'How much more interested can I seem? Whenever she calls, we're on the phone for at least an hour. I'd take her out in a minute, but I can't seem to get the chance. She was too sick before she left and now she's out of town.'
'Supposedly.'
Jim sighed. 'Supposedly,' he repeated, somewhat reluctantly.
'Maybe she's just getting back at you for not calling her after she sent you those flowers.'
'You really think so?'
'Hey, what do I know? Dear Abby I'm not. I'm just a guy who can't get a date and when I do, the girl dumps me before we even go out.' He paused, then added, 'Next time she calls, just ask her what's going on.'
'What if there's nothing? I'd hate to screw things up. I figure not calling her back right away was already one strike against me. I don't want to add to it now because—'
A sudden beep on the line interrupted him.
'Just a sec,' Jim said. 'That's my call waiting. It might be Brenda calling.'
'I've got to go anyway,' Scotty said. 'Call me tomorrow and let me know how things worked out.'
'Will do,' Jim told him.
Cutting the connection with Scotty, he took the other call.
21
I was really looking forward to talking to Jim tonight. I just wanted to hear his voice and connect with a world that didn't involve ghosts or diets or strange voices that come out of a haunted wishing well.
Following the railway tracks really cuts the distance to the general store. The highway takes a curve, but the tracks go straight through the woods. They're overgrown, but not so much that they're not easy to follow. I didn't even need to use my flashlight. I just stepped from wooden rail to wooden rail, one foot, then the other, but slowly, every step an effort. I was so tired.
This flu bug I've caught made it seem as though I was walking all the way back to Newford. I kept having to stop and rest. I would've given up and just gone back, but by the time I started thinking along those lines, I'd already come so far that going back no longer made much sense. And besides, I had this real
But now I wish I'd never called Jim, because it seems as though all my lies are coming home tonight: the ones Ellie pointed out that I'd used on myself, and the ones I'd told Jim. He didn't come right out and say he didn't believe I was out of town, but he kept asking all these questions about what my day had been like, had I got to see the sights, that kind of thing. Innocent enough questions, but I couldn't help but feel there was an agenda behind them, as though he was trying to catch me up in my lies.
And then there was this business with Jilly calling him and Wendy wanting to pick up a dress from my apartment.
I don't have any of Wendy's dresses— God knows they'd never fit me anyway. At least they wouldn't have before the diet. I could get into one of them now, I suppose; it'd just be a little short in the skirt and sleeves. But even if I did have something of Wendy's, she's got a key to my place anyway.
As soon as Jim started talking about their having called him I knew what was really going on. They were worried about me. They'd probably found out about my phone being cut off. Or that I'd lost my job. Or both. Wendy was probably upset anyway because of the way I've been avoiding her these past few weeks...
What a mess I've made of things.
I get off the phone as quickly as I can. Once I hang up, though, I don't have the energy to go back to the motel. The general store is closed, gas pumps and all, so I just sit down on the steps running up to its porch and lean my head against the railing. I want to rest for a couple of minutes.
Once I'm sitting down I feel as though I'll never be able to move again, but I know I can't stay here. It's not that I'm scared of running into the people who own the place or anything— there's no law against using a public phone and then having a rest before heading back home.
No. It's that I can't shake the feeling that I'm being watched. At first I think it's Ellie, but the watching has a hungry feeling about it, as though I'm being stalked, and I can't see Ellie wanting to hurt me. If she ever did, she's already had plenty of opportunities before now.
Logically, I know I'm safe. I'm just a little sick, weak from this flu bug I've caught. Maybe it's the flu that's making me feel paranoid. But logic doesn't help me feel any better because, logically, there shouldn't be ghost voices in the well and ghosts running through my dreams. Logically, I shouldn't keep having conversations with the deceased proprietor of an abandoned motel.
Finally, I drag myself to my feet and start back. I have to rest every fifty feet or so because I just don't have any strength left in me at all. The feeling of being watched gets stronger, but I'm feeling so sick it's as though I don't even care about it anymore. I have cramps that come and go in painful waves. I want to throw up, but I've got nothing in my stomach to bring up. I can't even remember if I had any dinner or not. When all you eat is the same thing, popcorn and lettuce, lettuce and popcorn, day in and day out, it's hard to differentiate between meals.
I don't know how I make it back to my room, but finally I do. Dawn's pinking the eastern horizon, casting long shadows as I stumble to my bed. The birds are making an incredible racket, but I almost can't hear them.
My bed seems to sway, back and forth, back and forth, as I lie on it. I keep hearing ominous sounds under the morning bird calls. A floorboard creaking. A shutter banging. I'm too sick even to turn my head to see if there someone there. There's a wet, musty smell in the air— part stagnant water, part the smell you get when you turn over a rotting log.
I really want to turn to look now, but the cramps have come back and I double up from the pain. When they finally ease off, I fall asleep and the ghosts are waiting for me.
They're not familiar any longer— or rather, I recognize them, but they look different. It's so awful. All I can see is drowned people, bloated corpses shambling toward me. Their faces are a dead white and grotesquely swollen. Their clothes are rotting and hang in tatters, they have wet weeds hanging from them, dripping on the floor. Their hair is plastered tight against their distended faces. They have only sunken sockets, surrounded by puffs of dead white flesh where they should have eyes.
You're only dreaming, I try to tell myself. You're sick and you have a fever and this is only a dream.
I manage to come out of it. The lights bright in my eyes— must be mid-morning already. It's impossible to focus on anything. I have some dry heaves which only makes me weaker. I try to fight it, but eventually I fall back into the dreams again.
That's when I finally see her, rising up from behind the ranks of the drowned dead. She looks just like the picture of the
22
Wendy stayed over at Jilly's studio Saturday night. She slept on the Murphy bed while Jilly camped out on the sofa— over Wendy's protests. 'I'll be up early working,' Jilly insisted, and refused to discuss it any further. And sure enough, when Wendy woke the next morning, Jilly was already behind her easel, frowning at her current work in progress.
'I can't decide,' she said when she saw that Wendy was awake. 'Have I made it too dark on this side, or too light on the other?'
'Please,' Wendy said. She put on the kimono that Jilly used as a bathrobe and shuffled across the studio toward the kitchen area, looking for the coffee. 'At least give me a chance to wake up.'
The door buzzer sounded as she was halfway to the coffee carafe sitting on the kitchen counter.
'Would you mind getting that?' Jilly asked. 'It's probably Geordie coming by to mooch some breakfast.'
'Wonderful,' Wendy said.
She was barely awake and now she had to put up with Geordie's ebullient morning cheer on top of Jilly's. She considered writing a sign saying, 'Quiet, please, some people are still half asleep,' and holding it up when she opened the door, but she didn't have the energy to do more than unlock the door. When she swung it open it was to find a stranger standing there in the hallway.
'Um, is Jilly here?'
Wendy gathered the kimono more closely about her neck and looked over her shoulder. 'It's for you,' she told Jilly. Turning back to the stranger, she added, 'Come on in.'
