Nursery Tale Page 9

  He pulled the keys from Manny's pants pockets, leaned over the back of the front seat, put his hands firmly on Sarah's shoulders. "Move over, Sarah—move over!" She let go of the steering wheel. "Shit, it won't start!" she said again.

  "Move over, Sarah," he repeated, soothingly now. "We got to get outa here, Sarah."

  She allowed him to slide her—with effort—to the passenger's side. He climbed to the front, put the key in the ignition. And noticed again the heavy, pervasive odor of gasoline. Punctured gas tank, he knew, and he hoped there was enough gas left in the tank to get them to a hospital.

  He turned the ignition on and listened as the Sears Diehard cranked the engine frantically. He heard a heavy, muffled thumping noise from the back of the car; the car seemed to lift slightly at the same time. He checked the rearview mirror. What was all that light? he wondered. Was it sunrise, already?

  The children moved as one away from the flames. They stopped quickly and, again as one, realized that there was no danger at this distance, only light, and warmth, just as the sun produced, and it delighted them.

  But soon they felt pain, too. It arched toward them from within the car like a quickly moving red mist. And, still as one, they fled from it, away from the fence, to the various places within the stand of woods where they slept.

  By sunrise, the fire was dead.

  Chapter 16

  From The Penn Yann Post Gazette, November 4:

  VOLUNTEER FIRE CHIEF KILLED IN FREAK ACCIDENT

  Penn Yann Volunteer Fire Chief Clyde Watkins, 49, his sister, Sarah Kent, 40, and her husband, Manfred Kent, 43, all were killed early Saturday morning in what Police Chief John Hastings calls, "one of the weirdest and most tragic accidents I've seen in recent years." According to Hastings, a car driven by Watkins was traveling north on Sullivan's Road, a little-used gravel road off Route 43, ten miles from Penn Yann, when it apparently sideswiped a pickup truck traveling in the same direction, and then burst into flames. The driver is thought to have been Mrs. Kent, whose body was found between the truck and the car. Manfred Kent's body was found in the back seat of the car. According to Hastings, "After the accident, Mrs. Kent may have left the pickup truck to help her brother and her husband, then was overcome by the intense heat and smoke."

  All three bodies were very badly burned. Identification of Watkins and of Manfred Kent had to be accomplished from dental records.

  Clyde Watkins lived all his life in Penn Yann. After graduating from the Penn Yann Central High School he served six years in the Marine Corps . . .

  Janice McIntyre thought this would be the last warm day of the year. She checked the outdoor thermometer, under the kitchen window; sixty-eight degrees. She tapped it. Sixty-eight degrees. Amazing, November fourth and sixty-eight degrees. She was glad she'd gotten out of the house. She wondered if there was anything she could do in the yard this fine warm day. She remembered seeing Trudy Wentis trimming her rose bushes a couple weeks earlier and she wondered if dogwood trees needing trimming before winter. It was a frivolous idea, she thought.

  She decided then to get a lawn chair from the little tool shed at the back of the yard. She crossed the yard quickly, opened the tool shed door, scanned the inside. No lawn chairs. A riding mower, hedge clippers, a can of turpentine, but no lawn chairs. She remembered—the lawn chairs were in the cellar. "Best to keep the vinyl away from sub-zero temperatures," Miles had explained. Good, practical, understanding Miles.

  She closed the tool shed door. She started for the house.

  She stopped. Her breathing stopped. She heard a scream begin in a remote corner of her consciousness, where her fears lived.

  The tall, dark-haired woman in the second floor window—their bedroom—was shaking her head slowly. No, she was saying. No!

  Janice felt the scream inside her begin to change, to metamorphize. And when, at last, it settled in her throat, and vaulted from her mouth, it became, "Who are you?! Who are you?!"

  And the woman vanished.

  "Hello."

  "Mr. Marsh?"

  "Yes, this is John Marsh."

  "You don't know me, Mr. Marsh. My name is Janice McIntyre. The editor of the local paper gave me your number."

  "Yes?"

  "I called him for some information about a fire that happened out here about fifteen years ago."

  "'Out here'?"

  "Yes, Granada. That's the new housing development—"

  "I know what it is, Mrs. McIntyre. You're calling about the fire at the Griffin house, aren't you?"

  "Yes, I am. Actually, I'm calling about Mrs. Griffin."

  "Rachel?"

  "Yes."

  "Why would you call about her, Mrs. McIntyre? She died in that fire. So did her husband."

  "I know that, Mr. Marsh. I've seen the newspaper story. But what I really need to know—"

  "Fifteen years, Mrs. McIntyre. Why don't we let them rest?"

  "Could you describe her, Mr. Marsh? Could you describe Rachel Griffin for me?"

  "Describe her? What in the hell for, Mrs. McIntyre?"

  "I know it seems odd, Mr. Marsh, but—"

  "It seems kind of perverse, Mrs. McIntyre. Doesn't it seem kind of perverse?"

  "Mr. Marsh, please try to understand. I've seen a woman around here. I've seen her in my house—"

  "Rest, Mrs. McIntyre—that's what Rachel Griffin needs. Rest." And he hung up.

  Janice had been using the kitchen phone; she glanced now, uneasily, at the little breakfast nook. "Rachel?" she whispered. "Are you trying to tell me something, Rachel?"

  She waited silently for only a few seconds. Then, in fear of an answer, she fled the house.

  Fifteen Years Earlier

  Even as she struggled out of sleep, Rachel knew the source of the acrid smell that filled her nostrils. She nudged Paul, asleep beside her. "Paul," she said aloud. "Wake up, Paul."

  "It's too cold," he groaned.

  She shook him. "Paul, wake up!"

  He opened his eyes, raised his head a little. "What's wrong? What's that smell?" He sat up suddenly. "My God . . ." He swung his feet to the floor, stood, grabbed the doorknob tightly, yanked his hand back. He cursed.

  Rachel scrambled out of bed.

  "The doorknob's hot." Paul's voice was trembling. "It's the house, Rachel! It's on fire!"

  Chapter 17

  Timmy Meade stroked the big, short-haired gray cat delicately, uncertain what its reaction might be. "Hi there, kitty cat. You got a name?"

  The cat purred loudly, then lay down and rolled to its back, exposing its belly.

  Timmy winced. Coagulated blood matted the cat's fur around the bottom of its rib cage. "Shit damn, cat!" He touched the long, narrow wound gently; it seemed fresh. The cat rolled away from his hand.

  "Mom!" he called, turning his head toward the house. "Mom!"

  Dora Meade appeared behind a sliding glass door. She pushed the door open slightly. "What is it?" she called.

  "I got this cat out here, Mom, and it's hurt."

  "Cat? What cat?" She opened the door and stepped out to the patio, where her son and the cat were. "That's a stray, Timmy." She made pushing motions in the air above the cat. "Shoo!" The cat continued to purr. "Shoo!" she repeated, and she prodded at it with her foot.

  "It's hurt, Mom!" her son protested.

  "It's a stray, Timothy, and it's probably diseased." She prodded it harder; the cat flipped suddenly to its feet, swiped at her ankle, and, moments later, vanished into the tall weeds at the perimeter of the yard.

  At the same time—in the small stand of woods west of Granada

  "You hear 'em?" said Robin Graham quietly.

  "Yeah," said his twin brother, Robert. "I hear 'em."

  They were on a deer path, although, as they had agreed, it was really a path which had been made by "red Indians" who "for sure were watchin' and waitin' and you gotta be gosh darn extra awful careful 'round those red Indians." They had played the game for years, first in the hallways and elevators of the
ir apartment building in Rochester, New York—before they'd started going to school—then on the railroad tracks, between parked railway cars, near their second home in Albany, then in the abandoned gravel pits just a mile from their third home in Webster, New York. This, they agreed, was by far the very best place to play the game. And so what if maybe they were getting a little too old for kids' games. Because here, in these woods, maybe there really were red Indians. There was something, sure enough. Something that moved, and laughed, and repeated the things you said. Like an echo. Make a noise like a red Indian and, presto, there it was, all around.

  And sometimes, if you looked close enough, you could actually see them. If you blinked just right, or moved your head just right, there they were. For a second. Or a half second. The red Indians on the run. Whoopin' and hollerin' and gigglin'.

  "I bet she's here somewhere," Robin said.

  "Bet who's here?" Robert asked.

  "The one I seen the other night. The one with the nice little boobs."

  And the way the woods closed up around you, you could almost believe you'd gone back a thousand years, because there was no sky with jet trails in it, and no houses and no cars—only the trees, and the dark, and the red Indians all around.

  "You remember," Robin said. "I told you about her."

  "I remember," Robert said.

  "I'm gonna go lookin' for her tonight."

  "No you ain't."

  "I sure am. When you're asleep, so you can't tell Mom." He was whispering.

  "I'll stay awake then. All night long." Robert was whispering, too.

  "You do and I'll tell Mom about that magazine you got."

  "What magazine?"

  "You know what magazine."

  "I burned that up. It was dumb."

  "That's a lie."

  "No it ain't."

  "Quiet!"

  "Don't tell me to be quiet!"

  Robin clamped his hand over his brother's mouth. "I said be quiet! Listen!" He slowly took his hand away from Robert's mouth. "Listen," he repeated. "Can'tcha hear?"

  "Hear what?"

  "The red Indians. They're gone."

  Robert listened a long while. "Yeah," he said at last, wonderingly. "They are. Where'd they go, you think?"

  "I don't know." Robin sounded annoyed. "You think I can read minds or somethin'?" He started down the path that would take him out of the woods. Robert stayed put. Robin stopped, looked back. His mouth fell open, his eyes widened.

  Robert said, "Robin, what's wrong?"

  Robin gulped theatrically. "Jees, Robert—I seen her again, right there." He nodded at an area a couple feet to the right of where his brother was standing. "And she was just like before, Robert. Just like before. Naked! Jees, Robert, didn'tcha see her, didn'tcha see her?"

  Robert grimaced. "I didn't see nothin', you're full of it!" and he glanced uneasily to his right, said, "You're full of it!" again, to which his brother made no reply, and moved quickly down the path and out of the woods.

  Robin followed a half hour later.

  Marge Gellis watched the pen shiver in her hand. She set the pen down next to the sheet of yellow stationery. The sheet was blank. It would stay blank, she realized, because whatever courage, or conviction, she ever possessed had left her long ago (the day she and Norm were married, she knew). And it wasn't as if she had any place to go, any money, or friends, or relatives who could take her in. (Her mother, in that lousy, two-room apartment, certainly wouldn't welcome her, she knew.)

  She was probably very fortunate that she had this place, and Norm; at the age of forty-five and never having been attractive, anyway, and with no talents, she was caught here, and lucky for it.

  She worked the piece of yellow stationery into her hand, as if her hand were a spider gobbling the paper up. She wadded the paper into a tight ball and held it in her fist for a long while.

  To have used it, she thought, to have written the kind of letter to her husband that her impulses told her had to be written would surely have been an act of self-destruction.

  Chapter 18

  Trudy Wentis wondered if it might, after all, have been a mistake to bring Sam back here, despite what the omniscient doctor had told her and Dick. ("It may act as a spur to his eventual recovery. It's where he was found, you know, and there are memories locked up inside him, memories that can't help but crowd back. And, as well, this sort of thing—the abandonment of a child, and he was, obviously, abandoned, is something we don't like to see set aside. If at all possible, we like to see the parents brought to justice, in time. Sam can help us do that.") Because "justice" was fine, and noble, but not at the expense of a child's peace of mind. That price was too high.

  She watched him. He was at the edge of the yard, his back to her; he was very still, and quiet, his eyes apparently on the dark, thick line of woods a half mile off. She pitied him suddenly for the turmoil at work inside him, the forces pulling and pushing him this way and that, and she pitied herself, too, because she had no idea what those forces were, where they originated, or why, and therefore could not help him very much; and, as a consequence, could not help herself.

  "Sam?" she called. He did not turn to answer. He said nothing. "Sam, your lunch is ready." There was no response.

  Evening

  Malcolm Harris tossed the just-used fireplace match into the fire; he stretched his six-and-a-half-foot frame out in front of the fireplace. "Did she go back to sleep okay?" he asked his wife, Shelly, as she came into the living room from their seven-month-old daughter's bedroom, on the second floor. "Or did you have to shove a tit in her mouth?" he went on, and chuckled a little. (He had tried to talk his wife out of breastfeeding. "I know it was all the rage years ago, Shell, but, my God, times change.")

  Shelly chose not to respond directly to his remark. "I had to put her on her stomach," she said. "She was on her back. She's fine, Malcolm."

  "'Malcolm'?" He grimaced, glanced around at her. "Okay—'breast.' Is that better?"

  She smiled slightly. Not really, the smile said. She nodded at the fireplace, at the fire Malcolm had built. It was crackling and pulsing nicely. "May I join you?" she said.

  He got into a sitting position, patted the floor beside him. "Please do."

  She sat beside him, her legs straight, arms behind her, palms flat on the floor. "Do you like it here?" she asked.

  "I like it here. Yes."

  "Enough for a long-term commitment?"

  "How long-term?"

  "Oh, I don't know. Until Serena's grown."

  "That's a long time, Shell."

  "Sure it is. But she needs the security and the stability—we all do."

  Malcolm smiled; he had heard the "security and stability" lecture before. He put his arm around her, pulled her to him, kissed her. "Let's make love," he said.

  "Yes," she whispered.

  Robin Graham listened a full five minutes to his twin brother's deep, slow breathing. When, at last, he had convinced himself that Robert was asleep, he got out of bed and crossed to the closet. He put his hand on the doorknob.

  "I'll tell Mom," Robert said. "If you go anywhere I'll get up and go in her bedroom and tell her."

  "I was just going to go to the bathroom," Robin said immediately, and he moved quickly to the bedroom door; he opened it.

  "I really will," Robert said. "I mean it."

  "I know you mean it," Robin said. "And I think you're just jealous."

  Robert thought for a moment about that. He lifted his head from the pillow. "Why would I be jealous? I ain't got nothin' to be jealous of, 'cuz yer just hallucinatin'!"

  "I'm what?"

  "Hallucinatin'. That means you're seeing things that ain't there—like naked people in the bushes. Whatsa matter, you didn't listen to Mr. Armstrong in English today—"

  But Robin had left the room.

  Robert heard the bathroom door close hard, the lock falling into place. Robin would probably spend a good long time in there, he thought. He'd probably whack off or so
mething, thinking about what he saw.

  Robert laid his head back on the pillow. Sleep came more quickly to him than he had wanted or supposed it could.

  "I'm going to have to cure you of this," said Malcolm Harris.

  "Cure me of what?" Shelly asked, sitting up in the bed beside him. She got a pack of Larks from the nightstand, lit one. "Smoking?"

  Malcolm smiled quickly. "That, too. No, I mean your lack of adventurousness."

  "Adventurousness?"

  "Sure." He paused; her cigarette smelled good; he wished, briefly, that he hadn't quit. "Like—where did we just make love?"

  "Huh?"

  "Where did we just make love? Here, right? In this bed. In this bedroom. And where do you think I wanted to make love?"

  She grinned. "In the refrigerator?"

  He let his head fall back against the headboard; he rolled his eyes as if in exasperation. "Lord Jehovah, Gott in Himmel. No, no, Shelly. Not in the refrigerator. Downstairs! In front of that beautiful fire! That's why I made it, so we could make love in front of it. That's called being adventurous."

  "Uh-huh. It's also called a good way to catch pneumonia. It's cold down there, Mal."

  "Shelly, darling," he began, using his most patronizing tone, "that's why I built the fire."

  She got out of bed, pulled the blanket from it suddenly, wrapped the blanket tightly around her.

  "Hey!" Malcolm protested, quickly covering himself with the top sheet.

  "See, it is cold, isn't it?" Shelly said, grinning, and she left the room.

  The brown suede jacket Robin Graham wore (his mother had stitched his name in green yarn near the cuff of the left-hand sleeve) and the blue jeans and sneakers were not quite enough to keep the cold out. He looked back at the house, shivered, took a deep breath. What was he doing, anyway? He had school in the morning and he had to get up at 5:30 and it was so cold out here and so warm in there, and if dumb Robert woke up and saw that he wasn't in bed and really did go and tell on him...