American Elsewhere (28 page)

She sits down and waits. Nothing happens.

“Is there anything I need to do?” she asks.

A muffled, almost erotic sigh comes from the other side of the velvet curtain: “Light switch.”

Mrs. Benjamin looks around. There is indeed a light switch on the wall. She leans out, her old bones creaking, and hits it.

One light goes out in the dressing room, and another comes on. It is a yellowish, filmy light, one that has the strange effect of seeming to seep into every crack and corner of the room, like spilled oil. And it also seems to seep into the mirror, for its surface has changed: it is as if it is a two-way mirror, but behind the mirror is another set of mirrors, and behind each of these is yet another set, and they are all reflecting one another. It would be a powerfully confusing sight for any casual onlooker, like an endless reflection of many other rooms, dozens and dozens of them, a jumble of shards of light from many disparate places.

And in each shard of light, there is a face. Sometimes it is very well lit—such as the face of what looks like an eager housewife, skin like alabaster and red hair perfectly coiffed, sitting in her kitchen at home—but frequently the faces are shadowy and veiled, their owners sitting in secret rooms or dark corners.

Some are even vaguer. They do not quite look like faces at all. There is a suggestion of movement in their dark reflections, like a school of fish flitting through a black sea, but it is impossible to distinguish any normal human features in them.

“Mrs. Benjamin,” says the housewife, and though she is in the mirror her voice resonates softly throughout the dressing room, coming from everywhere and nowhere. It is cool and low and earnest, as if she is used to calming upset children. “It’s so good of you to come.”

“Yes, it is,” says Mrs. Benjamin. “Though I can’t imagine why you wanted me to come. There’s nothing for me to say.”

“It’s a matter of propriety,” says one of the shadowy faces. It appears to be that of a ten-year-old boy. A pink Band-Aid is stuck to one brow, and he peers at her with a queerly solemn expression for a child.

“Oh, propriety,” says Mrs. Benjamin. “We’re always so concerned with propriety. Even in total madness, we still stick to our hierarchies and chains of command.”

“We have to,” says the housewife, a bit sternly. “We must. Especially in times of such distress. Are you not distressed, Mrs. Benjamin, by what’s happened?”

The contempt in Mrs. Benjamin’s face decreases very slightly. “I am. Of course I am.”

“Everyone is,” says another of the shadowy faces. This one looks like a rather handsome man with cleanly parted hair. He could almost be a model. “But you should be, especially.”

“Why’s that?”

“You’re the next eldest, are you not?” asks the housewife. “First Weringer, and then after him came Macey…”

“Mr. First and Parson are both older than either of them,” says Mrs. Benjamin sharply. “And last I checked, they’re both fine.”

There’s an awkward pause. Some of the faces glance around, as if seeing all the reflections in their own mirrors.

“Mr. Parson is,” says the housewife. “He remains in his motel, like always. But as for Mr. First… well, that’s why this meeting was called.”

For the first time, Mrs. Benjamin looks worried. “Why? Has something happened to him? I haven’t heard anything. And we would all know if he were hurt, wouldn’t we?”

“We can’t confirm,” says the model. “Because we can’t find him. We went to his dwelling place, but… he has changed it. The canyon does not lead to him anymore.”

“Then where does it lead?” asks Mrs. Benjamin.

“It twists and twists, but never goes anywhere,” says a shadowy face. “It is like a maze. He may be within, but if so we cannot contact him.”

“It’s a security measure, then,” says Mrs. Benjamin. “He’s worried like all the rest of us. I can’t blame him. But what do you expect me to do about it?”

Another awkward pause. The model glances about, as if he’s searching through all the faces in his own mirror. He says, “Haven’t you noticed, Mrs. Benjamin, that the turnout for this meeting appears a little… low?”

Mrs. Benjamin frowns and searches through the many reflections
in the mirror. “I see all of us who live in town…” Her eye touches on a few of the vaguer reflections, those that do not resemble human faces in any way. A few of them buzz to her, and the twitches of motion increase. “But where are the children? Where are the young sleepers from the hills and forests? I only see a few here.”

“That is what we’re worried about,” says the housewife. “When Mr. Macey went to speak to everyone, he found many of the young ones were
gone
, Mrs. Benjamin. He thinks—
thought
, I should say—that maybe they did not answer him. But we don’t believe so. We looked again, and found nothing. We think they’ve
left
. They’ve gone somewhere else. Without telling us. But where, we don’t know.”

“Could they be in danger?” asked Mrs. Benjamin. “What happened to Macey and Weringer cannot have happened to them as well, because we’d all know…”

“We searched their homes,” says the housewife. “The canyons, the caves, the glens. There was no sign of a struggle.”

“And they can certainly fend for themselves,” says the model.

“We don’t know what happened to them,” says the young boy. “We hoped you would.”

“I don’t speak to them any more than I speak to any of you. I’ve no idea. What about the natives of Wink?”

“The people of Wink, of course, know nothing,” says the young boy.

“But one native was the last to have contact with those who dwell in the mountains,” says the model. “Mr. Macey talked one of the young ones into
attacking
the native. It placed its kiss upon him, set its many eyes dancing in his skin. We believe it was Macey’s idea of frightening the native off. Macey was convinced this man had somehow injured Weringer. But how, he did not say. He kept his counsel to himself in his last days.”

“Perhaps that was wise,” says Mrs. Benjamin. She picks something green and pink out from between her incisors, flicks it away. “Perhaps I ought to do the same. Yes, I think so. Everyone who tries to help you people winds up dying, one way or another. It’s the only intelligent thing to do. So, I will choose to excuse myself now.” With a grunt she begins to get to her feet.

“But you can’t!” says the young boy.

“And why not?” asks Mrs. Benjamin.

“Because if you don’t find those in the mountains, who will?” he cries.

Mrs. Benjamin pauses. All the faces are watching her. She sits back down. “This is why you wanted me here, isn’t it?” she asks. “You want me to find all our missing brethren.” Her face curdles at the revelation. “For God’s sake, you come calling on an old woman in the dead of night for this… I can’t go running around the countryside, willy-nilly.”

“You are famous for your strength,” says the housewife.

“I am an old woman, thank you,” Mrs. Benjamin says angrily. “And that’s not the point! I don’t know what happened any more than you do. I can’t help.”

“But you must know something,” says another of the shadowy faces. “You are older and more powerful than any of us. You have talents that we do not.”

“Oh, goodness,” sighs Mrs. Benjamin. “I haven’t used any of them in years.”

“I am sure you can remember,” says the housewife.

“But I don’t want to. For so long I didn’t need to. I was
happy
where I was.”

“So were we all,” says the housewife.

“We were happy being people,” says the model.

“Happy being small,” says one of the shadowy faces.

“Happy being happy,” says the young boy.

“And we can lose all that, if we don’t correct things,” says the housewife. “We must fix this, Mrs. Benjamin. We need your assistance.”

Mrs. Benjamin eyes each one of them. It is clear, though nearly all of them appear over thirty, that each and every one is in essence a child. Sometimes she forgets that.

She grumbles a little, and shifts forward in her chair. “Well,” she says. “I suppose I can see what I can do.”

“You agree, then?” asks the model.

“Yes, yes, I agree. I’m not going to lead your damn meetings, but I will try and find where the youngest ones have gone.”

“We are so grateful for your help,” says the housewife.

“Save it until I get some results,” snaps Mrs. Benjamin. “What I find might be very unpleasant. I expect it will be, honestly, considering everything that’s been going on.”

All the faces in the mirror grow a little sober at that.

Mrs. Benjamin sits up and coughs politely. “Now,” she says. “I am going to need someone to bring me coffee while I go to work. A lot of it. So which of you is it going to be?”

Getting out of the house proves to be one hell of a lot easier than getting in, and Mona is quite relieved to hop back over the fence and climb up the brambly hillside. She’s got the key in her backpack, and she can feel it bumping around awkwardly in there. She’s wrapped it up in her gloves, since she was afraid that one of its delicate teeth might get bent, rendering it unable to open… well, whatever it’s supposed to open.

She can’t help but feel that the key is hot, like it’s going to burn a hole in her gloves and her backpack and go sliding down the hillside. The item is forbidden, like the subject of Coburn itself. Like so many topics in Wink, she can tell that the lab on the mesa is always in the background of everything, present but unmentionable. The entire town was built around it, for God’s sake. Though it is distant and dark, she feels it is the heart of this town.

Coburn did something, she thinks as she starts the Charger and begins heading back to the motel. And she cannot help but suspect that whatever happened on the mesa has something to do with what she just saw in that house.

And what did she see in that house? She has no idea.

When she was in elementary school in her podunk town in Texas, one of her classmates, Nola Beth, experienced a sharp drop in grades around the second grade. They quickly figured out that Nola’s vision
had steadily become worse and worse: she just couldn’t see the blackboard. One day Nola came into school wearing a set of incredibly thick glasses, and though they did no favors to her appearance, Nola was ecstatic: she could see all kinds of things now, things she’d never known were even
there
. She’d had no idea trees were so pretty, she said. She could see every single leaf waving in the wind now.

For some reason, this terrified young Mona. It wasn’t that Nola’s vision had changed: it was that her vision had changed
without her even knowing it
. There were all kinds of things happening around her that she’d never known about, that she was blind to. Though her experience of the world had seemed whole and certain to her, in truth it had been marred, filled with blind spots, and she’d had no idea.

That same terror comes burbling up in Mona now. She wonders,
What am I blind to? Is there more to the world that I could never see before? And why can I see it now?

But all these thoughts go flying out her head when she hears the bang and the Charger starts weaving out of control.

Mona immediately knows she’s got a flat, which would normally not trouble her, but this time she’s going about fifty along a mountain road with a two-hundred-foot drop on her right. She can feel panic rising up inside her, but she mentally slaps herself and swallows it. She gently pushes down on the brake and turns the wheel so the car puts pressure on the remaining three tires and comes sliding to a stop.

She does an internal check. She is not hurt, and though all the items in the car have moved about a foot, none of them seem damaged. Then she reviews the last ten seconds…

Did she see a sparkle in the road, just before the wheel popped?

She grabs her flashlight and the Glock, steps out of the car, and locks it. She shines the flashlight ahead up the road, sees nothing, then shines it behind.

There’s a sparkle again. She walks to it—it is farther away than she thought—and stoops down.

They’re tire spikes. Homemade ones, welded together out of wood
nails. They look a little like big, crude jacks from a ball-and-jacks game.

Mona doesn’t say a word. She just takes out the Glock, makes sure there’s a round in the chamber and the safety’s off, and shines the flashlight around. She sees nothing but red stone cliffs and the odd juniper. But she remembers that it’s not wise to be out in Wink at night.

She turns out the light and stays there, not moving. If someone put down the tire spikes, then it’s likely that person was waiting for someone—possibly her—to come by and hit them. Which means she’s probably not alone out here, so she doesn’t need a light telling anyone where she is.

She silently moves to the side of the road and hunches there, waiting. She waits for nearly a half hour. She debates abandoning the car and heading back to the motel on foot, but she remembers the multiple warnings she’s received about going out at night in Wink, and after seeing what she saw in that house she now thinks those warnings weren’t idle. Eventually she decides that the smartest thing to do is get to the car, get the tire changed, and get the hell out of here.

She creeps back to the car, turns it on in case she needs to jump in it quick, and goes about the business of jacking up the car and putting the doughnut on. If she weren’t so confident in her ability to change a tire quickly she wouldn’t be so cavalier; but since this is a dance she did about a million times in her previous career, she doesn’t panic and her pulse doesn’t rise a single beat, and soon she’s got the last lug nut tightened.

It’s then that she hears the footsteps. Wooden-soled shoes, walking down the road behind her at a slow, steady, almost thoughtful pace.

She rises, steps behind the car, and turns both the flashlight and the gun in the direction of the footsteps. “Whoever that is, come out slowly,” she says.

The cadence of the footsteps doesn’t change one iota. After a few more steps there’s a pause, then a tinkle of metal—brushing the tire spikes out of the way, she guesses—and then the footsteps resume.