The Year's Best Horror Stories 11

“You mean the college records—and the registration…”

“The restaurant, not being invited to the reunion, my mom—all of them. They have to be related.”

Wood loosened his tie. “How?”

Hall stood up and went to the window again, as if watching for something. “I feel like I’m being followed—like someone is tracking me down the paths I’ve taken through life and systematically tearing them up behind me. And getting closer to where I am, all the time. It’s as if I’ve done something terrible, and to punish me they are erasing the traces that I ever existed.”

“Rick, please come sit down.”

Hall reluctantly complied, “You think I’m crazy, don’t you?” he asked tiredly.

Wood chose his words carefully. “I want you to listen to me for a couple of minutes. I’m going to offer you another explanation for the things that you’ve experienced. And you’ve got to try to accept it, and believe it, because if you can’t—if you can’t, Rick, then you’re going to have to admit that you’ve already cracked. There has been a series of unfortunate, but totally explainable occurrences that for some reason, overwork perhaps, has hit you in a very strange way. I’m going to take every single incident and explain it. If I miss any, you tell me.

“The invitation to the reunion—lost in the mail, with a million other pieces of mail this year. The restaurant —does a fire need explanation? You’re not the only customers or the only couple that had a picture on those walls.

“The check—would that be the first error ever coming from the man-machine interface? Your mother—the sudden onset of senility. I’m sorry, but it happens. The phone calls—the fact that you hadn’t called in years is explanation enough.

“The junk mail—they all buy the same list, and add and remove names all the time. You’re off because you don’t buy, Elaine’s on because she does. The registration—the law has been changed so that joint ownership is automatic, and your wife’s name was first, so that’s the only one they printed.

“The transcript—eight thousand people in your graduating class? That means they lost zero point triple-zero one percent of their records. The loss of your birth registration—do you think the flood that destroyed the regional office had you in mind when it swept the filing cabinets and microfiche away?

“The picture in your mother’s home—that damning picture. Was that the only picture taken that day? Did they perhaps take one ‘just with the girls’?”

“There were a lot of pictures,” Hall said slowly.

“Is it impossible that something happened to the picture that’s been there for ten years, so that she had to put up another?”

“Or I might have just not seen things clearly,” Hall said. “That night—I could have seen anything I wanted to.”

“Did I leave anything out?”

“Stark and Son, my first job. They couldn’t find them to use as a reference.”

“And?”

“I had the wrong address.” He rested his head on his folded hands. “I had myself thinking, ‘My God, they’ve moved the building.’ ” He looked up and sighed. “I want to go home to Elaine.”

For a few days, anchored by overtime and bolstered by Elaine’s affection, Hall gave every sign of having stabilized. But inside he was still unsettled, fighting to understand his own foolishness. Chris had shown him how he had misread events, but not why.

Presently, however, he became aware of a hollowness, a space left by friends lost and not replaced. My own doing, Hall thought. One group left in Cross Creek—another scattered by college graduation. Too much work to keep the friendships alive. But all I have here are acquaintances and coworkers—except for Elaine, no real friends. Even Chris is more Elaine’s friend than mine.

Having fixed the blame on himself, Hall could do nothing else but to try to atone. He waited for a night when Elaine turned in early with a magazine. Old cold trails, he told himself as he opened the address book. But how much can we have changed? Still—start small.

After eight rings, the phone was answered.

“Greider residence,” said the voice.

“This is Rick—Rick Hall, Mr. Greider,” Hall said happily. “I’ve been trying to call you for a couple of weeks, but no one’s been home.”

“I’ve been quite busy cleaning out my things at the school. Who did you say you were again?”

“Richard Hall—chemistry, six years ago. Remember? Our lab group didn’t get an experiment right until May, and you threw a party.”

Greider didn’t answer right away. “Young man, I’m sorry, but I don’t remember you. I had a Kristen Hall, two years ago.”

“That’s my sister.”

“Hmm. You say you attended Cross Creek six years ago?”

“That was my senior year. Then I went to MSU, in design.”

“I’m really very sorry, but I don’t seem to be able to remember you very clearly.”

“I’m surprised; I came over to your house several times that year. Do you still have the little file cards on us?”

“No. I’m retiring this year, and I got rid of those. I do apologize, Mr. Hall, but there have been so many students over so many years…”

“I understand.”

“Is there something I can do for you?”

“No, I just wanted to say hello.”

It was a small failure, but substantial enough to blunt his enthusiasm. He sat quietly for a moment and flipped through the address book. There were names to which he could not even attach faces. Perhaps it has been too long.

The yearbooks were on the top shelf, and Hall had to drag a chair over to the bookcase and stand on it to reach them. They were well coated with dust; it had been some time since he had looked at them.

Hall permitted himself a few nasty thoughts at Greider’s picture in the faculty section, and then turned to the pictures of the clubs. He looked for his face among the dozen below the label, “Art Club,” but failed to find it. But that’s right—he had missed three days with the flu, and most of the photos had been taken those days. He had thought he had been listed below it as “Missing from photo: R. Hall,” but there was no such notation. He must have been wrong.

Turning to the seniors section, he paused several times to admire the young beauty of the girls he had dated, frozen by silver chemistry and printer’s ink. Then he turned the page, and his own face smiled up from the page at him—cheerfully seventeen, the irrepressible lock of hair over his right ear sticking out.

Hall reached for his drink, resting on a coaster on the table beside him, but his hand never closed on it; he stared, incredulous, at the page, the muscles in his left hand standing out as he gripped the yearbook tightly.

The page had rippled, like water disturbed by a pebble, and when it had cleared, his picture was gone.

“Chris?”

“More trouble?”

“Can you help me find him again?”

“When did he leave?”

“No more than an hour ago.”

“Why not call the police this time, Elaine? I don’t like to have to say it, but we don’t know whether he might be dangerous—if not to others, then to himself.”

“No. He’s my responsibility; I’m his wife.”

“He’s his own responsibility, and right now, he can’t handle it.”

“What are you saying?”

“I’m saying that if we get him back, he needs more than a little extra attention this time. He needs more help than even you can give him.”

“Professional help.”