Something strange was going on; something damned strange.
Next door, Ken Margosian emerged from his house whistling, and sauntered among his rose bushes with a pair of scissors, selecting blooms. "The roses are better than ever this year," Erwin remarked to him.
Margosian, who was usually a neighborly sort, didn't even look up.
Erwin crossed to the fence. "Are you okay, Ken?" he asked.
Margosian had found a choice rose, and was carefully selecting a place to snip it. There was not the slightest sign that he'd heard a syllable.
"Why the silent treatment?" Erwin demanded. "If you've got some bitch with me@'
At this juncture, Mrs. Semevikov came along, a woman whom under normal circumstances Erwin would have happily avoided. She was a voluble woman, who took it upon herself to organize a small auction every Festival Saturday, selling items donated by various stores to benefit children's charities. Last year she had attempted to persuade Erwin to donate a few hours of his services as a prize. He had promised to think about it, and then not returned her calls. Now here she was again, after the same thing, no doubt. She said hello to Ken Margosian, but didn't so much as cast a glance in Erwin's direction, though he was standing five yards from her.
"Is Erwin in?" she asked Ken.
"I don't think so," Ken replied.
"Joke over," Erwin piped up, but Ken hadn't finished.
"I heard some odd noises in the night," he told Mrs. Semevikov, "like he was having a brawl in there."
"That doesn't sound like him at all," she replied.
"I knocked on his door this morning, just to see that he was okay, but nobody answered."
"Stop this," Erwin protested.
"Maybe he's at his office," Mrs. Semevikov went on. "I said stop it!" Erwin yelled. It was distressing him hearing himself talked about as though he were invisible. And what was this nonsense about a brawl? He'd had a perfectly peaceable The thought faltered, and he looked back towards the house, as a name rose from the murk of his memory.
Fletcher. Oh my God, how could he have forgotten Fletcher?
"Maybe I'll try him at his office," Mrs. Semevikov was saying, "because he promised me last year-"
"Listen to me," Erwin begged.
"He'd donate a few hours-2'
"I don't know why you're doing this, but you've got to listen."
"to the auction."
"There's somebody in my house."
"Those are beautiful roses, by the way. Are you entering them in the flower competition?"
Erwin could take no more of this. He strode towards the fence, yelling at Ken, "He tried to kill me! " Then he reached over and caught hold of Ken's shirt. Or at least he tried to. His fingers passed through the fabric, his fist closing on itself. He tried again. The same thing happened.
"I'm going crazy," he thought. He reached up to Ken's face and prodded his cheek, hard, but he got not so much as a blink for his efforts.
"Fletcher's been playing with my head."
A wave of panic rose in him. He had to get the meddler to fix his handiwork, now, before there was some serious damage done. Leaving Ken and Mrs. Semevikov to their chatter about roses, Erwin headed back up the path to the front door. It looked to be closed, but his senses were utterly unreliable, it seemed, because two strides carried him over th( threshold and into the hallway.
He called out for Fletcher. There was no reply, but the meddler was somewhere in the house, Erwin was certain of it. Every angle in the hallway was a little askew, and the halls had a yellowish tinge. What was that, if not Fletcher's influence?
He knew where the man lay in wait: in the living room, where he'd held Erwin prisoner in order to toy with his san ity, His fury mounting-how dare this man invade his house and his head?-he marched down the hallway to the living room door. It stood ajar. Erwin didn't hesitate. He stepped inside.
The drapes were drawn to keep out the day, the only source of light the fire that was now dying in the grate. Even so, Erwin found his tormentor at a glance. He was sitting cross-legged in the middle of the floor, his clothes shed. His body was broad, hirsute, and covered with scars, some of. them fully six inches long. His pupils were rolled up beneath his eyelids. In front of him was a mound of excrement.
"You filthy animal," Erwin raged. His words drew no response from Fletcher. "I don't know what kind of mindtricks you've been playing," Erwin went on, "but I want you to undo them. Right now. Hear me? Right now!" Fletcher's pupils slipped back into view, much to Erwin's satisfaction. He was tired of being ignored. "And then I want you-"
He stopped to let out a groan of disgust as Fletcher reached out and took a handful of his own shit, then mashed it into his groin. Erwin averted his eyes, but what his gaze found in the shadows was infinitely worse than Fletcher's scatological games.
There was a body there, lying with its face to the wall. A body he recognized.
There were no words to express the horror of that moment; nor its terrible clarity. He could only let out a sob, a wracking sob, that went unheard by the masturbator. He knew why now. He was dead. His wizened body was lying in the corner of the room, drained of life by Fletcher. Whatever consciousness he still possessed, it was clinging to the memory of the flesh, but it had no influence in the living world. He could not be seen or heard or felt. He was a phantom.
He sank down in front of Fletcher and studied his face. It was brutish beneath the beard, the brow louting, the mouth grotesquely wide.
"What are you?" he murmured to himself.
Fletcher's manipulations were apparently bringing him close to crisis. His breathing was fast and shallow, and punctuated with little grunts. Erwin couldn't bring himself to watch the act concluded. As the grunts grew louder he rose d made for the door, passing through it, down the hall and ut into the sunlight.
Mrs. Semevikov had gone on her way, and Ken was heading back into his house with an armful of roses, but there was a thin, high-pitched whining sound coming from nearby. Something is in pain, Erwin thought, which fact curiously comforted him, to know that he was not the only soul suffering right now. He went in search of the sufferer, and didn't have to look far. It was the rose bushes that were giving off the whine; a sound he assumed only the dead could hear.
It was a poor compensation. Tears, or rather the memory of tears, fell from his remembered eyes, and he quietly swore an oath that even if he had to do a deal with the Devil to possess the means, he would somehow revenge himself on the beast that had taken his life. Nor would it be quick. He'd make the bastard suffer so loudly the grief of a million roses could not drown out his screams.
The Friday of Festival Weekend was always a slack day at the doctor's.
Early next week there'd be a waiting room full of folks who'd put off a visit because they had too much to do, their fingers turned septic, their constipation chronic. But today only those in extreme discomfort, or so lonely a trip to see Dr. Powell was a treat, came in.
None of the patients made any mention of recent events to Phoebe, though she didn't doubt that every man, woman, and child in Everville was by now steeped in the scandal. Even Dr. Powell kept his remarks to a minimum. He was sorry to hear about Morton's death, he said, and would perfectly understand if she needed to take a few days off. She thanked him, and asked if she might perhaps leave around two, so she could drive over to Silverton and meet the funeral director. The answer, of course, was yes.