Bad Things (20 page)

“Adults do screw up their kids, though,” Rick ventured.

“Sure, of course. But I learned that instead of blaming your problems on other people, you look at them as your responsibility. To overcome them is your challenge. It's the only way to grow. At least the only way I could. Your yogurt's melting.”

Rick looked down and saw that his hand was shrouded in melting chocolate. Absently he wiped it off, then tossed the remains of the cone and the napkin in the trash can across the sidewalk.

“Good shot.”

“Go on” he said. “Please.”

“I'm not boring you?”

“No! The opposite.” The things she'd said made him want to tell her about Robin; he was bursting to spill his guts. But he didn't dare. “You were saying?”

She smiled uncertainly. “Oh, well, I just decided to take responsibility for my own self-destructive tendencies, and I overcame them.” She smiled. “For the most part, anyway. In the process, I went back and got my O.D., took some assertiveness training, and tried to get it together.”

“From the looks of things, you've more than succeeded.”

She blushed. “Thanks. It's taken ten years and lots of hard work to get where I am now. I opened my own office last year.” Her nose crinkled as she grinned. “I'm pretty proud of that.”

“You should be.”

“My mother used to call me ‘Little Audrey,' like in the comics?” She made a face. “And my dad called me his calico kitten.”

“That's nice,” Rick said, confused.

“Yes, but I took it to mean I was powerless.”

“I had a cute little marmalade kitten,” Rick said. “He grew into a big bruiser who takes crap from no one.” He smiled. “Especially me.” He took her hand, and she immediately twined her fingers among his.

“I like your attitude, Rick.” She turned on the bench to face him. “So what about you? Any brothers or sisters?”

“A brother,” he said, “Deceased.”

He used discretion as he talked, describing his twin's handicap, touching on the greenjacks, mentioning that he was a gullible kid who believed the stories and, hence, was teased by his embittered brother. When he got to the part about his parents' murder, he only said that it happened. “I was afflicted with Ewebeans after that,” he finished.

She chuckled. “That sounds like a horrible disease.”

“It was. Is. You didn't see her, but Aunt Jade still lives in the house. She keeps poodles, and when they die, she gets them stuffed.”

“So how'd you turn out so normal?” she asked.

He laughed, long and genuinely. “Boy, have I got you fooled.”

“Well, then, I guess I'll just have to work on figuring you out. You look tired, Rick.”

He glanced at his watch. It was already past ten. “I don't want to go home yet,” he said conspiratorially. “Do you?”

“No. There's a jazz club a couple miles from here down on the boulevard. They serve gourmet coffee. I'm not up to any more drinking,” she said apologetically.

“Me either. But jazz sounds fine.”

On the way to the car he stopped to call home. Carmen answered, said everything was fine, did he have his key, and have fun. He'd had one phone call, a person, sex unknown, named after a state, who wanted Rick to call back.

They stayed out till midnight, talking like old friends. Then Audrey declared morning would come too soon and she drove him back to his house, pulling all the way up the long driveway and turning the car around in the wide parking area in front of the garage.

The lawn was crawling with greenjacks, and Rick's stomach twisted so hard, he thought he was going to vomit, even though he still sat in the passenger seat.
You
have
to walk through them. Do you want this woman to think you're nuts? Remember, they can't hurt you.

“Rick, what's wrong?”

“Nothing,” he told her. “I, ah, just realized I have work tonight. I need to take five more showers and write my column before noon tomorrow.”

“Poor guy,” she said from the driver's seat. “It's a dirty job you have to do.”

They laughed, then slowly, slowly, leaned together, eyes locked, lips trembling. Anticipation wove through his body, made it tingle deep in his abdomen and long into his limbs. Hour-long seconds passed, deliciously, then their lips met and it was a first kiss, chaste, gentle, and warm. Exciting.

After, they pulled back enough to gaze at each other. Audrey's nostrils were flared and her pupils were so big, they looked perfectly black.

Rick took this as a good omen. “Can I see you again?”

“I was afraid you'd never ask,” Audrey murmured.

They agreed on dinner and a movie for Friday night, then Rick reluctantly got out of the car. She waved and drove away.

Thomas, Thomas, Thomas,
he thought back.
Thomas, Thomas, Audrey, Thomas.
By the time one more Audrey slipped between the Thomases, he was at the door without breaking into a run.

Shelly was in the living room watching an ancient Godzilla movie. “Hot date, Dad?”

She was still in a good mood. “Dakota's sister, Audrey. Dakota sent her to see how we're doing. She's pretty nice.”

“Yeah, I bet!” Shelly teased him for another minute, then brought him up-to-date on her new job, which she'd begin tomorrow, the brands of makeup they carried, and all sorts of other things he didn't actually care about, but loved because it meant he was back in communication with his daughter. He listened attentively, noting that not once did she demand any material gifts. Tomorrow, he decided, he'd call the cable company. One could only do without
Southpark
for so long.

Within a half hour she wound down, and together they closed up the house and went upstairs. Still energized from his time with Audrey, Rick managed to install two of the shower heads, one in each upstairs bath, and test them. Stretching luxuriously in his bed, enjoying the warmth and the way it felt against his neck and back, he thought that in the morning he'd switch them for the others, and test those before doing the column. “Life is good,” he told the ceiling.

Beside him, Quint flattened himself out to soak up every square inch of warmth his body would allow. The cat always seemed to know exactly where the warm spots were, and it occurred to Rick that he'd read somewhere that they could see infrared-heat waves.
Cats can see things we can't.
That's what Dakota had said when he urged Rick to see if Quint could see the jacks. He couldn't get to sleep because he had Audrey O'Keefe on the brain. Part of it was delightful, part of it wasn't. If they continued to hit it off, what would she say if he told her about the jacks? That would be the end of it: Nobody wanted to date a psycho.

“Okay, cat, let's take a walk.” He rose, slipped a robe on over his shorts and T-shirt, then scooped up the cat, holding it against his chest so it was looking over his shoulder.

The house waited silently as he walked quietly down the front stairs, then tiptoed across the living room, praying that Jade's poodles wouldn't hear him. Without pausing to think twice, he slipped between the draperies and the picture window.

They were out there in the grass beneath the oak, doing their endless dances. Slowly they became aware of him and turned to watch him as he watched them, a few moving closer to the window.

Behind him, muffled noises from Jade's room startled him. He listened a moment, and realized that the old lady was talking in her sleep, giggling and moaning, sounding like she was—
how disgusting
—making love. The cat growled low in its throat, prompting Rick to scratch its ears to calm it. He waited, but Jade continued to make her obscene sounds.
To hell with her.

The cat didn't react this time, but its ears were aggressively forward, its attention focused on Jade's folding doors.

Several greenjacks melted together and oozed up, wraith like, just outside the window. “Okay, kitty,” Rick whispered as he turned the cat toward the window. “Look at this.”

Two seconds passed before the cat reacted, then Quint's muscles tensed, its claws sinking into Rick's arm. Ears back, the cat growled, not low and menacing this time, but the high-pitched panicked sound of a frightened animal. The wraith shifted toward the left, and the cat's head moved with it.

Suddenly the cat hissed and tore Rick's flesh, frantic to get away. “Jesus,” he whispered as he clamped one hand on the front paws, and trapped the back under his arm. He was barely able to keep from yelling as the feline's hind legs kicked his side through the thick robe.

“Shhh!” He slipped out of the drapes and moved to the stairs and up, the sounds of Jade's now loud moaning mixing with the cat's whining snarl.

Finally he entered his room, shutting and locking the door before letting the cat free. Quint hissed again, then disappeared beneath the headboard of the bed.

 

Rick finished his column with an hour to spare, which was fortunate since he hadn't had time to hook up his fax, so at eleven-fifteen he drove downtown and had it sent from a stationery store.

After that, not quite ready to return to the house, he cruised through Santo Verde. The older business and residential areas had changed very little, retaining their old-fashioned, moderately well-to-do charm, but the outskirts of town had grown tremendously between the new housing tracts, condos, and businesses. As he passed the mall, he stifled the urge to stop in and see how Shelly was doing—she'd hate that. When she'd come to the study this morning to tell him good-bye—she'd conned Hector into giving her a lift—she'd still been in her newfound good mood, and he hoped it was going to last. If it did, he decided to buy her an inexpensive new car for her birthday next month.

As he drove away from the new area and back toward the house, he turned off on Cuerpo Podre and took the long, winding avenue until he arrived at the tall wrought-iron arches of Santo Verde Cemetery. He paused, then turned in, deciding to pay a visit to his parents' graves.

The cemetery, which occupied a series of small rolling hills, looked much as he remembered it, filled with oaks and pines and oleander hedges, very green, very peaceful. At least in the daylight hours.
I'll bet this place is infested with greenjacks at night.
He smiled grimly. Since the cat's reaction last night, he couldn't help thinking that maybe he really was seeing something, and had decided that after he got to know Audrey better, maybe he would ask her about variations in people's vision. Very subtly, of course.

He pulled over and parked the car, then plodded up a steep pathway. Soon he reached the oldest section of the grounds, The Garden of Souls, a place rife with looming crosses and pensive angels. Here and there stood ornate family mausoleums dating back to the early nineteenth century. They constituted California's version of ancient history.

Rick wandered among the monuments, reading the names and dates, noting signs of earthquake damage, perversely wondering how far down the ground squirrels burrowed.

Strolling down the other side of the hill, he entered The Eternal Playland, one of the children's burial areas. Some of the graves here were new, and one even had a Lucite covering that protected a color portrait of the dead child's smiling face. Chilled, he averted his eyes and continued quickly along the narrow path until he reached The Forest Eternal, an older area containing the Piper plots.

Despite his other fears, Rick had always enjoyed coming here, even as a child. He'd favored it over the regular park because everyone here was . . . quiet. He smiled to himself. And though he himself had no intention of ending up here—cleansing flames and a brisk ocean breeze were his preferences—he especially liked this area because of the decidedly nonreligious monument central to the family domain. Like the angels and cherubs and obelisks elsewhere in the park, it was a marble sculpture, but this, chiseled by an Italian artist friend of Conlin's, was a Scottish piper, complete with bagpipes and kilt. As a child, Rick came here often to sit at its feet. Sometimes he talked to it, pretending it was his ancestor Thomas. Who knew? Maybe it was. He found he'd still like to think so.

He stood before the piper and studied the strong taciturn features shadowed under its tam. It stared back, bearing little resemblance to any of his relatives, living or dead. He stuck his hands in his pockets. “How's it hangin', Thomas?” Belatedly he looked around to make sure no one heard him, and was relieved to see that only the ghosts, if any were around, might have heard. Secure in his isolation, he approached his brother's grave. “Robin Emeric Piper,” he read aloud. “Born 1965. Died 1981. Beloved nephew.”

Aunt Jade, of course, had chosen the epitaph. “Beloved nephew” was putting things mildly.

Looking at the grave had little effect on Rick. He didn't miss his brother, hadn't shed a tear when he'd died. He was numb, unfeeling, where Robin was concerned. Beneath the numbness there was something else, something he didn't like to think about.

Dakota's voice intruded:
Of course you hated him.

Maybe . . .
Was he really as cruel as I remember?
he wondered. Certainly he liked to tease, but Rick had been so . . . so touchy. So oversensitive.

Slowly he moved to the Celtic cross ten feet behind Robin's marker. PIPER was chiseled into the cross arm, and at its base were the words
TOGETHER IN LIFE AND IN HEAVEN.
Below the cross, to either side, were two flat bronze markers, one for Franklin Richard Piper, 1940–1975, the other for Grace Dorian Piper, 1946–1975.

As Rick knelt in the grass between the markers, hot tears sprang to his eyes. Flowers, he thought, he should have brought flowers.

 

 

They died during the dog days, on a night so hot and humid that the water coolers did nothing but release warm steam through the ceiling vents. They were off now, and the night was quiet except for the soft whirring of the ceiling fan.

Since moving into Carmen's old room in July, Ricky, no longer having to contend with his brother's tricks, or oak limbs tapping on the window glass, slept better than he ever had before.

But tonight sleep would not come, and unaccountably nervous, he'd gotten out of bed to check the twist-lock on the doorknob half a dozen times. Now, at five past midnight, he lay on top of the damp sheets and listened to the heavy silence, while sweat trickled off his forehead. His head felt thick with the heat, and able to stand it no longer, he rose and went to the window overlooking the backyard, his fear of the night and the greenjacks now secondary to the stifling misery of the room. Turning the latch, he pushed the window open wide.

The cooling breeze fluttered the curtains around his face, evaporating perspiration from his forehead, from the lids of his closed eyes.

At that moment he realized that he hadn't heard the greenjacks calling him tonight. Even with the window open they remained silent.

He opened his eyes and peered out, but saw only the dim yellow glow of Carmen's porch light within the dark orchard.

No greenjacks.

No crickets.

Wind ruffled through his hair like familiar fingers, and despite the heat, goose bumps prickled across his neck.

The wind died.

Time ended.

Something was going to happen.

The night waited, the wind, the boy.

He crossed to his desk and sat in the chair. He folded his hands on the blotter. And waited.

Somewhere, a board creaked, once, twice. It might be his brother wandering through the secret passages, spying on others while they slept. Or perhaps it was only the house settling in the heat of the night, its timbers like heavy, swollen limbs.

He sat, listening, unmoving, staring at the Felix the Cat clock above his desk, glancing at the Batman calendar hanging beside it, considering minutes, days, and hours, thinking about how slow time passed when something was about to happen.

At 1:15 he heard new noises downstairs, faint sounds muted by the thick walls of the house and his own closed door. He sat up straighter and listened carefully.
Robin's in the kitchen.
He imagined his twin basking in the cool breath of the open refrigerator, balancing on one hand so that he could reach up and take the milk carton from the top shelf, then settling down on his legless body to take a drink, swirl it around in his mouth, and spit it back in. He would carefully close the carton and replace it before committing his other mischiefs, which might be running his tongue over the butter, or chewing small wads of raw hamburger before working the fouled pieces back into the main lump of meat.

At 1:35 there was silence once again.

An instant passed and it was 1:51. Ricky wondered what Robin was doing now, whether he had returned to his room or was still roaming the house . . . If Robin didn't want you to hear him, you didn't hear him.

The clock over the desk said 2:15, and it was just as hot and sticky as it had been at midnight, and Ricky, still wide-awake, continued his vigil. To pass the time, he thought about his brother, and how he would be sent away to a special boarding school in a week's time. Ricky could hardly wait, and each time Robin teased him now, he reveled in the knowledge that soon he would have far less to fear. That knowledge had carried him through the endless hot days and nights of July and August.

Three o'clock in the morning. Even though his brother was still here, Ricky knew, he had already begun to relax, to feel safer within these walls. But not tonight. Instead, the tension, the anticipation he felt, had wound tighter and tighter, and before long, he knew he would snap.

At 3:15 he heard something that sounded like a human whimper, followed by a thump.

He waited, unthinking, unfeeling. Numb.

At 3:20 the house sighed and settled as the night exhaled its first cool breeze into the room.

Ricky remained at his desk, back straight, hands neatly folded, a schoolboy ready for his lessons.

At 4:30 in the morning, the first glimmering of dawn shone in the east window next to the desk.

And broke the spell.

Woodenly he rose and walked slowly to the door. His stomach had tied itself in knots because it knew the waiting was over. He put his ear to the door, listened, heard nothing, then lay down on the floor and peered through the narrow space between door and carpet. The hallway was deserted.

Standing, he unlocked the door and slowly opened it.

The house lay still in the predawn shadows as he ventured into the hall.

Turning the corner, he cautiously approached Robin's room, and was relieved to see that no light shone from beneath his door. Ricky tiptoed past, then continued down the corridor until he arrived at his parents' room.

His brain, dazed and paralyzed by something unidentifiable for these last few hours, suddenly came to life. Why was he here? Why was he about to disturb his parents so early in the morning? He found he didn't know, but to do so was an imperative he could not ignore.

Raising his hand to knock on the door, he realized that Robin might also hear, so instead, he clutched the doorknob and slowly turned it. As the door swung silently inward, he heard the steady whirring of the ceiling fans within the room.

“Mom?” he whispered. “Dad?”

They didn't wake up, so he stepped inside, then, still fearing that Robin would hear, closed the door behind him.

“Mom?” he called. Then again, a little louder. “Mom?”

In the bathroom, a faucet dripped.

He approached the bed, his heart thundering against his rib cage. Although the windows were open and the cool northerly breeze had picked up, his parents' bedroom, hot and close, was foul with a heavy, hot smell that made the hairs on the back of his neck prickle up.

He stepped closer to the bed, thinking that it was strange that Mom and Dad were under their quilt on such a hot night. Shrugging to himself—grown-ups did all sorts of weird things he didn't understand—he reached out and tapped the quilt, about where his mother's shoulder should be.

She didn't wake up.

“Mom?” he asked, poking at the quilt a little harder.

The material felt funny, sticky-damp. “Mom!” He practically yelled it, fear curling through his bowels.

“Dad!” Leaning across her, he shook his father. “Dad!”

Suddenly he lost his tiptoed balance and fell on them, landing facedown, mouth open, on the quilt. Abruptly he became aware that the sticky dampness was everywhere, and as he breathed in its rusty metal smell, he realized it was in his mouth and he recognized the flavor of blood from a hundred cuts he'd licked, from a bloody nose last year, from . . .

“Dad! Mom!” Falling backward, he screamed their names. “Wake up!” he cried as he backed toward the wall. He gulped for air. “Please wake up!” Frantically he felt for the light switch, smearing his hands over the wall. “Wake up,” he pleaded once more as his hand hit the switch.

Light bloomed overhead.

For a moment he couldn't comprehend what he was seeing. The white homemade quilt with its blue and green wedding ring patterns had turned red. His mother's eyes were open, her mouth, too, and briefly he thought she was about to speak to him. Then he realized that her head was tilted back at an unnatural angle.

He moaned. Her head was almost off her body, there was red meat in her neck, and white bones, gleaming. Beside her, his father . . . His father was the same. Ears ringing, Ricky sank to the floor, blackness invading his vision.

Ricky's stomach moved, roiling, and as he vomited, he saw their blood all over his clothes, his hands, and knew he had their blood in his mouth. He vomited again.

He tried to stand up, couldn't.
Have to get out of here! Have to! Now!
Grabbing the doorknob, he pulled himself up, refusing to look at the bed, refusing to think. As he tried to open the door with his slippery, sticky fingers, he heard himself crying but thought it was someone else. Finally he got the door open and slammed his body out into the hall.

“Ricky!” Robin was watching him from the threshold of his room. “Hi, icky Ricky! Wanna play?”

Ricky stared at him without comprehension.

Robin grinned.

Ricky ran, racing down the stairs, tripping and rolling down the last ten, not even aware that he'd broken his arm as he regained his feet, only aware that Robin might be following him as he started running for the kitchen.