The Hollows(40)

‘Um, yeah?’

‘Can I talk to him?’

She looked me up and down. ‘He’s taking a shower. Is everything okay?’

‘Did Ryan say anything to you when he got back?’

‘Just something about feeling scuzzy.’ She came out on to the deck and pulled the door to behind her. Her eyes darted towards the cabin where Donna had died. ‘What’s going on, Tom? What’s happened now?’

‘I need to talk to Ryan. Frankie just got back and she’s in a terrible state. She got lost in the woods. I want to know where the hell Ryan was.’

David appeared. ‘What’s the problem?’

Connie told him.

‘Let me speak to your son,’ I said.

David looked drunk. His eyes were bloodshot and he was swaying. I guessed he’d felt the need to blot out what he’d seen in cabin fifteen. ‘Wait here,’ he said.

He disappeared inside while Connie filled the front doorway, stopping me from entering. David reappeared. ‘He’s still in the shower. You’ll have to come back in the morning.’

I knew I wasn’t going to get past them. I wouldn’t have let them in to demand answers of my kid either.

‘Okay. Fine.’

I went back over to my cabin. Nikki was sitting out on the deck, smoking a cigarette.

‘You don’t mind, do you?’

‘No. I’m tempted to have one myself.’

But I didn’t. I went inside and opened Frankie’s bedroom door a crack, peeking in. She appeared to be asleep. I went back out and sat opposite Nikki.

‘Did you see anything?’

‘No. All I saw was her, in the dark, looking scared and lost.’

I replayed Frankie’s stream-of-consciousness ramble. ‘She said something about a man. A secret cabin. What was that about?’

Nikki blew out a plume of smoke. ‘It’s a local myth. One that started about the time those teachers were killed. This nameless guy who’s supposed to live deep in the woods. They say if he catches you he’ll strangle you or bash your brains out. All the children and teenagers in Penance talk about it. They dare each other to go into the woods to look for his secret cabin.’

‘Everett Miller?’

‘Yup. Our local bogeyman.’

‘And what about this secret cabin?’

She shrugged. ‘It doesn’t exist, of course.’

I mulled this over. ‘So Frankie must have been talking to some local kids. Except . . .’

‘What?’

‘I don’t know . . . I thought I saw something too. Or someone, I should say. But it looked more like . . . an animal. I feel slightly embarrassed telling you because I really don’t believe in all this stuff, but I’m not the only one. A few people around the resort have reported seeing something – a figure that doesn’t look human. Frankie said it too. And the more I think about it, the more it’s coming back to me: what I saw outside, at the back of this cabin. It looked like an animal’s head. Like, I don’t know, a deer. Or a sheep.’

She had lit another cigarette. Her hand was trembling slightly. ‘I’ve never heard anything like that.’

‘Are you sure?’

She nodded.

‘God,’ I said. ‘Maybe it’s a sort of mass hallucination. Maybe some magic mushrooms got into the water supply.’

She laughed, though her hand was still shaking a little. She saw me notice and said, ‘I’m cold.’

‘Me too.’ I rubbed my face. ‘Jesus, what a day. I’d only just got back from that cabin over there when you got here. The ambulance had just gone.’

‘What ambulance?’

I told her.

‘And the beta blockers were just sitting there?’

‘Yep.’

She tapped ash from her cigarette. She’d found an ashtray, presumably in one of the cabin’s cupboards. ‘I do things like that all the time. Spend half an hour searching for the TV remote then find it sitting right there on the couch.’

‘Me too. But Tamara swore they’d both searched for the pills, and they were sitting right there in plain sight. I think . . . Maybe it sounds crazy, but what if the person who took them returned them? And Donna saw them come in and the scare triggered her heart attack.’

‘That sounds . . . kinda far-fetched.’

‘I suppose so, yeah.’ But honestly, though it made no sense, I could see it all too clearly. The figure appearing before Donna out of nowhere to complete its errand. It was no more implausible than my seeing someone with the head of some horned animal, or Frankie seeing her ‘creatures’ in the woods. What shape had been taken by Donna’s shocking visitor?

Then it struck me. Not an explanation yet, but maybe the start of one.

‘Masks,’ I said.

Nikki sat very still, waiting.

‘Someone, or more than one person, wearing a mask. Donna was convinced the Devil was going to punish her.’

Nikki tried to interrupt but I waved a hand, asking her to let me finish.

‘If she saw someone in a mask, with horns, in her cabin . . .’

I wished I’d managed to get a better look at the horned face at my window. Had it been a mask? I looked up to see Nikki regarding me sceptically.