So far, he had been able to keep his secret.
In the beginning he had thought that he could handle the problem. But, word had spread around the neighbourhood — rumours, speculation and guess-work until finally, he had found that there was no other solution but to lock her up. No one knew why Janet Vernon was in a sanatorium and he knew that, for ail their do-it-yourself detective work, none of the neighbours could ever imagine anything as horrific as that which had caused her to lose her mind.
Now he stood in the room, looking around, listening to the wind outside.
He had left the room just as it had always been. For six years, only he had been inside. It contained too many memories, too much pain.
Vernon flicked off the light and retreated back on to the landing, locking the door behind him. He stood looking at it for long seconds then turned and headed for his own bedroom.
Six years.
He had searched for answers for so long and now, he felt that he might be close. The research was furnishing him with what he’d always sought. A way to cure his wife. A way to unlock her thoughts. No one must be allowed to stand in his way.
But, as he undressed, a thought passed through his mind.
What effect would it have on her? The horror of what she had witnessed that day had festered in her thoughts for so long.
Dare he release those memories?
13
New York
‘It sure beats the shit out of E. T.,’ said Rick Landers, gleefully.
Beside him, Andy Wallace was similarly impressed.
‘You bet,’ he murmured, watching as The Thing devoured another victim, ripping off both his arms below the elbow before exploding from his stomach cavity.
The two boys watched mesmerised as the alien head detached itself and then dragged itself across the floor using a tentacle.
‘Rewind it,’ said Andy. ‘Let’s see it again.’
Rick nodded and scuttled across to the video, his finger seeking out the appropriate button.
‘Yeah, E.T. was OK for kids,’ Andy continued.
‘My mum met the guy who made this picture,’ said Rick, smugly.
‘John Carpenter? Wow, when was that?’
‘At some party I think.’
He pressed the ‘play’ button on the video recorder and pictures once more began to fill the wide screen. The two boys settled down again.
They were both nine years old, Andy perhaps a month or two senior. Both attended the same school about three blocks away. Rick knew that his mother didn’t like him watching too many horror movies, She’d turned the video off halfway through his fifth viewing of The Evil Dead but, today, she was out filming a commercial until six o’clock so that gave him and Andy another two hours.
Andy lived about three houses down from the Landers place. His father, Gordon, wrote scripts for one of ABC’s most successful comedy series and his mother, Nina, was a theatrical agent, so Andy was no stranger to the crazy world of showbusiness.
The Thing had just sprouted spider’s legs and was about to scuttle away when the picture on the TV broke up into a network of lines and dots.
The two boys groaned and Rick leapt towards the video.
From the kitchen, the sound of the vacuum mingled with that of the waste-disposa! unit in the sink.
The noise stopped, at any rate the grinding of the disposal unit did, the vacuum seemed to roar even louder.
‘Mrs Garcia,’ yelled Rick.
No answer.
‘Mrs Garcia,’ he bellowed louder and the vacuum was switched off.
‘What you want, Rick?’ Elita Garcia asked, appearing from the kitchen like a blimp emerging from a hangar. She was a huge Mexican woman who always reminded Rick of an extra in a spaghetti western.
‘The vacuum is screwing up the picture on the video,’ Rick told her. ‘Couldn’t you do it later?’
‘Your mother ask me to have this finish before she come home,’ Mrs Garcia informed him.
‘Yeah, but the video …’
‘I no help that. I do my job, Rick. Sorry.’ And the vacuum started up again.
The two boys exchanged disconsolate glances and surrendered to Mrs Garcia arid her cleaner. Rick switched off the video and the TV and suggested they go into the garden for a while.
‘You no be long,’ Mrs Garcia called above the roar of the vacuum. ‘Your dinner ready soon.’
The two boys had been outside only minutes when Rick heard the approaching tones of an ice-cream van. He guessed it was less than a block away.
Lee Jacobs spun the wheel of the station-wagon, the tyres screaming as they tried to grip the road. The vehicle’s back end skidded and slammed into a parked Ford.
‘Jesus Christ, man,’ snapped Tony Sollozzo, who was kneeling on the station-wagon’s passenger seat. ‘Look where you’re fucking going will you.’
‘You wanna drive, motherfucker?’ shouted Jacobs, sweat pouring down his black face. It beaded in his short frizzy hair
like dew. ‘Are the cops still behind us?’
The sound of a siren answered his question for him and he glanced in the rear-view mirror to see the black and white speeding along in pursuit, lights flashing.
‘Step on it, will you,’ Sollozzo urged. ‘The bastards are gaining.’
if you’d stolen a car with somethin’ under the hood maybe we could outrun those lousy fucks,’ Jacobs protested. ‘Why the hell did you have to steal a fucking station-wagon?’
‘Maybe I shoulda’ walked around some showroom first, picked out somethin’ you liked, huh?’ Sollozzo countered.
‘We shoulda’ just turned ourselves in like I said,’ Jacobs said, swerving to miss a bus.
‘With nearly a kilo of smack in the glove compartment? Are you kiddin’ me?’
‘Stealing a station-wagon,’ Jacobs grunted, trying to coax more speed from the vehicle. ‘Dumb fuckin’ wop.’
‘Who’re you callin’ a wop you nigger son of a bitch. Now drive, man, they’re gettin’ closer.’
The blaring of horns greeted them as they sped through a red light.
The police car followed.
‘What time does Mrs Garcia leave?’ Andy Wallace asked, picking up the frisbee and throwing it back.
Rick Landers watched it carefully, jumping to catch it with one hand.
‘She stays until my mum gets home,’ he said.
‘How come? She never used to did she?’
‘Mum’s been acting kind of weird for the last couple of days,’ Rick disclosed.
‘She says she doesn’t like to leave me on my own too much.’ He threw the frisbee back.
‘My parents are as bad,’ Andy confided, i mean, they must think we’re kids.’
Rick nodded then he cocked his head on one side as he heard the chimes of the ice-cream van once more. It was closer now. Just turning into the street he guessed.
‘You want to get an ice-cream?’ he asked Andy, noticing the look of delight on his friend’s face.
‘You bet,’ he said.
The frisbee was forgotten as they both hurried around to the front of the house.
Lee Jacobs banged his hooter as the station-wagon narrowly missed a woman
crossing the road. He yelled something and turned the vehicle into another street. Beside him, Tony Sollozzo slid a Smith and Wesson .38 from his jacket pocket. He flipped out the cylinder, checking that each chamber carried a round.
‘What you doin’, man?’ asked Jacobs, glancing down at the gun.
‘Just in case,’ murmured Sollozzo, hefting the pistol before him.
‘You crazy fuck, I didn’t know you was packed,’ Jacobs gaped. ‘What you gonna’
do?’
The police car drew closer, its bonnet little more than ten feet from the rear of the station wagon. Sollozzo could see the two uniformed men inside as he turned. He wound down his window, pulling back the hammer on the .38.
Up ahead, Jacobs caught sight of an ice-cream van parked in their way. It was blocking the route. To by-pass it he would have to drive up on to the wide pavement.