of it, Sandy

  said, "Peace. I feel at peace there. It's hard to explain . . . but

  it's as if the rocks, dirt, and trees all radiate harmony, tranquility."

  "I don't feel peaceful there," Ernie said. "Fear, yes. A queer

  excitement. An eerie sense that something . . . shattering will

  happen. Something that I'm eager for, even though it scares the hell

  out of me."

  "And I feel none of what you feel," Sandy said.

&
nbsp; "We ought to go there," Ned suggested. "See if the place affects the

  rest of us."

  "In the morning," Corvaisis said. "When it's light."

  Faye said, "I can see this might've had a different effect on each of

  us. But why has it changed Dom's and Sandy's and Ernie's lives-and the

  lives of that Mr. Lomack in Reno and Dr. Weiss in Boston-yet done

  nothing to Ned and me. Why aren't we having problems, too?"

  Dom said, "Maybe the brainwashers did a better job on you and Ned."

  That thought gave Ned the heebie-jeebies again.

  For a while they discussed their situation, and then Ned suggested that

  Corvaisis try to re-create his actions on that Friday night, July 6, up

  to the point where his memories were erased. "You recollect the early

  part of the evening better than we do. And when you came in the first

  time tonight, you were close to remembering something important."

  "Close," Corvaisis agreed, "but at the last moment, when I felt the

  memory within grasp, it scared the crap out of me . . . and the next

  thing I knew, I was running for the door. Made quite a spectacle of

  myself. I was totally freaked out. It was such a visceral thing,

  instinctual, so utterly uncontrollable, that I think it would probably

  happen again if I made a second attempt to force the memories."

  "Still, it's worth a try," Ned said.

  "And you've got us for moral support this time," Faye said.

  Corvaisis needed coaxing, which Ned interpreted as meaning that the

  experience earlier this evening had been considerably more unnerving

  than words could express. But at last the writer got up and, carrying

  his glass of beer, went to the front door of the diner. He stood with

  his back to the exit, chugged a long swallow of Dos Equis. He looked

  around the room, trying hard to see the people of that other time.

  He said, "There were three or four men sitting at the counter. Maybe a

  dozen customers altogether. I can't remember their faces." Moving away

  from the door, he walked past Ned and the others, to the next table,

  where he pulled out a chair and sat with his back turned partly toward

  them. "This is where I sat. Sandy waited on me. I took a bottle of

  Coors while I looked at the menu. Ordered the ham-and-egg sandwich.

  French fries, coleslaw. As I was salting the fries, the shaker slipped

  out of my hand. Salt spilled on the table. I threw a pinch over my

  shoulder. Silly gesture. Threw it too hard. Dr. Weiss! Ginger Weiss

  was the woman I threw the salt on. I didn't remember that before, but I

  can see her clearly now. The blond in the photo."

  Faye tapped the Polaroid snapshot of Dr. Weiss that was on the table in

  front of Ned.

  Still sitting alone at the other table, Corvaisis said, "Quite a

  beautiful woman. Pixie-cute yet also sophisticated-looking, a really

  interesting mix. Could hardly take my eyes off her."

  Ned looked more closely at the photo of Ginger Weiss. He supposed she

  might, indeed, be unusually attractive when her face was not so pale and

  slack, when her eyes were not so cold, empty, dead.

  In a voice that had grown odd, as if he were actually speaking to them

  from out of the past, Corvaisis said, "She sits in the corner booth by

  the window, facing this way. Sunset is near. The sun's out there on

  the horizon, balanced like a big red ball, and the diner's filled with

  orange light slanting in through the windows. Almost like firelight.

  Ginger Weiss looks especially lovely in that light. I can hardly keep

  from staring openly at her. . . . Twilight now. I've got a second

  beer." He sipped some Dos Equis. When he continued, his voice was

  softer: "The plains are all purple ... then black ...

  night . . ."

  Like Ernie and Faye and Sandy, Ned was spellbound by the writer's

  struggle to remember, for it stirred in him, at last, faint and

  shapeless-but compelling-memories of his own. He began to recall that

  particular evening out of the many he'd spent in the Tranquility Grille.

  The young priest had been here, the one in the Polaroid snapshot now

  lying on the table. And the young couple with their little girl.

  "Not long after nightfall ... nursing my second beer mainly so I can

  stare at Ginger Weiss a little longer." Corvaisis looked left, right,

  raised his right hand to his ear. "An unusual sound of some kind. I

  remember that much. A distant rumble . . . getting louder." He was

  silent for awhile. "Can't remember what happened next. Something . .

  . something ...

  but it just won't come."

  As the writer spoke of the rumbling, Ned Sarver experienced the vaguest

  possible memory of that frightening, swelling sound, but he could not

  clearly call it to mind. He felt as if Corvaisis had brought him to the

  edge of a dark chasm into which he was desperately afraid to look but

  into which he must look, and now they were turning away without shining

  a light down in those black depths. Heart racing, he said, "Concentrate

  on remembering the sound, the exact sound, and maybe that'll bring the

  rest of it back to you."

  Corvaisis pushed his chair back from the table, got up. "Rumbling . . .

  like thunder, very distant thunder ... but growing closer." He stood

  beside the table, seeking the direction from which the sound had come,

  looking left, right, up, down at the floor.

  Suddenly Ned heard the noise, not in memory but in reality, not back

  there in the past but now. The hollow roll of faraway thunder. But it

  came in one endless peal, not a series of rising and falling crashes,

  and it was growing louder, louder. . . .

  Ned looked at the others. They heard it, too.

  Louder. Louder. Now he could feel the vibrations in his bones.

  He could not remember what had happened that night, but he knew the

  astonishing events they had endured had started with this sound.

  He pushed back his chair and got up. He was awash in a rising tide of

  fear, and he had to fight against the urge to run.

  Sandy stood, and there was fear in her face, as well. Though the

  unknown events seemed to have had an entirely positive effect on her,

  she was frightened now. She put one hand on Ned's arm for reassurance.

  Ernie and Faye were frowning, looking around for the source of the

  noise, but they did not yet appear frightened. Their memory of the

  sound was apparently more thoroughly scrubbed away, so they could not as

  easily connect it with the events of that Friday night in July.

  Another sound arose, underlying the thunderlike rumble: a queer,

  ululating whistle. That, too, was unpleasantly familiar to Ned.

  It was happening again. Whatever had taken place that night more than

  eighteen months ago was somehow being repeated. Jesus, happening all

  over again, and Ned heard himself saying, "No, no. No!"

  Corvaisis backed a couple of steps away from his table, cast a glance at

  Ned and the others. He was white-faced.

  The growing roar began to resonate in the window glass, behind the

  closed blinds. A loose pane, unseen, started rattling in its frame.

  The Levolor blinds were vibrating now, adding a jangly chorus.

  Sandy's hold
on Ned became a panicky clutch.

  Ernie and Faye were on their feet, and they were no longer merely

  bewildered but as afraid as everyone else.

  The ululant whistle had grown in volume with the thunder. Now it became

  piercingly shrill, an oscillating electronic shriek.

  "What is it?" Sandy cried, and the continuous fulminations attained such

  volume and power that the walls of the Tranquility Grille shook.

  On the table at which Corvaisis had been sitting, the beer glass fell on

  its side, cracking, spilling what Dos Equis remained in it.

  Ned looked at the table beside him and saw the objects on it-ketchup

  bottle, mustard dispenser, salt and pepper shakers, ashtray, glasses,

  plates, and silverware-bouncing, clinking against one another, moving

  back and forth across the surface. A beer glass toppled, and another,

  and the ketchup bottle.

  Wide-eyed, Ned and the others turned this way and that, as if in

  anticipation of the imminent materialization of a demonic entity.

  Throughout the room, objects fell off tables. The clock with the Coors

  logo leapt from the hook on which it hung, crashed to the floor.

  This very thing had happened that night in July-Ned remembered as much.

  But he could not remember what had come next.

  "Stop it!" Ernie shouted with the conviction and authority of a Marine

  officer accustomed to obedience-but without effect.