Dead Voices (20 page)

Doug’s laughter cut her deeply, but she stared straight ahead, avoiding his gaze. Tension crackled like summer heat lightning in the air around them. Finally, unable to take it any longer, she turned and looked squarely at him, something she had found difficult to do ever since the accident.

“What the hell are you doing out here, anyway?” she asked, in a heated flush of anger. “I thought you had a job!”

“In case you don’t remember,” Doug said in an irritatingly slow and measured tone, “I have a daughter who’s buried out here. I drove over from Laconia to put some flowers on her grave, if that’s all right with you.” He leaned in close to her. “And by the way, I didn’t notice any fresh flowers from her mother out there!”

“Aren’t you supposed to be teaching?” Elizabeth asked him.

Before Doug could answer, a thought struck Elizabeth with numbing intensity: what if he had followed her to Bristol Mills the night she left him? What if he had been in the area the whole time? No, she told herself; that was impossible. Her mother had said she had talked to him twice on the phone since that night. But Laconia wasn’t all
that
far away from Bristol Mills. What if Doug
had
been coming out here all along? What if he had something to do with what had happened to Uncle Jonathan’s grave?

“How-uh-long have you been around town, anyway?” Elizabeth asked, unable to keep her voice from shaking.

“I drove out just this morning, if that’s any of your business,” Doug said sharply. “What the hell’s it to you?”

“Goddamn you!” Elizabeth said. Her rage and frustration were turning into tears, but the last thing she wanted was for him to see her crying. Blinking her eyes rapidly, she looked away and rubbed her eyes with the back of her hand. “Why don’t you just leave? There’s enough room so you can get around me,” she said.

“Elizabeth ... “ Doug said, his voice suddenly soft and soothing. Reaching in through her open window, he placed his hand gently on her shoulder. Elizabeth’s first panicked thought was that he would suddenly clamp his hand around her neck and start to squeeze the life out of her. Holding her breath, she waif ed, but Doug did no more than touch her lightly, caressingly, as he spoke.

“I’m ... sorry, Elizabeth,” he said, his voice going low and gravelly. “I ... I shouldn’t have said that.”

There was a long silence that Elizabeth finally broke when she said, “There are a lot of things you and I shouldn’t have said to each other. Too much. But it’s too late for that now.”

Just as much as she didn’t want him taking out his anger and frustration on her, she also didn’t want even to hint that she desired a reconciliation-no matter
what
her mother or anyone else said! Too many things
had
been said, and there were too many scars that were worse and deeper than the ones that had ruined his once handsome face or the ones that laced the insides of her wrists. Scars too deep and calloused to heal.

Elizabeth’s vision blurred as she looked straight ahead up the slope, past Doug’s parked car toward where she knew that block of polished pink marble stood. And then the thought she’d had before hit her again, this time so hard it took her breath away in a sharp gasp.

Maybe he
did
do it! she thought, feeling herself cringe under his touch. Maybe he came out here late that night and dug up her uncle’s grave! It had happened the first night she was back in Bristol Mills. Maybe this was his way of terrorizing her, of knocking her off balance, by doing something so horrible so close to Caroline’s grave! This was his way of getting even ... of destroying what few shreds were left of her sanity!

“Impossible,” she whispered.

“Huh?” Doug said.

Snapping back to what was happening, Elizabeth shook her head to clear away such a ridiculous thought. Of course it was ridiculous! Doug could never do something like that. An act like that was ... was crazy, completely insane; and while Doug
certainly
had been upset, maybe even a bit unbalanced, by Caroline’s death, he certainly wouldn’t do anything as extreme as that just to upset her if, in fact, the grave robbing had been done to upset her. She had to believe that the incident at the cemetery and her arrival home weren’t in the least bit connected.

“Just leave me alone...
please
,” Elizabeth said, still not daring to look at him directly. “I’ve got enough problems without you hanging around. I can take care of myself ... if you’ll just leave me the Christ alone!”

Doug quickly withdrew his hand from her shoulder as if he had gotten an electric shock. He started to say something but then remained silent. For emphasis, Elizabeth stepped down hard on the gas and let the car’s engine roar.

She sensed him moving away from the side of the car, and she turned to watch, tracking him with a narrowed gaze as he walked slowly up the hill to his parked car. Without a backward glance, he got behind the steering wheel, started the engine, and drove down the hill. Even when he slowed to pull around where Elizabeth’s car was mired, he didn’t bother to glance at her. From the side, all Elizabeth saw was the ruined half of his face as, eyes straight ahead, he drove past her and out onto Brook Road. He barely paused at the stop sign as he took the left-hand turn toward Route 22.

“And stay away!” she shouted as she hammered both fists onto the dashboard. “Stay the Christ away from me and Bristol Mills!
Do you hear me? Goddamn you to hell!
”

She was crying as she watched her husband’s car round the comer onto Old County Road and disappear from view.

4.

Wind whistled through the open windows as snow drifted onto the sills and spilled onto the floor of the darkened bedroom. Elizabeth shivered, but not so much from the cold as from the look the old woman was giving her. It was a look that cut through flesh and blood and peered intently at the core of her soul.

“Are you
sure
you don’t want to see what I have in my shopping bag?” the woman asked, leaning close to Elizabeth and freezing her with the cold, hawklike gleam in her eyes. She was smiling, but her expression could just as easily have been that of a hungry wolf.

Behind her, all around her, Elizabeth heard the snaps and creaks of the old house as it stood up against the swirling blizzard outside. She choked on her reply and could do no more than shake her head in desperation.

“Please ... take a look?” the old crone begged. “I got it
just
for you.”

Elizabeth’s ears filled with the sound of crinkling paper as the woman raised the shopping bag and held it out to her. The expectant, pleading look in her eyes made Elizabeth’s breathing hot and labored.

No! Not crinkling paper! Flames! Fire!

“No, I ... I can’t look! I don’t wantto look!” Elizabeth pleaded. She tried to look away but felt herself pinned by the woman’s icy stare. “I ... don’t want to ... see.”

“How do you
know
you don’t want to if you don’t know what it is?” the old woman crooned.

For a dizzying instant, Elizabeth felt as though she were gazing into a mirror at a nearly unrecognizable reflection of herself.

“You don’t know what I have ... do you?” the woman asked, almost accusingly. Her face shifted subtly and took on the cast of the evil witch in
Snow White
. Her features seemed starkly underlit, as though the lighting were coming from below her. The hissing wind lifted the strands of her hair, making them twine like a knot of serpents.

“It’s something ... nice,” the old woman purred. “Something special ... Something you’d just
love
to see again!”

Harsh red light cast thick, ink-black shadows on the woman’s face, highlighting her face with blood-red curves. Her cheeks and brow stood out in sharp contrast, wavering in the flickering light. A wicked gleam danced like flames in her rheumy eyes.

“I
don’t
want to see it!” Elizabeth shouted. She swung her hands wildly at the large shopping bag the woman was holding up to her, but it was as futile as trying to swat a mosquito in the dark. Somehow, Elizabeth’s hands couldn’t make contact with the bag, even as she knew the woman was bringing it closer to her. As the old woman began to open the bag, the paper crinkled as loudly as a roaring fire.

Elizabeth thought crazily,
How can she be carrying a fire in a paper bag
?

She suddenly felt someone’s hands ...

Whose hands
? she wondered, feeling a cold, dark pull centered in the pit of her stomach. Certainly not the old woman’s! She was holding the shopping bag!

But
someone’s
hands roughly gripped Elizabeth’s head and started to pressure it inexorably forward and down, forcing her to look. Elizabeth tried to shut or avert her eyes, but they felt as though they were stitched open. The light and the heat rising from below her grew steadily stronger as the mouth of the bag gaped wider and, against her will, she looked down ...

... and saw the woman’s cracked and wrinkled hands, carefully unfolding the top of the bag ...

... and saw, inside the bag, a pulsating, orange glow that stung her eyes and made them water ...

... and saw the face rising from the core of the flames, floating like a chip of wood on a sea of fire. It was a face Elizabeth recognized immediately!

Oh my God, Caroline!

Her daughter’s features were restfully composed, just as Elizabeth had always imagined Caroline
should
have looked, lying in her pink satin-lined, polished white coffin. But Elizabeth knew that Caroline’s face and body weren’t at all composed or at peace. She had been fried in the blast-furnace heat as the two vehicles’ gas tanks exploded; her entire body crushed and burned beyond recognition.

“See ... ?” the old woman croaked. “See what I have for you?”

Unable to tum away from Caroline’s face, Elizabeth saw it loom upward at her out of the raging flower of flames. Heat and light hammered her face, feeling strong enough to melt her own flesh and bones down to ash. And then, as spikes of terror drove through Elizabeth’s mind, she saw Caroline’s eyes open slowly. Her eyelids fluttered; her lips began to move. Elizabeth knew with heart-squeezing horror that it wasn’t just an illusion produced by the madly flickering flames. Caroline’s face was struggling, twitching with agony as she twisted her lips, trying to form words, trying to force her burned vocal cords to vibrate. Caroline was trying to reach her! She was trying to tell her something!

“ ... Help ... Mommy ... “ Caroline said. Her voice rang with that same crystal-clear sweetness Elizabeth always remembered. Just hearing it wrung her heart between cold. clammy hands.

“
... Help ... Mommy! ... Help! ... Mommy! ... “

With a roaring intake of breath, Elizabeth yanked herself out of the dream and found herself sitting straight up in bed. Her eyes were wide open, staring fixedly at the glow of moonlight on her windowsill. In her blurred vision. the sills did look snow-covered. Outside. a steady breeze rustled the leaves of the maple tree in the backyard. Holding both hands firmly over her mouth, Elizabeth forced back the scream that was surging like a wild beast inside her, trying to break free.

SEVEN

Night Hunter

1.

The last thing Henry Bishop wanted was trouble because he was hunting out of season; but when that damned raccoon broke into his chicken coop three nights in a row, he figured, “Fuck the law! I’m going after the bastard!” When the ruckus started sometime after midnight, he put on his plaid jacket and his battered Bean boots, grabbed his 4-10 shotgun and his high-powered flashlight, and headed out the door. He considered bringing Murf, his hunting dog, with him but decided against it.

“Stay here, pal,” he said, pausing a moment to scratch the dog behind the ears before opening the back door and starting out across the yard. The night air had a sharp chill to it, and he pulled his collar up tightly against his throat. Faint moonlight glimmered on the path from the house to the chicken coop.

The noise from inside the hen house was deafening as the chickens scrambled wildly around. Several ran out into the hen yard and started beating themselves against the chicken wire. A flurry of feathers and down filled the air and drifted against the edges of the cage like snow, gleaming white in the moonlight.

“Goddamned
bass
-turd,” Henry muttered as he stormed over to the hen house and flung the door wide open. The air inside was filled with a swirling dust of dried chicken shit, grain, and feathers. Henry choked and sputtered when he entered.

“Come on, you Goddamned sum-bitchin’ coon!” he shouted. He scowled as he swung the flashlight beam back and forth. The cone of light was practically solid from the raised dust.

The hens were running and flapping every which way, and in the swirl of activity, Henry didn’t at first see the raccoon. Then, over by one of the rounded hen doors, he caught sight of a bushy, bunched up shape. The animal was surprisingly large, but Henry felt a measure of satisfaction when he saw the thick, striped tail. The animal stared unblinkingly up at him, its eyes reflecting back the beam of light with a glittering green glow.

“You’ve et your last fuckin’ bird,” Henry growled. He raised the shotgun to his shoulder and braced the flashlight alongside the gun barrel as he sighted down the bead; then, holding his breath, he gently squeezed the trigger. The blast from the gun was deafening as it kicked back hard against Henry’s shoulder. If it was possible, the chickens scrambled and flew in an even wilder frenzy. Hazy blue smoke hung heavily in the dusty air, like smoke from a pile of burning leaves. As Henry’s vision cleared and he looked to where the raccoon had been, he was surprised not to see the buckshot mangled body splattered in the comer.

“Well suck my hairy bag,” Henry muttered as his eyes darted back and forth, looking for any trace of the raccoon. The buckshot had blown a gaping hole in the side of the coop. Henry swore to himself when he considered the repair work he would have to do ... but not before he took care of that motherfucking raccoon!

“You sum-
bitchin’
coon!” he sputtered as he shouldered open the coop door and barrel-assed back outside. He practically ripped the outside-cage screen door off its hinges when he went into the hen yard. Frantic with fear, chickens beat against his legs and scrambled in the dirt as he waded through them over to the small doorway into the coop. He fully expected to see the wounded animal sprawled on the ground outside the door. It didn’t take him long to realize that the bastard must have turned and run the instant before he pulled the trigger.