Peter Straub - If You Could See Me Now

I thought of her in there, sealing me to my bargain. The whole upper and rear portions of the house were distorted by flame. I had laughed at Duane without recognizing that I too owned a dream house; and he had paid for my illusions, on the night when they were strongest in me.

“There was a — a person in there,” breathed Alison Updahl. “I thought you were going to die.”

“And I thought you were,” I said. “I didn’t know I could really do anything to stop it.”

“But you could.”

“I was here. That was enough.”

The house was roaring now, making a vast devouring sound. She moved right up next to me. “I saw something horrible,” she said. “Miles—”

“We saw it too,” I told her, cutting off her gasp as she remembered. “That’s why he’s like that.” We both glanced at Lokken, who was kneeling now and looking at the house with red stunned-looking eyes. Blood and vomit covered his shirt.

“If you hadn’t come just then…”

“You would have been killed. And so would I. That’s what it was about.”

“But now that — person — won’t come back.”

“I don’t know,” I said. “I don’t think so. She’ll never come back like that, anyhow.”

The whole house was in the last stage before collapse, and I could feel the heat beating against my face. I had to immerse myself in cold water. Blisters were forming on the palms of my hands. Behind the flames the old building was so skeletal that it looked as though it could float.

“When I dug up our cowdog it smelled like that,” Alison said. “Like inside.”

Boards and rafters began to tumble inward. The entire porch leaned against the wall of flames, sighed like a tired child, and soundlessly sank down into flatness.

“If she doesn’t come back like that, how will she come back?”

“As us,” I said.

“Your father and I loved her,” I said. “I suppose he hated her too, but he named you after her because he loved her first, before he hated her.”

“And he killed her, didn’t he?” she asked. “And blamed it on you.”

“He was just there. It was really Zack’s father. He was the one.”

“I knew it wasn’t you. I wanted you to tell me, out at the quarry. I thought it was my dad.” I could see her throat fluttering, jumping like a frog’s. “I’m glad it wasn’t.”

“Yes.”

“I feel… numb. I can’t feel anything yet.”

“Yes.”

“I feel like I could talk a lot or not say anything at all.”

“I know,” I said.

The sides of the house were still upright, bracketing two open rooms of surging and twisting fire. At the center of a strand of flame stood an immovable shadow, a brief column of dark. Dave Lokken staggered to his feet.

“Is my father…?” She took one of my hands, and her touch was cool.

“We weren’t in time,” I said. “Lokken and I found your father and Polar Bears. Up in the woods. I wish we could have done something. Lokken will bring them down.”

The shadow I was watching as she clung to me darkened in the midst of the fire. Her tears flamed in the damaged skin at the base of my neck.

I led her to my car. I could not stand there any more. His eyes stupid with shock, Lokken watched us getting into the VW. We too were in shock, I knew. My hands and face hurt, but I still could not feel the pain, it was only an abstraction of pain. I backed out into the drive and stopped to look at the house for the last time. Goodby, grandmother, goodby, dream house, goodby dreams, goodby Alison. Hello. Goodby. Goodby, Alison. Who would be back — as a gesture seen on a crowded street, or as a snatch of music heard from an open window, as the curve of a neck and the pressure of a pair of hands, or as a child. Who would always be with us, now. Neighbors were coming slowly up the road, some of them walking, holding dishtowels and tools in their hands, some of them getting out of their pickups with taut, worried faces. Red and Tuta Sunderson were moving slowly across the lawn, going toward Dave Lokken. The old farmhouse was nearly gone and the flames were low. I backed the car through the people and swung it out on the road so that it was facing deeper into the valley.

“Where are we going?” asked Alison.

“I don’t know.”

“My father is really dead?” She put a knuckle in her mouth, knowing the answer.

“Yes. So is Polar Bears.”

“I thought he was the one — the one who killed those girls.”

“I thought so too, for a little while,” I said. “I’m sorry. Polar Bears thought so too for a little while. He was the one that finally put the; idea in my head.”

“I can’t go back, Miles,” she said,

“Fine.”

“Will I have to go back?”

“You can think about it,” I said.

I was just steering, just driving a car. For a while her crying was a wet noise beside me. The road seemed to wind generally westward. I saw only farms and a winding road ahead of me. After this valley there would be another, and then another after that. Here the trees grew more thickly, coming right down to the buildings.

She straightened her back on the seat beside me. There were no more crying noises. “Let’s just drive,” she said. “I don’t want to see Zack. I can’t see him. We can write back from wherever we get to.”

“Fine,” I said.

“Let’s go someplace like Wyoming or Colorado.”

“Whatever you want,” I said. “We’ll do whatever you want.” The curve of a neck, the pressure of a pair of hands, the familiar gesture of an arm. The blisters on my hands began truly to hurl; the nerves in my face began to transmit the pain of being burnt; I was beginning to feel better.

At the next curve of the valley the car trembled and the motor died. I heard myself begin to laugh.

If You Could See Me Now

Julia

Marriages

POCKET BOOKS, a Simon & Schuster division of

GULF & WESTERN CORPORATION

1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, N.Y.

Copyright © 1977 by Peter Straub

Published by arrangement with Coward, McCann & Geoghegan, Inc.

Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 76-57730

All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever.

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ISBN: 0-671-81844-9

First Pocket Books printing February, 1979

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