Bedbugs (5 page)

The August afternoon was heavy with humidity as Pete and Cindy, his wife, started across the well-worn playground, heading toward the gentle slope. Heat waves rippled like water in the air, making the schoolhouse look like a mirage, hovering in the distance.

When they were halfway across the playing field, Pete stumbled and stopped short in his tracks.

His body tensed as he stared up at the building, his jaw muscles clenching and unclenching. His breath came in panting hitches which he knew weren’t because of the extra weight of carrying two-year-old Ryan, who was riding high on his back in a
Snugglie
.

No, Pete knew all too well that the icy tension winding up inside him was something he had experienced before—dozens, maybe
hundreds
of times in his dreams.

No, not dreams . . . nightmares!

“Shit,” Pete whispered, shaking his head. He fought hard against the almost overpowering impression that the building was a dark, swelling wave about to crash over him and sweep him helplessly away.

“Huh? Is something the matter?” Cindy asked, looking at him with one dark eyebrow cocked.

Pete flicked a quick glance at her but immediately let his gaze shift back to the schoolhouse. He swallowed noisily. His right hand felt clammy as he ran it across his forehead, smearing the gathering sweat.

“I—uh . . . No. It’s just the. . . .”

His voice faded away to nothing as he shook his head tightly and took a shuddering breath. One side of Cindy’s mouth twitched into a crooked half-smile that instantly melted.

“Oh yeah—”

She nodded.

“This is the schoolhouse you’re always dreaming about, right?

She glanced at the building and frowned.

After studying it for a moment, she smiled and said, “You know, in all the times we’ve come back to Maine, I don’t think I’ve ever even seen this place.”

Pete grunted.

“That’s because I make it a point never to come this way,” he said.

As he spoke, his gaze kept shifting back and forth between his wife and the school building as though searching for something solid for his gaze to anchor onto.

Cindy carefully scanned the front of the building.

As far as she could see, there was nothing imposing or even remotely scary about it. In fact, having been born and raised in San Diego, she found the old schoolhouse to be rather cute, in a quaint, “New Englandy” sort of way.

But she recalled all too well those nights when her husband had awakened her with a strangled shout, and then lay there in bed, his body slick with sweat and trembling as he related to her the most recent variation of his recurring nightmare.

How can something as ordinary as this old building bother him so much?
she thought.

“We don’t have to walk this way to get back to your mother’s house, do we?” she said as she hooked her arm around his elbow. “We can go back the way we came.”

“No.”

Pete bit down on his lower lip and glanced over his left shoulder.

“It’d be too far to go all the way around Curtis Street. Besides, ole’ Ryan here isn’t gettin’ any lighter. We can just walk past it. No sweat. I mean—shit! What’s the big deal?”

“Shit, shit,
shit!
” Ryan piped in as he kicked his feet and leaned forward, wiggling back and forth as he shouted close to his father’s ear. “Daddy said
shit!
”

“Oh, yeah?” Cindy said, scowling at her son as she tweaked his nose. “Well you’d just better watch
your
language, mister.” She looked at Pete and added, “Doesn’t make any difference to me, either way. You’re the one who’s always talking about how nervous this place makes you feel.”

“It’s just a stupid dream, for Christ’s sake,” Pete whispered, more to himself than to her.

Ignoring Ryan’s echoing “Christsakes,” Pete adjusted the backpack and, taking Cindy’s hand, started toward the building.

They angled across the baseball field so they wouldn’t have to pass too close to the school; but the closer they got, the stronger the image grew in Pete’s mind that the dark, looming presence of the schoolhouse was an on-rushing tidal wave. Cold rushes raced through him, making him cringe as he waited for the whole thing to come crashing down on top of him.

“You know what I think?” Cindy said in a low, controlled voice. Pete looked at her, his eyebrows raised questioningly. “I think you should go up to the front door and have a look inside.”

“Oh, yeah. Right.”

Pete laughed nervously and quickly looked away from her.

“I’m serious,” Cindy said, a bit more forcefully. “I’ve always believed it’s what we’re afraid of—what we avoid—that’s the worst. If we just face down our fears, more often than not we realize just how simple and ridiculous they are.”

“More often than not,” Pete echoed, horribly aware of the trembling edge in his voice.

He sucked in a deep breath and held it for a second. “But not always. Look, I just don’t like the place, all right? It gives me the creeps. It’s that simple.”

Pete’s grip on her hand was almost painfully tight.

“Sure. Okay. No sweat,” Cindy said nonchalantly.

They kept moving toward the schoolhouse; but the closer they got, the slower Pete walked. Craning his neck back, he looked up at the tall, sunlit brick front of the two-story building. A light breeze stirred the leaves of the huge maple tree to one side of the school. Shadows danced and rippled like black water across the sidewalk and up onto the cracked and crumbling bricks. A cold clutching gripped his chest, and he felt a powerful impulse to start walking away from there as fast as he could.

But he didn’t.

He had to admit that Cindy’s advice was probably right.

At the very least, he should take a look inside, if only to prove to himself that there was nothing to be afraid of here. Facing a little apprehension now would certainly be well worth it if he would stop being tormented by those recurring nightmares.

“Yeah, maybe you’re right,” he said at last. “Maybe I should take a look inside . . . Just a quick peek.”

He spoke so softly he wasn’t sure if Cindy heard him or not. Turning to her, he said, “Why don’t you take Ryan down to the playground for a bit while I take a look around?”

Cindy looked at him and scowled.

“I’ll come with you if you want,” she said, but Pete shook his head.

“No. This is something I probably ought to face alone. Don’tcha think?”

Cindy shrugged, obviously trying not to make too big a thing of it either way. “Whatever you say.”

“I wanna swing, Mommy! I wanna swing,” Ryan shouted so close to Pete’s ear it hurt. He started bouncing up and down in the backpack, and Pete almost lost his balance.

“Hold on, there, Tiger! Take it easy,” Pete said, laughing tightly. “Hang on a minute so Mommy can get you off my back.”

“I wanna go
now!
I wanna go
now!
”

“Just a second,” Pete said with a trace of desperation creeping into his voice.

His jaw muscles clenched when he glanced up at the school building again. Now that he was actually considering doing something about it, he wanted to move forward in spite of the faint stirrings of apprehension that were tugging him back. His pulse thumped heavily in his ears, echoing like a tin drum, high and fast.

So fast it sounded almost like . . .

—Running feet—

The thought slipped into his mind like the burning sting of a razor cut, making him jump.

Pete took a quick breath to strengthen his resolve.

At the very least, he should take a quick peek inside. Better yet, if he could get a door or window open, maybe he should actually go inside . . . take a look around and see what the old place looked like after all these years. That would certainly help him—finally—put to rest all those deep-seated fears he had about this building.

But his mind reeled at the prospect of actually looking into—and maybe even going back inside—the schoolhouse. It would be the first time he’d been in there in. . . . What? More than twenty-five years.

A confused rush of memories filled him with rising apprehension and expectation. He shuddered at the thought, but had to admit that it was exactly what he should do. He had to go inside the old school if only to prove to himself that there was absolutely nothing in there to be afraid of.

—Running feet—

He moved a few steps closer to the school.

The instant he was under the shadow of the huge maple tree, he felt a chill and started shivering uncontrollably. He looked at Cindy as if she was supposed to give him a cue as to what to do next.

After a moment, she smiled and, pointing at the long-unused swing set, said, “We’ll be over on the swings.”

Finding it nearly impossible to speak, Pete nodded and then turned his back to her and shrugged his shoulders so she could ease Ryan out of the backpack. The instant he was on his feet, Ryan took off down the slope, heading toward the swings. His chubby legs were moving as fast as they could go. Cindy grabbed the cloth backpack from Pete and then, calling Ryan’s name, started off after him at a run. She caught up with him after a few paces and held his hand tightly as they walked the rest of the way to the swings. The further they got away from Pete, the fainter Ryan’s squeals of delight were as they echoed across the field. Cindy glanced back at him once over her shoulder and waved to him.

“Take your time looking around, honey,” she called out, her voice sounding oddly distant. “We’ll be fine over here.”

“Yeah . . . Sure thing,” Pete said weakly, not even sure if she heard him.

He watched them walk out in the white glare of the summer sun. When they were almost to the swings, Ryan broke away from his mother again and raced to the nearest swing. He was scrambling hard to get up onto the seat but couldn’t make it until his mom got there and helped him up. She began to push him gently. The heavy, humid air muffled the sounds of Ryan’s laughter and the loud complaint of the rusted swing chains.

They were no more than a hundred yards away, but there was a distant, mirage-like quality to the scene that made it look to Pete as though they were no longer quite in this world. He felt like he was watching a movie . . . or seeing them in a dream. He stood in the shadow of the school a moment longer as a cold, lonely anxiety twisted deep inside his gut.

Turning slowly, he looked back up at the school.

It seemed to tower above him, and once again he imagined that the building was about to come crashing down on his head. His leg muscles felt as loose as jelly as he mounted the wide concrete steps to the front door. The feathery flutter in his ears got stronger with every step. He sucked in and held his breath when he stopped within arm’s reach of the tarnished brass doorknob and stared at the dull glass windows.

“Jesus Christ!” he whispered.

Feeling oddly dissociated, he watched his trembling hand reach out and grasp the doorknob. The metal was warm to the touch and felt slightly greasy as he squeezed it and gave it a gentle twist.

For a terrifying instant, the doorknob turned, and Pete thought—incredibly—that the door might have been left unlocked; but then the latch fetched up.

Realizing that he’d been holding his breath, he let it out in a long, slow
whoosh
before wiping the sheen of sweat from his forehead with his forearm.

Numbing chills played up and down his back as he leaned closer to the door and peered in through the dirty wire-mesh glass. His breath rebounded into his face from the window, but he barely noticed it as he scanned the dim, empty corridor.

As his eyes tracked up the ancient staircase to the second-floor hallway, he flashed on all those days—so long ago—when he had trod those stairs and that corridor. These memories were mixed with the more recent and, in some ways, more immediate memories of the dreams. . . .

—No, nightmares!

. . . he’d had about this place.

“Jesus Christ,” he repeated, shivering so wildly he had to hug himself to make sure he was real.

Reflections from the sunlit street behind him made it difficult for him to see very much in the school, but he could make out a dusty bar of sunlight, angling into the upstairs corridor from an opened classroom door on the left. The light looked almost solid, a sickly brownish-yellow like the sepia tones of an old photograph.

That used to be Mrs. Doyle’s fifth-grade classroom
, Pete thought with a hollow twisting of nostalgia.

Gussie Doyle. . . . How long ago did she die?

His mind filled with a rush of memories about his fifth-grade teacher—of the time he thought he’d lost his lunch box and had started to cry in front of the whole class, only to find it buried beneath his papers inside his desk; of the time Phil Ricci, one of the school bullies, had beaten him up on the baseball field during recess, right there between second and third base, all because Pete hadn’t paid him back the dime he had borrowed for a pack of bubble gum a week ago; of the afternoon when Sally Phillips had heard the town fire horn signal a fire in her neighborhood and, worried that it might be
her
house, had started to cry so hard she peed her pants; of the time Ralph Haley had felt sick to his stomach and, not knowing what else to do, had lifted up his desktop and thrown up into it, all over his books and papers.