John Saul - In the Dark of the Night

No sound of anyone rowing.

Not even the tiniest ripple of a wake at the water’s edge.

It was as if it hadn’t happened at all.

“Jeez, that is so creepy,” Tad said. “He was just here.”

Kevin slung an arm around his son’s shoulders as they both stared out over the silent, empty expanse of water. “Well, if there was anything there at all, it’s gone now,” he said. “Come on, let’s get back to the house.”

As his father went back to the baseball game, Tad closed the car windows, shut off the headlights, and locked it.

A few minutes later, back upstairs in his room, he found himself not only shutting his bedroom door, but locking it as well, and before he went to bed, he closed and locked the window, too.

Despite his father’s words, he was certain that not only had he seen the strange man in the boat — and the madness in his face — but that the man hadn’t gone anywhere at all.

He was still out there somewhere, hiding, waiting, in the dark of the night.

“ RIGHT HERE,” Kent Newell said. “This is where I caught six trout in less than an hour last summer.”

“Yeah, right,” Tad groaned. “It was three, and we were out for two hours at least.” He looked around, finally spotted the dead tree he’d been looking for, and smirked at Kent. “And it wasn’t right here, either.” He pointed east, where the sun was still rising in its morning arc. “It was over that way. The dead tree was lined up with that real tall pine at the top of the hill, remember?”

Kent spread his hands in mock helplessness. “So sue me! This is close enough, isn’t it?”

They’d taken the boat out nearly two hours ago, tried three other spots where Kent had insisted the fish had been biting like crazy last summer — or the summer before — and failed at every one of them. As Tad shook his head at Kent’s refusal to rise to the teasing, Eric killed the motor and let the little boat glide slowly to a stop almost precisely at the point where the dead tree on shore lined up with the tall pine at the crest of the hill that rose a few hundred yards beyond the lake’s shore.

Kent, his line already rigged, dropped his baited hook over the side, made sure the red and white bobber was doing its job, then turned to help Tad get his line ready.

Eric snapped a jig onto his own line, threw it over, and started moving the tip of his pole up and down in the theoretically enticing motion that Kent still insisted was the only way to lure a fish, despite the fact that so far none of them had gotten even a nibble.

“Hey,” Tad Sparks said in a tone that caught both Eric’s and Kent’s attention. “I saw something really weird last night.” He hesitated, certain that Kent, at least, would tell him he’d only been imagining what he’d seen, but even when the sun had come up three hours ago, the strange image was still fresh in his mind. Besides, it was too late to change his mind now — both Eric and Kent were looking at him expectantly. “There was this old guy in front of our house,” he finally went on. “He was rowing a wooden boat with a huge cross on the bow. And he looked crazy.”

“Old Man Logan,” Kent said, snapping a small spinner onto the swivel on Tad’s line, then passing the rod to Tad. “Here. Cast and retrieve.”

“Old Man Logan?” Tad said as he took the rod. “Really? You think it was him?”

“Who’s Old Man Logan?” Eric asked, his own rod no longer jigging as he gazed at his friends.

“Crazy old guy who lives in the woods,” Kent said, shrugging indifferently.

“Crazy?” Eric asked, frowning. “You mean really crazy, or just weird?”

“Really crazy,” Kent replied. “I heard he killed a girl a long time ago.”

Eric’s eyes narrowed suspiciously, certain that Kent was up to something. “Come on. If he did that, how come he’s not in prison?” he asked, his eyes locking onto Kent’s as if daring him to push the story any further. But it wasn’t Kent who replied.

“Because he was crazy,” Tad said. “At least that’s what we’ve heard. He was locked up for a long time, but they finally let him out.”

“When?” Eric demanded, certain that neither of his friends would have an answer.

“Maybe ten years ago,” Kent replied.

“So if they let him out, he must not be crazy anymore, right?” Eric pressed.

Kent shrugged. “From what I’ve heard, he’s still nuts even if he’s not dangerous. I mean, who else but a crazy guy would mount a cross on the bow of his boat?”

Eric turned to Tad. “So what was he doing at your place last night?”

“Probably looking for someone else to kill,” Kent said before Tad had a chance to answer.

Once again Tad pictured the wild-eyed man with the scraggly beard, and suddenly his appetite for fishing evaporated. “All I know is that I saw him last night,” he finally said. “I don’t know what he was doing, but it was really creepy. Creepy enough that I made my dad come outside, but by the time he got there, the guy was gone. I mean like he just disappeared. It was like he hadn’t been there at all, but I know he was.”

“Jeez,” Eric whispered, scanning the lake as if in search of the apparition Tad had just described.

Abruptly, the wind picked up, and a dark cloud covered the sun. Goose bumps rose on Eric’s arms, and then even blacker clouds were closing in. What had been a perfect morning only moments ago was quickly turning into a storm, and already whitecaps were kicking up on the choppy water.

“Maybe we better go in,” Tad said, zipping up his windbreaker.

Eric nodded, reeling in his jig and laying his rod on the floor of the boat, then moving back toward the outboard. The engine started on the first pull, and Eric turned the boat toward the dock in front of Pinecrest, the little skiff rolling violently as the wind hit it broadside.

“Jeez,” Kent howled, grabbing the cleat near the bow to keep from pitching overboard. “What are you doing?”

“Trying to get us back to the dock,” Eric called a moment before a bolt of lightning ripped across the sky, followed immediately by a crash of thunder.

The boat steadied as Eric headed it directly into the wind, and he twisted the throttle, sending the skiff’s bow steeply upward, crashing into the trough beyond the wave they’d just crested. Water cascaded over Kent, who swore loudly, and Eric throttled back, afraid of swamping the boat.

Then, with no warning whatever, the motor died.

Eric pulled on the rope.

Nothing.

Another pull.

Still nothing, but this time he felt an ugly metal-on-metal grinding.

The motor would not be running any time soon.

“Get the oars,” he said.

As Tad dropped the oars into their locks and began to pull, the first raindrops began to fall, and by the time they tied up at the Pinecrest dock nearly half an hour later, all three boys were soaked to the skin. Then, as Eric was tying the last line to the cleat on the dock, the rain stopped as abruptly as it had started, the sun came out, and raindrops sparkled everywhere.

“So now what?” Tad asked, stepping out of the boat and peering up at the sky.

“Fix the motor,” Eric said. “The boat’s our only transportation, remember?”

“Then let’s fix it,” Kent said, rubbing his left biceps, which was still sore from his fifteen minutes on the oars. “I don’t want to row all the way to town and back Friday night.”

They crossed the lawn toward the carriage house, but stopped short at the door leading to the workshop.

Lying on the ground and glittering in the sunlight almost as if it were begging to be seen, was the can of charcoal lighter fluid they’d used at the barbecue the night before.