John Lutz - Ride the lightning

"Which of the neighbors do you get along with best?" Nudger asked, after he'd hung up.

Candy Ann thought about that. "Wanda Scathers, in the trailer behind this one." She stopped talking for a moment to ride out a sobbing jag. "The one with the brown awnings."

Nudger told Candy Ann he'd be back soon, then went outside and stepped over a twisted wire fence between the two trailers. A small grayish dog scrambled out from under the Scathers' trailer and started yapping at him as if it had never laid eyes on anything quite so contemptible and threatening. He noticed that its ears were laid back flat against its head, so it was scared and probably bluffing. Or so he told himself as he advanced and the dog retreated, matching him precisely step for step, as if they were performing an intricate Latin dance maneuver Nudger vaguely remembered from the movies.

"Stop it, Buffy! Right now!" the woman in the trailer's open back door shouted.

Magic voice, magic words. Buffy abruptly calmed down. He turned up his pinkish nose at Nudger, blinked several times, then retreated back beneath the trailer where it was cooler, as if to say all this wasn't worth his trouble anyway. Dogs could be fickle that way, not unlike people.

Nudger walked over to the woman, who had waddled down the metal steps and was standing in the shade of the back-door awning. She was in her forties, and hadn't been pretty even twenty years and fifty pounds ago. Her hair was thin and scraggly, and she was wearing bright pink slacks and a clashing green blouse with dark stains down the front. In her right hand was a paint-smeared screwdriver long and thick enough to use as a crowbar.

She looked at Nudger, then glanced down for a second at the screwdriver in her hand. "Been fixin' things," she explained, not smiling.

Nudger tried a smile and introduced himself. "You're a friend of Candy Ann Adams, aren't you?"

She nodded. "We know each other. Talked over the fence from time to time."

"She's suffered a shock," Nudger said. "A friend of hers was killed and she's pretty upset."

Wanda appeared surprised. Apparently she didn't read the newspapers or watch what passed for news on TV. She hadn't known about Curtis' execution and his relationship with Candy Ann. And, obviously, Candy Ann hadn't considered her enough of a friend to confide in.

"Was this person killed in some kinda accident?" she asked.

"You could say that. And you could help Candy Ann by driving over to Walgreen's Drugstore on Watson and picking up a prescription her doctor phoned in."

"How come you ain't going?"

"I think I need to stay with her, the way she is."

Wanda still wasn't sure about Nudger, the ominous stranger. What might he be up to? She peered around him, down along the side of Candy Ann's trailer. "Can't tell, the past several months, whether she's home or not," she said.

"She's home," Nudger said. "And I'm worried about her and telling you the truth. You want to phone her to check?"

But the offer itself was enough. "I guess not." She contorted an arm to reach behind her and scratch between her shoulder blades with the screwdriver. "I'd like to help. Who knows, I might need the same sorta help myself someday. What kinda prescription?"

"Just a sedative to help her sleep off some of her grief. Nothing strong." He looked into Wanda's small brown eyes, imagining her thoughts. Prescription medicine. Drugs. He couldn't blame her for being skeptical. "Everything's legal," he said. "I promise. Nothing crossed but my heart."

"I didn't mean to act like I didn't trust you."

"That's okay," Nudger said. "You should be careful."

"That's the truth, way people are these days."

A thin girl about ten, with Wanda's tiny, vacuous eyes, came to the door. She stood with one hand lightly touching the doorjamb, as if to maintain contact with reality.

Wanda noticed her. "Can you watch your baby sister for a while, Lou Jane? I gotta run an errand."

The girl nodded silently.

Wanda turned back to Nudger, waiting. A large fly touched down on her shoulder. She absently brushed it away and it buzzed into the trailer.

Nudger gave her a ten-dollar bill. "The prescription's in Candy Ann's name, phoned in by Dr. Ochebow from the People's Clinic."

Wanda nodded, pocketed the money, then tossed the screwdriver past Lou Jane onto the trailer floor. Nudger heard it bounce and then roll into the dimness behind the child.

"Back as soon as I can, Lou Jane," Wanda said. "You keep your hands outa them potato chips." She walked heavily around toward the front of the trailer.

Nudger heard a car start after three long, grinding attempts, then saw her drive down Tranquillity Lane in a dented blue Datsun.

He looked at Lou Jane and smiled. Deadpan, she quietly closed the door on him. Such a way he had with women.

He climbed back over the wire fence, knocking it flat and then stooping to bend it erect again. Buffy took that as a signal for mild aggression and emitted a few halfhearted growls from the shadows beneath the trailer. But it was a hot, hot day, and one burst of ferociousness by one small dog was enough. The pills took effect less than an hour after Candy Ann had swallowed the first one. She wanted to sleep where she was sitting in the living room chair, but Nudger forced her to stand and helped her into the tiny bedroom. He was surprised to see that most of the room was taken up by a water bed. He guided her down onto the bed, then timed his actions with the waves so he could remove her sensible waitress shoes.

"Lightnin'," she muttered. "Hit the old tree behind the house. Left it all black and charred. Lordy! Don't let it get me, hear? Hear?"

"I hear," Nudger said. He patted her forehead and waited for her to be quiet, to sleep.

When she was breathing evenly, he left her alone.

He didn't think he should leave the trailer. He had nowhere important to go, anyway. He sat on the sofa in the living room and read dog-eared back issues of People magazine while Candy Ann slept.

After learning a lot about Johnny Carson's diet, Debra Winger's taste in men, Walter Cronkite's boat, and a history of show-business deals struck in hot tubs, Nudger fell asleep himself. Biff Archway was stripped to the waist, dressed like a pirate and struggling with the spoked wheel. Debra Winger was lounging on the deck in a bikini, pointing languidly toward land. Nudger was being interviewed for People by Walter Cronkite on Cronkite's boat.

"So they executed him," Nudger was saying. "Zap! Just like that. Well, not just like that. It took a little longer than they expected. In fact, a lot longer. His flesh sizzled like bacon."

Johnny Carson peered down from the bridge and grinned. "How dead is he?" he asked.

Cronkite laughed like an amiable grandfather. Archway winked at Debra Winger, who smiled. Lightning danced on the horizon.

"Thar she blows!" Archway yelled lustily. He waved his cutlass.

A woman's voice, not Debra Winger's, said, "Mr. Nudger?"

The trailer was dim. Candy Ann was standing over Nudger. Or was he dreaming?

"Why does that bastard get to steer the boat?" he asked.

"Mr. Nudger, wake up." She was shaking his shoulder.

His body jerked and he sat up on the sofa. He looked around, remembering. The boat was gone. So was the ocean.

"You okay?" he asked.

"Better," Candy Ann said. "You been dreaming?"

"I sure hope so." Nudger wiped at his eyes and ran his tongue around the inside of his mouth. His brain was still fogged from sleep. His side was aching from his uncomfortable position on the sofa. "What time is it?"

"Almost nine-thirty," she said. "We both slept for a long spell."

"I'm still tired," Nudger mumbled, and struggled to his feet. A dull pain crept up his right side, reached his armpit, then retreated halfway. It leveled off and was bearable.