In the Dark of the Night (15 page)

Eric nodded.

“Take care of your mother and your sister, okay?”

Eric nodded again. “Don’t worry, Dad.”

“I won’t.” He kissed Merrill one last time. “And don’t you worry, either.” He gave them a final wave, then climbed the two-step ladder into the plane.

The pilot cast off the single line that held the float plane to the dock, pushed the little aircraft away, then went in and pulled the door closed. A moment later the engines started and the plane taxied slowly out into the lake.

A wave of panic came over Merrill at the thought of spending the evening at Pinecrest with Dan nowhere close, and she turned to Ellen Newell and Ashley Sparks. “You two doing anything tonight?” she asked.

“I’m driving over to my cousin’s for dinner,” Ashley said. “Her son’s talking about joining the army, and she’s hoping I can talk him out of it.” She rolled her eyes. “The problem is, of course, being that he’s such a jerk, the army would be the best thing for him. But what can I do? She’s my cousin.”

“I’ve got tennis this afternoon, and I promised I’d have dinner with my doubles partner,” Ellen Newell said. “How about we all get together tomorrow?”

Merrill tried not to let her disappointment show. “Okay.”

The plane’s engine roared then, and it picked up speed and rose into the air. After looping once around the lake, it headed south toward Chicago.

A
S THE SUN
set and the shadows of the evening crept over Pinecrest, Merrill moved methodically through the house, closing all the draperies, turning on all the lights, and locking every door and window.

An hour later Eric was sprawled on a large but lumpily uncomfortable easy chair, halfheartedly watching reruns on television, while Marci kept fidgeting on the couch as her mother read her a book. Except Merrill read the book only sporadically. Every time she heard any kind of sound she couldn’t instantly identify, she put it aside and prowled through the house.

“I think it’s bedtime,” she finally announced at ten o’clock.

Eric shrugged, more than ready to go upstairs and spend some time on the Web, maybe talking with Kent and Tad.

“Can I sleep with you tonight, Mommy?” Marci asked.

Merrill nodded. “Of course.”

“We should put some food out first, though, in case Tippy comes home,” the little girl went on. “She’ll be hungry.”

“Good idea,” Merrill said. “Eric will go out with you.”

“Why can’t she go by herself?” Eric groaned. “All she has to do is open the door and set a bowl of food out on the steps.”

“But it’s dark out there,” Marci objected, not quite able to keep her voice steady.

When his mother gave him a look that reminded him that he was supposed to be the man of the house—at least while his father was gone—Eric sighed and hauled himself up off the chair. “Come on, then.”

Marci poured a cup of dry cat food into a small bowl, and Eric held the door open while she carried the food and a bowl of water out onto the patio.

The sky was full of stars, and a soft, warm breeze tinkled the wind chimes his mother had hung at the corner of the boathouse that morning.

Then Eric’s eyes were drawn to the carriage house, which sat silent and dark. He felt an urge to go over there, or maybe to sneak out of bed after his mother had gone to sleep and open up the hidden room to see what else might be there. He’d have nobody to tell him when to leave, nobody to distract him from his exploration.

But even as he felt the strange urge—as if something in that room were actually pulling at him—he knew that for tonight, at least, he wouldn’t give in to the impulse. The horror of the nightmare hadn’t fully released its grip on him even now, and he knew that something in the carriage house—something in the hidden room—had caused it.

But what?

“Can we go back in now?” Marci asked, breaking into his thoughts of the carriage house and what might lie within its walls.

“Don’t you want to call Tippy?” Eric countered, though he was already certain that no amount of calling the cat could possibly summon it back.

“No,” Marci whispered.

Eric cocked his head. “Why not?”

Marci peered nervously out into the night. “I don’t like it out here. I don’t want to make any noise.”

Eric’s brow lifted. “Getting to be as nervous as Mom?”

Marci shook her head vehemently. “No. But it feels like someone’s watching me.”

“Maybe a raccoon,” Eric countered, “waiting for you to go inside so he can eat Tippy’s food.”

“He can’t!” Marci declared. “It’s for Tippy!” She abruptly seemed to lose her fear, and looked out into the darkness once again. “If there’s a raccoon out there, you can just go away!” she called out. “This food’s not for you! It’s for my kitty!” When there was no response from out of the night, Marcie turned and marched back inside the house.

Eric took another moment, and, like his sister, gazed out into the darkness.

Suddenly he wasn’t eager to go to bed at all, for bed meant sleep.

And sleep meant that terrible nightmare might return.

But sleep was inevitable.

He looked again at the dark silhouette of the carriage house and at the woods beyond.

Maybe there was a reason his mother and sister were so nervous. Maybe something was, after all, out there.

Watching.

Lurking.

Waiting.

But waiting for what?

A shiver ran up his spine.

He quickly stepped inside the house and locked the door behind him.

L
OGAN SHUFFLED RESTLESSLY
back and forth in the tiny cabin, the walls seeming to close in on him with every pace.

Like the walls of the room at the hospital so many years ago….

Every time he looked at the little bundle, wrapped in an old piece of burlap he’d scrounged from a Dumpster, his stomach hurt, and he thought about the hospital and what it had been like.

And why he’d been there…

But he couldn’t think about that now. He had to deal with the bundle, and he had to deal with it soon, but he didn’t know how.

“What to do,” he muttered to the dog, who had long ago given up watching and had fallen into a twitchy sleep. “What. What. What to do.”

Logan paused to touch the bundle that sat next to the candle stub, then resumed pacing. “It’s the first,” he whispered, more to himself than to the sleeping dog. “Only the first. Dr. Darby. He’d know. He’d show me what…” His voice trailed off. Dr. Darby couldn’t show him anything. Dr. Darby was gone.

He stood still now, his eyes fixed on the bloody bundle, and from somewhere deep in his subconscious, as if from some far distant place that was all but forgotten, a new voice whispered to him.

A voice he hadn’t heard in years.

A familiar voice.

His mother’s voice.

Logan stopped pacing and slapped himself on the side of the head. “Stupid!” he whispered, then repeated the word three more times: “Stupid…stupid…stupid!”

His mother’s words came clear.

Follow Jesus,
she had always told him.
Jesus has all the answers.

“Jesus!” he echoed softly. That’s what he had to do: follow Jesus.

Yes. And he knew how to do it, too. All he had to do was get in his boat.

A few minutes later, as the moon set and the darkness of predawn came over the woods, Logan rowed silently across the lake, his eyes focused on the huge cross he’d long ago erected in the prow of the boat so that no matter where he went, Jesus would be his guide. The bundle lay on the floor between his feet, the ancient dog lay in his bed of rags.

“Please Jesus, show me what to do.”

He kept rowing, letting the great cross be his guide, until he was at the dock in the town of Phantom Lake.

The marina was dark, utterly deserted.

He shipped the oars, drifted to a stop, and tied his skiff to a cleat. “Shhh,” he said to the dog. “Wait.” He stepped out of the boat, bundle in hand.

The old dog sighed and put his head back down.

Nobody was there to see him, nobody who might call the police. The town was empty and dark, except for the glow of streetlights.

One streetlight—which seemed brighter than the others—shone down on the ramp at the end of the dock.

The light,
he remembered his mother saying.
Jesus is the light.

Logan shuffled up the dock, cradling the bundle as if it were an infant in swaddling clothes.

The light shone down on a massive wooden piling by the ramp.

And on a white piece of paper stapled to the piling.

Logan edged closer to the light, closer to the paper.
LOST CAT.

Jesus had heard his prayers. “Follow Jesus,” he whispered once again.

He pulled the flyer down, then moved up the ramp and onto the street, certain that somehow—if his faith was strong enough—Jesus would use the paper to guide him. A moment later he found another flyer, and took it down, too. He was moving steadily now, from one white flyer to the next, each of them reassuring him that he was doing the right thing.

He followed the trail eagerly, gratefully, the bundle safe in the crook of his arm.

The flyers led him to big glass doors with a silver star on them.

Another flyer was stuck to the glass, on the inside.

The inside, where he couldn’t reach it.

LOST CAT.

This was where he was intended to come. He’d followed Jesus and been led here.

Logan put all the flyers he’d collected down on the black mat in front of the door and laid the bundle reverently on top.

Yes. This was right.

Maybe they’d listen. Maybe they’d heed his warning.

He shuffled back to the boat, where the old dog waited, shoved off and rowed home just as the colors of a false dawn edged the horizon.

“They have to listen,” he said to the dog. “Please, Jesus, make them listen.” He shook his head, trying to dislodge visions of carnage. “If they don’t listen, it’ll get worse. It’ll all get worse.”

The one-winged crow cocked his head at Logan and the dog as they came back through the cabin door, but seeing no food, he ruffled his feathers once, then went back to sleep.

The dog went directly to his corner, and was soon snoring softly.

Logan curled up on his own bed of rags, trying to imagine what the sheriff was going to do to stop it before it got out of control.

He wondered if the sheriff had the power to stop it, or if somehow he himself was going to have to do it.

He didn’t think he could do it. And if he couldn’t…

As early light came through the oily window, Logan closed his eyes, but sleep was as far away as that little bundle on the sheriff’s doorstep.

Blood.

Blood was all he saw when he closed his eyes.

Blood in his past, and more blood in his future.

Blood.

Lots and lots of blood…

M
ERRILL BREWSTER FELT
just plain fuzzy-headed as she nursed her first cup of coffee and watched her children eat their breakfast. She’d barely slept at all last night—every creak in the house had brought her back to full wakefulness, and no matter how many times she’d told herself that nothing was wrong, she still hadn’t believed it. Well, maybe after she took Marci to Summer Fun, she’d catch a nap in the hammock.

The doorbell startled her back to reality, and she put the mug down. “I’ll get it,” she told the kids, then checked her clothes and ran her fingers quickly through her hair before going to the front door.

A man in a police uniform stood on the steps, a small box under one arm. “Mrs. Brewster?” he said.

Merrill nodded, feeling the blood drain from her face.

There’s been a plane crash. Dan’s dead.

Seeing the sudden panic in Merrill Brewster’s face, the policeman spoke quickly. “I’m Rusty Ruston, the sheriff?” He made the last two words almost a question, and Merrill nodded.

“Is—Is it my husband? Has something happened to Dan?”

Ruston quickly shook his head. “No, no, it’s—” He hesitated, then blundered on. “Well, I’m afraid it’s your little girl’s cat. It—Well, someone left it—well, what’s left of it, more exactly—on the steps of my office last night.”

“‘What’s left of it’?” Merrill echoed, her voice barely audible. “I—I don’t understand.”

“It appears that it met with some kind of animal—maybe a raccoon or something,” Ruston explained, then reached out a hand to steady her, as Merrill appeared about to faint. “Mrs. Brewster?” he said, his voice rising. “You okay?”

Eric, hearing the alarm in the man’s voice even from the kitchen, had risen from the table, but when Marci started to get up, too, he shook his head. “You stay here,” he said in a voice that was every bit as commanding as the one his father sometimes used on him—the one that left no room for argument. As Marci sank reluctantly back onto her chair, he went to the open door and saw a policeman helping his mother sit down on the front step.

“Mom?”

“She looks a little faint,” Ruston said. “I’m the sheriff—I brought back the little girl’s cat.”

“She’s dead,” Merrill breathed. “Tippy’s dead!”

Eric looked at Ruston, who nodded a confirmation.

“Someone left it on my front step—looks like it was killed by some kind of animal.” He handed the box to Eric. “You might want to just bury it. It’s not a pleasant sight.”

Eric hesitated, his stomach suddenly churning, images of the dream he’d had rising up in his mind. But maybe it was a mistake—maybe it wasn’t Tippy in the box. With trembling hands he lifted the lid.

It was not a mistake. There, resting on a filthy, blood-soaked rag, was what was left of Tippy.

Her eyes were open and glazed, her mouth stretched wide as if she were snarling.

Or screaming.

Her fur was matted with blood.

But worst by far was her belly.

Her belly was ripped open, and Eric could see her intestines spilling out of the wound.

He felt his stomach lurch. No wild animal had done this. She’d been cut right up the middle.

Sliced open like she’d been cut with a knife.

Or a scalpel…

…like the woman in the dream…

Marci’s scream ripped into his consciousness then. “No!” she was beside him now, howling, and before he could react, she snatched the box out of his hands. “No, Tippy!” she wailed, bursting into tears.

Eric pulled the box away from her. “Don’t look, Marci,” he said. “Don’t look at her!”

His mother was on her feet now, grabbing Marci’s hand, easing her down onto the top step of the porch, where she cradled Marci’s head.

“I’m sorry,” the sheriff said. “I can’t really say exactly what happened to it, and whoever found it and left it didn’t leave a note or anything. Just a bunch of those flyers you put up.”

Eric tried to think of something to say, found nothing, then wondered what his father might say. Finally, words came. “Thank you for coming.” He held out his hand. The sheriff hesitated a second, then shook it and started back to his car.

Before he got in, however, he turned back. “If I hear anything about what might have happened,” he said, “I’ll let you know.”

Eric nodded, the sheriff got into his car, and a moment later the police cruiser disappeared around the curve in the driveway.

“Tippy!” Marci wailed, but Eric barely heard her.

Adam Mosler, Eric thought. That’s who it was. It had to be. But even as he clung to the thought, he knew he wasn’t sure it had been Adam Mosler.

He wasn’t sure at all.

A strange numbness falling over him, Eric sat down on the front step next to his sobbing sister, the box on his lap, his mother flanking Marci, rocking her.

“We’ll have a nice funeral for her,” Merrill said as she smoothed back the hair from Marci’s forehead. “Eric will dig a little grave and you and I can make a headstone, okay?”

Marci nodded, her uncontrollable sobbing starting to ease a bit.

“It’s okay, Marce,” Eric said. “We can get you another cat. Okay?”

“I don’t want another cat,” Marci cried. “I want Tippy!”

Merrill wrapped her arms around her grieving daughter and looked at Eric over Marci’s head. “Will you put Tippy someplace safe, please, until we can bury her?”

“Sure.” Eric looked around, then fixed his gaze on the carriage house. “I know a place.”

E
RIC STOOD AT
the doorway to the storage room, Kent and Tad close behind him. He reached for the handle, but hesitated before his fingers closed on the cold brass.

Maybe he should just walk away right now, he thought. In fact, maybe he shouldn’t have called Kent and Tad at all. Maybe he should have just buried the cat this afternoon and tried to forget the whole thing. But that was impossible, for as soon as he’d seen the mangled corpse wrapped in bloody rags, the terrible nightmare of the night before last had risen out of his memory and hung before him not so much as a dream, but of something half remembered, something that, though not coherent in his mind, was nonetheless real.

As real as the cat’s body that lay behind the door.

His fingers trembled slightly, and he felt a strange excitement flow through his body, as if some kind of energy were flowing through the doorknob into his fingers. As that energy penetrated not only his body, but his soul as well, he knew he would not turn back.

He had to follow the energy.

Follow it to its source.

His fingers closed on the doorknob.

He twisted it.

The door eased open.

Eric’s fingers moved from the knob to the light switch, and a moment later the glow of the naked bulb on the ceiling drove the darkness away.

Followed by Kent and Tad, he stepped through the door. Nothing had changed: the sheet of plywood still concealed the door to the hidden room.

Everything was as they had left it the last time they were here.

Except that now a box sat on the table where before there had been only the old photograph album.

Tad eyed the box warily, his tongue running over his lower lip. “Wh-Where’d that come from?” he asked, his voice quavering just enough to betray his uncertainty as to whether he wanted the answer to his question.

“The sheriff brought it,” Eric replied. The three of them were standing at the table now, and Eric could feel the strange energy building inside him.

“You gonna tell us what’s in it?” Kent finally asked when Eric said nothing more, nor made any move to open the box.

Eric’s eyes shifted from the box to Kent Newell. “It’s Tippy,” he said, his voice barely more than a whisper. “She’s—” His voice broke, then he took a deep breath. “Something got her,” he finally managed.