Still Life with Crows

by Preston; Child

  Vaguely, she heard Pendergast’s voice from below. “Corrie! Now!”

  Corrie struggled to clear her head. She released one hand, gave a desperate reach upward, and found the handhold that had been eluding her. Crying and gasping, she pulled herself up by her arms, moved her foot—and felt a viselike grip close around her ankle.

  She screamed, trying to shake her leg free, but the brute tugged fiercely at her, trying to peel her away bodily from the rock face. She struggled to maintain her hold but the pull was too strong. Her fingers, already swollen and bleeding from her struggles in the pit, grew too painful to endure. Corrie cried out in fear and frustration, feeling her grip give way, her nails scraping across the stone.

  There was another shotgun blast and the terrible grip abruptly relaxed. Corrie felt a sharp sting in her calf and realized that one or more of the shotgun pellets had hit her.

  “Hold your fire!” Pendergast shouted down.

  But the monster had fallen abruptly silent. The roar of the shotgun, the shrieks of pain and rage, echoed and fell away. Corrie waited, frozen in terror against the rock face. Almost against her will, she found herself looking downward.

  He was there, the broad moon face now a mask of blood. He stared up at her a moment, his face horribly twisted, grimacing, his eyes blinking rapidly. Then his hands spasmodically released their holds. His eyes remained on hers as he swayed back, as if in slow motion, from the rock face. Then he gradually fell backward, his countenance serene as his huge body dropped away into space. Corrie watched in sickened horror as he hit the rock wall a dozen feet below, bouncing with a great smack and a spray of blood, then turning once and landing heavily at the mouth of the fissure. He lay still for a moment, and then another shotgun blast roared out, catching him in one shoulder and turning him over violently, swinging his body partway over the abyss. A man holding a shotgun stepped forward: Sheriff Hazen. He aimed it point-blank at the man’s head.

  For a moment, one of the monster’s great hands clung to the edge. And then it relaxed and the thing slid down out of sight, dropping like a stone into the void. Corrie waited, listening, but there was nothing more: no splash, no cry of ultimate pain to mark the thing’s final passing. He had disappeared, claimed by the dark bowels of the earth. The sheriff stood there, not having fired the final shot.

  The first to speak was Pendergast.

  “Easy does it,” he said to Corrie, his voice low and firm. “Let one hand follow the other. I can see the rest of the path from here. The handholds are good, and the top is only a few feet away.”

  Corrie gasped, sobbed, her entire body shaking.

  “You may cry when you reach the top, Miss Swanson. Now, you must climb.”

  The businesslike tone broke the spell of terror that froze her against the rock. She swallowed, moved a hand, found another handhold, secured it, moved a foot. And when she reached up again, her hand found the lip of the precipice: she had made it to the top. In another moment, she had pulled herself up and over. She stretched out on the cold floor of the passageway, face down, and gave herself over to sobbing.She was alive.

  For a minute, maybe two, she remained alone. And then Pendergast was kneeling over her, his arm around her, his voice low and reassuring. “Corrie, you’re fine. He’s gone now, and you’re safe.”

  She couldn’t speak; all she could do was cry with relief.

  “He’s gone now, and you’re safe,” Pendergast repeated, the cool white hand stroking her forehead—and for a moment the image of her father returned, so strong it was almost a physical presence. He had comforted her this way once, when she had been hurt on the playground . . . The memory was so vivid that she swallowed the next convulsive sob, hiccuped, and struggled to sit up.

  Pendergast stepped away. “I have to go down for Sheriff Hazen. He’s badly hurt. We’ll be right back.”

  “He—?” Corrie managed to say.

  “Yes. He saved your life. And mine.” Pendergast nodded, then was gone.

  Corrie leaned back against the stone floor. And only now the true storm of feelings flooded through her: the fear, pain, relief, horror, shock. A breeze came wafting down from out of the darkness, stirring her hair. It carried with it a familiar, horrible smell: the smell of that cauldron, in the room where the killer had first grabbed her. But along with it was the faint smell of something else, something almost forgotten: fresh air.

  Perhaps she fell asleep then, or perhaps she simply shut down. But the next thing she remembered was the ring of footsteps against rock. She opened her eyes and saw Agent Pendergast looking down at her, gun once again in his hand. Beside him, leaning heavily against the FBI agent, was the sheriff: bloody, clothes ripped, nothing but a knot of gristle where one of his ears had once been. Corrie blinked, stared. He looked as tired and battered as a human being could be and still remain standing.

  Pendergast spoke. “Come. We’re not far now. The sheriff needs both our help.”

  Corrie staggered to her feet. She swayed a moment and Pendergast steadied her. Then they began moving slowly down the tunnel. And as the smell of fresh, sweet air began growing stronger, Corrie knew for sure that they were finally on their way out.

  Seventy-Eight

  Williams toiled up the path, the bite smarting with each step. The corn in the fields along the road had been ripped to shreds, husks gone, ears scattered across the path, broken stalks rustling crazily against each other. He cursed extravagantly at the rain and the wind. He should’ve packed it in an hour ago. Now he was soakedand injured. Great combination for pneumonia.

  He struggled up onto the porch, his feet crunching over broken glass from a window blown out by the wind. Now he could make out a faint glow from inside.

  It was a fire in the fireplace. Nice. Rheinbeck, it seems, had been taking it easy up here while he and Shurte were down in the storm, guarding the cave entrance. Well, now it was his turn at the fire.

  Williams stopped, leaning on the door and catching his breath. He tried the handle, found it locked. The firelight flickered through the leaded panes, making warm kaleidoscopic patterns in the glass.

  He gave the knocker a few raps. “Rheinbeck! It’s me, Williams!”

  No response.

  “Rheinbeck!”

  He waited one minute, then another. Still no response.

  Christ, Williams thought, he was probably in the bathroom. Or the kitchen, maybe. That was it. He was in the kitchen eating—or drinking, more likely—and couldn’t hear with all the wind.

  He went around the flank of the house and found another broken window panel in the side door. He put his mouth to it and shouted, “Rheinbeck!”

  Very strange.

  He pushed out the rest of the glass in the panel, reached inside to unlock the door, then eased it open, nosing his light ahead of him.

  Inside, the entire house seemed to be alive with the creaking, groaning, and muttering of the storm. Williams looked around uneasily. It looked solid enough, but old places like this were sometimes full of dry rot. He hoped the whole structure didn’t come crashing down on him.

  “Rheinbeck!”

  Still no answer.

  Williams limped forward. The door from the parlor to the dining room was half closed. He pushed through, looked around. All was in order, the dining table covered with a lace tablecloth, a vase of fresh flowers in the middle. He shone his light into the kitchen, but it was dark and there was no smell of cooking.

  Williams returned to the parlor entrance and stood there indecisively. Looked like Rheinbeck had left with the old woman. Maybe an ambulance had finally come. But why hadn’t they notified him and Shurte? It was only a five-minute walk to the cave mouth. Typical Rheinbeck, looking after himself and to hell with everyone else.

  He glanced over at the fire, at the cheery yellow glow it threw over the parlor.

  Hell with it,he decided. As long as he was stuck in this creepy old place, he might as well make himself comfortable. After all, he’d been badly injured in
the line of duty, hadn’t he?

  He hobbled over to the sofa and eased himself down onto it. Now this was more like it: there was always something reassuring about the warm glow of a fire. He fetched a contented sigh, noticing the way the firelight reflected off the framed embroidery, the glass and porcelain knickknacks. He sighed again, more deeply, then closed his eyes, still seeing the flickering warm light through his eyelids.

  He awoke suddenly, wondering for a wild moment where he was. Then it all came flooding back. He had dozed off for a moment, it seemed. He stretched, yawned.

  There was a muffled thump.

  He froze for a moment before figuring it must have been the wind, coming through another broken window. He sat up, listening.

  Another thump.

  It sounded like it was inside the house. Down below, in the basement. And then Williams suddenly understood. Naturally, Rheinbeck and the old lady were down in the cellar because of the tornado warnings. That was why the house seemed deserted.

  He exhaled with irritation. He should go down there, just to report. He rose from the comfortable sofa, cast a regretful eye on the warm fire, and hobbled toward the door to the cellar stairs.

  At the top he hesitated, then began to descend. The treads protested under his weight, squeaking frightfully over the fury of the storm outside. Halfway down he paused, craned his neck to see into the pool of darkness.

  “Rheinbeck!”

  There was that thump again, followed by a sigh. He fetched a sigh of his own. Christ, why was he bothering? He was injured, damn it.

  He shone his light down and around, the banister rails throwing alternating bars of yellow and black in the cluttered space. At one end, a huge storm door had been set into the stone wall. That was where they must be.

  “Rheinbeck?”

  Another sigh. Now that he was closer, it didn’t really sound like wind coming in a broken window, after all. It sounded forced, soundedwet somehow.

  He took another step down, and another, and then he was at the bottom. The door was straight ahead. He hobbled over to it, and slowly—very slowly—pushed open the door.

  A candle guttered on a small worktable, where tea for two had been set up with a pot: cups, cream, tea cakes, and jam all neatly arranged. Rheinbeck was sitting in a chair facing the table, slumped over, hands hanging at his sides, blood pouring into his mouth from a terrible gash in his skull. A broken porcelain statue lay in pieces on the ground around him.

  Williams stared, uncomprehending. “Rheinbeck?”

  No movement. A muffled boom of thunder shook the foundations of the house.

  Williams could not move, could not think, could not even reach for his service piece. For some reason, all he could do was stare in disbelief. Even down here the old house seemed almost alive with the fury of the storm, groaning and swaying, and yet Williams could not pull his eyes away from the tea tray.

  Another thump behind him abruptly broke the spell. Williams turned, the flashlight beam spinning across the walls as he groped for his gun, and as he did so a figure seemed to come out of nowhere, rushing toward him, boxes and packing crates falling away in a blur: a wild ghostly woman in white, her arms upraised, her tattered nightgown streaming behind her, her gray hair wild, Rheinbeck’s commando knife in one of her upraised fists. Her mouth was open, a pink, toothless hole, and from it issued a shriek:

  “Devils!”

  Seventy-Nine

  The rain and wind had risen to such a furious pitch that Shurte began to worry that a new line of tornadoes might be making for Medicine Creek itself. The water was now pouring down into the cave, and he had just retreated into the cave entrance when he heard the sounds from within: footsteps, slow and shuffling, and coming his way.

  Heart pounding, silently cursing Williams for leaving him alone, Shurte positioned himself to one side of the propane lantern and aimed his shotgun down the steps.

  Silent, indistinct figures began materializing out of the gloom. Shurte remembered the dog and felt his skin crawl. “Who’s that?” he called out, trying to keep his voice from quavering. “Identify yourselves!”

  “Special Agent Pendergast, Sheriff Hazen, and Corrie Swanson,” came the dry reply.

  Shurte lowered his gun with overwhelming relief, picked up the propane lantern, and descended to meet them. At first he could hardly believe his eyes at the bloody spectacle that greeted him: Sheriff Hazen, barely distinguishable under all the blood. A young girl, bruised and mud-spattered. Shurte recognized the third figure as the FBI agent who had sucker-punched Cole, but he didn’t have time to wonder how the man had gotten himself into the cave.

  “We need to get Sheriff Hazen to a hospital,” the FBI agent said. “The girl also needs medical attention.”

  “All communications are down,” Shurte said. “The roads are impassable.”

  “Where’s Williams?” Hazen slurred.

  “He went up to the house to, ah, to relieve Rheinbeck.” Shurte paused, almost afraid to ask the question. “What about the others?”

  Hazen merely shook his head.

  “We’ll send down a search-and-rescue team as soon as communications are restored,” Pendergast said wearily. “Help me get these two into the house, if you please.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Shurte put an arm around Hazen and gently guided him up the last of the steps. Pendergast came behind, helping the girl. They exited the cave mouth and bent into the fury of the elements, the rain coming horizontally down the cut, lashing and whipping against them, pelting them with broken cornstalks and husks. The Kraus mansion loomed ahead, dark and silent, just a faint light flickering in the parlor windows. Shurte wondered where Williams and Rheinbeck were. The place looked deserted.

  They moved slowly up the walk and mounted the steps to the porch. He watched Pendergast try the front door, find it locked. And then Shurte heard it: a muffled crash from inside, followed by a scream and the sound of a gunshot.

  In one smooth motion, Pendergast’s gun was in his hand; a second later, he had kicked in the door. Gesturing for Shurte to stay with Hazen and the girl, he darted inside.

  Shurte peered around the doorframe, shotgun at the ready. He could see two figures struggling in the hall at the top of the basement stairs, Williams and somebody else: a hideous figure in a bloody white nightgown, long gray hair wild. Shurte could hardly believe it: old lady Kraus. There was another scream, this one shrill and almost incoherent:“Baby killers!” Simultaneously, there was another flash and roar of a gun.

  In three leaps Pendergast had reached and tackled the woman in white. There was a brief struggle, a muffled shriek. The gun skittered across the floor. The two rolled out of Shurte’s view and Williams darted down the stairs. Perhaps thirty seconds ticked by. And then Pendergast reappeared, carrying the old woman in his arms, murmuring something in her ear. Moments later, Williams came up the basement steps, his arm around Rheinbeck, who was staggering and holding his bloodied head.

  Shurte entered with Corrie and the sheriff, passing through the front hall into the parlor, where the flickering light Shurte had noticed from outside proved to be a fire. There, Pendergast arranged the old lady in a wing chair, still murmuring soothing indistinct words, cuffing her loosely. He rose and helped Shurte lay the sheriff down on the sofa in front of the fire. Williams took a seat on a sofa as far from the woman as possible, shivering. The girl had fallen in the chair on the other side of the fire.

  Pendergast’s gaze darted about the room. “Officer Shurte?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Get a first-aid kit from one of the cruisers and see to Sheriff Hazen. He has an aggravated excision of the left ear, what looks to be a simple fracture of the ulna, pharyngeal trauma, and multiple abrasions and contusions.”

  When Shurte returned a few minutes later with the medical kit, he found that the room had been lit with candles and new logs laid on the fire. Pendergast had draped an afghan around the old woman, and she peered out at them balefully thro
ugh a tangle of iron-gray hair.

  Pendergast glided toward him. “Take care of Sheriff Hazen.” He went over to the girl and spoke to her softly. She nodded. Then, taking supplies from the first-aid kit, he bandaged her wrists and doctored the cuts on her arms, neck, and face. Shurte worked on Hazen, who grunted stoically.

  Fifteen minutes later, all had been done that could be done. Now, Shurte realized, they just had to wait for emergency help to arrive.

  The FBI agent, however, appeared to be restless. He paced the room, his silver eyes moving among its occupants. And yet again and again, as the storm shook the old house, his gaze came back to rest on the bloodied old woman who sat motionless, handcuffed to the wing chair, her head bowed.

  Eighty

  The warmth of the fire, the steam rising from the cup of chamomile tea, the numbing effect of the sedative Pendergast had administered: all conspired to create in Corrie a feeling of growing unreality. Even her bruised and battered limbs seemed far away, the pain barely noticeable. She sipped and sipped, trying to lose herself in the simple mechanical action, trying not to think about anything. It didn’t help to think, because nothing seemed to make sense: not the nightmare apparition that had chased her through the cave, not the sudden homicidal rage of Winifred Kraus, nothing. It was as senseless as a nightmare.

  In a far corner of the parlor, the state troopers named Williams and Rheinbeck sat, the latter nursing a bandaged head and leg. The other trooper, Shurte, stood by the door, gazing through the glass down the darkened road. Hazen reclined on an overstuffed couch, his eyes half open, battered and bandaged almost beyond recognition. Beside him stood Pendergast, looking intently at Winifred Kraus. The old woman stared back at them all from her wing chair, looking from one to the next, malevolent eyes like two little red holes in her pale, powdered face.

  At last, Pendergast broke the long silence that had settled over the parlor. His eyes remained on the old woman as he spoke: “I am sorry to tell you, Miss Kraus, that your son is dead.”