End Time (23 page)

What was there to talk about?

What would Mrs. Biedermeier say?
I feel the uncontrollable urge to take a drive. How about you?

And Mrs. Stanton?
A voice in my head is telling me to go to Tulsa. Do you hear it too?

Janet?
My child's dead. I can walk again. Too bad about the Chens, don't you think?

Maybe the only question worth asking was,
Why us?

Mrs. Stanton clutched the little golden cross, pressing it hard between her thumb and finger, thinking,
I never wanted to come to Van Horn after NASA. We never should have left Houston.
Mrs. Biedermeier petted her fake alligator fanny pack.
It's what they did in the hangar, what Chen and Bhakti made them do.…
Fragments of thought: because our husbands meddled in things no man should touch. Because we strayed. Because we sinned. And each woman thinking the same thought, the same mantra:
We're on the way. We're coming.…

The convoy slowed to a crawl under the huge statue of the Tulsa Golden Driller. Seventy-three feet of roughneck like Paul Bunyan, the Tulsa Golden Driller stood with his hand on a life-size drilling rig, staring out across the knobbly landscape. The yellow-painted roughneck sported advertisements like a NASCAR driver, his T-shirt a pitch for Tulsa's rock station, KMOD, also a Coca-Cola ad. His huge belt buckle read
BUILT
FORD
TOUGH
.

The convoy kept crawling, finally into a Super 8 Motel near the Tulsa fairgrounds, where the cars ground to a quiet halt in the parking lot. Under an overcast sky Mrs. Stanton unlatched the passenger door and stepped out of the car, padding toward the reception door in her blue seersucker patio dress and slip-on Mary Janes as though in a trance. She clutched her little silver purse in one hand, the other gripping the cross at her neck.

A leisurely ten minutes later she had rented a place for the women of Van Horn to rest for a couple of hours. Mrs. Stanton unlocked the motel room door; the five ladies from Van Horn filed in dutifully behind her. Immediately they lined up at the bathroom like women all over the world waiting their turn for the toilet stall. And when each of them had gone and went, they spread silently about the room.

The two others from the subdivision sat in matching chairs; for a few moments Eleanor couldn't remember their names—they lived several houses down. One was a mousy woman of about thirty: Mrs. Perkins? The other at least seventy with bluing in her hair. Mrs. Quaid. Widow.

Mrs. Stanton silently switched on the TV and sat in front of it on the floor with her back to the double bed. No one spoke; no one offered to go for sodas or snacks or ice. Just sat and stared at the numbing television; a red banner was scrolling along the bottom of the picture:
This is a test.…

Eleanor didn't wonder or question why they had come. She could see the road ahead in her mind. Ohio, a little north of Cincinnati. Hillsboro: a country town surrounded by fields and farms. And after a few hours of staring at the red scroll at the bottom of the screen, she rose silently from the bed. The others rose too. They all felt the need to leave. They lined up once more in front of the bathroom, as if all thinking the same thing, what you say to your kids:
Did you go before we left?

The three cars rolled out of the Motel 8 parking lot like they'd never been there. Twenty miles from Tulsa a tune came into Eleanor's mind and she began to hum it. After a few stanzas she remembered the words. A ditty they taught to kids in kindergarten; a little song to help them learn anatomy over the melody of a spiritual, “Dem Bones.”

“Ezekiel connected dem dry bones. Ezekiel connected dem dry bones—”

Then, after a few bars, Mrs. Stanton picked it up, singing along:
“Your toe bone connected to your foot bone, your foot bone connected to your ankle bone—”

And finally in the back, Mrs. Biedermeier:
“Your ankle bone connected to your leg bone, your leg bone connected to your knee bone!”

They could almost hear the other two women singing in the cars behind as they rolled down the highway. The mousy Mrs. Perkins in her Audi going,
“Your knee bone connected to your thigh bone. Your thigh bone connected to your hip bone—”
And even blue-haired Widow Quaid pounding it out on the steering wheel of her Cadillac:
“Your shoulder bone connected to your neck bone, Your neck bone connected to your head bone, I hear the word of the Lord!”

All together now, the women in the cars rolled along as dusk drew down over Oklahoma, headlights peering into the dark, singing verse after verse:

Disconnect dem bones, dem dry bones.

Disconnect dem bones, dem dry bones.

I hear the word of the Lord!

 

12

The Girl by the Stairs

Guy and Lauren Poole sat together on the large couch in the den. The first sunny day in a month; outside, sunshine dappled the trees, a breeze fluttering the leaves bright green then dark as they twisted on the branches. Lauren engrossed in a book, nose in a thick biography of Lord Byron liberally doused with his quotes:
“For pleasures past I do not grieve, nor perils gathering near; My greatest grief is that I leave nothing that claims a tear.”
She'd been on and off it for years.

Corky and Peaches tried to crawl up close to Mom and Dad, the long-legged greyhounds awkwardly searching for a comfy spot, first stepping on Lauren's thigh muscle, then into Guy's groin, making him go
woof!
and Lauren laugh. The two adults waited patiently for the “kids” to settle down. Finally, Corky wedged himself under Lauren's elbow. And Peaches put her head in Guy's lap with her rump on the armrest.

“I don't think that's very comfy, Peaches,” Guy told her. For one thing she was resting her head directly on the sheaf of papers on Daddy's knees. A dozen or so bills from Eleanor's short stay at the Bridgeport Hospital, bounced back from Lattimore Human Resources, an undignified mess. A cotton swab here, an intravenous tube there—eight thousand dollars.

He'd have to get on the phone with the Bridgeport billing department—and soon. At least Bhakti had promised to call the bureaucracy too. Yet so far no one at the Sioux Falls office had reached the damn Sikh in person. The entire owing-money thing felt so cheap. If he kept a coffee can stuffed with 50K cash in the garage like a petty corrupt official, Guy wouldn't have cared. Here, take it.

Not to mention, he wasn't getting anywhere on the new job front either. If Guy heard the word
overqualified
one more time— They might as well say “over-the-hill,” or “too expensive.” Easier just to let Peaches sit half on his lap while he stared at the pretty dappled tree leaves in the backyard.

One crab apple tree grew fairly close to the house, whose branches sometimes touched the French doors when the wind blew. On the backside of the trunk Guy suddenly spied a wisp of cloth, then a little hand curling around the tree. His heart skipped a beat. Yeah, he saw it clearly enough: the young lady from the stairs, the girl standing on the curb in the pouring rain outside the Walgreens entrance. She shyly peeked at him from around the trunk of the crab apple, her eyes glistening with the beginnings of a cautious smile.

“Lauren,” Guy whispered, afraid he would startle the dogs, his wife, or spook the vision of the girl outside. “Lauren … honey … do you see what I see?”

Lauren looked up casually from her book, through the glass French doors, right at the trunk of the crab apple tree. A woman of measured temperament, not easily ruffled, she made absolutely no move on the couch besides raising her eyes. She didn't even close the book.

Then just as quietly asked her husband, “Same as before?”

Guy replied with the barest grunt, “Uh-huh.”

Corky sensed them both, opened his eyes, and picked up his ears. Peaches didn't move her head off the nice warm crunched papers, instead wrinkled her nose. The little lady at the tree shifted, showing half her body, and the sound of laughter came into the den. Same striped dress with puffed sleeves, same apron with pockets, a youngster right off a page of Lewis Carroll; she grinned brightly as though amused at the ungainly pile of people and dogs on the couch.

“Hold the kids,” Lauren told him. “I'm going outside.” Gingerly and with slow, deliberate movements she closed the book, put it on the end table, and rose from her place on the couch. Lauren glided to the French doors, unlatched them quietly, and opened them wide. The girl stepped from behind the tree and stood coyly, a secret smile on her face.

“Hi, there,” Lauren said. “What's your name?”

The corners of the girl's mouth turned down, her eyes sparkling hard.

“Are you lost?”

The little figure shook her head no, then put her thumb to her mouth as though thinking about biting a fingernail.

“Do you live near here?”

This time the girl nodded shyly:
yes.

“Don't you want us to call your mommy? She must be worried about you.” Lauren took a step onto the patio flagstones. Another step and she'd be within reach. The woman knelt down so as to be level with the sparkling precious eyes. “Don't you want to tell me your name? My name is Lauren. Are you hungry? I have cookies.”

At the word
cookies
both Corky and Peaches lifted their heads.

“Come on.” Lauren held her hand out. “Let's go in the house—”

The sprat bolted, scampering right past Lauren, through the French doors, through the den, the kitchen, and into the Keeping Room. They heard the Keeping Room door swing open and bang shut. Corky and Peaches came unglued from the couch, and Guy leapt to his feet. “Yowza!”

Lauren, Guy, Corky, and Peaches, in that order, stumbled through the den door to the kitchen, tripping over themselves. “Whoa,” Lauren warned them with an open hand. “Guy, this won't do. Hold them, please.”

“I am,” he replied tersely, fumbling with their collars, making cooing sounds in their ears. Then he crouched, clasping each dog around the chest with each arm. “Okay, go ahead.”

Lauren crossed the kitchen and silently put her hand on the doorknob to the Keeping Room. She turned it slowly, and the door opened inward. Guy needn't have bothered throttling the dogs at all. The door yawned open, and neither Corky nor Peaches made the slightest effort to dash inside. Lauren, cool as a cucumber, just stood there and stared.

After a few moments, she quietly whispered, “Guy … honey … do you see what I see?” Guy couldn't believe Lauren was so rational.

It was the Keeping Room, all right. But
not
the Keeping Room.

Just as quietly Guy asked, “Do you think this will get us on
America's Most Haunted
?”

The Keeping Room, but not the Keeping Room. For one thing, inside the room it was night. While at their backs—the den, the French doors, the backyard—bright daylight shone through the dappled crab apple tree. They could see through the old parlor right to the front of the house, right out the front windows.

Dark outside. Nighttime.

Oil lamps burned on the fireplace mantelpiece. A well-tended fire threw more light and heat; an iron kettle on the hob sent out whiffs of steam. A rocking chair sat with an afghan over it; a doll with glass eyes lay on the floor. Yes, the Keeping Room—a hundred and fifty years ago.

“Guy, whatever you do, don't let that door close.”

“You're not going in there!”

“Honey, find something to wedge the door.”

“Lauren, did you hear what I said? You're not going in there.”

“Alone,
no,
of course not. You're coming with me.”

Guy rose to his feet, letting go of the dogs, his mouth opening and closing like a guppy. The two dogs seriously sniffed the Keeping Room door frame—but made no rush to pass through. Peaches sneezed as if snuffing some old dust. The dogs circled back behind Guy, wagging their tails a bit, and lay down, content to let the folks handle it for now.

“Want me to take the door off the hinges? That way
nobody
can close it.”

Lauren gave him a withering stare. “Oh, forget it.” She put her hand through the threshold. Despite their bickering, neither Guy nor Lauren felt particularly frightened. There didn't seem anything bad or evil about the vision. And they could feel the warmth of the fire wafting into the kitchen. More like a pleasant memory than some kind of nightmare. Guy crept past the entrance of the old room after his wife; Corky and Peaches got up to follow. Now they were all inside.

Resigned and a touch fatalistic, Guy remarked, “Well, if the door closes behind us and we're stuck in the nineteenth century I'll get a job with Junius Morgan, J. P.'s dad—dry goods in Hartford, I think. I could give him some good stock tips—railroads, fur, oil—work my way up, get to know J. P., the son. But I think we'd have to move to Boston or Britain eventually.”

Lauren, already a couple steps inside, shook her head in amusement. “Oh, shush!” Guy and the dogs followed cautiously, almost on tiptoe. It felt like being in the diorama display of a museum. There were new pieces of furniture: a small horsehair couch, a lovely inlaid Pembroke table with a music box. Nearby, a bare chessboard waited for a game.

A fixture hung from the center of the room, a brass double-lantern, just low enough that you might bang your head on it; the large green-shaded storm lanterns burning … whale oil? Isn't that what they used? The wainscoting along the walls was varnished, giving off a reddish glow; the wood paneling rose to a white plaster ceiling. The whole effect, cozy—not troubling. But thin, like weak tea.

In one corner a grandfather clock's pendulum went
tock-tock-tock
.… The time read sixteen minutes to nine. As they stood there looking about them, the minute hand clicked forward a minute and the grandfather clock chimed the three-quarter hour. The classic, sober chimes of Westminster, full of portent. Guy and Lauren looked at each other—a moment of doubt.