“Wonder why she’s selling the place?” Bonnie said.
“Why don’t we find out. Do me a favor? Look out the front window and get the number of the real-estate agent, and the pager number if it’s there.”
Bonnie went to the master bedroom and got what he wanted. When she came back to the office, he was playing with the phone. She gave him the number, and he punched it in, then sat down in the desk chair.
“Margo Jennings, please. Pager 3216. It’s about the house on Empire Street.” He read the number off the phone.
When he hung up he smiled at Bonnie.
“What if she doesn’t call back?”
“She will, if she recognizes the number.”
The phone rang only minutes later. This time Shep grinned at her and put it on the speaker.
“Dave Grund speaking,” Shep said.
Bonnie felt a flash of admiration for him.
“What are you doing in the house?” Margo Jennings sounded like a heavy smoker.
“I’m showing it to a client,” Shep said defensively. “Got a couple of questions, if you wouldn’t mind.”
“Now, wait a goddamned minute! You didn’t arrange the showing with me!”
“I tried. Couldn’t get through. Your pager was out earlier, and I knew the house was on lockbox and unoccupied.”
She had no answer for that, apparently.
“What firm are you with?”
“National,” Shep said, shrugging at Bonnie.
“I don’t recognize your name. Grund did you say?”
“Dave Grund.”
“What is it you’d like to know?”
“The price, for one thing?”
“Didn’t you get it from the listing?” she asked incredulously.
“Tell you the truth, we were just driving by, and we haven’t had a chance to look at the listing.”
“Asking price is one-forty-six ninety-nine.”
“One-forty-six?”
“I know it’s high, but my client is not clearly motivated to sell.”
“That would be Constance Morgan,” Shep said.
Another pause.
“Mr Grund, if you care to discuss this further, I suggest you come down to my office.”
“Oh, I don’t think that will be necessary. Why is Miss Morgan moving, if you don’t mind my asking?”
“I don’t know. And may I suggest you vacate the premises immediately? Viewings are by appointment only.”
“She doesn’t really want to sell, does she?”
“Goodbye, Mr. Grund.”
She hung up, and the speaker buzzed. Shep hung up.
“Well.”
“Well, what?”
“The price seems high, don’t you think? For this, anyway. I don’t think she wants to sell. Probably a ruse. Keep the house empty, her whereabouts unknown.”
“Then this has all been pointless.”
Shep shrugged. They went back downstairs. Bonnie had opened the back door when Shep touched her arm.
“Let’s check the basement.”
Reluctantly, Bonnie closed the door. Shep found the basement door and opened it. Immediately, a familiar smell surrounded them.
“Oh, God,” Bonnie said, covering her mouth.
It was the same sweet smell of rot and decay they’d noticed at Harris’s.
“You think your ex has been here?”
Bonnie didn’t answer. Shep turned on the basement light, and they went slowly down.
It was a partially finished basement. The floor was tiled, and the walls were insulated. In one corner stood the washer and dryer, a pile of clothes on a table beside them. At the far end the furnace. There were boxes piled in one corner.
But in the middle of the floor, side by side, lay eight small mattresses, stained and torn.
“Motel Hell,” Bonnie said softly.
She knelt by the mattresses. The smell was stronger.
“Over here,” Shep said. “Jesus.”
He was standing in the corner beneath the breaker-panel. On the floor at his feet was what appeared to be a pile of paper bags.
“What is it?”
Shep toed the pile. It made a sound like cellophane being crumpled.
“Skin.”
“Oh, that is disgusting!”
“Must be a ton of it here.”
“Please, leave it alone.”
But Shep was kneeling, prodding at the pile with his fingers. He pulled one sheet out and toed it into the light.
“From Harris?” Bonnie asked.
Shep said nothing. He was kneeling now, spreading the sheet of skin apart. As Bonnie watched, it took shape.
“No way that’s your ex,” Shep said. “Unless he grew a pair of breasts.”
Bonnie turned away, feeling sick. The smell was too much.
“Please, let’s get out of here.”
Shep took her arm and led her upstairs. Outside, as he replaced the keys in the lockbox, Bonnie gulped fresh air. She felt dizzy, and her stomach lurched.
Shep led her back to the car. When they were inside, Shep started the car, but did not drive away. With the engine idling, he stared at the house. Rain spattered the windshield.
“What’s going on, Shep?”
“Probably not what we think,” he said softly.
“What do we think?”
He did not answer that, but put the car in gear and pulled out into the street.
Evan was alone again.
He lay on the cot and stared at the ceiling. Light from the living-room window hurt his eyes.
He was not sure if he had slept. He remembered them standing over him. He remembered the lady kissing him. But he remembered little else.
He turned his head and looked at the door. It was closed.
He sat up. He took a deep breath.
He felt itchy all over, and absently rubbed a hand across his forehead. He felt something tear, and let out a small gasp. A flap of skin fell down across his eyes.
Whimpering, he pulled it away and dropped it to his lap.
“Oh, gross!”
Tentatively, he touched his forehead.
The flesh felt warm, and moist, and slightly uneven.
He had to get out of here. He had to get away. Something was happening to him.
You are shaped.
Into something alive.
He swung his legs off the cot and let his feet touch the floor. Where could he possibly go? He was still wearing the pajamas he’d been wearing last night. They were filthy and wet.
But that would be okay, wouldn’t it? The police might pick him up, and he would tell them what had happened, and they would take him back to Mom. He probably wouldn’t get into trouble for it. He would have dressed if they’d given him time.
He stood up. His legs felt wobbly beneath him, and he swayed for a moment. When the dizziness passed, he moved away from the cot.
For some reason, he could not take his attention away from the door. He stepped close to it and listened. Silence. He squeezed his eyes tightly shut, trying not to recall the dreams. If he listened hard enough, he could probably make himself believe he heard movement beyond the wood, or breathing. Even as he thought that, he felt a crawly kind of feeling in his head, as if a tiny spider were moving around in there, but trying to keep itself hidden.
Shaking his head to clear his thoughts, he moved away.
The house seemed empty.
But it had seemed empty earlier, too, and the woman and Henry had seemed to appear out of nowhere. If he was going to do something, he better do it quickly. He wondered, briefly, why they kept leaving him alone. Didn’t they think he would run away? Maybe they thought he didn’t want to run away. That bothered him, but he did not know why.
He found the front door. It was locked from the inside, and he unlatched it. He took a deep breath, then opened it.
Rain splattered the concrete steps.
There was a red pickup truck parked in front of the house. Beyond that, a gravel road
, and beyond that an uncultivated field of mud and grass. A smell hung in the air that reminded him of the zoo. Animal dung.
He was on a farm, somewhere.
The gravel road disappeared behind a tree windbreak to the right, and as he watched, a car appeared.
He slammed the door closed, then jumped off the steps. The gravel was hard on his feet, but he ran anyway, darting in front of the pickup truck, across the road and into the field. Within seconds he was hidden by grass. He fell to his belly and stared at the house. Behind the house, rising into gently rolling hills, was forest. The sight of it, the dark, green enclosure of it, made him feel strangely homesick. The trees seemed to draw him.
The approaching car pulled up behind the pickup truck. Its lights went out. The passenger door opened, and Henry got out. The immense boy/man stared at the house and did not move. In another second, the redhead got out of the car. She said something to Henry, and they both went up to the house. The woman was carrying some shopping bags.
When they went inside, Evan bolted. He did not wait to see if they would come back out. He turned, and ran deeper into the field.
He was hungry, and his feet were sore, and he was cold and now he was getting wet, but he did not stop. This was escape, and he had to do it right. He had to. Or they would find him, and take him back to the house, and one of these times they would open that door, and he would get a good close look at the thing in that other room, and anything was better than that, anything, even running barefoot and nearly naked through the field of mud in the rain.
He was drenched by the time he left the field. The grass thinned, and he waded across a ditch and up to a blacktop road. The sky above was low and dark, and rain continued to fall. He could feel it as tiny little footsteps across his head and shoulder.
He stood on the side of the road and did not move. He did not know which way he should go.
It didn’t matter. Within five minutes a set of headlights appeared on the road, gleaming like stars in the rain. Evan waved as the lights approached. It was a pickup truck.
Beyond the glass was the grizzled old face of a farmer. Evan sighed with relief. Had it been another, less welcome face, he would have darted back into the field.
The old man stuck his head out the window.
“What the hell are you doing out here, boy?”
“I need to make a phone call.”
“A phone call? Are you crazy? Jesus H. Christ, son, look at this weather!” Jesus didn’t have a middle name, Evan knew, but Dad used to say that all the time. It made him feel better. He shuffled closer to the truck.
“You okay, kid? You look hurt, or something.”
“I want to make a phone call.”
“Well, hell, I don’t got a phone in here!”
The old man, whose nose was a big lump of purple meat in the middle of his face, took a deep breath and sighed.
“I’ve got to use a phone,” Evan said.
“Well, hell, I just come from town.”
Evan stepped closer. He wanted to blurt everything, but he was not yet sure he should do that.
Some inner sense stopped him.
“But I can’t just leave you out here, you silly little shit. Come on, get in. I’ll take you back into town. Damned kids.”
Evan ran to the other side of the truck, opened the door, and climbed in. The old man stared at him as if he were a dog covered in ticks.
“Don’t get too close,” he said. “Stay right there.” Evan nodded and pressed his head against the glass. He tried not to cry as the old man turned the truck, and headed back toward safety.
Chapter Twenty-One
They drove in silence. Bonnie wrung her hands in her lap. She wanted to talk, but did not know how to begin. Shep wasn’t helping.
As he guided them into freeway traffic, she said, “This isn’t just a cult, is it?”
“I don’t know.”
“Come on, Shep. Look what we’ve been finding. These are not normal people doing bizarre things. These are bizarre people doing even more bizarre things. That was human skin!”
Shep grunted. He was staring in the rearview mirror.
“Well, well.”
“What is it?”
Bonnie strained over her shoulder. The freeway, of course, was full of traffic.
“Somebody tailing us.”
“How can you possibly tell?”
“I saw the same car before we hit the freeway.”
He pressed a hand to his eyes and shook his head. The car swerved slightly.
“Pay attention to the road!”
He shook his head. He checked the rearview mirror. “They’re gone. Damn it.”
For the next fifteen minutes, his eyes were as much on the mirror as they were on the road. Bonnie kept a hand tightly on the door grip. When they finally slowed to a stop outside her house, Bonnie heaved a sigh of relief.
“Shep, I hate driving with you.”
When they were inside, Bonnie put on a pot of coffee. Shep sat at the kitchen table, hands clasped in front of him. He was pale, and looked very tired.
“You want to lie down?”
“No.”
She didn’t push it. He was like a disgruntled dog, and she did not want to get bitten. When the coffee was ready she poured him a mug. He clasped it in his hands but did not sip it.
“Tell me if I’m wrong, but have we hit a dead end?”
“We’ll find them.”
“How?”
He slammed his hand on the table and stood abruptly. Coffee splattered in his lap.
“I don’t know! But we will! Look at me! I have to find them!”
Frightened by his intensity, she moved away and leaned against the counter. Shep sat down again, shaking his head.
“I’m sorry. I’m not usually like this.”
Bonnie sipped her coffee. “I want to call the police. Tell Peterson what we know.”
“Okay.”
“You don’t mind?”
“Like you said, we’re at a dead end. Maybe he can make something of it.”
Bonnie moved immediately to the phone. “What should I tell him?”
“Tell him what you like. If he bitches about it, tell him to call Doctor Robertson at the Chief Medical Examiner’s Office.”
“Maybe you should talk to him.”
“I will. I guess. If he wants.”
The phone rang.
“Well, maybe he’s got something to tell us!”
Bonnie picked it up on the second ring.
“Hello?”
There was silence on the other end. Static.
“Hello?”
And then the voice came, Bonnie’s heart nearly exploded.
“Bonnie Laine?”
“Yes?”
“Will you accept a collect call from Evan Laws?”
For a moment, Bonnie just stared at the floor, unable to speak. A small sound came from her throat.
“Pardon me?” the operator asked.
“Evan,” Bonnie said. And then, “Yes. Yes!”
Shep was at her side in half a breath, knocking over his chair as he lunged away from the table. Bonnie turned toward him so that the receiver was accessible to both their ears.
“Mom? Are you okay?”
Bonnie could not focus on the emotions that were suddenly storming within her. She wanted to shout with joy, and yet at the same time she was close to breaking into tears.
“Are you okay, sweetie? Are you hurt? Where are you?”
“I saw Daddy.”
“Is Daddy with you?”
Shep made a chopping motion with his hands, and Bonnie stared at him, frowning, not understanding.
“He was in the car,” Evan said.
What? she mouthed silently to Shep, impatient with his gestures.
“Get information. Find out where he is. Comfort him later.”
She blushed at the rebuke, but nodded sharply. Of course. He was right.
“Honey, can you tell me where you are
?”
“I was on a farm. I’m only wearing pajamas.”
His voice was so small, wavering, and fragile, she wanted to hold him in her arms and tell him it was okay, tell him everything was fine, it was all over.
“Do you know where?”
“No.”
“Is he there now?” Shep whispered.
“Are you there now?” Bonnie asked, unable to keep the annoyance with Shep from her voice.
“No. I’m at a drugstore. I got away.”
“Tell him to get the number off the phone,” Shep whispered.
“Evan, what’s the phone number on the phone?”
He grunted and groaned for a second, then read it off to her. Shep wrote it down on the phone pad.
“Ask him if he knows the name of the drugstore.”
Angry at his intrusion, Bonnie waved him off.
“Honey, do you know the name of the drugstore?”
“It just said Drugstore.”
He was near to tears himself, and Bonnie had to clamp her lips so she would not be affected.
“Ask him …”
This time she turned away from him and waved him away.
“Honey, this is very important. Do you know where the drugstore is?”
“It’s not Minneapolis,” he said. “It’s a little place.”
“Are you near to a window?”
“Uh huh.”
“Can you see any other stores through the window?”
“Uh huh.”
Shep had come around to her other side, and he was nodding encouragement. She turned away from him again.
“Can you tell me what the signs say, sweetie? It’s important that we know where you are.”
He made some shuffling noises. Then, “There’s a big yellow sign across the street that says Banner Weekly.”
“Banner Weekly,” she said, so Shep could write it down. “Anything else?”
“There’s another one that says …” his voice trailed off for a moment.
“Evan?”
“It’s says Cro… Crocker Foods.”
“Crocker Foods,” Bonnie repeated for Shep. “Did you see any street signs, honey? Do you know the name of the town?”
“I saw one street sign. It said Main. And there are flags along the sidewalk.”
“What kind of flags?”
“Stars and stripes. Lots of them.”
“Ask him…”
“Shep, shut up!”
“What?” Evan asked.
Nightscape Page 20
