The Tea Party - A Novel of Horror (24 page)

He didn’t think about the absence of clouds, just counted the bucks he was going to get if that guy would just get his ass in gear and come on out. He had to be in there; there was a light in one of the first-floor windows. Faint, but steady, like a candle or a lantern. And when it seemed that no one was going to answer the sound of his horn, he climbed stiffly to the ground, walked to the door, and slammed a fist against it. Once. Just to let them know they weren’t dealing with some half-brained Triple-A driver who had more forms than an insurance agent to fill out before they would even say hello.

Nosir, this here was Bernie Hallman, the best mechanic in the county, and he was glad to be out of the house, glad for the money. And he’d be a damnsight gladder once he plopped his aching butt down on one of Judy’s stools and polished off a bottle of Jim Beam while watching the waitresses strut their stuff in their beautiful tight jeans.

With the headlights behind him, casting his shadow on the door, he looked around and shrugged as if to someone in the truck. Then he knocked again, tried the knob, knocked a third time, and stepped back.

“Hey!” he shouted. “Hey in there, it’s the tow truck!”

The pickup creaking a cooling behind him.

“He ain’t gonna like it, Mr. Parrish ain’t, me havin t’come out twice like this!”

The truck creaked again, a weight settling on it.

“Well, fuck ya,” he said. “You and the horse you rode in on.” He gave one last slam on the door, winced at the pain that shot up his arm, and managed two steps back before he stopped.

The truck was creaking louder, swaying side to side, winch and chains in the back groaning and clanking. The driver’s door slammed shut, swung open, slammed shut.

Puzzled and annoyed, Bernie took another step forward before he looked down, and saw that the tires were disappearing into the gravel that filled the drive.

It had to be a trick, because the damned truck was sinking.

“Jeezus!
Hey! Hey!”

The metal began to shriek like nails drawn across slate, the chains clanged tonelessly, and all he could do was leap off the drive and onto the grass and dance around helplessly, shouting, once running back to the door to pound furiously on it for help before turning around to run back. He couldn’t leave his truck; it was the only one he had. And he couldn’t stop it from sinking. Couldn’t stop the gravel from skittering around the vehicle, slamming against it, denting it, spilling into the back, and forcing it lower.

To the door.

To the window.

The glass exploded outward, and he threw himself on the ground and covered his head. Something landed on his back and he yelled, rolled over and picked up a small rock. He threw it as far away as he could, and widened his eyes when it landed back at his feet.

A piece of fine-edged gravel struck his cheek; he gasped at the burning and swiped at it—his palm came away bloody. Still another bounced off his boot and gouged the oil-smeared leather.

The cab roof and the angle of the winch were the only things above the drive now, and he could still hear it groaning, screaming, while some of the gravel shifted direction and headed straight for him.

He pushed himself to his knees, and groaned when they were sliced open by stones hidden in the grass.

Stumbling up and backward, he heard
skittering, slithering,
and saw in the last of the light stones tumbling toward him. They swarmed over his feet. He kicked out, and they clung like razored burrs, spinning, drilling through the leather, drilling through his feet.

He screamed.

Gravel swarmed up his legs, shredding his trousers, knifing his calves, his thighs, throwing him back again when he tried to flail at them. He leaned down once and saw for the first time what was left of his legs.

He screamed.

Drilling without a sound, save for the tearing of skin, the faint splash of blood, the protest of hard bone.

A handful reached his groin, and he bellowed, began running, not caring that his legs were barely carrying his weight, not caring that he was on his hands and knees, his back covered, his spine exposed and glinting pinkly in the moonlight, his hair turning red, his arms no more than skeletons holding him up.

He screamed hoarsely.

The gravel avoided his throat, and he screamed more like a whisper and was driven face down into the grass by the weight on his back.

Drilling.

He shuddered once, and prayed Wanda to forgive him for not getting the hundred bucks.

He shuddered again when the gravel finally drilled through his lips and into his throat.

And he didn’t move at all when the gravel turned him to bloody sand.

FOUR

1

It was eight-thirty. The food was in the kitchen, still in its bags; the beer was in the refrigerator, cooling; the liquor was in the living room, opened.

“This,” Doug muttered, “is ridiculous.”

No one denied the assessment—no one heard him. At his feet Heather, Keith, and the Mohawk Gang were crowded eagerly around one of the speakers, listening to an episode of
Straight Arrow,
giggling at the commercials, yet paying strict attention to the lurid sound effects that created the images and sparked their imaginations. He repeated his disgust, and Keith looked up, alarmed.

“Are we too loud?” the boy asked over the hushing of the others.

He shook his head, indicating with a gesture he was only talking to himself.

Ollie was on the couch, Liz and Clark flanking her, speaking soothingly and ignoring him completely.

He and Heather had ridden over on Maggie; Keith had applied a bit of wheedling directed more at him than at his mother to have the Gang included since they were going to listen to the radio shows, and when permission had been granted they had been driven over by Ian’s mother; Liz had taken the battered BMW; Clark and Ollie had arrived less than twenty minutes later, laden with brown bags of groceries and liquor. There was no word about Bud.

The false excitement they had brewed over Winterrest was enough to provide momentum for the next hour, until the sky finally turned black. The lights had been low, and Clark was at the window, a glass in his hand. He had shaken his head and whistled.

“Christ,” he said loudly, “We’re at the end of the goddammed world out here. You can’t even see the stars.”

A harmless statement, but the memory of the freak storm palled them. They sank into their chairs and only half-listened to the squabbling among the kids hunting for tapes to play, until finally, inevitably, Ollie began weeping.

“Ridiculous,” Doug said a third time and walked into the study. He switched on the overhead light and stared blindly at the bookshelves. Who the hell’s idea was this anyway, he wondered; not that he wasn’t taking any of the blame. The party had been the perfect excuse to turn their minds from the storm, the odd week, the abrupt spate of personal problems that had, he thought, turned them all into temporary emotional cripples.

It wasn’t working.

He knelt in front of the overloaded shelves near the floor. One by one he pulled out back issues of his architectural magazines and flipped through them until he found the pseudonymous articles he had written. Aside from the tapes, these had been great therapy for him, and calmed him now, though his confusion was still there. Something caught his eye then, a reminder of the puzzle he had been mulling over earlier in the week. He held up the glossy page and studied the photograph he had seen.

“Goddamn,” he said. “I was right.”

“About what?”

His head jerked around, and the magazine slipped from his hand. Liz was behind him. An impatient hand raked through her hair, and when he pointed at the floor she knelt beside him.

“How’s Ollie?” he said as she picked up the magazine and flipped the pages over, one finger marking his place.

“Better. Clark’s convinced her that Bud is pulling a Casey—hiding out and trying to decide if he’s man enough to face the future.”

“Jesus, Liz,” he groaned. “Did he really say that?”

She chuckled. “With a perfectly straight face.”

“And Ollie bought it?”

“I don’t know, but she claims to feel better. What are you doing in here? You’re supposed to be the host, y’know.”

An elbow in her ribs made her gasp, and laugh. “This was not my idea,” he said. “But I was just going through these when”—he took the magazine, opened it to the photograph, and handed it over—”I remembered this.”

It was in black and white, one of eight on a page that featured architectural styles popular during the forties. The house he indicated was obviously fieldstone, alone on a featureless plot of land, and by the front door stood a tiny man in a dark suit, squinting at the camera as though taken by surprise.

“God,” she said, “that looks like—”

“Right, I saw it earlier, but I had other things on my mind. I just remembered it.”

“But it can’t be,” she said, tilting the page, holding it away, holding it near. “That’s silly. Parrish would be . . . hell, by the looks of him he hasn’t changed a bit.”

Spurred now, the puzzle gathering more pieces, they rummaged through the rest, and were soon joined by Clark and Ollie who were shown the photograph. They were given time for amazement, then handed more copies to glean and discard.

After a few comments on some of the
outré
styles, on some of the houses they coveted, they were silent. Only the radio, only
Inner Sanctum.

An hour later there was a stack of eight magazines on the floor. In each, a picture of Eban Parrish, the dates of the taking ranging from 1914 to 1955. He was in the same dark suit, the same hair style, in front of the same house, though each of them by their captions were in eight different states.

They hadn’t been able to find a single one that identified any of the structures as Winterrest, despite the fact that each of the houses looked exactly like it.

Clark, sitting cross-legged, scratched at a temple. “So? This is supposed to mean something, but it beats me what.”

“It means,” Ollie said blithely, sitting back against the shelves, “the man has discovered the fountain of youth, that’s what it means.” She grabbed an issue from the pile and flourished it after reading the caption. “This says 1935, right? Okay, well, that’s almost fifty years ago. Now it’s possible he was born old, or something like that, you know what I mean, but a man has got to show his age sooner or later. I figured he was only about sixty. He would have to be ten or twenty back in thirty-five. And I’ll bet my savings he doesn’t get any more exercise than pushing away from his desk.”

“A relative?” Liz suggested. “His father or something.”

Doug slapped a hand lightly on the pile. “Eight pages, Clark, and five different magazines. Who’s going to notice? The oldest magazine here is 1973.”

They were bewildered, sensing they had found something and not knowing what it was. Finally, Doug pushed himself to his feet. “I think we shouldn’t wait for Judy. I’m going to get her and,” he said with a wink to Ollie, “drag Bud back as well.”

“And what are we supposed to do?” Liz asked, more sharply than she had intended.

“Your mission, should you decide to accept it, counselor, is to come up with some explanations. Then we’ll tell each other why Parrish has another mansion to peddle—which I bet he isn’t peddling at all, don’t ask me why. We will also know why he wants to buy our homes, use Clark as his attorney instead of Liz, and make us all suspiciously rich.”

“Suspiciously?” Clark said tolerantly.

“What would you call it?” he said. “Manna from heaven?”

His tone was light, but he did not look at Liz and left before she could speak. He was out the front door without anyone stopping him.

The night was humid, warm, and before he was clear of the woods his shirt was clinging damply to his back. A dog’s bark curled into a howl; bats flitted over the hood and swung away blackly. Lights from the Cleary house crept onto the road, strings of headlamps emphasized the black that hovered above the trees, and the blinking amber light swayed slightly, making him think of a conductor on the tracks, trying to slow down a hurtling train.

Judy was at the register when he walked in, and she didn’t argue when he took her to one side. The Depot was crowded, and he could see she would have been much later had he not come. She protested when he insisted she leave with him, a formal demurral that vanished the moment he feigned giving in. Her apron was off, a shouted order to Gil, and she pulled him from the tavern. Once out, she headed for her house, explaining that the clothes she had on smelled of grease and beer and she wasn’t about to face the others without at least changing.

He agreed and followed, watching her slight form dart through the shadows of the porch. Casey, she explained without his having to ask, had not been seen all day, and she claimed in a huff that she didn’t give a damn.

The moment the inner door was closed she fell against him, wrapped her arms around his waist, and kissed him. Surprisingly hard. Surprisingly hungry. His eyes were still open, and he made a move to ease her away. She clung to him, and he responded before he knew what he was doing.

Then, just as abruptly, she broke away without releasing him, and said so solemnly he almost burst out laughing, “Douglas Muir, I want you to marry me.”

His mouth opened to say
what?
—but nothing came out but a hissing.

“Well?”

Her voice was soft, a spider web quivering.

“Uh, Judy, look . . . I mean, this is awfully, uh, out of the blue, you know what I mean? I mean—”

She kissed him again, hips pressed hard against him, shifting back and forth, not quite grinding, not quite demanding.

This time she only tilted her head back, her eyes bright with moisture. “Marry me.”

“Judy,” he said breathlessly, shaking his head to find some calm. “God almighty, I—”

“Please!” she insisted, and in the shadows of the foyer he saw what he could have sworn was something akin to rage. “Marry me, please? I’m tired of waiting for you to ask.” Her eyes softened. “I’m tired of being alone. And we can protect each other.”