Cage Of Night Part 20

"You're not a dork. You're a dweeb. And there's a difference."

"Oh, yeah, like what?" I laughed. "Well, a dweeb can change."

"Oh?"

"Yeah. If somebody wants to take the time and energy to show a dweeb how to be cool, a dweeb can make it, eventually. But a dorka""

"Hopeless?"

"Dork is a state of mind. At least the way I see it. No matter how hard a dork tries to change, he can't."

"That's good to know."

"This is serious s.h.i.+t, brother. I hope you're paying attention."

"So what you've been doing, with the fas.h.i.+on tips and everything, isa""

"a"trying to undweeb you."

"Well, I appreciate it."

"But there's no hope for Garrett and Cindy's out of her mind to go out with him. He thinks he's king s.h.i.+t, the way he struts around all the time. The kids think he's dork number one."

"I'll let him know your feelings."

"I ain't afraid of him, brother. Not even with that big Magnum of his. In fact, all the kids on the team think somebody's going to take that gun of his away from him and put it up his a.s.s."

"Now there's a pleasant image."

He didn't say anything for a moment, then. "I'm on the yearbook committee with Cindy. I'm going to have a little talk with her."

"No," I said, "please don't."

"I just want to find out what's going on. Why she dumped you."

"It'll really p.i.s.s me off if you bring it up to her."

He shrugged. "Just trying to help."

"I know. And I appreciate it. But just let things lie."

"Then you let Mom and Dad know you're all right."

"I'll do that. I promise."

He nodded to the tape recorder and then did a little imitation disco dance. "You going to start wearing platform shoes and stuff like that?"

"I figured I could borrow a couple pairs of yours."

"The red ones, fine. The pink ones leave alone."

"I'll remember that."

He started to walk away and then stopped. "You sure you don't want me to say anything to Cindy?"

"Positive."

"I could tell her about the difference between dorks and dweebs."

"Then she'd come running to me, huh?"

"She would if you weren't wearing platform shoes."

"Thanks, Josh."

"I just want you to be happy, man."

"I know. And I will be. I'll get over this." He nodded and left the room. I put the headphones on and started playing the tape again.

I'd left David Myles in mid-scream.

CHAPTER FIVE.

The next night, they went to the well together.

I'd been following her since just after dinner. She went to the library, she went to a friend's house, and then she started to drive home, but suddenly turned west on a street leading out of town.

Fifteen minutes later, she pulled up on the county road running past the woods.

Garrett was already there. He sat in his own car, a two-year old Pontiac Firebird. This must have been his night off.

She parked behind him, on the edge of the gravel, and walked up to his car.

He got out.

Their kiss was immediate, and long and deep.

I looked away.

The jealousy was the worst part of all this. It made me frantic. I sensed that someday I wouldn't be able to control myself.

They went up the hill to the woods holding hands.

That made me even more jealous than the kiss. In a strange way, holding hands is more intimate than kissing. It signifies that there's a real relations.h.i.+p there.

I sat up on the hill behind them, pulled off to the side just as they were.

I watched them in my binoculars as they crossed the moonlit upslope leading into the woods.

Hansel and Gretel, I thought.

They were silhouettes, and then they were gone entirely, the woods swallowing them up.

I moved.

I wanted to see everything they did at the well.

The snow of the last few days had blown away. The land was a dirty gray and brown. My feet crunched dead leaves, and almost stumbled over an infant rabbit that looked as if it had been ripped apart by a dog.

The woods scared me.

All light died.

The path was narrow and twisting. The image of Hansel and Gretel came back, and then the Grimm stories of my boyhood. I had the momentary sensation of being caught up in a dream. I thought of Myles' tapes, his being unable to distinguish between reality and fantasy.

Deep, deep darkness, and then an unnerving silence. Only the occasional crushed beer can, and the red wrapper of a Trojan, and a crumpled cigarette pack rea.s.sured me that this was a real place, and not part of some psychotic dream.

I kept walking, still scared.

To either side of the narrow path, demons and goblins huddled in the shadows, ready to spring. Or so I imagined. My sweat was icy.

Moonlight. Finally.

The valley, and the clearing, where the cabin and the well waiteda"

They had just reached the cabin when I got to the edge of the clearing and put the binoculars to my eyes.

They kissed again, this time their bodies inexorably entwined.

I saw her hand go to the back of his head.

I thought of how she'd done the same with Myles.

And with me.

I looked away.

Even the phantasmagoria of the dark forest was preferable to watching her kiss him this way.

When I looked back, she was pulling him to the well.

He frowned, reluctant to go.

But she tugged on him like a mother with an obstinate child, and eventually they reached the well.

Once more they kissed, and then she led him the last steps to the well itself.

They spoke for a few moments but the only sound I heard was the lonely prairie wind.

And then he looked down into the well.

Just leaned over the edge and looked down.

And then the blue glow appeared, and painted his face.

Or I thought it did anyway.

Was I imagining things just because I'd played Myles' tapes over and over?

Maybe there hadn't been any glow at all, blue or otherwise.

Just as there hadn't really been any strange m.u.f.fled voice in my head when I'd been at the well.

And then he screamed.

Covered his face with his hands and screamed.

If there had been a glow, there was none now.

But the scream was undeniably real.

And when he was done screaming, he went into a modified version of the seizure that had overcome Myles, his arms and hands twitching into odd angles, his head snapping back constantly.

She took him in her arms, and there was something touching about the maternalism of it, the graceful and loving way she held and caressed him. I thought of the Pieta I'd seen in a museum a few years ago, Christ dead in the arms of the Blessed Mother.

By now, he was weeping, weeping just as Myles had, and she held him even tighter.

And then, again as she had with Myles, she gradually turned her solace into s.e.x, and they dropped to the ground next to the well, and began making love.

I felt rage, but sorrow, too.

There was nothing more there for me to see.

Or nothing more I cared to see, anyway.

I walked back to my car.

This time, the forest didn't scare me half as much as my own feelings did.