“She’s my dream,” he’d say, his mouth bubbling blood. “Not yours. Mine.”
And so I’d get up and work. I’d walk around the house, listening to the floorboards creak, wondering if they’d creaked that way for Charlie when he was on the road to insanity. That wasn’t a good way to think. Sometimes I’d grab Roger’s old Louisville Slugger and use it to take out some drywall. That made a mess, but at least it worked off some energy, and it felt good. Then I’d clean it up and do some real work. And, eventually, I’d sleep.
Sometimes working with the Slugger, I’d imagine that I bashed in a wall and found the missing pages from Charlie Steiner’s notebook tucked between the wall studs. I’d wonder what those missing pages would say, and what they’d tell me, if they told me anything.
I’d wonder if it would be anything I didn’t already know.
I didn’t think so.
See, by then I understood Charlie Steiner pretty well.
There wasn’t really anything I could do about any of it. I didn’t think talking would be a good idea. I wasn’t good at talking. The way I was built, I figured there wasn’t much to do but ride it out.
So that’s what I tried to do. But maybe I wasn’t the only one pushing my way through a bad patch. I didn’t see Jane Doe again after that day at the hospital, but I heard a lot about her. For a few weeks her picture was in all the papers. The story even made the national news a couple of nights running. But no one came forward to ID her. No relatives, no friends, no co-workers. It was as if she’d come from nowhere.
Or out of a dream.
That’s when the gossip geared up. A tabloid ran an article, “The Lady in the Lake.” That got them through the first week. By the second, they’d dredged up the old Terror of Butcher’s Lake stories about Charlie Steiner. A few of them even mentioned me. They ran with that until the story cooled off, and then they found something else.
Of course, that wasn’t the end of it around here. The local chatter started up, and it was running strong by the time the young woman was released from the hospital. Some of the nurses had taken to calling her “Ananka” behind her back. And maybe she’d heard them. Maybe that’s why she took the name “Ana Jones.”
Anyway, Ana walked out of the hospital. She walked into town and found a studio apartment with some money a few of the doctors had raised for her. Pretty soon she was working at a roadhouse out by the state highway. A place called The Double Shot.
She worked swings, same as I did. Mornings she had to herself. Nights, too. Sometimes I’d drive by The Double Shot toward the end of my shift, thinking I’d stop in and say hello. See how she was doing. Then I’d remember what she said to me, and how her words had frozen me up. I’d remember the look in her eyes, and I’d remember Charlie Steiner’s words. And I wouldn’t stop. I don’t even know why, exactly, but I wouldn’t.
I felt like I had to figure things out before I could talk to her again. Sometimes it seemed things were coming full circle, and other times I felt like I was just going around and around like a cat chasing its own tail. Maybe life (and fate) were doing the same things. Which is another way of saying that the wind blew in different directions, and it definitely had me in its grip.
I don’t know how those times were for Ana. For me, the nights remained the worst part. Even if I didn’t dream, Charlie Steiner was waiting there behind my eyelids. Some nights Ana was waiting there, too.
Things stayed that way for a while. Some mornings I’d get up early and go for a run on the dirt road that ran along the lakeshore. Sometimes on my way back I’d take that familiar cutoff down to the water, just to stare out at the lake. I’d listen to the wind whispering through the eucalyptus, and try to convince myself that there was nothing there at all.
Sometimes I’d take that road and find that there was already someone else down by the water.
Sitting, watching, listening.
Ana Jones.
I didn’t talk to her.
I left her alone.
I left most everyone alone.
Things settled into a routine. Not a pleasant one, but a routine. Six weeks like that, maybe seven. I still wasn’t sleeping much, and I wasn’t really trying anymore. It just didn’t feel right, and like I said, I didn’t like what was waiting in my head when I tried to sleep.
So I’d bang nails during the day, replacing dry rot around the doors and windows. Then I’d go to work at the cop shop. Walked in one afternoon, and Ben Cross was waiting for me.
“How’s your shoulder?” he asked.
“Ancient history, Ben. The bullet didn’t dig deep. I’m all healed up.”
“Really?”
“Well, I don’t sleep on it, if that’s what you mean. But, hell, Ben . . . I’m fine. It’s not like I ended up face down in a campfire, like that biker did.”
“Let me be straight with you: I’m thinking you should take yourself a couple weeks off. Rest. Relax. Rehab. We’ll take a break from working on the house. I won’t come around, and you won’t bang nails.”
“C’mon, Ben—”
“No arguments. Go to the gym. Drink some beer and eat some barbecue. Get laid. Do whatever it is you young guys do these days.”
“Really, Ben. It’s no problem. If I’m screwing something up, I’ll fix it. Just give me some time.”
“If you were screwing up, we’d be having a different conversation.”
“Fair enough.”
“The thing is, I don’t want you screwing anything up . . . and I think we’re getting to a point where you might.”
“Okay. That’s plain enough. But—”
Ben put up a hand. “No ‘buts.’ Two weeks off, pardner. Sick leave. You get paid, and you hang on to your vacation time. As far as I’m concerned, that’s doctor’s orders, and the clock starts ticking right now.”
“All right, boss.”
“That sounds better,” Ben said, and we shook on it. “Like I said, I’d better not catch you pounding any goddamn nails, either. Get out of that goddamn house.”
Of course, I didn’t take Ben’s advice. I went right back to the Steiner place. I holed up there like a grizzly with a toothache. It wasn’t the best move I’ve ever made. I might as well have barricaded the door.
Around that time, my phone started ringing more often. I didn’t answer it. Ben and I had hooked up a police radio in the house, so I knew it wasn’t someone calling from the cop shop. If Ben wanted me, he would have called on the squawk-box.
For my part, I didn’t really want to talk to anyone . . . especially another tabloid reporter. I was even avoiding my family. You could get away with that in those days. It was easier to check out of the game for a while. People didn’t walk around with phones in their pockets. The phone hung on a wall in your house, or sat on a table. It was easy to ignore. If it rang and you didn’t answer it, you’d have no idea who called. No caller ID. No muss, no fuss.
My phone didn’t ring a lot, just enough to tell me there was someone out there who wanted to talk to me. Just enough to tell me they were going to keep trying.
And then one day it didn’t ring at all.
It was a Saturday. I’d been off for a full week, and I was trying to figure out what to toss on the barbecue.
That was the evening Ana Jones knocked on my front door.
“Take a walk with me?” she said. “I’d like to talk.”
So we walked. It was a crisp night coming on after a sunny day, the kind of day that makes you think of spring more than fall. Ana wore a long dark skirt, sandals, and a flannel shirt over a tight top—the kind dancers wore. As we walked the road toward Butcher’s Lake, sunlight trickled through the branches and shone against her long black hair. Wherever she went that night, I would have followed.
She wanted to go down to Butcher’s. I wouldn’t have suggested going there. I would have thought she’d never want to see the place again, but she said she needed to. So we went down to the lake, neither of us saying a word. I was carrying a couple
of blankets and a bottle of wine. I thought the wine was the least I could do for putting her off, because I was sure it was Ana who’d been calling. Besides that, I figured a little wine might help loosen my tongue. Hell, I probably could have used a case of wine and a shoebox full of dynamite, too. But there were things I needed to know. I didn’t know if Ana had the answers, but I knew I needed to find some before I skidded into a really bad place.
We sat, and we watched the sunlight on the dark water. That wasn’t exactly a conversation starter, considering. So I took out my knife, flicked the corkscrew out, and opened the wine.
The sun went to orange and started to set.
“I guess I forgot cups,” I said.
“That’s okay.” Ana smiled. “I think there’s enough history between us to share a bottle.”
It was easier after the bottle went back and forth a couple of times. Ana talked about her job, and the town, and what it was like settling in. She even talked about the gossip that was going around.
“Have you heard the latest? Some people are saying you shouldn’t have saved me. They say I’m a witch, and that I would have sunk to the bottom of that lake like a stone.”
“People.” I stared across the water. “That’s why I like to be alone.”
“Yeah. I kind of figured that out.”
“Look, it’s nothing personal. I’ve been having a tough time of it. Nothing like you’ve had . . . but it hasn’t been good for me lately. Ever since that night with the bikers some old ghosts have come knocking at the door. I’m trying to handle them.”
She handed me the bottle, and when I took it she caught my arm and my gaze.
“Am I one of those ghosts?”
“I don’t know, Ana. You’re the only person who can answer that one.”
“I wish I could. Sometimes I think I’m so close to figuring things out. I feel like I’m scratching at the surface of a real memory. I wish I’d never read any of those tabloid articles or listened to any of the gossip. It gets in there, too . . . and sometimes I can almost see some of it happening—even that whole thing on Halloween night all those years ago. I wonder if I really could have been there. And sometimes I have these nightmares—”
“I have a few of those, too.”
“About Charlie Steiner?”
“Yeah.”
I handed back the bottle and she tipped it against her lips—a short, sharp swallow. “Last night was the worst. I dreamed of Egypt. I was standing near a pyramid, and Charlie was there . . . fresh off the autopsy slab. He didn’t say anything. Every time he tried, blood spilled out of his mouth and splattered the sand like rain. But it didn’t matter that Charlie couldn’t speak. There were a dozen dead roses in his hands, and I knew what he wanted. I couldn’t get away from him. I tried, but he just kept coming. And then he cornered me, and he peeled the petals off one of the roses with a three-fingered hand, and he pressed them against my lips, and he opened my mouth with a pair of withered fingers, and—”
“Don’t torture yourself. It was just a nightmare.”
“You really believe that?”
I looked at her, realizing what I’d said. We might have laughed then, and maybe we should have, but we couldn’t.
Something else happened.
She put down the bottle.
And she reached out and took my hand.
“This isn’t easy,” Ana said.
“For me, either,” I said.
“You know, sometimes I think that maybe they’re right. The ones who say I popped out of some warlock’s bubbling cauldron. Maybe that’s the reason I took that princess’s name, or at least part of it. Like the poet said: Such stuff as dreams are made on. Sometimes I think it could be true, and I’m just a shadow of someone else’s dream. I was nowhere for such a long time. Forever, almost. And then you came along and—”
“Don’t read too much into me. I’m no knight in shining armor.”
“Maybe not. But if it is true—and let’s just say it is—then you’re the one who tried to save me the first time around and paid a price for it. You lost your brother. And you’re the one who came back all those years later and did the job the second time, and you’re paying still.”
I didn’t say anything. I looked across the water.
“And I just want you to know. I have to tell you: When you swam out there and took my hand, that’s when life started for me. I was underwater, and you saved me. But part of me feels like I’m still underwater. And I’m never going to get to the surface unless you pull me through.”
Her grip tightened, and it was strong.
“See, it doesn’t matter who I was,” she said. “It doesn’t matter at all. It only matters who I’m going to be.”
She moved closer then, and my arm slid around her shoulder. We kissed, and our kiss deepened. And it was so quiet out there by the lake. The wind was still, and so was the water, and the tall eucalyptus covered us in long shadows.
It was so quiet. I could almost hear her heart beating. I could feel it beneath my hand. And in that moment I wouldn’t have cared if the worst of it was true. It wouldn’t have mattered if Ana was a witch, or a dead thing born in Egypt five thousand years ago. Because in that moment I believed what Ana believed, that none of it mattered, that what really mattered was ahead of us.
I held her tight, and I held her close, and I told myself I’d pull her through.
I wasn’t going to let her go.
That was what she wanted.
That was what I wanted, too.
I didn’t work on the house the next day. To tell the truth, I didn’t do much of anything. I had a big breakfast and then I went for a walk, following the dirt road until it connected up with a county two-lane on the other side of the lake. I thought about what Ana had said, and I thought about the past and the future. Then I came back to the house, ate lunch, and fell asleep.
No dreams came my way, and that was a very good thing.
At dusk, a knock came on the door. I got up, running a hand through my hair, and went to answer it, expecting that Ana had cut out of work early and come back.
I opened the door, and a mummy was standing there.
A small one.
He held out a paper bag and said, “Trick or treat.”
I didn’t have any Halloween candy, so I grabbed a bag of cookies out of the cupboard and gave a few of them to the kid in the mummy costume. He thanked me, and I watched him walk across the yard, alone. He made me think of Roger somehow, and that last night we’d gone trick-or-treating so long ago. For a second I wanted to call out to him and ask his name, but I didn’t. Still, it felt right somehow, remembering Roger. It felt good.
I closed the door. I didn’t know how the date had slipped by me, but the circle had come around again. But for the first time in as long as I could remember, Halloween seemed different. It wasn’t just Ana, though she was a big part of it. Things were changing. I was different. The Steiner house was different. And maybe those old ghosts could finally get some rest.
I poked around the kitchen. It turned out I had a couple candy bars in the house, but that was it. I didn’t figure to get much action since the house was down a dirt road and a good piece off the beaten path. But I also knew the Steiner place was as close to a haunted house as we had around here, so it was hard to tell. After a few more knocks, I drove down to the grocery store, grabbed a couple bags of Snickers and enough goods for a late supper with Ana, and then I headed back home.
By eight-thirty, maybe ten Snickers were gone.
After that, the only ones that disappeared were the ones I ate.
And then, just past eleven, there was another knock on the door.
I have to admit, that knock gave me enough of a jolt that I set my .38 on the side table next to the door . . . just in case.
Then I answered the door.
An Egyptian princess was standing there. Diaphanous gown. Little tiara. Lots of eyeliner.
Ana said, “That bastard down at The Double
Shot made all of us dress up in costumes tonight.”
She tossed the plastic tiara on the floor as she came in.
“I think I’m going to quit that job.”
I picked up the tiara and threw it out the door.
“I think that’s a good idea,” I said.
I’d bought a bottle of wine, a loaf of sourdough, and fixings for pasta. We never got to it. A few Snickers, and we were out of there. The bedroom was too strong a draw.
Later I slept deeply, and I didn’t dream, and I didn’t wake.
Two hours passed.
And then I woke sharply.
I thought I’d heard a knock at the door.
Ana was still asleep. I slipped on my jeans and grabbed a flannel shirt. I was halfway down the hall before it hit me.
I didn’t want to answer that door.
Not at all.
Certainly not without a gun in my hand.
And suddenly I wondered if I’d imagined the whole thing. Sure. Maybe that knock was just a leftover shard of dream jackknifed in my brain. By the time I reached the end of the hallway that opened into the living room, I’d almost convinced myself of that. But I’d also remembered that I’d left the .38 on the side table next to the door, and I planned to grab it before I checked things out.
But like they say, plans change.
I came around the corner. The lights were out in the living room, but I could see.
Because the front door was open.
And dull moonlight spilled across the hardwood floor.
I waited for Charlie Steiner to follow that moonlight through the doorway. And I thought of those bikers I’d killed, too—after all, they had friends who might be looking for revenge. All that flashed through my brain in a couple ticks of the second hand, but no one was there.
I didn’t wait for someone to make an appearance. I was moving. Toward the door, and the side table. I snatched up the .38 and flicked on the living room light. I hit the porch light at the same time and scanned the front yard.
Nothing. No one there. No sign of movement. Just my pickup truck parked on the gravel drive, and Ana’s beat-up Toyota parked next to it.
I closed the front door and set down the pistol. I was just about to turn around when I caught a flash of reflection on the living room window. Something against the far wall behind me, a dark smear waiting in the corner. Whatever it was, it didn’t belong there.
HALLOWEEN: Magic, Mystery, and the Macabre Page 7