by Brian Hodge
“I’m sure that’s a very nice way of showing you care.”
Grayson sighed crossly, and then glanced at Lynette. “Mr. Copeland, I feel badly for your sister—and Mrs. Baird too. I sure don’t want anyone else to have to go through such an ordeal. If something is wrong around here, I intend to sort it out.”
Copeland nodded, aware that he had pushed the sheriff about as far as he could. “Well. I’m glad Zack Baird is going to recover. Maybe he’ll offer you some useful information.”
“I appreciate what you did for him. I know his mama does too. She just didn’t quite grasp what was going on at the time.”
“I understand.”
“Then I’ll bid you folks a good evening. You have my number.”
“Thank you, Sheriff,” Lynette said with a polite smile, but Copeland could see that it was forced. He walked with the older man to the door and saw him out without saying a word. Then he rejoined the two women in the living room.
“I get the feeling he’s out of his league if he has to do more than write speeding tickets.”
Debra gazed at him, half amused. “You barely pulled your punches.”
“Just wanted to see his reaction. What does it take to get the state police involved here?”
“Either the sheriff or the county district attorney has to call them in,” Debra told him. “One’s about as likely as the other.”
“Is the D.A. another Barrow cousin twice removed?”
“Drinking buddy.”
Copeland raised his glass of scotch. “What a shock.”
Debra smiled wryly, finished her brandy, and said to Lynette. “Tomorrow is going to be a long, stressful day. I’d better say goodnight too.”
Lynette rose and gave her friend a quick hug. “Thanks for coming over. You probably did save that kid’s life today.”
Debra shook her head wearily. “If only we knew what was out there. Or whether that thing we saw was really after him at all. I keep going over and over it, and I just can’t figure it out.”
Copeland downed the last of his drink. “I hope our illustrious protector and servant is as good as his word and no one else comes to harm.”
Both Lynette and Debra went silent for a moment, sobered by the thought. Then, with a weak smile, Debra started for the door.
“I’ll walk with you,” Copeland said.
“It’s a hundred feet at most, and I do it all by my lonesome most every night,” she said.
He shook his head. “I really think I might better, under the circumstances.”
She sighed with mock exasperation. “Come along then, if it’ll make you feel useful.”
“Back in a few,” he said to Lynette, then headed out into the cool night with Debra. Clouds had sneaked in during the past few hours and smothered the moon, leaving the landscape drenched in heavy darkness. As he walked beside the attractive young woman, he could not deny a vague but persistent feeling of nervousness; whether it was due to her exhilarating presence or something else altogether, he wasn’t sure.
“You impressed me today,” he said. “You were very cool in a bad situation.”
“Functioning under pressure is second nature,” she said. “Look at what I have to do every day.”
“Tough, is it?”
“Sometimes.”
As they passed the thick pines that separated the houses, Copeland could not help but peer into the impenetrable shadows beneath them. Just before they reached her front door, he asked, “What was it you thought you saw at the Barrow place? A building, you said?”
She stopped and gazed at the featureless sky for a moment. “I don’t know. I saw something. I wish I could explain it. For maybe two seconds, it looked like there was a big stone tower or something. Tall as can be—even higher than the mountains. I’ve tried attributing it to a reflection on the windows, a cloud, smoke…anything. It’s just so plainly impossible. But I’ve got two very good eyes, and I’m not willing to write it off as hallucination.”
“Whatever that was chasing Zack, that was no hallucination. And it was after him.”
“I expect you’re right.”
“Thanks for coming with me today. I really appreciate it.”
She smiled wanly. “Now I’m not so sure I should have.”
“You were right where you supposed to be at the time. At least for that kid’s sake.”
She unlocked her door, then turned and gave him a long appraising look. “That’s not bad. Not bad at all. Well, Russ. I guess I’ll be seeing you.”
“I guess you will.”
She left him with an alluringly sweet smile and closed herself inside. He remained where he stood for a moment, taking in the brief, aromatic draft that had escaped before the door swung shut.
One lovely lady.
He started back across the yard for Lynette’s front door, but as he passed what he had come to think of as the great pine barrier, on a whim, he detoured around the side of her house and made his way to the small back yard. Despite the darkness, something—perhaps the simple desire to acquaint himself with his surroundings—drew him to explore. As he carefully picked his steps, he began to make out the shape of the steep, densely wooded ridge that pressed claustrophobically close to the left side of the house. To the right, beyond Debra’s fenced back yard, the land opened up, and he vaguely discerned a broad meadow that stretched toward another long ridge, perhaps two miles distant. The Barrow house lay somewhere beyond that rambling hump, he knew. Not a single light intruded upon the nighttime landscape, which appeared as desolate and primeval as when Indians were the only ones who could have beheld it.
No, he was mistaken. Atop the ridge, he detected a brief flicker; probably a car out on Yew Line Road. But a moment later, he saw it again, slowly creeping through the darkness, and he realized it was too dim, too irregular to be a moving vehicle. For perhaps five minutes, it meandered across the ebony backdrop, sometimes winking out for a few seconds, only to reappear somewhere else on the ridge. It was obviously not traveling on the road. Finally, it disappeared, as if swallowed by the dense forest. Quite unexpectedly, Copeland found himself heaving a sigh of relief. The atmosphere out here felt outright eerie.
When he went back indoors, Lynette was in the kitchen smoking a cigarette. She gave him a sardonic smile and asked, “Been kissing on Debra all this time?”
“You know better than that,” he said, feeling his face flushing. “I was just out looking around the house.”
“For what?”
“Anything unusual.”
“And did you find anything?”
His immediate inclination was to mention the light on the ridge, but then he thought better of it. “Just a very dark night. Was hoping to see some stars, but it’s gotten cloudy.”
“You like her, don’t you?”
He shrugged. “She’s okay.”
“You act like a schoolboy around her.”
“I can’t help it. She’s a teacher.”
“So am I.”
“Remind me to bring you an apple.”
Lynette had retired early, and Copeland sat in his room with his laptop, going over some email from the office. No major problems there, at least; he could ill-afford headaches on both the personal and professional fronts.
Now and again, his eyes wandered toward the window that faced Debra’s house, but he could see no sign of life beyond the pine barrier. Lynette had readily noticed his attraction to her friend, and he only hoped he exhibited a little more class than a smitten adolescent. He had not interacted closely with a woman, other than the insane ex-wife, since before their marriage, and the requisite social skills had perhaps gotten rustier than he liked to admit.
Though the night air was chilly, he preferred the windows open, mainly because of the cigarette smell that saturated the house. The upper floor stayed warm anyway, so the breeze that swept in felt clean and refreshing. He was just closing up his laptop when he heard a soft creak-thump from somewhere below—the closing of the outs
ide kitchen door, it sounded like. Lynette? he wondered. He laid his computer aside, went to the window, and peered into the darkness, but with the nightstand lamp on, he could see nothing outside.
“Lynette?” he called softly, but received no answer. He went out to the hall, to her door, and gently knocked; when she did not respond, he opened it, only to find the room pitch dark. Reaching in with one hand, he felt for the overhead light switch, found it, and flipped it up. Her bed was turned down but empty.
Not yet alarmed but curious and concerned, he hurried down to the main floor, through the kitchen, and out the back door, onto the small terrace that faced the yard. At first, he could see nothing, but as his eyes began to adjust, he made out a pale, willowy shape moving slowly toward the distant black hump that melded subtly with the starless sky. He started after her at a clip, heedless of the obstacles that might be hiding beyond the relative safety of the yard.
To his left, the trees that hemmed the lower slope of the ridge leaned over him as if curious about the stranger in their midst, their gnarled limbs grazing his head and shoulders, sometimes threatening his eyes. Once he passed the property line, holes, rocks, roots, and branches lurked in the knee-high grass and weeds, constantly threatening to trip him. He had no idea if Lynette regularly sleepwalked, but she was certainly risking life and limb venturing out here like this.
When he saw that he was beginning to gain on the pale figure ahead, he called, “Lynette!”
At first, she gave no sign of hearing him, but eventually she stopped and turned toward him; he could almost make out her features in the darkness. She was wearing only her light, silky nightgown, and she wrapped her arms around herself as if feeling the chill for the first time.
As he strode to her side, she again turned to face the distant ridge.
“I heard Rodney calling me,” she said softly.
“You’ve been dreaming,” he said, placing a gentle hand on her shoulder. “This is no place for you to be.”
She didn’t look at him but continued to gaze into the distance. “No, I had to come. I heard his voice. He called me ‘Mama.’”
“It must have seemed very real.”
She finally turned to look at him, and the sorrow in her eyes nearly broke his heart. “I thought it was him,” she whispered. Then she turned and started walking back toward the house, her gait faltering as she tried to navigate the rough ground. He took her arm to steady her.
A low breeze had begun to sweep across the meadow from the north; even through his clothes, the cold bit into his flesh. But he didn’t dare push her any faster on her bare feet. He would have offered to carry her but for fear of tripping and injuring the both of them.
“Have you sleepwalked before?” he asked.
She shook her head. “Not that I know of.”
The lights ahead shone like welcoming beacons, and when they finally reached the soft, freshly mowed grass, Lynette released an audible sigh of relief, now treading very gingerly. He led the way to the door and opened it for her, feeling a momentary twinge of sympathetic pain when he saw that her right foot left a thin smear of blood on the stone step.
“Let me get that cleaned up for you.”
She waved him away. “It’s nothing. I’ll take care of it upstairs. Lord, I can’t believe this. I could have been hurt a lot worse. Or you could have.”
“You’re stressed all to pieces, my dear. I wouldn’t worry too much about this.”
She looked him squarely in the eye. “I heard Rodney calling me so clearly. Hard to believe it was a dream. But it had to be, didn’t it?”
He nodded.
She sighed and glanced at her foot. “Well, I’m going to clean this and go back to bed. Do me a favor and make sure all the doors are dead-bolted, will you?”
“You sure you don’t want me to give you a hand?”
“I’m fine. I’ll see you in the morning.”
“Goodnight, then.”
Lynette disappeared through the door to the hall, and Copeland went to the back door to close and lock it. Before doing so, he leaned out and gazed into the darkness, listening more than looking. From the nearby ridge, the wind whispered like a low, masculine voice mouthing nonsensical words; and then some of the trees began to creak and moan weirdly—a high-pitched, dissonant accompaniment to the deeper, throaty wind-sound.
Its plaintive voice cried, “Maaa-maaaaa...”
If that sound had wended its way into Lynette’s subconscious, small wonder it had upset her. Even to his waking mind, the rough screeching began to take on a disturbing, all-too-human quality, and he was grateful no one was around to see him when he closed and bolted the door with more than necessary haste, then made his way upstairs to his room and forcefully closed the windows.
Day Three
Chapter 6
Sheriff Mike Grayson could claim kinship with the Barrows by way of a great uncle on his mother’s side who had married Amos’s paternal aunt some eighty years back, and even though he was not a blood relative, he had generally found favor with the current Barrow clan, who took a particularly dim view of outsiders. Still, the fact that he represented the law made no more difference to them than if he were a plumber or an unemployable halfwit; in their eyes, the law existed only when it suited them.
Grayson parked his aging but still hardy Ford Crown Vic, which packed a specially modified 4.9-liter, 244-horsepower V-8 under its hood, just behind Levi’s dent-ridden, rust-stained, 1980s vintage Chevy 4x4. He clambered out, sauntered past the three stark red-and-white, hand-painted “Keep Out” signs that welcomed one to the property, and stepped up to the sagging front porch, where he rapped solidly on the crooked, wormy door.
When it groaned open, the stench of stale urine and mothballs wafted out, followed by a knobby, oversized head, which slowly swiveled on a stalk-like neck to reveal a pair of tiny, marble-like eyes that wallowed in deep black cavities. “Mr. Mike,” rolled a guttural voice from thick lips that didn’t quite close over a single protruding incisor. “Whatcha know?”
“Morning, Joshua. Where’s Amos?”
“Where he allus is.”
The brutish-looking figure held the door open and Grayson stepped into the gloom of a dank, sparsely furnished living room, its floor covered by a rug so ancient and tattered that every step he took unraveled a few more threads. How anyone could live like this had mystified him from day one, but he knew better than to even think of exhibiting manners that the family might in any way construe as bad.
With a hesitant clearing of his throat, he turned to face his distant cousin. “I have a question for you, Joshua, maybe two. You know that a boy got killed out this way a few days ago, right?”
“That teacher’s lil boy, right, right. I seen him around before.”
Grayson narrowed his eyes. “How much before?”
“A while back, on that bicycle of his, him and them boys that ride down in the woods.”
“Now, they’ve never given you any trouble, have they?”
“Nah, they ain’t given us no trouble. Not after they seen me and my gun that time.”
“Scared ’em, did you?”
Joshua’s tiny eyes gleamed. “Mr. Mike, I just know you ain’t askin’ if we done somethin’ to ’em.”
Grayson replied with an exaggerated shake of his head. “I just want to make sure everything’s all right up this way. You see, we don’t know what killed that young fellow, and I’d hate for you to be exposed to anything...dangerous. You know.”
Joshua snickered grotesquely. “Nah, nah, nothing dangerous around here. If they was, you can be sure we’d know about it.”
“You don’t mind if I say good morning to Amos, do you? Been a long while since I’ve seen him.”
“Nah, nah, you go right on up. He’ll be happy you come to say hey.”
Grayson went out to the hall and started up the creaky wooden stairs that led to the second floor, aware that Joshua’s eyes followed him as he climbed; not that he would expect a
ny different, for Joshua always displayed curiosity—not suspicion—about him because he was a lawman. Today, though, Grayson felt a bit more on edge, perhaps because this was not a social call. Lynette Lawson’s brother—that Copeland fellow—had made some unkind and far too perceptive remarks about the goings-on in the community; as a city man, he seemed the sort who just might have the wherewithal to involve outside agencies in what ought to be Grayson’s sole jurisdiction.
Amos Barrow would frown on such intrusions—and consequently on Grayson, for failing to nip the problem in the bud.
At the end of the hall, only murky, dust-flecked light shone through a half-open door. Grayson approached it slowly, almost reverently, for the senior Barrow vehemently disliked surprises.
Just before he reached the door, a slow, sonorous voice rumbled from within. “Would that be Mr. Mike I hear come to call?”
Grayson stepped into a dim chamber with a single window, which admitted a few sickly sunbeams through grimy, translucent curtains. Strange, abstract-looking ceramic sculptures that almost resembled sea animals—with fins, stalks, scales, barbs, and other less-than-attractive attributes—rested atop almost every surface of the room. Amos had always displayed a certain crude artistic talent, often sculpting odd-looking, distorted representations of people, animals, and objects. But these particular pieces were new—and strangely repulsive, as if the mind that conceived them had become fixated on the grotesque.
“I s’pose you’ve come to talk about that lil dead boy,” the deep voice said. “Did Joshua offer you a glass of tea?”
“No, but that’s quite all right. And yes, that young boy is somewhat on my mind.”
“Well, have a sit. If you’re gonna talk, talk. Don’t need to be pacing up and down.”
Grayson nodded respectfully and settled himself in a warped wooden chair across from the family patriarch. Amos Barrow had looked old when Grayson was just a boy, and he had barely changed after all these years. His body was an immense, corpulent mass that spilled sloppily over his once-plush wing chair, but his arm muscles still rippled with quiescent power, and his legs looked strong enough to launch the enormous body from its chair with ease. A huge, football-shaped head nestled in the folds of flesh atop his broad shoulders, and the salt-and-pepper hair was close-cropped except at the forehead, where a tall, gray plume jutted almost comically upward from the skull. Milky blue eyes peered quizzically at him from behind thick, circular lenses in gold wire-rimmed frames. His billowing, dingy overalls were obviously handmade.