Night of the Phantom

  The nights were the hardest. She managed to sleep through the days, her weakened body helping her change her usual patterns. By midnight she was awake, burningly awake, and alone in the fussy Victorian room with its four-poster bed, with no one but Stephen King for company.

  She woke with her scream echoing through the pitch-dark room. The rain was still falling outside, it must have been falling for weeks, and no trace of light entered the uncurtained windows. The oil lamps had been extinguished, leaving her in total darkness, and she reached in desperation for the matches she'd left on the bedside table, the old oil lamp she'd been fool enough to blow out.

  Her arm encountered glass, and it went smashing to the floor, filling the room with the pungent scent of lamp oil. She uttered a quiet little moan of panic, sinking back against the pillow, when she heard his silken voice out of the blackness.

  "Don't move."

  She didn't question how he got there. She'd half known, when she'd been pulled from sleep by a nightmare she couldn't even remember, that he had to be there, waiting.

  "It's too dark," she said.

  "You climb out of bed and you'll cut your feet to ribbons. Salvatore will clean it up tomorrow."

  "It's too dark," she said again.

  "You'll get used to it." He was closer than before, moving silently, like a cat. An electric wheelchair would have made some sort of humming noise, wouldn't it? Therefore, he had to be walking, didn't he? Or floating?

  She shook her head, banishing the eerie fancy. He was only a man, more or less. Not a ghost. Not a phantom of the night.

  "You could even grow to like it," he said, his voice low and sinuous, snaking through the darkness like a ribbon of sound. "Everything's better in the night. Secrets are kept, ugliness is glossed over. Candlelight makes everyone beautiful. Surely you've enough vanity to realize that."

  "Actually, I'm not a terribly vain person."

  His laugh was low and bitter. "Aren't you? I'm afraid I am, more's the pity. I haven't much to be vain about."

  There was no answer she could make to that. He was close, dangerously close, hovering just at the far corner of her bed. And she knew without question that he was the dark stranger who'd watched over her during her illness. The man who'd kissed the taste of bubble gum from her mouth. Ethan Winslowe. And she shivered in the darkness.

  "When are you going to let me go?" she asked, keeping her voice even and steady.

  "Are we back to that again? I thought you weren't going to be boring."

  "Would you have let me die? Out here, miles and miles from decent medical care? How would you have explained my disappearance? How would you have gotten rid of the body?"

  "I don't make explanations to anyone," he said. "I don't have to. And I don't imagine I'd have any trouble disposing of a corpse if it came right down to it. Don't underestimate my power, Megan. There's no one within miles of this place but the forty-some residents of Oak Grove, and they'll do anything I tell them to."

  "They're afraid of you."

  "Yes. But I provide their only income, as well. So if they balk at one of my commands, they run the risk of not only having their livelihood cut off, but turning blind or mad, or both."

  "You know what they say about you." Somehow the knowledge that she'd listened to their gossip embarrassed her.

  "I know everything I need to know. For instance, I know you're scared to death after reading Stephen King."

  "Don't you have anything a little more cheerful to read?" she asked, not bothering to deny it. She believed that disembodied voice when he said that he knew everything he needed to know.

  "I left them on purpose."

  "You wanted to scare me?" Why should the notion surprise her? He'd been trying to scare her since she arrived. The only wonder was that she wasn't frightened right now, alone in the inky darkness with a man she considered a monster. A man who kissed like an angel.

  "Of course. But don't panic. You've been reading Christine. Take it from me, you won't be going anywhere near an automobile for ages."

  "Somehow, I don't find that reassuring."

  "It wasn't meant to be." He was closer still. She wished that the time when she had been so sick hadn't blurred her memory. She couldn't reconcile the notion of Ethan Winslowe, the deformed creature who lived in the bowels of the old Meredith place, with the man who'd found her in the garden and carried her upstairs, the man who'd rocked her and held her and kissed her. She thought for a moment that she might have seen his face, but if she had, that memory was gone along with her bone-shaking fever.

  "Would you have let me die?" she persisted.

  "What do you think?" he countered, and she wished her smashed oil lamp was still at hand instead of filling the room with a musky scent. She'd throw it at him.

  She'd probably miss in the darkness. "I don't think you would have," she said finally. "I think you would have found a car or gotten an ambulance or a helicopter, and gotten me to a decent hospital."

  "Your innocent faith is one of your many charming qualities. If I sent you to a hospital, there'd be a lot of unpleasant questions. And you'd have escaped. Do you think I would have allowed that?"

  "So you would have let me die?" She couldn't, wouldn't believe it of him.

  "You'll never have to find out, will you? All I'm suggesting is that you not be so trusting in people's eventual decency. There's very little decency around here, and very little decency in me. I'm used to having my own way, and be damned to the consequences."

  She didn't believe him. He'd gone so far to tell her he was a monster that she was finally beginning to doubt. "Could you light one of the lamps?"

  He laughed. "You don't need to see my face. You've been frightened enough for one night. Go back to sleep, Megan. You need to get your strength back."

  "So I can leave here?"

  She couldn't even see his shadow, but somehow she knew he shrugged. "So you can try to escape, perhaps. It doesn't matter. First you need to get well. Then we can argue."

  He was closer still, achingly close, his voice low and beguiling. "Lie down and go to sleep," he said. "There are no monsters here to trouble you. No demons and phantoms to fill your dreams. Only me. Go to sleep and I'll watch over you."

  He was going to touch her. Put his hands on her shoulders and push her down on the bed. And then would he release her? Or would he follow her down while she was half sick, half asleep, wholly drugged with the night and his presence and his low, insinuating voice.

  She slid down on the bed, pulling the fine linen sheet over her. He laughed then, a light, amused sound only faintly tinged with bitterness. "Don't worry, little one. You look too much like a Victorian virgin in that nightgown for me to touch you."

  "Women who are barely five foot two don't like being called 'little one,"' she said in a frosty voice. "And I'll have you know that I'm far removed from a Victorian virgin. I've had lots and lots of experience."

  How could she sense a smile on a face she'd never seen? "Two brief affairs scarcely constitute lots of experience."

  She didn't ask him how he knew. She was already beginning to accept that he knew everything, that she couldn't lie to him, couldn't hide anything from a man who could see as clearly in the dark as most people saw in broad daylight.

  "Just tell me one thing," she said, snuggling down in the soft bed with surprising ease. "Has anyone asked about me? Anybody tried to find out where I am? I've been gone more than a week, I've missed a flight to Europe, and I haven't been in touch with anyone. Has anyone been asking about me?"

  She didn't know what his brief hesitation meant; whether he was thinking up a lie, or whether he was simply debating how much to tell her. "No one's been asking," he said finally. "You've known your father all your life. Surely you should realize a devout coward as he is will simply ignore your disappearance and hope for the best. You have no one to turn to, no one to help you, Megan. No one but me."

  "And you're going to help me?" Her voice was skeptical.

&nbs
p; He was so close. She could feel a faint breeze dust across her face, and she almost arched upward, into it, reaching for his touch. Instead, she used all her limited control to lie very still.

  "Go to sleep, Megan," he said instead of answering her plaintive question. "By tomorrow, you'll be stronger, ready to plot revenge."

  "Revenge is your thing, not mine," she murmured. Why was she suddenly so sleepy? Why was the scent of spilled lamp oil soothing and vaguely, irresistibly erotic? Or was it the voice of the man in the darkness, the creature of the night she'd never actually seen?

  Tomorrow, she promised herself. Tomorrow she'd be strong enough to go searching for him in the merciless light of day. Whatever deformities he was hiding couldn't be that awful that he needed to spend his life hidden away. Could they?

  "Sleep," he said, his voice low, soothing, almost a physical presence dancing across her skin. "You can worry about tomorrow when it comes."

  Had he read her mind? Had she spoken out loud? It didn't matter. "Sleep," he said again in his hypnotic voice. And she slept.

  "I want to know how I could have eaten nothing but chicken broth for a week and not lost a pound," Meg demanded later the next morning as she tugged her ancient, most comfortable jeans up around her hips. Salvatore had grudgingly brought her suitcase from wherever it was he'd stashed it, and she'd finally gotten rid of her trailing Victorian virgin's gown. The memory of Ethan Winslowe's gentle taunt was too unsettling. The memory, the thought of Ethan in general was too unsettling.

  When she'd awoken, just after dawn, the broken glass had disappeared, a new oil lamp stood on the table by her bed, and only the faint scent of fragrant lamp oil still clinging in the air convinced her that she hadn't dreamed last night's visitor. She'd decided she'd been too easily seduced by the darkness and the otherworldly air of her host. A pair of jeans and a loose cotton shirt would bring reality back. How could one have erotic fantasies wearing bright red Reeboks?

  She peered out the window into the murky light. The rain seemed to have stopped, at least for now, and it even seemed as if the sun might struggle past the clouds for a bit. The thought of being out in the fresh air was so intoxicating, she almost made a run for it.

  The window of her current bedroom was on one of the middle floors of the bizarre old house, overlooking a formal rose garden complete with trellises and an ornate gazebo. It was too early for roses, particularly in such a rain-soaked area, but the leaves that covered the gazebo were thick and glossy, obviously well tended. She could see the figure of a man in the distance, through the curtain of greenery, and she pressed her forehead against the windowpane, staring, wondering if Ethan Winslowe had left his midnight lair.

  The man moved too slowly, too carefully for her nocturnal visitor. She could see stooped shoulders, a shock of white hair, and knew she'd finally found the other man she'd been seeking, the old gardener.

  "Come and tell me who this is, Ruth?" she requested, not taking her eyes off the man.

  Ruth ignored the request, bustling through Meg's suitcase, hanging up clothes with a muttered tsk of disapproval.

  "Don't bother with that. I won't be staying here that long," Meg said impatiently, turning to look at her. "Come and tell me who this man is."

  Slowly, reluctantly, Ruth moved to the window. "What man?"

  "The one..." He'd disappeared. "Hell and damnation. He was over by the gazebo. The old man I told you about, the one who found me when I collapsed."

  "I've told you before, there are no old men living here. Only Ethan and Salvatore."

  Meg turned her back to the window, giving up her quest. For now. "How old is he?" she asked.

  "Salvatore's somewhere in his late fifties."

  "I can see how old Salvatore is. How old is Ethan Winslowe?"

  Once more, that shuttered expression came over Ruth's face. "It's hard to say."

  "You can manage to guess. Fifties? Nineties? Twenties?"

  "He's ageless."

  "No one's ageless but Dick Clark."

  "Who's Dick Clark?"

  Meg stared at her in fascination. "Don't you have television in Arkansas?"

  "Not in Oak Grove. It's considered sinful."

  "And have you lived all your life in Oak Grove?"

  "Too much of it. I try to keep away from the village nowadays, but there was a time when I was trapped. Same as most of the young ones, until..."

  "Until...?"

  "I've been talking too much. I've got to get home to my family."

  "Family?"

  The wariness finally left Ruth's face, and Megan could see how very pretty she once was. "My husband and my two kids. Jason and Brian are fourteen and sixteen, and taller than I am. And there's my husband, Burt."

  "Somehow, I didn't think anyone around here had anything as normal as a family," Meg confessed.

  "Most don't. I'm just luckier. I've had two good men. My first husband, John, was killed in a mining accident when the boys were babies. I married Burt five years ago, and we couldn't be happier. As long as we keep away from Oak Grove."

  "I would have thought keeping away from here would be even more important."

  "I don't spend much time here. Not unless I'm needed. But if I am, you can bet your life I'll be here, come hell or high water. You shouldn't believe everything you hear, Meg. Things aren't as black-and-white as they seem, and the bad guys are quite often the good guys, and vice versa."

  Ruth was gone before Meg could question her further. She took one last, longing look out the window, but the old man had disappeared. Sinking back down on the bed, she thought about what Ruth had said. As far as Meg could tell, there weren't any good guys at all in this place. Everyone was a villain, with the possible exception of the mysterious old man and Ruth herself. Did that mean that in reality there were nothing but good guys? She'd be wise not to trust anyone but herself.

  She was halfway through The Shining, unable to put it down, when Salvatore knocked at her open door. He had his customary expression of disapproval on his swarthy face, and his glance at her casual clothes was disdainful. "You've got a visitor."

  Meg just stared at him for a moment. "A visitor? My father...?"

  "You think Ethan would just let your father walk in? Don't count on it, sweetheart. It's the local padre. Pastor Lincoln, to be exact. Come to offer you succor."

  Meg looked at him warily. "You think a minister is going to countenance Winslowe's keeping me prisoner here?"

  "Not likely. Lincoln thinks Ethan is the spawn of the devil. I'm sure he'll offer you a way out."

  "Does Ethan know you're letting me see him?" She still didn't move from the bed, not trusting her sudden good fortune.

  "Ethan knows everything," Sal said, echoing his own words. "As a matter of fact, it was his idea."

  "Even though he'll give me a chance to escape?"

  Salvatore's smile wasn't the faintest bit reassuring. "It's up to you whether you want to take it."

  The trip through the hallways was long and torturous, following Salvatore's broad back. Nothing looked familiar, and if Megan had traveled that particular pathway before, she didn't remember it. She had to stop several times to catch her breath, to fight the lingering spasm of coughing that was pneumonia's legacy. It wasn't until they reached the front hallway that she recognized anything, and the knowledge that they'd reached it from the opposite direction was depressing. The house was so impossibly vast that she could get lost in it for days. No wonder Salvatore no longer bothered to lock her in.

  She headed for the parlor, but Sal's meaty hand on her arm stopped her. "He's on the front porch. He doesn't want to set foot under the devil's rooftop."

  Megan looked up, trying to discern whether Sal was kidding. Sal wasn't a man for jokes.

  Still, all the better. If Pastor Lincoln was convinced that Winslowe was evil incarnate, he wouldn't have any qualms about getting her out of there.

  Salvatore opened the front door for her, keeping out of her way as she stepped into the fitful
sunlight. Her first view of the pastor wasn't encouraging.

  He was a tall man, thin, with a prominent Adam's apple. Dressed appropriately enough in black, he had thinning gray hair and surprisingly cherubic pink cheeks. He also had the faintly bulging eyes of a fanatic.

  "Sister," he cried when he saw her. "God has sent me to deliver you from this house of evil, to bring you to the bosom of the Holy One and wash away your sins. Give me your hand and I will lead you from this unclean place."

  "Actually, the house is spotless," Meg couldn't resist remarking. She'd grown up in a nice, liberal, Protestant church, and fanaticism always made her uncomfortable. At his sudden frown, she realized how foolish she was being, throwing away her best chance of rescue because she didn't happen to like the man's style, and she quickly managed to look demure. "I would appreciate a ride out of here. My car..." She looked to the driveway where her rental Ford had last been seen mired in the mud. In its place was the pastor's form of transportation, a rusting old mini school bus with the legend God Sees All, Judges All, Punishes All on the side. It didn't look promising.

  "That evil spawn of Satan has destroyed it with a thunderbolt," Pastor Lincoln announced. "Come away with me, now, before he turns you into one of his unholy ones."

  She almost wanted to refuse, which would have been madness of the highest order. "You can give me a ride to the nearest town?"

  "Of course, my child. To Oak Grove."

  "But I need to get back to Chicago, to my family...."

  "Your only family is God's!" he declaimed. "We'll do all we can, but first we must purify you."

  She started backing away at that. "What denomination are you, Pastor Lincoln? I'm United Church of Christ myself, and—"