twenties. “She hadn’t been there long,” Greene said to reporters. “The condition of ligaments and bone marrow made that quite plain. Topical soil analysis of the area around the discovery site indicates that she probably died right where she was, more than likely an animal attack.” Positive identification has not yet been ascertained, though an undisclosed local source of high reliability speculates that the skeleton may be that of one Donna Fitzwater, 22, who was reported missing earlier this week. Both Greene and P.G. County homicide lieutenant D. Choate refused to comment on that possibility.
And a more recent article on page 1 of the
BOWIE GIRLS MISSING,
VIOLENCE SUSPECTED
This morning a county police officer on routine patrol discovered an abandoned automobile in the woods just off of Governor Bridge Road, the tentative Bowie-Tylersville boundary line. At about the same time, Stuart Lazernik, of the Whitehall area in Bowie, reported that his daughter, Lisa, had not returned home last night with the family car, after an outing with a school friend. Lazernik later identified the vehicle found abandoned as the same vehicle he’d loaned his daughter. Further investigation verified that the friend who had accompanied Miss Lazernik, Catherine Bathory, also of Bowie, never returned home last night either. Both girls are 18 and seniors at Bowie High; neither has been seen or heard from since last evening at approximately 8 P.M. “Each family has been prepared for the likelihood of a tragedy,” County Lt Dennis Choate told
Sanders stared. The articles confirmed everything; they were proof. What he feared the most was already taking place.
He switched off the light and let himself be enshrouded again by the dark. He stared pensively at nothing.
The station wagon would be reported stolen soon, if it hadn’t been already. There was nothing more to do, that much he could see. Now he was just wasting time, and increasing the risk of being caught with a hot car. He should have gone by now. Or perhaps—
He wondered if he had lost his nerve and had just not admitted it yet. He felt lashed to opposing forces, being pulled both ways. “Partly my fault,” he whispered aloud, to the wall. He thought again of the newspaper articles. “All my fault.”
But blaming himself lacked any purpose at all. His compulsion was simply this: He would not go home until he had seen the full truth. He had to know.
He had to know what the colonel had done.
Oppression seeped mistlike up into his mind, and mulled his movements like a dropped net; he felt his head grow heavy with guilt. The darkness turned to a mass of clots, the walls seemed to swell inward, to crush him. He went back to bed and soon lapsed into a mute, suffocating sleep, his mind’s visions dragged repeatedly in and out of a chasm of nightmares.
««—»»
At about the same time, Kurt Morris slipped into a similar chasm.
Again he dreamed he was sitting in the den beneath a canopy of amber lamplight. Night filled the windows like darkly stained ice, as a sprawl of wisteria ticked against the glass. He thought he heard a faint sliding sound behind him. Was someone running a hand along the wall of the next room? Opened in his lap was a book he’d never heard of.
Almost immediately, this time, he knew he was dreaming. He heard:
He pretended to ignore it. He tried to read but saw that the book contained only black and white photographs of great age. The picture on the first page showed a thin, old man leading a little girl into a cottage.
“God
Kurt was furious. He wished he could wake up and not have to answer the door. Impulsively, he started to call out for Melissa, but decided not to bother when he recalled the last time he’d done that.
He stepped broadly into the foyer. The pounding continued, like a roofer driving nails.
Kurt flung the door open wide.
Fog swirled in the doorway, misting over the figure of a man who stood tilted at an angle, as though one leg were too short The visitor’s outline seemed to vibrate as it stood.
Kurt stepped back, stunned by a rushing stench. This was too real for a dream, details too concise. He detected a jagged twitter—
The figure remained still, its features hidden in the mist. It stood bowed slightly forward, neck crooked and shoulders hunched, as if hung from a meat hook. Something metallic flashed on its chest.
“Well?” Kurt said. “I know you’re not the paper boy, so let’s get this over with. Goddamned dreams.”
The figure shifted once, but did not come forward. Fog began to spill in through the doorway, minutely darkening the foyer. Kurt could feel the temperature drop.
“Come on, fucker,” he said. “You’re pissing me off. Who are you?”
From the fog came a wet chuckling sound.
And the figure stepped inside, into the light.
Doug Swaggert was barely recognizable as anything more than an upright corpse; decomposition sculpted him down to bones and slabs of green, perforated flesh. His uniform hung in strips, and he looked back at Kurt through a face held together by rot. One eye showed only white, the other was an empty socket. It raised its right arm, which was without a hand, and Kurt realized then that Swaggert had been knocking on the door with his stump.
“Jesus,” Kurt mouthed. “Jesus God.”
The door slid shut, as if the fog had sucked it closed. Swaggert smiled liplessly. A bubble of black fluid formed in his ear, then broke. He moved toward Kurt quickly then, but jerkily, like some hideous marionette. Through his progress crackled a sound akin to trudging through mud.
Kurt’s stomach roiled. He back-stepped a third of the way up the stairs. Disgust and horror made him forget this was a dream, and he hit his thumb-snap and withdrew his revolver. “Get out of my house, you grosser,” he said. “I’ll blow your rotten head right off your shoulders.”
Swaggert began to grovel up the staircase, teetering on each step like a palsied man.
“Oh, shit,” Kurt said. In a secure, two-handed grip, he aimed his pistol, cocking it. He took a deep breath, let half of it out, and when Swaggert’s moldering face appeared in the sight-line, he let the hammer fall—
