Rick turned away from the window.
Two rows forward, a guy turned and looked at him. He wore a button-down pinstriped suit—blue, with a white shirt and maroon tie. His brown hair was short and neatly-trimmed, as if he had just stepped out of a barber’s chair. He smiled nervously, and Rick turned back to the window. Wispy threads of clouds solidified into solid white as the airplane passed through them, until the clouds dissipated, and a pleasant view of farmland and fields and distant mountain ranges bathed in the mid afternoon sun replaced them.
Rick was tired. After dinner last night, he had sat on the couch with Helen, watching the movie she had picked out on her way home from work. He had enjoyed Dawn of the Dead, all the way up to the depressing ending, when it was revealed that no one got away. It was over for them. No one would go on to bigger and better things. And that got Rick to thinking about his own career. Had it really been eighteen years since that fiasco in New York had put an end to his stint in the big leagues? Could it be as hopeless as it seemed, that despite all his hard work and growth as a writer, he would remain an outcast? It was, and Rick knew it. Talentless hacks would dominate shelf space while Rick turned in crisp, clean prose, detailing highly imaginative stories that would never be read. And Rick would finally give up. He would swallow every pill in the medicine cabinet and lie down in a nice hot bath. Just before the pills swept him away, he would take his razor and carve a deep diagonal path down the radial artery lining the inside of his forearm; nice and neat, so all Helen would have to do was pull the plug and let what was left of her pathetic albatross of a husband wash its way down the drain.
Sighing, Rick once again turned away from the window, and caught a glimpse of Mr. Pinstripes turning in his seat, glancing at Rick before quickly looking away. Rick wondered if the guy was sizing him up for a sales pitch. He settled back into his seat and closed his eyes, and let the thrumming airplane engines carry him away. Moments later he was sitting in the middle of an audience, in the banquet room of an awards ceremony. On his right were Stephen King and his wife, on his left, Koontz and Barker, Clegg and Robert R. McCammon. Graham Greystone stepped up to the podium. Dressed in a white shirt and black tuxedo, he looked like a caricature of Danny Devito’s Penguin in the Batman II movie. He thumped the microphone a couple of times before saying, “Well, ladies and gentlemen. The moment we’ve all been waiting for. This year’s winner for the most outstanding piece of Horror Literature, goes toooo—” With a slight pause, Greystone finally said, “Rick Greaton for Living In The Past!” Amidst hoots and catcalls and frantic whistling, Greystone shouted, “Come on up here, Rick!”
Someone patted Rick’s back. He turned and saw his old friend and mentor, Ed Gorman, smiling and nodding his approval. Rick leaned forward, a happy grin spreading across his face as he stood and made his way past King, who said, “Good going, Rick.”
Down the aisle he went, light on his feet as he made his way triumphantly to the stage, where Graham Greystone stood in front of the podium, pushing wire-framed glasses up onto the bridge of his nose. He stood there, grinning and clutching a gold-plated statue of Edgar Allan Poe in his fat little mitts. He offered the award to Rick, and then snatched it back when Rick touched it. Howling with laughter, he cried out, “Oops, my bad! This isn’t yours! This award goes to me! Sorry, loooozer!”
The laughing crowd roared its approval, King, slapping his knee while Barker howled, clutching his chest as the hooked end of a bamboo cane appeared at the edge of the stage, and then stretched further and further across it, snaking its way in midair, until the end looped Rick’s neck and he grabbed the podium, fingernails digging into the wooden lectern while Greystone whacked his hands away with the statue, and Rick fell to the floor, hands clawing and scraping as the hook dragged him kicking and screaming toward a billowing black curtain, through the curtain and into a deep dark hole devoid of light and sound, where nothing mattered and nothing existed, except a quivering shell of the man Rick Greaton had once been.
And then he was back in the airplane, watching that used car salesman, or whatever the hell he was, crane his goddamn neck. Rick stood up and made his way down the aisle, kicking that smug-looking prick’s foot when he passed him. The guy yelped with pain, and a young woman dressed in a flight attendant’s sky-blue uniform asked Rick what the hell he was doing. He shoved her out of the way and stepped up to the emergency exit door, struggling with the door’s vertical latch as the woman screamed and several men came charging up the aisle, Rick tugging and grunting, pulling until the latch gave way and the door opened, and the shearing wind pried it loose, sending it careening end over end through the air. Wind rushed through the doorway, shrieking past the opening as the onrushing passengers stopped dead in their tracks, screaming and backpedaling toward the rear of the plane while Rick, taking one last look at the frightened stewardess crawling away on her hands and knees, turned to the open doorway and looked out at the wind howling through the clouds. He closed his eyes and thought about how wrong his life had gone, all the failures and missed opportunities, and then leapt forward, the wind grabbing him, ripping and flipping and turning his body like a rag doll in a hurricane as he plummeted down toward the lush green quilted patchwork of rolling meadows that kept getting bigger and bigger, plummeting, faster and faster…
… until a bell dinged and Rick’s eyes popped open to see the ‘fasten your seatbelt’ sign flickering on and off while the pilot’s monotone voice came over the intercom, welcoming them to Orlando, and thanking them for flying Delta.
As the plane touched down, he thought about his dream, how it had been a microcosm of the life and times of Rick Greaton, a man who had it all and had it all snatched away. He thought about his wife trudging off to work everyday to support the worthless waste of human life that he had become, and knew that it was only a matter of time before his depression sent him over the edge.
Chapter Thirty-Two
Damien Crabtree had the same thought as Graham Greystone on his way through the Orlando International Airport. Why in the world didn’t we have the convention here?
But the thought quickly faded as the taxi pulled away from the terminal.
It had been a morning full of lasts: last minute decisions of what to pack and which books to carry along, last minute telephone calls. He didn’t have time, or the patience for Kyle’s last stand, whining at the front door as Damien exited the apartment, refusing to pander to his lover’s childish demands. Damien was tired of Kyle’s bullshit, weary of his insecurities. No, he would not ask him to go, and he could not accompany Damien to the airport—Damien sure as hell wasn’t going to buy him a ticket now, at the last minute, not when he had given Kyle every opportunity to tag along. Well, not really. All Damien had to do was tell Kyle he wanted him there and everything would have been fine, but he just couldn’t bring himself to do it. The truth of the matter was: Damien was just plain tired of Kyle.
And it didn’t help matters when the idiot threatened to go back to that cowboy bar and have unprotected sex with however many good old boys were willing to lay the pipe to him.
Lay the pipe… What a drama queen.
Kyle wasn’t crazy enough to do that. But what if he was? What if in the heat of anger, or some drunken fit, he did go somewhere, a bar or a party, and pass himself around like a fifth of cheap wine to get back at Damien? He could end up with AIDS.
AIDS.
After years of carefully choosing his partners, and abstinence when necessary, Damien could end up withering away like so many of his friends. Like Scott. All because of Kyle.
Damien didn’t know what had shattered inside the apartment as he rolled his luggage down the hallway, but he wasn’t happy about it. And unless something happened to change his mind before he got back to New York, Kyle was history.
In the expansive lobby of the Clairton Hotel, Damien rolled his luggage up to a polished marble check-in counter. After a quick exchange with a pleasant young man, Damien had his keycard. The man, dress
ed in a tie and a tan blazer, had a plastic I.D. tag pinned to his lapel that identified him as Douglas Pederson, a friendly enough guy who instructed Damien that room 805 was on the eighth floor, near the end of the corridor to the right of the elevators.
“Hey!” he called out, smiling sheepishly as Damien turned to go. “Almost forgot, you’ve got a message.” Turning to a wall-mounted rack, he fished a folded piece of paper out of a row of small cubbyholes, handed the message to Damien and watched him walk away. On his way to the elevators, Damien stopped and unfolded the note, sighing as he read:
Call me!
K.
“Yeah, right,” he muttered, and then crumpled the note into a ball and stuffed it into his pocket.
Chapter Thirty-Three
“You read the paper this morning?” Bryan said.
“Yeah, nothing in there about our little buddy.”
“Who do you think he was?”
“The fuck cares? Gone and forgotten, far as I’m concerned.”
“I hope so.”
“You worry too much.”
“Goddamn reefer’s making me paranoid.”
“Oooo,” Larry said. “Reefer madness.”
Bags packed and loaded into the trunk, Larry and Bryan exited I-77 in Bryan’s tan Honda. Traveling south up the airport causeway, they slowed to a stop behind a line of cars stopped at a red light. It was a perfect autumn day. The sun was shining, a line of clouds drifting across the clear blue sky, pushed along by a crisp mountain breeze blowing through the Carolinas.
Bryan nodded to his right, toward a bakery sitting in the middle of a strip mall, at a brightly painted sign that read: Picture This Cakes.
“Look at that,” he muttered.
“What?”
“The sign. Picture this… it should be picture these.”
“Says you.”
“Yeah, says me. What do you think? Picture this cakes? It should be either picture this cake, or picture these cakes.”
“How about they’re a bakery that puts made-to-order-pictures on a cake. Show ‘em a snapshot and they duplicate it. Picture This…” Pausing, Larry said, “Cakes. Get it?”
“Doh!”
Larry laughed. “Duh is more like it. Not exactly a detective, are you?”
Bryan took his foot off the brake pedal and eased the car forward. Picking up speed as traffic began to move, he said, “Must’ve been that joint.”
“Yeah, right.” Larry glanced at his watch. “By the way, speaking of that joint. You wouldn’t be interested in carrying a little pot through the airport, would you?”
“You’re kiddin’, right? With all the security they have now days?”
“Yeah, that’s about what I thought.”
“Would be nice to have some down there though.”
Larry nodded his agreement. “It would, wouldn’t it?”
“You didn’t bring any with you, did you?”
Larry glanced at Bryan. “No,” he said, smiling, then, “Did you?”
And something about the shit-eating grin spreading across Larry’s face, and that cockeyed look, made Bryan wonder if Larry had somehow slipped something into his suitcase while he’d been waiting in Bryan’s living room. The luggage had been by the front door, but he didn’t have enough time, did he? Nobody could be that stupid.
Nobody but Larry.
“Did you put something in my suitcase?”
“What?”
“Did you?”
“Hell no.”
“You’d better not have.”
“I didn’t, I wouldn’t. Geez… relax, Dude.”
“Are you carrying anything?”
“Jesus,” Larry said. “What do you think I am, stupid?”
“Let’s see now. You got our asses shot at, chased the wrong way up an exit ramp, shot at again and wrecked. Lost and damn near killed in the middle of the fucking ghetto.”
Larry chuckled and nodded his head. “Good point there, Sherlock.”
A police car pulling onto the roadway added to Bryan’s paranoia. As it settled in behind the Honda, Bryan thought about the other night, how Larry had hung a quick right when the policeman cruised by, the crazy shit that had led to. He glanced at the speedometer. He was going the speed limit and he meant to keep it that way. The policeman followed for another block. Then he changed lanes and blew past them, and Bryan breathed a great sigh of relief.
“What do you think about that chick, Bree?”
“Besides wishing I’d never laid eyes on her?” Bryan shrugged. “Pretty damn cute.”
“Think I’ve got a shot at that?”
“What do you mean, a shot?”
“You know, a shot, as in I’m gonna tap that.”
“I’ll tell you what you’ve got a shot at: jail, if you get caught fucking around with someone who may or may not have graduated from high school yet.”
“Dude, did you see her tits?”
Bryan sighed.
“The way her nipples hardened when you touched her with that marker?”
“You ever heard the term: jailbait?”
“The curve of her breasts, those full lips of hers.”
“Jeez, Dude. You should’a stopped for a blowjob back in Crackville the other night.”
Larry laughed. “Why do you think I slowed down? I sure as hell wasn’t asking for directions when that bottle shattered against the truck.”
“You’re nuts.”
“Hey, not everybody’s lucky enough to have a drop-dead gorgeous babe waiting at home.”
Bryan thought of Carrie, her pleasant smile, the way her eyes sparkled when he held her, and knew that Larry was right. She was a knockout, and she was all his, and as much as he couldn’t wait to get on the airplane and make his way to Horrorcon, a part of him wished he would have stayed here with her.
He followed a burgundy station wagon into the middle of the three-lane road leading into Charlotte’s Douglas International Airport. Moments later he turned left onto an access road that took him to a multi-tiered parking garage surrounded by acres of automobiles. Larry looked at his watch, and Bryan glanced at his. They were an hour early, plenty of time to catch their two-thirty flight. Bryan pulled to a stop beside a ticket vending machine, and leaned out his window. A ticket ejected from a slot in the middle of the machine when Bryan depressed a button, the narrow, wooden arm blocking their path went up, and Bryan followed the one-lane road into the parking lot. It took a while to find a suitable space, but he finally did find one, and after pulling in and shutting off the engine, Bryan laid the parking ticket in the change slot beneath his radio, and the two of them exited the vehicle.
Bryan rolled his luggage through the parking lot, across the road and through the entrance. What a glorious day it was, travelers bustling to and fro, businessmen, mothers and children, soldiers and students. Being in the airport was exciting; knowing he would soon be in the air headed for a weekend of friends and fun, exhilarating. He could hardly wait to get there, to meet Graham Greystone and Rick Greaton, the living legend who rarely if ever attended these functions. He was going to buy him a beer, and pick his brain for everything he was worth. The man was writing and publishing novels when Bryan was still in the fifth grade pulling Amy Warner’s pigtails. Big time publishing houses may have considered him to be a washed-up has-been, but Bryan had the utmost respect for the man.
A woman’s voice called over the intercom for passengers to begin boarding Flight 113. Bells and buzzes and arcade music from a video game a group of young boys had gathered around filtered through her voice as Bryan and Larry took a left and fell in with a crowd of people moving toward the U S Airlines ticket counter. Bryan could still feel the pleasant buzz of high-grade marijuana from the joint they’d had back at his house. Too bad they couldn’t have carried some along with them, although he suspected that Larry did have a small amount stashed away in his suitcase. Didn’t really matter, though, somebody would have some at the convention.
Larry and Bryan
stood in line for a few minutes before they were able to step up to the ticket counter, where they flashed their I.D.s and collected their tickets, and were told their flight was at the opposite end of the terminal. Bryan thanked the young agent, who seemed preoccupied, or maybe she was simply bored with her job and hadn’t even heard him. They had stepped away from the counter and were rolling their luggage behind them when a woman said, “Are you Bryan Kenney?”
“Uh oh,” Larry muttered. “Here we go again!”
Bryan smiled, and they both stopped, and Bryan turned to see Bree standing behind him in the same black leather jacket from the pool hall. Under it she wore a red silk blouse, snug against those firm, full breasts that strained against the soft fabric; the top buttons open to reveal just enough cleavage to let Bryan know she wasn’t wearing a bra. A small black leather purse dangled from her arm, hanging next to a lightweight piece of Samsonite luggage that stood next to her, its black plastic handle extended from the green fabric casing. She had on a tight pair of faded denim pants, and white Reeboks. Long, black hair cascaded across her narrow shoulders, accentuated by her hazel eyes, which sparkled just the way Bryan remembered them. She was beautiful—Bryan had forgotten just how beautiful she was—and seeing her again made him understand why Larry was so infatuated with her. For a moment, it crossed his mind that if he weren’t so happily married, he might be willing to risk a jail term himself to see how far their relationship might go.
Killercon Page 18