He was also running over in his mind how Winfield had acted during that visit. The more he considered it, the more he thought the policeman hadn’t been very aggressive in asking Rodgers about why they couldn’t view Larry’s body. As he recalled now, Winfield had just sat there and let him do all the talking. If he had any doubts, he sure as hell didn’t express them!
Did that mean Winfield might be in with Rodgers on whatever the hell was going on? Dale wasn’t sure.
Maybe the little bit he had already told Winfield had already gotten back to Rodgers. Maybe Winfield knew damned right well that it was Rodgers’ limo that had tried to force them off the road. Christ! Maybe Winfield had been driving the damn car! He sure seemed anxious to give them Rodgers’ alibi for the time when they were being chased.
If you think about it like this, he warned himself, you will end up totally paranoid!
“This is your town,” Dale said, taking a deep breath. “What do you know about what’s around the house here.”
Donna shrugged. “I don’t know. I mean, Dyer isn’t exactly the development capital of the world. I think things have stayed pretty much the same since I was a kid. I think this stretch of woods runs up beside the house on the left as we look at it. It may even curve around behind it. I never really played around here as a kid but I do remember there used to be an old barn somewhere out there.” She pointed towards the woods. “The kids used to hang out there, drinking and stuff.”
“Is that all kids do around here, drink and fool around?”
Donna shrugged. “Well, if you’re not into high school basketball, there’s not much else going on.”
Dale grunted and turned to look again at Rodgers’ Funeral Home. “Well, I suppose, as long as we keep to the woods, we can try to get a look around the whole yard. We should be safe. Maybe we’ll see something out back that’ll tell us what we want.”
“And what exactly do we want?” Donna asked. She had her hand on the door latch but couldn’t quite get up the nerve to open the door.
“Beats the shit out of me,” Dale said.
He pocketed the car keys and opened his door. As soon as he stepped out into the cool night, he ran his jacket zipper right up under his chin. His breath came out in small white puffs, and he couldn’t help but think it wasn’t this damned close to autumn back home—Thomaston!
Donna got out and came around the car, standing close to him and winding one arm around his waist. Pulling him close, she whispered into his ear, “Don’t you think this is just a bit ridiculous? I mean, we’re two grown adults, right?”
“Theoretically,” Dale said with a half-chuckle.
“And here we are, out on a cold night, about to go spying around a funeral home to see if the funeral director is turning the townspeople into zombies. Doesn’t that strike you as just a bit over the edge?”
Dale smiled and almost laughed aloud, but before he could stop it, the voice of Larry Cole, speaking into his dictating recorder, spoke as clearly in his mind as if he was standing on the other side of him.
“…He’s turning them into zombies!”
And then, almost as clearly, but with an icy tone that sent shock waves of chills up his spine, Dale remembered another voice, that of Franklin Rodgers, caught unawares by the Sony as it lay in the dirt by the side of the road, still running.
“Don’t touch this one. I have something special planned for him!”
“I just want to have a look around,” Dale said, his voice tight and sounding as if he was talking with his mouth closed. “Do you remember Rodgers having a security fence around his house?”
Donna shook her head. “How the hell should I know? I make it a point not to come home unless I have to. And when I was a kid, Rodgers didn’t even own the place.”
Dale pulled her close, wishing her warmth could drive away the chill he felt winding like cold, dead fingers around his heart. “Yes,” he said, “and for two of those trips home, you had funerals to attend.”
He could feel Donna tense in his embrace.
“Did either of those funerals take place here?” he asked, indicating Rodgers’ Funeral Home with a wave of his free arm.
“Both,” she said, sounding as if someone had tight fingers around her throat.
Dale didn’t say the obvious: What if even back then he was experimenting? What if he did something to your parents, too? What if they aren’t even in those caskets you saw lowered into the ground?
They stood in the dark woods for several seconds, considering how best they might approach the house, but at last, as amateur spies, Dale opted for the simplest approach.
“Look,” he said, holding Donna back at arm’s length, “we’ll just stroll up along the margin of the woods, making sure we keep our eyes and ears open for anything that might indicate Rodgers is on to us. If we see anything like a burglar alarm or hear guard dogs or anything, we’ll just turn around and get the hell out of here. All right?”
Donna nodded. She thought it best not to say what she was thinking, that as soon as they crossed the street they would hear a chorus of barking, and she and Dale would just pivot on their heels and get back into the car and drive the hell away from there.
“And then we’ll go find Winfield, okay? I know we can trust him,” she said as she followed Dale across the street and into the woods beside Rodgers’ Funeral Home.
Damn! she thought as Dale’s dark silhouette was swallowed by the dark shadows under the trees. No dogs yet!
III
“She’s resting pretty well now,” Steve Wayne said, looking at Mrs. Appleby across the bed where Lisa lay sleeping. The bedside lamp cast a dim, warm yellow light over the quilted bedspread that was tucked right up under Lisa’s chin. Her face looked relaxed, and a warm, living color had returned to her cheeks.
“Do you think we should take her to the hospital for a check?” Mrs. Appleby asked. Her heart was fluttering in her chest, and she was concerned that her anxiety for Lisa’s health might actually endanger her own.
Steve shook his head as he dropped his stethoscope into the small black medical bag on the bed. It had warmed Mrs. Appleby’s heart to no end to see that someone was training to carry on Doctor LaChance’s tradition of making house calls. These were the days, she knew, of heartless emergency rooms and quick-care medical centers in the cities. She hoped this Stephen Wayne intended to fill Doc LaChance’s shoes once he was gone.
Lisa stirred on the bed. Her eyelids fluttered but didn’t open. Steve nodded toward the door and followed Mrs. Appleby out into the hallway. He looked back at his black medical bag on the bed as he eased the door shut.
“I don’t think there’s anything to worry about,” he said, his voice a harsh whisper that, try as she did to ignore it, grated on Mrs. Appleby’s nerves and made her like him a little less.
“I was afraid, though, that she may have fractured her skull. Wouldn’t that account for the dizziness? If she has…” She couldn’t bring herself to say the words, brain damage.
Steve waved his hand in front of her and clicked his tongue.
“The bump on her head looks bad, but I don’t see where it’s serious,” he said. “If she had been complaining of any headaches, or if there was some ringing in her ears of if she complained of bright light hurting her eyes, I’d be more concerned. I think the best thing to do is let her rest and to regain her strength. If she’s still not feeling better in a day or two, you might want to bring her to the hospital for an X-ray.”
He started to turn toward the door when they heard a low moan issue from Lisa’s room. Easing the door open a crack, his eyes immediately came to rest on his black bag. He smiled slightly to himself, thinking, I may have another one here! That would make three since Friday. Not bad for a weekend’s work.
“My goodness,” Mrs. Appleby said, her voice tightening up as if it was a screw someone was twisting deeply into wood. “You can’t imagine how frightening it was, to see her hit the wall and fall like that! Lucky for her that bea
nbag chair was where it was.”
Steve nodded. “True. Another blow to the head, and I would definitely have taken her directly to the hospital. I think, though, that she’ll be just fine come morning. Just let me give her another shot for the pain,” he said, pushing the bedroom door open. Looking back at Mrs. Appleby, he added, “You might want to wait outside for this one.”
Mrs. Appleby nodded agreement and went downstairs. All this time, Angie was in her room, lying on her bed with her hands clasped behind her head, staring up at the ceiling. She was mulling over not just what had happened today, but everything that had happened since she and her father had come to Dyer. She felt all twisted up inside, like there were things happening to her that she wasn’t ready to accept or ready to absorb.
The incident out at Lisa’s “secret place” still danced like foxfire on the fringes of her mind. It was overshadowed by her concern for Lisa, but now, staring at the ceiling like she had the night after that crazy man had punched through the trap door and tried to grab her, it all came crashing back. She wondered what the man and those others down there with him would have done to her and Lisa if they had caught them. Would the man have killed them? Or done something worse? She shivered and scrunched her eyes tightly, trying to stop the flood of fear that threatened to sweep her away. She rolled onto her belly and stuffed a corner of her pillow into her mouth to keep from screaming out loud.
From the hallway, she could hear Mrs. Appleby and Doctor Wayne speaking in hushed voices. No, it wasn’t “Doctor” she reminded herself. When Mrs. Appleby had called him “doctor,” he had repeatedly insisted that he was not a doctor! “Just a physician’s assistant,” he had said, and Angie hadn’t missed the edge of hostility in his voice.
Other thoughts flickered through her mind: Larry’s funeral; her father’s meeting this woman named Donna; her own crazy fear that those same men from Lisa’s “secret place” were stalking her, still looking for her so they could finish what they had started. But most of all, she wallowed in the regret that she had caused Lisa’s accident! That, even more that Larry being dead, was something she was going to have to live with forever!
Outside her closed door, she heard footsteps tread slowly down the stairs. She wasn’t sure but thought it sounded like both Mrs. Appleby and Mrs. Wayne had gone. With a quick kick, she rolled off the bed and went to her door, pausing for just a moment to listen, but she didn’t hear any voices from downstairs. She sucked in her breath and held it as she tiptoed out of her room and down the hallway to Lisa’s bedroom door. The door was open just a crack, and as she stood outside, she could hear Lisa’s deep, heavy breathing.
“Lisa?” she called softly as she creaked open the door.
She let out a little squeak just as Mr. Wayne looked up and saw her. Surprise registered on his face, and he let out a startled grunt. He had been leaning over Lisa, and his hands jerked upward. Angie saw a quick flash of the glass of a hypodermic needle, as it spun out of his hand and flew end over end. It disappeared behind the bed, but she knew what had happened to it by the sound of breaking glass.
“What the hell?” Steve Wayne shouted, looking up at her with anger flashing like fire in his eyes.
“I thought you left,” Angie said meekly as she hesitated in the doorway, not knowing whether to stay or leave.
Steve’s hands shook as he looked back down at his patient. A small bead of blood was slowly growing larger on the inside of Lisa’s arm where he had suddenly yanked out the needle. When he saw the spray of thick, purple liquid on the bed sheets, he realized his fingers must have involuntarily squeezed the plunger as he was pulling the needle out. A ball of anxiety swelled in his gut when he looked down at the floor and saw there, too, a small, spreading puddle of purple liquid.
How much did I get into her? his mind screamed, even though he knew there was no way to estimate from the splatters on the sheets and floor.
“Look what you made me do!” he shouted at Angie, his face contorted with rage. He had just one dose in his medical bag. It didn’t pay for a physician’s assistant to be carrying around any excess of an unknown drug, in case of an accident.
But now what? his mind shouted.
How much is in her? What will a partial dose do?
He forced his hands to stop shaking as he knelt down and hurriedly collected the fragments of his syringe. The puddle on the floor was simple enough to clean up, but what about the stain on the bed sheets? How was he going to explain that?
“I’m really sorry I made you jump like that,” Angie said as she came around the side of the bed and squatted down to help him clean up the broken pieces.
“I can handle this,” Steve said tightly, pushing her away. “Why don’t you get some paper towels or something I can put this broken glass into?”
Angie hurried out of the room and raced downstairs, where she snapped several paper towels from the dispenser and then grabbed the brook and dustpan. As she was heading upstairs, Mrs. Appleby came out of the living room and asked her what was going on.
“Oh, nothing,” she said, feeling torn between not wanting to get into Mrs. Appleby’s disfavor and not quite trusting what she had seen going on in Lisa’s bedroom.
Why, she wondered, was this doctor guy acting so jittery? He had looked at her guilty-like, as though she had caught him doing something wrong.
“Mr. Wayne dropped something, and I was just going to help him clean it up. It’s nothing,” Angie said, and with that she ran up the stairs, taking them two at a time.
Mrs. Appleby sighed deeply and started up slowly behind Angie. Back in Lisa’s room, Steve Wayne had scooped up all of the broken glass and dumped it into his medical bag. He opened up several sterilized gauze pads and was busily dabbing at the stains on the bed sheets with rubbing alcohol. The stains had turned a pale shade of blue like blueberry stains, or faded ink stains, but he was afraid they would be there even after washing. As Angie watched him, the only thought running through her mind was, What kind of medicine looks like that?
By the time Mrs. Appleby entered the room, Steve had pretty much cleaned up everything, so he felt confident there wouldn’t be any questions asked.
“Clumsy me,” he said, smiling as he looked at Mrs. Appleby. “I dropped the medication.” He had already daubed away the bead of blood from Lisa’s arm.
Angie noticed the softening of his manner when he spoke with Mrs. Appleby, almost as though he was trying to hide something.
“I have to admit it,” Angie said, looking at Mrs. Appleby and then squinting as she watched Mr. Wayne for his reaction. “I thought you both had gone downstairs, and I came bursting in here and made him drop whatever it was he was going to give her.”
Mrs. Appleby gave her a harsh stare, but it took only a moment for it to soften; the last thing she wanted was for this little girl to worry herself sick about Lisa’s condition. No, she thought sympathetically, let me do the worrying for both of us.
“I was giving her another injection to help her rest. She got some of it.” Steve said. His voice still had a trembling edge to it that Angie didn’t like one bit.
Mrs. Appleby frowned as she looked down at her sleeping granddaughter. “Well, she seems to be peaceful enough,” she said.
Steve nodded. “Oh, she’s fine, I’m sure. We’ll just have to hope it was enough to do the trick.”
As it turned out, there weren’t any dogs guarding Rodgers’ Funeral Home. There wasn’t even a fence, so unless Rodgers had one of those state-of-the-art laser alarm systems, the man was arrogant enough to think he didn’t need to hide what he was doing. Or maybe he was just what he appeared to be: an undertaker with a peculiar eye. His eye was disconcerting, but it certainly wasn’t grounds for criminal accusations. As he and Donna made their way through the woods around to the back of the house, Dale felt like quite a fool.
They made noise as they tromped through the heavy underbrush in the dark. Fallen leaves and branches crinkled and snapped underfoot, and they kept gettin
g snagged on unseen limbs. What little moonlight filtered through the trees was weak, and it threw them off by casting deep shadows and distorting their perception.
Once they were at the back of the funeral home, they both crouched and studied the building. The driveway sloped down to a sublevel double-wide doorway. Certainly that made sense, if only for “shipping and receiving.” Dale shivered when he considered what precisely Rodgers “shipped” and “received.” There were several spotlights shooting cones of light across the parking lot behind the house. The basement windows glowed with dull yellow light, but the doorway was cast in thick shadows. Dale couldn’t tell if it was opened or closed. “Do you think we can get any closer?” Dale whispered, his mouth close to Donna’s ear. His breath was warm on her face, but that didn’t drive away the chill by a long shot.
“Who’d want to?” she whispered back. She briefly toyed with the idea of sticking her tongue into his ear in an attempt to seduce him away from this crazy quest, as if they could accomplish anything, crouched out here in the cold and dark!
“Well,” Dale said, scanning the silent parking lot, “the house is pretty dark except for the cellar. Don’t you think it’s a bit late to be working?”
Donna shrugged and shifted her weight from one to the other leg. “I wouldn’t think so, not if he has a body to get ready for a funeral tomorrow.”
“Come on,” Dale said, standing in “Let’s see what’s going on.”
Saying that, he ran out of the woods and across the lawn, not stopping until he had flattened himself against the corner of the house. Donna was still crouched in the woods, her breath caught in her chest like a lead weight. She was wondering if her damned legs would suddenly turn to rubber halfway across the lawn, and she’d go sprawling onto her face.
Dale’s silhouette was nothing more than a black blob against the side of the house. He was waving his arm for her to come, so overcoming her better judgment, Donna dashed out of the woods to join Dale at the corner of the house.
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