Nightmare Child (16 page)

Distantly, he heard the revolver fall from his hand and strike the floor.

There in the darkness, enshrined in the soft blue glow, Jenny reached forward now, to give him an even more intimate kiss, one on the mouth.

Knowing this was wrong—she was a little girl—he tried to stop her but somehow he could not.

Feeling her tiny, wriggling tongue inside his mouth, he tried once again to push her away.

"Jenny, no," he said.

The cackle was unlike anything he had ever heard. And there could be no doubt from where it came.

Before his face, innocent little Jenny became the ugliest, bent hag he had ever seen. He thought of the mad women panhandlers of the large cities—this twisted crone was a hundred times uglier.

"You shouldn't play with little girls." The witch laughed, and then
raked
her long nails across his face, scoring it.

Hot blood and almost unbearable pain spread across his cheeks as he fell to the floor, cupping his hands over his face to slow the bleeding.

His scream followed her up the stairs, up into the even deeper shadows, where the
McCay's
waited to die.

It could have been no longer than a minute before their screams started, covering his entirely.

Several times, he tried to get to his feet, but each attempt ended with his falling back to the floor.

He was losing blood so quickly that his strength was leaving him. Terror, confusion, and a distant sense of shame also took their toll. He almost prayed for unconsciousness…

He was not certain when the front door was hurled open. All he knew was that the last thing he saw when he rose up once more on his bloody hands…was the sight of Diane.

She stood in the doorway shouting, "Jenny! Jenny!" Over and over, almost as if she was transfixed.

She did not seem to notice as he began dragging his body across the parquet floor toward her.

She did not seem to notice that his face looked as if a dozen razors had slashed it.

She did not seem to notice the soft, almost prayerful name—hers--he uttered as he now started to lose consciousness for sure…

No, she was too busy looking at what was left of the creature on the staircase, the creature that had once been a woman named Mindy.

Breasts no more than bloody holes, head torn off at the shoulders, and blood coming in geysers from the trunk, the creature grasped uselessly for the banister and then came tumbling down the stairway as, upstairs, Jeff began pleading for mercy and then pleading for help.

That was the last thing Clark remembered.

A robin sat on the window ledge. Diane, pouring milk into a clear, tall glass, said, "That's all you're going to eat?"

Patting her stomach, Jenny said, "Let's see. That's one egg, a bowl of oat bran, a piece of toast, a glass of orange juice, two vitamins, and now a big glass of milk." She grinned. "I'd say that's a pretty healthy breakfast."

Diane laughed. "You caught me at it again, didn't you?"

"Overcompensating," Jenny said decisively.

"Overcompensating," Diane agreed, and sat down. On a talk show they'd both seen together a few weeks before, the host had talked about how people overcompensated for things that worried them. In Diane's case, this meant overcompensating for all that had happened to Jenny. These days, Diane overprotected her shamelessly.

A robin sat plump and sassy on the window. Cool May air glided into the kitchen. Outside, you could see blue and red and yellow flowers blooming on the new grass of the hill.

Diane said, "Better hurry, honey. Only five minutes for the school bus."

Jenny, dressed in a white blouse, blue-denim miniskirt, and black flats, turned away from the counter and said, "I heard you arguing last night, Aunt Diane. You don't have to stick up for me that way."

Diane felt her cheeks go warm and red. "Honey, we weren't arguing. We were just having a discussion. And I'm sorry if you woke up."

It seemed such a waste, discussing all this on a morning when birds were singing their fool heads off, when green things were sprouting up so quickly you could practically hear them, and when the air itself was as soft and sweet as a child's kiss.

"He wants to tell, doesn't he? Chief Clark, I mean."

Diane sighed. There was no sense in being evasive any longer. "He…just thinks…we should talk to some people at the state university. Some…parapsychologists who used to work with Dr. Rhine at Duke University. He was a very famous—"

"You know what they'd do to me."

Diane could not meet Jenny's gaze.

"I heard you say it yourself last night, Aunt Diane. They'll start examining me and studying me and questioning me and they'll make me tell what happened that night when—"

Diane put her hand up. Knowing the kind of traumatic response talking about that night still imposed on Jenny, Diane avoided the subject whenever possible. "You're right."

"Then you won't let him take me to the university?" Diane held out her hands. Jenny came into her embrace. "No, honey, I won't let him."

Nuzzled against Diane's neck, Jenny said, "You promise?"

"I promise."

Jenny put herself at arm's length from Diane. "We can be a family, can't we, Aunt Diane, you and I?"

"We are a family, honey."

"And we don't need…him."

"Honey, he's a—"

"I know, I know. 'Honey, he's a good friend of mine.' But I heard the way you cried when you went to bed last night. I was so worried I started saying prayers for you. That doesn't sound like he's a very good friend of yours, Aunt Diane."

Taking the frail girl back in her arms, Diane held her so tightly she was almost afraid she was hurting her. There had never been time for children in her first marriage, and then her husband had died and the prospect of having a child had grown even dimmer. Perhaps that was why she felt this incredible need to nurture and protect Jenny…

Holding the girl, Diane felt tears well up in her eyes. "Thank you, honey," she said, her voice shaky.

"For what, Aunt Diane?"

"For caring about me enough to say prayers for me."

"But I say prayers for you all the time, Aunt Diane."

"You do?"

"Yes. I say prayers for both of us—that we'll always be together."

A big horn blared outside.

"Oh, my gosh!" Diane said. "The school bus."

The next thirty seconds was a mad rush around the kitchen grabbing sweater, lunchbox, milk money, and books.

Then Diane was hurrying her down the walk to the bus.

"Look, Aunt Diane," Jenny said, and pointed to a beautiful orange-and-black admiral butterfly. "Isn't it beautiful?"

"It sure is." Diane laughed. "But the school bus is beautiful, too."

Jenny, squeezing her hand, said, "Someday when I'm all grown up, I can stay here all day with you. We'll be like sisters. We'll have a great time."

Then she skipped the rest of the way to the bus, a few kids behind windows waving to her.

Feeling like a real mother—feeling that Jenny was in fact her real daughter—Diane watched until the bus pulled out of sight around the bend and then walked back to the house, the admiral butterfly still perched on the mailbox.

She was trying very hard not to think about what was to take place three hours from now. Lunch with Robert…

Amy's was a holdover from the seventies, when restaurants tried to disguise themselves as terrariums. Diane and Robert sat near the back of the crowded place, placing their orders with a young waitress who looked overwhelmed by the sheer number of diners.

Diane decided on a roast-beef sandwich on rye with a small salad and a glass of iced tea. Robert chose the same sandwich but asked that it be served with French fries and coffee.

The waitress gone, Robert said, "You look great." She smiled. "A quick man with the compliment."

"A quick, sincere man."

"Well, thanks, I guess I kind of needed that." Obviously sensing the troubled quality of her tone, he said, "Still angry with me?"

"Angry isn't the right word."

"What is the right word, then?"

"More like…confused"

Sitting back in his chair, he said, "Maybe it's just the cop in me, Diane, but I can't help thinking we did the wrong thing."

"Even if it means sparing a little girl's sanity—maybe even her life?"

He stared somberly at her and said, "Are you sure she's a little girl, Diane? There's a very real possibility she's something very different. That's why I'd like the people at the university to—"

Diane reached across the table and touched Robert's hand. "Do we have to have the same argument we did last night?"

Robert sighed. "The fact is, Diane, that two people were murdered. Neither of us saw Jenny do it—but we have a strong suspicion that she did."

"We were downstairs when it was going on."

"Downstairs, right. And Jenny was upstairs with Mindy and Jeff. Who else could have killed them? And we're not even talking about…about her…condition…or whatever you want to call it." He glanced around the restaurant, as if watching for eavesdroppers. "She may not even be human, Diane."

"Of course she's human. She's a sweet little girl who nearly died when her own sister tried to kill her. Don't you think that's enough turmoil in her life?"

"So you're willing to let her walk away? Even if she's a killer?"

Diane knew this was not the answer Robert wanted. "Yes."

Robert shook his head and dropped his gaze.

"Living with me, she's going to get the love and guidance she's never had," Diane said. She hated the slightly defensive tone that had crept into her voice.

"How do you know that she won't turn on you?" Robert said. "Even if there isn't anything…supernaturally wrong with her, there's every possibility that she's deeply disturbed, maybe even sociopathic." He kept thinking about the official police version—that Jeff had savagely murdered Mindy, and then killed himself. Even now, Clark wondered what had really gone on there that night.

"Oh, God, Robert. Saying something like that—" She locked her jaw, and then surprised herself by standing up. "I'm just afraid we shouldn't see each other anymore."

He grabbed her hand. "Diane, please don't say that. You're upset, but—"

She saw the grief in his eyes. It was the same kind of grief she felt at this moment. First she'd felt she could never love anyone with the same passion she'd felt for her first husband, and then she'd met Robert and…

She took her hand away. "I'm sorry, Robert. What you're asking is for me to choose between you and Jenny. And I guess I've given you my answer."

She saw anger fill his gaze. "What happens if I report what really happened that night? Demand an investigation?"

Softly, knowing that many diners had started watching them, Diane said, "If you do that, Robert, you'll be thrown off the force for covering up the evidence in the first place. I don't think you'd be that foolish. You like your job too much."

She left the restaurant.

The police officers—one in uniform, one in a brown suit his wife had bought him at Sears for his last birthday—stood in the doorway of the Chief's office, nudging each other and shaking their heads in operatic disapproval.

Inside the office, the Chief had his feet up on the desk and was reading a paperback called
The Supernatural Explained
by Dr. T. J.
MacGregor
, M. F. A., the exact meaning of which was lost on the two men.

"What the hell's gotten into him these days, anyway?" the uniformed officer asked the other.

All the man in the brown suit could do was shake his head again.

Clark had been reading
The Supernatural Explained
for the past two hours, ever since his disappointing lunch with Diane.

Glancing up, becoming aware of the two officers in the doorway, he said, "Help you with anything, men?"

Steinberg, the man in the brown suit, said, "We were just wondering why you'd be reading a book like that."

Clark took the book away from his face and stared at it. "What's wrong with this book?"

"Well, you know," Maloney, the uniformed man, said.

"No, I don't know."

"Well, supernatural and stuff like that," Steinberg said.

"Oh, you mean you don't believe in it?"

"Yeah…uh…right. I mean…uh…yeah, we don't believe in it," Maloney said, apparently repeating himself for emphasis. "Uh…do you?"

"Are you going to start laughing if I say 'yes'?"

"Hell, no," Steinberg said. But he said it too quickly to be convincing. "I mean, what you believe in is your business. This is America, after all."

Clark put the book face down on the desk and then sat forward in his chair, elbows on the desk. "Well, for what it's worth, you two, I don't believe in the supernatural."