Virtual American Gothic - Third Season Episode Eight A Mid-Winter Nightmare By Queribus, with abject apologies to Shakespeare NOT TO BE ARCHIVED TO A WEB PAGE WITHOUT THE AUTHOR'S PRIOR CONSENT. ********************************************** "Hi, I was wondering if you had anything you wanted to do for New Years?-- and if you might want to do it with me?" Ben was on the back phone in the sheriffs office, hunched over trying to keep this a bit confidential. "Well, no, I don't think this is exactly the last minute, Rita. It's not like tonight was New Year's Eve-- yeah, ok, it's tomorrow which is maybe a little soon. . ." "Having women problems?" The very man Ben was hoping to avoid in all this leaned over his shoulder with that insidious whisper. "I'm fine. Just talking to Rita." "Oh! Well, tell her hi from me." Buck smiled. "Uh, Sheriff says hi." Ben reluctantly muttered. "Huh? You want me to pick you up when?" "See, changed your luck right around." Buck went whistling off into his office. "I don't know if they actually serve champagne at the roadhouse, Rita. You do play pool, don't you?" Mamma Lucy came in the front door, setting the jingle bells clanging. "I got fruitcake and cookies and special chocolates, have I got any takers?" Ben was listening to a dial tone, not too sure if he had a date or not, when Lucilla Buck plumped two cakes down between Floyd and him. "Ok. Choose." "I'm not much for fruitcake, I kinda got turkeyed out on Christmas." "This is special New Year's fruitcake, not a whole lot of cake if you know what I mean. This one's Southern Comfort and this one's Jack Daniel's. Plus one or two other goodies." "I. . uh, I love Southern Comfort." Floyd spoke up. "I knew it!" Lucilla crowed. "You've got a sweet tooth haven't you?" Floyd blushed, but whether it was over his teeth or not was a good question as Selena Coombs had just walked in and she was a sight. Creamy cashmere cowled sweater and short short skirt that were both about as tight as they could be. Any tighter and. . . "Any tighter and you won't need an ultra sound to check that baby!" Lucilla said, not too quietly. Selena ignored her. "Is the Sheriff in? He left a message he wanted to talk to me." "Sure Selena, uh, you know the way." "I know a whole lot of ways, Ben." She smiled as she headed off towards Lucas's inner office. "Did she lighten up her hair any?" Floyd wondered. "Looks that way," Ben ventured, "but maybe Pregnancy makes the hair kinda. . ." "Bleached Blonde?" Lucilla sniffed. "She's just tarted up for the holidays, ready to cruise Goat Town tomorrow night." "I don't think Selena's gonna be trolling in her, uh, particular condition." "I think she looks real pretty." Floyd sighed. There were sounds of a ruckus and a door flung open. "Don't you run out on ME, Selena!!" Oh oh, Floyd and Ben grabbed papers to hunker down. Lucilla's ears perked up. "Poor Sheriff Buck can't get everything he wants anymore." Selena was just fueling the fire. "Can't know everything he wants to know when he wants to know it." "I just want the name of the man who put the biscuit in your oven. Or do you even have a SHORT list?" "I know who my baby is. I know everything about my baby." "So is it a Buck or not?" "Now, why would I want to spoil the surprise? I'll bet you opened all your presents Xmas Eve, didn't you?" "I'll bet he didn't get any." Ben muttered. Lucas nailed him with a quick narrow glance. "Don't play these games, Selena, cause I play for keeps." "You aren't the only one." *** Benji was reading comics by the time Ben got home. "Rita called up and wondered if she should wear overalls or something for New Years." "Oh shoot, I guess I should take her someplace nice. It's just I always play pool on New Years, it's kind of a tradition." "You can't take a lady to play pool!" "Well, you can some." Ben was thinking of Selena in her pre-baby days leaning over the table in her leopard skin dress. Don't go there, Healy. "Aren't you supposed to be finishing up this big homework assignment for the holidays?" "I am!" Benji waved the comic books at him. "We were supposed to read this play and I can't get through it any other way.". Ben looked at the three-parter Classics Illustrated Comics-- William Shakespeare's Midsummer Night's Dream. "Wrong time of year for this stuff isn't it?" He flipped open to a full page layout of the Queen of the Fairies-- luscious blonde with way too much cleavage. "That's what I thought, apparently there's too much adult material in the other plays." Titania's outfit looked plenty adult to Ben. He skipped ahead, funny little imps running around in the forest-- one of them dressed up in leaves, his eyebrows all twisted up, cute but scary too. A dumb guy in donkey ears was kissing the queen. Some goofy teenagers in mini-dresses, the guys too, were running around in the woods and getting into trouble. The stuff they had kids read! If the Pentecostals found out about this they'd stop it quick. Ben turned the page. Uh oh! A dark shadowy figure in a long black cloak was looming in the forest. the eyes were all too familiar. "I don't think you ought to be reading this." "I have to, it's an assignment." "All I want to know is-- does this one win?" "Uh huh." "Figures. He always does." Ben put two hungry man dinners in the microwave for Benji and him and settled down to attack Mamma Lucy's fruitcake on the couch. Benji called it a night after dinner and went to bed. Ben had another piece of cake. Waiting to see if Merly might turn up. Wondering how to explain his date with Rita. Still leafing through the Classic Comics. Trying to keep his eyes from drooping. The dark guy's cloak had buttons on it and a kind of cape on top. Crooked kind of smile and those eyes, damn it, he knew those eyes. And the little imp or kid or whatever he was who ran around with him, well, the leaves wrapped around his body kinda like. . . stripes. . *** The wheels on Caleb's bicycle skidded on the icy streets and he almost ran into a little girl in a white fleecy coat a coupla blocks from the Pay-Rite store. "How now, Spirit wither wander thou?" "You know darn well where I'm wandering, Caleb Temple." Rose snapped back, adjusting her fluffy white hood and nearly dropping her bag. "I'm getting some groceries for Miss Coombs." "Well, she better not hang around here, cause Sheriff Buck is looking for her." "You doing his errands now? I thought you liked Miss Coombs." "I do what I please. I like Miss Coombs just fine but she'd better be careful, cause sheriff's got a mad on." "Pish tish." Rose said. "He's always got a mad on." The light in the cold street divided, cleanly as if choosing sides. From the south came a glow like moonlight walking the earth. Selena Coombs swathed from head to immaculately painted toenails in a swirl of white fox fur glided into view trailed by a host of children and a passel of pale persian cats. From the North the darkness concentrated in a flutter of black crow wings and the twitter of bats. A man in a long black coat emerged from the center of darkness. "Ill met by Moonlight. Proud Tit. . .Selena." "What? Jealous Oberon! I have forsworn your bed and company." "Not so's you'd notice." Buck snorted. "I AM your Lord." "Me and everybody else's in town. I won't talk with you, all we do is fight." "Hold on, Selena, I'm going to get an answer out of you tonight, or know the reason why." "You want a reason why, Lucas Buck, you got it!" Selena spread her arms and the cats started purring, their tails waving in unison. "Never, since the middle summer's spring, Met we on hill, in dale, forest or mead, By paved fountain or by rushy brook, But with thy brawls thou hast disturb'd our sport. "Oh, no, not Poetry, Selena." "The fold stands empty in the drowned field, And crows are fatted with the murrion flock The nine men's morris is fill'd up with mud. . ." "What's a Nine-man Morris?" Caleb whispered. "Beats the hell out of me." Buck muttered back, "but damned if I see anything wrong with fat crows." Selena continued her rush of melodic verse and as she spoke the glow of white increased around her. The milky-white persian cats in her train coiled their sinuous way in and out around her feet and the children's faces became unearthly in their elfin delight. "And through this distemperature we see The seasons alter: the spring, the summer, The childing autumn, angry winter, change Their wonted liveries, and the mazed world By their increase, now knows not which is which:" The air, which had been mildly frosty, gathered up the cold and intensified it, pouring out gushes and flurries of white and silver crystals like a cloud. The winter chill wrapped the streets and gardens in cold white folds. And through the snow and ice, bright flowers peeked, daffodils and clematis, eglantine and hollyhocks. "Cute. I get the point, you and I have cooled off a bit." Buck admitted. Selena turned her moonlit countenance on him. "And this same progeny of evils comes From our debate, from our dissension; We are their parents and original." "Well, ok, then, end it. Do what I want and tell me who's the father of that baby." Selena proudly surveyed the crescent moon brightening snow-wrapped Trinity. "Make me." "You got yourself a deal." Selena flounced off down the street; the light from the moonlight following her like a special spotlight set in the heavens to illuminate her way. And in her wake swirled fluffy cats and giggling children. Caleb stayed next to his fuming father. "I wonder where she got that coat?" "It's probably fake, she's got this funny thing about animals." "How do you mean funny?" Lucas peered down at his son's upturned face, the wheels of fate grinding away in his mind. "Son, you have some good ideas in your time." "I do?" Buck rubbed his hands together, words coming out in clouds of white icy breath. "I'll need some roses. Can you get back to my place fast?" "I'll put a girdle round about the earth in forty minutes-- through bog, through bush, through brake, through brier!" "Yeah. Well, just to be safe, better take my car." He handed the keys of the Crown Vic to the boy. "I don't know." Caleb mused, glancing at the big sleek machine, "I didn't drive too good the first time I used it." "Times change." Caleb climbed into the Crown Vic. It looked dark blue in the night, as dark as the midnight hour itself. He turned the key in the ignition. The engine sounded like a thousand tigers roaring. Slipped the gear into drive and floored it. The car jumped forward as if it was a living thing-- a monster eating up the night. Caleb was taller than the last time he'd driven the Buckmobile but his legs still weren't quite long enough. He stood up on the seat to see and steer better. The top of the car melted away and the steering wheel turned to black leather ribbons in his hands. Huge crows were powering the engine, their black wings scooping up the night. Caleb just held on and watched Trinity transform as the Crowmobile dashed through it. A cold finger of Ice ran down the Trinity River and locked the waters up in silent frozen stillness. Alligators peeked out of the bushes Selena had strewn with snow and flowers, frozen in mid-snap. Bats wheeled from the sky silver with frost. All the smaller crows were perched on bare twigs and branches, their claws locked in ice. The wind whistled around Caleb's head as he passed the Boarding House. It looked like a castle in the glittering night, white battlements staring out at the strange landscape through icicle laden magnolia trees, their huge white flowers sparkling with frost. There was a carriage in the front yard, with crowns and golden filigree. He wanted to stop and say hi but the Crowmobile flew on. Snow was piled up all the way to the second story windows of the Buck house and everywhere in the snow grew blood-red roses, thousands of them. Oberon. . .uh. . .the Sheriff had said to pick as many flowers as he could and bring them back fast. Caleb tossed the blossoms by the handful into the crowmobile till it was near full. He climbed up on the seat of what didn't really look like a car anymore but rather some kind of infernal sleigh, took up the reins and gee-hawed the giant birds into action. On the way back he saw Ben Healy on the corner of First and Main kissing that nice nurse Rita from the hospital. Merly was advancing on them from one angle and Ben jr's momma from another. Neither of the two women that weren't kissing looked too happy. "That was fast." Buck said as Caleb reined the Birds in to the curb. "Your car's kinda different." "Told ya." Buck was gathering up some petals from the roses. "I saw Ben kissing Rita." "Did you?" "Yup, and so did my sister, Merly, and Ben's ex-wife, you know, the one who blew up. They didn't seem too happy about it." A slow wicked smile crawled across Buck's face. "You know, son, I'm very very pleased you picked so damn many of these roses. Cause I think tonight we deserve a little treat." "It's too cold for ice cream." "Different kind of treat." The petals of the roses looked nearly black in Buck's broad hands. "You know how coal can turn into a diamond if you squeeze it real hard." He crushed his hands together grinding his fingers into a tight knot. The petals dissolved into a black shiny dust. which drifted gently into the folds of the rest of the flowers. "I've talked to you about Love before." "About it being an addiction?"Caleb remembered. "About it making you stupid. This is the distilled stupid part. Don't get any on ya." "Gonna be hard to do that, isn't it?" "Just don't smell any of the flowers when you give them to Selena-- and Ben-- and Merly, and Rita, and dear ol BJ." "Are they all going to go stupid? Even my sister?" "Some people like it. They'd just as soon be stupid all the time. We're doing them a favor really." "But the Queen-- I mean Miss Coombs really isn't stupid." "She will be when she smells these-- it won't hurt her." The boy looked a little quizzical and Buck smiled his most conciliatory smile. "Caleb, you gotta remember this is just a dream, and dreams don't hurt ya." "OK." Caleb said tentatively, remembering shooting his father dead in one of those don't-hurt-ya dreams. *** Selena had stopped under a streetlamp, looking for a place to rest and set up. . .well, a bower would be nice. It wasn't everyone who had a picnic outdoors in the snow-- at midnight, with a bunch of children and cats. But then Selena had never been ordinary. "He's here again." Rose pointed. And Selena bristled expecting Buck. But only Caleb stood in the lamplight. A huge bunch of incredible roses in his arms. "Are those for me?" Caleb nodded and held them out at arms length, holding his breath for fear he might smell em. When Miss Coombs took the flowers, he was worried she might start laughing uncontrollably or make silly faces. . . or juggle. But none of that happened. Instead, Selena's face softened, and her eyes got all wide and moist as she drank in the heavy seductive perfume of the roses. She sure didn't look stupid, she looked beautiful. Caleb sighed with relief and walked back to the Crowmobile, he had some more deliveries to make. "There's a big gate here." Rose offered, " and it's open, it looks real pretty inside." A wrought Iron Gate, pearly white with frost, was standing open on a frozen garden. Stepping stones made a path between icy Gargoyles and frozen crows. The snow was carved in strange shapes as they walked along the path. There at the end was a perfect bower, an arbor of white wickerwork supported by two gleaming silver shovels. Tiny gargoyles perched over the archway for protection. The children spread their coats on the ground and more furs and rolled on the soft fluffy warm covers. Selena sank into her lovely bower looking up at the wild thyme and violets interlaced in the icy wicker and the sweet musk-roses peeping between the gargoyles toes. A lone crow flew to the top of the archway and froze in mid caw, icicles growing from his open beak. "This is perfect. Open up the bags and let's share the treats." The children cuddled next to Miss Coombs and her cats and nibbled on cookies and candies and other pastries. *** Floyd was on late night patrol checking on the locks on various buildings like the Bank and Parkin's DryGoods, and the Pool Hall. But he was mainly goofing off as usual. He sure didn't know what to make of these flowers Caleb was handing him. "What do you mean they're a special assignment?" "Can't you figure it out?" Caleb insisted. "You mean it's a clue?" "Yeah, like a word puzzle or something." "Ok, four roses, could mean four letters." "Or a bottle of cheap whiskey," Buck muttered behind the frozen branches of a hedge, dark holly wreathing his head like a crown. He waved Caleb into the shadows with him. "Read the note, Floyd!" Buck's voice went into some part of his deputy's brain that was working overtime to solve the puzzle. "Oh," Floyd exclaimed, " There's a note. Maybe I should read it." >>A word with four letters is your meaning. The most important word in your life.<< He took off his deputy cap and scratched his head. Little bumps protruded from his brow. They got bigger and longer and hairier as he thought. "Golly, this is a tough one. Heeee- Haw!!" He sneezed suddenly and looked around-- startled--for what had made that Gawd-awful sound. City ordinances didn't allow livestock in the city. His chest began to itch him alot too. "Why don't you just walk around a bit and the answer might come to you?" Buck whispered. "You know, I think I might just take a little stroll and maybe I could think better." Floyd peeled his shirt off and let the long hair beginning to grow over his arms and chest flutter in the breeze. " I sure wish I could find an all-night pastry shop." "Lord," Lucas sighed as Floyd the donkeyman ambled up the street to where the answer to his clue awaited him, "talk about spoon feeding!" **** In the middle of the park, Ben was finding out what really happens when all your worst fears and more particularly all of your various women all get together in one place at one time. It was not a pretty sight. Maybe those flowers Caleb had given him might smooth tempers out a little. "Ben Healy," Rita stomped up a little cloud of snow, "I thought you asked me out, not this dead woman." She glared at Merly who glared right back. "Well, now," Ben temporized, " she ain't exactly dead." It was hard to fool a nurse on death. "Buried for two years, I don't know how much deader you can get." "Who're you calling names?" "There are few enough men around and I'm not losin mine to a corpse, Missy." "Hey," BJ spoke up, "he was mine before he belonged to either of you, don't I get a say?" "You blew up!" Rita said, "Which in my book means it's over," hoping against hope her boyfriend's ex hadn't looked out her window before the gas had ignited. "OK." Ben said, trying to get this whole thing straightened out logically, which was maybe the biggest mistake he made all evening. "BJ actually is dead. Much more dead in her own way than Merly." "I might have known you'd sell me out." "Well, you are, Barbara Joy, I'm just telling the truth. Lord knows it was hard enough for me to accept it at the time." "Let's see," Rita said blowing on her fingers to warm them up while she counted. "Dead," She pointed at Merly, "deader. ." a nod to Barbara Joy. "Uh huh," Merly said, a concentrated dark look shadowing her face, "and you're about to be the deadest." She twisted Buck's ring on her finger and got ready to point it with interest at her rival. Ben grabbed her hand just in time. "Put that thing away." He muttered. "What's gotten into you, tonight?" **** From the snow drift, Caleb looked up at his father, "You sure about this no hurting business?" With great relish, Buck watched Ben hand out bouquets of charmed roses to each of the women in his life. He turned to his son. "It's freezing out isn't it?" The crows froze up like ice cubes in mid-caw on the branches proved that. "It sure is." Under a hedge an alligator opened its jaws wide, icicles hanging from his mouth instead of teeth. "You wearing anything other than leaves?" "Nope." "Don't even feel cold, do you?" "I'm hungry though." "Have a chocolate, Momma Lucy made em. And don't worry so much." They both popped one in their mouths. Better than a wool blanket. *** Selena was popping an almond apricot tart in Boone's mouth as the most heavenly creature walked, well, loped, well, galumphed, into the garden. He had big dark eyes and soft moist lips, and long furry ears. And he was carrying a bouquet. "Oh, did you bring me more roses." Selena opened her alabaster arms to embrace the blood-red petals. "They have the richest perfume, once you smell them you just can't get enough." "If you want them, you can have them, Ma'am. You are the prettiest thing I've ever seen in my life." "It is so nice to meet a gentleman in this world." Selena rubbed her fingers through the long hair on the handsome stranger's chest, and arms, and back. "So virile, too. Would you like a pastry?" "You have said the magic word!" Floyd chomped down on a napoleon, the creme tickling his whiskers. He did some fast counting on his fingers. "But it's not four letters. So it's not the most important word in my life. See, Ma'am, I got this clue. And I need a four letter word." "Four letter words? Sweetheart, there's a lot of those. Let's see what we can come up with. If we put our. . .heads. . together." Selena wrapped her arms and furs and blankets around Floyd and together they disappeared in a cloud of soft fragrant white warmth. Rose and Boone and the rest of the children tucked them in. "I think we should sing them a lullaby." Rose said. "I'll start it and everybody else join in." "Lulla, lulla, lullaby, lulla, lulla, lullaby: Never harm, No spell nor charm, Come our lovely lady nigh; So good night with lullaby." "Well, that's too little, too late, kiddies." Buck grinned from his perch on one of the bigger gargoyles. His darkness faded right into the night like a shadow. And that's when the giggles started. One was low and throaty, unmistakably Selena's, the other kept breaking into a bray. The furs began to jostle and move about a bit. "Maybe they're playing Boggle." Caleb suggested, peeking out from under the gargoyle's wing. "You have to shake those letters pretty hard to mix em up." "How many four letter words they gonna go through till they get to FOOL?" Buck growled. *** There was something about those dark red roses, something that did things to parts of Barbara Joy's heart that had been hardened for years. "These are gorgeous roses, Ben, and for you to give them to me, is about the most wonderful thing you've ever done." "Well, I got them from Caleb, actually, and there were so many I figured everybody could have some. . . oh shoot, I am my own worst enemy sometimes, aren't I?" "Most of the time." He was so cute when he got flustered. "Figures." Ben sniffed at the flowers a little, "They do smell, don't they. I'm glad you like them." "I do." BJ looked around, it was just her and Ben alone. maybe Merly and Rita were off pulling each other's hair out or something. "Just how old is that Temple girl anyway?" "I don't think that matters where she is." "Well, I'm curious. How old was she when she died?" Ben stuck his hands in his pockets, looked off at a star or something and mumbled, "uh . . . I don't know. . .about 16." "Ben Healy, that girl's young enough to be your own daughter." "She doesn't seem that way. Maybe, you grow up a lot in heaven." "Heaven! She doesn't dress like she comes from heaven, and you aren't looking at her like you were in church, either." "She loves me, Barbara Joy, don't you remember that?" "Oh Benji," BJ sniffed, "course I do." She touched his hand, just the lightest of touches and before he knew it he was holding her slender fingers and then his arm, of its own volition, was wrapped around her shoulders. "I remember it clear as day," BJ said, her head tipping towards him. "So do I, Barbara Joy." Their lips touched and the years just fell away from them, 20 years gone like snow melting. And he was a football hero and she was the pretty girl who never gave him a tumble until she finally did and then for a brief shining moment everything went right. "Ben?" Merly's voice knocked Healy out of his romantic dream. He looked at her over BJ's shoulder, her face desolate. "I was intruding, I don't belong here." She ran off into the dark night. "Don't leave, Merly, this was nothin'." BJ burst into tears. "Oh hell, nothing now, but Something then, you know what I mean, Barbara Joy. Oh damn, oh damn, oh hell. When am I going to get this right?" He patted his dead wife on the shoulder and ran off after his dead girlfriend looking for that phosphorescent glow Merly gave off when she was depressed. "See what I mean," Lucas jumped down out of the tree branches, "stupid." Caleb climbed down the trunk picking pinecones out of his hair, "Stupid." *** All the little rugrat fairies were curled up sleeping when Lucas walked into his own garden to check on Selena. She was partially emerged from the fur coverlet, her blonde hair falling like spun white gold across the ground, her arm white as marble stroking a long hairy ear. "You sleeping with jackasses now, Selena?" "I always have, why should tonight be different." She stretched and rubbed her eyes. "Are these donkey ears? " "Uh huh." "I thought he was a bunny rabbit. You know, the kind that just keep going and going and going." "I see. Well, if you want to set up housekeeping with your bunny rabbit, fine with me. Maybe there's pet wedding chapels. I know there's pet cemeteries." "Hmm. Then again, the ears are cute, but I don't think he's a keeper. When it comes to animals, I prefer a ten-pointer." Her long white arms nudged a little closer to the sheriff's vest, her fingers winding about the buttons. "I should hope so. So how about telling me, who's the daddy of your little bundle of joy." "My baby is completely, absolutely a Buck." The smile that emerged from Lucas's dark shadow, gleamed like the wide open jaws of a wolf. "That's what I wanted to hear." "That's what I thought." Selena leaned up and Buck leaned down and they met in a kiss that spread like a furnace. Wings began flapping over their heads and huge drops from the icicles breaking off the frozen crows ran down Buck's back and Selena's rather delectable front. "Looks like a thaw, honey." Lucas remarked. "Maybe you should whip out your thermometer and check the temperature." "Well now, I fully intend to do just that, but before I whip it out, I have one more thing to take care of." "You don't come back right soon, I'll have to start without you." "Do what you have to do, but I'm stealing your little Energizer here." Buck grabbed Floyd's ears and pulled them off like a knit cap, plunking his deputy's hat back over his head. "Rise and shine, Sleeping Beauty, we got us an emergency call on the Trinity River." *** The moon was full and bright and from the levee you could see the dangerous patches begin to spread on the surface of the thawing river. Ben and Barbara Joy and Rita had just avoided one slushy hole and had no idea they were heading towards another. "Floyd, you alert emergency services. I'm gonna take care of this situation myself." "Yessir, Sheriff." Floyd rushed off to his radio car. It took a brave man to walk out onto a deathtrap like that river. And Floyd sure hoped he could find one. The sheriff's cowboy boots crunched with each step he took on the ice. He watched the little cracks he had made spread out and grow deeper, winding their ways around and between Ben and his girlfriends. "Howdy," Buck waved at the hapless four. "It is my sad duty to inform you that this venue is officially unsafe." As the Sheriff finished speaking the ice under Barbara Joy split apart and dunked her into the cold dark water. "Talk about your scientific proof. One down, Benji." "Lucas, could you haul her out?" Ben asked, trying to keep Rita and Merly away from the cracks that just kept spreading and growing everywhere they stood. "I mean, I can't see how the water can hurt her, she's dead already." "Ah, there's dead and then there's terminally dead. Watch." With a harrowing splash of water, BJ popped to the surface again trying to save herself. Her bare arms stretching for help, turned white and then transparent from the excruciating cold, her fingers dug into the edge of the ice and cracks began to form along her skin. Her scream as she shattered into a million zillion pieces chilled Ben's soul. "Oh my God!!! I'm sorry, Barbara Joy, I didn't know." Ben turned in rage towards Buck. " What have you done to her?" "Don't blame me, I don't make the Laws of Nature, I just enforce 'em." Buck shrugged. "Better worry about the two that are left, Lover Boy." The ice between Ben and Rita cracked some more, forcing her further away from him. He turned to Merly. She was trying to get closer but the icy crevasses seemed to chase her and drive her off. "No matter what you hear on TV, you really CAN'T have it all, Ben." Buck grinned, "You have to choose." "I can't!" "Sure you can! The question is-- Which one do you really want? This should be an interesting decision, ladies, pay attention." "Buck, help me," Ben cried. "We could pull them both to safety." A huge crack split the ice between Ben and the Sheriff. "Looks like that's not an option, Benji." Buck smiled. "Besides, this little dilemma is illuminating. For all four of us." *** Caleb was lying down on the bluff watching the drama on the ice. "It's goin too far, even if this IS only a dream. I don't care what he says, my sister could get hurt." A golden hand clasped his as if a sliver of the sun had materialized in the night. "He always goes too far, that's your father's way." "It ain't right, mamma." "Let's come up with something that can fix it." *** Ben had both women by the hand, just barely, with his arms outstretched so far he thought they'd break off. The circle of cracks around Rita's feet was almost joined. "Jump over them, Rita, and you'll be safe." Ben gave her hand a little tug to help her. She was bending her knees to jump when the ice gave way and she plummeted into the freezing river. Rita's hands slipped out of Ben's grasp like melting ice cubes. "I should lay down and pull her out," Ben thought, "I should run after her." He pulled Merly to him instead-- away from all the gaping cracks of death-- and held on to her tight with both arms wrapped around her body as he watched Rita drown. Her big brown eyes looked up at him as she sunk hopelessly in the black water. "I'm sorry," Ben said to the whole damn world, tears freezing to his cheeks. "I couldn't do it." "It wasn't your fault." Merly insisted. "Not too bad, for Playing God 101." Buck smirked, "I give you a C for an interesting choice." "You bastard!!" "Speaking of bastards, I got a woman waiting on me who's carrying mine." Buck glanced down the ice, " And I think I see a Deus ex Machina on the way. This must be your lucky day breaking, Benji." Buck glided back into the shadows from which he had emerged and the sound of delicate horse hoofs chiming on ice replaced him. From the east where the sun was just peeking its head over the horizon a lovely gilded carriage was approaching, causing no more damage than a moth gliding on the surface of the frozen river. Matt swept out of the conveyance and, rushing to the hole in which Rita had disappeared, began dragging a sodden but gasping body out of the depths. As Loris tucked Ben and Merly under the silken comforters in the carriage, BJ was similarly rescued. "Your husband is some doctor!!" Ben remarked. "He has many wonderful qualities, Ben Healy." With the four shivering people tucked safely under wraps and clutching steaming hot cups of tea, Matt turned the carriage around and began steering the horses home. They cleared the river and were tap-tapping down the tree lined streets when a thought occurred to Ben. "BJ and Merly! They're ghosts, you know, can you all actually see them?" At that moment a little boy dressed in vines appeared under the frosted Magnolias intoning poetic phrases in a deep southern accent. Even the delicate white horses stopped to listen. "If we shadows have offended, Think but this, and all is mended, That you have but slumber'd here While these visions did appear. And this weak and idle theme No more yielding but a dream. . ." Caleb's striped shirt faded into the fogs and mists of the rapidly warming dawn. The snow was nearly all melted, and the frost on the bushes and pavement was all that was left of the cold night. "What ghosts are you talking about, Ben?" Matt inquired. "Yeah, what ghosts?" Rita asked. She and Ben were tucked up in flannel blankets in the backseat of the old station wagon. By themselves. Alone. "But they were just here!!! Merly and BJ!" Ben was shaking with excitement. "Wake up, daddy, you're gonna be late for work." Ben Jr shook his father a little bit more. He'd already slept through the alarm. "Were you dreaming about Mamma?" *** "Damn it! Did I ever have a crazy dream last night!" Ben banged open the front door of the Sheriff's office and hung his coat on the rack. "There were fairies and roses, and snow everywhere. Shoot, the whole Trinity River froze up." Floyd looked up from his word puzzle. " You're supposed to call them gay now, Ben." "Not that kind of fairy, Floyd. Well, shoot, you were in the dream. Heck, everybody in town was." He was about to tell the whole thing from start to finish when he saw Selena come out of the hall that led to Buck's inner office-- in a long white Fox fur coat. And from the length of leg that came out of the front opening, not much else. Buck whirled her around and instead of slapping him or pelting him with words, Selena kissed the sheriff with more vigor than anyone in town had seen since Buck had been dead and buried. "Looks like it's going to be a much warmer day today." "I believe it just might be that, Ma'am." Floyd grinned. Selena reached over and ruffled the deputy's head until he blushed. "You be a good boy now." As she swung the big glass door to the Sheriff's office wide open Selena turned and winked at Ben. Buck leaned heavily on the desk, " So, you had a dream last night , huh?" "No, Lucas," Ben muttered, "I had absolutely nothing last night." END DISCLAIMER: Any story/episode appearing that states it is part of Virtual AG-Season Three is based upon the Television show, "American Gothic", which is the property of Shaun Cassidy, Renaissance Productions, and CBS (apparently). The characters added to support this concept, and the storylines, are the property of the writers acknowledged as such. PLEASE, DON'T SUE US!!