Katherine looked over at Lester Carlson, barely able to discern his features in the dark. Both lay still. Katherine’s mind though, was racing. A stranger had come ashore on this island. The coffin of a dead marine was here, and it was the night of the Summer Solstice—the hinge of the year.
What did the person in the canoe want?
Why paddle all the way out to this deserted island in the middle of Quabbin Reservoir?
Did the canoeist know about the bones in the casket?
Maybe not. It could be just some kid looking for thrills or a place to smoke weed.
But what if it wasn’t just some harmless kid or lonely midnight wanderer?
If the old legends were correct, the being that was old Elijah Durman would need help tonight—help to return to his old home.
But what kind of help?
All the pieces slid into place for Katherine. Lying on her stomach in the grass on a June night on a little island in the middle of a giant reservoir, she saw how it all fit together.
Elijah Durman was out there now, straining at some window in time, waiting for the window to be unlocked if only for a moment, waiting for that moment of the Summer Solstice that would allow him to slip through the window and return to earth.
And he had enlisted a human helper and his helper was here now.
The person getting out of the canoe below, not 10 yards away, was the same person who had taken and hidden the coffin on this island waiting for this moment in time. Police Chief Ernie Sands died when he had come looking for the coffin. Dropped dead of a heart attack out there alone in the Quabbin woods, but maybe he had died of more than a heart attack. Maybe he too had seen the same terrible face that haunted Lester Carlson and had pursued her on Enfield Road. Police Chief Ernie Sands had died because he had interfered.
And the icon mentioned in the history books about the Durman family legend? The cross with the blue stone in the Belton cemetery chipped off the grave marker of Elijah Durman just recently.
Not by vandals. Not at all.
It was the venerated object—the talisman that must be placed with the bones of a Durman during the solstice to allow for the return of Elijah Durman to this world.
Katherine shuddered. He would return and take possession of the bones in that coffin below her; the bones of Kevin Flanagan that should be allowed to rest in peace. But they would not be allowed to rest in peace. They were needed for a horrific deed. A devil in a dead body. Lester Carlson had seen his face, a precursor of the thing called Elijah Durman. Tonight, he was making his way back, swimming like some sort of deadly torpedo through the dark reaches of the universe, slicing through layers of time to retake his place in the world.
Katherine felt herself gasping for breath. She had almost died that night in bed when the blue light had come seeking her, trying to drag her from her body and into that other world. That had somehow been Elijah Durman too. This was no parlor game; no cozy exercise in historical sleuthing. No cozy story where the good guys always won. She had stumbled into the middle of a horror. And now she had to act.
Katherine jumped to her feet without thinking. Lester Carlson, startled, tried to grab her and pull her back down into hiding, but she was already dashing to put herself between the coffin and the stranger from the canoe who was now climbing the hill. The night seemed to coalesce around here like a sea fog. She felt as if she were running in slow motion through swirls of mist, tiny hands reaching out to hold her, a heavy wind blowing her backwards, and that ages had passed since she jumped from cover.
The night was clear and the stars bright. Katherine scrambled down the hill and with a jolt came face to face in the dark with a small man working his way uphill. She pulled up quickly, stumbling as she skidded to a stop on the hill, and bumped the man. He jumped back startled, peering at her through thick glasses. Katherine had never seen him. For an instant, she felt relieved.
This little man was no threat.
This was all a big mistake on her part.
This was some harmless local out for some illicit night fishing at Quabbin, and now come ashore to rest or relieve himself.
The little man was nervous though. He had jumped back away from her, startled at first, but now he stared at her. He recovered quickly from the shock of meeting another person here on a deserted island in the middle of the reservoir. He said nothing for a long moment. And then the little man swiveled his head back and forth, scanning the area, calculating some action.
Katherine froze just watching him. She knew him now, and knew with an instant but absolute certainty that this little man with the glasses was not harmless.
It was him.
It was the slow, jerky, mechanical way he moved his head.
It was the stranger in the night at the top of the stairs at home in Ohio; the mystery man in the red pickup truck following her around the UMass campus and waiting for her in that dark parking lot. Katherine stared and then blurted out: “It’s you again.”
“Yes,” the little man said in a flat conversational tone. “It’s me.”
Katherine stood still for several seconds, too stunned to say anything and then shined her flashlight to see his face. The little man looked at her in a peculiar way, eyes narrow and cold, and reached for something in his pocket. She turned and scrambled back up the hill. The man jumped after her, but just then Lester Carlson stood up to come help and stumbled down the rocky slope.
The little man was startled again, but this time he acted quickly. He bounded past Katherine and toward the coffin resting on the ledge above. But Lester Carlson regained his balance and jumped in front of him.
“Who are you?” Katherine asked the little man, her voice sounding thick and unnatural like a voice unused for years.
* * *
Chapter 94
“Who are you?” Katherine blurted out again.
Lester Carlson, standing on the hill several feet above the little man and between him and the coffin, answered Katherine’s question. “David Scone,” he said his voice rising with incredulity. “David Scone. Town Clerk of Belton.”
The little man pushed up the hill moving to the side of Lester Carlson until he stood five yards from the front of the coffin. “Yes, Mr. Carlson,” he said in a quiet voice. “We meet again.”
“What are you doing here?” Lester Carlson asked his voice full of genuine surprise and inquiry.
David Scone snickered. “I guess you could say I’m doing the opposite of you,” he said.
“The opposite?” Lester Carlson sounded puzzled.
“Yes, the opposite,” David Scone suddenly raised his voice in anger and impatience and drew from his pocket a small dark object. “You fool,” he pointed at Lester Carlson. “He’s coming through tonight. Don’t you get it? Right here. And you can’t stop him. You came out here to interfere, but it won’t work. He’s coming back tonight.”
“Who’s coming back?” Lester Carlson asked, still puzzled.
David Scone didn’t answer. Instead, he slowly raised the object in his hand up above his shoulder so that the moonlight glinted on it. With a smooth motion of his thumb and forefinger, he opened a long folding knife.
He took a deep breath and spoke slowly. “You can go,” he said, pointing the blade at Katherine. “Go now and he might let you alone. Maybe not. In fact, probably not. But you might have a chance. Just get out of here. Now!”
He turned to look directly at Lester Carlson. “He wants you though. You’re the prize. He needs to get started.” Slowly David Scone lowered his knife and pointed its blade at Lester Carlson. “You need to stay.”
Lester Carlson stepped toward David Scone. “What the hell do you mean?” he said, the old habit of command elevating his voice until his words seemed to crackle with contempt.
“No use getting angry about it,” David Scone sneered, his voice smug. “This is bigger than all of us. He’s coming back tonight. Right here.” David Scone gestured with his knife at the coffin. “He’s coming here, and he wants you. It’s conv
enient that you came here. Now he won’t have to hunt you down at your house. He’ll be here forever after tonight, and I’ll be serving him.”
Lester Carlson looked as if he were about to hit the little man, but Katherine spoke. “Who are you really?”
David Scone tittered like a child discovered in some minor mischief. “Oh you’re sharp. You are sharp.” He shrugged—a modest ah shucks conveyed with the shoulders.
“I’m his helper. There have been others, but the times were never right before, I guess. He couldn’t get a body, or find an enemy for revenge. That’s important. He needs an enemy to hone in on as he comes through.” David Scone gestured with his knife at the stars flecking the night sky with small pinpoints of light.
“But now, I’m helping him. And you’re the magnet,” he said turning toward Lester Carlson. “That face you saw. That’s him, but he’s just a field of particles until we get him a body.” David Scone gestured again toward the night sky. “I always think there are lots more of them out there on the other side. They just haven’t figured out how to come back. And he has.”
“Why did he let us see him?” Katherine asked. “That horrible face. Why do that.”
“He was testing the current, so to speak,” David Scone replied. “He could only appear for a few seconds because his passage wasn’t clear yet. The time wasn’t right, but he could give the both of you a good scare.” David Scone shook his head in a gesture of mock resignation—a schoolteacher chuckling over a minor infraction. “A good scare, for sure.”
“And the police chief?” Katherine asked.
“That fat tub was already half dead by the time he got down to the shore on Old Enfield Road,” David Scone replied indignantly as if he had been personally offended by Chief Ernie Sands physical decrepitude. “He was so out of shape.” David Scone managed a smile. “Dropped like a stone, the minute, the very minute, he saw the face.”
Katherine and Lester Carlson listened with fascination as the little man talked, but Katherine also noticed that David Scone, as he spoke, had gradually eased himself away from Lester Carlson and a few feet closer to the coffin on the ledge. Katherine watched his hands. He gestured with his knife, but kept the other hand deep in his front pocket.
“So where do you come in?” she asked, though she knew the answer.
“Where do I come in,” David Scone laughed and took a bold step around the ledge and toward the coffin from the field side. “Oh, I guess you could say I’m the postman. I deliver the important mail.” And with that he darted past Lester Carlson and toward the coffin.
Katherine started to scream a warning, but Lester Carlson was already lunging at David
Scone grabbing at his shirt as he darted past. Lester Carlson slammed into the little man knocking him to the side to the coffin. Katherine started running toward the coffin.
David Scone whirled on Lester Carlson and slashed out with his knife. The tip of the knife sliced Lester Carlson’s forearm and he jumped back catching his foot on a jagged rock sticking up on the slope. Lester Carlson twisted his ankle and tumbled backward off the rocky slope to the inlet 10 feet below.
Katherine coming up quickly put both hands into a single fist and slammed down on David Scones’ arm as he raised his knife to come after her. The knife fell from his hand and Katherine kicked it over the side of the rock.
“You bitch,” David Scone yelled. “You bitch. That was my Buck knife. My trusty Buck knife.”
She grabbed his arm, but he shook her off, and tripped her. Katherine fell and looked up to see David Scone pulling his other hand from his pocket. She struggled to her feet and reached to stop him, but he was already swinging his arm back in a wide arc like a softball pitcher pumping before the delivery.
She screamed out Blake’s name. Please, she thought, be nearby and come help.
Katherine struggled to her feet and reached out to stop David Scone. But it was too late. The little man’s arm was already following through with an underhanded throw—tossing an object into the open coffin 6 feet away.
In the moonlight, Katherine could see the object turning over as it left David Scone’s hand and wobbled through the air in an arch of blue light. She screamed again and leaped toward the coffin. Katherine reached the coffin in two bounds and knelt by its side. The object that David Scone had tossed dropped into the bed of the coffin just out of reach of her fingers.
The scene was frozen for an instant like a slow motion video barely pulling up the next frame of action. Katherine screamed again—a loud wail calling out Blake’s name. And then she turned in time to feel the hands of David Scone closing around her neck from behind. He began choking her.
Somewhere below the rock, she heard Lester Carlson struggling to his feet and then a long groan. “My ankle,” he said. “Christ, I broke my ankle.”
* * *
Chapter 95
And then from across the dark reaches of Quabbin Reservoir she heard the wind howling and saw a boiling silver cloud racing toward her in the night. This is like one of those scenes from an old classic movie, she thought dispassionately, the one where a train explodes out of a dark tunnel with a roar and a bellow. One moment it was quiet and still on Curtis Hill Island in the middle of Quabbin Reservoir; the next a fierce wind was tearing through the night bringing with it a terrible presence. The silver cloud barreled across the water in seconds and whirled up to the coffin. The wind roared with the sound of a hurricane across a flat field, and then the face exploded out of the silver cloud.
She was almost prepared for it.
She was almost expecting it.
She almost fainted with the sheer terror of it.
It was the same, she thought. The same face she had seen at twilight on Old Enfield Road; the same face that Lester Carlson had described at his living room window—the same bloody, foaming mouth, the same jagged gaping wounds on the forehead and cheeks, and the same dead, black, unblinking eyes.
The face rushed out of the cloud and the dark night and hovered inches from her face. She looked into the black eyes and saw a hard blue light spinning slowly into focus; rotating counter clockwise in the darkness with a methodical precision.
Katherine gasped. It was the same light as the night before that had tried to levitate her from her body. It would be so easy, pleasant almost, to give up now. She’d tried. She’d tried really hard and come close. She’d almost succeeded. Nobody could blame her for not trying. It would be so agreeable now to just forget about this whole nasty business. Lie back on the cool grass and watch the waters of Quabbin flow on endlessly into the night until they joined the sky.
Katherine struggled against the thought. She shook her head in a fierce no, and realized that she could barely breathe as the hands of David Scone tightened around her neck. He saw the face also, and for a moment eased his grip.
She blinked her eyes shut for a second. Then opened them and averted them from the hovering face with the blue light spinning in the dead eyes. She looked instead down into the coffin. David Scone had tossed a small stone cross with a blue stone embedded in its center into the coffin. The cross lay nestled snugly in among the pile of bones. With her right elbow, Katherine aimed a hard jab behind her and into the soft underbelly of David Scone. With a grunt and a gasp of hurt and surprise he let go and stumbled back. Katherine reached into the coffin and took hold of the stone cross, careful to avert her eyes from the hovering face.
A skeletal hand detached itself from the pile of bones and also took hold of the cross. Katherine jumped in shock, but then forced herself back to the coffin. The face whirled about in a frenzy while the wind tore at her trying to push her away from the coffin. And then she felt the hands of David Scone on her neck again. This time with a fierce, desperate grip. Katherine steadied herself for a moment at the edge of the coffin and then reached down and grabbed the other end of the stone cross. She tugged.
To her horror, the skeletal hand tugged back. The wind whipped around her and the apparition scream
ed in her face. “Mine, mine, mine,” it seemed to say in a voice that croaked in unison with the wind. She kept her eyes down avoiding the hard blue light that now glowed like an orb from the disembodied face that bobbed on the wind.
David Scone hands searched for a tighter grip on her neck as he tried to pull her back and choke her at the same time. With her elbow, Katherine smashed one of his hands away. She bent forward and tugged again at the cross, but now a second hand was detaching itself from the bone heap and reaching over to grasp the cross. And the face, the horrible face was also changing—coalescing, solidifying. A wispy body was forming under it.
The wind tore at her pushing her back from the coffin and the hands of David Scone tightened around her neck. The second bony hand in the coffin reached across her wrist and started to pry her fingers from the cross one after the other.
Then, in the thin light of the moon, she saw Blake. He was running full tilt across the field, his head up and turning from side to side, looking for her, searching for the source of her cries. Katherine gripped the stone cross and threw herself back from the coffin while kicking hard against it. The impact jolted her away from the coffin and at the same time she gave a hard tug at the stone cross. It came away in her hand. David Scone mumbled something and reached over her shoulder to take the cross away. Katherine managed to struggle to a kneeling position. Blake was coming on fast—about 20 yards away.
“Blake,” she called. “Help, over here.”
David Scone gripped her hand hard and twisted. Katherine could feel his breath on her shoulder as he bent over her. She felt her grip on the stone cross loosening. “Bitch,” David Scone grunted above her as he pried her fingers and twisted her wrist.
She twisted free of David Scone for an instant and threw the cross with a weak backhanded lob toward Blake. It bounced once on the grass and came to rest a few feet in front of Blake, who stopped in his tracks.
“Throw it in the water,” Katherine screamed. “Do it Blake; Throw it. Please do it.” And then the town clerk hit her hard in the neck and she fell down.
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