by John Saul
At first he had figured the priest was just pulling his leg, talking about all the weird stuff that had happened in Roundtree. But after a while he’d started to get scared. Well, not really scared—he didn’t believe in witches any more than anybody else did—but still, the way the priest told it, a lot more weird stuff had happened in Roundtree than anybody had ever told him about, and it seemed like most of it had started right there in the house he’d bought.
Except it wasn’t really the house he’d bought. It was the house Myra had made him buy. Myra, and her snotty sister, Joni. If even half of what Father Mulroney had told him was true, he should sue Joni. And not just Joni either—he’d sue Ed Fletcher too. And the guy who set up the loan on the house, and everyone else as well. By the time he got done, they’d all wish they had never messed with Marty Sullivan!
The righteousness of his fury drove out the last of the fleeting uneasiness Marty had felt as he listened to the priest’s story, and as he came to the Roundtree Tavern, he was already starting to think about what he’d do with the money he was going to get. Deciding he deserved a drink to celebrate the good fortune about to come his way, he pushed through the door and slid onto a stool at the end of the nearly empty bar.
“Just about to close up,” the bartender said, eyeing Marty dolefully.
Marty pulled out his wallet and lay a twenty dollar bill on the bar. “That be enough to keep you open for a Johnnie Walker Black? Straight up.” The bartender shrugged, poured the drink, and scooped up the twenty as he set the glass in front of him. Marty took another twenty out of his wallet and dropped it on the bar. “Pour yourself one too.”
After a hesitation so short Marty didn’t even notice it, the man behind the bar poured a second shot of whiskey into a glass, lifted it, and gestured toward Marty. “To whatever we’re celebrating.”
“The witches of Roundtree,” Marty declared, raising his own glass. “They’re going to be taking care of me the rest of my life!”
The bartender’s glass hovered a few inches from his lips. “What the hell are you talking about?” he asked, suddenly suspicious.
Marty let out a bark of laughter and drained his glass in a single gulp. “My house! Father Mulroney over at Holy Mother just told me about the people who used to live there. He told me about the witches, and the trials, and everything else. So I’m gonna sue the bitch who sold the place to me, and the son of a bitch she’s married to, too.”
The bartender set his drink back on the bar, untouched. “You talking about the old place out at the Crossing?” When Marty nodded, the bartender shook his head. “You think you’re gonna get anything out of all those old stories about that house, you better think again. You want to win a lawsuit, you got to prove there’s somethin’ wrong. And a bunch of old stories kids tell about witches aren’t going to get you nothing.”
“Yeah?” Marty shot back, the ebullience he’d been feeling only a moment ago starting to dissolve into anger. “What about the guy who killed his whole family in there?”
“He was a nut case. And you knew about it when you moved in, didn’t you?”
“How do you know what I knew and what I didn’t?” Marty challenged.
The bartender rolled his eyes, picked up Marty’s glass, and drained his own still full one into the sink. “Everybody knows everything around here,” he said, putting the two twenties back on the bar in front of Marty. “Tell you what—why don’t we just call it one on the house?”
Marty glowered as the heat of the alcohol spread through him. “You throwin’ me outta here?”
“I’m just trying to close my place up for the night,” the bartender replied. He glanced toward the opposite end of the bar, where the only other customer in the place was draining a beer. “You about done, Sergeant?” he called out, then glanced back at Marty. “All the cops in town hang out here,” he drawled. “Probably why I never have any trouble.”
Marty’s dark gaze shifted from the bartender to the man at the far end of the bar, who was now staring at him. “Fine,” he said, shoving the bills into his pocket and rising unsteadily to his feet.
“You need a lift, I can—” the bartender began, but Marty cut him off.
“I’m okay,” he said. Before either the bartender or the cop could argue with him, Marty shoved through the door and out onto the sidewalk. Sucking his lungs full of the cold night air, he started down the street.
A minute later the cop and the bartender stepped out onto the sidewalk and watched as Marty weaved his way toward Black Creek Road. “What do you think?” the sergeant asked. “How drunk is he?”
The bartender shrugged. “Not enough to get in any trouble. He’ll just stagger home and pass out.” Then he laughed. “’Course, that’s not saying he won’t be having any hallucinations on the way.” As they went back inside and he drew each of them a beer from the tap, the bartender began telling the cop what Marty Sullivan had said.
“Oh, Lord,” the cop sighed. “Here we go again. I figured Father Mike would be the last one to start talking about all that crap, but what the hell do I know?” He shook his head. “Witches,” he sighed. “Jesus, don’t people have anything better to do?”
The heat of the last shot of Johnnie Walker was beginning to fade as Marty came to the edge of the village. He pulled the zipper of his jacket all the way up to his neck as the wind began to blow out of the northeast. Overhead, clouds scudded across the sky, and as he left the warm glow of the streetlights behind, the darkness closed around him like a shroud and fragments of the things Father Mulroney had told him began to rise unbidden from his memory.
. . . storms come out of nowhere . . .
Storms like the one that had struck this afternoon.
. . . it only seems to happen when there’s an adolescent girl in the house . . .
A girl Angel’s age.
. . . people see things . . . a cat . . . a girl dressed in black whose eyes glow like a cat’s . . .
The same things Marty had seen.
Marty’s pulse quickened, and so did his step.
The moon came out, and for an instant the darkness was washed away in a silvery glow.
And ahead of him he saw a figure.
A dark figure, little more than a shadow in the faint light of the moon. But Marty recognized it, and his breath caught in his throat as he froze in his tracks.
It was the girl—the same girl he’d seen in the living room when the cat attacked him.
The figure in the darkness moved closer, and Marty instinctively raised his arms as if to fend her off.
A cloud drifted over the moon.
The silvery light faded.
The figure vanished, but Marty remained rooted where he was, his heart pounding, his breath coming in short, labored gasps. A terrible chill fell over him—an iciness far colder than the night that reached deep inside him and gripped his soul. The cold made him shiver, and his teeth began to chatter, but still he couldn’t make himself move.
His eyes searched the darkness for any sign of the black-clad figure that had been there only moments ago, but now all but the faintest glimmer of light seemed to have been blotted out, and even the shapes of the trees had vanished into the blackness surrounding him.
Not real, Marty told himself. Too much to drink . . . stupid stories . . .
Slowly, his heart began to slow, his gasping breath to even out. But still he stayed where he was, for even though he could see nothing and his whole body was numbed with cold, he could still feel the presence of something lurking in the darkness.
Then, out of the corner of his eye, Marty caught a faint flicker of golden light. He jerked his head around as his heart once more began to race, but whatever he’d seen was gone, vanishing into the darkness as quickly as it had come.
Then he saw it again, this time out of the corner of the other eye. But now the golden light didn’t vanish when he turned toward it, and as he saw the two glowing eyes staring at him, the iciness in his blood ran even colder.<
br />
The eyes drew nearer, staying close to the ground.
They vanished, only to reappear a few seconds later, three or four feet to the left and a few feet closer.
“Scat!” Marty said, but even to his own ears the word sounded oddly hollow. “Go on! Get away!”
Instead of vanishing, the eyes moved nearer still. Now the invisible creature’s eyes fixed on his own, and Marty had the horrible sensation that if he couldn’t look away, couldn’t tear his eyes from the golden orbs floating in the darkness, the creature would reach into him and tear away his very soul.
The eyes stopped moving, but their hypnotic gaze still held Marty pinned to the spot where he stood. Seconds passed—seconds that felt like minutes—but still Marty couldn’t move.
He felt the creature tensing, could almost see it readying itself to leap at him, almost feel its claws and fangs sinking into his flesh.
As his fear coalesced into panic, a broken howl of anguish rose in his throat, and finally he managed to lash out with his foot at the staring eyes.
The eyes vanished, and then Marty was running, bolting through the blackness, driven as much by his own panic as the terror of what might be pursuing him. But he lost his footing, pitched forward, and fell face first into the drainage ditch that ran next to the road. Swearing, he pulled himself up to his knees, wiping the muck from the ditch away from his eyes with his sleeve. A sob of pain mixed with fear and frustration rose in his throat, and he crawled back onto the road, bracing himself for the attack he knew was sure to come. He was just starting to haul himself back to his feet when the moon came out again and the wind died away. Marty blinked in the brightness of the silvery light, and searched for the creature that had stalked him only a moment ago.
Nothing.
He was alone on the road.
He peered in every direction, then began edging cautiously along the road. But with every step he took, he imagined that something was behind him, and the skin on the back of his neck began to crawl until he spun around, braced to defend himself against whatever might be behind him.
But there was only the night.
He felt another sob rise in his throat, and moved out into the center of the road, terrified that whatever was stalking him was hidden in the trees.
He was stumbling now, nearly tripping over his own feet, and another sob threatened to strangle him. Then, in the distance, he saw a light glowing. His first instinct was to turn and run, to try to race back into whatever safety the darkness might offer. Then he realized that this time the light was not the terrible glowing of the creature’s eyes, but the porch light of his own house.
Sucking in a breath deep enough to break through the terror that had built inside him, he ran again, but this time he wasn’t running away from something, but toward the safety of his house.
Halfway across his own front yard he stopped once more.
Stopped, and gazed at the house.
And once more he recalled Father Mulroney’s words.
But now, with the sky clear and the moon bright, and nothing peering at him out of the darkness, he was able to turn away the fear those same words had brought only a few minutes ago.
“Crap,” he whispered as he continued toward the front door. “Nothin’ but a pile of crap.”
Marty wasn’t sure exactly when the voice had begun whispering to him. The house had been silent when he slipped in through the back door, and for a moment he’d had the eerie feeling that the house was empty, that somehow Myra and Angel had vanished while he was gone. But that was impossible—where would they go? He turned on the light, and headed for the refrigerator, figuring one more beer couldn’t hurt him.
But where earlier there had been most of a six-pack on the bottom shelf, there now was nothing. Frowning, Marty searched the refrigerator more carefully.
No beer.
Suspicion growing in his mind, he went to the sink, pulled open the cabinet below it, and peered into the wastebasket. Sure enough, there were five empty beer bottles, and they weren’t just tossed in as he would have done. Instead, they were laid out side by side, exactly the way Myra would have done it after pouring the contents down the drain.
Bitch!
His first impulse was to go back out and find another six-pack—or maybe even a whole case—then sit and drink the whole thing just to show her. In the end, though, he just dug around in the cupboards until he found her cooking sherry and finished that off instead.
Then, his stomach feeling sour, he went upstairs, peeled off his clothes, and slid into bed beside Myra.
If she was awake—and he was pretty sure she was—she didn’t say anything, and when he edged closer to her, snuggling up against her, she let out a muffled groan and turned away.
The hell with her—who needed her anyway?
He rolled over and closed his eyes, but as Myra’s breathing finally fell into the gentle rhythm of sleep, he still lay awake.
Then the voice came out of the darkness, so soft at first he barely heard it. “It’s time . . .” the voice whispered. “. . . you know it’s time . . .
“. . . now. . . .” the voice pressed. “It’s time . . . you know it’s time. . . .”
Marty rolled over again.
“You want to do it,” the voice whispered. “You have to do it . . . you know you do . . .”
Marty’s eyes opened.
“. . . now. . . .” the voice whispered. “Do it now. . . .”
He got up from the bed and left the bedroom, pulling the door shut so quietly there was barely the faintest click to disturb Myra’s sleep. . . .
Chapter 38
NGEL LAY IN THE DARKNESS, LISTENING.
She wasn’t sure how long she’d been in bed, or whether she’d slept or not. But she must have slept, because the memory of the dreams she’d had was as fresh in her mind as if they’d actually happened, and happened only a few moments ago. They weren’t at all like the dreams that made no sense and faded away the moment she awoke, leaving her with nothing more than a vague memory of having dreamed, but no memory at all of what the dream was actually about. No, the dreams she’d had this night were different.
She’d been on the road, and it was night, and even though the moon was blotted out by a thick layer of clouds, she could see a figure in the darkness ahead of her. She knew it was her father, even though his shape was no more than a faint silhouette and his features were utterly lost in shadows. But tonight she felt none of the fear of him that had been growing in her every day since they’d moved into their little house. The figure drew closer, and still she felt no sense of danger. Then, as the wind began to grow, the clouds broke and the light of the moon flooded through. Her father stopped, and she instinctively moved toward him. But then, as the moon fell full on him, she hesitated.
Instead of the clothes her father had been wearing when he stumbled out of the house a few hours ago, the figure ahead of her was clad almost entirely in black, with a close-fitting coat with a broad collar, and lapels buttoned up almost to the throat.
The face wasn’t her father’s either. It was longer, and narrower, and had a sort of pinched look to it.
He was staring at her now, and she could see the fear in his eyes. But why was he frightened? It was she who had been frightened of him this afternoon, and yesterday, and the day before that. Why—
Once again the clouds scudded over the moon, and the figure vanished into the blackness.
But suddenly she could see it again, only now she was looking up at it, as if she were lying on the ground.
And even though the moonlight was gone, she could see almost as well as she could during the day. Except everything was black and white, with no color at all.
Her father was staring at her again, backing away, and then he started running. As she watched, he ran off the road, tripped, and plunged face first into the ditch between the road and the forest.
“Dad!” she started to call out.
It was the sound of her own voice
that awakened her from the dream, but the odd thing was, when she awoke, her heart wasn’t pounding and she felt none of the terror that had seized her when the other dreams held her in their grip. And instead of feeling a sense of relief to find herself in her own bed in her own room, she felt vaguely surprised, as if she shouldn’t be there at all. Only a second or two ago she was certain she’d been out in the road.
She’d gotten up and gone to the window, and seen her father coming across the lawn just as if he too had stepped out of her dream and into reality. Except now he was wearing the right clothes again, and when the moonlight spilled onto his face for a moment, she recognized him clearly.
As he headed around the corner of the house to the back door, she hurried back to bed, slipped in, and silently offered up a prayer to whatever saint might be listening that tonight her father wouldn’t come into her room. She pulled the covers up close around her neck and listened.
She heard him rummage around in the kitchen.
Heard him come upstairs.
She held her breath, her heart pounding, and waited.
He went into the room where her mother was sleeping.
Angel breathed again.
But still she didn’t sleep, for every other night in which her father had crept into her room, he’d gone to bed first.
Gone to bed, and waited until her mother was asleep.
Angel waited.
Outside, the wind began to rise again, and then the moonlight faded away as the clouds once again began racing across the sky.
Angel tried to shut out the sound of the wind sighing in the trees beyond her window, tried to focus her ears only on whatever sounds might be coming from within the house.
Seconds crept by, and turned into minutes, and every minute felt like an eternity.
He was asleep . . . he must be asleep.
And if he was asleep, it was safe for her to sleep.