Koontz, Dean R. - The Bad Place Read online

  sunbathing, and except for the surfers, the beach was deserted.

  Bobby and Julie walked south until they found a low knoll, far enough

  back from the water to escape the spray. They sat on the stiff grass

  that flourished in patches in the sandy soil.

  When at last she spoke, Julie said,

  "A place like this, with a view like this. Not a big place."

  "Doesn't have to be. A living room, one bedroom for us and one for

  Thomas, maybe a cozy little den lined with books."

  "We don't even need a dining room, but I'd like a big kitchen."

  "Yeah. A kitchen you can really live in." She sighed.

  "Music, books, real home-cooked meals instead of junk food grabbed on

  the fly, lots of time to sit on the porch and enjoy the view-and the

  three of us together."

  That was the rest of The Dream: a place by the sea and by otherwise

  living simply-enough financial security to retire twenty years early.

  One of the things that had drawn Bobby to Julie-and Julie to him-was

  their shared awareness of the shortness of life. Everyone knew that

  life was too short, of course, but most people pushed that thought out

  of mind, living as if there were endless tomorrows. If most people

  weren't able to deceive themselves about death, they could not have

  cared so passionately about the outcome of a ball game, the plot of a

  soap opera, the blatherings of politicians, or a thousand other things

  that actually meant nothing when considered against the inevitable fall

  of the endless night that finally came to everyone. They could not have

  endured to waste a minute standing in a supermarket line and would not

  have suffered hours in the company of bores or fools. Maybe a world lay

  beyond this on maybe even Heaven, but you couldn't count on it; you

  could count only on darkness. Self-deception in this case was a

  blessing. Neither Bobby nor Julie was a gloom-monger. She knew how to

  enjoy life as well as anyone, and so did he, even if neither of them

  could buy the fragile illusion of immortality than served most people as

  a defense against the unthinkable. This awareness expressed itself not

  in anxiety or depression, but in a strong resolve not to spend their

  lives in a hurly-burly meaningless activity, to find a way to finance

  long stretches time together in their own serene little tide pool.

  As her chestnut hair streamed in the wind, Julie squinted at the far

  horizon, which was filling up with honey-gold light as the sinking sun

  drizzled toward it.

  "What frightens Thomas about being out in the world is people, too many

  people. But he'd be happy in a little house by the sea, a quiet stretch

  of coast, few people.

  "I'm sure he would."

  "It'll happen," Bobby assured her.

  "By the time we build the agency big enough to sell, the southern coast

  will be too expensive. But north of Santa Barbara is pretty."

  "It's a long coast," Bobby said, putting an arm around her.

  "We'll still be able to find a place in the south. And we'll have time

  to enjoy it. We're not going to live forever, but we're young. Our

  numbers aren't going to come up for years an years yet." But he

  remembered the premonition that had shivered through him in bed that

  morning, after they had made love, the feeling that something malevolent

  was out there in the windswept world, coming to take Julie away from

  him.

  The sun had touched the horizon and begun to melt into it. The golden

  light deepened swiftly to orange and then to bloody red. The grass and

  tall weeds behind them rustled in the wind, and Bobby looked over his

  shoulder at the spirals of airborne sand that swirled across the slope

  between the beach and the parking lot, like pale spirits that had fled a

  graveyard with the coming of twilight. From the east a wall of night

  was toppling over the world. The air had grown downright cold.

  CANDY SLEPT all day in the front bedroom that had once been his

  mother's, breathing her special scent. Two or three times a week, he

  carefully shook a few drops of her favorite perfume-Channel Number

  Five-onto a white, lace-trimmed handkerchief, which he kept on the

  dresser beside her silver comb-and-brush set, so each breath he took in

  the room reminded him of her. Occasionally he half woke from slumber to

  readjust the pillows or pull the covers more tightly around him, and the

  trace of perfume always lulled him as if it were a tranquilizer; each

  time he happily drifted back into his dreams.

  He slept in sweatpants and a T-shirt, because he had a hard time finding

  pajamas large enough and because he was too modest to sleep in the nude

  or even in his underwear. Being unclothed embarrassed Candy, even when

  no one was around to see him.

  All of that long Thursday afternoon, hard winter sun reeled the world

  outside, but little got past the flower-patterned shades and

  rose-colored drapes that guarded the two window The few times he woke

  and blinked at the shadows, Candy saw only the pearl-gray glimmer of the

  dresser mirror and glint from the silver-framed photographs on the night

  stand Drugged by sleep and by the freshly applied perfume on the

  handkerchief, he could easily imagine that his beloved mother was in her

  rocking chair, watching over him, and he felt safe. He came fully awake

  shortly before sunset and lay for a while with his hands folded behind

  his head, staring up at the underside of the canopy that arched over the

  four-poster; he could not see it, but he knew it was there, and in his

  mind could conjure up a vivid image of the fabric's rosebud patter. For

  a while he thought about his mother, about the best time of his life,

  now all gone, and then he thought about the girl, the boy, and the woman

  he had killed last night. He tried to recall the taste of their blood,

  but that memory was not as intense as those involving his mother.

  After a while he switched on a bedside lamp and looked around at the

  comfortably familiar room: rosebud wallpaper; rosebud bedspread; rosebud

  blinds; rose-colored drapes and carpets; dark mahogany bed, dresser, and

  highboy. Two afghans-one green like the leaves of a rose, one the shade

  of the petals-were draped over the arms of the rocking chair.

  He went into the adjoining bathroom, locked and tested the door. The

  only light came from the fluorescent panels in the soffit, over the

  sink, for he had long ago lathered black paint on the small high window.

  He studied his face in the mirror for a moment because he liked the way

  he looked. He could see his mother in his face. He had her blond hair,

  so pale it was almost white, and her sea-blue eyes. His face was all

  hard planes and strong features, with none of her beauty or gentleness,

  though his full mouth was as generous as hers.

  As he undressed, he avoided looking down at himself. He was proud of

  his powerful shoulders and arms, his broad chest, and his muscular legs,

  but even catching a glimpse of the sex thing made him feel dirty and

  mildly ill. He sat on the toilet to make water, so he wouldn't have to

  touch himself. During his shower, when he soaped his crotch, he first


  pulled on a mitten that he had sewn from a pair of washcloths, so the

  flesh of his hand would not have to touch the wicked flesh below.

  When he had dried off and dressed-athletic socks, running shoes, dark

  gray cords, black shirt-he hesitantly left the reliable shelter of his

  mother's old room. Night had fallen, and the upstairs hall was poorly

  lit by two low-wattage bulbs in a ceiling fixture that was coated with

  gray dust and missing half its pendant crystals. To his left was the

  head of the staircase. To his right were his sisters' room, his old

  room, and the other bath, the doors to which stood open; no lights were

  on back there. The oak floor creaked, and the threadbare runner did

  little to soften his footsteps. He sometimes thought he should give the

  rest of the house a thorough cleaning, maybe even spring for some new

  carpeting and fresh paint; however, though he kept his mother's room

  spotless and in good repair, he was not motivated to spend time or money

  on the rest of the house, and his sisters had little interest in-or

  talent for homemaking.

  A flurry of soft footfalls alerted him to the approach of the cats, and

  he stopped short of the stairs, afraid of treading on one of their paws

  or tails as they poured into the upstairs hallway. A moment later they

  streamed over the top step and swarmed around him: twenty-six of them,

  if his most recent count was not out of date. Eleven were black,

  several more were chocolate-brown or tobacco-brown or charcoal-gray, two

  were deep gold, and only one was white. Violet and Verbina, his

  sisters, preferred dark cats, the darker the better.

  The animals milled around him, walking over his shoes, rubbing against

  his legs, curling their tails around his calve Among them were two

  Angoras, an Abyssinian, a tall Manx, a Maltese, and a tortoise shell,

  but most were mongrel cats of no easily distinguished lineage. Some had

  green some yellow, some silver-gray, some blue, and they all regarded

  him with great interest. Not one of them purred or mowed; their

  inspection was conducted in absolute silence.

  Candy did not particularly like cats, but he tolerated them not only

  because they belonged to his sisters but because, in a way, they were

  virtually an extension of Violet and Verbina To have hurt them, to have

  spoken harshly to them, would have been the same as striking out at his

  sisters, which he could never do because his mother, on her death bed,

  had admonished him to provide for the girls and protect them.

  In less than a minute the cats had fulfilled their mission and almost as

  one, turned from him. With much swishing of tail and flexing of feline

  muscles and rippling of fur, they flowed like a single beast to the head

  of the stairs and down.

  By the time he reached the first step, they were at the dining room

  turning, slipping out of sight. He descended to the low hall, and the

  cats were gone. He passed the lightless and must smelling parlor. The

  odor of mildew drifted out of the stud where shelves were filled with

  the moldering romance novels that his mother had liked so much, and when

  he pass through the dimly lit dining room, litter crunched under his

  shoes.

  Violet and Verbina were in the kitchen. They were identical twins. They

  were equally blond, with the same fair and flawless skin, with the same

  china-blue eyes, smooth brows, high cheekbones, straight noses with

  delicately carved nostrils, lips that were naturally red without

  lipstick, and small even teeth as bone-white as those of their cats.

  Candy tried to like his sisters, and failed. For his mother's sake he

  could not dislike them, so he remained neutral, sharing the house with

  them but not as a real family might share it. They were too thin, he

  thought, fragile-looking, almost frail, and too pale, like creatures

  that infrequently saw the sun which in fact seldom warmed them, since

  they rarely went outside. Their slim hands were well manicured, for

  they groomed themselves as constantly as if they, too, were cats; but,

  to Candy, their fingers seemed excessively long, unnaturally flexible

  and nimble. Their mother had been robust, with strong features and good

  color, and Candy often wondered how such a vital woman could have

  spawned this pallid pair.

  The twins had piled up cotton blankets, six thick, in one corner of the

  big kitchen, to make a large area where the cats could lie comfortably,

  though the padding was actually for Violet and Verbina, so they could

  sit on the floor among the cats for hours at a time. When Candy entered

  the room, they were on the blankets, with cats all around them and in

  their laps. Violet was filing Verbina's fingernails with an emery

  board. Neither of them looked up, though of course they had already

  greeted him through the cats. Verbina had never spoken a word within

  Candy's hearing, not in her entire twenty-five years-the twins were four

  years younger than he was,-but he was not sure whether she was unable to

  talk, merely unwilling to talk, or shy of talking only when around him.

  Violet was nearly as silent as her sister, but she did speak when

  necessary; apparently, at the moment, she had nothing that needed to be

  said.

  He stood by the refrigerator, watching them as they huddled over

  Verbina's pale right hand, grooming it, and he supposed that he was

  unfair in his judgment of them. Other men might find them attractive in

  a strange way. Though, to him, their limbs seemed too thin, other men

  might see them as supple and erotic, like the legs of dancers and the

  arms of acrobats. Their skin was clear as milk, and their breasts were

  full. Because he was blessedly free of any interest in sex, he was not

  qualified to judge their appeal.

  They habitually wore as little as possible, as little as he would

  tolerate before ordering them to put on more clothes. They kept the

  house excessively warm in winter, and more often dressed-as now-in

  T-shirts and short shorts or panties barefoot and bare-limbed. Only his

  mother's room, which was now his, was kept cooler, because he had closed

  the vents there. Without his presence to demand a degree of modesty

  they would have roamed the house in the nude.

  Lazily, lazily, Violet filed Verbina's thumbnail, and they both stared

  at it was intently as if the meaning of life was to read in the curve of

  the half-moon or the arc of the nail itself. Candy raided the

  refrigerator, removing a chunk of canned ham, a package of Swiss cheese,

  mustard, pickles, and a quart of milk. He got bread from one of the

  cupboards and sat on a rail back chair at the age-yellowed table.

  The table, chairs, cabinets, and woodwork had once been glossy white,

  but they had not been painted since before his mother died. They were

  yellow-white now, gray-white in the seams and corners, crackle-finished

  by time. The dais patterned wallpaper was soiled and, in a couple of

  places, peeling along the seams, and the chintz curtains hung limp

  covered with grease and dust.

  Candy made and consumed two thick ham-and-cheese sandwiches. He gulped


  the milk straight from the carton.

  Suddenly all twenty-six cats, which had been sprawling languidly around

  the twins, sprang up simultaneously, proceeded to the pet door in the

  bottom of the larger kitchen door, and went outside in orderly fashion.

  Time to make their toilet, evidently.

  Violet and Verbina didn't want the house smelling of litter boxes.

  Candy closed his eyes and took a long swallow of milk.

  He would have preferred it at room temperature or even slightly warm. It

  tasted vaguely like blood, though not as pleasant pungent; it would have

  been more like blood if it had not been chilled.

  Within a couple of minutes the cats returned. Now Verbina was lying on

  her back, with her head propped on a pillow, eyes closed, lips moving as

  if talking to herself, though no sound issued from her. She extended

  her other slender hand so his sister could meticulously file those nails

  too. Her long legs were spread, and Candy could see between her smooth

  thighs. She was wearing only a T-shirt and flimsy peach-colored panties

  that defined rather than concealed the cleft of her womanhood. The

  silent cats swarmed to her, draped themselves over her, more concerned

  about propriety than she was, and they regarded Candy accusatory, as if

  they knew that he'd been staring.

  He lowered his eyes and studied the crumbs on the table.

  Violet said, "Frankie was here."

  At first he was more surprised by the fact that she had spoken than by

  what she had said. Then the meaning of those three words reverberated

  through him as if he were a brass gong struck by a mallet. He stood up

  so abruptly that he knocked over his chair.

  "He was here? In the house?"