[Oxrun Station] The Orchard

by Charles L. Grant

  She gave him a smile, pity or sympathy, he didn't know, and he felt no guilt at all when she hurried away, one hand sliding up the brass banister, her shoes at the bottom where she'd kicked them off.

  He shook himself to dispell the chill that seemed to deepen for a moment, and winked confidently at Paula before stepping out of the lobby. She whispered something to him-he thought it was i wish gary were more like you-but he didn't go back to find out. Whatever it was, it was meant kindly, to be reassuring, and he didn't want to tell her that if Gary were like him, he and his wife would be living someplace far different than their estate on the Pike.

  He kept his arm straight out in front of him, the candle at an angle to drop the scalding wax on the floor.

  He tried all the doors, pulled aside the wall coverings and examined every inch of brick he could reach, climbed a second time to the stage and hunted for a rear exit he might have overlooked before. All he found was some incomprehensible equipment thrust into the corners, and when he came around the curtain, he glanced up at the balcony to see how Katherine was doing.

  There was no light.

  He called to her.

  There was no answer.

  Deciding she had already finished, he moved toward the lobby, thinking about what he'd imagined Paula Richards had said, wondering at the same time why he hadn't panicked. This was, he told himself sardonically, hardly your ordinary predicament, yet he had somehow managed to keep relatively calm, reasonably in control, despite the encounter with. ... He moistened his lips. He couldn't say it. But there must be something inside him, something he hadn't been able to put to his tongue yet that knew what was happening, or had a fairly good idea; and that influence, felt and not known, must be what was preventing him from dropping off the deep end.

  He hurried into the lobby.

  He dropped the candle on the floor.

  "Oh, god," he said dully. "Oh, my god."

  Katherine was sprawled on the carpet under the chandelier, one leg pulled under the other, one hand outstretched and clawed at the air. A candelabrum was lying beside her head, and the left side of her face was covered in red.

  "Jesus, Paula, what happened?"

  He ran to the fallen woman and put out a hand, drew it back into a fist when he realized she was dead, that the blood on her cheek was already drying.

  "Paula, goddamnit, what the hell happened?"

  There were tears in his eyes when he looked over his shoulder, and one of them slipped to his cheek when he saw her sitting primly in the middle of the couch. She was looking at her hands folded neatly in her lap, and she was smiling.

  It came at last, the scream.

  It tightened his chest with bands of cold iron, flexed the muscles of his arms, brought darkred ridges to the sides of his neck.

  He looked up to the domed ceiling and saw the nodding shadow of Paula's head, the crystals on the chandelier refusing the light-and he opened his mouth to let out the anger, to set free the fear, to demand in the wailing the explanation rightfully his, for his torment and the dying and the dark that was spilling down the staircase and across the flowered carpet.

  In spite of the candles, the dark was closing in.

  The concession stands vanished. The steps were gone in black.

  And the scream became raw as he tasted blood in his mouth, the sweat pouring down his face, the bite of a split knuckle as the scream settled to a sobbing, to a whimpering, to a harsh and halting breathing that soon dropped him to his back.

  And when that stopped as well, he could hear the old man, and the old man was snoring.

  "Shit!" he yelled, pounded the floor with both fists and rolled over, scrambled to his feet and felt his eyes widen. "Shit!" as he charged into the office and looked down, his shirt torn off his injured shoulder, his legs snapping outward, trying to hold him while his hands reached for the wattled throat and halted less than a finger's length away.

  "Get up!" he screamed.

  "Fucking bastard, get up!" he shouted, and threw the weathered coat aside, grabbed the man's lapels and yanked him toward his face. Spittle flew when he screamed again; the head bobbed and nodded when he shook the man furiously; a drop of blood landed on a bruised cheek when he bit into his own lip and threw the old man down.

  The eyelids didn't flutter.

  The face muscles didn't twitch.

  A hand coated with liver spots dangled to the floor.

  Rain drummed in cadence; thunder drifted away.

  Behind him, so softly, he could hear Paula humming.

  "Damn you," he said to the stranger sleeping on the couch, and dropped to his knees, too weak to tear out the old man's throat, to pummel his chest, to drag him into the lobby and break a chair or a table or his own hands over the head that no longer moved.

  He sniffed, and the tears stopped, and when the candle on the desk finally guttered out in a draught, he remembered a rhyme and knew then it was so.

  "Wake up," he whispered. "Old man, wake up."

  Thunder rattled a picture frame on the wall, and the candle flared again, turned to smoke, and the smoke was a shadow.

  "Please. Wake up."

  He rocked back onto his heels, pushed himself to his feet, and left. Paula was still on the couch. Katherine's body was gone, and her shoes by the far staircase, the candelabrum, the stains of her blood.

  With thumbs pressed to his cheeks, fingers massaging his brow, he walked to the lefthand door and stared out at the rain.

  "Paula?"

  He could see her in the glass. Pale there as well, her hair fleeing its pins in slow-waving wisps. She was watching him; she had heard him.

  "Do you . . ."

  The cold drifted from the door, touched him, moved on.

  ". . . do you remember before, when we were talking about dreams?"

  After several seconds she nodded. He didn't ask the next question. He waited instead, until she licked her lips several times and made a feeble effort to put her errant hair to rights. A hand to her throat, pulling the skin thoughtfully, inadvertently loosening the high collar's pearl button. The other hand spread in a fan across her chest.

  "We all do it," the reflection said though the dark lips didn't move. "We remember sometimes; we forget most of the time."

  Yeah, he thought; but you have nightmares just the same.

  "They don't always make sense, except to some part of your brain." A brief scowl, a briefer smile. "You're supposed to be working out your daily problems somehow."

  Right, he thought; but it doesn't always work.

  "Do you dream, Ellery?"

  He nodded.

  "So do I. It's lovely."

  Raining harder, and easing, until the thunder brought it back.

  "I read once," she said, "that you do most of your dreaming, the serious stuff, I mean, just before you wake up." A shake of her head; a sighing look at the chandelier. "I don't know about that. I'm no expert."

  "I know," he said, and knew she hadn't heard him.

  She continued to talk, and he continued to watch the rain, flaring brightly at times like static on a black screen, drops running together in a mockery of tears.

  The cold deepened.

  The thunder was gone.

  Then he heard Gary's name, and he turned as slowly as his legs would allow.

  Paula was standing, her eyes closed, lips parted.

  He watched without fascination as her hips thickened slightly beneath the confines of the tweed skirt, her waist draw in, her breasts enlarge, the angles of her face sharpen here, and there grow soft;

  he watched as the skirt slit up one side and her leg poked through, the stockings gleaming in the light;

  he watched her shoulders broaden, her neck slightly lengthen, her hair break free into a cloud about her head;

  he watched tendrils of steam lift from her soles and curl up her spine to slip over her shoulders.

  She came toward him, and he met her in the center of the room, the solitary candle behind her not givin
g her a shadow.

  "Paula," he said.

  And she spat in his face.

  it's raining

  He took the seat of the chair Gary had broken a hundred years ago and turned it over, tipped the candle he was holding until a thick puddle of wax gathered on the wood bottom. He held the candle in it until the wax hardened, then placed the seat in front of the door.

  When he was sure it wouldn't tip, he walked into the office and checked the old man again, his lips in a spare smile when he was satisfied the man was alive, still breathing.

  Paula was gone.

  She had run into the auditorium, and he hadn't chased her to bring her back; she was still altering her appearance out of the wallflower mold, and he didn't want to know what she would look like at the end.

  it's pouring

  The dark was still gathering, and the cold turned his breath to a dead white fog.

  You're out there, he thought to the village beyond the dark; goddamnit, I know you're out there.

  He sat beside the candle and crossed his legs, pulling his jacket over his shoulders in hope of some warmth.

  the old man is snoring

  Ginny was wrong-this wasn't some test of experimental drugs some idiot had put in the soda or candy.

  Gary was wrong-this wasn't a macabre way to get at his fool money.

  he hit his head

  And Katherine was wrong, and she was too terribly right-it wasn't a dream that belonged to any of them. If it was true, it belonged to the old man sleeping now in Callum's office; and if Paula was right, the hardest part of dreaming didn't come until the end.

  All he could do now was wait, and watch the storm, and wonder without answers why the others had been discarded, one by one, why he had been left to live the last hour of dream time, the dreadful hour at the end before the dreamer awoke.

  and he went to bed

  He sat then, and he waited, and he tried not to think that maybe he was wrong too.

  That maybe it wasn't the old man, that it was him after all.

  The candle went out.

  Rain ticked against the glass.

  And he would not close his eyes when the dark swept around him and he could no longer hear the old man in the office.

  He would not close his eyes.

  "I am here," he said softly to the rain and took a breath. "I am awake. I am."

  and he won't get up till morning

  Part Four: Screaming, in the Dark

  Evening comes rapidly when the year begins to die-when the leaves have all turned and the grass bows against the wind and there's no memory of spring despite the gold left behind by the sun in its setting.

  Evening comes, not with shadows but a slow killing of the light . . . and when the light has gone, the trees grow larger and streets become tunnels and porches on old houses no longer hold the swings and the rockers and the warm summer calls to come away, come and sit, and watch for a while.

  And when the sidewalks are empty and the cars have all been parked and the only sign of movement is a leaf scratching at the curb, there are the sounds, the nightsounds, the last sounds before the end-of wings dark over rooftops, of footsteps soft around the corner, of something clearing its throat behind the hedge near the streetlamp where white becomes a cage and the shadows seldom move.

  There are stars.

  There is a moon.

  There are late August wishes and early June dreams that slip out of time and float into the cold that turns dew to frost and hardens the pavement, gives echoes blade edges and makes children's laughter seem too close to screams.

  In the evening; never morning.

  When the year begins to die.

  The hospital on King Street faces south toward the woods that flank the Station solidly no matter how many streets are made. It is three stories high, tinted windows and brick; a double row of evergreens reaches above the roof, keeping a year-round screen between the hospital and all its neighbors. All the patients' rooms are ranged along the outside walls, to give them views of green; all the floors except the basement are divided left to right by a long central corridor that, like the others, is tiled and painted in the warmest earth tones, to keep voices and anxieties down and to give visitors the impression the building is much larger than it looks from the curb.

  It is seldom full.

  It is always fully staffed.

  But in spite of the equipment more advanced than most cities, and in spite of the residents, who usually smiled and were usually relaxed and were usually better trained than their counterparts on the outside, Michael suspected that dungeons and medieval prisons were a lot like this: a window you could see through, but too far away to reach even with mighty efforts-a deliberate reminder that freedom was out there and you were still in here, even if your doctor was a genius and your nurse a beauty queen; something to lie on, uncomfortable and hard-a thinly padded rack sadistically designed to put crooks in your back and scabs on your heels and a giggling mad desire to throw yourself on the floor where at least you could sleep without waking slick with sweat; the food in small portions less than fit for human consumption; and the captain of the guards out patrolling the halls, left free by the king to torture the inmates.

  No wonder the Bastille had been stormed during the best of the revolution; no wonder they screamed when someone mentioned the Bloody Tower.

  On the other hand, he could be dead.

  With a sigh for the dubious blessings of mortality, he clasped his hands behind his head, wriggled his buttocks vigorously in a reminder not to get bedsores, and stared glumly at his left leg, invisible in a great white cast putting a dent in the bed. And at his right leg, tucked under the sheet but swollen twice its size from the bandages wrapped around his calf. He twitched the muscles to be sure they still worked, then shifted his gaze to the ceiling.

  Brother, he thought glumly.

  Softly tan, like the walls; restful perhaps, but without the game-playing flaws he could turn into twisted faces and monsters. Boring. Soporific. As bad as the small television on the wall across the room. The remote-control unit was on the bedtable, but he seldom used it anymore. He hated the game shows. He didn't understand the soap operas. And it seemed that every time someone ran a large piece of equipment somewhere in the building, the picture broke up into colorful, painful static.

  Another look at his leg, and he glared at the toes poking through the end of the cast. He wiggled them. He wished someone would come in and tickle them. He wished someone would come in and tickle his side, or under his arms. He wished someone would come in and put a bullet through his head.

  One week in this bed and, according to his doctor, probably another week more.

  "This," he said aloud, "is boring!"

  The varnished pine door to the hallway was propped open, and a nurse stepped in the moment he opened his mouth. She grinned and shook her head in mock despair, and wheeled a small cart to his side, picked up his left hand, and curled her fingers around his wrist.

  "You really don't have the right attitude, Mr. Kolle," she scolded lightly with a glance at the gold-framed watch pinned to her chest.

  "My attitude," he said, "is rotten because I am bored, Janey. I am bored out of my mind and I want to go home."

  She dropped the wrist, picked up an electronic thermometer unit from the cart, and gestured to him. He opened his mouth, and they waited until the unit beeped.

  "You dip that in garlic, right?" he said, licking his lips and grimacing.

  "Just for you, Mike, just for you."

  His next sigh was world-weary as she checked the cast and thumped it with a knuckle, then moved to his right, flipped over the sheet and checked the bandages for loosening. He guessed her to be a good decade younger than he, her hair blonde, her face round, with a height that couldn't have been much above five feet. She worked with a minimum of excess motion and not another word, long fingers deft and delicate, and he could have wept with joy when, as she walked around the foot of the bed, she tickle
d his toes.

  At the cart she checked for medication, found none was required and started out. At the threshold she paused, snapping her fingers. "I forgot. You'll be happy to know you won't be so horribly bored from now on. You're going to have company."

  He looked to the empty bed by the window. "Nuts."

  "I thought you'd be pleased. Someone to talk to."

  "Probably an old man who's just had his gallbladder ripped out, or his kidneys reprocessed."

  "No," she said, and seemed to think twice before finishing. "As a matter of fact, it's a kid."

  "A what?"

  "A kid. From the upstairs ward. There's been . . ." She smiled and shrugged. "He'll be down later. I'll be back to see how you guys get along."

  "Thanks," he said sourly. "I know one lousy fairy tale, I don't like sports, and I haven't the slightest idea who has the number one record, country or rock. Wonderful."

  "Sports?" she said. "You don't like sports?"

  He looked mournfully at his leg, cleanly broken in two places, the other one with calf muscles nearly torn to shreds. "Not anymore."

  She laughed, and surprised him by blowing him a kiss. He tried to lean forward to watch her progress down the hall, but she was gone in an eye's blink, and he lay back, smiling.

  It was a cliche, he supposed, that patients fall in love with either their doctors or their nurses, and once the hospital stay is over, they drift apart, shadows swallowed by the night; but in this case he had a feeling he was putting the lie to the saw. He didn't love Janey, he adored her; he waited impatiently for each visit on her rounds-for the beginning of each shift when she came to kiss him good morning, for the end of the shift when she kissed him goodnight. He fantasized how they might make love with him trussed and cast; he fantasized taking her home when he was better and showing her how he could make her a hell of a lot happier than she was right now.

  Especially since, behind that smile, behind the wide blue eyes, he could see the apprehension.

  They were all that way these past few days. The halls were less filled with chatter; the rattle and clatter of supply carts muffled and less hurried. Even the announcements over the PA system seemed more subdued.