by John Inman
“We’re in the wrong place!” Danny hissed at Luke. “We’ve got the wrong house!”
“Holy shit!” DeVon said. “You’re right. But whose house was it? Where did the crying come from?”
“I think it was over there,” Bradley whispered, pointing north toward Luke’s place.
“No,” DeVon hissed. “It came from over there!” He pointed east.
“I thought it came from across the street,” Luke interjected, not sounding too sure of himself even while he said it.
Then another scream tore through the night. Not a muffled sob this time. This time it was a scream guaranteed to wake the dead. It sounded like the screeching wail of a banshee on the Irish moors, and it made every hair on Danny’s body stand up and do the Watusi. Holy heebie-jeebies! He could feel Luke flinch away from the sound as if he had been struck.
This time all four of them knew exactly where the scream came from. It came from Danny’s backyard. Not more than ten feet away. Just on the other side of the fence!
They took one hesitant step toward the echo of that horrible screaming shriek when they heard the splash. It sounded like someone had dropped an anvil in Danny’s swimming pool.
That woke them up. They ran straight for the hole in the fence. DeVon was the first to dive through. Then Bradley, then Luke. Danny struggled under the fence dead last, grunting, groaning, and cursing the damn cast on his leg with every move he made.
And then it started to rain.
AFTER crawling under the fence, Danny staggered to his feet, slapped his way through the bushes, and shook himself off. He froze when he heard a rumble in the sky. He looked up and blinked back the spattering of raindrops that hit his face. They were cold, but they actually felt pretty good. Bracing. It wasn’t raining hard yet, but it felt like it wanted to. Thunder rumbled over their heads again. It sounded like a bowling ball ambling its weary way toward the pins after being dropped by a grunting six-year-old. Immediately afterward, a couple of sharper claps of thunder tore across the sky like distant artillery fire.
“Holy shit,” DeVon said. “What now? We at war with Mexico?”
Luke answered while he gave Danny a hand dusting himself off. “That wasn’t gunfire, you moron, it was thunder.”
“Wow,” DeVon said. “I don’t think I’ve ever heard thunder before.”
Danny shook his head and tsked. “Californians.”
“Fuck the weather updates,” Bradley said, “Where did that scream come from? DeVon, flash your light on the pool. Let’s see what splashed. I heard something splash.”
“Yeah,” Luke said. “Me too.”
Above the storm and the rain and the ever-increasing wind, they heard a hullabaloo taking place inside Danny’s house. It was Granger, and he was barking with such ferocious energy he sounded like six dogs. Six pissed off dogs. He wanted the hell out! Now!
“Listen to Granger!” Danny said. “He’s going batshit. I’m too slow with this cast. Here Bradley, take the house key and open the back door for Granger so he’ll shut up.”
For a change, Bradley did as he was told with a minimum of grousing. He was back in less than a minute with Granger hot on his heels. Granger pranced around the four of them, happy as a clam, bouncing and hopping, his tail going a mile a minute. The dog said hello to each of them in turn then returned to his master and hiked up his leg to pee on a rose bush while Luke patted his head. He peed for about a minute. He really had to go. When his business with the rose bush was finished, Granger went prancing around saying hello to everybody again. One happy dog.
The rain was coming down harder now. It felt like icy pinpricks against Danny’s skin, and it was starting to plaster his long hair to the back of his neck. It wasn’t bracing any more either. He was starting to shiver. Then Luke snuggled up beside him, stroking his arm, making his presence known, making Danny feel safe. And Danny forgot about the rain. Sometimes his love for Luke just filled him up so much nothing else could seem to get inside.
A flash of lightning illuminated the pool, and all four of them froze in horror. Even Granger stopped what he was doing and blinked. Danny leaned in closer to get a better look at the water, but by the time he did the lightning had blinked out and the pool was swallowed in shadow.
“Did you see that?” Bradley hissed. “Did you see the water? Did you see it?”
Luke sounded confused, his voice a stunned hush. “We saw it. At least I think we saw it.”
“Go on, DeVon,” Bradley urged. “Shine your flashlight at the pool. Shine it in the water. I wanna see it again.”
“What a snot,” DeVon muttered, but he did as he was asked. He shone the flashlight into the pool.
Into the pink, pink water of the pool.
Lightning flashed. Thunder grumbled across the sky once again. Granger cowered closer to the ground, trying to get away from the sound. No one was paying any attention to the sky or the dog. They were all staring at the water.
“Is that water—pink?” Bradley asked, whipping out another licorice whip and mindlessly stuffing it in his mouth. He couldn’t take his eyes off the water. He was waiting for the lightning to flash again. He was willing the lightning to flash again. Just so he could see.
Danny opted for a more hands-on approach. He awkwardly clomped across the soggy lawn to an electrical box located by the back door. He opened it, found the proper button by memory since the outside lights were still off, and flicked the switch. The underwater pool lights came to life. Everyone stared at the water. The surface was speckled with raindrops. But it was the water under the surface that drew everyone’s attention. For it was under the surface where the water was pinkest.
It was there where the water was mixed with blood.
It was no great mystery where the blood came from either. It came from the small still creature settling slowly and silently to the bottom of the pool. Lifeless. Eyes open and unblinking. Orange coat, lush and thick in life, swaying with the motion of the water as it sank into the depths. Long, elegant tail, unnervingly still. Four little feet, unmoving.
They were all watching when the animal came to rest at the bottom of the pool with a tiny jerk. Almost an audible, muted thud. It just lay there then, on the floor of the pool under six feet of water. Motionless, but for its lush coat still shifting and flowing with the stir of the currents surrounding it.
Luke was the first to find his voice. “My God, is that—Frederick?”
“No,” Danny said, squatting at the edge of the water, easing his weight off his broken leg. It was aching again. Either from the damp or too much running around. He peered through the rain-spattered surface of the swimming pool to get a better look at the lifeless body resting on the bottom. “I think it’s Frederick’s girlfriend. Mr. Childers’s cat. I don’t know her name. Poor thing.”
“Somebody threw her in,” DeVon said. “And look at her neck. Somebody cut her throat first. They cut her throat then threw her into the pool.”
It was true. Even as they watched, they could see a trickle of red still streaming into the pink water from the horrific gash under the creature’s chin. That trickle of red made the water a little bit pinker, made it a little bit more—horrible.
Bradley echoed Danny. “Poor thing.” He looked around the yard. He seemed to be paying extra close attention to the stand of hibiscus bushes by the back fence. They provided the only decent hiding place in the whole yard. If someone was there, that’s where they would have to be, lurking in the shadows, watching them. Watching them.
Bradley shivered, and it wasn’t the icy rain that made him shiver either. For the first time tonight, it was real fear.
“Let’s turn the pool lights off,” he whispered, hugging himself against the rain.
“He’s right,” Luke said. “We’re too exposed out here.”
So Danny sloshed a clumsy path back across the wet grass and flicked the pool lights off. The four of them were once again sheathed in darkness. This time the darkness felt like an ally. They fo
und themselves dreading the flashes of lightning which exposed them every time they streaked across the sky above their heads.
Luke was watching the fence now too. Just like Bradley. But not the fence in the back. And not the shorter picket fence that abutted the west side of the yard where his own house stood either. His attention was centered solely on the east fence. It was picketed just like the one by his house. Waist-high. There was a hedge on this side of it, also just like the hedge on the opposite side of the yard. These were the hedges Danny had just trimmed. The east fence, the one Luke was now staring at, was the closest to the pool. Someone could have easily hurled the cat over the fence and into the pool. They wouldn’t have had to set foot in Danny’s yard at all.
Luke gripped Danny’s arm. With his other hand he pointed to the house beyond the fence. “Who lives over there?”
“Dinkens,” Danny said. “Dinkens and his wife. Why? You think they might have heard something?”
“No,” Luke said in a jittery voice that got everyone’s attention. Even Bradley and DeVon tore their eyes away from the pool and gazed at Luke for a change. Then they followed his gaze to the fence and the house beyond.
“That’s where creepoid lives,” DeVon said in a whisper. “He ran us off once. Remember, Brad?”
“Yeah. He’s got a big fat wife. She’s really nice, but I haven’t seen her lately.”
Danny blinked. Come to think of it, he hadn’t seen the woman lately either. Didn’t mean much, he supposed. But still. It was curious.
“Maybe we should go have a word with Mr. Dinkens.” It was Danny who said the words.
“Think he’s up?” Luke asked.
In a hushed voice, Danny said, “That’s the funny thing. Mr. Dinkens is always up.”
He and Luke shared a look. Then they shared another look.
“Where’s your hammer?” Danny asked.
Luke looked down at himself. He patted his pockets. “I don’t know. I guess I lost it.”
He looked at Danny. “Where’s your bat?”
Danny stared at his two empty hands like they were the strangest things he had ever seen in his life. Good grief. He must have lost the bat when he went under the fence.
He looked back at Luke. “Well, aren’t we a couple of nimrods.”
“Pretty much,” Bradley mumbled.
At that very moment, there came a silent hush between thunderclaps. Again they could hear the gentle patter of raindrops hitting the pool. And just as Danny was wiping the rain from his eyes and brushing the sodden hair away from his face, they heard the sob again.
They all heard it. Every one of them.
It was just a weak, weak sob, as if whoever had let it out had just about used up their very last ounce of strength. Once again, Danny thought it was the saddest sound he had ever heard. It was so sad he thought he felt his heart crack open just a little bit to hear it.
This time there was no question where the sound came from. It came from the east.
It came from Mr. Dinkens’s house.
Granger froze at the side of the pool, and slowly, step by eerie step, he approached the east fence. His hackles were standing straight up and he moved like a zombie. In slow motion. Stalking. Careful. Tense yet fearless. His fangs were bared. His sodden tail hung straight down to the ground. For a dog who had been happy as hell just a few minutes earlier, he was now dead serious. You could see it in his stance. Granger wasn’t fooling around.
“Someone’s there,” Luke said. “Just on the other side of the fence. I heard a footstep on gravel.”
All four of them ducked, crouching at the edge of the pool. They were glad now that Danny had turned the pool lights off. Really glad. Because this time they knew there was really something out there to fear.
And this time they were pretty sure they knew where to find it.
It was then that Frederick came tearing through the hedge with a caterwauling screech. Four hearts almost stopped dead when the cat tore between their legs, dashed across the yard, and flew through Danny’s pet door with a bang.
In the shocked hush, it was DeVon who spoke first.
“Damn, I think I just had me a heart attack.”
Chapter 14
DINKENS’S house was dark. If there was a light burning anywhere, it didn’t show from the outside. It was a ramshackle, two-story monstrosity that must have been the height of architectural chic a century or so ago, but it was pretty much an eyesore now. Unkempt. Bedraggled. It had not seen a new coat of paint for decades. The shingles on the roof, what could be seen of them two floors up, were twisted and brittle from their never-ending exposure to the hot California sun. When lightning streaked across the sky behind the roof, Danny thought those poor blistered roofing shingles looked like ragged curls of shaved chocolate strewn across a butt-ugly cake. He wondered if they still repelled water, or was Dinkens inside right now, frantically positioning pots and pans under a thousand leaks, trying to stay afloat in the storm? Looming into view every now and then in those intermittent flashes of lightning, the house bore an amazing resemblance to Norman Bates’s childhood home on the hill behind his nasty little motel.
Staring at the house as he squinted through the rain, Danny was surprised he had never noticed the resemblance before. Jeez, the joint was creepy as hell.
And there was no doubt whatsoever the sob they heard before the damn cat came tearing between their legs scaring them all to death had come from that house. It must have.
“Should we call the cops?” Bradley asked in a quivery voice. The rain was really cold now. It was making the kid’s teeth chatter, although he was putting on a brave face about it so no one would think he was a wuss.
Luke was the first to answer, thinking of Danny and Danny’s dad. Worried about them above all else. “No. Not yet. Let’s do some snooping first.” He spoke in a whisper. The four of them were kneeling at the edge of the pool between a couple of lawn chairs. Trying to stay low. Trying not to be visible in those sparks of lightning that seemed to light up the whole world every now and then. The rain helped hide them. And the darkness too. But still, whoever had flung the dead cat into the pool not more than two minutes ago couldn’t be very far away. No point making their presence known if they didn’t have to.
Luke brushed his fingers along Danny’s cheek to get his attention. Even with the rain and the storm and the fear and the rattled nerves, he felt desire blossom up at the feel of Danny’s skin. Damn, he’d be glad when they were back in bed cuddling. Or maybe doing more than cuddling. “Babe, we need to check the place out. Dinkens’s place. I want you to stay here.”
“No,” Danny said, trying to balance himself on his one good knee while the leg with the cast stuck straight out in front of him. He waited until he was sure Luke was looking at him. They were both dripping wet and shivering, but Danny wanted Luke to know how determined he was. He needed Luke to understand that if either of them went anywhere, they were both going. “I want to help the Strickland guy, too, but I also want to make sure you stay safe. I’m coming with you. Don’t bother arguing, because I’m coming. I don’t care what you say.”
“Well, poop,” Luke said, fighting a grin. “Guess you’re coming.” He couldn’t honestly say he was sorry.
Danny stood up with a groan and took one clumsy step toward the hedge. He stumbled to a stop when he heard a door click quietly closed somewhere inside Dinkens’s creepyass house. He couldn’t really tell if it was an inside door or an outside door, but somehow the sound of that unseen door snapping closed brought Danny’s father to mind. Danny could see his dad’s earnest face hovering in front of him in the shadows. “Stay out of trouble, Son. Don’t do anything to make me ashamed.”
His father had never really said those words, not exactly, but they were implied. They were most certainly implied. Maybe Danny imagined those words because of the guilt he felt over the trouble he had already caused his dad. Would Danny’s actions on this night be like the snapping closed of a door between him an
d his dad? Was he about to irreparably sever their budding relationship just as it was getting good and started? That’s the last thing Danny wanted. The very last.
For the hundredth time in the last two weeks, he stared down at the ankle monitor and the little green light blinking in the middle of it.
“What is it?” Luke asked. “I thought you were coming.” He was ushering the kids together, trying to get them both moving in the right direction. He pointed to where he wanted them to go, and they went. It was funny how well they took orders when they were scared shitless.
“I—don’t know,” Danny stammered. He sounded angry. Angry with himself more than anything, and suddenly uncertain about what he should do.
In a strobe of lightning he saw everyone waiting for him. DeVon and Bradley were hunkered down beside the hedge now, ten or fifteen feet away. They were soaking wet and miserable and huddled as close to each other as they could get without maybe embarrassing themselves. Danny was pretty sure they didn’t want any gay innuendoes thrown in their direction, although they certainly didn’t hesitate to toss them around at other people. They were looking back at Danny and Luke now where they squatted on the wet grass, wondering what the hell was taking them so long, but they didn’t want to yell. They didn’t want to make any noise. After all, there was a serial killer (maybe) just on the other side of this hedge. No point giving the bastard a heads-up that he was about to run headlong into his worst nightmare. Them.
Yeah, right. Bradley couldn’t even think that thought with a straight face. If anybody was scared here, it was them, not Dinkens. And Bradley damn well knew it. Just because he was only eleven years old didn’t mean he was stupid.
Luke needed windshield wipers on his glasses. He couldn’t see anything. That wouldn’t do. He yanked them off his face and stuffed them in the pocket of his shorts. He wasn’t doing needlepoint here. He just needed to see trees and houses and serial killers and stuff.