Night Things: A Novel of Supernatural Terror (25 page)

“Your secret’s remained hidden long enough, Sarah Balfram,” she mumbled to herself Through the upstairs drawing room she went, and then through the even more warped hallway, crawling and groping her way blindly where she had to, until she reached the forgotten corridor in which Sarah Balfram’s bedroom was located. And once there, she clicked on the powerful beam of the flashlight.

However, the bedroom was not her destination.

She was heading for something else.

Although she still had a residue of fear about the solidity of the floor, somehow she knew that it was safe, that the creaking was due less to deterioration than to stress caused by the spatial distortions taking place within the house.

She stepped onto the ancient floor.

As she expected, the beams and struts of the corridor creaked balefully and somewhere deep in the house came a longer and more abiding groaning of timbers—the sound that had reminded her earlier of an abandoned ship listing in a storm.

Intrepidly, she took another step, and then another, and each seemed to evoke a more portentous chorus of creaking than the last. But still she moved on until she had traveled the full length of the corridor and had reached an absurdly distorted doorway at the end. From the warps and bends in its surface and the convoluted way it fit into its frame, she feared she might not even be able to open it. But when she turned the handle she discovered that with her full weight she was able to open it wide.

Directing the beam of the flashlight inside, she saw that beyond was another hallway. Only this one was even larger and was only slightly bent. And despite the attempt that had been made to make it fit in with the decor of the house by papering it in a rich brocade, now mildewed and faded, and covering its length with an oriental carpet, now worn and rotting, it was clear that it was no normal hallway. Aside from its enormous size, she detected that the pilasters lining its walls were actually massive wooden beams, like railroad ties, albeit painted to disguise their true identity; and the ceiling was also ribbed and buttressed with balks, making the entire place look more like some unearthly mine shaft than a corridor in a house.

But the feature which riveted her was the door at the far end of the hall, for it was at least twelve feet tall and eight feet wide, and seemed to be hewn out of beams that were every bit as massive as the buttresses of the hallway. Even more striking was the size of the iron braces which held them together and the rusty but gargantuan latch and deadbolt sealing the door in place.

Frightened, but too obsessed to turn back, she crept up to the door, and when she reached it she stopped and held her breath and listened.

So consumed by fantastic imaginings was she that she half expected to hear something shuffling about on the other side, something ancient yearning to get out.

But instead all she heard was what sounded like wind howling, only distantly.

And the occasional swaying and creaking of the house.

Still wary, she banged on the door with her fist. “Hello!” she yelled, a part of her almost laughing at the ludicrousness of thinking there would be anything alive behind the door.

But still all she heard was a faint susurration, the faraway rushing of air.

Hearing nothing which indicated any immediate danger or menace, she placed the flashlight between her arm and her side and grabbed the deadbolt with both hands.

And then she slid it back and slowly pulled open the door.

As soon as she did she discovered that what had sounded like a rushing of air was indeed a wind. Moreover, it was a wind whose power she had underestimated because of the muffling effect of the door, and even before the door was completely open she could hear it whistling and feel the icy lashes of its touch.

She gasped, for even though she had had a vague sense of what she might find beyond, actually having her suspicions confirmed left her speechless.

For beyond the door was only darkness. Not the darkness of an empty room, or even the eerie, sound-hungry darkness of a very large enclosure, a vacant auditorium or gymnasium. But a much vaster darkness than that.

Beyond the door was an infinite darkness, an ocean of blackness so vast that when she pointed the flashlight into it, the beam seemed to extend forever before it waned and was swallowed by the gloom. Impossible as the existence of the cavern of infinity was, it was there, sequestered deep within the confines of the house, and she, Lauren Ransom, was standing at its precipice and being buffeted by its wind.

And even while there remained many things about the darkness that she did not know, she knew one thing: it was not a mere void, a chasm of emptiness without reason or purpose. She knew that it was a passageway—for an epiphany had blazed through her after her discovery that a spatial distortion existed within the house. She had realized then that it was not the Adirondacks that were the window area, the place of great supernatural power. It was the house and the lake, themselves. Here was the doorway between this dimension...

And some other.

As she struggled to absorb the implications of this, other realizations came to her, through faculties she had never even dreamed she possessed. By some means unknown to her she sensed suddenly that the darkness was not empty. There was something in it. Something alive. It was not close. But it was there.
They
were there, for she sensed also that it was legion, a vast, fomenting sea of things, things whose cries were so distant, or so faint, that they had long since become one with the howling wind.

And as quickly as this entered her thoughts, she noticed something else. She noticed that the threshold of the doorway was worn, deeply worn. The forgotten hallway was perhaps not as forgotten as she had imagined. Things had used it, had used the door also. There were scuffs and pits in its threshold, and scratches and worn areas on its surface.

What manner of creature had passed through the doorway and gone into the darkness?

What had come out?

She slammed the door shut and engaged the bolt. As she ran back down the hallway and groped her way through the twisted passageways beyond, she no longer cared. She now had only one thought on her mind. Even if they had to walk all the way to Clearwater Lodge in the dark, they were getting out of the house.

When she reached her bedroom she stopped only long enough to get her coat, and then she went to Garrett’s room and got him a jacket. She knew that it could get quite chilly at night in the mountains, and she wanted them to be prepared for the long hike ahead of them.

Then she ran down the stairs and into the drawing room.

“Come on! We’re leaving!” she shouted at Garrett. She pulled him up by the arm and hurled him unceremoniously into his jacket. She left the television blaring.

“Why? What is it?” he gasped.

“We’ve got to get out of here now!” she shot back.

Perceiving her agitation, he too started to panic as he followed her quickly into the entrance hall.

But when she flung the door open and started to barrel through, she ran headlong into the man who had come to run the generators.

“Oh!” she cried, frightened by his unexpected presence. As she reclaimed her senses, her shock turned into anger.

“What are you doing hovering outside the door like that?” she demanded truculently. “Why aren’t you down tending to the generators?”

Behind her Garrett let out a cry of horror, but given the unexpectedness of the man’s presence outside their door, she did not think it at all strange.

“Because I don’t want to be down there,” Fugate said, leering at her oddly. “I want to be up here with you.”

“Well, you can’t be up here with us,” she stated flatly, growing increasingly vexed at his insolence.

And then she saw the glint of the straight razor in his hand.

Screaming, she tried to slam the door on him, but he quickly blocked its closing with his foot. Jerking Garrett by the arm, she raced toward one of the spindlework archways on the other side of the entrance hall, but Fugate lunged and grabbed hold of Garrett’s leg, causing him to tumble to the floor.

No longer fearing for her own safety, she turned around, but before she could reach Garrett, Fugate had pulled him up against him and was holding the straight razor at his neck.

“I’ll cut him!”

She froze. “No! Please, don’t!” She noticed that the fall had bloodied one of Garrett’s lips and saw the panic in his eyes. “Please, I’ll do whatever you want.”

Fugate started to calm down. “You won’t try to run?”

“No,” she said in as convincing a voice as she could manage.

“You’ll do whatever I want?”

The words shot through her like a lightning bolt, sparking into flames every dark fear and nightmarish worry she had ever possessed, but she knew she had no choice. “Anything,” she said, swallowing.

Fugate loosened his grip on Garrett, but only a little. “Then let’s go into the kitchen.” He pointed with his elbow. “You lead.”

An innocuous suggestion on the surface, but she read into it the most ominous meanings. As she led them to the kitchen she tried desperately to think of what she could do. But with him still holding the straight razor at Garrett’s throat, she knew she dared not attempt anything.

“You come sit at the table with me, bud,” he said to Garrett when they reached the kitchen. Without saying a word, Garrett did as he was told and followed Fugate over to the kitchen table.

“And now you make me some dinner,” he told Lauren. The idea of trying to bustle around the kitchen and put together a meal while a psychopath was sitting only a few feet away holding a straight razor at her son’s throat made Lauren almost dizzy with horror.

“Okay,” she said, forcing a flicker of a smile. “What would you like?”

“Whadya got?”

To her dismay she felt a tear trickle down her cheek, and she quickly brushed it off with her upper arm. “Peas,” she said, feeling suddenly that it was the most meaningless and stupid sounding word in the world. “Lamb chops— they’re frozen. Frozen hamburger patties. Eggs. Coffee cake. Instant mashed potatoes.”

“I like instant mashed potatoes.”

“Okay,” she said agreeably. “Would you like anything else?”

He instantly purpled and exploded in a fit of rage. “You think I only eat potatoes?”

She jumped. “No, of course not,” she apologized, growing increasingly aware of just how mad he was. She paused, terrified to go on. “Do you want me to keep listing things?” she asked falteringly.

“Yes!” he growled.

“All kinds of cheeses. Croissants.”

“Kra-whats?”

Her mind raced as she carefully tried to formulate an answer that would not incur his wrath. “They’re a kind of roll.”

“Do you have bread?”

“Yes.”

“Can you make French toast?”

She nodded.

His eyes lit up like a child’s. “Instant mashed potatoes and French toast!” he announced as he swelled his chest and settled back into his chair.

She tried to tabulate what she would need for the requested meal, but with each passing second the gravity of their situation dragged her down more. She could not believe it was actually happening to them. It was the sort of thing one read about in the papers. He was a killer. They might be killed. They were
going
to be killed.

The thoughts moved through her mind with such dizzying speed that she started to feel faint, and realizing that they had hope only if she was able to keep her wits about her, she forced herself to calm down.

Instant mashed potatoes, she thought. Salt. Potato flakes. Water. She took a pan down from the rack above the stove and filled it with water. She placed it on one of the burners and turned on the gas. She started mechanically for the pantry and then stopped dead in her tracks.

She looked at him fearfully. “Some of the ingredients I need are in the other room. How should I get them?”

“Just go,” Fugate said with a smile as he dangled the straight razor in front of Garrett’s face like a charm. “I trust you.”

Clenching her teeth to control her hatred for him, she went into the pantry. Then she quickly gathered the things she needed and raced back into the kitchen.

Suddenly Fugate shifted in his seat. “By the way, have you guys eaten?”

“Yes,” Lauren lied.

He seemed to detect her evasion. “What did you have?”

“Cheese sandwiches and cream of tomato soup,” she rattled.

He frowned. “Well, you’re going to eat again, so make enough for all of us.”

“No, really, we—”

He slammed his fist down violently on the table. “Make enough for all!” And then, just as suddenly as his outburst had come, he calmed and seemed almost penitent. “If we’re going to be a family, we’re all going to have to eat together from now on,” he said earnestly.

The words sent a chill up her spine, and she looked at him awestruck.

“Mommm?” Garrett implored, looking to her desperately for some sort of denial to Fugate’s remark.

“Shut up!” Fugate shouted as he lashed out and grazed Garrett’s cheek with the straight razor. Lauren let out a guttural scream of rage and started to lunge for him, but with lightning speed he yanked Garrett down by the hair and held the razor once again at his neck threateningly.

She froze while at the same time Fugate launched into a strange and feverish tirade. “Children should be quiet! Children are brats! Children are worthless! Children should shut up! Children are no good!”

Garrett started to cry, a little trickle of blood starting to stream down from the cut in his face.

“Shut up!” Fugate shrieked.

Garrett sniffled, trying to stop.

“
Shattup!
” Fugate shrilled even louder.

Garrett suppressed his crying.

But the sight of him bleeding, and the helpless, mindless furor she felt at seeing another human being, a reeking, filthy, disheveled, ugly stranger reach out and willfully harm her child,
cut
her child, filled her with more rage than she had ever experienced before in her life. And it was at that moment that something clicked in Lauren. Her state of half-crazed, adrenaline-filled terror became even more finely honed with hatred, and she knew that even if she died in the process she had to do something to stop Fugate and to keep him from harming Garrett any further.