Phantoms

by Dean Koontz

  “Good,” Lisa said. “I’m glad you don’t think we’re just hysterical women.”

  “Considering what you’ve been through, you two are about as unhysterical as you could get.”

  “Well,” the girl said, “Jenny’s a doctor, and I think maybe I’d like to be a doctor someday, and doctors simply can’t afford to get hysterical.”

  She was a cute kid—although Bryce couldn’t help noticing that her older sister was even better looking. Both the girl and the doctor had the same lovely shade of auburn hair; it was the dark red-brown of well-polished cherry wood, thick and lustrous. Both of them had the same golden skin, too. But because Dr. Paige’s features were more mature than Lisa’s, they were also more interesting and appealing to Bryce. Her eyes were a shade greener than her sister’s, too.

  Bryce said, “Dr. Paige, I’d like to see that house where the bodies were barricaded in the den.”

  “Yeah,” Tal said. “The locked room murders.”

  “That’s the Oxley place over on Vail.” She led them down the street toward the corner of Vail Lane and Skyline Road.

  The dry shuffle of their footsteps was the only sound, and it made Bryce think of desert places again, of scarabs swarming busily across stacks of ancient, brittle papyrus scrolls in desert tombs.

  Rounding the corner onto Vail Lane, Dr. Paige halted and said, “Tom and Karen Oxley live... uh... lived two blocks farther along here.”

  Bryce studied the street. He said, “Instead of walking straight to the Oxleys’, let’s have a look in all the houses and shops between here and there—at least on this side of the street. I think it’s safe to split up into two squads, four to a group. We won’t be going off entirely in different directions. We’ll be close enough to help each other if there’s trouble. Dr. Paige, Lisa—you stay with Tal and me. Frank, you’re in charge of the second team.”

  Frank nodded.

  “The four of you stick together,” Bryce warned them. “And I mean together. Each of you remain within sight of the other three at all times. Understood?”

  “Yes, Sheriff,” Frank Autry said.

  “Okay, you four have a look in the first building past the restaurant here, and we’ll take the place next door to that. We’ll hopscotch our way along the street and compare notes at the end of the block. If you come across something really interesting, something more than just additional bodies, come get me. If you need help, fire two or three rounds. We’ll hear the gunshots even if we’re inside another building. And you listen for gunfire from us.”

  “May I make a suggestion?” Dr. Paige asked.

  “Sure,” Bryce said.

  To Frank Autry, she said, “If you come across any bodies that show signs of hemorrhaging from the eyes, ears, nose, or mouth, let me know at once. Or any indications of vomiting or diarrhea.”

  “Because those things might indicate disease?” Bryce asked.

  “Yes,” she said. “Or poisoning.”

  “But we’ve ruled that out, haven’t we?” Gordy Brogan asked.

  Jake Johnson, looking older than his fifty-seven years, said, “It wasn’t a disease that cut off those people’s heads.”

  “I’ve been thinking about that,” Dr. Paige said. “What if this is a disease or a chemical toxin that we’ve never encountered before—a mutant strain of rabies, say—that kills some people but merely drives others stark raving mad? What if the mutilations were done by those who were driven into a savage madness?”

  “Is such a thing likely?” Tal Whitman asked.

  “No. But then again, maybe not impossible. Besides, who’s to say what’s likely or unlikely any more? Is it likely that this would have happened to Snowfield in the first place?”

  Frank Autry tugged at his mustache and said, “But if there are packs of rabid maniacs roaming around out there ... where are they?”

  Everyone looked at the quiet street. At the deepest pools of shadow spilling over lawns and sidewalks and parked cars. At unlighted attic windows. At dark basement windows.

  “Hiding,” Wargle said.

  “Waiting,” Gordy Brogan said.

  “No, that doesn’t make sense,” Bryce said. “Rabid maniacs just wouldn’t hide and wait and plan. They’d charge us.”

  “Anyway,” Lisa said quietly, “it isn’t rabid people. It’s something a lot stranger.”

  “She’s probably right,” Dr. Paige said.

  “Which somehow doesn’t make me feel any better,” Tal said.

  “Well, if we find any indications of vomiting, diarrhea, or hemorrhaging,” Bryce said, “then we’ll know. And if we don’t...”

  “I’ll have to come up with a new hypothesis,” Dr. Paige said.

  They were silent, not eager to begin the search because they didn’t know what they might find—or what might find them.

  Time seemed to have stopped.

  Dawn, Bryce Hammond thought, will never come unless we move.

  “Let’s go,” he said.

  The first building was narrow and deep, with a combination art gallery and crafts shop on the first floor. Frank Autry broke a pane of glass in the front door, reached inside, and released the lock. He entered and switched on the lights.

  Motioning the others to follow, he said, “Spread out. Don’t stay too close together. We don’t want to offer an easy target.”

  As Frank spoke, he was reminded of the two tours of duty he served in Vietnam almost thirty years ago. This operation had the nerve-twisting quality of a search-and-destroy mission in guerrilla territory.

  They prowled cautiously through the gallery’s displays but found no one. Likewise, there was no one in the small office at the rear of the showroom. However, a door in that office opened onto stairs that led to the second floor.

  They took the stairs in military fashion. Frank climbed to the top alone, gun drawn, while the others waited. He located the light switch at the head of the stairs, snapped it on, and saw that he was in one comer of the living room of the gallery owner’s apartment. When he was certain the room was deserted, he motioned for his men to come up. As the others climbed the stairs, Frank moved into the living room, staying close to the wall, watchful.

  They searched the rest of the apartment, treating every doorway as a potential point of ambush. The den and dining room were both deserted. No one was hiding in the closets.

  On the kitchen floor, however, they found a dead man. He was wearing only blue pajama bottoms, propping the refrigerator door open with his bruised and swollen body. There were no visible wounds. There was no look of horror on his face. Apparently, he had died too suddenly to have gotten a glimpse of his assailant—and without the slightest warning that death was near. The makings of a sandwich were scattered on the floor around him: a broken jar of mustard, a package of salami, a partially squashed tomato, a package of Swiss cheese.

  “It sure wasn’t no illness killed him,” Jake Johnson said emphatically. “How sick could he have been if he was gonna eat salami?”

  “And it happened real fast,” Gordy said. “His hands were full of the stuff he got out of the refrigerator, and as he turned around... it just happened. Bang: just like that.”

  In the bedroom they discovered another corpse. She was in bed, naked. She was no younger than about twenty, no older than forty; it was difficult to guess her age because of the universal bruising and swelling. Her face was contorted in terror, precisely as Paul Henderson’s had been. She had died in the middle of a scream.

  Jake Johnson took a pen from his shirt pocket and slipped it through the trigger of a .22 automatic that was lying on the rumpled sheets beside the body.

  “I don’t think we have to be careful with that,” Frank said. “She wasn’t shot. There aren’t any wounds; no blood. If anybody used the gun, it was her. Let me see it.”

  He took the automatic from Jake and ejected the clip. It was empty. He worked the slide, pointed the muzzle at the bedside lamp, and squinted into the barrel; there was no bullet in the chamber
. He put the muzzle to his nose, sniffed, smelled gunpowder.

  “Fired recently?” Jake asked.

  “Very recently. Assuming the clip was full when she used it, that means she fired off ten rounds.”

  “Look here,” Wargle said.

  Frank turned and saw Wargle pointing to a bullet hole in the wall opposite the foot of the bed. It was at about the seven-foot level.

  “And here,” Gordy Brogan said, drawing their attention to another bullet lodged in the splintered wood of the dark pine highboy.

  They found all ten of the brass shell casings in or around the bed, but they couldn’t find where the other eight bullets were lodged.

  “You don’t think she scored eight hits?” Gordy asked Frank.

  “Christ, she can’t have!” Wargle said, hitching his gun belt up on his fat hips. “If she’d hit somebody eight times, she wouldn’t be the only damned corpse in the room.”

  “Right,” Frank said, though he disliked having to agree with Stu Wargle about anything. “Besides, there’s no blood. Eight hits would mean a lot of blood.”

  Wargle went to the foot of the bed and stared at the dead woman. She was propped up by a couple of plump pillows, and her legs were spread in a grotesque parody of desire. “The guy in the kitchen must’ve been in here, screwing this broad,” Wargle said. “When he was finished with her, he went into the kitchen to get them somethin’ to eat. While they was separated, someone came in and killed her.”

  “They killed the man in the kitchen first,” Frank said. “He couldn’t have been taken by surprise if he’d been attacked after she fired ten shots.”

  Wargle said, “Man, I sure wish I’d spent all day in the sack with a broad like that.”

  Frank gaped at him. “Wargle, you’re disgusting. Are you even turned on by a bloated corpse—just because it’s naked?”

  Wargle’s face reddened, and he looked away from the corpse. “What the hell’s the matter with you, Frank? What d’ya think I am—some kind of pervert? Huh? Hell, no. I seen that picture over on the nightstand.” He pointed to a silver-framed photograph beside the lamp. “See, she’s wearin’ a bikini. You can see she was a hell of a nice-lookin’ broad. Big jugs on her. Great legs, too. That’s what turned me on, pal.”

  Frank shook his head. “I’m just amazed that anything could turn you on in the midst of this, in the midst of so much death.”

  Wargle thought it was a compliment. He winked.

  If I get out of this business alive, Frank thought, I won’t ever let Bryce Hammond partner me with Wargle. I’ll quit first.

  Gordy Brogan said, “How could she have made eight hits and not have stopped something? How come there’s not one drop of blood?”

  Jake Johnson pushed a hand through his white hair again. “I don’t know, Gordy. But one thing I do know—I sure wish Bryce’d never picked me to come up here.”

  Next to the art gallery, the sign on the front of the quaint, two-story building read:

  The lights were on, and the door was unlocked. Brookhart’s stayed open until nine even on Sunday evenings during the off season.

  Bryce went in first, followed by Jennifer and Lisa Paige. Tal entered last. When choosing a man to protect his back in a dangerous situation, Bryce always preferred Tal Whitman. He trusted no one else as much as he trusted Tal, not even Frank Autry.

  Brookhart’s was a cluttered place, but curiously warm and pleasing. There were tall glass-doored coolers filled with cans and bottles of beer, shelves and racks and bins laden with bottles of wine and liquor, and other racks brimming with paperbacks, magazines, and newspapers. Cigars and cigarettes were stacked in boxes and cartons, and tins of pipe tobacco were displayed in haphazard mounds on several countertops. A variety of goodies were tucked in wherever there was space: candy bars, Life-Savers, chewing gum, peanuts, popcorn, pretzels, potato chips, corn twisties, tortilla chips.

  Bryce led the way through the deserted store, looking for bodies in the aisles. But there were none.

  There was, however, an enormous puddle of water, about an inch deep, that covered half the floor. They stepped gingerly around it.

  “Where’d all this water come from?” Lisa wondered.

  “Must be a leak in the condensation pan under one of the beer coolers,” Tal Whitman said.

  They came around the end of a wine bin and got a good look at all of the coolers. There was no water anywhere near those softly humming appliances.

  “Maybe there’s a leak in the plumbing,” Jennifer Paige said.

  They continued their exploration, descending into the cellar, which was used for the storage of wine and booze in cardboard cases, then going up to the top floor, above the store, where there was an office. They found nothing out of the ordinary.

  In the store again, heading toward the front door, Bryce stopped and hunkered down for a closer look at the puddle on the floor. He moistened one fingertip in the stuff; it felt like water, and it was odorless.

  “What’s wrong?” Tal asked.

  Standing again, Bryce said, “It’s odd—all this water here.”

  Tal said, “Most likely, it’s what Dr. Paige said—only a leak in the plumbing.”

  Bryce nodded. However, although he couldn’t say why, the big puddle seemed significant to him.

  Tayton’s Pharmacy was a small place that served Snowfield and all of the outlying mountain towns. An apartment occupied two floors above the pharmacy; it was decorated in shades of cream and peach, with emerald-green accent pieces, and with a number of fine antiques.

  Frank Autry led his men through the entire building, and they found nothing remarkabte—except for the sodden carpet in the living room. It was literally soaking wet; it squished beneath their shoes.

  The Candleglow Inn positively radiated charm and gentility: the deep eaves and elaborately carved cornices, the mullioned windows flanked by carved white shutters. Two carriage lamps were fixed atop stone columns, bracketing the short stone walkway. Three small spotlights spread dramatic fans of light across the face of the inn.

  Jenny, Lisa, the sheriff, and Lieutenant Whitman paused on the sidewalk in front of the Candleglow, and Hammond said, “Are they open this time of year?”

  “Yes,” Jenny said. “They manage to stay about half full during the off season. But then they have a marvelous reputation with discriminating travelers—and they only have sixteen rooms.”

  “Well... let’s have a look.”

  The front doors opened onto a small, comfortably appointed lobby: an oak floor, a dark oriental carpet, light beige sofas, a pair of Queen Anne chairs upholstered in a rose-colored fabric, cherry-wood end tables, brass lamps.

  The registration desk was off to the right. A bell rested on the wooden counter, and Jenny struck it several times, rapidly, expecting no response and getting none.

  “Dan and Sylvia keep an apartment behind this office area,” she said, indicating the cramped business quarters beyond the counter.

  “They own the place?” the sheriff asked.

  “Yes. Dan and Sylvia Kanarsky.”

  The sheriff stared at her for a moment. “Friends?”

  “Yes. Close friends.”

  “Then maybe we’d better not look in their apartment,” he said.

  Warm sympathy and understanding shone in his heavy-lidded blue eyes. Jenny was surprised by a sudden awareness of the kindness and intelligence that informed his face. During the past hour, watching him operate, she had gradually realized that he was considerably more alert and efficient than he had at first appeared to be. Now, looking into his sensitive, compassionate eyes, she realized he was perceptive, interesting, formidable.

  “We can’t just walk away,” she said. “This place has to be searched sooner or later. The whole town has to be searched. We might as well get this part of it out of the way.”

  She lifted a hinged section of the wooden countertop and started to push through a gate into the office space beyond.

  “Please, Doctor,” the
sheriff said, “always let me or Lieutenant Whitman go first.”

  She backed out obediently, and he preceded her into Dan’s and Sylvia’s apartment, but they didn’t find anyone. No dead bodies.

  Thank God.

  Back at the registration desk, Lieutenant Whitman paged through the guest log. “Only six rooms are being rented right now, and they’re all on the second floor.”

  The sheriff located a passkey on a pegboard beside the mailboxes.

  With almost monotonous caution, they went upstairs and searched the six rooms. In the first five, they found luggage and cameras and half-written postcards and other indications that there actually were guests at the inn, but they didn’t find the guests themselves.

  In the sixth room, when Lieutenant Whitman tried the door to the adjoining bath, he found it locked. He hammered on it and shouted, “Police! Is anyone there?”

  No one answered.

  Whitman looked at the doorknob, then at the sheriff. “No lock button on this side, so someone must be in there. Break it down?”

  “Looks like a solid-core door,” Hammond said. “No use dislocating your shoulder. Shoot the lock.”

  Jenny took Lisa’s arm and drew the girl aside, out of the path of any debris that might blow back.

  Lieutenant Whitman called a warning to anyone who might be in the bathroom, then fired one shot. He kicked the door open and went inside fast. “Nobody’s here.”

  “Maybe they climbed out a window,” the sheriff said.

  “There aren’t any windows in here,” Whitman said, frowning.

  “You’re sure the door was locked?”

  “Positive. And it could only be done from the inside.”

  “But how—if no one was in there?”

  Whitman shrugged. “Besides that, there’s something you ought to have a look at.”

  They all had a look at it, in fact, for the bathroom was large enough to accommodate four people. On the mirror above the sink, a message had been hastily printed in bold, greasy, black letters:

  In another apartment above another shop, Frank Autry and his men found another water-soaked carpet that squished under their feet. In the living room, dining room, and bedrooms, the carpet was dry, but in the hallway leading to the kitchen, it was saturated. And in the kitchen itself, three-quarters of the vinyl-tile floor was covered with water up to a depth of one inch in places.

  Standing in the hallway, staring into the kitchen, Jake Johnson said, “Must be a plumbing leak.”

  “That’s what you said at the other place,” Frank reminded him. “Seems coincidental, don’t you think?”

  Gordy Brogan said, “It is just water. I don’t see what it could have to do with... all the murders.”

  “Shit,” Stu Wargle said, “we’re wastin’ time. There’s nothin’ here. Let’s go.”

  Ignoring them, Frank stepped into the kitchen, treading carefully through one end of the small lake, heading for a dry area by a row of cupboards. He opened several cupboard doors before he found a small plastic tub used for storing leftovers. It was clean and dry, and it had a snap-on lid that made an airtight seal. In a drawer he found a measuring spoon, and he used it to scoop water into the plastic container.

  “What’re you doing?” Jake asked from the doorway.

  “Collecting a sample.”

  “Sample? Why? It’s only water.”