Malice (22 page)

Glenn turned sharply back to his son. “Lysander,” he shouted, prying his son’s hands from the doorknob. “Move!”

Lysander fell back and Glenn swung open the door, his gun stretched out before him. His mother got on the phone to the police, frantic. He followed his father as he crept down the short hallway toward his bedroom. His door was still ajar, exactly as he had left it a moment ago. But his bed was perfectly made, the covers pulled tight the way his mother set it every morning. A tidy room breeds a tidy mind, she always said.

Gone was the trail of blood, smeared as his grandmother had clawed her way along the floor.

Glenn made his way toward the grandmother’s room and Lysander stopped dead in his tracks.

“Dad, no. He’s in there.”

Glenn waved him away. “Just stay where you are, Lysander.”

He entered her room and Lysander saw the light flicker on.

A moment later, his father re-emerged, his voice, brushed with concern: “I’m going downstairs.”

“But—”

“Don’t worry, she’s fine.”

It’s not her—anymore—I’m worried about, Lysander thought darkly. The woman just tried to eat me for breakfast.

His father brushed past him and headed for the stairs.

The light in his grandmother’s room was still on.

“Dad, you—” But he was already gone.

Lysander went to her room, and as he did he became aware of a prickling sensation against the pads of his feet, giving his step an odd stilted rhythm. Her door was open a crack. He decided he would only slip a hand in and snap the light off, but he found himself pushing in her door. It gave easily. No creaks or groans this time. She was sleeping like a baby, a lump under a rug, just as she always was, her head tucked beneath the covers. At least most of her head was tucked. He could see a bushel of matted hair and part of her face. He blinked and his eyes felt terribly heavy. He rubbed them hard. He was beginning to wonder if they were playing tricks on him, because it looked like one of her eyes had opened and rolled down to watch him. He flicked off the light and shut the door.

For the next twenty minutes, Glenn searched the rest of the house, but Lysander knew his father wouldn’t find anything. All the windows were shut, and the doors, including the garage, were locked from the inside. For a while afterward, Lysander couldn’t get his heart to stop pounding. He would sleep with his bed nudged against the door tonight all right, only after he checked his closet a second time that is. And after he had words with the cops who were no doubt on their way, more than likely a tired and cranky Deputy Morgan. Yeah, he would sleep behind a barricaded door tonight. If he slept at all.

Samantha had lain hunkered behind the large maple tree for what felt like an impossibly long time. The sky, gray and lifeless all day, was growing darker now. She wrapped her arms about her. Even in the gloom she could see her breath pluming out and then disintegrating before her. She was sitting alone in a patch of empty land between Lysander’s and the reverend’s house, waiting for Small to leave. Every passing second put her more on edge. From somewhere behind her, a branch snapped, then feet rustled through dead leaves. She turned to see a dark form approaching.

“Lysander?” she croaked.

“Yes,” he whispered back.

“You nearly scared the shit out of me.”

In the distance, they heard the sound of a door slamming shut. Lysander dropped to the ground. Through the darkness they saw the distinct shape of Reverend Small heading toward his white Cadillac. The motor hummed to life a second later, and he backed slowly out of the driveway. The headlights washed over them as the car straightened onto the road. Samantha ducked behind the thick maple. Then like a hearse in a long procession, the car lumbered away slow and deliberate.

Lysander ripped open the bag he had brought from his house and pulled out a long, fur-lined jacket. Samantha took it from him and angled herself into the sleeves without getting up. She wrapped it tightly about her, appreciating the insulating warmth.

Lysander handed her a thermos filled with coffee and a walkie-talkie.

“What’s this for?” she asked, shaking the walkie-talkie in the air.

“So you can warn me if he comes home.”

Her face became stubbornly set. “I thought we were going in together.”

“No, it’s better this way.”

The smug expression plastered across his face made her wonder if he was trying to be a hero.

As if in response Lysander said: “I’ve never been so nervous in my whole life.”

She smiled weakly and kissed him. Her lips were tight with worry.

“Be careful,” she said.

He nodded briefly.

She turned on her walkie-talkie and he did the same. He brought it to his mouth. “Testing one, two, three. Testing.”

“Gotcha,” she replied.

“I’m gonna get what I need and then vanish. Quick in and quick out.”

She smiled wryly. “Just like last night.” But the smile couldn’t entirely hide her concern. “And if he comes home?” she asked.

“Just give me enough warning to get out in time.”

“Do you even know what you’re looking for?”

“I was kinda hoping to find a sign somewhere with flashing neon lights that says ‘I did it!’”

Lysander took her face in his hands and kissed it. Then he stood and gave her perhaps the world’s worst Arnold Schwarzenegger impression. “Ay’ll bee bach.”

He started off toward the rear of the house. She lifted the walkie-talkie and spoke into it, “You better
bee bach
, asshole, or I’m coming in after you.” He turned and nodded. She watched him until he disappeared behind the backyard fence.

Sam undid the thermos and took a sip of coffee, swished it in her mouth and then spat it onto a pile of leaves beside her. She hadn’t eaten all day. Her stomach had been so unsettled, she knew she would only throw it up. Whether or not it was because of her father’s pills she had finally decided to take this morning, Samantha didn’t know, but things had been hazy and dull since Derek had been killed. With the notable exception of Lysander’s visit to her room and their lovemaking last night. But truth be told, she hadn’t been entirely sure even that had really happened until this morning when she had smelled him all over her.

For a while, the warm feeling she got replaying that evening over in her mind had helped her forget what was really bothering her. But when that failed to hold back the tide of shadows and flashes of memory, the pills had come out.

Her eyes focused in front of her. Two young lovers had scratched their names into the bark of the maple next to her and circled it with a heart.

Paul luvs Trish

At any other time, that kind of wishy-washy sentimentality would have made Samantha stick a finger down her throat, but now it made her flush. She searched her pockets for a knife or a key. She felt a sudden overpowering urge to make a mark of her own: Lys luvs Sam. As if the very act might make it eternal. This was not the strong ball-busting Samantha she knew and loved. The same Samantha she could trust not to lose her head and go get herself hurt.

Since her mother’s death she had been preparing herself for the day when her father’s death would mean she was completely alone. She had decided then that she would not let herself be hurt. Then along came Lysander.

She lay on her stomach and brought the walkie-talkie to her lips. She pressed the button, was about to speak, and then released it. No, she thought, fighting the urge to check up on him. She watched the road for the Reverend’s white Cadillac.

***

Above the reverend’s nondescript single bed hung a large wooden cross. Soft light came in through a large window that looked out onto the street. The room was dark and the gloom cast a sickening glow on the cross. There was something odd about the Jesus that was nailed to those two tiny beams of wood. Something Lysander couldn’t quite put his finger on.

He crossed the room to a nightstand and a small drawer. He would start his search here. He nudged the drawer open and narrowed his eyes, slowly becoming accustomed to the darkness. Inside was a package of blue pens, a single cigarette, a Zippo, a deck of nudy playing cards and a pile of faded gas receipts. For some reason, the cigarette surprised him the most. The reverend seemed like the kind of guy who would tsk at anyone with a Marlboro clamped between their teeth.

To think that he had petty vices—besides that nasty little habit he had of torturing and killing people—was almost absurd. Lysander closed the drawer and glanced over again at the statue of Jesus on the wall. The statue’s pained, pleading face was turned toward an open closet.

He went there, his body tightening with the thought that something was waiting behind that cracked door, some insane clown man with sharp claws. Slowly, he drew it open. There were no red eyes peering back at him, only a series of dark suits, all identical. Below them, shoe boxes stacked one on top of another with glaring precision.

There’s the sicko we know and love
.

Lysander rifled through each one, finding nothing. He tossed them aside. Then his hand brushed against something that gave at the edges. He grabbed hold and pulled. An old leather-bound book.

No, a planner.

A planner that went back to the year 2000, but there were more underneath, each in five-year blocks, right back to 1960. Lysander grabbed one marked 1965. The pages were musty and discolored. He wiped the dust from the cover and opened it over his lap. He flipped through the pages, stopping at random. His eyes were straining to see. Noticing a light bulb in the closet above him, he flicked it on.

The gnawing urge to look behind him had begun the moment he opened the first planner. But he had pushed the feeling aside, figuring it for nerves. Now it was back, and it was more than just gently persistent. It had become a command.

See me!

He glanced over his shoulder.

Nothing there. The room hadn’t changed one bit.

He returned to the book, unable to shake the odd sense of disquiet and then swung around again.

Something wasn’t quite right.

Red warning lights were flashing inside his head.

Everything seemed to be the same—

Except …

Jesus. From here in the closet, he could see the statue’s chrome features, but something about the eyes made the skin along Lysander’s arms begin to creep.

They were moving.

Stop fucking around, he told himself. This nut job’s got you seeing things. He wiped a thin layer of sweat from his forehead with the back of his hand and returned to the reverend’s daily planner. There was a note on June 9, 1965, reminding him to see a Dr. Stephens. Similar notes appeared for two or three weeks. Then visits with Doctor Stephens ended, replaced by visits with another doctor. Dr. A. Who was Dr. A?

Lysander began flipping through the pages, and what he saw next made him gasp.

Dr. A.

Doctor A.

Doctor Avery.

“Why in hell was Reverend Small seeing Avery?” he wondered aloud, only dimly aware of the queer ring in his voice. He lifted the pile of planners and shoved them back in place. They hit the back wall and made a hollow booming sound. For a moment he stood stiffly in place, aware of the icy blood pumping through his veins and then he slid his head into the closet. Either he was much stronger than he thought or that back wall wasn’t really a wall. He reached out with a trembling hand. The wall swung back, opening into another room. It was the size of a walk-in closet. The air inside was tinged with formaldehyde. Lysander peered behind him. Through the darkness he could see Jesus’ silver eyes fixed on him. A look of pleasure suffused its face, as though there was something back there it wanted him to see.

He would have to hurry. The reverend might be home any minute. Lysander grabbed the walkie-talkie from his back pocket and wondered for a moment if the cheap thing had died on him. Fresh batteries aside, they were toys that he had grabbed from under the basement staircase, crammed for years in a box labeled, “Lysander’s stuff.” But no, the little red light was still on and that meant he was fine.

“Sam, you there?” He listened to the crackle of static.

Then: “Yeah, I’m here. Find any neon signs?” The tension in her voice was unmistakable.

His eyes dropped to the ledger, now stacked back in place and then into the dark room behind the closet wall. “No, but I may have found something else.”

“Something else. God, Lysander, hurry up!”

He paused and looked over his shoulder.

“Okay. Two minutes.” Lysander slid the device into his back pocket and stepped inside the closet. The smell of fur was strong here. Before him, a white string dangled in shadowy darkness. He pulled at it and when the light came on, he nearly screamed.

An enormous ram’s head scowled at him with sightless glass eyes, its horns curved downward like two ancient blades.

Above the stuffed ram’s head was the eye.

Animal heads glared down at him accusingly from wooden mounts.