Symphony - [Millennium Quartet 01]

by Charles L. Grant

  One more night, he swore; one more night, and I’m out of here.

  Round and round.

  Like the moth bouncing around the peace sign painted on the ceiling.

  * * * *

  9

  time to go, children

  i‘ve changed my mind

  it’s time to go

  * * * *

  10

  Casey couldn’t do it.

  Ashamed... worse, humiliated, he went the other way— through his office and out the side door. Dragging the broom behind him until he reached the front step. Standing before the doors, feeling the heat of the sun on his back, the heat of the stoop through his soles.

  Stupid; this was stupid.

  They were only moths, they were dead, they weren’t going to rise up and smother him, they were moths, and they were dead.

  Hundreds of them.

  Waiting for him to open the doors.

  * * * *

  11

  Diño did his best to see as much as he could of his back, but the light was dim, the shadows shifting. He fetched a footstool from the kitchen, stood on it, and checked again.

  Nothing.

  Madre, there was nothing.

  A few bruises, a few scabs.

  No burns.

  He had been thrown from a burning car, clothes afire, fire demon coming, and despite the residual ache in his arm, there were no burns.

  “Madre,” he whispered.

  His toes curled on the humid-damp tiles when he stepped down; his hair dripped sweat down the length of his back as he picked up his shirt, his trousers, and searched them for scorches.

  Nothing.

  Nothing there.

  Ignoring his nudity, he hurried to the front room and snatched his jacket off the floor. The gun rolled free, rattling dully across the hardwood. He examined the sleeves, the collar, the lapels, the inside and outside pockets.

  Nothing.

  Nothing there.

  Madre Dios, he thought; what is it with this town?

  He didn’t know, he didn’t care, he wanted to get out. He was not a superstitious man, didn’t wear a cross around his neck or carry a talisman in his pocket. But this was beyond anything he could understand, and he didn’t like it. Not at all.

  The hell with the old fart, he decided, bracing himself against a chill that make his legs and arm quiver uncontrollably; the hell with them all. He wanted out. And since he didn’t seem to be injured—not anymore—as soon as it was dark, he was getting out. A shower first, dress, and out.

  It wasn’t until he stepped into the stall and realized there was no soap that he also realized that the fire hadn’t touched him.

  And if the fire couldn’t kill him ...

  He stood there a long time before he closed the door and turned on the water.

  He stood there a long time before he began to smile.

  * * * *

  12

  time to go

  * * * *

  13

  It was mindless work, straightening the empty tape boxes so the customers would read them, but it was the only thing Nate could think of for Dimmy to do. He wished Reed were here. Reed knew how to talk to the kid better than he did. Reed and Dimmy had a connection somehow. He sighed, and tried to call Kay again, but she still didn’t answer.

  “Done, Nate,” the boy said, presenting himself at the counter.

  “Good. Great job. You want to work here instead of me?”

  Dimitri shook his head solemnly. “I can’t. Poppa says this is a bad place.”

  Your poppa is a nut, Nate thought, instantly felt guilty, and decided to make what Kay called an executive decision. All the tapes due back today were in, no one had come in for nearly an hour, and he was starving. He didn’t think she would mind him closing up for half an hour so he could grab a sandwich at the Moonglow.

  “Okay,” he said, locking the register. “Tell you what. It’s going on six. How about you and me, we go get something to eat, okay? My treat.”

  Dimitri nodded.

  “Your mother won’t mind?”

  Dimitri shook his head. “She’s singing.”

  “Oh.” He turned the door sign around to Closed, Be Back Soon, and locked it behind them. The heat sapped him instantly, and as they trudged down the slope, he couldn’t help feeling not even an hour-long cold shower would make him cool again. He also couldn’t help but wonder when Dimitri slipped a hand into his.

  “You okay, bud?”

  Dimitri didn’t answer.

  “Well, look,” he said, pointing. “There’s Reed. Maybe he’s had an adventure on the river, huh?”

  Reed approached the diner from the opposite direction, walking as if he were slogging through mud. They waved to each other just as Nate spotted Reverend Chisholm standing with a broom at the church’s front doors. He frowned, was about to call out, but Reed called Dimmy instead, and the boy broke from Nate’s grip and ran down to meet him.

  “Hey, guys,” Reed said when Nate caught up. He jerked a thumb toward the church. “What’s Reverend Chisholm up to?”

  Nate shrugged. “I don’t know. Cleaning, I guess.”

  “In this heat?”

  He shrugged again. “How should I know? Why don’t you ask him?” He would have said more, but Helen Gable came out of the diner just then, wiping her hands on her apron. He said, “Hi,” but she didn’t notice, only stared at the reverend.

  “Reed?” Dimitri said.

  “That’s me, pal, what’s up?”

  Dimitri pointed skyward.

  Nate looked. “Whoa. Hey.”

  Miss Gable looked as well. “I’ll be damned,” she said, rapped on the diner window and waved at someone inside, telling them to come out, you have to see this.

  “This is silly,” Nate said, rubbing a crick from his neck. “I mean, this is silly.”

  “Yeah,” Reed agreed. “But when was the last time you saw a real cloud around here?”

  * * * *

  Arlo threw the switch.

  The lights flickered on, but not before he saw a group of people standing on the sidewalk in front of the Moonglow, looking up.

  Man, he thought, they looking at angels or what?

  He stepped outside, waved to them, and saw the cloud.

  Well, he thought, it’s about goddamn time.

  * * * *

  “Mabe?” Moss said, throwing open the grocery door.

  “Just the man I’m looking for,” she snapped.

  “Come out here, hon, you gotta see this.”

  “Get in here, Moss Tully, I’ve got some questions for you!”

  “Mabe, just look. I think we might have some rain tonight.”

  * * * *

  At first Helen thought it was only a thickening of the haze that had robbed the sky of its blue. When she looked again, however, she knew it was a cloud. A genuine cloud. Softly fluffed at the edges, darker on the west side and pale streaks across its belly. Moving slowly eastward.

  When Nate said, “Silly,” again, she had to agree. Here they were, grown-ups and children, standing in the street like natives watching their first eclipse of the sun. A magical thing. A godlike thing. Something that was more than simply a cloud.

  “Be damned,” Todd said.

  She checked the horizon all around, didn’t see any others. Not that it mattered. One cloud had to mean there were others somewhere. One cloud had to mean the heat wave was close to breaking.

  She looked at Casey, nudged Todd, and said, “I don’t think he knows.”

  Reed heard her and called to the minister, got no reaction, and suggested a race with Dimitri to see who could reach him first.

  Dimitri shook his head, said only, “The birds are all gone.”

  Helen smiled at the boy, wanting to tousle his hair, maybe cuddle him a little, until she realized he was right.

  There were no birds.

  There was no sound.

  None at all but their suddenly hushed voices.

 
; Dimitri edged closer to Reed, who put an arm around his shoulders.

  Helen passed a finger across the back of her neck, saw Vinia Leary leave the pharmacy and walk up toward Arlo, who stood on the corner, and stepped off the curb herself, cutting across the road toward Casey.

  She felt but didn’t hear the others begin to follow.

  She felt but didn’t hear a soft hush in the air.

  She saw Moss and Mabel up the street, in front of Mabel’s store. Mabel had his arm, tugging angrily, while Moss scowled and pointed skyward.

  She saw Cora and Sonya at the top of the Crest, shirts over their bathing suits, waving to Dimitri.

  Her step quickened.

  Without any reason apprehension began a crawl across her shoulders, in her stomach; without any reason she felt like screaming Casey’s name.

  She didn’t know why he stood there so still, as if he had forgotten how to open a door.

  Nor did she know why, when she reached the foot of the church’s flagstone walk, she stopped.

  Finally, “Casey?”

  * * * *

  He turned around and saw them, saw them all, saw the cloud, and turned his back.

  They didn’t know, he thought, taking a breath, taking another; they didn’t know the cloud hadn’t cast a single shadow.

  He tossed the broom aside.

  “Reverend Chisholm? Hey, Reverend Chisholm.” It was Moss, sounding as if he were about to break a laugh.

  He felt the air move.

  “Case.” It was Todd. “Case, you okay?”

  Leaves husked and scraped like the palms of old men rubbing together.

  “Hey,” a startled voice said. It was Arlo. “Man, it’s like maybe rain, what do you think?”

  Someone answered; he didn’t know who.

  He grabbed the doorknobs, swallowed, and thought:

  This is my church.

  This is God’s church.

  You will not keep me out.

  Abruptly the breeze screamed into a high wind that filled the air with gritty dust and shriveled grass and shattered leaves and broken twigs, slamming into his side, nearly pushing him off his feet.

  He planted his feet, and glared, and yanked the doors open.

  The wind rushed inside.

  Moths—scores of them, hundreds of them—were plucked from the floor and gathered and blown outside, forcing him to turn his head and hunch his shoulders as they swirled around him, catching in his hair, slapping softly across his neck, across his face, across his eyes.

  On his lips.

  Someone cursed, and someone yelled.

  Grey smears of moth wings appeared on his chest and face; black smears of crushed moths appeared on the church walls; sunlight turned the dead moths dark as they spun and tumbled across the yard and through the air and down the hill toward the dying river.

  When they were gone, the wind calmed.

  When Casey stood and faced the others, the breeze settled and it was cool. After a stuttered step Helen ran up to him, although she stayed on the walk. “My God, Casey, what was that?”

  And the church bell rang.

  * * * *

  Cora and Sonya stopped midway down the slope when the wind came up and the church doors opened. All Cora saw was a dark cloud that briefly enveloped the minister.

  Sonya whimpered.

  “It’s okay, kid,” she said, putting a hand on the girl’s shoulder. “Don’t worry, it’s okay.”

  “Dimmy was right,” Sonya said.

  And the church bell rang.

  * * * *

  Mel heard the commotion from his reception room and yanked the door open, scowling. The heat made his cheeks feel as if they had abruptly turned to leather, and he squinted through the glare toward the crowd at the church.

  He saw the moths, saw Casey beat at them with his hands, and he couldn’t help it—he thought about the bees.

  While the church bell rang.

  * * * *

  Ozzie Gorn stood in the grease pit under Sissy Palmer’s battered army Jeep, swearing at the things he knew he couldn’t fix. A thick drop of oil landed on his forehead. He should have left this place a hundred years ago. He should have gone to his sister’s, down in South Carolina. Christ, it couldn’t be any hotter down there than it was up here.

  Another drop of oil.

  The hydraulic lift creaked, and the Jeep trembled slightly.

  Right, he thought angrily; give out and smash me, you son of a bitch.

  It creaked again.

  The church bell rang.

  * * * *

  Micah sat on his piling throne and watched the cloud ease overhead toward New York, his lips working in a silent prayer that this was a sign the drought and heat were about to end.

  The beer can just reached his lips when he heard the buzzing and saw the swarm lift from the oak. Slowly. Too slowly.

  Just as the church bell rang.

  * * * *

  A red-tail hawk stumbled in the sky.

  * * * *

  As the church bell rang.

  * * * *

  3

  1

  L

  upé sat patiently on the hillside, legs drawn up, hands lightly grasping her shins. Below, she watched a horse-drawn carriage move along a narrow road, a triangular red reflector out of place on its back. She couldn’t see the driver, but she could see a little girl in a black dress and white cap, bobbing her head as though she were singing a song.

  Lucky you, kid, she thought; I got a feeling you aren’t going to die today.

  A swarm of gnats rose from a thicket not far to her right, speckling the air.

  A footstep crackling in the dry grass warned her that Stan had finally left the car. She didn’t turn. She watched the carriage. Cows in a pasture. A pair of horses standing beneath a drooping, browning tree. Despite the drought, there was more green in this valley than she had ever seen in her life, and it amazed her. Took her breath when she tried to imagine it without all the brown.

  Nothing but green, as far as she could see.

  Stan crouched beside her, plucking at the stiff blades, saying nothing, humming to himself.

  There was a slight breeze, but it didn’t do either of them any good.

  “Something’s up,” he finally said.

  She nodded.

  Although they hadn’t been told where they were going, what they were going to do once they had left the interstate and headed north, Susan abruptly pulled off the highway shortly after mid-afternoon. Without a word she got out and fairly marched up the slope of a treeless hill. Lupé had followed soon after. Susan was gone. Lupé waited.

  “Feel’s not good.”

  She agreed.

  At first she had thought it would be like Arkansas, like Maryland, and her hands had twitched around the top of her boot, around her gun. Licking her lips. Not wondering why, not thinking, just anticipating.

  Restless.

  Eager.

  Until they stopped and Susan was gone.

  “Something’s changed.”

  She wanted him to shut up. She wasn’t blind, she wasn’t stupid, she knew all that, he didn’t have to keep telling her, for crying out loud.

  The carriage slipped into shimmering heat, a mirage fading in a semigreen desert. For a moment there was only the red triangle, hanging in the air.

  The horses left the tree for a drink in a creek that meandered through the pasture.

  She touched her thighs, and they were hot.

  “Gonna fry, gonna fry,” Stan muttered. “Gonna fry sure as hell.”