In the Dark of the Night

Kent tipped his head toward Tad. “Ask him.”

Tad glanced around furtively, and when he finally spoke, he still didn’t answer Eric’s question. “Maybe we ought to go down by the lake or something.”

You mean go somewhere where my Mom won’t hear anything, Eric translated silently, following Tad and Kent toward the water as Moxie charged ahead.

“I had a nightmare last night,” Tad said when he was certain they were out of earshot of the house. A strange feeling of something like deja vu rippled through Eric as Tad added, “I mean, a really bad nightmare.”

“What kind of nightmare?” Eric asked, the feeling of deja vu deepening as a vague, half-formed memory of his own dreams last night began to creep up from his subconscious.

Tad finally looked up from the ground he’d been gazing at and saw Kent eyeing Eric warily.

“You have one, too?” Kent asked.

Eric said nothing, for now another memory was recurring. Was it possible they’d all had the same dream again, like on the night Tippy was killed? Moxie, who had been sniffing along the lakeshore, suddenly headed toward the woods. Eric called after him, but the dog kept going, apparently on the scent of something.

“We better follow him,” Eric sighed, knowing what would happen if he went back to the house without the dog. “So how come this dream’s got you so worried?” he went on as they started through the trees.

“It was weird,” Tad said. “I was being chased.”

“Which isn’t so weird,” Kent said. “We were chased night before last by those yahoos from town, remember?”

Tad shot Kent a dark look. “It wasn’t the same. It was like I was being hunted. Only then I was the hunter.” He took a deep breath as he saw Eric and Kent exchange a glance. “Okay, I know it sounds stupid when I tell it, but it was really horrible. First I was in a tunnel, only the tunnel was made out of plastic garbage bags.” Slowly, he recounted every detail of the nightmare — the blades glinting in the darkness, the river of blood. And the table leg that turned into a club. When he finished, he gazed at the trees that now surrounded them. “It looked like this,” he said. “Except it was dark. And when I—” His voice broke at the memory of the dream and what he’d been about to do, and he fell silent.

The faint chill that had come over Eric when Tad began describing his dream now seemed to wrap him like an icy shroud. But maybe he was wrong, he thought. Maybe he hadn’t had the same dream himself last night — maybe it just seemed like he remembered having it. If he’d actually had it, wouldn’t he have remembered it before Tad started talking about it? Then Kent spoke, and the cold shroud tightened around Eric.

“The thing is, I had the same dream. Like the other night, when we all dreamed about Jack the Ripper. Remember? And last night—”

“We just dreamed about what happened to us,” Eric said, desperately wanting to believe his own words. “We found that table leg in the carriage house yesterday, remember? It was like a club, right? And night before last those jerks followed us through the woods and scared the crap out of us. So of course we dreamed about it! Why wouldn’t we? It’s no big deal! It was just a dream!”

There was a long silence as the three boys remembered what happened after they’d all dreamed about Jack the Ripper.

“What if it wasn’t,” Tad finally said. “What if it was like the other dream we had? What if—”

Before he could finish, they heard a rustling in the brush to the right, immediately followed by Moxie growling.

“Moxie?” Eric called out. “Moxie, come!” Instead of bursting out of the brush, the dog only growled louder. “He must have found something,” Eric sighed. “Now we have to go get him.”

With Tad and Kent following him, Eric pushed his way through the brush, following the dog’s now steady growling. Twice more he called out, but all he got in return was more growling and a single muffled bark. Then, ten paces farther on, they found the dog.

Moxie was crouched low to the ground, his jaws clamped on the end of a stick.

A heavy stick with one end much thicker than the other, like a club.

The boys stopped short, staring at the object.

All three of them had the same thought: the dream.

None of them spoke.

Eric glanced first at Tad, then at Kent, and finally moved closer, squatting down. “What is it?” he whispered. “What you got, Mox?” He reached out to take hold of the object and Moxie growled a warning. Eric jerked his hand away, then rose to his feet. “Drop it,” he commanded. Moxie’s ears flattened against his head, but he peered up at Eric. “I said drop it!” The dog stood up, hesitated, then finally let the thick stick drop back to the ground.

Now they could clearly see what Moxie had gone after: the knot at the end of the stick was covered with what looked like blood.

Blood, and strands of hair.

The details of his own dream flooded back to Eric. But it wasn’t possible — it had only been a dream! So what if Tad and Kent had the same dream? It was still only a dream. It had to be only a dream! He tore his eyes away from the bloody stick and turned to his friends.

“It’s like the dream,” Tad whispered. “But it can’t be. I mean, we were home. Asleep.” His voice took on a desperate tone. “We were in our beds.” He turned away. “I think I’m going to be sick.”

Eric’s eyes fixed once more on the heavy stick. “You think maybe we better get rid of this thing?” he asked.

“Why?” Kent said, almost too quickly. “It doesn’t have anything to do with us.”

Moxie, who had barely been able to control himself since Eric had made him drop the stick, could contain himself no longer, and began slinking back toward it, whining eagerly as the scent of blood once again filled his nostrils.

“No!” Eric said, reaching down and scooping the dog up before it could begin licking and gnawing. “Let’s just get out of here, okay?”

With Eric leading the way, they started back toward the path, none of them saying a word, each of them hoping that if they didn’t talk about what Moxie had found, maybe they could just forget it. When they were a few feet away, Eric tossed the stick behind him.

But they knew that even if their memories from last night were nothing but a dream, the heavy stick Moxie had found wasn’t.

It was real.

And it was covered with blood.

• • •

CAROL LANGSTROM TURNED the rapidly browning sausages in the frying pan, lowered the flame, then put a lid on the pan and poured two small glasses of orange juice.

“Ellis!” she called. “Breakfast!” She listened for his usual sleepy-voiced response, but none came. “Ellis? We need to leave in ten minutes.” When there still was no answer, she set the glasses on the breakfast bar, walked down the hall, and knocked on his door. “Ellis? I need you in the shop today, honey.”

Still no answer. Which meant he’d been out way too late last night, and she distinctly remembered telling him to be in by midnight, and not a minute later. She turned the knob and opened the door.

Ellis’s bed was still made, and she didn’t even have to enter to know it hadn’t been slept in.

So he hadn’t come home last night.

He hadn’t even called.

Which was very odd.

Carol went back to the kitchen, turned the stove off under the sausages, and checked her watch. If she wasn’t going to be late, she had to leave for the store in ten minutes, and she needed Ellis today. The Fourth of July weekend was coming up, and it was her busiest of the year — people came from all over the county and even all the way up from Illinois and Ohio for the parade, the fireworks, and the picnic that Phantom Lake had become famous for.