Shadows 4

by Charles L. Grant (Ed. )

  A scrawny puppy sat on the doorstep. "Poor little thing," I said, laughing in relief. "Look Jenny, it's only a puppy." I turned and found the Captain standing with both hands on Jenny's shoulders.

  "She let me in."

  I grabbed Jenny away from him and held her tightly against me. She struggled weakly and began to cry, a soft, mewling sound. "You're not welcome here," I said. I still held the screwdriver in my hand. "Get out."

  "I just want her last days to be happy ones."

  "What?" I stared at him dumbfounded until I remembered that Jenny had told everyone she had leukemia. "She's not dying; there's nothing wrong with her. Nothing!" The Captain shook his head sadly. I tried to edge away from him and backed up against the door.

  "You're not facing facts. Everyone knows she has a blood disease."

  I felt calm suddenly as my hand grasped the doorknob behind me. "You're wrong," I said quietly. "Everybody's wrong. She doesn't have leukemia. She doesn't have anything organically wrong with her. I've been to enough doctors to know."

  The Captain looked bewildered. "You can't be telling the truth," he said, but I could hear the doubt behind his words.

  "I keep telling you: she's not dying. And she can't stay a little girl forever."

  "You don't understand," he whispered and looked down at Jenny.

  "I do understand," I said, for suddenly I did. "It's her obsessive desire to remain little so she won't lose your friendship that's done this. If you want to do something for her, then get out!"

  "You don't understand," he repeated.

  "You selfish old man! Leave her alone!"

  "I made a mistake but there's no taking it back," he said slowly.

  Fear made me furious. "If you don't leave her alone, you'll never live to see another child."

  The Captain slowly shook his head. "And so it has continued since God knows when. We fear death but we easily give it to others; that's why we are so lonely."

  "You're not lonely; you're evil. The people of this town know what you are and no one would miss you."

  "I'm damned," he stated matter-of-factly, "for being afraid of death. It's the universal sin."

  "Don't give me that pseudo-Christian pious attitude!" I turned the doorknob and the Captain stepped toward Jenny.

  "You can't run from this!"

  I thrust the screwdriver at him. "Get away!"

  "You're not a murderer," he said, but he did not come any closer. When I did not respond, he took another step, smiling. I threw the screwdriver at him and ran outside, dragging Jenny with me. She was as oblivious of what was happening around her as if she were made of cloth and straw.

  "No, you can't take her away! She's mine. It's no use; give her to me!" the Captain called after me.

  By the time I realized I was heading for the beach and away from town, the Captain was already between me and the main road. By this route, the town was far away, too far away, and the beach was deserted. I thought I spotted people standing at the end of the pier and yelled for help, but there was no response. I was too far from them. We struggled to run in the sand to the pier. Twice Jenny fell and couldn't get up, and each time the Captain came closer. When I reached the pier, Jenny could go no farther. I half-carried, half-dragged her along.

  The fog was beginning to roll in, muffling the clang of the buoys and causing weird echoes of my flight down the wooden timbers. When I reached the end, there was no one there, only the shadows cast by the lights in the mist. I turned in circles like a trapped animal and began to cry. Already the fog was so thick that I could not see the shore and I had no idea where the old man was. I crouched down behind the building housing the boat winches and held Jenny in my arms. Salt mist beaded my face with dampness and I shivered. Jenny did not move. Frightened, I shook her. She frowned and rolled her head back against my shoulder. Behind me through the railing, I could see the black ocean swelling and tugging at the tangled seaweed wrapped around the pilings.

  I heard footsteps approaching and cautiously peered around the corner of the shed. The Captain stepped into a yellow circle of light and stopped. He seemed ancient in that light, older than he had ever appeared before.

  "Jenny?" he called. I placed my hand over Jenny's mouth. "Jenny?" She stirred and called out weakly despite my hand. I froze, not knowing whether or not he had heard. I could feel the boards move as the Captain walked. The movement stopped. I looked up and I was staring directly into the Captain's face.

  "It's not fair," he said. He seemed to be talking to himself. "It's not fair; only children. Why not the old ones, the evil ones?" He bent and took hold of my wrist and the touch of his cold, calloused hand made my skin crawl. I jerked away. He spoke harshly. "Accept what you can't change, woman! Let me at least get some use out of what little life is left in her!"

  I felt drained and tired. "There's nothing I can do, is there?"

  "No," he said and tried to reach past me to touch Jenny. I threw myself at him as hard as I could and he fell against the railing.

  "Don't do it," he pleaded. Off-balance, he struggled to regain his footing. "Think of yourself. 'Let him who is blameless cast the first stone.' " I pushed him once more. He balanced on the edge of the pier for a long moment, long enough for him to have called out for help and for me to have given it.

  The fog muffled the sound of his fall into the ocean. I watched as he slowly sank without a struggle, his white hair floating around him like a halo in the darkness; then he disappeared from sight. I stared at the spot where he had been until my eyes burned with tears. I turned back to Jenny. Gently, I brushed the hair from her face and kissed her cold cheek. "It's all right now, Jenny. Everything's going to be different now. You wait and see." I struggled to my feet with her in my arms. As I staggered down the pier, carrying my daughter's limp body, I thought I heard a voice from the direction I'd just come. But when I stopped to listen, there was only silence.

  Fate honored the vows Jenny and I made: she never grew older and was buried long before the Captain's body was washed ashore and interred without an investigation. And I never returned to Cuymar. I know now that the Captain lied: it is possible to get away if you leave soon enough.

  I don't have that problem, however. I have a long, full future ahead of me in my work at the hospital. And when I decide it best to move on, I'll always be able to find a job. There are not many who have the compassion, strength, and understanding to work in a children's hospital. It really is a sad job, particularly in the incurable wards, but it has its compensations.

  * * *

  It's a curious sort of stereotype: that writers of dark fantasy are gentle, shy, unassuming, self-effacing, not at all what their stories conjure in the minds of the readers. When Tabitha King isn't working on her novel, Small World (Macmillan), and when she isn't keeping her husband Steve at the grindstone and her children out of the house, she belies her lovely, wide-eyed image with pieces like this.

  * * *

  THE BLUE CHAIR by Tabitha King

  Beth drew the draperies over the window that, at that moment, offered only a fading view of the parking lot below. She sat down on the edge of the nearer of the paired beds to unstrap her sandals. Kicking them off and putting her legs up, she found herself noticing the chair by the window.

  And the more she looked at the chair, the sillier it seemed. The navy-blue upholstery not only padded the back and seat, it was drawn over the arms, which were slim, squared, and bent to the seat like an old man grasping his thighs. The straight, slim legs supporting the platform on which the seat cushion rested were footed with silvered casters that looked like the claws of some mythical, otherworldly bird of prey. And the legs of the chair had been upholstered too. They made Beth think of pants on horses.

  The chair was the touch of overdecoration that declared the room to be a rented one, duplicated in complementary or contrasting or identical colors fifty times in this hotel. The room wasn't half bad. It had been done in otherwise sure taste, witnessed by restful, predominantl
y clean lines and colors. Making the best of a box, she thought, but that didn't answer the question of why hotel decorators never seemed to know when enough was enough. No matter the valiant effort, ugliness crept in.

  Anomie will out, she decided. She wiggled her toes and massaged her feet, rubbing out the cramps and tiredness that had settled in them during the day.

  Too many hotels, she reflected, when a person begins to wallow in the philosophy of their decoration. Or too much time in the noonday sun. Which, here in Washington, seemed to beat down from seven to seven with the relentless energy of a two-year-old child, most inappropriately for such a bloody-old star. The humidity was what one might expect in August. It washed the life out of her, until she felt like a pile of bones by a desert track.

  She rose from the bed to strip and shower. It was almost worth sweating like a pig all day, for the pleasure of a long, cool shower. That was the Vermont in her. While agreeing politely with all her contacts that the heat was terrible, in her heart she knew it was blasphemous to complain of a little free warmth.

  With the water running over her in silken sheets, she contemplated her immediate future with a little more modest pleasure. Tonight, for the first time on this trip, there were no clients to entertain. Not that she minded the rituals of dining in expensive restaurants, or escorting VIPs to shows or concerts or private film screenings. It was like the sun; her Vermont heart told her she liked it too much for her own good.

  She studied her body in the full-length mirror that discreetly backed the bedroom door. Only sweating like butter left out on a summer day kept her from blowing up like a balloon, she told herself. A night away from the opulent tables of Sans Souci and Dominique's would do her body a world of good.

  This trip was a milk-run, a feverish bore. At the same time, it was what she needed to put her over the top, the culmination of three years of sweating-blood effort. Her future, a partnership come Christmas, was on order, the down payments made but nothing confirmed, nothing delivered. It was like early spring in Vermont, a time of treacherous, sucking mud, bogging down cars, ruining shoes, spattering the backs of one's legs. The mud followed one indoors, on boots and rubbers. It seemed to want to draw a body down to its own slick, idiot slapstick level. When the ice broke, the rain came, hard cold rain, but it left in its wake a warm and fragrant air that promised summer. Falsely, always falsely; one shivered in the muck, left wanting.

  But there was nothing to fear. Everything was going according to her best-laid plans. There was no reason to be apprehensive. Except, her Vermont heart answered back, that that was exactly why there was everything to fear. The odds had turned against her; she was due for a fall.

  She stuck her tongue out at herself. Executive paranoia. Too much goddamn sun.

  Wrapping herself in a thin cotton robe, she ordered a spartan meal from room service. She dropped her briefcase ceremonially on one of the narrow beds, flopped belly-down after it, took out a pencil and settled down to work. The pencil wandered to her mouth; it was a filthy habit, chewing pencils, but it seemed to help her concentrate ever since she gave up smoking. In seconds she was absorbed in the work, oblivious of the room around her.

  Abruptly, the pencil splintered in her mouth. She bit down convulsively on a foul-tasting mash of graphite, flakes of paint, and shards of wood, and into her own lip. At once the taste of her own blood overpowered the taste of the shattered pencil. She spit a bloody mess, like some obscene, machine form of granola, into her cupped palm.

  Blindly, she scrambled to snatch a tissue from the box she'd left by the window. Then she was tangled in the blue chair, slamming her shinbones into its legs and seat.

  "Goddamn!" she shouted.

  A sharp pain shot through her haunches, answering the dull complaint that burned along her tibia. Hobbling to the bathroom, she couldn't believe how quickly she had cramped. Slopping over the bed at a lazy angle plus too much concentration, she decided, and sucked at a cold, wet washcloth. The ice bucket was empty, but the tap flowed chilled enough so that by soaking the washcloth frequently, she was able to keep the lip from swelling noticeably.

  She sat down on the john and examined her legs. Ugly red patches fringed with bits of shredded skin promised variegated bruises in a day or two. That meant opaque stockings, in this Christless heat. She must have taken on that chair with some impetus. And lost her balance, lunging for the tissue, because she knew there had been a clear path between the bed, the window, and the chair when she took off her sandals. Impossible to tell now, for her clumsiness had pushed the chair well out of place. She was surprised the heavily padded chair had had bones enough to really bruise her.

  Sighing, Beth walked stiffly back to the bed, sat down on the edge and gathered up her working papers. She took a new pencil from her briefcase and set to work again, keeping the pencil gripped firmly enough to whiten her fingers, and maintaining an upright posture. In minutes, she was awash with nervous sweat, all too conscious that the symbols on the page were dissolving to incoherence before her eyes. The pencil slipped between her damp fingers, sliced a black scar across the page, and snapped insolently against the sensitive cap of her knees as it fell to the floor.

  "Jesus!"

  She dumped the lapful of papers to the carpet and kicked at it violently with her bare feet. The paper exploded upward like a flight of doves. Turning away, she threw herself on the bed and pounded the pillows with clenched fists.

  And then fury gave way to the giggles; clutching her knees to her chest, she rolled over the bed, rocking herself gently until the spasms of giggles passed, until her breathing was even. She closed her eyes tight.

  Lady, lady, she scolded herself, I don't believe this. Either tomorrow you start your period, or you need a man. Ho ho.

  She opened her eyes. The blue chair sat in its place, a few of her papers drifted on its seat and arms. There was something unnerving in its hideous indifference, the idiot serenity of a pagan idol, with the pale, bloodless bodies of its sacrificial victims cradled in its dark arms. And she didn't remember moving it back into its place at all.

  There was a knock at the door, room service with her meal. Called back to the real world, she jumped to her feet. When she had tipped the waiter and sent him away, she came back to the bedroom to scoop up her papers, re-order them, and place them neatly on the round glass dining table in the living room of her small suite, mercifully out of sight of the blue chair. It was a much better place to work; she should have realized that in the beginning.

  She was eating her salad, watching "The White Shadow" on television, when the telephone rang. She couldn't imagine who would be calling. The day's business was concluded; she could recall no social connections in the area. But she was pleased to talk to someone, anyone, and not just to relieve her solitary state. It made her feel competent, businesslike, to put aside her fork, wipe her mouth with the hotel's stylishly rough-woven linen napkin, and lean over the broad arm of the sofa to pick up the receiver.

  "Hello," she said. Her voice was modulated, but sexy in a low-key way, a nice contrast with her cool, creamy personal presence that had not hindered her career at all.

  "Beth?" It was a male voice with an upper-class Boston accent that hinted at chaste small boats on endless summer seas. It was as if she suddenly saw her own face in a mirror, as she really was.

  "Jay!" she cried, "Jay!"

  "I saw you," he said, teasing like a small boy spying on his older sister, "last night, in Sans Souci."

  "My God, why didn't you say hello? I didn't see you," she protested.

  "You were leaving when I saw you. With the two Japanese and the godfather type. I didn't want to make a nuisance of myself when you were obviously working."

  She laughed. "The godfather was a mere lobbyist, and I am permitted an occasional visit from my relatives. Anyway, you called at last, and I am glad. However did you find me?"

  "Called your home office in Chicago. I'm surprised I caught you in."

  "Me too."


  "I bet. How long have you been in town?"

  "Almost a week."

  "Well, listen, Bethie, have you had your dinner yet?"

  "Well, sort of. I'm having a spinach vinaigrette in my room. I'm not deeply attached to it. No meaningful relationship forming or anything."

  "Oh. Then come out with me, and I'll buy you a disgustingly sweet dessert. And we'll get drunk together and lay bare the secrets of our souls."

  "When and where?"

  He suggested a restaurant-night club in Georgetown that was better known for its post-dinner revels than its cuisine, the very one to which Beth had taken her pair of Japanese clients and the distinguished-looking lobbyist after they had dined at Sans Souci. She was too excited to wonder whether it was too much of a coincidence; she thanked him and promised to meet him in forty minutes.

  With glee like a small August sun in her heart, she stacked the room service dinner onto its trolley and shoved it out the door.

  She summoned up Jay's voice again, as she made up her face with subdued lighting and the smog of cigarettes and too many people in mind. She had fallen in love with his clear, clipped Boston accent about the same time she had noticed that her boy-cousin was no longer just another cousin, or another noisy, irritating little boy, but a terrifically attractive male, seemingly a hundred times more sophisticated and suave than the other boys she knew, suddenly louts and oafs and shit-kickers.

  Her own up-country Vermont twang was a violent embarrassment at fourteen. She was rid of it now, proud that she sounded satisfyingly like whatever she wanted to sound like, depending on where she was and who she was with. She could even, if she wanted to, sound like Jay, like her father and all that side of the family. Her mother had told her some years ago that now when Beth tried to talk like a Vermonter, she sounded like a tourist, putting it on.