The car stopped next to him. "Need a ride?" The smooth voice was seductive, suggestive.
"My dad's coming to pick me up," Billy said. His heart was pounding so crazily that he thought he might have a heart attack.
"Your dad's not coming," the mailman said. His voice was still silky, but there was an undercurrent of menace in it. The passenger door opened. "Get in."
Billy backed away.
"Your dad's not around anymore," the mailman said, and chuckled. There was something about the way he stretched out the word "around" that sent a chill of goosebumpsdown Billy's arms. "Get in."
"No," Billy said.
"You'll get in, and you'll like it." The mailman's arm stretched out through the open door.
And continued to stretch.
And continued to stretch.
Until his cold white fingers were clamped around Billy's throat.
And Billy awoke screaming.
9
It was Doug's turn to make breakfast, and he plugged in the waffle iron and mixed the batter while Tritia went outside to do her morning watering. He stirred the waffle mix absently. The screaming bothered him. Billy had never had a nightmare of that magnitude before. Even after they had calmed him down, convinced him it was only a dream, he was still pale and trembling and he seemed reluctant to let them leave. But he refused to tell them what the nightmare was about. Doug had pressed him, but Tritia had told him with a slight tug on the arm that the questioning could wait until a more opportune time.
Billy had slept the rest of the night on the couch downstairs.
The batter mixed, Doug moved into the living room and peeked out the window. He had placed a letter in the mailbox late yesterday afternoon before Howard came over, a long detailed answering letter to Don Jennings, catching him up on the milestones of his life over the past decade. The red flag on the box was down now, and he glanced over at the clock. Six-thirty-three. The mail was being delivered earlier every day. And on a Saturday. He thought the post office had discontinued Saturday service.
He walked outside onto the porch, down the steps, and up the drive. Last night's storm had not materialized, passing over Willis without even bothering to say hello, but it had left behind it some hellacious humidity. By the time he reached the mailbox, he was already starting to sweat. He opened the metal door.
His letter was gone and in its place was a thin white envelope with striped blue trimming addressed to Trish.
"My tomatoes!"
He could hear Trish's cry from the road. He hurried up the drive to where she stood in the garden, hose in hand. She looked at him and pointed to the plants at her feet. "Thejavelinas got my tomatoes again!" She kicked the ground. "Goddamn it!"Javelinas had eaten her tomato plants each summer for the past three years. Last year, the tomatoes had been greenish red and almost ripe when the wild pigs had raided the garden. This year, Doug had made a little chicken-wire fence around the garden to keep the animals out, but apparently it hadn't worked.
"How are the other plants?" he asked.
"Radishes are okay, zucchini is salvageable, cucumbers are all right, cilantro and the herbs are untouched, but the corn is completely ruined. Damn!"
"Need some help?"
She nodded disgustedly. "We'll redo what we can after breakfast. I'll just finish watering right now."
"We could set traps if you want.Hobie knows how to do it."
"No traps," she said. "And no poison. I hate the little bastards and I
want *hem to die, but I don't want to be the one to kill them."
"It's your garden." He walked around to the front of the house and went up the porch, hearing the sound of slow tired footsteps on the floor as he stepped through the door. He stood unmoving, mouth open in mock incredulity, as Billy headed away from the couch toward the kitchen. "I don't believe it," he said.
"Miracle of miracles!"
"Shut up," Billy said.
"You actually got up on your own."
"I have to go to the bathroom," Billy mumbled, making his way down the hall.
"Wait a minute," Doug said seriously.
Billy turned around.
"Are you all right?"
The boy stared dumbly at him for a moment, then recognition registered on his face. He nodded tiredly and walked into the bathroom, slamming the door and locking it.
Doug deposited the envelope on the coffee table in front of the couch and opened the refrigerator, taking out the butter and jam. From the cupboard he withdrew honey and peanut butter, setting them all on the counter next to the plates. The dirty dishes from last night were still in the sink, but he figured he'd do the dishes all at once after they finished breakfast. He opened the now hot waffle iron and ladled in some batter, closing it and listening to the quiet sizzle, smelling the familiar rich buttermilk odor.
The toilet flushed and Billy came out, walking straight through the kitchen to the living room, where he automatically turned on the television.
"TV on Saturday morning?" Doug said. "That's sickening."
Billy ignored him and turned on a cartoon, settling back into the couch to watch.
Tritia came in, looking hot and angry, as he pulled the first four waffle squares from the iron. "You want these?" he asked.
She shook her head. "Give them to Billy."
"Why don't we go on a picnic today?" Doug suggested, dropping the waffles on a plate. "We haven't done that for a while. It's going to be hot and horrible anyway. We'll go to Clear Creek."
"Sounds good," Billy said from the living room.
Tritia looked at her son, pushed the hair back from her forehead, then nodded her assent. "All right," she said. "Let's do it."
They decided to hike down the path through the green belt rather than drive or walk along the road. It was faster, more fun, and would take them to a less-populated section of the creek. Tritia made them salami-and-cheese sandwiches on homemade bread, and Doug carried the ice chest while she and Billy hauled the folding chairs. To their right, the low gentle slope of the land graduated into a steeper rise, dirt and light sandstone giving way to darker granite. The vegetation changed from pine andmanzanita to aspen and acacia, with longvinelike tendrils of wild strawberries growing parasitically over the rock face, intermixed with ferns and bottlebrush and poison sumac. The trail itsajfwas lined with the tiny red flowers of Indian paintbrush. To their left, the level ground swooped downward to meet the creek, and the path followed this descent in its own late unhurried way.
They heard the creek before they saw it, a low continuous gurgle that sounded remarkably like the peal of distant thunder. As they grew closer, the amalgam of sounds became differentiated and they could hear birds and bugs as well as water. This section of the creek was flanked by saplings -- aspen and cottonwood and sycamore -- that grew in chaotic abundance between the boulders that ran like a second stream along the side of the creek, and they had to walk quite a ways past the bend before finding a flat spot of dirt close enough to the water to set up camp.
They set down the ice chest between their chairs. Billy had worn his cutoffs and, after grabbing a can of Coke, immediately jumped into the creek, splashing wildly to cool himself off. The water level was low, but still deep enough for him to swim. He dogpaddled for a few moments, dunking his head and pushing from rock to rock, then, bored, stood up and began wading upstream.
"Don't go too far!" Tritia called out.
"I won't!" he yelled back.
Doug sat down on his chair. He had brought along the latest Joyce Carol Oates novel to read. He found Gates, as a person,unrelievedly pretentious and phony, and most of her books boring and much too long, but there was something compelling about her as an artist, and he found himself inevitably reading her novels and short-story collections as soon as they came out. He didn't like either her or her work, but he was a fan.