The Complete Short Fiction of Charles L. Grant Volume 1: Nightmare Seasons (Necon Classic Horror)

by Charles L. Grant

  And they came down the center of Williamston Pike as though the road had been created expressly for their passing.

  They wore black caps banded down in the center to give a rise to unemblemed peaks. Their jackets were leather, black, broken by the slanted death’s-head grins of a dozen glittering zippers on breasts and sleeves. Trousers black. Wrapped about at the cuffs and tucked into heavy black boots studded with chrome points. Beneath them, Harleys black and chrome.

  They rode slowly, three pairs and a leader, their black vanishing into the background of virtually full night, their chrome catching the streetlamps and throwing back lances.

  Sexless.

  There was no visible signal; directly in front of the building they wheeled and cut their engines, rolling silently to the curb, facing the doors, legs out for balance. No insignia glared from jackets or bikes, and their faces were hidden in the dusk of their caps.

  The thunder/noise faded.

  They waited.

  They watched.

  8:20 P.M.

  “I don’t know why everyone’s so worried,” Karen said. They had given up watching the bikers and had scattered themselves around the small office, pulling in chairs from the back room but refusing to call from the window or tum on the light. “They’re nothing but some punks looking for trouble. As soon as a patrol car comes by they’ll leave.” She had opened the top two buttons of her shirt, and the pale flesh exposed almost glowed. “This is silly.”

  “You think they’ll shoot us or something?” Harv asked fearfully.

  “Let ‘em try,” Tony said, pacing in front of the window. “Stupid jerks must think this is a bank.”

  “It’s how they get their kicks,” Karen said from the corner. She shook her head vigorously to drive hair from her eyes. “I read about it in the Reader’s Digest. They like to pick out a small place and make a lot of noise, stuff like that, get the people so nervous they do anything they want. It’s the bikes, you see. All that noise. And wearing black like that, it’s like the bad guys in the movies. If you ignore them, they go away.”

  “Just like bullies,” Jack said, his tone flat.

  “Right. When . . . well, there was this one gang, they went into a town in Oregon, you see, and the people there they wouldn’t pay any attention to them. So they started breaking things, and the people still wouldn’t mind them. So they went to this diner to beat up on somebody just to show the town they were in big trouble, and it was filled with cops. Every one of them ended up in jail.” She smiled brightly. “All we have to do is wait for the cops.”

  “Just like that,” Jack said.

  Karen frowned. “Why are you talking like that? If you’re so scared of them, why don’t you leave?”

  Jack turned away from the window, but he said nothing.

  “War of nerves, right?” Tony said to Karen. When she nodded, he grinned eagerly. “Yeah, right. They think they’ve got us, but all we have to do is—”

  “Wait for the cops,” Karen finished for him, as though it were a lesson he should have learned the first time she’d said it.

  Tony stood beside Jack and looked out. “Sure are big, though.”

  “It’s the clothes and the bikes,” Karen told him. “And it’s dark. They always work better in the dark.”

  “You seem to know an awful lot about bike gangs,” Jack said.

  He had returned to the window, his right hand tracing the outline of the several small panes.

  “I told you, I read it—”

  “I know,” he said.

  Tony took a step toward the lobby door. “I think maybe we should go out—”

  “No!” Jack did not move, but Tony spun around as though his shoulder had been grabbed. Harv, seated behind the desk, watched wide-eyed. “No. Like . . . like Karen says, leave ’em alone.”

  Tony hesitated, then nodded, reluctantly. “I guess.”

  Patrick moved into the back room. He had been listening to Karen, to Jack, had heard things there he didn’t like: Jack was trying to be too unconcerned, and Karen was barely able to suppress the panic he detected at the edge of her voice. She was most likely thinking about her children, he decided; they were all teenagers, overly protected, and tended to bust loose whenever she wasn’t around to handle the whip. Good kids, though. They all had jobs after school, all did their homework, were all hoping for scholarships to put them through college. At the same time, he recalled a weekend last summer when they’d smuggled beer into their rooms while Karen had been out on a date, and once roaring drunk they’d nearly destroyed the house. Patrick was glad he hadn’t been there when Karen had come home; the neighborhood said the yelling didn’t stop until dawn.

  Absently, he paused in front of one of the sorting warrens and reached into a mail sack. His gaze touched on an address and his hand moved automatically. It was five minutes before he realized what he was doing, another full minute before he could tear himself away and walk to the back door. He took hold of the cold metal bar, but did not push down. He was surprised none of the others had come back here; it would be easy enough to slip out the back, through the trees to the next street and get hold of someone or head right down for the police. Instead, they’d all remained by the window, watching the bikers, bickering, pontificating . . . as though they did not want to know if there were any more in the parking lot.

  He did, however. He had no intention of allowing a bunch of young idiots to ruin his evening. And once it became clear that the others were just as fascinated by the tableau outside as the bikers seemed to be by the post office, he couldn’t help a loud snort of disgust. No one heard him. And now he hesitated with his hand on the bar.

  “Fool,” he muttered to himself. And pushed. And stepped back with a frown when the bar would not move. He blinked rapidly, moved forward again and pushed. The bar still would not move; the door was locked from the outside. And that, he knew, was impossible. In his pocket was a large key ring, and on that ring was the only key to the building’s doors; not even old Harv had been granted the trust to lock up when the day was done.

  “Something the matter?”

  He almost sagged against the door, a curse lodged in his throat. Tony reached around him and tried the bar, scowled when it wouldn’t budge, swore when his full weight only made his feet slip on the concrete floor. His face dropped a few years and became etched with apprehension. “I don’t get it, Pat. This can’t . . . I don’t get it.”

  Patrick pulled out the key ring and stared at it, examining, hoping to discover that the proper key had been dropped, had slipped off and was gone. But there it was—the large green one polished smooth by his thumb. “Neither do I.”

  Tony kicked at the door’s base, jammed his hands into his pockets. “Maybe they got something against it, y’know?”

  “Are there still seven out there?”

  Tony nodded.

  “Then they haven’t had time to come around back.”

  “There must be more of them, then.” But the young man’s voice was weak, knowing it disbelieved. “How’d they do it, Pat?”

  Two lights only illuminated the back room: one just above them, naked from a fraying wire; another over by the chipped door to the restroom, a wire cage protecting it and smearing its glow. Patrick glanced around at the shadows and considered switching on the green-shaded lamps on his desk here, and over the pigeonhole blocks set on wooden tables where the sorting was done. Then he glanced to the front and decided he didn’t want any more light showing than was necessary . . . not until he better understood what was going on.

  Tony pushed at the door a final time and glared at Patrick, who brushed past him suddenly and hurried back to the office. Karen interrupted a discussion of bike gangs with Harv when he entered. He did not look at them. He stood in front of the door to the lobby, wiping his hands on his trousers before grabbing hold of the bolt and shoving it back. The brass knob was cold in his palm. rough-edged, turning only after he had exerted more pressure than he thought he shou
ld have.

  The lobby was shadow-streaked, gloomy, the high ceiling buried in a black nightcloud. Tony followed him as he walked to the front doors.

  “Pat, you’re not going out there!”

  There was a cold in the room. It penetrated the thick rubber sales of his shoes; it slipped down the walls; it gathered under the ceiling and fell like drizzle all his shoulders. He reached out a hand toward the door, stopped, walked over to the nearest radiator and touched it. It was cold. He looked at Tony, who was baffled into scratching his head, and returned to the doors. Sixteen panes in each, and the bikers were watching.

  “Pat?”

  “If you want,” he said hoarsely, “you can pull down the shades a little.”

  Tony grabbed the task gratefully, reaching up for the rings while trying not to expose himself, pulling the green shades down a pane more than halfway. While he did, Patrick, pushed at the right-hand door—it swung away from him easily; he pushed at the left—it creaked, but it moved.

  There was a window in the bathroom.

  “Hey, Pat, I—”

  He ignored Karen’s rising from her chair and took the distance to the restroom without knowing he was moving. Inside, over the basin, the frosted window was closed. He reached up and pushed, grunted, pushed harder . . . knowing it usually only took a fingertip to move it.

  Voices in the office filtered back to him. He shook them off and reached down for the wastebin under the basin. It was half filled with brown, coarse paper towels, and he dumped them onto the tiled floor, heaved the basket to his shoulder and rammed its bottom rim against the glass. Twice more before he told himself it wasn’t going to break.

  He had no idea when he had started to perspire, nor how long he had been gaping at the window, but he was snapped out of his stupor when he heard Karen shouting. Virtually at a run, then, he headed for the office, just in time to see Harv lift himself from behind the desk.

  “Tony,” the old man said, pointing with his maimed hand.

  Patrick swerved into the office, and threw up his hands to catch Jack, who had been flung backward somehow. Karen was holding onto the windowsill to the right of the door. The door itself was just swinging shut.

  “Jackass,” Fawn said, untangling himself from Patrick’s reluctant grip.

  Patrick ran for the door.

  “Pat, no!” It was Karen.

  He watched Tony taking the steps to the walk at a jump, his left arm raised in angry gesticulation, his right hand brought to a fist by his chest. He was headed directly for the bikers’ leader, shaking his head, pointing back to the building, his whole attitude a demand for some kind of explanation.

  The riders did not move. Chrome glinted, and their faces were still hidden.

  Patrick reached for the brass plate to open the door, caught himself just as Tony halted. There was something about the way he held himself, a sudden stiffening of his spine, a slight tilting of his head. Then, before Patrick could say or do anything, Tony whirled around as though he’d been slapped. His hands were scrabbling at his throat, his dark eyes bulged in horrified disbelief, and from his nostrils poured twin streams of blood that looked black. His mouth opened, lips drawn tight, and there was blood like drool sweeping over his stained teeth. He staggered toward the steps, and his eyes began bleeding. He fell hard to his knees, one hand outstretched in clawed supplication, and his head snapped back as if he had been slammed under his chin.

  His head snapped back, neck flesh tore blackly; his head snapped back . . . and kept on going.

  Bounced. Rolled. Came to a rest against the leader’s front wheel . . . facing the building . . . staring at Patrick with blood-bright eyes.

  Karen dropped to the floor and vomited.

  Tony’s body sagged onto the steps, his hand still clawing for the safety of the doors.

  Patrick did not move until Jack Fawn touched his arm.

  “My god,” Patrick said numbly, his eyes searching Jack’s face for a sign of explanation. “My god, they shot him.”

  “Really,” said Jack, leading him to the office. “I didn’t hear a thing.”

  9:20 P.M.

  Harv slumped against the back door, his massive chest swelling as his lungs struggled for air.

  “I saw it,” he said, though there was no one near him. “I saw it. Guam. This shavetail, punk Point lieutenant, he said we had just two hours to make a move or we’d be run over. He was standing there bold as brass, two seconds later he was . . . gone. I saw it. Honest to god, I saw it.”

  He held up his hand and stared at the stumps of his fingers. He smiled. Looked up when Patrick walked by.

  “I used to tell the kids they came out at night,” he said, nodding toward his hand. “Like some kind of flowers.” He stared at the hand, at the deep red blotches and the pinpricks of red. He remembered then that he had been pounding at the iron door. “I saw it. I really saw it. One minute he was there, the next minute he didn’t have a head and I almost didn’t have a stupid hand. Two more feet and I would have been dead. Two more feet. Like night flowers, Pat.” He grinned, sobered, looked at his hand. “What the hell are they?” he whispered to the stumps.

  “You know something, Pat? Tony, he was always asking me if he could date Missy. She’s my eldest. You remember her, don’t you? Red hair like me, but better taste in men. Funny, but I’m only thirty-three and I already got a daughter who’s seventeen. That’s what you get for being a child bride, I guess. Of course, you wouldn’t know about that, would you, Pat, living all alone the way you do. I don’t understand it, really. You’re not a bad-looking man even now. Don’t get me wrong, I didn’t mean it to sound bad like that. But you must have been damned handsome when you were my age. You should have married, Pat. You should have had kids like mine. They’re beautiful. They get into trouble once in a while—remember that beer thing last summer?—but they’re really good kids. I’d sell myself on street comers to get them to college, I really would. They’re not like their father at all. He was good-looking, but he always went off someplace every month or so. To have some fun, he said. To get women, I knew. But it was fun for a while. We laughed, we traveled—have you ever been to Washington? The state, I mean. Beautiful. Really beautiful. Or Texas? God, we traveled, Pat. Then the money ran out and so did he. But he left me three damned fine kids, Pat, and don’t you forget it. Please. Don’t forget my kids. You don’t have any of your own, so don’t forget mine. Please?”

  Jack lowered the receiver just as Patrick came into the office. “Not even a dial tone,” he said.

  Thirty minutes after Tony died and Karen had stopped screaming and Harv had dropped to the floor to babble about the Army and his days in Korea, Patrick stopped his pacing back and forth across the lobby. It was morbid, it was most probably sick, but he could not help moving to the window every few minutes to stare out at Tony’s body. At the hand lifting above the steps. At the head. At the blood. It fascinated him, and it revolted him, and he cursed himself in every way he knew for wondering how it had felt, what it had been like.

  Senility, he thought; senility brought on by shock.

  He walked down to the boxes and stared through the windows. They were all empty. No circulars, no letters, no small pink slips that signaled a package. He trailed a hand over one of them. then fell back into the corner and crossed his arms over his chest. There was no time left to delay; he could no longer deny that what was happening was real. There’d always been that hope, of course, when he’d found the back door locked. And the. bikers could have been just as Karen said—punks out for a thrill, like those Hell’s Angels he’d heard about from the West Coast.

  But that had all changed with Tony’s death.

  He played it back several times in his mind and knew Jack had been right: no shot had been fired. The riders had sat there with hands gripping the handlebars, faces hidden in the dark . . . and Tony had somehow been ripped apart.

  It was real. From the silent scream to the silent prayer to the blood blackening o
n the concrete. It was real. Just as being unable to leave the back way was real; just as being unable to smash the restroom window was real; just as the telephone going dead was real. Was real.

  There was no waking up from what he did not understand.

  He jammed a cigar into the holder and lighted it. Drew on it. Without debate placed the orange-glow tip against the inside of his wrist and grimaced at the hiss of burnt flesh and greying hair. And it made him think or what a dragon could do .

  All right, then, he thought as he blew on the blister. All right. He looked up and saw Jack standing in the office doorway. A solid black outlined against the glow of the tiny lamp turned on at the desk. A question stopped itself as his lips began to move. Now wasn’t the time. Jack knew, but now wasn’t the time because Patrick wasn’t quite positive he could handle the answer.

  On the other side of the glass-and-wood partition he could hear Karen weeping, hear Harv trying to comfort her, hear the tap in the restroom dripping arhythmically.

  Then he thought he heard Jack mutter: “They used to be horses.”

  10:10 P.M.

  It was full dark in the Station, but the riders could be seen clearly.

  And not once had a car passed in either direction.

  10:45 P.M.

  It occurred to Patrick that not since the bikes’ thunder had died had he heard a single noise from the outside. No birds, no motors, no insects, no wind. He took a careful deep breath and held it, felt his pulse race in his throat, then walked slowly to the back room to bring the others into his office.

  Only Jack met his gaze, and Patrick looked away quickly.

  Five minutes later they were settled, the small lamp switched on and the shade drawn to the sill. It did no good, however; the light was dim, bouncing off the desktop to form shadows under their eyes, and none of them could resist a glance at the window every few minutes. The only sound was their breathing.