GRAVEWORM Page 23

  Now.

  Of all times.

  He opened the door. Yes, candles were glowing—three or four of them atop the bureau—and Tara was on the floor, squatting, arms wrapped around herself, rocking gently back and forth. She was mumbling under her breath.

  “Tara?” he said.

  She stood up, completely naked and he drank her in. His guts seemed to suck into themselves. There were cuts across her thighs, belly, and arms, even her breasts. And recent ones by the looks of them. So either she had crawled nude through a picker bush or…

  “Tara?” he said. “What happened to you?”

  She stepped forward and her face was like a pallid smear of grease, her eyes red-rimmed holes threading into blackness. She reached out for him and something inside him cringed momentarily for the long-limbed, wavering shadow she threw against the wall looked momentarily like some withered old hag—crooked and contorted, arms like the twisted branches of a dead tree. But it was imagination, a trick of the light, because the woman coming toward him was definitely Tara: high-breasted, leggy, dark hair cascading down one shoulder, her ravenous sexual appetite on full display.

  “Take off your clothes,” she said.

  “But Tara…”

  “Do it,” she said and there was a suggested tone in her voice that she would not ask again and her voice… it was like being dipped in amber, melting into it, being encased by it. There was a moment of weird, atavistic fear, but it faded quickly.

  He did as she asked even though he knew it was all wrong. His mind jumping with conflicting, swirling dark thoughts, he was almost embarrassed to realize he had an erection. There were so many questions to be answered and so many things to be worked out and yet there he was, allowing himself to be effortlessly seduced. In his mind he saw Frank’s face and he felt guilty. Then Tara was on him, wrapping herself around him like a climbing vine, a parasitic growth, and he let it happen in a shocking display of heat and need. She pushed him back on the bed and took him in her mouth, not so much using her lips or her tongue but her teeth. Nibbling, nipping like she was teasing not him but herself, just having a little taste before she sank her teeth in. And despite all the fears and worries and confusion in Steve’s brain, he liked it, he loved it. Then she mounted him and there was no tenderness or love, it was all simple animal lust, violent, wild, even painful. And when it was done he was laying there… sweating, aching, sore. She had bitten into his shoulder and drawn blood, scratched his flesh raw. His hips felt bruised where her thighs had slammed against him.

  Laying there in the dark, he knew it wasn’t right.

  Tara could be very inventive in bed.

  But she wasn’t like this.

  This, he supposed, was inner turmoil externalizing itself. It sounded like half-ass, armchair psychoanalysis, but he did not doubt it for a moment. There was something inside her, something dark, something unknown, something scary and he had just gotten a peek at it. He had seen it grinning at him, a meat-smelling thing with teeth and claws and, yes, appetite.

  And I’m not too proud to admit that this woman is scaring the hell out of me.

  He held onto her in the darkness. Her flesh was hot and sweaty and throbbing. He tried once and then twice to get her to speak, but she would not say anything. She clung to him tightly, breathing low and even, and her body language told him that she craved a silent, pressing physical connection and no more.

  He closed his eyes.

  Holding her, he slept.

  63

  When Frank Duvall walked into the emergency room of the Mission Point Clinic, his shirt was covered with blood. He was woozy, his arm feeling like it was scraped raw. But he did not panic because it wasn’t in him to do so. He went to the window and calmly said, “I think I need a couple stitches.” Which got people moving very quickly. As it turned out, he needed more than a couple. It took eight stitches to close the wound in his arm and another fifteen to close the gash at his ribs.

  They wanted to know how it happened and he told them some crazy, muddled story about how he’d lost his balance and fallen into a bin of scrap metal which was total bullshit and even they knew it but by then he was shot up with pain killers and nothing made sense as he slipped in and out of consciousness.

  Now, blinking himself out of it, he was confused. His side was hurting, his arm was lanced by a dull, low thrumming pain. His mouth was dry and his thoughts were trying to swim upstream against the sedatives. There was something he needed to be doing and somewhere he needed to go. But as he sat up, the room spun and he fell back into the bed, slipping into dream almost immediately.

  64

  You’re too old for this shit.

  Parked two houses away from the Coombes’ place, Bud Stapleton kept watch. The night had gone chill and he could feel the cold in his old bones and his tired blood. What he needed was a good slug of whiskey to warm him up, but he hadn’t kept any around in years. Margaret did not approve.

  Last thing you need is for one of the local toy cops to stop by and find you sitting in your truck with a jug on your lap.

  He was aware at that moment just how age had crept up on him and stolen the sunshine from his body. He was tired. He was cold. His back was aching. His knees were throbbing. Good God, and to think this old body of his had once been young and taut and able. It had run through fields and leaped fences and propelled him laughing into leaf piles. And once, in high school, it had rushed sixty yards for a touchdown with twelve seconds left on the clock. That had been a night much like this. But back then when he was seventeen, the autumn chill had made him feel invigorated and alive, it had made him want to run and never stop. Now it just made him want to curl up in a box and dream away eternity.

  Quit your whining.

  He clicked on his penlight and scanned over the list he had made. Tara’s boyfriend, Steve Crews, had parked himself outside her house just before eight and then Tara had come home just after nine. They had been the only two that had shown. They were still in the house. The lights were off. Bud figured he wasn’t too old to figure what that meant.

  He knew Steve only slightly. Enough to say hello. But he seemed to be an all right guy. But then, Tara had seemed to be an all right girl at one time.

  But now? What do you think of her now? You were a cop once and you used to do pretty good going on your instincts. What do your instincts tell you now?

  He already knew the answer to that one: they were sending out warning signals in every direction. But was that because they were right about Tara? He couldn’t be sure. He was too close to things this time around and age, whether he liked it or not, definitely played a factor. And the sad fact was that he had not done any real police work in fourteen years since his retirement. And even then, well, the last ten years had been a desk job.

  So his instincts were certainly rusty.

  But that did not mean they were wrong.

  He thought about Margaret because he thought about very little else these days. When he’d first joined the force they’d lived in a little apartment on Elm above a dry cleaners that later burned down in ‘68. They’d been married a few years by then and had scrimped and saved to buy a 1961 Magnavox TV. It had been the centerpiece of their tiny living room. Bud had been working the graveyard shift then, midnight to eight AM. He could still taste the simple meals Margaret had made back then. The evenings curled up together watching The Dick Van Dyke Show and Peter Gunn. They had done much better in later years, bigger house and more toys and real vacations, but never, he knew, had he ever been happier than he had been in that dinky little apartment with the sweating radiator and the thumping pipes. Oh, Marge, oh Jesus where did it all go? How did the years get away from us?

  Bud wiped some dew from his eyes and thought another cup of coffee would go down well when he saw the figure standing beneath the streetlight. Just some guy. No reason to pay him any attention. Yet, Bud was transfixed by whoever it was. There was a strange stirring in his belly. The guy was tall, almost cadaverousl
y thin. He walked with a slight hunch to his back and a careful sort of stride like he was afraid he might step in something. Curious. He passed out of the light and for just one quick second Bud saw his face.

  And that stopped him.

  I know that face. I’m sure I know it.

  For reasons even he wasn’t sure of, the sight of that face electrified him. Made him very alert and even a little frightened. He searched the reels of his mind, trying to place this guy. Bud’s eyesight was good. It was the only thing that really worked worth a damn anymore. He knew he’d seen that face before… but many years ago. His instinct told him it was in connection with something… ugly.

  C’mon, old man. Who the hell is that guy?

  Bud watched him walk past the Coombes’ house. He vanished into the shadows… then he came back. He passed the house, turned and came back yet again, secreting himself in the spreading shadow of an oak. He stood there for five, then ten minutes, just staring up at the house. It could have meant lots of things. Maybe he was a stranger in town and liked the architecture. Maybe he had played there as a kid. Maybe he’d grown up there (unlikely since the Coombes had been living there for ages).

  Sure, there were lots of possibilities.

  But long after he’d gone, Bud was still thinking about him. Still worrying. Still wondering. Still at a loss to place that face that he was certain he knew from another place, another time.

  It had gripped him and it would not let him go.

  This is what made him decide to go home and sit in his recliner. He needed to think. To remember. This was, as Sherlock Holmes might have said, a two-pipe problem. It needed careful sifting of his memories.

  So he went home to do just that.

  65

  “You should let the girl go,” Elise said.

  Henry blinked his eyes, the darkness holding him safe and warm like a womb. “Why? I found her and now she’s mine.”

  “Her sister…”

  “Tara will do what I say. She won’t dare cause trouble.”

  Next to him, Elise lay stretched out, unmoving. “Henry, Henry, Henry,” she said. “You know so little of women. You know even less of love and the ties that bind. Put your hand in mine.” Henry did. “Tara will make trouble. The things you’re making her do. She will be leaving a trail and it will lead them back here. You don’t want the girl… what’s her name?”

  “Lisa,” he said.

  “What use is she to you?”

  Henry tried to think of some reason he wanted the girl, but couldn’t think of a one. She was too vibrant, too bright, too warm-blooded. Really, of what possible use was she to him? But if he let her go, she would tell the police and the police would search every house in town if they had to and sooner or later…

  “If I don’t have the girl, Tara will not play the game.”

  “The girl’s not who you want.”

  He blinked. “No?”

  “Of course not. You want Tara.”

  “No.”

  “Yes.” And Elise proceeded to tell him why and he fought against it because it was crazy talk and he didn’t like it when Elise made with the crazy talk. He only wanted Tara to play the game, that was all. For a long time now he’d been looking for someone to play the game. He was not obsessed with Tara.

  What about last night? What about what you brought down to the cellar? You gave it a name, you called it—

  “Oh, but you are. You are completely obsessed with her,” Elise told him. “You liked it at first when she was afraid of you. But you liked it even better when she started threatening you. She’s fierce and angry and uncontrolled. You like that. You like her because she will dominate you.”

  “I won’t let her.”

  “You’ll have no choice. She’s much stronger than you. You are being drawn into her web and she will suck the blood from you.”

  “No.”

  “You like to be dominated. You like to obey.”

  “Don’t talk like that.”

  “But it’s true. Mother dominated you as a boy and she still dominates you from beyond the grave.”

  It’s not true. It’s not true. I hate that old witch. I always hated that old witch. I always wanted her dead. Bitching, screaming, disciplining, hurting… she was no mother. Just a hag. A rotten fucking hag.

  “She’s taken your soul, Henry.”

  “No…”

  “She possesses it,” Elise said. “Her dead mind screams in your head. She makes you do things. Awful things.”

  “No!”

  (don’t listen, henry, don’t listen to that whore! mother knows best! mother always knows best! listen to my voice… LISTEN TO IT!)

  “Fight her, Henry,” Elise said, “or she’ll destroy you.”

  (WHORE! WHORE! LYING DIRTY WHORE!)

  “Please,” Henry sobbed.

  (please, says the frightened little boy! please please please! don’t listen to that whore!)

  “Shut up. I won’t listen.”

  (you listen to your mother henry mother knows best when it’s all done you’ll come to me and i’ll be waiting i’ll open my legs for you and—)

  Henry let out a pained, shrill scream that echoed through the silence of the house. Sometimes it was the only way to get her out of his head, to force her mind back into the grave where it belonged.

  “Is she gone?”

  “Yes… yes. Let’s not talk about it. Please, let’s not talk about it.”

  But Elise was on a roll and when that happened, neither heaven nor earth could silence her: “Do you remember after father died?”

  “No.”

  A shaft of pale moonlight filtered in through the window. Elise was looking at him. She was grinning like a leather mask. “Yes, you do. You remember what you did? I do.” Henry pressed his hands to his ears because he did not want to hear this. He did not want to remember. But Elise would have none of that. He would listen: “Mother Rose… poor pale and disturbed black-hearted Mother Rose. Mean as a green-eyed cat. She was touched in the head like her whole family was touched in the head, Henry. She worried so much about you, skulking around in the graveyard. Laying with things that weren’t meant to be laid with. That’s why she took you in her room and showed you things—”

  “Don’t Elise,” Henry said, close to tears. “You said you wouldn’t.”

  “—but I have to, Henry. For your own good. I used to hide outside the door and listen to you two in there, grunting and puffing. Do you remember the sound Mother Rose would make when she came? When you were inside her? That high, squeaking sound?”

  A scent of lavender and oil, the wetness, the deep dark wetness. Moving together in rhythm, pushing deeper, panting, gasping. Dirty parts sliding over dirty parts, penetrating, impaling her. Her hot breath at his ear. Then her teeth. Biting. Piercing. Drawing blood. Her eyes rolled back in her head. Teeth gnashing. Loins pounding harder and harder.

  Getting closer.

  Oh, getting so close now.

  She was crying out, her face writhing with animal-like contortions in the guttering candlelight, body tensing, muscles straining, back arching, her sagging breasts shaking.

  She bites into his throat.

  Digs nails into his back.

  A nipple in his mouth, biting until he draws blood.

  As climax is reached, as sweating bodies shudder, the third person in the room shudders with them withdrawing glistening fingers from herself.

  “Yes,” Aunt Lily says. “How delicious.”

  No, Henry would not remember anymore. He refused to. That was all a bad dream. It didn’t really happen. None of it really happened.

  “But I remember,” Elise said. “I listened to it. It made me feel hot inside. That’s why I brought you into my room at night. So you’d stick it in me. Stick it in me everywhere. It felt so good, Henry, it felt so good—”

  “You cried. You didn’t like it.”

  “I cried because I wanted it so bad just like I want it now. Please, Henry.” He moved toward
her like an insect considering a leaf to mount. “Yes, that’s it. On top of me. Oh… oh… oh… force it in there, make it go in… aaaaawwwwww… yes… yes… keep doing that… keep doing that… oh that feels so good...”

  “Don’t scream,” Henry grunted as he pushed into her harder and harder. “Don’t scream or I’ll bite you… I’ll sink my teeth into you…”

  Elise started to scream.

  Henry bit into her throat, tearing at the flesh until it filled his mouth and he tasted the gray dust of her, the dry meat breaking apart in his mouth.

  “Yes… .oooohhhhh… yes…”

  He finished and rolled off her, breathing hard. “Now they’ll know. They listen to us, you know.”

  Elise giggled with a sound like a scraping fork. “Let them listen. But the girl…”

  “Yes?”

  “You should let her go.”

  “No…”

  “Release her. Release her.”

  But Henry shook his head. He was remembering things, too damn many things.

  “Yes, get the sister instead. She’s the one you want. She’s the one we both want.”

  Standing up, Henry told her he’d do it if that’s what she wanted. Brushing fragments of Elise off of him, he dressed quietly and thought about Tara. Yes, Tara was like Mother Rose. Tara was mean. Tara would make him do awful things just like Mother Rose and Elise had and he would do them, God yes, he would gladly do them.

  66

  Steve woke to the sound of a voice; a flat, dead sort of voice droning in the night. It was Tara’s voice and he knew it… but the very quality of it made him question the fact as he lay there, his brain still confused from sleep. It had a very wooden, hollow sound to it like a puppet whispering from the dark of a closet. It made a chill run down the backs of his bare arms.

  That’s not her. That can’t be her. It’s someone imitating her voice.