said.
'Forget it. They'll find it in the morning.'
But as the wayward little green boat approached under Lucas's control, they both saw the flesh of a dead man under returning moonbeams, the dead man lying stripped and cold against the bottom, covered in squirming, feeding worms.
'Your missing worms… thawed out hours ago.'
The worms covered the man's features, and his blood- soaked throat, where they slithered like miniature snakes in and out of a gaping knife wound zigzagging from ear to ear below the rugged beard, creating a second mouth that crawled with life.
'My God, it's Howard Kemper!'
'The gardener? That's impossible.'
'Yes, it is!'
'Then who the hell was up at the house on the mower in his clothes?'
'It's her, Lucas! Lauralie! She's somehow found us!'
'I need you calm, Meredyth! Calm down. Get a grip.' He held her shoulders firm in his hands, shaking her.
'And here we sit, literally sitting ducks, in the middle of the fucking lake, defenseless!'
'We can row for the other shore, get to your neighbors, call for help!' He lifted one of the oars and pushed off the boat that had carried Howard Kemper's worm-eaten body to them. He then lifted the second oar and began rowing desperately for the opposite shore.
'There're no lights on at the Brody place,' she shouted, shaking the boat. 'There's always a light.'
'Maybe they're away!'
'No… they'd use a timer. Something's terribly wrong. She's been there…used their place to watch us…used their boat to come across to my house, killed Kemper, and masqueraded as him.' She recalled the ferocity with which Kemper had attacked her oleander hedges.
'Then we'll break in at the Brodys, sound an alarm, get people out here one way or the other, and snare her in her own trap.'
'She's up there in my house. God knows where…doing what? Making a special delivery of some sort. God, what I'd give for my cell phone right now.'
'And my guns.'
A muffled thunderclap came tumbling down to the lake from the house, followed by a second identical clap. 'What the hell was that?' asked Meredyth.
'Sounds like rifle fire crackling in the distance.' Like gunfire heard in Civil War reenactments, Lucas thought, except these shots were live rounds.
In the gloom of darkness, it was difficult to see what was happening on land at the house, and at the stables, but Lucas and Meredyth could make out the faint silhouette of the Farnsworth pickup truck up at the house, in the driveway alongside Kemper's truck. Following their eyes down the slope of the lawn, they saw the two bodies downed by gunfire, and in a moment, a glimmer of hope welled up, as each boy. Tommy and then Jeff, showed signs of life.
'The bitch somehow got hold of the Remington,' Lucas said, 'and shot them with their own gun. Damn her!'
'She sent them running toward the lake, toward us.'
'Then opened fire.'
Tommy and Jeff, both shot and bleeding, had begun to crawl for the cover of trees. Lucas and Meredyth watched, helpless to do anything as another shot rang out, killing Tommy. 'Nooo!' Meredyth cried out.
Another shot hammered into Jeff's back. Both young men were dead. No one could survive two such rounds. Lucas had seen Jeff's body respond to the fourth shot, absorbing the powerful impact. 'God damn the bitch!' he shouted.
'What're we going to do, Lucas? We're next!'
A fifth shot rang out, and Tommy Farns worth's head exploded. She was now using the bodies for target practice, telling Lucas and Meredyth that she could hit any target she wished from the upstairs window of the house, and given that it was hunting season, no one would think the shots unusual.
Lucas had already pulled Meredyth down below the gunwale of the rowboat, hoping to leave Lauralie with as small a target as possible. But bullets began to ping into the metal hull. 'We've got to take our chances in the water!'
Lucas rocked the boat, calling for Meredyth to do the same. Another bullet whistled past, spitting up water. Suddenly, the boat gained momentum and flipped, sending them into the lake. Holding onto the upturned boat, Meredyth came up fearing that he had been hit, but he assured her otherwise. 'Keep hold of the boat and kick like hell for shore!' he shouted as more rounds pinged into the water around them.
They guided their cover toward the opposite shore. 'We've got to get out of range of the gun,' Lucas told her.
Bullets continued to ping off the rowboat.
'She's stringing this out,' gasped Lucas, spitting water. 'She could have hit either one of us with that scope and range. Likely had both of us in her crosshairs.'
'Else she's a lousy shot.' Meredyth gulped lake water, continuing to kick for shore.
'A weapon like that… with the scope, a child could pick us off out here. No, she deliberately chose to wound those two Farnsworth boys, and she also chose to finish them off when they posed no threat at a moment when she could have put one through my head or yours, Mere.'
'But she didn't, and we both know why.'
'She wants to watch us sweat…doesn't want to end the game between us, not yet.'
'She wants me to think about life without you, Lucas, before she takes you away from me.'
Continuing to use the rowboat as cover, they paddled farther and farther from the sniper's scope, kicking for the Brody pier. Panting, Meredyth said, 'Lauralie means to make me suffer for the rest of my life, Lucas, which means-'
'She never intended to kill you.'
'Exactly. It's you, Lucas, she's after. She intends to destroy my life by killing you and anyone I love. She wants me to mourn all the people I love that she's taking from me. Thank God Mom and Dad aren't here.'
They reached the Brody pier, but remained in the water, pulling themselves along beneath it as cover until they reached shore.
'She wants me to suffer the guilt of all these people dying around me, Lucas. Now those poor boys out there on my lawn brutally killed, my innocent gardener, for God's sake, Mira Lourdes, the old nun, Katherine Croombs, even Arthur Belkvin and his dogs…she wants me to feel responsible for it all. That I somehow caused all their deaths-and the culmination of it all? The death of the one I love most, you.'
The gunfire had ceased as darkness had enveloped Lake Madera.
'The moon's gone under again,' he said. 'Now's the time! Make for the house. Gotta get to a phone.'
As they ran, dripping wet and cold, toward the darkened house, the upturned rowboat floated off and into a weedy backwash. No shots came as they made it to the stairs, Meredyth slipping and falling. No shots came as they made it to the front door left ominously ajar. In the driveway, they'd seen the family RV, waiting like a patient dog for its master. They burst into the Brody home, Meredyth calling out each of the Brodys by name. 'Myron! Lorene! Candice! It's Meredyth Sanger! Where are you?'
Meredyth called out over and over for them as Lucas tore open doors in search of the family. No answers, no finds.
'No lights,' he ordered her as they searched the downstairs den for a phone. Grabbing it, Lucas heard the dead air of a disconnected line. 'Bitch has cut the lines. No big surprise.' He looked around for a weapon, but the man's glassed-in gun rack was smashed and all his weapons were missing. Lucas instantly realized on seeing this that they might well find a triple murder here, quite possibly mutilations on the same scale as they'd found with Byron Priestly and Arthur Belkvin. Lauralie seemed to take glee in slashing people open. 'Stick close by me,' he solemnly ordered Meredyth.
