Hide and Seek

I still wasn't counting on anything to happen tonight. I still hoped

I could talk them out of it.

We got into the blue Le Baron, and Steven got behind the wheel, and we

started off through town.

I waited until we were out on the coast road, with all the houselights

and streetlights behind us for maximum effect, and then I spun my

little story for them.

I told them about the doctor being afraid and made it sound worse than

Rafferty had told it. I told them about the caves and about Ben and

Mary being imbeciles who were driven off their land through somebody's

greed and made them sound as vengeful as I dared.

Then I wrapped it up.

"Steve, you said there was a light in the house that night. I said

bullshit. But suppose you were right? Suppose it's them, in from the

caves? Are you folks absolutely sure you'd want to meet up with them

in the dark?"

For a while nobody talked, and the atmosphere got pretty strange inside

the car. I knew I'd done okay. If I was ever going to turn them back,

I'd just taken my best shot. I'd made it weird and spooky. It was so

quiet in there you could hear the wind whistle over the hood and the

tires thumping over bad road. And there was nobody around for miles.

Pretty good place for a ghost story.

It hung in the air a long moment. I could feel the chips stacking up

along my side of the table.

For a second or two I thought I had it. Then Casey calmly cut me

Her voice was so ordinary-sounding you'd have thought I'd been reciting

as hopping list. But at least Steve was a little nervous.

"Jeez, isn't that enough?"

"Of course not. It only makes it better. Clan, I want to ask you

something. Do you really believe there's anybody in there?"

"There could be."

"I didn't ask you that. I asked you if you really believed there was.

The truth, Clan."

"I'm really not nuts about going in there, Case."

"You're hedging."

Ill