Evil Stalks the Night

by Kathryn Meyer Griffith

  I debated a moment or two, standing in the sunlight and, giving in with an audible groan, I began to help them unload. Every time I turned around, Ben was either right behind or in front of me. Too close. It was bad enough he wouldn’t stop grinning at me, but even worse, he was a cop and I wanted none of his kind anymore. I knew what they were like and I was determined to hate every last one of them. No exceptions.

  We worked pretty much in silence unloading the U-Haul and the truck.

  When they were empty, Jim said, “Thanks for helping, Ben.”

  “Yes, thank you,” I added in a half-hearted way.

  Everything was in the house, not in its final place, but at least inside. Jim gave me a disappointed look. “She’s not always this rude, Ben. I guess she got up on the wrong side of the bed this morning.” He was making excuses for me. My own brother.

  “Well, next time I’ll remember to come over in the evening,” Ben kidded back, smiling, as Jim observed us. “Is she any nicer when the sun goes down?”

  “No,” I threw in sarcastically unable to resist it. “At night I’m a real bitch.” I knew I shouldn’t be behaving this way, but something in the cop’s cocky manner ticked me off. Something about him made me boiling mad. It was his attitude, I guess. His very existence.

  “She’s kidding, Ben. Visit us anytime.” Jim sent me a warning look and slapped Ben on the back.

  Jeremy listened, watching the three of us.

  “Nope, I don’t think she is,” Ben replied without a ghost of a smile. When he looked at me, I saw something in his eyes which hadn’t been there before. Disappointment.

  Jim had shaken his hand before he’d left. I’d barely nodded goodbye at him.

  Because by the time he climbed on his motorcycle and had roared off in a cloud of fumes, I’d learned to detest him and, I’m afraid, he knew it. Usually I wasn’t a rude person but I was in no frame of mind for a flirtation of any kind. I’d been burned one too many times. A man put on a badge and a uniform and he thought he was God’s gift to women. Well, this was one woman who wasn’t going to fall for it. No way. Not ever again. It made no difference how charming Ben-the-cop could be. He wasn’t going to fool me.

  “You treated him like dirt,” my brother pointed out as soon as Ben was gone. “Why? After all, he helped me get here and also helped carry in all the heavy stuff when he didn’t have to.” I knew Jim wasn’t mad at me, only baffled.

  “He’s a cop,” was all I said and walked into the house.

  Behind me Jim was silent.

  Chapter Ten

  We began to put things in their place or at least where I thought they should be. It was weird to see my furniture from the apartment rearranged in my grandmother’s house. I’d always admired the look of polished and carved wood, a sort of old-fashioned decor, and was pleased to see how well most of my furniture fit in.

  As we worked, Jim went on and on about Ben Raucher. I couldn’t understand why he kept cramming the man down my throat, until he predicted, “I have a feeling he’ll be back.”

  “Oh, now you’re the psychic?” I purposely tried to keep my mood light, after all, I was glad Jim was here and helping us. I could even appreciate Detective Raucher had helped him, but truthfully I didn’t care for the man and didn’t want to talk about him anymore. If the cop was half as smart as he’d pretended to be, then he’d gotten the hint and we wouldn’t see him again.

  “He seemed like a nice guy to me. The strong and protecting type. You took him wrong.”

  “What you’re saying, in effect, is I need a strong and protective type, huh? I can’t take care of myself?”

  I put the last chair on the tapestry rug we’d laid in the living room. The house was shaping up so fast I couldn’t believe the change in it. In a few days a filthy wooden shell had evolved into a home. Against my better judgment and good sense I found myself becoming possessive. It was mine and it could be beautiful. Already I didn’t want to leave it.

  “You need someone, Sarah.” Jim was looking intensely at me.

  “You’re wrong. I don’t need anyone,” I snapped. “Especially an arrogant, smart-mouthed cop.”

  “Ah, ha. Is it what you have against the guy? You hate his guts because he’s a cop like Jonathan was?”

  “It’s not the only reason.” I put the coffee table, a squat dark wooden one I’d picked up a year ago in a second hand shop, in front of the couch. I’d polished it so much its surface practically glowed. “I need another man like a hole in the head and I need another cop like two holes in the head. Forget it.”

  I glared at him. He looked weary but there was also a brightness glittering in his eyes I’d never noticed before.

  Relenting, I said in a softer voice, “Jim, don’t get me wrong. I’m not a man-hater, not by a long shot. I need time to find myself again first. Before I get tangled up with another man, I need to learn about and please myself for once.”

  I sighed into the space between us as he watched me with thoughtful eyes.

  “I don’t know who I am anymore. Let me find myself first, okay? Men can wait.”

  Jim placed my dome-glassed lamp on the coffee table. “This where you want it, Sis?” He’d mercifully dropped the other subject.

  “That’s fine.” I smiled. Almost everything was in place and only half the day was gone. “I think it’s time to take a break. How about you? You hungry?”

  Jim rewarded me with a grateful smile. “Very hungry. I ran out of money two days ago and I haven’t eaten since.” He pulled the linings of his pockets inside out to show me they were empty. “See—no money.”

  I instantly felt guilty. In the excitement of moving I’d forgotten to leave him cash for the U-Haul or the gas to get it down here. Apparently he’d had to shell it out of his own pocket and, being Jim, hadn’t uttered a word.

  “Jim, I’m sorry.” I silently clapped my hands together and pressed them against my mouth. “I forgot. I was in such a hurry. I’ll pay you back, don’t worry.”

  “I’m not worried and you don’t have to pay anything back. I insist. I still got a week’s pay coming from the last place we played; only I didn’t stick around to collect it. The band’s going to send it here as soon as they get it. I left a day before our engagement was formally over.”

  “You didn’t tell me you had to run out on the band to do this for me. I never would have asked you to do that.”

  “Wild horses couldn’t have kept me away, Sarah. You know anytime you need me, you, and my nephew, come first.

  “The band can do without me for a while. They’ll get someone to fill in. I’m not worried about it so don’t you be.”

  “I’m still sorry and I’m still going to pay you back.”

  “Great, then repay me in food. I’m starving. Some of your home cooking is reimbursement enough. I’m sick of one-night stands, whiskey smelling bars, and hole-in-the-wall diners with their greasy chow. Good riddance.”

  “Well, sorry again, the home cooked meal will have to wait until the electricity is connected again, but then, I promise, I’ll stuff you until you’re fat as a pig. But I can get you a good breakfast. There’s a decent restaurant down the road a bit and I’m sure we can get carry-outs. How does bacon and eggs, biscuits and steaming hot coffee sound?”

  “Excellent. You haven’t left yet?” He gently ushered me out the door after shoving my purse at me. “Get plenty of biscuits and lots of coffee,” he yelled at me as I got into the car. “Make sure the coffee’s hot. I’m freezing.”

  On the way there I thought, he’s freezing? It must be fifty degrees outside. How could he be cold? I hoped he wasn’t sick or anything, though, come to think of it, he didn’t look too well.

  It could have been the strain of the trip or the lack of food that made him appear so fragile, or he hadn’t slept much the last week. Yes, tha
t was what was wrong with my brother.

  Oh, but I knew it was more and I didn’t want to face whatever it was. My brother was ill and I didn’t think a couple of good meals alone would fix it.

  * * * *

  Later, we sat on the porch reminiscing old times. Jeremy avidly listened to our adventures as children. He’d taken a true liking to my brother, which didn’t surprise me because they were alike in so many ways.

  Jim gulped down his food and stared out over the neighborhood. He seemed to be brooding. “Hasn’t changed much, has it, Sis?” He waved his hand at our surroundings and the distant housetops. “It’s as if we’d never left. It’s exactly the same.”

  “Not exactly. Our childhood home is burnt down. There’s nothing remaining but a black rim of bricks and the old cherry tree.”

  He turned stricken eyes to me. “Have you seen it?”

  I squirmed under his penetrating stare. “Yeah, Jeremy and I stopped there the first night.” I found myself shivering with the memory. “There’s nothing left.”

  “Nothing,” he echoed in a tight voice. He rubbed his eyes and laughed, but his laugh was anything but light-hearted. I wondered if he was thinking about our dead brothers and sisters. Our poor family buried in heavy boxes six feet in the soil. I wondered if he suspected what had happened to the house.

  “Ah, but you’re wrong.” He startled me when he whispered. “There is something still here, and for always.” There was so much raw sadness in his voice, it took me off guard. I didn’t know what to say so merely nodded my head.

  “You know, don’t you?” It was so clear to me now.

  “Know what?” He was being evasive.

  “It’s haunted.”

  I didn’t want to play around. I wanted us to face the truth for the first time in our lives. Jeremy had gone to get his Match Box Collection of miniature cars to show to his uncle. It was the time to level with him. But it was as if Jim hadn’t heard what I’d said. He went on speaking of the old days. “Do you remember the old clubhouse we used to have?” His eyes were half closed and he seemed far away from me.

  Even though I was psychic there were times when I couldn’t know or see, the things I needed to know or see. This was one of those. I would have done anything to have been able to read Jim’s mind or to know what the future held for us, the sole survivors of our family. But I couldn’t. It was too close to me and for some reason I wasn’t allowed to glimpse it. My fate and Jim’s were sealed in the mists and I couldn’t see through the grayness.

  “I remember it.”

  “I wonder if it’s still there.”

  “We could look for it. Sometime, if you want to,” I offered.

  “Yeah, let’s do that one day, Sis.” He sat quietly for a time and then went on. “Do you remember the summer I slashed my foot on a broken bottle and we ran through the rain to grandmother’s house? I wanted it to stop bleeding and you made me walk through the warm water in the culvert on the side of the roads to clean my feet off?”

  “It wouldn’t stop, though, I remember. We finally had to go home and Mother was so upset.”

  Visions of Jim and I, no taller than Jeremy were passing through my mind. Splashing around in the flowing streams of sun-warmed water, traveling the gullies across the hot roads. The water had rippled gently over our hot feet and we’d played in the swirling eddies. Those days seemed so long ago. Something inside of me registered the loss. “We had to go home and you ruined three towels before it stopped bleeding.”

  “It hurt so much when the doctor sewed it up. Took ten stitches.”

  “You still remember it?” I was impressed. I’d thought through the years that he’d forgotten the incident along with a lot of other stuff. I’d thought there was little of our childhood he would recall or wanted to. Perhaps I’d been wrong.

  I stole a glance at my brother and saw the fright lurking in his eyes and the strain around his mouth.

  “Oh, I remember. I also remember the times I raced my bike across the street trying to beat the cars. You’d always get so mad at me for being reckless.”

  “I tried to protect you,” I said. But there was more to it and we both understood.

  “You mean, you always knew when something was going to happen. You kept me alive.” His eyes met mine and he offered a weak smile. “You succeeded.”

  Yes, I kept you alive but I wasn’t able to save the rest.

  I put my head on my knees and lowered my eyes. “I fell out of the cherry tree once and you were there to catch me. When I was nine my appendix burst and you nagged and cried, until Mother couldn’t stand it anymore and made Father take me to the hospital…should I go on?” I bit my lip and rocked my head on my hands. “We’ve always looked out for each other.”

  “It’s probably why we’re still around,” Jim confessed. “But it’s going to be different this time, isn’t it, Sarah?”

  He was calm as he slipped his shoes and socks off so he was barefooted like I was. Like we’d always been as children when we ran the streets of Suncrest, wild and innocent.

  “Yes, it’s going to be different this time.”

  He shook his head as if he was sleepy and trying to wake up. “It’s this place,” he said. “It brings back so many memories I thought I’d buried, too deep to ever trip over again. I’m sorry I’m such bad company, Sis.”

  “You’re tired, that’s all. Have you had any sleep in the last few days?”

  “Some. That’s not the problem. I haven’t slept well for years. There isn’t a night I don’t dream about them. There isn’t a day doesn’t pass I don’t miss them, or wonder if this is my last day on earth, or if you and Jeremy are all right and still alive.” He stopped abruptly.

  Is it why you’ve stayed away from us? Afraid to care, afraid to lose any one else?

  He was as haunted as I was. I should have realized he’d shoulder the guilt, too. He would feel the thing in the woods licking up his scent on his trail right behind him. We were both targets, living on borrowed time.

  The sun had slid behind a threatening ebony cloud, the shadows gathered across the porch and Jim’s face was hidden. I felt his hand slowly take mine. It was hot and thin and I held it tightly.

  “Jeremy’s like you,” he said. I couldn’t see it, but I knew he was smiling. “He’s some kid. I don’t want anything to happen to either one of you. It’s why I’m here. I’m not going to run away anymore. I can’t.”

  “Neither one of us can. It’s called us home. Trapped and cornered us by circumstances and financial need. Now we have to finally pay the piper.

  “Face the music.” I smiled.

  “Play the cards we were dealt.”

  “Okay. That’s enough with the clichés.” Jim knew I hated them.

  We both smiled then.

  I heard Jeremy shouting at us. It’d suddenly gotten so dark and the stairs were probably black as pitch. I could hear him bumping around upstairs trying to find his way.

  We knew we didn’t have much time to talk.

  “Do you know who Jeremy reminds me of?” my brother asked, eying me in the dim light. “Charlie. He looks like Charlie. Haven’t you ever noticed it before? I did, right off.” There was defeat in his tone. “He’s not like Charlie in any other way, I don’t think. Not that I can see. It scared me when he first came to the door downstairs after I got here; seeing his face framed in the doorway.”

  I felt a chill creep across my skin, because I knew what he was going to say next and really didn’t want to hear it. I put my fingers up to his lips, but he pushed them away and the grip on my hand tightened.

  “You see, I saw Charlie. I’ve seen Charlie so many times over the years, but even more lately. He follows me everywhere. He’s here with me now, somewhere.” He looked around and at me again with a sad smile. “I don’t know why he
haunts me. What he wants.”

  I stared around into the dark. Afraid to look but more afraid not to. What Jim was saying had frightened me more than anything which had happened to me so far. Charlie and his pitiful soul belonged to it…the demon in the woods. We couldn’t trust anything Charlie did. But Charlie was dead. Was Jim going mad? Was I?

  Jim saw the way my eyes were searching our surroundings.

  “No, I don’t mean he’s actually here with us this very minute. I meant he’s here on Suncrest. Right before the truck died he waved at me from behind a tree down the road there. Smiled that silly smile of his, you remember, don’t you?”

  I nodded.

  “He comes to me. Talks to me. I’ve tried to trick him—catch him—for years, but he slips into the air or becomes a puff of smoke. He’s a little kid, about so high.” Jim lifted his hand about three feet off the ground. “Not more than six or seven. About the age he was when he fell into the snow drift, remember?” My brother couldn’t stop the flow of words. It was as if he was afraid to stop, afraid of the silence.

  “Could be he’s trying to warn us? Trying to help us?”

  Jim gave me a cynical look.

  “What does he talk about?”

  Jim laughed and lowered his head into his hands. I thought he was crying at first. But no, he was only choking on his words. “It’s always the same thing, Sarah. Always the exact same demand, he wants me back here, back here with all of them.”

  I looked away. My next words came hard. “We can’t trust him, Jim. Don’t be fooled. Until we know for sure what he wants, we don’t dare trust him. We need to be careful.”

  Jeremy hadn’t rejoined us yet, so I continued in a soft voice and told my brother what had happened since I’d arrived. I told him about the pounding on the door and my vision. I didn’t mention my strange dream about him, but I told him what I was afraid of.