When he reached the landing on the second floor, it occurred to him that maybe he was being careless, perhaps taking too much for granted. He slowed down. Stopped. Listened.
Strange.
Could one of the visitors have stayed? Maybe he wasn’t alone after all.
No. Surely he was. There was no noise downstairs, no sound from the outside, none from the wide, dry flooring nor from the ancient timbers settling and breathing.
Still, it wouldn’t hurt to be careful.
In the weakening half-light of the disposable flashlight in his hand, and with Cortney Dare’s papers clutched tightly to his chest, Professor Hathaway began his final descent. He placed his feet gingerly on the outside of each step, close to the wall, trying to prevent more telltale noises.
Below him the rooms of the house were dark and ominous.
9
Harrison drove to the end of the dirt road and parked the Scout where it was thoroughly hidden by The Jaw’s proliferation of brush and brambles. His only thoughts were of Nancy and the vulnerable position in which he had left her.
He had to hurry back. Speed was the most important thing in the world right now. If he could not help her, at least he could be with her, watch over her, make a move to protect her if he got the chance.
If only he had a weapon. There were stones and heavy sticks all around him, but these were too bulky, difficult to conceal. He would have to leave them where they were.
Perhaps he could find something in the Scout. Frantically, he rummaged through the glove box, amid the empty beer cans and bottles on the floor, in the rear compartment, searching for a screwdriver, a jack handle, anything that might be used against the lunatic wielding the shotgun.
There was no time to spare; every minute he looked around would cause their captor to become more agitated.
Finding nothing, he abandoned his search.
A thick, damp fog rolled in slowly from the lake. Now, in the deep twilight, the lights of Grand Isle were barely visible to him.
Turning away from the water, Harrison studied the dark bulk of his house. With no interior lights burning, it seemed little more than a concentrated knot of shadows, offering no aid and no inspiration.
A ways off to his right, close to the shore of the lake, he saw a towering, leafless oak whose dark trunk and jagged branches gave it the appearance of frozen black lightning against sky.
Wait! Near the trunk of the tree — he was sure of it — a lone figure stood watching him. A primitive fear seized Harrison. He couldn’t tell who or what was observing him, but somehow he knew it was no one who’d offer any help. Instinct cautioned that it might even be dangerous to summon the stranger. When Harrison blinked, the figure was gone.
Harrison began to run toward the house, knowing he had to get back before any harm was done to the woman he loved.
10
Cliff froze at the sound of footfalls. There was no question about it, someone — someone who had never entered the house — was coming down the stairs!
He cowered against the wall, his face bone-white. He shook so violently that Nancy could see the motion from way across the room. A whimpering, pathetic and frightened, escaped at regular intervals from his throat.
“Oh, God… oh, God… oh, God,” he said while inhaling, his voice a hoarse whisper.
His gun was ready to meet the intruder, but Cliff obviously was not. Nancy saw him look over his shoulder at her, his expression imploring, as if begging her for help.
Her own terror mounted as the footsteps came closer and closer. She wanted Harrison to come back. She wanted to run. In her mind the horrible face that she’d seen at the window returned, attaching itself to whatever was coming down those stairs.
Could it be Harrison, returned by some back entrance, sneaking in to save her, thinking he was being silent, undetected? Of course, it must be Harrison. Who else could be in the house?
From where she sat, she saw a tall, shadowy form becoming visible on the stairs. The form was definitely human, and somehow familiar. She watched Cliff become tense and ready, his shotgun like the head of a cobra poised for a lethal strike. When the shape on the stairs turned from the darkness to face them, she acted quickly, without plan or thought. Jumping up, she screamed, “Harry, RUN!”
Jolted by the sudden cry, Cliff’s finger reflexed on the trigger. The shotgun exploded with the impact of a bomb.
The dark form jerked off its feet. In midair it doubled up like a jackknife, then collapsed lifeless amid a snowfall of papers that had flown from its hand.
In the violence and confusion — though it lasted only a moment — Nancy sped through the front door and into the misty evening.
11
The explosion stopped Harrison as if he had slammed into an invisible wall. He stood paralyzed, holding his breath. He saw a shape, indistinct but definitely Nancy, bolt from the house.
“NANCY!” he cried against the muffling fog. But she neither heard nor heeded as she ran north along the road toward the marsh.
He shouted again, louder, as the gunman stumbled out the front door.
“NANCY!”
Harrison heard the gun explode again. The bushes rustled on his left as if pushed by a sudden wind.
God! He’s shooting at me!
Quickly he about-faced, diving back for the Scout. Regaining his place in the driver’s seat, he fired the engine, pointing the vehicle toward the fleeing woman. As he roared past the man standing in the front yard, he heard another explosion. The glass on the passenger’s side of the front window imploded, scattering shards like deadly hail throughout the Scout’s interior.
Harrison cried out in surprise, veering the nose of the vehicle toward the man. Groping in his pocket, apparently for more shells, the man began to run. Foolishly, he didn’t run toward the house but along the open road. He looked repeatedly over his shoulder at the oncoming Scout, his eyes wide, terror-stricken in the bright headlights.
I’ve got you now!
Harrison accelerated, easily gaining ground. Cliff hurled the useless weapon; it clattered against the passenger’s door and vanished out of sight.
Cliff dashed away from the road, running to the right, moving across the field toward the bog.
Harrison veered right, following him. The Scout was designed for just such terrain.
The impact was abrupt and satisfying. The front bumper lifted Cliff’s legs out from under him, rolled his body across the hood, and pitched him headfirst through the shattered passenger-side window. For a horrible second Harrison and Cliff were face to face before Cliff’s body slid to the side and off the moving Scout. The soft flesh under his chin impaled on the jagged window glass. The Scout dragged the flailing man until his heavy boots caught on a sapling. His jaw and much of the side of his face tore away in a crimson spray.
Without slowing down, Harrison redirected the vehicle back toward the road. He had to find Nancy. He could see her solitary form still running for her life. When she neared the bridge that crossed the marsh she must have been nearly two hundred yards away.
But Christ, what’s that?
Not far behind her was a second figure, much bigger, seemingly darker, running with long, loping strides. Elongated arms dangled motionless at its sides.
Harrison floored the accelerator, speeding wildly down the dirt road, blasting the horn, trying to alert Nancy that he was coming, warning her pursuer that help was on the way.
When the horn blasted and the engine surged, the dark, loping figure put on a burst of speed. It easily overtook Nancy and effortlessly scooped her up into its long arms. Then it dashed into the dark protection of the marsh.
Even above the noise of the roaring engine, Harrison could swear he heard Nancy’s screams.
12
Mark Chittenden was puzzled to see the abandoned Scout at the roadside. Normally there wouldn’t be anything unusual about a vehicle parked near the bog during hunting season, but not after dark, not at this awkward angle, not wi
th the driver’s door wide open and the engine running. Mark knew that something was not quite as it should be.
His suspicion was quickly confirmed when he pulled up to the house. There was an unfamiliar Honda in the yard, and Harrison’s Saab was nowhere in sight. Also, without leaving his car, Mark could see that the door to the house was open.
What’s going on?
The uneasy feeling — far worse than he had experienced when he couldn’t reach Harrison by phone — escalated now. Cautiously Mark eased himself out of the car, looking around for signs or motion.
“Harry!” he called from the yard. He waited for an answer that never came. He slowly approached the front door, pushed it open all the way, and looked into the dark interior.
As he stepped across the threshold, it somehow felt colder inside, colder than the bitter evening mists. Mark tried to sort out the tangle of shadows that met his eyes. Though it was his house, he forgot momentarily that there was no electricity; he groped at the wall beside the door, trying to find a light switch, never moving his eyes from the dim interior.
Unconsciously remembering the layout of the building, Mark easily found his way into the living room. On the table in front of the southern window he found a kerosene lamp. He lighted it with nearby matches.
An orange glow filled the room with warm illumination, pushing the confusing shadows closer to the walls. A quick inspection didn’t speak well of Harrison’s house-cleaning skills, but revealed nothing amiss.
After backtracking into the hall, kerosene lamp in hand, Mark walked deeper into the house. In the dull back border just beyond the circle of lamplight, he saw what appeared to be a pile of equipment, or possibly a bundle of clothing, near the foot of the stairs. He approached it slowly, the perimeter of his light washing over it like water over rocks on the shoreline.
His mind wrestled to perceive something other than a body.
“Har…” He cleared his throat. “Harry?”
But it wasn’t Harrison.
Mark tore his eyes away from the unfamiliar face of an elderly man. Nearly crippled with revulsion, Mark forced himself to look at the man’s body. The stomach was ripped apart. Through a gaping, meaty hole, blue and black intestines, like the coils of a bloody snake, tried to escape.
Mark vomited violently on the gory, paper-strewn floor. Fighting white-hot waves of nausea, he forced himself to think about Harry. He recalled his friend’s brief visit to Burlington, his distraught appearance, his strangely erratic conversational patterns.
His preoccupation with monster hunting.
Could those have been the first signs of developing mania? Could Harry have done this thing?
He felt no need or inclination to further examine the old man’s body. Still, there was a mild curiosity about the papers that were scattered all around it. Mark gave no thought to responsibility or civic duty. It was simply automatic that he sought the location of the newly installed telephone and placed a call to the state police.
13
Bushes slapped at Harrison’s face; twigs, like animal claws, dug at his flesh. All around, the confusing tangle of trees and brush slowed his progress, made it nearly impossible to maintain a chosen direction.
Long ago Nancy’s screams had faded away to nothing. Now the only noises in the foggy marsh were the obscene sucking sounds of his boots in the mud and his occasional cries of rage and frustration.
And it was so dark! All around the twisted shapes of bent trees and tangled brush made every direction look the same. No more than one hundred yards into the marsh and he was hopelessly lost.
Harrison had no time to contemplate the nagging realization that he had never been in a situation like this before. Christ, he had just caused the death of one man — mowed him down like roadkill — and was now pursuing another.
But he couldn’t think about it now. And he couldn’t take time to remedy his discomfort. He was cold, lost, and his feet were wet and numb, but he was driven by a single thought: to push forward, to pick up the trail of the abductor, and to fight, to die if he must, risking everything to save his beloved Nancy.
He paused, gasping for breath, looking around.
Above him the three-quarter moon was a pale and ghostly light, veiled in mist and woven into the fabric of crisscrossing tree limbs. The silhouetted branches, like a loathsome web, seemed to trap the white moon against the black sky. Harrison felt that he, too, was the captive of some monstrous spider. It was waiting for him to reach the point of exhaustion, waiting silently, just out of sight, for the moment to strike and kill.
Still he squinted into the darkness, knowing that something was waiting in the shadows or hidden among the contorted trees. It was something that was much more at home in the inhospitable environment of the swamp than he could ever be. As he stood alone, fearful and still, Harrison realized for the first time that he was not armed. He had entered the swamp with no weapon and no experience in the inevitable task he would soon face.
God! He didn’t know how to fight!
He gave brief thought to his efforts, many years ago, to avoid military service. If he had done time in the jungles of Vietnam, perhaps now he would not feel so out of place, so helpless.
But there was no time for such thoughts.
Near his foot he found a thick thirty-inch stick that was heavy enough to serve as a club. Close by, he picked up a rock the size of his fist. With these firmly in his grip, he plunged deeper into the mud and shadows of Childe’s Bog.
To his right an owl called, “Wh-whoooo, wh-whoooo.” Harrison ran in the other direction, thinking the owl would not have called if someone were near.
The fog was so thick it felt like rain against his face. He was hot and cold at the same time, brave and terrified.
“NANCY!” he called into the darkness.
“Nancy, where are you?”
Stumbling blindly through the rocks and bushes, unable to balance himself with the hands that held his weapons, Harrison’s foot found an exposed root. He pitched forward, landing full-front in the muck. He gasped, inhaling in a noseful of putrid swamp water.
Spitting and choking, he rose to his knees. He looked around, feeling as if he had been pushed.
Soaked and sore, fear and desperation brought tears to his eyes. The salty drops slid down his cheeks, warm and irritating.
“NAAAANCYYYYYYYYY!” he screamed. There was no answer; not even an echo.
Blundering half blindly ahead, he soon found himself on firmer ground. His footing was more definite now; the thick undergrowth began to thin out.
Had he crossed the marsh? There was no way to be sure. He continued in a straight line until the ground stopped sucking at his feet and the branches stopped slashing at him.
Through layers of fog to his right, and far in the distance, he could see the hazy glow of an orange lamp. Walking toward it, he found he was on a footpath that ran parallel to the bog. For the first time he began to trust his sense of direction. This was the path he’d seen branching off West Shore Road. He knew it would either lead him directly to the ghostly glow at his right — or, if he went left, to the road home.
What could that light be? He recalled seeing no house so near the marsh. But he did remember planning one day to explore the very path that was now underfoot.
And he remembered something Professor Hathaway had said, something about “Mrs. Abigail Snowdon, your nearest neighbor.”
So that was her house!
And the house of her son, Jabez, the idiot man who had visited Nancy at school, and who had appeared so suddenly at the monastery, showing them the way in.
Of course! It had to be Jabez Snowdon. He’d fixated on her, followed her, and grabbed her before running into what he considered the safety of the marsh.
It all made sense to Harrison. He had better approach the lighted cabin with a high degree of caution.
Gripping the stick firmly, he walked toward the indistinct glow. He remained within the protection of the shadows, keep
ing low to the ground, stalking like a wild animal.
14
The door to Cliff Ransom’s house burst open as if it had been shoved by invisible hands.
The old woman, her arms below her shawl, stepped across the threshold into the littered, foul-smelling kitchen. With an air of command and dignity, she crossed the room to the table in its center. There was an open jar of French’s mustard on the tabletop, its glass mouth black and crusted. Crumbs and papers and many empty Budweiser cans cluttered the table. More empties covered the floor and every other available surface in the room.
She looked back at the door and motioned quickly with her head. Timidly the awkward man lurched forward into the room. The vapid expression on his flat white face showed no more than a hint of discomfort.
The old woman looked at him sternly, her eyes full of meaning. His hands flew to his ears as if he were trying to shut out a painful nose. “I can’t do it no more, Ma. Jes’ talk to me. Please. My head hurts.”
“He ain’t here, Jabe. I can’t tell nothin’ from him. I can’t tell where he is.” Her voice was a patient whisper. “Maybe he’s asleep someplace.”
“Wha’d ya wanna find him for, Ma?”
“I told you Jabe, I wanna fix him so he don’t remember nothin’, that’s all.”
“But them other two, what about them?”
“They’re from away, Jabe. They don’t know what they seen. We’ll fix them, too, but I ain’t so worried about them.”
“I’m scairt, Mom.”
The old woman walked over to him, unfolding her arms, wrapping them and her shawl around him like brown wings. “I know you are, Jabe. But I’ll take care of you, jes’ like I always done. You know how important the fam’ly is to me. You know Ma’s never let nothin’ happen to you.”
“I know,” he said in a small, cracking voice, his huge shoulders heaving with muffled sobs.
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