Sandman

by William W. Johnstone

  “Your right, Connie.”

  “What has Janis told you about Paul?”

  “Everything she could remember about his behavior. She said Paul could always manipulate you, work you.”

  “That’s nonsense!” But, with a sinking feeling Connie knew it was not. Paul had always had that ability.

  Or she had just let him manipulate her.

  “Janis told me . . . us”—Leo indicated Father Gomez—“about Paul’s night-creeping. About the various pets he’s killed. Your own, and those belonging to neighbors. And she’s told us about the times he’s threatened to kill her, the many times he’s said he wished she were dead. Raped. She described his strange behavior on the island.” He met her gaze and did not back down. “Connie, I followed Paul on the island. I saw him meet with Mantine and Nicole.”

  She paled, started to protest, but closed her mouth. Leo had no real reason to lie.

  Then Leo cocked the verbal hammer and let it drop. He leveled with Connie Kelly, leaving nothing out. He told her about Janis peeking into Paul’s bedroom on the island, watching the sand change. About Stanford burning the death cottage. About Stanford having to kill his own wife.

  “Janis is a very bright kid, Connie. She’s overheard you and Mark talking. She’s heard you both admit that something was, is, wrong with Paul. It doesn’t surprise me that you can’t remember all that clearly. Paul has simply ordered you to forget; he’s instructed you to block it out. Why he can work you that way, and not Janis, is something I don’t know.”

  Connie looked at the priest. “Do you believe all this nonsense, Father?”

  “Yes, Connie. I do.”

  “Then I think you’re both quite mad!” she declared, but she couldn’t put that strange mist she’d seen out of her mind. She elected to say nothing about it. For the moment.

  “Have you seen the book Melissa brought to Janis?” Leo asked.

  She struggled silently. A book? What book? It seemed she had seen a book left at the house by one of the kids. But the memory was vague and shadowy. A book? She just didn’t know.

  She shook her head. “I don’t remember. Is it important?”

  “Very.” Leo told her about the book, adding, “And Mantine and Nicole are in town. They’ve been spotted, riding around with some fellow named Gillette.”

  That brought her head up. “I know that name. He’s a convicted child molester. And he’s been accused of dealing in kiddy porn, right?”

  “Correct. And Lisa Arnot and her gang have been seen entering and leaving Gillette’s house. From there, they report straight to Paul. You want to put all that together, Connie?”

  She stared at her coffee cup for a moment, then lifted her eyes to Leo’s. “You put it together, Leo. And bear this in mind: You are talking about my son.”

  “Stanford told me Gillette is a caco.”

  “A what?”

  “Simply put, a person who was born to do evil; answerable to Satan. Stanford said the Harveys, the Simpsons, the Yardleys—all those at the Harvey house that night—were cacos. Their true nature was just now breaking through.”

  Connie rubbed her temples with her fingertips. “I don’t know what to believe. I will admit that I am confused. Someone . . . something has been manipulating me. I guess that’s the right word. I sit down to work, to write, but the words are not mine. Filth comes out. And I can’t remember things. Leo, Father, I absolutely can’t recall discussing Paul’s behavior with Mark. That’s frightening.” She sighed. “But Paul is my baby. I suppose, to some degree, he’s always had his way, in most things. The baby in the family usually does. But does that make him evil? Not in my mind.”

  “What do you remember of the island vacation, Connie?”

  “Very little.”

  Father Gomez decided to take a chance. Looking at Leo, he said, “Perhaps it’s time to show her the . . . objects at the hospital?”

  Leo exhaled slowly. “I wasn’t going to do that just yet. But perhaps you’re right.”

  “What is it you’re going to show me?”

  Leo stood up. “Hell.”

  SIX

  “De girl knows,” Nicole told her husband. “I tink it’s time for us to leave dis place.”

  “Bah!” Mantine scoffed at her. “I lak dis human form we in. Woman, you warry too much.”

  “I’m tellin’ you, Mantine, dere is plenty cause for warry. Too many peoples is knowin’ ’bout us. Too many peoples is involve. And dey not weak peoples. Dis cop wit de stupid name is big trouble.”

  Mantine cut his hard mean eyes to her. “Dat’s simple. We figures out some way to kill him, dat’s all.”

  “Dat ain’t gonna be easy. And Paul jus’ tinks he’s gonna kill his sister. You been lyin’ to de boy, Mantine. It’s time to admit dat and to tell me why you been lyin’.”

  Mantine stood up, a tall handsome man. His eyes shone with an evil that encompassed centuries. “I ain’t been lyin’ to de boy. I just ain’t been tellin’ him true, dat’s all.”

  “Same ting.”

  “Ain’t neither.” Mantine paced the bedroom at the rear of Gillette’s house. He and Nicole had gathered enough strength through sleep and collected evil to function in human form for many hours. But in human form, in the living world, they were vulnerable. Mantine turned slowly, to look at his wife of more than a hundred years.

  “De boy was born to die, Nicole. You knows dat. Each time he dies, a stronger force take his place in de scheme of tings. Dats de way it’s been foreber.”

  “Yeah. I knows dat. But all de others knew it. Dey knew it from de start. How come you don’ tell Paul the truth?”

  “Damn it, woman! ’Cause de body and de mind dat was ’posed to be ready to receive Paul’s power ain’t ready. You know all dat as well as me. How come you all of a sudden ax such dumb questions?”

  “Dat’s de point I’m makin’, Mantine. Why ain’t it ready? You know de answer to dat well as me. ’Cause somebody is blockin’ de power. Now, you listen to me! I ain’t gonna mess around wit’ God, Mantine. We knows better dan dat. God squash us lak a bug.”

  “Woman, you talk nonsense. God ain’t neber interfered afore, not directly. Not neber. How come you all of a sudden tink He doin’ it now?”

  “I din’ say He was doin’ it. But somebody rat close to Him is.”

  “Who?”

  “Don’ know. But I take a guess and say dat damned old Michael is guidin’ someone’s toughts. Dat’s what I tink it is.”

  Mantine brushed that off. “God don’ permit none of His people to leave dat place.”

  “I neber said Michael was here. I said he’s talkin’ to someone. And you know as well as me dat he don’ have to leave dat place to do dat.”

  Mantine thought about that. It made some sense to him. Things had not been going as smoothly here as he had at first predicted. He had been confused as to why that was so. This explanation made sense. “Who he talkin’ to, woman?”

  She looked at him.

  “No!” Mantine recoiled, unbelieving.

  “Yeah.”

  “Dat’s against de rules! Dat just ain’t allowed. God got to play by de rules.”

  “Mantine, I done tole you and tole you: God ain’t doin’ dis.”

  “Yeah. But He ain’t stoppin’ it neither.”

  “No. He ain’t. But you got to ’member, He don’ have to stop it.”

  Mantine gave that some thought. Shook his head in agreement. “How strong you tink she is?”

  “Ver’ strong. Mantine, let’sgetoutof here. Leave. I got a bad feelin’ ’bout dis place. Tings ain’t workin’ out here.”

  “She strong enough to kill de boy?”

  “Maybe. Don’ know.”

  “What you tink we ought to do?”

  “I tole you: Go home.”

  “’Sides dat?”

  She shrugged. She would stay with her man. Even though she had a strong sense of impending disaster. “Maybe turn Gillette loose on her.”

 
“Yeah.” Mantine smiled. “Dat’s a good idea. De boy can take over after dat.”

  Nicole opened the door and called for the caco.

  Gillette listened. Licked his lips in heady anticipation. Such a pretty little girl. Soon to be all his.

  “Do I have permission to take pictures to remember her by?” he asked.

  “Not dis time,” Nicole told him. “Maybe next time.”

  “Do I just go to her house?”

  Gillette was expendable. He didn’t know it, but he was. Besides, he was beginning to irritate Mantine and Nicole. “Of course. Paul will be dere.”

  “When?”

  “Dis afternoon, mon.”

  * * *

  Connie was first shown the headless man. Alive and well, and strapped down securely. She looked, then ran to the ladies’ room and threw up her breakfast. Taking a deep breath, she washed her face, swallowed hard, then pushed open the door, returning to the isolation ward.

  She was shown the woman, also strapped down. Snarling and snapping and cursing and grunting.

  She looked at the doctors’ faces. The strain was beginning to show on all of them.

  She touched Leo’s arm. He could feel her fear through the touch.

  “How . . . ?” Connie managed to ask.

  “Ask Paul,” she was told.

  A sharp retort died on her tongue. She realized that she was definitely in the minority concerning her son.

  She was taken to Carleson’s lab.

  The head greeted her.

  “Hi, baby! Come here and give me a great big juicy kiss.”

  Connie felt she would faint. She gripped Leo’s arm and stared at the horror grinning at her. When she started to walk closer to the dirty, slobbering head, Leo stopped her. “Don’t get too close, Connie. He’ll spit on you. The spittle is highly contagious.”

  “What has my son to do with you?” she blurted.

  “All praise the young master!” the head screamed. “All bow down to the Son of the Dark One.” The head laughed and laughed, green slime leaking out of its mouth, slicking the red lips. The smell in the lab was very nearly overpowering.

  Connie stood, numb with shock. She bit at the knuckles of her hand, almost drawing blood. Then she screamed at the head. “Tell me! What about Paul?”

  “He wants to screw you, baby!”

  Connie almost lost control. The room spun wildly for a moment. “Paul is my son! He’s only eight years old!”

  “He’s a thousand years old. Ten thousand years old. He’s as old as sin.”

  “Why are you suddenly so cooperative?” Dr. Belline asked.

  The head cut its maddened eyes to him. “What have I got to lose?”

  “I’ve seen enough—heard enough.” Connie’s voice was low, but filled with dread and near panic. “Get me out of this . . . place, Leo. Please!”

  The head was still hollering, cursing, and spitting as Leo led Connie out into the corridor.

  He walked with her to a small lounge and sat her down in a chair. “You want some coffee, Connie?”

  She looked up at him. Leo thought he had never seen such fear and confusion. She nodded her head, not trusting her voice.

  “Back in a minute.”

  Mary Beth had followed them out of the chamber of horrors. “I’ll stay with her,” she offered, and sat down beside the badly shaken woman.

  “All right,” Connie was saying, as Leo returned, cups of coffee in his hands. “I’ve seen it. Now what am I supposed to do about it?”

  Mary Beth seized the moment. “Let us confine the boy, Mrs. Kelly. Give us permission to conduct a sanity hearing. I’m one of the few who doesn’t want to kill Paul.”

  The mother turned to Leo. “You would agree with that?”

  He shrugged his shoulders. “It wouldn’t prove a thing. Nothing at all. The boy is too smart. He’d breeze right through it. But you do what you want to do. He’s your son.”

  Connie kept her eyes on him. “Could you really kill an eight-year-old, Leo?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe. But we’re not talking about your average eight-year-old. Paul is a devil. I’m firmly convinced of that. So ... yeah, I think I could. And while we’re leveling with each other, I also think you made a very bad mistake in sending Linda home. I wish you’d call her, right now, and get her back to your house to stay with Janis.”

  Connie stood up. Her eyes had lost much of the fear. “Why, Leo?”

  “Because I sense—call it a cop’s hunch—that matters are rapidly moving toward a head. And I don’t like the idea of Janis being left alone. That’s one of the reasons I moved next door, to keep an eye on her. She’s a good kid. Would you please call Linda?”

  Connie hesitated. She had witnessed so many impossibilities, such horrors, that her mind had clicked off. She nodded minutely.

  Mary Beth pointed across the hall. “Use the phone in that office,” she said.

  Connie walked out of the lounge and across the short hallway.

  “We’ve made a small step, Leo.”

  “Not much of a one.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Paul is still alive.”

  “You really could kill him, couldn’t you?”

  “Yeah. I really could.”

  “Will you?”

  “Father Gomez says no. He says someone else will do that.”

  “Who?”

  “He wouldn’t tell me. He said the person has to find out first.”

  “I wonder who it is?”

  “I’m afraid I’ve already figured that out.”

  * * *

  Without Janis, Connie, Linda, or Paul knowing—he hoped—Leo had arranged with Mike and Sheriff Sandry to have two city cops and Peter Loneman stationed not far from the Kelly house during the early afternoon. Leo had a gut feeling that something bad was about to go down.

  And he couldn’t shake that feeling.

  Peter had slipped into Leo’s rented house while Connie was with the ex-cop at the hospital. He watched the Kelly place from a side window, staying in touch with the other cops by walkie-talkie.

  Sheriff Sandry and Mike had warrants drawn up. With two deputies and two city cops, they were going to force Mantine’s hand, charge him and Nicole with illegal entry into the country.

  If it came to that.

  Linda had arrived at the Kelly house, carrying a suitcase, and Paul had promptly left, to sit by the pool, pouting, an angry look on his face.

  From behind binoculars, Peter smiled. “You were right, Leo. The kid is really mad.”

  “I didn’t think he’d be too happy about Linda returning. I just wish I knew what was going down. And more importantly—when.”

  “Relax. Eric and Fifteen and me have been assigned here permanently. We’re here to stay, Leo.”

  “Doesn’t Fifteen have a name?”

  Peter laughed. “Raymond. But he’s always been called Fifteen. First time he went out on a trouble call alone he got so excited he forgot his name when he called in. All he could holler was his unit number. Fifteen. The name stuck.”

  Leo smiled as Peter’s radio crackled. “It’s confirmed. Movement at the Gillette house. Mantine and Nicole have been spotted. The sheriff thinks Gillette is up to something on his own.”

  “If he heads in this direction, we’ll sure know what’s on his mind.”

  “Yeah,” Peter said grimly.

  The men waited.

  The walkie-talkie popped. “Gillette is pulling out,” Peter informed Leo. “Alone. Heading in this direction. Soon as he’s out of sight, the sheriff and Mike are hitting the house.”

  “I hope Sandry realizes that in this case he’s got to shoot first and ask questions later.”

  “He may be a politician, Leo, but he’s a good cop. Believe it.”

  Leo grunted.

  Peter looked at him and said, “He and Mike are both carrying throw-down guns. Of course, being one of New York’s finest, you’ve never even heard of anything like that, right?”
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br />   Leo rolled his eyes. “Heavens no!”

  The tension vanished as Peter laughed.

  They waited.

  * * *

  “Now!” Sandry ordered. As he spoke the words, he was leaving his car, running toward the Gillette house. Two young deputies were running in front of him, one of them carrying a sledge hammer.

  The deputy swung the twelve-pound sledge, striking the doorknob squarely. The knob flew inward, the door slewing open, one hinge broken. The police raced into the house, guns drawn.

  Mantine and Nicole were caught totally by surprise in the den. They whirled around, shock on their faces, fear in their eyes at being caught in human form.

  “Freeze!” Sandry yelled. “You’re both under arrest. ”

  Nicole hissed at the men.

  Mantine’s face changed into a mask of hate.

  Then the couple began to change before the startled eyes of the men, a horrible transfiguration overtaking them. The smell of the sea filled the house as Mantine and Nicole were caught halfway between human and inhuman form.

  Wriggling, squirming coils of seaweed flopped on the carpet.

  One slithering rope of seaweed latched onto a cop’s leg and quickly wound its way up his leg, past his waist, and coiled around his neck. The cop cried out and dropped to his knees on the carpet, the seaweed choking the life from him. He managed to get his fingers between the slick stuff and his neck, to break the snakelike coil. He tossed it aside, coughing.

  Sheriff Burt Sandry and Chief Mike Bambridge opened fire on the hideous things that now stood before them. Two creatures that numbed the mind, and defied description. Creatures like nothing either man had ever before witnessed. Sandy, wet, scaly, hairy, ugliness.

  Sandry pumped five rounds into what had been Mantine, each slug knocking the spawn of Hell backward. A foulness oozed from the creature.

  Mike put two slugs into the chest of the thing that had been Nicole. The misshapen howling creature stumbled backward, its open, fanged mouth-hole gushing a greenish stinking fluid. Fighting back nausea caused by the stench, Bambridge stepped closer and emptied his pistol into the thing’s chest. The slugs stilled the devil’s heart.