John Saul - In the Dark of the Night

“Call me when you get home,” Merrill said, hugging him tightly.

“I will.” Dan reached roughly for Eric and gave him the kind of uncomfortable hug that was all his teenage son would accept from him right now. “You’re the man of the house this week.”

Eric nodded.

“Take care of your mother and your sister, okay?”

Eric nodded again. “Don’t worry, Dad.”

“I won’t.” He kissed Merrill one last time. “And don’t you worry, either.” He gave them a final wave, then climbed the two-step ladder into the plane.

The pilot cast off the single line that held the float plane to the dock, pushed the little aircraft away, then went in and pulled the door closed. A moment later the engines started and the plane taxied slowly out into the lake.

A wave of panic came over Merrill at the thought of spending the evening at Pinecrest with Dan nowhere close, and she turned to Ellen Newell and Ashley Sparks. “You two doing anything tonight?” she asked.

“I’m driving over to my cousin’s for dinner,” Ashley said. “Her son’s talking about joining the army, and she’s hoping I can talk him out of it.” She rolled her eyes. “The problem is, of course, being that he’s such a jerk, the army would be the best thing for him. But what can I do? She’s my cousin.”

“I’ve got tennis this afternoon, and I promised I’d have dinner with my doubles partner,” Ellen Newell said. “How about we all get together tomorrow?”

Merrill tried not to let her disappointment show. “Okay.”

The plane’s engine roared then, and it picked up speed and rose into the air. After looping once around the lake, it headed south toward Chicago.

AS THE SUN set and the shadows of the evening crept over Pinecrest, Merrill moved methodically through the house, closing all the draperies, turning on all the lights, and locking every door and window.

An hour later Eric was sprawled on a large but lumpily uncomfortable easy chair, halfheartedly watching reruns on television, while Marci kept fidgeting on the couch as her mother read her a book. Except Merrill read the book only sporadically. Every time she heard any kind of sound she couldn’t instantly identify, she put it aside and prowled through the house.

“I think it’s bedtime,” she finally announced at ten o’clock.

Eric shrugged, more than ready to go upstairs and spend some time on the Web, maybe talking with Kent and Tad.

“Can I sleep with you tonight, Mommy?” Marci asked.

Merrill nodded. “Of course.”

“We should put some food out first, though, in case Tippy comes home,” the little girl went on. “She’ll be hungry.”

“Good idea,” Merrill said. “Eric will go out with you.”

“Why can’t she go by herself?” Eric groaned. “All she has to do is open the door and set a bowl of food out on the steps.”

“But it’s dark out there,” Marci objected, not quite able to keep her voice steady.

When his mother gave him a look that reminded him that he was supposed to be the man of the house — at least while his father was gone — Eric sighed and hauled himself up off the chair. “Come on, then.”

Marci poured a cup of dry cat food into a small bowl, and Eric held the door open while she carried the food and a bowl of water out onto the patio.

The sky was full of stars, and a soft, warm breeze tinkled the wind chimes his mother had hung at the corner of the boathouse that morning.

Then Eric’s eyes were drawn to the carriage house, which sat silent and dark. He felt an urge to go over there, or maybe to sneak out of bed after his mother had gone to sleep and open up the hidden room to see what else might be there. He’d have nobody to tell him when to leave, nobody to distract him from his exploration.

But even as he felt the strange urge — as if something in that room were actually pulling at him — he knew that for tonight, at least, he wouldn’t give in to the impulse. The horror of the nightmare hadn’t fully released its grip on him even now, and he knew that something in the carriage house — something in the hidden room — had caused it.

But what?

“Can we go back in now?” Marci asked, breaking into his thoughts of the carriage house and what might lie within its walls.

“Don’t you want to call Tippy?” Eric countered, though he was already certain that no amount of calling the cat could possibly summon it back.

“No,” Marci whispered.

Eric cocked his head. “Why not?”

Marci peered nervously out into the night. “I don’t like it out here. I don’t want to make any noise.”

Eric’s brow lifted. “Getting to be as nervous as Mom?”

Marci shook her head vehemently. “No. But it feels like someone’s watching me.”

“Maybe a raccoon,” Eric countered, “waiting for you to go inside so he can eat Tippy’s food.”

“He can’t!” Marci declared. “It’s for Tippy!” She abruptly seemed to lose her fear, and looked out into the darkness once again. “If there’s a raccoon out there, you can just go away!” she called out. “This food’s not for you! It’s for my kitty!” When there was no response from out of the night, Marcie turned and marched back inside the house.

Eric took another moment, and, like his sister, gazed out into the darkness.

Suddenly he wasn’t eager to go to bed at all, for bed meant sleep.

And sleep meant that terrible nightmare might return.

But sleep was inevitable.

He looked again at the dark silhouette of the carriage house and at the woods beyond.

Maybe there was a reason his mother and sister were so nervous. Maybe something was, after all, out there.

Watching.

Lurking.

Waiting.

But waiting for what?

A shiver ran up his spine.

He quickly stepped inside the house and locked the door behind him.

LOGAN SHUFFLED RESTLESSLY back and forth in the tiny cabin, the walls seeming to close in on him with every pace.

Like the walls of the room at the hospital so many years ago….

Every time he looked at the little bundle, wrapped in an old piece of burlap he’d scrounged from a Dumpster, his stomach hurt, and he thought about the hospital and what it had been like.

And why he’d been there…

But he couldn’t think about that now. He had to deal with the bundle, and he had to deal with it soon, but he didn’t know how.

“What to do,” he muttered to the dog, who had long ago given up watching and had fallen into a twitchy sleep. “What. What. What to do.”

Logan paused to touch the bundle that sat next to the candle stub, then resumed pacing. “It’s the first,” he whispered, more to himself than to the sleeping dog. “Only the first. Dr. Darby. He’d know. He’d show me what…” His voice trailed off. Dr. Darby couldn’t show him anything. Dr. Darby was gone.

He stood still now, his eyes fixed on the bloody bundle, and from somewhere deep in his subconscious, as if from some far distant place that was all but forgotten, a new voice whispered to him.

A voice he hadn’t heard in years.

A familiar voice.

His mother’s voice.

Logan stopped pacing and slapped himself on the side of the head. “Stupid!” he whispered, then repeated the word three more times: “Stupid…stupid…stupid!”

His mother’s words came clear.

Follow Jesus, she had always told him. Jesus has all the answers.

“Jesus!” he echoed softly. That’s what he had to do: follow Jesus.

Yes. And he knew how to do it, too. All he had to do was get in his boat.

A few minutes later, as the moon set and the darkness of predawn came over the woods, Logan rowed silently across the lake, his eyes focused on the huge cross he’d long ago erected in the prow of the boat so that no matter where he went, Jesus would be his guide. The bundle lay on the floor between his feet, the ancient dog lay in his bed of rags.