“What’s the number?”
“It’s on speed dial.”
“Sorry. I’m a little rattled.” She thumbed a button. “Mom? If you’re there pick up.”
“Leave a message.”
“We’re on our way back. Andy wants you to please have Jason dressed and packed when we get there—”
“About five, maybe earlier.”
“He says around five. Maybe earlier. Sorry. He’ll explain. Love you.” She hung up.
“Call again. Call until she wakes up. Or Grandpa John does.”
“Let’s get un-lost first. Do you even know where we are?”
“Check the map.”
Jason looked ahead. He saw the high wall of Kensico Dam approaching, dark and oppressive as the gates of Mordor. No. No. He wanted to break this vision, to stop now before it went any further. But the dam grew larger and larger, and the road rose to meet it.
A sudden light lit the cab. Dianne had flipped open the vanity mirror on her sunshade and was consulting a road atlas. “You’ll have to keep going straight—along the reservoir—we can get to 685 from there.”
“Not back to the Turnpike?”
“There’s no place to turn.”
“What about this turn coming up? Over the dam?”
“Just listen to me—go straight. I know how to read a map.”
“Okay. Easy. I’m sorry. I love you.”
“Me too.” She turned off the light. His hand found hers and closed on it. The turn for Kensico Dam approached. They reached it… and passed it. What? What was going on? What was—
Something struck the car with the force of an earthquake. The wheels left the road. Dianne cried out. The roadmap flew over her shoulder, passing through Jason. The trees reeled and stars filled the windshield.
“What’s happening? What’s happening?” Dianne shouted.
“I don’t know!”
The car fell back, then forward, front wheels slamming the road and bouncing. A tree fell ahead, like an avalanche of autumn leaves blocking the way. Andrew put the car into reverse, staring over his shoulder, and Jason felt for a split second that his father saw him—could see his grown son watching the scene helplessly. It was only a flicker, as if someone had stepped on the man’s grave. They pulled away from the fallen tree but something seized the wheel, spun it, and the car twisted, speeding onto the dam road in reverse.
“What you doing?” shouted Dianne.
“It isn’t me.”
Jason understood what was happening. The ghosts were here, acting invisibly, lifting the car as they had lifted Kate’s Porsche at the stables… Which meant…
The Horseman’s Army.
Turn off the headlights, Jason shouted but they couldn’t hear.
The car barreled down the two-lane road, in reverse, gaining speed.
“Slow down!” Dianne cried.
Andrew pumped the brake with both feet. “I can’t! I can’t!” He jerked the parking brake and something screamed. As if lifted by the hand of a child, the car rose into the air. It landed on the retaining wall, teetering there. The engine flared, threw sparks and smoke, and died. The car sat precariously on the wall, its left and right wheels spinning on opposite sides of the ridge of stone. Everyone froze, trying not to breathe. Jason too.
“Dianne…” Andrew said, calmly. “I’m going to come across to you. Try to put all your weight on that side.” He rose but the car tipped towards the dark water beneath his window. They froze. The car settled. “All right. Honey, just get out.”
“No,” she whispered.
“I’ll be fine. Just get out. If the car goes over, I can swim.”
“No. No. No.”
“He needs you more than he needs me.”
Jason swallowed, tears coming. Andrew meant him. Their little boy needed a mother more than he needed a father. Jason sat frozen, unable to influence anything, unable to save either of them. Dianne reached for Andrew but the motion made the car tilt a little. She drew back, leaning against the passenger side. They couldn’t kiss. They couldn’t embrace.
“Go,” said Andrew.
Dianne shook her head. “Try to climb across again.” She opened the door and leaned out, trying to add weight to that side. Jason felt himself leaning too, adding his invisible weight, trying to help.
A hatchet embedded itself in Dianne’s shoulder. She screamed and slammed the door. The hatchet flew from the wound, smashing out the passenger window on its way back to its master’s hand. The car rocked. A headless figure moved on the road. The Horseman had come for them. Blood ran down Dianne’s chest. Andrew could not reach her without tipping the car.
She turned to face him, trembling. “What do we do?”
Andrew held his arms out to her. She nodded. “I love you,” she said. She threw herself into her husband’s embrace. The car tilted, fell, and—the moment slowed—Andrew’s hand closed on his wife’s bleeding shoulder. His Gift engaged with a flash of light, healing her, and they struck the water with a shatter of glass…
Jason cried out, hurling the boot away. It bounced on the wall, tipped—
“No…”
He reached for it but the boot fell over the edge and into the grey waters of the Kensico Reservoir, floating there, on the spot where they died. Jason climbed up onto the wall, ready to leap, to save the boot, to save his father and his mother and his childhood…
Kate and Joey seized him and pulled him back.
“Jason?” shouted Joey. “What’s wrong?”
Jason sank onto the asphalt, his legs giving way. “It was the Horseman. The Horseman killed my parents. He put a hatchet in my mother. I saw it. It wasn’t in the police report because—my dad had the same Gift as me. He healed her. And—remember the Porsche, Kate?” She nodded. “They picked up the car—that’s why there were no marks on the stone. I finally know how it happened—” The tears came now, he hugged himself, his shoulders jerking.
Joey scowled skeptically. “But, Jase, that was ten years ago! How could it have been the Horseman? The Treasure was still in the tomb.”
“Agathe. She made him strong that night.” He shook his head, trying to puzzle out the events. He wiped his nose. He knew he must look like a crybaby to Kate but he couldn’t help it. He rubbed his eyes. “The Horseman must have sensed them—my father, anyway—a Crane—when they drove down to New York to begin with. And when they drove back into his territory he was ready.” Jason took out the map. “We’re just inside his range. They—they almost got away.”
“Calm down,” said Kate.
“No. Don’t you get it? It was the same night Valerie was attacked. It’s why she was attacked. The Horseman wanted my parents, so Agathe bled Valerie into the river—to make him strong. The blood of a witch. It was enough to drag him out of hell with his whole army, at least for one night. And—” another connection fell into place. “Jennifer saw him that night. Jennifer at the Horseman Restaurant. She said he rode over the hills, headed east, fast as the devil late to church.” Jason was sobbing now. “And this was where he was riding to.”
“Shh,” said Joey, rubbing his back.
“He caught them on the road, dragged them here, and killed them.” Jason rose and hung over the wall, searching for the boot. It was gone. It had sunk into the grey water and had disappeared. Kate and Joey put their arms around him. “But why?” Jason asked, looking into their helpless faces, his voice young and desolate. “Why the hell is the Horseman killing Cranes? What did we ever do to him?”
Neither of his friends had any answers. They held him as he stared at the grey water under an overcast sky, wondering if he was next, wondering how that night’s Nightmares would end. Would he die as his parents did?
Or, once again, be beheaded at the broken bridge…?
CHAPTER FIFTY-FIVE
“Movie Night”
Buddy Rittermeyer’s dad was too old for his outfit. He wore a backwards baseball cap, jeans, and ripped Reeboks. His baseball shirt stretched over hi
s belly and rode up to his navel. “Hello, young vun,” he said in a ridiculous vampire accent. “Vat ghoulish tale of horror shall ve explore tonight?” He held up a handful of Blu-Ray discs. “Shall ve watch ze Creepshow? Ze Nightmare on Elm Street? Child of the Night, giff me your answer!”
“Which one would Mom kill us for watching?” said Buddy.
Dad grinned and his eyes grew wide. “Vich do you think, Child of the Jackal?”
“The Omen!”
“And ve might have time for Omen II if ve hurry. She’ll be home by eleven.”
“I’ll be back.” Buddy ran to his room. He stripped down to his Yoda underwear and fished in the closet. Two minutes later, he snuck back into the living room wearing his skeleton costume from last Halloween. He crept up behind his dad, who was queuing the movie, but David Rittermeyer was too clever for that. He spun around at the last moment and bared fang teeth torn from paper plates, drawing a yip of surprise and a cry of “No fair!”
Daddy removed his fangs. “You’re going to wear that costume out. Save it for Halloween.”
“Halloween’s forever from now. I want to go to the Horseman’s Hollow again. Did you buy our tickets yet?”
“Give me a chance.” Daddy thumbed the remote control and the movie began. “Tickets don’t go on sale until September.”
“And the cemetery tour.”
“I’ll go with you this year.”
“Last year was awesome!”
“You didn’t sleep for a week.”
“They had the best Headless Horseman,” Buddy said. “He jumped off the top of the tombs, like, ka-boom and it was so cool. He—”
“Children of the Night! Shut up!” Daddy said, laughing. “Movie!”
Buddy dumped his father’s portion of popcorn into a bowl, preferring to eat out of the bag. He hated paprika. Daddy kicked off his Reeboks, plopped his smelly gym socks on the coffee table—another thing that Mom would hate—and killed the lights. The scary intro music began. The screen showed the silhouette of a boy, about Buddy’s age. His shadow was a long creepy cross. The Antichrist, the Son of the Devil. Born of a jackal on a night of astrological portent, destined to bring about the End Times and the Final Battle of Good versus Evil.
Buddy sipped Sunkist and scooted up next to his dad. As the movie got scarier, he slipped an arm through his father’s and cupped his big bicep. Buddy could feel his father’s pulse. Dads get scared too. They flinched together, shouted together, pointed at the screen and covered their faces together. Buddy pressed his eyes to daddy’s shoulder just before the onscreen maid shouted, “It’s all for you, Damien!” and dove from the roof, hanging herself. Buddy knew which parts he was old enough to watch and which parts he wasn’t. He trusted his dad to let him know when to look again. Occasionally his dad tricked him into peeking too soon. But that was part of the fun. They kicked their feet at the screen and shouted, “Look up! Look up! Oh, idiot, don’t get yourself killed!”
At the climax, the hero of the movie, Mr. Thorn, discovered a birthmark of three sixes on his son’s head and dragged the little Antichrist to the altar of the church, determined to spear his son with holy daggers and end evil forever. After it was over, the Rittermeyer men sat silently through the credits. David put an arm around his son and ran his fingers through Buddy’s hair. He wasn’t searching for devil marks. He knew there weren’t any. And Buddy was certain there were no daggers in his father’s hand, either. Those things were just make-believe. Real fathers and sons don’t do bad things to each other.
They were queuing up Omen II when the power went out.
“No!” Buddy whined. “Not on movie night.”
Daddy went to the window. “It’s the whole block. Sorry Damien. How about—hmm… scary blackout… go get the Ouija board out of the guestroom closet.”
“Cool.”
“And candles!”
Buddy found the Ouija board, hidden under old clothes. When he shut the sliding door again, the sight of a monster startled him and he let out an involuntary “Ha!” sound. It was his own skeleton-bodied reflection in the mirrored closet door. He stared at it. He liked the effect of moonlight on his cheeks—spectral, haunted, his eyes big and white. He clacked his teeth at himself, picturing his own grinning skull under his child’s flesh, and gave an evil laugh.
He was answered by a scream. A woman’s scream. High-pitched and far away. One of the neighbors? There were a lot of houses in Sleepy Hollow Manor, mostly belonging to old people in their forties and fifties. Buddy shrugged. Maybe somebody saw a mouse. Old people were chickens.
He hunted for the flashlight. It was supposed to be under the guestroom bed, in a shoebox. He lay on his belly and fished his arm around in that black lair of under-the-bed monsters. Monsters weren’t real, of course. If they were, Buddy would’ve asked them to take him away to Transylvania a long time ago. Well, as long as his mom and dad could go along, though Mom wouldn’t enjoy it.
Another scream split the air. Closer. Buddy jumped and hit his head on the bed frame. What was going on out there? He went to the window and saw nothing but moonlight scribbling on the water of Fremont Pond.
“Hey,” said his dad, sticking his head in the door. His voice wasn’t casual, though. No vampire accent now. This was his Dad voice, his serious I’m-the-adult voice. “Hey, Buddy. I need you to stay in here. You got it?”
Something exciting was going on. “What?”
“Stay in the house. I think one of the Fieldings is in trouble and I need to check it out.” He handed Buddy his cell phone. “I called the cops. If they call back, tell them I’m checking out the Fielding place and—”
A shadow swept across the walls. Something had passed the window. Daddy gave a silent stay-there gesture and left. Buddy checked but nothing was outside. What was up? Why was he always left out of these things? Maybe there was a raccoon or something. Or some drunk. They’d had a drunk one night, an old guy peeing in the pond. Buddy’s dad had been totally ready to shoot the guy saying, “You better vamoose.”
Buddy dropped the Ouija board into a patch of moonlight and sat with it. “What’s going on?” he whispered, his fingers on the heart-shaped wood planchette. He waited for the dearly departed to clue him in but nothing moved his fingers, not even to spell “boo.”
Bang!
Was that a gunshot?
“Get the hell out of here!” Buddy’s dad shouted.
Buddy leapt to his feet. He almost yelled “Dad?” but if someone was in the house… He opened the door and looked out. Down the black hallway he could see a smudge of light that was the kitchen window. His father stood there, struggling with a… A cord had wrapped itself around his neck. It was strangling him, all by itself. Buddy ran forward to help but saw a monstrous black shadow. He froze and flattened himself against the wall. Buddy’s dad lurched out of view. Something black shot across the refrigerator door. Something black in rivulets. Blood splatter. Not fake, though.
No. Daddy. No. Not fake. Oh. Blood. But—but—
The shadow moved again, growing larger. Buddy whirled away, running into the guest bedroom, opening the closet, hiding among the winter coats and tablecloths on hangers and old board games. He left the tiniest crack to look through. All he could see was the Ouija board on the floor, a sliver of black-and-grey bedspread, and the dresser mirror on the far side of the room.
It’s not real. It’s not. No, it’s a trick. Daddy’s playing a trick. Like the paper plate fangs. That’s all. A trick.
He knew it was no trick. His father was dead.
Daddy’s dead. Daddy’s dead… Oh. No. Shut up. No.
Buddy felt made of wood, like a statue in church, his eyes painted on, staring and staring as the centuries crept by. He was going numb, his heart like the little planchette of the Ouija board. A heart of wood with a hole in it, as if it had been staked. As if it—
Footsteps approached. Heavy, deliberate.
Buddy felt his bladder let loose a little and he flushed with shame.
The bedroom door sighed open, barely brushing the top of the carpet. Something was inside the room. Something black and wrong and evil. The Devil. A minion of hell. Something born of the jackal. It was… calling to Buddy, searching him out. He saw a reflection of its reflection in the mirror across the room, reflecting the mirror of the closet door, repeated as if a thousand monsters stood in an endless corridor—
It was the form of a man… but he had no head…
Don’t let him find me.
Motion caught Buddy’s eye. The wooden-heart planchette of the Ouija board shivered and began to rotate, its arrow pointing… to the closet. To Buddy. Like an accusing finger. In there, Master. The boy’s in there.
Buddy held his breath.
Don’t let him find me.
Don’t let him find me.
Don’t let him find me.
Don’t let him find me.
With a flash of violent motion, the figure swept from the room. The steps receded. The front door banged open.
Buddy stood in the dark for a long time, a trickle of pee skittering down his leg. He emerged.
“Dad?”
He kicked aside the Ouija board and ran down the hall, into the kitchen. The lights wouldn’t work. The black blood on the refrigerator ran like icicles. No, like tears. A curve of blood made a trail out of the room, like a black rainbow with something horrible waiting at the end…
A foot in a gym sock protruded from behind the living room sofa.
“Daddy?”
Buddy knelt at his father’s side, too terrified for hysteria. His father’s face—wasn’t there. The baseball cap lay nearby. But there was no head in it. Where was… where was Daddy’s head? Blood soaked into Buddy’s costume, hot against his knees. Like the piss. And the tears.
“Help!” Buddy shouted.
He ran out the front door and into the street. Chaos greeted him. Windows were blowing out. Garbage cans rattled past. A station wagon sped by, the woman inside screaming hysterically. A dog barked in the Adams’ house next door.
Hands seized Buddy and lifted him. “I’ve got you, kid!” It was Vince Newland from across the road. Purple-faced Vince who would never amount to anything.
Sleepy Hollow: Bridge of Bones Page 48