Tales from the Nightside (23 page)

with a dash of brass here and there for color and class. My mediate superior, David Mclnroe, was standing by the window that almost framed the Waldorf. Both of them were smiling Crayton holding in his hands a portfolio I had done for our newest heavyweight client.

I smiled back and sat in the red leather chair nearest the desk.

Crayton, never one to be subtle or wield the velvet glove dropped the smile. "Andrew," he said after taking his own seat, "j must say I've seen you do better work. Much better, I should add."

This, after I spent the whole month of October wondering what leaving the city on time was like.

Mclnroe said nothing; the set of his bloodless lips should have been enough to warn me the moment I had stepped through the door. I'd still been thinking about Roger, however, and never noticed a thing.

"I'm sorry,” I said. And I was. No matter how much I bitched about these two, at least Crayton gave me points for doing my best... even when my best, as in this case, wasn't good enough.

"Disappointed," he said. "Very."

"Do you want me to try again?"

He shrugged and tented his manicures under his chin. "I don't honestly know if there's time, Andrew. We're pressing the deadline hard enough as it is. The filming, as you know, starts right after Thanksgiving, and we have to have some decent idea of the graphics by no later than this Friday if we want to keep the budget trim."

"So I'll work nights," I said agreeably. "You know I don't mind that."

Mclnroe gave me a rotten imitation of a smile.

Crayton pulled his fingers from under his chin and examined them.

"I'm off it, then," I said dully.

Crayton nodded.

Mclnroe did not once try to alleviate the pain.

I began trembling, first with humiliation, then with rage. My vision blurred momentarily, but I blinked the obstruction away and strode out of the office, told Jackie I thought she was a lousy lay and to stay the hell off my goddamned aching back, and hid out in my office until well after closing. Still trembling. Clenching and spreading my fingers until I thought they would cramp. Watching the room expand, contract, while my breathing echoed and my blood sought to burst through my veins.

I hadn't been fired, but it felt like it—for the first time in my career I had been shot down... from behind.

And for the first time in my career I was glad I didn't keep liquor in the office. Drinking now would only lead to mayhem, and it never once occurred to me to feel sorry for myself.

I did not stop shaking until I got off the empty bus four blocks from my home. And there it was again—that goddamned sweep of fog. Stalking me. Waiting until it knew I was down and then kicking me by taking away the one thing, sometimes the only thing, that managed to keep me from screaming at least until I'd cooled off—the long, almost pastoral view of my street with its split-trunk elms and oaks taller than the houses, the carefully tended lawns that even in November did not seem as though they were ready to die, the toys scattered and patient in the driveways, the women working or walking or waiting or...

The fog took it.

When I needed it most, the fog took it from me.

Damnit, I thought as I jammed my key into the lock, why the hell don't you bother someone else for a change?

I kicked the door open, slammed it, and dared the house to complain.

That night there was more digging.

I had made a run down to the liquor store to get myself some Tanqueray for a nice evening's stupor, and I was leaving the garage when I heard it.

Scrape. Thud! Scrape. Thud.

This time I didn't bother to think about it; I set the bag on the car's trunk and headed right over. But he had beaten me again, was already back at the table as I went inside.

"Are you going to dig up every damned blade of your stupid grass?" I demanded, heading straight for the refrigerator and snoring the beer for a slim bottle of Guinness. "Christ, a man can't have any peace in this neighborhood anymore."

You," he said, "are in a lousy mood."

I dropped the bottle cap into the garbage and took the chair opposite him. "Marvelous deduction, Dillan," I said. Then I told him what had happened at the office, and his face rearranged itself into an excellent semblance of genuine concern. We were close, Roger and I—he was the only man I could call friend who took my troubles to heart, no matter how stupid some of them were.

When I'd run down, fighting against the renewal of my trembling, he shook his head slowly. "You're not getting fired, are you?"

"No, I don't think so. I've been there too long for one screw-up to put me in the gutter. But I'm sure as hell going to miss that bonus this year. I was counting on it."

"For what? Your old age?"

I did not appreciate the bitter envy in his tone, and when I demanded again to know why he was digging out there in the fog I suppose my frustrations showed more than they should have. I knew it wasn't fair, taking things out on him, but without a wife who the hell did I have left?

He didn't answer for a long moment, and I gave him his measure of reproof, drinking while I waited and wondering if Bet were upstairs. She was a marvelous woman, an extraordinary one. Tropical black hair, and a slender figure that enticed rather than vamped. I wished I had just a little less conscience so I could take her to bed again.

"There are things," Roger said at last.

I blinked rapidly and brought myself back to the kitchen, which was growing warm, growing small. "Things," I repeated.

He nodded.

"All right. Things. Where?"

He jerked a thumb toward the door. I looked, as I knew I was , expected to.

"They... these things, they come from the woods, you see.''

"Oh," I said, not at all liking the way he looked at me. "That | kind of thing."

Behind our homes—indeed, backing the entire large develop- j ment in this part of town—was a rolling stretch of woodland that covered the low hills for several miles, and most of that huge parcel was state-preserved. It had once reached all the way to the Qelaware River, but it was; inevitable that civilization would discover it, and it was now slowly giving way to bulldozers and prefabs. For that reason, more than ever in the past few years we were discovering deer and other increasingly scarce wildlife sometimes literally in our own backyards. Most of the younger families, and Roger, delighted in it. I, perhaps predictably, did not. 1 saw nothing cute or cuddly about a voracious raccoon attacking my garbage can at three in the morning, or a russet deer making a twilight meal of whatever shrubs I had.

"No," Roger said, and the hollow fear in his voice made me push the Guinness to one side. His eyes, now that I looked at them closely, were pouched and lined; there were creases at the corners of his mouth I had never seen before. He was pale—no sleep. I considered immediately some sort of trouble between him and Bet, and discarded it. It must be the job; he couldn't be crazy enough to let so-called things worry him this much.

"What's the matter, Rog," I asked quietly. I was getting upset. I didn't want to lose him. Not now. Not when Bob Parker and the others in the office were beginning to eye me like hyenas.

"Things," he said again. I almost couldn't believe it—the man was actually afraid. "You hear stories, you know? And you think when you're a kid they're really great around the campfire. Remember? Remember when we used to go back there with your dad and my uncle and scare the shit out of each other? Remember them, Andy? Creatures that live deep in the woods, never walk there alone, boy, or they'll get you sure as hell? Tear you up, sonny. Eat you alive. Spit out the bones. Leave your heart on a limb. You know... stories."

"Yeah," I said, remembering, though I felt no nostalgia.

"You didn't believe them even then, did you."

I shook my head. "Great for campfires, like you said. Lousy for reality, adulthood, and the American flag."

He looked at me sorrowfully; I wanted to cry.

Now,” he said, "they've no place to go. I mean that, Andy, dont look at me that way. I'm a scientist, right, I know what I'm talking about. I'm not crazy. I'm definitely not crazy. I've... I've seen them. They're here. We've pushed them too hard, took away their homes and their privacy, and now they're here. I'm not crazy, Andy. I've—"

I nodded suddenly, then wiped a sheen of perspiration from the back of my neck. "I see now, yeah. You caught them—these things from the campfires you're talking about—you caught them in the woods or saw them on your lawn... and you killed them." I had to say it because Roger couldn't. Monsters or not, he had killed a living creature, and that right there was tearing him apart as much as the realization—to him—that all those dumb stories had a basis in fact.

Careful, I warned myself then; don't let him see how afraid you are.

"They're horrid, Andy," he said with a violent shudder. "Fangs like you wouldn't believe. Claws. They're small, like cats, and fast as hell. I used... both times I used the shovel."

He drained his beer, fetched himself another while I listened to him muttering to himself. It was—and there's no other word for it—eerie. The warm kitchen, the too-bright ceiling light, the fog outside—I've never been able to tell when he was drunk, so now I didn't know whether to laugh at him, with him, or just break down and cry. It isn't fair, I thought angrily; damnit, Rog, I've got troubles of my own!

He took his seat again and spun the can between his palms. "You don't believe me." It wasn't an accusation; it was a statement of resigned fact.

I gave him my best smile. "Monsters, Rog? Come on, pal, you've got to be kidding."

"I saw them, Andy." He was implacable.

Reason, I told myself; you've got to hit him with reason and bring him back where he belongs.

"Look," I said, trying to sound patient and not condescending, 1 don't doubt you saw something, Rog. And from the looks of you, I sure don't doubt you killed it, too. But Jesus... Jesus, don't ask me to believe in fangs and claws."

His large fist hit the table so hard, so unexpectedly, that I jumped.

"There have been deaths,” he said, almost hissing. "That widow four or five houses up who was torn apart in September. Those two campers out by the stream last month. Torn apart. Claws, Andy, claws."

"Dogs," I said as firmly as I could. "Dogs gone wild. I read the rest of the article, Roger. All the medical people and the police said it was dogs gone wild. And it wouldn't be the first time."

"Bullshit."

Now I was frightened, but not of campfire fancies. This man, this romantic bean pole who worked with powers that could wipe out the earth a million times over, this man I had grown up with and had shared women with, this man had retreated into a children's world where the worst things imaginable were only—

I jumped, and my heart actually froze for a split second, when a loud slam echoed through the room. I looked immediately to the door, ready to believe any damn thing, when I heard the mocking laughter. It was Bet. She had come into the room and had punched the wall. Grinning, I could have killed her.

"You," she said sternly to her husband, "are drunk again. Alger, take him to bed." Roger looked plaintively at me, then shrugged his defeat and followed the limping, half-blind bloodhound into the hallway. I was already at the door, my hand on the knob, when Bet whispered for me to stay. And we waited until Roger had reached the upstairs.

"Well?"

She was drawn, obviously as tired as her husband. It hurt me to see her this way, worse because there was nothing I could do about it.

"Has he... has he told you?"

When I nodded, she slumped into the nearest chair and covered her face with her hands. Shook her head as though it were weighted with stone. Finally took a deep breath and worried me with a wan smile. "It's getting worse, Andy," she said hoarsely. "It's all he talks about anymore. Fangs, claws, those—"

'Bobcats," I said suddenly, snapping my fingers.

"What?" I could see her praying I wasn't as crazy as Roger.

'Yeah, sure, bobcats," I said again, feeling immensely relieved and rather stupid at the same time. "Hell's bells."

Andy/' Bet said, her voice dangerously low, “would you please explain?"

I leaned back against the door, partly for the role, partly to cover my suddenly weak knees. "A couple, maybe three years ago, the state forestry people released a batch of bobcats into the woods just north of here, in the state forest up there. One year it was males— to establish the territory—and the next it was females. They're trying to rebuild the population. Damn, I'll bet that's what he saw! A stupid bobcat. Both times. And they were probably more scared of him than Roger was of them. He could have waved or something, and they would have taken off like a bat."

"No," she said weakly, though smiling gratitude for the effort. "No, I don't think so."

"Damnit, Bet, it has to be!"

"But what about all those killings he keeps talking about?"

Patiently, softly, I explained to her about the dog packs, domestic animals that had been left behind when vacationers didn't want to take them home to the city. It happened every year, and at least once a decade a pack was formed and had to be cleaned out by the local police.

"Are you sure?" Her hope almost had me weeping.

"Believe me, Bet, I'm as sure about this as I am about anything." I almost left then, changed my mind and turned to tell her that the next time we had a fog I would dig up one of those things and show him what his nightmares were really all about. She almost kissed me, and I almost let her. But I settled instead for a long hug that stirred some memories and left the house near to whistling. For the first time that day I felt really good, and wished my own troubles could be just as easily taken care of. A hug. One lousy hug. And within the next few days a raid on a damned bobcat's grave.

In fact, I was still whistling the next day. I had driven in to work, windows down to the bright and unseasonably warm air, found a parking space almost immediately, and decided it was an omen.

Almost.

When I reached my floor Jackie was not at her desk, and her coat was missing from the bentwood rack. I wandered down the hall poking into cubicles and offices, but no one was there. There was then a brief moment of stomach-lurching panic—a meeting? Had I forgotten a meeting or something? Was I supposed to have come in early and Roger's troubles had driven it out of my head? Damn!