Rockinghorse (27 page)

MacLeish

“Lyda's head is gone,” Nancy told Lucas and Kyle. “I just looked out and spotted it.”

“Why do I get this feeling the head will be back?” Kyle asked glumly.

“I'm with you,” Lucas said.

“But on whose side?” Mark asked. “Theirs, or ours?”

“We saw her soul leave her, Lucas,” Kyle reminded the man. “Remember?”

“If that's so, then the head is just that, no more,” Lucas replied. “Those on the . . . other side,” he stumbled over the words, “can use it any way they wish.”

Mimi shuddered and left them talking. “Saw her soul leave her,” she muttered. “I wish I was more religious.”

They all, to a person, wished that for themselves.

Looking out the kitchen window, Lucas realized what it was that had been nagging at him. The body of Sheriff Bill Pugh was gone. He wondered if they would be seeing that headless thing again.

He felt sure they would.

* * *

No one bothered them as Kyle and Lucas walked outside and began cutting poles to use for spears. They could see no member of the Brotherhood and, for the first time in hours, neither man felt unseen eyes on him.

“I get the feeling they're gone,” Lucas said.

“So do I, buddy. But I think they've just pulled back to regroup, rather than left for good. They probably can't figure out what's happened; why they can't use their weapons.”

“So much has happened, Kyle,” Lucas said, whacking off a six-foot length of wrist-sized limb, “I don't remember if I asked you. Are you a religious person?”

“I was until I went to 'Nam,” the trooper said. “A lot of guys become much more religious in a war zone. But I went the other way. I became the most profane and anti-religion guy over there. I just couldn't believe that God—if He existed—would allow that horror. I guess I became a pain in the ass on the subject. One day this old chief petty officer—he was old to me then—took me outside the quarters and talked to me for about fifteen minutes. Then he proceeded to beat the shit out of me. It was the most humiliating experience of my life. He must have been about forty years old. I was twenty-one and thought I was the toughest man in the world. To make matters worse, he was about half my size. I never even got a lick in on him. When I woke up, he was standing over me. He dropped a little Bible on my chest and told me to read it. And he told me the next time he heard me cursing God, he would really whip my ass.”

“And that turned you around?”

Kyle shook his head. “No, not really. What turned me around was when I did some checking up on that chief. He had told me his name was Flanigan. But, Lucas . . . there was no CPO Flanigan. Not in my outfit, not in
anybody's
outfit. He didn't exist.”

Lucas forgot their job, forgot the machete in his hand. Stood and looked at Kyle.

“I knew that
somebody
had sure beat the hell out of me. That was no figment of my imagination. I went to see the chaplain. He said somebody like my CPO Flanigan has been popping up in wars for hundreds of years. He asked me if I would like to pray with him. I just broke down and bawled like a hurt child. There I was, Navy Cross and all, bawling. He arranged some R&R for me, and I spent the next two weeks doing a lot of soul-searching. I didn't become a zealot; didn't go around preaching after that. I just came to realize there was a higher power; that all this,” he waved his hand, “did not just evolve. It didn't affect my ability to perform my duty. I won a couple more medals for killing the enemy. But the experience with the chief did turn me around.”

A very slight noise behind the men turned them both around. Two men holding guns faced them, both of the men smiling.

“Gotcha,” a heavyset man said.

“Maybe,” Kyle said. “Now comes the acid test, Lucas.”

“Don't do nothin' stupid,” the other man said. “Just come on with us.”

“I don't think so,” Lucas said. He stepped forward.

The man pulled the trigger.

* * *

“This kitchen is going to be a hotbox,” Tracy said wiping her face with a dish towel. “We're going to have to take shifts keeping this old wood-burning stove going.”

“How did our ancestors stand it in the summer?” Jan asked.

“They sweated a lot,” Anne said.

“Is that water hot?” David asked, stepping into the kitchen and immediately wiping his face with a handkerchief.

“Just under boiling,” Karen told him. “It's going to be interesting figuring how much wood to add to keep the temperature at a constant.”

David grinned at her. “Yes, a woman's work is never done, is it?”

The women glared at him, Anne saying, “You want me to test the temperature of this water on you, buster?”

“Thank you, but no.” David left the room, quickly.

* * *

The man looked at his pistol in shock. The other man pulled the trigger of his shotgun. Nothing happened.

Kyle laughed at their expressions and stepped forward, his short stick held in the kendo fighting position. He jammed the end into the heavyset man's stomach just as Lucas swung his stick, the end catching the second man on the side of the head. The man screamed as his blood gushed from a torn ear. He ran around the corner of the house, leaving his friend behind, leaving Kyle and Lucas beating the man to death with heavy poles.

Jackie heard the commotion and the scream. She grabbed the handle of a pot of boiling water, yelled as her hand blistered, then grabbed a towel, wrapping that around the handle of the pot. She ran outside to the veranda just as the bleeding man staggered by. She hurled the boiling water on him.

The boiling water hit the man in the face.

Screaming in agony, blinded from the boiling water in his eyes, the man lost direction and ran toward the porch. Johnny and Peter ran out, Johnny with a short sharpened stick in his hand. The boy jammed the stick into the man's throat.

Bright blood gushed out, splashing on the veranda. Both the boys were immediately sick, fighting to keep from throwing up. The man staggered backward, lost his balance, and fell forward, the stick striking the porch, jamming it all the way through, the sharpened end sticking out the back of his neck. He thrashed and gurgled and beat his fists on the floor in agony.

Kyle and Lucas ran around the side of the veranda. They looked at the scene, then lifted their eyes to the kids.

“It's all right, gang,” Lucas said, still holding his bloody spear. “It had to be done and you did what you had to do.”

“Yes, sir,” the kids said.

“Go on in the house. We'll finish it up out here.”

“It's not over!” Ira shouted from behind a cottage. “You can't get away. None of you. We'll get you. You'll die for this.”

Lucas looked in the direction of the voice. That's what you think, brother.

* * *

From hidden places in the timber, the Rejects watched the activity around the huge white house. They held no animosity toward the man who lived in the great house, even though he had struck one of their own weeks back. It was then that they began to realize that man feared them as much, or more, than they feared man. And it was then that the wisest of them began to realize there was no reason to hate and loathe those who lived in the house. The smaller beings were cute and playful, and the Rejects sensed they posed no threat to them. Indeed, they were amused as they watched Jackie and Johnny at play and work around the ugly house.

It was the house and those who paid homage to it that they should hate and loathe.

None among them were exactly sure how they arrived at that conclusion. But they knew the strange glowing beings who also lived in the woods were friendly with the young who lived in the ugly house. And the children who came and then vanished like light had been friendly to the Rejects for many, many years. So, the Rejects concluded, the people in the house must be good people, not bad people like those who enjoyed hurting others of their kind.

It really wasn't that complicated once it was reasoned out.

But the Rejects knew they must be careful in aiding those trapped in the house. For the Rejects were few, and those who worshipped the darkness were many. But the Rejects knew the thousands of acres of forest far better than any man ever would. They knew all the hiding places, all the holes, all the dips and valleys and streams and caves.

The elders called the others together for a meeting.

They had plans to make.

* * *

“We're as ready as we can be,” Kyle said. “All things considered.”

“I feel like Ugh,” Harry said, hefting his spear.

“And beginning to smell like him, too,” Jan said with a grin.

They were all getting a little gamy.

Kyle and Paul had restrung the old bows with heavy waxed cord found in the pantry. The bows would not have their original power, but would have enough behind them to kill at close range.

All in the house, especially the kids, had taken a grim satisfaction at the ugly cries and the profanity of the men of the Brotherhood upon discovering their weapons useless.

Ira was working his people up into a frenzy. They could hear him shouting as he threatened and cajoled and cursed them.

“Those men have to have jobs,” Anne said. “They have families to support. Bills to pay. How long can they stay out there?”

“What is today?” Tracy asked. “I've lost track of time.”

“What difference does it make?” Nancy responded. “We're locked in time.”

“I think it's Saturday,” Kyle said. “Isn't it?”

“Or Sunday,” Lucas said. “I think it's Sunday.” He was silent in thought for a few seconds. “Maybe this is our day, people.”

“You mean, take the attack to them?” Kyle asked.

Lucas hefted his spear. Kyle had fastened a butcher knife on the end of the spear, after sharpening the blade to a razor hone. “Yeah. Why not?” He looked at those around him. “If we can, that is.”

Kyle and Lucas and David walked out onto the front veranda. The men were armed with spears and knives.

“I feel like a fool,” David said, hefting his spear. “But I would feel just as foolish carrying around a gun.”

“Don't make a big issue of it,” Lucas said. “But cut your eyes to your right. To that big oak tree by the road.”

The men looked. They could see two men crouched by the tree. They held clubs in their hands.

“Equals at last,” David said with a smile. “I don't really understand what is happening, or has happened, but it seems our foes have discovered their guns are useless. But I'm wondering if they still have the power to cloud our minds?”

“As long as that rocking horse is still around,” Lucas said.

At the door, listening, Jackie and Johnny looked at each other, then stepped back away from the door, so the adults would not hear.

“It's the house, Johnny,” she said. “You understand what I'm saying?”

“Yes. But I don't think it would let us do it. I think it would stop us.”

“We have to do something. I think we're running out of time.”

“I get the same feeling. Something has to be done real quick.”

The rocking horse whinnied. The house took a deep breath.

“They know what we're thinking,” Jackie said. “We're going to have to be very careful.”

“And keep it from Dad and Mom.”

“And the other kids, too. You understand, why, don't you?”

“Yes. Tomorrow, Jackie. No later than tomorrow night.”

“All right. But how do we know these things?”

“I don't know,” the boy admitted. “I think we just have to accept.”

“And obey.”

“Yes.”

The children slipped back into the depths of the house.

“We'll have to warn the others to stay away from the windows,” Kyle said. “If we have spears, it's a cinch those guys do, too.”

Harry joined them on the porch, a smile on his face. He had fashioned a slingshot from the fork of a branch Kyle and Lucas had left in back of the house. Using strips of rubber from an old innertube, he now had a wicked-looking weapon in his hand. He put a small, smooth rock into the pocket of the slingshot and looked around him, spotting the men crouched beside the oak tree.

Harry walked to the edge of the veranda, took aim, and let fly. The stone cracked one of the men right between the eyes.

“Oww!” the man hollered. “Goddamn it,” I'm bleeding! ”

Harry reloaded and took aim. The second stone hit the same man in the chest, bringing a grunt of pain.

The men moved back a good fifty yards, out of Harry's range.

Kyle and Lucas and David laughed, Lucas saying, “Now that's a damn good idea, Harry. Can you make some more of those?”

“I'm way ahead of you, buddy,” Harry said. “I made a dozen of these and passed them around. Mark and Nancy are out gathering stones now.”

“All right!” Lucas said. There was an idea forming in his mind. He turned to Kyle. “Kyle, the guns won't work, right?”

“That's right. So?”

“I don't want to crank it up and give those guys out there any ideas, but I see no reason why my chain saw wouldn't work.”

Kyle's grin was nasty. “Oh, you sneaky bastard, you. What a weapon up close. Let's crank it up and see.”

“But what about them?” He jerked his thumb in the direction of the woods.

Louisa spoke from the doorway. “They're in a panic,” she said. “I'm receiving all sorts of wild thought-thrusts from them. They can't leave this area for some reason.”

“That's what I thought,” Kyle said. “Come on, Lucas. Let's sharpen that baby and get it gassed and working. We can do some damage with this weapon.”

* * *

All knew that it was what the night would bring that they had to fear. None of the adults noticed as Jackie and Johnny quietly slipped outside and siphoned container after container of gas from the cars, carefully hiding the explosive fuel, stashing it in closets around the mansion.

But the house knew, and its breathing became heavy and angry. The adults could feel the trembling of the floor beneath them.

“Something's happened to make this place mad,” George said. “God Almighty! What am I saying?”

“The truth,” Karen said. “The house is just as alive as we are. It knows all and sees all. But it's stationary, and therein lies its weakness.”

Jackie and Johnny remained silent.

Night began creeping out of light, casting long purple shadows around the mansion. The breathing of the house had settled down to a whisper. As full dark settled around the countryside, they all heard the sounds of something moving on the floor beneath them. No one would venture a guess as to what it was.

But all had mental horrors roaming around in their minds.

“Stay alert,” Kyle told each guard.

“Me and my slingshot,” Harry said, forcing a grin.

Just as Kyle's footsteps were fading down the hall to the den, Harry heard a noise just outside the kitchen, on the veranda. The mansion had been deliberately darkened at Kyle's orders, to give them all better night vision. The windows near the guards were open, to enable them to better hear, the screens off.

Harry tested the rubber of his slingshot and slipped to the window. He could see the dark form of a man standing just a few feet away. He pulled back and let a stone fly.

The rock hit the man on the cheek, just under his right eye. The force of the striking stone knocked the eyeball from its socket and broke the man's cheekbone. The man howled in pain and terror and his dangling eye gave him a very curious outlook on his surroundings.

Harry let fly another stone, this one hitting the man on the jaw, breaking it. The man fell off the porch and staggered off into the night, screaming and howling pain.

“Sucker shot,” Harry muttered. “Man, I was the terror of the neighborhood with a slingshot when I was a kid.”

An arrow flew into the kitchen, the sharpened point driving deep into Harry's shoulder. “I'm hit!” he cried.

Ordering the others to stay put, Kyle ran to the kitchen. “Hang on,” he told Harry, after inspecting the bloody protruding point of the arrow. There was no arrowhead, just a sharpened end. “I got to pull this out.” He did so with one quick jerk. Harry passed out on the floor.

Kyle felt eyes on him. He looked around and swallowed hard. There were eyes on him all right. Just eyes, hanging suspended in the open doorway to the pantry.

“Get away from me, you bastards!” he said. “Get away.”

The eyes hung motionless in the air, wet and staring.

Then Kyle remembered where he'd seen them. In Lige's head.

* * *

“Where the hell did Ralph go?” a Brotherhood member asked a friend. “He was standin' right there a second ago.”

The men stared. Ralph could not be seen.

“Maybe he went to piss,” the friend replied. “He's been scared shitless ever since he found we couldn't get out of this place.”

“Jim says don't worry about that. Soon as them people in the house is taken, it'll all be OK.”

“Damn hard for me to call him Ira. Been Jim for too long, I reckon.”

A horrible scream cut through the velvet of soft summer night. The scream floated on the gentle air, then bubbled off into a painful whimpering.

“Goddamn!” a man called. “What in the hell was that?”

“Sounded like Ralph.”

But Ralph would never scream again. In the woods, near the edge of the estate, Ralph was hanging by his neck, jammed into the narrow fork of a tree. It had taken someone, or something, with enormous strength to lift the two hundred and twenty pound man up six feet off the ground and jam his neck into the fork. Ralph's face was rapidly turning blue, his tongue sticking out of his swollen lips, the tongue an ugly black.

A member of the Brotherhood passed under where Ralph was hanging. The man's nose wrinkled in disgust. But it was not from Ralph. This smell was more animal; a rancid, foul odor.

Smelled like the time when he was a kid and gone out coon huntin' with his Dad. They were gathered around the campfire, listening to the hounds run, baying in the distance, when he and his Dad had smelled something very much like what he was smelling now. His dad had abruptly doused the fire, called in the dogs, and taken his boy home with only a terse explanation.

“Things in the woods, boy. Things that ain't neither man nor beast, but a mixture of both. That's what we smelt back yonder. Some say they's the devil's own. I don't know. I don't wanna know.”

Now, years later, the boy grown into a middle-aged man stood smelling the odor. Fear gripped him tightly, like a steel band constricting his chest. The odor grew stronger. The bushes around him rustled softly. The man spun around and looked into strange eyes, staring at him. He dropped his club and started to run from the dark, foul-smelling woods. A pawlike hand reached out and grabbed him, spinning him around. He hit the ground hard, knocking the breath from him. He felt leathery fingers claw at his face. Then he screamed in agony as the skin of his face was pulled off and flung to one side. The man's screaming was cut off as his throat was crushed by a hard hairy fist.

The members of the Brotherhood looked around them in fear as the screaming abruptly stopped. They knew, without knowing how they knew, the scream came from one of their own.

And contagious fear began touching them.

* * *

Kyle almost lost control as he stared at the floating eyes staring back at him. “Louisa!” he called. “Louisa. Get in here.”

His wife ran down the darkened hall and stepped into the kitchen. She looked at the body on the floor. She could hear Harry's ragged breathing. She lifted her eyes. She saw the floating eyes and fought back a scream of terror.

“Lige's eyes,” Kyle whispered.

“Don't fear them,” she said, sensing something her husband could not. “They're not here to hurt us.”

The eyes moved, gliding through the air, moving toward the hallway. At the door, they paused.

“They want me to follow them,” Louisa said.

“Like hell you will!”

“There is nothing to fear,” she reassured her husband. “I'm not afraid.”

“I damn sure am!”

“Tend to Harry. I'll send David in to help you.”

The eyes waited until she had stepped into the hall. Then they followed her, stopping before they entered the den.

Louisa went first, leaving the eyes shyly hanging near the archway. “David, would you please help Kyle in the kitchen. Harry's been wounded, but not too severely, I'm thinking.”

Jan jumped to her feet and ran to the archway. There, she spotted the eyes.

She stopped, staring at the suspended eyes. She was as speechless as the silent eyes.

“Go on,” Louisa said. “They won't hurt you.”

Her back pressed against the wall, Jan slowly edged her way past the floating eyes and made her way to the kitchen.

As Jan had done, David stopped by Louisa, looking up at the eyes. As a person is, when accustomed to dealing with that with which he has grown familiar, there was no fear in David as he looked at the eyes.

“What a paper this will be,” the professor said.

“The caretaker's eyes,” Louisa said. “They want me to follow them.”

“But of course!” David said. “Unlocking yet another mystery. May I come with you?”

The eyes shifted uncomfortably in the air.

“Perhaps another time,” David said, understanding the silent message. He went on into the kitchen.

The eyes looked toward Anne, then shifted to Jackie.

“Anne, Jackie,” Louisa said. “I guess we're chosen.”

“He's up to something,” Lucas said, then realized the inanity of his statement.

The wet eyes seemed to bug in protest.

“I don't think so,” Jackie said, walking to Louisa's side, looking up at the eyes. “Are you, Lige?”

Baby padded into the room and stood snarling up at the eyes. The mastiff whined softly.

The eyes floated into the den as yet another painful shriek ripped the outside air. The eyes veered toward the sound.

“That's the third scream in an hour,” Mark said. “It seems we have unknown allies out there.”

“They will always be unknown to us,” Louisa said. She looked at Karen. The woman nodded her head.

The eyes moved, staying close to the wall. They moved toward the door leading to the ground level.

“Oh, no!” Jackie murmured, just loud enough for her mother to hear.

At the door to the ground level, the eyes paused, waiting patiently.

“Let's go,” Louisa said.

Lucas handed her the key to the locked door.

Louisa unlocked the door and swung it open. The stench struck them all, offending their nostrils. The darkness below yawned at them.

The eyes darted into the darkness and disappeared. Louisa stepped inside.

Another scream cut the darkness outside.