Darkness

2

The jangling of the telephone made Carl Anderson groan softly and roll over in bed. The second ring brought him fully awake. He sat up, feeling a twinge of protest from his right hip, and reached out to pick up the receiver, at the same time glancing at the clock on his nightstand.

Six-thirty.

He should have been awake half an hour ago, and by now he should be dressed and in the kitchen, scanning the newspaper while he ate his customary plate of grits, accompanied by half a dozen sausages. “Anderson.” He spoke the single word into the receiver in a carefully developed monotone that would give the caller no hint as to his mood: Carl had learned long ago that the less someone knew about how you were feeling, the less he could manipulate you. But when he heard his son’s voice telling him what had happened the night before, the monotone disappeared. “Oh, Jesus,” he moaned. “Is she going to be all right?”

“The doctor says she’ll heal up in a couple of weeks,” Ted replied. “Anyway, the cuts will.”

Carl frowned, his eyes drifting to the framed photograph on his dresser. His son and daughter-in-law, with his granddaughter between them. He’d looked at the picture a hundred times since Ted had sent it to him last Christmas, his eyes always lingering longest on the image of Kelly, her pale face framed by the strange pink hair, her black clothes making her complexion even pastier by contrast.

But it was Kelly’s eyes that always arrested his attention. They had an empty look to them, as if nothing in the world interested her. There was no sparkle to them, nor even any hostility.

Only a strange lassitude.

Ted’s voice cut through Carl’s momentary reverie. “Dad? You still there?”

“I’m here,” Carl replied, his gaze still fixed on the picture. “What can I do?”

Now it was Ted who was silent for several long seconds. When he spoke, his voice had a reluctant note to it. “The job we talked about last month,” he said finally. “Is it still open?”

Carl frowned. “What about Mary? You know what she says about Villejeune.”

“That was last month,” Ted replied. “After last night …” He left the words hanging, and Carl remembered again the problems he had always had in talking with his son. Indeed, after Bessie had lost her fight with cancer when Ted was still in his teens, he and his son had lived together in a peculiar silence, working together — when there was work — but rarely sharing much in the way of their private thoughts. But at least Ted had been there, his presence a comfort of sorts. It wasn’t until his son had married Mary and moved to Atlanta that Carl began to feel the loneliness of his solitary existence. Then, five years ago, Villejeune had begun to change. Suddenly Carl’s struggling contracting business had taken off.

With that early success, he had started his campaign to bring his son home. A campaign that, until now, had failed completely. The day Ted and Mary had left Villejeune, Mary said she’d never come back. She’d hated the town, hated the swamp, hated everything about the place. She had only agreed to marry Ted on the condition that they move away. And she’d stuck to her word. Obviously, though, everything had changed.

“The job’s here,” Carl said now. “I’ve got a lot going on, and not enough men who know what they’re doing.” He fell silent for a moment, then pressed his original question once more. “Ted, has Mary agreed to all this?”

When Ted replied, Carl could hear the strain in his voice. “She’s not thrilled about it, no. But — look, Dad,” he went on in a rush, as if afraid that if he didn’t spill the words out quickly, he wouldn’t be able to say them at all. “I haven’t worked for a while now, and there just aren’t any jobs. And with the kids Kelly’s been running around with — well, we know we have to get her out of here, and there just doesn’t seem to be anyplace else to go.”

Carl felt a pang of resentment — it wasn’t that they wanted to come home at all. There was just no place else to go. Still, he told himself, at least he’d have them here. And maybe, once Mary saw how Villejeune had changed, she’d want to stay.

After all, like Carl himself, and his dad before him, it was the place she’d been born. It was home.

“Okay,” Carl said aloud. “Just let me know what I can do and when you’ll be here.”

“Thanks, Dad,” Ted said. “It — well, it’s nice to know I can count on you.”

“Nothin’ to it, son,” Carl replied. “If you can’t count on your dad, who can you count on?”

He hung up the phone and got out of bed. Hurriedly, he showered, dressed, and fixed his breakfast, but by the time he stepped out of the house into the damp, hot Florida morning, he was already more than forty minutes behind schedule.

Still, it didn’t matter. He was going to have to see Dr. Phillips about the pain spreading from his hip, so his schedule was in the dumper anyway.

The important thing was that Ted and Mary were finally coming home, and bringing Kelly with them.

• • •

The heat was beginning to build as Carl drove through the village. Carved out of the Florida swamps on the northern edge of the Everglades so long ago that no one really knew when it had been founded, Villejeune had survived for more than three hundred years. Though it had had a few ups, most of its times had been downs, with the people of the town scratching out a living any way they could. There had been a few brief booms — the first during the nineteenth century, when there had been a flurry of plantation development, though the plantations had soon failed, cultivation overtaken by the ever encroaching swamps and marshlands. Prohibition had helped, for the lowlands had offered endless hiding places for small stills that pumped out moonshine night and day, and for a while Villejeune made a good living on the rum-running trade. The Florida land boom had followed, even reaching Villejeune for a few months before people had stopped buying land that was three feet under water. But when Prohibition died, so did the good times for Villejeune. For the next half century it went into a slow but extended decline, the cypress of its buildings slowly succumbing to the inexorable onslaught of the climate, while the people who lived in the buildings did their best to survive an economy as soft and treacherous as the mud beneath the swamp.

Then, a few years back, some people from California had begun quietly buying up large tracts of land to the north, outside of Orlando, and when their work was done, Disney World had emerged out of the marshlands. Suddenly the whole area began to thrive, and it wasn’t long before Phil Stubbs, who had been eking out his living for thirty years by guiding adventurous — and very occasional — tourists through the swamp in his single leaky scow, had been able to buy a new boat, and then another and another.

Carl Anderson had taken one look at what was going on around Orlando, and seen that the boom would move southward. Acting quickly, he’d taken on partners and bought options on as much swampland as he could get. During the last five years he had begun exercising those options, draining the land and developing it into retirement communities. He’d started with a few small houses, but quickly expanded into condominiums. Already, a whole system of canals had been built, and even the smallest of his developments had tiny marinas attached to them. The larger developments allowed for private docks in front of rambling Florida-style houses, and the newest, his pride and joy, would include a golf course as well. As he’d expected, he had no trouble selling the developments — the weather was perfect for the retirement crowd, and a home in Villejeune all but guaranteed the buyers regular visits from their children and grandchildren. The fact that the kids had come to see Disney World rather than their aging relatives was beside the point. The point was that they came, and Villejeune was both close enough to Orlando to make the drive there easy and far enough away so it was still uncrowded and had a sense of its own identity. Carl wasn’t certain how long that would last, but in the meantime everyone was making money for the first time in decades. Most of all, Carl Anderson.

Even the village, after its centuries of somnolence, was beginning to change. The buildings were being repaired and fresh paint applied to ancient cypress siding. Some new buildings had appeared, but Carl, as chairman of the Villejeune Preservation Committee, had seen to it that the new architecture matched what was already there, so by the time a new shop opened its doors, it appeared to have been there just as long as everything else. Indeed. Carl himself had come up with the idea of building these commercial structures with slightly sagging floors, so that despite their newness, they were all a little out of plumb, just as were their older counterparts.

Ted and Mary, Carl decided as he drove slowly along Ponce Avenue, were going to be surprised by what they found. Then, as Carl spotted Judd Duval lounging in front of Arlette Delong’s café, his mood soured. Judd might be a deputy sheriff now, but as far as Carl was concerned, he was still nothing more than a swamp rat. And Carl Anderson didn’t like swamp rats.

But that, Carl supposed, would never change. As long as there was a swamp next to the town, the swamp rats would be there too, appearing in the village every now and then, buying a few supplies, then disappearing back into the marshlands, to the crumbling stilted shacks in which they lived. Judd nodded to Carl as he passed, and Carl automatically nodded back, despite his dislike of the man.

A few minutes later the village was half a mile behind him, and as he pulled the truck into the parking lot of the small clinic that had been built only last year, Carl was relieved to see that Warren Phillips’s Buick was there, even though it was Saturday. He parked the truck, wincing as he swung himself out of the cab. When he stepped into the receiving room a moment later, Jolene Mayhew raised one heavily plucked eyebrow. “Looks to me like you’re here to see Dr. P,” she observed. “Did you do something to yourself, or are you just getting old?”

Carl grinned at the nurse. “Come on, Jolene — don’t you read my ads? No one gets old in Villejeune. That’s why everyone’s moving here. It’s the weather.”

“Right,” the nurse replied archly. “Almost a hundred, with humidity to match. And we’re barely into June. Gonna be some summer.” She glanced down at the calendar on her desk. “Did you make an appointment?”

“Do I need one?” Carl peered exaggeratedly around the empty waiting room. “Doesn’t look like you’re doing what I’d call turn-away business. Maybe you should just close up shop and run away to Acapulco with me.”

“And maybe you should act your age.” Jolene tipped her head toward the closed door to Warren Phillips’s office. “Go on in. He was supposed to take the day off, but you know him. Anybody needs a doctor around here, they always know where to find Dr. P.”

Fifteen minutes later Phillips finished his examination of Carl. “Anything else, besides the hip?” he asked.

Carl, sitting up on the examining table, shook his head. “Feeling fine, just like always. Then this morning the thing started acting up on me.” He watched as Phillips prepared a hypodermic, then stretched out and rolled over on his side. “Last thing I need right now is a bum hip. Ted’s coming home and—” He winced as the needle slid into his hip, then rubbed at the sore spot when Phillips pulled the needle out a moment later. “Jesus. That felt like it went right into the bone.”

Phillips grinned. “It almost did. Cortisone. The hip should be fine in a day or so. Now, what’s this about Ted coming home? I thought Mary hated this place.”

Briefly, Carl explained what had happened. Phillips shook his head sadly. “I don’t know what goes on with kids these days.”

“Well, if you ask me, it’s not too hard to figure out,” Carl replied as he pulled his pants up and fastened his belt. “The whole world’s just gotten too complicated, and the kids get scared. But there’s nowhere to run away to anymore, so they kill themselves.”

Phillips looked doubtful. “You think that’s what happened to your granddaughter? She got scared?”

Carl chuckled darkly. “Oh, I s’pose the doctors in Atlanta have a lot of fancy names for it, but when you get right down to it, I think she’ll be just fine once she gets down here.”

Phillips’s frown deepened. “I wish I agreed with you.”

Now it was Carl Anderson who looked uncertain.

“You think I shouldn’t have told Ted to bring her down here?”

The doctor shrugged. “It’s hardly for me to say what Ted should or shouldn’t do. But it seems to me that there’s not much for Kelly to do around here.”

“Maybe she’s had too damned much to do in Atlanta,” Carl growled. “You don’t notice any of our kids killing themselves.”

Phillips sighed. “There aren’t that many around at all anymore, are there?” he countered. “This whole town’s turning into a retirement center.”

“Well, you can’t blame the young folks for moving away. What were they supposed to do? The whole place was dying.” He glanced at his watch, then grinned. “Well, not anymore. Can you believe me living my life by my wristwatch? Ten years ago, I was lucky to have anything to do at all. Now there’s barely enough time to keep up. Speaking of which,” he added, “I’m due for my regular shot tomorrow. Any reason not to have it right now?”

Phillips shrugged. “None at all.” He turned back to his cabinet, picked up a small vial, and filled a second needle. A moment later he slipped it under the skin of Carl’s forearm and pressed the plunger. “That’s it,” he said as he pulled the needle out and dropped it into the wastebasket. “That should keep you on schedule for a while.”

As he left the clinic a few minutes later, the pain in his hip was already beginning to recede, and the vitamin shot — the one he’d been taking regularly for years now — was making him feel ten years younger.

Still, the fact that he felt as though he were going to live forever didn’t make him change his mind about what he’d decided to do today. He pulled the truck back out onto Ponce Avenue and turned left, heading out toward the house he’d built for Craig Sheffield three years ago. As of this afternoon, his son would be a full partner in Anderson Construction Co.

In fact, he just might have the lawyer change the name of the company. Carl Anderson & Son. Sounded good to him. No, there was something even better.

Anderson & Anderson.

That was it — equal billing.

All in all, he decided, this was turning out to be a pretty good day. He was feeling great again, and his son was coming home.

Then he remembered Kelly, and his mood faltered. But that was going to be all right, too, he decided. Once she got away from Atlanta and onto the right track, whatever problems she had would simply disappear. Besides, he thought, his mind racing, there was even something he could do for her. What she really needed was a boyfriend. A nice kid, about her own age. Someone like Craig Sheffield’s son.

Yes, everything was going to work out perfectly. By the middle of summer, even Mary would be glad she’d come back to Villejeune.

• • •

Thirty minutes after Carl Anderson left his house, Craig Sheffield sat at the desk in his den, drafting the papers that would change the name of Anderson Construction Co., giving Ted Anderson the partnership Carl had ordered. It was, Craig realized, a sizable gift that Carl was giving his son. Over the last few years, Carl had become a very wealthy man. His net worth, Craig figured, was already well over two million dollars, and would rise substantially as soon as the newest development was well under way. And there was no end in sight, given the direction Villejeune was headed.

But even as he worked, Craig found himself thinking about the questions Carl had been asking him about his own son, Michael. Far more than the usual polite inquiries. Crafty old Carl was up to something, that was for sure. But what? Maybe he was thinking of offering the boy a summer job. Couldn’t be. Carl’s strict policy was to give jobs first to local men with families, and though things were improving, there were still plenty of men looking for year-round work. In fact, Craig was well aware that Michael had already asked Anderson about a summer job, and the situation had been explained to him. Nor had Michael been able to find work anywhere else. Everywhere he’d gone it had been the same story: “I’m just finally making enough to support myself. Maybe next summer, when the town’s grown a little more …”

All very well for Villejeune, but for Michael the problem was this summer. If Carl Anderson could do something for Ted, Craig thought, then he himself should certainly be able to do something for Michael. Then, as he leaned back in his chair and gazed out the window across the lawn and the canal to the swamp, it suddenly came to him.

The swamp tour.

Phil Stubbs.

Why hadn’t he thought of it before? Only last week Stubbs had been talking to him about a new liability policy. He was adding yet another boat to the tour fleet, and that meant more help as well as more insurance. Craig picked up the phone and called Stubbs. Ten minutes later it was all set up.

Craig left the den to find his son. Michael was upstairs in his room, stretched out on the bed, a pair of headphones clamped to his ears. He was leafing through a magazine, which he tossed aside as his father came into the room.

“I think I might have found you a job,” Craig said as Michael pulled the headphones down to hang around his neck.

Michael frowned. “Where? In Orlando? I’ve already talked to everyone in town.”

“Did you talk to Phil Stubbs?”

Michael rolled his eyes. “Twice.”

“Well, try again. I just talked to him, and he wants to see you.”

“How come?” he challenged, his voice suspicious. “He told me he has enough people already.”

Craig shrugged casually. “He’s putting on another boat.”

“You pressured him, didn’t you?” Michael shrewdly guessed.

Craig felt a twinge of annoyance. “What if I did? You need a job, don’t you?”

“I should be able to find one myself,” Michael replied, flushing. “How am I supposed to feel, knowing the only reason he hired me is because you conned him into it?”

Craig felt his temper rising. “How are you going to feel when you can’t use that motorcycle your mom and I let you talk us into buying for you? You know the deal — you pay the upkeep and insurance, or you lose the bike. If I were you, I’d be on my feet getting ready to go talk to Stubbs, instead of lying on that bed, arguing with your father.”

Michael’s flush deepened, but he scrambled off the bed, pulling the earphones off his neck and dropping them onto the nightstand. “I didn’t mean I wouldn’t go—” he began, but his father cut him off.

“You’re right,” he snapped. “You will go, and you’ll take whatever job Stubbs offers you, and you’ll do it well. Christ, with your attitude, no wonder no one wanted to hire you.” Turning away before his son could respond, Craig left the room.

Alone, Michael stripped off the torn jeans he’d donned that morning and pulled a clean pair of chinos off a hanger in his closet. He ran his eye over the row of shirts, then grinned, pulling out one he’d talked his mother into ordering through a catalog. It had been advertised as an expedition shirt, and had four pockets on the front, one on each sleeve, and epaulets. Until today, he’d only worn the shirt once, putting it away after someone at school had cracked that he was too skinny to try to look like a movie star. But the shirt seemed right if he was really going to work on the swamp tour.

Dressed, he went into the bathroom, washed his face, then began combing the unruly shock of blond hair that never seemed to want to stay where he put it. He brushed at it, then began working on it with his comb. A single lock kept falling down over his forehead, and after trying three times to make it stay up, he gave up, deciding to let it lie. He was about to turn away from the mirror when he saw a flicker of movement.

He froze, willing it to go away, but knowing it wouldn’t.

Instead, as his eyes remained fixed on the glass, an image slowly began to take shape over his shoulder.

A face.

The face of an old man, with red, rheumy eyes peering at him out of deeply sunken sockets.

Instinctively, Michael closed his eyes against the image, but when he opened them again, the face was still there.

Now he could see the old man’s hands reaching out toward him, as if to grasp him.

His breath caught in his throat, and he felt his heart begin to pound, but suddenly the door flew open and his six-year-old sister Jenny glared at him, her fists firmly planted on her hips.

“Mom says you’re not supposed to stay in here more than ten minutes,” she said.

Michael’s eyes shifted from the mirror to his sister, but for a moment he didn’t trust himself to speak, afraid his voice would betray the fear inside him. “If you have to go, there’s a bathroom downstairs,” he finally countered.

“But I want to use this one,” Jenny complained. “It’s not just yours. It’s both of ours, and I have just as much right to—”

“Fine,” Michael said. “There’s the toilet. Go ahead and use it while I finish combing my hair. I don’t care.”

Jenny’s eyes widened with outrage. “I’m going to tell Mom what you said!”

Michael moved to the door, lifted his sister up and put her down in the hall, then closed the door in her face, locking it. As he went back to the sink, Jenny began pounding on the door, wailing indignantly.

Michael, ignoring the pounding and the shouts, gazed into the mirror once again.

The strange image was gone. All that he saw now was his own reflection.

But where had the image come from? Had it really been there at all?

He wasn’t sure.

But it wasn’t the first time he’d seen it.

Indeed, he couldn’t really remember when he’d first seen it. For a long time, it had happened so rarely that often he’d forgotten all about it. But now it seemed to be happening more frequently.

Sometimes he’d barely catch a glimpse of the face; it would be no more than a flicker in the mirror.

Other times he’d see it in his dreams, and wake up frightened.

Recently, he’d begun seeing the face more clearly, and more often.

For a while he’d tried to convince himself the house was haunted. Once, he’d even talked to his mother about it. She’d listened to him, but in the end she’d laughed it off.

“As far as I know, new houses don’t get haunted. First you have to have someone die — preferably get murdered. And unless you’ve killed someone and not told me about it, that hasn’t happened here.”

He’d argued with her a little, but not much, because the more he’d talked about it, the more stupid the whole thing had sounded. And yet, the face seemed to be coming to him more and more lately.

He studied the mirror for a few seconds, now consciously willing the image to reappear, as if to convince himself that the specter existed only in his own imagination. But except for his own face, the mirror reflected only white, shiny tile.

Leaving the bathroom to Jenny, he hurried down the stairs and out into the heat of the morning. But as he started toward the garage and his motorcycle, he glanced back at the house.

What was the truth of the face he’d seen in the mirror?

Was it in the house, or was it in his own mind?

As he mounted his bike and rode away, he decided that he didn’t really want to know the answer to his own question, for one answer was as frightening as the other.