The Year's Best Horror Stories 16 Part 5

EVERYTHING TO LIVE FOR.

by Charles L. Grant.

Born in Newark, New Jersey on September 12, 1942, Charles L. Grant has published over one hundred short stories since his first sale in 1968, and one suspects he has written or edited almost that many books. Novelist, short story writer, anthologist, critic-Grant is one of the premier authors, movers and shakers in the horror genre today. Grant prefers to refer to his own writing as "dark fantasy" and is an exponent of what he likes to call "quiet horror"-as exemplified by his selections for Shadows, an original anthology series published by Doubleday and now in its eleventh volume. While the current trend in horror fiction seems ready to swing toward spatter/gross out exercises sp.a.w.ned by the likes of Friday the 13th on Elm Street Part X or Rambo Meets the Chainsaw Zombies, Grant is a champion of the crusade that subtle is scarier. Have a look.

Hate is a word I only use about my father.

Not him personally, not exactly, but about the things he does that make me want to punch a hole in the wall, or a hole in his face. Like telling me that I can't get on my little sister for going into my room without me saying she can-because Peggy doesn't know any better, Craig, she's too young to understand about privacy; like yelling at me for not listening to my mother when she's talking to me, even though she's always saying the same stuff-that I don't respect her, that I don't care about all the things she's done for me, that I'd better watch my mouth because I'm not too old to be spanked; like wanting me to practically punch a stupid time clock every time I step out the door so, he says, he'll know where I am in case of an emergency, as if I could be back here like Superman if the house were burning down.

Like I have no business in the shed and I d.a.m.ned well better stay the h.e.l.l away from his stuff or I'll be grounded for just about the rest of my life.

In fact, I've never been in there, not since we moved here almost ten years ago. It's a little thing made of wood he built himself, not more than ten feet on a side, with a flat roof and one window; it's stuck in the back corner of the yard under a weeping willow that almost buries it year-round. He doesn't use it much, and when he does go out it's like an army on secret maneuvers or something. He puts on a coat no matter what month it is, picks up his briefcase with his pens and pencils and things, and gives Mother a kiss like he's going to the office.

He likes to think in private, he says.

He comes up with his electronics designs better at night, like writers and artists, poets, and other nuts like that.

I thought maybe he kept some booze there and some p.o.r.n, and used it to get away when my mother was in one of her moods.

I never figured the real reason at all, until last night.

Two weeks ago, after school, I was hanging around the practice field because I wanted to talk to Muldane. He was trying, for the third year in a row, to make first-string catcher, and it was really sad the way he worked so hard out there and failed so badly. I'd been telling him for days to loosen up, get stoned if he had to, but not think that the world would end if he didn't get the spot. But he wouldn't believe me. And he wouldn't believe Jeanne, who stayed away that day because she knew she'd only make him nervous.

So he fell right on his a.s.s a couple of times, missed second base by three or four miles trying to cut down a steal, and generally acted like a goofed-up, hyper freshman. I couldn't watch, and I couldn't look away, so I spent most of the time staring at the gra.s.s and listening to the coach hollering and thinking maybe I should go home and apologize to my sister for tying her sheets into knots the night before.

I didn't know Muldane was done until he flopped down beside me and tried to bend the bars off his catcher's mask.

"Bad, huh?" I said.

"Craig," he said, "I am quitting baseball forever."

"No, you're not."

"I am. No s.h.i.t, Denton, I really am. I am going to join the debate club and talk my way into college, the h.e.l.l with scholarships and c.r.a.p like that."

We sat for a few minutes, watching the coaches weed out the other goofs, watched the creeps from last year strutting around with their chests puffed out to here, and finally watched Tony Pelletti run on the cinder track that goes around the field. He was taller than either of us, and about a hundred pounds skinnier, and probably the fastest man in the world.

"G.o.d," Muldane said glumly. "He's going to catch his own shadow if he doesn't watch out."

"Yeah."

We were jealous. Pelletti would probably go to college for nothing and end up as a wide receiver for some pro football team, making a zillion bucks a season and doing commercials on TV. And the worst part about it was, he was our friend so we couldn't hate him and make up lies so we'd feel better.

Pelletti saw us then and waved, pointed at the coach's back and gave him an elaborate and elegant finger.

I laughed, and Tony bowed as he ran by.

Then Muldane slammed his mask against the ground a few times, and I checked the sky to see if it would rain.

This wasn't the way I'd planned things to happen. I was the one who needed someone to talk to; I was the one who had just been with the princ.i.p.al, getting suspended for a week because I cut a few lousy cla.s.ses. Muldane was supposed to cheer me up, and this wasn't like him. He knew he was a rotten catcher; he knew he'd never play anything more than park baseball with the guys; he knew that, and now he was acting like he was going to bust out crying.

I was disgusted. The jerk was letting me down when I needed him the most.

I got up and nudged him with a toe. "C'mon, let's go find Jeanne and get a burger or something."

He shook his head, yanking at his cap, slapping that mask on the ground again and again.

"Mike, for crying out loud, it isn't the end of the world, you know. You can always-"

"Craig, shut up, will you?"

I stared at the top of his head. He'd never told me to shut up before, not that way, and I didn't know whether to feed him a knuckle sandwich or kick in his b.u.t.t.

Then he looked up at me, fat cheeks shining and those pale eyes all watery, and he said, "My old man, the sonofab.i.t.c.h, will call my brother at college tonight. He's gonna tell him what happened, and my brother's gonna laugh." He looked away, at the ball field. "I could've done it, Denton. I was trying, you saw me trying out there. But he's like everybody else, y'know? Always pushing, never giving you a chance to think, and you gotta think once in a while, you gotta rest, right? I could've made it if he'd just given me the chance. I ain't great, but he just wouldn't let up, and he made me blow it. You know what I mean? He made me blow it."

There was nothing more then but the guys laughing, a plane overhead, the wind against the ground; and Mike just sitting there, pulling on his cap.

I should have talked to him then, I guess. I should have gotten back down beside him and made him laugh. But I was so mad, so d.a.m.ned mad because he didn't know the trouble I was in and didn't care because he hadn't made the stupid baseball team, that I shoved my hands in my pockets and said, "Christ, Mike, when the h.e.l.l're you gonna grow up, huh?"

And I walked away, across the gra.s.s, across the cinder track, and around the side of the school to the front.

I thought about going home and telling the folks the truth right off and getting it over with. But that was a scene I wasn't about to rush, especially since it meant I would probably have to spend that whole week in my room, studying, and then doing everything around the house I hadn't done in the past sixteen years.

So I walked without knowing where I was going, just hoping that an angel would suddenly land beside me and get me out of this mess before I was skinned alive and hung out to dry.

I was scared.

I was never so scared in my whole life.

And I was mad because I was feeling like a little kid, flinching every time a grown-up looked cross-eyed at me, thinking that everyone in the whole world was pointing a finger at me because they knew what I had done.

And it really wasn't all that bad. Mr. Ranto, my chemistry teacher, kept telling me I should be working harder, that I was smarter than I let on, and he wasn't going to be the one to pa.s.s me on to the next level just on my good looks. So he made me miserable, giving me work and work and work until I couldn't take it anymore and just stopped going. Just like that. I either hid out down in the gym, or out behind the school, taking a smoke with the greasers who couldn't figure out what the h.e.l.l I was doing there, but as long as I had the b.u.t.ts they weren't going to argue.

Ranto caught me that morning.

A few minutes later, wham!-suspension, no appeal.

I walked for over an hour, I think, through parts of town I never knew existed. Houses that looked like they were painted every month, with big cars in the driveway, green lawns a mile long, porches big enough to hold the whole junior cla.s.s. And down below the shopping district, houses just the opposite-brown no matter what color they were, hardly any gra.s.s, hardly a window that didn't have a shade that wasn't crooked or a curtain that wasn't torn. They looked the way I felt.

And when I pa.s.sed Muldane's place, I saw it in a way I never had before-a place to get away from for the rest of your life, not a place to go home to when you've had a rotten day.

Jesus, I thought, and remembered what I'd said-when the h.e.l.l're you gonna grow up? I hated myself because I sounded just like my father-grow up, boy, but don't forget to act your age.

I turned around right away and ran back to the school, thinking maybe Mike was still there so I could talk to him and make a joke about my sudden vacation.

He was gone.

The field was deserted, and so was the school.

And there isn't anything quite so empty as a school that doesn't have anyone in it. Then it looks just like a small factory. It doesn't make any difference how new it is, how fancy-it's worse than a prison, it's a graveyard hidden by brick and tinted gla.s.s.

Thinking all that, and wondering where it was coming from, I was beginning to spook myself, so I headed home and thanked all my good luck charms that Dad was still at work and Mother and Peggy were at the store. It gave me a chance to work on my story, to look for the right b.u.t.tons to push so I wouldn't get killed when they heard my big news.

And just as it was getting dark, I looked out the kitchen door, down to the shed. It was a black hole in the twilight, the window not even reflecting the lights from the house.

What the h.e.l.l, I thought; I can't get into worse trouble than I am. Besides, Dad had been going out there a lot lately, and I was getting curious as to what he really did there at night.

I went outside, and suddenly felt as if a spotlight were going to pin me to the ground the minute I took another step. It was stupid, but I couldn't help it, and I almost turned around and went back. I didn't. I walked across the wet gra.s.s, went to the door, and turned the k.n.o.b; it was locked. I cupped my hands around my eyes and peered through the window.

I knew my father had some kind of workbench in there, but whenever I'd snuck looks before, it was always covered. There was also an armchair, a side table, and shelves on the walls.

And something else.

Something I thought I saw in the far corner when, before I could move, headlights slashed up the driveway and washed the lawn a dull white.

I wasn't sure, but I thought it looked like a crate.

I ran back before I was caught, went around the house to the front to wait for dear old Dad to get out of his fancy car. But he didn't. He just sat there, his head all dark like an executioner's mask, and I could only stare back at him until he rolled down his window and told me to get in.

He didn't look happy.

Oh s.h.i.t, I thought; and walked over. It wouldn't do me any good to make him madder than he was.

"A little trouble, huh?" he said as soon as I got in.

I shrugged.

"You don't like chemistry or something?"

"It's okay."

"You don't like Mr. Ranto, then? What?"

I tried to explain. How they kept pushing me, kept coming at me, kept giving me all this load of c.r.a.p about how good I was and how clever I was and how I ought to make my family proud because I was the smartest person in it for a hundred generations. They wouldn't let me alone, so I left them alone instead.

He didn't interrupt me once.

And when I was done, feeling shivery and stiff and wishing he would at least look at me when I was talking, he tapped a finger on the steering wheel and stared at the silver ornament at the end of the hood.

It was darker now, the moon lifting over the house, and the headlights made the gla.s.s in the garage door grow glaring white eyes.

"You're a jacka.s.s, you know," he said very calmly.

"Wonderful," I muttered, and reached for the handle.

That's when he grabbed me.

That's when he took my arm and yanked me back so that I was lying half on my side and staring up into his face.

"Listen, you s.h.i.t," he said, still calmly, "I will think of a way to explain this to your mother so you don't get killed and she doesn't get hysterical. But you'd d.a.m.ned well better swear to me right now-and I mean right now, boy-that you won't pull a stunt like this again for as long as you live or I'll swear to you that you won't live long enough to see it happen a third time."

"Let go of me," I said, but he only tightened his grip and I felt as if my arm were coming out at the shoulder.

"Swear," he said, sweat suddenly lining his forehead.

"All right, all right!"

He smiled.

He actually smiled at me when he let me up; and as he slid out, he said, "Hey, I heard on the radio some kid killed himself this afternoon. Hung himself in the backyard, I think. You know him? Name's Falkenberg, I think."

I did-not like a friend, just someone you saw around in the halls. But it chilled me just the same. A boy, my age, taking his own life. Something, it said on the news that night, about pressures, grades, maybe drugs and liquor. Mother said it was a shame; Dad only looked at me as if I should be grateful she had something else to think about instead of me, for a change.

I didn't say anything. I didn't even object when, the next morning, he took me to school and we had a long session with the princ.i.p.al. When it was over, I was reinstated, my name practically in blood that I would go to every cla.s.s, do every bit of homework, and respect my teachers for the betters they were.

I almost threw up.

But it was too close to the end of the year for me to really screw up, so I smiled like a jerk, nodded, promised the moon, and spent the rest of the day explaining to the others how I'd beaten the rap.

To everyone, that is, except Mike, who didn't come to school.

Jeanne wouldn't talk to me, either, and I couldn't figure that out. She acted like she was really mad at me, but she wouldn't tell me why, and no one else could, either.

At the time, I didn't push it. Girls had never been my strongest subject. I knew, sort of, what I was supposed to do with them, but there was something that always held me back whenever I tried to talk to them. They seemed so much smarter than me, so much older, that they only made me confused, and that made me angry.

When I called Muldane that night, his father told me he didn't want to talk to anyone. He sounded drunk. I wasn't surprised.

Mike wasn't in school the next day, or the day after, he wouldn't answer my calls, and when I went over there once he wouldn't come to the door.

I didn't cut a single cla.s.s.

That's important. I was trying. I was really trying. I smiled at the teachers, I didn't argue with my mother, I even helped my little sister with her homework one night.

I was trying. Honest to G.o.d, I was trying.

And I think it was because of Mike. We were a lot alike, and always had been. Our folks didn't understand us, not really, and they didn't seem to want to try. My father just disappeared into his workshop and shut me out with a key; Mike's old man shut him out with a slap to the jaw and a bottle. We were both counting on college to get us away, but the more we worked, the harder it was to please anyone, much less those we had to.

It was like Pelletti, in a way-running around and around on that stupid red-cinder track and not getting anywhere at all except back where you started, back in the kitchen where they told you you were no good.

On Wednesday night, late, Dad had a phone call, kissed my mother good-night, and told me to go to bed.

"Something wrong?" I asked.