Shivers (24 page)

“Brock? Is that you?”

“Go on home, Lina. Sober up. Brock’s waiting for you.”

And she picked herself up and ran all the way home, for all the world believing that Telly had actually meant what he’d just said.

John Albright did not have to work on Saturday.

He stayed in bed the entire day, not wanting to get up and face the reality of his world. The phone did not ring, nor did the doorbell. It was as if Gloria and Bobby had ceased to exist.

He got out of bed at five-thirty to move his bowels.

Feeling hungry afterwards, he went into the kitchen and mechanically made himself some ham and eggs. He washed it down with chocolate milk. As he wiped his mouth with a napkin, his eyes went from the brown stain on the white cloth over to the note that Gloria had left him the day before. He studied it again.

How could this have happened to him?

He went to the phone, wondering if he should call his mother-in-law. He decided against it. He’d be damned if he’d track the woman down; Gloria would have to call
him.

What if she wasn’t able to? He hadn’t considered that.

What if he started a search for her and she and Billy were found safe and sound in a motel room or with some other relative? How would he look then? Like a fool, that’s how, an idiot who didn’t even
know
that his wife had left him, a dope unable to accept the truth.

He went into the living room and lay down on the sofa. Hundreds of faces and names swam through his consciousness; he couldn’t keep them away if he tried. Hundreds of missing wives and vanished husbands. Little boys who’d run away from home. Children who’d gone and disappeared. Where
were
they all? All the mommies and daddies, all the kids? Where had they gone?

Where was Gloria? Where was his son?

For the first time in a long time he started to weep, uncontrollably.

And then, somewhere in the center of his tears, like a natural cave hidden behind a foamy, cascading waterfall of brine, he saw a portal, a crevice, a tiny slice of knowledge revealed.

He
remembered.

Those dreams he’d been having, those nightmares . . .

They weren’t dreams.

It all came back to him in a rush:

He went into his superior’s office with his files and data, went in to confront him with the alarming statistics about New York City’s diminishing population—all those missing persons—and his boss just smiled at him, a strange haunted grin that said so much, said nothing.

“Come with me, John,” his boss said.

They drove to a warehouse not far from the Bowery.

“I’m taking you to the committee,” his boss said. “They’ll explain everything.”

The committee? Why didn’t the man just explain? Why the secrecy? Why the drive?

Inside the warehouse they were waiting for John and his superior.

They led the two down a hole . . . into a tunnel . . . into a chamber. Fetid, furtive shapes ran through the shadows. How long the trip took John could not remember. There was something beyond a door they wanted John to see. Data banks. Computers. Hardware and software. And over in the corner, in the darkness, a living, breathing thing that seemed to command them all.

They hooked John up to cables and electrodes. They jabbed him in the arm with a hypodermic needle. What was spooky was that they all acted as if this was a normal, everyday occurrence, as if the thing watching from the corner was the most natural thing in the world.

In the middle of the process—John’s
treatment—
the thing in the corner reached out an appendage and
probed
him. Then the thing’s
mind
reached out and probed John’s brain, made a mental link with him that nothing, that no one, could sever.

“You may not remember any of this,” they told him later. “Some don’t. Others—the more intelligent ones—remember everything or most of it at some point. Be smart. Don’t fight it. Do what you’re told. You’ll know what to do. If you fight it you’ll get a warning—headaches, the shakes—and if you
still
resist, you’ll die.

“Don’t be a hero,” they told him.

Now he knew why the Joey Everson case had bothered him. Somehow Joey Everson’s disappearance was connected to that thing under the ground, to the tubes and computers and data banks. He’d looked in Vivian Jessup’s apartment that day after dismissing Joey’s brother, not even sure of why he was doing it—now he knew the answer to that too. Vivian Jessup had also been involved—his subconscious had always been aware of that, linked as it was to the computers and the thing . . .

He also knew why he’d had so many headaches, fevers, chills.

Even now his body was trembling—a vibrating hum ran all through him.
It
knew that
he
knew; that he had achieved total awareness. And it was
wary.

Just as Albright reached the conclusion that his problems with Gloria were as nothing compared to
this,
he wondered:

Did it take Gloria too?

Did it take my wife and little boy?

And how on earth could
anyone
fight against it?

NINE

V
ALERIE GOT OFF
the B train at 9th Street and 4th Avenue and walked down the wide corridor that led to the F. She saw an unoccupied phone booth and stepped inside. Slipping a quarter into the slot and dialing, she studied herself in the mirrored surface beneath the buttons of the phone. A little haggard from lack of sleep, but acceptable.

The receptionist at the Andrew Agency answered, recognized Valerie’s voice, and connected her immediately to her boss. “What’s up, Val?” Ralph asked.

“Well, you sound jovial. You must have had a good lunch.”

“Didn’t you?”

“Just a half a beer with a taxi driver.”

“Dig up anything?”

“Yes, I found out that his parents live somewhere on—”

“Macdonald Avenue.”

She should have known he’d get it before she did. “Ah, all that work for nothing. They were listed with
some
agency, I suppose.”

“Correct. They’re also deceased. However—”

“I know, I know. I’ll go talk to their neighbors about George.”

“At least you won’t have to go around knocking on doors just to find out where the Forrances lived.”

“No, I’ll just have to go around knocking on doors to find out if anybody’s ever heard of them. Okay, what’s the address?”

“Paper and pen ready?”

She rummaged through her purse. “Shoot.”

“Mr. and Mrs. Elliot Forrance, wife’s name Betsy.” He gave her the complete street address.

“Great. Oops—here comes my train. Bye.”

“Bye.”

She got into the first car, which was quite crowded, and found a seat in the back.

Four stops later she got off at Church Avenue and climbed up to street level. She found herself next to a stationery store and newsstand. A gang of teenagers were loitering in the area, sipping bottles of soda pop.
At least it isn’t whiskey,
she thought.

Crossing the street, she walked down the avenue toward Ditmas. In the distance she could see where the underground subway broke through the surface and became an elevated line. There were fences on both sides where the tracks sliced through the middle of the street and rose thirty feet in the air. One of the buildings on the right side of the avenue was the former home of the Forrances.

If the address Ralph had given her was the correct one, it was a certainty no one lived there any more. It was an empty lot, just a space between two other buildings. The weeds were tall enough to scrape the windows of the houses they were sandwiched between. Rusty bicycles and old, gutted furniture were scattered throughout the overgrowth.

She rang the doorbell of the house on the left. A young woman came to the door, hair in curlers, a cigarette dangling from her mouth. She looked very busy. “Yes,” she said, her voice surprisingly mellifluous.

“I’m sorry to bother you,” Valerie said from the stoop. “I was looking for information about the people that used to live next door.”

“Them? They moved out two months ago. The place is empty.”

“No. No, I wasn’t referring to the house across the lot, I was referring to the lot itself. There used to be a house there. The Forrance home.”

“I think I remember hearing about them.” A little boy came to the door and peeked out from behind his mother’s knee. “But that house burned down even before we moved here.”

“How long ago was that?”

“I’m not sure when the fire happened, but we moved here about five years ago. What is it, Tommy?” The boy did not reply, but stood transfixed, staring at Valerie with a cute, bewildered expression on his face.

“Well, thank you very much then. I’ll try elsewhere.” She gave the boy a wink, then smiled warmly at the woman. “Goodbye.”

“So long.” The mother grabbed the boy by the arm, then pulled him in with her as she closed the door. From the back of the house, a baby was crying. An older man was hollering something about the TV.

There but for the grace of God go I,
Valerie thought.

A train rumbled up from below the earth and sped past her, rushing up the tracks and fading into the distance. She heard the screech of its wheels as it stopped at the station at Ditmas Avenue.

She would talk to a few more neighbors. Though instinct told her they’d tell her nothing. Valerie had learned to trust her instinct.

And she couldn’t shake the feeling that the disappearances of Joseph Everson, George Forrance, and Lina’s boyfriend Brock were just the tip of a very large iceberg.

Eric finished up his extra work early in the afternoon and both he and Hammond were home by four o’clock. Eric didn’t mind working on Saturdays occasionally, and when he did he usually made provisions for an interesting evening—except this weekend. As much as he liked the man, Eric could think of few people he’d rather not spend a Saturday night with besides Hammond. While he was an excellent, if at times overbearing, conversationalist, he was not exactly what one would call a “fun date.” He was disinterested in both movies and the theater and seldom went out socializing. Eric thought of leaving him home alone, but felt that it might seem a bit rude. He resigned himself to an evening of rest and relaxation, hardly what he had been looking forward to.

Hammond prepared the dinner all by himself, mixing up an interesting chicken dish with an unusual array of vegetables. He sautéed an appetizing bunch of creamy brown mushrooms with onions and peppers, and prepared stuffed baked potatoes as if he had missed his calling. Pouring white wine liberally into the chicken, he developed a scrumptious sauce.

“Did one of your ex-wives teach you how to prepare all this?”

“I expect so. I picked up the recipe from somewhere, but I can’t remember. I’ve always had a passion for chicken, no matter how it’s prepared. If I saw a new recipe in a magazine, I would clip it out.”

“Well, it’s excellent. Congratulations. In fact, I think I’ll appoint you head cook.”

“And just what does that mean?”

“It means that you get to prepare all the meals, you lucky fellow you.”

“Well then,” Hammond said, a little smile playing at the edges of his mouth, “I think that I could do quite well without such a dubious honor.”

“Suit yourself.” Eric said as he placed some of the succulent chicken on his tongue. “But I must admit this is delicious.”

“Well, don’t enjoy it too much. You may not get these kind of meals for too long. If you don’t have another psychic experience soon, I’m going to pack up my bags and go home.”

“That a promise?”

“I am here to observe, not to cook. Seriously, though, I wonder if my presence has something to do with the
absence
of the psychic stimuli.”

“Hammond, you’ve only been here two days. Not even that long.”

“I know, I know. I should give it awhile, I suppose.”

“Yes. And if I may be blunt, I am really not looking forward to having
another
experience like I had Wednesday night.”

“Well, my presence here is just a precaution anyway. Hopefully nothing will happen and I can get back to my own bed and board.”

“I know you better than that, Hammy. You’re dying to get to the bottom of this.”

“Not any more than you are. And not at your expense.” He stuffed a forkful of mushrooms into his mouth. “Oh, I don’t know.” He waited until he could swallow the masticated vegetables. “I guess I’ve always wanted an opportunity to meet—to contact—to touch in some way the great force, that great mystic presence. It will only be perceived by a powerful mind, a mind like yours. You must be my intermediary, for I cannot speak the language, as it were. I haven’t the advanced psychic abilities that you have.”

“Hammond, I don’t want to be an intermediary between you and God, thank you.”

“Not God. I don’t mean God, necessarily.”

“Pardon me. You mean the Devil then?”

“No, not Satan either. I’m not sure. Why, if I knew, I wouldn’t be here. No, what I’m talking about is a power, a certain kind of—irresistible —power, a
feeling
almost. I can’t quite describe it. But there is a barrier between us and it, a very sturdy barrier, and even when it penetrates that barrier, it can only communicate with a strong, extraordinary mind. Such as yours.”

“Why Hammond, I do believe that’s the first compliment you’ve ever given me.” He spooned some vegetables onto his plate.

“It’s not flattery, my friend. A mind like yours is capable of also breaching that barrier, of reaching out to the power, of stripping it of its secrets.”

“Hammond, what if this ‘power’ of yours is one of the evil forces you were talking about the other day?”

“That’s a chance you’d have to take, but wouldn’t it be worth it? Aren’t you willing to take the chance? To open yourself up to it? To allow yourself to receive the message?