[Oxrun Station] The Last Call of Mourning

by Charles L. Grant

  A slow and deep breath that nearly caused a fainting, and she got into her car and drove off toward the park. The steering wheel was cold, the windshield lightly fogged until she snapped on the blower; she felt as if she were in an alien machine, not the familiar steel friend that had brought her so much joy, had driven her into so much trouble—the green glow of the dash outlined her knuckles, made luminescent her coat, and as she turned the corner slowly onto Park Street she half-expected the moon to drift by as she settled into orbit.

  Why? she asked herself. She was sure there must be a law she had broken in reporting Angus' death and not staying until the police arrived; and she was just as sure that by staying she would have defeated whatever purpose had been growing in her mind. To stay in that house—to stand in the living room while Angus lay dead on his bed—an image of his crumbling face floated beyond the windshield and she swerved sharply, bounced off the curb and found herself crossing the Pike, still heading north with the woods on her right and the Oxrun Memorial Park sweeping off to the left.

  Why hadn't she stayed?

  She felt no sense of danger, nothing like that at all. Not even the thought that someone had been watching her from the house before she'd entered bothered her now. It was only one more curiosity to add to the rest, and she had so many of them now that one more made no difference. Another grain of sand thrown onto the beach, another drop in the ocean—what difference did it make when she could make little sense of those things she had?

  She reached out and punched the car lighter into its recess, waited, and when it snapped out pulled it free before she realized with a grin that she hadn't had a cigarette for at least a month. The need was there, but other matters overrode it. The orange glare of the coils faded as she watched them from the corner of her eye—like an ember drifting away from a fire, she thought; like—

  Fire.

  And Miss Yarrow . . . next time please throw out all your trash right away, okay? Stick it outside in back, in one of those dumpsters or a metal container.

  When she and Ed had left the store after the firemen had left, she locked the back door.

  She shouldn't have had to; she had done it when she had left. And the lamp was almost brand new—she had bought it in Spain.

  She pulled over to the side of the road, set the emergency brake without switching off the engine. Warm air billowed from the heater under the dashboard, but she rolled the window down to let in the cold.

  I knew it, she thought.

  Fire. And the Greybeast—why had it stopped chasing her when it had gotten so close?

  Fire. And the Greybeast—if she were the target, then why had it chased Ed? Why had it forced him off the road?

  Because whoever was after her had not wanted her dead—that much had been apparent since the very beginning. And whoever was after her wanted her alone. Alone. With Ed gone now, his spirit somehow broken by the stand-off with death, she had no one but herself to fight her battles for her.

  And it wasn't the store. She had had several ideas that there were other merchants involved— jealousy, rivalry, some complicated insurance fraud, something, anything , to keep her from opening. But if that had been true, then the Lennons and Sandy would not have been spared. Their work for her was not a secret, they could have been reached at any time since that first day.

  It wasn't the store.

  It was her. Nothing more.

  With a slap to the wheel she thought she'd found the purloined letter. Like the nose on her face it was right there in front of her, seen only at angles, never recognized except in mirrors as something that was whole.

  She looked up and saw her face in the windshield: "You're a fool, Cyd Yarrow."

  The reflection nodded.

  Snapping off the brake, then, she made a sharp U-turn and returned to the Pike, headed east past her home until she reached the spot where she thought the Greybeast had been waiting.

  Neither Iris nor Paul had ever heard of the Clinic.

  Sandy, did your grandfather ever work for Dr. Kraylin, out on the Pike?

  Who?

  One in Hartford, New York, and Bridgton, Maine.

  Her headlights were dim. She pulled off to the side and took the handkerchief from her pocket, climbed out and wiped the dirt from the thick glass. Back inside she waited until the night-cold had left her before easing out onto the road again, staring into the darkness on the left until she had reached the Pike's end.

  There had been no sign, no paved drive, not one thing that she could see that proved the Clinic's existence.

  She turned around and headed back, the car moving at just above a fast walk. With her left hand she held onto the wheel while her right supported her on the seat as she leaned close to the passenger door and stared out the window. Shaking her head slowly.

  Lies built on lies.

  She saw it.

  Less than a hundred yards past where the fields ended and the hill-forest began there was a break in the tall brown weeds and thickets that served as a base for the wall of trees. The shoulder of the road was level here, without ditch or burrow to interrupt it, and it was graveled with small multi-colored stones to hide any tire tracks the Greybeast might have made. She pulled off to the side, as close to the shrubbery as she could, wincing as the winter-stripped branches scratched like iron against the paint. The headlights died. The green dashglow faded. And after the blower's whine had been cut off, the silence was too loud for her to take without shuddering.

  Shop fire, bird flight, Greybeast racing.

  She retreated back to her cinema world, found comfort there in scenes from films long gone, from titles long forgotten—she was dressed in white, edged in black, and the authorities had given her ten hours to leave town.

  Get out of Oxrun, Cyd, before it's too late.

  She sighed several times in melancholy rage— whoever among her family had thought she would run had not counted on her trip to make her restless, had not counted on the shop to give her an anchor. Perhaps he/she/they had thought she would fall madly in love with Ed Grange, and would prevail upon him to take her away from the Station and its madness; or she would drag him herself as she continued introspection.

  Mother and her matchmaking, Father and his impatience, Evan trying to be so subtle it was like throwing flaming bricks. Only Rob of the four seemed to hold himself neutral, like an umpire seated above the arena while silent battles were waged, raged, flung dust into blindness. Only Rob knew his sister was something more than just a sibling, something more than just offspring.

  Only Rob understood that his sister was alive.

  All right, she told herself, so they were mistaken, okay? So they didn't count on the shop to act the way it did. So what? What good, my girl, is knowing that going to do you?

  Reason then tried to convince her she should stay in the car, turn on the ignition again an drive into the Station. Park on Chancellor Avenue in front of the police station and sit on the desk sergeant until Abe Stockton was brought back to his office. While there she could call Ed to see if he were feeling better— he really should be in on this, you know, she told herself; after all, the Greybeast got him where it failed with you.

  But why Ed?

  Why Ed?

  Making sure her coat was buttoned to the throat, she slipped outside and waited, letting the cold work on her until she was sure she would handle it. Then she began to walk back to the hidden drive, stopped at the rear bumper and with a second thought, opened the trunk to see if she could find herself some kind of weapon. The thought of it was abhorrent, but there was nothing else for it; if she was stupid enough to want to foray on her own, she was not all that stupid that she would do it without defense.

  The dim light buried in the trunk lid was less than useless as she rummaged through the junk she had piled in here over the years, always planning to clean it all out and never quite able to bring herself to it. Finally, with a dry grunt of disgust, she unscrewed the butterfly nut that fastened down the tire w
rench rod, hefted it with a wry grin and slammed the lid down after unearthing a flashlight.

  Remembering to keep the light aimed only at a slight angle ahead of her, then, she stepped out more quickly, watching for traps that would turn an ankle, for signs that the narrow path's entrance was rigged with warning devices. She found nothing, however, once she had reached the spot, and with a last look at the car she vanished into the woods.

  Walking.

  Trying not to whistle, trying not to hear the empty sound of her footsteps.

  With detached curiosity she noted that the path was barely wide enough for a single car, that once off the Pike and beyond the thickets' wall there were ruts worn into the ground to mark a long time of passage. What grass there was had been stained dark with dripping oil, or had been scorched by the heat of a waiting, patient engine. There was no fence that she could see when she darted the flashlight up and to one side every ten or so paces, nor was there a ubiquitous New England stone wall.

  There was no wind.

  Nothing moved except her.

  And in moving—and resisting the urge to move faster—she wondered why Kraylin had issued his dinner invitation. She almost laughed. No matter what foolish things he and her family had done, Kraylin was no fool in his estimation of her: He knew how he repulsed her, and she was sure that each of their meetings had been orchestrated by him to reinforce that impression. Had he presented his card on a solid gold tray, he knew she would have taken it, and later shredded it with pleasure. The invitation was for show only, so he could report to her mother that the gesture had been made, but please don't be too disappointed when she does not show up.

  At that moment she would have given half of her shop and all of her stock to have an instant picture camera for a record of his expression, the look on his face when she knocked on his door.

  The path began to veer to the right; several puddles from the last rain were still in the hollows, but sheathed now in thin ice that threw back her light in segmented fires. She began to look ahead for some hints of habitation, saw none and frowned, and hoped her walk wouldn't be long. Her shoes were adequate, but no more than that; had she been thinking instead of scheming, using her head instead of her heart, she would have stopped at the house to change into her jeans and the boots. As it was, stiff weeds and dead branches scraped along her coat, every so often slipping under the hem to dig at her legs. Reflex made her kick out each time it happened, until she realized that she was doing it too often, it was making her tired.

  She walked.

  And the cold settled tautly on chin, cheeks, ears, nape—drawing the skin tight in preparation for chapping. It crept beneath her collar to work on her spine, wrapped about her joints to slow and to prick her. The coat grew heavy. The collar she had raised to protect what it could seemed to have sprouted needles that rubbed her skin raw. Her hair felt like straw, though she did not touch it; her lips felt like cardboard, as though a lick would send them bleeding.

  She knew that much of the discomfort that attacked her now was suggestive—her mind telling her how she should feel and she felt it, whether it was true or not. She knew this was so, but she could not help the lengthening of her stride, growing careless of the traps that the dark had set for her. The flashlight began to swing with her arm, and she spent less time watching where her feet could fall silent, more time staring through the woods up ahead.

  Time became elastic.

  She tried counting seconds by thousands, by the beat of her walking, finally admitting she had no idea how long she had been gone from the Pike.

  Her teeth began chattering.

  Once, as she entered a switchback portion of the path, she thought she heard wings hovering above her; and the flashlight lanced upward, dying before it could reach the first star.

  But there was no moon; or none that she could see.

  Yet something was slowly giving light to the forest, so slowly she did not notice until she'd stumbled, fallen, the flashlight jarred from her hand and extinguished against a rock. Then there were the trees, vague and disturbing, real and not real as they took on death's pallor. Shadows moved without wind, things rustled without movement . . . things . . . without movement; shadows . . . without wind. Things, and shadows, until she grabbed frantically for the flashlight and shook it until it glowed. Then she knelt on her haunches and sobbed her relief.

  . . . worked for Dr. Kraylin, out on the Pike.

  Who?

  . . . worked for Dr. Kraylin . . .

  Who?

  Never asked if I heard of it. Just asked me if he worked there.

  The path ended so abruptly Cyd didn't realize she was out of the trees for nearly a full minute. Suddenly the weight of a clearing, the weight of the sky pressed down and alarmed her. Without thinking she snapped off the light and stood there dumbly, feeling as if she had just stepped out of the ocean onto an island, an island where the state of Connecticut should have been.

  She was standing on a lawn that, in the afterglow of the light, was a brilliant spring green, too green for the month and the cold in the air. She had an impression of a garden off to her left, another to her right at the edge of the woodland, and an impression she knew had to be wrong that there were flowers still blooming, blossoms that should have been done by the end of the summer. A step forward, and she slipped, dropped to one knee and rubbed at her shin—a stump, and she cursed, stared through the faint moonglow, it had just topped the trees, and saw the lawn dotted with others just as low. Her eyes watered with her squinting, the tears warm on her cheeks, and she let them run for a few moments before taking her sleeve to them.

  Another minute of crouching, of waiting, of feeling the cold, and directly ahead formed the vague shape of a building—low, a single story, flat-roofed and clapboard. From where she knelt she couldn't make out a porch, steps or a window. But when she rose and moved several yards to her left she could see the haze of a light spilling onto the grass at the back; and the house was far larger than the bulk it gained from the moon.

  "Good Lord," she whispered.

  And again caution warned her to head back to the road, to Ed or the police, not to try this alone.

  And again was her rage at the lying and condescension.

  She pushed the flashlight into her pocket and hurried over the grass, angling away from the near corner of the building, trying to stay in the shadows of the trees that surrounded. As she did, she passed by one of the gardens and nearly stopped in her surprise—she'd been right, there were blossoms, though she didn't know their names. She touched at one as she passed it, drew her hand back at the cold, not bothering to attempt a speculation of the impossible. It was here; she saw it; for the moment it would have to do.

  Even, then, with the back wall of the building, she began to move toward it, her ears straining through the silence for the sounds of discovery, her eyes pushing at the darkness to drive it away. Her head began a throbbing. Her left hand started to ache. The minor scratches on her leg began to grow in slow fire.

  The corner. She pressed against the wall, peered around to the light and saw a window that stretched from floor to ceiling and was at least fifteen feet from one side to the other. On the lawn were shadow figures, two of them pacing, elongated, grotesque, and she could not help staring until, finally, she shook herself violently and told herself to move.

  Gretel returns to the wicked witch's place, she thought as she lowered herself into a crouch and eased up to the sill. And Hansel sits home with a damned bandage on his head.

  It was her nerves that made her giddy, made her think in nursery rhymes; but she was grateful for the madness because it kept her from running.

  Caution doubly excited. There were no drapes, no curtains, no blinds on this window, and from the angle she could see into the house she spotted the two men: Kraylin, and a shadow. The single light in the vast room—she assumed it made up most of the building—came from a lamp not five feet from her hand, as though it had been encased in clear gl
ass and would glow there forever.

  She dropped lower.

  Kraylin and the shadow moved into shadow.

  She looked behind her, to either side, waited a bit longer before raising her gaze to the level of the sill.

  There were three hospital gurneys set head-on against the far wall. On them she could make out the forms of three people covered with white sheets. Two of them were too dim for her to identify, but the third . . .

  Kraylin turned and stepped out of the shadow.

  14

  Cyd scrambled away so quickly, fell against the house so hard, she was positive the noise could be heard all the way into the village. But there was no sign of immediate pursuit, no cry of discovery as she leaned against the winter-cold wood and tried to find the air to fill her lungs. Her left hand ached, and it was several moments before she looked down and realized she was still gripping the tire wrench so tightly a cramp began to stir at the top of her wrist. She forced herself to relax, to let the iron hang limply in her fingers, and soon enough the pain eased.

  An afterimage remained:

  The room was nearly twenty feet deep, easily twice that long. The interior walls were fashioned of rough-hewn stone, the ceiling the same with squared and thick posts in its center to support the weight. The flooring was pegged and bare, with islands of scuff marks in the midst of gleaming polish. The single standing lamp by the window had been made of brass, she thought, with a shade of some dark red material from which hung a similarly tinted fringe. She tried to hold the image, thought she had seen through the shadows at the far end— the shadows from which Kraylin had emerged— the outline of a door. She could not be sure.

  Only the lamp and the gurneys, and Kraylin walking around them.