Comes the Blind Fury

“What are you doing?” she whispered. “Don’t you come near me.”

Michelle kept going, dragging her lame leg, her pain forgotten, striking out with her cane at the brambles and rocks in her path, ignoring Susan’s words, listening only to Mandy’s encouragements.

Susan began backing away as Michelle approached.

“Get away from me,” she cried. “Leave me alone. You leave me alone!” Her face contorted into a mask of fear, she turned suddenly, and began running away across the graveyard, fleeing into the swirling gray mists. Relentlessly, Michelle started after her.

“Stay here,” Amanda whispered to her. “You stay here, and let me do it. I want to do it …”

And then she, too, was gone, and Michelle was suddenly alone, standing in the overgrown cemetery, resting on her cane, the damp grayness of the fog drifting around her.

The scream, when it came, was muffled, floating through the fog almost softly. Then, once more, there was only silence.

Michelle stood still, listening, waiting. When she heard Amanda’s voice again, she could feel the strange child close to her once more, almost inside her.

“I did it,” Mandy whispered. “I told you I would, and I did.”

The words echoing in her head, Michelle started slowly homeward. By the time she reached the old house, the sun was shining brightly again from a clear autumn sky, and the only sound she heard was the crying of the gulls.

CHAPTER 17

It had been a quiet day at the clinic. The last patient had left, and now the two of them were alone. Josiah produced a bottle of bourbon from his desk drawer and poured two glasses. This was one of his favorite rituals — an afternoon drink on quiet days.

“Anything new at home?” he asked casually.

“I’m not sure what you mean,” Cal replied.

You’re a cool one, Carson thought to himself. But it’s getting to you. I can see it in your eyes. When he spoke, he kept his voice friendly. “I was thinking about Michelle. Any new ideas about what’s causing that lameness?”

Before Cal could answer, the telephone jangled from the outer office. Carson cursed softly.

“Isn’t that the way — the nurse takes off, and the phone rings,” he commented. He made no move to answer it, so Cal reached over and picked it up.

“Clinic,” he said.

“Is Dr. Carson there?” an agitated voice demanded. Cal was sure he recognized the caller.

“This is Dr. Pendleton, Mrs. Benson. Can I help you?”

“I asked for Dr. Carson,” Constance Benson snapped, her irritation amplifying her voice. “Is he there?”

Cal covered the mouthpiece as he handed Josiah the phone. “Constance Benson. She’s upset, and she’ll only talk to you.”

Josiah took the phone. “Constance? What’s the problem?”

Cal watched Josiah’s face as the old doctor listened to Mrs. Benson. As Carson paled, fear began to build in Cal. “Well be right there,” he heard Carson say. “Don’t do anything — anything you might try to do could only make things worse.” He hung up the phone, and stood up.

“Has something happened to Jeff?”

Carson shook his head. “Susan Peterson. Call an ambulance, and let’s get going. I’ll tell you about it on the way.”

“I hope to God the ambulance gets here in time,” Cal said darkly.

They were speeding out of town, and the tires on his car squealed as he turned south onto the cove road.

“I doubt we’ll need it,” Carson replied, his face set in grim lines. “If what Constance said is true, there won’t be much we can do.”

“But what happened?” Cal demanded.

“Susan fell off the cliff. Except that from what Constance said, she didn’t exactly fall. Constance said she ran over the edge.”

“Ran? You mean—ran?” Cal floundered. What could she have meant?

“That’s it. Unless I didn’t get the story straight. I may not have — she’s pretty upset.”

Before Carson could tell Cal all of what Constance had said, they arrived at the Bensons’. Constance was waiting for them on the porch, her face pale, her hands nervously wringing at her apron.

“She’s on the beach,” she called as they were getting out of the car. “Please — hurry! I don’t know if — if—” Her voice trailed off helplessly. Josiah started toward her, telling Cal to go down to the beach and see what he could do for Susan Peterson.

There’s a path behind the house. It’s the fastest way down, and Susan should be about a hundred yards south.”

Automatically, Cal’s eyes scanned the bluff to the south. “You mean by the graveyard?” he asked.

Josiah nodded. “Don’t be surprised by what you find — the bluff drops straight down there.”

Cal grabbed his bag and started around the house. Already, he could feel the panic gripping him. He fought it off, repeating to himself, over and over again, She’s already dead. I can’t hurt her. I can’t do anything to her. She’s already dead. As he drove the words into his consciousness, the panic began to subside.

The path, very much like the one on his own property, was steep and rough, making several switchbacks as it wound down to the beach. Half running, half sliding, Cal made his way down the trail, his mind involuntarily summoning up another afternoon, only five weeks ago, when he had also run down a path to the beach.

Today he wouldn’t make the same mistakes he had made then.

Today, he would do what had to be done, and do it right.

Except that today, there was nothing to be done.

He reached the beach, and finally was able to increase his pace to a run. When he’d covered fifty yards, he saw her, ahead of him, lying still.

Knowing there was no use in hurrying, he slowed to a trot, then walked the last few steps.

Susan Peterson, her neck broken, her head twisted around in a violently unnatural angle, stared blindly up at the sky, her eyes open, an expression of terror still contorting her features. Her arms and legs, spread limply around her, looked grotesque in their uselessness. The incoming tide was lapping hungrily at her, as if the sea were eager to devour the strange piece of wreckage that had only a little while ago been a twelve-year-old child.

Cal knelt beside her, and picked up her wrist, pressed his stethoscope to her chest. It was a useless exercise, merely verifying what he already knew.

He was about to pick her up when something stopped him. His muscles froze, refusing to obey the commands his brain was sending them. He stood up slowly, his eyes fixed on Susan’s face, but his mind seeing Michelle’s.

I can’t move her, he thought. If I move her, I could hurt her.

The thought was irrational, and Cal knew it was irrational. And yet, as he stood on the beach, alone with the remains of Susan Peterson, he couldn’t bring himself to pick her up, to carry her up the trail as he had carried his own daughter so short a time ago. His mind numb with shame, Cal started back up the beach, leaving Susan alone with the flowing tide.

“She’s dead.”

Cal uttered the words in a matter-of-fact tone, the sort of voice he might have used to announce the death of a cat to an owner who had brought the animal to him for destruction.