He had been thinking about her all week. Now that he wasn’t working, he could think of little else; her eager, greedy hips, her large firm breasts, the exciting scent that had lingered on his fingers long after he’d left her alone and exhausted on the bed.
He bet she had never been fucked like that before, not by no long-haired faggot college kid or prickless preppy. And especially not by that pansy Jew flatlander, Harrison Allen.
Cliff remembered exploding inside her like a blast from his shotgun, and how she whimpered and moaned and tore at him like a crazy woman.
He thought of her at night when he was alone in his bed. Sometimes he woke up with the sweet taste of her on his tongue. He rubbed his hands over his pants, massaging his groin, and swigged from a fresh bottle of Bud.
A moment later he was pulling on his deerskin gloves.
Yes, sir, by God, he’d drive right on over there! He’d never been comfortable using a telephone, anyway.
4
The relentlessly falling snow hadn’t accumulated enough to make the road slippery, but Cliff knew it would need plowing before morning. His wipers fought the onslaught as he drove a little slower than usual, because visibility was piss poor.
When he arrived at Nancy’s cottage, he saw that she was in the process of leaving. He’d caught her plodding from the front door toward her Honda. How great she looked, bundled up in her winter coat and knitted hat, moving with difficulty as she kicked her way through the new-fallen snow.
“Hi!” he said as he jumped out of his truck. He tried to smile, but it didn’t come naturally for him.
“Hi?” she replied, her voice tentative, quizzical.
Cliff’s confidence drained from him. “I thought I’d give you a visit. Friday night. You know… ?”
“Is there something you want?”
“No… ah… just to say hello. I…”
A look of impatience flashed across the schoolteacher’s face. “Look, what do you want anyway? Are you selling something or what?”
“No, I—”
“What is it, then?”
“I… I…” Cliff’s face knotted-up painfully, tight as a clenched fist. His stomach hurt, his legs turned to Jell-O.
“Look, mister, I don’t know what you have on your mind, but you can be sure of one thing: I’m not in the habit of accepting unannounced visitors, especially people I don’t even know. Now if you’ll excuse me, I was just on my way out.”
She marched off to her car, got in, and drove away.
Cliff stood, collecting snowflakes on his face and clothing. He removed his yellow toque and slapped it against his hand to remove the snow. Then he put it on again, watching the red taillights of Nancy’s Honda disappear into the distance and the snowy night.
She had caught him off guard; that’s all. And it pissed him off. But what pissed him off more was the total, chilling lack of recognition in her face and voice. She didn’t know him. She was not playing some feminine game; she really didn’t fucking know him. It was just as if the other night had never happened.
He wandered through the snow, down to the old ferry landing near her house. Sitting on a cold stone wall, he watched the water, like liquid night, churning at his feet.
She really didn’t know him.
He cursed Mrs. Snowdon, but not too loudly, and figured he’d sit in the pickup and finish the six-pack before he followed the schoolteacher. The trail of her tires would be real clear in the fresh snow.
5
When Nancy made up her mind to spend the night, she began to feel better. Although in many ways it was against her better judgment, she had finally made the choice. And by God, she’d stick with it.
Still, she questioned her motives. On the surface of her mind she knew she liked Harrison, but was that simply due to a process of elimination? After all, he was the only normal single man on the island who had expressed any real interest in her.
She readily admitted that she was lonely, and as she prodded at her motives she realized that she was afraid to return home alone.
She’d stay here. And sometime before morning she’d find the opportunity, and the courage, to talk to Harrison about her… situation.
Lord, it’s been a strange day! Her odd assortment of visitors had left her unnerved. That, on top of being anxious, lonely, and worried about her health. Wow! I’m a total basket case!
But underneath it all — below the self-exploration, the rationalization, and the mental rhetoric — she knew perfectly well that she had decided to spend the night a long time ago, and to hell with the consequences. There should be no problem, though; the islanders were not gossipy types. And even if they were, how could they possibly know where she was and what she was doing? Certainly she could not be spotted, since no traffic passed Harrison’s house at night. And there were no neighbors at all on Harrison’s side of the marsh.
Now, in the captain’s house way down on the southernmost tip of Friar’s Island, she and Harrison were very much alone, far removed from the rest of the community.
Alone.
The thought pleased Nancy; she took comfort in their isolation, their solitude. She was feeling better. Now she felt safe, almost relaxed.
Sitting cross-legged on the rug in front of the fireplace, they watched orange and blue flames dancing atop the black logs. They sipped whiskey, and before long Nancy was laughing at the events of the day.
“I don’t think you should find it very flattering that all your rivals are, literally, idiots.” She laughed. “I wonder what it is about me that attracts them?”
“Well, you are a schoolteacher,” said Harrison. “They must be attracted to your mind.”
“I hate the way men are only interested in me for my mind,” she said, a bit drunkenly. She giggled mischievously.
Harrison leaned over and kissed her. They settled back against sofa pillows. The fire bathed them in its warm, soft light as they surrounded each other with tentative embraces.
Finally Harrison rolled away, stretching languorously. He reached for his drink and sipped lazily.
“You have a wonderful mind,” he said, pulling her to him again. “I’ve been thinking about it all week.”
Face to face, she whispered to his lips, “You’d never give a thought to a girl’s body, I guess?”
They kissed again. Shifting slightly, they positioned themselves to watch the fire. Harrison’s arm encircled Nancy; Nancy’s head rested on Harrison’s shoulder.
“Harry, can I ask you something?”
“Mmm-hmm.”
“Tell me the truth, okay? Are you really here to find the monster?”
“Yeah, mostly.”
“And what else?”
Harrison looked directly at her. The reflection of the fire sparkled in his eyes. He smiled sadly and turned away. “To find myself, I guess. Does that sound trite?”
“No. Not when you say it…. “
“It should. I’ve led a trite and an unremarkable life. No hassles, no commitments. I even got to thinking of myself as ‘Mr. Electric’ because I always took the course of least resistance.”
He chuckled dryly, facing her. She held his gaze, interested but not smiling, unwilling to let him get sidetracked with humor.
Apparently encouraged by her attention, he looked back into the flames and went on. “When I was working in Boston, I didn’t think about it much; I kept too busy. I reacted to things, ran away from things, and every time I reacted or ran, I lied to myself and called it progress. Sometimes I’d get fancy and call it growth.”
She rested a hand on his shoulder and squeezed it reassuringly.
Harrison put his hand on hers. “You know, I often think I’ve never really known anyone. Not really. Oh, I’ve had buddies, sure, but never friends; I’ve had girlfriends but never lovers, never a wife. I’ve never even taken the time to get to know myself. Here I am, approaching middle age, and I still don’t know what kind of person I am. Can I accomplish something important? Can I love? Be lov
ed? Can I create?”
He shook his head. “I’ve never dared to measure myself against anything that really challenged me. Christ, I don’t even know whether I’m brave or a coward or what? Pretty pathetic, eh?”
“I don’t think so. Not to me. But I still don’t understand: where does the monster fit in?”
He was silent, seeming to collect his thoughts. Then he turned so that they were lying face to face on the pillow. Nancy’s eyes explored the lines and contours of his face. His forehead was wide and high, his hairline receding just a bit. He would probably never be bald, but his hair would never grow thick and coarse. An aristocratic touch of gray lightened his temples. His nose was regal, thin, perhaps a bit too long. His eyes were deep and brown, gentle but confused.
“I don’t know exactly. I ask myself that all the time. For one thing, looking for the monster is an adventure, a quest. But also, I’m looking for it because I want it to be there. Do you know what I mean?”
She smiled at him, silently encouraging him to continue.
“I don’t mean this to sound as though I’m hopelessly jaded and world-weary, but I guess I want there to be something more than what science and the day-to-day working world have to offer. I want magic and mystery. I want there to be little men in flying saucers and ghosts and fortune-tellers. I want there to be a monster in that lake. Do you understand what I mean?”
“I think so. But if you do find him, then he’ll be just another page in some zoology text, along with mountain gorillas and leather-backed turtles.”
“You’re right, of course. He’ll be like a magic trick after the secret is known.” Harrison paused, reflected. “But while you’re thinking, ‘Gee, how was that done? How did he make that girl disappear?’ it’s still magic, you see. It’s the search that’s important.”
“And if you find him? Then what?”
“Then I’ll look for something else, I guess.”
She kissed his cheek. “I think you’re kind of a romantic, you know that?”
“You’re right,” he whispered emphatically, rolling over onto her, kissing her tenderly, burying his face in her hair.
Her body jerked involuntarily.
OH GOD! OH!
Nancy felt her spine heave and stiffen. She became rigid in Harrison’s arms. With her eyes locked on the nearest window, she pulled away from him in rapid little spasms. A series of terrified gasps grew, stopping just short of a scream.
“Wha… what is it?” he stammered, drawing back. Fear filled his voice.
“There…” She pointed. “The window. Look!”
Perhaps it was the ripples in the ancient glass. Perhaps a reflection in its mirrorlike surface. But she saw — or thought she saw — a gray grotesque face, monstrous and dark, topped by a mane of yellow hair. She thought she saw a hideous nose flattened against the windowpane and beside it a huge leathery hand. And the eyes, God, the black staring eyes…
Nancy’s outstretched arm seemed to hang in the air; her index finger pointed. “S-s-something at the window. A face… horrible… watching us!”
She fought not to sob as Harrison leapt to his feet and ran to the door.
“NO!” she cried. “Don’t go out there. Don’t! It was horrible!”
But he had opened the door and was standing outside, his head snapping from side to side, his eyes squinting into the snowy darkness. “The flashlight on the mantel, bring it.”
She obeyed without hesitation.
Harrison selected a stick from the pile of kindling beside the door. It was the thickness of a broom handle. Nancy felt safer when he had picked it up.
With light in hand, they walked huddled together along the side of the house.
“Was this the window?” he asked, pointing with the bright beam.
She nodded. Harrison shone the light around, exploring the bushes near the house, illuminating the snow-covered pathway leading to his front door.
The light diffused, became ineffective as he directed it away from the building. It swept the long black fields surrounding the house, then rippled over motionless, naked trees in the marshland. To Nancy, they seemed to wait, just beyond her vision, like silent, sinister creatures of the night.
Then the beam collected and focused as Harrison brought it back from his surveillance of the empty marsh. He shone it directly downward, where it created a three-foot luminous circle beneath the window.
“My God, look at this!” he said.
Nancy stepped closer. She clutched his arm tightly as they looked down into the pool of light at their feet.
There, in front of the window, were tracks in the snow. They were matted and confusing near the house where someone had obviously been standing, packing the snow and peering inside at Harrison and Nancy.
Moving the light away from the house, the prints became distinct and wide-spaced where someone had sprinted away, bounding across the snow-covered meadows towards Childe’s Bog.
“They’re footprints,” said Nancy, not believing.
And that’s exactly what they were; not the marks of heavy winter boots, but the clearly defined prints of naked feet in the cold snow
She bent down and examined them more closely. They almost looked human but— Maybe it was because the snow had melted at their perimeter, slightly increasing their size. Or maybe whoever made them had not been perfectly sure-footed, so their shape was distorted a little. But there was something about them that was not quite right. Something that didn’t quite look exactly… human.
6
At eleven o’clock Professor Hathaway put down his book and rubbed his eyes. He carefully placed the notes he had made into the manila folder, then locked it in his desk drawer. He went over to check the fire in his stove, a part of his evening ritual before going to bed.
He sensed that something was finally happening; he knew the answer was very close.
Small discoveries in old volumes, offhand remarks from the islanders, bits and pieces of information from thousands of different, easily overlooked sources were all beginning to come together, fitting snugly like well-designed fragments of an intricate jigsaw puzzle. Soon he would find the most important piece, the piece that would clarify the placement of all the remaining sections. From there, he was confident, the final solution would come rapidly.
It would be just a matter of days now. Days. He would remain patient. His greatest strength was that he had always been patient.
Research was slow, painstaking work, full of false starts, wrong turns, and dead ends. It required endurance and determination. And he had been at it for so long, so very long.
Until finally this time the end was in sight!
Yes, would be patient. There was no way to hurry things now.
As he walked up the unlit stairs to his bed, he felt excited, almost… aroused, for the first time in years.
He knew that sleep would not come easily this night.
Chapter 13 - Night Thoughts
1
Harrison wasn’t sure what time it was. He knew it was very late. As yet there was not the slightest suggestion of dawn. Everything was tunnel-black in the old house. The walls of his bedroom were a dark, invisible barrier.
Some time ago he had been awakened by a scratching sound overhead. Something in the attic?
He had listened in great suspense long after the noise had stopped. Now he couldn’t get back to sleep. Night thoughts kept him awake.
He knew he was groggy; maybe he was also confused. The scratching he’d heard might have been something else. Part of a dream, perhaps? As he rose higher from the well of unconsciousness, he suspected that the grating noise was in reality the sound of Nancy snoring at his side.
Experiencing momentary pleasure at the unfamiliar warmth in his bed, he rested his hand on the smooth round softness of her hip. He smiled a bit, thinking that this lovely woman, invisible in his cold bedroom, was snoring like a truck driver!
So what had really awakened him, snoring or scratching?
&n
bsp; If he had dreamed the scratching, it was probably because his unconscious mind dreaded the return of the fearful sobbing that had frightened him the other night.
This time there had been no weeping, no sobs, just the memory of a sound, and no more. A squirrel, no doubt, a chipmunk. Maybe a field mouse taking refuge from the cold night between the boards overhead.
He’d been aware of his animal visitors for some time, so why hadn’t he set a trap? He had planned to long ago, but had done nothing.
Harrison couldn’t shut off his compulsive internal monologue. He quickly grew impatient with himself. God, he wasn’t acting sensibly.
Now, in the perfect darkness of his room, he had begun to question his own behavior. It was all quite clear. Undeniable. Lately he had been acting inappropriately in several ways. Odd and mysterious things were happening all around him, yet in the daylight hours the strange events seemed commonplace, even mundane.
But now there was no denying it. Weird things were happening. Had he not been followed through Childe’s Bog by some unidentifiable shape stealing silently through the darkness and mist? Had he not discovered an odd assortment of objects on his stone stoop? Had he not heard the sound of a woman sobbing somewhere, everywhere, right here in his own house? Heard it with such clarity that he’d phoned Professor Hathaway to ask if his place could be haunted?
And perhaps most frightening of all, had he not seen — or rather, had Nancy not seen — a horrible face at the window? Without a doubt Harrison himself had seen the naked footprints in the snow.
Naked footprints.
But the profoundly unsettling fact was that this group of odd occurrences had not upset him at all!
Why hadn’t he phoned the police the night he was followed? Or immediately after he and Nancy had discovered they were being watched in their intimacy?
How could he be so indifferent?
Somehow, none of his action, or inaction, made any sense when viewed objectively.
And what about his research project? Hadn’t he come here to investigate the monster and to contemplate a new direction for his life? So far he had made little progress toward either goal. As usual, he felt at the mercy of the wind, waiting for some chance breeze that would decide his fate for him.
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