by Gideon, John
“Do you mind reading it to me, son?” he asked the young cop. “I left my specs in the van.”
Hauck read aloud from the neatly typewritten forms.
“‘Subject: semisolid, moldlike substance taken from passenger seat of automobile belonging to Mrs. Anita Solheim of Greely’s Cove, Washington,’ and it goes on about the dates, locations, and everything. Here we go.
“‘Sample contains several varieties of live Schizomycetic bacterial colonies of filamentous and single-celled bodies, of the kinds associated with the putrefactive process in postmortem vertebrates, particularly mammals; sample also contains several varieties of Mu—’” Hauck stumbled over the tough scientific jargon. “‘Mucoralic fungus (mold) consistent with organic decay; also traces of soil, soft-wood fiber, water and human blood. Though the analysis proved inconclusive with respect to the origin of the sample...’”
Robbie peeled away the cellophane tape that held the lid to one of the dishes, then removed the lid and set it down. Inside was a moist, brownish-green substance that looked as though it had been scraped from the bottom of a septic tank. Suddenly his eyes blurred, and his stomach wrenched. A dull, hot ache spread from the base of his skull to the back of his eyes.
“... Its components compare positively to known substances found on the clothing of deceased human remains. The results of the analysis do not rule out, however, that the sample could have come from an injured or dying vertebrate, the condition of which would accommodate the specified organic and inorganic materials and specimens.’”
The sick knot in Robbie’s guts was the one he had felt years before while looking over the transom of a boat into the water of Carlyle Lake, near the innocent town of Keyesport, Illinois, where something not so innocent had taken away three little girls and a little boy over two months’ time. Where Robbie had been drawn to the water—to a feeling of freezing, stinking blackness.
The feeling washed over him now, spiking his head with pain. It knew why he had come. And it wanted him, just as it had wanted the children.
Just as it had taken the citizens of Greely’s Cove.
The petri dish fell from his hands. Robbie convulsed and shuddered in his chair. Before Stu Bromton or Dean Hauck could move to help him, his stomach erupted, and he vomited his Belgian waffle and morning coffee all over his hands, his lap, the surface of Stu’s desk. Katharine yipped and whined with fright. Hauck just managed to throw an arm around Robbie’s shoulders to stop him from careening off his chair to the floor.
In the emergency room of the tiny but well-equipped hospital in Poulsbo, Washington, which was only a short drive northwest of Greely’s Cove, a young physician named Hei-necke pronounced Robinson Sparhawk healthy, if empty of stomach. Food poisoning was the tentative diagnosis. Heinecke suggested a day of rest, plenty of liquids, and call-me-in-the-morning-if-you’re-not-better. Stu Bromton drove Robbie and his dog back to their room at the West Cove Motor Inn.
“We’ll keep your van at the station house until you’re well enough to pick it up,” said Stu, after helping the psychic onto the queen-size bed and stacking pillows for him to lean on. “I’ll drop by for you in the morning.”
“I’m well enough now, God damn it,” said Robbie, lighting a cigar. “You heard the doc: It was only a little food poisoning. I reckon I should stop rooting around in garbage cans. Anyway, I sure appreciate all the trouble you boys have gone to.”
Stu drew a chair up next to the bed and sat down, which Katharine took as an invitation to lay her chin on his knee. He scratched her ear while she drooled on his sweatpants.
Robbie studied the police chief’s face and got a nibbling psychic signal, the kind he sometimes felt after a blast of sensation like the one that had flattened him a few hours earlier. A strong experience often left his mind bruised and overly sensitive, enabling him to pick up snippets of other people’s thoughts and emotions.
“I get the definite impression that there’s more to this business of vanishing people than you’re lettin’ on. Like maybe you haven’t told me the whole story.”
The way Stu dropped his stare confirmed Robbie’s suspicion. “I should’ve known better than to try to hold out on a psychic,” he said in a feeble attempt at levity.
“Honesty’s always the best policy, Bubba. But you have a right to your secrets. You don’t need to tell me why you’re so dang unhappy with your life, or about why you wish you never got married. I don’t need to know why you think you’re a lousy cop, or any of your other secrets—” He broke off, aware that he was jabbering his thoughts to the open air, distracted by a mental whirlwind of fears. Stu sat limp in his chair, open-mouthed.
“Look,” said Robbie, his voice heavy with apology, “I wasn’t really reading your mind. Having a strong psychic experience is sometimes like getting a cut on your arm: The meat around the wound is tender and real sensitive to the air. Right now my mind is open to things it doesn’t normally feel.”
“Like other people’s thoughts?”
“Not whole thoughts; just feelings, really. Your mind is no open book, Stu, and I wouldn’t read it even if I could. You’ve got your secrets, and I’ve got mine, and that’s the way it stays, okay?”
Stu got up from his chair and wandered to the window, where he stared a moment into the gray distance, his thumbs hooked into the waistband of his sweatpants, his face tight with trouble. “You’re right, I didn’t tell you everything there is to tell about the disappearances,” he said, speaking to the window. “I didn’t tell you that I’ve had reliable reports that some of the missing people have made visits around town, always at night, or that they’ve tried to make their friends and relatives follow them somewhere. I didn’t tell you that one of those visits actually caused someone to blow his own head off with a shotgun....”
Or that he himself had suffered a growing, clawing awareness of something poisonous in the air of Greely’s Cove, a cold presence that hung just beyond the reach of human eyes. But he told Robbie now, and Robbie listened while trying not to think about what had overloaded his psychic circuits at the station house, or what had invaded his mind years ago on Carlyle Lake near the little town of Keyesport, Illinois.
“So that’s the whole of it,” said Stu, talking to the sweating glass of the window.
But not quite, thought Robbie: There was the matter of another secret, more intensely personal and in its way darker, crouching in the cellar of Stu Bromton’s mind. The police chief apparently meant to keep it there, safely out of sight.
“I’m sure you can understand why I didn’t want to say anything about this in front of Dean Hauck,” Stu was saying, turning now from the window and forcing a small laugh. “If it got out, the city council would probably start involuntary commitment proceedings on me. I may have a loose lug nut or two, but I’d like to stay out of the state home awhile longer, if that’s possible.”
“You don’t have any loose lug nuts, son. What you have, I suspect, is a smidgen of the Gift, like a lot of other people do. It’s more common than you think. Everybody, to some degree, can sense strong thoughts and emotions, and you’d be surprised at how many folks can even see a little way into the future, if the conditions are right. Others have what your pointy-headed intellectuals call ‘strong intuition,’ which is really just a watered down version of what I’ve got—I call it the Gift. It’s nothing to get lathered up over, believe me.”
“I’m glad to hear that, but it doesn’t really help me, Robbie.
I need to know what this thing is and how I can fight it. Or at the very least, I need to know if I’m licked before I start.”
“I wish I could help you, Stu, I really do, but I’m afraid this thing’s a little out of my league.”
“What? I don’t understand. You got some kind of psychic impression from the lab samples, didn’t you?”
“I never said that.”
“You felt something that left your mind sore and tender enough to pick up my thoughts, right?”
�
�That doesn’t mean I—”
“Don’t bullshit me, Robbie! If you know what this thing is, tell me! I’ve got to know! If you don’t know what it is, then do whatever it takes to find out!”
“Can’t do that. I’m sorry. I have a policy on things like this, a very simple one: I leave them alone.”
“Why? I thought you were in business to solve crimes and locate missing people. That’s why the city council appropriated the money to bring you in, for Christ’s sake!”
“You wouldn’t understand if I told you.”
“Oh? What makes you think so? Try me.”
Robbie clenched his fists and swore silently. “I’ll tell you, God damn it! If you have to know, it’s because I’m scared—scared pissless, as a matter of fact. I’ve come up against something like this once, maybe twice before, and it scares me right down to my boot heels, scares me so bad I upchuck and pass out. Satisfied?”
Stu stood a moment at the foot of Robbie’s bed, a swaying hulk that looked ready to topple in defeat. His face sank, and his brow darkened. “I’ll send someone over with your van this afternoon,” he muttered sullenly. “I expect you’ll want to be leaving as soon as possible.” He left the room without saying good-bye, a man whose burden had just become heavier.
17
Mitch Nistler awoke with cramps in his muscles and an ache in his skull, his cheek resting against rough wooden floorboards. More than a minute passed before he overcame the numbness of his limbs and managed to sit upright. Another full minute dragged by before he was able to make sense of his surroundings: He was sitting on the rickety, rain-soaked porch of Cannibal Strecker’s crack house, his back propped against the locked door. His trousers and shoes were caked with mud, his shirt ripped and sopping from a panicky romp through wet foliage, his face and hands welted from searing twigs and nettles.
He could not remember ever being this cold. His chest felt tight and his throat raw, and he worried about having caught pneumonia.
“Fuck a bald-headed duck,” he wheezed, gathering himself to stand up.
He staggered against the splintery doorjamb as the horrors of the previous night trickled back into his head. The corpse of Lorna Trosper had opened its eyes. Terror had gripped him, causing him to drop the body and flee into the cold night, like a man with demons on his heels. The fog had engulfed him, and he had crashed headlong into the forest, colliding with rough tree trunks, sprawling countless times over fallen logs. He had somehow clawed his way back to Old Home Road and followed the road here, to the tottering old house that Strecker had acquired and converted to a crack laboratory, wanting only to put distance between himself and the horror in his upstairs bedroom. He had collapsed in the shelter of this front porch, exhausted and near insanity. How long he had slept he could only guess.
He coughed and raised his wrist to look at his watch, only to discover that he had lost it, along with his glasses. Though the fog had begun to lift, the sky was yet a gauzy gray that blocked out the sun. Was it morning or noon, he wondered, or would it soon be night again?
God forbid that night should come again.
The sound of an approaching engine came through the mist—the powerful, huffing engine of a truck making its way over Old Home Road toward the crack house. Mitch pressed a palm against his forehead to fight dizziness, to force himself to think straight. It would be Strecker and his horrible girlfriend, Stella DeCurtis, coming to brew up another batch of crack. Mitch didn’t need this: How on earth would he explain why he was here—or his battered appearance?
He needed to get away.
He launched himself down the crumbling cement steps toward the thicket that bordered the yard, stumbling repeatedly, and lurched past the rusted shell of an ancient Dodge that was nearly hidden by a thatch of man-high weeds. Beyond it was a tall pine with dark branches, surrounded by thick clumps of holly and sword fern. He hunkered down in the foliage and waited, scarcely daring to peer around the rough trunk of the tree. Strecker’s black Blazer wheeled into the yard and halted next to a pile of derelict kitchen appliances.
More sound—another engine, this one belonging to a car that was jouncing up the road behind Strecker’s pickup. Who could it be? Beyond this point Old Home Road was impassable to anything but a full-fledged off-road vehicle, meaning that someone must be visiting Strecker’s crack house.
The car—a nondescript Pontiac sedan that was four or five years old—halted, and a big man got out, a man who was actually bigger and more powerful-looking than Cannibal. Mitch craned his neck to see over the tops of the holly branches at the base of the pine tree behind which he cowered.
Strecker and Stella DeCurtis piled out of the Blazer and approached the man. Strecker had a large brown envelope in his hands. They talked for a few minutes, and their conversation seemed anything but jovial. Corley the Cannibal laughed nervously once or twice and chewed his bubble gum with rapid, pumping strokes, then handed the envelope to the visitor, who turned and headed back toward the Pontiac.
Recognition dawned in Mitch’s eyes like the setting sun. The man was none other than Stu Bromton, chief of the Greely’s Cove Police Department.
The Pontiac’s engine started. The car backed away, made a loop, and headed in the direction from which it had come. Strecker and Stella ambled back to the Blazer and gathered up armfuls of packages and sacks—the makings, Mitch supposed, of another batch of crack. They disappeared into the house and locked the door behind them.
Mitch sank against the wet bark of the pine. His mind lumbered through the meaning of what he had just seen.
Weeks ago, as he was about to embark on his fledgling career as a throwaway in the crack business, Strecker had alluded to “an arrangement with the local heat.” Strecker’s associates in Seattle had worked out a deal with “someone who’s important locally,” in order to be warned against any undercover drug operations mounted by the county sheriff or the State Patrol. Mitch now knew who that someone was. Police Chief Stu Bromton had driven out to the crack house, using his personal car and dressed in civilian clothes, in order to receive his payment and to notify Strecker of any potential danger from police investigators. Mitch wondered how much Strecker and his pals were paying Bromton—a hell of a lot more, no doubt, than they were paying Mitch.
The cold was becoming more than he could bear, a painful cold that gnawed at his bones and made him shiver uncontrollably. Knowing that he must get warm or become ever sicker than he already was—to the point of dying, maybe—he slunk through the trees alongside Old Home Road until Strecker’s crack house was safely out of sight.
He had no choice but to brave his own house again, to confront and face down the horror that waited there. His rational mind told him that what he had seen the previous night could not have possibly happened, or if it had, that it was explainable in comfortable terms. Corpses do open their eyes, after all, and not because they are coming back to life, but because of muscle reflex. Mitch himself had seen it happen before, and he knew that it was no cause for terror.
As he trudged up the road, he struggled to keep certain thoughts out of his mind, certain memories of sounds in the night, noises of someone moving around in his upstairs bedroom.
18
Lindsay Moreland spent the afternoon with her mother at the family house in Magnolia. She would have stayed overnight had Nora not insisted that she was feeling more herself again and that she was certainly no invalid who required around-the-clock care.
“I feel so silly,” Nora said, somewhat unconvincingly, “having let a little boy get the best of me like that. Anyhow, I’m fine now, and there’s absolutely no reason why I should ruin the rest of your weekend. Go home, Lindsay.”
So after a brief argument, Lindsay headed for her restored Georgian house in Seattle’s gentrified Capitol Hill, visualizing a mountain of put-off laundry that needed doing and office paperwork that needed catching up on. After arriving home, she placed yet another call to Carl Trosper in Greely’s Cove (she had called twice d
uring the day but had gotten no answer), and this time Carl was at home. Jeremy was fine, he reported, safely in bed after a full day. Dr. Craslowe had called early that morning, asking to see the boy, and Carl had dropped Jeremy at Whiteleather Place for a therapy session that lasted nearly four hours. Afterward, father and son had driven into Seattle with an old pal of Carl’s, Renzy Dawkins, to return the car that Carl had rented the previous night at the airport. The three had taken in an early movie and a seafood dinner at McCormick’s, then driven back to Greely’s Cove in Renzy’s classic Buick—a regular boys’ night out.
“My biggest problem at the moment is the collection of animals,” said Carl with a little laugh in his voice. “I’ve got your basic menagerie here: three adolescent dogs and two kittens. It seems my son can’t resist picking up strays and bringing them home.”
“I know,” said Lindsay. “I saw them when I picked up my mother. What do you plan to do with them?”
“Well, I can’t keep them in the garage, that’s for sure. It’s animal-shelter time, I’m afraid, but the place is closed until Monday morning. First thing on my list for tomorrow is to pin Jeremy down on which ones he wants to keep. I’m drawing the line at one dog and one cat, even though I’ve never been what you might call a cat-lover.”
“Seems fair. Sounds like everything is under control.”
“So far, so good. I’m finally beginning to feel really good about things. I still have a few loose ends to tie up in D.C., but I think I can do it by phone. As soon as this nonsense with the county authorities is cleared up, we’ll have clear sailing.” Carl’s cheerfulness was infectious, and they ended their conversation on a high note. Lindsay promised to drop by later in the coming week with some houseplants and some sketched proposals for landscaping, since she had promised him she would help restore the neglected and dying yard around the little house on Second Avenue. A house just isn’t a home without lots of greenery, both inside and out, she reiterated. Carl said that he looked forward to her visit.
