by Jack Martin
But I will know. I will always know. The responsibility was mine—he was my patient—but I gave up and tried to sleep it off. I tried to let go of everything last night.
But it wouldn’t go away.
He waited as sounds of the hospital’s normal routine began again beyond the walls of the room. Bells chimed, breakfast carts rolled past the door, rubber soles screaked on clean tiles, a maintenance crew clanked and tapped to restore full power to the facility. Cars and an ambulance came and went, a force of trucks roared past on the road with air brakes wheezing through the intersection. Morning returned, inside and outside. And still he waited.
When he had memorized every detail of the room, when he had recorded every surface and angle, every object from corner to corner to satisfy himself that nothing, nothing was out of the ordinary—nothing except the blood—only then did he leave the room.
He did not know where to go next.
Think, he told himself, think!
There must be an answer. Somewhere. There must be . . .
He opened the door.
He passed offices, the staff lounge. The warm aroma of coffee was only slightly reassuring. Crisp uniforms and scrubbed faces hurried past with charts and trays and equipment; stethoscopes dangled from necks like awakening serpents. Wordlessly he acknowledged a nurse with lipstick on her teeth and moved on.
At the main desk the bloodshot eyes of phone lines blinked restlessly. A manila folder with a message clipped to it was waiting in his box.
Not yet, he told himself, and headed for his office.
But before he could get there, at the junction to the service elevator and the fire door, he spotted a young woman. She was not wearing a uniform. She was alone with herself in the corridor.
She was braced against the wall, her body all angles and her face buried in her hands. Her hair had come undone and black curls spilled through her fingers as she held her shaking head. She was partially concealed behind the water cooler, as if she had gone that far and could go no farther and so had taken refuge there.
It was Grimbridge’s daughter.
As he approached he heard her sobbing. Her teeth were clenched but she could not hold the sound in.
He knew that she would not want anyone to see her like that.
He wanted to help her. But he did not know where to begin.
The third time he saw Ellie Grimbridge was at her father’s funeral.
He was supposed to meet Linda at the bank to cosign their income tax refund check from last year. He phoned the house and told her he was on call but that he would meet her on his lunch break the following day. She breathed into the phone and accused him of forgetting the children’s food allowance for the week. Then she informed him that her car was not running satisfactorily. He did not argue. When she had calmed down she announced that without four new tires she would not be able to drive the kids to school. He told her to put the tires on his credit card and promised to put the missing check in the mail that afternoon. He wrote out the check while they were talking. He told her that. Before he could say anything else, she hung up.
The service was at Dry Lawn Acres. It occurred to him to send flowers. There were plenty already there. It was a simple ceremony with no eulogy and only a few families but lots of young children in attendance. Ellie Grimbridge came alone. He saw her get out of her car and walk up the hill unassisted. She was not wearing black, but somehow that seemed all right.
From the other side of the plot, a distance of no more than twenty feet, her features were so faint they almost disappeared like carbon-paper tracings under the veil. Her tiny, perfect mouth did not move, not even to thank those few who pressed her hand with condolences. She could only nod to them.
No one wept, not even Ellie. He had the impression that there were no other close relatives in attendance. Once he caught her looking at him with those oversized eyes, but she made no attempt to speak.
I know what you’re thinking, he thought. I don’t know what I’m doing here, either.
They walked back to their own cars and drove away without a word.
The day after the funeral he had bourbon for breakfast.
The bar was dank, the air stale, the glasses not yet washed and reracked from the night before. Challis had been there when the bar closed, and now he was opening it. Charlie the bartender never failed. He kept regular hours, too.
A Saturday morning cartoon show was in progress on the TV set above the mirror. Two-dimensional animals with powers no animal on earth has ever needed were battling it out in a nonviolent war, accompanied by the same kind of synthesized sound effects Challis had heard from the electronic arcade game in the corner the night before. Man against machine, he thought. That’s the new battleground.
Onscreen, cutout characters indistinguishable one from another jerked across artificial landscapes as devoid of life as the inside of an autoclave. Chartreuse invaders attacking a dog wearing a space helmet, for instance; that sort of thing.
“That’s great,” said Challis into his drink.
“What is?” asked Charlie the bartender. He sauntered over, drying a glass.
“My kids are probably watching this right now.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah. What kind of a warped idea of life are they going to get from shit like that?”
“Beats the news,” said Charlie. “Wars, murders . . .”
“Does it, Charlie?”
Charlie propped his beer belly on the stainless steel sink and rewashed the glass. There was lipstick on the rim.
“Pour me another one.”
“Help yourself.”
“That’s not real life.”
“Right,” said Charlie. “My niece’s kid, he sees the Four O’clock News, the Six O’Clock News, the Ten O’Clock News, every kind of news there is. I’m waitin’ for him to blow some kid away on the playground one of these days.”
“Unh-uh,” said Challis, shaking his head.
“I tell her not to let him watch all that crap, but you can’t protect ’em. It’s in the movies now, all over the TV—”
“No. I don’t think so. Telling the truth isn’t the same thing as advocacy.”
“What?”
“Kids understand the difference.”
“I’m not so sure about that.”
“Well, I am. Did real life, wars, all that stuff we went through turn you and me into maniacs, Charlie?”
“Well . . .”
“I say this is what’s dangerous. Animals in space, Big Bird, Scrubbing Bubbles fighting the Dirt Monster—nobody gets hurt no matter what.”
“So?”
“We’re afraid to let them grow up. At least that’s the way it seems to me. What do you think’s going to happen the first time somebody takes a swing, tries to mug ’em in the bathroom at Chuck E. Cheese’s? Their Super Friends with Super Powers won’t be enough. And they’ll get their little asses kicked around the block. Or worse.”
Challis ran out of breath. He saw his own face reflected in the bourbon. It was bent out of shape, almost unrecognizable.
“I think I see what you mean,” said Charlie. He didn’t, but that was all right, too.
Challis filtered another shot of bourbon through his teeth.
“Let ’em see what’s really there. Otherwise they won’t know until it’s too late. They think the world is a game. It isn’t. Or if it is, somebody’s been keeping the rules a secret for a hell of a long time.”
“Can’t argue with you there, pardner,” said Charlie.
I’d tell my Willie about it, the danger, thought Challis. If I ever got to see him. Who knows what his mother is filling his head with? Money that arrives in the mailbox every week no matter what, food that no one has to earn, presents that come king-sized whether you deserve them or not.
Linda’s living in a dream world, he thought, the same as they are. How can I blame them for being spoiled? I can’t. Not me.
He squinted up at the TV without hope. An
animated leprechaun was skipping through clover, singing the virtues of sugar for breakfast that was sold in the shape of good-luck charms. Challis winced.
“Hey, Charlie. How about another channel?”
Nobody was watching it. There was nobody else in the place. Charlie shrugged and flipped the selector.
Channel 4. A network preview faded in.
A long-legged girl with good bones and a lingering tomboy disposition was crossing a tree-lined street. It looked very much like Sierra Mesa; in fact it might have been filmed here, thought Challis. Except for the quick flash of a palm tree on the horizon, it could be the Midwest. Illinois, say. Bradbury country, if he remembered his high-school English. A repetitious but properly nerve-wracking piano melody tinkled on the soundtrack.
“HALLOWEEN!” intoned a hyperstimulated announcer. “THE SPECIAL FEATURE ON OUR VERY SPECIAL HALLOWEEN NIGHT HORRORTHON!”
The preview cut to another shot of the long-legged girl, now flanked by two of her friends, walking home from school in a typical middle-class neighborhood.
“. . . Totally insane!” prattled the foxy-looking girl on the left. “We have three new cheers to learn in the morning, the game in the afternoon, I get my hair done at five, and the dance is at eight. I’ll be totally wiped out!”
Damn totally straight, thought Challis, sipping slowly.
The girl on the right made a derisive comment. Dark, New York, sarcastic passing for witty. A real ballbreaker. Hmm, he thought. I know the type well. Reminds me a little bit of old Linda. I’ll bet that’s what she was like at that age. Always on hand with the right remark to shoot down anybody in sight.
Just then the long-legged girl stopped dead in her tracks.
Cut to her point of view.
A tall shape blocking the sidewalk ahead. Silent and evil-looking. Some kind of mask on his face.
The announcer’s voice:
“STARTING AT TWELVE NOON WITH SUCH CLASSICS AS THE CREEPING UNKNOWN, ENEMY FROM SPACE AND FIVE MILLION YEARS TO EARTH! CLIMAXING WITH THAT BLOODCURDLING CLASSIC, HALLOWEEN, THE MOVIE GENE SHALIT SAYS STOOD HIS HAIR ON END! AND ALL BROUGHT TO YOU WITHOUT INTERRUPTION BY . . .”
“Charlie,” groaned Challis.
The familiar tones of the commercial followed.
“TWO MORE DAYS TO HALLOWEEN, HALLOWEEN, HALLOWEEN . . .”
“Come on, Charlie!”
“Whatsamatter? Don’t you have any holiday spirit?”
“No.”
Charlie kept flipping till he found a football game. He nodded with satisfaction, drew himself a beer, whipped off his apron and settled down to watch.
The door to the bar opened a sliver. Challis tried to ignore the glare from outside. After a minute he couldn’t; it was blanking out the TV. He swiveled on his stool.
And saw who it was.
Standing there, sunlight coruscating through her hair and almost blacking in her features, was Ellie Grimbridge.
She let the door close. She came right over to him. She was considerably more relaxed than the last time he had seen her, and her eyes were stopped down to a more realistic size. She’s had some sleep, thought Challis. I wonder who gave her the pills?
“Hi,” she said.
“Hello.”
“My name’s Ellie Grimbridge.”
“I know.” He tipped his glass to her. “Dan Challis.”
“I know.” Challis felt a cool breeze touch his face as she sat next to him. She smelled good. Clean. He wasn’t surprised. “One of the nurses told me where I could find you,” she said.
“Ah. Probably Agnes.” I shouldn’t have had that last drink, he thought. I can’t seem to keep her centered. She must be sitting awfully close. But I sure can smell her. Thank God for small favors. “I like Agnes,” he said, feeling dizzy. He couldn’t think of anything clever to say.
She looked down. I scared her off, he thought. Or my breath did. Now she’s going to think even less of me than she did before, if she even thought of me at all. She must think I’m utterly useless.
But she came here.
Challis made a herculean effort to pull himself together.
“I’m sorry about your father. I thought about calling or sending flowers or something. But I figured you’d rather be left alone.”
“You figured right.” She took a deep breath. “Thanks for coming to the funeral.”
Thanks for noticing, he thought. But how can you thank me? I’m the one who let—
“You do this every Saturday morning?”
“No,” he said immediately. She was slipping in and out of a demure, businesslike tone and a more personal, friendly one. Working quickly through the levels. What does she want? Whatever it is, I owe her. I owe myself. Press it. Cut through all this to what’s really going on.
“This,” he said, “is a special occasion. I’m supposed to—” Why was he hedging? “To go pick up my kids. In a little while. We’re going bowling. Then to the Fun Factory. One hundred and fifty video games in a relatively small room.”
It was the best he could do. Jesus Christ, he thought, she’s exquisite. Then: What am I thinking? That’s disgusting. She probably thinks you’re an old man—she’s going to start calling you sir any minute. Then: Relax, you poor son of a bitch. You haven’t been out in the real world for a while, have you?
Be serious. She’s got a problem and she wants your help. She didn’t come down here to say thanks; she could have done that with a card. As if she had anything to thank you for. And her problem is your problem, isn’t it? Isn’t it? One and the same.
How to begin?
“One more, Charlie.”
The bartender tore himself away from the football game. “Yo, boss.”
Challis said to her, “Get you one?”
“No, thanks.” There was something on her mind, all right. “Did—did my father say anything to you the night he died?”
Charlie poured the drink. Challis studied it.
He measured his words. “Yeah. He said, ‘Tell Ellie I love her.’ ”
He glanced over to see if she believed him. She clearly did not. But now her lips were trembling.
“You’re a bad liar,” she said softly. She rose shakily, holding herself together with visible effort. Challis was suddenly and overwhelmingly moved by her effort. “But thanks anyway.”
“Listen,” he said without pretense, as straight as he knew how. The bourbon helped. “I guess you have a right to know the truth.”
She can take it, he thought. Somehow he was absolutely sure of it.
“I hate to tell you this, but your old man was out of his mind. He was delirious. They found him wandering in the rain with a Halloween mask in his hand.”
That last remark brought the wildness to her eyes again. Instantly he regretted it. But before he could say anything more, she bit her lip and made up her mind.
“Can I show you something?” she asked.
SOMETHING
STRANGE
IN
SANTA MIRA
C H A P T E R
5
“Papa really loved this place. But business was getting bad . . . I suppose you shopped at the new mall like everybody else.”
Ellie keyed the lock and shook back the door to her father’s store.
Challis gave a last look to the street before entering. At the end of the block a tangle of bicycles blocked the cracked sidewalk and the voices of unseen children cried out from between sere oak trees. Though he knew it to be midday, he had the overriding impression that the sun was about to set.
He felt nebulously guilty, a trespasser in a special place that by rights belonged only to the neighborhood. It was an isolated area, apparently peopled exclusively by the very old and the very young, where trees planted before the town had a name continued steadfastly to shade their own against the onslaught of time and city planners.
On streets such as this one it always seemed to be turning late in the year.
Challis followed her inside.
“He was thinking about closing down. His last letter was all about it. That was three weeks ago. He wasn’t out of his mind then.”
“I believe you,” said Challis.
He gave his eyes a chance to adjust.
It was what in his childhood would have been called a general store. Along one wall was a rack of aging sports equipment, including softball bats, volleyballs and tennis shoes. Next to that, a row of bicycle tires and limp inner tubes and handlebar reflectors that held him like flies’ eyes as he passed. Tools, appliances, even clothes, everything catalogued and laid out in some arcane order.
And toys. Lots of toys.
Ellie trailed her fingers familiarly over the displays, picking up dust which she examined dispassionately before wiping her hands. She led him in a straight line to the antique register and an old-fashioned, leather-cornered ledger.
“The kids were keeping him going. They’d come in after school. He let them play with the stuff right in the aisles . . . like I used to do when I was little.” A smile as fleeting as a summer’s day played at the corners of her mouth.
“Then, later, he never wanted me to come here. In case I found him not doing anything, just sitting there, doodling.”
She scanned a page of the ledger.
“Candy, gum, two bicycles, a basketball, a few baseballs, toys. It’s all here.” Her eyes sparked at him. “He kept pretty good records for a crazy man, Doctor.”
That got to him.
“I’m sorry about the comment,” he said.
Perhaps I should go. I’m not doing her any good. This is her world. I didn’t even know the man. What more can I possibly do to make what happened any easier?
“It’s all right,” she said, shifting her tone back to neutral. He marveled at her self-control. “I did want to show you something.”
Beyond a shaft of golden sunlight at the front door, a dog barked at the clacking of roller skates. Unhurried cars cut through the autumn air, ignoring the storefront as if it were not there. The air sharpened around him. It was made up of millions of fine particles as clearly defined now as bits of crushed glass held in suspension on the mixture of scents that was October.