The Tea Party - A Novel of Horror (14 page)

Once into the trees again, the open ground beyond a soft and beckoning white, he fell against a tree trunk and closed his eyes. He was sweating. His oversized chest was drenched, and his shirt clung to it coldly; his legs were cramping, inside his head something was thumping, and he could hear the -blood tumbling through his veins by his ears.

Heart attack, he thought then; twenty-two and I’m having a stupid heart attack. God, I hope Liz is all right.

He swayed, dropped to his knees, and vomited into the weeds.

He could
feel
the knife as it slid into her side,
feel
the give of flesh,
feel
that brief spurt of blood on the back of his hand before he had leapt away. He gagged again, trying to turn his head away from the stench, finally wiping his mouth with his sleeve and pulling himself to his feet.

Another hundred yards and he reached the estate wall.

3

Judy was alone, and glad she didn’t have to talk, to pretend, to play the worried friend of a friend who had been injured.

She had been so furious at Casey that she’d been tempted to join the others and chase after him, her only reason to catch him first and beat the living shit out of him. The murderous impulse passed, however, as soon as she heard the scream and Gil charged back inside to grab the ambulance keys from its hook beside the cash drawer. She heard a shout, Liz Egan stabbed, and the first group of men stampeded out the door like a pack of Piper’s hounds on a fresh scent. Instead of following, she stationed Doug at the register in case someone thought to take advantage of the confusion, and bustled around the room, getting as many people as she could back into their seats. She made it as far as the door. The ambulance was pulling out by the time she had elbowed her way through, and four or five men were pelting across the street, yelling, pointing, proving to her at once that they hadn’t the slightest idea where Casey had gone.

Christ, she thought; Casey, watch where you’re going.

She was called back inside, and taking care of the remaining customers took all her patience while Doug stood behind the bar and went through the motions of mixing and serving, as if he were a robot. She tried a dozen times to get him to talk, but he answered only with sickly grins and noncommittal grunts, and she gave up in disgust, wondering why the hell a little fight should affect him this way.

That self-deception lasted only a few moments.

She knew damned well what was bothering him, and hadn’t hesitated at all to press on him the necessity of his staying behind with her. Gil was gone, the waitresses nervous, the crowd rowdy, and he was the only other man in town she could trust to keep the place from being torn apart. He’d agreed, but he might as well have gone for all the company he was.

Then worry over Casey soon turned to anger—if he was dumb enough to go to the estate, then nothing she could do would stop him from paying. Unlike her brother, she remembered early; and unlike her brother, she didn’t mind a bit.

When Bud returned and told them that story about the knife wound, she almost screamed.

Then Doug left with only a quick word and a nod, and by two-thirty she was alone, rinsing out the last of the glasses, taking the cash from its drawer and stuffing it into a canvas sack whose mouth she tied closed with a broad leather strap.

The lights winked out, the neon sign lingering even after the switch was thrown.

She walked to the house through a gap in the hedge, and went through to the kitchen without turning on any lights. The sack was dropped into the freezer, the safest place in the house since she never bothered with a safe. Then she walked to the telephone and dialed Doug’s number.

Four times she dialed, and four times she hung up before his end started ringing.

Then she sat alone in the parlor, in the dark, hands clasped in her lap, and she thought about Casey running through the hills, thought about Liz Egan lying bleeding on the ground.

Her left foot began to jump, and she grabbed her knee, forced it still.

She didn’t know whether to laugh or to cry.

She thought about dying.

4

Bud sat on the edge of the bed, hands clasped on his knees. He was naked. Ollie was asleep beside him, murmuring now and then, her hand once brushing his hip. Below him the shop was quiet. Outside, he saw the round white cages the streetlamps dropped onto the street. A dove sounded, an owl answered.

I
saw
it.

He watched himself jump the Lockharts’ hedge, saw Liz on the gravel, saw his hands working, the smooth slice in the roll of fat at her side and the blood slipping out as if from a razor’s cut. He saw the gauze pads, the white tape, the stretcher, the man named Davermain, the ambulance lights muted against glare. He watched the hospital approach, swinging dizzy-ingly away as Gil took the entrance curve, dizzyingly back as he pulled up to the emergency ward door and saw the interns racing out, followed by a nurse.

The back doors swung open.

There was talk, nervous laughter, and Liz was gone, Davermain beside her, Bud climbing out and grabbing hold of the van’s corner to steady himself. He had been nervous, frightened, worried to death he had done the wrong thing and Liz would die because he had missed something in his training. He was scared, and Gil hadn’t helped by standing beside him and cursing Casey’s shitty aim. As if Bud would feel better if it were Bernie on the stretcher.

I saw it, he said a dozen times to the intern who could barely suppress his rage at what he thought had been a joke. Liz had a wicked bump on the back of her head where she had fallen, and that was what had knocked her out. There was no blood; there was a cut, but less than one you would get rubbing against a sharp twig. The intern hadn’t believed his story about Casey; Gil had hustled him into the van and they had left for Deerford, leaving Liz to be checked and released later that night.

When Gil showed him a fist if he didn’t shut up, he’d slumped into the corner and watched the road, and couldn’t understand what he’d done wrong. Even though Doug’s perfectly reasonable explanation had triggered the memory of the bogus fire, he was positive. Less positive because of that fire, but so damned
sure!

Now he couldn’t sleep.

Ollie had done her best, even agreeing to help him call around to see if they could locate Hallman and find out if Doug had been right, that it was Bernie’s blood they had seen. But no one knew where Bernie was, and a few were already making jokes about Bud’s needing glasses, preferably the kind with soda bottle lenses.

When he began making noises about going out again, to inspect the parking lot, maybe drive back to the hospital and see Liz, she had rebelled. She told him bluntly that he was forgetting what had happened to them that afternoon, and it was obvious even to a blind man that’s he’d had another flashback. It was a horrible thing, most likely brought about by his concern for Liz, but it was just another hallucination.

She went to bed.

He sat in the living room at the back of the house and tried to make himself believe it.

He undressed and sat on the edge of the bed and tried to make himself believe it.

He walked back down to the Retirement Room, unlocked it, and switched on the light. The furniture waited for him, dark, patient, telling him there was no fire, that he couldn’t still smell the smoke or see the flames or watch the grey and black smoke billowing through the open window. There was nothing wrong here. It hadn’t changed at all. Until he saw the Indian lounge, and the scorch mark on the cushion.

He walked back upstairs and into the bathroom, lifted the lid from the toilet tank, and pulled out a large plastic bag. Water dropped onto his bare feet. He raised the bowl lid and opened the bag, dropped the marijuana into the water shred by shred and flushed it away. Then he returned to the bedroom and slipped under the covers. The night was still warm, but the room was cold and his teeth began to chatter, his legs began to jump, and when Ollie awoke to see that was the matter, all he could do was stare, and whisper, “I
saw
it.”

5

Liz huddled next to Clark in the Mercedes, a thin hospital blanket around her, the stench of disinfectant filling her nostrils. Every few seconds she reached up and gingerly touched the lump of bandage on the back of her head, and that would trigger the sight of Casey leaping out at her from the bar.

She grunted when she felt the knife passing into her side, and Clark tightened his arm around her shoulders.

“A miracle,” he said. “It’s a miracle you weren’t hurt.”

But I was, she thought; goddamnit, I was.

Clark had prevailed upon a nurse to drive him back to the tavern so he could pick up his car. It wasn’t difficult. He simply smiled through his tan and the woman practically fell into his arms. Then, quite on his own, he had driven over to the house where he found Heather waiting. In his best (she assumed) lawyer/fatherly manner, he’d explained what had happened, apparently giving it a rather romantic twist—it was Liz who had seen the fight, Liz who had recognized the danger and, without thinking, interceded to halt it. By the time he had finished, Heather was eating out of his hand and it was nothing for him to suggest she remain where she was until he’d brought her mother home.

“You ought to have that idiot arrested,” the intern had said to them as he walked them to the car. “God.”

“It wasn’t his fault,” Liz had insisted. “He thought . . . it was because there was all that blood . . .”

“Asshole,” the intern had muttered. “You people ought to get a real doctor over there, then things like this wouldn’t happen.”

Liz shivered.

the blade had cut her

Clark drove unerringly to the house and parked at the curb. All the lights were on in the living room, and before she was out of her seat, Heather exploded from the doorway and raced into her arms. Clark stood to one side, making himself busy locking the doors and fussing with his key case. Then he followed them up the short walk to the brick steps, and to the landing just inside. Stairs led down into a darkened family room, led up to a hall and the living room on the left. The rooms were white, with a few wildlife prints scattered along the walls. Liz dropped onto the three-cushion sofa and held Heather close. Clark found himself a chair that faced them and settled in, crossing his legs at the knee, folding his hands in his lap.

Over in the corner a grandfather clock chimed twelve.

The chattering slowed, and Heather finally pulled out of her mother’s embrace and stared at her as if she were a woman she’d never seen before. “Mom, you’re a hero!”

“No, not really, dear. And where is your—”

“But Mr. Davermain said you tried to stop that fight!”

Liz managed a scolding look that Clark shrugged off, and let the blanket fall from her shoulders. Heather looked immediately at her side and reached out a finger to touch the unbroken fabric.

“Mom, I thought he stabbed you.”

“No, dear. We
thought
he did. All that happened was that I fell down and cracked my skull a little.”

“There’s no concussion,” Clark reminded her. “Just a bump.”

“A bitch of a one, too,” she said, wincing and slapping at Heather’s hand when she unhesitatingly prodded at the lumpy bandage. “Look, I thought Clark explained all this to you.”

“Oh, he did,” Heather agreed. Then, quite without warning, her eyes reddened and she started to cry. Liz felt her own tears on their way down her cheeks, and over her daughter’s shoulder she asked if Clark wouldn’t mind putting the kettle on in the kitchen. When he was gone, all too eager to be away, she stroked the girl’s back and looked down the hall toward the rooms at the far end.

“Where’s Keith?” she asked gently.

“Oh Mom,” Heather sobbed, “I thought you were dead. When Mr. Davermain came in looking like that, I remembered—”

Remembered the way the guests had come to the house after Ron’s funeral. Solemn at first, condolences, remembrances, then standing around and avoiding looking at Liz and the children until the food and drink were served.

“I know, dear, I know,” she said as she willed her son to get his butt out of bed and come comfort his mother.

“God, I thought—”

“Keith,” she said suddenly, sharply, pushing the girl away. “Heather, where is Keith?” She rose just as Clark came out of the kitchen with two cups of tea. When she asked him about her son, he looked bewildered, stammered, and finally just shrugged.

“Heather,” she said, ignoring the thumping in her head, “are you covering for him again? Damnit, has he come home yet?”

Without waiting for an answer, she strode furiously down the hallway, listening to Heather indignantly protesting her innocence behind her. The first door on the right was Heather’s, the first on the left the bathroom. At hall’s end were two more set into the corners—her own on the left. She opened the right-hand one without pausing, and stepped in.

“Oh my god,” she said, “oh god, no,” and fell heavily against the jamb.

“What is it, Liz?” Clark asked, his voice once again tinged with professional concern.

“Mom? Mom, what’s wrong?” Heather ran up behind her, looked in, and gasped.

The bed was empty.

“Where is he?” Liz demanded, turning on her daughter and grabbing her shoulders. “Where
is
he?”

Heather paled as her mother’s fingers dug into her skin and dragged her closer. “Mom, I—”

“Damnit, girl, where is your brother?”

“Listen, Liz,” Clark began.

“You keep out of this, Clark,” she snapped without looking at him. “Just . . . oh, go make some tea.”

“Mom, please, you’re hurting me.”

She glared into the girl’s wide, frightened eyes. “I’ll do more than hurt you, Heather Egan, if you don’t tell me right now where Keith is! You were supposed to be watching him! You were supposed to be
watching
him!”

She could hear herself yelling, could see the medication she’d been given fuzzing her vision until it seemed as if she were peering through gauze. But she couldn’t help herself. She lost one man in the family already, and now her only son, eleven years old, was out there god only knew where, in the dark, in the middle of nowhere, and all this child could do was complain about a little pain. What the hell did she know about pain?