GNELFS (23 page)

Tossing the book back into the box, he went over to the window and looked out. It would still be daylight for a while, and his dad wasn't coming home that night. His mom would get mad if he slipped out, but at least he wouldn't have to deal with his father.

Heaven's house was only a couple of blocks over. He could probably go and come back before dark. It might even be possible to return before he was missed. Chicken usually took a while to cook, if he remembered correctly.

He looked over his shoulder at the closed door. Mom never came to check on him as long as he was quiet.

He considered the punishment she would inflict if he was caught. What the heck! He walked to the door, pressed his ear against the wood and listened. He didn't hear Mom's footsteps. A good sign. She'd stay at the counter with her magazine, waiting for the chicken to be done.

Tiptoeing back across the carpet, he flipped the latch on the window and grasped the frame to lift upward.

~*~

Coins falling.

 
Somewhere far away—child's screams.

She called to him, begging for help, breathless, her voice wracked with pain.

He ran across clouds, black clouds, clouds filled with smoke, and he could not find her.

Then . . . laughter, deep and harsh. He wheeled and saw his father. Strands of fiber dangled from his neck, and his face was swollen and bloated, stained purple, yet he was jangling the coins in a small pouch. Slowly, he opened the pouch, and poured the silver into his palm, rattling the coins as they slipped through his fingers. Danube turned, and again the girl's cry pierced his consciousness. She was out there somewhere, out there in the smoke, and he had to reach her. He ran, legs heavy, his feet weights which sank into the cloud floor. He was almost running in place.

Then he saw her, beckoning to him as she was dragged away by some unseen figure traveling across the sea of clouds. He tried to follow, but when he stepped forward he sank clouds as if the clouds were quicksand. They gripped him, sucking him downward.

And suddenly, from beneath him a bolt of lightning shot upward, jagged and with many prongs like a silver oak with no leaves shooting from the earth in a burst of growth. It ripped at him, lifting him, hurling him toward the black nothingness.

The flash that bit through the blanket of dark clouds outside his window woke him, its bright flare touching his eyes and jolting him. The cabin lamp over his seat had been turned down, and his head was resting against the small pillow the flight attendant
 
had given him, his face turned toward the glass.

He bolted up in his seat, scaring the old man beside him, a thin gray-haired character in a plaid sports coat and cowboy hat. A tattered copy of a book called
Azarius
by Gable Tyler lay across the man's lap.

"Easy, son," he whispered. "It's just a little lightning." Danube straightened in his seat, his eyes adjusting to remind him of where he was. He rubbed them, smoothed his beard, and took a deep breath. He was trembling. "Bad dream, son?"

"The worst."

The old man lifted a glass of tomato juice. "I don't think the storm's going to get too bad," he said.

Danube looked back outside. The view resembled his dream. He did not fear he had had a premonition about the storm, however.

He feared the other images, the ones of the girl. If those were true, all of his anxieties would prove valid. If she was dragged away into some nothingness where he could not follow, he would fail, and the hope of atonement would be set back again. He would be forced to face another eternity of the nightmares and the laughter. He did not want to fail. For the girl's sake—and for his own.

~*~

As the shadows began to overtake the trees, Terry began to rethink the wisdom of his decision. He wouldn't be able to get home before dark after all. He was beginning to think he might not even make it to Heaven's before dark. It was farther to walk than he'd expected. It had never seemed that far when they drove by in the car.

The wind seemed to be picking up too, and he thought he heard thunder somewhere in the distance. Maybe that would explain why it was getting dark early. Bad storms could come up at any time.

He was closer to Heaven's than to his own house now. Might as well head on, he decided. If Mom misses me I'll be in line for trouble anyway. I might as well make the most of it.

If it did start storming he could just stay at Heaven's, and Mrs. Davis could call his mom so she wouldn't worry.

As a new clap of thunder echoed, a little closer, he ducked through a hedge and took a shortcut through Jack Steadman's back yard. He wanted to get to Heaven's before the storm broke.

On the fifteenth ring Gabrielle replaced the telephone and walked back to the window. The branches of the pines in the front yard were like baseball fans doing the wave.

"I guess Tanner's on his way over," she said. "I hope he beats the storm. I wanted to leave him out of this, but now I'm thinking it would be nice if he were here."

"He'll be along," Althea said. If they're interested, men always come sniffing around. Doesn't matter what you do, intentionally or unintentionally, to discourage them."

“Is that from your psychology training?" Gab asked, walking toward the couch on which Althea was sitting.

"No. My grandmother. She was smarter than the experts."

"Do you like Tanner?"

"As much as I like any man."

"That's not that much, I take it?"

Althea picked up her coffee cup, holding it between both hands. "Bad experiences," she said before taking a sip.

"I've had a few myself," Gab said. "I don't know if Dave meant to be—a bad experience, I mean."

"In there own minds, everyone is doing right, not doing bad things, just looking out for their own needs."

" I guess I've got a few notches in my belt."

"Feeling guilty?"

Gab laughed. "Sometimes I think about it. When I was a kid I hadn't been dating that long, but I was going steady with this guy named Jimmy Anderson. He was a really nice guy. He worked at McDonald's so he'd have a little cash for us to go to movies and stuff. And he liked me a lot. You know, sixteen-year-old crush, adolescent emotion, and all."

"Exactly," Althea said.

"Then another boy, Matt Greer, asked me to go to a football game in Penn's Ferry. Jimmy had to work the night shift on Fridays, but I always went by the store and waited for him to get off. Then we'd get chocolate shakes and go riding in his old Chevy. Well, Matt was so cute and cool with this Firebird he drove, I told him I'd go, and I told Jimmy I couldn't come by the restaurant because my friend Susie wanted me to spend the night at henhouse. He knew Susie, so he bought it.

"Well, I went to the football game, and I had a good time, and I figured everything would be fine. Jimmy would never know, and I'd had this boost to my self-esteem because of Matt's attention. He was eighteen, you know.

"Problem was he drove fast, and there was kind of a caravan of kids heading back from the game. Everybody started passing each other, weaving in and out of traffic, and Matt ran into a pickup truck.

“It wasn't that bad, but they called an ambulance to get us checked out, so the
Clarion
reported the accident in the next day's paper. Listed cars, drivers, and passengers. Jimmy never talked to me again after that. I can't say I blame him. Not when you consider how tender our feelings are at that age."

"Yeah. Some people never outgrow that age," Althea said.

"Textbook or personal observation?"

"Both. There are a lot of damned Peter Pans out there. Men are interesting specimens," Althea said. "They never cease to come up with ways to screw things up."

"Maybe human beings just aren't meant to be together," Gab said. "If we're all alone we can't hurt each other."

"I don't know what the answer is," Althea said. "I've been observing things for ages, and it just seems relationships get harder and harder."

"Will you ever get involved with anyone again?"

"I guess it would have to be someone very special."

"Maybe when Heaven is safe and all this is over, Tanner and I will have some time," Gab said.

"You haven't had much time to think about that, have you?"

"Not much," Gab conceded. She checked her watch again. "I guess he's been scared off."

"That's been known to happen too."

Conversation masked the anxiety of waiting, of wondering if something more was going to go wrong. The minutes were ticking past. It was getting to be that time.

~*~

Danube's flight touched down on time in New Orleans, but that left him with several hours to drive. It took almost a half-hour to go through the process that placed him behind the wheel of a rental. The stretch of road from the airport was narrow, and traffic was backed up. He had to creep behind a van which blocked his vision and made it impossible to determine what was wrong ahead.

Finally they came upon the remains of the car wreck. One small vehicle jacked on a wrecker which was about to pull it away. Police cars and an ambulance sprayed the area with brightly colored lights, red and orange glistening off shattered fragments of windshield strewn on the ground. Finally a uniformed man waved Danube's car through the intersection.

He was on the way, but he had distance to cover. Once clear of the police, he swerved around the car in front of him and pressed the gas pedal downward.

Even as he watched the speedometer’s numbers rise, an uneasy knowledge gripped him, warning him that he would be too late.

~*~

The downpour began about eight. Gab joined Althea at the living room window, watching heavy rain slash through streetlight glow.

“This storm makes things worse," Gab said. "Like this is a horror movie."

Before their eyes the street became eerily light again in the flare of a lightning bolt. Then it was dark once more, and a clap of thunder that was almost deafening followed.

"It's just a storm," Althea said.

"Who's to say what's tied to all this?" Gab asked. "What's natural and what's not? If it's real then it's part of the reality."

"Maybe nothing will happen tonight," Althea said. "It's past the time when things usually occur."

"That could mean it's going to be worse tonight," Gabrielle said.

The lightning came again, another bright flare, another burst of thunder. They moved back into the living room. "I can't believe it's gone away," Gab said. "I'd better check on Heaven."

As rain beat upon the roof, she moved down the hallway and looked through the bedroom door. Heaven was sleeping and appeared peaceful. Her head lay against the pillow, and the covers were pulled up to her shoulders.

Gabrielle stepped softly across the carpet and touched her child's hair. It was so soft, and her skin was so smooth. Angelic. She hated anyone who could make Heaven suffer.

Touching her daughter's cheek, she decided it felt a tad warm, but the house was a little stuffy—the air conditioner hadn't come on in a while—and Heaven seemed to be sleeping well. She found Althea in the kitchen, fixing some fresh coffee. "We're keeping Maxwell House in business," the psychologist said.

When the coffee was ready, Althea poured each of them a cup, and they were about to return to the living room to continue their vigil when the rattle came at the kitchen door.

They looked at each other with frightened eyes. The door rattled again, and something pounded on it, jarring it in its frame.

"The things haven't come from outside," Althea reminded her.

Gab moved over to the window on the door and pulled the curtain
bac
. She saw no sign of anything, but then the pounding came again. She jumped back from the sound as if from an electrical shock.

"Jesus that scared me."

"What is it?"

Gab pulled the curtain again and this time looked downward. Through the lower pane she could see Terry's soggy head. Grasping the knob and yanking the door open, she motioned him inside. "Come in out of that storm before you drown," she ordered.

Terry sloshed into the house, his soaked clothing clinging to his body.

"It's further from my house than I thought," he sputtered.

“Your mother must be worried sick. We'll have to call her and let her know you're all right."

"I snuck out. I wanted to see Heaven. Do you have to call my mom?"

"Unless you want her to worry herself sick," Gabrielle said.

"I guess not," he said reluctantly.

Gab had just picked up the phone when Heaven began calling from the bedroom.

~*~

Danube pressed harder on the gas as he passed through the small town of
Krotz
Springs. He saw a string of gas stations and quick stops, and ignored them. A few miles past the town was the turn which would take him up U.S. 71 toward Alexandria. The girl at the McDonald's outside Baton Rouge had told him that from there it was about two hours from
Aimsley
.