The Pines (39 page)

“Matthew?” She dragged the chair over to the cabinet again.

“How about a peanut-butter sandwich instead? Would you like that?” The five-pound peanut-butter jar sat on the top shelf—of course. Her leg twinging a bit, she reached it down, and the jar slipped from her fingers.

Dooley yelped as it crashed to the floor—a mass of tan putty and splintered glass. Before being blamed for anything, the dog hastily vacated the room as Athena glanced down at the boy.

He hadn’t reacted, just kept staring out the door.

Steve gazed wistfully at the bourbon, then chucked it in with the rest. Several bottles clanked noisily as he set down the wastepaper basket. Bustling about, he stacked boxes of trash by the front door, then picked up another flattened cardboard box and began folding it into shape. His shirtsleeves were rolled up, and dirt smudged his red face. He smiled.

The barest of breezes passed the window. He’d taken down the massive, dusty venetian blinds, and the sunlight, laying thickly on the dust, looked strange in this faded room. He glanced around and nodded, figuring they’d sell this place and use the money to start fixing up her house. He finished folding boxes, set one on a chair and scraped the contents of the table into it.

Glass tinkled from a framed photograph. For just a moment, he paused to stare at the wedding picture. He scarcely needed to look, could have seen it through closed eyelids: Anna’s pale, sharp-featured face, her black hair. The word “redemption” kept running through his mind. He shoved the picture in and closed the lid, then tossed the box toward the door.

He struck the chair with the flat of his hand, and dust lifted. He thought about putting all the old furniture outside to air, then thought about just putting it all out with the trash. Mopping his face and neck with a handkerchief, he glanced into the kitchen and groaned at the sight of the boxes stacked on everything.

Break time, he decided. Unbuttoning his shirt, he plopped into the chair he’d been about to move, and his eyes drifted toward one of the bottles in the trash. The fifth of scotch still held an inch of bright amber fluid.

His hand stopped, still outstretched, and he looked at it with annoyance…and then with wonder. He held up the other hand.

Steady.

Sitting back in the chair, he looked again at the bottle, then let his gaze wander about the room. Momentarily swamped by memories, he stared hopelessly at the mounds of junk. He rubbed a hand across his face, and the loud scratching startled him. He needed to shave. Needed to start taking better care of himself. For her.

He rose and resumed packing.

The sun became a ripe and bloody disk. Those adults who moved about outside did so only to perform tasks considered absolutely necessary. Children remained safely indoors. Locked within their shacks and trailers, men and women huddled and spoke little…and that little, in whispers.

Gradually, the hammering impact of the heat began to diminish.

Wes Shourd’s panel truck bounced and clattered over the scorched earth. There was no mistaking the truck. He had no license plate, just a bumper sticker that read
JESUS SAVES
, and he’d lashed everything he owned to the back. Hot wind stirred whirl pools of dust in his wake. Those of his neighbors who still remained noted his passage through shuttered windows.

A flight of crows swept through the fading sky, leaving loud cawings to settle on the rooftops. Floating on the warmth, one of the crows hovered on rowing wings against the sun as another dented vehicle, crammed full of junk furniture and children, lumbered noisily along the road out of town.

Redness touched the horizon, then spread rapidly along it, and shadows scythed the woods. As dusk sifted down, Athena carried trash out to the heap, broken glass tinkling in the bag. Muffled heat rose from the earth around her. Chimney swifts, circling after insects overhead, twittered, a high-pitched chattering that sounded like bats above the blurring trees. Crossing the yard, she passed the shed.

Faintly, a sobbing cry swelled in the twilight landscape, rising, growing unmistakably bestial. Motionless, she listened, shaking her head in denial. It surrounded her—a long, demanding yowl. She took a step backward. At times it sounded hungry. At times it almost whimpered. Always it seemed to change direction, drifting with the breeze. Almost dying away, it would begin again—like the cry of cats—no less mournful for being entirely sexual.

She ran, the bag of trash scattered on the ground. A wail of painful joy and triumphant fear pursued her.

Evening poured across the landscape, flowing strong and dense until it filled the world. The shadows beneath the porch melted and spread, merging. She reached the house.

“Chabwok.” Calmly, the child sat at the table and toyed with the white stones, while his mother stood gasping in the doorway.

“Chabwok’s dead!” she cried. “It’s over!”

“Ain’t dead.”

“I saw him die!”

The cry rolled again, louder now. The boy played with the pebbles, and his eyes, when he looked up, burned like living cinders.

Slammed the door, she bolted it. “It’s all right.” She backed away. “It’s going to be all right, Matthew.” She stumbled to the phone. “I’m going to call Steve.” Hands trembling, she began to dial. “They’ll just have to come and kill him again.” Even her voice shook.

A stone struck the wall by her head.

“Matthew!” She spun around. Another stone hit the dial of the phone, produced a broken ringing. The boy seemed not to have moved.

From outside, the muffled cry penetrated the walls. And suddenly the air was full of objects.

The phone pulled from her hand, yanked to the end of its cord, then slammed back and struck her on the side of the neck. As she yelled, stones flew and the table overturned. “No!” Dishes shattered all around the room. “What’s happening?” She cringed against the wall. “This can’t be happening!” The sugar bowl smashed against the sink, and she watched in disbelief as the pipes of the old stove began to shudder. Black dust dribbled down.

As though battered by invisible fists, the stovepipe wrenched away from the wall, and a century’s accumulation of soot cascaded, filling the kitchen, choking away the light.

“Matthew!” As the worst of the cloud settled, she saw the black dirt—still pouring from the ruptured pipe—slowly cover the boy’s body where it writhed and convulsed on the floor.

Saturday, August 15

“You the one? The bitch that’s been makin’ all the trouble?” His face went a deep purple, the mouth very wet and red inside his beard. “Everbody look at ’er! She’s the one ’at killed a whole town!” His hands clutched into gnarled fists.

“All right now, that’ll do.” Out of simple habit, Steve forced authority into his voice. “Leave the lady alone.” Keeping one hand on the old man’s shoulder, he didn’t exactly push the shuddering frame but firmly held him down on the bench.

Though subdued, the grumbling continued. “You know what the price a meat is now the jackin’s over with round here? Ain’t no damn deers left. Place crawlin’ with stateys and everything else. Man can’t even make a living.”

A ceiling fan turned with infinite slowness, and strips of flypaper swayed in the corner of the Hobbston General Store. Candy and potato chips and a sparse selection of canned goods were ranged up and down the small aisles. A couple of barefoot kids lurked furtively in the back, while a group of elderly men hung close around the immensely fat woman at the cash register.

In a voice that strained after a reasonable tone, Athena tried to continue. “All we wanted to ask you about was…”

The old man’s one eye held a steady glower like a watery flame, and Steve could see he would start shouting again in a minute. “Athena, why don’t you go outside and check if the boy’s all right?”

“But I just wanted to…”

“I think that would be best.” He motioned her toward the door, keeping his voice low. “’Thena, this is pointless—he’s antagonistic toward you.” To quell her objections, he went on rapidly. “I can calm this guy down and question him, but I can’t do it if he’s yelling at you. Okay?”

“All right. Yes.” She glanced over at the pineys, knowing she’d made a mess of things again. The old man’s friends all muttered, and the fat woman looked miserable about having a cop in the store at all. “Get, uh, get some cookies or something for Matthew.” She began to fish in her pockets for money.

He patted her arm. “I’ll get something. You go on outside and keep him company.” She smiled and nodded, putting on her sunglasses.

He knew that the circles under her eyes meant she hadn’t slept again, and as she went through the door into the bright daylight, he sighed. Her behavior wasn’t hard to understand: simple hysteria, brought on by exhaustion, the aftereffect of all she’d been through, all they’d both been through. That’s all it was. She’d get over it. In the meantime, he was stuck with questioning this geezer.

They’d spent all morning searching for him, banging on the doors of shacks and asking questions, Athena reasoning that if anyone could explain what was going on, the oldest living resident of Munro’s Furnace should be able to. However, like so many of his neighbors, old Dan had already vanished. Finally, they’d traced him to a nearby town. Preparing to interview him, Steve shook his head and sighed. When would Athena realize it was over? He blamed the books he’d showed her when Barry died. He must have been near the breaking point himself to bring such madness into their lives.

She considered moving the car into the shade, then realized Steve had the keys. She didn’t want to go back into the store for them, didn’t want to interrupt his interrogation of the old man, even though she knew he was only doing it to humor her.

She looked around. By the door to the shop stood a rusting Coke machine that obviously hadn’t worked in years. Trying to make out the words of a nearby sign, where yellow letters flaked and curled from a mildewed background, she finally deciphered kerosene. Pure heat seeped into the car, actually making it hard to breathe, and she leaned out the window. The little town looked deserted, drowned by the impossibly bright sunlight. But these days, even at noon, she could still feel the approaching night.

Across the seat from her, Matty hung out the window. She watched him. Since his…seizure…the previous evening, he’d been almost comatose, barely mumbling to himself. Up until that point, he’d been doing so well, so really well, even beginning to talk to her. She couldn’t bear it.

The boy’s T-shirt had hiked up, exposing the tanned small of his back. Halfway out the window, he stared down at the sand, waving his fingers vaguely. He glanced up, his face lighting with wonder as a red bird flashed above the square.

He continued to stare upward, squinting hard at the shapes of tumbling clouds. This one looked like a dog, just like Dooley—he could see the open mouth and the tail. And this one was…this one was…

His face darkened with recognition as he saw the lumpish mimicry of great leathery wings. He shut his eyes before he had to see its face.

“You need two things to go out in them woods these days—a automatic weapon and a damn good reason.” Steve could feel his headache returning as old Dan rambled, repeating himself, contradicting himself, one minute insisting there was nothing in the woods, the next swearing he’d seen the monster. The few yellow butts of his teeth looked soft, like kernels of corn. “She’s the one to see, all right, like I said.”

“Could you repeat that last part? Who is this now?” “What’s the matter? Don’t you hear good? Mother Jenks, I’m talking about. She got a shack about a quarter mile or two south a Munro’s Hole.” He grinned at his buddies. “That’s what us old-timers calls it.”

“And who is this woman again?”

“I told you wunst already. Midwife—been working these parts more’n eighty year, they say. Hell, she’s older’n me even.” At this, he chuckled and rubbed his rheumy eyes with a crooked knuckle. “She knows everything about everybody round here. Brought most of them into the world. Maybe she’ll tell you what you wanna know. Maybe and maybe not too. You and that bitch—no offense—but if it hadn’t been for her, Lonny’d still be alive. I knowed him since he was a little boy. And Wally too. You better watch yourself.” He nudged the fat woman. “Yeah, Mother Jenks’ll answer you. Course you liable to be sorry you asked. I can remember…”

His words were suddenly drowned out. From outside came violent bellowing, a dull pounding. Steve’s mouth dropped open; then he ran for the door.

Doubled fists hammered at the car windows. The big man’s face twisted with rage as he belched out an incoherent stream of filth.

“Hey, you!” Steve yelled, barreling out of the store. “What the devil…?”

The man leaped up on the car, ran across the hood. Jumping down, he raced across the town square without looking back. In the mummifying heat, Steve began to give chase, then stopped, panting, and ran back to the car.

“Athena! Are you all right?” The doors were locked, the windows rolled tight. Inside, she hugged the boy. “’Thena?” He called again and rapped on the window. Behind the dark glasses, her eyes might have been closed. He dug the car keys out of his pocket. “Who was he?” As he leaned in, the wave of escaping heat struck him like a blow.