by Rick Hautala
“Well, don’t you think we ought to go on up there and see what the hell he’s up to? We’ve got the place posted.”
“I don’t know,” Thurston said, rubbing his nose with his gloved finger. “I think I’d just as soon leave him alone for now.”
“How long you s’pose he’s been back in town?” Seavey asked.
“Good question.” Thurston looked over at Seavey and then leaned forward to stare up at the house. “I had no idea he was here until tonight. All we gotta do is ask around a bit. We’ll find out.”
“Do you think he might have had something to do with Ned Simmons disappearing? As far as we knew, Wentworth was supposed to be in Florida.”
“I told you,” Thurston said evenly, as though to a child, “that I’ve never trusted that guy. Something makes me think he knows more than he’s telling. Once I found out about his background, that he had raped a girl, well—”
“I thought that had never been proved,” Seavey said. “That it had never gone to court.”
Thurston spoke as if he hadn’t heard Seavey. “And if he raped a girl once, why, who’s to say he wouldn’t do it again, and then maybe kill.”
“And you don’t think we should go up there and check it out?” He turned and looked up at the house. It stood out like a soot smear on the darkened snowfield. Seavey shivered and looked back at Thurston. “What could he be up to?”
“Look!” Thurston said suddenly, pointing up at the house. “In the window to the right.”
“I don’t see anything.”
“It’s gone now. But there was light in one of the windows. He’s in the house.”
“Come on, let’s go back to the office,” Seavey said. “This place gives me the creeps.”
Thurston dropped the cruiser into gear and slowly pulled into the road beside Bob’s car. Then he started driving down Bartlett Road slowly, staring into his rearview mirror more than at the road ahead.
“I wonder what he’s doing up there,” Seavey said softly as they drove back toward town.
.V.
The door leading to the cellar was bolted tightly. Even by throwing his full weight against the door, Bob couldn’t budge it. All he got was a sore shoulder. He grasped the door knob and rattled it furiously. “Goddamned thing!”
“We’ve come up empty handed, Bob. Let’s go back. We’re not going to find anything.” Lisa’s voice was almost a whine. Bob looked from the cellar door to her and back to the door.
“We may as well finish our search,” he said with exasperation. “Let’s see if we can find something to get this door open with.”
They went back into the kitchen and looked around. In the anteroom, Bob found a rusted tire-iron. “Just right,” he said, hefting the heavy metal bar. “Let’s give it a go.”
Back at the door, Bob shoved the end of the iron in by the lock. He gave the bar a few light shoves, then with a fierce grunt, he threw his weight into it.
“If—I—can—just—spring—it.”
His face flushed, and he could hear his heart thundering in his eyes.
“Just—get—it—to—”
Suddenly, the door kicked open, swung away from him, and banged against the wall. He lost his grip on the tire-iron, and it fell to the floor with a bang.
They had gotten used to the stuffy, noxious air of the house and had forgotten about it. But now, as the cellar door swung open, another, stronger wave of putrid air hit them in the face.
“Whew! Now we know where it’s coming from,” Bob said, staggering backwards. Both he and Lisa had their hands up over their faces. Lisa started to retch but controlled it. Heaving a little sigh, she winked at Bob over her mittened hand.
“You don’t have to come,” Bob said, his voice muffled. He trained his light on the stairway leading down.
“Ummmm, I think I’ll wait up here, if you don’t mind,” Lisa said from behind her mitten. She stepped back and leaned against the wall opposite the open cellar door.
“Sure. Be just a second,” Bob said as he placed his foot on the top step. The stairway creaked under his weight, and he cast one quick look at Lisa before starting down.
The awful smell got stronger as he took a few steps down. “I’ll be right up,” he called. He paused on the steps and fished his handkerchief from his back pocket. He tied it outlaw fashion across his face, and looked back up to where he could see the glow from Lisa’s flashlight. It reassured him as he turned and began to scan the cellar.
“Bob?”
Lisa’s voice sounded far away, and the impression he had that he was submerged under water came back stronger. He tugged at the mask, wanting to pull it aside and take a deep breath to dispel the drowning feeling. He knew, though, that the putrid odor would gag him if he did.
“Bob! Did you find anything?” Lisa shouted.
“Just a second. I’m looking.” The handkerchief was damp and clung uncomfortably to his face.
Bob swung his flashlight around in a wide arc. The low wooden beams, rough-cut and rotting, were draped with cobwebs. They hung motionless in the still, stifling air. The dirt floor was damp. Mold grew in the corners and up the sides of the walls. Black earth clung to his shoes as Bob walked over to a long-unused tool-bench. The tools were corroded brick-red; like the blood on the floor upstairs, he thought.
He walked past the stairs over to the thick bulk of the chimney. For a moment, he scanned the crumbling masonry, streaked with lime and cement. He picked at a loose brick that fell to the floor with a dull plop.
“Anything?” Lisa shouted from the top of the stairs.
“No.”
“Come on up, Bob.”
He didn’t answer as he moved around the mass of chimney to the back of the cellar. “I guess I’ll—” He stopped short.
“Bob?”
“I—”
“Bob! What is it?”
He moved his mouth to answer, but all that came out was a strangled sound.
“Bob!”
He heard her at the top of the steps. He knew that if he turned around he would see her flashlight beam reaching down into the cellar’s darkness. But his eyes were held by the sight illuminated by his flashlight. He staggered back and bumped against the chimney, pressing his back against the crumbling bricks, hoping their solidness would ground him in reality.
The stairway creaked as Lisa started down. Bob turned quickly and ran to the foot of the stairs.
“No!” he shouted, holding up his hand to block her way. “Stay up there!”
“What is it, Bob?” Lisa yelled, panic coloring her voice. She was poised in mid-step.
“Get upstairs!”
When he saw her take a quick step backwards, he aimed his light into the corner behind the chimney, thankful that he could see it from there. He raced up the steps three at a time. Once he was in the hallway, he turned Lisa around roughly and pushed her toward the door.
“Let’s get the hell out of here!”
It wasn’t until they were back in the car with the doors locked and the motor idling that he told her what he had seen down in the cellar. He knew that from then on, for the rest of his life, he would be haunted by what he had seen. In the corner of the cellar, the mummified body of Julie Sikes was lying face up on the dirt floor. Her head, hands, and feet were all touching a point of the pentagram that had been dug in the cellar floor. What most horrified Bob was that there had been a wide smile on her face!
Chapter Seventeen
.I.
Sunday, April 11 (Palm Sunday)
Lisa stood at the side of the church, watching as the congregation filed slowly out the door following the early morning Palm Sunday service. She was nervous and shifted continually from one foot to the other.
There was a clatter behind her as the acolyte sniffed out the altar candles. She looked around, saw him eyeing her suspiciously, and gave him a curt nod. Sighing, she sat back down in the pew.
She hadn’t really intended to speak with Reverend Alder. But when she h
ad arrived for church, he had commented that she looked pale, or worried, and asked if there was something he could do. A valiant effort not to let her emotions show failed, and he had asked her to wait for him after the service.
Snatches from the service that morning kept echoing in her mind as she waited. She crossed her legs and folded her arms across her chest. Reverend Alder’s sermon had been on guilt: just what she needed to hear. It had dampened the bright spring morning. Although the connection had never been made explicit, Lisa was sure the reverend had meant for the congregation to see the parallels between Jesus’ suffering on the cross and the town’s recent suffering.
Both were dying, Lisa thought with a shudder.
The old spiritual the choir had sung also hit home.
“Whose hands were drivin’ the nails, O Lord?
Whose hands were drivin’ the nails, Lord, O Lord?
My hands were drivin’ the nails, O Lord!
And I did crucify my God!”
Tears welled in Lisa’s eyes, threatening to spill. She wiped them until they began to sting. The spiritual kept changing in her mind to:
Whose fangs are destroyin’ the town, O Lord?
Whose claws are destroyin’ the town, Lord, O Lord?
A hand came to rest gently on her shoulder. Lisa was surprised that, feeling as keyed up as she was, she didn’t scream and jump. She looked up at the smiling face of Reverend Alder.
“Can we talk here, or would you like to take a walk?” he asked softly. His bushy white eyebrows came together over the bridge of his nose.
Lisa shrugged. When she made no move to stand, the reverend sat down beside her. He put his arms on the back of the pew almost touching her shoulder. Again, Lisa was surprised that she didn’t pull away. She felt reassured that there was someone she could talk to.
With watery eyes and a voice that threatened to crack at any second, she told Reverend Alder everything. She told him about her relationship with Bob; Bob’s idea about what was killing the people of the town; even, although she had promised not to, about Bob’s discovery of Julie Sikes’ body in Ned’s cellar. The whole time she spoke, the reverend sat, silently nodding his head whenever she paused.
“And that’s it,” she said at last. Her constricted throat was barely able to get the words out. “The whole thing is driving me crazy, and I don’t know what it’s doing to Bob!” She did feel a measure of relief just for having said it to someone besides Bob.
Reverend Alder sat for a minute with his hands folded in his lap. His eyes were fixed on the cross on the altar. Finally, he cleared his throat and spoke. “You know, Lisa, this past winter has been without a doubt the most difficult time of my life. That included when I was a chaplain in World War II. There, at least, the deaths had some sense of purpose. The senseless deaths this past winter leave me feeling hollow.”
“I know,” Lisa said, sniffling. “Sometimes it seems as though God is so cruel.”
“No. No,” the reverend said, gripping Lisa’s shoulder. “Not God! It isn’t God who’s testing us. It isn’t God who’s killing these people. It’s Satan, the Enemy. He’s the one who brought this to our town.”
“You mean,” Lisa said, looking up, “you mean that you think Bob might be right? That there is something supernatural, a werewolf who’s doing this?”
A trace of a smile twitched at the corner of the reverend’s mouth.
“Well, perhaps not quite that literally, Lisa. But, yes, in a way I think Bob might have, well…” He leaned back and craned his neck, rubbing his hands vigorously together. “There might be an element of truth there. Like God, Satan can work in mysterious ways, ways we mortals cannot discern.”
“That night at Bob’s house, when that, that animal came through the door. You wouldn’t have believed it! I still don’t believe what I saw, but my cross was the only thing that stopped it, my silver cross!”
Reverend Alder said nothing.
“And all that stuff about Julie Sikes doing magic. Bob found one of her magic books in the ashes of her house the night it burned. It was pretty badly damaged, but he pieced enough of it together to find some of the incantations she might have used.”
“People have been known to engage in some rather bizarre practices,” Reverend Alder said. “And for them, a lot of times, they seem to work.”
Lisa gasped.
“I said seem to work,” he repeated, looking at Lisa intently. “You and I know that there is a lot of wrong in the world. A lot of people delude themselves into thinking—”
“But it’s more than that!” Lisa said sharply. “I saw! That night at Bob’s house, I saw! There is something in Cooper Falls, something supernatural that’s killing people!”
“You missed the point of my message this morning, didn’t you?” the reverend said, patting Lisa’s shoulder.
Lisa looked at him quizzically.
“It’s Palm Sunday, the day Jesus rode into Jerusalem, knowing that he was going to his death. But winter and death are behind us now, Lisa. Easter is not a celebration of death, it’s a celebration of life. The promise of spring. The eternal process of new life coming from the old. Our Lord said, ‘He that believeth in me shall not perish, but have eternal life.’”
Lisa sat wringing her hands in her lap. They were slippery with sweat.
“But Julie Sikes’ body! Ned had it there in his cellar, inside the magic pentagram. Reverend Alder!” Lisa sat forward and gripped the reverend’s arms. “If what you say is all true, that means there can be eternal death too!”
.II.
Wednesday, April 14
Bob sat at the kitchen counter, feeling like Captain Queeg in The Caine Mutiny as he tumbled three bullets from one hand to the other. These bullets were not ordinary. Where most bullets would have been dull lead, these were, instead, brightly polished silver. Bob looked at them and rattled them like dice.
“I felt like such a damn fool, asking that guy in the gun-shop to make them for me,” he said, looking at Lisa. “Finally I told him that a friend of mine was a Lone Ranger fan and that these were for his birthday. That seemed to satisfy him, and he finished making them without any more are-you-crazy looks.”
Bob glanced down at the partially burned book that lay spread open on the counter.
“I wish you had remembered to bring the new copy with you,” he said.
“Sorry.”
“Oh, well.” He dropped the bullets one by one into the crack in the spine. As they landed, he half-expected to see them glow with a dull blue light like the cross had the night they had been attacked.
“I just can’t believe that this is really happening,” Lisa said distantly. She shook her head and bit her lower lip.
Bob snickered and picked up the bullets. He started passing them from hand to hand again.
“And you’re sure this will do the trick?” Lisa asked. “That this will destroy the werewolf?”
“It’s probably the most traditional way. I mean, you have to assume that there were werewolves long before gunpowder was invented, so there must be other ways. It isn’t mentioned that often in the book.” He tapped the charred pages. “But that night at the house here, when the werewolf came through the door, I don’t think it was the cross that drove him away.”
“Huh?” Lisa said, surprised. “I thought a religious symbol would always protect you.” She looked worried.
“Against vampires, yes,” Bob said. “But not for werewolves. They operate on a much lower, more bestial level than vampires. No, I think it was the silver in the cross that made the explosion when it touched the animal.”
“But you feel that you can depend on the silver bullets?”
“There are plenty of other ways,” Bob said with a tight laugh. “But if it’s good enough for Hollywood, it’s good enough for me.”
“Some recommendation,” Lisa muttered.
“It depends on which country you check, but there are other ways to reverse the spell and destroy the werewolf. I guess i
t all comes down to whether you want to kill it or just have it resume its human shape.”
“Are there any other, safer ways?” Lisa asked.
“Well, you can rap the beast on the head with a stick, three times between the ears. That’s supposed to reverse the spell. Or you can repeat the person’s Christian name three times. That is supposed to reverse the change. Or you can just draw blood.”
“Sounds like just about anything will do it,” Lisa said.
Bob chuckled and thumbed the charred edges of the pages. “I think I’ve got enough out of this to do the job.”
“You’re sure,” Lisa said after a moment, “that you don’t want to go to Thurston and tell him. After all, there is a body in the cellar up there. The police should know.”
“Thurston would probably just love it if I came in and told him where to find the body. He’d have me locked up, either there or in the loony bin, and throw the damned key away.”
“You don’t have to be so melodramatic,” Lisa said.
“Yeah, well…” Bob replied. He shifted uneasily in his seat when the image of Julie’s smiling face rose in his mind. He shook his head to clear it away, as if the image was water in his ears.
“I mean it, Bob. You’re acting as though you’re the only person involved in this. Think of the other people, the ones who have died, the families. Ned! Think about what Ned must be going through!”
“Well, that all depends on whether Ned is doing it on purpose or not.” He shifted again. “I know, Lisa. Really. I feel it a lot more than, maybe, I let on. It’s just that I think, I’m sure that unless I do this—” He indicated the silver bullets. “Unless I do this, there’s no hope.” His mouth twisted into a hard grimace.
“But there is hope, Bob.” Her eyes were watering. “I believe in you, and I believe you’re right. It contradicts everything rational I’ve ever learned, but I’m convinced there’s something supernatural going on.”
“Well,” Bob shrugged his shoulders, “at least I’ll have company in my rubber room.” He felt better when Lisa’s mouth spread slowly into a smile.
