The Sound of Midnight - An Oxrun Station Novel

by Charles L. Grant

  "They came in," she said, "looking for a chemistry set for a younger cousin. At least, that's what they told Bella. Now I can tell you right now that the Newcastles' nearest relatives are somewhere down in Jersey; and this sudden love for an absent cousin was garbage from the word go. What happened was, the twins cornered Mrs. Inness near where the sets were and made her open every one of them. They said they were checking them out in case a piece or two was missing."

  "Like all else," Vic said, "it has the impeccable face of innocence. Young kids learning good consumerism from their parents, and all that."

  "Right, I agree. But they didn't buy anything. Nothing was missing. They just didn't buy anything! What they did do was pester the poor woman with a million questions. You know—what does this do, why does this happen when you mix this thing with that thing, how is a magnet made—things Bella wouldn't know even if she was still going to school!"

  "Curiosity," he said, the devil's advocate.

  "Sure. And when Bella told them to check the library if they were so interested, Carol, I think it was, told her Mrs. Clayton would only let them use the young people's encyclopedia. They already knew what that one said, Carol told Bella, and it wasn't sufficient."

  "Sufficient for what? A damned bomb?"

  Dale shook her head. "I honestly don't know. But it left the poor woman pretty shaken up. They weren't just being curious, you know. They were actually demanding answers. Demanding, Vic. And it isn't the first time. You've had to go through this and so have I. A million times over the past few months, but never as bad as this."

  He gazed blankly over her shoulder and scraped a fork over his plate. "Yeah. Yeah, they have. Not the twins for me, but Carl has, and Melody. Jaimie, once, when I first started working there. Pumping me just as though . . ." He set his fork on the table and shoved back his chair. "Come on," he said. "We can grab something else later if you're still hungry. We don't have time to finish up here."

  Dale didn't argue. She smiled apologetically at the maitre d' and murmured nonsense disclaimers to the waiter who hovered after them as they hurried to the cloakroom. She knew what Vic was going to say: it was just like the sessions he had had with the same kids when they visited the high school yard. Only now she knew it wasn't the company of the older kids that they were after. It was the picking of brains, both student and teacher. Bella had once called them an unruly gang of precocious brats; but they weren't precocious, not in the ordinary sense of the word. It was as though they had been shipwrecked for half a century on some desert island and were trying to find out what had happened to the world since they had been gone.

  Not precocious.

  Hungry.

  "Assuming you're thinking the same thing I'm thinking," he said as they descended to the front door and the parking lot, "what do you think?"

  "Assuming that makes sense," she answered with a half-grin, "I don't know. Another piece to consider for the time being, that's all."

  Traffic was still considerably heavy, and it was some time before Vic was able to cross the Pike and pull into McPherson's block. The headlights glittered off the hurricane fence, and the cemetery beyond was a wall of impenetrable black. A huge white Persian cat raced down the sidewalk after a small dark shadow Dale hoped wasn't a chipmunk; and as they moved up the flagstone walk toward the house she wondered why anyone would let so valuable a cat loose anyway—something as beautiful as that she would have turned into a house pet, not an alley cat with a pedigree.

  "Witch's familiar," Vic muttered, reading her thought, and she slapped him on the back, hard, but grateful he'd broken the tension that had transformed her spine into a lead rod that kept her head high, her shoulders uncomfortably straight.

  "So ring," she said when they reached the stoop. "He can't see through the walls, you know."

  And when he did, quickly, barely touching the glowing plastic button, she heard the grandfather clock chiming. "Eight o'clock, and all's well," she said under her breath.

  "What do you know that I don't," he said, then broke into a hearty smile when the door opened and Ed gaped out at them. "Hey, you going to let us freeze out here? Winter's coming, Ed."

  McPherson recovered, but not before Dale noticed him flick the hand at his side and heard a scurrying in the front room.

  Immediately they went in and were seated, still coated, on the couch, Ed handed them thin glasses of sherry and began a litany of probing Vic's health, expressing concern over his loss of weight and appealing to Dale to take better care of him. It ran on interminably, and she wanted to scream at him to halt the flow of oral garbage. But in his striped shirt and maroon sweater-vest, sharply creased black slacks and highly polished shoes, he was the stereotype of urbanity, the ultra-casual small-town font of psychological wisdom. He would not be stopped, and she didn't try to interrupt when she saw Vic playing his game solemnly, as though he actually cared what McPherson felt and was going out of his way to smother him in reassurances.

  Finally, Ed lost his momentum. He rose from the armchair and stood next to the fireplace while Dale prayed he wouldn't lift his arm to prop the elbow on the mantel. And when he did, she closed her eyes briefly and sighed.

  "But now," McPherson said, knocking his pipe against the brass globe of an andiron, "it's your turn to monopolize, my friends. It looks as if this unexpected dropping in is getting to be a habit." He grinned at Dale, who returned it painfully.

  "Well, Ed," Vic began, shifting to drape an arm over the back of the sofa, "Dale and I here have ourselves a small problem, and we hope you can help us see the light."

  Ed's laugh was girlish, too nervous to be genuine. "Seems to me you'd want to see a preacher, there, Victor."

  "Well, maybe it will come to that," Vic said, "but I doubt it.

  "You see, Ed, a couple of things have happened over the past few months—four or five, actually—that makes us think that your son is getting himself into some trouble he won't be able to handle?" Ed instantly glanced at the chessboard on the mantel. Dale saw his lips moving, counting. "I don't really follow you, Vic," he said. "I didn't think you were connected with the school system anymore."

  Vic admitted as much. "The thing is, Jaimie used to be a good friend of Willy Campbell. You remember him. The boy who was—"

  "Drowned in the pond. I remember it well. A tragic affair, wasn't it, Dale?"

  Startled to be so suddenly included, she could only nod mutely.

  "Indeed," Vic said, drawing McPherson's attention back to himself. "Well, it seems that the Campbells are a little old-fashioned in their religious beliefs. To put it mildly. I suppose you could say they've resurrected some of their ancestors' rather bizarre tenets and their emphasis on Olympus-type gods and magic and things like that. Apparently it’s fascinated some of the local children. Jaimie among them."

  "No!" Ed snapped. "Not at all. My son is too level-headed for nonsense like that. His personality is extremely well adjusted for a boy his age." He paced away from the hearth, glanced down the hall, and returned to his chair. "He doesn't believe in anything like that. Nothing."

  "Well, I for one don't know about that," Dale said. The sternness she faced was a facade, nothing more, and it was his eyes that gave McPherson away, betrayed the fragile control he was exerting on his nerves. "I mean, he's always in the store picking up the latest monster model or the mechanical sets he builds those robots and creatures with. Only the other day he—"

  "Boys' play," Ed said. "He doesn't believe it, but that doesn't mean he can't pretend that he does. Why, he has never even believed in Santa Claus, as far as I can remember. His mother, she used to fret about that all the time, but . . ." He swallowed hard, making sure they noticed the action of his throat. Then he drew himself up and allowed an indignant glare to settle over his features. "And what, may I ask, is there about this so-called fascination of my son's which makes it any of your business?"

  "Oh come on, Ed, get off it," Vic said. "We're friends, remember?"

  "Friends do no
t pry," he said primly. "They—"

  "We are not prying!" Vic exploded, pounding a fist on the end table and causing the lamp to sway. "We said we thought there was a potential problem for you, and we presumed our friendship was strong enough that we could come to you and let you know."

  "Victor, please! Your voice!" Ed cautioned softly. "The boy's in his room."

  Dale wanted to deride the show of protection, coughed instead and crossed her legs. "Ed"—and he snapped his head in her direction, making her think he was feeling under siege, beset by enemies on either flank—"Ed, we thought you weren't really feeling very well. We didn't want—"

  "What are you talking about, not feeling well? What the hell are you doing, checking up on my medical history, too?"

  "No," she said calmly, refusing to raise her voice to match his own, "I wanted to see you the other day about a change that happened with my dreams—remember them?—and the receptionist in your office told me you had let your regular secretary go and were on a long leave of absence."

  "Oh, that. Well, she got it wrong, as usual. Miss Evans is on a trip to see a sick relative. And I am only taking a couple of weeks of well-earned vacation. I mean, even a doctor has the right to a vacation, doesn't he?" He tapped his pipe against his teeth. "I haven't been off in several years—five, I think it is—and Jaimie convinced me I should take it easy for a while. Loaf around and get to know him better. It's hard, you know, being both mother and father to a boy. When schools in, that's one thing, but when the summer comes around he needs someone around the house to talk to when he needs it. There's nothing wrong with that, is there?"

  The last was nearly a plea. His composure had slipped, and Dale realized with an almost tangible shock that he wanted them out of the house, that he was afraid of something and he didn't want them around.

  Vic had picked up the slip at the same time, and when he rose to leave, she voiced no objection. They walked slowly to the door, heard Ed moving behind them before he came up and slapped Vic's side in false comradeship.

  "I'm a little tired," he said weakly.

  "It's all right, Ed," Vic said, opening the door. "I'm sorry if we disturbed you."

  "You didn't disturb me," he said, suddenly brusque again. "I'm just glad to be able to put your minds at rest. Jaimie," he said eagerly, "is a good boy. He won't get into trouble. Don't you worry about him. He won't get into any trouble."

  The door fairly slammed in their faces and, though Dale wanted to stand by the window, Vic pulled her roughly off the stoop and to the car. Without a word he started the engine and sped down to the Pike, turned the corner and slammed the car to a halt at the curb. When she glared at him, he grinned.

  "You wanted to snoop, didn't you, kid? Well, what are we waiting for?"

  CHAPTER XI

  What Dale wanted was a miracle. A huge godhand reaching out of the dark to pluck car and Vic and her out of Oxrun Station, set them down in another country, on another planet; it made no difference just as long as they were away from what she feared she would discover if she surrendered to Vic's urgings. It was, she thought with a cast back to her college classics, her own personal Rubicon—and the waters were raging, struggling to drag her down into a cold black nothing where terror took the place of death, and death was an escape to heaven.

  "Dale," Vic said, poking her arm, "are you all right?"

  I don't want to be a martyr.

  "Hey, Dale!"

  I don't want to die. I don't want to know.

  "Dale, damnit!"

  She started, realizing she hadn't been speaking aloud. She turned to tell him to start the car and drive away, saw the look on his face and knew that the river had already been crossed.

  "Girding my loins," she said, hoping the darkness in the car would hide the weakness of her grin.

  "Gird away, kid," he said quietly, "but don't strangle yourself. We either go now or we don't go at all."

  The door handle was cold. She wished she had brought a pair of gloves. A quick whistle, then, to summon courage from wherever it was hiding, and she was out onto the grass, the sidewalk, waiting for a passing truck to let Vic join her.

  They moved at a slow trot back up the street, keeping on the edges of the neighbors' lawns to smother their footsteps. Twice

  Dale caught herself holding her breath as if that one small addition to the noise they were making would be the spring that crashed the trap down around them. The overcast and breeze had not let up; and with the stars now gone, the cold seemed deeper as it stung her nostrils, lips, and lungs. A fine preparation for Halloween, she thought as they angled farther onto the grass toward the side of McPherson's house, but definitely not right for prowling in the middle of the night. Her ears became numb and, as she reached up a hand to rub at them, she stumbled over something hidden in the lawn. A muttered curse as Vic grabbed at her shoulders. The breeze gusted briefly into a wind and her eyes watered. Her sleeve was sandpaper as it brushed them clear, and she winced at the stinging the gesture produced.

  There was a neatly trimmed border of waist-high juniper pressed close to the house, and as they moved cautiously into it, the rustling was magnified by the fear that they would be caught by Ed with no reasonable explanation, or means of escape. Dale waited at the front corner, then, while Vic checked the front room. And as she watched him crouched in front of the window off the stoop, the Persian returned to sit boldly on the lawn and stare at her. She flicked an impatient hand, tried a nervously soft hiss before reaching down and tossing a pebble at it. It didn't move, only licked at one paw until, fearful that Ed would look at and wonder what had intrigued the animal so, she took an angry step toward it. A pebble, a hiss, and another step, and it arched its back, stretched its front legs slowly, and wandered off across the street. When Dale looked down at her hand, she saw it was trembling violently and she crushed it against her side, willing it to be calm and too afraid to see if she had succeeded.

  Suddenly there was a loud thudding crash from inside the house, just behind her head. She spun around as Vic rejoined her. A single window, heavily curtained, cast a rectangle of dim white onto the frost-stiffened grass. The sound of the crash settled behind it, and there were muffled voices in its place. Vic motioned for her to move up to the glass, but she shook her head. He became adamant, shoved her forward through the narrow gap between shrub and wall and she had to grab at the slightly protruding sill to keep from losing her balance. The voices were louder now, and with a hurried warning to Vic to keep a close eye on the curtains, she pressed her ear against the pane. She jumped at another smashing from within. There was no doubt Ed and Jaimie were arguing about something; their voices shifted around the room, fading and clearing as though they were shouting into a strong variable wind.

  ". . . rid of them, didn't I? What more do you want? They won't be . . . my word for it. Now for . . . leave me be!"

  "They could not have known unless . . . wrong about Willy . . . you, wasn't it? It was, it had to be . . . thought you wanted to help us and . . . not keep our promise."

  Something wooden slammed against the wall, and there was a man's yell, desperate and frightened.

  A silence.

  Then, Jaimie once again, this time in a language Dale could not understand—a guttural sound of almost Teutonic harshness that made her wonder if the window and the wind had combined to garble what she heard.

  "Speak English!" Ed snapped suddenly. "You can't get around if you're going to jabber!"

  A murmuring followed. Dale grimaced as she tried to force meaning into the sounds, with the glass a numbing cold against her head. Then, at a warning from Vic, she ducked. Jaimie was standing directly in front of the window, his shadow visible and wavering against the curtain.

  "We will speak of it later. It is a shamed thing, is it not? Elinor, Will, and David. And now it seems it is you, Edwin. I do not know yet. I will know in some time. But it be a full shamed thing. I will have to take a walk now. Do not go where I be, Edwin. We have not many time
left."

  The shadow moved, shrank, and Dale pushed away from the wall. She grabbed at Vic's sleeve and pushed him through the juniper, ran with him through the border of poplar that separated the McPhersons from their immediate neighbors. There was no time for questions. At any instant she expected to hear a door slam, followed by an angry shout of discovery. But they reached the car safely, and Vic was pulling away from the curb before she could close her door.

  She held up her hands, their cold red skin purple in the light of the dash. But they were steady, and she didn't know how that could be. By the feeling in her stomach, they should have shaken themselves off their wrists before she knew what was happening.

  "God," Vic said. "Okay, so now where?"

  She waved the question away, not trusting herself to speak. A glance at her watch, and it was nearly fifteen minutes to nine. Almost an hour since they first arrived at McPherson's. A little more than three hours and it would be Halloween. Something like twenty-seven hours and it would be the first of November. And . . . she stopped herself, knowing that one more count would set her to laughing, a laughing she wouldn't be able to stop.

  Vic turned onto Mainland Road and headed slowly north. They passed the village, the cemetery, moved into the thick woodlands that flanked the road and climbed the low hills that blocked out the sky. Oncoming traffic glared its headlights, vanished, appeared, like waves of blaring white. A huge buck and its doe and fawn froze on the graveled shoulder, eyes gleaming redly; Dale turned when they passed, saw the animals move single file over the highway and leap darkly into the brush on the opposite side. A two-pump gas station cowered under its bright lights, a man in its small office seated in front of a portable television. Then, a side road without an identifying signpost, and Vic suddenly wrenched the wheel, spinning them over gravel until the automobile straightened and they were alone.

  They were on a narrow one-lane road more dirt than macadam. Denuded branches clutched into an open tunnel above them. And there was only the quiet mutter of the engine and the crunch of studded tires until Dale blinked herself out of the thoughts threatening to make her scream. She shifted to sit partially against the door, shivering at the cold seeping in through the window, and cleared her throat.