Nursery Tale (20 page)

"No I'm not."

"Yes you are, 'cuz a smokehouse ain't where people go to smoke."

"Yeah?" said Timmy Meade. "What is it, then?"

"I don't know—but it
ain't
where people go to smoke."

Timmy Meade decided not to press the subject.

T
he snowfall began lazily. A few large flakes settled onto the brown, autumn leaves that covered the ground here to several inches, and Timmy Meade watched sadly as the flakes quickly melted. "It's too damned warm," he murmured.

"Too damned warm," Sam Wentis said.

They had not been watching the sky. The walk to Riley's Glen from Granada was through small stands of woods and underbrush, and it was a dangerous walk unless you kept your eyes on the ground. So they hadn't seen the quickly advancing line of dark gray clouds coming at them from the north.

Timmy Meade saw it now. "Jesus damn!" he said. "We'd better head home!"

And Sam Wentis said, "Head home!"

The ragged front edge of the storm was almost directly overhead, and the wind had strengthened noticeably, pulling frigid Arctic air in with it. Timmy Meade shivered, more in anticipation of what was coming than the cold or the wind itself. Because he could see what was coming—and, he realized, it was sweeping into Granada at that very moment. ("Like a crazy old woman with a giant whisk broom," he remembered his father telling him years before, about a similar storm.)

"Head home!" Sam Wentis said again.

And then, as if it had been straining angrily at some vast, invisible barrier, and had finally broken through it, the storm was upon them.

Timmy Meade found that he couldn't speak, that the sudden and incredibly strong wind wouldn't let him. And, like a thousand tiny bees, the hard, furious snowfall stung his eyes and eyelids, and the exposed skin of his face and neck. He turned his back to the wind; he put his head down and closed his eyes; he hugged himself tightly for warmth. "Sam!" he screamed, and he barely heard himself above the awful frenzy of the storm. "We gotta . . . hide somewhere."

He waited a full minute.

He heard nothing from Sam Wentis.

"W
e've got all hell coming at us now," said Larry Meade. "Jesus, they didn't say anything about this over the radio." He let go of the curtain on the big picture window, turned and faced Dora; she was in a Queen Anne chair on the other side of the large room. "Let's make sure everything's closed up tight, Dora. I have a feeling this storm isn't going to give up right away."

She pushed herself out of the chair reluctantly. "We've got to talk, Larry."

He looked quizzically at her a moment, then understood. "We'll talk later."

"Larry, I am
sick
of this whole charade."

"That's very theatrical, Dora, but let's check out the house first, okay?"

"And I'm sick of you, too—"

He cut in urgently, "Dora, where's Timmy?"

"He's with the Wentis kid. I told them not to go far from the house. Now are we going to talk or not?"

"Then why aren't they
here
, Dora?"

"Christ, I don't know. They probably went to the Wentises'."

Larry rushed to the phone; he hurriedly dialed the Wentises' number.

"Dick? This is Larry Meade. Is my son there?"

"Timmy? No. I was just going to call you, in fact—"

"Hold on, Dick." He glanced at Dora. "What was Timmy wearing, Dora?"

"I don't know," she began, trying to remember. "His denim jacket, I suppose—"

"Christ almighty! You sent him out there dressed in his denim jacket?!"

"It was warmer this morning, Larry. I didn't know we were going to get a damned blizzard. What are you getting so excited about?"

"You seem to forget, Dora, that two other little boys have turned up missing."

Dora said nothing.

Larry said to Dick, "I'll be over in a minute. We've got to go looking for them."

N
orm Gellis groped blindly for the latch on Joe's collar while Joe whimpered pathetically at him. "It's okay, dog," Norm said. "We'll get you inside and put you down in the cellar and you'll be warm as toast. What'd you think—I was gonna leave you out here to freeze your poor nuts off?" Norm wished frantically that he'd put his gloves on. The task of finding the small latch on Joe's metal collar—a task made difficult, anyway, by the storm, and by Joe's nervous twitching—was made almost impossible by the fact that his fingers had become numb already, and so were next to useless. "Fucking shit!" Norm hissed. Finally, he found the latch; he twisted it hard to the left; it wouldn't give. "Goddamnit!"

Joe whimpered louder.

"Shut up!" Norm commanded, and whacked the dog on the snout with his open left hand. The dog stopped whimpering abruptly.

"Fucking damned dog!"

He twisted the latch again. It was frozen. "Chrissakes!"

He took the tether in one hand and followed it to where it was attached to a post screwed into the ground twenty feet away. He put his hands on the post and winced at the burning coldness of the metal; he turned the post counterclockwise, aware—as it gave with agonizing slowness in the hardened soil—that the wind and cold were sapping his strength by the second. He thought about going back into the house for a breather, and to put his gloves on, when he realized that Joe's tether had slackened. "Joe?" he said. He pulled the tether; it was broken. In panic, Norm realized Joe had broken it.

"Goddamned fucking dog!" he screeched. "Goddamnit it all to hell fucking dog you're going to freeze your fucking nuts off!"

He stood silently beside the post and broken tether for several minutes, wondering what, precisely, he was going to do.

"M
r. Jenner?" Janice McIntyre realized she was whispering into the receiver and that the man on the other end of the line probably couldn't hear her. She put her hand over the mouthpiece and cleared her throat. She took her hand from the mouthpiece. "Mr. Jenner?" she said again, louder.

"Yes, this is Jenner."

"Is my husband there, Mr. Jenner? This is Janice McIntyre. Miles had an appointment with you."

"Yes, Mrs. McIntyre, your husband arrived not more than two minutes ago. Would you like to speak with him?"

"Yes, thank you."

A short pause, then Miles came on the line. "Janice? What's wrong?"

"I was worried, Miles. About you, I mean, and this storm—"

Miles exhaled, as if pretending to be out of breath. "I barely outran it. I don't think it'll last long, though. These things usually blow themselves out pretty quickly."

"You're not going to try and drive back through it, are you?"

"On Reynolds Road? It'd be suicide. No, believe me, I'm going to wait until I hear the all clear signal."

"I'm glad to hear that, Miles." She smiled. "And you're right; it shouldn't last long."

"Of course I'm right, Jan. Now I've got to get back to Jenner—you do still want to sell the house, don't you?"

"Yes, of course—"

"It was a rhetorical question, Jan. I'll be home when I can, but don't hold supper for me. Bye." He hung up.

Janice hung up.

Her smile faded. She had always liked storms—summer storms, winter storms; they were so beautifully chaotic, so humbling, and they provided a wonderful time for reflection.

But this storm—so big, and so loud, and so sudden—was like a quick slap in the face, a screamed obscenity. It should really have announced itself first, she thought.

W
ith effort, Larry Meade pushed the door closed behind him. Dick Wentis was waiting; he had dressed well for the storm—a long goose-down-filled coat, Timberland boots, heavy, oversized wool mittens. He flipped the hood on his coat up and nodded to indicate the suede gloves Larry was wearing. "Your hands will freeze in five minutes, Larry." He looked toward the stairway. "Trudy," he called, "would you bring down my other pair of mittens, please."

"Thanks," Larry said.

Trudy called, from upstairs, "Where are they?"

"Fourth drawer down," Dick answered, and turned again to Larry. "The boys could be any of a number of places, Larry. Did your son say anything to you?"

"No. We told them to stay close to the house." He shrugged. "Of course, you can't really
tell
the kid to do something . . ."

Trudy appeared with the wool mittens; she handed them to Larry, he took them, peeled his suede gloves off quickly—as if embarrassed by them—and put the mittens on. He nodded to the west. "The boys liked to play in the woods. That's probably where they are now."

"That would be best," Dick said.

Larry looked questioningly at him.

"It's well protected from the wind," Dick explained. "But of course," he went on, "a lot of those trees are pretty old, and that wind is awfully strong . . ." He stopped, leaned over, kissed Trudy. "We won't be long," he said.

"I
can
come with you," she said, making it obvious that it had been a topic of prior discussion. Larry patted her hand paternally. "I know you can, and if we don't find them right away, I promise you—we'll bundle you up good . . ." He turned, opened the front door slightly; he kissed her again. "If you're worried," he said, "don't be."

Together, he and Larry left the house.

N
orm Gellis explained that Joe was missing, that he'd probably run off, "dumb ass dog that he is." Marge listened quietly, nodded in the right places, and when Norm was finished she went to the closet, got her best coat—gray wool, with a rabbit's fur collar—shrugged into it, and said, "I'm going to Mass now. Can I have the car keys?"

After a moment's confused hesitation, Norm said, "Are you out of your mind?"

"It's Sunday," she said, smiling pleasantly. "And Mass starts"—she checked her watch—"in an hour. It'll take me at least that long to—"

"You've gone fucking bananas!" Norm cut in; he found that the words made him grin, despite himself.

She stared blankly at him, as if unable to understand what he was saying. "Are they in your coat pocket?" she said at last.

"What?—my keys? Christ, Marge, it's a damned blizzard out there! And besides, you haven't been to Mass in years. The last time was the day after our honeymoon."

She stared blankly at him again. Finally, she removed her coat and hung it back up neatly. She started for the stairs. "I'm going to lie down a while, Norm. Call me when you want your lunch."

He watched her move very slowly and stiffly up the stairs. When she was on the landing, he whispered, "Marge, are you okay?" But she didn't hear him. She turned right, toward their bedroom. Norm thought fleetingly that she looked very old.

T
hey huddled in a circle for warmth, their bodies touching, heads down, eyes closed.

The storm at the tops of the evergreens tossed pine needles and small twigs at them, and stiff, whirling undercurrents of the wind played madly with their long dark hair, and drove dead leaves around them, and into the circle.

Occasionally, one of the creatures imitated a bird's song, or a speech it had heard very recently. And another recreated, in miniature, the various noises of the storm. Still another laughed (the laughter of adults—deep, and tentative, and shrill, and postured—the quick, spontaneous laughter of children, the cooing and bubbly laughter of infants).

But mostly, there was silence. And a trembling, uncertain fear. Not the fear of death, but the fear of pain, which is a greater fear.

There were twenty of them. As one, they stood. And their heads turned in unison to the east, as if their gaze were on the small cluster of houses invisible through the woods and the storm.

Warmth was there.

In those houses.

Fifteen Years Earlier

P
aul Griffin swung his feet to the floor, stood, grabbed the doorknob tightly, yanked his hand back. He cursed.

Rachel scrambled out of bed.

"The doorknob's hot!" Paul's voice was trembling. "It's the house, Rachel! It's on fire!"

"No," Rachel said steadily. "No. It can't be." And they both saw the band of flickering yellow light beneath the door.

Paul ran to the window, opened its lock, pushed up. The window refused to move.

He glanced around. "Rachel," he ordered, "the washbasin! On the dresser! Quick, give it to me!"

Rachel grabbed the washbasin. "I don't understand, Paul. I don't understand," she said as she crossed the room. "We put the fire out. Why do you want this?" She gave him the washbasin. "I don't understand. Please, Paul . . ." She turned. "I don't understand." She crossed to the door. She put her hand on the doorknob. "Why don't we just—"

"Rachel, no!" Paul shouted.

She let go of the doorknob. She stepped back. Her body shook.