“Get out of my way, Bobby.” She tried to go around him.
Bobby grabbed her by the arm. “You owe us some answers. You owe me.”
“Get your hand off me.”
Bobby let her go. “You better start talkin’, Marisa.”
“You’d better,” Merritt DeWitt said.
Marisa whirled round. “Or what?” She shifted past Bobby and took the first step to her stoop.
Bobby snatched her by the wrist and pulled her back. “Oh, no you don’t!”
Marisa drove her foot into his left knee. Bobby buckled to the ground in agony.
“You bitch! You fucking owe me!”
“Touch me again,” she said, “and you’ll lose those balls you think you have.” She eyeballed the rest of them and focused on Ms. DeWitt. “I don’t care if you are my boss. You get in my way again and I’ll drive right over you.”
The librarian narrowed her eyes behind her horn-rimmed glasses. “Did you see what happened out there today? Two children were injured. Look at our mayor! And Rose Tillman! What about poor old Rose?”
Ina Krantz tried to stare Marisa down. “Don’t you even care? My boy was almost killed today! That could have been yours!”
Marisa took a bold step forward. “What the hell gives you the right?”
She turned about and took the steps. She stopped at the door and turned. “This is my home! Now all of you … get the hell off my property!”
Inside, she slumped to the floor, her heart pounding. Her whole body trembled.
She cried the good cry.
~ 109
It didn’t register when Sarah Coleman asked Marisa if she was all right; didn’t register when the girl touched her shoulder. But when she finally looked up, the tears still flowing, she rose quickly to her knees and threw her arms around her child.
“Mom? What’s wrong?”
“Just hug me,” she said. She looked up at Sarah. Her eyes asked if Kit was all right.
“He’s okay,” Sarah said. “I saw what happened outside. I kept him away from the windows. Mr. Duncan wouldn’t go away, even after I told him to leave. None of them would.”
“I’m sorry, Sarah,” Marisa said, letting Kit go. “Thank you for trying.”
“I tried calling you—” The phone rang. “That hasn’t stopped ringing. I didn’t want to take it off the hook in case you called. Should I get it?”
Marisa shook her head. She rose slowly and went to the phone. She unplugged the line from it.
“What if it’s Jared?” Kit said.
“He calls my cellphone. Did he have dinner, Sarah?”
“Your dad got him some ice cream. But we had pizza after.”
“Kit? Can you go upstairs?”
Kit did as he was asked. Marisa watched him go, and she cleared the tears from her cheeks as best she could.
“Are you all right?” Sarah said, getting her a tissue. “Do you need anything? I could make you some tea or something.”
“I’m okay,” Marisa said. “I’m fine.”
Sarah seemed to linger on the edge of a question.
“I don’t know what happened today, Sarah. I really don’t.”
~ 110
Marisa watched from the front door as Sarah crossed the street to her home. She sat on the sofa, exhausted. Ten minutes later, just drifting off, she heard a vehicle pull up outside.
At the window, she felt mixed emotions about the white Durango parked out front. She had considered calling Wade Kingsley to report the incident, but the fact that the Sheriff was here on his own didn’t bode well. Maybe Bobby had called the cops on her.
Waiting for the doorbell, she gathered herself. She met the officer with a friendly smile.
“Wade?” she said, acting surprised.
“Marisa.” He peered past her into the living room. “May I come in?”
“The place is a mess right now,” she said. The truth was, she didn’t want Kit to hear. She stepped onto the stoop and closed the door behind her.
“First off,” Kingsley said, leaning against the railing, “you can pretty well guess why I’m here.”
“The park … it was awful.”
“It was. I wasn’t there, a course. Not till we got the call. A lotta people got hurt. Mostly bumps and bruises. But from what I’m told, one elderly woman got banged up pretty bad.”
“Rose Tillman,” Marisa said. “I hope she’s okay.”
“I hope so, too. I’ll have to check in on her and see how she’s doing.” Kingsley glanced at his watch. “Maybe I’ll check in on Mr. Cole while I’m there.”
“Wade,” she said. “He didn’t do anything wrong.”
“I’ve got about two dozen other people who say otherwise, Marisa.”
“They’re wrong.”
“They all said pretty much the same thing. Jared Cole havin’ some kinda seizure. Bodies flyin’ every which way. You included.”
“Is there something you want to say to me, Sheriff? Because I’ve had a really shitty day.”
Kingsley glanced down the street a moment, as if considering. “There’s been a lotta strange things happening in this town. You don’t need me to tell you that. But this—this, what happened today—that’s a whole new kinda strange.”
“And I suppose you figure this is all Jared’s fault? Isn’t that right?”
“You tell me.”
“Do you know what happened to me just before you got here? Do you?”
“No. What.”
“Go ask Bobby Duncan.” She didn’t want to bring Bobby into it, but he’d crossed a line. Of all of Jared’s friends, he had always been the distant one. They never really hit it off, and she had always suspected that Bobby was jealous of her in some ridiculous buddy-love he had for Jared.
“What’s he done?” Kingsley asked.
“Oh, how about assault, for one. And let’s not even discuss the dozen others with him.”
“Here? Who?”
She named as many as she could. “And my phone’s been ringing off the hook. Like I had anything to do with any of this. Or Jared.”
“Listen, Marisa. If Bobby Duncan assaulted you, I’ll charge him.”
“No. He’s been through enough.”
“And the others?”
“Never mind. So not worth it.”
“It’s your call,” Kingsley said. He stood pensive again.
“Wade?”
“How’s your son, Marisa?”
“He’s fine. Just fine.”
“That’s good,” the cop said. “Let’s hope he stays that way. Both of you.”
~ 111
Kit lay in the darkness of his bedroom. Lightning flickered at the window, and he drew his covers up. He listened for monster thoughts.
He held the black stone close to his chest. It felt cold in his damp palm, its power weaker, somehow. There was no moon, and storm clouds quickly eclipsed the few stars he could still see. He knew now how precious was that faint blue glow beneath his bedroom door.
He took his glasses from the night stand and slipped them on. Like some strange, crouching creature, his desk chair sat at an odd angle, lodged under the closet doorknob. For a scary moment, he wasn’t certain that it was a chair.
He lifted his head and faced the mirror on the wall above his drawers. The reflection was faint, revealing little more than his eerie, ghostly form. He propped himself up on his elbows trying to see the reflection of the things he’d stuffed beneath his bed, but he couldn’t get high enough. He tried to reassure himself that the stuff was still there, taking a mental inventory. Three winter blankets. His winter coat. Sweaters. Towels from the linen closet. His school knapsack. Books. Even his running shoes.
No. Nothing could hide under there.
The closet … the bed … it was all he could do to weather the storm.
He slipped back and tried to settle himself. The pipes in the walls made that odd gurgling sound when Mom flushed the toilet. A few minutes passed, and he heard her cross the h
all and close her bedroom door behind her. Even if she knew about the stuff under his bed—or the desk chair—he doubted she would have put up a fuss. She had looked so tired when she’d kissed him goodnight. Tired, and afraid.
He wondered if she had seen it—what everyone must have seen.
The shape.
It had been there on the stage, crouched behind Jared when he fell. It was jet-black, with oily skin that glistened in the sunlight. It had no ears that he could see. Its head was misshapen, like a very large, very dark, egg. Its arms were long and muscular, and when it shoved Mom back, he had seen that claw, the very same from his dream.
Had seen its eyes.
Eyes red. Eyes red.
He closed his, trying to forget. But he could never forget.
He could see it now, searching the crowd, those hellish eyes darting from face to face until it found him. Rising to its feet. Towering like a giant. Throwing its head back with its black mouth wide, revealing fangs as sharp as knives. Screeching a screech that had nearly scared him to death.
Hadn’t anyone heard it? Hadn’t anyone seen it?
He had felt its anger, felt its hate. Heard its monster thoughts.
It wanted to kill … wanted to kill him.
But no. It was much more than that. It wanted to tear him limb from limb. Wanted him in pieces. Tiny, bloody pieces.
He was as certain of that as the terror that had gripped him when it leapt from the stage. It moved as if nothing would stop it; as if nothing could. It came for him with fire in its eyes, knowing it would have him. He remembered running through a forest of bodies, and only a miracle, an overturned table, had saved him from those claws. The thing darted past him, knocking down body after body as it tried to find him. It threw Marcia Hitch from school to the ground, and when it turned, it had discovered him. He could still hear its pounding steps as it stalked him, could still hear that piercing wail it made when it saw Mom holding him. It had wanted to kill her, too, and if that fat woman hadn’t knocked her down at just the right moment, it would have. It had swept a claw at her, just missing her throat. And then—
And then it had vanished.
Where it was now he couldn’t know. He didn’t feel it. Didn’t hear it.
All he did hear was the distant rumble of thunder.
Weather the storm—
He clutched the stone. Shut his eyes tight.
“Ten,” he whispered. “Nine—”
He started to tremble. His small heart began to thrum.
“Eight—eight,” he stuttered.
He never made it to seven.
~ 112
It was precisely 2:01 in the morning when the storm rolled in. Precisely 2:01 when Jared stepped from the small bathroom in his hospital room, leaving a bloody tooth in the waste receptacle.
He paused at the first roll of thunder. Faint lightning flashed at the window. He stood still, cursing the growing change in barometric pressure. It dizzied him, and he paused a moment before he took another step.
He moved past the empty bed next to his and clutched his chest. Pain spread through his body like wildfire. His extremities ached, and his knees weakened. The burning in his eyes blurred his vision.
He put a hand on the wall to steady himself. As he tried to stem the pain, he felt another blow to the back of his head. It seemed to tear through his brain. He staggered a step, and felt the warmth of blood flowing from his nostrils. From his eyes.
His legs buckled just shy of the bed. He fell forward and tried to grab the side rail, but his grip slipped on the slick metal. He crumpled to the floor, striking his head on the hard tile.
All was a blur. The room spun. He heard the soft patter of rain against the window. The sharp crack of thunder. But mostly, he heard monster thoughts.
~ 113
At nine-fifteen on Saturday morning, Wade Kingsley stood beside bed two in room four of the Torch Falls Medical Center. He hadn’t slept well. Something was happening to the town. His town.
Collado didn’t look well. If he wasn’t ill, he sure looked it. In fact, he looked like some kind of ghoul.
His eyes were closed. If not for the subtle rise and fall of his chest and the muted sound of his breathing, he would have thought the man dead. The skin around his eyes had lost its color. Dark veins branched away from them, running through his brow and creeping past the left side of his forehead. Others ran clear across his cheeks, although he had to squint to make them out.
The man’s hands gave him the creeps. His fingers were ashen. A few of the fingernails were cracked and split. The scars, too, were darker. Coarser. He remembered when he had first seen them seven years ago in this hospital—it might have been this very room. The lightning had done its nasty work on Collado’s hands, and if he remembered right, they’d been a whole lot lighter in color. Not so … repulsive. Now, they looked like rotting worms.
He wanted to wake him, but the doctor insisted he needed rest. One of the overnight nurses had discovered him around five this morning, passed out on the floor. Lots of blood. Nosebleed. That in itself wasn’t so strange. But bleeding from the eyes?
That was strange. And from what he’d seen these last few weeks, strange was the new black.
There was Kyle Duncan. That was an accident, fact over fact. But it was after the fact that gnawed at his gut. Witness after witness said some pretty weird shit went down with Collado and the boy that day. Not to mention that video he’d discovered on Sonia Wheaton’s smartphone. It wasn’t damning, but sure as shit it was strange as strange got.
There was Artie Fisher. Here’s a guy who spent years behind a mop, a smile for everyone, a guy who’d give you the shirt off his back and his boxers to boot—and he just up and vanishes like he owes five G’s to a crack dealer. That didn’t sit well. Not one bit.
There was Tom Greenwood. He knew Tom well, and if there was one thing about the man, he was as handy with a wrench as he was with a register. Tom could rip apart a brake assembly and put it back together with both arms tied behind his back. Fixing a gas leak? Taking a piss was more of a challenge. It just didn’t add up.
There was Sonia Wheaton. He didn’t know her all that well, but he knew enough. She was a bit of a slut—no news there—and she was also a bit of a home-wrecker. He’d seen her with Tom more than you’d expect, and he’d seen the way they’d carried on. He supposed there were a lot of folks in town who didn’t notice or didn’t care—he didn’t give a rat’s patootie himself—but it was his job to see what others missed.
Did she kill herself over Tom’s death? Maybe. But he didn’t really believe that. She was pregnant, for one. Did she love him? Maybe, in that slut-fuck sorta way. Sure, okay, maybe she loved him. Maybe she couldn’t go on without him, not with child, yada, yada. But that was horse shit. You wanna check out with an unborn in your belly? You don’t go out with a bang, stabbing yourself twelve times. And make no mistake, girl, you did that to you and yours. The lab boys confirmed it. Like he hadn’t known that the second he saw those bloodied scissors.
What he didn’t know was why. For someone in her condition, there were plenty of easy exits. Swallow some pills. Fire up the ol’ minivan in the garage and crack the window. Take a blind leap from the falls.
What had possessed her to do such a violent act?
Possessed. It seemed the right word.
He didn’t subscribe to such nonsense, of course, but he had to admit, when you started looking at all the crazy shit going down—and after what happened yesterday—something was going on. Something not natural.
Hell, even the Phantom was back. When Jack Henneman called him last week to report those mutilations, he’d done his best to assure the old bastard that it was just some copycat. He didn’t know all the history, but like most folk in these parts, he grew up with the legend. No, it wasn’t the Phantom. It wasn’t Collado, either—that made no sense—but wasn’t it a bitch that even that all started up after all these years, just when the Falls’ greatest son showed up?
There are no coincidences, he thought. But there are monsters.
Yes. Monsters were everywhere. You just had to see them.
Collado—or was it Cole, now?—might seem exactly what he wanted people to see. Smarts. Talent. Success. But the truth was, he was living a lie.
He had no doubt that Jared Collado had had too much to drink that night seven years ago. Had no doubt that his erratic driving had forced that Jeep to swerve from harm’s way. The fact—fact—that he refused to cooperate in the investigation was the smoking gun. I really can’t remember, Sheriff. I just can’t. Bullshit.
Oh, yes. Mr. Writer here was living one helluva lie. One so big it was turning him into some kind of monster. Maybe not the fairytale kind lurking under a kid’s bed, but probably the worst kind of all: the human monster.
What’s happening to you, Collado? What’s happening to my town?
~ 114
After a short visit with the on-duty doctor, Kingsley made his way to room six and poked his head in. The first bed was empty. Beyond the curtain that separated the beds, a small pair of thin wrinkled feet poked out beyond the bedsheets. The toenails were bubble-gum pink.
“Come in, Sheriff.”
How did she know it was me?
Soft rays of light filtered in through the large shaded window. He stepped past the first bed and around the curtain. Rose Tillman’s eyes were closed, and for the second time in as many visits, he felt as if he were staring at a cold corpse.
“Rose Tillman? Sheriff Kingsley.”
The old woman opened her eyes slowly and squinted. “Could you lower that a bit?”
Kingsley adjusted the shade.
“Thank you,” Rose said.
“How are you feeling?” Kingsley asked. Like Collado, she didn’t look well. She looked every day and then some of her ninety-plus years.
Rose stroked her silver hair back, revealing more of her liver-spotted skin. “Not so good, they tell me.” She reached for some juice on her breakfast tray with a quivering hand. Some of her pink fingernails were chipped.
Gateway Page 26
