Part 22 (1/2)
”You could've done me a big favor and packed this rail off to Oz with the other one,” Bobby told Frank, and Frank said, ”Oz?”
When the railing finally folded down, out of the way, Julie found that she was hesitant to touch Frank, for fear of what might happen to her-or parts of her-if he pulled another disappearing act. She had seen the shattered hinges of the bed railing; she was also keenly aware that Frank had not brought the railing back with him, but had abandoned it in the other world or wherever to which he traveled.
Bobby hesitated, too, but overcame his apprehension, grabbing the man's legs and swinging them over the edge of the bed, taking hold of his arm and helping him into a sitting position, In some ways she might be tougher than Bobby, but when it came to encounters with the unknown, he was clearly moor flexible and quick to adapt than she was.
Finally she quelled her fear, and together she and Bobby a.s.sisted Frank off the bed and onto his feet. His legs buckle under him, and they had to support him. He complained of weakness and dizziness.
Stuffing the other set of clothes in the pillowcase, Hal said ”if we have to, Bobby and I can carry him.”
”I'm sorry to be so much trouble,” Frank said.
To Julie, he had never sounded or looked more pathetic, an she felt a flush of guilt about her reluctance to touch him.
Flanking Frank, their arms around him to provide support Julie and Bobby walked him back and forth, past the rain washed window, giving him a chance to recover the use of his legs. Gradually his strength and balance returned.
”But my pants keep trying to fall down,” Frank said.
They propped him against the bed, and he leaned on Julie while Bobby lifted the blue cotton sweater to see if they be needed to be cinched in one notch. The tongue end of the bell was weakened by scores of small holes, as if industrious insect had been boring at it. But what insects ate leather? When Bobby touched the tarnished bra.s.s buckle, it crumbled a though it was made of flaky pastry dough.
Gaping at the glittering crumbs of metal on his finger Bobby said, ”Where do you shop for clothes, Frank? In dumpster?”
In spite of Bobby's light tone, Julie knew he was unnerve What substance or circ.u.mstances could so profoundly alter the composition of bra.s.s?
When he brushed his fingers against the bed sheets to wipe off the curious residue, she flinched, not expecting his flesh to have been contaminated by the contact with the bra.s.s, and to crumble as the buckle had done.
AFTER CINCHING Frank's pants with the belt that he had worn when he'd checked into the hospital, Hal helped Bobby slip their client out of the room. With Julie scouting the way, they went quickly and quietly along the hall and through the fire door at the head of the emergency stairs.
Frank's skin remained cold to the touch, and he was still clammy with perspiration; but the effort brought a flush to his cheeks, which made him look less like a walking corpse.
Julie hurried to the bottom of the stairwell to see what lay beyond the lower door. With the thump and sc.r.a.pe of their footsteps echoing hollowly off the bare concrete walls, the three men went down four flights without much difficulty. At the fourth-floor landing, however, they had to pause to let Frank catch his breath.
”Are you always this weak when you wake up and don't remember where you've been?” Bobby asked.
Frank shook his head. His words issued in a thing wheeze: ”No. -Always frightened... tired, but not as bad... as this. I feel like...
whatever I'm doing... wherever I'm going... it's taking a bigger and bigger toll. I'm not... not going to survive... a lot more of this.”
As Frank was talking, Bobby noticed something peculiar about the man's blue cotton sweater. The pattern of the cable knit was wildly irregular in places, as if the knitting machine had briefly gone berserk. And on the back, near his right shoulder blade, a patch of fibers was missing; the hole was the size of a block of four postage stamps, though with irregular rather than straight edges. But it wasn't just a hole. A piece of what appeared to be khaki filled the gap, not merely sewn on but woven tightly into the surrounding cotton yarn, as if at the garment factory itself. Khaki of the same shade and hard finish as the pants that Frank was wearing.
A s.h.i.+ver of dread pierced Bobby, although he was not sure why. His subconscious mind seemed to understand how the patch had come to be and what it meant, and grasped some hideous consequence not yet fulfilled, while his conscious mind was baffled.
He saw that Hal, on the other side of Frank, had noticed the patch, too, and was frowning.
Julie ascended the stairs while Bobby was staring in puzzlement at the khaki swatch.
”We're in luck,” she said.
”There're two doors at the bottom. One leads into a hallway off the lobby, where we'd probably run into a security man, even though they aren't looking for Frank any more. But the other door leads into the parking garage, the same level our car's on. How you doing, Frank? You going to be okay?”
”Getting my... second wind,” he said less wheezingly than before.
”Look at this,” Bobby said, calling Julie's attention to the khaki woven into the blue cotton sweater.
While Julie studied the peculiar patch, Bobby let go of Frank and, on a hunch, stooped down to examine the legs of his client's pants. He found a corresponding irregularity: blue cotton yarn from the sweater was woven into the slacks. It was now one spot of the same size and shape as that in the sweater, near a series of three smaller holes near the cuff on the right leg however, he was sure that more accurate measurements would confirm what he knew from a quick look-that the tot amount of blue yarn in those three holes would just about fill the hole in the shoulder of the sweater.
”What's wrong?” Frank asked.
Bobby didn't respond but took hold of the somewhat baggy leg of the pants and pulled it taut, so he could get a better look at the three patches. Actually, ”patches” was an inaccurate word because these abnormalities in the fabric did not look like repairs; they were too well blended with the material around them to be handwork.
Julie squatted beside him and said, ”First, we've got to get Frank out of here, back to the office.”
”Yeah, but this is real strange,” Bobby said, indicating the irregularities in the pants.
”Strange and... important some how.”
”What's wrong?” Frank repeated.
”Where'd you get these clothes?” Bobby asked him.
”Well... I don't know.”
Julie pointed to the white athletic sock on Frank's right foot and Bobby saw at once what had caught her attention: several blue threads, precisely the color of the sweater. They were now loose, clinging to the sock. They were woven into the very fabric of it.
Then he noticed Frank's left shoe. It was a dark brown hiking shoe, but a few thing, squiggly white lines marred the leather on the toe. When he studied them closely, he saw that the line appeared to be coming spa.r.s.e threads like those in the athletic socks sc.r.a.ping at them with one fingernail, he discovered they were not stuck to the shoe, but were an integral part of the surface of the leather.
The missing yarn of the sweater had somehow become a part of both the khaki pants and one of the socks; the displaced threads of the sock had become part of the shoe on the other foot.
”What's wrong?” Frank repeated, more fearfully than before.
Bobby hesitated to look up, expecting to see that the filaments of displaced shoe leather were embedded in Frank's face, and that the displaced flesh was magically entwined with the cable knit of the sweater. He stood and forced himself to confront his client.
Aside from the dark and puffy rings around is eyes, the sickly pallor relieved only by the flush on his upper cheeks, and the fear and confusion that gave him a tormented look, nothing was wrong with his face. No leather ornamentation. No khaki st.i.tched into his lips. No filaments of blue yarn or plastic shoelace tips or b.u.t.ton fragments bristling from his eyeb.a.l.l.s.
Silently castigating himself for his overactive imagination, Bobby patted Frank's shoulder.
”It's okay. It's all right. We'll figure it out later. Come on, let's get you out of here.”
IN THE embrace of darkness, enwrapped by the scent of Channel No. five under the very blankets and sheets that had once warmed his mother and that he had so carefully served, Candy dozed and awakened repeatedly with a fear though he could not remember any nightmares.
Between periods of fitful sleep, he dwelt on the incident at the canyon, earlier that night, when he had been hunting and had felt an unseen presence put a hand on his head. He'd never before experienced anything like that. He was disturbed by the encounter, unsure whether it was threatening or benign, anxious to understand it.
He first wondered if it had been his mother's angelicence, hovering above him. But he quickly dismissed that explanation. If his mother had stepped through the veil between this world and the next, he would have recognized her spirit, singular aura of love, warmth, and compa.s.sion. He would have fallen to his knees under the weight of her ghostly hand wept with joy at her visitation.
Briefly he had considered that one or both of his inscrutable sisters possessed a heretofore unrevealed talent for psychic contact and reached out to him for unknown reasons. They had, somehow like they controlled their cats and appeared to have equal influence over other small animals. Maybe they!” enter human minds as well. He didn't want that pale, cold pair invading his privacy. At times he looked at them and thought of snakes-sinuous albino snakes, silent and filled-with desires as alien as any that motivated reptiles.
possibility that they could intrude into his mind was chill even if they could not control him.
But between bouts of sleep, he abandoned that idea. If Violet and Verbina possessed such abilities, they would have enslaved him long ago, as thoroughly as they had enslaved the cats. They would have forced him to do degrading, obscene things; they did not possess his self-control in matters of the flesh and would live, if they could, in constant violation of G.o.d's most fundamental commandments.
He could not understand why his mother had sworn him to keep and protect them, any more than he could understand how she could love them. Of course her compa.s.sion for those miscreant offspring was only one more example of her saintly nature. Forgiveness and understanding flowed from her like clear, cool water from an artesian well.