Bethany's Sin

Bethany's Sin Page 18

EIGHTEEN

BEHIND THE MUSEUM'S DOOR

On Sunday Laurie cried when Kay told her that her father had accidentally broken her new toy. don't worry, Kay said. We'll get you another one.

Evan found Doug Blackburn's number through Whittington information and made his call. No answer. He spent the rest of the day in the basement, trying to work on a new story, and crumpling page after page into the wastebasket.

Kay slept badly again that night. Evan lay beside her and heard her whimper, and when he took her hand he found the flesh corpse-cold. Just past midnight he tried to wake her up because she'd cried out sharply, but he couldn't rouse her by shaking her or calling out her name or even by putting a cold facecloth against her temples.

Beads of sweat had broken out on her forehead. Finally she was quiet, and Evan settled back on his pillow.

And at nine o'clock on Monday morning he stood across Cowlington Street from the museum. It was a hot, oppressive day, and sweat had already risen across his back. He stood looking at the forbidding house for a minute, and then, steeling himself, he crossed the street, moved through the gate and up the walkway. His pulse pounded, and as he reached that large oak doorway, his blood felt like liquid fire. He tried the door. Locked. He hammered on it, hearing the echoes within the house like a hoarse, bellowing voice. A trickle of sweat ran down his face, and he wiped it away with the back of his hand.

Movements behind the door. Tentative footsteps. A pause. Then the noise of a bolt sliding back.

The door slowly came open.

"Good morning!" a gray-haired woman with sharp features said cheerily. She was dressed well, in a navy blue pantsuit, and she looked fresh and alert. She opened the door wide to admit him.

"Please, come in!"

He entered. There was a corridor with glass display cases, a desk with a guest book. The floor was of blue tile, and the walls were cream-colored. Similar to that corridor he'd seen in his dreams, yes, but...different, too. There were rooms branching off from the corridor and, at the corridor's end, a wide staircase with polished banisters leading to the second floor. Behind him the gray haired woman closed the door. He felt air conditioning begin to loosen the shirt from his back.

"I'm Leigh Hunt," the woman said, smiling, extending a hand. A firm, cool grip. "Will you sign our book over here?"

He nodded, took an offered pen, and signed it.

"Sorry we were locked up," she said. "I'm alone here for the day, and it's rare that we have a visitor so early in the morning. It's certainly going to be a scorcher to day, isn't it? The radio said in the middle nineties. And still no rain in sight. That makes for dangerous conditions, I'll tell you." She peered over at his signature. "Mr.

Reid?" She looked into his face, seemed to be examining his features. "Oh, yes! Your wife is on the George Ross faculty, isn't she? Weren't you and she at Dr. Drago's home on Saturday night?"

"Yes, we were."

"I thought I'd seen you before. My husband and I were there, but we didn't have an opportunity to meet you. Are you interested in our historical society?"

"Curious," he said.

She smiled. "I see. Well, we're glad to have you. I'm surprised you and your wife haven't come to see us sooner."

"We've both been busy. Settling into the village and all that."

"Of course. Can I get you a cup of coffee?"

He shook his head.

"Well, then, let me give you a brief explanation of what these artifacts are. They were unearthed in 1965 and 1966, in an archaeological dig Dr. Drago supervised on the southeastern shore of the Black Sea, in Turkey. The fragments of statues, of pottery, coins, and the weapons you'll see in the display cases date from approximately 1192 B.C. Around the era of the Trojan War. This particular region of Turkey is now geologically unstable; there've been several killer earthquakes there in the last century, and the most recent one, in 1964, exposed a wall of earth and uniformly cut stones. Archaeologists began digging in early 1965." She began walking along the corridor, her footsteps echoing from wall to wall.

Evan followed at a distance. "Dr. Drago held an archaeology post in Athens at that particular time, and for years she'd been petitioning the Turkish government to conduct a series of exploratory digs near the mouth of the Kelkit River. She'd been turned down up to that point, but Dr. Drago learned of this new discovery and petitioned the government again for permission to lead a team of Greek archaeologists in work on Ashava."

"Ashava?"

"Yes. That's the name the Turkish archaeologists gave the new site. After some professor or somebody. Anyway, Dr. Drago and her team were accepted. As a matter of fact, they made most if not all of the significant finds. The items you'll see here were all unearthed by the Greek scientists."

Evan stepped over to a display case and looked in . There were bits of pottery, all of them numbered; most were undecorated, but on several there were intricate scrollwork designs.

"Those were found on an upper stratum. In fact, the museum's laid out in order of the particular discoveries. The third floor holds those items found in the lower, and oldest, portion of the dig."

Other display cases held more pottery. Here was a fragment of what must have been a statue: it was one arm, the hand curiously curled, as if reaching for him through the glass.

"So what did Ashava turn out to be?" he asked the woman, seeing her reflection watching him in the display case.

"A city," Mrs. Hunt said. "Or, to be more accurate, a fortress.

Buried by the shifting of the earth, buried from human eyes for possibly a thousand years or more. And a sheer caprice of nature uncovered its inner walls."

Evan peered into one of the rooms. A headless statue stood flanked by shadows. One hand held a spear that seemed as if it were about to be thrown at him. There were other displays: large, cracked vases, small medal lions in a sealed case. "Ashava, huh?" he said, turning to ward Mrs. Hunt. "I'm afraid I've never heard of it, but then I wouldn't consider myself any authority on ancient history."

"Few people are. Ashava was the name applied by the Turkish scientists. Dr. Drago identified the city by a different name.

Themiscrya"

He shook his head. "Sorry. Doesn't ring a bell."

"No matter," she said. "I didn't know anything about it myself until Dr. Drago explained it to me. Themiscrya was a very ancient city, and a fabled one as well. Its origins are...lost in the past, but we can infer from its ruins and artifacts that it was primarily a farming community. It was a fortress, as I've said, but built as a fortress for purposes of defense against roving bands of barbarians. Of which there were quite a few. In 72 B.C. Roman legions attacked Themiscrya and destroyed it."

Evan realized there was a smell of dust in the house. Of age. Of ancient secrets, and perhaps new ones as well. "Why are these artifacts here?" he asked her as they neared the stairway. "Why not in Turkey?"

Mrs. Hunt smiled a cat-smile. "The Turkish government was in need of...financial aid in the late sixties. As I'm sure you're aware, Dr. Drago is quite wealthy. She...arranged for a loan in exchange for these relics."

"They must mean a great deal to her.'

"They do, And to all of us as well.'

"Oh? Why?"

"Because having this museum here makes Bethany's Sin quite a special place. An important place. There's a great deal of civic pride centered on it."

He nodded, looked up the staircase. He could see the battered torso of another statue, lights arranged around it to cast long shadows on the wall behind. "How did Dr. Drago make her money?"

he asked, looking into Mrs. Hunt's face.

"She was a very lucky woman. And intelligent, too. In...1967, I think it was, she married Nicholas Drago. She was his third wife."

"I'm not familiar with the name."

"The Greek financier," she explained. "The one with the shipping line and the chain of hotels. Unfortunately, Mr. Drago died in a fall barely a year after they were married. They were living in a villa on one of those volcanic Greek islands. I don't know all the details, but apparently it was a pretty grim accident." She shook her head. "Poor woman. She was supposed to have been the love of his life; he left her most of his holdings, and for a while she managed his businesses herself before she came back to America."

"Back to America?"

"Oh, yes. She was born in this country." She glanced up the stairs. "Are you going to see the rest of the museum?"

He nodded.

"Good. I'll let you go ahead, then. I've got some correspondence to answer. If you have any questions, any at all, please ask them. All right?"

"Yes, I will." He started up the staircase, and heard her footsteps retreating toward the other end of the corridor.

For more than half an hour he prowled the upper floors of the museum. There were more display cases, more fragments of statues.

On the third floor there were two things of interest: bronze disks, pierced with holes, which Evan thought might have been used as currency, and a display case containing a few stone spearheads, a metallic shield shaped like a crescent moon with an angered face embossed upon it, and a battered helmet with a half deteriorated nose guard. Evan stared at that shield and helmet for a long while, intrigued by them, and then continued through the third-floor rooms.

More urns, decorated with fighting figures. A pottery fragment with a hand holding a sword. A large stone slab with part of a mural on it: he could see the outline of a man's bearded face, the eyes wide and staring and...yes, terrified. Those eyes seemed to be seeking his own.

The expression chilled him. Strange, he thought. Mrs..Hunt had said Themiscrya was a farming community. But where were the farming implements? It seemed a community more attuned to war than anything else. He continued through another room, taking his time, and then found his progress stopped.

By a large, slablike black door.

He put his hand on the gleaming brass knob. It wouldn't turn.

Behind it lay probably more than half of the third floor, he guessed.

Storage space? No. Wouldn't the storage area be in the basement?

Possibly, possibly not. He paused for a moment and then retraced his way back downstairs.

Mrs. Hunt, pen in hand, looked up from her desk. "Everything all right?"

"Yes. Very interesting. But I was wondering about something?

"What's that?"

"On the third floor. There seems to be a locked door up there.

What's behind it?"

"Everybody asks that question," she said, and smiled cheerily again. "It's a special exhibit we're in the process of setting up. A panoramic reconstruction of Themiscrya; there'll be spotlights and a slide show - that sort of thing."

"Good. When's it going to be finished?"

She thought for a moment. "Sometime in November. We hope."

He stood before her desk for a while longer, and she finally said, "I hope you've' enjoyed your visit, Mr. Reid. Maybe you'll bring your wife and little girl next time?"

"Certainly," he said, and started for the front door. "Thank you. Have a good day."

"Same to you. I hope you can find some shade out there."

Evan left the museum. Reaching the street and turning toward home, he felt the harsh touch of the sun on his face. In his chest his heart beat steadily and slowly, but he felt a tension begin to radiate and spread through him from the back of his neck. He turned, looked back at the museum. So. That's all there was to it. The last vestiges of a farming community that had existed over three thousand years ago on the southeastern shore of the Black Sea. He remembered the argument between Dr. Drago and Doug Blackburn; of course they'd been arguing about the items in the museum, but why? And what did mythology have to do with it? He made a mental note to call Blackburn's house again.

But what about the dreams? he asked himself, staring at the windows of the museum. What had they been trying to tell him?

That there was danger here, something reaching for him from a swirl of dust? If so, he hadn't seen it. Hadn't felt it at all. Paranoia? Maybe.

God, what if all these premonitions and feelings were only his imagination, after all? What if there were nothing whatsoever to fear in Bethany's Sin, and he'd been slowly unraveling because it was his nature to be afraid, to question, to probe.

He began walking toward McClain Terrace again. He wanted to check the mail and get started on the bones of a new story.

And then he had a curious, sudden thought: How had Leigh Hunt known he had a little girl? he'd never met the woman before, and she'd never been introduced to Kay, either. Possibly someone had told her.

Yes, that was it. There were no secrets in Bethany's Sin.

Kay had determined to put Sunday night's eerie dreams in the back of her mind and was in a better mood when she got home.

Laurie seemed to have forgotten about losing her toy. Evan felt ridiculous about that incident now, and ashamed, knowing he'd embarrassed Kay in front of Mrs. Demargeon. Over dinner he told them he'd visited the museum, and Kay listened with interest while he described the artifacts inside.

He almost didn't call Doug Blackburn. Wasn't Kay right, he reasoned, in saying that it was none of his business? Wasn't it interfering where he didn't belong? But he did make the call, at ten-thirty, and Blackburn answered, sounding sleepy.

"Sure I know who this is," Blackburn said. "Mr. Reid, isn't it?"

"That's right. Sorry if I awakened you, but I wanted to ask something. Would it be possible for us to get together and talk sometime this week?"

"What's on your mind?"

"I'd like to talk to you about Dr. Drago."

Silence. Then, "Well...I'm giving mid-terms this week, and I'm going to be very busy. How about - wait a minute - how about a week from Thursday? Come on over to the house and bring your wife. We'11 make an evening of it."

"No, I'd better come alone."

There was a pause, and then Blackburn's voice took on a more serious note. "Hey, what's this all about?"

"It concerns Dr. Drago's museum and her archaeological dig.

But I'd rather talk face-to-face."

"Okay, then. Whatever. How about making it around seven or so on Thursday?"

"That's fine."

"All right. See you then."

"Good-bye. And thanks." Returning to the den, Evan kissed Laurie goodnight before Kay put her to bed, then sat down on the sofa to watch the nightly newscast from Johnstown. The newscaster was finishing up a story on a local politician, and then he began talking about the discovery of a decomposed, unidentified corpse in the woods near Elmora.

And across the village, in Mrs. Bartlett's boarding house, Neely Ames heard a knock at his door over the rock music on his transistor radio. He said, "Just a minute!" turned off the radio, grabbed his blue jeans from the chair where he'd thrown them, and put them on.

It was Mrs. Bartlett, carrying a tray with a white tea pot and a glass filled with ice cubes. "I brought you a surprise," she said, coming into the room and glancing around. She didn't seem to mind the clothes strewn about. "I know how tired you said you were at dinner, and sometimes a body can be so tired he can't even sleep. So I made some of my good sassafras tea for you. It'll help you relax."

She put the tray on a table near his bed.

"That's very nice of you," he said; the pungent, earthy perfume of the sassafras had entered the room with Mrs. Bartlett.

"Here we are," Mrs. Bartlett said, pouring the tea. The ice cubes cracked, and the noise reminded Neely disturbingly of a night when something had smashed his truck window. "It should be cool in just a minute."

He took the glass and sat in a chair near the windows. The slightest breath of a breeze was coming through, but it was a stale, hot breath. His shoulder muscles and legs still ached from the work he'd done that day; it was almost as if that bastard Wysinger had been trying to wear him out. He'd spent the hot, muggy morning picking up litter on the outskirts of Bethany's Sin, loading plastic bags with beer cans and blown newspaper and paper cups and all manner of debris. Then, in the scorching afternoon, he'd cut down a dead tree on Fredonia Street, sawed it into small pieces, and hauled the whole thing over to the landfill. He always hated going out to that landfill; it was a filthy place, layered with garbage and inhabited by hundreds of black, biting flies.

"You look tired," Mrs. Bartlett said. "A young man needs his rest."

"Young? No, I'm not so young anymore," he told her. The glass felt deliciously cool in his hand. "I worked at the landfill today. Do you know where that is?"

She shook her head.

"It's way out in the woods, in the middle of nowhere. I hate that place. As barren as the damn moon,..and hot as hell .... "

"I don't believe I'd like to see it," Mis. Bartlett said.

"No, you wou1dn't." He sipped at the tea. It was very sweet.

"But I'm getting paid to haul myself out there, so I guess I shouldn't complain."

She smiled sympathetically.

"Must've been over a hundred out there today," he said. "And the ground's beginning to crack, like some sort of dried-up riverbed."

He drank again. Almost too sweet for him. "It's good," he told her.

"Thanks for bringing it."

"I hoped you'd like it. Most of my visitors do."

He nodded, drank. Sweet over bitter.

"Summers are always fierce in Bethany's Sin," the woman said.

"I can't bear to go out in the midday sun myself. They say the sun brings up all the wrinkles."

He grunted, touched the cold glass to his forehead. "Then I'd better not look in a mirror," he said. "I'd look like I was eighty years old."

"Everything'll be fine in the morning, after a good night's sleep."

"I suppose it will be. It'll have to be."

She watched him drink. "I'll let you get your rest now," she said, and moved toward the door. "We'll have pancakes for breakfast."

"That'll be great."

"Good night." She closed the door behind her, and he heard her slowly descending the staircase. In the bowels of the house another door closed. He finished the tea, touched the cool glass to both sides of his face, and then walked across the room to turn the lock in the door. When he'd switched off the ceiling light and taken off his jeans again, he lay down on the bed and tried to sleep. It was too hot, and he kicked away the sheet; the faint stirrings of breeze played across him like supple, mercurial fingers. There was a bitterish aftertaste in his mouth, and he swallowed a couple of times to get rid of it. What kind of tea had that been? Sassafras. He could still smell it in the room. His mind began to drift; sleep seemed closer, like a beautiful woman in night black robes. When he closed his eyes he had the sensation of slowly tumbling head over heels down a chill passage way. A sensation, he realized, not unlike being drunk. But different, too. Jesus, he told himself, I'm tired! Need to sleep, need to rest, just let every damned thing go. Forget about that damned hot sun, forget about the landill, forget about Wysinger's bellyaching voice. That's right. Yes. Forget. Let sleep come. He waited for what seemed like a long time, but still he clung to that nebulous ledge between sleep and awakening. From some distant place he heard the first few lines of a song he'd been working on for several weeks: I'll fade away into the night/I'll be long gone before twilight/ And I won't hear if you call my name/There's nothing but the road to blame. So much for that.

Through the curtains of his eyelids Neely saw what looked like figures standing amid the darkness of his room. Standing in silence.

Watching. Waiting. They had burning blue eyes like the eyes of that thing he'd seen on the highway, and he wanted his mind to sheer away from those terrible thoughts but his brain refused to obey his commands: the things with burning eyes stepped nearer his bed.

Then began to fade, very slowly, until they had disappeared again into blackness. The memory of that night on the highway set in motion the churning wheels of fear in his stomach. He'd had the truck window replaced, but every morning those long rents in the metal greeted him like the nagging remnants of nightmares. If it weren't for those marks he would've shrugged off that incident as a prime example of the DTs. But he couldn't, and though he'd driven back along the King's Bridge Road to the Cock's Crow a few times since then, he'd never talked about that night, and he always took care to leave when someone else was driving toward Bethany's Sin.

Now he was falling. Falling into a corridor at the far end of which was a black abyss. Falling rapidly. Tumbling head over heels.

Brackish, bitterish taste in his mouth. Sassafras tea? Or something else? Was Mrs. Bartlett - dear old Mrs. Bartlett, so much like his own mother before she'd started drinking so bad - spiking the tea?

Trying to get him drunk? Preying on his weakness? Have to scold her about that. No fair.

The sudden, sharp sound of metal against metal came to him, and he knew he was still awake. It was difficult to open his eyes; he finally opened them to slits, and he could feel the light sheen of sweat covering his body from the heat that seemed to have filled the room like a living thing. What moved? he wondered. What moved?

That noise again. A quiet noise. Barely audible.

The lock.

He turned his head with an effort and stared through the darkness at the door. Though he couldn't see it, he realized the lock was turning. Someone on the other side had a key.

Neely tried to lift himself up on his elbows but only half-succeeded. His head seemed heavy, his neck barely able to hold its weight. He stared at that door, his mouth slack and hanging open.

There was a quiet click! and he knew the lock had been turned.

He tried to call out and couldn't find his voice. Drugged, he realized.

Mrs. Bartlett's drugged me with something! The door began to come open; a sliver of white light from the hallway entered first, growing larger and longer and brighter, falling across the bed and blinding Neely where he lay. Until, when the door was finally open, the light stung his eyes with pure pain.

And three figures were silhouetted there, two standing in front, one behind. "He's ready," someone said; Neely heard two voices at the same time, one overlapping the other. One in English - Mrs.

Bartlett's voice - and one in a hoarse, guttural language he had never heard before. That second voice, the more powerful, filled him with a dread that ate at the linings of his guts. The figures slipped through the doorway and neared him. Stood over his bed. Silent.

But now he could see their eyes in the dark blanks of their faces.

Three pairs of eyes. All unblinking. All shimmering with electric blue flame that seemed to blaze out for him. He tried to crawl away, couldn't make his muscles respond; the windows were open: he could scream and someone would hear. When he tried to scream he heard himself whine instead. Those eyes moved, examining his naked body. A hand reached down; Evan saw a bracelet of an animal claws on the wrist. The fingers traced the length of his penis. He tried to cringe from them, couldn't. Another hand came down, and the cool-fleshed fingers swirled in circles across his stomach. The Bartlett-thing stepped back toward the door and closed it.

Neely's heart hammered. He could hear the things breathing in the darkness, like the steady action of a bellows. Hands touched chest and arm and thigh and throat; he smelled female musk, heavy and demanding, filling the room with sexual need. Fingers at his penis, stroking the flesh. Beneath those burning, haunting eyes he knew the mouths were open, taut with fired lust. One of the forms sat on the bed beside him, bent forward, and licked at his testicles.

Another one crossed to the opposite side of the bed and crawled toward him, gripped at his shoulders, bit lightly at his chest, then harder with mounting desire.

Turning his head with an effort that brought the sweat up in beads on his face, Neely saw the eyes of the Bartlett-thing, still standing beside the closed door. She was grinning. And to his own horror he felt his body begin to respond to the caresses of the two women around the bed. It excited them even more, and they jealously shoved for position near his sexual organ. A mouth gripped him, claw-nailed hands stroked his thighs from hips to knees, leaving rising welts. Physical need shook him, setting his nerves afire. His testicles ached for release. And then he was aware that one of them, the woman-thing with the animal-claw bracelet, was standing up, slowly taking off the coarse-clothed gown she wore.

Even in the darkness he could see the smoothness of her stomach, her firm, tight thighs, the triangle of dark hair between them. The fever boiled in his brain, and now he had only one need and one desire in the world. She sensed it, and moved with maddening slowness. Then the other woman-thing backed away from the bed and disrobed; he could feel the mingled heat of their bodies, and he didn't care that those hideous eyes watched him almost incuriously, didn't care that these things were nightmare visions, didn't care didn't care didn't...

The one with the bracelet caressed his body like the searing touch of fire. Thick dark hair hung down over her shoulders, and he could smell a wild forest-smell in it. She mounted him, her legs pressed tight against his body. Moved forward, guiding him in with her hand. Urgently. She gasped softly and began to move, slowly at first, then with increasing passion. Her nails gouged his shoulders, and her unblinking eyes stared into his face with eerie unconcern.

Neely grasped her arms, felt smooth, firm flesh; he lifted himself up and she ground down on him at the same time, mixing his pleasure with pain. In another moment he exploded inside her, with a half-human whine that he hardly recognized as his own voice. Her wetness engulfed him, throbbing against him with a strength that wouldn't let him free. She ground down on him again, locking him inside her with her legs. Orgasm ripped him like lightning, and still she moved atop him, her grasp milking him dry. As she trembled violently in the throes of her own orgasm, Neely played his fingers along her shoulders and then dropped them to her nipples.

One of them was hard and taut. The other was missing.

And Neely realized, with a new surge of confusion and fear, that this woman had only one breast. The right one was gone, and his lingers felt the hard ridges of a star shaped scar in its place.

The woman released him and silently climbed off his body.

Before she slipped back into her gown, Neely saw jewels of sweat and semen suspended in the fine down between her thighs.

At the door the Bartlett-thing hadn't moved. Her eyes, fiery blue, burned through his skull.

They waited for him to regain his strength. His body felt drained, and in his hand there was the memory of that strange and vivid scar.

And then the second woman came for him. She was lithe and blond, and her mouth and fingers played games with his body until once again he was erect and throbbing. She descended onto Neely with feverish intensity, biting at his shoulders and throat, her hips battering him. And seconds before another orgasm shivered through him, he realized this woman also lacked a right breast, because he could feel the scar pressed tight to his own chest. She lay atop him for a moment, breathing harshly, and then her weight was gone.

Neely, his body aching and exhausted, saw the three women standing over his bed, staring down at him as if examining an insignificant curiosity.

"He'll sleep now." Two voices speaking. One Mrs. Bartlett's, one that guttural, foreign voice that made Neely's flesh crawl. The Bartlett-thing's hand came from the darkness, stroked his fevered forehead. And then the women slipped through the door like the rustle of cloth, into the blinding white light of the hallway. The door closed behind them; a key was turned. Footsteps on the staircase.

Another door closed in the depths of the house. Then nothing but silence.

And abruptly the mountainous black wave of sleep reared up for Neely, crashing over him with the urgent touch of a lover, scorching and soothing him. Taking him down and down and down, deeper deeper deeper....