Eric called Alison early Sunday morning. He had good news and bad news. The new owner of James Whiting’s record store was not going to be in till Tuesday, and the help refused to give out his home number. That was the bad news. The good news was that James Whiting’s brother was the guy who had bought the store. If anyone knew where James had been during those missing two weeks, it should be him, Eric thought. Eric told Alison to keep her head low and call him if anything happened between then and Tuesday. All day Sunday Alison tried to reach Tony, with no luck. His parents didn’t know where he was. That made her worry all the more.
Come Monday there was still no sign of Tony.
He didn’t even show up for Fran’s funeral.
They buried Fran in the same cemetery where Neil had been laid to rest. Of course, Neil had been alive at the time of his funeral, and they had unknowingly spent the afternoon mourning the remains of James Whiting. Such could not be said for Fran. As the doctor at the hospital had said, she was as dead as they came. Alison stood dressed in black beside Brenda and couldn’t be free of the idea that Fran lay only a couple feet away without her head properly attached. The attending minister spoke about the valley of the shadow of death and lying down in green pastures to rest beside clear waters. It all sounded like a badly written fairy tale to Alison. If there was a God, he was keeping his address secret. Maybe he didn’t want to get a chain letter. Alison was beginning to believe the Caretaker was working for the devil. She had had a hellish dream the night before, filled with weird colored lights, sick smells, and tortured souls.
The funeral finally came to an end, and Alison hugged and kissed Fran’s parents and told them if there was anything she could do . . . What a futile offer. What could she do for them? Be their daughter? Fran had been their only child. It was all so sad.
Alison said goodbye to Brenda and her own parents and drove home by herself. But as she had on Saturday, she passed by her usual off-ramp and headed for the mountains. An hour and a half later she found herself walking beside the lake where she had met the intriguing stranger. She went to the door of his cabin and knocked repeatedly. There was no answer. She tried the knob, and the door swung in easily. But the inside was not as she had remembered it, not exactly. There was the same wood stove, the same black kettle sitting on top of it. But the place was filled with dust and cobwebs, as if it had been months since anyone had lived there. It made her wonder whether her encounter with the stranger had been a dream—or worse, a hallucination. Yet she knew in her heart that it had been neither. She wondered if she should discuss the matter with Eric. She’d have liked to tell Tony about the mystical encounter. Where could he be? That morning his parents had said he was out doing errands.
Night was falling when Alison finally returned home. She sat in her room and read a book before going to bed. She had trouble concentrating on the story, and when the heroine died unexpectedly at the end, she felt nothing. She was too worried about which of her friends was going to die next. Thank God Kipp had done what he promised and gone away without telling anyone where he was. She had cursed God that morning, and now she was thanking him. She hoped he gave her no more reasons to destroy her faith.
But God did. Or rather, the Caretaker did.
Another call shook her awake in the middle of the night. She turned on the light before picking it up. She knew the news couldn’t be good.
“Hello?” she said.
“Ali.” It was Brenda, broken and tearful.
“What’s happened? Is he dead? He can’t be dead, dammit!”
Brenda moaned. “He was at his aunt’s. Tony just called me. The Caretaker got him there. Soaked him with gasoline and set him on fire. Oh, Ali, Kipp’s gone.”
“Do you want me to come over?” Alison asked.
“No.” Brenda’s voice suddenly sounded distant. “I’m next on the list. There’ll be a letter for me in the morning. Stay away from me.”
“But we have to have another meeting of the group. We have to go to the police. Brenda?”
Her girlfriend had hung up. Alison quickly dialed Eric. She woke him up, but he didn’t sound mad. She told him what had happened. He cursed softly.
“Tell me the order of the people on the list again?” he asked.
“It’s Brenda, Joan, and Tony. Brenda will probably get a letter in the mail tomorrow, the way this Caretaker works.”
“You say you guys are going to have a meeting tomorrow?”
“I’m going to try to organize one,” she said.
“Make it for the afternoon. I want to come, but I have to do some things in the morning first.”
“I don’t know if the gang will let you come.”
“It doesn’t matter. You tell me when and where it is, and I’ll show up. They’ll have to listen to what I have to say.”
“You’re going to tell them we have to go to the police, aren’t you? We have to put a stop to this.”
Eric was evasive. “I hope I’ll have a better idea tomorrow about what to recommend.”
“Where are you going in the morning?”
“The record store. It’s more on my side of town, so you don’t need to go. Just stay home and rest. The newspaper office, too. I want to see if I can trace who’s been placing these ads.”
They had tried a similar tactic with Neil’s chain letters. They had been unsuccessful. “Good luck,” she said.
“Once you have the meeting set, call and leave the information on my answering machine. And, Ali?”
“Yes.”
“We’re going to stop this bastard.”
“How can you be so sure?” she asked.
“He’ll make a mistake. They always do. He may have made one already.”
“What?”
He hesitated. “Let me talk to you about it tomorrow.”
They said their goodbyes and Alison set down the phone. Tony had called Brenda but hadn’t called her. That said a lot about the condition of their relationship. Reluctantly she picked up the phone again and dialed his number. Someone answered quickly on his end, but didn’t speak.
“Hello?” she said. “Tony? Are you there, Tony?”
She could hear breathing. It could be his. Then behind him she could make out faint whispering. This did not belong to Tony.
It was a girl.
“Tony?” she cried.
The phone clicked in her ear, and she heard nothing but a dial tone.