John Saul: Nathaniel

And with Michael's help, he had destroyed his enemies.

And now, Michael and his mother were in the field, and would find the children, and know the truth.

Now, at last, Nathaniel could go home.

He left the barn and in the gathering darkness crossed the yard. He ignored the house-the house that had been part of his prison through all the years of his life, but that had, in these last days, been his secret refuge. Instead, he concentrated his mind on his goal: the house where he'd been born.

He moved quickly, slipping easily through the barbed wire, and in a few seconds, he was there…

Janet's shovel struck something, something that stopped the blade's penetration of the earth, but was too soft to be a rock. As Michael stood by, with Shadow quivering at his side, Janet lowered herself to her knees, and began digging with her hands.

A moment later she felt the soft folds of a blanket.

Her heart began to beat faster as she worked, and then she pulled the object she had uncovered free from the earth that had hidden it.

She stared at it for a long time, afraid to open it, afraid it might actually be what she thought it was.

But she had come too far to turn back now. With a shaking hand, she folded back one corner of the blanket.

She could only stand to look at it for a second. Already, the flesh had begun to rot away, and the skin was entirely gone from the skull. Her stomach lurched, and involuntarily, Janet dropped the tiny corpse back into its grave. Her face pale, her whole body trembling now, Janet turned to gaze at her son.

"How did you know?" she breathed. "How did you know?"

"Nathaniel," Michael said, his voice steady. "Nathaniel told me."

"Where is he?"

Michael fell silent for a moment, then his eyes filled with tears.

"He's gone home," he said. "He's gone home to die."

Michael stopped, his eyes fixed on the window of his room. Janet, too, stopped. Following Michael's gaze, she looked up. The house was dark except for a single, oddly flickering light that glowed from Michael's window. Shadow bounded ahead to scratch eagerly at the back door.

"What is it, Michael?" Janet asked.

"Nathaniel. He's here. He's in my room."

"No," Janet whispered. "There's no one here, Michael. There's no Nathaniel." But even as she said the words, Janet knew she no longer believed them. Whatever Nathaniel was, whether he was someone real, or a ghost, or no more than a creature of Michael's imagination, he was real. He was as real to her now as he was to Michael, and to Anna.

Slowly, Janet moved toward the back door of the house. Michael followed her, his face suddenly gone blank, as if he was listening to some being that Janet couldn't see.

She pulled the door open, and reached for the light switch. Nothing happened. Shadow slipped inside, immediately disappearing through the kitchen and up the stairs.

Janet could sense the presence in the house now, and her instinct was to flee, to abandon the house to whatever had invaded it, to take Michael and run out into the darkening night.

Instead, she went into the living room and picked up the poker that hung from the mantelpiece. Then she turned, and as if in a trance, moved toward the foot of the stairs, and started up.

Michael followed. Once again, his head was pounding, and once again, his nostrils seemed filled with smoke. And once again, Nathaniel's voice was whispering in his head.

"This is my house, and I have come home."

Michael moved on, his vision starting to cloud.

"This is my house, and I will never leave it. Never again."

They reached the landing. The presence of Nathaniel was almost palpable. Shadow, too, was there, his great body stretched on the floor in front of Michael's door, a strangled whimpering coming from his throat.

"This was my mother's house, and this is my house. I will not leave my house again."

Michael stopped, staring at the closed door, listening to Nathaniel's voice, knowing what Nathaniel was going to ask him to do.

Janet, too, stopped, but then she moved forward again, and put her hand on the knob of the door to Michael's room.

She turned it, then gently pushed the door, letting it swing open.

In the center of the room, his empty blue eyes fixed on her, his ashen face expressionless, Nathaniel stood, illuminated by the soft light of an oil lamp.

"This is my house," he said. "I was born here, and I will die here."

Janet recognized them all in the strange face she beheld. It was an ageless face, and it bore no emotion, and all of them were there.

Mark was there, and Amos.

Ben Findley was there.

And Michael was there.

For endless seconds, Janet searched that face, her mind reeling. Even now, as she saw him, she still was uncertain if he was real or only an apparition.

"Who are you?" she breathed at last.

"I am Nathaniel."

"What do you want?"

"I want what is mine," Nathaniel replied, his toneless voice echoing in the small room. "I want what was taken from me. I want-"

"No!" Janet suddenly screamed. All the torment that had built inside her over the last months, all the tensions, all tht fears, overwhelmed her now, focusing on the strange being in Michael's room. "No," she screamed once again. "Nothing. You'll get nothing here."

She raised the poker, swinging it at Nathaniel with all the force she could muster. Nathaniel staggered backward under the blow, and then Janet dropped the poker, hurling herself forward.

" Help me, Michael !" The words thundered in Michael's head as he watched his mother throw herself on Nathaniel. Then, again, Nathaniel's words came: " Help me !"

Everything Michael saw was fogged now, fogged by the smoke that was choking him, and by the sound of Nathaniel's words ringing in his head.

"Help me, Michael. Please help me…"

His mind began to focus, and Nathaniel's wish began to take shape within him.

And then, as Michael silently commanded him, Shadow suddenly rose to his feet and launched himself into the room. To Michael, it was as if he was seeing it in slow motion: the dog seeming to arc slowly through the air, his lips curling back to expose his gleaming fangs, his ears laid flat against his head, droplets of saliva scattering from his jowls.

"Help me!" Nathaniel's words filled the room now, battering Michael's ears as well as his mind.

Then Shadow reached his target, his body twisting in midair and knocking over the little table that held the oil lamp as his jaws closed firmly on a human throat.

A scream filled the room as the oil lamp burst, and flames suddenly shot in every direction. The bedcovers caught first, and then the curtains.

Suddenly the room was filled with real smoke, and Michael understood with certain clarity that this was the smoke he'd been smelling all along, that Nathaniel, while showing him the past, had been showing him the future as well. And now he could hear his mother's terrified screams drowning out Nathaniel's bellows of pain and anguish.

His fogged mind cleared, and he watched for a moment, frozen to the spot, as his mother began flailing at the quickly spreading fire.

On the floor, his throat bleeding, Nathaniel lay calmly beneath the still attacking dog.

"No," Michael screamed. He hurled himself into the room. "No, Mom. Stop it-it's too late! Out! We've got to get out!"

Without waiting for her to reply, Michael grabbed her arm and began dragging her from the burning room.

For Janet, none of it was real anymore. Not Nathaniel, not Michael, not even the fire. She was caught in her nightmare again, but this time, she had to save them. Her family was going to die, and she had to save them.

She fought against the hands that restrained her, tried her best to stay in the burning room, tried to combat the growing flames.