NINETY-SIX

It was Halloween.

The day was dry and the air felt fresh after the rain. But it was cold. Paulette shivered and pulled her coat tighter around herself as she headed toward the woods.

Chief Walters had seemed to appreciate what Paulette had had to say when she’d gone down to the station first thing this morning. The chief had been very interested when Paulette revealed that Jessie had taken the little boy in to live with her. Paulette had chosen to tell Walters only so much about what she suspected. She told her only that she felt the boy was connected to Emil somehow—that he was going by the last name of Smelt, which seemed a clue. She secured the chief’s promise to look in on Jessie, and to check the boy out. After all, he was a lost child, Paulette argued, and his parents must be looking for him. Perhaps the chief should take the boy into protective custody until his parents or guardians could be found. Walters had seemed to agree, much to Paulette’s relief. The chief promised she’d go out to the house and look into the matter.

That taken care of, Paulette had returned to Hickory Dell and made her way down to the woods. This was the part of her suspicions that she didn’t share with the chief.

That shack Jessie mentioned, Paulette thought to herself, as she stepped over the brook and into the woods. I know where it is. I can find it.

Decades ago, she used to meet Howard at the shack. It was their little rendezvous, where they’d go to make out and not be found by Paulette’s parents or her sister, Caroline. Paulette never let him get farther than first base, but she did enjoy his kisses. They’d hang out at the shack for hours, listening to Simon and Garfunkel on their transistor radio. Then Howard had gone off to Vietnam and the shack had been torn down.

At least, Paulette thought it had.

The woods seemed alive with sound this morning. Crows whooped from trees. There was the rat-tat-tat noise of woodpeckers and blue jays scolded from above. Occasionally Paulette made out the low hoot of an owl. From branch to branch squirrels leapt and chipmunks scurried alongside her on the path. There were barely any shadows this morning. The sun, nearly overhead, filled in all available space, pouring in easily through the bare trees.

There was no reason for fear on such a day.

Even though it was Halloween.

Paulette tried to push the thought of Halloween out of her mind. It was a happy children’s holiday—but she knew its origins. When nightfall came, it was the eve of the day of the dead—the only time, some believed, that the dead could walk again among the living.

Paulette had no idea what she might find at the shack. But she knew she’d be able to sense if something undead dwelled there. She trusted her instincts, her intuition, her powers that much.

She walked, and walked some more.

The shack. Where was it?

Her father—or maybe it had been her grandfather—had built it, as a place to store hunting equipment. The woods had been much deeper in those days, stretching out past the gorge for at least forty miles. Paulette’s father had hunted deer in those deeper woods when he was a young man. Now so much of the woods had been torn down, replaced with suburban housing developments. All that was left of the once mighty forest was this smaller stretch that edged Hickory Dell. Paulette had a memory of the shack being torn down at some point, her father moving all his equipment back to the house once the new housing developments started being built.

But, apparently, her memory was wrong. There was the shack, some ten yards ahead of her, slumped and weathered like an old man.

Paulette stopped in her approach, taking a deep breath. She could still hear the birds in the trees. That was good.

What might she find inside? Her heart began to race. All night long, the little sleep she’d been able to achieve had been torn apart by nightmares of the tall, dark man. She had tried so hard to see his face. Was it Emil? Or was it . . . someone else?

She began walking again. She reached the shack’s broken door, hanging limply from rusted hinges. With a careful touch, Paulette pushed it open.

The place was draped in spiderwebs. Roots had grown through the old, corroded floorboards, and vines grew up the walls. There were some old wooden boxes scattered about. Paulette stepped inside.

Nothing.

She felt nothing.

Outside the birds chirped wildly in the trees.

“But the boy said he lived here,” Paulette whispered to herself.

Why did she sense nothing?

That was when she noticed a couple of books scattered on the floor in the far corner of the shack. Walking over, Paulette bent down and picked one of the books up in her hand.

Sound of a Scream by John Manning.

A dark brown substance had dried over much of the cover.

Paulette knew instantly that these were the books Inga had with her when she was killed, and the brown substance was her blood.

“Dear God,” she gasped.

Then she noticed something else. Behind one of the old boxes sat a denim bag. It, too, hadn’t been in the shack very long. No mold covered it. And on the floor around the bag Paulette could now make out the muddy footprints of a man’s large shoe.

She bent down and pulled open the drawstring of the bag. There were clothes inside. T-shirts mostly. And some papers. With trembling hands, Paulette unfolded the papers and began to read.

“Dear God,” she gasped again. “I’ve got to tell Jessie.”

She stood and turned, ready to bolt out of there and run back through the woods.

But then the tall, dark man came through the door. Paulette didn’t have time to scream. She barely saw the blade as it swung out at her, whistling through the air before slicing into her flesh.

Howard, she thought. I’ll see Howard. . . .

The papers in her hand fluttered to the floor of the shack.