by John Saul
“Kevin and Jeff and I will be up in the morning,” she heard Dan saying. “I know exactly how you’re feeling, and I certainly agree that it’s a terrible thing. A tragic thing. But it doesn’t have anything to do with us, and there’s no reason to let it destroy our summer.”
No reason to let it destroy our summer? Doesn’t he realize it already has, at least for me?
“Dan, I’m not—” she began, but again he didn’t let her finish.
“There’s one more thing,” he cut in. “Marguerite has had some kind of a family emergency and had to go down to Springfield. She’ll come up with us next week.”
Merrill chewed a cuticle. Marguerite’s presence might at least have made the isolation more tolerable, but it didn’t really matter since they’d be home before Marguerite got back from Springfield, let alone all the way up to the Phantom Lake. At least they’d be home if she had anything to do with it.
“I’ll see you in the morning, honey,” Dan said, his voice taking on a note that told her the conversation was over, at least for now. His next words confirmed her interpretation of his tone: “If there are decisions to be made, we’ll all make them together over the weekend.”
Merrill sighed, knowing his mind was made up. “Well, at least everybody’s spending the night with me.”
“Which is a very good idea for all of you. How are the kids holding up?”
“The boys are traumatized, of course. We all are, except Marci, who’s been asleep since eight.”
“Well, things always look better in the morning. Our plane arrives at eight.”
“We’ll be here.”
“Love you.”
“Love you, too.” Merrill clicked off the phone and looked out over the calm lake and the stars that were reflected in it.
Tonight, though, she found nothing at all serene in the view.
Tonight, all she wanted was to be as far away from Phantom Lake as she could get.
Shivering even in the warmth of the night, she turned and went back inside the house.
THE AMBER GLOW seemed to draw Eric through the darkness like a moth to light, and he moved toward it until finally he came to its center. Now it seemed to spread directly from him, moving out into the darkness in every direction.
He turned, and the surrounding darkness dissolved into the walls of the hidden chamber.
Tad and Kent were at the table.
The lamp was on, and now Eric saw that it, not he himself, was the source of the warm amber glow.
And it seemed to shine brightest not on him, but on the long white box that sat in front of Tad and Kent.
Tad looked at Kent, who nodded, and then Tad lifted the lid off the box.
An acrid stench rose up from the box and burned Eric’s nostrils, and though his stomach heaved, he couldn’t look away.
Inside the box lay a strip of putrefying meat, turning green beneath the crawling maggots that swarmed over its surface.
Kent and Tad were also gazing at the rotting mass, then Tad reached into the box and slowly lifted it out.
As Eric watched, Tad scraped a few maggots away, letting them fall back into the box like so many fat, squirming grains of rice.
Tad lifted the object higher, tilting it first one way, then another, letting the light play over its glistening surface as a greenish slime oozed from the mass and ran down his fingers and hands to his wrists.
Then, as Tad turned the object again, Eric saw the hand that hung at one of its ends.
The skin had been peeled off, leaving bloody fingernails at the tips of skinned fingers.
Tad was holding Ellis Langstrom’s severed arm. He gazed at it almost reverently for another moment, then sighed and brought it to his mouth.
Tad’s teeth sank deep into the decaying flesh, ripping a large piece loose. He chewed for a moment, swallowed, then opened his mouth for—
ERIC JERKED AWAKE, his heart pounding, his pajamas soaked with perspiration.
“Jesus.”
Though he whispered the single word, it seemed to echo through the room as his heartbeat slowly evened out.
He looked around. Kent was still on the floor, snoring softly. But Tad—
He heard retching sounds from the bathroom and saw the light under the bathroom door. Getting out of bed, he moved to the door and slowly pushed it open.
Tad was on his knees in front of the toilet, and as Eric stepped inside, he reached up and flushed the toilet, then wiped his mouth with a wad of toilet paper.
“Y-You okay?” Eric said, wondering even as he spoke if perhaps he himself was about to vomit, too.
Tad looked up at him, his eyes filled with a horror Eric had never seen in them before.
“I was eating it, Eric,” he said, his voice breaking as he uttered the words. “I dreamed I was eating Ellis’s arm.”
AS DAN BREWSTER’S gaze wandered over the group gathered around the big table in the Pinecrest dining room, he wondered how it was that only he, Kevin Sparks, and Jeff Newell—who had worked long hours all week, then gotten up before dawn this morning to catch the flight to Phantom Lake—looked even faintly ready for a weekend of anything but sleep.
His wife’s face was pale, Ellen had dark circles under her eyes, and Ashley had obviously been crying. As for the boys, Kent was sitting quietly, pushing the scrambled eggs Dan had made for everyone around on his plate as if they were turnips or lima beans or something else he hated. Eric wasn’t even bothering to poke at his food, which sat undisturbed in front of him. And Tad was even paler than Merrill, and looked as if he might throw up at any moment.
Marci, it seemed, was the only one at the table with any interest in food at all, but she was far too small even to make a dent in the platters of bacon and waffles that he had produced. Finally, it was Ashley who managed to meet his eyes.
“I guess we’re not what you were expecting to find this morning, are we?” she asked, her voice as bleak as her gaze.
Dan reached over and put a hand on hers. “Are you going to be all right?”
She forced a wan smile, fresh tears threatening to spill down her cheeks, then took a deep breath. “I will be—of course I will be. I just keep thinking about poor Carol.” She shook her head dazedly. “I can’t even imagine how she must be feeling.”
Merrill pushed her untouched breakfast plate a fraction of an inch away, and now her eyes, too, fixed on Dan. “I want to go home,” she said, her voice as flat as her expression. “That’s all I want.”
Jeff Newell, about to take a sip of coffee, put his cup back on its saucer, and when he spoke he chose his words carefully. “Don’t you think that’s—” He hesitated, then went on. “—well, a bit premature? I mean, we don’t even know what happened yet.”
Merrill Brewster shifted again, her eyes boring into Jeff. “A boy is dead. What else has to happen?” She glanced first toward Ellen Newell, then Ashley Sparks. “Surely you don’t really want to stay here, do you?”
Ashley took a deep breath, then looked directly at her. “Carol Langstrom is my friend,” she said, keeping her voice steady by the sheer force of her will. “I’ve known Carol and Ellis a long time, and she’s going to need her friends right now.” She hesitated again, as if knowing how much her next words might hurt Merrill, but then went on: “So no, Merrill, I’m not going anywhere.”
“But—” Merrill began, but Dan, moving his hand from Ashley Spark’s to his wife’s, shook his head.
“Nobody’s going home, sweetheart,” he said softly. “At least not right now.”
“But the sheriff was here, Dan!” Merrill said, pulling her hand away from his. “He was asking the boys questions about Ellis right after he disappeared.”
“The sheriff?” Dan echoed, turning to Eric. “Am I missing something here? Do you guys know something about this?”
Eric shook his head. “We hardly even know him. One of his friends told the sheriff about something that had happened Monday night, that’s all.”
“‘Something’?
” Dan echoed. “I think you’re going to have to do better than that. In fact, I think you’re going to have to tell me exactly what happened, and exactly why the sheriff wanted to talk to you about it.”
Reluctantly, Eric told his father the whole story of what had happened on the way home Monday night, and when he was done, he spread his hands helplessly. “That’s all that happened. And even if we’d wanted to go after them, it wouldn’t have been Ellis Langstrom. It would have been Mosler. He—”
Kent and Tad looked across the table at him and shook their heads, and Eric cut whatever he was about to say short and shrugged. “Mosler was the worst,” he finished. “Langstrom was just sort of going along with him.”
Dan studied the boys carefully. They looked traumatized, but they didn’t look guilty.
“Do they even know what happened to the Langstrom boy yet?” Jeff Newell asked.
After a short silence, Kent Newell finally spoke. “One of his arms was missing.”
Tad Sparks put his napkin to his mouth as the acid from his empty stomach rose in his throat.
“Honey, are you all right?” Ashley asked.
Tad took a breath. “I—I’ll be all right.” He sat back in his chair and stared down into his lap.
“One arm missing sounds like more than an accident,” Dan said. “But it doesn’t necessarily sound like murder—maybe an animal attack or something.” He turned to Kevin Sparks and Jeff Newell. “Either of you know the sheriff up here?”
“I’ve met him a couple of times,” Kevin said. “Nice guy, as far as I can tell.”
“Then let’s pay him a visit this afternoon,” Dan suggested. He turned back to his wife. “Here’s what we’re going to do. We won’t make any decisions right now. First we’re going to find out exactly what happened to the Langstrom boy, and what’s going on. And we’re certainly not all going to pack up and leave here while there’s an investigation going on—not after what Eric says happened Monday night.”
“I don’t care—” Merrill began, but Dan held up his hand.
“This was a terrible tragedy for everybody,” he said. “But it’s not the end of the world.” As Marci stood up to take her plate to the kitchen, Dan grabbed her and pulled her down onto his lap. “Besides,” he went on, “I need to see my little girl in the Fourth of July parade.”
As Merrill saw the happy grin that spread over Marci’s face—the first happy expression she’d seen so far today—she decided that Dan might be right.
Perhaps they should stay, at least until after the Fourth.
And maybe nothing else would happen.
RUSTY RUSTON TOOK a deep breath, then opened his office door to admit Gerald Hofstetter, the florid-faced, redheaded publisher of the Phantom Lake Times, and Ray Richmond, who had been the town’s mayor for more years than his boyish looks should have made possible. From the moment Richmond called him to set up the meeting, Rusty had been certain that sparks were going to fly. Sure enough, as soon as the office door closed behind them, the mayor came right to the point.
“I think we all need to talk about Ellis Langstrom’s death,” he began, looking directly at Hofstetter. “Particularly given our dependence on the summer trade.” Gerald nodded and smiled benignly, but Rusty saw him readying himself for what they both knew was coming next. “I want to know,” Richmond continued, “whether I can count on the media”—he looked pointedly at Gerald—“to be sensitive to the town’s needs.”
“The public has a right to know,” Gerald countered blandly, the very neutrality in his voice causing a muscle in Ray’s jaw to tense in frustration. Whenever Hofstetter used that tone, Richmond knew he was planning something particularly inflammatory.
“We don’t know anything yet,” Ruston interceded. “All we know is that Ellis was drunk the last time his friends saw him. What happened after he left them is a matter of speculation.”
“And speculation,” the mayor said, “is exactly what we don’t need. There’s enough of it on the streets already, and the last thing we need is for the newspaper to start in, too.” He turned to Ruston. “How long before we get the autopsy report?”
The sheriff shrugged. “Depends. There was the missing arm, and a pretty nasty head injury, but there was no definite evidence of foul play—no obvious bullet wounds or anything like that. If the coroner’s not too busy, I think we’ll have it within a few days.”
“I’d hate like hell to have someone else die because we were worried about a little speculation,” Hofstetter said, once more using the tone that never failed to get the mayor’s back up.
“We’re not going off half-cocked on this, Gerald.” Ruston laid his pen down on the desk and folded his hands. “And nothing you print before we know exactly what happened is going to change the facts of what happened.”
“But if it turns out it was a murder—” Hofstetter began, but this time Ray Richmond cut him short.
The mayor leaned forward. “I know you remember what happened when the Hanovers’ granddaughter was murdered. This town almost died, and we all know it was largely because you kept spreading it all over your damn paper, even when you didn’t have anything new to write about. So you sold papers, but the summer people all left.”
“And in the end, my advertising revenues dried up, too,” Hofstetter said. “I’m not a bad guy, Ray—I’m on your side. I want what’s best for this town, just like you. I just don’t want you to hobble me, and if Ellis Langstrom was murdered, the people in this town have a right to know it.”
“Then I’ll tell you what I’ll do,” the mayor said. “I’ll give the coroner’s office a call, and see if I can get Bicks to burn a little midnight oil and get us his report. I’m not asking you to bury the facts. I just don’t want you to stir up a panic before we know if anything really happened.”
Rusty looked up at the sound of the outer office door opening to see Kevin Sparks walk in along with another man. He tilted his head just enough to alert the other two men. “Here we go,” he said as he rose to his feet and moved toward the door.
Hofstetter and Richmond both turned around to look. “Who’re they?” Richmond asked.
“Kevin Sparks, one of the summer people from The Pines,” Rusty said. “I spoke with his son and two other Pines boys when Ellis first went missing. I’m assuming the other guy is the father of one of those boys.”
“What do they want?” Hofstetter asked.
“I can only guess,” Rusty sighed. “You two want to stick around to find out?”
“Sure,” the mayor said, putting on his best campaign smile for the benefit of the people who kept Phantom Lake’s standard of living one of the highest in the state.
Rusty opened his office door, beckoned Kevin Sparks inside, and shook hands with Dan Brewster as Sparks made the introductions. As soon as Rusty heard the name Brewster, he remembered the family’s bloodied and mutilated cat.
And he remembered praying that there was no connection between what had happened to that cat and Ellis Langstrom’s disappearance.
And he remembered talking to the boys, and his impression that they knew something they weren’t talking about.
And now two of their fathers were here.
Rusty introduced the two men to Gerald Hofstetter and Ray Richmond, then Dan Brewster came directly to the point.
“We’re concerned about what happened to the Langstrom boy.”
Ray Richmond’s brows rose a fraction of an inch. “We were just talking about that ourselves. Tragic—absolutely tragic.”
“We’re certainly not here to argue that,” Dan Brewster assured him. “The question is, does anyone know how he died?” He scanned the three men, then decided to lay his cards on the table. “Frankly, my wife is terrified, and wants to pack up the family and go home.” He gave the sheriff, the mayor, and the newspaper publisher time to glance at one another, and he read their expressions perfectly. “The last thing this town needs is a panic. So the question is simple. Is there any reason to panic, or not
?”
Rusty shot Hofstetter a warning glance, then turned his attention to the visitors. “What evidence we have so far points to an accident,” he said carefully. “We’ll know more when we get the coroner’s report.”
“And until then,” the mayor said, “we’re not engaging in any speculation.”
“That strikes me as eminently political,” Dan said, softening the slight sarcasm of his words with a grin. “Maybe you should come down and run for mayor of Chicago—we could use some discretion down there.” As Richmond visibly relaxed, he went on, “So, behind closed doors, does anyone have any idea how the boy lost an arm?”
Ruston’s expression tightened, and the mayor said nothing. The newspaperman, though, leaned back against the wall and folded his arms across his chest. “That’s the sixty-four-thousand-dollar question,” Hofstetter said, ignoring the look the mayor shot him and fixing his gaze on Ruston.
“And I wish I had an answer for it,” the sheriff said. “The body’d been in the water too long for me to even guess. If he’d been waterskiing, I’d say that was a possibility, but if he’d been skiing, he never would have been missing. Beyond that, I just don’t know—it takes a lot to rip off an arm. A bear could do it, or a mountain lion.”
“And until we hear from the coroner, let’s not waste our time guessing,” Ray Richmond cut in, heading the sheriff off before he could bring up the possibility of a wolf pack and scare everyone off before July had even started. As Ruston subsided into silence, the mayor turned to Dan Brewster and Kevin Sparks. “I wish we knew exactly what happened to Ellis,” he went on. “We have accidental deaths all too often, what with the water sports in the summer and snowmobiles in the winter, and I’m sure we’ll get to the bottom of this one soon. Right, Rusty?” As the sheriff nodded, Richmond extended his hand to Dan and shot Hofstetter an unmistakable look. “Pleasure meeting you folks, and I hope the rest of your summer is less eventful than it’s been so far.”
