Burnt Offerings (Valancourt 20th Century Classics) by Stephen Graham Jones, Robert Marasco Page A

you’re driving,” she said icily.
    “Sorry,” he replied.
    The stone wall disappeared behind the foliage. She drew a deep breath to power the words, and finally announced, “You were impossibly rude.”
    “Was I?” he said innocently. “I wasn’t aware of it.”
    “You could’ve shown some interest. It was downright embarrassing.”
    “Honey, you showed enough for both of us,” he said, patting her knee for emphasis. “I heard the pitch; I just wanted to get out of there.”
    “You made that clear enough,” she said, shifting in the seat and loosening a bit. “Do you mind telling me why?”
    He half-turned in her direction, then brought his eyes back to the road. “Oh, come on, babe; you’ve got to be kidding. Someone ought to go in there with a large butterfly net.”
    “Because they’re a little eccentric?”
    “Eccentric?” he laughed. “Honey, that kind of eccentric is out-and-out certi fi able.”
    “They got carried away, that’s all.”
    “Not yet, they didn’t; but they will, they will.”
    “Whatever they are,” she said while he chuckled, “it has nothing to do with the house. It’s perfect, it’s absolutely ideal.” He waited for the smile to disappear.
    “You’re sure about that,” he said.
    “Of course I’m sure.” She drew her leg up under her and faced him. “Ben, I honestly don’t see what there is to think about. It’s exactly – it’s in finitely more than we were looking for.”
    “I wasn’t looking for anything, Marian. I’m just along for the ride, remember?”
    “For once,” she said, a little angrily, “be serious.”
    “All right,” he said, “serious.” He looked at her long enough for her to bring her hand up to the wheel which was vibrating with the ripples and potholes in the road. “I don’t like the house.” He said it simply and firmly and – she knew the tone – very seriously.
    It hardly came as a surprise to her; his reaction to the house had been as obvious as her own. She forced a laugh anyway. “Don’t like it?” she said in disbelief. “For God’s sake, why? ”
    David was pushing a half-unwrapped sandwich over the seat and under her nose. “What’s this stuff?” he asked.
    “Chicken salad,” she said quickly, anxious to pursue Ben’s absurd statement.
    “We got anything else?”
    “Shrimp salad.” She brushed the sandwich away as David made a retching sound. He sat back and Marian draped her hand over the seat and touched his knee gently. She kept her eyes on Ben.
    “There’s something weird about the place,” he said finally. “Christ, Marian, you must’ve felt it yourself.”
    “All right, they’re weird, they’re crazy,” she said for the last time. “But, honey, we’re renting the house, not Miss Allardyce and her brother.”
    “The house is what I’m talking about, the whole deal. There’s something suspicious about it.”
    “I call it luck.”
    “Luck, hunh?”
    “Luck. I mean, just to have it fall into our laps like that – ”
    “Marian,” he cut in, “you don’t rent an estate like that for nine hundred dollars.”
    “Why not? Maybe they don’t need the money, maybe it’s more important to have someone look after the place, just be there. That’s worth some concession, isn’t it? Especially if they happen to be the right people.”
    “Meaning us?”
    “Us. Is that so hard to accept?”
    “All right, maybe not. What’s a damn sight harder to accept, even from two weirdos like that, is the rest of the deal – the old lady. You don’t leave a ninety-year-old woman – ”
    “Eighty-five.”
    “A hundred and eighty-five, what’s the difference? You don’t leave an old lady with total strangers, and I don’t care how right they happen to be. It’s A, presumptuous, and B, irresponsible. Christ, do you really want that kind of burden?”
    “For that house? Yes, if those are the terms.”
    “Will you try to see something besides the house. Like who feeds her – ?”
    “A