Night Things: A Novel of Supernatural Terror (11 page)

After it finished circling the bed it stopped, and again the unearthly tingle of its presence swept over him like a strange and silent wind. Suddenly, without warning, it spoke.

“Who are you?”

Its voice was deep and resonant, and hearing it made him tremble all the more. “I’m Garrett,” he stammered. And then he added for good measure, “I’m a little boy.” It seemed to ponder this for a moment, a sudden eddy of darkness whirling up violently through its core.

“What are you doing in my house?” it demanded.

“I live here,” he explained, but as soon as he uttered the words an even greater welling of darkness roiled up through it. Thinking he had angered it, he added quickly, “But I don’t want to be here.”

For a while it said nothing, and with each passing second a thousand different emotions reeled through him. Amazement. Terror. He could hardly believe he was talking to it, and suddenly his resolution to try to befriend it seemed completely beyond his capabilities. An eternity passed, and then another, and again he wondered if its silence meant he had offended it in some way. But then, just when he thought it was not going to reply, it spoke again.

“
Why
don’t you want to be here?” it asked.

Because he did not yet know how it was reacting to what he had been saying to it, he hesitated and wondered how he should answer the question. But after considering several more evasive responses, he opted for the truth.

“Because this isn’t my home. I really live in New York.” He swallowed, trying to moisten his mouth enough so he could continue. “But then my mom married this guy, Stephen, and he decided we were going to come up here for the summer. Only I don’t like Stephen. I mean, I don’t think he likes me. But that’s why I’m here.”

After he finished, he paused, making sure the thing had not reacted adversely to anything he had said, and deciding that its lack of aggressive action was a good sign, he summoned up the courage to ask it a question.

“Who are you?”

“Who and what I am need not concern you!” it boomed, and the sound of its voice nearly sent him hurtling back under the covers. This time he was convinced it was going to attack him, but instead it just turned and started to leave. As it drifted toward the door he felt a mixture of relief and regret. It had not been easy for him to stand up to it as he had, and a part of him wished only for it to go and leave him unharmed. But another part, the part that always had to know, that could not leave any mystery unexplored, reminded him again of his decision to try to establish some sort of ongoing contact with it. His stomach knotted as he tried to figure out what to do. But finally, deciding it was clearly something alien and perhaps of profound importance—and deciding its behavior toward him indicated it was benign—he resolved to try to win its favor. “Wait!” he cried.

It stopped and slowly turned around.

“I just...” he started, but the audacity of his request caused his fear to reassert itself. “I just wondered if... well... if you wanted to be friends.”

He waited nervously for its response. It seemed so sure of itself, so arrogant and annoyed about his presence in the house, he felt certain it would scoff at the suggestion. But instead a farrago of strange shapes began to shift and move beneath its surface as if the idea intrigued it, and cast some new light on a situation it had almost overlooked.

“Friends?” it repeated with caution. “Why would you want to be friends with me, little boy?”

“Because I want to know who and what you are.”

“But
why
do you want to know?”

The question left him momentarily stymied. “I don’t know. I guess because you’re—” He stopped abruptly, at a loss as to how best to refer to it.

“Because I’m what, boy?”

“Because you don’t seem to be human and that makes me wonder what you are, that’s all,” he blurted out, hoping against hope the bluntness of his description would not provoke it.

Again it lapsed into lengthy rumination, but finally it seemed to waver. “I demand a lot from my friends,” it warned portentously.

A ripple of excitement passed through him as he perceived the ray of hope the remark offered. “Like what?”

“If we were friends you would have to promise not to tell anyone about me or anything that takes place between us.” Obviously it would not want news of its existence to fall into the hands of individuals who might wish to do it harm, and, recalling that all of the aliens and friendly monsters in the movies he had seem always exacted similar promises, he agreed.

“Okay.”

“Before we could be friends you would also have to do something to prove yourself to me, to show me I could trust you as a friend,” it continued.

“Like what?” he asked again.

“I want you to find out someone’s name for me. I would also like you to find out where this person lives.”

The simplicity of the request relieved him. “That’s all?”

“That’s all.”

“Who?”

“I would like you to find out the name of one of the men who applied for the job of running the generators today.”

“You mean Mr. Foley, the man Stephen hired?”

“No, not that man. I’d like you to find out more about one of the men who didn’t get the job. The man I want to know about arrived on foot. He had very pale skin. Do you know the man I’m talking about?”

Its desire to know the name of the man with pale skin perplexed him, but he nodded. “Yes.”

“Do you think you could do that for me?”

“Yes,” he said, realizing that Mr. Foley could probably provide him with the information.

A final maelstrom of darkness spiraled up through it, and although he did not know how, he sensed it was pleased.

“Good,” it said.

And then, without further ado, it once again started toward the door.

“But how do I let you know what I find out?” he called after it.

“Tomorrow night after your parents are asleep I’ll come to you again.”

“And if I tell you the man’s name and where he lives does that mean we’re friends?”

“Yes,” the thing answered as it glided into the darkness of the hallway. “It means we’re friends.”

After it departed, Garrett felt strangely light-headed because he had burned up so much adrenaline sustaining the courage to talk to it. But he was also ecstatic. Not only had he proved he had the mettle to act on his convictions, but he had at long last fulfilled his dream of making contact with another life form. He did not know what it was, a being from another planet or even from another dimension, but for the moment none of that mattered. All that mattered was that he had achieved his goal and in the process accomplished something extraordinary.

The next morning Garrett was still so excited he woke early. Too impatient to await breakfast, he dressed and was heading out his door when he ran into his mother in the hall. She looked at him with concern.

“Garrett, are you all right?”

“Yes, I’m all right,” he said, barely hearing her question and trying to continue on around her.

“Are you sure?”

He looked at her with bewilderment. “Yes, I’m sure.”

“Did you sleep all right? Did you have any more... well, any more dreams?”

At last he understood what she was angling for. He was going to have to lie to her, and this bothered him. He had never lied to her before, at least not about anything as important as this. It also occurred to him that in some strange way it meant he had to choose sides. If he decided not to tell his mother about the thing he was in a sense becoming its ally, and the finality of this made him uneasy. Still, when he considered that the alternative meant never seeing the thing again, he knew he had no choice.

“No, no more dreams,” he said.

For some reason she seemed to have trouble accepting this and continued to stare at him for several moments. But then she finally appeared to accept his answer. “Well, wherever you’re going, don’t be long. I’m going to start making breakfast soon.”

He nodded and scampered on down the hall. When he reached the generator building, Mr. Foley was already sitting in a chair out in front. In his hands he held a jackknife, and he was in the process of whittling a most remarkable object, an interlocking chain connected to a box with a little ball rolling around inside it, all carved out of a single piece of wood.

“Hi,” Garrett greeted. “What’s that?”

“Hello, young fella,” he said, glancing at the object in his hands. “Just one of my time-passers.” He looked back at Garrett. “What brings you out here so early?”

Realizing that stating his purpose too openly might arouse unnecessary suspicions, he made up an excuse. “I thought I’d go for a walk in the woods,” he muttered, entranced by how dexterously Mr. Foley was shaving off each small slice of wood.

“Does your mother know you’re going for a walk?” the older man asked suspiciously.

“Yes,” Garrett lied. “Why?”

“Because the woods are pretty big around here. Lots of dangerous things to watch out for. A boy your age shouldn’t really go walking in them alone.”

The older man’s concern annoyed Garrett, not only because it was advice offered to keep him from doing something he had no intention of doing anyway, but also because it implied he wasn’t old enough to do it if he wanted to. Still, his curiosity was aroused.

“What kind of dangerous things?” he asked.

“Well, there’s a blackwater swamp only about twenty minutes in that direction.” He pointed with the knife toward the forest. “It’s probably where all those mosquitoes have been comin’ from that are eatin’ your mother.”

“What’s a blackwater swamp?” he inquired uneasily. “Just a swamp where the water’s all murky and black. But there could be hemlock bogs around it. You might get stuck in one. There could also be snappin’ turtles. You get too close to a big snapper he could take one of your fingers right off.” He glanced at Garrett casually as he shaved a large curl of wood off one of the links in the chain.

The blackwater swamp did sound threatening to Garrett, but it also intrigued him. “Are there any Swamp Things in the swamp?”

“What do you mean?”

“I’ve got a book upstairs called
Strange Creatures from the Beyond,
and it says there are different parts of the country where you’re more apt to see a monster than in other parts. It says upstate New York is one of those parts and that around here things are seen in swamps, Loch Ness monsters and giant snakes and things. It calls them Swamp Things.”

Mr. Foley glanced at the woods. His eyes sparkled. “Probably plenty of ’em.”

“Any other dangers?” Garrett asked.

Mr. Foley scanned the woods for a moment longer and then looked back at Garrett. “Rattlesnakes,” he said.

Garrett frowned. “I thought rattlesnakes only lived out West.”

Mr. Foley smiled triumphantly. “Nah, lotsa rattlers in the woods. Saw one a couple of years ago.”

“Is anyone ever bitten?”

“It’s a possibility.”

“Is there much Rocky Mountain spotted fever up here?” Garrett asked.

Mr. Foley’s smile faded completely. “Haven’t heard of any. Why?”

“Because there were a couple of cases of it in New York when we left. You get it from tick bites, you know. The day before we came up here I saw a news report that said one little boy was in a coma because of it. You can also get Lyme’s disease from ticks, which is almost as bad. You can die from either of them. I bet there’s plenty of ticks around here, too.”

Mr. Foley examined the grass around his feet with apprehension.

“Can I ask you something else?” Garrett asked.

Mr. Foley eyed him warily. “What?”

“Do you remember the other guys who applied for this job?”

“Yeah,” Mr. Foley said, his voice still cautious.

“Did you know all of them?”

“What d’ya mean?”

“I mean do you know their names? Are they from around here?”

“Yeah, they were all from around here. Why?”

“Because one of them looked like someone we used to know. I just wondered if you knew his name?”

A look of relief spread across Mr. Foley’s face as his former good nature returned. “Where did you know him from?”

“Back in New York.”

“Which one?”

Garrett described the man.

“Why, that’s Elton Fugate. You couldn’t have known him back in New York. He’s lived here all his life. Besides, if you’d ever met him before you’d remember it.”

“Why’s that?”

“Because he’s a bit odd. Lives all alone in a little cabin back in the woods. Usually makes his living as a trapper. That way he doesn’t have to deal with people much. I was surprised he even considered taking regular work.” Garrett thought about this for a moment. “Do you know where he lives?”

“When you were on your way to Clearwater Lodge, do you remember passing a little dirt road with a big ‘Keep Out’ sign on it?”

Garrett nodded.

“Well, if you were to follow that road up the mountain you’d come to Fugate’s place. In fact, I think you might even be able to see his place from here.” Mr. Foley put down his whittling and lifted Garrett up onto the chair. “Do you see that mountain over there?”

“Yes.”

“Look up toward the top of it. Do you see that little patch of red in between the trees?”