Twice in the last hour since reading the last line I’ve walked to the telephone to call Natalie, or Marc, but each time I’ve stopped because I have no idea what to say. Certainly, absolutely, I do not believe a single word in that volume, nor do I really understand why Nat wanted me to see what she’d gotten. She surely can’t believe it either; she’s too level-headed for that. And Marc has a successful newspaper to run; he can’t be bothered with post-midnight calls from a fool who lives alone.
In fact, the more I think about it, the more I realize it would be just like them to have set all this up ahead of time, just waiting for the right sort of weather and for me to be in the right sort )f mood. They probably went to bed hours ago, holding each other in silent rollicking laughter and wondering how long it would be before I confronted them, sheepishly, with what they had done to my peace of mind.
It would be just like them.
And it would be just like me to fall for it without question.
So why don’t I stop staring at the rain and call them and be done with it. Why don’t I just walk over there and pick up the receiver and call them and get myself to bed. Why don’t I just do that little, inconsequential thing.
Because there’s a problem. Rather, I’m still not sure exactly how much of a problem there is. If there is one. If I’m not just letting the rain and the wind and the leaves crawling over the porch get on my nerves, which is precisely what the Clay tons would be after . . . if this were all an elaborate, and expensive, joke.
You see, there is a place called England’s, for example. It is a brokerage firm, it’s still down there on Centre Street, and is run now, I believe, by a distant cousin to the founder. Samantha (who is definitely no figment of anyone’s imagination) eloped, I’m told, with a man named Bartelle, from Harvard, and the house she occupied while she was in the village is deserted now, falling apart, one of those places boys like to visit now and again to test their courage for girlfriends who look on in wide-eyed admiration (and with secret, knowing grins). This is all part of village lore. Every village has its scandals, and Oxrun is no different in that regard.
Like Jameson the postmaster, who murdered all those people and took off for parts unknown. It’s been ten years, but every so often Abe Stockon will take out the file and have Marc run a short piece about it, thinking perhaps that someone, somewhere, will recognize the man and finally turn him in.
And then there’s Melissa Wister (nee Redmond), who married a lawyer whose name may well have been Michael, and left him dead in their bed just a couple of years ago. The word is she took the last train from the depot that very night, destination (so the stationmaster said) . . . west. No foul play indicated. The man’s heart simply stopped. Cold.
The Cock’s Crow is still out there on Mainland Road, too. Grace Hancock has often treated me to a drink now and then, and lays in a supply of Guinness when I’m feeling expansive. I’ve never seen her husband. Nobody talks about him, not even the bartender.
None of that, of course, proves a damned thing except that whoever wrote the book certainly knew his or her history, and wasn’t above twisting it a little here and there to create a sensation where none really exists.
It is, the whole project, in its elaborate way admirable.
So why don’t I call Nat and get it the hell over with?
I don’t know. I honest to god don’t know.
I stand at the window, hands in the pockets of my robe after cleaning my glasses for the fifth or sixth time and lighting still another cigarette that, for some reason or other, I don’t bother to finish. The rain is still falling (sheeting now against the window), the wind has found a crack under the front door (it’s colder than before) and the house has filled with shadows that bring with them distant whisperings.
Later, then. I guess I’ll call Nat later. After the rain has stopped, and the wind has stopped, and daybreak has put an end to the evening.
That’ll be the best thing.
Meanwhile . . . I stand at the window, with the book shimmering behind me, and I see each time the wind shifts the indistinct figure of someone standing just outside the reach of the streetlight, of someone darker than shadow in the corner of my porch, of someone waiting on the lawn, oblivious to the storm.
I see it.
But I don’t believe it.
Charles L. Grant
Oxrun Station
1981
Table of Contents
Introduction
Prologue
Part I: Spring, 1940 — Thou Need Not Fear My Kisses, Love
Part II: Summer, 1950 — Now There Comes A Darker Day
Part III: Autumn, 1960 — Night’s Swift Dragons
Part IV: Winter, 1970 — The Color Of Joy
Epilogue
The Complete Short Fiction of Charles L. Grant Volume 1: Nightmare Seasons (Necon Classic Horror) Page 21