In the Dark of the Night

by John Saul

  His fingers hesitated when they touched the cover, which seemed to vibrate with an oddly electrical charge.

  He ran his fingers over it again.

  Finally, he lifted the lid.

  Nestled deep in the box, barely visible in the dim glow of the lamp, lay what must once have been Ellis Langstrom’s arm. Now, though, it was nothing but an elongated object, dark brown with dried blood, chunks of flesh missing, as if they’d been torn away by the teeth of some kind of carnivore.

  The arm had no skin; every shred of it had been peeled down to the muscle and tendons—even the fingers had been carefully skinned, though the fingernails remained, their roots exposed to the light and air in a manner that was oddly obscene.

  “Jesus,” Kent whispered.

  Tad gagged and turned away.

  But Eric Brewster stared silently at the grisly object, a series of thoughts even more horrifying than the contents of the box reeling through his mind:

  It’s all of them…the killers are all here…they’re here, and they’re alive, and somehow we’ve turned them loose.

  And there’s no way to stop them….

  DAN BREWSTER LINGERED over his coffee, gazing out at the overcast sky and the dead-gray surface of the lake, both of which felt like an exact match of the mood that had hung over the house since he’d arrived on Saturday morning. Even though it had been only two days ago, it felt like at least a week.

  A gray and overcast week.

  And now there was a storm forecast for this morning, which he hoped wouldn’t actually occur when he and his family showed up at Ellis Langstrom’s funeral this afternoon.

  He glanced at Eric, who was sitting to his right, reading the front page of the morning paper. As silent this morning as he’d been all weekend, Eric looked as if he hadn’t been sleeping much, and most of his breakfast was still untouched. “There anything you want to talk about?” Dan asked when Eric, sensing his father looking at him, finally glanced up from the paper. Dan thought he saw something flicker in Eric’s eyes for a fraction of a second, but then the boy shook his head and went back to studying the paper.

  On the other side of the table, Merrill—still in her robe—was staring out at the gray morning, her chin in her hand, as silent as her son. In the strange quiet of the house, the sound of Marci’s fork on her plate as she finished her sausage seemed preternaturally loud, and he saw Merrill startle as the clock in the hall began to strike.

  “Nine,” Dan said as the clock finished striking. “The funeral’s at eleven.” Merrill looked at him blankly, as if the words had no meaning. “The Langstrom boy,” he said softly. “Ellis.”

  Merrill still looked as if she didn’t understand, but then comprehension slowly dawned in her eyes. “You’re not thinking of going, are you?” she asked. “We didn’t even know him.”

  “Which makes no difference at all. The Newells and the Sparkses are going, and given—” Dan hesitated, his eyes flashing toward Eric, who was no longer looking at the paper but was now focused entirely on him. Marci, sensing that something might be about to happen, froze with her fork halfway to her mouth. “Given everything that’s happened,” he went on, unwilling to refer directly to the sheriff’s questioning of Eric, at least in front of Marci, “I think we have to make a good show of faith.” His eyes fixed on his wife. “Call it a matter of community.”

  “I think Marci’s too young to go to a funeral,” Merrill said, carefully enough that Dan knew that she was looking for a way out for herself. He weighed the options, then nodded his agreement.

  “I think you’re absolutely right about that,” he said, and saw relief come into his wife’s eyes.

  Marci went back to her breakfast.

  “And I’ll stay with her,” she said. “We need to finish making her costume for the parade, anyway.”

  “Then it will be just you and me,” Dan said, turning to Eric. When his son opened his mouth as if to argue, Dan cut him off. “You’re certainly old enough to go,” he said, then shot a glance toward Marci that made it clear to Eric that his next words weren’t to be questioned. “And given all the circumstances, I think perhaps your absence might be conspicuous.”

  Eric’s already pale face turned ashen, but he nodded. “Okay,” he breathed, knowing not only from his father’s words, but from the look on his face, that no argument he might muster was going to get him out of going to Ellis Langstrom’s funeral. But it wasn’t just the idea of going to the funeral that had sent a chill through his entire body and was now making him feel as if he might throw up.

  That was caused by something else: the terrible certainty that had been slowly coalescing inside him that somehow, in some way he couldn’t quite comprehend, he and Kent and Tad were, indeed, responsible for what had happened to Ellis Langstrom.

  MERRILL STOOD WITH Marci on the front porch and watched as Dan steered the Lexus down the driveway. As the car disappeared, the first drops of rain began to fall from the leaden sky, and even though the morning wasn’t particularly cold, Merrill wrapped her arms tightly around herself and felt suddenly, terribly, alone.

  Not only were Dan and Eric gone, but so was everyone else.

  Ellen and Jeff Newell had gone to the funeral, as had Ashley and Kevin Sparks, which meant that not only was the house next door empty, but so was the one beyond that. Even though both houses were completely hidden by the forest anyway, she still felt as if she and Marci had been stranded in a strange and frightening wilderness.

  Stupid, she told herself. For once in your life, just stop being scared of everything. Determinedly ignoring the knot that was forming in her stomach, she resisted the impulse to double lock the door when she went back in, and even managed to keep from going through the house to pull the draperies closed. After all, it was only a couple of hours.

  Surely she could be alone for a couple of hours.

  Besides, they had a costume to finish. The dining room table was already covered with fabric and patterns, and cardboard and glue and all the glitter and paint that Marci had decided was absolutely essential to her Statue of Liberty costume. All that was missing, in fact, was the costume itself, which Marci had insisted on taking to her room every night so it could be protected from even the slightest disaster that might befall it.

  Dear God, Merrill prayed silently. Don’t let her turn out to be the same kind of scaredy cat I am! Managing at least a small chuckle at her own silliness, she shook off enough of her fear of being alone in the house to steer Marci up the stairs. “Run up and put on your costume so we can do the final fitting, okay?”

  Marci ran up the stairs as Merrill put on the teakettle to keep her hands—if not her mind—busy on something other than her isolation.

  MARCI OPENED HER bedroom door, stripped off her shorts and T-shirt, and lifted the dress gently off the chair she’d laid it over last night so she could watch the moonlight make the silver material glitter in the darkness.

  This, she was certain, was going to be the best costume on the float, and maybe even in the whole parade.

  Careful to avoid being stuck by the pins still holding it together, she slid her arms inside the sheath and lifted it over her head. A moment later it fell gracefully to the floor, and Marci turned toward the mirror over the dresser to adjust the sleeves and the neck so it would drape over her just the way the robe did on the real statue.

  A flicker of movement over her right shoulder caught her attention, and Marci spun around, her heart suddenly racing.

  The room was empty.

  The window!

  That was it—she’d seen something through the window!

  Clutching the silvery material in both hands and lifting it high enough so she wouldn’t trip over it, Marci went to the window and peered out. For a second or two she saw nothing but the rain streaking the glass.

  Then, down on the lake, she saw it.

  The man in the boat was there again. His hair was matted down by the rain, and so was his beard, but there was no mistaking w
ho it was.

  And he was sitting in his boat, right there in the lake, staring up at her.

  As she watched in horror, his arm came up, and his hand stretched out as if…

  As if he was reaching for her!

  A scream welling up in her throat, Marci grabbed the front of the dress and ran.

  MERRILL’S HEART CAUGHT when she heard Marci’s scream, and she ran for the stairs. But before she mounted even the first step Marci came flying down, the dress streaming, her face a mask of terror. Then she was in Merrill’s arms, clinging to her, sobbing hysterically.

  “He’s out there again! He’s out there in the lake! And he was looking right at me, Mommy!”

  Merrill hugged the little girl tight, smoothed her hair, and desperately tried to hold back the wave of panic that threatened to overwhelm her. Sweeping the crying child into her arms, Merrill lurched to the big living room windows and scanned the lake.

  Nothing.

  Nothing but rain falling softly on the terrace, the lawn, the trees, the water.

  But no boat and no man.

  “He was right over there,” Marci sobbed, pointing to the edge of the woods just beyond the carriage house.

  “Well, he’s not there now,” Merrill said, gently rubbing her daughter’s back, trying to soothe her.

  “But he saw me!” Marci wailed. “And he reached out like he was going to grab me!”

  “It’s all right,” Merrill whispered, still trying to console her child even as her own heart continued to pound. “There’s no one there, sweetheart. No one at all.”

  “But there was!” Marci insisted, sniffling. “There was, and he saw me, and I hate this place!”

  Merrill silently agreed, and when Marci had finally settled down twenty minutes later—soothed by a cup of cocoa and a promise of cookies as soon as the costume was finished—she moved methodically through every room of the house, checking the locks on the windows and the doors and pulling the draperies tightly closed. When she was finished, she led her daughter back to the dining room to work on the costume, but Marci’s enthusiasm for the project had waned just as much as her own.

  She looked at the clock.

  Only an hour and thirty minutes to go until Dan came home.

  RUSTY RUSTON STOOD at the back of the small Lutheran church, which was packed with nearly every resident of Phantom Lake. The old wooden pews had filled an hour before the organ music even began, and as the service began, people kept on coming. Now the front doors were propped open, and a throng sheltered by a sea of umbrellas stood outside in the droning rain, listening to the service.

  Flowers filled the sanctuary, and the closed casket was covered with a blanket of white roses, a large framed photo of Ellis propped on an easel in their midst.

  Ruston tried to concentrate on what the pastor was saying, but the combination of Emil Lundgaard’s mumbling voice and his own irresistible urge to scan the crowd for anything that wasn’t as it should be, made following the service impossible. Though Fred Bicks had released Ellis’s remains for burial, Rusty hadn’t yet received the official report, and though he—along with nearly everyone else in town—hoped the report would show an accidental death, his gut told him otherwise.

  The missing arm was the problem. Ellis Langstrom could easily have drowned while drunk, or even fallen and hit his head. But a missing arm raised a huge red flag in Ruston’s mind.

  And if his instincts were right, then he needed to concentrate less on the eulogy and more on the possibility that if someone had, indeed, killed Ellis Langstrom, that somebody might very well have come to his victim’s funeral. For what seemed like the hundredth time, Ruston scanned the faces he could see, looking for someone who looked nervous, or someone who seemed to be acting strange, or just for something that felt wrong.

  All three of the boys from The Pines were there with their families, which didn’t surprise him. Nor did it tell him anything, either about the boys’ innocence or their possible guilt.

  Ellis’s entire high school class was there, of course, along with most of the rest of the school-age kids, at least the ones who were in middle school or beyond. Eudora Morrison—his own old English teacher—was sitting in the third pew next to Neal Barton, who was scheduled to retire from teaching math next year, though nobody expected he would give up coaching the football team.

  And everybody was behaving exactly as he would expect them to.

  The congregation rose for the final prayer, and Ruston bowed his head along with everyone else, then—also along with everyone else—remained standing while Adam Mosler, Chris McIvens, and four of their classmates strode to the front of the church to act as pallbearers for the short walk to the graveyard that occupied the acre next door.

  Then, as the boys struggled to carry the heavy coffin down the aisle as if it weighed nothing at all, Ruston saw Adam Mosler’s eyes suddenly blaze with pure hatred. He shifted his own gaze, and realized who it was that had roused Mosler’s fury.

  Eric Brewster, flanked by Tad Sparks and Kent Newell.

  Ruston watched carefully to see how Brewster and his friends would react, and a moment later, as neither Eric nor either of his friends broke from Adam Mosler’s fury, he came to a decision: even if Fred Bicks ruled Ellis’s death as something other than an accident, he wouldn’t waste much time trying to prove that the boys from The Pines had anything to do with it. His judgment—honed by years of observing all kinds of kids—told him that had those boys been guilty of anything, they wouldn’t have been able to meet Mosler’s gaze at all, let alone hold it until Adam himself had to break it.

  No, the murderer may indeed be here, but Ruston was nearly positive that he wasn’t a resident of The Pines.

  As the coffin, closely followed by Carol Langstrom, passed through the church’s doors, the pastor spoke loudly over the sounds of people starting to put on their raincoats. “After the interment, please join Ellis’s mother for a small reception in the parish house.”

  Ruston fell in beside Carol Langstrom as soon as she was out of the church and guided her to a folding chair under a tiny awning that had been set up at the grave site, then stood with the decidedly smaller gathering as the minister softly prayed, Carol Langstrom silently wept, and the six pallbearers lined up behind the coffin under identical black umbrellas.

  The rain beat down as the pastor spoke his final words.

  Carol stood up on trembling legs, touched the coffin for a moment, and watched silently as it was lowered into the ground.

  It was finally over.

  Murmuring softly, the crowd began to drift toward the parish house where Anna Lundsgaard would undoubtedly have laid out twice as much food as anyone could possibly eat.

  Ashley Sparks and a woman Ruston didn’t know walked slowly beside Carol, Ashley holding a large black umbrella. Carol was hunched over, as if the weight of Ellis’s death was more than she could bear.

  Ruston kept an eye on Adam Mosler and his friends, readying himself for whatever they might do now that the funeral was over, but the six merely handed their umbrellas back to the funeral director and walked away.

  A red-eyed Cherie Stevens went with them, along with Kayla Banks.

  Ruston had long ago learned to trust his gut instincts, and right now his gut was telling him that Ellis’s murderer—assuming he had been murdered—was not among the mourners. But something had happened to the boy, and as soon as Fred Bicks’s report was faxed to his office, he was going to have to start coming up with some answers, or else answer a lot of fury from a lot of people.

  And he was going to have to deal with both Gerald Hofstetter and Ray Richmond, at least one of whom wasn’t going to like the coroner’s report no matter what it said.

  And, of course, there was Carol Langstrom. Rusty didn’t care much about either Gerald Hofstetter or Ray Richmond, but Carol Langstrom was another story altogether.

  She deserved to know what happened to her son, and whatever else occurred, he intended to give Carol the a
nswers—and the resolution—she needed.

  He looked up at the sky, hoping maybe God would be looking down on Carol Langstrom, but all he saw were ominous black clouds.

  God, apparently, had no intention of giving him any help at all.

  Whatever needed to be done, he’d have to do it himself.

  CHRIS MCIVENS JUMPED as Adam Mosler slammed his fist against the trash can on the corner in front of the Northwoods Café. Though it was barely seven o’clock and the sun wasn’t even close to setting, the sidewalk was as deserted as the park across the street, and the very emptiness of the village made the sound of Adam’s fist crashing into the metal sound even louder than it was. “What the hell was that all about?”

  “Just pissed,” Mosler growled, rubbing his burning knuckles and flexing his fingers. “God, I wish I had a car.”

  “Yeah?” McIvens asked. “And I wish I had a yacht, too. So even if you had a car, where would you go?”

  Mosler’s eyes narrowed. “Somewhere—anywhere. I’d get Cherie, and we’d just take off. Get the hell out of this stupid town.”

  “Yeah, right,” McIven’s replied, his voice mocking. “You and Cherie. In case you didn’t notice, she wouldn’t even hang with us after the funeral. You might as well write her off, at least for the rest of the summer.”

  “No way,” Adam muttered.

  Chris McIvens rolled his eyes. “In case you hadn’t noticed, she’s hot for that Brewster guy.”

  Adam’s fingers curled into fists as he remembered the way Cherie had been looking at Eric Brewster all through Ellis’s funeral. “What the hell were those pricks even doing at the funeral? They didn’t even know Ellis!”

  “Get over it,” McIvens sighed. “They’ll be gone at the end of summer. If you ask me—”

  “Which I didn’t,” Adam cut in, but he was no longer even looking at Chris McIvens. Instead he was staring out at the lake beyond the park. “What do you say we take my dad’s boat out for a spin?”