Bethany's Sin

Bethany's Sin Page 11

ELEVEN

THE OUTSIDER, LOOKING IN

Because the neighborhood had been so deathly quiet all morning, Evan distinctly heard the noise of a lawn mower. He was working on a short story in his basement office, now complete with mounted bookshelves packed with aged paperbacks, a few valuable first-edition Hemingways and Faulkners, and assorted odds and ends; he'd left the windows open to catch the morning breezes.

The high whine of the lawn mower came from across the street, he realized after a moment of listening. Keating's house.

Today, the last day of June, marked two weeks they'd lived in the house on McClain Terrace. Working on a regular schedule, he'd completed one short story and mailed it the day before to Harpers, but he'd had two rejection slips from them and was prepared for a third. No matter; he was certain his material was good, and it was just a matter of time. Kay seemed happy indeed now that the term at George Ross had begun; when Evan sensed in her an insecurity about her abilities as a teacher, he helped her talk those feelings away, and eventually her mood would lighten. He was glad to see that Laurie had adjusted very easily to their new home; she actually seemed to look forward to going to the Sunshine School every weekday, and in the evenings she bubbled over about the games she and the other children played. It pleased him to see both his wife and his daughter so happy, because they had come down a long, grinding road and thank God all those bad times were in the past. They had bought some new furniture, drawing the money from the savings account Evan had built up while working in LaGrange, and Kay was making plans to repaint the living room in soft peach.

It was only when he was alone and allowed his thoughts to drift that Evan felt the old, clinging spider touches of doubt. They hadn't met that many of the families in Bethany's Sin, and though they'd seen the Demargeons a total of three times, Evan was beginning to sense, and fear, a lack of acceptance. He'd tried to talk his feelings out to Kay, but she'd laughed and said getting to know new people in any town takes time. There's no need to push it or to worry about it, she'd said; it'll happen in time. He'd finally agreed she was probably right.

The outsider, Evan thought; always the outsider, looking in.

Imagination, he'd tried to tell himself. Only the imagination and nothing more. But he was different from other people because there were things he some times saw that others could not, and perhaps they sensed that about him and that was why he had trouble making friends or trusting people. Because of the feelings he'd sensed, Evan had postponed his research on Bethany's Sin; Mrs. Demargeon was so halfhearted in her encouragement that Evan was afraid to risk the disapproval of the other villagers. Afraid: that was the key word, the key emotion. Afraid of many things, some glittering in the light, some hidden in the dark. Afraid of failure and hate and violence and...yes, even afraid of the sight that lay behind his eyes.

He'd had no more dreams since that first night in Bethany's Sin, but the lingering intensity of that one still nagged at him. In the eye of his mind he saw the letters across a road sign: BETHANY' SIN.

And something approaching from a maelstrom of choking dust. He had no idea what it was, but the raw memory of it plucked painfully at his nerves. he'd tried to forget about it, telling himself it was caused by anxiety or weariness or whatever, but instead of forgetting he had only dug a grave for the nightmare - without warning, it often came back, bringing with it the small of death and dark glittering terrors.

But there were other things that disturbed him as well, not all of them confined to the sleeper's world. One day he'd left the house and walked the streets of the village for the sake of curiosity, admiring the flowers in the Circle, watching the tennis players on the courts off Deer Cross Lane, listening to the soft voice of the breezes through the treetops. Winding his way deeper into the village, he'd found himself standing near the corner of Cowlington Street, frozen to the spot. Ahead of him a shadow stretched across the earth, a thing of sharp angles. and massed blackness; beyond a spear-topped wrought iron fence stood that dark-stoned house, the roof of which he'd seen from McClain Terrace. The windows blazed with reflected sunlight, like white-hot eyes with orange pupils. From the street to the doorway was a concrete walk, lined on either side by neatly trimmed hedges, but along the windows on the ground level the shrubs had been allowed to grow thick and wild. The grounds were green and slightly rolling with large oak trees placed at intervals, casting mosaics of shade. Nothing moved around that house, and Evan could see nothing beyond the windows. After a few minutes Evan had felt a sudden, spine-rippling chill, even though he was standing in the full sun. His pulse throbbed, and when he raised his hand to his forehead, he found a light sheen of perspiration ready to break. He turned away quickly and retraced his steps until he'd left that place behind.

But why he'd felt a sudden surge of fear he didn't know.

And there were other things as well: the shadow of a one-armed figure, a shape that had moved rapidly past his bedroom window and on down the street, the barking of a dog in the still hours of the night. The haunted eyes of Harris Demargeon.

Imagination?

Nothing is real but what you perceive, Evan told himself as he listened to the drone of that lawn mower. But is what I perceive real?

Nagging doubts bred of old insecurities and fears? Or something very different? Kay wouldn't listen; there was no need to burden her with the things that churned inside him anyway, but whether those demons were imaginary or real, they were beginning to scream within his soul.

And now they had taken on the voice of a lawn mower.

Evan stood up, climbed the stairs out of the basement , and stood in the front doorway, looking across the street at the Keating house.

Keating looked to be a younger man than Evan had envisioned; he was dressed in faded jeans and a sweat soaked T-shirt, and as Evan watched, Keating paused momentarily behind his red mower to mop at his face with a white handkerchief. In the driveway there was a battered-looking, paint-smeared pickup truck with its tailgate down. Not exactly the kind of vehicle he would've associated with the man. Evan closed his door and walked across the street; he stood on the sidewalk watching him work. Keating wore eyeglasses patched together with adhesive tape. The man glanced up, saw Evan, and nodded a greeting.

"Hot day to have to do that," Evan called over the mower's noise.

The man looked at him, squinted, and shook his head because he hadn't heard. He reached down and cut the engine, and as it died, the silence came slithering back. "What'd you say?" he asked.

"I said it's a hot day to have to cut grass."

Keating wiped his face with a forearm. "Hotter than hell," he said. "In the shade it's not so bad, though."

Evan stepped forward. "I'm Evan Reid," he said. "I live across the street there. Are you Mr. Keating?"

"Keating?" The man paused a few seconds, glanced over at the mailbox: KEA, it read, the rest of the letters gone. "Oh. No, I'm not Keating. I'm Neely Ames."

"Oh, I see," Evan said, but he didn't, really. He looked toward the attractive split-level house, saw it was quiet and seemingly deserted. "I guess he's not back from his vacation yet, then."

"Guess not," Neely said. He drew a package of cigarettes from a back pocket and lit one with a battered Zippo lighter.

"Are you a relative or something, taking care of his house while he's gone?"

"No. I work for the village. I do whatever they tell me to do and so here I am."

Evan smiled. "I noticed the grass over here was getting a little high, but I didn't think the village would send somebody out to cut it."

"You'd be surprised," Neely said around his cigarette. "In the last couple of weeks I've done just about everything. They're trying to break my ass around here."

Evan was moving toward the house. He stepped up to the front door as the other man watched him, and peered through a window. It was a typical living room, with chairs, a brown sofa, lamps, a coffee table. Magazines lay on the table: Sports Afield, Time, Newsweek.

Evan saw two flies spinning around near the ceiling; they dropped down onto the coffee table and crawled across the cover of the Sports Afield.

"Nobody's home," Neely said.

"Yes, I see. Too bad." He turned back toward the man, then froze. In the distant sky, close to the horizon, was a grayish layer of smoke. "Something's on fire out there!" Evan said, pointing.

Neely looked, shook his head after a few seconds. "That's the landfill, a couple of miles on the other side of the woods. Most of the villages around here use it as a garbage dump. Somebody's just burning trash."

"Won't the fire spread?"

"I doubt it. The landfill's as barren as the moon. But if it did spread I can tell you who'd be fighting it. Me, either with a garden hose or my bare hands, because Id have to be the whole damned fire department around here."

Evan looked at him and smiled. "That bad, huh?" The other man nodded vigorously. "I've been looking forward to meeting the man who lives here," Evan said.

"I kind of got the impression that whoever lived here has moved away."

"Why?"

"I went around to the back for a drink from the outside faucet.

The basement door's open. And wide open, too. Like I say, nobody's home."

"Shouldn't the sheriff know about that?"

"I went inside," Neely continued, "on up to the hallway. There was a phone, and I called the sheriff because I thought somebody had broken in, maybe stolen something. Anyway, he told me not to worry about it, said he'd have it taken care of. But he raised hell at me for going inside."

Evan narrowed his eyes slightly, looked over his shoulder at the Keating house. "That's strange," he said quietly.

"There's furniture inside," Neely told him, "but not much more.

The closets are all open and empty. And another thing: there are no fuses in the fusebox."

Evan looked at him. "No...fuses?" he said, almost to himself.

Neely shrugged. "I don't know. Maybe...what's his name?

Keating...maybe Keating decided to move and just took off. A lot of people do that, you know."

"But why would he?" Evan asked, turning and gazing along the street at the other houses. The smudge in the sky seemed nearer. But the unasked question burned at him: Why would anyone want to leave the perfect village of Bethany's Sin?

"No telling," Neely said, watching the man. He drew on his cigarette again and then said, "Well, if 'll excuse me now, I'd better finish this lawn." He pulled a couple of times on the starter cord, and the mower kicked to life; guiding the mower toward an uncut section on the far side of the lawn, he concentrated on how good a beer was going to taste after this job was done.

Evan stood where he was for a moment more; from the corner of his eye he caught a brief glimpse of that high roof before the tree limbs covered it over again in the wake of a breeze. The museum.

He turned away, crossing the street again and disappearing into his own house.

And after he was gone, Neely Ames stared in the direction he'd gone. What was the man's name? Reid? He seemed okay, worlds better than most of the people he'd met so far. At least the man hadn't looked at him with something akin to disdain, as the others did.

Neely swung the lawn mower around, cutting a swath through knee high weeds. He hadn't told Evan Reid everything he'd found inside; he hadn't told him of that wide, dark stain on the basement floor, just below the empty fusebox. That he'd decided to keep to himself. He wiped sweat out of his eyes and put his back into the mower.

Day cooled into evening. The noise of the lawn mower stopped, and slowly the subtle blues of nightfall shaded the far forest, creeping toward Bethany's Sin. Evan watched them coming as he stood at a window in the den. He watched them as Kay made dinner in the kitchen, as Laurie laughed at a Soupy Sales rerun on television. It seemed to him that out there a tidal wave of darkness was gathering, gathering, taking awesome form and hideous strength, rolling across the woods, driving down the earth beneath blackness, rolling nearer and nearer and nearer. He tore himself away from the window and helped Kay make iced tea in the kitchen.

"...some really smart kids," Kay was saying. "They're asking me questions that I find tough to answer sometimes. But God, that feels good. Being challenged like that is...well, it's one of the most fulfilling things in the world."

"I'm glad," he said, popping ice from their trays. "It sounds terrific."

"It is. You know, it'd be great if you could come over and have lunch with me someday. I'd like to show you around and introduce you to the other teachers."

He nodded. "I'd like that. Maybe some day next week."

"Thursday would be good," Kay said. She stirred the rice, listening to his silence. He'd been very quiet since she and Laurie had gotten home, and at first Kay had thought Evan had gotten a rejection slip in-the mail, but all that had come was an electric bill and a Penney's mail-order catalogue. He was often quiet when his work wasn't going well, when he felt at odds with a character or a situation in a story. But this was somehow different. This was like...yes, like the morning after one of those...dreams he had. Oh God, no.

"Aren't you feeling well?" she asked him finally, not looking at him but rather into the rice.

And he heard the trepidation in her voice. The fear of what was to come. He said, "A little tired, I guess."

"Trouble with your story?"

"Yes."

"Anything I can help you with?"

"No," he said. "I don't think so."

But of course she knew that wasn't it.

"I went across the street today," he said. "To Keating's house.

You know, the widower Mrs. Demargeon told us about? There was a guy over there cutting the grass. He said the back door was open, the lock broken. He said he didn't think anyone lived there anymore.

"Who was he?"

"Someone the village hired. A handyman, I suppose." He gazed out the kitchen window, saw black. Blackness creeping, spider-forms in the clouds. "I looked in through a window myself, and I - " Say it.

You've got to say it and get it out by God or your soul will scream.

"I didn't like what I felt."

"What did you see?"

He shrugged. "Furniture, magazines. Flies."

"Flies?" She looked at him questioningly.

"Two of them," Evan said, "circling the living room. I don't know why, but that bothers me.

"Oh, come on," Kay said, trying to keep it light and easy. "Why should that upset you so much?"

Evan knew why, but wouldn't tell her. Because he'd seen many, many corpses in the war. And most of them had been specked with greedily eating flies. Around the lips of rictus-grinning death masks, around the bullet holes and ripped arteries. Since then, he'd always equated flies with death, just as he equated spiders with rank, crawling evil.

They sat down to dinner. Evan thought he could hear the darkness breathing beyond the windowpanes.

"We watched cartoons today, Daddy," Laurie said. "We had a fun time. And Mrs. Omartian told us some stories."

"Omarian," Kay corrected.

"What kinds of stories?" Evan asked her between forkfuls of beef stew.

She gave a little-girl shrug. "Funny stories. About old things.

"Old things, huh? Like what?"

She paused a moment, gathering her thoughts. Mrs. Omartian was such a nice lady; she never talked loud and never got angry, no matter what any of them did, no matter if they swung too hard or laughed too loud or threw rocks. The only time she'd ever seen Mrs.

Omartian get upset was when Patty Foster had fallen down and cut her knee real bad. "About an old place," Laurie told her father.

"Funnier even than Oz."

"I'll have to meet this Mrs. Omarian sometime," Evan said, glancing over at Kay. "I'd like to hear these stories." He smiled at Laurie and continued eating.

When they'd finished dinner, Kay and Evan did the dishes, and then she settled down in the den with a stack of mathematics texts she'd brought home from the George Ross library. Evan played a game of Crazy Eights with Laurie at the kitchen table, but his mind kept drifting from the cards he held; He kept thinking of the darkness outside the walls, and how the moon would be shining now on the windows in that looming house on Cowlington Street.

And when Laurie was sleeping and the lights were out, Evan and Kay made unhurried love in their bedroom, entwining and falling apart and entwining again. Kay breathed steadily beneath him, and clutched at his firm back and shoulders, but even in the ebbing warmth of their afterglow, when on the rim of sleep they both held to each other, Evan's mind turned and twisted into the corridors of the past.

Eric. The cracking of a high, decayed branch. A falling body, thudding to earth in a golden field. Crows taking to the sky, fleeing death. And Evan, young Evan, who had seen his brother clutching at empty space in a dream but hadn't recognized it as a premonition, standing over him, seeing the blood trickle from both sides of his mouth, seeing the small chest heave for air.

Eric had made a move to grasp his arm, but Evan had spoken.

"I'll go and get Dad I'll go and I'l1 hurry and get him I'll hurry!" And then he'd run, stumbling all the way back to the small house on the hill, screaming for his mother and father to help because Eric had been hurt badly, he'd fallen while branch-walking and now he was broken on the ground like some sort of carnival puppet. He'd shown them the way, afraid afraid afraid that he was taking them along the wrong path, afraid he couldn't find that place again, afraid...

And when they'd gotten there, Eric's eyes had been glazed and steady, staring at the hot orb of the sun, and the flies were already tasting the blood around the young boy's mouth, like water from red fountains.

Evan's mind, tumbling through a labyrinth.

Faces peering through bamboo bars. Evan, dazed and weak, fighting off two black-garbed guards with all the strength left in his body. Gripping a knife and slashing, one of them swinging at his head with a rifle stock, the other falling back with liquid gushing from a torn jugular. The noise of screams and shouts, more guards coming from the jungle-camouflaged compound, the shadows converging toward the bamboo cages. Evan grabbing at the rifle stock, knocking it aside, driving the knife deep through the rib cage up into the lungs. Throwing the Cong aside, turning toward the cages where the crazed men babbled and frothed. Machine gun fire, bullets streaking across the ground between Evan and the cages. Searing flame across his left shoulder as a bullet whined past. And then he'd turned away from the cages and run for the jungle with the guards behind him, firing at his shadow; he'd dived into dense foliage and hidden there for what seemed like hours until the shouting had died away, and then he'd made his way back to where he knew his own camp lay, miles to the south.

He'd reported the capture of his recon patrol, and a rescue mission had been organized. He'd led the men back through the jungle, relying on his memory and his instincts, and the next day they'd found the Cong camp

But only the dead remained. The others had been executed in their cages, their bodies riddled with bullets, and the stench of death hung there like a dark mist. And already the flies had come in swarms, ancient armies always victorious.

And it was then that Evan had known.

Yes, there was something like the Hand of Evil that crawled over the world, spiderish and dripping with venom. Seeking bodies and souls. Twice Evan had been in its presence and escaped, and twice that hideous thing had taken the lives of others instead of his.

But whatever it was waited, and watched, and breathed the breath of night.

Because someday it would come for. him again.

He opened his eyes, pulled Kay to him, and kissed her forehead.

She smiled sleepily, and then he let his mind topple over the brink.

Into a terrible, familiar place where the show was about to start, and he could not be late.

For they had something to show him.

A roadsign, with light blazing behind it: Bethany's SIN. Images of the village: neat houses in rows, spreading elm trees, the Circle.

And that house: the museum on Cowlington Street. The opening door; fear thundering in his soul. A sudden whirlwind of dust, a darkening of the light, a coldness that made his bones ache.

And that movement in the dust, a figure draped in shadows coming slowly nearer and nearer, walking soundlessly and with coiled, terrible strength. He wanted to cry out but could not; he wanted to run but could not. And now the figure parting the curtain of dust, reaching through it for him, coming closer, closer, fingers grasping for his throat.

And now Evan could see only the eyes in a dark, hovering face.

Electric blue, crackling with power that threatened to rip him to pieces. Unblinking. Below them, lips parted in the snarl of hate, showing glittering teeth.

Evan screamed, felt the scream tear at his throat like a claw; he fought his way out of it, Kay beside him now saying dear God dear God not again please no no not again no Evannnnnnnn...

"Okay..." he breathed finally, trying to steady his nerves. He felt wet and clammy, cold and alone. "don't worry. I'm okay. Really. I am."

"Dear God in Heaven!" she said, and it was then he realized she had moved away from him and wasn't touching him anymore.

He looked into her eyes, saw them widened and afraid. He ran a hand over his face and shook his head. "Go back to sleep."

She stared at him in silence, as if she were staring at someone with a terminal disease: sadness mixed with fear.

"I said go back to sleep," Evan said, his gaze drilling a hole through to her brain.

She shuddered inwardly from the expression in his eyes. She'd seen something like it before, when he'd awakened and told her there was going to be an accident and they might get hurt, there was going to be a red tractor-trailer truck marked ALLEN LINES that would lose its brakes and veer across a median toward them. But no, this was worse, and it frightened her to the very core of her being. His eyes were hollow and haunted, lit by an internal fire to banish the terrible cold that had crept through his bones.

"Go to sleep," Evan whispered.

She started to speak, thought better of it, and laid her head back down on the pillow. Through the window she could see the moon, and it seemed to her in that instant that the moon was...grinning.

"My God," Evan said softly. "Oh, my God." He settled back, his heart pounding in his chest like a sledge hammer. There was no waiting for sleep; it had passed him by this night, discarding him like a cracked, useless container. He threw aside the sheets and let the air cool the sweat on his body; beside him, Kay stirred, but she neither touched him nor dared to speak.

Those eyes burned in his brain; when he closed his own, he saw them still, orbs of fire somewhere within his forehead.

And now, with this second dream, he knew. And feared the hideous knowledge.

Something in the peaceful village of Bethany's Sin was stalking him.

Drawing closer.

And as they lay like fearful strangers, June slipped into July.