‘What is it?’ Dani whispered.
‘Can’t see.’
He reached inside.
‘Don’t!’
He gasped and his hand darted out. For a moment, he seemed to lose his balance. He waved an arm through the air, steadied himself, then reached again into the bag.
This time, he brought it out clenching a fistful of hair. At the end of the hair dangled a human head. Its face turned, as if by intention, toward Dani. She stared at its bulging eyes, its gaping mouth and lolling tongue.
Dani realised she’d been holding her breath. She let it out quickly and sucked in the fresh, night air. ‘If you tell me it’s real, I’ll scream.’
6
LINDA ROLLED on her bed and gazed at the luminous face of her alarm clock. One thirty-six. The minute hand crept toward the next dot. She planned to wait until two, but time seemed to pass so terribly slowly.
She turned onto her back and stared at the ceiling. Her heart pounded fast. She rubbed her sweaty hands on her nightgown. Beneath them, her belly throbbed as if her entire body was pulsing with the frenzied heartbeat.
The surging blood made her left leg ache, and once again she saw herself lunging into the street, sobbing, blind with tears but almost home, and suddenly caught in a glare of headlights. Brakes screamed. She felt the impact, the blasting pain, saw herself tumble over the hood as if in slow motion, and remembered wondering in the eternal instant before she hit the windshield if this was bad enough to kill her and would it qualify as murder?
In her mind, it qualified. She’d been murdered by Tony and Arnold and Joel and the horrible maniac in the Freeman house, and nobody would ever know.
Let me be a ghost, she thought, so I can get them.
And then she had smacked through the windshield.
She awoke from her coma thin and weak, with a throbbing head and a leg in traction. Her parents acted as if she had, indeed, returned from the dead. While they wept, the doctor questioned her. Did she remember her name, her address, her birthday? Her parents looked tense until she gave the answers. Did she remember the night of the accident? Oh yes, she remembered it all. But a new, sly corner of her mind whispered not to tell.
I was walking home from the library, and then . . . and then . . . I don’t know.
Perfectly normal with a trauma of this nature, the doctor assured everyone. Nothing to be concerned about. The mind’s way of protecting itself.
The memory of her deceit thrilled her, pushed aside her fear, and she grinned at the ceiling.
She’d known, even then, what her mission would be. Her secret mission.
She glanced at the clock. Only three minutes had passed.
Folding her hands behind her head, she felt the soft brush of her hair. Her stomach knotted.
Don’t you think about that.
She sat up quickly. No more thinking, no more waiting.
She swung her legs off the bed and carefully stood up. Though her left leg felt weak and achy, she knew it was strong enough. The cast had been off for two weeks. She’d exercised constantly to strengthen the slack muscles, and finally, today, decided she was ready.
She stepped to the open window and slipped her nightgown off. The warm night breathed against her, fragrant with summer, making her shiver with fearful delight. Her own breath trembled as she gazed from her high window. All the houses but one were dark. Nothing moved on the lawns, the sidewalks, the street. The neighborhood looked deserted, as if everyone had fled a terrible menace.
Linda turned away from the window. Easing open a dresser drawer, she took out her Yankee ballcap and put it on. Only then did she allow herself to look in the mirror. She grinned, her teeth pale in the dim reflections. Taking out an Ace bandage, she wrapped her chest. The elastic band was only long enough to circle her body once, but she pulled it tight, squeezing her breasts until they hurt. She fastened the bandage in place with its tiny clips, then took a dark, plaid shirt from the drawer. Her brother’s shirt, filched that day from the back of his closet. She put it on and closed the buttons. Rolling the sleeves up her forearms, she studied her image. In the large, loose shirt, her flattened breasts made only the slightest bulges. At a distance, anyone would think she was a boy.
From her closet, she took blue jeans and her Adidas running shoes. She slipped into them, and returned to the dresser.
She reached into the open drawer, pushed aside a neat stack of panties, and pulled out her father’s .38 caliber Smith and Wesson revolver. Sucking in her belly, she pushed its barrel under the waistband of her jeans. The weapon felt big and cool. Its muzzle, tight against her groin, rubbed her as she stepped toward the door. She thought of moving it, but the sensation was hot and exciting.
She inched the door open. Leaning out, she glanced both ways. The hallway was empty and dark, no stripes of light showing beneath any of the doors.
She took long strides down the carpeted hall, silently rolling her feet from heel to toe just as she’d done that other night when three boys took her . . .
No, she couldn’t let herself think about that.
In front of her brother’s door, a floorboard groaned. She winced but kept walking, reminding herself that Bob slept like the dead.
She reached the head of the stairway and started down, one hand on the banister, shifting her weight to it whenever a step threatened to squeak. When she reached the bottom, she breathed more easily. Down here, small noises would mean nothing.
She hurried into the kitchen. From a large brandy snifter on top of the refrigerator she took two books of matches. She slipped them into her shirt pocket and headed for the connecting door to the garage.
The garage, with its single small window on the far side, was much darker than she’d expected. She bumped against her father’s Imperial. Feeling along its side, she found the door handle. She pulled. The door opened, triggering the car’s interior light.
Enough to see by. She found the empty milk carton on the cluttered shelf where she’d left it.
In front of the car, she stopped at the power mower. Crouching, she reached over it and picked up the tin of gasoline. Its weight overbalanced her. She stumbled, the gun barrel digging in painfully, her knee ramming the top of the mower. But she caught herself without dropping either the can or the milk carton. She straightened up. There was a warm pain, and she wondered if the gunsight had cut her. She nudged the pistol butt with her wrist, felt the barrel move away from the tender place. Then she stepped to the clear area beside the car.
She filled the milk carton, the gas fumes scorching her nostrils, bringing tears to her eyes. She returned the can, wondering if Bob would notice the missing fuel when he mowed the lawn next Saturday. Probably not. The two-gallon tin hadn’t been completely full, and plenty of gas remained for filling the mower’s small tank.
She picked up the milk carton. She pushed the car door shut, killing the light. Then she made her way through the darkness, one hand trailing along the car as a guide. She passed its rear, stepped across a gap to the trunk of her mother’s Omni, felt her way up its far side, past the window, and found the garage’s back door.
The night outside seemed almost bright, and cooler than the stuffy garage. Staying close to the shrubbery, she rushed across the yard to the gate. Its hinges squeaked, but in moments she was beyond it and striding down the alley.
Loose gravel crunched and scratched along the asphalt under her feet. A few nightbirds twittered, crickets sawed. Electricity hummed from the lines overhead. Linda listened for voices, for cars, for shutting doors or footsteps, ready to duck out of sight at the first hint of approach. But she heard none.
She began to wish for a human sound – even the far-off tinny voice from a television – or anything to assure her that someone, at least, remained awake, alive.
Nothing.
She walked alone in the night, vulnerable from every side, peering at the dark recesses behind garbage cans and telephone poles, between garages, often casting a glance over her
shoulder.
At the end of the block, she looked up and down the street. Deserted. This is how I want it, she told herself, and hurried across. No people around, no witnesses. But her feeling of isolation grew like a hollowness inside as she entered the alley.
She thought about turning back.
No. She’d wanted this night since she first came out of the coma. Even before that, even while her broken body hurtled toward the windshield of the shrieking car. Wanted it, waited for it, prepared for it. Tonight was just the beginning. She couldn’t quit now. Couldn’t quit until she’d finished it all.
A rattling, metal noise startled Linda from her thoughts. She froze, gazing into the darkness ahead. Far down the alley, a dark shape broke away from the shadows and moved towards her. Linda’s heart thundered like a fist trying to smash out of her chest. Gasping for breath, she squinted at the approaching shape.
What is it?
The clinking, rumbling sound grew louder as it moved. Then it entered a spill of moonlight and Linda saw a hunched figure shambling along behind a shopping cart.
She jerked the pistol free so it wouldn’t hurt her, then whirled around and raced from the alley. She sprinted up the sidewalk At a lighted street corner, she stopped to catch her breath, and looked back.
No sign of the weirdo with the shopping cart.
She pushed the pistol into her jeans and started walking. Though the street was deserted, it seemed less forbidding than the alleys. She felt as if she’d stumbled onto humanity after a detour into a strange, desolate land. The parked cars, the streetlamps, the rare lighted porches and house windows gave her comfort.
Once, a car turned onto the road. She pressed herself tightly to the trunk of an oak until it passed.
Though she walked for blocks, no other cars appeared. She saw a three-legged dog hobble along, glance at her without much interest, and urinate on a tree with a twist of its rump as if lifting the lost leg.
She saw a few fireflies glowing and vanishing. She saw a cat dash across the street and vanish beneath a parked station wagon. And then she was in front of the Benson house.
FOR SALE BY OWNER.
After tonight, Linda thought, maybe someone will dare to buy the place.
We heard strange sounds at night, Sheila had once told her.
Like women crying.
In the Freeman house?
And laughter. Real creepy laughter. The police came out, but they never found anyone.
Ghosts?
Don’t laugh.
I don’t believe in ghosts.
I do. Now I do.
Linda stepped past the hedge and saw the Freeman house. Fear crept up her spine, prickled the back of her neck. For a moment, she was in darkness, roped to the banister, the bony, naked man staring down at her. She clutched the milk carton to her chest, the gasoline sloshing inside.
Don’t wait. Don’t think about it.
She hurried up the sidewalk to the gate of the low picket fence. Turning around for a final check, she saw nobody. She opened the gate and rushed toward the house. The wooden stairs moaned under her weight. The blackness of the porch engulfed her.
Her hand found the door handle – cold as if the house’s inner chill had passed through it. She pressed the upper plate. It sank. The tongue snapped back. With a slight push, the door started to open. It stopped abruptly with a shake of metal, and Linda saw the dim outline of a padlock just above her head.
Someone, probably the realtor, had come by since the night she was here, secured the front door.
She yanked the lock, twisted it, determined that it was securely latched. Her fingertips explored the mounting. Six screws held it in place, three in the doorframe and three in the door itself.
She pulled the pistol from her jeans. She slipped its barrel through the hoop of the lock hasp, and was about to tug when she realised that using it like a crowbar would mar the finish. Her father would know someone had used it. So she freed the barrel. She pushed it into her jeans again, glad to feel the return of its hard warm pressure.
Leaving the porch, she hoped for a moment that she wouldn’t find a way into the house.
No, she had to get inside.
Burn the heart of it.
Burn the stairway.
She ran alongside the house, keeping close to the wall.
Burn the stairway. Let the flames trap him upstairs, if he’s still lurking there. Let them wrap his hideous flesh, make it blister and snap, boil his eyes.
She raced up three stairs to the back door. There was no padlock. Its four windows shone in the moonlight. She rammed the gun muzzle through the pane on the lower right. As she reached through the hole, groping for the inside knob, her hip nudged the door open.
Not locked at all! Not even firmly shut.
She withdrew her arm, pushed the door wide, and stepped into the kitchen. Bits of glass crunched under her shoes. She halted, listening, then realised he might’ve heard the shattering panel, might even now be rising stiffly, reaching for his ax.
She hurried through the empty kitchen, down a passageway as chill and black as a cave, her ears keen for a sound from above. The stairway slanted down to her left. She sidestepped, peering up through the bars of its railing. Saw no-one. Rounding the newel post, she stared into the darkness at the top of the stairs where she’d first seen his pale shape standing motionless.
Linda pried open the carton. Holding her breath against the fumes, she began to splash gasoline on the lower stairs.
Somewhere above her, a floorboard creaked.
The quiet sound knocked her breath out. Numb with fear, she raised her eyes.
A dim shape seemed to grow from the top of the upper newel post.
A face.
Linda clamped her jaw tight to hold her scream inside. She swung out the carton, gas splattering the stairs.
The word ‘No’ floated down to her like a moan. Then the pale figure was lunging around the post. She flung the empty carton down. Clawing into her shirt pocket, she found her matches. She tore one free. The man was halfway down the stairs when it burst to life. She held its flame to the dark rows of match-heads. They flared, and she tossed the blazing pack at the stairs.
The gasoline erupted with a whup like a flag hit by a sudden gust. The fire reached up the man’s naked body. Screaming, he shielded his face and staggered back. He twisted away from the fire, fell, and scurried up the stairs shrieking, slapping his blazing hair. He vanished into the corridor, and another scream mingled with his own – the high, piercing screech of a woman.
Confusion rolled through Linda’s mind. She knew only that she had to get out. Covering her ears against the cries from above, she raced up the passageway to the kitchen, and outside.
She was a block away when the alarm began wailing to wake the volunteer firemen. She ducked into an alley, no longer afraid of the shambling creature with the shopping cart, no longer afraid of whatever else might lurk in the shadows.
She had burnt the Freeman house, burnt the naked specter that had haunted her nightmares.
It had to be him. He’d looked different, but it had to be him.
The woman’s scream?
One of Sheila’s ghosts?
No such thing. Nothing to be afraid of.
Not even the empty darkness of the alley. Nothing could touch her.
7
DANI ROLLED over and opened one eye. Jack was missing. She smelled coffee, and smiled. Turning onto her belly, she pushed her face into the pillow and snuggled against the sheet.
There was no hurry. She wasn’t needed at the studio today.
She writhed, stretching her stiff muscles, remembering how they got that way. Last night had been wonderful in spite of the creep.
Maybe she should thank the guy. He’d provided a certain excitement . . .
Excitement, my ass.
He’d scared the hell out of her. He ought to be caged, the damned degenerate.
She thought of him at the window, watching
her with Jack, and her skin turned hot. The bed was no longer comfortable. She tossed aside the single sheet and climbed off. Taking her satin robe from the closet, she headed for the open door.
She found Jack at the bar, a coffee mug at his elbow, his fingers probing the mouth of the artificial head. He grinned around at her. ‘Amateur night,’ he said. Swiveling his stool, he rested the head on his lap. He flicked its red hair. ‘Cheap wig. The eyes were marbles.’ He pulled the tongue from its gaping mouth. ‘A slab of liver.’
‘Yuck.’
Jack flung it onto the counter. ‘The guy has, at least, got a certain macabre ingenuity.’
He tossed the head to Dani. She inspected its waxy flesh, its eye sockets and mouth.
‘Mortician’s wax,’ Jack said, ‘on one of those plastic skulls you can buy at a hobby shop.’
Dani inserted her forefinger in an eye hole. It pushed against a soft, rubbery substance. She pulled it out, glanced at the gray crescent under her nail, sniffed it. ‘Modeling clay.’
‘To give it some weight, I suppose.’
‘Well, Al obviously wasn’t involved. No one with any knowledge of the business would turn out this kind of work.’
Jack raised a forefinger. ‘Unless, Sherlock, he did it that way to throw off suspicion.’
‘Or as a joke,’ Dani added. She set the head down on the counter, and kissed Jack. ‘Good morning.’
‘Good morning,’ he whispered. ‘Excuse me if I don’t touch.’
‘Me too,’ Dani picked up the slab of liver and eyed it critically. ‘Not enough for both of us. Would you rather have bacon?’
‘I think so.’
She carried the liver into the kitchen, holding her breath against the stench, and put it down the disposal. Then she washed her hands.
Jack washed up while she took the foil-wrapped bacon from the freezer. She unwrapped the rigid strips, dropped them into a skillet, and turned on a burner.
Jack came up behind her. He stroked her hair away, and she squirmed as he kissed the side of her neck. He rubbed her belly. A hand slipped inside her robe. It glided up her ribs, closed over her breast. His other hand loosened the cloth belt. He spread the robe open. He held both breasts, squeezing gently. Then his big hands moved lower, touching her skin like a warm breeze as they drifted down her ribs and belly, caressed her hips, brushed over her thighs. She quivered as the hands curved upward between her legs. They stirred her tuft of hair. She waited, but they didn’t seek deeper.