Nightshade

by John Saul

  Again she heard her sister’s voice. “Mama wanted to be with me, Joanie-baby. She always wanted to be with me. But you know that, don’t you? You’ve always known that.”

  As Joan stood alone by the pool, Cynthia’s laugh rang out again, harsh and cruel, and though Joan knew it was impossible, she was certain that Cynthia’s laugh had not come from inside her own head.

  * * *

  MATT’S MOOD WAS even darker than the sky that afternoon, and as he crossed the street he turned to look back at the school. What would happen if the angry clouds overhead suddenly flashed with lightning, hurling a blazing blue bolt right at the school?

  Would it burst into flames? Would the windows blow out? And what would happen to all the people inside?

  I hope they fry, he said to himself. I hope they fry right where they’re standing.

  Today had been even worse than yesterday. The only person who spoke to him when he’d arrived at school this morning was Becky Adams; but his friends —

  Friends? He didn’t have friends anymore. People had hardly looked at him, at least not when he was looking at them. It was as if he’d become invisible. He told himself it didn’t matter, that he didn’t care, and went to his locker just like he always did.

  Mr. Wing had been waiting for him.

  He had known right off what that was about: his counselor was going to give him hell about what had happened in the computer class yesterday. But what about all the rest of the kids? The ones who sent him the messages? When they got to Mr. Wing’s office — a little green cubicle that looked out on the Dumpsters next to the cafeteria — it turned out to be even worse. Instead of chewing him out, Mr. Wing told him that he’d talked to all the teachers, and the teachers were going to talk to their classes about what had happened yesterday.

  “We’re not going to tolerate anyone accusing you of anything, Matt,” his counselor had said, trying to reassure him. Right then Matt knew what had happened — his mother had called the school. Nobody else would have told Mr. Wing about the messages. By the time he was out the door, they would have been gone from his screen, and no one in the room would admit to having any idea what had happened, any more than he and Eric Holmes and Pete Arneson had ever admitted to knowing how the butter patties had gotten stuck to the ceiling over their table in the cafeteria last spring, melting just in time to drip onto Mr. Wing’s own head at the senior class breakfast.

  So Matt knew that when the teachers started talking about him in their classes, everyone would know that he’d told someone what had happened in the computer class.

  The reaction was exactly what he expected: It was as if he’d ceased to exist.

  No one spoke to him.

  No one looked at him.

  People even started looking the other way when they saw him coming.

  He felt a flicker of hope in P.E., when the coach made Eric and Pete the captains of the football teams. For as long as Matt could remember, he had always been one of the first ones chosen.

  But today neither Eric nor Pete had chosen him at all, and when the choosing of sides was done, he found himself standing alone.

  Even Nate Harkins, who had never caught a football in his life, was standing in the group around Eric Holmes. “Play on Arneson’s team,” the coach told him.

  Pete hadn’t even spoken to him, let alone included him in any of the plays.

  At lunch he didn’t bother going to the cafeteria. Instead he found a deserted corner on the second floor of the main building and tried to concentrate on solving the same equation he’d been working on yesterday.

  Somehow he had survived the endless hours of the afternoon, but by the end of the day, all he wanted to do was escape.

  Escape from the school. Escape from the people who had once been his friends. Escape from everyone and everything.

  He started home, moving slowly, his head down. But even with his head down, even with his eyes focused tightly only on the sidewalk, he could feel them.

  Feel them watching him from the cars that passed, watching him from the houses he passed himself.

  Watching him, judging him.

  He could almost feel their thoughts. We know . . . we know what you did . . . we know . . . we know . . .

  The heavy cloak of loneliness that had fallen over him at school wrapped him tighter and tighter in its folds until it felt like he was suffocating.

  He hurried his step until he was almost running, but even when he passed through the gates of Hapgood Farm he felt no relief, and when he saw the house itself, he remembered the terrible dreams that had begun to disturb his sleep each night.

  Dreams that didn’t feel like dreams at all.

  As the rain began to fall, he headed around toward the back door and the mud room, but as he was about to go in, something caught his eye. He turned and looked directly at the shed behind the carriage house.

  The shed in which one of the deputies had hung the dressed carcass of the deer he shot the day his father died. He had forgotten it was there until yesterday, when he pulled the door open to see if his grandmother had wandered in. For a moment he hadn’t realized what it was. Its belly had been slit open, its guts removed. It was dangling by its hind legs from a hook. It wasn’t until he saw the head — the head his dad had planned to have mounted as his first trophy — dangling a few inches above the floor, that he recognized it. Then, quickly, he shut the shed door, and tried to shut the image of the dead animal out of his mind.

  But this afternoon another animal hung on the shed, on the outside wall.

  It was a rabbit. A white rabbit.

  It hung upside down from a single nail driven through its hind legs. Just like the deer.

  Its belly was slit. Just like the deer.

  But unlike the deer, bloody entrails hung from the gaping wound, and blood oozed down the shed wall.

  As his eyes locked on the grisly object, Matt’s subconscious opened and a terrible vision rose up from its depths.

  * * *

  HE WAS FIVE years old. He woke in the night and instantly knew he was not alone. He lay absolutely still, certain that if he moved, whoever — or whatever — had entered his bedroom would surely come and kill him. Then, in dim moonlight that seeped through his window, he saw a figure approaching, emerging from the shadows as if springing from the darkness itself.

  He recognized the figure the moment the moonlight fell on its face: his aunt Cynthia. And even though his mother had explained to him long ago that his aunt was dead, Matt knew his grandmother always talked to her just as if she were still alive. As he watched the specter in his room come closer, a strange aroma filled his nostrils — a musky odor that seemed strangely familiar. His aunt knelt beside the bed and began whispering. Though he couldn’t quite make out the words, they sent a chill through his body, and when her fingers touched his skin, he felt his flesh respond. She eased the blankets back and slipped into his bed, her hands never leaving his body, caressing him, her fingers exploring every part of him. Matt wanted to scream, to call his mother to come and help him, but his voice caught in his throat and a strange paralysis held him in its grip. Though he could neither speak nor move, part of his body began to respond to his aunt’s touch. “Love me, Matt,” she whispered then. “Always love me.” She wrapped her arms around him and pulled him close, then rolled him over and pressed her mouth to his.

  He tried to shut it out, told himself it wasn’t happening. And as the caresses and the kisses went on and on, as his aunt guided his hands over her body, Matt turned his mind away.

  Don’t think about it, he told himself. Think about something else.

  His rabbit!

  The white rabbit the man who was going to be his stepfather had given him.

  The white rabbit that even now was in its cage in the corner of the room. He focused his mind on the rabbit, clinging to its image, shutting out the terrible reality of what was happening to him.

  And it worked. He turned his mind away from what was happening t
o his body, letting it sink into a darkness that nothing could penetrate.

  When he awoke the next morning, everything that happened during the night had vanished from his mind as completely as if it had never happened at all. But when he went to feed his pet, he found the rabbit dead in its cage.

  Its belly slit open.

  Hanging upside down from the top of its cage, its hind legs bound together.

  Sickened — and terrified — Matt stared at it for a long time, trying to imagine what might have happened.

  * * *

  MATT’S EYES REMAINED fixed on the rabbit as the last fragments of the terrible memory fell into place. He could still hear his aunt’s voice whispering to him; could almost feel her fingers caressing his body; could still smell her musky scent.

  It couldn’t have been real — it couldn’t have been!

  It must have been a dream, like the dreams he’d been having the last few nights. He backed away from the shed, but couldn’t escape the sound of his aunt’s voice.

  “You know what you have to do,” Cynthia’s voice whispered. “You want to do it. You know you do.” Obeying the voice in his head, Matt turned away from the grisly object on the wall of the shed and started toward the house.

  * * *

  SLOWLY — ALMOST IMPERCEPTIBLY — the gray fog of disease that lay over Emily Moore’s mind began to lift. In a way, it was like awakening from a deep sleep, except that even now, with darkness still surrounding her, she wasn’t certain whether she was conscious or not. Reality, dreams, and memories swirled around in her mind, mixing together until their strands were so tangled that she had no idea from whence any of them came, let alone where they might lead.

  She had no idea where she was, nor how long she’d been there.

  The blackness surrounding her was utterly impenetrable.

  Death . . .

  The word drifted out of nowhere, and a corner of her mind reacted to it —

  Had she died?

  How would she know?

  No, not dead — something else.

  Cynthia!

  Yes! Now she could see Cynthia, smiling to her, beckoning to her.

  Her lips worked, and she tried to form a word: “Cynthia.”

  But all that emerged from her throat was a formless sound, low, guttural, almost inaudible.

  She kept her eyes fixed on Cynthia’s smiling face, her sparkling blue eyes, her flowing blond hair.

  Like an angel.

  Her daughter was like an angel.

  Death . . .

  The word floated into her mind again, and more of the fog drifted away. She wondered if perhaps, after all, she was dead.

  Wouldn’t that be what death was like? Falling into sleep — a sleep so deep no dreams could penetrate it, no terrors reach through it, no pain disturb it.

  A sleep that would finally give way to a first glimpse of eternity.

  The radiant smile on Cynthia’s face began to change, her lips twisting cruelly; her sparkling eyes turning to angrily glittering orbs.

  Instinctively, Emily tried to lift her arm to fend off the suddenly frightening visage, and a flash of pain so intense it burned her whole body coursed through her. Then another sound emerged from her lips: a strangled howl.

  Overwhelmed by agony, Emily felt herself drop back into the black chasm of unconsciousness. But even as part of her longed to drift into the welcome arms of sleep, another part of her fought against it.

  She was alive! The pain told her she was alive! And if she was alive, she had to figure out where she was — what had happened.

  What was going to happen.

  She willed herself back to consciousness, forced herself to lie still. Slowly the pain ebbed away.

  A dim memory began to take form.

  A house! She’d been in a big house, a house so big she couldn’t find her way around. But Cynthia was there! She’d seen her; talked to her.

  Followed her.

  Yes, that was it — she’d followed Cynthia. Through the darkness and down a flight of stairs, a flight so long it seemed endless. She tried to catch up to Cynthia, wanted Cynthia to hold her hand, to lead her through the darkness, to steady her tottering gait.

  But Cynthia had always been ahead, smiling back at her, beckoning to her, urging her on.

  Then, at last, she almost caught up with Cynthia, was almost able to touch her, to stroke her golden hair, feel the smoothness of her skin, the firmness of her young flesh.

  Then —

  What?

  The fog began closing in again, but she struggled against it. She had to remember — remember everything that had happened.

  She’d fallen!

  Yes! She’d been only inches from Cynthia — only another step before she would be able to take her beloved daughter in her arms. And then there was nothing. Nothing under her feet.

  Nothing to hold her.

  She felt herself falling, felt a terrible stab of pain, and then —

  Nothing.

  Nothing but the terrible unfathomable blackness that now surrounded her.

  Emily tried to move again, but very slowly, testing each muscle, each joint. When she attempted to move her right arm, the same burning pain that had stopped her before stopped her again.

  She couldn’t move her left leg at all, and when she finally managed to twist her body enough so she could touch her thigh with her left hand, she felt nothing. Though she could touch the loose skin covering her wasted muscles with her fingers, it was as if she were touching someone else’s limb, not her own.

  Broken.

  Her left leg and her right arm were broken.

  As the thought implanted itself in her mind, the pain of her broken limbs began to creep out of whatever cage had penned it, as if released by her own realization that she was injured. The arm throbbed, and when she gingerly prodded at her elbow, it felt as if a knife had been plunged into her flesh.

  Then, as the pain receded, she heard something.

  A footstep.

  Muffled, indistinct, as if it came from somewhere beyond the darkness.

  But where? Where was she?

  She tried to cry out, but though she could form the words in her mind, her throat and lips refused to obey her commands, and all that emerged was a mewling whimper.

  There was another footstep, closer this time, and now she could sense that she was no longer alone. But who was there?

  The fog began to gather around her again, and once more she tried to hold it back, tried to keep it from muddling her mind.

  Cynthia! Cynthia must be nearby, come to help her!

  But if she was hidden in the darkness — and the quickly gathering fog — how would Cynthia find her?

  Again she tried to cry out, mustering her strength to utter her daughter’s name. But it was too late.

  The fog closed around her, the pain in her arm and leg eased, and the peace of unconsciousness once more claimed her. . . .

  CHAPTER 15

  JOAN CAME AWAKE abruptly, sitting up on the sofa in the library and automatically glancing at the clock — almost four! How had it gotten so late? When she stretched out on the sofa at a little after two, she’d only intended to relax for a few minutes, not waste the afternoon sleeping. But now the afternoon was almost gone, and the pile of half-finished work on Bill’s desk — files she barely understood, let alone had any idea what to do with — was every bit as daunting as it had been that morning, when she found herself unable to deal with it at all. Sighing — and feeling as tired as if she hadn’t slept at all — she pulled herself off the sofa and moved toward the ornately carved mahogany desk. Maybe she should just put it off until tomorrow.

  “Lazy!” It was her mother’s voice she heard echoing in her memory. How many times had her mother lectured her about putting things off? “Why can’t you be more like your sister? You don’t see Cynthia lazing around doing nothing! She always keeps her room spotless, and her things in perfect order! But you!”

  In her mind’
s eye Joan could see her mother shaking her head in despair. “All right,” she said, speaking out loud almost unconsciously. “I won’t put it off. I’ll heat up a cup of coffee, clear my head, and start!” She was on her way to the kitchen when she saw Matt’s book bag on the table at the foot of the stairs. As she gazed at the worn canvas, she tried to tell herself that it didn’t mean anything, that he could have skipped football practice for any number of reasons — maybe it had even been cancelled. But her attempt at reassurance sounded exactly like what she knew it was: wishful thinking.

  All thoughts of coffee — and the files on Bill’s desk — forgotten, she started up the stairs. “Matt?” she called out as she came to the landing. “Matt, are — ” Her words died in her throat as she saw the door to Cynthia’s room standing ajar. It had been closed this morning. She clearly remembered closing it herself — locking it! — after that terrible moment last night when she’d imagined she heard Cynthia laughing at her. She moved closer to the door, but warily, as if some unseen danger lurked inside.

  “Matt?”

  No response.

  She reached out with a trembling hand and pushed the door wider. “Matt? Are you in here?” When there was still no answer, she reluctantly stepped inside. The room was empty.

  Yet he must have been here! Who else could have unlocked the door?

  But how had he found the key?

  Leaving the room and pulling the door firmly shut again, she walked quickly down the hall to Matt’s room. She rapped softly on the closed door, and was about to rap again when she heard Matt’s voice. “It’s not locked.”

  Joan turned the knob and stepped into her son’s room. Matt was sprawled out on the bed, flat on his back, staring up at the ceiling. He sat up as she came in, and one look at his face told her that today had, if anything, been even worse than yesterday. The pallor in his face had worsened, and the haunted look in his eyes had deepened. Now he had the eyes of a frightened animal, eyes that darted as if searching for a predator he sensed but had not yet seen. As his eyes finally fixed on her, she could see a flame of anger burning in them.