Cemetery Dance

Chapter 39

Nora stared at the ceiling of her bedroom, her gaze traveling back and forth along a crack in the plaster. Back and forth, back and forth, her eye following its meanderings as one would follow river tributaries on a map. She remembered Bill volunteering to plaster and repaint that crack, saying it drove him crazy when he lay down and tried to nap during the day — which he often did, forced as he was to keep journalistic hours. She had said it was a waste, sinking money into a rental apartment, and he'd never mentioned it again.

Now it was driving her crazy. She couldn't take her eyes off it.

With a sharp effort she turned her head and stared out the open window beside her bed. Through the bars of the fire escape beyond she could see the apartment building across the alley, pigeons strutting along the wooden water tank atop its roof. Sounds of traffic — horns, the blat of a diesel, the grinding of gears — filtered up from the adjacent street. Her limbs felt heavy, her senses unreal. Unreal. Everything had become unreal. The last forty — four hours had been bizarre, obscene, unbearable. Bill's body missing; Caitlyn dead, dead at the hands of… She squeezed her eyes closed for a moment, forcing the thought away. She had given up trying to make sense of anything.

She focused on the alarm clock next to the bedside table. Its red LED glowed back at her: three pm. This was stupid, lying in bed in the middle of the day.

With a huge effort she sat up, her body feeling as dull and soft as lead. For a moment the room spun around, then stabilized a little. She plumped up her pillow and eased back against it, sighing as her gaze drifted unwillingly back to the crack in the ceiling.

There was a creak of metal outside the window. She glanced toward it, saw nothing but the bright light of an Indian summer afternoon.

Tomorrow was supposed to have been Bill's funeral. Over the last several days she'd been doing her best to ready herself for the ordeal: it would be painful, but it would at least bring an end of sorts, maybe allow her to move on a little. But now even that bit of closure was denied her. How could there be a funeral with no body? She closed her eyes, groaned softly.

Another groan — low, guttural — echoed her own.

Her eyes flew open. A figure was crouching on the fire escape just outside her window — a grotesque figure, a monster: hair matted, pale skin crudely stitched up, its crabbed form covered by a bloody hospital gown sticky with bodily fluids and clotted blood. One bony hand gripped a truncheon.

The face was puffy and malformed, and covered with dried clots of blood — yet it was still recognizable. Nora felt her throat close with utter horror: the monster was her husband, Bill Smithback.

A strange sound filled the bedroom, a soft, high keening noise, and it took her a moment to realize it was coming from her own lips. She was filled with revulsion — and a sick longing. Bill — alive. Could it be? Could it possibly be him?

The figure slowly shifted position, moving forward on crouched hams.

White spots began to dance before her eyes and a sensation of heat bloomed throughout her body, as if she was about to faint, or her grip on sanity was loosening. He was gaunt, and his skin had a sickly pale cast — not unlike that of the thing that had chased her through the woods outside the Ville.

Was that Bill? Was it even possible?

The figure lurched forward again, still at a crouch, raised a hand, tapped one finger on the window.

Tap, tap, tap.

It — he — Bill — stared at her through rheumy, bloodshot eyes. The sagging mouth opened wider, the tongue lolled. Vague, half — formed sounds emerged.

Is he trying to speak to me? Alive… is it possible?

Tap, tap, tap.

"Bill?" she croaked, her heart a jackhammer in her chest. The crouching form jerked. The eyes opened wider, rolling before fixing on her once again.

"Can you talk to me?" she said.

Another sound, half moan, half whine. The claw — like hands flexed and unflexed; the desperate eyes locked on hers imploringly. She stared at him, utterly paralyzed. He was repulsive, feral, barely human. And yet, beneath the caking of blood and the matted hair, she recognized a puffy caricature of her husband's features. This was the man whom she had loved like no other on earth, who had completed her. This was the man who, before her eyes, had killed Caitlyn Kidd.

"Speak to me. Please."

Fresh sounds issued from the ruined mouth now, sounds of increased urgency. The crouching figure brought its hands together, lifted them toward her in a beseeching gesture. Despite everything, Nora felt her heart break with the piteous gesture, with the deep longing and sorrow that overwhelmed her.

"Oh, Bill," she said, as for the first time since the attack she began to weep openly. "What have they done to you?"

The figure on the fire escape groaned. It sat for a moment, looking at her intently, motionless save for the spastic gestures that occasionally racked its frame. Then, very slowly, one of its claw — like hands reached out, grasping the lower edge of the window sash.

And then lifted it.

Nora watched, the sobs dying in her throat, as — slowly, slowly — the window inched up until it was half open. The figure bent low, easing itself beneath the frame. The hospital gown caught on a protruding nail and ripped with a sharp sound. Something about the unexpectedly sinuous movement reminded her of a wolverine sneaking into a rabbit's den. The head and shoulders were inside now. The mouth yawned wider again, a thin rope of saliva swinging from the lower lip. A hand reached for her.

Instinctively — without conscious thought — Nora shrank away.

The extended arm paused. Smithback looked up at her from his position half in, half out of the window. Another whine emerged from the muddy mouth. He lifted his arm again, more forcefully this time.

At the gesture, a stench of the charnel house wafted toward Nora. Terror rose in her throat and she backed up on the bed, drawing her knees to her chin.

The red — rimmed eyes narrowed. The whine turned to a low growl. And suddenly, with a violent thrust, the figure forced itself through the half — open window and into the room. There was a splintering of wood, a crash of glass. Nora fell back with a cry, tangling herself in the bedsheets and falling to the floor. Quickly, she struggled out of the sheets and rose. Bill was there with her, in the room.

He gave a cry of rage, lurching toward her and swinging the truncheon.

"No!" she cried. "It's me, Nora—"

It was a clumsy move and she dodged it, backing up through the doorway into the living room. He followed, reeling forward and raising the truncheon again. Close up, his eyes were whitish, cloudy, their surface dry and wrinkled. His mouth opened wide again, the lips cracking, exhaling a dreadful reek that mingled with the sharp odor of formalin and methyl alcohol.

Nnnngghhhhhaaaah!

She kept backing up through the living room. He lurched toward her, one hand reaching out, fingers spastically jerking. Straining toward her, reaching, closer and closer.

She took another step backward, felt her shoulder blades touch the wall. It was as if the figure was threatening and pleading with her at the same time, the left hand reaching out to touch her as the right hand raised the truncheon to strike. He threw his head back, exposing a neck with huge raw cuts sewn up with twine, the skin gray and dead.

Nnnnggggghhhhhhaaaah!

"No," she whispered. "No. Stay back."

The hand reached out, trembling, touched her hair, caressed it. The smell of death enveloped her.

"No," she croaked. "Please."

The mouth opened wider, foul air streaming out.

"Get away!" she said with a rising shriek.

The twitching hand traced a dirty finger down her cheek to her lips, caressed them. She pressed her back against the wall.

Nnngah…

Nnngah…

Nnngah…

The figure began to pant as the convulsive, twitching finger rubbed her lips. Then the finger tried to push inside her mouth.

She gagged, turning her head away. "No…"

A pounding came at the door — her screams must have brought someone.

"Nora!" came a muffled voice. "Hey, are you all right? Nora!"

As if in reaction, the upraised hand clutching the truncheon began to shake.

Nnngah! Nnngah! Nnngah!

The panting turned into an urgent, lascivious grunting.

Nora was paralyzed, speechless with horror.

The right hand swept down in one spastic motion, the truncheon crashing onto her skull — and the world ended.