by Cave, Hugh
Then the snakes. But the snakes were not cypress-knee phantoms. They were real.
Waist deep in stinking water, he first saw them gliding toward him when a gaudy flash of lightning lit up the whole eerie scene. The huge trees with their swollen trunks and sprawling roots. The awful congregation of upthrust knees, silently stalking him the way a pack of hungry jungle cats might stalk a terrified rabbit. Then the dark brown water mocassins, with darker bars and blotches on their thick bodies, slithering toward him for the kill. Dozens of them. Hundreds of them. Thousands of them! All huge, all with their broad, flat heads upraised and eyes gleaming and fangs bared. All deadly poisonous.
Now he knew he never should have fled from the cabin. Should have stayed there and bolted the door, and waited for an end to the nightmare. But it was too late. If he tried to go back now, the snakes would intercept him. In desperation he flung himself toward the roots of the nearest cypress, raking the dark water with his hands to help his feet in their struggle with the muddy bottom.
Out of breath, sobbing, he crawled up on the huge buttressed root beyond reach of the snakes and collapsed.
The storm raged on. Rain whipped the swamp water to a black froth. Lightning gilded the gliding snakes, many of them now hissing, as they endlessly circled his tiny isle of safety. High in the treetops the wind howled and shrieked with a voice too nearly human.
He clung to the root and prayed for the nightmare to end. For the hammering in his head to cease. For some degree of sanity to return to the insane world he was lost in.
Time passed, crawling, and at last the claps of thunder and flashes of lightning were less frequent, less terrifying. The cypress knees ceased to be a silent horde of grotesques hungrily awaiting his surrender and reverted to being only swamp growths again. The rain stopped.
Then, after an even longer interlude of waiting, during which his arms and legs grew numb from the confinements of his perch, the worst of his tormentors, the snakes, began to glide back into the darkness that had spawned them.
He lowered himself slowly into the water and found the muddy bottom with his feet. Stretched his arms out for better balance. Took one step, two, three, away from his island of refuge, and dared to look back.
A flash of lightning showed him the snakes were not in pursuit.
With terror spurring him to one final, all-out effort, he broke into a desperate rush for the road.
The rush took him through water that was sometimes knee-deep, sometimes ankle-deep, and at times only an oily black film hiding what he was sure must be quicksand that would suck him down. Losing his balance every few strides, he crashed through the swamp like a terrified animal pursued by hunters, creating a din that must have been audible even to the people in the cabins he was struggling to reach.
Half drowned and layered with slime, he reached the road and stumbled across it.
But his strength was gone. With the road at his back, his legs turned liquid and let him down. Sprawled in the motel driveway, he tried to continue by crawling but collapsed and lost consciousness.
When he opened his eyes it was daylight. Not real daylight—the sun was not yet up—but he could make out the dim shape of Della Driscoll's house and the misty outlines of the five cabins, in one of which he had left Sandy. And on struggling to rise, he became aware that Driscoll herself was standing within three feet of him with her hands on her hips and her jaw pugnaciously jutting.
"Do you mind tellin' me what you think you're doin'?" the woman demanded.
Unable to rise, he turned over on his back and stared up at her. "I . . . don't know. The storm . . .
"Storm?" she snapped. "What storm?"
"The rain. The wind. The thunder and lightning. I felt I had to get out of the cabin before something terrible happened." Succeeding at last in getting to his feet, he stood there swaying from side to side while looking around him in the gray dawn. The storm was over, thank God. "I guess I panicked," he heard himself saying. "I was ill when we got here. Something wrong with me. Something I don't—don't understand."
The woman's glare was uncompromising. "Mister, there wasn't no storm last night."
"But there was! It scared the hell out of me and I ran across the road into the swamp."
"Into what?"
"The swamp. Over there." He turned to point, and slowly lowered his arm as he realized he must have gone much farther than the other side of the road. From here, all he could see over there was a flat expanse of dry-land grass and scrub growth, with an occasional slash pine standing dark against the sky.
"A swamp," he heard himself repeating. "Somewhere. I got lost in it."
Della Driscoll's elbows were jug handles now.
"Mister, there ain't no swamp anywheres around here."
"But there is! A big one! I was trapped in it for hours by snakes!"
"A swamp with snakes, hey? When I opened my door just now, I seen you comin' from that field acrost the road, staggerin' like you was drunk. If you was in a bog somewhere—which I don't know where it'd be—why ain't your feet wet? And if it was stormin' like you say, why ain't you wet all over?"
Ken looked at himself. Yes, why wasn't he wet? And why didn't he reek of the stinking black water he'd been forced to wade through?
"Well?" Driscoll demanded.
"I don't know. I don't understand."
"You don't, hey? Well, I do. I've had your kind stop here before, mister. And I'm tellin' you, you come to the wrong place. Any swamp and snakes you seen around here was all in your mind, put there by drugs. Now you take your missus, if she is your missus, and clear out of here before I call the sheriff. I don't stand for nobody usin' drugs on my place. I'm respectable."
"Mrs. Driscoll, I haven't been using drugs. Believe me, I—"
"Out!" She took a menacing step toward him. "Right now! Take your missus and git!"
There was no use trying to convince her, Ken decided. Were he in her shoes, he might be equally angry. Turning away, he walked slowly toward the cabin where Sandy must still be asleep.
Dear God, what if she, too, had been a victim of hallucinations?
But she was peacefully sleeping, and when he waked her by gently shaking her shoulder, her only remark was a perfectly normal one. "Oh." She blinked up at him. "What time is it?"
"Daylight."
"Ken! You promised me—"
"I'll explain later, hon." He helped her to her feet. "We have to get out of here."
While putting on her shoes she raised her head to give him a puzzled look, but then went to the bathroom without saying anything. When she reappeared, he took her arm and led her to the door. Having expected to stay no more than an hour or so, they had brought nothing in from the car last night.
In the gray beginning of a new day, Della Driscoll was waiting there with a bulldog look on her face.
Ken halted. "Mrs. Driscoll, I'm sorry about this. I don't know what happened, but it wasn't what you think."
"So you say," she growled.
"Tell me again how to get to Gifford. Please."
"Mister, I'm tellin' you nothin'! You just clear out o' here right now!"
In the house on Petrea Road in Gifford, Clarisse knocked on the door of Margal's room and was told to enter. Bearing a tray, she went to the bed to serve the bocor his breakfast. But before she could put the tray down, she had to move a magazine he had been looking at.
Are you finished with this?"
"Yes. Take it away."
The magazine was open to an article on the Florida Everglades, and as she walked to the door with it Clarisse looked with interest at some of the photographs. One showed some decidedly ugly snakes—cottonmouth moccasins, the caption said they were—gliding through dark, weedy water. Another, that took up an entire page and made her feel she was right in the midst of it, was a picture of huge trees in a swamp, with strange-looking growths rising from their submerged roots.
Florida was not a nice place, Clarisse decided as she tossed the magazine onto a t
able. Not nice at all.
Chapter Twenty-two
"Through your eyes, Dawson, I see an exit ahead, and a restaurant. You may stop there if you are hungry. Are you hungry?"
"Yes."
"Only 'yes'?"
"Yes, Margal."
"I prefer 'Yes, master."'
"Yes, master."
"You are moving your lips. Do not move your lips when you communicate with me. It is not necessary."
"As you say, master."
The eating place had been advertised on roadside signs for the past fifty miles, at least, and its enormous parking area was crowded with cars from almost every state on the eastern seaboard. Definitely not the sort of establishment the son of Rutherford Dawson, presidential confidant, normally would have chosen to patronize, even when driving alone. But the hour was now 6:15 P.M. and, being hungry and tired after driving all day, Brian Dawson more than welcomed the permission to stop.
Here in South Carolina he was more than half way to his destination, and his last meal had been a meager breakfast prepared by Margal's Clarisse. He would not easily forgive the bocor for what had happened immediately afterward.
His daughter, Merry, had been asleep on an old mattress in the living room. To reach the car he had to walk past her and, of course, had halted. If he could but kneel and touch her before leaving the house . . .
But Margal's voice inside his head had thundered, "No! Not until you complete your mission and return!" And so he had been forced to depart from that terrible place without even saying good-bye.
The master should not have done that. No. There was no excuse for such pointless cruelty.
Finding a parking space in the crowded lot, he drove into it and shut off the engine, closing his eyes for a moment as he leaned back to ease the ache in his shoulders. How much sleep had he had last night on the floor of Margal's room? Not more than four or five hours, surely. And none at all the night before that, while playing the role of pupil to a relentless teacher. Now, after twelve hours of driving, nonstop except for gas, he was close to the end of his endurance.
Getting out of the car, he lost his balance and had to grasp the door to steady himself. Then, on lurching away from the machine, he stumbled to one knee.
"Hold it right there, sir."
Afraid to rise, he only turned his head to look behind him. A state police car was there. A young man in uniform strode toward him.
Oh, God, he thinks I'm drunk.
The trooper took his arm and helped him to his feet. Stood there holding him. "You been drinking, sir?"
"No, no. I'm just a bit stiff from driving."
The other's gaze shifted to Dawson's silver Jaguar. "Where you headed for?"
"Washington. That is, Virginia. Alexandria."
"From where?"
"Florida."
"And for what?"
"To visit my father."
"Your driver's license, please."
Brian fumbled out his billfold and offered it open, with the license visible. After examining it, the trooper flipped through other cards and peered even longer at one of those.
"You're Brian Dawson, and with the State Department?"
"Yes."
"The father you're going to—would that be the Rutherford Dawson I saw on 'Meet the Press' Sunday? The one that's an adviser or how they call it to the President?"
With a sigh of relief, Dawson said, "I didn't know he was on television Sunday. I was in Haiti. But yes, Rutherford Dawson is my father." He paused. "Look, Officer, I've been pushing a little, but I'm not drunk, not sick, and I'm in a real hurry."
"Why not a plane, then—sir? You could have made the trip by plane in—"
"I dislike flying. The flight from Haiti to Miami was all I could handle."
"Oh." A pause, then a shrug as the trooper handed the billfold back. "Well, okay, sir. Sorry to butt in. But when I saw you almost fall down—"
"I understand. But I . . . Wait."
He's impressed that I'm with State, Brian thought. He's awed that I'm the son of a man close to the President. This could be my chance! If I tell him about Merry, he can phone the police in Gifford or Vero Beach, and they can go to that house and get her out of there!
"No!" screamed a voice in his head, so savagely it caused him to take a backward step and clap his hands to his ears. "Do that and you die! And so will the child!"
"Sir?" The trooper stared. "Are you sure you're okay?"
"I—I will be. It will pass."
"You're white as a sheet, sir."
"Tell him you need food!" the voice in his head shrilled. "Go into the restaurant!"
"I'm just hungry, I guess." Brian struggled for composure. "I'm—well, to be honest, I'm a diabetic and have to eat on time, and today I didn't." He had certainly behaved enough like a diabetic to be believed. "I'll be all right when I've had some food, Officer."
"Well—okay, sir. I hope so." The trooper turned away.
"Now," the voice ordered, "satisfy your hunger as instructed. And never again even dare to think of disobeying me. Do you understand?"
"Yes. I mean—yes, master."
"I am not a patient man. Remember that! Or a forgiving one, either!"
"I will remember."
"I do not tolerate disobedience!"
"I—hear you."
"Go, then."
He had a terrible headache as he turned and trudged toward the restaurant. It began to fade, though, soon after he was seated and had ordered something to eat. Then, as he sat there waiting to be served, he began to think—vaguely—of a thing the young trooper had said.
If this visit to his father was so urgent, why hadn't Margal sent him by plane instead of letting him drive? Even if there were no scheduled flights to Washington from some city close to Gifford, with his State Department connections he could easily have arranged for a private flight.
Was the monster fallible, after all?
Chapter Twenty-three
The hammering in Ken's head was back, worse than before. It had begun when he strove to recall the Driscoll woman's directions for reaching the town of Gifford. The directions she had angrily refused to repeat.
Now, with the car stopped at the side of the road, he studied the map until his eyes burned.
Sensing his anguish, Sandy Dawson reached out to touch him. "Are you all right?"
"I guess so. Yes—I'm okay."
What had happened to him last night, anyway? Why had a seemingly nonexistent storm caused him to flee from Sandy into an unreal swamp, to be terrified there by a nightmare horde of poisonous snakes while an audience of grotesques looked on in fiendish glee?
Was Margal actually responsible? Could a sorcerer distort a mart's mind that way without being close enough to hypnotize him? And if Margal had caused it to happen, why had Sandy remained unaffected?
But she hadn't been totally unaffected, had she? Like him, she had seen a nonexistent mist on the highway and been duped into thinking they were on the right road when they were not. Then she had passed out in the car, seemingly terrified, when they stopped at the motel. So Margal must have gotten to her, too, at least for a time.
No good would come of speculation. The important thing now was to get to Gifford in a hurry, to make up for lost time. They were west of big Lake Okeechobee, Driscoll had said. They must return along 80 to 27 and go north to—he peered at the map again—to cross-state 70. Then east on that to pick up 1-95 outside Fort Pierce.
Could he drive that far? Last night's ordeal had left him exhausted.
He glanced at Sandy. She, too, looked worn out.
There is so much I don't know.
He had never mentioned Sandy when talking to the men in Little Haiti, he was certain. So if one of them had chosen to tell Margal of his visit, the sorcerer still would not know Sandy was with him now. Was she just absorbing an overflow of whatever unholy force the bocor was directing at him?
He changed his mind about asking her to drive. "Tell me something, hon. Wh
en we got to that motel and you passed out in the car, you looked frightened. Do you remember why?"
"Yes, I do. I had a feeling something awful was going to happen to you there."
"That's all?"
"Isn't that enough?"
The overflow, he decided. Margal had been working on him. He, Ken Forrest, had been thinking mostly about her. She had picked up the bocor's vibes. That would explain her seeing the fog, as well.
Then why had she slept through his ordeal in the swamp? Had Della Driscoll's "tea" been a soporific?
"All right." He thrust the map at her. "I know the way. Talk to me, Sandy."
"What?"
"Talk to me. God knows what we're up against, but if we're talking, maybe I won't be such an easy victim."
Thank God Merry's kidnapper couldn't control the car. It picked up speed, and the woman at his side turned toward him, tucking one leg under her. "What shall we talk about?"
"For starters, why not tell me more about you and Brian? I thought you had a good marriage."
"It wasn't ever good, Ken."
"Wasn't in what way?" If he could get her talking about Dawson, maybe that old jealousy would build up inside him again, leaving fewer openings for Margal's mind control.
"Really, I don't want—"
"Pretend you do. Unless you want us to wind up in some other forsaken part of Florida. Come on, now."
But she had something else on her mind. "Ken, why can't we go to the police?"
"Oh, God."
"Why do you say 'Oh, God'? It's the logical thing to do, isn't it, after what happened last night? We need help!"
"Sandy, look at us, for God's sake. Are we in any shape to confront a bunch of hardheaded cops? To talk to them about a kidnapping in Haiti by a sorcerer with no legs? And about a storm that didn't happen? And my going nuts and plunging into a swamp that wasn't there?" With his gaze fixed on the road because he feared being vulnerable again, he shook his head violently. "Even the Driscoll woman accused me of being stoned, Sandy. The police would be sure of it."
"I don't see how it could hurt to try," she persisted.
"Do you want to risk another delay? If they think there's something wrong with us, they'll hold us. Please. Forget about the police, at least for now. Tell me about you and Brian."
