The Unloved (44 page)

“Let’s go!” he declared, his right foot pressing down on the accelerator. Even as the water from the wave began draining away, the car was moving onto the causeway.

They had gone only twenty yards when the first wave hit them. Hempstead slowed the car to a crawl as water surged over the wheels. The car shuddered slightly but held the road, and as the water drained away, he pressed the gas pedal once again. They made another twenty yards before the second wave struck, and thirty more before the third.

When the fourth wave struck, Hempstead felt the squad car slew to the left, and for a moment thought he was going to lose control entirely. But then the wheels found purchase on the wet pavement again and the vehicle steadied. But already they could see the fifth wave building.

Hempstead veered the car around to the right, threw it in reverse, and spun the wheel the other way.

“What the hell are you doing?” Hal Sanders yelled from the backseat.

“Shut up and hang on!” Hempstead shouted. He slammed the transmission into the park position, and jerked hard on the emergency brake. Dead ahead of them the wave rose up out
of the night, an angry mass of green water glowing in the headlights. Then it broke, smashing into the front of the car, white water churning past them, surging over the windshield.

The car shuddered once again, slid backward, and the engine died. Then, once more, the water drained away.

They were still on the road, but with thirty yards between them and the island. Hempstead twisted the key in the ignition and the starter motor ground noisily.

But the engine didn’t catch.

The next wave broke, passing harmlessly beneath them as Hempstead tried the engine again.

“Grab the radio, Frank. Hal, there’s a rope behind you. Let me have it!”

As Frank Weaver took a portable VHS radio out of the glove compartment and slid it into a plastic bag, Hal Sanders groped in the space behind the backseat and found the coil of rope.

As the series of waves built up, each one stronger than the last, Hempstead tied one end of the rope around the steering column and threw a bowline into the other end. “I’m gonna try to make it across right after the next big one,” he said. “I’ll tie the rope to a tree, and you guys can use it as a safety line.”

The fifth wave of the series built in front of them, then crashed over the car, and once more they felt the light sedan slide backward toward the edge of the road. As the water receded, Hempstead leaped out of the car, shoved the coil of rope through the open window, and dropped the loop formed by the bowline over his head and shoulders. Ducking his head against the wind, he scuttled along the blacktop, then braced himself as the next wave struck. For a moment he lost his footing, but his toes found a rock at the edge of the road, and a moment later he was back on his feet. By the time the next wave broke, he’d made it to the island, where he jerked the rope free from his waist and tied it to a tree. Waving frantically, he signaled the two men. “Now, goddammit!” he yelled. “The next big one will take the car!”

As he watched, the back door of the squad car flew open and Hal Sanders emerged. Just as Hal grabbed the rope and
started stumbling along the road, Frank Weaver dashed around the front of the car and started following Hal.

The third wave knocked Hal off his feet, but he clung to the rope as the water swirled over him, then regained his footing. Gasping and choking on the saltwater that had surged into his mouth when he fell, he collapsed onto the apron of the causeway, Weaver stumbling over him.

They pulled themselves to their feet just in time to watch the fifth wave hit the police car.

The car completely disappeared under the force of the water, and the rope, still tied to the tree, went taut, then snapped with a report as loud as a gunshot.

When the water had drained away, the causeway was empty. Nowhere was there any sign of the squad car.

“Jesus,” Hempstead whispered in the darkness. But before either Frank Weaver or Hal Sanders could say anything at all, Jeff Devereaux was upon them, clinging to Hempstead with muddy arms.

“She killed them!” Jeff shouted. “She killed Dad, and Kerry, and Ruby, and everybody!”

A chill went through Hempstead, and he dropped to his knees, grasping the terrified boy by both shoulders. “Now take it easy,” he said. “Calm down, and tell us exactly what’s happened.”

Still sobbing, Jeff began brokenly to tell them what had happened that night.

Julie drifted back into consciousness slowly. Her whole body hurt with a dull, throbbing pain that seemed to have no center at all, but spread through every bone and muscle in her being. Her mind seemed to be swimming in darkness, and for a while—she didn’t know how long—she lay without moving, her eyes closed, trying to remember what had happened.

She’d been in the nursery and her aunt had come, but it hadn’t really been her aunt at all.

And she’d put on a leotard, then gone upstairs to the ballroom.

Her friends were there, waiting for her. Kerry and Jenny, and Ruby.

Even her father.

She’d seen them, sitting on chairs in the ballroom, watching her dance.

Except—

She struggled with her memory, knowing there was something she’d forgotten, something important.

And then it came back to her.

All of them were dead.

She whimpered as a helpless desolation engulfed her soul, then rolled over.

An explosion of agony tore through her and she screamed, then tried to stifle the sound as the scream itself produced yet another spasm of pain.

“Help me,” she moaned softly, her eyes burning with tears. “Oh, God, won’t someone please help me?”

Then, dimly at first, she heard a movement from above. She blinked, and struggled to keep her eyes open. Candlelight flickered around her, and far up the stairs she saw another light, a brighter one.

She gasped, shrinking painfully back as she recognized her aunt at the top of the stairs, the hurricane lamp held in her left hand.

Limping painfully, her right hand grasping the banister to steady herself, she began making her way slowly down the stairs.

“Don’t,” Julie moaned when Marguerite was finally on the landing, looming over her, staring down at her with vacant eyes. “Please don’t hurt me any more, Aunt Marguerite.”

“Hurt you?” Marguerite echoed, her voice strangely hollow, as if Julie’s words had no meaning to her. “But I couldn’t hurt you, my darling. I love you. But you’ve had a terrible accident.”

Julie swallowed, wincing at the pain even that simple action caused. “I—you—”

“You fell down the stairs,” Marguerite told her. She was smiling gently now, her carmine lips twisting oddly. “Just like I fell down the stairs. That’s what Mama told me. She
told me I was clumsy and that I tripped. She said it was an accident, and that it was my fault. But I didn’t believe her.” She frowned, as if trying to reach into her memory. “I thought she pushed me. I thought she was angry, because of the baby.”

“B-Baby?” Julie whispered, struggling to cling to her consciousness. What was her aunt talking about?

“You didn’t know, did you?” Marguerite said vaguely. She wasn’t looking at Julie anymore, and her eyes had taken on a furtive look. “I didn’t tell anyone. Mama said everyone would hate me if they knew what I’d done. She said it was better if I pretended none of it ever happened. But I couldn’t pretend. I wasn’t good at it.” A tiny laugh emerged from her throat. “That’s why she locked me up. She kept me downstairs until I learned to pretend. And I pretended that none of it ever happened. I pretended that I was never pregnant, and that Mama never pushed me down the stairs at all. And I loved Mama. All my life I loved Mama, and did everything she wanted me to do.”

Julie tried to listen, tried to make sense out of the words, but the agony in her body muddled her mind.

“But Mama left me,” Marguerite went on. “They all left me. Even though I pretended, they still hated me and left me.” Her eyes came back to Julie again. “You’re like them, aren’t you? You’re going to leave me, too.”

“N-No …” Julie breathed, suddenly certain of what was going to happen next. But it was too late. Marguerite’s eyes had begun sparkling with her madness again.

“Don’t lie to me,” she snarled, lashing out at Julie, her foot sinking into the girl’s stomach. “Don’t ever lie to me!”

Julie gasped, curling up in a tight ball, struggling to breathe as the pain wrenched at her. But Marguerite’s foot struck again, and Julie instinctively rolled away from it, trying to shield herself with her arms.

“Like all of them!” Marguerite screamed. “You’re just like all the rest of them. I’ve done everything for you, but you want to leave, too, don’t you? Don’t you?” Her foot struck Julie again, and Julie writhed on the floor, trying to escape her aunt’s wrath but unable to move because of the
pain. “Well, I won’t let you! You’ll never leave me. Never!” She kicked Julie once more, and Julie felt herself falling again, tumbling down the main stairs this time. Knives were stabbing into her body now, but the pain was so powerful that she couldn’t even scream out against it.

Let me die
, she thought.
Oh, please, God, just let me die.…

And then, once more, she fell into unconsciousness. She dropped down the last steps limply, like a broken doll, and finally came to rest on the floor at the foot of the stairs, in a pool of Kerry Sanders’s blood.

Marguerite, still at the top of the stairs, gazed down at her, then shook her head sadly. “It’s your fault,” she breathed. “It’s all your fault, my dear. But I can’t help you now. I have my guests to think of, don’t I?” She was silent for a moment, then nodded her head vaguely. “Yes. I have my guests.”

Turning away, humming softly to herself, she started back up to the ballroom. By the time she reached it, Julie, still lying at the bottom of the stairs, was forgotten. Once more Marguerite was lost in the eddying whirlpool of her memories and her madness.

Will Hempstead stopped short.

Ahead of him the mansion loomed at the top of the rise upon which it had been built. The windows of the third floor sparkled brightly with candlelight.

A memory stirred in him, a memory from his youth, when he’d been no more than eighteen years old.

There had been a ball at Sea Oaks that night, and Marguerite had wanted him to come. But Helena had forbidden it, telling Marguerite that he would never be welcome here and forbidding her ever to see him again. But he’d come anyway, and stood outside, in the deep shadows of the moss-draped pines.

It had been a hot night—hot and humid—and on the third floor the French doors had been thrown wide. He’d stood
hidden in the trees and watched the dancers through the open doors, heard the gentle strains of the orchestra, heard the laughter of Helena’s guests as they drifted out on the balcony high up above the house’s great portico. At last, as the hour grew late, he’d left, knowing deep inside him that in the end this house—and Helena—would defeat the love that was all he had to offer Marguerite.

The rain had stopped now, and as Will Hempstead stood looking up at the great house, that evening came back to him. It was that night, he remembered, when Marguerite had fallen down the stairs. It had happened late, after all the guests had left. She’d been tired, Ruby told him later, and missed her footing.

Missed her footing and plunged down the stairs, smashing not only her hip, but every dream she’d ever had.

They were going to go away together, or so they’d planned. But even before the accident, Will had decided that was never going to happen. Helena would see to that. And then, ironically, she hadn’t had to, for the fall had put a stop to all Marguerite’s dreams. Not only the dreams of dancing, but the dreams that included Will Hempstead, as well.

Tonight, as the storm moved north and stars began to peep through the thinning clouds, the house looked much as it did then.

Except that tonight, as he gazed up at the softly glowing ballroom, only one figure danced.

The figure of Marguerite Devereaux, her arms held up as if she were holding an invisible partner, her body moving with the strange jerkiness of a marionette as she tried to dip and sway in time to whatever music she might be hearing.

“Better let me have the radio,” Hempstead said quietly, his eyes still on the ballroom windows.

“Wh-What’s she doing?” Jeff quavered, clutching tightly to the police chiefs hand.

“It’s all right, son,” Hempstead told the terrified boy. “She can’t hurt you now. You’re going to be okay.”

He took the radio out of the plastic bag and switched it on, tuning it to the channel that was constantly monitored by one
or another of the town’s volunteer firemen. His voice heavy, he began calling out the codes for an emergency.

“And I’m going to need an ambulance,” he said after he’d told the fire chief where he was. “Maybe two. I lost my car coming across, so be careful. Don’t even try it until you’re sure it’s safe!”

He snapped the radio off, and then, with Hal Sanders and Frank Weaver a couple of paces behind him, started up the hill.