And then he opened his mouth and loosed an ear-splitting shriek that rocked Dawn back on her heels.
But only for a second. She moved closer, slowly, so as not to startle him. His eyes never moved from her face. She looked at his sturdy little legs. They seemed covered with black stubble. And his hands where he gripped the rails of the crib-his fingernails looked more like black claws, and might have been sharp but they’d been trimmed back. He opened his mouth and shrieked again-a nerve-wracking sound-and Dawn thought she saw glimmers of white along his gums.
Teeth? Already? Whoever heard of a baby teething at two weeks? And yet… was that why he was shrieking?
My baby.
This was her child. Dawn knew it as surely as she knew her own name.
He’s alive. My baby is alive!
But where were the tentacles she’d seen? She leaned left and right for a look at what little she could see of his armpits, but no sign of a tentacle in either.
Okay. Maybe she’d been wrong about the tentacles. She’d been sure she’d seen two little tendrils like wriggling garter snakes right after she delivered, but she’d been pretty stressed out then, and frankly, being wrong about the tentacles was totally okay.
He continued to stare at her, as if she were the most fascinating thing he had ever seen. She had to smile. With no one else to look at but Gilda and Georges, maybe she was.
Yes, this was her baby, but…
She’d expected this totally overwhelming surge of maternal love when she saw him, but it hadn’t come. She felt more curiosity than anything. And she had to ask herself: Did she really want him back? She knew she should, and she wanted to want him, but she couldn’t help it: The maternal urge wasn’t there. He was like some creature… the result of combining all the bad DNA that had been bred into her and into the baby’s father. Her baby was alive, he was well-already standing, for God’s sake-and looked like he was being well treated. Could she do better? Should she try?
She backed away. She’d assumed the decision would be easy, automatic, but it wasn’t. She’d have to give this some thought. No, more than some-a lot of thought.
As she turned away toward the door, she heard a whimper. She looked back and saw him still standing there with his little arms stretched out toward her. Did he recognize her as his mother? Could that be possible? She felt a sudden impulse to rush to him but fought it off.
“Sorry,” she whispered. “Can’t. See you later maybe.”
She heard another whimper as she stepped out the door into the hallway but kept moving. A third whimper, louder, more drawn out, turned her around and forced her to take one last peek at him.
As she watched, he turned away, head hanging, and curled up on his mattress facing the wall.
The forlorn dejection tightened her throat and damn near broke her heart. He had recognized her as his mother and she’d turned away from him, rejected him. And with those looks, he was probably facing a lifetime of people turning away.
Something crumbled inside her.
God help her, she couldn’t leave him like this. She hurried over to the crib. He turned over at her approach, crawled to the railing, and pulled himself to his feet. His arms went out to her.
“Come on, baby,” she whispered. “I’m taking you home.”
She pulled him into her arms-heavier than he looked-and grabbed the blanket from the crib, then she retraced her steps to the door. She peeked out. No sound other than the TV. She stepped to the edge of the great room and peered through to the bayfront yard.
She didn’t see Gilda.
Her heart twisted in her chest. Oh, God, where was Gilda?
And then Dawn spotted her at the other end. She’d switched sides to pull weeds over there.
The baby saw the older woman and shrieked, a truly ear-splitting sound this close.
Weak with relief, her heart still thumping, Dawn turned and hurried for the front door. She paused long enough to wrap the baby in the blanket, then she pushed open the storm door and pulled the inner door closed behind her.
She ran for the O’Donnell house.
The baby loosed another shriek as the chill wind and snowflakes swirled around him.
5
Gilda straightened and cocked her head.
What?
That cry… it almost sounded like the little one. But that baby, that awful, ugly little baby couldn’t be heard in the yard. Which was why she was out here. She couldn’t stand that cry. It set her teeth on edge. It scraped her nerves raw. And the little monster kept doing it, over and over.
Not a hunger cry. Nor was it a distressed cry because it needed changing. She’d feed it its formula-such an enormous appetite-but even when finally sated and changed into a fresh diaper, still it shrieked. All through its waking hours. Gilda had come to the conclusion that it liked to make that noise. Almost as if it knew it disturbed her and it cried out just to torture her.
Sometimes she needed all her strength and loyalty to the Master to keep from holding a pillow over its wretched little head to stop it forever.
But the Master had plans for the baby. He had not shared them with Gilda or Georges, but he had made it clear he wanted the baby kept well until the time when he had use for him.
Gilda had had only one child of her own, and Kristof had been nothing like this one. Her Kristof had been headstrong, but a good boy. She hadn’t heard from him lately, but that wasn’t unusual. Sometimes his work for the Order did not allow easy communication. But he would call when he was able. Kristof was a good son.
But that child inside-a devil child from a devil girl. That Dawn Pickering was no good, and she’d given birth to a child just as bad. Gilda almost wished the mother had been allowed to keep the child. Let her deal with that awful sound.
There. She heard it again. It seemed to come from the other side of the house. But it couldn’t be the child. Probably some seagull.
Time to go inside anyway. Her hands were stiff from the cold, almost frozen. But the discomfort was nothing compared to the sound of that child.
The Master could silence him. The Master would step into the child’s room and stare at him. And thereafter the child would remain silent-for as long as the Master stayed in the house. As soon as he left, as he had last week, the screeching resumed. For six days straight now. Gilda was so glad the Master was returning.
The Master… he frightened and fascinated her. Her Kristof feared him and said she must obey him at all times or suffer grave consequences. She had taken that with a grain of salt until Georges’s predecessor, Henry, had deviated from the Master’s instructions regarding that little trollop, Dawn. He disappeared. Gilda never saw or heard from Henry again.
She opened the door at the side of the great room and stepped in. She pulled it closed behind her and tensed as she stood listening, waiting. But the sound didn’t come.
She waited longer. Still silence.
Could it be… could the little monster have fallen asleep? She found that almost too much to hope for. After screeching all day, the child would fall asleep at night, but rarely for more that two consecutive hours. Then he’d be up, waking the house with his cries. But never since the day he was born had he taken a nap.
She tiptoed across the great room and approached the center hall. She stopped at its entrance. Still silence, glorious silence. She had no idea how soundly he slept-deep, like her Kristof in his baby days, so that almost nothing awakened him, or very lightly, so that the slightest sound would rouse him? If the latter, she needed to sneak that bedroom door closed, or run the risk of waking him with the simple rattle of a pan in the kitchen.
She glanced farther down the hall at the front door to the street side and noticed it closed over. Hadn’t that been open? She couldn’t be sure. The child’s racket was so distracting it was a wonder she remembered her own name.
She slipped out of her shoes and edged up to the nursery door. Anyone watching her exaggerated caution might think she was sneaking up on an unsusp
ecting victim, but this opportunity for peace and quiet was too rare and precious to ruin with carelessness.
When she reached the doorway she peeked through the narrow opening between the frame molding and the hinged side of the door. She had a view of the foot of the crib but no sign of the child. He must have fallen asleep at the other end.
Gilda took a breath before peeking around the door. The last thing she wanted to see was that ugly little face staring back at her through the bars. Because sure as the sun rose in the east, a screech would be quick to follow.
She poked her head past the edge of the door for a full view of the crib and Empty!
Mouth dry, heart pounding, she rushed into the room and gripped the top rail as she stared at the rumpled sheets.
No! This could not be!
Wait. The child could stand long, long before it should have been able. Could it have climbed out?
She dropped to her hands and knees and was crawling about the floor when she remembered something. She popped her head back up to the level of the crib mattress.
The blanket. Where was the blue blanket she kept in the crib? Even if by some miracle the baby could have climbed out, it would not have taken the blanket.
And the front door-Georges had left it open when he’d gone fishing. And now it was closed.
Someone had taken the baby!
Who? The mother? Dawn? No. She was too self-centered to even worry about her baby, and too stupid to track him here and take him.
Dr. Heinze? He’d visited only yesterday. He was interested in the baby, yes, but more as a specimen than a child. She couldn’t see him involved in a kidnapping.
She ran to the front door and pulled it open. She stood there, panting with terror as she scanned the empty yard. The Master… no telling what he would do if he returned tonight and learned that Gilda had allowed the baby to be taken. Not even her Kristof could save her.
A random passerby? Saw the open door and investigated? Took the child for ransom or perversion?
But where was he? No sign of a car, or another living soul. She’d have heard car tires on the stones.
She ran back to the great room, slipped back into her shoes, then raced out to the bayside yard. She searched churning waters but saw no sign of Georges. The misty, snowy air hampered visibility.
Back to the house, this time to the kitchen where she yanked open a drawer and grabbed a carving knife. She would search, go from house to house if she had to, until she found that child. And if anyone interfered…
Out again into the cold, the street side, this time. She went to the garage and kicked open the side door. The Master’s car sat within. She checked inside, around, and under. No sign of that miserable little child.
She stepped back into the yard and slammed the door behind her. Where next? Maybe She heard something… a high-pitched shriek. Like she’d heard before and written off as a seagull. But this was no seagull. She knew that awful cry like the sound of her own name. No sign of anyone about, but it seemed to originate from somewhere to her left.
She headed in that direction and had reached the middle of the roadway when she heard it again.
She could swear it came from that garage across the street…
6
Oh, that sound. It pierced her like a knife.
“Come on, little guy,” Dawn said as she fitted him into the infant seat in her Volvo. “Cool it, okay? Somebody’ll totally hear you.”
Carrying the baby wrapped against the weather, she’d run straight back inside the O’Donnell house, just long enough to grab her keys and her phone. The display informed her that she’d missed a call from a number she didn’t know. Weezy? Where was she, anyway? And how could she call without her phone? Not important right now. Dawn would get back to her once she was on the road.
She’d hurried out to the garage, entering by the side panel door and leaving the two big doors closed. And they would stay closed until the last minute. Jack had left the padlock in the latch but unlocked. As soon as the baby was strapped into his seat, she’d open those doors and get out of here.
She knew she was probably messing up Jack’s plans, and probably even screwing herself. And if she had to do it over again, maybe she could have resisted grabbing her baby. But when he’d turned his face to the wall like that, she’d lost it.
And now this little genie was out of the bottle and she saw no way of putting him back.
But maybe if she got out of the neighborhood without leaving a trace, Jack could still make his plan work.
As she fitted the child’s arms beneath the seat straps, she couldn’t resist a quick, closer look at his armpits. No… no tentacles. But she could have sworn Wait. Were those little scars in his armpits? Had they removed his tentacles?
Dr. Heinze… a pediatric surgeon. She’d always been curious as to why a surgeon had been present rather than a plain pediatrician. Now she knew. They’d cut them off. She noticed a bump beneath the surface of each of the scars. Were the tentacles trying to grow back?
And what happened to all the hair she’d seen? She felt his arm… bristly. Had they-? Yes! They’d shaved his arms and legs. What the-?
And then she heard the squeal of the side-door hinges behind her and the garage filled with daylight. She turned and saw a squat silhouette rushing toward her, screaming.
“You! You-you-you-you- you!”
She knew that voice-Gilda!
Something glinted in the older woman’s raised hand, then slashed toward her. Dawn tried to duck and turn away but was trapped against the car door. The blade cut through her sweater, and a blaze of pain, like nothing she’d ever felt in her life, lanced into her chest near her left shoulder. She spun away with the knife still in her and stumbled, landing on her hands and knees, worsening the pain. She’d heard of seeing stars and now she really did.
Meanwhile Gilda had moved to her side and was kicking her, screaming in fury.
“You! Will I never be free of you?”
Dawn gasped as she felt a rib crack. The old bitch was going to kill her… kick her to death.
She grabbed the handle of the knife and pulled. The blade came loose from her chest with a slick wet sound and another burst of agony. Nearly overwhelmed by the pain, Dawn slashed out blindly, connecting with her first swing. She felt the knife sink into something-had to be flesh because she heard Gilda’s screams change tone from rage to shock and pain.
She yanked the knife free and turned on her knees in time to see Gilda falling backward, clutching her bleeding lower leg. Dawn heaved to her feet and stumbled over to her. Gilda kicked at her but missed. Dawn felt her legs turn to taffy as she moved in. They gave way and she landed knees first on Gilda’s abdomen, knocking the wind out of her with a whoosh. Nearly blind with pain and panic, Dawn raised the knife and drove it into Gilda. She didn’t know where she struck but Gilda screamed louder, so Dawn struck again, and again, and again…
“Take my baby?” said a barely audible voice she recognized as her own. “ My baby? You? No! Never! Especially you. Especially you!”
Soon the screaming stopped, but Dawn kept stabbing. Her arm seemed to have a life of its own, and it seemed to be thinking that Gilda was somehow connected to Jerry, the foul scum who’d seduced her and fathered the baby, and who’d later killed her mother. Everyone who’d ruined her life seemed to be connected. Not that she hadn’t played a part in the ruin, but she was the one who’d suffer for it until her last breath. She couldn’t reach those others, but she had Gilda and Gilda was going to pay for all of them.
And then the strength ran out of her and Dawn dropped the knife and looked at the bloody piece of butchered meat splayed before her. Gilda’s eyes stared roofward from a blood-spattered face. Red still oozed from the ruin of her throat into the sandy floor of the garage.
Oh, God! Did I do that?
Dawn felt her stomach heave but the morning’s coffee stayed down. Clinging to the rear fender of the car, she pulled herself to her feet with her r
ight arm-the left seemed useless-and checked the baby. He hadn’t made a sound. And now he stared at her with wide black eyes. His arms thrust out to her, his hands opening and closing as if squeezing some invisible toy.
“We’ll play later,” she gasped as the garage tilted around her. She grabbed the edge of the door to steady herself. “First we get you out of here before Georges gets back.”
She looked at the closed garage doors. Somehow she was going to have to find the strength to go outside, walk around to the front, remove the lock, and swing them open.
Every breath hurt like a new wound. She didn’t know if she could make it.
She had a thought: Maybe she wouldn’t have to.
The doors were wood-old wood-held closed by a little lock in a simple gate latch. And she had a car.
It took nearly all her strength to slam the rear door and open the driver’s. She dropped behind the steering wheel and found the keys. Somehow she got her door closed-not easy without her left arm, and not completely, but at least latched. She started the car, put it in reverse, and stomped on the gas. The car lurched into motion and hit the doors. With a crash and a clatter they blew wide. The passenger-side mirror caught the edge of one and ripped off with a crunch.
Worry about that later. No, she wouldn’t worry at all. Didn’t matter. Getting out was all that mattered.
She backed to the middle of the street, shifted into drive, and began the laborious process of turning the wheel with one hand. It seemed to take forever. Finally she got it turned and gently hit the gas. As the car began to move forward, the road swam before her. She clenched her teeth and kept a death grip on the wheel with her good hand.
She coughed, spurring a fresh jab of agony and spraying blood all over the dashboard. She watched in horror as it dripped onto her legs and the floor.
Oh, God, what did that mean? Had Gilda punctured her lung?
Everything went blurry. She blinked, trying to focus. Gravel crunched under the tires. The ringing of her cell phone brought her back, her vision cleared-and she saw she was rolling across the mansion’s front yard toward the boat dock and the lagoon.
The Dark at the End rj-15 Page 17
