to look her best tonight. Her blond hair was swept into a gleaming French twist, and she was one of the few women in the room who’d bothered to apply makeup. But that touch of bright lipstick only emphasized the anxious pallor of her face.
“I want to echo everything Chief Kelly just said. What’s happening in this town-the anger, the violence-I’ve never seen it before, either. And it’s not just a problem in the school. It’s also a problem in your homes. I know these children! I’ve watched them grow up. I’ve seen them around town, in the school hallways. Or in my office, as the occasion warranted. And the ones who are getting into fights now, none of them are kids I would have labeled troublemakers. None of them gave any hint, in past years, of being violent. But suddenly I find I don’t know these children anymore. I don’t recognize them.”
She paused and swallowed hard. “I’m afraid of them,” she said quietly.
“So whose fault is it?” yelled Ben Doucette.
“We’re not saying it’s anyone’s fault,” Fern said. “We’re just trying to understand why this is happening. Between our school and the middle school, we’ve brought in five new guidance counselors on an emergency basis. The high school has a district psychologist, Dr. Lieberman, working intensively with our staff. Trying to come up with a plan of action.”
Ben stood up. A sour-faced bachelor in his fifties, he had lost an arm in Vietnam, and he was always clutching the stump with his good hand, as though to emphasize his sacrifice. “I can tell you what the problem is,” he said. “It’s the same problem we’ve got all over this country. No goddamn discipline. When I was thirteen, you think I’d have dared to pick up a knife, threaten my mother?
My old man woulda whapped me up the side of the head.”
“What are you suggesting, Mr. Doucette?” said Fern. “That we spank fourteen-year-olds?”
“Why not?”
“Try it!” yelled one of the teenage boys, and he was joined by the other kids in a chorus of jeers: “Try it, try it, try it!”
The meeting was out of control. Lincoln stood up, raising his hand in a plea for order. It was a measure of the respect the town held for him that the crowd finally quieted down to hear him speak.
“It’s time to talk about realistic solutions,” he said.
Jack Reid stood up. “Can’t talk about solutions till we talk about why it’s happening in the first place. I hear from my boys that it’s the new kids in school, the ones who moved here from other cities, who’re causing most of the problems. Starting up gangs, maybe bringing in drugs.”
Lincoln’s response was lost in a sudden crescendo of voices. Claire could see the frustration in his face, the deepening flush of anger.
“This is not a problem from away,” said Lincoln. “This crisis is local. It’s our problem, and our kids getting into trouble.”
“But who got them started?” said Reid. “Who got ‘em going? Some folks just don’t belong here!”
Glen Ryder’s gavel banged again and again, to no avail. Jack Reid had pushed a hot button with this crowd, and now everyone was yelling at once.
A woman’s voice cut through the bedlam. “What about the rumors of a centuries-old Satanic cult?” said Damaris Horne, rising to her feet. It was hard to miss that wild mane of blond hair. Also hard to miss were the interested glances men cast her way. “We’ve all heard about those old bones they dug up by the lake. I understand it was a mass murder. Maybe even a ritual slaying.”
“That was over a hundred years ago,” said Lincoln. “It’s completely unrelated.”
“Maybe not. New England has a long history of Satanic cults.”
Lincoln was fast losing control of his temper. “The only cult around here,” he shot back, “is the one you made up for your trashy tabloid!”
“Then perhaps you’ll explain all the disturbing rumors I’ve been hearing,” said Damaris, keeping her cool. “For instance, the number six-six-six painted on the side of the high school.”
Lincoln aimed a startled glance at Fern. Claire realized at once what that look meant. Clearly they were both surprised by the reporter’s knowledge of a real event.
“There was a barn found splashed with blood last month,” said Damaris. “What about that?”
“That was a can of red paint. Not blood.”
“And those lights flickering at night up on Beech Hill. Which, I’ve been told, is nothing but forest reserve.”
“Now wait a minute,” interjected Lois Cuthbert, one of the town selectmen. “That I can explain. It’s that biologist fella, Dr. Tutwiler, collecting salamanders at night. I almost ran over him in the dark a few weeks ago, when he came hiking back down.”
“All right,” conceded Damaris. “Forget the lights up on Beech Hill. But I still say there’s a lot of strange and unexplained things happening in this town. If anyone here wants to talk to me about it later, I’m ready to listen.” Damaris sat down again.
“I agree with her,” said a tremulous voice. The woman stood at the back of the room, a small, white-faced figure clutching at her coat. “There’s something wrong in this town. I’ve felt it for a long time. You can deny it all you want, Chief Kelly, but what we have here is evil. I’m not saying it’s Satan. I don’t know what it is. But I know I can’t live here anymore. I’ve put my house up for sale, and I’m leaving next week. Before something happens to my family.” She turned and walked out of the hushed room.
The high-pitched beeping of Claire’s pocket pager cut through the silence. She glanced down and saw it was the hospital trying to reach her. She pushed her way through the crowd and stepped outside to make the call on her cell phone.
After the overheated cafeteria, the wind felt piercingly cold, and she huddled, shivering, against the building, waiting for an answer.
“Laboratory, Clive speaking.”
“This is Dr. Elliot. You paged me.”
“I wasn’t sure if you still wanted us to call you on these results, since this patient’s deceased. But I’ve got some reports back on Scotty Braxton.”
“Yes, I want to hear all the results.”
“First, I have a final report here from Anson Biologicals on the boy’s comprehensive drug and tox screen. None were detected.”
“There’s nothing about the peak on his chromatogram?”
“Not on this report.”
“This has to be a mistake. There must be something in his drug screen.”
“That’s all it says here: ‘None detected.’ We’ve also got the final culture result on the boy’s nasal discharge. It’s a pretty long list of organisms, since you wanted everything identified. Mostly the usual colonizers. Staph epidermiclis, alpha strep. Bugs we don’t normally bother to report.”
“Is there anything unusual growing out?”
“Yes. Vibriofiscberi.”
She scribbled the name down on a scrap of paper. “I’ve never heard of that organism.”
“Neither had we. It’s never turned up in a culture here. It has to be a contaminant.”
“But I collected the specimen straight from the patient’s nasal mucosa.”
“Well, I doubt this contamination came from our lab. This bacteria isn’t something you’d find floating around in a hospital.”
“What is Vibriofischeri? Where does it normally grow?”
“I checked with the microbiologist in Bangor, where they did the cultures. She says this species is usually a colonizer of invertebrates like squid or marine worms. It forms a symbiotic relationship. The host invertebrate provides a safe environment.”
“And what does the Vibrio do in exchange?”
“It provides the power for the host’s light organ.”
It took a few seconds for the significance of that fact to sink in. She asked, sharply: “Are you saying this bacteria is bioluminescent?”
“Yeah. The squid collects it in a translucent sac. It uses the bacteria’s glow to attract other squid. Sort of like a neon sign for sex.”
“I’ve got to go,” she cut in. “I’ll talk to you later.” She disconnected and hurried back into the school
