John Saul - Black Creek Crossing

He could only remember charging at Seth with the shattered bottle, feeling the warmth in his belly as he anticipated the razor-sharp glass sinking into Seth’s flesh.

But it hadn’t happened. The glass had sunk into his own flesh instead, and torn at his own face.

Had he tripped?

But he didn’t remember tripping.

All he remembered was Seth watching him, staring at him—

He caught a flicker in the mirror and whirled around, half expecting to see Jared again standing in the doorway to the bathroom.

But the doorway — and the hall beyond — were empty.

Chad turned back to the mirror, and froze. The image was back, but this time it wasn’t just a flicker of motion. This time it was a face, and the face was clear.

It was Seth Baker, and Seth was staring straight at him, his eyes cold and boring deep into his.

As he gazed back, something inside Chad Jackson began to understand the truth, and he knew that the pain he was feeling now wasn’t the pain of his own wound.

Now he was feeling the agony of all the wounds he had ever inflicted on Seth Baker.

As the seconds stretched out, Chad’s eyes remained fixed on the image of Seth in the mirror, and a terrible urge came over him. Against his own will and with his eyes still fixed on the image of Seth Baker, which seemed to be suspended somewhere deep in the infinity behind the mirror, Chad opened the top drawer of the counter beneath the bathroom sink and picked up the razor that had been his grandfather’s and was now his father’s and would someday be his.

But he needed the razor now.

He picked it up in his right hand, opening the blade with his left. He didn’t test the blade — didn’t even see it, really.

All he did was raise it so its point lay against his neck just below his left ear.

He knew what was going to happen next but there was nothing he could do to stop it. It was as if the force of Seth Baker’s will had taken control of his body, and it was a force Chad Jackson was utterly powerless to resist.

With one quick motion he pressed the blade of the razor deep into his neck, cutting through skin and muscle and sinew. As blood began to flow from the wound, he jerked the razor across his throat, and watched in shocked awe as his throat gaped open and the flow of blood surged to a pulsing gush as the blade ripped through his larynx and aorta.

As his life drained away, the razor fell from Chad’s hand and clattered into the sink, but as he sank to the floor and the darkness of eternity began to close around him, all he heard was the faint sound of laughter.

Seth Baker’s laughter.

In the quiet of his own room, Seth clung to the fading image of Chad Jackson for a few more seconds, watching as Chad’s life drained away into the pool of blood spreading around him. Only when Chad lay still and the flow of blood had slowed to a trickle did he finally turn away from the mirror over his dresser, in which the vision of Chad’s death had been so vivid that Seth was certain it had happened exactly as he’d seen it.

The day of reckoning had come, and the first of his tormentors had fallen.

LL AFTERNOON JANE BAKER HAD BEEN TRYING TO make sense of what her husband was saying, but after more than three hours, she still didn’t understand. Still, she knew better than to try to argue with Blake when he was angry, and when he’d come home this afternoon, he was angrier than she’d ever seen him and telling her things that just sounded crazy.

Like Seth attacking Zack Fletcher last night. Seth was terrified of Zack, and always had been. But if he’d finally decided to fight back, wasn’t it about time?

And witchcraft? Where had that come from? Of course, she’d heard the stories about what had happened in Roundtree centuries ago — who hadn’t? But surely Blake didn’t believe them! And what was he doing talking to Father Mulroney anyway?

But Blake had been too upset and too angry for her to reason with him, so she’d just listened and tried to understand, and waited for his rage to pass before it focused on her. And for a little while — the last half hour, anyway — she thought it was going to be all right.

But a few minutes ago they heard Seth going up the back stairs, and then Blake’s fury came flooding back, and suddenly she wished she could take back the words she’d just spoken: “What are you going to do to him?”

“I’m going to get the truth out of him,” Blake rasped, his eyes as hard as his voice. “I’m going to find out where he’s been and what he’s been doing.”

As he turned on his heel and started toward the stairs, Jane stood up and reached toward her husband, as if to stop him. But she said nothing as he mounted the stairs, and let her hand drop to her side, certain that anything she said or did would only make matters worse. Besides, she told herself, he won’t hurt Seth. Sinking back onto the sofa, Jane picked up a magazine and began leafing through it, believing that if she could concentrate on something else, she wouldn’t dwell on whatever might be happening in Seth’s room.

And it was better not to know, really, since there wasn’t anything she could do about it anyway.

Seth heard his father rap once on his door. Then, as always, he opened it without waiting for Seth to respond. But this evening, for the first time in his memory, Seth didn’t feel frightened.

“What the hell have you been doing?” Blake Baker demanded, stepping into the room and closing the door behind him.

With a strange feeling of detachment, Seth turned around to face his father. He could see that his father was furious with him, but somehow his father’s rage wasn’t tying his own stomach into knots, or making his knees tremble, or bringing him to the brink of crying.

In fact, his father’s anger wasn’t making him feel anything at all.

“You answer me, boy,” Blake said, his voice dropping dangerously. “What have you been doing?”

Seth cocked his head, and his brow furrowed as he tried to decide what to tell his father. Not that it would make much difference — his father wouldn’t believe the truth, and had already made up his mind what he was going to do. He was already unbuckling his belt.

“You’re not going to do that anymore,” Seth said quietly.

His father froze, the belt half out of its loops. “What did you say?” he asked, his eyes boring into Seth with the coldness that always made Seth cower.

This time, Seth didn’t move.

“I don’t want you to hit me anymore,” he said.

“Since when do you decide what I do and what I don’t do?” Blake grated. “You do what I tell you. And since you didn’t answer either of the questions I asked you, you know what happens next.” He pulled the belt free from the rest of the loops and wrapped the tag end around his hand a few times so the buckle was dangling from two feet of leather. “Drop your pants, Seth — I’m going to teach you some respect.”

Seth shook his head.

A vein in Blake Baker’s forehead began to pulse as he slapped the belt buckle against the palm of his free hand. “You don’t want to do this, Seth,” he said. “You’re only making it worse for yourself.”

Seth shook his head again.

Blake’s right fist tightened on the belt, and his arm rose in the air.

And Seth focused his mind.

Blake Baker’s arm began its downward arc, but instead of lashing out at Seth, the buckle whipped around and struck his own face. As the metal tore into the flesh of his cheek, Blake Baker roared in pain, lurched backward, then lashed out at Seth once more.