No Sanctuary by Richard Laymon

one, come all.
    Who’re you kidding? Gillian thought. It’s not the bed and mirrors, it’s me.
    Been alone too much.
    She opened her suitcase, took out her white bikini and hurried to the bathroom. She dried herself before putting it on.
    In the kitchen, she made coffee. While she waited for the pot to fill, she went to the den, opened the curtains, and slid the glass door wide. Most of the concrete slab behind the house was still in shade. The breeze felt good on her hot skin. She returned to the bedroom for her sunglasses and book, then poured herself a mug of coffee. and stepped outside.
    The redwood lounge chair needed a pad. She found one in a storage room alongside the garage. Then she sat down, crossed her legs, and drank coffee while she read her Simon Clark paperback.
    When the mug was empty, she wandered over to the fence. On tiptoes, she peered into Jerry’s back yard. He wasn’t there. He had a big pool that shimmered in the morning sunlight, a patio set with an umbrella over the table, a couple of loungers and a barbecue.
    It was against procedure, she reminded herself, to get involved with neighbors. It was risky. Too much danger of letting something slip. You make the brief, initial contact to allay their suspicions, then you stay away from them.
    Curious that Jerry had wandered into her Wonderbed fan- . tasy.
    A little disturbing.
    Disturbing, too, that she had hoped to see him when she looked over the fence.
    The last thing you need is to get interested in some guy, she thought. All they do is mess you up.
    Gillian went into the house for more coffee, then resumed reading until the mug was empty again.
    She took the mug and book inside.
    Then she went to the bedroom for her camera.
     
    It had all started when Gillian was seventeen.
    On her way home from school, she was walking past the deserted house when John Deerman called out to her. She stopped and waited for him to catch up.
    “Look at this! Look!” He tugged a typed sheet out of his binder and waved it in front of her face.
    She took it from him.
    The tide page of his term paper: “The Whiteness of Moby Dick.” It had a big red “A” beside his name. The teacher had scribbled, “Wonderful job. A vast improvement.”
    “That’s nice,” Gillian said.
    “Nice? It’s great! I got an ‘A’!”
    “Somebody did.” The “A” called for a ten-dollar bonus in addition to the twenty-dollar advance John had paid her for writing the paper. She held out her hand.
    Smiling, John produced his wallet. “You’re terrific, you know that?” As he slipped out a ten-dollar bill, a sudden gust of October wind snatched it from his fingers. Gillian made a quick grab for the tumbling bill as it fluttered past her face. She missed. It sailed over the battered picket fence.
    “Shit!” John yelled.
    Several yards beyond the fence, weeds in the overgrown yard snagged the bill.
    “Don’t stand here like a numbnuts,” Gillian said. “Go get it.”
    “No way. I’m not going in there.”
    Gillian sighed, set her binder and books on the sidewalk, and rushed toward the gate.
    “I wouldn’t do that!” John called.
    “Obviously,” she said. The gate hung crooked, held up only by the single hinge at the bottom. She lifted it, shoved it inward, then ran through the weeds. She plucked the money off a sticker bush.
    “Boy, that was stupid,” John said when she returned to get her books.
    “The only stupid thing was that you made me go after its ”
    “That’s Mabel Brookhurst’s place.”
    “So? Who’s she?”
    John’s eyes brightened as if he were thrilled to meet someone who hadn’t heard the story. “She was a lunatic. My dad’s a paramedic, you know. He was one of the guys that went in and got her. She’d been dead like three weeks, hanged herself. The stink was so bad the neighbors had started complaining. That’s how come she got found.”
    “Pleasant,” Gillian muttered.
    “They say there’s no way to get the smell out. That’s