Nine
The sound of the downstairs shower awoke Wallace at
dawn. He lay awake in bed, listening to the drone of running water for
one half hour. An evening's penance with Brother Sebastian often led to
bouts of obsessive washing.
He then rose and pulled on his pants. Barefoot, he
negotiated the upstairs hall and staircase, avoiding the creaking boards
that would alert Bernice to his movement in the house. He went into the
basement and shut off the hot water valve to the heater.
Bernice cried out in the sudden drop of water
temperature. Wallace waited until she stopped muttering in frustration
and shut the shower off before he turned the hot water back on and
returned to his room. He lay back down on the bed fully dressed and tried
to snooze for another hour or two.
The sound of traffic out front kept him awake.
Forest Drive was not a through street. Several times during the night,
lost traffic ventured down the cul de sac. They came and went quietly.
This particular morning, he could hear idling engines and the busy opening
and closing of car doors.
Bernice was in the downstairs closet in prayer when
he left the house to investigate. He paused on the front porch, alarmed
by the sight of two Dale City patrol cars parked just up the street.
Technically, Willington was the responsibility of the sheriff's
department, but the Dale City police were closer, and often responded to
calls in an unofficial capacity.
An officer was talking to Sasha and her mother in
front of their house. The two women turned as Wallace approached,
offering him a close, side by side comparison of the two. Sasha was the
tallest of the pair. Her mother had a slimmer, athletic build. Both had
long, luxurious hair, Sylvia's a rich auburn, her daughter's coal black
cut Cleopatra-style just above the eyes. Sylvia's eyes were green and
flecked with gold. Sasha had huge brown eyes and a darker skin tone,
evidence of her father's Arabian heritage. They were both alert and
outgoing women. A day ago, Wallace would not have dared approach either
of them as boldly as he did now.
"Is it something I can help with?" he asked of the
two.
The Dale City cop resented the intrusion, but
resigned himself to business. "Do you know Jimmy Smith, son?"
"Sure. I don't know him personally, but I've seen
him driving the new pizza car around town. He's was a sophomore this past
year."
"Have you seen him about at any time since last
evening?"
Wallace shook his head.
"How about Sherry Phillips?"
The name meant nothing.
"She's a waitress at the Derby Club up the way."
Wallace shrugged. He had never been inside the
Derby.
"Did you hear anything this morning, say about
five-thirty or six?"
Wallace glanced at Sasha and Sylvia for a clue, then
shook his head again. The cop studied him for a moment, then turned back
to the women. "If you happen to run across either party or hear about
anything that might pertain to our search, give us a call."
"We most certainly will, officer," Sylvia purred, and
watched the officer turn reluctantly away and return to his car. "Nice
butt," she murmured appreciatively.
"Mom, really."
Sylvia glanced at Wallace and winked at him. Wallace
was certain he turned bright red in that moment. "I see that Sasha
managed to draw you out of your shell after all."
"What's going on?" Wallace said, anxious to change
the subject, and alert to anything that might involve the mushrooms in the
woods.
"Jimmy Smith is missing," Sasha said. She pointed up
the block. "He left his car at the top of the street. It was still
running. He had a pizza delivery at Peg's house. Nobody answers the
door, although the cars are in the drive. Shades are open, though, and
they can’t see anyone inside. I guess there's a waitress missing, too.
Someone heard screams this morning. That was a few blocks away, though."
Wallace was appalled.
"Gotta run," Sylvia said and gave her daughter a peck
on the cheek. Wallace watched the fluid motion of the older woman's body
as she hurried to her car.
"Got the hots for my mom?" Sasha said.
Sasha's quirky smile embarrassed him. "No, but she
sure is nice. And smart."
Sasha's smile intensified. "Like mother, like
daughter?"
"That's for sure."
Tires squealed a couple blocks away. The noise sent
a tendril of panic coursing along his nerves. A beige pickup tore down
the street and braked with a squall of bald tires in the parking space
left by the departing Mercedes. Wallace backed away, intending to make
his escape before Duke caught sight of him.
"Don't run," Sasha hissed in a warning tone of
voice. Wallace paused, reluctant to brand himself a coward in Sasha's
presence.
"Psych him out," Sasha offered as an alternative.
"Psyche him out?"
"You can do it."
By the time Wallace decided to ignore her advice and
obey his original impulse, it was too late for a clean escape. Duke eyed
Wallace with a glare of hatred from behind the wheel. "We're going
looking for Jimmy," he said to Sasha. "Wanna ride along?"
There were three others in the bed of the truck.
Wallace recognized all three from his senior year. One nodded a friendly
greeting. Wallace returned a nod of his own.
"Who you getting friendly with, geek?" Duke muttered
threateningly.
Wallace expected to bungle his reply. Instead, his
anger flared unexpectedly. "None of your concern, Bluto, or are you
looking for another bicycle to trash, you adolescent shit?"
Duke threw the door of his truck open and stormed
out. Wallace held his ground, counting on Sasha to intervene. So,
apparently, did Duke. Duke balked at displaying another bout of violence
to a larger and mostly unsympathetic audience. The menace he radiated
evaporated in an instant.
"I'll take care of you later, punk."
"Make sure I got my back turned to you again, hot
shot."
"Don't clown around!" one of the three in the pickup
admonished. "We gotta find Jimmy. His parents are worried sick."
"We think some pervert got him," Duke ventured in a
business-like tone of voice to Sasha, "maybe dragged him out in the woods
and wasted him. Same with the lady from Derby."
Wallace put his hand on Sasha's arm to catch her
attention. He leaned close so that only she would hear. "I went back out
last night. Those mushrooms are all over the woods."
She grimaced in displeasure. "The one you wrote on?"
"I didn't do that! There's thousands, millions of
them! They're all the same!"
"Say what?" Duke queried.
Wallace ignored him, watching anxiously for a
reaction from Sasha. "Half the town's going to be out looking for Jimmy
and that waitress," she said. "What do you want me to do?"
"Don't eat any of them!"
She shrugged her helplessness. "Someone would have
gotten sick by now if they were poisonous."
"No! Toxic reactions can show up hours, or even days
later!"
Sasha nodded up the street where one lone patrol car
remained. "If you think it could be serious, you had better go tell the
cops."
Duke was both irked and confused by the quiet
conversation between the two, but Duke had become irrelevant. Wallace
paused to consider his options, feeling weak with fright. The entire town
would stumble blindly upon the mushrooms before the authorities had been
forewarned. He couldn't allow that to happen. He started up the street
feeling the weight of Duke's angered stare at his back.
"I'm going to go with Duke to see what's going on!"
Sasha called after him. "I'll be back this afternoon!"
One of the police officers took notice of his
approach. Wallace fumbled for the words to express himself. "Sir,
there's mushrooms in the woods. All over the place. I don't think
they're edible."
Duke's pickup truck roared by. The cop just stared
at him. "Yes?"
"Everybody's going to be in the woods. I think
someone's going to get poisoned."
"Mushrooms, you say?"
"Toadstools!"
The cop frowned. "Why in hell would anyone eat a
toadstool?"
"Because… "
Wallace couldn't bring himself explain.
The cop nodded his willingness to acknowledge
Wallace's good intent. "Okay. Toadstools. It wouldn't surprise me if
someone poisoned themselves. It sure as hell wouldn't be the first time.
Do you live on this block?"
Wallace pointed. "Last house."
"Do you know who lives in this house?"
The cop nodded to indicate Peg Sullivan's little
bungalow with the two cars parked in the drive. "I used to deliver
papers. Peg is usually gone by seven or eight in the morning. She's a
secretary. I don't know where."
"Who's her friend?" the officer said, indicating the
second car.
Wallace shrugged. "Don't know, but I see him around
quite a bit. Carries an attaché case, dresses nice. Probably a
salesman.”
The cop muttered his thanks and turned away. There
was nothing more Wallace could do. Mushrooms could rot away as quickly as
they sprouted. If he made a pest of himself and the police found nothing
in the woods, even Sasha would laugh at him.
He returned home, closed the front door behind him,
and went to the closet in the dingy downstairs bedroom feeling awkward and
meddlesome.
"Aunt Bernice?"
The harried murmuring continued.
Wallace cracked the door open. A sliver of light
fell across Bernice. She wore a tattered robe with her still wet hair in
a snarled tangle across her shoulders. She dipped her face and jammed her
eyes closed.
"Pray with me, Wallace?"
He sighed, relented, and stepped inside the closet,
closing the door behind him, and dropping to his knees. Bernice murmured
her prayer repeatedly. "Lord Jesus Christ, protect me from the
temptations of evil that I may carry your message to the world. Get thee
behind me Satan, for you are condemned to the lake of everlasting fire."
Not that Aunt Bernice had ever been much of an
evangelist. Willington had little tolerance for the eccentric Penance
Church. Membership stood at forty-two by Bernice's last count. Only once
had he ever suggested that she try the county mental health center in Dale
Center to find out why she felt so guilty about so many things and so
fearful of the world around her. Her reaction has been a hysterical
diatribe that had lasted an entire evening. Since those days, they had
learned to adapt to one another's idiosyncrasies. His only alternative to
her care had been a boy's home, and Bernice had no other means of
financial support aside from the trust fund given to her to support him
until he graduated from high school.
"Wallace, I'm scared," she confessed.
Wallace knew better than to try to console her. He
had been through this before a thousand times.
"I feel the presence of Satan. He only tempts those
who resist him. Only the wicked know peace of mind, for they are already
condemned to everlasting hellfire. But I don't know for how much longer I
can resist. I'm not as good a woman as I should be. I can't defend
myself against the thoughts and feelings Satan puts into my head. If he
puts another physical temptation into my path like he did last night, I
fear I will succumb and betray my Lord and condemn myself to eternal
damnation. Brother Sebastian may have already fallen. He wants me to do
such sinful things with him."
Wallace rose to his feet, waiting to be dismissed.
"You, too, are being tempted, Wallace," she added.
"Your soul will be doomed if you fall prey to the foreign influences that
have invaded our neighborhood. Do not accept the offering of flesh the
devil has made to you."
Wallace backed from the closet and gently closed the
door behind him. There was nothing he could do for her. He wandered into
the back yard and could hear voices calling to one another from the
woods. Three local boys walked among the trees a short distance away,
searching every gully and fallen log in their path for a lost pizza
delivery boy and a waitress.
Either the mushrooms were gone, or they weren't
immediately toxic. Otherwise, he would have heard ambulance sirens by
now. Hopefully, there were experienced mushroom hunters among the
searchers, enough to pass the word not to fall prey to the freakish
message on the pink cap of the rogue species invading the woods of
Willington. Who, he wondered again, would be so dumb?
Wallace waited patiently for Sasha's return. The
morning's cloud cover cleared away by late afternoon. By dusk, a full
moon had risen into the sky. Wallace sat in the living room, reading,
listening to Bernice hustle about the house. She finally stormed out the
front door muttering something about a church gathering, repentance, and
the end of the world.
As soon as she was gone, Sasha tapped at his front
door. Wallace went down to let her in, thinking how much she looked like
a dark angel with her hair all blown about and filled with twigs and
debris and her dark-skinned face smeared with dust. Her shoes were caked
with mud and her fashionably torn jeans ripped even worse across her left
thigh. "No, I didn't eat any fucking mushrooms," she muttered on the way
up the stairs to his bedroom. "Duke tried to make me eat one, but I spit
it out."
"How long have you been waiting outside?" Wallace
called after her.
"Just got back."
Wallace followed her down the hall, but stopped dead
in his tracks when she began to strip off her clothes. She shucked off
blouse, jeans, underwear, and loafers. Stark naked, she disappeared into
the bathroom and left the door open behind her.
"I saw your Aunt leaving!" she called out as the
shower started. "How long will she be gone?"
"Two hours or so."
"Good!"
Wallace sat on the edge of his bed, his hands
trembling. He stared in disbelief at Sasha's pile of clothes on the
floor. When Sasha reappeared, she had a towel wrapped around her wet hair
and another covering her body. "I hope you don't mind. Mom's not home
and I locked myself out."
Wallace shrugged. How could he possibly mind? His
face felt hot enough to melt wax. He fumbled for something in the way of
idle conversation, fearful she'd loathe him for the way his eyes kept
roaming to her bare legs. "What does your mother do?" he asked finally.
"She's a model at the mall."
"Where's your dad?"
"He travels. They see each other two or three times
a year."
"Did anyone eat any of the mushrooms?"
Sasha threw her arm up in exasperation. "Everybody
and their uncles ate the mushrooms! The whole damned town thinks it's a
big joke!"
"But..."
Sasha sat at his side and eyed him solemnly. "If
they're poisonous, Willington's going to make national news, Wallace.
Everybody's going to die. I know you're right. There were others trying
to warn everybody of delayed symptoms should they be toxic. Nobody knows
what species they are."
"Is it over now? Did Duke bring you back?"
"No, it's not over. Everybody started partying and
acting crazy. They're all still out there. I walked back alone."
Wallace stared at the floor, still convinced that he
came in a distant second to the bully in Sasha's eyes.
Sasha gave him a sad smile, all but reading his
mind. "Duke's just a friend, Wallace. If he wasn't such an airhead, I'd
love him. I'm going to have a problem with you, too, you know. You think
too much. You don't know how to fly. That's why I behave like such a
hussy around you. I'm hoping to be the one to crack your cosmic egg."
Wallace smiled, pleased that Sasha was as educated as
she was beautiful. "You've read Joseph Chilton Pearce."
"Yes, I've read Joseph Chilton Pearce." She tossed
her towels over Wallace's face, first the one about her head, then the one
about her body. In the time it took him to snatch them away for a clear
view, she had dived beneath the covers of his bed. She fluffed a pillow
and pulled the covers to her chin. "You can join me if you want, but you
have to stay dressed. I don't mean to be a tease..."
"But we have to be responsible about such things," he
finished for her.
She chuckled. "I didn't plan on loosing my house
key, and mother's going to be half the night getting back home. Does your
Aunt ever barge in on you in the middle of the night?"
"God, I hope not."
"Got any condoms lying around? Unused, of course."
He dipped his head in embarrassment.
"I didn't think so. Too bad." She held the blanket
open for him. "Be my guest."
Wallace crawled in at her side. She rolled against
him and draped the blanket across his shoulders. He lay against her soft
body smelling of soap and tried not to let his rising passion get the best
of him. He kept his hands splayed across the soft skin of her back.
She stirred against him, smiling. "What's the
matter, Wallace? Got the hots for the girl next door?"
Wallace jammed his eyes closed in torment. He had
another personal accident thirty seconds later and rolled away with a moan
of frustration.
"Sorry." She watched him climb to his feet in
renewed misery. "Turn out the lights on the way out, will you?"
By the time he showered and changed clothes and made
it back to the darkened bedroom, Sasha had fallen asleep. Rather than
continue with his self-imposed torture, he pulled his desk chair around
and sat watching her sleeping in the moonlight streaming through the
window.
The night outside grew far, far too quiet. He went
to the window, glanced at Sasha's darkened house, then into the utter
blackness out back.
What had it been like in the woods? Had anybody
gotten sick yet? He had yet to hear his first ambulance siren. But he
heard something else, like a cry or a call rising and falling almost above
the range of human hearing, something like a human voice, a choir maybe,
but maybe not. Haunting, seductive, maybe just dim music filtering
through the trees from a neighborhood on the other side.
He resisted the urge to check it out until Bernice
returned home. He couldn't afford to have her look in on him and find
Sasha sleeping in his bed. She arrived far later than he would have
expected and went straight to bed. Wallace waited until the house
had fallen silent again, then took a flashlight and left by way of the
window.
Exploring the woods at night had never been much of a
temptation. The trees were filled with raccoons, possums, and deer,
harmless creatures, but always good for startling one half to death
unexpectedly. This night, the full moon shone with a special brilliance.
And a mystery beckoned.
Wallace thought it his imagination at work,
especially when the haunting singing led him to the grotto, the one spot in
the wilderness of personal significance. Until he saw the light in the
grotto, maybe the light of a campfire, he thought it safe to investigate.
The party had to have ended by now. The mushrooms were either gone or
harmless. Why otherwise would it be so ungodly quiet?
He stopped on the ledge overlooking the recessed
clearing to discover strange events still afoot in the woods. The glow of
light was simple moonlight, except that the oaks formed an unbroken canopy
of vegetation overhead. The moonlight was coming from…
…elsewhere.
