The hand knows what I have in mind—it’s hanging upside down on the cage top and trying to claw me, but the handle was made long on purpose.
Now the cage is in the fire. The hand is hopping angrily against the top and sides, slapping the bars so hard the cage rocks, but scorched and singed already.
We’ll see who lasts longest.
THE OLYMPIC RUNNER by Dennis Etchison
Dennis Etchison had a busy year in 1986. As editor, he saw publication of Masters of Darkness from Tor and Cutting Edge from Doubleday, and his long-anticipated first novel (under his own name), Darkside came out from Charter. The only downside was that the third collection of his own short fiction from Scream/Press was delayed. Etchison kept from being bored during all this by working on a number of major screen projects. Not a bad way, all in all, to celebrate his twenty-fifth year as a professional writer.
Born in Stockton, California on March 30, 1943, Dennis Etchison is one of the quiet forces in the horror genre—a field too often plagued with media hype and self-promoting, thirty-day wonders. Over the years Etchison’s work has won the respect of his fellow writers and finally the attention of major publishers—not easy for a writer who has worked almost entirely with short fiction. Etchison presently lives in Los Angeles, where he busily pursues his favorite breaks from writing—watching films and television wrestling. Second volumes of both Masters of Darkness and Cutting Edge are in the works, and, one hopes, perhaps a second novel is not too far off.
Driving, she thought: This is about the time I’d be getting ready to crawl back into bed.
With Lori and Elizabeth fed and dressed and out the door to meet the school bus, there would be nothing more to worry about for a while. Geoff always dropped Erin off for her car pool on his way to work; neither of them needed or wanted Casey’s help in the mornings. And then she would have a precious hour to herself, before it began again with the neighbors and the gardener and the washing and the mail and the bank and the market and the cleaners, the employment agency and the lawyers ...
No, the last two came later, after Geoff left for good, after Erin ran away. Since then things had become too complicated to allow her even a few extra minutes under the covers. What could she have been thinking?
“Did you know,” said Lori from the back seat, “that in the summertime your index fingernail grows fifty percent faster?”
Casey snapped to. She tightened her grip on the wheel and blinked, aware once again of the sea and the guardrail, of the car swerving too close to the yellow cliffs. There was no time for dozing. This was real life. She steered back to the center of the narrow lane, her left front tire erasing the dotted line, and tried to remember how she had gotten here. For a few seconds she could not. It seemed impossible, a bad dream. She lowered her windshield visor against the merciless glare and reached for the rearview mirror to be sure Lori was there.
“Mom? Are you listening to me?”
“I am, baby. I promise. Faster than what?”
“Um, it doesn’t say.”
The car steadied as she regained control. The sea shifted, then settled again into a smooth blanket of the purest cerulean blue under the bright light bulb of the morning sun. Just then something skittered down the cliffside and tumbled out into the highway; she veered to avoid it, unreasonably frightened. When the tires struck and crushed it there was a soft pattering like knuckles against the underseal. She rolled her window down and tried to locate what was left of it, but she was too late.
“What was that?”
“Nothing, baby. A loose rock.”
“Are you sure?”
As they rounded the curve, she framed a last glimpse of a tiny mound of sandstone in the mirror. “Yes, I’m sure. I was afraid it was an animal. You know, the kind that run out in the road and freeze when they see a car coming? What do they call them? You remember. We read a story about it. When you were little.”
“Armadillos?”
“I don’t think so. Not around here.”
“Um, did you know that armadillos are the only animals besides humans that get leprosy?”
“No, I didn’t know that. Thank you.” She hid her amusement from her daughter, who lately could not tolerate any degree of teasing. “Are you getting hungry?”
“I’m on a diet.” The girl made a breathy, impatient sound. “Can’t we listen to some music? You haven’t turned the radio on since we left L.A.”
“Certainly. All you have to do is ask. Politely.”
Casey flicked the radio on, but only static came out of the speakers, a white sound like surf filling the car. She pushed the buttons one by one but now, away from home, all the presets were wrong. She curled the knob past the weak, reflected voices of unfamiliar djs, the latest installment of Dr. Gene Scott’s quasi-religious marathon, an all-news station. At the moment it was time for another sports break, with more information per second than the human mind could comprehend about the current Olympics. No matter where she turned, Casey could not escape the feeling that someone was trying to sell her something. She was not sure she wanted any of it. She yawned to clear her head.
“Did you bring my tapes?” asked Lori. She clattered through the box under the seat and handed up a battered cassette. “Here. Play side two.”
Casey sighed. “Whatever you say.” She was determined that this trip not turn into a nightmare for both of them. A little music, she told herself. That couldn’t hurt. It would keep her awake.
The highway wound higher, an endless torture test under a deceptively peaceful sky. The terrain did not permit her to see very far ahead; occasionally she caught flashes of open space and the suggestion of a new topography, but the view was so frequently obstructed, so fragmented that it was impossible to tell whether she was making any real progress. Behind her, Lori shuffled her Dynamite magazines aside and returned to her copy of The Book of Uncommon Knowledge, the million-seller paperback that Casey had not had time to read. By the sound of some of the excerpts Lori had recited, Casey did not know if she should bother. She found it stupefying, lists of facts that did not relate to her life in any manner that might help. In truth, they only made her feel that much less competent, the way a close-up of crystal formations under a microscope in college had left her dizzy, without perspective, as if she were confronting an alien landscape.
She eased her neck into the headrest and waited for the next road sign. She had never been this way before, and now the sky and the sea in the distance flattened and receded, the beach appearing dangerously detached, as if the highway had come unstuck from the shoreline. She forced herself to focus on the dashboard and inserted the tape.
Soon she recognized the pinched, nasal singing of a notoriously genderless pop star whose cross-dressing had got him banned from network television a decade-and-a-half ago; responding to the demands of a changing market, he had recently resurfaced in the guise of a romantic crooner. The new persona was thin and unconvincing to anyone old enough to remember more than last season’s styles, but her ten-year-old daughter did not seem to notice. For Casey, however, the effect was weirdly disorienting. The generic voice was as false as beaten aluminum, the song a lush overstatement of the love between man and woman, something he knew nothing about. He’s got it wrong, Casey thought. Or does he? Perhaps he was right to mock it in this way; after all, what was it about but self-delusion? Was his exaggeration as perverse as it seemed? Or was it the perfect deadpan satire? Did it matter? Is it about anything, she wondered, anything that counts in the long run? She lowered the volume as far as she dared and tried not to listen.
“It’s going to be time for lunch soon,” she said when the tape ended. “There should be an Anderson’s Split Pea Restaurant coming up in a few miles. At least I think that’s what the sign said. Why don’t you help me watch for it?”
“I told you, Mom, I’m on a diet. You don’t even listen to me.”
All right, thought Casey, okay, I give up. I haven’t done anything well enough to please anybod
y in a long time. Why should today be different? She leaned back and slitted her eyes against the blinding summer’s day and drove on.
“Why can’t we wait and eat with Erin? Aren’t we going to take her out for lunch? The food there must be awful.”
“Yes. No. Not lunch, baby. We won’t make it in time. We’re not even halfway there.”
“But when we do, she is coming with us, isn’t she? Home, I mean?”
“What home?” Casey snapped.
“What does that mean? Dad gave you the house, didn’t he? We still have a place to live. What are you talking about?”
“Us,” Casey told her. “He gave it to all of us, to you and your sisters. But only because the court told him to. He didn’t do me any favors. Get that straight, young lady.”
“And the car. He left you this car, didn’t he? All right, us. Lizzy and Erin and I are old enough to drive the car anytime we want to, right? I’m sure! Plus he sends you checks twice a month. We could be a lot worse off. What are you complaining about?”
It’s about the time when I’m lying in bed, half-asleep and half awake, waiting for the snooze alarm to go off again. That time when I can’t tell what’s real and what isn’t. That’s it. It’s that way all the time now. That’s what it’s really about.
Eventually the cliffs leveled and opened to the shallow bay at Pismo Beach, where the sun’s high angle was diffused by a residue of late-morning mist. Casey left the highway and searched for a place to stop. Along the waterfront she saw young people wearing Top-Siders and personal stereos side by side with retirees in ventilated Olympics caps and walking shorts, each group vying for its rightful space at the edge of the continent, at the last westward frontier. It was an uneasy coexistence at best, one that could not continue indefinitely.
“I don’t like it here,” Lori said.
“Why not?”
“It reminds me of old people.”
“And what’s wrong with that? You used to love going to Grandma and Grandpa’s. We all did. The swings in the backyard ...”
“Who?”
“You and your sisters.”
“That wasn’t us, Mom. You’re thinking of somebody else.”
She realized with a start that Lori was right. Casey’s parents had sold the house where she grew up, the one with the swings, and moved to the mobile home park near the coast before Lori and Elizabeth were born, when Erin was still a baby.
“We don’t have to stop and see them, do we?” said Lori. “I thought we were in a hurry.”
“Did I say anything about seeing Grandma and Grandpa today?” Casey did not want to fight. She did not have enough of anything left inside her for that. “All right, where would you like to stop? Even if you’re not eating. Because I know I’m going to be hungry before we get to Lockewood.”
“The Pink Virgin Inn,” said Lori, consulting her book. “It says right here that it’s one of California’s Ten Most Exotic Attractions. They call it a Must-See.”
Casey shuddered. She recalled the Pink Virgin Inn all too well. It was indeed exotic, right up there with the Winchester Mystery House and Hearst Castle, a monument to kitsch built by a multi-millionaire flying saucer buff’s widow as a memorial to their undying love. Geoff had taken her there for one night of their honeymoon fourteen years ago. One night was enough. In the morning they had wandered arm in arm through the pink-flocked corridors, past rose quartz copies of Michelangelo’s David (with fig leaf added) and Rodin’s The Kiss, and out onto the grounds, where the moist pink rim of a heart-shaped swimming pool glistened like the lips of an obscenely-exposed secret orifice. At the time it had seemed sweetly campy, almost touching; in retrospect it was clear that Geoff had made a joke of their marriage even then, from the beginning. No, the Pink Virgin Inn would be better left to other sadly misguided couples on their way to or from quickie weddings in Reno, or as a protection against saucer landings. If the space people had any sense they’d take one look at it and pass over, leaving California to the natives.
“It’s too far from here,” said Casey matter-of-factly. “It’s quite a ways inland. We don’t have enough time.”
“Right, Mom.” Lori made the second word into a curse.
“My, look at the boats,” said Casey with great effort, maneuvering down an esplanade constricted by the unwieldy bulk of parked recreational vehicles. “So many. And the fishermen. Are those yellowtail? Lori, put down your book and pay attention. This is educational.”
In the back seat, Lori made a breathy, disgusted sound.
Once they were out of town the ocean stretched away nearly at eye level, poised to lap over the pavement and engulf the car in an attempt to further erode the sand dunes on the other side. Casey drove without making any more suggestions; if Lori did not want to enjoy the trip, that was her problem. They still had a long way to go before nightfall, and Casey’s stomach tensed at the prospect of locating the facility after dark. And there was something else. As she picked up speed along a frontage road and returned to Route 1, following the coastline, she could not avoid thinking again of her parents, and the subject filled her with confusingly mixed emotions.
She had been to see her mother and father seldom in recent years. Perhaps twice with the entire family, when the girls were small, and not often before that when her parents still had the big house. They had rarely come down to L.A., though there was more than enough room. It was because of Geoff. Wasn’t that right? Coming from a broken home himself, he had never been comfortable with a traditional family scene. It wasn’t his fault. She told herself that. When the arguments started she blamed herself, convinced that she was slighting him in some way. That was how he made her feel. After he had embarrassed her in front of them one time too many she decided it was not worth the trouble. They would understand. They would have to. They could do that, couldn’t they?
They did, she was sure of it. She had a life, a husband and children of her own, with demands on her time that she could not ignore. The truth was that she did not want them to see that her marriage was less than ideal. Hadn’t they raised her properly? The visits dwindled until each episode took on an impossible weight, so that she was practically out of her mind with nervousness by the time they got there. And yet, they seemed to understand.
And that only made it worse. When she went to see them on her own, it became more and more of a strain to convince them that nothing was wrong. They asked few questions, preferring to maintain a respectful distance, to avoid the appearance of meddling, until they slipped so far away from her that they began to fade like the memory of a past life. Soon they no longer had anything in common to talk about—the estrangement became complete. And still they never complained. She carried the guilt inside her like a private wound, waiting and hoping that time would heal it somehow, but that had not happened yet. And now it was too late. How could she tell them that her husband had left her, that her first-born had run away? They would think it was her fault, just as Geoff said. Most of the time she believed it herself. He had taught her that.
They would never know how close to them she had come today, or even that she had had to make such a trip. And that was almost sadder than anything else.
She left the highway again at Morro Bay and found a parking space behind Dorn’s Restaurant, though the thought of lunch made her nauseous. Yet she had to feed her daughter, didn’t she? The entrance was decorated with patriotic bunting to advertise a special menu in honor of the Olympics. A TV newscast reported preparations for the 1500 and 5000 meter men’s finals; she ignored it. As Casey and Lori sat at a window table, buttering fragrant rolls and watching sailboats dip like birds through the glittering waters, she tried to unwind for the first time all morning.
It was pleasant here, the conversations at the surrounding tables friendly, the voices of other travelers who had taken refuge in this safe harbor. But what could she say to them? She and Lori were probably the only two customers who were not following the Games in Los Angeles, and there was no
reason why they should be interested in her problems. She ordered a cup of clam chowder and a croissant sandwich—with any luck Lori would share it—and turned her attention to the glorious oceanfront panorama that now shone through the lifting fog. A flock of gulls flew past the glass, their wings shaped like the tops of hearts, and settled lazily on the dock to warm their breasts in the midday sun.
“Did you know,” said Lori, opening another pat of butter, “that fourteen percent of the sea gulls in the Caribbean are gay?”
“Keep your voice down,” said Casey. “This isn’t the Caribbean.”
“No shit, Sherlock,” said Lori.
An elderly couple at the next table glanced up, then frowned into their fruit cups.
Casey took hold of Lori’s arm. “Don’t you ever speak to me that way again,” she whispered. Under the table, she squeezed the girl’s wrist fiercely. “Do you hear me?”
“Chuh,” said Lori.
Casey took a good look at her, at the untamed wisps of hair over her eyes, at the new insolence in the line of her jaw. It was a stunningly accurate imitation of her big sister. Casey was on the verge of losing her, too. Like Erin, would she start skipping school, then run away when she realized that her father was never coming back? Was she already hiding drugs in her room? And yet Casey knew that her daughter was not to blame.
“You know,” she said softly, “it hasn’t been easy for me, trying to hold a family together. You might try to understand that. You’re a big girl now.”
“Why don’t you let Doug be the man?” said Lori. “You don’t have to act tough just because Dad’s gone.”
She thought of the man she had met only a few months ago, when she was still a basket case. Yes, he was a part of their lives now. But for how long?
“What makes you think he’s going to hang around once he finds out what rotten excuses for daughters I’ve got?”
Instantly she regretted saying that. It wasn’t true, of course. They were wonderful when Doug was there, and they adored him. And they were beautiful even when he was not there; Lori had made breakfast and gotten Elizabeth off to school for weeks after Geoff left. She saw the shocked expression on Lori’s face.
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