Bill Pronzini - The Stalker

The limping man sat there for a moment, reconnoitering. Then he took the Ruger .44 Magnum from the briefcase on the seat beside him and put it into the pocket of his overcoat. He took the black pigskin gloves from the glove compartment, slipped them on, and stepped out into the wind and the rain.

He went directly to the gate, climbed it quickly and nimbly, the gloves protecting his hands from the sharp, rusted barbed wire strung across its top. He dropped down on the other side, pausing to rest his game leg, letting his eyes probe the black morass ahead. He could not see the shack from where he stood—it was better than a half-mile from the gate—but if there had been a light burning inside, he would have been able to discern it; the terrain was relatively flat, with no tall trees or shrubs to blot out any light. As it was, there was only darkness, full and absolute.

He put his right hand on the Ruger in his pocket and moved forward, walking swiftly along the muddied road, oblivious to the slanting rain which matted his thin hair to his scalp and ran in tiny tear-streams down along his face, oblivious to the pull of the icy, moaning wind.

It took him fifteen minutes to reach the circumscribed clearing which served as a parking area for the three fishing cabins in the slough. He saw the small, convex shape of a single automobile, standing like a wet and silent sentinel on the grassy, pooled clearing, and he thought: Volkswagen; Orange’s wife has a Volkswagen.

He approached the car quietly, sliding his canvas shoes—soaked through now—along the slippery, mired ground. At the rear bumper he squatted and peered at the license plate. Yes, it belonged to the woman; he knew the number.

The limping man straightened, wiping water from his face with his gloved left hand. Was Orange here? Had he used his wife’s car? But if so, why? Where was his car, the Pontiac? Had the two of them come up together? Were they both now inside the cabin? Or, for some reason, had his wife come here alone?

Well, there was only one way to find out.

He located the vegetation-entangled path leading to the point and began to make his way stealthily along it, his right hand still touching the Ruger Magnum in his overcoat pocket.

Andrea Kilduff sat bolt upright on the Army cot, clutching the heavy wool blankets tightly in both hands, her eyes suddenly opened wide like a frightened owl’s in the darkness.

There had been a sound—unidentifiable, yet distinctly loud—and it had come from just outside the bedroom window...

She sat there, trembling a little, listening. The rain pounded, pounded on the roof of the shack as if demanding entrance, and there was the steady whistling bay of the wind. But there was nothing else now, no other sounds. Andrea swept the blankets back impulsively and padded barefoot to the window, staring out at the gray-black water of the slough and beyond it at the indistinguishable shapes and shadows of the marshland. Nothing moved save for the grasses and the tall rushes under the elemental onslaught.

Andrea looked at her watch, squinting in the blackness. It was 5:11. She shivered and went back to the cot and lay down and pulled the blankets up under her chin. My imagination, she thought; now I’m creating prowlers in the middle of nowhere. Well, it serves me right, I suppose. I simply shouldn’t have come back here last night. I should have gone to Mona’s, in El Cerrito, or at least back into San Francisco to a motel; it wasn’t raining that hard and the traffic wasn’t that heavy on the freeway. I must be going a little dotty to have wanted to spend another night in this place.

She wrapped the blankets even more tightly around herself, mummifying her body against the shack’s chill. She closed her eyes and tried to regain the fragments of sleep—fitful and restless though it had been. But her mind was clear now, clear and alert; it wasn’t any use.

She lay there and wished Steve had been home last night, she wished she’d been able to talk to him and get it all said then and there; but now, at least, she knew from talking to Mrs. Yarborough that he hadn’t moved out, and there was always today. She would call him this morning; he was sure to be home this morning. Of course, she could drive to San Francisco and see him face to face, she could do that, but it was really out of the question. It was going to be difficult enough to say the words as it was, and if necessary, they could see one another at some later date—well no, now no, it was probably better if they just didn’t see one another at all, ever again.

Andrea closed her eyes and pictured Steve’s face in her mind, his face as it looked sleeping or in complete repose, like a child’s, like a very small and very handsome and very mischievous little boy. She felt little quivering sensations in her stomach, and opened her eyes again, and sighed, and thought: I don’t want to see him again, I really don’t, I have to adjust and that isn’t easy and won’t be easy and seeing him will only make matters worse, more difficult, so it’s better if I just call him today and get it all said and then I can go ...

Where?

Where will I go?

She shivered again. I have to go somewhere, she thought, I have to start over again somewhere. Oakland? Could I still get a job with Prudential Life? It’s been seven years since I’ve worked at anything except being a wife, but you never really forget any skills, that’s what they say, and secretarial work is a skill, so I shouldn’t have forgotten how to do it. But do I want to live in Oakland, in the Bay Area, close to Steve, knowing he’s nearby? No—but where else would I go? I don’t know where to go when I leave here, big cities like New York and Chicago frighten me, a little town then, a little town somewhere, but I don’t think I’d like that either. Where will I go? I have to go somewhere. Mona and Dave? Well, maybe that’s it; yes, Mona and I have always been close and they have a large enough house, they won’t mind putting me up for a while, I can pay them room and board once I get a job, yes, that’s where I’ll go, at least for a while.

But she didn’t feel any better. The implications and the immense loneliness of the question Where will I go ? had left her feeling small and empty and unwanted, friendless and loveless, naked and alone in a vast, populated wilderness. Lying there in the darkness, she was afraid again. The sooner she called Steve, the sooner she could leave Duckblind Slough for good. After she talked to him, she could call Mona and tell her about it and then she could go over to El Cerrito and they’d have a long, maudlin cry together. What she needed now was companionship, someone to talk to; when you’re alone for too long you start dwelling in the depths of gloom and depression, feeling sorry for yourself and looking at life through a glass darkly. Once she had a different perspective, things wouldn’t seem quite so—

There was the sound of a footfall on the porch outside.

Andrea sat up again, and her heart began to hammer violently. Was somebody out there? No, that was impossible; who would be out there, in the rain, at five o’clock in the morning? No, it was just her imagination, that’s all, just her—

The doorknob rattled.

Again.

Again.

Something smashed against the flimsy wood of the door.

Andrea threw the blankets back, stumbling off the cot to stand just inside the open doorway, hand held up to her mouth, her eyes bulging with consuming terror.

The door burst open.

It burst open, and a man stood framed in the doorway, framed in silhouette against the adumbral sky and the driving rain, a blackly faceless man with something held extended in one hand, something that gleamed dully in the pale, painted-rust glow from the fire in the stove.