Crossroads (6 page)

"Here?" he said, waving a gauntleted hand toward the front walk before him.

Then he stopped, sniffing the air.

"No," he said. "Not here. Where are you, Kira? You know I’m going to find you. Or my minions will."

His empty sockets glared in their direction, and Kira was certain that he was staring right at her, but Jen squeezed her shoulder, and she remained frozen in place.

Suddenly his voice echoed across the street, scratching at Kira like a million ravens’ talons. "I will find you! I can feel your hours slipping through my fingers like dust!"

Then he was gone, vanishing with barely a
nick
against the pavement. As Kira and Jen watched, several dark shadows appeared, like black beach balls with teeth and stubby legs, sniffing and snuffling their way between the houses. When the weird looking creatures were gone Kira turned to Jen.

"What were those?" she whispered.

"Grigs," said Jen, simply.

"Where do they come from?"

"The same place he did," said Jen, rising.

Kira knew by the dull expression on Jen’s face that she would get no further answers there, and there was no sense asking about the Empty-eyed-man. She knew where he came from, anyway, so it made sense that the Grigs were from the same place.

They staggered out of the village just before sunrise, Kira buoyed only a little by Jen’s hand in her own. The moon had finally slashed the clouds to threads, weaving ominous shadow patterns across the tracks that lay silent and empty before them.

"I’m hungry," said Jen, rubbing her belly beneath the man’s sweatshirt she wore.

Kira nodded. "It’ll be morning soon. Maybe we can talk someone into feeding us."

***

Chapter 6

July 28
^th

A meager, cold, gray light filtered through the thin drapes as star-shimmered clouds sailed across the ocean of barren black sky, and the barest breeze rattled the branches of the scruffy holly bushes alongside the cabin. The clock ticked ominously on the bedside table, it’s luminescent dial glowing like an evil face, it’s hands spread as though it were about to leap and claw Silky’s eyes out. Still drugged by the last residues of dream-shattered sleep, he sensed something malevolent hovering in the shadows beside the dresser.

He held his breath, listening intently as a flood of adrenalin deluged him with full and fearful wakefulness. Arthritic pain burned every joint as his muscles tightened and then cramped. Finally, in exasperation he heaved a great sigh and threw aside the covers. If something was gonna happen now, then let it fucking happen. He sat up on the side of the bed, waiting for some invisible axe to fall across his shoulders, or razor teeth to tear him apart, for it all to end. The waiting was worse than the dying anymore.

But no dark, hulking figure appeared from out of the gloom. No giant mouth full of jagged teeth ripped into his flesh. He peered slowly around the room, but the shadows were only the dresser, the coat rack in the corner, the chair that held his jacket and pants. Whatever had wakened him had departed as stealthily as it had arrived.

He snatched the flashlight from the bedside table and hobbled down the hall, shifting wearily into his tattered cotton robe. Opening the back door, he stared through the screen out at the dregs of the night that masked the horizon within the mirror ocean and the dark shroud of sky. The unexpected image of a mirror shook him, and he struggled with a lump in his throat as he negotiated the three rickety steps down to the path. When he reached the outhouse it was a moment before he could force himself to open the door and look upon the darkness dwelling within. There was nothing inside but the one-holer seat and a roll of wrinkled toilet paper. Still, he leaned to check the hole itself, unwilling to sit until he could shine the flash down into the putrescent cavity and ascertain that nothing evil lurked in the foulness below.

Unlike the privy the house bad been constructed where it was through no choice of Silky’s. He had not built it. It simply had to reside where it did
because.
But he had purposely erected the outhouse as close to the cliff’s edge as he could get it and still have deep enough soil for the outdoor toilet to function. He got a perverse pleasure in knowing that he was planting his butt on a promontory with his backside facing into the vast ocean as though to say
here I am, and there’s not a damned thing you can do about it.
 He’d had so little control over any of the events in this life that this one silly act of defiance always cheered him. As usual he did his business in
this
predawn-pleased that
that
worked out all right-and headed back to the house.      

The sparse, wind-shriveled and twisted pines surrounding the cabin barely acknowledged the thin breeze, but the scrub brush beneath them shivered like kids visiting a haunted house for the first time. Although he was certain it was only his imagination Silky pictured something crouching there, ready to leap, and he quickened his steps back into the shack. As he passed down the shadowy hall he glanced at the door to the cellar.

It can wait. It’s still an hour till dawn.           
                       

He lit the oil lamp on the kitchen table and fired the front burner on the stove, then selected a can of corned beef hash from the stock in the cupboard. A thin beam of moonlight worked its way across the yard and struck the window almost audibly. When he glanced in that direction he thought he saw a familiar face reflected there. Dark, empty sockets glared at him, and he slapped the curtains closed with a shaking hand.

Chapter 7

Clem trudged up the rocky pathway toward Silky’s cabin by the dying light of the moon. He had packed his gear after Silky left, even going so far as to place it aboard the
Mary O.
But  disregarding the old man’s demand he had eaten dinner alone in his shack, and then climbed equally defiantly into bed. Still sleep evaded him, and he had tossed and turned through the night. Now-wired on nerves and coffee-he was determined to have it out with Silky. He huffed loudly as he reached the clearing around the old man’s house and started toward the porch.

But some vague intuition-some dim and only half-sensed feeling of unease-caused him to slip into the meager protection of ragged trees between the path and the cliffs, easing quietly through the shabby cover until he was past the porch and alongside the house. As he stared at the light through the curtains on Silky’s kitchen window more clouds scudded above, and suddenly the image he saw in the glass looked exactly like a human silhouette. But shifting his head, he could tell it was just a cloud reflection, and it was gone almost as fast as it had appeared. He shivered, anyway, as if something evil had just crept across his grave.

Nerves. That’s all it was. Silky had him all worked up.

Still, he remained in the shadows beneath the trees anxiously clenching and unclenching his fists. What the hell was the old man worried about? He hadn’t been off the island since Clem had known him, hardly ever had any outside contact except junk mail. Whatever was frightening him it wasn’t a boogie man or a cloud reflection.

The thought of junkmail reminded Clem of the letter. He’d been surprised when he found it in the box he and Silky shared in Rockland and realized it was from a
person,
not some retail outlet or one of the car dealerships Silky always got a kick out of. It had to be something about that letter that had got the old man so riled up. Was someone from his past threatening him? After all these years?

He heard a door slam out back and slipped further around just in time to see Silky head into the outhouse. Clem figured he wasn’t gonna bother a man in that position.

The wind picked up, and suddenly the gnarly pines began to sway overhead, the branches above seeming closer than they had been only a moment before, the darkness between the trees fuller and somehow stealthier than ever. He felt as though some great hulking beast were about to pounce, and he couldn’t stop his toes from tapping the ground in preparation for a bolt. The creaking of the branches almost sent him scurrying, and when the privy door shrieked open again he almost screamed. Instead he froze, praying the old man wouldn’t see him. How the hell was he supposed to explain hiding out in the bushes here, spying?

As Silky moseyed back to the house pine needles rustled and the stiff breeze continued to rattle the dry alder branches like old bones. But Clem was suddenly convinced it wasn’t just the wind roiling up the night. He could feel eyes burning into him. But there was no one else on the island but him and Silky. There couldn’t be. The only place to land on the whole rocky lump of land was his dock.
He
hadn’t ferried anyone else out here, and he’d have noticed when he was checking his pots if there’d been any other boats around on the radar. No one ever passed this way but a few other lobstermen, and of course the occasional pleasure sailor, but they were usually bound for more scenic spots.

Suddenly he wanted light, wanted human company, someone to tell him he was just spooked, wanted Silky to explain what the hell was going on, wanted to know that he wasn’t going batshit crazy. But the same terrible sense of foreboding that had warned him into the shadow of the trees kept him from crossing the narrow strip of lawn separating him from the house. He had the strangest feeling that there were secrets within the cabin that he was not prepared to learn about, and the image of Silky’s face when the old man had come to warn him off the island burned in his mind. Silky had seemed withered by something other than just time.

So instead of having it out and done with, Clem edged around the clearing again, back toward the trail home. When he finally reached the path he backed down it several stumbling steps-until a cloud swept in front of the moon, more shadows surrounded him-and he turned and ran, his feeble heart pounding like cannon fire in his chest.

Chapter 8

Sheila Bright quickened her step just as the early morning sun kissed the walk between her trailer and the diner. Already she could feel the sleepy little town of Ashmont, Virginia awakening. In twenty minutes Charlie, the town cop, would be at the front door expecting coffee and a Danish, and minutes later the place would be full of farmers, short run truckers, local construction workers, and the Ashmont Social Club-the table of four old retired game wardens who spent a grand total of ten dollars every morning but had never taken the strongest of hints to give up their place to paying customers. As long as no more
clubs
started up, Sheila supposed she could live with the problem.

What she couldn’t live with was the pounding headache or the rundown feeling with which last night’s insomnia had saddled her. She had awakened after midnight from a nightmare so real her bed was soaked in sweat, and yet so outlandish she spent the rest of the night convincing herself that it was simply the product of too much pepperoni pizza. When you neared thirty you couldn’t eat like you could in your teens, and it wasn’t like dreams were the only weirdness in her life.

She brushed back an errant strand of auburn hair as she unlocked the kitchen door in the rear of the diner. The aroma of yesterday’s burgers hardly affected her, although her customers swore they could smell it from three miles down the road, and it drove them as mad as Pavlovian dogs. She reached behind the deep double, stainless-steel sink and popped a couple of Tylenols from the bottle there, washing them down with a pint container of milk as she turned on the fire under the grill. After a moment the big exhaust fans came on automatically, but she hardly noticed them, either, as she checked the fridge to make sure there were plenty of raw scrambled eggs in the big pitcher or that the matching container of pancake mix was full. She dug out a five pound package of bacon and filled the griddle with strips then hurried around the front counter to flip the open sign and unlock the front door.

Charlie was already climbing out of his cruiser. She smiled and waved, noticing a tall, muscular young man standing behind the police car, but Charlie ignored him. Sheila turned back to the coffee urn, which she should
have taken care of first. Her head was just not working.

Dreams can tell you things.

Her mother’s voice echoed in her imagination, and she frowned.

Not things I want to know, Mom. More like things I want to forget.

Sheila’s father, Burney, had run out when she was barely old enough to remember him. Her mother had worked sometimes two-and even three-jobs to support them, and Sheila was proud of her for that, but she could never seem to get past her mother’s oddness that haunted Sheila until the day Marguerite died.

Marguerite had lived in a world where magic
happened
, constantly regaling Sheila with astrological charts, automatic writing, Tarot readings, or secrets from her Ouija Board friends. To Sheila there was no magic in being fatherless, in living near or below the poverty level, in being the continual brunt of peer jokes, of having to look into the amused eyes of grown ups as your mother ranted about aroma-therapy, or the power of crystals. There was certainly no magic in watching her try to convince the guy who had come to turn off their power for the third time in one year to accept a Tarot reading in lieu of payment and certainly none in hearing his counter offer.

Marguerite had lived her whole life-and twenty-two years of Sheila’s-in what most people would consider a shack, thirty miles up the road on the slopes of the Appalachians. Until the day she died Sheila had visited her once a month to make sure she had enough groceries to survive and paid her mother’s power bills so Sheila knew she would have hot water at least. But Sheila had hated those monthly trips, almost as much because of her own feelings of guilt as her continued dismay at her mother’s staunch refusal to look the world in the face and deal with reality
.