The Voice of the Night (2 page)

“I don’t know.”

“You don’t
knowl”

“I don’t remember,” Colin said uneasily.

“If I was the one who saw her,” Roy said, “I’d sure as hell remember.”

“Well, I guess she was wearing a negligee,” Colin said. “Yeah. I remember now.”

Actually, he couldn’t recall whether she had been wearing pajamas or a fur coat, and he didn’t understand why it mattered to Roy.

“Could you see through it?” Roy asked.

“See through what?”

“For Christ’s sake, Colin! Could you see through her negligee?”

“Why would I want to?”

“Are you a
moron?”

“Why would I want to stand around gaping at my own mom?”

“She’s built, that’s why.”

“You gotta be kidding!”

“Nice tits.”

“Roy, don’t be ridiculous.”

“
Terrific legs.”

“How would you know?”

“Saw her in a swimsuit,” Roy said. “She’s foxy.”

“She’s what?”

“Sexy.”

“She’s my
mother!”

“So what?”

“Sometimes I wonder about you, Roy.”

“You’re hopeless.”

“Me?
Jeez.”

“Hopeless.”

“I thought we were talking about the bat.”

“So what happened to the bat?”

“My dad got a broom and knocked it out of the air. He kept hitting it until it stopped squealing. Boy, you should have heard it squeal.” Colin shuddered. “It was awful.”

“Blood?”

“Huh?”

“Was there a lot of blood?”

“No.”

Roy looked at the sea again. He didn’t seem impressed by the story about the bat.

The warm breeze stirred Roy’s hair. He had the kind of thick golden hair and the wholesome freckled face that you saw in television commercials. He was a sturdy boy, strong for his age, a good athlete.

Colin wished he looked like Roy.

Someday, when I’m rich, Colin thought, I’ll walk into a plastic surgeon’s office with maybe a million bucks in cash and a picture of Roy. I’ll get myself totally remade. Totally transformed. The surgeon will change my brown hair to com yellow. He’ll say,
Don’t want this thin, pale face any more, do you? Can’t blame
you. Who would want
it
?
Let’s make it handsome.
He’ll take care of my ears, too. They won’t be so big when he’s done. And he’ll fix these damned eyes. I won’t have to wear thick glasses any more. And he’ll say,
Want me to add a bunch of muscles to your chest and arms and legs? No problem.
Easy as cake.
And then I won’t just look like Roy
_;
I’ll
be
as strong as Roy, too, and I’ll be able to run as fast as Roy, and I won’t be afraid of anything, not anything in the world. Yeah. But I better go into that office with two million.

Still studying the progress of the ship on the sea, Roy said, “Killed bigger things, too.”

“Bigger than mice?”

“Sure.”

“Like what?”

“A cat.”

“You killed a cat?”

“That’s what I said, didn’t I?
”

“Why’d you do that?”

“I was bored.”

“That’s no reason.”

“It was something to do.”

“Jeez.”

Roy turned away from the sea.

“What a crock,” Colin said.

Roy hunkered in front of Colin, locked eyes with him. “It was a popper, a really terrific popper.”

“A popper? Fun? Why would killing a cat be fun?”

“Why
wouldn’t
it be fun?” Roy asked.

Colin was skeptical. “How’d you kill it?”

“First I put it in a cage.”

“What kind of cage?”

“A big old birdcage, about three feet square.”

“Where’d you get a thing like that?”

“It was in our basement. A long time ago my mother owned a parrot. When it died she didn’t get a new bird, but she didn’t throw away the cage either.”

“Was it your cat?”

“Nah. Belonged to some people down the street.”

“What was its name?”

Roy shrugged.

“If there’d really been a cat, you’d remember its name,” Colin said.

“Fluffy. Its name was Fluffy.”

“Sounds likely.”

“It’s true. I put it in the cage and worked on it with my mother’s knitting needles.”

“Worked on it?”

“I poked at it through the bars. Christ, you should have heard it!”

“No thanks.”

“That was one damned mad cat. It spat and screamed and tried to claw me.”

“So you killed it with the knitting needles.”

“Nah. The needles just made it angry.”

“Can’t imagine why.”

“Later I got a long, two-pronged meat fork from the kitchen and killed it with that.”

“Where were your folks during all this?”

“Both of them at work. I buried the cat and cleaned up all the blood before they got home.”

Colin shook his head and sighed. “What a great big load of bull.”

“You don’t believe me?”

“You never killed any cat.”

“Why would I make up a story like that?”

“You’re trying to see if you can gross me out. You’re trying to make me sick.”

Roy grinned. “Are you sick?”

“Of course not.”

“You look kinda pale.”

“You can’t make me sick because I know it didn’t happen. There wasn’t any cat.”

Roy’s eyes were sharp and demanding. Colin imagined he could feel them probing like the points of that meat fork.

“How long have you known me?” Roy asked.

“Since the day after Mom and I moved here.”

“How long’s that?”

“You know. Since the first of June. A month.”

“In all that time, have I ever lied to you? No. Because you’re my friend. I wouldn’t lie to a friend.”

“You’re not lying exactly. just sort of playing a game.”

“I don’t like games,” Roy said.

“But you like to joke around a lot.”

“I’m not joking now.”

“Sure you are. You’re setting me up. As soon as I say I believe about the cat, you’ll laugh at me. I won’t fall for it.”

“Well,” Roy said, “I tried.”

“Hah! You were setting me up!”

“If that’s what you want to think, it’s okay with me.”

Roy walked away. He stopped twenty feet from Colin and faced the sea again. He stared at the hazy horizon as if he were in a trance. To Colin, who was a science-fiction buff, Roy appeared to be in telepathic communication with something that hid far out in the deep, dark, rolling water.

“Roy? You
were
joking about the cat, weren’t you?”

Roy turned, stared at him coolly for a moment, then grinned.

Colin grinned too. “Yeah. I knew it. You were trying to make a fool out of me.”

Colin stretched out on his back, closed his eyes and roasted for a while in the sun.

He couldn’t stop thinking about the cat. He tried to conjure up pleasant images, but each of them faded and was replaced by a vision of a bloody cat in a birdcage. Its eyes were open, dead yet watchful eyes. He was certain the cat was waiting for him to get too close, waiting for a chance to strike out with razor-sharp claws.

Something bumped his foot.

He sat up, startled.

Roy stared down at him. “What time is it?”

Colin blinked, looked at his wristwatch. “Almost one o‘clock.”

“Come on. Get up.”

“Where we going?”

“The old lady works afternoons at the gift shop,” Roy said. “We’ve got my house to ourselves.”

“What’s to do at your place?”

“There’s something I want to show you.”

Colin stood and brushed sandy soil from his jeans. “Gonna show me where you buried the cat?”

“I thought you didn’t believe in the cat.”

“I don’t.”

“Then forget it. I want to show you the trains.”

“What trains?”

“You’ll see. It’s a real popper.”

“Race into town?” Colin asked.

“Sure.”

“Go!” Colin shouted.

As usual, Roy reached his bicycle first. He was fifty yards away, racing into the wind, before Colin touched foot to pedal.

Cars, vans, campers, and lumbering motor homes jostled for position on the two-lane blacktop. Colin and Roy rode on the oiled berm.

Most of the year, Seaview Road carried very little traffic. Everyone except local residents used the interstate that bypassed Santa Leona.

During the tourist season the town was crowded, teeming with vacationers who drove too fast and recklessly. They seemed to be pursued by demons. They were all so frantic, in a great hurry to relax, relax, relax.

Colin coasted down the last hill, into the outskirts of Santa Leona. The wind buffeted his face, ruffled his hair, and blew the automobile exhaust fumes away from him.

He couldn’t suppress a grin. His spirits were higher than they had been in a long, long time.

He had a lot to be happy about. Two more months of bright California summer lay ahead of him, two months of freedom before school began. And with his father gone, he no longer dreaded going home each day.

His parents’ divorce still disturbed him. But a broken marriage was better than the loud and bitter arguments that for several years had been a nightly ritual.

Sometimes, in his dreams, Colin could still hear the shouted accusations, the uncharacteristically foul language that his mother used in the heat of a fight, the inevitable sound of his father striking her, and then the weeping. No matter how warm his bedroom, he was always freezing when he woke from these nightmares—cold, shivering, yet drenched with sweat.

He did not feel close to his mother, but life with her was far more enjoyable than life with his father would have been. His mother didn’t share or even understand his interests—science fiction, horror comics, werewolf and vampire stories, monster movies—but she never forbade him to pursue them, which his father had tried to do.

However, the most important change in recent months, the thing that made him happiest, had nothing to do with his parents. It was Roy Borden. For the first time in his life, Colin had a friend.

He was too shy to make friends easily. He waited for other kids to come to him, even though he realized they weren’t likely to be interested in a thin, awkward, myopic, bookish boy who didn’t mix well or enjoy sports or watch a lot of television.

Roy Borden was self-confident, outgoing, and popular. Colin admired and envied him. Nearly any boy in town would have been proud to be Roy’s best friend. For reasons that Colin could not grasp, Roy had chosen him. Going places with someone like Roy, confiding in someone like Roy, having someone like Roy confide in him—these were new experiences for Colin. He felt as if he were a pitiful pauper who had miraculously fallen into favor with a great prince.

Colin was afraid that it would end as abruptly as it had begun.

That thought made his heart race. In an instant his mouth went dry.

Before he’d met Roy, loneliness was all he had ever known; therefore, it had been endurable. Now that he had experienced comradeship, however, a return to loneliness would be painful, devastating.

Colin reached the bottom of the long hill.

One block ahead, Roy turned right at the corner.

Suddenly Colin thought the other boy might duck out on him, disappear down an alleyway, and hide from him forever. It was a crazy thought, but he couldn’t shake it.

He leaned forward, into the handlebars.
Wait for me, Roy. Please wait!
He pedaled frantically, trying to catch up.

When he rounded the corner, he was relieved to see that his friend had not vanished. In fact, Roy had slowed down; he glanced back. Colin waved. They were only thirty yards apart. They weren’t really racing any more because they both knew who would win.

Roy turned left, into a narrow residential street that was flanked by date trees. Colin followed through the feathery shadows that were cast by the wind-stirred palm fronds.

The conversation he’d had with Roy on the hill now echoed through Colin’s mind:

At least a dozen times during the past week, Colin had sensed that Roy was testing him. He felt certain the gruesome story about the cat was just the latest test, but he couldn’t imagine what Roy had wanted him to say or do. Had he passed or failed?

Although he didn’t know what answers were expected of him, he knew instinctively
why
he was being tested. Roy possessed a wonderful—or perhaps terrible—secret that he was eager to share, but he wanted to be certain that Colin was worthy of it.

Roy had never spoken of a secret, not one word, but it was in his eyes. Colin could see it, the vague shape of it, but not the details, and he wondered what it might be.