Heart Of Darkness

by Maggie Shayne

  “Is he asleep?” David asked.

  “I don’t know,” she whispered. “His eyes are too swollen to open. Come on.”

  She gripped his arm and tugged him closer to the bed. Behind him, he heard the door open again, heard a nurse insisting that only two visitors were allowed at a time and heard Brad telling her she’d need more help if she wanted to remove any of them. Then Randy said, “We won’t stay long, we promise.”

  There was a sigh, then the door swinging closed. The nurse must have withdrawn. And then Kevin was standing at his side, Randy and Brad on the opposite side of the bed, all of them staring down at Mark.

  “What the hell happened?” Brad asked. “Randy said he was hit by a truck?”

  Janet’s voice was so lifeless it was nearly a monotone. “The driver says he just came sprinting out of nowhere, and right into his path. Everyone’s been asking him why, but he said he couldn’t talk to anyone but the four of you.”

  “Don’t let that hurt you, hon,” Randy said, sending Janet a fond look. “We really bonded in the detention center. It was hell there, you know. We needed each other.”

  “I know,” she said. “I know what you all went through together. And I know he’s never gotten over it. I’m just so glad you came.” Leaning over the bed, cupping her husband’s face, she said, “Hey, baby. The guys are here, just like you asked. Can you hear me? Dave, Brad, Kevin and Randy. They’re all here. They came just as fast as they could.”

  His head moved very slightly. His mouth seemed to tense, then his lips parted and he spoke with effort. “Guys?”

  “Right here, Mark,” David said softly, and he laid a hand over one of Mark’s, so he could feel him there. Only then did he realize Mark’s eyes actually were open, mere slits between his swollen lids.

  Mark nodded very slightly, and shifted what there was of his gaze toward Janet. “I need you…to wait…”

  “You want privacy. I understand.” There was hurt in her tone, but she didn’t argue. She leaned down and kissed an exposed part of his face, then hurried from the room and closed the door.

  “Okay, we’re alone, pal,” Brad said. “What’s going on?”

  “Sierra.”

  David and Brad shot each other a look, and David said, “What about Sierra?”

  “I saw her.”

  And David felt icy cold right to his core. He almost shivered.

  Randy frowned at Mark. “You mean you sort of crossed over for a few seconds, when all this happened? You saw her on the other side.”

  “No. Here. She’s here. She’s…coming for us.”

  Kevin’s brows went up and he actually took a step away from the bed. “Mark, come on—”

  “She’s come back…for revenge.”

  The other three had been leaning closer and closer to better hear him, but now Brad straightened with a grunt. “You probably dreamed about her while you were unconscious, Mark. That’s all. You’re hurt pretty badly, you know.”

  “I know that,” Mark said. “But it’s not…a dream. I saw her—before…the accident. Waiting for me…outside the store. Just standing there in the snow, waiting. She came…for my soul…and she got it, guys. She got it.”

  Brad shot David a quick glance, then said, “Wait, wait, you’re telling me this delusion started before you got hit by that truck?”

  “No delusion!” He tried to sit up in the bed, but fell backward. The steady beeping of the machines increased in pace. A nurse came into the room, alarmed.

  “She reached out…for me—might as well have…pushed me in front of…that truck.” His brows crunched together. “Maybe—maybe she did push me. Without actually touching. ’Cause she’s not…alive. She’s a ghost…or something.”

  “He’s too agitated, gentlemen,” the nurse said. “You really have to leave.” She shouldered her way in between them to the bedside. “Really—”

  “No!” Mark shouted.

  “Come on,” Brad said. “This is ridiculous, Mark. You’re hurt, your head’s all messed up. Sierra’s dead. We made a terrible mistake, but we told the truth, and we did the time.” The nurse looked slightly alarmed at that. “It’s over,” Brad insisted.

  “Really, sirs, you have to leave.” The nurse was moving them bodily away from the bedside now.

  And then Mark’s hand flashed out suddenly, and closed around David’s with a surprisingly strong grip. “I stayed alive…this long…so I could warn you…dammit. Listen to me. She’s come back. She already had…her vengeance on me…but I’m telling you…you’re next.” His voice got suddenly louder, a final burst of strength empowering it. “She’s come back! The girl we killed has come…and she’s not going to rest until we’re all dead just like she is.”

  And then his hand went slack, and his head sank heavily onto his pillows.

  “I think he passed out,” David said, leaning closer in alarm.

  “I think it might be a bit more than that,” the nurse said. “Get out. Stay with the wife until we call for you.” Then she pushed a button on the wall and said, “I need Dr. Pollock, stat.”

  Brad was already heading for the door, and the others followed, just barely getting through it before three white-coated individuals came running down the hall and pushed past them to get inside.

  “Man, Mark’s messed up, isn’t he?” Brad asked.

  David nodded, knowing Brad needed some kind of reassurance, because Mark’s words had probably sent the same icy chills running up and down his spine as had brushed David’s own. And with his physique, and the way he got out of breath just crossing a room, David didn’t think Brad could handle too many shocks.

  So he didn’t say a word about what he thought he had seen outside that damned cursed house this very morning. “He’s got a head injury, pal. That’s all it is.”

  Brad seemed relieved, and then Janet was there, taking his arm. “They want me to stay out of the room while they examine him,” she said. “What happened in there?”

  Brad lowered his head, as did Randy and Kevin when she looked at each of them in turn. But when her eyes met David’s, he said, “Why don’t we find a place to sit and talk. You look like you could use something to eat. Is there a cafeteria or—?”

  Janet sent a yearning look at Mark’s closed door, but then nodded. “It’s just down the hall.”

  David fell into step with her, and the others followed. He didn’t feel like he could eat a bite, but once in the cafeteria he grabbed a plate and proceded to fill it all the same, hoping Janet would try to eat if the rest of them did.

  He paid little attention to what he scooped onto his plate. There were fresh fruits, scrambled eggs, a stack of pancakes and piles of bacon and sausage. A typical breakfast buffet. He watched Janet as she put a minuscule amount of fruit and a pastry onto her own plate, then he led her to a table.

  She sat beside him, and the other three men joined them. Kevin had to pull a chair from another table over to theirs.

  David waited until she had taken a couple of bites, forcing himself to do likewise, and then finally he took a breath and looked her in the eye. “Do you know what Mark thinks, Janet?”

  “No. But I know it has something to do with Sierra Terrence.” She looked at each of the men. “I’m right, aren’t I?”

  They nodded, almost as one.

  “He’s been muttering her name in his sleep. Especially right after the accident, when he was unconscious. And when he woke up, he seemed scared to death and kept asking for you guys—just you guys. No one else.”

  David nodded. “He said he saw her—or her ghost, or something. That’s what made him run out into the street like that. He thought she was after him. He thinks she’s come back to get revenge on us, I guess.”

  “He hit his head,” Randy told her, and he reached across the table to cover her hand with his own. “That’s all it is. He’s hurt and he doesn’t know what’s real and what’s part of a dream or a hallucination or whatever this is. That’s all.”

  Janet m
et his eyes. “I don’t think so. Look, I don’t want to scare him, or you guys either. But I know my husband. And I think he saw something.”

  “No, Janet, no. He doesn’t remember what happened,” Kevin said. “He doesn’t. This is all some kind of delusion.”

  She shook her head firmly, left, then right. “He saw something. I’ve never seen him that terrified. And he got terrified before the truck hit him. Something frightened him badly enough to send him running into its path.” She looked directly at David then. “I want to know what.”

  David nodded. “I’ll look into it, Jan.”

  “Will you?” She looked hopeful and surprised.

  “You know how close we all are. I’m not gonna just let this go. He needs to know it’s not real, and he won’t accept anything less than proof. So yeah, you bet I’m gonna look into it. We all will.”

  She closed her eyes, released her breath all at once, and lowered her head. “Thank you, David,” she whispered. “Thank you, all.”

  “Mrs. Potter?”

  They all turned to see the doctor who’d rushed into Mark’s room earlier approaching their table. They rose, all of them, and the fear that came into Janet’s eyes tore at David’s gut.

  “It’s all right,” Janet said as the doctor—Dr. Pollock—looked at the men around her. “They’re family. You can talk in front of them.”

  The doctor nodded. “Mrs. Potter, your husband has lapsed into a coma.”

  She faltered, her knees barely able to support her, and David quickly gripped her shoulders and eased her back into her chair. “Is he…is he brain-dead?” she whispered.

  “No. But we have no way of predicting when or…or if he’ll come out of this. We’re going to have to wait and see.”

  “Oh, God, this isn’t happening,” she whispered. Tears pooled and then spilled onto her cheeks.

  “I want you to keep talking to him, keep visiting him, keep encouraging him.”

  “He can still hear us?” David asked.

  “That’s the predominant wisdom, yes. And it could help.” He put a hand on Janet’s shoulder. “I’m sorry. I wish the news was better.” With a final squeeze, he left the room.

  “He waited for you,” Janet told them. “It was so important to him that he managed to fend off a coma long enough to talk to you.”

  “He wanted to warn us that Sierra was coming after us next,” David said, nodding. “And I know it’s crazy, but to him, it’s real.”

  “Yeah, and once we find out what he really saw,” Randy said, “and we tell him, really convince him that it’s all okay, he’ll come out of this. I know he will, Janet.”

  “God,” she whispered. “God, I hope so.”

  CHAPTER THREE

  DAVID DIDN’T END UP GETTING his bag from the Jeep until much later that night. When they left the hospital, the four men drove down to Potter’s Grocery, Mark’s store, parked the SUV in front and looked sadly at the “Closed Until Further Notice” sign that had been taped to the front door.

  “Look, let’s talk to people, see if anyone saw anything that could give us a clue what really happened yesterday,” Randy said.

  Brad shook his head. “Don’t you think the police have already done that?”

  “Maybe we should talk to them, then,” Kevin put in.

  David nodded. “We’ll do all of the above. Brad and Kevin, you stay here and talk to anyone who’s willing. Randy, you can drive me to the police station. There’s another grocery store out that way, so you can pick up supplies for the cottage while I talk to the cops. Okay?”

  “I don’t like the idea of splitting up,” Brad said.

  “Why not?” David was puzzled, but then he noticed that Brad’s forehead seemed damp. “Brad, no one’s after us, if that’s what you’re worried about.”

  “How can you be so sure?” Brad asked, casting a nervous look up and down the road. There were few people out, locals, moving in and out of the various shops along Main Street. “I mean, not a ghost, sure. But what if it’s someone else? Some relative of hers out for revenge?”

  “After twenty-two years?” David asked. “Come on, Brad.”

  “Is it so far-fetched? You heard Janet. He saw something.”

  “Yeah. Maybe someone who looked like Sierra. And he freaked out. Maybe this has been eating at him more than the rest of us, for some reason. Maybe his mind wasn’t strong enough to deal with it, and seeing a girl with a resemblance to her was all it took to make him snap. Maybe a thousand other things, Brad, but it’s not someone out to get us after all this time. It’s not.”

  Brad held his eyes and shook his head. “Why would it bother him more than the rest of us, Dave? More than you, in particular? It couldn’t have been worse on any of us than it was on you. God, you were in love with her.”

  “I was sixteen.”

  “You still are.”

  David had to lower his eyes. “Like I said, maybe his mind just wasn’t able to handle it. Everyone’s different. Mental health is…it’s tricky.”

  “You being an expert and all,” Brad said. But he opened the door and got out of the SUV, beer belly first. “Fine, Kev and I will walk around asking questions and hope to God she doesn’t find us. Don’t be long, okay?”

  David nodded and sent a look toward Kevin, silently telling him to keep an eye on Brad. The guy was wavering on the edge of panic. Kevin acknowledged the unspoken message with a slight nod, and got out, as well.

  Randy put the rental into gear and they pulled away. And then he turned to David and said, “So what do you really think?”

  “Just what I said. I think there’s probably a girl in town that looks a lot like Sierra. I think Mark saw her, and something broke inside his mind. And that’s all I think.”

  “Just asking.”

  David sighed. Then he glanced sideways at Randy. “This is just between us, okay?”

  Frowning, Randy nodded. “Okay.”

  “When I got into town this morning, I pulled over, in front of the house.”

  “The Muller House?”

  He nodded. “Sierra House now.”

  “Yeah, I saw that. Kind of nice they did that for her, isn’t it?”

  “Nice, yeah,” Dave said. “Anyway, I pulled over, just sat there looking at it. Remembering, you know?”

  “I do know.”

  “And as I pulled away, or was about to, I saw this girl in my rearview. Just for a second.”

  Randy was dead silent, waiting.

  David sighed. “For that instant, I could have sworn I was looking at Sierra. Not a lookalike, but her. You know? It felt like her. But when I turned around, she was gone.”

  He dared a look at Randy, who was driving with wide, unblinking eyes. “Do you think you imagined it? Because of all this, I mean?”

  “It was before I knew Mark thought he’d seen her. So it wasn’t instigated by that. But I suppose just being back here, being there at that place where it all happened—that could have triggered something. And I was running on empty. No sleep and all that. And worried about Mark and Jan and the boys.”

  “But…?”

  He shrugged. “I’ve been dreaming about her.” He sent Randy a serious look. “Don’t repeat this, okay? But in the dreams, she says she’s coming back.”

  “Holy shit, Dave. You think what you saw, what Mark saw, was real?”

  “I don’t know. It didn’t feel like a hallucination or a memory. It felt like I glimpsed a real, flesh-and-blood young woman standing on the sidewalk across from the Muller place, staring at it just like I was. That’s what it felt like.”

  “But when you turned around, she was gone.”

  “Right.”

  “Like, poof, vanished, in a way that couldn’t happen? Or like she could have ducked around a corner or something?”

  David frowned hard. “Let’s find out.”

  “Huh?”

  “Let’s make a quick detour over there, pal. There’s snow on the ground. Maybe she left a footprint or two
.”

  “Now you’re talking.” Randy turned the car around and drove in the opposite direction, taking the turnoff onto Maple.

  The only thing across the street from the house was a church, and today wasn’t Sunday, so there was no one around. The sidewalk was snow-free, and there were no footprints in the snow on the far side of it.

  “I guess she didn’t step off the walk,” David said softly.

  “Either that, or she didn’t leave footprints,” Randy replied.

  David sighed. “Let’s get to the police station.”

  IT STORMED THAT NIGHT. The wind howled around the eaves of the cottage and snow slanted sideways through the night, tapping on the windows like a million tiny fingernails. The ocean slapped against the rocky shore below, frothing and foaming as if enraged.

  Hell, maybe it was.

  “So no one saw anything before Mark’s accident?” David asked.

  Kevin shook his head. “No. We talked to a couple dozen people, even found some who were fairly near him just before he lost it, but no one saw any dark-haired girl lurking around.”

  “Maybe they couldn’t see her,” Brad said softly. And then he crushed the beer can in his hand, dropped it onto the table and went to the fridge for another.

  Randy picked up the discarded can and took it to the recycle bin. “You shouldn’t be drinking so much, Brad.”

  “No? What should I be doing? An exorcism?”

  “I’m just saying, you ate fried chicken and French fries and cheesecake for dinner, and you’ve been putting away beer and potato chips all night. A man your size—”

  “That’s how I got to be my size, pee-wee.”

  “No need to get nasty,” Randy said, looking hurt.

  Kevin sat looking uncomfortable, so David tried to change the subject. “The police are as baffled as we are. So they were no help, except to say that the driver wasn’t at fault. The witnesses who saw it happen said Mark just ran into the street as if he were being chased, and right into the path of a delivery truck. But no one saw anything or anyone else near him.”