It was the strongest in front of the doorway that led
down into the basement. An icy, rot filled draft drifted up from the darkness.
Like
the breath of Death
. Mike shivered, sat the wastebasket down, and got to
work. The sooner he was done, the sooner he could get out and away from that
piece of hell.
He sat his flashlight on one of the pantry shelves
where it would give him enough light to work, then dug the string and
thumbtacks out of the basket. Tying a knot in the end of the string, he
fastened it to the left side of the door frame with one of the tacks eight
inches above the floor. On the other side he pushed two tacks side by side into
the wood with the string between them. He tested his work, pulling the string
taught across the doorway. The blackened string slid easily through the gap
between the two tacks, the heads keeping the string from slipping out. With the
string stretched across the doorway, nothing could go in or out without
carefully stepping over the string or setting off the trap.
He picked up the flashlight and basket and put them
on top of the stove, then lifted out the camera and spare coat hangers. It took
him a few minutes to anchor the camera to the stove grill with the wire, but
when he was done it was reasonably solid and aiming at the doorway. He could be
fairly sure of getting a picture that would tell him what he wanted to know.
The only thing left to do was to tie the string to the
makeshift trigger on the camera and reset the shutter. He pulled the string so
that it took up the slack and tied it carefully to the bent coat hanger, then
tested it with a small tug. It would work. The shutter lock make a soft double
click as he set it. He stood back and examined his work.
There, that fucker will work. If anything comes
through here it’s got to…
“Goddamnit!!”
Mike staggered back, lost his balance, and fell to
the floor. His flashlight bounced across the kitchen spraying light over the
room, and he was left momentarily blinded by the flash from the camera. He
could feel his heart pounding in his chest.
God damn son of a bitch!
He
fought against his heavy, ragged breathing, then stopped it altogether,
listening. His heart pounded faster.
There was something in the kitchen with him.
Mike strained his eyes in the dark, blinking, trying
to rid himself of the after images caused by the flash. The flashlight lay in
one corner of the room pointing at the wall, leaving the rest of the room in deep
shadow. After a few moments, his eyes began clearing and he found what he was
looking for. It was a shadow within shadows, large, near the doorway to the
basement. Near the top of the shadow were two close-set, glowing coals. Mike
eased his breath out softly, slowly drawing his pistol from its holster.
“
I wouldn’t bother with that, Mike.
”
Mike’s hand froze, the gun half lifted. The voice was
cold, arrogant, but what stopped him was the thick, sibilant coarseness of it.
There was nothing human in it. It was complete evil; a hiss. The words spewed
like venom from the mouth of a snake.
Mike shifted to his knees, facing the creature, and
slowly stood. He felt weak and hollow. He pointed the gun in the general
direction of the creature’s midsection, the pistol grip hard and slick with the
perspiration in his hand. The kitchen had grown colder, the stench almost
unbearable. Part of his mind was aware of it, but he was too shaken to give it
any thought.
“Stand right there!” His voice shook and sounded weak
in his ears. He tried to put more force into it. He began inching backward to
where the flashlight lay. Instinctively, he felt that the light would help, and
if he could just get his hand on it… “If you move, I swear to God I’ll…”
A horrible rasping came from the creature, and it
took Mike a second to realize what it was. It was laughing. It was laughing at
him. It began approaching him, moving closer to the feeble light, and any
thoughts Mike had about the flashlight evaporated. He felt the hair at the back
of his neck stand out, stiff, and he fought against the fear and nausea that
threatened to overwhelm him.
The form was large, basically human, but the face was
a hellish apparition of diseased evil. The skin was filled with lines and folds
of flesh, the color of a rotting fish belly. The nose was flattened into two
gaping slits, and below it the sharp, jutting teeth protruded from the lipless
mouth. There was no chin. But dominating the face were the eyes, the empty
glowing pits that formed a gateway into the soulless depths of the creature’s
being.
Mike tried to pull the trigger of the gun, to destroy
this thing, to turn that face into nothingness, but he couldn’t. His hand
wouldn’t obey. As long as he looked into those eyes, he couldn’t resist. With
all his will and desperation, he tore his eyes from those of the creature’s. He
felt the gun leap in his hand three times, filling the room with artificial
thunder.
I did it! Oh God…
He was blinded again from
the flashes of the gun, but that thing had to be lying dead at his feet.
It
just had to…
The gun was ripped from his hand, tearing skin from
his fingers. He screamed, spun desperately to get away, and slammed face first
into the refrigerator. Blood mingled with tears of frustration. He turned and
slumped to the floor, his back against the metal of the refrigerator. The
creature crouched in front of him and held Mike’s head, forcing him to look
into its eyes. This close, Mike could see the rotting skin clinging loosely to
its face.
“You wanted to know about me, didn’t you? And you’re
going to find out. Soon.” The creature’s voice was soft, sneering. “Haven’t you
wondered why I’ve spared you this long?”
Mike tried to move, but couldn’t. He couldn’t speak.
His body seemed dead, paralyzed. All he could do was look into those eyes.
They moved closer, almost touching Mike’s and its
breath flooded his face. If he could have done anything at all, he would have
vomited. All he could see were the eyes. They seemed to fill his head with cold
fire and pain, tearing and eating at his brain.
“Your friends will come here for you, and you will be
here to greet them. I promise you that. But we must be ready for them, must we
not?” The flesh of the face began to fall away in decaying pieces, the eyes
growing brighter and closer. In their depths swirled a greenish-black fog.
Mike’s mind and soul screamed in agony, but his lips
were silent. Soon there was nothing.
* * *
The Scout wasn’t in front of Mike’s office when they
got back into town, but Derek and Parker went inside anyway. Parker called out
Mike’s name and checked the back room. After a moment he came back out and
shrugged his shoulders.
“No Mike. He must have been up to something, though.
Look at this place.” He waved his hand at the spilled trash on the floor and
the litter on the desk. There was a nub of candle on the desk and beside it an
inverted glass ashtray, covered with black smudges. Derek ran a finger across
it. It felt greasy. He held his finger out to Parker.
“From the candle, I guess. Can you make anything of
it?”
“Sure. Mike was cooking his ashtray. Doesn’t
everybody? Shit, I don’t know.”
Derek needed something, some kind of clue to show
what Mike had had in mind. He searched the small office with his eyes. Nothing
seemed to make any sense.
Damn it, Mike, why didn’t you wait?
“No sense standing here,” Derek said. “We’re going to
have to go out and find him.”
“And where do you figure he’s gonna be? He could be
just about anywhere. There might have been some more trouble.”
“I’ve got a pretty good idea where he went.”
“Well, where?”
“Out to the Jarman house.”
“Holy
shit
. I bet he would. We’d better get
out there.”
“Right. But we need to stop at the hotel first. The
gun Mike gave me is in my room, and there’s a chance we might need it.”
Ann was waiting in the station wagon. She didn’t seem
surprised when Parker told her what they had found, but she was worried. Parker
spun the wagon around in the middle of the street, spraying mud from the tires.
When he pulled up in front of the hotel, all three ran into the lobby.
“I’ll be right back!” Derek said over his shoulder.
He sprinted up the stairs, taking them three at a time. He fumbled with his
room key until the lock gave, then banged his shin on the foot of the bed.
Cursing, he almost knocked over the bedside lamp turning it on. He shoved the
pistol into the top of his pants and scooped up the extra shells, dropping them
into his jacket pockets where he could get to them easily.
Derek turned, ready to leave, then stopped with the
feeling that he was forgetting something. His brow furrowed, thinking.
The Axe.
The axe? What do I need that for? It’s just a
piece of metal…
He picked it up, remembering the way it had seemed to glow
with its own internal light earlier. It wasn’t glowing now, but it tingled in
his hand as if filled with some life or energy of its own. For some reason, he
didn’t want to leave it.
What the hell, maybe it will bring me luck.
We
damn sure need it.
For some reason it made him feel better. He stuck it
into his jacket pocket with the extra shells and went back down to the lobby.
Ann and Parker were waiting at the foot of the
stairs, talking, and Parker looked exasperated.
“I just talked to Mrs. Jameson,” Ann told Derek.
“Mike was here about an hour ago, looking for you. He didn’t tell her what it
was about.”
“That’s what I thought. That also means that he’s an
hour ahead of us, so we’d better hurry. If it isn’t too late already. You stay
here with Mrs. Jameson, and Parker and I will be back as soon as we can.”
“Uh-uh, no way. I’m going with you.”
“Ann, we don’t have time–”
“I’m going, even if I have to drive myself. Do you
want me to go alone?”
“I don’t want you to go at all. It could turn out to
be dangerous, and I don’t want you to get caught in the middle of it.”
“You’ve got a lot to learn about me, Derek, if you
think I’m going to stay here. And besides, I’ll be safer with you wherever you
are.” Ann turned and stomped to the door impatiently. “Are we going or not?”
They piled into the station wagon, Parker jamming it
into gear and grumbling. “That woman of yours ain’t got no sense, son. I told
her to leave men’s work to the men, but she won’t listen. Bull-headed, that’s
what she is. You should beat her.”
“Derek tucked his arm around Ann, holding her tight.
“Maybe, but I’m the one with no sense. I shouldn’t have gone off without
telling Mike where I would be. If anything has happened to him, it’s my fault.”
“No more so than the rest of us. He shouldn’t have
gone off on his own, anyway. But, I’ve known that old bloodhound for a few
years and he’s a tough one. I don’t think he would get himself into something
that he couldn’t get back out of. He can take care of himself.”
“Let’s hope you’re right.”
The road was terrible. The big wheels of the Scout
had torn trenches eight inches deep in the soft mud, and Parker twisted the
steering wheel desperately several times, trying to avoid the worst places. Now
and then, the tires of the station wagon would spin, whining in protest and
digging for purchase.
Their luck finally ran out; with a sudden
whump
,
the station wagon stopped, tossing the three passengers forward in their seats.
“Shit, shit, SHIT!” Parker slammed the steering wheel
with his fist. He pawed open the glove box and dug out a beat-up, rusty
flashlight. “I guess we’d better hop out and see how bad it is.” He and Derek
opened their doors and slipped out, the small warmth in the interior
disappearing instantly. In a matter of seconds they were back, wet and
shivering.
“End of the line, kiddies. We’re bottomed out,”
Parker said.
Ann grimaced. “No chance of pulling it out, huh?”
“Yeah, maybe, if you’ve got a bulldozer in your back
pocket. We slid off into a couple of them ruts, and the rear wheels are just
hanging there.”
“We’re almost there, aren’t we?” Derek asked.
“Shouldn’t be too far to walk.”
“Take us about five minutes as the crow flies.”
“More like the pig wallows, I’d say.” Ann looked
gloomily out at the muddy ground.
Derek patted her on the head, almost smiling.
“Wallowing or whatever, we’d better get to it.”
It took a full ten minutes for them to reach the gate
entrance to the Jarman property. For a moment, Derek’s heart both lifted and
fell; the Scout wasn’t in front of the house.
Maybe I was wrong. He didn’t
come here. We don’t have to worry…
Ann squeezed his arm, pointing to where Parker was
now aiming the flashlight. His lips tightened. The Scout sat far to the side of
the yard, half buried in trees and bushes, the wet, green paint gleaming.
“Do you think he might be in the truck?” Ann asked.
“He wouldn’t shoot at us, I hope.”
Derek shook his head. “If he was there, he would have
let us know by now, and he wouldn’t shoot until he knew who we were. But I
think we should check it before we go inside. Just for GP.”
The Scout was empty, except for the two shotguns.
Parker played his light over the seats and dash, then checked one of the
shotguns. It was loaded. “Be a good idea to take this,” Parker said. “Gives us
more fire power in case we need it, and it ain’t gonna do nobody no good out
here. And we’d better find Mike, too, or we’re gonna have to walk back to town.
He’s got the keys.”
The three turned and looked at the house. To them it
seemed filled with a sinister invitation, waiting. Reluctantly they left the
Scout and approached the house.