She sighed. “Their attitude doesn’t surprise me. I should be used to it by now. All right. What you’ve described, Jerry, is classic depression.”
“I took enough courses to recognize that, Maryruth. But why is what bothers me. And what about Van’s behavior? I’ll admit, I’ve never witnessed anything to match it. Wait a minute. I’ve got an idea.”
He put his phone on speaker so Maryruth could listen; then he dialed the West home and asked to speak with Gayl.
“Going to take Van’s offer?” Maryruth asked with a smile.
Jerry’s expression was pained. “Very funny, Doctor Benning. Amusing. Gayl? Hi, this is Doctor Baldwin. Look, I’m doing a follow-up on ... some work and I need to ask you a few questions. This is just between us, O.K.?”
“Sure, Doctor Baldwin. Am I in some kind of trouble, or something?”
Jerry laughed to reassure the girl. “Oh, no, Gayl. Nothing like that. What can you tell me about some mysterious light in this part of the county? It’s out near some railroad tracks.”
Several seconds of silence. “Nothing, Doctor Baldwin,” Gayl finally said. “I never heard of any light.”
DON’T PUSH IT! Maryruth quickly wrote on a notepad and showed it to Jerry.
He nodded. “All right, Gayl. I was just curious, that’s all. Thanks for your help.”
“Sure, Doctor,” Gayl said, her voice very light and breezy, no hidden secrets contained therein. “Sorry I couldn’t be of more help.”
She broke the connection.
“The plot thickens,” Jerry said. “Maryruth, what in the hell is going on around here?”
“I will admit, it’s capturing my attention,” she replied. “Some sort of game the kids have going on?”
“I don’t think so. No. I’d bet that’s not it. It’s Maryruth, I experienced a feeling of something sinister a few moments ago. Laugh if you wish, but the sensation was a little too real to be comfortable.”
“I’m not laughing, am I? You said Van told you he and Gayl went out to see this light last Saturday night, right?” Maryruth asked.
“Sat right there in that chair and told me so. Said all the kids go out there to see it. His very words.”
“Interesting. Now the problem lies in finding out why she would lie about it.”
“If she is lying,” Jerry said. “And something tells me she isn’t.”
“Now that is even more interesting,” Maryruth said, arching an eyebrow. “Care to elaborate on that statement?”
“I don’t believe she has any memory of ever seeing the light.”
“I’m a psychologist, Jerry, not a mindreader. What are getting at?”
Jerry looked at Maryruth and felt something stir within him. It was as if he were seeing her, really seeing her, for the first time. Maryruth was a petite woman, not over five two, with midnight black hair and deep blue eyes, a heart-shaped face, full lips. Kissable, the thought came to Jerry. A superb figure. He suddenly wondered what she would look like naked?
Maryruth was also entertaining some interesting thoughts about Jerry Baldwin – just as sexual.
“Where am I going with this?” Jerry asked.
She shrugged.
“Over my head, I think,” he admitted.
4
Heather and Marc asked their parents for permission to ride out to the dig site. After a couple of phone calls to determine just where the site was and whether or not the area was dangerous, the parents agreed. Heather and Marc packed sandwiches and bottles of water, mounted their ten-speeds, and hit the blacktop leading to the historic site. The road was new, and that made for easy pedaling and good time. When they rolled into the archaeological site, it was hot and quiet and deserted. Both young people felt something alien about the place. But neither could, at that time, put the sensation into words.
A word would come to them soon enough, and it would be terror.
The dig site was not what either of them had expected.
“I thought there would be a lot of people out here,” Marc said, disappointment in his voice.
“Yeah, me too. But it looks like we have it all to ourselves.”
“I’ll bet there’s a guard snooping around someplace,” Marc said.
“That would seem logical,” Heather said.
But there was no one else at the site.
“We’re all alone,” Marc said. He looked at Heather.
“Don’t get icky,” she warned.
Confusion sprang into his eyes, his face. “What are you talking about, Heather?”
“Skip it, Marc.” Is he retarded? “This place is spooky,” she said, changing the subject.
“Come on,” Marc said. “Let’s explore some.” He leaned his bike against the trunk of a huge oak tree. Then, almost as an afterthought, he pushed the bike into the thick foliage, concealing it. Heather looked at him strangely, but remained silent. She too hid her bike beside his.
As the young people walked toward the dig site, Heather said, “I could have sworn there was a breeze blowing on the way out here.”
“There was,” Marc replied, looking around the deserted site.
“Then what happened to it?”
“Maybe it doesn’t blow here,” Marc replied mysteriously.
“That’s stupid, Marc. What in the world would prevent it?”
“Maybe it isn’t of this world,” Marc said with a grin.
He lost his grin as a sudden chill touched both of them.
“Would you explain that statement?” Maryruth asked.
“Over my head, you mean?”
She nodded.
“I don’t know that I can, Maryruth. It’s . . . just a feeling I have, that’s all. I know, I know – that isn’t being very professional. But . . . I told you, for a moment while I was talking with Van, I experienced a ... a horrible sensation. Do you remember seeing sci-fi and horror movies as a kid?”
She nodded, wondering where Jerry was going with this.
“Remember how you would get . . . well, almost a mindless sensation of terror? You’d be afraid of walking home in the dark and end up running. There was something waiting to grab you behind every bush.”
Again, she nodded. “A feeling of not being able to cope, not being able to retain control. Yes. I remember quite well. It’s a horrible feeling.”
“Well, all right. That’s the same feeling I got for a moment with Van.”
Maryruth looked at Jerry for a moment. “Before I give you the name of a good psychiatrist and suggest you see that person for treatment, Jerry, what in the hell are you getting at?”
Jerry laughed and then proceeded to describe the highlights of his morning: the screaming fight with Lisa; the two young kids, Marc and Heather; and of his thinking of an ‘aura’ as he looked at them.
“You think those two kids are somehow tied in with what has – is – happening?”
“I don’t know. Nothing would surprise me now.” He was silent for a moment, then added, “Maybe I do need to see a shrink.”
“What you need, I’m thinking, is some time away from this office and your . . . domestic problems. Have you had lunch?”
He shook his head. “No. And I just realized I’m hungry.”
She stood up and Jerry realized then she was, as the saying goes, ‘built to last.’
Maryruth said, “Come on. If you don’t mind starting a lot of gossip, and believe me, in a small town there certainly will be some gossip, come on over to my house. I’ll fix some lunch and we can talk. Maybe out of this office we can both look at what happened today in a different light – put things in perspective.”
Jerry smiled and closed the open folder on his desk. “Maryruth, that’s the best offer I’ve had all day.”
“I hate to say this, Marc,” Heather said. “But this is not at all what I was expecting to see.”
They stood gazing through a chain-link fence, looking at a huge hole in the ground. It looked as though giant termites with degrees in architecture had been ha
rd at work. A large canvas, big as a circus tent, covered the entire site of the actual dig, shading it, casting a gloomy appearance over it.
“Well, it’s kinda what I expected. I’ve got a lot of Dad’s old books on the subject, and this is the way it almost always looks. It’s really picky work.”
“I know that much, Marc. Come on. Let’s walk all the way around the fence.”
They encountered no one on their journey around the square hole.
“Now let’s see if the gate is locked,” Heather said.
“I’m sure it is.”
But it wasn’t.
The gate wasn’t even latched. Heather pushed it, and squeaking protestingly, it opened on its rusty hinges.
She stepped inside the enclosure.
“Uh ... Heather?”
“Oh, come on, Marc. Look around you. You don’t see any No Trespassing sign, do you?”
He looked around, hoping he would see one. “Uh, no, I don’t.”
“That what harm are we doing?”
Marc thought some adults might consider what they were doing wrong – but he kept this to himself. He didn’t want to appear chicken in Heather’s eyes. He followed her in. Under the canvas, it was even hotter—and spookier. Marc didn’t say anything about that, either. He didn’t have to. Heather did.
“Strange in here,” she said.
“Yeah,” Marc agreed.
“When’s Prom Night?” Heather asked with a grin.
They had watched that movie, one night when their parents had gone out. They had gasped and feigned great fright and nausea at the gore.
“Friday the Thirteenth,” Marc countered with another movie title.
A shadow slipped across the sun, turning the site dark for a moment. Marc turned around in response to a slight noise behind him, and Heather heard his sharp intake of breath.
She looked around and began screaming.
“Catalina, French, or vinegar and oil?” Maryruth asked.
“How about Russian?” Jerry grinned.
“Damn Bolshevik!” Maryruth said, returning his smile. “But I do think I have some Russian dressing ... somewhere in the fridge.”
Over homemade soup and a fresh, crisp salad, the two doctors discussed anew the events of the day.
“Probably I was overreacting,” Jerry said. “You see scenes like that occasionally. I never have.”
“No,” Maryruth said slowly. “I have never seen anything like what I witnessed today. What language was Van speaking?”
“I don’t know. I have never heard anything quite like it. I detect some hesitation in your voice. Care to elaborate?”
“Maybe Van is lying. Given that any thought?”
“No. Because what would the boy have to gain by lying?”
“That, I can’t answer, Jerry. I have to reject attention, because as a star athlete and a very popular student, he certainly receives enough of that – perhaps too much, in my opinion. And don’t get me started on peer pressure on kids these days.”
“I know, Maryruth. I see it too. And I agree with you.”
“I know Van’s parents. They’re good, stable people. And Van is basically – despite what we saw in your office today – a good boy.”
Jerry picked at what was left of his salad. Conversation lagged at the table. He finally said, without looking at her, “Heard from Steve?”
He heard her intake of breath. He lifted his eyes, met hers. “That . . . bastard!” she said.
“I see you finally wised up,” Jerry said.
“Didn’t take me long, Jerry. But it still hurts to admit what a fool I was.”
“Want to talk about it?”
“Not that much to talk about. The divorce was final last month. He got one of those one-day jobs in Chicago. I didn’t fight it; just wanted it over with.”
“I see.”
Her smile was not bitter. She had realized the marriage was a disaster from the outset. “Ever notice that a child psychologist’s kids are usually the worst-behaved kids on the block?”
“Physician, heal-thyself time, huh? Well, I can certainly relate to that.”
“How much longer do you give your marriage, Jerry?”
“It’s over. Ten years down the tube. I . . . suppose I should feel something; a sense of loss, perhaps. But all I feel is relief. Is that normal?”
“Normal is relative to the situation. In your case, yes, I would think relief would be normal. Lisa just has to be the least-liked woman in this town. You two are so different. You’re so laid back and she’s so uptight about everything. Opposites attract in your case?”
“In a manner of speaking. The bottom line is we were both rebounding. Not many people know this, but I was married and divorced before I met Lisa. I was fighting in St. Louis and—”
“Fighting?”
Jerry chuckled. “I was a prizefighter, Maryruth. Worked two and a half years as a professional between college and med school. Twenty-five bouts; won all twenty-five. Twenty-four by knockouts. My jaw was broken the last time out. I still won the fight, but by that time I’d saved enough money to support a wife and still continue my education.”
“Well now,” she smiled, cocking her head to one side and looking at him. “Yes. I can see where your nose has been broken.”
“Several times. Anyway, Julie – to her credit – stuck by me through med school and residency. But when I told her I was going into the military for three years, she really hit the ceiling. She calmed down finally. But when I turned down a pretty cushy job out at a base in California and chose to go through jump school and Ranger training, she called me a damn fool and left. I went to ’Nam. Served fourteen months. Got out in seventy-two. Julie came to see me and conned me into taking her back. That lasted just about six months. I was working at Cook County General. I came back to the apartment one evening and found she had stripped the place bare. She’d cleaned out the bank account and taken off for parts unknown. Lisa was a nurse at Cook County. She was just coming off a very bad relationship. We got together. That’s a thumbnail sketch of it all.”
“And now? . . .”
He shrugged. “Now I’m forty years old, two rotten marriages behind me, no kids, and Lisa is going to take me for a bundle. You can believe that.”
“Oh, I do. How long have you been seeing Janet?”
“Sexually, about two years.” His openness surprised Maryruth. “Lisa decided the way to keep me in check, so to speak, was to ration our time in bed. She really doesn’t like sex anyway. Take it from one who knows: that doesn’t work.”
“I can imagine. The more I hear about that woman the less I like her.”
“Oh, well,” Jerry said with a sigh. “Tell me, what do you know, if anything, about Heather Thomas and Marc Anderson?”
“Very little, really. They’re in the county’s gifted children program. Right at the top of it. They are both extremely intelligent. Their parents brought them to see me just after they came here. It was a good move on their part; more parents should do it. They wanted to see if the kids were experiencing any emotional problems due to the change in schools. I couldn’t detect any. Why do you ask?”
“Just curious. I can’t seem to shake the feeling I first experienced when seeing them.”
“Well, they are special kids, Jerry.”
Heather’s screaming shook Marc and momentarily deafened him. When they’d both recovered from their initial fright, Marc stepped closer to the ugly thing hanging from the chain-link fence.
“It’s some sort of old mask,” he said.
“Where did it come from?” Heather asked, holding onto Marc’s arm.
“What do you mean?”
“Marc, that was not here a minute ago.”
“Oh, come on, Heather!”
“No, you come on, Marc. We all walked all the way around this place. Don’t you think one of us would have seen something that ugly hanging from the fence?”
“Yeah . . . I guess so. Then somebody is hiding aroun
d here. Somebody is trying to scare us.”
“Well, somebody sure did.” Heather took a deep breath. “Hey!” she shouted, her voice carrying shrilly around the dig site. “Who are you and what do you want?”
There was no reply – only the silence of the dig site. No birds sang, the wind did not blow. Hot stillness greeted them.
Marc peered down into the darkness of the chambered pit. “Maybe somebody’s down there,” he said, pointing. “Hiding.”
Heather did not reply. She was too intent on studying the mask.
The wooden, ornately feathered mask was about two and a half feet in length. Its nose was crooked. Its open, painted mouth was cruel, as were its red eyes. The eyes seemed almost real.
“It’s . . . ugly,” Marc said.
“It’s evil,” Heather countered. She backed up a few feet and stepped to one side. The shadows created by the canvas above them almost completely hid the shape of the mask. It seemed to blend into the murkiness.
Marc experienced a vast sense of relief. “Now we know why we didn’t see it before.”
“Yeah,” the girl said. “Maybe.” But she wasn’t entirely convinced. She looked more closely at the mask. It was even more hideous up close. The hair appeared to be real. She wondered where it came from. Its face was long and narrow, with a wide mouth. Its fanglike teeth were widely spaced and long – needle-pointed, both top and bottom, and its eyes were huge and red, with tiny black dots for pupils. They were the cruelest eyes Heather had ever seen.
She shook her head and stepped away from the thing. She backed into Marc and both of them jumped in fright.
“Heather,” Marc gave way to his emotions, not caring whether she thought him chicken, or not. “Let’s get out of here.”
She led the way.
Had either of the young people turned around, they would have seen the eyes come to life, shifting, following them. The mouth of the mask curved ever so slightly, exposing jagged shark’s teeth. Moisture formed on the lips of the mask and dripped down, plopping into the dust of the earth. Red moisture. Blood.
Sweet Dreams Page 4