Alarums

by Richard Laymon

  Besides, her mouth was dry, she had a slight headache, and she needed to urinate.

  She got up, plucked the pajamas away from her back and buttocks, and opened her door. The hallway was dark. One of its light switches was on the wall just outside her door. She almost reached for it, but thoughts of the nightmare sent a chill crawling up her skin. She felt the tingle of gooseflesh on her thighs and forearms, the nape of her neck, her forehead. The skin of her nipples grew tight and stiff.

  It was just a goddamn nightmare, she told herself.

  Still, she couldn't reach for the switch.

  She turned on her bedroom lamp instead. It cast a pool of light into the hallway. No one was there, waiting to grab her. Of course not.

  Feeling more at ease, she walked silently to the bathroom. She used the toilet. She found Tylenol in the medicine cabinet and washed down two pills. On the way back to her room, she paused in front of Melanie's door. The strip of light at its bottom was gone. No sound came from inside. She continued to her own room, stepped through the doorway, and stopped fast.

  Bodie, in a rumpled bathrobe, stood facing her window. 'Are you decent?' he asked quietly without looking around.

  Pen eased the door shut. She took a shaky breath. 'I'm decent,' she said. 'What are you doing here?'

  He turned around. His hands were clasped at his waist. His eyes looked nervous. He made a feeble smile that quickly died. 'I just need to talk to you for a couple of minutes. I'm sorry for barging in.'

  'It's all right,' she said. Her voice sounded strangely muted and husky.

  Good Christ, she thought. He came to my room. What is this?

  She sat on the edge of her bed. Folded her trembling hands. Took a deep breath. Looked down at herself, found her top button open, fastened it, and refolded her hands.

  Bodie came around to a straight-backed chair beside her dresser. His sandy brown hair was mussed. His robe was tightly shut, tied at the waist with its cloth belt. He held it together over his thighs as he sat down.

  'You yelled or something,' he said.

  'Yeah. A nightmare. A real winner.'

  'Are you okay?'

  She nodded.

  'I wasn't going to come over, but I heard that, and then you walked past our door. I figured this might be the time. I was lying awake, thinking about…' He hesitated.

  'About what?'

  'Telling you.'

  Telling me what? she wondered. Her heart hammered.

  'Bodie,' she whispered, 'you shouldn't have come here.'

  'I know, I know. Melanie'd kill me…'

  'Could you blame her?'

  'I can't keep this thing to myself.'

  'You hardly know me.'

  'I know I can trust you. I think we've got some real trouble about to go down.'

  Pen frowned, relieved, a little disappointed, confused.

  'What are you talking about?'

  'Remember in the hospital room? How Melanie wigged out?'

  'Remember? Are you kidding?'

  'She said she didn't know what her vision was about, but that wasn't true. She remembered the whole thing. And she told me about it in the room tonight.'

  Before or after you screwed her? Pen wondered, and immediately felt angry at herself for thinking it. 'What did she say?'

  'It was the accident again. She saw the car speeding toward her, like before, only this time she saw the driver. She said the driver was Harrison Donner.'

  'Oh, man,' Pen muttered. 'Is she sure?'

  'She seemed very sure.'

  ' Harrison hit Dad?'

  'Melanie thinks it was a conspiracy, that Harrison and Joyce planned it together.'

  'Was that in her vision, too?'

  'It's a theory she came up with. The way she explained it, Joyce knew in advance about their plan to eat at Gerard's - probably even called in the reservation herself. She also knew that your father always left his car in that bank parking lot, so he'd have to cross Canon to get to the restaurant. She filled in Harrison, and he was waiting - maybe parked at the curb. When your father started across…' Bodie's hands lifted off his knees, hovered a moment, and dropped down again.

  'What you're saying… Melanie thinks they conspired to murder Dad?'

  'That's about it. I'm not convinced she's right, but it could've been set up that way. I don't see any holes in it, do you?'

  ' Harrison couldn't count on there not being any witnesses.'

  'If the situation didn't look favorable, he had the option of aborting. For all we know, they used a similar set-up half a dozen times before last night, and called it off each time for one reason or another - witnesses, too much traffic, whatever.'

  'You've given it a lot of thought,' Pen said.

  'Two hours' worth, between the time she told me and the time I came over here.'

  Pen realized she was shivering. It may have been Bodie's story. It may have been the breeze from the window chilling the nightmare sweat on her pajamas.

  Bodie sat stiff in the chair, legs pressed together, hands gripping his knees.

  'Are you cold?' she asked.

  'A little,' he admitted.

  It crossed her mind to invite him onto the bed. They could cover up.

  I don't believe so, she told herself.

  'I'll shut the window,' she said.

  'I'll do it.'

  As he went to the window, Pen dropped onto her side, reached to the foot of her bed, and sat up, dragging the knitted comforter. She held it out to Bodie when he returned.

  He thanked her, wrapped it around his body, and sat on the chair. 'That's a lot better,' he said.

  Pen scooted back on the mattress. She crossed her legs. She drew a blanket up behind her and draped it over her shoulders. 'So,' she said. 'What's the motive?'

  'Joyce and Harrison are lovers.'

  'Do you think they really are?'

  Bodie shrugged. 'I don't know. It's possible. It's likely, I guess.'

  'Okay. Suppose they are. That's hardly a motive for murder. Getting a divorce is a cinch in this state, and she'd come out of it with a pretty good settlement.'

  'Half?'

  Pen shook her head. 'They've been married almost three years. She'd probably get half of what Dad earned after the date of their marriage, plus maybe a couple of years of alimony.'

  'But if she…' Bodie hesitated.

  'Kills him.'

  'Yeah. She gets it all. Plus his life insurance.'

  'That'd depend on his will and on who's named as beneficiaries in the insurance policies. I imagine Melanie and I would get some of it.' Pen frowned. 'Melanie talked about all that at the hospital. Remember? She blurted out something about Joyce getting Harrison and the insurance and inheritance if Dad would die. Then she burst into the room to "save" him.'

  'Thought Joyce was planning to pull the plug.'

  'And that's when she had her vision,' Pen said. 'She'd barely gotten through the door when it started.'

  Bodie pulled the comforter more tightly around himself. 'Are you thinking that she faked it?'

  Pen considered the possibility, remembered Melanie thrashing in her arms, moaning. 'I don't think she faked the attack. But I wonder if her suspicions couldn't have triggered it somehow. She already suspected Joyce and Harrison were lovers and she thought that Joyce might want Dad to die, so it's just one more small step to the idea that Joyce and Harrison conspired to run him down. Her subconscious, maybe, took that step for her.'

  'And gave her the attack,' Bodie said. 'I don't know. I had pretty much that same idea about the episode she had at the concert last night. She didn't know whether it was you or her father who got creamed, but she was carrying a real load of anger and guilt about both of you, so I got the feeling that her vision might be some kind of perverse wish-fulfillment.'

  Pen gazed at him.

  'I don't mean she wanted you dead. Just that she couldn't handle her feelings about either one of you. And her mind shorted out. Gave her the vision. But what she saw in that tran
ce turned out to be right. Maybe this one is, too.'

  'They aren't always,' Pen said, and felt a small tremor in her stomach.

  'She was right about her mother, wasn't she?'

  'But there were other times. Like the night of Dad and Joyce's wedding. They were flying to Hawaii for their honeymoon. Melanie and I were here at the house and she threw a pretty good fit. When she came out of it, she said the airliner had blown up in mid-air.'

  Bodie pursed his lips as if to whistle, but no sound came out.

  'Obviously,' Pen said, 'she was wrong on that one. No airliner at all went down that night, much less the one carrying Dad and Joyce.'

  'She wasn't happy about the marriage, I know that.'

  'She was outraged by it. She felt that Dad was betraying the memory of our mother, and that Joyce was a whore after Dad for his money. That's why she moved in with me before they got back from their honeymoon. She couldn't stand either of them.

  'Then there was her vision about me,' Pen said. Her stomach fluttered again and she suddenly felt uncomfortably warm. She shrugged the blanket off her shoulders. She took a deep breath. Talking about this, she realized, would be difficult. But Bodie needed to know.

  'It was the summer before my senior year at college. I always came home for the summers. Melanie was fifteen. She'd started going with this guy, Steve Wells, who'd just graduated high school. He was seventeen or eighteen, I guess.'

  'She likes older men,' Bodie said.

  It forced a smile from Pen. 'Yeah, apparently so. Anyway, he spent quite a lot of time here.' She hesitated.

  'And he fell for you,' Bodie said.

  Pen nodded. 'Did Melanie tell you about this?'

  'She didn't have to. The way she is about you, it's obvious something of that kind must've happened along the way.'

  'God, it's not like I did anything to encourage him. I mean, I was nice to him. I didn't ignore him. But I never… flirted with him or anything like that.'

  Bodie's face grew slightly red.

  Pen didn't want to think about what his blush might mean. She fingered the cuff of her pajama leg. 'So he was here for dinner one night. Dad barbequed out back. After we ate, Dad had to leave. There was a meeting or something, I forget.'

  'Let me guess,' Bodie said. 'The three of you went in the jacuzzi.'

  Pen met his eyes.

  'We didn't have the jacuzzi then.'

  'Oh.'

  'Melanie fell asleep on the couch. We'd had margaritas with supper, and she was pretty much looped. I went into the kitchen to make coffee, and Steve followed me. It was awful. He blurted out about how he'd lost interest in Melanie the minute he laid eyes on me, and the only reason he kept going with her was so he could come to the house and see me. I told him to forget it, I wouldn't have anything to do with him and if he'd lost interest in Melanie he should get the hell out of her life. It took him a while to get the message. But when he did, he left.

  'Melanie didn't wake up for a couple more hours. In the meantime, I'd taken a bath and put on a nightgown. I was reading in bed when Melanie came into my room. She asked where Steve was, and I said he'd gone home. I didn't tell her what had gone on. I figured it was his responsibility, you know?'

  'Yeah,' Bodie said. 'Why should you get stuck with breaking the news?'

  'Anyway, all of a sudden Melanie threw a fit. Her eyes rolled up and she started shaking. She fell on the floor. I was scared. I didn't know what was going on. But then she came out of it and looked at me as if I were some kind of monster. She went nuts. She called me… some pretty awful names. She said Steve and I had made it together while she was zonked out on the couch. I told her that we hadn't done anything, but she wouldn't believe me. That's because she'd seen it. She'd seen it all, in glorious detail, while she was rolling around drooling on my bedroom carpet.'

  Pen was shaking by the time she finished. She let out a long breath, then waited, staring at the edge of her mattress until she felt reasonably calm again. 'I denied it, and Steve denied it when she phoned him. But to this day she's convinced we both lied, that we actually… screwed… while she was sleeping off her margaritas. She has total faith in those visions of hers.'

  Bodie was frowning. The frown had started early in Pen's story, and stayed. 'It has to be terrible, getting blamed like that for something you didn't do.'

  'Yeah. It almost makes you wish you'd done something to deserve it.'

  A corner of Bodie's mouth curled up. 'Should've slept with the guy.'

  'He wasn't my type.' Pen felt a smile come to her own face. 'At any rate, that was probably more than you wanted to hear, but…'

  'Not at all. It tells me a lot about you and Melanie - this thing she has about you. It's been putting a certain strain on me, you know.'

  'I can imagine. I'm sure she thinks we just can't wait to jump in the sack together.' Immediately, Pen wished she hadn't said that. She felt a heat wash over her face. 'Let's get back to her visions,' she said.

  'Right. Her visions.'

  'She's had at least two that were totally off: Steve and I, and the airliner that didn't blow up.'

  'She doesn't believe she was wrong about you and Steve,' Bodie said, 'but you'd think the business about the airliner explosion would've shaken her faith a bit.'

  'You'd think so.'

  'Well, this thing tonight has her absolutely convinced that Harrison 's the one who ran down your father. She's also sure that Joyce helped set it up. And she plans to do something about it.'

  'Like what?' Pen asked.

  'She said, "They're gonna pay." '

  'She's thinking about revenge?'

  'It looks that way.'

  'Oh, Jesus.'

  'That's why I had to talk to you. I think we need to do something.'

  'Maybe you'd better take her back to Phoenix.'

  'I don't think she'd go along with that.'

  'What's your idea, then?' Pen asked.

  'The main thing is, we need to keep an eye on her.'

  'She's never been violent. That I know about.'

  'Nobody ever tried to kill her father before.'

  'We don't know that they…'

  'She knows. She's absolutely certain. And I think there's a possibility that she's right. Those visions of hers have been on the mark more often than not.'

  'I'd say they're about fifty-fifty.'

  'I think she's right about those two being lovers. What do you think?'

  'I'm not convinced,' Pen said, 'but I have my suspicions.'

  'If they are, it's conceivable that they did decide to eliminate your father.'

  'That's pretty hard to buy.'

  'People commit murder every day.'

  'I know that.'

  'And the people they kill, more often than not, are friends or members of the family.'

  Pen nodded. 'I've done some research on the subject.'

  Bodie shrugged the comforter off his shoulders and leaned forward, elbows on knees. 'I'm not saying they're guilty. The thing is, Melanie thinks they are. She might or might not be right, but there's a strong chance she'll do something about it. I say we not only keep an eye on her, we help her.'

  'Help her do what?'

  'Nail them,' Bodie said.

  'What?'

  'Only we control Melanie, we channel her… First, we convince her that the vision isn't enough. Then we offer to help investigate. I think she'll go along with that.'

  'And do we investigate?'

  'Just some minor-league snooping. Who knows? We might actually turn up some evidence.'

  'Fat chance.'

  'If we do, we take it to the police. If we turn up zilch, at least we've kept Melanie out of trouble for a while, and maybe she'll even end up convinced they had nothing to do with it.'

  'One problem. I'm not supposed to know about this vision she had, and I don't imagine she'd be overjoyed to find out you snuck into my bedroom to fill me in.'

  'Tell her that you're suspicious. Right now, she thinks you'd take Joyce's
side.'

  'Did she say that?'

  Bodie nodded.

  'I guess I can't blame her.'

  'But if you let her know that you have doubts of your own about Joyce, I think she'll see you as an ally and confide in you.'

  'It's like conspiring against her.'

  'Joyce?'

  'Melanie.' She sighed. 'I don't know. If we start looking for clues or whatever, we might just end up feeding her delusion.'

  'If it is a delusion.'

  'Yeah, if. And if she's right, I'd be as anxious as anyone to see those two get what's coming to them.'

  'Tell Melanie that.'

  'Maybe I'd better.'

  'I think she'll be glad to know you're with her.'

  'Maybe.'

  Bodie stood up. 'I'd better get out of here.' He lifted the comforter and carried it to the foot of Pen's bed. 'Talk about feeding delusions… if she woke up and found out I was over here…' He put the comforter on the bed. 'She'd never, no way, believe it was innocent.'

  'I don't know how innocent it was.'

  Bodie's eyes widened.

  'I didn't mean that.' Again, she felt herself blush. 'I meant the way we're plotting against her.'

  Bodie nodded and went to the door. He paused with a hand on the knob, and looked back at Pen. 'The times are out of joint,' he said.

  'I think that should be Melanie's line.'

  He smiled. 'Goodnight, Pen.'

  'Goodnight.'

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  Melanie was not in the room.

  Bodie snuggled down and shut his eyes again. The bed felt too warm and cozy to leave. Briefly, he wondered where Melanie had gone.

  Then he pictured Pen in her room last night sitting cross-legged on her bed: her mussed golden hair, her blue eyes, the light sprinkle of freckles across her nose. He saw the shiny blue pajama shirt open at her throat, the way it lay smooth over the mounds of her breasts and how it draped her lap. The pants legs were stretched taut to her knees. Her ankles were slim and bare.

  Bodie ached as he lingered on the image of her. If only… If only what?

  Maybe if she had started to cry. She hadn't been close to it, though. But if she had cried, he could've comforted her - moved to the bed and put an arm around her, and she would've turned to him. He could've held her gently as she wept. Kissed her.