Night Things: A Novel of Supernatural Terror (15 page)

“You’re damn right it is!” he snarled. “What you just don’t seem to realize is we’re playing in the big leagues here. You got to do it to them before they do it to you. And besides, you know it’s real easy for you to point out how cold and calculating and deplorable what I’m doing is, but I don’t see you refusing any of the benefits that result from it. I mean, look around you, at this house, at the lake and the two hundred acres of land surrounding it. How the hell do you think I got it all, anyway?”

He shook his head as he calmed down a little. “Listen, I’m sorry, but it’s just a bit much for me to work my ass off out there all day and then come back and have you criticize me for it. I’ve had too rough a day to stay out here and rag with you anymore. I’m going inside and going to bed. If you want to come in with me, fine.”

And with that he turned around and swam back to the shore.

For several seconds she was too shocked by his outburst to do anything but tread water. She wanted more than anything just to stop fighting with Stephen, to run up to him and by dint of some magic have all of their mounting differences just go away. But she still thought what he had done was reprehensible, and although she could understand how he might view her disapproval as ingratitude, she had to say how she felt. The honeymoon is really over, she thought sadly.

As she walked out of the water she noticed the evening had grown so cool her damp skin actually gave off steam in the night air. Wrapping herself in a towel, she went inside and put Garrett to bed. Then she went back downstairs to the drawing room to just be alone for a while.

She did not know how long she had been sitting and staring out the window when she became aware of the sensation. She had been so deep in thought she hadn’t even noticed that a mist had risen from the lake and had once again blanketed everything with fog. But as soon as she shifted the focus of her attention outward, she sensed it, the same uncanny feeling she was being watched.

Frightened, she went across the room and took a flashlight out of one of the desk drawers. Then she turned the lights off and returned to the window. The lake, the pines, all were as eerily still beneath the mantle of fog as if they had been captured in a picture postcard. And yet still, as she searched each break in the trees, each drift of shadow, she could feel the gaze of something boring down on her.

Her fear crescendoed into an almost mindless panic as she tried to figure out what to do. Should she get Stephen? Should she cry out? Finally, unable to bear the frustration of being victimized by something she could not see, she clicked the flashlight on and held it up to the window. At first as she passed the beam over the fog she saw nothing. But then suddenly in a swirl of mist at the far end of the lawn she saw what looked like the figure of a man. She could make out the outline of his head and the casual mien of his stance as he stood and watched her. But what made her blood run cold, what nearly caused her heart to stop, was the way his eyes caught the beam of the flashlight and reflected the light back at her. Only once before had she seen such a thing, when out West the eyes of a coyote glowed in the beam of her headlights. But even the coyote’s eyes, glittering and green as emeralds, paled beside the fire that seemed to stream from the eyes of her mysterious intruder.

She glimpsed him for only a moment before he vanished back into the fog, but one glimpse was enough. Swept with terror, she ran to make sure the front door was locked and upstairs to the bedroom. But to her horror she found that Stephen was already fast asleep. She deliberated, wondering whether she should wake him. Remembering the tone of their conversation when they had parted, she nearly decided against it. But then fear got the better of her and she shook him by the shoulder.

He frowned, grumbling something as he shifted his position slightly, but he did not waken.

“No, Stephen, please,” she begged as she jiggled him again, but still he remained unconscious.

Afraid to use any more aggressive action to wake him, she tiptoed over to the window and peeked through the curtain. This time when she surveyed the lawn, the sensation she was being watched did not occur. Concluding that the intruder had left, she undressed in the darkness and got into bed.

After he heard his mother retire, Garrett turned on a flashlight and opened one of his UFO books. But finding he was too fraught with anticipation to read, he turned the flashlight off and simply sat in his bed and waited. He was excited about meeting the thing again, but he was also worried. After their discovery of the forgotten hallway, he was even more convinced the house had been designed to protect the thing, and he hoped their intrusion had not disturbed or angered it.

Because he had had the day to think about it, he had also amassed quite a sizable list of questions he wanted to ask the thing, and he hoped his finding out of Fugate’s name would please it enough to consent to answer a few of them. Not the least on his list was his desire to know precisely what it was. He was still convinced it was either an extraterrestrial or a being from another dimension— but he did not know which. Because of its misty appearance he was leaning toward the latter, but without anything further to go on, he could not be sure.

He was also dying to know what it was doing in the house. If the house had been designed to protect it, that suggested that the thing had been around at least since the house’s construction, and that was a long time. In turn this made him wonder why it kept wandering the halls of Lake House. Why didn’t it just leave?

After waiting for the thing for over an hour he began to worry it might not come at all. He got out of bed and took up his vigil by the door. Finally he felt the familiar ineffable magnetism that meant it was coming, and, not wanting to be too close to it when it entered, he tiptoed back to the edge of the bed and sat down.

Before long the door burst open and the thing drifted into the room. When it entered he still experienced a wave of fear, but he tried to ignore it.

“Hello,” he stammered.

“Good evening,” it returned. “Have you obtained the information I requested?”

“Yes,” he said, beaming with pride. “The man’s name is Elton Fugate.”

It thought about this, but he could not tell whether the name held some special meaning for it, or if it was merely deciding what to do next.

“Did you find out where he lives?”

A flush of anxiety swept through him as he realized for the first time that although he knew where Fugate’s house was visually, he had neglected to find out the name of the road he lived on or the precise address of the cabin.

“I don’t know the name of the road, but I saw where he lived.”

“What do you mean?”

He explained how Mr. Foley had stood him on a chair and pointed out Fugate’s cabin to him.

“You mean his house is visible from here?”

“Yes,” he returned, and on hearing his response the thing started to move through the room. As it did so, it folded its arms behind it, and he noticed that despite its vaporous appearance, its hands still rested on one another as if they were physical. It suddenly swung around and looked at the telescope gleaming in the moonlight.

“But this is some kind of seeing device, isn’t it?”

“It’s a telescope.”

“But isn’t it able to make distant objects look closer?”

“Yes.”

“And if you looked through it wouldn’t it be possible to see Fugate’s house even better?”

The suggestion startled him, for although he had not thought about it before, he realized now that Fugate’s house probably was within the purview of his telescope.

“If Mr. Fugate’s house is visible from the window, yes, the telescope would allow us to see it much better.”

“Then what are you waiting for?”

He looked at it incredulously, unable to believe it would suggest such a blatant act of spying so casually. But after seeing it was serious, the mischievousness of the idea began to appeal to him and he hopped off the bed. When he reached the telescope he opened one of the bay windows and scanned the distant mountain. It was quite some time before he finally found the yellow fleck of light that marked the spot where Fugate’s house was located, and when he did and aimed the telescope at it, it took even longer to find it through the eyepiece.

To his astonishment he was able to see Fugate’s house as clearly as if he were standing only about ten feet away. Leaning against the outside of the cabin and shining dimly in the moonlight he discerned a rake and several shovels, and through a large window in the front of the cabin he could see a shabby sofa, a dingy yellow lamp glowing on a table, and a set of roughly hewn plank shelves leaning against the wall. But what struck him most was how squalid and unkempt the room was. Even at a distance he could see that both the sofa and the lampshade were grimy beyond words, and scattered everywhere was a nearly impenetrable clutter of rags, dirty clothes, bottles, jars, food wrappers, and other assorted debris.

He was just about to give the thing a run-down of what he was seeing when suddenly a figure darted past the window. It moved so quickly it wasn’t until it had gone by a second time and then a third that Garrett realized it was Fugate. Moreover, as Fugate continued his pacing he kept waving his arms as if he were arguing with somebody.

“What is it?” the thing asked, sensing the sudden change in Garrett’s demeanor.

“It’s Mr. Fugate,” he said. “He seems to be upset about something.”

“How can you tell?”

“Because he’s waving his arms and moving his mouth as if he’s yelling at somebody.”

Garrett glanced briefly at the shadowy form towering behind him and noticed from the sudden swirl of darkness coursing up through it that the information seemed of special interest to it.

“Can you see who he’s yelling at?” it asked quickly.

“No.”

“Then keep watching!”

He obeyed the command and continued to stare spellbound at the scene unfolding in the telescope’s eyepiece. But as he watched, suddenly Fugate’s behavior changed. Instead of pacing he stopped and buried his face in his hands as if racked by some torment he could no longer endure. And then just as suddenly he reached out and wildly pulled the person he was arguing with closer to him.

Only it did not seem to be a person. At least, not really. Although its general form was suggestive of something human, it was leaning at such an awkward angle in relation to Fugate that Garrett could not conceive how a human being could hold such a position without falling. Indeed, there was something so indefinably strange, so chillingly enigmatic, about it that Garrett began to wonder if his eyes were playing some sort of trick on him.

But before he could wring any sense out of what he was seeing, Fugate lunged toward the figure, pushing it out of sight, and for several seconds neither was visible. Garrett watched breathlessly, expecting some terrible fight to erupt at any moment, but instead Fugate finally stood and, uttering some final acrimony at his downed opponent, calmly turned out the light.

Garrett looked up frantically. “I can’t see anymore. He’s turned the light off.”

“But did you see who he was arguing with?”

“I don’t know. It was strange. At first I thought it was a person, but then he started to fight with it before I could get a good look at it.”

The patterns moving through the thing grew darker as the news drove it into a near-frenzy of excitement. “You mean he was fighting with something?

“Yes.”

“But you could not see what it was?”

“No.”

“Then I must know what that something is.”

“But how?” Garrett asked.

It turned its dark and fathomless countenance toward him as an even greater storm of darkness lashed up through it. “You are going to have to go to Fugate’s cabin and find out for me.”

“Me?” he asked incredulously.

“Yes, you must!” it snapped as if the answer were obvious.

“But why can’t you go?” he argued, the idea of spying on Fugate at close range still filling him with terror.

“Because
you
must go!” it thundered, and although the intensity of its outburst caused him to jump he also detected a strange note of annoyance in its voice. At first this mystified him, and he wondered why his asking it why it couldn’t go would strike such a nerve. But then in a flash it dawned on him. It couldn’t go. Something, some unseen force or limitation, was confining it to the house. Indeed, he realized that its inability to travel also explained why it had wandered the hallways of Lake House for so long, even explained why it had not returned to wherever it had come from. It was something caught. Trapped. Perhaps as desirous to return to its own world, its own kind, as he was to return to his home in the city.

Following closely on the heels of this realization came another, even more startling. He did not know what he had seen taking place in Fugate’s house, but he felt it was something eerie and inexplicably powerful. Suddenly it occurred to him that perhaps the reason the thing was so interested in finding out more about what was happening in Fugate’s cabin was that it believed whatever was going on there held some clue or means of assisting it in its own return home. Indeed, as his mind continued to explode with one fantastic speculation after another it occurred to him that perhaps the thing Fugate was fighting with, the thing that was only like something human, was some kind of friend or relation to his own otherworldly companion.

He looked out the window at the mountain across the lake, longing to know what type of being it was and why Fugate was behaving so meanly toward it. He also knew that no matter how daunting an undertaking it seemed, he was going to have to do what it asked, because he did not want to lose the thing’s friendship. And now that he thought he understood why it wanted him to go, he had even more reason to oblige its request. It needed his help, and given the precariousness of his own situation, he felt it possible that at some future time he might even need its help in return.

“But how will I go without my mother finding out?” he asked, and the tone of his voice communicated his acquiescence.