Nursery Tale (22 page)

Too bad it hadn't worked.

Too bad that in the shit damn blizzard there was no right or left, north or south, east or west. Only the snow. And the wind. And the cold.

Too bad.

He thought he was on a road. Maybe Reynolds Road. Or Sullivan's Road. (No, he decided, he couldn't have gone
that
far out of his way.) And that if he
was
on Reynolds Road it was comforting to think that it led, more or less, right back to his front door, that it was a kind of link between him and warmth. The idea made him grin a little.

And then, as if his strength had come abruptly to an end, his knees buckled, and he fell very slowly, face forward into the deep cold snow.

"S
ince the storm began, four hours ago"—it was the same weatherman, and he was smiling the tight, mechanical smile common to all people who are enamored of statistics—"we have registered a full twelve inches of snow. Wind gusts, as well, have been clocked at over seventy miles an hour." As if on cue, he stopped smiling. "The sheriff's department says there have been numerous traffic accidents, and a number of people have been reported missing. In some places, drifts are over ten feet high, and there are also unconfirmed reports of roofs collapsing under the strain of the wind and snow. One of the hardest-hit areas seems to be the little community of Granada, ten miles north of Penn Yann. The only road leading into Granada has been completely cut off by the storm, and residents there—and in the rest of Ontario County—are, of course, urged to stay in their homes. Although the temperature itself is staying fairly constant, at fifteen degrees Fahrenheit, the near-gale-force winds are producing wind chills in excess of forty and fifty degrees below zero, a temperature that will bring frostbite to exposed extremities within . . ."

When she had thrown the vase, and the television screen had imploded dully—showering sparks everywhere—Trudy Wentis settled herself into the nearest chair, let her head fall back, and closed her eyes lightly.

This was insanity.

This whole damned thing was sheer insanity! This fine, new house in the middle of nowhere was insanity!

And the fact that her husband and her son were out in that damned blizzard—their noses and fingers and toes probably turning black from frostbite—was insanity!

And the idea that something was in the house with her—God knew what; she had searched everywhere and found nothing—was insanity, too!

She opened her eyes very slowly, in disbelief. The loud, frantic knocking at the front door had been going on for several minutes, she realized.

She stood. She ran to the door. Unlocked it. Threw it open.

Larry Meade and Dick Wentis stumbled through the doorway and into the house.

"Dick . . ." she managed.

He glanced blankly at her. Larry was holding him up; he was holding Larry up.

Then, as if succumbing, at last, to the weight of the snow on their backs and shoulders, and the ice crusted around their faces, they crumbled to the floor.

"M
r. Jenner, this is Janice McIntyre again. Is my husband still there?"

"Yes, hold on, please."

A moment's silence. "Janice? What's wrong?"

"Nothing, really. Just lonely. The storm's still pretty bad out here. I don't imagine you're planning to come home soon, are you?"

"As soon as I can, Janice. It's bad where I am, too, and from what I hear, it's not going to get any better."

"Yes, I know; I was just wondering if I should go to a neighbor's house, Miles. The Wentises live practically next door—"

"No. Please. Just stay where you are, Jan. I realize it's not far, but with the visibility as bad as it is you can become disoriented in a hurry. I know. I went to the car for my cigarettes—the car's just down the street—and damned if I didn't almost get lost on the way back. And if you get lost out there, Jan—"

She sighed. "Yes. Okay. I'll stay put. What does Jenner have to say about selling the house?"

"He says there should be no problem. People are really anxious to live in little rural developments like ours, apparently. 'Urban Decay,' and all that."

She smiled. "I'm glad to hear it, Miles. Thank you."

A moment's silence; then, "I'll be home when I can, Janice. I love you." And he hung up.

T
he big Jeep Cherokee Chief—on loan from the Ontario County Sheriff to the Penn Yann police—was doing something that John Marsh believed four-wheel-drive vehicles weren't supposed to do: It was spinning its tires. It was stuck.

He hit the steering wheel with his open left hand. "Damn it!" He ruefully recalled what Matt Peters had told him:

"I appreciate your wanting to do this, John. Lord knows we've got our hands full, and if you
could
get into Granada and help out we'd surely appreciate it. But I gotta warn you, that damned Jeep's a mess—two bald tires, a cracked windshield, half the lights don't work, and the transmission's squirrelly as hell. It's just about ready for the scrap heap, John, and if I didn't know you, and if I didn't think you could handle it, I'd flat out refuse. But the engine's pretty good, and the CB radio works okay, and you can always use the plow if you get into real trouble. Plus we got a report of a couple more people missing out there—Christ!—so I'll let you take it, John. Just remember, please—it's not ours."

He shoved the transmission into low reverse; he touched the accelerator gently; the truck shifted a little to the left; the tires spun madly.

"Goddamnit it all!" He hit the steering wheel again.

He turned the windshield wipers off, then the ignition.

He glanced at the three quart-sized thermos bottles filled with hot coffee, the checkered blankets piled up in back, the two well-stocked first aid kits. He really had given it his best shot, hadn't he? How was he to know this blizzard was going to be a killer?

He turned the ignition to ACC and checked the gas gauge. He cursed again. The gauge registered just over half. He'd filled the tank before leaving Penn Yann—ten damned miles on ten or twelve damned gallons of gas; the damned truck was a damned pig! But Matt Peters had warned him about that, too, hadn't he? "You know that these four-wheel-drive vehicles are not exactly what they used to call 'fuel efficient.' And this one, old as it is, and that storm being as bad as it is . . . You'll be lucky if you make it to Granada and back on a full tank, John."

Marsh remembered laughing at that.

Now he laughed again. At himself, and his stupidity.

And, when his laughter ended, he found that his eyes had focused on a squat, dark mound, barely visible through the blowing snow, on the road about ten feet in front of the truck. He realized that someone was out there, lying face down in the snow. He pushed the door open and scrambled from the truck.

N
orm
, Marge Gellis wrote, and crossed it out.

Dear Norm,

When I was a teenager, my sister would get me dates with boys I had never met. She told me it was more fun to have dates with boys you never met. She was a very pretty girl, the type that becomes a cheerleader, which she was, and was three years older than me. I didn't know at the time that she was doing me a favor by getting me these dates because I could never have gotten them myself. Because I was shy, and not very pretty. But me and these blind dates did have some nice times. And some bad times, too. But my memories of what my sister tried to do for me then are pretty good.

Norm, I have another blind date.

She crossed out all of it. Very firmly, and very thoroughly. Damn it, goddamnit! Why had she never learned to write so people could understand her?

D
ick Wentis asked his wife, "Am I all right? And Larry?"

With great effort, Trudy had managed to get both of them onto the big, L-shaped couch, had stripped their wet clothes from them, and had covered them both with electric blankets set on low. It was all she could have done, she realized now, although they both had displayed symptoms of hypothermia—slurred speech, disorientation—and there were tiny patches of frostbite on the tips of some of their fingers and toes.

"Yes," she said to Dick. "Larry's still asleep." As she spoke, Larry's eyes fluttered open. "Dick," she continued, "you didn't find Sam?" It was a stupid question, she realized, but she had to ask it.

He sighed. "We looked . . . everywhere." He took a deep breath. "It was impossible, Trudy. He could—" Another deep breath. "He could have been ten feet away, and we would have missed him." He put his hand on the back of the couch and prepared to sit up. He made it halfway, then lay down once more, breathing heavily. "I'm going out there again, Trudy. Just get some hot coffee into me . . ."

"No," Trudy said with finality. Her eyes watered. She lowered her head and wept softly. "No," she murmured.

He stared incredulously at her. "Goddamnit!" He sat up quickly, and saw that Larry had already done what he—Dick—had been planning to do; because, Christ! There were other people who could help.

Larry gently set the telephone down. He was smiling. "They've found Timmy."

"Timmy?" Dick said.

"Yes. Alive. About a mile and a half down Reynolds Road. Some guy in a Jeep . . ."

"What about Sam? Did they say anything about Sam?"

Larry answered, as if in apology, "No. They didn't. Just Timmy. I guess he and the guy in the Jeep are stuck where they are till the storm ends. But no, nothing about Sam. I'm sorry." He picked up the telephone again. "I've got to call Dora."

"Your line's dead, Larry." It was Trudy speaking. He looked blankly at her a moment, then put the phone back down.

"The storm," Trudy explained. He nodded. She turned to Dick. "Nobody can help us find Sam till it's eased a little—that's what the Sheriff's Department told me."

"Uh-huh," he said resignedly; then he saw the shattered TV. He looked questioningly at his wife. "There was someone in the house," she told him.

"Someone in the house? You mean"—he indicated the TV—"someone broke in and—"

"No. I did that. But there was somebody in the house."

"Maybe an animal," Dick suggested. "Getting in out of the storm?"

"I don't know. Maybe."

"Why didn't you tell me this before?"

"I checked everywhere, Dick. Every room, every closet—"

Larry Meade cut in, "Trudy, where'd you put my clothes? I've got to get home."

"In the kitchen, Larry."

He leaned over and touched Trudy's shoulder; "Thank you for everything," he said. "Sam will be okay, you'll see. He's a resourceful little kid, that's what Timmy says."

"Yes," she murmured, unconvinced. Larry went into the kitchen.

Dick took Trudy's hand. "We've got to prepare ourselves, Trudy." He felt her hand stiffen. "Because this is bad. Very bad."

She looked away and began weeping again, louder.

"It's a situation," Dick went on, "it's a set of circumstances, Trudy, that
no one
could have foreseen . . ."

Larry reappeared suddenly from the kitchen. He had his pants on—they were still damp—and was holding his shirt in his left hand. He had an urgent and quizzical look about him. "What's above your kitchen?" he asked. "Is that a bedroom?"

"Yes," Larry answered. "It's Sam's bedroom. Why?"

Larry grinned nervously. "Because there's somebody up there. I can hear them. Somebody's walking around up there."

I
t was bad enough not being able to hear the damned biggest storm of the century wailing away outside, Norm Gellis thought. But it was worse standing and watching it through the front window and hearing nothing. Like he'd gone deaf. He quickly drew the curtains shut.

He called to Marge again and got no answer. "Damned spook!" Hiding from the storm, probably. In a closet or something, shivering and shaking just like her little molded jellos did. Mass, for Chrissakes!

He had long since stopped hiding the .38 Police Special under the upstairs bathroom sink. He reasoned that if he really needed it, it should be easy to get to; so, for several weeks, he had kept it in the drawer of an end table beside the couch.

He thought about it now. He thought he would need it before long. And the rifles, too. Because things just didn't feel right. Like there was some vague smell in the air and you had to sniff just right to catch it, but when you did, it made you retch.

"Marge, for Chrissakes!" He yelled, expecting no answer. He got none.

Then he realized that he needed some noise in the house. Something to connect him with what was going on in the world. Something that would knife into the damned quiet.

He picked up the TV's remote control from the arm of his La-Z-Boy; he turned the TV on; he turned the volume up very high.

I
t would be good to start packing today, Janice McIntyre thought. The move to another house would seem more imminent if she saw packed boxes here and there, and if this house were half empty. Just the nonessentials, of course—there were lots of those.