In his garage.
His heart suddenly pounded hot spikes of pain up the back of his neck and into his head.
He was curled on his side, the coffin near enough to touch.
Oh, Jesus H. Christ!
Turning his face away from the coffin, he bolted up. The pain in his head brought tears to his eyes. As he staggered backward, his bare foot landed in a mat of vomit. It flew out from under him. His bare rump smacked the garage floor.
Sitting there, he clutched his head with both hands and blinked his eyes clear.
He saw that he was naked.
He saw that the blanket heaped on the floor near the coffin, the one he had used to cover himself, was the same old brown blanket that had shrouded the corpse.
It was on me! Touching me!
A whiny noise started coming from him. He slapped a hand across his mouth and gazed down at himself. Nothing on his skin.
What’d you expect? he thought. Cooties?
“Oh Jesus,” he said, his voice coming out high and girlish.
He moved his left foot out of the glop and stood up.
The withered cadaver was still inside the coffin, the stake still in its chest. Thank God.
At least he hadn’t pulled the stake.
What hadhe done? What was he doing here?
He didn’t know. But he knew that he had to get out. He had to shower, and fast, to rid himself of the horrible crawly feeling left by the blanket.
His left foot was caked with vomit. Not wanting to spread the mess, he hopped through the cluttered garage until he reached the side door. It was open. The sunlight made his eyes ache. Squinting, he held onto the door frame. From the coolness of the air he guessed it was still early morning. Maybe seven o’clock.
What day? He struggled to concentrate. Saturday night was when he got himself bombed. So this was Sunday.
It sure better be, he thought.
Jean and Lane shouldn’t be home till tonight.
What if they came home early?
What if this is Monday?
Shit, he thought. You’ve got enough problems without inventing more. If they were home, they would’ve found me.
Naked in the garage with a goddamn corpse.
That would’ve been... don’t think about it. Didn’t happen.
The yard was fenced, so at least he had some privacy.
He hopped across the walkway. When he reached the lawn, he wiped his foot on the dewy grass. There was still vomit between his toes. He went over to the garden hose, turned it on and sprayed his foot clean.
Then he hurried down the driveway and entered his kitchen through the sliding glass door. The house was silent except for the soft hum of the refrigerator.
His damp feet left bits of grass on the floor as he made his way to the bathroom. He would have to clean that up later.
He would have to clean up a lot.
Later.
The blanket. It was on me.
But it has two sides, he told himself. Fifty-fifty chance the side that touched the corpse was up...
Fifty-fifty it wasn’t.
If I took the blanket off her...
Did I touch her?
Horrified by the thought, he gazed at his trembling hands.
I wouldn’t have.
How do you know?
Oh God! I could’ve done anything!
He lurched into the bathroom, threw the door shut and staggered to the tub. Falling to his knees, he reached out and turned the faucet handles. Water gushed from the spout. He held his hands under it.
All the perfumes of Arabia...
“I didn’t touch her,” he said.
It’s bad enough I used the blanket.
He turned the knob to activate the shower, then climbed into the tub and slid the glass door shut. The hot water pounded against the top of his head. It ran down his body, soothing the chill, easing some of the tightness out of his muscles. When he stopped trembling, he lathered himself with soap. He rinsed the suds off, then soaped his body and rinsed again before shampooing his hair.
By the time he stepped out, he felt a lot better.
If only he could remember what happened!
Maybe just as well that you don’t, he thought.
After drying, he took Alka-Seltzer. Then he washed down two aspirin for good measure.
He left the steamy bathroom. In his bedroom he found his sweat clothes heaped on the floor. His side of the bed had been turned down, the pillow dented, the bottom sheet mussed.
So you didgo to bed last night, he told himself. But you got up again, and went out to the garage. Must’ve decided to take a look at the corpse, God knows why.
Must’ve had a reason.
Maybe she willedyou to do it.
“Terrific,” he muttered.
He sat on the edge of the bed and rubbed his face.
Never should’ve had that vodka.
Keeping his back to the coffin, Larry used paper towels to clean his vomit off the garage floor. He put them in a plastic garbage bag, then dropped the bag into the bottom of his trash barrel and covered it with a heap of debris from the grass catcher of his lawn mower. Satisfied that Jean would never find the evidence, he returned to the garage. He filled a bucket and scoured the area with a wet sponge. Afterward, he cleaned the bucket and sponge carefully.
All that remained, now, was a patch of wetness on the concrete. The heat of the day would soon take care of that.
He slid the bay door open to let in fresh air and sunlight.
From here the garage looked perfectly normal. The damp area, the blanket and coffin, were safely out of sight behind standing shelves and stacks of boxes.
He shook his head. Whatever his condition last night, he’d been aware enough to negotiate a virtual obstacle course in order to reach the corner where the coffin was hidden. In the dark, apparently.
What do you write about this? he wondered.
You don’t.
I’ve got to. It’s part of the story.
And you need to fill up more pages if you’re going to make a book out of this thing.
Just leave out the business about being naked, he thought. Write it like it happened, but keep your clothes on. Otherwise, people might start thinking you...
I didn’t, he told himself. No way.
What were you doing in there?
Suddenly he realized that he needed to take a close look at the corpse.
Besides, I’ve got to cover it up again.
He entered the garage. His heart started thudding, stirring the remnants of his headache.
He made his way among the shelves and trunks and boxes, and soon he reached the dim corner where the coffin rested. The wet spot on the concrete was nearly gone. He stepped over the blanket and stared down into the coffin.
The body looked ghastly, as usual: shrunken and bony, its skin dried out and brown, its breasts flat, its mouth open and lips twisted in an awful, toothy grin.
The body didn’t look as if it had been disturbed. It lay flat on the bottom of the coffin, the stake jutting upright in the same position as usual, one withered hand on its hip.
Larry frowned.
The left arm, on the far side of the corpse, was bent at the elbow. The hand rested, palm down, against the hip bone. Its fingertips lay among dull blond curls of pubic hair.
Before (Larry was almost certain), both hands had been out of sight in the dark, narrow gap between the body and the sides of the coffin.
He was sure that he would’ve noticed if a hand had been in plain view.
Especially since this one wore a ring.
He bent down for a closer look.
A school ring? Surrounding the garnet stone was a tarnished silver border that appeared to be engraved.
“Holy Toledo,” he muttered.
This could give a clue to the corpse’s identity!
But how did the hand find its way onto the hip? Obviously, she hadn’t placed it there.
I must’ve done it last night, he
thought.
I did touch the damn thing.
Larry heard himself groan.
Disgust mixing with his excitement, he hurried to the section of the garage where he kept the yard tools. Maybe he had touched the corpse last night, but he sure didn’t intend to do it again. He found some old gardening gloves and put them on as he hurried back to the coffin.
On his knees, he reached over the body. With his left hand he gently held the bony wrist. With the thumb and forefinger of his right hand he slipped the ring off.
Pete, he realized, was bound to visit the corpse sooner or later, and was sure to notice the new position of the hand. It had to be put back down where it belonged.
Wrinkling his nose, Larry tightened his grip on the wrist and gave it a slight push. It resisted him. He pushed a little harder, forcing it. This time the hand moved. Larry cringed at the quiet crackling sounds that came from the arm. Sounds like dry leaves being crumbled. His eyes darted to the cadaver’s face. It looked as if it were grimacing, teeth bared in pain.
“Christ,” he whispered.
Has to be done, he told himself.
Letting go, he switched the ring to his left hand and clutched the corpse’s wrist with his right. He shoved down hard, jamming the arm toward the floor of the coffin. The shoulder lifted. The head began to rise. He yelled. Then came gristly snapping sounds, a pop. The arm went limp in his grip and the body sank back into position. He tucked the arm against its side, then lurched away.
He dashed through the garage, dodging his way through the maze of clutter, and didn’t stop running until he reached the safety of the house.
He shoved the sliding door shut. He locked it.
He pressed his face to the glass and stared at the open garage.
Acting like an idiot, he thought.
But God!
After catching his breath, he opened his trembling hand. He lifted the ring close to his face.
Engraved in the silver that surrounded the garnet were the words “Buford High School,” and the date “1968.”
He looked into the middle of the loop.
Inside the band was a name.
“Bonnie Saxon.”
Nineteen
“I gazed at the ring, dumbfounded. The hideous corpse in my garage now had a name. Bonnie. A pleasant, rather cheerful name.
“Perhaps she is a vampire. Somebody thought so, killed her with a stake and used a crucifix to seal her makeshift tomb. But a vampire by the name of Bonnie?
“She seems, to me, less frightening than before.
“The gruesome, mummified thing in the coffin may indeed be a demonic beast that would drink my blood if unleashed from death. But it was a girl once. A ‘Bonnie’ lass.
“She attended the same high school as my daughter, Lane. She walked the same halls, perhaps sat in the same classrooms, may even have had some of the very same teachers as Lane. She was a girl who ate lunch in the school cafeteria, who probably struggled against dozing off during her afternoon classes, who worried about pop quizzes and homework and zits.
“A teenager. Who studied schoolwork. Who watched television. Who listened to the latest music with the volume blaring. Who went to movies, to the school’s football games and sock hops and the prom. Who had boyfriends.
“The vile thing in my garage was once a teenaged girl named Bonnie...”
The door bell chimed. Larry flinched. He scrolled up to remove his words from the computer screen, then hid the class ring under the matchbooks and scraps of note paper scattered on his desktop. He hurried into the living room.
He half expected the person at the front door to be Pete.
He was right.
“Hey, bud!” After a glance toward his house, Pete gave Larry a sly look. “Barb’s off grocery shopping. Thought I’d drop by and see how our best-seller’s coming along.”
“Not too bad.”
He entered, and Larry shut the door.
“I guess you really whaled on the thing yesterday,” he said.
“Yeah, it went pretty well. Sorry I didn’t make it over for supper. Time just got away from me and...”
“No sweat. So how many pages you finish?”
“I don’t know. Quite a bunch.”
“Terrific. Gonna let me read ‘em?” he asked, flopping onto a chair.
Larry hoped his alarm didn’t show.
“They aren’t printed up yet,” he said.
“Well, go do it. Don’t let me stop you.”
“It’d take hours,” Larry said. He sat on the sofa, rested his elbows on his knees and shook his head at Pete. “Besides, I’ll have to make a lot of corrections. It’s pretty much of a mess right now.”
“So when’ll I get to read it?”
“How about when it’s all done?” Larry suggested, trying to smile.
“Hey, come on.”
“No, really. I think it’d be best if you don’t read any of the thing while I’m still working on it. It’d make me too self-conscious.”
“Oh, bull.”
“I mean it.”
“What about my input? Maybe you forgot some stuff.”
“I’ll give you a copy when it’s finished. If there’s anything you want added or changed, I can revise it then. Okay?”
“That’s kind of late in the ball game,” he said, frowning slightly.
“You want me to write the thing, don’t you?”
“Yeah, sure. But...”
“I can’t do it if I have to pass every chapter along to you for inspection as I go along. I’ll quit right now...”
“Jeez, don’t get in a huff. Do it your way. I’m just curious, is all.”
“Well, that’s all right,” Larry said, relieved that he had backed off. “I didn’t mean to get testy about it.”
“What’s a testi between friends,” Pete said, and smiled. “Anyway, it’s going pretty good?”
“I think so.”
“What’s next on the agenda?”
“Well, I need to do those revisions.”
“I guess we’ve gotta start thinking about how we break the news to the women,” Pete said. “Jean’ll be home tonight, won’t she?”
“Yeah. Tonight.”
“Should we just walk her and Barb out to the garage and show them? Or work up to it more gradually?”
“ ‘Guess what we brought home Saturday night?’ ”
“Something like that.”
“Suppose we just keep the whole thing secret?”
“Are you kidding?”
Larry shook his head. “They won’t let us keep a body around. No way. I don’t care what we tell them, they’ll make us get rid of it.”
“They’ve gotto find out sooner or later.”
“Let’s wait. We can tell them about it when everything’s set to pull the stake. By then the book’ll be almost done.”
“Yeah. ‘Course, they might give us shit about pulling the stake.”
“Good point.”
“No pun intended,” Pete said.
Larry frowned for a moment, thinking. “Okay. Let’s pull the stake and thentell them what we’ve done. After the fact. By that time it’ll be too late for the gals to screw things up for us.”
Pete grinned. “Man, will they be pissed!”
“That’s for sure. The book’s bound to find a publisher, though. Best-seller or not, I’m sure we’ll be seeing a pretty good chunk of money from it. That should get us out of the doghouse.”
“Maybe they don’t have to find out about it,” Pete said, “until you make the sale.”
“If we work it right. What we have to do is hide the thing better. Right now, anybody wandering into the garage might stumble onto it.”
“We useour garage.”
“I know, I know,” Larry said. He was well aware that Pete and Barbara often parked their cars in it, while he and Jean only used their garage for storage.
“There’s a crawl space under our house,” Pete said. “I suppose we could shove the cask
et under there. If we do it quick before Barb gets back from the store. We’d have to lift it over the fence. Wouldn’t wanta be seen lugging it around the front.”
“Not necessary,” Larry said. “I know just the place to stash the thing.”
Should’ve put it there in the first place, he thought. Maybe I wouldn’t have ended up spending the night with it.
“Where?” Pete asked.
“Come on. We’ll take care of it right now.”
They went out the kitchen door and walked up the driveway to the garage. Its bay door was still open. As they entered the shade, Larry hoped that the wet spot on the floor had dried.
Must’ve, he told himself.
A few yards beyond the door was a square wooden platform half a foot high. Larry stepped onto it, reached up and caught hold of a dangling rope. He pulled the rope’s knotted end. A plywood ceiling panel swung down on hinges.
“All right,” Pete said. “A trapdoor.”
Fixed to its top was a ladder folded into three sections. Larry lowered the ladder until the shoes of its side rails rested firmly against the platform.
“Gonna be a bitch getting our stiff up there,” Pete said.
He was right. Though the ladder stood at an angle like a flight of stairs, it was much steeper than a stairway.
“It’s the perfect place,” Larry told him. “Nobody’s going to find her.”
He stepped aside. Pete climbed to the top and looked around. “Yeah,” he said. “Great if we can manage it.” He started down. “How come you don’t use it for storage?”
“Never got around to it.”
“Pretty neat up there. Floorboards and everything. Hotter than shit, though.” He grinned. “Guess our friendly local vampire won’t mind, huh?”
“Probably not.”
They stepped off the platform. Larry led the way toward the far corner of the garage.
“Almost need a map to find the thing,” Pete said.
I can find it in the dark.
“We’re almost there.”
Larry slipped through the passage between stacks of boxes and entered the small open area near the corner.
The concrete had dried.
The blanket lay heaped on the floor beside the coffin.
No!
He’d raced from the garage, near panic after dealing with the arm, and had totally forgotten to cover the body.
The Stake Page 16