The Box: Uncanny Stories (5 page)

“I’ll have a fried egg sandwich on rye toast and—” Bob started.

“No toast,” said the man.

“All right, plain rye then.”

“No rye.”

Bob looked up. “What kind of bread have you got?” he asked.

“White.”

Bob shrugged. “White then. And a strawberry malted. How about you, honey?”

The man’s flat gaze moved over to Jean.

“I don’t know,” she said. She looked up at the man. “I’ll decide while you’re making my husband’s order.”

The man looked at her a moment longer, then turned away and walked back to the stove.

“This is awful,” Jean said.

“I know, honey,” Bob admitted, “but what can we do? We don’t know how far it is to the next town.”

Jean pushed away the cloudy glass and slid off the stool.

“I’m going to wash up,” she said. “Maybe then I’ll feel more like eating.”

“Good idea,” he said.

After a moment, he got off his stool, too, and walked to the front of the cafe where the two restrooms were.

His hand was on the doorknob when the man eating at the counter called, “Think it’s locked, mister.”

Bob pushed.

“No it isn’t,” he said and went in.

J
ean came out of the washroom and walked back to her stool at the counter. Bob wasn’t there. He must be washing up, too, she thought. The man who had been eating at the counter was gone.

The man in the white ducks left his small gas stove and came over.

“You want to order now?” he asked.

“What? Oh.” She picked up the menu and looked at it for a moment. “I’ll have the same thing, I guess.”

The man went back to the stove and broke another egg on the edge of the black pan. Jean listened
to the sound of the eggs frying. She wished Bob would come back. It was unpleasant sitting there alone in the hot, dingy cafe.

Unconsciously she picked up the glass of water again and took a sip. She grimaced at the taste and put down the glass.

A minute passed. She noticed that the man in the back booth was looking at her. Her throat contracted and the fingers of her right hand began drumming slowly on the counter. She felt her stomach muscles drawing in. Her right hand twitched suddenly as a fly settled on it.

Then she heard the door to the men’s washroom open, and she turned quickly with a sense of body-lightening relief.

She shuddered in the hot cafe.

It wasn’t Bob.

She felt her heart throbbing unnaturally as she watched the man return to his place at the counter and pick up his unfinished sandwich. She averted her eyes as he glanced at her. Then, impulsively, she got off the stool and went back to the front of the cafe.

She pretended to look at a rack of sunfaded postcards, but her eyes kept moving to the brownish-yellow door with the word
MEN
painted on it.

Another minute passed. She saw that her hands were starting to shake. A long breath trembled her body as she looked in nervous impatience at the door.

She saw the man in the back booth push himself up and plod slowly down the length of the cafe. His cap was pushed to the back of his head and his high-topped shoes clomped heavily on the floor boards. Jean stood rigidly, holding a postcard in her hands as the man passed her. The washroom door opened and closed behind him.

Silence. Jean stood there staring at the door, trying to hold herself under control. Her throat moved again. She took a deep breath and put the postcard back in place.

“Here’s your sandwich,” the man at the counter called.

Jean started at the sound of his voice. She nodded once at him but stayed where she was.

Her breath caught as the washroom door opened again. She started forward instinctively, then drew back as the other man walked out, his face florid and sweaty. He started past her.

“Pardon me,” she said.

The man kept moving. Jean hurried after him and touched his arm, her fingers twitching at the feel of the hot, damp cloth.

“Excuse me,” she said.

The man turned and looked at her with dull eyes. His breath made her stomach turn.

“Did you see my—my husband in there?”

“Huh?”

Her hands closed into fists at her sides.

“Was my husband in the washroom?”

He looked at her a moment as if he didn’t understand her. Then he said, “No, ma’am,” and turned away.

It was very hot in there, but Jean felt as if she’d suddenly been submerged in a pool of ice water. She stood numbly watching the man stumble back to his booth.

Then she found herself hurrying for the counter, for the man who sat drinking from his water-beaded bottle of beer.

He put down the bottle and turned to face her as she came up.

“Pardon me, but did you see my husband in the washroom before?”

“Your husband?”

She bit her lower lip. “Yes, my husband. You saw him when we came in. Wasn’t he in the washroom when you were there?”

“I don’t recollect as he was, ma’am.”

“You mean you didn’t see him in there?”

“I don’t recollect seein’ him, ma’am.”

“Oh this—this is ridiculous,” she burst out in angry fright. “He must have been in there.”

For a moment they stood looking at each other. The man didn’t speak; his face was blank.

“You’re—sure?” she asked.

“Ma’am, I got no reason to lie to you.”

“All right. Thank you.”

She sat stiffly at the counter staring at the two sandwiches and milk shakes, her mind in desperate search of a solution. It was Bob—he was playing a joke on her. But he wasn’t in the habit of playing jokes on her and this was certainly no place to start. Yet he must have. There must be another door to the washroom and—

Of course. It wasn’t a joke. Bob hadn’t gone into the washroom at all. He’d just decided that she was right; the place was awful and he’d gone out to the car to wait for her.

She felt like a fool as she hurried toward the door. The man might have told her that Bob had gone out. Wait till she told Bob what she’d done. It was really funny how a person could get upset over nothing.

As she pulled open the screen door she wondered if Bob had paid for what they’d ordered. He must
have. At least the man didn’t call after her as she went out.

She moved into the sunlight and started toward the car, almost closing her eyes completely to shut out the glare on the windshield. She smiled to herself thinking about her foolish worrying.

“Bob, wait till I—”

Unreasoning dread pressed her insides into a tight knot. She stood in the pounding heat and stared into the empty car. She felt a scream pushing up in her throat. “
Bob
—”

She started running around the side of the cafe looking for the other entrance. Maybe the washroom was too dirty; maybe Bob had gone out a side door and couldn’t find his way around the shed that was attached to the cafe.

She tried to look through one of the shed’s windows, but it was covered with tar paper on the inside. She ran around to the back of the cafe and looked out across the wide, empty desert. Then she turned back and looked for footprints, but the ground was as hard as baked enamel. A whimper started in her throat and she knew that in a few seconds she was going to start crying.

“Bob,” she murmured. “Bob, where—?”

In the stillness she heard the front screen door
slap in its frame. Abruptly she started running up the side of the cafe building, heart hammering excitedly. Stifling heat waves broke over her as she ran.

At the edge of the building she stopped suddenly.

The man she’d spoken to at the counter was looking into the car. He was a small man in his forties, wearing a spotted fedora and a striped, green shirt. Black suspenders held up his dark, grease-spotted pants. Like the other man he wore high-top shoes.

She moved one step and her sandal scuffed on the dry ground. The man looked over at her suddenly, his face lean and bearded. His eyes were a pale blue that shone like milk spots in the leathery tan of his face.

The man smiled casually. “Thought I’d see if your husband was waitin’ on you in your car,” he said. He touched the brim of his hat and started back into the cafe.

“Are you—” Jean started, then broke off as the man turned.

“Ma’am?”

“Are you sure he wasn’t in the washroom?”

“Wasn’t no one in there when I went in,” he said.

She stood shivering in the sun as the man went
into the cafe and the screen door flapped closed. She could feel mindless dread filling her like ice water.

T
hen she caught herself. There had to be an explanation. Things like this just didn’t happen.

She moved firmly across the cafe floor and stopped before the counter. The man in the white ducks looked up from his paper.

“Would you please check the washroom?” she asked.

“The washroom?”

Anger tightened her.

“Yes, the washroom,” she said. “I know my husband is in there.”

“Ma’am, wasn’t no one in there,” said the man in the fedora.

“I’m sorry,” she said tightly, refusing to allow his words. “My husband didn’t just disappear.”

The two men made her nervous with their silent stares.

“Well, are you going to look there?” she said, unable to control the break in her voice.

The man in the white ducks glanced at the man with the fedora and something twitched his mouth. Jean felt her hands jerk into angry fists. Then he
moved down the length of the counter and she followed.

He turned the porcelain knob and held open the spring-hinged door. Jean held her breath as she moved closer to look.

The washroom was empty.

“Are you satisfied?” the man said. He let the door swing shut.

“Wait,” she said. “Let me look again.”

The man pressed his mouth into a line.

“Didn’t you see it was empty?” he said.

“I said I want to look again.”

“Lady, I’m tellin’ ya—”

Jean pushed at the door suddenly and it banged against the washroom wall.

“There!” she said. “There’s a door there!”

She pointed to a door in the far wall of the washroom.

“That door’s been locked for years, lady,” the man said.

“It doesn’t open?”

“Ain’t got no reason to open it.”

“It must open,” Jean said. “My husband went in there and he didn’t come out this door. And he didn’t disappear!”

The man looked at her sullenly without speaking.

“What’s on the other side of the door?” she asked.

“Nothing.”

“Does it open on the outside?”

The man didn’t answer.

“Does it?!”

“It opens on a shed, lady, a shed no one’s used for years,” the man said angrily.

She stepped forward and gripped the knob of the door.

“I told you it didn’t open.” The man’s voice was rising more.

“Ma’am?” Behind her Jean heard the cajoling voice of the man in the fedora and green shirt. “Ain’t nothin’ in that shed but old trash, ma’am. You want, I’ll show it to you.”

The way he said it, Jean suddenly realized that she was alone. Nobody she knew knew where she was; there was no way of checking if—

She moved out of the washroom quickly.

“Excuse me,” she said as she walked by the man in the fedora, “I want to make a call first.”

She walked stiffly to the wall phone, shuddering as she thought of them coming after her. She picked up the ear piece. There was no dial tone. She waited a moment, then tensed herself and turned to face the two watching men.

“Does—does it work?”

“Who ya call—” started the man in the white ducks, but the other man interrupted.

“You gotta crank it, ma’am,” he said slowly. Jean noticed the other man glaring at him suddenly, and when she turned back to the phone, she heard their voices whispering heatedly.

She turned the crank with shaking fingers.
What if they come at me
? The thought wouldn’t leave her.

“Yes?” a thin voice asked over the phone.

Jean swallowed. “Would you get me the marshal, please?” she asked.

“Marshal?”

“Yes, the—”

She lowered her voice suddenly, hoping the men wouldn’t hear her. “The
marshal
,” she repeated.

“There’s no marshal, ma’am.”

She felt close to screaming. “Who do I call?”

“You might want the sheriff, ma’am,” the operator said.

Jean closed her eyes and ran her tongue over dry lips. “The sheriff then,” she said.

There was a sputtering sound over the phone, a series of dull buzzes and then the sound of a receiver being lifted.

“Sheriff’s office,” said a voice.

“Sheriff, would you please come out to—”

“One second. I’ll get the sheriff.”

Jean’s stomach muscles pulled in and her throat became taut. As she waited, she felt the eyes of the two men on her. She heard one of them move and her shoulders twitched spasmodically.

“Sheriff speaking.”

“Sheriff, would you please come out to the—”

Her lips trembled as she realized suddenly that she didn’t know the name of the cafe. She turned nervously and her heartbeat lurched when she saw the men looking at her coldly.

“What’s the name of the cafe?”

“Why do you want to know?” asked the man in the white ducks.

He isn’t going to tell me
, she thought.
He’s going to make me go out to look at the sign so that he can
—

“Are you going to—” she started to say, then turned quickly as the sheriff said, “Hello?”

“Please don’t hang up,” she said hurriedly. “I’m in a cafe on the edge of the town near the desert. On the western edge of town, I mean. I came here with my husband and now he’s gone. He—just disappeared.”

The sound of her own words made her shudder.

“You at the Blue Eagle?” the sheriff asked.

“I—I don’t know,” she said. “I don’t know the name. They won’t tell—”

Again she broke off nervously.

“Ma’am, if you want to know the name,” said the man in the fedora, “it’s the Blue Eagle.”

“Yes, yes,” she relayed to the mouthpiece. “The Blue Eagle.”

“I’ll be right over,” said the sheriff.

“What you tell her for?” the man in the white ducks spoke angrily behind her.