Off Season - Jack Ketchum [27]
“You’re not a cipher,” said Carla.
“I’m not exactly taking over General Motors, either.”
“Would you want General Motors?” said Carla.
The back door opened and Nick, Dan, Laura, and Jim walked in. “Hearts!” said Nick, rubbing his hands together.
The game was always his idea, thought Carla, probably because he was so good at it. She turned to her sister and said softly, “We’ll talk later.” Marjie nodded.
They took their places at the table with the others. Carla served coffee and they played cards, though Laura had objected at first, whining a little about how dumb it was to sit around playing a card game their first night in the country. But she was just as tired as the rest of them, much too tired to “hit the local joints” as she’d first suggested. Laura, thought Carla, was all front. She glanced at the blond girl’s breasts inside the tee shirt and thought, In more ways than one, ho-ho.
Outside, the women watched the card game and comprehended none of it. One of them was pudgy, pale, expressionless, with a strange slack mouth and pointed chin; dressed in what had once been a dress but now appeared to be a plain cotton sack. The other was younger, slim, and might have been attractive were it not for the unhealthy color of her skin, the long ratty hair, and the dullness of her eyes. She wore an old checked shirt that was too tight to close across the breasts, and a pair of baggy khaki pants. Of both these possessions she was quite proud, though if asked she could not have remembered why.
They watched in silence, pale as maggots in the moonlight. They saw one man shuffle the cards and deal them out, saw each of the players fan their cards and slowly begin to toss them away one at a time. All that the women saw they instantly forgot. It was as if they were waiting for something that refused to happen. They waited until they had no more patience for waiting and then as with a single mind they turned and walked away, heading for the stream.
There were crickets in the tall grass and they fell silent too as the women walked by, and there was a moment of deep quiet that surrounded the house and then passed like a hand passing through the flame of a candle. Inside there was the sound of laughter. Outside a slight chill in the air told of winter not far away, when those voices in the grass would all silence at once and leave the dark hours to the night birds and the wind.
7:50 P.M.
The women walked the half-mile to the shore, their path basked in moonlight. It was a path they knew well. For over a year the house had been empty now, and they had come to think of it as practically their own, though they were still careful not to be seen there. Two miles to the north was another house, but a family lived there all year round. They had seen the sharp axe of the man at his woodpile and the three tall strong sons at work on their automobile in the yard. There was a second house about three and a half miles southeast, but a highway ran close by and it was not safe there.
This house, though. This had long been empty. The children played here, conjuring children’s magic in the attic in the dark. The younger woman nodded to herself and rubbed a dirty, callused hand across her breasts. Before long they might play here again.
They walked the path until the great dome of sky opened up before them and they saw the sea. A wide stretch of beach lay before them, still and unearthly white against the protean shifting of the waves, the sea itself a wild sluice of light and motion against the placid, withering glance of sky and moon and stars.
As other women knew friends, books, banks, husbands, they knew these—and little else. Sand and sky and sea.
At the point where the path fed into sand dunes they paused a moment, staring blankly out to sea. Out there was the island, where generations unremembered had brought the women into being. And though it was much too far away to see, their eyes found the spot on the horizon where the island would be. They felt no emotion