The Complete Short Fiction of Charles L. Grant Volume 2: The Orchard (Necon Classic Horror)

by Charles L. Grant

  Ellery looked away, embarrassed for the woman’s fear and understanding it perfectly. Storms like this were better suffered at home, not in the company of strangers. He leaned his forearms on the top of the glass case and stared at the empty popcorn machine.

  Katherine mimicked his stance and whispered, “Paula Richards.”

  “What?”

  “That’s, Paula Richards,” she said, lowering her voice still further.

  “No kidding? Of the Richards?” She nodded.

  “I’ll be damned.”

  He had never seen any of that family before, knew them only by reputation as a somewhat reclusive clan, and by their address on Williamston Pike, assuming it was one of the estates that lined the road out to the valley. Once a month, at least since he’d worked there, one of the household staff dropped by the store and ordered over a hundred dollars’ worth of books. All sorts of books. All in paperback. And once a month, another staff member came by to pick them up.

  A quick guilty glance, and he nodded to himself. She was slender, and rather pretty in spite of the severe tweed suit, the unruffled white blouse, the shoes almost large enough to be brogans. The effect was, in fact, almost pathetic, straight out of a Forties’ film, the plain-jane clerk waiting for Cary Grant and getting instead the man he’d guessed rightly was her husband, himself in a dark blue tailored suit, and a pair of sneakers that had seen better days.

  Again he turned around, leaned back, stuffed his hands in his pockets. Katherine said something before turning as well, and he stared dumbly at her.

  “As a cat,” she repeated with a gently mocking smile. “As in ‘as nervous as.’ That’s you.”

  “It shows?”

  A wink for a nod. “Bad day?”

  “Bad day. Bad week. Bad month. I think I’ll go outside and throw myself into the gutter.”

  Understatement, he thought. The owners of the bookstore had been watching him closely for the past few weeks, double-checking his bookkeeping without being obvious about it, suggesting more than once — and kindly, he had to admit — that perhaps he might like to take the vacation tine he’d accumulated over the year. But he couldn’t leave. From home to store to home again he was safe, prevented by his work and his solitude from making the mistake, that had brought him here in the first place. The bumbling, foolish errors that had cost him his previous job, his previous lover. And all jobs and lovers before them. A therapist had told him — no charge, El, you’re a friend — he was tailoring his own excuses for running back home from a world that didn’t know he existed. He wasn’t sure. It didn’t matter. He was home, after twenty years, and nothing had changed.

  Katherine lay a hand on his arm, stroked it once, and gave him sympathy with a look. Then she tilted her head toward the office door. “Who’s the old guy?”

  “I don’t know. He fell.”

  “Is he all right?”

  “Toni says so. Just hit his head. Seth’s gone for — ”

  “Toni?” she said, eyes wide now and the smile broad. “Toni who?”

  “Toni Keane,” he answered peevishly, not liking her tone, thinking she knew of his infatuation and was rubbing it m. “She’s Doctor Keane’s — ” He scanned the lobby for her and frowned “Guess she’s in the ladles’ room.”

  The couple on the balcony steps were whispering and passing another cigarette back and forth, and he watched them for a minute, envious of the boy’s hand draped casually over her shoulder, the tips of his fingers just brushing across the top of her breast, envious of the girl’s self-assurance that didn’t force her to drive them away with a pout for convention. The sexual revolution, he thought glumly; only they didn’t come by and draft me. The rats.

  Davidson stalked out of the office then, scowling, his raincoat on. “Phone’s still out,” he announced as he slapped a hat on his head. “Seth’s not back. I’ll head over to the police, okay, folks? Don’t worry about a thing. See you in a minute.”

  And he was gone before anyone could say a word, the door wind-slammed behind him, rain spattering in on the carpet, the candles dancing and dying again.

  Though Ellery waited for it, half expected u, there was no bolt of lightning. The manager strode through the light, into the black, and all they could hear was the hiss of running water.

  “I’ll be damned,” said Gary Richards as he pushed off the couch and walked to the door. “Can you beat that? He just walked out, just like that. God, some people, you know?”

  His wife stood as if to join him, saw Ellery and smiled shyly When he returned the smile, she walked over hesitantly, nodded politely to Katherine, and said, “Excuse me, but you you’re the man from Yarrow’s, aren’t you.”

  “And you’re the lady who’s keeping us in business “

  Her laugh was high and quiet, though it didn’t quite reach to her eyes. “I like to read,” she said apologetically. “There isn’t much else to do, really.” A movement of her hand. “Gary’s always busy with this and that and the business. I — ” She paused, ducked her head, lifted it again. “He thinks I’m going to ruin my eyes.”

  “Never,” he said. “Look at me. I read all the time, and I’m only half blind.”

  Paula Richards stared, then laughed again. “I guess we’d better go. We, uh . . . it doesn’t look like it’s going to stop anytime soon.”

  “Think of this as a dream,” he said as she turned to leave. “Your head or mine?”

  Again she blinked. “I read about them, you know. Dreams. It’s very interesting.”

  “Yes, you are,” and he smiled, wider when she put a hand to her cheek and looked as if, before she turned away, the one thing in the world she wanted to do most was wink at him and grin.

  As she walked away, Katherine nudged his side with a soft elbow “That was very nice.”

  “She seems like a nice woman.”

  “So am I when you get to know me,” she said, and headed for the ladies room on the lobby’s other side.

  He gaped, not caring that he probably looked as if he’d just been punched in the stomach. He wasn’t so dense that he missed her intent, but the courage to follow her was blocked by a loud round of swearing. Richards was standing by the lefthand exit, his hands on the glass. Paula was behind him, a palm on his shoulder, pulling him back gently.

  “No. damnit!” the man said angrily. “I will not calm down.” He turned to the others, face dark and eyes wide in indignation. Even the couple on the staircase looked at him curiously. “It’s locked,” Richards announced, kicking back with one heel. Then he pushed his wife to one side and tried the other door. “Damn! I don’t believe it! Both of them! I mean that stupid manager’s locked us all in.”

  Ellery doubted it. In the first place, it didn’t make any sense to do something like that. Inthe second place, Davidson simply hadn’t had the time; he had just walked out into the storm without stopping, without even turning around. But when Richards saw the expression on his face and challenged him with a look, he tried them himself, leaned down and peered at the tiny gap between door and frame.

  “What did I tell you?” Richards said over his shoulder. “The stupid sonofa — ”

  “It isn’t locked,” Ellery said, and pointed. “The bolt’s not over” When he pushed, however, it didn’t give. He pulled, and pulled harder. Pushed a second time and watched as Richards did the same on the other side. “Maybe all the water’s warped the frames or something.”

  “They’re aluminum.” the man said sarcastically. “How the hell is that gonna warp? Jesus.”

  “What about the fire exits?”

  They turned at the question, saw the boy on the staircase coming down toward them.

  “You want to break a leg going m there, Scotty?”

  Richards said sarcastically as he pointed to the auditorium doors. “It’s pitch black, for god’s sake. But go ahead, I don’t care.” He looked at Ellery and rolled his eyes “The kid’s a jerk. He works for his old man, gardening and stuff. The old man couldn’t
grow sand ina desert.”

  Ellery said nothing. He didn’t know the boy, and right now didn’t much care for Gary Richards. He checked the doors again to give himself something to do, knowing it had to be a warp of some kind because doors didn’t lock without a bolt turning over, and they sure as hell didn’t lock on their own.

  Another push tor good measure, another pull that nearly wrenched his shoulder, and he went into the office in hopes of finding some sort of clue as to the doors’ closing, maybe something to do with new turns in electronics. Scotty was taking the usher’s flashlight from a shelf on the wall. They exchanged a look that condemned Richards and, at the same time, forged no abrupt alliances. Then he was gone, and Ellery scratched the side of his nose, rubbed its tip, and knew he was wasting his time. A single candle burned feebly on the desk, and as far as he could tell, there was no exit here. The old man was still on the couch, still unconscious, and snoring. Ellery grinned at him, wished him luck, and returned to the lobby.

  The far doors to the auditorium were swinging slowly and soundlessly shut; the young girl was still on the staircase, and she waved to him, grinned, and made a face at Richards. He grinned and waved back, took another step and rubbed his palms briskly. It was getting cold in here, the same flat cold he had felt earlier, and bythe expressions on the others, they felt it as well.

  The doors stopped swinging.

  A fresh fall of rain slapped against the glass, and Paula jumped away as if she’d been drenched. Her husband swore and glared at the pavement, threatening Davidson in absentia and damning the storm in the same breath.

  There was thunder. No lightning. The creak of a floorboard, the squeal of a hinge.

  Ellery pulled at the bottom of his sport jacket, pulled at his shirt as if he were wearing a tie too tight for his throat. And he watched in amazement as the candles on the refreshment counter across the lobby began to sputter, to smoke, and one by one flare out. It left only six burning, on a table by the wall, and he stared at them, too, waiting for them to die and leave them all in the dark.

  As it was, the room pulled in on itself, the light barely reaching the exits, not touching the rain at all. All he could hear then was the hiss, and the slap, the ghosts of the storm scratching to get in.

  Ellery pulled back his jacket sleeve and looked at his watch; it was just past eleven. Davidson had left for the police nearly thirty minutes ago, and Scotty had been in the auditorium for just about ten. He considered checking on the boy, but Katherine came out of the rest room and stopped, a hand waving briefly in front of her face until she realized what had happened to the rest of the light. By then he was beside her, explaining quickly about the doors, ignoring the increasingly loud curses Richards was spouting despite his wife’s gentle pleading to please stay calm.

  Then he heard another voice. plaintive and small. “Scotty”“

  It was the girl on the staircase, and without thinking he climbed three steps to sit in front of her, Katherine climbing two more to kneel at her side.

  “Hi,” he said, “I’m Ellery Phillips.”

  She was terrified. Her blonde hair had been ribbon-tied into a pony tail, and she had pulled it over her shoulder to stroke it quickly, hold it, while her free hand rubbed her arm for warmth. When he repeated his name and laid a finger on her knee to get her attention, she glanced fearfully at the auditorium doors, back to him, then to Katherine.

  “Ginny,” she said, sounding no more than six. “Ginny Amerton.”

  “Oh, yeah.” he said with a mock scowl. “Your dad’s been trying to sell me a Mercedes tor a zillion years. I keep telling him he’ll have to pay for half, and he keeps throwing me out.”

  The smile for his effort was feeble, but it was a smile nonetheless. “We’re trapped in here, right?”

  He shook his head immediately “Ginny, how can you get trapped in a movie theater? Scotty’s checking the fire exits, right? And if they’re locked like these here, we’ll . . .” He looked over his shoulder at Richards pacing the lobby, Paula now slumped on the ticket taker’s stool. He lowered his voice. “We’ll use the creep over there to break the glass”

  Katherine laughed quietly, and poked the girls arm until she broke and laughed too.

  Thunder shook the walls.

  Another candle went out.

  Ellery exaggerated a groan as he stretched his arms over his head and stood. “Guess I’ll go see how Scotty’s doing.” And with a look asked Katherine to stay behind with the girl. She nodded, he smiled and backed down to the floor, telling himself there was nothing to worry about, all will soon be revealed. When Paula saw him moving and half rose from the stool, he pointed to the doors. She shrugged, and Richards gave no indication he either cared or would join him.

  Wonderful, he thought as he pushed into the auditorium; this is just great.

  And he thought it again when the door closed silently behind him, and the only light came from a pebbled glass square over his shoulder.

  He didn’t call out, he didn’t want to worry Ginny. Instead, he walked to the head of the center aisle and searched for the flashlight’s beam, down at the exits flanking the stage. and on either side of him in the wide corridor that ran behind the scats.

  Black; nothing but black. And no response when he whispered, “Scotty, hey, Scotty!” as loud as he dared.

  Christ, the kid probably fell or something, he decided, and made his way along the wall to the lefthand fire door, grabbed the crossbar, and shoved down. It didn’t move. When he tried to pull it up, his hands slipped and he nearly fell on his back. The opposite door was the same — iron, sounding hollow when he kicked it, not budging when he put his shoulder to it and pushed as hard as he could. His soles slipped on the worn carpeting. His palms coated the bar with sweat and his fingers lost their grip.

  No sweat, he thought; the other ones.

  Down the side aisle, then, keeping one hand on the wall and moving slowly in case he met Scotty along the way, speaking the boy’s name and damning him for not answering. He probably thought it was a practical Joke. He was probably already back in the lobby, and the others were just waiting to yell “Surprise!” when he came out.

  The exits were locked.

  He glanced toward the lobby doors to reassure himself of the light, then decided he might as well do a little checking on his own as long as he was here. Just don’t take too long, he told himself; don’t take too long.

  But there was nothing on the stage when he climbed awkwardly up and poked around in the small storage spaces behind the velvet curtains. The screen was fixed to the cinder-block wall behind; there was no room for a door, much less a place for someone to hide.

  Damned stupid kid, he thought, dusting off his hands and shirt, hating to think that Richards had been right.

  Then he heard a scream, muffled, prolonged, and a sudden babble of voices that sent him leaping to the floor, colliding with a series of armrests until he found the center aisle and charged up. The light from the door window was flickering wildly, and he thought for a moment a fire had broken out — one of the candles had tipped over somehow, igniting the carpet He was trying to remember if he’d seen a fire extinguisher as he pushed through, and stumbled to a halt.

  Gary was standing in front of one of the doors, a chair in his hands. Paula was kneeling on the floor, crying. Katherine and Ginny were waiting at the bottom of the staircase, and it was clear from the girl’s face it was she who had screamed.

  “What?” he demanded. Scotty wasn’t there.

  “What?” Richards said angrily, almost shouting. “Hell, I’ll show you what,” and he lifted the chair over his head, almost overbalanced before bringing it down on the door.

  The glass didn’t break. One of the legs did.

  Bewildered, Ellery watched as the man staggered to the door on the right and tried it again, twice, this time sending the seat spinning to the floor. Then he threw the chair as hard as he could against the glass wall of the ticket seller’s booth. It trembled, but
didn’t shatter. As far as Ellery could see, it didn’t even crack.

  “Scotty,” the girl said at last, and they turned one by one. “Where’s Scotty? Mr. Phillips, where’s Scotty?”

  He had no answer to give her, but he began to wonder if this was something more than just a prank. Someone on the outside didn’t want them leaving, and he immediately recalled hostage situations he had read about, seen on television, had heard about from customers coming into the store. But it didn’t make sense. The only ones here who had any kind of money for things like ransom were the Richards, and by now the street should have been filled with police cars, lights, sirens, with someone from some lunatic paramilitary group making all sorts of demands for the reporters and cameras.

  Yet there was nothing out there.

  Nothing but the rain, the thunder, the occasional glare of lightning.

  And it didn’t explain why the glass didn’t break.

  Oh, god, he thought, and walked over to the door. His breath smoked a circle, and he wiped it away with one finger.

  “Somebody? Please, where’s Scotty?” There were no lights at all out there.

  The streetlamps were dark, the shops on Centre Street, the houses, even the white globes in front of the police station. No cars passed, no trucks.

  He cupped his hands around his eyes and waited for the next bolt, and when it came, he managed not to blink.

  Nothing.

  No outlines of buildings, no reflections on the road.

  The rain, and the curb, and the rushing black water

  He heard footsteps and whirled to see Ginny taking the stairs up two at a time, Katherine with her hand outstretched and looking to him for help. He wanted to shrug, but when Richards continued to do nothing but pace, he trotted over and peered up to the landing where the staircase jogged to the right.

  “What happened?”

  “She thinks Scotty’s hiding up there. She thinks . . . she’s got the idea someone drugged the refreshments and now Scotty’s gone off the deep end or something.”