The Tea Party - A Novel of Horror (15 page)

Her bedroom door opened.

Keith stumbled out, rubbing his eyes. “Mom? Mom, what’s all the noise for?”

6

Casey could see the mansion squatting in the middle of his sixty acres, a dark formless lump untouched by the moonlight. The windows reflected nothing; the rolling lawn was bleached white as if buried by frost. A bird flew low and fast across the ground, leaving no shadow. Behind him one of Cleary’s hounds started barking again.

Shit, he thought; if Piper’s home, I’ll never get a chance.

He lay his hands on the wall’s top and climbed over smoothly, dropping on the other side, instantly running.

In the open like this he was vulnerable, a cinch target, and he tried to hunch over, but his weight was concentrated above his waist and he felt himself tipping. It didn’t matter. Upright or not, he was clearly visible from all sides. So he gulped deeply and began to sprint, staring at the house as if by his will he could bring it closer than it was.

Halfway there, he heard a noise.

It was a rumbling, like a subway train deep in its tunnel approaching its station; a grinding, as if the grass had turned to glass; a whistling, as if it were a late autumn wind coming down from the hill.

He glanced over his shoulder, puzzled, thinking maybe it was a hundred men vaulting the wall to give him chase, the sound of their feet striking the ground the sound that he heard.

It wasn’t a posse, and it wasn’t the wind.

It was a boulder. A jagged globe of grey stone that rumbled along the ground as though it were plunging down a steep slope.

And it was heading straight toward him.

He faltered in surprise, tripped, and sprawled to his knees. It wasn’t the boulder so much that kept him scrambling until he was up again and running; it was the sound. It was the fact that as it came closer it began to grow larger. A trick of the moonlight, but as the sound increased, so did the stone.

The ground rose, and he veered right to climb with it, broke over the top, and raced down again, into a deep trough swirling with shadows. His footsteps were muffled, his panting harsh and edged with fear. After twenty feet he struggled up a second rise and stopped, hands limp, jaw sagging while he tried to find air. The boulder, or whatever the hell it was, was hidden by the first knoll he’d come over.

But he could still hear it.

He could still feel the ground trembling beneath his feet.

Then he saw it.

A wedge of it slowly lifting above the grass, a grey-black moon moving up in its orbit. Stalking. Higher. Shadows flitting across its rugged surface. Higher. Slower. Winks of mica like trapped stars. Higher, until it finally reached the top.

And stopped.

“I’ll be damned,” Casey said, shaking the sweat from his eyebrows. “I’ll be damned and gone to hell.”

The boulder rocked on its base, forward and back.

Casey leaned toward it, narrowing his eyes, cocking his head.

The boulder rocked again, toward him and away. His eyes widened. He looked behind him to the house to see which way to run next, and saw a wavering light in an upper story window. A candle. Someone was walking through the rooms, carrying a candle. Hot damn, he thought; I was right! I was right!

With a soft grinding, a crunching, the boulder rolled back down the slope and out of sight.

Casey checked to be sure it was gone, wondering how the hell the guys had done something like that, but he wasn’t going over there to find out and get his ass caught, and started down to the level grass, Winter-rest’s back lawn. He walked at first, then broke into a slow trot, and didn’t hear the rumbling until he was at the bottom and ten yards along. Jesus, he thought, they don’t give up, do they? He turned as he ran, and froze, and opened his mouth to scream.

The boulder shot over the second knoll as if it had been punched from a cannon, spinning and climbing, and kept on going, into the air.

As big as the moon, bigger, and grey-black. It rose and it spun and the shadows turned to black bands that wound about its circumference and sharpened its edges and whistled its own wind, while Casey gaped and shook his head, and finally realized what was happening and started running again.

whistling

High-pitched and atonal.

whistling

And climbed.

whistling

And fell.

Casey stopped.

He had remembered at last why Judy didn’t want him talking about the house.

He remembered, and he screamed.

whistling

Louder.

He was facing the house when it landed squarely on his back, cutting off the scream, slamming him into the grass, into the earth, only one leg showing, one convulsing hand, droplets of blood showering over the lawn.

The boulder squatted in the moonlight, rocking back and forth, turning side to side, silently grinding Casey into the ground.

PART THREE

THE INVITATIONS

ONE

1

On Saturday morning the sun rose over the eastern hills, the sky was blindingly clear, and the temperature promised considerably more moderation than the previous day.

Such a morning in Deerford was usually marked by preparation. The proprietors of the various shops knew this was the time when the casual driver stopped by to inspect offered goods and perhaps spend a little unintended money. So they had to be especially clean, especially well stocked. The owners of the Shade Tree, Wilbur and Nell Cleary, whipped their small kitchen into shape in anticipation of their most profitable day. Friday nights were fine but mostly local; Saturdays brought the strangers, first-timers, and those who had been pleased the last time around. There was sweeping to be done, salads and dressings to make, vegetables to start steaming, and late breakfasts to be served to the likes of Gil Clay, who, according to Nell, wouldn’t know how to start an electric stove. Bernie Hallman would grumpily get ready to pump several hundred gallons of watered-down, expensive gasoline, Deer-ford being farther off the beaten trail than most drivers anticipate. Judy Lockhart would sleep as late as she could, then check on the Depot to see what damage had been done the night before. If Gil and Casey had done their jobs well, if the waitresses hadn’t botched theirs, she would walk back to the house and fall into bed again until the middle of the afternoon. Elderly ladies in pink dresses and sensible shoes headed for the church to clean, to sing, to gossip while they polish. The children swam until noon, then split into their factions and headed for the fields and ballgames, the streams for some fishing, the woods for some hunting in and out of season.

Driveways sprouted cars that needed washing and polishing, clotheslines sprouted limbless creatures that flapped and resisted the wind, and once a week from June through August a silver and red chartered bus pulled up in front of the Shade Tree and took a handful of generally middle-aged people off to Atlantic City for a day’s gambling, or into New York or Pennsylvania for a day’s shopping. The county sheriff stopped by or sent one of his men to see what crimes had been committed during the week, unless such crimes had already been reported, and already solved. Piper Cleary would don his deerstalker and call Doug Muir to see if there was work, then take his favorite blue tick coon hound and her pups and disappear into the woods for a little off-season hunting, and a little training for those animals he intended to sell one day. Sitter McMahon cleaned his lawn chair with a chamois, made sure he had enough beer hidden behind the hedge, and staked out his spot on the highway for a good day’s waving.

In the distance, if you stopped long enough to listen and most people did, you could hear tractors and tillers and shredders working on the farms; you could hear hawks and crows overhead, jays and sparrows and starlings in the trees, dogs barking lazily in the shade, engines being tested, an argument or two if someone’s windows were open; you could hear the foliage shifting, traffic on the highway like the faint buzzing of mosquitoes, lawn sprinklers hissing, a call to children for lunch and children answering and not going.

This Saturday in Deerford wasn’t anything like that.

The bus drew up to the Shade Tree already more than half filled, and a few people stood on the pavement and complained about the company’s lack of adequate preparation; Gil was the only one around who worked a hose on a vehicle; there were no birds, no dogs, no traffic on the highway; the sheriff had other business, and the deputy at the substation wasn’t about to ride all the way in just to find out nothing had happened; Judy was worried about what her brother might say to someone who found him; Bernie Hallman was wondering what all the fuss was about just because Casey had gone on another bender, and was insulted that folks thought the idiot had either the skill or the luck to cut him with that toy; and Piper Cleary couldn’t find that goddamned stupid Dumpling, who was due any day now and he didn’t want the pups dropped in the almighty woods.

On the grass behind Winterrest a large boulder rocked.

2

The old, single-story brick building on the west side of Deerford Road was small, nestled between the Shade Tree restaurant and a high picket fence that separated it from a blue and white salt box devoted to antique glass and lamps. Two plate glass windows flanked an indented doorway, and in an arc across each of the panes were the words
Parrish Realty.
Passersby had to slouch a little to see the name through the low branches of an elm that had buckled the edge of a slate walk, but except for the name the windows were blank, backed by Venetian blinds which were open during the day and closed after five. The door itself had a shade that was raised during business hours, but reflections from the street prevented the curious from seeing anything but ghost images of themselves.

Directly inside the door was a single room, fifteen by fifteen. Two small, walnut desks facing each other on either side of the threshold had atop them neatly centered, leather-trimmed blotters, a marble-based pen and pencil set, a vase with a single flower to fit the season, a black telephone, and a series of large black notebooks in which photographs and details of properties were given.

No one in Deerford remembered ever seeing anyone in either of the black swivel chairs behind either of these desks; and no one ever commented on the tawny film of dust they saw undisturbed there.

Past the desks was a low wooden barrier carved to resemble a ship’s railing. Past the railing was a third desk, similarly outfitted, though behind it were two tall filing cabinets and a water cooler. Between the cabinets was a door, and it was assumed that this led to a tiny apartment where Eban Parrish spent his time after hours. It had to be, since he did not own a house, did not rent rooms, did not as far as anyone was aware own an automobile for commuting from a neighboring town. That the door was never seen open, or that he never invited anyone in, didn’t surprise anyone.

Eban Parrish sold real estate. Other than that, he was left alone.

On this Saturday, in the office, the air was still, a pocket of autumn twilight trapped by the shade and blinds. It was cool, and it was quiet. Not a sound from the outside penetrated the windows.

And Eban Parrish sat in his chair, behind his desk.

Of medium height, he favored three-piece blue suits with faint black pinstripes, a carefully done dark tie, and a flat white shirt. French cuffs with silver cufflinks, each embedded with a chip of grey stone. In the breast pocket a dark red handkerchief perfectly folded, seldom touched, never used. Black, patent leather shoes that tie. Dark blue socks.

His hair was a gleaming black and sufficiently thin to allow glimpses of his scalp, sufficiently stiff to keep breezes from unsettling its sideways combing; no sideburns; no strands tickling his collar. His face may have been round in his youth, but was thinning now, his cheeks slightly puffed at the ridges, his nose just this side of being fleshy. Thin, barely visible lines slanted down and away from pale and disturbing grey eyes. His lower lip was pressed forever upward, giving the impression that the corners of his mouth were drawn forever down. His hands were thickly veined, his nails straight and clean, and an occasional liver spot appeared just below his knuckles.

He could have been a trim fifty, or a well-preserved seventy, but only the fog knew exactly how old he was.

The sun rose higher, just to the right of the Antique Bazaar, caught the gold cross on the steeple of the First Methodist Church, and flared into the street. The chrome on the ambulance brightened. The cornfields and pastures beyond the town lost their shadow-blankets, and what livestock there was began the day’s grazing.

The air in the office stirred warmly. Dust floated from the ceiling, danced, and settled.

A faint but perceptible shudder began at Parrish’s shoulders, drifted down his arms, his chest, to his legs and feet. His hooded eyes blinked once, slowly, and he pushed back his chair, rose effortlessly, smoothed his lapels, and touched a straightening finger to the knot of his tie.