Fat tool, she thought. Clean them yourself. She glanced back and saw that the Anvil was empty. “I have to go now,” she told Kurt. “Got a lot to do.”
“I’ll hang around and drive you home when you’re done.”
“No, that’s okay. If Lenny saw us…well, you know. Thanks anyway. And thanks for coming by.”
Kurt smiled at her, warmly now. He grabbed his beer and left.
The closing chores were rushed, frenzied; she needed to get out. Her back aching now, she mopped the floor, wiped down the rest of the tables, but the task she hated most of all was cleaning the stage mirror. It wasn’t easy getting all those butt-prints and fingermarks off the glass without leaving streaks. At last, haunted by the smell of Windex, she grabbed her jacket and slipped out, deliberately avoiding the barkeep’s endless offer to drive her home; he had black teeth and was always trying to peer down her blouse. Outside, she zipped up her jacket—the temperature surprised her—and when she was a dozen steps across the empty gravel parking lot, the electric ANVIL sign winked off, and she was submerged in darkness. She walked off the lot faster than she would have, never used to this sightless ritual. The Route was strangely lacking streetlights; she could barely see. Perhaps the state had a mandatory quota of nighttime traffic fatalities and sexual assaults before they could spend the money. From the woods, the rustling of animals mocked her. What if they weren’t animals? She could scream all night and who would hear? The moon watched her from treetops. She drew her collar close and quickened her pace.
The road stretched on, silent, vacant. She hurried without knowing why, stoked by phantom thoughts. It made the short walk home seem miles long, but then the house loomed into view, its traits reduced to a growth of shadow, an extension of the forest’s blackness. Lenny wasn’t home yet—at least the night might end on one good note. She had to slide her way up the front walk to the porch, had to feel for the proper key, and by the time she’d gotten inside, her actions had grown frantic. The deadbolt clicked heavily, and she sighed.
Safe again, she thought, and put aside her purse and coat. Dim light accompanied her as she went through the house and up the stairs, each light flicking on in turn, her hand sliding blindly along the walls for the next switch.
Safe.
She rushed to get ready for bed, leaving her clothes where they fell as she stripped them off. An old white nightgown slid over her body; it tickled her breasts and abdomen, and made her aware of a draft. She crawled under the bedcovers and buried herself.
Safe?
She turned off the bedside lamp. The click of the switch was bizarrely loud, like the snap of a stick or a small bone. Darkness filled the room, throbbing.
From what?
She couldn’t escape the moon. It peered in on her now from the north window, a white, hapless shape in the sky. A minute and her eyes adjusted. Could she actually see the moon moving? Objects in the room began to surface, like apparitions, and the walls looked uneven and seemed to breathe in the faint, radiating moonlight. She tried to figure what it was about this night that frightened her so.
She pushed the thoughts away, forced herself to think of relative things. Lenny was probably on another of his binges; otherwise he’d have been home by now. Sometimes he would disappear for two or three days at a time, for a festival of sex and dope. She guessed he was at Joanne Sulley’s right now, feeding his head in any number of ways. Better her than me, Vicky thought. Another cruel fact of her life, that her only moments of peace came when her husband was with another woman. At least she didn’t care anymore.
Her heart was thumping. She could feel the moon touching her face; it seemed to want to slither down her chest like hands. She gave up trying to divert her thoughts—there was no point. She was afraid and she didn’t know why.
But then she heard sounds.
It was a faint, crisp, faltering sound, like someone walking through the woods very cautiously, so as not to be heard. She lay there for a long time, eyes open in the dark, and she listened. The more she tried to convince herself that it was her imagination, the more apparent the sound became. Someone was in the backyard.
She drew in long, thin breaths. Her feet touched the floor, tensely, reluctantly; the covers poured off her body, and she got up. She stood perfectly still beside the bed, hands poised absurdly in front of her, as if waiting for the dark to lead her away.
Walking almost on her toes, she went to the window. A feeble breeze pushed the drapes out from the wall; the window was open about six inches. She stooped stiffly, then went down to her knees. Her fingers gripped the bottom of the casement, and she looked out.
Darkness flooded the backyard. Trees were ebon streaks, bushes lumps without shape, and the wood line a high black wall. Night had turned the grass to the hue of dark slate. The backyard was nothing but a confinement of shadows, all different shades of black.
The sound came again, but hurried this time—a frenetic snuffling that whispered through the merged shadows of the yard. Then one of the shadows stepped forward and looked up at her.
Vicky’s heart seemed to rise to her throat. Her fingers dug into the casement, whitening the tips. She stared.
There was a figure on the back lawn, an inklike blur with only one feature—it bore the shape of a man. It stood still for several seconds, very still, then shifted its position, took one step back.
And was gone.
— | — | —
CHAPTER SIX
At first, Kurt thought he was dreaming about burglar alarms. That’s what the noise reminded him of—a loud, jarring bell-sound that screamed in his ear and through his head. But then he turned, senseless; his eyes fluttered, and as he gradually came awake, he realized it was only the telephone.
One eye opened on the clock, focusing, and unmentionable phrases came to mind when he saw the time—5:00 a.m. His hand crawled out and took up the receiver.
“Yeah.”
“Kurt, it’s me. We got trouble out at Merkel’s cornfield.”
Kurt rubbed his brow, trying to make his brain work. It took several seconds to figure out that me was Chief Bard. His answer came thick as mud. “Merkel’s, huh? Someone ripped off the scarecrow again, right? Want me to call the FBI?”
“No, funny boy. I want you to get your hand out of your shorts, your ass out of bed, and meet me there in fifteen minutes,” Bard cracked. “I gotta be around when the tow truck arrives.”
Kurt nodded groggily, said, “Right, Merkel’s in fifteen—” But then he thought: What did he…tow truck? “Wait a minute, Chief. Did you say—”
“Just shut up and be there as soon as you can,” Bard cut in. “No time to explain now, Higgins is here. Gotta go.”
Click.
Kurt dropped the phone back in its cradle. He sat up and shook his head, mystified as the edges of sleep drifted off. What do they need a tow truck for at Merkel`s cornfield? For a dumb, misted moment, he wondered if he had dreamed the phone call from Bard.
Getting dressed, he felt like something risen from a lime pit. He staggered out to the Ford, buttoning up one of his father’s old coal shirts. The fresh air cleared his senses, and the cogs turned at last. It must’ve been a car wreck out at Merkel’s, and Bard needed him to help direct traffic. But when he started up and pulled out onto 154, his cop’s curiosity turned dark. His mind flashed a tumult of glaring images, like scenes from a driver’s training film, only these images he had witnessed for real. Cars crushed to twisted hulks, some tipped over, some burning greedily. Windshields spiderwebbed, blown out, safety glass spread across the road like halite. Bloodless faces agape in death, or worse, crisped black, and the endless pools of blood turning brown on the asphalt. Kurt had seen it all before, and he steeled himself as he drove on, knowing that he’d probably see it all again in a few minutes.