by Edward Lee
"This is really starting to freak me out," Stanton said. "What the hell's going on in this town?"
One of the doodles was a bell with an asterisk star for a striker.
Chapter Fourteen
I
I'm not that much of a sucker, am I? Jane thought. She staved off despair deliberately, replacing it with something close to anger. She felt utterly naive. Steve had called her once, at about 6 pm., told her he had to work late, but he wanted to see her, could he come by around ten? Of course, she'd told him yes, her heart pattering.
She frowned again at the clock radio by the bed 1 a.m., it informed her in glowing red numerals. Five minutes later than the last time she'd looked.
She glanced at the phone too, about every five minutes, as though that would make it ring. She'd never felt sexier than now, in an aquamarine kimono-style nightie whose chiffon fabric was so sheer it left all but nothing to the imagination.
What a dope, she thought. Just go to bed. He's not coming.
The television was on, her attention everywhere but on it. The screen fluttered in the dark bedroom, throwing odd shapes of light on the walls.
Through the glum thoughts, she heard a TV host saying: "...shocking multiple murders that have recently stricken the quiet, crime-free town of Danelleton..."
Jane moaned, sprawled anxiously on the bed. Not this again. She leaned up. One breast had popped out of the sheer kimono top, but she didn't bother putting it back in. Why? She was feeling around the sheets for the remote when her eyes moved to the screen. Some tabloid show, and there was that guy again, that bearded man that Steve was talking about last night.
Dhevic, she recalled.
"... with us tonight is professor Alexander Dhevic, a leading authority in the subject of satanism in our age."
Jane looked on with distaste. How could things ever get back to normal if they kept dragging it up for the public in schlock shows like this?
Dhevic and the stilted host were talking at a long conference desk. "...and much more" Dhevic was saying in that edgy accent. "But the most-interesting aspect of the Danelleton murders, however tragic, are their similarities to a case that occurred in the same town, and at the same post office, twenty years ago..."
No surprise to her; Jane already knew the story, from Steve.
She looked at Dhevic's face closely. He didn't look like a charlatan. Where someone like Anton LeVay looked hokey and overstated, Dhevic looked studied, earnest. True, the show itself was hype, but Dhevic's eyes appeared serious, full of belief.
Then...
Of course it does, she caught herself. So did Uri Geller; that was all part of the act. These people aren't experts in anything-they're actors who make their living using that skill to cause people to believe their crap.
"If we might break a moment, to let me ask you something," the host said.
"Certainly."
"Just these rumors that you're psychic, professor, and that you've helped police departments find serial killers, and so on. That your ancestors were fortune tellers or what?-soothsayers for the Egyptian pharaohs." The host eyed some papers on the desk, searching for information. "Not soothsayers but-"
"Augurs," Dhevic corrected, not that Jane had ever heard the word. "And if you believe that, I've got a bridge to sell you!" The attempt at levity almost didn't come off, for the accent. "It is malarky, I've read the same articles you're referring to, and there's no truth to them, I assure you. My descendants are European, for goodness sake, as you can probably tell by the way I speak. I've never helped police, I'm not psychic, telekinetic, or able to communicate with the dead and such. Now, I'll admit, I can bend a spoon...with my hands."
The host seemed taken aback, but recovered. "I see. So actually, you're just-"
"An out-of-work college professor who happens to have an extensive background in history and a particular interest in the mythological history of the occult, ritualism, and demonology. My only credentials are my books."
He sounded credible to Jane, so credible she was bored. They began talking more about the Danelleton murders past and present, and the suspicions of cult involvement, when Jane turned the set off.
"I don't need to hear this again."
But in only moments she wished she'd left it on. The room's darkness and total silence now reminded her how alone she was. Damn him, she thought. And damn me for taking him seriously. I'd like to break a plank over his head. Jeez, I hope he has the balls to call me now, just so I can hang up on him.
She settled into bed, then lurched up almost shrieking, when the phone rang.
"Hi, sorry it's so late," Steve said. "It was a long day."
Jane didn't hang up on him. She faltered and said, "Oh."
"You're mad, I can tell. I'm sorry. You've probably been sitting up all night waiting for me to come by."
"I have not," she smugly assured him. "I fell asleep at ten."
"I miss you. Can I still come over?"
She faltered again. "Steve, do you know what time it is?"
"Yeah, I know. We were looking for Parkins all day and night. I am the chief of police, you know. I couldn't just bug off."
"No, but you could've called."
"I know, I'm sorry."
"Besides, if you're still at the station, it'd probably be one-thirty by the time you got here. We've both got to be at work early tomorrow."
"Yeah...I know. You go back to bed now. I'm sorry I woke you up. But I miss you." A hesitant pause. "Can I call you tomorrow?"
Suddenly, she felt alarmed. "Wait, no!"
"No-what?" He sounded crushed. "No, I can't call you tomorrow?"
"No, I mean-Come over. I'll wait up."
"Great. And I won't be long, either. Actually I won't be any time at all. I'm not at the station now."
"Where are you?"
"Standing at your front door. I'm on my cell phone."
Jane hung up and rushed to the door. So much for breaking a plank over his head. When she pulled the door open, she didn't say anything, she just pulled him inside and they began to kiss. He paused a moment, to look at her in the sheer kimono, but he didn't have much time. She was already getting out of it and alternately pulling his shirt. Jane was on fire and she could tell that he was too. There were no words, just desperate hands all over each other, just hot breaths being shared as they kissed. The kimono dragged along over the carpet, rung around her ankle, as they stumbled into the living room. Jane lay naked on her back, her hands outstretched; he fumbled out of the rest of his clothes, and then for the next half hour they were consumed with one another. They made love from one end of the living room to the other, oblivious to everything around them. At one point, Jane was lying back, her knees pressed to her face while his mouth laved her sex, and after the first climax a stray glance showed her that she hadn't even closed the front door... but she didn't care. The night's warm air rushed over them. The steady throbs of peepers and cricket sounds pulsed into the room. Later they both lay sprawled, carpet-burned and exhausted. "You wore me out again," Steve Whispered.
"Good," she whispered back. "I love to wear you out."
"Hey, guess what?"
"What?"
"The front door's wide open."
"I know. I don't care and, besides, I'm too exhausted to get up and close it."
"Me, too, but..." He struggled to get up. "We still haven't found Parkins, so I ordered a patrol car to drive by your house every half hour."
Jane laughed at the possibility. "He'll see the door open in the middle of the night, rush in here with his gun, and-"
"Yeah, and see his chief buck-naked on the floor. That's one story I don't want making the rounds in the locker room."
Her eyes were wide on him, wide on the toned muscles and lines of his lean body. He was shiny with sweat and so was she. She wanted to go again but knew it would be too much. She watched him close the door and put on the chain.
"I never would have thought it," she said.
"What's th
at?"
"That one day I'd have a naked cop walking around in my living room."
"Yeah, well I like walking around naked in your living room. That could be a problem."
"Why?"
"I'll get spoiled. Pretty soon-who knows? I'll be walking around naked in your living room all the time. You won't be able to get rid of me."
"You let me worry about that."
After he'd locked the door, he came back and offered his hand.
"Let me help you up. We should go to bed."
"No," she whispered and pulled him back down. She wrapped herself around him. "Let's sleep here tonight, right here on the floor."
He didn't object, and had fallen asleep at her bosom minutes later. She smiled and began to drift off herself...
Her eyes darted open, just at the fringes of sleep. Something moved at the very corner of her vision. Moonlight bathed the wall behind them. She craned her neck, careful not to wake Steve. She squinted and focused, and she saw ...
A line. A crooked line running from the baseboard across the floor, where its end disappeared into shadow. She blinked, dismissing it as merely some sleep-inspired mirage. She knew it wouldn't be there when she stopped blinking.
But it was.
What is that?
Then she heard a skittering. Rat, she thought at once. Please don't tell me I've got rats! But even if it was a rat, what would that have to do with the crooked line? The sound came from the wall, and rats don't leave slimy trails, do they?
More skittering, and she frowned, slipped out of Steve's sleeping embrace. He didn't wake up when she'd edged herself away. She stood perfectly still for a moment, stunned by the clarity of her silhouette projected by the flood of moonlight: a perfect razor-sharp black cutout against the wall, every hourglass line of her body, every contour. It could've been an erotic painting, but then the painting moved when she moved. She shook off the digression, then padded naked over to the line on the floor. What the hell is this line? She thought, bending over to look at it. Had Kevin drawn on the floor in crayon? No way, she felt sure. Kids were known to do things like that, especially when they were distressed, but...I would've seen it. There's no way I wouldn't have noticed this line if it had been there earlier. She was absolutely certain it wasn't. Then she bent over and touched the line.
It was wet.
Blood? No. She winced when she sniffed her finger. It smelled foul, like something rancid. The line could only be described as dark slime. She was going to close the window and turn on the light, but she heard the skittering again.
Her gaze jerked up, and she stared. Something about the size of a rat moved out of the shadow and back onto the lit part of the floor. It was crawling as an insect would, but it couldn't have been a palmetto bug; they simply didn't get that big. Neither did beetles. It skittered over closer to her, and then all the air went out of her chest when she realized what it was: a horned toad.
It...can't...be...
Her son's horned toad was dead. Jane was sure. She saw it. She buried it. Yet this thing on the floor was very much a horned toad and it was very much alive. It scrabbled closer, leaving the odd trail behind it. Don't be ridiculous, she thought. Of course, it was
a different horned toad, a wild one. Oh, I know. It suddenly dawned on her. Steve had bought Kevin the new horned toad, and it had simply gotten out of the terrarium. She slipped her kimono back on, paced quickly to Kevin's room, and looked at the small glass tank. She just needed to prove to herself that the new toad had escaped.
But the new toad was in the tank when she looked in.
All right, all right, this is silly, she told herself, padding back to the living room. Kevin's new toad hadn't escaped. So what? She was looking at the one on the floor again. It got in from the outside, she told herself. Big deal. But-
What was that line? That trail it left behind it as it moved across the floor?
She looked closer at the toad. It stank, like something rotten, just like that line of slime. She remembered what had happened to her son's toad: something had squashed it, to the extent that its innards had been disgorged. She leaned over even closer, cringing at the stench.
The horned toad on the floor was dragging its guts behind it, from its mouth. That was the cause of the slime.
"Steve! Look! Look!" she was saying next, heart pounding. She jostled him on the floor until he woke.
"Honey, what is it?"
"Look at the toad on the floor!"
He got up groggily. "Huh?"
Jane was pointing, frantic. When Steve looked at it, he said, "Jane, it's nothing to get upset about. It's just-"
"It's not the one you bought. It's the first one!"
"You said the first one died."
"It did! I buried it!"
Now he was laughing under his breath. "Then this one got into the house somehow. It's a wild one."
"No it's NOT! It's Kevin's first one, the one my husband got him." She pointed again, shaking. "Steve, its insides are hanging out of its mouth! The same thing that happened to Mel! That's the same toad."
Steve's shoulders slumped. "Then it’s one hell of a hardy toad, to be able to crawl out of its grave after being buried alive, come back in the house, and still be crawling around with its guts hanging out."
"That's impossible!"
Steve put his pants on, got a plastic cup from the kitchen, and scooted the toad into the cup. "Stinks like the dickens, Jesus ..." He kept a palm over the cup.
"Where are you going with it?" Jane asked.
"I'm gonna put it out in the yard. It's dying."
"No, you don't understand. It was dead a few days ago."
Steve paused to pinch the bridge of his nose. "Jane. You're telling me that you believe this toad...came back to life?"
"I...No, of course she wasn't. But what was she implying? All of a sudden she realized how ridiculous she must sound. He's going to think I'm a nut! "I just mean...well, I don't know what I mean. It's just really weird-the situation."
"It's late, you're tired. You probably had a bad dream and got disoriented, that's all. I don't want to just put it in the garbage, it's still alive. And-" Steve paused again when he lifted his hand and peeked into the cup.
"What?" Jane asked. "It got out."
"No. Er, I don't think so." He showed her the inside of the cup. The stench was worse now. It was steaming. The toad didn't appear to be in the cup anymore, replaced by a stinking black liquefaction, as if the creature had rotted down to muck in the minute or so it had been in the cup. It looked like a cup full of waste.
Steve didn't say anything. He went outside, down the driveway, and dropped the cup into the garbage. When he came back, they remained silent. He took her hand and they went to Jane's bed, their moonlight-forged shadows moving crisply across the wall and away.
Neither of them noticed the third, larger shadow that remained on the wall: tall, gaunt, long-limbed. The head of the ink-black silhouette seemed oddly angled, and horned. Then the silhouette spread as its host raised great ten-foot-long wings behind its back, and then it disappeared with a chuckle.
Chapter Fifteen
I
The high sun blazed over Jane's west branch post office, sitting in the middle of another perfect Florida day. Wild parrots cackled, not a cloud in the sky, hot but breezy. Customers came and went, careless and content. Everything was normal.
Jane felt anything but normal. Last night, Steve had spent the night, but they didn't make love again. It had been late, and the incident with the toad had knocked the rest of their time together off kilter. I don't know what I was thinking. What was I thinking? She simply felt bewildered, and sitting across from her was Sarah, who looked equally bewildered, but by something else.
"It's just so strange," Sarah said.
"Well, what you have to understand is that Martin is a very strange man. He's always been strange. Very antisocial, a loner. And now, obviously, a peeping tom," Jane observed.
"So where is
he? What happened to him? Nobody's seen him since yesterday morning when you gave him his notice, and he still hasn't come back to get his car. It's been in the lot all night."
"Steve thinks-"she began, but then corrected herself. She wasn't ready to let her employees know that she was involved with the chief of police. "The police think he left town. There's a warrant out for his arrest. It's probably all for the best."
"Sure, but what if he didn't? What if he's still around town, hiding somewhere? Aren't you afraid he might come back to your house, drunk and mad as hell?"
It was a consideration, but one she pushed away. Steve had stepped up patrols on her street, and every cop in town was looking for Martin. She wasn't going to let the prospect bother her. "I know, Sarah, it's a little scary, but you let me worry about Martin. He's a harmless pervert, I'm sure. Let's just both get back to work now."
"Okay. See you later." Sarah walked out of the office, leaving Jane to her thoughts. A few minutes later, one of the front clerks stepped in, Doreen Fletcher, a young, slender brunette in her early twenties, who'd just started a few months ago.
"Jane, sorry to bother you, but there's a man here to see you."
A man? It must've been Steve. "Thanks, Doreen. Just tell him to come in. He knows he doesn't have to knock."
Doreen went back in the hall. "Ms. Ryan's right in there, sir. Just go on in."
"Thank you," came the reply.
That voice, Jane thought. It's definitely not Steve. But she was certain she'd heard the voice before.
Then a tall, imposing figure entered the office, and when Jane took one look, she knew. Long dark hair with some streaks of gray, trimmed beard, a dark and tidy but rather out-of-date suit.
Alexander Dhevic, Jane thought.
"Ms. Ryan? Jane Ryan?" he asked. "I apologize if this is inconvenient, but it's essential that I speak with you. My name is-"
"Come in, Professor Dhevic," Jane said.
II