by John Saul
Eric shrugged as he rinsed the last plate and put it in its slot in the dishwasher. “Maybe he’s right—maybe we ought to leave all that stuff alone.”
Kent’s eyes widened in disbelief. “Are you kidding me? We don’t know the half of what’s in there.”
“Yeah, but—”
“But nothing!” Kent broke in. “So Tad’s scared. Does that mean you have to be, too?” He paused, looked straight at Eric, and played his trump card: “C’mon, Eric—you turning into your mother?” Kent knew he’d ended the argument even before Eric spoke.
“Okay,” Eric said, “but if it gets weird—”
“It’s already weird,” Kent shot back. “That’s what’s so great about it.”
Eric added soap to the dishwasher, set it running, then followed Kent across the lawn toward the carriage house. But as he walked, his eyes kept moving back to the spot where they’d gone into the woods.
The spot where the bloody cudgel still lay in the brush.
He tried to tell himself that it didn’t mean anything—that they didn’t even know what the heavy stick might have been used for. Maybe it hadn’t been used to hit a human being at all—maybe someone had clubbed a rabbit, or a beaver or something. Yet even as he tried to reassure himself, he knew that it was something else, that however the bloody weapon had come to be there, it had some connection to their dreams.
And some connection to the hidden room in the carriage house.
First, the scalpels.
Then someone had left Tippy’s mutilated body at the sheriff’s door.
Now the bloody club…
But it didn’t have anything to do with them—it couldn’t have anything to do with them.
They’d been asleep.
Or had they?
Now he was remembering the time they all lost whenever they went into the hidden room. The time that had passed as quickly as if they’d been asleep. Yet they hadn’t been asleep.
What if last night—
He put the thought out of his mind, unwilling even to think about what it might mean. They’d all been at home, in their beds, asleep. Whatever had happened in the woods had nothing to do with them.
And besides, the stuff in the hidden room was just that—stuff! Old stuff that Hector Darby had probably collected because he was as crazy as his patients.
“I think I’m starting to figure out why Darby collected all this stuff,” Kent said as they came to the carriage house door.
A chill passed through Eric as he realized that Kent’s words seemed almost a response to a question he hadn’t asked. “Yeah?” he said, consciously keeping his voice steady. “Why?”
“I think maybe he thought there was something about the stuff—like maybe there was a piece of those guys caught in the stuff they used when they killed people, you know? Sort of like voodoo, where you have to have something that came from the person you want to put a hex on. It’s like maybe Darby thought if he had the stuff, he could figure out what was wrong with the people, you know?”
They were inside the carriage house now, at the door to the storeroom, and already the strange humming—the barely audible noise that sounded almost human—was beginning. Had Dr. Darby heard that sound, too? And what if Kent was right? What if the voices on the edge of his consciousness really were coming from the things in the hidden room?
With the voices whispering to him again like a siren song, Eric helped Kent slide the plywood away from the hidden door. Then they went into the dark chamber and began the familiar ritual of lighting the lamps.
The voices were louder now, and Eric looked around at all the boxes, all the shelves filled with books. Where to begin? Where to start? There was too much, too many things to see, to touch….
As the babble of the voices filled their minds, Kent began opening boxes.
The first two were full of more books, and he put them aside as he searched for more interesting artifacts.
Eric, though, lifted half a dozen books from the top box and scanned their titles. All of them were about serial killers. Some were texts on abnormal psychology, some were scholarly case studies.
Some were true crime paperbacks.
And from somewhere deep inside him, a craving arose.
He wanted to read these books.
He wanted to read them all.
He wanted to know exactly what Dr. Darby had known.
And he wanted to know even more.
He opened one of the books and began to read, unconsciously sinking into Hector Darby’s own chair. The book was a case study of someone named Andrei Chikatilo, who killed fifty-five people in Russia in the 1970s and 1980s. Chikatilo had ripped pieces of his victims’ flesh from their bones with his teeth and swallowed them even before murdering them. Then, after they had died, he’d sometimes taken more, taken bloody souvenirs to eat on the way home.
It took fifteen years to catch Andrei Chikatilo, and at least one innocent man was tried, found guilty, and executed for one of Chikatilo’s murders. “This guy was really weird,” Eric said as he turned the last page on the strange case, but when he looked up, he realized Kent was no longer in the room.
“Kent?” he called out, rising abruptly from the chair and knocking it backward into a stack of boxes, which tipped over, sending something clattering to the floor.
He picked up the object.
The hacksaw.
The hacksaw they’d left on the table the last time they were here.
It had been clean then, but now—
“Give me a hand with this,” Kent said, jerking Eric’s attention away from the hacksaw as he ducked back in through the door, carrying a lightbulb and the last few loops of a worn extension cord whose length disappeared back into the outer storage room. It wasn’t until Kent began screwing the bulb into the ornate lamp they’d found a few days earlier that Eric saw the lamp shade that now sat next to it on the table.
And there was a new energy in the room—a new note in the hum of indistinct voices.
With the bulb in place, Kent plugged the lamp into the end of the extension cord. “Look up the lamp in the ledger,” he said, his voice tense as he began fitting the lamp shade to the harp on the base.
Eric opened the ledger and carefully turned the pages until he found the entry:
2/25 acq. lamp (#63) frm E.G. est. sale Plainfield, WI. $35,250.
“Thirty-five thousand dollars,” Eric breathed.
Kent said nothing as he finished fitting the shade to the lamp and twisted the switch.
A soft amber glow filled the room.
The voices seemed to sigh with the beauty of it.
Unconsciously wiping his hands on his pants, Eric reached out and touched his fingertips to the lamp shade.
It felt warm, and almost soft, like leather.
But so thin, so fragile.
He leaned closer.
It was, indeed, leather, but not like any leather he’d ever seen before. He could actually see veining in its grain.
He laid both his hands on the shade, and one of the voices in his head seemed to rise above the others as a strange energy coursed from the lamp into his hands and up his fingers and arms to flood his body.
He listened to the voices, and though he still couldn’t understand the words, he didn’t care.
He knew that something deep inside him—some part of him he was barely aware even existed—heard the voices perfectly.
Heard them, and understood.
MERRILL BREWSTER PUT down her fork and eyed her son. He looked pale, with flushed spots high on his cheeks, and as far as she could see, he hadn’t consumed even a single bite of his supper. All he’d done was merely move his meat loaf and mashed potatoes around on his plate, but none of it had actually been eaten. “Do you feel all right, honey?”
Eric nodded, then put down his fork and sat back in the chair. “I guess I’m just really tired,” he said.
Merrill cocked her head. “What were you up to all day?”
“Nothing,” Eric said, shrugging dismissively. “You know—just hung out. Poked around in the carriage house, looking at some of the old stuff that’s stored in there.”
“Those aren’t our things,” Merrill said, frowning. “I think you’d better leave them alone. If something breaks, we’re responsible.”
“I know. We’re careful.”
Merrill rose from her chair and picked up her plate, but before she took it to the kitchen she paused and felt Eric’s forehead. “I hope you haven’t picked up some bug,” she fretted. “Ashley Sparks said Tad went back to bed this morning.”
“I’m fine,” Eric insisted, ducking his head away from his mother’s touch. “I’m just tired, okay?”
Merrill pulled back almost as if she’d been stung. “You don’t have to bite my head off! I’m just worried—”
“You worry about everything!” Eric broke in, rising from his chair. “I think I’ll just go to bed, okay?”
“Fine,” Merrill said, stepping back from Eric’s outburst, and looking him over once more, noticing for the first time a stain on his pants. “What’s that?” she asked.
Eric looked down to see dark rusty finger streaks, and the memory of the hacksaw he’d picked up from the floor of the hidden room flooded back. He thought quickly. “Rust,” he said. “I found an old saw, and it was all over the blade.”
“Have you ever heard of a rag?” Merrill asked, then shook her head and answered her own question. “Of course not. Why would I think you would have? Just put those in the wash before you go to bed, okay?”
Though he was barely listening, Eric nodded. Rust? Why had he said that? It hadn’t been rust—it had been sticky. Sticky, like—
He felt the blood drain from his face, and now his mother was staring at him.
“Honey? What’s—”
“I’m okay,” he insisted, managing to conceal his roiling emotions. “I’m just pooped—I’ll be fine in the morning.”
Merrill continued to eye him, and tried to tell herself she was just falling victim to needless worry again. “Okay,” she said. “Marci and I are going to work on her costume for the parade for a while. She’s going to be the Statue of Liberty.”
Feeling his mother’s appraising gaze still on him, Eric winked at his sister. “Tomorrow I’ll see if I can find something to make a torch out of. Wouldn’t that be neat?” Marci, still sitting at the table, bobbed her head happily, and he could see the worry start to drain out of his mother’s eyes.
A few minutes later, after he’d once more loaded the dishwasher, he paused at the table where his mother and sister were putting together something he was sure wasn’t going to look anything like the Statue of Liberty’s crown. “See you in the morning,” he said as he kissed his mother’s cheek.
To his relief, she barely looked up.
AN HOUR LATER, after she’d tucked Marci into bed—the freshly glued and glittered crown sitting safely on the nightstand next to her—Merrill looked in on Eric.
He was sound asleep.
She smoothed the hair from his forehead and kissed him gently, careful not to waken him. He still felt warm, and little beads of perspiration stood out on his upper lip, but she decided he didn’t look sick.
She tiptoed out and gently closed the door behind her.
As she moved through the quiet house, sweeping up wayward glitter, putting the lid back on the glue, folding up the newspapers, and disposing of the leftover cardboard and construction paper, she decided that her husband and family and friends had all been right.
Tonight, even without Dan here, she was actually enjoying being where she was.
She was enjoying the quiet of the lake and the house.
Before closing the drapes and locking the doors for the night, she took a long moment to gaze out at the moonlight on the lake.
Peaceful. Serene.
Perfect.
How could she have been so nervous about coming here?
She pulled the drapes, then turned back to the room, where Moxie was sprawled on the sofa, one ear cocked in her direction even in his sleep, ready to accompany her upstairs and sleep on a real bed as soon as she gave the word.
Even Moxie wasn’t worried.
And she herself felt calmer and more rested than she had in a long time.
She turned out the lights and headed upstairs, Moxie waking up to trot along at her heels.
Just as she slipped between cool sheets, the phone rang.
“Hi, honey,” Dan said.
Merrill smiled in the quiet and darkness of the house and snuggled down in her warm bed.
Tonight, for the first time in years, she didn’t have a single worry to tell her husband about.
GO HOME! TURN the boat around and go home!
But Logan knew he couldn’t go home—not yet. Not until he’d done what he came here to do.
The thing was, he didn’t know what to do.
Not anymore.
Not since the people had come to Pinecrest.
He tightened his hands on the oars, squeezing them so hard his knuckles ached. In the bow, the old dog whimpered softly, and Logan clucked in sympathy. “Too old,” he muttered. “Too old for any of this.”
Go back! Go away!
The voice seemed to come from outside his head now, but Logan knew that wasn’t true. The voices weren’t real—they were only part of his own craziness! That was what Dr. Darby had said—that was what all the doctors had said. They weren’t real, and he had to pretend they weren’t there.
He pulled hard on the right oar, and the shriek of its lock ripped through the night. From somewhere off to the left a bird burst from its roost, flapping in indignation. Logan ignored it, concentrating instead on pulling the boat around and forcing its prow into the muddy bank.
The howling in his head grew worse, but he dragged himself out of the boat, pulling it farther onto the shore and making its worn painter fast to a low-hanging branch.
Once on shore, the voices began to shriek at him. Gone were the soft, soothing tones that used to whisper to him, murmuring their approval as his fantasies became reality. As the voices howled, the long-buried memories crawled up from his unconscious, and once again he could feel it.
His enormous, coarse hands around her small, soft throat.
The sweet taste of her blood on his tongue.
All he’d had to do then was listen.
Listen, and obey.
But now—
The voices didn’t want him here.
But why?
It didn’t matter. It didn’t matter what the voices wanted him to do.
He had to do what Dr. Darby wanted him to do.
He paced the shore, searching for the courage to do what he knew must be done.
His hands went to his head, trying to shut the voices out, but even as he pressed so hard he thought his skull might crack, the voices tortured him.
In the bow of the boat, the old dog struggled to sit up, and Logan stopped his pacing. As the dog’s eyes fixed on him, a strange foreboding fell over him, and then his skin began to crawl as if he’d just been touched by death itself.
But it wasn’t death.
It was Dr. Darby.
Dr. Darby was inside the dog, and if he just concentrated—just focused his mind and kept his eyes on the dog—he would know.
Dr. Darby was stronger than the voices, and now, in the dark of the night, Dr. Darby would give him the strength to ignore the voices, too.
It would be all right.
He would find the strength.
Dr. Darby depended on him.
He had to keep everything in order, keep everybody safe.
Finally turning away from the boat—and the dog—he began slogging toward the carriage house, resisting the voices that pushed against him like the winds of a hurricane.
“I can do it,” he whispered as he came at last to the door. “I will do it.”
His hand touched the doorknob, and the cacophony of voices screaming at
him to go away pounded so hard in his head that he almost fell to his knees.
Why weren’t they luring him the way they used to? Why weren’t they promising him the fruit of his darkest desires?
Why didn’t they want him anymore?
The answer bubbled up from the depths of his subconscious, groping its way through the fog in his mind.
They didn’t want him here because they had someone new.
They had someone else to carry out their evil.
Now a harsh ray of jealousy ripped at the clouds in his head, and Logan’s fingers tightened on the brass of the doorknob until he felt as if it must crumble under the pressure.
“Help me,” he whispered, leaning against the door. “Help me, Jesus.”
He turned the knob and entered the carriage house.
LOGAN STEPPED INTO his boat just as dawn was lightening the eastern sky. The old dog barely looked up when he shoved off from the weedy shoreline and began rowing toward home.
His back ached. His arms ached. His head ached.
And his soul ached even more.
He rowed with his eyes half closed, the little boat seeming to know the much traveled route even without his guidance.
He needed to rest.
He ached to put an end to his weariness.
Head hanging, he kept rowing, each long, torturous pull of the oars endurable only because it took him closer to home.
To sleep.
To blessed unconsciousness.
To freedom from the voices, even if only for a little while.
The dog moved restlessly on his nest of rags, and Logan opened his eyes.
Dawn was on the lake and they were almost home.
He put the last of his energy into the final strokes of the oars, and then the boat nosed into the hidden mud slip and came to a stop.
He secured the boat to a stump, lifted the dog onto the shore, and limped up the hill as sunshine blazed on the tips of the trees.
When he opened the cabin door, the one-winged crow greeted him with a hungry caw, and Logan realized he had failed to bring any food home.
The dog looked up at him with big, brown, expectant eyes, and Logan’s spirits dropped even further.
They had trusted him.
