Bethany's Sin Page 12

  An ax fell.

  The stump of his right shoulder gushed thick, glimmering red blood. Red rain spattered the trees. Muscadine John’s body trembled as if touched by an electric wire; he saw their eyes on him and he knew he must get to his feet, must get to his feet and run, run, run for the highway. Screaming in horror and pain, he staggered up and forward, off balance, then fell against the side of one of the horses and down into a clump of spined thorns. The things turned toward him, their axes rising. He ran for his life, tripping, screaming, staggering from tree to tree; but they were only footfalls behind him, slowed by the dense foliage but not slowed enough. Bleeding. Bleeding too much. Oh God oh sweet Jesus God bleeding too much put hand in that socket hold the veins oh God bleeding too much Jesus help me bleeding bleeding too much…!

  They guided their horses expertly around the trees and the thicker growth; their faces were split by moon light and shadow, and their fingers were clamped like vises around the hafts of their glowing axes.

  He tripped again, almost fell, but caught himself. His legs were weakening; there was a buzzing in his brain and a numbness that had claimed more of him with each step. One side of the knapsack dragged because there was no arm to secure the strap. And then he turned his head, sweat burning on his face, to see them.

  And it was then that the thing just behind him bent down and, with an almost effortless blow, cleaved the head from the fleeing, bloodied body of the man. It sailed out into the night, turning over and over, the silver beard catching moonlight, the eyes staring and seeing nothing. The body staggered on, jerking crazily, and in another second crumpled down in a gore-splattered mass of rags.

  With eaglelike screeches of hatred and vengeance, the things urged their horses forward. Hooves pounded the body into a bone-crushed jelly. One of them found the head, and it shattered like a porcelain bowl that had held a wine-soaked sponge. For almost ten minutes the things screamed and their mounts danced the dance of the death-giver, and when they were finished, nothing was recognizable except a battered, split-seamed Army surplus knapsack. With one final, chilling cry they turned their horses northward and slipped into the forest like wraiths. For a long time after they had gone, no animal in the forest dared move, and even the insects sensed the quick, consuming presence of ax-wielding Evil.

  In the sky the moon hung as mute witness. Very slowly it began to sink toward the horizon as gray light crept over the rim of the world. A few trucks passed on the road, heading for distant cities to the north that might have been eons away from the forest surrounding Bethany’s Sin.

  And in the forest the flies gathered for a feast.

  11

  * * *

  The Outsider,

  Looking In

  BECAUSE THE NEIGHBORHOOD had been so deathly quiet all morning, Evan distinctly heard the noise of a lawn mower. He was working on a short story in his basement office, now complete with mounted bookshelves packed with aged paperbacks, a few valuable first-edition Hemingways and Faulkners, and assorted odds and ends; he’d left the windows open to catch the morning breezes.

  The high whine of the lawn mower came from across the street, he realized after a moment of listening.

  Keating’s house.

  Today, the last day of June, marked two weeks they’d lived in the house on McClain Terrace. Working on a regular schedule, he’d completed one short story and mailed it the day before to Harper’s, but he’d had two rejection slips from them and was prepared for a third. No matter; he was certain his material was good, and it was just a matter of time. Kay seemed happy indeed now that the term at George Ross had begun; when Evan sensed in her an insecurity about her abilities as a teacher, he helped her talk those feelings away, and eventually her mood would lighten. He was glad to see that Laurie had adjusted very easily to their new home; she actually seemed to look forward to going to the Sunshine School every weekday, and in the evenings she bubbled over about the games she and the other children played. It pleased him to see both his wife and his daughter so happy, because they had come down a long, grinding road and thank God all those bad times were in the past. They had bought some new furniture, drawing the money from the savings account Evan had built up while working in LaGrange, and Kay was making plans to repaint the living room in soft peach.

  It was only when he was alone and allowed his thoughts to drift that Evan felt the old, clinging spider touches of doubt. They hadn’t met that many of the families in Bethany’s Sin, and though they’d seen the Demargeons a total of three times, Evan was beginning to sense, and fear, a lack of acceptance. He’d tried to talk his feelings out to Kay, but she’d laughed and said getting to know new people in any town takes time. There’s no need to push it or to worry about it, she’d said; it’ll happen in time. He’d finally agreed she was probably right.

  The outsider, Evan thought; always the outsider, looking in. Imagination, he’d tried to tell himself. Only the imagination and nothing more. But he was different from other people because there were things he some times saw that others could not, and perhaps they sensed that about him and that was why he had trouble making friends or trusting people. Because of the feelings he’d sensed, Evan had postponed his research on Bethany’s Sin; Mrs. Demargeon was so halfhearted in her encouragement that Evan was afraid to risk the disapproval of the other villagers. Afraid: that was the key word, the key emotion. Afraid of many things, some glittering in the light, some hidden in the dark. Afraid of failure and hate and violence and…yes, even afraid of the sight that lay behind his eyes.

  He’d had no more dreams since that first night in Bethany’s Sin, but the lingering intensity of that one still nagged at him. In the eye of his mind he saw the letters across a road sign: BETHANY’S SIN. And something approaching from a maelstrom of choking dust. He had no idea what it was, but the raw memory of it plucked painfully at his nerves. he’d tried to forget about it, telling himself it was caused by anxiety or weariness or whatever, but instead of forgetting he had only dug a grave for the nightmare—without warning, it often came back, bringing with it the small of death and dark glittering terrors.

  But there were other things that disturbed him as well, not all of them confined to the sleeper’s world. One day he’d left the house and walked the streets of the village for the sake of curiosity, admiring the flowers in the Circle, watching the tennis players on the courts off Deer Cross Lane, listening to the soft voice of the breezes through the treetops. Winding his way deeper into the village, he’d found himself standing near the corner of Cowlington Street, frozen to the spot. Ahead of him a shadow stretched across the earth, a thing of sharp angles. and massed blackness; beyond a spear-topped wrought iron fence stood that dark-stoned house, the roof of which he’d seen from McClain Terrace. The windows blazed with reflected sunlight, like white-hot eyes with orange pupils. From the street to the doorway was a concrete walk, lined on either side by neatly trimmed hedges, but along the windows on the ground level the shrubs had been allowed to grow thick and wild. The grounds were green and slightly rolling with large oak trees placed at intervals, casting mosaics of shade. Nothing moved around that house, and Evan could see nothing beyond the windows. After a few minutes Evan had felt a sudden, spine-rippling chill, even though he was standing in the full sun. His pulse throbbed, and when he raised his hand to his forehead, he found a light sheen of perspiration ready to break. He turned away quickly and retraced his steps until he’d left that place behind.

  But why he’d felt a sudden surge of fear he didn’t know.

  And there were other things as well: the shadow of a one-armed figure, a shape that had moved rapidly past his bedroom window and on down the street, the barking of a dog in the still hours of the night. The haunted eyes of Harris Demargeon.

  Imagination?

  Nothing is real but what you perceive, Evan told himself as he listened to the drone of that lawn mower. But is what I perceive real? Nagging doubts bred of old insecurities and fears? Or something very diffe
rent? Kay wouldn’t listen; there was no need to burden her with the things that churned inside him anyway, but whether those demons were imaginary or real, they were beginning to scream within his soul.

  And now they had taken on the voice of a lawn mower.

  Evan stood up, climbed the stairs out of the basement, and stood in the front doorway, looking across the street at the Keating house.

  Keating looked to be a younger man than Evan had envisioned; he was dressed in faded jeans and a sweat soaked T-shirt, and as Evan watched, Keating paused momentarily behind his red mower to mop at his face with a white handkerchief. In the driveway there was a battered-looking, paint-smeared pickup truck with its tailgate down. Not exactly the kind of vehicle he would’ve associated with the man. Evan closed his door and walked across the street; he stood on the sidewalk watching him work. Keating wore eyeglasses patched together with adhesive tape. The man glanced up, saw Evan, and nodded a greeting.

  “Hot day to have to do that,” Evan called over the mower’s noise.

  The man looked at him, squinted, and shook his head because he hadn’t heard. He reached down and cut the engine, and as it died, the silence came slithering back. “What’d you say?” he asked.

  “I said it’s a hot day to have to cut grass.”

  Keating wiped his face with a forearm. “Hotter than hell,” he said. “In the shade it’s not so bad, though.”

  Evan stepped forward. “I’m Evan Reid,” he said. “I live across the street there. Are you Mr. Keating?”

  “Keating?” The man paused a few seconds, glanced over at the mailbox: KEA, it read, the rest of the letters gone. “Oh. No, I’m not Keating. I’m Neely Ames.”

  “Oh, I see,” Evan said, but he didn’t, really. He looked toward the attractive split-level house, saw it was quiet and seemingly deserted. “I guess he’s not back from his vacation yet, then.”

  “Guess not,” Neely said. He drew a package of cigarettes from a back pocket and lit one with a battered Zippo lighter.

  “Are you a relative or something, taking care of his house while he’s gone?”

  “No. I work for the village. I do whatever they tell me to do and so here I am.”

  Evan smiled. “I noticed the grass over here was getting a little high, but I didn’t think the village would send somebody out to cut it.”

  “You’d be surprised,” Neely said around his cigarette. “In the last couple of weeks I’ve done just about everything. They’re trying to break my ass around here.”

  Evan was moving toward the house. He stepped up to the front door as the other man watched him, and peered through a window. It was a typical living room, with chairs, a brown sofa, lamps, a coffee table. Magazines lay on the table: Sports Afield, Time, Newsweek. Evan saw two flies spinning around near the ceiling; they dropped down onto the coffee table and crawled across the cover of the Sports Afield.

  “Nobody’s home,” Neely said.

  “Yes, I see. Too bad.” He turned back toward the man, then froze. In the distant sky, close to the horizon, was a grayish layer of smoke. “Something’s on fire out there!” Evan said, pointing.

  Neely looked, shook his head after a few seconds. “That’s the landfill, a couple of miles on the other side of the woods. Most of the villages around here use it as a garbage dump. Somebody’s just burning trash.”

  “Won’t the fire spread?”

  “I doubt it. The landfill’s as barren as the moon. But if it did spread I can tell you who’d be fighting it. Me, either with a garden hose or my bare hands, because Id have to be the whole damned fire department around here.”

  Evan looked at him and smiled. “That bad, huh?” The other man nodded vigorously. “I’ve been looking forward to meeting the man who lives here,” Evan said.

  “I kind of got the impression that whoever lived here has moved away.”

  “Why?”

  “I went around to the back for a drink from the outside faucet. The basement door’s open. And wide open, too. Like I say, nobody’s home.”

  “Shouldn’t the sheriff know about that?”

  “I went inside,” Neely continued, “on up to the hallway. There was a phone, and I called the sheriff because I thought somebody had broken in, maybe stolen something. Anyway, he told me not to worry about it, said he’d have it taken care of. But he raised hell at me for going inside.”

  Evan narrowed his eyes slightly, looked over his shoulder at the Keating house. “That’s strange,” he said quietly.

  “There’s furniture inside,” Neely told him, “but not much more. The closets are all open and empty. And another thing: there are no fuses in the fusebox.”

  Evan looked at him. “No…fuses?” he said, almost to himself.

  Neely shrugged. “I don’t know. Maybe…what’s his name? Keating…maybe Keating decided to move and just took off. A lot of people do that, you know.”

  “But why would he?” Evan asked, turning and gazing along the street at the other houses. The smudge in the sky seemed nearer. But the unasked question burned at him: Why would anyone want to leave the perfect village of Bethany’s Sin?

  “No telling,” Neely said, watching the man. He drew on his cigarette again and then said, “Well, if you’ll excuse me now, I’d better finish this lawn.” He pulled a couple of times on the starter cord, and the mower kicked to life; guiding the mower toward an uncut section on the far side of the lawn, he concentrated on how good a beer was going to taste after this job was done.

  Evan stood where he was for a moment more; from the corner of his eye he caught a brief glimpse of that high roof before the tree limbs covered it over again in the wake of a breeze. The museum.

  He turned away, crossing the street again and disappearing into his own house.

  And after he was gone, Neely Ames stared in the direction he’d gone. What was the man’s name? Reid? He seemed okay, worlds better than most of the people he’d met so far. At least the man hadn’t looked at him with something akin to disdain, as the others did. Neely swung the lawn mower around, cutting a swath through knee high weeds. He hadn’t told Evan Reid everything he’d found inside; he hadn’t told him of that wide, dark stain on the basement floor, just below the empty fusebox. That he’d decided to keep to himself. He wiped sweat out of his eyes and put his back into the mower.

  Day cooled into evening. The noise of the lawn mower stopped, and slowly the subtle blues of nightfall shaded the far forest, creeping toward Bethany’s Sin. Evan watched them coming as he stood at a window in the den. He watched them as Kay made dinner in the kitchen, as Laurie laughed at a Soupy Sales rerun on television. It seemed to him that out there a tidal wave of darkness was gathering, gathering, taking awesome form and hideous strength, rolling across the woods, driving down the earth beneath blackness, rolling nearer and nearer and nearer. He tore himself away from the window and helped Kay make iced tea in the kitchen.

  “…some really smart kids,” Kay was saying. “They’re asking me questions that I find tough to answer sometimes. But God, that feels good. Being challenged like that is…well, it’s one of the most fulfilling things in the world.”

  “I’m glad,” he said, popping ice from their trays. “It sounds terrific.”

  “It is. You know, it’d be great if you could come over and have lunch with me someday. I’d like to show you around and introduce you to the other teachers.”

  He nodded. “I’d like that. Maybe some day next week.”

  “Thursday would be good,” Kay said. She stirred the rice, listening to his silence. He’d been very quiet since she and Laurie had gotten home, and at first Kay had thought Evan had gotten a rejection slip in the mail, but all that had come was an electric bill and a Penney’s mail-order catalogue. He was often quiet when his work wasn’t going well, when he felt at odds with a character or a situation in a story. But this was somehow different. This was like…yes, like the morning after one of those…dreams he had. Oh God, no.

  “Aren’t
you feeling well?” she asked him finally, not looking at him but rather into the rice.

  And he heard the trepidation in her voice. The fear of what was to come. He said, “A little tired, I guess.”

  “Trouble with your story?”

  “Yes.”

  “Anything I can help you with?”

  “No,” he said. “I don’t think so.”

  But of course she knew that wasn’t it.

  “I went across the street today,” he said. “To Keating’s house. You know, the widower Mrs. Demargeon told us about? There was a guy over there cutting the grass. He said the back door was open, the lock broken. He said he didn’t think anyone lived there anymore.”

  “Who was he?”

  “Someone the village hired. A handyman, I suppose.” He gazed out the kitchen window, saw black. Blackness creeping, spider-forms in the clouds. “I looked in through a window myself, and I—” Say it. You’ve got to say it and get it out by God or your soul will scream. “I didn’t like what I felt.”

  “What did you see?”

  He shrugged. “Furniture, magazines. Flies.”

  “Flies?” She looked at him questioningly.

  “Two of them,” Evan said, “circling the living room. I don’t know why, but that bothers me.”

  “Oh, come on,” Kay said, trying to keep it light and easy. “Why should that upset you so much?”

  Evan knew why, but wouldn’t tell her. Because he’d seen many, many corpses in the war. And most of them had been specked with greedily eating flies. Around the lips of rictus-grinning death masks, around the bullet holes and ripped arteries. Since then, he’d always equated flies with death, just as he equated spiders with rank, crawling evil.

  They sat down to dinner. Evan thought he could hear the darkness breathing beyond the windowpanes.

  “We watched cartoons today, Daddy,” Laurie said. “We had a fun time. And Mrs. Omartian told us some stories.”