Season of Passage, The (61 page)

blame them.'

'Do you know where they went?' Terry asked.

The man must have verified with somebody - possibly Dean Ramsey himself - who Terry Hayes was. He spoke freely. 'Major Wheeler told me he

was itching to look up a pair of old girlfriends in Los Angeles. I believe Dr Wagner was dropped off at the L. A. airport. She was anxious to get out

in the country. She'd said she needed to see green grass and tal trees again.'

Terry was reminded of a remark Jennifer had made.

'When she comes back, she wil have to come here - no matter what.'

'What garden was she going to?' Terry muttered.

'Mr Hayes?'

'Where in the country? Wyoming?'

'Don't you know? She told me she was going with you, Mr Hayes. That you were going hunting together. You like to hunt, eh? There's a sport I've

always loved.'

'Did she say anything else?'

'Not that I remember offhand. Is the hunting season open in parts of Wyoming?'

'It is now,' Terry said. 'How is Major Thompson doing?'

'He's alive. I suppose he's a little better. But his condition is stil listed as critical. I'l tel him you were concerned about him if I get a chance to talk to

him.'

'Thanks. Thanks for the information.'

'You bet.'

Terry set down the phone and walked across the park to his car. Lauren had known he would cal . She had intentional y left behind the clues to her

destination. She would be at the cabin, and she wanted him to meet her there.

Terry came to a decision. He came to it quickly and without further internal debate. He would meet her in Wyoming. He was afraid of her. He was

convinced she would kil him, or worse. Yet he felt he had to go. Maybe al the books were wrong. Maybe she could be saved. He would have to try.

He was sure Chaneen would have been proud of him.

Terry drove to the bank and withdrew his savings, a whopping $4,657.13. From the bank he cal ed the airport. His timing was off. He had just

missed a plane to Casper, Wyoming. The next one didn't leave til 4:56 p.m., arriving in Casper at seven. He reserved a rental car to be ready for

him when he arrived. It was a three-hour drive from the airport to his cabin. It would be dark when he got there.

Terry left the bank and drove to a Catholic supply store. There he purchased a rosary, a couple of crucifixes, a Bible, and a blue vial designed for

storing holy water. He went to a church next and fil ed his vial with sacred water and asked the priest in the confessional booth to bless his

paraphernalia. He knew he was being foolish but he figured he may as wel play al the numbers on the table, just in case.

He had bought silver crucifixes.

He stopped at a sporting goods store next. He was going to meet Lauren at the cabin and sprinkle her with holy water and tap her lightly on the

forehead with his Bible, and the demon would pop out of her stomach and melt into purple gook at her feet. That was one plan. Or else he was

going to hypnotize her and lead her through a rebirthing session, where she got rid of the stress from her trip to Mars. Then again, maybe al he had

to do was kiss her once and she would turn back into his loving Princess. He was going to save her, God wil ing. He had already decided that.

He had also decided he was probably going to have to kil her. At the sporting goods store, he studied the handguns, until the beer-bel ied warrior

behind the counter informed him that he would have to wait a minimum of three days before he could pick up a revolver or a pistol, even if he paid

cash for it today. Terry let himself be led to the racks of shotguns and rifles. There the warrior began a lengthy discourse on the advantages of one

weapon over another. Terry interrupted and said he wanted the gun the police most often used when they were up against a nasty criminal. Ten

minutes later he walked out of the store with a pump action Remington shotgun and two boxes of forty-gauge steel pel ets. The man had assured

him that al he had to do was tel the airline he had the shotgun stored in his luggage, and fil out a brief form, and he could take the gun with him to

Wyoming. But Terry didn't have any luggage, and so along with his gun and his shel s, he bought a fine leather case to carry his equipment, at an

exorbitant price. He charged it, what the hel . He would probably be living in a coffin when the bil came in.

Terry drove to the airport and parked his car. He had four hours to kil . Leaving his shotgun in the trunk for the time being, he ate lunch in the airport

cafeteria. He had a hamburger - rare. He put garlic powder on it, along with his lettuce and tomatoes. He was in a sick mood. He had always been

kind of sick in the head, he supposed, but he had never wanted to hurt anybody. He looked around the busy cafeteria and realized he had eaten

there the day he had flown up to see Lauren and Jennifer, just before Lauren left, for Mars. It was amazing how life turned in a circle, he thought, and

how the circle eventual y spiraled downward into nothing.

Terry had to put a hand over his eyes to stop passersby from seeing his tears. He was a crybaby. He doubted Lauren had ever cried on Mars,

whatever had come her

way. He tried not to think about what she had gone through to become what she was. He tried to console himself with the idea that there must be

something beyond the circle of their lives. The gods. The stars. Chaneen. He would have given anything in the world to have Jennifer sitting by his

side right then. He would have given the world. More than his fear for his own life, and Lauren's life, he worried that the thing in Lauren was going to

take the world, and suck it dry.

Terry finished his hamburger and entered a phone booth. He did not engage the video system. He placed two cal s.

The first was to Kathy Johnson.

Her story came out only after a long and halting conversation.

Her night had been worse than his own.

Kathy had taken Terry's advice and gone to stay with her parents. She didn't give them a reason. They were happy to have her, if only for the night.

They didn't suspect anything was wrong. Lorraine did. Lorraine was a ful telepath when it came to Kathy's state of mind. Lorraine was home for the

week from her latest mental hospital. She knew Kathy was upset about Gary and that it had something to do with demonic possession. Lorraine

actual y said that. She fol owed Kathy from room to room, trying to get her to play Monopoly. She real y got on Kathy's nerves. Kathy ended up

having to pop a couple of Valium to keep from hitting her. She had picked up a fresh prescription that evening, after leaving Edwards Air Force

Base.

Eventual y the household went to bed, including Lorraine. But Kathy couldn't sleep. Gary was on her mind. She tried cal ing Terry in Houston but

couldn't reach him. She got up and checked al the doors and windows in the

house. They were locked. In the living room, she turned on al the lights and sat down and tried reading Time magazine until she felt drowsy.

Then something happened. But she was not sure whether it real y happened, or whether it was just a dream. She might have fal en asleep on the

living room couch and had a nightmare. She remembered hearing a noise at the front door and sitting up with a start. The lights in the living room

were stil on. Only now they shone with a red glow. The title of the magazine lying on her lap was stil Time.

Only now it had a picture of Mars on the cover.

I got up and went to the door. My body felt heavy. I thought I had taken one too many pil s. But I can't say I felt scared. I remembered Gary and al ,

how evil he had acted. I knew it might be him. But I wasn't afraid. I thought that I might have misunderstood him. He was famous. He was a hero. He

had probably had to make difficult decisions on Mars. He might have had to decide, for example, to kil someone. But that did not necessarily make

him evil, not if he acted in the line of duty. He was a sexy guy, I thought. Sexy guys did kinky things. I could get into it, if that's what was required of

me to be with him. Suddenly I did want to be with him, more than anything else in the world.

I heard a noise on the other side of the door. It sounded as if a big strong man was rubbing his naked legs against the door, rubbing oil deep into

his flesh, deep into the grain of the wood. There was a rhythm to the slippery sound. It slowly pulsed up and down, like long and careful y

administered strokes, in and out of my mind. I pressed my body to the door. I could feel the warmth of the oil seeping through the wood. I wanted to

be apart of the rhythm, to join with it. I pressed my hips into the door. It was there I felt the oil the most, the warmth. It was a sticky heat. It was itchy.

But as I scratched myself on the door, the itch got worse. Like the pulsating noise, though, it was not unpleasant. It was tolerable as long as I thought

about Gary. It never occurred to me that I should open the door. It did not seem necessary. I just thought of Gary's eyes, the last time I had seen him,

when he had said he would visit me.

I took off my robe and nightgown. I didn't need them. They were beginning to annoy me. I returned to stroking the door with my hips. I loved it. The

surface of the door felt to me like the skin of a man who had just emerged from a hot pot of grease. It was smooth. It was delightful y erotic.

Only the smoothness didn't last, not down between my legs. The itch there got even worse. I moved faster and faster to try to get rid of it, but it

wouldn't go away. It began to hurt. I don't know why I didn't just stop. I couldn't stop. I realized I had my eyes closed. I couldn't even open them to look

down and see what I was doing to myself. I couldn't get Gary's eyes out of my head. But I final y forced them open.

'Then I stopped stroking the door. The wood was smeared with my blood. I realized I had dozens of dark splinters stuck in myself. I was bleeding.

The pain was terrible. I screamed, then I fainted.'

Kathy's father had woken her up at three in the morning. She was lying naked by the front door. She had only one splinter stuck in her skin, near her

crotch. Her father didn't seem to notice her nakedness; he was terribly upset. Her mother appeared to be having a heart attack. Kathy threw on her

robe and dashed upstairs. Her mother was pale, gasping for air. Kathy cal ed for an ambulance. It was there in under five minutes. It was only while

they were riding to the hospital that they realized that Lorraine hadn't woken up. The doctors at the hospital didn't know what was wrong with her

mother. They thought it was a heart attack, but not al her symptoms lined up. However, the woman improved when she was placed in an oxygen

tent. By sunup she was in stable condition, although they were keeping her in intensive care.

Kathy returned home at about eight o'clock. Lorraine was stil in bed. Kathy went to her room to wake her up. She had a hard time getting her sister

to open her eyes, and then when Lorraine did wake up, she slashed out at Kathy with her fingernails and slit open Kathy's lower lip. Don't bother

me, bitch. Kathy didn't know how to respond. The violence was uncharacteristic of the new Lorraine; they hadn't fought in over two years. While

Kathy was standing there holding her lip together, Lorraine laughed and said Gary would be coming back again tonight. That was al she said. She

wasn't interested in the fact that her mother had almost died during the night. She went back to sleep. She was sleeping now.

That was Kathy's story, more or less.

She wanted to know what was going on.

'You were outside in the sun today,' Terry said. 'Did you get burned?'

'No. I went to the hospital twice. I didn't get burned, though.' She asked in a frightened voice, 'Why should I get burned?'

'Are you having trouble breathing?'

'No.'

'Do you have any marks on your throat?'

'No.'

'Are you bleeding anywhere?'

'Terry! Why are you asking these questions?'

'Are you bleeding?'

She hesitated. 'I'm on my period.'

'Did it start in the middle of the night?'

'Yes.'

'Should it have started?'

'No! Stop it. My mother's the one who's sick. Wait. Where are you? You sound like you're in an airport.'

'I am in an airport.'

'Are you coming to California? Fly out here. I'm going nuts.'

'I can't, not right away.'

'You have to. I don't know what happened last night. I don't think it was a dream. I don't have sick dreams like that. I think Gary was there. Why did

you ask me if I had any marks on my throat?'

'I don't know. It's nothing.'

'Are you saying there were vampires on Mars?'

' Yeah,' Terry said dryly.

'Stop that! There's no time for it. What have you found out about Gary and Lauren?'

'They're vampires. For lack of a better word.'

Kathy was silent for a moment. 'Tel me what you know, Terry. Don't make anything up.'

He told her about his meeting with Lauren, his talk with Herb, his analysis of Lauren and Gary's characteristics. Then he did something he never

thought he would. He started to tel her about Jennifer's story, the entire chronicle of the Sastra and Asurian war. He told her about the rings,

Jennifer's ability to stick her hands in fire, and Chaneen. Yeah, he told her that Jennifer had been Chaneen, the loveliest of the offspring of the gods.

He heard Kathy moan on the other end of the line. He assumed she thought he was crazy. But she had been listening with an open mind. Recent

experiences had cracked her so wide open al that she wanted to know was how to make it end. She wanted the bottom line.