The blue satin bottom sheet, dark in places from her moist body, swelled and sank like the skin of something alive and panting.
Fredrick’s Amazing Wonderbed. Too true, Gillian thought. Climb aboard, folks. See the astounding Miracle Mirrors transform you before your very eyes into lusting slaves of carnality.
Come one, come all.
Who’re you kidding? Gillian thought. It’s not the bed and mirrors, it’s me.
Been alone too much.
She opened her suitcase, took out her white bikini and hurried to the bathroom. She dried herself before putting it on.
In the kitchen, she made coffee. While she waited for the pot to fill, she went to the den, opened the curtains, and slid the glass door wide. Most of the concrete slab behind the house was still in shade. The breeze felt good on her hot skin. She returned to the bedroom for her sunglasses and book, then poured herself a mug of coffee. and stepped outside.
The redwood lounge chair needed a pad. She found one in a storage room alongside the garage. Then she sat down, crossed her legs, and drank coffee while she read her Simon Clark paperback.
When the mug was empty, she wandered over to the fence. On tiptoes, she peered into Jerry’s back yard. He wasn’t there. He had a big pool that shimmered in the morning sunlight, a patio set with an umbrella over the table, a couple of loungers and a barbecue.
It was against procedure, she reminded herself, to get involved with neighbors. It was risky. Too much danger of letting something slip. You make the brief, initial contact to allay their suspicions, then you stay away from them.
Curious that Jerry had wandered into her Wonderbed fan- . tasy.
A little disturbing.
Disturbing, too, that she had hoped to see him when she looked over the fence.
The last thing you need is to get interested in some guy, she thought. All they do is mess you up.
Gillian went into the house for more coffee, then resumed reading until the mug was empty again.
She took the mug and book inside.
Then she went to the bedroom for her camera.
It had all started when Gillian was seventeen.
On her way home from school, she was walking past the deserted house when John Deerman called out to her. She stopped and waited for him to catch up.
“Look at this! Look!” He tugged a typed sheet out of his binder and waved it in front of her face.
She took it from him.
The tide page of his term paper: “The Whiteness of Moby Dick.” It had a big red “A” beside his name. The teacher had scribbled, “Wonderful job. A vast improvement.”
“That’s nice,” Gillian said.
“Nice? It’s great! I got an ‘A’!”
“Somebody did.” The “A” called for a ten-dollar bonus in addition to the twenty-dollar advance John had paid her for writing the paper. She held out her hand.
Smiling, John produced his wallet. “You’re terrific, you know that?” As he slipped out a ten-dollar bill, a sudden gust of October wind snatched it from his fingers. Gillian made a quick grab for the tumbling bill as it fluttered past her face. She missed. It sailed over the battered picket fence.
“Shit!” John yelled.
Several yards beyond the fence, weeds in the overgrown yard snagged the bill.
“Don’t stand here like a numbnuts,” Gillian said. “Go get it.”
“No way. I’m not going in there.”
Gillian sighed, set her binder and books on the sidewalk, and rushed toward the gate.
“I wouldn’t do that!” John called.
“Obviously,” she said. The gate hung crooked, held up only by the single hinge at the bottom. She lifted it, shoved it inward, then ran through the weeds. She plucked the money off a sticker bush.
“Boy, that was stupid,” John said when she returned to get her books.
“The only stupid thing was that you made me go after its ”
“That’s Mabel Brookhurst’s place.”
“So? Who’s she?”
John’s eyes brightened as if he were thrilled to meet someone who hadn’t heard the story. “She was a lunatic. My dad’s a paramedic, you know. He was one of the guys that went in and got her. She’d been dead like three weeks, hanged herself. The stink was so bad the neighbors had started complaining. That’s how come she got found.”
“Pleasant,” Gillian muttered.
“They say there’s no way to get the smell out. That’s how come nobody’s bought the place. And there’s the writing. Dad said she’d written weird shit everywhere—all over the walls and ceilings. With a marking pen. You can’t just paint over a marking pen, it comes right through the paint. So even if they could get rid of the stink ...”
“What sort of stuff did she write?”
John shrugged. “Who knows? Weird shit. She was cracked.”
“Didn’t anybody read it?”
“I don’t know. Dad didn’t. I mean, the place reeked. He didn’t stick around any longer than he had to.”
“I wonder what she wrote,” Gillian said.
Grinning, John said, “Why don’t you go in and find out?”
“Sure thing,” Gillian said. “You think I’m nuts?”
It was a Friday. Before her parents went to bed, Gillian told them she would be staying up late to watch TV. It was not exactly a lie. At that time, intrigued as she was about the writing Mabel Brookhurst had left on the walls and ceilings before hanging herself, she doubted that she actually had the courage to sneak over to the old house for a look.
After an hour of staring at the television movie, wondering about the Brookhurst house and trembling, she made up her mind. She left the TV on with its volume low. She turned on the light in the downstairs bathroom and shut the door to make it appear that she was inside—just in case one of her parents should come downstairs and wonder why she wasn’t in front of the television.
In her bedroom, she changed from her nightgown into jeans, a chamois shirt and sneakers. She picked up her Polaroid camera and tiptoed downstairs and out of the house. In the garage, she found her father’s flashlight and a screwdriver.
The walk to the Brookhurst house took no more than ten minutes. She stopped in front of it. Her mouth was dry, her heart thudding. She felt the wind under her shirt-tail, chilling her back.
Lights were on in some nearby houses, but she saw no one.
And no one sees me, she thought.
The Brookhurst house looked dismal. The weeds in front shifted and crackled in the wind. One of the front windows was broken, a star of blackness on the reflecting sheen of its pane.
I must be nuts, Gillian thought. I’m not going in there.
She walked past the crooked gate and kept on walking, and felt her fear slide away.
I’ll just go back home and forget it. Nobody will ever know. It was a stupid idea.
Instead of relief, Gillian felt a sense of letdown.
What’s the worst thing that could happen if I did go inside, she asked herself. The cops might get me. Can’t be much of a crime, sneaking into an abandoned house. They’d take me home. I’d have some explaining to do, but Mom and Dad are okay. They’d think it was a weird move, but ...
What’s really the worst thing that could happen?
I’m not, for godsake, going to meet Mabel’s ghost.
The worst thing, she finally decided, would be to sneak in and get herself nailed by some kind of creep or pervert. A deserted, run-down place like that, anybody might be staying there.
She began to feel the fear again. This time, she recognized that part of it, at least, was excitement.
Just watch your step, she thought, and get the hell out if there’s any sign the place is occupied.
Gillian had already reached the corner of the block. She turned back. On her way toward the Brookhurst house, she watched the neighboring homes. Most of the draperies in the lighted windows were shut. Someone might be peering out a dark window, but she was willing to take the chance. If the cops grabbed her, too bad, but so what? A little embarrassment. She could live with that.