The Dark of Summer

by Dean R. Koontz

  “What a relief!” he said. “Well then, maybe we can go out in the boat again, when you're feeling up to it.”

  “I don't see why not.”

  He peered at her tray with an exaggerated look of anger. “You've hardly touched your chicken, so don't put your fork down yet.”

  She laughed and said, “You'd make a very good mother.”

  “I try,” he said.

  Because she had not taken a sleeping tablet since that morning, and because Ben's presence was considerably more vital, in an undefinable way, than Elaine's was, she found herself more alert, her mind functioning in less of a haze than it had for the past forty-eight hours. Inevitably, then, she began to think about the ghost and about all the things that might be connected with it, and she broached a tangent of the subject with him.

  When she'd reached her dessert, she said, “Do you know any of the fishermen who've been giving Uncle Will trouble?”

  “A bad lot,” he said.

  “Which ones do you know?”

  “Younger, Abrahams, Wilson, nearly all of them.”

  “Is it true they threatened Uncle Will?”

  “They did, all right.”

  “How?”

  “In vague, but definitely meaningful terms,” he said.

  “Do you think that they'd carry through on those threats?”

  He grimaced and said, “They're not an easy group of men to get along with, and they don't hold their anger well. Yes, I believe they'd have gone through with the threats if Uncle Will hadn't reported them to the sheriff.”

  Outside, night had fallen; the remnants of an orange sunset lighted a half inch of the horizon on the far side of the house but did not light the sky beyond Gwyn's windows.

  She ate several more spoonfuls of the same kind of chocolate pudding which she'd been served for lunch, then said, “Do you think they'd be the kind to strike out at me, when they saw they couldn't easily get at my uncle?”

  “What do you mean?”

  She couldn't tell him without mentioning the ghost, and she did not want him to know about that, because she was still pretty sure that it was only an illusion, the symptom of emotional instability.

  He said, “Do you mean would they hurt you?”

  “In a manner of speaking.”

  “Not likely,” he said. “At least, I don't think they'd stoop so low as to carry a grudge against innocent bystanders. Why? Has something happened?”

  “Nothing, really,” she said.

  “Then why did you ask?”

  She ate another spoonful of chocolate pudding and, rather than answer him, asked another question. She said, “What do you know about International Seafood Products?”

  He looked at her strangely and seemed, at first, unable to find a response. “What do you mean?”

  She finished her pudding, enjoying the taste of the last few mouthfuls, and she said, “I understand that ISP wants to build a seafood processing plant nearby.”

  He nodded. “ISP wants to, and the fishermen want them to — but everyone else in the area is dead set against it.”

  “Why?”

  “The filth, of course.”

  She said, “As I understand, ISP wants to build a modern plant that wouldn't foul the sea or the air.”

  “You've heard wrong, then.”

  “But don't they have a plant like that operating up in Maine?”

  She thought that there was a look of deep anxiety on Ben's face, though she couldn't imagine what he had to be anxious about. He leaned forward in the easy chair and finally began to reply, when the telephone rang, somewhere downstairs.

  “That's Mr. Barnaby's private line, in the study,” he said. “I'll have to go down there to answer it. I'll be right back.”

  He departed before she could say anything, and she heard him taking the main stairs two at a time.

  Ben picked up the study phone and said, “Hello?”

  “It's me,” Penny said. She was calling from the house phone, in the kitchen, to give him an excuse to get out of Gwyn's room, according to plan.

  He sat down heavily in Will Barnaby's leather chair, behind the desk, leaned his elbows on the blotter and said, “Elaine told me that the kid would be dopey — from all the drugs she had this morning and from her own state of mind.”

  Apprehensively, Penny said, “And she isn't?”

  “Depends on your definition of 'dopey,' he said. “She's not her usual self, to be sure. But she's a damn sight more alert than I expected her to be.”

  “What happened?”

  He said, “She got inquisitive. She wanted to talk about the fishermen, and I think she was close to telling me about you — about the ghost.”

  “But she didn't?”

  “Not quite. However, she did ask me what I knew about ISP, and she proved to be damned knowledgeable on the subject.”

  “You don't think she knows?”

  “No. Maybe she suspects something… though she musn't know just what. She thinks maybe the fishermen are behind the ghost.”

  Penny said, “Ben, maybe we shouldn't go through with it.”

  “It's not that bad,” he said. “I didn't mean to put you on edge, Penny. I only wanted to warn you that she's not a walking zombie, like we thought she'd be at this stage.”

  “She may catch on—”

  “No, she won't,” he said. “She'll tumble for it, and we'll break her down tonight for sure.”

  “Well—”

  “Think of all that money,” he said.

  “I've been thinking of it for a hundred years.”

  “We're too close now to back off.”

  She was silent a moment, then said, “You're right. I'm going to go up there now and scare the hell out of that kid.”

  “That's the stuff.”

  “You be ready, according to the script.”

  He said, “Have you ever known me to miss a cue?”

  “Never.”

  “Okay, go to work, love.”

  The final act had begun.

  NINETEEN

  When darkness came to Jenkins' Niche, it brought Paul Morby with it, more of a ghost than Penny Groves could ever have been. For eight years, Morby had been a member in good standing of the United States Army's Green Berets, one of the world's most deadly, violent and insidious guerrilla warfare fighting forces. He'd spent four long years in Vietnam, having completed more than three hundred missions into enemy-held territory, all of which ended in success. He had killed men, and he had suffered no remorse, for that was what he had been trained to do. When he finally checked out of the service and came home, it was clear to Morby that his fortune lay in the use of those tricks and talents which the army had taught him, and he applied the methods of war to domestic, personal problems — for a fat fee. He had worked for out-and-out criminals, for borderline operators, and for men who were ostensibly honest, such as William Barnaby. Thus far, he had never had to kill anyone for money, and he avoided those jobs in which murder was almost essential or highly likely. He burned down houses, set up banks for men who wanted to rob them, and committed a dozen other prosecutable felonies, all without regret. The Green Berets preferred men with few scruples, then bred the last dregs of honesty from them. It was not in Paul Morby, then, to be sorry about anything that he did. When he came into Jenkins' Niche, just after dark, he did so with only one thought: do the job right, earn the money.

  He never thought about taking the money and leaving the job undone, for he wanted to be given any repeat business that Barnaby might have for a man like him, in the future.

  Like any good craftsman, he knew that the quality of his product must remain high, higher than any competition's product, if he were to survive at doing what he liked to do. The only difference between Morby and any other craftsman was that Morby's craft was far more dangerous than most; and his end product, rather than some tangible piece of goods like a pair of shoes or a leather wallet, was destruction. Morby liked to destroy, because it was exciting. H
e couldn't imagine going through life as a clerk or nine-to-five office worker.

  He came in by sea, in a midnight black wet suit and diving tanks. He had entered the water farther up the shore, out of sight of the Niche, then swam just below the surface until he rounded the point and struck in among the docked fishing craft. Behind him, on a thin chain latched to his waist, he towed a waterproof tin box which contained the tools of his trade: a well silenced pistol with two spare clips of ammunition, a plastic-wrapped package of gelignite plastic explosives, a mini-timer to set off the charge when he was well away from the scene, and a set of keys which could open the locks on almost any boat made.

  The docks were built out from the beach, forming a perfect cover for his final approach. He swam in beneath one of these and came out of the water in the shadow of the old wooden planking, where no one would see him.

  He pulled back the black rubber hood that clung tightly to his head, and when his ears had adjusted, he could hear laughter and voices, not too far away along the beach.

  Morby smiled to himself, because he knew that, in a little while, none of these men would feel much like laughing.

  Unsnapping the chain from his waist, shrugging out of his oxygen tanks, he opened the tin box and took out his pistol, the gelignite, the timer and the keys. The last made a brief jangling noise as he tucked them into a snap pocket of the wet suit, but he was confident that no one had heard them.

  Cautiously, he left the shadow of the pier and went to scout around, to locate the bulk of the fishermen who had the night duty in the Niche, and to find the most likely target for the gelignite. Barnaby hadn't cared which boat was blown up, just so one of them got ripped to shreds.

  “The cops will find traces of the gelignite,” Morby had warned.

  Barnaby had said, “But it's the only way to be sure the boat's a total loss?”

  “Yes,” Morby said. “A fire can be fairly rapidly extinguished on a boat. If I set a fire, I'd have an escape problem, and I doubt I'd end up doing much damage.”

  “The gelignite, then,” Barnaby said. “And so what if they find traces? Do you really think they'd come back to me, a respectable man of the community, a millionaire?”

  “You're the only one who wants them out of the Niche, though,” Morby said, jabbing a thick finger at the older man.

  “That's true,” Barnaby had said. “However, why should I pull a stunt like this when they'd have to be out in thirty days anyway?”

  “That's a good point,” Morby had admitted. “That ought to convince the cops that you're clean, that on top of your good name and all your money.” He gave Barnaby a searching look and said, “But I've wondered the same thing myself. Why are you going to take a risk like this, when they'll be gone in thirty days, anyway?”

  “That's personal,” Barnaby had said.

  And Morby, aware that he could not push the point any further, had let it drop at that.

  Now he was prowling the Niche in the darkness, listening to the fishermen exchange jokes around a large beach fire, and staking out the most likely looking ships to see which he wanted to blow to smithereens.

  Morby went over the side of the Princess Lee, padded along the gangway to the galley steps, went down these one at a tune as silently as a cat on cotton. The galley door was closed, but not locked. He pushed it open without any trouble. He went in, followed a corridor aft, until he found a place against an inner partition, where the gelignite would do its best work. He bent down and began to mold the plastic charge to the base of the wall, stringing it out just enough to rip up the major seam in the floor and let the water in soon after the flames.

  In a minute, he was finished. He picked up the mini-timer, set that to a full five minute fuse, jammed it into the gelignite.

  He stood up, folded the plastic wrappings and stuffed those into another safety pocket in his wet suit.

  The job finished, he turned to leave — just in time to encounter a middle-aged fisherman in blue jeans and a sweatshirt; the man had just come down the galley stairs, as quietly as Morby had, though his quiet had been that generated by familiarity and not by purposeful stealth. He stepped into the corridor and flipped on the overhead lights, bathing Morby in what seemed an intense, white glare.

  Morby brought up his pistol.

  The fisherman gaped at the sight of the big man in the diving suit, for he had clearly not known there was anyone down here.

  “What the hell—” he began.

  Morby shot him three times, all in the chest.

  The fisherman dropped like one of his anchors, stone dead.

  Morby waited, very still, for someone else to follow the dead sailor. When a full minute had passed, he realized that the man had been alone.

  Quickly, then, he walked down the corridor, stepped over the body and went up onto deck, without a glance backward. He had not wanted to kill the fisherman, but he'd seen no other possibility. The man had caught sight of his head, his face, and would be sure to remember him. Though Morby lived just outside of Boston, he kept a summer cottage at Calder, and he would have been spotted by this man sooner or later.

  Now, with the mini-timer's fuse rapidly running down, Morby went over the side of the Princess Lee, swam to the beach and risked a quick run along the sand to the dock where he'd left his gear. It was still there.

  He pulled up his hood, slipped into his oxygen tanks and buckled them across his chest.

  The gelignite had not gone off.

  He put the pistol and the ammunition clips into the tin box, sealed that, snapped the chain onto his belt. Lifting the box, he started forward, wading into the deeper water under the dock. When he was in up to his waist, the explosion lifted a dark lid off the world and let a fierce red-white light in. The noise followed: like the worst thunder in the world.

  Morby grinned, waded deeper, then went under. In the confusion on the beach, it was easy for him to swim out of Jenkins' Niche unnoticed.

  TWENTY

  While Ben was downstairs on the telephone, Gwyn got out of bed, chose a pair of clean pajamas from the bureau, and went into the bathroom to freshen up and to make herself more attractive. Her hair really needed washing, but once she brushed the tangles out of it, it didn't look too bad. She washed her face, powdered it slightly, applied a thin coat of clear, moisturizing lipstick. Slipping into the clean pajamas, she looked and felt like an altogether different person than the girl who had just eaten supper. She was still tired, very tired, but not so weary as she had been these past two days. And, right now, though sleep was attractive, she did not long for it in quite such an unholy fashion as she had this afternoon.

  When she came out of the bath, Ben Groves had not come back yet — though the dead girl was there.

  “Hello, Gwyn.”

  She stepped around the apparition, went to the bed and got under the sheets, as if it had not spoken.

  “That's not a nice way to be.”

  She said nothing.

  She prayed for Ben to return.

  The ghost came and stood at the foot of her bed, raised its arms in her direction. “The longer you ignore me, the more you try to shove me out of your life, Gwyn, the harder it is for me to stay here.”

  “Then, go away.”

  “You don't mean that.”

  “I do.”

  “Without you?”

  “Yes.”

  “But don't you love me?”

  Gwyn said, “No.”

  “I'm your sister, your blood!”

  “You aren't.”

  The dead girl made a face, disgusted, and she said. “Don't persist in these foolish denials.”

  “They aren't foolish at all. My sister died when she was a little girl, when she was only twelve. You're a grown woman, someone else altogether or a figment of my imagination. No matter that you look like me, that you look like Ginny. You're not.”

  “I've explained this all before, Gwyn.”

  “Not to my satisfaction.”

  “Gwyn, I
do need you. The other side keeps tugging at me, wanting me back. If you won't accept me, I can't stay here. But I need you, more than I've ever needed anyone or anything, to make things more pleasant on the other side, to have someone to talk to.”

  “I'm imagining you,” Gwyn said.

  “You aren't.”

  “I may be going mad, but I know it. That's something, anyway.” She was trembling badly.

  The ghost climbed onto the bed, making the mattress sink at the bottom, and she crawled up toward Gwyn. She touched Gwyn's bare arm with her fingertips, and she said, “There, now, does that feel like a figment of your imagination?”

  Gwyn said nothing.

  “I've told you that, temporarily, I'm as real as you are, as fleshy as you, and not to be ignored.”

  “Then you'd better get out of here before Ben gets back,” Gwyn said. “If he sees you—”

  “Oh, he won't.”

  “I thought you said you were as real as me, temporarily?”

  “I am,” the dead girl said. “But a ghost has certain abilities that come in handy. I can keep him from seeing me, if I wish.”

  Gwyn said nothing.

  “Please speak to me, Gwyn.”

  “I'd be talking to myself, then,” Gwyn said. “And I really don't need that. So why not go away.”

  The dead girl studied her closely for a moment, then crawled even closer on the bed. She said, “Gwyn, I'm your sister, and I love you, and whatever I do is for your own good.”

  Gwyn was quiet.

  “It's better for you on the other side, with me, in death. Here, you have no one, no one at all; you're alone and afraid, and you're clearly quite ill. I'm going to take you with me, for your own good.”

  Gwyn did not realize the full import of what the dead girl had said, for she was still operating under the assumption that she could best handle the situation by ignoring it Then, a moment later, it was too late for her to puzzle out the specter's meaning, for the creature unexpectedly leapt on top of her, bearing down onto the mattress, locking her there with its knees and its weight, clamping two white, dry hands around her neck and feeling for a strangler's grip.