Richard Laymon - Tread Softly

"What is it?" Scott asked.

"I called Nick," she said in a distracted, barely audible voice. She was hunched over, elbows braced on the armrests of her chair, staring down with half-shut eyes.

"Can't he make it?" Scott asked.

"Maybe. He's not sure. He's. gotta stay home with Heather. His dad's at the hospital."

"Flash? My God, what happened to him?"

Julie shook her head. "Not him. They got a call, and he went over. It's Alice and Rose." She looked up at Scott with confusion in her eyes. "They were attacked by a dog. This morning. It was supposed to be dead, I guess. Alice hit it with the car, and she was driving it to a vet's to have it. taken care of. Then it attacked them. I guess it bit them."

"Jesus," Karen muttered.

"How bad are they?" Scott asked.

"Nick said they're operating on his mom's hand. It got her worse than Rose. They're in pretty good shape, I guess, except for bites on their hands and arms. Nick said they'd probably be home this afternoon."

"Alice is in surgery?"

"Just for her hand. Some tendons or muscles or something have to be fixed."

"Well. " Sighing, Scott gazed at the shiny surface of his drink. "Thank God it's nothing worse."

Julie rubbed her face with both hands, and leaned back in her chair as if exhausted. "Maybe Benny's right," she mumbled.

"It's just coincidence, honey."

"Is it?"

"Of course. Come on, you don't actually believe that a curse — "

"I don't want to believe it," she said in a tired voice. "But Benny, and now this."

"I admit it's a bit weird, both things happening the same day, but it's just a freakish coincidence."

"Two is a coincidence," Karen said, frowning down at her Bloody Mary. "Three is… I nearly died last night."

Scott gazed at her, stunned.

"I realize accidents happen all the time, people falling in the bathtub, but I've never done it before. Oh, I've slipped a couple of times, but last night I took a real header. If Meg hadn't pulled me out when she did…" Karen smiled crookedly. She stirred her drink with a forefinger, the cubes clinking on the sides of the glass. "I was out cold under the water when she found me. A couple more minutes…" She shrugged a bare shoulder. "I wonder if they really put a tag on your big toe. It seems so ludicrous, doesn't it? I suppose they do. Who's gonna object, right?"

"My God, Karen."

"Are you all right?" Julie asked.

"Well, I'm here to tell the tale. Yeah, I'm okay." Looking at Scott, she raised her eyebrows. "What do you think?"

He felt dazed. He could think of nothing to say. He shook his head.

"Coincidence or the curse?" she prodded.

"I… I just don't know."

"She said she'd get us," Julie muttered.

"On the bright side," Karen said, "at least nobody's been seriously hurt or killed."

"Not yet."

"Look," Scott said, "curse or no curse, sometimes you have bad luck and accidents. These things just happen. We'll only make matters worse if we start thinking that woman's causing it all."

"But what if she is?" Julie asked. "What if this is just the beginning?"

"I don't know," Scott said. "What's your answer? If you're so sure it is the curse, what do you suggest we do about it? Hide? Stop taking showers? Stay home the rest of our lives? Maybe you'd better forget about going to the movies with Nick tonight. The curse might get you."

"You don't have to get nasty."

"I mean it. Where does it take us? Do I quit my job? God knows, I'd damn well better not take up an L1011 with, three hundred passengers aboard if this gal's put a whammy on me."

"When's your next flight?" Karen asked. She looked serious.

"Come on, I was just — "

"When is it, next week?"

"Tuesday. I'm taking the eight-forty to Kennedy."

"This is Thursday. If things keep happening — "

"They won't."

"One way or the other," Karen continued, "we should have a pretty good idea where we stand by then."

"You sound like you're already convinced."

"I'm getting there fast."

"What about you, Julie?"

"I'm going on my date, no matter what."

Benny finished his grilled-cheese sandwich and Coke in the kitchen with Tanya, then excused himself. He carried his book into the den. Through the sliding glass door he saw the others outside. His father and Karen were just beyond the door, Dad reading while Karen was stretched out on a lounge.

Her hands were folded under her head. Her eyes were shut. Her skin looked slick and shiny from her suntan oil. Benny stared at her breasts, only their middles covered by the taut fabric of her swimsuit, their glossy sloping sides clearly visible. They were beautiful except for the bruises. The bruises gave Benny a sick feeling. He wished they were gone.

The black suit dung like skin, showing the curves of her ribs, her flat belly, even the small depression of her navel. It left her hipbones bare, and slanted in sharply down to her groin. Benny stared at the smooth hollows where her legs joined her body. One of the hollows creased as she raised her knee.

He knew that if he watched much longer, he might lose control. So he turned away. He moved a chair so he could still see Karen, and sat down. The view wasn't very good from here. But he felt guilty about spying on her, especially about getting aroused. By crossing a leg, he eased the tight feeling. He opened the book.

Really lucky that the librarian had remembered the title. He'd thought she was nice, from the start, but it took a very special person to bring the book upstairs for him in spite of the way he'd run off leaving such a mess.

His mind returned to the attack. He felt his penis shrink as if trying to hide. As the fear tightened its grip, he forced himself to read the title page.

Witch's Spells and Potions: A Handbook for Witches and Warlocks by Jean Du Champes. He turned to the table of contents, and ran his eyes down the chapter headings:

1. Origins of the Black Arts

2. Journey's Start

3. Tools of the Trade

4. Divining

5. Love Spells

6. Attack Spells

7. Countermagic

8. Forming a Coven

Appendix 1 — Planetary Days and Hours

Appendix 2 — Glossary

Index

Chapter 7, on countermagic, sounded as if it might be what he wanted. Maybe he should start at the beginning, though, and work his way up to it. He riffled through the pages, glimpsing weird diagrams and charts, a strange drawing that looked like a tree woman, lists like recipes, all kinds of poems and chants. He flipped back to the page with the tree woman. It was labeled MANDRAGORE. A leafy bush seemed to grow out of her head. Her body, with outstretched arms and legs, was formed by the root. Benny gazed at the crudely drawn breasts and vagina. Then he was staring out the glass door at Karen, trying to imagine how she would look without her swimsuit. A couple of times he'd accidentally seen Julie naked. But that was different; she was his sister. To see Karen… He forced himself to look away from her, and turned to the end of the book. The last page was numbered 264.

He was not a fast reader. At about twenty-five pages an hour, it would take him at least ten hours to wade through the whole volume. He'd better start with the important chapter. Later, if he had time, he would go back and read it all. That part about love spells. Maybe he could. No! This is bad stuff. It's wrong to mess with it. Dangerous, too. It's okay to use magic to fight the curse, but to put a spell on Karen. The idea excited him, but gave him a heavy, disgusted feeling.

I won't! No matter what!

He flipped back to the table of contents, checked the page number for the countermagic chapter, and quickly turned to it. He found the end of the section. Thirty pages long. With a sigh, he began to read: