five minutes. I got over to Amberson in ten. It was unlocked. That
was enough to settle any doubts I had left."
"What do you mean?"
"The key ring on the janitor's belt. It went with the janitor."
Dex shuddered.
"If the door had been locked--forgive me, Dex, but if you're going
to play for keeps, you ought to cover every base--there was still
time enough to get back home ahead of Wilma and burn that note.
"I went downstairs--and I kept as close to the wall going down
those stairs as I could, believe me..."
Henry stepped into the lab and glanced around. It was just as Dex
had left it. He slicked his tongue over his dry lips and then wiped
his face with his hand. His heart was thudding in his chest. Get
hold of yourself, man. One thing at a time. Don't look ahead.
The boards the janitor had pried off the crate were still stacked on
the lab table. One table over was the scatter of Charlie Gereson's
lab notes, never to be completed now. Henry took it all in, and then
pulled his own flashlight--the one he always kept in the glovebox
of his car for emergencies--from his back pocket. If this didn't
qualify as an emergency, nothing did.
He snapped it on and crossed the lab and went out the door. The
light bobbed uneasily in the dark for a moment, and then he trained
it on the floor. He didn't want to step on anything he shouldn't.
Moving slowly and cautiously, Henry moved around to the side of
the stairs and shone the light underneath. His breath paused, and
then resumed again, more slowly. Sudenly the tension and fear
were gone, and he only felt cold. The crate was under there, just as
Dex had said it was. And the janitor's ballpoint pen. And his shoes.
And Charlie Gereson's glasses.
Henry moved the light from one of these artifacts to the next
slowly, spotlighting each. Then he glanced at his watch, snapped
the flashlight off and jammed it back in his pocket. He had half an
hour. There was no time to waste.
In the janitor's closet upstairs he found buckets, heavy-duty
cleaner, rags... and gloves. No prints. He went back downstairs like
the sorcerer's apprentice, a heavy plastic bucket full of hot water
and foaming cleaner in each hand, rags draped over his shoulder.
His footfalls clacked hollowly in the stillness. He thought of Dex
saying, It sits squat and mute. And still he was cold.
He began to clean up.
"She came," Henry said. "Oh yes, she came. And she was... excited
and happy."
"What?" Dex said.
"Excited," he repeated. "She was whining and carping the way she
always did in that high, unpleasant voice, but that was just habit, I
think. All those years, Dex, the only part of me she wasn't able to
completely control, the only part she could never get completely
under her thumb, was my friendship with you. Our two drinks
while she was at class. Our chess. Our... companionship."
Dex nodded. Yes, companionship was the right word. A little light
in the darkness of loneliness. It hadn't just been the chess or the
drinks; it had been Henry's face over the board, Henry's voice
recounting how things were in his department, a bit of harmless
gossip, a laugh over something.
"So she was whining and bitching in her best 'just call me Billie'
style, but I think it was just habit. She was excited and happy, Dex.
Because she was finally going to be able to get control over the last
... little.., bit." He looked at Dex calmly. "I knew she'd come, you
see. I knew she'd want to see what kind of mess you gotten
yourself into, Dex."
"They're downstairs," Henry told Wilma. Wilma was wearing a
bright yellow sleeveless blouse and green pants that were too tight
for her. "Right downstairs." And he uttered a sudden, loud laugh.
Wilma's head whipped around and her narrow face darkened with
suspicion. "What are you laughing about?" She asked in her loud,
buzzing voice. "Your best friend gets in a scrape with a girl and
you're laughing?"
No, he shouldn't be laughing. But he couldn't help it. It was sitting
under the stairs, sitting there squat and mute, just try telling that
thing in the crate to call you Billie, Wilma--and another loud laugh
escaped him and went rolling down the dim first-floor hall like a
depth charge.
"Well, there is a funny side to it," he said, hardly aware of what he
was saying. "Wait'Il you see. You'll think--"
Her eyes, always questing, never still, dropped to his front pocket,
where he had stuffed the rubber gloves.
"What are those? Are those gloves?"
Henry began to spew words. At the same time he put his arm
around Wilma's bony shoulders and led her toward the stairs.
"Well, he's passed out, you know. He smells like a distillery. Can't
guess how much he drank. Threw up all over everything. I've been
cleaning up. Hell of an awful mess, Billie. I persuaded the girl to
stay a bit. You'll help me, won't you? This is Dex, after all."
"I don't know," she said, as they began to descend the stairs to the
basement lab. Her eyes snapped with dark glee. "I'll have to see
what the situation is. You don't know anything, that's obvious.
You're hysterical. Exactly what I would have expected."
"That's right," Henry said. They had reached the bottom of the
stairs. "Right around here. Just step right around here."
"But the lab's that way--"
"Yes... but the girl..." And he began to laugh again in great,
loonlike bursts.
"Henry, what is wrong with you?" And now that acidic contempt
was mixed with something else--something that might have been
fear.
That made Henry laugh harder. His laughter echoed and
rebounded, filling the dark basement with a sound like laughing
banshees or demons approving a particularly good jest. "The girl,
Billie," Henry said between bursts of helpless laughter. "That's
what's so funny, the girl, the girl has crawled under the stairs and
won't come out, that what's so funny, ah-heh-heh-hahahahaa--"
And now the dark kerosene of joy lit in her eyes; her lips curled up
like charring paper in what the denizens of hell might call a smile.
And Wilma whispered, "What did he do to her?"
"You can get her out," Henry babbled, leading her to the dark.
triangular, gaping maw. "I'm sure you can get her out, no trouble,
no problem." He suddenly grabbed Wilma at the nape of the neck
and the waist, forcing her down even as he pushed her into the
space under the stairs.
"What are you doing?" she screamed querulously. "What are you
doing, Henry?"
"What I should have done a long time ago," Henry said, laughing.
"Get under there, Wilma. Just tell it to call you Billie, you bitch."
She tried to turn, tried to fight him. One hand clawed for his wrist--
he saw her spade-shaped nails slice down, but they clawed only
air. "Stop it, Henry!" She cried. "Stop it right now! Stop this
foolishness! I--I'll scream!"
"Scream all you want!" he bellowed, still laugh
ing. He raised one
foot, planted it in the center of her narrow and joyless backside,
and pushed. "I'll help you, Wilma! Come on out! Wake up,
whatever you are! Wake up! Here's your dinner! Poison meat!
Wake up! Wake up!"
Wilma screamed piercingly, an inarticulate sound that was still
more rage than fear.
And then Henry heard it.
First a low whistle, the sound a man might make while working
alone without even being aware of it. Then it rose in pitch, sliding
up the scale to an earsplitting whine that was barely audible. Then
it suddenly descended again and became a growl... and then a
hoarse yammering. It was an utterly savage sound. All his married
life Henry Northrup had gone in fear of his wife, but the thing in
the crate made Wilma sound like a child doing a kindergarten
tantram. Henry had time to think: Holy God, maybe it really is a
Tasmanian devil... it's some kind of devil, anyway.
Wilma began to scream again, but this time it was a sweeter tune--
at least to the ear of Henry Northrup. It was a sound of utter terror.
Her yellow blouse flashed in the dark under the stairs, a vague
beacon. She lunged at the opening and Henry pushed her back,
using all his strength.
"Henry!" She howled. "Henreeeee!"
She came again, head first this time, like a charging bull. Henry
caught her head in both hands, feeling the tight, wiry cap of her
curls squash under his palms. He Pushed. And then, over Wilma's
shoulder, he saw something that might have been the gold-glinting
eyes of a small owl. Eyes that were infinitely cold and hateful. The
yammering became louder, reaching a crescendo. And when it
struck at Wilma, the vibration running through her body was
enough to knock him backwards.
He caught one glimpse of her face, her bulging eyes, and then she
was dragged back into the darkness. She screamed once more.Only
once.
"Just tell it to call you Billie," he whispered.
Henry Northrup drew a great, shuddering breath.
"It went on ... for quite a while," he said. After a long time, maybe
twenty minutes, the growling and the... the sounds of its feeding...
that stopped, too. And it started to whistle. Just like you said, Dex.
As if it were a happy teakettle or something. It whistled for maybe
five minutes, and then it stopped. I shone my light underneath
again. The crate had been pulled out a little way. Thre was... fresh
blood. And Wilma's purse had spilled everywhere. But it got both
of her shoes. That was something, wasn't it?"
Dex didn't answer. The room basked in sunshine. Outside, a bird
sang.
"I finished cleaning the lab," Henry resumed at last. "It took me
another forty minutes, and I almost missed a drop of blood that
was on the light globe ... saw it just as I was going out. But when I
was done, the place was as neat as a pin. Then I went out to my car
and drove across campus to the English department. It was getting
late, but I didn't feel a bit tired. In fact, Dex, I don't think I ever felt
more clear-headed in my life. There was a crate in the basement of
the English department. I flashed on that very early in your story.
Associating one monster with another, I suppose."
"What do you mean?"
"Last year when Badlinger was in England--you remember
Badlinger, don't you?"
Dex nodded. Badlinger was the man who had beaten Henry out for
the English department chair... partly because Badlinger's wife was
bright, vivacious and sociable, while Henry's wife was a shrew.
Had been a shrew.
"He was in England on sabbatical," Henry said. "Had all their
things crated and shipped back. One of them was a giant stuffed
animal. Nessie, they call it. For his kids. That bastard bought it for
his kids. I always wanted children, you know. Wilma didn't. She
said kids get in the way.
"Anyway, it came back in this gigantic wooden crate, and
Badlinger dragged it down to the English department basement
because there was no room in the garage at home, he said, but he
didn't want to throw it out because it might come in handy
someday. Meantime, our janitors were using it as a gigantic sort of
wastebasket. When it was full of trash, they'd dump it into the back
of the truck on trash day and then fill it up again.
"I think it was the crate Badlinger's damned stuffed monster came
back from England in that put the idea in my head. I began to see
how your Tasmanian devil could be gotten rid of. And that started
me thinking about something else I wanted to be rid of. That I
wanted so badly to be rid of.
"I had my keys, of course. I let myself in and went downstairs. The
crate was there. It was a big, unwieldy thing, but the janitors' dolly
was down there as well. I dumped out the little bit of trash that was
in it and got the crate onto the dolly by standing it on end. I pulled
it upstairs and wheeled it straight across the mall and back to
Amberson."
"You didn't take your car?"
"No, I left my car in my space in the English department parking
lot. I couldn't have gotten the crate in there, anyway."
For Dex, new light began to break. Henry would have been driving
his MG, of course--an elderly sportscar that Wilma had always
called Henry's toy. And if Henry had the MG, then Wilma would
have had the Scout--a jeep with a fold-down back seat. Plenty of
storage space, as the ads said.
"I didn't meet anyone," Henry said. "At this time of year--and at no
other--the campus is quite deserted. The whole thing was almost
hellishly perfect. I didn't see so much as a pair of headlights. I got
back to Amberson Hall and took Badlinger's crate downstairs. I left
it sitting on the dolly with the open end facing under the stairs.
Then I went back upstairs to the janitors' closet and got that long
pole they use to open and close the windows. They only have those
poles in the old buildings now. I went back down and got ready to
hook the crate--your Paella crate--out from under the stairs. Then I
had a bad moment. I realized the top of Badlinger's crate was gone,
you see. I'd noticed it before, but now I realized it. In my guts."
"What did you do?"
"Decided to take the chance," Henry said. "I took the window pole
and pulled the crate out. I eased it out, as if it were full of eggs. No
... as if it were full of Mason jars with nitroglycerine in them."
Dex sat up, staring at Henry. "What... what..."
Henry looked back somberly. "It was my first good look at it,
remember. It was horrible." He paused deliberately and then said it
again: "It was horrible, Dex. It was splattered with blood, some of
it seemingly grimed right into tile wood. It made me think of... do
you remember those joke boxes they used to sell? You'd push a
little lever and tile box would grind and shake, and then a pale
green hand would come out of the top and push the lever back and
snap inside again. It made me think of that.
"I pulled it out--oh
, so carefully--and I said I wouldn't look down
inside, no matter what. But I did, of course. And I saw..." His voice
dropped helplessly, seeming to lose all strength. "I saw Wilma's
face, Dex. Her face."
"Henry, don't--"
"I saw her eyes, looking up at me from that box. Her glazed eyes. I
saw something else, too. Something white. A bone, I think. And a
black something. Furry. Curled up. Whistling, too. A very low
whistle. I think it was sleeping."
"I hooked it out as far as I could, and then I just stood there
looking at it, realizing that I couldn't drive knowing that thing
could come out at any time... come out and land on the back of my
neck. So I started to look around for something--anything--to cover
the top of Badlinger's crate.
"I went into the animal husbandry room, and there were a couple
of cages big enough to hold the Paella crate, but I couldn't find the
goddamned keys. So I went upstairs and I still couldn't find
anything. I don't know how long I hunted, but there was this
continual feeling of time... slipping away. I was getting a little
crazy. Then I happened to poke into that big lecture room at the far
end of the hall--"
"Room 6?"
"Yes, I think so. They had been painting the walls. There was a big
canvas dropcloth on the floor to catch the splatters. I took it, and
then I went back downstairs, and I pushed the Paella crate into
Badlinger's crate. Carefully!... you wouldn't believe how carefully
I did it, Dex."
When the smaller crate was nested inside the larger, Henry
uncinched the straps on the English department dolly and grabbed
the end of the dropcloth. It rustled stiffly in the stillness of
Amberson Hall's basement. His breathing rustled stiffly as well.
And there was that low whistle. He kept waiting for it to pause, to
change. It didn't. He had sweated his shirt through; it was plastered
to his chest and back.
Moving carefully, refusing to hurry, he wrapped the dropcloth
around Badlinger's crate three times, then four, then five. In the
dim light shining through from the lab, Badlinger's crate now
looked mummified. Holding the seam with one splayed hand, he
wrapped first one strap around it, then the other. He cinched them
tight and then stood back a moment. He glanced at his watch. It
was just past one o'clock. A pulse beat rhythmically at his throat.
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