Homing (18 page)

His heart was thudding in his chest, and for an awful moment Otto wondered if perhaps Henderson wouldn't have to kill him at all, if perhaps he was simply going to die of a heart attack right now.

The moment passed, though, and slowly his heartbeat began to return to normal.

He was about to get back to his feet and continue exploring the blackness of his prison when he heard something.

On the opposite side of the wall, something was happening.

He listened, trying to figure out what it might be.

A moment later he heard a click, followed instantly by a sound almost like that of a mousetrap snapping shut.

He paused again, listening, but heard nothing else.

Then, just as he was about to stand up once more, he felt something.

Something crawling up his leg, under his pants.

instinctively, Otto tried to brush it away.

And instantly felt the first burning sting as the scorpion's barbed tail lashed into his flesh.

Otto tried to scramble to his feet, but as he put his hand on the floor to push himself up, another of the creatures attacked him. As he felt the second stinger plunge into the flesh between his thumb and forefinger, he jerked his hand away from the floor and reflexively put his palm to his mouth to suck the poison from the wound.

The scorpion, still clinging to his fingers, leaped to his face and whipped its tail again.

Otto screamed then, and tried to roll away from the attack, but now the floor seemed to be covered with the deadly creatures, and he felt first one, then another penetrate his shirt.

He was thrashing helplessly now, the poison surging through his system. Everywhere he moved, another scorpion waited.

"No!" he screamed as he felt one of them scuttle onto his face. "Help me!" His voice rose into a keening plea: "For the love of God!"

But even as he uttered the words, more of the stingers sank into him, lashing into his face and chest, and finally, whimpering, he sank back Against the wall.

A new and even darker kind of blackness began to close around Otto.

A blackness from which he knew he would never emerge.

He whimpered, tried to lift his hand Against his unseen tormentors once again, but then the darkness overwhelmed him and his hand fell back to the floor.

Mercifully, Otto Owen felt no more of the scorpions' stings.

Julie had never experienced anything like it.

Growing up in the San Fernando Valley, the nights had never been like this.

Always, there had been lights.

In the neighborhood where the Spellmans had lived since her father died, brilliant halogen bulbs had glared down from high overhead, casting an almost shadowless light over the streets and sidewalks, washing away the night in an attempt to tear the protective shield of darkness from the drug dealers and gang members whose rule had spread over wider areas every week.

Even before that, when they'd lived up in the hills above Studio City, where the warm glow of the glass enclosed bulbs sitting atop their concrete posts had only created small pools of illumination in the nighttime streets, nothing had ever been truly dark.

Not like it was out here.

Everything, always, had been dimly lit by the indirect glow of the hundreds of square miles of lights that carpeted the entire Los Angeles area.

But tonight, avoiding the power lines and the road, she and Kevin had headed across country, making their way through the perfectly cultivated fields that spread over the valley floor.

Soon even the glow of the little town was behind them, and though Julie could still see an occasional light twinkle in the distance, the blackness around her was almost complete.

Overhead, filling the sky, were more stars than she had ever seen before-millions and millions of them, glimmering in the blackness, the great swath of the Milky Way slashing across the cosmos like a cascade of diamonds on black velvet.

But even more than the stars, it was the sounds of the night that touched something deep inside Julie, resonating within her in a way she'd never felt before.

Back in Los Angeles there had been a steady drone of noise, always there, always in the background. Most of the time she'd simply tuned it out, becoming conscious of it only when its rhythms changed: the sudden squeal of brakes; a scream of tires spinning on the pavement.

In the summer, sometimes, she was vaguely aware of crickets chirping in the night.

But nothing like the symphony of sound that enveloped her tonight as she walked through the fields.

The thrumming of crickets formed a steady rhythmic background, but over that she could hear other sounds sounds she couldn't even begin to identify.

"Listen," she whispered to Kevin. Her pace had been steadily slowing as they moved through the darkness; now she came to a complete stop and her hand tightened on Kevin's.

"What?" Kevin asked, turning to look at her in the darkness, but seeing only a dark shadow Against the backdrop of the night.

"Don't you hear it?" Julie went on, her voice so loP Kevin could barely hear her. "It sounds like music, doesn't it?"

Kevin frowned in the darkness. Music? All he could hear were the sounds of millions of insects all around them, chirping and buzzing as they worked their legs or wing covers together to attract mates out of the darkness.

"What are you talking about?" he finally asked, lifting the can in his free hand to his lips and draining off the last few drops of beer. "It's just a bunch of crickets and stuff."

Julie shook her head. "But it's not," she told him. "It's like music! I've never heard anything like it before."

Kevin rolled his eyes. "Except last night, and the night before, and the night before that! This time of year it's so loud you can hardly sleep."

"I like it," Julie said. "Let's just listen for a while, okay?"

Kevin glanced around, feeling vaguely uneasy. Why did Julie want to listen to a bunch of insects chirping? "Let's just go on home, okay?" he said.

Julie turned to look at him, but her face was still lost in dark shadows. "You're not scared, are you?" she asked.

Her voice suddenly sounded different to Kevin; there was a quality to it that sent a chill through him.

Not a chill of fear.

Another kind of chill, an exciting one.

He swallowed nervously. "I-I just think we should at least get back to the farm," he said, "I mean, I'm not even sure whose property we're on. What if they catch us?"

"What if they do?" Julie countered. "Who cares?" Her voice dropped again. "I mean, it's not like we're doing anything we shouldn't be, are we?"

A nervous flutter churned in Kevin's belly. Was it just his imagination, or was she thinking the same thing he suddenly was? "W-We could go down by the creek," Kevin stammered, not quite answering her questions. "It's really neat down there at night."

Almost to his own relief, Julie didn't answer him, but when he started across the field, she moved along with him, her hand in his.

Half an hour later, coming to the edge of a field that Kevin knew belonged to Vic Costas, they found a dirt road that wound along the edge of the valley, following the contours of the foothills. Perhaps a quarter of a mile away, he could see the lights of their house, beckoning in the darkness.

Fifty yards down the road an old wooden bridge spanned the creek, marking the boundary between the Owen farm and the one next door. When they came to the bridge, Kevin led Julie off the road and down the low bank to the edge of the water. "There's a neat place just downstream," he told her. "Come on." Edging along the rocky bank, he worked his way toward a small crops of oaks that flanked the creek. There was a sandy area there, a miniature beach, where he and Jeff Larkin had often gone swimming.

And just as often fantasized about bringing girls, who, in their imaginations, would be more than willing to join them in skinny-dipping, and afterward ...

Kevin shuddered with excitement as the fantasy played out in his mind.

Then he groaned silently-here he was with Julie, almost to the beach that was the site of his very best fantasies, and he hadn't even brought a blanket!

But maybe it wouldn't matter-maybe, if Julie wanted to go swimming, they could just sort of stretch out in the sand afterward and ...

Kevin's imagination shifted into high gear, and he felt once more that thrill of excitement in his groin. Maybe, just maybe, tonight was the night he was finally going to And then the fantasy exploded in his mind, blasted to smithereens by the sound of a voice.

His father's voice.

"Better get back to the house," he heard his father say as a flashlight came on. "I think Molly's just about to fall asleep."

Kevin froze. Molly? His dad and Karen? What were they doing down here? Why weren't they in the house, where they belonged? He took a step backward, about to around and lead Julie back the way they'd come, when he suddenly felt his foot slip. Losing his balance, he reached out and grabbed Julie to steady himself, and heard a clatter as the loose rocks shifted beneath his feet.

"Shit!" The word exploded unbidden from his throat. A second later, out of the blackness, a dark form hurled itself at him. His balance completely destroyed by Bailey's joyful assault, he collapsed to the ground as the big dog licked at his face. "Will you get off?" Kevin cried, struggling under the dog as a beam of light pierced the darkness, momentarily blinding him.

"Kevin?" he heard his father say. "Julie? What are you two . . ." The words died on Russell's lips as he realized that he knew exactly what they were doing. Or at least what Kevin had been planning to do. "Perhaps," he said, doing his best not to laugh out loud at the expression of acute embarrassment on his son's face, "we all ought to go back to the house."

"You want to see my bug?" Molly asked her sister as the family came in through the kitchen door. "Where's a jar, Mommy?"

Karen retrieved an empty mason jar from one of the shelves in the pantry and handed it to Molly, who dropped a large june bug into it and screwed its lid tight. The beetle, which Molly had been clutching in her fist for almost half an hour, despite Russell's insistence that they could catch another one just by turning on the porch light, lay on its back for a moment, struggled, then managed to right itself, apparently none the worse for wear.

"Isn't it neat?" Molly demanded, handing the jar to Julie for her inspection.

Julie looked at the insect, which was now circling the container, searching for a way out. "Why don't you let it go?" she asked Molly. "It'll just die in the jar."

"No!" Molly insisted. "It's mine, and it won't die if I feed it!"

"You won't do anything till you put your pajamas on," Karen interrupted, shooing her youngest daughter out of the kitchen. Then, as Molly headed through the dining room toward the stairs, Karen finally got a good look at Julie under the bright light of the kitchen's fluorescent tubes.

Her daughter looked pale, and there was an unhealthy sheen of sweat on her forehead, as if she were running a fever. Frowning, Karen laid her wrist on Julie's forehead.

To her surprise, Julie's temperature seemed normal.

"You're sure you feel all right?" she asked. "You don't look very good. Maybe you're finally having a reaction to the shot Dr. Filmore gave you." Her eyes shifted to Russell. "Do you think we ought to call her?"

"It's the middle of the night, Mom," Julie protested.

"And I'm not sick."

"Maybe she just picked up some kind of bug," Russell suggested. "Let's not bother Ellen if we don't have to. If she's not all over it by morning, we'll take her to the clinic then."

Julie's eyes rolled. "There's not anything to get over," she groaned. "I'm going to bed! Good night."

She started out of the kitchen, but Russell's voice stopped her. "Not quite yet!"

Julie turned back to look nervously at her stepfather.

Russell's glance flicked from Julie to Kevin, who was standing near the back door, studiously avoiding his father's gaze. "Have you two made up a story you think we'll swallow, or do you just want to tell us the truth and get it over with?"

Julie's demeanor turned stormy. "You're not my father-" she began, but now her mother stopped her.

"This is one family now, Julie. Russell's your stepfather, and you'll treat him with proper respect." Julie started to test again, but this time her mother's words stopped her completely. "Before you say anything else," Karen said with deceptive gentleness, "I think you should know the beer is still on your breath."

Julie's eyes widened. "We only had one a piece," she said.

"Which is one too many," Karen told her. "You two said you were going to a movie," she said, her glance going to the clock. "Obviously, you didn't, since you haven't even been gone two hours."

Julie and Kevin glanced at each other, and then Kevin spoke: "The movie wasn't any good, so we left. And I guess when Andy said he had some beer, we should have just walked home right then." He shrugged helplessly.

"But we didn't. We went up to the power lines, and when Andy started passing out the beer, we each took one. Then we split."

Russell eyed one teenager, then the other. "Why did you leave?"

This time it was Julie who answered. "I just didn't like it up there," she said, shrugging. "So we decided to walk home."

"And that's it?" Russell asked.

Kevin and Julie's eyes met for a second, and they both nodded.

"All right," Russell said. "Karen and I will discuss it, and let you know in the morning what we've decided. But I suspect you can both count on being grounded for at least a week."

"A week?" Julie began, but Russell held up a cautioning hand.

"I suppose if you want to argue about it, we could make it two weeks," he offered.

Julie was still glaring at him, shocked into silence by his words, when Molly's june bug began to hum.

As she listened to the humming from the bottle, some thing inside Julie responded to it. Her anger toward Russell was completely forgotten. "I'm sorry," she said. "Is it all right if I go to bed now?"