by Jack Ketchum
HOW DOES IT FEEL?
Katherine took another sip of vodka. Ask him, she thought. It’s sick but it’s what you really want to know most of all, isn’t it? So go on and ask him. Truth or lie you want to hear his answer. She lit a cigarette and shook out the match.
“So you didn’t tell me, Ray,” she said. “What did it feel like?”
“Huh? I did tell you.”
“You told me how it felt after. Not then. Not at the time.”
She took another long drink and looked at him.
“Not when you were out there killing people.”
“Jesus, Kath.” He looked uncomfortable as hell but she noticed that the spark had come back to his eyes. “You really want to know this?”
“I guess I must. I’m asking.”
The house was silent. She could hear the ice clink in his scotch as he tipped the glass and drank. She felt absurd for a moment and a little frightened. Like they were sitting around a fire and she was about to hear him tell a ghost story.
He pushed himself up on the couch. He wouldn’t meet her eyes.
He spoke slowly, carefully. . . .
The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.
Text copyright © 2001 by Dallas Mayr
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.
Published by 47North
P.O. Box 400818
Las Vegas, NV 89140
ISBN-13: 9781477833421
ISBN-10: 1477833420
Thanks to Neal McPheeters, Charlie Grant, Neil Linden,
Robert Murphy, and Theo Levine for the info and
especially to Marie Jones of the Cape May County Public
Library, who I pestered quite a lot. To the folks at
Manhattan Vet for the cat stuff, to Paula White for the read,
and to Christopher Golden for the jump-start.
This title was previously published by Dorchester Publishing; this version has been reproduced from the Dorchester book archive files.
“We all hope for a superior brand of madness but our
wounds are considerably less interesting than our cures.”
—Jim Harrison, The Beige Dolorosa
Contents
Prologue
Part One
Chapter One: Friday, August 1, 1969 The Cat/Schilling
Chapter Two: Tim
Chapter Three: Saturday, August 2 Anderson
Chapter Four: Sunday, August 3 Katherine
Chapter Five: Ray
Chapter Six: Sally
Chapter Seven: Monday, August 4 Tim
Chapter Eight: Schilling
Chapter Nine: Jennifer and Ray
Chapter Ten: Tuesday, August 5 Schilling
Chapter Eleven: Katherine
Chapter Twelve: Schilling
Chapter Thirteen: The Cat/Sally
Chapter Fourteen: Wednesday, August 6 Anderson
Chapter Fifteen: Sally
Chapter Sixteen: Ray
Chapter Seventeen: Schilling/Ray
Chapter Eighteen: Jennifer
Chapter Nineteen: Ray
Chapter Twenty: Thursday, August 7 Tim/Jennifer
Chapter Twenty-one: Schilling
Chapter Twenty-two: Friday, August 8 Ray/Katherine
Chapter Twenty-three: Saturday, August 9 The News
Chapter Twenty-four: Ray
Chapter Twenty-five: Katherine
Part Two
Chapter Twenty-six: Monday, August 11 to Friday, August 15 The Week in Review
Chapter Twenty-seven: Saturday, August 16 Schilling
Chapter Twenty-eight: Ray/Anderson
Chapter Twenty-nine: Schilling/Tim
Chapter Thirty: Jennifer
Chapter Thirty-one: Katherine
Chapter Thirty-two: Ray
Chapter Thirty-three: Sunday y August 17 Jennifer/Katherine/The Cat
Chapter Thirty-four: Tim
Chapter Thirty-five: Happy Hour
Chapter Thirty-six: Sally
Chapter Thirty-seven: The Cat
Chapter Thirty-eight: Ray
Chapter Thirty-nine: The Lost
Chapter Forty: Schilling/Ray
Chapter Forty-one: Jennifer
Chapter Forty-two: Sally/Ray
Chapter Forty-three: Anderson
Chapter Forty-four: Jennifer/Katherine
Chapter Forty-five: Katherine
Chapter Forty-six: Schilling/Tim
Chapter Forty-seven: Sally
Chapter Forty-eight: Anderson
Afterward
Flower Power
Prologue
“This world is long on hunger,
This world is short on joy.”
—Jackson Browne
That big wide Elvis grin that contained a subtle sneer. He flashed it at the both of them. He liked Jennifer scared even more than he liked her jealous. He couldn’t say why, he just did. Tim said nothing but that was because Tim was basically too chicken. They were both just a couple of kids when you came right down to it. He decided to push it some.
“Pop ’em.” he whispered. “Hey, me and Tim even talked about it, couple of times. Right, Tim? What it would be like to pop somebody. See, you never hunted, Jen. You don’t get it. You never shot a rabbit. Me and Tim have though. You see it in their eyes. One minute everything’s fine. Hey, we’re hoppin’ down the bunny trail! Next minute, rabbit hell. And you caused it. You took him there and he ain’t coming back. So you got to think how it would feel to shoot a person. And lezzies, screw ’em, they’re barely human anyway. They’re never gonna have kids, right? Who’s gonna miss ’em?”
“Ray, for godsakes, you don’t know they’re lezzies. Not just from a kiss and getting naked together you don’t.”
He could hear the anxiety in Tim’s voice. He liked hearing that there too. A little too much of it, though.
“Keep it down, for chrissake, will you, Tim?”
“Okay, all right. But you don’t know they’re lezzies. I hear people in Europe get naked together all the time. I hear girls hold hands in the streets over there. It’s an affection thing. Maybe give one another a kiss now and then right out in public. Maybe they’re European.”
He could barely keep from howling.
“Tim, you are so full of shit. European!”
“Well, you don’t know, do you?”
“That brunette’s no European. That brunette’s homegrown American as apple pie. Got money up the wazoo, too. So what do you figure? Pop her or fuck her?”
“Jesus, Ray.”
He shrugged and smiled. “You got to figure the options, Timmy. You got to always figure the options.”
“You’re a beautiful girl for godsakes,” Elise had said to her. “To hell with Phillip. You’ll find somebody who’s a whole lot better, you’ll see.” And then reached out and touched her long dark hair and gave her a little kiss.
It was just the kind of kiss goodnight they’d always given one another when they were little girls just before the lights went out at bedtime. A sleepy, sleep-over kiss and it was a comfort to her.
And right now she needed some comforting.
The sun had helped and the cool clear water of the pool had helped. Hell, even the franks and beans were helping. It was getting out of Short Hills for the day that was important and Elise had been the one to realize that. It figured it would be Elise. Of the two of them she was the strong and certain one, the one apt to take charge. Though she certainly didn’t look it, slim and fr
ail-looking as she was, with all that frizzy red hair.
She finished the last of her hot dog and wiped her face with the napkin.
“I wish I could just completely, hate him, you know?” she said.
“I wish you could too. Tell you what. Suppose I hate him for you?”
She smiled. “You already do.”
Elise tossed a twig past her into the fire. “Look, Lisa. You fell for a cute guy with a shiny red Corvette and a good, sad line of bullshit and it was spring. Okay. So then you find out that behind that great big smile and the poor-me what-a-sad-childhood act there’s a nasty drunken bastard. A guy who likes his frat parties too much, likes his beer too much and likes to punch people out when he’s had a few. Particularly people weaker than he is. Particularly woman. What’s not to hate?”
“I know. It’s just that he’s always so damn sorry after.”
“Sorry, hell. He’s done this twice, Lisa. And in this case I don’t think three’s the charm.”
“I know that too.”
It had always been this way between them. When Elise moved in next door she was seven years old and Lisa had just turned eight. But it was Elise who seemed to see things more clearly right from the start. That they each had fathers who were far more comfortable on a golf course than sitting over Sunday dinner, for instance. That they were each only children by design and not by accident. That they would never have sisters or brothers.
Their parents traveled in wholly different circles, Lisa’s Russian Jewish liberals a few years out of Manhattan and Elise’s strict Irish Catholics from Baltimore. But neither set of parents were opposed to the two girls more or less adopting one another. So they did. They were almost never apart. They traded sleep-overs almost every weekend and throughout most of every summer and continued straight through high school. Arguments were rare and quickly settled.
It was as though each had found the sister she longed for. And if Lisa seemed to blunder through puberty and Elise seemed to ride it like the crest of a wave, each forgave the other her predispositions.
Elise and Lisa. Lisa and Elise.
Even their names were practically sisters to each other.
They went off to school together. Wellesley. Contrived to be roommates there. Lisa’s major was education, Elise’s finance. They still had plenty in common. They each liked the Beatles and Dylan and Judy Collins—though Elise said that Judy Collins lacked a sense of irony. Irony, she said, was what the cat knew that the dog didn’t. When they adopted a cat they named him Dylan.
They both liked Julia Child and Betty Friedan but not Helen Gurley Brown. Neither would be caught dead in a topless Rudi Gernreich bathing suit but both were comfortable with their bodies. They’d seen one another naked since they were kids. And neither was exactly a virgin anymore.
They shared a liking for simple quiet times and places.
Like now. Like camping in the woods.
Tonight at Turner’s Pool was the third time they’d been out this summer and the only time it hadn’t been pure simple fun.
The reason for that was Phillip. Him getting in the way.
She swatted a mosquito.
“I hope we’re not gonna get eaten alive tonight,” she said.
“I packed the bug spray.”
“Good.”
She tossed her paper plate into the fire, watched the edges curl and the dark bloom at the center.
She realized she was frowning. Elise noticed too. She watched her sigh and lean back against the oak tree, her long slim fingers picking the bark off the trunk.
“Even if he hadn’t hit you it wouldn’t have lasted. You know that.”
“I guess.”
“You guess? You remember Johnny Norman back in high school? He was the same type, Lisa. Cute and popular as hell and so full of himself you couldn’t stand him after what, two months? Only difference was he didn’t go ballistic when he drank. But he did drink, and too much.”
“You’re right. I don’t get it. Why do I keep doing this to myself?”
“Hey, you’re in there pitching and there are a lot of guys like that in the ballpark. You sympathize with them—no, you empathize with them—and then they use you. What are you supposed to do? Stop caring? Stop trying? Dry up like this poor old scraggly patch of grass here? You’re doing the right thing. You’re just not doing it with the right person yet, that’s all.”
She could feel herself poised on the verge of tears. She didn’t want to cry again, she’d done that to Elise one too many times already over the guy but she kept seeing his face going red that night and his lips pulled up into a sneer screaming at her to shut up, shut up and seeing his right hand ball into a fist and she couldn’t help it, she’d cared for the sonovabitch. She’d cared.
Elise opened her arms.
“Oh, come here, will you?”
She went to her and hugged her and let the tears happen to her again, not sobbing like last time but letting them flow against the neck of Elise’s yellow T-shirt. She felt Elise’s fingers in her hair and heard the crackling of the fire and crickets in the dark grass and the frogs bellow down by the lake.
“You’re who you are,” Elise said. “You’re fine. I mean, we’ll make plenty of mistakes. How old are we? Who doesn’t? But not all guys are jerks. We’ll find some. You’ll see.”
Lisa felt something strike the back of her shoulder, an acorn falling from high above, she thought, from the tree, but knowing even then that something was wrong, that whatever it was had struck her too hard and then instantly heard the crack, like someone stepping on a branch in the brush out there in the dark and at first there was no pain, it was only startling, a sound out of sync with the world. But she turned at the sound and at the sudden wet feeling on her shoulder.
And that was when her face exploded.
Her teeth shattered the bullet. Fragments of teeth and bullet drilled her cheekbone and poured out through her cheek.
Had her neck been turned a quarter of an inch to the right the third bullet would have severed her jugular, would have cracked her larynx a quarter inch to the left. Instead it entered and exited clean and thumped into the tree beside Elise’s shoulder.
She screamed, turning, falling to her side on the hard earth and heard the scream come out all wrong, a gurgled cough that sprayed Elise with blood and bits of teeth, sprayed face and neck and chest and ran in a dark thin drool down Lisa’s chin. She swallowed, the taste of it rich and sickening, overwhelming.
Had she not fallen, the fourth bullet would have taken her in the spine.
Instead it slammed into Elise’s head below the hairline just over her left eye and threw her back against the rough bark of the tree. Blood washed down her forehead and into her eyes, washed into Lisa’s own blood spackled across her cheek. Elise shook her head like a wet startled dog and raised her hands to wipe away the blood from her eyes, to clear them and Lisa watched the fifth shot enter her just below the breast. A sudden dark hole in the T-shirt welling blood. A sudden desecration.
Cover, she thought. Hide!
The tree was cover.
Elise looked dazed, amazed, like a child whose toy has just fallen from her hands and lies inexplicably broken in front of her, her eyes open wide and blinking against the steady wave of blood. Lisa rolled and stumbled to her feet and took her by the arm and started to drag her. She was aware of someone shouting somewhere in the brush, of the blood nauseating in her mouth, gagging her and of the jagged broken edges of her teeth.
“Elise!” she said. “Get up! Elise!”
Her voice wasn’t hers anymore. What came out of her mouth was all but incomprehensible. She grabbed Elise’s other arm and pulled with all her strength and Elise slid along with her and then they were on the other side of the tree hidden for a moment from whoever was out there doing this, but she knew they had to run and she knew that Elise couldn’t run, couldn’t even seem to move or stand, she just kept blinking and the blood from her head was all over her, rolling into her eye
s and down her neck, soaking the T-shirt, glistening on her jeans in the moonlight.
She had to go find help. She had to go find somebody but she couldn’t stand to leave Elise this way, she was afraid Elise was dying on her, that her friend was dying right in front of her but she was also afraid to stay. Because they were still out there.
They’d come finish what they’d started.
They almost had to.
Oh my god, Elise.
She couldn’t stay.
They’d both bleed to death if she stayed.
She’d heard them only seconds ago through all her panic. She wasn’t imagining. Out there in the dark. Like they were arguing. At least two male voices and a female voice out in the brush.
They’d stopped.
Maybe they got scared, she thought. Maybe they ran away.
If they had so could she.
She had to try.
She reached down and gave Elise’s hand a squeeze thinking how small it was and how fragile and then let go of the hand and the letting go was itself a kind of death, a surrender that made her sob aloud in the suddenly quiet forest.
She peered around the tree.
In the glow of the fire the last thing she saw was a man she vaguely recognized from somewhere sighting down the barrel of a rifle not three feet away.
And her very last thought was why?
Ray was a little pissed off.