Ash Wednesday (10 page)

One afternoon at a local flea market he was struck by the bright red, black, and white banner strung up behind a table of military memorabilia, and thought how good it would look on that large bare spot on the living room wall. Then came German World War II posters, a large black and white shot of Hitler at Nuremberg, helmets, crossed sabers.

One Saturday night when a drinking buddy saw Brad's apartment for the first time, he asked him bluntly, " What the hell are you, Meyers? A Nazi?"

Brad smiled. "No. I hate Nazis. I like their uniforms.”

“What about that picture of Hitler?"

"I like his moustache."

"And that big flag?"

"I like red, white, and black, and I couldn't find an Egyptian flag, all right?"

The man laughed. "Christ, Meyers, you're so fuckin' weird. . . . Got another a' those beers?"

Brad opened two more bottles. "Let's drink a toast," he said, his words only slightly slurred.

"Fine with me. What to?"

Brad jutted out his lower lip and thought a moment. Then he looked out the window at the empty green bench across the street by Western Auto. "To Rorrie Weidman," he said, raising his bottle.

''Who?''

"A gentleman and scholar and bench sitter with a prodigious appetite for living, but now, alas, without a life to live."

The man shrugged. "Your beer," he said, raising his own bottle in the toast. "Rorrie . . . what's his name . . .”

"Yeah," said Brad, his eyes on the bench in the pool of lamplight. " Rorrie what's his name."

"Rorrie?" Christine said. "Rorrie
who
?"

"Rorrie Weidman," Brad whispered.

Christine's voice was sharp, panic-hued. "The one who
died
?"

Brad nodded, and Christine shuddered again, as though a wave of arctic cold had just swept the room. He pushed past her, heading for the bedroom. "Don't
leave
me!" she squealed, pattering after him.

"Mommy"—Wally's small voice leaked out from behind his bedroom door—"what's
happenin
'? Mommy, I'm scared, there's funny things outside."

But Christine's own fear was too great to share with another, and she gave his door a harsh rap as she passed it. "Shut up! Oh, just shut up, Wally!" She was inches behind Brad when he entered their bedroom, bumping into his back when he stopped suddenly at the clothes tree and began to pull on jeans and a work shirt. "What are you
doing
?" she said. "What are you getting dressed for?"

"Going outside." He tugged on a tattered pair of Adidas.

“Outside?
Why
?"

"I've got to see something."

"You're not gonna leave me in here with that thing?" she wailed, grasping at his shirtfront.

"Then come with me." He pulled away and started for the hall.

"
No!
"

"Then go to hell,” he threw back as he half ran for the apartment door, slowing only to note that the black man in the living room was still there.

"
Brad!
" Christine cried, but as she reached the end of the hall, she heard the apartment door slam shut. He was gone, and to follow him now would mean having to go alone past the thing in the living room.

Suddenly she became aware of her son's muffled sobbing, but it was the desire for companionship rather than the maternal instinct that made her enter his room, say, "Wally, Mommy's here," and crawl beneath the sheets of the narrow single bed with the quivering boy.

Even Brad, for all his reckless speed, was shaking before he stepped out onto the pavement in front of his building. He paused at the bottom of the stairs, looking out through the streaked window at the streets and sidewalks of Merridale. The sirens had finally quieted, but the dogs were still sending up a raucous cacophony. Beneath their howls he could hear voices of men and women, shouts, cries, screams. Lights in other apartments on Market Street flickered on and off in a warped harmony. He thought it seemed like hell on earth, with the souls of the damned encased in blue fire.

He took a deep breath and stepped outside. The screams were louder here, the blue lights brighter, and at first he nearly turned around and went back upstairs. But then he remembered that he'd been through worse, and kept moving. All around him the cerulean lights gleamed, each one a huge candle made by a corpse, for death was stamped on every face, molded in the curve of each naked body. Like the old man in Brad's apartment, like the sprawled form of Andy
Koser
frozen on the sidewalk, not one moved, and the light breeze that poured through the funnel of the street did not stir a single hair of the dead.

As far as he could see. Brad was the only living creature on the street. Now and then a door would open, a head would peer out, but it would be quickly withdrawn, as though pulled back inside by an unseen hand. He began to cross the street, thinking as he did that everyone was really very foolish to be screaming and yelling, to be afraid. After all, what could the dead do? They weren't moving, were not even speaking, and as he thought this, he heard, above the cries of dogs and humans, a laugh that stopped him halfway across the street, and he wondered if it had all been a trap designed to bring a victim out among them, and if now they would begin to move, to gravitate toward him with outstretched hands and hungry, grinning mouths.

The laugh faded and became words. "They all thought I was
nuts!
" Brad turned and saw Eddie Karl standing ten yards away. Eddie laughed again. "They said I was cuckoo, but they'll know now, won't they, Bradley boy?" He shuffled over to Brad and clapped him on the shoulder. "
You
know, don'tcha? That's why
you're
out
here
, and
them
other
chickenshits
are
scootered
under their beds like rats in a hole. Hell,
these
folks can't hurt 'em!
Buncha
dummies—they
gotta
come out sooner or later." Somewhere a woman screamed. "Jesus H.," Eddie said, scowling. " '
Nuff
to wake the dead." When he realized what he'd said, his lined face cracked in a smile. "I knew they was here," he said, nodding his head. "I seen 'em all the time," and he moved on down the street, looking with satisfied eyes at each glowing figure as he passed it.

Brad finished crossing the street. He stood next to the green bench by Western Auto, and spoke to what was half sitting, half lying there. "Hey, Rorrie." he said. "Mind if I sit down?"

He sat.

". . . I wondered how far I should turn out faithful to that ideal conception of one's own personality every man sets up for himself secretly."

—Joseph Conrad, "The Secret Sharer"

When the sirens woke Jim Callendar, his first concern was for Terry. The boy hated sirens, especially in the middle of the night. "Bat-
shees
!" he'd called them when they went off a few nights after they'd seen
Darby
O'Gill
on cable, and it had taken Jim a few minutes to realize that he was saying "banshees."

Jim was sitting up in bed before he remembered that he did not have to worry about Terry crying in the night. He had not had to worry about that for a long time now. What was it, four years? Five? But still, whenever the sirens wailed he thought of going into Terry's room to stay with him until silence returned.

He fell back in the bed and felt Beth stir beside him. "Bastards," she moaned, covering her head with the pillow. He snorted a half laugh in the dark and rolled onto his side, hoping the keening sound would soon stop and the dogs stop quickly after.

But the sirens screamed on and the dogs kept barking. Melba, their Persian cat, began to
growl
from somewhere under the bed, and Beth took the pillow away from her ears.

"Melba," she called softly. " '
S'okay
, girl. Just sirens." The cat meowed shrilly and spat. "What's
wrong
with her?" Beth said. "Sirens don't bother her. . . . C'mon, girl." She reached down and put her hand under the dust ruffle. There was another hiss, and Beth gasped and pulled her hand up. "She
scratched
me!" she said in surprise. "Why, that little
bitch
."

"I'll turn the light on. Close your eyes." Jim flicked a switch and the bedside light exploded into life. He had to blink several times before opening his eyes wide enough to see the thin red parallel lines slashed across the heel of Beth's right hand. "Christ," he said. "She really let you have it. I'll get something for it."

"It's all right, I'll go." She got up and left the room. Jim lay in the bed, wondering why the sirens didn't stop. One blast signified a fire in Merridale proper, and two a fire in
Randallsville
, a village three miles away. But he couldn't remember ever hearing those shrill ululations repeat over and over again as they did now.

Beth came back into the room, holding a wet washcloth against her hand, a bottle of
Bactine
between her fingers. "What is going on out there," she said.

Jim shrugged. "What I was wondering. You think it could be the plant?"
The plant
was what everyone called Thorn Hill Nuclear Station, a million-kilowatt power facility ten miles away that had been completed in 1977.

Beth shook her head. "It's not the plant. They played us a tape of the sirens a couple of weeks ago at Hatch. Along with the fire sirens, the nuclear attack sirens, ambulance, and police."

Jim grinned lopsidedly. "What was all
that
for?”

“American Legion's idea—the kids
oughta
know what they're in for—Preparedness Day, they called it."

"More like Paranoia Day. How's the hand?"

She took the washcloth away. "Still oozing. God, she hasn't done that since she was a kitten.
Listen
to her."

Melba was still snarling under the bed. Jim got down and lifted the ruffle quickly, holding his hand high. The cat spat, but did not strike. "Come on, old girl," he called calmly. "What's the matter, huh?"

Only a low throaty growl answered him. The cat would not budge.

"Just sirens,
y'know
?" As if on cue, the sirens finally fell away into silence, but the dogs kept barking. "All gone, see?" Jim said. "Just the doggies.
C'mere
."

She went for his hand as she would have gone after a feline rival, front claws wrapping around his wrist, back claws kicking and tearing the skin. He yelled once, then grasped the back of her neck with his free hand, pulling her away from his ripped flesh. With the torn hand he grabbed her legs in a huge fist, like a cowboy hogtying a steer, and threw her into the hall, slamming the door shut as she rolled screaming on the carpet.

"
Shit!
" he howled. "That
cunt!
"

"Oh, my God," said Beth, pressing the cold washcloth to Jim's wounds, "she got you worse than she got
me!
" They both heard the cat's shrieking progress through the house, past dining room, kitchen, and finally its pattering down the basement steps. Beth leaped up and ran out of the room. In a moment Jim heard the slam of the basement door. "And
stay
there, you rotten little shit! What is
wrong
with her?" Beth asked again as she reentered the bedroom.

"Same thing that's wrong with the dogs." For the first time since the dogs and sirens started, he stepped to the window, pulled back the curtains, and looked out. "Holy shit." It was not said quickly, in surprise or fear, but slowly and thoughtfully, as though something puzzled him.

"What?" Beth moved to his side and looked.