The Seven Whistlers

by Amber Benson; Christopher Golden

  “Aunt Arlene? Nobody likes visitors as much as she does. Go on by, Rose. It’ll be a nice distraction for both of you. She’ll lighten your heart, at least for a little while.”

  “Maybe I will.”

  But she wouldn’t. She’d entertained the notion, but now discarded it. Rose wasn’t sure she wanted her heart lightened, and though she was sure Jenny’s aunt was perfectly nice, the idea of just barging in on some stranger just to talk about wild dogs and old legends seemed more than a little crazy to her. No, she had to clean up the cabin if her parents were coming home, and she had to work tomorrow, and then there’d be the wake and the funeral.

  What she’d seen was terrible. It had scared the hell out of her.

  But it was over, now.

  A breeze blew across the lake, rippling the surface and making the tall pines on the far shore sway. Arlene Murphy took a breath of mountain air and held it, savoring the scent and the moment. She’d already painted the water, but something had been lacking, and now she dabbed at the white on her palette and began to add the little crests and streaks wrought by the wind. Of the pines she’d only sketched in the trunks with lines done in an uneven blend of brown, yellow, and black. Adding the effects of the wind to the pines would be a simple matter.

  Perfect. Her dissatisfaction with the piece evaporated. She’d left room in the painting to add a naked, sensual naiad erupting from the water, hair whipping back, spraying water. The figure thus far was merely a silver silhouette, the suggestion of face and breast and belly.

  She owed Random House a book cover for a fantasy novel involving warrior monks. It would be a dark piece, full of malign intent. Arlene would bring all of her skills to bear, put her own fears and anger into it. In her mind’s eye, she could already see the finished painting — could imagine how it would look on the cover of the book.

  That would pay the bills.

  But the publisher was going to have to wait just a while longer. This piece had come to her the previous morning, while she was on her daily hike along the shore of the lake. The exercise was invigorating, and with her cholesterol, and the twenty pounds she could never seem to get rid of, she needed it desperately. Arlene made it a rule never to start a painting the same day that the image came to her. It needed to ferment a little before she could put it on the canvas.

  This one had frustrated her, until the wind had altered the scene. Now it would be all she’d hoped — bright, exultant, wild, sexy, and full of hope. Arlene had to do something to prepare for the descent into the sinister that the warrior monk painting would require. Just thinking about the image she wanted — a little bit of Frazetta’s Death Dealer, but mixed with James Earle Fraser’s End of the Trail, the warrior monk hunched down low over the horse, as though nearly dead, but turning to face the unsuspecting reader with blood on his chin and on the blade of his axe — made her shiver.

  Arlene forcibly drove the image from her mind. She took a breath and watched the lake again, waiting for the wind to refresh her spirit and the picture in her head of what her painting would be. After several moments, another gust came, and she breathed deeply once more. With all of the folklore, myth, and legend she had read in her life, it was simple for her to imagine herself as that naiad, bursting up from the water — made from water herself. At fifty-three, and having never worried overmuch about such things as hair and makeup, she knew most people would be amused to learn how easy it was to fantasize like this.

  Those people didn’t know what they were missing. And Arlene knew that she would never have been able to explain to them. Certainly there was darkness and cruelty and perversion in folklore and myth, but whenever possible, she focused on the purity and beauty to be found there, the joyfulness that existed in so many stories and figures of legend.

  Arlene had spent her entire life holding her breath, feeling the presence of something just beyond her peripheral vision, turning at a sudden sound, hoping to catch sight of something wonderful. Magical. If she lived out her days never having fulfilled that hope, she could think of worse ways to have spent her time. Meanwhile, though, she brought her dreams to life on canvas.

  She had become part of the scenery herself in Kingsbury, up on the mountain and by the lake, always with some painting in progress, clothes dappled with color. The people of Kingsbury loved her because her fame was twofold — partially due to her reputation as a fantasy artist, and partially due to the hundreds of paintings she’d done of Kingsbury itself — the town, the natural beauty around it. But they also treated her like everyone’s favorite crazy aunt.

  If not for her success as an artist, her love of folklore and utter refusal to alter her behavior no matter who was in the room — she’d met the President once, Bush number one, and neither one of them had come away too impressed — Kingsbury would have made Arlene nothing more than some odd, witchy-woman character out of a novel herself.

  In a way, she thought she might have quite liked that.

  Not enough to regret her success, however. To make a living by painting — and not have to worry about anything else — was a gift from whatever gods there might be.

  Arlene thought there might be many. She hoped there were. The idea made the world a much more interesting place.

  Again, she looked up from her canvas, took in the panorama, and set back to work. But even as she brought brush to canvas, a shiver went through her, a little frisson of pleasure and fear combined. Her breath caught in her throat. She stared at the intimate silver lines that made up the beginnings of the naiad in her painting, and shuddered.

  Something was near.

  Could it be today? A little, self-deprecating laugh bubbled up from her throat. She really ought to stop hoping so hard. The disappointment always left her so blue. Really, she should ignore the feeling that prickled at the back of her neck. She should not even look up until that sensation went away.

  “Who’m I kidding?” she whispered to herself.

  Arlene looked past the canvas, out of the woods and across the lake. She searched the surface, wondering if her painting had summoned something forth. What a dream that would be, becoming a part of folklore herself. But she saw nothing unusual on the lake.

  Still, the prickle on her skin remained, that certainty that just out of sight something hovered, waiting to be seen.

  Motion on the far shore drew her eye.

  The sun was bright on the water, making the darkness of the shadows amongst the thick pines a deep, impenetrable charcoal. Within those shadows, just beyond the tree line, something stood and stared at her. It would have been impossible to see its eyes from this distance — this animal, or man, or thing, whatever it was — but she felt its attention. It had noticed her, perhaps sensing her awareness of its presence.

  In the shadows, that figure was solid black — as tar, as oil, as raven’s wings, all of that and darker — noticeable as a streak of pure white paint against beige.

  All her life, Arlene had been holding her breath waiting for this moment — waiting to exhale — but instead, she inhaled sharply. The black figure darted left along the lake shore, staying beyond the tree line. It moved so swiftly she caught only glimpses of its perfect darkness as it ran. So fast. Impossibly fast.

  She watched for several long seconds until she could not see it any longer. Her heart beat wildly in her chest. The wind came again, but the mountain air had an earthy, slightly rotten odor now.

  It’s coming this way, she thought. It’s seen me, and now it’s coming.

  Though she’d spent her life training herself to have faith in extraordinary things, now Arlene tried to believe that it had been nothing but a dog, or a wolf, or even a bear. It had been big enough to be a bear, she thought.

  So fast.

  Nothing was that fast. The lake was vast. How long would it take for the wolf to make it all the way around to this side? What a stupid thought. No wolf could have caught her scent or even seen her from that distance, all the way across the lake. She’d imagined the
swift shadow. The darkness of the warrior monk assignment must have been affecting her more than she’d realized. Her senses were always open to the wondrous, and today, she’d let the sight of a shadow get the better of her.

  All of her denials sounded so reasonable in her mind.

  The hell of it, though, was that she still felt it. The thing had been there. And it was coming, tearing around the rim of the lake, full of malevolent intent.

  Arlene had spent all those years readying herself to accept a moment such as this. Now that it had arrived, she could not pretend she did not see, did not feel, did not know . . .

  She left the easel and the paint, but took the wet canvas, carrying it ahead of her like some enchanted shield as she hurried for her Jeep. Once she’d loaded it into the back and climbed into the driver’s seat, she hesitated a moment, looking doubtfully at the easel sitting there in the midst of the trees.

  But she wouldn’t be back for it. Not alone, at least.

  Arlene dropped the Jeep into gear and sped off across the rutted dirt road, tires kicking up a cloud of dust. Heart thundering in her chest, she tried to catch her breath, and resisted the magnetic pull of the rearview mirror. As she reached a turn in the road and spun the wheel, she reached up one hand and turned the mirror away. For the first time in her life, she was afraid of what she might see.

  CHAPTER 8

  Mike finally had a design he liked for Mabel Rutherford’s dining room. The problem was that the woman had been a nightmare to deal with when it came to his sketches. Some people were like that. If they saw the finished work, the actual piece of furniture, they would remark on its beauty. But for some reason it seemed to them that the existence of it as a sketch made it unfinished and felt they were almost required to find fault. That could be a long process. He’d dealt with Mrs. Rutherford before, and knew she would be difficult.

  So he’d decided not to show her the sketches for her dining room. Instead, he was going to bite the bullet and make one of the chairs. If she didn’t buy it, someone would. The legs and spindles would all be done with nothing but hand tools. The seat would be finished and edged and smoothed the same way, but to get the basic shape, he needed the table saw.

  All day he’d worked on the sketches, and by the time he’d had something that satisfied him, it was nearly dark. He’d stopped for an hour to have something to eat and to drink several glasses of ice water. He always got dehydrated while working in the shop, even if all he was doing was sketching. It was as though the dry wood drew the moisture out of him.

  Now he turned on all of the lights in the shop, and the place lit up brighter than day. Shadows were misleading when it came to riving wood, whittling spindles, and working with the adze and spokeshave and other tools. A shadow might lead him to put too much pressure on the hand plane, and then there was an indent where he hadn’t meant one to be.

  Mike felt a bit of moisture just beneath his nose and he reached up to touch it, alarmed at first, thinking his nose might be bleeding again. How odd that had been, last night, the way the blood had just started up without any reason. He hadn’t bumped his nose or done anything to bring it on. And it had taken ten minutes of dabbing damp napkins to his nose before it had completely stopped.

  This morning, when he’d set down to work on the sketches, a clearer picture in his mind of what he wanted, it had started up again, bright crimson drops spotting the sketches of Mrs. Rutherford’s dining room.

  But this time, there was no blood. He sniffled. Must just be allergies, he thought, as a way to jinx the possibility he might be getting a cold.

  Studying the shelves against the back wall of the workshop, Mike picked out a piece of oak that was perfect for his needs. He folded the sketches and slid them into the back pocket of his jeans, then picked up the slab of oak and brought it over to the table saw. He checked the machine over, locked the wood down onto the table to keep it from shifting when he didn’t want it to, and started up the saw.

  The whine ground against his skull like the scream of a dentist’s drill. Mike flinched and stood up, backing away from the table. He paused for a moment, wondering if something was wrong with the saw, but then he realized that it always sounded like this. Most days, it simply didn’t bother him. He felt the whine in his head, like he was grinding his teeth. His allergies, again. Must have been. His sinuses were packed and the noise added pressure. Something like that.

  But he’d only need the saw for a few minutes.

  He set to work. When the saw began to cut through the wood, the whine was worse. He forced the tension of his muscles, guiding the saw, careful with the curves. The basic shape of the seat was all he needed. The rest he would do by hand.

  With a pop, the power blew, casting the workshop in darkness. The whine of the saw lingered for a second, diminishing, and then there was silence as well.

  “What the hell?” he asked the dark, but the only reply was the echo of his own voice.

  The night was overcast, blotting out the moon and stars. There would be very little light from the windows, but after the brilliant brightness of the workshop, his eyes would need time to adjust.

  The pop had sounded almost like a transformer blowing. There was one on a telephone pole just down from his place. He could see if it he looked out the window nearest the front, so he made his way over to the window, careful with each step. He was usually pretty meticulous about cleaning up after himself — safety first and all that — but just in case he’d left any wood stacked on the floor, he slid his feet forward, searching the darkness with the toes of his boots.

  At the window, he looked out. The silhouette of the telephone pole was visible, darker than the night. Even with the heavy cloud cover, there was a trace of ambient light — enough to make shades of black and gray instead of pure darkness. The fat transformer box on the pole was dark and dormant. If it had blown, there were no sparks, and it had not started a fire. That was a good sign at least.

  Mike took a breath and rested his forehead against the window. His momentum was gone. Without power, he couldn’t get started on Mrs. Rutherford’s chair. He only hoped his passion for the design hadn’t changed in the morning.

  As he started to turn back toward the dark workshop, he caught sight of motion outside. Out on the street, two black dogs were trotting by. They were the most enormous hounds he’d ever seen, bit, sleek things with pointed ears and eyes that glistened in the dark. They passed the telephone pole, and the transformer box sent out a shower of sparks.

  The dogs swung their heads from side to side as though searching for something, stopped to raise their snouts and sniff the air. One of them lowered his head and started snuffling the pavement as though following a scent. The other studied every building, every window, and the dark spaces between them.

  Hunting dogs, he thought. But what were they hunting?

  The dog who’d been sniffing at the pavement lifted its head and swung around. Mike backpedaled from the window, suddenly afraid to have the dog see him. It seemed foolish — he was inside his house, after all — but instinct forced him away from the glass.

  Ten or fifteen seconds ticked by and he took a tentative step forward. When he looked out at the night again, the dogs were gone.

  A trickle came from his left nostril. Cursing his allergies, Mike reached up to wipe it away, and it smeared on his hand. He caught the coppery smell, then, and knew it wasn’t his allergies this time. His nose had started to bleed again.

  “Damn it,” he snapped, there in the dark.

  There was nothing more to be done in here tonight. All he could do was get the chair seat off of the table, and shut it down. His eyes had adjusted enough that he could make out shapes and objects in the workshop, but still he was careful making his way back to the table saw. He wiped the hem of his ratty t-shirt across his nose, but the bleeding seemed to have been just that one trickle. As he released the clamps holding the wooden seat to the table, he moved his hands slowly, gingerly, wary of the darkness. H
e did it all mostly by touch.

  Mike slid his hands under the slab of oak.

  With another pop, the power came on. He shut his eyes against the sudden brightness of lights in the workshop and the whine of the saw filled the room. The blade bit into flesh and bone. He cried out in pain jumped back from the table.

  With the room lit up, the blood on the saw and the wood and the table looked too bright, too red, almost artificial. The little finger of his right hand lay on the table, strangely pale. He lifted his hand and stared at the half inch stump and the blood pulsing out of it. A strange numbness filled him. Shock, he thought.

  And then, Stupid.

  Mike used his left hand to switch off the saw, furious at himself for not having done so before. Safety first, what a joke. But it wasn’t just stupidity. For the power to have come back on at precisely that moment, that was just dreadful luck.

  He took off his t-shirt and wrapped it tightly around his hand, even as he walked over to the phone to call 911. Maybe he could drive himself to the hospital, but he didn’t know how much the finger would bleed, didn’t know if he’d stay conscious. And if they came quickly, maybe the paramedics could save the finger. Could be the doctors would be able to reattach it. They did stuff like that on tv all the time.

  Alan teased him all the time about how one day he’d lose a finger in here. The jokes weren’t going to be funny anymore.

  Rose sat with one hand on the mouse, bathed in the glow of her computer screen. She’d gone back and cleaned up the cabin as best she could, putting the place in order for her parents’ return, but this afternoon she’d returned to her apartment. Before dark. After last night, she didn’t feel like sleeping at the cabin for a while.

  The light was on in the hall, and another in the living room. Voices drifted to her from the television. She’d been in the middle of watching Good Will Hunting for about the twentieth time. It was old enough now to be considered an old movie — old enough to be available for free On Demand — but she loved the movie. One of her favorite moments in any film ever was when Casey Affleck, Ben’s little brother, got up in the face of the arrogant Harvard jerk in the bar and said “my boy’s wicked smaht!”