[Oxrun Station] The Orchard

by Charles L. Grant

  She was terrified. Her blonde hair had been ribbon-tied into a pony tail, and she had pulled it over her shoulder to stroke it quickly, hold it, while her free hand rubbed her arm for warmth. When he repeated his name and laid a finger on her knee to get her attention, she glanced fearfully at the auditorium doors, back to him, then to Katherine.

  "Ginny," she said, sounding no more than six. "Ginny Amerton."

  "Oh, yeah," he said with a mock scowl. "Your dad's been trying to sell me a Mercedes for a zillion years. I keep telling him he'll have to pay for half, and he keeps throwing me out."

  The smile for his effort was feeble, but it was a smile nonetheless. "We're trapped in here, right?"

  He shook his head immediately. "Ginny, how can you get trapped in a movie theater? Scotty's checking the fire exits, right? And if they're locked like these here, we'll . . ." He looked over his shoulder at Richards pacing the lobby, Paula now slumped on the ticket taker's stool. He lowered his voice. "We'll use the creep over there to break the glass."

  Katherine laughed quietly, and poked the girl's arm until she broke and laughed too. Thunder shook the walls. Another candle went out.

  Ellery exaggerated a groan as he stretched his arms over his head and stood. "Guess I'll go see how Scotty's doing." And with a look asked Katherine to stay behind with the girl. She nodded; he smiled and backed down to the floor, telling himself there was nothing to worry about, all will soon be revealed. When Paula saw him moving and half rose from the stool, he pointed to the doors. She shrugged, and Richards gave no indication he either cared or would join him.

  Wonderful, he thought as he pushed into the auditorium; this is just great.

  And he thought it again when the door closed silently behind him, and the only light came from a pebbled glass square over his shoulder.

  He didn't call out; he didn't want to worry Ginny. Instead, he walked to the head of the center aisle and searched for the flashlight's beam, down at the exits flanking the stage, and on either side of him in the wide corridor that ran behind the seats.

  Black; nothing but black. And no response when he whispered, "Scotty, hey, Scotty!" as loud as he dared.

  Christ, the kid probably fell or something, he decided, and made his way along the wall to the lefthand fire door, grabbed the crossbar, and shoved down. It didn't move. When he tried to pull it up, his hands slipped and he nearly fell on his back. The opposite door was the same-iron, sounding hollow when he kicked it, not budging when he put his shoulder to it and pushed as hard as he could. His soles slipped on the worn carpeting. His palms coated the bar with sweat and his fingers lost their grip.

  No sweat, he thought; the other ones.

  Down the side aisle, then, keeping one hand on the wall and moving slowly in case he met Scotty along the way, speaking the boy's name and damning him for not answering. He probably thought it was a practical joke. He was probably already back in the lobby, and the others were just waiting to yell "Surprise!" when he came out.

  The exits were locked.

  He glanced toward the lobby doors to reassure himself of the light, then decided he might as well do a little checking on his own as long as he was here. Just don't take too long, he told himself; don't take too long.

  But there was nothing on the stage when he climbed awkwardly up and poked around in the small storage spaces behind the velvet curtains. The screen was fixed to the cinder-block wall behind; there was no room for a door, much less a place for someone to hide.

  Damned stupid kid, he thought, dusting off his hands and shirt, hating to think that Richards had been right.

  Then he heard a scream, muffled, prolonged, and a sudden babble of voices that sent him leaping to the floor, colliding with a series of armrests until he found the center aisle and charged up. The light from the door window was flickering wildly, and he thought for a moment a fire had broken out-one of the candles had tipped over somehow, igniting the carpet. He was trying to remember if he'd seen a fire extinguisher as he pushed through, and stumbled to a halt.

  Gary was standing in front of one of the doors, a chair in his hands. Paula was kneeling on the floor, crying. Katherine and Ginny were waiting at the bottom of the staircase, and it was clear from the girl's face it was she who had screamed,

  "What?" he demanded.

  Scotty wasn't there.

  "What?" Richards said angrily, almost shouting. "Hell, I'll show you what," and he lifted the chair over his head, almost overbalanced before bringing it down on the door.

  The glass didn't break.

  One of the legs did.

  Bewildered, Ellery watched as the man staggered to the door on the right and tried it again, twice, this time sending the seat spinning to the floor. Then he threw the chair as hard as he could against the glass wall of the ticket seller's booth. It trembled, but didn't shatter. As far as Ellery could see, it didn't even crack.

  "Scotty," the girl said at last, and they turned one by one. "Where's Scotty? Mr. Phillips, where's Scotty?"

  He had no answer to give her, but he began to wonder if this was something more than just a prank. Someone on the outside didn't want them leaving, and he immediately recalled hostage situations he had read about, seen on television, had heard about from customers coming into the store. But it didn't make sense. The only ones here who had any kind of money for things like ransom were the Richards, and by now the street should have been filled with police cars, lights, sirens, with someone from some lunatic paramilitary group making all sorts of demands for the reporters and cameras.

  Yet there was nothing out there.

  Nothing but the rain, the thunder, the occasional glare of lightning.

  And it didn't explain why the glass didn't break.

  Oh, god, he thought, and walked over to the door. His breath smoked a circle, and he wiped it away with one finger.

  "Somebody? Please, where's Scotty?"

  There were no lights at all out there.

  The streetlamps were dark, the shops on Centre Street, the houses, even the white globes in front of the police station. No cars passed, no trucks.

  He cupped his hands around his eyes and waited for the next bolt, and when it came, he managed not to blink:

  Nothing.

  No outlines of buildings, no reflections on the road.

  The rain, and the curb, and the rushing black water.

  He heard footsteps and whirled to see Ginny taking the stairs up two at a time, Katherine with her hand outstretched and looking to him for help. He wanted to shrug, but when Richards continued to do nothing but pace, he trotted over and peered up to the landing where the staircase jogged to the right.

  "What happened?"

  "She thinks Scotty's hiding up there. She thinks . . . she's got the idea someone drugged the refreshments and now Scotty's gone off the deep end or something."

  Her voice was barely under control, and when he put a hand to her shoulder, he could see a throbbing at her temple before she brushed at her hair and covered it.

  "Maybe we ought to leave her alone," he said. "She'll be back when she can't find him."

  "She could get hurt, El," she said. "That's steep up there. God, suppose she gets to the bottom and falls."

  "Scotty didn't come out," he said, hoping it was a question and taking a breath when Katherine shook her head. "Then maybe he climbed up somehow. He could be trying the doors to the fire escape." Then, suddenly, he looked to the stairs and frowned, looked around the lobby and snapped his fingers. "Toni," he said. "Damn, I forgot all about Toni."

  When she looked puzzled he reminded her of the girl he had mentioned before this all started.

  "Sorry. I don't remember."

  He described her.

  "Nope. No bells, sorry. She must have left already."

  "But how?" he said, struggling with frustration. "The doors, remember?"

  "Davidson left. So did that usher. She must have gone out the same way."

  He wanted to ask, to demand to know w
hy they couldn't do the same and get the hell home. Instead, he wondered aloud if the young woman wasn't in the ladies' room, until Katherine told him she had been in there alone.

  "Oh, Jesus," he said wearily. "Damn, don't tell me she's lying someplace, hurt like Scotty must be. Christ."

  Paula was still on the floor, staring into her lap. "The exits are all locked, aren't they."

  He wanted to lie, but there was nothing to gain and she would know it anyway. "As far as I can tell, yes. They must be blocked somehow from the outside."

  "Great," Richards said bitterly. "Just. . . shit."

  "El," Katherine said then. "What the hell's going on?"

  "It's my money," Richards said. "That's probably what it is, you know. Any minute now, some asshole is going to pop up through the floor and demand all my money and a fast plane to Cuba." He wrestled off his tie and tossed it aside. "Dumb shit. Who the hell does he think he is?"

  Ellery didn't say a word, not surprised the man had come to the same conclusion he had, though he knew it wasn't right, not right at all.

  The night was too dark, and ... he shuddered, exhaled, and exhaled again when he thought he saw the ghost of his breath. A third time proved him wrong, but the cold didn't leave him.

  "El?" Katherine said. "El, please, what's going on? Is he right? Is that what it is?"

  "I don't know." And he wished they would stop looking to him for answers. He didn't know anything, and he didn't know how to find out, but for the time being, to keep himself from thinking too much, he could get Ginny back here with the rest, and maybe find Toni in the bargain.

  Taking one of the candles then, and hissing when a drop of wax landed on his wrist, he cupped his hand around the flame and started up. Katherine moved to go with him, paused halfway to the landing, and changed her mind with a nervous smile. When he reached the turn and looked down, she had already gone back to Paula and was helping her to the couch. He couldn't see Gary at all, only heard him kicking at the pieces of the chair he had broken.

  Insane, he thought as he rounded the corner and started up the second flight; it's crazy.

  "Ginny!"

  At the top of the stairs was a narrow passageway. It ran the width of the building and, like the floor below, had a low wall on the left, broken in the center and both ends for the step-aisles down. The righthand wall was blank save for a pair of large-framed wildlife prints that needed a good dusting.

  "Toni?"

  There was thunder.

  "Toni Keane, where are you? Are you okay?"

  He looked down the side aisle, lifting his shoulders against the wintery cold, lifting the candle high and away from his eyes.

  "Ginny, C'mon, answer me! He's not up here. C'mon!"

  To the center aisle, a draught snaking about his ankles, and he stepped through the gap, took the first step down, and felt his temper begin to flare.

  "Toni! Ginny! What the hell's going on?"

  Shifting his fingers to escape a run of hot wax. Keeping his face slightly averted so not to be blinded by the white of the flame and the halo around it.

  "Damnit, Ginny, will you show yourself for god's sake?"

  Another step, and a third.

  Candlelight shimmered shadows across the empty seats, shifting them back and forth, raising the far end of the row and rolling the backs toward him like gelid waves in a black sea. It was a dizzying effect, and he closed his eyes for a moment, opened them, and saw the girl pressed against the far wall. Her hands were out to the sides, her eyes so wide he could see nothing but white, and her shirt was pulled out of the waistband of her jeans.

  "Jesus, Ginny," he said, not bothering to disguise his relief. He made his way along a row toward her, holding the candle higher. "Jesus, why the hell didn't you answer me, huh? You've got me scared half to death." He tried a laugh and gave it up, shifted the candle into his left hand, and ignored a sudden sharp burning at the base of his thumb. "You haven't seen Toni, have you? No, of course not. You don't even know her. Look, why don't you just-"

  Her head began rocking slowly side to side, her outstretched arms were trembling, but she didn't move, didn't speak, and it hit him that she might have found Scotty after all; from the terror she showed him, it wasn't going to be nice.

  His attention snapped then to the floors between the rows, but he couldn't see anything down there but a few crushed cigarette butts, burnt matches, an empty box of popcorn, a half-filled paper cup of soda, another one on its side.

  And his own shadow darting into the gaps, darting away, disappearing.

  He could hear her breathing when he was halfway along-harsh, quick, prelude to a scream.

  "Take it easy," he said quietly. "Take it easy, Ginny, it's only me."

  He moved again, watching her head rock faster and faster while her legs began to palsy, one heel thumping hollow against the baseboard. Softly, then loudly, and softly again. Her gaze shifting into puzzled focus on his face, her lips quivering for a moment before closing. He smiled at her and checked the rows above and below him, seeing nothing at all until he saw her feet. They were bare, and he realized she had stopped drumming on the wall.

  "Okay, Ginny," he said. And stopped.

  She had relaxed, and somehow the ribbon from her ponytail had come undone and was draped now over one shoulder, almost lost in the spray of her dark blonde hair. The shirt was open three buttons down, exposing pale breasts against a tanned chest and a small white rose in the center of her bra.

  He heard a soft click, looked down, and saw a button bounce on the floor and roll out of sight.

  "Ginny, what's-"

  The shirt was completely open, and she hadn't moved her hands. The snap of her jeans was undone, the plane of her stomach gold in the candlelight, pushing slowly out, sighing slowly in.

  "Ginny," he said harshly, damning his shadow now growing on the wall, covering her, shading her bronze. "Ginny, where is Scotty? Can you tell me where Scotty is? Is he hurt?"

  She smiled at him, innocence and seduction. Her jeans were crumpled at her feet, and the shirt slipped over her shoulder while he watched, hissing when it caught at her waist, hissing again when it slid to the floor. He turned away as if looking for someone to witness what was happening here, turned back to see her reach her arms out toward him. Reluctantly, he stepped closer, shaking his head at her, trying by his expression to tell her she didn't know what she was doing.

  Wax poured onto his hand, and he cursed, dropped the candle, and the flame died on the wick.

  "Goddamn," he muttered, raising an angry fist toward the girl, lowering it slowly when he realized he could still see her. The candle was out. The light hadn't gone. It still lay his hovering shadow over her face, still coated her with colors the flame never had.

  Hallelujah, he thought; someone's finally fixed the electricity.

  "Okay, kiddo," he said sternly. "Let's stop the nonsense, all right? They'll be coming up to see how you are, and I don't want them to find you like this. So look, do us both a big favor and pick up-"

  He had turned to hurry back along the row to the center aisle, and said no more when he saw the exit signs over the fire doors still unlit, the bulbs recessed in the ceiling still dark. A hand grabbed for a seat back. The balcony was black except where he stood.

  "'Ellery," Ginny whispered, not the voice of a girl.

  He ordered himself not to look.

  "Ellery."

  He didn't understand the light, but he knew full well what the girl wanted, what she was trying to do. Her mind had snapped, no question about it, probably from something she had stumbled on up here, something he hadn't yet seen himself. And if he looked now, he would only encourage her; if he turned, he wouldn't know how to get her dressed again without using force, and he knew what that would look like should anyone come up to see what was taking him so long in his search.

  "Ellery."

  "Ginny, for Christ's sake, would you knock it off and-"

  Her hand gripped his shoulder and twisted
viciously, until he either had to turn or sprawl over the chairs. His jacket tore at the seam as if it were paper, his shirt tore as well, and there was a fire along his skin that made him hiss and yank free, stumbling back until he grabbed an armrest and steadied.

  "Ellery."

  Her eyes were dull orange, her teeth lengthened to fangs, her hair was a nest of spitting black serpents.

  He screamed and his left arm lashed out, catching her on the temple and tumbling her into the next row, where she regained her feet before he could turn and run, snakes gone, eyes normal, teeth covered by lips that were shining with the blood streaming from her nose.

  She smiled. "Ellery."

  And she was naked.

  "Ellery."

  She climbed agilely over the seat after him, grinning as he backed away while holding his aching shoulder, giggling when he held out a palm to stop her as if he were staving off a vampire with a large silver cross. Then she shuddered, straightened, and ran her hands up her sides until they were cupping her breasts, kneading them, flattening them, slipping one hand down over her stomach, up again, slowly, smearing her blood in pale patterns across her amber skin. Holding out a hand, stretching out a finger, reaching for him, to touch him, before he spun around and tried to run, tripped into the aisle and fell. His head struck a riser, and he grunted in pain; he blinked rapidly to clear his eyes and rolled onto his back.

  She was standing over him.

  Straddling him.

  Bending down in the nonlight until he saw the flesh peeling patches from her cheeks, her forehead, the sides of her nose.

  He screamed when she reached for him, her hands nothing but bone that cracked at the joints; screamed again when she took hold of his belt and lifted his hips effortlessly off the floor.

  Screamed a third time when she smiled, and the light snapped out.

  He assumed he had fainted, blacked out for a second, maybe two, when the thing that was Ginny Amerton hauled his groin toward her teeth. And when consciousness returned, he flailed hysterically at the air, twisting onto a hip, kicking out, grunting, feeling tears in his eyes until, at last, he calmed and lay cheek-down on the steps, gulping for a breath and telling himself over and over and over again that he was all right, he was all right, he was alone up here and he was all right. Something had somehow triggered an hallucination, but he was all right now, and he could stand if he tried.