by Bruce Jones
“But you said it was just a coma,” Richard argued, loud enough so Shivers had to grab his arm, bring him down an octave, “you said it was a coma, not a…a…”
“Well, now it is,” Shivers told him.
“He’s a vegetable, Rich,” from Maser, “I’m sorry, Christ, you know how sorry I must be.”
“But—“ and Richard could think of nothing to add to the ‘but.’ He wasn’t a physician. Maser was the physician. And the final word.
He turned and looked at Sally’s plump white back. “She knows?”
The other two men nodded.
Richard felt a rush of heat clear down from his shoes. “God fucking damnit!”
Shivers squeezed his arm again. There were tears brimming his eyes.
“Scroogie!” Richard blurted and choked on the last consonant as the rush of heat found his own eyes, spilled over them. “Fuck!”
He turned to Maser again, there must be something you can do on his lips, but the doctor’s ashen expression said it all.
Richard felt a burst of anger at him. Followed by a wave of sympathy that was almost cleansing. He smiled, gripped Maser’s pale wrist. “You look like shit,” he returned the compliment.
“Pretty wiped. Listen guys, I—“ and his throat closed up on him a moment, “ –I gotta get outta here a minute. They’ve been beeping me upstairs for the past half hour. Can you two—“ and he turned his head toward Sally and the girls.
“We’ll take care of them,” Shivers assured him.
Maser nodded. “’Kay.” He looked at Richard. “Thanks for coming back, Rich.”
“Fine.”
Maser nodded and left them.
Richard turned back to Shivers, chest trembling, but Shivers wouldn’t meet his eyes; he was watching Maser leave the room. “Rich--?”
“What, buddy?”
“Go see Scroogie.” And he was still watching Maser until the doctor had disappeared through the door.
Richard looked lost. “Okay.”
Shivers turned his attention to the patient, twenty feet away. “Give him a kiss or a pat or something, then come back, huh?”
“Okay.”
Maser grabbed his arm before Richard could turn. “On the cheek. Kiss him on the cheek. And have a look at his neck.”
“Okay.”
Richard did as he was told.
Sally had collapsed against Laurie’s shoulder, dampening it, no doubt. Laurie gave Richard a helpless, world-weary glance as he moved past her. He came to Scroogie’s bedside, put his hand down and took the limp wrist. His neck was bandaged as if someone were trying to choke him.
Richard put a quick arm around Sally on the way back, cupped Lauren’s cheek and returned to Shivers’ side.
“Well?”
Richard shrugged. “He tried to cut his throat, like they said.” Shivers just stared at him, right at him this time.
Richard didn’t like the look on his face. Shivers looked frightened and angry and wild-eyed, not like the Shivers he knew. Like someone who’d seen something he couldn’t bear. “What is it, buddy?”
“That’s Scroogie, Rich.”
“Yeah.”
“The kid we grew up with.”
“Yeah.”
“Who quoted Robert Frost and Donald Duck. Who wouldn’t read the last page of the horror comic, who ran up the aisle no matter how stupid-looking the Corman monster was.”
Richard nodded. Frowned, but nodded.
“I loved him, Rich.”
“We all loved him, Shiv—“
“But he was coward. An overweight, whiny little chicken shit.”
“I don’t—“
“I tried to show him my Scout knife once. He asked me to close the blade first.”
Richard stared back at him.
“He had sleeping pills at home. Lots of them. You know that, Rich?”
“No.”
“He didn’t cut himself, Rich.”
“But the—“
“He didn’t do it.”
Richard craned back at the hospital bed.
“You feel like coffee, Rich?”
Richard turned back. “No.”
“Me either. Come on. There’s a cafeteria downstairs.”
* * *
The cafeteria coffee was terrible. Like mud.
“It won’t do any good,” Shivers told him.
Richard was dolloping in more sugar. He added one more dollop anyway and stirred it in. “So then, who, Shiv?”
Shivers stared back over his untouched cup. Then he leaned into the hardback cafeteria chair, put his arm up on wooden back of it and gazed around at the other tables. “Maybe it was Jack the Ripper.”
“That isn’t funny.”
“Neither is what you’re thinking about.”
“What am I thinking about, Shiv?”
“Well, for once it isn’t Laurie’s pussy.”
Richard took a drink of coffee, winced openly. His hand was shaking a little. Maybe he was just tired. Maybe. “You’re crazy.”
Shivers watched him, arms slung over the chair. “He never liked him, you know.”
Richard winced again, but not from the coffee. “You’re full of shit. Tired. Grabbing at straws.”
“Who was the last one voted into the Enders?”
“Scroogie.”
“And who wanted to veto the vote?”
“That doesn’t mean a damn thing, Pete.”
Shivers leaned forward on his elbows. “He tormented him constantly.”
“He didn’t—“
“Teased him, then. You gotta admit he teased him. Plenty. A lot.”
“Doesn’t mean a thing.”
“Threw a dead squirrel at him once, made him throw up, Rich.”
Richard blew out breath. “The Maze was a…a cynic. The scholarly one of the group. The analytical one. He could be a prig, yes. A bore, even. Doesn’t mean he grew up to be a murderer. And why for chrissake!”
“There are no other suspects, Rich.”
Richard dropped his cup loudly in its saucer. “There are no suspects period, Pete! The word you’re adding is ‘other.’!” You! Not the police.”
“Yet.”
Richard waved him off. “You’re full of shit. Look at the poor guy! He’s been by Scroogie’s side non-stop for”—he glanced at his watch—“for hours! Talk about solicitous! He’s broken-hearted! Look at the way he treated Sally and the kids!”
Shivers looked back with a patient expression. “Yeah. The only guy at his side before the, quote, ‘suicide’ attempt. Pesters and baits the poor slob all his life and now all of a sudden he’s Mr. Solicitous. Hasn’t said boo to Sally or the kids in twenty years and now he’s pawing all over them.”
Just to take his mind off this, Richard downed some more of the awful coffee. Shivers had always been paranoid, especially after his baby brother was kidnapped, but now he was around the bend. “You’re cracking up, Shiv. When’s the last time you slept? When was the last time you saw the monster?”
“When was the last time Maser saw it?”
Richard paused in mid-swallow. Placed the cup carefully in the saucer this time. Looked straight into Shiver’s eyes.
“He never saw it, right? Never had the so-called dream.”
“You don’t think it’s just a dream, Shiv?”
“Let’s stick to Maser.”
“Motive, Shiv. Motive.”
Shivers looked away.
Richard gave a triumphant, “Huh!” and took another sip.
It was quiet for a time. Then Shivers said, “It’s with me all the time now, you know…”
Richard looked up. “The monster?”
“All the time.
“You see it all the time.”
Shivers shook his head. “Not see it exactly, but it’s there. It talks to me now. Calls me by name.”
Richard’s hand twitched, a shiver found his lower his spine, tickled its way up.
“I’m having…I’m having strange
thoughts, Rich…”
Richard swallowed thickly, placed his cup on the counter to avoid the saucer rattle, half-afraid, half-anxious about what was coming. “What kind of thoughts?”
Shivers stared across the cafeteria for a moment. It was nearly empty. They must have been close to closing. ‘More like…memories, maybe.”
“Yeah? Tell me.”
Shivers was thoughtful for a moment. “Do you remember the little house?”
“Little house?”
Shivers smiled. “I thought of it as the little house. It was, I guess; it was a garage actually, one of those old detached jobs just off Maser’s house. You remember that?”
Richard shook his head.
“Always smelled…exotic-like. Pungent. But not in a bad way. Oriental or something.” He looked over at Richard. “You know what I think, what I just realized after all this time? I think that must have been that…that hippie stuff, you know, what do you call it-- long dark stick you burned for the smell?”
“Incense.”
“Yeah. That’s what she burned in there. Sweet smelling…”
“Who burned?”
Shivers looked at him like he was deranged. “Maser’s mother! You don’t remember?”
Richard had to think about it. Maser’s mother. “Vaguely…”
Shivers shrugged. “Kind of forgot about her myself, tell you the truth. Been thinking about her lately, though. Pretty woman, wasn’t she?”
Richard nodded, images coming back now. “Yeah… Slim, but built.”
“Green eyes, like a cat. Wore these hippie clothes all the time…”
“More like a gypsy, weren’t they?”
Shiver’s fingers snapped. “That it. Silks and bright colors. Worn tight, showed off her tits. Had this big banana yellow bandana in her hair.” He shook his head, grinning. “Yeah, not bad. And that sweet smell of incense amid all those piles of books.”
Richard jerked toward him. “Books?”
Shivers was nodding in nostalgia, eyes far away. “Towers of ‘em. Whole garage full of ‘em. Weird literature. Mystic stuff. Witchcraft and crap. Devil worship. I remember there was even one on Medieval torture.” He smiled a funny smile at Richard. “What kind of shit was that to be reading to kids?”
“She read them to us?”
Shivers gave him a sharp look. “You don’t remember any of this, do you, Rich?”
“I’m trying to.”
“Yeah, she read ‘em, if we asked her, if we were bored or out of licorice twists and Dr. Pepper. Lot of them were in Latin I remember.”
Another shiver from Shivers…like a crawling sensation in Richard’s groin.
Say it.
“She had this Latin-English dictionary she’d refer to sometimes. You know, for the harder words. But she could read it pretty well herself, as I recall. You really don’t remember any of this shit, long rainy afternoons when we couldn’t play fly-goes-in or scout-the-woo—the pasture?”
“The what?” Richard croaked.
“The pasture. That old farmer’s north forty.”
“You started to say ‘woods.’
Shivers frowned absently as the cafeteria dessert case, as if considering ordering pie. “Did I?”
“What else about the books?”
Say it.
Shivers shrugged. “She had a lot of ‘em, that’s all. Tons. And you’d think what with those Kansas summers and the sky-high humidity, she’d have been worried about mildew and stuff. I think she must have had a dehumidifier in that garage. My old man used to have one in our basement.” Shiver chuckled.
“What?”
“I know why you don’t remember this stuff.”
“Why, Shiv?”
“You were always muttering about how it depressed you, I remember now. ‘All these books,’ you say, ‘and so little time to read.’” Shivers shook his head, grinning wildly. “You were obsessed, man. Even when the Enders weren’t hanging out in Scroogie’s old lady’s garage. ‘I should be home writing,’ you’d say. “Nothing should distract a real writer!’ You were always very cynical about magic, Rich. Always restless, always vaguely uncomfortable, even on the baseball diamond or when we went swimming. Always got the feeling you’d rather be somewhere else. Home writing, I guess. The rest of us would sit there on orange crates like well-behaved students hanging onto Maser’s mom’s—what was her name anyway?”
“Zelda.” It came to him suddenly, with the picture of her young again—the huge gold hoop earrings, the seductive smile…
“Zelda, that was it. I thought you didn’t remember her.”
“It’s coming back to me, Shiv.”
“—hang onto Zelda’s every word. But you would be up and pacing around, roving through the towers of old books. I think they made you feel guilty, distracted you.” Shivers looked into the distance, as if he saw something. Or someone.
“What are you thinking about?”
Shivers looked off into the distance again.
“Shiv? Hey.”
“What?”
“Tell me about the books. Did any of them…does any one of them tend to, you know, stand out in your mind or anything? You know, maybe one you really liked or something? Some particular volume or other?”
Say it…
Shivers thought about it. When he looked at Richard, Richard realized that the paranoia in his eyes finally extended to him. He shook his head cautiously, staring at Richard, his eyes protruding slightly.
And then the frown again. “I think—“
“The hospital cafeteria will be closing in ten minutes. Snacks and drinks can be found at the north corner vending machines on each floor. Thank you and have a pleasant night.”
Shivers glanced at this watch. “Getting late. I’ve gotta get some sleep. Gonna go check on Scroogie one more time. You coming?”
“What were you going to say?”
“When?”
“Just now. I asked you about the books, if you maybe had a favorite of Zelda’s books, and you said, ‘I think—‘ and got interrupted by the intercom.”
“Oh. Yeah.”
Say it.
“I thought getting older was supposed to make your memory worse. But you just never remembered any of it, did you, Rich?” Shivers got up to leave. Richard began to ask him what he meant by it, then spied someone across the cafeteria, threading her way through the tables toward them. One of Maser’s endless supply of gorgeous nurses. Carla. The one Maser had brought to the barbecue at his place earlier in the summer. She’d been hanging all over Maser then. “I’ll be along in a minute, Shiv.”
“Suit yourself.”
Carla had noticed him and obviously remembered him. As Shivers disappeared through the cafeteria door, Carla came toward Richard with a tentative smile and took Shivers’ chair, setting down her coffee. “You mean there’s someone else here that can actually drink this battery acid?”
Richard turned and met Carla’s eyes.
“He’s going to get better.”
Richard had been looking right at Carla and not really seen her. Get better? Who? Scroogie? Not likely. Not a prayer, kiddo. “Sure,” he smiled anyway.
“You don’t believe me.”
Richard looked away from all that sincerity. “Not unless you’re precognitive,” he blurted, humiliated and sorry an instant later.
“I’ll bet you don’t think I know what that means.”
Now he felt really humiliated. But when he looked back into Carla’s gentle eyes there was no anger or disappointment there. Even the ghost of a smile. A kind of knowing smile.
Uh-oh, Richard mused sourly, a born-again Christian. “Are you religious?” Another blurt. He was collecting blurts today, making a catalog of them.
“Why ‘religious.’? Does ‘precognitive’ scare you, Richard?”
Awful smart for a pretty girl. Or awful pretty for a smart girl, or something. “Not if it really means Scroogie’s going to come out of it.” Another blurt, he was sure…but it didn
’t end up tasting disdainful, in fact, it seemed to have a ring of truth to it. Mixing his metaphors again. No wonder he’d never made it big as a writer.
“What would you say if I told you it does scare me right now?” Now why had he committed that blurt? Was there just no stopping him. Jesus. He was tired.
“You’re tired.”
He nodded limply. “Don’t have to be precognitive to see that, I guess.”
“No. And no to the other question too, I’m not particularly religious. But I do have a little of what they used to call women’s intuition.”
“And you don’t see Scroogie in danger?”
Now the sweetness left her face—the sweetness but not the sincerity or compassion. If anything the compassion increased a notch or two. It suddenly made Richard bafflingly uncomfortable.
“I just feel things will turn out for Scroogie, is all.”
But it wasn’t enough. Because it implied something wasn’t going to turn out well for someone else. And Richard a creepy epiphany who that might be. She worked with Maser, dated him. Had Bobby told her about the cancer? That Richard had it? But not told her it had gone away?
“What’s the matter?” he said. Another blurt. But he didn’t care this time. His heart was racing a little.
Pretty Carla shrugged in her pretty white nurses uniform and turned her eyes from him again. “Just thinking…”
“About what?”
“Dr. Maser,” she said, still turned away.
“What about him?”
Now she met is eyes. “How’s Allie, Richard?”
“We’re separated.” What’s this got to do with The Maze?
“I know. But you still hear from her, you parted with equanimity?”
‘Equanimity.’ He’d have to watch out for this girl. Richard looked at his coffee cup. “Well, nothing was thrown, if that’s what you mean.”
When he looked up again she was just staring at him. As if expecting something. As if it was his turn.
Richard felt lost.
Must have looked it too because Carla said, “Do you like him? I mean, I know you’re old friends and all, maybe you even love him, but do you like him?”
“Scroogie?” But they both knew she didn’t mean that. And Carla didn’t bother to answer it.