The Pines (36 page)

“Jesus!” The deep voice went hoarse with fright. “What’s that?”

The floor creaked loudly just in front of her. Overhead, blackness squirmed. “It’s just a bat, Steve. They get in sometimes.”

Breathing heavily, he took her arm and led her back toward the light.

“There’s just the one window in the other room.” He could see only her face, a pale oval. “Looks intact. No one could have…”

“No, no one could have. Look.” She tilted the lamp. In the layered dust, her narrow footprints crossed Steve’s large, broad ones. There were no others. She closed the door and began struggling with the bolts.

He walked into the kitchen. “And you’re sure this back door was locked?”

She followed him. “I only opened it for you.”

“Well, I can’t figure out how anything could’ve gotten in here.” He gazed down at the gouged and shattered cellar door, at the hammer on the floor. “What did you say happened to this door?” He stared at the claw end of the hammer.

She started to speak, then spun around. Soundlessly, Matty had entered the room behind her. Silent and stone-faced, he kicked a piece of chair out of his way, then pressed himself between the stove and the wall and pointed down.

Steve leaned over the stove. “Crap. That would do it all right.”

“What?” She looked. Blackness sank deep in a large hole behind the stove.

“Looks like it goes under the wall and right outside. Look out.” He waved her back, and she drew the boy to her. Steve took hold of the stove and, straining, inched it away from the wall. “You have any more of those boards you were using?”

“…knew there was something wrong the day Lonny was…when I found Lonny and we came home and the dog ran up, but he couldn’t have been outside because I locked him in the house and the door was still…”

He said nothing, just hammered planks across the mouth of the tunnel, while the boy stood back, watching.

For what seemed like a long time, the words poured out of her. “…what really bothered me the most, I mean, was the way he talked to it, really talked to it, whispered through the door and it seemed to listen and…”

“Okay,” he grunted. “This ought to hold.” Careful of the gas pipe, he got to his feet and came around, shoving the stove back against the wall.

“Oh God, listen to me. I sound like a crazy woman.” And she started to laugh. “Good going, girl. You finally made it.” She sat in the sole upright kitchen chair, her head in her hands, as her whole body trembled.

Brushing himself off, he stepped closer, wanting to touch her, to hold her. “You’ve really been through it.” He looked around at the shambles of the kitchen; it was as though their talk of the night before had called something into being, summoned it here.

“I can’t remember ever having been hysterical before. God, where’s Pamela?”

“Don’t you think she could’ve just gone somewhere?”

“And left Matty alone?” She practically giggled. “And look—there’s her handbag. You don’t know. She carries it with her everywhere, like a little girl, all around the house even.” Suddenly, she grabbed the boy and shook him. “That string bag! Where did it come from? Does Chabwok bring you things? Does he leave presents for you on the stoop?”

“’Thena, stop it. Think. Isn’t there someplace Pam could have gone?”

“No place.” She let go, and the boy shrank from her. “Not her mother’s. No place.”

“You said some of the townspeople left. Couldn’t she just have gone with them?” He waited for her to respond, then followed her gaze. On a shelf about the stove, a jelly glass held wilted crabgrass and black-eyed susans. “You say Matty spoke to…your visitor? Athena, listen to me. You think the boy might know something? Would you like me to talk to him?”

After a pause, she nodded.

“Come here, son.” He put his arm on Matty’s shoulder and led him toward the living room. Matthew complied, following easily, yet scarcely seeming aware of Steve. He might as easily have gone in the direction of any gust of wind. Rising, she followed them as far as the doorway and stood, watching.

He seated the boy on a still-intact section of sofa, and scratching noises came from underneath as the dog shifted.

“Your name’s Matt, right? Mine’s Steve.” Smiling, he held his hand out, but the boy never blinked.

She saw the tension grow in Steve’s shoulders as he studied the weary pain in the boy’s face. Unable to watch, she turned away.

For long minutes, she sat alone in the kitchen, knowing she must resemble one of those women they used to get in the ambulance, hysterical mothers whose children had been injured through negligence.
But nothing has happened to Matthew. Nothing.
Indistinctly, she could hear her son’s voice from the next room, jumbled sentences and the word “Chabwok” repeated over and over.
Jabberwok
. Then Steve’s deep grumbling sounded again, gentle and too soft for her to make out the coaxing words. When the boy spoke again, his words came lower and slower.

She looked at the broken dishes.
All that cleaning for nothing.
The coffeepot lay on the floor by the stove, soggy grounds beside it like a heap of drowned ants.

“’Thena! Come quick!”

He had hold of the boy’s upper arms and kept shaking him. Oblivious, the boy mumbled with his eyes rolled white. “…try run…they can’t…slip, sink inna sand…run blood…taste…Pammy…”

“I can’t make him stop.”

“…through woods…blood…running safe place…hurt…”

As though mesmerized, she stood before the boy, listening. “Who, Matthew? Who’s running?”

“…trees…hitting branches…tearing…” The boy grimaced in pain. “…blood-hot…” He slurred the words like a drunk. “…shed…”

“The shed out back?”

“No doors…no windows…trees in front…”

“Matty? Baby?” She took his hot face in her hands. “Is it Chabwok? Is Chabwok moving toward the house or away from us?”

“Oh my God.” Steve stared at them.

“Matthew, it’s important. We have to know.”

The boy’s voice seemed to thicken. “Running through trees.” Moaning, he tore himself from them and vomited on the floor. Hanging over the sofa, he gagged and groaned while Steve held his head. At last the boy stood up straight.

“I think he’ll be okay now,” said Steve. “We’d better get him upstairs.”

“Matty?” She reached out a hand, but he moved away with wobbling steps. “Matty?”

Wordlessly, he began to mount the stairs, putting both feet on one step before going on to the next.

“Steve? What’s wrong with him?”

They peered up through the banister spokes. “Look at his face,” Steve whispered. “Like he’s sleepwalking. Come on.” They both followed, he making an effort to move quietly, she leaning heavily on the rail. “Where’s he taking us?”

Strewn along the hall, piles of clothing spilled out of a room at the top of the stairs, many of them ripped and torn. Steve paused to examine them, then glanced at Athena. Her eyes never left the boy’s back. Nearly reaching out to take her arm as she passed, he thought better of it and watched them move away from him, the limping woman and the slow, silent boy.

The boy disappeared into what looked like a closet, and his mother paused only a moment before following. Steve hurried to catch up. The alcove hid narrow stairs.

Moonlight streamed through the crusted window. Steve switched on the light and looked around in confusion, frowning at the clinging stench of dried urine.

“He sleeps here.” She answered his unspoken question. “It used to be my husband’s room when he was a boy, and when Matty was little, he used to make noises at night, so I thought…” She stopped. There was no justification for this. Revealed by the chilling glow, dirt lay thicker than she’d ever realized.

“’Thena? Where is he?”

She wended her way between pieces of furniture, looking behind and under things as she passed. “I saw him go over this way.”

Steve followed, shoving things aside and choking on the dust.

“Matty?” She reached the wall. “Where could…?”

He pointed. “What’s that?”

Against the wall, a massive chest of drawers partly blocked a dark area in the plaster.

“Matthew?”

It was a hole, a deep hole.

“Are you back there?” She squeezed through into the cobwebbed cave.

Too late, he put out a hand to stop her. “Athena?”

No sound came from within. Scraping his shoulder, he tried to pass through the opening but had to shove the high bureau aside. He stumbled over crumbling plaster. Almost no light found its way into the tunnel.

“Athena?” Beyond a tight corner, he found some sort of crawl space, possibly a ventilation passage between the inner wall and outer shell of the house. Slats poked through like broken ribs. He heard a sound, a muffled fluttering as of moths, and he lit a match. At the end of the narrow space, the boy sat hunched against the wall, mumbling to himself. Barely a foot away, Athena had been feeling her way along the bricks.

From outside and far below came a sound like the night breathing through the trees, like waves pressing through the pines to break against the house.

Slowly, she raised her head and gazed at something just above the boy, and Steve raised the faltering match.

Crude iron manacles had been hammered into the ancient bricks of the chimney.

PART FOUR
DEVIL

…hatched for sport
Out of warm water and slime…

Edgar Lee Masters

…his eyes have all the seeming of a demon’s that is dreaming…

Edgar Allen Poe

…departing dreams and shadowy forms
Of midnight vision…

Henry David Thoreau

Wednesday, August 12

He was trapped. Ernie lay in the airless little room, languid heat pounding through the tiny window slit. Trapped. He lay on the cot, an arm flung over his face. One long brown hand throbbed with infection, and each breath brought pain.

The summer had peaked, and each day it seemed a relentless ball of flame blazed over the barrens. It was killing him, he knew.

“I brung ya some water.”

One eye stuck shut, the other an opaque slit, he struggled to raise his head as the boy moved timidly into the room. Just since he’d been here, the youth had changed, grown. He seemed leaner, taller. The flesh was firm, the face clear. He carried a brown-caked mug, half-filled with tepid liquid. Gently, he held Ernie’s head and put the cup to his lips, then took a wet rag from the basin and wiped Ernie’s face with it, dabbing at his eyes.

Scratching the grit away with his fingertips, Ernie got his eyes entirely open and for a long moment just lay there, staring at the boy. Aching hunger darkened his face, and his breath became a slow bubbling. He gazed at pale hair so light it seemed a melted confection, spun and glistening, at flesh so thin it displayed a delicate tracing of blue.

“Your pop’s gonna throw me outta here, Marl. Soon. If I don’t get some more money from someplace.”

The boy shook his head. “No, I won’t let ’im.” The face registered no emotion, but the childlike voice whined in a high pitch. “Won’t let nobody! Yor ’bout the only friend I ever…anybody’d try to chase you ’way, I’d…”

Ernie reached out a hand for the cup, gulped down the rest of the water. “Who was that woman was here yesterday? I heard you talking. You thought I was asleep, but I heard you.”

“J-Just some woman. Lives down that ways…inna big old house.”

“What’d she want?”

Marl didn’t answer at first. “She just…asking stuff.”

“She ask about me?” He leaned forward, studying the boy’s face. “She pretty?” Marl looked down in embarrassment, and Ernie laughed, the sound a liquid susurration, like cellophane melting. “Would you like to go to her house?” He leaned back with all his teeth showing, laughing in harsh, explosive little bursts. “Go over there and knock the cook pot over maybe? Start a little fire?” The laughter changed to raking coughs, and Ernie tasted blood as he hacked to clear his sleep-clogged breath. Marl tried to get him to lie back down, but he resisted, choking bloody phlegm into a bucket by the bed.