In the Dark of the Night

“Here, Rusty, I made you a plate.”

Ruston turned to see Rita Henderson holding an oversize Chinet platter piled high with barbecued ribs, potato salad, corn on the cob, and even one of Billie-Jo Jensen’s huge biscuits, dripping with butter. His stomach rumbled loudly as he took it, making Rita raise an eyebrow.

“What a charming way of telling me you haven’t eaten all day,” she said, then eyed the crowd appreciatively. “But what a great day. It all came off perfectly, thanks in no small part to you. You may rest assured that you have my vote next time you’re up for reelection.” She handed him a plastic fork and a napkin. “But right now it’s time for a little relaxation.”

Ruston smiled, and tried to force his eyes to stop wandering over the crowd searching for trouble that wasn’t there. “Thanks, Rita,” he said. “Maybe you’re right.” But just as he headed for an empty seat at a picnic table, he spotted Eric Brewster and Cherie Stevens holding hands as they moved carefully through the maze of blankets, heading for the lemonade booth.

Which wasn’t a problem in and of itself, but Ruston’s antennae still went up.

Quickly, he searched the area for two potential sources of trouble: Adam Mosler and Al Stevens.

Eric’s rival, and Cherie’s overly protective father.

Ruston spotted Stevens first; Al and his brother Billy were busy on the floating platform, putting the finishing touches on the fireworks display.

Deciding Stevens wasn’t going to be a problem — at least right now — Ruston searched for Adam Mosler and found him leaning against a tree, glaring furiously at Eric and Cherie.

Ruston focused his gaze on Mosler, and as if by the sheer force of his will, the boy turned a few seconds later and looked at him.

They made eye contact, and even from twenty yards away, Ruston could see Adam start to deflate. Finally, the boy nodded, turned, and walked in the opposite direction toward the baseball diamond, where a game of softball was just winding down in the face of the dwindling daylight.

Good. He could enjoy his meal in peace.

He settled in at a picnic table with Rita Henderson and a couple of families with little children who moved over to make room for them both. All around him he heard the chatter of happy people. So far, the biggest problems had been a couple of sunburns and one skinned knee, only the last of which had even needed the ministrations of the first aid tent. So if Al Stevens could manage not to blow his fingers off tonight, this whole Fourth of July might just go down in history as the best yet, despite what had happened Friday night.

Real life could wait until morning.

He tore a bite of meat off a rib, then sucked the thick sauce off his fingers. “Now that is what I call good,” he sighed.

On the other side of the table, a baby — probably just a year old and still in its mother’s arms — seemed to sense his mood. Gurgling and smiling, it stretched out its hand toward Ruston, offering him the remains of a potato chip that was clutched in its tiny fingers.

“Why, thank you,” Rusty said, reaching out to take the chip from the baby. “Don’t mind if I do. Don’t mind at all.”

The baby giggled happily, and Ruston decided that, at least for now, all was, indeed, right with the world.

RILEY LOGAN STUMBLED out of the carriage house door into the gathering dark of the evening.

At the top of the lawn, the house was still quiet, still deserted.

But inside Logan’s head, the voices still whispered. Now, though, one of them had risen above the others.

A woman’s voice.

A woman who was speaking to him, telling him what he must do.

“Not here,” she said. “I want to go where there are people.”

Logan’s grip tightened on the axe.

“I need to finish,” the voice whispered. “I need to finish it all.”

Logan moved toward the path through the woods that would take him to town.

In the distance, somewhere beyond the treetops, he could see a glow in the sky.

Lights.

Lots of lights.

All the people would be there.

As many as she wanted.

“Yes,” the woman sighed as he began moving toward the lights. “Oh, yes.”

ERIC BREWSTER WISHED he could sink into the pleasure of having Cherie Stevens next to him on the quilt his mother had brought from Pinecrest, and where they now sat with his family. He’d felt a pang of jealousy a couple of hours ago when he first spotted her talking with Adam Mosler, as well as a terrible feeling of disappointment that she was still hanging around with him. In fact, he’d felt a lot more jealousy, and a lot more disappointment, than he’d either expected or been willing to admit to Tad and Kent when they saw how he was looking at Cherie and started teasing him about it.

And he’d been even more surprised by how good he felt when she’d spotted him, cut her conversation with Mosler short, and come over to say hi, then stayed with him all afternoon, even as Adam Mosler started burning with visible anger. Indeed, he felt good enough about it that he didn’t even mind the leers Tad and Kent were giving him from the blankets they and their parents had spread next to the Brewsters’ quilt.

But even Cherie’s presence couldn’t quite dispel the dark sense of foreboding that had hung over him all day, the strange feeling that there was something he was supposed to have done that he had failed to do.

Or — possibly even worse — done something he shouldn’t have.

The problem was, he couldn’t quite remember what he and Tad and Kent had done the last time they’d gone into the room that was hidden behind the storeroom in the carriage house.

He remembered clearly what they’d intended to do — that was easy. They were going to go into the room, take apart everything they’d put together, and be done with it.

But he couldn’t remember taking anything apart.

Not the lamp, or the hacksaw.

Not even the scalpels from the medical bag.

But so what? It wasn’t like anything that had happened was their fault! Certainly he hadn’t killed Tippy, and Tad hadn’t killed Ellis Langstrom, and Kent hadn’t made a lamp shade out of the skin from Ellis’s arm!

All that happened was that they’d dreamed about those things.

But how could they have dreamed things they didn’t even know had happened?

And that, he knew, was what had been wrong all day: he had a strange feeling that something else was going to happen, something that he and Tad and Kent could have prevented if only they’d done what they went into the hidden room to do. But had they done it? Had they done anything at all?

Or, even worse, had they done the wrong thing?

That was the thought that had been hanging over him all day, and now, as the dark of the night gathered around him, that thought was getting heavier and heavier.

“Hey,” Cherie said, breaking into his reverie. “I know a great place to watch the fireworks from. You know the footbridge over the marsh? The one that leads to the path to The Pines?”

Eric nodded, and as he saw the sparkle in her eyes, his mood lifted slightly. Maybe, if they were alone in the dark…His spirits lifted even more as he considered the possibilities. “I know the bridge,” he said.

“My dad helps put on the fireworks, and they always put the platform off the bridge, so it’s the best place to watch from. Want to go?”

Once again Eric nodded, but out of the corner of his eye he could see his mother already shaking her