by John Saul
“No. Let’s just go.”
“You sure?”
“I’m sure,” Eric said. “Let’s just not get into anything now, okay?” Before Kent could argue, Eric relieved him of the pizza box and started toward the dinghy dock at the marina.
Kent glanced back at Adam Mosler once more, but then turned and followed Eric and Tad to the dock. Though part of him wanted to punch Adam Mosler’s lights out, another, far stronger, part of him wanted to get back into the secret room hidden in the carriage house at Pinecrest.
Already, Kent thought he could hear voices whispering to him.
Voices that wanted something.
But what?
Soon, he was sure, he would know.
All of them would know.
THE TINGLING SENSATION began to come over Kent even before he’d stepped through the door into the hidden room, and by the time he actually followed Eric and Tad over the threshold, every nerve in his body seemed to be vibrating with an energy he’d never felt before. He set the lantern on the desk, pumped it up, then carefully lit it with a wooden match from the box they’d found in the kitchen. As he adjusted the flow of fuel, the orange flame around the mantle disappeared as the mantle itself began to emit a blinding white light that banished the shadows from most of the room.
A few seconds later Tad set the second lantern on the old three-legged table, lit it, adjusted the flame, then straightened up as the new lantern washed away what few shadows were left. Yet even though the room was now flooded with bright light, its feeling hadn’t changed at all, and Tad shivered as a sense of anticipation flooded over him.
Something was about to happen.
He could feel it.
His eyes fixed on the ledger that still lay on the table, open to Hector Darby’s final entry, and as he gazed at the thick tome, Tad felt as if he could almost hear Darby’s voice whispering inside his head. “It feels so weird in here,” he breathed. “It’s like I’m on a roller coaster that’s almost at the top. Know how that feels?”
Kent Newell barely glanced at him, but Eric nodded. “Like you sort of wish you hadn’t gotten on in the first place, but you don’t really want to stop, either.”
“So what do we do?” Kent asked. “Where do we start?”
Eric’s eyes focused on the ledger. “Let’s see if we can match any of the stuff in the room to what he wrote in the book.” He rested his hand on the Formica surface of the broken table. “See if there’s anything in there about this thing.”
“How’m I supposed to know what I’m looking for?” Kent asked as he turned back the pages of the old ledger. “I can’t even figure out what half of these things mean, and even if I find a table, how’re we going to know it’s the right one?”
Eric moved around the table, then bent down to look at its underside. Taped to the inside of the table’s frame, he found a small tag. Pulling it loose, he stood up and held the tag so the light of one of the lanterns fell full on it. “It’s from Plainfield,” he said. “It’s got some numbers on it, but I don’t know what they mean.”
“Let me see,” Tad said. He peered closely at the tag, then: “It’s an auction tag. I’ve been to some with my mom. They put these tags on everything. The number just means which lot it was at the auction.”
“Well, here’s something from Plainfield,” Kent said, poring over the ledger. “But it still doesn’t make any sense.”
Eric and Tad moved toward Kent, flanking him on either side and peering over his shoulder at the entry in the ledger:
7/11 acq table (#36) frm est. sale Milwaukee $10,350. Bargain.
“Ten thousand dollars?” Tad said. “That can’t be for this. It’s gotta be for something else. Is that right?”
“Gotta be that table,” Eric said. “Same—what did you call it?—lot number? Thirty-six is what’s on the tag.”
Kent reread the line, following it along with his finger. “That’s nuts,” he said. “Old Darby must have been some kind of wacko.”
Eric went back to the scarred Formica table and ran his hands over its surface, feeling not only the cracks and chips, but something else as well.
A faint tingling feeling, the same feeling he got from the ledger when he first found it on the bookshelf. Almost like electricity flowing from the table into his fingers. He stood perfectly still, savoring the odd sensation until Tad’s voice broke through his reverie.
“What about this doctor’s bag?” Tad said, and Eric finally moved away from the table and started pulling the drawers of the old Victorian desk open one by one as Kent thumbed through the ledger.
“Here it is,” Kent said, pointing to a single line in the middle of one of the pages so Tad could read it as well.
1/5 acq phys valise complete frm J. Stackworth, GBR £34,670. Beauty.
“I don’t get it,” Tad said. He picked up the leather valise and shook it upside down.
Nothing came out.
“He wouldn’t have used something this expensive himself, would he?”
“He was a shrink,” Kent said. “They don’t even carry bags, do they? Besides, this one’s got to be at least a hundred years old. And it’s all beat up. What would make it worth that kind of money?”
“Wait a second,” Eric said from behind them. “What’s this?” He set a small bundle on the table. It was wrapped in layers of black oilcloth and tied with twine so rotten that it broke apart as he put the bundle down. “It was in the bottom drawer of the desk.”
“Open it up,” Kent said.
Eric looked up at him for a long moment, and Kent thought he saw a flicker of something in Eric’s eyes. Then, very slowly, Eric began to unroll the small bundle.
When he unfolded the last layer, a complete set of surgical instruments lay exposed, which, in contrast to the scuffed and battered bag on the table, lay shining and glinting in the lamplight as if they were brand new.
Kent picked up a scalpel, feeling its heft and balance. The curved blade flashed like a mirror in the light.
“Look at this old shot needle,” Tad said, picking up a metal hypodermic casing, still with the enormous slant-ended needle attached. He touched it to the end of his finger.
“Be careful with that,” Kent said.
“There’s all kinds of stuff here,” Eric said, picking up first a retractor, then a spreader. There was a whole array of instruments, as if someone had put together an entire surgical kit. As he touched each of them, Eric felt the same flow of energy that had come from the table on which the instruments now lay.
“What’s this?” Tad asked, reaching for a small bit of something brown and dried.
“No!” Eric said, and hit his hand away. “Leave it alone. And give me back the hypo. And the scalpel. They need to all be kept together.” He looked over at the valise, which now seemed to have a glow emanating from it. “They need to be back inside the bag.”
Tad pushed the leather valise across the table to him, and as Tad and Kent watched, Eric very gently, one by one, placed the instruments inside it.
When he was finished, Eric closed the bag and snapped the catch, but his eyes remained fixed on it.
“You okay?” Kent asked after several seconds had passed.
Eric finally looked up at the other boys and smiled. “I feel great,” he said.
Outside, Moxie began barking.
“Jeez,” Eric said with a shiver. “Moxie’s out. What time is it?”
Kent looked at his watch, then looked at it again.
Once again they had lost track of the time.
“It’s five to eleven,” he said, his voice hollow.
“Oh, man,” Eric said. “My parents are home.”
Quickly, they doused the lanterns, pulled the plywood back into place across the doorway, and left the carriage house. Eric led them around the back of the structure and along the edge of the woods, so when they finally walked up the lawn, it would look to his parents as if they were coming up from the lake.
His mother was silho
uetted in the kitchen light as she held the door open for his father, who carried a sleeping Marci in from the car.
“It’s eleven o’clock,” she whispered loudly as the boys came up to the house. “Time for you to come in the house, Eric, and time for Kent and Tad to go home.”
Eric nodded a good-bye to Kent and Tad, who took off toward the lakefront trail that would take them to their houses, then stepped into the bright light of the kitchen. He didn’t want to talk to his mother, but neither did he want her to wonder if he’d been out drinking by going too quickly up to his room. He compromised by moving to the refrigerator and fishing out a Coke.
“What’d you three do tonight?” Merrill asked.
“Not much. Went into town for pizza. Hung out.”
“You missed a good dinner at the club.”
Eric shrugged. “It’s okay,” he said, picking up the Coke and taking a sip. “I’m pretty tired.”
Merrill Brewster smiled at her son. “It’s late. Why don’t you go on up to bed?”
“Yeah,” Eric agreed, moving toward the door. “Think I will.”
Eric walked quickly and quietly up the stairs and closed the door to his room. He didn’t want to wake up Marci, nor did he want to talk with his father. He just wanted to think about what he and Kent and Tad had found in the hidden room.
Junk—what looked like absolutely worthless junk—had been bought for unbelievably high prices, prices he could barely even imagine.
He kicked off his shoes, stretched out on top of the bed, and instantly felt as though his bones were melting right into the mattress. The moon was too high in the sky to see, but its silvery light sparkled on the lake and spread a calm light throughout his room.
How had it gotten to be eleven o’clock?
It seemed impossible.
Maybe he should call Tad or Kent on their cell phones. Or log on to see if they were online to chat.
But what good would it do? They didn’t know any more than he did, and all it would turn into would be a bunch of meaningless speculations.
But one thing he knew for certain: he was as exhausted after the hours he’d spent in the hidden room as he would have been if he’d been working hard all day long and all evening, too.
Too tired even to undress and get under the covers, Eric pulled his pillow out from under the bedspread, plumped it up under his head, and closed his eyes.
HE CLUTCHED THE heavy wool cloak tight around his throat to ward off the bone-chilling fog. The street seemed empty, though he knew that wasn’t true.
Somewhere nearby someone else was searching, too.
He felt safe in the fog, knowing that its cold, white shroud protected him from prying eyes.
He was on a narrow, cobbled street that he knew wound down toward the docks. He had hunted here before, and now the smell of the place—the water, the fish, the sewage, even the vomit—all stirred something deep in his gut.
Soon a new fragrance would be added to the mix, and his pulse quickened as he thought about it.
His whole body was tingling as if some kind of current were running through it.
He saw her.
She was barely visible, lurking in a doorway, all but lost in the shadows. But still, despite the darkness and the fog, he knew.
She was the one.
She was perfect.
His hunger flared.
He slowed, feeling his excitement grow.
And feeling the emptiness of the streets around them.
They were alone.
Beneath his cloak, he slipped off a leather glove and slid his hand deep into an inner pocket.
His fingers closed on smooth, cold steel.
He was close to her now, and she spoke, her voice muffled by the fog. “Raw night, ain’t it?”
The mounds of her breasts pushed vulgarly up from the top of her dress, but they were blushing an authentic red from the cold, not from the rouge pot.
Her hair was blond and crumpled messily on top of her head. Garish rouge and bright red lipstick turned what could have been a pretty face into a grotesque mask.
Her blue eyes were outlined with black that had smudged through the course of the night, giving her a look of ineffable sadness.
Sadness he knew he could cure.
“Yes,” he said, moving closer to her. “Raw.”
She offered him a twisted parody of a coquettish smile, ruined by a missing tooth.
He held up a bill between two of the gloved fingers of his left hand, and she eagerly reached for it, but he pulled it back, holding the bill just out of her grasp.
“Someplace warm,” he said.
“All right, then,” she said, “whatever you say.” She pulled her ragged coat closed at the neck. “This way.” She turned and led him down a narrow cobbled alley, crooked and dark, lined with shadows.
He followed, outwardly calm but barely able to contain the excitement spreading through him.
His grip tightened on the object concealed beneath his cloak.
The scalpel.
The scalpel whose need to work seemed almost as great as his own.
TIPPY LAY CURLED on the chair cushion, her eyes wide in the moonlit darkness, her ears flicking to catch the sound of any movement the darkness might hide even from her sharp eye.
Suddenly her body tensed.
There it was! One tiny sound nearly lost in the cacophony of crickets and frogs at the water’s edge.
Nearly lost, but not quite.
She knew that sound. She’d been waiting for it.
A mouse.
Silently, the cat stood, stretched, and jumped lightly from the chair to the patio, then stopped to listen again.
Her ears twitched, and caught the sound once more: by the woodpile at the edge of the trees.
Slowly, quietly, one soft step at a time, Tippy crept through the grass, ears forward, eyes trained on her destination.
She heard the mouse gnawing on something hard.
As she drew closer, she slowed nearly to a standstill, fixing the exact location.
A blade of grass moved.
She froze, sniffed.
Something else was in the night.
Something that caught not only Tippy’s attention, but the mouse’s as well.
A moment later the breeze wafted the scent of the mouse into her nostrils, and Tippy crouched, her tail twitching in readiness, her hind feet moving to find a grip on the damp grass.
The mouse, unaware of the danger nearby, went back to its meal.
Tippy slunk a step closer. Paused.
Another step.
She could smell more than just the mouse now: she could smell its nest as well. It wasn’t far away—just under a nearby board.
The mouse stopped, sitting up to look out over the grass, its eyes glinting like two tiny beacons in the moonlight.
Tippy tensed, trembling as she readied herself to pounce.
And in the instant she began her spring, a pair of hands grabbed her from behind.
Tippy splayed her claws, ready to do battle with the unseen attacker, but before she could react, she was flipped over onto her back. She kicked out with her powerful hind legs but caught nothing with her claws.
Her mouth gaped open to utter a yowl of fury, but even as the sound began to form in her throat a searing pain sliced through her belly.
She heard, rather than felt, her skin rip as two hands pulled her apart.
Then she knew no more.
A few moments later the crickets and frogs resumed their nighttime chorus.
The mouse nosed its way out of its nest, smelled a new scent, but deemed it to be of no danger.
Safe, it darted through the grass to resume its meal.
THE ROOM THE woman had led him to was so cold he could see his breath plume out in a steaming cloud, and the only light came from a gas street lamp outside the window.
The skewed rectangle of light lay directly on the woman’s bed.
The bed where she lay, her pain
ted lips curled back in a grimace that could have been mistaken for a smile.
But there was no smile in her eyes.
Her eyes were fixed and empty and beginning to glaze as she stared into eternity.
From her neck to her groin, though, she was exquisite, her skin laid open to expose all the secrets concealed within her body. Her entrails steamed in the cold, and scarlet trickles of blood still spilled over the edges of the slash.
He tortured himself by watching and waiting, holding off, tantalizing himself with the pleasure that was soon to come.
But not yet. Not yet. Not quite yet.
He fixed every detail in his mind so that later he would be able to revisit this girl and savor the gifts she had to offer. He would visit her many times in his memory, and in his dreams.
Only when he had committed every detail of her exposed body to his memory, but before the freezing chill in the air turned the best part cold, did he finally drop the scalpel on the bloody bedspread and plunge his bare hands into her warm viscera.
ERIC JERKED AWAKE with a sob.
He sat straight up in bed, utterly lost in the dark, his mind still full of the nightmare that had gripped him a moment ago.
His heart pounded so hard he saw red orbs glowing in the darkness around him.
Red, like the blood that filled the corpse into which he’d plunged his hands.
He gagged, rolled off the bed, and dashed to the bathroom, groping for the switch by the door, finding it.
Bright white light seared his eyes but freed him from the terror of the dream. He squinted, blinked, then saw his own image in the mirror.
He was still dressed in the clothes he’d worn yesterday.
His mind began to clear.
It had just been a nightmare.
His relief drained his strength away and he leaned against the sink for a moment, staring at himself in the mirror. His face was ashen.
Dark smudges lay beneath each eye, and sweat stood out on his forehead and upper lip.
His heart still hammered, and the details of the dream began to replay in his mind.
He needed to look at his hands, but he didn’t want to, terrified of what he might see.
He could still feel the slimy softness of the girl’s insides, could still hear the wet sounds his fingers had made as he’d plunged them into her torn body.
