Dead Voices (16 page)

Elizabeth shifted her gaze back and forth, never letting it rest for long on her mother because the earnest intensity of Rebecca’s eyes wounded her.

“Doug also repeated what he said before,” Rebecca continued. Now it was her turn to find it difficult to maintain eye contact, so she stood up, walked over to the sink, leaned back against the counter, and folded her arms across her chest. She knew this wasn’t a good time to confront Elizabeth, but she could no longer keep it to herself.

“What — ?” Elizabeth asked. She could see that her mother was upset, but all she could think was,
She knows what really happened that night! The bastard told her everything just to get even
!

Rebecca’s lower lip trembled, her whole body shook as she spoke.

“He said that you ... you stopped him when he tried to save Caroline from the wreck. He insists that you ... that you killed her!” She had to force the last two words out of her mouth, spitting them as though they tasted bad.

Elizabeth looked at her mother. As much as she wanted to put a lie to what Doug had told her mother, no words came to mind. In the shocked silence of the kitchen, Elizabeth heard a sound. At first, she thought she was remembering the hissing noise the Ouija pointer made as it ran over the board; but as it got steadily louder, so loud she was certain her mother could hear it as well, Elizabeth knew
exactly
what it was ... the sound of tires, spinning futilely on snow-slick asphalt.

3.

Elizabeth had the driver’s door open and was uselessly pushing with her left foot on the snowy road, trying to help Doug get the stranded car out of the snowbank. Her heel made deep skid marks in the slushy snow as her foot kept slipping.

When the flashing yellow lights of the oncoming plow lit up the inside of the car, she turned and saw the truck’s headlights bearing down on her. A hot flood of panic filled her. Then, everything that happened next happened so fast. She didn’t have time to absorb it all. She just reacted.

The snowplow scooped up the car and carried it over the snowbank and down to the trees at the bottom of the ravine. Elizabeth saw a flurry of motion as Doug dove out of the path of the oncoming truck. She heard someone — maybe herself, maybe Caroline screaming just before her head hit the steering wheel. She was barely conscious when she was thrown clear of the car and landed facedown in the snow. In the raging confusion of the storm and her own blinding fear, she watched, horrified, as Doug struggled through the knee-deep snow in the wake of the car. When she caught up with him, she saw the truck carry the car down into the ravine, roll over onto it, and flatten it in mind-wrenching slow motion. The crunching sound of twisted, tortured metal filled the night, rising above the shrill whistling of the storm.

Elizabeth saw Caroline’s face appear in the rear window of the car. Her mouth was a wide-open circle as she screamed in terror. With the ice-fingered winds of the blizzard screeching in her ears, Elizabeth thought she heard Caroline screaming ...

“Help! ... Mommy! ... Help! ... “

With those words shrilling in her mind, Elizabeth and Doug had started down the slope to where the car and truck had come to a stop.

And then, before the truck exploded ... before the flames from the plow ignited the family car’s gas tank ... before Caroline’s screaming was erased forever, Elizabeth lunged out at Doug and grabbed him by the shoulders. She started shaking him, but not out of terror or desperation. The night crackled with a loud hissing sound as gasoline spilled onto the Subaru.

“
She’ s still alive!” Doug yelled, as he struggled to get out of Elizabeth’s grasp and run down the hill to the flattened car. “She’s still alive! I can —”

But then his words were cut off by the explosion of the plow’s gas tank. Wicked orange flames bellowed out from underneath the overturned truck, and black smoke mushroomed up into the night sky. Elizabeth and Doug clearly saw Caroline in the backseat, futilely pounding on the rear window.

“
I’m coming, baby!” Doug yelled, as he started again down the snowy slope. His arms pin wheeled wildly for balance. The wind buffeted him, almost knocking him over. In the lee of the hill, the drifting snow was up to his hips; he struggled as if plowing his way through a raging tide.

“
Don’t!” Elizabeth shouted. “Are you crazy? You can’t do anything!”

Doug was slipping and sliding down the snowy slope, plowing up snow in front of him as he charged like a madman toward the wreck. The flames from under the plow’s hood crackled wildly, peeling paint and melting plastic. Loud buckling sounds filled the night like gunshots, and glass shattered by the explosion gleamed everywhere, like diamonds thrown onto the snow. The flames underlit the overhanging trees and billowing smoke with a horrid orange glow that weaved and danced, casting dizzying shadows that gave the entire scene an otherworldly feel.

Elizabeth plunged after her husband, screaming at him that he would be killed, too. She tackled him from behind and brought him down just as the gas tank of the Subaru ignited. The second ball of flame erupted, filling the night, roaring over them like the blazing breath of a blast furnace. Shielded by Doug’s body and pressed into the snow, Elizabeth was safe, but Doug screamed in agony as the roaring jets of flame ripped the skin from the side of his face.

Over and over, until Elizabeth thought he wouldn’t be able to stop, Doug thrashed in agony on the ground, kicking clots of snow into the air. Seared flesh hung in raw strips from the left side of his face. The eyelid from his left eye was gone, and he looked at her with a horrifying, bulging-eyed stare, all the while shrieking, “I could have saved her! ... You killed her! ... You killed her!”

4.

“Could I have killed her?” Elizabeth asked her mother.

Looking over at the clock on the wall, she saw that it was already past three in the morning. Feeling completely drained, both emotionally and physically, she wished she had a bit of Aunt Junia’s brandy on hand to help brace herself.

Rebecca’s eyes glistened with tears after listening to her daughter’s story. In the silence following Elizabeth’s question”

“
Could I have killed her?”

— Rebecca got up from her chair and went over to her daughter. Kneeling beside her, she hugged her tightly and willed with all of her strength that her daughter could find some relief, some small respite from her guilt and grief.

“I — I never realized ... what happened,” she said, licking her lips for moisture. “I ... “

“So does that mean I
did
kill Caroline?” Elizabeth asked in a tortured wail. “That I wanted her to die, so I stopped Doug from saving her?”

Stunned into silence, Rebecca simply shook her head as she held Elizabeth close, feeling the sobs that racked her body.

“No, of course it doesn’t, honey.” she murmured. “But I’ll tell you one thing — if that’s how Doug felt, then I can’t say I’m very surprised that you left him.” She choked up as she gently raked her fingers through Elizabeth’s hair.

Elizabeth opened her mouth to say more, but nothing came out.

“I mean,” Rebecca went on, “how — how
could
he? How could Doug make you live with such guilt?” She shook her head in total confusion. “A man who says he loves you and who then can ... can —”

“I
did
stop him from going down there,” Elizabeth said, her voice no more than a squeak. “He was trying to save her, and I
stopped
him.”

“But doesn’t he realize he would have died if you hadn’t?” Rebecca asked. She sat back on her heels and clenched her fists in frustration. Hot tears were coursing down her own as well as her daughter’s face. “Even from where he was, the heat destroyed the side of his face. All those months of painful plastic surgery he had to have! And even after all of that, he still thinks he could have gotten Caroline out in time?”

Elizabeth snorted and ran the back of her hand under her nose. “He told me — told me afterward that he would just as soon have died with her that night,” she said. Her voice hitched painfully, but she forced herself to go on. “He says Caroline was — was his only reason for living, and that without her ... “ Her gaze clouded as it drifted past her mother and out the kitchen window at the dusky night sky.

“And what — ?” Rebecca snarled. “Does he think you never felt any pain, and grief? Does he think he was the only one who loved Caroline? That he was the only one who truly suffered when she died?
Christ
! When I think that I was ever nice to that man! That I talked to him just last night and tried to reassure him!” She pounded her legs with her fists.

“Why? What did you say to him?” Elizabeth asked.

Rebecca stood up slowly and went back to her chair. Shoulders slouched, she hung her head dejectedly.

“He never called the house,” Rebecca said sullenly. “I called him, both the night you came home,” she said, “and again last night. I just wanted to ... to tell him how I thought you needed help, that he should call you or come here and try to patch things up between the two of you.” She sighed heavily, like a wheezing bellows. “God
damn
him to
Hell
!”

“He has his own pain to deal with,” Elizabeth said mildly. “And maybe — you know, the scars on his face and all are still a pretty vivid reminder of what he suffered that night.”

Elizabeth knew she shouldn’t be defending Doug. Over the past year and a half, she had lost or let slip away whatever love she had once felt for him; but she also didn’t want to listen to her mother curse out the man she had once loved, the man who had been the father of her daughter. “He’s had a pretty rough time of it, too, in the hospital after the accident and all.”

Rebecca nodded in agreement, but she didn’t unclench her fists, which were turning white at the knuckles.

“I know it’s hard to see it that way,” Elizabeth said, “but I think what he’s blaming me for isn’t just what happened to” — her voice almost broke, but she forged ahead —”to Caroline. I think he blames me for what happened to him, too. I don’t think you realize how horrible it was, you know? There were bums over fifty percent of his face.”

“I realize that!” Rebecca said. “In case you don’t remember, your father and I came out to visit him nearly every day he was in the hospital. But doesn’t he realize that if it hadn’t been for you, he’d have died that night, too?”

“I’m sure he does,” Elizabeth said, as she rubbed her eyes and shook her head. “I’m sure he does.”

“But it doesn’t stop him from blaming you for everything, does it?”

Elizabeth merely continued shaking her head.

Rebecca leaned back and took a deep, noisy breath. Running her hands through her hair, she let the breath out in a long, shuddering sigh.

“It’s really late,” she said. “You should be off to bed. You should get a few more hours of sleep anyway. You want to be fresh for your new job tomorrow. “

“Oh, God — that’s right,” Elizabeth said with a start. “I have to be at Hardy’s by seven-thirty.”

“Your father’ll be getting up in another hour, anyway,” Rebecca said, glancing at the clock. “I might just as well stay up. I can take a nap later in the day.”

Elizabeth stood up, but before she left the kitchen, she went over to her mother and gave her a long, tight hug. Tears were streaming down her face, and she could tell by the shaking of her mother’s shoulders that she was crying, too. Somehow, distantly and dimly, that made her feel better … not much better, but better. At least for now, all she could do was be grateful that her mother had been there for her and try like hell not to think how badly she had let down Caroline!

“G’night, Mom,” she said, kissing her lightly on the cheek. “And thanks ... a lot.”

“You know what I think the real miracle is in all of this,” Rebecca said, smiling kindly as she held Elizabeth at arm’s length and looked intently into her eyes. “I think it’s simply amazing how well you’ve held yourself together through all of this. I know ... I know it must have been absolutely horrible for you, but you’ve hung in there. You’ve been strong. I think you’re a miracle.”

A deep stirring of guilt twisted in Elizabeth’s gut as she turned to leave the kitchen. As she mounted the stairs to her bedroom, all she could think was,
Maybe ... hopefully you’ll never have to learn the truth about the rest of it
!

5.

After an early-morning shower, which helped some but, she feared, not enough, Elizabeth left for her first day at Hardy’s. Surprisingly, she was only five minutes late, and, as much as she wasn’t looking forward to a day of selling monkey wrenches and screwdrivers, she found that Jake Hardy wasted no time making her feel welcome and comfortable at the register.

Once she got into the swing of the work, things weren’t half as bad as she had thought they might be. She had always found Jake Hardy to be a cheerful man, and he had her laughing out loud much of the time as he explained the basic operations of the cash register. Between the few sales they had that morning, he kept up a goodhumored, rambling discussion of things that had gone on in town over the past few years.

In the many quieter moments, when Jake left her alone at the register, she couldn’t stop wondering how it could have been a dream when she woke up to find herself sitting on the bedroom floor with the Ouija board in her lap. She tried, instead, to focus on the more positive aspects, like the closeness and honesty she had felt between her and her mother.

By one o’clock, when Frank Sheldon, one of the high school kids who worked afternoons, came in, Elizabeth thought the job at Hardy’s would prove to be well above the “tolerable” level. Then Prank Melrose dropped by during her lunch break and cast a cloud over the rest of her day.

Elizabeth’s mother had packed her a lunch, and she was sitting in the back room, surrounded by cases of hardware and plumbing supplies, when she heard a light knock on the door. Before she could turn to tell the person to come in, Prank Melrose poked his head around the comer of the open door.

“Hi,” he said, smiling widely. “Just thought I’d stop by and see how it’s going.”