Darkness

14

“Well?” Barbara Sheffield asked.

It was Saturday evening, and the sun was poised on the western horizon, casting long shadows across the broad yard that separated the Sheffield house from the canal. Barbara and Craig were in the kitchen, Barbara garnishing a large bowl of potato salad with sliced hard-boiled eggs, and Craig fishing in the refrigerator for a couple of cans of beer. Outside on the terrace, Ted Anderson was tending the just-lit barbecue kettle, while his father and wife were stretched out on chaises. The afternoon had gone quickly, with the men watching a baseball game on television while Barbara Sheffield and Mary Anderson got acquainted.

“Well, what?” Craig countered, though he knew what Barbara was asking him. She tilted her head toward the window, and Craig looked out, then smiled wryly. Outside, a croquet court had been laid out on the lawn, and Kelly Anderson was bent over Jenny, helping her line up a difficult shot. As he watched, Jenny, with only a little help from Kelly, swung the mallet. The orange ball shot through the wicket, ricocheted off Kelly’s ball, and struck Michael’s.

“It worked!” he heard Jenny yell, bouncing up and down with excitement. “Now what should I do?”

While Michael and Kelly argued about Jenny’s next shot — with Michael insisting that Jenny should knock Kelly’s ball into the yard next door, while Kelly suggested that maybe they should find out if Michael’s ball would float — Craig shrugged.

“Okay, so I was wrong. She seems like a perfectly nice girl.” He dropped his voice, even though they were alone in the kitchen. “But I still don’t get it — if she’s as normal as she seems, why did she try to kill herself?”

“Kids can be under all kinds of stress.”

“Well, she certainly looks normal enough now,” Craig observed. “Maybe Mary and Ted were right — maybe all she needed was a new environment.”

“You should have seen her a few days ago.” Barbara chuckled. “With that pink hair—” She fell silent, her face reddening as Mary Anderson appeared in the doorway.

But Mary only smiled. “That awful pink hair?” she asked. “Is that what you were talking about?” Barbara’s blush deepened. “It’s all right, Barb,” Mary went on. “It was awful, and I still haven’t thanked you for talking her into changing it. Let me give you a hand with that.” She picked up an egg and began peeling it, then glanced at Craig. “My husband and father-in-law are both grumbling about what they claim must be a beer shortage.”

Taking the hint, Craig pulled three cans out of the refrigerator, leaving the two women alone in the kitchen.

“I do appreciate what you did,” Mary said as she began slicing the egg she’d just shelled. “And I still want to know how you did it.” She sighed and her smile turned wan. “I … well, sometimes I just don’t seem to know how to talk to her.”

“Well, don’t ask me,” Barbara replied. “As far as motherhood’s concerned. I’ve always just winged it. I figure there’s no training for the job, and all we can do is follow our instincts.”

The last of Mary’s smile faded away. “Maybe my problem is that I don’t have any instincts,” she said, her eyes carefully avoiding Barbara’s. “Ever since Kelly was a baby I’ve felt that I didn’t have the slightest idea what she was all about. And it seems that it gets worse as she grows up, not better.”

“Don’t be silly,” Barbara objected. “Every mother has instincts. Didn’t you feel it when you first got pregnant?” She hesitated as Mary’s face reddened, and suddenly, as comprehension dawned on her, she felt a wave of embarrassment. “That was stupid of me,” she said. “I don’t know why I didn’t figure it out. Kelly doesn’t really look like either one of you. She’s adopted, isn’t she?”

Mary nodded. “I couldn’t have children at all. Ted and I tried, but I just can’t conceive.” Her voice took on an edge. “Sometimes I wonder if it might not have been better if we’d simply accepted the fact that we weren’t going to be parents.”

Barbara stopped working, and faced the other woman. “Mary, you can’t mean that.”

“Can’t I?” Mary asked, her eyes glistening with tears. “Do you know what it’s like, raising a child you don’t even know? Every time something goes wrong — and with Kelly, it’s seemed as though that’s been most of the time — you wonder whether it’s your fault. And then you start wondering where your child came from, if maybe it isn’t your fault at all. You start thinking maybe it’s something in your child’s genes.” A brittle, harsh laugh escaped her lips. “You wouldn’t know about that, would you, with two perfect children of your own?” At the stricken expression on Barbara’s face, Mary’s words suddenly died on her lips. “Barbara? Now I’ve said something, haven’t I?”

Barbara nodded mutely, trying to control the tears that had flooded her own eyes. “I guess we’ve been lucky,” she breathed. “With Michael, there haven’t been that many problems. He’s always been a bit of a loner, but—”

Mary Anderson’s jaw dropped open with surprise. “You mean he’s not yours?”

Barbara swallowed the lump that had suddenly risen in her throat. “I — There was a problem. My first baby was stillborn,” she breathed. “We adopted Michael before I even left the hospital.”

Mary slipped her arms around the other woman, hugging her for a moment. “I’m sorry,” she said softly. “I had no idea.” Releasing Barbara, she stepped back, breathed deeply, then forced a smile. “Well, aren’t we a pair. Known each other half a day, and here we are, crying on each other’s shoulders.”

The two women went back to work, and suddenly Barbara found herself telling Mary about losing her child. “I hadn’t really thought about it for years,” she said. “But the same thing happened to one of the swamp-rat women last week. Her baby was stillborn, and she almost lost her mind.” She told Mary about the call she’d had from the clinic just a few minutes after Kelly had left that day, when Jolene Mayhew had told her what had happened to Amelie Coulton’s baby, and how the young woman had reacted. “Didn’t Kelly tell you?”

Mary shook her head. “I’m afraid Kelly doesn’t tell either of us very much. She comes and goes, and eats and sleeps, but every time I try to talk to her about anything, she just gets defensive.”

“I know,” Barbara sighed. “Michael can be that way, too. He’s always been a loner, sticking pretty much to himself.” She glanced out the window to see Michael lining up a shot on Kelly’s ball, while his sister did her best to ruin his concentration. “At least he was until Kelly arrived. I have a feeling she’s about to become his first girlfriend.”

“Well, it’s fine by me,” Mary declared. “I don’t know what’s happened since we came here, but Kelly seems happier. She still hardly talks to us at all, but at least she’s not out running around all night long.”

They watched the children for a few minutes, and suddenly Kelly, as if feeling their gaze, looked up and waved. Mary waved back, but then frowned. “If that isn’t the strangest thing,” she said.

Barbara looked at her inquiringly.

“Just now, when she looked up, Kelly looked just like you!”

Barbara felt a chill run through her, and Jenny’s words of a few days ago echoed in her mind. She looks just like cousin Tisha! The memory of her brief fantasy about her long-dead daughter reared up once more, bringing with it thoughts of Jolene Mayhew’s strange story that Amelie had insisted her baby hadn’t died but had been taken from her.

It was the same thing that Barbara herself had thought when she’d lost her little girl sixteen years ago. She, like Amelie, had been unable to accept her loss.

She’d denied it completely, until Dr. Phillips had put Michael in her arms, and the tiny boy had instantly filled the great yawning chasm that had opened inside her.

Now all those memories surged up in her once again. Before she thought about it, she heard herself speaking.

“Mary, where did Kelly come from?”

Mary, startled not only by the question, but by the odd tone of Barbara’s voice, turned to face her, and instantly understood the thought that had come into the other woman’s mind.

“Oh, no, Barb,” she said quietly. “I certainly didn’t mean to put a thought like that into your head. It’s — well, it’s just a startling coincidence, that’s all.”

Though she said no more about the strange idea that had popped into her head in the kitchen, Barbara could not keep from studying Kelly all through the rest of the evening.

And each time she looked at the girl, she thought the resemblance between Kelly Anderson and her sister’s daughter was more and more remarkable.

• • •

Judd Duval got up from his chair and moved to the doorway of his shack at the edge of the swamp for at least the tenth time since darkness had fallen two hours ago.

He was imagining things.

He knew it, had told himself over and over again that none of the sounds he kept hearing was real. Still, each time he thought he sensed something approaching the cabin, he pulled himself up from his battered recliner and went out to look.

Each time it was the same.

He stepped out onto the porch, and the darkness closed around him. It was a frightening darkness, a blackness that reached out to him, as if it wanted to swallow him.

Deciding it was the lights of the cabin that made the surrounding blackness so impenetrable, he at last switched off the lights, leaving nothing to illuminate the interior of the cabin except the flickering gray light of his black-and-white television set.

After his eyes had adjusted to the darkness, he searched the shadows once more. Somewhere out there, hidden in the tall saw grass, or concealed behind a clump of palmetto, they were watching him.

The children, fixing him with their empty eyes, saying nothing.

Bullshit! he told himself each time.

It was nothing.

So each time he returned to the television, staring at the screen, but paying no attention to the images on the set, his mind filled with images of his own.

This time he was sure he heard the soft splash of an oar dipping into the water.

He flicked off the lights once more, then waited in the darkness.

He heard a rustling sound off to the right and froze.

Then he saw the eyes.

Bright, glowing eyes, staring at him.

Another pair, just to the right of the first.

Then another, and another.

His heart began to pound as he watched the semicircle of staring eyes.

Were they coming closer?

He couldn’t tell.

Moving slowly, barely lifting his feet from the splintering planks of his front porch, he stepped backward, feeling for the door with his right hand.

He touched the wood of its frame and steadied himself.

Then he was inside, closing the door behind him and throwing the bolt.

He paused again, listening.

He could hear nothing, but could sense them moving closer to the house, surrounding him.

His breath catching in his throat, he crossed to the television and switched it off, plunging the cabin into total darkness, broken only by the slightly lighter areas where windows were cut into the walls.

He moved toward one of them, almost more afraid to look out than not to. His heart pounding, he peered out into the marshlands.

The eyes were still there, watching him, fixed on him.

A sound.

A soft, scratching sound, as if someone had crept onto his front porch.

He froze, the icy chill of panic creeping up his back.

It was Jonas.

Judd had been waiting for him for days now, ever since the boy had fixed him with those evil eyes and sworn to tear his life out of his body.

And tonight it was going to happen.

He could sense the boy’s presence on the porch, and then heard a scratching at the door.

His gun.

He had to get his gun.

He thought furiously.

The table, next to the bed. That’s where it was — he remembered putting it there when he’d come home from work this afternoon.

He crept soundlessly through the darkness, feeling his way. Finally, his hands closed on the revolver. Feeling for the safety, he flipped it off, then ran his fingers over the chambers in the drum.

Each of them held a cartridge.

He turned back to the front door.

Once again he heard the faint scratching sounds, as if whoever was out there was searching for a way to get in.

Judd moved to the door, pressing his ear against it. For a moment he heard nothing, then felt a slight bump as if whoever was outside had tested the latch and bolt.

The gun held tightly in his right hand, its hammer cocked, Judd felt for the bolt and carefully, silently, drew it back.

He stepped back, tensing.

Finally he reached out, turned the latch, and jerked the door open.

A form rose up in front of him, and Judd raised the gun and fired. There was a screech of agony as the slug ripped through skin and muscle, and then the dark form dropped to the porch, where it lay still.

Judd reached out and flipped on the light switch.

A raccoon, its fur soaked with blood from the gaping wound in its chest, lay on the pine boards of the porch.

Judd stared at it in disbelief for a moment, then swore under his breath. Still holding the gun, he kicked the dead animal off the porch into the water. It floated lazily for a moment, but then the water swirled, and an alligator appeared to snatch the dead animal up, disappearing back into the darkness with a flick of its huge tail.

“A ’coon,” Judd muttered to himself as he went back into his cabin. “Nothin’ but a damn ’coon!”

He put the gun back on the table by the bed, then glanced up in the mirror.

And froze once more.

His face looked gray and pasty, even in the bright light, and his eyes seemed to have sunk deep within their sockets.

Around his neck wattles of loose flesh were forming, and when he looked down at his hands, his knuckles had swollen and his skin was blotched with liver spots.

It couldn’t be happening — he’d been to see Phillips just three days ago. He was in perfect shape.

Unless …

A thought formed in his mind.

What if Phillips knew about Jonas, about how he’d laid a trap for the boy so Kitteridge could talk to him.

But Phillips had said nothing.

He’d only given him his biweekly shot and sent him away.

He went to the phone, his fingers trembling as he pressed the buttons of Phillips’s number.

On the fourth ring, as fear peaked inside the deputy, Phillips’s voice came onto the line.

“It’s Judd,” Duval said, his voice rasping.

There was a momentary silence.

“Judd? How are you feeling?” Phillips’s voice carried a faintly mocking tone that chilled Judd’s blood.

“I–I ain’t so good,” Judd replied, doing his best to conceal the terror that suddenly gripped him.

“What seems to be the problem?”

“It’s my skin, Doc. It’s showing spots, and my knuckles are all swole up. I got wrinkles on my face, an’—”

“It sounds like you’re getting old, Judd,” Phillips said softly, and instantly Judd knew the truth.

“The shot,” he breathed. “You didn’t give it to me. You gave me something else.”

“What did you expect, Judd?” Phillips replied. He was silent for a moment, then went on. “I don’t like it when you let outsiders talk to the children, Judd.”

He did know.

“I didn’t do no harm, Doc,” Judd whined, his terror now clear in his voice. “Kitteridge don’t know nothin’! He thinks Jonas is nuts!”

Warren Phillips’s voice turned icy. “What he thinks is immaterial, Judd. You know the rules. The children are protected from outsiders.”

“But I need my shot, Doc.” Judd was begging now, but he didn’t care. “You can’t just let me die. You—”

“Without me, you would have died years ago, Judd. And there’s another problem, too.”

Judd’s chest tightened with fear. “What problem?” he demanded. “I’ve paid,” Judd breathed. “I’ve always paid—”

“It’s not that, Judd,” Phillips replied. “It’s the children. There just aren’t enough of them anymore.”

“I don’t get it,” Judd growled. “You said everything was gonna be fine. There’s all kinds’a kids out there. Quint and Tammy-Jo had one last month, and Amelie—”

Phillips’s cold voice cut him off. “It’s not enough, Judd. There’s just not enough to go around. Do you understand what I’m telling you?”

Judd’s mind reeled. “What?” he breathed. “What do you want? I’ll do anything.”

There was a silence, and then Phillips spoke once more. “I just told you what I want, Judd. The nursery is almost empty. Supplies, Judd. I need supplies. Bring me supplies, and I’ll give you your shot. A full-strength one.”

The phone in Judd’s hand went dead.

Shaking, he put the receiver back on the hook, but stood where he was for a moment, his mind reeling.

He knew what Phillips wanted, what the price of his error the other day was going to be.

But how?

How could he produce what the doctor was demanding?

He looked down at the watch on his wrist, and found his eyes could barely focus on it.

He squinted, then made out the numbers.

Eight-thirty.

Tomorrow.

Tomorrow he’d figure out a way.

He moved back toward the mirror, and felt a strange burning pain in his hips and knees.

Breathing hard, feeling exhaustion simply from the effort of crossing the room, he peered once more into the mirror.

Old.

He looked old, and he felt old.

But he’d live through the night.

He’d rest, and in the morning he’d find a new source for Warren Phillips.

And Phillips would restore Judd Duval’s youth.

Life in Villejeune would go on — eternally.