Night Things: A Novel of Supernatural Terror (32 page)

“Well, I don’t know how you define friendship, lady, but it seems to me that you play a little rough,” Stephen shot back.

A glimmer of delight rippled through June’s unnaturally wide and luminous eyes. “You’re right. I do like to play rough.” She gave another of her unctuously artless smiles.

Her frankness startled Stephen. “Well, if it’s rough you want, maybe we should raise the stakes a little?”

“What did you have in mind?”

“How good a swimmer are you?”

“I’m an excellent swimmer.”

Stephen glanced over to a large log floating several hundred feet away in the middle of the lake. “Do you think you’re a good enough swimmer to make it to that log and back?” Miko became frightened. “Stephen, please.”

“That would be child’s play,” June returned.

By this time both Chris and Ben had swum over to see what the excitement was about.

“What about you two?” Stephen asked. “Do you think you could make it over to that log and back?”

“I don’t know. It’s pretty far,” Chris hesitated.

“Ah, it’s not that far. I could do it,” Ben countered. Stephen looked back at June. “What do you think, June? Do you think you could beat us if we did a little race?”

“Easily,” June murmured. “But only under one condition.” She gave Arnie another hug. “Arnie here has to do it with us. I never do anything without Arnie.”

Arnie went white. “Oh, no, June. I don’t think I could begin to swim that far.”

“Sure you could, Arnie.”

“No, June, I...”

June gave him another steely glance. “
Arnie.
”

All the life seemed to drain out of Arnie, and he gave in. “Okay, June. Okay.”

June looked back at Stephen. “Then you’re on!”

“Great!”

Miko looked at Stephen worriedly. “Stephen, are you sure?”

But before she could say anything else, June pushed Arnie roughly in the direction of the log and they were off.

They swam madly through the moonlit waters, June, Arnie, Stephen, Ben, and Chris, and several times as they advanced Stephen thought Arnie was not going to make it. The sound of the little man’s breathing was so strained and raspy that it could even be heard above their splashing, and once he stopped and looked as if he was going to go under.

But when he did, June just urged him on, callously and insistently, and he somehow marshaled his strength and continued.

Halfway there, Ben and Chris turned back, and Stephen’s lungs began to ache so much he almost did the same. But when he looked and saw how effortlessly June seemed to be keeping ahead of him, his pride reasserted itself and he pushed on.

Finally, they reached the log, and Stephen grasped hold of it desperately, gasping for breath. Arnie also clung to the log for dear life, his face so blood-gorged and his breathing so strained he looked as if he was about to have a heart attack. Only June seemed unscathed by the race, and she smiled triumphantly as she treaded water a few feet away.

Seeing the agony Arnie was in, Stephen could no longer contain his anger. “Arnie, why in the fuck do you let her do this to you?”

For several seconds Arnie’s gasping remained too convulsive for him to answer, but then finally he summoned the strength to speak. “Why do you let her do it to
you?
” he croaked.

“Do what?” Stephen asked, not understanding.

For the first time a flash of life surfaced in Arnie’s eyes, accompanied by a glint of something that seemed almost like pity. “Let her manipulate you into challenging her just so she could get you out here alone?”

Stephen was still confused. “June manipulate me?” He looked at the little blond woman bobbling in the water, and she leered back at him with strange amusement.

“Don’t you see?” Arnie entreated.

“
Arnie
,” June cautioned.

But despite his exhaustion, the mote of fire that had kindled in Arnie only increased. “No!” he exclaimed. “I’m not going to take it anymore. Your threats just aren’t going to work anymore.”

“What do you mean, threats? What kind of threats?” Stephen asked, his perplexity growing.

At this Arnie lost all patience. “Don’t you see, yet? Don’t you understand?” He lowered his head frustratedly toward the floating log and then lifted it up again. “I don’t know who she is. I don’t even know
what
she is—”

But as soon as the words left his lips, June slithered beneath the water.

Arnie panicked. “Oh, God, no!” he cried as he tried vainly to clamber up onto the log. But it just slipped and spun away.

Stephen had no idea why June’s momentary submersion should cause Arnie so much alarm, but Arnie’s terror seemed so real Stephen also began to panic.

“What is it?” he shouted, looking around desperately and trying to make some sense out of what was happening. “What do you mean, you don’t know
what
she is?”

“Oh, God!” Arnie screamed and started to jerk around as if something was grabbing at his legs. He looked at Stephen one last time before he went under. “I didn’t know what she was! She was just walking along the side of the road—!”

Then he vanished beneath the water.

Paralyzed with disbelief, Stephen continued to just look around, half expecting to see June and Arnie come laughing to the surface at any moment.

But when they didn’t, he finally grasped the danger he was in and started thrashing violently toward the shore.

He had only swum a few feet when he felt something brush against his leg. He kicked at it, and for a moment he thought he might have pushed it away. But then he felt it bump against him again, this time holding tight.

And he too vanished beneath the water.

★     ★     ★

Lauren read about Stephen’s death in the papers a few days later. When she had learned he was returning to the house for the summer, she had tried to warn him, but he would not listen. Nonetheless, her failure to convince him of the danger he was in still left her so racked with guilt that it was several days before she realized his death meant she was now a very wealthy woman.

For the next several weeks she continued to deliberate, trying to decide whether she should tell anyone else about the house or not. But finally she resolved to keep silent. She knew no one would believe her.

In time, as the weeks turned into months, she and Garrett even stopped talking about the house between themselves.

But Garrett did not stop thinking about the house. Not a day passed that he did not try to figure out which had played a greater role in saving their lives—chance or his willingness to trust in the unknown. But try as he might he could not decide, and the best he could come up with was that there were no easy answers.

More and more he realized that every situation had to be decided on its own. And that one had to go into each situation with equal amounts of optimism, willingness to believe, and suspicion. It was a twisting path that one had to follow to learn what exists in the innermost heart of another, a road without short cuts, and one that required great care in the walking. It was sometimes a road that brought one to one’s destination quickly. And sometimes it was fraught with setbacks and wrong turns. But always it was a road that could not easily be anticipated. It was, in a word, a labyrinth.