“The women’s prison?” Mitch frowned. “Not really-aside from the fact Kimberly teaches yoga there two afternoons a week.”
“She does?”
“Yeah, she’s a volunteer. Does that mean something?”
“I have no idea. Probably not.” Des yawned contentedly, feeling herself getting drowsy. Her eyelids were heavy, circuits fried. She surrendered, snug and safe in Mitch’s arms.
Until her cell phone rang on the nightstand.
She answered it and listened. “But I’m on desk detail now, remember?” And listened some more before she said, “Okay, Oly. I’ll be there in five.”
“What’s up?” Mitch asked as she climbed hurriedly out of bed.
“I’m not entirely sure. But it’s nothing good.”
She could hear the screams from out on Maple Lane.
It was just past 1:00 a.m. when Des pulled in at the same little dead-end road off of Dorset Street where she’d tripped over Augie’s dead body. Oly’s cruiser was parked there next to Dorset’s volunteer ambulance van. Rut Peck’s place was dark, same as last night. Over at Ray Smith’s, the porch light was on. Ray stood outside in his bathrobe, pulling on a cigarette and watching the action.
It was going on at Nan Sidell’s. Lights were blazing inside the little farmhouse that the blond middle school teacher shared with her two sons.
The screams grew even louder as Des rushed up the front steps to Nan’s open screen door. They were the screams of a terrified boy. And she could make out words now: “We’re next, Petey! Look out, we’re next!”
In the parlor, Oly was seated on the sofa with Dawn’s wide-eyed ten year-old, Peter, who was wearing a pair of Boston Celtics pajamas. The family’s big yellow Lab, Josie, was stretched out at Peter’s feet, whining uneasily. The screams were coming from Nan’s bedroom, where Des found Nan’s gangly older boy, twelve-year-old Phillip, in a state of uncontrolled hysteria.
“Look out, Petey! Look out!” he screamed, his eyes bulging with panic as he scrabbled around on the floor underneath his mother’s antique four-poster bed, trying to hide from a monster that he alone could see. Sweat was pouring from him, soaking his pajamas. “We’re next! Run, Petey! Run!”
A distraught Nan knelt there by the bed in her nightshirt, trying to calm him. “Philly…? Mommy’s right here, honey. You’re okay. Everything’s okay.”
But the boy wasn’t responding. Didn’t hear her. Didn’t know her. Just kept screaming: “Run, Petey! Run!”
Marge and Mary Jewett, the two no-nonsense sisters in their fifties who ran Dorset’s volunteer ambulance service, were standing just inside of the bedroom doorway. It was a small, sparely furnished room. Aside from the unmade bed, which had a patchwork quilt on it, there was a nightstand, a chest of drawers. No art on the walls. No rugs.
“Don’t make any sudden movements,” Marge cautioned Nan in a quiet voice as the boy continued to scream his head off. “Just be real gentle. Don’t grab for him or try to shake him. He’ll come out of it on his own.”
“Come out of what?” Nan sobbed, tears streaming down her face. She was trembling. “What is happening to my son?”
“We’re next, Petey! Run, Petey!” Phillip cried out, bug-eyed with terror as he crawled frantically around under the bed. Until, abruptly, he stopped and became quiet. And calm. So calm that he curled into a fetal ball right there on the floor and fell asleep.
Marge knelt before him and felt for his pulse. “Returning to normal,” she whispered, lifting one of his eyelids to check his pupil. “Let’s get him back into bed.” She started to pick Phillip up off of the floor but halted with a grunt of pain. “Dang, my old back isn’t what it used to be.”
“Here, let me…” Des gathered the tall boy up in her arms and carried him into the other bedroom, which had twin beds and Celtics posters all over the walls.
“His bed’s the one over by the window,” Nan said softly.
Des set him down there. Nan wrestled him out of his sweat-soaked pajamas and into fresh ones. The boy mumbled a bit in his sleep but was docile and compliant. She tucked him in and turned out his bedside light. They backed slowly out of the room into the narrow hallway, shutting the door.
“He’ll be okay now, honey,” Mary assured Nan.
The tears were still streaming from Nan’s blue eyes. She was such a tiny little thing in her bare feet that she looked more like a girl than a full-grown single mother. “Are… are you sure?”
“Positive. We’ve seen this before.”
“I-I didn’t know what to do. I had no idea. I’ve never…” She ran a hand through her long blond hair, exhaling slowly. “Des, I’m so sorry to drag you out of bed like this.”
“Not a problem, Nan. What I’m here for. Want to fill me in?”
“Little Petey came in and woke me up about, I don’t know, a half hour ago. Told me that Philly was having a terrible nightmare and he couldn’t wake him up. That’s when I heard Philly screaming. And then he came running into my room, too. He followed Petey in there, I swear. His eyes were wide open. He-he was awake. I swear he was awake. And he was screaming and screaming and I-I couldn’t get him to stop. Or get him out from under my bed. He was panting and gasping and-and
… well, you saw him. He was possessed. So I called the girls.” Nan turned to Mary now and said, “You’ve actually seen this sort of thing before?”
Mary nodded. “They’re called night terrors. Not at all uncommon among kids Phillip’s age. The episodes can last ten, fifteen minutes. Sometimes longer. It’s basically an extreme nightmare.”
Nan shook her head. “Philly was awake. You saw him. He was awake.”
“They seem to be awake,” Marge said. “But they’re actually asleep. Generally, they return to normal sleep when the episode’s over-and they don’t remember a thing. That’s why it’s best not to shake them out of it or frighten them.”
“Night terrors,” Nan repeated, sounding unconvinced. “I was afraid he’d gotten into drugs of some kind.”
“That’s a definite no,” Mary assured her. “His heart rate slowed right back down. His pupils were normal. He didn’t ingest anything.”
“But you were smart to play it safe,” Marge said. “We had a pissed-off eleven-year-old girl on Whippoorwill just last Wednesday night who swallowed a whole bottle of her mother’s Vicodin.”
“That’s why I wanted you here, Des,” Nan explained. “You know what these kids are into. Not that Philly has ever given me the slightest reason to think he’s… I just… he was like a totally different person. I’d better let Petey know he’s okay. Will you excuse me for a moment?” She darted into the parlor to comfort her other boy.
Des and the Jewett sisters went out onto the front porch. Oly joined them.
“How did it go out there tonight?” Des asked him.
“Nice and quiet,” he replied. “Until now.”
“No Flasher sightings?”
“Not a one. I think our Flasher’s on a slab in the morgue, don’t you?”
“Oly, I don’t know what to think.”
Nan followed them outside a moment later. The boy remained on the sofa with Josie at his feet. “Petey seems just fine.”
“Sure he is.” Oly smiled at her. “He’s a rock, that one.”
“Please explain these night terrors to me,” she said to the Jewett sisters. “Because Phillip has never, ever had anything even remotely like one before. What causes them?”
Marge and Mary exchanged an uneasy glance. They were, as a rule, careful not to stray too far above their pay grade.
“They’re often caused by a psychological trauma of some kind,” Marge answered gingerly. “It’s entirely possible he won’t ever have another one, Nan. But you should phone his pediatrician in the morning. He’ll want to see Phillip.”
“Did you folks happen to have a family situation this weekend?” Mary asked her.
Nan frowned. “Such as…?”
“Did their father visit them? Not that I mean to pry, but an emotional upheaval like that might explain it.”
