by Dean Koontz
Roxburgh was such a pretty place, pervaded by such a sense of quietude, that her fears were further dispelled until the terror the Satanists had left with her was only a black grain of sand in the back of her mind, niggling at her. She could be happy in a place like this, away from the frantic pace of the modern world, among simple people with simple dreams.
She looked up from the town and searched the far ridge for Owlsden. For a long moment, she could not see anything but swirling snow, the skirts of ghosts, cold sheets flapping in the wind and beating across the rocky hillsides and the bare branches of the dark trees. Then she saw it thrusting up against the slopes, huge. The house was like a phantom ship, some abandoned Spanish galley which still bore on through the turbulent sea and poked its prow through the fog at night to frighten sailors on passing ships.
The snow obscured it again.
And then it was back, jumping into detail as if it had advanced on her across the gap of the valley. It dominated the land, held forth like a sovereign on a throne. Its windows, in a few places, glowed from within, yellow and harsh. They should have seemed warm and welcoming, especially to a natural optimist like Katherine, but they were more like the eyes of dragons. The house appeared to be three stories high and as long as a regulation football field. It was half-hidden by elms and pine trees, and its black slate, peaked roof jutted above anything that Nature had placed near it.
The snow veiled the house once more; it might just as well never have existed at all.
Who would build such a fantastic home here, in the mountains, away from everyone and everything, away from the high society types who might appreciate its cumbersome, costly majesty? What sort of man had Lydia Boland's husband been-a madman? A dreamer with no regard for reality, with no love of common sense?
As she drove down toward the village, her optimism had not been turned off, even though she was now thinking in terms of dragons and madmen. Instead, her optimism had been dampened slightly, as curbed as it would ever be. She realized that she was among strangers where the customs and daily routines might be alien to her. Alien enough, she suddenly thought with a dismayingly morbid turn of mind, to include blood sacrifices and the worship of the devil?
CHAPTER 2
Descending the ridge into Roxburgh was such a hair-raising feat that Katherine nearly forgot about the dead cat, the Satanic markings on the floor of the barn and the fact that she was in a strange land. The tiny grain of fear in the back of her mind became even tinier as a new fear rose to take all of her attention: she was going to kill herself in this descent. She wondered if the same madman who had designed the rococo Owlsden had also had a hand in the planning of the only road that entered Roxburgh from the east. Surely, no sane highway engineer would have made the grade as steep as this or would have carved the two-lane so narrow that it looked more like a lane and a half. On the left, a rock wall jutted up fifteen feet to the edge of the ridge and then fell away, a constant reminder that she had only two or three feet of berm to use in case another car approached on its way out of the valley. On the right, the land dropped away for two thousand feet in the space of a yard, the way strewn with boulders and trees and tangled brush. No guard rails dotted that far berm to give even the illusion of safety; a slide on the icy pavement could very well end in a fiery tumble to the bottom of the gorge.
Without the snow, it would have been a simple matter. But the white flakes had mounted on the macadam, as yet undisturbed by a plow or even by another vehicle that had gone this way ahead of her, and it hissed across the windscreen, obscuring her view even as it lay like greased glass under her wheels. She did not use the gas at all and tapped the brake carefully, gently, keeping as steady a pressure on it as she could.
Over the top of the ridge, too, the wind blew harder than it had on the top of the mountain where the trees and the contour of the land bled its force. It gusted in like blows from a giant, invisible hammer. When she was a third of the way down the tortuous track, a violent blast struck the car from the direction of the precipice, startling her. Involuntarily, she stamped on the brake pedal, jolting herself forward as the Ford went into a perilously swift slide toward the right. The smooth gray stone wall, flecked with growing patches of snow and marred only occasionally by the twisted root of a hearty locust tree, rolled toward her as if the car were standing still and the wall itself was the motivated object.
She almost pulled the wheel to the left, realized that would be the worst thing to do and would only aggravate the slide-perhaps even send the car completely out of her control. Worse than the stone wall was the precipice on the left.
She let go of the wheel, except to touch it lightly with her fingertips and take advantage of the first loosening she might feel.
The nose of the Ford turned at the very brink of a collison and angled back in the proper direction. Her right, rear fender scraped the stone so softly that it could have been mistaken for the asthmatic wheeze of an old man...
Another explosion of wind boomed in from the abyss.
This time, she did not over-react, but let the car move gently down the snowy track toward the bottom of the valley.
Five minutes more, and she was on level land, ready to get out and pray at the nearest church. She felt she ought to thank someone for helping her down that awful incline.
The roughly made highway fed into a more clearly defined street which she saw, shortly, was called Costerfeld Avenue. It was a somewhat grandiose title for a half mile of curbed macadam, but she would not have traded it for the poorly maintained state highway she had just left-not for a guarantee of wealth, health or immortality!
In half a block, the mountain behind her was cut off by the great shafts of enormous pine trees which thrust up on either side of Costerfeld Avenue like sentinels guarding the approach to the town. Already, they were laden with soft, white snow like mounds of cotton or the gush of shaving foam from a spray can. Also, on either side of the street, small, snugly built houses were tucked back at the ends of short walks, slid in among stands of lesser trees-birch, elm, dwarf pine, dogwood. Perhaps, without the snow, it was a dirty place, as scarred and spread over with grime as any other neighborhood. In the snow, however, it was transformed into an almost fairylike scene, a cut of the North Pole straight out of a child's storybook. Snow hung from porch railings, softened the sharp angle of steps, whitened dark roofs and made marshmallows out of stubby chimneys. Indeed, it was all so still and lovely that it slowly ameliorated the fear she had felt in the descent of the mountain, just as the descent had shoved her fear of the Satanists to the background of her mind.
Katherine Sellers wanted to be happy. It took very little, therefore, to influence her always-ready streak of optimism.
Apparently, there were four main streets in Roxburgh, made up of the arms of two major roads which crossed in the center of the town to form a traditional "town square" with a small park in the center of it and stores on the outside of the circle. It would be interesting to explore the side streets and the curious little backwoods shops when she got a chance. But not now. Right now, the only thing that mattered was getting across the small town and finding the road that lead up the other side of the valley towards Owlsden.
Even as she thought that, the street broke from the pine boughs and began to angle up the other valley wall, only a few miles from the place where she had come down. Owlsden house waited at the top, looming over her, looking almost sentient, its dragon eyes glowing more fiercely the closer she drew to its gates.
But, in the end, she did not get very close at all. Though driving up the icy slope was a good deal less trying than the uncontrolled descent had been, it was not nearly so easy on the Ford which fought the ascent at every turn. The tires spun in the dry snow and, at times, she found she was losing two feet of ground for every one that she surged forward. Again and again, she would gain a hundred yards on the slope, only to lose it in bits and pieces as the car slid inexorably backwards toward the village.
If
she had been superstitious, she would have said that this was an omen, a sign that she was not meant to reach Owlsden house.
At last, wearier than she had realized, she let the Ford drift to the very bottom of the slope and backed it onto a widening in the berm where a picnic table rested under a huge willow. There was nothing left but to walk the last leg of the journey. Perhaps someone up at the house could bring her back, in a heavier car with chains around its tires, to collect her suitcases.
She turned off the lights, shut off the engine, took the key from the ignition, and opened the door.
Cold...
The air seemed twice as bitter here as it had on top of the mountain where she had found and buried the cat. The wind howled down the long, narrow, steep-walled valley just as water gushed through the natural contour of the land. It whipped the pine boughs around until they seemed like the arms of some unearthly dancers going through a frantic routine. Clouds of cold, grainy snowflakes snapped about her, stinging, seeking open cuffs, a crack at the collar, a gap between the buttons.
She turned toward Owlsden which lay a mile or better up the road from there and had taken only a dozen steps when she knew that she could never walk it. The steep grade would have her on her knees or sprawled full-length as much as she would be permitted to stand upright-while the wind, scouring the valley walls, would lift the hem of her coat like the cloth of an umbrella. She turned around and faced towards the town again, held her hand over her eyes to keep the snow out of them. It was nearly as far to the square in town as to Owlsden, but on level land where she would find sure footing. Tucking her chin down and squinting her eyes, she started to walk.
By the time she reached the square, it was just after six in the evening. The stores were closed, except for a grocery-newsstand combination and a cafe. She chose the cafe, crossed the tiny, bench-dotted park, and went inside, brushing the snow from her coatsleeves and shoulders as she did.
The cafe contained three men in lumberjack clothes: heavy plaid hunting jackets, sweaters beneath those, heavy jeans with legs that laced at the bottom and fitted neatly into heavy-duty, unpolished black boots. An old, white-haired man in a tattered sweater sat at a corner table, by a large window that gave a view of the square, sipping coffee and reading a newspaper. The waitress behind the counter and the man at the short-order grill were both plump, middle-aged, ruddy-complexioned and pleasant-looking.
She sat on a stool at the counter and said, "A cup of coffee, please."
"Cream and sugar?"
"Both, yes."
The waitress fetched the coffee and put it down. "New in Roxburgh?" she asked, smiling pleasantly. Her teeth were even, white and broad.
"Yes," she said, unbuttoning her coat and shaking her damp, yellow hair away from her face. "I'm going to be Lydia Boland's secretary."
"Really!" the waitress said, obviously charmed at that.
The man at the grill looked up and nodded, smiled. Evidently, Lydia Boland was a pleasant topic of conversation so far as these people were concerned.
"Yes," Katherine said. "But I'm having some trouble getting up the highway to Owlsden."
"It'll be locked in for days!" the waitress said, shaking her head knowingly. "The Roxburghs bought the town two plows and a cindering truck so we wouldn't have to depend on the State to clear our roads. It takes the State two weeks to get into places like this after a major snowstorm. But even with the local plows, the way the wind whistles through here and drifts the snow, it takes a few days to get things back to normal."
"I'd imagine so," Katherine said. She sipped her coffee. It was hot, burning a path down her throat, breaking up the cold in her stomach. "That's why I thought I really ought to get up to the house before things get even worse than they are. Could I use your telephone to call Mrs. Boland and see if they'll send someone down for me and my luggage? My own car's much too light to make that steep grade."
"So will their car be," the waitress said, swiping at the top of the counter with a damp rag.
"But I can't stay here when I'm expected-"
"Let me call around to see if I can find Mike Harrison. He's got a Land Rover that's equipped to go anywhere."
"I wouldn't want to cause trouble-"
"Mike wouldn't be troubled," the woman assured her. "He likes to show his machine to people, like a grown man with a toy-and he'd surely want to meet the town's newest resident. I'll warn you, though, that you'll have to endure a wild ride up the road to Owlsden; Mike doesn't spare the thrills when he gives someone their first demonstration ride in that crazy buggy."
"If you really think he wouldn't mind," Katherine said, "I'd appreciate his help. I'll pay him well enough for his trouble."
"No need to pay," the woman said.
"But-"
"I doubt he'd take your money, seeing as how he has more of his own than he can ever easily spend. His father owns a lot of timberland on up the valley and two of the largest planning and processing mills in the mountains. Nearly everyone in Roxburgh has worked or now works for him."
"I see," Katherine said. "But if he's who you say, he's probably busy with-"
"He hardly ever does a decent day's work," the waitress said, though her tone was not sarcastic but warm, as if everyone looked kindly upon Mike Harrison's sloth. "I'll get him on the phone. Be back in a snap."
She walked along the counter and said something to the man at the short-order grill, then disappeared into the kitchen where, apparently, the telephone lay.
Katherine finished her coffee and placed enough change on the counter to cover the cost plus a generous tip to compensate the woman for her telephoning as well as for her counter service.
By then, the waitress had returned. "Found him," she said. "He says he'll be delighted to take you up there."
"Wonderful!" Katherine said, thinking about the treacherous road she would have had to try again if Mike Harrison had not been available or willing.
"He says to give him fifteen minutes to get his Land Rover and be here."
The time passed quickly as she waited in the cafe for Harrison, mostly because the waitress was a talker -and a good one, relating one anecdote about Harrison, the town, the Roxburgh-Bolands, after another. She was the kind of woman who laughed a great deal and who would have looked out of place without an apron around her waist, a grandmotherly type whose gossip was never malicious. Katherine knew that, whenever she had a day off and wanted to get a bite to eat outside of Owlsden, she would come back here for the conversation as much as for the food.
At a quarter of seven, with darkness full upon the land now and the snow falling just as fiercely as ever, Michael Harrison arrived at the cafe, his hair laced with snow, his face pinched into a bright red heartiness by the brisk fingers of the wind. He was a tall, rugged-looking, handsome man, only a couple of years older than Katherine. His face was cut in Roman lines, with a high, broad forehead, well-set blue eyes, a straight, thin nose, firm lips and a chin cut square and strong. His shoulders were wide, his carriage that of a man who knows how to handle himself in any situation.
He crossed the cafe and actually did a modified, courtly bow to her, something she had never expected to find here in the wilds. His smile was positively dazzling. "You're our new resident?"
"Katherine Sellers," she said.
"I'm Mike Harrison, and I'm pleased to meet you."
"Me too," she said. She had swiveled away from the counter on her stool, but she had not risen. He was such a gentleman and made her feel-even after that brief exchange-like such a lady that she felt she ought to abide by more ancient traditions of manner and remain in her seat.
"I didn't know Lydia was hiring a new secretary."
"Companion, actually," Katherine said.
"I told her how much she'll like working for Mrs. Boland," the waitress said. "Couldn't find a kinder lady."
Katherine noted that, as the waitress spoke, a strange look passed across Mike Harrison's face, held more behind his eyes than in them, conce
aled but still partly evident. It was a look of irritation at what the waitress had said and, perhaps, an expression of qualification or disagreement with her sentiments about the Roxburgh-Bolands. It was the first sour note, no matter how small, she had discovered in the heretofore sweet apple of the family name, and she wondered exactly what it meant.
"Well," Mike Harrison said, "shall we be on our way now?"
"Whatever you say," Katherine said, standing arid buttoning her coat. "We'll have to stop at my car and pick up my bags before going to Owlsden."
"Fine," he said. "There's a storage compartment in the Rover that's big enough to move a household."
"Now you take care of her," the waitress warned him. "Don't you give her one of those insane roller-coaster rides like you give everyone else."
Harrison grinned.
"You hear me?" the woman asked.
"Sure enough, Bertha. I will treat our Miss Sellers as if she were a carton of eggs."
"See that you do, or you better not come back in here while I have a frying pan handy."
Harrison laughed, took Katherine's arm and escorted her from the restaurant.
The wind struck hard against her flushed face. The temperature hovered just above zero and, with the chill factor of the wind figured in, must have been a subjective twenty degrees below.
"There she sits," Harrison said.
He pointed across the street to a large, sturdily-built vehicle that looked like a cross between an armored car and a jeep. It was parked by the grass circle in the center of the square. The snow that had sifted over it in the few minutes he had been in the restaurant, had obscured the windscreen and softened the brute lines somewhat. Still, it was obvious that no amount of snow could stop this workhorse altogether, for it looked almost like power personified, a machine of pure force.