Outside the sun at last slipped behind the hill, and darkness rolled down over them like a cloud.
2
"Is it supper-time?"
"You've had it earlier, Dad. About half an hour ago."
"I'm hungry."
"There's no more until breakfast. There… have you done your teeth?"
The old man sat on the edge of his bed, dressed in pajamas. "Is there any cake? "
"Well, I could do him a slice of toast," Cynthia told her husband as he folded Stan's clothes.
"Cynthia, he'll give himself a stomach ache if he eats before bedtime. Then if he can't sleep we'll be up half the night with him."
"But-"
"Cynthia. He'll be right as rain."
"If you say so, Robert," she said meekly. "Now, Dad. Time for bed."
Robert Gregory glanced at his watch in a bored way, then added. "Oh, I might as well slip to the pub for the last one. Fancy a walk down with me?"
"Oh, not me, Robert. You know I don't like going into bars late at night."
He kissed her on the cheek. "Right-oh, dear. You help yourself to a glass or two of sherry. I'll be half an hour, tops."
"Bye, dear."
"Good night, Dad," he boomed.
Five minutes later Robert Gregory stooped down by the bush near the garden gate, picked up the carrier bag of sandwiches, cake and unopened bag of bacon snacks and carried them down the street as far as the trash can. Casually he dropped in the bag, then pushed it down with his fist. Cynthia wouldn't have seen. The walls around the garden were far too high to see into the road. And she'd never come outside after dark by herself. Whistling, his hands in his pocket running loose coins through his fingers, he headed in the direction of the inn's lights that shone across the green.
In the bedroom at Ezy View Stan Price waited until his daughter had returned downstairs to her sherry and the Friday night movie. Then he picked up the toilet roll that stood on his bedside table-the one that they used to wipe his chin after his drinks and medicine.
He tore off one square. Fed it into his mouth.
Chewed. Swallowed. Then tore off another piece of toilet tissue. As he ate, his mind, no longer distracted by the ache of hunger, cleared a little.
"John Newton." he murmured, remembering the name. "John Newton… I've something to tell you."
3
Paul lay on his bed. His fingers were knitted behind the back of his head (that still felt hot enough to scorch the pillowcase). He gazed up at the ceiling, not seeing the posters bluetacked there but picturing Miranda's smiling eyes.
Smiling eyes… he liked the phrase and rolled it round inside his head. Smiling Spanish eyes she had.
Those breasts, too, all dusted with freckles. Nipples. Dark. Deliciously dark. His mind swam, dizzy as a kitten chasing its tail.
Time had stopped obeying the rules of physics. Forget relativity, Einstein. Paul found himself slipping back in time to when Miranda lay as near naked as you could possibly get.
Her skirt slipped higher. She wanted him as much as he wanted her. Forget the laws of gravity, too, Newton.
There was an irresistible gravitational pull between them. That welded them tighter than glue. God… her eyes… those sparkling, erotic, sex-charged eyes…
But just as he was getting to break through one of those key boundaries of his life, a bunch of kids had appeared, mooching amongst the headstones not more than thirty paces away. Armed with air rifles, they were more interested in birds in the treetops than what was happening on the ground.
Luckily, the naked pair hadn't been seen. They'd gathered up their clothes and run like soldiers moving through sniper territory. Laughing with excitement and incredulity, they'd found themselves at the old railway station that once served the Necropolis. Time had raced by. Miranda was due home in fifteen minutes.
"God," she said out of the blue. "I really wanted you back there, Paul."
"Me, too." He smiled. "It looks as if we're going to have to hit the pause button until next week."
"Not quite," she said. Then she did something for him that made Paul realize she'd lived a little longer in the adult world than he had.
Paul gazed up at the ceiling, certain the grin on his face would never disappear in a million years.
4
At a little after midnight John Newton opened the back door of the house. The dog had an urgent need for the yard by this time. He ran sniffing amongst tree trunks. Soon he'd disappeared into darkness where John heard liquid splashes as Sam relieved himself.
Clouds slipped across the sky, leaving the moon a nebulous smudge of white above Skelbrooke. Even so, he could still make out the path leading up the hillside toward the lake, and although pleasantly drowsy, strolled up there, enjoying the cooler evening air. As Val got ready for bed he'd spend a few minutes out here, while the dog did what a dog's gotta do.
On the lake, which was as smooth as a vast dark mirror, the boat stood motionless. To his right he heard the hiss of the water running down its channel to the millrace beneath the house. This was a nice time of day. Paul and Elizabeth were asleep. The house, with the exception of a single light, lay in darkness. There was a sense it was ready to slumber, too. He yawned. Tomorrow he'd write a few pages of the first chapter of Without Trace, then later he'd fire up the big barbecue on the patio and sizzle up some hamburgers and pork chops. In the back of the refrigerator there was the bottle of barbecue sauce he'd brought back from his book promotion tour in Australia. That stuff was to die for-rich, dark, savory… maybe he'd ask Paul to pick some fresh strawberries from the market garden down the road, too.
Sam snuffled by, his noose hoovering the grass, as he followed the trail of some mouse or hedgehog.
John stretched, enjoying a mighty yawn. After he'd finished, he moved downhill toward the house. There the bedroom light burned. He caught a glimpse of Val's naked silhouette cast against the curtain.
"Sam… Sam?" he called softly. Then listened. He couldn't hear the dog. No panting. No scrape of his claws against the grass as he marked his territory. No nothing.
"Sam? Where are you, boy?"
Like a cannonball Sam shot out of the darkness, his tail tucked in tight between his back legs, the way he did when he was frightened or hurt.
"Sam," John said gently. "Come here. What on earth's the matter?" He stroked the dog who gave a twitchy shake of the tail. "Has something given you a fright, then? Come on, boy. Let's go inside."
In the dead center of the patio, in the light spilled from the bedroom window, John saw a chunk of stone. He watched as the dog went forward to sniff at the unfamiliar object. Sam was still a good three paces from it when his body locked up like a statue, the hair on his back bristled. Then he shuffled backwards away from it, ears flattening.
"Don't worry, Sam. It can't hurt us." He picked up the stone. His eye caught something that had been beneath it. "Oh no…"
Inexplicably his heart sank. And for a second it seemed more like winter than summer… he shivered.
"Sam. It looks as if we've got another one."
He bent down, his fingers hovering over the oblong of folded paper on the patio, momentarily reluctant to pick it up. The thing could have oozed some contamination the way he was suddenly repelled by it.
"Come on, Newton… it won't bite you."
As if plucking it from a fire, he grabbed the letter, his teeth gritted. Sam watched him.
"You didn't want me to pick it up either, did you, boy? Don't worry, it's only a letter."
He looked from the folded paper to the hunk of stone in his other hand. Like the first time it was a piece of smashed tombstone. Engraved on it, a single word: suffer that had probably been chiseled there a hundred years before. It certainly wasn't new. But he didn't doubt that whoever had chosen it as a paperweight had also made sure it bore a suitably resonant message. All part of the sick little game.
The pathetic freak… Whoever it was needed therapy. Or (even better) a good hard kick in th
e backside. He leaned over the patio wall, then dropped the stone behind a line of bedding plants where it wouldn't be noticed.
The last thing he wanted was to upset the rest of the family needlessly. This was the kind of thing that would prey on Val's mind. So with her up to her eyeballs in work he intended keeping this secret. Walking toward the door, he unfolded the letter. Same heavy paper. Same antique feel to it. As if it had been torn from a two hundred-year-old ledger. He turned it to the light. Same handwriting, too. An old-fashioned Gothic style.
Dear Messr. John Newt'n,
I should-
"Christ!" He jerked backwards. "Val. I didn't see you… Hell, you scared me half to death."
She stood in the doorway. He saw the glint of her eyes. He sensed she was smiling. "I was just beginning to wonder if some man-hungry goblins had spirited you away."
He took a deep breath and patted his chest as if to encourage his heart to keep beating.
"I took a walk up to the lake."
She was wearing a T-shirt that barely reached her thighs. Across the breasts were the words: Oh, you know what I want you to do…
"What have you got there?" she asked, nodding at the letter in John's hand.
"Oh nothing. Just a chocolate wrapper or something."
"Well, get rid of it quickly, then come to bed." She smiled back at him as they crossed the kitchen. "It's the start of the weekend, you know? "
"Coming… you go to bed, too, Sam."
The dog stepped onto his bean bag in the corner of the kitchen, turned round a couple of times, then curled himself down onto it, his tail covering his nose, but his eyes still bright and watchful as John stepped on the pedal of the trash.
"All done?" She waited for him at the kitchen door.
He smiled, nodded, and mimed dropping something into the trash, then let the lid drop down. Without Val noticing, he slipped the letter into the back pocket of his jeans.
And just what would the letter say this time?
He knew he would have to read it, driven by the same impulse that makes you look at a car wreck as you drive by, but he couldn't do so now without Val seeing. It would have to wait until morning. Good God, the world of secrets. But, he told himself, his motives were pure. There's no point in worrying the family unnecessarily.
A moment later he killed the lights and darkness claimed the ancient house.
5
Elizabeth lay in bed. Wide-awake, she picked at the scab beneath her chin. The thing itched now like spiders burrowing under her skin. No way could she sleep with this pricking and itching.
Shit, she thought with a wicked grin. Shit. It's itchy shit.
Switching on her flashlight that she kept by the bed, she shone it at her wall clock. Three 'o clock. That's three in the morning, she told herself. She'd never seen what the outside world looked like at this time. She went to the window, pulled the roller blind away from the glass at the bottom (in a way she had been forbidden to do)-but who would see her now?
Shit could see me now. She grinned at her reflection. Shit could see me.
Outside the lawn was as black as deepwater. The sky was dark, too. She could only see the lumpy silhouette of a bush.
"Shit dark," she murmured. "Dark as shit."
Everyone was asleep. Mum, Dad, Paul. Down in the kitchen Sam would be curled up in his bed. The world slept, too. She couldn't see any birds flying in the night sky. Everything lay still.
Elizabeth was about to return to bed when she saw a face looking up from the patio at her. She couldn't make out a mouth or a nose, but the eyes were huge and dark, and they stared straight up at her. Maybe it was Emma? They'd talked about going out on a secret adventure one night. Maybe Emm had come now. Elizabeth rolled up the blind, then pushed open the window. Instantly the smell of damp slithered up her nostrils.
It wasn't Emm, but it was a girl of around her own age. Eight or nine perhaps. She'd fixed her eyes on Elizabeth's. They were intense, serious looking eyes. For some reason Elizabeth found it hard to break away. And there were times when they didn't look like dark eyes at all… only holes that ran deep inside her head.
Then the girl spoke. "Elizabeth. Do you want to see where I live?" The girl held out her hand.
Elizabeth shook her head. "I'm not allowed out by myself at night."
"Me neither. I'll get into trouble if he finds I've gone."
The girl held up her hands as if ready to catch Elizabeth if she jumped from the window. "I'm bored, Elizabeth. I want to show you where I live."
"Sorry. I'm going back to bed now."
"No. Please don't… I'll wait until you come down. We'll only be a few minutes and it would be so nice to talk with you for a while."
"Where do you come from?"
"Near here."
"No," Elizabeth said. "Where did you first come from?"
"Sorry. I don't understand what you mean."
"Your accent's different."
"I was born here. I've always lived here." The accent was the same as those in old black and white movies. Then the girl paused. She gazed up with those eyes that looked like holes bored deep into a slab of wood. "Please spend some time with me."
Now this was a strange thing. Elizabeth didn't remember leaving the house. Only all of a sudden she found herself walking down the lane with the white-faced girl.
Whiteface stared at her. The eyes were round and dark. Even though Elizabeth was this close now the girl's eyes still looked like holes. Just holes in white wood.
It was cold out here, despite it being a summer's night. Cold. Dark. And not a happy place to be. The lane ran ahead of them, a pale strip lying between monstrous growths of trees that reached up and over them with dark, ragged arms.
Ready to pounce, Elizabeth.
She shook her head. She shouldn't be out. Not with this white-faced girl with black holes for eyes.
"Not far now," whispered the girl.
"I don't want to go any further. I want to go home."
"Hold my hand, Elizabeth, if you're frightened. We'll soon be there."
"But I-"
"You want to see where I live, don't you?"
No, I do not, Elizabeth told herself. I don't want to see where you live at all.
Above her darkness swirled in twisting vortices. Whirlpools of shadows veined with purple. They reached out to her, enveloping her. And even those shadows possessed wide, staring eyes that bore into her as she walked by.
Then Elizabeth giggled.
"What's so funny?" Whiteface asked.
"I know what this is now."
"What is it?"
"It's a dream," Elizabeth told her. "I'm dreaming."
A slit appeared in the skin beneath the twin holes in the girl's face. "You're dreaming?" The slit became a smile. "Yes. That's exactly what it is, Elizabeth. You're lying in bed at home with your bear in the red jacket and you're dreaming your head off."
Elizabeth saw the smile was only as real as the eyes. And the eyes were only holes in a hard, white face.
"Come on, slow coach," sang the girl. "Come and see where I live."
"You live in dream land." Elizabeth allowed the girl to take her hand. It squeezed tight as a metal band around hers. "You live in dreamland and use dream telephones and sit on dream chairs."
"Of course we do, and I'll show you… but hurry!"
This was a dream, Elizabeth told herself. She couldn't be harmed. They walked quickly through the darkness, sometimes half running as if late for a bus. Whiteface urged her on.
The main road that skirted the village was a silent, dead river of tar this time of night. No traffic ran now. But would it in a dream anyway? Any second whales might break through the blacktop to blow vapor into the air.
This was a dream, she insisted. Anything could happen. Anything…
The girl moved faster, pulling Elizabeth along. The hand around hers shrunk into a tight iron ring. Whiteface looked eagerly forward, the eyes fathomless pits.
The Necrop
olis, we're going to the Necropolis… Elizabeth looked up at the hill swathed in dark, lumbering trees. Now they moved faster, Whiteface even more eager.
"Nearly there, Elizabeth. We're nearly there!"
An iron fence loomed. Whiteface rushed toward the gap in the palings. Beyond, there were the graves, bursting like scabs from the grass. A stone Christ with no face towered over the nettles, His hands reaching out at Elizabeth, fingers hooked into lethal claws.
Suddenly Elizabeth was appalled. "This is a dream… this is a dream!" Only now a clear note of uncertainty sounded in her voice.
"Of course it's a dream, Elizabeth. Come with me. Hold my hand. I'll stop you from being frightened."
"Where are we going?"
"To where I live."
"I-I've seen enough. I want to go… h-home." Her eyes streamed, as a dark and terrible fear squirmed into her stomach and forced its scaly passage up through her throat. "I want to go h-h-home!"
"But it's only a dream, Elizabeth." The black slit in the girl's face widened, aping a smile. But there were no lips. No tongue behind it. Only darkness that echoed the darkness where the eyes should be.
"Come and get some chocolate with me, Elizabeth. I know where there's plenty. People came and left it at little Jess Bowen's grave."
They were running through the cemetery by now. Elizabeth didn't have the strength to resist. The iron grip on her hand, so bone achingly tight, did not slip; she was dragged between the massed ranks of tombstones.
"We'll get you a lovely big piece of chocolate, Elizabeth." Then Whiteface added in a voice that sounded closer to thunder on a winter's night, "Yum. Yum."
Gravestones loomed out at her; great, dark guardians of the underworld. Sometimes stones loomed close to her face. In a daze she found herself reading snatches of verse:
Weep not for me parents dear
Weep not for me in vain
I am not dead but sleepeth here…
Breathless, with a stitch digging deep into her side, she moved between evil-looking stone buildings with iron doors from where wordless mumbling pleaded for release. She shook her head trying not to hear; they grew louder and she shut her eyes. No, no, no no… No!