Sleepwalk (26 page)

“Of course he is,” Judith replied. “Why wouldn’t he be? A broken leg isn’t exactly the end of the earth. He’ll be in the hospital a few more days, and then he’ll come home.” She forced a smile. “Our biggest problem will be getting him to take it easy for a while.”

Jed nodded, but Judith could sense that something was bothering him. “What is it?” she asked. “What’s wrong?”

Jed took a deep breath, then let it out in a long sigh. “I don’t know. I guess it’s just that this morning, when I woke up, I had this weird feeling something was going
to happen to him today. And it did.” He shivered, though the night wasn’t that cold. “I keep thinking it was my fault, that I should have told him not to go to work today.”

Judith shook her head. “It wouldn’t have done any good. In fact,” she went on, smiling wryly, “I tried it myself. I even suggested he quit. But you know your father …” Her voice trailed off. “Look,” she said. “Do you want me to come home with you? I could spend the night, if you don’t want to be alone in the house.”

Jed considered it for a moment, but shook his head. “I’ll be okay—Christ knows, there’ve been enough nights when Dad was working graveyards.”

But later, as he pulled his father’s truck into the driveway, he realized that tonight would be different. He let himself in the front door, and immediately felt the emptiness of the place. Always before, even when he’d been alone, he’d felt his father’s presence. But tonight, knowing his father wouldn’t be home in a few hours, a desolate loneliness seemed to emanate from the house.

He tried to ignore it, switching on the television and stretching out on the couch. But he couldn’t concentrate on the TV. Instead of hearing the soundtrack of the movie, his ears kept picking up the sounds of the night outside.

He felt fidgety, nervous.

At last he got up from the sofa, picked up the remote control, and switched the television off again.

Silence closed in on him.

He wandered around the house for a few minutes, his nervousness growing by the second. Finally, making up his mind, he grabbed his leather jacket and went back out to the truck.

The A&W stand.

His friends would be there—it was Friday night. Maybe someone would even have gotten hold of a keg of beer. At least tonight there wasn’t any chance of his father finding out what he’d been doing.

There were five of them up on the mesa an hour later. Randy Sparks and Jeff Hankins had already been at the A&W, and a few minutes later Gina Alvarez and JoAnna Garcia arrived on their way home from the movies. When Gina had seen the keg of beer in the trunk of Jeff’s Plymouth, her eyes had narrowed ominously, but it had been JoAnna who had finally convinced her to come along. “We can tell my folks we watched the movie twice, and your mom won’t even be home till after midnight.”

Gina’s eyes had shifted over to Jed. “No drag racing?” she asked. “If you wreck your dad’s truck—”

“I promise,” Jed had replied, putting on his best solemn face and crossing his heart. And he’d stuck to the promise, despite the way Jeff had tauntingly revved the Plymouth’s engine as they’d left the A&W and started up toward the mesa.

Now the keg was half gone, and Jed was stretched out on his back, staring up into the sky. Gina was beside him, her head resting on his shoulder, her body snuggled close to his. He’d found an old blanket behind the seat of the pickup, and he was about to pull it over them when he felt something prod roughly at his side. He looked up to see Randy Sparks glaring down at him.

Randy was weaving slightly, and in his hand was a paper cup full of beer. “I wanta talk to you, half-breed,” he said, his words slurred.

Jed felt his stomach tighten. When he’d arrived at the A&W, Randy had nodded to him but not said much.
Since they’d come up to the mesa and started drinking, he’d noticed Randy eyeing him speculatively, as if he was trying to decide whether or not he could take Jed in a fight. For a while Jed had been on his guard, but when Randy had simply kept drinking, Jed had concluded that nothing was going to happen.

Now Randy’s foot jammed into his side once more. “I said I wanta talk to you!”

Gina was sitting up now, one of her hands pressed against Jed’s chest. “Come on, Randy,” she said. “What’s the big deal? You’re the one who threw the rock through the Morelands’ window, not Jed.”

Randy glowered drunkenly down at her. “Yeah, but your Indian boyfriend’s the one who told.”

Jed thought quickly. The last thing any of them needed right now was a fight. And if they got caught out here with a keg of beer … “Look,” he said, scrambling to his feet and picking up the blanket. “Let’s just forget about it, okay? Maybe I didn’t see you at all. Maybe it was just a lucky guess.” Taking Gina’s hand, he started toward the truck, with Randy staggering after him.

“Whatsa matter?” he shouted. “You scared to fight me? Huh? You a chicken-shit Indian?”

Jed froze, his anger finally beginning to rise, but Gina kept pulling him to the truck. “Don’t listen to him,” she said. “He’s drunk, and he just wants to make trouble. Let’s just split, okay?”

They were at the truck now, and Gina pulled the passenger door open, half shoving Jed inside. “Let’s go,” she pleaded. “Please?”

Randy was still shouting, but now Jeff Hankins was next to him, trying to calm him down. Jed started the engine of the pickup and backed away, then shifted
gears. But as he pulled out onto the road, Randy bent down and picked up a rock, hurling it toward the oncoming truck.

Instinctively both Jed and Gina ducked as the rock came at them, and neither of them saw it strike the windshield. But a moment later they both saw the cracks, a spiderweb spreading out from the pit the rock had left in the glass.

“Shit!” Jed yelled, slamming on the brakes and starting to jump out of the cab. But even before the door was fully open, Gina grabbed at his arm, pulling him back.

“Don’t, Jed!” she said. “Don’t make it any worse! We’ll figure out something to tell your father—maybe we can even get a new windshield before he gets out of the hospital.”

Jed hesitated, torn. He wanted to jump out of the truck, grab Randy, and throw him down in the dirt. He wanted to make Randy eat his words, and a lot more. And he knew he could do it. He was bigger and stronger than Randy—always had been. And Randy was so drunk he’d barely be able to even throw a punch.

Maybe.

And what would happen tomorrow, when he had to explain to his father where he’d gotten a black eye, or a split lip, or any of the other injuries he’d brought home from fights over the last few years?

Taking a deep breath, he slammed the door once again, venting his anger by jamming the accelerator to the floor. All four wheels spun gratifyingly for a moment before the truck shot forward into the night.

“Slow down, will you?” Gina begged a couple of minutes later as they approached the hairpin turns of the switchbacks that led down to the desert floor.

Still breathing hard, Jed eased up on the gas pedal,
then pressed the brakes as he steered into the first of the curves. As he approached the second curve, he slammed on the brakes, at the same time reaching down to switch off the headlights.

“What’s wrong?” Gina asked. “Why are we stopping?”

Jed pointed out into the desert. “Look.”

Far in the distance a pair of dim lights glowed. It was a car, moving slowly, its headlights extinguished and only its parking lights on. It was heading along the same road Jed and the rest of the kids had traveled two hours earlier.

“You think it’s the cops?” Gina asked.

Jed shrugged. “I don’t know. But why would anyone else be coming up here at this time of night? And with their headlights off?”

Gina’s lips tightened. “I told you we shouldn’t have come. If we get caught, Mom’s gonna—”

“Just take it easy,” Jed told her Leaving the headlights off, he began carefully steering the truck down the twisting road. A few moments later they were close to the bottom, and Jed brought the pickup to a stop behind a large boulder. “Come here,” he said, holding out his arms. “If it’s the cops, it’ll look like we just came out here to neck. They probably won’t even stop.”

Gina hesitated, then decided the ruse was at least worth a try She slid across the seat and snuggled herself into Jed’s arms.

The faint beams of the oncoming car’s parking lights were brightening now, casting a dim glow onto the mesa’s wall Jed held his breath, knowing the car was approaching the fork in the road If the twin shafts of light didn’t swing away in a moment, it would mean the car was coming up the mesa road.

And then the beams suddenly moved toward them, only to disappear as the car took the turnoff just past the boulder that concealed the truck. Instantly, Jed opened the door and scrambled out of the truck, scuttling around the boulder until he could see the car as it started up the canyon. A moment later he was back, his brows furrowed.

“It’s Dr. Moreland’s car,” he said. “What’s he doing going up in the canyon in the middle of the night?”

Gina shrugged. “Maybe something happened up at The Cottonwoods,” she suggested.

Jed shook his head. “If it’s some kind of an emergency, how come he didn’t have his headlights on? The way he was driving, it’s like he didn’t want anyone to see him.”

Gina giggled softly. “Maybe he didn’t,” she said “Maybe he’s got a girlfriend up there and doesn’t want anyone to know about her.”

But Jed was barely listening, for he was once more feeling the strange vibrations he’d felt earlier that afternoon, when he and Gina had come across the new antenna UniChem had installed.

Frank Arnold lay in his bed, sleeping peacefully. Then, as midnight came, his eyes opened and he sat up.

Something was wrong.

There was a strange smell in the room, almost as if something was burning. And then the scent grew stronger, and changed slightly.

Garbage.

The air seemed redolent now with the putrid stink of a dump on a hot summer afternoon.

He could even taste the stuff. It was as if his mouth was filled with rotting eggs, and he felt himself begin to gag, then tried to reach for the glass of water on his nightstand.

He missed it, his hand brushing against it, knocking it to the floor.

Suddenly, streaks of light slashed through the darkness of the room, and he saw flickering images of strange creatures lurking in the corners. But when he tried to look straight at them, they seemed to disappear, only to reappear a moment later, coming at him from another direction.

A guttural sound rose from his throat as a wave of pure terror washed over him.

Something was coming at him out of the darkness, and he tried to strike out at it. His arms flailed wildly, and then, as a flash of pain lashed through his head, he tumbled from the bed.

He began screaming then, bellowing out in fear and rage, and a moment later the room filled with blinding light. On the floor, his body writhing, Frank tried to scrabble away from this newest assailant. He cowered against the wall, his arms wrapped around his body.

His mouth filled with the sickening flavor of bile, and then he was retching, vomit spewing from his lips in glutinous streams.

From the doorway Susan Paynter, the night nurse, stared in frozen horror at the spectacle on the floor. Then her years of training took over and she came to life. Pressing the buzzer that would summon an orderly to the room, she dropped onto the floor next to Frank and reached out to touch him. “It’s all right, Mr. Arnold,” she said soothingly, though she wasn’t sure if he
could hear her or not. “Just take it easy. I’m here to help you.”

As her fingers touched his left arm, Frank screamed out again. His arm jerked convulsively, as if she’d burned him, and he tried to roll away from her.

His head struck the wall, hard. A second later he smashed it against the wall again, and yet again.

Susan heard a sound at the door and looked up. “Get Dr. Banning,” she said. “Then call Dr. Moreland and tell him to get over here.”

The orderly disappeared, and a moment later she heard his voice on the paging speaker, summoning Bob Banning to the room. Though the sound was barely audible in the room, it seemed to stimulate something in Frank Arnold, and now his whole body went into convulsions.

His broken leg swung around and the cast smashed painfully against Susan Paynter’s knee. And then, as if someone had turned a switch inside him, he went limp.

For a split second Susan thought he had died. She seized his wrist, pressed her fingers into his flesh and counted quickly as she found his pulse.

At the same time, her eyes watched his chest begin to move in the slow and steady rhythm of strong breathing.

At last she heard Bob Banning’s voice behind her.

“Jesus, Susan. What’s happening in here?”

Susan glanced up. “I don’t know. I found him like this.” She slipped an arm under Frank’s shoulders, and the doctor immediately squatted down to help her. The orderly appeared, and together they managed to get Frank back into bed.

Banning quickly began examining Frank, double-checking his pulse and breathing, wrapping the rubber
sleeve of a sphygmomanometer around his arm. But as he began inflating the sleeve, Frank’s eyes opened and he stirred in the bed.

He looked up at the three faces above him, and his mouth opened. “Wh-What’s happening? Is something wrong?”

Susan Paynter stared at him. “Wrong?” she repeated. “Don’t you remember what just happened, Mr. Arnold?”

Frank’s eyes clouded slightly. “Nightmare,” he said at last. “I think I had a nightmare.”

Susan glanced quickly at Dr. Banning, who nodded. “It was a lot more than a nightmare, Mr. Arnold,” she told him. “You started screaming, and when I came in, you were on the floor. You smashed your head against the wall, and then you started throwing up.”

Frank’s eyes widened and his gaze shifted to the doctor.

“You don’t remember any of this, Frank?”

Frank shook his head and made a slight movement toward the glass of water that was no longer there. Susan brought him another from the bathroom, then held it while he drank.

“I—I thought it was a dream,” he said. “I woke up, and everything smelled funny. Then I got this horrible taste in my mouth, and I started seeing things …” His voice trailed off and he dropped back against the pillows.