GRAVEWORM (35 page)

“
Bravo!” said Uncle Arlen. “First hot blood she’s had in her, Henry, since the night you stuck your—”

“
I am not listening to such talk,” Aunt Lily said. “I refuse to.”

But it was too late; Henry had already made up his mind. “Tonight,” he said, holding hands with the latest acquisition to his collection, “there will be a wedding. My bride’s name is Tara. And she’ll be here soon. So you go ahead and pout, Mother Rose, but we
are
getting married. Do you hear, you dried up old cunt?
We are getting married and if you don’t treat my bride with respect, I’ll take you apart and let Worm play with you!”

“You wouldn’t dare!”

“Try me.”

“
Tara, eh? I bet she’s a looker all right, Henry,” Uncle Arlen said, smacking his lips hungrily. “Even better looking than this little number… not that you’re not attractive, Miss. But without a head, it’s really hard to tell.”

“
Another tramp,” said Mother Rose. “Cemetery harlot.”

“
My, my,” Aunt Lily murmured.

Henry scowled. “Pay her no attention. She’s just jealous.”

Uncle Arlen burst into laughter that echoed through the tomblike stillness like shattering black crystal. “Ever since you stopped fucking her, Henry, she’s just been a green-eyed monster.”

Henry ignored them all because they were old flaking mummies peering out from rotting strips of gauze. What did they know of love? Let them gawk, let them stare, and better yet, let them
learn
. He poured his affections onto the headless woman, pretending it was Tara—caressing and kissing, touching and feeling, reading her like Braille on a tombstone, fingers busy, breath coming heavy, mind rioting with images of the marriage bed.

“
I told you you were obsessed with Tara, Henry. She’ll be a beautiful bride,” Elise said. “But you better be careful and you know why.”

Henry did not listen. He only felt his affection for Tara and could not stop fondling her surrogate. Like the busy hands of an old woman polishing a stair rail, he fingered every last inch of his prize, knowing that the affection he showed her was nothing compared to what the real Tara would receive.

And in the ominous and stark graveyard ambience of the old house which was the province of the worm, the silence held.

68

When Tara opened Margaret’s grave, the stench threw her back into the grass where she promptly lost her lunch. Gagging, trying to draw a breath, she pulled herself to her knees, wiping bile from her chin. She waited until the dry heaves passed, shaking and sweating.

Are you going to give up now when you stand so close to Lisa you can nearly reach out and touch her hand? Are you going to lose your nerve because of the stink of putrescence? What the hell did you think a corpse would smell like after being in the ground for two days?

The night was cool, leaves falling from the trees, the woods beyond a womb of silence. A horror that was nearly indescribably took hold of her as she made herself reach down into the black wormy earth and take hold of the first of the Hefty bags. They felt greasy and warm beneath her fingers.

As she pulled them out, one by one, things shifted in them and bile rose in her throat.

Stop thinking. Stop analyzing.

Yes, that was the way to do it. She had to become what she was that night she planted these things here in secret: a beast. Something that did what it had to in order to survive.

That’s it, Tara,
put yourself on a shelf and let the beast out. Remember how easy it was when you let the beast have full reign? Remember how the beast buried Margaret? Remember how it almost enjoyed pulling the trigger on Spears?

It’s easy.

Drop to all fours.

Breathe in the smell of the night.

Tara did this, the atavism like a rich vein inside she was tapping. Its hot blood filled her veins, draped her mind in red velvet, left a sweet and satisfying taste of dark metal on her tongue that enlivened every cell in her body.

She could smell the thick loam beneath her hands.

Feel the black soil packed beneath her fingernails.

Hear the furtive scurrying in the brush.

Better. Without such trifling things as rational thoughts, she yanked the bags out of the hole and dumped them on the ground. Then the rug with the torso in it. They all seemed remarkably weightless. She dragged them to the Stratus and heaved them in the trunk, slamming it shut and breathing in great crisp lungfuls of chill night air.

There. Done with part one.

She walked over to the grave and put it back in order with the shovel, scattering leaves and weeds and pine cones about. Then she walked to the edge of the forest and wrapped her arms around a stout pine, fingertips exploring the crevices in the bark. She saw the boogeyman in her mind—a hunched-over, slithering form—and the image filled her with hate, revulsion, and the need for payback.

Still smelling the stench of Margaret’s remains, she opened her mouth and screamed into the night.

69

The conversation started with Steve telling Frank he was crazy to leave the hospital which got him absolutely nowhere, for once Frank Duvall made his mind up to do something, he simply did it. Nothing was going to stop him. Not nurses. Not an ER doc telling him he was in no condition to leave. And surely not Steve Crews. So Steve picked him up at the clinic and walked with him out to his SUV.

Then they sat down inside.

Frank said nothing.

So Steve said, “I’m ready to hear it anytime you’re ready to tell me.”

Frank just nodded. “Not even sure I want to begin this one.”

“
Probably not, but you better.”

So Frank told him. He was still feeling goofy from the drugs that had only just begun to wear off and his ribs and arm were beginning to throb with a repetitive rhythm. “I did nothing but try to stop her. I grabbed her by the shoulder… well that’s all there is. I suppose I’m lucky I made it to the clinic before I fucking bled to death.”

Steve was silent for a time. He was really, really scared. For himself. For Tara. For the love they shared. Shortly after she had cut up Frank, he’d been in bed with her. She had went from an assault to a violent bout of sex without so much as a shrug.
She’s gotta be crazy,
he kept telling himself.
She’s gotta be crazy.
But each time that voice chimed in, he seemed to make some excuse for her… but he was plain out of excuses now.

“
Well?” Frank finally said.

Steve sighed and told him he had been with Tara later. He did not go into detail and he did not think he had to. “She said she’d tell me what was happening tomorrow.”

“
And you were okay with that?”

“
Frank, that’s the most I’ve gotten out of her in days.”

“
I suppose.”

But what was bothering him the most and had been bothering him since he left her was what she had said to him. She told him to leave.
You won’t want to be here when I get back.
Meaning what? She would be covered in blood from some nocturnal feast? She would have a head in a hatbox? What exactly?

He told Frank that part and Frank said, “You can take my word for it, Steve: when she warns you away, you better listen.” He pressed a hand lightly to his ribs. Not a good idea. He waited until the pain subsided. “Here’s the time we start making decisions, Steve. Enough pussyfooting around and hoping shit will just get better. I love fairy tale endings like the next chump, but I don’t believe in them where Tara’s concerned. Whatever that phone call was you overheard, that’s the axis of this whole thing. All of this revolves around it. All Tara’s lying and evasion and violence and weird fucking behavior, it spins on that phone call. Let’s not dick around, okay? She’s out of her fucking tree. We can agree on that. But she didn’t get there on her own—she was pushed.”

“And whoever was on the phone was the one who gave her the first shove?”

“That’s it.”

Steve was so floored by everything of late that even the simplest logic sounded foreign to him. Of course, Frank was right. And why he hadn’t made the connection himself was proof positive that his brain wasn’t much good these days. It took a guy who was stitched-up and doped to the seventh gill to make sense of things for him.

But Frank’s not mad crazy head-in-the-stars in love with that woman either. Keep that in mind. I am and that’s why I tiptoe around common sense every time and ignore my own gut-feelings.

“
Okay. She’s nuts. She’s violent. She’s being tormented by someone,” Steve said. “Do we bring in the police?”

“
Of course not. We do what she told you
not
to do.”

So off they went to Tara’s to wait for her.

70

In the shadows, Worm’s face was the cool yellow of moonlight splashed over a tombstone. Despite the noticeable chill in the air, she was completely naked. She had taken some of Henry’s makeup—he had a lot of it—and drawn thick dark bands over her body so she would camouflage in with the shadows. It was something she and Henry had done many times as they played games in cemeteries and country churchyards by moonlight.

Squatting in the tall grass behind the hedges, she watched the man standing outside Tara’s house. Henry said he would be there and he was. The BAD man. The NOSEY man who wanted to ruin everything.

Worm did not like BAD men.

She would not let him ruin the fun.

As he circled the house, she followed, keeping in the shadows, the darkness and night, the damp smell of leaves giving her a tingling erotic thrill. The man went up the front steps and knocked at the door. He knocked for a long time and then he just opened it and went in.

He was not only a BAD man but a SNEAKY man.

And very RUDE for inviting himself in.

When he was inside and she could hear him walking around in there, Worm scampered up the steps, pressing her face to the screen door, clinging there like a spider.

Giggling, she peed on the porch.

Then scampered off into the shadows.

She climbed up into the tree in the front yard and looped herself around a high limb, pretending she was a monkey. She waited. The door opened and the man came out. He stood on the porch, looking around.

He was disturbed.

She could smell it coming off him. He was smelling her pee and it disturbed him, concerned him, maybe even frightened him.

Yes,
frightened.

She could smell the hot musk of his fear and it made her want to masturbate. More so, it made her want to jump on the man and tie him down. Then she would masturbate in his face and squirt on him.

He stepped down the porch and passed beneath her. She dislodged a few leaves and let them drift down on his head. Then she giggled.

He stopped on the sidewalk. “Is someone there?” he said.

But there were no voices to answer him. He moved off, looking around, very scared now. He thought he was so sneaky and so smart going over to Tara’s house and looking around when he wasn’t supposed to. Now he was scared. He sensed he was not alone. Much as the old woman had sensed she was not alone the other night.

He walked away as fast as he could but it wasn’t fast enough.

He was old.

His knees were bad.

Worm could hear them creaking like old doors.

She dropped from the tree and crawled through the grass on her belly, waiting. Let the BAD man think he was safe. Worm waited, then she crept along into the hedges. She retrieved something she would need from where she had buried it.

Then she went after the old man.

When she was in the shadows outside his house, she swung her arm back and forth, liking the feel of the hatchet.

Much better than
he
would.

71

At the beach house, Tara stood watching the dark lake rolling out before her, the moon reflected over its waters.
Call me,
she thought at the phone.
It’s time to end the game and time for you to spring your trap so I can spring mine. So call.
The minutes ticked by and as they did she felt something rising within her like a blank and soundless scream that needed to be vented.