Off Season - Jack Ketchum [23]
She found a little glade where the stream widened and the water ran more slowly. It was possible to work her way over the rocks to a single huge stone in the center of the stream. The stone lay in brilliant sunlight, while the rest of the glade was bathed in shadow. She could sit there and eat her sandwich and listen to the water lave the rock and watch the water striders skate the placid surface. The half-hour or so she spent there was serene yet invigorating. The woods around her were a palpable presence, uniting opposites of silence and motion. All the trees and fish and insects and the birds whose calls she could hear on every side, even the water itself, presented to her eyes and ears a brilliant farrago of life and sound and movement, and yet her dominant impression was one of still, sleeplike silence; a silence alive and vibrant with energy.
It soothed her deeply. If she could feel like this all the time, so many things would be so much easier, so much clearer than they were. It was a wonderful place. She would bring them all back here tomorrow. She was sure they’d like it as much as she did.
It was hard to go back to the house. The house was fine and charming in its way, but this was what she had come here for, really; these sounds and this wild peacefulness, the cool and shadow of the forest. She supposed she would have plenty of time for these things once her guests were gone. She wondered already how she would feel about going home again, back to Manhattan. She crumpled up the brown paper bag and let it drop into the water. She watched it float slowly downstream until, a few yards from her, the water became shallower and its flow much more rapid. Soon it was only a tiny brown speck on the glistening surface of the water, and then it was gone. She climbed down off the rock and started off toward the house.
The remainder of the day she spent over her manuscript It would be good, she thought, to get some preliminary work done before anybody arrived, a few notes just to set herself in motion.
She’d left both doors open so she could hear any cars go by. So far there had been only one all day, a gray pickup that rumbled up the dump road and disappeared. One truck in how many hours? She smiled. God, she really was alone up here. She was glad the rented car was a new one and not apt to conk out on her. She’d hate to have to try hitching that road to get into town—it would be an all day proposition. But at least she’d never miss them when they arrived. In fact she’d know they were approaching five minutes before they could even see the house from the road.
It was getting on toward dusk. The wind was kicking up again outside. Leaves swirled by the window. She hoped they’d arrive soon. An hour ago she’d put a roast in the oven, thinking that it was the sort of thing she could keep warm however late they showed up. Hell of a lot better, though, she thought, if they managed it soon. Especially since she was starving again. She could just smell the roast’s rich scent wafting through the room.
She returned the manuscript to its binder and put it away in the bedroom. It was going to be a lot milder tonight than last night. She decided she’d wait out front for a while. The smell of that roast was putting knots in her stomach.
She pulled on a sweater and went to the front door and stepped outside.
Something made her look down before she took a second step—and whatever it was, she was goddamn glad of it. She could not believe her eyes. Oh Christ, she thought. How disgusting! And she had damn near stepped in it too, had damn near waded right in. She stared down at the stoop, feeling revolted and slightly idiotic, like someone who has been played a very nasty trick on Halloween night.
It looked like there was a very big dog around somewhere. A very well fed dog. A dog who liked to crap on