by Rick Hautala
The sizzling sound coming from the kitchen gradually subsided. Wrinkling his nose from the stink of burned food, Brian took a deep breath and got ready to go downstairs. Before he could, he heard his father slam open the screen door and go outside, his footsteps clumping heavily on the back porch. Then the truck engine roared to life. With a crunching of gears, it started to back down the driveway. Brian heard his father rev the engine as he drove away, but even after the sound had faded, he stayed where he was, listening for some indication that Dianne was still down there. As far as he knew, she was still locked in the bathroom. His nostrils flared as he tested the smoke-tinged air.
“Why not let the kitchen burn? Let the whole goddamned house burn down … just like you did to our house!”
His stepmother’s shrill voice still echoed in his ears like metal scraping against metal, and her words filled him with fear. What did she mean by that? Just like you did to our house! Did she honestly think his father had started the fire at his own house?
That was crazy! Why would his father want to do something like that? What would be the purpose? Just so they would all have to come and live here?
No doubt about it, Dianne was crazy as a coot if she was thinking like that. But now Brian remembered hearing the telephone ring while he was still half asleep. That must have been just before they started arguing. Could that have been the insurance company investigator or the town fire chief, calling to tell his father that someone had, indeed, tried to burn down his house?
The ball of fear in the pit of Brian’s stomach got bigger and colder. “And I have a pretty good idea who,” he whispered to himself. “Shit!” He shook his fists in frustration. “I should have confronted him yesterday out at the mill.”
As soon as the words were out of his mouth, he shivered and glanced nervously over his shoulder, filled with the sudden, overpowering feeling that Dianne—or someone—was standing behind him, watching and listening to everything he said.
He shuddered when he saw that no one was there, but he didn’t allow himself to think about it for very long.
Dashing back to his bedroom, he slipped on a clean T-shirt, jeans, socks, and sneakers, then ran downstairs. He thumped his feet heavily on the steps so Dianne would know he was coming down.
He searched through the kitchen cabinets until he found a flashlight. After making sure that it worked, he froze and, cocking his head to one side, listened again. His ears felt hot as he waited to hear Dianne call out to him, asking him what he was up to in there, but he heard nothing. Finally satisfied, but feeling a sharp edge of uneasiness, he started for the back door. His hand trembled as he turned the screen door latch. The feeling that he was being watched was back again—stronger this time!
His eyes widened as he looked back into the house, feeling a sudden wave of nervousness.
Was Dianne still at home, or had she taken off with his father? Maybe they realized he was home and wanted to argue in private.
Or maybe Uncle Mike was hiding nearby. What if he had plans to burn this house down?
Brian actually caught himself wishing Dianne was still home. If she was, maybe he would let his guard down, at least enough to confide in her and tell her what he suspected about Uncle Mike.
And maybe it wasn’t such a good idea to go out to the mill without telling someone—even Dianne! What if something happened to him? What if Uncle Mike got crazy and dangerous and tried to hurt him?
“Dianne …?” he called out, his voice warbling up and down.
He held his breath and waited in the doorway for several seconds. The house remained perfectly silent except for a faint humming sound coming from behind the refrigerator. Suddenly Brian felt so alone, so utterly abandoned by his father, by his mother, by everyone—even Dianne—that his eyes began to sting.
“Don’t be such a wimp about it!” he whispered harshly as he wiped his eyes with the backs of his hands. That only made the stinging worse. “Maybe this is just … just something I have to face on my own!”
He swung open the door and went outside, not caring if the door slammed shut behind him as he started out across the back lawn and into the woods. Jogging at a leisurely but strong pace, he followed the trail out to the dirt road. When the old mill came into view, he forced himself not to stop and look at it or even think about how uneasy it made him feel. With his head down and his fists clenched tightly, one hand gripping the flashlight, he crossed the field to the cellar steps and went down into the cellar.
“Hey! Come on, open up! Open the door!” he shouted as both of his fists pounded a thumping drumroll on the rough wooden door. “Come on, Uncle Mike! It’s me, Brian!”
He paused for a moment, shining the flashlight all around as he stood back to listen. He could hear nothing except his own heavy breathing. The cool air inside the cellar chilled his sweaty body. Goose bumps sprinkled his arms and the back of his neck as he directed the flashlight beam at the door.
“Come on!” he shouted. He started banging on the door with both hands again, even louder this time. The flashlight jiggled, sending the beam of light shooting off wildly all over the place. It caught him in the eye and momentarily blinded him, but he kept up a steady hammering as he yelled, “I know you’re in there, Uncle Mike, and I know what you did!”
For just an instant, he thought he heard something—a low, chuffing sound of laughter. It stopped the instant he glanced over his shoulder, so he forced himself to forget about it as he drew back and then, grunting like a bull, slammed his shoulder hard against the door. The dry wood crackled like a string of firecrackers as it splintered; the top hinge gave way beneath the impact, and the door sagged inward. Brian ricocheted off the door and almost fell down, but he quickly regained his balance, pulled back, and rammed into the door again. This time, the wood snapped like an exploding gunshot when the other hinge let go and the door fell forward. It slammed onto the dirt floor like a huge, swatting hand.
Brian pinwheeled his arms for balance as his momentum carried him forward into the pitch-black room. His foot caught on the edge of the fallen door, and he fell face-first onto the floor. The flashlight flew from his grip and skittered across the floor. Fortunately, it didn’t go out. He got onto his hands and knees, but before he could stand up, he was doubled over by a coughing fit as dust swirled up into his face. The dust sparkled like flakes of diamond in the narrow beam of light.
“Uncle Mike!” Brian called out, coughing and waving his hands in front of his face. A razor-thin edge of terror cut through him when, again, he heard a faint ruffle of laughter behind him. It stopped when he snatched up the flashlight and directed the beam back out the empty doorway. His lungs felt clogged with dust. Sweat ran freely down his neck and back as he slowly straightened up, frowning as he surveyed the small room.
“Jesus Christ,” he said, followed by a low, reverential whistle. The yellow eye of his flashlight darted back and forth like a dragonfly, but try as he might, Brian found it almost impossible to absorb what he was seeing.
The room was empty! The mattress, the moldering blankets, and the makeshift table were still there, but everything else—the food, clothes, and tools—was gone.
“Well I’ll be damned!” Brian said, a bit more forcefully.
“Maybe you will,” a soft voice whispered from somewhere in the darkness. It was followed by another light ripple of laughter that instantly faded.
Brian tried to convince himself that he had imagined the voice and the laughter, but that didn’t stop the strong rush of shivers that zipped up his back. He continued to swing the flashlight beam back and forth, feeling as though he was simply missing seeing these things and that a more careful inspection would reveal them. But they were gone—as if they had never been there.
“Uncle Mike?” Brian called out. His voice was broken by tension, but this time he didn’t expect a reply. Uncle Mike and every trace of him had disappeared. Except for the footprints and scuff marks he had just made during his rather clumsy entrance,
the dirt floor looked smooth and untracked, as if someone had smoothed it over with a broom or something.
Maybe he was never even here, Brian thought. A cold, tingling tension filled his stomach. Could I have imagined him?
He knew that was impossible. He had touched Uncle Mike; he was solid flesh and blood.
Or maybe—Brian thought as a deeper dread gripped him—just maybe he started the fire; and now that he did what he came here to do, he took off for good.
“Did you hear that?”
“… huh?”
There was a rustling of sheets as Edward rolled over in bed.
“… hear what?”
“That sound. There’s something outside,” Dianne said. Her voice was a tight whisper in the dark bedroom. The night was hot, so the windows were wide open, but there wasn’t even the slightest bit of breeze to stir the humid air. “I—I thought I heard something … in the back yard.”
“…uh-huh.”
Edward groaned as he rubbed his eyes. His lips made wet smacking noises as if he were eating. He groaned again, then raised himself onto one elbow and looked at her. His face was an indistinct blob that hovered in front of her in the darkness.
“Wha … what time is it?”
“Almost midnight,” Dianne replied after glancing at the glowing alarm clock dial.
“You think you heard something? What?” His voice was thin, sleepy-sounding.
“I don’t know,” Dianne said. “It sounded sort of like a—”
—A baby, crying, she almost said, but she held herself back. She knew damned right well there were no families with babies within earshot of the house; besides, who would be out at this time of night with a baby?
“—Like some kind of animal or something sounded like it was in pain.”
Edward swung his legs over the edge of the bed and sat up. He inhaled deeply, his breath sounding like he was wearing a deep-sea diver’s helmet as he cupped his hands over his face and rubbed his eyes some more. Dianne stayed where she was, too afraid to move as she watched
Edward get up and walk over to the window. Kneeling down and resting his hands on the windowsill, he looked out at the night. Dianne could see his profile, sharply etched by the glow of moonlight.
“See anything?” she whispered.
Edward was silent for a moment as he cocked his head back and forth; then he shook his head and turned to her. “Nope,” he said. “Don’t hear anything, either. Probably just a raccoon or skunk or something.”
“But it sounded like a—like it was in a lot of pain. It was squealing like it was really hurt.”
That didn’t come close to describing what she had heard, but after the scene she had pulled this morning, accusing Edward of deliberately trying to burn down his own house, she didn’t want to say anything that would make him think she was any crazier than he already did. The truth was, the sound that had come wavering to her in the night, tugging her out of her thin sleep had sounded exactly like a human baby, crying its little eyes out.
“Might have been a fox or coyote,” Edward offered.
“They make some pretty strange noises.”
“No … I don’t think so,” Dianne said softly.
She pulled the sheet up to her chin and gripped it tightly. Edward came back to his side of the bed and sighed heavily as he lay back down on top of the sheet.
He reached for her hand in the dark and gave it a light pat, then rolled over and kissed her on the cheek before flipping his pillow over and settling his head back down.
“Isn’t it hot as holy-ole hell?” he said, his voice already thick with sleepiness. “Maybe you were just dreaming.”
“No, I—I don’t think so,” Dianne said.
Her lips were still wet from his kiss. She was surprised that he had shown even that much affection to her. They had both apologized for the argument this morning, each saying it was their fault, but Dianne thought he seemed a bit tense, distant toward her, as though he hadn’t—or couldn’t—fully forgive her yet for her irrational outburst.
“Go to sleep now … Don’t worry about it,” he said.
Before long, the room was filled with the heavy sawing of his breathing, but Dianne knew she wasn’t going to get back to sleep that easily. She lay there in the dark, her eyes wide open as she stared up at the ceiling. She tried to command her body and mind to relax, but she was still tensed as she waited for the sound to come again.
She knew it would.
Relax! Maybe it was just a dream!
But then the sound drifted to her from the open window, sending a cold tingling though her.
The sound started out low, just at the edge of hearing. It drifted through the night like a gauzy sheet, flapping lazily in the wind. It was, in fact, so faint at first that she wasn’t exactly sure when it had started. In some ways, it seemed as though it was always there, floating through the night, and it was just a question of when she became aware of it. It rose and fell with an eerie warble, but the longer she listened to it, the more she became convinced that it was no animal: this was a human baby, crying … crying in pain!
“Oh, Jesus!” Dianne said.
She pushed the bed sheet down and sat up in bed. Her breath hissed through the wires in her mouth; her pulse throbbed like a wild drumbeat in her ears as her eyes fixed on the window. The screen and sill glowed with a powdery blue light. The sound rose and fell, curling like tangled streamers of smoke. Then, below that sound, Dianne became aware of something else, other sounds—voices, some shouting, some crying out in the darkness, and dogs, barking and howling like bloodhounds hot on the trail. These sounds also danced teasingly at the brink of hearing, so she couldn’t make out anything anyone was saying, but it sounded as though a crowd of people, at least ten or twenty, was out there in the woods behind the house.
Tingling with fear and expectation, she eased herself off the bed so she wouldn’t disturb Edward and went over to the window. Kneeling down, she stared out at the moonlit back yard. It was empty. The humid night air hung in moist curtains of mist that seemed to deaden all sound. She turned one ear toward the window and strained to hear the baby crying and those voices again, but there was nothing except the steady buzz of crickets. I can’t be imagining all of this, can I? she thought.
Dr. Collett had reduced the strength of her medication, but maybe she was still taking too many drugs that were inducing hallucinations.
The woods were silent again, but just as she was about to give up and go back to bed, it came again—that same distant, tantalizing, warbling wail of a baby in pain. And then, through the thick stand of trees bordering the backyard, she saw something—a faint flickering of light that winked and danced like a cold, distant star.
“What the—?” Dianne muttered.
Even as she watched it, the light shattered and multiplied into two, then three, then four and more pieces until there were more than a dozen slivers of pale yellow light piercing through the black canopy of leaves and branches. They looked like flaming torches, seen at a distance. Dianne also detected a vague sense of motion, several black shapes winding among the trees as though the people she had heard were walking about in the woods, intent on some midnight mission.
She flashed on a memory of a Frankenstein movie in which the enraged citizens of the town, armed with torches and pitchforks, converged on Dr. Frankenstein’s castle, intent on destroying both the mad doctor and his horribly disfigured creation.
Is it me they’re after? Dianne thought crazily.
A thick, sour taste filled the back of her throat. She wished she could open her mouth to scream as tears started forming in her eyes.
Could that be it? There’s a whole crowd of people from town out there—people who have come out here to burn our house down?
A chill raced up her spine as she straightened up and clutched her nightgown collar to her neck. With barely a look back at Edward, she went downstairs and into the kitchen. She didn’t turn any lights on because—if there really
was someone prowling around out there, she didn’t want to alert them. She almost choked on her fear, wondering who these people were and why they were converging on her house at midnight.
Moonlight glowed on the kitchen floor and lit the screen door handle with a pale blue light as she pressed the button and gently swung the door open. In spite of the warm night air, she shivered as she stepped out onto the back porch and looked at the woods. She had thought—had hoped—that once she came outside, the dim lights and the voices would be gone, but as she leaned over the porch railing and watched, they got clearer and louder. Flickering tongues of flame and thick, dark shadows edged with fire wove between the night-drenched trees.
Thank God at least they’re not coming here! Dianne thought when she saw that their general direction was taking them away from the house. Their voices were clearer now, but she still couldn’t make out anything that was said. They spoke in loud, excited tones, a cacophony of voices that sounded almost like a babble of foreign languages. Dianne had an inkling that, like in a dream, it all made sense, somehow, she just couldn’t quite grasp it. Some of the voices were shouting as though issuing commands. The baying of hounds rose and fell as though carried on fitful gusts of wind. Then from off in the distance, there came a chugging putt-putt and backfiring of what sounded like an old automobile. The shadowy figures, now appearing to number more than twenty or thirty, blended into the darkness.
At first Dianne was only distantly bothered by the irrationality of the situation; but as she watched the people move away, she was frustrated that she hadn’t understood anything they were saying. Other questions formed in her mind.
Who are they? And what are they doing, marching through the woods in my backyard at this hour? What are they up to? Where are they going?
Before she consciously thought about it, she acted. Unmindful that she was barefoot and wearing only a thin nightgown, she went quickly down the steps and across the moonlit yard into the woods. She was lured by the swelling voices and the still visible glimmer of torchlight through the trees up ahead. The air was tinged with the sooty smell of burned kerosene.