Dreamthorp

by Williamson, Chet

  "Hey, we're engaged now. I'd like to get my flimsiest negligee tonight."

  "Why? You won't be wearing it for long."

  "Ho ho," Laura said dryly. "You devil you. All right then, how about my toothbrush?"

  Tom stopped the car in front of Laura's cottage. "Far be it from me to halt the course of dental hygiene." He leaned over and kissed her warmly. "Don't be too long, huh?"

  "Don't rush the ladies, young man. I want tonight to be special."

  "It already has been. Want me to come in with you?"

  "No, I'll come over when I'm ready." She tapped the end of his nose with her index finger. "Don't be so impatient."

  "I love you, Laura."

  "I know. I love you too." She kissed him again, and fished the keys from her purse before she got out of the car. "I'll be over as soon as I can."

  She went up the walk of her cottage as Tom drove the twenty yards to his parking place. On the porch, she paused and watched him get out of his car. He looked over, waved, and then gave a hurry-up gesture before he went into his house. God, she thought, how I love him. She could not remember ever having been so happy. And, best of all, it was happiness without guilt.

  They had decided to get married as soon as they could get the license. It would be a small, civil ceremony, after which they would take a brief honeymoon if Tom could get another leave of absence from the college. She had not wanted him to, and had told him that they could take a honeymoon next summer, that they had the rest of their lives to take a honeymoon and that just living in Dreamthorp together, a peaceful Dreamthorp, cleansed of the horrors that had tormented it, would be honeymoon enough. But he was insistent and had told her that Dr. Martin was not only compassionate but sympathetic as well, and he was sure she would approve another week—without pay, of course, but that hardly mattered.

  They had decided that, as soon as the property values went back up, Laura would sell her cottage and move in with Tom. He had intimated that the unused bedroom would make a good office for her. Although his words were casual, she knew that it was Josh's bedroom he was speaking of, and she saw the fleeting pain in his eyes. There would be difficult moments, of that she had no doubt, but she would help him as he had helped her. Though she could never make him forget—and she had no intention of trying—she could at least ease his pain. And she was not so old that she could not have a child of her own. Of their own.

  She smiled as she put the key in the lock and turned it. Her little house, in which she had lived so short a time, would soon be hers no longer. But the alternative was so lovely, so much to be desired, that she would feel no reluctance to leave it. Her things would come with her, and would be Tom's things too. She would be his, as much as she wanted to be, and he would be hers.

  Then, suddenly, her mood changed. She was aware of something wrong as soon as she stepped into the hall. Poised there, like a wild animal scenting the air for danger, her first thought was to run, to turn and leap down the stairs, and dash down the street to the safety of Tom's house and his arms.

  But then civilized rationality took control, and she told herself that nothing, was wrong, that it was simply part of the human condition, a feeling that to be happy tempts the fates to bring down unhappiness. It made sense for her to be uneasy, now that she was so close to a life of which she had always dreamed, with the type of partner she had always wanted.

  Still, she thought there was something odd about the air in the house, the slightest trace of sweat and . . . freshly cut wood? Was that it?

  She made herself laugh aloud. God, Laura, she told herself, just stop it. Everything is all right, and in another ten minutes you'll be with Tom, so go upstairs and get your little toothbrush.

  She gave a large and purgative shudder, like a dog shaking off water, closed the door behind her, and started down the hall toward the stairs. As she passed the door to her living room, however, she glanced in and noticed that something was different. It was as if the room and its furnishings were slightly awry. Most people would have not have felt it, and it took her a moment to realize what had been changed. Even then she was not sure.

  The records, she thought, had been moved ever so slightly on their shelves. Some stuck out more than others. Had she done it herself? She didn't think so. And there, on the desk. Everything had been neatly in its place when she had turned on the lamp as she left, except for the paper that Tom had given her. And now . . . now there seemed to be two sheets of paper.

  Laura stepped into the room, walked to the desk, and looked at the second piece of paper. It had been folded many times and was wrinkled and stained. The writing, done in pencil, was a list of dates, and she felt an unnerving sense of déjà vu as she read them. There were names next to each date, names she did not recognize, but the dates . . .

  She looked at the sheet again, then back at the paper on which Tom had written the dates of the killings, along with the victims' names—the four dates in June, the single death in July of Tom's father, and, finally, the three closely grouped dates in August, the last being the death of Grover Kraybill.

  The dates were identical on each sheet of paper.

  Laura looked from one to the other, over and over again, but the dates did not change. The dirty, wrinkled paper did not disappear.

  "My shopping list," said a quiet voice behind her.

  She whirled around and saw, standing behind the sofa as if risen from his coffin, Gilbert Rodman, a long, thick knife glinting in his hand. He was wearing only a pair of yellowed underpants.

  "Presents for you, Laura. So you'd know I wasn't just marking time."

  Her mind surged, like a machine running too hot. It could not be, yet it was. He was here, standing in front of her, naked, ugly, obscene.

  "Forgive my appearance, Laura, but I only have one set of clothes, and if I get . . . anything on them, well . . ."

  He shrugged and stepped around the side of the couch so that he was between her and the door to the hall.

  "And every one, Laura, every single one of them that I carved, I thought of you. I sent my love, Laura. They were my valentines to you. Did you get the message, Laura?" His face changed, and he snarled at her, his lower jaw jutting out so that she was barely able to understand the words. "Did you?"

  It was remarkable, Laura thought, how sane she felt. She was face to face with a madman in a situation that should drive her mad as well, but she felt in control—of herself at least. Survival was what was important now, not the impossible, nightmarish fact of Gilbert Rodman being there alive, of his list of killings, of what he had just told her. She could deal with that, try and make what little sense there was to make of it, later. But first she had to make sure that there would be a later.

  "I'm going to make love to you now, Laura, the way we should have done it back there in Wyoming. Not with my cock, no, because you took care of that, didn't you? Oh no, gonna make love to you with this beautiful knife, and it'll take a long time, believe me. Your boyfriend'll come, sure, and when he does I'll kill him before he even knows what's happening."

  The gun cabinet was locked, and even if she could have opened it, none of the weapons were loaded. Her only chance was the .38 in the sofa, but he was standing right beside it. . . .

  "Did you get my message, Laura? The one I left when I killed the kid and made you all think I was dead? That was crap, you know. Except for the part about the fire cock." He held up the knife and turned it in the light. "This is my cock now, Laura, and believe me, it'll feel like fire."

  She had to get to the couch, get her hand under the cushions, a second to grab the gun, another fraction of a second to aim . . .

  "What's the matter?" he said, sounding disappointed. "Aren't you going to scream? Beg? Going to try to talk me out of it? Reason with me?"

  She shook her head. "Would it do any good?"

  "No. None at all. I want you to struggle."

  "What if I cooperate? Will you kill me fast?"

  "No, of course not. I'm going to kill
you so slow you won't believe it." He came toward her and she edged away, toward the gun cabinet. "That won't do any good," he said. "I already checked. It's locked."

  Gilbert grinned, then said something that made Laura's heart pound even faster. "Why don't you just sit down on the couch and take off your clothes? You can pretend I'm one of your lady friends watching."

  She swallowed heavily. There was no point in trying to hide her excitement from him, for everything could be interpreted as fear. Breathing shallowly, she moved toward the blessed couch, her hands in front of her, ready to ward off any preliminary blow he might strike.

  "That's right. Just sit down now, that's a girl. . . ."

  She slowly sat as he came around the front of the couch and stood looking at her. He was across the width of the living room, a good ten feet away. There would be time, Laura thought. He wouldn't come to her immediately. He liked watching her fear too much to do that. But how to get her hands down near the cushions was the question. She was sitting in the center of the couch, her hands still raised. The gun behind the cushion to her left. But at the first sign of anything suspicious he could be on her in an instant.

  "Now let me see it," he whispered.

  That was the way. She brought her hands to her blouse, unbuttoned the first two buttons, then pulled it over the top of her head. A thrill of fear went through her as the fabric blindfolded her for a moment, tangling her arms, and then it was free, over her wrists, in her hands. She wore no bra, and she shivered as she watched him staring at her breasts.

  It was time. She turned to her left to put the blouse on the couch beside her, dropped it, and plunged her hands behind the cushion.

  The gun was gone.

  "I hid it," Gilbert said. His smile was insufferable. "I don't like guns."

  Rage swept over her as he walked nearer, and she realized how vulnerable he looked, how absurd, with those pathetic stained underpants covering what? A shredded remnant of what hehad had, what she had done to him.

  And what she could do again. What she had no choice but to do.

  Laura was large and well-muscled, and although Gilbert Rodman was half a head taller and fifty pounds heavier, she was faster and more supple, which Gilbert quickly learned as he swung a fist at her with the intention of stunning her as he had nearly a year earlier.

  But Laura was ready this time, and dodged the blow, returning one of her own that caught him low in the stomach, knocking the breath from him, rocking him back, putting him off balance.

  She took the advantage and kicked out, catching Gilbert on the right knee so that he fell heavily, the knife still clutched in his hand. In a second she was on him, her hands grasping his right wrist, squeezing with all her might, trying to make him drop the knife. He hit her on the side of the head with his left fist, but the fall had weakened him, and although pain exploded in her head, she managed to hold on with one hand while she grasped his left wrist with the other.

  Nearly naked, they grappled like wrestlers, Laura on top, Gilbert Rodman beneath. But slowly his weight and strength began to tell, and now they were on their sides, their hands struggling for the knife high in the air, their other hand holding their opponent's against the floor. Now Gilbert began to come down inexorably on top of her, though she put all her force against him.

  And then the boards beneath them buckled as though an earthquake had struck Dreamthorp, and both fighters lost their grips in surprise.

  It was Laura who recovered first.

  Over the crack of breaking boards, she wrenched her right hand from beneath her, seized Gilbert's knife hand, and with both arms pushed upwards, so that the blade tore into Gilbert's stomach with the sound of wet leather ripping away.

  He made a small, bubbling noise in his throat, and she rolled away from him, scuttling across the suddenly motionless floor until she lay against the bookshelves. Only then did she look back at Gilbert Rodman.

  He lay on his back, his arms at his side, the knife like a miniature tombstone set on the pale plain of his stomach. He was not dead. It was not, she realized, a necessarily fatal wound, and there was surprisingly little bleeding. But his hands and feet were trembling, shaking so fast that Laura saw them as only a blur. It was not at all like the death rattle of which she had heard, but rather as though some power had inhabited Gilbert Rodman's body, as if it was being shaken by an unseen force. She crept closer, terrified and unbearably curious at the same time, and when she saw his face, drawn and gaunt and white, yet filled with energy, even with his eyes closed, the image that came to her mind was that of an Indian shaman going into a trance. . . .

  The same kind of trance, she thought, that doctors had called a coma. The same kind of trance that had impossibly left Gilbert Rodman free to walk away after his muscles had lain dormant for nine months. The same kind of trance that, on the day he awoke, had produced the power to rip the pillars of the Dreamthorp Playhouse. . . .

  The wood. She looked up in panic. The wood had started to move again. The floorboards lurched under her, twisting the carpet like the ocean. The lintels of the doorway were bending like hot steel. Outside, from a house far away, she heard someone scream.

  "No," she said, pushing herself to her feet. "No, not this time!"

  She staggered to the gun cabinet and kicked in the glass door, then reached through and grabbed the .12 gauge double-barreled shotgun that had been her father's. From a shelf she grabbed a box of shells, broke the gun, jammed two shells into the chambers, and snapped it shut.

  The floor billowed again, and from everywhere Laura heard the wood snapping, groaning, breaking, and beneath it all, like a throbbing accompaniment, the sound of many voices speaking in tongues Laura had never heard before. She stumbled the few feet to where Gilbert Rodman lay shaking like a saint in the midst of a miracle, and pointed the muzzle of the shotgun down at his head.

  "Die, you motherfucker!" she howled in fury, and in the split second before she pulled both triggers, Gilbert Rodman's eyes snapped open just long enough for her to see them glaring at her with an unfathomable hate before the wads disintegrated them forever.

  The face disappeared, and the head turned to a mass of bloody strands of muscle, gray globules of brain. Laura dropped the shotgun and stood looking down at the ruined head, as if looking long enough would convince her that Gilbert Rodman, and what Gilbert Rodman had become, was really dead. Then, just as she heard footsteps pounding up her porch stairs, she realized that the wood of her little house had stopped moving. Only the twin blast of the shotgun shells exploding echoed in her ears.

  "Laura!"

  She felt Tom's arms grab her from behind, and only then did she look up. The shock in his eyes told her that the shooting had spattered her skin with Gilbert's blood. "Laura," he said again, and looked at what lay on the floor.

  She spoke, but no words came. She tried again, and succeeded in saying, "Gilbert Rodman . . ."

  The distance to which your gun, whether rifled or smooth-bored, will carry its shot, depends upon the force of its charge.

  —Alexander Smith, Dreamthorp

  Tom jerked back to Laura. "Rodman?" She nodded dully, and made a weak gesture to the corpse's hips. Tom understood, knelt, pulled back the waistband, and then looked away. "My God, it is," he said. He stood up and put his arms around her. "Oh Jesus, my poor Laura," he whispered into her hair. "Are you all right?"

  "He didn't hurt me. He wanted to, he tried, but he didn't."

  "Thank God. Thank God for that." Then he remembered what had driven him to her side. "The wood," he said. "The wood in my cottage started moving, breaking, I didn't know what the hell was going on, I thought it was starting all over again, so I came to get you, take you out of here, and I saw all the houses, then I heard your shotgun, and . . . Laura, what was it? What's happened?"

  The look of strength in her face calmed him, and she put her hands on his shoulders and nodded firmly. "It's all right," she said. "I know now." She walked away from him to the couch, picked up her b
louse, and wearily pulled it over her head, ignoring the blood that dappled its front from the contact with her body. Then she took the two lists from the desk. "It was Gilbert," she said.

  "I . . . I know."

  "No. I mean it was Gilbert all along." Laura walked back to Tom, shaking her head. "In the hall," she said. "I don't want to see him."

  They walked over the uneven carpet out into the hall, where broken ends of wood stuck up from the floor at sharp angles, and Laura handed Tom the two lists. "Look at these. One is the list you made, the other is a list that Gilbert kept of the people he killed as he came across the country. They match, Tom. The dates are the same. When he killed someone, someone here in Dreamthorp died too. Died because of the wood. I don't know how, but it was him."

  Tom looked from one list to the other, frowned, looked again, glanced at Laura, then looked away. "We ought to . . . call the police." He picked up the telephone in the hall and listened for a moment. "It's dead. Now what the hell . . . ?"

  "You don't believe me," she said. She sounded almost satisfied, as if she hadn't expected him to.

  "But, Laura," he said, replacing the receiver, "how could he do it when he wasn't here? When he was thousands of miles away?"

  She looked toward the doorway to the living room and shivered. "He said something about thinking of me when he killed them. He called it sending his love, but I know that he sent his hate instead. I don't know how . . . telekinesis, poltergeists . . ."

  "The . . . the carving. The quartz carving . . . after we buried it the killings stopped."

  "It's buried now, Tom. But you saw the wood move, you saw it yourself. The carving did no good at all."

  Tom ran both hands through the hair at his temples and joined his fingers together behind his head, trying to physically hold in his old beliefs. "I can't . . . believe this. I can't believe that one man could have done all this."

  Laura spoke through gritted teeth. "Who can believe the power of hate?"

  "Laura . . ."

  "You were ready to believe in an old Indian legend. But this is a modern legend, Tom. This is real. If you want to keep calling it magic, and I guess that's the only thing we can call it, then it's a new magic. And the old rules don't work for it."