“I don’t want to see anything.”
“We’re at the top! Look, Jimmy! You’re not going to fall. Don’t be such a fraidy cat.”
“Don’t,” he’d hiss back at her.
“Look!”
“No. Leave me alone!”
Sitting on the bus, he could almost smell the pink cotton candy, the hotdogs heaped with pickle relish with their tangy mustard smell. The wheel would lurch and rock as each new person got on below until they were on the top. His stomach would be lurching, too.
“Look, there’s snotty old Leslie and her new boyfriend.” Sarah would giggle and point down at their older sister. “Down there—see—by the dart game.” Against his will he’d peek. “Look…there’s our house over there.”
She’d rattle on excitedly while he was trying his best not to throw up. “Can you see it?” She’d prod him, bouncing around in the seat, sending their bucket into a wild swing and his heart into a tailspin.
The world would be spinning down below them in swirling lights and breathtaking colors, a mystical kaleidoscope. He couldn’t make out a darn thing, he was shaking so badly. “I don’t see our house,” he’d grumbled and press his fingers over his eyes again. “Stop this thing and let me off. Let me off! I don’t want to ride anymore.”
Wasn’t it still like that?
Sarah would talk him into going in the spook house. Jim sighed. In his mind the nervous laughter of those visits turned into screams of fear and terror…the screams of Charlie and the others. They were all running through those cursed woods fleeing some monstrous hulking obscenity that always caught them and tore them to pieces.
“I’m sorry, Sarah. I’m sorry,” Jim whispered in the murkiness of the back of the bus. “I can’t help you. I tried. I can’t.” The words so fragile no one else heard.
He hadn’t been able to help any of them because he’d been a coward. He hung his head to hide the sorrow. But it was his turn now.
He was ready to sacrifice everything so Sarah and Jeremy and others could live, it might be the reason he’d never make it home. He studied his reflection in the dirty bus window. It might not let him make it home.
Did anything matter anymore?
He was haunted by too many dead faces. For the first time he admitted he’d known forever, about the thing in the woods and what it craved. He’d known why they all had to die. He’d never told Sarah, though. Never told a soul. No guts. Since the first time so many years ago, on the horrifying summer’s night out in the fields with Sarah, oh, he’d known it was out there. So when he’d run away and let Sarah go into those accursed woods alone, he knew what she was up against. He’d been too frightened to warn her or any of them, because if they hadn’t died, he would have.
The way the game was played was so simple. The entity demanded sacrifices, needed young souls, and craved blood. It was either them or him.
All he’d had to do was keep his mouth shut, bear the guilt, and let poor Sarah keep believing she was the reason they died.
Jim hated himself.
He was sick of running and sick of watching people he loved die. It was time to end it. He’d lost the game. Again he hadn’t found a way to defeat the evil and must concede. Game over at last. It’d gone on a long time this round. The thought put a faint smile on his lips for the first time in years. The face in the dirty window was now Charlie’s grinning back at him, content at last.
Jimmy was coming home. So Sarah and Jeremy would live.
The bus, throttled out, bounced all over the road but Jim was so exhausted he kept dozing off. He’d be traveling a while longer and he hadn’t slept since the accident. Why he kept thinking of it as an accident, he didn’t know. It’d been the card that called in all the players. “Allie. Allie, all in free. All come home. Come home.”
He wasn’t so unwise that he’d stop along the way in some flea-bitten motel for a much-needed rest. He might never get home. A thought nagged him, maybe it wanted all of them this time. Every last one. Not impossible. It’d played dirty before. No, he wouldn’t stop anywhere.
A couple of hours later the bus pulled into a rest stop and everyone clamored off in a herd for the restrooms and the snack bar, Jim got off and back on the bus quickly after visiting the little boy’s room, and propped his legs up on the back of the seat.
He munched on a candy bar he’d had in his guitar case and waited.
By the time the bus pulled out onto the highway the sun was going down and it was cooling off. Only a few of the original riders were still on the bus. Most of them had gotten off at different stops during the long day. A large city was ahead. Jim could see its lights twinkling in the dwindling light as they flew around a curve in the road.
Damn the bus driver, he was driving way too fast. They should be pickier about their drivers. This one could get them killed. There was no longer a smile on Jim’s lips. He felt funny. Watched. The hair on his neck was standing on end and his face was reflected in the window surrounded by the descending dusk.
* * * *
It was watching with ancient cunning eyes. It’d seen him board the bus and it had followed the vehicle’s weaving trail down the curving roads. It rode the wind and skimmed the tree tops like a shimmering gray mist. At times it was visible and at times, when the sun was brightest, it wasn’t. It was coasting, gloating over the people in the moving tin can below. Keeping an eye on its quarry.
Greedily, it glided in lower over the bus and cast a huge shadow. It could hardly wait to see him suffer. It had plans. Yes, the man would suffer as it had suffered all those centuries ago. Revenge would be so sweet.
Everyone would die this time. None must escape. The hatred was so strong it seemed not to have had a beginning or an end. The reason was buried deep in the bowels of its memory and far removed in time. Revenge. For what had happened then. It’d started out that way in the beginning…but now? It had been humiliated enough and they’d be made to pay, and suffer for their crimes forever.
Eternal punishment. One lifetime of penance wasn’t enough for what had been done to it.
When it tried to recall exactly what had been done—or when, it couldn’t remember. Too long ago.
Did it matter? No. It had come to love the game, the kills. The victory. That was all. From century to century it was the same; the desire for revenge, for the blood, endlessly led it on.
* * * *
The bus streaked treacherously around a curve throwing rock and screeching its half-bald tires as the thing in the clouds flew above it. The shadow passed over Jim’s face as he sat by the window. Panic filled him as he peered upwards towards the sky.
There wasn’t anything there except the darkening sky and the fleecy clouds that trailed through it. Nothing to get alarmed over, he told himself, and settled back into the hard seat. Besides, he was safe.
That was a lie.
There wasn’t much time.
A notebook lay in his hands and he began to write in it, as he had many times before. The small book was full of his barely legible scribbling. Frowning, he bit his pencil, and resumed his writing. It was a journal he’d started after Amy disappeared.
When everything was over, the journal would go to Sarah. He had to explain. He owed her that much. He took a second away from his work to observe the passing scenery through the window again. There was still nothing.
Anyone seeing him would have said he was a man haunted. His face was thin, his eyes anxious. His head lowered over the journal as he wrote about the woman he’d thought was Amy in the truck. Another trick. It was difficult to write about but he forced himself to do it.
Making sure no one was watching him too closely, he wrote the words:
I think I’ve found the solution to our conundrum. I think I know how to rid us and the world of this evil thing. I pray to God that I’m right. I can’t let Sarah and
Jeremy die. There’s been enough death and fear. It belongs in hell and I must do what has to be done to return it there. I owe this to Amy and all the others. I must…
Someone flopped down beside him and he quickly jotted in the rest of the sentence and stuffed the notebook in his pocket. He’d hoped he might finish what he had to say before he was interrupted, but he couldn’t chance someone reading what he’d wrote. The thing had eyes and ears everywhere.
The man who’d sat beside him was middle aged and bald. He was chewing on a cigar. “Lord,” the man said as the bus started up with a jerk and accelerated so abruptly he almost landed in Jim’s lap when they hit a bump in the road. “Who taught that guy to drive? Change it to whoever told him he could drive was wrong, he can’t.” The man slid Jim a look with raised eyebrows. “Is he this bad all the time?”
“So far,” Jim replied dryly, meeting the stranger’s eyes. “Don’t worry, it gets worse. He’s begun warming up.”
The new passenger settled himself in the seat and grumbled something under his breath. Then exhaling noisily, he opened the newspaper he had clutched in his hand. Jim couldn’t help but see the headlines on the top page.
Psychic Predicts Second Child’s Murder
Jim flinched but couldn’t keep from peeking over to read more. It was Sarah all right. Old photos of her were splattered across the page along with smaller photos of the two victims.
He felt sick. It wasn’t only the fact Sarah’s entire life was being dissected and spread all over the front page, but there’d been another child butchered. It was there in black and white grisly detail.
Squeezing his eyes shut, his head ached with pain and guilt. His fault. Sarah blamed herself and he’d let her. All those stories their grandmother had told them about rings and power. Sarah must have believed it was the price she paid for her “gift.”
What must Sarah be going through right now?
“You sick, kid?” the man asked. “Can I help? Here, take a sip of my coffee. It’s lukewarm but it might help.” A paper cup was shoved at him.
Jim opened his eyes, accepted and drained it as the man told him to do. It did help. A little. He was suddenly very thirsty. “Thanks. I’m doing fine, it’s because I’ve been on this bus too long, you know?”
The bus lurched going around another corner and the man cocked his head conspiratorially. “On this bus, I can see what you mean.”
Jim smiled and turned his head towards the window. He wished the man would mind his own business and leave him alone. His throat had closed up and he’d developed a splitting headache. His vision blurred as he propped his forehead against the window.
He had to get home. Sarah needed him. He had to help her. They had to stop this monster before someone else died. The bus continued to rattle through the night and out of worried exhaustion, Jim drifted into a fitful sleep, one filled with memories that weren’t all from one lifetime.
Chapter Thirty-One
I thought I knew what it was going to be like, remembering those last years in Benchley. Yet nothing had prepared me for this. The phone started to ring early the next morning, waking me from a sleep riddled with corpses and dead people I’d once loved. At first I thought the phone was part of my dream. Unfortunately, I found out soon enough it wasn’t.
I stumbled downstairs in my nightgown and answered it.
People kept phoning, wanting advice, help in finding missing loved ones, or wanting me to solve their problems or crimes that had been off the books for years. Some wanted their palms read. Those were the nice calls. Some were religious fanatics wanting to know why I was killing those little children or why I was lying. They called me witch and worse.
I wanted to stuff the phone under the chair cushion or unplug it from the wall, but I couldn’t risk missing a call from Ben or Jim. Everything was fresh in my mind from the horror of last night and I was so worried about Jim, the phone taunted me. Where was my brother now and why hadn’t he called in three days? Was he still alive? I didn’t know, and not knowing made my heart hurt. I couldn’t see what I really needed to see when I needed to see it, so what good were my abilities?
My world was a nightmare again and I felt helplessly trapped. If only Jim was here.
Someone threw a brick wrapped in newspapers through my window. In shock, I bent down and picked it up after I’d nervously peeked out, just in time to see a green Pontiac speed down the road and out of sight. So much for compassionate neighbors. I unwrapped the brick, holding my breath. Maybe it was a bomb. It was worse. The newspaper had my face on the front page, as well as pictures from the horror out in the woods the night before and other pieces of juicy information about me and my past, things that they must have stayed up all night digging for. All about my family and…oh, no.
Clutching the paper to me I sagged down in the chair. I couldn’t believe how sordid the article made the whole incident. No wonder one of my neighbors had thrown a present through my window. I was a celebrity. Now everyone would know about me. Everyone would know where to find me.
In the kitchen I made a cup of coffee. I needed to talk to Ben. What I really needed, was to sleep this whole mess off somewhere for a couple of years, but I knew it was impossible. I’d promised to aid the police and aid them I would.
I’d fallen into quicksand and there was no longer any easy way out.
Jeremy’s feet padded down the stairs and came into the kitchen. “Are you hungry? How about some hot chocolate?” Bribes. My son was devastated over Jenny’s death and not even hot chocolate could make it right. He’d been asleep when I’d come home in the early morning hours last night. I hadn’t had the chance to tell him, she was dead. One look at his devastated face, though, and I knew he knew. It only made sense that he would. She’d been his friend.
“Sure, Mom,” he replied listlessly and sat down in a chair. The incriminating newspapers were on the table and I tried to whisk them away so he wouldn’t see. I didn’t have to bother. He sat staring into space, not noticing anything. When I set the cup and pieces of buttered toast before him he didn’t touch them.
“Jeremy?”
The look he gave me was so tormented. I only had to hold out my arms and he was in them, his head against my shoulder as he cried. The tears leaked through my blouse and were hot on my skin.
“She never hurt anybody, Mom. She was strange, but she was good. She never had nothing or nobody until I became her friend. Why would it hurt Jenny?” He sobbed into my shoulder as I rocked him.
“It’s something evil, honey.” I didn’t know what else to say. I couldn’t expect him to understand what even I couldn’t.
“You said last night it wasn’t Charlie, then who was it?” His eyes were on me, his face suddenly hot with anger.
I inhaled but didn’t answer. I couldn’t. Inside there was this fear that if he knew too much, he, too, would be doomed.
“That thing in the woods did it, didn’t it?” His voice was a whisper, but he was deadly serious. “Tell me. No more fibs, Mom. I mean it. I need to know. I’m a big boy. I won’t leave you alone until you tell me everything. Now.”
It was time for the truth. Oh, but I hated to do this.
“Yes it did.” I was going to say it killed Jenny but I couldn’t get the words out. I kept seeing that pitiful little body lying there torn and bloody among the leaves. The image frightened me so. It could as well have been Jeremy. We sat there in silence, both thinking our own private thoughts. I prayed my son, only a child himself, couldn’t see what I saw. It’d be horrible if he could.
“Mom?” he asked after he stopped crying. “Do I have to go to the police station and tell them about Jenny and me now? I mean, that we were friends and all. About how bad her family was to her. All that?”
It was the first time I’d heard anything about this and I listened, as Jeremy told me about her parents and the
way they’d mistreated her. No doubt the police would try to place the blame for what had happened in some way on them. After all, they’d say, she was an abused child. Her parents might have gone too far this time. I could hear it now and knew with certainty that it was how they’d hide the truth this time. No need to start a panic if a plausible scapegoat could be found.
I told Jeremy he didn’t have to go to the police station, but perhaps someone would come to question him later. Right now, as Ben had informed me when he’d left me at my door this morning, the police would have their hands full searching the crime scene and raking it for clues. Searching the woods.
They’d find nothing.
I’d told the police what I knew, about the thing in the woods, going back to my childhood, and the Captain had stared at me as if I were off my rocker. No one had to tell me to stay in town and no one had to tell me, psychic or not, I was also a suspect. I knew too much. I didn’t blame any of them, it was hard to swallow that something in the woods was killing children, because it liked to. The Captain was a sensible man. Wouldn’t it be a fitting punishment for me, I’d thought cynically, if they accused me of the crime and it went to trial?
I tried to reach Ben again, but got no answer at his place and, hesitantly, I dialed the station and was told that Detective Raucher was unreachable. They’d give him a message, though. Was there someone else I’d like to talk to? I said no and hung up.
After I did the phone didn’t ring for a few minutes and then the crank calls started up again. I wanted to throw the phone out the window but I had to answer it to be sure I didn’t miss Jim or Ben’s calls.
No telling what Jim would think if he tried to call and couldn’t get through.
It was understandable when someone knocked on the door I ran to it hoping it was one of them. It wasn’t.
I shook my head, not believing what I was seeing. Then it hit me and my face went cold, like my heart.
Evil Stalks the Night Page 28