David Morrell - The Totem

"Lunacy, they used to call it. Madness from the moon."

Slaughter didn't want to talk about this anymore. "I've got to go in after him."

"I'll bring my bag."

"We'll need it." Slaughter hurried up the stone steps to his men. "Is everybody ready?"

They nodded tensely.

"Keep your gloves on. Rettig, hold the net at that end. You three hold it at the other end and in the middle. Just remember. No one hurt him."

Slaughter looked at Dunlap again to make sure he'd heard, and they started in.

Dunlap followed.

"No, you stay out here," Slaughter told him.

"But I want to see the end of this."

"I don't have time to keep you safe from trouble. I've got plenty as it is to think about."

"I'll stay back out of danger."

"You're damned right you will. You'll stay there on the porch."

"You're hiding something, Slaughter."

For the first time, Slaughter felt enraged by him. "I beg your pardon?"

"You heard what I said. You're not sure you can keep your men controlled. You don't want someone like me up there to see trouble."

"I've had just about enough from-"

"Parsons told you to cooperate."

"About the commune but not this. He doesn't even know about this."

"But he'll be damned mad if you screw up his p.r. tactics. Look, you need as many witnesses as you can get. I've handled this about as well as anybody. I've been helping."

Slaughter couldn't stand here arguing. He squinted at the headlights, at the medical examiner approaching, and abruptly made his choice. "All right, I'm going to take a chance on you. The first time you get in the way, you'll find your ass out on the porch."

"That's what I figured."

"Then we understand each other." Slaughter turned to the medical examiner. "You'll need these gloves."

"Hey, I will too," Dunlap said.

"You won't be close enough to need them."

They crossed the long, wide hallway toward the curving staircase. Men were spread out at the bottom, the net before them.

"Ready with your flashlights?" Slaughter asked.

They nodded, turning on the flashlights, beams arcing up the stairs. He heard their breathing and smelled their sweat.

"Okay, let's do it."

Footsteps shuffling, scraping, they started, the net spread out before them, up the staircase.

It was waiting for them. It had scurried to the final landing. Now it heard their footsteps and their whispers, saw their sweeping flashlight beams. They still were quite a distance down there, but in time they would be up here, and it hissed as it swung in search of cover.

But there weren't any rooms behind it, just this one big open space that stretched from end to end. It didn't understand, although it did retain a far off memory of someone who'd explained this. There were slight projections from each corner, spaces behind, but these would be too obvious. It needed something else. And then it saw what it was looking for. A perfect hiding place and one it could attack from if it had to.

It was scurrying to reach the place, and all the while, it kept glancing at the glow that swept in through the window and spread cold and pale across the floor. It started howling again. It couldn't stop itself, was powerless to fight the urge, just crouched there, head up, howling long and high, its throat constricted painfully, and then the urge had been relieved, and it was scurrying.

The darkness in this hiding place was wonderful, the blackness soothing and secure. It closed its eyes to rest them after all the strain of squinting at that cold pale glow that spilled in through the windows. It was breathing quickly, nervous even though the hiding place was comforting. It licked its lips and tasted yet again the scabs of blood that clung in specks against its mouth. That salt taste that it now had grown accustomed to and even had begun to crave. But the salt taste had been liquid, and that recollection made it gag again. Nonetheless it wanted that warm sweetly salted liquid. It was caught in oppositions, both attracted and repelled, and without conscious effort, it was howling even more fiercely.

They stopped down on the second landing.

"It's up on the third floor."

"Maybe," Slaughter told them.

"But you heard it howling."

"We don't know if there's a dog in here as well. I say we do this as we planned it. Dunlap, you're so anxious to be helpful. Shine that flashlight up the stairs. Don't wait to yell if you see movement."

"Oh, don't worry. If there's anything on those stairs, I'll yell my god-damned head off."

"Are you sorry that you came now?"

"I wouldn't miss it for the world."

"You must want that story bad."

"You have no idea."

But then Slaughter saw the way the flashlight beam was shaking, and he took the light away from him. "I don't know if it's booze or nerves, but I don't want my life depending on you. Here, you'd better take this." And he gave the flashlight to the medical examiner. "You do it just the way I told him." He turned to his men. "Okay, we work along this big hall up here, checking all the rooms. I don't expect to find him on this level, but I can't depend on expectation."

With the net spread before them, they moved through the darkness. When they reached the first doors on each side, they stopped and looked at Slaughter.

"Try the left side. I'll stay here and watch the other."

Breathing hoarsely, they went slowly in. But there was nothing. They shone flashlights in the corners and the closets, just an old-time bedroom with a canopy above the bed, a net that came down to keep out mosquitoes. They looked underneath the bed, and they came out, checking all the other rooms along the hallway. Other beds, a playroom, and a study, all rigged out as if a hundred years ago, maps and photographs and guns up on the walls, a chair that looked as if old Baynard had risen from it only a moment ago, but nobody was in there, and they came out, staring down the hall toward where the medical examiner was aiming the flashlight up the stairs.

"I guess we know he's up there," Slaughter said.

They faced the stairs and started up. Their flashlight beams were making crazy angles on the walls and ceiling. The men shuffled as if at any moment they expected some small figure to come hurtling toward them, but instead they reached the final landing, and they swung their beams across the big top-story room.

"Well, I don't get it," Slaughter said. "What is this place?" His voice echoed.

"You've never been here?" Rettig asked.

"Always meant to. Never took the time."

"The ballroom," Rettig told him. "Baynard's wife was Southern, and she didn't like the people out here. She was used to parties, dances, fancy dinners. Baynard built this place to suit her, and the ballroom was his special effort. Once a month at least he had a celebration. Ranchers, those with money, used to come from miles around, better people from the town, congressmen and senators. He paid their way. They'd come up from the railroad in carriages he sent for them. He even brought an orchestra from Denver. They would dance and eat and-"

"What's the matter?" Slaughter asked him.

In the dark, the flashlight beams angling across the ballroom, Slaughter felt his stomach burning.

"Well, I used to hear about it from my father's father, but I never knew if it was true or not. He said the parties sometimes got a little out of hand."

"I don't know what you mean."

Rettig continued, "You can see the way the balcony juts out from that end. Well, the orchestra played up there. With that solid wooden railing, the musicians couldn't see too much of what went on below them. In the corners and the sides there, you can see the slight partitions that come out."