Darkling I Listen (26 page)

"I'm not a nut," the woman tried to assure her. "And I won't take up much of your time." She flinched and straightened, cocked her head a little to the right, and pressed her flattened hand against her ear, as if she had a severe earache. She squeezed her eyes closed. Between her teeth, she said, "Buddy says the band was Dessie Anne's."

Alyson stared at her.

The woman shrugged and opened her eyes. Her face appeared whiter, if that was possible, and she sank against the car as if exhausted. Her dark eyes puddled with tears. "God," she sighed, "this sucks."

Alyson eased the window down a few more inches. "What sucks?" she asked.

"I forgot how exhausting it all is. And painful. Sometimes you feel as if you're going insane. Think of it this way. Imagine yourself surrounded by a dozen televisions and radios all tuned to different channels or stations, and the volume is turned up all the way. That's what if feels like inside my head right now. Everyone is trying to speak at once. It's
INFURIATING
!" she shouted as she stared off into space.

It occurred to Alyson that there were certainly a lot of nuts in Ticky Creek. Then again, why was she surprised? The way the citizens sheltered Carlyle wasn't exactly normal. The whole town and its atmosphere were starting to feel a little cultlike.

"Who are 'they'?" she asked hesitantly, expecting her to respond something like "The Mother Ship, of course. Who else?"

She shrugged and rubbed her temple. "I've always called them Watchers. Because that's what they do. Maybe I should have called them Screamers, because they do a lot of that as well." Looking down again at Alyson, she said, "If you'll take me back to my car, I'll tell you all about them. I promise you're in no danger from me. I'm here to help."

Alyson looked the woman up and down. Her flip-flop-adorned feet were partially submerged in a puddle of muddy water, and there were drying bits of mud on her shins. Rain began to fall in big drops, spatting against her naked shoulders, yet her eyes regarded Alyson with an intuitiveness and kindness that made Alyson think of a painting she had once seen of Jesus laying hands on a crippled child.

She'd be stupid to allow the woman in the car, of course. But there was something about her—fascinating as well as disturbing. The reporter's instinct that had made her the sharpest in the business kicked in. That instinct had seldom steered her wrong.

"Fine," Alyson said with an exasperated sigh. "Get in."

The woman rounded the car, opened the door,
then
removed her flip-flops, which she cradled against her stomach, smearing her tube top and pants with mud. Yet, she didn't get into the car immediately. She stood looking back at the house while rain fell harder and a sudden wind kicked up, rocking the car.

"Excuse me?" Alyson leaned over the console and looked at her, intent on explaining that the owner of the Jag would not appreciate his car seats getting wrecked by rain, but words left her. The woman's expression was blank
again,
her eyes glazed and lifeless like a doll's as they focused on the house.

Then her head turned slowly, cocked a little, and a frown creased her forehead. "Watch out for Billy Boy, says Buddy."

"Who is Buddy? And who is Billy Boy?"

The woman sagged against the car door and released her breath. She hesitated before answering. "I don't know. It's not like they introduce themselves. It's not the messenger who's important. It's the message." Dropping into the car seat, her shoes in her lap, she slammed the car door and sank back against the seat, as if her head was suddenly too heavy to hold up.

"Are you ill?" Alyson placed her hand against the woman's damp forehead. She felt frighteningly icy, as if there was no body heat in her at all.

"I suppose that's a matter of opinion," the woman replied in a thin voice, then she looked at Alyson directly, her eyes the same murky brown as Ticky Creek. "I'm very hungry. Would you lend me a few dollars so I can buy gas and something to eat? I promise to pay you back. You're staying at the Pine Lodge, right? I'll send the money to you there."

"How do you know I'm staying at the Pine Lodge?"

"The same way I know everything else, I guess. One of the Watchers told me." Smiling, she wrapped her cold fingers around Alyson's wrist and squeezed it reassuringly. "Drive. I'll try to explain. Besides, the energy here isn't good. And the air smells a bit like sulfur. Do you smell it?"

Alyson shook her head.

"No, I suppose you wouldn't. Trust me, it isn't a good sign. Her stomach growled. She pressed her hand against her flat belly and smiled in chagrin.

Alyson pulled onto the highway and headed toward town. Rain fell harder. She turned on the wipers; they bumped back and forth—the only sound for a long minute.

"My name is Nora," the woman said. "Nora Allen. Actually, it's Nora Jewel Allen. I was married for a while. Three years exactly. His last name was—is—
Preston
. But I didn't want to keep his name after the divorce. I didn't want anything to do with him—no reminders."

Alyson drove, staring straight ahead through the rain and feeling as if reality had taken a strange detour into the surreal. Nora carefully balanced the muddy shoes on her knees, pulled the bottom edge of her tube top up and the elastic waistband of her pants down, exposing the skin below her navel. "This is what he did to me."

Alyson stared at the red, puckered flesh as wide as a fist with threads of blue and pink scars radiating like sunbeams from it. "Oh my," she said, her attention focused on the healing injury and not on the road. The car suddenly shimmied onto the rough shoulder, forcing Alyson to jerk the wheel hard to regain control.

"He shot me," Nora explained, staring down at the scar. "Walked right up to me in the Neiman Marcus parking lot on Christmas Eve, pointed a gun, and pulled the trigger in front of twenty-five witnesses. Then he turned the gun on himself. Unfortunately, he was shaking so hard the bullet only grazed his temple. Three men tackled him and took the gun away."

Sighing, she adjusted her clothes. "I died on the operating table. It was like watching one of those
Unsolved Mysteries
segments where the storyteller describes leaving her body and floating overhead, watching the whole procedure. Only there was no tunnel with a bright light. Just doors, and as I watched, each door blew open. I expected to see long-dead relatives rush out to greet me—welcome to Heaven, and all that—but no. Nothing so grandiose. There was nothing behind the doors. At least nothing I could see. Then there was this
roaring,
like loud, powerful winds, only I couldn't feel the winds. And then I realized the roaring wasn't wind; it was voices all shouting at once. They were filling up my head."

She touched her temple again and closed her eyes. "Boy, were they pissed. You see, they weren't strangers. Not that they're friends by any stretch of the imagination. They'd been there at my birth—well, not that I can remember anything before my third year, but I do remember the first time I really came to understand that I was different.

"I was three years old. We lived in a house overlooking Ticky Creek. The woman I thought was my mother was sitting a neighbor's baby—he was toddling around in this droopy wet diaper, and I was on a blanket on the floor in front of this buzz fan, coloring, thinking how bad the baby smelled and wondering why no one else noticed. The stink made me want to puke, and I thought it must be his wet diaper.

"Out of nowhere these voices showed up in my head. One was saying,
Get rid of the kid. Do it. Do it now. Open the door and let him out. He must die.
And the other voice was saying,
Don't
do it. Don't you dare do
it.
Your mother will spank you hard if you do it. Just keep your nose to the coloring book, Nora Jewel, and mind your own business."

Nora looked out at the drenched countryside, her face moist with sweat. Rivulets of rain reflected off her cheeks. "I remember looking over at my mother, who was busy preparing dinner and paying me and the boy no attention whatsoever. I wondered why she couldn't hear the voices or smell the stink.

"Get rid of the kid,
the voice continued to shout.
Time is running out. Almost too late. Do it now. Open the door and let him out!
This voice was very loud and frantic, and the other voice, the one that kept chanting
No no no,
was dwindling, like its volume was slowly being turned down. So I threw down my crayon and ran to the door, barely able to reach the knob, and I opened it and watched as the boy ran out into the yard and toward the creek.
He's going to die,
the voice said,
and that's good. You did very, very
good
, Nora Jewel. They'll be angry, but you're a child, so what are they going to do?

"Then suddenly, with no warning, my mother turned toward me and her face was white as the flour on her hands. The voice in my head, said,
Fuck
!
and
I could hear the other voice, laughing hysterically and shouting,
Got her! The silly bitch was listening for a change!
My mother looked out the window and saw the baby—by then he was nearly to the water—and she screamed and ran for the door. She knocked me aside as she ran from the house and toward the creek. She tripped and sprawled on her hands and knees while she screamed at the kid—and the voice in my head began to scream,
Let him go!
and
it was screaming so loud, I began to scream as well, 'Let him go!' She caught up to him just as he reached the water and toppled facedown into it. I can still see her standing shin deep in the dark water, her knees bleeding and grass-stained, clutching the sopping baby with hands gooped with damp flour. She was horrified and furious, and when she looked at me, she said, 'What are you, a monster?'

"The voices were suddenly silent, and I realized just how frightened I was. And ashamed. And confused. I actually pissed on myself. Then the solitary voice came back,
We
tried, Nora Jewel. We did our best. Better luck next time.

"I tried to explain to my mother about the voices, but she only whipped me, hard, with a thin leather belt, and kept calling me a monster and a devil child. It certainly wouldn't be the last time. Oh, no. Hardly the last time.

"Finally, on my thirteenth birthday, I was sitting in front of the television doing my homework and the
six o'clock
news was on, a
Shreveport
channel—a story about a six-year-old missing boy, and suddenly the voice spoke up,
Caddo
Lake
, Cypress Point. Pier fifteen. The Mona Lisa. Hurry!

"I ran to the phone and called the local police. Of course I didn't tell them I heard voices, at least not then; I'd learned to keep that little secret to myself. My butt couldn't stand too many more whippings, let me tell you. So I just put on my most adult-sounding voice and told them I overheard a conversation regarding the boy. They didn't believe me, of course. So I was forced to get on my bike and ride to the police station myself. I still remember the police chief's face as I told him about the voice. He howled in laughter, pointed a finger at the tip of my nose, and said, 'What are you, a goddamn psychic?' I'd never heard the word 'psychic,' but I sensed it wasn't something I should feel proud about, not the way he was laughing and pointing. Then the voice piped up, furious, and through me shouted,
If you keep screwing Thelma May Stewart, her husband's gonna blow your Wienerschnitzel away with his Colt .45!"

Nora turned her smile on Alyson. "You see, it wasn't the Thelma May part that convinced him I had the sight; it was the Wienerschnitzel part. That was Thelma's pet name for his pecker. You should've seen his face. Went white as a sheet. He grabbed up the phone and called the
Shreveport
police. An hour later they located the boy exactly where I told them, hidden away in the cabin of a cruiser called the
Mona Lisa.
Fifteen minutes later the kidnapper showed up packing a duffel hag containing a hacksaw, a bunch of sexual devices, and a folder of child pornography. Eventually they tied him to ten other missing children throughout the state.

"My sense of satisfaction was short-lived. People knew then, about the voices. Suddenly I was a freak. Weirdos started showing up at our house. My friends would have nothing to do with me. I even had a teacher refuse to come in the classroom until I was removed. Suddenly everyone thought I knew all their dirty little secrets. But the voices didn't work that way. I couldn't read people's thoughts. The voices came out only in a crisis situation.

"Then I overhead my mother on the phone, and she was screaming at someone, 'The girl is a freak. I want her out of my house. I should sue you for this. She's obviously possessed, and I want you to come get her right now.'

"I learned then that I was adopted. Two weeks later my parent dropped me off at a baby-sitter who took in foster children who couldn't be placed for one reason or another. I decided at that point that I was going to closet the voices. I wasn't going to risk another occurrence like the
Mona Lisa
thing, and although it was very hard work, eventually I managed to barricade them away, or most of them.

"There were others. Different voices. Late at night they'd come to me with soothing tones. I called them the Storytellers. I suppose they'd been there all along, but the Watchers had drowned them out.