The Hour of the Oxrun Dead (Necon Classic Horror) Page 7

  She shook her head, realized he couldn’t see her and leaned closer. Both hands now clamped his arm tightly. “I think I heard something.”

  “Not me. Not a thing.”

  “I did. I’m sure of it.”

  Silence again, and the distant sound of a passing truck.

  “Vandals?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe.”

  “You lead the way. I’ll kill myself bumping into tables.”

  He rested his fingers lightly against her waist as she moved cautiously up and into the main room. Here the street lights dispersed the darkness into a deep winter’s dusk, and the shadowed bulk of racks and cases loomed and threatened. A chair scraped against a table when her hip struck it. There was a whispered curse when Marc trod on her heel and stumbled into the wall they were following.

  Natalie pulled at the rope at her waist. Grabbed at the tassel and rolled it nervously between her fingers. She couldn’t rid herself of the feeling that there was more than just the two of them in the building. And something else. A tension she knew was outside the fact of her after-hours prowling. She sniffed once, instantly sorting out the traces of books, wax, carpeting, the evening itself. Nothing unusual, nothing exotic. She rubbed palm over wrist. Pushed the hand up her oversized sleeve: the hairs on her arm were bristling.

  Static electricity.

  Not from the floor. In the air. And a closeness that reminded her fleetingly of being in a cavern miles below the surface of the ground.

  “The lights,” Marc whispered, and she yelped, slapped a hand over her mouth and leaned weakly against him. There was then a surging temptation to lash out at him for frightening her, but he had already moved away and suddenly she was blinded by a tower of white light in the center of the huge room. The chandelier glared, dimmed as Marc turned the dial, and she rubbed her eyes before rushing to the countered desk.

  Marc darted toward the stacks and began poking into the shadows.

  “Forget it,” she called finally. “Whoever was here is probably gone by now.”

  “How can you be sure?”

  “They got what they wanted. Look.”

  As he rushed back, she pointed to the broad counter. There were several manila folders scattered and opened on the white-and-blue Formica. Most contained the copies of invoices shuffled hopelessly out of order. While Marc leafed through them, she hurried around to the horseshoe’s open end and pulled a key from her purse. The cash drawer seemed undisturbed, but when she pulled it to her the printout and all her typing was missing.

  She reached behind her and pulled the chair to her knees. She sat heavily. Though she had been sure something was happening in the system without her knowledge, there had still been a glimmering hope that its importance had been exaggerated. The burglary, however, emphatically denied it.

  “Those things you put in before,” Marc said. “Gone, right?”

  She looked up into the concern on his face. A breath, and she nodded.

  “I was looking for a pattern, Marc. I’d only been guessing before, but now I’m sure that every time the Council put in an order of its own, the same number of books always managed to disappear before the month was up. Every time, Marc. Every time since last June.”

  “Now that doesn’t make any sense.”

  Natalie slapped her hands on the counter and pulled herself to her feet. “I know it doesn’t make any sense, Marc. I know it. But the fact remains: I’ve learned what’s going on around here, and now all the evidence I had has been stolen.”

  His startled look lasted only a fraction of a second. “Now, hold on, Nat. You can always request another print run, can’t you? I mean, all it would take is a telephone call on Monday, right?”

  She considered, and nodded. Reluctantly. “But I’ll bet you a week’s pay there’s suddenly something wrong with the system, or the cost of runs has become too expensive and needs Mrs. Hall’s approval, or something like that. I’ll bet you I can’t get another list like that unless I do it myself. By hand.”

  “Which would take you ... “

  For an answer she gestured dramatically toward all the bookcases and stacks.

  “A problem,” he said, and she closed her eyes in weary agreement.

  Tension returned.

  She opened her eyes and was swept by the sensation that she was floating aimlessly beneath the surface of a grey motionless sea, and all her gestures took minutes instead of seconds to complete. She tried to count how many drinks she had had that night. Two or three at the mansion, at least two at the Inn, and whatever had been in them was not mixing well. She passed a hand over her damp forehead and looked over the counter, aware that Marc was speaking to her but she was unable to hear or understand him. She smiled weakly, then laughed at the comical twist his lips had taken as they groped for words. Another laugh when he reached out for her hand and a glaring red lightning bolt leaped painlessly between the tips of her fingers. She floated a hand over the invoices and saw them flutter like birds disturbed in their sleep. Without warning, her stomach wrenched and she grabbed at it, reached out a hand to brace herself against the desk.

  “Marc!” she managed to gasp, and watched helplessly as he sprawled over the counter and slid slowly out of sight to the floor. The folders tipped after him. Slowly.

  A tear etched into her cheek. She released the counter to wipe it away, swayed and stumbled backward, spun around and grabbed for the chair. It skittered away. She fell. Landed on her shoulder, toppled to her back while the ceiling whirled above her, the chandelier swinging in time to an inaudible tune.

  Voices, then.

  A whispering.

  Little children sneaking fearfully through a haunted house in the wake of midnight.

  Prowlers directing their energies at a stubborn massive safe.

  A higher pitch, and it was the push of dead leaves along a deserted sidewalk. Scraping. Rustling. A brittle and lonely scratching for purchase.

  Shaking her head, Natalie propped herself up on her elbows. She gathered her legs under her, tipped herself forward and grabbed at one of the shelves under the counter. Pulled. Knelt. Her arms reached up and she hauled, was standing.

  “Marc?”

  Lost. In a cavern without echoes. Directly beneath the glaring white light, blind to what hovered at its fringes.

  “Marc, are you all right?”

  The front doors shattered inward. Her mouth opened for a scream, but there was no sound. Shards of glass tumbled end over end across the carpeting, tinkled on the tables and racks like wind chimes too heavy to be musical. She tried to duck away from the knifelike missiles, but they struck her mercilessly, blunt nails that punctured her arms, cheeks, forehead, palms. Drawing globules of blood that gathered like red mercury and splashed to the papers on the counter. The stains spread, the pain spread, and still the glass rained in from the doors.

  And there was no wind.

  Finally, the scream found its way out, and she pressed her bleeding hands to her face to protect her eyes. Whirling, stumbling over the fallen chair, spinning to regain her balance and fleeing toward the stacks. She tripped over a writhing pool of magazines and nearly lost consciousness when her hands struck the floor and drove the glass deeper into her skin.

  She was going to bleed to death. She was going to die slowly, under a shroud of drifting pink.

  Windsound.

  A billowing hand of dust that clouded the light, a manic shrieking that ripped over her screams. The books flew from the shelves like leaves before a storm, thudding off her shoulders, back, striking and falling from her head. She rose, ran, tripped over a dictionary. Her sandals were torn from her feet and instantly glass embedded itself in her soles. She threw up her arms to cover her face and the shelves emptied around her, buried her to her neck, pinned her to the floor.

  A spark. A charge. A bolt that multiplied and sucked the air from her lungs.

  Though she knew it was impossible, she could see a figure standing in the demolished doorway. Neither
man nor woman, it waited until the turmoil had subsided. It approached, a shimmering black edged in fingers of electric discharge. Clamping her eyes shut, Natalie waited, sensing. Something shoved her head to one side, and there was a brief lance of pain by her right temple.

  She was deaf, and when she opened her eyes, the severed ear hovered by her mouth.

  Darkness, and beneath it a quiescent nausea no longer threatening. Natalie breathed deeply several times, clenched her fists at her sides and opened her eyes. The chandelier had been extinguished, a tiny gooseneck lamp on the counter a poor imitation. She was lying next to the chair, and a shadow knelt beside her, taking up her hands and muttering what sounded like incantations. When it saw her staring, it reached up and lifted the lamp to the floor.

  “Oh, my God, Marc,” she said, and suddenly slapped a hand to the side of her head. Then she yanked it away and stared. There were no sounds, no blood, no intimations of either. Despite Marc’s protests, then, she pushed herself to a sitting position and twisted around. The floor was clean; the books were on their shelves, the magazines in their racks.

  “Marc?”

  He shifted to sit squarely on the floor and began chafing her wrists while searching her face for signs of illness, or hysteria. “One of us,” he said, “had better learn what drinks mix with what drinks, and what drinks one must never ever combine with another. God Almighty, lady, I thought you were going to die on me, and me with no excuse for being in here except for the invitation of a swizzled librarian.”

  Dizziness clouded over her until she lowered her head to his shoulder. “I don’t think ... “

  “What? What don’t you think, lady?”

  “I don’t think it was the drinks, Marc.”

  “What was? Your passing out?”

  She wanted to lift her head again, to scan the lines of his face, touch the corners of his mouth as if this would serve to clear her mind. Fainting, the nausea, this she could easily reconcile from having to do much on an empty stomach. But she could not find a reason for the dreams, the hallucinations. She reached a hand to his chin and pinched it carefully, feeling the cool skin contract and the perceptible stubble of a beard. He stroked her long hair, bunched it in a fist and tugged gently.

  “You’re a secret drinker, lady. I never would have thought it of you.”

  ‘‘I’m not,” she protested. “It ... it took so long.”

  “What long? A couple of minutes at the most. You keeled over right after that spark thing. You know, static electricity in the rug. We touched, you jumped and passed out.”

  “You didn’t see anything? Anything at all ?”

  His lips were close to her ear, and the air from his mouth as he spoke tickled.

  “All I saw was you dive bombing to the floor, lady. You nearly cracked your head open on that chair.”

  She trembled violently, and his arm tightened. She opened her mouth, and closed it instantly. It would do no good now to tell him what she’d seen. He would only say it was the drinks, the excitement of the party and the theft. He would tell her in that maddeningly persuasive manner that Vorhees’ murder had triggered an unpleasant memory, that she was keeping her fears bottled inside and the liquor only served to break down the barrier. A psychic nightmare, and nothing more.

  That’s what he would tell her, and she would believe him if she listened.

  Because he was probably right.

  On the countertop she saw an invoice flutter.

  “Is there a door open?”

  “Hey, relax,” he said, helping her to her feet. “There’s nothing to be afraid of. It was so close in here I had to open it to get you some air.”

  Immediately aware of the chill that crept under her dress, she hugged herself.

  “Now, I suggest we get you home and into bed. Your head is going to have to answer a lot of questions in the morning, you know. I have some remedies I’ll tell you about on the way back.”

  “But the papers ... “

  “Oh.” He released her and leaned on the counter, toying with one of the invoices. “Well, I guess we could call the cops.”

  But he sounded doubtful, and Natalie understood. If they called the police and reported the theft, they would have to try to explain why the papers were important; and for the time being, they were nothing more than a puzzling suspicion. She knew there was no crime in replacing lost books, no question of funds being misappropriated. And the Council would hear about it, and there would go her job.

  “Who?” she suddenly demanded of the library. “Who took them?”

  Marc shrugged, then stiffened and placed a hand at the small of her back. A man was standing in the entrance, a flashlight in his hand. Behind him they could see the winking red light atop a patrol car.

  “It’s only me, officer,” she called out, hoping she sounded braver than she felt. “It’s Natalie Windsor. I just had some checking to do. You know how it is with me.”

  The patrolman stepped into the library, darting his light into the corners. “Saw the light on, Mrs. Windsor, and the door open.” His voice was flat, not bothering to seem official, just skeptical. “Just thought I’d check. Orders, you know, since last night.”

  It was supposed to have been an apology. Natalie, however, didn’t care. Her eyes had developed a light, persistent stinging, and her arms became heavy and hung limply at her sides.

  Sensing her exhaustion, Marc guided her around the front desk and past the officer into the open air. He pulled the caftan’s cowl into a collar at her neck, waved to the patrolman and took her around to the parking lot.

  ‘‘I’ll take you home,” he said as he helped her into the car and draped her coat over her shoulders. “Then, if you don’t mind, I’ll drive myself home. I’ll bring this heap back in the morning.”

  “Don’t you dare,” she said. “In the afternoon. I expect to be dead until at least twelve.”

  As they backed into the street, she suddenly remembered the lamp on the floor. Nuts, she thought. Let the fatheads pay.

  At the corner she glanced toward the library and saw the patrol car still at the curb. The policeman was standing by the hood, staring after them.

  He was holding the radio mike in his cupped hand.

  * * *

  Chapter 5

  By time Natalie had crawled into bed the following night, she was ready to believe the day had been some diabolical reincarnation of a Friday the Thirteenth wrenched from the most dismal December on record.

  Despite the previous day’s golden autumn promise, Sunday morning had retreated abruptly under cover of a light rain that had gradually thickened to a windless monotonous downpour. She had awakened past ten, had stayed under the tufted quilt to watch as the world drowned under skittering droplets on the pane. The dampness, the grey, and an almost summer like lassitude kept her from dressing immediately and turned the bed into a cocoon of nearly sinful warmth.

  Her sleep had been dreamless, her head clear when she finally opened her eyes, and it was an unpleasant moment of disorientation before she remembered Saturday. It was, then, a perverse situation, welcome but somewhat inexplicable. She thought there should have been nightmares to drench her in sweat, to force her to pace through the empty house in search of respite and comforting rationalizations. Or, at the very least, confused and uncertain struggles with an illusory Marc; there should have been something of an attempt to define the parameters of their relationship, to gauge the intensity of her fluctuating and mist-covered emotions.

  But there had been nothing. Not even a headache in penance for her drinking.

  And the rain limited the options of a day’s activities.

  So she had stayed in bed until noon, punching her pillow, thrashing to locate a comfortable position while she tried to make sense out of what was apparently senseless.

  Mrs. Toal and Cynthia arguing: about her? In retrospect, it was very nearly laughable. Why should they be? Natalie had seen but a few of the dozens of guests at the reception, and any numbe
r of women, including Miriam, could easily have fit the description “wearing a nightgown.” Simple enough. She had panicked because she’d been eavesdropping; at times, guilt was a remarkable equalizer. And Toal’s remark was merely a distinction between his status and hers — the breeding, he was telling her, that instant wealth brings; in a democratic society, the dollar decides the class. And she was, after all, only an assistant librarian.

  The library. That she had already worked out before she’d even left the building.

  And the books. Was it really that much of a surprise that they were replaced? Did she really believe that despite the Director’s expertise in the field she herself was the only one there who knew how to read the bestseller lists? Were there something to the Council’s peremptory manner, Adriana would have informed her. She would have. The fact that she hadn’t was neither suspicious nor unkind. It was, Natalie decided, simply one of those so-called executive decisions that she knew she needed to keep her in her place.

  It was true. Often, she thought herself the leader and the staff merely the rest of the troops. It was a spanking, she told herself. Nothing but a spanking.

  The debates and answers had ended when her shoulders and back started to ache. She sighed and indulged herself in a thirty-minute shower. The water had been hot enough to pinken the Mediterranean cast of her skin, and the towel rough enough to make her gasp as she rubbed it briskly over small breasts, flat stomach, adolescently slim thighs. Dutifully, then, she sat in front of the mirror and brushed her hair its hundred strokes, leaned on her elbows and mentally banished the sharp bite of the tweezers while she plucked her eyebrows and wished the thin look weren’t so damned fashionable.

  Through breakfast, she’d thought of Marc and the touch of his hand on her arm, the small of her back, the brush of his lips across her ear in the darkened library-and the way he had waited patiently on the front porch until she was inside and had switched on the hall light. The kiss at the door-schoolboy light — that lingered long after the taillights of her car had vanished around the corner. He had returned just after she’d finished a tasteless lunch, and stayed only long enough to joke about his hangover and leave the number of the hotel he would be using in New York for the next four days.