The Tea Party - A Novel of Horror (13 page)

Hell, what was she talking about? It did compensate for all that, and did a lot more. It showed her how much he loved her, and taught her how to handle him whenever his moods grew too much to bear. For all his posturing, he was still a teenager; for all his bluster and rage, he was still more like her teddy bear than he would ever admit.

But she had promised they would never have children, and so how was she going to tell him she was pregnant?

And not your ordinary pregnant either. The doctor, whom she visited while telling Bud she was going out to shop for some new clothes, said she was at least four months on the rails.

She looked down at the tiny bulge beneath her loose shirt. Bud thought it was cute, that little pot belly there. Bud didn’t know that little pot belly was filling up.

Her eyes closed. One scare over, another still in progress. How in hell could she be four months pregnant and not even know it? The doctor said it happens. She said, not to me, pal, not to me.

It scared her. It scared her so much she hadn’t said a word to anyone. Not even to Bud. But today, after they’d made love and he’d rushed out to save the world, she felt something down there, something pushing at her belly as if trying to get out. She hadn’t said anything even then, but she was going to have to now.

Later, she thought. Bud is on the move, and you’re all alone. She decided there was no sense waiting for him to return. She wandered to the stairwell, paused when she reached the bottom, and had walked past the Retirement Room when she changed her mind, turned, and opened it.

The stench was gone, the panes in the window untouched, yet there was the empty extinguisher lying on the floor. She had it cradled in her arms when she saw a large stain on the center cushion of an eighteenth-century Indian lounge. Oh my god, she thought as she leaned closer; Bud’s gonna die. There was no way in hell a stain like that was going to come out. The lounge was ruined.

But a touch of her finger made her freeze. The brocade was stiff, brittle, and a piece of it flaked off when she rubbed it. Suddenly it was cold in the room. She knelt before the lounge and sniffed at the dark spot. Burned. It had been burned.

A look to the window, and down to the extinguisher in her arms.

It was real, then. Somehow, in some way, that fire had been real enough to damage this lounge.

The cylinder dropped unnoticed to the floor as she lay an unconsciously protective hand over her stomach, rose, and backed out into the hall. She made sure all the night lights were on and went over to the Depot, to see what had happened, to seek some reassurance that she wasn’t losing her mind.

The tavern was full, the noise from the jukebox swamped by excited conversations at the bar, the tables, the overflowing booths. It’s like a dumb convention, she thought as she made her way to the bar, found a space at the end, and took a stool from a kid who couldn’t have been more than eighteen. He eyed her, and she smiled at him and turned away just as he was marshalling his nerve to make a move. Doug Muir, she saw then, was washing glasses in Gil’s place.

When he spotted her, he came over and answered her questions with curious detachment. Oh wow, it must’ve been a doozy, she thought as she ordered a draft beer and tried to catch Judy’s eye down at the register. It took several minutes before she saw her, and by then she’d eavesdropped enough to know that it was Casey who had done the stabbing, that the attack was a mistake, and Casey had taken to the hills after fighting off three men and breaking one’s glasses.

“I am moving to Florida,” Judy said when she joined her, folding her arms and resting her forehead on top. “I am disowning my brother, selling this dump, and moving to Florida. To the Everglades, where I’ll find a rich alligator to take care of me.”

“What the hell made him do it?”

Judy turned her head; her eyes were red and puffed. “I don’t know, Ollie. Jesus Christ, I don’t know. He’s been babbling all week about someone moving into Winterrest, but he won’t—”

“No kidding?”

“Oh, it’s bullshit,” Judy said. “He gets all his inside dope from the bottle.”

Wonderful, she thought; that jackass oughta find a cliff and fall off it.

Judy groaned and sat up, fussed with her hair, and gave Ollie a silent apology before appropriating the beer and taking a long, gulping drink. “How’s Bud?” she asked when she was finished and had pushed the glass forward for a refill.

Ollie almost told it all; it was on the edge of her tongue and ready to be spat. “Same,” she said instead.

“You guys still getting married?”

“Why?” She laughed nervously. “Is there a pool?” When Judy grinned, she leaned closer and nodded toward Doug. “What’s with him? You two have a fight? Or did Liz pop the question?”

Judy stared at her so hard, she began to feel warm.

“Hey, did I say something wrong?”

“It was Liz who got stabbed, Ollie. Casey knifed Liz.”

“Oh shit. Oh no, shit.”

She saw then the expression behind Judy’s eyes, the hurt and a trace of anger, and she grabbed for the fresh beer, took a drink, and said something about Casey, how funny he’d been acting.

“Yeah,” she said when Judy didn’t respond. “Funny. That’s the word around here this week, and not just your brother. Funny peculiar, I mean. Like, did you know Bud and I had an offer for the shop on Monday? Jesus, can you believe it? Who the hell would want to bury himself in this town?”

“You did,” Judy said lightly.

“Yeah, but I’m nuts. It’s either here or they lock me up.”

“Me too.”

“You? Bananas?”

Judy swept an encompassing arm toward the room. “You see what I have to put up with. Damn, I’m lucky they haven’t come for me already.” A dramatic sigh, a silent glance. “You feeling all right, Ollie? You looked a little pale. You also, excuse me, look like you’re gaining a bit.”

“My cooking,” she answered hastily. “I’m into pasta this month.”

They looked at each other for several long seconds and would have said more but one of the waitresses called out. With a quick smile Judy was gone, and Ollie changed her mind about going back home. She wanted the noise, and the people, and she didn’t mark the time, didn’t notice when the crowd started thinning out, when she was finally alone, only Doug and Judy with her.

When she looked up at the clock, it was only eleven.

When she looked at the door, Bud walked in, walked straight to the bar without saying a word, reached over and grabbed an open bottle of Southern Comfort. Judy gaped, Doug stared, and Ollie hurried to his side as he drank what amounted to a full glass before taking a breath.

“What?” she said, taking his arm to force the bottle down.

“Is it Liz?” Judy asked, moving closer to Doug.

Bud shook his head, wiped his mouth, and brushed alcohol tears from the rims of his eyes. “Gil’s parking the ambulance in back.”

“All right,” Ollie said calmly, without feeling calm at all.

“Liz,” he said then, and looked as if he were going to cry.

Judy saw his expression. “Oh my god,” she said.

Ollie suddenly felt sick to her stomach.

“No,” he told her. “No, she’s not dead. She’ll be fine.”

“Then what’s wrong?” Ollie asked.

Bud spread his hands. “Nothing is wrong, and that’s what’s the matter.”

Doug took the bottle, poured a shotglass and handed it to him despite Judy’s disapproval. “The doctors took care of her,” he said, his voice tight.

“Nobody did,” Bud said loudly. “Damnit, nobody had to. By the time we got there, she was all better.” When they looked at him blankly, he slapped a hand on the bar. “Goddamnit, Doug, when they took off the blanket and looked under the bandage, there was hardly anything there. Don’t you see? There was hardly anything! I swear to god she was stabbed, but there was only a fucking scratch!”

FIVE

1

Doug excused himself shortly before two, leaving the others to close up the tavern. No one tried to stop him, though Judy gave him a look that almost turned him around. But he couldn’t stay. He kept looking at the windows, at the doors, expecting any minute to see someone else, another reminder of what had happened. It was foolish. It was ridiculous. He knew it. Yet the day had loaded his imagination with too many demons and he decided it was about time to rid himself of this plague once and for all.

If he didn’t, he’d be an emotional cripple for the rest of his life.

As he had been during his flight from Seattle after his parole ended. It was evident he couldn’t practice his profession there because of his past, so he took the money he’d invested and headed cross-country, hitching when he could, working in forgotten diners in places he had never heard of and never wanted to hear of again. He had no credit cards, so he had to use cash; he had virtually no identification, so he used whatever name came to mind whenever he was asked. When he arrived on the East Coast he stayed away from the larger towns because the fraternity of colleagues had big ears and old gossip, and landed in Deerford when his last ride did.

He had slept behind the tavern without anyone knowing.

He discovered the Hollow the next day, discovered Parrish’s office and learned the land was for sale. Parrish, to his credit, didn’t blink when Doug pulled out his bankroll; he just gave him Piper’s name as someone reliable enough to help build his house.

It was six years later, and time he stopped whipping himself.

He drove as fast as the dark would allow, skidding into Hollow Lane, slowing only when the streetlamps stopped, seeing nothing but the twin trails of his headlamps as he jounced along the road. His back and shoulders ached with tension, his hands cramped around the steering wheel.

The noise of the engine thundered, the tires ground like an angry mill, the creak of metal was like gunshots that struck him in a hundred numbing places.

Liz. Oh my god, Liz.

And he heard himself telling Bud that if Liz really hadn’t been hurt, then the blood on her blouse belonged to someone else. Bud resisted. Doug, calm and aided by Ollie, suggested that perhaps Casey had really stabbed Bernie, and Liz had only been splattered. The excitement, the panic; with Liz there and Bernie gone and still not found, it was an understandable mistake.

“No,” Bud had insisted. “I cut away the blouse. I
saw
the damned wound.”

“You
thought
you saw the wound, Bud. You could have been wrong.”

Bud had said nothing more, and to keep their minds occupied with something else besides the lighting they spoke of Parrish’s attempts to buy up their homes. It didn’t make sense, but then what did? Doug didn’t mention the wind, and when the last gossiping customer had paid his tab and left, he had wiped the bar down and left without explaining.

Liz, he thought after he garaged the Jeep and went inside. Liz, for god’s sake, be all right.

There was, again, a temptation to go and see her; there was, again, a reminder that Clark Davermain was staying with her.

He drank a can of beer, stared at the phone, and steeled himself to call the hospital. No big deal, Muir. You’re just asking about a friend.

But Bud had said there was no cut, not a scratch.

Liz . . .

He looked into the fireplace and forgot about the time.

He looked, and he waited, and he listened to the night.

2

Casey Lockhart was afraid, his throat dry, his lungs screaming at him to slow down. But he couldn’t. He had to keep running. Bad enough Hallman had told him he was nuts to his face, bad enough his anger had found the knife in his pocket. Then he had to go and pull the sucker out, flash it around. When Judy yelled, he panicked for the first time and plunged out the door behind Bernie with no intention of sticking him at all.

Then that goddamned lawyer woman popped up in front of him and he tripped trying to backpedal away; his right foot had twisted out, his left foot had kicked back, and before he could do anything he felt the knife go in and heard her screaming and what the hell could he do but get the hell away? He was drunk, and he knew it, and who would believe he hadn’t been aiming for that prick, Bernie Hallman?

Three guys cornered him between two cars. By then he had dropped the knife, had only his fists, and they had forgotten how good he was with his terrible fists. It took less than ten seconds, time enough for five or six solid punches made invisible by the night air and he was away like a shot, around the back of the tavern, cutting through his own backyard, and darting across the darkest part of the street on the far side of the Bazaar. He heard the ambulance, the shouting, and he bulled his way through a hedge into the trees beyond.

The ground rose, and he scrambled up with it, using branches to pull him, boulders to propel him, telling himself it was wrong to run, he should stay and tell the truth, but who the hell would believe him? Who would believe a drunk? He had fallen off the wagon, and no one cared about the lights. Bernie had stood right there and told him he was nuts, there hadn’t been electricity in that place for over fifty years, who the hell would believe him?

He ran.

Over the hill and down, slowing as he approached the houses on Hollow Lane. He was tempted to make his way to Doug’s place, hide in the stable until daylight, then show himself and plead his case. Doug was all right. He knew things, and knew how Casey was when he was drunk. He knew, and he would understand, and he would help with the police.

Casey vetoed the idea almost as soon as it was formed.

That wouldn’t work. Doug would believe the part about the knife easily enough, but he wouldn’t believe the part about Winterrest. Casey wasn’t precisely sure why it was so important—there was only a whispering in his head that warned him it was—but if he could only find out who was there, then he would be believed about everything. So Doug would have to wait. Casey would make it back to the Hollow before dawn and tell Doug everything, and Doug would tell Judy and then she wouldn’t come down so hard on him anymore.

He slithered, then, and slid, became as softly silent as the breeze tailing him overhead. A few chickens muttered at him, Piper’s hound dogs barked a few times, but he managed to get across the road and down the rest of the hill without being spotted.