by Dean Koontz
Roy continued somberly: “Some people say they’ve seen spirits that glow in the dark, crazy things, headless children who come out on this porch and run back and forth as if they’re being chased by someone ... or something.”
“Wow!”
Roy laughed. “What they’ve probably seen is a bunch of kids trying to hoax everybody.”
“Maybe not.”
“What else?”
“Maybe they’ve seen just what they say they have.”
“You really do believe in ghosts.”
“I keep an open mind,” Colin said.
“Yeah? Well, you better be more careful about what kind of junk falls into it, or you’ll wind up with an open sewer.”
“Aren’t you clever.”
“Everyone says so.”
“And modest.”
“Everyone says that, too.”
“Jeez.”
Roy went to the shattered window and peered inside.
“What do you see?” Colin asked.
“Come look.”
Colin moved beside him and stared into the house.
A stale, extremely unpleasant odor wafted through the broken window.
“It’s the drawing room,” Roy said.
“I can’t see anything.”
“It’s the room where he lined up their heads on the mantel.”
“What mantel? It’s pitch dark in there.”
“In a couple of minutes our eyes will adjust.”
In the drawing room something moved. There was a soft rustling, a sudden clatter, and the sound of something rushing toward the window.
Colin leaped back. He stumbled over his own feet and fell with a crash.
Roy looked at him and burst out laughing.
“Roy, there’s something in there!”
“Rats.”
“Huh?”
“Just rats.”
“The house has rats?”
“Of course it does, a rotten old place like this. Or maybe we heard a stray cat. Probably both—a cat chasing a rat. One thing I guarantee: It wasn’t any ghoul or ghost. Will you relax, for God’s sake?”
Roy faced the window again, leaned into it, head cocked, listening, watching.
Having sustained much greater injury to his pride than to his flesh, Colin got up quickly and nimbly, but he didn’t return to the window. He stood at the rickety railing and looked west toward town, then south along Hawk Drive.
After a while he said, “Why haven’t they torn this place down? Why haven’t they built new houses up here? This must be valuable land.”
Without looking away from the window, Roy said, “The entire Kingman fortune, including the land, went to the state.”
“Why?”
“There weren’t any living relatives on either side of the family, nobody to inherit.”
“What’s the state going to do with the place?”
“In twenty years they’ve managed to do absolutely zilch, nothing at all, big zero,” Roy said. “For a while there was talk of selling the land and the house at public auction. Then they said they were going to make a pocket park out of it. You still hear the park rumor every once in a while, but nothing ever gets done. Now will you please shut up for a minute? I think my eyes are finally beginning to adjust. I have to concentrate on this.”
“Why? What’s so important in there?”
“I’m trying to see the mantel.”
“You’ve been here before,” Colin said. “You’ve already seen it.”
“I’m trying to pretend it’s that night. The night Kingman went berserk. I’m trying to imagine what it must have been like. The sound of the ax... I can almost hear it... whooooosh-chunk, whooooosh-chunk ... and maybe a couple of short screams... his footsteps coming down the stairs... heavy footsteps ... the blood... all that blood ...”
Roy’s voice gradually trailed away as if he had mesmerized himself.
Colin walked to the far end of the porch. The boards squeaked underfoot. He leaned against the shaky railing and craned his neck so that he could look around the side of the house. He could see only the overgrown garden in shades of gray and black and moonlight-silver: knee-high grass; shaggy hedges; orange and lemon trees pulled to the ground by the weight of their own untrimmed boughs; sprawling rose bushes, some with pale flowers, white or yellow, that looked like puffs of smoke in the darkness; and a hundred other plants that were woven into a single, tangled entity by the loom of the night.
He had the feeling something was watching him from the depths of the garden. Something less than human.
Don’t be childish, he thought. There’s nothing out there. This isn’t a horror movie. This is life.
He tried to stand his ground, but the possibility that he was being observed became a certainty, at least in his own mind. He knew that if he stood there much longer, he would surely be seized by a creature with huge claws and dragged into the dense shrubbery, there to be gnawed upon at the beast’s leisure. He turned away from the garden and went back to Roy.
“You ready to go?” Colin asked.
“I can see the whole room.”
“In the dark?”
“I can see a lot of it.”
“Yeah?”
“I can see the mantel.”
“Yeah?”
“Where he lined up the heads.”
As if he were drawn by a magnet stronger than his will, Colin stepped up beside Roy and bent forward and peered into the Kingman house. It was extremely dark in there, but he could see a bit more than he had seen a while ago: strange shapes, perhaps piles of broken furniture and other rubble; shadows that seemed to be moving but, of course, were not; and the white-marble mantel above the enormous fireplace, the sacrificial altar upon which Robert Kingman had offered up his family.
Suddenly Colin felt that this was a place he must get away from at once, a place he must stay away from forever. He knew it instinctively, on a deep animal level; and as if he were an animal, the hairs rose on the back of his neck, and he hissed softly, involuntarily, through bared teeth.
Roy said, “Whooooosh-chunk!”
11
Midnight.
They cycled down Hawk Drive to Broadway and followed Broadway until it ended at Palisades Lane. They stopped at the head of the wooden steps that led down to the public beach. On the other side of the narrow street, elegant old Spanish houses faced the sea. The night was still. There was no traffic. The only sound was the steady pounding of the surf fifty feet below them. From here they would go separate ways: Roy’s house was several blocks north, and Colin’s lay to the south.
“What time will we get together?” Roy asked.
“We won’t. I mean, we can‘t,” Colin said unhappily. “My dad’s coming up from L.A. to take me fishing with a bunch of his friends.”
“You like to fish?”
“Hate it.”
“Can’t you get out of it?”
“No way. He spends two Saturdays a month with me, and he makes a big production out of it every time. I don’t know why, but I guess it’s important to him. If I tried to back out, he’d raise hell.”
“When you lived with him, did he even spend two days a month with you?”
“No.”
“So tell him to take his fishing pole and shove it up his ass. Tell him you won’t go.”
Colin shook his head. “No. It’s not possible, Roy. I just can’t. He’d think my mom put me up to it, and then there’d be real trouble between them.”
“What do you care?”
“I’m in the middle.”
“So let’s get together tomorrow evening.”
“That’s out, too. I won’t be home until ten o‘clock.”
“I really think you should tell him to shove it.”
“We’ll get together Sunday,” Colin said. “Come over about eleven. We’ll swim for an hour before lunch.”
“Okay.”
“Then we can do whatever you want.”
“Sounds
good.”
“Well ... see ya then.”
“Wait a minute.”
“Huh?”
“Someday soon, if I can arrange it for us, you want to get a piece?”
“A piece of what?”
“A piece of ass.”
“Oh.”
“Do you?”
Colin was embarrassed. “Where? I mean, who?”
“You remember those girls we saw tonight?”
“At the Pinball Pit?”
“Nah. They’re just kids. Teasers. I told you that. I’m talking about real girls, the ones in that movie.”
“What about them?”
“I think I know where I can get something that good for us, a girl just like one of those.”
“You been drinking?”
“I’m serious.”
“I’m Colin.”
“She’s got a beautiful face.”
“Who?”
“The girl I think we can get.”
“Jeez.”
“And really big boobs.”
“Really big?”
“Really.”
“Big as Raquel Welch?”
“Bigger.”
“Big as weather balloons?”
“I’m serious. And she has a pair of gorgeous legs.”
“Good,” Colin said. “One-legged girls never turn me on.”
“Will you stop it? I told you I’m serious. She’s hot stuff.”
“I’ll bet.”
“She really is.”
“How old is she?”
“Twenty-five or twenty-six.”
“First of all,” Colin said, “you’ll have to put on a false mustache. Then you can stand on my shoulders, and we can dress up in one suit, just one suit to cover us both, so she won’t realize we’re only a couple.of kids. She’ll think we’re a tall, dark, handsome man.”
Roy scowled. “I’m serious.”
“You keep saying that, but you sure don’t sound very serious to me.”
“Her name’s Sarah.”
“A beautiful, twenty-five-year-old girl won’t be interested in you and me.”
“Maybe not at first.”
“Not in a million years.”
“She’ll just need some persuading.”
“Persuading?”
“You and me together should be able to handle her.”
Colin gaped at him.
“You willing to try?” Roy asked.
“Are you talking about—rape?”
“What if I am?”
“You want to wind up in prison?”
“She’s hot stuff. She’s worth taking the chance.”
“Nobody’s worth going to prison for.”
“You haven’t seen her.”
“Besides, it’s wrong.”
“You sound like a preacher.”
“It’s a terrible thing to do.”
“Not if it feels good.”
“It won’t feel good to her.”
“She’ll love me by the time I’m done with her.”
Blushing fiercely, Colin said, “You’re weird.”
“Wait’ll you see Sarah.”
“I don’t want to see her.”
“You’ll want her when you see her.”
“This is all jive.”
“Think about it.”
A cream-colored van went by on Palisades Lane. A desert scene, framed in grinning skulls, was painted on the side of it.
They heard loud rock music and the high, sweet laughter of a girl.
“Think about it,” Roy said again.
“I don’t need to think about it.”
“Beautiful big boobs.”
“Jeez.”
“Think about it.”
“This is just like that story about the cat,” Colin said. “You wouldn’t ever kill a cat, and you wouldn’t rape anyone, either.”
“If I knew I could get away with it, I’d sure as hell get me a piece or two of that Sarah, and you’d better believe it, good buddy.”
“I don’t.”
“Two of us working together could get away with it. Easy. Real easy. Will you at least think about it for a couple of days?”
“Give up, Roy. I know you’re putting me on.”
“I’m serious.”
Colin sighed, shook his head, glanced at his watch. “I can’t waste time listening to this baloney. It’s late.”
“Think about it.”
“Jeez!”
Roy smiled. The odd, metallic light played a trick on him, transformed his teeth into fangs; the cold glow of the mercury-vapor street lamp tinted his teeth blue-white, darkened and emphasized the narrow spaces between them, made them look ragged and pointy. At least to Colin’s eyes, Roy appeared to be wearing a set of costume-party teeth, the ugly wax dentures you could buy in a novelty shop.
“I’ve got to get home,” Colin said. “See you Sunday at eleven?”
“Sure.”
“Don’t forget to bring your swimsuit.”
“Have fun on your fishing trip.”
“Fat chance.”
Colin rose on his bike, jammed his feet on the pedals, and pumped south on Palisades Lane. As the wind shushed over him, as the relentless crash of the surf echoed off to his right, and as his fear of being alone at night returned, he heard Roy shouting behind him:
“Think about it!”
12
When Colin arrived home at twelve-thirty, his mother had not yet returned from her date with Mark Thornberg. Her car was not in the garage. The house was dark and forbidding.
He did not want to go inside by himself. He stared at the blank windows, at the pulsing darkness beyond the glass, and he suspected that something was waiting for him in there, some nightmare creature that intended to chew him up alive.
Stop it, stop it, stop it! he told himself angrily. There’s nothing waiting for you in there. Nothing. Don’t be so damned silly. Grow up! You want to be like Roy, so do exactly what Roy would do if he were here. Waltz right into the house, just like Roy would. Do it. Now. Go!
He fished the key out of a redwood planter that stood beside the walk. His hands shook. He thrust the key into the lock, hesitated, then found sufficient strength to open the door. He reached inside and switched on the light but didn’t step across the threshold.
The front room was deserted.
No monsters.
He went to the comer of the house, stepped behind a screen of bushes, and urinated. He didn’t want to have to use the bathroom when he got in the house. Something might be waiting there for him, waiting behind the door, behind the shower curtain, perhaps even in the clothes hamper, something dark and fast with wild eyes and lots of teeth and razor-sharp claws.
Got to stop thinking like this! he told himself. It’s crazy. Got to stop it. Grown-ups aren’t afraid of the dark. If I don’t get over this fear soon, I’m going to wind up in an asylum. Jeez.
He replaced the key in the planter and entered the house. He tried to swagger as Roy would have done; however, as if he were a giant marionette, he needed ropes of courage to hold him in a hero’s stance, but all that he could find within himself was one thin thread of bravery. He closed the door and put his back against it. He stood quite still, holding his breath, listening.
Ticking. An antique mantel clock.
Moaning. Wind pressing the windows.
Nothing else.
He locked the door behind him.
Paused.
Listened.
Silence.
Suddenly he dashed across the living room, dodging furniture, burst into the downstairs hallway, slapped the light switch there, saw nothing out of the ordinary, thundered up the stairs, turned on the second-floor hall lights, ran into his bedroom, hit the lights there, too, felt a tiny bit better when he saw he was still alone, jerked open the closet door, found no werewolves or vampires lurking among the clothes, shut the bedroom door, locked it, braced it with a straightbacked chair, drew the drapes over both win
dows so that nothing could look in at him, and collapsed onto the mattress, gasping. He didn’t have to look under the bed: It was a platform job, built right on the floor.
He would be safe until morning—unless, of course, something broke down the door in spite of the chair that was wedged under the knob.
Stop it!
He got up, undressed, put on a pair of blue pajamas, set the clock for six-thirty so he’d be ready when his dad arrived, slipped under the sheet, and fluffed his pillow. When he took off his glasses, the room turned fuzzy at the edges, but he had secured the territory and didn’t have to be 100 percent watchful. He stretched out on his back, and for a long time he lay listening to the house.
Click! Creeeeeaaak ... A soft groan, a brief rattle, a barely audible squeak. Just the normal sounds of a house. Settling noises. Nothing more than that.
Even when his mother was home, Colin slept with a night light. But tonight, unless she returned before he fell asleep, he would leave all the lamps burning. The room was as bright as an operating theater that had been prepared for surgery.
The sight of his possessions provided him with a little comfort. Five hundred paperbacks filled two tall shelves. The walls were decorated with posters: Bela Lugosi in Dracula; Christopher Lee in The Horror of Dracula; the monster in The Creature from the Black Lagoon; Lon Chaney, Jr., as the Wolfman; the monster from Ridley Scott’s Alien; and the spooky night-highway poster from Close Encounters of the Third Kind. His monster models, which he had built himself from kits, were arranged on a table beside his desk. A plastic ghoul lurched forever through a hand-painted graveyard. Frankenstein’s creation stood with plastic arms outstretched, face frozen in a snarl of pure hatred. There were a dozen models in all. The many hours he had spent building them had been hours during which he’d been able to suppress his fear of the night and his awareness of its sinister voice; for so long as he had held those plastic symbols of evil in his hands, he had felt in control of them, master of them, and, curiously, he had felt superior to the very real monsters they represented.
Click!
Creeeeeaaak...
After a while he became accustomed to the noises made by the house and almost ceased to hear them. He heard, instead, the voice of the night, the voice that no one else seemed able to hear. It was there from sundown to sunrise, a constant evil presence, a supernatural phenomenon, the voice of the dead who wanted to come back from their graves, the voice of the Devil. It jabbered insanely, cackled, chuckled, wheezed, hissed, murmured about blood and death. In sepulchral tones, it spoke of the dank and airless crypt, of the dead who still walked, of flesh riddled with worms. To most of the world, it was a subliminal voice and spoke only to the subconscious mind; but Colin was very aware of it. A steady whisper. Sometimes a shout. Sometimes even a loud scream.