"Here in Northwood, I think, but I didn't read the whole thing. Why?"
"She lived in Northwood, all right," Diane answered, "on Dorsey Lane. In the same house that me and my family lived in thirteen years ago."
Jeremy was impressed. "Wow, what a coincidence!" But Diane could tell he didn't see the significance of the news.
Diane went looking forJen instead. She found her daughter on the second floor, atop a ladder, despite her swollen belly, stenciling an ivy-pattern border around the top of one of the house's many bath- rooms.Jen replied that Jeremy had told her about the article, but she hadn't had time to read it. When Diane told her where the girl had lived, she did not get the reaction from Jen she was expecting. Her daughter didn't seem concerned-she was more upset that Jackie wasn't coming for the cookout. Like her husband, she didn't seem to get it.
"Is that all you have to say?" Diane demanded.
"Chill out, Mom! It's not like we know these people," Jen replied, more than a little annoyed.
"You don't get it, do you? There are two children missing and one of them has turned up dead. This is just like what happened before! Maybe Eleanor Grimm didn't do what she did all by herself ! She was a ... a ... self-proclaimed witch, wasn't she? Witches have covens, don't they?"
"Mom, you're getting psycho," Jen said, climbing down the ladder. "You're jumping to conclusions. If there were people like that, why would they wait thirteen years? I think it's just a tragic coincidence. Jeremy said the girl drowned. Who knows what happened to the other kid? Don't make more out of it than that. You've been doing so great lately, don't let this get you going again."
Diane walked away without a word. She hated when Jen, or anyone-but especially any of her kidstreated her as if she were some kind of mental patient. The problem was Jen just didn't understand. How could she?
Diane turned down the corridor leading to her room, passing Steve's room on her way. His door was open-an unusual occurrence in itself, but when she saw how messy his room was a feeling of dread came over her. Steve was usually very neat and finicky. He would never leave his bed unmade or books on the floor. She bent over and picked up one of several of them near her foot and read the title: TrevorFlint: Pioneer.
The world became suddenly unsteady beneath Diane's legs. She swayed, her knees buckled, and she slowly sank to the floor. She stared at the drawing on the book cover of her boyfriend dressed in frontier buckskin complete with a coonskin cap. He was carrying a musket.
My boyfriend is a character in a book?
"No," she said softly. This felt all too familiar. "No," she repeated, helpless to keep the stark terror from her voice. "Stay calm," she told herself and got to her feet. "There's an explanation for this-he must have modeled for this book and the author just used his name for the character-something like that." She got an idea and checked the book's copyright page. She regretted it almost immediately; the book had been copyrighted in 1942! Trevor was barely thirty.
That left only two other possibilities: either she was losing it again and hallucinating, or her worst fearthe fear she'd tried to bury for the past thirteen years-had somehow come true.
She had to talk to Dr. Gibbons.
Returning to her room, she used her cell phone to call Dr. Gibbons and got her answering service. Diane had forgotten that the doctor was away on vacation for two weeks and Dr. Rekjeveik was covering. Diane didn't know him, had never been seen by him. She pleaded with the service operator to forward a message to Dr. Gibbons to call Diane ASAP, stressing that it was a dire emergency-even a matter of life or death.
She disconnected the call and slumped on the bed, wringing her hands. A creaking noise outside her door stilled her, and she sat up straining to hear more.
"Steve?" she called.
Another creak, as if someone were tiptoeing around outside the door.
"Steve?"
She got off the bed and went to the door, placing one hand on the knob, the other on the panel, and her ear to the edge.
Quiet.
No.
A sound-a footstep. She quickly pulled the door open.
No one there.
She stuck her head into the hall and looked to the left and right. The long hallway was empty in both directions. She walked down the hall, stopping outside Steve's now closed bedroom door. She listened but heard nothing from within. She knocked, waited a minute, then knocked again and called, "Steve?"
No answer.
She put her ear to the door. Was that laughter? Was there someone in there with her son?
She began to tremble, unsure what to do, afraid of what she might learn. She turned away, her courage not up to a confrontation before she had a chance to talk to Dr. Gibbons. From within Steve's room, she heard the bedsprings groan. A moment later the TV came on so loud it startled her. She stepped back from the door, every nerve in her body trembling, tears welling in her eyes.
Jackie took out his cell phone, flipped it open-he loved the echoes of Star Trek he felt every time he did; when he was growing up, a love of Star Trek had been one of the few things he and Little Steve had shared. He looked at the ID screen. It was his mom calling. He looked at Chalice and rolled his eyes. "She's probably calling to put the guilt trip on me for bailing on Jen's barbecue. I should have known when I didn't answer Jen's last call that Diane'd be on the horn next."
They were standing in line in the hot sun outside the UMASS football stadium, waiting to get into the Spring Jamboree featuring seven local bands and one headliner, Jackie and Chalice's favorite group, My Chemical Romance.
"Ya better answer it," Chalice said. "It might be important."
Jackie groaned and pressed the Talk button. "Yo! Diane! What's up?" he answered brightly.
"I've got a problem with-" His mother started to speak but was cut off as the phone lost the signal.
"Hello?"Jackie shouted into the phone. Before he could hang up and call her back, her voice returned to the line.
"Are you there, Jackie?"
"Yeah, Mom. You said you were having a problem with someone?"
"What? I think you misheard me, honey. Before your cell phone cut out I was going to tell you some good news."
"What do you mean?" He turned away from Chalice and noticed, thirty yards away in the parking lot, a long black station wagon. For a moment, he thought he saw fins on the back; then a bunch of kids got out, it drove off, and he saw it was just an ordinary wagon. He shook off a foreboding chill and concentrated on his mother's joyful voice.
"I eloped with Trevor! We got married! We're leaving in a few minutes for our honeymoon."
Jackie was flabbergasted.
"Well, say something! " his mother squealed.
"I don't know what to say," Jackie answered truthfully. "I'm amazed."
"How about, congratulations?"
"Okay. Congratulations. Really. I'm happy for you. Sorry I haven't been in touch. Jen called a while ago and told me about your new beau, but she didn't say it was this serious. When did this happen?"
"Last night. I'm sorry, honey, that I didn't tell you sooner, but it's all happened so fast. Oh, gee, I got to go, Jackie, sorry. Trevor's calling me. Our cab is here. I'll call you. I love you, honey."
Before Jackie could get out another word, his mother hung up.
"Hello? Jackie?" Diane looked unhappily at the silent phone receiver. She was about to hang up when her oldest son's voice came back on the line.
"Mom? Sorry 'bout that-damned cell phones. So, what's wrong?"
Suddenly overwhelmed with emotion she stammered out the entire crazy story about finding the book with her boyfriend's name and picture on it. "I don't know, but I think this might really be a problem with Steve. You know!" Her emphasis on the last two words was enough to convey her message, evidenced byJackie's response.
"Maybe. Maybe not. It sounds kind of crazy, Mom, to tell the truth. Look, is your boyfriend still at the house in Sunderland?"
"I guess so," Diane replied. "I was going over there in a little whi
le."
"Good," Jackie said. "I'm on my way. I'll meet you at your house in Sunderland and we can talk to your beau and get this straightened out. Just don't worry, Mom. I'm sure there's an explanation for all this and you've got nothing to worry about from Steve."
Diane hung up and wiped tears from her cheeks and the snot from her upper lip. She let out a sigh of relief. She hated burdening Jackie with this, but she felt much better knowing he was on his way. He was, after all, the only person who had ever understood-really completely understood-feeling true empathy-what she had gone through in the past thirteen years. Jackie was the next best thing to Dr. Gibbons when it came to talking about the psychic residue left from her encounter with Eleanor Grimm. Everything would be okay as soon as she met with Jackie. He would know what to do. She just had to get out of the house unseen.
In the hall, she had the feeling she was being watched. The sensation came upon her slowly, but in her heightened, tense state, it didn't take much to spook her. Moving as quickly and quietly as possible, she tiptoed out of the house to her car. She drove as fast as she dared to the house in Sunderland, and was disappointed to see the driveway empty. Where was Trevor? For the first time in her relationship with him, she realized she had never seen his car.
Never? Could that be right? It was not a good sign. Panic unfurled.
Wait till Jackie gets here before you wig out, she told herself. He'll know what to do. The panic subsided somewhat. She got out of the car and went in the house.
A few moments before his mother came out of her room, Steve Nailer left his and quickly ran downstairs and out to his mother's SUV. He climbed in the back, lay down, and covered himself with a blanket she kept there.
Across the street from the Nailers' house, nosy Mrs. Trank was placing American flags in the plants in her front window-the final touch on her holiday decorations-when Diane Nailer's SUV pulled in the driveway. A few moments after Mrs. Nailer went into her house, the back of her vehicle suddenly opened and her youngest son-the fresh one who had flipped Mrs. Trank the bird-got out. Crouching, as if he didn't want to be seen by his mother in the house, he ran around to the side, opened the cellar bulkhead door, and went in.
"I'll bet that little hoodlum's up to no good!" Mrs. Trank muttered.
She was right.
"Trevor?"
Diane's voice went unanswered, but she had the strange feeling the house was not empty. Warily, she went from room to room, but there was no one there. Then why did she feel she wasn't alone?
A sound. From beneath the floor.
The basement.
She went to the cellar door in the hall and opened it. The stairs descended into darkness. She felt along the wall inside the door, turned on the light switch she found there, and went down the stairs.
"Trevor? "
The cellar air was noticeably cooler as soon as she started down, and it got cooler the lower she went. The lightbulb was old and dim and too far from the stairs to give proper illumination so she went slowly, hand on the wooden rail.
"Trevor?" she called again at the bottom.
"I'm over here."
She whirled at his voice. He was on the other side of the basement, behind the furnace, standing by an old Ping-Pong table covered in plastic. She stepped over a stack of old vinyl record albums of hers and ducked under a furnace pipe.
"What are you doing down here?" As soon as she asked the question she wondered what she was doing. Her mind was suddenly foggy, and she couldn't remember why she had so urgently wanted to talk to Trevor.
This didn't feel right. Not right at all.
"I wanted to show you this," Trevor said, motioning her to the table.
Slowly, she went over, racking her brain to remember ... what? Jackie! Yes! He was on his way. They were going to talk to Trevor and find out how his name and picture got on that book! Yes! Jackie was coming and everything was going to be okay.
Another thought snuck in: What if that wasn't Jackie on the phone?
Trevor pulled back the plastic covering the PingPong table and gave veracity to the thought. There was a body on the table. A naked girl. Her chest, stomach, and pelvic area had been flayed open, revealing her bloody inner anatomy. Her insides had been sliced, diced, and carved as if by a clumsy butcher.
Diane took it in and looked up into her son Steven's eyes but did not see her son in them. In a dry voice she croaked, "You're back, aren't you?"
"Bingo! Give that lady a seegar! " Steve said, coming around the table.
"You're going to kill me, aren't you?" Diane added, dully, her will to escape done in by despair.
"Two for two!" Steve shouted, impressed.
They were the last words Diane Nailer would ever hear.
The repeated sound of razor-sharp steel slicing into flesh is music to her ears. The sweet squish of the raping knife plunging through muscle, meat, and organs makes her horny. She lets the old mother go and watches the woman who gave her renewed life fall to her knees and backward to the floor, arms splayed out, left leg tucked under the right one. She realizes the old mother is not yet dead. Her chest can be seen rising with slow breaths and her eyes are still focused, still seeing.
I wonder how it feels to watch your own son murder you, she wonders and chuckles. But it is a hollow mirth; it bothers her that she cannot know exactly what the old mother is thinking and feeling as she lies dying. It bothers her deeply that the Machine just doesn't automatically provide her with these things. Instead, she has to watch the life light dim and finally go out in the old mother's eyes.
All in all, it is a frustrating experience. How did I lose control and contact with this one? she wonders. Today was to have been the day of revenge. Instead of having to kill the old sow she should have been able to use her to lure fackthe- pumpkin-eater into her clutches. But the old mother knew the truth, and try as she might she had not been able to regain control.
She had to be silenced.
How could this happen?
It is disturbing and does not bode well...
In the deepest, darkest hole of her borrowed mind, another was disturbed by her act of murder.
Mom!
In the moment that the knife took his mother's life, Steve Nailer was torn from oblivion. As the steel cut through his mother's flesh, it also cut through the miles of repression heaped upon him, and he shot like a buoy to the surface.
Mom!
He could feel her pain and-horribly so-her eternal, forgiving love for him even as his hands murdered her. He could feel her passing, and it tore him from his hiding hole. He rode a wave of outrage and grief right smack into the middle of the witch's consciousness.
What have you done to my mother? he bellowed.
Though the U.S. flags posted on both sides at the end of her driveway were ramrod straight, Mrs. Trank made a show of going out and straightening them when she saw the Nailer boy leaving his house and heading for his mother's SUV again. She had been cultivating her indignation since the first day the boy had been so rude and had worked herself up to the point of acting on it after watching him repeatedly break the law, and his mother not do a thing. In the past month, that boy had been in and out of that house, sometimes at all hours of the night, usually alone and always driving his mother's car illegally.
"Boy!" she called, bustling across her lawn, then the road without bothering to check for traffic on the quiet street. "I want to talk to you, young man, and your mother!" she said loudly, in her best authoritarian voice. Though retired for over ten years from teaching eighth grade, she still knew how to speak in a manner that demanded attention, if not respect.
The Nailer boy stopped by the SUV and smirked at her. She crossed the walk and went up the drive to him. Suddenly the boy let out a howling shriek of pain and grabbed at his head with both hands. He fell like a stone to the blacktop where he lay writhing and moaning in obvious pain. Mrs. Trank didn't know what to do.
"I didn't touch him," she said instinctively, defensively, to no one
, but still looked around warily for either confirmation or denial of her words. Cautiously, she knelt by the boy and tentatively touched his head.
"Are you all right?"
The pain is excruciating, crippling.
The boy's voice rips through her consciousness, threatening to dislodge her hold on his body. The knowledge of his mother's death at his own hands has brought the boy back, riding a wave of rage.
And rage has given him power and a reason to survive: the desire for revenge. She can feel it like a hurricane blowing through her, nearly blowing her away.
WHY DID YOU KILL MYMOTHER?
Wave after wave of anger hits her, batters her, but each wave is a little weaker than the last, a little less destructive. Finally, like a dust devil running out of wind power, the whirlwind of his rage cannot sustain itself and spins to shreds, becoming nothing more than a strong breeze.
The Nailer boy stopped agonizing and slowly got to his knees. Mrs. Trank helped him stand from there.
"Are you all right?" she asked again, leaning over to get a look at his eyes. She knew what drugged out eyes looked like, and she was betting this kid had them. He looked at her, but his eyes were pale and clear, the pupils normal. His mouth, though, was twisted into such a fierce grimace she involuntarily backed away from him.
"If you don't leave me the fuck alone," the boy snarled at her, "I'm going to rip your fucking lungs out and eat your heart, right before your eyes."
Mrs. Trank stood mute and shocked as the boy got in his mother's car and left. She was still standing there ten minutes later, disbelieving what she'd just heard and determined that this would not be the last of it!
The drive home seems to take forever. The pain in her head-the aftermath of her host's returning rampage nearly blinds her. She experiences a sense of del'd vu but knows from whence it comes: a memory from her old life and her daily fight against the pain of her failing heart. She's an old hand at taking pain and mastering it, even using it. Pain is nothingwhat she cannot abide is failure!
The boy is back!
How can that be?
This changes everything.
Steve Nailer was in hell. Wrenched from an oblivious, infantile existence deep within his own subconscious, he was now fully awake, fully present in, if not in control of, his own body, and fully aware of everything the witch had done using his body.
Grimm Reapings Page 24