Dreamthorp

by Williamson, Chet

  "Oh my god, Laura. Oh my god, that madman . . ."

  Laura cried and Trudy hugged her until she stopped. Then Laura wiped the dripping mascara from her eyes and shook her head. "It's all right, though. He's dead. I know it. He's dead now. He can't hurt me again."

  And now, a day later as Laura Stark lay on the warm, sandy beach of Dreamthorp Lake, she tried to make herself believe it. The whole sweet summer lay ahead, not only for her, but for Dreamthorp as well, her home, which she had come to love so much.

  It had had its share of horror too, with that terrible accident at the playhouse. But the horror was over now for her and her town. Children laughed at the edge of the lake, people walked hand in hand, the sun shone warmly, and the wind caressed her face like a lover. The funerals were over, the dead were buried, and Gilbert Rodman was nothing but pieces of charred flesh. And if that were all true, then she should forget, and go on, and live her life.

  If.

  What enumerator will take for us a census of the dead?

  —Alexander Smith, Dreamthorp

  Gilbert Rodman hated Iowa. Nothing but flatness as far as you could see. Flatness and those great big fields of wheat and corn and whatever all that other crap was. At least in Nebraska he'd found enough of a hill to roll that little Chevy off. Even so, he'd felt damn lucky to find it.

  But he had. Just like he'd found that guy hitching right after he'd stolen the car in Valentine. The guy had looked like him, tall and about his weight, though a few years younger. He had been just what Gilbert had been looking for, really—a New York boy, hitching across the country. Gilbert had found out what else he needed to know easily enough. He had told the hitcher that he was a medical student at the University of Nebraska, had gotten him talking about medicine and then about AIDS and how careful you had to be now about blood transfusions, and how some rare blood types were getting harder to keep in stock, and did he know what kind of blood type he had?

  Sure. O positive.

  When Gilbert had heard that he had known that there was something watching over him, maybe God, maybe the Devil, but something. That had been the icing on the cake. The fingerprints had been no problem—he could saturate the hands with gasoline first—and the teeth, assuming that they had made records of his at the hospital, would be messed up by the explosion. But there could be no faking blood. They'd find some charred, wet, or dried, and they could type it from that. So when Larry had said that he was type O positive, Gilbert had known that he was home free.

  Larry had questioned Gilbert when he had pulled off onto the side road, but Gilbert had told him that it was a short cut because of construction up ahead. After seeing no cars for several miles, Gilbert had pulled off the road. "What's up?" Larry had asked.

  "Gotta take a crap. How about you?"

  "Naw, my tank's good for another hundred miles." Gilbert had reached behind the front seat. "Toilet paper," he had muttered, grabbed the tire iron he'd placed there, and rapped Larry lightly on the back of the skull. The boy had lumped semiconscious in his seat, and Gilbert had taken the handful of rags he'd found in the trunk and had pressed them over Larry's mouth and nose.

  Larry had taken a long time to die. When his breathing had begun to slow, he had retained consciousness for a moment, but was already so weak that he had struggled only feebly against Gilbert's pinioning arms. Gilbert had felt a stirring in his groin, but there had been nothing else, no erection, none of the real excitement that he used to feel.

  There had been only hate, hate for the woman who had shot him; and he had felt it sweep over him like a cloud of ice, its sharp, knifelike crystals melting into drops of poison that flew eastward through the air as if searching for her, taking her the message that this was the least he would do when he met her face-to-face, this was the best, the sweetest, the most tender embrace she could hope for.

  When Larry was dead, Gilbert had removed his wallet and had found sixty-three dollars in cash and a Visa card, along with the usual ID. He had changed clothes with the boy, all except for Larry's now-soiled underwear, then had driven to a small bluff he had seen from several miles away. He had driven off the road to reach its top, moving slowly because of the approaching darkness.

  At the top of the bluff, there had been a slight downgrade toward the edge. He had aimed the car toward it and pulled the brake. Then he had tossed Larry's knapsack out of the car, placed him in the driver's seat, and removed the two gallon can of gasoline from the trunk. Gilbert had splashed half its contents over Larry, pouring some in the boy's mouth and pooling it around his hands. He had set the can on its side on the passenger seat and rolled up the windows except for the one on the driver's side, which he had left open six inches.

  From his pocket he had taken a paper and pencil, leaned on the Chevy's hood, and wrote what he hoped would be considered his suicide note. He had known that it had to be convincing, so he had put much that was true into it, although it had hurt him to write it, hurt him to admit how deeply, how irredeemably she had wounded him. But the truest thing of all was what he had said at the end—that he would see her.

  Not that he loved her. He had written that because they thought he was mad, and that would merely make them think it all the more, perhaps think he was mad enough to kill himself in this way. Also, it would strike the woman, if she ever read it, as perverse, as more filthy than anything else he had written in the letter.

  I LOVE YOU.

  And it was filthy. He knew what love was. His mother had loved him, hadn't she? Oh yes, oh. Jesus, she had loved him so much.

  He had thought about his mother as he had put the note and pencil, both smelling of gasoline, in a bare spot where they were sure to be found. He had thought about the Great Bitch as he had taken the Bic lighter from his pocket, opened the car door, and released the brake. As the car had slowly started to roll, Gilbert had slammed the door shut and jogged along with it. Less than twenty yards from the edge, he had lit the lighter and tossed it into the car through the window, then leaped to the side.

  The interior had caught fire with a terrifying rush, and Gilbert, from where he lay on the thick grass, had seen Larry's form become a giant torch. He had heard the hiss and crackle of the burning, and had seen the hair ignite and stand on end like a fiery halo.

  A second later, just as the car teetered on the edge, the flames had found the gas can. The explosion had blown out the windows, and it was no car but a ball of fire that fell thirty feet to the plain below. Gilbert had picked himself up and gone to the edge, where he had stood in the darkness and watched the car burn. When the fire had reached the gas tank, which he had filled, it had exploded in earnest, as if the gas can blowing had been merely a dress rehearsal. Pieces of burning metal—and flesh, Gilbert had supposed—had gone flying through the air, many higher than the bluff on which Gilbert had stood. He would have liked to watch until the flames died away, but someone would surely notice the glow on the prairie and come soon.

  He had picked up Larry's knapsack, put it on his shoulders, and had started to dogtrot across the fields. It was less than ten miles to Bassett.

  After he had covered several miles, he had remembered the list. He had sat down under a tree, taken a folded paper from his shirt pocket, and found the stub of a pencil in Larry's knapsack. Then he had unfolded the paper and jotted down beneath the name of the doctor he had killed Larry's name and the date. He had decided to keep a record for Laura, to show her how many people he had practiced on, to give her an indication of how worthy she was of his ministrations. And if it made the bitch feel guilty that people had died because of her, so much the better. Every type of pain he could inflict upon her, even the most subtle psychological kind, would be precious to him.

  Gilbert had put the piece of paper back into his pocket and patted it. It caused no danger, no risk. It was nothing but a piece of paper, thin and porous, easily edible if he were to be stopped by a policeman. And even if there was some slight risk, it was worth it. He did not know if he would be a
ble to remember all the names, all the dates, and he had to know. He had to tell Laura everything, everything he had been through to get to her side.

  How he lived, what he did when he was a student, we are unable to discover. Only for a moment is the curtain lifted. . .

  —Alexander Smith, Dreamthorp

  Two days later, while Laura Stark was lying in the sun on the beach at Dreamthorp, Gilbert was standing outside a truck stop in Denison, Iowa, Larry's knapsack still on his back, his thumb extended toward the east. He had fifty dollars in his pocket, along with a Case pocketknife with a six-inch blade. He had just shaved, washed, and brushed his teeth in the men's room, and gotten a meal of steak and fruit salad.

  A truck coming out of the truck stop slowed and drew to a halt beside him. A blonde woman leaned out of the passenger window. "Where you headed, honey?" she asked him in a gritty, but somehow syrupy voice that had the accents of the South in it.

  "East," he said, smiling. "Just east."

  "Clamber in," she said, opening the door and sliding over nearer the driver. "I'm Cherry, and this's Hod."

  Hod was a thin, wiry man who smiled at Gilbert with bad teeth. He wore a sleeveless t-shirt with a hole at the sternum, as though he scratched there frequently, a Royals baseball cap, and dark blue, new-looking designer jeans. "We're goin' east till we hit 61, then headin' south," he said.

  "New Orleans," Cherry explained, looking at Gilbert appraisingly, "where we're from."

  New Orleans. The name hit him like a fist. He forced a smile and studied Cherry.

  She was a big, blowzy woman in her late thirties. A whore, Gilbert decided. Just another bitch hot for it. She wore a sleeveless t-shirt like Hod's, but with no scratch hole. There was no brassiere either, so that her breasts drooped hazardously low, the fat nipples hanging like cow's teats, Gilbert thought in disgust. Her eye makeup looked as though it was laid on with a trowel, and the reddest of lipsticks hung like globules of paint on her mouth.

  "We're married, Hod and me," Cherry went on, still watching Gilbert with fascination. "We drive around the country together, all around."

  Gilbert nodded and looked out the window.

  "Some people think that's strange," Cherry said.

  Gilbert shrugged. "Not so strange. Women can drive trucks."

  Cherry laughed. It sounded like a bear gargling. "Oh, hell, I don't drive, I just come along for the ride." She stretched the word out to two syllables.

  "Damn right," Hod responded with a chuckle. "For the ride."

  "Hod gets lonely on the road, don't you, baby?"

  "Damn right."

  "Likes a little lovin' along the way, ain't that right?"

  "That's right."

  "And I don't want him dippin' into any strange wells, you know what I mean, mister? Say, what's your name anyway?" The woman's round closeness made Gilbert uncomfortable. He could feel his thigh sweating where her fleshy hip pressed against his. The seat was wide, so there was no reason for her to be so close to him, and he tried to move over but the armrest pressed against his ribs.

  "You hear me, hon? I asked what's your name."

  "Gil . . . Gilbert," he said.

  "Gilbert. You hot, Gilbert? You're sweatin'. Hod, turn on the A/C, huh?"

  Hod rolled up his window, and Cherry reached across Gilbert to roll up the one on the passenger side. Her breasts rubbed against his belly, and hair the color of old straw and the scent of dying flowers brushed across his face like a veil. He closed his eyes and saw her then, her head resting on his chest, nothing visible in the candlelight but the dark cloud of hair like some thunderhead, exploding across his field of view.

  Mother . . .

  "Honey?"

  He opened his eyes. Cherry was sitting next to him, looking at him. A frown dug creases into her makeup. "You okay? You gone be sick or somethin'?"

  He smiled weakly. "No. No, I'm all right. It must have been the heat." The air conditioner, on now, jetted out cool streams of air. He inhaled sharply to purge the odor of Cherry's stale cologne from his nostrils. "I've been walking all day. Thanks for picking me up."

  "Oh, we're always happy to give people rides," Cherry said. "Especially good lookin' boys like you, Gilbert."

  Hod chuckled appreciatively but didn't say anything. He kept his eyes on the road.

  And suddenly Gilbert knew. Hod was a watcher, and Cherry was a doer. Hod might like to do it too, but he got his main kick out of watching his wife screw other men. Then, after things were all juiced up, Gilbert thought, Hod just might dive in himself, whether into Cherry or into her stud was a moot point.

  Gilbert started asking questions then—how long they had been married (four years), how long Hod had been a trucker (seventeen years), how he got started in that line of work (just liked cars, and trucks were one step up), where he traveled most (the South, but all over the goddang country), what Cherry used to do before she started riding along (beautician), and how long she had been riding with Hod (two years, ever since he brought home a case of crabs from fuckin' around on the road).

  They asked him questions in return, which he answered as interminably as possible, expanding upon his own answers ad infinitum, so that the hours passed, the sun set, and the truck kept moving eastward.

  Cherry was markedly impressed by Gilbert's skill as a raconteur, and Hod too listened raptly to Gilbert's lies. He told them about joining the army when he was eighteen, spending time in Germany and frequenting the Hamburg whorehouses. When Cherry asked him to expound, as he intended she should, he went on to describe countless perversions, from coprophagia to a drug-induced seminecrophilia. Cherry and Hod hung on every word.

  At first Gilbert thought that the longer he could keep them interested in what he said, the farther they would travel before they brought up the subject of a threesome. But the more he talked, and the more excited they became, the more they disgusted him and the more he wanted to do them both.

  At midnight, they stopped for coffee and sandwiches at a diner near Ames, and when they got back in the truck, Gilbert said that he was sleepy and wanted to take a nap. Cherry acted disappointed, but Hod said to go right ahead. "Hell, we slept into the afternoon today, so I'm still rarin' to go. You go ahead and snooze—you too, Cherry, if you want. Then you'll be fulla energy when you wake up." It was the most that Hod had said at one time since he'd picked up Gilbert.

  "I'll just stay awake for a while," Cherry said. "Maybe cuddle up to my honey a little," and she moved away from Gilbert and against Hod, who put a skinny arm around her broad shoulders.

  Gilbert, glad for the rest and wanting to be full of energy when he woke up, though not for the reason Hod intended, leaned his head against the window and closed his eyes. Although he was tired, he feigned sleep in order to hear what Hod and Cherry would say about him. It was a long time before they spoke.

  "You like him?" Hod said softly.

  "Mmm-hmm. You?"

  "Yeah. Yeah, he's okay. He surely knows his way around, don't he? You believe that stuff about fuckin' them girls act like they're dead?"

  "Oh yeah," Cherry said. "They're goddam crazy over in Germany. They're inta all sortsa weird shit."

  "Yeah, but that stuff he said about shittin' on glass and all?"

  "He said he seen it," Cherry said. "Which don't mean he done it."

  "You think he's gonna wanta do it with us?"

  "Hell, yeah."

  "Yeah, once you get that t-shirt off and he gets a load of those titties of yours."

  "You foul-mouthed pussy eater, you." Cherry giggled, and the seat shifted slightly under Gilbert. Bile rose into his mouth, and he swallowed it back down like a lump of bitter fire. "Whyn't you give 'em a squeeze right now, you like 'em so much."

  "I'll rub them if you rub on this a little," Hod countered, and Cherry giggled.

  "Do better'n that, you anxious fucker, you."

  Gilbert heard the sound of a zipper, of bodies shifting, of Hod's bony rear rising and plopping back down onto the seat ag
ain. He heard wet sounds then, licking sounds, and Hod breathing heavily. But the truck stayed on the road like a train on a track, the tires hummed on the blacktop, the motor growled softly, like a resting, restless beast that no one should annoy. Gilbert moved his hand, quietly and cautiously, down the side of his right leg, and patted the knife he had slid down his boot. Touching it made him feel safe and sleepy.

  Gilbert slept. And Gilbert dreamed.

  He dreamed of his mother.

  He dreamed of his mother after his father had left them for the last time and not come back, after he had come into Gilbert's room and whispered to him in the night, said:

  I'm leaving, Gilly. I won't be back this time. You listen to your mother, you do whatever she says. Remember, you're the man of the house now. You'll have to take my place.

  Just do whatever she says.

  Whatever she says . . .

  He was ten. He didn't understand why she was so upset. He would be there for her. He was the man of the house now, his father had said so. But his mother got sadder every day. And stranger. She saw things that Gilbert couldn't see, that he could swear weren't there, but she still said she saw them. She said she saw that his friends were bad, evil, and she didn't want him to see them anymore, to come straight home after school, and he did because he was supposed to do whatever she said. And one night he woke up and found her sitting beside his bed naked, and now his dream remembered that

  his mother sitting naked, her legs spread, beside his bed, and her hand on that part of her where something that he had was missing, and he wakes up and looks at her in the pale glow of his night light, and he sees, behind her, the Mod Squad poster on the wall, so he knows that he isn't dreaming, and he closes his eyes again and wakes up in the morning, and his mother has his breakfast ready and is smiling