11:45 P.M., Saturday, August 22, 2009
Eastport, Maine
That night, Tabitha Stoddard dreamed she saw the December Man again.
In her dream it wasn’t summer any more but every bit as dark and icy as it had been just before Christmas, when Tiff brought him to the house to give Pike the money for the boat.
Tabitha dreamed she was outside by the breakwater. Snow was falling. Millions of small, hard flakes swirling in circles all around her. She was walking down a long wooden dock that seemed to stretch forever out into the cold, black sea. She was carrying Harold in both arms. He still had Tiff’s package inside him, still wrapped in layers of newspaper and packing tape exactly as it was when she’d gone to meet Tiff in the playground. Having the package scared her and she wanted to give it back to Tiff.
She walked past fishing boats that were tied up, one after the other in parallel lines on either side of the dock. The Katie Louise was at the end, the very last boat in a very long line. In spite of the darkness Tabitha could see her father’s boat clear as day, its silhouette outlined in tiny white Christmas lights, its diesel engine idling, churning up the water behind. In the dream, the Katie Louise wasn’t dirty and beat up any more, but freshly painted bright red and white. She was brand new all over again.
She saw Tiff standing in the stern dressed, in spite of the cold, in a gauzy white summer dress. Her high school graduation dress. Her hair was down and she was smiling and waving. Tabitha had never seen her look more beautiful.
‘C’mon, slowpoke,’ Tiff called to her. ‘We’ll never get out of here if you don’t hurry.’
‘Where are we going?’
‘It doesn’t matter. You just have to hurry.’
But Tabitha didn’t want to hurry because the December Man was standing behind Tiff, staring at her with icy eyes and holding a big knife.
The December Man wasn’t smiling.
Tiff called out to her again. ‘Come on, goose. A promise is a promise.’
She wanted desperately to warn Tiff the December Man was there. Warn Tiff the December Man was going to kill her.
But, try as she might, she couldn’t get the words out, and so she just watched as the December Man reached around Tiff’s head with the knife and drew the blade across her neck. Tiff screamed. Blood poured from the wound. Waves of blood. Oceans of blood that just kept coming and coming until it turned Tiff’s white dress and the deck of the Katie Louise and even the black ocean itself a bright, blood-soaked red.
‘See, just like I told your father,’ said the lady cop who for some reason was standing beside Tabitha, one hand on her shoulder. ‘Cut her open like a hog in a slaughterhouse.’
Tabitha turned and ran. The December Man jumped down from the deck and ran after her, still holding the knife, wanting to cut Tabitha’s neck open as well.
Tabbie ran as fast as she could but she was just a fat little kid and her fastest wasn’t even close to fast enough. Before she was halfway up the dock, she felt a hand grab her by the wrist. The December Man turned her around and grabbed Harold from her arms. Then he pulled her toward him. Lifted the knife. Tabitha closed her eyes and screamed and screamed waiting for the knife to cut her throat. But instead, all she felt was a pair of strong hands lifting her and holding her, a familiar voice telling her it was all right. It was just a bad dream. Nothing but a bad dream. She opened her eyes. The December Man was gone and her mother was there.
Donelda pulled Tabitha toward her, held Tabbie’s rigid body tight against her bony chest, rocked her back and forth and told the last of her three daughters that it had only been a bad dream. A nightmare. Told her that everything was all right and she mustn’t be frightened. But Tabitha couldn’t stop sobbing because she knew very well her mother was wrong. Everything was not all right. Nothing would ever be all right again.