He tiptoed up, and laid Amy down in the spare room, so as not to disturb Jo-Beth. Then he went to take a quick shower.
SEVEN
It felt good to put his head under the cool water and soap off the sweat and grime of the day; so good that he sprung a hard-on without touching himself. He ignored it as best he could-shampooed his hair, scrubbed his back-but the water kept beating on it, and eventually he took himself in hand. The last time he'd made love to Jo-Beth she'd been four months pregnant, and the attempt had ended with her crying and saying she didn't want him touching her. It was the first indication of how problematic the pregnancy was to prove. During the next few months it sometimes seemed to him he was living with two women, a loving twin and her bitch-sister. The loving Jo-Beth didn't want sex but she wanted his arms around her, and his comfort when she wept. The bitch-sister wanted nothing from him: not kisses, not company, nothing. The bitch-sister would say: I wish I'd never met you, and say it with such conviction he was certain she meant it. Then the old Jo-Beth would surface againusually through tears-and tell him she was sorry, so sorry, and she didn't know what she'd do without him.
He'd learned to curb and conceal his libido pretty well during this time. Kept a stash of skin magazines in the garage; found a soft-core channel to watch late at night; even had a couple of wet dreams. But Jo-Beth was never far from his imagination. Even in the last two weeks of her term, when she was enormous, the sight of her remained intensely arousing. She'd known it too, and seemed to resent his interest in her: locked the bathroom door when she was washing or showering, turned her back on him when she prepared for bed. She'd reduced him to a state of trembling adolescence, watching her from the corner of his eye in the hope of glimpsing the forbidden anatomy; picturing it later when he was jerking off.
He'd had enough of that. It was time they were man and wife again, instead of shy strangers who happened to share the same bed. He turned off the shower, roughly dried himself, then wrapped the towel around his waist and went into the bedroom.
Thunder was rolling in, low and cracked, but it hadn't woken Jo-Beth. She lay fully dressed on top of the bed, her pale face silvery with sweat in the gloom. He went to the window, and opened it a crack. The clouds were bruised and fat with rain; it would only be minutes before they loosed their waters on the dusty yard and the dusty roof.
Behind him, Jo-Beth murmured in her sleep. He went back to the bed, and gently sat down beside her. Again, she murmured something-he couldn't make out what-and raised her hand from her side, grazing his shoulder with her fingers as she did so. Her hand moved on to touch her mouth, and then, as though her sleeping self had realized somebody was sitting beside her, returned to his arm.
He was certain she'd awaken, but she didn't. The faintest of smiles appeared on her face, and her hand went from his arm to his chest. Her touch was feather-light but intensely erotic. All the more so, perhaps, because her unconscious was allowing her to do what her waking self could, or would not. He let her hand dally on his chest, and while it did so he gingerly pulled at the tuck of his towel. His erection had raised its head, eager to be touched. He didn't move; didn't breathe. Just watched while her hand wandered down his hard belly until it found his dick.
He exhaled as quietly as he could, luxuriating in her attention. She didn't linger at his sex any longer than she had at chest and belly, but by the time her fingers had moved over his balls and on down his thigh he was so aroused he feared if she returned there he'd lose control. He looked away from her fingers to her face, but the sight of her troubled beauty only heated him further. He closed his eyes, tight, and tried to picture the street outside, the storm clouds, the engine he'd been working on yesterday, but her face kept finding him in his refuge.
And now he heard her murmuring again, the words still incomprehensible, and without planning to do so he opened his eyes to watch her lips.
It was too much. He gasped out loud, and as if in response the murmurs grew a little more urgent, and her hand, which had been trailing on his leg, began to move back up towards his groin. He felt the first spasm behind his balls, and reached down to take tight hold of his dick in the hope of delaying the inevitable a moment longer. But it seemed she sensed the motion, because her hand went to his sex, reaching it before he could stop her, and at her touch he overflowed.
"Oh God," he gasped, and threw back his head. He could hear her words for the first time "It's all right," she was saying. He could only gasp. "It's all right, Tommy. It is. It is. It's all right-"
"Tommy?"
He kept spurting, as her slackened hand worked his dick, but the pleasure was already gone.
"No," he said. "Stop."
She didn't obey him because she didn't hear him. She was gabbling deliriously: "ItisitisifisalhightTommyalirightitis." He pulled his hand off her, sick to his stomach, and started to get up off the bed. But she caught hold of his hand as he rose, her aim good despite her closed eyes. The gabbling ceased.
"Wait," she said.
His dick dribbled on, mindlessly. He was sorely tempted to straddle her right now; let her open her eyes and see it there, raw and wet. to say: It's me, Howie. Remember me? You married me.
But he was too ashamed of his vulnerability, of his sweat, and of the fear in him, tickling away in his belly even now. The fear that Tommy-Ray McGuire was close, and getting closer. Before reason could stop him he scanned the murky room, looking for some sign, any sign, of the DeathBoy. There was none, of course. He wasn't here in the flesh. At least not yet. He was in Jo-Beth's mind. And that in its way was a far more terrible place for him to be. Snatching up his towel to cover his nakedness, Howie pulled his hand away and retreated to the door, the rage in him gone already, become ash and nausea.
Before he could reach for the handle Jo-Beth opened her eyes. :'Howie')" she said.
'Who were you expecting?"
She raised her sticky hand, sitting up as she did so. "What's been going on?" she said, her tone accusatory.
He wasn't going to let her turn this around. "You were dreaming of Tommy-Ray," he said.
She swung her legs off the bed, scraping his semen off her fingers onto the sheet as she did so. "What are you talking about?" she said. There were red blotches on her neck and upper chest; sure signs that she too had been aroused. Still was, probably.
"You kept saying his name," Howie replied.
"No, I didn't."
"You think I'd make a thing like that up?" he said, his volume rising.
"Yeah, probably!" she yelled.
He knew by the' way she came back at him she was fully aware that he was telling the truth (she was only ever this vehement if she was concealing something), which meant she had some waking knowledge of her brother.
The thought made Howie want to weep, or puke, or both. He hauled open the door and stumbled out onto the landing. As he did so the rain began-a sudden tattoo against the window. He looked up: saw the purple black clouds through the streaming glass, felt thunder rattle the house.
Amy had woken and was sobbing in the spare room. He wanted to go to her, but heard Jo-Beth at the bedroom door, and couldn't bear to be seen in the light the way he was now, with fear on his face. She'd tell Tommy-Ray, for certain, next time she saw him in her dreams. She'd say: Come get me. You've got no opposition here.
He stepped into the bathroom, and slammed the door behind him. After a time, Amy's crying subsided. And a little while after that, the storm passed, but it left the air uncleansed, and the heat as smothering as ever.
Grillo? It's Howie."
"I didn't expect to hear@'
"Have you heard anything m-m-m-more about Tommy Ray?"
"Something happened?"
"Sort of."
"Want to tell me what?"
"Not right now, no, I j-j-just have to k-k-know where he is. He's coming f-f-for her@'
"Calm down, Howie."
"I k-k-know he's coming for her."
"He doesn't know where you live, Howie."
"He's inside her head, Grillo. He was right. 1-f-ffuck!-haven't stuttered in f-five years." He paused to draw a ragged breath. "I thought it was over. At least w-w-with him."
"We all did."
"I th-th-thought he was gone and it was over. But he's ss-still there, inside her. So d-d-don't tell me he doesn't know where w-w-we live. He knows exactly."
"Where are you right now?" "At a gas station half a mile from the house. I didn't want to c-c-call from there."
:'You'd better get back there. Have you got any weapons?"
'I got a handgun. But what the fuck use is th-th-th-that g-g-going, going to be? I mean, if he's alive-"
"He's cheated death."
"And a handgun ain't going' to be a h-h-hell of a lot of good." :'Shit."
'Yeah, man, right. Shit. Right. That's what it, what it, what it is. It's fucking shit!" Grillo heard him slam his fist against the phone. Then there was a muffled sound. It took him a moment to realize Katz was weeping.
"Listen, Howie-" The muffled sound went on. He'd put his hand over the phone, to keep Grillo from hearing. I know that feeling, Grillo thought to himself. If I cry and nobody hears, maybe I didn't cry at all.
Except that it didn't work that way. "Howie? Are you there?" There was a moment or two of silence, then Howie came back on the line. The tears had calmed him a little. "I'm here," he said.
"I'm going to drive up there. We'll work this out, somehow." :'Yeah?"
'Meantime, I want you to stay put. Understand me?"
"What if he... I mean, what if h-h-he comes for her?" "Do what you have to do. Move if you have to move. But I'll keep checking in, okay?"
"Yeah.
"Anything else?" "He's not going to get her, Grillo."
"I know that."
"Whatever the f-f-fuck it takes, he's not going to get her."
What have I done? That was all Grillo could think when he'd put the phone down: What have I done volunteering for this? He couldn't help Howie. Jesus, he could barely help himself.
He sat in front of the screens-which were filling up like barrels in a cloudburst: news coming in from every state, all of it bad-and tried to work out some way to withdraw the offer, but he knew he'd not be able to live with himself if he turned his back and something happened.
The fact was, something would happen. If not tonight, tomorrow night. If not tomorrow night, the night after. The world was losing its wits. The evidence was right there on the screens in front of him. What better time for the resurrected to settle their scores? He had to do what he could, however little, however meaningless, or else never meet his gaze in the mirror again.
He turned off the screens and went up to pack an overnight bag. He was just about finished, when the telephone rang. This time it was Tesla, calling from Everville.
"I'm going to be staying with a woman I met here. She needs some company right how. Have you got a pen?" Grillo took the number, then gave her a brief update on the Katz situation. She didn't sound all that surprised. "There's a lot of endgames going to get played this weekend," she said. He told her he was going to drive up to Howie's. Then the conversation turned to the subject of D'Amour.
"I always thought his totems and his tattoos were so much shit," Grillo said, "but right now-"
"You wish you had one of them?"
"I wish I had something I believed in," Grillo said. "Something that'd actually do some good if Tommy-Ray is on the loose."
"Oh he's probably loose," Tesla said grimly. "Just about everything that could be loose is loose right now."
Grillo chewed on this for a moment. Then he said, "What the fuck did we do to deserve this, Tes?"
"Just lucky, I guess."
The storm that had broken over the Katzes' house moved steadily southwest, unloading its burden of rain as it went. There were a number of collisions on the slackened streets and highways, all but one of them inconsequential. The exception occurred one hundred and fifty-five miles from the house, on Interstate 84. An RV carrying a family of six, on their way home from a vacation in Cedar City, swerved on the treacherous asphalt, struck a car in the adjacent lane, and crossed the divide, taking out half a dozen vehicles traveling south before it plunged off the side of the highway.
The police, medics, and fire crews were at the scene with remarkable speed given that the highway was blocked in both directions, and the rain so torrential it reduced visibility to fifteen yards, but by the time they arrived, five lives had already ebbed away, and another three people-including the driver of the RV-were dead before they could be cut from the wreckage.
Almost as though it was intrigued by the chaos it had wrought, the storm slowed its progress and lingered over the accident scene for the better part of half an hour, its deluge weighing down the smoke that poured from the burning vehicles. In a bitter, blinding soup of smoke and rain, rescued and rescuers alike moved like phantoms, stinking and stained with blood and gasoline. Some of the survivors were lucky enough to weep; most simply stumbled from fire to fire, body to body, as if looking for their wits.
But there was one phantom here who was neither a rescuer nor in need of rescue; who moved through the hellish confusion with an ease that would inspire nightmares in all who saw him.
He was young, this phantom, and by all accounts indecently handsome: blond, tanned and smiling a wide, white smile. And he was singing. It was this, more than his easy saunter, more than his easy smile, that distressed those who spoke of him later. That he went from wreck to wreck with this bland, nameless jingle on his lips was nothing short of demoniacal.
He did not go unchallenged, however. A police officer found him reaching into the backseat of one of the wrecked vehicles and demanded he instantly desist. The phantom ignored the order and smashed the back window, reaching in for something he'd seen on the seat. Again, the officer ordered that he stop, and drew his gun to enforce his order. By way of response the phantom ceased his singing long enough to say, "I got business here."