Murder At Byrd House
A Nightmare In Thirteen Acts
by M Alford (c) 1998
Chapter two
In a spacious, empty house on the better half of town a young, engaged couple, Dominic Andrews and Kate Allan, were sitting on the floor of their soon-to-be living room, opening the engagement gifts they'd bought for each other. Dominic and Kate were both employed at the local news station; Dominic as an anchor, Kate as a journalist. They had fallen in love one sunshiny day while covering the opening of a Baskin Robbins downtown. Both found they liked the same jazz musicians; both liked the same style of Ashley Lauring contemporary furniture. Both coincidentally had almost the exact same shade of red hair; Dominic's was neat and well-trimmed, and Kate's was usually in a ponytail or a bun, and they took this, among other things, as signs that they were destined to be together. The perfect yuppie couple. They were so damn cute and photogenic; they looked like they'd been plucked directly off a wedding cake. As they sat on the polished hardwood floor unwrapping gifts, they chattered in lover's baby talk to each other. "I wuv you soooo much!" Kate gushed to her fiancée.
Dominic shook his head. "Not as much as I wuv you!" he answered, smiling.
Kate shook her head. "No, I wuv you more... oh, honey!" She had unwrapped one of her gifts. "How thoughtful! A meat dehydrator! That's exactly what we need!!" They grinned at each other, totally in love.
Suddenly the front door banged open, and Kate's old school friends, Roy and Pat Moloney, came barging into the living room. Roy and Pat had been married five years and had two young children, a boy and a girl, and lived in the apartment complex down the street. Pat was pale and tall, with dishwater blond hair, and supported the family by working as a short order cook at a restaurant downtown. Roy was portly and also blonde, and had a strange habit of wearing horizontally striped shirts. The pair complimented each other well, for Pat was quiet and brooding, and Roy was loud and obnoxious. "Howdy, neighbors!" called Roy heartily. "Got any food?"
Dominic and Kate's happy expressions dropped off their faces like snow off a hot roof. "I thought you said you didn't tell them where we'd moved to!" Dominic whispered to his fiancée.
Kate looked equally nervous at the appearance of their stalker-like neighbors. "Well... gee, Roy, all our food's in our fridge... and it's not here yet. You can see none of our furniture's here--"
Pat, Kate's on-again off-again friend since junior high, frowned at her, as she often did. "It stinks in here," she said, her voice flat and emotionless. She pulled out a can of Lysol and tore off part of Roy's grease-smeared shirt and started wiping the already-immaculate walls.
Roy slapped Dominic on the shoulder and nearly knocked him across the room. "Well, so you're finally joining the ranks of us marrieds, huh bud? Finally got her legs apart, huh?" He guffawed like a horse.
Kate, a notorious prude (her parents were both devout Catholics) turned a shade of red almost as deep as her hair. Roy laughed even louder at that. "Aw, I'm just kidding! Here, we got you a wedding present!" He handed Dominic a slip of paper.
Dominic stared at it. "A lotto ticket?"
Kate was still miffed by Roy's former crack. "What kind of present is that?" she muttered. "It's not a winner, otherwise you'd have cashed it in. That's completely worthless, Roy." She glared darkly at him.
Roy waved his hand as if he were pushing all protests away. "Oh, I know if you guys win you'll share with us! That was the deal, right? First one to hit the lotto shares it with the others!"
"That's why you've kept in touch all this time," muttered Dominic under his breath.
Pat scowled. "Nobody ever wins the lotto. It's a ripoff, like everything else in life."
Roy gave her a look, knowing she was annoying the other two and damaging their chances of a favorable day. "Well, gee, you're cheery today! Come on, let's all go to the store and get some food to eat! Uh..." he turned to Kate and Dominic, putting on an appropriately sheepish look. "You've got money, right? We'll owe you big!"
"Where have I heard that before," murmured Dominic, not quite to himself.
Kate looked desperate. "Well... I'm sorry, Roy, but our food money's used up for this week!" This was a lie. Dominic and Kate made more than enough to keep themselves in haute cuisine well into the next century.
Roy knew how to respond to this. "But I'm hungreee!!" he whined loudly. "Come on Kate, you and Pat have been pals since high school! You owe her something!"
Kate turned around to find everyone staring at her, waiting. In their eyes she could see their desperation: Roy was begging with her to agree, Dominic was pleading with her to decline, and Pat was just glaring, anticipating this to be another in a long series of imagined betrayals.
Kate gulped. "Uh... well... I guess we could go out and get a little something..." she mumbled diplomatically.
Dominic looked disappointed. Roy cheered, having again bent someone to his will. "All right! Come on, Pat, let's get the rental! We'll follow you guys in that crappy car of yours!" he said to the other couple.
Dominic was disgusted. "At least ours is paid for," he murmured.
Roy guffawed. "Unfortunately for you! Aw, when we win the lotto we'll buy you a new one! Come on, Pat, we've still got to stick the rugrats somewhere!" They turned to leave out the front door, Roy not quite whispering to his wife, "God, you're right, their house does stink!" As he vanished out the door the unidentified smell, a cross between sweaty socks and hot salsa, left with him.
Dominic turned to Kate, giving her a despairing look. Kate sighed. "Don't say it, I know, I know. Look, what was I supposed to do? They're right, Pat is my best friend. I do owe her."
"For what?" he asked, gently exasperated. "Kate, what has she ever done for you that you owe her so dearly? In the meantime, there's that twelve hundred dollars that they borrowed -- ha, borrowed! "Borrowed" implies an intent to pay it back! That con artist husband of hers -- you know he is, Kate, he's as slick as Exxon -- he's given us the snowjob left and right! We can't even afford to support ourselves, much less those two AND their two kids besides! What about what they owe us? Besides which... I thought I was your best friend." He gave her a sad, puppy-eyed look.
Kate loved that look. She rolled her eyes, smiling. "I think I do smell something," she said. "Another snowjob."
Dominic, faux-dismayed, pantomimed being shot with an arrow in the heart, and collapsed on the floor. Giggling, Kate joined him on the floor, and they ended up kissing. Kate smiled down at him. "You've got paper stuck to you. Here--" She plucked it off his cardigan vest. "Oh, it's that stupid lotto ticket!" She scratched it off, pulling a frown. "A loser, of course. That dumb Roy."
There was a knock at the front door. Dominic got to his feet. "I'll get it. They probably ran out of gas and want to borrow another five hundred bucks." He opened the door.
On the other side was a pair of men. The younger one bore a frightening resemblance to Dick Clark. "Hello, Dominic Andrews and Kate Allan! We're here to inform you that you have just won ten million dollars in our Big Huge National Sweepstakes!" He shoved a giant check in Dominic's arms, plus a handful of brightly colored balloons.
Kate came to the door, wide-eyed. "Both of us? But we're not married yet!"
The small, somewhat bug-eyed man shrugged. "Doesn't matter! It's all surplus! We don't get to spend any of it, so we don't care how much we give away!"
His companion, an older, silver haired gentleman with a large nose and dark glasses, nodded. "We're being hunted by the FBI as we speak!"
Kate looked awed. "Wow! What luck!"
The older man shook their hands. "Congratulations on becoming America's newest millionaires! We'll leave inconspicuously now so as not to attract the police! But you two will be featured on national television, where every cutthroat and undesirable will hear about your new windfall!"
Dominic grinned at that. "Gee, thanks!"
The younger man waved. "See ya!" He threw a handful of confetti in Dominic's face. They left, slamming the door.
Dominic and Kate looked at the check with wide eyes, then started shouting for joy, hugging each other. Kate whooped. "Ten million dollars!! Can you believe it?! Oh, wait till I tell--" She stopped short, eyes wide. "We can't tell anybody! Oh God, we can't even spend the money in this town! The first halfway expensive thing we buy, Pat and Roy will hear about it, and they'll never go home again!"
There was another knock at the door. Kate and Dominic looked at each other in horror. "They know already!" Dominic exclaimed. "Pretend we're not here!" They set about stuffing the giant check and the balloons in the closet, trying to sweep the confetti in with their feet. From outside they heard Roy's voice calling, "Hey, open up! We know you're in there!"
Kate and Dominic resignedly opened the door. Roy and Pat burst in the house. "Hey, neighbor best-friends-for-life!! Congratulations! We just heard about your great news!"
Kate drew a breath, nervous. "Uhh, what great news is that, Roy?"
Roy snickered. "Oh, holding out on us, huh? Come on, we know you just won ten million dollars! The guys outside told us so! They sure looked familiar, wonder where I've seen them before?"
Dominic looked incredulous. "How about... television?!"
Pat scowled. "We NEVER watch television," she growled.
Kate saw an opportunity. "Well... gee, I don't know what they're talking about. You listen to every bum on the street, Roy? No, we rubbed off that ticket you gave us, but it was a loser. No money from that. Here, look." She gave him the lottery ticket.
Roy took it, studying it carefully. His brow furrowed, he looked convinced. "Well..."
"WHAT'S THE CONFETTI FROM," Pat asked menacingly.
Dominic and Kate looked at each other, speechless. Bits of confetti were still strewn on the floor. Dominic struggled to come up with an explanation. "Party!" he finally blurted out.
"Housewarming!" Kate answered at them same time. Then, thinking better of it, she added "...party!" She grinned desperately.
Roy snickered. "Wow, some party. You guys need to come down to the complex sometime. THOSE guys know how to party!"
"Can't wait." Kate pushed the two toward the door. "Go on, guys, we'll be with you in a second. See ya!" Before she shut the door she heard Pat mutter, "Thrown out, as usual." Slam.
Dominic gave Kate a look. "Still call her your best friend?" he asked.
Kate sighed. "I can't just cut her out of my life, just like that. I have to at least try to help her and Roy out, if only because we used to be good friends. It's the right thing to do."
Dominic sighed too. "Yeah, well, I hope that goodwill doesn't extend to cutting them in on the ten million. Good save, by the way. You were brilliant!"
Kate shook her head. "If I was really brilliant, I'd know what to tell them when we suddenly start getting all this money. I almost feel like moving again -- someplace really far this time, not just across the country."
"Mars wouldn't be far enough from those two." For lack of something to do, Dominic picked up the mail and sat down on a packing crate to sort through it.
Kate began pacing, worried. "Even if we could just get away on a vacation... I was hoping to relax on our honeymoon, but who knows when that'll be? With the wedding, and trying to get this house... I need time to think."
Dominic was staring at a letter. "I think I just found it. Listen to this, it's from Carmody Bavsurius Enterprises: 'To Kate Allan and Dominic Andrews; You have been cordially invited to spend a weekend at beautiful Byrd House--"
Kate giggled as he pulled her onto his lap. "Birdhouse?!" she exclaimed, reading the letter.
Dominic went on. "--'a rustic Victorian retreat on the edge of magnificent Byrd Lake. This package includes three days and two nights, complete with room and board in return for services to be rendered'--"
Kate frowned. "Wait a minute, what? What services?"
"It doesn't say. It just says 'services to be rendered... for the good of the house... entertainment industry' --whoa, entertainment? What's that supposed to mean?"
Kate made a face. "Sounds creepy."
"Yeah, we should give it to Pat and Roy; they'd enjoy that sort of thing." Dominic snickered.
Kate hit him playfully. "That's mean!" she chided. But she was smiling when she said it.
Dominic was reading to himself. "Here's something. 'Completely wholesome and safe endeavor, bring only yourselves and clothing for a week' -- wait, what happened to three days and nights?"
Kate shrugged. "Well, maybe it takes a few days to get there. Wait, how would they know that? Where's that letter from, anyway?" She peered over his shoulder, trying to read.
Dominic's dark eyes widened behind his wire-rims. "Good grief. Listen: 'You and your lovely fiancée deserve a reward for winning the ten million dollar jackpot. Why not celebrate with us?'" He looked at Kate in awe. "How do you suppose they knew about that? We only found out ourselves ten minutes ago!"
Kate looked as amazed as her fiancée. "Well... maybe it's part of the jackpot!"
Dominic nodded. "Okay, where's the name of the sweepstakes company? You've seen their envelopes before, they plaster their name all over the place. Plus, how did they know we're engaged? Your name's on the envelope, too -- your maiden name, they knew enough to put that on there. And they knew enough to know they'd get us at the same address."
Kate was silent. "Oh... it's gotta be coincidence," she murmured.
"Good grief!" Dominic stared at the letter. "Here's another thing they know!"
"What?!"
Dominic grinned. "That you're lovely. How do you suppose they know that?"
Kate smiled, rolling her eyes in embarrassment, and they were just about to start kissing when the door started banging again. From beyond the door they heard, "Hey, hurry it up in there! We're starving!"
Dominic and Kate looked at each other. "I'm up for going to this place if you are," he said. "Anything to get away from them." He nodded toward the door, which sounded like it was being besieged by a battering ram.
Kate nodded. "We can set out tomorrow," she agreed.
"Tomorrow?" Dominic was aplombed. "Why not tonight? Why don't we drive there right now?"
Kate admitted the idea was tempting. "But what about Pat and Roy? We just promised to take them to dinner!"
Dominic rolled his eyes. "It won't kill them to miss a feeding," he said, rather cynically. "Come on, Katie, you don't really want to spend the evening with them, do you?"
His voice was in her ear, like a little imp whispering wonderfully wicked alternatives to doing the right thing. Kate couldn't resist him when he did that. A smile spread over her face, and she nodded, agreeing.
They got up and walked to the door, and just as they reached it it came crashing open. Roy and Pat were standing on the other side. "Today, people, today!" Roy shouted impatiently.
Kate and Dominic looked at each other. "Actually, Roy," spoke Kate, "we just remembered we can't take you out to eat tonight. There's, uh, an important story breaking across town and we have to cover it." She looked at Dominic, it was a good lie.
Unfortunately, Roy and Pat both immediately saw it for what it was. "If it's a breaking story, how could you just remember it?" asked Pat darkly.
Kate was flustered; she hadn't expected them to figure it out. "Uh... well, that is..."
"We got the call right before you came over," Dominic rescued her.
"You're such a liar!" sneered Roy. Pat elbowed him.
Now Kate was angry. "Don't call him a liar!" she snapped. "You know, I've had just about enough of having to tiptoe around you, feeling like everything we do is wrong! Every time we buy a new piece of furniture, or spend money on anything, you make us feel so guilty, like we should be giving it to you!"
"You should!" Roy snapped back. "You're supposed to be our friends! We're the ones with two kids to support! You're not going to use it for anything important, why can't you spread the wealth a little?"
"Why don't YOU support your kids for once, Roy?" Dominic returned. "Why should we have to do it? Get your own cash!"
Roy looked abused. "You know darn well I can't work because of my cracked animyotic lobe," he said pitifully. "That is low, Dom, I don't mind telling you. Hitting me in my weak spot. That's the way of a small, sad man."
"Oh, please!" Dominic was getting frustrated. "You and your cracked lobe! What is an animi... ani... nobody can even pronounce it! I don't think it even exists!"
Roy stepped closer. "Are you callin' me a liar?!"
"Why not? You just called me one!"
"Okay, okay!" Kate stepped between the two men, raising her arms. "That's enough! That's it!" She turned to Pat and Roy. "The truth is, we're going on vacation. We're going to be gone for a week, maybe two, and we're leaving right now, that's why we can't take you out tonight. Now you can read into that whatever you want, but in any case I think you should go home now." She tried to stare them down without fear. She felt Dominic's warm hand on her back and was reassured.
Which was good, because she felt like she was staring down into two icy black holes. Both Pat and Roy were glaring angrily at her. "Fine," grumbled Roy. "Come on Pat; let's leave your BEST FRIEND and her boytoy alone." He turned and stomped down the walk.
Pat stayed where she was. "I could kill you," she growled in her deepest voice. Then she turned and followed her husband down the walk. They got into their shiny rental car and tore out of the driveway.
Kate stood on the doorstep, shaking. She no longer felt reassured. Dominic's hand was barely a warm speck on her shoulder now. "They'll get over it," she heard his voice in her ear.
Kate wanted to believe it was so. But she was cold all over. "I think I've just made a bad mistake," she murmured.
*******
Fifteen minutes later the Pedestrians were living up to their name as they trudged along the dusty sand road. The sun had faded beneath an overcast sky, which was getting hazy and greyer by the minute. The heat had not dissipated, however, and the band was sweltering as they walked along. "Okay," huffed Marie, "now I'm really hot."
"Wait," gasped Andy, slowing down. "Wait, guys, hold up!"
Dalia did so, wiping her forehead. She had mastered the neat trick of using a strand of her long blonde hair to tie the rest of it back into a ponytail with. She frowned, lifting her head. "Do you hear something?" she asked.
Buddy looked down the road. "Sounds like a car."
The Peds listened to the sound of a car, invisible in the surrounding forest. "Man, that gives me the creeps," said Marie. "Can't see him, just hear him. Brrr."
"Do you hear that noise, though?" asked Andy. "It almost sounds like... music."
They fell silent. A faint beat could be heard beyond the noise of the distant engine. "Freddy is coming and he's gonna serenade us to death!" jeered Marie.
"He's coming! I see the car!" said Dalia.
A cloud of dust could now be seen through the trees. The beach road rumbled, and a huge Cadillac appeared around the bend. As it got closer, they saw a set of long steerhorns on the front of the car. "Good grief," murmured Marie, "we're being rescued by J.R. Ewing."
"Beggars can't be choosers," Dalia pointed out. "Besides, he's kind of cute!"
Though the Peds didn't yet know it, the man in the car was Durk Durock, washed up B-western star. His cowboy hat was cocked at a rakish angle, making his rugged handsome features even more ruggedly handsome. "What the heck is that in the car with him?" asked Buddy, eyebrows raised.
Durk's white mare Cubic Zirconia was sitting beside him in the Caddy, courtesy of the fact that the front seat had been ripped out to accommodate her. She hung her head out the window, looking less than energetic, pink mane flapping in the breeze. "Pink?!" repeated Andy.
"I hope that's vegetable dye!" Dalia looked worried.
"Which vegetable?" Buddy stared. "Pepto Bismol?"
As the car neared, the Peds realized what the other noise had been: the stereo was blaring the old '80's tune "I Wanna Be A Cowboy", which Durk was lip-synching to. "What a dork!" murmured Marie as the car pulled alongside.
Durk cut the engine and leaned over the side of the car, nudging his cowboy hat up on his head, revealing his piercing blue eyes. He looked the girls up and down, surrendering an appreciative grin. "Howdy, gals," he greeted. "What are two pretty fillies like you doin' way out in these parts?"
Buddy snickered loudly in the back, which Andy tried to cover up. "Hi there!" he greeted, ever-friendly, stepping forward. "Our car broke down, do you think you could--"
Durk didn't even give him a look. "Don't believe I was talking to you, son," he drawled. He had a thick Western-movie accent. He smiled at the girls. "Car's on the fritz, huh? That's what you get for buying that foreign junk."
Marie, as a rule, didn't much care for anyone who was more unbearable than she was. "At least our car doesn't have pink hair," she served back. "You know you can get in trouble with the ASPCA for that, don't you?" She nodded at Cubic, who looked embarrassed under her fuchsia coif. "What's that on her backside? You didn't brand her, did you?!"
Dalia went around to the other side of the car to check out the mark on the horse's rump. "No, thank goodness!" she exclaimed, relieved to find that the mark was natural. "You poor thing, you're so pretty!" She rubbed Cubic's muzzle.
Andy came over too, squinting at the mark. "What is it?" It was the strangest marking he'd ever seen. "Wow, that's... gee, that almost looks like a butterfly!!"
Marie and Buddy chortled uncontrollably. "A butterfly!" Marie giggled at Durk. "What, you couldn't draw a smiley face?! Ha ha ha ha ha....."
Durk's blue eyes were flashing icily. "She was born like that!" he snapped indignantly.
Buddy grinned. "What kind of cowboy rides a horse with a pink mane and a butterfly butt?!"
Durk looked about fed up, and probably would have left right then, but Dalia knew how to handle this. "Hey, mister, do you think you could help us out? You must know a lot about automotive stuff." She blinked innocently, using her angelic looks to their fullest.
Durk's scowl vanished, and he grinned hugely, falling for it. "Well, sure little lady!" he answered, doing a remarkably bad impression of John Wayne. "I can help you out, no problemo!"
Andy looked relieved. "You mean you can fix our car?!"
Durk blinked, offput by the idea of actually having to fix anything. "Well, uh... sure, son, but I tell you what; I bet you're all dying to get to a town and a spot where you can bed down for the night, right?"
"Actually, we'd rather get back on the road," piped up Buddy.
Durk's eyes shifted. "Uh-huh," he murmured, trapped. The main reason he owned a '66 Caddy was because he had no idea how to fix anything built after 1979. "Heh... well, all right, then. Hop on in my chariot and we'll go take a look."
Andy stared. "Hop in? Where?" he blurted out. The horse was taking up most of the car's interior.
Buddy shrugged. "There's plenty of room in the back. We can all scrunch in there."
Durk smirked. "No need to cramp the lovely ladies up back there. You gals can ride up front with me." He made it sound as if he was offering them a fortune in jewels.
Marie looked horrified. "What, with that smelly old horse?!"
Durk was offended. "This is Cubic Zirconia! She's been with me for years! I raised her up from a little colt! She's more reliable than a car, and more faithful than a woman, I'll tell ya! I LOVE my horse!"
"Well, that's illegal," smirked Marie.
But they all piled into the Cadillac, and when they'd all gotten into more or less comfortable positions, Durk dropped the car into drive and they tooled off down the sandy road, as thunder grumbled above the tops of the pine trees.
*******
Meanwhile Dr. V. and the young woman were driving along the road in her car. The driver looked over at her passenger. She smiled, her former wrath cooled down. "It's Yolanda," she told him. "Yolanda Love."
Dr. V. looked up. "Oh... Dr. Henry Verboten." He shook hands with her.
Yolanda raised an eyebrow. "Oh, you're a doctor! How nice! Do people call you Hank?"
Dr. V. blinked. "Actually, they don't even call me Henry."
Yolanda shrugged. "Oh, okay. I'll just call you Dr. Verboten. That's German, isn't it? For forbidden?" She grinned. "I'm Italian Catholic myself." She gave him a sidelong glance. "So tell me, Dr. Verboten, what are ya gonna do in Timberton, anyway?" Outside the car, somehow perfectly audible over the motor, a wolf howled.
Dr. V. sighed. "Well, I was going to a meeting, but some dizzy bro-- I mean, one of my patients... uh, well, she's suing me for malpractice." His eyes shifted nervously.
Yolanda shook her head. "That's too bad. I've always admired doctors."
Dr. V. felt the need to make himself clear. "Actually, I'm a gynecologist."
Yolanda raised an eyebrow. "That's even better."
Dr. V. cleared his throat. "Uh, what do you do for a living?"
Yolanda shrugged. "Oh, nothing much. I'm an actress, really. But it's not paying much right now, so in my spare time I'm a stripper."
Dr. V. swallowed. "How... how nice." He took out his Pez dispenser and popped a few.
Yolanda looked over. "Hey, candy! May I?" He let her have one, which she stared at for a moment. "This isn't Pez. Whoa, what is this stuff?! Hey, mister, I'm not into that kind of thing!" She handed back the tablet, a small red and blue capsule.
Dr. V. shook his head. "They're not drugs! They're a perfectly harmless sugar substitute! They're, uh, supposed to help wean me off Prozac."
Yolanda frowned. "They're placebos? What good do they do if you know they're placebos?"
The conversation stopped as the car turned a bend and suddenly both of them were faced with the dark, creepy shadow of the house on the hill. Thunder rumbled overhead, and Dr. V. could have sworn he heard a creepy organ, like the kind they used to have in those old mystery radio plays, humming under the sound of the motor and the wind. The car stopped, and Yolanda sat in her seat, staring up at the foreboding hulk, much the same nervous expression on her face that Dr. V. imagined was on his. After some time she opened her door and got out, stepping onto the dead grass of the lawn.
Dr. V. got out as well, joining her, puzzled by her behavior. "What... what are we stopping here for?" he asked. "I thought you said you were going to Timberton!" Over the hills, off in the forest, that damn wolf howled again.
Yolanda looked shaken by the house, but bravely kept her fears to herself. "Well... I was, but..." She uttered a deep sigh. "Okay, look. I wasn't completely on the level with you. I've gotta tell someone about this, it's driving me crazy." She pulled a letter out of her shiny mylar blouse and handed it to him. "I got this letter about a week ago--"
Dr. V.'s eyes widened at the envelope. "But... but I've gotten this letter too!" He took it, scanning the contents. "Yes, this is it! I got this exact same letter myself last week!"
Yolanda looked skeptical. "You're kidding!"
Dr. V. shook his head. "I never kid. I threw mine away... thought it was some crackpot chain letter. The name on the letterhead got me -- what is it? Cashmere?"
Yolanda shook her head. "Carmody Bavsurius. Man, don't you know him? He's the big candy bar magnate; he bought out Willow Bars a few years ago. He's gotta be worth at least fifty billion dollars!"
There was silence while they contemplated that, staring up at the dark house. Lightning jagged the dark blue sky above it. Suddenly Dr. V. pointed. "Look! Look up there!"
"What, what?" Yolanda looked. They peered up at the black hulk, but there was nothing.
Minutes passed, as the wind howled. "I thought I saw someone up in the third story window," whispered Dr. V.
Yolanda suddenly pointed upward. "Wait, I see her! It's a woman!"
Dr. V. waved at the face. "HEY! Hello up there!!"
Up on the third story floor, at a small oval shaped window, a pale, old woman's face stared down at them. It was a bony face, ancient and evil-looking. As the face glared at them, it began to move -- not to the left or right, as if walking away -- but up. As Dr. V. and Yolanda watched in shock, the scowling face did not disappear behind the sill. Instead, it rose up the side of the building-- a white oval creeping up the grey weatherbeaten wood, like a ghostly dewdrop in reverse. It rose toward the topmost spire, and finally vanished underneath the eaves.
Below on the ground, Dr. V. and Yolanda were left staring up at the house, gap-jawed. Yolanda was the first to speak, her voice shaking. "Okay... that was creepy," she muttered.
Dr. V. didn't stick around to comment. He backed off, then turned around and bolted for the car, followed by Yolanda, close on his heels. She jumped into the driver's seat, waited for him to get in, and turned the ignition. The car did not start.
Yolanda frowned. She tried it again, and was rewarded by the same results. "It's dead," she said numbly.
Dr. V. wished she hadn't used that word. "Maybe you flooded it!" he said, his voice agitated.
Yolanda rolled her eyes. "It's not flooded, it's not starting up!" She stared down at it with wide eyes, heavy with bright eyeshadow. "We're stuck here," she realized, her voice small.
Dr. V. knew what that meant. "And probably the only phone for miles around," he muttered, "is in that house."
They turned to look up at the jagged black spires, as the dark grey sky above grumbled ominously.
*******
In the dusty, dark, cluttered attic on the third floor, which was haunted because the third floor of every house is always haunted, Dame Eyvonne Bedelia Bavsurius shuffled over the floorboards, cane thudding the floor every second step, creating a shoop-shoop-thunk sound. This sound had been echoing off the attic walls of Byrd House for a very very long time. Eyvonne Bavsurius was three hundred and seven years old.
Time had not been kind. Her eyes were black and shiny with glaze, surrounded by shadows and sickly. Her hair, long and shiny black in her youth, was now gray and tied up in rags, which had been a fashionable way to curl your hair in 1944. Fashion was a non-consideration, though: Her rags were kept in all the time, simply out of the fear that if she took them out her hair would just fall on the floor with the rags. Her belly was heavy and hidden under several bathrobes. Her lips were thin and colorless. She hated her reflection and hadn't looked in a mirror in over a hundred years.
Her twin sister, Dame Mirabella Arianne Bavsurius, tall and slim and comparatively less aged than Eyvonne, came into the makeshift parlor. "Must you make so much noise, Evie?" she murmured in the bored voice of someone who thinks she is very much superior to everyone else.
Eyvonne scowled. Even though she herself had been born the younger sister all those centuries ago, the time-suspending preservative that she and Mirabella had bought from a gypsy and taken in the mid-1600's had continued to preserve Mirabella much longer. Mirry's hair, bobbed and sleek, was still the glossy Bavsurius black that Evie's used to be, and her skin was still creamy pale and tight. Even though she carried the undeniable confidence that age brings, she was still fresh and looked not a day over forty. Evie smiled darkly to herself when she thought of the fact that in the outside world, which she and Mirry had not ventured into for years, even forty was considered an unfashionable age.
But it was a bloody hell of a lot better to look forty than to look three hundred and seven, she thought glumly.
The absolute worst part was, they hadn't been guaranteed eternal life. The preservatives in their bodies only prolonged life, didn't cement it. The problem wasn't that she was afraid of dying -- the problem was it didn't seem like she ever would die. Immortality had long ago worn off its novelty. Particularly since Mirabella was the only one who looked like she hadn't been around the past three hundred years. She was snotty about it, too. Centuries of living with her insufferable gloating and pretentious airs had worn Eyvonne's patience spiderweb-thin. She could have killed her. It wasn't for lack of trying, either. Mirry had been shot, stabbed and strangled enough times to kill an army of young, able-bodied men, and she didn't look any the worse for it. Evie hated her all the more for that. The first time Evie herself had slipped in the bathtub and been electrocuted by the curling iron falling in with her, her hair had gone slate grey and never fully recovered. The black was somewhat retained by the preservatives, but it was a faded black, the kind one gets after washing a black dress three hundred times.
Evie's humiliation was compounded by the fact that she had to do all the washing, cleaning, ect. even though she was so stiff and tired. Their Poppa and Mum, long since dead, had stipulated in the ancient will that was locked in some trunk somewhere that the older sister must watch out for the younger one, care for her health and wash and make sure nothing bad happened to her, at risk of losing out on the inheritance. Since Evie was younger, it seemed obvious that such responsibilities would fall to Mirry. But as year wore into year somehow Evie's portion of the potion failed her, and by the end of the first hundred years Evie looked old enough to be Mirry's mother. The old executors of the will died, naturally, and new ones signed on, stupid ones; so they wouldn't realize that their clients were pushing one hundred plus years, but by that same token so stupid that they thought Evie really was the older sister, so now Evie was stuck breaking her back over the wash and scrubbing the windows and cooking the food for Mirry, or otherwise lose out on the fortune, which never had been found. As the years passed, Evie had repeatedly grown disgusted and tried to kill Mirry several times, Mum and Pop and their dusty will be damned. But Mirry, stubborn wench that she was, wouldn't die. Evie had many times cursed the day that she -- she herself, ironically enough -- had bought the potion that had turned them into living relics. It had been when they were still young and stupid, and Evie had foolishly believed that this gift to her sister would make them all be kinder to herself -- which, of course, it didn't, and now Evie was stuck waiting on Mirry hand and foot -- probably for all eternity.
Evie glared at her sister now, seated in her chair at the tiny table for their afternoon tea, long legs crossed primly, the antique ruby earrings dangling from her ears matching the ruby necklace around her throat. Mirry wore these all the time and was never without them; Evie felt quite certain that she even slept with them. Quite by accident, Mirry looked up at the same time Evie did, and their eyes met.
I'm so sick of you, thought Evie, and felt the thought duly returned with full agreement.
Evie turned her face away in disgust. Mirry, undisturbed, picked up her teacup with slender, perfectly manicured fingers. Evie, stuffed into her chair, cringed reflexively as Mirry brought the cup to her rich red lips and commenced a daily ritual that was as dependable as clockwork -- she slurped her tea with a noise like an anteater sucking plankton out of the deep briny sea. Ssslurp... ssslurrrpp... ssssshhhlurrrrppp...
Evie scowled. "If I have to listen to you ingest your tea like that one more afternoon," she announced, "I shall kill myself."
"Have at it then," answered Mirry indifferently. "Mind you don't soil the floor."
I promised to take care of her forever, Evie thought to herself. We both promised, for as long as we happened to end up living, to never abandon each other, especially after all our friends and family died and we were all alone with our secrets. Now it's centuries later, and everyone we ever knew is gone. We're the only ones awake at the slumber party. She promised to take care of me.
I'd love to "take care" of her, Evie thought evilly.
"Have you washed my linens, Evie?" Mirry asked boredly.
Eyvonne scowled. "Why yes, dear sister. I scrubbed them in the mud bog and I hung them up in the basement. Read my lips, Mirry-dearie, I said I was never doing your wash again. You can do what you please to me, but you'll never get me to wash another of your rotten knickers again." This was spoken with only token acidity, for Evie knew that if Mirry wanted to she could break every bone in her sister's brittle, ancient body, and while the potion that had become part of their blood possessed some excellent regenerating properties, Eyvonne wasn't sure how well it would repair her body if it was too utterly destroyed -- by fire, for instance, or torn in dozens of tiny pieces. More than once she'd considered testing it by contriving a spectacular suicide, but she had always chickened out, terrified by the thought of herself walking around burnt black as a cinder, or with limbs sticking out every which way, in tremendous pain but unable to die. Mirry must know of this fear, being in the same boat herself, and therefore she had yet another weapon in her expansive arsenal against Evie. Evie, much as she tried to hide it, was secretly terrified of her sister.
Mirry glared at her with killer black eyes. Then she smiled, a wide red smirk that was about as much emotion as had been on her face in years. It was a cold, unpleasant smile. "Why, Evie," she said suddenly, getting up, "how lax of me. I've forgotten to bring you your breakfast."
Evie didn't like the way she said that. "I'm not hungry," she answered.
Mirry came prancing back into the parlor with a silvercovered dish. Her smile had quieted, but not vanished. She sat it down on the table, waiting. "You must eat, Evie dear," she insisted. "I went to the trouble of preparing your favorite dish."
Full of dread, Eyvonne lifted the lid. "Bacon," smiled Mirry. Evie gasped in horror.
Under the lid was a burnt, bloody pig's head.
Eyvonne shrieked. "Judith!!" She reeled back in shock and her chair tilted backward. She fell on her back, writhing and flailing. "Damn you!!" she shouted at her sister.
Mirry got to her feet and came over and stood over Evie. She was tall to begin with, and wearing heels on top of it, so from Evie's vantage point she looked like a colossus. Behind Mirry a stuffed eagle that was part of the attic junk joined her in glaring at the woman on the floor. Mirry clucked her tongue reprimandingly. "Evie, such language," she murmured. "Just look what you've done to yourself! You become clumsier with every passing day, I swear! Perhaps you are finally losing your motor skills in your old age, hmm?" She grabbed Eyvonne's arm and pulled her up roughly, righting the chair underneath her. She shoved Evie into it with a hard thump. "Now try to be more careful," she admonished, her face impassionate but her voice thick with sarcasm. A hint of a smile perked the corners of her red mouth.
Eyvonne's black-rimmed eyes burned with hate. Judith had been her pet. Her prize pig. Her only friend left on this godforsaken hill. "I'll kill you," she snarled. "By the blood of our rotten parents, I'll tear you limb from limb. Do you think I didn't see what you had carved on my rock out there in the garden?!"
Mirry was undisturbed. "A spade I call a spade," she said simply. "Go ahead and kill me. I dare you to try." Her porcelain mask of a face looked vaguely amused. "Again," she added.
"I'll hew off your limbs," Evie threatened. "Your arms maybe, so you won't be able to fix your face, or your legs, so you can be trapped in a chair for once. You'll not die, I'll warrant, you'll just be incapacitated. Then I'll put you down in the cellar with your precious linens and you can starve to death... maybe. I swear, Mirabella, I'll see your skull rotted to dust before our four hundredth birthday. I'll hang you from the topmost spire of the house. I'll boil you in your own blood!! I swear--"
Mirry sat through these gruesome threats with no less than a smile on her face. "You shall sit in that chair," she cut in, "and you will rant and rave and finally wear yourself out and sink into pathetic apathy. Then you will get up and clear the table, and after that you will wash the windows. They're positively filthy." And with that Mirry turned back to the newspaper, having said all she had to say to her sister.
Evie scowled, the sting from her bruised elbows already forgotten but the chill from her broken heart still fresh as ever. "I'll fix you," she muttered, and a smile, unseen by Mirabella, crept across Evie's face.
*******
Meanwhile, below on the front porch, Yolanda was trying to jimmy the lock of the front door. "I say we should walk back down the road and find another house to call from!" insisted Dr. V.
Yolanda shook her head. "It's forty miles to another house, doc! Meanwhile, this house is right here! The place isn't deserted, there's somebody in there, and I want to find out what the deal is with these letters, why both of us got one, and where this fabulous Victorian retreat is! You can bet this ain't it!"
Dr. V. sneered incredulously. "Somebody? Yeah, somebody who floated up the side of the building! I don't really care to meet that somebody!"
Yolanda looked unimpressed as she worked the screwdriver in the keyhole. "I don't believe in ghosts," she said authoritatively.
"Famous last words," muttered Dr. V. And with that, Yolanda snapped the lock and the door swung open with a loud, drawn-out creak straight out of a horror movie.
Both of them stared down the dark, yawning cave beyond the door. The floor was dusty, wooden planks. There was no sign that anyone had been or would be vacationing here anytime soon.
Yolanda took a tentative step over the door jamb, her tiny red pump clicking quietly on the wooden floor. Dr. V. grabbed her arm. "Wait! Do you have a flashlight or something in your car?"
He said this just as Yolanda put out her arm to the wall and her fingers found a light switch. She flipped it on and light flooded the hall from a beautiful antique stained glass lamp hanging from the ceiling. Yolanda smiled. "Look, it's got electricity!" she told him. "There's heat, too, feel that!" She held her hand over her head, feeling the warm air current flowing near the top of the room. "Someone does too live here!"
Dr. V. was not comforted. "Great, now we're breaking and entering." He popped a few sugar pills from his Pez dispenser and gazed around worriedly at the furniture, which was admittedly posh and rich looking. There were plushy, red-upholstered chairs with wooden legs that ended in lion's feet, and huge paintings on the walls, with textures that showed they were obviously the real deal and not photocopied replicas. In the hallway leading off the front room into darkness, a large suit of armor could be seen standing guard, and only on closer inspection did Dr. V. realize that the suit was made not of armor, but of stained glass. A dopey-looking elk's head glared from atop the fireplace, and a fierce tiger growled from the floor, where its skin had been placed as a rug. Clocks were everywhere -- table clocks, wall clocks, and of course a huge grandfather clock over in the corner. The floor was not entirely bare like it had been over by the front door; an intricately woven Oriental rug was spread over almost the entire floor. The room was, indeed, much less gloomy and in far better repair than the house's exterior would have hinted at.
Dr. V. sighed. "Okay, so he's rich," he muttered. "So where's the man's phone?"
Yolanda made a beeline for the dark hallway with the suit of stained glass. "Hello?" she called. "Is anybody here? Mr. Bavsurius?"
They walked down the hall, feeling along the walls for any other light switches. The light from the front room partly illuminated the hall, and they could see a door at the end, with a tiny sheath of light underneath it. "Look," whispered Yolanda. "He's probably hard of hearing, we'll have to go in and shout at him."
Dr. V. snickered, although not bravely. "He's probably dead," he joked. Thunder crashed prophetically overhead, and Dr. V. could have sworn he heard that organ again.
They pushed open the door and saw in the half-light that there was a large, long table in the midst of the great room. The room was so tall the ceiling couldn't even be seen in the dark, although there was the shadow of two more lamps hanging over the table. "Dining room," whispered Yolanda.
Dr. V. was in awe. "If I had that many people over for dinner, I'd have a cover charge."
The light was coming from another door off the dining room. It was a strange light; flickery, like fire. Yolanda and Dr. V. moved toward it cautiously, as if awaiting something to jump out and attack them. Dr. V., personally, couldn't stop thinking about that creepy face outside. And Yolanda, for all her bravado, was looking more than a little frightened by this time as well.
They got to the door, which was slightly ajar. Yolanda peeked inside. "It's a library," she whispered. "A study or a library, I can't tell which. There's books all up the walls. I see the fireplace... there's a chair in front of it."
"Is anyone in it?" asked Dr. V.
"I don't see him." She was quiet. Then, in a loud voice, "MR. BAVSURIUS?!?"
Dr. V. jumped. "Good God, woman!" he hissed. But there was no answer.
Yolanda clicked her tongue, baffled. She pushed the door open with another sharp creak, moving inside the room. They could see now that it was a den, complete with a wet bar and hundreds of bookshelves covering every wall. A few barcaloungers sat plushly around, covered in rich Corinthian leather. "Wow," admired Yolanda. "Boy, you can't get that stuff anymore."
Dr. V. rolled his eyes. He moved around the room slowly, gingerly stepping on the Oriental rug. "This guy must be loaded," he murmured. "Every room in this place has these rugs. You'd think he'd shell out a few bucks for some vinyl siding while he's at--" He suddenly let out a shout as he went tripping and ended up falling on his face in front of the fireplace.
"Jeez!" Yolanda hurried to help him. "Are you okay? You didn't hit your head on the mantle, did ya? Boy, that's all we need, is for one of us to crack our heads open and--" Her eyes widened as she came around the chair and saw for the first time what he'd tripped over.
Dr. V. lay on the floor, looking dazedly up at Yolanda for the second time that day. He frowned at her gap-jawed look of shock. "What is it?" He turned to look where she was looking -- and let out a very unmanly scream.
He leaped to his feet and he and Yolanda fell over themselves backing away to get away from the corpse lying before of the fireplace. "Jesus!!" exclaimed Dr. V. as he saw the knife stuck in the corpse's back.
"Mary and Joseph!" finished Yolanda, crossing herself with a trembling hand as she saw the dagger wounds, the cut throat, the bashed skull... "Oh, man... how long do you think he's been lying there?!"
"God knows." Dr. V. looked around. "It could be hours, it could be minutes. Look... that ceiling fan's been ripped right out of the roof!" He pointed to where the chandelier had crashed, sending a circle of broken shards in all directions. They could see now what a mess the room was in. "Signs of a struggle," muttered Dr. V. "Good Lord, the killer could still be in the house!" He popped some Pezes with a shaking hand.
"Well, go -- go over there and feel his temperature,” said Yolanda, voice shaking.
Dr. V. winced, biting his tongue as he crunched down on the candies. "Feel his temperature?!"
"To see if he's cold! If he is, the killer's probably long gone!" She gave him a look. "You're the doctor!" she added witheringly when he hesitated.
"I'm a specialist! I'm not a coroner!"
"Well, you know how to take a pulse, don't you?! Even I know how to do that!"
"I know how to take a pulse!" Dr. V. looked haughty. "I just don't--" He uttered an exasperated growl, and resignedly went over to the corpse. Kneeling, he stuck his fingers under the man's jawbone, waiting. He bit his lip, staring at the body for a while. Then he felt the corpse's nose.
"He's not a dog, doc," said Yolanda.
Dr. V. gave her a look. "Cut me some slack, will you?" He put a hand on the man's scalp, having heard that most body heat was concentrated at the head. Well, the warmest spot on the human body was the armpits, but Dr. V wasn't going in there. He stood up, frowning down at the body. "The man's dead," he muttered. "I can see that well enough. He's clammy -- not quite cold."
Yolanda uttered a prayer under her breath. "A phone," she said numbly. "There's got to be a phone. A house this size, with this much junk, there's got to be--" She stopped as she was running out the door to the den. "Are you coming? He's not going anywhere!"
Dr. V. looked from her to the body, torn. "Okay," he decided, stepping over the corpse to join her. They ran down the hall, peering in every open door they saw.
*******
Driving down the road in a beat-up black Volkswagen Rabbit, a car so old and decrepit that rust was flaking off the sides and black exhaust spewed out the back, were the avant-garde film director Thornton Smith and his ditzy, flower child girlfriend, Junebug. Thornton was known in Hollywood for his long impressive output of grade-Z horror movies, invariably shot in black-and-white and with such titles as Harem Scare 'em -- to Death!; Shakespeared -- to Death!; Nightclubbed -- to Death!; and Buried Alive -- to Death!; not to mention the classics Attack of the Killer Lawn Gnomes; Curse of the Goth Punks and Monster Sluggs from Saturn Parts One Two and Three. He and Junebug seemed at first glance to be an ill match, for he was dark and morbid, and she was bright and full of life, almost always dressed in red, from her copper red hair that was always in a retro-60's beehive, to her red miniskirts and red platform high heels. She always wore big fake eyelashes and 60's era makeup, and was a huge believer in sunshine, happy faces and new-age philosophy. Even now she was gibbering about karma and reincarnation, and Thornton listened dutifully, his own mind lost in a haunted world of skeletons and zombies and swamp monsters.
Junebug was yammering on. "...and tonight the full moon enters my house and it's on the cusp of Capricorn, so this is a good week for us to travel together! Isn't that awesome?"
Thornton snapped out of his daymares momentarily at her words. "Did you say tonight's the full moon?" he asked in his slow quiet voice.
Junebug giggled, a bubbly sound. "You know it is, Boogie! Oh, hey--" she turned a page in her astrology book. "Wow, I skipped a page! I've been reading the wrong month this whole time!" She uttered a gasp. "My biorhythms are all out of sync!"
Thornton was not listening; he was too rattled by this news. In addition to being one of Hollywood's top horror filmmakers, Thornton was also firmly convinced that he was a werewolf. He had never seen the end of a full moon night since he'd been thirteen, causing him to believe he was spending these nights under the influence of a gypsy spell, hunting the San Fernando Valley for poodles and other small animals to eat. At least... he hoped that was the reason he kept waking up naked in the neighbors' swimming pool.
Junebug's permanently fixed smile had faded; her eyes were becoming even wider as she stared down at her book. "Oh, no!" she exclaimed. "Thornton, this is all wrong! I was reading the wrong page! Scorpio enters Uranus tonight, this is terrible! Thornie, we have to turn around and go back home right now!"
Thornton nodded, too preoccupied by the calamity facing him. "Uh-huh," he muttered.
*****
Meanwhile, in the Cadillac, the Pedestrians were having fun acting like bratty kids on a long car trip, with Durk serving as their disgruntled chaperone. "Are we there yet?" whined Marie, smirking.
"I have to go to the bathroom," Andy whinily informed all of them.
"I'm hungry!" announced Dalia, pouting like a child.
"I REQUIRE NITROPRYLENE!!!" hollered Buddy at the top of his lungs. All the Peds burst out giggling at that, even though none of them quite knew what it meant.
Durk was getting fed up. "Listen, you hippiecats," he snarled, "you don't want me in a bad mood! You'd better straighten up or else!!" He glared at the boys in his rearview mirror.
Buddy was fighting down chortles. "Are you gonna turn around and head back home?" There was a chorus of chuckles.
Durk hated kids. "Hey," he said in a less severe tone, trying to get them interested in something else, "so you're not impressed by me being a real cowboy, huh? Well, I've got a cousin who's a marine artist, and--"
"Oh, wait, wait!" Andy cut in. "A marine artist?? Or is he an artist and a Marine?"
Marie was hardly able to keep a straight face. "Yeah, and if so, does he have a black beret or a green one?!" The four burst out in raucous laughter.
Durk sulked under his cowboy hat, disgusted by everything. Next to him, Cubic Zirconia nickered in dismay, tired of being cramped in the front seat with him and the girls.
*****
Magically, as soon as their tiny, sharp sports vehicle had left the suburbs, the skies had clouded over and Dominic and Kate found themselves turning onto the long front drive. The young sweethearts fell silent as they glimpsed the towering spires. "Oh my God..." gasped Dominic, flipping up the shades attached to his glasses.
"This can't be right," said Kate. "The letter said a rustic Victorian retreat!"
Dominic shrugged. "Maybe they meant rusty." He seemed entranced by the hulk.
Kate was not as impressed. "It looks so dark and... dirty!" She wrinkled her nose in disgust.
Dominic was grinning. "It's perfect," he said. "Kate, think of it, can you imagine how much money we could make if we turned this place into an inn? I mean, what competition would we have?"
Kate wasn't in the mood. "Well, there WAS that motel on the offramp," she muttered.
Dominic waved that away. "Nah, we'd run them into the ground in a week."
That made Kate giggle. "Dominic, you're so mean!" she chastised.
Dominic grinned. "Oh, what? We'd probably be doing the whole area a favor." He was stuck gazing up at the house. "I wonder if people would come this far out for a bed and breakfast."
At this time the black Rabbit also turned the bend and came upon the dark, gloomy old mansion. Junebug broke off her chatter, and Thornton's half-closed eyes widened. "Wow," he muttered, showing some life at seeing the big scary place. "Look at that gorgeous house, will you?"
Junebug was agog. "Oooh! It looks like your house, Boogie!"
Thornton was in awe. "It's beautiful," he murmured. "It's stark, brooding, foreboding... like a truck stop for lost souls."
Junebug melted at this sweet talk from her boyfriend. "Oooh, that's so beautiful!" she gushed.
Meanwhile, the Cadillac with the longhorns on the front was pulling in. Durk, Cubic and the Pedestrians stared at the grimy side of the house, ugly and large as life in the gray twilight. "That is the coolest thing I ever saw!!" exulted Marie, grinning up at the creepy house.
Durk looked unimpressed. "What's so great about it? A broken-down shack in the middle of nowhere. You city kids, you don't know what real beauty is. I'd rather go find a desert sunset, a wide open prairie, and an air-conditioned casino hotel any day."
"So why don't you?" asked Marie. "What happened to that Indian-like tracking sense? You're not LOST, are you?!" She leered at him.
Durk turned red. "I never get lost," he muttered.
Andy cleared his throat timidly. "Um, I wasn't kidding before. I really do need to use the bathroom, and--"
Buddy was looking uncertainly up at the ancient-looking house. "Man, if you use the bathroom in that place, I'll pay you five bucks."
Four cars were now coming up the drive. Unfortunately, all of the drivers of those cars were gawking up at the scary house, and therefore none of them were watching where they were going. Dominic and Kate were snapped out of their reverie by a violent jolt as they were rear-ended, their car jerking violently with the impact.
The two had barely enough time to register what had hit them before they were sideswiped by the Volkswagen. Inside that car, Junebug shrieked as Thornton uttered a string of obscenities. "What the?!--" he exclaimed.
And now the Cadillac was coming up on them. Durk was the only one to look away from the house and see the pile-up before he became part of it. "Oh, no, not my Caddy!!" he shouted. The Pedestrians, too, had time only to scream and cover their eyes before the impact. The three cars crashed into each other with a squeal of twisting metal. CRASH.
Unbelievably, the separate impacts did not make the cars stop. Instead they ran together, fenders and bumpers hooked and entwined, driving on inexorably toward Yolanda's car, parked at the top of the drive. Every single occupant in every single car screamed. "AAAARRRRRGGGHHH!!" CRUNCH!
There was silence in the wake of the four-car pile-up. In the Caddy, Marie lifted her head out of Cubic's hide, spitting out horse hair. "Great," she deadpanned, "the second car we've rode in today, and we're in ANOTHER CRASH!! I'm never getting in a car again!!"
On the porch of the house, Dr. V. and Yolanda emerged from the dark door, summoned by the sound of the crash. Yolanda's eyes widened at the three cars embedded in her car. "HEY!!" she shouted, thoroughly incensed. She stomped off the porch down the steps to give whoever was responsible a piece of her mind. "What the hell's going on here?!" she bellowed, her tiny throat harboring a loud shriek of a voice. Dr. V. was duly impressed.
The Caddy's dented doors were the first to open, and the Pedestrians and Durk spilled out. Cubic tumbled out on her hooves, shook out her mane, and clopped off toward the delicious looking weed field that was the front yard. "No!" groaned Durk, getting a look at his mangled horns. "Aw, cow dung!!" He kicked at the dirt savagely with his snakeskin boot.
"We're fine, thanks," muttered Marie.
Andy looked pressed. "I have to go to the bathroom," he whimpered.
Buddy stared, awed at Andy's bladder control. "Still?"
Yolanda backed off from them. "No, not you!" she yelled. "You're not touching the car! You're okay! But YOU!!" She pointed at Dominic and Kate. "What are ya, blind?! You didn't see the car sitting there?"
Dominic adjusted his glasses, preparing to confront the woman. "Miss, we're very sorry--"
"We were looking at the house!" cut in Kate.
Dominic nodded. "My fault, completely," he said.
"We weren't watching were we were going!" added Kate.
Dominic held out his hand in a truce. "We'll be more than happy to reimburse you, miss," he offered. Mindful of the ten million, he added, "Perhaps we can even offer a little in the way of a new car? I feel so awful about this..."
Yolanda was disarmed in the wave of all this apology. She backed off, softening at the mention of money. "Oh, well ... it was just a rental..."
Dr. V. was getting nervous. "I tell you what, she'll give you her address, and you can get in touch with her later. We were just about to leave anyway--" He clutched Yolanda's arm, trying to signal to her that they should leave before questions were asked.
"Now hang on, now!" Durk stepped forward, furious. "I'm not satisfied! I wanna know who's gonna pay for the damages on my Caddy!! My horse was in the car, if she's injured I'm gonna sue for all you're worth! I can't get along without my horse!"
Yolanda was stirred into fury once again by the blustery cowboy. "Oh, yeah?! And just who do you happen to be, Roy Rogers?"
Durk looked even more ticked off at not being recognized. "I happen to be Durk Durock!" he snapped, "and I happen to have been in several major motion pictures, and I--"
"Durk Durock?!" Yolanda's eyes narrowed. "Oh ho! You, ya little sleazeball!! I remember you! You remember being in Atlantic City about three years ago? Afternoon Round Up? I was set up to play Daisy the Pony Expressmate, and you got me fired, ya sleaze, 'cause you said I was too short for the part!! I ended up living on cat food for two months! You lost me the best offer I had in five years!!"
As Thornton and Junebug got out of their mangled Volkswagen, Marie bugged out. "Look!" she whispered to Dalia. "Do you know who that is?"
Dalia shook her head. "No, not off hand."
Marie grinned. "That's Thornton Smith, the movie director! Remember the movie marathon we all watched last week? He directed half those movies! He did Curse of the Goth Punks, and It Lives -- to Death! He's so sexy!"
"Him?" Buddy made a face at the pale, tall, sorrowful-looking director. "You think that guy's sexy? Mare, I can look like that!"
Marie made a face at him. "Somehow it's just not the same," she murmured.
Dalia cocked her head. "There is something about him," she conceded. "Those eyes are intense! I loved the parting scene in Teenage Ghouls in Love, when the boy was about to die and he says, 'Sweet oblivion hardly compares to you.' Did he write that?"
"I think so. He writes most of his scripts. Look at his hands, how they move. Isn't he hot?"
Buddy was studying the esteemed director, baffled as to his appeal. "Man, the guy looks like Alice Cooper!" he exclaimed.
As the groups got what was what straightened out, and figured out where the blame was to be placed, they eventually figured out whose car belonged to whom, and who had crashed into whom, all except for..."Hey, wait a minute!" exclaimed Marie. "If we were in the Caddy, and you were in the Beamer and you were in the Volkswagen and you were parked here to begin with--" she pointed out each of the motorists in turn "--then who's that car belong to?!" She was speaking of the fifth car.
Dominic and Kate were staring forlornly at their car, at their cracked up front fender. "It's awful," murmured Dominic. "Our insurance had better take care of this."
Kate came to stand at his side. "Don't worry," she whispered. "Remember the... eepstake-sway oney-may? We can afford a new car now!"
Dominic softened at that. "Oh, you're right. Are you kidding? For ten million dollars, I bet we could buy a whole motorcade!" They giggled, hugging.
"Me too," said a familiar voice.
Dominic and Kate froze.
The voice continued. "Hey, howdy, neighbors. Small world, ain't it?"
"No," whispered Kate. "There's no way..."
They turned around together, and found themselves looking at Roy and Pat Moloney, squeezing out of the fifth car. Roy grinned, but it was not an amused or friendly expression. "Well, isn't that a kick in the head. Ten million dollars. All that money, just to throw around. Not on us, though, that's for sure. Not on your best friend since high school, who's been there for you every step of the way. Take a look at your best friend, Pat! Ran off on a second honeymoon with her nancy boy, rather than stay home and share a little of their newfound fortune with us, an unemployed family with two kids who haven't got a penny to our names! Ain't that just always the way! The rich get richer, and the poor can just sit in their trailers and eat crow!"
Dominic looked increasing angry. "First of all, Roy, Kate and I are hardly rich--"
"You've got more money than we do!"
"--second of all, if Pat has something to say, why don't you let her say it without being her go-between--"
"Pat is afraid of Kate," Roy cut in. "Pat says she can't trust her anymore, and after this I don't blame her!"
"Afraid of what?!" Kate burst out. "What can I do to her? She's bigger than me!"
"And do you want to talk about trust?" added Dominic. "How about the time we lent you that twelve hundred dollars, ostensibly to get you on your feet, and you spent the whole thing on food and video arcades? We still haven't seen any of that money back!"
"Oh, sure! Bring that old story up again! A real friend wouldn't even remember that anymore!"
"Not remember it?! It's twelve hundred bucks!!"
"Stop it!!" Kate's voice cut through the men's argument. "Just quiet! Look--" she turned to the other couple, "--we didn't tell you because, frankly, it's none of your business. These last few years of our friendship haven’t been a friendship at all, Pat! You take offense at everything I say -- I don't even know what I did to make you so angry in the first place! I've asked Dominic to help you guys out these past few years because I thought it would show you I was still your friend, but I'm fed up! When you cool down and think about things for a while, after we've both had some time to ourselves, if you're still upset then we'll talk, but if not then let's just end this whole thing right now!"
Roy looked about to answer, but Pat stopped him by gripping his arm. Her face was pale as the moon. "How dare you," she snarled in the first words she'd spoken directly to Kate in years. "How dare you call yourself my friend! You don't know what you did to make me angry?! Who are you kidding? We used to be friends, all right; before you started thinking you were so much better than me! You and your stupid TV news job, and your stupid college degree, and your stupid phony nose in the air -- yeah, I called you a phony, Kate, because that's what you are!! 'Oh, a trailer park isn't GOOD enough for ME!'" Pat imitated Kate's nasally voice with vicious perfection. "That's why you sneak around and ditch us all the time; you're ashamed of what a FAKE you've become! At least I can walk with my head high; I've got the real deal!" Pat grabbed Roy's hand and shook it. "I've got a REAL man, and real dirt, real messes, and real mistakes! You prissy white princess, you've never made a mistake in your life! Little Miss Perfect! You WITCH!"
Kate was staring back with an incredulous look. "What planet are you on?!" she gaped. "What year are you in?! Why did I have to do everything you do? You haven't progressed past that childhood game of pretending to be twins?! What's wrong with you?!"
"You're alive." Pat's face was dangerous. "That's what's wrong with me." And with a hateful glare, she turned around and walked away.
Roy seemed energized by all this violence coursing thru the air. He shoved a meaty finger at Kate. "Watch your back, yuppie!" he growled. Then he turned around and followed his wife. To Dominic's and Kate's dismay, the two walked up the stairs and into the house.
The remainder of the group stood awkwardly about, trying not to listen in on the argument. "Well, let's figure out what to do here," said Dr. V. quickly, and everyone murmured agreement and turned away to discuss what to do.
Dominic leaned over to whisper to Kate, "Good grief, you don't suppose the Moloneys are planning on staying here, do you?"
"I know we're not." Kate turned around and got back in the car; a furious, hurt look on her face. She fished her set of keys out of her purse and tried to start the car, ignoring the fact that it was embedded in the others.
"How did they know we were coming here?" wondered Dominic, flabbergasted. "How did they know about the money?"
"Who cares?!" Kate was frustrated and close to crying. "The car won't start!"
"Kate, please." Dominic gently took the keys from her hand. "You'll only damage it more that way. Come on, let's go in the house and call the Auto Club. I'm assuming we won't be staying the weekend?"
Kate sighed too. "Do you still want to stay? I mean it, if you want to, let's stay. I don't want to wreck it."
"The only ones who can wreck it are in there," Dominic pointed at the house. "I'm not too hot to the idea of spending the weekend with them, either. The whole point of coming was to get away from them, after all."
After some more deliberation, they finally decided to go into the house and ask the residents for help. Therefore they left the car and walked up to the front porch, climbing the steps. Above the towers, thunder grumbled like a portent of coming doom.
On to chapter three
e-mail