CHAPTER 4
liver’s Volvo threaded through the
narrow streets, and Casey settled back and watched the houses go
by. As the car turned onto Darkling Lane, he noticed a man standing
in a side yard, apparently looking for something with a flashlight.
Two more men with flashlights came around the corner of a gray
clapboard house.
“What is going on?” muttered Oliver.
A big black sedan with a gold star painted on the side was parked in the wide gravel driveway of 13 Darkling Lane. Oliver squeezed the station wagon in next to the sheriff’s car, opened his door and pulled Casey out on his side. They shoved past some imposing looking men in the yard and ran up the stairs to the porch. A broad shouldered deputy stopped Oliver at the door.
“Can I help you, sir?”
“My name is Dr. Oliver Wilde and this is my son,” said Oliver through gritted teeth. “We live here. Will you please tell me what is going on?”
“May I see some identification, sir?”
The deputy examined Oliver’s driver’s license and handed it back with a nod. “I think you should go out to the kitchen, sir.”
Without waiting for further explanation, Oliver charged down the hall and through the house. Two more strange men stood deep in conversation in the dining room. Oliver passed through the butler’s pantry, swinging the kitchen door open wide.
Dot Clydesdale was a big woman, lanky, capable, and homely as a hedge-fence. She stood, arms crossed, leaning against the kitchen counter. At her feet was a dog the size of a small rhinoceros. An imposing Saint Bernard, two hundred pounds of muscle, fur, and drool, glanced briefly at Oliver and then returned to contemplatively chewing a red rubber bone. Dot nodded towards the bench in the breakfast nook where a tired looking Margo was holding a cup of tea in both hands.
“Oh, Oliver! You’re home.”
Oliver flew across the room and gathered her up tightly in his arms. Margo pointed toward the back of the house, in the direction of Mrs. McCurdy’s cottage, her eyes glistening with unshed tears.
“We saw something at Minerva McCurdy’s. Dot thought a Halloween party was going on. There were weird stretched out shapes against the windows… figures… swaying and weaving. Waving their arms around. Whatever it was just kept twisting and…”
“And stretching,” said Dot. She turned and stared out the window toward the McCurdy cottage, now brightly lit and buzzing with policemen and gawking neighbors. “It wasn’t like watching normal folks outlined against the window shades. It was like they were made of rubber. We couldn’t see their faces… if they had any, but I felt in my bones that those creatures were staring out into the darkness at us. Margo had just said we should call the police when every light in that house turned off at once.”
“I was so startled that I dropped a cup and smashed it. And now she’s gone.” Margo turned to face Oliver. She dabbed at a fugitive tear with trembling fingers. “Minerva McCurdy. She’s gone.”
Casey listened for a while longer but there didn’t seem to be much more to the story. Mrs. McCurdy was missing and Mrs. Clydesdale had been invited to spend the night. At any other time, he’d have wanted to go in and make a fuss over Mrs. Clydesdale’s big dog, but there were other things on his mind. Darker things.
Casey walked resolutely through the house and up the stairs pondering his mother’s story. Stretched out shadowy figures waving their arms seemed awfully similar to the figures in some of Victor Wilberforce’s sketches. That made the second link between that odd rambling journal and the current weirdness in Whistlebrass.
He looked down the hallway toward Pearl’s bedroom. The door was shut tight.
That’s odd. Pearl hates to feel like she’s locked in.
Deciding to see for himself that his obnoxious little sister was safe in her bed, Casey walked over and turned the knob. The door seemed to be stuck. He twisted the knob again and gave the door a little extra shove. It swung open wide, and he stepped into the room to look around.
Pearl slept soundly, arms wrapped tightly around a stuffed bear. A little orange bulb bathed the room in a warm glow from inside a painted canvas lamp shaped like a teepee. Nothing seemed to be wrong, but the air was charged with tension like a summer night when a thunderstorm is on the way. Casey moved across to the window and leaned across his sister’s desk to peek outside. He could see policemen and neighbors with flashlights canvassing the neighborhood.
“I hope they find you, Mrs. McCurdy,” he said softly. He thought back to the afternoon, sitting on the cottage porch chatting with the old lady about birds and bad omens. “And I wonder where Carlisle is? Poor ol’ cat. I hope someone remembers to look for you.”
Casey watched his father talking earnestly with the sheriff in the front yard. The sheriff said something and gestured toward Mrs. McCurdy’s cottage. Oliver ran his hand through his tousled hair, looking frustrated and helpless. It was obvious that he was struggling to make sense of what was happening, and not having much luck.
Pearl’s desk was covered with her usual collection of bottle caps, plastic toys, pinecones, and other treasures. Casey glanced down and started to push some of the junk out of the way so he could move closer to the window and get a better look.
“That little brat,” whispered Casey. He picked up a familiar white rock shaped like a flattened cone and shot with streaks of silver. “This was in that circle by the river. She should have left it there.”
Casey suddenly felt a chill. The hair on the back of his neck stood up and he spun around.
Nothing.
Pearl was asleep, her arm around her teddy bear. The amber glow from her teepee lamp revealed nothing out of place. So why did something feel so wrong?
Casey stayed where he was, listening carefully and squinting into the gloom. The heaviness in the air became almost suffocating. There was a faint click from inside Pearl’s closet and a band of light glowed through the crack under the door.
The knob on the closet door turned slowly. As the door drifted open, darkness snaked across it, like a twisting shadow cast by firelight. Casey leaned forward trying to see who or what was throwing the shadow, but there was nothing there.
“That doesn’t make sense,” murmured Casey. “You can’t have a shadow of nothing.”
But there it was.
Casey’s breath caught in his throat. He stood pressed into Pearl’s desk as the shifting shadow began to grow, stretching upward, assuming a crude manlike silhouette that caught the light with an oily green shimmer. Gradually taking on form and dimension, it pulled itself away from the door and stood trembling and slack-jawed like a mannequin made of iridescent mint jelly. Thin green fingers reached toward Casey, but the glistening visitor stood swaying back and forth as though uncertain what it wanted to do.
A second opalescent shadow loomed up the bedroom wall. A green hand took shape followed by a shoulder, neck, and head, as the thing pulled away from the plaster. As it began to sway and stretch, it let out a low faint wail. Head cocked, the larger one listened attentively before answering with a high pitched moan of its own. Both shadows moved fluidly toward the bed and reached out twisting arms toward the sleeping Pearl.
“Oh, no you don’t,” snarled Casey.
He felt his fingers tighten around the white rock. It wasn’t much of a weapon, but, hoping it would at least distract the intruders, he hurled it across the room. The white wedge straightened in the air, gaining momentum as it flew. It sliced through the creatures as easily as an arrow through Jell-O, and disappeared into Pearl’s closet with a soft thud.
Where it pierced the goopy green bodies, the stone left two glowing doughnut holes, sizzling white rings that grew progressively brighter. Dazzled, Casey closed his eyes and raced blindly to the bed. He swooped down, shielding Pearl just as the little room blazed with light and a thunderous boom rattled his bones.
He stood up and looked around. The heaviness in the air was gone. The light had consumed the shimmering shadow men leaving only a faint trail of luminous vapor. Pearl sat up rubbing her eyes. Casey heard the outside door bang open and the sound of people pounding up the stairs.
He squared his shoulders and smiled.
“Hey, Pearl,” he said. “Did you have a bad dream?”