[Oxrun Station] Dialing The Wind

by Charles L. Grant

  Gavin sat in her chair, slumped with long legs crossed, suit jacket folded and draped across the back. His tie was yanked down and off to one side, collar button open and the next button down. His hair was plentiful for the white that it was, and in almost comic contrast to the black of a mustache that made his face seem almost pudgy.

  The room was warm, no breeze through the open windows.

  "Thirst," he said tonelessly. "So that's why I'm dying of."

  He'd only just pulled into the driveway, home early from Hartford, when April dashed out of the house and dragged him over, so quickly she hadn't had time to put on her shoes.

  Lois blinked at him. "Oh." Her hand fluttered. "I'm sorry, Gavin. I'll-"

  "I know where it is," Todd said gently. "You sit down. I'll get it."

  "Nothing too strong for me, love," April called after him from the sofa. "I'm on a diet, remember?" Then she turned to Montgomery Zaber, seated beside her, in the corner. "If I was smart, I'd drink water or some kind of diet soda, but Lois doesn't believe in that stuff." She laughed quickly. "I don't either, but what the hell."

  The elder Zaber sat stiffly. He was dressed in a three-piece white suit, diamond stickpin, diamond cuff links, black leather shoes that reflected the lamplight.' His lean face was flushed, and his eyes were narrowed, as they had been the first time Lois had met him, outside his law-firm office. He gave the impression of eternal disapproval, and the first time he'd laughed Lois thought it was trick.

  His smile to April was brief; the one to Lois was longer, and brushed with concern. "My dear," he said calmly, "if you don't sit down, you're going to make it worse than it is."

  "But it isn't bad," she insisted, staying where she was, glancing at the photograph and finger-dusting the frame. "I told you I just panicked for a moment. He sounded so ... so ..." She shrugged helplessly.

  "Well," the attorney said, his voice giving the impression his fingers were tented thoughtfully under his chin, "if it'll make you feel any better, from what you've told me, there isn't a thing the man can do to take this lovely place away from you. He gave it up willingly, signed to that effect, and now .. ." He spread his hands. "But I do wish you'd call Wes Martin. He's a good man, one of the best policemen we have on the force. He's certainly done a fine job as acting chief."

  She shook her head. The police would only complicate matters, and if Paul was really in town and saw them at the house, he might do something more stupid than he already was.

  Todd returned with a tray of drinks he passed around without comment, saving Lois for last-a squat glass of bourbon.

  "Oh, how sweet, you remembered," she said, closing her eyes as she sipped.

  "It wasn't hard. It's all you have."

  Silence.

  The chime and crack of ice cubes.

  "I don't know," she said suddenly, softly, sinking to an ottoman on the hearth that matched nothing in the room. "I just don't know what he's up to."

  "Sick," April told her. "The bastard's sick, that's all, and he ought to be locked up."

  Gavin grunted, and drank.

  "A business or personal reversal," Zaber suggested over the top of his glass. "It happens more often than you think. A man, or a woman for that matter, suffers some sort of economic or emotional loss and he strikes out at an easy target." He stared at the glass. "In this case, you."

  "But it's been over four years. Nearly five now."

  "And you still have the house," the man reminded her. "In five years I would imagine the value of this property has appreciated considerably. In Oxrun that's not unusual, not in these times." He glanced around the room in frank admiration. "Taking into consideration all the work-"

  Love, she thought.

  "-you've put into it, I've no doubt a sale would realize a substantial profit. Quite substantial."

  "I'd never sell it," she whispered. "Never. It's mine."

  Silence.

  The snap and sigh of ice cubes melting.

  Todd knelt beside her, leaned back on his heels, and she smiled at him in thanks, smiled at the others, and marked how much the man alongside her resembled the man over there in the white suit. There was more than a father-son similarity; it was the way the head was held, the way the lips tightened, the cheeks sucked in, the way the left hand was used for emphasis while the right hunted for a pocket to dive in and hide.

  At times it was uncanny.

  "Gavin," April said, rolling the sleeves of her plaid shirt above her elbows, "why don't you check around outside?"

  Gavin moved his eyes, not his head. "Should I bring a shotgun?"

  The woman's lips parted, brittle but not a smile. "Just sing to him, dear, just sing. That'll take care of him until we can call the cops."

  Gavin emptied his glass and pushed out of the chair as if he were ten times his age. "I'm going for a refill." A blank look at his wife. "No. I'm going to get the bottle." He reached for a small ice bucket resting on top of the television console. Then he looked at Lois, who grinned and nodded. "You are civilized, child. I am a shit."

  He left.

  The silence.

  April rolled her sleeves back down and looked over her shoulder out the window. "Todd?" she said.

  And Lois realized then that her friend was truly afraid, far more afraid than she was. The calls had been frightening, of course, but as soon as she'd gathered her surrogate family around her, heard their voices, saw their faces, she felt less foolish at her reactions than she felt, at last, comforted. They had come without questions; they were staying until they were convinced she would be all right alone.

  "I suppose it wouldn't hurt," Todd said, setting his glass on the brick and grunting to his feet. "Where do you keep the shotgun?"

  "I don't have a shotgun," she said. "And the cannon is in for repairs."

  He snapped his fingers. "Nuts. Then I'll just have to tear his head off with my bare hands."

  When he left, Lois saw April trying not to sigh her relief, and saw Montgomery Zaber purse his lips in a silent, disapproving whistle.

  Gavin brought the bottle.

  Every glass was refilled.

  "You were lucky there weren't any children," April said, and said, "Oops," when a dribble of liquor escaped her mouth and ran down her chin.

  Lois didn't answer, though she didn't think "lucky" was exactly the word she would have chosen.

  Gavin folded his hands around his glass and stared at the ceiling, nodding once in a while, his right foot tapping the air. "You know," he said, "could it be the guy was just plain drunk? Maybe feeling sorry for himself?"

  "No," she said. "He wasn't drunk."

  "Sick," April said. "Like I told you."

  Zaber shifted, glass in hand, the other hand in his lap.

  "I don't know," Gavin said. "It seems to me-"

  The telephone rang.

  Lois jumped up, bourbon slopping over her hand. She swore, wiped it off on her jeans, and pushed herself to her feet when no one else moved.

  "Don't answer it," April urged, drawing her legs quickly under her, cupping her bare feet in one hand. "If it's him, the bastard, you'll only-"

  The back door opened as the telephone rang again, and Todd called, "I'll get it," before Lois could take a step.

  She listened. Frowning. Licking her lips until she realized what she was doing and clamped her teeth together, pushed her tongue against them. And held her breath until he came into the room and shrugged.

  "Nobody there."

  "I'll bet," April muttered.

  "Wrong number," Gavin suggested, and his wife stuck out her tongue.

  Say something, Lois ordered herself then; don't just stand here like an idiot, like some helpless female without a brain in her head. Say something. Tell a joke. For god's sake, grab Todd and kiss him!

  Todd reached her then and picked up his glass. "Look," he said, "there was no one outside-I locked the garage, by the way-but I think ... I don't know, but I think someone ought to stay with you tonight."

  "
Me," April said quickly.

  Lois set her drink on the mantel and shook her head. "No. I mean, I think I'll be all right."

  Todd gripped her shoulder firmly, easing her back to the ottoman, though she didn't feel like sitting. "I think I should be the one. And I promise, Lo, that-"

  "No, don't!" she snapped, yanking her shoulder away. "You can't promise. You can't. You don't even know what's going to happen, so how can you. . ."

  She stopped when she saw his stricken expression, the hurt, and she reached up to take his hand, to squeeze it in apology, and let it go.

  But she didn't say yes.

  Too many promises.

  She rubbed her palms together, placed them on her thighs.

  There were too damn many promises made too damn easily. I promise you this, I promise you that, and all them soon shattered like cheap dishes on the floor. Made without thinking; made with good intention; made without understanding the implicit commitment-and once understanding, looking for the loophole that would salve the conscience, save the words for reuse.

  No more promises; I love you, Todd, but the house is the only promise I have left.

  "Lois," Montgomery said, "may I offer a suggestion?"

  After a long moment she nodded warily.

  "It's apparent that none of us, myself included, want to leave you here by yourself. It's also apparent that you have no intention of letting any of us stay." He smiled then. "Including my son."

  Todd sputtered.

  Gavin smiled.

  Lois looked up and gave him her best lewd wink.

  "So why don't we simply relax. All of us. There's nothing we can do, nothing has been done to either Lois or the house, and as long as we're behaving like the proverbial cat in a room full of rocking chairs, we're going to be more uncomfortable than if we hadn't come at all. I think, since I have absolutely no appetite or desire for parlor games and such, we might find something suitable on the television, find something to nibble on in the kitchen, and make pests of ourselves until Lois finds it in her heart to throw us all out."

  He drank.

  Gavin slapped his thigh lightly in applause.

  And Lois did her best not to laugh aloud. It was, she thought, the perfect solution under the circumstances. None of them could pretend there was nothing going on, but neither was there any sense in just sitting around, waiting for something to happen. For all she knew, Paul could have been calling from Boston. Or New York. Or even from across the country. In the meantime, the least they could do was find a distraction, a release, anything that would keep them from staring at her as though they expected her to suddenly burst into tears and start throwing things, or try to slit her wrists.

  "Do you like baseball, Mr. Zaber?" Gavin asked.

  "Hate it."

  "A movie then," April said, leaving the couch to kneel in front of the TV. "Something stupid. Mindless." She pulled the on-off knob. "Any requests?"

  And had just glanced away from the sudden brightening of the screen when an explosion knocked her to her rump, and a flare of orange light flooded the room for a moment.

  "What . . . ?" April said.

  But Gavin was out of his chair before anyone else could move, leapt over his wife's legs, and raced into the front room.

  "Jesus!" he shouted. "Jesus Christ, it's my house!"

  They crowded around the windows, April weeping and clutching her husband's arm, and saw flames spread along the Quick's sagging porch, saw shards of glass on the lawn reflecting the fire, saw smoke in pale strips streaming through a broken window. Bits of flaming wood and brush lay in the street, on the lawn, rolled and stopped on her porch and immediately burned out.

  Lois knew her mouth was open, knew her lungs sought air, and she could almost feel the heat that rose in waves above the roof; she could hear the fire give itself a voice, and throw its shadows to the street to make the flames seem brighter by turning everything else pure black.

  One of the willows was burning.

  Part of the hedge had sprouted fire.

  Gavin pushed them away and ran for the door. April right behind him and shouting for someone to call the fire department, the police. Todd immediately headed for the kitchen, his father right behind him.

  But Lois didn't move.

  She couldn't.

  Though she had felt the house shudder under the impact of the explosion, she thought she felt something else. A settling. A hardening. As though the air had congealed for the briefest of moments. It had startled her so much she found it difficult to breathe, and when breath returned she felt dizzy and had swayed.

  No one had seen her.

  "Damn!" she heard Gavin shout.

  "Well, turn the damned lock," April snapped, one hand scrabbling to help until he slapped it away.

  Something banged in the living room. Lois turned just as Todd darted past along the hall, calling to her something about the telephone being dead, the lines were down, the fire. She looked again at the Quick house, then hurried back, scanned the room, and saw nothing fallen, nothing broken.

  "Damn it, Lois, how the hell do you open this goddamned door?"

  They were crowded around the door when she got there, made way reluctantly, and she took hold of the knob. Seel She wanted to say; you don't have to panic, all you have to do is. ..

  The knob wouldn't turn.

  "C'mon, c'mon, open the damned door! My house is burning down!"

  April ran for the back, bare feet slapping the floor.

  Lois fumbled with the lock, twisting the tiny latch one way, the other, back again, while she yanked at the doorknob and kicked at the frame.

  "I don't know what's-"

  With a sharp short curse Gavin shoved her to one side and tried it himself, his face an ugly scarlet, a vein raised and dark across his brow. "Shit," he said, drew his arm back and punched at the pane.

  The glass didn't break.

  Todd backed away, pulling Lois with him. "We'll have to bust a window or something," he said.

  "What?"

  "I can't get out!" April screamed from the kitchen. "Lois, how the hell do you open this thing?"

  "Here," Todd said, and Lois followed him into the parlor. Watching as he looked around, finally picked up an ashtray from an end table and walked to the nearest window.

  "Todd, c'mon," she said. "Don't be silly. There's got to be-"

  He slammed it against the glass.

  "Lois!" April screamed.

  Gavin picked up the mail table and hefted it awkwardly over his shoulder.

  "No!" Lois cried.

  Todd hit the window again.

  The table was already in motion by the time she reached the foyer, and she stood with hands clasped to her mouth as it struck the door's pane and bounced off, throwing Gavin off balance. He stared at it, at her, and tried again.

  April screamed.

  "The heat or something," Gavin muttered to himself. "I don't know. The heat. Air pressure. What the fuck's going on!"

  Two of the legs snapped off at the next blow, and he flung the remains at the stairs, hesitated, then ran up to the second floor just as Lois heard glass shattering, turned, and saw Todd with a piece of ashtray in his hand.

  His fingers were bleeding.

  There was blood on the pane.

  "The kitchen," she said immediately, taking his arm and tugging him gently out of the room. She paid no attention to the thumping upstairs, nor to April still shrieking hysterically at the back door. She ignored it all because none of it made sense. She had been stunned by the explosion, logic gone and reason suspended, and only Todd's blood was real, and the moan that slipped from him when a thick sliver of glass fell from his palm to the floor.

  "Lois," Todd said, voice low and slurred, "I don't know what happened. I... what's the matter?" His face was pale, his lips unnaturally dark. "It hurts."

  April was at the door when she brought Todd to the sink, turned on the cold water and eased the hand under the flow. He hissed and pulled his lips back,
shut his eyes, turned his head, and turned it back to watch.

  April tapped on the pane, rattled the knob. Her shoulders shook; one heel tapped the floor.

  "It's not too bad," Lois said, pulling open a drawer to get her first-aid kit. "You're not going to faint, are you?"

  "I want to get out," April whispered.

  He shook his head. "No." A quick false laugh. "It startled me, that's all. That thing broke like I was hitting concrete."

  A series of tiny pricks along the inside of his fingers, a half-moon cut across the center of his palm.

  "Stings like hell, though."

  Lois heard April kick the door lightly, heard Gavin still charging around upstairs. Don't think, she ordered; don't think, not yet. She grabbed a square of paper towel from its holder and dabbed the hand dry, then held up a small bottle.

  "You think that stings?"

  "Aw, Jesus, Lo, not iodine, c'mon."

  "Then you do it."

  He did, face taut, sucking air in spurts and shaking his head quickly. "God." He poured a bit more. "God."

  April walked out of the room, calling for her husband.

  Quickly Lois bound the hand as best she could, watching Todd's face so intently she didn't realize he was mocking her look until he stuck out his tongue and said, "I think I'll be fine now, doctor."

  Sirens cut off her response, high and falling rapidly, and she ran back to the foyer and stood at the door, watching as a fire engine slammed to a halt at the curb across the street, a police cruiser just behind it, a second engine coming from the opposite direction. Flames had painted the entire front of the house, had punched through all the windows, were dripping like liquid from the still-burning willow.

  The men that scrambled from the vehicles were little more than shadows against the fire, and she had her hand on the knob before she remembered.

  Then one of the firemen fell, losing his helmet and flinging up one arm as he sprawled into the hedge. A policeman suddenly slumped against the hood of his car. Another fireman, wrenching open the hydrant in the front of the house one door down, straightened, looked around, and fell onto the curb.