In her apartment, Alice Meadows shuddered too. I wonder if he's there, she thought. Oh, Jesus, is he there?
She opened a kitchen cabinet and looked in at half-empty bottles of Irish Mist, Sabra, and a nearly full fifth of Smirnoff Vodka. The sweetness of the first two at that moment repelled her, and the thought of the flavorless raw vodka was equally odious. She needed something that would hit her directly, that she could taste.
In the desk drawer she found the small stash of grass that Walter had left there a few weeks before. She had intended to return it to him, but now she rolled a joint with unpracticed fingers, lit it, and sucked in the harsh smoke. She didn't like grass, but tonight its immediacy of effect seemed more appealing than the slow-working alcohol in the kitchen. I hope it doesn't wreck my throat, she thought, and then realized it didn't matter, that Sharlaine would be more than anxious to do the role, and that Cal, the director, wouldn't mind either. He and Sharlaine had been getting it on since the second week of rehearsals, and it would be a good chance for each of them to score points with the other. The show had opened, the reviews had been good, and it was damned near sold out already. She didn't feel guilty.
When she called Penn Station she was put on hold for five minutes, but finally heard a well-modulated voice say, "Hello, thank you for calling Amtrak. May I help you?"
"Yes. I'd like to know when trains leave for Merridale, Pennsylvania."
"Oh, my God, miss." The voice slipped, and she heard the unmistakable tones of street black. "You don't really want to go there now, do you?"
Alice was surprised at first, and she almost laughed before annoyance took her. "Yes, I do. Now when do the trains leave?"
"Honey, I seen the news tonight. You really don't—"
"Listen! I want a ticket, all right? Not a lecture."
"I'm sorry, miss." There was an indecisive pause and when the woman spoke again, the voice had returned to its buttery flow, telling Alice that she would have to go to Philadelphia first, "but there will be no trains out of Philadelphia after eleven-thirty P.M. for Merridale."
The morning then, Alice thought, and jotted down the time of the New York train and the connection on the Philadelphia-Harrisburg run. Then she hung up and began to pack, planning to call Cal in the morning.
~*~
By late Friday evening, when Alice Meadows was hearing the news, the population of Merridale had increased by over 200. The majority were newsmen, but others had begun to arrive as well—out-of-town relatives, several close friends of residents, and even the first few curiosity seekers, as well as a group of four spiritualists from Philadelphia who had come to investigate for their psychic research society, which consisted of the four of them plus one other who had to work the next day. Unknown to Alice Meadows, ABC and CBS each did a half-hour special at 10:30 that evening about the situation in Merridale, one of which nearly every Merridale resident watched.
Seeing their town, their people, themselves, on prime-time television filled them with a strange mixture of dismay and delight, and most of them agreed that the treatment was fair, that the town looked good, if a bit upset, but that was only natural under the circumstances, wasn't it?
The figures themselves did not photograph well at all, and at best only faint outlines showed up on videotape and film. The townspeople were relieved by that. It was bad enough that the on-the-spot strangers could view their naked dead, let alone the whole world. ABC used artists' sketches to depict several of the less grisly specimens. CBS stuck with the unsatisfactory live footage. In Merridale's two motels, filled before dinnertime, cameramen worked late into the night trying to figure out ways to push their film into capturing the evanescent images, but even at night the best any of them got was a man-shaped blue blur, without any details or further evidences of humanity.
By that evening more residents had made up their minds to leave the town, intimidated by the media attention, but most of all by the ghosts that hovered unsmiling near them. The majority, however, decided to remain, the stubbornness of their German forebears (now clearly visible) keeping some in their homes. Others were held by something less easily defined. Had they been able to phrase it dramatically, they might have termed it a sense of destiny, of a grim and unaccountable certainty that their town, their particular spot on earth, had been chosen above all others as a great question mark at the end of life's most baffling riddle.
But instead of this motive, which would have struck them as wearily pretentious, they might have responded instead as Sim Dupes had when asked by a reporter why he was staying. "It's my home. Don't know what they are, but they ain't hurt me yet. And it's my home."
And because it was home, people remained. They put up curtains, shut up rooms, moved high bookcases and china cupboards in front of their dead. They slept in the guest rooms or on the living room sofas if their bedrooms were already occupied. Frightened children slept with frightened parents; frightened widows and widowers moved in with others of their kind so that few were alone in that dismal blueness of night. Even Evelyn Beech left her daughter's side to finally go inside with her husband. "She'll be here in the morning," Thorne told her, and she knew he was right. A few blocks away, Joe Longsdorff slept peacefully with his head cushioned on pillows in his wife's lap, dreaming that they were really together once more. And Mrs. Viola Stauffer had long since stopped walking in awe from room to room of her giant house. She sat asleep in the wing chair next to her father, her mother, and her sister, Buddie, who was as young and lovely as on that sad day more than sixty years before when the influenza struck.
In his apartment, Brad Meyers sat drinking a beer. His chair was pushed back against the wall so that he could face the television set and the apparition of the old man, both of which emanated a glow that made the room bright enough to read in. A kung fu movie was on the late show, and Brad grinned at the overdone grunts and groans that accompanied each motion of the fighters.
"Brad?" Christine called from the bedroom.
"Heh?" Brad replied gutturally, giving his voice the brash, husky quality of the film's overdubbers. "What you want, eh woman?" he mimicked.
"Will you please turn that down?"
"Heh? Why for?"
"It's keeping me awake. And Wally." The two of them were sleeping together, both scared as much by Brad's disregard for the ghosts as by the ghosts themselves.
"Shit," Brad mumbled, and then called, "So turn it down yourself!" She did not answer. "What's the matter? You want it turned down, come turn it down." Still there was no sound. "You scared?" he said. "Scared of Old Black Joe here? He won't bite. C'mon." Then he heard the bedroom door close. He shrugged, watched for another minute, then stood up and turned the volume to half of what it had been. On his way back to the chair he stopped in front of the dead man. "Joe," he said. "Your name Joe? You like that name? Okay, Joe. Joe you are."
He sat down, watched the end of the movie with Joe, then went to sleep on Wally's single bed.
At 8:30 the next morning, boing, spwang, thwack, thrubba-dubba-dubba, and clang were the first sounds to pierce his consciousness. He staggered into the hall in his underwear, but instead of the noise coming from the TV in the living room, its source was his and Christine's room right across the hall from Wally's. He kicked the door open.
Christine and Wally were sitting on the bed eating cereal and milk, watching the TV on the dressing table. "Oh, what the hell is this?" Brad yelled. "What's the TV doing in here?"
"I brought it in," Christine answered, her mouth full of Cheerios.
"Why?"
"He is not going to watch TV with that thing right beside him. It took all the guts I had just to bring the goddamn TV in here, so just don't start!"
Wally, one eye on the TV, one eye on his mother, trembled imperceptibly.
"Oh, shit, all right. Just turn it down is all. I turned it down for you guys last night, remember?" He twisted the knob so that the Roadrunner's sharp beep was barely heard, and walked back into Wally's room, throwing
himself on the bed.
"I'm not through," Christine added, following him into the tiny room and closing the door behind her.
"Oh, Christ, let me sleep."
"Sleep my ass. You think I slept last night?"
"Why not?"
"Jesus, what is wrong with you, Brad? You act like you like all this."
"Maybe I do. Old Joe's a pretty good guy."
"Well, we're leaving."
"Who's we?"
"Wally and me. You too, if you—"
"Bullshit you are."
"What do you—"
"You're not leaving, so shut up."
"You can't keep us here."
"No, but I can come after you. And you won't like it when I catch you."
She was quiet then, her jaw shaking the more she tried to hold it still. "Please," she finally said. "Please let's go."
"Please," he repeated, the anger gone from his tone. "That's more like it. More polite. That's what you should've done in the first place. Can't catch flies with vinegar, Christine. Am I right?"
"Yes."
"What do you use instead?"
"Honey." It was almost a whisper.
"Got to be nice to me, don't you. You gonna be nice?"
She nodded. "I'll be nice."
He lifted his hips and tugged off his underwear. "You show me how nice you can be and then maybe I'll be nice too, huh?"
Lacing his hands behind his head, he watched her as she shuffled to the door and opened it an inch. "Wally," she called feebly, "don't come in here for a while. . . . Wally?"
" 'Kay," he muttered, lost in the antics of Elmer Fudd, who had just shot Daffy Duck for the fourth time in two minutes.
Christine closed the door and started to unzip her jeans. "Uh-unh," said Brad. "Don't need to do that. Sing to me, bright bird. Make your throat warble. Understand?"
She did, and did as he wished. Afterward, she sat on the floor, her back resting against the bed. "Now can we leave?"
"Please?"
"Please."
Brad looked up at the ceiling, sighed, and smiled. "Evacuation of one's home is a pretty high price to pay for a blowjob."
"Brad—“
"And a second-rate blowjob at that."
"Come on, you said that—"
"You look at it one way, though, and there's no such thing as a second-rate blowjob."
"Stop it!" Christine's voice choked with rage. "You're a bastard!"
"You knew that when you moved in with me."
"I am leaving!" She began to get to her feet, but Brad reached out, grasped her arm, and pulled her across his body until her face was only inches from his own.
"And go where?" he snarled in a low voice. "Do what? You gonna be a model in New York, Chris? Or an actress in Hollywood? You gonna find yourself some rich asshole who comes twice a year and be his mistress?"
"Let go of my arm—"
"Or maybe you're too chubby for that. Maybe you could find a job as a receptionist, huh? Oh, but for that you have to be well spoken. What about a waitress, then, or a salesclerk? But for that you've got to be friendly and be able to add, and you're not so hot at either of those. What about a shoe factory, then? You know, I think you'd be perfect for that. Loading boxes in a shoe factory. And it so happens that there's a job like that. For you. Right here in Merridale."
"Stop it." She was crying now. He had made her cry.
"A job for Christine Grimes."
"I work there, I work there, that's where I work," she babbled.
"For Christine Grimes Meyers."
She stopped dead, but the tears kept gliding down her cheeks. "What?"
"I have to spell it out for you? M-e-y-e-r-s, Meyers.”
“You . . . want me to marry you?" Her eyes narrowed distrustfully.
"What's wrong? Wasn't it tender enough?" He touched her hair, let his finger run down the curve of her cheek to rest on her lips. "I give you a pretty rough time, don't I?" He asked gently, and she nodded.
"Do you . . . you really want to marry me?"
He fell back onto the bed, pulling the sheet over himself. "I don't know what I want. I just don't want you to leave, that's all. Maybe I want you to marry me."
"Now it's 'maybe’." Her tone grew sharp again. "Remember what we said when you came here," he cautioned, "No promises."
"Sure." She stood up and walked to the door.
"You're staying. Right?"
She opened the door and walked across the hall into their bedroom, where the Smurfs were working their way to the next commercial. He followed, and through the door saw her sit on the bed and pick up a bowl of soggy cereal. It was answer enough.
Then Brad walked into the living room. Joe was there. "Waiting for me, huh?" he said. He walked over to the figure and raised his hand so that his finger seemed to touch the grizzled cheek. "Don't worry, old-timer. I won't desert you.”
CHAPTER 11
"Business as usual," Beth said, hanging up the phone. "They'll have classes Monday, though Reed isn't sure if any kids'll show up or not."
"They'll be there. The ones who didn't leave." Jim Callendar sipped at his second cup of coffee. "Everybody wants to get back to normal. Did he say what the school was like?"
Beth nodded. "He and Doug Bryant and Harv Kimball visited each school in the district. Nothing in the buildings, but a few of those . . . things on the grounds." She laughed uncomfortably. "Indians, he said they looked like. You believe that? Indians."
He shook his head. "Incredible. The town is close to the old Conewago Trail. But think how many years ago that must have been."
"I can't believe any of this," Beth said, sitting across from him. "I keep thinking I'll wake up soon."
"It's no dream. Yesterday was no dream." The two of them had driven downtown around noon. It had been like something out of a Bosch landscape. Bodies littered the streets and sidewalks, only half visible in the bright sunlight. The town square had been an island of comfort in comparison, despite the worried concern etched on all the faces. Beth had talked to her acquaintances, Jim standing beside her, but the withdrawn, alien attitude that he had previously felt in the presence of the townspeople had ebbed, as though an emotion stronger than the distaste they felt toward him now somehow made them brothers. He saw Bill Gingrich across the square, talking with a group of people, all of whom carried either cameras, tape recorders, or notepads. When Gingrich noticed him, he beckoned, but Jim only waved, ignoring the summons. They had stayed in the square for nearly an hour until Beth, white-faced, returned to his side.
"Let's go," she had said. "I just want to go home."
They had spent the rest of Friday in their house, the sheer curtains in the windows admitting light but nothing else. They played cribbage, watched television (even the network interruptions that grew more frequent as the day faded), and read. Jim tried to work on some card verses, but was unable to concentrate. His thoughts were implacably on his son, and they remained there through Friday night into Saturday morning, hung poised over the strong black coffee, seemed to fill not only his mind, but the world. He had to go out to where the accident had occurred, down in the brushy hollow past which he had never driven since that day. He had to see if Terry was there. And to see how he looked.
"I'd like to drive around a bit today," he told Beth, rinsing his coffee cup in the sink.
She frowned. "Why?"
"History's being made," he answered glibly. "I'd like to see the town, see how far this thing extends."
"They've got roadblocks up now. To keep out the curiosity seekers."
"They know me," he answered, with a trace of that warped pride that she hated so. "Besides, I have identification." His mouth curled. "Want to come?"
"No. "
"You can't stay shut up forever." His urging was halfhearted, perfunctory.
"That's good, coming from you." She bit her lip. "I'm sorry."
"No, you're right."
"When are you going?"
He shrugged. "No
w," he said, and picked up the car keys.
~*~
Christ, thought Thornton, what the hell am I getting into? He looked out the window and down at the mottled patchwork of field and forest, and sighed. Clyde Thornton, Ghost Breaker. It was pretty funny at that. Of all the people in the Federal Disaster Management Agency, he gets stuck with this Merridale mess. When he'd been appointed Director for Region I he'd been delighted. Floods, hurricanes, tornadoes, sinkholes, mud slides—they were the problems of the boys in the South, the Midwest, California . . . Hell, nothing happened in the Northeast except an occasional snowstorm. Of course, there were nuclear plants, but they were everywhere, and the NRC boys could take care of anything in that department except for maybe a meltdown.
Or a bunch of ghosts.
"You're our troubleshooter, Clyde," Weinberg had told him yesterday. "I know you've been a little down because you haven't had all that much to do [Thornton had almost laughed at that], but this Merridale thing should keep you busy." Thornton had then been briefed on the phenomenon and its possible causes. There was the Thorn Hill Nuclear Station a few miles away, the management of which swore up and down and left and right that there had been no incident, no near miss or unannounced bit of sloppiness that could have released any additional radiation into Merridale's air. Norton Chemical was another possible industry source. Though thirty miles northwest of Merridale, it did some controlled dumping into the Susquehanna River, which ran four miles west of the town.
"Wait a minute," Thornton had said halfway through the briefing. "It's really a consideration that industry's at fault here?"
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