Ghost Light

by Hautala, Rick

  “Sorry…” Alex repeated, squinting hard to control the swell of anger that was churning inside of him.

  “Yeah. That’s all,” the boy said, nodding. “He said something about staying at his uncle’s cabin on the lake, but I don’t know what lake. Look, I—uh, I don’t want to be late for my job. I have to rake the leaves at Old Lady Johnson’s house and then get my homework done before I can do anything else today, so I—uh, I’ve gotta go.”

  “Well then let me give you a lift,” Alex said in as calm and steady a voice as he could manage.

  The boy hesitated a moment, then nodded as he reached for the door handle. He snapped the door open and slid onto the seat, then slammed the door shut.

  “I told you my name, but you never did tell me yours,” Alex said, smiling at the boy through gritted teeth.

  “Chris … Chris Russell,” the boy said. There was no longer even a hint of suspicion in his expression. All Alex could think was, Great!

  “Pleased to meet you, Chris,” Alex said, holding his hand out so they could shake hands. The boy’s hand felt small in his grip, easy as shit to crush to a pulp if he wanted to. “Hey, you’d better put on your seat belt. There’s that new state law, you know.”

  Chris nodded as he pulled the shoulder strap across his chest and clicked it into place. While he was doing that, Alex shifted forward in his seat and dropped his left hand down to the floor where he felt for the rope and knife.

  Just in case I need to jog his memory, he thought, smiling to himself. Just in case.

  “So… tell me, where do you live?”

  Chapter Twenty-One

  The Wolf’s Hour

  Cindy was beginning to realize that even after several days of intensive cleaning, the camp was still going to look like a disaster had hit it. Right after lunch, the man from Central Maine Power—a young, dark-haired guy named Roger—showed up. It didn’t take him long to get the power turned on. Cindy was happy they would at least have electricity and, hopefully, running water before dark. The water pump was in the pantry area next to the kitchen. She asked Roger if he could help her get it started, or at least take a look at it with her. Although he told her he shouldn’t because he was on company time, he checked it out for her, found there was nothing wrong with it, and after about fifteen minutes of tinkering around got it started. Cindy tipped him twenty dollars, and he left, saying he’d raise a toast to her when he hit the bar after work today. She checked to make sure the toilet upstairs flushed, and then ran the water in the bathroom and kitchen sinks for several minutes, until the brick-red rusty stream turned clear… at least mostly clear. Then she stripped the bed sheets off the two double beds upstairs, washed them with dish detergent in the kitchen sink, and hung them out to dry on tree branches.

  Thank God, she thought, at least we’ll have clean sheets tonight.

  After that, her first priority was to clean up the kitchen, or at least make it semi-sanitary. After she sprayed the stove top with cleaner, she realized that it was a gas cook top. Sighing with frustration, she turned on each control in succession and held a burning match up to them, but nothing lit. She didn’t want to bother driving back to town again today to call the gas company for a delivery, so she gave the stovetop a quick once-over and satisfied herself that they would have to eat a cold supper tonight. At least, if it got cold later tonight, the electric heaters were working.

  Safe, dependable… and expensive, she thought, grimly aware that her funds weren’t unlimited.

  She decided that if they did end up staying here for any length of time, she would look into getting a load of firewood delivered and using the wood stove in the living room. Of course, that had its own set of problems, including making sure the flue was clean so it wouldn’t start a chimney fire.

  The refrigerator wasn’t in too bad a shape, considering how long it had gone unused, but it seemed like it was on its last leg, rattling and bumping like a jackhammer whenever the motor kicked on. She threw away the leaking pickle jars, crusted ketchup bottle, half loaf of moldy wheat bread, and other unidentified items that had been left behind; then she washed the shelves and inside walls of the refrigerator and placed an open box of baking soda on the bottom shelf. After that, she tackled the kitchen cupboards, which were much more of a mess. Ancient cans of vegetables and soups had apparently frozen and thawed several times over the past few winters, leaking black sludge as thick as used motor oil all over the shelves. Cobwebs, crumbs, fragments of acorn shells, and crumbling pine cones littered all of the shelves inside the food closet. In one kitchen drawer, behind a tray of tarnished silverware, she found a ball of shredded newspaper, gray string, and rotting cloth. It took her a moment to realize that this was a mouse or squirrel nest, but whatever it was, she swept it into a trash bag, wishing she’d had the foresight to buy some mousetraps and a few boxes of D-Con. With cold weather coming, no doubt mice and other creatures would be looking for safe places to spend the winter.

  Throughout the day, while Cindy was working in the kitchen, the kids occupied themselves outside. She kept a close eye on them, but Billy was out of sight much of the time. Krissy spent more than half of the afternoon sitting on an old tree stump with her hands squeezed between her knees as she stared blankly out at the rippling blue lake. Puffy white clouds slid slowly across the horizon and were reflected in the water. A steady breeze coming in off the water blew her hair back like thin, yellow streamers. Once or twice Cindy called out to her, asking if she was too cold, but Krissy just sat there, ignoring her and—apparently—pretty much everything else.

  What the hell can I do for her… for both of them? Cindy wondered so often tears sprang to her eyes. Her throat and nose were raw from the fumes of the cleaning agents she’d been using, and the tears made her eyes sting horribly. By the time darkness began to fall, around six o’clock, the kitchen didn’t look noticeably better than it had when they first arrived, but at least she wasn’t afraid of putting her food in the refrigerator. She called the kids inside for a supper of cold-cut sandwiches, chips, and milk.

  “Will we be going to school around here?” Billy asked after they were seated around the table. Cindy had been eating slowly as she stared out at the thick bands of yellow and purple clouds that streaked the western sky. The skeletal lines of tree branches against the fading horizon made her shiver deeply. It was definitely a winter sky.

  “I… I don’t know,” she replied distantly, shaking her head. “I just want to… you know, take a few days to figure things out and all.”

  Billy sniffed loudly. “Well I don’t see why we can’t just move back to Portland,” he said huffily. “Things were going just fine for us there.”

  There was an edge of accusation and downright meanness in his voice that Cindy couldn’t ignore.

  “Maybe we will,” she replied, looking at him steadily and mentally pleading for him to give her a tiny break, just this once. “I just want to lay low for a day or two, that’s all. I have to go into town tomorrow to order a tank of gas for the stove, so I’ll call Alice then to see if… to see how things are.”

  The thought also crossed her mind that she should give Harry a call, to let him know that they had finally arrived at the camp; but it had been so long since she had heard from him that she had given up on him. All along, she realized, he must have been planning to use this situation to get rid of her.

  Billy slumped back in his seat and stared blankly at the half-eaten sandwich on his plate.

  “You know, this really sucks,” he muttered, so softly Cindy almost didn’t hear him.

  “Hey, look,” she said, leaning forward and taking his hand in hers in spite of his resistance. “I know you’re upset about leaving your friends and all, okay? But this isn’t easy for any of us, do you understand? You have to believe me! After what happened to Krissy with that man in the white van, I just don’t want to take any unnecessary chances.”

  “Why not?” Billy said in a loud, hurt-sounding voice as he jerked his ha
nd out of her grasp and squared his shoulders. “What the heck are you afraid of, anyway?” He was trying his hardest to look and sound tough, but all Cindy could see was a scared and angry little boy.

  “I’m not afraid of anything,” she said mildly, trying to force back the torrent of emotions she felt bubbling up inside her. “I’m afraid for! For you, goddamnit! For both of you kids! I know you probably won’t believe me, but I worry more about you guys, I’m afraid for you even more than I’m afraid for myself.”

  She wanted to get out of her chair and hug both of them so close to her she could smother them, but she was feeling too drained emotionally and physically even to move. What she had been about to say next, that he and his sister were all she had left to remind her of her own dead sister, caught in her throat and died there before she could speak it.

  “So what is it you’re afraid of, that my dad’s gonna eventually find us and take us back?”

  Feeling utterly betrayed and defeated, Cindy slouched back in her chair, closed her eyes, and shook her head weakly.

  “I don’t know,” she said followed by a weak sigh. “I just don’t know.”

  The room was silent for a moment as she let her gaze shift back to the descending night, which had fallen across the lake like a purple curtain.

  “Well … yeah,” she said finally. “I guess that is it. I’m afraid that your father or… or someone will find us, and—well, you know your mother asked me to… to take care of you both if anything ever happened to her, and… and I—”

  “But not like this!” Billy suddenly shouted, cutting her off sharply as he banged his fist onto the table. He pushed himself violently away from the table, leaped to his feet and, balling up his napkin, tossed it so it landed in his glass of milk. A white tongue of milk slopped out onto his plate, soaking the remains of his sandwich.

  Fairly trembling with anger and hurt, Cindy scowled at him as she fought for control. “Look, Billy,” she said as evenly as she could, “it’s been one hell of a stressed-out day for all of us. I want you to go upstairs and get ready for bed now.”

  “But I don’t want to! I’m not tired yet!” Billy shouted, shaking his clenched fists in frustration in front of his face.

  Cindy was momentarily afraid that he was so mad he might even attack her, wanting to hurt her more than his words already had. Again, she was shocked into silence by how much he reminded her of his father—especially when he was angry like this. She could see—almost feel Alex’s violent rage seething inside of Billy; but she looked at him steadily, hoping that, beneath it all, she would also be able to see the hurt little boy she knew he really was—the scared ten-year-old boy who was crying for help, begging to be comforted.

  He misses his mother more than he’ll ever be able to say, she thought with a cold touch of sadness; but as she looked at him, all she saw was his angry, hate-filled stare, and it was directed straight at her.

  “You’ll do it,” she said in low, measured tones, “because I told you to!”

  Rising slowly from her seat, she didn’t say another word as she picked up her and Krissy’s plates and walked into the kitchen with them. Tears welled up in her eyes, blurring her vision as she dumped the chip crumbs and bread crust Krissy hadn’t eaten into a trash bag and then stacked the dirty dishes and utensils beside the sink. Reflected in the window above the sink she could see Billy, standing there in the middle of the living room floor as motionless and transparent as an apparition. For a nerve-tingling instant, her vision doubled, and she thought she saw someone else, another indistinct figure, standing beside him. At first she thought it was a double reflection in the window, but then she realized that the figure was different. In the blink of an eye, though, it dissolved into hazy darkness.

  Sniffing back the tears and biting down hard on her lower lip, Cindy stared at Billy’s reflection, waiting for him to say or do something, but he just stood there as though frozen. As time and the hostile silence stretched out, the back of Cindy’s neck began to burn. All she could hear was the steady, rapid thunder of her pulse, pounding inside her head.

  Finally, Billy turned around and, without another word, ran upstairs, stomping his feet on every step before he slammed the bedroom door shut behind him.

  Forcing herself to remain as calm and in control as possible, she walked back to the table, cleaned up the mess Billy had made, and carried his silverware, glass, and plate into the kitchen.

  “Hey, Squirt, you must be pretty tired, too, huh?” she said, glancing over her shoulder at Krissy.

  The little girl didn’t say a word. Throughout the argument, she had just sat there with her shoulders hunched forward, not moving a muscle. Her face looked drawn and pale, and her expression seemed oddly blank, as though she was only partially aware of what was going on around her.

  “D’ you think you might go to bed now, too?” Cindy asked.

  Without a word, Krissy shifted out of her seat and trudged upstairs, shuffling her feet slowly on each step.

  “Yeah … Good night,” Cindy said in a whisper that was too low for Krissy to hear. Tears were streaming down her face as she turned around and faced the window again, still wondering what—if anything—she had seen reflected there. With a sudden convulsion, she bent forward and threw up into the sink.

  2

  Fucking shit, this ain’t gonna be easy, Alex was thinking as he sat on the bed in his motel room. But then again, nothing worth shit ever is!

  It was well past midnight, and he was feeling quite blitzed after having more than a few beers at Three Dollar Dewey’s, a bar in downtown Portland. He was sitting on the edge of the bed with a map of Maine spread out over his lap as he nursed a beer from the six pack he had picked up on his way back to the motel. He couldn’t help but chuckle every time he thought about that kid he’d talked to earlier today.

  What was the little brat’s name again? Chris something-or-other. What the hell! It didn’t matter! It cracked Alex up how the little twerp had acted so cocky and self-assured, never even suspecting how close he was to getting his scrawny, little neck strangled.

  In spite of his growing frustration that Cindy had slipped away from him—That’s. twice, now, and oh, baby, are you ever going to pay!— Alex thought it had been the high point of the last few days, toying with that stupid little kid and leading him on to think that he was actually helping him find his son when, in actuality, he didn’t have a clue how easy it would have been for Alex to snuff him out and drop his useless carcass off somewhere into the woods.

  “What a fuckin’ hoot that would’ve been,” Alex said, slurring the words and laughing as he rolled his head back and took a deep gulp of beer. He swallowed wrong, and the carbonation surged, stinging, up into the back on his nose.

  “Yeah,” he whispered, snorting loudly as he wiped his nose. “Maybe I should’a fuckin’ done it!”

  But as much as he had enjoyed himself and the absolute power he’d had over that kid’s life, it still didn’t solve his immediate problem of finding out where Cindy had taken his kids. His guess was that Maine had been her goal all along, and that, more than likely, she hadn’t gone very far—probably not more than an hour or so out of Portland.

  So all he had to do to find her was find that fucking camp on the fucking lake!

  It sounded easy enough, but a quick perusal of his map showed him that there were plenty of lakes, even in the immediate Portland area. He had a lot of area to cover and a feeling that he didn’t have a lot of time left, especially with winter coming on. The first lake that caught his attention was the largest one—Lake Sebago. A little to the east of that was another, smaller lake designated as Little Sebago. Besides those two, there was Long Lake, Moose Pond, Thompson and Pleasant Lake, and a bunch of other unmarked little blots of blue on the map. Further north, above Lewiston, there were a shit-load more, but Alex decided to concentrate his search on the nearest lakes first. He might be wasting his time—”pissing up a rope,” as his daddy used to say—but he had
to play his hunches. This whole thing was a crap shoot, and as much as he tried not to think about it, he couldn’t shake the gnawing feeling that Cindy had gotten away clean.

  He might never find her!

  Taking the pen and memo pad from the bed stand, he quickly jotted down the names of the towns surrounding Sebago Lake—North Windham, Raymond, Casco, Naples, East Sebago, Gray, and Dry Mills. These would be the first towns where he would check, but even in his half-drunken stupor, he realized that his prospects weren’t very good.

  “Shit! Damn! There’s got to be an easier way to run her down,” he muttered to himself. A line of drool ran from the corner of his mouth, and he wiped it away with the back of his hand. Clenching both hands into fists, he wrinkled the map into a tight ball and tossed it at the wastebasket.

  “But how, goddamnit? How the fuck am I gonna find her?”

  As he was leaning to one side to replace the memo pad on the table, he momentarily lost his balance and started to fall forward. As he did, his hand shot out to catch his balance and knocked the telephone book from the table onto the floor. Before he could straighten up, he found himself staring, unfocused, at the list of names on the page the book had opened to, and like a jolt of electricity, an idea hit him.

  “Fuckin’ yes! That’s it!” he shouted, whooping for joy as he straightened up and carefully placed his beer bottle on the night stand. “That’s gotta be it!”

  His hands were trembling as he picked up the phone book and started rifling through the pages, turning them so fast he tore several of them. He had a bit of trouble focusing his eyes as he dragged his forefinger across the top of page after page until he came to section marked “T”.