The Year's Best Horror Stories 7 (15 page)

He waited for nearly half an hour, leaning against one of the low brown pillars and smoking. When the twilight chill finally numbed his hands, he gave it up and drove back to the house, went inside and found all his women in front of ©race's fire. They were playing a word game found in the bookcase built into the back wall, and when they noticed him, they laughed, waved, and ordered him into the kitchen to make a sandwich supper.

"Done," he said, shucking his coat and tossing it to the couch. "Just don't complain if I'm not as good as Bess."

So she isn't the smartest in the world, Kelly, so what? She's got brains enough to make it through any decent college, and that’s all that counts.
Suppose Abbey doesn't want to go to college?
Alt right, so she doesn't go. It's her choice, isn't it. It's her life, not mine, for crying out loud.
Nets, sometimes I think you love her too much.
Kelly! Are you… are you saying that I spoil the girl? God forbid, no, dope. I just mean… well, sometimes I think she's closer to you than any of us are, that’s all.
Good Lord, Kelly, do the other girls… do they resent it? I mean, have I Failed them? Nets, you're beautiful when you're worried. No, you haven't failed any of us at all. You worry too much. That’s your problem, you know, you worry too much. Especially about Abbey. It's fine to say it's her life, not yours, but whenever she's out, more so than with Grace or Bess, you lose more sleep than anyone I know.
I hate to admit it, but you're right. God, that’s frightening, you know it? But sooner or later, she'll leave us. She'll grow up and the ties will be gone before we know it. It'll happen so slowly we won't even notice.
Maybe. I hope so. I hope it is slow.
It always is, isn't it?
I suppose so. Anyway, she'll probably be the first to get married, and then it'll be her husband's problem.
Maybe, but I'd hate to be the man to try her out.
Now why did you say that?
I don't know. I really don't know.
 

They were carrying no weapons that he could see, but the fact didn't make him any less nervous. He had heard the tires on the dirt road long before anyone else, had excused himself from the game to walk out onto the porch for an ostensible breath of fresh air. He refrained from lighting a cigarette, leaned against a post and waited until the car, a low black convertible, had glided without headlights around the birch and parked in front of his own. Three men climbed out, one of them giggling into a fist, and he knew instantly they were drunk and therefore too dangerous to reason with, unless he was lucky.

They arranged themselves at the foot of the porch steps. Steady, not weaving, but the stench of beer was as strong as their obvious sense of masculine outrage.

"Gentlemen," he said, more to hear his own voice than to make them aware he was there, "I don't recall any invitations being sent out for a party tonight."'

"Want to see Grade," said a stocky sweatered man. It was too dark to make out their features; they stood just beyond the diffused glow of the living room lights, were irregular black holes against the black of the evening. "I want to tell her something."

"Grace," he said evenly, "is busy right at the moment, I'll give her the message. Who shall I say is calling?"

"Oh, my, who shall I say is calling," mimicked the one in the middle. "You're very polite, aren't you? Well, I can be polite too, you know. That's Brett over there, and I'm Frank. See? I can be polite if I want to."

"Thank you," Nels said.

The one on the right, the unnamed one, stepped toward him, a man Grace's age but without the lines that would give him age and personality. He raised a fist "Abbey has a date with me, old man, and I want her out here."

"My goodness," Nels said, pushing away from the post "I don't think she remembers. And since she doesn't remember, perhaps you ought to find another place to play, all right, boys?"

Brett laughed, then lunged and tripped over the bottom step as Nels whipped a shoe up into his chest, spilling him back into the unnamed one. They sprawled, cursing, and took a long time getting up. Frank just stood there, glaring, until Nels took a step down, and another. Then he swung a wild fist that Nels easily trapped with his hand, flung it aside contemptuously and pushed the man's face back sharply with his palm. He kicked out again to catch Brett between his legs, grinning at the anguished howl while he spun toward Frank, who was trying to dash past him. He caught the man's jacket, spun him back and into the side of their car, grabbed his legs and dumped him into the back seat Brett, on his knees and retching, was hauled up by his collar and spilled into the passenger side. The third man turned to run when Nels faced him, shrugged and slid in behind the wheel. When Frank rose from the car floor and glared, Nels smiled at him politely.

"Don't say it," he said. "If you're going to come back and teach me a lesson, just come back. But don't say it, all right? It's much too corny."

He was back in the house before the car thundered away, surrounded by his wife and children whose amazement at his reaction was only slightly less than his own. He quickly dropped onto the couch, gladly took hold of an offered brandy and sipped at it until his hands stopped their trembling. When the tale was told, then, the girls preened proudly and Kelly clucked in admiration. Only Abbey, however, stood to one side, staring at him as though he were a stranger, yet not a stranger but rather someone she had known and had not recognized before. Her expression bothered him, but he thought nothing of it until he was in bed and Kelly was tracing promises across his chest

"Scared?" he said into the darkness, feeling the cold of her hands.

"A little."

"Maybe we should leave in the morning. I asked for trouble and they'll probably give it to me. And I don't want you girls hurt, Kel."

"You did all right out there, Viking."

"They were drunk. A boy could have done it. Bess could have, for that matter."

"That's sexist."

He laughed dutifully, fell silent, a moment later sat straight up and leaned against the headboard.

"What?" Kelly said, her fear too soon open to hide. "What is it?"

"We will go on a picnic tomorrow," he said. "A regular old-fashioned picnic in the field beneath the tree. Complete with mice and ants and flies and all that good jazz."

"For God's sake, Nels, go to sleep."

"But damnit, I'm a hero! Don't I deserve some kind of a reward?"

Her quiet laughter infuriated him until she yanked him down by the hair to kiss him.

He said nothing at all about the look on Abbey's face, the look that was part fear, part question, a large part astonishment: you really
won't
let me go, will you, Daddy?

He said nothing.

He only shuddered.

For crying out loud, Kelly, I don't see any real problem.
But, Nets, she won't go. She's been accepted and she won't go!
All right, so she won't go, so what? If she wants to stay home and go to the community college, that's fine with me. In fact, I'd rather have it that way. I don't think she's ready to leave just yet.
But what if she
-
Kelly, wilt you please leave her alone?
No, Nels, you leave her alone!
 

The brown and blue blanket still smelled of the attic, but no one seemed to mind, and he sat with his back against the tree and watched them struggling with the lumps in the ground as they set out the food, the bottles of wine, the paper plates Kelly had bought in the village that morning. The air was slightly hazed with uncaring clouds that occasionally blinded the sun, but the day stayed warm and the breeze kept the light from baking too hot. They had discovered a battered soft tennis ball in a closet and had played run-the-bases, man-in-the-middle, and anything else they could remember or devise for the best part of three hours before their hunger rebelled and forced them to eat The wine spilled freely, then, and Nels felt expansively patriarchal as he fed and was fed, joked and was laughed at, listened for the hundredth time to the stories, the gossip, a vivid reenactment by his three daughters of his protection of the fortress the evening, the century, the lifetime before. Then they made solemn plans for Grace's birthday at the end of the coming week, for Bess" sophomore year, for Kelly's new furniture in their bedroom at home.

Then Abbey announced it was wild flower time, and the girls rushed off in a scattering while Nels brought his wife to his lap and nuzzled her hair, stroked her arm and watched as a black-bottomed cloud threatened the sky.

"Let's go for a walk," he said suddenly; and they did, wandering away from the three and the house until the latter was gone and the former a shadow.

"Abbey had another nightmare last night," Kelly said.

"It was those men," he said quickly. "They'd be enough-"

"No," she said, stopping, turning in the circle of his arms and looking into his eyes. "She dreamt she was dead, again."

He shook his head. "She would have come to see me, like always."

"I heard her crying, Nels. She didn't want to, and she did. There's something wrong, Nels. She's… she's afraid of you."

"She's had the dreams before," he said, ignoring her.

"Nels, this is serious, and you know it."

"It's the Irish in her."

"Dammit, Nels!" And she slapped his arms down and away, stalked back toward the picnic. He watched her go, his fists clenched, then hurried to catch up, saying nothing but remaining at her side. He would have tried an epigram or two, something appropriate or entirely non sequitur, but a sudden
crack
made him glance up at the sky. The wind had risen, cold and sifting through the trees at their back like some stalking beast at midnight. He hunched his shoulders and rubbed the back of the neck. Another
crack,
and Kelly stopped, her eyes wide and staring toward the tree. He followed and saw his daughters huddled around the bole, clutching at each other, heard then their screams in atonal harmony and… was running.

Kelly shouted behind him.

He ran, nevertheless.

A burrow snagged at his ankle and he fell, barely getting his hands into position in time, feeling his cheeks scrape across the rough ground to let out the blood.

Kelly was past him by the time he had regained his feet, and the shooting continued, the screaming continued, and as the tree grew closer than a hundred yards, he realized that no strike was meant, no killing… only a scare; and he began looking for the three men who had been beaten and were now sniping back. It was possible, he thought, that they were still behind the treeline at the edge of the field, hidden and laughing, but he only ran faster, toward the tree and his children. Kelly's arms were waving them down when they rose to greet her and then… she was stopped.

She fell as though tripped, but Nels saw the spurt of blood at her left shoulder and fell beside her, shouting to Grace to keep the others down.

"Don't die, Kel, for God's sake don't die," he whispered repeatedly as he tore at her sweater, his jacket, his shirt, to ball up cloth and jam it against the wound. It came from a fair distance away, some part of him noted or the shell would have gone through. As it was, she was too stunned to do more than whimper, too astonished yet to feel the pain. When he was done, he lifted her in his arms and carried her awkwardly, suddenly shouting in angered panic when Abbey stood to help him.

And was stopped.

With a scream.

She stood motionless for a second that lasted much longer, toppled with one hand grasping at a branch for support. Her fingers closed on a leaf. It held. Tore. She was face down on the blanket

Bess broke and ran for the house, but there was no more firing.

There were images, then, of no certain continuity: of red flashing lights and white-coated men and men in blue uniform and men in dark suits and a man intoning and a man moaning and a sling for an arm and a bandage for a face, and a printed sympathy card from the real estate agent in town.

Abbey was buried in the cemetery in Oxrun.

Grace took Bess back to their home, to clean and wait for their parents and school.

Kelly wandered the house.

Nels wandered the fields. The three men had had alibis, and none were arrested. Revenge gave way to sorrow to rage to a feeling that something… something was not right, not right.

"Nels, we have to go home. Your job-"

"I can't, Kelly. Don't ask me why. But I… can't."

Nels wandered, sat beneath his tree and wondered.

"Nels, they're giving your job away. I… we have to go back now. Grace and Bess need us. Dammit, Nels, it's been almost a month!"

He wanted to tell her to pack, that it was over at last, he wanted to say that life must go on, though, with Millay, he wondered just why. He wanted to. He could not. Kelly left the next day on the first morning train.

And he sat in the kitchen until the sun went down, drinking coffee, drinking tea, shaking his head and waiting for the tears, until just before ten he stiffened.

Oh, Jesus, no, he thought.

He pushed away from the table and stumbled to the door, opened it, crossed the porch and walked to the field. He was frightened. More frightened than when he had heard the first shot and knew what it was, more frightened then when he had stood on the porch and faced three drunken men. He looked back over his shoulder and saw the single light in the kitchen, warm, slightly blurred, and fading.

He told himself to stop. He did not, and could not, until he had reached the tree.

There was no wind.

The branches stirred.

"Abbey?" he whispered.

Stirred, and scratched.

"Abbey, I have a family still. They need me. You've got to let me go."

Leaves trembled.

"Abbey, please, I'm your father!"

Trembled, and curled.

He expected a voice on the wind that did not blow, a young girl's voice that would touch his mind with melancholy and a final good-bye.