Bad Things (2 page)
Authors: Michael Marshall
Tags: #Fiction, #Thrillers, #Suspense, #Mystery & Detective, #General
for stephen jones
Who knows the darkest parts of the woods
—and the path from there to the pub
It is the practice of evil, and hence, in a sense, the inhuman, that is
the distinctive mark of the human in the animal kingdom.
Jean Baudrillard
Cool Memories V
Contents
It is a beautiful afternoon in late summer, and there…
1
7
Ted came and found me a little after seven. I…
9
Within thirty seconds we realized we had squat to say…
14
Next morning started with a walk up the beach, carrying…
19
What can you do, when things start to fall apart?
28
It was a busy night in the restaurant. I didn’t…
35
I saw the sun come up the next morning, though…
44
The message was short.
50
Kristina watched through the coffee-store window as her
mother
started…
56
We touched down a little after three o’clock. Driving up…
60
When I was a hundred yards short of the gate…
66
I got to the Mountain View a little after eight…
74
I turned on my stool so she could see my…
81
You live in a place, and you create it, and…
88
The next morning was bright and clear—unlike my head, having…
93
On the way back to the motel I tried calling…
101
We sat on opposite sides of a table. She was…
109
When you work in a library you often see people…
120
129
By midafternoon I was in a truly heinous mood. Phone…
131
There was no sign of life in the motel office…
139
They took her to the county hospital, Hope Memorial. I…
145
I told the nurse at the station that Ms. Robertson…
155
I left the car on Kelly and made my way…
162
Sixty-two times. Sixty-three.
167
The first thing I did next morning was go to…
171
“Where the hell are you?”
182
All I had to go on was the man’s throwaway…
192
She banged on the back door. Banged hard. Then, though…
203
I parked thirty yards down the street, a long residential…
208
There was a stage in Scott’s development when he’d begun…
217
I squatted down by the side of the car, awkwardly…
224
She could have stolen a car. She possessed that skill,…
233
239
Brooke swam from seven until seven-thirty, fast, methodical laps up… 241
Next morning I walked back into the motel parking lot…
245
About halfway back to the motel I became aware that…
253
For a moment I couldn’t do anything. Couldn’t move, couldn’t…
262
When Kristina had got back to her apartment just before…
271
I was lying on my side. The back of my…
277
She said she had felt uneasy since lunchtime that day,…
286
Finally, just when she believed her head was going to…
295
Ten minutes later I ran back upstairs. By now it…
300
When I made it to the end of the driveway…
308
Bill was waiting on his porch when I pulled up,…
314
I’d been for leaving Becki and Kyle at Bill’s, obviously,…
323
“Christ,” Bill said, quietly. “What’s all this?”
331
As soon as I got among the trees I dodged…
342
I kicked off with everything I had. As I reached…
353
A year ago, before any of this happened, I remembered…
361
Other Books by Michael Marshall
It is a beautiful afternoon in late summer, and there is a man stand-
ing on the deck of a house in the woods a fi fteen-minute drive from
Roslyn, a nice, small town in Washington State. It is a fi ne house,
structured around oak beams and river rock and possessed of both
cozy lateral spaces and cathedral ceilings where it counts. The deck
is wide and deep, wrapping around the whole of the raised fi rst
story, and points out over a slope where a woman sits in a rustic
wooden chair, the product of semilocal artisanship. She is holding
a baby who is nine months old and, at the moment, miraculously,
peaceably quiet. The house and the fi ve acres around it cost a little
under two million dollars, and the man is happy to own it, and
happy to be standing there. He has spent much of the day in his
study, despite the fact it is a Saturday, but that’s okay because it
is precisely this willingness to work evenings and weekends that
puts you in a house like this and confers the kind of life you may
live in it. You reap, after all, what you sow.
The deck has a fi ne view toward a very large, wooded lake the
locals call Murdo Pond, sixty yards away down the wooded slope,
and a little of which—the portion that lies within his property
2 Michael Marshall
lines—the man guesses he owns, too, if you can be said to own a lake.
He is wearing a denim shirt and khaki shorts, and in his hand is a
tall, cold glass of beer, an unusual occurrence, as he seldom drinks at
home—or much at all, unless business demands its shortcut to con-
viviality—but which feels deserved and appropriate now: what else do
we strive for, after all, if not for such an indulgence, on the deck of
such a house, at the end of such a day?
He can see that his wife is without a drink, and knows she would
probably like one, and will in a short while call down to ask if he can
fetch her something. But for a few minutes longer he stands there,
feeling more or less at one with the world, or as close to that state as
possible given the complexities of quotidian existence and the intran-
sigence of people and situations and things. Just then a breeze fl oats
across the deck, bringing with it the faint, spicy smell of turning
leaves, and for a moment the world is better still. Then it has gone,
and it is time to move on.
The man opens his mouth to ask of his wife what she’d like to
drink, but then pauses, and frowns.
“Where’s Scott?” he says.
His wife looks up, a little startled, having been unaware of his pres-