Where the Summer Ends - By Karl Edward Wagner Page 0,47
a great swarm of flies choked him.
“Jon!” At his yell, Linda turned about. As he dove into the knee-deep kudzu, she forgot her own near-panic and started toward him. “I’m okay! “ he shouted. “Just stay there. Wait for me.”
Wiping his hands on the leaves, he heaved himself to his feet, hid the revulsion from his face. He swallowed the rush of bile and grinned.
Let her see Sheriff’s flayed carcass just now, and she would flip out.
•IV•
Mercer had drawn the curtains across the casement windows, but Linda was still reluctant to pose for him. Mercer decided she had not quite recovered from her trip to Gradie’s.
She sneered at the unshaded floor lamp. “You and your morning sunlight.”
Mercer batted at a moth. “In the morning we’ll be off for the mountains.” This, the bribe for her posing. “I want to finish these damn figure studies while I’m in the mood.”
She shivered, listened to the nocturnal insects beat against the curtained panes. Mercer thought it was stuffy, but enough of the evening breeze penetrated the cracked casements to draw her nipples taut. From the stairwell arose the scratchy echoes of the Fleetwood Mac album—Mercer wished Linda wouldn’t play an album to death when she bought it.
“Why don’t we move into the mountains?”
“Be nice.” This sketch was worse than the one this morning “No,” Her tone was sharp. “I’m serious.”
The idea was too fanciful, and he was in no mood to argue over another of her whims tonight. “The bears would get us.”
“We could fix up an old place, maybe. Or put up a log cabin.”
“You’ve been reading Foxfire Book too much.”
“No, I mean it! Let’s get out of here!”
Mercer looked up. Yes, she did seem to mean it. “I’m up for it. But it would be a bit rough for getting to class. And I don’t think they just let you homestead anymore.”
“Screw classes!” she groaned. “Screw this grungy old dump! Screw this dirty goddamn city!”
“I’ve got plans to fix this place up into a damn nice townhouse,” Mercer reminded her patiently. “Thought this summer I’d open up the side windows in here—tear out this lousy sheet-rock they nailed over the openings. Gradie’s got his eye out for some casement windows to match the ones we’ve got left.”
“Oh Jesus! Why don’t you just stay the hell away from Gradie’s!”
“Oh, for Christ’s sake!” Mercer groaned. “You freak out over a rat, and Gradie blows it away.”
“It wasn’t just a rat.”
“It was the Easter bunny in drag.”
“It had paws like a monkey.”
Mercer laughed. “I told you this grass was well worth the forty bucks an ounce.”
“It wasn’t the grass we smoked before going over.”
“Wish we didn’t have to split the bag with Ron,” he mused, wondering if there was any way they might raise the other twenty.
“Oh, screw you!”
Mercer adjusted a fresh sheet onto his easel, started again. This one would be Pouting Model, or maybe Uneasy Girl. He sketched in silence for a while. Silence, except for the patter of insects on the windows, and the tireless repetitions of the record downstairs.
“I just want to get away from here,” Linda said at last.
In the darkness downstairs, the needle caught on the scratched grooves, and the stereo mindlessly repeated:
“So afraid... So afraid... So afraid... So afraid...”
By one a.m., the heat lightning was close enough to suggest a ghost of thunder, and the night breeze was gusting enough to billow the curtains. His sketches finished—at least, as far as he cared—Mercer rubbed his eyes and debated closing the windows before going to bed. If a storm came up, he’d have to get out of bed in a hurry. If he closed them and it didn’t rain, it would be too muggy to sleep. Mechanically he reached for his coffee cup, frowned glumly at the drowned moth that floated there.
The phone was ringing.
Linda was in the shower. Mercer trudged downstairs and scooped up the receiver.
It was Gradie, and from his tone he hadn’t been drinking milk. “Jon, I’m sure as hell sorry about giving your little lady a fright this afternoon.”
“No problem, Mr Gradie. Linda was laughing about it by the time we got home.”
“Well, that’s good to hear, Jon. I’m sure glad to hear she wasn’t scared bad.”
“That’s quite all right, Mr Gradie.”
“Just a goddamn old rat, wasn’t it?”
“Just a rat, Mr Gradie.”
“Well, I’m sure glad to hear that.”
“Right you are, Mr Gradie.” He started to hang up.
“Jon, what else I was wanting to talk to you about though, was to ask you if you