by M Mayle
“But you don’t know for a fact the dog didn’t come back, do you?” Nate protests. “How do you know Anthony’s not somewhere in the house—attic would be my guess—laying in wait to terrorize his brother and Chris’s little girls?”
These doubts fall on deaf ears, making it futile to remark that if a dog known for its often relentless barking were anywhere near, it would have announced itself by now and, in all likelihood, drawn Anthony out of hiding.
Colin surges ahead, shining his flashlight in ever-widening arcs that barely penetrate the dense growth either side of the narrow path. Nate follows, skepticism increasing with each step forward. Jesus, does Colin really think the kid’s evading them rather than be caught in an act of defiance? Does he really believe the kid’s unafraid of this level of darkness? Apparently so, because Colin goes on calling his name and chanting promises of full forgiveness.
“Oh why not,” Nate grumbles under his breath and takes up the chant full voice, alternating with Colin as they focus their flashlights on the structures that hold such damnable appeal to young boys and small dogs.
They enter the partially open door of the barn, where Colin volunteers to search through the welter of derelict equipment warehoused there. “You suss out the oasts,” he says and resumes calling Anthony’s name in a placating tone.
Nate investigates the kilns in order of appeal, going first to the one containing remnants of the previous owner’s stalled conversion project. He boosts himself far enough up on the scaffolding there to determine that no little boys are hiding on the subfloor above. Satisfied that none are, he redirects the flashlight beam and jumps down with a grunt, glad to move on from an already eerie atmosphere made more so by skeletal shadows cast by the scaffolding.
On the pass-through to the neighboring oast, he sees Colin’s light bouncing off unidentifiable objects in the barn. “Anything?” Nate shouts without getting an answer.
No answers in the second oast either. It’s been stripped of everything but the dust of old dried hops. Even the drying platform has been removed and its remains hauled away, leaving nowhere at all to hide.
He necessarily reenters the barn in order to access the third oast and sees Colin’s light moving around on the other side of the building, over near the stairs. That has to mean he still hasn’t found anything to settle on, so Nate doesn’t bother asking for a progress report this time.
Inside the third oasthouse, Nate is immediately hit with a combination of smells that don’t belong here and the realization his is not the only light source. Drawn first to the glowing embers in the fire pit, he’s reluctant to believe he’s looking at a fire meant for cooking. But that’s what his nose is telling him to believe because the most identifiable of the smells that don’t belong here is that of roasting meat. Burning meat. What the fuck?
The next most identifiable odor is coming from the badly smoking kerosene lantern set atilt on the floor near the fire pit. It must be burning seriously stale fuel for it to smell so much like furniture polish.
He stoops down to kill the guttering flame, stops short when put in closer contact with a smell he can’t quite give name to until his flashlight beam picks out the source—a blood-soaked mat of some kind—a burlap bag like those piled on a nearby platform.
He ought to be used to this kind of thing by now—this stumbling onto massive blood spills, this needing to proceed with clenched teeth, steeled nerves, heart in throat, stomach in knots, because there’s no one else around to do it.
It’s his stomach that’s in his throat when he widens the field of illumination to reveal the unmistakable remains of Anthony Elliot’s little dog, Toby. Nate’s usual profanity fails him as he views the animal’s highly identifiable pelt, cast aside like an old garment, and it’s somewhat less identifiable carcass, half-raw, half-burnt, and spitted like something intended for the weekend barbecue.
“Just have a look at this shit!” Colin bellows, choosing the worst possible moment to burst onto the scene. “Something’s done away with Cyril! I’d know his fucking plumage anywhere.” Colin moves into the circle of light, where he releases a large handful of tail feathers at the site of an even worse outrage.
The dropped feathers settle onto the glowing embers of the fire. They ignite with a staggered series of flare-ups, releasing a sulfurous stench that intensifies the charnel house atmosphere, brings tears to eyes already blurred by unspeakable horror.
Colin sinks to his knees beside the remains of the Jack Russell terrier introduced by Rayce Vaughn as a Jack Daniels retriever when presented as a puppy to a five-year-old boy with no mother and no viable father.
“And to think I was havin’ a quick fuck with the wife whilst this was goin’ on,” Colin mutters after a long pause, shakes his head in disgust and scrambles to his feet. “With more to come,” he moans and moves to the far side of the fire pit where there’s a washtub Nate hasn’t noticed until now.
The elongated vessel is plenty large enough to accommodate a child. A man, even. “Jesus, Jesus, Jesus,” Nate says in advance of looking inside.
At first glance, his and Colin’s worst fears appear realized in the form of the article of clothing afloat in the water-filled tub. For a long agonizing moment neither can see past the youth-size Manchester united cap bobbing on the surface, or reach past it for whatever horror is not as buoyant.
The moment passes and they both grope for and seize onto an empty shirt. A cheap flannel shirt—an adult-size flannel shirt missing both sleeves and soiled beyond washing. Emboldened, Nate fishes deeper into the tub and comes up with a pair of jeans, also adult-size and heavily soiled. These he handles a little longer than he did the shirt. Long enough to read a faded label and establish probable origin before dropping the sodden mass back into the washtub with enough splash to reach another object overlooked earlier.
They each target a primitive wooden stool with their flashlights and silently regard the pair of items displayed on its surface. The small red leather book with a locking strap cannot be other than the diary Laurel thought she had misplaced. The companion piece, the black leather single fold wallet cannot be other than the one that disappeared from Colin’s L.A. hotel room—the photo wallet containing the inflammatory address card.
Of one mind, they leave this evidence undisturbed along with the gruesome indicators of Jakeway’s resident savagery and push their way through the congested barn, barking shins, stubbing toes, bruising elbows in the hurry to go for help.
They’re nearing the stone wall when they hear the whine of a golf cart coming at full speed. It’s fast approaching on the service road that’s little more than a dirt track at these far reaches. They turn back to intercept whoever it is and are momentarily blinded and deafened by high intensity lights and Bemus’s amplified demand to know what in hell they’re doing out here in the dark with a storm brewing.
Bemus stops the cart near what appears to be a recent repair to a washout beneath the perimeter fence. Without waiting for their eyes to adjust to the bright light or cranking down the volume of his complaint, he brandishes a handheld transceiver at them and bemoans how many times this afternoon and evening it’s heralded a false alarm of one kind or another.
“You know . . .” Bemus steps out of the cart to confront Colin directly. “I was hopin’ you’d put a stop to the kid duckin’ under the radar anytime he felt like it and lookee here at the example you’re settin’. At least your missus bothers to give notice when she strays outside the—”
“Shut the fuck up and give me that thing,” Colin snarls and grabs for the transceiver.
The longsuffering security chief complies and is left to listen with unconcealed alarm as Colin radios for help, stating why and what to be on the lookout for.
Bemus’s immediate reaction is to remove Colin from the scene. “Take him back to the mansion,” Bemus says to Nate while attempting to manhandle Colin into the golf cart. “An interior room on an upper floor and keep him there until—”
; “The hell you say!” Colin wrestles away from Bemus and casts a warning eye at Nate. “I’ll not be riding this out from the comfort of home. Don’t you fucking get it? My child is missing. Likely taken hostage. He’ll need to hear my voice in the many. He’ll need to know I’m coming for him.”
The argument against Colin lending himself to the search has nowhere to go once reinforcements arrive. Once Colin is surrounded by former Royal Marines and other certified responders, with local police massing beyond the fence to ward off a possible Jakeway escape, there is no argument—there is no way to convince Colin to return to the comparative safety of the mansion.
And there’s no good reason for Nate not to return to the mansion. Someone has to be the bearer of bad tidings and he’s the logical choice for having had the most practice.
— FIFTY-TWO —
Night, October 15, 1987
Hoop never counted on this. He never counted on being burdened this way. Wasn’t that the whole point of leaving nearly all his possessions lashed to a tree limb? Wasn’t he supposed to be free in movement and light of foot when the time came?
He shifts the dead weight strapped onto his back, blunders into still another unseen obstacle in the pitch dark. The flashlight won in the struggle with the boy is useless out here where the smallest flicker would serve notice to the swarm of bush beaters now closing in on the barn and its coned attachments.
As long as he can see their lights, they can see his; as long as he can hear their hollering and the crackle of their walkie-talkies, it makes sense to believe they could pick up on his heavy-footed stumbling through this field of tree stumps the owner’s been too lazy to pull or trim of the shoots coming off them thick as fishing poles and wicked as horse whips. Reason enough to stop for a minute or two and take a reading, as they say. And while he’s at it, he’d better make sure the boy’s gag hasn’t slipped out of place and his bindings haven’t come loose.
Hoop releases the straps hurriedly cut from horse harness on the way out of the barn and lets the boy slide off his back onto the ground. By touch, he checks the gag and the bindings cut from the sleeves of the shirt left soaking in the washtub. A good thing he checked because the cloth strips have started to dry and they’re not tightening up the way rawhide would. He makes the adjustments, then gropes around for the boy’s nose and checks for signs of regular breathing by holding his hand in front of it, the third or fourth time he’s done this since the scare back there by the fire when it looked like he’d grabbed the boy’s neck too hard.
But he couldn’t help it, he could barely make himself let go when the boy started looking more like the rock star than anyone else. It was only when he recognized that he was marking the boy the same way the rock star marked Audrey—with thumb and fingerbruises either side of the throat—that he was able to stop squeezing. And just in time, it appeared, because the kid’s been out like a light ever since. Another good thing because a limp silent captive is a lot easier to hold on to than one that’s yowling and fighting back.
Hoop feels for the carrying straps and readies to hoist the burden back into place just as the sound of fast-coming hard-pounding footsteps reaches his ears. Too many footsteps to be one runner, his ears tell him as he dives blind for what he hopes is deeper cover, dragging the now wriggling boy along to suffer the same as he is from the punishing surroundings.
From this safer distance, going by the lights they’re flashing, he’s able to make out five guys as they run by in a military manner made more so by the jackets they’re wearing. Jackets with the word security spelled out in big letters across the shoulders and reflector stripes running down the sleeves like the ones on the jacket to his rainsuit.
That observation comes with a double message: The reflector stripes on his uniform-like rainsuit are the reason the kid mistook him for a security guy earlier, and now the reflector stripes are going to make the security guys think he’s one of them—with any luck at all. And depending on whether he can strike a bargain with the kid, who’s now thrashing around under the foot planted square on his back.
Plain talk is called for when no more runners go by and it seems safe enough to give a few whispered orders. A no-nonsense “you do this or I’ll do that” stops the thrashing. A scraping of the knife blade against the boy’s throat and a sharp pinching of his nostrils gives backbone to the threat. If the kid wants to see his rock star dad again—if only in parting—he’ll do what he’s told.
— FIFTY-THREE —
Night, October 15, 1987
Banter with Brownie Yates has gone as far as it can and she’s run out of empty subjects to touch on with Emmet and Chris. Sudden rebel to forced frivolity, Laurel withdraws from their midst, turns back the cuff of her sweater to reveal her wrist and realizes her watch was forgotten in the afterglow of the startling bathroom encounter with Colin. She glances up at an ancient mantle clock and fares no better; its pendulum and hands may not have moved since the eighteenth century.
Amanda is the best judge of how much time has elapsed since Colin and then Nate fled the billiards room. But if the men have been gone long enough to promote concern, Amanda’s not showing any as she moves through the diminished gathering giving off sparkle and chatting at a rate to rival Susa’s gift for gab.
Her purposely bland expression as fixed as the clock’s, Laurel makes a final attempt to achieve a carefree state. She pours a third drink of the evening; premium vodka that could be water for all the buzz it produces. She sets the glass aside and abandons further pretense upon noticing that now Bemus is missing.
“Okay, that’s it,” she says under her breath and ducks out of the party as abruptly as did the men.
Gemma’s not in the kitchen when Laurel looks in. Just the regular staff, all of whom appear unconcerned about anything other than how much longer they’re supposed to delay serving dinner.
The usual play areas on the ground floor are empty when she looks in. Rachel and the children must be in the winter parlor engaged in board games or watching videos—Star Wars for the umpteenth time if Anthony has anything to say about it.
Outside, on the brightly lit terrace where the optimist in her hoped to find Colin and Nate smoking cigars or engaged in more weather talk with Sam Earle and Bemus, nothing is moving. No one’s in sight. Anywhere. In any direction she looks. No people, no dogs, no cats, no roosters. And her noisy approach on the graveled path to the studio goes unchallenged when her suspicions take her there.
Inside the studio, those suspicions spiral skyward. Something is wrong; something is very wrong. Instead of the usual six or eight, only two men are monitoring the three banks of television screens in operation. She’d love to believe this represents nothing more than a breakdown in manpower—that she’s caught an entire shift shirking their duties, goldbricking in the support trailers beyond. She’d love to believe anything but what she’s seeing on those television screens.
Visitors from another planet would have no trouble deciphering the message conveyed by the stitched-together scene extended over multiple monitors. Young children would not mistake the activity portrayed there for anything but an expansive manhunt even though the searchers are little more than silhouettes behind widely scattered flashlight beams.
“He got in, didn’t he?” she says in a guarded tone and manages to wait only a scant heartbeat before repeating herself. “I said . . . the son-of-a-bitch got in, didn’t he!” she shouts at the skeleton crew, both of whom are monitoring radio communications as well as televised transmissions.
“Yes ma’am,” one of them replies without looking away from the flickering visuals or listening less intently to the radio receiver pressed to his ear. “I’m authorized to say we’re presently operating on that premise,” he enunciates as though the words were being dictated to him. “And on the unfortunate probability the suspect has seized a hostage,” he tacks on after another pause to listen. “They’re telling me it’s your—”
Laurel grabs for the radio unit, pries i
t from his hand and smashes it to the stone floor in a pathetic version of killing the messenger. A messenger that won’t be silenced that easily because the rubber-clad radio hisses and spits back to life as she kicks it aside. She turns her back on the owner-operator’s scramble to retrieve the instrument of her torture and ignores his efforts to complete his statement. She hurries to the door and escape from this hideous reality.
But there is no escape. Out in the open there is no direction she can take that won’t heighten the awareness closing in on her now that she can hear firsthand the distant cries and shouts of the searchers and see without the compound eye of multiple television monitors the true scope of the search moving this way.
At a sustainable pace, she strikes out to join their forces. She runs parallel to their advance until she reaches the shortcut to the oast houses. From here she can intercept their broad path before her narrow one disappears into unrelieved darkness. Unless something or someone intercepts her along the way. She shudders and almost stumbles.
— FIFTY-FOUR —
Deepening night, October 15, 1987
Against Bemus’s vehement objections, Nate heads back to the mansion without an escort. Fear for himself is secondary at this point. At the wheel of one of several golf carts that converged on the hops barn after Colin’s call for help, on the longer, less familiar route to the mansion, he negotiates the service road at a reasonable speed and resists the temptation to contrast the present emergency with long ago events in Northern Michigan. The temptation is strong, his resistance is low, but comparisons are few beyond the need to summon help, and the darkness that characterized both crises. Plus, it’s not as though Colin’s been left at the mercy of the unknown this time around; this time the threat is identifiable and far more potent than anything ever imagined during the Michigan ordeal.