As dusk began to fall Elaine took Missy and Robby into the downstairs bedroom and began putting them to bed. The storm had increased, and the sound of rain battering against the window seemed menacing to Elaine, but she was careful not to communicate her feelings to the children. As she tucked them into the big bed Missy suddenly put her arms around her neck.
“Do we have to sleep here?” she whispered. “Can’t we sleep at home?”
“Just for tonight, dear,” Elaine said. “But don’t you worry. We’ll all be in the next room. Your father, and me, and Brad. Everything’s going to be fine.”
“No, it isn’t,” Missy said, her voice tiny and frightened. “Nothing’s ever going to be fine. I know it isn’t.”
Elaine hugged the child reassuringly and kissed her on the forehead. Then she kissed Robby too and picked up the lantern by the bed.
“If you need anything you just call me,” she told them. Then she pulled the door closed behind her as she left the room.
They lay in bed, listening to the rain beat against the window. For a long time they were quiet, but then Missy stirred.
“Are you asleep?”
“No. Are you?”
“No.” Missy paused a moment, then: “I miss Mommy. I want to go home. I don’t like this house.”
“It’s just a house,” Robby said disdainfully. “It isn’t any different than any other house, except that it’s better than ours.”
“It’s creepy,” Missy insisted.
“Oh, go to sleep,” Robby said impatiently. He turned over and closed his eyes and tried to pretend that he was sleeping. But he heard the sounds of the rain and the wind and the building surf of the flowing tide. The sounds seemed to be calling him, and try as he would, he couldn’t ignore them.
“If you really want to, we can go home,” he whispered.
Missy stirred next to him, and he knew she’d heard him.
“Could we go through the woods?” she whispered.
“All right,” Robby agreed. The beach would be better, he thought, but the woods would be all right. At least he’d be near the storm.…
A few moments later Robby raised the window and the two children crept out into the night.
29
Harney Whalen sat behind the wheel of the patrol car, his knuckles white with tension, his face beginning to twitch spasmodically. The windshield wipers, almost useless against the driving rain, beat rhythmically back and forth in front of his eyes, but if he saw them, he gave no sign. He was watching the road in front of him, and there was an intensity in his look that would have frightened anyone who saw it. But he was alone, driving north toward Sod Beach.
As he approached the beach he began to hear voices in his mind, voices from his childhood, calling to him.
Floating in the darkness ahead of him, just beyond the windshield, he thought he saw faces — his grandmother was there, her face twisted in fear, her eyes reflecting the panic of a trapped animal. She seemed to be trying to call out to Harn, but her voice was lost in the howling tempest — all that came through was the faint sound of laughter, a laughter that mocked Harney, taunted him, made the chaos in his mind coalesce into hatred.
He turned the car into a narrow side road halfway up Sod Beach and picked his way carefully through the mud until the forest closed in on him, blocking him. He turned off the headlights, then the engine, and sat in the darkness, the rain pounding on the car, the wind whistling around him, and the roar of the pounding surf rolling over him, calling to him. Beckoning him.
Listening only to the voices within him, unmindful of reality, Harney Whalen suddenly opened the car door and stepped out into the storm. A moment later the police car stood lonely and abandoned in the forest.
Harney Whalen had disappeared into the night.
When the pounding on the front door began Brad Randall’s first impulse was one of fear — the sudden, gripping fear that always accompanies an unexpected sound in the night. But when he heard a voice calling from outside, his fear dissipated and he hurried to the door.
“I can’t find him,” Chip Connor cried as he came in out of the storm. “He’s gone, and I think it’s going to happen again!”
“Can’t find who?” Brad asked. “For Christ’s sake, calm down! You’re not making sense.”
“It’s Harney Whalen,” Chip gasped. “I’m sure of it. He’s been sick lately, then he got mad at me today. So I went and found Doc Phelps.” Chip dropped into a chair and tried to catch his breath.
“Phelps?” Glen asked. “What the hell does he have to do with anything?”
“He told me about Harn,” Chip said. “He told me that Harn’s been having blackouts.”
“Blackouts?” Brad repeated. “What kind of blackouts?”
“The same kind Robby has. He doesn’t pass out — he just can’t remember what he was doing. As soon as Phelps told me that I went back to the station, but he was gone. His raincoat’s still there but he’s not.”
“Maybe he went home,” Glen suggested, though he was sure it wasn’t true.
“That’s the first place I went,” Chip said. “He’s not there. So I figured I’d better come out here and warn you. If what you think is true, he’s probably prowling around the beach somewhere.”
“My God,” Elaine moaned. “Is the house locked up?”
“It’s been locked up all evening,” Brad said.
“I’m going to check anyway.” She picked up a lantern and started toward the dining room, intent on circling the main floor.
“We’ve got to find him,” Chip said as soon as Elaine was out of the room.
“Maybe not,” Brad replied. “As long as we’re all here there isn’t much chance that Whalen will find anyone on the beach. Not tonight.”
As if to confirm what he said, a bolt of lightning struck, briefly illuminating the room, then the clap of thunder shook the old house, rattling the windows.
As the thunder died the sudden void was filled by Elaine Randall’s scream of horror. A second later she appeared at the bedroom door. “They’re gone,” she cried, her face pale and her voice strangled. “The children are gone.”
Glen Palmer started for the bedroom and Elaine stepped aside to let him pass. He looked frantically around the icy room, then went to the open window, the cold, wind-driven rain stinging his face.
“Please,” he prayed silently. “Leave me my children.”
When he returned to the living room, Chip and Brad were waiting for him, their coats on, flashlights in their hands. Next to the fireplace, Mac Riley stood uncertainly.
“I think I should go too,” he said. “I’ve known Harney since he was a baby. If something’s happening to him …”
“No, Grandpa,” Chip replied. “Stay here. You can’t move as fast as you used to, and Mrs. Randall shouldn’t be left alone.”
“Please,” she begged. “Please stay with me. If I have to wait by myself I’ll go out of my mind. I know I will.” Sobbing softly, she sank into a chair. Brad started toward her, but Mac Riley held up his hand.
“Go on,” he said. “Find the children. We’ll be all right, I promise you.”
As Chip, Brad, and Glen went out into the night, Mac Riley poked at the fire, then began one more circuit of the house, checking the doors and windows. When he came back to the living room he tried to comfort Elaine.
“They’ll find the kids,” he said softly. “Don’t you worry.”
But inside, the old man was worried.
