The Pines (33 page)

She smiled, remembering what Doris had said about the sex/magic bond between werewolves and witches. She held her arms close to her body, hugging herself. Everything she felt for her husband stirred somewhere deep within, mingling with a generalized misery and resentment that grew worse by the moment. “Them damn pineys. I’ll show them. I’m better than they are. It said
L
for ‘love.’ Didn’t I tell you?”

He knew it wasn’t really him she was speaking to. Breathing in the deep, warm smell of her, an aroma of sweat and coffee and some indefinable sweetness, the boy sat close, watching her move the glass back and forth across the board.

She told herself she was going for a walk, just as far as the bridge, just to stretch her legs.

The woods looked very different this afternoon. She wasn’t far from where she’d found Lonny.
Maybe I should visit the spot, lay a wreath or something.

The water was low. Standing on the bridge, she gazed down: debris choked the stream.
Or perhaps I should just take a stroll over to Pamela’s and check on things at the trailer.
The water looked thick and brown.
No one’s been there since that morning.
But she didn’t turn aside at Hanging Tree. Instead, she trudged along, fighting the sullen lethargy of the day.
It’s stupid of me to come this far without a gun.
She climbed over singed-grass hillocks, and sand flew up dry in her face with the least breeze.

Even from a distance, the raw town had a beleaguered air, as though a great battle had been fought amid the rusting cars and the concentration of low buildings. Some trick of the light distorted everything. Heat seemed to press the shadows, condensing them till they bore no resemblance to the shapes that cast them. And she heard no dogs, unusual in itself. Something smoldered on the central garbage dump, leaving a thin haze through which the shacks and other structures seemed to waver, and the smell that washed across made her think of rancid glue—sweet, corrupt.

Nothing moved.
Where is everybody? And what do I do now?
The air seemed filled with floating particles, scented, invisible dust, which emanated not only from the houses but from the mean yards and rickety fences, an odor held in place by the pressing heat.
Should I go from door to door asking if anyone has seen a monster? I’ve got to make some move.
Taking a deep breath, she started forward.
We’ve waited too long.

Constructed of dark cedar wood along more solid lines than any of its neighbors, the first house scarcely slouched at all.
Somebody has got to do something.
Approaching the mud-spattered door, she knocked solidly and had the impression of movement beyond the curtained windows. “Hello?” But no one came. Turning her back to the house, she looked around. Apparently, unoccupied shacks.

“What d’you want?”

Even as she spun around, she recognized the voice.
I should have remembered the house.

“I know you. ’At daughter a mine’s sended you over here, dinchee?”

Athena didn’t believe she’d ever seen anyone so dirty. The dress looked as though it had been used as a cleaning rag. Hair trailed about the shoulders in gray-blonde strings, and the rough complexion lay buried beneath layers of old makeup. “Hello, Mrs. Stewart. I wonder if…”

“Miz.” Opening the door farther, the woman spat on the step. “Miz Stewart. I ain’t married.”

“Yes. I wonder if you’d mind talking to me about your son-in-law Lonny. I wanted to ask if you’d seen or heard anything the night he was killed.”

“She sended you round here to spy on me, dinchee? She wants my boy, donchee? She tried to get ’im from me before. You can tell ’er she ain’t gonna get my kid.” Lizzie’s chubby eyes slitted as she appraised Athena. “You got a retard kid too, doncha?”

Athena took a step forward. Holding her breath against the rotten-meat smell of the house, she spoke forcefully. “The night Lonny was killed, did you…?”

Lizzie stepped back, correctly assuming she would not be followed. “I don’ know nothing. Shit. You seen my boy out dere?”

“No, actually I don’t see anyone. Could you tell me where they all are?”

Lizzie just leered.

“I asked you a question.” She leaned on the door. “Perhaps you’d rather I had some friends of mine come around and talk to you.”

“Home. Behin’ locked doors. Where da ya think everbody is?” The woman threw her weight against the door, slamming it. Metal rasped as the bolt slid home, but cursing penetrated the wood. “…gonna send ’er friends ’round…who da fuck she think she…”

A fine start
—
strong-arming old whores.
She walked rapidly away from the house.
Maybe I should go back to the city and get a job with
a collection agency.
She peered up the road. Doris was probably at the house by now.
When she sees I’m gone, she’ll be after me like a
shot. I could probably walk up the road and meet her.
The stench drifted from another direction now.

Let me just see what’s burning.
She followed the odor, not to the garbage dump, but toward the main cluster of buildings.

A boy sat in thin shade. The fumes from the still house out back surrounded him, thick and overpowering.
He looks like he’s
been sniffing glue.
She got to within a few feet of him before he so much as blinked.

She didn’t recognize him. From beneath a battered fishing hat, fine, light hair trailed almost to the boy’s shoulders. His face lacked color. Pale eyebrows and lashes faded into invisibility, and the whites of his eyes nearly matched the color of his flesh, his dilated pupils providing the only hints of darkness, like black specks floating in milk. The hum of flies was all around him.

The flaccid face moved. The boy’s mouth twitched in what might have been a smile. Even his lips were nearly white.

“My name is Mrs. Monroe.” While her eyes took in every detail of the boy’s appearance, she listened to her words flow nervously together. She wasn’t sure why she felt so nervous. Clearly, the boy presented no possible threat. Almost pretty, his blankly pubescent features had a waxen delicacy. “My brother-in-law used to live here. Did you know Lonny?” With sudden inspiration, she added, “I’ve come to get his things.”

The boy stared past her. She followed his gaze to a lean cat that was slinking around the side of the house, and she began to wonder if the boy might be deaf. Then he tilted his face toward her.

There was nothing that could really be called an expression. The light seemed to sleep there in his eyes, reflected in bright silence. “L-Lonny?”

“Yes, that’s right. Lonny.” She waited, smiling encouragingly, but he only blinked. “Do you know where his things are? Are they in his room?” She stepped up onto the porch.

“His stuff?” He looked away from her. “Gone. Took it.”

“Who took it?”

He gestured with one hand, vaguely indicating the town. His hand shook, and it troubled her to see an adolescent who trembled, palsied.

She couldn’t think what else to say. The boy shyly refused to look up at her again, and his arms and legs seemed to quiver. She sensed his desire to run away. “Do you live here?” He might have nodded slightly in response, but she couldn’t be sure. Turning from him, she surveyed the town: still no one around.

Suddenly realizing who he must be, she faced him again. The last time she’d seen the boy, he’d been fat and pimply. Now he looked almost wasted, as though from a long illness. “Is your father around someplace?” She looked about warily. She’d met Al once.

“N-Nobody’s here.”

She peered around back at the still house, a shed with no windows. Foul whitish vapor flowed steadily from a pipe chimney stuck through the roof. She turned back to the boy, who just kept staring at his feet. She moved closer to the door of the gin mill, peering into the gloom.

“Nobody?”

“J-Jus’ Ernie. Sick in bed. Upstairs.”

Jackpot. She beamed a smile at the boy, but her eyes went hard. “He’s sick? What’s wrong with him?” She stepped back to peer at the tiny second-story window. “Maybe I should go check on him?”

The door to the still house burst open. In a swirling cloud of steam, there emerged a pair of lurching forms, and the smoke cascaded about them, rising and suffusing into the bright haze of the sky. The door banged shut. One of the two men giggled, an unnaturally high-pitched sound. “Hey, lookit!”

The steam dissipated enough for her to get a look at them. The gangly one hung back, smiling broadly, but the heavyset blond man strutted toward her.

“Hey, girlie. D’you come out here lookin’ fer a man?” He swayed a few feet away from her. “I knows yours’s gone.” He grinned back at the other one, who giggled again. “So you come lookin’ for ole Wes?”

“Is that your name? Wes?” Resisting the impulse to punch him in the throat, she tried questioning him about Lonny, not very successfully. While she talked, the two men fell across the porch, squatting and then jumping up again like apes or drunken gargoyles.

“Yeah, I seen things, girlie.” Wes’s glance at his cohort elicited an appreciative laugh. “You wouldn’t believe some a the things I seen.”

She pointed toward the gin mill. “Do you know anything about the man upstairs?” She looked around. The boy had vanished.

“Ain’t nobody in there. Who you been talkin’ to? Marl? Can’t pay no attention a him. Can’t you tell he’s crazy? You stupid or something?”

“Could you tell me why the town seems so deserted?”

Both men broke up. “Well,” Wes gasped out. “When people starts to get et up by the Leeds Devil”—he collapsed with mirth—“everybody jus’ naturally runs away!” Wiping at his eyes, and slapping his friend on the back, he sidled closer to her. “You jus’ lucky Al ain’t here.” One leered, and the other smirked. “He’d eat chyou alive.”

“Oh? Where is Mr. Spencer?”

The men stopped laughing and looked at each other. “I’m his man now Lonny’s gone. ’Smy job takin’ care a things ’round here when Al’s…got business.” He swayed, and his mouth twitched. “It don’t like me. Tries to get in at night. I hear it. Hey, you was in dat—whazat thing? With the sick people and the rescue stuff, right? Maybe you kin help ole Manny here. Manny, what wuz you telling me ’bout yer little girl?”

“Yeah,” said Manny Leek. “She bit by a spider, day ’fore yestiday. Head’s all swole. Chile’s mother say she got fever.” Manny stumbled against her, and she shoved him back. “Wuz gonna get ole Mother Jenks to come, ’cept she ain’t been ’round lately, an’ ’er shacks all way down to…” He pointed off into the pines, and his legs seemed to buckle. She steadied him, grabbing hold of the gray length of rope that served as his belt. “Down that way. ’S far.” He belched, smiled at her with toothless gums. The red birthmark all but covered one side of his face.

Brakes squealed as a car whooshed sand at the gin mill. The woman charged out of the car.

“Hi, Doris.”

“You okay?”

Hastily, she began trying to explain the situation. When she got as far as the little girl, Doris drew her aside. “So what do you want to do? You want to check on this kid? I’ve got my first-aid kit in the car.”

“The child may need help,” she whispered, nodding to the men who slouched a few feet away. “I haven’t been able to get anything out of anybody. But if we go to someone’s home, I mean really get in, maybe they’ll talk more freely.”

Manny seemed to go falling-down drunk all at once. Wincing at the smell, they helped him into the backseat while Wes stood watching. “Yeah, the two a you do ’im,” Wes said with approval. “That’s right.” He waved a grease black hand. “You both do ’im.”

She slammed the back door and went up front to sit with Doris. A deer rifle leaned across the front seat.

“Is it this way?” Doris looked back at where Manny sprawled. Barely conscious, he smiled, nodding, and Doris turned furiously to Athena. “Do you smell him? Christ, I’m going to have to fumigate. Hey, fella, my upholstery isn’t getting your clothes dirty, is it? Damn it, ’Thena! You were supposed to wait for me.”

She didn’t respond, held silent by the sight of the rifle.

“Why the hell can’t you do what I tell you? I specifically…Yeah? What the hell are you mousing around about back there? This way? Good, rosebud, you can pass out again now. Oh Christ, what a stink! What did he do, die back there?” She wrestled with the wheel, the car rolling too fast across lumpy sand. “You think you’re going to get information from him? Go ahead. Question him. This I’ve got to hear.”

Athena stared at her a moment, then turned around in her seat. “The night Lonny got killed, you remember? The night of the storm? Did you see anything at all unusual?”

By now, his face slack, Manny didn’t appear even to realize he was being spoken to.

Doris snorted. “We want to find a monster, so what do we do? We open a taxi service for the sobriety impaired. Makes perfect sense. You suppose this is the direction he meant? Ask chatterbox. Is this the way?”

Leek snored. The road had become little more than a rough trail, then vanished altogether, and the car bounced across the littered, overgrown field.

“This shit is for the birds.” The car took an especially bad bump. “You know that, don’t you?”

“Doris…”

“That’s got to be it.” She stopped the car. “No telling what’s in those weeds. I’d hate to get stuck out here. Better walk the rest of the way. Or we’ll walk. He’ll stagger. Christ, look at that place. Hard to believe people live in it.”

From the house, Matthew watched as Pam danced around the shed. She’d forgotten about him.

Coarse weeds lashed at her ankles, leaving faint pink lines on her plump flesh, but she didn’t seem to notice. The silver bracelet she’d taken from Athena’s room clinked with every step. With the plastic barrettes left off for once, her hair blew in a blonde tangle about her face, nearly concealing the angry-looking blemish. She held a short knife.

The dry remnant of a distant storm stirred the heavy summer air, and wildflowers bent before it. She called out, her voice a gentle clucking full of terms of endearment. Soft white feathers ruffling in the wind, the hen fled through the sharp grass.