Nightmare at 20,000 Feet: Horror Stories (34 page)

  In a while, Theodore heard angry shouting up the street. It lasted quite a long time.

September 27

  "Good evening," said Theodore. He bowed.

  Eleanor Gorse nodded stiffly.

  "I've brought you and your father a casserole," said Theodore, smiling, holding up a towel-wrapped dish. When she told him that her father was gone for the night, Theodore clucked and sighed as if he hadn't seen the old man drive away that afternoon.

  "Well then," he said, proffering the dish, "for
you.
With my sincerest compliments."

  Stepping off the porch he saw Arthur Jefferson and Henry Putnam standing under a street lamp down the block. While he watched, Arthur Jefferson struck the other man and, suddenly, they were brawling in the gutter. Theodore broke into a hurried run.

  "But this is
terrible!"
he gasped, pulling the men apart.

  "Stay out of this!" warned Jefferson, then, to Putnam, challenged, "You better tell me how that paint can got under your porch! The police may believe it was an accident I found that matchbook in my alley but I don't!"

  "I'll tell you nothing," Putnam said, contemptuously. "
Coon."

  "Coon! Oh, of course! You'd be the first to believe that, you stupid-!"

  Five times Theodore stood between them. It wasn't until Jefferson had, accidentally, struck him on the nose that tension faded. Curtly, Jefferson apologized; then, with a murderous look at Putnam, left.

  "Sorry he hit you," Putnam sympathized. "Damned nigger."

  "Oh, surely you're mistaken," Theodore said, daubing at his nostrils. "Mr. Jefferson told me how afraid he was of people believing this talk. Because of the value of his two houses, you know."

  "Two?" asked Putnam.

  "Yes, he owns the vacant house next door to his," said Theodore. "I assumed you knew."

"No,"
said Putnam warily.

  "Well, you see," said Theodore, "if people think Mr. Jefferson is a Negro, the value of his houses will go down."

  "So will the values of all of them," said Putnam, glaring across the street. "That dirty, son-of-a-"

  Theodore patted his shoulder. "How are your wife's parents enjoying their stay in New York?" he asked as if changing the subject.

  "They're on their way back," said Putnam.

  "Good," said Theodore.

  He went home and read the funny papers for an hour. Then he went out.

  It was a florid faced Eleanor Gorse who opened to his knock. Her bathrobe was disarrayed, her dark eyes feverish.

  "May I get my dish?" asked Theodore politely.

  She grunted, stepping back jerkily. His hand, in passing, brushed on hers. She twitched away as if he'd stabbed her.

  "Ah, you've eaten it all," said Theodore, noticing the tiny residue of powder on the bottom of the dish. He turned. "When will your father return?" he asked.

  Her body seemed to tense. "After midnight," she muttered.

  Theodore stepped to the wall switch and cut off the light. He heard her gasp in the darkness. "No," she muttered.

  "Is this what you want, Eleanor?" he asked, grabbing harshly.

  Her embrace was a mindless, fiery swallow. There was nothing but ovening flesh beneath her robe.

  Later, when she lay snoring satedly on the kitchen floor, Theodore retrieved the camera he'd left outside the door.

  Drawing down the shades, he arranged Eleanor's limbs and took twelve exposures. Then he went home and washed the dish.

  Before retiring, he dialled the phone.

  "Western Union," he said. "I have a message for Mrs. Irma Putnam of 12070 Sylmar Street."

  "That's me," she said.

  "Both parents killed in auto collision this afternoon," said Theodore. "Await word regarding disposition of bodies. Chief of Police, Tulsa, Okla-"

  At the other end of the line there was a strangled gasp, a thud; then Henry Putnam's cry of "Irma!" Theodore hung up.

  After the ambulance had come and gone, he went outside and tore up thirty-five of Joseph Alston's ivy plants. He left, in the debris, another matchbook reading
Putnam's Wines and Liquors.

September 28

  In the morning, when Donald Gorse had gone to work, Theodore went over. Eleanor tried to shut the door on him
but
he pushed in.

  "I want money," he said. "These are my collateral." He threw down copies of the photographs and Eleanor recoiled, gagging. "Your father will receive a set of these tonight," he said, "unless I get two hundred dollars."

  "But I-!"

"Tonight."

  He left and drove downtown to the Jeremiah Osborne Realty office where he signed over, to Mr. George Jackson, the vacant house at 12069 Sylmar Street. He shook Mr. Jackson's hand.

  "Don't you worry now," he comforted. "The people next door are black too."

  When he returned home, there was a police car in front of the Backus house.

  "What happened?" he asked Joseph Alston who was sitting quietly on his porch.

  "Mrs. Backus," said the old man lifelessly. "She tried to kill Mrs. Ferrel."

  "Is that right?" said Theodore.

  That night, in his office, he made his entries on page 700 of the book.

Mrs. Ferrel dying of knife wounds in local hospital. Mrs. Backus in jail; suspects husband of adultery. J. Alston accused of dog poisoning, probably more. Putnam boys accused of shooting Alston's dog, ruining his lawn. Mrs. Putnam dead of heart attack. Mr. Putnam being sued for property destruction. Jeffersons thought to be black. McCanns and Mortons deadly enemies. Katherine McCann believed to have had relations with Walter Morton, Jr. Morton, Jr. being sent to school in Washington. Eleanor Gorse has hanged herself Job completed.

  Time to move.

17 - CRICKETS

  After supper, they walked down to the lake and looked at its moon-reflecting surface.

  "Pretty, isn't it?" she said.

  "Mmm-hmm."

  "It's been a nice vacation."

  "Yes, it has," he said.

  Behind them, the screen door on the hotel porch opened and shut. Someone started down the gravel, path towards the lake. Jean glanced over her shoulder.

  "Who is it?" asked Hal without turning.

  "That man we saw in the dining room," she said.

  In a few moments, the man stood nearby on the shoreline. He didn't speak or look at them. He stared across the lake at the distant woods.

  "Should we talk to him?" whispered Jean.

  "I don't know," he whispered back.

  They looked at the lake again and Hal's arm slipped around her waist.

  Suddenly the man asked:

  "Do you hear them?"

  "Sir?" said Hal.

  The small man turned and looked at them. His eyes appeared to glitter in the moonlight.

  "I asked if you heard them," he said.

  There was a brief pause before Hal asked, "Who?"

  "The crickets."

  The two of them stood quietly. Then Jean cleared her throat. "Yes, they're nice," she said.

"Nice?"
The man turned away. After a moment, he turned back and came walking over to them.

  "My name is John Morgan," he said.

  "Hal and Jean Galloway," Hal told him and then there was an awkward silence.

  "It's a lovely night," Jean offered.

  "It would be if it weren't for them," said Mr. Morgan. "The crickets."

  "Why don't you like them?" asked Jean.

  Mr. Morgan seemed to listen for a moment, his face rigid. His gaunt throat moved. Then he forced a smile.

  "Allow me the pleasure of buying you a glass of wine," he said.

  "Well-" Hal began.

  "Please." There was a sudden urgency in Mr. Morgan's voice.

  The dining hall was like a vast shadowy cavern. The only light came from the small lamp on their table which cast up formless shadows of them on the walls.

  "Your health," said Mr. Morgan, raising his glass. The wine was dry and tart. It trickled in chilly drops down Jean's throat, making her shiver.

  "So what about the crickets?" asked Hal.

  Mr. Morgan put his glass down.

  "I don't know whether I should tell you," he said. He looked at them carefully. Jean felt restive under his surveillance and reached out to take a sip from her glass.

  Suddenly, with a movement so brusque that it made her hand twitch and spill some wine, Mr. Morgan drew a small, black notebook from his coat pocket. He put it on the table carefully.

  "There," he said.

  "What is it?" asked Hal.

  "A code book," said Mr. Morgan.

  They watched him pour more wine into his glass, then set down the bottle and the bottle's shadow on the table cloth. He picked up the glass and rolled its stem between his fingers.

  "It's the code of the crickets," he said.

  Jean shuddered. She didn't know why. There was nothing terrible about the words. It was the way Mr. Morgan had spoken them.

  Mr. Morgan leaned forward, his eyes glowing in the lamplight.

  "Listen," he said. "They aren't just making indiscriminate noises when they rub their wings together." He paused.
"They're sending messages,"
he said.

  Jean felt as if she were a block of wood. The room seemed to shift balance around her, everything leaning towards her.

  "Why are you telling us?" asked Hal.

  "Because now I'm sure," said Mr. Morgan. He leaned in close. "Have you ever really listened to the crickets?" he asked. "I mean really? If you had you'd have heard a rhythm to their noises. A pace-a definite beat.

  "I've listened," he said. "For seven years I've listened. And the more I listened the more I became convinced that their noise was a code; that they were sending messages in the night.

  "Then-about a week ago-I suddenly heard the pattern. It's like a Morse code only, of course, the sounds are different."

  Mr. Morgan stopped talking and looked at his black notebook.

  "And there it is," he said. "After seven years of work, here it is. I've deciphered it."

  His throat worked convulsively as he picked up his glass and emptied it with a swallow.

  "Well-what are they saying?" Hal asked, awkwardly.

  Mr. Morgan looked at him.

  "Names," he said. "Look, I'll show you."

  He reached into one of his pockets and drew out a stubby pencil. Tearing a blank page from his notebook, he started to write on it, muttering to himself.

  "Pulse, pulse-silence-pulse, pulse, pulse-silence-pulse- silence-"

  Hal and Jean looked at each other. Hal tried to smile but couldn't. Then they were looking back at the small man bent over the table, listening to the crickets and writing.

  Mr. Morgan put down the pencil. "It will give you some idea," he said, holding out the sheet to them. They looked at it.

  MARIE CADMAN, it read. JOHN JOSEPH ALSTER. SAMUEL-

  "You see," said Mr. Morgan. "Names."

  "Whose?" Jean had to ask it even though she didn't want to.

  Mr. Morgan held the book in a clenching hand.

"The names of the dead,"
he answered.

  Later that night, Jean climbed into bed with Hal and pressed close to him. "I'm cold," she murmured.

  "You're scared."

  "Aren't you?"

  "Well," he said, "if I am, it isn't in the way you think."

  "How's that?"

  "I don't believe what he said. But he might be a dangerous man. That's what I'm afraid of."

  "Where'd he get those names?"

  "Maybe they're friends of his," he said. "Maybe he got them from tombstones. He might have just made them up." He grunted softly. "But I don't think the crickets told him," he said.

  Jean snuggled against him.

  "I'm glad you told him we were tired," she said. "I don't think I could have taken much more."

  "Honey," he said, "here that nice little man was giving us the lowdown on crickets and you disparage him."

  "Hal," she said, "I'll never be able to enjoy crickets for the rest of my life."

  They lay close to each other and slept. And, outside in the still darkness, crickets rubbed their wings together until morning came.

  Mr. Morgan came rapidly across the dining room and sat down at their table.