House of Reckoning

by John Saul

  The pages in hand, Bettina perched on the edge of the bed, and began to reassemble them, tapping them back into alignment. But when she tried to brush Houdini off the manuscript to return the stray pages to their place, the cat wouldn’t go. And when she reached out to pick him up, the cat lowered his ears and hissed, lightning-fast claws slashing out and narrowly missing her hand.

  Bettina jerked reflexively back. “Okay,” she said. “You win.”

  She set the fifty-odd pages in her hand next to those the cat was lying on, and moved into her dressing room to get ready for bed. When she returned a few minutes later, now clad in her flannel pajamas and a thick robe, Houdini had shifted position.

  Now he was lying on the stack of pages he’d rejected when he first decided to turn the manuscript into a bed. And when Bettina tried once more to move the cat to the bed, Houdini narrowed his eyes again and snarled.

  “What the hell is going on with you?” Bettina demanded. Then her eyes shifted to the rest of the animals, all of whom were sitting up and watching her intently, rather than curling into their usual nighttime balls of fur. “What’s going on with all of you?”

  Forlorn blinked innocently.

  Rocky and Pyewackett twitched their tails.

  Cooper jumped off the bed and went to the door, but instead of scratching to be let out, he only sat down, apparently planning to continue the sentry duty he’d been performing downstairs earlier.

  But what was he standing sentry against?

  Bettina put the thought out of her mind, certain that if she didn’t, she’d scare herself out of any sleep at all. Besides, despite all her worries earlier—oh, all right, her outright fear—nothing had actually happened.

  Nothing except an ugly lamp getting broken.

  She slid into bed and tentatively reached for the manuscript, bracing herself against an attack from Houdini, but the cat simply sat where he was, watching her.

  She picked up the manuscript and gazed at the top sheet. By chance, Houdini had knocked the pages off at the beginning of a story—if that’s what the collection was—entitled “Carnivore.”

  Apt, considering how many of that exact kind of animal she was currently surrounded by. She hesitated.

  Maybe this wasn’t the best night to read any more of her ancestor’s strange fantasies. So far the ones she’d read weren’t like any kind of stories she’d ever come across, but more like graphic depictions of some of the terrible things perpetrated by the kind of people who had once been incarcerated on the property.

  Yet her ancestor had made no mention of them being case histories or even being based on case histories.

  He had presented them as fiction.

  His own fiction.

  Bettina started to flip through the pages, wondering if there wasn’t something she might want to read other than something called “Carnivore,” but the minute she began, Rocky growled, and Pyewackett lashed out at her bathrobe, his claws extended.

  Even Forlorn hissed and showed his fangs.

  What was going on? she wondered once again.

  These were not her pets. Or at least not the same ones she had left in the house that morning.

  They, like the house, seemed to have changed.

  It was as if there were a presence within the walls of the mansion that she had never felt before—a menacing presence.

  And clearly the animals felt it, too.

  “Which is all ridiculous,” she said out loud, but her voice sounded like a tiny whisper in the vastness of the old house.

  Her robe still on, Bettina slid under the covers, then drew the collar of the robe snug around her throat. Suddenly certain that she no longer had any choice in the matter, she began to read. Soon she was lost in the story, fascinated by the tale of a man and his dog.

  Not just a dog.

  A German shepherd, large, and lithe, and perfectly trained, and utterly obedient to its master.

  Bettina Philips tried to stop reading when she came to the passage where the man bound his pet to a table and picked up a scalpel.

  She tried to stop, but she couldn’t.

  Either the animals—or the strange presence in the house—kept her turning page after page after page.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Shep Dunnigan didn’t have to listen to the warden as he droned on with the standard politically correct speech about sexual harassment. He could have given the speech himself, he’d heard it so many times, but it never hurt to show the boss that he was a team player. Most of the rest of the guards and administrators of the prison that were gathered in the big meeting room seemed to feel the same way; most of the people around him were either checking their e-mails on their BlackBerries, texting someone with their phones, or doing anything other than listen to one more pile of P.C. crap handed down by the state, like calling the prison a “correctional facility.” Who’d thought that one up? The same clowns who had tried to call prisons “penitentiaries” for a few decades? And when had the same people decided to call the guards “correctional officers”?

  Who was kidding whom? This was a prison, and most of the people in it were neither penitent nor interested in being “corrected.” They were interested in getting out, and that was pretty much all they were interested in. Shep, on the other hand, was interested in keeping them in, as were most of the rest of the people around him.

  Including Mitch Garvey, who had plopped himself down in the chair next to Shep, and was even less interested in what the warden was saying than Shep. On the other hand, Shep knew Mitch didn’t like him any more than he liked Mitch, so why had Mitch sat down next to him?

  It didn’t take more than a second after the warden finished his talk before Shep found out.

  “So,” Mitch said, pulling the top off his paper cup of the stale coffee the prison cafeteria seemed to specialize in. “What did you and Lily do about that kid of yours?”

  Shep flipped through his memory of the previous evening. Nick had done nothing that required disciplinary action. Not that he knew about, anyway. “What do you mean?”

  Mitch’s eyebrows went up and his lips curled into a hint of a smirk. “You don’t know?”

  “Know what?” Shep asked, wishing Mitch would just get to the point. But he never did; instead he strung you along, paying out information like fishing line, a little bit at a time, doing whatever he could to make himself seem more important than he was.

  “About the dog?” Mitch said, looking Shep square in the eye. “You don’t know about Dan West’s dog?”

  Shep wanted to shake Garvey, but kept his placid expression carefully in place. “No,” he said calmly. “What about the dog?”

  Mitch leaned closer than Shep would have liked. “Seems like Nick and our foster kid killed the sheriff’s dog.”

  “Are you nuts?” Shep demanded, pulling away from him.

  “Ask Dan,” Mitch said, the smirk on his lips starting to spread across his face.

  Shep could barely believe it. Lily would have said something.

  Wouldn’t she?

  No, she wouldn’t. Not if she thought it might mean Nick would be sent back to the hospital. Shep stood up, nodded to the warden, and left the room. The minute he was back in his office, he picked up the phone and dialed the sheriff’s number.

  “Results from the vet aren’t in yet,” Dan West told him after confirming that his dog had, indeed, died yesterday and that Nick and Sarah Crane seemed somehow to be involved, but so, apparently, were a few other people, Dan added, his own son among them. “Don’t know what happened yet. Looked to me like a clean slice that cut the dog wide open. Conner and his friends say they had nothing to do with it, but there’s no evidence pointing at Nick or the girl, either.”

  “Weird,” Shep said.

  “Very,” Dan responded. “And you better believe I’m going to get to the bottom of it, whatever it is.”

  “Keep me posted, okay?”

  “Sure thing.”

  Shep hung up the phone and lea
ned back in his desk chair.

  Maybe Lily was right—Dan didn’t seem to have Nick under any serious suspicion. On the other hand, she knew just what he thought of Mitch Garvey, and the least she could have done was give him a heads-up so he wouldn’t look like an idiot in front of one of the guards, especially Mitch.

  He’d have a talk with Nick when he got home.

  He’d talk with Nick, and then he’d have a little chat with Lily.

  Mitch waited until the last possible moment before finally crumpling up the paper coffee cup, tossing it into the trash barrel by the door, and heading back to work.

  Except he wasn’t going back to the cellblock he normally worked. He was going to pay a little visit to Ed Crane.

  Mitch crossed the yard with his usual swagger, checked with the supervisor in the block housing Crane, then headed down the long line of cells on the second tier until he came to the last one.

  Ed Crane was lying on his bunk staring into space with a closed library book on his chest, but stood up as Mitch approached.

  Mitch walked into the neat cell and looked around for something that would give him an excuse to write the son of a bitch up, but it seemed that Crane was the kind of prisoner he hated most—took care of his cell, didn’t make trouble for anyone, and didn’t even bother to claim he shouldn’t be there. Finally, Mitch settled on the charcoal portrait of Sarah that Ed Crane had taped neatly to the wall above his bed. “Your daughter draw that?”

  Ed nodded.

  “Some artist, huh?”

  Ed nodded again, but more slowly this time. What was going on? Why was this guy talking about Sarah?

  Mitch moved closer to the portrait, leaning in as if searching for something in Sarah’s face. Then, his back still to Ed, he said, “Tell me, Crane—does your little girl get as violent as you?” Ed said nothing until Mitch Garvey turned around, his eyes narrowing with menace. “Asked you a question, Crane. Smart cons answer when they’re asked a question. Especially by me.”

  Ed’s lips tightened, then he shook his head. “Sarah’s a sweetheart. Hardly ever even gets mad about anything.”

  “How about religion?” Mitch asked. “You put the fear of God into that girl?”

  Ed Crane’s eyes sharpened. “What business is it of yours?”

  Mitch smiled. “Oh, it’s my business all right. Don’t you know who I am, Crane?” Not waiting for an answer, Mitch leaned closer, and his voice dropped to a dangerous whisper. “I’m her new daddy, Ed. I’m her father now, and I think you screwed up raising that girl. Something’s wrong with her, Ed. Seems like she’s following in the footsteps of Satan.”

  Ed stared at Garvey. “Satan?” he repeated. “What the hell are you talking about?”

  “See?” Garvey said. “See what I mean? You curse like that in front of your daughter?”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Ed said.

  Mitch could see the fear that was starting to come into the man’s eyes. “Seems she killed a dog yesterday,” Mitch said. “A helpless dog.”

  “Bullsh—” Ed began, but cut himself short before giving Garvey an excuse to write him up. “Sarah wouldn’t do something like that.”

  Mitch moved toward the door. “Believe it, Ed. It happened. But thanks to me and my family, your little girl’s still got a chance.”

  “She doesn’t need a ‘chance,’” Ed insisted. “She’s already as good as kids get!”

  “Maybe she is—maybe she isn’t,” Mitch said. Then his voice turned hard. “And you’d better make sure you behave yourself around here, if you get my drift. We wouldn’t want anything to happen to Sarah that she didn’t deserve, would we?” Mitch stayed in the cell just long enough to watch the color drain from Ed’s face as he realized exactly the threat his daughter was now under. Then, chuckling softly, he headed back down the cellblock. Just seeing the look on Crane’s face had been worth the walk over here.

  Sometimes this was the best job in the world.

  Bettina Philips moved slowly through the classroom, handing out the students’ graded drawings from yesterday and offering encouragement and suggestions as the class worked on today’s assignment. When she paused at Sarah Crane’s place, the girl actually seemed to shrink away from her, and when she finally looked up, she didn’t meet Bettina’s gaze.

  “I’d like to see you after class,” the teacher said, but even though she’d done her best to keep her voice warm and welcoming, Sarah still looked as if she might actually bolt from the room.

  What was going on with the girl?

  But finally Sarah nodded, and a moment later the bell rang. Bettina began to straighten up her desk and load her portfolio with that evening’s workload while the classroom quickly drained of students. In less than a minute only Sarah was still at her place.

  “You didn’t hand in a drawing yesterday, Sarah,” Bettina said. “What happened?”

  Sarah kept her eyes on the table in front of her. “I didn’t like what I did.”

  Bettina eyed her quizzically. “You not liking it doesn’t necessarily mean I wouldn’t have liked it.”

  Sarah opened her mouth to say something, then seemed to change her mind.

  “I’d really like to see all your work,” Bettina pressed. “Otherwise, how can I tell if you’re making progress?”

  Sarah shifted uneasily on her stool and once again seemed about to say something, but again didn’t, and Bettina was sure that it wasn’t just that Sarah hadn’t liked whatever she’d drawn yesterday. Then she recalled the scraps of murmured conversation she’d been hearing all day, not only among the students, but some of the teachers, too.

  “Do you want to tell me what happened with Nick Dunnigan and Conner West yesterday, Sarah?”

  Now Sarah’s head snapped up. “I don’t know what happened, Miss Philips. Conner tried to get his dog to attack Nick and me, and the next thing we knew, something happened to it.” Sarah haltingly tried to describe what occurred, but it didn’t make any more sense to her today than it had yesterday, when she’d actually seen it. “Anyway, I don’t know how it got cut, but it fell onto the sidewalk and—and—”

  Bettina saw Sarah’s body shudder as her voice failed her, but her own mind was already reeling.

  From what Sarah had told her, it sounded like Dan West’s dog died exactly as the one in the strange tale she’d read last night had.

  “What a horrible thing to have to see,” she finally said. She moved closer to Sarah, sitting down on one of the stools on the opposite side of the table. Picking her words carefully, she went on. “I—I guess I’m not sure what you mean when you say the dog was cut wide open. You mean it was a deep cut?”

  Sarah nodded. “So deep everything was—” Once again she fell silent for a moment, then took a deep breath. “—everything was falling out of it,” she finished.

  “My God,” Bettina breathed. A long silence hung in the room as she tried to suppress the next question, wanting neither to ask it nor to hear the answer, but knowing she had to do both. When she finally spoke, her voice was trembling. “Sarah, can you tell me what kind of dog it was?”

  Sarah looked up at her. “A German shepherd. A really big one. And it was really weird—it was coming right at me, and then Nick held up his hand and then—” She shook her head as if trying to shake off the memory itself. “Then its stomach just opened up and its guts fell out. But nobody touched it! Nobody!”

  Bettina felt a terrible cold spreading through her. “You mean it looked like it had been cut open with a scalpel or something?”

  Sarah nodded. “And the strangest thing is—” Again the girl faltered, and Bettina could see she was struggling, as if she didn’t want to go on but couldn’t hold it inside herself.

  And as the silence stretched out, Bettina realized what it was that Sarah didn’t want to tell her.

  “The—The drawing I made in class yesterday?” Sarah finally managed, her trembling voice reduced to a nearly inaudible whisper.

  “
Yes?”

  Sarah finally looked straight at Bettina, meeting her eyes squarely. “I drew the whole thing. I—I meant to draw the things you set up for us to draw, but something happened. I sort of just started drawing, like I did before at your house. And when I was finished, I’d drawn a man with a scalpel, and a German shepherd was lying on a table with its intestines all—” Unable to go on, Sarah covered her face with her hands for a moment, but then regained control of herself. “I couldn’t show it to you,” she whispered, taking another deep breath.

  Bettina laid her hand on Sarah’s forearm. “You can show me anything,” she said. “And tell me anything, too.” But even as she spoke the words, she wondered if she truly meant them. How was it possible that Sarah had drawn what she herself had read only a few hours later?

  “Thanks,” Sarah whispered. “But—”

  Again she seemed about to say something more but changed her mind. Then Sarah was off her stool and heading for the door, slinging her book bag over her shoulder. “I’ve got to go—if I’m late, Angie’ll ground me for the rest of my life.”

  “Sarah …”

  Sarah, at the door now, suddenly turned back. “Angie thinks I’m worshipping the devil,” she said, her voice turning harsh. “She actually said it! And she thinks you’re the one that’s teaching me to do it!”

  “Sarah, wait,” Bettina began, but it was too late. She was alone in the art studio, her mind churning with the imagery from the story she’d read last night, the story whose darkest moment Sarah had faithfully depicted even though she’d never seen the story, just as she had drawn Shutters as it used to be.

  Just as she’d drawn a dark and secret room that Bettina was starting to believe must surely exist somewhere in the basement of her home.

  For the first time in her memory Bettina Philips wondered if she wanted to go home that night.

  But where else was there to go?

  Nick walked slowly away from school, dragging his feet in hopes of hearing Sarah’s voice calling him to wait so they could walk together, but still not in violation of his mother’s dictum: “I want you to come straight home after school, Nick. Straight home. Don’t wait for anyone at all. Understand? I don’t want you getting into any more trouble.”