In the Dark of the Night

“Honey? What’s—”

“I’m okay,” he insisted, managing to conceal his roiling emotions. “I’m just pooped — I’ll be fine in the morning.”

Merrill continued to eye him, and tried to tell herself she was just falling victim to needless worry again. “Okay,” she said. “Marci and I are going to work on her costume for the parade for a while. She’s going to be the Statue of Liberty.”

Feeling his mother’s appraising gaze still on him, Eric winked at his sister. “Tomorrow I’ll see if I can find something to make a torch out of. Wouldn’t that be neat?” Marci, still sitting at the table, bobbed her head happily, and he could see the worry start to drain out of his mother’s eyes.

A few minutes later, after he’d once more loaded the dishwasher, he paused at the table where his mother and sister were putting together something he was sure wasn’t going to look anything like the Statue of Liberty’s crown. “See you in the morning,” he said as he kissed his mother’s cheek.

To his relief, she barely looked up.

AN HOUR LATER, after she’d tucked Marci into bed — the freshly glued and glittered crown sitting safely on the nightstand next to her — Merrill looked in on Eric.

He was sound asleep.

She smoothed the hair from his forehead and kissed him gently, careful not to waken him. He still felt warm, and little beads of perspiration stood out on his upper lip, but she decided he didn’t look sick.

She tiptoed out and gently closed the door behind her.

As she moved through the quiet house, sweeping up wayward glitter, putting the lid back on the glue, folding up the newspapers, and disposing of the leftover cardboard and construction paper, she decided that her husband and family and friends had all been right.

Tonight, even without Dan here, she was actually enjoying being where she was.

She was enjoying the quiet of the lake and the house.

Before closing the drapes and locking the doors for the night, she took a long moment to gaze out at the moonlight on the lake.

Peaceful. Serene.

Perfect.

How could she have been so nervous about coming here?

She pulled the drapes, then turned back to the room, where Moxie was sprawled on the sofa, one ear cocked in her direction even in his sleep, ready to accompany her upstairs and sleep on a real bed as soon as she gave the word.

Even Moxie wasn’t worried.

And she herself felt calmer and more rested than she had in a long time.

She turned out the lights and headed upstairs, Moxie waking up to trot along at her heels.

Just as she slipped between cool sheets, the phone rang.

“Hi, honey,” Dan said.

Merrill smiled in the quiet and darkness of the house and snuggled down in her warm bed.

Tonight, for the first time in years, she didn’t have a single worry to tell her husband about.

GO HOME! TURN the boat around and go home!

But Logan knew he couldn’t go home — not yet. Not until he’d done what he came here to do.

The thing was, he didn’t know what to do.

Not anymore.

Not since the people had come to Pinecrest.

He tightened his hands on the oars, squeezing them so hard his knuckles ached. In the bow, the old dog whimpered softly, and Logan clucked in sympathy. “Too old,” he muttered. “Too old for any of this.”

Go back! Go away!

The voice seemed to come from outside his head now, but Logan knew that wasn’t true. The voices weren’t real — they were only part of his own craziness! That was what Dr. Darby had said — that was what all the doctors had said. They weren’t real, and he had to pretend they weren’t there.

He pulled hard on the right oar, and the shriek of its lock ripped through the night. From somewhere off to the left a bird burst from its roost, flapping in indignation. Logan ignored it, concentrating instead on pulling the boat around and forcing its prow into the muddy bank.

The howling in his head grew worse, but he dragged himself out of the boat, pulling it farther onto the shore and making its worn painter fast to a low-hanging branch.

Once on shore, the voices began to shriek at him. Gone were the soft, soothing tones that used to whisper to him, murmuring their approval as his fantasies became reality. As the voices howled, the long-buried memories crawled up from his unconscious, and once again he could feel it.

His enormous, coarse hands around her small, soft throat.

The sweet taste of her blood on his tongue.

All he’d had to do then was listen.

Listen, and obey.

But now—

The voices didn’t want him here.

But why?

It didn’t matter. It didn’t matter what the voices wanted him to do.

He had to do what Dr. Darby wanted him to do.

He paced the shore, searching for the courage to do what he knew must be done.

His hands went to his head, trying to shut the voices out, but even as he pressed so hard he thought his skull might crack, the voices tortured him.

In the bow of the boat, the old dog struggled to sit up, and Logan stopped his pacing. As the dog’s eyes fixed on him, a strange foreboding fell over him, and then his skin began to crawl as if he’d just been touched by death itself.

But it wasn’t death.

It was Dr. Darby.

Dr. Darby was inside the dog, and if he just concentrated — just focused his mind and kept his eyes on the dog — he would know.

Dr. Darby was stronger than the voices, and now, in the dark of the night, Dr. Darby would give him the strength to ignore the voices, too.

It would be all right.

He would find the strength.

Dr. Darby depended on him.

He had to keep everything in order, keep everybody safe.

Finally turning away from the boat — and the dog — he began slogging toward the carriage house, resisting the voices that pushed against him like the winds of a hurricane.

“I can do it,” he whispered as he came at last to the door. “I will do it.”

His hand touched the doorknob, and the cacophony of voices screaming at him to go away pounded so hard in his head that he almost fell to his knees.

Why weren’t they luring him the way they used to? Why weren’t they promising him the fruit of his darkest desires?

Why didn’t they want him anymore?

The answer bubbled up from the depths of his subconscious, groping its way through the fog in his mind.

They didn’t want him here because they had someone new.

They had someone else to carry out their evil.

Now a harsh ray of jealousy ripped at the clouds in his head, and Logan’s fingers tightened on the brass of the doorknob until he felt as if it must crumble under the pressure.

“Help me,” he whispered, leaning against the door. “Help me, Jesus.”

He turned the knob and entered the carriage house.