Reed waited anxiously as the woman in Four Corners tried to make the connection; the static on the line was so bad tonight he could hardly hear her. He was self-consciously aware of Uncle Ben in the other room, keeping his kids quiet and acting as if this were the most important telephone call that had ever been made, surpassing even that of Bell’s first phone conversation.
“Be just a minute, Reed.” The static popped and crackled under her voice, and she was so incredibly old, so hoarse anyway, Reed thought her undistorted voice must not be much different. Eloise… could that be Eloise? It seemed impossible, but the voice and the manner seemed the same… asking for your first name, then calling you by it, even chatting with you before the other party came on the line. He supposed a lot of rural telephone operators were the same way, but that voice…
“Reed… Reed…” Static filled his name.
“Carol?”
“Just be a minute now, Reed. Say hello to your Uncle Ben for me…”
Eloise had been old when he was a boy. She must be seventy-five, eighty now. There was a loud popping in the receiver and Reed pulled his head away in pain. He wouldn’t be calling Carol very often; the phone system in the county was still impossible.
But that was an excuse. He didn’t want to call Carol. He was afraid if he talked to Carol too often he wouldn’t be able to stick to his decision to stay in the Creeks until he’d solved this thing. Talking to Uncle Ben tonight, seeing the dream house, had started a crack in that resolve. It had made him think of his own house, his particular neighborhood in Denver, where the streets were shaded, all the buildings old, and the people who lived there basically friendly.
Uncle Ben’s dream house… what a travesty. The boards virtually oozed moisture. Death and decay came out of the very ground here—there was just no escaping it. By comparison home life in Denver seemed so normal, so satisfying.
“Reed… Reed…” Eloise? Carol? “Reed, this is Carol. How are you?”
There were tears in his eyes; he couldn’t answer.
“Are you okay?”
“Yeah… sure, I’m fine. How are you?”
Static obliterated her answer.
“Carol? Carol, please… I can’t hear you.” He tried to keep the desperation out of his voice; he knew he wasn’t succeeding.
“I’m here, Reed. I miss you.”
He could barely hear her. “I miss you, too.”
“How’s Michael? Alicia?” The static was getting worse.
“Fine… here…”
“What? Carol… the static…” Damn it, Eloise!
“Have you found out anything?” The static suddenly disappeared. Reed listened intently to her voice. “Will you be out there much longer? I need you home, Reed.”
“I…” Static exploded in his ears. He cried out in pain, dropping the phone. It bounced off the wall; he could hear Carol’s faraway, static-filled voice. He grabbed at the receiver, pulled it quickly to his ear.
Dead air on the other end. Then suddenly, so briefly it might have been an illusion, some distortion of the static… a low crying sound, almost a mewling, such as an animal might make. But Reed felt sure it was a child. Then nothing.
The bear had suddenly gone angry, gone mad… it had happened so quickly he didn’t even have time to puzzle over it. Like when he had been clawing at the old log, and the bees had come, stinging his nose and setting fire to his ears and the softer parts around his eyes. That was the worst time the bear could remember.
But this was worse, far worse. Because the stinging and the fire were inside his head, inside his nose, inside his great tongue and teeth, where he’d never get to them. He clawed at the ground, then at his muzzle, ripping it but not caring, getting some relief from this new outside pain that was easier to manage than his inside pain.
He stopped a moment, suddenly calm despite the raging fire inside, and saw on the edge of his vision the white figure floating into the branches. He turned and charged.
And broke into the brush pile, wood flying everywhere, sharp edges poking him, but they were so far below his awful inside pain he couldn’t think about them. A piece of human cloth hung from a branch. He sniffed at it. Nothing. The human being had not been with it for a very long time.
Something stirred inside him. He did not know why he had attacked the cloth, but there were many things he did now he could not begin to understand. Something stirred inside him. He had thought the cloth a little human being. And one time when he was angry, he had attacked little human beings. Human young. He had this picture inside him. They had made him angry. He had bared his teeth then. He had howled.
As he was baring his teeth now. As he was howling. The pain inside consuming him.
Chapter 19
That night Reed rode into town with his Uncle Ben, going to Charlie Simpson’s store for some beer and conversation. Reed had never pictured himself doing such a thing in his old hometown, but he found himself generally looking forward to it.
As the old truck neared the store, they could see people gathered all around the front, sitting on the edge of the slab or milling in the street. Several men were climbing the side of the building with flashlights, and once the truck was alongside the store, Ben and Reed could see the cause of all the commotion: they were trying to retrieve Hector Pierce from around the chimney.
Jake Parkey saw them from the doorway and yelled drunkenly, “We didn’t even know the old fool could still walk! Said there was a woman with burnin’ hair out there! Can you beat that? Swear old lady Inez’s gonna have to have the old fool locked away!”
Reed and Ben, once determining there was nothing they could do, turned around sadly and drove back to the house. Neither said a word during the trip. Reed couldn’t understand why the news about Hector Pierce had bothered him so much.
He had a terrible feeling he might soon find out.
That night he dreamed about his wife, locked inside a car with their two kids. They were both screaming, beating at the windows for escape. Carol’s hair was on fire.
Then the car became an enormous black bear, gnawing at their remains.
The bear moved quietly through the forest, standing up on its hind legs occasionally and peering through the low-hanging branches. It sniffed the air, and growled deeply.
The bear had an unusual way of carrying its head: high, like a man’s. It sniffed the air again and rocked its head from side to side, as if it were worried, or frightened. It turned and looked behind it, almost as if it thought it were being watched by something else, some other animal, or man. A thing that was man and not man.
It roared. It squinted, as if it too were watching someone. Someone it could not really see, except inside itself.
The eyes it could not see were like a man’s.
“You can’t just leave me alone, Jake!” Doris Parkey clutched at her husband’s patched jacket, careful to avoid his hands and avoid his stinking breath.
“Get away, woman! I got things to do!” Jake lunged toward the door, but Doris had him in a clawlike grip and he could stagger only a few steps. His wife had always seemed to have the strength of ten men when she was really scared. It frightened Jake; it seemed unnatural. The woman had the body of a scarecrow; she had no business frightening him like that. “Leggo me, goddammit!” Then he slapped her.
She let go instantly, rubbing at her face as if to wipe the red away. “There’s things out there, Jake. Bad things! Don’t let me be by myself tonight! You owe it to me. I’m your wife, ain’t I?”
She infuriated him. She sounded like a damned little kid. He made a motion as if to slap her again, but she scrambled out of his way, standing in the corner of the living room trembling, her eyes blurred beneath the tears.