Darlington Woods Page 3

  "Great-nephew," Rob said. "Not great as in fantastic but great as in once removed. Did you know her?"

  "'Course I knew her," she said, as if it were the most ridiculous question she'd heard that night, maybe that week. "Everyone knew Wilda. You'll be planning to settle down here then?"

  Rob noticed some of the locals trying not to let their eavesdropping look too obvious. He shook his head. "No. That's not in my plans."

  "Very well," she said. "Enjoy your meal. If you need anything else, let Juli know."

  The woman left, and Rob looked out the large front window of the diner. The man with the odd skin, the wax man, was standing in the parking lot. He was looking right at Rob. Smiling.

  The sun was well into its downward slide by the time Rob left Mary Jane's. The air was cooling some as shadows grew longer and shade spread like oil across the yards and streets of Mayfield, Maryland. Still, no one was outside enjoying the relief evening brought. Porches were empty. Sidewalks abandoned. Yards vacant. No children laughed. No dogs barked. Again, Rob thought of a movie studio and its deserted set, and the idea gave him the creeps. Like something out of an old Twilight Zone episode: a quaint town wears a mask to hide the hideous creature that lies beneath.

  When Rob arrived back at 310 Main Street, he stood at the base of the driveway and took in the old house. It appeared to have been built in the thirties or forties. He tried to imagine what it looked like new. The architecture was so odd and the house so out of place in Mayfield it must have been the talk of the town.

  He started walking up the driveway when a movement in the tiny attic window caught his attention and stopped him dead. From where he stood, the window was at an odd angle, and he had to move over into the grass for a better look. But nothing was there, just empty darkness behind a grimy window. Maybe the glass had captured the reflection of a bird flying by. Rob stood there a moment watching the glass as one might watch the ocean for a glimpse of a whale surfacing for air. But the window only stared back with vacancy. He would have liked to just shrug the episode off as nothing more than his active imagination, but he couldn't. His mind kept going to Jimmy and the burning feeling that his little boy was still out there, somewhere.

  Maybe here. In that attic.

  Stop! Rob shook his head, trying to clear the thought. It was those kinds of thoughts that got people thinking he was going insane.

  He entered the house and flipped the light switch. Nothing happened. Maybe a bad bulb. He moved across the room and into one of the bedrooms to try its switch. Still nothing. A bad feeling gripped his chest. Going to the next room he found the same thing. And in the kitchen the same.

  The electricity had been turned off.

  Rob checked his watch. Almost eight o'clock. Darkness would settle over the town in less than an hour. His breathing grew shallow, and his heart rate picked up speed.

  A knock on the storm door made him jump. He let out a little holler. An old man in blue coveralls stood there, peering in through the screen, hands cupped around his eyes.

  "Hello," Rob said, crossing the living room.

  The old man took a quick step back and shoved his hands in his pockets.

  Rob opened the door and stood in the doorway. "Hi"

  "Evenin' there," the man said. He was shorter than Rob and slightly hunched, balding and spattered with large wine spots. "You Wilda's boy?"

  "Her nephew. Great-nephew."

  "'Course you are." He stood staring at Rob as if they knew each other.

  After a few uncomfortable seconds, Rob said, "Can I help you with something?"

  "Nope. Just come by to be nosey is all."

  Rob didn't quite know how to respond to that. Was everyone in this town odd? "Well, thanks then. Maybe I'll be seeing you around." He started to close the storm door and then, "Hey, got a question for you. The power's been turned off here. Do you have the number for the local power company so I can have it turned back on? Preferably this evening."

  The old man with the wine spots smiled a mostly toothless grin and shook his head. "Ain't gonna happen tonight. But if you call first thing in the mornin' you might get it turned back on by tomorrow night."

  A sinking feeling filled Rob's gut. He mumbled a "Thanks" and let the storm door shut. There were no motels in Mayfield, and the nearest one was probably an hour or more away. He debated whether or not to try to find one, then scolded himself for acting like such a child. He was too old to still be scared of the dark. It was just an old house in a little town. There was nothing to be afraid of.

  Overhead, in the attic, something clunked and a floorboard creaked. Then, a child's giggle.

  The boy fights the hand that grips his arm too tightly. Digs his heels into the ground, twists his shoulders around. He tries to holler, but something has been stuffed in his mouth. It tastes like grass. That, along with the blindfold over his eyes and his hands tied behind his back, is very confusing. The hand continues to pull him along even though he tripped and almost fell a couple times already.

  Tears wet the blindfold, and snot runs from his nose. He can't even wipe it. He tries to yank away again, and this time catches Cabbage Head off guard because he nearly gets loose. The man's hand slips but quickly finds the sleeve of the boy's shirt and yanks hard, dragging the boy to his knees. He hears his shirt tear too. The one his mommy and daddy gave him last year for his birthday. The one with G.I. Joe on it. It's his favorite shirt, not because of G.I. Joe, but because Mommy told him later that Daddy had picked it out himself. That means a lot to the boy.

  He thinks of his parents. Are they looking for him? Do they even know he's gone? Will he ever see them again? He wonders again if anything was really wrong with Daddy. He wonders if Mommy is OK. She went away but never came back. More tears come. He wants to cry hard, but he can't because of the thing in his mouth.

  He tugs his shoulders again and falls to his knees. He can feel hard ground and dry grass against his skin. The sun on his face. Somewhere a ways off, a hawk is screeching. He knows it's a hawk because he heard one once in his backyard and his daddy told him it was a hawk.

  Cabbage Head curses, then with two hands, one on each arm, yanks the boy from the ground and sets him back on his feet. Hot breath fills the boy's ear. It smells like onions. "Kid, one foot in front of the other, you hear? You keep tripping up like that and I'll tie your feet and drag you. How'd you like that?"

  The boy has never been so scared in his life, and it gives him the feeling of drowning. Not that he's ever drowned to know what it feels like. But once, while at the beach, he saw a man drowning and waving his arms and gobbling like a turkey, and the lifeguards had to rescue him.

  Something in Cabbage Head's voice says he's crazy.

  A few more feet and the boy is walking on concrete.

  "Steps," Cabbage Head says.

  The boy stumbles up four or five steps; he can't tell how many. He feels the coolness of shade and for the first time smells the man's cologne over the odor of sweat and cigarettes and onion breath.

  Then a woman's voice is there. "You said you'd bring him unharmed." She sounds scared but brave at the same time.

  Cabbage Head grunts something and shoves the boy. Two smaller hands stop him from falling and hold him by his shoulders. Now he can smell a familiar flowery odor.

  "You brought him here, now go," the woman says. "Please. Just go." There is no meanness in her voice, not like there is in Cabbage Head's.

  "You know what to do?" he says.

  "Yes. Please, go now."

  The woman's smaller hand grips the boy behind the neck and squeezes but not so hard that it hurts. "Come on," she says. "Inside."

  They must go inside a house because the outside noises become quieter and the smell of furniture polish and dust fills his nose.

  "This way," she says, guiding him by the back of his neck. Her grip gets tighter, and he pulls his shoulders up. She lightens up right away. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to hurt you."

  He hears a door open, an
d then the woman says, "Up the steps." Her voice sounds shaky now, like Mommy's does when she and Daddy argue and she starts to cry.

  Up he climbs, one step at a time, being careful not to trip or miss one. The higher he gets, the hotter the air becomes. With the thing in his mouth and the blindfold pressing against his nose he finds it very hard to breathe. The air feels thick, like trying to breathe through a straw. This has to be what it feels like to drown. But while he climbs and struggles with breathing, one thought circles around in his head over and over: he's going farther from his mommy and daddy. And the farther he gets, the harder it will be for them to find him. And the harder it is for them to find him ... he'll never see them again.

  He stops on a stair as fresh tears leak from his eyes and another deep cry catches in his throat.

  "Keep going," the woman says. "You only have four more."

  He counts the steps as he climbs, and yes, it's only four more. The room he's in smells musty and like old cardboard. It reminds him of the attic of his home. The woman leads him here and there, steering him by the back of his neck, then stops.

  "Sit down here," she says.

  He lowers himself to his butt, sitting Indian-style on rough boards.

  "If I take the rag from your mouth, do you promise not to scream or holler?"

  He nods.

  "You can't even talk. Understand?"

  He nods again.

  "You make any noise at all, and I'll have to put it back in. Hear?"

  Unlike Cabbage Head, he can tell the woman is telling the truth.

  Suddenly, the rag is pulled from his mouth. At first, his jaw hurts so bad he can't breathe. He moves it slowly until it loosens, then sucks in a deep breath of the hot air. His mouth feels like it's lined with cotton, and he licks at his lips.

  The woman's footsteps retreat, then go down the stairs. The boy listens but never hears the door close again. Maybe she left him. He works his way to his knees, balancing carefully so as not to fall over. But before he can make it to his feet, he hears her coming back up the stairs. Quickly he sits and crosses his legs again.

  "Some water for you," the woman says. "Open your mouth."

  He opens his mouth, and she pours warm water down his throat. He swallows in huge gulps, spilling the water down his chin and across his chest. It doesn't matter that it's warm; it's delicious.

  The woman pulls the glass away and says, "You stay here and don't make a sound, and things will work out for you. For us." She takes his chin in her hand. "Don't make a sound."

  Then she's gone, and he's alone with the darkness and his fear. He allows himself to fall to his left side and curls into a ball. Then he cries hard.

  Instinctively, Rob glanced out the window toward the western sky. The sun was a swollen orange disk hovering just above the rooftops. Time was running out. In the waning light, the attic would be dark but not too dark. He had to do it now.

  Crossing the living room in four large steps he reached the bedroom with the attic door. Then he was at the door, hand resting on the glass knob. A sudden surge of excitement raced through him, but it was tempered by a very real possibility that what he'd heard (and, he now realized, saw in the attic window) was not his Jimmy at all but rather just another cruel trick birthed by the synapses in his brain. As time went on, it was getting more and more difficult to distinguish between reality and hallucination. Either reality was growing foggier or his visions were getting more vivid. No matter the case, the line was becoming smudged, and it worried him.

  Swallowing hard past a throat as dry as bark, he tightened his grip on the knob and turned. The knob clicked once, and the door opened on noisy hinges almost by itself. Before him was a staircase that ascended to a low-ceilinged room bathed in orange light. At the top of the steps two columns of cardboard boxes rose like pillars almost to the roof beams.

  Rob heard the giggle again, and the hair on the back of his neck responded. Chills, like the flutter of butterfly wings, tickled behind his ears.

  "Jimmy?" His voice sounded weak even to his own ears.

  At first there was silence, then from somewhere deep in the attic came Jimmy's voice. "Daddy, look."

  Rob wasted no time. He raced up the stairs, taking two at a time. At the top he was met by stacks of boxes, some closed tightly, some left open. In the open ones he could see collections of knickknacks, lamp bases, glassware, and piles of neatly folded linens. The boxes were piled high on either side, making an aisle that went maybe ten feet then made a ninety-degree turn to the right. He followed it.

  "Jimmy?" he said, his voice gaining a little strength. "Where's my little man?"

  "Daddy." Jimmy's voice came from just up ahead, behind those boxes.

  Ten more feet and another turn, this one to the left.

  "Jimmy. Talk to me, buddy."

  Rob's heart was racing. Anticipation clawed at his insides like rats in a cage. He threw himself around the next corner, his son's name on his lips, only to find more boxes stacked to the rafters. But this is where they ended. There were no more aisles, no more mazes, just a wall of dented and discolored boxes full of dusty antiques.

  "Jimmy!" He stood motionless, waiting, hoping for his son's little voice to respond. He had to be up here, maybe in another location, behind some other boxes. But there was only silence, so loud it was deafening.

  "Jimmy? It's Daddy. Can you hear me?"

  The silence laughed at him and his irrational anticipation. This settled it; he had gone over that edge that's reserved for only the clinically insane.

  Rob sat down on the worn floorboards and cried. How long he sat there and how long he cried he didn't know, but when his head finally cleared, he noticed how little light was left in the attic, and suddenly his lungs felt the size of baseballs. He lifted himself onto unsteady legs and quickly found his way through the maze of boxes and down the stairs and into the bedroom, where he was met by more boxes and more, if only a little, light.

  Back in the living room, he cleared the sofa and smacked the dust off the cushion. It didn't look like the most comfortable bed, but it would have to do. He lay down on it and shut his eyes, willing himself to fall asleep before total darkness fell.

  When he opened his eyes again the room was awash in muted moonlight. The outside world was still and quiet, and the house was sleeping peacefully. Rob looked around the room without sitting up or moving his head. Furniture and boxes cast abstract shadows along the walls and ceiling. They took on all sorts of sinister shapes and outlines. Some even appeared to move soundlessly across the wall. Fear slowly crept into his chest, like a panther stalking its prey. He found it difficult to breathe.

  He lifted his wrist and pressed the light button on his watch. Twelve twenty-five.

  The sun would be rising in five hours or so.

  He thought of Kelly and how her eyes crinkled when she smiled. He thought of the feel of her graceful hand in his. He pictured her in the kitchen, apron around her waist, making chocolate chip cookies with Jimmy, both of them covered in flour, laughing their heads off.

  "We made you cookies, Daddy."

  "Jimmy did most of it by himself."

  Man, how she loved to bake, and she loved it even more when Jimmy helped.

  Eventually, Rob's eyelids grew heavy, and he did drift back into sleep.

  It was a moment of weakness and one for which she was gravely ashamed.

  When she saw him, the man, after so many years, images flooded her memory like a broken dam, carrying with them the emotions-some hers, some his. She was overwhelmed. And with the pale one so close ... part of her was shocked by his boldness, and part of her was not surprised at all.

  It was a moment of weakness.

  "Forgive me, Abba."

  Looking into the man's eyes she saw his fear, his every weakness and vulnerability. He was so wounded and defeated. She was afraid for him and wanted to protect him. She wanted to grab him by the shoulders and shake him and tell him to run from this place and never, ever come b
ack. Forget the house. Forget everything. Just run. After all, she was partly responsible for his pain. It was a guilt she'd carried for the past twenty-two years.

  The pale one eyed the man like a hungry wolf and eyed her like a mortal enemy.

  Fortunately, she didn't go so far as shaking and yelling. But what she did was enough. It was beyond her responsibility. She had been called upon to pray for him, to intercede, and that's all.

  "Forgive me, Abba."

  She was on her patio, studying the stars of Orion. Most people looked for the Big Dipper first, but she always located Orion. She wasn't sure why. Maybe it was the fact that he was a warrior, and in many ways she felt a lot like a warrior. And in many ways she felt like anything but a warrior. Her fingers ached and throbbed. Arthritis had bent them into crooked, malformed claws. Rubbing each one, she tried to stretch them out, spread her fingers wide. She remembered when her fingers were long and slender and how they could dance across a piano's keys. It had been years since she last played. Now, she has to be content to hum.

  Even though the temperature was still in the eighties at eleven o'clock at night, the old woman shivered at the thought of the pale one. She hadn't seen him for so long, but one look when he walked through that door, and the memories and emotions-the anger-besieged her. He looked the same, that polished white skin and eyes like onyx. Those soulless eyes. She tried to avoid them, but it was impossible. It felt like she stood naked before him, all her vulnerabilities, fears, doubts, and worries exposed, laid out in the open for him to study and use to his advantage. She knew he had no real power over her, though; it was all a ruse, a game he liked to play. She remembered that much.

  And the hunger she saw in those eyes. The hatred. The contempt. It made her blood feel like ice water.

  Crossing her legs, she bowed her head and once again asked for forgiveness. Then she turned her attention to the man again. He was in Wilda's house now; she saw his car in the driveway when she got home. She stood, stretched her tight knees, and walked through her house to the front bay window. The lights were off, and the first floor was comfortably dark. The house was still and quiet. Sleepy.