"What?" Dex said.
"Excited," he repeated. "She was whining and carping the way she
always did in that high, unpleasant voice, but that was just habit, I
think. All those years, Dex, the only part of me she wasn't able to
completely control, the only part she could never get completely
under her thumb, was my friendship with you. Our two drinks
while she was at class. Our chess. Our... companionship."
Dex nodded. Yes, companionship was the right word. A little light
in the darkness of loneliness. It hadn't just been the chess or the
drinks; it had been Henry's face over the board, Henry's voice
recounting how things were in his department, a bit of harmless
gossip, a laugh over something.
"So she was whining and bitching in her best 'just call me Billie'
style, but I think it was just habit. She was excited and happy, Dex.
Because she was finally going to be able to get control over the last
... little.., bit." He looked at Dex calmly. "I knew she'd come, you
see. I knew she'd want to see what kind of mess you gotten
yourself into, Dex."
"They're downstairs," Henry told Wilma. Wilma was wearing a
bright yellow sleeveless blouse and green pants that were too tight
for her. "Right downstairs." And he uttered a sudden, loud laugh.
Wilma's head whipped around and her narrow face darkened with
suspicion. "What are you laughing about?" She asked in her loud,
buzzing voice. "Your best friend gets in a scrape with a girl and
you're laughing?"
No, he shouldn't be laughing. But he couldn't help it. It was sitting
under the stairs, sitting there squat and mute, just try telling that
thing in the crate to call you Billie, Wilma--and another loud laugh
escaped him and went rolling down the dim first-floor hall like a
depth charge.
"Well, there is a funny side to it," he said, hardly aware of what he
was saying. "Wait'Il you see. You'll think--"
Her eyes, always questing, never still, dropped to his front pocket,
where he had stuffed the rubber gloves.
"What are those? Are those gloves?"
Henry began to spew words. At the same time he put his arm
around Wilma's bony shoulders and led her toward the stairs.
"Well, he's passed out, you know. He smells like a distillery. Can't
guess how much he drank. Threw up all over everything. I've been
cleaning up. Hell of an awful mess, Billie. I persuaded the girl to
stay a bit. You'll help me, won't you? This is Dex, after all."
"I don't know," she said, as they began to descend the stairs to the
basement lab. Her eyes snapped with dark glee. "I'll have to see
what the situation is. You don't know anything, that's obvious.
You're hysterical. Exactly what I would have expected."
"That's right," Henry said. They had reached the bottom of the
stairs. "Right around here. Just step right around here."
"But the lab's that way--"
"Yes... but the girl..." And he began to laugh again in great,
loonlike bursts.
"Henry, what is wrong with you?" And now that acidic contempt
was mixed with something else--something that might have been
fear.
That made Henry laugh harder. His laughter echoed and
rebounded, filling the dark basement with a sound like laughing
banshees or demons approving a particularly good jest. "The girl,
Billie," Henry said between bursts of helpless laughter. "That's
what's so funny, the girl, the girl has crawled under the stairs and
won't come out, that what's so funny, ah-heh-heh-hahahahaa--"
And now the dark kerosene of joy lit in her eyes; her lips curled up
like charring paper in what the denizens of hell might call a smile.
And Wilma whispered, "What did he do to her?"
"You can get her out," Henry babbled, leading her to the dark.
triangular, gaping maw. "I'm sure you can get her out, no trouble,
no problem." He suddenly grabbed Wilma at the nape of the neck
and the waist, forcing her down even as he pushed her into the
space under the stairs.
"What are you doing?" she screamed querulously. "What are you
doing, Henry?"
"What I should have done a long time ago," Henry said, laughing.
"Get under there, Wilma. Just tell it to call you Billie, you bitch."
She tried to turn, tried to fight him. One hand clawed for his wrist--
he saw her spade-shaped nails slice down, but they clawed only
air. "Stop it, Henry!" She cried. "Stop it right now! Stop this
foolishness! I--I'll scream!"
"Scream all you want!" he bellowed, still laughing. He raised one
foot, planted it in the center of her narrow and joyless backside,
and pushed. "I'll help you, Wilma! Come on out! Wake up,
whatever you are! Wake up! Here's your dinner! Poison meat!
Wake up! Wake up!"
Wilma screamed piercingly, an inarticulate sound that was still
more rage than fear.
And then Henry heard it.
First a low whistle, the sound a man might make while working
alone without even being aware of it. Then it rose in pitch, sliding
up the scale to an earsplitting whine that was barely audible. Then
it suddenly descended again and became a growl... and then a
hoarse yammering. It was an utterly savage sound. All his married
life Henry Northrup had gone in fear of his wife, but the thing in
the crate made Wilma sound like a child doing a kindergarten
tantram. Henry had time to think: Holy God, maybe it really is a
Tasmanian devil... it's some kind of devil, anyway.
Wilma began to scream again, but this time it was a sweeter tune--
at least to the ear of Henry Northrup. It was a sound of utter terror.
Her yellow blouse flashed in the dark under the stairs, a vague
beacon. She lunged at the opening and Henry pushed her back,
using all his strength.
"Henry!" She howled. "Henreeeee!"
She came again, head first this time, like a charging bull. Henry
caught her head in both hands, feeling the tight, wiry cap of her
curls squash under his palms. He Pushed. And then, over Wilma's
shoulder, he saw something that might have been the gold-glinting
eyes of a small owl. Eyes that were infinitely cold and hateful. The
yammering became louder, reaching a crescendo. And when it
struck at Wilma, the vibration running through her body was
enough to knock him backwards.
He caught one glimpse of her face, her bulging eyes, and then she
was dragged back into the darkness. She screamed once more.Only
once.
"Just tell it to call you Billie," he whispered.
Henry Northrup drew a great, shuddering breath.
"It went on ... for quite a while," he said. After a long time, maybe
twenty minutes, the growling and the... the sounds of its feeding...
that stopped, too. And it started to whistle. Just like you said, Dex.
As if it were a happy teakettle or something. It whistled for maybe
five minutes, and then it stopped. I shone my light underneath
again. The crate had been pulled out a little way. Thre was... fresh
blood. And Wilma's purse had spilled everywhere. But it got both
of her shoes. That was something, wasn't it?"
Dex didn't answer. The room basked in sunshine. Outside, a bird
sang.
"I finished cleaning the lab," Henry resumed at last. "It took me
another forty minutes, and I almost missed a drop of blood that
was on the light globe ... saw it just as I was going out. But when I
was done, the place was as neat as a pin. Then I went out to my car
and drove across campus to the English department. It was getting
late, but I didn't feel a bit tired. In fact, Dex, I don't think I ever felt
more clear-headed in my life. There was a crate in the basement of
the English department. I flashed on that very early in your story.