Darkling I Listen (27 page)

"I soon learned that the Storytellers had their own agenda. They drove me to write, and write I did. By the time I was twenty-two, I'd sold my first novel. I wrote three books a year. Or rather, they did, I suppose. I hesitate to take credit for it. I just put my fingers on the keyboard and out came the words. My eighth novel hit the
New York Times
bestseller list. I was living in
Dallas
then, and making very good money. Then a friend introduced me to Paul Preston. He was a stockbroker. Very successful…

"The Watchers tried to warn me. I could hear them banging on the doors I'd erected, but my ability to contain them had grown powerful over the years. Paul and I married, and the trouble began on our honeymoon. We went to
Hawaii
. He wouldn't let me wear a bathing suit. Then my skirts were too short. I had to wear long sleeves so my arms wouldn't show, and blouses with high collars. He told me how to wear my hair, and what to eat. When we returned to
Dallas
, he forbade me to write. He contacted my agent and editors, and announced my retirement.

"I spent our first anniversary in the hospital. He'd beaten me black and blue. I took it for three years only because he threatened that if I left him, he'd kill me. I'll never forget the moment I realized he'd kill me, regardless. I was watching the news about a man who murdered his wife in front of their three children. He choked her, then stabbed her in the throat with a pair of scissors, and proceeded to try and cut off her head. All while the children were on the phone to the police, begging for someone to help their mother. That afternoon I learned I was pregnant, and all I could think
of
was the recording of those children screaming into a phone, 'Someone stop my daddy, he's hurting my mommy.'

"So I moved out of the house and filed for divorce. He came after me, of course, and though I begged the police to help me, they could do nothing unless he actually threatened me verbally or physically.
Which brings me to the Neiman Marcus parking lot on Christmas Eve, the Parkland Hospital ER, and my floating over my body, watching those long-barricaded doors fly open.
The Watchers are
back
, more powerful than ever, but I'm having a very hard time understanding them now. My focus is off or scrambled, like radio interference. I'm going to have to learn how to listen all over again.

"Oh, and that toddler who smelled like urine—only I later realized it wasn't urine I was smelling, it was sulfur—the baby I let out the door when I was only three, who would have drowned if my parent hadn't saved him? Two years ago he was arrested in
Florida
. He'd murdered sixty-three women and buried their bodies in the
Everglades
."

*

Alyson remained in the car as Nora went about the business
of filling a plastic jug with gasoline. Part of her wanted to drive away and put the last half-hour out of her memory, but simply driving off into the rain wasn't going to accomplish that. If one could believe the woman's story, then she must also believe that Nora Allen had searched her out for a reason. A very important reason. But did she believe the woman's odd story?

While working at the
Galaxy Gazette
she'd had at least a dozen such tales cross her desk every day. Twice a week she and her peers met in the coffee lounge and shared the stories—reading each aloud to a chorus of whoops and giggles, not for a moment considering that any of them could have been true.

Who the heck was Buddy? And Dessie Anne? And Billy Boy?

Alyson smiled to
herself
, feeling embarrassed that she'd allow herself, even for an instant, to be enticed by such a ruse.

Nora capped the gas jug and walked to a snack machine, fed it money, and punched a series of buttons. She peered off into space again, obviously listening to her companions, then moved to a newspaper rack, collected a
Tyler Herald,
which she tucked under her arm, then returned to the car. As she dropped into the seat, she tossed a Twinkie package into Alyson's lap. "Here you
go,
cupcake. And by the way"—she turned her doll's eyes to Alyson's, and a flat smile stretched her mouth—"Klem is crazy about you, in case you harbored any doubts."

The blood rushed from Alyson's head as she stared back into Nora's dark, glazed eyes.

Nora positioned the gas jug between her feet, closed the door,
then
sank back into the seat. She regarded the collection of snacks on her lap and reached for a Slim Jim.

The idea that Nora Allen was not a kook sank, along with Alyson's heart, to the pit of her suddenly nauseated stomach.

Nora's eyes drifted closed in apparent pleasure and relief as she chewed the spicy beef stick. "God, I'm trying to remember the last time I ate. Yesterday at lunch. I was trying to write last night, and forgot about food. Except I couldn't write. The Storytellers are still brooding, I think. They've been angry since I married Paul. Perhaps he frightened them. That makes sense, doesn't it? Perhaps they were simply trying to protect me, because when they spoke, I was compelled to write. I mean, I had to write. It was a compulsion. But it's been ten months since Paul shot me. Eight months since our divorce was finalized. Seven months since he was incarcerated in Huntsville Prison. So why haven't they returned? I don't know what I'll do if they don't do something soon. I can't exist on air, for God's sake."

She chewed the beef stick and looked thoughtful.

Alyson's blood felt like cold jelly in her veins.

Then, as if waking from her thoughts, Nora handed the
Tyler Herald
to her. "I'm not sure why," she explained with a shrug. "But obviously there's something there that might help you."

"I don't understand why you've come to me like this," Alyson said, finally finding her voice, which sounded tight and dry.

"I don't know either. All I know is that I fell asleep watching
Steel Magnolias
on HBO. I awoke suddenly, around
three A.M.
, with a Watcher shouting in my head,
Wake up, wake up! If you don't do something soon, it's going to be too late!
I was staring at Mick Warner shoving a hypodermic needle full of heroin into his arm."

Alyson shook her head. "There's no such person as Mick Warner, Nora. He's simply a character in a movie,
Dark Night in
Jericho
."

"
Jericho
,
Texas
, right?"

"Fictitious. Like Mick Warner."

Nora frowned. "Are they? Fictitious?" She shrugged and shook her head. "Let's look at it rationally. Small town boy moves to bright lights big city. He becomes a superstar. Loved by the world. No, not simply loved—worshiped. Remember a comment John Lennon made once in the sixties, when the Beatles skyrocketed to fame? He said they were worshiped more than
Jesus,
or something to that effect. He didn't mean it literally, of course, but in a way it was true. When was the last time you saw millions of people fall to their knees in the presence of a solitary man—discounting the Pope, of course? Then the burden of superstardom becomes too much. His image begins to crumble, and people get a glimpse that he's not a god. Not Jesus or Buddha or whatever. And they're angered by his humanity. Angered by his lack of perfection. They feel as if they've been duped.

"The more the worshipers turn on him, the more he disintegrates. It's a vicious cycle, isn't it? He can't scream out his anger and frustration—that's biting the hand that feeds you, so to speak, if you'll pardon the dreadful cliché—so he turns the anger in on himself. He begins to believe their bullshit: that he's not worthy, or that it was all a stupid fluke.

"Superstar returns to his hometown in
Texas
, where on some level people still worship him and he can begin to feel good about himself again. He heals, grows strong,
reinvents
himself. Throws a free rock concert for his hometown to say
thank you for your support.
It's a magnificent success. He's back on top. Then some asshole walks up with a gun and puts a bullet in our superstar's head. He's sprawled on rain-slick asphalt at
midnight
, illuminated by a streetlight while his brains rum out in the gutter. Certainly a
Dark Night in Jericho,
Texas
…
and then the Technicolor image fades to black and white."

Wind slammed the car and drove spikes of rain against the windshield. Alyson looked out at the blurry Conoco sign, feeling as if the temperature had dropped fifty degrees in the last five minutes. "Is someone going to kill Brandon Carlyle?" she asked in a shaking voice. She no longer doubted the haunting young woman—she had been convinced of Nora Allen's gift the moment she said, "Here you
go,
cupcake. Klem is crazy about you…"

Her cheeks colorless, her hands resting limply in her lap, Nora looked through the windshield, her gaze directed upward. She released a heavy sigh. "Don't look now, but the skies are looking pretty damn dark over
Jericho
."

*

The rain abated, but the clouds continued to roil and growl
and occasionally lash at the earth with lightning. As Nora funneled gas into her car, a Honda Civic that had seen better days, Alyson stood beside her, unable to walk away. Not yet. Desperation tied her to the pale, thin woman like a chain. The rational part of her mind refused to totally buy Nora Allen's story. The irrational part wanted answers.

"If you're capable of knowing intimate conversations between me and Carlyle, why aren't you capable of telling me who Anticipating is?"

"I might, eventually. I'll try harder. But like I said, I'm rusty." She smiled at Alyson and shrugged. "The voices are quiet now, so they must be satisfied that I've done what I was sent here to do."

"Which is? I mean, you didn't really tell me anything more than I already knew. Someone who calls herself Anticipating is a threat to Carlyle. Is it Mitsy Dillman?"

"I don't know. I'm sorry." Nora screwed on the gas cap and leaned against the fender. "There has to be some message in what they've told us. They don't usually pipe up that loudly for no reason. Could be you're looking the answer square in the eye and you just don't know it. You know that old
saying,
You're standing too close to see something clearly?"

Nora put her hand on Alyson's shoulder. "The Watchers are with you as well, Miss James. They're with everyone. Call them what you want—conscience, intuition, angels—all those voices rattling around in our heads from the moment we're capable of understanding language are there to guide us. Listen and trust. Occasionally the choices we make might not seem the wisest or most popular, but ultimately they prove to be right. Like that toddler. If he had died that morning, there would be sixty-three women alive today—"

"But there were also voices who told you not to let him out of the house. The ones who alerted your parent."

"I never said all of the Watchers are good. The gift is in learning which voices to follow. Eventually you recognize the difference." Nora hugged her, held her close. When she stepped away, she looked concerned. She reached for Alyson's hand and lifted it to her nose, shook her head, then bent and sniffed her blouse, pulling away sharply as her eyes came back to Alyson's. "It's the clothes. They smell of sulfur."

Alyson frowned and looked down at her laundered blouse and jeans. "They've just been washed. And what's the deal with sulfur anyway?"

"It's the stench of evil," Nora replied. "I suspect it's closer than we thought."

*

Henry's face was pale as he looked at
Brandon
through his
rain-speckled eyeglasses. Water dripped off his rubberized hat and pooled in the bottom of the boat where a string of catfish lay.

Brandon
hadn't wanted to tell Henry about Anticipating, but the incident with Mitsy the night before left him little choice. Gossip traveled through Ticky Creek like a grass fire in August. Better that Henry hear about it from
Brandon
.

"Henry, celebrities get this sort of thing all the time. Normally it doesn't amount to a hill of beans. Mitsy Dillman is a nut, and she's been locked away."

"But for how long? If she's Jack Dillman's sister, she'll be out in days, if she isn't out already. Then what?"

"I'll put a restraining order on her. I'll do that this afternoon."

"You can't discount her,
Brandon
. If she's crazy enough to attack Al—"

"She thinks she's Marilyn Monroe, Henry. She has issues." Both men stared down at their red-and-white bobbers floating on the surface of the rain-pocked creek. The wind was rising and the light dimming. Thunder rumbled north, followed by a distant flash of light.

"You're in love with her, aren't you?" Henry asked, lifting his line out of the water to check his bait. "Al, I mean."

Brandon
glanced at his uncle, thankful to put the topic of Mitsy Dillman and Anticipating behind them. He was relieved to see color returning to Henry's cheeks. "Yes, I think so."

Henry eased his hook and line back into the creek. "Thought so. A man's got a look about him when he's soft for a woman. Had that look myself not twenty minutes after first layin' eyes on Bernie. At that very moment I knew we were destined to be married. Asked her to be my wife two days later, on our second date. I thought she might try to play hard to get or somethin', but no. She smiled right up into my eyes and said, 'Henry Carlyle, I'd be honored to spend the rest of my life with you.'