John Saul - In the Dark of the Night

“Kent!”

But the lake and the woods were silent.

He stood on the dock and peered across the dark water. The moon was about to rise, and the eastern sky was taking on a faint silvery glow. But the lake was quiet, the shore deserted as far as he could see; there were no boys here.

Jeff looked back up the lawn toward the house, and for the first time saw a faint yellow light in a back window behind the garage.

The old carriage house? What were they doing in there? But of course he knew what they were doing.

Messing around.

Seeing what they could find.

And, of course, getting into mischief.

Jeff began rehearsing the speech he was going to deliver in about two minutes when he found the boys, letting them know exactly what would be expected of them this summer. He began mentally ticking off points.

Almost old enough to drive.

Going to be seniors in the fall.

Time to demonstrate responsibility.

And, last but far from least, they weren’t going to ignore him when he called!

A door to the rooms behind the garage was ajar, and down the hall another door stood open, yellow light spilling out, illuminating the hallway. Jeff strode down the hall and stepped into a storeroom.

The three boys were huddled together, poring over something on an old desk.

“Kent!” All three boys jumped at the sound of his voice and whirled to face him. “Are you deaf?” he went on. “I’ve been calling you for at least five minutes. It’s time to go home.”

The boys looked at one another uncertainly. “You just started playing cards,” Kent finally said.

Jeff scowled at his son. “We started an hour ago, and Dan’s cleaned us all out. I’m down at least three dollars, and it’s time to go. After you’ve cleaned up the mess by the barbecue pit,” he added pointedly.

But the boys were barely listening. An hour ago? How was it possible? They’d been in the storage room only ten minutes or so. They couldn’t have been looking at the album for more than that.

But as they stepped outside, they saw that night had fallen; there was no trace at all of the sunset that had still been bright when they’d left the fire pit.

It was completely dark, except for the brightness in the east where the moon was coming up.

But how could it have gotten this late?

“I’m sorry, Mr. Newell,” Tad said. “I guess we just lost track of time.”

Jeff Newell’s eyes narrowed. “What were you boys doing in there, anyway?”

“Looking at some old photographs is all,” Eric said.

“For an hour?” Jeff turned, addressing the question directly to his son.

Kent only shrugged, and so did Eric and Tad.

“Okay,” he began. “This is not how it’s going to be this summer.” He began ticking off all the points he’d laid out in his head a few minutes earlier, using his fingers to count them one by one. “And you’re going to show some respect and have some consideration for other people. When I — or anyone else calls you—”

“Sorry, Dad,” Kent cut in. “It won’t happen again.”

“See that it doesn’t,” the elder Newell replied as they came to the remains of the fire. “Now clean up those skewers and get the marshmallows into the house before a raccoon gets them. And your mother is waiting. She’s tired. We’re all tired. It’s time to go. So step on it, okay?” Without waiting for a reply, Jeff Newell wheeled around and headed back to the house, leaving the three boys to clean up their mess.

“You guys go if you want,” Eric said. “I’ve got this.”

“How did it get so late so fast?” Tad whispered.

Eric shrugged. He had no idea how it had happened, but he also knew that what had happened this evening was exactly what had happened that afternoon.

Only tonight it had happened to all three of them.

There was something about that room.

Something strange.

Something that, even now, seemed to be tugging at him.

But what was it? It was just a storeroom, wasn’t it?

Or was it?

As he picked up the marshmallows and skewers and started toward the house, he suddenly turned and looked back at the dark mass of the carriage house, and even though he still had no idea exactly what had happened in there just now, there was one thing he did know.

He couldn’t wait to go back in there again.

LOGAN PULLED ON the oars, sending the boat silently through the water. Even the oarlocks seemed muffled this night as he skirted the edge of the lake where the moon had not penetrated the dark shelter of overhanging trees.

Near the bow, the old dog stirred restlessly on his bed, the scent of bones that Logan had dug up from the Dumpster behind the butcher shop strong enough to penetrate even his diminished nostrils.

“Soon,” Logan soothed. “Just a little longer, then we’re on our way home.” He eased the boat around the point, turned it, then froze as he gazed at Pinecrest, his hands clenching the oars so hard his arthritic knuckles sent agonizing protests straight up his arms. But he was barely conscious of the pain as he gazed at the windows of Pinecrest, almost all of them ablaze with light.

He had hoped that the people would go away. He had wished them away, focusing every fragment of his consciousness on his need to have Pinecrest — all of it — empty of people.

But they hadn’t gone, and he knew he was failing at what Dr. Darby had commanded him to do before he’d…Logan groped in the cluttered depths of his consciousness for the right word…. Before he’d left. And now, after all these years, all the years in which he’d been able to do what Dr. Darby had asked — had demanded — he was failing.

How could he protect Dr. Darby’s things when he couldn’t go near them? For several long minutes he sat perfectly still in the boat, telling himself that maybe it would be all right, that maybe the people in the house would stay in the house and that, after all, the hidden things — the secret things — would remain exactly as Dr. Darby had left them. Finally, he began rowing again, heading for home.

He would feed the dog and feed the bird, and maybe the doctor’s things would be safe, and the people in the house would soon be gone.

But as he eased the boat through the water and came abreast of the old carriage house, his heart began to pound.

The light in the storage area was on.

The light was on, and he knew why.

The boy.

The boy he’d seen earlier.

That’s who it had to be. The boy was inside the storage area, and Dr. Darby’s things were not safe.

The boy was not safe.

No one was safe.

Once again Logan let the boat drift to a stop, hidden deep within the shadows cast over the lake by the tall pines for which the house had been named, trying to find the courage to go ashore.

Then he heard a shout and saw a man coming down the lawn. His heart skipping a beat, Logan backed into the reeds near the shore, where the shadows of the pines were so deep he could barely even see the dog, who had caught his master’s anxiety and was now trying to rise on his rickety legs. To quiet the animal, Logan fished a knucklebone from the leavings he’d scavenged that night, and in an instant the dog had dropped back onto the floor of the scow and begun to gnaw.

Logan waited.

The man called again, went into the carriage house, then came out followed not by one boy, but by three.

Not long after that, the lights in the house went dark.

Logan waited in the darkness, knowing it was finally time for him to do what he should have done years ago.

Careful to make no sound at all, he beached the boat, tied the painter to a branch, and stepped out.