The Dark at the End (Repairman Jack)

by F. Paul Wilson

  “There’s your old place,” he said, swinging by the rickety Victorian house where the Lady had lived as Mrs. Clevenger during their childhoods.

  “It needs painting,” she said.

  Weezy stared at it as they passed. “We all thought you were a witch.”

  “By most standards, I was.”

  “Wonder who lives there now.”

  “The Meads,” the Lady said. “Tom and Alice, and their daughters Selena and Emily.”

  “Can you tell where anybody is at any given time?” Jack said. “I mean, do you keep track of all of us?”

  She shook her head. “The noosphere is a unified consciousness. No identities there. However, when I am near enough to individuals here, I know identities. After all, they help keep me here.”

  Jack noticed with a start that the lightning tree was still standing—how had it lasted so long?—and then they entered the Pine Barrens, the million-plus acres of mostly uninhabited woodland sitting in the belly of New Jersey. Jack steered onto one of the firebreak trails that crisscrossed the area. He experienced the same creepy sensation he’d get when riding his bike into the trees as a kid. The forty-foot scrub pines got thicker and thicker, their crooked, scraggly branches leaning over the path as they crowded its edges. He remembered imagining them shuffling off the path ahead of him and then moving back in to close it off behind.

  Dumb question, but he asked Weezy anyway: “You remember the route?”

  “I think so.”

  He hadn’t expected that. “Think so?”

  She smiled. “Just kidding. I remember it exactly.” She tapped her forehead. “The map’s right here.”

  He followed her directions on which way to turn as the firebreak trails forked left and right. The NO FISHING / NO HUNTING / NO TRAPPING / NO TRESPASSING signs posted along the way confirmed that they were on land owned by “Old Man Foster,” known to them now as Glaeken. But that was about all he knew for sure. He was thoroughly lost by the time she told him to stop.

  He scanned the surrounding trees, which looked pretty much like all the myriad others they’d passed.

  “You sure this is the place?”

  “You remember it as burned out. That was decades ago.”

  The Lady had already stepped out of the car and was starting into the trees. Jack and Weezy hurried after her.

  “You know where you’re going?” Weezy said.

  “Of course.”

  Yeah, well, of course.

  Somewhere in all the revived undergrowth—winter bare now—lay the remnants of a burial mound he and Weezy had explored as kids. What they’d found had set a whole deadly chain of events in motion. Sometimes secrets were better left secret.

  The Lady, wearing only a housedress, forged ahead, moving easily through the brush, with nothing snagging her clothing that wasn’t clothing. Clouds had moved in and the temperature had dropped, but as usual she didn’t appear to notice.

  Then they broke into the pyramid’s clearing and Jack had to stop and take it in, just as he had the first time he’d seen it at age fourteen.

  Six huge, elongated triangular megaliths stood in a circle, their bases buried in the sandy soil with their pointed ends jutting skyward and leaning toward each other.

  Godzilla pizza slices …

  One had broken off halfway up, but the points of the other five met at the pyramid’s apex, fifteen feet above the ground.

  The Lady’s new home.

  3

  Dawn checked her gas gauge. Getting low. She’d never guessed she’d be driving all the way out to Long Island’s South Fork. But no way she could stop. She’d lose Dr. Heinze and never find him again.

  If she’d had unlimited funds she could have bugged his car—was “bugged” the right word?—with some sort of transmitter that would have allowed her to follow him on a GPS map.

  She wondered if he was at all concerned about being followed. He didn’t seem to be. No big deal on the LIE, but here on the narrower, slower Montauk Highway, he might notice the same Volvo behind him mile after mile. So she kept a car or two between them.

  She followed him through all the Hamptons—West-, South-, Bridge-, and East—and Amagansett as well. She was wondering if he was going all the way to Montauk Point when his left blinker started flashing and he turned off at someplace called Nuckateague. She started to follow him into the hairpin turn but stopped herself. No. Too, too obvious. She had to be totally careful now because hers was the only other car in sight.

  It killed her to keep driving but she did. But only for an eighth of a mile or so, then she made a U-turn and raced back. Her heart thumped out a dance beat. She’d never heard of Nuckateague and had no idea how big it was. Couldn’t be too big because the South Fork was so narrow out here, but Dr. Heinze could be checking on a summer place he owned and have his car garaged before Dawn caught up to him. Then what?

  She turned off at the Nuckateague sign and raced up a narrow blacktop called Nuckateague Drive. She slowed as she came to a street that ran off to the left—Bayberry Drive. Nothing moving there. She pushed on and stopped when her street ended at a T intersection with Dune Drive. She looked right and left—again nothing moving in either direction. She tossed a mental coin and turned right.

  Her tension increased as she ran the length of the waterfront homes with no sign of a silver Lexus. She reached the east end of the road and raced back to the intersection. Only a few houses on the west end of Dune Drive, one of them dominating the waterfront with its own lagoon cut in from the bay. The houses she’d seen so far were just that—houses. This was totally a mansion.

  She drove past it and spotted a silver Lexus with MD plates, parked near the lagoon by what was either a garage or boathouse.

  Gotcha.

  Either pediatric surgery was a very lucrative specialty or Dr. Heinze had some rich friends or relatives.

  Or—hope-hope-hope—he was making a house call.

  Dawn kept moving, then made a quick left into the driveway of a house two lots west and across the street. She twisted in her seat and checked out the mansion. She had a clear view of the front door, the lagoon dock, and the Lexus from here. Perfect.

  Now … if she could only stay here.

  She checked out the house before her: a two-story saltbox clad in weathered cedar shakes. It looked empty.

  She left her car running and stepped to the front door where she rang the bell and waited. If someone answered, she’d ask if they knew where so-and-so lived.

  No answer, so she rang again.

  Still no answer.

  Cool.

  She tightened her coat around her against the buffeting wind off the bay—they kept talking about a big storm coming—and checked out the neighbors. Only half a dozen houses down here on the west end of the street, and they all looked deserted. The Lexus was the only car in sight.

  No surprise. Some of these were summer homes, some were year round. But if you could afford to live out here, you probably spent the winter months someplace warm. Like Key Biscayne or Naples, or the Keys.

  She returned to her car, pulled out, then backed in close to the garage so she was half hidden but still had a view. She turned off her engine—save that gas—and settled down to watch.

  Not ten minutes passed before she saw movement around the far side of the house.

  A boat was bobbing down the lagoon toward the dock, moving backward. A small white cabin cruiser, twenty-five feet long, with a couple of fishing rods poking up from the rear and a lone man at the helm. As it eased against the dock, the driver—captain? pilot?—hopped out and grabbed the lines. A big man, bundled up and wearing a slicker against the cold and wet. Something familiar about him …

  After he’d tied the lines, he went to a compartment by the transom and pulled out a string of four flat fish. He’d had his head down or turned away since he arrived, but now he raised it. He wore a satisfied grin on a face Dawn knew all too well.

  “Oh … my … God!” she said al
oud.

  Her mouth went dry as her heart doubled its rate.

  Georges … Mr. Osala’s driver and general gofer.

  If he was here, and Dr. Heinze was here, that could only mean her baby was here too. Probably inside with that bitch Gilda. And maybe Mr. Osala as well.

  What should she do? What could she do?

  She fumbled for her phone. Call Weezy. No, call Jack. He’ll know what to do.

  4

  Hank stood at the window of his second-floor bedroom and thought about birds. A big, double-hung window. The room sported two of them. Thick, old-fashioned glass with faint ripples through it. But one large bird or a bunch of smaller, determined birds might break through it.

  He had birds on the brain because he’d had that dream again and it was worse than ever.

  He’d expected to dream about Szeto and his Eurotrash enforcers with bullets through their heads. Those three dead bodies tangled on the floor, all staring eyes and punctured foreheads and blood, so much blood … he couldn’t get the image out of his head.

  The death and blood didn’t bother him in the least—really, who gave a shit about Szeto and company? What did bother him was knowing that the guy he’d been looking for all these months had done it. Killed all three—single-handed. Hank was glad now that he’d never found him. Still couldn’t figure out how he’d got free. But the guy was back on the streets now, and he knew Hank had gone out to find some tools to mess him up, so it was a good chance he’d be coming for Hank.

  Bad enough, but then the new Kicker Man dream. Not completely new—it started like the others with the K-Man being attacked in the dark by birds or something like birds, unable to fight them off, and finally knocked down and repeatedly buzzed. But it hadn’t stopped there. The birds had left the Kicker Man laid out on the ground. As soon as they flew off, worms slid out of the ground and crawled all over the K-Man … eating him. They didn’t quit till they’d devoured his diamond-shaped head, leaving behind a decapitated stick figure.

  Hank didn’t need any gypsy to interpret that dream. The K-Man was Kickerdom, and Hank was its head. Someone wanted Hank’s head. And that someone could only be the guy known as Jack.

  Well, Hank Thompson’s head was staying right where it was, and the rest of Hank Thompson was staying right here. Neither that Jack guy nor anyone else was going to scare him off.

  Hank was going to take steps.

  5

  Jack helped the Lady step over the three-foot-high wall of rectangular slabs—they still reminded Jack of headstones—ringing the pyramid. The three of them stopped and stared at the structure.

  Odd glyphs had been carved in the outer surface of each megalith, and remained faintly visible. He could make out three from this angle:

  Eddie had also called it a giant stone teepee, and that wasn’t too far off. But it looked ancient, felt ancient … and alien.

  Everything was exactly as he remembered it. No sign of vandalism or evidence that anyone else had discovered it. The absence of litter confirmed that.

  Weezy must have been thinking along the same lines. “Nice to know that some secrets remain secret,” she said.

  The Lady approached the pyramid. She stopped at the opening between a pair of the megaliths and stuck her head through.

  “I believe Srem was right,” she said as Jack and Weezy came up behind her. “This does have a power of occultation.”

  “Great,” Jack said. “Then we won’t have to worry about anyone sneaking up on you.”

  She pulled her head back and turned to face them.

  “It might have had the power to hide me completely when it was whole.” She pointed to the broken megalith. “But it is not.”

  Weezy frowned. “But then—?”

  “It will, however, reduce awareness of me, and diffuse what seeps through. If you have a sensitivity to me, you will know that I exist, but you will not be able to pinpoint my location.”

  Jack grinned. “Perfect.”

  The Lady thrust her arm through the slit. “Let us waste no time then.”

  She turned sideways and squeezed through the opening, easing herself down to the sunken sandy floor within. She strode to the stone column, maybe a foot in diameter and four feet high, that stood in the exact center of the space, then turned to face them.

  “I will stay here.”

  Jack didn’t know what to say. He glanced at Weezy, close beside him, and she seemed at a loss for words too.

  “Go,” the Lady said, making a shooing motion. “You both have more important things to do than stand here and stare at me.”

  “Just … leave?” Weezy said.

  “Yes. Go.”

  “You’ll be all right?”

  “Perfectly fine.”

  “Won’t you be lonely?”

  “How can I be lonely when I have all of you—when I am all of you?”

  Good point.

  “Do you need—?”

  “I need you to go about your business.”

  Jack took Weezy’s arm and gently pulled her away.

  “You heard her, Weez.”

  “Yeah, but…” She came with him, but kept looking back over her shoulder. “Walking away and just leaving her there—with a storm coming, no less—seems so … wrong.”

  Jack looked back and saw the old woman standing alone in the cold within the confines of the megaliths. He knew how Weezy felt.

  “Yeah, it does, because we keep thinking of her as an old woman. But that’s simply the avatar she’s stuck with. She’s not an old woman. And she doesn’t feel cold or hot, rain and snow don’t bother her, she doesn’t eat, she doesn’t sleep, and she doesn’t feel lonely. Ever.”

  They made their way back to the Jeep and headed back to Johnson, driving in silence until they reached Old Town.

  “Do we have time to swing by our old places?”

  Jack nodded. “Tons of time.”

  Back over the bridge and then onto North Franklin up to Adams Street where Weezy used to live. He slowed as they passed and let her stare at her place.

  “Want me to stop?”

  She shook her head. “No. Seen enough.” She leaned back. “I don’t know why people have such nostalgia for their childhoods.”

  “Was yours so bad?”

  “I remember the grammar school years as being pretty good—at least I don’t remember anything bad. But high school…” She shook her head again. “As soon as I stopped being the Stepford child and started thinking for myself, it all went to hell.”

  “You went goth.”

  “I didn’t go anything.”

  He smiled. “Oh, right. Black shirts, black jeans, lots of eyeliner, Bauhaus, Siouxie … you were a disco queen.”

  “Okay, okay, I fit a type. But I didn’t go around thinking, ‘Look at me, I’m a goth.’ It was what I liked. And what my folks hated, unfortunately.”

  “Yeah, your dad…”

  “I still remember that disapproving look on his face every time he’d see me. Every time. I was on an emotional seesaw as it was, with my moods all over the place, and he made it ten times worse.”

  Jack remembered her ups and downs, wild swings sometimes.

  She sighed. “Even after the doctors came up with a drug cocktail to even me out—well, I never evened out, but the amplitude of the swings lessened. Even so, high school was hell.”

  Not for Jack. He remembered having a pretty good time. But he wasn’t about to say that.

  She reached over and rubbed his shoulder. “Except for you, Jack. You were my rock. You never rejected me, even at my nuttiest.”

  Jack was wondering what he could say that wouldn’t sound lame. The ringing of his cell phone saved him.

  “I’m calling from the Easy Peasy,” said a male voice. “You left a message about a charter?”

  “Yeah. Thanks for calling back. First thing: you have a depth finder?”

  A snort. “Course I do.”

  “Can you take me out to the Hudson Canyon where it�
�s a mile deep?”

  “Yeah.” He stretched the word. “We are talking fishing here, right?”

  “No. Scientific experiment.”

  Weezy gave him a look and he shrugged. Couldn’t very well tell the guy he was dumping a sword overboard.

  “How many people?”

  “Two. Just me and my assistant.”

  Another Weezy look.

  He pressed the mute button. “Eddie?”

  She nodded.

  “Easy Peasy’s built to hold up to twenty. Kind of expensive for just two people.”

  “Money’s no object. I’ve got oceanography grants.”

  Weezy rolled her eyes and put a hand over her mouth to stifle a laugh.

  “Whatever. When do you want to go?”

  “This afternoon.”

  “No way.”

  “Why not?”

  “Don’t you listen to the news? Heavy weather coming. Big nor’easter heading up the coast. Ten-foot swells out there already.”

  Jack hadn’t been paying much attention to the weather. He’d heard some mention of snow.

  “Tomorrow, then?”

  The master of the Easy Peasy couldn’t hide his exasperation with this landlubber. “It hits tomorrow. I’ll call you next week.”

  Jack didn’t want to wait that long.

  “I’ll pay extra.”

  “Look, you can’t pay me enough to take my boat out into what’s coming. Talk to you next week.”

  He hung up.

  “Crap,” Jack said. He told Weezy about the nor’easter.

  “It’s been all over the news,” she said. “Where’ve you been?”

  Abducted … taped to a chair … threatened with torture … shooting people …

  “Preoccupied, I guess. Maybe one of the other boats—”

  “Maybe the Andrea Gail will take you. Look, that katana’s been in your closet for months. It can stay there a few more days. No sense in risking your life just to—”

  Now Weezy’s phone rang. She dug it out of her pocket.

  “Hello?” she said. “Oh, hi. Yeah, he’s right here. What—?” She frowned and handed Jack the phone. “It’s Dawn. She sounds a little worked up. Says she’s got to talk to you.”