Darker Than Night

by Goingback, Owl

  Christ, it looks like I'll be renting a carpet cleaning machine in the morning. I doubt if there's anyone in town who does carpets.

  Knowing there was probably broken glass on the floor, Mike entered the library slowly, being careful of where he stepped. He tried the lamp, even though he already knew it wouldn't work.

  It didn't.

  Turning the switch until it clicked twice, he traced his fingertips up the side of the lamp, under the shade, to where the bulb should have been. Careful not to let his fingers slip into an empty socket, and give himself a rather shocking surprise, he discovered that the bulb was in fact missing from the lamp.

  Megan's right about the lamp. Someone has removed the bulb. But why? And who?

  He wondered if Tommy was behind the missing bulb, but it wasn't like the eight-year-old to carry out that kind of mischief. And he certainly wouldn't remove the light bulb and then break it on the floor, especially when such actions would land him in a world of trouble.

  Mike doubted if raccoons were capable of such feats, nor would a raccoon have a reason for doing such a thing. Open cabinet drawers in search of food, yes. Knock over a trash can to get at the goodies inside, certainly. But not enter a darkened room and carefully remove a light bulb from a table lamp, especially without knocking over the lamp in the process.

  But maybe it was a raccoon. He knew very little about the masked marauders other than what he had read in books and magazines, and then seen in comical Disney movies. Leaving the library, he retrieved a flashlight from the hallway closet. He returned a few minutes later, shining the light beam across the library's floor.

  Pieces of the broken light bulb shone like milky jewels in the light. Mike looked at the broken pieces for a moment, then turned to survey the rest of the room. There was no other evidence that a raccoon might have been in the library. None of the books had been knocked off the shelves. A few of his chess pieces were toppled, but his daughter might have done that. He crossed the room and checked the windows, but they were still locked.

  He had started to turn away from the windows, when something out of the corner of his eye caught his attention. Turning back around, he aimed the beam at the shelf running above the window, shining the light on his grandmother's collection of kachina dolls.

  Sunday night, after looking for Pinky, he and Holly had climbed up on chairs and turned all the statues back around to face the room. Their work had been in vain, however, for the statues no longer faced him. Each and every one of them had been turned around backward to face the wall.

  "What the hell? This is a joke, right? Someone's attempt at bad humor?"

  He turned, sweeping the light across the shelves on the other walls. The kachinas on those walls had also been turned around backward. Leaving the library, he hurried down the hallway to the living room. A quick check showed that all of the kachina dolls on the shelf in the living room had also been turned around.

  "I am not amused!" Mike said, feeling anger well up in his chest. There could only be one explanation for what he saw: while he and Holly slept, Megan had sneaked downstairs and turned all of the kachina dolls around backward. Maybe this was her way of protesting the move from New York to Missouri. He knew she wasn't happy living in the country, being taken away from all of her friends back in the city. Her actions were probably just a way to get back at him for disrupting her life.

  "She's getting back at me by trying to drive me crazy," he said, returning to the library.

  His daughter was probably also responsible for the kachinas being turned around the night they went to the dance, though he couldn't imagine how she had done it without being caught by the baby-sitter. Unless the baby-sitter had been in on it. That was possible. The baby-sitter was also a teenager; maybe she enjoyed the opportunity to team up with Megan to play a prank on the older generation.

  Was Tommy also in on the practical joke? Mike didn't think so, because the boy was not very good about keeping secrets. He would have given the whole thing away. If not by outright blabbing, then by giggling every time he or Holly came near the kachina dolls. No, Tommy was definitely not a part of the fun and games.

  Mike still wondered why the light bulb had been taken out of the lamp. Maybe the bulb had burned out and Megan had been in the process of replacing it. Perhaps she had dropped the bulb, stepped on it, and cut her foot. Knowing she would be in trouble for her practical joke with the kachinas, she had concocted the whole story about coming downstairs for a glass of water and seeing the mysterious shadow chasing her.

  Clever. Very clever. My daughter has the imagination of a future writer. But that still doesn't get her off the hook for what she's done.

  Since he had already been awakened from a sound sleep, and since he was already downstairs, Mike decided to go ahead and check all of the windows and doors on the lower level just to make sure they were still locked.

  From the library he preceded into his office, and then into Holly's studio. Nothing in either of the rooms had been disturbed, and the windows in both rooms were locked tight. He entered the living room next, looking behind the furniture to make sure a furry intruder wasn't hiding there. He also checked the bathroom and then made his way to the front door.

  The front door was still locked, the deadbolt and chain in place. The deadbolt was the type that could only be opened from the inside. Even if it could be opened from the outside, the chain was still in place, which meant no one had opened the front door since he had gone to bed.

  Retracing his steps, he followed the hallway to the kitchen. The back door was still closed and locked, as was the door leading to the basement. The window over the sink was also locked.

  Satisfied that everything was on the up-and-up, Mike turned to leave the kitchen. As he turned, the beam of his flashlight danced across the newly installed tile floor. What he saw in the yellow glow of that beam stopped him dead in his tracks.

  "What the hell?"

  The oval splotches on the floor had returned, staining the new tiles as they had before. Six of them, bigger and darker than ever.

  "There's no way. This is a brand-new floor. Brand-new tiles. This just can't be happening. First the crack returns, and now this."

  Mike's stomach knotted as he stepped closer to the stains. There was no mistaking what they were this time. Six faces had been drawn on the tiles of his kitchen floor in shades of grays and black. Six eerie, unholy faces, peering up at him from the floor like the souls of tormented spirits.

  The eyes of the faces were unnerving, for they were all open, staring, watching him with pupils as dark as burnt wood. He almost expected them to blink, or perhaps wink at him, but they didn't. They only stared, quietly questioning his presence in a kitchen that was fast becoming their unearthly domain.

  Of the six, four were obviously the faces of men. Or rather, they had characteristics that were male, because none of the faces really appeared to be human. They had certain human qualities, but there was something about their shape — and the way they were drawn — that made them less than human. They reminded Mike of gargoyles and other hideous creatures carved in stone upon medieval cathedrals.

  The other two faces looked to be female, but they were not the faces of women. No stunning beauties looked up at him from his kitchen floor. No images of supermodels or silver-screen goddesses. Like the other four, the two faces that appeared female also possessed a grotesque quality. Had Dante been an artist and not a writer, he might have drawn such images to express what he had witness during his fabled trip to the land of eternal damnation.

  "This has got to be a joke," Mike said, stepping closer. "That's it, a fucking joke. Someone has to be drawing these things." He rubbed the toe of his right shoe across the face closest to him, but the damn thing didn't smear. If it had been drawn, or painted, the artist had done a very good job about it. He or she had also been quite fast, for none of the faces had been on the floor when he and Holly went to bed.

  Had Megan drawn the faces?

&
nbsp; No way. His daughter was not that good an artist, and it would have been nearly impossible to draw the faces, and turn the kachina dolls around, in the time since he and Holly had retired for the evening.

  Perhaps a stencil had been used. A cardboard cutout from which several layers of gray and black paint had been applied to the tile floor. Mike knew certain types of spray paint dried fairly fast. With a stencil, and spray paint, it would have been possible to create the six faces he saw in the time between going to bed and coming back down to the kitchen again.

  If a stencil and spray paint had been used, then that let his daughter off the hook as the possible culprit. There wasn't a can of spray paint in the house, and Megan had not had an opportunity to go to the store by herself to purchase any. Nope. Rule out his teenage daughter as the artist behind the eerie faces on the floor.

  So who had painted the faces, and why? A much better question was how could they have gotten into the house? The windows and doors were all locked tight.

  What if someone didn't draw them?

  He paused to consider this question. If the six faces hadn't been drawn by someone as part of an elaborate joke, then there could be no logical explanation for them. That left only the supernatural.

  "Nonsense."

  Even though he made a living writing horror novels, Mike did not believe in the supernatural. Not really. The belief in ghosts, spirits, witches, goblins, werewolves, vampires, and other things that went bump in the night was for backwoods country people and those who read the tabloids at the checkouts in the local supermarkets. He had no use for such beliefs, other than to make money off of them with the books he wrote.

  Still here was something that could not be logically explained, at least not by him. There had to be a rational answer, but damned if he could think of one.

  Turning away from the faces, he left kitchen and went back upstairs. Megan was still in his bedroom, sitting on the edge of the bed. Holly sat beside her, quietly talking with the girl. They ended their conversation and looked his way when he entered the room.

  "Did you see anything?" Holly asked.

  Mike closed the door behind him and approached the bed. "I saw plenty, but not a raccoon or any other furry animal."

  Megan's eyes widened a bit and Mike wondered if she was afraid of what he was about to say. "You didn't see the shadow?"

  "No. No shadows other than the ones I made myself." He looked down at his daughter for a moment, then said, "Megan, I want the truth. What were you doing downstairs tonight?"

  "I told you. I couldn’t sleep, so I went downstairs to get a drink. I saw something following me in the hallway, and I got scared. I ran into the library and cut my foot on a piece of broken glass."

  Mike listened to his daughter's explanation and said, "You sure you didn't go into the library to play a trick on us? Maybe you're mad because we moved from New York? Maybe you don't like this house, or the town, and want to get back at us somehow?"

  Megan shook her head. "No. That's not it. I didn't like moving away from my friends, but I didn't go downstairs to play a trick. I was thirsty, and I went downstairs to get a drink."

  "Mike, what's this all about?" Holly asked, obviously upset.

  He turned from Megan to his wife. "Someone took the bulb out of the lamp in the library and broke it, just like Megan said. But the kachina dolls have also been turned around backward, each and every one of them."

  "I didn't do it!" Megan protested.

  Mike turned back to his daughter, fixing her with an icy stare. "Are you sure this isn't you idea of a joke? You didn't sneak downstairs to turn the statues around, accidentally cut your foot, and then make up the story about the shadow to keep from getting in trouble?"

  "No!"

  Holly intervened. "Megan, this isn't very funny. If that's what you did, you'd better tell us. You'll get in les trouble for doing something wrong and then telling the truth, than you will for trying to lie about it."

  "I'm not lying," Megan responded, tears forming at the corners of her eyes.

  "You didn't turn the statues around tonight?" Mike asked again.

  "No."

  "And you didn't turn them around the night the baby-sitter was here?"

  Megan looked hurt. "I didn't even go downstairs that night. Ask Tommy."

  "And you didn't draw the faces?"

  "What faces?" Holly asked.

  "The faces on the kitchen floor. They're back, all six of them."

  "The faces are back?" Holly asked, concerned.

  Mike nodded. "Every last one of them, even darker than before."

  "I didn't draw them, Dad," Megan said, feeling she was still on the hot seat. "You know I suck at art."

  Holly turned to her daughter, putting a comforting arm around her shoulder. "Megan, honey, if you say you didn't turn the statues around, or draw the faces on the kitchen floor, then we believe you. No one's mad at you, your father and I are just trying to figure out who's doing it. That's all." She looked at Mike. "Isn't that right, dear?"

  Mike realized that he had raised his voice to his daughter, had almost been yelling. He took a deep breath and let it out. "That's right, sweetheart. I'm sorry if I sounded mad at you. I'm not. I just wanted to know if you had anything to do with what's been happening. That's all. If you say you went downstairs to get a drink, then I believe you."

  "I was only downstairs for a few minutes," Megan said, looking up at her father.

  "Okay, I believe you." Mike nodded. "You'd better get back to bed and give that foot a rest. Might be a good idea to prop it up on a pillow while you sleep. You wouldn't want it to start bleeding on you again and ruin your sheets."

  Megan got up and left the room. Mike waited until she had closed the door before turning back to Holly.

  "Show me," she said, standing up.

  Mike led Holly downstairs, stopping at the library first. He swept the beam of his flashlight over the shelf that ran along the walls, displaying the collection of kachina dolls. "There. See. Each and every one of them is turned around backwards. It's the same way in the living room."

  From the library they went into the kitchen. The lights were still on, so there was no need for the flashlight. Mike could see a look of shock in his wife's eyes as she spotted the faces adorning the floor.

  "Oh, my god," she said, pausing in the doorway. Entering the room, she circled around the kitchen table, carefully studying the faces at her feet. She agreed with Mike, there was no way the faces could be just stains. They were not the result of mildew, bad tiles, chemicals, or a busted water pipe. The could only have been drawn by someone.

  Kneeling on the floor beside one of the ovals, she ran her fingers over the faces, attempting to smear it.

  "I tried that," Mike said. "It doesn't smear."

  "It doesn't feel like paint," Holly observed. She leaned over, putting her nose only an inch or so above the floor, and sniffed. "It doesn't smell like paint either. If it was paint, there would still be an odor, even if it was just a faint one."

  "Maybe it's ink," he suggested.

  She wet the tips of her fingers and rubbed them over the face. "I don't think it's ink either. It hasn't been here very long, so it would have smeared if it were ink. Besides, it doesn’t look like an ink drawing. Offhand I would say charcoal was used, but then that also would have smeared easily and it doesn't."

  She looked up at Mike. "One thing's for sure, Megan didn't draw these. They're too lifelike, and the technique used is too sophisticated for her to have done it."

  "If not Megan, then who?" Mike asked.

  Holly stood back up and looked around nervously. "Someone else. Someone who was in this house, here in this kitchen, while we were upstairs sleeping."

  "But I checked all of the doors and windows. They're still locked. There's no way someone could have gotten in here tonight."

  "Someone must have," she argued. "Maybe there was a window you missed."

  He shook his head. "All checked. All locked."
r />   She turned. "What about the basement? Maybe someone got in through one of the windows downstairs."

  "I don't see how," he said. "The only door is here in the kitchen and it was also locked when I checked."

  "Maybe it was unlocked earlier," Holly suggested. "Maybe someone came in, drew the faces, and then locked the basement door on the way out."

  "It's not that kind of lock. You can't set it and then close the door. You have to close the door first and then flip the lock. It can't be locked from the other side.

  Holly turned back to him, her eyes suddenly widening in fear. "Maybe they didn't leave. Maybe they're still in the house with us. Megan might have come downstairs and frightened them. Maybe they're still here, hiding somewhere."

  "I didn't see anyone..." he started to say.

  "But you didn't really check. Did you?" Holly asked. "You came downstairs looking for something small: a raccoon, or a possum. Not a person. Did you check all of the closets, or the bathrooms? Did you look upstairs in the bedrooms, under the beds? Maybe there's a hiding place we don't even know about in this old house."

  "You're right," he said, feeling the fear his wife did. "I'll go upstairs and start searching again. You stay here. Call the sheriff's office, tell them we've had an intruder tonight. If someone was here tonight, they might still be around, either in the house or somewhere on the property."

  Holly crossed the room and snatched the telephone off the cradle to dial the sheriff's office. Mike turned and grabbed a steak knife from the kitchen drawer, then hurried up the stairs to search the childrens' rooms. He didn't think someone was hiding in the house, but it would be wise to be cautious just in case.

  "We'll see about this," he said, starting up the stairs. "We'll just see."

  18

  It was nearly 4 a.m. when the headlights of a vehicle illuminated the bit trees at the end of the driveway. Mike and Holly had been sitting in the living room, watching out the windows. Seeing the lights, Mike got up and went to the front door. He had just opened the door when a patrol car pulled in front of the house and parked. He expected it to be one of the county deputies, and was quite surprised when Sheriff Douglas climbed out of the vehicle.