Nothing but the Night

by Bill Pronzini

  He pushed up onto his knees. Got one foot down on the floor and prepared for the effort it would take to stand.

  Noises in the hallway below.

  Footsteps, heavy and uneven. And then something thudding onto the floor or against the wall near the attic door.

  “Gallagher! You hear me up there?”

  Cam dropped to all fours again, crawled sideways to the top of the stairs.

  Hendryx’s shout was louder this time: “I’m going to open the door. Your sister’s down here with me. I see or hear you on the stairs, I’ll put a bullet in her head.”

  Caitlin!

  “You hear me, Gallagher? Yell out so I know.”

  His voice box might have been rusted shut; it took three tries to produce more than a creaky whisper. Then, with his head pushed into the stairwell and his pulse hammering, he managed, “I hear you. Don’t hurt her.”

  “Not if you stay put.”

  Three, four, five seconds. And Cam heard the scraping and banging of the two-by-four being lifted from the brackets. A key scratched in the lock. He jerked his head back as the door swung outward and light framed the opening below. Thin, filtered daylight that didn’t penetrate the shadows within, couldn’t possibly reach up to where he was crouched.

  Tensely, blinking, he watched Hendryx move across the gray rectangle, out of sight again. Sounds. And Hendryx reappeared, carrying an inert shape in his arms. He stepped through the doorway, laid the shape at the foot of the stairs—slowly, almost gently. When he straightened and retreated, he turned his body, so that the last thing Cam saw was the stubby phallic barrel of the gun.

  Another shout from behind the door: “Stay where you are until I’m gone. Then you can come down and get her.”

  The door slammed shut.

  Cam listened again to the key in the lock, the bar dropping into place. Instead of retreating footsteps, Hendryx’s voice came once more, thick and muffled.

  “She didn’t give me any choice. You hear me, Gallagher? I don’t want to punish her, but she didn’t give me any choice. You tell her that. She’s the one to blame, not me.”

  A little silence. And then the footsteps, going away.

  As soon as they faded, Cam was on the stairs, sliding down the risers on his buttocks because he was afraid of falling if he tried to descend standing up. He could hear the uneven rasp of Caitlin’s breathing before he reached her. When his hands found the rough cloth of her coat, she made a throat sound, half moan and half retch. He wrapped his arms around her thin body, lifted her, maneuvered both of them until they were sitting huddled on one of the lower steps. Held her, whispering protective words that brought a flash of childhood memory, big brother and little sister on a long-ago stormy night when the power had suddenly failed: “It’s all right, Cat, don’t be afraid. It’s all right.”

  Terror and confusion had her when she first came to. She struggled in his grasp, crying out. He kept talking to her until the familiar sound of his voice penetrated; she sagged against him for a moment, then pulled away abruptly and scooted over against the wall.

  “It’s so dark,” she said thickly. “Where are we?”

  “Attic stairwell.”

  “Locked in?”

  “Yes. Cat, what’re you doing here? Did he bring you?”

  “No. Drove up myself.”

  “Why?”

  “Hallie called, said you were missing—”

  “The police? Do they know you came here?”

  “No. I left right away … didn’t really believe you’d be here, even after what Hallie said, but she was so upset…. Roads are flooded, they almost didn’t let me through….”

  “You sound woozy. What did he do to you?”

  “Hit me, my cheekbone—” She broke off and he heard the sudden sharp intake of her breath. “Oh God, Cameron! The back porch, the freezer—”

  “What about it?”

  “A body; what’s left of a woman’s body! Jenna Bailey … he’s the one, he killed her….”

  Cam tasted sickness. “Jenna,” he said.

  “He … my God, my God, he’s a monster. …”

  Chills chased along Cam’s back. The freezer. Not a grave somewhere, here in the house. The whole time he’d been here last week, she was right there in the freezer. If he’d opened it then … if he’d just thought to look inside …

  “I believed in him, trusted him.” Caitlin’s voice was a whisper, heavy with loathing. “How could I have been so stupid!”

  “Don’t blame yourself.”

  “I should have listened to you, I should have—” A fit of coughing seized her, dry, painful sounds in the cold blackness. When it was over, she asked, “Why does he hate you so much? Why did he bring you here?”

  “He thinks I’m the one who ran down his wife.” He told her about the sketch. “He’s completely delusional. It doesn’t even look that much like me.”

  “First Jenna Bailey and then you and now me. He’s going to kill me, too.”

  “No, I’m the one he—”

  “He can’t let me go after what I saw. He … oh Christ, Cameron, we have to get out of here. One of the attic windows, we can climb out on the roof—”

  “He boarded them up.”

  “Another way, then. There has to be some way … we have to get out of here!”

  “We will,” he said. “We’ll find a way.”

  But it was another lie.

  Hendryx intended to kill both of them. And there was no way out.

  67

  Drive, drive, day ride, night ride. Needed to do that more than anything else right now, the car, the open road, tires whispering engine humming everything rushing past and him inside safe, secure, in control of his destiny, hours and hours hurtling through the daylight and the dark, going home to Annalisa. But he couldn’t drive, couldn’t go home yet, couldn’t even get out of this fucking house with the river rising, water inches deep on the road already, water everywhere he looked, it was like being trapped on an island in a swamp and the rain wouldn’t let up, just kept beating down beating down, and in here he could smell her in the freezer even with the windows open, why hadn’t he smelled her before, why hadn’t he taken her body somewhere and buried it instead of trusting that goddamn freezer, so what if somebody’d found the grave, it wasn’t his fault and they couldn’t tie her to him, what was he thinking that night, head up his butt, if he’d buried her he wouldn’t have the smell, he wouldn’t have Caitlin. Why’d she have to come here today, now he’d have to punish her too. What choice did he have, punish her along with Gallagher and he didn’t want to do that, poor Caitlin, he liked her, he really did, she wasn’t a bitch like the Bailey woman, she reminded him of Annalisa just wanting to be held, but now she was in his way making him change things all around, do things he didn’t want to do. And he couldn’t sit still, couldn’t drive, couldn’t do anything but walk walk walk, one room to another, upstairs downstairs, rain and cold blowing in through the open windows it was like an icebox in here, like a freezer no don’t think about that, why wouldn’t that dead woman smell go away? Walk with the cold in his bones, walk with the stink in his nose, he couldn’t stand two more days in here like this no three more days but what else could he do he couldn’t change the schedule and even if he could even if he executed Gallagher now Caitlin now he couldn’t get out couldn’t get the car couldn’t drive couldn’t go home couldn’t see Annalisa until the rain quit flood quit all he could do was walk and it felt like the top of his head was coming off walk cold wet dead smell walk walk walk because he couldn’t drive drive drive—

  68

  Cam knelt alongside the rear window, one eye close to the gap between the boards, watching the river run wild below. Rain lay like crinkled cellophane wrap on the dirty glass, so that everything outside seemed shimmery, distorted—the low-hanging black clouds, the half-submerged trees along the banks, the drift and wreckage riding the churning brown flood. As much of the property as he could see was underwater; there was pro
bably water in the first-floor rooms by now. He could hear the sound of it out there, a constant thrumming rhythm, even with the rain drumming furious riffs above.

  It was late afternoon now; the already fading daylight told him that. And yet his time sense was so fouled by the oppressive darkness that it seemed as though he’d been trapped in the attic much longer than nineteen or twenty hours. Days, endless days. He had difficulty recalling when he’d last seen the sun, or bright warm light of any kind. The rain, the blackness, might have been inside him as well, so that if he looked into a mirror, into his own eyes, what he’d see would be a wet, gray, swampy place, a landscape as desolate as the one he was witness to outside.

  Caitlin stirred on the child’s mattress. “Cameron? What’re you doing?” Her voice was listless, a dissonance in the dark like the rain and flood sounds.

  “Watching for rescue boats.”

  “You might as well be jerking off.”

  He didn’t respond to that.

  “What’s the use?” she said. “Roads are all closed by now. By the time anyone finds us, it’ll be too late. We’ll be dead.”

  “Not if the storms let up soon enough.”

  “Nick will kill us before he’ll let us be rescued. You know he will.”

  “Don’t think that way, Cat. Don’t give up.”

  “Shit,” she said, “I already have.”

  He resisted an impulse to go to her, try to give her a little comfort. The one time he’d attempted that, after she discovered just how escape-proof the attic was, she had pulled violently away from him and huddled up on the mattress, claiming it for herself. She hadn’t said much since then. He wondered if she blamed him, at least partly, for what was happening to them, in the same way she’d always blamed him for Rose’s death. Probably. We’re still not brother and sister, he thought, we’re still a pair of old antagonists. The grim, terrifying intimacy of the trap they were in, instead of drawing them close, only intensified the rift and strain that had built up between them. Even the prospect of dying together couldn’t bring them close to each other again.

  She was right: What was the use in pretending there was hope when there wasn’t? Hendryx had removed anything Caitlin might have had in her possession that could be used on the screws, and the boards couldn’t be budged by hand; abrasions and splinters and a torn nail were all he’d gotten from that effort. The door below was an impregnable barrier. And the gun and his weakened state made the situation that much more hopeless.

  His fear was like the river outside, continuing to rise and slowly, steadily tearing down what was left of his defenses. He could almost smell it in himself, an oozing stench like the brown-slime odor of the flood. He couldn’t withstand it much longer. If it weren’t for Caitlin being here, he might already have been swept away.

  For another minute or so he watched the slanting rain, the turmoil of conflicting currents and weird boils and eddy lines in the main river channel, the soapy yellowish white foam that scudded along the ravaged banks, the debris weaving drunkenly across the range of his vision. Reluctant to exchange even such a scene of devastation for the suffocating blackness and more of Caitlin’s bitter silence.

  A sudden gust of wind seemed to rattle and shake the entire house. That, and a gathering cramp in his leg, finally drove him away from the gap. He managed to stand, flexed his leg until the cramp eased, then began to make his way around the walls in a humped-over, shuffling stride, his hands sliding over rough wood and through clinging strands of spider silk. When he reached the front dormer window, he made another futile try at loosening one of the boards with his hands. Moved on, kept moving, through two full circuits around the perimeter of their prison.

  Muffled sobbing sounds stopped him. He lowered to all fours again, crawled to the mattress. Caitlin was curled up on it tight as a shrimp. When he touched her face—wet, cold-hot—she jerked away as if from something obscene. He sat back on his haunches, helpless, his mind blank.

  A long time passed before the sobbing ended and she said, “I’m a baby. A goddamn baby.”

  “No. It’s all right.”

  “It’s not all right. I’m like you were the night Ma died—curled up on a fucking mattress, bawling my head off. Next thing I’ll be pissing in my pants.”

  Words, just words. They didn’t hurt him; words couldn’t hurt him anymore.

  Another long silence. Then, dully, “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean that. I don’t know why I said that.”

  “It’s all right,” he said again.

  “I understand what it must’ve been like for you. Jesus, Cammie, for the first time I really do.”

  Cammie. She hadn’t called him that since she was eight years old, probably didn’t even realize she’d used the name. He yearned to touch her, but he didn’t. He couldn’t stand to have her shrink away from him again.

  “I wish I had a cigarette,” she said. “I’d kill for a cigarette right now.” She coughed, laughed a little wildly, stifled another cough. “I don’t know how much more of this I can take,” she said.

  “You’ll be okay, Cat.”

  “Like hell I will. The dark … you know I’ve always hated the dark.”

  “I know.”

  “I think … I’m scared I’ll lose it. I mean really lose it, Cameron. You understand?”

  “Yes. Me, too. But it won’t happen.”

  She snuffled and started to cry again. Still he didn’t touch her—and then abruptly he did, a lowering of his hand to her shoulder that was almost like a spasm. This time she neither drew away nor cringed. Just lay there sobbing, her shoulder trembling under his hand.

  So thin, so small, not much bigger than either of his daughters. Leah, Shannon … images of them crossed his mind. An image of Hallie. He felt wrenching pain. Never see any of them again, die here with Caitlin because of a stupid crazy accidental resemblance to a face in a sketch….

  For a long time Hendryx had been on a rampage through the house, back and forth, up and down, running, banging into things, as if he were as out of control as the flood. Then the noises had stopped, and for a while now he’d been quiet. Where was he? What was he doing?

  Waiting, Cam thought. Same as we are.

  No, not the same. The difference is, Hendryx isn’t afraid—and Hendryx is already insane.

  69

  Nick woke up in bed. Still dressed, coat, shoes, everything on, buried under a pile of blankets that didn’t have any warmth in them. Freezing cold. He didn’t remember going to bed. Last thing he remembered was walking and walking because he couldn’t drive.

  His head still hurt. He felt funny, like some part of him wasn’t there anymore. He remembered Caitlin showing up, the freezer, all of that, but it seemed fuzzy and far off, things that’d happened long ago. This morning? Yesterday? Pitch dark outside the bedroom window, and the rain had stopped. He got up, went and looked out. Wind still blowing hard, water rippling and gleaming everywhere. Almost pretty in the night, trees dancing shadowy jigs all around. Magical. One of Annalisa’s words. He might’ve thought so, too, if she were here. But she wasn’t here. And Denver was a long way away. And he had to stay here in this house, this flood, until Friday.

  How far off was Friday?

  He looked at his watch, but it’d stopped. Forgot to wind it. Now he couldn’t tell what time it was. Not that it mattered too much. He’d know when it was Friday, all right. Better believe he’d know when it was time.

  Hunger pains in his gut as he turned away from the window. Long time since he’d had anything to eat. Checked his pockets, but he was out of M&Ms. Some left in the kitchen? Might be. Crackers and peanut butter, too. Thought of going below with that thing in the freezer bothered him, but he had to do it. You had to eat, you’d get sick if you didn’t. He wrapped one of the heavier blankets around himself and went downstairs.

  Water down there. Muddy goddamn swamp down there.

  Crept into the house while he was asleep. Foot deep now, brown and gleaming. Stank worse than what
was in the freezer, smell so thick in the damp air it made him choke. He cringed at the idea of wading through it. Knew what it’d feel like on his skin, wet and cold and stinking like something dead and full of rot, like the bimbo on the back porch. But he had to do it, didn’t he? Had to get some food so he wouldn’t get sick, didn’t he?

  He held his breath and stepped down into the brown crap. And it was bad, it swirled around his legs when he moved, clutching like dead hands trying to drag him down into it. He gagged and started to run. Splash, splash, splash into the kitchen, yank open cupboards, yank open the fridge, crackers, peanut butter, carton of milk, last two bags of M&Ms, and splash, splash, splash back to the stairs with the food clutched against his chest and all the while trying not to puke.

  Ran upstairs, ran into the bedroom. Dumped everything on the nightstand and stood there shaking, looking down at his legs. Brown shit all over his shoes and pant legs. He ran out to the bathroom, tore off his shoes and socks, shucked free of his pants, kicked it all into a corner. Washed the dead brown off his hands, his feet, washed and washed until his skin was raw and red and clean.

  Shaking like a leaf when he went back to the bedroom. Not hungry anymore—thought of food made him gag. Crawled into bed and piled the blankets on, covering his head, and lay there like a block of ice.

  Everything felt wrong now. Part of him missing, dead thing downstairs, Annalisa so far away, Friday so far away. Wasn’t supposed to be like this. Flood, bimbo, Caitlin, freezer, brown shit, even Gallagher—all of it was wrong. And he didn’t know how to make it right again.

  Too late to make it right again?

  70

  It’s the laughter that wakes him up.

  He knows right away what’s going on. Her and Fatso, downstairs in the spare bedroom. When did Fatso show up? He’s not supposed to be here. Didn’t Dad warn her she better not let Fatso come around here anymore?