by Rick Hautala
As soon as she was out of the car, her self-consciousness about how she looked to people returned with an almost overpowering surge. She had spent hours upon hours, staring at her face in the mirror, so she knew exactly what she looked like. And she knew, just as surely as she knew that the sun rose in the East and set in the West, that people couldn’t help but stare at her and talk about her as soon as her back was turned. Many of the townsfolk knew she was Edward’s new wife and had heard about what had happened to her; the rest were left to speculate.
Fighting back an impulse to hurry through her shopping just to finish her errands, Dianne grabbed a grocery cart and wheeled it into the store. Not more than halfway down the produce aisle, she heard a little boy in one of the carts in front of her say, “Look at that lady, Mommy! What happened to her face?”
Feeling a rush of spite, Dianne considered waiting until the kid’s mother wasn’t looking and giving him a fright he’d really remember, but instead she hurried ahead, pacing up and down the aisles and quickly checking off her shopping list as she loaded up the cart.
It might have been the fluorescent lights in combination with the medication; it might have been the cool, actually cold air conditioning in the supermarket; or it might have been something she ate or drank for breakfast, but whatever it was, the spacey feeling Dianne had felt all morning got steadily stronger as she went through the store. Her legs felt loose and rubbery, and she had to maintain an iron-grip with both hands on the handle of the shopping cart to support herself. She thought she was going to drop when she went to the checkout counter and started unloading the items onto the sliding belt.
The light, feathery hammering in her ears grew steadily louder and faster as she listened to the beep-beep-beep of the cashier’s electronic scanner. Beneath her bandages, her face felt flushed and itchy. She kept eying the beautiful sunlit morning outside the store’s front window, telling herself that she’d be fine just as soon as she got outside and could take a breath of fresh air. Whenever she looked down and saw her hand placing item after item on the counter, she felt overwhelmingly dissociated from herself. It was as if she was watching someone else’s hands do what she wanted to have done.
“Ma’am—?”
Feeling dazed and dizzy, Dianne shook her head and looked up, suddenly aware that the cashier had asked her something that she hadn’t heard.
“Beg your pardon?” Dianne said. The wires holding her jaw together made her voice sound muffled and distorted. Her eyes blinked wildly, strobing her vision as she raised one hand to her face and rubbed the sweat from her forehead.
“I need to see your Shaw’s ID card before I can approve your check,” the young girl at the register said. She squinted as she looked at Dianne and added, “Are you feeling all right, ma’am?”
Dianne tried to say something, but the sudden tightness gripping her throat wouldn’t let go. She felt as though strong, steely hands or a tight rope had wound around her neck and was tightening … squeezing relentlessly … choking off her air. Through a rising flood of panic, Dianne saw the cashier’s eyes widen as her concern spiked.
“I can take these out for you if you’re not feeling well,” the cashier said. “Why don’t you take a seat over there by the window?”
Dianne could see the woman’s lips move, but her voice seemed curiously disconnected, as though she were shouting to her from the far end of the store. She gestured in the direction of the long bench that was located beneath the plate glass window, but Dianne was suddenly fearful that she would lose her balance and fall, so she didn’t dare turn and look. Groaning loudly, she slumped forward, supporting herself on the counter on her elbows. Her foot kicked the food cart, making it swing around and bang like cymbals into the side of the counter. The sound was like an explosion inside Dianne’s ears, but she barely noticed it as wave after wave of swelling darkness surged inside her mind like an angry tide.
“Barb! Com’er! Quick! Get Mr. Reardon!” the cashier yelled, her voice cracking with fright as she stared at Dianne.
That was the last thing Dianne heard before the darkness filled her mind completely and dragged her all the way down. She spiraled down slowly, like a windup toy ice skater winding down, and collapsed in a heap on the linoleum floor. Her last thought was that it felt like she was lying on a sheet of ice.
“Yeah, I’d heard that the old witch was dead,” the boy said, “but I didn’t really believe it. She’ll probably be back!”
The boy’s name was Nathan Beck—or Nate, as he insisted on being called. He was short with a stocky build sandy hair, and a generous sprinkling of freckles across his face. He was the boy who had been out to Evelyn Fraser’s house to watch the ambulance on the morning of the old woman’s fatal heart attack. On this beautiful July morning, Nate, Jim Fowler, and Ross Parker—his two “best buds,” as he called them—were sitting in the shade on the curb in front of the 7-Eleven, busily stuffing their mouths with Ring Dings and washing it all down with greedy gulps of Pepsi. Three battered and chipped skateboards were lying on the small patch of grass behind them.
Brian was standing with one foot on the sidewalk, the other in the street as he talked with the three boys. He wanted to feel comfortable enough to sit down and join in with them, but he felt awkward, trying to get to know them. Still fresh in his mind was Nate’s derisive laughter when he had realized Brian was staying in the Old Witch House and that the Old Witch Lady was his grandmother.
“Yeah,” Brian said, his voice winding high, “she died that afternoon in the hospital,”
He knew he should feel at least a twinge of remorse for his grandmother, but in truth he hadn’t known her all that well; in fact, all she had ever done was make him feel nervous and scared, even before she had gotten so sick. She and her house, everything about her had made him feel all tense and spooked. It wasn’t any wonder why the local kids suspected all sorts of weird things about his dead grandmother.
“Did you get to see her body?” Ross asked, his pale eyes bright behind the curtain of long, brown hair that hung over his face.
Brian nodded even as he tried to forget how wasted away his grandmother had looked, lying in the coffin at her funeral home. Her skin had been so white, he had easily imagined that she was a wax statue, not the remains of a living, breathing human being.
“Was she—like, all gnarly and wrinkled and stuff?”
“What do you expect?” Brian said, wishing Ross would stop pressing him for details and talk about something else.
“For a witch who was over a hundred years old,” Nate added with a note of wonder and tremulous fear in his voice.
“Bullshit,” Jim piped in, waving a beefy hand at them and shaking his head in disgust. He was the largest of the boys, several pounds overweight, and had been busy eating his junk food until now. “She was just an old lady and nothing more. ’Sides, you seem to be forgetting that this here’s her grandson. I don’t think you should be insulting his family like that.”
The other two boys regarded Jim as if he had been standing out in the sun too long. Then Nate said, “No, if we wanted to insult families, I’d guess we have to mention your older sister.”
“Eat shit and die!” Jim said. He straightened his shoulders and puffed up his chest so his T-shirt rode up, exposing the thick roll of fat hanging over his belt.
“Eat shit and live!” Nate snapped back.
“But hey,” Brian said. “I was just staying there for the weekend, while my folks were away. I don’t live there or anything.” He shifted nervously from one foot to the other. “I’m staying with my father for the summer, out on Pond Road.” He was racking his brain for some way to change the subject, but so far he was drawing a blank. When he had first seen these boys, his first impulse had been to ask them if they felt like getting a bunch of kids together for a baseball game or something; but with their long hair, Anthrax and Megadeth T-shirts, and skateboards, they didn’t strike him as the baseball-playing type.
“So—uh,
what do you guys do for fun around here?” he asked lamely.
All three boys shrugged and shook their heads. “Just hang out,” Nate said. “Not much ever happens in Summerfield.”
“It’s too hot to skate,” Jim added. “Too hot to do anything. I dunno. Maybe we’ll go swimming later, if it stays hot like this.”
Brian smiled and waited for an invitation to join them, but when it wasn’t forthcoming, he decided not to push it. Why, after all, should they even want to include him, having just met him only a few minutes ago? And he knew he had a lot to overcome, being the grandson of the Old Witch Lady. He wanted to do or say something so they’d accept him, at least enough to let him hang out with them for a while. Although they had been acting friendly enough so far, they obviously weren’t going to let him into their tight little circle, not until he proved himself.
“You said you was from Arizona, huh?” Nate said. Brightening, Brian nodded.
“I thought so, from your funny accent. You sound like a freaking cowboy or something. What do you do for fun out in Ari-zone-a?”
“Nothing much,” Brian said, adopting their casual shrug. “You know, it’s pretty much like around here—just hang around, go swimming, listen to music … maybe play a little baseball.”
None of the boys seemed to pick up on Brian’s hint, so he let it drop for good.
“Hey, have you heard the new tape from Anthrax?” Jim asked.
“Listen to it all the time,” Brian replied, although, in truth, he didn’t have any of their albums. He was about to ask if they wanted to come over to his house and listen to some music when a sudden loud, blaring sound punched the air. Brian flinched and looked around. “What the hell—?” he said, shouting to be heard above the noise. Before the echo of one blast had faded, it was repeated.
“’S just the fire horn—the noon whistle,” Nate said casually.
“It’s twelve o’clock?” Brian said, looking at them in surprise. “Oh, shit! I gotta get going.” He didn’t really want to leave yet, but he took a tentative step away from the curb and glanced again down the road behind him. “I’m—I was supposed to meet my stepmother at the grocery store half an hour ago.”
“Catch’cha later then,” Nate said lazily, as if he hardly cared whether Brian stayed or left.
Brian was going to say something else, but before he could, another loud sound—a car horn, tooting rapidly—caught his attention. He turned around and saw Dianne’s car pull to a stop in the 7-Eleven parking lot. The electric window on the passenger’s side slid down smoothly; then her horrible, bandaged face appeared in the window, resolving out of the gloomy interior of the car like a spooky special effect.
“Hey! Brian! Where have you been? I’ve been looking all over for you,” Dianne called out.
Embarrassed that these boys might see her, Brian hurried over to the car, trying his best to block their view of her with his body. Waving to them over his shoulder, he called out, “Well, maybe I’ll see you guys around,” and quickly got into the car. He pressed the button to raise the window, but before it was all the way up, he overheard the surprised exchange among the three boys.
“Jesus Christ! Did you see that?”
“Holy shit!”
“The Old Witch Lady’s back!”
“Just like I told yah.”
As they drove away, Brian wasn’t sure if Dianne had heard them or not, but for some bitter, hostile reason, he found himself wishing that she had.
The drive home was pure agony for both Dianne and Brian, but they each had their own different reasons.
Brian was still stinging from the embarrassment of having those three boys see him with Dianne. Now he was positive none of them would ever want to do anything with him. He might as well consign himself to spending all of his time alone this summer … unless he went someplace with the walking mummy while his father was at work!
Dianne, for her part, was worried and confused by what had happened to her at Shaw’s Supermarket. After fainting in the checkout line, she had been revived with a quick sniff of an ammonia capsule, which the store manager had in his first aid box. He had wanted to call the town rescue unit, but she had insisted that she was feeling better, that coming into the air-conditioned building out of the heat must have gotten to her.
In truth, she wasn’t feeling at all fine … worse, in fact.
Even after sitting and resting for more than half an hour, her head felt like it was stuffed with cotton, and her body was all weak and trembly.
What the hell’s wrong with me? she kept wondering as she drove down Main Street, turned left onto South Street, and headed for home. She didn’t even trust herself driving, but she forced herself to concentrate on the road and take things nice and easy. Her stomach felt hollow. Every bump and curve in the road filled her with a sour nausea that she thought for sure was going to make her vomit before long. All she could think was, she had to get home and lie down … and call her doctor first thing tomorrow. For once, she was glad Brian didn’t want to talk to her. The silence in the car was a relief.
As soon as she pulled into the garage, Brian opened his door, jumped out of the car, and made a beeline for his bedroom. Once again, Dianne was grateful that she didn’t have to deal with him. He’d be out of sight for a couple of hours at least. That would give her time to pull herself together.
Her legs felt like brittle sticks, barely able to support her as she walked into the kitchen and went over to the table where she collapsed with a sigh. The groceries were still in the car, but they could wait a few minutes while she calmed down. The pressure in her head felt like it was building steadily. Her pulse hammered in her throat, throbbing behind her eyes and making her vision jump with every heartbeat.
It can’t just be the medication, she thought as she ran her fingers through her hair, pulling back so hard on her scalp tears formed in her eyes. Dark, churning fear filled her.
It’s gotta be something more than that. There has to be something wrong with my brain! Christ! What if I’m going to going to—but she wouldn’t allow herself to complete the thought. She didn’t dare think about dying.
She and Edward had talked all about her fears of permanent brain damage with her doctors. They had reassured her that all of her tests—absolutely all of them—indicated that she was recovering just fine, considering the trauma she had been through. Still, that didn’t remove the dark, numbing fear that they might all be wrong.
What if there is something still wrong with my brain? Maybe there’s a bruise or a tumor or something they haven’t detected with all their fancy X-rays and CAT scans.
And what if it was worsening steadily, day by day, putting more and more pressure on her brain, making her feel worse and worse until one day it was going to pop and … kill her!
She shivered as she looked around the kitchen, shocked for an instant at how pale, how thin the real world seemed. In a flash, she realized how temporary everything was—even her own existence.
When she glanced over at the counter, she let out a small squeal of surprise when she saw what had happened while she was out. The coffee carafe lay in a pile of broken glass scattered around the hot plate. The warming unit was glowing with a baleful red that refracted through the jagged shards of glass. Dianne knew immediately what must have happened: after taking the last cup of coffee this morning, before hurrying out the door with Brian, she must have left the coffee maker turned on. The empty pot had overheated and shattered.
Her hands were shaking as she pulled the plug out of the wall socket, then wet a paper towel and gingerly brushed aside the still hot pieces of glass. The area of the countertop around the coffee maker was scorched like burned toast, but she thought it would clean up—most of it, anyway. She would have to wait until the broken glass cooled before handling it.
Leaning forward against the countertop, she took a deep breath and held it, trying her damndest to focus her mind. She was genuinely surprised that she felt such a swelling rush of anger
building up inside her.
Why the hell am I feeling so angry?
She knew that breaking the coffee pot wasn’t what was bothering her. No, it was the idea that she had left the pot on and forgotten all about it. What was wrong with her thinking? There must be a defect in the coffee maker, so it didn’t shut off when it got too hot, but she was aware that it could easily have started a fire and burned the whole house down.
“But what if it’s more than that?” she whispered as she frowned and stared at the cherry-red heating element. The raw rasp of her voice sounded as if someone else was whispering in the next room. Her body shook as she fought to gain control of herself.
What if my brain really isn’t all right? she thought. Or what if … what if subconsciously I meant to do it?
The teasing touch of a chill danced up her spine to the base of her neck. Still leaning forward, she glanced to one side and saw her face reflected in the polished side of the toaster. The bandages wrapped around her head looked bad enough when she saw them in a mirror, but her reflection was distorted even more by the curved metal surface. It made her look like the failed experiment of some mad scientist.
“What if—” she whispered. Her breath burned in her chest. “What if—for some reason—I blame Edward for what happened to me?” She touched the bandages with both hands and winced. “For this!”
She took a deep, trembling breath, no longer caring that tears were spilling from her eyes, running freely down her cheeks.
“And what if I meant to do it? … What if I was trying to burn the house down just to get even with him?”
Chapter Eight
Night Cry
For everyone except Edward, July passed slowly, miserably into August.
In spite of the obvious tension between Dianne and Brian, Edward couldn’t contain his growing excitement as work on his dream project—his own housing development—gradually took shape. After working most of his adult life as a carpenter for other people, he had recently quit his full-time job and gone into business with Fred Pierce, a high school friend of his who was now president of Summerfield Savings Bank. Their plan was to subdivide the family acreage into eight other large lots, keeping a generous portion for himself to build his own home after selling the lots. They had planned to build one house on spec, but after meeting with a prospective client for the past several weeks, they were close to wrapping up a package deal including the best of the eight lots and a new house, to be built by Edward. Because the land had been in Edward’s family since Colonial days, the profits, even if he only sold half of the parcels, would easily finance construction of the new home he planned for himself and Dianne.