The Nightcrawler (27 page)

“Hey, Vermont, try to keep up, okay?”

Roger could not see her but trotted in the direction her voice. His eyes brightened, a smile blossomed on his face. The brook took a turn to the left and as he followed it, it began to be more of a ravine. On the far bank was a mill of some kind. A wooden water wheel had fallen from the side of the field stone structure and what was left of the wheel was broken and decayed on the edge of the water.
 

Steps cut into the bank and about a hundred yards up was a waterfall. Not Niagara by any means, at twenty feet high and six feet or so wide it was closer to an indoor water feature at some mall. A fine mist rose up from the pool at its base. With the sun just now rising above the top of the trees, a small rainbow seemed to hover overhead. In the pool at the bottom of the waterfall, the water up to her waist, was Beth. She was naked; her tanned skin a dark contrast to the white water cascading over her as she arched her neck back to let the water splash down on her face.
 

Roger stood, riveted to the spot. He felt like a perving Tom, even though he knew he wasn’t. It was almost like being a kid again and peeking through the fence. He was embarrassed watching, but also very aroused. Beth moved almost in slow motion as she swayed slightly in the cold shower. Her nipples stood erect, caressed by the cold water. She straightened up; saw Roger standing on the bank watching her.
 

“Are you coming in?”

He rushed down the uneven steps, twice slipping on the damp stones, finally falling in an ungraceful heap. Through hearty laughter Beth asked him if he was hurt. Roger waved her off, got up and carefully tiptoed to the edge of the pool. He undressed quickly, his back to her, trying to hide his erection. He turned and ran in hoping the splashing would help conceal his excitement.
 

“Woohoo, it’s freezing!” he screamed.
 

“Oh, you big baby. Come over her and I’ll warm you up.”
 

With the water rushing down on top of them, Beth put her arms around his neck and lifted herself up. With her legs wrapped around him, she made love to him. Her body moved rhythmically with his. Her eyes looking directly into his the whole time.
 

Back in the car Roger, seated in the passenger side watched the sky, mostly blue and spotted with billowing white clouds that seemed to be in a hurry to get somewhere. They quickly moved across the sky changing shapes as they went. On the road, Beth guided the Jeep along a path that no two-wheel drive vehicle could navigate. There were times when Roger was sure she had pushed her position on this path too far and they were sure to flip, or fall off the edge. Each time she squeaked by, the Jeep plopping down level on all four tires as they passed over obstacle after obstacle. This surely had been Lorna’s shortcut to yet another of Beth’s must see sideshows. He did not argue though, having thoroughly enjoyed the waterfall. After one particularly hair-raising climb over a fallen tree, the road seemed to widen and smooth out. They were also going downhill, affording them some of the most stunning scenery of the trip so far. A huge valley opened up in the distance and from this road, or path, they could see for miles.
 

With smoother terrain, Beth had picked up the pace, not as if they were on an interstate, but they were going thirty to forty, depending on the curves in the road. Roger sat quietly, looking from the scenic terrain ahead to the dense forest alongside the road. The sun was bright in the landscape ahead, but the road was still completely shaded. Pale underbrush and grass grew at the edge of the trees, but just beyond was the familiar carpet of pine needles. Three yards or so into the trees the forest floor turned first mahogany, then black, as the sun’s rays were completely obscured. An odor, musky and damp, wafted through the trees.
 

Something caught Roger’s eye, deep in the woods. Something had moved. He stared intently in the direction of the movement. Was it his imagination? He watched the blackness between the trees, looking for any sign of motion, craning his neck back as Beth continued to guide the Jeep along.
 

“What are you looking at?” Beth asked.

“I don’t know, I thought I saw something moving in the trees.”

“What kind of something?”

“I don’t know, lions, tiger and bears, or maybe Bigfoot, oh my.”

“You’re so full of it, Vermont.” She punched him in the arm and they both began to laugh, taking turns making growling sounds. “Did you ever hear the one about the bear who met a rabbit in the woods?” Roger did not say anything; he just looked at her while waiting for the punchline. “Well, the bear asked the rabbit if his shit stuck to his fur.”

Roger’s face was on the verge of erupting into an all out laugh. “And what did the rabbit say?”

“I thought you would never ask. The rabbit said no. So the bear picked the rabbit up and wiped his ass with it.” They laughed as though it were the funniest thing they had ever heard. Of course, it was not but they were in a mood to laugh.

Roger was still laughing when his peripheral vision picked up motion in the pines. His head spun to see, and this time he was positive, something out there was moving. Beth told him to relax; lots of things lived in the woods. She began to rattle off animals, as though she were hosting a wildlife adventure show. Normally captivated by her voice he barely heard her critter roll call. There was something following them in the trees, he was sure of it. The tree trunks looked black. Very little of the brilliant rays from the morning sun made it through the thick canopy.
 

Roger leaned out over the edge of the Jeep, his head so close to the passing brush at the road’s edge he could hear a whooshing as they whizzed by. He stared into the gaps between the black tree trunks, and there, maybe one hundred yards in, something white gleamed in stark contrast to the ominous dark that was the forest floor. Someone was out there.

“Slow down,” he mumbled.

Beth barely heard what he said, but she slowed and began to pivot her head from the road to the woods, trying to see what Roger was looking for. It was almost like driving through a residential neighborhood at night trying to read the addresses on the dark houses.

Roger stared toward the figure he had seen in the shadows. Now, it was gone. He anxiously panned back and forth through the trees, and the figure reappeared, closer this time; it was a girl, it was Lisa. She was waving and his mouth curved up into a smile. However, it was an unhappy smile. He temporarily forgot where he was. Or maybe when he was. He wanted to run over and give his big sister a hug. He wanted to laugh and play with her. He was a kid again. Lisa was here and a sense of being safe seeped into him. Nothing bad ever happened to him when Lisa was around.
 

However, bad things did happen to Lisa, one bad thing anyway. She had drowned beneath the ice of a frozen pond. When Roger began to think about that his contentment at being a little boy with a big sister evaporated. He saw a huge dog, near the girl, its haunches taught, ready to spring. Before he could warn her it did spring, tackling the girl, both of them disappearing from sight.

“There, stop the car.” Roger was excited and agitated, not aware of the militant tone he had used. Beth slammed the brakes so hard the car swerved sideways, skidding to a stop just under the outstretched lower limbs of a huge pine, the needles brushing the windshield. The musky smell was much stronger near the trees.

Roger was out of the car and sprinting into the woods before Beth could call after him to wait. Half way to where he knew his sister had been, he saw the dog again. It looked directly at him. Its eyes glowed red in the darkness of the forest. Roger was sure he saw blood dripping from the animal’s mouth. He ran at the creature, which in turn retreated deeper into the woods. Roger stopped at the place where he was sure Lisa had been. There was no sign of a person of any kind, no blood, and no indication that the forest floor had been disturbed in ages. All he found was a smooth carpet of pine needles.

By the time Beth had caught him he was on his knees, running his fingers through the brown needles, sifting for some evidence that he wasn’t losing his mind.
 

“Roger, let’s go back to the car.”

Without a word, he got up, turned to put his arms around her and held her tight. His eyes streamed with tears. He hadn’t thought of Lisa in years and now he was seeing her every day and this was the second time in two days he had watched her come to harm.

Chapter Twenty-Three

A few hours after leaving Stew’s Texaco, Scott ran into some bad weather. Nothing like the tornado back in Kansas, but with the memory so new and so very clear in his mind he became anxious. With visibility almost zero he pulled over to wait it out. The radio reception was as poor as the visibility and since all his CDs were packed away in the trunk, all he could do was sit and wait, his head back against the headrest, eyes closed listening to the rain and hail pounding against the Charger’s steel roof.
 

The rain pounded against the car in a rhythmic symphony. Almost elegant, Scott thought. Over and over again the storm intensified, and then relented. The drone was hypnotic. Drained and sleep deprived he drifted away, away from the roadside, to a street somewhere in the English countryside. He was having a dream, the first pleasant dream since he ran into that bum. It was raining in his dream, but not like the storm that raged around outside the car. A gentle rain, pleasant even. The sun was trying to peek through the clouds above a hill in the distance. A thin fog hovered just above the ground in the valley below. Scott was standing in the rain, he was neither wet, nor cold, and he couldn’t feel the drops. He could see them, but not feel them.

He heard singing, looked to the source and saw John Lennon standing beneath a large apple tree in full blossom. John Lennon, dead since Scott was a small child, standing beneath a tree singing a song about rain
.
After a while the voice became course, but the singing continued, it was as if he were listening to a radio and the station had drifted out of tune into a static fuzz.

Scott woke, groggy and confused. He wasn’t sure if he was awake or still dreaming. The singing had not stopped. He was back inside the car, the storm had let up some but the rain was sill tapping lightly on the car. The singing he heard was a ghastly out of tune voice, still the same song, but definitely not John Lennon. The noise, yes it was noise not music, was coming from the backseat. Scott knew who was singing, he knew but he sat and stared through the windshield, watching the water running down, not wanting to confirm what he knew.

“God I love that song, don’t you Scott?”

Scott turned to see Matt, or was it the Nightcrawler, sitting in the back of the car, beaming his toothless smile. At least the singing stopped, Scott thought. Maybe this was just part of the dream. He knew it wasn’t, but he felt better thinking it was, wishing it was.

“Looks like the weather is on the mend, Scottie,” an upbeat voice announced from the rear seat.

The rain had slowed to a sprinkle, the color had returned to the landscape as the clouds thinned and the sun began to burn through the gaps. Not that Scott noticed, as he gazed blankly into the distance, he could feel his heart pounding in his chest. His head felt foggy, and the muscles in his belly knotted. His whole body felt clammy. Suddenly he flung the door open, his guts wretched, vomit exploding from him with more force than he thought possible.
 

When he was sure he was finished, he sat up and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. He dried his eyes on his shirt sleeves and slowly looked in the rearview mirror; there was nobody there. Streamers of sunshine were cascading down from the scattered clouds that remained. Mild sprinkles fell to the ground, tens of thousands of tiny prisms, creating a rainbow as brilliant as any Mother Nature had ever displayed. It was a glorious sight. A sight that on any given day would have lifted even Scott’s most dire mood but this day he gave it a cursory glance then looked at himself in the mirror. His cheeks were stained with tears and dark stubble covered his normally clean shaven features. His hair was greasy and uncombed. Feeling thoroughly disgusted with himself, he stepped out of the car being careful not to step in his lunch splattered on the pavement. As dreadful as Scott felt, the cleanliness after the rain refreshed him some; he still felt like shit, but a bit better was better than a bit worse. He inhaled deeply from his diaphragm, inflating his chest with the fresh, clean mountain air. There was a smell, or was it a lack of smell that he wasn’t familiar with. In Los Angeles, a person could see and smell the air. Not even a downpour like this one could banish the smog of LA. Here, he could see for miles and his lungs felt strong and satisfied. He inhaled again, even deeper, his vision began to fade and he put a hand against the car to steady himself. Slowly he let his lungs deflate and the swooning sensation in his head subsided, leaving only a weakness in his legs.
 

He walked around to the back of the car and stretched his arms out over his head. Eyes closed, enjoying the silent calm after the storm, he twisted right to left then right. The muscles in his torso loosened and Scott’s anxiety eased. He followed his washing machine exercise with some leg stretches, touching his toes then leaning against the car to stretch out his calves.
 

Feeling better still but not great, he needed a shower, or at the very least, to splash some water on his face. The silence of the deserted Colorado highway was suddenly broken by a loud screech. Scott followed the sound, about two hundred yards up, a sign read, SCENIC LOOKOUT SIX MILES. Perched atop the sign was a large crow. The bird’s feathers gleamed in the now shiny afternoon sun. Scott, overcome with an eerie sense of déjà vu, hurried back inside the car. He started the engine and began to drive along the shoulder all the while looking down at the ground directly in front of the car. Half way to the sign he finally looked up, the bird was gone.