Edward Lee - Ghouls

“Hooligans,” Kurt muttered, and swerved just in time to miss some beer bottles in the road. “Goddamn scruds think the Route’s their own private bottle depository.” His flipped his visor down, half blind from a wall of glare. “I talked to Dr. Willard today, while you were in Forestville. What’s with all the motion detectors?”

Glen answered with little interest, his mind roaming. “About a week or so ago he started putting it all in. And not just motion, either. He’s got contacts on all the doors and windows, electric eyes on the stairs and second-floor hallways, plus the carpets are all tapeswitched. He’s also got a couple of those closed circuit jobs, with color monitors in the bedroom.”

A fortress. But against what? “Has he ever been burgled, ever been ripped off?”

“Not since I’ve been working for him.”

“How about vandalism?”

Glen slouched back and chuckled. “Couple of Halloweens ago some kids t-p’d the house and filled his mailbox with Crazy Foam.”

More bottles appeared around the bend. Kurt wobbled the wheel almost crazily. Glass popped under the left-rear. “Then what’s he so scared of, that he’s gotta drop a few G’s on security equipment?”

“More than a few,” Glen said. “Ten, at least. He’s even talking about razor-wire and microwave. Rich man’s wild hair, I guess. But you have to admit, the Annapolis B & E wave is slowly moving toward us; maybe the papers are scaring him. I see your point, though. It is kind of strange, in all the years I’ve known him, he’s never been that concerned with the house, just the land. Then in the space of a week he’s got the whole house loaded. Hell, he’s got me to watch his place. What he needs all that junk for I’ll never know.”

A mile lapsed, without a word. When the trees finally blocked out the sun, Kurt asked, “What were you going to tell me yesterday at McGuffy’s?”

Glen’s brow tensed, lips drawing tight, but he said, “Oh, hell, Kurt. I don’t know. I was shit-faced.”

“Something Mrs. Willard had told you. You seemed pretty shook up.”

Glen eased out a laugh, eased the query away. “Just some ghost story she hit me with, that’s all. You know me—when I get ripped I’ll believe anything.”

“You sounded dead serious.”

“Lotta damned nonsense. I didn’t know what I was saying.”

Kurt let it pass, but could it be that simple? Another mile lapsed; he was running out of time. “I’m not one to pry into a guy’s private life, but I know you would tip me off if the situation was reversed…” His throat felt thick, blundering the flow of words. At last he said, “So I guess I better tell you.”

Glen looked over at him, eyes hooded, solemn.

“Willard knows all about you and his wife,” Kurt said.

Glen remained absolutely motionless, as if flash-frozen.

“I’d figured out most of what was going on between you two,” Kurt picked up, “but I’d never mentioned it to you, ‘cause I don’t like to get in other people’s business.”

The words rattled from Glen’s throat. “Are you sure he knows?”

“He told me flat out himself. He said he was certain you and Nancy were having an affair.”

“He must be mad enough to kill me.”

“No, he seemed pretty level about the whole thing. In fact, he implied that he expected it to happen eventually. The guy all but came out and said he’s impotent.”

Glen covered his eyes with his hand. He shimmied down in the seat as if physically shrinking. “Shit. Oh, shit” was all he could say at first. Then he lowered his hand, glancing weakly to Kurt. “How did all this come about? You just happened to stop by, and he told you?”

The Route finally met its end. Kurt whipped into the tricky turn, braking then over the sudden exchange of gravel. Glen’s bungalow lay ahead, hedged in by drooping trees. “Actually, I was hoping you could help me out there,” Kurt said. “Willard’s ready to file a missing persons. Since he knows, you might as well have out with it.”

“A missing p— Why?”

Kurt pulled up and stopped. You bullshitting me, or what? “Willard hasn’t seen his wife since early last night. We thought—”

“But that doesn’t make sense,” Glen said, his insistence snapping. “If she was going to leave, she’d at least let me know before she took off.”

Kurt gave him an abrupt, funky look. “You mean she’s not shacking up with you?”

“No. Hell no.”

“We thought the two of you were planning to go off together. Her car’s still in Willard’s garage, so I figured she was staying here.”

“She’s not here.”

“You wouldn’t be feeding me a line, would you? This is important.”

“She’s not here, Kurt, I swear. I got no idea where she is; this is the first I’ve heard of any of it. I guess I better—” but then Glen’s thoughts seemed to collide. He threw open the Ford’s door. “I—I’ve got to find her. Shit, if she…”

“If she what?”

“Nothing. Never mind. I’ll take care of it.”

Kurt was dismayed. Was Glen lying to his face?

But before Kurt could even think to offer assistance, Glen was already out and in his own car. Backing up, speeding away.

««—»»

His insides seemed to be slowly drawing in; he could hardly swallow, hardly blink, and he pushed his dull blue Pinto past the fringes of recklessness. An hour passed, his mind flashing the same dry horror.

It couldn’t be true. No.

He checked the safest places first. He checked the libraries in Crofton, in Annapolis, in Bowie, praying that he might rush in and find her seated happily in some remote corner of the reference section. She would look up, and he would tell her his fears, and she would shake her head and laugh it all away. But he found only frowning librarians and children who looked at him in quiet terror.

Exhaustion thinly paled his face, blackened his eyes like smears of soot. He blew through red lights and past stop signs, forgetting what they were for. The taverns they sometimes drank at didn’t open till six or seven, but he checked them anyway. All a waste of time.

She must have gone into the woods.

Yes, the woods.

But why?

The TT-what did she call it? TXX? TTX? Yes, TTX. That’s why she went into the woods. That was their plan, but —

“Will it work?”

“It has to. The only problem is a method of effective delivery.”

“What do you mean?”

“Bait. We need bait.”

Bait.

Preposterous. He didn’t believe it, though the things she’d said did seem too wild to be a display of humor. She’d sounded so serious. She’d sounded as though she cared about him. Perhaps that was what he found most impossible to believe.

He didn’t know what to believe anymore.

Perhaps his own impressions were more accurate. How far could the common neuroses of everyday life be from out and out mental illness? He almost hoped that was it, that this entire ordeal could be blamed on a breakdown, a simple case of a woman losing focus on the things in this world that were real and falling prey to the deceptions of illusion. Then he could find her, take her to a doctor, and eventually everything might be okay. They might even be closer in the end.

Or perhaps she had left, as Kurt seemed to suspect, long fed up with her husband, and sufficiently bored by Glen. Had she wiped her slate clean, to displace herself from here, and to start again in a new place with new people? All he could offer was his wholehearted love, and he knew that in this day and age love alone was not enough.

What other alternatives could there be? These were real alternatives, and a testament even to his own soundness of mind. Madness, or relocation. For what else could possibly—