“Were you in the military?” Val asked hopefully.
“No…I watch
“I don’t know what to say except…thanks. I know this must be terribly hard for you both. It’s not your fight —”
“We talked about that, Val, and we both pretty much agreed that it is our fight. It’s everyone’s fight.”
“Thanks, Newt. I’m sorry I was so hard on you before.”
“As it turns out, you had every right to be. See you soon.”
She bought a paper and a big decaf in a go-cup and carried it back up to Weinstock’s room and frowned when she saw that the door was ajar; she’d definitely closed it when she left and the nurse wasn’t due for her rounds until seven. Val hurried over and opened the door quietly to see a small, mud-splattered and disheveled figure standing over the sleeping doctor. Even though his back was to her, Val recognized him at once.
“Mike…?” she said.
(3)
Crow crouched above the seat as the ATV slammed into unseen potholes and jerked over unavoidable rocks. Far behind him he could hear Ferro cursing and yelping as his body thumped painfully over and over again onto the saddle.
At the base of the long hill Crow braked to a stop to let the others catch up. LaMastra was right behind him the whole way, but it took Ferro an additional couple of minutes to pick his way laboriously down the hill toward them. He looked exhausted and miserable and his crotch and tailbone hurt like hell from the bumpy ride. Crow suggested that he try standing up off the seat next time and Ferro told him what he could do with his belated suggestions.
Crow pointed. “See that path there, where the trees form a kind of archway? That’s where we’re going. Be prepared, because when Newt and I were here we got a really bad feeling as soon as we entered it.”
“Can’t be as bad as the way I felt when we crossed over from sunlight to shadows on that hill,” LaMastra said.
“He’s right,” Ferro agreed, “if I wasn’t already a believer that would have done it. It was stepping out of who I am and into being a frightened five-year-old kid. Very…basic emotions, a primitive fear. Does that make sense?”
“Yeah, that says it.” Crow nodded along the path. “Down there…it gets worse.” He gunned his engine and took off.
LaMastra looked gloomily at Ferro. “Great pep talk.”
They followed, and as each of them motored down the path an identical feeling of unease and claustrophobia clutched at their hearts. Ferro found himself reaching back to touch his slung shotgun over and over again; LaMastra kept murmuring prayers to the Virgin Mary that he learned in Sunday school. The path was so narrow that dry branches whipped at them and plucked at their sleeves with skeletal fingers, but this eventually emptied out into a wide clearing and Crow stopped again. The others drew alongside, flanking him as he examined the terrain ahead.
“Holy Jesus,” gasped LaMastra, staring at the expanse of twisted and diseased trees and hairy vines that hung like loops of intestine from every branch. Leprous toadstools were littered across the mossy floor of the swamp, and the whole place smelled like rotten eggs and spoiled meat. The stench was overpowering. Gagging, Crow opened up his second vial of garlic extract and rubbed some on his upper lip. He passed the vial to Ferro and LaMastra, who copied this trick.
“What’s wrong with this place?” LaMastra asked, unknowingly repeating the question that Newton had asked two weeks before. Crow shook his head.
“Everything,” he said.
They rode on through the twisted woods for another half an hour and then suddenly the side of the old farmhouse loomed up before them, rising out of the shadows in tangles of diseased ivy. Crow felt his gut tighten at the sight of it. They all slowed as they emerged from the forest into the overgrown side yard and then stopped in a patch of sunlight in the front yard about eighty feet from the porch. They turned off their engines and the silence was immediate and enormous.
“Doesn’t look like much,” said LaMastra, examining the house through narrowed eyes.
Crow snorted, “It grows on you.”
The pile of debris on the porch made the house look deceptively frail and shabby, but Crow knew that the place was a near fortress of sturdy stones and seasoned timbers.
Ferro nodded. “I expected something a lot more rustic, you know? Older, deader, more like a haunted house from a scary movie.”
“You think this place doesn’t look haunted?” Crow asked, surprised.
“It’s not that…I expected it to be a dead old house. This place feels…
“Thanks,” LaMastra muttered, “’cause I wasn’t nearly scared enough before.”
He and Crow got off their ATVs, but Ferro lingered. “It’s a lot bigger than I expected, too. I’d guess fifteen, eighteen rooms.” Somewhere behind them a dozen crows sent up a cawing chatter. Ferro dismounted and unslung his shotgun. “We’re burning daylight, gentlemen. Let’s be about our business.”
They unstrapped one of the sprayer units and Ferro volunteered to carry it. “You two can provide cover.”
LaMastra raised his big shotgun and jacked the first round into the breech. The sound was startlingly loud. “Let’s get it done.”
With a grim smile, Crow bent to the duffel bag and removed the two pinch bars he’d brought along for just this purpose. He handed one to Vince. “Before we go in there, I’m for letting the sun shine in.”
“So am I,” agreed Ferro, “or I would be if there was any sun.” Above the clouds which had been gradually forming since late morning had coalesced into a gray-white ceiling. The small patch of daylight that shone down on their parked vehicles grew gradually fainter as the clouds draped the sun in gauzy layers.
“It doesn’t have to be actual sunlight, though, right?” LaMastra asked. “I mean…it’s still daytime, so these assholes are going to be sleeping. Right?”
Crow didn’t meet his gaze. “Yeah, well, Jonatha was a bit hazy on that point.”
“Terrific,” LaMastra said.
Crow stalked toward the porch, shotgun in one hand and pinch bar in the other. As he climbed the steps he carefully examined the debris, staring at every dark spot to see if it scuttled or moved, but there were no signs of cockroaches. Ferro stood on the top step of the porch and shined his flashlight into crevices and under shingles, following the light with the nozzle of the sprayer. Nothing moved.
“No creepy crawlies,” he said.
Crow braced his feet and drove the heavy claw of the pinch bar between plywood and brick wall and threw his weight against it; LaMastra went around to the left side of the house and attacked that panel. Soon the air was torn by the squeals of protesting nails and percussive grunts and curses as they pried the gleaming sixteen-penny nails out of the sheet of plywood; then suddenly there was a splintering crack and Crow’s panel slid straight down the wail, nail heads skittering on the brick like fingernails on a blackboard. It came down at an angle, struck the porch floor on one corner, stood on end for a moment, and then toppled backward onto the debris as Crow danced out of the way.
Crow threw down the pinch bar. “Well, kiss my ass!”
“What’s wrong?” LaMastra called, racing around the corner.
The window frame was splintered and devoid of glass, but they couldn’t see into the house because the entire frame was securely blocked by neat rows of new red bricks. Crow reached up and touched the cement, and though it looked recent it was cold and hard. He shook his head. “This son of a bitch thought of everything.”
“Yeah?” asked LaMastra. “I’ll bet he didn’t think of this.” With that he took Ferro’s shotgun, fed in a Shok- Lock round, aimed the weapon at the length of shiny steel-welded chain and pulled the trigger. The chain leapt like a scalded snake, spitting sparks and metal splinters, then the weight of the lock on the inside of the door yanked the ends through the holes and they heard the chain slither into a heap behind the door.
Crow nodded his appreciation. “Wow. That gives a whole new slant to breaking and entering.”
LaMastra handed the Remington back to Ferro and picked up his ten-gauge. “Shame I can’t get them for
