Chapter 4
Everything that happened next had a red haze over it, as if Carol were seeing it through the occluding cloud that swamped her mind.
There was one awful moment when Herb slammed himself to her again, sobbing out his animal ecstasy. But then he fell away from her, too exhausted, his drinking and his previous exertions having finally caught up with him.
She waited, not daring to move, to see what he would do. He did not move.
She held her breath, staring at the hated young man's body prostrate, face down on the rumpled covers of the bed.
There was a stretch of time that she could never account for afterward, perhaps only minutes, maybe hours, while she lay waiting to see if he would move.
He lay as if dead.
She had time for the thought that if her desires would kill, he would be dead. Stone cold dead from the sick-sweet poison of her hatred. Dead! What a beautiful thought, when she gazed at him sprawled out there. But she knew better.
Herb was not dead.
That would be too easy.
Nothing was ever that easy. Evil persisted on this earth. The Mort Englers and the Herb Dearings, they never died. They lived to despoil and degrade and debase.
They were the killers, they did not die.
No matter if the names were different, they lived on to kill. Because it was she who was dead.
She was dead, and Herb had killed her.
He had killed in one savage orgy all she had planned and dreamed and believed. He had brought back from the ugly past a dirty memory she had managed to forget. She had nothing beautiful left, only the ugliness that he had brought her. He was the killer. He had killed everything else.
Holding her breath, she leaned toward him. She saw by the way he breathed that he was asleep, but in a deeper trance than ordinary sleep.
He had passed out.
The whiskey and his frantic flailing of her body had indeed taken their toll of him. He lay there unconscious, no longer aware of anything that went on around him.
She exhaled heavily. Now was her chance to escape him!
She stared at him. It did not seem to matter any more what he did to her, but she knew better about this, too. She could not endure being debased at his hands again. He would push her and she would kill him somehow.
Her mind whirled with the thought. It would be so easy to kill him now. He was as helpless before her as she had been earlier with him.
She could run to the kitchen, find the sharpest knife and drive it deeply into his body. She would make him pay for what he had done to her.
She trembled, thinking this, and for some moments she was unable to think of anything else.
"I've got to get out of here," she said aloud, "or I will kill him."
She got up, gathering up her clothing.
There was only one urgent matter. She had to get out of the house while he was passed out. She had to stay away until Laura was out of the hospital.
At the thought of her sister, some of the abject numbness lifted and she wanted to weep with the hurt Herb had done to her to both of them, and to all that had been holy between Herb and Laura.
What would she tell Laura? What excuse would she give for having cleared out of here, and staying away?
Carol dressed hurriedly, not caring how she looked, not thinking about appearances, wanting only to be clear of this house. She no longer feared the rainstorm. She would welcome its cleansing downpour.
Suddenly she was remembering the hour she had spent under the shower after Mort had attacked her, trying to wash away the feeling of dirtiness.
She'd never stop feeling unclean after tonight.
But even dressed, getting a few belongings together hastily in a small suitcase, she could not get Laura out of her mind.
Laura was going to be deeply hurt no matter what happened now. She would have to know why Carol could not stay in the same house with Herb.
She found her rain slicker, slipped into it. She considered calling a taxi, but she did not want to wait in this house a moment longer than she had to. She would go to the corner, catch a bus and go to a hotel for the night. Then she would plan what she must do.
What must she do? What could she tell Laura?
She let herself out of the house, her mind swirling with questions.
Her legs felt weak, and the wind and rain pummeled her. She was afraid she would fall beneath the force of it. But she kept hurrying forward, bent against its impact.
Nothing mattered except getting away from here.
She reached the corner, found shelter of a sort under the bus-stop shed. The rain swept in against her, but she did not feel the physical discomfort. She stared along the darkened highway, looking for lights of the bus.
The road was like a black void, empty, wet, cheerless.
It was the way she felt inside, she thought.
Standing there, she let her mind return to that house where she had lived these past weeks with her sister and Herb.
She shuddered at the thought of returning there, even when Laura was home from the hospital.
She stood, numbed with cold, her mind stricken with the outrage she'd endured. If she considered Laura's feelings and wanted to keep Laura from being hurt, there was only one choice she could make. She would have to go back to that house tonight. She would have to stay there, act as if nothing had happened between her and Herb and say nothing. She could never tell Laura what Herb had done, unless she wanted to wreck Laura's marriage, turn Laura against her, and break Laura's heart at the moment when Laura's marriage and life were most fulfilled and complete.
Or she could tell Laura that Herb had attacked her. She could say that perhaps Herb was out of his mind with his drinking, didn't know what he was doing. Only by somehow excusing Herb for this attack on her could she save Laura's feelings and Laura's marriage. This might put Laura on guard so that Herb would not be free to get at Carol again, to attempt to violate her as he had tonight.
Her stomach churned with sickness at the thought of staying in that house with Herb no matter what the conditions. She could not do it, even to spare Laura this undeserved heartbreak.
And this left the other choice, the one that she knew she must make: she could run away, leave town, tonight, go where Laura or Herb could never find her.
Let Herb tell Laura what lies he could make her believe.
It would be between Herb and Laura then.
If Laura's love meant anything at all to Herb, let him somehow make up this terrible night to her.
That was Herb's problem. And it let him off easy. Too easy. But it spared Laura the bitter, heart-rending truth, too.
She clutched her suitcase handle tightly, her knuckles white. She had to run away. She would leave Herb and Laura to settle their difficulties, but she could not face Herb any more, and she could not stay and see Laura destroyed.
And she knew one more reason why she had to run away. She could not tell Laura what Herb had done to her. It all went back to the horror she had experienced at Mort's hands. It was as it had been with Mort. She was afraid to tell, afraid of the shame, of being involved in such ugliness, of hurting those who loved her and who loved Herb, no matter what he was.
Fear. This was the story of her life since Mort. Afraid of hurting others she kept the hurt and fear inside herself until she was ready to burst with it. There was no room inside for love any more, only a place for the festering, cancerous hatred that fed on itself and spread, eating away everything else.
This town was dark and ugly and dirty with its memories of Herb and Mort. She wanted to hide from the people she knew. She did not want to have to face the ordeal of going to the office and meeting the coworkers she had come to know. They would see the shame in her face, or she would be reminded of it every time a pair of eyes settled on her. She wanted to get away ...
She lifted her head, seeing a distant pair of headlamps along the rain-stricken, dark highway.
She stepped forward to be ready when the bus came near, wanting to be certain she was seen in this shadowed night.
She moved out to the curb, holding up her arm. In the final moments before the headlamps reached her she stayed like that, even when she saw it was not the bus.
Exhaling heavily, she retreated a step. But she saw that the car had pulled in to the curb toward her, the lights glittering like silver through the rain.
She took two more backward steps to show the driver it was a mistake, but the car stopped anyway, a few feet from her.
The car door swung open and a courtesy light glowed yellowly in the warm, dry interior of the smart new car.
"Hi, there," the driver said.
"I'm waiting for a bus," Carol said in a flat, empty tone.
"Sure. I can see that. But there's no sense drowning out there. Might not be another bus along for hours in this storm. You tell me where you want to go and I'll drop you there."
"Why?" She eyed him coldly. "Why?" He laughed, seeming to be highly amused at such a question from a girl who looked like a drowned kitten on a stormy street corner. "Maybe because it'll be my good deed for the day. Get in, we'll argue about it where it's dry, at least."
Carol hesitated, thinking she as running away from one man the killer who killed all the decent things he touched and here she had already run to another one. She felt the hatred gorge up in her, hatred for all men.
She looked him over coldly. She saw, except that Herb had killed her vision for goodness in anything, that this young man might have been very handsome, with a warm, crooked smile. What difference did it make what a man looked like? It was inside where they were all the same breed of predatory animal, wasn't it? Inside, where you couldn't see what they were truly like until it was too late.
Despite her hatred, she was aware that he was lean, rankly made, probably tall, with wide shoulders, in a well-cut sport jacket, a subdued tie, a gleamingly white shirt. His dark hair was cut short and parted on the side. His nose looked as if it had met the impact of opposition footballers just once too often, but he was handsome in a rugged way. His eyes were deep-set and hazel. She felt fresh rage at the warm way he smiled. He was on the make, the way all men were, but his smile was so deceitful, such a lie.
She gazed at him another moment, but she no longer saw the twisted kindliness of his smile or the casual interest of his eyes: she saw Herb's face imposed on that face inside the car, and then Mort's face. She saw the three hated faces as one. And she thought, with a chill that raced through her, none of them could hurt her any more.
All the hurt that was going to be inflicted from now on would come from her. Let the men beware.
Let this one beware. She would make him pay for what Herb had done to her. They would all pay any of them who came near her now with their lying, deceitful smiles.
She nodded coldly and got in the car. He reached across her to slam the door and she waited for the way he would accidentally brush her breasts. He did not get that near her, but she assured herself it was only because he was playing it cool. The moment for the pass would come. It came from all men, didn't it? Even the man your sister married. It would come from this handsome younger stranger, too. He was no different from Herb or any other man. They were all alike.
They all wanted to play alike.
They would all pay alike. She would see to this. It was like a vow she took. They would all pay, from this moment forward.