Diamond poster on the far wal .
“What did you expect? Joey Lawrence? Come on, let's go in,' Arlene said.
The door was open. It appeared the cabin had never been wired for electricity. There were lots of candles around, especial y on a low shelf just above a smal footlocker. A table with an ashtray fil ed with cigarette butts, a couple of dilapidated chairs, and a mattress with a sleeping bag on top completed the decor. There were more posters on the wal s: Kiss, AC/DC, and one with a winged skul . Fred walked over to the ashtray and sniffed at the contents. 'Marlboros, nothing else. If he's got a stash, it's someplace else. Like in that trunk over there.”
The trunk had drawn Samantha's eye, too. So far, the room indicated perhaps a borderline unhealthy fascination with the occult and satanic music, yet nothing like upside-down crosses or inverted pentagrams to indicate the need for an emergency exorcist. Duncan seemed to spend his leisure time reading—not Proust or even Catcher in the Rye, but comic books. There was a stack of them next to the mattress. Arlene picked up a couple. 'Look at this. The kid is real y total y weird. I mean he's got Ghost Rider and X-Men mixed in with Archies. He doesn't know if he's six or sixteen.”
Fred had flipped the two catches and was fiddling around with the center lock on the footlocker. It looked like the kind you took to camp, and maybe Duncan had, some summer in his past life. Samantha found it hard to imagine him as a normal kid in shorts playing capture the flag in a camp T-shirt.
“These things are pretty easy to open.' Fred took out his knife.
“What's that sticking out from the side?' Samantha asked.
Fred pul ed at it. 'I dunno. Some kind of black cloth.
Maybe he has orgies or something here and they dressup.'
He inserted the knife into the lock and began to twist it open.
Samantha had a funny feeling about al this. It was one thing to walk through an open door but another to open someone's private property, even if that someone was Duncan Cowley. She was also not sure she wanted to know what was inside.
“He's coming! Let's get out of here!' Arlene had been watching at the window. 'I can see his shoes! Come on, run!”
They flew down the front stairs and into the woods.
Samantha could see Duncan's shoes blinking in the dark.
He wasn't far behind them and he'd realized someone had been at the cabin.
“You bastard!' he screamed. 'Come back here. I know who you are. You can't get away from me.”
They ran until they reached the pickup and then were back on the main road in a few moments.
“That was close,' Fred said.
They drove in silence for a while. The feeling of the dark cabin and what it might contain seemed to have invaded the thoughts of al three teenagers. Now that she was away, Samantha perversely felt she had to find out what Duncan was up to—even if it meant breaking into the footlocker. She reached over and grabbed Arlene's hand. It was as cold as her own.
“It was great of you guys to come with me, but I've got to get home or my mother wil have a fit'
“Mine, too,' Arlene said.
They pul ed into the drive in front of the Mil ers' cottage and Samantha got out. 'Tomorrow night?' Fred asked. In the beams of his headlights, Samantha nodded solemnly.
Tomorrow night.
* * *
The phone rang early the next morning. Sam was asleep and Samantha had already left for work, taking her bike. Pix was drinking a cup of coffee, stil in her nightclothes, out on the back deck. She dashed inside. Her hel o was a little breathless. It had been the fourth ring; islanders were known to hang up after less, assuming no one was home or didn't want to be bothered.
“Mom!' It was Samantha and she was breathless, too.
'Get over here right away! It's the sails! They're covered with blood and al these dead bats are lying around in the hul s!'
“Blood! Bats! My God, what's happened?' Pix could scarcely
believe
Samantha's
words.
'Samantha!
Samantha!' The line appeared to have gone dead.
“That was Arlene.' Samantha was back on the phone and her voice was marginal y calmer. 'It's not blood. It's paint, red paint. And the bats are plastic. But it looked like blood when the sails were raised and the bats were total y gross with red stuff coming out of them, so we al ran back here. I could have sworn it was real!'
“Darling, how dreadful!'
“Just come, okay?'
“I'l be there as soon as I can.' Pix was already unbuttoning her pajamas. After she hung up, she raced upstairs.
“Sam, Sam, wake up! There's some trouble over at the camp. Someone painted the sails with red paint and they al thought it was blood, because there were bats in the boats that they thought were dead. But they turned out to be fake too.' Pix was struggling for lucidity.
“Bats? What kind of bats? Basebal bats? Paint?
Blood?' Sam sat up, rubbing his eyes. 'What the hel is going on over there? Wait while I throw something on'
When the Mil ers pul ed into the parking lot at Maine Sail Camp, they could see that Sergeant Dickinson had beaten them. They hurried down to the waterfront, where the entire camp was gathered. Samantha was in the center of a group of the youngest campers. Two were literal y clinging to her. Pix was proud of the way her daughter was handling the crisis. Stroking one head while patting another, Samantha was saying, 'It's just someone's idea of a stupid joke. A very, very bad joke and that's al . We'l get the extra sails and be out on the water in no time”
One of the children, a little girl, looked up at Samantha with absolute certainty that she would get an honest answer from this goddess. 'Are you sure? So many spooky things have been happening—the mice and those other tricks”
Sam turned to Pix. 'Mice?' he asked softly, not wanting to upset the scene further.
“I'l tel you later,' Pix replied. 'Another nasty prank.'
She wanted to listen. What was this about 'other tricks'?
Jim strode over to them, obviously pleased at their presence.
“Sam, Pix. Good of you to come. Earl is down on the beach now and then he wants to search al the cabins.
Clayton Dickinson is working here as handyman this summer. He's Earl's cousin, I believe, and is going to help him. The kids are understandably upset. Do you think you could give us a hand? We're going to gather in the dining hal and sing some songs. Mabel is getting together some cookies and milk. The counselors have been terrific, but the kids need some more adult reassurance.'
“No problem,' Sam replied, abandoning his morning sail with only a slight trace of regret. 'Before you start your hootenanny though, I think you'd better talk about what's happened. There's the possibility that someone may have some information, but mostly you want to keep it al out in the open or you're going to have them jumping ship in droves.'
“Don't I know it. One kid has already demanded to leave. His parents are on a barge in Burgundy, pretty unreachable, as he wel knows, but he's stirring up the others'
“Is this one of Samantha's group? She said there was a boy who was pretty annoyed at his mother and father.”
Jim nodded. 'Geoff Baxter. He may have been too immature for such a long sleep-away session.”
Pix went over to Samantha and began to help her move the kids into the dining room. Sam went to another group. 'Hootenanny?' Had her husband been listening to his old Pete Seeger records while the family was away?
