[Oxrun Station] The Orchard Read online

  Black; nothing but black. And no response when he whispered, "Scotty, hey, Scotty!" as loud as he dared.

  Christ, the kid probably fell or something, he decided, and made his way along the wall to the lefthand fire door, grabbed the crossbar, and shoved down. It didn't move. When he tried to pull it up, his hand slipped and he nearly fell on his back. The opposite door was the same-iron, sounding hollow when he kicked it, not budging when he put his shoulder to it and pushed as hard as he could. His soles slipped on the worn carpeting. His palms coated the bar with sweat and his fingers lost their grip.

  No sweat, he thought; the other ones.

  The other exits were locked.

  Then he heard the scream.

  Prologue

  Old man Armstrong is dead, and no one since has claimed or worked the farm.

  And whatever they were like, the man and his family, is a mystery best left to children's autumn dreams and the winter-long dreams of patient old men who lie awake until dawn, thinking of the time they wouldn't wake at all.

  If there had ever been a farmhouse, substantial or not, it is gone-roof, walls, and foundation; if there had ever been a barn, a shed, outbuildings of any kind, they are gone as well, battered into the rocky soil or turned to wind-chased ash in the aftermath of a fire. No fence. No well. Not even a rutted road a wagon might have taken from the markets in the village. And the field that might once have been the site of high-growing corn, perhaps a green bed of alfalfa, perhaps lettuce rows or cabbage, is derelict now, and has been so for at least a century, if not more. Grasses whip-sharp and thin fill the furrows that are left, shrubs dream of being trees, and here and there for color an evergreen that has escaped being cut down for indoor use at Christmas. Dogs never run here, and cats seldom prowl, leaving the brown and green landscape to the insects and the crows.

  To get there is easy: you cross Mainland Road, climb down and up a wide drainage ditch, then hunt for a decent gap in the wild thorned hedge that hides the land from the highway, and Oxrun Station beyond. Once through, and into the field, it remains a matter of not tripping over dead branches from trees you never saw, of avoiding the burrows that look to snare your ankles, of dodging the occasional hornet and slapping at gnats when the sun is near to setting.

  Burrs cling to trousers, twigs snap under heels, and winter-raised rocks look to rob you of your balance.

  Every so often, from somewhere just on the other side of my peripheral vision, I thought I saw a rabbit, stock-still, ears pricked, but turning showed me nothing but hillocks and tangled weeds. I even imagined a fox charging through the grass toward its den, pursued by a black hound-and that's when I decided that old man Armstrong, whoever he was, was right in leaving this place. It didn't hold dreams and it didn't hold nightmares, but in spite of the noise of the traffic behind me and the growl of an airliner stalking the blue above, it created images behind my eyes that I didn't want to see, didn't want to explore.

  I shivered for no other reason than it felt right at the time, pushed my hands deep into the pockets of my worn denim jacket, and pushed on, using my knees to hack through those overgrown places I couldn't go around, telling myself for slim comfort this was the way the pioneers had done it, this was how it was when the village was born.

  How nice for them, I thought glumly; no wonder they're all dead.

  By the time I had gone a hundred yards, I felt as if I had been lifting weights all my life without benefit of pause, and I was damning those pioneers for coming here at all.

  And what made it worse was the fact that Abe Stockton up there passed through it all as if he were a ghost.

  "C'mon, Abe, give me a break, huh?"

  He looked back and grinned at me, seeing my puffing, my not too silent groaning, and pointed to the line of woodland north and south of the field. Dark walls. Hickory, pine, and oak. Birds sing there constantly that never sing here.

  Then he nodded to the west, lifted the collar of his tan sheepskin coat, and ducked quickly away from a sudden violent gust that lifted dust from the dry ground and shoved it in our faces. When the air calmed and he had blinked his eyes clear, he inhaled slow and deep, and let it out in one explosion. A hand with a handkerchief wiped the sweat from his face. A hand covered his eyes, his mouth, and clenched into a fist.

  I stopped feeling sorry for myself then and my less than perfect physical condition. At least I would be able to get out of bed tomorrow morning and go to work with the reasonable assumption that I'd do it all again the day after. And the day after that.

  Abe Stockton couldn't.

  Abe Stockton was dying.

  "There," he said, pointing an old man's finger toward our destination. "Give it a couple of minutes more and you can rest, if you need it."

  "Hell, I can walk all day if I have to," I lied with a grin. "Didn't I ever tell you about the time I managed eight thousand feet of Everest between breakfast and lunch?"

  He smiled; he didn't laugh. I doubt anyone in the Station has ever heard him really laugh, or has seen much more than that brief pull of his lips that narrows his face, squints his dark eyes, deepens the creases that mark him true New England. He is an unabashed and unashamed stereotype, no question about it, and he has been Chief of Police here for almost thirty-five years.

  We ravaged a thicket with our boots and slashing arms, and once on the other side, he shook his head wearily and mopped his brow again.

  "I ever tell you a Stockton was the first chief here, back a hundred years, maybe more? After the war, I think. Sonofabitch must have been ninety feet tall too, if you believe all the stories. I ever tell you about that?"

  He had. He has, in fact, told me a lot of things over the two decades I've known him, much of which I've used in one form or another to chronicle the village's time, none of which he's told to anyone but me.

  Which was why, now, we were going to the orchard.

  "You gotta see it to believe it," he said to me yesterday afternoon, between prolonged bouts of coughing that turned his pale face red and tore his lungs apart. "Nothing I say is gonna make sense until you see it for yourself."

  "But I have," I told him, thinking of the work I hadn't done and had to get back to soon before the creditors decided to set up camp on my lawn. "I've been there a couple of times, as a matter of fact."

  "Not with me, you haven't."

  And that sealed it; I was going.

  A hundred yards later we were there, seated on a rock large enough to hold ten, dark enough to trap midnight and never give back the stars.

  The orchard must have been a wonderful place, back when it was alive and no one stayed away- scores of twisted apple trees whose fruit scented the air each fall and turned the land red once the first frost had passed; the blossoms in spring must have looked like snow from a distance, an entire field of it daring the sun to melt it down; the sound of children''picking their own for pies and preserves and butter and cakes must have brought Christmas early to this part of the world.

  It must have been great.

  It's more than dismal now.

  Most of the original trees are long gone, and of those that remain, only a handful have been untouched by an unexplained fire that raged here nearly ten years ago. Trunks and branches are charred; the grass in most places has never returned; rain has pounded the ash into a crust on the ground. If any fruit still matures on the plants that can still bear them, they probably drop unnoticed to the dead ground, and probably rot.

  "Ugly little place, isn't it," he said, taking the handkerchief out again to wipe his face and neck dry.'

  I nodded; but it isn't, not really, though it is without question unpleasant-the images that had stalked me across the field darkened here and grew sh
adows, shifted contrary to the wind and played darkly around the boles, and I wished we could have stayed back at his house while he told me what he had to. At least there I would be out of the damp cold and in a comfortable chair, with a drink in my left hand and his old bloodhound snoring in volleys at my right; at least there I could turn a lamp on after sunset, listen to the radio, watch a little TV, read his newspaper while he fussed with dinner in the kitchen.

  At least there I wouldn't have to see the shadows of the dead.

  A spasm of coughing and choking bent him over, and I could do nothing but pat his shoulder helplessly until it was done, angry that he was going to leave me at last, angry that I couldn't do anything to make the leaving easy, angry that no doctor could tell him what the hell was wrong.

  "Yep," he said, his breath back and his grin. "First chief in town was old Lucas. They had the police before, of course, but he was the first one dumb enough to take the job."

  "He wasn't exactly dumb," I said, shivering. "He did all right, from what you've told me."

  "Did all right with what he had, I suppose." He squinted at the light, shook out the handkerchief, and blew his nose. "His son became chief too, y'know. Ned, it was. They never called him anything else. Some say I tend to favor him more than my own father." He wiped his mouth; his hand was trembling.

  "Abe, look," I said, "why don't we go back, okay? There's-"

  "I never planned on living this long, y'know," he said, ignoring me as always and staring at the trees as if they were about to uproot themselves and come at him. "Never planned it, never wanted it, if you want to know the truth. I was gonna die peacefully at eighty in my bed, an ornery old coot who didn't give a damn about much of anything but making his peace with the Lord." He gripped his knees and lowered his head, but not his eyes. "But things just got outta hand, son. I never had a say, and they just got outta hand." He sniffed, and spat. "Too much to take care of, pups to train to be cops in the Station, city folks to watch out for in case they broke a leg crossing the street. Every goddamn time I took a vacation they put that idiot Windsor in, took me weeks to clean up after him. Shame he's dead, I guess, but he was a jackass." His gaze lowered, to the ground. "It ain't been easy, y'know. Jesus God, it ain't been easy."

  I didn't have to answer; I knew what he meant.

  It wasn't the small amount of crime we have here in Oxrun, or the people he had to teach, or the sicknesses he endured all alone in his home.

  It was the other things.

  The far side of the shadow things that no one ever believes until they wake up past midnight, cold and unsettled, and see the landscape of the night-world that exists beyond the far boundaries of legend, beyond the frail cage of reason; the dark children of their childhoods who have gleefully persisted through education, through marriages, through living in the modern world, and wait under the stairs to laugh quietly and harsh; the shade of black seen only when eyes are open and dawn hasn't arrived and a wind shakes the doorknob like the paw of a wolf learning to come in; the light that dances without fire and glows without a bulb and casts no shadow in the corner of the room where something small and large crouches behind the chair.

  The other things.

  He reached into his coat then and pulled out a manila folder creased in half and filled with papers.

  "It's not a will," he said, his smile one-sided. "These are for you. From my office. I don't think anybody else would bother to check them."

  "Abe, don't you think-"

  He waved me silent and stood, one hand back to the boulder to balance himself. "Back in a minute. Have a look, in the meantime, and let me know what you think."

  Then he did the oddest thing-he reached out and shook my hand.

  The sun was shining.

  It was early November.

  There was no reason in the world why I should have felt the way I did, but when I looked at the first page, read the names, saw the places, it was winter already, deep in a January whose air was ancient parchment and whose moon gave no light.

  It was always winter when Abe showed me these things, and I glanced up at him, wondering how he had managed to carry it all without going mad, without climbing to the attic and locking himself in and waiting . . . waiting for the dark landscape to come and take him home.

  So he walked, and I read, and when I looked up again I could see the first stars and the first arc of the new moon.

  I could see the orchard the way it was, and the way it was now.

  And I buttoned my jacket, folded the papers and held them, and thought about the good dreams I never had as a child.

  Part One: My Mary's Asleep

  I don't care for the dark when there isn't any light, when there's not even a hint of something else out there, when I feel that a single step will drop me over the edge, when my ears hear nothing but the blood (god, the blood) and my hands feel nothing but the cold (oh god, the cold) and my eyes see nothing but the fire and the sparks and the whorls of a scream that crouches deep in my throat; I don't care for the dark when there isn't any glow, not in the sky, not in the village, not under the trees where I'm waiting, a glow that's a sign there are people out there who aren't much different than I, who would understand what I know, who would hold me while I tell them, who would protect me from the others and tell them they're wrong;

  And I don't care for the dark when my Mary's not here.

  Twilight, that last night we were all together, was a flawless study in lovers' pastels-a deep and soothing rose around the edges of snowlike dark clouds, bright pink flaring from the rim of the sun resting below the horizon, robin's-egg blue and gentle turquoise splashing over and blending with a faint and fading gold floating ahead of a faint and fading black. It softened the serrations on the oak leaves overhead, smoothed out the bark until the shadows were gone, and nestled in cotton a mockingbird's song.

  A twilight so perfect it seemed sacrilege to take even a single breath, or even let my heart beat on the last night, that night, when I started to die.

  Yet it was, to my mind, incredibly like a number of paintings good and bad I had seen, and as I stared at the sky I wondered why artists bothered to put any of it to music, or to canvas, or on a printed page. Didn't they know, couldn't they see, that their work would suffer when compared with the real thing?

  Unless this was what they felt just before they cast their slim and ruined bodies over the cliff, into the sea.

  "Oh, Jesus, Herb, come on," i muttered in disgust, and my nose wrinkled with embarrassment at the lurid image of the grieving poet, giving all for love-that was the fool's way out. Only a fool pines, only a fool sighs. Only a fool gives his life for someone who doesn't care.

  So fool, I thought, what do you do now?

  My cheeks were cupped in my hands, my elbows braced on the soft ground, the toes of my sneakers idly digging trenches behind me. The air was spring sweet, and I closed my eyes to smell it, taste it, moisten my lips as if I had just finished a succulent meal; the late afternoon was lightly chilled, but I didn't reach for my jacket lying on the grass at my side. Instead, I rolled onto my back and stared at the branches, wishing on their curves that Mary was here.

  Alone. With me.

  "Fat chance, jerk," I muttered, and winced at the choice of words.

  I had resolved only moments before that nothing resembling the word or the fact of fat would pass my lips again until I had lost fifty pounds from the over two hundred I already weighed. And once fifty was gone, maybe twenty more in the bargain. In the meantime, I would work to reconstruct my self-image, build up my confidence, and see myself differently when I looked in the mirror. Fat was out, then, and overweight was in.Hell, lots of people were overweight without looking like a washtub with spokes for arms and legs; lots of people went on diets just to maintain their health, for crying out loud. So it would have to be with me. Not fat. Certainly not obese. Just looking after myself so I would live past forty.

  "Fat chance," I said again, this time with a grin. I knew my
self too well, though I was hoping this time I would wake up to a surprise.

  I sat up with a grunt, then, fished for my jacket, and slipped it on before standing. I supposed I should be doing something constructive before the others arrived, like spreading the blankets I'd brought, or checking the woods and open fields to be sure we wouldn't be attacked by tigers or lost lions. Or maybe, I thought, I should just forget the whole thing and go home-not later, but right now, before I could think of some new way to stall. There was still work to be done on my final project, and I wasn't exactly sure how I would present it.

  Then someone called my name, and I surrendered to fate.

  * * *

  I don't remember whose idea it first was, but after enduring nearly a full month of final-exam threats from cackling professors and sadistic young instructors who knew all the right words to set terror on our heels, it didn't matter. We had to get away. It was Friday, and we had to try to pretend we really didn't give a damn, that it was all going to be a snap and graduation with honors was only a matter of killing the next year without getting arrested.

  We decided to have our picnic on the deserted Armstrong farm, in the shade of the orchard that didn't grow anything anymore.

  What the hell-we were in college and didn't know any better.

  So Stick Reese brought the wine, Mike Buller the sandwiches, and the others-there were about a dozen-brought the odds and ends, including a case of cold beer. The plans as we had so cleverly figured it would be to enjoy ourselves while studying for the legalized torture that would begin bright and early Monday morning. The collected con-demneds' last meal, and who gave a shit.

  But the not unexpected result was the packing away of the books as soon as they were brought out, and a prolonged bitch session about our classes, the college, and the world that conspired to prevent us from getting rich. There was also a baseball game with acorns, and a scientific experiment to see how far one could shove an arm down a burrow before the gopher got pissed and chewed the thing off.