Ash Wednesday

by Chet Williamson

  There was light. Bright, radiant, blue light.

  He had fallen onto and destroyed the packing case that had been nailed to the Anchor bar floor, the packing case that Emeric Jemey had told everyone hid an old man who had died so long ago that no one even remembered who he was. But Emeric Jemey had lied. It was not an old man.

  It was a woman, young and not unattractive despite the deep patina of death that coated her features. She was on her back, legs spread wider than Brad would have believed possible, and he felt certain that whatever bound legs to hips in her was broken. Her vagina gaped roundly, as though some unseen cylinder dilated it, and her pelvis jutted upward, supported invisibly from beneath. There were scratches on her neck and large breasts, one of which seemed compressed, smaller than its companion, and as Brad looked closely he could see five round marks in the fatty tissue, and wondered if that were the hand of her killer, or of someone holding her down, or of someone who'd already had a dip and just wanted a quick feel to remember before he slunk home.

  Because her face was peaceful, he thought at first that she hadn't been forced. But the idea that she'd been willing didn't fit the broken bones, the thin scratches. Passed out, then. Oh, yes, passed out near to closing, and the good bartender and the upright burghers of Merridale unable to pass up a pass-out, and who would know? But somebody got a little rough, and somebody got a little rougher, and before they knew it the good burghers were not only rapists, but killers.

  Where did she lie now? he wondered. The bottom of the river? In some unknown grave in all the acres and acres of woods? It could have happened years ago; those who had done it might all be dead.

  And anyway, what did it matter now?

  The question was unanswerable, and he looked at the still, sad, closed eyes and stood up. "Love ya to death," he said with an angry smile. "They loved ya to death."

  He looked around in the blue light at the ruin he had made of the Anchor, and decided to leave the woman exposed for them to find in the morning. He wondered how quick Emeric and Leo would be to call the police if they had to show them that. He left by the door he had come in, closing it gently behind him. A feeling of peace swept through him as he drove home, as though the shark were fed and happy at last. Yet it had not been perfect. The woman had made it bittersweet, for she had made him remember more than he had wished to.

  It was 4:00 A.M. when Brad arrived back at his apartment. A light was on in the living room, but when he went into his and Christine's bedroom, she was not there. The bed was made. Her purse was gone.

  He opened the door of Wally's room. The boy was, as usual, buried beneath the covers, looking not so much like a sleeping child as a pile of laundry before sorting. "Hey," Brad said, but the boy did not stir. "Hey, Wally," he called louder, and a muffled response came from beneath the blankets. Brad crossed to the bed and flipped back the covers.

  The boy gave a startled gasp, and his eyes blinked open, though he remained curled fetally.

  "Where's your mother?"

  "I . . . dunno," he said sleepily.

  "What do you mean you don't know? You mean she just went out and left you alone?"

  "I guess so."

  The boy looked fragile, vulnerable, and Brad felt a sudden surge of tenderness toward this child who was not his own. He pulled the covers up to Wally's shoulders and sat on the bed next to him. "Did she say where she was going?"

  "No.

  "When did she leave?"

  "After supper."

  "She didn't put you to bed?"

  "She said I go to bed when I'm sleepy. So I did." He looked at Brad with a fearful resignation. "You mad?"

  Brad sighed. "Not at you." He put a hand on the boy's head. "I don't know if I've ever been mad at you.”

  “You hit me. Sometimes."

  "Yeah. I know."

  "You mad at me then?"

  "I'm mad, Wally. But not at you."

  "At Mommy?"

  "Sometimes. Sometimes at myself."

  The boy frowned as though the concept was too foreign for comprehension.

  "Sometimes," Brad tried to explain, "big people get mad at themselves for things they do that they shouldn't have, or maybe for things they didn't do that they should have. But when you get mad at yourself, there isn't much you can do. You can't hurt yourself, so sometimes you hurt other people. Sometimes even people you love."

  "Do you love me?"

  Brad stared expressionless at the boy. "As much," he answered finally, "as anyone."

  Wally half smiled, not fully understanding, but content just the same.

  "You go back to sleep now. I'm sorry I woke you up.”

  “ 'S'okay. G'night."

  "Good night." He closed the door and lay down in his own bedroom. Maybe he could do something with Wally tomorrow. Sledding perhaps. They could go to the five-and-ten and buy a sled, maybe one of those saucer ones. He wondered if they still made sleds like they did when he was a kid—Flexible Flyers, Snow Kings, how fast they went down Cherry Street, best street in town for sledding. A boy needed a sled.

  A boy needed a father too.

  He had never felt like a father to Wally. Even if he and Christine got married, which seemed more and more unlikely, he wondered if he could show the warmth toward the boy that he often felt but hardly ever expressed. Was it because Wally was not his own son, or did it go deeper than that? Had he, he mused, lost the capacity for love?

  He glanced at the bedside clock, then closed his eyes. It was too late for questions.

  CHAPTER 21

  Pastor Craven's sermon, delivered that Sunday morning two days before Christmas, was not one of his best. Christmas, to him, was a gentle time of birth and love, and try as he would, he could not relate that theme to the brooding reminders of death that littered the town. So he preached as though nothing out of the ordinary had ever happened in Merridale, of the promise of Christ's birth and what it meant to man. The majority of the crowded congregation found it moving and refreshing in its utter ignorance of the phenomenon. But there were those who heard nothing, whose thoughts were purely and impurely of themselves, what they had seen, had done, and would still do.

  Dave Boyer sat striving to keep his eyes open, remembering the night before and how Kim had clung to him, had done things to him she had not done before. He smiled. The backseat had seemed so long, so wide. He had never before enjoyed it in a car, but last night was different, and he played the scenario back pornographically, feeling himself harden despite the stained-glass Christs beaming down.

  Tom Markley thought about Christmas, and of how it was not going to be nearly as splashy as in previous years. No swimming pool, like last year; no car for Mim, like the year before. No, this Christmas was perfume and one nice piece of jewelry and some clothes, and even those had put him further into debt than he felt comfortable being. He wondered what he would do if the business didn't pick up, and he thought about running away and starting life somewhere else (no—too old, too fat), thought about embezzling funds from the city treasury (no—I'd get caught, and even if I got away with it, it'd be shit), thought about other ways to change things. To end things.

  Clyde Thornton sat tall and upright, the visiting pillar of this or any other community that needed his services. Within, however, he had gone jellyfish, bottomed up and boned out, the most frightened of all the frightened people in the town. He could not pay that woman, he could not—it would take away all that he had worked for, had jeopardized himself for. Bluff her, that was all. He could just bluff her. But what if she called his bluff? She had nothing to lose, while he—he had everything. But there must be some way, some way . . .

  Five rows behind Clyde Thornton, Marie Snyder sat with a Christmas smile on her face, blandly ignoring the homilies the pastor recited. She was thinking of money, of getting her own back, of freedom at long last, of a visit from a certain distinguished gentleman that very afternoon . . .

  So they sat, their faces giving no clues as to what truly lurked inside
—envy, avarice, hatred, lust—but the greatest of the sinners in his own eyes was the blasphemer who stood behind the pulpit, preaching the words, reading the book, mouthing the hymns, making the great, arcane, sweeping gestures in the air while intoning, "May the Lord watch between me and thee," and of it all believing nothing, nothing, nothing, and unable to even weep inwardly for his disbelief. He was a captain of a ship of faith on a sea whose waters were rising, pulling the vessel down. Believe and we will float! he called to his shipmates, who trusted him, did what he said. But he knew the ship would sink, even if it did float a moment longer, even if by some . . . miracle that he no longer believed in the waves closed a trifle more slowly, the waves would still come.

  He blessed them and smiled and sent them out onto the wet decks.

  ~*~

  Marie Snyder had left on her church dress when she went back to the newsstand. She had time to change, but she was anxious to return so that John Grubb could leave. He charged her $3 an hour to watch the shop when she was out, and there were plenty of times when she didn't make $3 an hour to pay him. Money from my pocket, she thought as she scurried none too carefully along the icy sidewalks. She slipped once and almost fell, then slowed down, remembering that she didn't have to hustle for quarters, not anymore.

  She had caught Clyde Thornton's eye when they all stood up to leave after the benediction, and had been amused at his reaction. He had gone positively white, had tried to smile but failed, and for a moment she felt almost sorry for him.

  John Grubb was behind the counter selling newspapers when she entered the shop. She made her way through the small crowd of men, stopped between church and Sunday dinner for their Times, their Inquirer, their Courier, their Press, and joined Grubb, a gravel-voiced, elderly man in a plaid wool shirt. "You're later'n usual," Grubb said. "I gotta get paid through eleven-thirty."

  Marie nodded agreeably and took $6 from the register. Grubb's eyes widened at the lack of argument, but he pocketed the bills and left. She sold papers steadily for the next half hour, along with cigarettes and half a dozen other items that could be purchased nowhere else on a Merridale Sunday. By 12:45 there were only a few stragglers, and at 1:00 she closed and locked the doors, pulled down the dark green shade with "Closed" stenciled on it, and counted the money in the register.

  At 1:30 a soft knock sounded at the side door. She pulled back the shade a hair to see Clyde Thornton standing hatless in a bulky coat, his head twitching back and forth like a spastic pendulum as if in fear of being seen. When she opened the door, he practically ran in. "In a hurry?" she asked.

  "I don't need anybody to see me coming in here," Clyde Thornton said. She noticed he was trembling.

  "They'd just think you got tied up and wanted your paper," she said.

  He clutched at the idea. "That's good! I'll . . . I'll take one with me when I leave."

  "Then we'd better make this fast." Marie took off her glasses and let them dangle on their chain. "Did you bring something for me?"

  "Some."

  "Some?"

  "Look"—he had his hands out to her, pleading—"what you asked for . . . it's too much. I mean, I haven't taken anywhere near that—"

  "Dr. Thornton," she interrupted, "I think you're not telling me the truth. But even if it is true, that's what I want. You'll just have to make up the difference from your own pocket."

  "But—"

  "Ten thousand dollars, Dr. Thornton."

  "It's not fair—"

  "You lie down with dogs, you get up with fleas. I don't think it's too high a price when you consider the alternative."

  The sound of Thornton's breathing filled the room. It was the heavy, labored wheezing of a man whose body is barely able to accept the charges the mind has put on it.

  "Would you like to sit down, Dr. Thornton?"

  He waved a loose hand in the air. "No . . . no." Reaching into his pocket, he pulled out a thick, white envelope, gazed at it lovingly, then handed it slowly to Marie Snyder. "It's . . . all there."

  "You won't mind if I count it, I hope."

  He stood waiting while she counted to five one hundred times and put the bills back in the envelope. "I hope you won't be careless with that," he said. "You flash all that around, people'll wonder."

  "Oh, we can't have people wondering, Dr. Thornton, and we won't. I intend to be very careful with this, don't you worry."

  "All right, then, all right. Now this means you keep your mouth shut, right?"

  "That seems only fair."

  "And you don't bother me again."

  "That shouldn't be necessary, should it?" Marie Snyder smiled, and to Clyde Thornton it was the smile of a hunter who'd just bagged a deer but wanted with all his heart to gun down a second one.

  Unseen by anyone, he left the newsstand and went back to the house, where he sat and brooded, wondering when he could expect to hear from the old woman again, wondering how much she would want next time.

  Before the sun was down, he made his decision.

  ~*~

  Marie Snyder opened her store as usual at 5:30 on Monday morning. She'd been toying with the idea of opening later, but the habit was long-standing and hard to break. Besides, she awoke early, the excitement of the previous afternoon's transaction still with her. So she dressed and lit the lights and opened the shade and sat behind the counter with a, confessions magazine and a cup of instant.

  In less than a minute the side doorbell tinkled, and a man walked in, his hat pulled down low, a muffler covering his chin and mouth. The hat went up, the scarf unwound, and she found herself looking at Clyde Thornton. She dropped her glasses and said nothing.

  "I forgot to tell you something," Thornton said breathlessly. " 'S'important." He walked up to the counter, rubbing his red cheeks with his gloved hands. "You wouldn't have another cup of that, would you?"

  She gave him a patronizing smile and turned toward the jar of instant and the hot plate on the shelf behind her. Without a moment's hesitation, Clyde Thornton leaped over the counter, grasped her thin neck with his right arm, and pulled her backward so that her back was on the counter, her legs in the air. His left hand grabbed her glasses, pulled them around, and twisted them, so that the slim, strong chain bit into her neck. She made no sound but a high-pitched hissing that expelled the small amount of air she still had in her nose and throat. Thornton's right arm held her securely while his left hand continued to twist.

  Marie Snyder's eyes seemed to grow bigger, and Thornton laughed shrilly. No customers this early," he said through gritted teeth, hoping that she could still hear him. "I remembered. You cunt. You old bitch! The only way . . . You woulda called me again, in a week, a month, you'd've fucked with me forever . . . but not now, not anymore, oh, no. No!"

  He twisted one final, impossible time so that the chain disappeared completely into the white flesh. The old woman suddenly relaxed, and bowel and bladder surrendered at once so that the air became rich with sourness. Thornton held on a moment longer, just to make sure, and when he opened his eyes that he had closed in fury, it was as though he had suddenly acquired X-ray vision, that Marie Snyder's gaunt, wasted body was visible through her blue dress.

  Blue? She was wearing white when I . . .

  He let go, leaped back, let the body slide off behind the counter so that it disappeared, yet remained, an obscene, unclothed, permanent record of murder, eyes wide, mouth stretched in an agonized grin. The thin dark line across the neck, tucking the flesh into itself, made head and torso look like two separate sections, one screwed into the other.

  Clyde Thornton shivered at the results of his handiwork. He wanted to run, but then he remembered the other thing he had come for—the money. If only I'd killed her yesterday, he thought savagely. Then I'd still have it.

  But he had not taken the opportunity when it had first been offered. He had been afraid—afraid that someone would see him entering or leaving the newsstand on a bright Sunday afternoon—and he had put it from his mind until last night, w
hen the fear of what Marie Snyder could keep doing to him was greater than his fear of killing her.

  Well, now he had killed her, and ghost or not, she was dead and couldn't do a thing to him anymore. That thin pale mouth, despite its gaping appearance on the counter, was shut for good.

  He bit his lip, pulled his gaze away from the apparition, and started to look for the money, knowing that it was futile, that he had only fifteen minutes at the most. The packet was not in the cash register or in Marie Snyder's purse. Thornton began to look on the shelves behind the merchandise, but gave that up quickly. Then he walked behind a curtain into the small storeroom and passed through that into Marie's apartment.

  It was small—a bedroom, bath, kitchen, and living room, all in somber shades of brown or dark yellow wallpaper—and he rattled through it quickly, opening and closing drawers and closets as fast as he could. He found nothing but what one would expect to find in the rooms of an old lady in Merridale. The last door he opened led to the cellar, and he ran down the stairs, sweating heavily in his warm coat, hat, and gloves.

  The cellar was empty but for an old, rusted wheelbarrow, some straw baskets, a water heater, a nearly full coal bin, and a furnace, whose air of antiquity and many branching pipes put Thornton in mind of some archetypal spider-monster crouching in wait. He turned back toward the stairs and froze.

  From above, a high tinkling sound clamored, followed by footsteps. At first the insane thought hit him that Marie Snyder was not dead, followed by the even more insane one that she was, but that her revenant had taken on form and weight and motive, and was even now moving through the storeroom, into the apartment, and that in a second he would see her framed in the box of light at the stair top and she would soar down upon him, wiry and naked, bearing him to the dirt floor with arms like thin cables, her mouth split in a deadly grin.

  But the truth hit him, terrifying him so that he staggered in fear. Someone had come into the newsstand, had seen the blue lich on the counter before Thornton could get out. The footsteps paused, and in the sudden silence Clyde Thornton damned his greed that had made him stay and look for the money, that had made him take it in the first place. "Jesus, oh, Jesus," he muttered, looking about for an escape route.