The Stake Read online

  Too bad he has to be a teacher.

  Heading toward the door, she was hit again by the knowledge that Riley might be waiting for her.

  What if I ask Mr. Kramer to walk me out to the parking lot?

  No way, she told herself. He might get the wrong idea. Unless I explain about Riley. And that might get Riley in hot water, and then I’d reallybe in trouble.

  “See you tomorrow,” she called over her shoulder.

  “Have a nice evening, Lane.”

  She stepped into the hallway. Leaning against the lockers on the other side was Jim. He lifted a hand in greeting.

  “I wouldn’t blame you if you told me to get lost,” he said, coming toward her. “I don’t know what got into me this morning, I’m really sorry.”

  “You should be.”

  “You can wash my mouth out with soap, if that’d help any.”

  “That’s an idea.” She took hold of his hand. “Next time, I just might.”

  “Am I forgiven, then?”

  “I guess so. This time.”

  Together they walked down the hall.

  So much for dumping him, she thought. Guess I wasn’t ready for it, after all.

  Though she was a little disappointed in herself, she mostly felt relieved.

  “I was afraid I’d really blown it,” Jim said. “All day I kept thinking about it, and how much I’d miss you. I really love you, Lane. I don’t know what I would’ve done if... well, anyway. We’re okay again, right?”

  “Yeah. We’re okay.”

  He squeezed her hand.

  In the parking lot Lane spotted Riley Benson sitting on the hood of her Mustang. They were still some distance away, and Jim hadn’t noticed him yet.

  But Riley saw them, scurried down and swaggered off.

  Ten

  She was water skiing on the river at night. She didn’t want to be there. She was frightened.

  She wanted to stop but didn’t dare. The thing in the water would get her before the boat had time to swing around and pick her up.

  She didn’t know what it was in the water. But something. Something awful.

  The boat sped faster and faster, as if it wanted to help her escape. She skimmed over the smooth black surface, clinging to the handle of the tow line, whimpering with terror.

  Somehow, she knew that the boat wasn’t quick enough. The thing in the water was gaining on her.

  If they were closer to shore! If the boat took her near enough to a dock, she might let go of the line and her speed might take her gliding to safety.

  But she couldn’t see the shore.

  On both sides there was only darkness.

  That’s impossible, she thought. The river’s no more than a quarter mile wide.

  Where are we?

  Sick with dread, she thought, We’re not on the Colorado anymore.

  Clutching the wooden handle with her right hand, she raised her left and waved for the boat to head ashore.

  Wherever that might be.

  It kept its straight course.

  Look at me! her mind shrieked. Damn it, pay attention!

  She suddenly realized that she didn’t know who was steering the boat.

  Then she saw that it was drawing away from her.

  As if the tow line were stretching.

  Slowly, the running lights faded with distance, until they vanished entirely. Even the sound of the outboards died away.

  There was silence except for the hiss of her skis.

  The tow rope led into darkness.

  She was alone.

  Except for the thing under the river.

  Oh God, what am I going to...

  Cold hands grabbed her ankles, tugged her straight down. She was still on her skis, still speeding at the end of the tow line, but under the surface. The water pushed at her. It filled her open mouth, muffling her scream as the hands scurried up her legs.

  She felt the thing’s icy flesh against her back. It was standing on the skies behind her, riding them, reaching around her front, grabbing her hands, trying to rip them from the wooden bar. She held on with all her might.

  If I let go, he‘II have me!

  He snapped her left arm. Broke it off at the elbow. Her hand still clutched the bar for a moment, trailing its severed forearm. Then the rushing current took them away.

  A hand clamped over her mouth. It pinched her nostrils shut.

  She fought to suck in air.

  Somehow, she’d been able to breathe in spite of the water gushing down her throat, but the hand was different. It was solid. Her lungs burned.

  She grabbed the hand and woke up and the hand was still there, mashing her bruised mouth, pinching her nostrils shut.

  “Don’t make a sound, Jessica.”

  Frantic for a breath, she nodded. The hand lifted. She sucked air into her starved lungs.

  “Had a little nightmare?” he whispered.

  He was on the bed, sitting on her, leaning forward and holding her by the shoulders. Jessica was no longer covered by her sheet. In the glow of moonlight from the windows, she saw that Kramer was shirtless. From the hot feel of his skin where he sat on her, she knew that he’d removed all his clothes before climbing onto her. He had slipped her nightshirt up, too. Her left forearm rested against her chest, its cast heavy and cool.

  “You bastard.”

  “Shhh. If you wake up your parents, I’ll have to kill them. And you. I’ll have to kill everyone. You wouldn’t want that to happen, would you?”

  “No,” she whispered.

  “I didn’t imagine you would.”

  “What do you want?” she asked. The stupid question of the year. What he wanted was obvious. But she’d thought it was over.

  Saturday night she’d told him it was over, told him that he could find another girl, threatened to get him fired if he didn’t stop. That had been the stupid threat of the year. But after finishing his little “lesson,” he’d said, “I’m sick of you anyway, you disgusting slut.”

  “I’ve been thinking,” he whispered. “I’ve been worrying.”

  “I’b not going to tell.”

  “How do I know that?”

  “Don’t hurt be. Blease.”

  “I didn’t come here to hurt you, Jessica. I’m here for only one reason. Well, maybe two.” He laughed softly. She squirmed as a hand slid down from her shoulder and squeezed her breast. “I’m here to teach you a lesson. A lesson about safety. For you, there is no safety. Do you understand?“

  She nodded.

  “If you should ever happen to tell someone about me, I’ll come into your home just as I did tonight. There will be one difference. I’ll have a straight razor in my hand. I’ll begin by slashing the throats of your parents while they sleep. And then I’ll come to you.” A fingernail circled her nipple. “I’ll cut you very badly. Everywhere. It may take all night. And just before dawn I’ll open your throat from ear to ear. Do you understand?”

  “Yes.”

  “Very good.” The pale blur of his face drifted down. He kissed her sore lips. “Very good,” he whispered again.

  Eleven

  Except for the struggle on Monday morning to come up with a new story, Larry had spent the entire week on Night Stranger. That book was coming along fine. But what about the next?

  He didn’t feel like wracking his mind for a new idea. So much easier to stick with the familiar territory of Night Stranger. He knew where that book was going, and enjoyed the excitement of guiding it there.

  This was Friday.

  He couldn’t keep avoiding the problem forever.

  Think how much better you’ll feel, he told himself, once you’ve come up with a great plan for the next book.

  A great plan that does not include a stiff under the stairs with a stake in its heart.

  He found the disk from Monday, put it into his word processor and tapped out commands until “Novel Notes — Monday, October 3” appeared at the comer of the screen. As he cleaned a pipe and loaded it wit
h fresh tobacco, he skimmed the amber lines. About three pages worth of material. And nothing.

  A lot of crap about their vampire.

  “In effect,” he read, “you have this gorgeous thing as your slave.

  “Real possibilities.”

  Sure.

  Better luck today.

  Larry lit his pipe. Below “Real possibilities” he typed, “Notes — Friday, October 7.

  “How about a tribe of desert scavengers?” he wrote, recalling the idea he’d toyed around with shortly before the van reached Sagebrush Flat. “They arrange ‘accidents’ on the back roads, then fall upon the unlucky travelers.

  “Too much like The Hills Have Eyes. Besides, I already did something along those lines in Savage Timber.”

  Larry scowled at the screen. He wished he hadn’t reminded himself of Savage Timber. That damn novel, his second, had nearly destroyed his career. A major release, and all it did was sit in the stores, thanks to that damn green foil artsy-fart cover.

  Don’t think about it, he told himself.

  Come on, a new idea.

  “How about a guy who finds the remains of an old jukebox? He restores it to working order, and...”

  And what?

  “It doesn’t have any records in it. He puts in his own. But it doesn’t play the new ones. All it will play are the oldies-but-goodies that used to be in it. Back before it was shot to pieces by... Hey, maybe it wants revenge on the vandals who used it for target practice.

  “Great. A pissed-off jukebox. What does it do, scoot around and electrocute people?

  “Could be like a time machine. The guy gets it working, and it shoves him into the past. So he finds himself stranded in Holman’s — or a dive of some kind — back in the mid-sixties.

  “Has possibilities.

  “Maybe the box wants him there to have a showdown with the jerks who plugged it. A motorcycle gang, or something. A real nasty bunch.

  “The poor guy doesn’t know what’s in store for him. But he’s plenty upset. It’s Twilight Zone time. One minute he’s with his wife and kids, has a nice house and a good job. Suddenly, bam, he finds himself in a diner in a dying town twenty-five years in the past. Freaks him out. All he wants to do is get home.

  “Until he finds himself falling for a beautiful young waitress. At that point he begins to appreciate his situation.

  “Things start to get ugly when a gang of biker thugs thunders into town.

  “Suppose the real reason the jukebox took him there was to save the waitress? Neat. The jukebox likesher. Sometimes, alone at night after the diner closes, she has it play her favorite tunes, and she dances alone in the dark.

  “The way things went down, first time around, the bikers raped and murdered her. The jukebox has brought our hero back to the diner to alter the course of history — to save her.

  “Which, of course, he does.

  “Mission accomplished, the box let’s him go home again. But he misses the beautiful waitress. (Okay, he didn’t have a wonderful wife and kids. He was divorced, or something.) He goes looking for the gal. Finds her.

  “She’s his mother. He’s his own father. He got her pregnant during their brief time together back in ‘65, and he was the baby she had.

  “He’d have to be about thirty years old in the present. She could be about twenty-five when he met her in the diner.

  “She had to give up the baby (our hero) for some reason. He was adopted, and always curious about the identity of his parents.

  “If she is his mother, we could give him back his wife and kids.

  “Neater if he finds the waitress in the present and they resume as lovers. But how would that work with their ages? Say he’s thirty in the present. How could the gal be anywhere near his age when he finds her again? If she’s thirty now, she would’ve been five when he saved her from the bikers.

  “What if the waitress he fell in love with was her mother? That would make the daughter just his age in the present. And she is the spitting image of her mother, the gal he loved.

  “Not bad. Might work.”

  Larry’s pipe had gone out. He could tell by the easy draw that nothing remained in the bowl but ash. He set the pipe into its holder and returned his fingers to the keyboard.

  “Our main guy resurrects the jukebox. It seems evil at first, but turns out to be a force for good. And a matchmaker. He falls for the waitress, who happens to have a really cute little girl at the time. Plenty of thrills and spills and nasty crap with the bikers (make them total degenerates, monsters). By facing them down (he’s scared, but comes through, proving to himself that he’s a man), he ends up saving the kid who will later become his true love.

  “Why not?”

  Larry grinned at the screen.

  All right! You’ve got it. Spend the next couple of days working out the details, and...

  The next couple of days.

  He muttered a curse.

  The weekend was shot. As soon as Lane got home from school today, they would be hitting the road for Los Angeles to visit with Jean’s folks.

  Just what he wanted to do.

  Especially now, with the new idea sizzling in his mind.

  Can’t get out of it, though. You’ll just have to put the idea on hold till Monday.

  It would give him something to think about while he drove. He might be able to work out a few of the main scenes, maybe even come up with some nifty new angles. But he knew very well that daydreaming about the story while he steered down the freeway would accomplish very little compared to working at the word processor. The act of typing out his thoughts seemed to give them a focus that wasn’t there when he simply let his mind wander. Daydreams seemed to meander and drift. But sentences were solid, and one led to another.

  Not this weekend, they won’t.

  This weekend’s down the toilet.

  Well, he tried to console himself, Jean’s folks are okay. And it is their anniversary. I’ll probably end up having a good time, even though I’d rather be...

  He heard the door bell ring.

  Jean would take care of it.

  He wondered whether he should get back to Night Strangeror spend the rest of the day fleshing out his jukebox story.

  Call it The Box, he suddenly thought.

  And grinned.

  “THE BOX,” he typed. “Great title. Has a mysterious ring to it. And Box not only refers to the jukebox that sends him back in time, but also the ‘box’ or trap he finds himself stuck in. He’s boxed in by circumstances. No apparent way out. Also, the sex thing. Have one of the bikers refer to the main gal as a box. ‘Foxy box.’ And maybe the main guy is a former boxer — killed an opponent in the ring, and swore off fighting? No, that’d be pushing it. Trite, too. But maybe there are some other ‘box’ angles. Fool around with it.”

  He heard Jean’s footsteps approaching. She might come in and look over his shoulder, so he scrolled down until “foxy box” climbed out of sight at the top of the screen.

  She rapped on the office door and pushed it open. In her hand was an Overnight Mail bag that looked large enough to hold a manuscript. “This just came for you,” she said. “It’s from Chandler House.”

  His publisher.

  Jean watched while he tore open the bag. Inside, he found a fat manuscript held together by rubber bands. And a typewritten note from his editor, Susan Anderson:

  Larry

  Here is the copyedited manuscript of MADHOUSE. The corrections are light, so I’m sure you’ll be pleased.

  We would like you to make whatever changes you consider appropriate, and return it to us if possible by October 13.

  Best,

  Susan

  Larry grimaced.

  “What?” Jean asked.

  “It’s Madhouse. The copyedited version. I’m supposed to send it back by the thirteenth.” He glanced at his calendar. “Christ, that’s next Thursday.”

  “They didn’t give you much time.”

  “That’s for sure,�
�� he muttered. “They’ve had it for about a year and a half, and now I get... six days.”

  “Have fun,” Jean said. She left the room, closing the door again to keep his pipe smoke from contaminating the rest of the house.

  Larry pushed his chair back, crossed a leg, rested the thick manuscript on his thigh and rolled the rubber bands off. He tossed Susan’s note and the title page onto the cluttered TV tray beside his chair.

  Then he groaned.

  For “light” corrections, page one seemed to have an awful lot of changes.

  Halfway down the page his paragraph used to read, “She tugged at the door. Locked. God, no! She whirled around and choked out a whimper. He was already off the autopsy table, staggering toward her, his head bobbing and swaying on its broken neck. In his hand was the scalpel.”

  Larry struggled to decipher the changes. Words had been crossed out, others added. The paragraph was a map of lines and arrows. At last he figured it out.

  “Tugging at the door, she found it to be locked. No! Snapping her head around, she whimpered in despair, for she saw that the corpse was staggering toward her with a scalpel in his hand. His head was swinging from side to side atop its snapped neck.”

  “Jesus H. Christ on a crutch,” Larry muttered.

  He found Jean in their bedroom, gathering clothes from an open drawer of her bureau and taking them to her suitcase. Both suitcases lay open on the bed.

  He sat down at the end of the mattress. “We’ve got a problem.”

  “The manuscript?”

  “I just looked through the whole thing. It’s been wrecked.”

  “Not again.”

  “Yeah.” Madhousewas his twelfth novel, and the third to be demolished by a copyeditor.

  “What’re you going to do?” Jean asked.

  “I have to fix it. I don’t have any choice.” He scowled at the carpet. “Maybe I could get them to take my name off and publish it under the name of the copyeditor.”

  “It’s that bad?”

  “And then some.”

  “Why do they let it happen?”

  “God, I don’t know. It’s the luck of the draw, I guess. This time, they happened to send my book to some idiot who thinks she’s a writer.”