A voice that didn’t sound very much like Kevin answered, “Never better.”
She flinched and the flashlight slipped from her hand and crashed to the floor, the beam dying.
Oh dear God, what is going on?
“Kevin? Stop screwing around.”
She felt a scream about to break out of her throat.
She pulled the bedroom door open, leaned across the threshold and peered inside.
Kevin’s flashlight lay on the bed. Its beam backlit the hunched figure coming toward her. He was no one Sally had ever seen before—big and lumbering, impossibly bent, as though he’d suffered some terrible trauma. The tattered shirt that he wore was dripping with blood. In his hands he held a machete.
This isn’t real, Sally thought distantly. Kevin must be playing the world's worst joke on me.
But Kevin’s head was perched on top of one of the bed-posts. It looked like a Halloween mask mounted on a broomstick. His eyes were open and staring. Blood ran down the post pooling on the floor. The lumbering figure moved toward her. This had to be a joke.
Screaming, Sally lurched backward and slammed the door shut, whirled and tried to run. Her foot came down on something that had to be the disabled flashlight. It rolled away and she went airborne. Her back slammed onto the floor. The breath pushed from her lungs.
As she tried to get up the door flew open and dim light poured into the corridor.
Quasimodo charged out. Seeing Sally lying on the floor he stopped abruptly.
“Who are you?” she screamed, scrabbling to get up.
He was raising the machete above his head. “Kevin didn’t tell you? I’m his uncle. His demented uncle. That’s what the family likes to call me anyway. They get a big laugh out of it. I’ll bet they won’t be laughing after this.”
“No!” she cried. “I didn't do anything. Leave me alone.”
She rolled as the machete came down.
She heard him grunt.
Something struck her shoulder but there was no pain. She got to her feet and ran for the stairs.
She felt the pain now and the warm blood against her skin. Her left arm dangled, immobile.
Something heavy struck her in the back and she tumbled down the stairs.
At the bottom she opened her eyes. He was standing over her. She tried to push herself up but it was no use.
She knew this wasn’t happening. It had to be a joke. She and Kevin were supposed to make love, sleep-in tomorrow morning, have a languid and lazy New Years Day.
He raised the machete. She tried to move.
It was no use.
All she could do was scream.
The Nest
The day: cold. November, gray. Vagrant spears of melancholy light piercing heavy overcast, pressing down, stifling.
The house: bright white, an impressionist’s painting; skeletal swamp willows. The river: wide, smooth, reflective, below island’s eternal evergreens.
Obsidian eyes, watching.
The man: hunched, lurking, glasses trained, patient, waiting, moving forward a careful step at time; watching.
“Do you see them, Alden?”
A contemptuous flap of a hand. “Shush! You’ll scare them.”
“It’s not as if they can hear us from this distance, you know.”
He lowers the binoculars, shakes his head, sighs. “I’m not taking any chances.” His whisper is shrill, impatient. “Do you understand? Not before I have a chance to photograph them.”
“Why did you drag me out here then?”
“To observe, not to flap your gums.”
“I can observe perfectly well from the house, thank you very much, and at least in there I can talk if I so desire.”
He ignores her insolence, sorry he had dragged her along. “I just don’t understand it,” he says. “I’ve gone through that book a hundred times and I’m completely baffled. There isn’t a species that even closely resembles them. And I don’t know of one single example in the northern part of the United States that mate this time of year. Most birds migrate in the fall and the ones that don’t have all they can do to survive. They don’t mate in November. It’s insanity.”
“What makes you think they’re mating?”
“You have to see for yourself.”
Obsidian eyes, watching.
“I swear, Alden, you’re becoming a fanatic about this. They’re just birds.”
“No, they’re not just birds, Rachael! There’s something . . . different about them. Something . . . totally weird. Look for yourself.” He thrusts the binoculars at her. She takes them, albeit reluctantly, giving a small exasperated shake of the head. Stoically resigned, she puts them to her eyes and focuses.
“Another baby disappeared last night,” he says conversationally. Rachael stiffens. “This one on the south end. A little girl. She wasn’t in her crib this morning when her mother went in to get her.”
The glasses go askew and fall from Rachael’s eyes. “I’m having dreams,” she says. “That I’m alone. That you and Billy are gone. Jesus, Alden, what’s happening to us?”
“I don’t know, but I’m worried about Billy.”
“I don’t think I can take much more of this.” Her hands are shaking. She is having trouble holding the glasses. She tries to give them back but sees that he is busy forming thoughts.
“The FBI’s been called in and there’s a manhunt going on. They say if something doesn’t turn up soon they’ll do a house-to-house canvas.”
“Yeah, well, that’s good, isn’t it?”
He looks pensively back toward the island, staring at the huge nest at the top of the dead white pine.
“You are scaring the shit out of me, Alden.”
“I can’t believe you’re not concerned. Rachael, babies are disappearing from their cribs.”
“I know! Jesus, I am concerned! Just as much as you. But I will not buy into your obtuse theory.”
“It’s not obtuse. The problem is, you just don’t take me seriously. About anything!”
“Listen to me, you stupid man. I take you seriously when you make sense. You’re not making sense now. There’s some kind of nut on the loose and he’s the one taking those poor children. Not some . . . figment of your idiotic imagination. Don’t you think I’m scared for Billy? Just as scared as you are?"
He nods but she can tell he’s hurt.
He turns back to the nest. “How is this nut getting into these peoples’ locked houses, pray tell?”
“You’re taking about birds, Alden. Listen to yourself. How do you think they’re doing it? Down the chimney, like Santa Clause?”
He gives his head a rueful shake. “I don’t know. It’s just a feeling.”
Rachael shivers. “In any case, Billy’s sleeping with us again tonight.”
“You bet he is.”
She feels suddenly all weepy and weak. Puts the binoculars back to her eyes and scans, picking up the nest and holding for a long moment, trying to steady them. “It looks like a nest of ordinary eagles to me,” she says finally.
Alden grabs the binoculars away from her. “They’re not eagles! Jesus Christ, Rachael, don’t you think I know what eagles look like?”
“Ospreys then.”
He shakes his head, finding no words to convey his exasperation.
“You really are scaring me, Alden.”
“I know what I’m seeing, Rachael. For Christ’s sake, eagles don’t nest this time of year, and neither do ospreys. As a matter of fact, ospreys migrate. The nest is full of young birds. Didn’t you see their little bald heads in the binoculars?”
“No, I didn’t see! I didn’t see anything except a big empty nest at the top of that dead pine tree. I swear, mister, you are losing it, and you are scaring me.”
“I don’t believe you can’t see what I’m seeing.”
“You and I look at the world differently, Alden. We always have. You see flying saucers and I see weather balloons, you see ghosts, I see smoke, you see a pony, I se
e a stall full of horse shit. You’re a dreamer—”
“I’m a romantic.”
“Whatever. You should have been a writer, you know, with that imagination.”
“Say what you want, the disappearances didn’t start until that nest appeared.”
“Oh, Alden, grow up. I’m not going to listen to this garbage a moment longer.” Rachael turns and stomps toward the house.
Obsidian eyes, watching.
“I’m not suggesting anything,” he says later, trying to make amends. “It’s just odd, that’s all, don’t you think?”
She looks pensively at him. “What’s odd is that you’re making some kind of twisted connection between the disappearing children and that stupid nest.”
“There are five now, Rachael. Count them!” He thrusts his hand out, emphasizing his five fingers. “All from this town. No one else is losing children. I’m just looking for a logical explanation.”
“Logical?”
“I’m going over there, tonight.”
“You’re what?”
“I want to see for myself.”
“You’re insane.”
“Maybe, but at least we’ll know, won’t we?”
“You’re going to climb that tree at night.”
“It has to be done.”
“No it doesn’t, Alden!”
“Yes it does!”
Rachael runs an exasperated hand through her hair. “If you ever breathe a word of what you’re about to do to anyone, I swear, I’ll deny any knowledge of it. Do you know why? Because they’ll lock you up and throw away the key. And I never want Billie to know what a screwball his father is.”
“So, what do you believe, Rachael?”
“I told you. I believe a sick, perverted human being is taking those children, period!”
The night: scudding clouds. Moon. Canoe on river; paddle rippling; calm water.
He climbs the familiar branches of the familiar tree, the mewing bundle strapped to his side.
The nest: tiny bleached skulls, bones, the new offering.
“I was trying to tell you, Rachael,” he whispers, as he places the child in the nest. “But you wouldn’t listen. Now it’s too late. He twists his body, falling forward, arms outstretched; a perfect swan dive toward the dark forest floor. Eagles pounce, shrieking.
Rachael exits the house on a run, screams echoing across calm water: “BILLY! Dear God, somebody help me! BILLLLLY . . . !”
Darkness
It’s all yours now. You own it. . .
The man did not know what that phrase meant any more than he had four days ago when he had come awake in the woods injured and afraid with it cycling through his head.
It’s all yours now. You own it. . .
He raised his head up and sniffed the air. For one brief moment of pure exaltation he thought he smelled smoke. He tried to scream into the forest but he was weak and the sound that it made choked in his throat and died there.
He sagged down onto the old railroad bed and sobbed. It had been too good to be true. The wonderfully sweet aroma of wood smoke was now gone, if it had ever been there in the first place.
The wind was moving in the trees and the sound that it made was like a rushing stream. Another of nature’s tricks. The wilderness was rife with them. There was no reason to anything here. He was lost in a lost world where rationality had taken a permanent vacation. He would most likely die out here in this great chameleon forest where unspeakable shapes roamed, where the unimaginable could materialize at any moment and become tangible, where creatures of wickedness and dread would swiftly rip the flesh from ones bones, feast on it, and leave the rotted remains for vultures and worms. There was no discrimination out here, no distinction between man and beast, good and evil. It was the ultimate class system. The fit survived, the weak simply did not. It would be easier to put a gun to one’s own head and pull the trigger. Certainly more humane. If only he had a gun.
He limped his way along an abandoned railroad spur, giant trees towering above him, his right hand plastered over the infected wound in his side.
He stole uneasy glances over his shoulder.
Nightfall was imminent.
The prospect terrified him.
He feared the night even more than he feared death.
He had no idea how long he’d been in the wilderness or how he’d gotten here. He did not know his name, where he had come from or where he was going. He only knew that he had come awake in the woods four days ago injured and afraid.
He was wearing running shoes, blue jeans, and a short-sleeved sweatshirt that said Los Angeles Lakers on it. The once white sweatshirt was now filthy with mud and blood, there was a deep puncture wound in his side and his feet were swollen and aching. His jeans were torn in several places revealing long gashes in both his legs.
He carried no identification. In his pocket he had discovered a butane cigarette lighter. There were no cigarettes. He could not remember if he smoked.
He had a dim memory of some sort of tragedy, but every time he tried to focus on it his head would ache violently.
He assumed the worse, of course. He was probably a madman running from the law, guilty of some heinous crime. It was the only thing that made sense. How else could he explain his predicament? He was experiencing an insidious breakdown of all normal sensory perceptions. Rabbits had become wolves, deer had become mountain lions . . . and . . . there was something else out here stalking him, he was certain of it, something he did not want to think about, but in the terrible darkness of night he was unable to think of little else.
“I’m cracked!” he moaned. “Loony tunes! Toys in the attic!” And although a part of him still retained a measure of rationality he understood that most of his sanity had deserted him just as surely as rats desert a sinking ship. How else could the dead become the living? How, other than in the exclusive community of true madness could one actually believe that the dead stand right up and walk?
But how could he know the woman was dead?
How did he know the woman?
Somehow he did.
Maybe he knew her from the dreams. Dreams he believed happened as much from sleep born out of exhaustion and infection, as madness. Dreams where the thing he saw wasn’t the walking dead; it was somehow worse than the walking dead. In some of the dreams the demon woman was so close he could actually feel her hot, prickly breath on his face and smell the raging decay of dead flesh. They were dreams from which he would wake with a searing scream stuck in his throat like a red hot poker.
He walked all day long, every day. He wasn’t sleeping much. The nightmares would wake him before dawn and he would start a small fire with dry twigs and crouch there by it shivering and sobbing until it was light enough for him to walk again.
His rational mind, what was left of it, did not want to believe that the woman was real, but what were the alternatives? He had seen her in the night bathed ghostly in the flickering shadows of his campfire, gesturing for him to follow her. Her face was sunken and destroyed. She was nearly naked; what was left of her clothing appeared to be torn and burned, the flesh beneath scorched red. The eyes that burned out of that ruined face were the eyes of a tormented thing. They were filled with so much hellish malevolence that if you stared into them long enough you would almost certainly go . . . well . . . go, he reasoned, where he’d already gone. Stark-raving, rubber-room mad. Mad beyond one’s wildest nightmares. Somewhere on the flip side of loony tunes.
He lifted his face up to the sky and howled like a wounded animal. “Come and get me, you dead bitch!” he screamed. “Show yourself in the daylight. I fucking dare you!” But of course she didn’t come. She only came at night. And in amongst the hysteria he realized that he was weeping again. He fell to his knees, his fists pressed to his mouth as great alligator tears coursed down his cheeks. He wondered how long he had been like this, and he guessed probably from the beginning. Whenever and wherever the beginning had been.
He felt odd
ly hollow, as if he’d suffered some great loss. It was a predilection that seemed to reach far beyond his present circumstance, an emptiness that tormented his insides like a great hunger.
It’s all yours now. You own it. . .
That phrase surfaced in his mind again, but he had no idea what it meant. Whenever he tried to focus on his circumstances, the phrase always answered him back, and it was always accompanied by a headache so severe he was certain his skull would crack open and his brain would leak out.
It’s all yours now. You own it. . .
He groaned softly. Unconsciously he fingered the ring that hung on a gold chain around his neck.
The old railroad spur with the rusted rails and the rotted ties stretched through the wilderness like a dead umbilical. He had been lucky to discover it. Or so he kept telling himself. Even though it was obvious that trains no longer ran here, it gave him an unobstructed path on which to proceed and a small glimmer of hope on which to focus his thoughts. Something other than that hellish forest where cedar swamps threatened to swallow you whole and mosquitoes and black flies sucked the very life blood out of you. The rails had become, in some small way, a bastion of sanity in an otherwise insane situation. He kept telling himself that eventually they would lead somewhere, even as his rational mind told him that wasn’t necessarily so. There were lots of old spurs that had once led into mining country and towns that were now abandoned. Although he was fairly certain that he was in the United States, he had no idea what state this could be. When he’d stumbled across the tracks he’d had two choices: west or east. He’d chosen west for no other reason than . . . what? What was the reason he’d chosen west? He could not remember now.
He got to his feet, swayed dizzily and nearly fell over. Darkness was close and promising and once again he became aware of the faint scent of wood smoke, and along with it, a small, dim hope arose.
The smell triggered something else within him, however. It filled him with thoughts of death which seemed to trigger a vague recollection of conflagration.
Servants of Darkness (Thirteen Creepy Tales) Page 4
