The Narrows(61)

He knows. Somehow, he knows.

She turned the floodlights back off then went into the kitchen. From the cabinet over the refrigerator, she pulled down a bottle of red table wine. With trembling hands, she uncorked it and filled a wineglass. Dead leaves, curled like clamshells, blew against the window over the sink.

Maggie felt her heart seize at the sight of eyes watching her from the darkness on the other side of the window. Taking two steps back, she reached out one shaky hand and flipped off the kitchen lights. Darkness swallowed her like an abyss. The square pane of glass over the sink radiated with a deep blue moonlight and, in the distance, she could make out the pinpoints of streetlamps lining the road.

No longer able to reflect the light coming through the kitchen window, the eyes vanished. Maggie rushed to the sink and nearly pressed her nose to the glass. At first she could see nothing in the blackness…but then she could see a small, fluid form moving across the top of the wooden fence. Maggie held her breath as the thing glanced back up at her, apparently able to see her just as clearly in the dark.

It was the Morelands’ cat.

Maggie released a shuddery breath. She was aware of wetness on her hands and arms and the front of her tank top felt damp. She turned the kitchen lights back on to find that, in her momentary panic, she had spilled her wine. The wineglass lay on its side on the kitchen counter and there was a blood-colored puddle on the floor. Tearing a length of paper towel from the dispenser on the wall, she hastily mopped up the mess then stuffed the wine-soaked wad of towel into the kitchen trash. She forced herself to laugh at least once to prove that she once again had things under control, but it came out as a sharp, disharmonious cackle.

She filled the wineglass again then carried it into the living room while pulling her hair back with one hand. She could put a CD in the CD player, something melodious and soothing, and try to wade through her book while drinking her wine, not worrying about what Evan might or might not know, not worrying about what might or might not be out—

A slight, pale figure stood in one of the living room windows. As Maggie’s eyes fell upon it, the thing receded into the darkness, the way something will gradually vanish as it descends into a murky pond.

A prickling heat caused the skin to rise on her arms. Again, she felt her nipples tighten painfully into knots. For what seemed like an eternity, she remained motionless. It wasn’t until she saw—or thought she saw—the milky, ghostlike form cross behind the crescent of glass in the back door that she regained control of her body. She dropped the wineglass and ran to the door, double-checking that it was bolted. It was. Peering out, she could see nothing.

A cry that sounded pathetically like steam whistling from a tea kettle issued from her throat. She went to the wall, slammed her palm against the switch that activated the floodlights, and shoved it up with the heel of her left hand.

The face of a cadaver stared at her from the nearest window. It was human, though just barely—its scalp was a hairless dome of flesh, its brow disarmingly smooth above colorless eyes as swollen as jellyfish. The thing’s mouth hung open, and Maggie caught a glimpse of rigid black gums and square, blunt teeth.

I’m home.

Maggie screamed and flipped the floodlights back off.

A colorless hand slammed against the windowpane, hard enough to vibrate the glass.

Her first instinct was to curl into a ball and weep. Instead, she followed her second instinct, which was to run down into the basement and grab the shotgun off the wall. She tripped at the bottom of the stairs and crashed into the basement wall, a sharp, hot pain bursting to life in her right ankle. Using the wall for support, she managed to stand and swing one arm blindly before her in the dark, searching for the chain that turned on the basement light.

You took care of me all those years ago, said the head-voice, but now I’m back, Mom, to take care of you.

“No,” she breathed, shuddering. Her fingers grazed the chain and she closed a fist around it, tugging the light on.

The shotgun no longer hung from the wall. Frantically, she looked around. It was nowhere. She’d put it back here, hadn’t she? Where the hell could it have gone?

She thought she heard floorboards creak above her head.

“No!” she screamed back. “No! Go away! Please!” But the “please” came out as a shrill whine, not even a word.

In the face of self-preservation, she reverted to her initial instinct and backed into a corner, crouching down and pulling her knees up to her chest. If it came down here, she’d be trapped. There was nowhere to go, no way to get out.

Suddenly, in her mind’s eye, she was seventeen again and trundling along in a Toyota pickup that belonged to Lyle Pafferny’s father. Steve Miller was on the radio and there was a look of seasickness on Lyle’s face. They hadn’t said more than a handful of words to each other on the drive into Garrett and they’d said absolutely nothing on the drive back.

Maggie blinked tears down her cheeks and shuddered at the memory.



2



A sharp pain raced up her neck as she jerked awake. Somehow, amazingly, she had fallen asleep.

Something had woken her up…

“Evan?” Her voice sounded like the lone wail of a loon reverberating off the basement’s cinder block walls. She waited. No response came.

After several more minutes passed with the lethargy of a steamship on the horizon, Maggie was able to coax herself to her feet. Her entire body was stiff. There were little red welts on her forearms and the tops of her feet that she immediately identified as bug bites.