Fiends (17 page)

4

Brittany ("Why don't you call me Puff; I'm going to change my name again anyway") said she was nineteen but seemed younger to Marjory; maybe it was the chatter that fell on them like rain, and which seemed oddly disconnected with anything actually going on in the girl's head. Maybe it was her famished-waif look, as if she hadn't had a square meal lately. And whenever she looked at Marjory there was that lameness in one eye, as if her mind had taken a hard fall and couldn't get up. Puff seemed compelled to give them a full reading of her life to date. Her father had been one of those middling career officers in the Army who hadn't attended West Point. Also he was the kind of luckless gambler who would have bet on the Trojan horse in a two-horse race. There was some unpleasantness involving misappropriated commissary funds in Texas that had earned him a dishonorable discharge. Now he was in Mexico, or maybe Guatemala. Puff was inclined to blame her father for her lack of purpose in life, her footloose ways.

"Do you get along with your mom?" she asked Marjory.

"I did, but she died."

"Oh, tough break. Mine did too, when I was twelve. On the threshold of puberty, as it happens." Puff cast around for a comfortable spot, and sat down in the grass where there was some shade and a breeze coming their way. Thunderheads had appeared in the east, rumbling but far enough away so that it seemed unlikely there would be a shower. Ducks coasted on the placid millpond. Nearby a couple of small children were eating hot

"I'd go with you, but. You know. I'm just not feeling that great. Probably my blood sugar. Jesus, it's a scorcher today but I'm still cold. The hotter it is, the better I like it. Even in this weather I don't sweat. I wonder what Wisconsin is like. I'm probably making a mistake going there. Mount Horeb. Is that a hoot? Definitely not the sort of place where I can do my nails in church."

Marjory carried her radio in her left hand, and held Duane's hand as they walked up the rise from the mill pond toward the Dante's Mill general store. There were a lot of people in the village, wandering from the smithy and stable at one end of the street to the white frame church with its modest steeple at the other. Picnic benches circled the trunk of an oak tree in the churchyard: the oak's branches provided a full dusty canopy for the fenced cemetery.

"A couple of my relatives lived here," Marjory said to Duane. "You know those pictures in the parlor? Third old party from the left, the one with chipmunk cheeks and a crumb-catcher. I don't remember his name. My mother knew; she was the family historian. Funny thing about Dante's Mill. Now that Puff has me in the mood for ghost stories."

"What about Dante's Mill?"

"They all left one day. Seventy-four people. Men, women, children, just picked up and vanished."

"Why?"

"Nobody knows what happened to them. There's a plaque in front of the church with all their names on it. Rewards were offered; famous detectives investigated. Sherlock Holmes."

"Sherlock Holmes is a fictional character."

"I know that. I mean the author, whatever his name was."

"Arthur Conan Doyle."

"I think he wrote a book about Dante's Mill. There's a commemorative grave in the churchyard, but nobody's in it. Anyway, I'm surprised you never heard of the place."

"Is that line for ice cream?" Duane asked, looking at the tourists packing the covered porch of the general store.

"Or the pottie."

"Looks like a good half-hour wait."

"Probably not that long. It's hand-cranked ice cream. What do you make of Puff?"

"Maybe she'll be gone when we get back."

"Yeah, that's what I was hoping, too. If she does split, you'll have to eat two ice creams."

"Chocolate? I'll break out. I always get a sore bump right here, next to my ear."

"You broke out already, when Puff dropped her top and flashed the bubby."

Jogs and smearing mustard on their sun-flushed faces. "God, we sure have a lot in common, Marj."

"Uh-huh," Marjory said, doubting it. Puff still had the wrapped joint between her fingers. Marjory wondered if she intended to smoke it there and glanced around uneasily, afraid of spotting someone she knew.

But Puff was looking at her radio in a brooding way.

"I ought to turn it on, find out if she's still there. But I'm afraid of what she's going to say next."

"Who?" Duane asked. He had plucked a long blade of grass and was tying it into knots, only using the fingers of one hand.

"My mother, who else? She's trying to contact me from beyond the grave. I mean, she called me Puff, didn't she? That was a family thing."

Duane looked at Marjory, then at the ducks on the pond while he absently continued knotting the blade of grass. Marjory admired his dexterity.

"I'd call my brother and tell him," Puff said. "But Max thinks I'm nuts as it is."

"Why don't we get some ice cream?" Marjory suggested. "How about you, Puff?"

"Ice cream? That's a fabulous idea! Now that I think about it, I'm really hungry. Where do we get ice cream around here?"

"Oh, the general store. It's over that way."

Puff, her Grundig radio between her legs, hugged herself and looked wearily back over one shoulder. "That far? I don't know, I'm really wrecked."

"We'll bring you a cone."

"You will? God, that is so nice of you! Chocolate, with, you know, lots of sprinkles? Two scoops." She dipped fingers into her halter top again. "Where'd that damn twenty go? I put it back, didn't I?"

"We'll treat," Marjory said hastily. Duane was staring at Puff as if waiting for her nipple, flat as a half-dollar, to pop out again. Marjory nudged him, hard. Puff stopped searching for her money and scratched the top of her breast instead, leaving livid streaks on her tan.

"I like ducks," she said, eyes on the pond. A slight childish smile came and went. She played with the necklace of shark's teeth. "I wouldn't wear these, but they're supposed to be lucky. The guy who makes them only had one leg, though. I wonder if a shark got the other one?" She yawned and lay back in the grass, giving her head a shake to loosen and fan her hair, which was several shades of color, from tawny blond at the temples to a russet with darker streaks that looked unclean. "I like kids, too. But not if I have to have one growing inside of me like a mushroom. Or a toadstool. Sometimes I think about that, and then I can't come. Bummer. Why don't you leave all of your stuff here, I'll watch it for you."

"Well, I think I'll take my radio, I like to hear music while I'm walking."

"Did not."

"Did, too. You wouldn't, would you?"

"Wouldn't what? You mean with Puff?
Huh-uh.
She's worse than a turpentined cat."

"Okay, I like you again."

5

They were on their way back to the pond when the screaming started.

Marjory looked at Duane and said, "Sounds like good ol' Puff."

"Who else do we know would say 'fucking' three times in the same sentence?"

A child began to wail. They hurried. Puff saw them coming down the slope from the village and waved frantically to them. She was below the spillway opposite the mill house, up to her ankles in the race. A few people, including the mother with the red-faced squawling child, had gathered on the bank behind her.

Puff pointed at something below the spillway. She had a rock in her other hand. "That's where he went! He took my radio! Isn't anybody going to
do
something? I want my fucking radio back! It cost a hundred fucking dollars, and I
want it back!"

"Hey, Puff!"

"Hey, you guys! Come on, come on, he's in there, let's go get him!"

The mother of the crying child said to Marjory, "He went right
by
us. He almost stepped on Bubba. Scared us half to
death."

"Who?"

"The man. The one took your friend's radio? He just up with it and ran—I wouldn't call it running. He couldn't go very fast. He went straight down to the dam there, and through the waterfall."

"He's hiding back there!" Puff yelled, jogging up and down in the shallows of the race. "He didn't come out! I'll bash his fucking head in! You better come with me, Duane. Here." She backed out of the cattails at the water's edge and handed him the rock. "You knock him in the head! I'll grab my radio. He's already got it wet! It's probably ruined by now."

"Here's your ice cream, Puff," Marjory said, looking at the curtain of water that fell ten feet from the top of the spillway. She couldn't make out anyone lurking behind the silvery curtain. "Maybe we ought to get some help. He can't go anywhere, can he?"

Puff took the ice-cream cone, hesitated, then handed it to the curly-haired boy huddled in fright on his mother's shoulder.

"Here you go, little boy. You eat it. I'm sorry I yelled so loud and scared you."

"Oh, look, Bubba, she's giving you a ice cream! With sprinkles on it. Now you say 'Thank you for the nice ice cream,' and don't get any on mama's good blouse."

"Thank you," the boy mumbled, taking his thumb out of his mouth.

Puff smiled edgily and looked at Duane. "Hey, you coming?"

"Yeh," Duane said. But he tossed the rock into the water.

Puff nodded. "He was just an old guy, from what I saw of him. A bum. He probably won't give us any trouble."

Marjory said, "Why would he run under the waterfall? That doesn't make sense."

"Let's go see," Duane said, and handed Marjory what was left of his own ice-cream cone.

"Maybe I'd better get some help," Marjory suggested. "There's always a sheriffs car or the Highway Patrol around on weekends."

"Wait a minute," Duane said. "I just want to have a look. If he's back in there hiding, then he can't get away."

"Watch out he doesn't pitch a rock at you."

"Yeh," Duane said, and went off around the edge of the race to the rocks at the foot of the spillway; Puff was behind him, a little unsteady on the wet rocks, twice grabbing his belt in back to keep her balance. Duane took her hand and they plunged through the downpour. Marjory could see them pressed against the spillway wall behind the waterfall, edging slowly toward the middle.

"This is scary," said the woman with the curly-haired boy. "I don't think those children should be doing that. I'll tell you what, we're leaving now, but I'll stop at park headquarters and inform them of what's going on over here."

"Thanks," Marjory said, keeping her eyes on Duane and Puff, who were now hard to see through the torrent. Obviously they hadn't come across the man who had taken Puffs Grundig radio; but how could anyone hide between the dam wall and the overflow anyway? By now they were only ten feet from the opposite bank and the foundation of the mill house, the slowly turning wheel. It was dark in that nook, where a storm-split willow drooped thickly over the pond and spillway, one branch rubbing against the blank west wall of the mill. But the acoustics were pretty good and Marjory heard their voices, although she couldn't make out what they were saying.

Then she couldn't see them any more, as if they'd stepped back into a crevice in the wall, and their voices sounded hollow before fading entirely.

Marjory sat on the grass partway up the bank and waited. Some clouds hid the sun, and it was darker still where she'd had her last glimpse of Duane and Puff, who was proving to be nothing but bad news; Marjory had sensed she was some kind of hoodoo the moment she laid eyes on her.

What were they
doing
back there?

"Hey, Duane! Puff! Where are you?"

Not that she expected them to answer; but confirmation that they were no longer within earshot gave her a bad case of stomach flutters. She didn't want to leave, but no help had arrived.

A familiar horn honked three times on the road on the other side of the mill.

"Marjor-yy!"

Rita Sue sounded annoyed. Marjory, still keeping one eye out for Duane and growing more anxious by the minute, waved and then beckoned. Rita Sue didn't get the message. Boyce honked the horn of the Fairlane again.

"I can't—" Exasperated, Marjory picked up Duane's butterfly net and other collector's paraphernalia. She carried the stuff, along with her radio, up the slope to the wooden bridge that arched across the millrace. Glancing down at the waterfall from this elevation, she couldn't see much. There were no bodies floating facedown in the turbulence around the mill wheel. Duane and Puff could not have emerged at the other end of the waterfall where the willow hung low and climbed the slippery rocks to the walkway that surrounded the mill. She would have seen them from the bank. There were some people on the walk with cameras, but no Duane and no Flibbertigibbet.
Damn it!
They had simply vanished, along with the radio thief.

Boyce backed up alongside Marjory.

"Where've you guys been?" Rita Sue asked.

"In the woods."

"I'll bet
that
was a lot of fun," Boyce said.

"Shut up, Boyce." Preoccupied, Marjory dumped everything including her purse, into the backseat. Then she took her purse back and pulled out the flashlight she'd brought along. "Duane's missing. I don't know what happened to him. He's with some girl we met. Her radio got stolen. When the Highway Patrol comes, tell them—" Marjory shrugged. "I don't know what. Just tell them to stay here."

"Who called the
Highway Patrol?"
Rita Sue asked. "Marjory, where are you—"

"Down there. Behind the waterfall. That's where they went. I want to see what's back there."

Boyce said, "You think he got hurt or something? I'll go with you."

"You can't, Boyce. You can barely get around on one foot. Just don't go anywhere, you guys. Please?"

"I wish I knew what was going
on,"
Rita Sue complained.

Marjory shook her head and walked quickly back across the footbridge with the flashlight in her hand, then made her way down the bank to the race. It was a good flashlight, supposedly waterproof, although she'd never had occasion to test that claim. The race and most of the waterfall was shaded now; sunlight slanted across the side of the mill, bright windows hurt her eyes. She looked at the rocks at the base of the dam where the water came down hard; already her shirt and hair were damp from spray, she had gooseflesh on her bare thighs and arms. Marjory took a deep breath, walked past the rusting sign that said Danger! No Wading or Swimming, stepped into the torrent. And through it.

There was a space between the waterfall and the old stonework of the dam, a narrow wet path littered with indestructible flotsam: beer cans, disposable diapers caught on tree branches cemented greenly to the rocks at her feet. She saw a waterlogged duck with a broken neck. The uneven wall of the dam, which slanted out at the top by as much as two feet, leaked everywhere above her head, through small crevices between stones. To Marjory it seemed poised to fall down.

The air was so full of spray she almost choked at each breath. This was even less fun than she had thought it would be. Although Marjory had superb balance, each step was an ordeal. She slipped twice before she had gone a dozen feet, and the sharp tip of a water-hardened limb gouged the calf of her right leg. She was drenched, and her teeth chattered.

Still there was no sign of Duane or the girl.

She could see well enough because of sunlight reflected down from the mill windows to the surface of the race, then through the watery curtain, but the farther she got from the bank the unhappier Marjory was. Something moved lumpishly on the path ahead of her and she froze, lips tight against her teeth. Turtle. She was willing to put up with turtles. At the first sign of rats, though, somebody else could do this.

There might be a deep hole concealed by the boil of water at the fall line. If Duane had slipped and dragged Puff down with him—no chance to yell, just pulled deep beneath the creaking old mill wheel, then to God knows where. On out into the lake several hundred yards away. She'd heard a lot of freakish drowning stories. Her own daddy-

Marjory paused and bit her lip. She thought she was going to cry. But she couldn't stop and go back and maybe not know for a long time what had happened to them; uncertainty was worse than fear at this point. She pushed on cautiously, one hand on the stones of the dam, face averted from the rush and tumble of the waterfall, enough power to knock her flat if she stumbled into the middle of it. What a lousy idea. Picnics. She disliked the outdoors anyway, unless there was a backstop and a good playing surface handy.

The face of the dam was rounding toward the bank and the stone foundation of the mill. Just inside the waterfall, close enough to reach out and touch, was the turning wheel. Her feet were cold in the soggy sneakers. It was darker here. She edged past the wheel and into the crevice, twice as wide as she was, between the dam and the foundation wall and the dripping roots of the willow protruding like fingers where the wall had cracked, and that was it, nowhere else to go. But she turned on the beam of the flashlight in the misty dark just to have a quick look before retreating.

From what seemed like a long way off she heard Rita Sue calling her.

Then she heard Duane's voice, sounding almost as far away.

"Hey, Marj! Is that you out there?"

She was so relieved she could have killed him. She flashed the light frantically around the cramped walled space until the beam suddenly lengthened, reaching into what seemed like infinity.

"Duane!"

At the extreme end of the flashlight's beam something shadowy stirred, and she was reminded of the circus, total darkness and then the slash of a spotlight, a tiny figure high above the arena floor poised on a trapeze platform. But Duane was dead ahead of her, at eye level and probably a hundred yards away. She saw him wave.

"Hey! Here I am!"

"Here you are
where?
You scared the—" She was shouting. "Where's Puff?"

"She's here. She's got a little stone bruise, but she'll be okay."

"What are you—"

"Come'on in! It's safe. It's a big cave. The biggest one I've ever seen. There's probably more of it, a lot more. I want to look around."

"Are you
crazy?"

Puffs voice said, "Listen, Duane, there's my radio! He's playing my radio again, the sonuvabitch. Hear it?"

"You're both crazy! It's dark in there! Maybe he's a murderer. You better get out while the getting's good!"

"It's not that dark! It just looks dark from there! Light's coming in from somewhere, and that's not all—come on, Marjory, you've got to see this!"

"No I don't!"

"Okay, we're going to explore, see if we can find the radio. There's probably another way out if we look for it."

"Duane!"

"What?"

"I'm coming! Just wait, don't go anywhere! And don't try to hide and then jump out and scare me! I hold grudges for life. Nobody ever gets off my grudge list, Duane!"

The entrance to the cave was just a waist-high hole in the wall, then a passage like a big drainpipe or slightly sloping well that she could shuffle through while bent nearly double. The floor and walls were rock and rock crystal, it was like being in the hollow of an enormous geode. In places Marjory was dazzled by her own light. The floor was covered with something dry, crisp, almost papery, that rustled unnervingly underfoot: layers of parchmentlike leaves or husks. She couldn't identify what it was and didn't care to pick anything up, but the pallid carpeting took on a spectral glow in the beam of her flashlight. Some of the litter looked suspiciously like old snakeskin, she thought.
God.
Fear ran up the backs of her legs like an icy blowtorch.

"Duane!"

"Yeh, I'm here, I can see you."

"I'm t-t-terrified of snakes, Duane!"

"There aren't any. Some salamanders. They won't bother you. No bats either, it's not a bat cave. But it was used for something once."

She reached the end of the passage, banging a knee painfully on a crystalline outcrop. Duane was there, reaching up to help her down into the cave. In the sweep of the flashlight beam Marjory saw Puff sitting casually on a boulder with one leg cocked over her knee, drawing slit-eyed on the joint Duane had given her. Puffs hair was sleek around her head and combed down over her breasts. She'd removed her halter top and wrung it out, but she still wore the necklace of sharks' teeth. In this setting, essentially naked, round eyes elated as an animal's, Puff looked coarse and threatening, a Paleolithic princess.

"Hi, Marj! Take a hit, and you won't mind being so wet. If you turn that flashlight off, then you can really appreciate this place. Maybe you ought to wring out your shirt, you could catch a really bad cold. I'm getting the sniffles myself."

Marjory turned off the flashlight and stood breathing in a room in the ground, jolted by every pulse of her body. At first she couldn't see a thing except the glowing tip of the joint between Puffs thumb and forefinger. Then there was a hint of light, like the sky before dawn. The walls around her were a rough grayish-green, but with many chinks and fissures that revealed quartz crystal. Gradually Marjory could distinguish both Puff and Duane, dark but dimensional against a background of subtle colors: lavender, ochre, a deep glowing pink.