The Town (27 page)

He went back home and put the camera away, turning on the television and watching
Scooby Doo
, trying desperately not to think of what he’d seen and waiting in vain for his fear-accelerated heart rate to slow.

After an hour that seemed like a day and a series of cartoons that seemed to make no linear sense, Scott raided the sock drawer where his dad stored the loose change he collected, snagged five dollars’ worth of quarters, and hoping that would be enough, took off on his bike for the 1-Hour Photo.

He waited until he was outside the store and alone on the sidewalk before ripping open the package and sorting through the pictures. Disneyland . . . Disneyland . . . Disneyland . . . the beach . . .

The bathhouse.

He stopped, looked at the photo.

The picture began to slide through his suddenly sweaty fingers, but he gripped it tighter as he stared at a scene that did not exist. He recognized the door frame at the top of the photograph, but inside he saw neither the abandoned, neglected wreck that Adam had taken them through nor the creepy world of moving shadows that he’d almost seen in the flash illumination.

He saw a bunch of fat old people sitting naked on benches.

It was nothing he had expected, and he flipped to the next photograph.

Same thing.

The next.

The same.

He frowned at the last picture. The creepy ambiguity of the half-illuminated flash scene was nowhere in evidence. There was nothing remotely mysterious about the shot. About any of them. The scene was clear and well lit—two fat old couples, the men with towels around their waists, the women with towels around their waists and upper bodies. They were all sweating, though the photos showed no steam, and they appeared to be tired, the two women leaning back, eyes closed, the men leaning forward, with grimaces of discomfort on their faces. The back wall, he noticed, was clear. No ghostly shadow.

Maybe these people were ghosts.

Maybe. But somehow that didn’t seem right. They seemed too . . . real. These people were not spirits. They were flesh and blood. He could see the ugly mole on one man’s thigh, the sagging arm muscles of the heavier woman. It was too concrete, this scene, too specific. It was as if he had taken a photograph of a real event—only that event had not been the one before the camera in real life.

What had happened?

He’d taken pictures of the past!

It was the only logical explanation, and he quickly sorted through the bathhouse photos once again. He saw now the anachronistic hairdos and somehow old-timey faces of the women, the way the men looked more foreign than any Molokan he’d ever seen.

These were not just pictures of a spooky shadow. This was a miracle. These photos were worth way more than he’d ever hoped they could be. He shoved them back into the package and hopped on his bike, pedaling straight home. He was no longer scared. He was excited, tremendously excited, more excited than he had ever been in his life, and the first thing he did was immediately call Adam, but though he let the phone ring twenty times, no one answered.

Could they repeat this? he wondered. If they took more pictures of the inside of the bathhouse, would they get other scenes of other people, other times? He was eager to try it out, and he picked up the package and opened it up again, taking out the photos.

They were different.

His heart jumped, and he suddenly felt like he was back at the bathhouse, the fear in him so strong it was almost overpowering.

The people were seated in different spots, facing different directions. They were the same fat old men and women, but whereas before they’d been sitting together like husband and wife, now the two men were seated next to each other and the two women were on the opposite bench.

One of the women was smiling into the camera.

She no longer had a towel on.

He could see everything and it was gross. She was hairy and disgusting, and there were rolls of fat hanging down almost everywhere.

He dropped the photos, scared.

Even on the floor, the pictures creeped him out. All but one of the bathhouse photos had fallen facedown, but in that one he could still see the old lady’s inappropriate smile. He backed away from them.

He was still clutching the package, and on impulse he opened it and pulled out the negatives, searching quickly through them.

The ones from the bathhouse were blank.

He was having a hard time catching his breath. Something was going on here that he did not understand but that frightened him to the core. The near-euphoria he’d experienced only moments before at his discovery had curdled into terror, and he wanted nothing more than to be through with all this, to be safe and secure back in his normal old life. He would give up money and fame forever if he could just get rid of these pictures.

He considered leaving them where they were and letting his dad take care of them when he came home, but he knew he could not do that. He wanted to protect his parents from this. He did not want them to know anything about it. He wanted to keep it from Adam and Dan, too. He didn’t want
anyone
to know about what had happened.

He stared down at the photos on the ground. He was afraid to touch them, afraid to be anywhere near them, but he knew he had to get rid of the pictures, and he reached down, scooped them up, and ran to the kitchen sink, where he dumped them in. Their vacation photos were mixed up in there, too, but they were probably contaminated as well, and if he got rid of all the evidence, his parents would never miss them. They’d probably forgotten they still had film in the camera anyway.

He dumped the negatives into the sink as well.

He half expected the photographs to leap up, to start moving, to try and escape, to make noises, to do something in order to stop him, but nothing unusual happened as he pulled open a drawer, took out a soup ladle, and used the big spoon to herd the pictures over to the drain mouth and shove them into the garbage disposal.

He turned on the water, turned on the disposal.

A sense of relief coursed through him as he heard the grinding, as he saw the little flecks of paper that spit out from the drain mouth as the disposal chewed up the pictures.

He turned off the garbage disposal, took the 1-Hour Photo package in which the pictures and negatives had come, and shoved it down there as well.

He turned the disposal back on.

“Hey,” his mom said behind him. “What’re you doing?”

He turned to see his parents walking in, carrying sacks of junk they’d bought at the garage sales. He flipped off the disposal switch. “I was going to clean the breakfast dishes,” he lied. He was aware that his voice sounded too high, and he knew that he was sweating profusely. His heart was still pounding crazily in his chest.

“You don’t have to do that,” his mother told him. “I’ll get them.”

“Okay,” he said, backing away.

His dad frowned at him. “Is something wrong? You look a little funny.”

“No,” he said. “I’m fine. Everything’s fine.”

T
hey were alone at the bar. Paul had just left to pick up his car from Henry’s Automotive, where Henry Travis had charged him an arm and a leg for simply flushing out the cooling system, something Odd told him he would’ve done for free, but Gregory and Odd had decided to stay for an extra round of drinks.

There were no other customers today, and even the bartender was keeping his distance, giving them privacy, pretending to be wiping glasses at the far end of the counter.

Gregory had had three beers already and was feeling pretty good, but when he glanced over at Odd, his mood faltered. The old man was looking into his beer, not drinking, and the expression on his face made Gregory feel uneasy.

“What is it?” he asked.

Odd shook his head.

“What?”

“Nothing.”

“Something.”

“You don’t want to—”

“Yes, I do,” Gregory told him.

There was a pause. “People are talking,” Odd said finally.

“About what?”

“You. Your family.”

Gregory could feel his face tighten. “What about us?”

“These . . . deaths didn’t start happening until you all moved into town.”

“That’s ridiculous.” But his heart was pounding.

“I know it is, I know it is. But the timing’s there. And you know how superstitious these yokels are. Someone noticed that Loretta Nelson’s murder over at the realty office happened about the same time you bought your place in town, and it probably spread from there. And Chilton Bodean was the capper. Everyone knows you two weren’t exactly pals and that you threatened to beat the shit out of him.” He lowered his voice. “Hell, the bartender saw it.”

“Come on. I saw him that one time since I moved back. And you were with me.”

“I know.”

“Besides, he stabbed himself.”

“But he stabbed himself because he had another peeder growing outta his belly button. That’s not a normal everyday occurrence.”

“And that’s my fault, too?”

“I’m not saying it is. All I’m saying is that people are talking. They’re saying that even if you didn’t do anything on purpose, maybe you brought this weird shit with you. Part of it’s probably those old anti-Molokan feelings creeping out. But you gotta admit that there’s some strange stuff been happening here lately.”

Gregory’s face felt flushed.

“I debated whether to tell you or not, but I figured you wouldn’t hear it from no one else . . .”

“Paul’s not—” he began.

“Hell, no!” Odd looked at him. “Your friends are your friends. You can count on that. And this is probably nothing. It’s probably just a few people and it’ll blow over before long.” He took a long drink of beer. “Maybe I shouldn’t’ve even opened my stupid mouth.”

“No,” Gregory told him. “No, I’m glad you did.”

“Just forget about it.”

“So they don’t think me or my family did anything. We didn’t murder anybody. We’re just . . . the cause of it somehow.”

“I told you they’re superstitious.”

“But why blame us? What about the Megans?”

“There’s talk about that, too. Maybe it’s your house. Maybe you activated it or it activated you or something. Some type of chemical reaction.” He shook his head. “I told you you should’ve gone after Call, gotten a new place instead. Hell, maybe you still can. I’m not sure what the statute of limitations is on something like that, but if he sold you your home under false pretenses—”

“No.”

“Well, just forget about it, then.”

“What do
you
think?” Gregory asked.

Odd squirmed in his seat. “Don’t matter what I think.”

“Odd . . .”

The old man sighed. “I seen a lot of things over the years. This ain’t no murderer or serial killer. I know that.”

“But do you think I’m involved? Or my family?”

“Oh, hell, no. I know better’n that. But . . .” He took a deep breath. “It ain’t inconceivable that your house is somewhere down in the mix.” He downed the rest of his beer in one huge gulp. “McGuane’s a funny place. Not funny ha-ha, but funny strange. I seen things myself over the years, heard about a lot more. But lately it’s sort of . . . turned nasty. People are getting killed, and that scares me. There’s probably not one reason for it all, no single thing that’s the cause of it, but it’s happening, and I understand why people are looking for easy answers.”

“You don’t think there’s an easy answer.”

“I don’t know if there’s a hard answer. I don’t know if there’s any answer. You know that saying, ‘Shit happens’? That’s kind of how I look at it. Shit happens, and the best thing to do is just stay out of the way.” He took a five-dollar bill from his pocket, placed it on the bar. “That’s why I’d get out of that house if I were you. A lot of people died there, and that can’t be good.”

Odd got off his stool, patted Gregory’s shoulder. “I gotta go,” he said. “Lurlene’ll kill me if I’m late. We’ll talk about this tomorrow.”

Gregory nodded, watched the old man walk out of the bar. He picked up Odd’s five, then took out some bills of his own and walked down to the end of the counter to pay the tab. He handed the money to the bartender, but he didn’t like the look on the other man’s face. It reminded him of the nearly identical expressions on the faces of the men who had berated his father outside this very building—

—and he considered taking back the tip he’d included, but he knew he was probably reading meanings into things that weren’t there because of his conversation with Odd, and so he just smiled, nodded, and left.

He walked back to the café, where his van was parked.

When he got home, Gregory headed straight into the kitchen, found the bottle of aspirin in the cupboard next to Julia’s vitamins, and popped two tablets. He had one big bastard of a headache, and he closed his eyes against the pain, willing the aspirin to work faster. It seemed like he had a headache every time he walked into this damn house lately, and he wondered if he wasn’t allergic to something in here. Maybe there was something wrong with the insulation, or the cleanser or furniture spray they used was affecting him. Maybe it was one of Julia’s new drought-resistant plants. He didn’t know, but the headaches were starting to become a pattern, and that was a pattern he wanted to break.

The stress from what Odd had told him could not have helped, and maybe that was why the headache today was so much stronger than usual.

He walked into the living room, flipped on the TV, lay down on the couch, and closed his eyes.

The headaches made him irritable, and he realized that he’d been a little hard on Julia and his mother and the kids lately. He didn’t mean to take anything out on them, and he vowed that tonight he would be cheerful. He wouldn’t let any headache or allergy get the best of him, would not get angry with anyone for anything.