“I bet you’ll like the area, too,” Mrs. Fitzpatrick continued. “It’s up at the base of Thunder Rise.”
“That’s the hill with the wonderful view, isn’t it?”
He remembered it from the drive they’d taken yesterday on their initial house-hunting expedition. The highest peak around, he recalled. They’d driven up it to the end of the paved road, stopping to stretch their legs. From this vantage point, perhaps halfway up the mountain (he’d already learned the natives called these peaks mountains, not hills), you could sense the full majesty of the Berkshires, stretching north toward Vermont and south toward Connecticut like some gentle occupying army. After Manhattan, it was hard to believe any place could be so serene. The only sounds had been songbirds and the faint drone of a propeller plane, miles and miles away.
“That’s it,” she said.
“Beautiful area.”
“Indeed. Still pretty wild. Of course, you give the damn developers a few years, and it’ll be all paved and sewered.” She sounded angry.
“I doubt that,” Brad said congenially.
“They doubted that about Apple Hollow a few years ago and look what happened. You take a ride by there today and you’d swear you were in Albany.”
“Are there any dinosaurs on Thunder Rise?” Abbie piped up.
“She’s fascinated by dinosaurs,” Brad explained. “She’s got all the books about them.”
“I would never go near a meat eater,” Abbie said. “Like Gorgosaurus or Tyrannosaurus rex. He’s the king of the dinosaurs. But plant eaters might be OK. They had tiny teeth. Maybe you could pat one if you were careful.”
Mrs. Fitzpatrick winked at Brad, as if to acknowledge his daughter’s obvious brilliance at being able to pronounce such big words—correctly, as far as she could determine. “Well, meat eaters or no meat eaters, there’s no need to worry,” she said. “There haven’t been any dinosaurs on Thunder Rise for millions and millions of years.”
“Are there any deer?”
“As a matter of fact, there are, sweetheart. If you keep your eyes open, why, I bet someday you might even run into Bambi up in those hills.”
“Really?”
“Really and truly.”
“Wow! Did you hear that, Daddy?”
“I did.”
“Deer!”
“Once upon a time,” Mrs. Fitzpatrick went on, “there were even Indians living up there.”
“I know that,” Abbie said, the wonderment in her voice evaporating abruptly.
“And how do you know that?”
“Thomasine told me.”
“I see. Well, that is her field.”
“I know it’s none of my business,” Brad said, “but did she check out this morning?”
“As a matter of fact, she did. It couldn’t have been much later than seven-thirty. I was in the kitchen—”
“Oh, rats,” Abbie said. “You know what I forget to ask her, Dad?”
“What?”
“If the Indians wore feathers in their hair. Do you know, Mrs. Fitzpatrick?”
“Sometimes they did.”
“And they hunted with bows and arrows?”
“Yes.”
“Real bows and arrows?”
“Real ones. They trapped and fished, too.”
“You seem to know something about Indians,” Brad said.
“I should. I married one. A Quidneck, the tribe that lived all throughout this region. The stories he would tell . . . I never knew whether to believe the half of them.”
“Is he still alive?” Brad asked.
“My goodness, no. George died when Charlie was still in school. That’s all of thirty years ago now.”
“Charlie?”
“I’m not being very clear, am I?” Mrs. Fitzpatrick said. “All this talk of Charlie and Ginny and George, God rest his soul. George—what can I say about him? He was my husband, and I loved him with my whole heart, even if my family didn’t. We had one child, Charlie. Charlie must be . . . let’s see, now . . . must be going on forty-five now. I’m showing my age now, aren’t I?”
“Not a bit,” Brad said. “You don’t look a day over sixty.”
“Go on now,” Mrs. Fitzpatrick said, flattered.
“Does Charlie live here?”
“Not too often.”
Brad’s face showed his puzzlement.
“What I mean is he stays in a cabin he owns out in the woods. That’s when he’s around, which isn’t enough to suit me. He’s out California way now. Lord only knows where he’ll be next year at this time. Charlie doesn’t like roots. Never has. Says roots are for trees, not people. His father was like that. How I ever kept him as long as I did will be a mystery eternally.”
“Ginny is your only daughter,” Brad said.
“Right. She’s quite a bit younger than Charlie. Her father was Mr. Fitzpatrick. He . . . left us. A long time ago. I haven’t heard from him in years. Decades.” Brad could see that she had opened the family closet, revealing a very prominent skeleton inside. She did not sound embarrassed, but that was clearly all she intended to say on the subject, now and probably ever. Close closet door and lock it.
“I understand,” Brad said, a certain comfort and understanding in his voice. It had been second nature, but now he recognized what he’d been doing: subtly drawing the woman out. It was a veteran newspaperman’s absolute worst trait—the inability to leave the interview in the newsroom.
“Ginny’s almost twenty years younger than Charlie. Has a son Abbie’s age. He starts kindergarten this fall.”
“They’ll be classmates,” Brad said, patting Abbie’s hand. “And very good friends, if I were to have to predict. Jimmy’s a very sweet little boy.”
“Does he like dinosaurs?” Abbie asked.
“As a matter of fact, I believe he does.”
“Goody!”
“Where’s she live?” Brad asked.
“Up on Thunder Rise—not all that far from that house Wilfred was telling me about, in fact. Speaking of Wilfred, would you like to give him a call? Or would you rather thumb through the rest of this?” She rustled through the wicker basket. “We seem to have gotten lost in gab.”
“I think we’ll try Wilfred,” Brad said.
“I thought so. Here’s his number. You go into the other room and give him a buzz while I clean up here. Tell him I referred you, and there shouldn’t be any problem. He ought to be able to meet you over there with the key.”
“Thanks, Mrs. Fitzpatrick.”
“Go on,” she ordered. “Phone. The morning’s getting away from you.”
Brad took a last sip of coffee and went through the living room to the front desk.
“I know what you want,” Mrs. Fitzpatrick whispered to Abbie when he had gone.
“What?”
“Another glass of chocolate milk.”
“Can I?”
“Only if you don’t tell your dad. He’ll think I’m spoiling you. Promise?”
“I promise!” she whispered back, thrilled that Mrs. Fitzpatrick had let her in on a big conspiracy. Mrs. Fitzpatrick’s place had turned out to be very nice, Abbie thought, but Mrs. Fitzpatrick had turned out to be even nicer.
“Then let’s go into the kitchen. Come on. Quick. Like a bunny.”
CHAPTER NINE
Friday, August 29
In the hours between midnight and dawn both Maureen McDonald and Jimmy Ellis had nightmares. They were similar in certain key respects, but they were not identical.
In Jimmy’s, the wolf reappeared.
The same wolf that had vanquished mighty Rambo up there on Thunder Rise, the same razor-fanged black-back wolf that had already visited him several times here in his room. Visited repeatedly, almost nonchalantly, as if staking a personal claim on the room and the terrified, wide-eyed little human it always found there, lying under a single sheet on an oaken twin bed.
Jimmy was not sleeping when he saw the wolf tonight. He was certain of that, even if he could
not convince his mother.
Not that he’d been awake the whole night—although he had intended to be. Jimmy had been relatively calm tonight, unlike the other nights this week, when bedtime had been A Major Crisis. He’d summoned up all his courage and even made a joke or two about the wolf, a development that had brought a tangible feeling of relief to his anxious mother.
He could laugh because he’d thought and thought and thought, and now he finally had a plan.
The plan was to stay awake until the sun had returned to the eastern sky. There was a chance, by being so vigilant, he would be able to hear the wolf coming and somehow be able to scare it off before it got into his room. How, exactly . . . he hadn’t gotten to that yet.
But there was a more overwhelming reason why he was going to stay awake all night, no matter what it took. He had a secret weapon. A camera. His mother’s old Instamatic, which he’d stolen from her closet and hidden under his pillow. He was going to take a picture of the wolf. That was the beauty of his plan. That was why he couldn’t miss. A color snapshot, for all the world to see. Even if he couldn’t scare it off, he would have proof it existed. A picture would be something his mother couldn’t ignore.
He had not told her. Unh-unh.
He knew what her reaction would be: anger and, if not outright anger, another dose of disappointment that Mommy’s son was still a long way from getting over this ridiculous thing. She hadn’t said anything that cruel to his face, of course, but he could sense it clearly. Mom was frustrated and more than a little ashamed. Because Jimmy was having his problems. Turning into a nervous wreck. God forbid, maybe even in need of outside help. That was the gist of certain telephone conversations she’d been having when she thought he wasn’t listening. Conversations with other mother friends. A conversation with the family physician, Dr. Bostwick. Even the tail end of their most recent long-distance conversation with Uncle Charlie. One way or another, “this nightmare thing,” as Mommy called it, had been hanging over them the better part of two weeks, like a spell of bad weather that refused to lift.
So he’d been on his best behavior all day (playing quietly in the yard and not telling his mom he’d been on red alert for the wolf).
Supper, no sweat. An hour of TV. Then the bedtime ritual, nice and orderly. The story, quietly. His teeth, without protest. His bedside prayers, his head bowed and hands clasped. His mother checking under the bed (“Nothing here, big guy!” in a big, cheerful voice), checking in the closet (“Nothing here, either!”), checking out the window (“All’s clear!”), then kissing him goodnight and leaving the hall light burning bright. As she moved down the hall to the stairs, he could sense what she was thinking, so clearly she might as well have been shouting it: I think he’s finally Getting Over It.
Long before midnight he’d drifted off. Despite his best intentions, drowsiness had crept over him like a blanket of fog, and he’d been dragged under, under, under, to a place where there was crying and danger around every corner. The place where the wolf lived.
He was dreaming about the wolf when a sound from outside his sleep disturbed him. He opened his eyes, and there it was, at the foot of his bed.
This time it didn’t just stare him down. Didn’t only breathe on him and flash its teeth. Didn’t wait for the inevitable collapse, Jimmy reduced to tears and calling out for his mommy.
It spoke to him.
A deep, growling voice unlike anything he’d ever heard. Half-person and half-animal.
“It takes time, Jimmy,” the wolf said.
So it knew his name. That scared him more than its being able to talk, the fact that it seemed to know him so well . . . so very, very well . . . seemed in some incomprehensible way to consider him its buddy. A wolf who liked it here in his room had no intention of ever staying away, not for good.
“It can take weeks or even months, what I’m going to do to you.” Something in Jimmy’s stomach flipped.
“I might have to go away for a while. I could, you know. I’m very busy. I might go away until you thought I was gone for good—until you thought I had been only a nightmare, like that silly mommy of yours says. It could even become a little game, couldn’t it? A little game of hide-and-seek. It might seem as if I’d be gone for good, but I’d be back. I promise, Jimmy.
“And when I did, maybe I could lick your hand. Then maybe I could give you a little nip, like playing with somebody’s doggy. Then a little harder, a little higher, eating your wrist, and your forearm, and your elbow, and your shoulder, all the way until you were gone! All gone, Jimmy! All gone!
“Nothing but bloody little scraps of you left!”
Jimmy’s breath was catching in his throat, and he was trying—trying not to cry, not again, not four nights straight this week.
But the tears were forming, and he knew in another few seconds he would be powerless to stop them. His body was trembling, as if he were outside in December without a coat.
But it wasn’t December. It was August, and he was lying under a single sheet, and the room was hot, too hot, and it was slowly closing in on him. He could see the walls, feel them, surrounding and compressing him.
“Are you listening, Jimmy?”
He fumbled beneath the pillow for the camera, his fingers all thumbs. The camera would save him. The camera would give him proof. Just click the shutter and Mommy would believe him. And if for some reason she didn’t, surely Uncle Charlie would take care of the wolf when he came back.
He couldn’t find the camera. The pillow seemed to have swallowed it.
The wolf trotted casually over to the side of his bed, and it was then and there—close enough that Jimmy could feel its body heat, could see its matted fur—that he noticed it had undergone some strange transformation. It wasn’t a wolf’s face anymore. There was human in its face now, too. Human eyes. A human shape to the mouth and nose, surrounded by all that black fur. A red face, lined with capillaries.
“You know what, Jimmy?”
His stomach flipped again, and there was acid in his throat.
“Your mommy can’t help you. She won’t be able to save you. No one will. Because they don’t believe I’m here, do they? Grownups think I’m just a troubled little boy’s nightmare, don’t they? Oh, yes, Jimmy. I know all about grown-ups. I know all about moms. Silly mommies. Thinking they know what’s best for a little boy. Well, we know what’s best for a little boy, don’t we?”
Jimmy’s fingers contacted the camera.
He grabbed it, pulled it out, didn’t bother to focus through the viewfinder. There wasn’t time. The wolf—it was moving again. Toward him. Jimmy drew his knees to his chest and retreated crablike toward his headboard, a crab in panicked retreat.
Jimmy held the camera in the wolf’s direction and pressed the shutter.
There was a click.
And no flash.
The panic was sudden, all-encompassing, nose to toe in a millisecond. He’d loaded a new cartridge in the camera, but he’d forgotten to check the batteries.
They’re probably dead, he thought. It was the most horrible thought he’d ever had.
His finger bore into the cold metal camera again.
This time the room exploded in light—the most wonderful, incredible flash of light—then went dark. The image of the wolf was burned like an X-ray onto Jimmy’s retinas. The first bulb must have been bad.
“What’s this, Jimmy?” The wolf sounded surprised. “A camera?”
He pressed again. Another explosion. Another X-ray on his eyes.
“Why, it looks like Mommy’s camera. Yes, that’s exactly what it is. Does Mommy know you have her camera? I bet not. I don’t think she would be very happy if she knew you had taken her only camera, Jimmy. I think she would be very upset. I think probably she would have to punish you, Jimmy.
“I’d better take that camera for you, Jimmy. For safekeeping. We wouldn’t want anything to happen to Mommy’s favorite camera, now, would we?”
And with that, the wolf reached o
ut and took it. Took it with its paw—but not really a paw. A paw that had fingers, gnarled and twisted, and fingernails as black as a wood stove.
Jimmy covered his eyes and screamed then. His bladder control, which had been tenuous, gave out completely. His urine was seeping into the mattress when Ginny came tearing in, her eyes wide and red.
She was too late to see the wolf.
Camera and all, it was gone. It always was by the time Mommy came.
Out the window, the door, through the walls, through the floor—Jimmy never saw it go, just as he’d never seen it come.
Maureen’s nightmare concerned the bear.
It completely filled her bedroom, leaving barely space for Maureen and her furniture. It must have been magical to be able to be so big and still get into the room. Magical, like things that could only happen in Alice in Wonderland or a fairy tale.
And that’s why when Maureen opened her eyes in the middle of the night that first night and saw it, she was more fascinated than afraid. She was sure she must be dreaming. A dream about visiting a zoo with mommy and daddy and happening upon the largest, most amazing bear in the whole wide world . . .
. . . sitting safely in its cage.
Dreaming. She was sure she was.
Until the bear breathed on her. She felt that breath, hot and moist on her cheeks, and she smelled it. The smell was incredibly foul. It was like Daddy’s bad breath the morning after he’d been eating pepperoni pizza and drinking beer, a sweet-sour smell like tomatoes rotting at the bottom of the refrigerator vegetable bin.
That’s when, smelling that awful smell, she knew it couldn’t possibly be a dream. It was really there, a real bear, a real monster bear, waiting to eat her, just waiting to gobble her bit by bit, inch by inch, until there was no trace of her but a bloodstained sheet.
Go away, she silently urged it. Please, please don’t hurt me. Just go away. I promise I won’t tell anyone you were here if you’ll only go away.
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