Nursery Tale

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NOVELS:

STRANGE SEEDS

BOUNDARIES

GOODLOW'S GHOSTS

SLEEPEASY

THE WAITING ROOM

A SPIDER ON MY TONGUE

THE ASCENDING

THE CHANGING

THE DEVOURING

NON FICTION:

THE INTELLIGENT MAN'S GUIDE TO U.F.O.s

UNABRIDGED AUDIOBOOKS:

A MANHATTAN GHOST STORY – NARRATED BY DICK HILL

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Thanks to Bill Thompson, who helped bring
Strange Seed
into the world. And to Stephen King, one of the few who understood it. And Mike Cantalupo, who has always had a kind word, and sound advice. And Sharon Jarvis, without whom . . . Later thanks also to Jack Garner, for being candid.

Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth.

—GENESIS 1:28

From
The Penn Yann Post Gazette
, December 6:

COUPLE INCINERATED IN HOUSE FIRE

Paul Griffin, 30, and his wife Rachel, 26, were killed last night in a fire at their 100-year-old farmhouse on the Tripp Road extension, ten miles north of Penn Yann. According to Deputy Volunteer Fire Chief Clyde Watkins, the fire apparently started when a gasoline-powered electric generator at the side of the house exploded. Watkins described the destruction caused by the fire as "total," and added that when he and his men arrived on the scene at approximately 3:15 A.M., the Griffin house was completely engulfed in flames.

According to Penn Yann resident John Marsh—who did occasional work for the Griffins—the couple had moved into the farmhouse about six months ago, hoping to make the farm profitable once again. "But there were lots of problems," Marsh explained. "I remember when they first moved in, for instance; that house was a shambles. Vandals got in there and just went wild."

Investigation has revealed that the house's previous owners, a middle-aged couple named Schmidt, were found dead at the house in August, 1972, apparently as the result of a double suicide. Prior to that tragedy, Paul Griffin's father, Samuel Griffin, one-time owner of the house, died of a heart attack there in 1957.

Mr. Griffin, formerly of New York City, leaves an uncle, Harold Martinson. His wife leaves her mother and father, two sisters, several aunts and uncles, nieces and nephews. No local service is planned.

From
The Penn Yann Post Gazette
, April 3:

COMPLAINT FILED IN CASE OF MISSING MAN

Mrs. Maureen Collins, of Syracuse, New York, has filed a complaint charging that local Police Chief John Hastings and his men were "negligent and incompetent" in their investigation of the disappearance of Mrs. Collins's husband, Mark, in January of this year. Mark Collins apparently disappeared while on a hunting expedition with several friends in the Tripp Road area, about ten miles from Penn Yann.

Says Mrs. Collins, "Those people"—Police Chief Hastings and his men—"didn't spend more than two days looking for my husband. And they didn't call in anyone from outside. It was obvious they didn't expect to find him, or they didn't want to." Mrs. Collins, who is white, has also alleged racism on the part of Police Chief Hastings in the search for her husband, who is a black man. Chief Hastings stated "no comment" when asked about the complaint.

August

T
he boy, squinting in the late afternoon country sunlight, looked up briefly at the man beside him and nodded to his left, at the remains of a cellar and some blackened timbers strewn about. "Hey, Grandpa," the boy said, "there was a house there once. Looks like it burned up."

"Burned down," the man corrected.

"Huh?"

"It burned down. It didn't burn up, it burned down."

"Oh." The boy didn't understand. "Anybody get killed, ya think?"

"You're a morbid sort, aren'tcha?"

"Morbid?" The boy's eyebrows wrinkled. "What's that mean?"

"It means you want all the gory details." The man chuckled softly. "Yeah," he continued after a moment, and there was a tiny note of solemnity in his voice. "People got killed. A man and his wife—back-to-the-landers, they were."

"What's—" the boy started, and the man, anticipating him, cut in, "Tryin' to find their roots in the earth. And no, they weren't trees, if that's what you were gonna say."

"I wasn't gonna say nothin', Grandpa."

"Uh-huh, and bears don't crap in the woods, either."

"They don't?"

The man laughed. "Sure they do. Where else they gonna crap if not in the woods?"

The boy understood. He grinned because his grandpa was sharing such a great joke with him; it was at times like these that the boy felt especially close to the man.

"D'ja know the people who got killed in that house, Grandpa?"

The man stopped walking; the boy stopped. "I knew of 'em, son. I knew
of
'em." And the boy noticed something strange and quiet in his voice, something that said,
Let's forget it, for now
.

The boy took the man's hand and squeezed it affectionately. "Supper's 'bout ready, don'tcha think?" It took a moment for the man to answer: "Uh-huh. Probably past ready." And they started walking again.

Several minutes later, when they had completed half their walk, they turned and started back the way they'd come. The sun was low on the horizon now, and the boy sensed that his grandpa had quickened the pace.

"Yer walkin' pretty fast, Grandpa."

"Am I?"

"Yeah. You must be awful hungry, huh?"

"Famished."

"'Famished'? Does that mean hungry?"

"It means you talk enough for five little kids."

"I'm sorry." The boy sounded hurt; he felt the man's arm around his shoulders. "
Ten
little kids," the man said, and he chuckled falsely. The boy silently accepted the apology.

They soon passed the spot where the house had been and the boy said enthusiastically, "Hey, Grandpa, why don't we just cut through there." He pointed at a narrow weathered path that ran at right angles to the road they were on and apparently ended at a stand of deciduous trees not quite a half mile off. The setting sun made the trees appear to be on fire; the boy liked that. "We could be back home and sittin' down to supper in a couple minutes, I bet," he continued, and grinned, pleased that he could save his grandpa some walking time. He felt the man's grip tighten around his shoulders.

"Shouldn'ta brought you here, son," he said. "I don't know what I was thinkin', don't know what I was thinkin' at all, but I shouldn'ta brought you here."

The boy didn't understand. "Yer hurtin' me. What'sa matter, Grandpa?"

The man loosened his grip, then quickened his pace even more, so that the boy had to do a half walk, half run to keep up. "Grandpa, you scared a somethin'? What you scared of?"

The man said nothing. But now he was running, and the boy found terror growing inside himself, found that he was glancing frantically about for a
reason
to run, found that—worst of all—the man was rapidly outdistancing him. "Grandpa, wait. Please!" He saw the man glance back, saw the terror and confusion on the old face. "Grandpa, stop!" But the man didn't stop.

The boy had never realized how really fast his legs could move. He remembered fleetingly, almost wistfully, as he ran, the time a year and a half earlier when he had been in the woodsy section of a city park and had convinced himself that a bear was rooting about in some nearby bushes. He had run as fast—he supposed later—as any boy, or man, or
thing
had
ever
run, and for months afterward his dreams had been filled with wonderful, fantastic memories of it.

But that was in the past, he realized now. And there had been nothing real about it.

This
was real! The terror and confusion and panic on his grandpa's face, and the distance opening up between them, and the thing—whatever it was—that they were running from . . .

The boy fell very quickly, too quickly for his hands to react and cushion him. His chin hit the gravel first, and a small, sharp stone opened up an inch-long gash; then his forehead, chest and legs hit. "Grand—" he managed as he hit. Then he heard a muffled, dry, grunting sound.

Moments later, he was unconscious.

"Y
ou'll tell me the truth, Earl Freeman, or I'll know the reason why."

Earl Freeman glanced blankly at his wife, then just as blankly at the boy lying quietly on the old bed. They had sent for the doctor, but it was a ten-mile drive from town, and most of that was over bad, one-lane, unpaved roads. He turned away, walked to a window, looked out. "We were running, like I said."

"I
know
what you said, and I
know
there's more."

It was something greater than hate that Earl Freeman felt for himself, now—had felt ever since, in a panic, he had scooped the boy up from the road. More than hate. More like a certainty that his actions in the last hour had loudly denied his very worth as a human being. "We were on Griffin's Road," he said, and closed his eyes briefly, happy that he'd admitted it at last.