The Complete Short Fiction of Charles L. Grant, Volume IV: The Black Carousel

by Charles L. Grant

  “Oh swell,” he muttered sourly when he saw the three red tracks on his neck. “A sloppy vampire.”

  What little blood there was had already dried to dark beads. He debated the use of medication for possible infection, decided against it, and went to bed, disdaining a sheet, burying his face in the pillow. A few minutes later, his mother came upstairs, and he sensed her out there, standing in his doorway, watching him, probably arguing with herself about waking him so she could find out what he had found out, then suggest a dozen ways how to do it better the next time he was asked.

  Please, he thought.

  She left him alone.

  Shifting, then — first one leg, then the other, one arm, the other, flopping onto his back, arms out, palms up, the night breeze that had stalked him earlier working its way through the window screen and gliding over his stomach. A mosquito he killed with one rapid swipe.

  Funny, sometimes, his mother was. Staying up as late as it took until he came home, then falling into bed, complaining about how tired she always was; never going out on dates, yet accepting an invitation to the Travelers just the other night, right out of the clear blue; questioning him about his own dates, and always forgetting their names; able to sell insurance with the best of them, yet never able to haggle with a shopkeeper or clerk.

  The breeze tickled him.

  Funny too about Jill; where the hell had she been?

  But she could have been there. He’d spent most of his time standing around one of the long refreshment tables, noting faces, testing names against his memory, sipping, nibbling on sandwiches scarcely bigger than his palm, trying and unable to remember how Anita’s father made his living. She could have been there and he simply hadn’t seen her.

  Did he care?

  How much did he care?

  He allowed his lungs a slow deep breath, a slower exhalation.

  Not much, he admitted. She was fun to be around, but there was something about her, something tilted, that made him nervous. A sweet malice that he suspected was more than a little calculated.

  His head rolled left so he could look out the window. A tree outlined by the moon, nothing more.

  The breeze once more, a long strip of silk across his narrow chest that made him tremble.

  He thought of the cat.

  He remembered the lightless houses.

  He turned away from the moon and stared at the wall until he fell asleep.

  Something screamed in anguish.

  Drake sat up, panting, wiped the sweat from his face with the corner of a sheet.

  No sound.

  He had been dreaming.

  It couldn’t have been the little cat.

  Damp sheets in the morning, the floor sticky where it was bare. He could barely move, legs stiff from walking, bleary-eyed, head feeling as if he’d drunk wine instead of that god awful tepid punch. His jacket lay on the floor where he’d dropped it the night before, a long rip in the lining where the cat had thrashed its way clear. He rolled his eyes and hoped he could get it to the tailor’s before his mother saw it. If not, there’d be a lecture on waste, carelessness, and the need to save money for the more important things in life. He loved his mother, but, lord, sometimes she acted more like a professor than someone who sold insurance.

  The shower wasn’t much better. No matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t dry off. The day was too muggy, and morning hadn’t even ended. He finally gave up and went downstairs in nothing but a pair of shorts, rehearsing what he’d tell her when the interrogation began. But she had already left for work, a scrawled note on the kitchen table telling him that she might not be home until late, her boss in the Harley office had decided it was time to catch up on the paperwork before they all smothered, be a dear and straighten up, Aunt Sheri and Uncle Wendall are coming to visit tonight, all the way from Pennsylvania, and she didn’t want them to think she ran a slum here, be another dear and don’t go far in case I don’t get home in time to greet them.

  Which meant, he thought glumly as he tossed the note away, his cousins would be here too. Private school brats on their way to the Ivy League and not afraid to let everyone know it. He would probably have to baby-sit for them, show them around, be their pal, introduce them to his friends, who would never let him forget it. Luckily, the Travelers was still around and he could kill at least one evening taking them over. After that, who the hell knew? Maybe he could mount an expedition into the cemetery at the end of the street. Preferably at midnight. Preferably ending with them falling into an open grave and breaking their necks.

  “Right,” he said to the empty house. “Sure.”

  On the other hand, who the hell was he kidding? He wouldn’t do anything to them, and he wouldn’t say anything no matter what the provocation. Visits like this were too important to his mother — a chance to prove to her family, for the millionth time, that she had indeed survived the desertion of her husband, and had done it well. Very well. She needed no one, wanted no one, and did not require the assistance of anyone, no matter how well-intentioned or how well meant.

  Sometimes he hated those people for what they did to her. He hated them more because he knew they blamed her. She had ambitions his father hadn’t been able to handle. He wanted the kind of wife they used to have in the movies; she wanted a life outside the house. Even now, especially on days when everything went wrong and he wanted to bury himself in the cellar until his luck changed, he could hear echoes of the arguments, the fights, that had kept him awake at night, that erupted during meals, that finally became one long campaign of marital warfare.

  She wouldn’t leave; he wouldn’t leave.

  Drake spent a lot of time with his friends, eating there, sleeping over, avoiding the Devon Street house until, at last, something broke. He never knew what happened, but one night he came home, and his father was gone.

  He had wept.

  So had his mother, and two days later got her first job.

  He cleaned, then, and mowed the lawn, took another shower and swept the porch. When he was finished, he checked the refrigerator for something to drink, closed the door, opened it again and groaned. His mother had forgotten to do the shopping the day before; there was nothing for supper.

  “You’re fired, Mom,” he muttered, and since she would be late, he knew she wouldn’t have time to pick something up on the way home. Which meant that he would have to turn himself into Drake Saxton, Fearless Shopper, and go down to Bueller’s Market. She hated it when he did, he knew it, and loved it. More often than not, he blew the weekly meal budget out of the water in one gluttonous trip, lugging home his favorite foods, healthy or not, and a dozen things that had looked good at the time but would seldom be eaten by either one of them.

  It drove her crazy.

  The last time she complained, he said, “Mom, I’m just a kid, what do I know about nutrition? Maybe you should get a husband.”

  She threw a loaf of bread at him.

  He ran out of the house ahead of her laughing curses, came home an hour later with a gallon of her favorite ice cream.

  A T-shirt fished out of a dresser drawer, tennis shoes without socks, and he walked down to the market, thinking he ought to get nothing but peanut butter and jelly, it would serve them right. Unfortunately, it had better be steaks, potatoes in the microwave quick and easy, with a big salad to keep things cool.

  Heavens, Aunt Sheri would say, what a sumptuous meal. You must be doing well, dear, selling all that insurance. How wonderful for you. Has Wendall told you about that office building he designed for those Mormon people in Memphis? You wouldn’t believe all the trouble they gave him. Tell her all about it, Wendall.

  Uncle Wendall would eat and say nothing; it would all be in his eyes.

  Barbi would say, Aunt Rene, it looks terrific, but I’m still on that silly diet, can I just have the salad, would you mind?

  Yeah, Deena would echo, can I just have the salad? Mother, the Mormons are not terrible people. They’re just fussy, that’s all.r />
  And Chuck would mimic his father, eating the meat and not caring if it had been cooked.

  I wonder, Drake thought, if there’s a train out of here this afternoon. Preferably to Cheyenne.

  The market wasn’t much better when he got there. It wasn’t a large place, and the already narrow aisles were crowded with haphazard displays as well as shoppers, most of whom seemed to have come in just to take advantage of the air-conditioning. By the time he reached the meat counter, his ribs had taken a beating, the food basket he held was damn near breaking his arm, and the smells of everything from freshly ground coffee to the ammonia cleaner used on the floor had begun to give him a headache. It didn’t help to see a roast pig’s head staring at him from a bed of crushed ice and parsley.

  “You ever eat one of them things?” a rasping voice said beside him.

  The butcher, apron begrimed and straw hair straggling damply from under a crushed white cap, took his order with a flat grunt, and a swipe of a thick, tattooed forearm over his mouth.

  “Not on a bet,” Drake answered. He turned his head and grinned at Kayman Kalb,

  Kalb grinned back from under a backward-turned baseball cap. “Looks like my first wife.” His plaid shirt was open, abundant chest hairs white, the chest itself still muscular though.

  Drake knew the man had to be at least sixty-five. “Never could keep her mouth shut. You ever gonna get married?”

  “I have to graduate first.”

  “Oh. Right.” A thick finger poked his arm. “You ever want to write a feature story about me, just give me a holler. Financial wizard makes a fortune making chairs. Hell of a story. Give me a call, boy. Always glad to help the press.”

  Drake nodded, grabbed his package from the counter when the butcher slapped it down — another grunt, another swipe-and made his way to the register, set by the entrance. The clerk took her time, chatting gaily, exclaiming over a squealing baby in a backpack, commiserating over food prices, finally asking Drake if he was expecting company or just stuffing himself tonight.

  “Relatives, Roxy,” he said to the buxom redhead, who more than once figured in his summer dreams.

  “Too bad.”

  “You’re telling me.”

  “Have them for stew,” Kalb called from somewhere down the line. “Lots of salt. They always need lots of salt.”

  Laughter clung to him as he stepped back outside and sighed at the weight the sun dropped on his shoulders. The glare off the sidewalk made him squint, and he stayed close to the curb, trying to keep in the shade, where it wasn’t all that much cooler.

  Alaska, he thought; tomorrow, I’m getting Mom to take us right to Alaska to live in an igloo and the hell with Wendall Firth and all his little Firths even if Aunt Sheri was his mother’s sister.

  A cat whimpered behind a hedge.

  He wasted ten minutes trying to find it.

  By the time he reached home, blood from the fresh meat began seeping through the bottom of the brown paper bag.

  At six o’clock the telephone rang.

  “You’ve got to be kidding,” he said, giving the living room window his best martyr’s expression.

  “There’s nothing I can do about it, dear, I’m sorry.”

  “But Mom, that means they may not be here until midnight.”

  His irritation pricked the back of his neck when she reminded him, too calmly for him to miss her own agitation, that Wendall’s car breaking down wasn’t her fault, don’t pout over things you can’t do anything about.

  Which was, he thought after he replaced the receiver, the whole problem with the world. He stomped into the kitchen and sneered at it. Control. Give him a little control, just once, and things would soon change around here, by Christ. Drake Saxton, Temporary King of the Whole Goddamn World.

  Damn.

  He watched the early news, the national and world news, stood up from the couch every time he heard a car turn into the street; he stood on the porch and watched Mrs. Loodeck water her plants, billowing floral bathrobe wrapped around a body almost as wide as her front door; Mr. Tarman oiled his glider, the way he did every week, then wiped it down with a chamois; the sun dropped behind the houses across the street, blanking their faces; a pair of terriers trotted up toward the graveyard, tails high, tongues hanging brightly; the sky bled away its light slowly and the breeze finally died.

  The television gave him game shows he couldn’t bring himself to watch.

  His mother called again, apologizing, she wouldn’t be home for at least two or three more hours.

  “You getting overtime?”

  She laughed. “Grey hair, dear, just more grey hair.”

  He called Jill, for no other reason than he was tired of pacing, tired of sitting, tired of trying to find things to do. There was no control; it was driving him nuts.

  “So,” he said after running the gauntlet of her ever-suspicious father, “you busy tonight?”

  “Of course I am,” she said. “It’s summer, you idiot. I’ve got stuff going every night and twice on Saturdays.”

  “You want to go to the Travelers?”

  “Sure, what time?”

  He checked his watch and closed one eye. “Eight-thirty, half an hour. I can’t stay very late, though.”

  “How come?”

  “Company coming.”

  “So why are you leaving?”

  He didn’t know; he stayed silent.

  “No problem. Where?”

  “Meet you at the gate?” He’d been to her house once, and that had been enough. Mr. Nowell had been worse than Aunt Sheri, quizzing him on everything except his weight and birthstone.

  She giggled. “Okay. Dutch?”

  He feigned indignance. “I am perfectly capable of arranging entrance payment for both of us, Miss Nowell, thank you very much.”

  “Wow, is that reporter talk?”

  “Later,” he said, and hung up, looked down at his feet and slapped his forehead. “So what the hell made you do a dumbass stupid thing like that, Saxton? You’re asking for trouble, you know. Jesus, you’re a jerk.”

  He went upstairs to change, checkered shirt and jeans, and to arrange the mess of undistinguished brown hair he’d obviously gotten from his father.

  “Suppose,” he said to the bathroom mirror, “Mom gets home before you do? She will, you know. You’ll be in deep shit.”

  His hair refused to obey, and he finally let it flop over his ears, over his brow, as usual. Next year he was getting a crew cut and the hell with Oxrun fashion.

  “Suppose,” he said to the sink as he leaned over the counter, writing a note to explain where he was, when he’d be home, but not why he had gone, “Uncle Wendall gets here first and you’re not here? Then what? Mom comes home, they’re all sitting around the porch with their bags on the lawn, she’ll hunt you down and murder you.”

  He almost changed his mind.

  It wouldn’t be fair to let her face them alone.

  Darling; Aunt Sheri would say, that goddamn finger pressed against her cheek the way it always did when she looked at something that disturbed her by its very existence, it’s such a shame you have to work so late just to make ends meet. Isn’t it, Wendall. Isn’t it a shame? I don’t mean to pry, dear, but maybe it’s time Drake took a job instead of all those extra classes. Don’t you think so, Chuck? Don’t you think Drake could sacrifice just a little bit to help his mother out?

  Of course, they hadn’t been around when his father didn’t come home. They called once a month, they scattered blame like it was corn seed, but aside from a fifty-dollar check that first Christmas, no one had given them a hand but themselves.

  He made sure he had his house key and wallet, turned on the outside light, and locked the door behind him.

  The street was already dark.

  Again, all the lights were out.

  He looked up at the amber bulb, scowled, flicked the globe with his thumb twice before it came on, and took a deep breath.

  Go?


  You’re already there, he answered, and left.

  She was two inches taller, even in her flats, her white shirt more snug than his, her white shorts cut high and loose, her hair against her tan a deep golden brown. A round face, a pug nose, a thin scar that ran from the corner of her right eye almost to her ear, making that eye seem almost slanted. She played basketball, swam, hiked in the White Mountains, and was reputed to have beaten up every boy on her block every year until she reached high school.

  When she took his hand, her grip was gentle.

  They didn’t say anything beyond grins for hi. Drake was somewhat astonished that she’d shown up at all, and didn’t want to press his luck scaring her off with some brilliantly stupid remark.

  It didn’t matter.

  For most of the first half hour she did all the talking for them, telling him about the supreme bust her cousin’s party was, how she’d left after five minutes to go to a movie that wasn’t so hot either, that she was, really, no shit, sorry she’d made him go and then left without even seeing him.

  While he told her about Uncle Wendall and the rest of the Firths, she dragged him to a bunting-draped stand to show him how to shoot spinning targets, marching ducks, twirling bears, and a scarecrow that had five crows perched on each straw arm. He cheered her on, carried the panda she won, and let her rush him down a lane to a baseball toss, dropping nine in a row into a canted, narrow-mouthed garbage can. He carried the giant canary and followed her to a snack concession where she treated him to spicy hot dogs and diet soda, never once slowing down long enough for him to tell her about the family about to invade the Saxton fortress.

  She kissed his cheek and said she thought no offense but his relatives sounded like class-A assholes.

  She dunked a clown in a water tank by using a pool ball to hit a bull’s-eye no larger than his palm.

  She kissed his cheek when he gave the panda to a little girl who couldn’t seem to stop crying.