Ghouls (30 page)

The entire notion was silly, even absurd—two adults parked in the woods and necking like high school sweethearts. In Willard’s security truck no less. Glen might’ve laughed had he not been so intent on her. When her blouse was open, he pressed a hand between her breasts and smiled at the simple thump of her heart.

It was midnight now. A light breeze traced over them through the open cab window. Night sounds throbbed in from the forest. It had all been Nancy’s idea; generally they went to a motel, or to Glen’s, but lately she’d seemed bothered about her age. “Let’s be eighteen again,” she’d insisted. “Let’s park in the woods.” He wouldn’t have cared if they’d parked in a landfill, so long as he could be with her. But she was only thirty; why should she be depressed about her age?

They’d parked north of Belleau Wood’s largest interior ridge, a vast, rising slope of serried woods, and faced a small clearing which extended to the end of the property. Despite the clearing’s openness, Glen could see almost nothing ahead of him. Clouds expunged the moonlight, laying a caul through the forest. He could feel her more than see her.

Nancy had forgotten her question; she turned in his embrace and went into one of her long hot penetrating kisses. During moments like this, moments of complete abstraction, Glen thought this was all he lived for—to be kissed by this woman. Through her kisses came a vital element, the final, necessary amalgam of a system which avouched his spirit and legitimized his love. Without it, he’d feel stained black by guilt, or at least he would have at one time. He didn’t know now. Or care. He realized how vulnerable he was. How pussy-whipped. He loved her. He would do anything for her. If he saw another man kissing her, or even looking at her closely, he’d fight before he had time to think twice. And if anyone ever hurt her…

The truth held no consolation, though. The futility of this relationship beat in the back of his skull like a headache, and he doubted he was anything more to her than a fleck of spice in a particularly dull life. She would leave Willard for him only after they started serving Hawaiian Punch in hell.

“Let me,” she said. “Right here, in the truck.”

He knew what she meant, of course, one of the many mysteries of femininity. He could see her eyes in the dark; he could see the desire in them. But that only made him more morose. It was just desire, and nothing more.

“Not yet,” he said.

Her skin felt like warm silk. He touched her breasts alternately in smooth, pressing motions, until her nipples filled. She leaned tighter against him, her tongue slipping insistently over his. She moaned in his mouth, and then her hand slithered over his cheek and down his chest like fluid. She moaned again; her fingers closed on his crotch, caging it, and seemed to oscillate there.

“Yet?” she said.

Glen couldn’t answer.

Just as she prepared to unfasten his belt, a loud quick crunching sound came at them from the rim of the woods.

Nancy swallowed a shriek, jerking back into the seat. Glen felt his heart slam in his chest. “Don’t tell me you didn’t hear
that,”
she whispered.

“I heard it,” Glen said. But he didn’t say he’d been hearing sounds like that a lot lately. The scare wore down when he considered the possibilities. “No need to lose our minds,” he said. “It’s probably just some deranged murderer sneaking around. Either that, or Cody Drucker hunting for his cufflinks.”

“Goddamn it, Glen!” she said, her whisper now fiercely sharp. She locked her door and rolled up her window, then leaned forward, holding her blouse closed. “This is no time for jokes! Turn on the lights, for God’s sake!”

Glen grinned.
Oh, honey, you turn me on when you’re pissed.
He started the engine and turned on the high beams. A wall of severe white glare sprang up, lighting the trees beside them, and the clearing. A hardy ten-point buck stood about ten yards ahead of the truck. It stared back at them intently, craning its furred neck as if to look past the lights. It made no attempt to flee, but instead seemed more annoyed by their presence than frightened.

“There’s your culprit,” Glen said. “A four-legged Peeping Tom.”

Nancy seemed to deflate from relief. “You don’t know how close I came to wetting my pants.”

“Thank God for vinyl seat covers.”

“I don’t know how you stand working out here,” she said, and looked around nervously. She began to button her blouse, concealing her unflawed breasts notch by notch. “It’s so
dark.
Doesn’t this job ever get on your nerves?”

“No,” but that was not an honest response.

“Well, it’s got to be dull, at least.”

“Not really. I get my share of action—hunters, trespassers, dumpers. And lots of parkers, especially this time of year.”

“What are parkers?”

“You know, kids parking in the woods to make out. Like what we’re doing. Belleau Wood is a regular Trojan Alley. Every teenager with a car tries to bring his girlfriend here.”

“But how do they get past the gates?”

“Sometimes they cut them, sometimes they come in before the gates are locked. Lots of them slip through the old haulage lanes at the back of your husband’s property. There aren’t any gates on those, the trick is finding them. But it doesn’t matter. You could put the Great Wall of China around Belleau Wood, and these kids would still find a way to get in. Hell, tonight I ran off three sets of parkers before I’d even been on duty an hour.”

Nancy’s fascination seemed to spread across her face. “You mean, you catch them…doing it?”

“Yeah.”

“You see them
screwing?”

“Sure, lots of times. What’s the big deal?”

“I don’t think I like the idea of you roaming around out here, watching people screw.”

Was she jealous? He felt delighted. “Well, it’s not like I stand there and watch. I run them off. They could even be prosecuted for trespassing, but that’d mean your husband would have to file the complaint, since he’s the property owner. He doesn’t want the hassle, he just tells me to run them off.”

“That figures,” she said. “And speaking of my husband, you better take me back now.”

“But it’s only—”

“It’s late, Glen. And sooner or later, Charles is going to start to wonder about all these ‘movies’ I go to at night.”

Glen laughed, but it sifted away when he realized there was little to laugh about. He didn’t want her to go just yet; he didn’t want to be alone. But she was right, as always—these late-night rendezvous would have to end. It seemed preposterous that Willard didn’t suspect.

“We’ll have to be more careful from now on,” she said, as though she’d probed his mind. “A lot more careful than this.”

Glen was staring at the deer. “I know.” Then, after a pause, “Do you think he’s caught on?”

Nancy shrugged in a very unconvincing way.

He U-turned and drove back toward the access road. The truck rattled over rough earth, and neither of them spoke. Nancy looked blankly out the side window, seemingly lost in secret thoughts. Glen wondered if the thoughts involved him. They’d been seeing each other, intimately, for months now—Glen suspected that the awkwardness of their relationship was beginning to grate on her. He loved her genuinely, while her love for him seemed stilted, not real love at all, but something doomed and inferior. He couldn’t blame her, though. She’d be an idiot to dream the same dreams he did. The night coaxed truth from him, and he felt more useless than he ever had. In his most resplendent moments, he pictured her in his future, but now, through the gaps in the fantasy, he saw the lie. There was nothing he could do but wait for their bond to disintegrate altogether.

He stopped at the road entrance. Nancy’s black Porsche was parked behind some trees on the other side of the chain. She leaned over and kissed him a last time, and for an imperceptible moment, he would not have let go of her hand even if told to do so at gunpoint. He wondered how much longer he could wear his despair so well.

“I won’t be able to see you tomorrow,” she said, looking away. “I have to go to Bethesda with Charles and help him with some things.”

Glen wilted, as if lanced. He was tired of these “things” that were so often popping up now. It hadn’t always been like that. Sometimes whole weeks would go by and she wouldn’t even mention her husband. She’d only seemed concerned with Glen. But even that had changed now. She’d been “busy,” with “things.”

“Okay,” he said. “Day after tomorrow then?”

“Sure. I’ll think of an excuse to get out of the house.” Her smile was bright; she touched his cheek, then scurried away to her car. Glen stared as the black Porsche drove off.

He remained there and listened to the truck rumble. Originally, he hadn’t been pleased with himself for sleeping with another man’s wife. But now it didn’t bother him because he knew that Willard didn’t love her. He pictured Willard in bed with her, moving over her beneath the sheets. It made Glen burn; it made him too conscious of the line between fucking and making love. He contemplated the Willard who lurked behind that astute, easy veneer, and he sensed a man who revolved solely around himself. Glen stared at the trees, now sick from the idea.
Fucking,
he thought.
Fuck. Fucked. Fucking.
The consequences stabbed his heart with ice. Fuck was a cruel word, perhaps the ugliest ever devised. Willard didn’t make love to his wife—
he fucked
her. He regarded her as an arrangement of sexual parts which existed to be done to, to be emptied into, to be fucked. Yes, he could picture Willard fucking her. And the saddest part was that Nancy didn’t seem to mind.

The thoughts churned further in his head. His guts constricted. He knew this secret relationship was the limit to his own corruption. Still, he often mused of how nice it would be if Willard were to just up and die. Stroke, car wreck, heart failure—any would do. Sometimes Glen even dared to fantasize of breaking into the mansion himself, killing Willard, and then rearranging the scene to look like a slipshod burglary. He actually asked himself if he could commit murder for the sake of his love and was disturbed at the time it took to decide he couldn’t.

In the rearview he glimpsed something tiny and red.
Tail-lights?
He made a quick three-point turn and drove out to the first clearing. Half a mile off, twin glowing red dots moved slowly through the trees, then intensified, then disappeared.

Glen cut the headlights. He pulled off slow, feeling for the ruts in the access road, and stopped before the first turn. Flashlight in one hand and shotgun in the other, he got out and ventured into the black woods. Was someone talking? He heard a noise, perhaps laughter, floating up, deflected by the trees. It sounded like a girl.
Parkers,
he thought.
More parkers.
But he remained watchful, just in case, for sight of a single-beam light, the poacher’s mark of trade. He’d been shot at more than once. “Here the deer shoot back!” was his favorite line, and then he’d always pump a few rounds into the air. That generally sent them packing.

More words issued up, verifying the gender. A girl said, “Well, come on. We haven’t got all night.”

Great,
Glen thought. He’d give them a scare.

Past the first turn, he saw a car parked in the road. He leaned low, walking lightly, and soon details of the vehicle grew more precise. It was a big Lincoln, silver or light gray, and it was new. He inched right up to the passenger side and listened.

“That feels good,” the girl said. “I like that.”

Hope you like this, too,
he thought. He aimed his flashlight at the open passenger window and turned it on.

Both of the people in the car were girls. They both screamed.

Glen couldn’t believe what he was seeing.

The girl on the driver’s side withdrew her hand from the other girl’s pants. One was blonde, the other brunette. Frantic, the blonde pulled her shirttail down over her open jeans.