“From the looks of her, I’d say you’re probably right on. I was afraid for a while that she’d go into labor, she was so upset. I can’t imagine having to deliver a baby in this mess.”
“Lord, I hope not. I’ll do my best to keep her calm. Rob was—is—a good guy. I can do that much for his poor wife.”
“Yeah.” Andrea turned her focus to the bubbling sauce. She bit her tongue to keep from bursting into tears. The depravity of their situation seemed too much to handle.
Keith grunted, patted her back and returned to the living room. Andrea heard the lid on the wood box open and knew he was replenishing the fire. Five minutes later, her nerves under control and dinner done, Andrea called Keith to come help carry in the dinner. They cleared off the coffee table and set plates, forks, and napkins for three. Andrea brought out wineglasses and a bottle of red wine she found in the wine rack.
“I don’t think Uncle Mike’ll mind that we raided his wine cellar.”
“Great. This’ll make it all the more festive.” Keith chuckled and then glanced at Carrie with concern. “Oh, sorry, Carrie. I guess you aren’t supposed to drink alcohol while pregnant. Right?”
Carried waved his apology away. “Don’t worry. I’m going to have half a glass anyway. Maybe it’ll help me sleep.”
“Well, if you’re sure it’s all right.”
“I’ll be fine, Keith. I’m only having a few sips.”
He poured the wine, giving Andrea a half glass and himself a full portion. When Carrie objected to the very small amount he’d poured in her glass, he said with mock severity, “Nope. That’s all you get. Can’t have Rob on my back for intoxicating his wife and baby.”
At the stricken look that washed over Carrie, Keith’s face blanched. Andrea held her breath, expecting the young woman to lose it again. Carrie, after a grimace and a shake of her head, picked up her glass, raised it and smiled. “Here’s to us.” Before either Keith or Andrea could move, she brought the glass to her lips and swallowed its contents in one gulp. She set the glass back on the table and leaned back in the recliner. “More, please.”
“Carrie.”
“Keith! I said, more, please. And fill the glass this time.”
Keith glanced at Andrea, who only shrugged and lowered her eyes. With an audible sigh, he poured wine in the woman’s empty glass. For several minutes, they ate and drank in silence—the crackling fire, their sole accompaniment.
After draining her glass a second time, Carrie’s shoulders slumped. Her face, a rosy sheen, reflected the fire’s glow.
Andrea, too, felt the wine working its magic on her cluttered mind. She cleaned her plate, savoring the taste of garlic in the tomato sauce. “Either I’m just ravenous or this sauce is excellent. I’ll have to make a note. We’ll need to buy some more of this—” She bit her tongue, having realized what she’d just said. Stricken, she glanced at Keith. He didn’t meet her gaze but stared, instead, at the dancing flames. Carrie’s eyes were closed. Her half-eaten spaghetti lay congealing on her plate.
Andrea pushed herself up from the floor, stacked the dishes then carried them to the kitchen. Keith was right on her heels.
“Have to do these before the stuff dries on the plates. Hard to clean if it does. Like glue. Can’t use the dishwasher.” She was rambling. Clamping her mouth shut, Andrea hurried to fill the kettle with water from the bucket and get it on a burner to boil. Keith, after peering over her shoulder, declared it time for another visit to the creek. Andrea’s eyes widened.
“Don’t worry. I won’t take any chances. Thor can go with me. We won’t be gone long. Straight to the creek and back. Okay?”
Andrea lifted her shoulders. “Sure. I mean, we need the water. Nothing else we can do. If we want to survive.”
“We will—survive, I mean. You’re a gritty girl, Andrea.”
“You don’t know me very well.”
“I’m beginning to.”
Andrea snorted. “You are? In what? Six hours? Right.”
“I don’t think we’re measuring time the same way anymore. Certainly not in hours and minutes.”
“You got that right. I’m keeping time by counting heartbeats and the ticking of that horrible grandfather clock in the hallway.”
“Yes. Well, hold down the fort. I’ll be back in the blink of an eye.”
“Be careful, Keith.”
Keith’s eyes locked onto hers and held them for several heartbeats. Then he nodded, picked up the bucket and paused. “You have another bucket? Might as well make the most of this trip.”
Andrea went into the pantry and returned with a battered neon-green plastic bucket. “This is it. Not exactly clean, but we’re boiling the water anyway.”
A bucket in each fist, Keith let himself out the back door, then immediately returned. “Man, it’s pitch-black out there. I can’t carry two buckets and a flashlight at the same time.”
Andrea dried her hands on a towel. “Okay. I’ll go with you and carry the light.” Her chin pointed in the direction of the living room. “Should we tell Carrie we’re going?”
Before Keith could answer, a voice shrilled, “Going? Where are you going? You can’t go anywhere. You can’t leave me alone.” The pregnant girl had materialized at the doorway, the quilt wrapped around her, its ends dragging behind.
Andrea exhaled. “Carrie, we need water. We’ll be right back. And when we get back, will you tell me about the baby? What names you’ve picked. Okay?”
She nodded. “O-okay. Yes. That’ll be fun.”
Keith lifted the buckets and smiled. “Won’t take but a minute.”
Carrie’s tousled head bobbed again, but her lips trembled. “Okay. But, what about the thing? The-the monster. What if it’s still out there somewhere?”
“Carrie, there’s two of us and we’ve got the dog. If it appears, the dog will protect us, or at least give us time to get back to the house. Okay?”
Carrie nodded a third time and sagged against the doorjamb. “Okay.”
Keith winked. “Good girl. Stay put and we’ll be right back.” He nudged Andrea toward the door and together they stepped into an unbelievably dark back yard.
Andrea pointed the light in the general direction of the creek. “That way,” she said at the same time Keith stumbled over the uneven turf. “Careful. Funny, I never noticed before how bumpy our back yard is.”
Keith grunted as he tripped a second time, nearly falling headlong into a dormant rose garden. “Jeez. Give me some light, will you!”
“Sorry! I’m doing my best!”
Keith grunted again. “No, no, I’m the one who’s sorry. Sorry I snapped at you.”
“Sure. Sorry I yelled. I know you’re doing everything you can. Like you said, we’re both running on frayed nerves.” Andrea sucked in a deep breath. “God, I hate this evil darkness.”
“Yeah. Amazing what having no light does to one’s perspective. And equilibrium.”
The creek appeared out of nowhere. Both escaped by a hair’s breadth from stumbling into it. Andrea was a little surprised, as she hadn’t been aware of the gurgling sound usually heard this close to the meandering stream. Just another freaky incident in an already impossible list of even more impossible occurrences. She watched as Keith stooped to fill one bucket. Handing her the brimming bucket, he began filling the second. The first was so heavy, she set it on the ground.
A sound like fingernails dragging down a chalkboard startled them. Andrea arched her back to listen, while Keith dropped the bucket he was filling and swore. Andrea jerked the flashlight up in the air and then stabbed it toward the woods to their left.
The high-pitched, ear-grating sound came again—this time, from the right. She swung the beam of light in the direction of the shriek, dismayed to find the light lost in the bowls of cloying darkness. Her hand shook so much that the light bounced up and down like a deranged lightning bug.
“Hurry,” she said through chattering teeth. “Hurry, Keith.”
“I am,
damn it. Hold the light steady so I can see. I’m getting more mud than water.”
Another piercing prehistoric tiger-like cry filled the darkness. Andrea could’ve sworn she heard teeth grinding and gnashing. She waved the beam of light across the yard to her right, making trees and shrubbery leap out like wild things.
Then the light caught what appeared to be two glowing embers, across the lawn, next to the small shed where Uncle Mike kept his lawn tools. Two horizontal slits, approximately a foot apart and about as tall as the apple tree beside the fence, glowed an eerie yellow-green. Like cat’s eyes. Like dragon’s eyes. Like a monster’s eyes.
“Keith!” Andrea screamed in terror. “There it is. It’s here. It’s in the back yard.”
Keith whirled around and looked wide-eyed in the direction her flashlight was pointing. He let out an oath, dropped the bucket again, and grabbed her arm. Bending forward like a varsity player eating up yardage, Keith ran toward the house half-dragging Andrea along with him. Thor started barking in fierce, guttural tones, but when Andrea screamed his name, the old dog loped after them.
They reached the back porch, gasping for air, lungs bursting, and dashed inside. Carrie bumped against the counter as Andrea ran past her. Keith slammed the door, locked it, then slid down to a sitting position, his back to the door, gulping in much-needed air.
Andrea was shaking, doubled over with razor-sharp pain slicing her chest. Thor paced the floor in obvious distress. Carrie remained standing, the quilt, a heap at her feet. Both hands covered her face. Her shoulders convulsed. “Oh, God. Oh, God. Oh, God. Oh, God,” she moaned, over and over.
“Shut up!”
Carrie’s moaning was sliced from her throat by the verbal guillotine. She stared at Keith and then at Andrea with large, panic-filled eyes, but went mute.
Thor froze in mid-stride, and Andrea looked over at Keith, startled by his outburst. He met her look with eyes that spoke volumes. She cleared her throat. “K-Keith?” her voice was hoarse. A low rumble started in Thor’s chest. Andrea clutched the fur at the back of his neck. “Keith?”
“Yeah,” Keith whispered back.
“You saw it?”
“No.” he hissed.
“No? You didn’t see it?”
“No. I didn’t see it, I saw them.”
“Them?”
“Yeah, them. When-when you waved the light past those trees that last time, I saw about a dozen eyes—or whatever they were—glowing and staring.”
“A dozen? You mean, there’s more than one monster out there?”
“Yeah, that’s exactly what I mean. There’s not just one thing out there. The number of eyes I saw. I-I couldn’t tell, but there’s more than just one out there.”
Andrea and Carrie both slumped to the floor beside Keith. No one said another word for several minutes. No one cleared a throat or coughed or sniffed. They sat on the cold linoleum of the kitchen and let their thoughts crawl back into the far recesses of their minds—back to the farthest corners, where memories of loving arms and tender kisses and sunshine and security lay dormant.
EIGHT
They waited.
Huddled against one another for warmth and sanity, they waited.
And listened.
Outside, they heard strange and frightening sounds. Heavy things plodding, making deliberate and methodical movements as they circled the house; things breathing and wheezing, panting in evil anticipation, teeth gnashing and grinding, mouths salivating for prey.
Horrible sounds.
Sounds from the bottomless pit of hell.
Thor wormed his muzzle under the crook of Andrea’s arm and didn’t move.
Andrea closed her eyes. She searched her frazzled mind for a happy memory.
A fragrant breeze tickled the back of her neck. For once, she smelled only growing things—sweet and spicy—not the awful chickens and pigs from the neighboring farm. Pushing her way through tangled shrubs and around massive oaks, Andrea kept both eyes on the ground. Copperheads filled her with terror, and she’d already seen one beside Uncle Mike’s woodpile. She hated it here, but couldn’t stand another minute inside, listening to her aunt and uncle rant and rave about college. And, if she were honest, she’d have to admit the day was perfect for being outside. Cerulean blue sky, a few puffy white clouds, caressing winds. A beautiful summer day.
A poke in her ribs brought Andrea back to the cold, dark kitchen. She looked at Keith. He was mouthing something she couldn’t understand. She leaned closer to read his lips.
“Andrea,” he breathed. “They’re gone. I think.”
She cocked her head and strained to pick out anything remotely suspicious. Nothing. The snarling, gnashing sounds were no longer audible; no heavy, plodding footsteps could be heard. Deathly silent outside. Not a breath of air disturbed a leaf or ruffled a tuft of grass.
Andrea nodded and let out a pent-up sigh. She glanced over at Carrie, who was asleep on Keith’s shoulder. Keith roused her gently so as not to startle her. Carrie opened her eyes and stared vacantly at Andrea, as though she didn’t recognize her. Keith pulled the woman to her feet and guided her into the living room.
All three were stiff from sitting on the cold floor for so long, so Andrea hauled out logs to put in the fireplace. A lot of ash and burnt embers cluttered the space, and it occurred to her that that was yet another job she’d taken for granted. Someone had to shovel out the collected ash before too long or it’d be difficult to light a fire.
But not now. Now they needed a fire—for warmth as well as cheerfulness. She was just about to wad up some newspaper for a starter when Keith came and took over. She relinquished the job to his willing hands without argument.
Once the fire was burning well, Keith turned to Andrea and shrugged. “Okay. That’s better, isn’t it?”
“Yes, it is,” Andrea replied.
She glanced at Carrie, huddled in the recliner, the blanket tucked around her. The poor girl looked miserable. And frightened beyond sanity. Andrea was worried about her. If she went into premature labor, what would they do? Could she and Keith deliver a baby—without proper heat and light and everything else that was needed? Would a premature baby even live?
“Is there something I should do?” Andrea asked Keith.
“Heck if I know. I think we’re doing all we can. She’s warm, well-fed—as safe as she can be, under the circumstances.”
“Okay. But I wonder if she’d be more comfortable upstairs in one of the beds.”
Keith shook his head. “Maybe later. Now, I think she needs to be close to the fire and to us.”
“Yeah. I think you’re right.”
Just then, Thor, who’d been dozing in front of the fire, leapt to his feet and padded to the front door. He stood rigid, head up, nostrils quivering. He didn’t growl or make a sound—just listened. Andrea thought her heart would explode, it beat so hard. Keith was gnawing his lower lip but not saying a word, nor moving a muscle. Carrie had been turned to stone and stared, unblinking, at the far wall. But they spoke with their eyes, eyes that cried out in silent terror.
In the foyer, the grandfather clock’s ticking increased in volume. To Andrea, the ticking had been keeping time with the beating of her own heart, until now. Now, her heart was tripping out the beats and slamming against her chest. She wondered whether healthy seventeen-year-olds could have heart attacks.
They could if frightened to death.
Thor remained a frozen statue, ears up and every muscle in his lean body primed, ready for action. Andrea crawled to the chair cradling the catatonic Carrie. Keith pointed toward the front door. Andrea nodded, understanding. He was going to see what was out there. Or, at least, make an attempt.
Keith got down on hands and knees and inched his way to where the dog stood rooted to the floor. Thor didn’t act as though he even noticed the man beside him. The big German shepherd only listened and waited.
A sudden cry of acute anguish rang out, stabbing the incredible silence like a knif
e. Keith dropped flat to his stomach and lay there like he’d been shot. Andrea jumped a foot, and in doing so, snagged the blanket, covering Carrie. The poor girl didn’t flinch or utter a sound. She only pulled the afghan back up around her shoulders and stared through Andrea like she wasn’t even there.
The tortured cry came again. And again. Someone or something was in agony out there, and none of them could do a thing about it. With a quick glance at an unresponsive Carrie, Andrea scampered to Keith, who still lay flat on his stomach.
“Keith,” she whispered. “Keith. We have to do something. We can’t leave whatever it is out there to suffer.”
“Is it human?” was his muffled rejoinder.
“I don’t know. But what if it is? What if there’s someone out there with those…those things?”
“No one in his right mind would be out there.” Keith hissed back.
“You were. You and Carrie were out there. We were, too, for that matter, when we went to the Martins’ for supplies. Maybe it’s someone looking for help. Like you.”
With a loud release of air, he heaved himself up off the floor and crept to the large front window, hidden behind the drawn drapes. Pulling a corner aside, he peered out into the impenetrable ink that was their never-ending night. He stood without moving or making a sound for so long Andrea wondered if he’d been rendered speechless from sheer horror.
She crawled closer. “Keith?” Her voice was so soft she had to repeat it before he turned around. “Keith? Do you see anything?” she mouthed.
“No,” he whispered. “I can’t see any—”
Another shrill scream cut him off. Andrea cringed. Keith jerked. Thor’s ears twitched, but the rest of him remained motionless.
NINE
Just when Andrea thought she couldn’t take another second of electrified tension, a loud banging sounded on the other side of the door. “Help! Please. Someone. Anyone! Please.”
With one look at Andrea, Keith rushed to the door, shoved back the bolt and yanked open the door. A man, leaning heavily on a walking stick, fell into Keith’s arms. Keith grabbed the man before he hit the ground and dragged him into the house. Andrea, who’d jumped to her feet when Keith had opened the door, slammed it closed and double-locked it.
The Fourth Trumpet Page 5
