by T. M. Wright
NURSERY TALE
T.M. Wright
Digital Edition published by Crossroad Press
© 2011 / T.M. Wright
Copy-edited by: David Dodd
Cover Design By: David Dodd
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OTHER CROSSROAD PRESS BOOKS BY T.M. Wright:
NOVELS:
STRANGE SEEDS
BOUNDARIES
GOODLOW'S GHOSTS
SLEEPEASY
THE WAITING ROOM
A SPIDER ON MY TONGUE
THE ASCENDING
THE CHANGING
THE DEVOURING
NON FICTION:
THE INTELLIGENT MAN'S GUIDE TO U.F.O.s
UNABRIDGED AUDIOBOOKS:
A MANHATTAN GHOST STORY – NARRATED BY DICK HILL
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Acknowledgments
Thanks to Bill Thompson, who helped bring Strange Seed into the world. And to Stephen King, one of the few who understood it. And Mike Cantalupo, who has always had a kind word, and sound advice. And Sharon Jarvis, without whom . . . Later thanks also to Jack Garner, for being candid.
Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth.
—GENESIS 1:28
Part One
GROUNDWORK
From The Penn Yann Post Gazette, December 6:
COUPLE INCINERATED IN HOUSE FIRE
Paul Griffin, 30, and his wife Rachel, 26, were killed last night in a fire at their 100-year-old farmhouse on the Tripp Road extension, ten miles north of Penn Yann. According to Deputy Volunteer Fire Chief Clyde Watkins, the fire apparently started when a gasoline-powered electric generator at the side of the house exploded. Watkins described the destruction caused by the fire as "total," and added that when he and his men arrived on the scene at approximately 3:15 A.M., the Griffin house was completely engulfed in flames.
According to Penn Yann resident John Marsh—who did occasional work for the Griffins—the couple had moved into the farmhouse about six months ago, hoping to make the farm profitable once again. "But there were lots of problems," Marsh explained. "I remember when they first moved in, for instance; that house was a shambles. Vandals got in there and just went wild."
Investigation has revealed that the house's previous owners, a middle-aged couple named Schmidt, were found dead at the house in August, 1972, apparently as the result of a double suicide. Prior to that tragedy, Paul Griffin's father, Samuel Griffin, one-time owner of the house, died of a heart attack there in 1957.
Mr. Griffin, formerly of New York City, leaves an uncle, Harold Martinson. His wife leaves her mother and father, two sisters, several aunts and uncles, nieces and nephews. No local service is planned.
From The Penn Yann Post Gazette, April 3:
COMPLAINT FILED IN CASE OF MISSING MAN
Mrs. Maureen Collins, of Syracuse, New York, has filed a complaint charging that local Police Chief John Hastings and his men were "negligent and incompetent" in their investigation of the disappearance of Mrs. Collins's husband, Mark, in January of this year. Mark Collins apparently disappeared while on a hunting expedition with several friends in the Tripp Road area, about ten miles from Penn Yann.
Says Mrs. Collins, "Those people"—Police Chief Hastings and his men—"didn't spend more than two days looking for my husband. And they didn't call in anyone from outside. It was obvious they didn't expect to find him, or they didn't want to." Mrs. Collins, who is white, has also alleged racism on the part of Police Chief Hastings in the search for her husband, who is a black man. Chief Hastings stated "no comment" when asked about the complaint.
Chapter 1
August
The boy, squinting in the late afternoon country sunlight, looked up briefly at the man beside him and nodded to his left, at the remains of a cellar and some blackened timbers strewn about. "Hey, Grandpa," the boy said, "there was a house there once. Looks like it burned up."
"Burned down," the man corrected.
"Huh?"
"It burned down. It didn't burn up, it burned down."
"Oh." The boy didn't understand. "Anybody get killed, ya think?"
"You're a morbid sort, aren'tcha?"
"Morbid?" The boy's eyebrows wrinkled. "What's that mean?"
"It means you want all the gory details." The man chuckled softly. "Yeah," he continued after a moment, and there was a tiny note of solemnity in his voice. "People got killed. A man and his wife—back-to-the-landers, they were."
"What's—" the boy started, and the man, anticipating him, cut in, "Tryin' to find their roots in the earth. And no, they weren't trees, if that's what you were gonna say."
"I wasn't gonna say nothin', Grandpa."
"Uh-huh, and bears don't crap in the woods, either."
"They don't?"
The man laughed. "Sure they do. Where else they gonna crap if not in the woods?"
The boy understood. He grinned because his grandpa was sharing such a great joke with him; it was at times like these that the boy felt especially close to the man.
"D'ja know the people who got killed in that house, Grandpa?"
The man stopped walking; the boy stopped. "I knew of 'em, son. I knew of 'em." And the boy noticed something strange and quiet in his voice, something that said, Let's forget it, for now.
The boy took the man's hand and squeezed it affectionately. "Supper's 'bout ready, don'tcha think?" It took a moment for the man to answer: "Uh-huh. Probably past ready." And they started walking again.
Several minutes later, when they had completed half their walk, they turned and started back the way they'd come. The sun was low on the horizon now, and the boy sensed that his grandpa had quickened the pace.
"Yer walkin' pretty fast, Grandpa."
"Am I?"
"Yeah. You must be awful hungry, huh?"
"Famished."
"'Famished'? Does that mean hungry?"
"It means you talk enough for five little kids."
"I'm sorry." The boy sounded hurt; he felt the man's arm around his shoulders. "Ten little kids," the man said, and he chuckled falsely. The boy silently accepted the apology.
They soon passed the spot where the house had been and the boy said enthusiastically, "Hey, Grandpa, why don't we just cut through there." He pointed at a narrow weathered path that ran at right angles to the road they were on and apparently ended at a stand of deciduous trees not quite a half mile off. The setting sun made the trees appear to be on fire; the boy liked that. "We could be back home and sittin' down to supper in a couple minutes, I bet," he continued, and grinned, pleased that he could save his grandpa some walking time. He felt the man's grip tighten around his shoulders.
"Shouldn'ta brought you here, son," he said. "I don't know what I was thinkin', don't know what I was thinkin' at all, but I shouldn'ta brought you here."
The boy didn't understand. "Yer hurtin' me. What'sa matter, Grandpa
?"
The man loosened his grip, then quickened his pace even more, so that the boy had to do a half walk, half run to keep up. "Grandpa, you scared a somethin'? What you scared of?"
The man said nothing. But now he was running, and the boy found terror growing inside himself, found that he was glancing frantically about for a reason to run, found that—worst of all—the man was rapidly outdistancing him. "Grandpa, wait. Please!" He saw the man glance back, saw the terror and confusion on the old face. "Grandpa, stop!" But the man didn't stop.
The boy had never realized how really fast his legs could move. He remembered fleetingly, almost wistfully, as he ran, the time a year and a half earlier when he had been in the woodsy section of a city park and had convinced himself that a bear was rooting about in some nearby bushes. He had run as fast—he supposed later—as any boy, or man, or thing had ever run, and for months afterward his dreams had been filled with wonderful, fantastic memories of it.
But that was in the past, he realized now. And there had been nothing real about it.
This was real! The terror and confusion and panic on his grandpa's face, and the distance opening up between them, and the thing—whatever it was—that they were running from . . .
The boy fell very quickly, too quickly for his hands to react and cushion him. His chin hit the gravel first, and a small, sharp stone opened up an inch-long gash; then his forehead, chest and legs hit. "Grand—" he managed as he hit. Then he heard a muffled, dry, grunting sound.
Moments later, he was unconscious.
"You'll tell me the truth, Earl Freeman, or I'll know the reason why."
Earl Freeman glanced blankly at his wife, then just as blankly at the boy lying quietly on the old bed. They had sent for the doctor, but it was a ten-mile drive from town, and most of that was over bad, one-lane, unpaved roads. He turned away, walked to a window, looked out. "We were running, like I said."
"I know what you said, and I know there's more."
It was something greater than hate that Earl Freeman felt for himself, now—had felt ever since, in a panic, he had scooped the boy up from the road. More than hate. More like a certainty that his actions in the last hour had loudly denied his very worth as a human being. "We were on Griffin's Road," he said, and closed his eyes briefly, happy that he'd admitted it at last.
He heard his wife sit very slowly in a chair she'd brought in from the kitchen and had put near the bed. After a long moment, she whispered, "Why, Earl?"
But Earl Freeman couldn't answer the question—not, at least, in a rational way. The late afternoon walk had been planned for the Tripp Road, not Griffin's Road. He supposed, very briefly, that—where the two roads met, a mile from the house—he had inadvertently taken a left when he should not have turned at all. But that was no good, because he remembered turning, remembered knowing where he was taking Seth, remembered passing the remains of the house—passing, and walking to the end of Griffin's Road, where the fields started, remembered knowing they would have to pass the house again, when darkness was beginning . . .
"I don't know," he whispered, and from his tone his wife realized it was the very best he could do.
She said, "Why were you running, Earl?" She paused only a moment. "Did you have a reason, was there some reason?"
"No," he murmured. "No . . ."
"Earl," she cut in, nodding urgently at the boy in the bed. "I think he's coming around."
Earl Freeman went to the side of the bed. He looked anxiously at Seth. The boy's eyes fluttered open. "Seth?" Earl Freeman said. The boy's eyes stayed open. "Seth, you're home now." Wide open. Unfocused, and uncomprehending.
Earl Freeman heard his wife breathe, "Oh my God!"
"Seth, you're home now!" Quickly, desperately. "You're home now!"
Seth remained quiet. His breathing was slow and deep, as if he were sleeping.
"Seth," said Earl Freeman, "what do you see? Tell me what you see."
"Earl, don't . . ." his wife began, and stopped when he put his hand on hers and whispered, "Please."
But Seth remained quiet. For the next five years.
From The Penn Yann Post Gazette, October 12, two years later:
TRUCK DRIVER INJURED
Luis Alvarez, 32, of Rochester, New York, suffered a broken arm, cracked pelvis, and various cuts and bruises yesterday when the truck he was driving skidded off the Tripp Road extension, popularly known as Griffin's Road, about ten miles north of Penn Yann, and flipped over, landing on its roof. According to Alvarez, who works for the Pittman Construction Company and was hauling lumber to the site of a housing development in Penn Yann at the time of the accident, he swerved off the road to avoid hitting a child who had run out in front of his truck. Alvarez explained, "One moment the road is clear, and the next moment there is this kid right in front of me, about twenty feet away. I don't know where he came from." A thorough search of the area by Penn Yann police proved fruitless. Alvarez, recovering in the Penn Yann Memorial Hospital, has been charged with carrying an unsafe load, according to Penn Yann police.
From The Penn Yann Post Gazette, February 22, one year later:
GO-AHEAD GIVEN FOR CONTROVERSIAL HOUSING DEVELOPMENT
After several years of often bitter controversy, and after the granting of numerous waivers to existing zoning ordinances, the Zoning Board of Penn Yann has okayed a final rezoning proposal by New York City entrepreneur Rowland Reynolds for the Tripp Road and Tripp Road extension (known as Griffin's Road), about ten miles north of Penn Yann. The rezoning will allow Reynolds to develop a 60-acre site on the extension as a "small, planned community of large, two-story residences, with at least one half-acre per residence."
The proposal, which had been delayed for five years pending a series of environmental impact statements, also requested a widening and repaving of both the extension, which is now a gravel road, and Tripp Road itself, a narrow, two-lane road which will become a major four-lane highway as construction progresses.
After the decision was handed down by the Board, Reynolds said, "Now we can get on with the business of growth—which is what we, as a people, are all about. We have put all the rumors to rest, we have answered the extreme environmentalists, and the no-growth advocates, and those who seek more government control, and, as well, the dilettantes who would put even the things that slither about on the ground before the needs of men. And now we will do what Americans have always done best—we will make the land work for us. Because we are, after all, its caretakers. Because God has given the land to us for our use, and our enjoyment as his children."
According to Reynolds, construction will begin immediately.
Part Two
THE PEOPLE
Chapter 2
August 15, five years after the Freeman accident
Janice and Miles McIntyre
It had looked like a magnificent game of tag; now, Janice McIntyre thought she should have known better. She nudged her husband. "Miles," she said, "did you see that?" But Miles McIntyre was busy talking to the builder. "Later, darling," he said. Janice muttered, "Sorry," and moved away from him to the front of what would someday be their new home—it was now only a cellar, plywood floor, and frame ("We'll have it dried in," the builder had told them, "in a week, maybe ten days." "Dried in?" Miles had asked. "Protected from the weather." "Oh.").
Janice watched as the hawk moved gracefully through the frigid blue sky toward the stand of trees at the horizon. The thing the hawk carried in its talons was no longer recognizable. Janice had supposed, when the two birds were close to the house—"playing tag"—that it was a sparrow, but, she admitted, it could just as easily have been any other small bird. Build a house in the country, she thought, and turn into a naturalist. She felt her husband's hands on her shoulders. "There's a snag, Ja."
"A snag?"
"Yes, and it'll make you cringe, I think."
She turned around, faced him. "Okay, so make me cringe."
"They found something–"
"They?"
"The builder. Well, actually the plumbing subcontractor—he found something, his men did, and they called the builder and the builder says he'll have to call the police. They were digging the hole for the septic tank"—he nodded to the north at a mound of dark, moist earth about fifty feet from the house—"over there."
"Yes?"
"And they found . . . they think they found some bones."
"Bones?"
"Human bones."
"Human bones?"
He hesitated, glanced away briefly, then looked back, obviously uncomfortable. "The bones of a child," he said. "That's what they think, anyway."
"Oh Jesus!"
"These people aren't, you know, qualified, I mean technically, to make a judgment like that, but–"
"I don't think I can handle this, Miles. I really don't think I can handle this!" She lowered her head and closed her eyes; he saw tears start and, despite himself, it angered him.
"Janice, it's been five years, and that's a long time—"
"Not nearly long enough, Miles. Twenty years, thirty—"
"Christ Almighty!"
"Please, Miles . . ." She quieted, closed her eyes, tried in vain to stop the tears.
Jodie—their first child—had died very suddenly, in his fifteenth month, of crib death. Jodie's doctor had apologized again and again for not having seen the child's susceptibility to Sudden Infant Death Syndrome right from the start. "We know so much more about it, now, than we did ten years ago," he told them, "but we obviously don't know nearly as much as we need to know." The apology had seemed, Janice thought at the time, a kind of explanation for Jodie's death, a reason for it, and it had made her very angry.