“If he was, it’d save your theory, wouldn’t it? Adultery between Cliff and Maggie can explain their deaths: They were messing around, and Harold Bly had them killed. But why Vic?”
“He could be alive,” she said stubbornly. “He’s gone off on drunken binges before.”
“You should have heard him scream last night.”
That stopped her. “You heard Vic Moore scream?”
“It sounded like he was in a terrible struggle with something— and I think he was. I think he’s dead.”
Tracy fingered her rifle and peered into the forest beyond the ruins. She couldn’t see a thing. She didn’t mean for her voice to come out in a whisper; it just did. “It may not have been an animal. Maybe Vic Moore crossed somebody just like Maggie and Cliff did.”
“Maybe.”
She really did not want to believe it was an animal, at least as long as she was sitting out there in the dark. “But if it’s an animal, why do you think they try to hide it? You know, sanitize the attack sites?”
Steve answered in a quiet voice himself, “You’d know the answer to that better than I would. But their superstitions and their little games don’t mean a thing to me. They can have them. I want the predator.”
Tracy ventured, “I figure Bly’s trying to fuel the superstitions. As long as people don’t find out what really happened, he can go on scaring them.”
“I knew I didn’t like that guy. And I especially didn’t like the questions he was asking about Evie.”
“Mm. I caught that too.”
“I called Evie. I didn’t know what to tell her except to be careful, but—”
“But she could be a witness; you’re right—and they know it.”
“So I want to see what Evie saw.”
Tracy recalled Evelyn Benson drenched in blood and crazed out of her mind, but said nothing. She just made sure her rifle was ready and her eyes wide open, and tried not to wish she were somewhere else.
IN OAK SPRINGS, Evelyn Benson slept on the left side, her side, of the half-empty bed she used to share with her husband. The lights were out, the house was dark, the sounds of night were beginning to stir: the window on the south side of the room, no longer warmed by the sun, now cooled, ticking, creaking in sporadic intervals; overhead, a roof rafter contracted with a groan; in a corner of the ceiling, tiny claws cleared a nest in the insulation.
Evelyn slept, her breathing deep and even, while the blue light of the digital alarm clock dimly illuminated her face.
Running, darkness all around, a knife in her hand. Falling, rising, screaming her husband’s name over and over. The trees shaking overhead, their tops quivering, the branches breaking.
A shadow without shape, a cloud, a force, a weight, a presence.
Pushed back. Toppled. Back on her feet. Struck across the body as with a huge beam. Cliff!
The knife. Warm, sticky spattering on her arms, her neck, her face.
Cliff. She was reaching for Cliff. She could see his red shirt, half hidden in shadow. She reached for his face, tried to brush away the shadow that concealed it from her like an overhanging branch. Her hand passed through the shadow and the shadow remained. Where Cliff’s face should have been, she felt cool earth. Her face contorted with horror; her mouth formed his name, but there was no sound.
She was awake, flailing her arms, groping toward Cliff’s pillow, her heart pounding.
Her own room, her own house, the real world, made its way slowly back into her consciousness, and she fell silent except for the pounding of her heart. She was alone. There was no danger.
No danger? Her spirit told her otherwise.
Steve. Pray for Steve. Pray for Steve!
She tumbled from the bed and knelt beside it, not knowing what to say, reaching for God.
STEVE CHECKED his watch, the green dashes of its hands and tiny green dots of its hours glowing weakly in the dark. Just a few minutes before midnight.
“How’re you doing?”
“My rear end’s getting cold,” Tracy replied.
“Why don’t you find a place to lie down? We can sit here in shifts.”
She got up slowly, stiff from sitting, and found some fallen boards, most likely a part of the roof, that seemed about the right size and angle to support her. She tested them with her hand first to see if they would move or collapse under her, then sat on them.
“Are you married, Steve?”
Well, he thought, we’ve talked about everything else. Why not this? “No, I’m not married.”
“Were you ever?”
“Yes. For about eight years.”
“Any kids?”
“No.”
“Well, that’s good, I guess.”
“It did make for a cleaner, neater breakup, yes.”
“So how long have you been single?”
“Three years.”
She reclined on the boards and tried to get comfortable.
“How about you?” he asked.
“No. Not married.”
“Were you ever?”
She took a moment to answer. “Depends on how you look at it. It wasn’t much of a marriage to begin with. It never should have happened, but—I was young, he was a hunk, and he made me lots of promises, you know?”
She was young? “So how old are you now?”
“Thirty. And wiser.” Then she added, “Maybe.”
“You don’t seem too sure.”
“I’m still stuck in Hyde Valley, aren’t I? If I was smart I would have found a job somewhere else, anywhere else. Love can make you do stupid things.”
“Yes, it’s a strong emotion, all right. It can be downright devastating.”
He stopped. She waited.
Then she finally prompted, “Were you devastated when your marriage broke up?”
Now we’re really going to get into it. “I’ve survived.”
“Do you mind if I ask you what happened?”
He thought it over, then replied, “Her name was Jennifer, and she left me for a friend of mine.”
“I am sorry.”
“Thanks,” he said. “It’s taken me a long time to come to this conclusion, but I realize now that both of us were at fault. There were things that each of us could have done differently.”
“I know what you mean,” Tracy said, her tone both solemn and sincere.
Steve tried to lighten up the conversation. “So, anyway, I’ve tried to be more careful since then, just keeping my eyes open, putting survival first and, well, keeping the whole concept of love confined to its biological context.”
“What do you mean?”
“Love is like everything else. It’s a product of evolution, a higher level of neurological and chemical responses—”
“Do tell,” she said archly.
Steve laughed. “Look, don’t get me wrong. All I’m trying to say is, keeping love in its true context makes it easier to understand. Also, you keep it in control, in check.”
She sat up on the old boards. “Baloney.”
“What do you mean, ‘baloney’?”
“Is that why you’re out here in the dark, waiting for the bear or creature or goblin that killed your brother? Is that where your grief comes from, and your sense of loss? Just chemical reactions?”
He found it hard to say. “Well, ultimately, I suppose so.”
“Baloney.”
“Listen—”
“You’re just trying to deal with pain by sticking it in a test tube. That way, it isn’t really yours.”
He had no answer for that.
AFTER YEARS of living in Hyde River, Levi could have several of the town dogs barking and scrapping right outside his window and he’d sleep right through it. But tonight he awoke, and not just from the howling of the dogs. Something else was stirring outside his window. It was something unseen, yet he could feel it with his spirit, settling thick and black over the streets and rusting metal roofs like factory smoke, creeping through the cracks, seeping through t
he old framed walls and brittle window panes and invading every heart, every mind, every soul, even as people slept. Years ago, when he’d felt it for the first time, it came for only a moment, and then it was gone. In these recent days, when it came, it lingered like an endless haunting.
Tonight, it was back, stronger and darker than ever. He knew there would be trouble.
ONE THIRTY-FIVE in the morning. Steve looked toward Tracy and could tell she was awake. “So what about Bly’s story of an Indian massacre? Any truth to that?”
Tracy sounded sleepy as she answered, “I’ve never heard that story before. But if there ever was a fight with the Indians, it was probably the Indians who got killed. The founders of this town were a rough bunch. They didn’t let anybody get in their way.”
“You never heard about the Indians’ snake god, or this being sacred ground and all that?”
“If you want my opinion, I think Bly made it all up.”
“So what really happened in Hyde Hall to make people so afraid of it?”
“I don’t know.”
Steve was skeptical. “You grew up here and you don’t know?”
“Hey, that’s how it works around here,” she said defensively. “Some of this stuff goes without explanation.” A moment passed, and then she blurted, “But Bly’s full of phony stories, you know? Like that garbage about me leaving a trail of broken hearts.”
Steve was amused. “Are you still stewing about that?”
“Well, he was making insinuations about my private life, something he knows nothing about and has no right to say anything about.”
“Maybe he just meant there were a lot of guys who—”
“I know what he meant!”
Oooh, she’s getting feisty. “Okay, okay,” Steve said. “Brother. He sure upset you.”
“You’re darn right he did. Telling stuff like that to a total stranger. What nerve!”
“So how many hearts have you broken?” he asked teasingly.
She hesitated, and then conceded, “Not that many.”
“So now the truth comes out.”
“Well, I wouldn’t call them broken hearts. More like, false starts. But we were young. What did we know? I was—”
Steve’s hand was up. A signal.
She froze, half-reclining on the old boards. Steve sat on the rock, motionless, his eyes toward the river.
They listened. They could hear the sigh of the river, the sleepy whisper of the cottonwood leaves, the crickets. Nothing more.
Tracy rose slowly to a sitting position, a firm grip on her rifle, straining to see. Suddenly her heart was in her throat; the darkness around her felt heavy and threatening.
Steve raised his nose slightly and took a deep breath. He couldn’t detect anything, not yet.
“What is it?” Tracy asked in the quietest of whispers.
He took a moment before replying in a hushed voice, “I might have something.”
She listened. Nothing. An eternity passed.
Steve kept his eyes across the river, scanning slowly back and forth, up and down the distant mountain slope, looking for an image, any image. Sometimes he could sense something out there, and sometimes doubt would set in, but the instinctive chill in his bones, the inkling of danger, was steady enough. Sure, he was scared, but right now the hunter in him was in charge.
“Can I move?” Tracy asked.
He beckoned to her, and she stole over to the rock and sat there, her eyes following his.
Steve kept searching the black expanse of mountains. He’d heard a sound that stood apart from the quiet sigh of the river, the whisper of the breeze, the gentle applause of the leaves overhead. On many a hunting trip, he’d learned to recognize the sound an animal makes as it steals through the forest. Just now, he thought he’d heard that sound: a rustling, a breaking twig, the hiss of fur through grass. He wanted to hear it again.
LEVI SAT on his bed, phone receiver in hand, listening to the phone on the other end ring and ring. Then a machine answered, “Hi, this is Tracy. Leave a message after the beep.” He left no message but replaced the receiver, then sat there, troubled by a flurry of feelings, impressions, and stark fears. He prayed for certainty. Was he right? Were his impressions true?
He got up and started pulling on his clothes. If something was brewing out in those mountains, he wanted to be there.
ACROSS THE RIVER, so far away the exact direction was hard to determine, a large limb snapped. It was the first sound Tracy had heard in all the silence they’d maintained for the last—how many minutes had it been? Long enough. She didn’t dare look down at her watch.
“Halfway up the mountain, see it?” said Steve.
Tracy scanned the area, trying to see an image. Part of her didn’t want to see anything, but—
There. Then not there. Where now? There they were again, two yellow pinpoints that could have been retinal reflections. Not a vehicle. No, they moved up and down, to and fro, like eyes on a creature’s head. Then they were gone again, winking out behind trees.
“What is it?” she asked.
“Might be a bear. Can’t tell,” Steve whispered.
It didn’t matter. Her hands were shaking no matter what it was, and her stomach felt so tight she thought she would double over.
The “eyes” appeared again.
“How do they glow like that?” she wondered.
Steve shook his head. He had no answer. Then he spoke just above a whisper, his lips barely moving, “I think it’s following my trail. I drove the long way around and hiked down that way, from across the river.” He watched a moment longer, and then he was sure. “Yeah. It’s tracking me.”
CHARLIE MACK awoke and rolled out of bed in anguish, his body soaked in sweat. He felt as if the point of a spear was digging into the area over his heart. He lay on the floor, his face the picture of torment, his breath coming in desperate gasps, trying to clear his mind of bloody images.
“WE’D BETTER SEPARATE, spread out,” said Steve. “Can you get across the street?”
Tracy rose silently and put on her backpack.
“Keep your light handy. Don’t shoot until you’re sure of your target.”
“Same to you.”
She touched his back long enough to say good luck, then let her hand slip away. Keeping low and moving carefully, she made her way out of Hyde Hall and through the grass and brush toward the old Masonic Lodge.
Steve chambered a round, his eyes across the river. Now there was nothing but the black mountainside again. A breeze was picking up, and the trees were sighing. The extra noise would not help.
SOMETHING WAS visiting Phil Garrett that night as well. Half drunk, he sat in the corner of his weather-beaten shack on the cold linoleum floor, staring around the dark room, his fist clenched tightly around the neck of a flask of whiskey. To his blurry eyes, the old table, the chair, even his jacket hanging from a sixteenpenny nail, were all alive and sinister. He cowered there, in a stupor of fear, his other hand grasping his chest.
STEVE HAD an intense desire to get off that rock and hide somewhere, but he knew that would defeat his purpose. He would have to be the bait, at least until he could get a good shot. He looked toward the Masonic Lodge, but Tracy was out of sight.
“You still there?” he called as loudly as he dared.
He could see the palm of her hand pop up out of the grass and wave to him. All right. Now they would have two lines of fire and better chances of getting a clear shot.
Steve stayed right there on that rock, plainly visible as the breeze kept the cottonwoods steadily sighing. He took some deep breaths to steady himself.
He thought of Vic and of Maggie. He had heard Vic yelling, and Levi had said Maggie was singing. If that was what the creature wanted, he would give it to him. In quavering, pitifully inaccurate tones he began to sing. “Hand me down my walkin’ cane . . .”
He heard a click from the Masonic Lodge. Tracy had chambered a round.
Steve kept on singing .
. . “Hand me down my walkin’ cane— oh!” A bat fluttered close, totally silent, visible for only an instant before changing course and disappearing in the dark.
“Steve!” Tracy hissed from somewhere in the dark.
“It was a bat,” he answered, then began singing again. “Hand me down my walkin’ cane, I’m a-gonna leave on the mornin’ train . . .”
“How’s that thing going to get across the river?”
“What?”
“How’s it going to get across the river, I mean, without giving itself away?”
Suddenly, there was a whooshing sound from across the river. Then, only the gentle sound of the breeze overhead. Steve had the icy sense that they’d just been given the answer to Tracy’s question.
It was all he could do to sing again. “My sins they have overtaken me . . .”
There was that sound again. Whoosh! . . . whoosh!
This time it didn’t come from across the river. It was above the river.
In one quick, fluid movement, Steve set the 30.06 aside and grabbed the shotgun. He didn’t want to miss. Forget preserving a trophy, he only wanted to live.
Now there was a steady wind approaching across the river, a rushing with a high-pitched edge. Steve searched the sky but could see nothing but stars.
Whoosh!
A curtain fell across the sky. The stars vanished. Steve blinked. Had he gone blind?
BOOM!!!
Tracy fired a round, and the sound went right through him. He bolted from the rock and just about fell backward. In the light of the blast he saw a metallic glimmer high overhead, and he heard Tracy scream.
BOOM!!! She fired again.
Around him, the remains of Hyde Hall seemed to be caving in. The one wall wrenched, the nails shrieked, and the boards splintered. He pointed the shotgun skyward, where he had seen the metallic glimmer, and squeezed the trigger. Only a few feet above him, he saw something flashing like heat lightning.
Then something huge and dark swept in from his left and struck him. He tumbled through space, totally unable to see, and came down with a rib-cracking crash on some fallen lumber, the shotgun still in his hand.
Somewhere, Tracy was firing round after round and screaming like an incensed commando.
The Frank Peretti Collection: The Oath, the Visitation, and Monster Page 21