Koontz, Dean R. - Hideaway

by Hideaway(Lit)

  He needed a place to hide that was near her. Perhaps a secret corner in

  her own house. a niche in which she was unlikely to look during the

  long, bright, hostile hours of the day.

  He parked the Honda two blocks from their house and returned on foot

  along the tree-flanked sidewalk. The tall, green-patinated streetlamps

  had angled arms at the top that directed their light onto the roadway,

  and only a ghost of their glow reached past the sidewalk onto the front

  lawns of the silent houses. Confident that neighbors were still

  sleeping and unlikely to see him prowling through shadow-hung shrubbery

  around the perimeter of the house, he searched quietly for an unlocked

  door, an unlatched window. He had no luck until he came to the window

  on the back wall of the garage.

  Regina was awakened by a scraping noise, a dull thump and a sort of

  protracted squeak. Still unaccustomed to her new home, she always woke

  in confusion, not sure where she was, knowing only that she was not in

  her room at the orphanage. She fumbled for the bedside lamp, clicked it

  on, and squinted at the glare for a second before orienting herself and

  recognizing the noises that had bumped her out of sleep had been the

  sounds. They had stopped when she had snapped on the light. Which

  seemed even sn.

  She clicked the light off and listened in the darkness, which was now

  with aureoles of color because the lamp had worked like a flashbulb on

  her eyes, temporarily stealing her night vision. Though the sounds did

  not resume, she believed they had come from the backyard.

  Her bed wascomlbrtable. The room almost seemed to be scented with the

  perfume of the painted flowers. Encircled by those roses, she felt

  safer than she had ever felt before.

  Although she didn't want to get up, she was also aware that the

  Harrisons were having problems of some kind, and she wondered if these

  sneaky sounds in the middle of the night somehow might be related to

  that. Yesterday during the drive from school, as well as last night

  during dinner and after the movie, she had sensed a tension in them that

  they were trying to conceal from her. Even though she knew herself to

  be a p around whom anyone would have a right to feel nervous, she was

  sure that she was not the cause of their edginess.

  Before going to sleep, she had prayed that their troubles, if they had

  any, would prove to be minor and would be dealt with soon, and she had

  reminded God of her selfless pledge to eat beans of all varieties.

  If there was any possibility the sneaky noises were related to the

  Harrisons' uneasy state of mind, Regina supposed she had an obligation

  to check it out. She looked up and back at the above her bed, and

  sighed. You couldn't rely on Jesus and Mary for everything. They were

  busy people. They had a universe to run. God helped those who helped

  themselves.

  She slipped out from under the covers, stood, and made her way to the

  window, leaning against furniture and then the wall. She was not

  wearing her leg brace, and she needed the support.

  The window looked onto the small backyard behind the garage, the area

  from which the suspicious noises had seemed to come. Night-shadows from

  the house, trees, and shrubs were unrelieved by moonlight. The longer

  Regina stared, the less she could make out, as if the darkness were a

  sponge soaking up her ability to see. It became easy to believe that

  every impenetrable pocket of gloom was alive and watchful.

  The garage window had been unlocked but difficult to open. The hinges

  at the top were corroded, and the frame was paint-sealed to the jamb in

  places. Vassago made more noise than he intended, but he didn't think

  he had been loud enough to draw the attention of anyone in the house.

  Then just as the paint cracked and the hinges moved to granthimaccess, a

  light had appeared in another window on the second floor.

  He had backed away from the garage at once, even though the light went

  off again even as he moved. He had taken cover in a stand of six-foot

  eugenia bushes near the property fence.

  From there he saw her appear at the obsidian window, more visible to

  him, perhaps, than she would have been if she had left the lamp on. It

  was the girl he had seen in dreams a couple of times, most recently with

  Lindsey Harrison. They had faced each other across a levitated black

  rose with one drop of blood glistening on a velvet petal.

  Regina.

  He stared at her in disbelief, then with growing excitement. Earlier in

  the night, he had asked Steven Honell if the Harrisons had a daughter,

  but the author had told him that he knew only of a son who had died

  years ago.

  Separated from Vassago by nothing but the night air and one pane of

  glass, the girl seemed to float above him as if she were a vision. In

  reality she was, if anything, lovelier than she had been in his dreams.

  She was so exceptionally vital, so full of life, that he would not have

  been surprised if she could walk the night as confidently as he did,

  though fora reason different from his; she seemed to have within her all

  the light she needed to illuminate her path through any darkness.

  He drew back farther into the eugenias, convinced that she pose the

  power to see him as clearly as he saw her.

  A trellis covered the wall immediately below her window. A lush trumpet

  vine with purple flowers grew up the sturdy lattice to the windowsill,

  and then around one side almost to the eaves. She was like some

  princess locked in a tower, pining for a prince to climb up the vine and

  rescue her.

  The tower that served as her prison was life itself, and the prince for

  whom she waited was Death, and that from which she longed to be rescued

  was the curse of existence.

  Vassago said softly, "I am here for you," but he did not move from his

  hiding place.

  After a couple of minutes, she turned away from the window.

  vanished.

  A void lay behind the glass where she had stood.

  He ached for her return, one more brief look at her.

  Regina.

  He waited five minutes, then another five. But she did not come to the

  window again.

  At last, aware that dawn was closer than ever, he crept to the back of

  the garage once more. Because he had already freed it, the window swung

  out silently this time. The opening was tight, but he eeled through

  with only the softest scrape of clothes against wood.

  Lindsey dozed in half-hour and hour naps throughout the night, but her

  sleep was not restful. Each time she woke, she was sticky with

  perspiration, even though the house was cool. Beside her, Hatch issued

  murmured protests in his sleep.

  Toward dawn she heard noise in the hall and rose up from her pillows to

  listen. After a moment she identified the sound of the toilet flushing

  in the guest bathroom. Regina.

  She settled back on her pillows, oddly soothed by the fading sound of

  the toilet. It seemed like such a mundane-not to say ridiculous-thing

  from which to take solace. But a long time had passed witho
ut a child

  under her roof. It felt good and right to hear the girl engaged in

  ordinary domestic business; it made the night seem less hostile. In

  spite of their current problems, the promise of happiness might be more

  real than it had been in years.

  In bed again, Regina wondered why God had given people bowels and

  bladders. Was that really the best possible design, or was He a little

  bit of a comedian?

  She remembered getting up at three o'clock in the morning at the

  orphanage, needing to pee, encountering a nun on the way to the bathroom

  down the hall, and asking the good sister that very question.

  The nun, Sister Sarafina, had not been startled at all. Regina had been

  too young then to know how to startle a nun; that took years of games

  and practice. Sister Sarafina had responded without pause, suggesting

  that perhaps God wanted to give people a reason to get up in the middle

  of the night so they would have another opportunity to think of Him and

  be grateful for the life He had granted them. Regina had smiled and

  nodded, but she had figured Sister Sarafina was either too tired to

  think straight or a little dim-witted. God had too much class to want

  His children thinking about Him all the time while they were sitting on

  the pot. Satisfied from her visit to the bathroom, she snuggled down in

  the covers of her painted mahogany bed and tried to think of an

  explanation better than the one the nun had given her years ago. No

  more curious noises arose from the backyard, and even before the vague

  light of dawn touched the windowpanees, she was asleep again.

  Kigh, decorative windows were set in the big sectional doors, admitting

  just enough light from the streetlamps out front to reveal to Vassago,

  without his sunglasses, that only one car, a black Chevy, was parked in

  the threes garage. A quick inspection of that space did not reveal any

  hiding place where he might conceal himself from the Harrisons and be

  beyond the reach of sunlight until the next nightfall.

  Then he saw the cord dangling from the ceiling over one of the empty

  parking stalls. He slipped his hand through the loop and pulled

  downward gently, less gently, then less gently still, but always

  steadily and smoothly, until the trapdoor swung open. It was well oiled

  and soundless.

  When the door was all the way open, Vassago slowly unfolded the three

  sections of the wooden ladder that were fixed to the back of it. He

  took plenty of time, more concerned with silence than with speed.

  He climbed into the garage attic. No doubt there were vents in the

  eaves, but at the moment the place appeared to be sealed tight.

  With his sensitive eyes, he could see a finished floor, lots of

  cardboard boxes, and a few small items of furniture stored under

  dropcloths. No windows. Above him, the underside of rough roofing

  boards were visible between open rafters. At two points in the long

  rectangular chamber, light fixtures dangled from the peaked ceiling; he

  did not turn on either of them.

  Cautiously, quietly, as if he were an actor in a slow-motion film, he

  stretched out on his belly on the attic floor, reached down through the

  hole, and pulled up the folding ladder, section by section. Slowly,

  silently, he secured it to the back of the trapdoor. He eased the door

  into place again with no sound but the soft spang of the big spring that

  held it shut, closing himself off from the threes garage below.

  He pulled a few of the dropcloths off the furniture. They were

  relatively dust free. He folded them to make a nest among the boxes and

  then settled down to await the passage of the day.

  Regina. Lindsey. I am with you.

  1

  Lindsey drove Regina to school Way morning. When she got back to the

  house in Laguna Niguel, Hatch was at the kitchen table, cleaning and

  oiling the pair of Browning 9mm pistols that he had acquired for home

  security.

  He had purchased the guns five years ago, shortly after Jimmy's cancer

  had been diagnosed as termmal. He had professed a sudden concern about

  the crime rate, though it never had been-and was not then-particularly

  high in their part of Orange County. Lindsey had known, but had never

  said, that he was not afraid of burglars but of the disease that was

  stealing his son from him; and because he was helpless to fight off the

  cancer, he secretly longed for an enemy who could be dispatched with a

  pistol.

  The Brownings had never been used anywhere but on a firing range. He

  had insisted that Lindsey learn to shoot alongside But neither of them

  had even taken target practice in a year or two.

  "Do you really think that's wise?" she asked, indicating the pistols.

  He was tight-lipped. "Yes."

  "Maybe we should call the police."

  "We've already discussed why we can't."

  "Still, it might be worth a try."

  "They won't help us. Can't."

  She knew he was right. They had no proof that they were in danger.

  "Besides," be said, keeping his eyes on the pistol as he worked a

  tubular brush in and out of the barrel, "when I first started cleaning

  these, I turned Ion the TV to have some company. Morning news."

  The small set, on a pull-out swivel shelf in the end-most of the kitchen

  cabinets, was off now.

  Lindsey didn't ask him what had been on the news. She was afraid that

  she would be sorry to hear it-and was convinced that she already knew

  what he would tell her.

  Finally looking up from the pistol, Hatch said, "They found Steven

  Honell last night. Tied to the four corners of his bed and beaten to

  death with a fireplace poker."

  At first Lindsey was too shocked to move. Then she was too weak to

  continue standing. She pulled a chair out from the table and settled

  into it.

  For a while yesterday, she had hated Steven Honell as much as she had

  ever hated anyone in her life. More. Now she felt no animosity for him

  whatsoever. Just pity. He had been an ill man, concealing his

  insecurity from himself behind a pretense of contemptuous superiority.

  He had been petty and vicious, perhaps worse, but now he was dead; and

  death was too great a punishment for his faults.

  She folded her arms on the table and put her head down on them. She

  could not cry for Honeil, for she had liked nothing about him-except his

  talent. If the extinguishing of his talent was not enough to bring

  tears' it did at least cast a pall of despair over her.

  "Sooner or later," Hatch said, "the son of a bitch is going to come

  after us. Lindsey lifted her head even though it felt as if it weighed

  a thousand pounds. "But why?"

  "I don't know. Maybe we'll never know why, never understand it. But

  somehow he and I are linked, and eventually he'll come."

  "Let the cops handle him." she said, painfully aware that there was no

  help for them from the authorities but stubbornly unwilling to let go of

  "Cops can't find him." Hatch said grimly. "He's smoke."

  "He won't come," she said, willing it to be true.

  "Maybe not tomorrow. Maybe not next week or even nex
t month. But as

  sure as the sun rises every morning, he'll come. And we'll be ready for

  "Will we?" she wondered.

  "Very ready."

  "Remember what you said last night."

  He looked up from the pistol again and met her eyes. "What?"

  "That maybe he's not just an ordinary man, that he might have hitchhiked

  back with you from... somewhere else."

  "I thought you dismissed that theory."

  "I did. I can't believe it. But do you? Really?"

  Instead of answering, he resumed cleaning the Browning.

  She said, "If you believe it, even half believe it, put any credence in

  it at all-then what good is a gun?"

  He didn't reply.

  "How can bullets stop an evil spirit?" she pressed, feeling as if her

  memory of waking up and taking Regina to school was just part of a

  continuing dream, as if she was not caught in a real-life but in a

  nightmare. "How can something from beyond the grave be stopped with

  just a gun?"

  "It's all I have," he said. Like many doctors, Jonas Nyebern did not

  maintain office hours or perform surgery on Wednesday. However, he

  never spent the afternoon golfing, sailing, or playing cards at the

  country club. He used Wednesdays to catch up on paperwork, or to write

  research papers and case studies related to the Resuscitation Medicine

  Project at Orange County General.