John Saul - The Right Hand of Evil

As he stared numbly at the horrifying spectacle before him, he was vaguely aware of a hot wetness spreading through the crotch of his jeans. But even as he lost control of his bladder, he could do nothing to free himself from the paralysis that held him, couldn't even bring himself to tear his eyes away from the fire consuming his mother.

Eulalie Cumberland made no sound at all as her clothes caught fire and the flames began eating away at her flesh. Nor did she make any effort to save herself. But her hands reached out of the flames and closed on two of the objects she'd spread around her.

In her left hand she held the effigy doll, suspended from a noose she'd tied around its neck.

In her right hand she held the knife.

While Jake and George Conway watched her, she plunged the knife deep into the body of the doll, then jerked it downward. As the thin cotton from which she'd made the doll ripped open, the entrails of the frog poured forth from its belly.

The flames, higher now, engulfed her head, but still she held the doll high. The bloody guts hanging from its belly glimmered in the firelight, and as George Conway stared at them, his own eyes widening in terror, Eulalie Cumberland began to laugh.

It was an unearthly sound, erupting from her throat in peal after peal, and even after she finally pitched forward into the flames, her laughter still seemed to hang in the night air.

Jake, transfixed by the horror of watching his mother burn, trembled in the darkness as the flames died slowly away.

Even when the fire had finally burned itself out, he couldn't bring himself to leave. He watched from the shadows as George Conway disposed of the remains of his mama, wrapping them in a thick blanket, then disappearing back into the great dark house, carrying his burden with him.

All through the rest of the night, Jake Cumberland stayed by the carriage house.

He tried to tell himself that what he'd seen couldn't have happened, that it had to be some kind of terrible nightmare.

Pretty soon he'd wake up and be back home in the cabin, and his mama would be at the stove, frying up the grits she always fixed for breakfast.

Only when the sun finally crept over the horizon did Jake finally go home. He stayed in the cabin as long as he could, not coming out for three days and three nights. And when finally the sister came looking for him and asked him where his mother was, he didn't tell her what he'd seen that night.

He didn't tell anyone, ever.

But when he heard that they'd found George Conway the afternoon after his mother died, hanging from the magnolia tree behind his house, still clutching the knife he'd used to tear his own belly open, Jake heard something.

He heard his mama laughing.

He'd known right away why she was laughing. It was because even though Conway had killed her, she'd still won. But he'd still never understood what she meant when she talked about feeling the evil.

Not until last night when the hounds started up.

For the first time, he'd known exactly what his mama had meant.

He had felt something.

Something evil.

Something outside in the darkness, lurking somewhere just beyond the circle of yellow light cast by the lantern.

Usually, he would have turned the dogs loose, but not last night. Something held him back, something whispered to him to keep them inside the cabin.

This afternoon, though, when he'd left the cabin to take the little boat out, he chained them up outside-couldn't keep them inside all day long. But even as he'd tossed his fishing pole, bait, and bucket into the boat and shoved it out onto the water, he wondered if maybe he shouldn't put them back in the cabin.

Or maybe even take them along.

In the end he told himself that whatever had been skulking around the cabin last night was long gone. And in the bright light of the afternoon sun, he was pretty sure he'd just imagined it anyway. Probably just feeling jumpy after his own midnight outing. Not that he'd done anything wrong-in fact, he'd been doing that whole family a favor. If they had any smarts at all, they'd pack up and move themselves right back to wherever they came from. And there sure wasn't any way they'd know who it was nailed the cat skin on the back of their carriage house. Even if anyone suspected, they couldn't prove it.

No, he'd just been jumpy.

Finally letting himself relax for the first time since he'd opened his mother's trunk last night, Jake lay back on the bottom of the boat, holding his fishing pole loosely in his right hand, his feet propped up on the bench across the middle, his head resting comfortably in the bow. He tipped his straw hat down over his face and closed his eyes.

And then the dogs began baying.

Jake jerked bolt upright, recognizing the sound at once. It was his hounds that had set to wailing, no question about it-even from a mile, maybe two miles away-he could recognize the sound of his dogs. And they were letting out with the same howling they'd set up last night-not all excited, like when they caught the scent of a 'coon or a rabbit. Just like last night, they sounded mad.

Worried, and mad.

Jake reeled in his line, stowed the pole, and started rowing back toward shore. He'd been drifting quite a while, and the cabin looked to be nearly a mile away now, though the dogs' baying carried so clearly over the water they sounded like they weren't more than a couple hundred yards away.

He'd only pulled a few strokes on the oars when the baying died away. He stopped rowing; shipping the oars for a minute while he listened.

Nothing but a fish jumping off to the left, and the whining of a mosquito as it zeroed in on his neck. Then, just as he slapped at the mosquito, he heard it.

Jake knew what the sound meant the second he heard it. A high-pitched howl of pain, cut off so quickly that Jake knew exactly what had happened.

One of his dogs had died.

The mosquito forgotten, Jake lowered the oars back into the water and began pulling hard in a steady rhythm that sent the boat slicing through the water.

Twice he paused, feathering the oars over the lake's rippled surface as he listened, but it wasn't until he was within a few yards of the shore that he finally heard it.

A single dog-he was almost sure it was Lucky-was whimpering.

The boat slid up onto the beach, and Jake jumped out of the bow, pulling the craft out of the water until half of it rested in the hard-packed mud that formed the bank. Leaving everything in the boat, he hurried up to the cabin.

At first glance, nothing looked different. But then, when he got around to the back, he saw that he'd been right. Lucky was at the end of his chain, whimpering as he sniffed the ground around the end of the other chain.

Red was gone.

Jake strode forward and dropped down on one knee. "What happened, Lucky?" he asked. "What's been going on around here while I been gone?"

The dog whimpered eagerly, and wriggled under Jake's touch, but then went back to sniffing the ground around the end of Red's chain. Frowning, Jake picked up the chain and tested the clasp he'd attached to Red's collar.

Nothing wrong with it.

Nor was there any sign of the collar.

"Where is he, Lucky?" he asked. "Where'd he go?"

Snapping the chain off Lucky's collar, Jake stood up. "Find Red," he instructed softly. "Show me where he is."

The dog dashed around the corner of the cabin, and a moment later Jake found him sniffing and scratching at the door.

Mounting the porch, Jake hesitated. Why would Red be inside the cabin? If something had killed him-

Then he remembered. Not something. Someone. An icy chill came over Jake, but he crossed his sagging porch and opened the door to his house.