Ash Wednesday (24 page)

Christine and Wally were sitting on the bed eating cereal and milk, watching the TV on the dressing table. "Oh, what the hell is
this?
" Brad yelled. "What's the TV doing in
here?
"

"I brought it in," Christine answered, her mouth full of Cheerios.

"
Why?
"

"He is not going to watch TV with that
thing
right beside him. It took all the guts I had just to bring the goddamn TV in here, so just don't start!"

Wally, one eye on the TV, one eye on his mother, trembled imperceptibly.

"Oh, shit, all right. Just turn it down is all. I turned it down for you guys last night, remember?" He twisted the knob so that the Roadrunner's sharp beep was barely heard, and walked back into Wally's room, throwing himself on the bed.

"I'm not through," Christine added, following him into the tiny room and closing the door behind her.

"Oh, Christ, let me sleep."

"Sleep my ass. You think I slept last night?"

"Why not?"

"Jesus, what is
wrong
with you, Brad? You act like you
like
all this."

"Maybe I do. Old Joe's a pretty good guy."

"Well, we're leaving."

"Who's
we?
"

"Wally and me. You too, if you—"

"Bullshit you are."

"What do you—"

"You're not leaving, so shut up."

"You can't
keep
us here."

"No, but I can come after you. And you won't like it when I catch you."

She was quiet then, her jaw shaking the more she tried to hold it still. "Please," she finally said. "Please let's go."

"Please," he repeated, the anger gone from his tone. "That's more like it. More polite. That's what you should've done in the first place. Can't catch flies with vinegar, Christine. Am I right?"

"Yes."

"What do you use instead?"

"Honey." It was almost a whisper.

"Got to be
nice
to me, don't you. You gonna be nice?"

She nodded. "I'll be nice."

He lifted his hips and tugged off his underwear. "You show me how nice you can be and then maybe I'll be nice too, huh?"

Lacing his hands behind his head, he watched her as she shuffled to the door and opened it an inch. "Wally," she called feebly, "don't come in here for a while. . . . Wally?"

" 'Kay," he muttered, lost in the antics of Elmer
Fudd
, who had just shot Daffy Duck for the fourth time in two minutes.

Christine closed the door and started to unzip her jeans. "Uh-unh," said Brad. "Don't need to do that. Sing to me, bright bird. Make your throat warble. Understand?"

She did, and did as he wished. Afterward, she sat on the floor, her back resting against the bed. "Now can we leave?"

"
Please?
"

"Please."

Brad looked up at the ceiling, sighed, and smiled. "Evacuation of one's home is a pretty high price to pay for a blowjob."

"Brad—“

"And a second-rate blowjob at that."

"Come on, you said that—"

"You look at it one way, though, and there's no such thing as a second-rate blowjob."

"
Stop it!
" Christine's voice choked with rage. "You're a
bastard!
"

"You knew that when you moved in with me."

"I am
leaving!
" She began to get to her feet, but Brad reached out, grasped her arm, and pulled her across his body until her face was only inches from his own.

"And go
where?
" he snarled in a low voice. "Do
what?
You gonna be a model in New York, Chris? Or an actress in Hollywood? You gonna find yourself some rich asshole who comes twice a year and be his mistress?"

"Let go of my arm—"

"Or maybe you're too chubby for that. Maybe you could find a job as a receptionist, huh? Oh, but for that you have to be well spoken. What about a waitress, then, or a salesclerk? But for that you've got to be friendly and be able to add, and you're not so hot at either of those. What about a shoe factory, then? You know, I think you'd be
perfect
for that. Loading boxes in a shoe factory. And it so happens that there's a job like that. For you. Right here in Merridale."

"Stop it." She was crying now. He had made her cry.

"A job for Christine Grimes."

"I
work
there, I work there, that's where I work," she babbled.

"For Christine Grimes
Meyers
."

She stopped dead, but the tears kept gliding down her cheeks. "What?"

"I have to spell it out for you? M-e-y-e-r-s, Meyers.”

“You . . . want me to
marry
you?" Her eyes narrowed distrustfully.

"What's wrong? Wasn't it tender enough?" He touched her hair, let his finger run down the curve of her cheek to rest on her lips. "I give you a pretty rough time, don't I?" He asked gently, and she nodded.

"Do you . . . you really want to marry me?"

He fell back onto the bed, pulling the sheet over himself. "I don't know what I want. I just don't want you to leave, that's all. Maybe I want you to marry me."

"Now it's
'maybe
’." Her tone grew sharp again. "Remember what we said when you came here," he cautioned, "No promises."

"Sure." She stood up and walked to the door.

"You're staying. Right?"

She opened the door and walked across the hall into their bedroom, where the Smurfs were working their way to the next commercial. He followed, and through the door saw her sit on the bed and pick up a bowl of soggy cereal. It was answer enough.

Then Brad walked into the living room. Joe was there. "Waiting for me, huh?" he said. He walked over to the figure and raised his hand so that his finger seemed to touch the grizzled cheek. "Don't worry, old-timer. I won't desert you.”

"Business as usual," Beth said, hanging up the phone. "They'll have classes Monday, though Reed isn't sure if any
kids'll
show up or not."

"They'll be there. The ones who didn't leave." Jim Callendar sipped at his second cup of coffee. "Everybody wants to get back to normal. Did he say what the school was like?"

Beth nodded. "He and Doug Bryant and
Harv
Kimball visited each school in the district. Nothing in the buildings, but a few of those . . .
things
on the grounds." She laughed uncomfortably. "Indians, he said they looked like. You believe that? Indians."

He shook his head. "Incredible. The town is close to the old
Conewago
Trail. But think how many years ago that must have been."

"I can't believe any of this," Beth said, sitting across from him. "I keep thinking I'll wake up soon."

"It's no dream. Yesterday was no dream." The two of them had driven downtown around noon. It had been like something out of a Bosch landscape. Bodies littered the streets and sidewalks, only half visible in the bright sunlight. The town square had been an island of comfort in comparison, despite the worried concern etched on all the faces. Beth had talked to her acquaintances, Jim standing beside her, but the withdrawn, alien attitude that he had previously felt in the presence of the townspeople had ebbed, as though an emotion stronger than the distaste they felt toward him now somehow made them brothers. He saw Bill Gingrich across the square, talking with a group of people, all of whom carried either cameras, tape recorders, or notepads. When Gingrich noticed him, he beckoned, but Jim only waved, ignoring the summons. They had stayed in the square for nearly an hour until Beth, white-faced, returned to his side.

"Let's go," she had said. "I just want to go home."

They had spent the rest of Friday in their house, the sheer curtains in the windows admitting light but nothing else. They played cribbage, watched television (even the network interruptions that grew more frequent as the day faded), and read. Jim tried to work on some card verses, but was unable to concentrate. His thoughts were implacably on his son, and they remained there through Friday night into Saturday morning, hung poised over the strong black coffee, seemed to fill not only his mind, but the world. He
had
to go out to where the accident had occurred, down in the brushy hollow past which he had never driven since that day. He had to see if Terry was there. And to see how he looked.

"I'd like to drive around a bit today," he told Beth, rinsing his coffee cup in the sink.

She frowned. "Why?"

"History's being made," he answered glibly. "I'd like to see the town, see how far this thing extends."

"They've got roadblocks up now. To keep out the curiosity seekers."

"They know me," he answered, with a trace of that warped pride that she hated so. "Besides, I have identification." His mouth curled. "Want to come?"

"No. "

"You can't stay shut up forever." His urging was halfhearted, perfunctory.

"That's good, coming from you." She bit her lip. "I'm sorry."

"No, you're right."

"When are you going?"

He shrugged. "Now," he said, and picked up the car keys.

~*~

Christ, thought Thornton, what the hell am I getting into? He looked out the window and down at the mottled patchwork of field and forest, and sighed. Clyde Thornton, Ghost Breaker. It was pretty funny at that. Of all the people in the Federal Disaster Management Agency, he gets stuck with this Merridale mess. When he'd been appointed Director for Region I he'd been delighted. Floods, hurricanes, tornadoes, sinkholes, mud slides—they were the problems of the boys in the South, the Midwest, California . . . Hell,
nothing
happened in the Northeast except an occasional snowstorm. Of course, there were nuclear plants, but they were everywhere, and the NRC boys could take care of anything in that department except for maybe a meltdown.

Or a bunch of ghosts.

"You're our troubleshooter, Clyde," Weinberg had told him yesterday. "I know you've been a little down because you haven't had all that much to do [Thornton had almost laughed at that], but this Merridale thing should keep you busy." Thornton had then been briefed on the phenomenon and its possible causes. There was the Thorn Hill Nuclear Station a few miles away, the management of which swore up and down and left and right that there had been
no
incident, no near miss or unannounced bit of sloppiness that could have released any additional radiation into
Merridale's
air. Norton Chemical was another possible industry source. Though thirty miles northwest of Merridale, it did some controlled dumping into the Susquehanna River, which ran four miles west of the town.

"Wait a minute," Thornton had said halfway through the briefing. "It's really a consideration that
industry's
at fault here?"

The wiry little scientist who'd been interrupted gazed back deprecatingly. "Would you suggest a supernatural cause, Dr. Thornton? We don't deal with witches' curses and zombies here. No matter how this phenomenon has manifested itself, it must have a natural explanation. Now, perhaps that explanation will change the way we view certain data, but it
will
be
natural
. If the reports from Merridale are true—and that is what you and your team will be sent to find out—then apparently some form of energy exists after what we think of as life has fled the body. If this is the case, then there is a natural reason for why this energy has become visible, and a reason for why at this particular place."