THE SERVANTS OF TWILIGHT [065-4.9]
BY DEAN R. KOONTZ
Synopsis:
A wretched hag who is head of a crack pot religious cult targets Christine's six-year-old son, Joey, as the anti-Christ. Every member of the cult then sets out to destroy the boy and the only person Christine can find to really help her is a private detective. Grace (the cult leader) seems to be able to locate them with her psychic powers no matter what they do or where they go. Lots of violence and a little explicit sex. Excellent supernatural thriller from a master storyteller.
It began in sunshine, not on a dark and stormy night.
She wasn't prepared for what happened, wasn't on guard. Who would have expected trouble on a lovely Sunday afternoon like that?
The sky was clear and blue. It was surprisingly warm, for the end of February, even in southern California. The breeze was gentle and scented with winter flowers. It was one of those days when everyone seemed destined to live forever.
Christine Scavello had gone to South Coast Plaza in Costa Mesa to do some shopping, and she had taken Joey with her. He liked the big mall. He was fascinated by the stream that splashed through one wing of the building, down the middle of the public promenade and over a gentle waterfall. He was also intrigued by the hundreds of trees and plants that thrived indoors, and he was a born people-watcher. But most of all he liked the carousel in the central courtyard. In return for one ride on the carousel, he would tag along happily and quietly while Christine spent two or three hours shopping.
Joey was a good kid, the best. He never whined, never threw tantrums or complained. Trapped in the house on a long, rainy day, he could entertain himself for hour after hour and not once grow bored or restless or crabby the way most kids would.
To Christine, Joey sometimes seemed to be a little old man in a six-year-old boy's small body. Occasionally he said the most amazingly grown-up things, and he usually had the patience of an adult, and he was often wiser than his years.
But at other times, especially when he asked where his daddy was or why his daddy had gone away-or even when he didn't ask but just stood there with the question shimmering in his eyes-he looked so innocent, fragile, so heartbreakingly vulnerable that she just had to grab him and hug him.
Sometimes the hugging wasn't merely an expression of her love for him, but also an evasion of the issue that he had raised.
She had never found a way to tell him about his father, and it was a subject she wished he would just drop until she was ready to bring it up. He was too young to understand the truth, and she didn't want to lie to him-not too blatantly, anyway-or resort to cutesy euphemisms.
He had asked about his father just a couple of hours ago, on the way to the mall. She had said, "Honey, your daddy just wasn't ready for the responsibility of a family."
"Didn't he like me?"
"He never even knew you, so how could he not like you? He was gone before you were born."
"Oh, yeah? How could I have been borned if he wasn't here?"
the boy had asked skeptically.
"That's something you'll learn in sex education class at school," she had said, amused.
"When? "
"Oh, in about six or seven more years, I guess."
"That's a long time to wait." He had sighed ." I'll bet he didn't like me and that's why he went away."
Frowning, she had said, "You put that thought right out of your mind, sugar. It was me your daddy didn't like."
"You? He didn't like you?"
"That's right."
Joey had been silent for a block or two, but finally he had said, "Boy, if he didn't like you, he musta been just plain dumb."
Then, apparently sensing that the subject made her uneasy, he had changed it. A little old man in a six-year-old boy's small body.
The fact was that Joey was the result of a brief, passionate, reckless, and stupid affair. Sometimes, looking back on it, she couldn't believe that she had been so naive . . . or so desperate to prove her womanhood and independence. It was the only relationship in Christine's life that qualified as a "fling," the only time she had ever been swept away. For that man, for no other man before or since, for that man alone, she had put aside her morals and principles and common sense, heeding only the urgent desires of her flesh. She had told herself that it was Romance with a capital R, not just love but the Big Love, even
Love At First Sight. Actually she had just been weak, vulnerable, and eager to make a fool of herself. Later, when she realized that Mr. Wonderful had lied to her and used her with cold, cynical disregard for her feelings, when she discovered that she had given herself to a man who was utterly without respect for her and who lacked even a minimal sense of responsibility, she had been deeply ashamed. Eventually she realized there was a point at which shame and remorse became self-indulgent and nearly as lamentable as the sin that had occasioned those emotions, so she put the shabby episode behind her and vowed to forget it.
Except that Joey kept asking who his father was, where his father was, why his father had gone away. And how did you tell a six-year-old about your libidinous urges, the treachery of your own heart, and your regrettable capacity for occasionally making a complete fool of yourself? If it could be done, she hadn't seen the way. She was just going to have to wait until he was grown up enough to understand that adults could sometimes be just as dumb and confused as little kids. Until then, she stalled him with vague answers and evasions that satisfied neither of them.
She only wished he wouldn't look quite so lost, quite so small and vulnerable when he asked about his father. It made her want to cry.
She was haunted by the vulnerability she perceived in him .
He was never ill, an extremely healthy child, and she was grateful for that. Nevertheless, she was always reading magazine and newspaper articles about childhood diseases, not merely polio and measles and whooping cough-he had been immunized for those and more-but horrible, crippling, incurable illnesses, often rare although no less frightening for their rarity. She memorized the early-warning signs of a hundred exotic maladies and was always on the watch for those symptoms in Joey. Of course, like any active boy, he suffered his share of cuts and bruises, and the sight of his blood always scared the hell out of her, even if it was only one drop from a shallow scratch. Her concern about Joey's health was almost an obsession, but she never quite allowed it to actually become an obsession, for ,he was aware of the psychological problems that could develop in a child with an overly protective mother.
That Sunday afternoon in February, when death suddenly stepped up and grinned at Joey, it wasn't in the form of the viruses and bacteria about which Christine worried. It was just an old woman with stringy gray hair, a pallid face, and gray eyes the shade of dirty ice.
When Christine and Joey left the mall by way of Bullock's Department Store, it was five minutes past three. Sun glinted off automobile chrome and windshield glass from one end of the broad parking lot to the other. Their silver-gray Pontiac Firebird was in the row directly in front of Bullock's doors, the twelfth car in the line, and they were almost to it when the old woman appeared.
She stepped out from between the Firebird and a white Ford van, directly into their path.
She didn't seem threatening at first. She was a bit odd, sure, but nothing worse than that. Her shoulder-length mane of thick gray hair looked windblown, although only a mild breeze washed across the lot. She was in her sixties, perhaps even early seventies, forty years older than Christine, but her face wasn't deeply lined, and her skin was baby-smooth; she had the unnatural puffiness that was often associated with cortisone injections. Pointed nose. Small mouth, thick lips. A round, dimpled chin. She was wearing a simple turquoi
se necklace, a long-sleeved green blouse, green skirt, green shoes. On her plump hands were eight rings, all green: turquoise, malachite, emeralds. The unrelieved green suggested a uniform of some kind.
She blinked at Joey, grinned, and said, "My heavens, aren't you a handsome young man?"
Christine smiled. Unsolicited compliments from strangers were nothing new to Joey. With his dark hair, intense blue eyes, and well-related features, he was a strikingly good-looking child.
"Yes, sir, a regular little movie star," the old woman said.
"Thank you," Joey said, blushing.
Christine got a closer look at the stranger and had to revise her initial impression of grandmotherliness. There were specks of lint on the old woman's badly wrinkled skirt, two small food stains on her blouse, and a sprinkling of dandruff on her shoulders. Her stockings bagged at the knees, and the left one had a run in it. She was holding a smoldering cigarette, and the fingers
of her right hand were yellow with nicotine. She was one of those people from whom kids should never accept candy or cookies or any other treat-not because she seemed the type to poison or molest children (which she did not), but because she seemed the type to keep a dirty kitchen. Even on close inspection, she didn't appear dangerous, just unkempt.
Leaning toward Joey, grinning down at him, paying no attention whatever to Christine, she said, "What's your name, young man? Can you tell me your name?"
"Joey," he said shyly.
"How old are you, Joey?"
"Six."
"Only six and already pretty enough to make the ladies swoon! "
Joey fidgeted with embarrassment and clearly wished he could bolt for the car. But he stayed where he was and behaved courteously, the way his mother had taught him.
The old woman said, "I'll bet a dollar to a doughnut that I know your birthday."
"I don't have a doughnut," Joey said, taking the bet literally, solemnly warning her that he wouldn't be able to pay off if he lost.
"Isn't that cute?" the old woman said to him ." So perfectly, wonderfully cute. But I know. You were born on Christmas Eve."
"Nope," Joey said ." February second."
"February second? Oh, now, don't joke around with me," she said, still ignoring Christine, still grinning broadly at Joey, wagging one nicotine-yellowed finger at him ." Sure as shootin', you were born December twenty-fourth ."
Christine wondered what the old woman was leading up to.
Joey said, "Mom, you tell her. February second. Does she owe me a dollar?"
"No, she doesn't owe you anything, honey," Christine said .
"It wasn't a real bet ."
"Well," he said, 'if I'd lost, I couldn'tve given her any doughnut anyway, so I guess it's okay if she don't give me a dollar ."
Finally the old woman raised her head and looked at Christine.
Christine started to smile but stopped when she saw the stranger's eyes. They were hard, cold, angry. They were neither the eyes of a grandmother nor those of a harmless old bag lady .
There was power in them-and stubbornness and flinty resolve .
The woman wasn't smiling any more. either.
What'.9 going on here?
Before Christine could speak, the woman said, "He was born on Christmas Eve, wasn't he? Hmmm? Wasn't he'?" She spoke with such urgency, with such force that she sprayed spittle at Christine. She didn't wait for an answer, either, but hurried on: "You're lying about February second. You're just trying to hide, both of you, but I know the truth. I know. You can't fool me .
Not me."
Suddenly she seemed dangerous, after all.
Christine put a hand on Joey's shoulder and urged him around the crone, toward the car.
But the woman stepped sideways, blocking them. She waved her cigarette at Joey, glared at him, and said, "I know who you are. I know what you are, everything about you, everything .
Better believe it. Oh, yes, yes, I know, yes."
A nut, Christine thought, and her stomach twisted. Jesus. A crazy old lady, the kind who might be capable of anything. God, please let her be harmless.
Looking bewildered, Joey backed away from the woman, grabbed his mother's hand and squeezed tight.
"Please get out of our way," Christine said, trying to maintain a calm and reasonable tone of voice, wanting very much not to antagonize.
The old woman refused to move. She brought the cigarette to her lips. Her hand was shaking.
Holding Joey's hand, Christine tried to go around the stranger.
But again the woman blocked them. She puffed nervously on her cigarette and blew smoke out her nostrils. She never took her eyes off Joey.
Christine looked around the parking lot. A few people were getting out of a car two rows away, and two young men were at the end of this row, heading in the other direction, but no one was near enough to help if the crazy woman became violent.
Throwing down her cigarette, hyperventilating, eyes bulging,
looking like a big malicious toad, the woman said, "Oh, yeah, I know your ugly, vicious, hateful secrets, you little fraud."
Christine's heart began to hammer.
"Get out of our way," she said sharply, no longer trying to remain-or even able to remain-calm.
" You can't fool me with your play-acting-"
Joey began to cry.
-and your phony cuteness. Tears won't help, either."
For the third time, Christine tried to go around the woman and was blocked again.
The harridan's face hardened in anger ." I know exactly what you are, you little monster."
Christine shoved, and the old woman stumbled backward.
Pulling Joey with her, Christine hurried to the car, feeling as if she were in a nightmare, running in slow-motion.
The car door was locked. She was a compulsive door-locker .
She wished that, for once, she had been careless .
The old woman scuttled in behind them, shouting something that Christine couldn't hear because her ears were filled with the frantic pounding of her heart and with Joey's crying.
" Mom!"
Joey was almost jerked out of her grasp. The old woman had her talons hooked in his shirt.
"Let go of him, damn you!" Christine said.
"Admit it!" the old woman shrieked at him ." Admit what you are!"
Christine shoved again.
The woman wouldn't let go.
Christine struck her, open-handed, first on the shoulder, then across the face.
The old woman tottered backward, and Joey twisted away from her, and his shirt tore.
Somehow, even with shaking hands, Christine fitted the key into the lock, opened the car door, pushed Joey inside. He scrambled across to the passenger's seat, and she got behind the wheel and pulled the door shut with immense relief. Locked it.
The old woman peered in the driver's-side window ." Listen to me!" she shouted ." Listen!"
Christine jammed the key in the ignition, switched it on, pumped the accelerator. The engine roared.
With one milk-white fist, the crazy woman thumped the roof of the car. Again. And again.
Christine put the Firebird in gear and backed out of the parking space, moving slowly, not wanting to hurt the old woman, just wanting to get the hell away from her.
The lunatic followed, shuffling along, bent over, holding on to the door handle, glaring at Christine ." He's got to die. He's got to die."
Sobbing, Joey said, "Mom, don't let her get met"
"She won't get you, honey," Christine said, her mouth so dry that she was barely able to get the words out.
The boy huddled against his locked door, eyes streaming tears but open wide and fixed on the contorted face of the stringyhaired harpy at his mother's window.
Still in reverse, Christine accelerated a bit, turned the wheel, and nearly backed into another car that was coming slowly down the row. The other driver blew his horn, and Christine stopped just in time, with a harsh bark of brakes.
"He's got to die!" the old woman screamed. She slammed the side of one pale fist into the window almost hard enough to break the glass.
This can't be happening, Christine thought. Not on a sunny Sunday. Not in peaceful Costa Mesa.
The old woman struck the window again.
"He's got to die! "
Spittle sprayed the glass.
Christine had the car in gear and was moving away, but the old woman held on. Christine accelerated. Still, the woman kept a grip on the door handle, slid and ran and stumbled along with the car, ten feet, twenty, thirty feet, faster, faster still. Christ, was she human? Where did such an old woman find the strength and tenacity to hold on like this? She leered in through the side window, and there was such ferocity in her eyes that it wouldn't have surprised Christine if, in spite of her size and age, the hag had torn the door off. But at last she let go with a howl of anger and frustration.
At the end of the row, Christine turned right. She drove too
fast through the parking lot, and in less than a minute they were away from the mall, on Bristol Street, heading north.
Joey was still crying, though more softly than before.
"It's all right, sweetheart. It's okay now. She's gone."
She drove to MacArthur Boulevard, turned right, went three blocks, repeatedly glancing in the rearview mirror to see if they were being followed, even though she knew there wasn't much chance of that. Finally she pulled over to the curb and stopped.
She was shaking. She hoped Joey wouldn't notice.
Pulling a Kleenex from the small box on the console, she said, "Here you are, honey. Dry your eyes, blow your nose, and be brave for Mommy. Okay?"
"Okay," he said, accepting the tissue. Shortly, he was composed.
"Feeling better?" she asked.
"Yeah. Sorta.
"Scared?"
"I was ."
"But not now?"
He shook his head.
"You know," Christine said, "she really didn't mean all those nasty things she said to you."
He looked at her, puzzled. His lower lip trembled, but his voice was steady ." Then why'd she say it if she didn't mean it?"
"Well, she couldn't help herself. She was a sick lady."
Dean Koontz - (1984) Page 1
