Christopher Pike - Whisper Of Death

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2024-12-24 0 0 224.65KB 119 页 5.9玖币
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CHAPTER I
I sit alone in a dead world. The wind blows hot and
dry, and the dust gathers like particles of memory
waiting to be swept away. I pray for forgetfulness, yet
my memory remains strong, as does the outstretched
arm of the oppressive air. It seems as if the wind has
been there since the beginning of the nightmare.
Sometimes loud and harsh, a thousand sharp needles
scratching at my reddened skin. Sometimes a whisper,
a curious sigh in the black of night, of words more
frightening than pain. I know now the wind has been
speaking to me. Only I couldn't understand because I
was too scared. I am scared now as I write these
words. Still, there is nothing else to do.
I don't know where to start, but there must be a
place. A place of love, of hope. He gave me those
things, and others as well. Yes, I will start with him.
His name was Pepper. That wasn't his real name, of
course. His parents had christened him Paul Pointzel.
He didn't have dark freckles or anything-I don't
know where he got his nickname. But he was Pepper
when I met him, and that's how I think of him. Pepper
and Rox. My name is Roxanne Wells. I'm eighteen, or
rather, I was eighteen. At the moment I'm not going to
get any older. The second hand on my watch will
move forward but won't go anywhere for me. This
moment is all there is.
We met in high school. He was a babe. I don't know
why he asked me out. I wasn't very nice to him. He
was new to the area, but not that new. I'd seen him
around town for a year or so before he made a move
on me. I'd heard good and bad things about him. One
friend said he was just out for sex. Another said he
was a romantic at heart. What the hell, I thought. I
needed sex and romance in my life. Sometimes I
believe I would have taken one without the other.
Even before Pepper cornered me I decided that, if
given the chance, I would let him get to know me.
It was lunchtime at school, a hot early April after-
noon. I was sitting by myself on a rock at the corner of
campus staring out at the desert. It was a favorite spot
for me to hang out and eat junk food. School was in
Salem, Arizona, a town built on sand with a lot of
sweat. I had grown up surrounded by an ocean of dust,
yet the sight of the desert never tired me. I was always
glad the city architects had put Salem High at the edge
of town, and not in the center. Downtown Salem was
about as exciting as an empty movie theater. Things
may have been happening in town, but hardly anyone
was there to acknowledge the fact. Even before the
transformation, Salem felt barren.
Pepper suddenly appeared, standing above me with
his thumbs hooked into the back pockets of his Levi
505s. He was trying to look cool, and not doing a bad
job of it. He was too handsome. By that I mean I
wasn't given any chance to dislike him. Everything
that happened between us had to be. It was inevitable.
His hair was brown and messy. He needed a shave.
His eyes were as dark as blue prairie grass before a
storm. He had a body, every guy does, but his fit him
better than most. But I didn't smile at him, not right
away. I was cool, too.
"Hey, Roxanne," he said, then paused. "That is
your name?"
"It had better be." I had to shield my eyes to look at
him. He had the sun behind him, which I think was a
strategic move on his part. "What do you want?"
"Got a cigarette?"
"I don't smoke," I said.
"I've seen you smoke."
"When?"
"At the park, at night."
"Those weren't cigarettes," I said.
"To each his own. I'm a beer man myself."
I shrugged, going back to my Honey Bun. "I get
loaded once in a blue moon." I took a bite of my bun.
"And every Tuesday."
"Mind if I sit down?" he asked, not waiting for my
permission to share the rock. At least now I didn't
have to blind myself to look at him. "What's so special
about Tuesdays?" he asked.
"Tuesday means Monday's over."
He glanced back at campus-the lackadaisical
crowd. "You're a senior, aren't you? You'll be out of
here pretty soon. What are you going to do after
graduation?"
I laughed. "Look at you. We haven't even been
introduced and you want to know what I'm going to
do with the rest of my life."
He just stared at me a moment. Then he offered me
his hand. "My name's Pepper," he said.
"That's a weird name." I shook his hand. "Is it a
nickname?"
"I guess. I hear everyone calls you Rox."
"Only my friends."
"What should I call you?" he asked.
"You don't have to call me anything."
"You're a real sweetheart, you know that?"
I smiled sweetly. "Thank you. Is that a personal
observation or is that something else you've heard?"
"Do you want me to leave?"
"Whatever gave you that idea?" I asked.
He stood. "Have a nice lunch, Roxanne."
I quickly put a hand on his knee. "You may call me
Rox, Pepper."
He hesitated, then sat back down and stared at the
ground. Guys often do that-I don't know why.
There's nothing there. "I'm not trying to hit on you or
anything," he said.
"What are you trying to do?"
He glanced over. "I was just looking for a ciga-
rette."
"There's a liquor store over on Stills. It sells them.
It sells beer as well."
That got him mad. "Do you want me to stay or
not?"
I laughed. "I don't know. Now that I know you're
not going to hit on me, probably not."
The tension was broken. He laughed, too. "What
are you doing next Tuesday?"
Like I said, I was game. "Drinking beer with you.
Maybe."
There was no maybe about it. We went out the
following Tuesday. It was the only day I didn't have to
work, besides Sunday, which was never any good
because it came before blue Monday. I was a seam-
stress in a clothes store. It was boring. I never really
got to make dresses, just sewed the seams. It paid zip,
like every other teen job in Salem. Pepper had a job,
too. I'd seen him at it before we met. He delivered
flowers. What a joke. He rode to work on a motorcycle
at eighty miles an hour in black leather, then put on a
pansy coat and climbed in a van and tooled around
Salem making young and old women alike ecstatic.
He said the tips weren't bad, and the women were
always happy to kiss him.
We went to a movie and I rode on the back of his
motorcycle. It was a horror film about the second
expedition to Mars called The Season of Passage. At
the end I wanted to cry because it was so sad, but
Pepper was still eating his popcorn. He was stuffing it
into his face, and I found it impossible to weep with
someone eating beside me.
We went for a malt and fries afterward-a typical
date in Salem. The place wasn't option city. We drank
a couple of beers on a dark bus stop bench. But then,
on the way home, still on the back of his bike, I leaned
my head back and gazed at the stars, bright in the clear
black sky. I said something to Pepper about wishing
we had a flying saucer so we could leave the planet and
he instantly made a sharp U turn.
"Where are we going?" I called into the breeze. He
drove fast but smooth, with complete control. On our
next date, though, I had already decided that we'd go
in my car. I liked my hair to look like something
naturally attached to my body when I got to where I
was going. And I knew there would be a second date. I
liked him too much for there not to be.
"To get a telescope," he answered.
"Who has a telescope?"
"Our school."
We ended up breaking into the science lab. It was
easy-we just went up a tree and through a window. I
had never taken astronomy. I was more the basic
education kind of girl. Give me my diploma and I'd be
gone. The telescope sat on a collapsible tripod. Pepper
hoisted it onto his shoulder and walked toward the
door. He assured me we'd bring it back when we were
done with it and nobody would even know it had been
on a vacation.
"Where are we going with it?" I asked. I didn't
mind a little adventure.
"To the reservoir."
That sounded fine to me except for the obvious.
"But we're on a motorcycle," I said.
"It's not that big a telescope, Rox."
"What else are we going to do at the reservoir?" I
asked, suspicious.
He cocked an eyebrow. "Nothing you won't enjoy."
"I'm not that kind of girl."
"They all say that."
I socked him. "Some of us mean it."
But I don't know if I was one of them. We didn't
have sex the first night anyway. We had a hard enough
time getting the telescope out to the reservoir. Pepper
complicated matters by roaring through the center of
town so that everyone could see what we were doing. I
almost dropped the damn thing a half dozen times.
The reservoir was cool, especially at night, when the
water was like glass and the air was filled with space.
You could stand out there alone at night, with the
Milky Way streaming over head, and imagine you
were standing on a moon circling Saturn. Pepper had
never taken astronomy either, so we had a hard time
finding anything specific. Yet, to me, everywhere we
looked there was something. Stars, thousands of stars.
It made me wish I was an astronaut, a Goddess,
anything but a poor girl in a poor town with no future.
I sighed as I removed my eye from the telescope
eyepiece.
"Do you think there's anyone out there?" I asked
Pepper, my eyes staring straight up.
"No one human." He came up behind me and put
his hands on my shoulders. I leaned back and rested
my head in the hollow of his shoulder. The night was
magic, the silence perfect. I was happy right then,
really happy, but sad, too, because I knew the happi-
ness wouldn't last. It never does.
"Would that be so bad?" I asked, my gaze millions
of light-years away, his breath warm and close on my
cheek.
"What do you mean?" he asked.
"Would it be so bad if they weren't human-as long
as they were kind?"
He pulled me around gently until I was facing him.
"You're beautiful, Rox. You deserve a sky full of kind
stars."
I laughed lightly. "Don't talk. You sound stupid
when you do."
"What should I do then?"
"Kiss me."
He kissed me. I made him do it. It was good, too
good.
He took me back to the reservoir that Friday night
after work. We didn't bring the telescope, but we had
the place to ourselves again. We skinny-dipped in the
cool water. We kissed some more, and I let him touch
my breasts, but we didn't make love. Or maybe we did
make love because I was already in love with him. I
don't know why. The best love never has a reason. I
just had to look at him and there was no reason to look
anywhere else.
Pepper lived with his aunt and uncle. I lived with
my dad. Dad was never at home. He was a long-
distance truck driver. He drove from New York to
L.A., and back again, every week. We had a peculiar
relationship. I was more his pal than his daughter.
When he was home I cleaned his clothes and fed him,
but the way we talked to each other would have made
a child psychologist cringe. We argued, we swore at
each other, and in the end he usually agreed with me.
But we loved each other, too. His name was Sam.
I never knew my mother. From the things Sam had
to say, it didn't sound like he knew her very well,
either. She left on a westbound Greyhound bus when I
was forty-eight hours old. Seemed she wanted to be an
actress in Hollywood, or something.
Pepper's aunt and uncle lived on the other edge of
town from the school, on a miserable farm better
known for its horses than its produce. But like any
farm, good or bad, it had a barn. And it was in that
barn that I lost my virginity after a thorough examina-
tion by Dr. Pepper.
I don't really remember how the date started. We
ate, I know that, but I can't remember where. Then we
went for a long walk, and in Salem, it's not possible to
walk too far without coming back home. We ended up
at Pepper's place. His aunt and uncle were asleep.
Pepper wanted to show me his horse, Shadowfax,
named after Gandalf the wizard's horse in The Lord of
the Rings. It was a nice horse. It was a nice barn, full of
nice, soft hay.
But there was something wicked inside that hay that
almost got me killed. When we began to kiss, Pepper
suddenly tickled me, and I fell back and landed on the
hay. I missed impaling myself on a pitchfork by
inches. Pepper was white when I pulled it out of the
straw beside me.
"Did you set this up?" I asked, the pitchfork in my
hand, pointed at him. "I can see the headlines now.
Poor innocent coed pierced on the eve of greatness."
Pepper grabbed the pitchfork from my hand and
tossed it aside. He wiped the sweat off his forehead. I
could tell he was shaken. He came and knelt beside
me and spoke seriously.
"You are great," he said.
I grinned. Those three little words meant more to
me than those other famous three little words-I
think. He had yet to say those words, and I was
determined not to say them until he said them to me.
"Why?" I asked. "I'm not pretty. I'm not smart. I'm
nothing."
Yet I knew I wasn't ugly or stupid. My hair was long
and red, my eyes green and bright-a nice combina-
tion. I was too thin-I had no tits-but even
girlfriends complimented me on my legs. Those same
girls, however, said I didn't smile enough. Melancholy
Rox. I didn't like to smile because of my teeth. They
were crooked, and didn't shine like those of the
actresses on TV.
I also seldom smiled because I felt haunted and
cursed.
Like it was only a matter of time.
But for what I didn't know.
But in the barn, with my Pepper sitting beside me,
the curse seemed oh so far away-when actually it
had never been closer. Maybe I was stupid.
"You're something," Pepper said, taking my hand.
"What?" I asked.
He moved closer. "What do you want to be?"
"Happy."
He snorted, and scanned the hay, perhaps to deter-
mine how flammable it was. "Do you have a ciga-
rette?" he asked.
"That's what you said when we met. You're not
supposed to say that right now."
"No?"
"A cigarette's supposed to be for after."
He moved close, close enough to kiss. "After what,
Rox?"
I was looking at the stars in his eyes, the ones I had
put there. And I was looking far away. Like I said, he
was too cute. My determination wavered. I had no
choice but to say what I did.
"I love you," I whispered.
The words seemed to worry him, like when I had
missed the pitchfork, which had only made me smile.
I wished so much that he would smile right then.
"Why?" he asked.
"Because it makes me happy." I hesitated. "Do you
love me?"
Now I had put him on the spot. He was really
missing his cigarette. But he didn't look away. He
kissed me instead, lightly, and then sneezed in his lap.
I had to laugh.
"Never mind," I said.
He shook his head. "It's not you. It's the hay."
I lifted my knee and poked him with my foot. "I like
this hay. It's like one giant bed."
That was a hint he understood. The way he looked
at me changed. It wasn't a lustful look. It was more
like his worry deepened and transformed inside him,
becoming something closer to fear. But being scared
can be fun, and he looked interested, too. He took me
in his arms.
"What do you want to do?" he asked.
I brushed his hair back. "What comes easiest."
"Rox . . ." he began. I closed his lips with my finger.
"Shh. You don't have to say it."
"I love you, too."
"I told you," I began. He closed off my lips, with his
finger.
"I will love you," he corrected himself. "Is that
good enough?"
I nodded, feeling the hay at the back of my neck,
sliding down my shirt. "Yeah. Just don't wait too
long."
"I won't," he promised.
And then, just before it all began, and the train
raced down the hill to the bottom, I asked him one
question. I didn't want to. His answer stood a fifty
percent chance of ruining everything. But I had to ask
it. I stared at the pitchfork as I spoke, lying so
innocently beside us.
"Is this your first time?" I asked.
"Is it yours?"
"Yes."
He kissed the side of my face. "It's my first time,
too, Rox."
I cannot talk too much about the sex. It was better
than ice cream. It was like a summer night before
summer really began, before school let out. For me
anticipation has always been stronger than the reality,
and this was such rich anticipation, so constant, that
it couldn't help but be fulfilled. What I mean is, I was
happy in his arms, like I was that night we were
together in the arms of the stars. I felt so much a part
of him I honestly believed, for a long time afterward,
that I could be a part of everything.
Did I think of protection against pregnancy? We
only made love that one time. I hardly had a chance to
think anything. I suppose the thought of contracep-
tives crossed my mind after we were done. But that's
the same as thinking about your parachute after
you've jumped. You can think all you want-the
ground doesn't give a damn.
I suspected I was pregnant two weeks later. I wasn't
late on my period, not yet, but something inside me
had changed. A doctor would have said it was hor-
monal. Maybe, but it was more than that. / had
changed, not just my body. But it wasn't like some-
thing had been added inside, the way new mothers
usually talk. It was more like a part of me had died.
Then another two weeks went by, and my period
never came. I didn't tell Pepper. I didn't want to
worry him. I went to the drugstore in Lendel-a
nearby town-and bought an early pregnancy test.
Those suckers cost more than I thought-a big fifteen
bucks. I read the instructions carefully. The bottom
line was that if it tested negative, then you could still
be pregnant. They weren't making any guarantees.
But if it tested positive, then you were definitely
looking at a major change in lifestyle. I took the test.
I failed it. I mean, I passed it.
I held that pink-colored test tube in my hand and
started shaking. But no matter how hard I shook, the
test tube didn't turn blue or green.
I was pregnant. God.
I didn't cry. How could I? It was a miracle. It was a
gift from God. I threw up instead. Then I got out the
Yellow Pages and called a doctor in Lendel. That's
what the instructions inside the test box had said to
do. Just in case your doctor had a different colored
test tube, I guess. I didn't have my own physician. I
seldom got sick, and when I did I just waited it out. I
called Dr. Adams. He was the first one listed. I spoke
to his nurse. She wanted me to have a blood test and a
urine test, even before I saw the doctor. I asked how
much. Seventy bucks, she replied. My baby was
already getting expensive, I thought. I said all right.
I passed these tests. I mean, I passed them.
The doctor was finally willing to see me about a
week after I called. He was younger than I thought
he'd be, and better looking, which made me even
more nervous. He didn't make me take off my clothes
and examine me. We just sat down in his office. He
started off by asking how I felt.
"I'm all right," I said.
"I didn't mean physically. Are you upset? Are you
happy?"
"The first choice," I said.
"Do you have a boyfriend?"
"I think so."
"Does he know?"
"No."
"Are you going to tell him?"
"Yes."
"Do you want to keep the baby?" he asked.
It was such a normal question for a doctor to ask,
and I know it sounds impossible, but I had never
asked myself that question. "I don't know," I said,
gesturing helplessly. "I've never been pregnant be-
fore."
He was sympathetic. "How old are you, Roxanne?"
"Eighteen."
"You're legal."
"What do you mean?"
"You can make your own choice." He paused.
"Have you told your parents?"
"I only have a father. I haven't told him."
He studied me. His brown eyes were kind. "You
look like a girl with a head on her shoulders. You know
the choices you have?"
I nodded. "There aren't that many of them."
"There's a family planning clinic in Foster. It's a
two-hour drive. If you want to go there, you just have
to give me a call and I'll set up an appointment for
you."
"I don't want to go there," I said so sharply I
startled us both. He didn't want to say the word, and I
didn't want to hear it, but we were both talking about
abortion. Just the sound of it in my head made me feel
sick. I wished they had given the procedure initials
instead of a name. Like, oh, just going to have a ABT.
Be back before lunch. Then I could pretend it wasn't
摘要：

CHAPTERIIsitaloneinadeadworld.Thewindblowshotanddry,andthedustgatherslikeparticlesofmemorywaitingtobesweptaway.Iprayforforgetfulness,yetmymemoryremainsstrong,asdoestheoutstretchedarmoftheoppressiveair.Itseemsasifthewindhasbeentheresincethebeginningofthenightmare.Sometimesloudandharsh,athousandsharpn...

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