The Man From Taured (9 page)

"Hurry," she whispered. "Come on in here, fast."

Her paranoia was catching and Noble felt tingles of fear stretch down his spine and into his toes. He quickly entered the living room.

It was a pleasant house. The layout was a bit similar to Charles Whitlock's but the home was much larger. The living room was right inside the door. Whereas Whitlock's home had been laid out mostly in brown, this house was black and white. Black leather sofa and white pillows. White walls. White floors.

"Are all of the windows and doors locked?" Noble asked. "Look, let me get something out of the way right now. I don't think you're crazy, Eveline. I think something is going on here. I don't know what, but I've seen shadow people, too."

A look of relief passed over her face. She put a hand to her throat and tears squeezed out of her eyes and trailed down her cheeks.

"Oh thank God!" She said. "Oh thank God."

Eveline walked to the sofa along the wall and sat down. Now she was weeping. Noble came over and sat down next to her and put his arm around her shoulders. He realized that she had been seeing these things almost from the time Noble first saw them. How scary it must have been to see the shapes in the shadows and not be able to talk to anyone about them for fear that they would consider you crazy.

"Look, something is after me and you," Noble said. "Tomorrow I'm supposed to be heading for Washington and I think I might find out something there. I don't know what these shadow people are, but so far they seem to just want to give me a message. The children, though. Well, I'm not sure about them."

Eveline raised her head. "They're terrifying."

"Tell me what happened to you."

Eveline took a deep breath and exhaled slowly. "It started the night after that guy appeared in the customs line. That guy you were asking me about. I pulled up here at home after dark and I saw, or thought I saw, a man standing behind one of the trees out there. When I got out and looked, the shadow figure moved, and I saw that it was a man with red eyes and a wide-brimmed hat. Looked like he was wearing a long coat. I got scared and ran inside."

Eveline shuddered as the memory washed over her.

"I came inside and looked out the window and the man was gone. Then, that night, I thought I heard someone walking in the hallway outside my bedroom. When I turned on the light and looked, I thought I saw a shadowy shape heading back down the stairs. It was there and then gone. I was so scared, I ran back to my room and shut the door. I slept up against the door all night. When I got up and looked around the next morning, there was no sign that anyone had been in there.

"Then, the next night I came home and there were no strange shadow people. I was relieved and thought maybe I had just imagined it. So, I came inside and was sitting here watching TV when someone knocked on my door. I had been half-asleep and I thought nothing of it when I went to the door. I was shocked when I saw two little kids out there. One girl and one boy."

Eveline stopped for a moment and her eyes got wide. The fear was like a living thing in the room and to Noble it felt as if the temperature inside the house had dropped about thirty degrees. It was surely an illusion, but he would have sworn he could see his breath.

"They were just standing there and I kept asking what they want," Eveline eventually continued. "Then they started talking. They said they were lost and that they needed to come in and use the phone to call their parents. I said that it was late and I didn't want them in my house. They started begging, but their voices. Mr. Randle, if you had heard their voices!"

Eveline stared into Noble’s face and her own eyes were so big and terrified that he nearly screamed.

"Then the boy raised his head," Eveline said, her voice now dropping to a whisper. "His eyes were black. No whites. No iris. Just a big, black emptiness. Then the little girl raised her head. Her eyes as black as the other one. They cocked their heads to the side and repeated their need to use the phone. They insisted I had to let them in. I screamed and backed away from the door, but I could see their shadows as they stood on the porch. I kept telling them to go away, but they kept asking, over and over again to use the phone.

"The craziest thing is that part of me wanted to open that damn door. I was terrified and sure that if I opened that door something horrible would happen, but there was something about those voices. It was like they were inside my head. I wanted to get up and open that door and then I knew they would reach out their hands and touch me and that would be it."

"What did you think would happen if they touched you?" Noble asked, his throat as dry as sandpaper.

"I don't know, Mr. Randle," Eveline said. "I don't know. Vanish. Just disappear. Their eyes were like a void and I guess I thought if they touched me I would vanish into that void and just disappear. Like I had never been."

With that she finally broke down and Noble held her while she clutched at his shoulders and cried against his chest. He looked over her shoulder at the front door and tried to imagine the terror.

"Shhhh, shhhh," Noble said. "First off, at this point, since we're sharing crazy stories, you might as well drop the formalities. My name is Noble. Now, relax."

Eveline nodded and the two of them walked slowly to the sofa. Eveline nearly collapsed, sitting down hard and putting her head in her hands. Noble sat down next to her, feeling completely useless. He was in over his head.

"I don't know what to say about any of this," Noble said. "I can't imagine what's going on. I'm more terrified than I've ever been in my life. I went to Charles Whitlock's house this afternoon. I found small footprints on his kitchen floor and in the backyard, but he was gone. No trace of him."

Eveline raised her head and looked at Noble as if she were hoping that he were playing some kind of cruel joke. He looked back at her with serious eyes, his mouth grim.

There was a knock at the door.

Noble and Eveline both jumped nearly out of their skins.

"What the fuck?" Noble asked.

The knock was soft.

As if a child were knocking.

Noble could see shadows on the porch. Shapes.

"Stay here," Noble said and he stood up.

Eveline nodded at him and the look of sheer terror on her face nearly made Noble turn and run right through the house and out the back door. His knees felt like they were going to give out at any moment. He was trying hard to be brave, but the truth was that he was more scared than he could ever remember being.

The knock came again. Still soft. Not urgent.

Noble felt something in his stomach, as if he were being pulled toward the door. His legs moved, but he felt unsteady. It was as if the knock itself was hypnotizing him, pulling him forward. In moments he was at the door and he parted the lace curtains.

Three children stood on the porch. Although it was dark, he could tell that they were blond. None of them were older than eight. There were two boys and one girl. The boy standing in front of the door was the oldest, the other two had to have been five or six. All of them had their heads down.

"Who's there?" Noble asked.

"Let us in," the boy said. "We're lost. We need to use the phone and call our mom."

"Where are you from? How did you get here?" Noble asked.

"Please, sir, we're lost," the boy repeated. "We got separated from our mom."

"Then how can you call her if she's out looking for you?"

"Please, sir, open the door and let us in. Let us use the phone."

"Go away!" Noble said. Fear had grown within him. It was like a virus, spreading throughout his gut and working its way up his throat.

The oldest boy raised his head, slowly. Noble told himself to turn away, that if he saw those dead, black eyes he would go mad, but he found himself unable to turn his head. The boy tilted his head back and those black eyes were like the eyes of a shark, staring through the glass and into Noble's mind. Noble felt his blood turn to ice and was unable to move.

"Hello, Noble," the boy said. "Let us in so we can get this over with."

It was as if the world had tilted wildly on its axis. Hearing his name come out of that face with those black eyes made Noble feel like he was finally tipping over into insanity.

The eyes were pitch black. They were overly large, taking up so much of the boy's face. Then the other boy and the little girl raised their heads and their eyes were also dark. However, as Noble stared, the blackness behind their eyes seemed almost alive. Something was looking through them right back at him, but Noble was sure that these things on the porch were not actually living children.

"H-how did you know m-my name?" Noble whispered.

Those eyes felt as if they were burning into the back of his brain. He could not tear his gaze away from those endlessly black eyes. The other two children raised their heads and stared at Noble, too, and now it felt as if three people were burrowing into his brain.

"We've known about you for a long time now, Noble," the three children said in unison. Their voices were indistinct from each other, monotone. Dead. "We've been watching you for some time now."

"What are you talking about?"

"You know what we're talking about, Noble," the children replied. "You've been experiencing strange things all your life, haven't you? Well, now it's time. Now it's time to join us."

"J-join you?" Noble barely recognized his own voice. He was having trouble thinking. Strange thoughts were filling his head.

Open the door.

Just go outside.

Join them.

It makes sense.

He had a flash, remembering the time he and his wife were in a restaurant and he was waiting for her while she was in the restroom. How he had been waiting at a spot where there was no way he could have missed her. How he had walked down the aisle toward the restrooms and looked back to see different people at the cash register.

"Yes," Noble whispered. Why did he say that?

He had to turn his head away. He had to stop listening. Stop staring.

Just then Eveline Paulson came up from behind him, grabbed his shoulders and pulled him away from the door. Noble felt the hypnotic hold over him instantly vanish, but his head was still fuzzy. Eveline's face was filled with terror and she reached back and slapped Noble across the face.

"Ouch!" Noble said, putting his hand to the side of his face.

"Snap out of it!" Eveline said.

"Yeah, sorry," Noble replied. "We have to get out of here."

"They're at the back of the house, too," Eveline said. "I went back there and looked. There are a dozen of these creepy kids in the backyard."

Noble shook his head.

"What?" He said, sounding lame and stupid. "What do you mean a dozen more?"

"There are at least 12 of them out there," Eveline said. "They all started talking at once, too. What the fuck are they talking about that they've been watching you? Who the fuck are you?"

"I have no idea," Noble said. He was close to panic. It was hard to think straight. He could still feel fingers in his brain, probing, searching, trying to convince him to come back to the door. Open the door. Come outside. "I have to get out of here. I have to get to Washington, D.C."

"What the hell does Washington, D.C. have to do with this?" Eveline asked. "What the fuck is going on here?"

Noble shook his head again and the thoughts that were probing his brain faded a bit. "Is there another way out of this place?" Noble asked. "I have to get to my car."

"What about me?" Eveline asked.

Noble had no idea what to do about Eveline. The thought had not entered his mind. He wasn't even supposed to be heading for Washington until tomorrow morning. Was he supposed to bring her home?

"OK," Noble said, "you can come with me. I'll get you set up in a hotel for tonight."

"Am I supposed to live in a hotel indefinitely?" Eveline asked.

"I don't know, Eveline, I'm making this up as I go along. This isn't exactly like part of the Homeland Security handbook. I have to get to Washington and get some answers. Once I have those, I'll call you and let you know what I've found out. In the meantime, you need to go to work and get back home, or to the hotel room, and lock the door and don't answer it for anyone or anything."

"Why can't they just come through the door?" Eveline asked. “Or why not just manifest here in the room?

"One thing at a time," Noble replied. "First, get us out of here. Then we can start trying to answer questions about the insane."

Eveline nodded and grabbed Noble's hand. A second later they hurtled through the dining room and then the kitchen. Eveline grabbed the basement door and flung it open. Noble felt shoved down the stairs, nearly falling down the carpeted steps, until he came to rest against a cement wall. There was tile under his feet and when he looked to the right there was an entertainment center, television, table, carpeting. Just to the right of the basement den was another door leading into the backyard.

"To the right!" Eveline called.

"Noble!" A voice called from upstairs. It was a chorus of voices. The children. "Noble, you've been running for most of your life. Time to stop. Join us. Join the void!"