Nursery Tale Page 16

  And the idea that something was in the house with her—God knew what; she had searched everywhere and found nothing—was insanity, too!

  She opened her eyes very slowly, in disbelief. The loud, frantic knocking at the front door had been going on for several minutes, she realized.

  She stood. She ran to the door. Unlocked it. Threw it open.

  Larry Meade and Dick Wentis stumbled through the doorway and into the house.

  "Dick . . ." she managed.

  He glanced blankly at her. Larry was holding him up; he was holding Larry up.

  Then, as if succumbing, at last, to the weight of the snow on their backs and shoulders, and the ice crusted around their faces, they crumbled to the floor.

  "Mr. Jenner, this is Janice McIntyre again. Is my husband still there?"

  "Yes, hold on, please."

  A moment's silence. "Janice? What's wrong?"

  "Nothing, really. Just lonely. The storm's still pretty bad out here. I don't imagine you're planning to come home soon, are you?"

  "As soon as I can, Janice. It's bad where I am, too, and from what I hear, it's not going to get any better."

  "Yes, I know; I was just wondering if I should go to a neighbor's house, Miles. The Wentises live practically next door—"

  "No. Please. Just stay where you are, Jan. I realize it's not far, but with the visibility as bad as it is you can become disoriented in a hurry. I know. I went to the car for my cigarettes—the car's just down the street—and damned if I didn't almost get lost on the way back. And if you get lost out there, Jan—"

  She sighed. "Yes. Okay. I'll stay put. What does Jenner have to say about selling the house?"

  "He says there should be no problem. People are really anxious to live in little rural developments like ours, apparently. 'Urban Decay,' and all that."

  She smiled. "I'm glad to hear it, Miles. Thank you."

  A moment's silence; then, "I'll be home when I can, Janice. I love you." And he hung up.

  Chapter 33

  The big Jeep Cherokee Chief—on loan from the Ontario County Sheriff to the Penn Yann police—was doing something that John Marsh believed four-wheel-drive vehicles weren't supposed to do: It was spinning its tires. It was stuck.

  He hit the steering wheel with his open left hand. "Damn it!" He ruefully recalled what Matt Peters had told him:

  "I appreciate your wanting to do this, John. Lord knows we've got our hands full, and if you could get into Granada and help out we'd surely appreciate it. But I gotta warn you, that damned Jeep's a mess—two bald tires, a cracked windshield, half the lights don't work, and the transmission's squirrelly as hell. It's just about ready for the scrap heap, John, and if I didn't know you, and if I didn't think you could handle it, I'd flat out refuse. But the engine's pretty good, and the CB radio works okay, and you can always use the plow if you get into real trouble. Plus we got a report of a couple more people missing out there—Christ!—so I'll let you take it, John. Just remember, please—it's not ours."

  He shoved the transmission into low reverse; he touched the accelerator gently; the truck shifted a little to the left; the tires spun madly.

  "Goddamnit it all!" He hit the steering wheel again.

  He turned the windshield wipers off, then the ignition.

  He glanced at the three quart-sized thermos bottles filled with hot coffee, the checkered blankets piled up in back, the two well-stocked first aid kits. He really had given it his best shot, hadn't he? How was he to know this blizzard was going to be a killer?

  He turned the ignition to ACC and checked the gas gauge. He cursed again. The gauge registered just over half. He'd filled the tank before leaving Penn Yann—ten damned miles on ten or twelve damned gallons of gas; the damned truck was a damned pig! But Matt Peters had warned him about that, too, hadn't he? "You know that these four-wheel-drive vehicles are not exactly what they used to call 'fuel efficient.' And this one, old as it is, and that storm being as bad as it is . . . You'll be lucky if you make it to Granada and back on a full tank, John."

  Marsh remembered laughing at that.

  Now he laughed again. At himself, and his stupidity.

  And, when his laughter ended, he found that his eyes had focused on a squat, dark mound, barely visible through the blowing snow, on the road about ten feet in front of the truck. He realized that someone was out there, lying face down in the snow. He pushed the door open and scrambled from the truck.

  Norm, Marge Gellis wrote, and crossed it out.

  Dear Norm,

  When I was a teenager, my sister would get me dates with boys I had never met. She told me it was more fun to have dates with boys you never met. She was a very pretty girl, the type that becomes a cheerleader, which she was, and was three years older than me. I didn't know at the time that she was doing me a favor by getting me these dates because I could never have gotten them myself. Because I was shy, and not very pretty. But me and these blind dates did have some nice times. And some bad times, too. But my memories of what my sister tried to do for me then are pretty good.

  Norm, I have another blind date.

  She crossed out all of it. Very firmly, and very thoroughly. Damn it, goddamnit! Why had she never learned to write so people could understand her?

  Dick Wentis asked his wife, "Am I all right? And Larry?"

  With great effort, Trudy had managed to get both of them onto the big, L-shaped couch, had stripped their wet clothes from them, and had covered them both with electric blankets set on low. It was all she could have done, she realized now, although they both had displayed symptoms of hypothermia—slurred speech, disorientation—and there were tiny patches of frostbite on the tips of some of their fingers and toes.

  "Yes," she said to Dick. "Larry's still asleep." As she spoke, Larry's eyes fluttered open. "Dick," she continued, "you didn't find Sam?" It was a stupid question, she realized, but she had to ask it.

  He sighed. "We looked . . . everywhere." He took a deep breath. "It was impossible, Trudy. He could—" Another deep breath. "He could have been ten feet away, and we would have missed him." He put his hand on the back of the couch and prepared to sit up. He made it halfway, then lay down once more, breathing heavily. "I'm going out there again, Trudy. Just get some hot coffee into me . . ."

  "No," Trudy said with finality. Her eyes watered. She lowered her head and wept softly. "No," she murmured.

  He stared incredulously at her. "Goddamnit!" He sat up quickly, and saw that Larry had already done what he—Dick—had been planning to do; because, Christ! There were other people who could help.

  Larry gently set the telephone down. He was smiling. "They've found Timmy."

  "Timmy?" Dick said.

  "Yes. Alive. About a mile and a half down Reynolds Road. Some guy in a Jeep . . ."

  "What about Sam? Did they say anything about Sam?"

  Larry answered, as if in apology, "No. They didn't. Just Timmy. I guess he and the guy in the Jeep are stuck where they are till the storm ends. But no, nothing about Sam. I'm sorry." He picked up the telephone again. "I've got to call Dora."

  "Your line's dead, Larry." It was Trudy speaking. He looked blankly at her a moment, then put the phone back down.

  "The storm," Trudy explained. He nodded. She turned to Dick. "Nobody can help us find Sam till it's eased a little—that's what the Sheriff's Department told me."

  "Uh-huh," he said resignedly; then he saw the shattered TV. He looked questioningly at his wife. "There was someone in the house," she told him.

  "Someone in the house? You mean"—he indicated the TV—"someone broke in and—"

  "No. I did that. But there was somebody in the house."

  "Maybe an animal," Dick suggested. "Getting in out of the storm?"

  "I don't know. Maybe."

  "Why didn't you tell me this before?"

  "I checked everywhere, Dick. Every room, every closet—"

  Larry Meade cut in, "Trudy, where'd you put my clothes? I've got to get home.
"

  "In the kitchen, Larry."

  He leaned over and touched Trudy's shoulder; "Thank you for everything," he said. "Sam will be okay, you'll see. He's a resourceful little kid, that's what Timmy says."

  "Yes," she murmured, unconvinced. Larry went into the kitchen.

  Dick took Trudy's hand. "We've got to prepare ourselves, Trudy." He felt her hand stiffen. "Because this is bad. Very bad."

  She looked away and began weeping again, louder.

  "It's a situation," Dick went on, "it's a set of circumstances, Trudy, that no one could have foreseen . . ."

  Larry reappeared suddenly from the kitchen. He had his pants on—they were still damp—and was holding his shirt in his left hand. He had an urgent and quizzical look about him. "What's above your kitchen?" he asked. "Is that a bedroom?"

  "Yes," Larry answered. "It's Sam's bedroom. Why?"

  Larry grinned nervously. "Because there's somebody up there. I can hear them. Somebody's walking around up there."

  It was bad enough not being able to hear the damned biggest storm of the century wailing away outside, Norm Gellis thought. But it was worse standing and watching it through the front window and hearing nothing. Like he'd gone deaf. He quickly drew the curtains shut.

  He called to Marge again and got no answer. "Damned spook!" Hiding from the storm, probably. In a closet or something, shivering and shaking just like her little molded jellos did. Mass, for Chrissakes!

  He had long since stopped hiding the .38 Police Special under the upstairs bathroom sink. He reasoned that if he really needed it, it should be easy to get to; so, for several weeks, he had kept it in the drawer of an end table beside the couch.

  He thought about it now. He thought he would need it before long. And the rifles, too. Because things just didn't feel right. Like there was some vague smell in the air and you had to sniff just right to catch it, but when you did, it made you retch.

  "Marge, for Chrissakes!" He yelled, expecting no answer. He got none.

  Then he realized that he needed some noise in the house. Something to connect him with what was going on in the world. Something that would knife into the damned quiet.

  He picked up the TV's remote control from the arm of his La-Z-Boy; he turned the TV on; he turned the volume up very high.

  It would be good to start packing today, Janice McIntyre thought. The move to another house would seem more imminent if she saw packed boxes here and there, and if this house were half empty. Just the nonessentials, of course—there were lots of those.

  She put her hand on her abdomen. No strenuous packing, though. Nothing heavy. She was convinced that was why Jodie had been born prematurely, because she'd done too much hard physical work the day before. The doctor had said she was wrong, but then the doctor had said other things too: "Jodie's the picture of health, Mrs. McIntyre," was one of the things he'd said. Damn him to hell!

  She stood quietly for a minute to let her sudden anger cool. She was in the kitchen, and bad made a full pot of coffee. She decided now that she didn't want any of it.

  She unplugged the pot.

  She left the kitchen.

  She'd pack the baby's things first, she decided, and she started up the stairs.

  Chapter 34

  Dick Wentis threw open the door to his son's room. He raised the fireplace poker high above his head ("What do you need that for, Dick?" . . . "It's just a precaution, Trudy.").

  But except for the bed and the dresser, a lamp, and some nondescript posters on one wall, the room was empty.

  "It looks empty," Dick whispered.

  Trudy shouldered herself up next to him in the doorway. "What about the bathroom, Dick?"

  He looked to the left, toward the adjoining bathroom. The door was closed. "I don't know," he said.

  She stuck her head into the bedroom. "I always keep that door open," she said. "Otherwise it gets stuffy in there."

  Dick said nothing. He coaxed her into the hallway, stepped into the room, and turned toward the bathroom. Trudy said from the hallway, "Sam might be in there, Dick."

  He glanced at her; she was smiling tentatively. "It's somebody, Dick. Who's to say it's not Sam?" The tentative smile flickered on and off, as if it were a nervous twitch.

  "You had the front door locked, Trudy."

  "Sam has a key, Dick." She paused, glanced at the floor; the nervous smile became stuck on her face, like a grimace. "A key," she repeated.

  A moment later, she shot through the doorway, pushed past her husband, and pulled the bathroom door open. "Sam—" she yelled, as if in an ecstatic greeting.

  But the bathroom was empty.

  She felt Dick's hands on her shoulders. He whispered to her, "The attic, Trudy. Whoever it is in the attic, I can hear him." He led her to Sam's bed, sat her on it, went to the door. "I'm going to go have a look," he told her.

  She said, standing, "Yes, I'll come with you."

  Larry Meade didn't know what he was seeing at first. He was reminded of the time, twenty years before, when a family pet had dragged itself home after being hit by a car, had managed to pull the kitchen screen door open, and had pulled itself across the floor, leaving an irregular trail of blood on the old linoleum. He had found the animal dead on the cellar stairs.

  That is what he thought of now, seeing the thin, ragged trail of blood that led from the kitchen, to the hallway, and then—in little fits and starts on the thick rug—up the stairs to the second floor.

  He thought, cursing himself, even as he thought it, Jesus, Dora's had her damned period!

  He heard her voice from upstairs; "Who are you?" it said.

  "Dora?" he called. "What's wrong?"

  "Who are you?" the voice repeated. "What do you want?"

  He noticed for the first time that it was getting dark in the house. He reached for the light switch at the bottom of the stairs and called again, as he flicked it on, "Dora?"

  The house stayed dark.

  "Damn it!" he whispered. "Are you okay, Dora?" he called. "Dora, they've found Timmy. Some guy in a Jeep out on Reynolds Road found him." He waited. He heard giggling.

  He leaned over and fingered some of the blood on the stairs; it was just starting to coagulate. He straightened. "Dora, is somebody up there with you?"

  "What do you want?" he heard again.

  He started up the stairs. "Dora?"

  And that is when they appeared. At the top of the stairs. Instantly. As if they had been there all along and the rapid change in the light had finally revealed them. Two boys. Three girls. Naked, blank-faced, blue-eyed, dark-haired. And each so exquisitely, so perfectly, and so impossibly beautiful that Larry gasped upon seeing them:

  He stumbled backward, groping for the knob on the front door. He found it and threw the door open.

  Dearest Norm. Marge Gellis crossed it out furiously.

  Dear Norm. She crossed that out, too.

  She realized suddenly that she hadn't yet decided exactly how she was going to do it, what she had to do, and that was very important, because she wanted no pain. Only a slow and peaceful separation. Something pleasant.

  Norm,

  You won't understand. I won't even ask you to understand.

  She crossed it out. She reached to her right to turn on the desk side lamp. The lamp wouldn't work. Mechanically, out of habit, she jiggled it a little. The bulb flickered briefly, then lit.

  When he was a young man, Dick Wentis put in several years as an insulation contractor. It hadn't worked out because his business sense was on a much lower level than his ambition, but the work had helped him to overcome a weak feeling of claustrophobia, because he had to make his way through attics which, in new homes, sometimes allowed no more than two or three feet of clearance between ceiling and floor.

  He thought of those years now as he positioned a stepladder under the attic access panel in the closet of the master bedroom. He said to Trudy, as he climbed the stepladder, "It has to be an animal. Maybe it got in through the roof vents, I d
on't know." He seemed irritated. He put his hands on the panel; he pushed hard. "Damn it!" he breathed.

  "What's the matter?" Trudy asked; she was holding the stepladder.

  "It's stuck," he answered. He took his hands from the panel. "This is fucking stupid!" he said. "No," Trudy said. "It isn't."

  He glanced questioningly at her.

  "Sam's gone up there before," she told him quietly. "A couple times. I don't know, I guess it's like a fort or something—" She stopped; she was making foolish excuses for him, she realized. Excuses Dick could not possibly accept.

  "You never told me," he said.

  "I didn't know what your reaction would be, Dick."

  He exhaled, "We'll talk about it later." Then, abruptly, he put his hands on the panel once more. He pushed. The panel gave easily. He slid it to one side. Bits of gray, cellulose insulation drifted onto his hair and shoulders. Some got into his right eye and he rubbed the eye angrily.

  He took another step up the ladder and stuck his head into the dark attic. He waited a moment; then, "I'll need a light, Trudy."

  "Can you see anything?"

  "No, that's why I need the light."

  "Dick, this is stupid, like you said. How could he have gotten up there without me knowing? And besides, that stuff, that insulation, would be all over the closet. Maybe we should both go looking for him outside again, Dick—"

  He turned his head sharply to look at her, his facial muscles tight. "I can hear him, Trudy, I can hear him breathing."

  "My God!"

  "Please get me the light. Now!"

  She went hurriedly into the bedroom, unplugged one of the bedside lamps. "Dick," she called, "this cord's not going to be long enough."

  He called back, "There are a couple of extension cords in the kitchen. Get me the longest one you can find."

  "Yes," she said, and she set the lamp down and left the room.

  Dick stuck his head into the attic again. He listened.